Twilight tossed and turned in her sleep. The young alicorn lay in the midst of her many blankets and cushions which she had arranged like a nest, otherwise, she couldn’t sleep ever since her ascension.

In Rarity’s opinion, it was unbefitting of a princess to house like a bird would, but Twilight couldn’t care less. After facing the problems of sleeping with her new wings, she had to find a new way for her to rest, otherwise, the world would have to face a grumpy and sleep deprived Twilight for the rest of eternity.

The problem was, the traditional way of sleeping just felt uncomfortable for her overly sensitive wings.

It got better, but at that time, she had no idea how Rainbow or Fluttershy could endure it. The uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia, when tucked under a blanket, had her nearly go crazy the first two weeks of having her new wings.

True, after she got used to her new appendages, she could have gone back to the traditional style of sleeping under the covers, but she still didn’t like the strange feeling it gave her and she began to like how it felt to just curl up into a small ball, surrounded by fluffy pillows and blankets, and fall asleep.

But, the comfortableness of her bedding did not help the purple mare any bit at the moment. In fact, her problem was, she was asleep.

In her dreams, Twilight saw herself as a filly again. It wasn’t unusual for her to dream from her youth, but those dreams came with an ulterior motive that an outside observer might not expect.

She was back in her mentor’s chamber, right after she got accepted into her tutelage and started her life in the palace.

The dream, as strange as it may sound was wishful thinking for her. Even though she fondly remembered those days with joy, she couldn't help but feel a strange melancholy at the thought of them stuck in the past. The feeling of longing for those past days created an ache in her chest that she couldn't possibly deny.

She wanted to feel it again, to lay curled up under Celestia's wing. She wanted to feel her mentor stroking her to sleep when she had a nightmare again. Twilight wanted the affection she received back when she was still a filly.

No… she wanted more. She wanted much more, and she knew she should not.

She saw herself with Celestia sitting in front of her old fireplace. The little version of herself had just gotten the first taste of hot-chocolate made from her mentor personally and drifted in and out of consciousness. Curled up under Celestia's giant wing, the young mare snuggled deeper into Celestia's soft chest fur and sighed contently.

Twilight, who stood aside and could remember just fine how that moment had felt, was about ready to cry when she heard Celestia's soft voice reading her out of the foal’s book in front of her. She heard the gentle but strong voice of her mentor, the voice which upheld Equestria so many millennia and which would grace Equus for the rest of time if she could help it.

Twilight knew she was dreaming, she knew that she could just change the scenery or be in the place of her former self. She knew, that if she wished, she could be the one being snuggled by Celestia.

But she restrained herself and chose to just watch.

The purple alicorn knew from experience that if she would indulge herself in her fantasies, it would just get that much harder to restrain herself later.

So, Twilight stood aside and watched. She watched as Luna came into the room. She knew full well that Princess Luna was still banished to the moon in that point of history but damn it! It was her dream after all! So, if she wanted Princess Luna to just lay next to her too…

Her mental restraints crumbling and without her consciously knowing it, Twilight found herself surrounded by two wings and bodies. She saw the clear white of her mentor’s fur and wings and she saw the dark blue of her sister's. She felt the soft sensation of downy soft wings wrapped around her, the warmth and love which radiated from the two ponies holding her and the incredible feeling of being pressed into their loving embrace, unable and unwilling to move.

Momentarily forgetting that she was dreaming, Twilight drunkenly nuzzled deeper into her surroundings and sighed in contentment. The sensation was divine, and she relaxed completely. As she felt a feather run over her cutie mark, she felt a shiver running down her spine and she could quite clearly feel her body react in different places too.

The constant tingling between her hind legs started to become more than just an itch, it became almost a need for the young princess.

Faced with the demanding need of her body, she could practically feel her body's receptivity to touch increase as she imagined herself under the loving ministrations of the two sisters.

Finally, as one of them slowly slid her wing over her thigh, she gasped with suppressed need and arched her back into it, and just that made her aware of her current situation. Twilight remembered that she was dreaming and quickly left her imagined body. Once again, she stood aside and looked at the display in front of her, tears now flowing freely.

She loved the two sisters! But every time she tossed and turned that thought around in her head. No matter how often she calculated it with the help of her books and the character charts of the sisters past lovers. Twilight could not find any reason why Luna, or Celestia for that matter, would ever see her as more than a simple friend. She could not find any indications that her mentor or her sister could ever love her, after all, the odds of that event occurring had more than two hundred zeros following the decimal point.

The two sisters could literally have any pony they desired. They were beautiful, wise, eternally young and powerful. Even though Twilight did not crave the latter, like so many other stallions or mares focused on who tried to court the princesses, she had nothing to offer. Twilight could not see any admirable traits in herself.

So, the logical question was, why would any of those two impeccable beings see anything in her that would attract them, if she couldn’t do so herself?

