> Such Sweet Poison
>  by AugieDog
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> 1 - The Experiment
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In front of the chalkboard, her lab coat clean and white and perfectly pressed, Twilight picked up a pointer with her magic. "Thank you again for coming, Fluttershy. Shall we begin?"

Fluttershy swallowed and nodded. No matter how often she visited Twilight's laboratory, she could never quite get used to the antiseptic smell or the way the light here seemed harsher than anywhere else in the castle. The buzzing of the equipment, too, made the hair at the base of her mane stand up; she kept trying to tell herself that it sounded like the gentle humming of busy little bees, but it really didn't.

Still, she would never turn down the chance to spend time with Twilight. And earlier this evening on Fluttershy's doorstep, Twilight had been quite insistent that Fluttershy was the only pony in all of Equestria who could help her with this project.

Rustling her wings behind the student-sized desk Twilight had gestured to when they'd come in, Fluttershy nodded again. Then she nodded a third time to show that she really meant to nod and wasn't just twitching even though she kind of wanted to twitch and cringe some and maybe—

"So!" Twilight smacked the board with her pointer, and Fluttershy couldn't stop a wince. "I take it that you recognize this plant?"

The shape of the chalk-drawn petals registered instantly in Fluttershy's mind. "Poison joke!" she gasped.

"Very good!" The second smack of Twilight's pointer would've made Fluttershy wince some more, but she discovered that she was frozen in her seat at the mere image of that noxious blossom. "But did you know that nopony understands how poison joke works?"

"Ummm..." For once, Fluttershy's fear surged so strongly inside her that it forced her to speech rather than silence. "But we do know, don't we? How it mixes everything up and makes us into things we're not?"

Twilight's mouth went sideways. "All right, yes, we know what its general effects are, but, well, think about Swamp Fever." Her hornglow grabbed a piece of chalk and sketched one of those horrible lily pads next to the poison joke flower. "Its pollen affects everypony the same way: spots, bubbles, lightning sneezes, and eventual dendronification." She grinned, and Fluttershy recalled how happy Twilight had been coming up with that word to use in the article the two of them had written about Mage Meadowbrook's Swamp Fever cure for the Journal of the Canterlot Medical Association.

But Twilight quickly grew serious again. "Poison joke, on the other hoof, does something different to every pony it touches. I have several theories as to why, but I can't confirm or discount anything until I've performed some experiments."

Fluttershy's gaze dropped to the floor, her neck suddenly too weak to keep her head up. "And because poison joke only deepens my voice," she whispered, "you need to experiment on me."

"What? No!" A flapping of wings, and firm hooves settled onto Fluttershy's shoulders. She looked back up to see Twilight blinking down at her. "I would never do that to you, Fluttershy! It would be totally unethical! And more to the point, it wouldn't help me answer the questions I'm trying to investigate." She smiled. "No, I just need your help moving the poison joke out of the isolation pod where I'm refining it into the isolation chamber where I've set up the actual experiments."

Unable for a moment to focus on anything but Twilight's touch, Fluttershy barely managed to collect herself enough to ask, "What?"

"Yeah, it's, uhhh, it's a little embarrassing." Twilight rubbed the back of her head. "See, I built the partition here to create an isolation chamber so I wouldn't have to interact physically with the poison joke concentrate." She waved a hoof at the clear crystal wall that ran the whole length of the laboratory to Fluttershy's right. "I set up my equipment on the other side, rolled the sealed case of flowers in through the airlock there, unsealed it with my magic from the control console on this side of the wall, and started to refine the poison joke into the discrete doses I need for the tests."

Sighing, she moved the warmth of her presence back to the chalkboard and tapped her pointer over a picture of poison joke growing among jagged shards. "Unfortunately, the refined poison joke powder reacted with the cast-off plant casings like super fertilizer poured over ready-to-sprout seeds, and the isolation chamber ended up nearly bursting with blue flowers." Twilight shrugged. "Which was kind of pretty and very convenient since it meant I didn't have to go out into the Everfree to gather more blossoms, but, well, they grew so fast and so thick, they smashed most of my equipment."

Even though Fluttershy felt guilty about it immediately, she still found herself wishing that she'd pretended to be asleep when Twilight had knocked on her door an hour ago.

"So!" Twilight pointed to the next picture, this one of a box with a smaller box inside it. "For my second try, I built an isolation pod inside the isolation chamber. I sealed my refining equipment in the pod and set it to automatically pop out little vials of concentrated poison joke in order to keep the powder and the leftover plant pieces separate. That way, I figured, I could stay out here at the control console and levitate the vials to the parts of the chamber where I had my experiments waiting."

Another shrug, and she pointed to a picture of a box with a whole pile of tiny cylinders next to it. "Well, it turns out that refined poison joke creates a field around itself that is extremely resistant to magical manipulation. I tried and tried and tried, but I just couldn't lift any of the vials, and since it's an area effect, I couldn't turn off the refinery with my magic, either. The vials kept popping out of the pod, and the way they went rolling all over the floor, when I ran in there to deal with the problem physically, well, I slipped, cracked a couple vials, and got concentrated poison joke powder all over me."

"Oh, my!" Fluttershy clasped her hooves to her chest.

Twilight shrugged again. "I'll admit that I'd been wondering if poison joke would affect me differently now that I'm an alicorn, or if concentrating it the way I was would increase its potency." She tapped a drawing of herself sprawled on her belly, her horn drooping, her tongue lolling, and her wings dragging. "It turns out that it weakens my magic the same as before, but now it also weakens my wings and the rest of me; I could barely stagger out of the chamber and into the shower of Zecora's remedy that I've set up in the airlock."

"Twilight!" Every hair in Fluttershy's mane felt like it was standing up. "All alone in a room full of extra-strength poison joke? You could've...could've..." She covered her snout, not wanting any more words to get out.

But Twilight shook her head. "Oh, it wouldn't've done anything serious. It's right there in the name, remember?" Her eyes brightened. "One on my theories, actually, is that poison joke knows what the funniest effect for each pony will be because it resonates with the same cosmic force that gives us our cutie marks! That's why—" She took a breath, held up a hoof, and blew the breath out. "But there's no point getting ahead of things. If I can't manage to conduct the experiments, then all this theorizing is nothing but talk."

"So..." Fluttershy wasn't quite sure she understood yet. "You just need me to move some little bottles?"

"Pretty much." Twilight grinned. "Because I've tried seventeen times now to move the vials myself." Her right eyelid twitched. "I've tried carrying them carefully one by one. I've tried setting the vials into this padded rack on wheels I built. I've tried a conveyor belt, a little wind-up crane, and a miniature train set. And every time—every time!—something goes wrong: I end up coated in powder and staggering weak-kneed in whatever direction'll make me crash into more of the vials so I break them, too!"

What looked like steam was puffing from her nostrils, and Fluttershy wondered whether it would make things better or worse if she slipped under the desk to hide. But when Twilight made a choking noise and slumped forward onto the floor, Fluttershy cried, "Twilight!" She leaped into the air, swooped over, and slid to a landing beside her. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." Twilight groaned, pushed herself back into a sitting position, and gave a rickety sort of smile. "It's just...if we can learn how poison joke works, maybe we can find useful things to do with it! I mean, a pony who shrinks like Applejack could get a little diving suit and go into business as a plumber! Excessive hair growth like Rarity's would be a boon to wig manufacturers! And who knows what other marvels we could unlock if only we understood—!"

"I'll do it." Fluttershy forced her panic down and tried to look resolute. "If you think it's important, then...then it must be important."

"Oh, Fluttershy!" Twilight wrapped Fluttershy in a hug so wonderful, Fluttershy didn't mind at all that it squeezed the breath out of her. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! Let me demonstrate the safety procedures!"

She showed her the airlock that led in and out of the isolation chamber—"The doors are connected with gears so only one can be open at a time, and they're completely mechanical, too, so the anti-magic field won't stop them from working!"—the shower inside the airlock—"Once the inner door closes, just pull the rope, and it'll rain Zecora's elixir all over you!"—and the layout of the isolation chamber—"It's only about six steps from the place where the vials come out of the pod to the farthest of the experiments, so take your time, walk carefully, and set a vial into each of the twenty tubes."

The vials themselves turned out to be little cylindrical bottles about as tall as the width of Fluttershy's hoof and narrow enough so she could easily grasp them in her teeth. "They're a good, thick glass," Twilight said, "so don't worry that you'll break them if you bite too hard. When they come out of the pod, they'll have blue powder inside and this stopper screwed over the end." She levitated a little black lid and spun it into place closing off the mouth of the bottle. "Put the vials into the tubes with the stopper down, and they'll be all set."

It didn't really sound that dangerous, and even if a vial broke, since she wouldn't be tongue-tied like Pinkie, she'd still be able to talk to Twilight through the intercom, and she'd be able to get back to the airlock without tripping like Rarity or crashing like Rainbow. And—Fluttershy couldn't help giggling at the thought—maybe she could even sit in with the Ponytones for a song or two before her shower...

"One more thing," Twilight said then, her voice so serious, it shocked Fluttershy out of her reverie. Blinking, she looked up to see Twilight beside the control panel, its lights glowing and flashing, the needles on its dials hovering and wavering. "We're dealing with a highly concentrated form of a very peculiar substance, so if anything weird starts happening in there— Well, you'll notice that all the experiments are set up in this long recessed alcove along the back wall?"

Fluttershy hadn't noticed that, in fact, but looking through the crystal partition now, she could see that the boxes were indeed sitting on a sort of shelf that ran from one side of the chamber to the other.

"As a precaution," Twilight was going on, "there's a metal door that slides down to seal the experiments off from the rest of the chamber." She set a hoof beside a big red button on the console. "When I trigger it—again, it's mechanical so the concentrated poison joke won't bother it—it closes off the alcove and floods the experiments with neutralization elixir." She shrugged. "I thought about installing a spray system over the whole isolation chamber, but it would have to work by gravity flow, and that much liquid is way too heavy for the ceiling to support. But I did put in several fans to circulate the air through a set of treated filters."

Ice wanted to shiver down Fluttershy's spine, but she forced it away. "Oh, Twilight! The way you're so organized and thorough, I'm not worried at all!" And it would've sounded even better, she was sure, if her voice hadn't cracked on that last word.

Twilight smiled, but the curve of her lips barely pointed up at the ends. "You don't have to do this, Fluttershy. I know I can get a little carried away when I'm on a roll, but—"

"It's okay." Feeling daring, Fluttershy reached up and rested a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "Your projects are always fascinating, and I can't wait to see what you'll come up with because of this one."

"Thank you." Twilight's smile strengthened. "Now, we'll both be wearing eye protection, of course, and I can get you one of these or a hazmat suit if you want." She poked at the sleeve of her lab coat. "But since nothing flimsier than crystal seems to keep the pollen out, it'd just be for the fashion value."

"Hmmm." Touching her chin, Fluttershy pretended to think about it. "Well, I know which way Rarity would vote, but I think I'll go without." Besides, she didn't say out loud, if she had to run away from some sort of poison-joke-spawned monster, she really didn't want anything tangling her hooves and wings...

"Okay!" Everything about Twilight was brightening again, and two pairs of goggles rose up from below the console, Twilight grabbing one while the other drifted toward Fluttershy. "Put these on, please, then go on in and stand next to the pod. When you tell me you're ready, I'll activate the refinery, and it'll start putting out vials at a rate of one every forty-five seconds. That should easily be enough time for you to get over to the experiments and back." Snapping on her goggles, Twilight did a little dance. "Oh, I just know this is going to work out great!"

Not trusting herself to speak, Fluttershy nodded, slipped her own goggles on, turned, and started along the wall to the airlock, her hooves clickety-clacking over the crystal floor. She pulled the door open with her teeth, stepped through before she could change her mind, and purposefully kept her eyes forward so she wouldn't see the door swinging shut. Instead, she focused on the rope hanging down from the wall ahead and to her left, the rope she would pull to trigger the shower she really hoped she wouldn't need.

The door behind her clicked, and half a heartbeat later—which at this point was a very short time because Fluttershy's heart was pounding quite quickly—the door in front of her gave a click of its own. Nosing this door out of the way, she slipped into the large crystal chamber, her eyes wide and her ears perked in case anything might be trying to sneak up on her from—

"Okay!" Twilight's voice boomed, nearly knocking Fluttershy sideways onto the floor. "Checking the intercom! Fluttershy, can you hear me?"

Swallowing against what felt like most of her internal organs trying to leap up her throat, Fluttershy nodded before she could manage to say, "It's maybe a little loud?"

"Loud? Okay!" Then at much less destructive a volume, "How's this? Better?"

Again, Fluttershy nodded and made her way along the wall to the large half sphere of the isolation pod. Twilight had said that it was made of the same clear crystal as the rest of the protective barriers, but the stacks and stacks of poison joke flowers piled inside next to the tangled tubes and boxes and wires and corkscrews and who knew what else gave the whole thing a bluish tint.

She wanted to do some more swallowing, but instead, she called, "Twilight? I'm ready."

"Okay! I'm starting the refinery in three...two...one."

The pod beside her gave a gentle sort of pop, and Fluttershy forced herself to peer through the goggles and the blue glass as parts of the machine began spinning and sliding up and down. Three or four flowers got sucked into some sort of nozzle at the bottom; two parts on either side that looked like umbrellas started pumping in and out; and lights popped on and off all over.

