The Wind Beneath Her Wings

Timeline: One month later

"Hey Twi," Dash yelled through from the kitchen to the library's main hall, where Twilight lay on her side idly reading through an ancient tome on Equestrian fauna. "Want anything for breakfast?"

The purple mare stirred, her concentration breaking as she realised Dash was talking to her. Over the past few weeks, she'd slowly been trained to pay attention when Dash talked by scientific applications of tickling - namely, if she didn't pay attention, she'd be made to.

"Huh?" Twilight asked while she mentally processed the question, "Oh, sure. Just some hay and milk would be lovely, thanks!" she suggested, going back to her reading.

Back in the kitchen, Rainbow Dash grinned. She knew Twilight didn't think she was a very good cook, but Dash planned to prove her wrong. Cooking was just making sure everything was in the right place at the right temperature, as far as she could tell, what could possibly go wrong? Why, if Dash had her way, Twilight'd be asking her to cook before too long, not asking her not to.

"Uh, Dash?" Spike whispered, poking his head around the kitchen door as he went about his own chores, "You have to take the hay out of the wrapper."

Spike left without waiting to see Dash's reaction, muttering about wondering how Twilight put up with her. Rainbow Dash looked back at the bowl. The small, wrapped up bale of hay did look delicious, but Spike might have a point - the paper wrapping probably wasn't as nice. Well, can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, Dash supposed, and started to open the packaging; A simple task for a pony with as fine motor control as Rainbow Dash.

Thirty seven seconds later, Dash emerged from the kitchen victorious. She was flying a few inches off the ground, happily grasping a bowl in her hooves with a triumphant grin on her face. Her mane was even more of a mess than usual, singular sticks of hay embedded deep within it at seemingly impossible angles, and flour lightly coating her body. The bowl was perhaps a third full, the remaining pieces of hay strewn around the kitchen and contained within her mane and tail. Nonetheless, the wrapping lay torn and defeated on the kitchen floor, and Dash was the master once more.

"What in the wide world of Equestria did you do in there, Dash?" Twilight asked, cocking an eyebrow and peering over her book as she spotted the blue, and now yellow, mare floating towards her.

"Made you breakfast! Look, I did it, you said I couldn't, but ha! You owe me now, Sparkle." Dash grinned, winking at the end of her last sentence as if proving Twilight wrong was a victory rather than a challenge.

Twilight plucked the bowl out of Dash's hooves and peered into it.

"Dash?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's the milk?"

Dash looked down at the bowl, inspecting the contents for a moment.

"Uh... I guess I kinda... forgot." Dash sheepishly admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof and knocking a few errant strands of hay out onto the floor. "But hey, I still made a meal! I told you the only reason I ordered in every day was because I didn't wanna just make it for myself, didn't I?"

Twilight shook her head in disbelief. She'd heard Rarity's tales of woe about Sweetie Belle's cooking, but she never expected to be able to trade war stories. How exactly Dash had managed to get flour on the tip of her nose Twilight was completely unsure. It was adorable, it looked great on her, but there wasn't actually any flour in the packaging. She must have actually ground the hay down with her hoof somehow. Impressive, albeit completely inept.

"Fine, give it here, I'll go get some milk!" Dash protested, grabbing the bowl and retreating, leaving a small cloud of impossible flour behind, which Twilight wafted away with a stroke of her horn. At least Dash couldn't possibly screw up pouring milk into a bowl.

"Oh horseapples," Twilight heard echo through from the kitchen, a moment before a tinkling smash as what was presumably the milk bottle impacted the ground, shattering. A few moments later, Rainbow Dash returned from the kitchen, her mane dripping.

Twilight blinked - Dash was completely soaked. Her mane was stuck to her body, and tiny droplets of white liquid peppered her entire coat. As she stood there in the kitchen doorway, the ends of her hair dripped away, coating the library floor in a thin layer of milk and somehow making even more of a mess than Dash had already managed.

"Oh, Rainbow..." Twilight sighed, filing her book away and rolling over onto her hooves, walking over as she shook her head. "What am I going to do with you?" she laughed, lightly nuzzling a dry looking patch on Dash's cheek.

"I uh," Dash started, flaring out her wings and giving herself a shake to try and throw off as much milk as she could, "We're out of milk."

Twilight blinked, blowing a wet strand of hair out of her eyes as it was weighed down by Dash's displaced liquid, before tutting and wringing her mane dry with a pulse of her horn, siphoning the milk off and holding it in the air.

The two ponies stood there, staring at each other, wondering which of them would break first. Dash was fairly sure she could spin this as not entirely her fault, and Twilight just wondered how long Dash could manage to stay still.

"Oh, will you two grow up?!" Spike shouted through from the kitchen, cloth in one hand and sponge in the other as he began to mop up the spilt milk.

"Oh, Spike, you're just a baby dragon remember! You'll understand one day," Twilight patronised.

