Chapter 9
“...” Twilight simply stopped, her eyes going wide. The entire world froze, save for her quivering pupils. A single shaft of hair sprang from her head, and her tail stiffened. Celestia watched the smaller princess’s pupils track from one side of her eyes to the other in quick succession, as if the new alicorn was searching her entire life for the moment when this could possibly have happened. At last, she shifted, the colour draining from her face save her cheeks. She mouthed three, simple words. The kind of words anyone would say in response to a revelation of that nature coming from an old friend. “Wha...I...bwuh?”
Celestia, of course, expected this entirely. She did not expect Twilight to hit the floor immediately afterwards, however. Twilight’s body folded on itself awkwardly, her pupils rolling past her eyelids in the process. She made a little “oh” noise, which was followed by the soft “thud” of her knees colliding with the floor. Twilight forced herself not to collapse entirely with a groan, bracing herself. Celestia made to support her, but Twilight waved her away with a wing. “I can stand. I’m fine...I’m good. Yeah. Didn’t see that one coming, Princess.”
“Take your time,” Celestia said, trying her best not to panic. She could not flee, could not stall and could not divert. For the rest of the conversation, her entire soul would be as naked and expose to the elements as she had been that time Discord had shaved her and Luna for his amusement. She was practically shivering already.
Twilight, despite herself, saw the gentle smile and the reassurances for what they were. “It’s not...bad...really. Really! It’s not. It’s just a little…‘whoa’.”
“‘Whoa’?”
“Like...like if you told me you were a colt, or I was adopted, or…No! No, Princess, I don’t think either of those are bad. Don’t look at me like that. Those were bad examples. It’s...big. Not...bad. Just..just give me a minute, okay? It just makes me think of a lot of things I said and did that might have…” Twilight’s face lit up with satisfaction at a metaphor she could use. “It’s like when you said you were gay! I didn’t know what to say at first, and I kinda still don’t. I knew it wouldn’t change how I thought of you, but it did change how I thought about you. Does that even make sense?” She turned to Celestia.
“You may have lost me,” Celestia said with bated breath.
“It made me think about a lot of things about me, and how I saw you, too. I didn’t even know ponies could be gay...or...not like that.”
“Like that?” Celestia once again was very certain to state her words softly but firmly. She wished to know exactly what Twilight was thinking, for she knew a single miscommunication risked irreparably straining the bond she valued so very much.
Twilight looked at her, smoothing her hair down with her front hooves as best as she could. “I thought it would just be obvious, like it is with Bon Bon and Lyra. I didn’t know you could not know, the way you said you did, and I’m still trying to piece everything you said about it together, both how it is for you and for me. I’m still trying to piece you together, Princess. The moment I learned that I started to wonder: Am I gay? Do I not just know it yet? I was only attracted to like one or two ponies growing up, anyway. Did I just not know it yet? And what about you? What was it like hiding that big secret and forcing yourself to try to un-gay yourself? What could I do to heal that?”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Heal...my sexuality? You think there is some way to ‘cure’ me?”
“W-what?! No! Heal what happened to you! Not what you are! Oh, Luna, I’m so bad at this.” Twilight planted her head into her wing, hiding from Celestia as best as she could.
Celestia touched a wing of her own to Twilight’s shoulder. “I understand, Twilight. I merely took your wording out of context. As you are well aware, I’m very nervous. This is very big. For both of us. As I said, take your time. And if I ask a question, don’t worry about my being offended unless I say I am. I’m merely hoping to understand.”
“Understand. Right, okay. Where was I? Oh! Wondering about the things that you being gay meant for my being gay, right?” Celestia gave a little nod. Twilight took in a breath. “So, questions like that. And then questions about what it felt like to be gay. Did you find me sexy? I--I need a cha...” Twilight whipped open the cupboards, descending into unintelligible murmurs. She craned her neck around for something with intense fervor. Her face remained neutral and focused until she at last spotted something. “This’ll have to do!” Twilight threw a table cloth against the wall, pinning the corners with forks.
Celestia raised an eyebrow, then found herself grinning a private grin. Twilight used a tube of frosting to write a set of items running down the swath of cotton.
1. Princess Celestia is gay
--Inquire about personal life
--Make observations about own personal life
--Compare contrast.
--Repeat with other ponies of homosexual orientation; add control.
--Chart the feelings until an understanding of potential homosexuality
is reached.
2. Princess Celestia has a crush on me--
Celestia smeared the writing on this bulletin, ignoring Twilight’s irritated groan. She wrote in a magical ink generated from her horn:
2. Celestia is in love with you
Twilight sighed, accommodating the changes with a bittersweet smile. She looked again, and then said to her old teacher, “One day you’re going to have to teach me how to do that ink spell.”
Celestia gave a smirk, forgetting herself for a moment and falling back into their natural roles. “If I did nopony’s upholstery would ever be safe again.”
“You and I both know I’m going to clean it off afterwards.”
“Of course I do.” Celestia smiled, her disappointment at the lack of blushing quashed by the simple joy of being able to spend time with Twilight being Twilight once again. The second item expanded further:
--Observe how this changes the relationship between you.
