The smell of hot coffee teased away the dreams of… what they were faded as the smell invaded Twilight’s senses. She let it, laying still as the aroma grew stronger, and tried to grope after the fading images drifting around in her mind. Nothing stood out as especially interesting. Friends were there, as they often were of late. Rainbow Dash appeared more often, her smile having a strange quality to it.
But the more she groped after the images, the faster they vanished. The smell of coffee grew stronger, and she became aware of other sounds. Rainbow Dash’s faint buzzing snore, sounding closer than usual, nearly hid the sound of slippered feet whispering on stone.
What time is it? Whatever time it was, the sun hadn't yet risen above the side of the cliff wall to burn away the fog outside.
She tried to reach for her phone on the table between the two couches, but something lay atop her arm, trapping it against her stomach, too heavy to move. More, something heavy lay across her chest, and something warm to the point of being uncomfortably hot tucked itself under her chin and against the side of her throat. It smelled faintly of sweat and sand, though it was fading under coffee’s siren scent.
Memory came back. Rainbow Dash slumped against her, one arm draped across her lap. Another flash of Rainbow half-waking to help her lay down before she drifted off again with another person resting on her. It hadn’t scared her to wake up with another girl laying atop her—or to fall asleep with one resting a cheek on her shoulder. Should it have? For that matter, it should have been more uncomfortable.
Well, it’s not my bed, and she’s not a blanket. “Rainbow Dash,” Twilight whispered, so quiet she wasn’t sure if anyone could hear it.
Rainbow didn’t. Her breathing stayed the same, slow rhythm against her neck, and the arm thrown carelessly over Twilight’s other shoulder twitched once, fingers curling and relaxing next to Twilight’s cheek. The same twitch pushed Rainbow’s other elbow into Twilight’s side.
That’s more what I expected. Twilight tried pushing the elbow away, but her right arm didn’t want to move, and a sudden wash of prickles rushed up from her fingers as she tried. Instead, she eased down into the cushion, letting Rainbow’s weight settle a little more comfortably atop her, even though the other girl’s elbow was still wedged against her side.
The couch creaked underneath her back. A spring popped, vibrating against Twilight’s back with a hollow thrum, but she was able to winnow her arm from under Rainbow’s belly without waking the other girl.
At least her neck wasn’t worked into a knot from sleeping upright. That’s no small thing.
Into the silence, a chair scraped against stone briefly, then went quiet, followed by a thunk. Another chair creaked briefly.
“Should we wake em?” The rough edge to the whisper took away most of the identifiable country lilt, but Twilight was almost certain it was Applejack's voice.
“No,” said a softer whisper. Rarity, she thought. “Though… it would be amusing to see their reaction. They were not quite so intimately entangled when they fell asleep.”
“Shoot,” Applejack said, more loudly. “That’d just beat all, I bet. Worth endurin’ her boastin’ just to see her blush.”
“I’m not sure she would,” Rarity said in the same not-quite-whispering tone. “Remember how she flashed all of us without a hint of shame?”
“Yeah, but that’s just Rainbow bein’ Rainbow.” Applejack’s voice held a resigned note, though an almost-chuckle followed. “She might not care about what we think, but did you see Twilight’s face? I thought she was gonna roast marshmallows from the heat of that blush. Girl’s cute as a button with her face like that.”
Rarity’s giggle rose sharply, then cut off with a cough. Silence fell again.
Twilight stayed still, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks again as she stroked her hand down slowly over the Rainbow’s shoulder. She could almost feel Rarity and Applejack listening, waiting to see if they’d woken her. I should let them know I’m up.
A long minute passed. Rainbow shifted minutely atop her, snoring growing deeper, buzzing against her neck. She could feel the dampness of Rainbow’s lips pressed to the base of her neck. She didn’t move.
Liquid sloshed with a hollow chime in the steel pot. “Coffee?”
“Please.” Rarity sighed, and the sound of pouring coffee came for a few seconds as the powerful smell rose into the chill morning again. “Do you think… she and Twilight?”
Silence fell again, near total this time. Pinkie Pie gurgled in her sleep, snorted, and flopped over in her sleeping bag. Fluttershy was still silent and still, and Twilight couldn’t tell if she was awake or not.
The dim ceiling overhead held a deeper darkness than the slowly lightening fog she could see pressed up against the wall-to-wall window leading out onto the beach. The quiet held as she quested about in the dark for an answer, tracing the dark wood trusses back and forth. She couldn’t see any more answers to Rarity’s question in the shadowed ceiling than had come to her at the moment she’d heard it.
Are we… something? Am I? Laying there with Rainbow atop her, it almost seemed that they must. Everything she had seen of… love. She swallowed. Is it? I don’t feel any different. Isn’t there supposed to be some feeling that tells me?
Maybe there was, and maybe there wasn’t. My friends. She felt something when she was with all or any of them. You’ve had other friends, Twilight.
