//------------------------------// // Waves Of Relief-Twilight Sparkle // Story: A Sparkling Sunset // by Ferhog //------------------------------// "...finally out of strength and energy, Daring Do collapsed into the warm embrace of Ahuizotl Jr's arms, her passion spent. As his tail hand gently stroked her mane, her eyelids fell as she drifted off to peaceful sleep." Once Fracture was done, he lifted his gaze towards them, his glowing cyan eyes wide with excitement. "So what do you think?" Twilight was struggling to find the words. She had encountered fanfiction before, even pretty sensual ones. But none of them were quite... like that. "Um... it was... certainly detailed..." "I think I'm gonna be sick..." Sunset groaned. "It could have been shorter..." Twilight continued. "On that we can agree on." Sunset responded. "Hmmm... " Fracture mumbled, his eyes quickly scrolling over the eight pages of intense descriptive love. "Maybe I did overdo it a bit. Eh, the guys at the fan club probably won't mind. You should see how long Bulk Bicep's stories tend to get." "I really don't think I want to..." Sunset stated, displaying the cutest face of disturbance a pony could muster. Twilight had certainly found Fracture's story to be... less than pleasing, though thankfully not to the point of feeling any sickness. "So Fracture, now that we've... participated in your reading, is there any chance you can give us that lens now?" She asked. "Right." He replied, ducking under the counter. "I have a small box full of these things somewhere here." He continued, a rummaging noise coming from his position. Twilight looked to her left at Sunset, who was in the process of rubbing her head as her eyes shut tight, like she was trying to telepathically erase her memories of the past few minutes. "Ah, here it is!" Twilight looked back at the counter to find Fracture placing a small brown box on the surface, a rattling noise spawning from the impact. "Pick your size and thickness!" He declared with enthusiasm. The inside of the box erupted with magenta as dozens of small lenses floated out, a large variety of sizes presented before her. One by one Twilight inspected the individual lenses, finding two bronze framed ones of around five centimetre diameter and two centimetre thickness. "These ones should do." Twilight stated, levitating all other lenses back in the box. "Lets see..." Fracture started, picking up a small notebook and flicking through the pages. "Lenses... size... number... that should be about... sixty bits." It may have been a bit pricey, but there wasn't any other way of getting a good telescope lens in the area, so it had to do. After the payment was handed over, Fracture happily bid them farewell as they left the store. "Never make me go through that again." Sunset demanded, the door closing behind them. "Would you have preferred we try to deal with him in his previous mood?" Twilight asked, referring to his green misery state, which he had been going through when they arrived. Something about the Stark family... "Well it didn't mean we had to go through his erotic fantasies in the form of literature!" "Have you really never encountered that kind of writing?" Sunset's lips pursed. "The internet is a strange place my dear. There is many an artwork and a pop-up advert that I wished I never saw. But not once have I ever dared to see what horrors the written world has in store. Except for when I did. Five minutes ago!" "You look so cute when you're grumpy." Twilight commented, nudging Sunset on the head. "How about we go get some lunch, will that cheer you up?" Her eyes narrowed in an unamused expression. "I believe I just stated twice that I felt disgusted. Do you want to give me vomit fuel?" "They have waffles." Her eyes subsequently un-narrowed, a slight smile appearing. "With whipped cream?" "And raspberries if they haven't run out yet." Sunset was now looking considerably happier than she had been a few seconds ago. "Then screw my digestive system, lead the way!" *** The Ponyville Café was dealing with very few customers besides them, so it wasn't very long before their food arrived. Sunset was busy digging in to exactly what Twilight had promised her, a pile of waffles topped with whipped cream and raspberries. Unlike Twilight's promise however, there were also some chocolate chips among the cream as well raspberries. Twilight herself was enjoying very similar food. A pancake as opposed to a waffle, also topped with whipped cream and chocolate chips, but with blueberries rather than raspberries. "Hooweba mabe deesh wufoof nids a raith!" Sunset declared through a muffling mass of pastry, cream, fruit, and chocolate. Twilight nodded. She usually paid more than was required anyway. Though she wasn't quite focused on the quality of the food at the moment. She was more focused on the food itself... There was something about the two meals that the two mares had chosen to eat that caught her attention. She noticed how different, yet how similar they were. On one side, both of them had decided to have their food with whipped cream and chocolate chips. But on the other side, she and Sunset had gone for pancakes and waffles respectively, as well as choosing a different type of fruit to go with them. It reminded her of