• Published 24th Oct 2014
  • 12,761 Views, 106 Comments

"Just Quit Yer Fussin' and Snuggle Up, Sugarcube!" - shortskirtsandexplosions



During a mountain hike, the girls only pack three large sleeping bags, and Rainbow Dash has to snuggle overnight with Applejack. This would be totally easy if she didn't crush on her so hard that she'd rather toss herself into the campfire

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Cuddle Down

Something's squeaking... like... really squeaking.

What is it? A leaky pipe? A broken bicycle? A sick puppy?

No... these squeaks have echoes to them... as if they're somewhere in the distance... almost like...

Birds chirping?

But, then that would mean it's morning.

Morning... and I...

I...

I swear, it takes a full minute to unpeel my eyelids apart from one another. A fuzzy, fuzzy world looms before me, lingering with gray fog between the trees. The campfire is a smoldering, smoking heap of charcoal black bits. Twilight's and Pinkie's sleeping bag is empty; I see a lavender shade trotting around in one corner of my vision and a fuchsia shape bouncing in the other. Rarity and Fluttershy are still snuggling, sleeping quietly.

I...

I try to move, but...

This is the absolute warmest, snuggliest, toastiest feeling I've ever felt in my whole life. It's like I'm having an out-of-body experience. Is it possible to sleep oneself to death? I don't know. Maybe... maybe you...

You...

I whip around—although, in reality, I just crane my neck slowly over my shoulder and blink in a tired haze.

You're gone.

Not only that, but the sleeping bag is zipped up tightly all around me. All around just me... as if it was my bag and mine alone since nightfall.

"Mrmmff... wh-where...?" I blink. "Who...?"

And then I hear it, the ripe, sexy drawl floating comfortably through the forest. "Good mornin', sugarcube." It's a soft thing. A feathery whisper. I know that you're just being quiet so as not to wake up Rarity and Fluttershy. But... a mare can dream. A mare did dream. "Sleep well, darlin'?" The crunch of leaves and twigs. I look up, up, up... and there is your face with the golden sunrise, and I'm at a loss to guess which of the two is brighter. "Must say, yer lookin' mighty cozy in there."

"I... I haven't..." I blink blearily. "What... t-time?"

"Half past eight, darlin'."

"But... grmmfff..." I try sitting up. I'm like a blue beetle being halfway digested inside a giant green caterpillar. "I... I-I promised to..." I yawn. Dammit. "To sc-scout ahead..."

"Shhhh..." You push me back down with the gentlest of hooves. I see a smile. It's real... it's all very real. "S'all good, Rainbow. When yer ready." My vision clears enough to see something that resembles a wink, but I'm too distracted by your sweet-as-sugar smile. "Not 'til yer good'n'ready."

"Mmmmf..." I don't protest. I don't fight. I don't move. "Okay... AJ..."

You stand over me for a few more seconds. What's there left to say? What's there left to smile about? And yet, you linger... it has to have been half a minute by now. Just... you gazing. "You just rest now. The day will be awesome. Trust me."

And, at last, you're gone. And yet you're not. Those last few words linger with me. They throb through my head. As the bloodrush clears, I remember things... gentle things... cuddly things. I remember a pegasus in the dead thick of night who hugged her best friend's tears away, and I can only imagine one way in which the two would have woken up from that sweet embrace... or at least one of them.

And then I look at the sleeping bag, at how tightly it's zipped around me, how I'm in the center of it and not the side, as if I was placed there... deposited by an angel. And when I look over and I see you gathering things and rolling them up into our pack, I see a flounce to your mane and tail that somehow wasn't there before, and I hear you whistling an old country tune, and it's the most melodic thing I've ever heard from your lips. I don't need to see your smile to know that it's there, and you don't even have to see mine.

So I snuggle up in the bed that's been made for me, still crisp and sweet with the scent of you. It carries me into the next sleepy minutes, smiling the whole way.

And for the first time in countless nights of tossing... turning... wondering, I feel... I know...

That life is good.

Author's Note:

If you want to read more fluff like this, feel free to check out SS&E's alt:

Tell 'em the lemur sent you

Comments ( 69 )

>dat premise

:facehoof:
Guh...