But she knew these girls, and she had felt their regard for her, and each other, through magic. She could still feel that connection in her heart, sometimes stronger, and sometimes weaker, but always there like a spark waiting to catch. It is love. I do love them. All of them.
But that wasn’t, and had never been the question, she realized. Do I love this one differently? How she was going to tell the difference escaped her. She sighed, closing her eyes, meaning to go to sleep.
Applejack’s quiet voice kept her listening. “I dunno. Could be as much as any of us, I s’pose. Y’all are closer to me than any other friends I’ve ever had.” The sound of a mug sliding over the rough surface of the table rose briefly. “I know what you mean, though. Twi’s never struck me as that type, but she’s not even really looked at boys, either. I ain’t even sure she knows. Rainbow, on the other hand…”
Twilight could almost see Applejack shrug as she sipped at her coffee.
“Could be, I suppose. I've never really thought to ask. It’d be rude, really, and she might get the wrong idea.” Applejack sipped at her coffee again, almost slurping it. "Besides, if she is, Rainbow's never really been the subtle type. I doubt she would’ve kept quiet."
"A bull in a china shop would be less subtle," Rarity said with a sniff. "I don’t know, though. People act different when they’re in love."
They do? Twilight pulled her hand away from Rainbow’s neck, and stared at it. Am I acting different? Holding hands with Fluttershy, letting Rarity braid her hair, telling a story with Pinkie Pie purring on her thigh… falling asleep with Rainbow Dash. Oh. Right. Except those had all been things done with friends. Good friends, even the best friends she'd ever known. I do love them.
She laid the hand down on Rainbow's neck again, fingers brushing over the other's rainbow hair, around an ear, to rest on a cheek.
Rainbow shifted in her sleep again, pressing nose and elbow more firmly into Twilight’s side.
I do love them. But do I love her?
The quiet held still, disturbed by the clink of a spoon on glass. Rarity—she always put enough creamer in her coffee, when she did not drink tea, to almost turn it white.
Do I? The question didn't seem to want to be answered. It skittered away from her attention as soon as she focused on it. Maybe she didn't want to answer it. Or I don't know. The thought came with a bitter tug in her stomach.
“Does it matter if they are… something? They are still our friends, and if they want to be more than friends, that doesn’t change anything about how I see them. Either separate or together.”
“Me neither.”
Rainbow shifted atop her, nose pressing more firmly into the side of her neck, and elbow pressing into her hip just a little more painfully even as that hand started scratching at Twilight's leg.
Sudden heat flamed in Twilight's cheeks, and she stifled a squeak as she realized the fingers were under her pajama bottoms. She jerked almost upright, but her right arm wouldn’t answer her, and Rainbow’s body was too well placed atop her to move much.
Rainbow grunted, eyes opening slowly.
Fingers prodded Twilight’s thigh under her pajamas, and a look of profound confusion grew on Rainbow’s face as those fingers prodded more and more frantically. Each prod and pinch drew a louder squeak from Twilight as she tried again and again to sit upright.
“Uh-oh. Sounds like trouble,” Applejack said, voice rich with amusement as a coffee mug thumped to the kitchen table.
Rainbow’s eyes grew wider and wider as Twilight saw realization break through the sleepy confusion clouding them.
"Get your hand out of my pants!" Realization of what she'd said followed close on the heels of the words leaving her mouth, and heat flooded her cheeks. “That’s my leg!”
“I-it’s not what you think!” Rainbow shouted, then leapt up—or tried to. The hand down Twilight's silk pajamas caught briefly, sending Rainbow into a lurch, and one leg tucked under Twilight's calf and into the crevice between pillowed back cushion and seat-cushion stuck for just a moment.
She fell, her legs still halfway twined with Twilight’s, and thumped to the ground on her back as Twilight, carried by her own attempts to get free, slid off after, her right arm just starting to remind her it was there with painful pinpricks that felt like someone had applied a Van der Graaff generator to her arm and cranked it up.
“Oof!” Twilight grunted as she landed atop Rainbow, just barely missing knocking the other girl out with a blow to the forehead. For a long moment, she lay atop Rainbow supported only by her left arm.
“Uh…” Rainbow stared up at her, a quivering smirk barely touching her lips. “Morning, Twi.”
"Um. Hi." She tried a smile, but it faltered as soon as she forced it. Her arm trembled, and her other ached where she held it curled to her side. Brambles crawled up her arm, itching and tingling as they went as blood rushed back in to wake deadened nerves.
“I was wonderin’ how that would end up,” Applejack said with a laugh as a chair scraped loudly over stone.
Rarity’s voice came as a strangled gasp, but muted laughter hid behind it, barely contained.
“Sorry,” Twilight said as she let herself slide the rest of the way down to lay atop Rainbow. Please don't take this the wrong way, Rainbow! Please! “M-my right arm’s asleep.”
