I led Rainbat Dash—for the moment, Rainbow Dash—up the stairs of the hidden exit from the caves and into the secret hallway.

"Be very quiet: that's a peephole into Luna's room," I whispered to her as we tiptoed down the hallway.

More quickly than I could react, she leaned in for a peek. Her face immediately blanched.

"What is it?" I whispered.

She recoiled from the wall. "You do not want to know, Twilight."

"But—"

"Seriously. Let's get the buck out of here," she whispered, and started physically pushing me down the hallway.

I quietly opened the way to Princess Celestia's bedchambers (never thought I'd see myself write that particular phrase) and we entered, closing the secret door behind us. I quickly confirmed that my magic sigil on the door to the bedroom still held, then I cast a bubble enchantment around the entire room.

"Oh thank Celestia, we should be safe now. Wait... do you smell something weird?" I asked.

"Um... That's probably me," said Rainbow Dash, sniffing at her underlegs. "I should probably take a bath."

I followed her into the bathroom and extended the bubble around as much of the area as I could. "There are holes where the metal extends outside, but water traps should guarantee that none of your scent travels through them. Vamponies are pretty sensitive to odor. Hopefully whoever you saw in Luna's room didn't detect your scent."

I didn't realize it at the time, but was actually pinching my nose with my hoof as I spoke to her. She really did stink. Fortunately, she didn't seem to be offended by my reaction. It's not like it was her fault, of course. What do you expect when you're mindless and trapped somewhere for a week without any way (or the will) to maintain proper hygiene?

"It's fine, they were all asleep," she said. "I'll just be a few minutes."

Naturally, her response made me insatiably curious. Luna was asleep in her room with other ponies? Who were they, and how many? Were they cuddling? Maybe they were all piled on the bed and it was just too much for Dash to handle, given all the weird stuff we've been through. She might not be as prudish as I used to be, but she hasn't witnessed half of the horrors I've seen since my eyes were forced open.

The aggravating lack of knowledge stewed within me as I waited for Rainbow Dash to finish her shower, but after a couple of minutes I decided it would be better not to ask for details. I didn't want to traumatize her any more than necessary, and it's unlikely anything useful would come of it, since they must have been ponies Dash didn't personally know.

Curiosity is a dangerous instinct, even though it is the bedrock of science. I'm kind of disappointed I couldn't resist the urge to look through the hole yesterday, even though it was the logical choice.

It took Dash longer than I expected to shower. She probably wanted to be thorough. She emerged from the bathroom, toweling off with poofy wings and smelling fresh as a new bale of hay. Then she tossed the towel onto the bedroom floor, so I quickly hung it in the bathroom. When I returned, she was licking at her feathers. It took me a moment to realize she was preening.

"Oh. Should I do this in private?" she asked, noticing my stare.

"No, I like watching you. Is it supposed to be private?" I asked in turn.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes even as she blushed. "Twilight, somepony really needs to teach you the finer points of being a pegasus."

"I thought you were doing that! Er, before the vampony invasion, I mean," I said.

"Those were just flying lessons. There's a lot more to being a pegasus pony than flying—although flying is obviously the awesomest part," she stated. "But you're right, I should have been doing this from the beginning. You need to maintain better wing care than you have. Your wings are clean, but they're not well-primed for flying, which will reduce your ability to accelerate properly. The feathers don't need to be zippered to keep you warm, but they need it for flight, as well as for public appearance around other pegasi. Do you want me to teach you how to preen?"

I gulped, feeling awful. "I... I don't know," I said. "I really thought I was doing okay with them! I just... I mean, I've tried preening and it doesn't seem to help much."

Rainbow Dash sighed, and resumed preening herself even as she responded to me. "Well, you needth thoo thtart doing thith," she said. "I can'th believe thath Thwiligth Thparkle would give up on thomething like thith tho eathily."

"I was embarrassed to ask for help, and when nopony said anything, I assumed the problem had gone away," I said, closing my eyes. "Actually, I was working up the nerve to ask you about a month ago, but you said preening was super-personal at the first Herd of Four meeting, so I balked."

I felt a wing encircle me, followed by a firm hug. I opened my eyes, and we were muzzle to muzzle.

"Your breath is nice," I commented.

"Yeah, I used Celestia's toothbrush," she said.

"You used WHAT?" I said. "Rainbow Dash, you can't just use somepony else's toothbrush!"

She shrugged. "It's better than the alternative," she said, turning her face slightly away from mine.

"Well... great," I said. Taking the hint, I rushed to the bathroom to use it myself.