Lol, this seems interesting. Though I'm a RariJack fan... :pinkiecrazy::heart:

Lovely. :heart:

Fucking hell, man.

When you do mushy Rainbow, you sure do her right. This one was fantastic.

Who knew SS&E had (at least) three alternate accounts? Or that Best Lemur was such a big fluffy-shippery-softy?

eeeeeeeee, Appledash!

If in nearly 11 thousand words a character has one paragraph, they're not a main character and they shouldn't be tagged.

I don't approve of anti-canon ships (ships that would never happen with the canon characters), but this is totally the kind of crud that I think that all of us have imagined at least once in our lives with someone we "liked".

You nailed it. I'll ignore the fact that the shipping doesn't work for me to say Good job. :twilightsmile:

wzium #9 · Oct 24th, 2014 · · 1 ·

I love your AppleDash stories so much :rainbowkiss: More! I demand more!
It was absolutely cute story and I love Dash in your fiction. You always show us that soft side of her character.

To quote you: Duaaaaaaaaaah...

Dang, this is really sweet. I can even begin to describe it. Well I could but I am too lazy to do so. Bur you, you described so much, and there was so much feeling!

So thank you for that. It was a splendid read.

SWEEEEEEEEEET

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

Somehow... when I clicked on this, I thought it would be funny. Instead, it's sweet as <swearword removed>.

I am not in the least disappointed. Moooooooooooore?

5181758 >non canon ships
Sorry, there is canon shipping...? What, all 3 of them? 1 of which is married, one being a kid crush and the other being in EQG?

No offence but you got bad taste m8.

5182511
EqG doesn't count. You also forgot Cheeramac, Cheese Pie, the love quadrangle from Simple Ways, Mr. & Mrs. Cake, Shining x Changeling Queen, etc.

I'm a purist. My taste tastes good to me. ;)

Lovely! Nothing else to say! :heart:

:rainbowkiss::ajsmug:

This kind of stuff is why Appledash is the greatest ship that ever has been and ever will be. An epic introspective look and the mind of an Applejack crazed pegasus.

Awesome job :ajsmug:

Nauseating.
Excellent.
I love it.
:heart::heart::heart:

I loved this so much.
I don't even like F/F ships!
But yeah, this is absolutely one of the best portrayals of Dash I've ever read.

It's hard to imagine Rainbow having such eloquent words for her feelings, but they show an understanding of the subject matter that can only come from experience. In terms of the dialogue, you captured the characters' voices so perfectly I could hear them.

5182690

Since when is CheesePie a canon ship? It is about as canon as PinkieDash or AppleDash as in you have one or more episodes with situations that make some people think they see shippy moments but are not actually confirmed in the show at all. Heck between PinkieDash and CheesePie in show you could make the point that there is more evidence for PinkieDash than CheesePie and it still is not canon because nowhere do the characters ever mention being attracted to each other outside of being friends for any of these couples.

Also CherriMac only has evidence during a use of a potion. Outside of that you have one scene of her swooning while he is singing on stage but that is actually a common trope for a male pop star so that is not as conclusive as you may think. Like the others though it does lend itself to that kind of thinking.

5180910
We're all SS&E alts. Aaaaaaalllll of us.

Gonna have to say, this is the cutest fic that I've read so far. Besides my almost screaming, "Just kiss!" I realize that wasn't really the premise of the story. Of course, it's an effect of a cause, but the cause has to happen before the effect. And I love the first and second person (one-and-a-half person?) this is written in. It almost seems like a letter.

One of the cutest things I ever read. I think it's totally worth a hoof up as well as a favourite. So there you go. Have a nice day!

Very nice.


I need to read some Rarijack though.

This felt kind of long for what it was; it was 11k words long, but I'm not really sure that it needed to be nearly so long. It didn't feel like it really went all that far for having so many words spent on it, and all the digressions ended up feeling a bit excessive.

5180758
I died a little when I saw it for reasons that HoofBitingActionOverload and a couple other editors of mine would understand.

5184270
Are you looking for some RariJack?

If so, there's the somewhat bittersweet On the Care and Construction of Bridges, the generally fun Barrelled Up, and of course Diamond In The Rough. There's also A Terrible Reason to Be Unhappy, but that isn't a very happy Rarijack story (though it is a very good one, if you enjoy melodrama and romantic angst). EDIT: There's also Home Grown. Unfortunately, all of my favorite RariJack stories written by other people... don't actually involve them being together for some reason, but them kind of falling towards each other.