She felt like the two princesses were so high above her, even after her ascension into alicorn-hood herself, they still seemed unreachable.

So, she concluded, she would never have them. Not one, never thinking of both. Twilight knew it. She just knew it.

Silently curling up into a ball, Twilight cried in her sleep.

The ache in her chest just got worse every time she looked at her dream image. So, to not have to endure the pain every time she saw what she couldn’t have, she concentrated on emptying her head. She tried it by wiping away the dreamworld around her and stuffed it into her unconsciousness until she was floating in a vast black void. But, to her great dismay, the ache in her chest did not go away with the images. She just felt so lonely. So vastly lonely.

As the sun slowly crept over the horizon and a couple of sunrays slid through Twilight’s curtains, they hit her straight in the eyes. Groaning, the sleep-deprived mare just curled up into a that much tighter ball of purple pony princess material and slid her left wing over her head, trying to sleep an hour or two more.

After all, she had a free schedule today and could rest after an exhausting week of studying, rendering judgment and mediating disputes over the town and local areas.

After her ascension, Twilight had practically begged Celestia to give her some duties of her own. The young princess eagerly wanted to help in any way she could and even though Celestia gladly shared her workload with her, the old monarch would have preferred it if she did not have to stain Twilights young mind with the bickering, whining and squirming attempts of modern politics.

Be that as it may, her ascension itself meant a hoof-full of work for her as well, because representing the magic of friendship and being the incarnation of magic meant many new powers, opportunities and in general, much, more stuff to learn.

So, the factors of unrestful sleep and a stressful week meant that Twilight was looking forward to this weekend. Her plans were simple and oh so much unusual for her.

Nothing. She had planned nothing.

She simply wanted to relax a bit. The stack of books that had made it into her library which she had not yet time to read was agonizingly large for the former librarian, but simply reading them under the week was not something she did. Twilight wanted to enjoy her books.

She unofficially planned on doing exactly that today. But after last night, she even doubted that she would find any joy in that.

So, carefully shuffling around, Twilight turned away from the sun and nudged a blanket loosely over herself with a flick of her magic.

Trying to get back to sleep, she laid on her bed and let her mind wander. To her joy and disappointment, it quickly came back to the topic of her dreams tonight. Without anything else to do, Twilight laid there for another good half hour.

Finally, as a heavenly smell crept its way into her nose, another desire started to rise in her.

The promise of breakfast sounded suddenly appealing to her. Some pancakes with syrup.

Oh, sweet Celestia, she loved Spike for his cooking.

The young baby dragon always hit the perfect day to make them, every time when she was feeling down. Sometimes she wondered how the young baby dragon knew when to make them, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out, nor did she really want to. Unbeknown to her, the simple fact that she did not rise with the sun let Spike know exactly how his surrogate mother felt said mornings.

With the promise of breakfast, she slowly dug her way up out of the covers. Stretching her forehooves and arching her back, Twilight resembled more a waking cat than a pony at that moment. Flapping her wings lazily to get the cramps out of her muscles and finishing her stretching, she slowly got up out of her bed and looked around.

Her personal quarters in her castle were decorated with pictures and small knickknacks from her many adventures. Slowly trotting towards her vanity mirror, Twilight looked at the many pictures littering the frame and smiled. The pictures of her friends always made her smile each morning, but as she laid eyes on her own reflection, she quickly decided that she definitely needed some pampering before going down and meeting the other castles occupants.

So, she simply took a brush and stroked through her mane attempting to flattening it to her usual style. Her attempts of taming her mane were without success though, and after another hoof-full of tries she simply let her bed-mane be for the moment and decided that she would not need to look presentable in her own castle, she would simply take a bath, or whatever, after breakfast to straighten out her mane. After all, the sole important thing of this statement was ‘after breakfast’.

Making her way down to the kitchens, the smell of cooked pancakes grew in intensity and the anticipation of the sweet morning meal made her mouth water.

The simple thought that she could eat as many of them as she wanted added a bounce in her step, and the knowledge that Spike would provide her with as many as she desired, made her practically run down the hallways as if she had starved for a whole week and was now led to a banquet of her own.

Theoretically speaking, Twilight could, much to the envy of Rarity, eat literally as much as she wanted. As an alicorn, her calorie upkeep skyrocketed after her ascension. The fact that she was unable to leave the royal kitchens after she became an alicorn for nearly two days, as her body craved for all the calories in there in an attempt of replenishing all her magic, made it all the clearer that food was, for all intents and purpose, now simply a luxury good for the young immortal.

Only after Celestia had pried her away from the many cakes and meals she demanded was it possible for her to teach Twilight a technique which replenished her magic through her now accessible means and powers. Only through learning those spells was it possible for the young princess to stop devouring her own weight in a matter of hours and to return to her normal life.