Journal, never in my deepest nightmares could I possibly have imagined I would one day be in such dire hygenic straits as to defile Princess Celestia's toothbrush.

I returned precisely two minutes later, and Rainbow Dash was still preening. She'd only finished her left wing, and I suspected she'd intentionally restricted herself to a single wing so she could use the other as an example for learning purposes. (When I'd seen preening previously, the preener would always alternate wings between switching work on specific areas of the wing.)

"Okay Twi," she said. "I'll do myself first, then tend to you. Watch the motions my neck makes as I hit each feather on the wing. It works on instinct: if you make the neck motions, the rest just kind of follows through."

"Weird," I said. "Ponies aren't supposed to have fixed action patterns. We've long since evolved beyond them."

Rainbow Dash shrugged. "If you say so," she said, then continued to preen her wings.

Like most things she does, Rainbow's preening was fast. It took scarcely more than five minutes, and this was undoubtedly slowed-down for my benefit. I picked up on several key positional contortions of her neck. My most salient observations follow.

Apparently, it is important to extend the neck out in a very straight line as you sift from the calamus down along the length of the feather's rachis. The initial angle of the neck seems to be made with this in mind. Just before preening a feather, the afterfeather fluff is briefly stroked in a circular motion with a dry tongue-tip. Then, the teeth comb across the feather, and the hooks on the tongue-tip realign the barbs along the vane (I hypothesize that the alignment of the barbules and hooklets transitively follow from this action).

As a former unicorn, the soft, tiny hooks on the tip of my tongue and the ability to dry my mouth on command are both new to me. Earth ponies share the dry-mouth ability with pegasi, which probably evolved to make manipulation of objects and writing easier. Young unicorns tend to slobber a lot (I didn't, of course, but it's typical for most prior to age ten). Unicorns often require special grips when they learn to write by mouth, as well. This is because learning to write generally comes years before the ability to finely control objects via one's horn actively manifests, and it's expected that unicorns should develop mandibular dexterity as foals anyway (there's a reasonably large stigma against being 'too good' to use your mouth among the nobility of Canterlot, even if most nobles have atrocious mouth-based penponyship).

A few unicorns like myself, mostly those destined to become mages, can innately control their thaumatological abilities early on. Even before I could reliably control telekinesis through my horn, I had developed the ability to adjust my mandibular dexterity with little pulses of energy that balanced out whatever I was carrying in my teeth. This meant I could hold my head upright while writing, and so I wasn't as messy...

I guess that's the reason I wasn't a slobberer? You know, Journal, I never realized that until just now. How odd. I always figured I was just so much of a neat-freak as a foal that I was more 'attentive', or something. In retrospect, I feel kind of naive and vain.

"Okay, there," said Rainbow Dash as she finished up, blushing as though she'd just donned a saddle right in front of me. "So, um, why don't you show me, and I can help guide you?"

The next two hours were highly instructive. I shouldn't be so surprised by this given the time we've spent together in flight training, but Rainbow Dash is an incredible teacher! I know she's a genius of proprioception and kinesthetic action, but it's not just her raw ability that makes her excel at passing along what she knows. She seems to have an intuitive sense for the concepts that her student isn't clear on, and she has a great deal of patience for error. It's not something I would have imagined from her, given her personality. Is that a prejudice on my part?

I remember how much getting to know Rarity surprised me, shortly after we'd met. Fillies like her had always treated me with disdain in school. I never expected her to have such a generous spirit. I miss that part of her more than I care to think about right now.

Several times Rainbow Dash had to show me examples on herself, but only three times did she actually preen one of my own feathers. Each time, she elicited a strong blush, and she appeared to struggle to keep her wings down. I think I'm starting to understand why, though. There's something about the process of preening, particularly on the smaller feathers: the marginal coverts on the patagium and especially those over the alula. The alula, or "bastard wing", is a small projection right next to a wing's wrist, sort of like the "little finger" of the wing, and it's incredibly sensitive. Oddly enough, pleasure seems to center inside that part of the wing itself, rather than being decentralized, or localized to the horn or groin. This leads me to a new hypothesis: is a "wingasm" a real thing? I haven't had the courage to ask her, but I suspect the answer is 'yes'.

I've paused to write down this much. Dash is napping on the bed at the moment. I suspect she thinks I've forgotten about what I'd asked her to do (the virginity thing, I mean). I suspect she'll try not to mention it, because she's afraid of rejection right now. But I haven't forgotten, and I have no intention of rejecting her.

Rainbow Dash cuddled into my legs, and I woke her with a kiss to her muzzle. She opened her eyes dreamily and stared at my face, then her eyes went wide and she pushed back off of the bedcovers and tumbled out of bed.

