The Dragon And The Pony Side Stories: Parents Of Fluff.

As I was walking inside, Fluffy’s father told me that we were going to play a game as a family, and that I should collect some pillows for us and find a place on the family room floor. I thought for a second about what Fluffy would need before the obvious solution came to mind, and a smile spread across my muzzle. I ran up the stairs into Fluffy’s room and proceeded to grab all the pillows and blankets I could find. After that was done, I rushed back down and began to work on making a sort of nest.

When Never came in and saw me working on this, he gave me a disapproving look. I just glared and bared my fangs at him. He got the message rather quickly that I didn’t care for his opinion on the matter and proceeded to quickly walk into the kitchen. With that taken care of, I went back to fixing up my and Fluffy’s nest so that it would be perfect for her.

As I was putting the finishing touches on the collection of pillows and comforters Fluffy and her mom walked into the house. Cloud was the first to see what I had done, raising a hoof to her mouth and chucking as she continued to walk towards the kitchen. Fluffy on the other claw looked almost dumbfounded as she approached me, her eyes moving back and forth between me and the nest, trying to figure out what I had done and why.

“Uhh, Big Softy, why are you trying to make a nest out of my bedding in the middle of the family room?” Fluffy almost sounded concerned as she said this.

“Your dad said to collect pillows so we can play a game.” When Fluffy was close enough, I leaned my head down and began to nuzzle the side of her face. “And since you are my mate, you deserve the most comfortable spot.”

Fluffy released a soft laugh before nuzzling my head back and lifting a hoof to begin stroking my face. “I have a feeling my dad was referring to you getting everyone a pillow or two to lay on, but I’m guessing even if he told you that, you would have still done the same thing.” Fluffy moved away from me before looking down and over to the nest I had built. “How about this, you go get everyone else a pillow or two and I’ll fix up your nest so we can both be comfortable.”

I looked at her with a slight bit of perturbation. “What is wrong with the nest I built? It looks more than good enough for the two of us.” Hearing this was quite the knock to my pride, hearing my own mate questioning my work.

“Well, If you just do this,” Fluffy grabbed hold of several pillows and comforters I had placed in the center of the nest and proceeded to wrap the comforter around the pillows before returning it to the center, “you get more cushion out of the same materials. You also don't have to work so hard, and it looks a lot nicer.”

I reached out a claw and pressed on the section of the nest that Fluffy had ‘fixed’, and found that she was right, it did feel softer and more comfortable than what I had made. But before I could start to feel sad that I hadn’t been able to make Fluffy a decent nest, she hovered up to me and planted a kiss on my muzzle.

“It was still a good first attempt, and you’re still my handsome dragon. Now, why don't you go get those pillows while I fix up the nest. When you get back, I’ll give you another kiss for being such a good dragon.”

I smiled and nodded before planting a kiss on her lips. “Alright” And with that, I left her to fix up our nest, heading into the kitchen to talk to Gold and Cloud.

When I arrived, I saw both of them working on making tiny sandwiches, having already filled a small bowl with some gems for me, and I could see Never doing something or another, but I couldn’t be bothered to figure out what it was. “Where are the pillows you wanted me to get?”

Interestingly, Cloud was the one to respond rather than Gold. “Just look in the hall closet, it’s the one on the right of the hall before you reach Gold’s study.”

I nodded and left the kitchen, heading in the same direction as I had when going to retrieve Gold’s supply of howlite. When I reached the door and opened it, I was met with the sight of a closet filled with everything from pillows, to blankets, to several of what Fluffy called jackets. I began digging through the pillows, trying to find some for Fluffy’s family to use. I found two large ones, both light-blue, that both almost felt like clouds wrapped in cloth, those would be for Fluffy’s parents, and one off-green pillow that was slightly smaller and felt much firmer, that would be for Never.

I grabbed all of these and placed them on my back before closing the door to the closet and walking back to the family room. As I returned, I noticed that Fluffy had fixed up our nest to look much softer than how I had done it. The center looked to be a single comforter covering what I could only assume to be a collection of wrapped pillows, while the outside edge was covered in comforter-wrapped pillows that stuck up slightly. It looked far more inviting and comfortable than what I had made, and that was only helped by seeing Fluffy nestled in the center with her eyes closed, enjoying her work.

I smiled and got to work removing the pillows from my back and placing them in sort of a triangle, leaving plenty of room between each of them and my and Fluffy’s nest to allow for things to be placed between us all. I did need to figure out where everyone should lay though, and despite not wanting to separate Fluffy’s parents, due to knowing how irritating being separated from Fluffy was, the idea of Never laying next to me was even more distasteful, so I positioned his pillow across from my and Fluffy’s nest, separating her parents.

After that was sorted out, I went back over to my mate, got into the nest with her, and laid down so that I was curled up along the outer edge of the nest before then stucking the end of my tail under her front legs so that her fluffy chest was nestled comfortably on my tail tip. My left wing was then extended and draped over her so that only her front half was visible. This position was a favorite of mine as it allowed me to give her the most protection. It also gave my very fluffy mate the opportunity to lean against my side, allowing her to enjoy my warmth.