something she read about the strength of a relationship, how a bond between two people relied on a balance of their differences as well as their similarities. The idea was that they needed to be similar enough to understand and relate to each other, as well as different enough to learn from each other. To complete one another. She looked at the half eaten pancakes in front of her, then at the remnants of Sunset's waffles. If you were to compare the separate meals to the ones eating them, than the whipped cream present in both of their food could represent their academic side. Their strive for knowledge and ability to pass it on to others. In short, both of them were complete nerds. As for the chocolate chips, they could represent their kindness and compassion. Both of them had been emotionally withdrawn and cold to others, but became better people once they experienced true friendship. Developing friendships, as well as being helpful and forgiving all became a second nature to them. Then there was the differences in their food, the traits they didn't share. As Twilight had chosen pancakes while Sunset had chosen waffles, Twilight was sweet and eccentric while Sunset was cool and confident. Twilight's lunch was topped with dark and round blueberries as she tended to be unstable and prone to panic. Sunset's lunch was topped with bright and lumpy raspberries as she tended to be regretful and prone to sadness. In the case of how the differences worked for each other, Sunset's confidence was needed to cancel out Twilight's instability, and Twilight's eccentricity was needed to cancel out Sunset's darker moods. If lunch was anything to go by, things were looking good for them. "Okay, I changed my mind." Sunset declared as she sighed happily, her plate now holding nothing more than crumbs and flakes of cream. "No amount of disturbing fanfiction can make this stuff unappealing." "Glad to see that cheered you up." Twilight replied, finishing off her pancakes. "So whats next?" Asked Sunset. Twilight had to finish chewing the pancake in her mouth before she could answer. "Back to the castle I guess, since we have the lenses and all. Unless theres anything else you want to do?" "Not really." Sunset answered. "Going back to the castle sounds just fine." With going home now secured as the next goal, Twilight finished off the last of her pancakes and called for the waiter. Once the bill was paid, they left the café and headed for the castle. During the walk back, there was nothing but silence between them. It wasn't too surprising, with the amount of time they spent together there naturally wasn't going to be much to talk about. Sunset wasn't too familiar with Ponyville, but Twilight figured that she could just let her admire it herself. As for Ponyville itself, it was looking like the usual nice environment that it was. There was that refreshing scent of fresh plants and clean streets in the air, one that gave a hint of the pride and care the ponies took when it came to their town. The state of the houses made them looked as good as if they had been built just last week, and the sound of friendly chatter emitted from the colourful townsfolk. Above the rooftops the sky was filled with little to no clouds, allowing the light of the sun to... The sun... At the sight of the symbol of her mentor, Twilight was struck by the memories of everything Luna had told her that day. It was hard to believe that it could have slipped from her memory in the first place. Sunset was Celestia's daughter, and she had absolutely no idea that she was. Of all the things she had learned about Celestia in the past few short years from the fact that she banished her own sister to the moon for a thousand years, to her secret visits to an alternate world to be with an alternate Sombra, this was by far among the most shocking. As an ancient being that has weilded divine power to rule Equestria for thousands of years, something as simple as family seemed like something that Celestia simply didn't involve herself in. And the fact that this daughter of hers was the mare she had spent the last few months knowing and the last few days loving was probably what was most shocking about it. After knowing and learning from Celestia for so long, Twilight knew that the decisions that Celestia made had to be for what she thought was a good reason. Especially since she knew what kind of person Sunset once was, it wasn't too hard to believe that Celestia would see her as a failure and want to get rid of her. But still... "Sunset?" "Yeah?" Sunset responded, looking back at her as they walked. "These days..." Twilight struggled to find the words. "How would you say you felt about Celestia?" It didn't take a scientist to instantly spot the hints of sadness that appeared in Sunset's eyes. "You mean how I feel when I think about her? Its more or less the same as everything from my past really. I regret a lot of things I said to her, and wish I could undo the choices I made back then. Why do you ask?" "How would you feel... if you got to see her again?" Sunset seemed to think for a moment before answering. "Honestly, its not like anythings keeping me from seeing her again. I guess I'm just too scared to confront her after everything that went down back then." "You make it sound like she'd want to kill you or something." "Well I don't see why she wouldn't want to, after declaring that I was better than her and trying to conquer Equestria. The least she would probably do is banish me to Tartarus." "Oh please, she'd never go that far..." "Hey, I was just kidding... mostly. I mean she banished her own sister to the moon for a thousand years for trying to conquer Equestria. I tried to more or less do the same thing and I'm not even her family." 