A quick journey through the life and times of Anon and his growing feelings for Equestria's most awesome pegasus
Anon's been in Equestria for a few months now, and while he's gotten himself settled, he still finds himself struggling with his feelings for a certain rainbow-maned pegasus. Now, journey with him as their relationship evolves into something so much more. Cover by varemiaart.
Based on those "Not Doing Harmful Things" memes all over Deviantart, written on a whim. Wasn't sure I was gonna post this, then I saw somebody else do something similar and figured, what the hell, why not? Also, no offense to Dan-The-Jerk, his story is cute and wonderfully written and all, but I'm fed-up with stories where Rainbow is this damaged mare who needs help healing her broken widdle heart. Are you kidding me!? She's freakin' Rainbow Dash!
“So then, he just waddles right over, and I’m still thinking, like, ‘what is with this guy,’ y’know?”
“Oh yeah, I getcha there.” I know better than I let on. Two months since I stepped off a subway platform in Queens and landed face-first in a grassy field outside a small village in a land of magic and talking ponies, and I’ve found myself drawn to one of the local celebrities. Rainbow Dash, a pegasus (or so winged ponies are called here), a future wonder bolt, and one of the most headstrong creatures I’ve ever met, pony or human. Sure, the other ponies have been friendly enough, and I’ve made quite a few friends during my stay here, but for some reason I always find myself drawn to this particular pony whenever she’s around. I could be having dinner with my best friend from back on Earth, and if she took a seat in the same restaurant, it wouldn’t matter. My buddy could be talking about whether or not Jack kissed Claire on Days of our Lives, finally relieving the suspense I’ve been holding in my chest since I left before I could have a chance to see it, and I would still be drawn to that shock of multicolored mane, those incredible, vermillion eyes, that cute little muzzle that sometimes scrunches up when she is deep enough in thought.
What is with this mare!? I ask myself for the fifth time in as many minutes.
“So this tortoise wanders over to me, and I’m still wonderin’ what he even thinks he’s gonna do, right?”
“Seems a bit judgmental for you.”
She cringes at that, biting her lip like she usually does when she’s a bit uncomfortable. It’s so cute my heart nearly stops. “Yeah, I know,” she says while rubbing at the back of her head with a hoof. “In hindsight, I was a serious jerk to the little guy. Got it in my head that my pet had to be some stupid ideal of awesome or whatever…”
There it is. That bit of deeper intelligence, buried under some brash, tomboyish model of speech. God, I love it. I only wish I could work up the guts to tell her that.
Dammit! I did it again, only this time, I got caught. Three months into my stay in Ponyville, and my feelings for the Element of Loyalty haven’t abated. Shit, I’m so freakin’ embarrassed…I wanna just crawl into a hole somewhere and curl up and die…
But then, I notice the light in her eyes, the tiny smile curling up the corners of her mouth. I remember the near-laughter in her tone when she spoke, giving a little quavering quality to her voice. I relax. “I dunno,” I shrug. “I could be challenging you to a staring contest.”
“Oh, izzat all?” She puts down the Daring-Doo book she’s been reading and turns on her side, facing me. That competitive fire ignites in her eyes, and just like that, I can’t look away. It’s mesmerizing. She locks her gaze on mine with the accuracy of a bomber pilot from back home. “I gotta warn ya, I don’t lose. Period.”
“I know,” I reply with a nonchalant little shrug. Hopefully, it disguises the utter chaos twisting my insides. Her eyes stay on mine, and I don’t dare look away. If I look away, that’ll be it. I’ll lose my bravery and back down again.
Okay. It’s now or never.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash…you think we could…go out sometime?”
Oh my God. Oh my God, I can’t believe that just happened. No damn way. No freaking-damn way.
It hadn’t been anything special. Another night maybe five months into my time in Ponyville. Just another night in after a long day of watching her doing flips and tricks to impress the local fillies. Me with my book, her with one of her own. My hand, acting on its own accord, had gone for something soft to rub, and thinking I had just found a pillow, I rested it on something soft, fluffy, and warm, stroking back and forth like I had with my dog back on Earth.
“Um…” the lump had said, and then I realized my mistake.
“D-Dashie!” I screamed, my hand darting back and my face turning red as the book flew out of my hand. “Cripes, I’m so sorry!”