“Oh.” Rainbow shifted, bringing a hand up to massage Twilight's bicep. “That's fine," she whispered. Suddenly, her head jerked, and her other arm shot up. “Don’t you dare say anything!”
Applejack’s voice came from above them, each word drawn out into an exaggerated drawl: “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’. Just admirin’ the situation. Though, I do gotta say one thing. That's quite a comfy situation ya got there.”
“Oh my." Fluttershy's quiet gasp, followed by a not quite laugh caught Twilight and Rainbow Dash's attention at the same time.
“It’s not what it looks like!” Rainbow shouted even as Twilight stammered out the same thing.
“Um.” Fluttershy’s cheeks grew redder and brighter against her pale skin, but she didn’t look away. “Sorry. I didn’t think…” She looked down at her hands, then shook her head. "Nevermind."
“I fell asleep against her,” Twilight said.
At the same time, Rainbow said: “I fell asleep too quickly.”
Pinkie’s giggle interrupted the both of them. “And we’ve got it all on camera!”
Rarity’s laughs, before a choking backdrop to the goings on, exploded briefly into an uncontrolled, undignified snort.
Twilight tried to push herself off, not caring if her right arm exploded into pieces as tingles continued to prickle painfully from shoulder to fingertips. Even with Rainbow massaging feeling back into her upper arm, her fingers still felt like they'd been sitting in ice water for an hour.
She didn't even manage to raise herself an inch from Rainbow before she was pulled back down, a strong arm wrapped around her back. "Rainbow, please, this is—" Embarassing?
“Don’t,” Rainbow whispered, “it’ll hurt more. Just relax until you've got feeling back in your arm, okay?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And don't worry. Just friends.”
Twilight stopped trying to push herself away, sighed, and laid her head on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Okay.”
Applejack’s voice came again, not directed at them. “Come on, girls. Let’s give em a little time to work it out.” Amusement tinged her tone.
“It’s not like that!” Rainbow Dash called after the three girls leaving the living room area.
“Sure, sure,” came Applejacks half-laughed reply. “Take your time ta get sorted. Coffee’s ready when you are.”
Chairs scraped across stone tiles, and the sound of coffee mugs being brought out, and coffee being poured covered the sound of whispered conversation interspersed with giggles and guffaws.
Twilight’s cheeks heated more, but she felt like laughing with them. She had to. It was just so ridiculous. Isn’t it? Why aren’t I laughing?
“Twi?” Rainbow whispered, her voice so low that Twilight barely heard it. “Are you okay? You look a little…” She bit her lip, eyes flicking back and forth between Twilight’s. “Scared.”
“I’m not,” Twilight whispered back. But butterflies thrummed in her stomach. This was the moment to say something else. The other girls were laughing, covering anything she might say. Rainbow was right there, listening to her. But say what? “Rainbow, I—” Words stuck to the tip of her tongue like glue, refusing to be said, and refusing to be examined. I don’t know. All she could do was lay there, her mouth open, jaw working as something tried to be said.
“Don’t worry about it. Sorry about the leg… dunno how we ended up like that.” Spots of color in Rainbow’s cheeks said she at least halfway recalled the late night half-waking change of position.
Or does she?
Rainbow cleared her throat. “Anyway…” The hand massaging Twilight’s bicep stopped, sliding across her back to meet up with the other hand. Both clasped over Twilight’s back, stretched out above her, and settled back down.
Twilight arched an eyebrow at her. “Smooth.” Maybe she does remember. Maybe it was intentional.
“So…” Rainbow smirked at her, hands sliding down together to rest lower on Twilight’s back, though well above the small of it. “What happened last night,” she said quietly, “I didn’t mean it to happen like that. I just got tired. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it.” She stopped again, twisting her neck to look past Twilight’s head, then settled back down. “Did it mean something else to you?”
“I don’t know.” The answer hurt, coming out. How can I not know? She’s right there. Say something else! “It was… nice.” She let her head drop to Rainbow’s shoulder, holding back a mad giggle that nonetheless resounded in her head.
“Yeah. It was.” Rainbow slid a hand free to catch Twilight’s wrist, massaging gently into the joint while the other stroked her back lightly. “How’s the arm?”
“It’s okay, now.” Her arm still felt like it was numb from elbow to fingertips, and the working of Rainbow’s fingers into her wrist was only sending jabs and spikes of purest sensation stabbing up her arm. “Really.”
“Liar,” Rainbow grunted. “I can see you twitch every time I poke right… here.” Instead of her wrist, Rainbow jabbed a finger into her side.
She yelped, pushing herself off and rolling to her side to crash into the side of the coffee table in the center of the room.
“Whoa! Hey, sorry!” Rainbow scooted over on her side, hand darting to cradle the back of Twilight’s head. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” Twilight smiled at Rainbow’s raised eyebrow. “Really. I didn’t thump anything.”
“Okay. Sorry about that. I just… I dunno. I wanted to make you laugh.” Rainbow sighed, shaking her head, and shifted her hand to rest on Twilight’s cheek. “You, uh…” Rainbow coughed. “You wanna talk?”
