Supersymmetry

by Europa


Light Reflected from the Moon

Nightmare Moon

Once Nightmare finished jotting down the last of the suspects her dreamstalking rounded up, she turned back to the map. Wracking her mind for what she remembered of the other Equestria, both from her brief time there and her friendly conversations with Twilight, Nightmare looked at the map. "She seemed shocked when I mentioned the Crystal Empire," she mused. A pencil moved in her magic to cut off a track of northern Equestria, reducing its landscape. "The griffons also have autonomy," she mused. Nightmare knew she could have simply gone and asked Twilight what their Equestria looked like, the smaller alicorn was quite honest, but she didn't want to bother her. The thought of Twilight made Nightmare grin and momentarily pause her work.

Ah, Twilight. She'd have to make some time to find that alicorn. She enjoyed the mare's company greatly; while she cherished the time with her sister dearly, Solar hadn't changed much in her thousand year absence - none that Nightmare was privy to, anyway - and variety was the spice of life.

It was a shame their plan to control the other Equestria had failed, but that was merely a slight disappointment. There wasn't any real need for them to do so, after all. Worst came to worst, portals could be closed as insurance. Though she would have to talk to her sister about inventing some new chaos magic countermeasures - when and if her sister came back from gorging herself on the Royal Dessert Closet - she was fairly certain they had nothing to fear from this other Equestria, and so long as it stayed that way they would have nothing to fear from them. She owed her savior at least that much.

Nightmare chided herself. It's not healthy to think of Twilight like that, the alicorn reminded herself. Having a savior complex like that for her couldn't be healthy, but she was steadily working past her instinctive adoration. Now, she was mostly just fond of her. Twilight was brilliant, inquisitive, and extremely friendly. She rather reminded her of herself and Sola, back before Discord emerged from nopony-knew-where. She looked forward to spending more time around the little purple princess; she hadn't felt like that about another pony since a thousand and fifty years ago, when -

Oh.

Oh.

Well that made things tricky, didn't it? Nightmare set her pencil down and rubbed her temples with a forehoof. She wouldn't keep this to herself, obviously. Why should she embarrassed about being attracted to such a lovely mare? The problem was, interleader relationships had a tendency to be messy. She'd lived long enough to know that. Still, if things went well, then their relations with the other Equestria would be even more solid, and fallout was less likely to occur. And that was just the political aspect of it, to say nothing of how lovely Twilight was. But...

Nightmare sighed and ruffled her wings. Truth be told, she was nervous. She'd always been more romantically active than her more withdrawn sister, but it had been centuries since she'd last taken a partner. Did she still have it? How should she go about earning Twilight Sparkle's affections? The pony was very scientifically and magically minded, maybe if she gifted her a -

Knock! Knock!

Nightmare Moon's ears flicked in agitation. "Who dares?" she demanded, standing and facing the door, throwing it open.

Her sister's face appeared with a slightly goofy grin. Her helmet was spotless, but her slit pupils were dilated, frosting was smeared across her fur, and the last vestiges of an invisibility charm were slipping off of her coat. "Hello, Nighty," she breathed, letting herself in and closing the door.

Nightmare's scowl lifted into a smile. "Hello, sister. What brings you here?"

Solar trotted over and they shared a nuzzle before pulling apart. "I'm just wondering about you. You've been around Twilight Sparkle a lot, are you sure she's not using you?"

She scoffed. "Please. Their rulers don't think like we do, Sola. And even if she is, I'd spot it a mile away. Actually, speaking of Twilight, I believe I am falling in love with her."

Her sister tilted her head. "Are you sure?" She nodded, prompting Solar Flare to sigh. "Oh no, not again. Sister, are we going to have a repeat of the Chief Heavyback incident?"

Scoffing, she lightly punched her sister's left foreleg. "I managed to keep all out war from happening, didn't I?" Her gaze grew distant. "Besides, Heavyback was so confident, and headstrong, and strong, and oh-so heavy..." She slowly began to drift off.