As I did this though, Fluffy released a squeak of surprise before looking over at me with her cute, puffed up cheeks. “Naughty lizard. Is cuddling all you ever think about?” She then took my head between her hooves and forced me to look towards the kitchen. “I brought you hear to meet them.”

I purred and brought my head out from between her hooves and down to begin nuzzling her. “True, but they’re not here right now, are they? And to answer your question, no. Sometimes I think of more fun things I can be doing with you.” This only got her to puff up her cheeks further and fluff up in frustration, only encouraging me with how cute she looked.

Fluffy eventually gave up, releasing a sigh before allowing me to have my way with cuddling her. My smile grew wider as I brought my head down and began rubbing the end of my muzzle in her chest fluff. Eventually though, I brought my head out of it lookeing at her with a smug smile.

“I almost forgot, if you look in front of you, you’ll see that I was a good dragon and brought back pillows for your family. And if I’m remembering correctly, you said that means I get a thankful kiss.”

Fluffy rolled her eyes at that before giving me a quick peck in my lips. “There, and I better not hear you complaining mister. You’re already being bad with your tail, I don't need to encourage you to do anything that would make my parents uncomfortable.”

I smiled back before planting a kiss on her lips, except I lingered there far longer and was quite a bit more attentive before pulling away. “I would never dream of it,” I said before growing a naughty smile and leaning forward to whisper in her ear. “Especially when I’m going to receive the a massage from the best marefriend in the world,”

I got a light slap in my face from her wing for saying that, along with an accusation of being an overgrown, lecherous lizard, but I didn’t mind, I simply went back to cuddling against her lovely chest fluff.

When Fluffy’s family returned from the kitchen, I shifted from cuddling with Fluffy to look at them. I saw that they were carrying the bowl of gems for me, a plate with sandwiches, as well as a fairly beaten up cardboard box.

When Never arrived and placed down the plate of sandwiches in the middle of the pillows, I watched as he backed up and began to look over how I had arranged them. As he did this, he not so subtly glanced at me and Fluffy occasionally while shuffling from hoof to hoof before looking back at the pillows, eventually deciding to hesitantly move towards the one on my left. I fixed him with a harsh glare, being careful not to do anything that would make Fluffy upset, and spoke in the most commanding voice I felt I could get away with.

“I would prefer having your parents laying next to us. You can lay over there, across from me and Fluffy.”

“Come on, do I really get the green pillow? That’s the worst one.”

‘Don't be such a baby, Never,” his mother scolded him as she set down the gems in front of me. “Danger’s dragon friend set them out for us so you can at least be appreciative. And if you don’t like it so much, just get a different one.”

Never grumbled and scowled slightly, but ultimately laid down on the pillow and quieted down. Fluffy squinted and looked up at me sceptically, figuring I had done exactly what I did, but wasn’t sure if she should accuse me. I just gave her my best innocent dragon look before licking her muzzle and turning back to her family.

As I did so, I saw Gold unboxing the game the family was going to play, and as he was taking out and unfolding what looked like a cardboard map, he began to talk. “If you want, you can join us, Softy. The game’s a little complicated, but I’m sure we can walk you through how to play.”

“That’s fine. I’ll just cuddle with my mate and watch for now.” I began to flick my tail up and down against Fluffy’s chest fluff after I said this to punctuate my statement.

Fluffy puffed out her cheeks at this and slapped the underside of my wing with one of her own. “Mom and Dad planned this so we could have some fun, the least you could do is to give it a try.” She caught my tail with her hoof and gave me an accusing, pleading look.

Cloud sighed and shook her head at her daughter. “Calm down, Fluffy, just let your dragon friend sit this one out and see how it’s played. Perhaps he can join us for the next round.”

Fluffy, me, and Never all looked to Cloud with surprise at that, with my mate voicing all of our thoughts. “Did… did you just call me Fluffy?”

“I did, it seems like you are responding to it more than Danger, so I figured I might as well use the name you seem to be more comfortable with.” Cloud closed her eyes, cocked her head, and smiled as she said that.

Fluffy just looked at her mom with her mouth hanging open. She tried to respond, her face getting more red at each attempt, before she finally dropped her head into our nest and finally found her voice. “Mom, that’s what Big Softy calls me because that’s just his special name for me. Could you just… not call me that? It sounds weird when you say it.”

Cloud began to giggle at her daughter’s embarrassment. “I know. I just wanted to see how you’d react to me referring to you like your dragon friend here. You really shouldn’t be so sensitive about that, it’s adorable that that’s his name for you.”

I lowered my head and began to nuzzle her as she lay there, taking advantage of the opportunity to be a supportive mate, but mostly to cuddle. “Your mother’s right, it is an adorable name for you.”

