Author's Notes:

You know I’m reading this again. preparing for the chapter following “Goodnight” in book 4. Knowing what the future holds at the end of this book is, well, - for those of you who have read it to the end, this is really getting to me. I am here to serve the characters, their story and you. I really hope I’m stirring your hearts for these two ponies. I think they’re pretty special and I wish the show could take them all to a more adult sophisticated level. Not that we have to follow them into the bedroom but give us a chance to see more of their insecurities. I write to escape there with the ponies. Mostly I hope I’m taking you there too.

“If I were you I'd realize that I
Love you more than any other guy”
No Reply
-Lennon & McCartney

Though she knew the lines, Applejack couldn’t remember the context, so they watched “Canterblanca” together that evening.

“I wonder if’n Marerocco is really like that,” asked Applejack as she sipped at her hot cider.

“It is so romantic isn’t it?” Oh listen, listen, I love this part of the movie… ‘Shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here.’” Twilight recited along with the movie. “I love that part…who knows, maybe we’ll go there someday.”

“Really? I would love that! I love the idea of traveling”

“Me too! I just never had a reason to go very far. We’ve been to Appaloosa, Canterlot and Manehattan but that is not exactly travelling. Marerocco is exotic and mysterious. You were never interested in traveling after you didn’t win a blue at that rodeo.”

“Shucks, I can’t believe I was that competitive. It seems so silly to me now.”

“I have to tell you, you were pretty upset AJ. You were going to stay away until you earned the money. You never wanted to travel much because you don’t, or didn’t want to leave the farm.” Twilight turned her attention back to the movie “Okay, here he comes; look at the expression on Rick’s face when he first sees her…”

“Look at the expression on her face. Wow. I reckon no one ever said so much without speaking…”

By the end of the movie the wastepaper basket was full of tissues.

“That was so beautiful” sniffed Applejack. “I reckon I’d a stayed with Rick. Victor Lasso was ok, but living at Ricks with all the characters and of course I’ll bet Rick Rein is a hay of a lover.”

“Me too. I can understand why she left, but I don’t think I would have.”

“Have you ever been in love, Twilight?”

“You mean before…?” she stopped

The question had caught the young pony completely off guard. She’d been watching the movie and thinking of herself and Applejack. She spoke before thinking.

“Before what?” Applejack asked

Before I realized that I was in love with you…

“Before what?” Twilight replied, feigning innocence and confusion.

“I asked if you have ever been in love before and you said ‘You mean before…’ and I wanted to know before what.”

Twilight just laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. So have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Oh for Pete’s sake! HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?!” Applejack’s mane had fallen in front of her eyes. She stuck her jaw out and blew the hair out of her face in exasperation.

Twilight leaned in toward Applejack and batted her eyes in mock flirtation. “You mean before I fell in love with you?”

“You know what? Ah’m tired. I’m going to bed. Goodnight!” Applejack fell back on the pillow and rolled over, turning her back to Twilight.

“Did I ever tell you…” Twilight began

“I ain’t listening” said Applejack in a singsong voice. She then pretended to snore.

“…about the colt at the academy who smuggled me into his dorm room late one night?”

Applejack’s ears popped up to full attention as she rolled over and propped herself up on her elbow. “Well go on, I’m a-listening…

“It was this stallion, more of a colt really, I don’t want to say his name, he’s kind of well known in Canterlot. We’ll call him B. Anyway, I was 15 and he was 16.”

“Oooh, an older stallion. Very romantic. What was he like?”

“He was very popular and rich and kind of smart I guess; anyway I thought he was a real hunk, but so did he. I have to say I was pretty surprised when he suddenly started paying attention to me. I told you how I wasn’t too popular, so I very flattered.”

“What happened? Do you still keep in touch?”

“Well, no. He took me on a couple of dates, but the group he hung out with really didn’t like me. They were the ‘in’ ponies. Even so we got to know each other…”

Suddenly Twilight started to chuckle and then laugh.

