If there was one true constant in Twilight Sparkle's life it was being perpetually poised on the precipice of invariable, borderline incipient, panic. She'd actually lived with that for such a long time she'd somehow managed to conceal that from everypony. In fact, she concealed it so well virtually nopony was aware of that low-grade, nonstop jangling along her nerves, and she'd lived that way for so long even she wasn't truly aware of it.

But it was, nevertheless, there; always omnipresent.

For the vast majority of her life that anxiety had been focused on —what else?— her studies, tests, and, most importantly, her test results. She simply couldn't accept an A, not when she knew an A-plus had been possible. Which meant that if an A-plus was possible, well . . . she needed to achieve that, and actually aim for an A-plus-plus.

The fact that her social and interponyal skills were virtually nonexistent had never cropped up because, to be blunt, Twilight hadn't had any social interactions. Her teacher and mentor, Princess Celestia, had been aware of that lack, of course, and she'd finally taken steps to help break down that barrier of her student's.

She should have done so much earlier, and she knew it. But she was still stunned and sorrowed over what had happened with her prior personal student, Sunset Shimmer. No matter how Celestia had tried to get her to become more socially aware and interactive —no matter how subtle, or blunt, she'd been with Sunset Shimmer regarding friends, friendship and the need for socialization— nothing had changed. And, in fact, it had often seemed to have had the exact opposite effect.

And the end result had been tragic; Sunset Shimmer's self-imposed exile had wounded Princess Celestia very deeply.

So she'd possibly been a bit more cautious and reticent regarding her most faithful student than perhaps she should have been. Still, in the end everything had turned out for the best.

Or appeared that way, away.

Anypony close to Twilight understood her often —well, constant— manic need to be perfect in anything academic in nature. What few of them understood was that that need extended to every aspect of her life. Twilight simply couldn't leave anything to chance. Everything had to be analyzed; scrutinized; studied; outlined; flow-charted; hypothesized . . . you name it, she did it.

Honestly, if she hadn't ages ago unconsciously surrendered certain aspects of her life to Spike, she probably would have long ago starved to death while plotting out —in exquisite detail, accounting for every essential vitamin and mineral— every meal for the month (snacks included). . . if not for the entire year.

All her close friends often twitted Twilight about her (almost) pathological need for lists, and Twilight —thank Celestia!— took them for the gentle teasing friends did with each other. Spike certainly thanked Celestia for that, because he knew the truth: it wasn't almost a pathological need . . . it was one.

He could wallpaper the entire Royal Throne Room with the parchment Twilight went through for something as simple as selecting a birthday gift. The amount of chamomile tea she consumed during bouts like those were enough to float something the Cutie Mark Crusaders might have built in an attempt to earn cutie marks in galleon construction. The fact that Twilight normally despised chamomile tea but mindlessly drank it because Spike just slipped cup after cup in front of her spoke a great deal about her state of mind during those episodes.

All her friends simply passed all that off as just a simple foible. After all, which one of them didn't have a particular quirk of their own? But Spike knew it went much deeper than that.

And he was the only one to truly see how much worse it got when an event dealt with a social situation, or, worse, dealing with anypony else's feelings.

You simply couldn't flowchart out an interaction between “Pony A” and “Pony B”. Luna only knew Twilight had certainly tried doing just that! But there were so many variables, so much randomization, that within no more than two, or possibly three, “interaction-iterations”, the potential outcomes headed off into infinity.

Dealing with the unknown was not Twilight's forte; being unprepared was her vulnerability.

Being unprepared and facing a critical interponyal interaction of crucial importance, with absolutely no prior planning or rehearsal . . .

Several times during the night Trixie had stirred, shifting a bit and restlessly fidgeting. Each time Twilight had simply softly shushed, had very gently brushed a hoof down her mane.

And each time, after a slight little pause followed by a sleepy soft grunt of drowsy awareness of the situation, Trixie simply wriggled a bit, gotten more comfortable . . .

And drifted right back into sleep.

Twilight had no idea how late at night —well, frankly, all things considering, how early in the morning was likely more accurate— it actually was. What she was aware of —quite painfully, one could say, and with utter and complete accuracy, too— was the edge of the chair digging into her back. It was hurting bad enough to have brought tears to her eyes, but each time she'd shifted, seeking a bit of relief, Trixie had stirred. Her rump, on the other hoof . . .

