Twilight Sparkle let out a deep sigh as she stared into the mirror. In the past half hour, she had been pacing around her bedroom, trying to make sense of the newfound feelings she had been experiencing the past week. For once, it seemed as though her usual logical approach to problems wasn’t going to work, and so she had turned to her emotions and primal thoughts to understand the new feelings she had been experiencing. And after all of this time, she had finally reached her conclusion.

“I like you, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said nervously to herself, noting the way her pulse increased as she said the pegasus’ name. “I like you a lot, and – and I want to be with you.”

It had all started out so simply. Just over a week ago, Rainbow Dash had come over to the library for a reading session with Twilight. The evening had started out as innocently as any other, the two mares quietly reading and occasionally commenting on some noteworthy part of their novels to one another.

But as the night had progressed, the weather had gradually gotten colder and colder, culminating in a heavy storm which beat furiously at the windows. In spite of Twilight’s insistence that she had known a heating spell, Rainbow Dash had ended up warming up the two ponies by wrapping a wing around Twilight. Although Twilight hadn’t realised it at the time, the soft touch of Dash’s feathers had stirred something inside her – the longing for somepony to be with.

Over the resulting week, Twilight had started to notice small things about herself – the way her voice would stammer and crack when talking to Rainbow Dash, or the constant shaking of her legs when Rainbow Dash came over for another reading session. And so, determined to find out the reason for these odd sensations, Twilight had gone over her feelings and thoughts, leading to the present situation.

Of course, now that Twilight had worked out her feelings, she had a new problem. Namely, how was she going to tell Rainbow Dash that she had a crush on her? Clearing her throat, the unicorn looked into her mirror, imagining that it was the cyan pegasus. “Rainbow Dash, I like you. Do – do you like me and want to go out with me?” Twilight said, unintentionally rushing the last few words.

It was easy to ask the question here, in her bedroom with nopony watching, but what would happen if she really were to say the words directly to Rainbow? Twilight wasn’t sure whether she wanted to think about the pegasus’ reaction – whether it be shock, confusion, or worst of all, disgust. Heck, Rainbow Dash could even mistake it for a prank by Twilight. All of these hypothetical scenarios filled Twilight’s head against her bidding as a voice at the back of her head whispered to her that Rainbow Dash didn’t feel the same way.

Forcing herself to ignore the voice, Twilight once more cleared her throat and faced the mirror to practice. “Rainbow Dash, would you like to go out with me?” she said, forcing herself to speak clearly and at a reasonable pace. “Because it’s just that we’ve been spending a lot of time together recently – well, relatively recently, at any rate – and I was thinking that I like when we spend time together, because you’re really friendly and nice and confident and your wings are really soft and nice to touch if that doesn’t sound weird and I really would like to go out with you so how about it?”

Twilight’s voice sped up as she continued to speak, getting to the point where the pauses in-between words were barely noticeable. She finished off her ramble with a smile, which she held for a few seconds before letting it slide. She may not have had any experience with asking out ponies – whether they be stallions or mares – but she knew that the attempt she had just made was horrible. Her eyes slid to the ground and she sighed. “How is this so hard?” she wondered out loud.

“How is what so hard?” a voice asked as a newcomer entered the room.

“Spike!” Twilight yelped, wondering how much he had heard. “What are you doing – I mean, have you finished re-arranging the books downstairs?” To give herself some time to go over her feelings this morning, Twilight had asked the baby dragon to make himself busy sorting some books into order.

“Sorted ‘em into alphabetical order by author name, just like you asked,” Spike said. “Nothing else you wanted me to do, is there?”

As much as Twilight wanted to get Spike out of the room, she wasn’t selfish enough to send him off to do more unnecessary work for her own sake, and so she merely said, “No, that should be fine for now.”

“Good, because your number one assistant is ready for some relaxation,” Spike said, climbing into his basket. “What were you doing in here, anyway? It sounded like you were talking to yourself.”

“Of course I wasn’t talking to myself!” Twilight hastily replied, blushing slightly. “I was just, um… reading aloud from this play, to… get a feel for how the work sounds when it’s acted out on stage!” As she spoke, Twilight levitated the nearest book she could find over to herself, holding it out to convince Spike that she really was telling the truth.

“Ah yes, that is a classic, isn’t it?” Spike asked, examining the cover. Twilight nodded, hoping that he was buying her lie. “Although I didn’t realise that they had turned 101 Magical Theorems For You and Your Partner into a play.”

Blushing even more furiously, Twilight had a quick glance at the cover before putting it aside on a desk. “Oh, isn’t – isn’t that strange?” she asked, trying to smile but looking all the more unconvincing as a result. “I’m sure that I had put the play around here somewhere!”