It was kind of fun to watch, actually, like when her parents would take her and Zephyr to the F.A.O. Lippizan toy store in downtown Cloudsdale at Hearth's Warming to look at the train sets and model cityscapes laid out with airships and carts and—

Something went "Ping!" and Fluttershy started back. Inside the pod, a door had opened at the top of the machine, and a bottle rolled out. It rattled down a little ramp toward something she hadn't noticed before: a bowling-ball-sized gear attached to the side of the pod and slowly rotating down by the floor. The gear had very big teeth—only six of them as far as Fluttershy could tell—but the gaps between the teeth were quite narrow, and as it revolved, half its teeth were inside the pod at any one time and the other half were outside.

When the bottle reached the gear, Fluttershy couldn't help holding her breath. But it slipped right into one of the spaces between the teeth and stayed there, riding all the way over and around till it was outside the pod and sliding into a padded bowl right in front of Fluttershy.

"Okay!" Twilight's voice rang from the crystal wall. "You've got forty-five seconds till the next one's ready. No hurry, though!"

With a nervous nod, Fluttershy bent down, picked up the bottle, and trotted the six steps across the room to the row of experiments. Setting the stoppered end of the bottle into one of the holes on the farthest box, she let it go, made sure it slid in, turned around, and got back to the pod while the little umbrella things were still flapping. She had time to take several deep breaths, too, before the bell rang, and she carried the next bottle over to the second slot in the first experiment.

The third bottle came and went just as smoothly, and so did the fourth and fifth. After that, Fluttershy fell into a nice, steady rhythm, and she even smiled when, as she was carrying the third-to-last bottle over to the first slot of the final experiment, a happy little squeak came from the intercom speaker. "Oh, Fluttershy! This is so great! We'll actually finish at this rate! Which reminds me: I haven't visited Zecora in a while..."

Fluttershy giggled around the bottle, slipped it into the slot—

And the bell rang behind her.

She froze for an instant, then snapped her head around to see a bottle riding the big gear out of the pod. Hurrying over, she called, "Twilight?"

"Okay." All the happiness had vanished from Twilight's voice. "The refinery's still moving at the same pace as far as I can tell. I don't know how that current vial came out so much sooner than it should've."

Bending toward the little padded bowl, Fluttershy kept her eye on the machine, the parts spinning and sliding the way they had been, the umbrella things opening and closing, the lights going on and off. Only when her snout was practically touching the bottle did she look down and notice that the black stopper was missing, the blue powder spilling out, a spicy scent tickling her nose.

Gasping before she could stop herself, she froze again, her tongue suddenly tingling. "Twilight!" she called, leaping back, but her voice was already deepening, her throat scratchy like she was catching a cold. She exhaled, thought about trying to spit the powder back out, but when a wave of heat washed through her from head to tail, something that hadn't happened to her the other times she'd been exposed to poison joke, she couldn't help gasping again.

But instead of the breath rushing in sharp and quick as it had an instant ago, the air poured into her and kept pouring as if her lungs were inflating like balloons. She felt the same sort of head rush she always got when she was taking off for a flight, but her hooves were still on the ground. Weren't they? Dizziness swirling around her, she glanced down—

And could only stare at her hooves expanding like sponges in water to cover more of the floor. The muscles of her forearms, her shanks, even her fetlocks were bulging and thickening, her legs lengthening, her chest and barrel growing larger and fuller. A glance to either side revealed that her shoulders and withers were widening as well, and craning her neck around, she saw her back and haunches doing the same, her wings bristling with row after row of new feathers, her whole body bulking up. Something tightened around her temples, and with a ripping sound, her goggles popped off, the elastic band torn jaggedly down the back.

She swallowed, remembering their adventure inside Spike's comic book, but she wasn't feeling angry the way she had then. And indeed, the growth already seemed to be slowing, the flood of warm dizziness gone, the stretching sensation vanishing and leaving her well shy of the massive monster she'd become back then.

The next gasp came over the intercom, and Fluttershy looked at the crystal wall to see Twilight looking back, her eyes and mouth wide. "Fluttershy?" she more squeaked than said. "Are...are you okay?"

"I think so." Fluttershy touched her throat with one big hoof, her voice different from the one poison joke had given her before. It was deep, yes, resonant, yes, but it was undeniably female: a contralto, the musical part of her brain offered, rather than a bass.

"We're shutting down!" Twilight was shouting. "You need to get out of there, and I'm coming in!"

"No!" The word burst from her like a slung stone, but in her alarm, Fluttershy didn't even try to moderate her tones. "I'm all right, and if you come in, the poison joke'll just weaken you!" She cocked a pastern, the muscles bunching and swelling beneath her hide. "That doesn't seem to be a problem for me right at the moment..."

"Yes, ma'am! I mean, no, ma'am! I mean—!" Twilight sounded as breathless as if she'd just run all the way from Sweet Apple Acres. "Just get out of there! Please!"

"I'm all right," Fluttershy said again, a little surprised to find that she meant it. Straightening to her new height, she looked down at the top of the pod, something she hadn't been able to do just a moment ago, and watched another bottle roll out, the refinery's bell going off. "That's why you asked me to help, isn't it? Because poison joke doesn't do anything really bad to me? There should only be two more bottles, so I'll put them in, shower off, and you can get on with your experiments." Bending her neck—and she had to bend her knees now as well to reach all the way down to the padded bowl—Fluttershy picked up the bottle, turned around—

And stared at the blue vines coiling from every experiment box along the row. The vines spread out as she watched, met and wrapped around each other, twitching and writhing and smacking hard enough into the crystal along the back and side of the alcove to send little sparkling shards whizzing through the air.

Fluttershy spat the bottle from her teeth. "The emergency door, Twilight! Hurry!"

"What? Door? What—?" Twilight gave a little squeak. "Oh, my gosh! Get back, ma'am! I'll—!" Fluttershy heard a thunk, and all along the top of the recess where the experiments sat, a long piece of dark metal appeared, slid down about the width of a hoof, then stopped with a crunch. "It's not dropping!" Twilight yelled. "Is...is something blocking it? What—?"

"There!" Fluttershy leaped toward the far end of the row. One gnarled curl of the vine, she could see, had hit the metal track that was supposed to guide the door downward, cracked the crystal behind it, and knocked it out of alignment. Not knowing if she could do anything helpful, she reared back, planted her right forehoof to the bent track, tensed her new muscles, and pushed.

The track didn't move, but as Fluttershy increased the pressure, it started feeling less like solid metal and more like stiff clay. Leaning into it, she clenched her teeth, and the track sort of mooshed back into its proper position and shape, the door creaking and sliding down so quickly, Fluttershy had to leap away to avoid getting her hooves caught. Sailing backward across the isolation chamber, she watched the door slam all the way closed, and the sound of spraying water told her that Twilight's emergency shower system was working just fine.

Fluttershy spread her wings—they seemed as big as bed sheets behind her—and thumped to the floor in front of the airlock, the crystal beneath her clanging like a gong. Silence followed...or not quite silence: rapid and heavy breathing reached her ears through the intercom. "Twilight?" She looked toward the control console, but from this angle, the reflections in the wall made it hard for her to see it clearly. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, ma'am! I mean, yes! I...I don't know why I'm— I mean, just let me...just—" A big whoosh of breath, and then Twilight went on in a slightly less wobbly tone. "The neutralization elixir seems to have stopped whatever the poison joke was doing with the experiment boxes, and I'll start the fans to clear the air." A cooling downdraft stroked over Fluttershy, the shivering sensations coming from places that seemed farther away than her brain thought they should.

Swallowing a little panic, she turned to the airlock door and breathed a quick sigh of relief. Even with her new size, she still had to look up slightly at the lintel, and she was almost entirely certain that she would be able to squeeze the span of her shoulders through. "All right," she said. "I'll use the shower and see you outside."

"Yes, you, uhh... Yes." Twilight still seemed distracted, but that made sense, Fluttershy supposed. After all, the poison joke had taken her completely by surprise again. And not just her. Fluttershy had to grin, reaching out one massive hoof to carefully push the handle down and pull the door open: before, the handle had been about the level of her snout. Now, it was down below the center of her chest.

Getting through the door actually made her wince a little—she'd forgotten she had to jam the giant bundles of feathers now attached to her between the crystal doorposts as well. But she jimmied herself through, thankful that the room inside was larger than the doorways. Still, the ceiling brushed the tips of her ears, and settling her wings, she smacked the walls on either side.

Another sliver of panic jabbed her, but she breathed it away as well as she could, took the shower rope in her teeth, and gently pulled.

Something clicked above the ceiling, but nothing else seemed to happen. No magic elixir came pouring from the little holes, at any rate.

Not sure if the intercom would work in here, Fluttershy leaned forward, set a hoof to the handle of the outside door, pushed it open just a crack, and called, "Twilight?"

"Yes, ma'am! I mean— Guh!" Fluttershy could hear Twilight gnashing her teeth. "What is it, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy tried to pitch her voice up and narrow its timbre so she'd sound more like herself, but it didn't really work. "I don't want to be a bother, but, well, I pulled the rope for the shower, and it didn't. Shower, I mean."

"What? But it—" A gasp. "Oh, no! I'm sorry, ma'am! I...I mean, the emergency wall, when it drops... I've never had to use it before, but, it...it drains all the neutralization elixir in the storage tanks! So there's...none left for the...the shower..."

Silence settled in and stretched out on the other side of the door. Fluttershy cleared her throat. "But you can mix up some more, can't you?"

"Yes, ma'am! Of course, ma'am! I'm sorry, ma'am! I—!" Twilight made that teeth-grinding noise again. "You might as well come out, Fluttershy. You're not infectious or anything, so we don't have to worry about—"

Pushing the door open, Fluttershy squeezed out, Twilight's words in her ears turning to a gurgle. She looked over to make sure Twilight was okay, then had to to drop her gaze to meet Twilight's.

Those purple eyes stared wide behind her goggles. "You're so...big!" Twilight squeaked.

Not sure how to respond, Fluttershy decided to make light of it. "Do you think so?" She stretched so she could look back at the bulging mounds of herself. "Bigger than Big Mac, I suppose, but not as big as Bulk Biceps." But now that she wasn't panicking, and having Twilight right there to give her a better idea of scale... "I don't know, though." Bending the other way, she did some more looking. "My wings are certainly larger than his, and my hooves and pasterns, so—"

"I could measure you," Twilight said, her gaze unfocusing, a strange half smile on her lips. "Run my calipers all around your—" Gasping, she jumped back, her wings flaring her into a hover that brought her up to Fluttershy's eye level. "No! Sorry, ma'am! I—" Her snout wrinkled into a grimace, and she dropped to the floor. "It's just I...and you...and—" She shook her head. "It'll take me about fifteen minutes to mix up more elixir." Her right eyelid twitched. "Maybe twenty minutes: I'd better do a double batch to make sure we cover...all of you." She swallowed and looked away. "I...I'm so sorry, Fluttershy."

Fluttershy wanted to step forward and put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, but considering how guilty Twilight obviously felt, she decided it would be best if she didn't. "I'm okay, Twilight. Really. It doesn't hurt at all, and once you get Zecora's potion mixed up, I'll be right back to normal."

"Yes," Twilight muttered, her gaze still focused to the side. But then she took a breath and raised her head with a shaky smile. "Don't worry about a thing, Fluttershy. Just go on into the library next door and relax. I...I'll come get you when the reservoir's refilled."

With a nod and a shaky smile of her own, Fluttershy started carefully toward the laboratory door, uncomfortably conscious of her big hooves and what they could maybe do to the crystal floor. Again, she had to bend down to reach the door handle, but at least it was a double door so she fit through easily enough. The hallway outside seemed smaller than usual, but Fluttershy chose not to think about that. Instead, she set her sights on the next set of doors, pushed them open, and stepped into the library.

Well, one of the libraries. How many there were in the castle, she didn't know, but this wasn't the place where she'd spent that long, sweat-drenched night researching the Mystical Mask while Zecora was sick with Swamp Fever. No, judging from the titles of the books—things like Thaumaturgical Manipulation at the Sub-Atomic Level and Advanced Mathemagics—she guessed this was more of a science library.

Which made sense, being right next to the lab and all. It just didn't bode well for finding anything she might be able to settle down and read for the next fifteen or twenty minutes.

Though in all honesty, she didn't feel much like settling down. No doubt the adrenaline was still rushing through her system from the excitement of a few moments ago. And considering how much larger her system was all of a sudden...

Swallowing, Fluttershy stopped in the middle of the room and tried not to imagine that the walls were closing in. This was a fairly familiar sensation for her, of course, but at home when hyperventilation started digging its nasty little teeth into her, she could practice her tai chi and—

Her ears perked. There wasn't any reason she couldn't run through the postures here, was there? She couldn't think of one, and very deliberately pulling in a deep breath and holding it, she slid into the opening stance.

Exercise had never appealed to her growing up in Cloudsdale: it had all been so focused on flying, after all. Moving to Ponyville, though, she'd discovered that her chosen work meant climbing trees and pulling herself through burrows and performing the occasional ursine spinal adjustment. Trying to build strength in her legs and body, she'd gotten some books on calisthenics from the library even before Twilight had come to town, and she'd muddled along that way until Treehugger had introduced her to the ancient earth pony art of tai chi p'yon.

