“No! I’m NOT snuggling him!” Rainbow Dash cried, shoving a rude hoof in your direction.
“Come on, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight soothed with a smile, “I promise that it’s not bad at all! Princess Celestia thought that showing my friends the magic of cuddling would be a great thing!”
“But why does HE have to be involved!?” she retorted loudly. You frowned in response, a little hurt at her implication.
“That’s who Princess Celestia sent,” Twilight explained. “He’s a good enough cuddler for both her and Princess Luna. I trust her judgement, and I think it’s a really good thing for you to learn.”
“No!” Rainbow Dash’s wings flared out. “I’m not going to snuggle, okay? Especially not with the human! I don’t even like snuggles to begin with!”
“I thought you’d say something like that,” Twilight deadpanned at her feisty friend. “That’s why…” Twilight shoved you through the door of Rainbow Dash’s cloud home with her magic and used a spell to activate a rune that you hadn’t noticed her place earlier. A translucent pink bubble flashed into existence briefly before fading away. “I set up a special spell around your home!”
From your position sprawled out on the cloud floor, you took a moment to thank your lucky stars that Twilight had cast a cloud walking spell on you before glancing curiously at Twilight’s smug expression.
“...What kind of spell?” Rainbow Dash asked with narrowed eyes.
“A temporary, targeted analysis spell,” Twilight explained matter-of-factly. “If you leave the house before I come back tomorrow, you won’t be able to use your wings for the better part of the week, at least.”
“Are you kidding me, Twilight?” she retorted. “My wings are my livelihood!”
“I know. That’s why I expect to hear a glowing report from him tomorrow.”
Rainbow Dash shot you an infuriated glare, and you merely held up your hands in a meek defense. “Hey, don’t look at me. I was not involved with this plan.”
Rainbow Dash turned her attention back to Twilight, who smiled. “I suggest you two start by getting to know each other a little better before you make with the cuddling.” Then she did a fairly impressive backflip off of Rainbow Dash’s cloud lawn and fell toward the ground below. “See you tomorrow!” she called as she disappeared from sight.
Rainbow Dash repressed the great deal of pride she felt at Twilight’s flying skill and opted to scream at her instead. “Twilight!” She bellowed out the door into the rapidly advancing sunset.
There was no reply.
“Er...So,” you begin, rising to your feet. “We didn’t have a chance to talk much when I first ended up in Equestria.”
Rainbow Dash just growled, refusing to even turn around to meet your gaze. “Cut the crap, alright? I know you and her are in on it together.”
You sigh. “Look, I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to,” you told her. “Twilight’s intentions are in the right place, but she went a little overboard on the execution.”
Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up. “So when she comes back tomorrow you’ll lie to her and get me off the hook?” She asked, looking back at you excitedly.
“Well I won’t lie to her, but I’ll make sure you get off the hook. I’ll say you were a ‘great host’ and wink at her, or something. That way I have plausible deniability if I ever end up in a court of law here.”
Rainbow Dash seemed to appraise you for a moment. “Maybe you’re not as lame as I thought.”
“However, I do have a bone to pick with you,” you interject. “What’s your problem with me? You won’t snuggle anypony, ‘especially’ me? I mean, I knew I’m basically an alien to you all, but I figured that I wasn’t, you know, ugly.”
She stepped back and held up a hoof. “Woah, woah. You’re not ugly, dude. I...Look, I’m just not a really touchy-feely kind of pony, you know? And I guess I overreacted when I heard what Twilight wanted from me. Get it?”
You nod. “Yeah, I guess. So, what’s the plan for dinner tonight? You know, since I’ll be staying here and all…”
“We can’t leave, I guess. You like pizza?”
“Oooh, sounds good!”
The pizza came only a little while later, the knock on the door coinciding with the fading of the sun’s last rays. Rainbow Dash returned to your seat in her living room, sitting on the other side of the couch and tossing the pizza on her cloud table. She opened it, grabbing a slice, and reclined back on the couch, lowering the tip of the slice into her mouth.
You followed her lead, taking a bite of the mediocre pizza. “Eh,” you mumble, eating. “It’s alright. Would have preferred Chineighse, in retrospect.”
“Stop complaining,” she mumbles, well into her second slice of pizza.
“So,” you tell her in a few minutes, having eaten your fill, “what do you do for fun? We’ve got a lot of time to burn tonight.”
“Well,” she considers for a moment, “usually I just go out and fly, but I can’t very well do that, now can I?” she glares at you.
You shrugged. “Come on, there’s gotta be something else you do.”
“Well,” she said, getting up and walking over to a rack of disks, “sometimes I play video games.”