A series of miniature firecrackers went off in front of her face, wrenching her back to reality. "Focus. What are you planning to do?

"I'm not quite sure. Part of me wants to just, you know, slowly cue her in. Maybe the bat of an eyelash there, a gift there, a sway of my hips here..." Solar looked at her unamused, which prompted Nightmare Moon to sigh and drone, "Buuut I know that that's ineffective, and a roundabout method, and odds are it will just result in a lot of humiliation for the both of us and delaying what I want. I'll go tell her soon, alright?"

The other alicorn nodded and smiled. "Good, good."

"Why are you even taking such an interest in my love life, hmm?" She poked Solar in the chest, right below her torque. "I don't recall doing the same to you."

Solar sighed. "Nightmare I - I just don't, I don't want you to be hurt," she admitted haltingly, her eyes turning downcast and her fangs poking out sorrowfully. "I couldn't bear to lose you again."

Her face screwed up with the remembered pain of a thousand years that she would never get back. Then her face softened and she approached her sister, wrapping her forelegs around her neck. "Solar, please stop with the pouting face. I'll tell her, face to face, alright? None of this sneaking around subtle stuff." Something occurred to her. "Wait a second." She pulled away. "Aren't you supposed to be in the western wing right now? Instead of coming back from dessert?"

Solar Flare's slit pupils shifted left and right. "I may have delegated that to an underling. B-But this isn't about me, it's about you and Twilight. If this is how you feel, I think you should just go to her and say it."

"And if she doesn't return my feelings?" Nightmare asked, her wings fidgeting against her barrel. "There could be some complications, especially with the chaos demon around. I still think I should warm her up to the idea first."

"And if she discovers your intentions before your efforts succeed?" Solar asked. "What then? Please Nighty, just tell her!"

"Okay, okay," she relented. "I'll go right away, does that sound good?"

Solar eyed the paperwork on her desk. "Maybe not right away, if you have anything else to do."

"Well..." She took a look back at her guess as to what the alternate Equestria looked like. "Not really. I suppose I could knock out two birds with one stone. Alright, let me just clean this up. Thanks for the advice, sister."

"Anytime, Nighty." Solar edged closer to the door and lowered her voice to a conspiratory whisper. "And I'm sure you remember, but don't forget to pull on her mane!"

It took a moment for Nightmare to understand what she was implying, and the world suddenly felt several degrees warmer. Her horn lit up with magic, grabbed the first thing she could find - her abacus - and flung it at her cursed sister. Before it could connect, Solar Flare let loose an unhinged little laugh, vanished behind the door, and slammed it shut so the abacus collided with it and clattered to the floor, its beads scrambled.

She growled irately, debating whether or not to go after her sister. "She's probably gone anyway," she grumbled. Nightmare ruffled her wings anxiously, and let out a deep breath. "Okay. I should go over to her now... wait, no, I have a better idea!" she declared.

***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight's tail swished back and forth as she looked at the pictures, pictures of the sun, taken through a massive telescope, with a solar filter to block out the worst of the light. The Haywaiin observatory had lived up to its reputation, high up in the air to reduce atmospheric distortions. She'd have to see about constructing something similar back home.

She stared at them in awe; the sun was an enormous yellow disk, littered here and there with what appeared to be brown cavities, despite her knowing that they weren't. She had about three pictures of the whole disk, and several others zoomed in on various locations.

"Fascinating." This confirmed a lot of theories about solar magnetic fields in relation to the discrepancy between equatorial and polar rotation. It could mean a lot for the ideas to put low-orbiting magical crystals around the planet, lest the sun's winds damage them. "I'll have to write a paper about this." Outside, Everfree was clad in shades of gray as a vicious thunderstorm rattled the city, rain falling like sunrays and gale winds battering the window against its frame. Every now and then a clap of thunder or flash of lightning nearly made her start.

