Twilight Sparkle rolled over in bed and stared out the window at the full moon. “You awake?” she said, but there was no answer. Why had she even entertained the possibility of one? The moon stared back, and Twilight sighed.
She could even imagine the feeling of warm breath on the back of her neck, a gentle hoof wrapped around her side. Just a light snore, though. It still made her smile. Rarity would never admit to snoring, and at least hers was quiet enough to stay within the realm of endearing.
“Rarity,” she tried again, “you awake?” She’d ask until she got a response, of course.
A brief stirring sounded. Twilight kept watching the moon, but she could envision Rarity taking off her sleeping mask and squinting at the clock. And Twilight trembled, just a little. From the cold winter air. No other reason.
It must have shaken the bed enough for Rarity to notice. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “Is it bothering you again?”
No. But Twilight didn’t say so. Rarity wouldn’t believe her anyway. She knew Twilight too well for that.
“I thought we’d talked this to death years ago, but it always seems to come up again, doesn’t it?” Rarity’s smile always crept into her voice. That beautiful voice.
“I just… feel bad for Spike. I can’t help it.”
“We explained everything to him.” She must have sat up from how the headboard creaked, but she hadn’t turned on the lamp. The moon gave them plenty of light anyway, and they both had always loved the peacefulness of the night.
Twilight drew a breath and pursed her lips. “I know. We had to tell him that his crush on you would never work out. It hurt, but he needed to hear it.”
“Yes, and our little gentleman took it with more than a modicum of maturity. He listened quietly, told us he understood, and never spoke of it again.”
Never…
For a moment, Twilight let those words hang in the silence. “I still felt guilty. I mean, only two months later, and we announced that we were dating? What he must have thought about that… He had to wonder when we started, whether… whether we were going behind his back, whether I’d stolen you from him. I’d never do anything to lose his trust.”
“Well, why didn’t you explain that to him darling?”
Never spoke of it again. Yeah, right. “I… I did. The night we announced our wedding, I made sure to have a talk with him.”
“Oh? Why did you never tell me that?”
“By then, it was a horrible position to put him in. Of course he said he didn’t have a problem with it, but how could I really know? I should have told him sooner. I should have told him when we first started dating, but then everypony would know, and—”
If that gentle touch had stopped her shaking, it wasn’t enough anymore.
“Surely he would have told you of any resentment by now. How long ago did he move out?”
“Seven years,” Twilight said quietly.
“And he has a mate of his own now, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then there you have it.”
Twilight shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What would you have us do? Break up over it? And wouldn’t way back then have been the time to do so?”
Twilight reached toward the hoof tracing circles on her shoulder but stopped short. “Of course not.”
“I know. But we have this discussion every few years. When can we finally put it to rest?”
Probably never. But Rarity always indulged her. Rarity always made her feel better. “You’re beautiful,” Twilight said.
A smattering of polite laughter sounded. “I must look quite the fright at the moment, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“I didn’t say you looked beautiful.” Twilight’s breath almost caught on her throat. “Of course you are, but I meant… you’re beautiful.”
“You can’t even see me right now,” Rarity said from behind her.
“I never needed to see you to know you were beautiful.”
Rarity blushed whenever Twilight said that. Maybe she felt the cheek against her back turn a little warmer.
She hadn’t given Spike enough credit. He knew now, if he’d ever harbored a secret hope that Rarity could still love him, that his last chance had passed. Maybe he really had gotten over it. But in his place, Twilight wouldn’t.
Finally, she turned over to face the empty bed. Three years now. “I miss you, Rarity.”
6549453 I came up with the name first, didn't want to type it out any more, so decided to shorten it to a nickname, and then the title and closing line and joke for Key all just fell in my lap. It was a stroke of luck.
Huh, this collection is the 300th story I've added to my group, as an H, 5 or 6. :D Grats!
6795599 Nope, I never published this story as a one-shot, and I have no plans to. But I have written DerpyMac before, in "The Promises We Keep," and friendshipping of them in "The Voice of Reason."