Of my own RariJack stories, both Temptation and Crêpes are reasonably well liked; if you liked this story, you'd definitely enjoy Temptation, which actually has a very similar premise.

Sadly, I actually don't have that many RariJack stories favorited, despite it being my favorite ship to write about. Though maybe that's why I'm always driven to do it. I have three half-finished ones lying around because I'm lazy. :ajsleepy:

5182511
There's at least seven canon married couples actually (ones where we've seen both ponies and they're both most likely still amongst the living) . Twi's parents, Pinkie's parents, Rarity's parents, SA+Cadance, the Cakes, the Oranges, and Jet Set + Upper Crust. Most of those have lines for both spouses to boot. We've also seen Granny Smith's parents, but I rather doubt they're still alive.

And for dating couples, there's at least three, with H&H's day having Caramel and Sassaflash (though given how Caramel seems to be a mack and the scene in MMC, it most likely didn't last), Canterlot Wedding has Lucky Clover and Wild Fire (the couple Cadance zaps), and the most prominent dating couple of them all (if you don't count Cadance and SA pre-marriage): Matilda and Cranky.

5184457
This is true, but almost none of them are actual characters. Only Shining Armor + Cadance and the Cakes have character to speak of; the rest are very much bit parts, flat characters without a whole lot of depth to them.

Anyone else is practically an OC, or relies on you to put on your shipping goggles (CheeriMac). And even there, we really don't know Cheerilee or Big McIntosh all that well. What are Big Mac's ambitions? What drives him? We know even less about Cheerilee.

5182690

Ummm... CheesyPie isn't canon? Hello? Where in the episode did they confess to each other? And if anything, Simple Ways hinted that Applejack was a lesbian, and Rarity's passion for Trenderhoof went unreciprocated, so there's nothing there either. :facehoof:

The only "canon" ships in MLP are Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Shining Armor and Cadence, a brief bout of CheeriMac (unknown if it's still happening), Pinkie and Twilight's parents, and that's about it.

In any case, loved this story. You certainly are wordy though, and never like giving us the payoff, do you? *Sigh* Ah well... Maybe in another story we can have Rainbow nut the hell up and finally see what a confession from her looks like from your vantage point on high.

C'mon, Appledashery. Daddy needs to hear a confession... :pinkiecrazy:

Well, that was a fantastic story. Loved pretty much every part. Thumbs of the upward kind and all that comin' at ya.

5184480
I never said that they confessed their love. I just meant that they would be a valid shipping because it makes sense with what the show has given us. :rainbowkiss:

Anti-canon means it goes against canon. That doesn't include everything that isn't canon simply because it wasn't shown. Only those things which would never happen, even off screen. :trollestia:

Mad

5180779 I think it's the most valid shipping.

5184569

Well, I'm sorry, but it's not canon, then. If it is, then by your logic, half of all the popular shippings are. There are plenty of inter-Mane Six ships with far more going for them than any CheeseyPie ship. I'm not anti-CheeseyPie, but you certainly seem very selective in your criteria. It's almost like you were saying in your original post "straight pairings are okay and can be considered canonized with the slightest hinting, even if they've only shared one episode and showed no outright romantic interest in each other; lesbian pairings, not so much, regardless of how much sense it might make or much they may have in common or shared screentime". Every "canon" pairing you've listed so far is canon because it's represented in the show as such. Shining Armor and Cadence and Mr. and Mrs. Cake are actually married. Big Mac and Cheerilee dated, even if it hasn't been mentioned since, but it did happen on the show for however briefly, so that makes that canon too.

CheeseyPie, though... nothing happened. Not canon. Just another ship. Biiiiiig difference.

5184730
Well then, any explanations I give will be invalid to you, because what I think is possible with the canon characters apparently isn't what you think is possible. *shrug*

It's an opinion. No need to be uptight or riled up about it. We're here to enjoy fics. Come on, relax. Have some fun. :yay:

Who/what is SS&E? Because if its an alt account of yours, I wanna read the fics.

