Trixie stirred, as she slowly opened her eyes, still half-asleep. The world seemed oddly purple for a few seconds, but then she realised it was just Twilight’s face. The unicorn in question started to open her eyes as well, and soon the two of them were smiling at each other sleepily.

“Mmmm... Good morning,” Twilight said, as she stifled a yawn.

Trixie snuggled up against her. “Good morning!”

Their smiles suddenly froze, and they looked at each other with big eyes. It took them a few more moments, but they finally realised they were lying in the same bed, and not only that, they had their legs around each other as well.

They screamed as they moved away from each other as fast as they could, falling out of bed on opposite sides, quickly scrambling to their hooves.

“I’m so sorry!” Twilight quickly blurted out as her cheeks flushed an even deeper purple than usual.

Trixie scratched a forehoof against the floor in embarrassment. “No, Trixie is sorry,” she said softly, “we were in your bed so Trixie must have...”

“D-don’t worry about it,” Twilight said as she put on a shaky smile. “I had my legs around you as well... I’m sure you just had a weird dream, and... and I don’t mind. Don’t worry.”

Trixie smiled at her gratefully, and at that moment Spike came dashing up the stairs.

“Twilight, what’s wrong? I heard screams, did Trixie... ?”

The two unicorns threw him a look, then glanced over to each other, before blushing and averting their eyes.

“Uh, it’s nothing, Spike... Nothing at all,” Twilight finally managed.

The baby dragon raised an eyebrow. “But-”

“Twilight said it was nothing,” Trixie half-shouted as she lobbed a pillow in the dragon’s direction. He got hit squarely in the chest and staggered back a few steps, before grabbing hold of the pillow and returning fire. He missed Trixie completely, and she raised an eyebrow mockingly. Spike threw her a few angry looks, and disappeared back down the stairs.

“Oh dear,” Twilight said, “he didn’t look too happy.”

Trixie picked up a brush from a nearby table, and she started to comb her hair in front of the only mirror in the room. “It is not Trixie’s fault that he doesn’t know how to aim.”

Twilight giggled despite herself. The fact that Spike was upset again wasn’t good, of course, but that he’d get so wound up over a pillow... it was a little funny, at least. She headed for the stairs, but turned around before going down them. “Come downstairs when you’re done, we’ll have breakfast, and then I’ll show you around Ponyville.”

Trixie stopped brushing her hair for a second, and threw Twilight a concerned look. “Are you... are you sure that’s wise? Lots of ponies here probably do not like Trixie...”

Twilight shrugged. “I don’t see why not. You’re going to have to go outside eventually, after all.”

Trixie sighed, and reluctantly agreed.

By the time Twilight arrived downstairs, Spike was nowhere to be found. She wondered where he had gone off to, but she didn’t worry too much. Ponyville was safe as could be, so he wouldn’t get into trouble. He was probably just visiting some other friends in order to avoid Trixie, and as far as Twilight was concerned, that was fine; Trixie and Spike would get along a lot better if they first got some time to cool down.

She quickly prepared a rudimentary breakfast, and Trixie finally arrived downstairs. It had taken her longer to pretty up than Twilight had expected, but she supposed the showmare was making up for lost time. Trixie seemed very happy with the meal she was given, but Twilight felt a little bit embarrassed: her cooking skills paled compared to the other mare’s, especially when it was a meal so hastily prepared. Trixie praised her several times nonetheless, and for some reason this made her disproportionately happy. Spike complimented her frequently, and while that did make her happy it never felt so... overwhelming.

It was a beautiful day outside, and Twilight started to show Trixie around town. They weren’t in a hurry so they took their time, casually walking and talking as Twilight pointed out all the places of interest they passed by. Trixie had been in town before, of course, but she had never really gotten a chance to look around, so for her the tour was pretty interesting. And, on top of that, the two unicorns quickly found that they actually had a lot in common, so they had an almost endless number of topics to talk about.

Sadly, the interaction with the rest of the town went exactly as Twilight had expected. Nopony approached them to strike up a conversation, but Twilight and Trixie could feel their eyes upon them, and whispers followed wherever they went. Twilight knew the hostility wasn’t really aimed at her, so she didn’t suffer under it, but she could tell that it bothered Trixie. The showmare returned every glance with a haughty smile or a cocky grin of her own (much to Twilight’s chagrin), but Twilight began to notice subtle signs of loneliness as well: a faint sparkling in the corner of Trixie’s eyes, a certain feel of artificiality in her grins and smiles... It strengthened her in the belief that behind the showmare’s mask there was a kind and gentle unicorn wanting to come out, but afraid to do so. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fix that in just one day, but she was determined to think of something that could help.