But still, there are some cooks who get panic attacks if they see the young princess, and others who claim to have hellish nightmares of a never-satisfied Princess Twilight Sparkle running around in their kitchens, devouring all she could see which would normally feast the whole guard staff for a week.

So, even though Twilight could simply tap into her alicorn magics to not have to eat, she mutually agreed with Celestia that she would probably never abdicate from food if she could help it.

It simply tasted too good.

So, the prospect of pancakes, without having to fear her own waistline made her practically run into the door of the kitchens as she temporarily forgot to look where she was trotting.

Staggering back and wrinkling her nose, Twilight looked into the kitchen to see Starlight and Spike pressing their mouths shut in their combined attempt to not snicker. Huffing in resignation, she decided to simply ignore it for the time and stepped into the castle’s kitchens.

“Good morning you two.”

Having to forcefully keep down her laughter, Starlight simply nodded in greetings to her mentor.

“Hehe, morning Twi, want something for breakfast?” Spike asked the obvious question with a raised eyebrow. His attempts at raising an eyebrow got better every time he tried, but it still made him look so unbelievably cute every time.

“Oh, yes please,” the freshly woken mare stated as she jumped onto her chair. Silently noting that the morning papers had already been placed there for her, Twilight decided that she had to do something good for her little assistant in the near future.

Breathing down into the kitchen’s fireplace, Spike rekindled the flames for the pan he was using with his green dragon fire. As he added some eggs and butter to the mix, Twilight couldn’t help but smile at her young assistant. The small purple baby dragon stood on top of a footstool so that he could reach the counter. His chef’s hat and apron to complete the look, he could be mistaken for a royal cook, if he would not be a dragon. Even though he seemed to be only a baby, Spike was nearly as old as Twilight and could cook very well, or at least better as the two ponies combined in the room could cook.

Relishing in the silence of the morning, Twilight picked up her newspaper and read the first article.

On it was the depiction of a very familiar but definitely disliked colt with the headline:

- Prince Blueblood caught while trying to sneak out of his mansion in the middle of the night. -

“Prince Blueblood was caught trying to sneak out of his mansion in an attempt of meeting up with some lady he proclaimed. Even though after many attempts he refused to give us the name of this so-called filly he claimed to see in the middle of the night. As he was later seen exiting the local potion shop with a suspicious looking vail in his magic its left open the question of what he really was doing. Local experts proclaim that he was trying to find a cure for his distasteful smelling breath after he had embarrassed himself some weeks prior. This statement calms the local citizens a bit, but […] “

Unwilling to read anything more of this distasteful stallion, Twilight folded the newspaper and placed it aside to store it later. Trying to lighten the mood in the now silent kitchen, she searched for a topic to broach conversation.

“Nothing interesting in the newspaper, huh?” Spike relieved her of her attempted duty.

“No, not really. It's just the normal gossip over nobility.”

“Which you are a part of, aren’t you?” Starlight asked mockingly, knowing exactly that this was a sore spot for the young princess.

“This is all the more reason I don’t want to know what they are writing,” Twilight stated with a shrug.

“I know of at least two mares who would give their left forehoof in exchange of getting so much spotlight from the reporters as you and the other princesses get on a daily basis.”

“And I know that I tried redirecting those reporters at least thrice this week already.”

“Yeah, and you see how well this went on page 3 after the report on Celestia's school meeting this year.”

Snorting, Twilight shook her head. “I really don’t wanna know.”

“Might be better,” Spike chimed in.

“Anyway. What are you two doing today?” Twilight asked in an attempt of redirecting the conversation.

Shrugging a bit Starlight just looked out of the window. “Trixie had asked me to come over today, she said something about a new idea for her next week upcoming stage show in Manehattan.”

“And that interests you why?” Spike asked, the venom for Trixie audible in his voice.

“SPIKE!” Twilight scolded but was interrupted from going further by her student.

“Well, she knows that she is just bolstering around and therefore asked me if I could help with some of her spells. She is really trying to better herself, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah… I still cannot understand how you two stomach her even near you, or the castle for that matter,” he grumpily stated, knowing full well that Twilight didn’t like it when he was pulling someone’s leg.

“Spike! Friendship does not mean that you have to like all of your friends’ friends, but to get along with them and to tolerate their friendships.” Twilight shook her head. “You don’t have to like her, but I don’t want to hear another word of your distaste to Trixie. I cannot stand her as well, sorry for that Starlight, but I hold my tongue and you know full well you should too.”

Nodding gratefully Starlight shook her head and smiled. “Or should I start whining about this little dragon princess you seem to find so enticing?”

“Hehe, how is Ember doing anyway?” Twilight asked.

Trying not to blush, Spike intensely focused on his pan. “Fine, I presume. Her last letter is over three weeks old and I think in a couple of days a new one should arrive.”