It had been a revelation. Not only had Fluttershy found it useful for keeping herself supple and stronger than she looked, but concentrating on the forms also helped her relax in the morning before she had to head out into the wild tumult of Ponyville to do her shopping and all.

Sliding from pose to pose now, though, she found that she had to slow the motions even more than usual since nothing felt the same. She closed her eyes so she could concentrate on the simple, flowing movements, and gradually, she found herself able to think about the differences without panicking, every "Parting the Mane" and "Stroking the Sparrow's Tail" spreading her awareness further out into her expanded frame and limbs.

Not that that awareness helped her understand the sensations. She was heavier, yes, but also lighter somehow, each flex and stretch bringing her the impression of being both more solid and more liquid. Still, her big new muscles responded with a precision she'd never before experienced, and she went through the twenty-four basic positions with a firmness and crispness that exhilarated her. Reaching the end, she stepped right back to the beginning and started again.

How many times she went through the sequence, she had no idea, but she started wondering if maybe she could try some other things, maybe some of the gymnastic routines she always loved to watch at the Equestria Games. So she added a few flares here and there, twirls that definitely weren't a proper part of the tai chi program, even balancing on one leg in ways that she didn't think she would've been physically able to do before. She found herself laughing, humming, singing wordlessly in her thick-as-honey voice, dancing with her altered self, and—

A little choking noise came from behind her; Fluttershy opened her eyes and saw Twilight standing in the library door with her mouth and eyes wide. "I'm sorry!" Twilight blurted. "I didn't—! I wasn't—! I shouldn't've—!" Her wings flapping to hold her upright, she clapped both front hooves over her mouth, the sour smell of fear touching her usual clean, lavender scent.

Which was just about enough of that. Fluttershy planted all four hooves firmly on the floor. "Twilight Sparkle! I'll not have you feeling so guilty about this!" The words came out much more sternly than she'd intended, so she swallowed and tried to lighten her tone. "You explained the risks before we began, and I accepted those risks. What happened wasn't even bad, and a little shower makes it all go away. So please stop blaming yourself."

"Yes, ma'am!" Twilight squeaked between her hooves, a shiver shaking her from nose to tail. "Sorry, ma'am!" Her eyes closed, and she dropped back down to stand regularly, her head drooping. "It's just— What kind of pony does things like this to her friends?"

And Fluttershy couldn't've stopped herself if she'd wanted to: she swooped forward, set one foreleg lightly over Twilight's withers, and pulled her into a gentle hug. "A pony whose life is a constant adventure," she said, her attempt at a whisper making her voice as rumbly as a tiger's purr. "And a pony who loves sharing those adventures."

Twilight made a little mewing noise, her cheek rubbing against Fluttershy's chest all warm and tingly. A gasp puffed goosebumps over Fluttershy's hide almost immediately, though, and Twilight literally vanished, popping back into existence out in the hallway, a blush making her face more of a burgundy color. "Sorry!" Another grimace, and she sighed. "Thanks, I mean. It...it means a lot to hear you say that." Raising a hoof, she gestured to the lab doors. "But the elixir's ready if...if you are."

Still a little tingly, Fluttershy nodded, not quite sure she could speak through her suddenly tight throat. The silence went on as prickly as a hedgehog down the hall and into the lab, the air thick and strange. Twilight walked beside her to the airlock door, then cleared her throat. "Just...just go on in, pull the rope, and you'll be...back to normal."

For some reason, Fluttershy thought of the times she'd gone away on train trips: she wanted to hug Twilight again and tell her good-bye. Shaking it off, she instead said, "Thank you, Twilight" before pulling open the airlock door, and squeezing carefully inside. She took the rope in her teeth, gave it a tug, and with a gurgle and a splash, warm water rained down over her.

Earlier, the sensations had been of stretching, flexing, thickening, so Fluttershy wasn't surprised when this was more of a relaxing, a settling, the sort of melting she sometimes imagined just as she was falling asleep. Her breaths got shorter and shorter, but it wasn't the shortness of breath she knew from her panic attacks. Again, it felt more like drifting off to sleep.

The rope began sliding against her lips. She blinked, let it go, saw the walls moving upward as if she were coming in for a landing, the lines and angles around her shifting back to their proper alignments. With a breath, she turned, something she could do quite easily again, reached up for the door handle, and pushed outside.

Twilight stood waiting with a towel and the most wonderful little warmth spell, both of which helped dry Fluttershy in no time. "Now you're sure you're all right?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nodded, and just to prove it, she sang a quick arpeggio in her regular mezzo. "See? No harm done."

"Yes," Twilight said, but the word seemed somehow hollow in Fluttershy's ear. "I...I can walk you home, though, if you'd like. If you're, umm..." She gave a little shrug.

"I'm fine, thank you." Fluttershy stepped forward to nuzzle Twilight, a part of her glad that she had to stretch once more to do it. "I don't want to be a bother, and I know you have a lot to do here."

"Yes." Twilight swallowed so hard, Fluttershy could feel it pulse against her cheek. "I...I'll definitely need to redefine a few parameters after all this..."

Stepping away, Fluttershy nodded. "Well, if you need my help again—"

"Oh, I, ummm..." A twitchy sort of smile tugged Twilight's muzzle. "Thank you. I...I'll let you know if I do."

"All right." Fluttershy turned for the door, so glad to see that it was also the right size again. "I'll probably see you tomorrow."

"Yes," Twilight said for a third time in that distracted tone, and Fluttershy picked up her pace so as not to take up any more of Twilight's time.
> 2 - The Results
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doing her tai chi exercises the next morning, Fluttershy found herself screeching to an unsteady halt several times when her legs didn't reach quite as far as she'd been expecting them to. Uneasiness building to full-fledged panic, she finally had to rush to her closet and try on four perfectly fitting dresses before she could convince herself that, no, she hadn't shrunk overnight.

Her face warm, she hung her clothes back up, glided over to the little rug beside her bed once more, and retook the opening pose. This time, she made it all the way to the end, but just like last night, she had to go slowly and concentrate. Had she really become so accustomed to being oversized during those twenty or so minutes at Twilight's that she'd forgotten how her actual body worked?

The second time through the twenty-four postures, she reached the proper tempo at least and was able to start cultivating her usual air of resigned acceptance. As a vital part of her morning exercises, she would review the ways she'd failed the previous day so she could acknowledge them, vow to do better, and put them behind her. Remembering last night, though, and considering how badly she'd embarrassed herself, embarrassed Twilight, and messed up everything because she hadn't been more careful, she needed to run through her poses a third time before she felt that she was finally getting back into sync both physically and mentally.

She slid once more into the closing movement, released her grip on the final fragments of her shattered hopes the way she always did, blew out a breath, and scattered those fragments to places where they would never bother her again. Then she turned, headed downstairs, boiled up a bowl of oatmeal, and began her morning chores.

Still, throughout the rest of the day, whether she was brushing nettles out of a distressed squirrel's coat or teaching her Wednesday afternoon class or strolling back into town afterwards with Applejack to help Big McIntosh close up the market stall for the evening, she found herself wondering how the animals and her students and her friends and the other townsfolk might react to seeing her as large as she'd been last night.

Just the thought of Big Mac having to look up to meet her gaze made her giggle, and she giggled even more on the walk back to her cottage when she imagined a friendly wrestling match between her and Harry out in the school gymnasium, ponies and griffins and changelings and creatures of all sorts hopping and whistling and cheering around the ring...

The next day, she only had to perform her exercises once to settle herself enough to go into town on her weekly seed run. Then around lunchtime, some crows came cawing and tapping at her window with a story about an awful smell up by the animal sanctuary. She flew out with them to take a look and spent the rest of the afternoon organizing beavers and bears and a whole squadron of the larger birds to help cut down a fungus-riddled oak and haul it away before it could collapse into any nearby trees, maybe crushing various nests and burrows and spreading the horrible stuff further through the forest.

Sweaty, dirty, stinky, the mask tied around her snout making it hard for the moles digging out the infected roots to understand her, Fluttershy thought how handy some poison joke powder might've been right then. She could've taken care of this whole mess herself, pulling the tree out and flying it away without all this bother...

Almost completely wrung out, she thought about staying in bed when she woke the next morning, but she certainly didn't want to miss her regular Friday appointment with Rarity at the spa. Even after her tai chi, she was very happy to head over there, the treatment so relaxing that she found herself drifting off into a reverie imagining Bulk Biceps' face if she'd showed up here Tuesday night after Twilight—

"—haven't seen Twilight all week," Rarity was saying, catching Fluttershy's ear and making her blink. Fortunately, she was already flushed from the hot scented water they were soaking in, so she didn't have to worry about Rarity noticing her blush: the last she'd heard, Rarity had been in the middle of another cute story about Opalescence...

"All week?" Fluttershy repeated to show that she'd been paying attention, and only then did she realize that she hadn't seen Twilight during the past several days either.

"Yes." Rarity waved a hoof, little ripples spreading through the steam. "Still, that's our Twilight, isn't it? When I'm swamped with work, she's constantly stopping by wanting to take me to lunch, but when my schedule opens up a bit, she's nowhere to be found!"

"Oh, my." Considering what Twilight had been up to the other night, Fluttershy couldn't keep her ears from folding. "Do you think she's all right?"

With another wave of her hoof, Rarity leaned back against the rim of the tub. "She's no doubt hock deep in some experiment, or she and Starlight are debating some abstruse point of magical lore." Her hornglow grabbed a sponge from the bucket on the rail and squeezed a trickle of cold water down her face. "Nonetheless, after our classes today, we should march up to her office and thoroughly lambaste her for ignoring us!"

"Oh, my!" And when she said it this time, Fluttershy couldn't help clutching her hooves to her chest. "Unless...does that mean bringing a little lamb to visit her?"

Rarity tapped her chin. "It should mean that, shouldn't it? And I daresay that would likely prove more effective than the regular sort of huffing and puffing the term usually entails." Beaming, she patted Fluttershy's shoulder. "Well, perhaps we'll try it with just the two of us first and bring the lamb in later if the situation calls for it."

So, after finishing up her lesson and wishing her students a pleasant and safe weekend, Fluttershy met Rarity in the school's rotunda for a walk through the empty hallways to the headmare's office. But only Spike was there, tapping away at the little typewriter on his desk. "Yeah," he said, "I've hardly seen her all week, too. She's been down in the lab working with poison joke, and—"

"Gracious!" Rarity drew one leg up, her nose wrinkling like she'd smelled the tree fungus from yesterday. "Why in the wide, wide world of Equestria would she want anything to do with that grotesque substance?"

A little heat shot through Fluttershy. She opened her mouth, but since she had no idea what she wanted to say, she quickly closed it again.

Spike was shrugging. "I've been taking breakfast, lunch, and dinner down to her every day, and since the dirty dishes're sitting out in the hallway each time I come back, I guess she's eating. But if she's still holed up in there Sunday night, Starlight says she'll help me pry her out so we can at least hose her off."

Rarity shuddered. "Well, as long as you're monitoring the situation."

Reaching into the typewriter to untangle the little rods, Spike shrugged some more. "You know how she is. She'll be fine once she figures out whatever's grabbed hold of her."

As much as Fluttershy didn't like it, she knew Spike was right. But all the way back to Carousel Boutique, she had to keep biting her tongue while Rarity went through in excruciating detail how terrible her experience with poison joke had been all those years ago. On the boutique's doorstep, though, Fluttershy couldn't help saying, "But poison joke did help out the Ponytones when Big Mac lost his voice, didn't it?"

"Hmmm?" Rarity glanced over, the light of her horn pushing the door open. "Oh, well, yes, but that was a completely unique situation. Those flowers are nothing but trouble for the most part, and the less I have to do with them, the better."

Not wanting to argue, Fluttershy nodded, returned Rarity's good night, and took the road out of town across the bridge to her cottage.

After her evening chores, she fried some potatoes and squash for supper and curled up on the sofa with the book she was reading. That always made the day's tensions drain partially away, she'd found, and several hours later, finally ready for bed, she yawned and stood and stretched, turned for the stairs up to her bedroom—

And stopped when a hesitant, sloppy sort of knock sounded at the front door. More a scratching than a knocking, she thought. Maybe some poor injured creature?

That made her wings spread, and she swooped across the room. Pulling the door open carefully so as not to alarm whatever might be outside needing her help, she focused on the stoop and blinked at four purple hooves. "I shouldn't," a voice whispered, and Fluttershy raised her gaze along long, shapely purple legs and a lovely purple chest to see Twilight, her eyes wide and bloodshot, her mane a mess and a pair of saddlebags slung all askew across her back. "It's wrong, wrong, wrong..."

Fluttershy's ears pulled tight against her head. "Twilight?"

"I should go." Twilight was blinking so rapidly that Fluttershy found herself thinking of window shutters flapping in a storm.

"Um." Slowly, Fluttershy reached up and rested a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "You look like you could use some tea, Twilight."

"I could." Her voice had a thickness to it that flicked every 'hurt animal' switch in Fluttershy's head. "I really, really could."

"Well, then." Fluttershy made her tone all soft and sweet and coaxing. "Please, Twilight, won't you come in? It's nice and warm, and you look very cold and tired." In fact, she looked like she'd been run over repeatedly by multiple yaks, but Fluttershy didn't think making that observation out loud would help the situation.