At noon, they bought sandwiches at the local restaurant, but the way in which the waiter kept staring at Trixie made it clear that she was only being served because Twilight was also there. That infuriated Twilight, but she kept her mouth shut. The ponies of Ponyville had their reasons to distrust Trixie, and their opinion wouldn’t be changed with words, but with time.

They spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the Whitetail Woods, where Ponyville held its annual running of the leaves. Seeing as it was still mid-summer, that wouldn’t be needed for a while yet, so the two unicorns simply enjoyed the idyllic scenery.

It was already evening by the time they got back to the library, but Spike still hadn’t returned. Twilight sighed; he was being even more stubborn than usual. The two unicorns took turns bathing, and Trixie prepared them a marvelous dinner once again. The evening was still young, so Twilight decided to test out her new magical ingredients, as Trixie pulled up a book.

In essence, Twilight’s experiment sounded simple: to magically accelerate a plant’s growth. But she had quickly found it wasn’t easy at all, far from it. Unicorns had been able to create flowers and the like out of thin air for centuries, but these were crude imitations of the original: they looked good, but they faded away within mere minutes, and anypony who’d ever tried eating them had quickly been rushed to the closest hospital. She sought to recreate the passive aura of beneficial magic the earth ponies seemed to carry with them, in order to harness it into a single burst of energy. But so far, all her attempts had gone very, very wrong.

She placed a clay pot--containing dirt and a single seed--upon the table in front of her, and put the dryad bark she had purchased right next to it. The bark was known for the positive effects it had upon plant growth, and so Twilight sought to harness its powers for her spell. The main problem was that she couldn’t shape the spell and control its growth inside of the plant at the same time, so she hoped the bark would take one of those functions upon itself. She started to concentrate, and Trixie watched her with some interest from her spot on the sofa, her legs folded beneath her.

Twilight’s horn lit up with magical energy, which she skillfully channeled through the bark and into the pot. A flower started to grow, pushing the earth aside as it made its way up, its petals opening to greet the world. Twilight finally stopped feeding energy into it as the flower attained its maximum height, but, to her frustration, it instantly exploded in a cloud of dust, as if it had aged several years in the blink of an eye.

She sighed as she walked into the kitchen, frustrated by yet another complete failure. “I need a drink...”

“Hmmm...” Trixie said ponderously. “You know, the bark isn’t a bad idea, but Trixie doesn’t think it’ll ever work.”

“Why not?” Twilight asked as she returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “You want some?”

Trixie nodded. “Because, from what Trixie can tell, the spell you’re trying to perform needs to be very precise, and a natural ingredient, no matter how well prepared, will always have imperfections.”

Twilight poured two glasses of wine, levitating one over to Trixie, as she started sipping from her own. She went to lie down on the sofa as well, facing Trixie.

“But then what? I can’t control both elements of the process myself...” she said defensively.

Trixie shook her head. “No... but we could each control half of the spell.”

Twilight’s eyes grew wide. A cooperative spell... She’d never thought of that, mainly because there hadn’t been a magical talent worth speaking of in Ponyville, aside from herself. But now that Trixie suggested it, the idea did make sense... although it did cause entirely new complications of its own.

“Well, yes, but the flux vibrations would be completely off, which would in turn mess up the casting sequence.”

“Not if we first run both streams through a sync bypass.”

“Oh, that could work! But then what do you do with...”

They continued to debate and argue for the better part of an hour, pointing out mistakes in each other’s reasoning, and coming up with solutions to problems as they popped up. Twilight continued to keep their glasses well-filled, and it wasn’t long at all before she had to go get a second bottle of wine. The two of them became increasingly tipsy, but that didn’t seem to hamper their thought process at all. If anything, it made them more daring and unorthodox, as they came up with ideas they’d normally never even consider.

“We need to try thish... right now,” Trixie said with a hiccup, when they finally ironed out every problem they could find.

“R-right now?” Twilight asked as she got up from the couch, her legs feeling slightly wobbly. “Alright, let me jussht...”

She went to fetch another pot of earth to experiment on (she had prepared quite a lot of them, just in case), and placed it in the middle of the table again, pushing the other one aside. Trixie got up from the sofa as well, and came to stand beside the other unicorn.

“Ready?” she asked as she steadied herself against the table.

“Ready!” Twilight replied, suppressing a giggle.

