The first time…
Fluttershy: that’s the name written on the tag pinned to the girl’s shirt. The shirt is a soft yellow, with a cut in the back to make room for a pair of canary yellow wings. It’s soft, woollen and comes up to a high turtle-neck that she says makes her feel more safe. She feels a bit self-conscious about the tag, afraid it draws attention to her breasts.
The sign out the front of the pet shop reads: “Everfree menagerie, for all your pet needs.”
Fluttershy has always felt the sign a little cheesy but has never mentioned this fact to her boss. Perhaps that’s what he was going for when he made it.
Today is just another quiet day for Fluttershy. That’s why she works here, really. Most days are fairly quiet, giving her plenty of time to tend to the numerous animals that she is responsible for.
Check that: the day has been quiet, right up until the moment She walks in. She has a loud feel to her, like she could craft noise from silence without moving a muscle. Around her, the animals are lively. She has blue wings folded behind her back, marking her as a pegasus, like Fluttershy. Her hair is wild and coloured with all the hues in the spectrum. On her face is a cocky half grin that doesn’t quite cover a tiny trace of awkwardness. She looks young, seventeen Fluttershy would guess. Well, that gives them two things in common.
“Hi, I’m looking for something a tortoise might enjoy eating, do you sell anything like that?”
Fluttershy starts, pulled from her private musings.
“Oh,” she blushes, aware of the girl's eyes going to her name tag. Tortoise food, yes, she has that. As she tries to form words, however, all she can do is take in the girl standing before her. Has she met her before? No, she would remember, surely.
The girl now has her head tilted to one side, looking thoughtful. “Fluttershy… Fluttershy…. Why does that name ring a bell?” She shakes it off as she notices Fluttershy staring at her. “Um, hello? Tortoise food?”
Fluttershy finally manages to speak, however softly. “Um, we— we do have some. How old is the tortoise? What else is it eating?” Yes, those are the standard questions.
“I don’t know,” says the girl, reclining her head in her laced fingers. “I found him by the roadside. He looked pretty beaten up so I took him home and gave him some grass. He didn’t seem to like it much, though.”
And now Fluttershy’s training can take over, giving her words as her brain turns to mush. The words are good ones, spilling out like words spoken by a professional.
The girl is nodding now, though she looks slightly bored. Fluttershy is becoming aware that, having nothing else to say, she has started just talking about all the really trivial points of tortoise health and maintenance. Has she just given instructions for if it lays eggs? But the girl has already said the tortoise is male, hasn’t she?
“Uh.” She cuts her lecture short. “But you probably just want this stuff.” She walks into the back room, grateful for the chance to allow her blush to settle. She doesn’t usually act this way with her customers. Although, she doesn’t really get many.
She returns a minute later, bag of tortoise food in hand, to find the girl admiring some of the snakes in their glass cases.
She turns when she hears the bag rustle. “Cool snakes you’ve got here.”
Fluttershy bites her tongue as a lecture on the species of each snake, it’s feeding habits, nutritional needs and life expectancy prepares to jump from her mouth. Instead she just says, “Most people are scared of them.”
The girl grins. “Most people are scared of a lot of things. I always say that you’ve got everything right if the thing you’re most afraid of is dying.”
Fluttershy finds herself wanting to grin too. It’s infectious and tempting. Now she thinks about it, the girl’s whole personality screams of infectious, of a lust for life. It whispers to the normally shy girl to run, to take risks, to do things for the sole reason that she will later come to regret them.
Instead, she blushes and holds out the bag of tortoise feed. “Here, this is what you’ll want.”
The girl snatches the bag and says. “Great, how much?”
“Um, five bits?”
The girl grins and chucks five bits onto the counter with a clatter. “Thanks.”
And that’s it. With one word, she ends the interaction and heads towards the door, feed bag in hand.
“Wait,” Fluttershy calls, unsure of what she’s expecting to say but sure she has to say it.
The girl turns, a question on her face. “Yea?”
Fluttershy stammers, pinned in place by the girl’s beautiful magenta eyes. “What’s your name?” she finally gasps out.
The girl grins that infectious grin and says. “The name’s Rainbow Dash.” And this time she’s gone before Fluttershy can call out again.
The bell jingles and Fluttershy is alone once more. She takes a moment to do a mental stock check. She has gained five bits, lost one bag of tortoise feed and essentially lost any potential she had for a good night’s sleep.
She sighs. Just another quiet day.
***
The second time…
Several days pass before the girl turns up in the shop again. When she sees the unmistakable mop of rainbow hair, Fluttershy instantly knows the girl— Rainbow Dash, has been overfeeding her new pet. She sighs and says “And how can I help you, Rainbow Dash?” She already knows, but she supposes it’s good manners to ask anyway.
“He’s gotten sick, are you sure you gave me the right food?” She holds up the empty packet, confirming Fluttershy’s suspicions.
“Quite sure.” She locks her gaze on the counter-top, unable to meet Rainbow’s eyes. “How much have you been giving him?”
Fluttershy suspects that, if she were to look up, she would see a slightly sheepish Rainbow. “Well, I kinda just left it open on the ground for him.” Her tone is slightly defensive. “I mean, he knows how much he needs to eat better than I do, right?”
Fluttershy sighs, perhaps she shouldn’t have cut the lecture short after all.
***
The third time…
When she hears the door jingle, Fluttershy knows who it will be. She can just feel it.