“Alright, that’s more my style!” You walked over and look through the rack with her, picking out a hilarious game you’ve seen played before. “Oh, yes, this will be fun.”
____________________________________________________________________________
“BWAAHAHAHAAA!” Rainbow Dash cried, clutching her sides and rolling off of the couch onto the floor in laughter at the joke you had just made about the video game.
You, yourself were also laughing, so hard that you can’t bring yourself to say anything or even properly breathe. You stumble over to her, laughing all the while.
Rainbow Dash looked up at you from the ground. “I-I-” she breathes, before bursting out in laughter again.
Her laughter only caused you to fall further into your fit of hysterics, and you kept walking over to her to share in the laughter.
Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash, writhing and throwing her hooves all over the place, tripped you and you fell face down over her, your feet by her ears and her back hooves near your shoulders.
“Ow,” you moaned. Rainbow Dash fell silent.
Then, after just a moment, you both burst out laughing again, and you feebly wiggle off of her. “Oh man,” you choked out between laughs. “Ha!”
Rainbow Dash snickered and got up, taking a few deep breaths and walking over to you. “That kinda hurt, dude,” she said, tapping your stomach with a hoof. “You should have laid off of that pizza.”
“Phh,” you waved her off. “Not my fault you’re hurt by my musculature. It’s all about the gains.”
She rolled her eyes, still smiling. “Yeah, sure.”
You frowned at her. “I get the feeling that you think I’m not in good shape.”
She looked you up and down. “Well, I’m not saying you’re in BAD shape...but I know that I could certainly take you on.”
You scoffed at her. “Oh yeah, Ms. Light-as-a-Feather? You wanna go?”
She got low on all fours and flares out her wings. “That a challenge!?”
You merely growled in response, and she immediately leaps on you, the considerable force produced by her wings making you stagger backward into a nearby wall. Unfortunately for her, she was only a technicolor pony that barely reached your chest if she were to stand on two hooves; you simply wrapped your arms under her front hooves and tackled her into the cloud floor, using the wall behind you as leverage.
You moved up immediately, placing your hips low enough on her stomach to pin down her back hooves, while your arms held down her front ones. She struggled to get out of your pin, failing miserably.
“Errgghh!” she groaned, her wings flapping uselessly against your superior mass.
“I’ll let you up,” you told her, grinning maniacally, “but only if you admit I won.”
“Never!” she sneered up at you.
“Well, okay,” you told her matter-of-factly, letting gravity due the bulk of the work in keeping her immobile.
It was another thirty seconds of pitiful struggling before you heard Rainbow Dash speak again. “You win…” she mumbled.
“What was that?” you replied, feigning deafness and leaning in an ear toward her.
“I said you win!” she huffed. “I lost! Happy?”
“Yeah, actually,” you responded chipperly. “Very, actually.” Noticing that Rainbow Dash was panting from the exercise and probably a little disappointed in herself for losing your duel, you remembered something that you had brought for her based on what Twilight had told you about her.
Nabbing your duffel bag from where Twilight had dumped it before she left, you sat down next to Rainbow Dash on the couch. “Hey, I brought you something, too.” You pulled out a six pack of bottled cider from your bag and placed it on the cloud table next to where Rainbow Dash was resting her back hooves.
She let out a little gasp, her eyes growing wide as she stared at the pack on the table.
“I’m sorry it’s not fresh, like you like. Apples are out of season, as you know.”
“But...but how!?” she asked, looking at you with a softer, more vulnerable expression than you’d seen before. It appeared that her humiliating defeat in wrestling was already far from her mind. “There’s never any bottled cider in Ponyville! It always sells out!”
“I wrote Celestia and asked for some. Her and I are pretty tight.”
“So you got this just for me?” she asked, looking up at you with quiet admiration and sparkling eyes. “You wrote your...cuddle buddy...just to bring me cider?”
“Well, yeah, sure. Twilight told me you liked it.”
Rainbow Dash threw her front hooves under your arms and hugged you from the side, rubbing her cheek on your chest. “Thank you so, so much!” she sniffled in a feminine manner, her voice several notes higher than you’d come to expect from her.
You wrapped your hands around her and placed your chin on the top of her head. “No problem, Dash,” you told her softly.
She pulled away from you and clears her throat. “I’m gonna lay into these,” she said happily, swiping a cider from the pack and smacking the cap off on the side of her fluffy cloud table. She was about to take a drink when she stopped moving and eyed you. “I don’t normally do this, but, do you want one too?”