“…Are you sure that you were reading a play out loud?” Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. When Twilight was as highly strung as she was at the moment, her lying was even more obvious than Applejack’s.

“Of course I was!” Twilight said, trying to think up some way to change the topic. “What else would I be doing? Practising asking out somepony special?”

“Where did that come from?”

“Nowhere! Like I said, I was reading a play out loud!”

“Right…” Spike still had his eyebrow raised, partially out of confusion, partially out of concern. Just as Twilight began to think that he was accepting the lie, he added, “It’s not Rarity, is it?”

“What?” Although Twilight realised that she would have to let other ponies eventually know about her crush if Rainbow Dash decided to go out with her, she wanted it to remain a secret for now. “Don’t be silly, Spike. I did say that I wasn’t -”

“Big Macintosh?”

“No, because I wasn’t-”

“Fluttershy?”

“Where are you getting these ideas from?”

“Rainbow Dash?”

Twilight unintentionally hesitated a moment before answering. “…No,” she said, her voice going oddly high-pitched.

“Oh really?” Spike asked, an evil grin spreading from cheek-to-cheek. “So, you’d deny it if I said that Rainbow Dash is the most stunning pony in all of Equestria?”

“Um… of course I would,” Twilight said, feeling a lump form in her throat.

“Ha!” Spike laughed. “You’re so obvious, Twilight!”

“Okay, fine, you worked it out,” Twilight snapped, her emotions getting the better of her. “Happy?”

“Sorry, Twilight, I was just joking around,” Spike said, defending himself. “I actually think it’s kinda cool.” In spite of his reassurance, Twilight was now looking downcast. “Twilight? You alright?” Spike asked. “I didn’t annoy you that much, did I?”

“No, Spike, you didn’t,” Twilight sighed. “It’s just – this Rainbow Dash thing. I, well – I sort of, you know… want to ask her out.” Admitting all of this to Spike wasn’t easy, but it was nice to get it off her chest. “And I’m not too sure how to do so.”

Spike shrugged. “Just go up and, y’know, ask her.”

“Really, Spike?” Twilight deadpanned. “That never occurred to me. Thanks for the advice.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Because it isn’t that simple!” Twilight exclaimed. “Don’t you know how many ways this could go wrong?” In response, Spike stared blankly, not sure how to reply. “If I end up panicking and overreacting, I’ll look like an idiot in front of Rainbow! But if I also don’t want to be too casual about it, or she might think it’s a joke! But then again, what if I overdo it? Rainbow might think that I’m taking things too seriously too quickly – and oh Celestia! What if she doesn’t want to be serious with me? What if she just wants a casual relationship – or – or what if she doesn’t want a relationship at all?! Then I’ll be the laughing stock of Ponyville, and everypony will –”

“Calm down, Twilight,” Spike said, snapping a claw a few times in front of Twilight. Her speech had started to speed up once more as she had let her vast imagination run wild, and started to consider all possibilities in her own analytical way. With Spike quite literally snapping her out of it, Twilight’s rambling stopped, and she started breathing deeply for a few moments.

“Thanks, Spike,” Twilight said as her pulse rate slowly returned to normal. “It’s just that I- I don’t want to screw this up. Over this past week, I’ve started to realise how much I care for Rainbow Dash, and I -”

“Wait, over the past week?” Spike asked, a grin forming on his face once more. “Does this mean that when you two were having your reading session and I came in to find Rainbow’s wing around you –”

“That was nothing,” Twilight hastily said. Although she was starting to blush once more, she couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Rainbow Dash’s soft, cuddly, and above all warming wing. “It was a cold night, remember?”

“If you say so,” Spike said, still grinning. “But go on.”

“Well, like I was saying, I realised how much I’ve started to care for Rainbow Dash, and when I … ask her out, I- I’d like everything to be perfect.”

“Twilight…” Spike began, concern creeping into his voice, “I don’t think that you should make too big a deal out of this. It’s possible to plan too much, and -”

“Obviously I can’t just leap right into the question,” Twilight continued, ignoring Spike’s advice. “I’ve got to lead up to it casually… Hmm, and I’ve also got to find a good time to ask her, when other ponies aren’t around...”

Spike slapped his face with a claw. “Twilight, why don’t you just go to Rainbow Dash’s house right now and ask her out? Or invite her over and do it?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, that’ll look too unnatural, and Rainbow will know that I’m up to something… Maybe I could schedule a book reading session for tomorrow evening? Although since we normally read on Wednesdays it might look a little suspicious if I move it a day forwards…” By now Twilight was writing down ideas, having picked up a nearby length of parchment and quill. “I know! I’ll tell her that on Wednesday evening I’m busy, so that she’s got to come over tomorrow… now, how should I ask the question…?”