"Oh, thanks Spike, I owe you one," Dash thanked, having absolutely no intention of helping clean up. Cleaning wasn't cool.

"Heh, I guess I ought to go grab some more milk then," Dash offered, the shopping trip a metaphorical olive branch.

"Oh, I can do that, it'll be faster. You should get off to work, you have a shift soon remember?" Twilight replied. Dash hadn't remembered, Dash never remembered. The timetable was affixed straight above their bed so that Dash would always, in theory, wake up looking at it, or at very least see it at some point. In practice, she was often distracted by the purple unicorn lying next to her, so she had yet to actually memorise it. Even though she'd been following this particular timetable for almost six months.

"Oh, I've got plenty of ti- did you say you'd be faster?" Dash gawked, cocking her head, "because I'm pretty fast, y'know. Fastest Pegasus in Equestria. I could do it pretty quick," she boasted, certain her milk-run skills easily outmatched Twilight. What was she gonna do, spend the rest of the day on a shopping list and only actually get there after closing time?

"Well, I can teleport, you know," Twilight stated, "You're very fast, but..."

Dash shot forward in the blink of an eye - she'd say half a blink - and stared into Twilight's eyes. "Are you saying you're faster than me, Twi?"

"Of course not, Dash," Twilight admitted, "I wouldn't technically move there, just appear. My velocity would stay much lower than yours at all times. I'd still get there before you, of course, but I could never beat you in a fair race."

That wasn't good enough for Dash. Rainbow Dash was the fastest mare in Equestria, no matter what. "I'll race you," she warned, "Don't think I won't."

Twilight laughed nervously. The situation had gotten a lot tenser than she'd expected, a lot faster than she'd hoped. She could win, of course, it wasn't a fair race. She just didn't want Dash to feel hurt - which, of course, she would if she refused to race. She'd also feel hurt if Twilight didn't try her best.

"Okay, Dash. Winner is the pony who gets the milk back here first, we'll start on the count of three," Twilight instructed, using her regular race rules - though temporarily amended to allow the use of magic. Regular races would be unbalanced by teleportation, but that was the point here. Twilight felt sorry for Dash, really.

"Three two one GO!" Dash shouted, speeding out of the room. Twilight concentrated, and the world slowed to a standstill around her. Dash's tail slowly fluttered in the air as she sped towards the open window, reaching her arms out in front of her and curving in her wings to slip through the tight opening.

Twilight found her concentration slipping - her victory was so assured she could take a few moments for herself anyway - as Dash's tail whipped back and forth excruciatingly slowly, and Twilight found her eyes drawn to Dash's toned behind. Never mind fastest pony in Equestria, Twilight knew she'd found the hottest. It was a shame she felt the need to challenge anypony who even accidentally implied they might be able to do something faster than her, but she'd get over it, Twilight was sure.

Closing her eyes, Twilight concentrated further. The nearest shop was a few hundred feet away, but that was no issue for Twilight. Reaching out with her magic, she sensed outwards, sending a magical pulse out in all directions searching for the shop. Within a few instants, she found it. Dash had not yet left the room.

Concentrating hard on the shop itself, Twilight found a nice spot that was safe to appear in. She knew from firsthoof experience that teleporting inside of another object did not end well for that object. She didn't want to repeat that. Twilight let a little energy build up in her horn, and vanished in a flash of light.

"Hey, need milk, no time to explain, just take my bits," Twilight called over to the shopkeeper, throwing a few coins through the air as she grabbed the milk bottle between her teeth and concentrated again, vanishing in another flash of light and appearing in her kitchen.

Almost slipping on the wet floor, Twilight triumphantly pulled open the refrigerator to place the milk in it's rightful position, only to find there was already a full bottle there in its place.

"Ha!" Dash cried, tackling her from behind and bringing both of them down onto the wet floor. "Told ya I was fast!"

"I... but I...!" Twilight complained, baffled that she could have been beaten. "How did you...?"

"Fastest. Mare. In. Equestria." Dash slowly stated, ruffling Twilight's mane a little more with each word. Dash knew she could sometimes come off as a little overconfident, but on her speed, she knew she was just confident. "That's why I know I'll get into the Wonderbolts some day, because nopony has beaten me yet."

"Huh," Twilight answered, mentally adjusting how fast she thought Dash was. She had to admit, most of the time she saw her flying she was holding back. Even when she'd seen her race, Dash tended to win almost effortlessly, certainly not straining herself.

Reaching out with the tiniest bit of magic, Twilight started to probe Dash's body, looking for the signs of exertion. Her heart was still beating at twice the normal rate, and she was still breathing heavily. She'd done a tiny bit of damage to a wing muscle - which Twilight repaired - and the tendons in her legs seemed a little stretched, presumably from grabbing milk at absurdly high speeds. Twilight hoped Dash'd paid for that milk.

