The Wind Beneath Her Wings

Rainbow Dash twitched. Though her mind felt as rejuvenated as it ever did after a long night's sleep, her body was in agony. Something hard and sharp was jammed against the base of her spine and her head rested against something quite solid.

She found some small solace in realising Twilight Sparkle was still clutching her tightly, and that Twilight's head was still resting against her neck, however that only served to ensure Dash couldn't so much as stretch to try and push away the pain.

The two of them still lay against one of the library's many bookshelves in the same embrace they'd taken to the night before. Rainbow Dash hazily remembered suggesting Twilight simply levitate a blanket over to them rather than actually going to bed—she now realised that had been a mistake.

Spike should have been on the other side of Twilight, but Dash couldn't sense him there. She couldn't crane her neck far enough around to actually check, but she also couldn't hear his breathing. Rainbow Dash prided herself on her senses, so if she couldn't hear something it probably wasn't there at all.

What Dash could see was a note lying on the desk. A note she couldn't reach because Twilight was too busy sleeping against her. At some point during the night, the normally respectable mare who measured every action she took had stopped crying and started drooling—Rainbow Dash's coat was ruined. A small price to pay, she supposed.

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on something other than all the different ways her body was telling her This really hurts, which of course meant she immediately began focussing on what was causing the most pain: her wing. She'd draped it over Twilight's shoulders the night before, but now Twilight was pinning it between her and a bookshelf, and pegasi wings just weren't built for that kind of thing. They were built for flapping, and maybe some preening, but not eight straight hours of being pushed against a hard wooden surface.

Enough was enough. Twilight needed moving. Rainbow Dash weighed up her options, and chose her usual method of waking Twilight up in such a way that she wouldn't be shouted at for disrupting her schedule. Twisting her head as far as it would go, she enacted her plan.

Twilight sleepily and subconsciously giggled as Dash's teeth nibbled the tip of one of her ears. Dash continued, slowly moving down the side and increasing the force of her bite with every centimetre until Twilight finally stirred.

"Ow," Twilight whispered, apparently suffering from the same uncomfortable sleeping position Dash had. "What time is it?" she yawned, shifting her body just enough to give Dash's wing some temporary relief.

"I dunno, I've just woken up. Hey, co-"

"Can you see the sun?" Twilight interrupted. "You're a pegasus, you should know these things," Twilight snapped, partly through genuine irritation—Twilight liked to know what time it was, and Dash should indeed have been able to tell—and partly through the pain.

Dash was silent for a moment, unsure exactly how to respond. Realising it was pointless trying to argue with Twilight when she was in a mood, she looked over to the window and tried to see if she could figure out where the sun was. Most ponies would have repeated "I dunno", but Rainbow Dash took sentences like "you should know these things" as a challenge. Rainbow Dash did not back down from challenges.

From this angle, the view outside of Twilight's bedroom window was entirely obscured by one of the nearby trees. However, the sun cast shadows and those shadows tended to point away from the sun. Rainbow Dash was used to calculating flight vectors, not shadow ones, but it was close enough that-

"Eight twenty three," Dash responded confidently. "Now would you mind ge-"

Twilight sprung up, kicking out with her legs and dashing over to the window to confirm Dash's estimation. Rainbow Dash lay on the floor for a moment cradling her poor wing before gingerly giving it a few stretches and folding it back away at her side. It'd be fine, it was just like when she accidentally slept resting her head against one of her legs. Come morning she always found it completely numb and almost unusable for several minutes while it regained feeling.

"Dash, come on, we've gotta go!" Twilight insisted, running up to Dash and giving her a helpful push as if she wouldn't understand what "we've gotta go" meant.

"What? Why?" Dash wearily asked—she'd only just woken up. She usually preferred fifteen minutes lying in bed, maybe grab a bit of breakfast, perhaps even a few nuzzles—or more, if she was lucky—before she even considered going outside.

"The train to Canterlot leaves at eight twenty, but there's a five percent chance it's running six minutes late, in which case we could arrive just in time!" Twilight explained, again insistently prodding. Rainbow Dash resisted, confused.

"Why do we need to be on that train?" Dash asked, before yawning to underscore her point.

Twilight sighed. "To go see the Corral of the Wise and make them look at my research! Were you even listening last night?"

"Oh, you want to do that now?" Dash asked, wandering over into the kitchen to grab some breakfast. "We've already missed the train, Twi, I'll fly us over in a bit."

Twilight paused to consider it. On the one hoof, the train was warm, comfortable, and gave plenty of time for reading. On the other, Dash would get her there faster and she'd get to feel Rainbow Dash for the entire duration of the flight. "Hey, I could probably teleport us there!" she exclaimed, realising that her research could come in useful for more than just proving she could do it.

"Nuh-uh, I'm not doing that again, Twi. I'm flying us."

A moment later Twilight smiled and nodded, giving in before wandering over and nuzzling Dash, partially out of thanks and partially to get her away from the kitchen counter so she didn't actually try and make breakfast. Twilight didn't want to fly with her if she was still sticky.

"Oh, I'll have hay with apple slices if you're asking. I'll be over there when you're done. Napping." Dash replied, hopping over to their bed and lying on top of it for a few minutes rest. It wouldn't be that long a flight, but it would be the longest she'd flown carrying something as heavy as Twilight. Dash made a mental note to say "a pony" instead of "Twilight" if she ever verbalised that.

"Tell me again why I have to carry your stuff?" Dash asked as Twilight pulled the straps of Dash's saddlebag tighter around her body. Inside rested several of Twilight's notebooks, some of the crystals in case she needed to do a practical demonstration, and a bunch of daisies in case Dash got hungry mid-flight.

"Dash, you're carrying all my weight anyway," Twilight explained, for the third time. "This way I'm at least rounder and easier to grip. I still wish you'd let me get on your back."

"And if I hit turbulence? I know I can keep my grip on you, but you might fall off. Nuh-uh, I'm carrying you."

Twilight backed down. Argument was pointless when Dash was like this, Twilight knew she wouldn't win, and it didn't really matter anyway. "Alright, well, let's go then?"

Rainbow Dash flexed her wings and wiggled her body to test the straps.

"Uh, Twilight? You need to open your legs a bit more." Dash suggested a few seconds later, ignoring the way Twilight was heavily distracted and metaphorically salivating at the thought of Dash standing before her wiggling. Maybe the flight was going to take longer than they'd thought. Dash's wording certainly didn't help Twilight's mental state—she wanted nothing more than to open her legs a little more, but she had a meeting to get to.

"So I can grab them and lift you?" Dash added after another awkward couple of seconds. Twilight's eyes lit up with understand and she shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it, silently cursing her body's betrayal—she didn't need this right now. Now was the time to be a professional magic researcher, not to stand around like a filly flushed with her first heat.