Fluffy sighed before lifting her head and turning to her father. “Can you please deal the money and cards so we can start the game and prevent mom from embarrassing me further?” She then turned to me and glared slightly. “And you.” She poked my chest with her hoof. “You’re going to join the next round.” She looked at my already moving tail tip again. “Before you get any ideas of what to do to pass the time!”

Fluffy’s dad rolled his eyes before placing a pile of colored papers and brown cards in front of everyone. “Honey, you really shouldn’t be teasing our daughter so much. She brought her dragonfriend here because she wanted to introduce us to him, and you see how nervous she is.”

“I know, but we never see her, so I think it’s only right to give her a little bit of a hard time while she’s here. She is family after all, and it’s all in good fun.”

“You saw how ‘all in good fun’ worked out for Never. I would rather not have you risking our good cloud-pillows just because you want to go back to how things were when she was around.”

“Oh, he would never do that.” Cloud turned to me and winked. “Not after what I told him. Anyways, who’s going first.”

“Well, Danger just got back, and I doubt her ‘mate’ would take it too well if we don’t put her on some sort of pedestal,” Never said, almost sounding bored.

“Hey!” Fluffy turned to her brother and glared angrily.

Never lifted an eyebrow and just stared at her unamused. “Tell me I’m off base and that he isn’t overly protective.”

Fluffy stuck out her tongue at her brother before turning back to me and beginning to stroke my chin with her hoof. “Yeah, but I sort of love that about him.”

Never sighed before looking down and shaking his head. “Why can’t you and Holly love creatures that aren’t frogstones that try to kill me? He’s almost as bad as Blue Ember.”

Fluffy looked away from me and back to her brother. “Who’s Blue Ember? And aren’t you dating Holly? I thought you two were in love.”

“We are, he’s just this bird she adopted that hates me. It’s a long story, I’ll tell you later. Just take your turn so we can get started. I would prefer not to keep having these awkward family talks while we sit in front of a game and not even play it.”

“Fine.” Fluffy looked at the board and eventually slid most of the colored papers she had been given over to her dad. “I’ll buy Pine Gulch.” Her father then took the money, put it in front of him, slid over a red card, and flipped over a token on the board, revealing an eight. When she flipped the card up and looked at it, she scowled before putting it back down face up, showing that it had a red five on it. “Aw stallion.”

“What’s the matter?” I began to nuzzle Fluffy in an effort to make her feel better.

“She just got a really bad mine,” Cloud explained as she took a sandwich from the plate as Fluffy’s father slid her over a card with four gold circles on it. “She has a mine with only four gold and with the absolute highest difficulty of extraction. Danger, can you do anything else or would you like to pass the turn?”

Fluffy picked up one of her cards and placed it in front of her. “I’ll play Hired Some Thieves on you, Mom, and make you lose two-thousand bits, then I’ll be done.”

“Ouch. You start with a crap mine and don’t even have any cards to play to help.” Never looked at the board before placing down one of his cards. “I’ll prospect Sheerhoof Ridge.” He then flipped one of the tokens on the board up so that only he could see what it was. He looked at it for several seconds, looking like he was debating whether or not he liked what he was seeing, before dropping the token down and pushing the same amount of paper as Fluffy had towards Gold. “I’m buying Dragons Ridge.”

Just like with Fluffy, one of the tokens was flipped up, and two cards were dealt, this time, the token was a three and the card with a yellow three was revealed. Once this was done, Never placed two cards down, “I’ll play one pickaxe to extract one gold and then play Stabilize Mine to prevent a cave-in or increase to extraction rank. After that, I’m done.”

“Well then, it looks like it’s my go,” Cloud proclaimed. “Since you seemed to have done the hard work for me, I think I’ll take Sheerhoof Ridge.” She then slid almost all of her money over to dad and proceeded to flip up the corresponding token, revealing a ten.

“Shouldn’t have done that, Mom. I wanted to trick you or at least get one of you two to think that it was a decent investment.”

Cloud pouted at that, giving her son a similar look as Fluffy would give me when she was upset. “And we were so kind to invite you to come visit your sister.”

“Hey, it’s just a game, not my fault I was able to trick you.”

“Well, if it’s just a game, then you wouldn’t mind a little payback.” Cloud put down a card and smiled innocently as she slid it over to her son. “Pay the bank the rest of your savings due to unpaid taxes.”

“Oh, it is so on!”

The game progressed back to Fluffy after that and the cycle continued, except after everyone else had their turns, Gold joined and began taking his turns after Fluffy as a banker rather than a digger. Everyone seemed to be having fun playing the game; mining gold, hurting another pony’s chances, and at one point, it looked like Cloud was going to lose. All the while, I was casually snacking on my bowl of gems and sneaking in cuddling with Fluffy.

To everyone’s surprise though, Fluffy’s mom was actually the one to win that game in the end, sticking back and letting Fluffy and Never fight each other before suddenly doing something that caused both of them to lose all their bits and gold. As Gold was collecting everything and shuffling the cards together, Fluffy began to cuddle against my side a little. “Ok, Big Softy, your turn to join. You figured out how to play?”