"Tired." Twilight nodded. "I haven't slept in—" Her brow wrinkled, her snout scrunching up. "Three days? Four, maybe? Is it Friday or Saturday?"

It took some effort, but Fluttershy didn't unleash the Stare. Still, she felt like she was issuing an order when she slid a little to the side and said, "Come in, Twilight."

"Thank you," Twilight murmured. She stumbled past, and Fluttershy was sure she could smell the exhaustion wafting up all muddy and damp from her coat.

Refusing to panic, Fluttershy quickly formed a plan: she needed to get Twilight settled comfortably on the sofa and see if she could make her feel safe enough to take a nap. She closed the door, turned—

And found herself snout to snout with Twilight, those big eyes wavering. "You don't hate me, Fluttershy, do you? I...I couldn't stand it if you hated me!"

"Twilight!" Without needing to think, Fluttershy curled a foreleg around Twilight's withers and pressed her face into the crook of her neck. "How could I? Your friendship made me who I am today, and my life has never been so wonderful!" Stepping back, she raised her gaze to meet and hold Twilight's. "Can you...can you tell me what's wrong?"

A swallow convulsed Twilight's throat. "You know what's wrong," she muttered. Her eyes narrowed, her voice roughening. "If anypony in this town knows, it's you. Because you're the same way."

Fluttershy's ears didn't fold this time because she wouldn't let them. "The same as what, Twilight?"

"The same as me!" Twilight whirled up from the carpet, her wings and hooves flailing. "But you get to be that way, don't you? You don't have to be a bulwark of Equestrian civilization, always steadfast, always prepared, always in charge and in control!"

Sliding onto all fours halfway across the front room, Twilight spun and aimed a hoof so sharply, Fluttershy couldn't stop a wince. "'Cause I know what you like! I heard about you riding Bulk Biceps' barbell when you were all on the train heading up to the Equestria Games! You want somepony big and strong to hold you close and gentle, somepony you can cuddle with and...and..." Twilight more collapsed back onto her haunches than sat. "And feel cozy and loved and protected..." She wrapped her forelegs around herself, her eyelids drooping and a tiny smile pulling at her lips.

Her heart kettledrumming against her ribs, Fluttershy had to struggle not to leap for the nearest table so she could hide under it. This couldn't be a changeling, but it couldn't be Twilight, either, especially when she went on, her voice soft and strange and not like anything Fluttershy had heard from her before. "Maybe you've almost gone and talked with Applejack, too, almost asked her if Big McIntosh would mind you maybe stopping by some evening for a...a visit." She sucked in a breath, her head snapping up. "Nothing tawdry! I just mean some touching and some snuggling and some nuzzling and some holding! That's all! Except—"

Twilight's face hardened, and Fluttershy couldn't've leaped for the table then if she'd wanted to. "Except he'd have that thing, wouldn't he?" Twilight nearly spat the words. "He'd be all poking and prodding and...and stalliony everywhere! And Bulk Biceps? He's like a canker sore, shouting and awful and prob'bly rough as sandpaper!" A shudder shook her so thoroughly, Fluttershy was afraid she might tip over.

Still, Fluttershy opened her mouth to say that Bulk was actually a very nice and polite pony once you got to know him, but Twilight, staying upright somehow, was going on, her lips barely moving. "It's too much to ask, isn't it? Too much to want somepony smooth and gentle and big and strong. Ponies like that don't really exist, not regular ponies, I mean, ponies you can talk to and sleep with once you've grown up and who don't have the entire world literally depending on them every stupid hour of every stupid day. But I accept that they don't exist. I do. I do. Except—"

The way her gaze focused suddenly, so sharp and shining and intent, Fluttershy was sure she could feel it like a currycomb against her hide. "Except for you last Tuesday night," Twilight said, the words popping in Fluttershy's ears as small as soap bubbles. "And I...I...I—" She bent her head around, reached into her saddlebag with her snout, and came out with something clenched in her teeth, something small and cylindrical, partially clear and partially blue.

In the silence that followed, Fluttershy wouldn't let herself think, wouldn't let herself look at the little bottle of concentrated poison joke that Twilight was setting onto the table in front of the sofa, wouldn't let herself gasp or shiver or anything.

"And that," Twilight whispered, her gaze on the floor, "is why I haven't slept. 'Cause every time I close my eyes, I see you dancing in my library, my fantasy come to life, and feel the perfect pressure of my check against your big, broad chest. And it's also why I should go. 'Cause this is horrible, what I'm doing right here and right now. And it's also why you're going to hate me. 'Cause I'm going to ask you please to...to...to..." She waved at the bottle, and it wobbled where it stood.

Fluttershy couldn't stop her wings from shooting out. "Careful!" she whimpered. "You'll spill it!"

Twilight's chest was rising and falling very rapidly, but the bottle didn't tumble over, didn't shatter or pop its lid or spray blue powder everywhere. "Don't worry," Twilight said, but then she pulled a second bottle from her saddlebag and placed it next to the first. "I brought one for each of us."

Questions flashed through Fluttershy's mind like salmon struggling and leaping upstream, but the only one she could get past her lips was, "Each?"

When Twilight nodded, it made Fluttershy think of a scarecrow's head getting tossed around in a breeze. "One so you can get all big and strong," Twilight said, her voice more breath than words, "and one so I can get all weak and wimpy. Then you'll...you'll hold me sweet and close, and I won't hafta be sturdy, won't hafta be reliable, won't hafta be...won't hafta be me." She drooped, Fluttershy trying her best to keep completely still and quiet.

But then Twilight's head snapped up again, her eyes hard and glassy. "But you won't do that, and I won't do that. I'm me no matter what, and I refuse to give in to these unnatural cravings! D'you hear me?" Rearing back onto her hind legs, she spread her wings and front hooves, fire crackling down her horn, weaving through her mane, and bursting into a nimbus around her head. "I am Twilight Sparkle!" she roared, the whole house shaking. "I am the Princess of Friendship! And I will not betray everything I believe in by coming here and asking you to do something so—!"

The fire shut off as suddenly as if somepony had flipped a switch, and Twilight collapsed back onto her haunches again. The curdled stink of bone-deep weariness rolled off her this time in an invisible fog, and she started wilting like a daisy that hadn't been watered in a very long time. "But...I am here, aren't I? And that means I'm a fraud and a villain and a monster and a—"

"No!" Fluttershy couldn't stay still and quiet a moment longer. She leaped forward and tucked herself against Twilight's chest in the hope that she could prop her up. "You're none of those things, Twilight, and I won't have you thinking that you are!"

For several long seconds, Fluttershy just stood there with Twilight's weight pressing warm along her side. Then in a voice as brittle as glass about to break, Twilight said, "Thank you. But I should go."

"No." Keeping her words steady took a fair amount of effort, but Fluttershy made that effort, pushed away from Twilight, and looked up to meet her wide-eyed gaze. "Because if we're going to do this, we're going to need some rules."

"Rules?" The tiniest spark flickered in Twilight's face, the tiniest smile pulling her lips. "Rules are good."

"Exactly." Not letting herself lose sight of her goal—Twilight sleeping—Fluttershy nodded to the bottles on the table. "And rule number one is: until we know better how poison joke extract affects me, we won't both be taking it at the same time."

The traces of Twilight's smile faded, but Fluttershy pushed on: "Think about it, Twilight. We don't know how strong I get, so if you're magically weakened, what happens if I accidentally squeeze you too hard and hurt you?" An idea popped into her head, and she seized on it eagerly. "We need to run some experiments first, don't you think?"

Just as Fluttershy had hoped, the smile sprang back even bigger across Twilight's muzzle. "Experiments? Yes, I...I like experiments. I like them very much."

Fluttershy didn't cheer with relief because, well, the hard part hadn't even started yet. "So, you'll lie down on the sofa, all right? I'll take the bottles over to the other side of the room, and I'll use one of them to—" She had to swallow against the tightness in her throat. "To grow," she finally got herself to say.

Twilight's wings were vibrating against her sides as fast a hummingbird's. "And you'll be in charge?" she asked.

With another swallow, Fluttershy nodded. "Which will be rule number two. If I'm in charge, then we'll need a safe word."

Ears springing up, Twilight's head pulled back. "A what? But why? And how...how do you even know what a safe word is?"

It felt like every inch of her was blushing. "Rarity lends me romance novels, and once, she, uhh, she gave me one she didn't mean to." She forced her head up. "But you remember what happened with me and Iron Will, right? And just last month when I tried to help out at 'Rarity for You'?" As much as she wanted to crawl under the table, Fluttershy needed Twilight to understand this. "Sometimes when I act like somepony else, I...I get a little lost. But if you say something like...like 'coriander casserole,' it'll remind me that I'm me and make me stop and look at whatever it is I'm—"

"Wait, wait, wait." Twilight was blinking very quickly again. "I don't— This isn't— Why do we—?"

"Twilight!" The power of the Stare bubbled behind Fluttershy's forehead, but she managed to breathe it away before it could burst out of her. "These are the rules," she went on when she could. "If we want to do this, then we have to—"

"Follow them. Yes. You're right; you're right." Twilight swayed where she sat on the floor, but she showed no sign of passing out. "'Coriander casserole.' I'll say that if...if...y'know, I can't think of anything you could do that would make me need a safe word, actually. But if it's a rule, then it's a rule." Her smile seemed much more lively all of a sudden. "What's next?"

Fluttershy did some more swallowing. Her first thought had been that she could keep adding rules till the exhausted Twilight passed out from boredom, but, well, she'd kind of forgotten who she was dealing with. This was Twilight Sparkle, after all. For her, the more rules, the better...

Casting around for another plan, Fluttershy found nothing in her head but another rule. It was a good one, though, one that might actually let her postpone everything tonight. "Third, we need some of Zecora's remedy standing by in case things get too weird for me and I need to change back."

The glow sputtered around Twilight's horn, but it stretched quickly and solidly to pluck a bottle of green powder from her saddlebag. "I recall when I've used your bathroom that the dimensions of your tub are slightly larger than usual. I suppose it's easier to wash animals in it that way?" Twilight arched an eyebrow at her.

"Oh! Umm, yes, that...that's it exactly." Discussing her plumbing fixtures with Twilight would've been odd enough under any circumstances, but right now, it was all Fluttershy could do not to start giggling. "They always appreciate the warm water, I find."

"Good!" Twilight grabbed the greenish bottle out of the air and set it on the table beside the bluish bottles. "This, therefore, should be the proper amount of herbs to mix into your tub when it's three-quarters full of water, and it'll wash away all the effects of the poison joke." Her tongue darted out to touch her upper lip. "Though of course I'll need to sponge the solution over you since you'll be too large to fit into the tub..."

The image of her giant self sitting on the bathroom floor while Twilight used the sponge clenched in her teeth to ever so slowly drizzle warm elixir over and across her muscular body drove every other thought from Fluttershy's head. Nothing seemed real, the lighting peculiar and the sounds muffled like she was in a dream, but stepping past Twilight, she swept all three bottles into the grip of her wings, tucked them against her sides, and started across the carpet.

Twilight squealed behind her, then gasped, "Oh, wait! I'm supposed to be lying on the sofa!" A rush of feathers, and Fluttershy heard the rustle and crunch of somepony landing on her couch cushions.

She didn't look back, though. She couldn't. Not if she wanted to do this without collapsing into a quivering pile of pink hair and yellow hide.

Of course, she didn't want to do this. But Twilight seemed to want it so very much, and it wasn't as if growing had hurt at all the other night. And if it would calm Twilight down so she could sleep...

Her knees shaking, Fluttershy found herself thinking of the simple act of walking to the other side of the room as if it were part of her tai chi p'yon exercises. Concentrating on the movements and only on the movements, she made it to the far wall, carefully set the bottles on the little table under the window, then turned, hoping against hope that Twilight would be stretched out asleep and lightly snoring.

But Twilight was sitting up, her eyes still bright—feverish, almost, Fluttershy thought—her excitement cutting through the stink of her fatigue like an approaching thunderstorm pushing aside a humid afternoon.

Not letting herself think, Fluttershy hooked one of the poison joke bottles in a pastern, rotated the cap off with her other hoof, and dashed the contents into her face with a gasp.

The smell of it—sharper than cinnamon, heavier than lilac, sweeter than pepper, tangier than lavender—burst into her nose and tongue, and fire shot through her from snout to tail just like the other night. The dizziness swept over her, all the angles shifting as if she were rising into a hover, the carpet rubbing the bottom of her hooves though she knew she wasn't moving. The air rushing into her lungs cooled her, steadied her, the panic in her chest seeming to shrink...though now that she thought about it, her panic might've been staying the same size while her chest expanded around it.

She had to smile at the idea: the same amount of fear and worry churning away inside her but thinner and hazier now that there was so much more of her to dilute it. Straightening to her full height, Fluttershy shifted her broad shoulders, settled her massive wings, stretched her long, long spine, and focused her attention back on the sofa.

The look on Twilight's face reminded Fluttershy of a poor, lost, thirsty animal setting eyes on a big bowl of water. "Yes, yes, yes," she was muttering, and she was leaning so far forward, Fluttershy wasn't quite sure why she wasn't tumbling off the sofa and slamming face-first into the table. The shivering of her partially extended wings might've been helping her stay upright, though...

