So pony on pony on pony on pony on
"Nuh uh!" Rainbow Dash pouted, her cheeks flickering with magenta ire. "I'm mad at you!"
"Rainbowwwwww! Pleeeeeease?" Twilight Sparkle leaned forward, lavender lip pronounced. "Can't you help me with this one research project? Besides, it has nothing to do with what happened this morning!"
"You ruined Daring Do and the Flashing Fireworks for me!" Rainbow folded her forelimbs, taking her scowl to a deeper, knifing level. "You told me that Daring Do beat Ahuizotl to the treasure!"
"Rainbow Dash, Daring Do always beats Ahuizotl!"
"NO!" Wide-eyed, Rainbow Dash slapped both hooves over her fuzzy ears. "LA. LA. LAAAA. PRETTY PINK PRINCESS PONIES PRANCING PERPENDICULAR! DUM DE DUMMM—"
"It's not like it's some big hoofin' secret!" Twilight barked, shaking the windows of her library. "Guh!" She stomped her hoof on the wooden floor, huffing. "Plus, if you had read the novel last week when I first lent it to you, we wouldn't even be arguing right now!"
"So what if I'm a slow reader?!" Rainbow lowered her hooves, frowning. "I'm a busy mare, y'know!"
"Busy doing what?" Twilight grinned slyly. "Sleeping on clouds? Drinking cider? Kicking Tank across a field?"
"I do not kick Tank!" Rainbow growled. A beat. She dug at the floor. "And s-so what if I like cider...?"
"Help me quick with this research and I'll buy you five glasses of cider for the next week!"
"Unnnnngh..." Rainbow teetered back like an inflatable clown, moaning. "Don't yank me like this, Twilight! For realsies! I mean—a research project with a name like that?!"
"What's so bad about it?!" Twilight levitated the clipboard in front of her and flipped to the first of many typewritten sheets. "'An Annotated Guide to Ponyvillean Fuzzy Muzzle Nuzzles In Three Separate Steps.'" She smiled at Rainbow. "I think the title's pretty self explanatory!"
"By self-explanatory you mean 'self-sissy,', right?"
"Huh?"
"Twilight, nuzzling is only meant for ponies who... like..." Rainbow's eyes dragged trenches through the wooden floor; she avoided the unicorn's gaze by an astronomical unit. "...are really into each other n'stuff."
"So? We're best friends!"
"Guhhh..." Rainbow face-hoofed. "You know, Twilight, for an expert on friendship, you really don't get out much."
"Well, that's the purpose of this research!" Twilight said, beaming with so much scholastic enthusiasm that her eyelashes practically sparked. "I get to learn all I can in the comfort of my own home!" She blinked. "Oh—that and complete my correspondence with Princess Cadance concerning the quantifiable limitations of platonic amorousness."
"Wat."
"Eh..." Twilight waved a dainty hoof. "It's princess stuff. Nothing for you to be concerned with."
"I would sure friggin' hope not."
"Soooooooo... Will you help me?" Twilight leaned forward again, weighted by her grin. "Hmmm?"
"Don't smile at me like that, Twilight." Rainbow gulped. "It makes saying 'no' feel like kicking a puppy's teeth in."
"I'm willing to bet a puppy won't buy you cider for a whole week!"
"Mmmmmffnnngh..."
"What do you say?"
Rainbow slumped low, burying her muzzle into her forelimbs with a bored expression. "...what do I have to do?"
"Well, I made a checklist. The experiment is divided into three progressive levels of implementation!" Twilight magically zipped through the pages. Thwpthwpthwp. "Nuzzle Number One: Nose to Nose."
"NOPE." Rainbow was immediately scoot-scoot-scooting backwards across the library floor. "Nope nope nope—!"
"Awwwwwwww! Rainbowwww!"
"Don't 'Awwwwwww Rainbow' me nothing!" Rainbow hissed. "What in the heck kind of an experiment is that?!"
"I want to know if couples can breathe when greeting each other after a long day at work!"
"Does it have to be so... I-I dunno..." Rainbow shivered. "...intimate?"
"Well..." ThwpThwpThwp. "I did choose this in favor of the original Number One Draft."
"Which was...?"
"Flank bumps?"
"Nose to Nose it is." Rainbow trotted forward. "Meh. D-do you have to look at me when we do it?"