Twilight positioned herself and Dash hovered over to grip her, hooking all four of her limbs with Twilight's and flapping her wings to lift them into the air. Twilight gulped as she watched the ground receding. Dash had taken her on a few short flights, and there was that unfortunate business with the badly aimed teleport, but other than that Twilight was very much new to flight. This was to be her first full length journey. Were it not for the way Rainbow Dash was holding her so tightly and so close, Twilight felt certain she'd already be asking to be put down.

Rainbow Dash rose to a fair height, resting a few dozen meters off of the ground. Canterlot had been built on the side of a mountain, and they'd have to rise a lot faster than that, but Dash could do that during the journey. For now she just needed a decent height to get started.

Rainbow Dash's head faced forward. Her neck arched over the back of Twilight's head, and their bodies squashed together as closely as Dash could manage—mostly for aerodynamic purposes. Couldn't be having an airflow between them to cause eddies in her air stream. Twilight was forced to stare downwards at the ground beneath, lest her forward-facing horn find its way towards jabbing Rainbow Dash in the chin. "You ready, Twi?" she asked.

"I think!" Twilight called back. She knew she had no real choice, she had to get to Canterlot and this was the bes- this was a way of doing it. Maybe she could just get down and take the afternoon train, or take her balloon out for a spin again, or maybe Pinkie Pie had another contrapti-

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings, and the duo shot off into the distance. Within a few seconds they cleared Ponyville airspace and were heading towards the distant Canterlot as fast as Rainbow Dash thought Twilight could handle—so slowly she was bored.

Twilight was absolutely terrified. The ground beneath her moved to quickly it was a blur and she couldn't make out a single detail. The air rushed over her face quickly enough to bring tears to her eyes and send her mane whipping around in the wind. While it was true that Dash had carried her faster before, on that occasion she'd been more preoccupied with not having just impacted the ground at close to her terminal velocity and more interested in having her eyes closed and still being in shock—no such luck here.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and pretended it was all a dream.

A few hours later, Rainbow Dash glided down onto something that looked like a landing pad. She flared her wings and felt her speed drop from a mind-numbing slow flight to something resembling a fast run, and then eventually to a reasonable trotting speed. Hovering a few feet above the surface, Dash released Twilight, assuming she'd notice and land on all four hooves.

Rainbow Dash winced as Twilight smashed into the stone pad head-on. "Whoops."

"Ow..." Twilight moaned, pulling herself to her hooves. "Are we there yet?" she asked, refusing to open her eyes in case they'd just stopped for a rest on a particularly solid cloud.

"Uh, yeah." Dash landed next to her, folding her wings away and giving her body a little shake to throw off all the excess moisture from spending so much time around clouds.

Twilight's eyes opened. "Excellent!" She gleamed, looking around her. She could see purple, and nothing more.

Dash giggled and pushed Twilight's mane out of her eyes before stepping back to admire her new hairdo. Twilight's regular sharp edges and perfect angles had been replaced with a ruffled, jaggy mess of hair not unlike Dash's own.

"How bad is it?" Twilight asked. "Would Rarity kidnap me?"

"She's never kidnapped me before," Dash teased. "Well, once. She won't do that again."

Twilight blinked, before closing her eyes and starting to imagine a brush. Her magic coalesced into a small surface covered in bristles and rods, designed to perfectly mimic the hairbrush she kept on her bedside table. She lacked a mirror, but that would have to do.

Rainbow Dash liked it, it reminded her of her. She liked her hairstyle, even if it did look better on Twilight. She wanted to keep it around as long as she could. Dash interrupted Twilight's concentration with a quick kiss, instantly dissolving the brush and forcing Twilight's eyes open.

"Nuh-uh, I like it!" she insisted, giving Twilight a playful lick on the end of her nose.

"But-"

"No buts. I like it! can we keep it for a while at least?" Dash asked, halfway serious. She did like it, it looked nice. On the other hoof, the feelings it evoked might make certain day-to-day activities difficult. Like any of the activities Dash filed away under the mental heading of "Not rutting Twilight silly".

"...fine, if it'll make you happy. Come on, the Corral should be this way." Twilight pointed up to one of the towers that broke Canterlot's skyline, and the two set off.

After a few minutes of walking, Twilight interrupted their small talk—currently on the topic of what would happen if two weather pegasi tried to give each other an electric shock at the same time—with a more serious statement. "Thanks for doing this, Dash. I'd have got over the letter, but... thanks."

"Hey, what are friends for?"

"Friends?" Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

"A girlfriend is still a friend! It totally counts!" Dash protested, laughing. "Anyway, you did it for me, and you know I'd never let something like this keep you—or anypony else—down."

Twilight smiled. "Well, you don't have to come in and see the Corral if you don't want, they can be pretty scary." Twilight spoke from experience. Her class had visited back in Magic School, and she'd had a new respect for how eerie capes and shadowed hoods could be ever since.

"Pff. I'll show 'em scary if they even think about touching you," Dash threatened, completely seriously and apparently not caring in the slightest that she was talking about some of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria.

Twilight laughed and shook her head—she would never understand Dash. "That won't be necessary, Dash, these are professionals."

"I'm just saying, if you don't come out of there smiling. I'll kick their flanks!"

A few minutes later, the two reached the main reception at the bottom of the Corral tower. A huge spiral staircase stood at the far side of the room, but between the there and the entrance stood a wooden desk and a receptionist. The exquisite stone walls and exquisite marble pillars created an intimidating air of elegance and power. The walls were lined with the portraits of every archmage Canterlot had ever had, punctuated by lightly glowing runes.

The desk was dwarfed by the high ceiling—high enough that Dash thought she could fly comfortably around it—and distant walls. The room was filled with glass boxes housing dozens of obscure magical artefacts and trinkets, commanding attention from all present.

Twilight stood in awe.

"Go on," Dash whispered, pushing her ahead.

The receptionist looked up and stared at them. He was a brown coated unicorn with a dark mane wearing some kind of jacket. His nametag denoted him as Short Quill.

"Can I help you, young mare?"

"Uh, yes. I'd like an audience with the Corral so I can share my research with them immediately, please!" Twilight asked. Her voice was an octave or two higher than normal due to the stress.

"It's usually more appropriate to send an, ah, written request, such that the Corral can appraise your research before deciding. They are busy ponies, and cannot grant an audience to just anypony."

"Oh, I've done that! They turned it down, but they're wrong, and I need to show them!" Twilight helpfully added.

"I see. I'm afraid I can't help you. Perhaps you should look into some lesser mages who may have time for the 'research' of a child," Quill snarked, clearly short of patience. "Now, if you don't mind I have papers to file, and real researchers to deal with."

