It had been a busy couple of days- After sending Fluttershy to the shop in Canterlot and having her little 'session' with Rarity and Applejack (an event she still did not know what to think about), Twilight was quickly buried. Literally buried, in books that is: The Library was scheduled (by her) for a complete reshelf and clean-up (by her and Spike). Between her newest discoveries, her relationship woes, and her normal magical practice, the all-important cleanup had completely slipped her mind until it was almost too late. But thankfully, they got it all done in time. Less thankfully, it was now past mid-week and she had barely been out of the tree in days.

So a breath of fresh air seemed about right, and Twilight went out (eyes stinging in the light) and cut quickly across town to Sugarcube Corner. Checking on all of her friends would be good, and getting breakfast would be an added bonus. True enough, she picked a good first location: Not only was Pinkie working the counter today, but Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were sitting together in a corner booth, working their way through...

"Is that a muffin larger than both of your heads put together, girls?"

Rainbow Dash let out a muffled "Mmhmm!" as a reply, while Fluttershy merely nodded and maneuvered another slice of the colossal cake creation onto her plate. Pinkie noticed her entrance, as well as her incredulity at the Brobdingnagian baked-good beast, and bounced over.
"Oh, Twilight! You will not believe the luck I had! It's the luckiest thing since the time when my ears both flopped and my tail twitched back to back, and let me tell you, that was pretty lucky!"

"...And what happened when your ears both flopped and your tail twitched?"

"I actually don't remember! But it was pretty lucky, and so was this! Oh, maybe it was this! Which, you know, still makes it the luckiest thing since then because they happened in order, I mean, of course they did, because if they happened out of order than it wouldn't really be precogwhatsit or whatever you said it was, right?"

Twilight plopped into a chair near her friends' booth, holding back the urge to facehoof.
"Yes, Pinkie, precognition. Just because I don't know how your Pinkie Sense works doesn't mean I stopped studying it. That's another signal combo for the notes then... But before that, what is it you're even talking about?"

"Derpy!"

"Derpy?"

Pinkie looked at her as if she had grown a second horn.
"You know Derpy, Twilight. Mailmare, grey pegasus, really pretty gold eyes?"

"Well, yes, but... What was lucky about Derpy? What happened, Pinkie?"

"Oh! She flew face-first into a basin of my special crumb cake batter. Totally ruined the whole batch."

"And that was 'lucky'?"

"Yuppers! Because then she said something about 'muffins' as she was climbing out and right then she sorta looked like a muffin, and that gave me the idea to cobble together a bunch of old pans into one super-duper muffin pan, and then take my crumb cake batter and make that!" Pinkie pointed to the foal-sized pastry on the table.
"I call it Das Ubermuffin! Feeds four, and if you hollow it out, seats two! Well, kinda snugly, but still, normally muffins don't seat anypony at all so that's really impressive."

"I... I am sure it is, Pinkie. Any chance I can order a normal muffin?"

Rainbow yanked her chair, pulling her over to their booth and sending her wobbling precariously face-first into the muffin. She managed to keep from outright faceplanting it, and... It did smell delicious.
"No need, Twi! Like Pinkie said, this beast feeds four, and I was just gonna get you and either Rarity or AJ over here anyways!"

"Oh! Well... Thank you, Rainbow."
She grasped a spare fork (her friends having even gotten extra place settings ahead of time) in her magic and then apportioned herself some of th... 'Das' Ubermuffin. A few bites later and she polished off her slice and cut another-- Pinkie really could make just about any zany pastry plan work out. Deliciously.
"So what were you going to get us for, other than mutual muffin mastication?"

She laughed when Rainbow blushed, and took a moment to define 'mastication'. The blush managed to become mutual as Rainbow joked that no, Twilight wasn't talking about dirty things in public, she was just using Twilight-sized words that nopony else knew. She really did try to rein in her vocabulary when it wasn't useful, but something about the superbly superior scale of the sweet snack before her just brought out her inner love of big words. Rainbow turned to talk to her again as she tried to figure out an appropriate angle of attack on the snack.
"I was bored yesterday, ya know, weather patrol and all that, sunny day, and I got to thinking: We haven't had a second meeting!"

"Of?"

"You know! The group."

"Oh. Ooooh! And so you were gathering us up for a new one?"