"Twilight?" Fluttershy asked, keeping her rumbly voice quiet. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am." She sounded half-asleep, but Fluttershy didn't think she'd ever seen Twilight look so wide awake. "I think I can say without fear of being contradicted that I am the all rightest that any pony has been since the dawn of Equestrian civilization. In fact?" Leaping across the table, she hit the floor at a gallop, skidded to a halt on the carpet in front of Fluttershy, and turned a giant gleaming grin up at her. "We should go out! You and me! Show Ponyville what Friday night can really be like!"

Alarms going off in her head, Fluttershy couldn't stop it from bursting out of her: "No!"

Her grin vanishing, Twilight rocked back like she'd been struck. "Sorry, ma'am! I...I didn't mean to—!"

"Twilight?" The breath Fluttershy drew in seemed to go on and on, but she needed every moment of it to gather her courage, to convince herself that she needed to do this, to change her plan just the teensiest bit. "What I'd actually like for you to do is trot very carefully upstairs and get into my bed."

Everything seemed to freeze for a fraction of a heartbeat, then Twilight's ears sprang up so sharply, Fluttershy almost thought they might pop right off her head. "Your...bed, ma'am?"

Smiling while also narrowing her eyes, Fluttershy tried for a look of good-natured sternness. "Am I going to have to repeat myself, Twilight?"

"No, ma'am!" The full force of Twilight's grin had returned. "I just— I wasn't— I never—" Her mouth pulling shut, she sucked and blew several loud wheezes through her nose. "Your bed, ma'am! Yes, ma'am! Right away, ma'am!" Her wings flaring, she jerked to a halt in the act of springing into the air. "Trot, you said, ma'am! Very carefully, you said!" She crashed back down onto all fours. "Yes, ma'am!" She practically pranced to the foot of the stairs and skipped up them.

As soon as Twilight's swishing tail disappeared through the doorway at the top, all Fluttershy's doubts and fears slammed into her so hard, only her new muscles kept her from toppling over. Because Twilight had been right as usual when she'd said that she and Fluttershy were the same: those few times that Fluttershy let herself fantasize in bed about somepony holding her close, that pony was very strong, very gentle, and very female.

She seldom allowed herself to indulge in that fantasy, though. After all, nearly every pony she'd become friends with in recent years fit the description of her dream mare, and while it sometimes made her want to dance with happiness, it just as often kicked her in the stomach so hard, she could barely breathe. Yes, her friends were absolutely wonderful, helping her whenever she faltered, comforting her whenever she cried, visiting her whenever she didn't feel up to leaving her cottage. But not a one had ever shown any romantic interest in her, and she certainly couldn't speak to any of them about it.

Of course, just the thought of talking about romance with Rainbow made Fluttershy want to giggle despite everything. And as much as she loved them, she'd long ago decided that Applejack and Rarity would likely treat her more like a child or a fashion accessory than a partner, and Pinkie, well, a little of Pinkie tended to go a very long way indeed.

And now? Now that the strongest, gentlest, funniest, sweetest, most beautiful mare Fluttershy was sure she was ever going to meet was right now getting into her bed upstairs? Now that the exact opposite of Fluttershy's dearest dream was coming true since that mare apparently wanted Fluttershy to be the strong and gentle one?

She glanced down at the second bottle of poison joke extract and made a mental note to ask Discord if he might've perhaps played a part in creating the flower.

But she had to admit that she knew exactly how she was supposed to behave in this situation. She just had to play the part of her fantasy mare rather than playing herself. And she had a definite goal here, too: to get Twilight to sleep. She just had to act the way she would've wanted a pony who now looked like her to act if she had met that pony instead of turning into that pony.

Shaking her head—it was altogether too late to try making sense—Fluttershy scooped the two remaining bottles from the table, turned for the stairs, and climbed to the second floor with slow steps. But then her cottage had withstood Discord at his most peculiar: it could probably handle her at her new weight.

Her mind on the plan, she first turned left in the hallway, ducked into the bathroom, and tucked the bottles carefully into the drawer where she kept her toothpaste. Then raising her head and smoothing out her steps—she always admired a pony with a gliding gait—she padded along the carpet toward her bedroom door.

The glow of her little bedside firefly lantern flickered from inside, and as much as she wanted to just peer around the doorpost to see what was happening, she knew that Twilight would want her to be more confident. Or no, not confident—that could turn into smugness much too easily. Suave was maybe the word: friendly but unmistakably running the show.

With another sigh and wishing she were the one lying in bed and that Twilight was the one sauntering in, Fluttershy put on a smile and squeezed through the doorway. If she was really lucky, Twilight would've fallen asleep on her own already.

But no. She was sitting wide-eyed against Fluttershy's pillow, her pasterns clenched at the edge of the blankets and drawing them up to her chin. "I'm sorry, ma'am!" she squeaked, her voice cracking. "I didn't know what else you wanted me to do since I...I...I didn't know what you wanted to do."

Fluttershy cocked her head and tried to be clever. "Well, what do ponies usually do in bed?"

In the wavering light, Twilight looked away, her blush turning her the color of an overripe plum.

Not heaving any of the sighs that wanted to well up inside her, Fluttershy said, "Sleeping, Twilight. We're going to cuddle together and sleep."

Twilight's gaze remained fixed on the footboard. "I'm sorry, ma'am." She whispered it this time. "I...I know I'm not pretty or interesting or—"

Without even thinking, Fluttershy leaped the rest of the way across the room, landed beside the bed, slid one forehoof behind Twilight's head, bent down, and kissed her the way she herself had always dreamed of being kissed: firmly, tenderly, passionately, pouring all the feelings she'd never been able to express into this one motion, this one action, so simple and  straightforward.

Part of her wanted to scream that she'd lost her mind; part of her wanted to cheer that she'd finally done something that she'd dreamed about for so many years; but most of her just wanted it to go on and on, Twilight's lips as sweet and warm as melted butter, her forelegs touching here and there against Fluttershy's mane like baby birds not quite sure where to land.

Pulling back was as hard a thing as Fluttershy had done in years. "Another rule, Twilight," she said in that throaty whisper that, if she'd been hearing it herself, she knew would be turning her insides to the lovliest sort of jelly. "We only tell the truth when we're together like this. So let's not have any more of you saying you're not pretty or interesting, all right?"

"You—" Twilight swallowed. "You kissed me, ma'am."

"I did." Trusting her new body, Fluttershy scooped Twilight up with her forelegs, gave her wings just as much of a flap as they needed to lift them both, then flexed her lower body, did half a turn, and slid herself sideways onto the mattress, the blanket drifting down to cover the two of them. "A good night kiss to usher you off into dreamland."

"Oh." It was maybe the quietest sound she'd ever heard from Twilight, but then Twilight was stretching her neck, pressing her lips to Fluttershy's, burying her forehooves in Fluttershy's hair, her body warm and solid and perfect against Fluttershy's.

How long it went on, Fluttershy had no idea, but then Twilight was moving, sliding, tucking her head into the crook of Fluttershy's neck, and muttering, "Oh, princess, I love you so, so much..." Her breathing slowed and deepened, and just like that, she was asleep.

Fluttershy closed her eyes, and for all that she'd been expecting Twilight to say that word since hearing her little rant downstairs, it still didn't lessen the gut punch of it. Twilight was asleep, though—that was the important thing—the soft little puffs of her breath over Fluttershy's broad chest raising delicious little goosebumps.

Which sent her thoughts moving in directions she couldn't let them go. Twilight was asleep, and that, Fluttershy told herself again, was the only thing that mattered. Turning her head toward the lamp, she whispered, "Thank you, but I think that'll be all for tonight."

The fireflies stopped their swirling, bowed in unison, then flitted off through the hole in the lantern's base toward the slightly open window. Darkness settling over the room, Fluttershy tried to get comfortable, but lying on her side, she found that her shoulder was so big, she couldn't lower her head enough even to feel the pillowcase against her cheek. She didn't want to shift around too much, either, for fear of disturbing—

Her gut twinged, but Fluttershy refused to sigh. She'd finally, finally, finally kissed the mare she dreamed about more than any other, and it had been every bit as wonderful as she'd always known it would be. And even confirming everypony's long-held suspicion that Twilight's heart belonged to Princess Celestia couldn't take away Fluttershy's memory of those lips, those hooves, the perfect warm flex of her now cuddled along Fluttershy's barrel.

Closing her eyes, she relaxed as well as she could, concentrated on the sensation of Twilight resting in her embrace, and refused to think about anything else.

At least it was a quiet night, but then Fluttershy only knew that because she was awake for most of it. Each time she started dropping off, Twilight would shift or mutter or snuggle closer, and every nerve ending throughout Fluttershy's entirely too large body would go off like an internal fireworks display, snapping her instantly to full consciousness.

The bed seemed to get smaller as the night wore on, too, though Fluttershy knew it really wasn't. Her hocks stayed bent at the same angle, for instance, with her rear hooves pressing the same spots on the footboard. More importantly, though, the dimensions of the pony between her legs didn't vary at all, Twilight Sparkle curled and breathing slowly, wonderfully against her—hind legs to stomach, belly to barrel, chest to chest, and head to neck—in all her maddening glory.

Fluttershy never wanted the night to end, but at the same time, she wished she'd never met Twilight, never set eyes on that perky smile, never been exposed to the charming goofiness that had crashed into her life bearing first a baby dragon, then an adventure that reshaped the entire world, then multiple friendships, then more adventures, and at last something that on Fluttershy's part at least had become more than friendship...

Eventually, though, Fluttershy must've finally fallen into some actual sort of sleep because when she started awake the next time, sunlight flooded her blinking eyes, a strangled gasp stabbing her flicking ears. The warm solidity tucked along her squirmed away, and Fluttershy's fuzzy vision resolved just in time to watch Twilight plunge flailing to the floor.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy pushed herself up onto her shanks.

"No!" Something that looked more like a purple tumbleweed than anything else scrambled across the floor, but Twilight came up quickly onto all fours, her wings and eyes wide. "I didn't! Please tell me I didn't!"

"It's all right, Twilight." Reaching for her extra-soothing tones, Fluttershy couldn't quite find them among the deeper notes of this body's voice.

"All right?" Twilight's mane bristled. "I break into your home, transform you for my own perverted pleasures, then have my filthy way with you?" She stomped a hoof, thunder shaking the air. "There's nothing even remotely all right about that!"

Opening her mouth to start explaining, Fluttershy couldn't get even part of a word out before lightning was springing up all around Twilight, its crackling fire glistening against the tears on her cheeks. "I'm a monster, and I can't—! I don't—! I won't—!" The lightning flared to a blinding brightness. "I'm so, so sorry, Fluttershy!" Anguish shredded her words. "I've got to...got to—!" She shrieked, and a hurricane-force wind blasted into Fluttershy's face.

"Wait!" Unable to see, the gale roaring in her ears, Fluttershy hurled herself into the tempest. Fear lashing her forward, she flapped her massive wings once—

And the raging storm vanished, the air suddenly empty and still. Pulling up, she dropped to the floor, looked around blinking till she could see again. Her bed lay upended against the far wall, scorch marks singed her carpets, her window curtains snarled and tangled.

But there was no sign of Twilight anywhere.
> 3 - The Analysis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

No time for tai chi, no time for her morning chores, no time for anything but finding Twilight! Fluttershy leaped for the door—

Then stopped because she was too big to fit through easily and she didn't want to smash anything and maybe hurt herself when she needed to get to Twilight's castle and...and—

And she had no idea what she was supposed to do! She wasn't the princess, wasn't the pony Twilight was really in love with, wasn't the sort of pony who took charge of things—

Except when she'd organized that tree removal on Thursday. Or when her animal friends were involved. Or when—

When her pony friends were involved.

Stepping forward, she pulled herself between the doorposts, got halfway down the hallway to the bathroom where she'd left the bottle of herbs that she'd need for the poison joke cure—

Which Twilight had said the other night took fifteen or twenty minutes to mix up. Or was this different because the powder was all measured and ready to go?

Could she take the chance? Could she take the time?

Shaking her head, she took a left instead, jumped down the stairway without touching a step, her big wings unfurling so wide, she almost knocked a couple birdhouses down. Barely pausing to wrench open the front door, she leaped out into the early morning sunlight, gave a flap of those wings—

And vaulted into the air with a force that took her breath away, wind smashing into her face and tumbling her ears over fetlocks. Feeling like confetti launched from Pinkie's cannon, she tried to straighten her flight, unsure if she was pulling up or diving down, the houses of town and the blue of the sky flipping and sliding and smearing across her vision till she plowed headfirst into something so big and wide and solid, it could only have been the ground.

"Whoa, nelly!" a familiar voice shouted, and Fluttershy blinked till the blur above her resolved into Applejack staring down from the edge of a small crater. "Fluttershy? 'Sthat you?"

With some more blinks, Fluttershy pushed herself up till she could see over the lip of the hole she'd apparently made in the middle of the town square, other ponies wide-eyed with alarm. "It's concentrated poison joke!" Fluttershy panted, planting her big front hooves on the rim of the pit and hauling herself out beside the gaping Applejack. "I'm fine, but Twilight's in trouble!"

Three more voices slammed over her then, one squeaky, one shrieky, and one scratchy. Pinkie, Rarity, and Rainbow popped, galloped, and swooped in from different directions, their sentences tangling in Fluttershy's ears: "...all swole up!" "...need a whole new wardrobe!" "...awesome crash!"

