“Do we actually have a name for our Clocktower, here?” Rarity asked. Sunset looked up from her ever-fascinating currency conversion sheet to see her friend staring down at a card half-filled with elegant calligraphy.

“Uh... you mean like there’s Clocktower Equestria East and West and stuff?”

“Yes, exactly. I must confess I’ve only ever heard you refer to it as ‘our Clocktower’ or similar, and if there’s a name for the place carved into the walls, you’re the only one who can read it, dear.”

“There actually isn’t. I guess either it was never that successful or whatever name they had for it was on a cloth banner or something.”

“I can sort of read it,” Twilight objected.

There was a pause, and Sunset realized Rarity was still looking at her expectantly. “Wait, you want me to-?”

“Who better?”

“It should be in Latin,” Twilight said. “Or Latinate, anyway. All the Equestrian ones are in English, so even if some of the names are the same, they... won’t be the same? You know what I mean.”

“Hmm.” Sunset thought about it. “Nothing says we have to stick with the Equestrian naming conventions, either. Maybe a reference to the fact that we’re new? Well, new-ish.”

“And that it’s the first one that’s not in Equestria.”

“Terra Nova,” Twilight said suddenly. “‘New World.’”

“Clocktower Terra Nova,” Sunset mused. “You know what? I like it.”

For someone who’d learned magic was real less than a week ago, Cadance took to the terminology and basic theory like a natural, and displayed a surprising - or perhaps unsurprising - level of interest in Equestrian society, to the point that even Sunset found herself admitting she didn’t know enough about whatever intricacy Cadance had quizzed her on to answer.

Still, there was a great deal that Sunset covered, mostly to catch Cadance up to all the things her friends had learned over the months from offhand comments, magical adventures, and everything in between. She was just wrapping up her explanation of how the three pony races channeled magic when Cadance raised a hand to cut her off.

“You’re stalling,” the older woman pointed out.

“No, I’m not,” said Sunset, who had, in fact, previously thought she was doing a pretty good job of stalling. Cadance leveled a look at her and Sunset sighed and relented. “Yeah, okay, I’m stalling.”

“What about?”

A quietly petty part of Sunset’s mind was glad she didn’t condescend or attempt to say that she wouldn’t be upset no matter what it was. She sees me as an adult. Immediately after: I am an adult. Luna have mercy.

She took a breath. “About what the Clocktower is... for, and how it works.”

Cadance nodded. “I had guessed as much. You get evasive every time the subject comes up. I think you had better tell me the truth.”

Sunset winced. “Are you sure...?”

“Sunset.” Cadance folded her arms. “I agreed to this on the condition that you would tell me what was going on.”

“I... I know. I just....” Sunset sat down on the low wall surrounding the Fire of Devotion. “There’s a chance you’re going to run screaming, and honestly I don’t really know what I’ll do if you do.”

Cadance sat beside her. “Have a little faith. I do work at a high school.”

“The Fire of Devotion is fueled by the emotions produced by a consensual power imbalance in an intimate setting,” Sunset tried.

Cadance blinked once, twice, and then her face cleared in understanding. “Oh! You know, given all the other weird rules that magic has, I’m not really surprised that this thing runs on BDSM.”

Sunset threw up her hands, exasperated. “Sun and stars, did I just somehow go for years without noticing that everyone around me is a pervert?!”

“Yep!” Pinkie shouted cheerfully from across the room, having walked in wearing nothing but half of Rarity’s... whatever it was.

“Ugh,” Sunset said, while Cadance tried to stifle her giggles. Rarity ran into the room after either Pinkie, her runaway work in progress, or both, and started berating her indistinctly through the pins in her mouth - none of which helped anybody in the slightest.

Once Pinkie had been wrangled, Sunset scrubbed a hand through her hair. “So, yeah, that’s what I’ve been avoiding. It’s powered by kinky sex. Mostly. Probably. All the information we have is... poetic at best, except that consent is law. That one’s pretty clear. It’s on everything.”

“Better than the other way around,” Cadance observed.

“Yeah, no kidding. Bet my hind hooves I’d have more luck herding actual cats. At least now you know, so you’ll know why I want you to buy out a condom company for us.”