“What? Tell me!! What?!”

“Well, we had gotten to be friends and started to hang out more. I was so naïve, I thought he really liked me. I don’t know if we were really a couple, I thought we were. Anyway he was doing a report on Starswirl The Bearded, remember I told you about him?”

“Yeah,”

“Being kind of an expert on Starswirl I offered to help.”

“Typical of you.”

“Thanks, Anyway there was this big weekend coming up – the academy had made the soccer finals and most of the school was going to Phillydelphia for the next round, I think they called it the semi-finals whatever that was. “B” told me he wasn’t interested, which now that I think about it was pretty strange considering that he was friends with a lot of the guys on the team. The report was due Monday and we stayed on campus and worked. It was kind of nice to have the school to ourselves. We got into some mischief.”

“YOU? I can’t imagine it.”

Twilight laughed. “It wasn’t much; I changed out the chalk in the classrooms with easy break chalk which broke every time you went to write with it. I know it doesn’t sound like much but at the time I thought it was pretty daring. Then he “found” some hard cider. I didn’t want to drink it, but he convinced me that it wasn’t too strong.”

“Oh, no...” Applejack looked worried

“No, nothing bad happened; I’m sure he just wanted me to loosen up a bit so I would agree to go to his room with him. I guess he thought I would resist, which I certainly would have if I’d suspected what he had in mind.”

“Course you wouldn’t have. That sidewinder was just settin you up. All that time all he wasn’t interested in you, he must’a been some kind of jerk that he couldn’t see what a sweet wonderful pony you were, that he had something special. He was only being nice to you and paying attention to you because he was trying to get you to…”

Applejack stopped for a moment when she saw Twilights face. “Oh honey, don’t, come here, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you. Me and my stupid big old mouth. When I get better you point him out to me. I’ll have a little talk with him. You know-now that you’re a princess, you can have him banished, or locked in a dungeon or banished and locked in a dungeon in the place that you banished him to!”

That got Twilight laughing.

“Thanks Applejack, you’re so sweet” said Twilight with a sniff.

“You don’t have to tell me anymore about it, we can talk about something else.“

“No, it’s okay. It actually gets better from this point.”

“Are you sure? I hate to see you get all upset like that. Over the movie is fine, but I know that this really hurts.”

“Thanks, but, well, you’ll see. So anyway, he managed to get me to agree to go back to his room in his dorm to “help finish” the report. He seemed really nervous. I assumed it was due to being so worried about being late with the report, and I finally agreed.”

“Of course young mares were forbidden from going into the colt’s dorms and vice versa. He told me no one would be there. The whole dorm was deserted except for a few colts blasting music. Actually it was kind of funny; the assistant dorm monitor saw us and said hi but didn’t make me leave He was new at the school. He probably figured I was so dorky we would only be studying. I had the same idea.”

“Well, we had a little more cider. It was really sweet and I remember liking it. We began to work on the report and it was going alright. He had most of it done so I was reading through it. Then one of the ponies from the party room upstairs came by and poked his head in the door to ask if he wanted to come on up. When he saw me sitting at the desk his eyes went wide and he put a hoof over his mouth to keep from laughing. I thought it was kind of strange. So “B-” rushes over to him and shoves him out into the hall. I got up to stretch and walked toward the door to see what they were laughing at. It was then that I heard his friend say ‘I can’t believe you got Twilight Sparkle into your dorm room! Do you think she’ll, you know, do it?’

“So “B-“ says ‘If you’ll shut up and leave us alone then we’ll find out, won’t we?’

“I thought they were talking about me helping on the report, so I said to them:

‘No it’s ok, we did it. There really wasn’t much to do, I did a little here and there but he finished most of it by himself. I’m just looking things over to see if he got everything right. You’ve probably heard that I’m kind of an expert at this’”

Applejack burst out laughing. Twilight tried to continue but the two of them just couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, they calmed down. They sat there holding their stomachs and wiping the tears from their eyes.

