By 10:30 the two ponies lay in their bed up in the loft. Applejack was fast asleep but Twilight was awake. She had been meditating for over an hour. She reached over and touched the soft blonde mane. and could sense that Applejack was in deep REM sleep.

The young Alicorn shifted herself over and wrapped her leg over the top of Applejack’s thigh then pulled her close so as to get the maximum body contact. She slowed her breathing and relaxed and began to meditate on a mental image of her cutie mark. It changed color and faded then finally disappeared and she was gone. Within Twilights perception, the physical barrier between their bodies dissolved and Twilight felt the weight of Applejack’s body as if it were her own. Their breathing and heartbeats became synchronous. The entire length of her horn was pressed up against the side of Applejack’s head and Twilight was able to form an image of her brain.

She started her journey in the carotid artery in the neck and began to see both an external view and a direct perspective from within the artery itself. She followed the pathway and as it diverted she led herself up into the smaller arteries that fed the brain.

Finally she arrived and could sense the bulge and weakness in the wall. She reached out with her mind and senses and gently caressed the inner wall of the artery. She gently passed through it to the elastic tissue between them. And then within the smooth muscle wall. It was all perfectly familiar from her practice and she carefully and methodically went to work extending her mind within the muscle itself, along the length of the vessel until she could sense the entire length that encompassed the two weakened areas. Very gently she began the process of separating the cells along their side walls and making several long strands of cells. At the very end she disconnected them from the middle arterial wall. Now she had the middle wall along the length of the damaged artery plus several millimeters beyond it, in strands. Carefully she went back to where they were still attached at their base and began to weave them as she moved back to the ends that were disconnected and floating free like streamers, except that they were trapped between the inner and outer layers of the artery. As he completed the weave, she found that it was short, due to the weave taking up space. It was what she expected and what she would pull on to constrict the bulge.

The work was extremely repetitive and Twilight’s focus began to drift as thoughts of her and Applejack began to surface. She realized that she’d missed a connection but did not let it affect her work. She redoubled her efforts, knowing that she would be coming back this way when she’d completed the first run. Finally she reached the end and began her return back down to the start to double check her work and ensure the cells would slide over each other as they were drawn together. She sensed a powerful irritation in the hip. It was an itch and it was strong. She was unable to tell if it was on her body or Applejack’s but she could not move as it might reduce the amount of surface area that was in contact. Suddenly it stopped. It filled her with confidence to know that she could maintain her clarity. Twilight re-focused her efforts as she doubled back and repaired that one area that she had missed.

Now the second phase. First she disconnected the far end so that the “streamers” were no longer connected at either end. Then she gently began to fire off the nerves in the area which made it gently flex, loosening the weave so that it would constrict equally along its length as she stretched it apart. Now the third and final phase consisted of her stretching it, pulling it from either end. She was very pleased as she sensed the changes as the areas of weakness began to constrict as she pulled. Gradually they came into alignment and the entire length of the artery became uniform and the wall thickness strong..

She finished by modifying the cell walls so as to strengthen the connections between cells along a chain that crisscrossed. As the cells divided over time, the new cells would adapt to this change and eventually, once the bonds had become stronger and shared the load of the pressure, the crisscrossing chain would dissolve and leave a uniform pattern that would be indistinguishable from the rest of the arterial wall. A final inspection was very gratifying and she began to withdraw. It was a slow process but finally she was fully aware of where her body ended and Applejack’s began.

She disengaged from her and listened to her lover’s chest. It was fun to hear her own heart still beating in time with Applejack’s and she smiled.