“Hah, I beat you again!”
“Well … let’s … look … at the situation … we have here,” you panted, your eyes wide, fighting for breath, your lungs set ablaze.
You managed to catch your breath, but your heart was still racing.
“Ok, one,” you held up your index finger. “I was never an athlete on Earth. Heck my “exercise” was when I jumped up and down after completing that one horror game. Two, you have practice doing races, I’ve never ran one, which comes back to my first reason. Three, even though you had a vast lead on me, you still made running harder by creating a gust of wind, which at times I almost fell back.”
“You’re just sore that I won,” the cyan pony smirked.
“Sure Dash,” you rolled your eyes. “I was just wasting my breath earlier.”
“Exactly. So you wanna go for best 2/2?”
“I need to find my kidneys first,” you dryly replied. “Along with my left lung.”
“Wimp. Alright I’ll see ya around then!” she bade farewell and was off in a flash.
You chuckled to yourself, and walked home. It was interesting how the hothead’s demeanor changed from total distrust to now being one of your closest friends. How long had it been since you arrived in ponyland? 3 months? 4? You lost track after the revelation that you couldn’t simply just go back home. Twilight had burnt herself out the first month, and you had to reassure her that you would be fine being stuck here. There was truth to that, especially since you became friends with most of the ponies and found work in construction. You may not have been an athlete, but that didn’t mean you weren’t good with your hands.
It was through your job that you got more acquainted with the cyan pegasus. It was a combination of distrust along with curiosity that some monkey was able to build structures. In fact you gave some tips to the construction ponies to make their buildings stronger and more efficient to build. The event that sparked your relationship was when you took a step too many backwards and plummeted 4 feet from the platform you were on. She could have just let you fall on your rump and laughed her head off but instead she caught you.
After an awkward exchange of gratitude, you asked the pegasus if she would like to hang out after you finished work for that day. Her eyes lit up at the proposal and replied that’d be cool. Things fell into place after that. It seemed you both had a love for pranks, and proceeded to pull a lot of them on her friends and unsuspecting townsponies. You also came to understand why she was boastful all the time. She had worked all her life to get into the Wonderbolts and now that she was a member of the flight squad she wanted everypony to know it.
You chuckled at the statement. You could have told her most ponies don’t like a boaster, but decided that was what made Dash well, Dash. Besides the other ponies didn’t seem to mind and some encouraged her to continue striving for the best. As you got to know her better, even you found her cockiness had some charm. There was also her well toned body that you had the rare pleasure of being crushed against you after she successfully pulled off one of her trick and immediately proceeded to hug you. It was a pleasant surprise that was short lived as the pegasus quickly broke the embrace, blushing and warning you to keep the encounter a secret.
However, the contact was enough to spark an interest in her. It sure did feel nice holding her in your arms. It’s not like you didn’t receive hugs from other ponies, but the scarcity of that happening between the two of you was what made it that much more meaningful. As you arrived at your house, built by yours truly, you began to contemplate whether you should confess these feelings to the rainbow maned pegasus. You played out a few scenarios, mostly where she would say “Love is lame” or “You’re not cool enough”. But as someone dear to you once taught you, The answer is always no unless you ask you decided to take the plunge.
You awoke the next day, refreshed and as nervous as a sinner in church. Did you buy flowers? No that would be romantic, which Dash would probably see as lame. Any other gesture was probably out of the question as well. You spent a few minutes pondering your next step when you had an epiphany. You got dressed into casual clothes, ate a light breakfast and headed out of your house. You found Dash lazing about in her usual spot, a cloud in the middle of the park.
“I’ll call you up on that race you wanted yesterday,” you called up to her, to which you got an immediate response.
“Oh you’re soo on!” she flew down, seeing that passion in her eyes that you were attracted to.
“Ok so this time I get to pick the course,” you added which didn’t seem to dampen her mood.
“Pick whatever you want dude. I’m still gonna crush you.”
“Alright. First we’ll head to the big oak tree, then the lake, across the bridge and then loop back here,” you smiled knowing that Rainbow Dash wouldn’t figure out why you chose those spots.
“That’ll be a breeze,” she bragged. “Tree, lake, bridge and then back. Would figure you would pick a short course, after you complained yesterday.”
Normally you’d make a snarky retort, but you had to focus on the task on hand. It wasn’t like she would notice if you didn’t say anything. On the count of three the both of you were off, but instead of trying to beat the pegasus (you knew you were going to lose) you took some time at each spot.
The tree where the two of you first met, well where Dash found you. Your memory was hazy about the events that happened before you arrived in Equestria. Apparently whatever you did caused you to be passed out and you didn’t come to until you had quite a gathering of the colorful ponies around you.
