• Published 8th May 2013
  • 19,622 Views, 466 Comments

Letters From a Secret Admirer - Subsolar Drift



Twilight receives anonymous love letters.

  • ...
40
 466
 19,622

Maybe It'll Be Alright

Twilight Sparkle laid curled up in her bed, eyes wet, nose runny, and feeling horrible. The door to her room was locked, and Spike had been told not to disturb her. Twilight Sparkle was in for a good long cry.

Eventually, the sobs wracking her body stopped long enough for her to catch her breath. I should've seen it coming, she told herself again and again. Why would Rainbow Dash ever be interested in me, let alone write me love letters? The sobs returned in full force.
Twilight cursed herself for falling for the letters so easily. She should've known nopony saw her that way. She wasn't beautiful like Rarity or Fluttershy, or strong like Applejack or Rainbow Dash. She wasn't even funny like Pinkie Pie. She was just an egghead, good for magic and books, nothing else.

Twilight curled up in a ball, trying to hold herself together. She ignored the concerned calls of Spike, and slowly shut out the world, piece by piece.


Rainbow Dash had screwed up big time. This was worse than when she'd done a Sonic Rainboom over Ponyville and broken nearly all the glass in the town. This was worse than when she'd pranked the Princess. This was worse than when she'd been rude and insensitive. The look on Twilight's face was imprinted in Dash's mind and it broke her heart.

Dash looked down at the letter Twilight had dropped and looked over it again.

Dearest Admirer,
I've found myself quite flattered by the letters I've received. I can't help but wonder about the wonderful pony who must've sent them. Would you like to talk over some coffee and a slice of pineapple upsidedown cake?
Twilight Sparkle

Dash felt hot tears rolling down her face again. She didn't bother to wipe them away, just letting them fall down off the cloud where she laid. "Nice work Dash," she spat. "You did everything perfectly, just like always." She let out a bitter, harsh laugh. "The prank went off without a hitch. Twilight fell for you, and what did ya do? You broke her heart." The tears flowed faster. "T-that was w-what you were aiming for, r-right?" She struggled to keep from breaking into full blown sobs. "W-well, mission accomplished."

She buried her face in the cloud, muffling her sobs. She beat her hoofs against the cloud, trying to get out her anger, but all she felt was emptiness. After a long time, the tears stopped, and she sat up. Her eyes were bloodshot and she stared blankly at the sky. The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky.

Rainbow gave a tired flap of her wings and lifted into the air, making her way slowly back to her home. The inside was a wreck, but Dash paid it no heed. She moved sluggishly through the halls and into her bedroom. She collapsed onto her bed. She was tired but restless, sleep not finding her. She could still see the betrayal on Twilight's face.

Rainbow Dash was furious at herself. How had she let that happen to Twilight? If Dash felt so bad, how would Twilight be feeling. You made her feel that way, Dash berated herself. It's your fault in the first place she's hurting. If you hadn't been so stupid, none of this would've happened.

Dash sat up, wiping the tears from her eyes. It's my fault Twilight's hurting, I need to make this right. I need to show Twilight that it was more than just a prank. That I really did feel something for her. Her mind made up, Dash took to the sky and quickly made her way to the Ponyville library.

Deciding to take the safe route, she landed by the front door and knocked. A muffled voice responded and Dash heard the sounds of footsteps making their way to the door. A moment later Spike greeted her.

"Rainbow Dash! I'm glad you're here," Spike panted, relief clear on his face. "Something really upset Twilight, she's in her room and she won't come out." Spike wrung his hands, shaking as he spoke. "She won't talk to me, but maybe she'll talk to you. "

"Sure thing Spike. You stay down here though. I think this is something that Twilight and I need to talk about alone." With that she made her way up the stairs. The tension in the air was palpable. Dash's stomach churned with guilt.

Finally she got to the door and knocked. She heard a muffled reply but no movement. She knocked again. "Spike, I just need some time a-alone." Twilight mumbled.

"Twilight?" Dash said quietly. The other side of the door fell silent. "Twilight, will you please let me in to talk to you?" Still no sounds came from her room. "Twilight, I know how you feel. You're hurt, you feel like you've been betrayed, but let me exp-" Dash was cut off by the door opening swiftly. Dash was yanked inside unceremoniously.