While she wished she couldn't feel the agony of fire across her back, the suffering alicorn was somewhat desirous of feeling her bottom, as that seemed to have gone numb and fallen off hours ago, the hard wood floor of the wagon not being at all conducive to comfortable sitting.

One of the things any truly accomplished mage learned to do was how to concentrate and ignore physical discomforts. And Twilight most certainly was a truly consummate and experienced mage. So while she was certainly aware of those aches, pains and distress, she chose to ignore them for now, pushing them from acute to peripheral.

That was much easier to do since she had a lot to concentrate and think upon.

And to look down with awe and wonderment upon . . . listen to . . . gently touch and mane-stroke.

None of her plans, procedures or strategies had theoretically culminated in the actual outcome that had resulted tonight. And while Trixie's emotional back-and-forths might have been the more visible, Twilight's internalized ones had been every bit as intense.

And, unlike Trixie's, they hadn't stopped because of drifting off to sleep.

She wished she had parchment and quills; she was never going to remember all of this, and she needed to itemize everything so she could sort, organize and assimilate everything she'd felt —was still feeling, for that matter. Already, though, the extremely physically-uncomfortable alicorn realized one variable she'd left out on all of her previous planning: emotions.

She'd played out an unending series of scenarios about this evening; morning? None of them, of course, had resulted in a Trixie Lulamoon screaming her hatred of Twilight. Then again . . .

She softly smiled down at the recumbent, deeply asleep, unicorn between her hind legs, head pillowed on Twilight's lap.

Then again, none of those selfsame unending series of scenarios had ended this way, either.

There had been two reasons Twilight had finally chosen the approach that she had, the first being that success would result in a quite-literal captive audience. No matter what would happen (and she'd planned for every eventually . . . or had thought she had, anyway) she'd be guaranteed time to explain. Trixie wouldn't, for whatever reason, be able to simply turn away and shut Twilight down.

That was truly the reaction she expected would have happened if Trixie had been given the opportunity, mostly because when she played out the situations with the roles reversed, she would have done whatever was necessary to disengage and, well, hide.

*knock*knock*

Oh, hello Twilight. Ummm . . . I've figured out that you like tying yourself up. I'd love to—

*slam*

Ummm . . . hello?

Yeah . . . none of those imaginary scenes had played out well at all, and Twilight honestly hadn't been able to come up with any scenario that hadn't resulted in Trixie bolting in sheer, unadulterated embarrassment.

So . . . obviously it became necessary to prevent bolting; at least long enough for Twilight to get her explanations out.

She'd actually entertained notions of going to Princess Luna for help, asking her to bring a dreaming Twilight into a dream of Trixie's, or vice versa. However, doing so would not only require explaining to Luna why she wanted to do that, but by necessity would result in Luna being there with the both of them. That, in turn, would “out” Trixie to the Princess of The Night, and there was no way Twilight would do that to her.

The thought of, what was, for all practical purposes, ambushing and foalnapping Trixie, came to Twilight in a rather unusual direction for her. She'd skipped ahead past the “How Do I Do This?” to the “What Will I Do Once There?” and had, as one of the mental images of that situation, pictured them performing a sort of “Show-and-Tell” as they demonstrated to each other how they restrained themselves.

It went without saying that Twilight had included as part of that scenario that Trixie had been both receptive to the idea and comfortable with sharing such secrets with another pony.

No sooner had she scripted that particular scene than she realized it was actually pretty exciting imagining that. It would be a bit like one of Rarity's slumber parties, except instead of helping everypony with makeovers the two of them would be tying themselves up!

Which lead into the second reason she'd chosen this approach, although that rationalization was a bit like circular logic. If she was going to “introduce” herself to Trixie by ambuscade, then she wanted to make it an extremely exciting, extraordinarily memorable, one for her.

She hadn't been making anything up when she'd told Trixie that she knew exactly what it felt like to be found and caught, then be-ringed and rendered absolutely helpless. Even now that memory could send odd, shivery sensations rippling through her. But once she'd gotten over the acute embarrassment of being discovered, and had felt the reassurance of being safe and watched over, well . . .

Twilight brought a hoof up to her chest as she closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath she swept her hoof outwards to the side as she exhaled.

Then did it again.

Then a third time.

