A Wrong-Sized Tail

Chapters

Preparing for Beauty
The Tail
Natural Flair
A New Species of Kindness?

Preparing for Beauty

“Honestly, Fluttershy dear, you’d look stunning with these new tail decorations,” said Rarity from the neighbouring bath. “Yours is a canvas I’d be honoured to work upon.”

Seaweed-wrapped in her mud bath, Fluttershy lifted up one of the cucumber slices, wincing as a drop of brown goop hit her eye. She’d only just been talked into trying a full spa makeover, Rarity-style, and that could take half a day at best. But this? This was all too fast!

Fighting back the urge to shrivel up, she said as politely as she could, “Maybe another time? I think the massage was really enough experimenting for today.”

Yes. Harder than she usually liked, at the instigation of Rarity, and now it left her with a spine making short, sharp complaints to the manager. She winced as another one landed hard on her brain’s desk.

“Oh, the massage is more a therapeutic thing,” said Rarity carelessly. “But I’ve always said you possess a natural grace and beauty, and what kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t help you reach your full potential?”

“I’m… fine with this potential, thanks.”

“Hm. You’re enjoying the full mud bath treatment, I take it? Not too hot for you?”

“No, but…” Fluttershy grimaced. “I just agreed to this bath to be polite. I’ll only get mud on my coat later anyway.”

Cucumbers covering her own eyes, Rarity nevertheless looked in the right direction and raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve started home treatments?”

“No, I meant I’ll get mud on it when I clean out Harry’s cave.” Fluttershy winced as another drop of mud hit her eye, and she lowered the cucumber piece and her dripping hoof. “Bears aren’t the best at housekeeping,” she added, with a sorry smile.

Once more, Rarity sighed, like a schoolgirl who’d been denied a triple hot fudge sundae. “I’ll have you one day yet, Fluttershy, so be it!” More cheerfully, she added, “Oh, but wait until you try the new hoof bubble bath. Aloe Vera and Lotus Blossom assure me the new salts are environmentally sound and leave your feet sparkling like stars! Stars! Sapphire Shores swears by it, you should see the new advertisements at Barnyard Bargains… Not that I shop there myself, obviously Applejack happened to mention it in passing…”

Fluttershy nodded before she remembered Rarity was currently blinded by green produce, so instead she switched hastily to saying “uh huh?” and “gosh” and “oh my!” at the right bits.

It had taken a long time, years ago, for Rarity to convince her to join the spa at all. Over time, Rarity tried to ply her more and more with the services they offered. Why, it was a kind of beauty creep.

Flattering, though. In a way.

After all, no one else took to it like Fluttershy did. Rainbow Dash barely cared beyond being pampered like a Wonderbolt celebrity, and that was the only reason Fluttershy could see for her.

Twilight and Applejack sometimes popped in, but they always gave the impression of having left their minds at home – on a recent royal report, say, or on a list of pig-feeding chores.

Pinkie rarely even looked in. Spa treatments were gifts given to the right friends, as far as Miss Pinkamena “All Give and No Take” Pie was concerned.

Whereas Fluttershy made it a weekly thing. Beauty didn’t feature much in nature except in very abstract, personal, and hard-to-share terms.

For instance, she could look at the orange richness of a monarch butterfly, alone in a meadow, but… well, she couldn’t really talk about such a sight to other ponies. It didn’t make sense if she questioned why. It was just one of those things. A pony had to be there when the wings blinked, and if they were there, then words didn’t matter anyway.

Besides, any mare who loved nature nevertheless must accept that most of it was barely house-trained, and definitely not toilet-trained. Sooner or later, it involved… Fluttershy daren’t even think the word… All right, call it “muck”. It brought her azaleas up a treat, but that wasn’t the sort of thing you told Rarity.

Yours is a canvas I’d be honoured to work upon.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy! Hello? Is anyone home?”

“Hm? What?” Fluttershy cocked her ears and realized the chatter had stopped. “Oh. Sorry, Rarity. I, er, I think the hot mud is making me woozy.”

“Woozy!?” said Rarity, at once all concern.

“I meant drowsy,” Fluttershy corrected, mentally clipping herself round the ear. “I’m fine. I’m not ill or anything.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I wouldn’t want to push you too far out of your comfort zone.” Not quietly enough, Rarity murmured, “Much as it pains me to resist.”

Fluttershy chewed her lip, and instantly regretted it. The mud facial still left a funny stickiness she didn’t want to taste twice.

“Rarity, when you said my… tail was a canvas…?” she said, as though apologizing for bringing up the point.

In some ways, Rarity was a quick thinker. “I only meant that it looks lovely as it is, but if you don’t mind my being so forward, there is room for – there is potential for ‘fantastic’, or even – dare I say it? – ‘fantastique’!”

Fluttershy wondered if she could die from overblushing. She felt it. She felt it from a heart collapsing in on itself, and she felt it up to her head, which sank lower into the mud from lack of support. Was Rarity saying too much? She talked fast, like someone hastily papering over a mark on the wall.

Nothing had been overheard, but Fluttershy really hoped the spa ponies had not wandered back in, quietly or otherwise. They usually left her and Rarity to talk right about now, but then she’d never been in the bath for so long.

On the other hoof, perhaps it was indeed time to talk about this. Rarity would never blab to anyone else, and… and who else was better to ask than someone with her vision?

Still, Fluttershy shuffled her legs before plucking up the nerve, which twanged horribly under all the strain.

And she raised the cucumber slice again, to make sure no one else was around.

Opposite, Rarity rested her head and smiled.

“My, um, my tail’s not too… not too… long? Is it?” Fluttershy whispered.

A frown flickered over Rarity’s face. Surprise trickled out of her voice when she next spoke.

“Of course not,” she said. “Why would it be?”

The words scarred Fluttershy’s brain. If her tail was too long now, then that meant it was really, actually, naturally too short.

“Um…” she said, and the hot mud was nothing to how her face felt right now. The cucumber slice sizzled, and so did the other when she dropped it. Suddenly, she didn’t want to see Rarity’s expression.

“Something the matter?” said Rarity.

Fluttershy struck out wildly. “It can be a bit… um… impractical, maybe. I –” Then the horror of what she was doing jumped out at her. “Rarity, please promise me this doesn’t leave the room!”

“But of course, but of course! Fluttershy, whatever is it? You sound like someone’s torn up your home.”

“You promise?”

“Promise? I won’t just promise! I will give you my word and my life.”

“No one else will hear it?”

“May I be tied to a stake, shaved, set on fire, and – ulp – forced to watch every single one of my most prized gowns be torn asunder by wild dogs before I betray your trust!” And because Rarity, even at her most gallant, had the nosiness of a true gossip, she added, “Now tell me, tell me, tell me, please, before I explode!”

Starting to choke under all the words and the heat, Fluttershy took a deep breath. “You’re sure?”

“Sure I’m sure I’m sure I’m sure!” Rarity’s voice quaked with confused concern. “We’ve seen each other at our best and worst. There are no secrets between us, remember?”

After licking her lips – and coughing up the gungy taste that this left – Fluttershy screwed them up. Too late to back out now. Rarity could be trusted to keep her mouth shut, but first she’d make Fluttershy exercise hers. Fluttershy swore the unicorn sloshed in her own bath, leaning forwards.