"Oh gosh! Are you okay?" I asked, which seems rather dumb in retrospect. But I suppose it wasn't her physical health I was most concerned about.

"N-no, I'm fine. I just, I, um..." she stammered.

"Your wings," I pointed out. I couldn't help but smirk.

Rainbow blushed and frowned, folding her wings downward with obvious effort. "It's not funny," she said. "I can't help how I feel about you."

"What do you mean?" I said. It took her a moment, but I think she could tell from the expression on my face that I wasn't kidding.

Rainbow Dash walked around to the foot of the bed and turned away from me. "You know. I mean, you gotta know by now."

"You mean you're... attracted to me? I guess I believe you, but why would anypony be?" I said, then laughed.

She turned and faced me, a look of utter disbelief plastered across her face. "Are you nuts?" she said.

"I, I..." I said, but I didn't know what else to say, so that was all.

"Twilight, you're perfect! How do you not know this? You're a bucking princess, first of all, but that pales in comparison to how sweet and beautiful and funny you are to be around," she says. "Do you think that we all decided to be your friend right away when we met because we felt bad for you, or something?"

"Well, yeah. That, and maybe the destiny thing," I said, and tried my best to hold back tears. "I've spent my whole life fighting uphill, taking tests and meeting challenges. I was so proud of myself before I met you all. I used to think I deserved all my accolades..."

"Twi, c'mon." Dash's eyes were sad.

"...but I didn't have friends. I didn't realize that friendship was the true measure of how successful you are in life," I continued, and wiped away a small tear. "Even then, my true incompetence didn't hit me until I became a princess. It was so random, so pointless. Most ponies learn about friendship when they're young. Me? I had to study it, I managed to keep everypony I knew at leg's length, and now they call me the 'Princess of Friendship' because I cast a couple of spells. It's all a big joke, Rainbow."

Rainbow shook her head. "Twilight, that's crazy talk. You're the only pony I know who's more awesome than me! Well... maybe Applejack, in her own way, but never tell her I said that," she admitted. "I mean, you're powerful and strong and sexy, and you never give up, not even now when the odds are totally against you. The fact you have to put work into learning how to make friends just shows how important it is to you, when the rest of us usually take it for granted. I've only been your friend for a couple of years, but you're easily one of the closest friends I've ever had, maybe even closer than Fluttershy. You even introduced me to reading, for buck's sake!"

"I don't see it," I said, because I didn't (and still don't, as I write this post-coitus). "I'm still socially inept, and just look at where we are right now. Because of my shortcomings, I've let everypony down again."

"Oh, Twilight. All the bad stuff in the world is not your fault, for crying out loud!"

"No, but it's my responsibility."

"Screw responsibility!" said Dash, flexing her wings. "You face so much pressure, it's incredible you haven't bursted into a million pieces! For buck's sake—er, sorry for the language, but I kinda feel strong about it—you hold yourself to a standard higher than you'd hold anypony else. Even Celestia."

"Princess Celestia holds me to that standard as well," I countered, emphasizing the importance of her title.

"I don't think she does, Twi," replied Dash.

"What? Why?" I said.

"You thought Celestia was going to fail you—and I'm not going to keep calling her 'Princess Celestia' every time I talk about her, any more than you'd want me to call you 'Princess Twilight Sparkle'—that, um... shit. Sorry. I, um, I forget the point I was trying to make."

I nodded and frowned, but waited patiently.

"Okay, um... oh, right. You thought Celestia was gonna fail you because you didn't personally grab the Crystal Heart when we saved the Empire," she pointed out. "That's literally insane. Thank the Stars you weren't selfish enough to demand to do it by yourself, or we'd all be imprisoned in the crystal mines right now."

"I just want to be a good—I mean, do a good job," I said, softly. I seated myself on the foot of the bed.

Dash walked up to me where I sat and put her wing around me. "Look, sweetie. Everypony makes mistakes. AJ and I were talking about this a while back, because she has the same problem with pressure. And hay, I can identify too, because when I train all I can think about is being a Wonderbolt, and if I don't train harder and harder I'll never make the cut. I'm..." she said, then swallowed hard, "I'm scared to death of failing. Er, don't ever tell AJ that either."

I nodded. "You know, there's a syndrome in higher education and business called the 'impostor syndrome', I think. Many of the best and brightest unicorns—undoubtedly other sapient races, too—constantly feel like they've only succeeded by tricking everypony into thinking they're doing a good job. It's like, one day they might slip up, and then everypony would see the 'real them'. And then they'd lose their friends, and be banished from their peers..."