6923024 Exactly. Did it make you drop a load?
6935486 I didn't mean to imply this was the chief way of processing metals, just that the Pie sisters took advantage of a resource available to them. I've even used an idea similar to yours, where the dragons can scout where metal deposits occur, and they trade that knowledge to ponies for a share of the gold, silver, and platinum they mine. The ponies are free to keep any of the other metals.
6935475 Aw, jeez. Yeah, don't read this one today.
6935427 Me too. Did you sign up for a character? My story "For the Birds" was my entry tor The Album 2, and Present Perfect's "Persephone" was, too.
6935401 Present Perfect really doesn't like this one. That's kind of why I wrote it...
6935343 We need more fics that aren't clopfics in general. Keep adding to the total, good sir!
6935300 Yup. Kind of an inception thing going on there. Very few readers actually figured that out.
6935297 Hm. I hadn't considered that anything could be harmful about it. It basically just lets Derpy decide what kind of dream she wants to have, but the caster doesn't get to observe the dream, so it remains secret.
6935274 There are actually a ton of these I've stretched into one-shots. You might like those versions better, since they have more room to breathe.
6935259 Heh. This wasn't supposed to be enchanted. It just came across as really creepy, and I didn't mean for it to, so... chalk one up in the not-so-good column, I guess.
6935118 There is the choosing stone, too, which is totally legit. But maybe only if you're a Pie.
6935947 Nice catch. That's exactly what it was, then I combined the two stories into a one shot by the same name as this story.
6936307 There was only one thing to figure out, so you probably got it.
6935812
Yeah, Spitfire, and I've even got the unedited fic to prove it. There was a round robin challenge he was doing that had potential, as well. As far as I know, it stalled at five chapters. Maybe I should poke him to publish what he's got.
I shall do my best. Although in the interests of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I might have an alt account where I do occasionally publish clopfics.
There's a part of me that really wants to write a story where all marriages are arranged by some sort of magic, and the concept of unaided love is totally missing from pony society.
Just to make sure that I actually did, Key Change is blind, right?
Here's the problem. And you touched upon it in your story with the Oranges: what's to stop a pony from repeatedly having the spell cast upon them, or casting it upon themselves?
Why deal with reality when you can live out a dream for as long as you like? Where you can be whatever you want to be? It's easier than dealing with real life, after all. A unicorn who knew the spell could cast it on herself again and again and again, until she could no longer differentiate between the fake world in her mind and reality.
In effect, it's potentially more addictive than any drug, and more real. What are we but brains in a vat, when it really comes down to it? It might be the reason that Trixie went bad; she's a fairly skilled illusionist, and what would happen if she turned her illusions inward?
There is a fic by Asimov which illustrates the potential dangers more eloquently than I just did. IIRC, it's called The Dead Past.
6937216
Yup, that's it.
And to the dream sequence, yeah, it could be abused if the spellcaster were complicit, I guess. Twilight couldn't cast it on herself, because someone has to maintain the spell throughout the dream, hence the purple glow still being on Derpy when she awoke. But there could be a seedy black market on wish fulfillment, I suppose. Kind of like pony fanfic, come to think of it...
7208199 This is one of the many of these minifics that I've lengthened into separate one-shots. And I never write a dumb Derpy. She may be a klutz at times, but she's just a big ol' sweetie.
7208619 She pretty much said that already.
I deeply regret not getting this collection under my belt earlier. Some great moments of Writeoff nostalgia, one of the most touching Derpies I've ever had the privilege to read, and a whole bunch of other quality work. Definitely looking forward to whatever else finds its way here.
7210555 Unfortunately, I think there's only one more chapter I'm going to add before calling it complete, and that's a collection of poetry, some done as writing exercises and some that were entries in /fic/'s only poetry write-off. They're all so short that I'll shove them all in a single chapter.
Fuck ;_;
Dang!