"Hey, that tickles!" Dash laughed, lightly punching Twilight in the shoulder and letting her body slip a little, rubbing against Twilight's now damp form. Twilight shivered, the cold milk sucking the heat out of her body and leaving her in need of warmth.

"You," Twilight accused, grabbing Dash around the chest with her hooves and pulling her closer, "are too amazing for your own good."

Twilight, luckily, didn't have much problem admitting when she was beat. When it didn't have anything to do with magic, of course. Rainbow Dash was much the same way, not that she'd ever admit it. Telling her she couldn't cook ruffled her feathers, but little more. That didn't mean she wouldn't try and prove she could, though.

"I know," Dash grinned back, happily accepting Twilight's victory hug, secure in the knowledge that once again, everybody knew she was the fastest thing in the house. As it should be. "and you're soaking."

"Yeah. I should go clean this off, you need to get to work."

"Oh, to hay with work. I'll clean you, right here, and you don't get to say no because I won, okay?" Dash stated, the grin on her face and glint in her eyes telling Twilight that this was no time to deny her, and she should really just play along.

"Fine, but don't blame me when Cloudkicker gets angry at yoouuhhhhh-" Twilight's sentence was cut off as Dash began to do exactly as she'd promised, starting with a long slow lick around Twilight's neck. There wasn't any milk there, but Dash wanted to do a thorough job. Twilight let her eyes close and her mouth remained slightly parted as she gasped under Dash's attentions, the blue mare's tongue slowly making its way around her body, lapping up the spilt milk and pressing against every inch of her body.

Dash struggled slightly to pull out of Twilight's hugging grip as she moved downwards, Twilight not really noticing it as she lay there concentrating on the way Dash's tongue would travel over her coat and rub against her skin with every lick, and every lap. Twilight knew that some species of animal regularly did this for cleaning, and she'd heard that it was fairly popular among Pegasi for two partners to 'preen' each other. She could see why, Dash's flexible and sensitive lips felt amazing pressing against her. Twilight made a mental note to do some reading and look into how that worked.

For now, though, she was happy to simply lie back and let Dash claim her prize - Twilight thought she ought to lose more races. Losing felt nice. Dash's slow procession continued, moving down her body and leaving the areas above it feeling clean and relaxed, like some sort of intimate massage.

"Hey guys, what's oh Celestia Twilight are you okay?" Spike exclaimed as he walked into the kitchen, finding the two mares in the throes of lovemaking, though not quite understanding that. "Are you hurt? Dash, what happened!"

"I... uh... we... slipped. In the milk," Dash explained, looking down at Twilight for assistance. She shrugged, lying wasn't her forte.

Spike considered Dash's words for a moment, wondering why she'd so obviously lie, before the truth burst into his head like a freight train made of awkwardness and getting in the way. "Oh, gosh," he stated, walking backwards out of the room without another word, as if he'd really rather just forget about it.

"Oh, I hope he'll be okay," Twilight whispered, "He doesn't really seem to have noticed 'us' yet."

"Yeah," Dash replied, fairly disinterested. She was sure Spike would be fine, they always had a laugh when it was just her and Spike, so she didn't know why adding Twilight into that would be so bad. "Where were we?"

"You," Twilight answered, pushing Dash off with a hoof and wringing the two of them dry with a quick glow of her horn, "were going to work. I want to make sure Spike is okay, alright?"

"Aw, but Twilight!" Dash complained, looking crestfallen and shaking her wings around defiantly to dislodge the last few droplets of milk, spreading them around the entire kitchen. Small victories.

Twilight sighed and shook her head, "Go on, you're going to be late already," she commanded, watching Dash take a running dive at the open window, spreading her wings the moment she'd cleared the library and soaring into the sky and out of sight. She looked beautiful in the air, and it saddened Twilight that she didn't get to see Dash perform anywhere near as much as she'd like, given that she could never schedule for something that Dash herself didn't plan in advance. Twilight made a mental note to clear up as much empty "buffer" time as she could next time she rewrote her schedules, hoping she could catch a performance or two that way.

"Spike?" she called out through the library, trying to catch the attention of her number one assistant. She heard no reply - that was completely unlike Spike, he'd normally already be asking what she wanted. Twilight's brow furrowed in concern as she started to search, sensing outwards with her horn for the familiar, unique, and unmistakable aura of a dragon.

He was upstairs, in their bedroom, leaning over into something. What was he doing?

"What are you doing?" Twilight asked a moment after her teleport. Walking felt so inefficient to her these days.

Spike screamed and fell backwards, and the sack he'd been leaning over fell onto its side, letting the contents spill out onto his bed. "Twilight, don't scare me like that!"

"Spike, what are you doing?" Twilight asked, the concern clear in her voice as she looked upon the sack, filled with his possessions.