"I wonder if Celestia feels that way?" Rainbow Dash asked, and laughed in an odd way that sounded almost like a cough.

I furrowed my brow. "I... I don't know. I never think of her as feeling anything, really. Disappointment, sometimes."

"Wow. I think I want to punch her in the face," she said, fortunately not backed by the anger her statement suggested.

"Hay, don't say that! It's my problem, anyway. She never needed to do this to me. It's something I've done to myself from the time my schooling began."

"Ugh. Well, I guess maybe it's part of who you are in a way. Maybe I can use an, um, anylog?"

"Analogy."

"...analogy, thanks, with training. Physically speaking, there are flaws that are a part of who you are: wings too short, barrel too broad to be aerodynamic, etc. Everypony has them. New trainees try to work around their limitations, but it's totally the wrong approach. You gotta accept your limitations as a part of who you are, and learn to use them as adv—" she said, then suddenly froze and recoiled backwards several steps.

"Rainbow Dash? What's wrong?" I asked. Needless to say, the Twilight-Sparkle-social-anxiometer (pronounced angz-ee-AH-met-urr, of course) was already at peak level from dealing with the current awkward situation while embedded in our much larger, more horrifying predicament.

"I, I don't know. Something's wrong with my body!" she said, and her neck appeared to lock up rigidly. Then her head began bobbing up and down.

I wanted to intervene, but I was stunned. "Can... can you describe it?" I asked. "I can't fix it if I don't know what it is! Is your nightwing nature coming out?"

"No, I'm holding that back pretty well," she said. "It's... ohmygosh." Rainbow Dash pulled her wings away from her body while keeping the wing closed, and tilted them down at a deep angle. Then she started pronking in place in tiny steps to the left, then back to the right. Her gaze remained fixated upon my face.

"What?!" I gasped. "Tell me!"

"No, that's impossible..." she said, flapping her wings once before returning them to the previous position. Then she started shimmying her rump and tail. If I hadn't been horrified, I'm pretty sure I would have doubled over laughing.

"Is... that some kind of dance?" I whispered.

She blushed deeply. "There are stories of pegasi doing mating dances, but they're bunk! It's just bullcrap that stallions tell mares in order to woo them," she said, the shimmy motion travelling up to her barrel and then to her shoulders. "And it's only males. There's no such thing as a mare doing a mating dance!"

I couldn't help myself, and burst out laughing.

The regret was almost immediate, as Dash seemed hurt. "I can't control it, okay?" she said.

"I'm sorry!" I said. "I just... this is the most adorable thing I've ever seen!" I said, smiling.

"Oh no, that's terrible!" she said, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't being sarcastic. "Twilight make it stop!"

"I don't know a spell that would work! And I'm not kidding, it is kind of sweet," I explained. "Is it dangerous?"

Secretly, I did know of at least one spell that might counteract it, but I didn't want to risk it. Something about the dance was more than just cute. It was... dorky to the point of being erotic. Is that a thing? Maybe just for me, because I'm a dork (or so Rainbow tells me frequently).

"No, j-just embarrassing," she said, blushing deeply before letting out a loud braying sound (good thing for the magic bubble) followed by a squawk. I giggled and smiled. I think somehow she could tell now that I wasn't laughing at her. I was starting to realize how close the two of us were as friends.

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and took tiny steps angling back and forth, toward the bed. "Oh shit. I, Twi, I think you're supposed to, like, bend over the bed?" she said. "No, wait! You don't have to..."

I quickly clambered off of the bed and turned my rump to face her. "Like this?" I asked, lifting my tail and leaning forward against the bed with my forelegs on the top of it and my rear legs pressed right against the frame. They were spread slightly, and I started breathing heavily as a deep warmth tickled my nether regions.

"Y-yeah," she gasped, placing her forehooves on my withers. "Ohmygosh I don't know what I'm doing."

"Please, don't stop," I said, biting at my lower lip as my rump tilted upward slightly. I felt myself... ew, but somehow it doesn't feel disgusting as I write this... I'm pretty sure my vulva and clitoris 'winked' at her, flashing her a bit of pink like a sexual signal of some sort. I felt myself forced down against the bed as she lay atop me and began thrusting her hips upward, which tilted my rump up even further.

I could see out of the corner of my eye that her neck was still bobbing, then it relaxed and rested next to my face as her hips began grinding against me. She started flapping her wings backwards, increasing her thrusts downward and forwards. My wings were stretched out firmly, but unflapping, and I felt the tips of her wings tickle mine over and over again. I could feel her hot breath in my right ear, and hear her panting... and then something soft (her mons, I assume, but perhaps teats) pushed up gently against my clit and I spasmed slightly.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, spasmed a lot. Her body drew up rigidly and she pushed her forelegs tightly underneath me, between my barrel and the bed, as she quivered and whined nasally in a high-pitched squeak. I heard a sound like somepony pressing the tip of a slightly clogged-up aerosol can, then she yelped and rested her body on mine, shivering.