Also, this story. So cute. So very very cute. Dash's internal monologue, surprisingly verbose.

This never really went anywhere, but it was... Pleasant to read.
Just, a nice time. Enjoyable, if not much else.
Fluff gonna fluff.

5184469 You're overrating how much character the Cakes have. Seriously, what do we know about them beyond that they run a business, are married with two kids, and aren't always sure about trusting their live-in employee? But on the flip side, you're underrating Cranky and Matilda. They handily out-do the Cakes due to Cranky being the focus of an episode. Heck, in terms of comparison to the Cakes, by virtue of being a hollow stereotype, Jet Set and Upper Crust are about equal in terms of ease of writing something likely to be considered in-canon character. Though, admittedly, that same stereotype means nobody is likely to write them as protagonists. :pinkiecrazy:

But yeah, the show focuses pretty heavily on its main cast of 10 characters, with a bit of princess support. If you aren't one of those, you're hooped. Like poor Big Mac who got turned into a one-note character, thereby killing off much of his potential. Also agree that you need some some strong shipping goggles to overcome things like Big Mac and Cheerilee stating they have no interest in dating each other and so on.

I dream of the day Appledashery reaches this point.

Live long and dash apples

5186198
Mr. and Mrs. Cake have shown up in a number of episodes and we've seen their personalities a bit, though usually under stress (or they're just anxious people in general). They were fretting over Princess Celestia back in season 1, as well as leaving Pinkie Pie in charge for the day (with good reason, as we learn). We've seen them interact with Twilight a little bit as well. Mr. Cake also was super nervous about the giant cake being moved in MMMystery on the Friendship Express, and we've seen other snippets of their personality (Mr. Cake's denial about the parentage of his children, for example).

I think we've seen enough of them to establish their character voices and their personalities to a decent extent, though it is true that they aren't as "rounded" as some other characters. That being said, they probably have as much or more personality than Cranky does, and certainly more than Matilda.

Cheerilee and Big Mac

Well, there's also always:

derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/2/15/552733__safe_screencap_smile_bon+bon_bedroom+eyes_cheerilee_sweetie+drops_carrot+top_on+back_wink.jpg

I was about to say, I was surprised you didn't put this under Blue Harvest's name. Does this mean you're retiring that account (not that it's been very active lately)? Maybe, now that it's out in the open, it's no longer needed. Still seems like a shame, though...

Anyways, really nice story. It's always slightly jarring to see Rainbow all eloquent-like, but somehow it works here. Maybe it's the stream-of-consciousness format. The bit with Applejack's dream was unexpectedly moving, and Applejack's actions in the epilogue were subtle yet provocative and--dare I say?--hope-inducing.

Also, getting a kick out of all the shipping-debate in the comments. Whether you like x-ship or y-ship or no-ship-at-all, people need to stop taking everything so seriously and enjoy the fun where they can find it, y'dig? Life's too short and then we nourish worms.

Meh I've read better.

Loved it! It was nice, sweet, and very lovey dovey! Just the way I like'em. I would've liked something mroe happening in the night but... this is good. Really really good. I applaude you!

wait, that was it, i thought this was going to be continued :raritycry::applecry:

I just read through all of your alt's stories and I want, no, require more.

Please for the love of everything MLP write more, continue this because this is THE most amazing fanfiction I've ever read. I absolutely love it and I'm with the guys before me. Would you pretty please write more of this amazing fan fiction? :rainbowkiss::heart::heart::heart::raritystarry::pinkiehappy::ajsmug:

5182511 Hum, just to know, which canon shipping is a kid crush? Spike x Rarity?

aCB

I felt like this was pretty good. One problem I had is that the prose was a little too flowery to come from Rainbow Dash's mind. If it's a first person story, then everything I see written, if not in quotations, I assume to be from the story-teller's point of view. When the descriptions drift toward "tongues of flame", I imagine a speaker who can speak poetically. Rarity or Twilight might pass for this, but not Rainbow.

The overall story arc is pretty satisfactory, however, and the minor resolution of realization of love is appropriate when the overall arc is taken into account. I would rate this story a 7/10. Satisfying, but not stupendous.

5194977
I disagree, that's not how I read it and reading it over again that's not what it sounds like to me

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