“Yes.” About what? “But I’m not sure if I know what I think.”
“Makes two of us, I guess.” Rainbow grunted and sat up. “Y’know, friends don’t usually sleep together like that.”
“Oh.” One mystery solved. Not that it was exactly a mystery. “I-I know. And I don’t know.” Please understand!
“Yeah.” Rainbow barked a laugh and stretched, arms stretching over her head, grinning. “Well… makes two of us, again.”
It was loud enough to reach the other girls, and the silence that followed said more than if the girls were staring over the couch at them.
“I like you,” Rainbow said, more quietly. “Heck, you’re one of my best friends. No lie. But, uh…” She traced the fingers of one hand down her front quickly, then came to rest on her hip as she puffed out her chest. “I wasn’t exactly modest last night. If this is about that, well…”
“It’s not,” Twilight said as the scene played out again in her mind again, slow enough that she couldn’t help but notice everything lurid in her memory. “Not exactly.”
“Heh. Yeah. So, I figure, uh… give it some time. If ya still feel the same way later,” Rainbow said in fits and starts, cheeks heating more. “I figure we can always give it a shot.”
“Yeah.” Twilight sighed and rubbed at her tingling arm as the spikes of discomfort grew less insistent. “Do you think…” I’m a lesbian? But she couldn’t say it, and the look Rainbow gave her said she didn’t need to.
“It doesn’t matter to me. You’re my friend. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Awww,” Rarity’s voice interrupted the moment, and Applejack’s shushing came a moment later.
“Don’t you shush me! It’s adorable!”
“It’s a private moment!” Applejack retorted.
“I think maybe we should get up before they start a battle,” Rainbow said, putting action to word and offering her hand to Twilight.
“I think so, too.” Twilight pulled herself up on legs almost like gelatin, and stumbled into Rainbow’s arms as she came up.
“Careful, Twi.” Rainbow’s arms around her held nothing back, and almost, Twilight wished she could have said she wanted a relationship with Rainbow right then. “Wouldn’t want you to fall.”
But she couldn’t fall, not in love. She didn’t know enough about herself, and the frightening void in her knowledge warned her away from committing too deeply too soon. “I won’t,” she said softly, standing up straighter even as tingles prickled at her feet. “Thank you.”
Twilight sat at the table, nursing a hot coffee slowly as the sun kept rising above the cliffs, bathing the beach in warm gold and burning away the last streamers of fog.
Rainbow sat on the couch, eating something with a spoon and chatting with Applejack in low tones. Twilight wanted, and didn’t, to know what they were talking about. Fluttershy sat at her side, occasionally looking aside at her.
Finally, Twilight sighed. “I don’t know, Fluttershy.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I know.” Twilight sighed and let her eyes wander back to settle on Rainbow’s head where she sat on the couch, the bowl of her uneaten s’moresgasbord held in one hand while she ate it with a spoon. “I just don’t know what to think.”
“About what?”
She didn’t want to say it, but… They’re my friends. “I’ve never been in love,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s like.”
“Oh.” Fluttershy nodded slowly, sipping at her coffee with a wrinkle growing around her nose as she kept the mug to her mouth.
Twilight pushed two packets of creamer to her with a smile. “It’s okay. I know the answer has to come from me.”
“Hogwash,” Applejack said, throwing herself into the chair across from Twilight. “You ain’t gotta figure it out all on your own. Heck, when Rarity went nuts over that out of town fashion high muckity-muck, we all kinda… well, I guess we kinda let Rarity kinda figure it out on her own, sad to say.” She coughed and looked over her shoulder.
“I was perfectly capable of learning from my own mistakes,” Rarity said tartly from the chair by the fireplace. “Not that you didn’t help, Applejack, in your own way. I admit, I let the glamour overwhelm me for a time, but it would have given me so many contacts in the industry! You have no idea.” She waved a hand dismissively. “No matter, I suppose. Not much time to pursue a fashion career if I have to keep saving the world every six months.”
“Uh, saving the school, Rares,” Rainbow said, somehow putting the roll of her eyes into her voice even through a mouthful of s’mores. She paused long enough to lick the spoon between waving it idly. “It’s not that I don’t think we couldn’t, y’know, because we’re awesome, but so far everything has just been CHS—or Equestria, I guess, that first time. Though I don’t know how Sunset was thinkin’ she could get teenage, uh, pony zombies to take over a whole world.”
“Fair point,” Rarity said. “But it makes my point no less valid. I mean, certainly, we are not as busy as we could be—as those heroes always are in the movies—but…” she shrugged. “Once every six months is quite busy enough! Why, I haven’t had even a chance to really get to know some of the clients Sapphire Shores has been kind enough to send my way, what with school, saving it, and being in a band.” She paused to eat a spoonful of dry cereal, the muffled crunching sound of her chewing filling the silence until she finished. “My life is quite hectic.”