Cadance laughed again, eyes sparkling. “How in the world were you planning on spinning that one if you hadn’t told me?”

“I don’t even know. Like a good two-thirds of this is me pretending I have any idea what the hell I’m doing and nobody calling my bluff.”

“And you think the rest of us don’t do that?”

“Ha. Point.”

“Hey, Sunset?”

“Hmm?” She looked up from their working map of Clocktower Terra Nova. “Hey, Twilight. What’s up?”

Twilight fidgeted instead of answering, prompting Sunset to set her pencil down and straighten up. “Is something wrong?”

“No! Yes. No? I don’t know.”

“So, yes,” Sunset said dryly.

Twilight gave her a sheepish grin, though it came across more like a grimace. “Um... yeah.” She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. “I... look, just preemptively, I know how dumb this sounds, and it’s my problem, it really is, but Rainbow told me if I chickened out she’d make me run a mile with her-”

“Two!” came Rainbow’s voice, faintly.

“Can we get some privacy?” Sunset asked, pitching her voice to be heard from down the hall.

A pause, then, “Yep!” from five people who sounded an awful lot like their entire friend group. “We’ll be in the main hall,” Rarity added.

Twilight winced. Sunset ignored it, knowing that getting sidetracked wouldn’t help either of them. “What’s going on, Twi?”

Twilight fidgeted some more. Twice, she started to say something, then cut herself off. “I’m scared,” she admitted. “I know it doesn’t make any sense and there’s no reason to be nervous, but....”

Sunset considered. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” Twilight said, without any hesitation. Some of the tension in her shoulders vanished. Sunset smiled.

“Do you want me to talk you through it?”

Twilight nodded shyly.

“Okay.” Sunset looked around the room, privately wondering what in the hell she was doing. “I want you to grab one of those pillows, kneel or sit on it, whatever’s comfortable, close your eyes and count backwards in sevens from a thousand. I might interrupt you before you’re done, so it’s okay if you lose track.”

Once she saw Twilight’s eyes shut, Sunset indulged in a brief but expressive series of gestures and faces aimed at no one in particular. It did help her feel better, though. She fished around in a couple different drawers before coming up with a blindfold and then, after a moment’s thought, leather cuffs and a few lengths of rope. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure where this was going, but better to have it on hand than have to pause awkwardly.

When she was ready, she walked around behind Twilight, who jumped slightly at the noise. Sunset settled a hand on her shoulder. “Shh, it’s just me.” She undid Twilight’s hair bun, letting her hair loose, and tugged the blindfold on, going slow to give Twilight time to realize what was happening. “What will you say if you need me to stop?”

“Clockface,” Twilight whispered.

“Good.” She didn’t do anything immediately, just brushed Twilight’s hair back over her shoulders, running her fingers through it over and over to smooth it out. Twilight made a quietly appreciative noise, a faint little, “Mm,” that Sunset wasn’t sure she’d actually meant to voice.

After a few minutes of this, Sunset leaned forward. “What are you afraid of?” she asked quietly.

Twilight jerked, but Sunset made a vise of her hands in Twilight’s hair, and she settled against the pressure. Sunset finger-combed out the snarl she’d made, then took hold of Twilight’s hair more purposefully, taut enough to tug but not tear. She kissed the top of Twilight’s head as she thought.

“You’re afraid of me finding something out,” she guessed, watching Twilight’s body shift in response. “Of - not of something you did wrong, with what you said before, and you’re smart. You’re still worried about my reaction.”

“I - yes,” Twilight admitted. “And it’s stupid-”

Sunset covered her mouth gently. “It’s not.” She let go. “Unless you’re about to tell me what I should and shouldn’t be paying attention to?”

“Um! No.”

“Good,” Sunset praised. “Hmm.” An idea struck her. Might work, or not, but worth trying. “Twilight, what’s the first rule of bondage?”

“Never leave a bound person alone,” Twilight recited.

“Do you think I’d ever break that rule?”

“No?” She seemed legitimately confused, which was rather sweet of her.

“That’s right. I’m going to cuff your wrists together, and then you’re going to tell me what you need me to know.” She didn’t fill in the obvious conclusion, knowing that Twilight would catch the implication.