“Yes.” I then brought my head down, shifted my wing up, and began to nuzzle between Fluffy’s wings. “I hope I don’t beat you too badly, I was looking forward to my massage tonight, and I would be so sad if me winning would make you too angry to… properly enjoy it.” I began flicking my tail against her chest fluff as I said that last part, earning me a warning stare from Fluffy’s mom.

“In your dreams you predatory fire salamander. I’m going to beat you, and maybe I might be getting a massage tonight too.”

Oh, I liked it when she got feisty. While I enjoyed her calling me something to do with fire—being a dragon and all—with its… naughtier implications, and her willingness to convince me to give her a massage, I was not a fan of being called a salamander. I was going to do everything that I could to beat her. I might even give her that massage she wanted even though she would lose, especially since it would likely convince her to get naughtier.

I smiled and turned back towards the game, preparing myself for playing my first round. After everything had been passed out, Gold asked all of us to pick a token, and whoever picked the lowest one would go first. Unfortunately, this turned out to be Never as he got a two. The tokens were then mixed together and distributed on the board and the game began.

This game went for slightly longer than the last one, and somewhat to my displeasure, Fluffy won. While It was nice seeing how happy she got at beating all of us, I was nonetheless upset that I had lost, especially when she eliminated me after her brother was knocked out.

Fluffy, after winning, cuddled up against my side and began to nuzzle it with closed eyes and a content smile. “It looks like I’ll be getting a massage tonight. I hope you’ve been paying attention, Big Softy.”

I, in turn, pushed my wing down, holding her more firmly, and began to nuzzle her cheek for how brazen she was being. “If I am remembering correctly, I never agreed to that.”

Fluffy just stopped her cuddling, pushed my head away, and gave me her best hurt pegasus eyes, as well as a quivering lower lip. “But I won, and I am your mate. Shouldn’t my big, strong mate want to make me happy by fulfilling such a small request?”

I knew she was just pretending, and that she honestly didn’t care if I gave her a massage or not, but her evil, cute pegasus magic was too much to handle, I couldn’t stand seeing her sad. “Fine.” I planted a passionate kiss on her lips and used my tongue to play with her for a little bit before pulling away after seconds of this. “I’ll give you a massage after I have mine.”

Fluffy smiled back at me and went back to cuddling. “You’re such a considerate dragonfriend.”

I savored having Fluffy cuddling me like this and began to purr. I was still slightly upset over having lost that last game, but feeling Fluffy on my side doing what she was doing was going a long way to eliminating that.

That being said, I still wanted to win a game, and after last time, I think I had a far better understanding of how to do that. “This game seems to be quite entertaining, I want to play again. How about your dad joins in as a digger?” I looked over to him, “I want to show him that his daughter’s mate doesn’t lose so easily.”

Never immediately piped up at hearing that. “Yeah, how about no. I prefer to play games to have fun, not lose within two turns.”

“I have to agree with Never on this one,” Cloud said. “Unless Daring is here, we don't let Gold play as a digger, it’s got something to do with his cutiemark letting him always find and get what he needs. It’s only because Daring seems to be so lucky that she can hold him off from winning.”

I could see out of the corner of my eye that Fluffys ears had perked up and I heard her snorting “Well, as I recently found out, that luck isn’t exactly natural.”

“Hmm? What do you mean?” Cloud said as she turned to look at Fluffy.

“Ahh, nothing.” Fluffy waved her mother’s question away, but her family could clearly see she was hiding something.

It was Gold’s turn now to interrogate his daughter. “Danger, what do you mean by her luck isn’t natural? Don’t tell us she found some magical artifact that makes her luckier at board games.” He chuckled slightly as he finished his last sentence.

“It’s not really an artifact,” Fluffy mumbled under her breath, but loud enough for the others to have heard.

Gold Digger placed the stack of cards on the ground and gave his daughter a serious look. “What do you mean by not an artifact,” he then pointed at her, “do you want to tell me your cousin uses magic to win when we play games? That she’s cheating?”

“I wouldn’t call it cheating,” Fluffy clarified, “and thinking about it, I’m not sure if I really should tell you.”

Cloud fixed her daughter with a firm stare and began talking with a measured tone. “Danger, you brought this up. If it wasn’t something you should tell us, we wouldn’t be talking now, would we?”

I saw how uncomfortable it was for Fluffy that she had brought this up to them all now. In all fairness, not even Daring was aware that she had the luck that she did, granted, she didn’t even believe in luck, but that is besides the point.

Be it as it may, Fluffy now had to decide what she was going to do. She sighed. “Alright, but I need you to know, Daring had no idea about it herself until a few months ago.”

“We’re listening,” Cloud said.

“Well, I recently found out Daring once drank from a pool of luck when she was starting her career as an adventurer. Yes, a real pool of luck, not only helping her survive all of her dangerous adventures, but also working in normal, everyday situations, like -” she pointed at the stack of cards “- winning a game against her relatives.”