“Well,” Applejack said slowly, “that life ain’t here right now. We’re on vacation, and you stop that worryin’ right now, y’hear?”
“Quite right. Except, even on vacation, we can’t seem to escape things that need doing.” She looked at Rainbow Dash pointedly. “And I need to get up to the top of the cliffs to get a signal, but I would rather not spend all morning at it.”
“Well, it ain’t that far of a walk. Maybe a mile.”
“Uphill,” Rarity shot back.
“Shallow slope. Easy enough, seein’ how you like to walk every mornin’.”
“In the fog.”
Applejack turned her head slowly to look out the large window towards the cliff.
Twilight looked with her. There was a little fog, but what little there was was being torn to shreds by the wind blowing strongly down off the cliffs, bending some of the scraggly trees high up almost perpendicular to the rock faces they clung to.
Applejack didn’t say anything, but her raised eyebrow made sure she didn’t have to.
For a moment, Twilight thought Rarity was going to continue, but she sighed, instead.
“Could you please drive me to the top?” She paused, lowering the bowl to cradle it in both hands against her stomach. “You’re right, Applejack, this is a vacation, and I would prefer to enjoy it as much as I can.”
Twilight almost heard the silent ‘I would rather not argue’ underlying the words.
Applejack seemed to hear it as well, and didn’t offer any further argument. Instead, she laid the keys for the van on the table as she bit into her toasted bagel.
“No road trip?”
“I don’t know, Pinkie Pie. It’s just to the top of the cliff. That’s hardly a road trip.”
“But I wanna get see if I’ve got any texts! What if I’ve missed something important? What if the Glee Club is planning a party without me?”
“And why do we need to go on a road trip? We’re just going to the top of the cliff.” Applejack shook her head. “Ain’t road trips all about the length?”
“But—”
“Vacation, Pinkie,” Rainbow said, jabbing her spoon at the other girl. “And we’re going, so relax.”
“Okay!” A loud thump followed.
Twilight twisted around further to see Pinkie laying on the floor, sprawled out like she’d been knocked senseless. Not that there was much sense to be made…
“Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow said, shaking her head, “you are so random.”
“Aw! That’s so sweet!” Pinkie’s giggle drifted up from the floor. “Get it? Sweet? Because you’re eating—”
“I get it,” Rainbow said, groaning. “You don’t have to explain it.” She flopped back and rolled her eyes up until Twilight could see her pupils. “You wanna come too, Twi? I’m going because I wanna get at least a little charge on my phone. See if my folks sent me any messages, y’know.”
“I-I guess.” Twilight looked down at her satin pajamas and the dark spot on the shoulder where Rainbow had drooled, just a little, in the night. “When are we going? I would like to get dressed first.”
“An hour or so, I suppose,” Applejack said. She reached over to touch Fluttershy’s elbow. “You wanna come too, sugarcube? You’ve been awful quiet this morning.”
At first, Fluttershy shook her head, then she stopped and looked aside at Twilight. “I guess. I mean, if you don’t mind.”
Does she think… Twilight looked down at her hands, and remembered the warmth of Fluttershy’s hand in hers, and the reluctance with which she had let go. Could I have hurt her? Maybe she was trying to tell me something.
That moment on the beach… “It doesn’t mean that I’m in love with you.” It had been clear. Hadn’t it?
“No, I don’t mind,” Twilight said.
Applejack looked at her, then Fluttershy, but didn’t say anything before popping the last piece of bagel in her mouth.
Twilight looked up at Rainbow Dash briefly, but didn’t see anything in the other girl’s face. Rainbow just looked back at her with a faint, dreamy smile. She couldn’t tell if it was because of the blood that must have been rushing to Rainbow’s head, or the upside-down glance, but Rainbow looked pleased, and blushing.
“Alright then,” Applejack said, brushing bagel crumbs off her hands briskly. “It’s settled. We’re goin’ on a road trip.” A wry twist tugged at one side of her smile. “To the top of the cliff.”
“Woohoo! Road trip!”
An hour later, Twilight sat in the back seat next to Rainbow Dash. The van’s engine rumbled smoothly along as the wheels rumbled and crunched along the gravel ramp leading up to the clifftop.
Outside, Twilight watched the craggy limestone walls drift by, growing shallower and shallower. Trees and grass clung to the walls all the way up, little patches of green in the dingy brown-white stone. She wanted to get out and take a look up close and see if she could identify them, or to see if she could find little fossils in the strata. Well, she thought, little fossils big enough for me to see without a microscope.
“Whatcha looking at?” Rainbow’s voice was just low enough for her to hear, but not much else.
“Hmm?” She pondered, momentarily, not telling her what it was she was actually looking at, then shook her head. “Rocks, trees and grass.”
“Oh. Hey, you wanna play badminton again tonight? Just, uh…” Rainbow cleared her throat. “Just the two of us?”