Twilight had been tying herself up for a long time now, a very long time indeed. And, which should come as no surprise to anypony, once she'd discovered —by sheerest accident, as it had turned out— that her desires weren't at all freakish, or unique to her, she'd bent her formidable will to learning all about that as she could.

Which is why she knew that the proper nomenclature for her play was “self-bondage”.

And was also why she understood that such play could vary from simple relaxation, to sensual enjoyment, to erotic stimulation, and all the way to sexual gratification.

In her more honest moments she admitted to herself her play probably crossed over, on infrequent occasions, into the realm of sensualism. But for the most part she simply luxuriated in the sensation that being restrained and helpless brought to her. It was as if once she was in that state she could simply relax in a fashion she could never achieve by any other means.

Without actually having spoken with Trixie about her own motivations for things Twilight had no idea which “camp” she belonged to. However, based on the (reasonable) simplicity of her arrangements she assumed that Trixie's interests and focus were similar, if not outright identical, to her own.

Her face grew hot as she recalled the many times she'd spied —she disliked the term, but she was honest enough with herself to accept the accuracy— on Trixie as part of her preparations for tonight's entrapment. She had a feeling that once Trixie learned about everything Twilight had seen —and if trot came to gallop she wouldn't deny a thing— there was likely to be Tartarus to pay.

Shying over that image she continued onward.

Although the slumbering unicorn had quite a few inventive ways of restraining herself, some quite restrictive, there had been nothing to suggest to Twilight that she sought anything more than she, herself, did.

Sucking in her lower lip she gently nibbled it as she returned to musing something that she'd been pondering about on and off all night . . . well, mostly on, to be accurate.

(There was something about herself that Twilight had discovered only after learning about friendship, and that was when it came to deeply investigating academia she was totally dispassionate, but when it came to dealing with somepony else, even in the abstract, she truly couldn't disassociate emotion from rationalization. Try as she might, those pesky feelings kept creeping in!

Tonight was proving no different.)

Although she'd imagined having “the conversation” with her while the unicorn had been tied up, while she'd rehearsed what she'd say once the opportunity was presented, Twilight had done so quite objectively. Actually being right there with her while she was helplessly restrained (well, once the immediate crisis of Trixie's quite understandable anger, fury and humiliated had ended) and later on cuddling her had evoked some very odd and unexpected sensations in Twilight.

Those feelings, however, couldn't hold a candle to the ones that had flared when she'd just continued blindfolding Trixie even when she'd begged not to be, or refused to let her go when she'd pleaded for release.

Nor the feelings that had burgeoned inside when Trixie had, once Twilight had positioned her and tucked her in, simply gave a contented sigh and drifted off to sleep.

She kept replaying those scenes over and over and over again, trying to parse and process just what, how and why they were eliciting the feelings they were evoking (and creating, at the same time, that urgent wish for parchment and quills in order to note everything down).

She was so focused on those curiously odd —yet strangely enticing— sensations that she totally overlooked one extremely important facet of this little escapade:

She'd never once considered, or planned for, how it ended.

It started, as sometimes things of magnitude often do, with a very tiny thing: in this case, a light wriggle and a muffled yawn.

Instantly Twilight was alert. As the hours had rolled by, no matter how active her mind was busy churning —calculating, assaying, formulating— she found herself now and then lightly dozing off. The discomfort of her position was one reason she only managed dozing, but the principle reason is that she refused to fall any deeper asleep because, should she allow herself to do so, she wouldn't be able to keep watch over Trixie.

She'd promised to watch over her, keep her safe and protected, and that particular vow carried more power than any Pinkie Promise in existence.

Gazing down at her Twilight gave a gentle, indulgent smile. She wasn't going to wake her, but, this time, it looked as if she was ready to rouse on her own. There were a few more fidgets, the last few a bit importunate and insistent, then nostrils flared wide as she sharply inhaled, coming fully wide awake.

“Shhhh,” Twilight murmured, once more gently stroking a hoof down her mane. “I'm still here.” Then she softly chuckled. “But it is probably time you woke up, sleepyhead.”

Her stroking hoof stopped in mid-caress as her entire body tensed, as her eyes rounded into saucers. Her heart started pounding, her breath started coming in short, rapid pants as she trembled.

She'd never —not once!— planned, plotted or imagined the conclusion!

What was she supposed to do? Or say?