"I... Twi I'm so sorry," she gasped.

"What?! That was wonderful!" I said. "Don't be sorry."

"Okay," she whispered, and we lay there for about a minute until she'd gathered her senses.

"Are... you okay?" I asked her.

"Y-yeah. Way better than okay," she said, rolling off of me and standing up next to the bed. I returned myself to a seated position on the edge of the bed. (I was starting to drool from my vagina out onto Princess Celestia's bedsheets, and I honestly didn't care.)

"I'm so happy I could share that with you," I said, reaching out a hoof to touch her face.

"I don't even know what that was," she said. "But whoa, I just... I just squirted like a firehose! I probably got my scent all over Celestia's dresser—Twi, we are going to burn this room before she gets back, right?"

I was uncertain whether or not she was serious.

"I might have to masturbate after that," I said, blushing. "It's okay, though. AJ and Pinkie taught me how to."

"You're horny? After that?" she asked.

I nodded. "Wouldn't you be, in my horseshoes?"

"I dunno," she said, walking up to sit next to me on the bed. "I figured you must be all disgusted and stuff." She turned her head away from me.

"Rainbow, I said I wanted you to be the one to, you know," I repeated, blushing. "I meant it. But I guess it can wait until later."

Rainbow Dash turned back to face me. "Wait? Why?" she asked.

"Well, you had an orgasm, so you're not horny anymore. That's how it works, right?" I asked.

Dash chuckled. "Eh, sorta. Actually, I'm a little horny again already, maybe the vampony stuff, but probably just 'cause you're a totally hot babe," she said. (Admittedly, I was momentarily offended. Then I realized that it was silly to feel that way—she meant it as a compliment, even if it's a polite fiction. Still, I'm sure I blushed.) "But even if I weren't horny, I'd still want to do it with you," she added.

"That doesn't make sense. What would you get out of it?" I asked.

She looked confused. "Twilight, look... I know I haven't trained much at the sex thing either, but I'm pretty sure it's not an, 'I scratch your withers if you scratch mine' kinda thing. Having sex is a lot like friendship. Don't you enjoy doing stuff with your friends—I mean stuff that they like to do more than you do—just to participate and be with them as they enjoy themselves?"

"Oh. I guess that does make sense," I said. "I guess I have a hard time seeing from that point of view because sex seems more like... well, like a punishment, or a chore, or maybe a weird form of torture. If you're both relieving the burden at the same time, it seems a better idea than trying to do it separately."

Then she looked at me and sighed plaintively. "When I was younger, I used to feel like we'd be better off without sex at all. But I learned how important it is, I mean beyond making babies. Being with somepony can bring you closer to them, and with AJ... I've never told anypony this, but just lying in bed next to her, holding her... it just feels so peaceful. It's like, all the mistakes I make are okay, because somepony loves me even though they know me well enough to know all the dumb things I do."

"I think I've felt that too," I said. "I mean, even with Applejack specifically. I hope you don't feel jealous."

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "At one time I would have, but not anymore. I know AJ's always there for me, and whatever you do with her doesn't change that. I just don't want to think that... that being close to me has been some k-kind of, of torture for you..." Her voice trailed off and she turned her face away from mine.

I took her chin in my hoof and turned her muzzle back in my direction. Her eyes were moist. "Rainbow Dash, it wasn't torture. I loved it, I truly did. Even though it was weird, and I didn't know what was happening, and everything was chaos—it was still wonderful to share it with you," I said. "Honestly, it would have been amazing even if I didn't get any endocrine stimulation out of it at all! There's something psychologically reassuring about being this close to you."

"But it felt nice, too?"

I nodded. "Yes, it did, even if I didn't reach a climax. I think this might be one of the things Pinkie was trying to teach us. Being mounted by you was... 'hot'? Is that the right word?"

Dash chuckled and smiled. "Yeah, egghead. That's the right one." She bumped her muzzle to mine, and I shared the mint-and-Dash-scented breath coming from her nostrils as our inhaling and exhaling intermingled.

I'm not sure which of us started it, but moments later my pegasus friend and I were kissing again.

This has been a long entry, so I'll break it in two parts to make it easier to locate in the journal; no extra space will be left after this one. After finishing the second part, I have another entry ready to go, too. Last night's dreams were very revealing.