She shook herself away from her scientific revelry, pulled out a paper and quill from the nearby desks's drawers, and dipped the feather in an inkwell. As much as revolutions in solar science interested her, the queens had just shown their hoof to her regarding what they had intended for Equestria and, presumably, other nations on the world. It was more than a little worrying, so she penned a letter to the other princesses regarding what had happened with the queens, as well as some of the less-important interactions with the other nations that had visited, and finally as her estimated date of return to help coordinate things on their end.

Twilight finished the body of the letter, then went back over it and used an ink-erasure spell to correct a few typos and grammar errors, elaborate on a few details, and shorten parts that were overly wordy, before she was satisfied enough to sign it. "Sincerely... Twilight... Sparkle. There!" Due to the sensitive nature of the letter's contents, she layered a blur enchantment on top of it before folding it into a sealed envelope. "Now I just need to find somepony to take me to Canterlot - "

FLASH!

"Yah!" she screamed, jumping backwards from the nova of light, the chaos magic making her frogs feel like they were taffy for a moment. A miniature Discord - made out of toothpicks - appeared on the desk and did a pirouette. She raised a foreleg to her chest. "Discord!"

"Well hello to you too! I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?"

"Sort of yes, sort of no." One of her ears flopped. "Hey wait, where've you been? You just disappeared after you came here and found me with Solar Flare," she questioned.

"Oh pish posh, I was just taking in the scenery!" He held out a toothpick claw and unfurled a little painted toothpick map of the alternate Equestria and its surrounding lands. "Isn't this place just so wonderful? You've got different islands, apparently the sea ponies changed them up, the Badlands are pretty lively, and don't even get me started on the penguins!" The map rolled up into his claw. "So many things different, and most importantly." His face turned deadly serious, despite being made of toothpicks. "None of those draconequus-killing-capable alicorns around, yeesh."

Twilight smiled wryly. "You know, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were afraid of Solar Flare and Nightmare."

He flicked his talons at her. "Pfft, me? Ha! Oh perish the thought, Princess Sparkle. I just thought some time away from boring old Equestria would be nice before dropping back in to chat with my good pal Twilight."

"Mmhmm, whatever you say. Hey, since you're already here, can I ask you for a favor?" she asked.

The toothpicks seemed to multiply, and a wooden, full-sized Discord leaned over her shoulder. "What ever about?"

She held up the folded envelope. "I need to get this to the princesses, the sooner the better."

Discord transformed into an appropriately-colored mailbox, eyes on top of its door, which functioned as his mouth, flapping open and closed. "What am I, your personal mailbox?" he asked, before changing back into his normal form with a flash of light, a smug grin on his face. "What is so important about it anyway? Personally I can't see why the queens offering to do this is such a big deal! Portals can be closed, if worst comes to worst." He floated up, laying on an invisible bed. "Personally, I'm wondering why you're even bothering with this place. I mean, it's not like you need to contact them any more." He twisted around her, his furry body paradoxically slimy on her coat, like snake scales. "Both worlds were doing fiiine on their own, so now that you know that Nighty's not coming over to invade - " Nighty? she thought incredulously. She had to remember that one. " - what's stopping you from just snipping the tether, heading home, and brushing this whole thing under the rug?" He snapped his claws and her letter was swept under a rug, embroidered with Discord's likeness, that had suddenly appeared on the table.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "What are you getting at?"

Discord was no longer beside her, but the draconequus in the rug stroked his beard. "Well, I just have to say, for somepony so dedicated to her friends and nation, you sure are spending an awfully large amount of time here."

"I've only been here a few days, and besides, it's always beneficial to make friends," Twilight said. "Nightmare Moon and Solar Flare may have desired to quietly subjugate Equestria, but I'm confident we can make them see there's no reason to rule so harshly."

Discord's sickle-fang stuck up from the rug, like a tent, and his face appeared on it. His fang raised the larger of his two eyebrows. "So you're planning to do to them what you did to me? Hmmm." He slithered up, the rug unraveling as he did, Twilight's envelope in his talons. "Color me intrigued," Discord whispered. "Though I suspect that might not be the only reason you're so reluctant to simply separate your universes like they were prior."