Shaking her head, Fluttershy tried to keep from shouting. "Please! Twilight needs our help! We have to find her!"

"Hold up, now, y'all!" Applejack reared back and scissored her forelegs. "We'll start at the castle and work out from there if'n we need to, Fluttershy, but first, how 'bout this poison joke? That a problem we gotta deal with, too?"

Fluttershy shook her head again, suddenly aware of all the listening ears. "I was helping Twilight with an experiment." Even whispering didn't seem to make her voice less noticeable. "It...it didn't go the way we thought..."

Rainbow leaped into a hover, her grin showing more teeth than Fluttershy thought a pony's head should have. "Lemme guess! You were trying to make six of you and ended up six times as big instead?"

"Seven times!" Pinkie waggled her eyebrows. "Gotta say: it's a good look for you, Fluttershy!"

"Pinkie!" Rarity had one foreleg drawn up to her chest and was leaning back as if she couldn't decide whether to run or faint, the salty stink of her fear making Fluttershy want to bury her nose under her hooves. "This is no time for frivolity! We must get her to the spa at once!"

Forcing away every other thought, Fluttershy stomped. "Please!" She couldn't stop from bellowing it this time. "What we have to do is find Twilight!"

The ground shook, her words thundering through the town square, and everything around her seemed to freeze. Then Applejack was wheeling in place and galloping toward the castle. "Reckon you heard the mare! C'mon!"

"Oh, yeah!" Rainbow zoomed after her, and Fluttershy rushed to catch up—

Only to pass them with a couple strides, her big legs devouring the distance and carrying her halfway to Twilight's before she realized she'd left the others behind. Skidding to a halt, she spun around—

"Keep going!" she heard Applejack call from a block away. "We'll be right along!"

Just wishing it was all over, Fluttershy whirled and barrelled the rest of the way to the castle. Pulling up before she could plow into the brick esplanade, she stepped gingerly onto the pretty tile work, crept to the top of the steps, and tapped the door with just the very tip of her hoof.

"Oh, come on!" Rainbow dropped onto the porch beside her. "You're, like, the biggest pony in the world right now, and this is a full-on emergency!" She waved her front hooves at the door. "You could smash your way through, and it'd be totally legit!"

Fluttershy couldn't help blinking. "But that would be so rude!"

Rainbow stared at her, the clatter of hooves from behind growing louder till Applejack came sliding up beside them. "All righty! What exactly we dealing with here, Fluttershy?" Her head tilting back, Applejack broke into a big grin. "I swear to Celestia, if'n Mac was here, his eyes'd be spinning like pinwheels!"

It took some effort not to wince at the princess's name, but before Fluttershy could open her mouth—not that she had any idea what she was going to say—Pinkie leapfrogged over Applejack to land in front of the palace doors. "Ooo! I'll bet if Fluttershy got all big, Twilight musta gotten all small! And that would mean—" Her eyes actually did start spinning like pinwheels, her voice getting hollow and echoey. "She's on a journey through inner space!" Everything about her snapped back to normal—or at least as normal as things ever did with Pinkie. "I'll betcha that's it, huh? Huh?"

A slight huff signaled Rarity's arrival. "If I recall correctly, it was Applejack who shrank under the influence of that horrible flower."

Applejack shivered. "Don't remind me. I still get nightmares sometimes."

"Will you all just—!" Rainbow pounded the doors. "Help me talk Fluttershy into kicking these things down!"

"Okay!" Pinkie pulled a wet paint brush from her mane and leaned forward. "Lemme slap a target on here so she won't hafta worry about missing, and we'll—!"

The door on the left opened, and Pinkie splooshed the paint brush directly into Spike's face.

"What the hay!" he sputtered, staggering backwards, his claws frantically scrabbling to wipe the red paint from his eyes.

"No time!" Rainbow whooshed over his head, shoving both doors out of the way. "Fluttershy's a giant, and Twilight's in trouble!"

"What the hay?" He said it as more of a question this time, and when Fluttershy followed Rainbow inside, she found herself looking down at Spike looking up. "A...giant?" he squeaked.

"Spike?" a voice called from the hallway, and Starlight Glimmer stepped into the foyer. "I thought I heard a knock at the—" Her eyes bulged and her jaw dropped.

Applejack sauntered past Fluttershy into the sudden silence, pushed her hat back, and gave a grin. "Morning, Starlight, Spike. Don't s'ppose you might know where Twilight's at?"

"Uhhh..." Spike's gaze seemed fastened on Fluttershy.

Fluttershy cleared her throat. If she'd known this was going to turn into such a bother, she would've taken the time to mix up Zecora's remedy. "Twilight's probably either down in the lab," she said, using all her strength to keep things to a rumble rather than a shout, "or up in her room. We need to find her as quickly as possible, please."

"Right!" Starlight shook herself, and a lavender light started wavering around her horn. "Lemme just do a quick scan for—" She blinked and turned to look to her left. "That's weird."

Ice wanted to crackle through every inch of Fluttershy's chest. "Bad weird or good weird?" she asked, hoping against hope.

Rarity had moved inside by now, and she turned a blank stare over her shoulder. "'Good weird'? Really?"

"Hello?" Pinkie was just finishing up painting the phrase 'Journey through Inner Space' in big red letters on the foyer wall. "For some of us, that's a job description."

Her brow wrinkling, Starlight looked back at Fluttershy. "I just meant that Twilight's magic is running down in the lab, but it's not—"

"Finally!" Rainbow flared her wings and dove for the hallway. "To the lab!"

"Rainbow?" Starlight pointed in the other direction down the hall. "The lab's that way."

But Fluttershy was already charging along the route she'd last taken Tuesday night, the crystal floor giving off muffled clangs every time her hooves struck it. If Twilight had been up in her bedroom, that would've been okay: hiding under the bed when she thought she'd made a terribly embarrassing mistake was something Fluttershy understood all too well. But down in the lab? Twilight might be looking for a more active solution.

And possibly a more dangerous one, too.

Again, she didn't take the stairs individually but leaped down the whole flight with her wings spread and scraping the walls on either side. The floor when she landed cracked like an April ice sheet, and while she winced, she didn't stop. She'd help clean everything up after she found Twilight safe and sound.

Passing the science library, Fluttershy slid to a halt in front of the lab doors just as a flash of Starlight's lavender brought everypony else into the hallway with her. "Wait!" Starlight panted out. "I was trying to say! It's Twilight's magic, but it's so...so rough and chunky, I...I've never felt her spin anything like it before!"

"Ooo!" Pinkie tied a bib around her neck. "Chunky like peanut butter?"

Starlight shook her head. "Chunky like a bag full of rocks and broken glass."

"Eww." Sticking her tongue out, Pinkie crumpled up her bib and threw it away.

With a shiver, Fluttershy stepped toward Starlight and tried not to loom over her. "Is Twilight all right?"

"Honestly?" Starlight looked at the lab's double doors. "I don't know."

Rainbow gave a snort and planted her hooves on the door handles. "One way to find out!" She shoved the doors open and flew through, Fluttershy right behind her.

Inside, purple light swirled over the walls, all the crystal surfaces reflecting the slowly rotating sphere of magical fire that floated over the control console. Fluttershy swallowed. All she could think of, looking at it, was a bruise as big as three ponies put together...

"Wow," Starlight whispered next to Fluttershy. "That's some serious unhappiness right there." She cleared her throat. "So. Anypony want to fill me in on what's going on?"

Fluttershy didn't want to, of course, but when Applejack said, "Poison joke's all we's heard so far," Fluttershy realized the others needed something.

"It's, ummm..." Where could she even start? "Twilight's blaming herself for me getting...like this." Fluttershy spun, planting her big hoofs and meeting the startled gazes of all her friends in turn. "But she did everything she could've to make the experiment safe, and we both just thought it would make my voice deep even if it did spill! And when...when it did this to me instead, I told her and told her it was okay! But she got so...so..." Not knowing how to go on, she stopped.

Beside her, Starlight made a little popping noise with her mouth. "Not sure that would've been enough to make her wad herself up into whatever that is, but—"

"Hey!" Rainbow zoomed into Starlight's face. "If Fluttershy says that's what happened, then that's what happened!"

"Yeah!" Pinkie leaped up with a growl, then dropped back with a shrug. "I'm guessing it's maybe not exactly one hundred percent everything that happened, but still..."

"Regardless..." Rarity nodded to the fiery purple sphere. "Have we a plan for getting Twilight out of the hideous thing?"

Straightening to her full height, Fluttershy watched the colors and shadows scurry across and beneath the roiling surface. "This is my fault." She swallowed. "I've got to go in and get her."

"What?" Starlight's ears folded. "Okay, that's probably not the best—"

Applejack cut her off by pressing a hoof over her mouth. "Like some company, sugar cube?" she asked, cocking her head in Fluttershy's direction.

And as much as she didn't want to bother them any further, she knew that she was going to need help. "Yes, please." She gazed down on Applejack, and for all the space in her expansive chest, Fluttershy could barely find enough breath for the words, "Thank you."

A quick nod, then Applejack was spinning to face the others. "All righty! Spike, Starlight, we're gonna need you two out here to monitor whatever the hay there is to monitor."

"Hold on!" Starlight waved her hooves. "I'm not even sure what sort of magic we're dealing with! How am I supposed to—?"

"Unhappiness." Fluttershy didn't want to look at Twilight's sphere, but at the same time, she could scarcely bring herself to look away. "Just like you said, Starlight."

Starlight's eyes were practically vibrating in her head. "But there's no such thing!"

"Actually?" Spike pulled open a cupboard and grabbed one of the notebooks standing up inside. "Twilight's been working on a theory about the opposite of friendship magic." He flipped the notebook open to near the middle. "One of the things she mentioned as a possible catalyst was somepony thinking she'd hurt a friend."

That got Starlight blinking. "Some sort of guilt magic?"

"Whatever!" Rainbow swept a cyclone around Starlight, picked her up, and set her down next to Spike. "You two figure out what to call it; we're going in to get Twilight!"

"Whoo-hoo!" A pink blur whooshed past Fluttershy's face. Something pressed down between her ears, and suddenly everypony was wearing bright yellow mining helmets, fireflies swirling in the lamps attached to the front. "But safety first!" Pinkie said, settling to the floor beside Applejack and adjusting her own helmet.

Applejack rolled her eyes, wiggled her helmet till the brim of her regular hat popped out around the bottom, climbed to her hooves, and nodded to the swirling clouds and fire. "Any idea how we get in?"

"Well..." Rarity took a step toward the sphere, and Fluttershy couldn't help smiling to see that she already had a purple hibiscus flower attached to the side of her helmet. "She surely wouldn't've made the thing completely impervious, would she?" She looked back over her shoulder. "After all, even when I lock myself away to have a good cry, I don't plaster over the doors and brick up the windows."

Fluttershy swallowed. "I think that's right, Rarity." The richness of her voice still startled her, but she couldn't afford to let it bother her now. "It's almost like..." Squinting, she moved past Rarity and tried to focus on the curvy, familiar, and oh-so-wonderful form sometimes taking shape deep within the center of the storm. "Almost like I can...can see her..."

"Where?" Air brushed her chest, and Rainbow popped up in front of her like a cork. "Behind that big cumulonimbussy thing?"

"Ah." And just the way Rarity said that one little syllable made Fluttershy's face heat up. "In this case, Rainbow Dash, I believe the heart has clearer vision than the eye."

"Huh?" Pinkie's voice came from below Fluttershy's chin, and Fluttershy almost leaped backwards when actual hooves touched her; snapping her head down, she saw Pinkie wedged between her forelegs and poking the center of her wide chest. "How can your heart see through all this muscle and hide and stuff?"

Applejack sighed, grabbed the tip of Pinkie's tail in her teeth, and hauled her back onto the floor. "How 'bout this," she said after letting Pinkie go. "Reckon you can carry the rest of us, Fluttershy?"

Rainbow snorted, spun, and smacked a hoof against Fluttershy's shoulder. "She could carry the whole town!"

Wanting to object, Fluttershy froze instead. Rainbow had just whirled with her usual speed and really slugged her, had hit her hard enough to make an actual slapping sound.

And Fluttershy had barely felt it.

"Ummm," she said, her ears perking. "I probably could carry you all..."

Pinkie sprang up with a squeal. "Pony ride!" She swarmed forward, and before Fluttershy could even wince, quick hooves were clambering over her side and along her back, the slightest sort of a weight settling just behind her left wing. "This okay, Fluttershy?"

"It...it is." Freezing again, Fluttershy could hardly get the words out. "I...I don't know why, but—"

"Duh." Rainbow smirked, flipped out of sight over Fluttershy's head, and another negligible bit of weight pressed down just above her right wing: she felt a warmth there more than anything else. "Biggest pony in the world, remember?" The weight shifted, and Rainbow's voice whispered loudly right into her ear, "You'll need to be, too, if you're gonna carry a lead butt like Applejack."

"A-hem." Applejack didn't clear her throat; she just said the word 'a-hem.' "Reckon since this whole kerfuffle started with you and Twilight, if'n you can see her in there, Fluttershy, might be you can reach her." She gestured to Rarity. "Mount up in back there beside Pinkie, Rares, and I'll slip in up front beside RD." Halfway into taking a step forward, she stopped and looked up, no fear in her face, Fluttershy was glad to see, but something more like concern. "That okay with you?"