“A pool of magic? Are you sure about that?” Never asked. “Sounds a bit like a fairytale.”

“It was the same kind of magic that allowed this,” she said as she stroked over her belly. “ So yes, I am sure about it. Daring has a good amount of luck, and to be fair, I may have a bit of that too by now, since I drank from a similar pond.”

“You did what?” her parents asked unison.

“Mom, Dad, it is not that big of a deal, okay? I don’t have the same amount of luck Daring has, it’s just a bit of luck. It’s probably not enough to affect if I win a game or not.”

Fluffy’s family went silent for a few seconds before Dad shook his head and picked up the stack of cards again. “If that’s true, she owes me back those twenty bits, and she’s not allowed to play any more board games with us.” He then turned to his daughter and fixed her with a gravely serious stare. “And we will see about your luck little miss Do. I’m going to play a few rounds of Gold Digger against you later, and if you suddenly have the same luck as Daring against me, you won’t be allowed to play with us anymore either, at least when it comes to games that can be affected by luck.”

After he said this, I heard Fluffy silently whisper to herself. “She is totally going to kill me for this.”

I just turned towards Gold and smirked. “Still, I want to play against you. As a dragon, I doubt you will be able to best me.”

“You did hear what my wife said, didn’t you? I’m fine being the banker, I’d rather not kill the fun for everyone.”

My smirk turned into a full blown smile at that. “Now that I know how to play this game, I’m positive I’ll be more than capable of holding my own.”

Dad sighed and stopped shuffling, pushing the cards and all the money over to his wife. “Fine, but just this one game. So, everyone flip up a token so we can see who goes first.”

Everyone except Cloud reached out and flipped up one of the tokens, and to my surprise, dad won by flipping up the two. The tokens were then blipped back over, shuffled, and then placed on the appropriate areas by Cloud before she distributed everyone’s cards and bits.

After all of us had what we needed to start, Gold looked around to confirm this and started to play. “Ok, so my go.” He looked around at the plots of land in play for several seconds, hovering his hoof over the board until he finally stopped. “Ok, I’ll buy the Junction Ridge plot.” He pushed seven thousand bits towards Cloud before flipping up the plot token, revealing the number one token, being given an ease card, and revealing a number three.

“Alright, I’ll play a gold river from hoof, giving my plot a gold filled river and then use one shoddy dynamite card on my own mine, causing three mine events and then triggering one collection.”

Cloud flipped over the top three cards of the stack revealing a fissure, gem cave, and a drought.

“So fissure doubles extraction of gold and gems, gem cave gives me my third extraction source, and drought dries the river and brings in all uncollected gold from the river, which should be five since the mine itself has a value of ten. Then from the dynamite, I collect four gold and two gems.”

I watched what Gold was doing with a great deal of shock, impressed with what he was doing. I was starting to understand why Fluffy’s family never let him play as a prospector.

“I’ll sell the gold and gems I’ve gained to the bank for full price and then spend the last of my starting money on three event cards.” Without missing a beat, Mom pushed three cards from the stack over to dad along with twelve-thousand bits. After looking over the hoof he now had for several seconds, Dad nodded and placed down two cards.

“I’ll play false reports and bribed officials, losing one-thousand bits, and lowering costs for all available properties to half the price for this turn. I’ll then spend ten-thousand bits to buy all remaining plots, winning the game.”

I couldn’t help but let my snout open up in shock as I looked at what Gold had done and tried to understand it. On his first turn, before anyone else could play, he had won the game.

“Well look at that, the thing we said would happen happened. So, Big Softy, how does it feel to know that I was right?” Never said smugly.

I turned to face him, narrowed my eyes, and began to inhale slightly so I could breathe fire at him. Unfortunately, right as I was starting, I remembered what had happened at lunch today. Fluffy had shown that she deeply cared about her brother, and that me burning, or otherwise doing something to hurt him, was not an option. I still breathed in deeply though, gathering as much air as I could, before exhaling through my nostrils, sending an extremely thick cloud of smoke at him and began to release a deep growl.

As soon as the smoke reached him, Never was sent into a fit of coughing. He was wheezing uncontrollably, and through the smoke I could also see that the fur around his eyes was becoming saturated with tears. When the smoke eventually dissipated, and Never’s coughing had subsided slightly, I finally responded verbally to his insult.

“If Fluffy didn’t love you, my response would have been far worse for you than a face full of smoke.”

Never opened his now bloodshot eyes, looked at me with a pain filled, fearful expression, before falling back into a fit of violent hacking.

“Big Softy!” I turned to look at Fluffy, seeing her completely fluffed up as she glared at me. “I thought I told you I didn’t want you hurting my brother, and now look at him, he sounds like he’s about to cough out pieces of his lungs!”

“He insulted me! I can’t-”

“I don’t want to hear it! I know you two don't like each other but this was unacceptable.” Fluffy pushed off my side, got off our nest, and walked angrily towards her room.