Twilight sat on her bed and glowered at Dash. If looks could kill, Dash would be a goner. She opened her mouth to speak before Twilight cut her off. "Let you explain?" she asked. "Let you explain!? What are you going to explain? How you pranked me? How you manipulated my emotions through letters. How you lied in every one of them, just to make me feel a certain way? Is that what you're going to explain?!" Tears began to make there way down her cheeks as she spoke, making her voice crack.

The room fell quiet once again, Dash trying to figure out how to respond to Twilight. Finally, she managed, "Yes." Twilight stared at Dash, dumbfounded by the simple reply. Seeing her moment, Dash continued. "Yeah, it all started out as a prank. I was angry over the whole Mare-Do-Well thing. I came up with a little prank I thought would be harmless." Twilight's eyebrow rose at this, but Dash continued. "I thought maybe I'd distract you from your books for a bit while you tried to figure out who was sending you the letters. I never guessed you'd get feelings for me."

"So that makes it alright?" Twilight couldn't hold herself back as she spat, "Because you didn't know what would happen?" Dash sighed and shook her head.

"No, you're right. That doesn't make it okay. Nothing can make that okay. I hurt you. It was cruel, mean, and something you didn't deserve." Twilight was quiet, thinking on Rainbow's words. "I explained why I pranked you, and I explained why I manipulated you, now let me explain why I said what I said in the letters."

The two mares looked each other in the eyes as Dash went on. "Every word I wrote in those letters was the truth. There was not a single lie among them." Confusion was apparent on Twilight's face but Dash continued before she could ask any questions. "When I was first writing the letters, I looked for things I could say about you. I looked for compliments and sweet things, everything you'd expect. It was something I hadn't really done before, but the more I wrote, the easier it became. Eventually, it became what you got in the letters. I didn't lie about any bit of that. I thought over what makes you incredible as a friend and as a pony, and I came to see a mare who anypony would be lucky to date.

"I fell for you while I wrote the letters, and I didn't even know. I only truly knew this morning. The letter I was going to give you was a letter arranging a time and place to meet. I wanted something real, not a prank, and I still do want it. You're incredible Twilight, and I am truly sorry for hurting you." Twilight was quiet as Dash spoke, taking in all her words. She sat in silence as she thought. Butterflies fluttered in Dash's stomach as she waited to see what Twilight would say.

The unicorn got up off her bed and moved over to where Dash stood. She stood in front of her friend for a moment, just looking into her eyes. Twilight slapped Dash, catching her off guard. A red welt quickly rising on her cheek. Twilight watched as Dash's eyes went through a gamut of emotion; shock, sadness, anger, and finally, acceptance.

With a sigh, Dash began to turn and said, "Well, I hope we can at least still be friends." She made her way to the door before it swung shut in front of her. Dash regarded the door as if it were a book in another language.

"That slap," Twilight said, walking over to Dash. "Was for the prank." In an instant she closed the space between them and pecked Dash on the lips. "That was for the letters," she finished, pulling Rainbow into her embrace. Warmth spread through both of them, healing up their wounded hearts.


Some Time Later

"Do you see that star there?"

"The one next to the Big Dipper?"

"Yeah, that one! That is the first star in Starswirl's Belt. That star and then the two make it up."

"Is it that one there, or that one there?

"It's that one there. You can tell because it's also pa- Ohhh wow! Did you see that shooting star?"

"Wasn't that a comet?"

"No, they're two entirely different things!"

"Huh. Never knew."

"..."

"It's beautiful out here."

"It really is. I'm glad I can share this with you."

"..."

"..."

"Do you know when I really first fell for you? It was a couple of nights before we got together. I remember I was writing you a letter, and I was stuck. I couldn't find the right phrasing or something. I decided some fresh air would be good for me, and I went for a fly. Everypony in town was asleep, except for you. You were out stargazing. I'd never really cared for it myself, but I looked up and tried to see what you saw. It was beautiful. I couldn't understand why I hadn't spent the time to care about it before. And then I looked back down at you, and there was something even more beautiful. And everything I felt about you changed. I finally understood beauty that night."