Should I? Is that… would that be a sign to the others? Does it matter if it is? Twilight shook her head slightly, trying to clear out that cobwebs.
“Oh. Okay.”
“No, I wasn’t… I would like to, Rainbow. I’m just feeling…” Confused? Worried? “Lost.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, rubbing the back of one hand with the other. “I get that. You wanna, um, go for a walk on the beach later?” She seemed to realize what she’d said sounded like as a blush crept up her cheeks. “To talk, I mean. Not that I’m any good at it,” she muttered, almost too quiet for Twilight to hear.
“I think that would be good. Talking.” That was that. Twilight was going to talk to Rainbow, and figure out just what it was that her heart and mind was trying to tell her about the girl. Am I in love? Is this what it feels like? Or am I just being me? Awkward and— She cut her thoughts off with another shake of her head.
“You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah.” The uncertain eddy of emotions kept on going, seeming ceaseless as the roiling of the ocean, and just as complex. I just don’t know enough. So what do you usually do when you don’t know enough? Well, that was easy. Research. But I can’t do research on my friends… can I? She tried to catch a glimpse of what Rainbow was doing out of the corner of her eye, saw the other girl doing the same, and snapped her eyes forward. I need to learn!
She tried again, disguising the glance with a full-body twist to stare behind them at the last corner they’d rounded, and the distant ocean barely visible over the outcropping. Rainbow was leaning against the window, looking out as the van crept up past the narrowest point of the ramp, still twice as wide as the van itself, where harder granite outcroppings thrust up through the soft limestone to form a natural barrier to water. Had the road not been there, it would have made a gorgeous waterfall during the rainier parts of the year.
Rainbow! You’re trying to figure out how you feel about her. Focus!
When she turned back around, she caught sight of Rainbow’s hand resting on the seat between them.
Fluttershy’s hand had been warm and soft, and the feeling of Rainbows rougher, calloused hand against her face had felt… not exactly better, but different. It had still been warm.
Before she could form another doubt in her mind, she planted her hand on Rainbows.
She saw, from the corner of her eye, Rainbow jerk upright, but the hand stayed put.
Okay. Step one: establish contact. Ready for step two: observe the subject.
Exactly what she was supposed to look for escaped her. This kind of experimentation wasn’t like physics or chemistry, and certainly not like biology. Just the thought of biology made her face heat again as her mind helpfully replayed Rainbow’s impromptu morphology lesson. Yes, all girls were essentially the same on the outside, with only superficial differences.
Twilight knew what she looked like, and her mind, again, helpfully drew up a picture of herself staring into the mirror. She could see marked differences, but enumerating those differences would take— Stop!
The train of her thoughts came to an abrupt stop, and she could almost feel the tracks tearing apart under the strain.
“Twi? You okay over there?”
“Mhm!” She nodded vigorously, not trusting herself to more eloquent speech.
“Uh, could you please stop trying to strangle my hand?”
Twilight snatched her hand back as though burned. “Sorry!” she blurted.
“S’okay. Calm down, Twi. Look,” Rainbow leaned in close and held her hand up to Twilight’s ear. “I think I know what’s botherin’ you. Just calm down. Talk later.”
A jerky nod was all Twilight could manage through the flaming embarrassment filling her thoughts.
Fluttershy, sitting in the seat in front of Twilight, turned and looked at her over the shoulder of the seat. “Twilight? Are you okay? I thought I heard… something.”
Panic. Wait, no. Don’t panic! “I-I’m fine!”
“Delayed reaction freakout, Fluttershy,” Rainbow said in a smooth voice. “She’ll be fine.” She shot a look at Twilight that didn’t need much interpretation. It said ‘We need to talk.’
“Oh. Okay.” Her eyes shifted to Twilight. “If you want to talk—”
Rainbow made a cutting gesture across her throat.
Fluttershy smiled, turned around, and sat back down.
Rainbow sighed and slumped back into her seat, but her hand quested about on Twilight’s side of the seat until it found her arm. “It’s okay.” She pulled Twilight’s hand back down and clasped it into her own. “It’s okay, Twi. Really. Just relax.”
By the time the van rumbled to a stop and the engine died, Twilight’s heart had settled down to an almost calm rhythm, and she had finished cleaning up the train wreck of her thoughts. She had even survived Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity looking back to see her holding hands with Rainbow.
She wasn’t exactly sure how, but each time she looked up to see someone else smiling at them, it had felt less tense.
“A mile?”
“Heh. Straightways, anyway.” Applejack shook her head. “Guess I forgot how windy that switchback was.”
“And that wind! Why, I would have been face on to it for almost all of the walk!”
“Aw, your hair’d be fine, Rarity.”
“Hair, nothing! Have you ever heard of windburn? Or seen a gruff hero’s face described as weather-beaten?” Rarity patted a hand against one cheek, then the other. “This is not the face of a weather-beaten gruff type. This is the face of a lady.”
“Rarity…” Applejack shook her head. “Make the call.”