You raised your eyebrows; from what Twilight told you, you expected Rainbow Dash to down the entire six pack herself. “Well, I’m not usually into these sweet drinks, but since you’re offering…”
You nabbed a bottle and smacked it against the table, and were surprised when the soft, fluffy cloud removed the cap easily. You turn to Rainbow Dash and klink your bottle against hers. “Prost!”
“Huh?” she asks, tilting her head.
“It’s something we say on earth before we drink together, like a mini toast?”
“Whose toast?”
“It’s another way to say ‘cheers’.”
“What are you cheering?” she asked, confused.
You had noticed that on the whole, pony customs matched up spookily close to those back home, although every once in a great while, there was a gulf of difference. “Nevermind,” you shook your head. “You ponies may have a great grasp on friendship, but I’m shocked at the lack of camaraderie here.”
Rainbow Dash dumped the bottle of cider she had finished while you were talking on the floor of her home in an unceremonious fashion. “Geez. You sound like Spitfire. I’d like to forget about work right now, if you don’t mind.” She cracked open another bottle and went at it.
You had never seen a pony drink anything so fast before. You weren’t halfway through your bottle by the time she had finished the six pack. She shot you a curious glance. “You, uh, you gonna drink that?”
You shrugged and handed her the bottle, which she downed like it was nothing. “Alright,” she sighed, letting the bottle klink to the floor and standing up. She walked over to grab the controller in her teeth and carried it back to the couch, sitting right next to you so your side was touching hers.
She proceeded to tap along on the controller with her hooves for the next half an hour or so. You took the time to savor the feeling of her coat, and at one point you could have sworn that she was leaning on you a little bit.
“Lame,” she groaned as she was killed. “Gimme a sec, I’ve gotta use the bathroom.” She hopped up from the couch and flew into her kitchen.
She returned a few minutes later with a somewhat serious expression. “Hey, can we talk about something real quick?” she asked, sitting down on her haunches on the couch and facing you.
“Sure thing. What’s on your mind?”
She seemed to squirm a little bit and took a moment before she looked into your eyes. “Okay. So, I’m really, really curious about cuddling now,” she told you, wincing.
“Alright,” you reply softly.
She opened one of her eyes, apparently surprised at how you reacted.
“What are you curious about?” you ask her.
“Well, now that I know you, I can tell you’re pretty sweet,” she told you. “B-by which I mean cool! But, like, cuddling and all that gross stuff just doesn’t seem like my thing. It’s for ponies like Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. It’s...It’s…Lame.”
You raise your eyebrows. “Au contraire. It’s actually pretty cool.”
“Cool?” she asks, scrunching up her muzzle.
“Yeah. It’s something that emotionally mature ponies can do for fun and comfort. It’s lame to close yourself off to it, actually.”
“I’m not lame,” she whined gently.
“I know you’re not,” you tell her. “That’s why you’re suddenly curious about it. I get the sense that you want to try it even though you think it’s uncool, though.”
She bit her lip and looked down.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” you order her. “Look, I get that you think Twilight isn’t the most hip pony around, but think about all of the ultra cool ponies in history who were big snugglers. I snuggle with Celestia and Luna all the time, and as I recall, Commander Hurricane and General Firefly were only a few of the famous pegasi that liked to cuddle.”
Rainbow Dash made an uncertain, guttural sound in response.
“It’s good for your health, too. Helps with emotional and mental health, bonding, and even helps your heart and your muscle recovery.”
She looked at you curiously. “Really?”
“Heck yeah! You know those big hot tub things they have in athletic locker rooms? Cuddling functions a lot like that.”
She remained silent as she thought.
“It’s a good skill to learn,” you smiled at her. “Can’t be embarrassed about giving out affection forever. How will you give out hugs to all your adoring fans?”
Rainbow Dash shook her brilliant mane and let out a sigh. “I...I just don’t know. I’m so tempted but...it just feels so lame.”
Seeing that your previous line of questioning was going nowhere, you leaned in close to her. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” you said. “For something to be lame, it presupposes that others have to learn about it. Lucky for you it’s just us here.”
Rainbow Dash looked up to eye you curiously. “I guess that’s true…”
“Anything that happens between us here will stay between you and me. I won’t even tell Twilight.”
“...Pinkie Promise?”
You stuck out your pinkie finger to her, and she looked at it strangely. “Uh, Yes. Pinkie Promise.” You let your finger fall to your side.
Rainbow Dash’s countenance brightened significantly and she hopped up on all fours. “Okay, let’s do this then,” she said, smiling at you. “Uh...how do we do this?”
“Well, that depends,” you told her. “What would you like? We can lay down or sit up, and there are a whole bunch of different positions we could try.”
“You’re the one that knows all about this,” she replied, fluffing her wings. “You tell me.”
