BeTwixed
Daring panted as she ran through the thick jungle undergrowth, her leg wrapped in a bandage after she was hit by an arrow from one of the local natives a while back. Angry local natives, ticked off beyond belief. Stealing their golden idol of fertility had a tendency to do that. And she thought the boulder she had ran from, which had been designed to flatten her like a pancake, on her escape from the temple was bad enough. But she was Daring "Danger" Do! She wouldn't let a little thing like an injured leg stop her from making off with the idol and getting it to its proper place in the Manehatten Museum of Ancient and Deadly Guarded Artifacts. Yes, that was it's actual title. Daring figured hearing that artifacts had deadly traps that guarded them in their age old resting places probably was a gimmick to attract tourists. Mind you, most of these traps were often long deactivated or broken in some manner. But A.K Yearling never wrote that into her novels, would have made for rather boring reading. So she always... embellished a bit. But never mind that, back to the story at hand. There Daring was, at the sheer face of a very tall cliff, with the jungle below her and a long winding river. And in front of her, were at least one hundred angry native ponies.
"Sorry I don't have time to chat, but I do have a boat to catch, and a wonderful marefriend named Rosetta Stone back home waiting for me." Daring quipped, a smirk tracing its way into her muzzle. "So, no time for all your hollering and spear throwing... plus the fact that you want to cook me up on a spit." Daring remarked before doing a backwards flip off the cliff and dived to the water bel-
"Wait, wait. Hold up!" A voice called out, interrupting her marefriend's reading. "Shouldn't the impact kill Daring? Trixie may not know much about physics, that's your domain Twilight Sparkle, but even she knows a fall from that height would almost certainly kill you."
Twilight Sparkle sighed. This was starting to become a reoccurring thing. Trixie was almost always questioning the logic in the Daring Do books, pointing out the problems in them. Find problem, point it out, repeat ad nauseam. It was beginning to get on Twilight's nerves. Trixie was beginning to get to be as almost as bad as that Quibble Pants pony Rainbow had told her about at the last Daring Do convention.
"Trixie, it's just a book. It's meant for enjoyment. So just sit back and relax." Twilight replied.
"I would think YOU of all ponies would question the science in these books, miss Smarty Hooves!" Trixie retorted.
"Yes... I admit the science is a bit out there at times, but it makes things more exciting!" Twilight remarked and Trixie scoffed before muttering to herself in an almost inaudible tone "Yeah, Trixie admits you have a point there."
Just then, Twilight let out a yawn and looked at the clock on her castle walls. She hadn't realized how late it was. The moon shone through the window, casting a light onto the glittering castle walls. Trixie smirked at her marefriend.
"Aw, is my little Twilight getting tired?" Trixie said in a babyish, mocking tone of voice. Twilight glared. How'd she end up in this relationship with this, arrogant, yet still unbelievably enticing showmare again? Oh yeah, now she remembered...
A few months ago...
Twilight was at Trixie's caravan, and currently in the middle of a conversation with her future marefriend, though she didn't know it at the time. She had ended up in this situation while trying to figure out why exactly Trixie hadn't left town for another show. The reason... unexpected to say the least.
"You're the reason I'm sticking around town." Trixie revealed, even as Twilight's jaw dropped considerably. "Do I have to say anything more? To put it simply, I. Like. You!"
"That incident with the Manticore and me trying that trick of the Great Hoofdini's? That was me trying to impress you, show you how much I've learned!" She continued, her voice raising into a yell of fury and heartbreak. "Getting your student as a friend along the way was simply just an unexpected bonus!"
Twilight said nothing, as she was too stunned to speak. Trixie... Liked her, as in like liked her? It simply didn't make sense! It didn't compute with anything in Twilight's little world. Never before had Trixie shown any signs of anything other then thinking Twilight as a rival... Or had she, and Twilight had just failed to notice?
"Now if you excuse me, the Great and Heartbroken Trixie needs to be getting back to her beauty sleep!"
With that, and a swish of her cloak along with a small sob, Trixie vanished back into her wagon and slammed the door shut leaving Twilight alone, her jaw still agape.
"You... You never had to impress me." Twilight whispered softly, but her sentence of course went unheard by the pony it was directed to.
After that, Twilight had gotten into a conversation with her student Starlight, and the former psychotic pony had told her to at least give her best friend a chance, although not without warning her that if she broke Trixie's heart, Starlight would cast a spell on her to make Twilight fall completely in love with Trixie. That threat still stood to this very day, so understandably Twilight tried to stay on Trixie's good side and not do anything stupid. And so, Twilight had gone back to Trixie's wagon and asked her out on a date, and things progressed from there. And now there they were, both undeniably in a relationship. An odd and unconventional one to be sure, given both mares' personalities but they somehow clicked, and were learning things from each other. Trixie was becoming less arrogant and making more friends, and learning spells she never even dreamed she could learn from Twilight, and in return Trixie gave both loving affection and new illusion spells to Twilight.