"Oh, Dash..."

"You are beauty."

Under the light of the moon, the two lovers kissed.

Author's Note:

Well, that's that! I had a lot of fun writing this. Thanks to bats, Prof Yana, Cynical, and all the other people who helped me get this out on time. Thanks to all of you who read it!

Comments ( 133 )

Nice ending.

Well done.

~Skeeter The Lurker

2573248 How The Blue Hell Did I forget About METAPHORICLE SHIT.

add that to the shit list please dear sir :twilightsmile:

I hope you have more stories out there like this one. Though this chapter feels a tad bit rushed still overall great

I loved this story! 9/10! :twilightblush:

A lovely story. Funny, and light, and sweet, and heartfelt.

JBL

Thank you for such an incredible story.

The was good. There is just one problem: You ended it too abruptly.

This is not something I can really explain, but the way it ended is just too fast. You went from the first mention of the conflict to the resolution between the last line of one chapter and halfway through the next. It's not BAD, but I would have liked to see it drawn out a bit longer.

It doesn't feel rushed, it just feels sudden.

Great story. Thank you very much for writing it. :twilightsmile:

Well that was cute, definitely a good read though it did feel a bit rushed near the end. Still though, Twi and Dash got together in a good way. :rainbowdetermined2:

Good ending for a good story.

Nice work.

:fluttercry:
Beautiful
Just, beautiful.

2573484 I agree one hundred percent. It is because of the deadline for the contest, and it is no doubt sudden.

Bravo! Amazing job! I expect great romance fics from you, my friend! :pinkiehappy:

Right in the feels :heart:

Okay. Are you happy now? A single tear was shed.

2573547
I actually really like it. I couldn't even begin to count the TwiDash fics that just drag to conflict on, and on, and on, and on, etc., etc.
I'm glad you didn't fall into that trap! :twilightsmile::heart::rainbowdetermined2:

YEAH YOU BETTER HAVE MADE THINGS RIGHT YOU TALENTED SON OF A BITCH!

tears of joy cascading,
I am bowing,
Well doing,
See you in what might be upcoming.
We all hope!

i really liked it but it could have been much more like twilight doubting her fillings once she knows dash wrote the letter or dash sending the letters to make twilight happy insted of just confesing but it was really good nonetheless :twilightsmile:

Very, very nice story. The ending seemed a bit rushed, but otherwise very good. Thanks for writing this, and good luck on any other stories!

By the way, I'm a bit disturbed that the Master was one of your editors...

I must say, I quite enjoyed reading this.

However, I can't help but shake the feeling that the story was kind of rushed. It's a nice story, no lie there. But it did go by so very quickly.
Kudo's on the writing style though, quite nice. Maybe a little less descriptive than I usually like, but I play a blind pony so I might be exaggerating the descriptions.

Anyways, you get a smile for effort and a wink for fun :twilightsmile::raritywink:

Yours truly,
Sugarcubes

I would very much like to see you go back after the contest, and expand the last few chapters and polish them. Do you think you could do that?

2573601 All but the last 3 chapters.

the ending was cute. but it was rushed way to much. I feel this could have been longer and grow better. I

Thank you for the journey, it has been magnificent.

Amazing story but I wish it was longer

2573547

Honestly, I think this was a great set-up, and a sort of terrible ending.

After the contest ends, I really think you should come back to this, see if you can take more time with it. I, for one, would really enjoy something like this done right, and the first two chapters show that you could pull it off.

If you decide not to, I won't be upset or anything, but I think this story has enough potential to be worth giving another shot. Good luck with whatever you do!

I see a lot of people saying that the ending feels rushed, and while I agree that the conflict scene could use a bit more polish, my main concern is that the stargazing finalie feels tacked on. It's a cute little sequence, but not enough for an epilogue and too much for anything else.

tl;dr : I think this story had the perfect end with the hug :twilightblush:

Gah. I was hoping for a... not really sad, but less happy ending. However, it is still written well enough, so not entirely disappoint. This story almost made me feel some feels.

Almost.