More sympathetically, Rarity whispered, “If you’re worried about your tail, I assure you I meant no offence when I suggested ornaments. The curse of an artist, I fear. Perfectionism makes critics of gold.”

“It’s not that,” said Fluttershy, who deep down knew and seethed over the fact that it was exactly that. “Only, a long tail can be a bit… awkward, at times. Sometimes, it snags on things, or picks up dirt and leaves, and gets trapped in doors a lot –”

“Recently?” Even Rarity’s voice raised its eyebrow.

Mind stumbling, Fluttershy lied, “Not recently, no.”

“There you are, then. You’ve adapted. Everything comes together. Is that all you’re worried about?”

“No! No. Not really. No.” The stupid question stepped forwards, but such was Fluttershy’s struggling mindset that she couldn’t think of anything better. “You know it’s because of my, uh, my uh, my uh my… my…?”

Tail extensions, she said in her head. Come on. Two words, that’s all.

Tail extensions.

She hadn’t always needed them, not when she was small. At that age, her tail had seemed normal enough. Anyway, tail length didn’t matter much when there were so many other flaws for bullies to pick on, starting with her inability to fly and working up – or in her case, down – from there.

Past a certain age, though, she noticed her tail didn’t seem to grow along with her. Meanwhile, fillies had become mares and colts had become stallions. And they paid attention to things like that in other pegasi. Presentation of the tail, how the hairs flowed, how much healthy growth there was. Even that hadn’t been a problem; Fluttershy spent so much time around star-nosed moles and mockingbirds that any Cloudsdale company, much less mare and stallion company, was just a footnote. A footnote that noted, loudly and often, that she looked like she’d rolled in muck, and then left it – rather hurriedly – at that.

But then she’d moved, and she’d started talking more and more to the unicorns and earth ponies of Ponyville as well, and suddenly their eyes filled her thoughts and mulled over her memories.

She noticed the subtleties. Glances at her tail, “short” comments, “little” jokes, things which seemed innocuous at the time, and true, they might have been nothing worse than harmless little ice-breakers…

…like that one she’d just accidentally come up with…

…but she’d looked more and more in a mirror. The tail was a lot shorter than some ponies’. Definitely shorter than her own mane. It all looked wrong. Clownish. Pitiful.

She’d started wearing stuff over it. Carousel Boutique sold dresses with long, long skirts, but that meant there was a horrible time when she’d had to come in with no dress on at all, because there had to be a first time, right? So long as the businesspony behind the counter never really got a chance to see the tail…

Well, that had been hard to do when Fluttershy usually didn’t pay much attention to her posture. Bears, racoons, and wild dogs don’t care what you look like, so long as you got grub.

And then one of the days when Fluttershy had learned to trust the businesspony Rarity – who always seemed so confident, so dazzling, so carefree and friendly and basically everything Fluttershy secretly wished she was – she’d worked up the courage, and she managed to talk about her work and how the beavers were planning to take over the south fields and the butterflies had petitioned her to clear the migratory traffic over Whitetail Woods this year, and then Rarity had smiled and winked and asked the dreaded question –

“Are you thinking about tail extensions?”

Fluttershy was so surprised she only just noticed her cucumber slices had fallen off. She opened her eyes back to the present.

From her own bath, Rarity aimed a crinkled look of concern over to her – not too crinkled, not after that mud facial – but since she still had her cucumbers on, she’d aimed too far to the left.

“Mm hm,” was all Fluttershy dared murmur.

To her surprise, she watched Rarity deflate with disappointment.

“Oh, Fluttershy, everyone knows that. I knew it even before the Foal Free Press got wind of it. Do you honestly believe that we – that I think any less of you?”

“No,” said Fluttershy, much more defensively than she’d intended.

“Anyway, lots of mares have short tails. You can look beautiful with one or the other. It’s all in how you use it. And on that subject, I hope you don’t mind if I suggest plaiting yours as part of an ensemble –”

“No, thank you,” said Fluttershy, indicating firmly that this line of thought was much shorter than her tail, or darn well better be.

Rarity pouted for creation defied, but at least shrugged with a noble grace. “Oho, very well. You can’t fend me off forever, my dear. I shall persuade you yet!”

Under her breath, Fluttershy grumbled, “I bet you will.”

But she’d misjudged the volume of her voice. And Rarity’s keen ears. Which fell.

“Rarity, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry! I only meant –”

“Fiddle-faddle and rot! You’re quite right. Yours is yours to do with as you wish. I didn’t mean to press the point so crudely.”

Fluttershy sat and gritted her teeth whilst two forces fought inside her chest. She was getting too angry, and to think she’d been on top of it for so long! Perhaps it was time? Perhaps she needed to look this thing squarely in the face, or in the tail, or whatever.

Much, much more quietly, she added, “Erm… Rarity?”

“Mm-yeeeeeeeesss?” said Rarity warily, as though approaching the smoking remains of a dragon’s nest.

Hearing that wariness in her friend’s voice, Fluttershy swallowed her cowardice, and then winced as it caught on the lump in her throat. “Actually, maybe I’d like to try something different. This time. After the spa?”

Even Rarity’s voice smiled, in that characteristic genteel fashion which meant a secret delight had been acknowledged, but that it was still being suppressed for the sake of tact.

“It would be a privilege,” she said. “Very well. After the spa.”

That left Fluttershy enough time to soak up just how badly she wished she wasn’t doing this. Although the bubbles did sparkle her hooves up a treat. Sparkling like stars.

The Tail

At Carousel Boutique, late enough in the evening for the sky to burn itself out, Fluttershy stood in one of the changing cubicles. The curtain was drawn.

Rarity had also shut up shop, locked the front door, barred it, put the shutters up, and drawn down every blind she could find. As much as Fluttershy knew it was as necessary as putting a padlock around a piggybank in a safe and then burying it, she hadn’t always had a sense of proportion over this issue and was just calmed – a little bit – by seeing Rarity take it so seriously.

Just like old times. And even back then, Fluttershy had fainted the first time she’d tried this.

Now the curtain rustled as Rarity joined her in the cubicle. Suddenly, her face was all business. The orange glasses signalled as such; Rarity wore them to do her most important design work.

Fluttershy gulped.

“All right,” Rarity said, as business-like as the glasses. “You’re sure about this?”

“No. Let’s do it anyway.”

“If you’re not sure, just say the word –”

“Please? I have to try.”

“Very well. Let the record show I did give you an out.”

Business gave way to a sort of bedside manner in Rarity’s voice, and once more Fluttershy marvelled at how no-nonsense the fashion expert could become. She herself saw nothing but nonsense. So much nonsense it was all she could do not to bolt in shame…

“Fluttershy, dear, I’m taking the extensions off, all right?”

“Mm hm,” was all she managed.

“Excellent… three, two, one… now.”

There was a click. Fluttershy’s tail suddenly didn’t tug so much on her dock with its weight.

She was out, she was out, she was out, out, out, out right in front of Rarity! No matter how many years she’d been doing this, how often Rarity never spoke like anything but an unfazed professional, she, Fluttershy, still bit her lip against the urgent and frantic desire to faint, escape, get well away…

Drily, Rarity said, “I think you’ll want to turn your head if you intend to look at your reflection.”

Fluttershy turned her head, enough so she could see the reflection behind her.

“And open your eyes, please. I think it’s best to get this over with.”

Fluttershy opened one eye, enough so she did see the reflection behind her.