I looked on with a mixture of surprise, hurt, and irritation. Obviously, I had stepped over a line with blowing smoke at her brother, and with how loving ponies were, it made some sense she would be upset at me, but it didn’t change how much her walking away stung, nor how frustrating her brother was. I simply watched as Fluffy stomped upstairs.

“Softy.” The way Gold said that one one word carried with it the same message as a dragons growl, he was threatening me. “I am inclined to support Danger on this. That was entirely over the line.”

“I know you might not want to hear this now,” Cloud quickly interrupted before things got out of claw, especially since I was just considering reminding Gold who he was talking to, “but you should go up and talk to her. Danger always had quite the will, so you should probably try to smooth things over before she gets too upset. Just take the pillows and sheets you get from her room up with you and we’ll clean up the rest. I’ll talk with Gold and see about getting him to look past this little hiccup.”

I grumbled at this but didn’t do much more. She had a point, I knew that Fluffy was extremely angry with me over what I’d done to her brother, and I would rather her be happy, especially since she was carrying our child. I got off the nest that Fluffy had built and began to collect it all and put it on my back.

When I was done, I shot Never a dirty look while growling before turning around and starting my way up the stairs. As I walked towards Fluffy’s room, I began to think about how I might get her to forgive me. I was never going to apologise for defending my or her honor, that was out of the question as a dragon. However, she did seem to be keen on getting a massage, so perhaps I could do that. I had tried it before in the lair, so this might be a good opportunity to practice on her.

When I arrived at the door to her room, I pressed down on the handle and poked my head in slightly. When I did this, I caught sight of Fluffy in less than a second, and she looked furious. I pushed the rest of the way in, closed the door behind me, and began to make my way over to my mate.

Unfortunately, when I reached her and lowered my head to begin nuzzling her, I received a slap from one of her wings before she backed away, still looking just as angry.

“No, you don’t get to cuddle me tonight, not after what you pulled. I told you to try to get along with him and you promised me you wouldn’t try to kill him. Well, you very well could have killed him based on how I was hearing him cough.”

I frowned slightly, both angry that Fluffy’s brother was ruining my cuddle time with my mate, and upset that Fluffy was this agitated. I needed to figure out how to get her to calm down, especially because I hated to see her like this. I pressed forward again to try to cuddle her, only to be met with the same reaction.

“I said no! You were a bad dragon, so I don’t feel like cuddling with you.”

Yep, I definitely couldn’t allow Fluffy to stay this mad at me. Not simply because I wanted to feel her lovely fur and feathers against my scales, but because it was likely not good for the bornling she was carrying, nor for our relationship. I thought for a second before an idea struck that would fix this problem.

I shifted my body so the bedding on my back would fall off while at the same time starting to purr slightly and lower myself into a crouched, predatory position, with my wings held slightly of my sides and my tail moving slowly side to side. Fluffy, however, wasn’t too keen on letting me make it up to her for making her so upset.

“Oh no, no, you are not going to use any of your evil dragon tricks to weasel your way out of this!” She was trying to sound assertive, but we both knew that I had the advantage in size and strength, and with her molting, she wouldn’t be able to get away so easily.

I let a wide, toothless smile cross my muzzle as I increased the volume of my purring and lowered my head even further, preparing to strike. Fluffy began to somewhat growl at me while looking around in an effort to find an escape route, but it was already too late.

I pounced forward suddenly with my forelegs outstretched, causing Fluffy to flare her wings and try to fly away, but as I said, with her molting, she was easy to catch. I wrapped her in a tight hug, holding her back to my underbelly, and began to purr loudly as I sat down on her bed and began to nuzzle the top of her head.

“Let me go you overgrown salamander! I said no cuddling and I meant it! Stop it!” Fluffy was thrashing around in my forelegs but wasn’t strong enough to break free. I did stop nuzzling her head when she started to whip it around, but instantly went back to doing that when she’d calmed down.

I continued to just hold her like this, purr, and nuzzle her while smiling. Fluffy, while still angry, had resigned herself to letting me cuddle her to try to calm her down. Eventually, I began lessening my grip of her, and when I didn’t feel her try to escape again, I shifted her position so that I was now holding her belly up before beginning to nuzzle her there.

Fluffy still looked angry at me, but it was more a look of disappointment and displeasure than the ire filled face I had been met with when I’d come in.

“I’m still upset with you. Breathing smoke at my brother was uncalled for.”

“He deserved it, and I can’t stand having you upset with me, besides, you always love being cuddled.”

Fluffy chuffed before glaring at me somewhat, but didn’t do anything to try and stop me from loving on her. I continued to nuzzle her stomach and purr with a smile on my muzzle for some time, and while it was working to calm her down, I could still tell the fact that I had blown smoke at her brother was still making her upset. So, since cuddling her wasn’t working in getting my mate to forget about what had happened, I decided to change my tactics.