"Oh, I think it's time I moved on, Twilight. I'm growing up, you're growing up, I think you and Dash want the place to yourselves, and I think it's time for me to take my place in the world," Spike said, almost as if he'd rehearsed it. Gathering up his things, he slung the sack over his shoulder and began to leave the room.

Twilight picked up the baby dragon and tugged the sack out of his hands, holding him in the air in front of her. "Spike, no! You're not just a baby dragon, you're MY baby dragon, and I don't want you to go anywhere! Where would you even go?" she asked, her voice a mixture of surprise and astonishment, and on the verge of tears.

"Well... Rarity said I could come by any time I wanted, and she probably wouldn't want me out of the way all the time," he offered hopefully, trying not to give away the fact he hadn't planned that far ahead. Or really, much at all.

"Oh Spike!" Twilight sighed, slightly exasperated. "Why would you think I wanted my number one assistant out of the way?"

"That's my bed over there, but I've barely slept in it in a month. You're always sending me out on errands you used to do yourself, and I think I've babysat the CMC sixteen times in the last three weeks," Spike countered with a series of completely accurate, and fairly damning, points.

Twilight considered it - Spike was right. She did give Spike pointless activities to perform to keep him out of the way whenever Dash happened to pop round during the day, and having Spike there at night was always awkward. Even knowing Spike was merely feet away, and knowing how lightly he slept, it was hard to keep Dash still and get her to just go to sleep.

"You're right," Twilight admitted, thinking back to all the times she'd thoughtlessly sent Spike away, too preoccupied with her own problems to think about his. "I'm sorry, I should have thought. Oh, Spike, of course I don't want you to go! You're my family!"

"What about Rainbow Dash?"

"She's my family too now, Spike. I don't want either of you to go," Twilight answered, lowering Spike to the floor and bending her neck to rub her cheek against Spike's. A few moments later, she added in a whisper, "Please."

"Promise to stop making me do pointless things?"

"Yeah," Twilight agreed. "Speaking of that, you could help me clean up downstairs?" Twilight offered. Normally she'd make Spike do it alone, but normally Spike hadn't just tried to walk out.

*

Five minutes later, Twilight was frustrated. "How did milk get on THIS?" she screeched, scrubbing at a pot with a cloth held in a magical grip while Spike continued mopping up the pool on the floor. "And why isn't it coming off!"

Spike sighed and proffered another cloth at Twilight. "Wring that one out into the bucket, it's soaked. Man, it's a good thing I didn't leave, you're hopeless," Spike half-joked as he saw how impressively inept Twilight could be at seemingly basic skills.

"I've never dropped milk before!" Twilight complained, trying to justify herself. The rest of the cleaning went smoother, as Twilight worked under Spike's guidance and they eventually got every drop. Quite how milk could get into so many places Twilight wasn't sure. Next time somebody spilt some, she promised herself she'd disintegrate the room and just buy new cutlery.

"There, all done!" Twilight beamed as the last droplet of milk found its way into the bucket, and the bucket was promptly teleported far, far away where Twilight didn't have to look at it any more. Twilight made a mental note to research low-level shielding magic a little more so she could ensure bottles would never break again.

"Hey, Spike? I know you're still young, but maybe it's time we sorted out one of those rooms we never use for you?" Twilight suggested. "You could put all your things in it!"

"Really?" Spike asked, his face lighting up as he started to imagine the joys of having his own room. "Aw, I'd love to, Twilight!"

Twilight smiled back, and walked off. She had a particular room in mind - it was easily the smallest room in her library, but that was probably a good thing given Spike's struggles with his hoarding instincts. It was also very far away from Twilight's room, through several meters of solid wood, and it should be impossible for sounds to reach it. Could be slightly problematic for waking him up in the morning, but excellent for not waking him up at night.

Twilight grabbed Spike's bed as she walked, weaving it through the room behind her as she trotted down the steps into the lower floors of her library. Though the actual tree housed all of the public facing areas, as well as her bedroom, the lower floors were quite large and Twilight generally only used them for storage or experimentation that required a fairly large area.

Spike's soon-to-be room was just below the ground floor, and Twilight wasn't sure she'd been inside of it since she first arrived. Appropriately, it was caked with dust, which Twilight quickly dealt with using a quick pulse of magic. Coughing slightly at the last few specks of dust, Twilight set Spike's bed down in the small room. It still looked quite dark and lonely.

A few candles, one of her spare wardrobes from upstairs, and a pot plant later, Twilight was happy with it. Spike had been happy with it all along, of course, but Twilight wanted to apologise properly. Spike was right, he was growing up too, and she needed to respect that.

Twilight left Spike to get used to his new room - or, she suspected, to get started on the pile of comic books she'd seen him sneak in. One of the two. Twilight had reading, writing and research to do anyway, made all the more urgent by the morning's events.