They both started concentrating at the same time, and their horns flared up with power. They focused their magic upon the same point, and a combination of Twilight’s raspberry-coloured aura and Trixie’s lighter magenta flared up around the pot. Twilight closed her eyes as she fed more energy into the spell. As expected, the casting was a lot slower than with the spell she had tried before, as a lot of energy was lost during the synchronisation process. Even so, a flower started to grow slowly but surely, until eventually it was just as big as the previous one.

“It’sh done,” Trixie said breathlessly, and Twilight opened her eyes, almost afraid to look.

The flower’s petals were beautifully red, and it didn’t seem like it was about to collapse any time soon. Twilight leaned forward and carefully tore off one petal with her teeth, tasting it on her tongue. It tasted... delicious!

“Yesh, we did it!” she said triumphantly, as she started jumping around the room. “Yesh, yesh, yesh!”

Trixie smiled. “Took sho much e-energy... Trixie doesn’t think it’ll have practical use any time shoon... but ish shtart.”

Twilight stopped in front of the other mare, and pulled her into an embrace, happiness flooding over her. “Thank you, thank you s-sho much... B-Been trying sho long...”

Trixie didn’t know whether it was because of the alcohol or not, but her heart suddenly started pounding inside of her chest. Growing up in an orphanage, she hadn’t known love for a long time, and that had hardly changed even after she’d started taking care of herself. Yet Twilight had shown her an overwhelming amount of kindness, despite having good reasons to dislike Trixie. On top of that, she was amazingly intelligent, and just as interested in magic as Trixie was. Despite the angry looks of the other Ponyvillians, today had been one of her happiest days in years... all because of Twilight. Not to mention that she was more than pleasant to look at, and she smelled so good...

Trixie couldn’t control herself any longer, and gave Twilight a light lick across her cheek. She immediately regretted it as the other mare recoiled slightly, looking at her in surprise.

“W-why d-did you... ?” Twilight stammered, as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Fear grasped Trixie’s heart in a vice, and she instantly felt sobered up. “T-Trixie’s sorry... I... I just couldn’t control myself... You’re so smart, and nice... and... kinda sexy... and...” The showmare hung her head. “I-if Trixie is making you uncomfortable, s... she can l-leave...” she said with a little voice.

Twilight gently pushed up Trixie’s chin with a hoof, until the showmare was looking at her again. To Trixie’s great surprise, the smile around Twilight’s lips could only described as lascivious. “Mmmm, no... I don’t want you to leave...” she said as she leaned in, whispering into the other mare’s ear. “I just wish you told me shooner... I wouldn’t have had to lie about how you ended up in my bed thish morning.” She nibbled softly on Trixie’s ear.

Trixie squirmed as shivers ran down her spine. She felt her knees go weak, and clung onto Twilight for support. “Y-You mean you... ?”

Twilight grinned as she pressed her forehead up against Trixie’s, her eyes locked to the other mare’s. She shivered as she saw her own emotions reflected in them: passion, longing and a sizeable build-up of lust. “I thought it had jusht been a dream... I was a bit sh-shtartled to find I really did it...”

Trixie suddenly locked her lips to Twilight’s as she pushed her backwards, until the purple unicorn fell down upon the sofa behind her. Trixie climbed on top of her immediately, her legs astride Twilight’s body as she leaned in to continue the kiss. Twilight hooked her forelegs around Trixie’s neck and the back of her head, trying to pull her closer, panting as she felt her body burn up with anticipation and desire.

“Twilight, I’m ba-” Spike’s voice rang out throughout the library, as he stepped into the room. He immediately froze as he spotted the two unicorns intertwined upon the sofa, and his mouth fell open.

“It’sh... mmm... n-not... what it looksh l-like...” Twilight panted, as Trixie teasingly kissed her neck, smiling mockingly at the dragon.

“It’s NOT?” Spike yelled. “Then what is it?”

Twilight searched her mind for a proper answer, but between the alcohol and Trixie’s intoxicating presence, she couldn’t formulate a coherent thought. “W-wait... what does this l-look like?”

“Like we’re making out,” Trixie breathed into her ear hotly.

“Oh,” the purple unicorn said, “then I guessh it ish what it looks like.” She frowned.

“That’s it,” Spike said decidedly as he balled his fists, “I’m not staying here a second longer. I’m sure Fluttershy still has room for one more.”

He immediately turned tail and stomped out of the room, and Twilight extended a hoof in his direction. “Shpike! W-wait...”

“He’ll be back,” Trixie said as she pressed her body into Twilight’s, “for now, just let him blow off some steam...”

Note: Continued in the next two chapters. For the clop version, read the next chapter. For the non-clop version, skip the next chapter and move to the one after that.