There. She’d done it. The other eye opened without hope.

She looked fine up above and down to her hooves her tail was too short. Her mane curled freely and even elegantly her tail was too short around her face, where her eyes watered in a way Rarity would surely call demure her tail was too short. Her wings slid across her coat, preened to perfect points along her pinions her tail was too short. Her hooves sparkled her tail was too short. Her haunches seemed the right size her tail was too short. Her legs her tail was too short. Her withers her tail was too short. Her… Her tail was too short too short too short!

All she could do was force herself to stare.

Her tail was too short.

No. No good. She looked away from it.

Before she’d gone to Rarity, long ago, she’d seen a doctor about her tail.

A tail like that: supposing it was a disease she didn’t know about? She’d closed her eyes the entire time she’d been inspected there too, silently apologizing for ruining the doctor’s day and wasting her – thank goodness the doctor had been a her – wasting her time.

Nothing dangerous, the doctor had said happily. In fact, there was no disease. The tail was most likely a simple genetic quirk, perhaps a little odd compared to most tails, but tails that stayed short were nothing to worry about. Growth slowed and stopped past a certain amount, but there were easy ways around it if it was distressing her. Did she know anyone in the family with a similar problem? Yes? A grandmother, you say? Don’t worry, Miss Fluttershy. Lots of mares have short tails, even in… oh, say, the fashion industry.

Fluttershy had left, convinced the doctor was lying. She’d started reading fashion magazines by then. The mares always had long, luxurious tails.

Admittedly, that was at the same time she’d learned about tail extensions, but back then she’d been too slow to connect the dots.

And the “nothing to worry about” tail was right there. Where Rarity could see it.

Fluttershy forced herself to look again, neck straining.

Her tail was too short.

It looked like someone had hacked it off close to the dock. Fluttershy never got it to behave, no matter what battery of brushes and arsenal of accessories she fought it with. The thing made her want to be sick. How could a doctor look at that and say it was healthy? Yet Fluttershy couldn’t stop staring at it, because anything, anything was better than seeing Rarity’s face and knowing that she could see it too.

Her tail was too short.

Fluttershy herself could see the extensions hovering nearby, under Rarity’s magic. She wanted to seize them and cover up everything, screaming at Rarity to look away.

Her tail was too short.

She bit her lip hard and forced herself to keep staring.

Her-tail-was-too-short.

“Now,” said Rarity, and the sheer professionalism in her tone made Fluttershy feel two years young again, “I’d recommend a new-fashioned Twining Tweed, it’s all the rage in Canterlot at present and has the advantage of granting a rural charm to the piece, but Cosmare magazine insists the Deluxe Derriere is the cosmetic of choice. Ahem, I have here a selection of tail decorations –”

Her-tail-was-too-short.

The tray drifted into view. Still, Fluttershy stared at her own jagged tail, dimly noting the multitude of colours nearby.

Her-tail-was-too-short.

“– and as much as I appreciate you have your own eye for detail and it’s ultimately your choice, I would nevertheless be remiss if I did not recommend the addition of these dark clips –”

Her-tail-was-too-short. Her-tail-was-too-short.

“– which not only will maintain the integrity of the hairs –”

Her-tail-was-too-short-her-tail-was-too-short-her-tail-was-too-short.

“– but in my opinion add a necessary accent to the general –”

Her-tail-was-too-short-her-tail-too-short-was-her-tail-too-tail-too-her-too-tail-too-short-TOO-SHORT-TOO-SHORT-TOO-SHORT-TOO-SHORT –

“Rarity-I-changed-my-mind-I-don’t-want-to-do-this!” blurted out Fluttershy.

Her legs were shaking.

Why? She shouldn’t be losing control now! It was stupid.

She heard Rarity lower her glasses; the slight stroke of frame on muzzle sounded like a body dragged over a carpet. “You’re sure?”

“Yes! Please! Right now!”

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you, went Fluttershy’s mind. Rarity brought the old tail extensions closer and sent the tray away.

Yet a small part of Fluttershy curled up in shame. She’d almost beaten it this time. “Almost” wasn’t good enough.

One magical flash later – Fluttershy shut her eyes tight – she opened them again to see her tail long, whole, and rolling across the ground.

“I’m sorry, Rarity!” She choked on the words.

“Come now, no need to be sorry.” Rarity patted her on the shoulder. “I thought you did splendidly. You’ve made marvellous progress.”

“I thought I was on top of it, but it just keeps creeping over –”

“And now you’re controlling it. Last time, you barely looked at yourself in the mirror. We should celebrate our triumphs, should we not?”

Panic subsiding deep inside her furiously pumping chest, Fluttershy let it rise up and out in a long, drawn-out sigh of relief. Her tail was back. The curtains opened. She was free to go.

“This is stupid,” she said.

“The ‘this’ is not you. You’re the one fighting ‘this’, remember?”

“I wish I hadn’t dragged you into ‘this’, Rarity, whatever ‘this’ is.”

Rarity even laughed with class. “Oh, I’m like a vampire, dear. Invite me into your castle, and in that castle I’ll stay. At least you’ll get an intruder who knows how to wear tasteful evening dress, n’est-ce pas?”

The hateful tremble crept upon Fluttershy’s lips. She couldn’t control that.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she whined.

“Oh, Fluttershy. You’re just coming down from the shock, that’s all. I’ll make us a nice cup of lemon tea and you’ll feel right as rain again, how does that sound?”

Fluttershy utterly struggled not to let her lip tremble. “Rarity, I’m so –”

A gentle but firm hoof covered her mouth.

“Tea first. You’ll feel better. Is that understood?”

Mutely, Fluttershy nodded. The hoof removed itself.

They climbed the stairs to Rarity’s workshop – Fluttershy shuffling like a shamed servant, Rarity striding proud as a countess – and after a few minutes of sitting, shivering, and trying not to stare at anything other than the table top, Fluttershy smelled the lemon tang and reached out for her cup without so much as a word.

Both of them drank in silence, at least for the first few sips. If there was a flaw to Rarity’s unflappable image, it was her tendency to sip like a toilet plunger fighting a blockage.

How did Rarity do it? How did she stay so calm and collected, without even a hint of a smirk?

Probably because all this isn’t her problem, Fluttershy thought bitterly.

Then her brain smacked itself. That was just the shame talking. Rarity was fine, she was fine, it was Fluttershy who didn’t think straight, this whole ordeal proved it.

It had been Rarity, after all, who’d suggested the cunning Tail Extensions Scheme. So long ago…

Fluttershy, after recovering from her faint at the time, had wanted the big tail extensions immediately. Instead, Rarity sat her down – just like this – gave her a sugary cup of tea – er, not like this lemon one – and told her the scheme as though discussing a perfectly ingenious new dress design.

First, Fluttershy would wear subtler extensions, enough to look like the tail had grown a little bit without arousing suspicion.

Then, she’d progress onto longer and longer extensions, once a month, and if anyone asked, she’d tell them it was a late growth spurt. Stranger things had happened, and Rarity had read enough Cosmare magazines to know the dangers of using oversized extensions, and of using them too soon.

Finally, once she’d reached a length that complemented her mane’s own natural growth, she’d be perfect. Sometimes, Rarity would suggest modifications or ply her with embellishments, but the hard part had come and gone. For once, Fluttershy could look at her tail with pride.

