//------------------------------//
// Is It Considered Snuggling If It's An Accident? 
// Story: Not a Cloud In the Sky 
// by OutOfTheBlue 
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  "Wow, ponies have so much cool stuff."

After reading through his book, Cloud had begun teaching Pandora the names for various things around the house. He had just explained the concept of running water (which to Pandora's disappointment did not have anything to do with tiny water elves heating it for them) and was now preparing lunch for the two of them.

"I still can't believe I ate soup for breakfast. I mean, I know it was early but I'm not usually that big of an idiot."

Cloud turned around after hearing a grunt from Pandora. When he looked over at her, he saw her with her mussel stuck in a now empty peanut butter jar. She had also somehow managed to get peanut butter on her horn and all over her face. Upon closer examination, Cloud saw the problem. Pandora had somehow stuck her fangs through the side of the jar and couldn't get free. With a sigh Cloud grabbed a knife and carefully cut a line from the top of the the jar to the bottom before ripping the plastic container in half. As he prepared to ask how exactly she had gotten her head in there in the first place, Pandora licked the peanut butter off her face and said,

"I don't know what that was, but it almost tastes better than love, almost."

As he opened a new jar of peanut butter to make sandwiches with, Cloud asked,

"Quick question about the entire love thing, how do you gather that emotion. I mean, happiness and compassion I get, but ponies just don't go around loving everything they see in a romantic way, do they?"

"Well, it doesn't have to be romantic love, there's sibling love, parental love, love for a pet, but the best type is romantic love. An easy way to gather romantic love is through physical affection. The more intimate, the better."

Cloud's face scrunched up as he asked,

"Wait, you can live off of snuggling?"

Pandora nodded,

"Snuggling releases a lot of love, nit as much as kissing or other such activities, but still plenty."

"And would you say that changelings share some similarities to bugs?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

Cloud snickered,

"You realize that changelings are literally, to quote a mushy romance phrase, snuggle bugs."

Pandora opened her mouth, then closed it, she blinked a few times before bursting into a fit of laughter, which Cloud then joined with with a couple quiet snickers of his own. Pandora noticed and said,

"Aha! You laughed! Admit it, you're warming up to me Mr. 'I'm so emotionless, darkness amd despair, ugh'."

With that comment she transformed into a version of him with black eyeliner, and hair covering one of his eyes and loudly saying,"Angst!" before flipping her mane and transforming back to normal. Cloud went wide eyed and started making strange choking noises. Upon hearing this, Pandora started to worry.

"C-cloud? Are you okay?"

"..."

"Clou-"

"BWAHAHAHAHAAAAA *hiss* HA!"

With a loud, hissing laugh, Cloud started dying laughing, quickly followed by Pandora who couldn't contain herself at hearing his strange laugh. As the two settled down, Cloud realized something from earlier.

"Wait, would the most effective method of physical affection be, you know, the ugh..."

"The what?"

"You know, the horizontal tango, the Nantucket sleigh-ride,the... ugh, you know, humanuh huminuh?"

"Do you mean... sex?"

"Yeah, that is the most effective way to gather love through physical affection. As disgusting as it is, sone changelings do that for every meal. Not many changelings do though, mainly because most changelings see ponies as inferior beings, like just a food source, and some hate ponies because while you have everything, they have only what they steal."

Cloud stared straight ahead for a second as he processed this new information. Upon seeing Pandora's sad expression, he quickly thought of a way to lighten the mood.

"So in other words... when a pony and a changeling make love, from the changeling's point of view, they are literally making love."

Pandora scrunched her face up in thought until realization hit her and her eyes widened.

"I wonder if that's where that pony phrase came from, like, if a changeling accidentally said that one time and now everyone just goes with it."

Cloud gave her a devious look before saying, 

"I guess the world will never know, will it."

After a quick lunch of fluffernutters (peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches for all you unenlightened people) Cloud set to work teaching Pandora the alphabet. After drawing the alphabet on a piece of paper and showing her the relationship between letter and sound, the two spent until dinner learning letters and basic words. Pandora was a surprisingly fast learner and before dinner could read simple sentences, although very choppily. Dinner was a simple affair of roasted vegetables and some rice Cloud had leftover in the fridge. After they ate, the two read another book together and spent the rest of the evening telling stories about their respective lives. Around eleven  o'clock, Cloud said,

"I don't know about you, but I think I'm going to sleep."

"Ok, I'll just stay up a bit later to practice reading before I sleep."

"All right, don't forget to turn the lights off. Goodnight Pandora, see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight Cloud, and thanks for everything."

Cloud smiled, and went to go brush his teeth. After he finished and laid down in his bed, Cloud said to himself,

"Today was a good day, for once."

And drifted off to sleep.

(1 hour later)

Pandora stiffled a yawn before getting a drink of non- water elf related water before turning off the lights. She then walked to the end off the hall before entering Cloud's room. She quietly got into his bed before pressing gently up against his back, feeling his feathers brush gently over her.

"Just like back at the hive." She thought to her self, as she shared her body heat as was tradition.

"Today was a good day." She wispered to herself as she got comfortable. Not three minutes later, Cloud rolled over and hugged her to his chest, murmuring softly in his sleep. With a happy chirp, Pandora hugged right back, enjoying the affection and warm of her new roommate. And so both slept, unaware of the rude awakening they both would have.