*

Several hours later, Rainbow Dash soared back through the window, showing off once more as she flared her wings and came to a stop in the middle of the room, letting her mane fall into place behind her a moment later as she stood there as if expecting applause. As usual, it never came.

"Do you really need to blow over all my papers every time you come in?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Dash admitted. Sometimes she just liked making a show.

Twilight laughed and shook her head, refiling the papers almost effortlessly. There was a reason she kept everything numbered, after all. "Nice day?" she casually asked, peering over the top of her book.

"No, Cloud Kicker was pretty mad and was like, really passive aggressive the whole shift. You really ought to start making me go in on time, you know," Dash answered with a completely straight face, apparently forgetting that it was her own fault she was late. "Oh, hey, Spike okay?"

Twilight put the book down and started to explain what'd happened while Dash had been out.

"Hey, so we'll be alone every night now? Awesome!" Dash responded. "Oh, and Spike isn't leaving, that's great too."

Twilight threw a book at Dash, which she of course deftly avoided, but the point was still clear. "The whole problem was that we weren't thinking about him enough, Dash! Go talk to him, make sure he knows you care."

Dash sighed and trotted down the stairs, walking over to Spike's new room and bursting in. "Hey Spike, what's up?"

Spike fell backwards in shock once again, the comic book slipping out of his hands and dropping to the floor. "Will you guys stop doing that?!"

"Heh, sorry. Hey, what're you reading?" Dash asked as she spied a familiar grey maned yellow pegasus on the front of Spike's reading material. "Ohmygosh, they make Daring Do comics? Why did nopony tell me about these?" Dash squeaked as she started to read the title. "Please tell me you have the others, Spike?"

"Uh, sure, they're in that pile."

*

Three hours later, Twilight walked into the room wondering what in Equestria was taking them so long. She found Dash and Spike excitedly reading a comic book together, lying back on Spike's bed while each of them held one of the pages.

Twilight coughed.

"Oh, hey Twi, me and Spike were just doing some reading. Hey, you should join us, these are great!" Dash suggested.

"I'm sure they are, Dash, but it's Spike's bedtime. Come on, Spike, you need your rest."

"Aw, but Twilight!"

"I mean it, Spike. You'll regret it in the morning if you don't."

Spike grumbled and put the comic away before jumping into bed. Twilight blew out the candles, and tucked him in, before ushering her and Dash out and walking back up to the higher levels.

"See, you do get along," Twilight pointed out.

"'course, we always get along. Spike knows that. Jeez, Twi, it's not like I ignore him," Dash replied, refuting Twilight's implications.

Twilight sighed. "I guess it is all kinda my fault, really," she realised, sitting back down in the middle of the library and resting against a bookshelf. "How do you do it, Dash? How do you manage to never let anypony down?"

"I dunno," Dash helpfully replied, taking a seat beside Twilight. Dash didn't recognise what Twilight was saying, but she did recognise the way she was saying it - it reminded her of herself when she was feeling less awesome than usual. "I guess I just know how much they all mean to me, so I never stop trying. Anything that's worth doing is worth keeping trying for. I guess I kinda have to prove to myself I can not forget anybody, so I know I can do it when I'm in the Wonderbolts."

Dash shrugged. She didn't really know, she tried not to think too much and just do what felt right, but she knew Twilight'd hate it if she said that.

"Yeah," Twilight sighed, cheering up a little. "Yeah, you're right. I'll prove I can not forget anybody now, so I don't forget anybody when I..." she trailed off. When she what?

"When you?" Dash prompted.

"I... don't know. I've never really thought about what I'll do after my studies. Why haven't I thought about that?" Twilight asked, her voice rising in pitch as she spoke, trying to come to terms with planning out her day to day life to within the minute, but having no long-term goal. Her eyes watered slightly as she realised just how little of a path she had carved out for herself. She knew where the next few steps where, but not where they were going.

"Oh, Dash, what am I meant to do?" Twilight asked, her voice once more on the verge of tears as she leant over and rested her head against her blue partner.

Dash didn't know. She'd been hoping for a relaxing evening, maybe a little bit of reckless sex, not a nearly hysterical Twilight who was starting to question her life choices. Rainbow Dash didn't know how to deal with that. Rainbow Dash didn't think she'd ever know how to deal with that. All she did know was that Twilight was crying into her shoulder, and that was horrible.

All she could think to do was wrap a leg around Twilight's body and pull her a little closer, wrapping her up in as warm an embrace as she could manage. She even stretched out her wings and wrapped those around her too, trying to hold Twilight as close as she could without hurting her.

"I dunno, Twilight. I guess I'm pretty lucky having a really obvious choice. Whatever you do, though, I'll be there. Count on that," Dash whispered, resting her head on top of Twilight's and nuzzling her horn.