Then that Foal Free Press had come out. It had made her come out, without consulting her. Published her secret for all to see.

That had been the End of the World.

Yet to her shock, no one had ever really commented. Ponyville, it turned out, was pretty blasé about that sort of thing. Besides, she and the ponies of the town knew each other well enough by that point. She was Fluttershy the Animal Expert first and foremost, and then Fluttershy the Coward, then Fluttershy the Pretty Model, and so on down a list. Fluttershy the Stubby-Tailed Freak didn’t even make the top hundred.

But it meant that the secret was out there. Any stranger could read it. And if they ever dared to glance at her tail, whether she knew they knew, or they knew she knew they knew, or she knew they knew she knew they knew…

If they ever dared, the old panic lurked nearby. Where she could practically see it.

So the ponies of Ponyville never brought it up. They were OK with it. Really.

Part of Fluttershy sneered. Sure they were.

Angrily, she threw back her tea and tried to drown and swallow the thought. It crept back. They might not say anything, but anyone with a brain is thinking it.

She had no proof. No one said anything. Most of those ponies were friends.

On the outside. What do they say when you’re not around?

Shut up shut up shut up.

She threw back her tea, or would have, except she looked down and saw her cup was empty. She – did not slam it down on the table. Instead, she placed it very carefully on its saucer.

That’s what it was: she was thinking about this wrong. The more she obsessed over her tail – her stumpy, hacked-looking excuse of a tail, a tail so short she could waggle it and it’d look as convincing as a paintbrush in a dog’s mouth –

The more she obsessed over her tail, the worse things got. She couldn’t obsess. She had to think of a way around this.

“Something on your mind, Fluttershy?” said Rarity, but as casual as the words sounded at first, Fluttershy heard the caution, leaning closer like an anxious doctor over her patient.

And to think, Fluttershy had been sitting here, moping…

“I’m… glad you’re my friend, Rarity,” she said. It was a confession. It was just a confession covering something else she didn’t want to confess. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Mucking out a bear’s cave, perhaps?” Even Rarity’s laughter tinkled with elegance, the way a princess might use a bell to summon her maid. “Oh, the pleasure’s all mine, Fluttershy.”

“It’s just you know so much about beauty and how to look good, and I –”

“Have a ‘freaky’ knowledge of sewing, as I recall.”

“I picked that off you.”

“And if I hadn’t been around, I daresay you’d have picked it off somepony else. Although I guarantee they wouldn’t be nearly as accomplished as me at sewing, ahaha. You have the instinct, and I should know.”

That was something else Rarity and vampires had in common: they never really doubted their own charm.

Fluttershy watched that particular thought with suspicion. Was it meant to be a flattering thought, or a stealthy insult? But then this was Rarity. The mare had a tendency to… dramatics. To act. To give the impression she believed in the script, yes, but also to remind ponies that there was a script in the first place. And she’d be just as good if another one came her way.

“Fluttershy dear, relax. I don’t speak idly when I say you have a beauty and grace most models would stampede for.”

“Don’t say things like that,” said Fluttershy coldly. “I know what my tail looks like.”

“Your tail? Ah me. If only you had my eyes, then you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“Rarity…” Her voice was a warning.

“I’m not just saying that, honestly! Forget the tail! You have to see the bigger picture here.”

“What, you mean like ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’?” Less warningly, Fluttershy cleared her throat. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t I? The whole fashion business is about the eye of the beholder. I try to make my dresses meet my standards, yes, but the trick is to see them through the customer’s eyes. Of course, it helps if the customer has an ounce of fashion sense, but I don’t let that stop me!”

Rarity’s cackling laugh was a tad too forced, and thankfully died a painful and awkward death, with much shuffling and sudden reading of tea leaves.

Fluttershy pushed her cup and saucer away. “I really do appreciate all your help, Rarity. I just can’t pretend my tail is pretty like you.”

Too late, she realized how that sounded.

She even heard the caution in Rarity’s words as they approached. “You mean pretty like I ‘pretend’, or pretty like me?”

“Er…” Fluttershy ducked the question. “I meant it’s wrong, and it always will be. I need those extensions.” However pathetic and weak and doomed and hideous that makes me sound, she added privately. “Um… Oh, I don’t know! I need something else.”

As apologetic as Rarity sounded, her tone was still aspiring to Canterlot. “When you say something else, what exactly am I missing?”

“It’s like every time I think about this, all I end up seeing is my own tail and there’s a mirror right in front of me and I can’t look away and –”

Rarity stood up quickly. “Another cup of tea?”

Blinking, Fluttershy looked up. “I’m sorry? What?”

“Fluttershy, you’re getting worked up again. You sound like you need one, if I may be so forward. Another lemon?”

“Oh. Oh, yes. Please. Thank you. Sorry.”

From the sink nearby, Rarity’s voice continued over the rumbling of the kettle. “Just remember you are getting better at it.”

Don’t patronize me, said Fluttershy’s pride. “Thank you,” said Fluttershy’s guilt, which got to her mouth faster.

Rarity was right. She kept obsessing over this, even in her own head. What she needed was a distraction. A distraction, most of all, from the fact that she was infected with this… this… disease and Rarity – for all her help, for all her understanding, for all the near-saintliness that shone as readily as her most splendid dresses – simply wasn’t. It was easy to be kind to ill ponies when you were healthy yourself.

A distraction, then? But she’d tried so many. And yet every time she came to Rarity’s, to someone who knew about beauty inner and outer, they all melted away as if she’d never even tried anything, and… then…

That was it. Rarity was the help, but also part of the problem. She didn’t mean to be. Thanks to her manner, though, in her presence Fluttershy felt like a servant crawling up to a queen. It wasn’t level. It wasn’t encouraging.

The long and the short of it was: Rarity knew the most about beauty. All kinds of beauty…

Maybe there was something Fluttershy knew that she didn’t?

“Rarity?” she called as hoofsteps returned and cups steamed. “Can I… make a proposal?”

“So long as it’s not a wedding one!” Laughter followed the chink of china plates. “Oh, Fluttershy, don’t look like that. I only tease.”

“Mm hm.” Fluttershy shook the rage out, flapping her mane, and hardened to the strength of an eggshell. “We go to the spa once every week. I do enjoy it. Really. I really do. But it’s more… your territory, isn’t it?”

“I always think of it as our territory.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Assume for the moment I’m out at sea. Talk to me until I say ‘land ho!’”

“Um. Yes. Well…” For moral support, Fluttershy sipped the scolding tea, scolding herself under her breath. “It’s more a fashion and beauty sort of thing, but I like other things more. So, if it’s OK with you, would you…? If you’re not busy or anything, I can always set a better time…”

Rarity sipped her drink. “‘Land ho’, I believe, is le mot just. I see what you’re getting at.”

“Would you like to go on a nature walk with me?” Fluttershy immediately dived into her own tea again.

A thoughtful pause and the constant rising steam warmed Fluttershy too much. She looked up, into a face suddenly frozen and cracking at the edges.

“A nature walk?” repeated Rarity.

“Not for long. Whitetail Woods is much nicer than the Everfree Forest. We could go there for an hour or two.”

“A nature walk?”

“I think the evening would be best. The sunset makes the sky look so lovely.”

“A nature walk?”

“We’ll pack some mineral water to keep us hydrated. I know it’s your favourite.”

“I repeat just for clarification, you understand: a… nature… walk?”