I pulled my head back and saw the look of confusion of Fluffy’s face, but before she could ask why I had stopped, I moved over to the bed and rolled her off my forelegs so she was laying there on her stomach.

“What are you-”

I smirked as I placed a talon on Fluffy’s lips, causing her to cut her question short. “I thought I might give you that massage you were asking for earlier. You still seem so upset, and I can’t let my lovely mate stay like that.” I then shifted my position so I was standing over her on the bed, sat down, and began to work on her back with my claws.

Fluffy tried to respond, but either because of the pleasure from my massage or her inability to think of what to say, she closed her mouth, laid her head between her forelegs, and relaxed. While I was probably not as good as she was at massages, seeing as I had yet to turn her into a heap of purring and melting fluff under my claws, I was still able to make her happy. I felt as her muscles slowly loosened up beneath my administrations, and eventually, Fluffy let her wings spread out, signalling that she was no longer so irritated with what I’d done.

I let a satisfied smirk cross my face, proud that I had managed to placate Fluffy and get her to forget about what had happened. I kept massaging her, focusing on the spot between her wings and along the side of her stomach and hips. I still didn’t understand how this was helpful for our bornling, but that was what Fluffy had told me, so that was what I was going to do.

When I felt I had spent enough time there, I moved on to her wings, beginning to massage the joints and muscles there. I always loved it when Fluffy would do it on me, especially since the nerves there were not as heavily protected by scales, leading to her pony magic working a lot better there, so I figured she enjoyed it as well. It also didn’t hurt that she tended to release soft coos and sighs of pleasure whenever I did this.

After massaging her wings for a little while, I figured I might as well help to preen her seeing as I was already working on her wings. As I was working on the wrist of her wing, I lowered my head, bit down gently on the feathers, and drew my fangs across them to remove any loose ones.

Fluffy was shocked at first, shooting her head up and looking back as she instinctively tried to retract her wings, but when she realised what I was doing, she calmed down and went back to relaxing. As I was preening her, I could hear her beginning to purr softly, making me all the happier.

As I finished with her left wing and was about to move on to her right, I couldn’t help but try playing with her a little. I pressed the front of my muzzle into the spot between her wings and began to gently nibble her there. While Fluffy initially released moans of pleasure as I did this, she wisened up fairly quickly, lifting up her head again, turning towards me, and growled.

I raised my head and smirked at her before planting a kiss on her lips. When I withdrew, I was still smirking, knowing that I had finally gotten her to forget about her brother. “Alright, but you know I can’t resist playing with my mate whenever I find the opportunity.”

I watched as Fluffy puffed up her cheeks and chest fur in that cute way she does whenever she doesn’t approve of my naughtiness. “Overgrown lecherous lizard,” she mumbled. “Just finish preening me.”

I happily obliged, moving on to her right wing, collecting any loose feathers and enjoying the sounds that Fluffy was making. It was a hard task to not stop and purr seductively at her, but I managed.

When I was finished with her preening, I laid my head and neck down on her back and began to purr. After everything that had happened today, this position just felt right.

“Mmm, while I’m enjoying this, I think you are forgetting something, Softy.”

While I was hesitant to lift my head and give up the wonderful position, I knew I would be getting my massage now, and that sounded like the more enjoyable experience. I lifted my head off of her and lowered it to her side before pushing it under one of her still extended wings. You know, the fur under the wing is even more fluffy than just about anywhere else!

After I did this, I heard Fluffy release a pretend irritated sigh before pushing up off the bed and walking back before climbing onto my back and beginning to work on the scales between my wings.

I immediately began to release a content purr as I relaxed my wings and melted under Fluffy’s touch. She always knew just the right places on me to work on, and would reduce me to a mewling mess in a matter of seconds. The way Fluffy moved her hooves on my scales and pushed into my muscles was almost as pleasurable as when we had our naughty times.

After massaging me there for a little bit, Fluffy began to work her way up my spine. My purring slowly became happy rumbles as she made her way from the base of my neck to my head.

“You’re lucky you did such a good job on your own massage tonight, I might not have been so willing to give you such a lovely massage otherwise.”

When she had massaged about half of it, Fluffy stepped down off of my back, moved to the right side of my throat, and continued her administrations up the rest of it.

“Mmm, can you do that thing I like?” I managed to quietly get out over my own purring as she was finishing up with the back of my neck.

“Greedy dragon, but since you asked so nicely.” I could hear the smirk Fluffy had as she said this, obviously enjoying how I melted under her hooves. “I’ll see what I can do.” When she reached my head, having finished my neck, rather than stopping, she continued the massaging on the crown of my head, causing me to purr even louder. We had discovered not that long ago it was especially pleasurable.

After a few minutes of me purring and flicking my tail back and forth in bliss because of Fluffy’s expert hooves, Fluffy stopped working on my head. “Now, since you were nice enough to go with me on the hike today and listen to my mom, why don’t I help work out any soreness in your legs.”