Twilight Sparkle turned to leave with her head hanging low and her ears flattened against her head. It had been worth a try, but Dash would just have to carry them home. Maybe Twilight could teach magic at Ponyville's school for the rest of her life or something.

Where was Rainbow Dash? She had been waiting by the door, but she wasn't there any more. Was she so ashamed that she'd flow off, leaving Twilight alone?

Twilight heard a crack as Quill's wooden stool struck the stone floor, and quickly spun to see him pinned to the ground under Dash's gaze.

Rainbow Dash's head was an inch or less away from Short Quill's, staring him down. "Do you have any idea who I am?" she spat.

Short Quill took a step back and looked at her. "Not a particularly talented mage, I assume? Don't presume to threaten me, little pegasus."

Dash remained where she was. "Alright, no, I'm not. But she is," she said, pointing behind her to where Twilight stood- "Do you know who she is?"

"From the looks of her, another plucky kid fresh out of some low-standards magic school that couldn't teach research methodology any better than they do mane maintenance. I don't have time to deal with foals." Quill snapped, picking his seat back up and pushing Dash back with a sharp magic force, sending her tumbling across the room. Any normal pegasus would have hit the wall hard enough to daze them for a few seconds. Rainbow Dash recovered within a few feet and shot back forward faster than Short Quill could blink, near-instantly pinning him to the floor. Nobody got to say things like that about Twilight. Nobody.

"Dash! What are you doing?" she screeched, grabbing the angered mare in a magic field and pulling her off. "You can't do that!" she snapped, pulling Rainbow Dash away.

Despite what Twilight thought, Rainbow Dash could do that, and she planned to continue. She'd been flying through clouds all day long, and given that Canterlot was built on the side of a mountain and thus she hadn't had a chance to touch the actual ground yet, Rainbow Dash had gathered quite a lot of magical energy in her body that she hadn't dissipated yet. Twilight would normally shout at her for doing this, but Dash felt it was worth the risk.

Still captured in a magical bubble, Dash brought her wings close to herself and cocooned her body as well as she could. Concentrating, she brought out all the excess energy in her body. While almost any pegasus could cause a cloud to shoot out a bolt of lightning, and any trained weather pegasus could harness ambient energy into a small electric shock, and particularly talented ones could even shoot out small bolts themselves, Rainbow Dash was a little more than just particularly talented.

The lightning bolt hit Twilight Sparkle directly at the tip of her horn. The energy had nowhere to go but through her body, arching through her head and down her legs into the floor beneath, instantly overwhelming her and knocking her to the floor. Dash knew she'd be okay—it was a lot of energy, but a fraction of what some of her more advanced spells would require.

Within moments, Dash was pinning Short Quill to the floor once more.

"Please don't hurt me!" he squeaked, hiding his face behind his hooves.

Rainbow Dash knelt down and stared into his eyes. "That 'kid' over there is Twilight Sparkle, bearer of the Element of Magic itself, personal protégé of Celestia, and I happen to know she graduated top of her class at the school for Gifted Unicorns. If that's not enough for you, she's also my girlfriend, and you're going to shut up and let her see the chorus—or whatever—before I buck you off the side of Canterlot, got it?"

"They're busy, I can't just let you in-" Quill protested. Dash pulled her hoof back, threatening to strike. "-but I can make an appointment for the student of the princess! Come back in a few hours, it'll be ready!"

"Promise?"

"I swear!"

Rainbow Dash kicked off and backflipped through the air to land next to Twilight, who was only just pulling herself to her hooves. She took one disgusted look at Rainbow Dash and fled the building. "Whoops," Dash whispered to herself before taking off after her.

"Twilight, I'm sorry, okay?" Rainbow Dash apologised for the umpteenth time, having found Twilight sulking on a nearby bench. Rainbow Dash was wisely staying in the air, just out of horn-stabbing distance. While Twilight was reserved enough to not use her magic in anger, the same did not ring true for running at ponies with her head down and her horn pointy.

"What does it matter, Dash? You've done it now, they'll never take me seriously. I'm just another brute from some backwater town who wants to play scholar and brought her big dumb girlfriend along for the ride. I mean, really? Beating up the receptionist? What were you thinking?" Twilight snapped.

"I guess I wasn't. I kinda saw red when I saw your ears drop, I couldn't let him do that. Sorry for the shock, by the way. Nervous reaction, kinda," Dash apologised.

"I didn't even know you could do that."

"Yeah, I don't spread it around. I'm pretty sure the Guard think I'm dangerous enough with just my Sonic Rainboom."

A few seconds passed in silence before Dash continued. "Hey, we got an appointment, that's something, right?" A few more awkward moments passed before Twilight looked back up.

"Yeah, I guess. Hey, come here, Dash. Promise not to stab you." Twilight moved to the side to give Dash room to land on her bench. The moment Rainbow Dash was sitting comfortably, Twilight pushed off with her forelegs and lunged at her, keeping her head down and aiming at the centre of Dash's chest.

"Ow! You said you wouldn't!" Dash yelped, rubbing her chest with one of her hooves while Twilight pulled herself back up and curled up against Dash's shoulder.

"Yeah well, I'm still mad at you." Twilight paused for a few seconds, wriggling a bit closer to Dash and resting a hoof over her chest. "You're adorable, you know that, right?"

Rainbow Dash was taken aback. She'd been nothing but awesome today—maybe a little stupid, too—and hadn't ever done anything she'd class as "adorable". Rainbow Dash didn't do "adorable", that was girly. "I am not."

"Yeah you are. That stallion insults me and you, you big dumb brute, try and beat him up for me. I've read romance novels less cheesy than that. You, Rainbow Dash-" Twilight said in a deliberately sing-song voice, before raising her hoof and poking Dash on the nose- "are adorable."

"Are you still mad at me?" Dash asked, confused at whether this was a declaration of love or a punishment. Or both? "Because I think I preferred the jabbing."

"I can't stay mad at you for trying to protect me, even if you did it in the stupidest way you could possibly have thought of. Oh, and the way you talked about me. Personal protégé? I didn't even think you knew words like that."

Dash felt herself start to blush. "S- Shut up," she warned.

"You happen to know I graduated top of my class? You've been looking at my diplomas, haven't you Rainbow Dash?" Twilight giggled, hoping to make Dash even a hundredth of how embarrassed she'd been.

"I glanced at them! You have an awful lot, they're hard to miss."

"And gosh, bearer of the Element of Magic itself? You've been reading too many of Spike's comic books. I cringed at that and I could barely hear you. I might have to buy you a bell so people can hear you coming and get ready for clichés."

