Thirty Minutes Shy

Chapters

1: Wingmare [Sad] [Romance]
2: I Do This For You [Comedy]
3: Things You Do Not Do [Adventure] [Sad]
4: Kindness's Legacy [Sad]
6: Teacher's Favorite [Slice of Life]
7: Can't Talk. Kittens. [Slice of Life] [Comedy]
8: The Card Shark [Comedy]
9: A Game of Phones [Comedy]
10: Filly Tales [Dark] [Slice of Life]
11: Hiding something? Me? [No Tag]
12: No, Ma'am, We're Ponies [Adventure] [Comedy]
13: Twilight's Mom Has Got It Going On [Romance] [Comedy]
14: Diplomacy [Slice of Life]
15: Love Note [Romance]
16: Relics [Sad]
17: Chickensitting [Comedy]
18: You Leave Me Breathless [Romance] [Adventure]
20: A Little Kindness [Slice of Life]
21: Agoraphobia [Dark]
22: Dangerous Mission [Dark]
23: Chasing Butterflies [Adventure] [A.U.]
24: Bringing In the Experts [Comedy]
25: Title [Random] [Dark] [Romance]
26: Magical Super Gossamer Squad Go! [Adventure] [Comedy]
27: Jailbird Singin' [Comedy]
28: What We Have [Sad] [Slice of Life]
29: Who Are You, Pinkie? [Romance]
30: Letter From a Coward [Sad]
5: Laughter is the Best Weapon [Adventure]
19: Afraid of Her Own Shadow: The Climactic Finale [Adventure]
Bonus Chapter: Subtle Hints [Romance] [Comedy]

1: Wingmare [Sad] [Romance]

((Prompt: I don't need my own dreams if I can help you achieve yours.))

Fluttershy didn't do well in bars. Handling crowds of sober ponies was enough of a trial for her, but crowds of tipsy ponies that all laughed a bit too loud and had a bit of a problem with the concept of personal space... it was not her idea of a good time.

Fluttershy sat on her stool, sipping from a straw. She was grateful the bar had juice boxes; if she didn't have something in her hooves, ponies would try and buy drinks for her. She wasn't here to drink, and she wasn't here to have ponies buy anything for her.

She was here for Rarity.

Rarity sat a few paces down the bar, a measured smile on her face as she chatted with a dusky brown pegasus stallion. The martini she had in her hoof had been bought on his tab. Fluttershy couldn't hear all of their conversation, but from what words that did drift to her ears, it sounded like they were discussing weather work.

It was hard to keep from staring. There was no question what the stallion saw in Rarity. She was beautiful. Her soft white coat gleamed like a pearl even in the tavern's dim lighting. Her deep purple mane curled in a way only an artist could have designed. Her winning smile could—and had—melt the heart of anypony she chose to direct it at, and her eyes carried a canny glint of wit in them. She moved with such grace; her gestures were expressive yet subtle, and even though she swayed slightly from the night's drinking, her sense of poise and balance was never lost.

The juice box collapsed in Fluttershy's hooves. It was empty. Fluttershy quietly asked the bartender for another.

Rarity's airy laugh carried across the bar. Fluttershy's ear twitched. The stallion grinned proudly; apparently he had told a funny joke. She wondered if Rarity really thought it was funny, or if she was laughing for his sake. Fluttershy wasn't sure she understood the point of laughing if a joke wasn't funny, but Rarity had said it was important to make a stallion feel like he's clever.

She kept her eyes on Rarity as the bartender brought her another juice box. She wanted to make certain she saw the signal if Rarity wanted her to come in and get her out. Not that she was hoping Rarity would use the signal, of course. That would mean that Rarity didn't like the pony she was talking to, and while Fluttershy didn't really like the way he kept looking at Rarity and she thought his voice was a bit braying, she was sure he was a nice guy. Besides, Rarity would be so disappointed to go another night at the bar with nopony worthwhile to show for it.

A twinge of guilt made Fluttershy wince as she saw Rarity cough into her hoof—the signal. Though rationally she knew that she hadn't made Rarity send the signal just by thinking about it, she couldn't help feeling a tiny bit responsible for the night's failure. The tiny flicker of relief didn't help her guilt, either.

Fluttershy got off her stool and stepped up behind Rarity, tapping her on the shoulder. Both Rarity and the stallion raised their eyes to her.

“Um, I'm sorry for interrupting, Rarity,” Fluttershy said, shrinking behind her mane, “but I need to go home.”

Rarity smiled gratefully. “Of course, darling.” She turned to the stallion. “I'm sorry, dear, but my friend has to get up early tomorrow, so I need to walk her home. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

He stood up. “Oh... okay, have a good night.”

“Yes, ciao, darling!” Rarity winked as the two mares walked out of the bar.

As soon as the cool night air hit her face, Rarity sighed. “Still no prince.” She smiled ruefully at Fluttershy. “Thank you, darling, for letting me drag you out here. You are a life-saver!” She gave her a friendly peck on the forehead.

