//------------------------------//
// Not-kissing 
// Story: Proximity 
// by paperhearts 
//------------------------------//

Ocellus kept her eyes fixed on the table beneath her forelegs.  Her lungs twitched against her carapace, a double-beat warning that she accepted without challenge or complaint.  Slowly, she exhaled, and tried to focus on smoothing out the jagged rattle escaping her lips.

The rest of the library crept back to life.  It was always quiet during the hours before breakfast, and if she concentrated, Ocellus knew she would almost be able to hear the books on the shelves stirring as the morning light invaded their surfaces and cracks.

And Ocellus concentrated.  She concentrated like her life depended on it.

Opposite her, Smolder was sat with her arms folded.  Ocellus knew that her girlfriend's eyes were still wide and incredulous, the same way she knew that they were still underlined by hues of candy floss and cinnamon.  She knew because the taste was threatening to intoxicate her in the way only Smolder's feelings could.

"Awful?"  Her girlfriend's rasping voice bent the word into a strange shape.  "Wow."

Ocellus' head snapped up.  "I didn't say awful, Smolder! I would never say that."  Her lungs twitched again as Smolder raised an eyebrow.  Slowly, she traced the echo that was still pressed against her lips.  "I, um, said it was sharp, and a little bit pointy—" she cleared her throat "—and, um, cold."

Smudges of charcoal snaked out from Smolder's nose.  "My bad.  That definitely doesn't sound like awful."

Despite the erratic violence of her heart, Ocellus felt frustration begin to stir within.  She wanted to be the better beast, but her own embarrassment and disappointment demanded acknowledgement too.  The taste of Smolder's emotions mixing with her own, becoming an inseparable mess as they fused and shattered into galaxies of flavours, was usually like nothing else she had ever experienced.  This time was no different, of course, only now the flavours were acrid and sharp, and reluctant to be swallowed.  It was all so frustrating.

"Well if you want to abridge what I was saying," she snapped, "then yes.  It was.  Awful!"

Smolder's face momentarily betrayed her.  In the warm silence of the library her features tightened, her smile forgetting its duty to look dangerous or predatory, or whatever it was that Smolder liked to hide behind during their arguments.  It only lasted a second, but Ocellus was convinced she would never be able to forget how those changes tasted.  They were delicious, but oh how they stung; in that moment Ocellus felt like a hunter who was about to consume her last living prey.

Her frustration only lasted a second too.  Acknowledged, it slunk back down into whatever dark cavity it grew nourishment from, and Ocellus felt a craving to fill the void in her body with something kinder.  She lunged across the table and swept up Smolder's claw between her hooves.  Her girlfriend tensed, but after a moment Ocellus felt claws tighten around her.

A heartbeat later, she tried on a smile.  "I bet I was awful, too."

A heartbeat later, Smolder allowed her eyes to meet Ocellus'.  "Sharp, pointy and cold, if I remember right."

A heartbeat later, they burst out laughing.

"It was a dumb idea anyway," Smolder continued, once the librarian had finished chastising them.  Her face had begun to relax into the safe angles Ocellus so often loved to lose herself in.  "Dragons don't kiss and changelings don't kiss.  It's just some dumb pony custom when you think about it."

Ocellus giggled, but she had heard the forced edge to her girlfriend's mocking words.  More importantly, she had noticed Smolder had made no attempt to hide it from her either.  Ocellus studied her as she scratched trenches into the table with her claws.

"I wanted it to work, too, you know," she replied.  "I wanted to taste, to feel, everything we were told kissing means, and I wanted to feel it with you."

Smolder opened her mouth, but whatever words she had planned to say had sharpened into a laugh by the time they emerged.  "Yeah... You get me, 'Cell."

"And you me, my love."  Ocellus held Smolder's gaze, revelling in the heat prickling between the gaps in her carapace.  "I think it was worth trying, too.  It would be nice to share something like a kiss, don't you think?  Ponies seem to enjoy it as a real act of intimacy."

"Intimacy, huh?"  Smolder scratched her snout before leaning closer across the table.  Her hand tightened around Ocellus' hooves again.  "Hey, 'Cell.  So... I've got this idea.  How about we go outside—somewhere quiet, you know?  And then maybe I can—"

"Yes?" The word squeaked from Ocellus as though it had a mind of its own.  Heat stung her cheeks as she pressed her hooves against her mouth, nodding for Smolder to continue.  Smolder studied her for a moment, and then her smile became something dangerous.  

"I was saying, how about we go outside, find somewhere quiet, and I could—"

Ocellus squeaked again.  Her wings fluttered and spasmed, scattering the scrolls and notepaper from the table.

"—drop a rock on your head!"

Ocellus blushed madly.  Then her brain caught up.  "Wait, what!?"

"S'what dragons do, of course."  Smolder sat back and shrugged.  "Why, what did you think I was talking about?"

"N—Nothing!" Ocellus snapped.  She tore her hoof away and glared at Smolder.  "And why would I let you do that to me anyway?  You're awful sometimes, Smolder!"

"Only sometimes?"  Smolder laughed.  "Seriously though, 'Cell, it works and it's straight to the point.  Wanna let a dragon know you're into 'em?"  Just drop a rock straight onto their nut.  The bigger the rock, the mushier you feel."

"And the mushier they feel too, I bet!"

Smolder burst out laughing, her eyes catching the sunlight like broken glass.  "Yeah, that is a danger, sure."  She drummed her claws on the table, and despite herself Ocellus was pleased that her girlfriend seemed happier.  "What do you think we should do then?  It's not like I can go around chowing down on intimacy like you do."

"Another con to dating you, true."  Ocellus drummed her hooves on the table as she thought.  "Something we can both do..."

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine something that would feel as real to her and Smolder as kissing did to ponies.  Something that expressed love and affection, that nursed an intimacy they could both feel.  Something that connected them together in a way that felt childishly infinite, but which could in time grow into something more mature, more wise.

She grunted as something gently bumped against her head.  Then every star in the universe was suddenly thrust into her heart, each one fighting for space to bloom and shine.  Ocellus felt her horn press against something solid, yet yielding; jagged edges of chitin slid and bumped along the surface of the object, before finally coming to rest within tight embracing grooves.

It felt like home.  Ocellus shivered.  No, it felt like every home she had ever known, and it felt like every home she would ever know.  She could feel her heartbeat travelling up and out through her horn, becoming one with the heartbeat that was pulsing through the object.  She opened her eyes, already certain of what she would see.

Smolder had climbed onto the table on all fours, her head bowed just above Ocellus', their horns locked tight.

"So... How about this?"  Smolder's voice was a brittle rasp, and her cheeks looked as though they were ready to burn the library down.  Somehow, it made Ocellus want to touch them even more.

Taking her girlfriend's face in her hooves, Ocellus placed a small kiss on her snout.  It was sharp.  It was pointy.  It was cold.

"It's perfect," she said.