A Twinkle and a Sparkle

by xzillerationer

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4:

Twilight had, after around a week of waiting, invited me to a casual lunch date. At least she considered it to be casual, compared to the fancy dinner we had gone to for our first date. I still wore a light sundress anyway, because I sort of wanted to wear something. I would feel, I guess, naked on a date without clothes. Go figure. Not that I normally wore clothes, or normally went on dates, but I also wanted to try to leave her with a good impression. Not that I needed to leave a good impression, seeing as I’m dating her and everything. Still better to be careful.

The majority of the date was just light chatting. We talked about our lives, how our weeks were going, jobs, friends, and our other friends. Eventually, the conversation fell flat, so we just sort of stuck to eating. She had a daisy sandwich. I had a roast daisy sandwich. I sort of wished I had gotten a fried daisy sandwich, but you can’t have your sandwich and eat it, too. So, anyways, Twilight spoke up, apparently having something to say.

“What do you think of our dating so far?” Twilight said, chewing on a daisy pedal that was falling off of the edge of her sandwich. Well, that question was out of the blue. Twilight must’ve noticed my off white fur somehow grow paler, because she rushed to elaborate on her comment.

“What I meant was, do you think we are a good enough couple that we could pull off a double date?” Twilight blushed, obviously aware that her question wasn’t an easy one. I sighed on the fact that she wasn’t asking what I thought she was, and I could almost feel the color disperse back into my fur.

“So, you’re asking me on a double date?” I was flattered, I’d never been on a double date before. Well, before her, I’d never been on a regular date either... so...“Wait, who else is going?”

“Whagh?” Twilight said, her single word rather obscured by a large mouthful of bread, daisies, and seven secret herbs and spices. A quick awkward grin and a swallow later, and she was able to talk once again. “Oh, Rainbow invited me on the double date. Apparently, she and Pinkie Pie are finally going out again after the Discord incident. The trials they faced due to Discord’s meddling put a rift in their relationship by causing Dash to lose her Element, Loyalty. It took Dash four months before Pinkie would talk to her again. They’ve been trying to fix that ever since.” Twilight ended the story on a somber note.

“Oh, well, at least they’re trying to fix it?” Twilight nodded, back to her usual cheery self. “Well, that does sound nice. Where and when is it?”

“It’s at the Canterlot Royal Cinema, at around,” she paused for a minute, then appeared to cast a spell. The spell grew, causing an over glow to appear over her horn. With a small pop, a glowing purple image of Celestia materialized next to the table.

“Excuse me, Princess Celestia, do you happen to know what time it is?” Twilight asked, an innocent smile on her face.

“It is precisely a quarter past four.” Celestia said in a voice that soothed all that could hear it. “Also,” she said, in a slightly hushed, irritated tone, “You have to stop using me as your private sundial? No matter how much I enjoy helping you in your studies, sometimes I am otherwise... occupied.”

“Aww, but you make such a good sundial, though!”

“Celly, who’s that?” A more gruff, masculine voice said from the background.

“Nothing! Nothing at all!” Celestia looked flushed, and turned back to Twilight. “Goodbye, Ms Sparkle. Farewell, my most faithful student.” And the illusion disintegrated into a fine mist.

Without missing a beat, Twilight said “In about three and a half hours.” Luna, she was so innocent. Maybe I should stop talking to Moondancer.... nah.

We decided to go to my house to wait, and other stuff. Not the kind of stuff Moondancer would do to wait, but we could watch TV. And stuff. Twilight brought several books with her, as she always does. And lists, on long scrolls. Sometimes, I think that she loves those lists more than me. Not that I know she actually loves me, well, not yet at least. Not implying that I think that we’ll last that long. Or that we’re going to break u-nevermind. . After a couple hours of dull sitcoms and the crinkling sounds of Twilight’s scrolls, the moment had arrived for us to head to the movies.

“So, how are we going to get in?” Rainbow Dash said, sucking on a slurpee.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Rainbow, you remember that we are not only the Holders of the Elements, but that I have a direct connection to Princess Celestia herself?”