Then there was the lake, where you two hung out after she “saved” you. That day had been warmer than usual and she suggested taking a dip. Thankfully Rarity had already made you some swim trunks that would probably cost a fortune back on Earth: they didn’t cling and dried within minutes. You spent the rest of the day racing around and lay on the shore, too exhausted, both physically and mentally, from that day’s events.
Thirdly there was the bridge, where during a Ponytones’ concert she pulled you aside and asked about your relationship. You weren’t quite sure if she was asking if you liked her or not, at that time you were still debating if falling in love with a pony would still count as bestiality since they were sentient. So you settled on saying you enjoyed hanging out with her, she was awesome and cool, and considered you two to be pretty close. She agreed, raising a hoof to which you bumped and from there you were close friends.
As you approached the finish line, you began to ponder. Was that all she saw you as? Just a close friend? Had you somehow set yourself up for the friendzone? You forced yourself to brush back this revelation. You still had to ask her, just to be sure. The only thing you hoped for though was that this didn’t ruin your friendship.
You sprinted the last few yards to an impatient mare.
“I thought you wanted to race, not take in the scenery,” she commented in a bored tone. “I took a look behind me when I got to the lake and saw you just standing there under the tree. Just because you know I’m gonna beat you doesn’t mean you should just quit.”
You simply smiled. She still didn’t get it, but then you weren’t planning on her to realize it at the beginning.
“Do you know why I chose this course Dash?” you asked, surprised a bit by your more wiser tone.
“Because you were bored?” she guessed. “Come on man. I’m not Twilight, all detectivy and stuff.”
You smiled. “Of course not Dash. You’re way cooler than her, although don’t tell her I said that. Anyway the reason I chose this course is because each place had a memory between you and I. The tree was where you found me, the lake where we hung out for the first time and the bridge where we became close friends.”
That made the pegasus pause, then her eyes went wide with the epiphany. “Oh yeah! I guess I was too focused on beating you to really notice.”
You kept smiling. “You know Dash, you don’t have to win everything. If you rush too much through life you’re gonna have some regrets on not enjoying the small things. You don’t have to worry about beating me Dash, you’re the one pony I don’t mind losing to.”
She gave you a confused look. “What are you getting at _______________?”
“I love you Dash. Ever since I got to know you, I’ve been building up these feelings and now I know that I would be honored to be your special somepony.”
Her ears pinned to her head, a faint blush on her cheeks. She looked around to see if anypony had heard you but even though there was nopony there her eyes continued to flick around.
“I - I can’t be in a relationship,” she stammered. “Love is all mushy and gross and above all uncool. That’s something Rarity would talk about. Lovey dovey dates, dressing up for them, bleh. Sorry dude, but that’s not for me. I g-gotta go now. Cya!”
“Dash wait-” you were too slow, as usual. She was already out of earshot.
Sighing and blaming yourself for probably ruining a good friendship you returned home, unbeknownst to you that the cyan pegasus was still watching from a cloud.
There was a knock at the door, which you naturally shooed away. You weren’t gonna brood over this rejection but at least needed a day to come to terms with it.
“It’s me, Rainbow Dash.”
Oh great, now she wants to tell me that she doesn’t wanna be friends with someone as uncool as me.
“It’s ok Dash, you don’t have to say it. I understand that being friends with someone who has feelings for you is awkward and uncool. You don’t have to worry about me, I’m fine,” you lied.
She opened your door as you remembered you gave her the key.
“No, you’re not,” she replied protectively, hopping onto the side of your bed. “I saw you walk home all down and mopey. I had time to think about what I said yesterday and I was too harsh. I - I was just surprised. Sure a lot of ponies have told me I was cool, but not one actually said they…” she trailed off.
“Loved you?” you finished, sitting up.
She nodded. “It’s not that I’m opposed to a relationship I guess. I - I actually asked Princess Cadance about it. Besides the whole spiel about who was the lucky stallion and whatever, she told me that a special somepony is just a pony that you enjoy hanging out with, that shares some of your interests and that truly cares about you and you back. That’s when I realized that’s pretty much what we have, but saying that we’re marefriend and coltfriend just doesn’t sound like me. What’s wrong with just being close friends, like we are now?”
“You still want to be my friend?”
“Well yeah, duh. You didn’t hurt me or my friends, just told me how you felt about me. While I can’t say that I love you, I do care about you and I guess tease you to show that. I tease everypony I care about.”
You weren’t quite expecting things to turn out like this, but who were you to complain? You were still best friends with her, and while she didn’t feel the same way, she seemed to come to an understanding and wouldn’t let that get in the way of your friendship. You snatched her up and gave her a bearhug, where she froze up for a moment before chuckling and returning the hug.
“If you tell anypony about this, I’ll kill you.”
You just laughed.