Having realised by now that Twilight wasn’t going to listen to him, Spike simply rolled his eyes and climbed back into his basket, wrapping his blanket around him. For the next fifteen or so minutes Twilight continued scribbling on the parchment, muttering occasionally as she made adjustments to whatever she was writing. Once she was done, she levitated the parchment in front of Spike.

“All done!” she said happily. “Tell me, what do you think?”

Spike had a quick skim of the parchment before answering. “Twilight… what is this? Some sort of chart?”

“Yep!” Twilight said proudly. “It’s a flowchart I’ve constructed to ensure the best possible way to partake in a conversation with Rainbow Dash whilst leading her onto the topic of dating! I estimate a ninety-four point three percent chance of managing to bring the conversation around to dating and asking Rainbow Dash out!”

“So… how does it work?” Spike asked, looking at the flowchart with a worrying look. The amount of options and arrows pointing around the chart was monstrous – the chart could have been mistaken for some sort of creature from beyond the veil of space and time.

“It’s simple! I begin by greeting Rainbow Dash,” Twilight began, pointing a hoof to what was apparently the start of the chart, “and then depending upon her response to that, I simply follow the chart through, choosing whichever option is best for the situation!” She giggled nervously to herself. “I was feeling pretty nervous about asking Rainbow out earlier, but thanks to this chart, I think I can do it.”

Spike rolled his eyes once more. “Sometimes you’re impossible, Twilight,” he muttered as he returned to the warmth of his blanket.

Not hearing him, Twilight continued reading over the chart. “Yep! If I follow this chart when I invite Rainbow over tomorrow, I think that everything should be just fine!”

It was early afternoon when there was a knock at the library door. Humming happily to herself, Twilight put away the flowchart, which she had been modifying every few minutes as she considered a new scenario that could potentially crop up during her meeting the next day.

“Just a minute!” Twilight called out. She rolled up the flowchart once she was sure that all of the ink was dry, and tucked it away in-between two books. There was no need for whomever her guest was to find and question it.

Twilight walked over to the door and opened it, wondering who could be visiting. She opened her mouth, planning to greet the pony, only to leave her mouth open in shock once she realised whom the guest was.

It was Rainbow Dash.

“Hey Twilight!” Dash greeted in her usual chirpy manner. “What’s up?”

“R-Rainbow?” Twilight stammered, not quite believing the scene before her eyes. “What are- what are you doing here?” She could feel a lump rising in her throat, and she found it hard to look the pegasus in the eye as she entered the library.

“What do you mean? Spike sent a message to me telling me to come over today, so I did!” Twilight had asked Spike to send a message to Rainbow Dash, but to ask her to come over the next day. He had clearly tried to meddle with Twilight’s plan for what he thought was her own good. Just as Twilight was beginning to think up of a way in which she could somehow work with the situation, Rainbow added in, “He said that you had something to tell me.”

Twilight’s heart rate had already been steadily increasing upon seeing the pegasus, but upon hearing those words it sped up so much that she was amazed Dash couldn’t hear it somehow. “O-oh, did he?” Twilight asked. She was trying to think a way out of the situation so that she could follow the plan she’d been making all morning, but at the moment the majority of her brain was thinking Rainbow Dash is here!

“Yep!” Rainbow Dash smiled at Twilight Sparkle, causing a conspicuous blush to spread across Twilight’s cheeks. The unicorn turned her face away, hoping that Rainbow hadn’t noticed it. “So, what was it you wanted to say?”

“Oh, well I, um… T-tell me, how is the weather duty going?” Twilight asked. The swift pounding of her heart was filling her head, and she was sure that any moment now Rainbow would question why she was so tense.

Subtly raising an eyebrow, Rainbow replied, “Yeah, it’s going pretty alright. You probably noticed that yesterday was a bit windier than it was supposed to be – that was because of some new worker who doesn’t quite know what she’s doing yet.” Rainbow Dash noticed Twilight swallowing as the unicorn nodded, avoiding her gaze. “Is everything alright, Twi? You seem kinda… nervous.”

“Of c-course everything’s alright!” Twilight said, forcing herself to smile. “In fact, why don’t I go and make us some coffee?” One of her back legs was shaking quite noticeably – at least, it seemed noticeable to Twilight. She assumed that Rainbow was too polite to question her intense blushing, which just made her feel like even more of an idiot than she already did.