'If only you knew...' Twilight thought. If only she knew indeed. But as much as Twilight wanted to tell Sunset the truth herself, she had recently come to the conclusion that this was a family matter and was going to be sorted out by family. No matter how long it took. "So you think its best if you don't see Celestia again?" Twilight asked. "I'm not saying that." Sunset insisted. "Honestly, Celestia was something like a mother to me..." 'You don't say.' "I still regret the fact that we last saw each other on the terms that we did. I want to fix the broken relationship that we had, but I just don't think I'm ready yet. I doubt she is either." Taking a closer look at Sunset, Twilight could see that she was clearly pained by the situation she had created between her and Celestia. "Don't worry." Said Twilight. "I'm sure it'll all work out in the end." "Thanks." Sunset replied with a smile. "I hope so." With that sorted out, Twilight looked ahead to unexpectedly find the castle just ahead of them. They had walked a surprisingly long distance during that one conversation. Once they had reached the top of the stairs, Twilight intended on opening the doors herself. But before she could do so, they started glowing orange before opening themselves. Upon entering the castle, she found a unicorn guard saluting her, his horn glowing the same colour. "Um... thank you?" She said to him. Even after the week of living with these guards and the years she lived in Canterlot a while back, it was a difficult process getting used to it. The two mares walked ahead into the throne room to find a group of about five guards huddled in a circle. Standing out among them was Flash's golden armour. He caught sight of Twilight and Sunset as they approached, and when the guards parted, Twilight saw that he was holding what looked like a letter. "Whats new?" Twilight asked. Flash's face displayed a smirk. That wasn't unusual for him, but this one seemed happier than most. "You might want to read this." He stated. Wrapping it in her magic, Twilight levitated the letter into reading distance. She felt Sunset lean against her, trying to take a look as well. And even from the first word, she recognised the handwriting of Celestia. Dear Twilight Sparkle, and the Guards in her service. I have recently been informed by messengers from the Griffon Kingdom that the civil conflict in their territory is coming to an end. It was recently discovered that the insurgents who attacked you were under the command of the Griffon Princess Geráki. Upon further investigation it was also revealed that she had also been responsible for the destruction of any documents stating which Princess had been born first, as well as the deaths of most of those present during the birth. It is also suspected that she may have poisoned her father, but that is still being looked into. It appears that she has been plotting to take the Griffon throne for quite some time, an act that has earned her life imprisonment. Her sister, Princess Grípi, is to be crowned Queen within a week. With the conflict over, it is hoped that the kingdom will return to its regular state in a few months. Princess Grípī thanks you for everything you have done, and I thank you for the service you have provided for Equestria and the Griffon Kingdom. Yours sincerely. Princess Celestia. Even after she finished reading, Twilight continued to stare at the paper in her magical grasp, processing everything she had just read. It was over. There was no reason to worry about the Griffon Kingdom anymore. 'But isn't there?' She asked herself in her mind. 'Things aren't just going to return to normal overnight. After everything that I saw in the Griffon Kingdom, there will be people that won't trust others, especially the royal family. There will still be fighting. There will still be suffering.' There will still be dying. "Are you okay Twilight?" She heard Sunset ask from behind her. "I'm fine." Twilight replied, looking up at Flash. "Thank you for informing me of this." "Hey, I'm not the one that should be thanked here." Flash insisted. "You're the one that should be thanked. For visiting the Griffon Kingdom. And having to confront two raging monarchs. And almost being assassinated. I should probably shut up now." "Please do." Sunset mumbled. Flash took notice of the insult and smiled at Sunset. "What, you don't like the sound of my voice?" "Drop the charming musician tone and I may find it the slightest bit more bearable." Sunset replied, her eyebrows narrowing in a position that made it hard to tell if she was taking this playfully or seriously. "Well I'm sorry if Your eggheadedness can't handle this sexy voice of mine." "You call it sexy, I call it the sound of a dying vulture." "That certainly gives me a clear impression of your taste in