Before I could figure out what she meant by that, the next thing I knew, Fluffy had my right foreleg and claw between her hooves and was somehow managing to work her pony magic on them. I growled in approval and just let her do whatever she had planned, making a mental note to request she do this more often. It was not like I needed it, I am a strong dragon of course, but it felt good.

She worked from my claw to my shoulder on both my forelegs before moving on to my hindlegs. While I did think about rolling onto my side so she could access both the inside and outside of them, I was too comfortable where I was.

When Fluffy finished with all of my legs, making them feel a lot better after what she had done, I felt her get back on top of me and start working on my tail. While the nerves I had there were buried a little deeper in the muscles, I nonetheless enjoyed it whenever she would work on it, as it always somehow felt easier to move after she would do something like this.

As Fluffy was almost finishing her administrations there, I decided to play with her a little and began to lazily move the back half of my tail back and forth. This earned me a half-hearted, playful ‘Softy’ from Fluffy for making her task more difficult, and I just smirked to myself as I stopped moving it and let Fluffy get back to her massage.

When I felt Fluffy finish working on my tail and say she was done, I stood up on the bed, shook myself to feel how well she had made me feel, and turned around and gave her a kiss. However, as she was kissing me back, I stuck my tongue into her mouth and began to play with hers, as well as lifting up a claw and beginning to pet her chest fluff.

As I was doing this though, Fluffy withdrew from me slightly and gently pushed my claw off of her before I got a hoof pressed against the end of my muzzle. “Softy, I may not be angry anymore because of your evil dragon tricks, but I’m still not happy about what you did to my brother, so no naughtiness tonight.”

The smile I had plastered on my face quickly turned to a scowl at hearing this, as well as my purring becoming a low growl. I was sure I’d gotten her to forget about her brother. He was like some kind of anti-Fortuna for me, angering me and either preventing or delaying my and Fluffy’s fun times.

Seeing this, Fluffy took my head between her hooves and fixed me with a soft and caring, yet firm, stare. “Softy, I understand that with you being a dragon, my brother rubs you the wrong way, and I forgive you for what you did, but, if I just let you cuddle your way out of me being upset, you’ll never get along with him. I want you to at least not want to kill him when you're around each other, and not hurt him and cuddle with me afterwards expecting I’ll forgive you.”

I released a frustrated exhalation and increased my growling. I understood that Fluffy loved him and didn’t approve of how I treated him, but every interaction with him had angered me like nothing else had. Despite what Fluffy wanted, I was positive that I would never be able to get along with her brother.

I helped Fluffy fix up the bed after this, grumbling and making my displeasure known, but Fluffy either ignored my complaints or gave me displeased glares when I was apparently being too loud. But when we finished fixing up her bed and Fluffy laid down, when I tried to lay down and cuddle with her while we slept, I was given a firm look and told me that she didn’t want to cuddle tonight.

I tried to speak up to convince her to reconsider, but the look she gave me before I even said a word told me she was not in the mood to change her mind on this. Now it was my turn to be angry. While I loved that she was standing up for herself and behaving like a dragon, because she was doing so towards me, and over us cuddling, that appreciation was overshadowed.

The thought that I wouldn’t get to feel my cuddly mate lying against me, or her fur tickling the underside of one of my wings was unacceptable. While Fluffy said she’d forgiven me, telling me that I couldn't cuddle with her while we slept did not sound like forgiveness to me.

So I began to release a growl. A full fledged, displeased, draconic growl.

Fluffy, to her credit, just kept looking at me, unaffected by my anger. I began to pace back and forth around the room, whipping my tail, growling, hissing, and occasionally breathing out smoke from my nostrils, trying to figure out some way to convince her to change her mind.

After around a minute of this I thought of something I really didn’t want to do, but right now, I could think of nothing more important to me than cuddling with my mate while we slept, so this was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

I returned to Fluffy and rubbed my head against her wing, earning me a little growl from her, but I repeated my rubbing. When she lifted her wing to drag it away from me, I released a small, unhappy whimper, begging for my mate to caress me. Fluffy was caught off guard by this and froze.

“Did, did you just whimper?” She sounded quite surprised at hearing that from me.

I repeated the sound and added a quiet, demanding purr to the end of it, letting my mate know how important this was.

I saw from the look in her eyes that she was torn between her desire for me to get along with her brother, and therefore punish me for blowing smoke at him, and her desire to have a happy dragonfriend.

Though, I could always count on her soft pony nature, so in the end, her wing found its way to the top of my head.

“BIg Softy,” she snorted, but I could see a caring smile at the corner of her mouth.

I waved the tip of my tail happily while purring, but as I got onto the bed and tried to position myself in an even more optimal position for cuddling, she growled at me. I lowered my head so it was below my shoulders, dropped my tail onto the bed, and began to whimper again, doing my best to give her my widest eyes.

“Be grateful with what you get!” she reminded me.

I wanted to growl at that, but I knew better than to push the issue too far. I placed my head next to her side so she would cover it with her wing while curling up slightly around her so the end of my tail was just touching her belly slightly on her other side.