I chimed in. “I also have connections, albeit to Princess Luna, but still connections.”

Twilight shot me a look of confusion. “When did you get to know Princess Luna?”

I was about to answer when Pinkie Pie came back with the tickets. “Alrighty, everypony, who’s ready to see the movie!” Dear Princess Luna, how was she so energetic at this hour?

“Aww yeah!” Dash grabbed her ticket from Pinkie Pie, obviously still comfortable around her mare, while Pinkie....recoiled a bit from Dash, seeming to almost fear physical contact.

“Heh, yeah!” Pinkie seemed a little bummed out by this, oddly enough. I had never seen her this afraid of anything, she usually giggles at them, but her mane was even threatening to droop slightly.

Twilight appeared to take notice, waiting until Dash went inside before talking to her. “Pinkie, you okay?” Pinkie put on what I could tell as a false grin.

I didn’t get to hear the rest of it, they started walking in, and, Dear Celestia it was loud. I barely one step lower than a rave. Twilight said to me, “I told Pinkie to go ahead, she’ll be fine.”

I smiled, “Alright. Want any popcorn?” Twilight nodded. “Go on and get some seats, I’ll be right in.”

When I finally got into the theatre...it was louder. But, not from the noises outside, I couldn’t hear them even, the ponies who build this place have some strong magicks. The room was crowded, everypony who was anypony was here. I think I even saw Rarity! I found my way to my seats, and sat down next to Twilight. Dash and Pinkie were on the other side of her, although they rarely looked at each other. Dash seemed much more excited than Pinkie was.

We saw the movie ‘Gent Bucksalot in: The Filly that Clopped me’. The first impression of the Stallion lead was that he had horrible teeth. However, I didn’t see much of the movie except for that first impression due to the wonderful mare that was sitting next to me. Let’s just say she has, well, certain ways to distract a filly during a movie. Twilight was very vocal about the technical inaccuracies of the movie. There were a lot. Namely the explosions, and sex scenes. And more explosions. About halfway through the movie, I had to ask Twilight. “Twi, why is Pinkie being so quiet? Outside she was practically a battery!”

“I’m not really sure, I mean, they finally agreed to go out, and now they’re not saying a word?”

“Perhaps at dinner they’ll be more likely to talk?” Twilight shrugged, and the topic left off. About 30 minutes passed before I decided to make a move. And it was a smooth one. Smooth.

I noticed Twilight start to shiver a little, as well as one of the more...terrifying scenes came up. I decided to finally do it. Mare up, and do it. I had asked Twilight, “Hey, Twi, is it cold?” She looked at me with a little bit of confusion, before she recognized my hoof over the seat, and leaned into my shoulder, and I put my hoof around her.

Buck.

Yeah.

She sighed slightly, and we at least tried to enjoy a bit more of the movie. There’s also a reason I said “tried”, and not “succeeded”, you know. The movie was good, but not exactly what I would go out of my way to watch. However, Rainbow Dash was seeming to quite enjoy the explosions, and guns, and fillies, and filly action, so pretty much the entire movie. I thought I saw Pinkie crack a smile once twice at a few of the half flanked jokes, but for the rest she seemed to be on that edge of depression. Actually, now that I think about it, she was smiling more at Dash’s reactions than at the jokes themselves.

The rest of the movie was fairly uneventful, with Dash receiving glaring looks from the rest of the movie goers for her loud enjoyment of the movie, and Twilight snuggling in my shoulder. Once again, buck yeah. The curtains fell on a rather content audience (side note: They still use curtains?), and it had appeared Twilight fell asleep. On my shoulder. It was awesome.

I would’ve contemplated not waking her up, but the next show was starting, and we were being kicked out. So I gently woke her up, and she replied with a dreamy smile,“Spike, five more minutes.” Well, at least she’s comfortable with me. That’s good, I was sure of at least that. What I wasn’t quite sure of was the correct socially accurate way of waking her up. I was on the verge of just carrying her out of the theatre when she opened her eyes, and was almost surprised to see me. Not angry or scared, just surprised. But happy.