“His friend had the same reaction. He started laughing at ‘B-‘ No pony likes being laughed at but it really made him furious. He shoved his friend down the hall, I think he fell, but he was laughing so hard I couldn’t be sure. Then ‘B-’ came back into the room and slammed the door. He sat down on the bed and started muttering. Suddenly he looked at me and smiled. It was a very nasty smile and he said 'Let’s go through the paper one last time and if we don’t find anything wrong, then I’d say we're done.' We spent an hour or so and then I left. I found out that he’d started to spread the rumor that his efforts at seducing me that night had been successful. At first, I was very hurt and embarrassed. Pretty soon that turned to furious. I began to think of all kinds of things to say to deny it. Then I thought about it and came up with my own devious idea.”

“You? Devious? What did you do, break into his room and mismatch his socks?”

“Very funny. No, actually now that I think about it, it was really my roommate Thorn's idea., For once, being known as kind of shy really helped me. Thorn felt pretty bad for me. She hung out with the troublemakers and I, well, I guess I would call her a friend. She wouldn’t let anyone pick on me or bully me. She said to stop all the talk and get even I should be overheard having a conversation with one of my friends saying certain things. I had no idea what she was talking about. When she told me let me tell you I was pretty shocked.”

“What was it?” Applejack's ears went straight up and her eyes wide open.

“I refused to say it, but she said that coming from me, it would do three things- it would make him sound like a liar, and ruin his reputation, and help the other ponies think about me as not so, umm, shy.”

“Well? What did you say?!”

“ I memorized it, I think I remember most of it, let’s see…”

‘He kept trying, poor thing, but it was like pushing a rope uphill. I guess he must have been very nervous. He said it had never happened to him before so I let him try to, you know, try to get his little rope a little stiffer, but it was no use. I have to say he sure was trying hard. I kind of cheered him on. I was afraid he might hurt himself. Then, you know, he, well, you know... and then there was no point in staying so I left.’

Applejack went bright red and started laughing. “You did not say that!”

“I swear on Celestia. I was in a booth in a little diner in Canterlot with Thorn. She said some pretty interesting things herself, to help my cause. We made sure some of my classmates who were friends of his were behind me and there was a lull in their conversation. We were whispering and giggling, which was pretty easy -I was really nervous, but Thorn encouraged me.” Twilight paused and smiled. "You know, she really was my friend now that I think about it. Anyway, the ponies in that booth went completely quiet and when we finished our little talk, it was their turn to start whispering. By the next day they were calling him ‘rope.’”

Applejack hooted and slapped her leg. “Yeeha! Ain’t that a kicker! So how did your reputation help you?”

“Would a shy, introverted, prudish pony ever admit to having sex unless it was true? I was only telling a friend, not trying to make a point of it.”

“Your roommate was pretty smart”

“Oh yeah, she was very smart. She was at the academy on an academic scholarship. She scored off the charts on the intelligence test. She was interesting. She had a twin sister – Firefly. You wouldn’t know her, but she’s sort of famous. Thorn was kind of a rebel I guess. When she was with her friends, she would ignore me. At least I knew enough not to talk to her when she was with them, and when they came over I knew to go to the library and let her and her friends have the room, they would give me cold stares, especially this one named Pixie.”

“When it was just us she was really nice in her own way. She made sure I never got too down or discouraged. If other students gave me a rough time, she’d find out who they were and suddenly the trouble would go away.”

Twilight got quiet and began to think about her former roommate, to remember things about her.

“You know when I had a birthday or something there was always a little gift on my desk when I got back to my room. She said somepony had dropped it off, but never knew who they were and couldn’t describe them…” I knew it was her. Suddenly Twilight went pale.

“Oh Celestia!!”

“She had a thing for you didn’t she?”

“And I never figured it out! I am such an idiot! Now that I’m thinking about it, there were all these little things that… I – I wonder if…”

“She was in love with you? Sure sounds like she might’a felt something for you.”