Twilight frowned, confused. "Huh?"

"Oh," he said, waving it away with his lion paw. "Nothing, nothing. I just wonder, what's keeping you here?"

"This is an interesting world," she claimed. "I still haven't caught up on their world history either, I have eleven hundred years to go. Besides, I'm planning to go back in four days to help build the portal." She frowned. "Are you insisting on something else?"

DIscord was suddenly next to her on all fours, claws raised to his chest. "Moi? Why Twilight, I'm insulted that you would insinuate that I have a secondary meaning. You wound me, friend!" She gave him a level look, which prompted him to roll his eyes. "But anyway, let's get this blah blah paperwork out of the way." The envelope folded itself into a paper airplane, which Discord threw at her. Twilight made to grasp it in her magic, but it slipped through her kinetic field, sank into her horn, and vanished without so much as giving her a headache.

"Um... thank you, I guess. It went straight to the princess, right?"

"Pssh, who do you think I am? Straight to her? Come on, Twilight." He stood up. "Now that that's all done I do have to wonder what's keeping you here. Surely you could've gotten those maps of Manehattan far earlier, hmm?"

Her eyes widened. "How did you know about - " Actually she already had them, and had a good place picked out for the portal, but -

"Unless..." he said, backing off into the air with a smirk. "There's not something keeping you from running back home to your little library, but somepony? Hmm?"

An uncomfortable feeling materialized in her stomach and her primary feathers itched ever so slightly. "What are you getting at? Have you been spying on me, Discord?"

Without skipping a beat he, with a straight face, said, "Of course. Why, am I not supposed to?"

"No, you're not. That's an invasion of privacy," she explained through gritted teeth. "Now what's this about somepony keeping me here?"

"Well isn't it obvious?" he asked, coiling up to her with a comically oversized magnifying glass pushed to her face. "Clearly you have your eyes set on a certain eternal-night bringing somepony." He pulled away, both hands clasped to his chest. "Oh, warms my heart."

"Are saying I think of Nightmare Moon in a - "

He reached over and pinched her lips together with two claws. " - romantic manner, of course! Why, anypony could see it! I'm surprised, truly, that you yourself haven't noticed already."

When Discord pulled his paw away, it took Twilight a moment to be able to open her mouth again, like it had been glued shut. "That's ridiculous! I would know if I was romantically interested in anypony, wouldn't I?"

The draconequus's grin rubbed her the wrong way. "I don't know, would you?" he intoned. "Well then, would you mind explaining just how you view our dear dark alicorn?"

She rolled her eyes and stood from the desk to face the chaos deity. "Alright," Twilight sighed. "I'll play along." Celestia knew it'd get her out of this ridiculous situation faster than if she just ignored Discord. "Nightmare's a much better pony than I originally thought she was. She's not genocidal, nor is she completely obsessed with making the night last forever. There's much more to her than met the eye those years ago."

"Go on," Discord urged slyly.

"She's smart, and she knows a lot about magic. A lot of it's dark magic, which is kinda off putting, but she's scientific about the rest of the fields. Ever since I've arrived here she's been nothing but kind to me. The only times she's been at all unpleasant is when she has to remind me that she's a queen of an entire nation, but the pony beneath the title is wonderful to be around. Her wit is sharp enough to cut myself on, Nightmare's incredibly capable and doesn't even need Elements of Harmony to, well, to overcome you. I don't know if Sombra was ever born, or anypony similar to him, but since the Crystal Empire was annexed into their country I imagine they had no trouble with hostile invaders."

Twilight barely noticed the smile spreading on her face. "She's also pretty, she keeps her coat immaculate, and her mane's so wispy near the edges I can barely tell where it ends and the rest of the world begins. Nightmare - " She stopped herself with horrible realization, gave Discord a glare, and rolled her eyes.