--Weigh the positives and negatives of the changes this brings about
--Make a decision to pursue or reject this change in relationship based
upon the prior data
--If option a is chosen: Desired result achieved for both parties.
Reanalyze at stable point in new relationship.
--If option b is chosen: Remind Celestia how you feel about her and
how good the old relationship was. Try to find compromise.
Consider advice from Rarity and Spike. Ice Cream.
Twilight gave a contented nod, turning back to Celestia. “You said a while back I shouldn’t analyze how I feel like this, but both you and Rarity said that only I could decide how I truly felt about something. The only way I could know that is by thinking about it the way I approach things I don’t understand. Which is by analyzing them.”
“Just promise me you won’t strap me down to a polygraph machine.” Celestia gave a good-natured smile. She resisted the temptation to make an innuendo, weighing the chance of an adorable blush as inferior to the risk of instilling legitimate panic and misconceptions.
“No, no, I--” Twilight gave a sheepish, cheesy smile and ran a hoof through her mane. “Doesn’t strapping you down come a little later on, anyway?”
Celestia blushed at this. Too late.
“Oh! Sorry! I...uhm, sorry. I thought that would make you laugh. Yes, not appropriate. Sorry.” Twilight was blushing herself now, and her voice was starting to remind Celestia of Fluttershy’s.
Celestia smiled. “It’s alright, Twilight. I’m not used to being this exposed. Expect me to be a little bit…” Celestia searched for the word.
“Natural?” Twilight ventured. “I feel like this whole time, especially with the gay thing, but with this, too, you haven’t really been changing. You’ve just been showing me who you really are.”
Celestia swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Beads of sweat began to form on her brow, too. “I suppose, yes. That is most likely accurate.” She cursed herself for showing the anxiety that welled up inside her.
“I really like it.” Twilight said simply, but forcefully. The two smiled in sync. “I want to know the real you the same way I know my friends.” She thought for a moment, then shook her head and stomped her hoof. “No, there’s more to it than that. I want to know what it means to fall in love. I don’t want to make the same mistakes I made with Trixie. I want to try to fall in love.”
Celestia’s breath caught. “And how, precisely, were you wanting to go about that?” She tried to ignore the bate in her breath.
Twilight considered. The events of the evening passed through her mind, ordering themselves into a checklist. She could not simply throw herself into things without thinking--Flash had proven that. She also couldn’t hold back and try to apply models that worked in the past as if they would work perfectly in the future--Trixie had confirmed that. Lastly, she couldn’t simply force her idea of a date upon somepony else--her first attempts at dating showed as much.
Then she thought about what had and what hadn’t worked thus far. Talking with Trixie had been good, even if she had flubbed it by being dishonest with her. Touching horns had also been good. She thought to what her sister-in-law and her brother were to each other. And then she thought of what was going on in her own head. She moved forward, making sure to take Celestia’s front hooves in her own. She searched deep into her old mentor’s eyes, uncertainty reflecting in her own. “In a way that feels right to us. I don’t know what that could be. A date doesn’t seem quite right. Not the way we’ve been doing it. After all, dates are just ways to get to know ponies you want a little fling with. That’s really not what you’re going for, is it?”
“What?”
“Well, we want something a little more meaningful, I imagine, so--”
“I understand that, Twilight. However, what you said before about dates is false.”
“What do you mean? I thought--well, the way you were talking about all of the ponies you dated...And the way that Rarity talks about it...You made it sound like a date was just a way to have fun with somepony and joke around a little. Like, playing at being in love and only going on to something if you got past the corny pick-up lines in my dating book and the candle lights and dinners. I could never do that with you. It’s such a waste of our time together, of--of what we have. It’s so...shallow.”
Celestia’s eyes widened, and she understood at last what Twilight had meant by those words she had overheard half a day ago now. “I’m afraid, Twilight, that you and I both have been victims of false impressions.” Celestia beckoned Twilight to follow her with a casual flick of her wing, turning her body with a shift of her back hooves and trotting to the door. Twilight compiled, following her out of the kitchen and back towards the freshly-repaired tabletop.
“How do you mean?”
“I am afraid I breached your trust this afternoon, Twilight. I’m sorry. If you need me to explain, I can, though I would rather not taint the evening by getting off on the wrong hoof, if you’ll permit me my secrecy for the moment. I can assure you that I regret it now, and that what has come of it will not hurt you or anypony else any longer.”
“All...right?” Twilight raised an eyebrow, tilting her head in confusion. “I guess we can talk about that after we’ve cleared up this whole thing about what dating actually means.”
Celestia smiled. “Did you look up the definition?”
Twilight blushed. “Well, no, but--I mean, I assumed...and a scientist doesn’t make assumptions. Right.”
“Operating on an inference is not the end of the world, Twilight. But do note that a date is much like a romantic relationship itself. It can have any kind of connotation you desire. Consider that most partners propose to their spouses on a date. The seriousness or frivolity of a date depends on what you personally wish. You and the person you are with, of course. We will have no Twilight-Sparkle-is-the-greatest-pony-ever-whether-she-likes-it-or-not dates, I can assure you.”