"Not... Not tired..." Twilight yawned again and Trixie smirked, but Twilight gave back a tired smirk of her own.
"You're so cute when you do that, you know that right?" Twilight said in a loving tone of voice before kissing her marefriend on the lips but as soon as she pulled away Trixie huffed and crossed her forelegs.
"Trixie is not cute. The Great and Powerful and Loving Trixie does not do cute!" Trixie pouted in a cute manner. Twilight smiled and booped her marefriend on the nose.
"Sorry, verdict's in. You're as cute as a button." Twilight commented before yawning a third time.
"Come on, best we get to bed." Twilight said before getting up off the couch they were both on before an idea struck her. It was a crazy idea, and one Twilight had never tried before with her marefriend, but all couples did it and she was 100% sure Trixie wasn't going to object. "No, wait... Actually I have a better idea. Why don't we snuggle up right here on the couch under a blanket? Nice and warm."
But object Trixie did. She balked at Twilight's suggestion, opened her jaw and closed it again several times but no words came out and when she did regain the power of speech, all that came out of her mouth was "Guh... Huh... Buh... Wha...?" before Trixie shook her head rapidly and shouted at Twilight.
"Have you finally taken leave of your senses Twilight Sparkle?" Trixie yelled in disbelief. "The Great and Powerful Trixie does not cuddle! No way, no how! It is below her station!"
"Trixie..." Twilight said softly. "It's a normal thing for couples to do, and it's not like I'm asking you to do something horrible, like wash the Canterlot Dungeons. I've read in "101 Things you need to know about relationships but were afraid to ask" that cuddling is a natural way for couples to bond and strengthen their relationship."
"I repeat, the Great and Powerful Trixie does not CUDDLE!" Trixie snapped back. "And don't use anything from your books to try and convince me! I would rather... Well, Trixie doesn't know what Trixie would rather do but cuddling is worse than anything she'll think up in the next few minutes!"
Twilight sighed to herself. While Trixie was shouting at her, and Twilight was trying to convince her that it was just relationship strengthening, she had noticed something. Trixie was actually blushing and looking rather nervous, almost as if she was hiding something whenever Twilight mentioned cuddling. Was it possible... just possible that Trixie didn't know how to cuddle with her special somepony at all?
"Trixie..." Twilight began slowly. "Do you... Do you even know how to cuddle?" She asked.
"N-I mean yes! Everypony knows how to cuddle! It's a thing everypony is born to do!" Trixie denied, but Twilight could see right through her and raised an eyebrow. Trixie sighed and finally gave up the ghost.
"Alright... Trixie admits it. I... I don't know how to cuddle. I never had anything to cuddle with. Never knew my parents as I always grew up on the streets, never noticed by nopony, like I was just a piece of trash on the street, so I never had anyone to cuddle up with when I had nightmares. You see, Twilight Sparkle, the reason I became the way Trixie is today, is just because I want attention, somepony to notice me, somepony to... care." Trixie explained, tears trickling down her face, and Twilight's as well. "And that's when you came along. You were the first pony to take notice of me, to want to love me for the pony I really am, not just as Trixie the traveling Showmare." Trixie said, and Twilight pulled her into a hug whispering how it would be alright but inside she felt incredibly guilty. She never knew this about Trixie, but now this explained everything. The showing off, why Trixie was so heartbroken when she thought Twilight wasn't impressed by her, and why she tried to keep coming back to Ponyville. All she wanted was somepony to love her back. Starlight was a friend, but friends couldn't provide the care a loved one could, and now Twilight intended to fulfill that role.
"Alright, I'll teach you how to cuddle." Twilight began. "Firstly, all you have to do is put your forelegs around me."
"Like this?" Trixie asked, as she clutched Twilight tightly like one would a pillow.
"Good, good." Twilight said and buried her muzzle in the crook of Trixie's neck, feeling her soft fur and nuzzling deeper into it. Trixie was slowly beginning to figure out what she should do, and nuzzled Twilight back, breathing in the smell of old books and lavender and relishing in it even as Twilight softly levitated the nearby blanket over them, which was a commissioned piece and was a combination of Twilight's fur color and Trixie's yellow and blue stars on her cape, and leaving only their heads visible. Twilight whispered softly into Trixie's ear "I love you my stage magician." even as her eyes closed and she fell into the realm of dreams and sleep.
Trixie smiled back and closed her own tired eyes and whispered back "Trixie loves you too, my bookworm." and shut out the lights with her horn.
Later that night, during a late night stroll down to the kitchens for a snack, Starlight came across the twosome and smiled and said "Goodnight, you two knuckleheads."
THE END