"Yeah yeah, whatever," Dash mumbled, looking away to try and disguise how brightly her face was glowing. "Don't we have anything more important to be doing?"

"I suppose we could go and look at the Biographical History section of the Library, there must be somepony else who was stupid enough to try and force their way into the Corral. Maybe we can learn from them?" Twilight suggested, still resting her head against Dash's shoulder and letting her horn lightly push into the back of her neck.

"Sure let's do that," Dash agreed, glad for an excuse to turn the conversation away from reasons Rainbow Dash had been an idiot today—not her favourite subject. "Which way is that?"

Twilight paused and looked up at the skyline, trying to get her bearings. A moment later she pointed at one of the distant towers. "It's a long walk, we should get goi-"

Rainbow Dash grabbed Twilight's arms and took off, zipping across Canterlot at reckless speed. She knew she was breaking the air-speed limit in Canterlot's airspace, but she also knew she was faster than anypony who would enforce that speed limit, and thus didn't care.

"Put me down!" Twilight screeched, screaming as she watched spires and towers speed past mere feet below her, or most worryingly a few feet to the side of her. "Put me down!"

A few seconds later, Rainbow Dash pulled her wings to her sides and dived through an open library window. She left a good inch or so of space on either side of them, there was plenty of room for both to fit through. The instant they'd cleared it, she flared her wings and slowed to a stop within a few feet, dropping Twilight the last few inches and landing beside her in a victorious crouch.

"Adorable? More like awesome." Dash grinned, closing her eyes and striking a pose. The sun was off to the side of them, and Dash had dropped Twilight to the other side—as soon as she looked up, she'd simply see Rainbow Dash with sunlight filtering through her windswept mane. Rainbow Dash was very good at making herself look cool.

Rainbow Dash yelped as Twilight's horn made contact with her lower leg, and she tumbled to the ground. "It's even more adorable that you think you need to prove you're still awesome to me, Dash," Twilight teased. The flight had been terrifying, but... it had cut their travel time down from half an hour to about twenty five seconds. "Come on, put that speed to use and go find a useful looking book. We're looking for anything that mentions the Corral."

Quite some time later, the two were still searching. While the Royal Canterlot Library held books of every form, and all kinds of literature both common and esoteric, it was seeming more and more likely that nobody had ever attempted to strongarm their way into seeing the Corral. Ever.

"Hey, this one's about somebody who screwed with the chorus," Dash exclaimed. "May- oh, wait, no. They turned him into a frog, ignore me."

Twilight sighed. That didn't bode well for them. "He wrote that as a frog?"

"Apparently. Look, there's even a picture in the back!"

"At least he's a nice looking frog. We have something to look forward to, at least."

"If they turn you into a frog I'll kick their asses, Twi."

"And if you're a frog?"

"Yeah. They might be small and green, but frogs have a mean kick on 'em. Or so Fluttershy tells me, anyway," Dash said, completely seriously.

"Gah, this is pointless, there's nothing here!" Twilight exclaimed, shelving the dozen or so books around her back where they belonged. "Maybe we should check general magic history?"

The magic history section was on the other side of the tower, but it was a short walk. It was Twilight's favourite section of the library, and the one she was most intimate with. She'd spent a good portion of her childhood there, after all.

"Back before I came to Ponyville, this place was like my second home," Twilight explained as she pushed open the door and revealed shelf after shelf of dusty tomes and ancient manuscripts. "This room contains everything we know about magic. Every peer-reviewed spell, every published paper, every major magical event and the life-story of every royal arch-mage since Starswirl."

Rainbow Dash was unimpressed; It just looked like a big library room to her. There were a lot of books, sure, but she wasn't going to read any of them.

"I liked it in here, it was quiet. Nopony else ever really came in, it was... peaceful. I used to sit right over-"

Twilight stopped talking and froze. She was pointing at a bookshelf, but apparently expected something different. She ran over to it and inspected it. "This isn't meant to be here! This section should be over there! I... oh no, this is awful!"

"What is?"

"They've reorganised it! They've reorganised my library! Oh, I knew that librarian was just waiting until I was gone to ruin everything. It made sense before! Now look at it!" Twilight twitched.

Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her neck and looked around. It still looked like a library to her.

Twilight's horn lit up and the bookshelf before her lifted. She placed it against one of the bare walls and smiled. "That's a bit better!" she exclaimed, before looking back at the hole she'd left. Before her lay a thin space between two other bookshelves, probably wide enough to fit a pony if they squeezed themselves in.

Twilight's face fell. She fell backwards, sitting on her rear and, and her ears began to quiver. "She took my hole." Twilight flatly stated.

"Huh?"

"My hole! I used to sit here all the time, I loved that hole. I spent most of my crazy fillyhood in there."

"Crazy fillyhood?" Dash asked, legitimately interested in how Twilight could consider any part of her upbringing "crazy".

"Yeah! The late nights reading, or doing my homework the day before it was due instead of the night I got it, or reading naughty books, or even just lying in there imagining things. I had it filled with all my favourite books, and now they're gone!"

"Twilight, all your favourite books are back home in Ponyville now. Wait, naughty books?"

"Well... not so much these days, but back when I was a filly romance novels seemed very naughty." Twilight turned around and carefully walked backwards, trying to see if she could still fit inside. After a tiny adjustment of the surrounding bookshelves, she was sitting quite comfortably. "I even let myself spend a little time wishing, sometimes. Only when I didn't have homework, obviously."

"Obviously. What'd you wish about?"

Twilight blushed, realising she shouldn't have mentioned that. "Oh, nothing."

"Hey, you mentioned it, you can't just go not telling me now, that's not fair!" Dash protested.

Twilight's blush deepened as she realised Rainbow Dash had a point—it wasn't fair on her to leave her guessing. "Well, like I said, I read some sappy romance novels in here, so... some nights were kinda lonely. I always wished some handsome stallion would walk into the section and try and take out one of my favourite books, and he'd be sad it wasn't there until I jumped out and gave it to him, and then we'd start talking and get along really well and then one thing would lead to another and..."

Twilight stopped talking, realising she'd gotten a little lost in her remembered fantasy. Her blush reddened further.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyelid. "Stallion?"

"I was young! All the mares I knew were from school. They were either bullies or spent more time thinking about their mane than they did magic. I guess I just assumed mares couldn't be... brave or heroic, or ready for anything, or would always be there for you, or..." Twilight trailed off, realising she was getting worryingly close to losing herself in describing Rainbow Dash again.

"But yeah, go on, laugh. I'm sure you had fantasies of somepony coming and sweeping you off of your hooves too," Twilight accused, trying to take a little attention away from her cheeks.