Fluttershy watched the ice twitch under one eye. “Yes?” she said.

It took a while, but Rarity’s pout broke through the frostiness. “Can I ask why, exactly?”

“I want to show you something.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“In… nature?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Who finds nature so… icky?”

“Yes! Please!”

“In nature?”

“Please stop staying that. Do you want to or not? I’m asking nicely, and you can just say no.”

In the manner of a hired help suddenly finding the job is week-long and on reduced pay, Rarity swirled her words around her mouth and glanced up as though the ceiling would tell her how they tasted. Fluttershy hoped she’d say yes. That was how this whole thing should go. She was suddenly very sure of that.

To her relief, Rarity downed the last of her tea without even a pretence of ladylike grace. That meant she wasn’t concentrating well enough to act poised.

“D’oh, all right,” Rarity said. “Tomorrow after work. But just this once. I’ll need to find a sacrificial dress to wear. And some spray; it’s horsefly season.”

Now it was Fluttershy’s turn to give a knowing smile, and she dipped her head, and sipped her drink, and wagged her tail under the pressure of pleasure before she even realized she could feel the tips striking the tiles below.

Natural Flair

Fluttershy’s tail dragged through the leaf litter, however much she ignored it. Every time she ignored it, she looked back and found a few more leaves had joined the litter caught in the hairs. In fact, she felt it tugging on snags along the path, and her concentration fought to ignore it all the harder.

Whitetail Woods was the perfect distraction. It was too big and too glorious to be a distraction. It swallowed distractions and overwhelmed them. Soon, her perspective flipped, and Whitetail Woods was everything, and the dull tug of her tail was itself the distraction, and eventually not even that.

Apart from the two ponies themselves, dormice scurried through the undergrowth urgently. Hearing them, nervous birds quivered on the branches overhead. Dotted here and there like embers of a dying fire, the hoverflies pinned themselves to the three dimensions of the air as though daring a wayward wing to dislodge them. The trunks and ferns themselves joined in, leaning close and listening, or admiring the sunset.

It was not like Ponyville, where the ponies and the pets and the buildings and the streets kept themselves clear of one another in civilized, orderly ways. Here, everything mingled. There were no rules. No clear boundaries, or respected ones: a bird darted from branch to branch, leaves shuddered around it, one tumbled down, and far below the hoverfly zipped back and forth trying to correct for the sudden rush of eddies behind the leaf, which landed and startled a dormouse into a squeaky, crashing scurry.

Anyone could join in, if they could handle it.

“Fluttershy!” cried Rarity from behind. “Wait up!”

If they could handle it.

The ferns behind Fluttershy crashed and a frizzled mess of mane burst through.

Whitetail Woods was not totally wild. In deference to Rarity’s lack of enthusiasm, Fluttershy had stuck to the one path in the forest, a path meant for those ponies who didn’t like ploughing through masses of bracken. Judging by Rarity’s muddy legs, she’d somehow managed to plough through them anyway.

“I had no idea it’d be so humid!” Rarity sprayed herself all over. “And there are horseflies everywhere!”

The little hiss sizzled on Fluttershy’s nerves. “They’re not horseflies. I’d have noticed.”

“Dratted things keep landing on my coat.” Rarity’s spray can slipped back into one of several “emergency” satchels she’d brought along. Even her floppy hat stiffened like a military helmet. “And my hooves hurt!”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy. “It’s just a little further. I promise.”

“A little further –” only after a brief wrestling match for a bottle in her satchel did Rarity continue “– and then I’m going straight home.”

“That’s right, just a little further.” Fluttershy tried not to enjoy herself; Rarity looked like a doily that had been used for digging.

“You do this every day?”

“When I can.”

“Why?”

But Fluttershy let this one go. Sometimes, it helped to let Rarity have her little vent first instead of trying to dam it.

“Mm,” continued Rarity. “Drat. I knew I should have brought my sunscreen. It’s still bright out! All it takes to spoil a complexion is a little overindulgence of sunlight…”

Letting the words flow by, Fluttershy crunched over the leaves strewn on the path. Her idle pegasus wings beat the air either side of her; her urge to flap them grew ever more restless. Through gaps in the ragged canopy, she saw purple clouds bruise the tanned skies, and the blood of birds ran wild through her heart. Pegasus instincts dared her to leap up and fly forth, into the violent colours.

A chick chirped. Much too close to have come from on high.

Frowning, Fluttershy hovered. Where exactly was that? Down there! The patch of long grass rustled.

She drifted forwards whilst her wings strained to keep her aloft, and as she did so, the dragging weight of the tail snagged on a low branch. Fluttershy yelped. She flicked the dock, heard only a crash, turned to tug it out, and eventually just kicked at the branch to make the tail flop out.

Hoping Rarity hadn’t seen that, Fluttershy leaned in close.

A baby bird, as she’d suspected. It fell silent at once. Small, fluffy ball of hyperventilating fear. Its eyes reflected her own wide ones back.

Tenderly, she reached forwards and held a hoof just in front of its beak. No closer. Chicks had to let you come close, not the other way around.

The silence was totally ignored by distant crows, which cawed at the sky as though laughing and accusing it gruffly.

Then the chick cheeped.

An honour! Fluttershy picked the little ball of fluff up as gently as her hooves would allow, though here they felt like dinner plates being used to scoop a dust bunny off the floor. A gentle scrape, and the cheeping cheerful chick looked up expectantly, all fear forgotten.

Fluttershy looked up. Instantly, the hole to the nest stood out on the trunk right next to a branch. A few tiny heads peered over the edge of the hole, one head bigger than the others. A titmouse! A mother titmouse! Yes! She knew that yellow and black cap on its head like the bonnet of a familiar baby.

Trying not to look like a big yellow swan out of water, Fluttershy rose up. Her wings either batted or blew branches away, but only enough to let her come through. Her tail snagged on a couple, but always tugged free at the last possible moment.

Carefully, she stretched her front hooves up as high as they would go and focused. Tiny little legs pattered across. The weight vanished from her hoof. She lowered both. Nothing in them.

One more little head peered out of the hole to the nest. Cheeped its thanks.

“You’re very welcome,” whispered Fluttershy, as if her wings hadn’t already blown leaves about.

When Fluttershy landed again, she started. Rarity hummed with a question mark on the end, eyebrow leaning forward as though it had put a smug elbow on a bar and was waiting for a round.

Wait. Had she seen all that? It was supposed to be a private family matter for the birds. Falling out of nests was so embarrassing to a chick.

Fluttershy hurried on the path, hoping no questions were asked. It was just one of those things she had to do. No need for that smug look. Really, Rarity shouldn’t make such a fuss over it…

Anyway, here was the main attraction. This was the thing Rarity had to see.

“We’re here!” Fluttershy landed, wings folding up.

Beside her, Rarity gagged and gasped for water. Lowered her “emergency” bottle.

Both of them looked up to the gap where the trees and the hillside gave way to open skies. On the horizon, the sun melted into the burnt mountains, singing its swan song in watercolours across the skies. More forest and glimpses of pathway watched from the valley below, as though a ragged congregation stood transfixed.

Fluttershy turned to see Rarity’s eyes hypnotized by the fading light.

It would have been a perfect moment if it wasn’t for the wretched tail.