“Uh, no thanks,” Rainbow said, still with an eyebrow raised. “Too bitter for me. But anyway, did you want to say whatever it is you –”

“Of course you want coffee!” Twilight interrupted, slightly more loudly than she meant to. “You just wait right here and make yourself comfortable!” In her haste to leave the room, she teleported into the kitchen rather than walking the ten or so metres.

Twilight levitated a bag of coffee beans from a cupboard, but no sooner was it in the air than her magic spasmed and she spilled half the contents all over the bench. “Oh, no no no no no!” Twilight said, trying to sweep all of the beans into one pile with her hooves. “Don’t look like even more of an idiot!” she said to herself. She slammed her face into the bench, not realising how hard she was biting her lip as she did so. For a brief moment, Twilight wondered whether it was worth teleporting to some far-away island and living the rest of her life out as a hermit to avoid having to face Rainbow Dash again.

“That you I hear, Twilight?” Spike asked as he entered the kitchen. “How’d it go? Pretty good idea of mine, telling Rainbow Dash to – oh,” he said, noticing Twilight’s shaky stance. She turned around to face Spike and slid to the ground, her hooves feeling too weak to support her at this moment in time. “You alright?” Spike asked, concerned.

“No,” whispered Twilight. “I- I don’t think I can do this, Spike. I don’t think I can ask out Rainbow Dash.”

“Aw, c’mon, Twi!” Spike encouraged. “You just need to get back out there and tell her how you really feel!”

“No,” Twilight repeated, still whispering. “I’ll go up to her and ask her out and she’ll say no but say it really nicely and I’ll say that’s okay and that I’m fine with it but I won’t be and then she’ll leave the library and she’ll never talk to me again because she’ll think that I have a crush on her which I will because she’s so pretty and amazing and –” Twilight’s rambling was interrupted by Spike putting a claw on her shoulder.

“Twilight, you’ll be fine. Rainbow Dash is a good friend, she’ll definitely think about it, and I’m sure she’ll say yes once she has.” He spoke the words as sincerely as he could.

Twilight felt a small glimmer of hope. “You – you really think so?” she asked. She was still biting her lip, but with a little less force.

“I do,” Spike said. He held out a claw for Twilight and helped her to her hooves. “Now go out and get that mare!”

“Th-thanks, Spike,” Twilight said, still feeling incredibly nervous, but a little better than she was a moment ago. “I’ll – I’ll try and do that.” The mare exited the room, trying to feel more confident than she was. It’s okay, she thought to herself. You can do this, Twilight. Don’t think about the plan, don’t think about how you look right now. Just go up to her and say what you need to.

“Sooo... should I stay and wait for coffee or not?” Rainbow Dash asked as Twilight approached, cocking her head to one side. Twilight took a deep breath before answering.

“No Rainbow Dash, you don’t,” she began, trying to stay calm. Easy part’s over – keep going, Twilight. “But I am, um, ready to tell you that thing,” she said, starting to take note of how much she was blushing before trying to ignore it. As much as she longed to avoid Rainbow’s gaze and to face the floor, Twilight forced herself to keep looking into the pegasus pony’s beautiful magenta eyes.

“Yeah, I was kinda wondering whether you’d get to that sometime today,” Rainbow said, laughing a little. Twilight forced herself to join in. “What is it?”

Twilight took another deep breath. “Well, I’m sure that you, um, remember that night about a week ago or so when we were reading together,” she began. Eyes on Rainbow! “And how cold it ended up getting,” she continued, trying to delay the moment as best she could.

“Yep,” Rainbow said bluntly, blinking once or twice. “I remember.” Twilight wasn’t sure whether she should be glad that Rainbow didn’t appear to be seeing where she was going with this.

Twilight’s front two hooves fiddled with each other as she continued, avoiding Rainbow Dash’s eyes in spite of her earlier determination. “And after we ended up… together as we, um, were on the night, I thought that I, uh, kind of liked that.” Twilight risked a quick look at the pegasus before returning to facing the floor. Rainbow’s expression was impossible to read, but she was clearly listening intently.

“And it just sort of got me thinking… I really like you, with the way you’re always there for me, and the way you’re always so bright and cheerful and can get me to smile in ways that even Pinkie Pie can’t, and the way your feathers are, um, r-really soft and nice to touch,” Twilight stammered, starting to trip over her words now. “And I, um, had a big think, and I sort of want to ask you…” Twilight forced herself to look at Rainbow Dash directly once more, wishing with all her might that the next few seconds would be over.

“Would you like to go out with me?”

Author's Notes:

First TwiDash fic! I've had the idea of a TwiDash in mind for a little while now, but I haven't really gotten into the idea until a week or so ago, when I read the fantastic story Twilight's List. If you haven't read it, go read it now!

(OctaScratch is still OTP though, and you all know it).