music." "Can we get back to the part where you were saying that you should shut up now?" The banter between Sunset and Flash brought a slight smile to Twilight's face. It was nice to be present during something like this to get her mind off the Griffon Kingdom. She could only hope that her mind stayed off it. *** It wasn't long after Twilight had received the news from the Celestia that her friends came over to congratulate her and celebrate the occasion. Pinkie had brought over an entire five foot 'End Of A Foreign Civil Conflict' cake, with the usual balloons and confetti cannons accompanying them. They spent the next few hours digging into the cake while talking, which largely consisted of asking Twilight questions regarding how she felt about the incident. Sunset spent her time socialising with the others, trying to continue building up friendships similar to the ones she had with their pony counterparts. As much as Twilight enjoyed seeing the others celebrate over the end of the conflict, as well as Sunset having a good time with the others, she couldn't enjoy herself as much as everyone else. All she wanted to do was stop thinking about the Griffon Kingdom, and this party was accomplishing that. Eventually, the time had come for Celestia to lower the sun and Luna to bring out the moon. With Equestria now under the blanket of night, the other five mares saw it as time to go home. Together they all left the castle, wishing Twilight and Sunset a good night. With them gone, the castle was nothing but silent. The Guards that were normally active during the day, including Flash, had all retired for the night, another group of Guards taking their place. "So, is there anything else you want to do tonight?" Sunset asked Twilight as they walked back towards the throne room. Twilight sighed. "I think I'd just like to go to sleep now." If anything was going to take her mind off everything, it was a good nights sleep. "Sure, if thats what you want." Sunset agreed. Following this agreement that it was time for bed, the two mares trotted up the stairway into the upper floor of the castle. They both went to the bathroom, brushing their teeth side by side. Once they were both prepared to sleep, they walked down the hallway to where all the main bedrooms were. Stopping at the room that Sunset was staying in, Twilight opened the door for her. "Have a nice night Sunset." She wished her. "You too." Sunset answered back before kissing Twilight on the cheek. Sunset entered her room, closing the door behind her and leaving Twilight alone the hallway. Twilight stood quietly by the door for a moment, possibly out of sadness, loneliness or just tiredness. When that moment passed, she let out a deep breath and headed further down the hallway to her own bedroom. On the way, she spotted a door that was left wide open. Recognising it as Spike's door, she took a look inside. It looked as it normally did, all of Spike's stuff kept in a clean and orderly state. Unlike the general impression most people had of children, Spike always kept his room nice and tidy. It probably came from the lifetime he spent organising things for Twilight. In his bed slept the dragon himself, snoring quietly. He always looked so cute when he was asleep. He just seemed so sweet and innocent. At the end of of his bed the frame rose into a blue crystal tree design, and on top of that slept Owlowiscious. Owlowiscious had several places to sleep in the castle, but he tended to sleep in either Twilight or Spike's rooms most nights. Twilight slowly closed the door so that they wouldn't be disturbed, and walked a few steps further down the hallway, finally reaching her room. Entering the bedroom, Twilight slowly walked towards her bed. But instead of tucking herself under the sheets and going to sleep, she turned to face the large window, moved closer to it and sat down on the floor before it. She gazed through the open curtains and out the pane of glass to the night sky before her. There wasn't anything special about this sky compared to all the other night skies that came before it, but for some reason she just wanted to stare at it. That plain space, a dark purple colour that turned pitch black the higher it went, with glowing white spots scattered across it. It was looking clearer to Twilight of why pony's neglect of the beautiful night would drive Luna to do what she did a thousand years ago. At that moment, Twilight wanted to just stare at the night sky for the rest of her life, and forget about everything that was going on beyond Equestria. "Are you okay?" Twilight turned around to see Sunset standing at the doorway. She realised that she had somehow forgotten to close the door before she entered the room earlier. "I'm fine." Twilight answered, getting up from the floor. "I just thought I'd take a look at the sky for a bit before going to sleep." "I don't think so Twilight." Said Sunset, closing the door before walking towards her. "I came here because I realised that you had this look on you earlier. Like something was upsetting you. I wasn't so sure of it before, but looking at you now, there is definitely something wrong." Twilight looked at the floor sadly. She felt like she wanted to tell Sunset, but the words just couldn't come out. "Its the