Strains, tugs, and little wriggling feelings where beetles had probably gotten snagged in it: Fluttershy glanced back at the constant complaints coming in, and saw a tail bedraggled as a pink rag that had been thrown into the forest for a week. She could see black carapaces crawling over it.

And it was so dirty! As Fluttershy swished it, trying to dislodge the bigger clumps of dirt, the tail dragged over the ground again.

At once, Rarity awoke from the spell. She cringed and inched away from the flying flecks.

Fluttershy stopped swishing.

“Look up!” she said quickly. “Look at this tree here!”

Rarity threw it a look even dirtier than Fluttershy’s tail. “It’s a tree. Yes?”

“Uh huh, but do you notice anything… unusual about it?”

One long silence indicated that Rarity would quite unhappily stand there all evening and all night, unless someone just pointed out the trick already.

“Well?” prompted Fluttershy.

Rarity snorted. “Oh, your games, Fluttershy! Really! It’s a tree. Maybe a bit browner than the standard-issue variety, but forgive me a rather emotional: ‘So what?’ I am not, as I have hastened to point out before, a ‘Nature pony’, hence the nature of this tree is, I’m afraid…”

Fluttershy was really starting to hate that whine. If her body language had indicated as such, then Rarity sure picked up on it because the sentence changed mid-way to: “…a bit of a mystery.”

As good a lead-in as Fluttershy was going to get.

She opened her mouth and looked up. Just in time for a monarch butterfly to flutter out of nowhere and land on her nose.

Its stained-glass wings flared with the same orange brilliance as the sunset above, each glassy panel rounded and soft on the eyes, stretched like individual feathers and large as though aspiring to become full wings of their own. Flecks of white fringed the canvas, so many and so thickly that the sunset painting on the monarch’s wings appeared to be framed by snowy mountaintops.

The wings folded and flexed in readiness. Fluttershy blinked in time with them.

“Oh my!” she heard Rarity say.

“Did you fall down?” Fluttershy whispered to the butterfly, which flapped twice and almost threw itself off under the enthusiasm. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you back up there with your friends.”

As she floated up, she heard Rarity choke. “Friends!?”

Fluttershy guided her nose towards the nearest branch of the brown tree…

…which exploded. Where brown masses of “leaves” had roosted, bursts of flapping orange and black and white flecks radiated outwards. The tree might have taken off, one leaf at a time. A whole swarm of monarchs rustled through the air around her, zipping so close that Fluttershy felt their wings tickle her own. Her guest on her very nose flapped through rampant excitement and was instantly free, lost to the silent storm as it settled back down on the once-green tree and, thanks to their sheer numbers and the confusion of colours, once more turned it brown.

Fluttershy landed on the earth again. Against the sunset sky, the unusually thick-clad brown tree stood asleep at its post as before. Every last butterfly blended in perfectly; the muted whirlwind of wings might never have been disturbed at all.

“Such a marvel,” breathed Rarity.

Fluttershy grinned at her, only to find her looking back. Between the flimsy eyelashes and the purple dots for irises, Rarity’s own gaze might have been a rare breed of butterfly itself.

“They’ll be gathering around Whitetail Wood for the next few weeks,” Fluttershy said, trying to steer Rarity’s mind back to the tree. “And then they’ll all set off south before the Running of the Leaves. None of them could make it through an Equestrian winter. They’re too delicate.”

Still, Rarity kept her gaze on Fluttershy.

At some point, Rarity must have noticed the gaze was mutual, and much less awestruck coming back, so she relented and straightened up, coughing politely.

“Naturally,” she said. “Fluttershy, only you could take a mud-coloured tree and breathe life into it. I would take my hat off to your enviable knowledge, if only I’d thought to pack it.” A thought struck her; she frowned and rummaged through her saddlebag. “At least, I assume I didn’t pack it.” The stiffened brim of the hat flapped at the edges as she moved.

Fluttershy groaned into a hoof. “You’re wearing it on your head. Right now.”

“Hm? Am I? Oh yes. So I am. I thought that was damp.”

“But don’t you think the butterflies are so amazing and inspirational?” pleaded Fluttershy.

“Oh yes. Absolutely.” Rarity stopped rummaging to nod her agreement, dislodging a twig from her curls and a leaf from her hat.

“Isn’t it… beautiful?” Fluttershy leaned forwards, ignoring the snag on her tail again.

Turning to the forest path, the sunset, the tree full of monarchs, Rarity’s eyes glowed… then dimmed.

She shook her head sadly. “Alas, not yet. Nothing’s coming to me so far. But, but my mind works on it as we speak!”

Well, so much for that.

Fluttershy wished she wasn’t alone in seeing the monarchs in everything – that beetle on the ground, those mice scurrying through the undergrowth, even the little hoverflies that Rarity insisted on spraying at – like now.

Misery tugged on her tail again, no longer distracted. Fluttershy waited for the hovering dots to vanish and the hiss of the hateful spray can to stop.

“Oh I am sorry, Fluttershy,” whined Rarity, slumping where she stood. “I just don’t think Nature is in my… well, in my nature, I suppose.”

“It’s OK.” It wasn’t, but cracked hearts were best kept private, in Fluttershy’s experience.

“I appreciate the effort, and I cannot say I learned nothing from this. Maybe I need more time to get used to this sort of excursion? Another time? Perhaps?”

“How about we go back for tea, then?” said Fluttershy, defeat dripping from every pathetic word.

“Ooh, you temptress. A spot of oolong would do wonders.” Rarity winked. “Just… bear with me a moment.”

They started the trek back, or rather Fluttershy flapped easily over the ground – yanking her tail off whatever bit of root had tried to snag it – and Rarity stumbled after her, crashing over the shrub despite how easy it should have been for even the most dirt-hating ponies to just walk the stupid path already.

A New Species of Kindness?

“Fluttershy, dear, wait a mo!”

So yet again, she stopped on the path out of Whitetail Woods – deliberately looking away as though to give Rarity privacy – whilst Rarity, cursing under her breath, upturned a hoof and flicked stones out of her own frogs. What was left of her mane fought against bramble and thicket, looking like the world’s most ravaged purple bush. Fluttershy scowled into the distance. Really, such a fuss over dirt.

“Dratted…” Rarity rubbed the back of a leg turning pink. “All these… plants… Eugh, so icky…”

Fluttershy turned back, committing fully, to give her a respectable amount of attention. As she did so, she noticed the slight leftover threads of pink on the ground beside herself, where her own overlong tail hadn’t turned around fully. Instead, it dragged on the twigs.

She knew it was too long. Always too long, every time she waded into the wilderness. Too long, too short… How had ponies not laughed at how wrong it always was? Wherever it was?

Even when she flicked her tail’s dock and the rest of the tail was thus tugged out of sight, its weight left traces on her, as though someone else had tugged it and made her yelp. She had yet to recover from the threatening aches.

Looking Rarity up and down, she wondered how someone could look so elegant even with bits of mud and twig on their coat. It shone through like a priceless vase with bits of clay on.

“If it helps, I think you look pretty,” she said.

Rarity snorted, not looking up. “I swear I’ll never walk on this hoof again! Oh, the aches! The pain!”

“Really, I do,” insisted Fluttershy. “You look like a gardener.”

“Oh, jolly good. Snap a picture. They’ve got a page for me in the Flower’s Digest.”