Oh, I actually... oh hay. She chuckled nervously. "Okay, so maybe I have a tiny, tiny little crush on, heheh, on Nightmare Moon."

Discord cheered, still floating. "YES! She admits it!"

"So what? I've had crushes before, and they always passed. It happened for Celestia when I was an adolescent, after all, and I grew out of it."

"Ah, but you're all grown up now, aren't you?" Suddenly Discord was in a diaper with a pink sash along his snake-like body, a quiver on his back and a bow in his hands. He shot her with an arrow, the heart-shaped tip sinking harmlessly and painlessly into her cutie mark. "Ah, love. More Candy-Mane's domain than mine obviously, but still! So wonderfully unpredictable." His bow turned into a miniature version of the flower he claimed would cure his 'Blue Flu'. "Will she not return your love?" The flower wilted. "Will she embrace you and you two live happily ever after, la-di-da?" The flower rose to full bloom. "It's perfect for me!" The flower exploded. "What ever will you do with this, newfound realization, hmm?"

"You're making it sound like I'm head over hocks for her, Discord." She pulled the arrow out of her flank, and it vanished without leaving a wound. "It's just a crush, really!" she said irately. "It's nothing. I'll just work around it."

"Oh, please!" He pinched her cheek like she was a foal. "It's just so... so cute, you know?" He flashed a respectful distance away and struck a pose similar to that he'd held as a statue the first time. He'd painted his entire body black. "Oh Twilight, how you have melted my cold heart, and I have come to find love in you, my adorkable defeater and savior!"

A smaller Discord, painted the same color as Twilight's coat, appeared next to him, looking up with big, doe eyes. "Oh Nighty!" Twilight did not sound like that! "After years of having love only for books and friends, I have finally found the pony who can pierce my brainy shell!"

Twilight threw a small book at the two Discords. The smaller one vanished into thin air while the real one opened a hole in his stomach, letting it pass through before reforming and changing his colors back to normal. "Knock it off!" she growled. "It's just a crush. I know just how to figure out what to do with it."

"And what would that be, hmm?" he asked, placing his chin in his paw.

"I need to draw up a chart," she said, her magic grasping several writing utensils. "I need two scenarios, one where I act upon this knowledge and one where I do not, as well as a second category depending on whether or not Nightmare Moon returns my... affection, then - "

Discord flashed away, which prompted a smile from Twilight. Just as planned. But while using her organizational skills to scare Discord away was the main idea, she still could use a chart now that... this had been brought to her attention.

What if she didn't act upon this knowledge, and Nightmare returned her feelings? Nightmare Moon didn't seem like the type of pony to not take action, so it would be likely that the other alicorn would approach Twilight and confess, which would in turn make it easier for Twilight to do so in turn. If she didn't return her affections, and Twilight did nothing... well, she'd either be agonized over it for the rest of her life, or be agonized over it for until she moved on. Neither one was truly preferable.

If she did act on her feelings and Nightmare didn't return it... oh. Well, it wasn't like she'd be destroyed. It was just a little crush, heh. Not too big a deal...

What if she confessed it to Nightmare and the queen felt the same way? At first glance the situation would have everything be okay, but it wasn't that simple. Not only were they both rulers of nations, they were rulers of entirely separate nations, of entirely different universes. Truly a long-range relationship. To say nothing of the political implications, and that compounded with how Nightmare and Solar made it clear that their nation's security had to come first...

Twilight frowned. On the one hoof, going to Nightmare about this had a lot of potential cons. But if things went well then she'd gain a marefriend, for the first time in her life. She hadn't been making things up to Discord when she listed what she thought about Nightmare Moon. Sure in comparison to her list of cons it seemed quite short, but it also contained the nullification of several cons that came with 'not acting'.