"Uhhhh..." ThwpThwp. "It's not one of the variables."
"Just—answer me this." Rainbow grimaced. "Why can't you get one of the other girls to do this instead?"
"Well, you're already here."
"Yeah? So? Lemme go fetch Fluttershy for you. She's good at this... fuzzy stuff."
"Fluttershy's busy tending to Angel. The rabbit's sick, remember?"
"She's going to have a sick pegasus on her hooves soon enough..."
"Huh?"
"What about—I dunno—Rarity? Pinkie Pie? Granny Smith? Heck—anyflippingpony but me?!"
"Well, you know how they all are!" Twilight shrugged. "Rarity will think that I'm practicing for dating a coltfriend, and she'll give me no end of 'romantic advice.' Pinkie Pie can't even be held still to save her life (or Gummy's), so that's out of the question. I already nuzzle Spike in his sleep, but he's a dragon—and this is a pony-to-pony fuzzy muzzle nuzzle test. Scales just complicate the data stream..."
"Uhhhh..." Rainbow Dash blinked. "Wh-what about Applejack?"
"She smells like wet hay."
Rainbow nodded. "Good point."
"No, Rainbow, when it comes down to it." Twilight regally tapped her clipboard with a fountain pen and tilted her nose up with pride. "You're the most qualified research partner."
"Most qualified?! Me?!" Rainbow winced like she was giving birth. "Why?!"
"Well..." Twilight blinked innocently. "Isn't it obvious?" She smiled. "You're Ponyville's resident speedster! All you love about life is soaring faster than lightning, doing 'wicked cool' stunts, and keeping the skies clear! You're too busy being awesome and dashing to ever bother with matters of intimacy and physical affection!" Twilight giggled inwardly, eyes shut. "Why, wh-who better to represent a neutral control variable in this experiment?! Heehee!"
Rainbow blinked. "Oh..." She blinked again. "Yeah. I uhhhh..." She coiled her wings tight, biting her lip as she gazed off into the shadows. "I guess you're right. I mean..." She gulped. "Wh-why should I ever care about m-meeting my special somepony one day..."
"Alright. Experiment commencing. Annnnnnnd..." Twilight leaned savagely forward. "...now!"
"... ... ..." Rainbow stared.
Twilight had her eyes closed. Eventually, she fluttered them open. "Nothing's happening."
Rainbow droned: "Is something supposed to be happening?"
"You're supposed to nuzzle me."
"I thought you were nuzzling me."
"Well, Rainbow, I can't reach that far."
"Not my fault."
"Will you just lean forward already?!"
"Fine!" Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Jeez." She thrust herself forward.
Both mares' noses made contact with the tiniest of honking noises. Or maybe they didn't, but it certainly would have complemented the deliciously adoracute absurdity of the moment. Whatever the case, both ponies found themselves leaning awkwardly into one another's nostrils like two lines of an isosceles triangle made out of quivers and fuzz.
"... ... ..." Twilight blinked, her gaze full of Rainbow. "...Wainbowf..."
"Weff, Dwiwifht?" Rainbow's muzzle scrunched harder and harder with each molasses millisecond. "If diff helbinff?"
"I fingff ve are fufboffed do wub bem nowff."
"Ewff, weawwy?"
"Dry fwum fibe bo fibe!"
"Mmmmfff... fibfe! Wubbing."
And both mares proceeded to rub their noses in swift, lateral motions. It was as though a half-blue/half-lavender penguin was sitting in the middle of the room, trying to make fire with its flippers. The two split apart, falling back—only because they needed the breath.
"Guh!" Rainbow wheezed.
"Well..." Twilight panted. "That..." She panted again. "Confirms my... concern..."
"Mmmm-yeesh..." Rainbow squinted one eye while rubbing her nose with a forelimb. "I had no friggin' idea how fuzzy another mare's nose felt!"
Twilight was in the middle of writing on her clipboard. "'Happy pony nose rubs are a definite link to chronic asphyxiation—'" Her pen streaked off the page. She looked up, blinking awkwardly at Rainbow's last remark. "Huh?"
"Er... n-nothing..." Rainbow blushed.
Twilight raised a hoof up to her own nose, tapping it. She wrinkled and unwrinkled her muzzle, blinking with a thousand mile stare. "I... n-never noticed it before. You'd think from all the times I've nuzzled Spike's glass-smooth scales, I would experience a state of acute self-fuzzination feedback..."