“I really do mean it. Like a sort of modern-day Auburn Hip Dray, only she had a squirrel’s nest on her, well, hip. And her hat looked less ragged. And she didn’t curl her mane like you did. And it was a different colour. And so was her coat. And she lived in Manehattan. And I think I’ll stop there. Now. Um.”

Fluttershy kicked at the dirt irritably.

Brushing her coat down as much as possible, and levitating the hateful spray can again, Rarity blew through her lips, summing up in one nonsense burst all the treatises she clearly wanted to write in response to Fluttershy’s nonsense.

I really wish you had my eyes, thought Fluttershy, in the damp echo chamber of her mind.

“I just wish you wouldn’t –” she began.

“Wouldn’t what, pray tell?”

Ah. That voice.

Fluttershy pressed on suicidally. “Wouldn’t… whine so much.”

Rarity drew herself up, contriving to indicate that under Nature’s leavings a storm of a queen was coming, thunderbolts raised and lightning on a leash.

“I am not whining!” she declared, and the skies rumbled among the shivering trees. “I am complaining!”

“Kinda?” whispered Fluttershy before Her Majesty.

“You know, it really is time I explained to ponies the differences between ‘complaining’, ‘whining’, ‘critiquing’, ‘condemning’, ‘offering tactful suggestions for improvement’, ‘indicating’, ‘demonstrating’, ‘joculating’ –”

“OK, OK.” Fluttershy’s wings waved her off. “I didn’t mean to be so rude. I was trying to be honest.”

“Rude? Honest? So you think I’m a prissy little loudmouth for whin– urgh! – for complaining all the time?”

“No,” said Fluttershy too quickly.

Her Majesty the Thunderous Queen Rarity finally calmed, bringing back the sunshine and the tinkling raindrops of titters. “Puh-lease, Fluttershy, I can tell when you’re lying. Your face goes red when you’re lying.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said desperately.

“And it’s gone even redder now. Practically rosy.”

“It was only a little…”

“Ah?”

“It’s not much of a not-un-lie.”

“Ah?”

“It’s… an itty-bitty little lie?”

“Ah.”

“OK, OK, I lied! I’m sorry. But I didn’t mean to, I-I just thought you meant –”

And just like that, Rarity’s laughter restored the calm and the charm. Her good, sporting hoof patted Fluttershy on the withers gamely, and then wiped itself on a sleeve when the mud stuck to it.

“Oho, it’s cruel of me – do forgive a mare her indulgences, dear Fluttershy! – but there’s something beautiful about your insistence on being nice all the time. Sincerity is a style all its own.”

“Well in that case: I don’t appreciate being treated like that.”

“I apologize. Really!” Rarity straightened up, all humour running off to hide. “You’re just like Applejack at times, always being polite and gentle in your words like a true lady. If you didn’t muck in the mud so much… why, we’d be practically sisters-in-arms.”

Rarity chewed her lip, tasting the risks in her next manoeuvre. For once, Fluttershy backed off. She could read Rarity’s face like a glossy magazine, and there was no point in being rough with the pages in case they creased. So she breathed as quietly as possible and waited.

Overhead, birds rushed from branch to branch with a crash.

Eventually, Rarity said, “Well, there are higher beauties than what more mundane eyes can see. Below the surface, I mean. Erm… you ever heard of the story of Quartermaster?”

Recognition caught Fluttershy off-guard for a moment. “Oh, I loved that story! He was ever so kind to all the little birdies and the nesting sparrows and he even let the pigeons rest on the gargoyles…”

“Yes, Fluttershy, wonderful, trying to make a point here?”

“Oh, sorry. You were saying?”

“That’s my point, actually. Quartermaster might have been nothing but a bellringer for the Royal Guard, and he might have been hidden away because even his own parents hated the sight of him, and no one wanted an ugly hunchback representing the Royal Guard in public when he could play the bugle at dawn so that no one could see him on the tower, and…”

“Ahem? Rarity?”

“Ah, right-right-right. My point is… um…”

Whilst Rarity frowned and tried to spot her point from the branches overhead, Fluttershy resisted the urge to sit and wait. She could still feel her tail swishing as she flicked at a couple of flies that drew too close. Not harshly: just enough to stir the air around them and startle them to a more respectable distance.

Quartermaster, ah, she remembered that book. Quite an interesting romance, of course, and Rarity had recommended it. But the passages that always caught Fluttershy’s attention involved baby birds. Quartermaster had named them, checked their nests every day, even taught them how to fly despite not being a pegasus –

“Let me think…” murmured Rarity under her breath. “Mocked by mob, tragic love fails, left the city out of feeling unloved, lonely ending…”

“I think you’re trying to say,” said Fluttershy, out of sympathy, “that even though he was ugly, the problem wasn’t with him but with the ponies around him who misjudged him?”

Rarity blinked down at her. “Hm? What?”

“The lesson you were trying to teach.”

“Was I?”

Sympathy morphed into sharp annoyance. “Rarity…”

“I’m only trying to make the point that kindness is a beauty all of its own, hunchbacked or otherwise.” Rarity took a deep breath, as though to fight a rival current. “Look… Looks… Looks aren’t the end… of the world…”

Fluttershy waited for Rarity’s face to stop drowning. It thrashed against the current.

“Ish,” Rarity finished, unable to take any more. “And even if you were an ugly hunchback, so what? Like Quartermaster, you deserve to be seen for the wonder you are! Ugly yet kind – a natural subversion, and –”

“So kindness is compensation for being ugly, is it?” said Fluttershy, voicing a lurking suspicion.

The moment she saw the panic burst on Rarity, she realized too late to keep her mouth shut.

“Ye– No! No. No, of course not.” Rarity glanced about desperately. “I just meant some things are more important than others… in a way.”

Squirming under the need to defend physical attractiveness somehow, Rarity hastily added, “Anyway, you aren’t a hunchback. You’re a fine-tailed young mare with a good eye for –”

“Rarity?” said Fluttershy in a sigh of a voice.

“Yes?”

Gaze firmly planted on Rarity, Fluttershy swished her tail along the ground, idly flicking at the leaves with the tip. “I know my tail’s ugly. When it’s not fake. You don’t have to make excuses for me.”

“Fake? Oh, we know well enough in the fashion industry what ‘fake’ is. Most just don’t talk about that sort of rot. Whereas this is simply the augmentation of a beauty that already exists in –”

“Rarity.”

“All right, ‘fake’. If you insist. But I really do mean what I say.”

Fluttershy glared into her friend’s suddenly widening eyes. If there was so much as a dart, or a twitch, or a quiver in that wet, reflected sunset…

Then she backed off, pulling her hair out of her own eyes. Ah, she was being stupid again!

“How can you believe it?” she said, almost in despair.

“How does the sky turn orange at sunset? I don’t know! What else am I supposed to do, make up stories?”

“Rarity, I want you to be honest. Are you being honest?”

“As honest as the day is long.” Rarity glanced up at the sunset. “In a manner of speaking. F’shaw! You know what I mean! Beauty is as I find it!”

And yet there was always a part of Fluttershy that muttered, You lie.

It didn’t sting at all, though. Other parts of her pointed out that, if Rarity was lying, she was at least rushing to lie by Fluttershy’s side.

Besides, she didn’t know Rarity was lying. Especially under Applejack’s influence, Rarity could tell the truth if pushed, and this seemed like enough push to have had it out by now.