"Nah, not really. I always thought..." Dash started, before walking towards Twilight and squeezing inside her hole. It was easily long enough to house two ponies, though it probably hadn't been when it was filled with old books. Soon Dash and Twilight were eye to eye. "I always thought that maybe if I beat one of the class jocks in a race they might lighten up and be nice. They didn't, they just got worse—said I hadn't really beaten them even though it was totally fair—and I kinda started to think that maybe I wasn't looking for 'nice'. I didn't realise that I still was until you came along, so... yeah. None of my foalish fantasies came true, and I'm fine with that."

Twilight leaned forward and rubbed her nose against Dash's cheek. Rainbow Dash always seemed somewhat subdued when she talked about her childhood. She had little of her characteristic energy, and she only seemed to talk about it when she had to. Twilight was the same, she supposed—her upbringing could have been worse, but what was the sense in reminiscing on it when the present was so much more palatable?

"I don't suppose this section has any Daring Do books, does it?" Dash suddenly asked after a few moments of silence.

"...no, of course not. This is the magic history section, Dash. You do realise Daring Do is fictional, right?" Twilight asked, vaguely worried that Dash had been taking the series as fact. That could really screw up her sense of history—especially Daring Do and the See-through Snout which implied that ponies might have been created by aliens.

"Gosh, I am really sad that they don't have that book!" Rainbow Dash flatly exclaimed, staring into Twilight's eyes.

"They probably do down in the fiction section. Is now really the time, Dash?"

"I said, I'm really sad it's not here. If only somepony could bring it to me," Rainbow Dash continued, not even bothering to put emotion into her voice any more and just flatly reciting it.

"I... I guess we can go, if you really want. You can only take books out for a month, though, wouldn't it be easier to just wait and use our copy back home?"

"Twilight, you are the dumbest genius I know," Dash sighed, before leaning forward and kissing her. Twilight squeaked as she realised what Dash had been saying, and her cheeks somehow reddened even further.

"I- Oh," Twilight whispered. "Here?"

"You said nopony ever came here, and it's not like we're finding anything useful. Anyway, you don't get a say in it. You want a handsome hero to whisk you off your hooves? Here I am!" Dash replied, before darting forward and pushing her forelegs under Twilight in order to lift her up and push her against the far wall.

"I said stallion, too," Twilight teased. There wasn't much she could do about it anyway, Rainbow Dash was quite easily holding her pinned against the wall a few feet above the ground, and she always found it difficult to concentrate on magic when Dash was brushing their bodies together. It was quite unfortunate.

"You know I'm better."

Rainbow Dash punctuated her point with a light nip to Twilight's neck. It was slightly awkward both keeping Twilight pinned to the wall and making her squirm, but Rainbow Dash felt she was up to the challenge.

"Say, couldn't we use one of these bo-"

Twilight slapped Rainbow Dash with a sharp magic jolt. "Don't you dare, Rainbow. These books are antiques."

"Aw, fine, I guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way," Dash complained. She raised one of her hindlegs and positioned it between Twilight's—she was already wet from the idea alone. Soaking, even. "Man, you weren't kidding when you said this was a fantasy, were you?" Dash whispered, before leaning in a little higher to nibble along Twilight's earlobe.

Twilight squeaked again. She hadn't ever expected to actually do something like that, and her mind was reeling at the revelation that she actually would. She'd had enough trouble decoupling the smell of old books from dirty thoughts in the first place, this was going to make that almost impossible. Twilight didn't care.

She took a shaky breath and tried to clear her head, but Dash's proximity made it impossible. That much force pinning her to the wall ought to have hurt, but instead it just sent shivers of anticipation through Twilight's body—an anticipation that had been there, and growing, since she was a child. So it wasn't with a mysterious, scholarly stallion who could teach her everything she ever wanted to know about magic. Twilight knew Dash was better.

"How'd your daydream go, then?" Dash whispered.

"Well, we'd talk for a while-"

"Check."

"Then we'd kiss a bit-"

"Coming right up."

"Then I uh, I didn't really know what came next but I knew he'd know how to do it, so he'd show me and it'd be amazing." Twilight's fantasy had been uncharacteristically unplanned—though she supposed that was what excited her most about it. She wouldn't know what was going to happen, but she'd trust her partner enough that it wouldn't matter. In that sense, Twilight supposed, her fantasy was already reality—life with Dash was almost impossible to plan. Almost. Twilight still managed.

"Gotcha," Dash whispered, before leaning back in and giving Twilight's upper lip a quick suck. Immediately afterwards, she moved down and nipped her lower lip, just hard enough to cause a gasp but not hard enough to break the skin. Twilight gave a happy moan as Dash's lips caressed her own, and she let her limbs fall loosely to her sides as she gave up any pretence of control.

Twilight allowed Dash to prise her lips open with a single swipe from her tongue. She let more happy gasps and groans escape straight into her blue captor's mouth as Dash's tongue explored the well-trodden grounds from a fresh perspective. After a few moments of exploration, Dash pulled back and started to slowly nuzzle along Twilight's neck.

"Well, aren't you a curious young student, Twilight?" Dash asked, putting on the most scholarly voice she could in a vain attempt to roleplay. She'd taken a drama class back in Cloudsdale once—well, she'd slept through a drama class—and thus it should be no trouble at all to play another part here.

"I most certainly am, but I don't even know your name!" Twilight squeaked back.

"I am-" Dash replied, letting her eyes dart around the room looking for a suitably scholarly sounding author name. She had a fraction of a second to find something, and so took the first one that sounded familiar- "Starswirl the Bearded!"

Twilight started laughing. "Dash, you look nothing like Starswirl, and he died hundreds of years ago. Pick something else."

"Uh... Bearded Star?"

"Oh, Bearded Star, you've shown me things I could never possibly believe in this night?" Twilight quipped, quoting from one of her least favourite romance novels. "Let's just keep our names. I like your name."

"I... am Rainbow Dash!" Dash exclaimed with pride. A moment later she shook her head. "Yeah this isn't working, can we skip the pretending?"

"Yeah." Twilight thought she would prefer Dash to be Dash anyway. She didn't need a fantasy stallion any more.

"How about I show you how to deal with pesky unicorns who still wrongly think they're better in bed than I am?" Dash asked, shifting her hindhoof around a little to excite Twilight a little further.

Rainbow Dash lifted her head upwards and gave the base of Twilight's horn a teasing lick. "Didn't you once say the library is magically sealed?" Dash whispered, before planting a few kisses around the base.

