Fluttershy clutched the letter to her chest with both hooves. She had poured her heart into the letter. Everything she felt and everything she wanted to feel had gone into the crafting of this one letter.
What if she didn’t like it? What if she didn’t read it? What if she said no? What if… What if…
Buck up, Fluttershy, she told herself, biting her lip and looking down at where the letter was supposed to go. She had planned it all out. She would wait up here until the right moment… She would go down and just leave the letter behind. Applejack would know it was from her. How could she not?
You did sign your name.
“Oh… right.” She waited… where was Applejack? She’d watched her for so long that she thought she knew her route every day. The woodland critters knew too, about her crush-
“Crushes are for fillies, Fluttershy,” she said, taking a firm tone with herself, “You’re in love with her. You can say it.”
“I know… but I’ve never said anything,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper. “How could she know?”
“That’s what the letter is for. You wrote it, you put everything into it. She’ll see your heart, and no matter what she’ll still love you for who you are.”
“Oh, I know, but…” worry dogged at her mind still, “What if she’s not-”
She cut herself off, “Does that matter? Even if she doesn’t love you the same way, surely she deserves to know. Let her decide for herself.”
“Oh, you’re right,” she said. Sighing, she looked at the letter again, so neatly enveloped, bulging both with paper and her love. “But… Maybe tomorrow? It doesn’t look like she’s around.”
An errant wind came up and tugged the letter out of her hooves and sent it fluttering to the ground.
“No!”
She dove after the letter, flying faster than she ever had before, and was about to catch the letter between her teeth, but another gust tossed it above her, then another caught it and sent it sailing off into the blue. She could only watch as it fluttered farther away, breath caught in her throat. She worked so hard on it and she didn’t know if she had it in her to try again. She was about to take off after it again when Applejack came out of the barn.
“Oh, hey there Fluttershy,” Applejack called up from the ground.
“Eep!” Letter forgotten, she tried to hide behind her tail. She was afraid to land. What if… Oh, Fluttershy… Will you ever be able to tell her?
“What’s up?”
“Oh…” Think Fluttershy, think! What’s up? She looked around for anything to comment on but her feelings, but all she could think of was her feelings. Then something fluttered down into her field of view - answer and bane together.
“The letter! I need to get the letter!” She pointed a hoof at the letter, and started to go after it, but Applejack’s voice stopped her again.
“What’re you doin’ deliverin’ mail, sugar cube? Ain’t that the mailmare’s job?”
Fluttershy wanted to go after the letter, but she also wanted to talk with Applejack. Every moment was like a dream, and a nightmare, all rolled up into one.
Maybe, just this once, she could overcome her fear and admit her feelings. Frozen by indecision, she could only watch as the wind seemed to carry the letter directly to Applejack by some strange twist of luck.
“Oh.” She looked at the letter’s addressee, “Did little ol’ Miss Delivery give you my mail again?”
“Uhm…” Fluttershy clutched her tail closer, hiding her nose in the comforting coolness.
Applejack tore open the letter and unfolded it on the ground to read it right there in front of her. This wasn’t part of her plan! But she couldn’t move. What if… What if…
She watched as Applejack read the letter, her stomach churning the entire time. Applejack never looked up, only turning the pages mechanically. The longer she was quiet, the longer she read, the more Fluttershy wanted to fly away.
“Fluttershy…” she called up again when the last page lay stacked neatly atop the envelope.
“Yes?”
“Come down here, sugar cube. I reckon we oughta talk.”
“I…” Fluttershy gulped, then did the hardest thing she had ever done. She landed in front of the love of her life, uncertain what she was going to say.
To her surprise, the first thing to greet her when her hooves touched ground was a kiss.
“Sugarcube, you shoulda told me sooner, but there’s one thing I think you should know if we’re going to be together... Like this.” Applejack kissed her again and all Fluttershy could do was melt into it. Her heart racing like it never had before.
“What is it you want to tell me?” she asked when the kiss ended several heart pounding moments later.
“This is a dream.”
Fluttershy snapped awake. She’d fallen asleep at her desk again. Before her were the scattered remnants of a dozen letters started but not finished. The ink on the most recent began to run as she cried.
“I can’t… I just can’t!” She shoved all the papers off her desk in a fit of grief and despair. All except one.
She couldn’t get rid of it.
Dear Fluttershy,
You are cordially invited to attend the wedding of Applejack and…
She just couldn’t bring herself to read anymore. She hadn’t even taken it all the way out of the envelope. She couldn’t know. She mustn’t know! But still it sat there, taunting her with what might have been and what now would never be.
She pushed away from the desk and drew out her own private journal and lay down in her bed to write a new entry.