Not letting herself think about the fantasies she'd had once or twice—or maybe a few more times than that over the years if she was being completely honest—about these very mares stroking her and touching her and holding her, Fluttershy concentrated on the one mare she'd actually stroked and touched and held last night...even if she'd likely never get to do anything like that ever again. "It has to be okay," she said. "For Twilight's sake." She bent her knees and crouched to the floor. "But please, can we get going?"

Applejack clambered quickly onto Fluttershy's left shoulder, but Rarity moved more slowly, Fluttershy almost sure she could feel distaste radiating from her hooves as she moved into the spot behind her right wing. Bending around, Fluttershy looked past a grinning Rainbow Dash to see Rarity perching there as uncertainly as Opalesence on a freshly laundered and still slightly damp sofa cushion. "I'm sorry I'm so lumpy, Rarity."

"Not at all, darling." To call Rarity's smile strained was a definite understatement. "You're quite comfortable, in fact. I just..." Her smile faltered completely. "I find it more than a trifle unnerving to think of my dearest friend in the world as a form of conveyance."

"Not me!" Pinkie drummed her front hooves against the center of Fluttershy's back in a conga rhythm that Fluttershy both heard and felt. "Let's get this show on the road!"

"All righty!" The grip of Applejack's forelegs tightened around Fluttershy's neck, and while it didn't constrict her breathing, it certainly did put a hitch in it. "Hang on, all y'all! Starlight, Spike, keep an eye on ev'rything!" She lowered her voice, her words tickling Fluttershy's ear. "Anytime you're ready, sugar cube."

Three more sets of legs squeezed various parts of Fluttershy, and she couldn't stop a little meeping noise from popping out. Forcing her attention back to the ball of storminess, she turned her mind to Twilight, Twilight, and only Twilight, caught a glimpse of a shape that had to be her, flexed her legs, and leaped into the sphere.

Wind struck her hard from several directions at once, roaring its desire to flip her and spin her and smash her into whatever the billowing masses of cloud all around them might be hiding. Mindful of her precious cargo, Fluttershy flared her wings, tried to feel the updrafts and downdrafts like they'd always talked about in flight school, but just like back then, it was all too much for her to—

"Spread your pinions wider!" Rainbow's shout just reached her over the howling squall. "Don't try to smash your way through a wind like this! Just ride it like you'd ride a sled down a bumpy hill!"

Gritting her teeth, Fluttershy flexed muscles she didn't normally have; she felt her feathers respond, and things seemed to steady out. The beams from the helmets Pinkie had given them cut through the darkness, but all Fluttershy could see was more clouds. "Twilight?" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "Where are you?"

"She's gotta be here!" Applejack's grip had gotten even tighter, and as harrowing as Fluttershy was finding all this, she couldn't even imagine what it must all be like for a pony who normally kept her hooves so firmly on the ground. "Like Rarity said, Twi coulda magicked herself off to somewhere we never woulda thought to look! But she didn't, so she must want us to find her!"

A flash to her right and below them caught the corner of Fluttershy's eye, and without even thinking, she wheeled toward it, dove and flapped and hoped it might be—

The wind vanished like it had never been crashing against her, the clouds replaced by the greenish brown canvas walls of a big square tent. Rough grass covered the dirt beneath her hooves, and Twilight stood on the other side of a large table covered with papers and graphs and drawings and who knew what all.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy cried, the others all joining in.

"Yes, ma'ams!" Twilight said, saluting, and that was when Fluttershy noticed that Twilight was wearing some kind of shiny silver armor. Two more armored ponies stood just past her by the tent's flap, spears held upright in their pasterns, and they...they—

They were both Twilight, too.

"Hold on," Rainbow said, and Fluttershy felt her shift. "Anypony else seeing something a little freaky here?"

Rarity was shifting, too. "Other than the olive drab decor, you mean?"

"Wow," Pinkie said, and it was the quietest 'wow' Fluttershy had ever heard from her. "Rainbow Dash was right! They were trying to make six Fluttershys! They just ended up with six Twilights instead!"

"We weren't—" Fluttershy began.

But the first Twilight cut her off. "All troops are in position, ma'ams. We're just awaiting your orders to begin the attack."

Fluttershy's ears fell. "Attack? What—? I mean, where—? I mean—"

"Lemme give it a whack, sugar cube," Applejack whispered. She slid from Fluttershy's shoulder, stepped up to the table, and returned the first Twilight's salute. "Reckon we'd best have a quick review, soldier, afore we give the word."

"Yes, ma'am!" The first Twilight did a smart about-face and marched toward the tent flap. "If you'll all follow me, the observation post's just outside."

A warm stroke along her right flank and a sigh told her Rarity was dismounting. "If only I'd had time to make us proper uniforms."

"Yeah." Rainbow flapped up to hover all squinty-eyed in front of Fluttershy. "'Cause that woulda made this whole thing so much less weird."

The last little press of weight vanished from Fluttershy's back, and Pinkie trotted after Applejack around to the other side of the table. Fluttershy followed, the two Twilights at the door saluting as the first Twilight approached; their horns flared to pull the tent flap open, the first Twilight stepped through, and Fluttershy moved with the others into something like she'd never seen before.

Clouds darkened the sky overhead and shivered Fluttershy's spine with thoughts of the storm they'd just escaped. A range of mountains rose behind, but as the first Twilight led them to the top of a small rise, Fluttershy could see row after row of tents stretching out onto the plain below. Beyond the camp, catapults sat drawn back and filled with stones, cannons lined up just in front of them, and  hundreds—maybe even thousands—of ponies in armor stood in formation, all the ponies and their weapons and their gear aimed at a big dark purple tower jutting up all by itself in the middle of the valley.

Even worse? All the ponies, as far as Fluttershy could tell, were purple alicorns. All the same purple alicorn...

"The sorceress is inside," the first Twilight said. "We've had a few minor skirmishes with her troops, but they've mostly pulled back to defensive position. Our plan of attack, however—"

"No," Fluttershy muttered, her own voice making her think of distant thunder. "This isn't right."

"Ma'am?" The first Twilight blinked at her. "I can assure you that our plan is—"

"It's very thorough, I'm sure. But—" Looking from the tower to her friends and back again, Fluttershy had to shake her head. "Yes, Twilight's hurting and scared enough to do all this. But she wouldn't...wouldn't lock herself in a tower! Twilight's whole life since we met her has been about getting out of towers! I mean, she stayed in Ponyville instead of going back to Canterlot! She's always telling ponies not to call her princess! She even turned her castle into a school! It's one of the things—"

Snapping her jaw shut stopped the words 'that I love most about her' from coming out of Fluttershy's mouth. She wasn't going to think about that, not while Twilight was still missing. Afterwards—

No. No thinking about any of that ever. "She's not in there," she said when she could, turning to glance back into the tree-covered hills around them. "But I'll bet she's nearby..."

"Hey, yeah!" Rainbow shouted, doing a little loop and pulling Fluttershy's attention back to the group. "That's why this's all so weird!"

"Really?" Rarity arched an eyebrow. "I've come up with multiple reasons, myself."

"Thirteen over here." Pinkie held up a little notebook. "Maybe we oughtta compare notes."

Rainbow scowled. "I mean this whole thing!" She waved at the troops and equipment lining the slope below them. "It's straight outta Daring Do and the Enceladine Amulet!"

Applejack's forehead wrinkled. "The what now?"

Dropping to the ground, Rainbow tapped a hoof. "It's a magic necklace that makes earthquakes, but that's not important! What's important is: Fluttershy's right!"

"I...I am?" Of all the surprising things that had happened recently, this one—

"Yeah!" Rainbow looked to where the first Twilight was standing. "Hey, you, uhh, you wanna give us a minute here?"

The first Twilight blinked, shrugged, saluted, turned crisply, and marched back toward the tent.

Eyes shifting from side to side, Rainbow lowered her voice. "At the beginning of the book, Daring Do has this inscription she needs translated, so she heads up to Haugrinsmy Valley where her friend Merryweather has a little cottage—she's this unicorn scholar who helped Daring in some of the earlier books. When Daring gets there, though, she finds a whole army camped out around this big, weird tower. The general in charge says that the mage insulted Duke Prosper, and they've come to make her pay.

"That doesn't sound right to Daring, first that Merryweather would insult anypony and second that she'd hide in some tower. So while the army attacks, Daring heads off into the hills and finds her friend sitting in a cave, drinking tea and waiting for the army to get tired and go away."

"Oooo!" Pinkie was hugging a bowl of popcorn to her chest. "What happens then?" She plunged her face snout-first into the bowl and came back up chewing, little white kernels sticking here and there to the front of her mane.

"Don't matter, Pinkie." Applejack looked at Rainbow. "Reckon we'll just sneak off and see if'n we can't find Twilight somewhere in these—"

The air flashed, and Fluttershy blinked to see the other four all suddenly wearing versions of the same armor the various Twilights had on. She felt something constricting her own chest, too, but when she looked down, it was a khaki shirt buttoned around her barrel. The shape of the hat brim sticking out at the top of her vision had become smaller and rounder, too: Fluttershy felt sure it had changed into a pith helmet.

"Ah." The little purr that Rarity put behind the sound heated Fluttershy's face again. "It would seem that 'Daring Do' is to go off looking for the missing scholar while the rest of us busy ourselves elsewhere."

Applejack was tapping her hoof against her breastplate. "Doing what, d'you reckon?"

"Are you kidding?" Rainbow's eyes sparkled and shimmered. "We get to attack the tower!"

"Whoo-hoo!" Pinkie slapped a large sheet of paper onto the ground, lines of blue and red, silver and orange swirled over it. "Dashie, you lead the air forces in through the top of the tower while AJ leads the ground forces up from the bottom! Rarity'll take command of the magical artillery, and I'll take the cannons and catapults!" Her head popped back up, a corn-cob pipe clamped in her teeth. "Any questions?"

Rarity's eyes narrowed. "Several," she said.

"C'mon, Rares!" Rainbow whooshed into a hover in front of her. "We're, like, totally inside Twilight's head, so nothing's gonna hurt us or whatever! And, I mean—" She waved her hooves at the panorama before them. "The tower! The army! It's all right here, ready to go!" Her lower lip started quivering. "Please?"

Her eyes narrowing even further, Rarity glanced at Applejack.

This time, Applejack was tapping her hoof against the ground. "If'n we're really inside Twi's head, it might be we gotta play whatever game she set up in order to get out." Her gaze came up and met Fluttershy's. "You gonna be okay looking for her on your own, sugar cube?"

Trying to stop a blush never worked, Fluttershy knew. So despite how her face heated up at the thought of being alone with Twilight in this odd and exotic setting, she just nodded.

That got a low laugh from Applejack and a pair of giggles from Rarity and Pinkie. "Very well," Rarity said, and every trace of laughter vanished from her voice when she went on: "But be careful, Fluttershy. I think it goes without saying that Twilight's in a very delicate state right now, and—"

"No more talking!" Rainbow leaped into the air. "It's tower attacking time!"

"Yes, ma'ams!" The first Twilight had been sort of milling around by the tent flap, but she now trotted forward, her head held high. "The best minds in your army have worked out three possible plans if you'd like to—

"That's okay!" Pinkie scooped her paper from the ground and thrust it into the alicorn's startled face. "We got it covered!"

The first Twilight's hornglow took the paper. She squinted at it, turned it upside down, squinted at it again, then turned it back around to its original position. "Unorthodox," she said at last. "But I'll get it distributed to the battalion leaders." She started down the slope.

"Oh, yeah!" Rainbow practically rainboomed into the valley, Pinkie pronking along after her. Rarity huffed out a breath and waved to Fluttershy while Applejack gave her a wink. Then the two of them followed the others, and Fluttershy was left alone on the little rise above the big square tent.

Well, alone except for the two Twilights still guarding the tent's door. Fluttershy wondered if either of them could be the real Twilight in disguise, but that didn't feel right, not after what Rainbow had said. If this was all a scene of some sort, she needed to play her part, and that meant finding a cave in the hills.

Fluttershy turned away from the tent and headed into the woods. The silence closed around her as quickly as the trees, and that bothered her. Nothing scurried anywhere—not a rabbit or a lizard or a bird—and the only scent in the air was a vague sort of pine aroma even though all the trees around her seemed to be deciduous.

Shivering, she picked up her pace. For a pony as careful as Twilight to get details like that wrong, she must really be in a state.

Up one hill, down the other side, and Fluttershy came around a rocky outcropping to see a cave in the cliff face just ahead. With quickened steps, she reached the opening, peered into the shadows, and couldn't stop her wings from flaring.

Twilight was lying back on a red velvet sofa, a small table beside her with two teacups sitting on it. Or no, actually, she wasn't just lying back, Fluttershy thought: she was lounging or perhaps reclining or maybe even lolling. Her half-closed eyes made Fluttershy's heart beat very fast, but even worse—or even better, a part of her mind insisted eagerly—Twilight had on a sheer, dark, diaphanous gown that seemed to emphasize her lovely curves in ways that made her look more naked than she usually did even though she seldom wore any clothes at all.