"Naturally! I mean, somepony has to take initiative if we're ever going to get you two slowpokes to-" She tried to keep talking, but Fluttershy suddenly went shock-white and shushed her. Rainbow shook her head.
"Oh come on 'Shy, nopony's in the store but us!"

"Well, yes, but... Should we still really talk about it? In public?"

"Uuugh, you're so paranoid Fluttershy."

Twilight looked at Dash sternly, trying to even contemplate thinking about imagining the concept of somepony hearing about their objectives and goals.
"I for one agree with her- It's risky."

"Bluh, fine. Still, I think we should get everypony together to talk about... 'that', I guess, since you two don't want me just saying it."

Pinkie perked up from behind the counter just as a batch of customers arrived at the door.
"Oh, are you guys talkin' about the Pri-"

The shout came out of both of them at once, without even thinking.
"PINKIE NO!"

--------

Fiascos of public exposure quite narrowly avoided, and tremendous taste-titans toppled (Pinkie switched shifts with Mr. Cake, promising to promptly return in the PM, and then helped them polish off the preposterous pastry) the four of them left Sugarcube Corner for Carousel Boutique. It wasn't a terribly long walk, and they happily chatted about their respective weeks on the way- Although Twilight was avoiding the most important recent events, and Fluttershy was not discussing her evening with Luna either. And it made sense to her: Those were the kind of things that needed to be discussed at the meeting itself, otherwise you just risk retelling the same story three or four times to catch everypony up.

It was a bit of a surprise to find Rarity outside of the Boutique, and somewhat less of a surprise to find Applejack with her. The two of them were currently discussing some massive sheet of blueprints spread across a table, their voices never rising above a whisper. Twilight went to warn them about their approaching flock of friends, but Pinkie beat her to the punch.
"Giiiirls! You missed out on Das Ubermuffin!"

Rarity leapt with a start, landing on all four hooves facing them. The look of relief on her face was noticeable, but quickly replaced with the bemused confusion of somepony talking to Pinkie Pie.
"Das... I'm sorry dear, what?"

Pinkie went to go into her full long-winded explanation, but Dash cut her off and cut to the chase.
"Larger-than-life muffin. Delicious, but now I can barely move. Feeds four, seats two."

Applejack muttered something along the lines of "Seats...?" before sighing and giving up. The farmer took the blueprints from the table, neatly rolled them, and passed them to Rarity. Twilight smiled as the couple shared a kiss- They had been growing more publicly affectionate ever since their relationship was revealed, and it was always nice to see two ponies of such seeming opposites come together. (In more ways than one) thought a lecherous part of her brain, but it was quickly shoved aside.

"Well hay, what brings everypony 'round here?"

Fluttershy scuffed her hoof across the ground and spoke up.
"Well, we... thought we could have a second meeting of our, um, group. Because me and Twilight both have a lot of news. I think."

She nodded, joining the other mare.
"So... Rarity, would it be alright if we met here again? Or is that a problem?"

"Darling I would simply love to host our next gathering, but... It is admittedly a touch messy inside the Boutique. A bit of a rough work-week, I'm sure you understand."

"Of course. Well, actually... You know what? Let's use the library! I just did a big re-organization spree with Spike, so the whole place is spotless."

Everypony nodded at this, and while Rarity and Applejack went inside to stow away their secretive work, the rest of them prepared to head back into town... and Twilight tried to figure out how she'd keep Spike out of their meeting. She always felt bad about excluding him from anything, but this particular event was... delicate. Then again, he had been spending plenty of time with the Crusaders lately, so perhaps she could just give him the day off! They had all their work done, after all, and he had been especially helpful as of late.

Her mind made up, she prepared herself to retell the story of her first lesson, which is to say, the Rising... And to hear all about Fluttershy's trip to Canterlot. Which, come to think of it, she had no idea if anything interesting had happened during it: The other mare had not brought anything up about it, but then again, Fluttershy rarely spoke up without need. They walked the path back to the Library, and Twilight did her best to look inconspicuous... Which was admittedly silly, because she was walking back to her own house. No matter how this turned out in the end, being able to ease up on the paranoia would be nice.