"Yeah. Good. Fine. Whatever." Rainbow rolled her eyes, huffing and puffing to fight the red hue flushing through her certifiably cyan exterior. "Can we just get on with it?"
"Get on with what?"
"The Celestia-dang experiment! Come on!" Rainbow slapped the nearest table-top, rattling Twilight. "Let's knock out part two of three, already! I haven't got all day!"
"Oh! R-right!" Twilight jumped, juggling the lightweight clipboard a few times in her hooves. At last, she clapped the thing in place, twirled it right-side up, and circled the next bullet point. "Nuzzle Number Two: Cheek to Cheek."
"... ... ...on second thought." Rainbow Dash made an about-face. "Maybe there's a dentist somewhere who can give me a six-hour root canal."
"Rainbowwwwww!" Twilight pouted for the ponyteenth time. "If I don't have something to send to Princess Cadance, she'll think I'm slacking!"
"Fine." Rainbow trotted right back in a huff.
"She'll demerit me two sunshines and a ladybug—!"
"Stop rubbing it in and let's rub it already!" With that, Rainbow leaned forward like a bent telephone wire. She presented her fuzzy blue cheek to Twilight, clenching her eyes shut and wincing as if she was about to receive a tetanus booster.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Jeez, don't pretend like it's the end of the world or—"
"Justgetitoverwithnowokaythanks." Rainbow Dash squeaked through an inhale.
"Well, alright!" Twilight took a deep breath of her own. Then, like a lavender unicorn about to take a lavender dive into a lavender pool, she tilted her own cheek forward and let gravity do the rest.
Both mares' faces made contact. It was like the dance of the fuzzy plum faeries. The static electricity in the room increased by twenty two and a half percent. Upstairs, Spike's nightlight flickered and remained dim for the rest of its lifespan.
"Mrmmmfff..." Rainbow grunted. She spoke, only to hear her voice cracking through one side of her face. "I don't see how this is any better than the nose thing."
"Oh, this helps me a lot!" Twilight puffed back, still cheek-locked with her completely platonic best friend of absolutely no romantic attachment whatsoever. "You see, we can both breathe! That's an improvement!"
"Mrrmmmfff... speak for... grnnff... yourself."
"Princess Cadance will absolutely love to hear about—"
"Grnnffghhff!"
Twilight blinked, then leaned back.
Rainbow wasn't expecting that. "Whoah—!" When she fell, a pair of lavender hooves caught her—or rather her face. The pegasus gained temporary fish-lips from the unicorn's awkward catch, exploding her cheeks to bulbous proportions.
Twilight blinked, and that in itself was enough. "Pfffft—heeheehee!" She giggled, her shaking hooves making Rainbow's cranium rattle like a pepper shaker.
"Grnnnghh!" Pop! Rainbow finally dislodged her head from her best friend's grasp. "Duaaah!" She inhaled, rubbing her cheeks while frown-wincing... wince-frowning... er... frowncing? "Tw-Twilight?! What the heck?! Have you flipped your lid?!"
"Rainbow! I—" Twilight paused to gigglesnort. "I had... I had... I h-h-had no idea that your cheeks—snkkkt-heehehee—that your cheeks were so squishy!"
"I..." Rainbow's teeth clattered. She stomped a hoof. "I am not squishy!" Her ears folded as she glanced aside. "I'm awesome..." she half-whimpered.
"Are mine like that?" Twilight pulled, yanked, and mushed her own lavender mouth-muscles. "Mehhh—bohhh—muaaah. Nope. Must be you."
"Knock it off!" Rainbow recoiled, gritting her teeth. "So I... I..." She seethed, cheeks red. "S-so I fly into a lot of wind, okay? So what if I get a lot of exercise out of my vaseline... vacuole... vacuum muscles?"
"I swear, if you had whiskers, you'd have cat cheeks!"
"Oh yeah?! Well... uhm... it... you..." Rainbow tapped her chin, scrunching her brain muscles for a rebuttal. At last, she spastically blurted: "Yolk!"
Twilight blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"You... y-you know!" Rainbow's voice cracked. She gestured wildly with flailing forelimbs. "You crack your egghead open and what do you get? Yolk! All over your muzzle—like... dripping with the stinkin' stuff!"