"Ah," Twilight said, and if Rarity purring that syllable had made Fluttershy's face heat up earlier, the throaty little sound from Twilight in her current state caused every inch of Fluttershy's long throat to go completely dry. "Daring Do! So wonderful to see you again. Won't you have some tea and—" She wiggled her hips in the most subtly suggestive manner Fluttershy had ever even imagined. "Take a seat?" she finished.

Remembering last night and the glorious feel of Twilight against her, Fluttershy wanted nothing more than to swoop inside, scoop her up, and lick her all over like an ice cream cone. But that wouldn't— It wasn't— They couldn't—

Parts of her absolutely roaring at her not to do what she was about to do, she took a ragged breath and said, "Coriander casserole."

The silence around them got even quieter. "What?" Twilight asked, her voice as flat and wooden as a floor at Applejack's house.

Once again shattering all her hopes and dreams, Fluttershy forced herself to go on. "We need to talk, Twilight. And I mean really talk, not do"—she couldn't keep from waving a hoof—"whatever this is."

"This?" Twilight rolled off the couch and onto her hooves. "This is me apologizing to you! This is me giving you what you said you wanted!" She started stomping toward Fluttershy, though the hem of her gown kept tangling around her fetlocks and almost tripping her. "This is me setting up a situation where you can have your way with a strong, desirable mare the way—" Two steps away from Fluttershy, she finally faltered to a halt, her gaze dropping to the ground. "The way I did last night..."

Fluttershy sighed and said the words she wished she'd had the presence of mind to use earlier. "Nothing happened last night."

Twilight's head snapped back up. "Excuse me? When I regained consciousness this morning, I was spread all over you like jam on bread! How can you say nothing happened!"

"Because nothing did." Fluttershy sat on the cave's stone floor. "You knocked on my door, I invited you in, and we talked for a while. Then I used the poison joke you brought so I could change, and we went upstairs to sleep because you hadn't for three days. Slept, I mean."

That little twitch pulled Twilight's right eyelid, and Fluttershy squelched the urge to lean over and kiss it. "Okay," Twilight said after a moment. "I'll admit I don't have the clearest memory when it comes to last night, but I mean—" She swallowed. "With you looking like that, how did I not try to...to..." Her blush this time spread over her like her namesake time of day, darkening her face slowly to the loveliest shade of mulberry.

"Oh. That. Yes." And for all that Fluttershy had hoped she could get away without saying it aloud, she'd known since the beginning that she would have to. "Well, it's just that I'm not the pony you're in love with." She forced a smile. "Am I?"

Another bit of silence surrounded her and the wide-eyed Twilight while Fluttershy fought the contraction of her throat muscles. "Just before you fell asleep," she said, the words as sharp as claws inside her, "you called me princess and told me you loved me. So, well, I think we both know who you really want to be wearing that dress for..."

Something creaked, and for an instant, Fluttershy flashed back to the sounds of that fungus-ridden tree getting wrenched out of the ground on Thursday. Movement all around her made her stare, dark fissures cracking the rocks, but before she could dive forward to shield Twilight from what was apparently some sort of cave in, everything shattered—the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the air itself. Fluttershy felt herself dropping; she spread her wings, but just as quickly, her hooves met a good, solid surface. She barely had time to blink before she found herself standing with Twilight in front of the lab's control console.

Cries of various sorts rang out to her right, and she looked over to see Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie, still in their armor, clatter to the floor, Rainbow swirling around overhead and shouting, "No fair! Me and my guys were just about to bust through the window!"

More cries—"You're back!" from Starlight, and "Twilight!" from Spike—dissolved with the others into a muddle of voices, but a glance at Twilight, still and downcast beside her, made Fluttershy flap a blast of wind through the room and stomp a hoof hard enough to make the floor clang but not shatter.

All sound ceased, all eyes turning wide and startled toward her. "Thank you, everypony, so much," Fluttershy said, modulating her contralto to fill the room without overwhelming it. "Twilight's only back with us because of your wonderful efforts, but right now, she and I have some things we very much need to discuss in private."

"Fine!" Rainbow swooped up, her forelegs spread. "Send us back in there, then! We were all set to—!"

The crash when Applejack grabbed Rainbow's tail in her teeth and jerked her to the floor interrupted her, and Rarity stepped forward, her armor making her look like some queen out of pre-Equestrian history. "Of course, darling," she said softly. "Shall we wait upstairs for you both?" Her eyes darted as quick as hummingbirds toward Twilight, then came back up to Fluttershy. "Or would you prefer contacting us afterwards?"

"Afterwards, please." Fluttershy bent to touch her nose to Rarity's. "Thank you for understanding."

A blush dappled Rarity's cheeks. "Not at all." Her voice lowered. "And Pinkie's quite right, Fluttershy: it's definitely a good look for you." Stepping back, Rarity winked, turned, and announced, "Well! That was as exciting a Saturday morning as I've had in ages! Shall we all repair to Sugarcube Corner for breakfast?"

"Donuts!" Pinkie crowed; she leaped sideways, somehow leaving her armor behind to stand on its own. "We'll save some sprinkled ones for you, Twilight, and a couple chocolate old-fashioneds for you, Fluttershy!" And she burst out the doorway.

"But—!" Rainbow began.

This time, Applejack interrupted her by planting a shoulder against her side and scooting her screechily toward the door. "You heard the lady, RD. We got us some repairing to do."

"But—!" Rainbow tried once more, but when Rarity surrounded Rainbow's hooves with the glow of her horn, all three of them moved easily out into the hall.

Spike was tapping his foreclaws together, a frown on his snout and his eyes on Twilight. "Is...is she all right?" he whispered loud enough for Fluttershy to hear. She couldn't miss how Twilight's ears folded at the question, either.

"Umm..." Starlight looked at Fluttershy, and Fluttershy could only force a smile. Starlight didn't return it, but she did give a short nod. "She will be, Spike." She nudged him gently toward the door. "They'll be up in a while, and then Twilight'll tell you that herself."

He didn't seem convinced, but he didn't resist Starlight herding him out. She gave one glance back before her hornglow surrounded the door and pulled it closed behind her.

Fluttershy swallowed and looked down at Twilight. Sitting as she had been since they'd returned, she didn't look sexy in her gown any more; all Fluttershy could think of suddenly was a filly in a not-quite-successful Nightmare Night costume. "It's all right, Twilight," she said in her quietest rumble.

Twilight's reply drifted up like a butterfly's sigh. "No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is." Fluttershy almost moved to put a hoof on her shoulder, but she knew that would be a bad idea. "You're in love with Princess Celestia, and there's nothing wrong with—"

"I'm not in love with Princess Celestia!" Twilight leaped into the air, her hooves pulling at her dress till she had it wadded into a ball. "Why does everypony keep thinking that??" She threw her clumped-up dress at Pinkie's armor, scattering the pieces like milk bottles in a carnival booth.

That got Fluttershy blinking. "Umm, well, the way you called me princess last night for one thing."

"I didn't mean—!" Burying her face in her hooves, Twilight sank back to the floor. "That's not the princess I meant..."

Ice prickled Fluttershy's spine. "Luna, then? Or...not Cadance?"

"No!" She took her hooves away, tears shimmering in her eyes. "When I was a filly, I idolized Celestia—I still kind of do, I guess. But as soon as I grew old enough to start having, you know, those kinds of thoughts in bed before going to sleep, I quickly realized that she wasn't exactly 'mare of my dreams' material. Celestia's always so busy, always multi-tasking, always a little bit scheming, too." Twilight wiped her cheeks with a pastern. "I would never trade a moment of my time with her for anything, but love her? No, I...she...just...no."

A tiny spark of hope flared in Fluttershy's chest, and she held her breath, not wanting to fan it or extinguish it.

Twilight sniffled. "So I...I started making my own fantasy princess in my head: bigger than Celestia but gentler than her, a mare who would have her own life, sure, but who would be willing and able to share that life with me the same way I wanted to share my life with her." She gave a little cough, her gaze on the floor again. "I have what you might call an embarrassingly large body of work detailing our adventures both romantic and otherwise. None of it's written down or anything, but I..." She tapped the side of her head. "I could recite whole novels to you about my princess and me if you're interested."

Fluttershy could hear her swallow, and when her face came up this time, she looked like a porcelain vase on the verge of breaking. "But I knew she wasn't real, and I accepted that I would never know this princess anywhere but my dreams. Except..." She rose into the air, and the stroke of her hoof against Fluttershy's cheek made her gasp. "You're right here, aren't you?"

Hope burst to full flame inside her, and Fluttershy was about to leap forward, was about to wrap her forelegs around Twilight, was about to announce that she would be anything Twilight wanted her to be—

But Twilight was spinning away, zig-zagging across the lab with her voice cracking. "But you're not some construction of my imagination! You're you, your own pony, your own wonderful pony! So what does it say about me that I never thought of you as anything but a friend till that stupid poison joke exploited some accident of genetics or magical affinity or whatever to turn you into the physical embodiment of my personal fantasy? How is it fair to you that I'm so shallow, such a slave to lust that I would even consider—?"

Launching herself, Fluttershy swarmed toward Twilight, grabbed her out of the air, enveloped her between her forelegs and her chest, and smiled slowly at those staring eyes and open mouth. "Twilight?" she asked, then she bent her thick neck till she was kissing that beautiful, beautiful mouth.

When she finally pulled back, she could feel Twilight's heart pounding, but her own seemed remarkably peaceful. "I have loved you," she went on, easy sweeps of her wings keeping the both of them hovering near the ceiling, "for years and years and years. So if you wouldn't mind, I would like very much to try being marefriends."

"Oh." Twilight quivered warm and solid and perfect against her. "Okay." She wriggled, stretched, reached up, and pressed her lips to Fluttershy's.

Fluttershy only knew that she'd landed when she felt the floor press her haunches. Reality pushed at her, too; with a sigh, she settled Twilight to the floor and straightened. "But we're going to need another rule first," she said.

"Oh, yes." Twilight's chest rose and fell in a very distracting fashion. "Rules are good." Her mouth went sideways. "Which I seem to recall saying last night when I was a little less coherent than I am now." One hoof came up to touch the smile that spread across her lips. "Though I'm not really sure how coherent I'm likely to be right at the moment..."

It took some effort not to bend down and kiss her some more, and Fluttershy reluctantly made that effort. "It's just...when we were inside the world you created, you said that you were doing it to give me what I wanted. But, well, you're what I want, Twilight, the strong, gentle, beautiful mare who keeps changing my life in magical, glorious ways. So I would very, very much like sometimes to be able to cuddle with you and feel your big, wonderful self holding me." She took a breath. "Is...is that at all possible?"

"Of course!" Twilight sprang into the air. "We can take turns! I'll draw up schedules and everything!"

Which gave Fluttershy no choice whatsoever: leaning forward, she kissed Twilight again, every square inch of her tingling when Twilight kissed back.

But for all that she wouldn't've minded this going on for another several hours... "Everypony's waiting for us," she muttered, barely taking her lips away from Twilight's, and then she shoved herself back and turned toward the airlock into the lab's isolation chamber. "And I'm overdue for a shower."

"If you insist," Twilight said behind her with a giggle, and Fluttershy's ears perked—she'd been half-afraid Twilight would object. "Just one thing first, though." Fluttershy felt multiple tiny tugs along her chest, looked down with alarm, and saw Twilight's magic unbuttoning the giant-sized Daring Do shirt that Fluttershy had forgotten she was wearing. "I think we'll save this for later." She heard another giggle, and the shirt with its pith helmet vanished.

The thoughts that flashed through Fluttershy then heated her from ears to withers, but purple light was sparkling around the airlock door. "The tank's all full up," Twilight was going on. "Because I'm still going to figure out how poison joke works." The door slid open.

Fluttershy stepped inside. "I think we should ask Discord." She look the rope in her teeth and pulled.

"Chaos magic is one of my theories, actually." Twilight's voice reached through the warm patter of the water washing over her. "We already know that Discord created the plunder vines, and their presence for so many centuries, I posit, has had the unintended consequence of allowing the unusual flora and fauna we find in the Everfree Forest to flourish." The wonderful feeling of curling up made Fluttershy sigh, the rope sliding through her teeth and the walls seeming to grow as she shrank back to her normal size.

"Of course," Twilight was going on, "rather than asking Discord, I'd like to put together some solid experiments to address the question. I have several suppositions I'd like to test."

Smiling, shaking her wet mane, Fluttershy pushed out into the lab, and Twilight's voice gurgled to a halt.

Alarm clenched Fluttershy's stomach, and she looked up to see Twilight staring at her, a towel floating beside her in the glow of her magic. The clench tightened, horrible thoughts rattling in her head like winter-bare branches against her bedroom window. Would Twilight recoil from her now that she wasn't the giant mare of her dreams? Would all her hopes be drowned once again? Would she never—?

"My first supposition," Twilight whispered, gliding forward and catching the end of Fluttershy's dripping mane in the warm folds of the towel, "is that I've been either stupid or blind for all these years. Nothing else could explain why I've never noticed how incredibly beautiful you are."

Fluttershy had to tilt her head back to meet Twilight's lips this time, and it was perfect. Hearing Twilight say something so right in exactly the right tone of voice, Fluttershy couldn't stop her hopes from filling her till they were overflowing.

Yes, she knew they might crumble in the future. But tucking herself against Twilight here and now, she just plain refused to worry about it.