Twilight put her hoof to her head. “How could I have been so stupid?! There were a couple of times she came back to the dorm after having too much to drink and she would pour her heart out to me. She told me things that were so personal and there were times she would look at me in a strange way. Now I realize what that was about. She was in love with me.” Twilight looked down and her ears folded back in shame. She now knew how Thorn felt and she had been as unaware as Applejack was now. Had she ever said anything cruel to her? Had she led her on? The more Twilight thought about it the worse she felt.

“I need to find out where she is. I need to try to make this right.” Twilight looked very anxious.

“I think you may be overdoing it, You really think she remembers? That was a while ago.”

“Believe me, she remembers. When you fall in love with somepony like that, you never forget it.” Twilight murmured the last sentence.

“For somepony who’s never been in love, you seem to know an awful lot about it.”

Twilight suddenly caught herself. “Huh? Oh, well I can just imagine what it’s like, that’s all.”

“What do you reckon’ you’d a done if you had known?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Are you saying you might have…you know reciprocated?”

“Wow, nice choice of words”

“Yeah, thanks, but you didn’t answer the question”

“I don’t know. I might have run away screaming, but I was also going through all those changes in my body. I have to admit, I might have been intrigued…” She gave the idea more thought. “Who am I kidding – I’d have run away screaming,” she started laughing. Then suddenly it didn’t seem all that funny.

“AJ, what would you have done?”

“Why?” Applejack scowled and raised an eyebrow.

Twilight looked at her and tried to guess whether she was being funny or serious.

“Because I want to make sweet love to you,” Twilight said with over the top drama, rolling her eyes. “I was just making conversation.”

Applejack thought about it. “I don’t rightly know. I don’t know if the old me would have. I don’t reckon I know exactly how I feel about it now, you know the whole mare-mare thing. Can’t say I’ve given it any thought. It’s like I don’t know if I prefer ketchup or mustard, just haven’t thought about it...”

Twilight thought about who she was back then. She was so innocent, so in love with learning, it was like an obsession. But it was all second hoof learning. It was reading about someone else’s experiences. It was about doing experiments based on other’s pony’s research or repeating their experiments. So much of what she had learned first hoof was incredibly painful. The rejections, the taunting, the cruelty from others. The good things she’d learned were simple – study hard and be a good pony and earn the love and respect of Princess Celestia.

This only drove her deeper into the library, only pushed her further into her “love of learning for learning’s sake.” It was an admirable obsession, but it was all from other’s perspectives, not hers.

And it was much safer.

Now she was a million miles from who she’d been. She was in love with Applejack. She wanted to hold her, to kiss her, to be with her.

Was she always like this? Could she have loved Thorn? Thorn was certainly attractive enough. A light purple Unicorn. Her mane and tail were a blue that was hard to describe. It was almost a purple. She wore it combed forward, the same way Dash wore hers. Her eyes were an amazing shade of lavender which got dark and scary when she was angry but could be so sweet and tender when Twilight was in pain. She dressed in dark vests and carried herself with a subtle strength. She could silence a room when she walked into it.

And she had been in love with Twilight. There was now no doubt in Twilights mind. The more she thought about it the more she realized the all the times Thorn had tried to tell her.

Twilight hated herself for it. What she was feeling now for Applejack was what she had put Thorn through. It was torturous. No wonder Thorn never replied to her letters after she left the academy. If I were her I’d have wanted to get as far from Twilight Sparkle as possible. The pain would just be too great.

“Twilight? Are you okay sweetie? You look like your best friend just died.”

Twilight looked up at Applejack and wiped her eyes with the back of her hoof. “No, I’m fine, besides, my very best friend can’t be dead, she’s standing right here.”

Applejack put her arm around Twilight and lifted her chin with her other hoof. “I know you feel bad about Thorn, but there ain’t nothin you can do about it right now, so stop feeling so bad. I hate to see you like this.”

Twilight looked at Applejack.

“Applejack…?”

“Yeah?”

Twilight paused.

Then she just sighed.