“Already ringing,” Rarity replied, smug satisfaction in her tone.
Fluttershy shook her head slowly before slumping back into her seat.
In the near silence, punctuated by the tinny electronic tone from Rarity’s phone, Twilight settled back in her seat as well, looking up at the gray fabric covering the van’s roof. Inside, she almost wished she could feel as calm as that flat gray covering, but her thoughts continued a whirlwind of activity, never settling on one thing for very long.
But always coming back to the hand still holding hers. It was the most mundane thing. Cadance and Shining Armor held hands all the time. So did every couple she’d ever seen. Therein lay the problem. Couples held hands. At least, they did sometimes. But friends held hands, too.
Close friends? Closer than friends? Friends needing support? Do I need support? Fluttershy’s quiet gentleness had assured her that friends held hands, too. And that look Fluttershy had given her earlier, after she had woken up with Rainbow atop her. What did that mean? Was she thinking I thought we were a couple? Did she want to… hold hands? Did she want to fall asleep with me?
More questions, and she had no more answers than a vacuum held breathable atmosphere. And you’ll never get any if you don’t ask them of the people who might hold the answers.
That was the first rule of learning. Ask questions. But who to ask what question? Asking them may have been as cool and clean as a scientific inquiry—if she were an idiot. Questions could hurt those she loved as friends, they could hurt family. Once, she would have thought them only words, and asked them without a second thought.
Now… She looked down at her empty hand, then at the one holding Rainbow’s, and finally up at Rainbow; whose attention wasn’t on Twilight, but on the small display of her smart-phone, a cord trailing from it to one of the cigarette lighter charging ports on the center console.
Twilight sighed, squeezed Rainbows hand gently, and slipped hers free.
“Huh?” Rainbow looked up, at her, and smiled. “Sorry. Distracted. Dad sent me an email. He’s, uh, hum…” She went back to reading from her screen, patting Twilight’s leg gently.
“It’s okay.” Twilight patted the hand and pulled her own phone free of her jacket’s front pocket. She didn’t have a smart-phone like Rainbow or Pinkie. It was, frankly, frivolous when her laptop was so much more capable and less full of distraction.
Still, since making more friends, she had convinced her mother to upgrade the texting plan to unlimited. Not that it had taken much convincing once Twilight told her the reason. At least one or two a day came in, most of them from Pinkie, and they were starting to get her to see the benefit of a smartphone to stay connected via MyStable—where Pinkie was reigning queen of socializing at the school.
Rarity resisted, of course. She had a little flip phone like Twilight’s, albeit far more elegant and decorated in her signature purple and white, with blue diamond triplets all over. It should have been gaudy, but Rarity somehow made it fit her ensemble.
By contrast, Twilight’s phone was a simple, functional gray with a color screen on the flip case. And it was slow. Not that she needed it to be fast, but then she almost wished she did have a smart-phone.
It was also loud, as it demonstrated by alerting everyone in a five mile radius that it had finished booting up with the nerve-jarring jangle of the carrier’s ring tone at full volume. Well, maybe not that far, but the sudden noise in the near silence startled everyone.
“Sorry. My phone must have reset again.” Shiny keeps trying to get me to upgrade. Maybe I should take him up on his offer.
“S’okay,” Rainbow said through the quickly descending bloops as Twilight silenced it again. “Dinosaurs are loud. Everyone knows this.”
“What about ninja dinosaurs? I think they’re silent. But no-one has ever seen one!”
“My phone is not a dinosaur! It’s only four years old!”
“Sure thing, Gramps.” Rainbow shot her a smile and went back to reading. Whatever it was must have been fairly engaging.
Twilight sighed and flipped her phone closed to wait for the buzz of incoming messages. Shiny would have sent one, at the least, and probably Cadance, too.
“Hello, mother,” Rarity sing-songed from the front seat. “Oh, we’re all doing fine. Yes, the house is fine, too. No crab migration or pigeon infestation this time.” She fell quiet, making small noises into the phone as she listened.
Twilight’s phone buzzed in her hand once. The little display glittered and ‘New Message’ scrolled across the small screen. It buzzed again, and a little ‘2’ appeared at the top.
“One thing, though,” Rarity said after a long string of mumbled acknowledgements mixed with the occasional negative. “We seem to have run out of propane. I don’t suppose you or daddy could—” She cut off almost mid-word. “Well, yes, I do have it. I don’t see what that has to do with—” She cut off again and snapped her fingers at Applejack. “Paper!”
“I don’t have any. Didn’t think we’d need—”
“Pinkie Pie! Paper!”
“Rares, just tell me what ya want, and I’ll get it down,” Rainbow said, tapping on her phone. “See, this is why you need a smart—”
“Shush! No, not you, mother. Okay. What is the name?” Rarity twisted around in her seat, brow furrowed. “Turnip Farm Equipment.” She paused, lifting the phone away from her head, then put it back. “Are you serious, mother? A farm equipment place? In Hayseed? But that’s…”
“Forty miles, I reckon,” Applejack said calmly, reaching for the ignition. “Best get goin’.”