"Yeah!" Twilight gasped, partly through the sensation of Dash's tongue slowly rubbing against her horn, but mostly out of surprise Rainbow Dash listened to one of the times she'd been gushing about the royal library. The entire tower was enchanted with a series of powerful magics. It was, on the surface, similar to Twilight's libraries own enchantments—designed to protect the books—but cast by some of the most talented unicorns in the kingdom who had spent their lives researching defensive charms. The entire library surface was completely magically reflective. An outburst would simply bounce around until it dissipated naturally.

Unicorn horns are strange and wondrous things. On the surface, they're very hard structures, more similar to bone or hoof than skin. Underneath is more fleshy, and has a direct line to the unicorn's brain. They developed mostly as a tool, and allowed a unicorn to take direct concious control of their natural magic. They also give some amount of additional sensory perception, whether simply enough to 'see' a held object in order to manipulate it, or in Twilight's case a fully realised additional sense. The upshot of this is that while the unicorn horn is bone, Twilight could feel every single tastebud on Dash's tongue scrape against its surface in unparalleled detail, driving sensation directly into her mind.

Twilight's mouth immediately dropped open as her brain stopped focussing on little things like stopping her from drooling all over Dash's chest and started dealing with the overload of sensory information coming down her horn. Twilight could have stopped listening to her horn, but she saw no compelling reason to.

Instead, she merely groaned in ecstasy as Dash's mouth slowly moved higher. Rainbow's tongue still danced across the horn's surface as she went, exploring the grooves and slowly warming the whole surface up. In parallel, Dash began to slowly slide her hindleg back and forth, stimulating Twilight's lower lips and sending judders through her body as the second source of pleasure began to overwhelm her.

As Dash reached the tip of Twilight's horn, she paused to look down upon her prey. Twilight's eyes were closed and her mouth hung open, slowly spooling out drool. Her limbs hung uselessly at her side, save for her hindlegs which were reflexively held apart to allow Dash entry. Twilight was so cute when she was horny.

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and lowered her head. Twilight's horn slowly pushed between her lips and Dash began to suck. Immediately Twilight's mind was flooded with sensation. The way the saliva on Dash's tongue lingered on her horn as it made another sweep. The way Rainbow's lips pressed against her horn, and the way she kept going back and licking them to ensure she had enough lubrication to push forward. More than that, Twilight felt the blood pump through Dash's cheeks, and the breaths being pulled and pushed through her nose. Twilight felt the beating of Rainbow Dash's heart and the rhythmic flexing of her lungs. She felt the way her wings flapped with just enough force to keep both of them pinned against the wall, and she felt the way Dash's lower hoof was immersing itself in her hot, slick vagina.

Twilight Sparkle felt everything to do with Rainbow Dash, from the flexing of her muscles to the food digesting in her stomach. Rainbow Dash felt some of that too—Twilight's magic was on overdrive, reflecting a little of every sensation right back into Rainbow's body. Rainbow Dash immediately remembered why she'd enjoyed this the first time.

Rainbow Dash's sucking grew more enthusiastic as she realised that every scrap of pleasure she gave the helpless purple unicorn would be reflected back onto herself. Her wingbeats grew less measured as her body flushed with the same passion Twilight's had; A powerful yearning that Dash felt every bit as strongly as Twilight.

"Oh, Dash!" Twilight gasped as Rainbow's lips reached the base of her horn once more, completely enveloping it in her mouth. Dash's tongue teased and tasted around it, taking in every inch and exploring every groove and imperfection, filling both of their minds with pleasure.

"Oh, Dash!" Dash mirrored an instant later. Her voice was muffled and her tongue couldn't quite make the right shapes around Twilight's horn, nor had she meant to say it, but neither of them cared. Rainbow Dash slowly pulled her head back, squeezing her lips as hard as she could. Her hoof continued stroking enthusiastically, and she bent her leg to ensure that every couple of strokes would brush against Twilight's clit and sent a powerful lightning strike of pleasure arching through their bodies.

Rainbow Dash was dripping. Her fluids slowly trailed down her free hindleg and fell to the floor beneath as her body became more and more convinced it was being enthusiastically serviced, and her mind ceased to differentiate between Twilight's sensations and her own. Twilight would likely have been doing the same, were it not for Dash's hoof using her fluids as lubrication and letting them soak into the coat on her leg.

"I'm telling you, I heard something!" a voice called from somewhere outside the room. The tiniest fraction of a fraction of Twilight's mind was still taking care of unimportant parts of her body like hearing and vision, but no part of her body was paying any attention.

Rainbow Dash had long since given up trying to hear or see anything—it seemed unimportant when all her senses were being overloaded with pleasure—but there was still a part of her that was still listening to what came through from Twilight.

Somebody had heard them.

Rainbow Dash reluctantly pulled back. They probably shouldn't be caught like this.

"Why'd you stop?" Twilight whispered a second later, still breathing deeply and hardly caring for the outside world.

"Shh, I think somebody heard us."

Two ponies chose that moment to walk into the room. Both unicorns, one male and one female. "I'm telling you, it really sounded like somebody was... y'know," the female insisted.

Twilight concentrated, and started to sense outwards. Rainbow Dash's body was very distracting, but if she could just ignore it she could...

Rainbow Dash's body was very distracting. The way it curved, the way that her tail was raised so high it was almost ticking her back. The way she breathed, the way her mane moved as she flapped. Twilight gave up looking and concentrated on Dash's body again.

Rainbow Dash was luckier in that she could block out Twilight's body by simply closing her eyes. She listened—the footsteps were getting closer.

"Twi, you up for a teleport?" she whispered, shifting a little closer. "They'll hear my wings soon."

"Can't—reflective walls. Maybe..." Twilight pondered, before quietly lighting her horn up and casting a spell.

Immediately, Dash's world flipped and she found herself the wrong way up. Though she could normally have righted herself, her body was in no condition for trick flying, and she fell to the ceiling. The two slid up the wall and rested on the roof where—hopefully—the two intruders wouldn't look.

"You can do that?" Dash whispered extra-quietly, watching the two ponies below explore the room.

"Sure, simple gravity inversion. Shh."

Rainbow Dash crossed her hindlegs and hoped that inverted gravity worked for fluids too, lest they be given away in the most awkward manner possible.

The two ponies down below explored for a minute or two further. "Yeah, you're hearing things. Come on, we need to study," the male said, and the two left the room.

The instant the intruders were probably out of earshot, Twilight pounced and knocked Dash over. The two rolled around on the ceiling for a few moments trading kisses and nuzzles while Dash tried her best to get her bearings. She still felt upside-down. It wasn't right.

"Anyway, where were we?" Twilight suggested.

"Here?"

"Nopony ever looks up here, and it's not like we were finding anything useful on that wall," Twilight replied, echoing Dash's earlier justification.