"Thanks, Dash," Twilight whispered back, pressing her head even further into Dash's shoulder and mane, wriggling closer and trying to lose herself in the embrace. First Spike, and now this - some days just weren't worth getting up for. "I don't know how I'd get through this without you, Dash," Twilight whispered, ignoring the fact that Dash was the catalyst to all of these events. Some people were worth it.

Twilight remained still, no longer crying, but not wanting to move either. Dash, to her credit, only fidgeted a little bit. The sun was setting any both of them were quite tired, Dash from a day of physical exertion and Twilight from mental exertion, and Twilight suggested they should probably head to bed.

A little awkward shifting later, the two silently walked side by side up to the bedroom, and slipped into bed. Twilight tucked them in with her magic, and Dash held her close with her legs. Dash had been hoping for reckless sex, but she knew that wasn't an option, not today, and that Twilight needed to know she was there.

"Night, Twi," Dash whispered almost silently a few minutes later as she held the slumbering mare close, resting her head between Twilight's ears and wondering what in Equestria she could do to make this better. Eventually, she drifted off too.

*

Twilight groaned as the light of day streaming through the parting in her curtains quite unfairly woke her up, and brought her back into the land of the living. Why did mornings have to be so bright, she asked herself as she pulled the curtains shut properly and tried to go back to sleep.

It didn't work, she was too awake to be asleep. Twilight resigned herself to simply having to lie beneath the warm covers, feeling Dash's tight hug squeeze her body and sensing every motion the fidgety pegasus made push into her.

Strange, Dash was normally awake long before her, Twilight thought to herself as she snuggled a little closer, smiling softly as she felt the blue coat brush against her. Still in that joyfully ignorant period where she hadn't quite woken up and remembered the day before, Twilight sighed and closed her eyes, content simply to bask.

Wasn't there something she'd wanted to do to that coat yesterday, she wondered. Oh yes, she'd wanted to try preening, like Dash had done for her in the milk just before Spike came in.

The memories of the day before rushed towards her as her brain began to unwind the strands of everything that had happened, and Twilight remembered. Suddenly the hugging seemed less warm, and more comforting - Dash had said she'd be there, right? She wouldn't lie about that. Would she?

"Dash?"

"Dash!"

Rainbow Dash stirred slightly, fluttering her wings under the covers and shifting her head. "Buh?" she groaned, not opening her eyes. "Ugh, Twi, it's like three am!"

"It's already light outside," Twilight complained. That wasn't like Dash at all, she was normally up the moment the sun was. "Shouldn't you be up already?"

"I guess I didn't get much sleep last night, Twi," Dash yawned, rolling over and leaving Twilight feeling much colder.

That sounded ominous, Twilight thought. "Oh? Is it about what you said yesterday?" she quietly asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. Twilight had no idea how such a goal-oriented pony would take the revelation that Twilight was drifting.

"Yeah, I guess. I've never had to cheer somepony up before, so I was thinking, what can I do?" Dash admitted, sitting on the side of the bed and looking away, keeping herself balanced with her wings. "I don't know much about, like, magic and stuff, but I know you do, so I'm sure whatever you do you'll be great at it. I just wanna be there when you do it, okay?"

Twilight started to tear up yet again. She felt more like a cloud than a pony given how much she'd been doing that over the past day. She still had no idea where she wanted to go, but maybe there were more important things in life. Maybe. Twilight wasn't sure, but all she knew was that hearing Dash tell her she didn't mind lifted her spirits like nothing else. Except Dash still wasn't looking at her.

Dash felt Twilight's hoof touch her back as she sat there, wondering how Twilight would take it. Would it be enough? Twilight had had guidance her entire life, and Dash couldn't provide that, she didn't know how. She just hoped that Twilight could get by without it. She turned, twisting her body to come face to face with Twilight's teary but smiling face.

Three quarters of a second later, Dash had Twilight pinned down against the bed, squeezing her between her wings and holding her close. "That okay?" Dash asked with a hopeful grin.

"Yeah," Twilight replied, sniffing the last few tears away and smiling back. "Yeah, it is. But you're wrong, you can do something for me."

"Oh yeah?"

"We were interrupted yesterday," Twilight whispered suggestively. Dash took the suggestion.

Leaning down, Dash started fresh. Twilight didn't really need cleaning - she wasn't perfect, but she wasn't too dirty either - but Dash didn't really mind. It wasn't the point anyway.

Lacing the edge of Twilight's collarbone with a string of light sucks and nibbles, Dash got to work, admiring the way her purple lover's body shivered under her touch. She was still sniffling, and her eyes were still a little puffy, but Dash sensed that every touch of her mouth made it a little better.

Slowly, she began to work her way down Twilight's body, winding a trail of kisses along her coat and letting her wings freely rub and squeeze against her. Twilight gasped almost silently as Dash suddenly gave her fur a light suck, trying to vary her actions to keep Twilight interested.