Sure enough: “Hey, Fluttershy, I finally remembered! I was up late last night—” she cuts herself off, flushing a deep scarlet. “Uh, anyway, I was thinking about it and then I went through an old preschool year book. We were in the same class together for two years.” She beams as though she’s done an amazing trick.
Fluttershy smiles. She vaguely remembers a Rainbow Dash, if she thinks about it.
Rainbow pauses. It’s obvious she came here as soon as she woke up this morning, too eager to share her find to come up with a feasible excuse to be there. “So um, good to see you I guess?” she tries.
Oh how she wishes one of her animal talks could come to her right now. How she wishes that a response to do with canaries or snakes or tortoises or anything would come to her tongue instead of leaving her with nothing but, “Yea, nice to see you.”
***
The fourth time…
It’s almost a week later when it finally happens. The doorbell jingles and it strikes Fluttershy as odd that a jingle can so easily tell who opens a door. She knows without even having to look up who is standing there. That’s just as well, really, seeing as she suddenly finds herself incapable of looking up, even when she can hear feet shifting and nervous breathing.
“So I ran out of tortoise food again.”
The sentence is more offer than statement of fact. Fluttershy is finally forced to tear her eyes away from the small scratches etched in to the counter top by time. She sees a girl, about her own age, shifting from foot to foot, bag of empty tortoise food in hand and Fluttershy knows she’s nervous as hell.
“That was quick.”
“He’s greedy.”
It crosses Fluttershy’s mind that this… whatever this is, is definitely taking years off the life of an innocent tortoise.
“Hold on one moment.”
She’s not really sure what game they’re playing or what the rules are. Is getting tortoise food scoring a point? Is it more like poker? Perhaps she’s folding. When she returns, Rainbow is, if anything, more nervous.
“So you’re here whenever I show up, do you, like, live here or something?” Sentences have probably been better worded but it would do.
“I work seven days a week, it’s the only way I can afford to look after all my pets.”
“So what time do you get off?”
Fluttershy glances at a clock on the wall. It’s still fairly early in the morning but she doesn’t think her boss will notice if she takes a few hours off. He could hardly begrudge her one day after several years of fifty-six hour weeks. “I can take time off whenever I want.”
Rainbow grins, not quite covering her nerves. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
***
Several weeks later…
Fluttershy sits beside Rainbow Dash, their fingers tenderly intertwined. They’re watching the sunset, just a little bit breathless, just a little bit embarrassed, just the right amount content. Their feet dangle over the edge of the cloud they’re sitting on, but for once, Fluttershy doesn’t feel scared. She feels warm, safe.
The confession was slow, nervous. Rainbow had told Fluttershy she wanted to talk about something. She proceeded to guide Fluttershy up to the best place she could think of to watch the sunset. It was there that she finally confessed her feelings, first brushing aside the pink, cottony hair, then whispering into the pale pink ear.
Now they sit, and Rainbow is leaning in, just enough so she can be heard while still maintaining the low volume of her voice.
“I never really realised how much more beautiful it sunsets can be when you’re with someone special.”
Fluttershy blushes, of course, but not very much. She thinks it’s sweet, really.
“I never knew the sky could hold anything but fear for me.” She gives the hand pressed into her palm a gentile squeeze.
“If I could help it, I would make sure you never felt fear again.”
Fluttershy smiles but there’s a tint to it now. She’s out of her depth. She knows this and yet she doesn’t back down. “You could never stop me being afraid of my own feelings.”
Rainbow smiles nervously. Fluttershy had returned her feelings, of course, but the relationship is still mere hours old. “Not scared enough to run away?” It isn’t quite a question and it isn’t quite a statement.
Fluttershy gives a soft laugh and Rainbow is not scared anymore. She would face anything if only to see Fluttershy smile. “No.” It’s no more than that, it doesn’t have to be.
The sun is sinking, the light shifting from gold to pink and the cloud the pair is sitting on settling somewhere between the two hues.
After a time, Fluttershy turns to face Rainbow, a question in her eyes. “Is it anything to be scared of?”
Rainbow smiles. “Only as any roller-coaster, only as the rush of terror that grips before every dive, every death defying stunt.”
If this is intended to calm Fluttershy, it fails. She trembles, although, whether from fear or excitement, Rainbow is still unable to tell.
The pair lock eyes. There is a moment frozen in time as they both ask themselves the same question, their whole bodies wondering the same thing: ‘Will she kiss back?’
The moment is broken as Fluttershy turns away, instantly disappointed that she backed out. She leans sideways, resting her head in the crook of Rainbow’s neck. “What was it like?” she asks, “Your first kiss, I mean.”
Their voices are low; it would seem wrong to shatter this moment with unnecessary sound.
“Amazing, and terrifying. She was more experienced than me but she didn’t rub my face in it, just kept kissing me till I got the hang of it.” Rainbow is petrified for a moment, wondering if she has gone too far. What if Fluttershy is jealous?
Far from it, she merely snuggles in closer.
Relieved, Rainbow decides that this is important enough to push just a little bit further. “And yours?”
Fluttershy only hesitates for a moment, raising her head so she can lock gazes with Rainbow Dash once more. The moment is there again, full of wanting, full of wondering. Only one sentence breaks the silence. “I’ll let you know.”
And there it is, at last, desire breaks the nervous tension. It may not be the perfect kiss, but it’s Fluttershy’s first and Rainbow’s favourite. It may not be perfect, but it’s perfect enough.
Author's Note
I don't really have much to say about this. Here's a link to the original blog post. I guess I just wrote it because I wanted to try something new. Hope you like it.