Busying herself with her chart, Twilight's mind slowly began to reduce it to numbers, assigning 'importance points' to pros and cons and percent likelihoods, et cetera. Her graphs began to expand, more and more paper flying to the mass, expanding in a mass of sigma and theta, projections and chaotic model formulas...

There was a knock on the door, prompting Twilight to pull away from the massive chart she had created and opened the door with a flick of her magic. "Oh, um, hello Princess Twilight. I mean, um, Twilight," said the pegasus Plush Pillow. "Queen Nightmare wanted me to extend to you an invitation to speak with her in her chambers. She is expecting you."

Nightmare Moon!

With the recent discovery of her sort-of-very-little crush, Twilight's cheeks heated up and her heartrate nearly doubled. "She is?! I mean, she is? I'll be there right away." She hastily rolled up her graphs into a large ball of paper before anypony could notice what was written on them. "Her chambers, right?"

"Um, yes," the poor maid said.

"Great!" she said a little too eagerly. She hopped onto her hooves. "I'll be right over there!" She dashed past Plush Pillow, who followed after her and closed the door. Twilight, just shy of a gallop, soon left her in the dust as she roamed the halls of Everfree Castle. The Coronal Guards gave her little trouble - probably the Queens' orders - as she sped through. When she reached the hallway where the bright flame-colors began to cool and darken, slowly slipping into the purples and blacks of night, she slowed down. The door to Nightmare Moon's room loomed at the end like a great beast, a whirlpool of purple swirling together just next to the image of the alicorn's cutie mark.

She gulped and walked forward. What Discord had said now circled through her mind like an angry hornet's nest, filling her mind with images of her and Nightmare Moon doing couple-things that were welcome and unwelcome at the same time. She raised her hoof to knock, and the door opened of its own accord with a purple aura around its inside.

Nightmare Moon stood in the middle of her room, wearing none of her regalia. The taller alicorn looked down at her with her slit pupils, smiling gently. "Hello Twilight, I wasn't expecting you to arrive quite so soon," she said calmly. "Did you run all the way over here?"

"Heh, well, not all the way. But um, what was it you wanted?"

"I just wanted to talk with you," Nightmare said, closing the door and locking it with a light click. "Alicorn to alicorn."

Okay. Not too bad. Keep it together, Sparkle. "Of course. What do you want to talk about?"

Nightmare opened her mouth, closed it, frowned, and sighed. "So, how is your planning for the portal going?" she asked wearily. "Find a good spot yet?"

Twilight beamed. "Actually, I have!" She lit up her horn and summoned the map of Manehattan to herself with a pop. "I was thinking we could put the portal right next to the Unity Bell, that seems to be one of the shared features our two versions have." She lit up the location on her map with a ping. "I've run the math, and I think I have the correct formula for the portal coordinates down. There needs to be some infrastructure built to support the portal though, about fifteen kilograms of crushed resonating diamonds for each portal to start, and that's not even considering what we need to keep the shielding intact."

"Hmm, we could probably talk about it when I next go out in disguise. Privacy shield and all," Nightmare said.

"Sounds good. If we're going to open up this portal though, I'll need to go back to my Equestria to help coordinate it on the other side."

The older alicorn's face fell. "Oh... you'll be leaving soon."

"Only in four days," she promised. "And after that hopefully the portal will be up and, once the alliance is properly instituted, we'll be able to cross back and forth more or less at will."

"Right," Nightmare said. "Hopefully, if all goes well of course." She shook her head, making her ethereal mane whip around in slow motion. "Twilight Sparkle, I am stalling. There's something else I want to talk with you about, concerning the two of us, that has arisen recently and which I have noticed even more so."

Twilight's heart skipped a beat. Is she talking about... no, there's no way she could have known I have a crush on her, I didn't know until mere hours ago! Then again, Discord said it was obvious, or was that a lie? The only other explanation is if Nightmare feels the same way, but the odds of that - "Really?" she asked, blood rushing to her cheeks as she tried her hardest to keep a level voice. "What is it?"