“Hey, Pinkie, you going to be okay?” I overheard Twilight say as we left the the theatre. Pinkie just shrugged. “Pinkie, if you don’t want to-”

“No, I do. It’s just, I’m kinda scared that Rainbow will...I dunno.” Pinkie said, her walk lacking her usual bounce.

“Afraid of what? Rainbow loves you! She’s not going to leave you after trying so hard to make up with you!” Twilight said.

“Are you sure, Twilight?” Pinkie said, looking up from her staring contest with the gravel walkway.

“Yes, before we came here Rainbow talked to me, and said how much she wanted you back. Trust me.” Twilight gave what must’ve been her most honest and heartfelt smile she could muster.

“Really?” That was a lie, actually, Twilight spent the day with me. It was awesome. I guess it’s the thought that counts. Also, now I know why Twilight isn’t the element of honesty.

“Of course she did.” Twilight lied smoothly through her teeth. Smooth. I should take some smoothness lessons from her sometime. “Now, go up ahead and talk to your mare, Pinkie. She’s waiting.”

Pinkie regained her usual bounce and mannerisms, somehow physically brightening up the entire area as she did so.She bounced on over to Dash, before pouncing on her, and landing with a kiss squarely on Dash’s mouth, the most basic signal that all is forgiven.

They started chatting, punctuating their words with quick smooches, although I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. What they were saying wasn’t actually all that important, I guess, only that they were now actually chatting, not just glaring at each other over boxes of popcorn.

It took all of my resolve to walk up to them and interrupt their happy reunion, but it was getting late, and we did have a dinner reservation.

“Are you ready to head to the restaurant yet?” I asked, glancing at the sun on the very precipice of the horizon.

“Uh, nah, I think we’ll pass on dinner. Pinkie and I have, uh, other plans.” Rainbow said, avoiding my eyes slightly.

“Yeah, Dashie and me have a whole lot of stuff to catch up on, like mmmph!” Pinkie said, her mouth rapidly covered by one of Rainbow Dash’s forehooves.

“Dashie and I!” Twilight shouted from where she was standing.

Rainbow Dash began leading Pinkie back down the road, leaving both of us together, and again alone.

“So, do you want to go to the restaurant anyway?” I asked Twilight as we continued to walk down the road.

“I’m not all the hungry, actually.” she said. “Maybe I ate just a little too much of the popcorn at that movie.” I briefly cursed the gods of buttery and salty deliciousness.

“So, I guess we’ll both head home?” I said, barely keeping the disappointment from dripping from my voice.

“Actually,” Twilight said, flashing another one of those glowing smiles, “I have a better idea.”

Twilight took my hoof, leading me gently through Canterlot to the castle. The guards, knowing us both, let us in without hassle. Hammer was particularly kind, stepping aside rather gingerly on his hooves. She led me through the majestic halls of Canterlot Castle, our hoof steps echoing through the empty halls like a single drop of water of a placid lake. The single candles barely broke the strangling darkness, causing me to edge closer to Twilight to protect me from the ghosts of fillyhood past. She rolled her eyes, and smiled, soldiering on through the passages and hallways that were so alien to me, yet so familiar to her. A final turn brought us to where Twilight was leading me all along: an extensive garden, with elaborate statues to break up the elaborate hedges and mazes.

The first statue I saw, oddly, looked quite a lot like the mare next to me. She seemed to see it too, because she blushed crimson through her lavender fur, and led me away quite quickly.

“That statue looked quite a bit like you.” I said, knowing she noticed that too.

“No, you must’ve been mistaken. Why would I have a statue?” She said. I could think of several reasons, not excluding the fact that her beautiful muzzle and perfect hair would look quite excellent in statue form, but I kept my opinion to myself. That was most likely a good thing, too, because the next statue we found was a more widely accepted reason why Twilight deserves to have a statue in her honor.

“This is Discord.” Twilight said, looking up at the statue of the dragonesque cringing away from some unknown attack with a look of nostalgia. The bad kind of nostalgia, I would guess.