The two of them gave an awkward laugh at that, the thought of Flash already bringing more comedy than discomfort to them as the events of the evening fell further away.
Twilight smiled over at Celestia. “Well, in that case, I think I’d like to try something a little bit safer first, if you don’t mind. No public. Spike’s in the library--I’ll have to check in on him at some point, but I’d rather not go through the explaining right now--and anywhere else in Ponyville risks Pinkie Pie interrupting.”
“Might I suggest the solarium, then?”
“But it’s so late.” Twilight protested. “By the time we get there, it’ll be basically sunset, and the light won’t refract at all.”
“The guards give me privacy when I am setting the sun. Frankly, it’s a wonder they haven’t checked on me yet by this point. If you wish to watch the sun and gather your thoughts before the setting, it will give you a perfect chance to do so. Afterwards, we can simply admire the dusk. I’ve been told I spend too much time gushing about twilight as it is, after all.”
The pony in question only blushed at this. “Corny pick-up-lines” She mumbled, her hooves rising to shield her head from the horror that was being praised by a loved one. Celestia allowed her to regain her composure, making sure to keep a wing touching Twilight’s shoulders lightly the entire time. Eventually, Twilight poked her head out from between the hooves. “Could we, I dunno, do some magic or read something at the same time? I feel like I need something normal with all the crazy stuff that’s been going on today. If you don’t mind.”
Celestia gave a nervous smile. “Alright.”
---／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼---
Twilight’s stomach sank with the sun. A thousand and one thoughts were churning through her stomach. Fears of the disasters she was sure to bring about in not but a moment’s time. Rather than focus on them, she distracted herself by watching the colours that exploded over the solarium. Still, thoughts did trickle through to her no matter how hard she tried to shut them out. Am I really able to be attracted to a mare?. The sun slid down without so much as a twitch. She remembered her time trying to bring the celestial body up and gave a marvel at how Celestia did it with such an effortless, elegant touch. I...I mean, do I even find stallions attractive? Some thoughts of some of the ponies Shining Armor spent his time with passed through her mind. In the real world, sunlight rushed through the panels of arranged glasswork, flooding stained glass reliefs of a crescent moon set against a dark blue background surrounded by pegasi. There had been a tentative first crush focused on one of Shining’s old hoofball teammates. A bodybuilder with a soft side. He had been a study in male anatomy. The light bounced across several curved mirrors arranged on wire frames, causing long shadows to seep from the blue emblem and towards the opposite wall. She thought of a heavy chest rippling with muscles, the simple thought of the warmth they might provide keeping her company when Spike was brought back to the nursery and she was left alone in the night. The glisten of sweat on lean and powerful biceps. The odour of confidence. Of security. Of company. The light next reached a blue heart with a white ribbon in its background. A set of mirrors and a prism at the back forced dancing lights to glimmer across the glass skins of crystal ponies accompanying the glasswork.
She tried to put a female body next to the male one. Was there something there for her? She thought of how the hugs she got from Pinkie Pie compared. Thoughts of the curve of Celestia’s figure filled her mind, and she tried to find them somehow physically attractive. Could she? The light broke over a golden and orange sun framed by a group of earth ponies, the orange and red light of the sunset at last filling the solarium. The cutie mark shimmered, pulling all of Twilight’s attention to it. She was all at once transported back to her earliest memories of Celestia. Everyone staring at her and smiling. The thought of that acceptance. That...love? Could she find something in that moment that she hadn’t before? She thought back to the stallion. He had been...at first, she hadn’t found him all that special. It was only when she had snooped on him, had learned more about him, that she had found there were things about his body she could appreciate. The way his neck sat proud and strong against his body. The way his shoulders sagged and his face lit up when he was under pressure. The way his wings twitched when he was impatient--which had been often.
She’d always wanted to talk to him, to ask him, but...she’d been young. Far too young. Could she have made it work, if he were a she and Twilight had been an adult? She wanted to believe she could have. She wanted to notice a thousand and one little things about Celestia that made her tingle with joy, like the heavenly flow of a star-studded mane or the layer of fat that snuggled itself around the older alicorn’s form. But there was still that same reservation she had felt about the other pony, about Trixie, about all of her dates. That same primal fear that everything would go horribly, horribly wrong, and she’d lose yet another friend to the disaster that was her trying to date sprung up within her, paralyzing her attempts to think straight and organize her feelings.
The last light of the evening rescued her from her thoughts, showering her and the solarium in deep reds and purples. Her horn suddenly gave a buzzing sensation. The room had been enchanted. The high stress of the situation summoned a dozen potential acts of terrorism in her mind, and she swept her horn to see what was there. She turned to face a powerful deposit of magic that had sprung up on the right side of the solarium, positioned just to the right of Celestia’s cutie mark. Her eyes widened when she saw it.