As Dash took Twilight's horn back into her mouth, she discovered that liquids were not, in fact, affected by the gravity inversion once they left her body. The pitter-patter of falling fluid onto the stone floor would have been audible were it not drowned out by the cacophony of groans the two immediately began producing.

They'd been close before their interruption, and they easily found that rhythm again. Rainbow's tongue danced its way up and down Twilight's lengthy horn, and her hoof slid along her slit, tickling along her clit and sending spikes of pleasure through their bodies. Every instant brought them closer to release—their climax would be simultaneous by its very nature here.

Twilight's horn began to glow as the sensations finally started to overwhelm her. Her body lay dormant, shivering and writhing helplessly, and her mind wasn't far from joining it. Every instant brought their pleasure higher until finally the last shred of resistance in Twilight's body snapped, and their minds whited out in a storm of blinding lust.

Magic exploded outwards from Twilight's horn, carrying the wave of pleasure outwards as it went. The last time that had happened, the nerves inside Twilight's horn had been scorched and she had to wait for them to heal—this time, she'd been practising. It still stung a little, but that was all.

The reflective walls of the royal library had no problem turning the blast back, ensuring that the population of Canterlot remained unmolested. Unfortunately, all the walls of the library were reflective—there was nowhere else for it to go.

Some time later, Rainbow Dash woke up. She was still on the ceiling, but she didn't care—Twilight Sparkle lay before her and she felt like she was in high heat. She needed that pony.

Immediately, she pounced. Twilight woke to Rainbow Dash's tongue slithering along her body, and moaned happily in response. The reflecting waves of pleasure still bounced around the library filling their minds with a mixture of joy and lust with every wave, and it was impossible for Dash to resist.

"Da- aaah," Twilight attempted, before another wave of magic overcame her and provided a potent distraction. "Dash, you- aaah."

After a few minutes of fruitlessly attempting to talk, the one part of Twilight's mind that didn't want to immediately submit—she had an appointment!—decided to take a different approach. It threw a magical bubble up around the two, sheltering them from the magic. Within a few moment, Dash stopped. Her body was exhausted and her mind was sated.

"Huh, that's new."

"Yeah, I guess I should have realised that'd reflect too, sorry," Twilight apologised, before closing her eyes and slowly returning their gravities to its normal state, floating them down to the ground.

"Hey, don't apologise. Think we can get some of that back home?" Dash asked.

Twilight laughed. "You're so adorable when you're horny, Dash."

"Yeah yeah."

Twilight lead the way out of the library, keeping the bubble around them as they made their way to the spiral staircase at the centre of the tower. Before they reached it, Dash's keen ears picked up another sound—ecstatic, pleasured moans. Coming from one of the study rooms.

"Whoops." Twilight giggled. "The magic should wear off in a few hours, I think."

Twilight and Dash made their way back to the Corral Tower. Twilight refused to be flown, especially given that there was no rush. The topic of conversation along the way was Rainbow Dash practically begging Twilight to learn the mirroring spell.

"Wait, Dash, shut up."

"Oh, but it'd be so aweso-"

Twilight clamped Dash's mouth shut with a magic field and hissed "Listen." into her ear.

Rainbow Dash paused and listened. Everything sounded normal. They were on a relatively unpopular high street, but there were still plenty of ponies around. Buying things, selling things, taking lessons on elocution, so on.

"Sounds normal to m- wait," Dash replied. Her ears twitched as she tried to focus in on one particular sound. Twilight had caught a whisper of it on the wind, but she'd known Dash would be able to pinpoint it. "This way." Dash pointed towards one of the shops.

The two made their way inside the building—a shop that offered training on speaking patterns and style—and looked on in amazement. Standing on a stool with his eyes closed and wearing a small jacket was none other than Spike.

"I thought he was still in Ponyville," Twilight whispered, trying not to catch his attention.

"Me too. He was last night, though I didn't see him this morning."

Twilight tilted her head in confusion. "Spike!" she called.

Spike jumped in surprise and fell over, tumbling to the ground. "Ah, one moment," he quickly said to the pony next to him. She nodded and he wandered over.

"Hey Twilight, Dash. What's up?" he casually said.

"Uh, yeah—we thought you were still back home." Dash accused.

"And what are you doing here?" Twilight asked.

"I left you guys a note, didn't you read it?"

"Whoops," Dash replied. She had seen the note, but she'd completely forgotten about it. "That was from you?"

"Yeah, I told you guys I was here on personal business. Now, if you don't mind?"

"You still haven't answered my question, Spike," Twilight prompted.

"Oh, I uh... I'm taking elocution lessons," Spike admitted a little sheepishly. "I figure Rarity might notice me more if I speak with a-" Spike cleared his throat and put on his fanciest accent- "proper speaking tone."

The pony across the room—presumably his instructor—buried her head between her hooves. His accent had been terrible. Still, at least he was trying.

"We... we'll leave you to it, then. Good luck," Dash said, dragging Twilight out of the building. The moment the door closed behind them, Dash burst out laughing. The accent had been that bad.

"Dash!" Twilight scolded, "I think it's cute. At least it explains where he keeps going. Oh, poor Spike, I hope Rarity lets him down gently."

"If he talks to her like that I think she'll faint," Dash laughed. She yelped as Twilight's horn jabbed into the side of her neck.

"Don't forget what you did to tell me you liked me, Dash. I still have that manuscript, by the way. I'll show people if you make fun of Spike again."

Rainbow Dash stopped laughing.

Finally, they made it to the Corral tower once again. Their manes were equally windswept, their coats were ruffled, and if somebody sniffed them too closely they'd probably be able to tell what they'd been up to, but Twilight was too nervous to notice. Her hoof shook as she held it up to push open the door. Dash lightly pushed her to the side.

"Hey, Twi, it's gonna be fine. Your stuff works, you can prove it. You've got nothing to worry about."

"What if they don't let me show them?" Twilight whispered, still shaking.

"Then I'll kick their asses until they do," Dash joked. "Worked last time."

"Don't you dare. These guys are the best, they'll make that receptionist look like a foal."

"Don't care, I'll still do it. For you."

"You really are adorable, Dash."

"I'll kick your ass if you keep saying that, too," Dash laughed, trying to play off the blushing.

Twilight look a deep breath, and turned around. "Okay, let's do this."

They strode into the building side by side and walked up to the receptionist in silence.

"They're waiting for you," he said.

The two moved towards the spiral staircase.

"Just the unicorn. we generally don't allow non-mages inside the tower," the receptionist objected.

"Make an exception," Dash insisted, not bothering to break stride. She wasn't letting Twilight go in there alone.

The receptionist stopped talking.

