//------------------------------// // A Different Goodnight Manifold Three // Story: No Sun-Queen Shall Rend Asunder // by Plough and Stars Pony //------------------------------// A Different Goodnight, Manifold Three Twilight stepped closer; eyes closing, lips puckered and dewy. Flash’s breath stiffened in his throat. It had all jumped forward with wit-quick suddenness. A chorus of exultation lit chamber after chamber in his mind. They had been talking, she offering an invitation, he accepting, and her pleased and flattered smile . . . Cool vacant darkness. A pause, the pulses of a delighted heart now-awakened to bright possibilities measuring and counting the beats, first clamouring instants, and . . . throbbing slower to seconds and to epochs and to a standstill. “Come on,” Flash’s errant and impatient brain flickered. Hesitant, he peeled open a lid. Twilight hung back, purple muzzle screwed with indecision. Her eyes for the first time dripped distress. “Twili-,” Flash started, pebbles of sound chuckling down limp tongue. A hoof was raised, wanting to wrap itself over her shoulders and pin her to his chest. “I – I’m sorry, Flash, so so sorry - but I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head, and turning away. No His body cramped with a cold, clammy molass, dragging down the two traitors once unruly, and now splayed in the revel. The river of blood now thick and clotted; limbs ready to sag to the floor and fossilise thereupon the crystal, ugly grey on the cheerful colours. Flash viewed her departure, her head low and tail limp; as if out of a glass pony-shaped shell, and only void within. A void warming up with smoulders of disappointment and anger. It had meant to be a special moment, and she had refused him it. Unintentionally, he gritted his teeth and the husk quaked with the harpy of silent fury. A harpy lashing at the very superstructure - foundation, facade and summit - of all his forbidden longing for the kind, soft-voiced and most beautiful of Princesses. And where she to topple it, he would begin to resent her, and end it with hating her. It left him suddenly, and the orange husk bloated and sang with greater emptiness. Flash hung his head, and trailed to his chamber and to his bed, where he would weep at what should have been. Yes … yes, it had been the right thing to do; despite Cadence allowing mixed couples to break the Order behind closed doors, it still felt far too new for her to show such affection to Flash. A pony stallion: kind, reserved, polite, clever and cute; but still her Guard. It would have been my first kiss, Twilight thought, and a thrill jumped and tingled in every cell and nerve. B-but with him? True, I li-like him, but not in that way Unknown to her, a pair of furtive tears spoke to the moonlight and showed the lock on her heart. Twilight broke the counterpane of the bed with her magic, and climbed in, fluffing the pillows. “It was the right decision,” she boldly announced to the darkness; a darkness where lies could lie and be silent. But her mind could not cover up her emotions. If had been the right thing to do, then why did she feel miserable, and above all, cheated? ---- For the first time since coming to the strange land, the stranger had bad dreams. He dreamed the dream that always made him weep and his heart sing and beg. What is more, he saw with his mind's eye what could have been... This time Twilight took the step forward, and demurely looked him in the eyes. Locking her sight on to his, she tilted her head, pressing her violet lips to his own. Every atom in his body blew up in hot glorious supernovae. And it was so, for beyond the rest of Time. And when Flash woke up the next day, he found his wings heavy and clammy with the night's sweat. The fur under his eyes was dark with new, but familiar tears. Groaning, he turned over before rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Flash took a moment to force the ghost of the dream from his mind. Flash looked outside. Celestia had not raised the sun yet, but the time was close. The few clouds in the sky were gently lined underneath by golden luminescence and the pink of primulas flushed the sky. Despite this, Flash could only think: "How could she, how could she?" The hot torrents of the shower washed away the sweat, the tears and the sadness. But it could not wash away the grime of disappointment and exasperation. Flash walked back to his room, cocking an ear to hear if the Princess was awake and up out of bed. It did not sound like it. She needed to explain what had happened last night. Flash was just clicking the breast-plate on and sliding his hoofs in to the slippers, when he heard a door open and sharp clinks scatter across the floor to his room. "Flash?" came the voice of the mare, it still made his heart pulse a little harder and his mind run with small thoughts of anger and petty revenge. Flash shook his head; he should not and would not fall to so low a depth. He had a duty as a Royal Guard to a Princess, and a duty to Twilight as her friend. Even as he resolved to hold himself up, his heart swelled to thoughts of forgiveness. "Wait a minute," he called as he tightened the slippers round his hind-hoofs. Next he checked the straps and the shine of the armour. Finding himself gleaming and immaculate as always, he walked briskly to the door, opening it to see a sad Twilight on the other side, her eyes melded to the porcelain floor. Her wings rustled, uncomfortable in the abject sad slump of her body and his sudden gaze. Princess Twilight glanced up at the stallion she had suddenly jilted, and winced from the interview now to take place. "Good morning, Your Highness, " Flash said, promptly, coldly and correctly. Twilight flinched at the words. She glanced at his face again, before looking away. "Flash," she said, holding up a placating hoof, "I want to say, before Shining's guests go down and see us here, how very, very sorry I am for ... what happened last night. Truly sorry. I did not know what I was doing, and why I was doing it. I see you as a friend, and after the play, and everything Cadence dropped on me yesterday, i - it - it ... was too much for me. I couldn't do it." Flash listened with a stern face but an ear that did not turn deaf. "Despite that, I want to put that behind us. I still want you to be my friend." Twilight finished her speech, and looked him in the eye, hoping for forgiveness. Flash waited as the speech dissolved in his ears, and the blood bore the letters to his brain and heart. What she said was true, for in his heart he still wanted to talk to her, make her laugh, and a myriad other things. A smile wandered to his mouth, and both he and she knew it was a real smile. A rich forgiving smile.