There, dancing and shimmering across the glass was a set of enchantments. Unicorns danced across the glasswork, pulling a little sun behind them. One by one, the unicorns dropped in exhaustion, watching the others pull with all their might. New unicorns came and joined, and eventually they too dropped off, until at last there was only one unicorn pulling the sun. Twilight recognized him instantly. “Starswirl?” She questioned, staring at the bells and the beard that betrayed the cloaked pony’s identity instantly. She watched her old idol pulling the sun with hope in her eyes, knowing that if a pony as wise and powerful as him couldn’t do something as taxing as this, nopony could. And then, to her horror, he, too, started weakening. The beard that had started as full and bushy started turning grey. A coat that had once been a bright midnight blue turned cyan. The unicorn she loved so slumped in defeat, and at last the sun was tossed loose. A white hoof touched on Starswirl’s chin, and all at once there was Princess Celestia towing the sun back down to earth. The unicorns clustered around her, and then Luna joined her. Twilight noticed with a start that this magic had been edited into the enchantment, and, what was more, it was Celestia’s own magic.
“Enjoying the pageant, Twilight?” Celestia stepped through the open door, a quiet smile on her face.
“When did this happen?” Twilight gestured a hoof at the enchantments.
“It is a rare treat for those who stay long enough to admire the twilight. You, of course, were always racing off to gather your star charts by the time the sun was starting to set. I’ve always wanted you to see it. Especially the parts at the end, which were added by me at Luna’s request. We can watch the entire thing, if you’d like. If not, my study is not far off, and, as you know, full of those rare books you so enjoy.”
“I’d be happy to watch. I just...I never thought there would be anything special about sunset.”
“A recurring flaw of yours, yes.” Celestia chuckled. “We’ll see if we can’t fix that at some point. But come, watch, we are getting to the part where I scared off a dragon with a light show.”
“I've read all of this in your journal, you know.”
“Reading is not the same as seeing, Twilight. You know this by now.”
“Well...yes. But I also know that I’d rather hear it from you if I’m gonna experience it. Experiences with friends are always a lot more meaningful.”
Celestia's smile grew a bit sad at the word ‘friend’. “I’m sorry I imposed this upon you, Twilight.”
“I’m sorry I’m not the pony you need me to be right now.” Twilight sighed. “I just...I don’t know. Maybe I can’t fall in love. Maybe I’m gay. I just don’t know what I am right now, and that’s probably not what you need. I wish I had my thoughts…” Twilight trailed off, staring at the windows. “Well, anyway. The story. The one on the glasswork. I don’t remember reading anything in the journal about it. Maybe I missed my part. I did start reading in the middle, given I assumed you had a lot to say from before you found the Elements.”
Celestia’s smile grew distant, the old memories taking her back. “What do you remember about your foalhood, Twilight?”
“Wha--Oh, right. I think I get where this is going. Umm, well, I remember a lot of days spent reading. Big surprise, I know. And I remember a lot of quiet days spent by myself. Sometimes I’d do something silly, like test lockpicking spells on my parents’ wardrobes in the middle of the night, and sometimes I’d do things that were really important later on in my life, only I wouldn’t realize it. Like that time I learned how to take care of foals so that I could look after myself that week Cadance was sick because my parents wanted to have an anniversary dinner. I never knew I’d be looking after a baby dragon seven years later, but it came in handy. Or that time I memorized all those facts about griffon biology. I remember being the nurse’s aide at school for when Gabby got sick all the time. But the best part about my foalhood was definitely my big--”
“Your Big Brother Best Friend Forever?”
“Yes, I--how did you guess?”
Celestia giggled. “I remember more than a few choice occasions, but suffice it to say I also understand the sentiment, having had a Little Sister Best Friend Forever of my own.”
Twilight awaited the heavy feeling of the spectre of Nightmare Moon to take over the conversation at that point, but Celestia’s smile was free and easy.
“Starswirl the Bearded was our Big Brother Best Friend Forever, Twilight. He helped us with our magic the same way I helped you, and yet he also did things for us I never did for you. He was our councillor, our rock, a pony who raised us in place of our parents. And even then, he was a brilliant mage as part of all of that. Almost sixty percent of the spells attributed to him were actually his invention, which is more than can be said for any other unicorn of his era. Almost a hundred spells all his own, all told.”
“Starswirl took credit for other ponies’ work?” Twilight sounded aghast.
“He was not the most social of ponies even at the best of times. Imagine if you had never grown up, Twilight. He hated strangers, fled social outings at the first chance and pushed others away by being obtuse and snobby. But he loved ponies. He just didn’t know how to trust them to love him back.”
Twilight swallowed, looking down. Celestia wrapped a wing around her, smiling.
“Of course, you overcame that where he did not.”
“I...I did, didn’t I? When I hear you talk about him, all I can think about is how much I wish I could teach him about how much friends matter the same way my friends taught me. It’s so horrible that he never had any.”
“He had us, though. He taught us, laughed with us, showed us how to hone our talents until we knew them well, and then he would tuck us in every night.” Celestia hummed, the warm memory sitting comfortably in the depths of her consciousness. “Having a loved one watching over you when you sleep is a rare blessing, Twilight. I hope you can appreciate it some day.”