“Thanks”

“Sure, no problem.

“You know, AJ, you’re right and anyway it’s time for us to stop stalling, are you ready to try going downstairs to the living room again? I’ll be beside you to give you a hoof but you really didn’t need it. We can sit by the fire for awhile.”

“That does sound a-might good to me. Did you say there was some more of that wine that the mayor bought over for the party?”

“You certainly enjoy your wine more than you used to AJ. What if you have too much? How will you get upstairs?”

“I won’t, we’ll just sleep down here in front of the fire.”

“Wait, are you planning to get me drunk?”

“eYup, and then make you help me with a report on old Starswirl.”

“You know at one point, actually most of my life, that would have been my idea of a great night, sitting around talking about Starswirl the Bearded.” Twilight rolled her eyes and half smirked at the thought. “Do you want help getting up out of the bed?”

“Thanks, Twi, but I think I got it. Just stay by me in case I fall.”

“Always.”

Applejack got up and made her way toward the stairway. Twilight stood between her and the stairway’s open edge, guiding her but not touching as they went down the stairs. She could see that AJ was gaining confidence and was steadier.

“Looking good there pony girl, almost at the bottom. Okay, one more step…there, you made it! High hoof!”

“Thanks Twilight, it’s getting easier all the time. I’m going to mosey around here a little. Feels pretty good.”

“Excellent! Well, I’ll head upstairs and bring our plates and glasses down from dinner.”

“OK pardner.”

Twilight flew up to the loft and began to clean up. There were some art books on the bed that Twilight had given to her to look through. A couple of pieces of paper fell out. Twilight picked them up. They were sketches of her that Applejack had drawn and the talent was clearly evident. She’d been experimenting with different styles. Some showed more promise than others, but the eye of an artist was certainly there. Some showed Twilight strong, some happy and silly, but others were so sad and melancholy, that Twilight was taken aback. Applejack was either clearly very perceptive or Twilight wasn’t hiding her feelings as well as she’d hoped.

Did I really hope I was hiding my feelings? Don’t I want Applejack to see how much I’m in love with her? Is it that I don’t know how to tell her or that I’m too much of a coward…

“Applejack?”

“Still here”

Twilight flew down with the drawings. As soon as Applejack saw what she was holding she started to blush.

“Oh, those. You weren’t supposed to see those, they’re really bad.”

“No, no they're not. They’re really good. I took art at the academy, I had these silly romantic ideas of living in some small village and being a great painter like Vincent Van Colt, but I never quite got that good at it. I can spot talent and I think you’ve got it. I’m starting to get jealous.” She looked at the blonde pony and smiled. “I don’t know if you could do work like this before you had the accident, but if you did, it’s a shame you didn’t share it. Actually, I doubt you had much time for it.”

“Shucks Twilight, it’s mighty nice of you to say. I felt this urge to draw after you showed me those art books. I must have been a real workhorse. I did most of those from just watching you and getting ideas from that. I was going to ask you if you would pose for me.”

“Really? Okay. Would you like some wine first?”

“Now that sounds like a great idea” Applejack said with a smile.

“You’re so different than you used to be. You’re taking the time to look at things and see their beauty.”

Twilight grimaced as she used her magic to pull the cork from the bottle. It finally resounded with a satisfying pop. She inhaled the aroma. “Mmmm, nothing like zap apple wine.”

The bottle sat half empty in an ice bucket as the fire roared in the fireplace. Various sketches of Twilight looking away, sleeping, scowling and in different standing poses lay next to them on the floor. Twilight had a big downy overstuffed semicircular couch located in front of the fire for the winter season.

“This is like sitting in a giant down comforter. I love it.” Applejack said as she turned to look at Twilight who sat next to her. “This is just perfect.”

“I’m not sure there is anything more perfect, but I’m willing to keep trying if you are.” Twilight smiled.

“Here is to our keep trying…wait, keeping trying?” said Applejack, raising her glass, “…whatever”

“What you said...”Twilight laughed.