“You mean that’s a statue of Discord.” I corrected her before I could stop myself. Definitely not smooth. Maybe I should ask Twilight for some lessons.

“No, I mean that actually is Discord.” Based on my expression of complete confusion, she decided to expand on that comment. “Discord was the god of eternal chaos, and was freed from his previous stone version, which didn’t look like he was cringing away, by a minor argument between a few local fillies. He escaped from his prison in a fit of rage against everything and everypony around him, namely, for some reason, me and my friends. Because The Princess had given up the Elements to us, he saw her as little more than a minor nuisance. Instead, he lead us in circles, leading us astray with illusions, white lies, and manipulation, causing are anger to turn from him to one another.” at this point, Twilight’s voice caught in her throat. I put my hoof over her shoulder, trying to ignore how soft her fur was against mine, and sat her down on the ornate stone bench in the shadow of the statute.

“You don’t have to finish the story if you don’t want to.” she put her head against my shoulder, trying to regulate her breathing back to normal.

“N- no, I think you should know this. Now that we’re, well, dating and all.” We shared a slightly strained smile, which seemed to cheer her up a bit. “He ended up splitting us all up in the hedge maze, and when we all were able to meet up, I was the only one of us who was still loyal to their Element. Applejack couldn’t stop lying, Rarity somehow was convinced that a large boulder was a diamond named Tom, Rainbow Dash was just about as disloyal as you can be, and Fluttershy...” she had to stop for a moment at this one, “Fluttershy changed from kindness to anger and hostility. She even dumped a bucket of water on my head as I was trying to save them all. Because they were all affected by Discord’s spell, all they remember is a haze, but because I was only affected for all of five minutes, I can still remember every. Single. Moment. As every single one of my friends, my best friends, fell into Discord’s spell. I was devastated. How could they turn on me in our time, no, Equestria’s time of need? After they turned back, all their memories of the events were blurry after they were affected by the spell, so they were all back to their usual selves. Except for me. Because I was the last to go, I could remember every. Single. Second.” she emphasized this by pounding her hoof on the edge of the bench. “How they were all the opposites of why I became friends with them in the first place. I had spent my entire foal hood with no friends, and therefore my biggest fear, beside having a late assignment, was rejection from the friends I worked so hard to get. Discord, being who he is, knew that, and saved me for last for that exact reason. How could he do something like that?!”

“You know, Twilight, I like you.” I was trying so hard to comfort her. I put my hoof around her shoulder, attempting to do just that. “I’ll never reject you. I don’t have some fancy monologue to give, I’m just saying it out loud. I’ll always care about you, I’ll always accept you. Besides, your friends are better than ever now! They all love you very much, and would help you with anything!”

Twilight looked up, and smiled. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Your friends all love you, Twilight. I-” I bit my lip. This was incredibly nerve wracking. Twilight put her head down, and smiled. “I love you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight looked up, a sincere smile on her lips. “I love you too, Twinkleshine.”

The entire area, the bench, the ground, and especially Twilight suddenly flashed into acute focus. I could feel the icy chill of the midnight breeze, and the stark contrast of the warm mare in my arms. I looked deep into her beautiful lavender eyes, enhanced by the sudden clarity of the moonlight, and could tell that she was doing the exact same thing to me. I could feel something well up deep inside my chest, almost as if my heart, or perhaps a horribly misplaced swarm of butterflies, was attempting to escape. What happened next didn’t at all surprise me, but did quite startle me. It was just for a single moment, but it felt like forever. Almost sooner than I would have liked, it was over.

Twilight looked up at me, her eyes gleaming under the moonlight. “I love you.” And, with that, her luminescent smile unfading, and lower her head, and folded into my embrace. “This night couldn’t get any better.”

“I could think of one way.” I grinned, and Twilight glared at me.

“Oh? How could this get any better?”

“By making it last forever.” Although it couldn’t actually last forever, I’d love it if it could. This has been the best night ever. I’m pretty certain it was Twilight’s too.