“I have Spike.” Twilight smiled. “I really wish I could tell him how much I appreciate everything he does for me. It just seems like he brushes it off whenever I find the right words. Umm..Before that I had mom and dad.” She thought for a moment on how her current experiences could compare to what Celestia was asking of her. She thought of white wings holding her in her bed, and there was something there for her. Maybe it was chaste, maybe it was not, but the thought of waking up beside this pony she knew she cared about was not at all unappealing. The thought of it made her curiosity twitch and her head turn to look up at Celestia. “What about you? Do you ever have anypony like that anymore?”
Celestia merely looked away. This time it was Twilight’s turn to put her wing on Celestia’s shoulder.
“You should. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be me, you should.” Twilight tried to give a strong smile, but there was a part of her that ached with guilt at how she was treating this pony she cared so much about. Why was it she couldn’t feel the way she wished she could feel for Celestia? What was it that was filling her with so much dread over the idea of even trying to date her?
Celestia turned back to her either way, and smiled at the heart-melting sight of Twilight trying to be strong for her. She pulled the former unicorn into an embrace, the two folding together in a spirited mess of feathers, fur and limbs.
“A-and even if it doesn’t, I’ll always be here.”
“I know, Twilight,” Celestia’s voice wavered, but there was a joy there, too. “I know.” She pulled her neck out from the crook of Twilight’s neck.
“Eventually, we started to grow up. Time wore on. He went from our mentor to our equal, and, eventually, my student. I continued to urge him to make friends. The friends I had made gave me strength and made me whole. I tried to help him see how they could do the same for him. But always his duties came first, and always he would have something very important to do that involved not talking to me about the conversation. In the end, it cost him his life.” Celestia’s ears folded back, and her eyes followed the lines of the floor.
“The power over the sun is not a light thing, Twilight. Twelve unicorns were needed to raise a sun through their own power every day. It was tradition that the twelve most powerful would be the ones to do the lifting, and that the head of the council would spend their time finding and grooming replacements. The average council member lasted twenty years before the tax on their body was too much. In spending his time studying new magics and training us, Starswirl had neglected finding his replacements. Eventually, one pony dropped off the team, and then another, and then another, until Starswirl was lifting the sun by himself for days upon end. He never told us. Not even once. He even invested in time travel, trying to find means to extend his life, expand his magic and push forward in our training. We, of course, were completely ignorant of this struggle. It was only when he collapsed at our door, grey-bearded and withered by then, that we pulled the truth from him at last.
“He raised the sun as part of his duties. Every day it was draining their magic, and still the entire unicorn race hid it from us because they didn’t want us to worry. Because they wanted us to love them. By the time he came to us, he was well past saving. He...we nursed him to health enough to last until the day when we finally raised the sun. It was not long after that that he passed. He did not even live to see the lowering of the moon. Before he passed, he said something to me that still rings through to this day. ‘I suppose that is the danger of you two. You make people want to impress you.’” To her surprise, she noticed Twilight’s eyes were quivering. “I’m sorry, dear, is this too much? I know how much he means to you--”
“Well, yeah, it hits a little close to home, is all.” Twilight sagged. “I do a lot of dumb things trying to impress you, and it’s just because of exactly that. I want to be like you. I want to be loved like you.” She sighed. “And by you. Guess I got that last one and then some, huh?”
“Twilight,” Celestia bit her lip, sensing the subtext in a heartbeat. “I will always love you, even if you turn me down. You should know this by now. I am not an old rival suddenly warring with feelings of attraction, nor am I a guard who has some peculiar obsession with you. I merely want to explore our relationship in a way I feel could make us both happier. If you disagree, you disagree, and I will spend some time feeling hurt and disappointed, and then things will return to normal.”
“I guess.” She didn’t sound at all certain. Celestia sighed. “Why don’t you tell me the rest of the story?” Twilight gave a little smile, forcing herself to sound certain, confident and supportive for the thousandth time that night.
“Twilight, I--yes, we can do that, if you’d like.” Celestia gave a weak smile.
“I’d like to hear more about your end of it. I mean, Princess, I do love you. Don’t forget that. It’s just that with all this craziness and everything that might happen, I feel like...I feel like I’m forgetting that. I feel like I’m just throwing up walls of panic without thinking about you. I don’t want to forget what makes me love you, ever. Not for anything. And the story makes me think of that.”
“Because of the history behind it?”
“No, no. It is that, but much more than that. You took up the most important job in all of Equestria without a second’s thought to just to help some other strangers you’d never met just because a pony you loved had been hurt. He hadn’t even finished telling you and you wanted to help.” She touched her eyes, looked at the drops of moisture and gave a little, quiet chuckle. “It’s not that it’s not a sad story. It is. But it’s also a beautiful one. And that. That is why I love you.” She gave a nod, as if retroactively affirming her own views.
Celestia blinked. “You think so? It was only the natural thing to do.”
“You took over the entirety of a generations-long process that the lives of all of the citizens of Equestria depended upon, permanently. Without even blinking,” Twilight’s tone contained a paradoxical mix of sarcasm and warmth, and it was doing uncomfortable things to Celestia’s ability to think straight.