She looked back at me, not quite meeting my eyes. Yeah, in case it’s not obvious yet, the only one in Ponyville even worse at relationships than me is Dash. Her face had gone beet red. She quickly turned away, hiding her snout behind her hoof while mumbling something.
“W-what?” I asked dumbly.
She craned her neck to look back at me and gave a weak smile. “I-I didn’t tell you to stop.”
My jaw dropping, I slowly reached out, my hand laying on the back of her head again. I had to lean over to rest it in her mane, but eventually she turned back to her book, a contented smile crossing her face.
I had never needed a cold shower so badly in my life.
A month after the “petting” incident (about five months into my stay in Ponyville) and Dash and I have been going strong. Weekend dates, days spent just watching her, and just the other day, Twi gave me a spell that made me light as a feather just so I could fly with her. With…with my marefriend. God, that sounds so weird still. Not the pony flavor to it, I mean, just the whole idea…MY marefriend. Heh.
So flying was a thing. An awesome thing, too. Loved it. I can see why my Dashie enjoys it so much. But afterwards, we’ll just talk. We’ll sit up in the clouds, and she will just let loose. It’s like the fact that nopony else could possibly be up here is enough to loosen her lips, and she’ll talk about anything. I bought up the possibility of human-pony sex with her just the other day. She laughed, but instead of changing the subject, we wound up in a half-hour review session of everything: the shortcomings, the things that might pop up because of anatomical differences, the perks of fingers…
And then I did something I never thought I’d have the guts to do. She’d been talking about anatomical needs, asking me about some of the flaws in bipedal locomotion (her words, if you can believe it), and when I turned to her, she’d made a cute little shrug and smiled. “I mean, just curious…” she’d said.
“Why do you do that?” I’d asked.
“Do what?” She’d asked.
“Every time you say something smart, you smile and shrug it off like it’s no big.”
“’Cuz it isn’t! I-it’s not like I’m some sorta egghead like Twilight or something…”
And then I said it. Don’t know why, it just came out of my mouth before I could even think about it. “Egghead or not, someone like you shouldn’t be trying to hide how freakin’ smart they are.”
She’d looked up at me, eyes widening. “Me…smart?”
“Hasn’t…anypony toldja that? What, don’t tell me I’m the first person who noticed how amazingly intelligent you are?”
That did it. There was no shrugging it off now. Her eyes widened further, a blush forming on her face. I just bit my lip. Why…why did I have to say it like that!? I didn’t have to call her amazingly intelligent! God…how could I be so…so…
“Hey, Nonny?” She’d asked.
“Y-yeah?”
“Get your weird, flat butt over here. We’re snuggling.” That was an order, not a suggestion.
“O-okay,” I’d said, and that was what we did for the rest of the day.
Six months. Wow. Can’t believe it’s been six months since I saw another human. My God, time flies when you’re having fun. Especially after today. A part of me wishes that it was a nothing day, that it could have just been something casual and normal which made me say it, but it wasn’t. It had been wonderful.
We’d just been walking along, chatting about this and that, hard to remember what exactly, and all of a sudden we passed by the front entrance to Le Apetit, one of those super-fancy Prench places that only snooty ponies with more money than taste in real food go. We would’ve walked right past it, would’ve just gone right on by on our business, if the maître d hadn’t walked outside just as we were passing and then stuck his snout up. I can’t be sure, but I think he called me a monkey when our backs were turned, and even had a little, less savory name to toss at the back of Dashie’s head.
We both got a little quiet as we walked along. Dash had this far-off, thoughtful look in her eyes. We talked some more, but we didn’t have that same candid, uncaring tone we’d had before walking past that little prick’s snooty-ass restaurant. Finally, that old fire I’d fallen in love with a thousand times over ignited in her eyes. “Hey, sweets?” She asked.
“Yes, my little hotflank?”
Grinning at my nickname for her, she replied: “Let’s trash that place.”