Twilight lay back against her pillow, trying to lose herself in the sensations. Rainbow Dash was darting all over her body, tracing lines of kissing and sucking as she went, and her wings were still hugging tight. It was comforting, Twilight thought, to know that Dash would be there for her.

Dash stopped cleaning - Twilight's coat was fine anyway, and she'd stopped responding with the same ferocity on each kiss. It was time to do something a little harder. Sitting back up, Dash stretched out a wing - she'd never done this before, but she was eager to try.

Dash moved her wing and began to trace over Twilight's body with the very tip. It felt nice, for both of them - Twilight feeling a soft and smooth sensation, and Dash getting some of the sensations her ruffled feathers would give her during flight. That wasn't enough for either of them.

Slowly, Dash moved the tip down, tickling over Twilight's body in a smooth descent. As it went, the edge of her wing scraped almost imperceptibly against Twilight's exposed clitoris, prompting a quiet, but very content sigh of relief. That one was going to be enough.

Her wing aligned itself as Dash moved to give herself better footing, positioning it so she could smoothly thrust inside of Twilight's now slightly parted nether lips. Dash needed this - last night had left her feeling unsatisfied, she wasn't used to that.

"Dash, wait," Twilight whispered as she felt the first set of feathers tickle against her. "I'm not ready," Twilight sighed. Not ready? What the hay did that mean, Dash asked herself.

Twilight answered a few moments later by closing her eyes, and letting her magic start to flow. Rainbow Dash felt Twilight's magical tendrils begin to lightly touch her body. Dash gasped as the warm, almost slimy, writhing areas of force brushed against her.

"If," Twilight said, her eyes still closed shut as she concentrated on using her magic to sense everything she needed, "if you're going to do something new for me, I want to do this for you."

Rainbow Dash had asked her about this before - if she could rebuild a dam, surely she could show a mare a good time. Twilight had refused, she'd said that ever since their first time, she'd never been comfortable using much magic in the heat of the moment. The tiniest force, or the slightest touch, but never anything with any real power to it.

"You sure?" Dash asked, closing her eyes and letting Twilight run her mind all over her body, exploring every inch and getting as intimate with the rainbow maned pegasus as she could without using spells frowned upon by most modern scholars.

Twilight reacted by sending a wave of energy through her magical grip, massaging the poor pegasus' body and sending a light jolt of electricity through her form, eliciting a squeak and a grin. Twilight was a very smart pony, but she wasn't a weatherpony, she wasn't a pegasus, and she didn't know everything. She didn't know exactly why giving a weather pegasus an electric shock was a bad idea.

Dash thrust forward, slowly pushing forward and slipping the tip of her wing inside of Twilight's aching body. Centimetre by centimetre, Dash pressed forward, feeling the feathers on her wingtip press down and grow slightly damp, as if she were flying through a stormcloud. When she was an inch or so deep inside, Dash flexed her wing and discharged the electricity, sending literal lightning bolts of pleasure through Twilight's unprepared form.

Twilight's magic vanished as she groaned into the air, her body shivering as the slight shock reverberated through her, sending her muscles into spasms and her mind reeling, assaulted from all sides with new-found sensation.

"Ha!" Dash breathlessly gasped, still recovering from the way Twilight's mind had been assaulting her body, "bet you didn't know we could do that!"

Twilight recovered quickly, starting her magic back up and encasing Rainbow Dash in a magenta glow, starting to more vigorously rub her body and massage her skin, though taking more care than ever not to accidentally discharge any magic into Dash, lest it be used against her. It had felt nice - too nice, she couldn't possibly hope to stay concentrating under that bombardment.

Twilight began to feel around Dash's body - squeezing and kneading it was enjoyable for both of them, but it didn't have the same "oomph" that Dash's slow strokes were having. Her wing moved slowly, but every millimetre felt as distracting as an oncoming exam. If Twilight didn't have a subject as infinitely fascinating as Rainbow Dash's sexy, lithe body to concentrate on, she'd probably have given in.

She did not. Rubbing was fun, but some areas were more conductive to rubbing than others. Dash's wings were off-limits, she wouldn't be able to keep concentration, and if Dash stopped slowly thrusting in and out Twilight would be very sad. Searching around, Twilight made a mental list of possible targets, looking at everything from tugging on Dash's tail, to massaging her almost imperceptibly small teats. Twilight toyed around with the latter, slowly rubbing magical circles around them and giving teasing pinches and pecks. Dash didn't really seem to notice - a pity.

Moving on to the next check-list item, Twilight shifted her attentions a little lower, letting her magic concentrate around Dash's crotch. She smelled the heat, tasted the way her heartbeat would cause the parted lips to pulse ever so slightly, and heard the slick lubrication slowly emerge from their depths. Twilight was glad she'd had most of her life to get used to the sensations of "seeing" with magic, because looking at Dash in so much detail was worth every sleepless night that got her through her education. Every single one.