“Well, I suppose it may reflect upon me. But it was only my duty, what with what I was born with. You of all ponies should know exactly what I mean.”
“That isn’t true at all. Look at Sombra. Look at Discord. You could have done anything you wanted with that power. Me? When I was that age, I was locked up in a tower being bitter at everypony who wasn’t my family because they treated me like a freak. It wasn’t something that anypony would do. It was you. All you.” Twilight was looking at her with nothing but admiration in her eyes.
“Actually, when you were that age you were fighting Tirek with the sum of all magical power in Equestria in the balance, but the point is taken.” Celestia smiled. Twilight gave a nervous smile herself. “Is something the matter?”
“I don’t know. I always feel bad when you talk about me like I compare to you.”
Celestia smiled and reached out her wing. She touched Twilight with the flight feathers, primaries trailing sweetly along the edge of a distant shoulder, and the panicky pony leaned into it, grateful for the touch. “Is it because you feel afraid you are going to fail? Or because you don’t feel it is deserved?”
Twilight shifted. “A bit of both. I’m sorry, we were having such a great conversation about how you took over the sun from Starswirl and the old unicorn regime. Let’s go back to that.”
“Should we talk a bit about my failures, then?” Celestia gave a simple smile. “You seem to ignore them.”
“It’s not just that.” Twilight waved a hoof. “I mean, yes, I get that you aren’t always perfect. But that’s not at all what the problem is. I’ve yelled at you before, you know.” She gave a chuckle, and they both smiled at the memory of her outbursts as if it were a kind of private joke. Twilight’s smile faded. “The pr-problem...The problem is…” Celestia gave a soft, powerful smile, lowering her head so that her eyes were staring into Twilight’s, showing her there was no judgement in her gaze. It was the push the scholarly alicorn needed. “The problem is me. You can do so much better. You can do so much better, Princess! You keep talking about me like I’m some kind of great pony. You don’t even know. All of the panic, a-and the insanity and the snideness and the denseness and the jealousy and the fear and--And then you’re going to see who I am deep down, and you’re going to--”
Celestia cut her off with a frown.“Twilight, what was the moment you would say is the one you are most ashamed of?”
“I...I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Because you’re afraid that I’ll walk away? After all this? After everything I’ve said that you’ve been able to swallow without a second thought and all of the time we’ve spent together?”
Twilight looked at her hooves. “Well...it was just after Discord...I’d let everypony down in the maze, so I kept trying to make everything perfect and better than it ever had been before. I was so focused on that that one week I forgot to send a letter to the Princes--”
Celestia giggled. “I thought that might be the case. And who was it who was there when you were talking about how terrible a student you were and how you deserved to fail back to kindergarten?”
“Well--I mean--I--Oh.” Twilight’s lips formed a circle, and her eyes widened. She didn’t say anything for almost a minute, simply staring at Celestia illuminated by the first break of the evening. Twilight had arrived across Equestria. “It--I mean--All this time, I--I’m an idiot.” She slapped a hoof to her forehead.
“And what did she say to you in return?”
“Something about how she was going to give me another chance?” Twilight thought, putting a hoof to her chin.
“Actually, I believe my exact words were ‘you are a wonderful student. I don’t need to get a letter from you every week to know that.’”
Twilight’s eyes widened. She was silent for another moment, gathering her thoughts. Celestia ached to scan her eyes, to find some way to deduce what was running through the alicorn's mind, but she resisted. An invasion of Twilight's privacy would only throw a wedge between the two of them that she could not afford to face. At last, Twilight looked down, saying to her hooves, “All this time I thought you were going to have all these things about you that were different and big and I wouldn’t be able to get. And that there’d be so much that wouldn’t work out because of all the things I am that I thought a pony like you would never love.” She looked up, and there was a serious, penetrating look in her eyes. “But it’s just you. Beneath all the masks, and all this other stuff about being gay and being in love and everything we’ve said and done tonight, it’s all still you.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’s all still me’?”
“The pony I saw at the Summer Sun Celebration. She’s not just my idol, she’s--my friend. And maybe she’s going to be something else. But either way, it’s not something new and I don’t have to worry about being another pony. You don’t have any expectations, do you?” There was a quiver of uncertainty in her voice, but there was still a strength to it. A sensation of building.
“I expect nothing from you, Twilight. It’s only my good luck that you’re the kind of pony who gives everypony everything they can.” There was a quiet smile between them, then, though Twilight looked as though she was about to shift. She seemed to have something to say, and something that would launch them into another conversation where they would be treading new ground with one another. Celestia decided to break the tension. “For the record, Twilight, I believe that we would categorize you as a ‘genius’ at the school. But you do have a tendency to trip over your own hooves, so to speak. There is seldom a sight I like to describe more to the guards than a flustered Twilight Sparkle. I remember when we--” And then Twilight was pushing her horn against Celestia’s, head craning to breach the gap between them. Celestia closed her eyes, letting currents of electricity and magic push between the two of them in a delicate gesture.