Dear Diary,
I thought that I could show her that I loved her by being as kind as I could be. I thought that kindness would be the balm that would soothe her hurts. I dreamed that we could be together, and I thought being kind to her would be the best way to show her how much I loved her.
I thought kindness would solve everything...
Fluttershy came home early, surprising Angel. He dropped the carrot he had been nibbling and waved hello. She didn’t seem to notice him right away, further surprising him. He was usually the first thing she saw when she came hom.
He was even more surprised when she burst out into song and twirled throughout the house like he’d never seen her before. She couldn’t stand still, couldn’t flutter in just one place. She moved constantly, unable to keep from singing or humming.
She came to flutter and stand by her desk many times as he watched, his own heart beginning to thump faster from her infectious happiness. She touched the drawer that held her private journal with a hoof. Then she would burst into tears with the largest smile he had ever seen and fly off again to put her songbirds to shame.
He cried at her wordless, joyous song.
Her nervous energy gradually wore off, and she calmed enough to stop and open the drawer to pull out her journal. She fumbled it in a mouth that couldn’t stop smiling and nearly dropped it before she set it down and forced herself to sit atop her stool.
He watched her as she tried several times to dip her quill into the inkwell, only to be too jittery to be right on target. He could tell that she was trying not to smile so that she could write. Trying not to, and failing.
She gave up on trying to write in her journal and flopped back onto her bed, laughing and holding the book to her chest. He hopped up onto her belly and lay down, trying to express the joy he felt for her. Tears were streaming from her eyes and she made no attempt to stop them.
Whatever had made her so happy?
“Oh Angel,” she said, “I… I don’t know what to say! I just can’t hold it in, I can’t hold onto it and I can’t even think about how to express it.” Laughing and crying, she held onto the journal as though it were her heart, too precious to squeeze, yet too valuable to let go.
She lay there for a long time, then fell asleep, a smile never leaving her muzzle.
Angel waited patiently, pleased to see his companion happy. It made him feel warm. And so he fell asleep on her belly, not at all bothered by the occasional happy giggle that bubbled up in her dreams.
~
Fluttershy woke to a warm presence on her belly and smiled down at her bunny, Angel. She really didn’t want to disturb him, but she wanted to get her feelings down into her journal while they were still fresh and bright as the summer’s day.
They would keep her warm on dreary winter mornings. And now, so too would her love. She closed her eyes to imagine it, and felt the warmth of the imaginary fire warm one flank. The other… She choked as she burst again into happy tears.
Oh! What a wonderful winter this next would be.
Angel still slept on her belly, undisturbed by her unbridled joy. She lifted him off with a wing and let him slide gently to the warm covers to lay nestled in the warm depression she left behind.
Calmer now, she walked to her writing desk and put her journal down. She didn’t start writing immediately. Scattered across the desk were the started and never finished remnants of a dozen letters, all of them professing her love for Applejack.
She took each and read them again, what she had started, feeling the joy rekindle within her heart as she recalled the nervous worry she’d been going through while penning each one. They represented a moment of time now past, a history that suggested something darker, but never was.
She didn’t need to worry anymore. She didn’t need to cry over her imagined loss. The nightmares would leave her and she could enjoy the night again.
Each half finished letter she read she folded neatly and set aside. They would find their own place in her journal, in the section she called the “Never Weres.” A section where she wrote down her worst fears… Fears that never were founded in anything but her own mind.
The last one set aside, and her heart filled so that it almost hurt to not smile, she drew out her quill again and this time managed to find the inkwell.
~
Dear Diary,
I don’t know what to write here. My heart… My heart just can’t take it. How do I put this into words that don’t sound trite and meaningless? Each word that I think of just doesn’t seem to fit how I feel. How do you put feelings onto paper? I feel as though I could place my heart in these pages and it wouldn’t describe this… this wonderful sensation.
We’ve been good friends for so long! I had no idea that she harbored such feelings for me. And she had no idea that I had them for her. All those times she’s been there for me, strong for me, and I never knew that I would be the brave one.
I did it! I told her what my feelings were. And… and… Oh my.
A trail of ink snakes its way down the page, a thin, wavy line that speaks of a quivery touch, as though the writer had too much elation stored up to just hold it in.
I just… I don’t know what to say. She… Oh! I’ll just say it!
She asked me to marry her!
The next few lines on the page are smeared, illegibly dripping down the page, as though the ink itself cried for joy and wonder.
How could I say no? How could I not shout YES! from the top of every mountain and spell it out with all the clouds in the sky?
But… Oh! Just two months and then… and then..
Wedding bells ring just for us!
