Your pulse thundered in your ears, pounded in your chest, made your tongue dry in your mouth. A laugh bubbled out from between the trees behind you, treading along with heavy footfalls that rang through the trees and rustled the leaves. Between the trunks and around the vague trails cross hatched into the earth by thousands of tiny paws, over creeks and around bends and running, running, running until breath ran ragged out of your lungs and a smile pushed at your cheeks. You ran through the dampness of the jungle till it clung to you, dripped down your face. The heavy footfalls fell behind until there was nothing but your own light tread. You slowed with a wary glance to the tree tops.
The forest rang with silence.
“Gotcha!” Wide arms sprung out from the foliage and wrapped tightly around your middle, hurdling you both to the ground with laughter and heaving breaths that echoed against the roof of the canopy. Green light streamed down to meet your smiling faces and the identical flushes that painted your cheeks.
“Alright, how did you manage that?” you shoved her off of you with a wide smile and the sentiment of friendship and dusted your chest off with muddy hooves.
“I’ve lived in this jungle my entire life, you don’t think I couldn’t manage a secret path or two? Crimeny, it’s like you haven’t any idea who I am at all.” More laughter on the forest floor. Your intertwined legs buzzed.
“You’ll have to show me those paths, you realize.” You smirked.
“You’ll have to best me first, you realize.” It was a mocked accent, more twang than twinge, and entirely intentional.
You leaned over, dead leaves following you, clinging to your mane and tail, accompanied by dirt as you hovered above Kindersis. “It sounds like you don’t think I can.”
“It would seem that way because I don’t think you can.” Crooked, brace filled teeth and smiles flashed in the sunlight as she reached up to take your shoulders and pin you to the ground.
A quirked brow. A challenge.
There was a tangle of limbs and the grabbing of wings and unceremonious grunts as backs hit the ground and no few amount of scratches as bared skin scraped earth and tree and plant. You guys tussled with smiles on your faces and fire in your eyes, even as the green light turned darker, slanted rays pointing eastward as the sun dipped in the west.
“Call it!”
“Never!”
“Call it!”
“Celestia’s Great Aunt Sally, fine fine! Uncle, I call uncle!”
You released Kindersis’s hooves from behind her back with the smug satisfaction of a victory. “Now I urge you to take back your statement.”
“And what statement would that be?” She rose to his feet and dusted herself off, only accomplishing in spreading the mud all over her coat.
“I seem to recall a statement said by one Ms.Kindersis about me not being able to beat you.” You crossed your arms.
“Ah, yes, of course, of course. You have beaten me.” She rolled her eyes and bowed in an ostentatiously goofy manner, sure to add as much sarcastic bite into the movement as possible. You shoved her shoulder. Kindersis shoved back. Her laughter pierced the sky. You helped each other to your feet and walked along a vague pathway. The quiet chirrups and cries of hidden animals dulled, the lack of presence not jarring, but noteworthy.
“It’s getting a tad bit dark, wouldn’t you say?” She mumbled as you walked through the silence of a fading forest, the darkness sucking the color from the green trees.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
A moment.
“Is the one and only Kindersis saying we should quit our adventuring and head in for the night?” Her brows shot up to her hair line, mock amazement in the form of a dramatic hoof pressed against her forehead.
“Even adventurers need rest, you griffon’s ass.”
“Of course, how could I say any different?”
“Yes, your assumptions are a bit troubling.” She raised one half of her mouth in smile, quirking her corresponding eyebrow. You hummed in response, and your walk was dotted only by the few times your hooves swiping against one another as you walked, the silence loud in your ears.
Your house was looming high and artificial amongst the foliage and you walked with reverberating footsteps as ground led way to steel and concrete. Darkness enveloped you both as the last straining light of the sun was extinguished behind the horizon; fluorescent lights flickered on above you and bathed you in a shallow glow.
Transporting up and up and up, blank wall after blank wall giving way to a room splashed with color. This was your room, Kindersis had only been here once or twice before, but never for long. You felt your heart tighten as you knew what was coming next. You gripped her hoof tighter, not wanting to let go, though it was somewhat difficult to walk.
Kindersis tugged you to the bed, a tangle of mussed sheets and a pillow that threatened to fall off the edge.
“We’re filthy.” You eyed her, half a grin threatening at the corners of your mouth.
Kindersis made a show of mulling over your words. “you wanna go in the shower?”
You rolled your eyes, their color shining under the lights. Kindersis plucked your glasses from atop of your head and folded them with purposeful hesitancy before placing them on the bedside table. “Are you going to make another quip about my questionable assumptions?”
“It was a thought I delayed on for a moment, yes.” Another sharp tug landed you on the bed with her looming over you, a blur of color as the posters on the walls spun around you and bobbed into stillness as the bed settled.
Eyes slipped closed. Breaths were loud through noses and lips glided over one another as frenzied hooves gripped and rubbed and pressed. It became a flurry of movement, of sensation sweeping across exposed skin in curling tendrils.
You separated.
Breathed.
Goosebumps rose on skin as you came together again, slow, soft. The muffled whump of the pillow falling to the floor was drowned out by another moan as dirt covered hooves traced along the ridges of toned muscle.
“I feel like you’re cheating.” You murmured, tugging at the little tuft of her wing. There was a smile in her voice.
“I might be, just a tad.” She shuddered once you ran your hoof over her pale pink, almost white chest, and took a moment to stroke at the line around her collar bone. You leaned over to kiss it, to nip at the bones that protruded around her neck.