Dash felt Twilight's attentions shift, the light tendrils wrapping around her legs and pulling them open, before they began to slowly tease around, exploring her lower end in excruciating detail. Though their touch was light, and only a pony who routinely needed to feel minor changes in windspeed would have any hope of noticing them, the light brushing against her most sensitive areas was enough to drive her wild. She let her eyes flutter closed as Twilight searched - she didn't need to be able to see to hold herself up on her hooves and slowly twist her wing around inside of Twilight anyway.

Once Twilight was satisfied with knowing she could pinpoint every hair on Dash's (now scientifically proven to be) unfairly attractive body, she delved in deeper, letting her red field grow stronger as it began to form into more of a shape. Once Twilight was satisfied the object she visualised in the centre of her mind was sufficiently phallic, she began to tease as best she could, running its tip along the edge of Dash's puffy lips.

Dash groaned, the dual attentions of Twilight's continued exploration of her body, and the solid object now pressing against the focal point of her needs, threatened to overwhelm her. She steeled herself against it and continued to slide her wing up and down, more strongly than before - maybe if she could make Twilight cum first, she might maintain composure long enough to actually please her partner. Some days Dash thought it might be easier for her not embodying the concept of Loyalty, but this wasn't one of those days - making a Sparkle moan was never a chore.

Twilight's composure noticeably weakened as Rainbow Dash's assault began to build up a new kind of energy in her loins, an unmistakable feeling building up and starting to spread through her body. The impossible to resist, unmistakably strong sensation began to burn, driving all other feeling from her, from the way the (rather damp) bedsheets felt against her skin, to the way Dash's heavy breaths felt against her skin. None of that remained as the area of intense tingling and undeniable pleasure continued upwards, rising through her body.

Twilight knew the moment it hit her head, that would be it - no more magic, no more thinking, just mindless pleasure. Dash was nowhere near ready, she would go disappointed. That was unfair, and Twilight did the only thing she could think of - gathering yet more magic inside of her, she began to concentrate harder than she had for weeks, maybe even months. Struggling with herself, she managed to slow the oncoming storm, keeping herself teetering on the edge of ecstasy, but not falling in. The feeling was indescribable - her entire body tingled and throbbed with pleasure, her back arched and her neck fell loosely, her eyes closed and her mouth falling open. A small string of saliva dripped from her extended tongue as her entire body simply stopped responding, helplessly moaning in pleasure as Dash took complete control of it.

Her mind, however, was free. Her body was currently unavailable, but her magic still worked. Twilight took control of her magical phallus once more, and eagerly thrust it inside, marvelling at the sensation of feeling Dash's red hot, tight walls surround her entire being - her body wasn't providing any sensations other than boundless pleasure, so her magic was all she could rely on. She felt Dash's heartbeat reverberate against her, and her fluids drip around her. She heard the way each time she pushed herself inside, Dash's body would twitch a little more than the time before, and she tasted Dash's groans growing louder on the air.

Concentrating as hard as she could, Twilight began to lose herself in the actions, letting her mind wallow in pleasure as the tiniest fraction of it continued her task, roughly and passionately penetrating her Rainbow while another, even smaller fragment of her mind began to lightly brush and suck at Dash's exposed clitoris. The groans tasted even sweeter as they echoed throughout the room, and every muscle in Dash's body began to shiver. Twilight probably would have felt the way Dash's wing spasmed around inside of her, but her body was too far gone to differentiate shades of pleasure like that.

With barely any warning at all, Dash snapped. Her body slumped forwards as she finally gave in, moaning helplessly against Twilight's chest as she continued thrusting, even as Dash's walls contracted around her and squeezed her mind, juices flowing freely over her.

Dash struggled to retain enough composure for one last act, taking her free wing and roughly brushing it against the bed, building up as much static electricity as she could. A moment later, she discharged, the end of her wing still deep within Twilight's unresponsive body.

The electric shock zapped through Twilight, seeking the path of least resistance to the area least pleasured - Twilight's mind. The unexpected shock broke through her magic, and the pleasure washed in. Her magic vanished in an instant as her mind finally joined her body in completely helpless pleasure, completely ignorant of the outside world as both of them lay there breathing heavily, panting against one another, with their eyes closed and their minds quite happily switched off.

Some moments later, Dash began to stir, still smiling with the slowly fading feelings of post-coital bliss. Twilight would be a few minutes still, she knew, climbing a little higher up and taking Twilight in a sticky, tired embrace, wiping the end of her wing on the already ruined sheet and giving it a few carefully placed nibbles and sucks, cleaning out the worst of it.

Eventually, Twilight sighed happily as she came to, turning her head and smiling over at Dash, who was still quite happily hugging, partially dozing off as she waited for Twilight to give some sign she'd awoken.

So Twilight had yet to figure out the path she was taking. So what? It no longer really mattered to her where that path was going, so long as there was room for two.