Twilight took a deep breath. “Okay.” She stayed silent, obviously thinking, as Sunset brought her hands together in front of her, clipped the two cuffs together, and tied one of the shorter ropes around the whole thing. There wasn’t anywhere to tie it off, so Sunset just stood on the end of the rope, pulling it forward enough that Twilight was obliged to stretch a little.

“I’m scared I’m going to do it wrong,” Twilight said into the silence. Sunset sat, keeping her weight on the rope, and pressed a calm hand to Twilight’s cheek, which the other girl took as a cue to continue. “That I’m going to want the wrong things, or want them the wrong way, or I’m not going to want all the things you want, and I won’t - it’ll just be the sunk cost fallacy in action, and I won’t be good enough and I don’t want to be selfish like that.”

Sunset’s heart broke a little. “Oh, Twilight,” she murmured. Shit. Where the hell was she even supposed to start with that.

Twilight tried to sit up and got stopped short by the rope. “But I know that doesn’t make any sense! I know there isn’t a, a wrong way and intellectually I know there are things I want that you don’t and vice versa, there have to be, statistically-” She quieted. “But I’m still scared.”

Sunset scooted closer and ran a hand over the back of Twilight’s head and neck. “Okay, I want to make one thing clear right now,” she said, voice firm. “You don’t get to decide what I do with my time and attention. Ever. That’s not something you do. You get the same amount of say whether I decide to spend it on you or on trig homework or on whatever else the fuck I want. Got that?”

Twilight exhaled so deeply she shuddered with it, and dropped her forehead to the cool stone. “Yes, Sunset.”

Well that was way more of a reaction than Sunset had been expecting. She shifted and coiled the rope around her fist to account for the extra slack. “You can always ask. I’ll never get upset with you for asking. But letting me take care of you isn’t selfish - taking that away from both of us because you presume to know what I want, that is.” She pet Twilight’s hair. Fuck, they probably should have had this conversation way sooner than this.

“Oh,” said Twilight, a little distantly. “Okay.”

“Give me a color?”

“Teal. Or chartreuse. I like the way that one sounds.”

Sunset bowed her head and struggled not to laugh aloud. “Twilight.”

“Oh!” said Twilight, apparently making the connection for the first time. “Green.”

“Thank you,” Sunset teased. “And the rest - Twilight, I like you, not some hypothetical person who shares all my kinks. If there’s something you need that I can’t give you, we’ll work something out. Maybe with Pinkie. That’s not a failing, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”

“What if there is something wrong with me?” Twilight asked in a small voice.

Sunset made an exasperated noise. “Excuse you, I have plenty of things wrong with me and kink isn’t one of them.”

Twilight laughed, startled, but it was genuine and it took the last of the tension out of the line of her back. Sunset smoothed her hand between Twilight’s shoulder blades and laughed a little too, under her breath. “If you think there’s something actually wrong with you, then tell Cadance. If you’re just nervous about it, then I am perfectly happy to tie you up and torture it out of you.”

Twilight giggled. Sunset gave her more slack in the lead line and brought her head up to give her back a break.

“Um, Sunset?”

Sunset waited.

“Could.... Do you think I could stay like this?”

“On the floor, or...?”

“No, um, my knees kind of hurt, actually. I meant with the....” She gestured at her restraints.

“You know I’m going to make you say it.”

“I want to keep the blindfold and cuffs on,” Twilight squeaked out, blushing furiously.

Sunset kissed her. “I would love to see you like that. Do you want to stay here or go out and tell Rainbow she won her bet?”

Twilight’s brow furrowed as she stood. “Don’t you mean she lost? I told you what....”

Sunset shook her head, even though Twilight couldn’t see it, and started leading the way to the door. “Nah, not that bet. She knew you could do it. Applejack, on the other hand.” She paused. “I really do need to get you that bridle.”

Twilight nearly tripped.

Author's Notes:

When Sunset asks Twilight for a color, she's referencing the stoplight system often used in BDSM. Green means "I'm fine," yellow means "slow down," and red means "stop." The Clocktower's three safewords (staircase, clockface, and towertop) roughly correspond to these, though they're only used in the latter two cases.

Also this has nothing to do with the chapter but happy Mother's Day to any applicable parties!