At the top of the spiral staircase were two large wooden doors. As Twilight approached, they swung open on their own power, and the two walked into a darkened room. Glowing runes adorned the walls and floor, and Twilight could see very little.

"Hello?" she called outwards. There was no response.

Rainbow Dash had somewhat better night vision, and could see the Corral standing at the edges of the room. They all wore capes and hoods, and she couldn't see anything more. "They can hear you, Twi."

"Indeed we can, Rainbow Dash." the most central member announced. His voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once, but only one of the hooded figures' mouths were moving.

Another spoke up. "So, Twilight Sparkle. You seek our audience through deceit, and then force. What is it that requires our attention so strongly you would falsify such reams of evidence?"

"Fals- I did no such thing! I wouldn't ever do that!" Twilight objected.

"Surely you are not suggesting that you have actually succeeded? We watch over all, none but you have found this endeavour possible. I ask again, Twilight Sparkle, what are your true intentions?"

"Hey!" Dash shouted. "You call her a liar one more time and-"

"And what? You cannot harm us, little pegasus."

"-and I slam into your little tower fast enough to turn it to dust, that's what!" Dash yelled. She dropped down into a combat stance and flared her wings, scraping her hoof against the ground threateningly. It wasn't an empty threat—Twilight had once told her that at the moment of Sonic Rainboom, there was more energy in Dash's body than any shield in Equestria could withstand; One little tower wouldn't be a challenge.

A deafening silence filled the room. Nobody moved for entire seconds. Finally, Twilight's hoof slammed down into the cold stone floor. "Enough!" she yelled. "Dash, calm down. Corral, look at the crystals." she demanded, pulling her work from Dash's saddlebags and thrusting them at the apparent leader.

The silence continued while the Corral inspected the crystal. The sister crystal in Dash's other saddlebag began to glow in response, and it was quickly retrieved too.

A few minutes later, the members of the Corral broke the loose circle they used for talking. The runes began to glow brighter, and the room became better lit. One of them—Twilight had lost track of who was who, and Dash was in no mood to care—lowered his hood as he brought the crystals back. "Hey, sorry about all that," he apologised, holding the crystals out for Twilight to recover. "That was, uh. That was my fault."

"Your fault?" Dash accused, flaring her wings again. Twilight's horn glowed and Dash's wings were forcibly stashed away.

"Calm, Dash. Calm."

"Yes, my fault, I'm afraid," the Corral member said. "I'm Star Spokes, leader of the Corral of the Wise. And, apparently, an ignorant old fool.

"Before today, young Sparkle, I considered your work impossible. Indeed, this kind of stored magic was something I wasted much of my youth chasing. It was my holy grail-"

Dash's ears perked up. The Holy Grail was a plot device from one of the Daring Do books—if this guy read those, maybe he wasn't that bad after all.

"-and I failed. Completely. I judged it impossible, and most of my peers did as well. So when your letter arrived claiming that you had solved it, both in such a short timespan and at such a young age, I confess I did not even read it. I am an old fool, please forgive me."

"But why? The answer was so obvious, exploiting the inherent dimorphism of the magic/anti-magic forces polarised by a flora focal point and then distilled to a reformed core with an inverted polarity burst was simple!"

Rainbow Dash and Star Spokes blinked in unison. Neither of them had caught a word of that.

"Sparkle, I-"

"Please, call me Twilight."

"Twilight, I spent years researching this, and I have no idea what you just said. Yesterday, I would have ignored you, or called you mad. Today I appreciate your genius. If you want it, my job will be yours one day, I'm certain of it."

Twilight blushed and awkwardly scraped her hoof against the floor. "Gosh, thanks."

"No, you earned it yourself, Twilight. This research could revolutionise everything... however not as it stands right now."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that we, as scholars, have a duty to leave the world a better understood place than we joined it. Your research does not do this. It produces results—incredible, impossible results—but none of us know how you got there. You have pages and pages of tables containing the ambient temperature, but nothing describing the correct mixture of ingredients, for example. Reproducing your experiment would be impossible for anypony other than yourself."

"I... Oh." Twilight's ears dropped. She'd tried her best to note down everything of importance. Rainbow Dash twitched and she tried to hold herself back. She couldn't. She lunged at his throat.

Rainbow Dash hit an impressively solid magical barrier a few inches away from Star Spoke's body and fell to the floor. "Ow..." she moaned in agony.

Star laughed. "I have not been ignoring you, Rainbow Dash. I apologise, I do not mean to incur your wrath by insulting those you care for. I mean well, her skill and knowledge are clear from her results, but her documentation and method are lacking. Nopony is perfect."

"She is," Dash insisted.

"Perhaps to you, but we require a more rigorous scientific method to accept her research."

"Dash, it's fine," Twilight insisted, "He's right. I'll just have to try and do better next time."

"But-"

"No buts, Dash. Why don't you go wait outside, blow off some steam or something?" Twilight suggested. Rainbow Dash reluctantly left the room.

"Sorry about that," Twilight apologised. "She's a little protective sometimes."

"You should listen to her. One of the issues I have with your research is the danger of it—there's no reason to do personal testing here. A rock—or anything else—would suffice. You're too important a mind to lose over some stupid mistake, Twilight, and I think your friend will keep you on track. Don't take her worries as folly."

Twilight nodded. "Would you mind explaining what else I did wrong?"

"Certainly, let's go grab a desk."

Many hours later, Twilight Sparkle left the tower levitating a large stack of papers behind her. They were notes on how to improve, in as much detail as she could manage. She felt ready for anything.

Anything except Dash not being there when she left.

"Da- Dash?" she called, looking out into the distance and feeling around with her magic. She couldn't sense her, not even a little. Had she finally pushed Dash away one too many times?

"HEY!" Dash yelled, zipping past her in approximately an eighth of a blink of an eye. A few seconds later, Dash flew by again much slower and skidded to a halt on the stone tower entrance. "What took you so long, Twi? I just broke my own airspeed record again, by the way, in case you heard. Got from here to Ponyville and back in under 5 minutes. I think I'm gonna go nap now."

True to her word, Rainbow Dash immediately fell over, landing on the ground already sleeping. Twilight picked her up and gave her a quick check over—she'd pulled a few muscles in her wings and managed to exert so much energy that by the time she woke up she'd probably eat for hours, but she was okay. Twilight fixed the muscles.

Without Dash to fly them home, and with the hour being so late, Twilight realised they'd be staying the night in Canterlot. She assumed her old room in one of the castle towers would still be available, and began trotting towards it with her paper and pony cargo hovering behind her.

Once she was done dropping everything off there, she thought, she'd drag Dash's sleeping body out to one of the nicer restaurants in the city and let her order until she was satisfied. Star Spokes was right, she should show Dash how much she appreciated her more often.