The horns slid against one another, magic streaming between the two in a delicate dance that lit up the glass of the room and set the enchanted figures whirling in lazy arcs. Then the horns pulsed, and the two alicorns saw into one another's' hearts.
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5017882 Et viola! A new chapter for you!
"Free cookie to anybody who can guess Twilight's sexuality."
Are we talking about Single Target Sexuality, or asexuality here? My impression is she's either the former, or pretty asexual+mildly aromantic.
Nice job keeping up the tension all chapter.
5017971 You are close, but incorrect. And thank ye.
Twilight seems to be demisexual.
Another greats chapter! keep up the great work
Sapiosexual/Demi-sexual? i.e. Only sexually attracted to people (or ponies, in this case) with whom one already has a strong emotional bond? Honestly, it fits her almost too well.
I have a feeling that she is bisexual but I am probably wrong
She's Bi! Probably not..... Ah to tarturus with it!!
She sounds Bisexual to me
5018052 5018049 And we have our winners! Surprised it happen so quickly (and so simultaneously)!
5018193
*noms on cookie* Mmm...tasty
I'm just going to say sapiosexual because I do not care if I'm wrong but secretly hoping I'm right even if I'm not basing my decision on anything but I feel it would kinda fit.
Second guess is pan-sexual just because I want to cover all the things
5018244 You are, oddly enough, correct.
Is she attracted to concepts of a person more than them? i dunno if that's even a thing.
I'd say something along the lines of Pansexual, or whatever the sexuality of an uryuom is:
Ahh damnit i should know the term.
Anyway friggin fantastic chapter. I wish i could learn not to read this one at work cause now everyone is gonna wonder why the maintenance guy is all misty eyed.
5018285 media.giphy.com/media/WwsdpAW985M6k/giphy.gif
But it was a good guess.
Hah. No wonder I didn't get it.. I find demisexuality quite confusing.. even though it describes me -- or maybe it would be more that I find the concept of not being demisexual confusing : "I don't know them, but they're hot as hell" generally comes across as bizarre nonsense to me.
Sapiosexual is a term new to me. Not really sure that it'll end up hanging around, it seems to be extremely specific.
5018312 Most people can't understand the sexuality of others. It's a unique and private thing. If you were to ask a straight person if they thought other guys were hot, chances are they would say no. Same thing if you ask a demi if they think people they don't know are hot.
In highschool I was considered a marvel for a) not looking at porn and b) not finding the idea of having sex with a random beautiful stranger attractive.
5018299 That gif is ridiculously hypnotic.
That was a new enchantment idea I have never seen before. I have seen similar but never directly powered by the sun's rays.
And just one question.
HOW DO YOU DO THIS?
Sorry but I want to know. Call it a geek thing but I would like to know.
5018362 I actually just copy/paste it from the Ask Kyubey blog.
5018335 Amendment: Jensen Ackles is incredibly hypnotic.
Yay! Well Twilight is still adorkable and Celestia picked a good spot for their date... So I'll see you at the next chapter.
I absolutely love this line; one could write an entire backstory based just on those few words. (And by "one," I mean "someone other than myself.")
5018327 Yeah, at the time I wrote that comment, I was thinking how people are kind of solipsistic about sexuality. It makes communication about it pretty weird. Hopefully humanity will figure out a way to get around that sometime.
5018362 They're unicode characters.
Get a character map application and you can search for them. I've just loaded up gucharmap and noted that 人 is Unicode character +4EBA , an CJK ideograph, which I can enter by typing Ctrl+Shift+u 4eba. Unfortunately Fim's comment form steals the Ctrl+U combination so I ended up entering it in my terminal and then pasting it here.
other characters involved:
FF0F Fullwidth solidus (／)
FF3C Fullwidth reverse solidus (＼)
25D5 Circle with all but upper left quadrant block (◕)
203F Greek enotikon (‿)
A character map is really handy for composing this stuff for later C+P. Unfortunately not everyone has a good Unicode font -- I don't know what this stuff looks like to people on mobiles. Probably like .
(BTW, CTRL+SHIFT+U is the way to enter unicode characters in Linux. Windows apps have a different method, that I don't remember, but IIRC you can use the same character codes.)
mistake
Twilight’s eyes widened. She was silent for another moment, gathering her thoughts. Celestia ached to scan her eyes, to find some way to deduce what was running through the unicorn's mind, but she relented. An invasion of Twilight's privacy would only throw a wedge between the two of them that she could not afford to face. At last, Twilight looked down, saying to her hooves,
i really like it hope to read more soon
5018510
Oh thanks and on windows the combo is alt+[ascii(dec)]. Never mind it seems none of my font packs handle that. Weird. Oh well thanks for letting me know.
5018510 Alt is the way to enter unicode char's on Windows. Hold down Alt then enter the code for the char.
5018495 Based upon the careers of actual scientists from before the modern era, no less.
Hey! Great job on writing a demisexual character who feels like a demisexual character. I like the idea of demi/grey-asexual Twilight, and I really like the way it's presented here. So much respect and gratefulness and all that stuff.
5018661 Thank ye
She does feel demisexual. As a pansexual myself, she doesn't exactly strike a familiar chord with me, not in the sense of self-recognition in the character.