Turns out, being close personal friends with the Princess of Friendship has its perks, one of those being that restaurant managers will do everything short of magically jerking you off through the phone line the moment you drop Twilight’s name. Of course, there were some awkward questions about whether or not I needed to be kept on a leash, but Dash politely informed him that we weren’t “into” that, and even if we were we certainly wouldn’t be strutting around in public like that. So that night, I pulled on some threads courtesy of Miss Rarity’s Boutique, and Dash yanked out her old dress from the Grand Galloping Gala, and we both set off on our mission. The only warning we gave for what was coming was before the meal, when we told the maître d we were expecting some friends and might need a rather large table. He smiled and nodded and made no mention of monkeys, though I swear I saw his snout wrinkle in distaste more than once when his eyes glided over to me. We had our meal with the best of manners and the utmost of elegance, holding our tempers whenever some rich bitch looked our way and whispered “hairless beast.” Shit was so fancy I’m disappointed in myself for not bringing a monocle.
Then, halfway through the evening, a distant rumble sounded. All at once, the front door was mobbed by Dash’s friends from the cattle community a few miles outside Cloudsdale, all dressed as various dairy products and all chanting “CAL-CI-UM! CAL-CI-UM!” at the top of their lungs. A particularly large heifer dressed like a cup of Yoplait accidentally crashed right through the maitre d’s podium.
The entire restaurant went from “quiet nobility” to “mosh pit at a Slayer concert” in less time than it took Dash to pull off a double-loop-de-loop. A mob of cows dressed as various cheeses descended upon the bar and ordered “enough chocolate malted to make us all sneeze that powdery stuff out our noses,” and smashed up the entire display case when the bartender couldn’t produce even one shaker. Me and Dashie barged out the fire exit after the maître d got sat on by a cow dressed like a Hershey kiss, both of us laughing our asses off.
She took us up to a cloud and we sat there, the moon just above, still cracking up, when it hit me how damned beautiful she was. She’s just laughing her laugh, still wearing her gala getup, and the moon was just overhead, and when she looked over at me with her eyes still sparkling and the moonlight shining off her mane, all of a sudden there was only one thing I could say.
“I love you.”
She stopped laughing immediately and looked at me, stunned. Just to make sure I drove it home, I repeated myself. “Rainbow Dash, I love you.”
She fell right off the cloud, and I was immediately after without her cloud-walking magic. When she saved us both and landed us right on a hillside, the first thing she did was grab me, pull me into a big, long kiss that lasted a solid minute, then cuddle close into my chest and whisper: “I love you too.”
This time, it really was a normal, do-nothing day. I wanted it to be. It had to be a surprise. Eight months into my stay in Ponyville, and I know. She’s the one. She’s who I want to spend the rest of my life with.
So, like I said, we just did the usual: watched her pull some tricks off down at the pond, then went to lunch at the usual Saddle Arabian restaurant. We both got our usuals, sat down to a quiet meal, and I left no hint for what was about to come. Then, right after we’d finished our meals, I started. My hands were quivering, I was so nervous.
“Rainbow,” I started, my voice quivering in spite of my best efforts. “It’s been one helluva couple months.”
“Shyeah, no kidding,” she snickered. “Good months, though.”
“Yes, good months,” I added, still quivering.
Mistaking my nerves for sadness, she laid a hoof on my wrist. “Aw shoot, sweets, don’t tell me you’re missing Earth.”
“No, no! I mean…I do…” I moaned. I was already fucking this up. It was now or never. I pulled the small box I bought out of my jacket pocket. Her eyes widened. No mistaking what I had. No going back now.
“Ohmygosh…” she gasped breathlessly.
“Rainbow,” I said. “You are, by far, the best thing that’s ever happened to me, both here and on Earth. You met a tiny, lonely monkey from another world that other ponies were quick to dismiss as a monster, and you let him into your life in so many ways, and I…”
I was breathing heavily by now. C’mon, only one thing left you idiot, you can do this…”Rainbow Dash, will you…”
“Yes.”
“What?”
She looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with tears, snickered, and said: “I said yes, you big idiot. I’ll marry ya.”
Always the impatient one. I smiled through my tears as I affixed the golden band to a primary feather, then we kissed, passionately. Okay, nevermind everything I’ve said before, this was the best day ever. And it’s only the beginning. We can’t have foals, I know, we’ve already looked into that, but we can adopt. I move into her Cloudsdale home next week. The Ceremony’s in two months. And for the first time since I came here, I can actually look and see something constant, something normal.