To make sure, and hating herself for the stubborn doubt, Fluttershy added, “I’ve always respected your honesty. And I am progressing. You said so yourself.”

“Fluttershy…” Rarity’s face reddened.

That was when Fluttershy struck upon an even weirder idea. “You don’t just think I’m pretty and graceful like a model, do you?”

Ah, now the red face turned even redder. “This is not a fruitful area of discussion.”

“You actually like –”

“Fluttershy! There is such a thing as impropriety!” said Rarity’s mouth. Rarity’s eyes said a tiny yes.

“Be honest.” An even more shameful smile cuddled Fluttershy’s face. “You don’t just think I can be pretty with a short tail, you think I’m especially pr–”

“My-word-doesn’t-the-sunset-look-lovely-today!” Rarity wiped the muck off her own face and sagged with relief.

Letting her go this time, Fluttershy turned to watch the sunset vanishing blaze by blaze over the bulging treetops. Perhaps she was being just a bit too cruel. Rarity said she was sensitive in the matter of beauty, and if the poor unicorn happened to really like a certain style, or if her senses were, in a sense, overloaded… well, she didn’t ask for this either, did she?

“I’m just teasing,” said Fluttershy, more calmly.

“Yes. Well. It comes as a shock to the system, I can tell you! You never used to tease.”

“Really?” said Fluttershy with exaggerated interest. “Then I must be getting better.”

She turned back in time to see Rarity roll her eyes and mutter, “Where do you pick up things like that?”

“Oh, here and there, here and there.”

Rarity caught the glance. “All right, you’ve had your fun. May we retire to our domiciles, now?”

“I could still invite you over for tea, if you like. It’d be my treat. Besides, I owe you some rest and relaxation, after all the hard work you’ve done today.”

Rarity’s mouth thinned, like a balance weighting up this proposal. “Very well, confound you. Earl Grey, if you have any. Extra sugar. Just for what you did to my nerves.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

They rounded on the path – Fluttershy flicking her tail around properly – and ventured further into the forest. Through the branches could be seen the grassy fields and bush verges that lay closer to their Ponyville homes.

What was the point of all that?

The question popped up of its own accord, while up ahead Rarity cursed and stumbled through the bracken.

I just wanted to be nice, thought Fluttershy at first, before she gave much thought to it.

No, what was really the point of all that? The question buzzed worse than a horsefly. Fluttershy curled her lips against it.

She wanted to show there were all kinds of beauties, out there in the world, and not fake ones either. Show Rarity she really had been learning.

Then, after shouting at a log that had caught her by the ankle, Rarity spun round on a sudden impulse. “Fluttershy, what exactly was the point of –?”

“I wanted to show you I knew real beauty,” said Fluttershy, who’d been expecting it.

Eyebrow, rise! Rarity didn’t disappoint in that department, at least.

“Indeed?” Rarity said, trudging over some potholes on the path as though clearing mines. “Well, there are ‘fake’ beauties and there are genuine beauties, but ‘fake’ beauties can be genuine if looked at the right way. Beauty is beauty, however you get there.” She yelped and stumbled, turned, glared at the path, and added, “Unless it involves a nature walk.”

“Oh Rarity, you do go on. It’s only an hour’s walk.”

“Two hours more than I was prepared for, then!”

“Two hours?”

“One of them was for packing.” Respectfully, Rarity nodded to her. “But there is something to be said for genuine beauties everywhere. That is, if you know where to find them.”

They trekked downhill in silence, back towards Ponyville. Well, in silence unless one counted Rarity’s squeaks and shrieks.

Deep in her chest, Fluttershy sensed the splinter of doubt. The doubt stayed at bay, never really gone for long.

Overhead, the dusk chorus began to tweet and twitter, calls crossing the branches as though small, squeaky friends greeted her.

Once or twice, Fluttershy stood still and sang back, a few rising notes to join the flying dance overhead.

Rarity paused to cock an ear. She’d often said Fluttershy’s voice was a rare bird.

If Fluttershy was sure of one thing, it was that she knew animals. They adapted. They came in all shapes and sizes. Every species had its own style.

“Quite a range you have there,” said Rarity, apropos of nothing.

Fluttershy focused on the branches above. Sometimes, she spotted a flash of bright blue wings, but mostly the rustling leaves misled her. Too many small things, too much movement, too much forest for them to get lost in.

It did matter if Rarity was telling the truth or lying, when it came to the short tail. The doubts insisted on it. The knowledge that the tail was and forever would be short: it would never leave Fluttershy alone. It would never let her show it in public. She had to live with that. It would never work.

But that in itself dwindled, became less of a problem, at least right now. Little concerns got lost and mingled in the forest. Even the overlong tail extensions vanished and became less than distractions again. Suddenly fussing over tails at all seemed petty. Tedious. Far too small-minded when Fluttershy tried to swallow the majesty of a thousand oaks or melt into the fiery sunset.

And those flames of beauty burned brighter around someone who would take it with good grace. A friend who would at least take the time to come and look at it. However much she complained or whined or whatever, at least she had come and met Fluttershy on her own turf.

If Rarity was telling a lie, it was an awfully small one in the grand scheme of things.

Heart aflutter, Fluttershy sucked in a tender breath and sang out once more in birdsong, with a voice motherly as milk. She let the series of notes escape, fledglings on their first flight, stronger and faster than the pathetic little wings would lead anyone else to think. She pretended not to hear Rarity’s sigh of delight beside her. It had, after all, been very quiet.

Distant crows cawed their greetings. Rough and coarse, but a style all their own. From afar, the titmouse family chattered and chirped their delight at knowing their pegasus friend was nearby. Hoverflies landed gratefully on Fluttershy’s coat. It was all she could do to scrape them off gently by hoof and relocate them to handy nearby leaves.

Soon, all was silent in the forest. Ready for night.

Duty done, Fluttershy marched on.

Rarity followed alongside. Together, they trekked onwards again.

When Fluttershy glanced sidelong, she noticed the bleeding blush under each of Rarity’s worn-out eyes. Her friend’s pale face twitched between a smile and a grim desire to get out of this wretched forest already.

What did Rarity see? What did she hear? What did she feel?

“Thank you for coming out with me, Rarity. I know it’s not your cup of tea.”

Once more, the mare of inspiration beamed at her and knighted her with a regal nod. “It has been an education. They are certainly not lying when they say true beauty is found within. I don’t need a fashionista’s eye to see yours.”

For once, Fluttershy felt no burning blush coming on. What was there to be embarrassed by here? “You still want that tea?”

“Oh gosh yes! I wouldn’t dream of saying no.”

Fluttershy hummed thoughtfully.

Those thoughts gently guided her mind into place. Not just the eyes of the beholder, then? The ears of the beholder, the tongue of the beholder, the nose and the skin and a dozen other places of the beholder: all could find their own kind of beauty. Even the eyes could learn to see, further and further afield, or to smaller and smaller scales, or deeper and deeper into another face, so that it all came together in the mind and in the heart of the beholder for one perfect moment.

There was beauty everywhere she looked. Even her cottage seemed much more radiant and luxuriant in its canopy-like rooftop as they drew closer.

Maybe sometimes, Fluttershy thought, beauty is wherever you look for it.

For instance: around her table, late in the evening, in her cosy den, where she would be drinking tea with a friend who smiled honestly, who laughed alongside her, and who blushed when she told just a little too much of a truth.