“Yeah, that’d work.” She said, as she snuggled in closer. “It’s getting late, and it’s such a long ride home...” Twilight said, putting on a frown.

“Why not stay with me tonight?” I pondered, I think I have an extra bed somewhere. If not, I suppose my couch is comfortable. It actually might be one of those couches that can turn into a bed. That would be useful, not to mention pretty neat.

“I guess I can, I’ll catch a train ride tomorrow.”

Twilight hugged me before standing up, and walked towards the entrance to the gardens with me in tow.

“Actually, do you want to stop somewhere before my house?” Twilight asked as we walked underneath the ornate iron public entrance gate. “I’m kind of hungry now. Maybe we actually should have gone to that restaurant after all.”

I glanced up at the moon, and estimated that it was around eleven thirty. “I don’t think there’ll any restaurant open at this time of night” I said, realizing my own hunger.

Twilight considered that for a moment, and then her face brightened with a sudden realization. “I know!” she said. “We don’t need a fancy restaurant. We’ll just go the local Walpony-Mart!” I non visibly shivered. Ever since Walpony-Mart went up, the local business was stifled. Though they have decent goods, and several bads, their anticompetitive pricing schemes stamp out local business. My favorite dress shop was one of the shops that was put out of business, not that I wore dresses all the time, mind you, or that I don’t like dresses. I wear tons of dresses, just not all the time. Well, actually not quite a ton, because that’d be heavy. Much more heavy than the combined weights of all of the dresses I’ve ever worn, mostly because I don’t wear many dresses. I wear some, but now I have to buy crappy dresses from Walpony-Mart. They’re like, 20 bits! I mean, sure, that’s cheaper than the 50 my old dress shop charged, but hey look we’re here. That was quick.

“So, do you have any idea where the food section is?” Twilight asked, peering down the neverending isles.

“I shook my my head. “I really have no idea.” I said. “Why don’t we split up and look for it\?”

Twilight nodded and headed over to the left, so I wandered over to the right. Wow, this store really does have everything. It has bowls, and plates, and horn shine, a toaster that also cooks eggs, disassembled hay carts, a highblood troll plushie, magic powered drill sets, Xmares, wait, they have Xmares?!

I knew I was supposed to be looking for food, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from that isle. I had to have one. I mean Luna had one, and I’m also apparently good at the games, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense to be good at something and not have it right? Also, the 300 bit price tag wasn’t all that bad; that was about the price of 15 of those dresses I never wear. Only two week’s worth of spending money. Oh, and I also had to buy Call of Cutie: Kingdoms! I love Call of Cutie: Kingdoms! Err, nevermind. I grabbed it, and headed towards the checkout counter.

I got in line at the only open checkout counter behind an elderly stallion who had decided that tonight would be the perfect night to buy several carts worth of items. While I was waiting for the tired employee to count up the price of all of his items, twice because he lost count, Twilight showed up from the food section.

“Hey, Twinkleshine.” she said, toting several kinds of snack cakes, chips, and other unhealthy munchable items with her levitation. “I got some hay chips and Littlepip cakes and dear Princess Celestia what is that?”

I grinned, not able to hide my soon to be purchase. “It’s” I froze a little. “Something.”

“What do you mean by something? Let me see it.”

“It’s...it’s my money.” I was ready to defend my soon to be purchase. I’ll just not buy as many 20 bit dresses I don’t wear anyways. Without looking away, I grabbed a bag of chips from the nearby shelves, and held it up with my magic. “I got snacks too.”

“I saw that.”

I put the chips down, defeated. “It was worth a try.”

“Twilight put a supporting hoof on my shoulder. “Twinkleshine, if that’s something that you want to buy, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not going to stop you, or judge you on your every little decision.”

I was stunned. I wasn’t used to anypony really supporting up my decisions, ever. What had I ever done to attract a mare as trusting and as wonderful as Twilight?

The stallion in front of us had finished purchasing his monthly hermit rations, so we moved to to purchase our snacks and game console.

“What exactly is that, anyway?” Twilight asked, poking the box with a snack cake. Boop.