Griffon Kingdom isn't it?" Sunset inferred. Still unable to get the words out, she could only nod. Sunset walked herself in front of Twilight and placed her hoof on the princess's shoulder. "Twilight, the matters in the Griffon Kingdom are done. Its over." "Is it?" Twilight asked, lifting her head to face Sunset as her strength returned to her. Sunset looked at her for a second. "You think that theres still going to be fighting?" "Why wouldn't there be? Just because the new monarch has been chosen, it doesn't mean that everyone's suddenly going to forget the past two weeks. You think the Griffon people are going to get along after they were more or less trying to kill each other just a few days ago?" Sunset's eyes drifted away from Twilight. "I don't how to answer that." "I think you do know, Sunset. You just don't want to." Twilight went back to looking at the ground again. "And neither do I. All I can really do is think about it... and regret..." Twilight suddenly felt the feeling of Sunset's hoof under her chin, before her head was lifted to look at her in the eye. "You need to stop blaming yourself for this." Sunset pleaded. "Well who else am I supposed to blame?" "Blame me..." This phrase stunned Twilight for a few seconds. "What do you mean? This has nothing to do with you." Twilight pointed out. "If it wasn't for our friendship at the time, you wouldn't have been in the human world when this all started." Sunset stated, her voice starting to crack. "You could have been to there to stop it before things got serious. If anyone is to blame here, its me." Looking closer at Sunset's face, Twilight spotted the tears that had started to run down her cheeks. That was when it hit her. She thought about the fact that Sunset had never been to the Griffon Kingdom, never seen anything that had happened there. Yet here she was, claiming all the blame for herself. Regardless of who was to blame or not, feeling guilt for something was purely psychological. Having never seen the state of the Griffon Kingdom herself, there was no motivation Sunset could have had to feel guilty about all of it. Except for her. The state that Twilight had sent herself into. The guilt. The sadness. The tears. It was what had hurt Sunset. It was what had caused her to feel guilty about everything. And by openly telling Twilight that it was her fault, she was trying to take all the guilt off her. Trying to carry it for her. At that moment, whatever Twilight had been feeling for Sunset before was paling in comparison to what she was feeling for her now. "I love you." Twilight whispered. Sunset's eyes widened, her face displaying complete surprise, possibly from the suddenness of this comment, or the fact that she was finally hearing these words from Twilight. "I... love you too." Sunset said back to her. A surging feeling appeared in Twilight's stomach and went up her body, charging her with this alien feeling that made her heartbeat go faster and her breaths go deeper. And all of a sudden it exploded inside her as she lunged forward, fusing her lips with Sunset's. The amber mare was initially taken aback by this, but quickly eased up and pushed her mouth back against Twilight's. They had kissed a few times before, but this one was... different. Sunset began to push harder against Twilight, forcing her to start moving backwards as they continued kissing. All the while the feeling inside Twilight expanded through her entire body. It was like her heart was releasing an electrically charged gas that was coursing through her blood stream. She felt that she needed... more of Sunset. Sunset continued pushing against Twilight, until the alicorn felt her backside collide softly with the end of the bed. She leaned back against it, allowing Sunset to start climbing on top of her, continuing to assault her with passion. And that was when Twilight realised what was happening. "Stop..." She panted, releasing her mouth from its lock with Sunset's. Sunset gave her a confused look, before she seemed to realise what she had been doing. "I'm sorry!" She apologised. "I... I didn't mean to suddenly get so... I wasn't trying to..." "No, its fine." Twilight insisted. "I'm just... not sure if I'm ready for this kind of thing. I mean... I'm not very experienced. There aren't any books on this subject that I've read." Sunset looked at Twilight with a very indecisive look, before she broke into a small hint of a smile. "Do you want to?" Twilight thought for a second, before giving her the honest answer. "Yes." Sunset nodded, and Twilight suddenly felt her whole body vibrate as her vision went opal. She felt herself levitate through the air before landing softly on the bed. Looking forward, she saw Sunset step on to the mattress and start crawling towards her. She stayed flat on her back as Sunset positioned herself on top of her, her horn glowing brightly. "Then we can learn together, okay?" Sunset whispered, her eyes looking at Twilight lovingly as she smiled. "Okay..." Twilight replied, smiling back. And while no one knew what happened in that room, those who may have been in the area that the window overlooked would have witnessed flashes of stunning opal light, dazzling magenta light, and even once, a beautiful turquoise light as the two colours fused into one.