“Mother? Mother? Hello?” The phone snapping shut sounded like a bullwhip as the van rumbled to life again. “She hung up on me! It wouldn’t take her any more time to call this… this… Turnip Farm Equipment than it would to… to make a call! And she wants me to—”
“Calmly, Rarity,” Applejack said, reaching out to rest a hand on Rarity’s knee. “We’d have to do this someday, y’know. Best we get used to it, I suppose. ‘Sides. Could use a hot lunch not cooked on a camp stove. Be… well, a little early, but we can hang out a bit. Hayseed’s not bad for a small town.”
“She could have at least given me the phone number,” Rarity grumbled.
“Hot lunch,” Pinkie said, dropping her voice to a husky whisper as she stroked Rarity’s shoulder. “Hot… food…”
“Oh my.” Fluttershy leaned forward and tapped Rarity on the shoulder. “I would like a hot lunch, too. Like a soup, o-or a toasted sandwich. That would be so wonderful.”
“Oh, alright. Rainbow? Twilight?” Rarity twisted about further, then batted away Pinkie’s hand when she didn’t stop stroking. “Stop that. Would you two like hot lunch, too? There’s no need for you to go if you don’t want to.”
She’s asking if I want to spend some time alone with Rainbow. Twilight bit her lip and glanced aside at Rainbow, who shrugged. “I think I would like a hot lunch.” And I’m not sure if I’m ready to be alone with her yet.
“Me, too!”
Rarity’s eyes flicked between them before her smile came back. “Alright, then. Onward, Applejack! To Hayseed! And whatever we must do to get a hot shower tonight, I will do it. Even if it means kissing a cow.”
“I’ll hold ya to that, Rarity.”
“Ew! Applejack, no! It was a joke!”
“What was that? I can’t hear ya over the sound of the engine.”
Twilight laughed as the engine roared, the tires spun for half a second in gravel, and then they were off again, the van full of laughter—even Rarity’s, after Applejack promised she wouldn’t make Rarity kiss a cow.
It wasn’t until a few miles down the road that Twilight’s phone buzzed again. Right, she’d gotten texts earlier.
She flipped open her phone and touched the button.
Sunset Shimmer—
Hey, Twi. Hope you’re having fun. Kinda lonely.
You should have come with us, Sunset, she thought, sighing and shaking her head. Her lips pursed as she read the message again. Hey, Twi. An inkling of a thought hit her, and she checked the recipient info. She was the only one for this message. Did she send it to the others and my phone is being stupid again?
“Hey, Rainbow?” She looked up briefly to see Rainbow playing some game, tapping furiously at the screen.
“Yeah?” Rainbow didn’t even look up.
“You get a text from Sunset?”
“Huh?” Rainbow looked up, and her phone squealed, then made a tinny rumbling sound. “Aw, come on! I was almost at a new record.” She thumped her head back against the seat. “Let me check.” After a moment of muttering under her breath and tapping away at the screen, she shook her head. “I dunno. My messenger app is kinda funky. I barely even use it. What’s up?”
Twilight nodded, flicking a look at Pinkie. “She’s feeling lonely.”
As expected, Pinkie gasped, and her fingers blurred as she wrote a text and sent it.
She sent it just to me? If Sunset was looking for help with feeling less lonely, Pinkie would have been the first one she sent the message to. But she sent it to me. Why? Something pulled at her heart, familiar now as the feeling she got whenever she wanted to be with her friends. She checked the next message, resisting the urge to press her hand to her chest.
Sunset Shimmer—
In truth, I’m feeling pretty awful. Things didn’t work out. I want someone to talk to.
The timestamp of the message was only a few hours ago, and the recipient list was just her. Again. She wants to talk to me. Why does she want to talk to me? Fluttershy would understand her better, be more understanding.
She tapped out a quick message.
Twilight Sparkle—
Would you like me to call you? I’m with the others right now.
Pinkie’s phone jangled, the tone of an incoming message.
“Ooh! She’s doin’ okay, now! She’s with the Dazzlings, still, and they’re having a blast.”
She lied? Or is she doing okay?
Twilight’s phone buzzed again.
Sunset Shimmer—
Please don’t tell them. I’m not doing okay. I just don’t want them to know. They’ll want to do something. I want to talk to you.
Her phone buzzed again.
Sunset Shimmer—
They wouldn’t understand.
Twilight snorted. And I do? She sighed, shaking her head, and closed her phone. This time, she didn’t resist the urge, and let hand and phone press to her chest, over the thrumming bands gripping her heart. She wanted to be with Sunset, and she couldn’t. She looked at Rainbow, feeling another flicker of… something in her heart, like the strings on a guitar humming after a light touch.
I don’t even understand my own heart. What good can I do for someone else?