--------

Spike had jumped at the chance to spend time with the Crusaders again- Apparently, the four of them had been working on some kind of project at the Clubhouse. She warned him to be safe and not flame anything unnecessarily- They had gotten a terse letter from Celestia after he used his transporter-flame on a snowball to avoid getting hit during a fast-paced snowball fight last Winter Wrap-Up. Twilight had been furious to find out about that, even if Celestia had been alone at the time of the 'incident', and Spike was, in the end, appropriately apologetic.

So now the six of them were sitting around in the main floor of the library, nursing various drinks and snacks. The others looked expectantly at Fluttershy, and her, waiting to be regaled with the developments since last they met. Fluttershy looked to her, and Twilight nodded, allowing her pegasus friend to go first... Or she would have, if Pinkie hadn't burst out into a gleefully loud cheer.
"Alright! So begins the first official meeting of our group!"

"Pinkie, what makes this any more official than the last time?"

"You're so silly, Dashie- It's because we have a name now!"

Rarity looked at the party pony in confusion.
"Pinkie, we agreed not to name this group, did we not?"

"Uh hu! But then I decided to name it aaanyways!"

They all shared a glance and then braced for impact.
"OK, Pinkie. What's the name?"

"Pink and Purple Ponies Passionately Pursuing Princess Plot!"

They stared.
There was silence.
And then, a clamor.

"Pinkie! Such crude language as part of a name is-"

"I'm not pink."

"Oh come on Pinkie Pie, really? Why's it gotta be so long?"

"I don't think I would really describe it as passionate..."

"My mane is pink."

"Pinkie, Ah don't think you're serious 'bout this... Right?"

"Well, I mean, I suppose it is a pursuit, and..."

"My tail. My tail is also pink."

Finally, with the group settling down, Pinkie's wide grin began slowly collapsing into a faint smile. She laughed nervously. "So, uh, that's a no?"
Five simultaneous nods came in reply, at which she brightened right back up to her normal self. "Oh well! It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing anyway."

If there was one advantage to the massive outburst, it was that, by comparison, their actual conversation was going to be much less draining. With the ice broken, Fluttershy and Twilight finally began to go over the events of the previous weekend- Her first lesson, and Fluttershy's evening with Luna. Rather than talk over one another, Twilight offered to explain her own happenings first: Give Fluttershy some more time to prepare herself. Speaking to a group, even if it was just a group of close friends, could be troublesome.

After the first shocked outburst from Rainbow Dash, she made a moratorium: No outbursts or questions until they were both done. Which seemed easier to maintain, especially because as soon as she was finished, she excused herself to go fetch a drink... And both Rarity and Applejack followed her. Rarity spoke first, once they were alone in the kitchen.
“Twilight, darling, I just... That is to say... Oh, I am simply having the worst time figuring out how to say this.”

“What’s wrong, Rarity?”

“Nothing! I hope. I mean, that’s what we’re wondering. If anything is... wrong, since our little... lesson, the other night.”

Now both of the other ponies were blushing, and Twilight was as well. Admittedly, things had gotten a bit more... intimate than she had initially thought. And certainly that could lead to awkwardness, in theory. But for them? For them...
“Girls, I would never let anything like that come between us. I’m extremely glad you were willing to teach me, and that night... I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I owe you.”

Twilight could see the gladness in their eyes, and happily accepted the sudden hug from Rarity. They talked a bit longer, and she was able to share with them some of her more... extreme feelings about the incident with Celestia. After all, while the others understood her ambition, her goal, she felt like Fluttershy, as well as Applejack and Rarity, were the only ones who understood her reason. It wasn’t just desire, and it wasn’t just lust. If she had still been a student in Canterlot, she might have even shrugged it off as devotion, or the budding of something like friendship.

It was love, not alone, but with all the things that come attendant to it- The passion, the distraction, the urges and the emotions. She barely had the slightest inkling of a hint of knowledge about the subject, but she could already tell. If she wasn’t careful, this was the kind of thing that could burn her out, or tip over into obsession. But she was used to dangerous situations, after all. She had absolute certainty that she could succeed. Back in the main room, she heard Pinkie saying something about a “really pretty flower”, which probably meant Fluttershy was finishing up her end of the story.

She turned with a smile, suddenly much more confident than she had been before.
“Well girls... You’ve heard my half of it, Dash and Pinkie have heard it all... Ready to go make a plan?”