“Alright. Why don’t you sit on your haunches on my lap and face me?”
Rainbow Dash stepped forward gingerly and stood over your seated position. She lowered her backside onto your legs, one of her back hooves to either side of you. “Okay. What now?”
“Now give me a hug,” you smile at her, holding your arms out wide to her.
You catch a hint of a smile grace her lips as she leans forward and you wrap your arms around her. Your face was placed against the side of Rainbow Dash’s neck, and you inhaled her scent: a refreshing, cool smell, almost like freshly fallen rainwater.
Next, she wrapped her hooves around your neck and sighed, beginning to allow her body to relax.
Taking that as a cue that she was ready to advance, you let one of your hands trace up and down her back. Your fingers splayed out and gently caressed her coat as your hand moved; she was unbelievably soft, and the muscles around her wings were very toned.
She let out a little happy noise and nuzzled into your neck as well. “Wh-what do I do with my hooves?” she asked you quietly.
“Whatever you’d like. It’s hard to rub my back since it’s against the couch, but you could touch my shoulders or run them through my hair just fine, probably.”
“A-and you’re okay with that?”
“Definitely. You don’t have to ask for permission to touch me while we’re cuddling. Touch is good!”
Slowly, she took a hoof and places it on your head, moving it back and forth gently. You hummed happily in response. It didn’t really feel THAT good, but you wanted to let Rainbow Dash know that her touch truly was welcome.
You stopped stroking her back, using the hand to hold her tightly against you. You then moved your other hand down to her side, stroking her all the way from just under her front hoof to her flank. “You’re really soft, Rainbow Dash. How do you do that?”
“Well, I use a special shampoo that Rarity recommends,” she sighed into your ear. “And...sometimes I go to the spa. Sometimes, like, multiple times a week.”
“It shows,” you tell her, tracing a little circle around her cutie mark.
Rainbow Dash moves closer to you by scooting in so that her belly rested against you in addition to her chest. You get the vibe that she would have gotten even closer if her back hooves weren’t now pressed against the couch.
You begin moving your head up and down, allowing you to nuzzle against Rainbow Dash’s neck. You gave her a tight squeeze.
She let out a pleasurable noise and rested her full weight against you.
“Do you want to try another position?” you asked.
She brought her head up and rested her muzzle against your nose, looking into your eyes. “Alright,” she whispered. “What were you thinking?”
You wrapped your arms around her and laid on your back on the couch with her on top, running a hand up and down her back. “How’s this?”
She let out a sigh-like moan and rubbed her head under your chin, her soft mane tickling your face. You brought your other hand up to scratch behind her ear, which flicked lightly at the touch before melting under it. She hummed quietly in pleasure.
You smiled up at the ceiling. “I thought this was lame?”
“It’s totally lame…” she sighed, wrapping her hooves under your arms and nuzzling into the juncture between your chest and throat.
You laid there, enjoying her softness and warmth for the next several minutes. She only moved once, to entangle her back legs in yours.
You looked down at her a little later, and found that her eyes were closed and she was wearing a gentle, euphoric smile. A deep red blush was also plastered all across her face.
You snickered. You’d seen this before, mostly because you’ve had it yourself a few times before: oxytocin intoxication. Poor Rainbow Dash was probably in ecstasy from all of the snuggling endorphins running through her bloodstream right now.
“Hey Dashie,” you said, patting her back gently.
“Yeah?’ she mumbled, tightening her grip on you and grinning a little wider.
“How’re you feeling?”
“So good,” she groaned, nuzzling your neck and letting her breath wash over you.
“Do you want a massage, maybe?” you asked her. “You probably could use one, what with all the Wonderbolts training.”
“Yeah, that would be really nice,” she answered. There was that slightly higher voice again. You wondered: could that be her real voice? Maybe she was a lot rougher when she wasn’t as relaxed as she was now.
“Alright. Do you want your back done first?” you asked.
“Could you do my hooves first?” she asked hopefully.
“Sure.” You took her front right hoof in your hand and massaged it gently with your thumbs. It felt like it was really tense, and it gently relaxed under your touch. You then moved on to the other one.
“Let me do your wings before your back hooves so that you don’t have to move until later,” you said, as your hands work your way up and down her wings.
She shivered gently under your touch. “Okay,” she told you, softly and femininely. “I really like it when you touch my hooves, though, so don’t take too long.”
Eventually, your hands worked their way down toward the base of her wings and you were able to knead the tense muscles there into surrendering. For her part, Rainbow Dash made a series of pleasurable grunts.