Nightmare motioned over to her bed with a wing. Wordlessly, Twilight followed and, after a few long moments of hesitation, got onto Nightmare Moon's bed. The cushions where heavenly soft, made of clouds if she had to guess. Nightmare wouldn't even need to pay a pegasus for its upkeep, she could do it herself. It was warm too, unnatural heat stemming from it and soothing her leg muscles as she slowly laid onto it.

Nightmare Moon got on with her and folded her long, long legs beneath her. "My personal gratitude to you aside, Twilight, you are a wonderful mare. You are smart, kind, and beautiful." No way, she thought. There's no way. "So I find myself in the complicated spot of the leader of a nation who has, for the leader of another nation entirely, well, um..." Nightmare Moon was stammering. It would have been adorable had it not been such an odd sight coming from the alicorn.

Nightmare locked eyes with her. "I find myself... attracted to you, Twilight." With that said, the older alicorn looked away nervously.

Her eyes went wide, and it felt like a castle was lifted from her withers. Yup, I was right. "Oh," she whispered. "Well that's... quite the coincidence, actually. Earlier today Discord stopped by and convinced me that I, actually, with you, um... oh Celestia this is embarrassing."

Nightmare Moon looked at her hopefully and grinned. "I think I understand what you mean, Twilight. Do you really?"

Twilight tried to hide under a wing. "Well, a little. You're much nicer than I expected. I, um, yes. I wouldn't mind spending some time with you outside of business."

Nightmare shuffled closer to her on the bed and tentatively held out a wing. When Twilight didn't object, it draped over her like a blanket, warm and dark. She shivered at the sensation, and then Nightmare spoke. "You know, this will come with all sorts of complications. Title changes, ponies argue for country joinings and government changes, suitors, eyes upon us. It's not going to be easy."

Her heart grew heavy at those words, but she swallowed hard and nodded. "I know. I still think we should give this a shot, Nightmare."

"Please, if we're going to be marefriends, then just call me Nighty." She leaned down to nuzzle at Twilight's head. Her heart leaped into her throat, which tightened around it, but she allowed it and gave a nuzzle back. It was nice, and made her head feel tingly. "So, how about tomorrow we go to Harvest Brook for lunch? My treat."

"That sounds nice, Nightm - Nighty." Were those butterflies in her stomach? Oh dear. "It sounds really nice." Definitely a crush. Maybe a little more than that, given how intensely happy she was. Nightmare felt the same way! She did! Had Discord known about that? Twilight wouldn't put it past him. If so, he was getting a present...

They exchanged several more pleasantries before Twilight remembered that she did have a portal network to be working on. "Oh, I should go back, I have a lot to do."

Nightmare sighed, exposing her long fangs. "Yes, the life of a ruler is never dull, is it? Thanks for helping organize my schedule, by the way. There's so much I need to get caught up on..." The wing withdrew from Twilight, and she reluctantly stood from the bed. Both she and 'Nighty' clambered off, and she made for the door. Before she did, she debated with herself, then said to Tartarus with it, cantered over to Nightmare, and gave her one last goodbye nuzzle; emotionally she wasn't feeling up to kissing. It was all happening so fast.

Once it was done they separated, and Twilight Sparkle made her way back to her guest chambers almost in a daze. Nightmare Moon is my marefriend. I have a marefriend! And it's Nightmare Moon! Part of her felt like it was absurd; she was Twilight Sparkle, she had no time for things like romantic love! But that was what she had said about friendship in the past, so she was willing to try. And besides, it feels so good, in a weird kind of way.

She got back to her room and locked the door. Twilight stumbled around, found the ball of her charts, and lifted it in her magic. She set it ablaze with spellfire, watching the reddish-purple fire consume it without consuming air or producing smoke. Once it was mere ashes she condensed the ashes into a ball, and teleported it outside the castle for the storm to whisk around. That done, she looked around, then a wide grin plastered itself onto her face as she began bouncing around. "YYYYYYYYYES! YES! Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes..."