“It’s an Xmare,” I explained, despite it being written in size 200 font on the side of the box.

“That’s a pretty large box for a bunch of dirty magazines, isn’t it?” Twilight said. I could swear that she also winked at me.

Blushing profusely, I stammered a reply. “N-no, it’s not like that, it’s more of” Twilight cut me off by placing a hoof over my mouth.

“Don’t worry” she said. “I have plenty of those back home, along with some books, and comic books, and also some,” she cut herself off this time, at my look of utter embarrassment and that we now had the cashier's full attention. She blushed herself in turn, realizing that she admitted more than she originally intended to. We quickly counted up the total cost of the items, threw a hefty bag of coins at the unfortunate cashier, and left the store. I wondered for a minute or two how Twilight could hold all the bits, and eventually decided that Twilight must have some sort of unicorn storage abstraction enchantment. Or something like that.

The trek to back my house was rather uneventful. However when we got in, it seemed rather...cold. We quickly rectified that issue by turning on the heat, and until it started working properly, sitting so close together on the couch that if we were any closer, we would be a single pony. Not that I want to be a single pony, that is. I rather like being with Twilight. During this time, I used my telekinesis to assemble the Xmare; easier said than done. It didn’t help that the entire time I had to endure Twilight’s heated accusations of what she believed the Xmare to be. Quite distracting. And I had the assembly instructions upside down the entire time.

I gasped with delight when I finally got the power cable in the right way, and the device booted up. Twilight quickly took the controls, and booted up the EquestriaFlix account.

“Whose account are you logging into?” I asked, slightly tired.

“Princess Celestia’s account.” Twilight said. “She almost never uses it, so she lets me use it pretty much whenever I want. It’s pretty nice, especially since she gets the full princess package they have of every single piece of video media ever produced and ever to be produced as soon as it’s released.” she began punching in the text for the username and password on a controller that was by no means designed for inputing text, muttering what she was typing throughout it all. “Alright.” she muttered. “Username: bestPrincess. Password: LUN41FYOUD4R3TOTRYTOH4CKMY3QU3STR14FL1X4CCOUNT1SW34RTOGOG1W1LLS3NDYOUTOTH3MOONFOR4THOUS4NDY34RS”

Typing the password took several attempts due to it being immediately converted into asterisks as it was typed. I nuzzled Twilight’s side slightly to prevent her from venting her frustration by throwing the controller through the wall, along with anything in the room that wasn’t nailed down. And some things that were nailed down. It also helped that her side was really soft.

“So, what are we going to watch?” I asked Twilight, my head sideways resting against her side.

“Why don’t you choose?” she said, floating the controller over to me. I lifted up my head so I could see the screen rightside up. I hit the option to see all shows and movies available to me, and after several seconds of stack overflow errors, turned the option off. I instead searched through the most popular shows.

“What about this one?” I asked, pointing out the movie “How To Train Your Dragonesque?”.

“Nah, I’ve seen more times than I’d care to admit. How about that show?” Twilight said, waving her hoof to the most popular show. “Lyra gives that one two thumbs up. Whatever thumbs are Wait, maybe they’re those opposable claws that Spike has.” I nodded, and selected the show, and we began to play the first episode. We snuggled down, and began to watch the majority of the first season of My Little Human: Friendship is Science. Although, we never did finish.

Comments

[Solid Sun]

Good job.

[xzillerationer]

You guys have no idea how much these comments mean to me. I live to make others happy. It's the greatest feeling in the world, and seeing everyone loving my story also makes me happy. I can finally do something right!

[hyourei]

“Username: bestPrincess.
Password: LUN41FYOUD4R3TOTRYTOH4CKMY3QU3STR14FL1X4CCOUNT1SW34RTOGOG1W1LLS3NDYOUTOTH3MOONFOR4THOUS4NDY34RS”

[nintendo106]

Aww! Twinkleshine is cute.

Hehehe I've always wanted to say this. I want MOAR!

[nintendo106]

3278155

Oh. There is moar.

[nintendo106]

915531

YAYSIES!