"... ... ...riiiiiiight."
"Just move on to Number Three already!" Rainbow grumbled. She curled her tail around and pretended to not be fiddling with the prismatic hairs in tiny pony frustration. "Cats. I hates cats."
"Alrighty, then!" Twilight scanned the page while marking her place. "Now... for the third and final part of the experiment..."
"Please say 'Germane Suplex.'"
"Ahem. Number Three." Twilight took a deep breath... but nothing came out.
Rainbow stared at her.
Twilight's eyes remained glued to the page, and they were none too focused.
"Well?" Rainbow huffed. "What is it, already?!" she huffed again.
"Erm..." Twilight gulped. "The Full Embrace Neck Nuzzle."
Rainbow's eyes wandered briefly to opposite magnetic poles of the world. "You sure Discord didn't draft this research project?"
"No. It was all me." Twilight cleared her throat. "Late last night." She hid ever so slightly behind the clipboard, shivering. "After a long... long... lavender bath." A gulp. "With maybe candles, maybe not candles..."
Rainbow was dead quiet, glaring.
Twilight exhaled long and hard. "Y'know...?" She levitated the clipboard away. "...come to think of it, Cadance is married, she doesn't need any peer research from her sister-in-law—"
Rainbow stomp-stomp-stomp'd forward, batting Twilight's clipboard to the ground and growling. "Nuh uh. I'm getting my cider!"
"Huh?!" Twilight twitched. "Wait a second Rainb-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh." Her pupils shrank, as did her voice, shriveling to a tiny foalish coo, trailing off the delicious heat of Rainbow's embrace, growing warmer as it grew fuzzier, with her best friend's forelimbs wrapping around her tiny timid body and stroking the small of her back tenderly. And that was all before Rainbow's neck drifted in—as did her silken threads of rainbow hair, a mane so silk that Twilight had no idea... blessed Celestia... and the scent of dewdrops too, like the milk and honey of life blooming at every sunrise.
Twilight tried to breathe. She exhaled instead, with little squeaks intended only for angels on the horizon of something so grand and golden that it would surely melt her upon contemplation. Instead, she fluttered her eyes at it, at Rainbow, and was rewarded with the softest, silkiest, fuzziest of neck rubs—one chin to another. So firm, yet so delicate, like a lead bullet wrapped in tissue paper.
Rainbow Dash nuzzled her like Twilight was the last unicorn on earth, and the universe's magic had been thinned out to gossamer strings, the only thing holding her off the ground—aside from Rainbow Dash's hooves, which could just as well have been fragrant currents of the wind, having billowed into her silly treehouse home to sweep her off her sillier pony fetlocks with a purring, trilling noise.
When it ended, Twilight couldn't tell, for her head was still reeling. Hurricane Rainbow Dash had just barreled through her world, and there she was wading flank-deep in the gently lapping waters of delicious numbness. When she came to, she realized that she had nearly collapsed a second time. Rainbow had once again caught her, this time with a jerk—raising her to her worried face as she barked in a voice that became clearer and clearer only once the blood in Twilight's skull had stopped boiling.
"...you okay in there, egghead? You're not having a magic aneurysm, are you? Cuz I think that's how Elvis Prancely died."
"No, Rainbow Dish... I-I-I mean Rawr Dash... I mean..." Twilight shook her head, reeling. "Unnnngh..."
"Are we done now?"
"We are... doing it... mmf... done. 'Done' is what I said." Twilight blinked, lopsided.
"Hmmm... good." Rainbow smirked and trotted out the library door, her body flouncing with a spirit of intense relief. "Cuz I think you owe me a few tall... tall glasses of the good stuff over at Sugarcube Corner!" She winked. "Better bring a huge bit bag. This is gonna cost ya!"
And with that, she zipped out, tail snapping like a spectral bullwhip.
"Yeah... I'm... right behind you," Twilight cooed. She took a long, deep breath, hugging the clipboard to her chest as if it was a big fluffy bed pillow. "Hmmmm..." A drunken smile clung to the corners of her lavender dimples, reddening with delight by the second.
Silence.
"Twilight..." Spike smirked from where he had been sitting high up on the library stairs the entire time. "...there's no research project with Princess Cadance, is there?"
"Gaaaaaaiiie!" Twilight fell backwards, upsetting several books from their shelves.
Author's Note