After gently preening her wings, you told her to flip around so her back hooves faced you, which she did. You began gently massaging them as well, even going up midway on her leg with your hands.
Rainbow Dash’s tail swished across your face multiple times. “Hey, Dash, you’re gonna make me sneeze.”
“Sorry,” she replied demurely. “I can’t help it. It feels so nice.”
You finished up her back hooves and leaned forward, wrapping your arms around her middle and pulling her to lean back on you. You wrapped your legs around her too, and you nuzzled her ear.
“Can you hold me tighter?” she asked in that sweet tone of voice that still surprised you.
You tightened your grip on her and pulled her closer. “Mmmmm….” she hummed.
You petted her belly gently, and were surprised to find that it was much softer than you expected from the athlete. Maybe she had been clenching it the whole time?
You didn’t get much chance to think about it, because Rainbow Dash flipped around in your grasp to face you and pulled you into an ultra-tight hug. Her entire body wiggled on yours, as if she was trying to nuzzle you with her whole body. “I can’t take it,” she groaned. “I’m trying to snuggle you more but I can’t!”
You stroked her mane gently. “Rainbow Dash,” you assure her. “This is just the oxytocin from the cuddling talking. Take a deep breath and relax. Just enjoy.”
She did as you asked, and melted in your grasp, sighing again. “H-hey, um, can I ask you a question?” she mumbled quietly into you.
“Sure thing, Dashie.”
“You said you were cuddle buddies with the Princesses...Can we maybe...be cuddle buddies too?”
“Sure!” you reply. “I’d like nothing more.”
She smiled up at you. “Really?” she asked gently.
“Really!”
“Yay!” she cheered quietly, celebrating by rubbing her cheek on you again.
“I have an idea,” you said, placing one hand under her backside and one around her wings. “Hold on tight!” you stood up, holding her with you.
Rainbow Dash made a surprised noise and held onto you tightly, her back hooves wrapping around your waist. “Where are we going?”
“Where are all of your pillows and blankets?” you ask. “We’re going to make a cuddle fort on the ground.”
“Why don’t we just snuggle in my bed?” she asked you curiously.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
____________________________________________________________________________
Soon you were sprawled out with Rainbow Dash under a blanket fort.
“Okay, are you ready to try the ultimate cuddling position?” you asked her.
“Okay,” she giggled, the blush still on her cheeks from cuddling. “What do I do?”
“Lay on your side facing away from me,” you told her.
She complied, wiggling in anticipation.
You wrapped your arms around her and pulled her in towards you. You were perfectly matched to be spooning partners; her head rested perfectly under her chin and your hips were aligned with each other.
You proceeded to caress and rub Rainbow Dash’s coat and mane all over her body, and she hummed happily at your touch, occasionally scooting further into you.
“Hey, I’ve got a question for you,” she said as you ran your hands over her front hooves.
“Shoot.”
“Why do you wear clothes all the time. You know they’re only for special occasions, right?”
“Not where I come from. If you don’t wear clothes on earth, it’s embarrassing, and even…” you searched for the right word, “sexual, in certain contexts.”
“Oh.” She thought about this realization for a second, her coat and mane sticking up all funny from the attention you had paid to her. “Well, it’s time for you to adjust to Equestrian culture.”
“What do yo-”
Rainbow Dash wiggled down and lifted up your shirt, sticking her head inside and wiggling back inside and up.
“W-what are you doing, Dash?” you asked, embarrassed.
“Ah, that’s much better,” she said, her eyes barely protruding from your shirt’s neck hole. “And softer.”
You let your embarrassment subside and pull your arms inside your shirt to hold Rainbow Dash. “You’ve made a terrible mistake. Now you’re my hostage.” You lean down and plant a kiss on her ear.
“Noooo, stooop~” she whines. She was unable to keep herself from giggling afterward.
You pulled her nice and snug, and then closed your eyes.
____________________________________________________________________________
The next morning, Twilight Sparkle let the bubble spell around Rainbow Dash’s home dissipate and let herself inside.
Her eyes immediately fell on the blanket fort on the floor in the living room, and she gingerly trotted over. She stuck her head inside and smiled a wide smile on seeing you and Rainbow Dash dead asleep, with her still stuck in your shirt and both of you under a giant, fluffy comforter.
Twilight looked you both over. “That looks like fun,” she whispered to herself as she stepped inside. “I’m sure they won’t mind if I join them for a little while, right?”
She lifted the blanket with her magic and pressed her chest up against your back. She let her top hoof rest against your hip and unfurled her wing, using it to cover both yourself and Rainbow Dash.
She nuzzled into the back of your neck and yawned. “I am so good at teaching ponies about friendship.”