“Whooo hooo!” Twilight was ecstatic. It had taken quite a bit of poking and prodding from Rainbow Dash and her mentor alike to get her to pay attention to her new wings, and several more months of training still before she could really fly with any proficiency. Now, however, she was beginning to discover the joys of being free to go where she pleased, no longer bound by the tethers of gravity.

True to her promise to Rainbow, she scheduled an hour every day to spend on wing exercises and flight training, even when she wasn’t in Ponyville. And she was becoming quite good at it.

With a flourish she landed on the cloud and nuzzled her marefriend, whom she had been sharing it with. “Did you see me, Pri— Celestia?”

Her marefriend smiled indulgently. “Of course I did, Twilight. You’ve certainly improved since last time.”

Twilight blushed at the praise, leaning against her mentor in a comfortable gesture. “Rainbow Dash is a better teacher than she gives herself credit for.”

“However true that may be, I think you’ve been slacking.”

Twilight puffed up her cheeks in indignation, walking around Celestia until they were face to face. “No I haven’t. Doing this every day is already exhausting enough! I can barely keep my eyes open when I need to get some extra studying in!”

Celestia giggled and placed a hoof on Twilight’s chest. “Then how is it that you’re not even out of breath?”

“Well,” Twilight’s cheeks tinged red in embarrassment and she took a step back. “I’ve been taking it easy this week.”

Celestia mock gasped, putting a hoof to her chest for emphasis. “My Twilight Sparkle, taking it easy with her lessons? Equestria is most assuredly doomed.” She forestalled any response from Twilight by holding up a hoof. “Maybe it’s because you lack incentives, hmmm? Tell you what, if you win a race, you may pick a date. I will cancel all my appointments and we’ll take an extra day to ourselves. Sound good?”

She watched Twilight’s eyes light up for a moment before the inevitable suspicion set in. “Win a race against whom?”

“Me.” And with that she got up and walked to the edge of the cloud. She lit up her horn and drew a shimmering line through the sky. “First one to reach that cumulus cloud wins.”

“Wait. What if you win?”

She shot Twilight a wide smile, “If I win, we’re going dancing.”

A groan was all the response she got.

Both alicorns lined up on the edge of the cloud, flexing their wings and preparing themselves for a race. Twilight had quickly worked out a spell which would function as their starting sign. A simple timer on a low yield telekinesis blast would obliterate a nearby cloud, which would signal the start of an (arguably) very important race.

Twilight was more determined to win than ever, anything to avoid having to make a fool out of herself again. Celestia for her part looked relaxed as ever, which wasn’t just annoying, but a little unsettling as well.

The cloud vanished with a silent ‘pomf’ and Twilight threw herself forward, flapping her wings in strong steady motions like Dash had taught her. Flying felt different from using magic. There was less power behind a thousand flaps of her wings than she put in a single spell, but, in its own way, harder to pull off.

Around the halfway point she began to feel the strain on her muscles. She glanced over her shoulder, trying to see how much, if any, of a lead she might have had on her mentor. Celestia was right behind her, smiling, without a hint of exhaustion or even effort visible in her features.

Twilight whipped her head back and focused on staying ahead of Celestia. They were almost halfway, she only had to hold out a little longer. Celestia had apparently had enough, however, and slowly but steadily increased her speed, passing Twilight just after the three quarter point.

Twilight let out a resigned sigh as she watched Celestia cross the finish line, while she herself still had a few dozen yards to go. In the back of her mind she’d known that there was no way she could beat her lover in a race. Not with barely half a year of flying experience against the thousands of years Celestia’d had to practice. That didn’t change the fact that she would have liked to.

She smirked as a devilish idea came to her and angled herself up slightly, no longer aiming to land on the finish line.

Celestia stood on the cloud, doubting herself. At the start of the race her intentions had been going for a leisurely flight, and letting Twilight win the race. Stars knew they could stand to see each other more often. Yet, as it progressed and she watched Twilight struggle, she had let her natural competitiveness get the better of her.

With a sigh she turned around, resolving to make it up to her marefriend. Instead she was tackled to the ground by a fast moving purple mass of hooves and wings. The pair skidded across the cloud due to Twilight’s momentum, coming to a halt near the edge. With Twilight pressing her lips to Celestia’s in a deep kiss.

Twilight broke the kiss rather quickly, having to let go and take heaving breaths of air. Celestia felt giddy, and before she knew it, she was giggling like a young filly. It took Twilight a moment longer to catch her breath before she joined in. Celestia craned her neck to kiss Twilight again before wrapping the smaller alicorn in her wings and leaning back, sending the two of them tumbling over the edge.

She watched the ground grow, getting closer by the second. She held Twilight close, feeling her lover’s heartbeat rise with every moment they spent in free fall until the young alicorn finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“P-princess?”

“Shhh. Trust me.” She felt Twilight bury her face in her neck and placed a kiss on her horn before returning her attention to the rapidly approaching ground. When she felt the time was right, she opened her wings and twisted around, weighing the strain on her wings against the maneuver she was trying to pull off. In a smooth arch their rapid descent was reversed and they came to a hover just above the treetops.

Only after it was done did she look at Twilight, still held in her forelegs and smiled.

“What was that?” Twilight asked in awe.

“That was a courtship fall, my Twilight. Pegasi in ancient times use it to show the world how much they trusted each other.” She leaned down and nibbled on one of Twilight’s ears, making the mare shriek and try to disentangle herself. Celestia set them down on the ground and let Twilight go. Twilight stretched her wings and legs, before sitting down next to Celestia, draping a wing over the bigger mare as far as she could.

“A courtship fall?”

Celestia nodded. “Before Equestria was one nation, it was how Pegasi married.”

She let herself be pushed over by her enthusiastic marefriend. Twilight still had a lot of things to learn, but at least she was getting more than enough practice kissing. And dancing. She thought with a smile.

Author's Notes:

This was orginally a prompt for the Twilestia group collab, the prompt was: Exercise

Somebody else got the prompt ahead of me, and as per usual I went way over the limit... so I finally decided to touch it up and post it here.

Hope you enjoyed it.