5018711 She was not meant to be pansexual, no. There is not currently a member of the cast who would fall under that category. Which is odd, given that most of the other types of sexuality are represented here. We'll see if one seems to fit the bill by the time it's all wrapped up and dandy.
5018774
Ah, I see she's sapiosexual. So rather than being attracted to her emotional bond with Celestia as a demisexual would be, she's attracted to the mental recognition between them and Celestia's intelligence as a personified state of being. Alrighty!
5018850 No, she's a demi. You can see it in the way she talks about her bond with Celestia and the importance of getting to know her fellow pony before falling in love. It's in the way she analyzes the pony she knew from when Shining was a colt and what point she was attracted to him and also briefly appears in her mind meld with Trixie. She also certainly does have some sapiosexual qualities, however, given she is shown approaching intelligent ponies with a lot to say about themselves (Doctors Whooves and Stable) and part of what frustrates her so much about Flash is his utter lack of independent thought or multi-dimensional thinking. Ultimately, though, what makes her attracted to Celestia is the realization that they share this close bond (the whole moment where she realizes it's "just you") and she can truly feel that she is in a position to actually love this person given that she knows who they are and what it is they are like, and also more importantly that they know who she is and what she is like (and what her worst qualities are). So she is, for all intents and purposes, much more firmly in the demisexual camp.
Alicornsexual, clearly.
Either there is an extra line between those two, or a gdoc import ate a paragraph.
Also:
She resisted. If she'd relented, she'd have given in to the urge.
5018022
Darn my guess was asexual biromantic. Also great job detailing Twilight's conflicting apprehension and desire for their relationship :)
Demisexual?
Twilight, tone it down. You are too accidentally seductive for Celestia's mind to handle.
5018869 It seems I need more psychology in my psych background. I've only taken a few classes so far, but you think something like an entire type of sexuality would at least get passing mention in a Developmental Psychology course.
That aside, I think demisexuality is something I should put some effort into learning about. It sounds... remarkably familiar.
5018869 You put entirly to much work in your stories. Thank you so much for doing so. It makes them all warm and fuzzy
I'm gonna call it and say possibly Bisexual...
5019945
I see it the same way.
ow, both wrong, third post, twilight is sapiosexual.
5018542 5018952 Fixed
5019179 Thank ye!
5019423 When a paleontologist with a private interest knows more about psychology than you psychology textbook does, there's something wrong with your class.
5019471 Thank ye! I just love writing them, which I suppose reflects in the thought that goes into them.
5018711 What exactly is the difference between bisexual and pansexual in a species that only has two physical sexes? Is there a third set of genetalia I've been missing? Are there futa-humans now and I never got the memo?
Edit: because damn that'd be hot. Best of both worlds.
5020176 In point of fact, some people do have genetic mutations that give them a third class of genitalia, be it simply deformed or otherwise not the same as normal genitals.
In addition, some people are in fact in posession of two sets of genitals. However, calling them a "futa" would be rude. They're just normal people with a birth defect. In addition, finding one of them with both pairs of genitals working is even rarer than finding one to begin with. But they do exist!
A pansexual is somebody who is not merely attracted to homosexual people of their gender and heterosexual people of the opposite gender, but basically anybody with any type of gender. This includes intersex and transgendered people. Bisexuals, it should be noted, protest the use of this label as opposed to simply considering people who identify as "pan" as being "bi". It is a point of controversy between the two groups as to how inclusive the term bisexuality really is.
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/620/437/bbc.png
5020176
There are reproductive genders, yes. Male-female. We're talking about sexual orientation and how one defines who they are attracted to and how. This also includes transitive or 'virtual' genders in that they have no physical representation.
KoC went into depth about it so I don't particularly need to.
5020189
5020199
Well then.
I was unaware that bisexual was so narrowly defined by comparison. That strikes me as odd, but I suppose if we didn't have somewhere to draw lines, we'd invent sand just for that purpose.
I do contest that the existence of a relevant mutation isn't much of a factor. Albino blackbirds existing doesn't mean that blackbirds are white, merely that they sometimes fail to be colored properly. I was aware of it being a thing, but it isn't a primary mode by any stretch of the imagination. The futa comment was an attempt at humor.
I guess it's just... odd to me, since I consider myself bisexual, that there's a distinction being made around the transgender / intersex point. I wouldn't tend to think it would... matter that much, if that makes any sense for something as broad as that. If I'm attracted to A and B, then suddenly not being attracted to permutations composed of A and B doesn't seem to follow.
I think she might be bi.
5020302
Transgender is something that requires... more than just a lustful one-sided attraction to define as a reaction. If you're a gay male and the apparent guy across from you is a transwoman, you can be purely physically attracted to their body, but in the end you're really dealing with a woman who might very well not be attracted to a gay male. Shit gets complicated, but you need ways to figure it out when it does.
Basically, none of this need concern you if you only deal with 'normal', easily-defined people. For those of us who have other situations, or attraction to those despite/or even due to the situations, we require a bit more definition to make things make sense.