(Stands up and claps) Well done.:ajsmug:

Aww. How cute I love stories like this :heart:

I really liked the story: the premise was fun, the development was stellar, and the conflict was juicy. My only real strife was how quickly it was resolved.
Forget about the contest; you should write an alternate version that has the 5+ chapters where this one is now.

2573934>>2573938>>2573920>>2573849>>2573806>>2573675>>2573668>>2573661>>2573508>>2573470 2574012 Alright, first off, I'd like to thank you all for reading. Until the judging for this contest is over, I won't change anything from what is now posted. However, once the contest is over and the winner is announced, I will be going through this and making edits and fixing up the pacing and other parts I have problems with, because the pacing is really off and it does take away from the quality of the story.

2574039

Alright, I'll look forward to it. :rainbowdetermined2:

The ending was too sappy for my taste, and perhaps worse, formulaic. The sappiness may be a matter of taste, but I do think this chapter could use some editing apart from that as well.

But still, this was pretty good. Especially if written on a tight schedule as seems to be the case.

Honestly... you could have done so much more with this. You could have developed intense character personalities, driven them through trials and tugged and Dash and Twilight until finally everything was discovered. This could have been a great novel length fic.

At 11,000 words, it falls short of all of that. This fic didn't work as such a short story. The reason I hate that so much is the fact that, for the past week, this fic was so interesting that I would immediately read it upon update (something I NEVER do, I tend to wait days) and to see it end on such a fast-paced, unresolved note was–as you perfectly put it–a slap in the face.

There are some things you need to understand just don't work as one shots (I count this as a one shot, 1k chapters..), if IADBGOYD was 11k words long, imagine how well developed that would've been? It would never have reached the greatness it did without all 200k. On the flip side, if For Those We Left Behind was 200k words, Drakmire would've ran out of things to write.

This could have been an amazing fic. Could have.

Despite this, I enjoyed the little that there was.

Edit: Just thought I'd mention, I'm aware this is a contest fic. If I were writing this, I'd of dropped out the second I got the flow of this story. It had potential, and this just feels like a cop-out.

An adorable end to an adorable story.
Well done!

I spy, with my little eye, a tiny grammatical error or two.
In Timaeus' story, I wrenched every last error from it.

Nonetheless, I loved the story, and it was amazingly done. However, the transition from the last chapter to this one was a tad bit abrupt for me. For a moment, I thought I'd missed a chapter explaining how it got here, only to realize that there was half a paragraph for it at the end of the last chapter.

Also, I feel like the fallout should have lasted just a hair longer. I guess it's just me, but I tend to enjoy stories where the main conflict lasts a while.

Still, a great read, and a fierce competitor for the contest.

<3 DarqFox

absolutely fantastic.:raritystarry: All of my yes. You've expressed a mastery of words and emotions here.

Any chance for a sequel story?:heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart:

Great story, adorable, I feel the end a little tiny rushed, but It was great, thanks. :twilightsmile::rainbowkiss:

2574267 You're right, everything you say here is right, there's no denying that. If I knew when I started writing this how it would've turned out, I no doubt would've dropped out of the contest to develop it. I see know that I could have done so much more with this. Near the end I felt obliged to finish because I was so close to the end, but I do intend to go back and fix the ending, because it doesn't do the writing I've done justice.

As a writer, that was my downfall. I wasn't able to properly gauge how it would go. I'm new at writing and story telling in general, and I made a mistake.

2574528

I'd like to see what you write in the future, so I'll toss a creeper eye on your page. Just keep the chapters longer as well lol, its annoying to read for three minutes at a time. Rather wait a week for a 10k chapter.

Near the end I felt obliged to finish because I was so close to the end, but I do intend to go back and fix the ending, because it doesn't do the writing I've done justice.

are you making it longer as a whole or just changing things? either way the story was very much enjoyable.

also what is this, Subsolar giving us a happy ending :yay:? or where you planning on playing with our minds by making this a prologue to What We Lose?

great story i will be awaiting the changes because i know they would be good coming from you with no deadline pressuring it

2574612 That remains to be seen.

Alright, not bad, not bad at all...thumbs up!

No, don't let it be over!:raritycry:

Awww, this was sweet, well written, and just all around good! =) Dawww, sometimes the warm-and-fuzzy stories (mixed with some drama!) are the best! =D

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