As he finished a stack of pancakes, he placed them on a plate and brought them to Twilight. The now salivating Alicorn practically devoured the stack of baked goods already with her eyes and nearly shoved her muzzle into them until they finally arrived in front of her.

Having successfully started to brighten her mood, Spike chuckled over Twilight's antics and turned back to the pan he had used and prepared another load.

The little aprons and chef’s hat he wore made him look so adorable every time the two ponies’ saw him in that outfit that it never failed to make them smile.

“Well, to answer your question, I have been asked over by the Cutie Mark Crusaders to help them with her current cutie mark problem. Later then, I think I received some comic books from Cadance this week.”

“Hmm, don’t get yourself in trouble again, young man,” Twilight stated, smiling.

“Haha, no, I won’t, I promise.” He served Twilight another stack of pancakes, which the young princess hastily shoved into her maw.

All the while, Starlight watched her mentor eat like a pig and said nothing, she just smiled.

She had quickly learned after her arrival in the castle, that she better not question some of her antics, or Pinkie’s for that matter. After settling with the fact that the new princess, or the other three, were nothing like she had expected and more like everyone else, playful, funny, sad sometimes or even happy, allowed her to really get to know her mentor and to start to feel at ease around her.

After all, living with a living god was not something you did every day.

She didn’t know Twilight before her ascension, but from what her friends had told her, she has not changed a bit since then.

Shaking her head and looking over to Spike, Starlight watched as he poured a healthy amount of Gem-powder into a fresh batch of pancake batter. Wrinkling her nose, she quickly ate her stack of pancakes before Spike was being done producing his ‘Gemstone Enriched Super Pancakes’, or short 'G.E.S.P', as he named his abominable construct of breakfast he adored so much.

She understood the reason why he did it, after all, gems are a normal part of a dragon's diet, but after accidentally eating one of his pancakes once, she didn’t want to even see any of those ever again. The stomach pain was simply too much for her that week and the mere thought made her shudder.

After Spike finished creating his breakfast and joined the other on the table, he poured a healthy amount of hot sauce over his pancakes, just as he liked it.

Seeing his surrogate son making breakfast, Twilight pulled carefully her remaining breakfast protectively away from the abomination Spike called food to protect it from getting hot sauce over her sweet meal.

Ignoring the strange glances he received from the two occupying ponies in the room, Spike dug into his breakfast with healthy abandon. After some bites of his food, he raised his fork and pointed at Twilight. “Well, after you know now what we are doing today, you are the only one still having to reveal your plans for the rest of the day.”

Glancing up from her breakfast, Twilight shrugged. “I dunno. My schedule is free today and I thought of keeping it that way, really.”

Spikes fork found its way to the floor as he stared at Twilight. Blinking once, then twice, he quickly jumped onto the table and stared at Twilight. “WHO ARE YOU! AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER, IMPOSTER!” he demanded to know, unwilling to believe what he had just heard from the pony across from him, the only pony who would normally work every day.

Chuckling at his antics, she levitated Spike back into his chair and brought a new fork over from the counter while dropping his dropped one into the sink.

“Haha, I am me, Spike. I assure you.” Twilight grinned at her surrogate son. “Or how would I know where you are ticklish?” she stated as she flicked her magic behind his shoulder blades.

Squirming under Twilight’s ministrations, Spike couldn’t raise any other objections and believed the pony across from him to be the one she claimed to be.

Starlight chuckled, “You have to teach me that someday,” she paused to think for a moment, “well, that still leaves us with the question what are you really doing today?”

“Well, I dunno, really. I thought of reading a book, or two. Maybe I’ll pay Rarity a visit, or go to the spa today, maybe both,” Twilight shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just go back to sleep and spend the rest of the day in bed.”

“When I meet with Trixie, I usually go past Rarity’s Boutique, should I ask her to come over?”

Pondering over the offer, Twilight nodded as she leaned back in her chair, happily patting her now full belly. “Thanks, that would be great. But please ask her to not come over before noon. I think I want to read at least a bit before she eventually drags me to the spa.”

“No problem.” Starlight smiled at her mentor before standing and patting Spike once. The young dragon waved at her good-bye as she trotted out of the room.

Silently observing Spike as he ate, Twilight waited until he was done and stood up to put his and Starlight’s dishes into the sink. As the young baby dragon prepared to wash the dishes, Twilight gently levitated him over and hugged him once. “Thank you, but I’ll do that today, have fun with your friends,” she said, gently shuffling the dragon towards the door.

“Thanks, Twi!” he shouted before dashing out of the room and into the hallway leading to the castle entrance.

Silently pondering over what she really would do after she did the dishes, Twilight smiled and genuinely felt happy for the moment.

Special Thanks to bigbear for giving me a software which should help me to improve my grammatic at least a bit ... I know that it will not correct / find any of my mistakes, but I dare to hope that it at least helps a bit.