Fluttershy's blush could have been mistaken for modesty. “A-anytime, Rarity.”

Some day, Rarity would find her prince. Fluttershy would make sure of that. And only in the security of her own bed would she ever entertain notions of being a prince herself.

2: I Do This For You [Comedy]

((Prompt: I'll be loyal even as you destroy me.))

Pray, tell me, oh yellow one, what is this on my food dish?

Ha! You have such wit, to imply that this wilted green mush is to be taken for a meal! Truly, your pony friends do not appreciate your sharp invective!

Oh, but surely you jest! As you well know, I've a delicate diet, and the thought of pushing this slop, this 'spinach,' as you call it, through my system... I can but laugh, or else I would cry! Now where is the actual food? I am quite famished.

Excuse me, why are you turning to feed the others when you still have not corrected this mess? You're behaving as though you expect me to actually eat it! Just look at it! It doesn't even have raisins on it!

Oh... oh Celestia, you really are not joking, are you? This... this stuff is supposed to be my dinner, isn't it?

What have I done to warrant such cruelty, yellow one? Was it the burrow I dug under the chicken coop? Because I'll have you know that wasn't my idea! While honor prevents me from pointing paws, I think this foul green sludge may find a more appropriate home in front of a certain badger that you and I are both acquainted with.

Is this some kind of test? Are you looking to see if my loyalty is strong enough to swallow this poison before you'll swap it out with a kinder meal? Such a test is unnecessary! I give you my word that you'll never find a more loyal bunny! Never mind that I cannot speak, my word is still gold! Who has been ever at your side? Who has always been there to provide fuzzy cuddles at all hours of the day, asking only the barest minimum of necessities in return?

Surely you see I deserve a gentler fate than this! Please, do not do this to your one and only Angel! I can smell the noxious putrescence from here! One bite of it, and I will surely perish! Have you no carrots? A leaf of fresh lettuce? Hay, I am so hungry, I could even stomach peas with only the mildest complaint!

There is no need to nudge the bowl towards me, mare, I see it quite clearly! I just find it difficult to believe that after our years together, it would come down to this. Does our friendship mean so little in your eyes?

I think I would sooner go hungry than consume this garbage. Starvation is a terrible way to go, but at least it is better than poison. If you decide you want to see me, I'll be on the couch, clutching my stomach as hunger pangs wrack my poor body.

*Rrrrumblllle*

Nay, I cannot do that. For some reason I cannot fathom, you want me to eat this putrid gunk. Though I wish I could dissuade you, if I am not a loyal bunny I am nothing. I will be the dutiful soldier and suffer for you.

Goodbye, yellow one. I hope you do not suffer overmuch from guilt when I am gone...

*Munch, munch*

Hmm. This isn't actually all that bad!

3: Things You Do Not Do [Adventure] [Sad]

((Prompt: Not all truths need to be spoken.))

The landslide took them both by surprise. One moment, Fluttershy and Applejack were walking together along a path that overlooked Whitetail Woods on their way to Rainbow Dash's practice field, and the next moment the earth swallowed them up in a cloud of dust and broken stone.

Fluttershy cried out as she watched Applejack's blonde mane disappear behind a hail of boulders. She tried to keep sight of her friend, but it was impossible to see anything as she tumbled along with a torrent of dirt and rocks. Instinctively she flailed her hooves, fighting to stay on top of the churning earth lest she get buried. Boulders as large as two ponies thundered past and bounced down the slope.

It was over nearly as quickly as it had begun. Fluttershy found herself choking on dust at the bottom of the hill, resting atop what had moments ago been most of the hill's face. Looking up, she could see the trail had been completely wiped out, replaced with a crooked scar in the earth trailing a thick cloud of dust.

“Applejack!” she called, scrambling to her hooves. Adrenaline allowed her to ignore the scrapes and bruises as she stood up and looked for signs of her friend.

“Fluttershy?” A rustic voice responded, oddly muffled. “Fluttershy, are you okay?”

Fluttershy took a quick glance at herself. She would feel her injuries before long, but she was well enough to stand and move. “Yes,” she called. She tried spreading her wings, and pain shot through her side, forcing her to bite her lip to keep from screaming. “I, um, don't think I can fly, though. Where are you, Applejack?”

“Over here!” An orange hoof raised above a pile of broken stones and waved.

Carefully choosing her steps so as not to destabilize the rubble, Fluttershy made her way over. When she rounded the corner and saw her friend, she put her hoof to her mouth and gasped.

Applejack hissed in pain as she pushed vainly against a boulder that was much larger than herself. “Dang thing's got me pinned,” she said, thumping her forelegs against the rock. Her rear legs were not visible. She glanced up at Fluttershy, squinting in the sun. “I don't s'pose you could help me move it?”

Blinking in shock, Fluttershy nodded and stepped up close to the boulder. As soon as she put pressure on it, though, Applejack began screaming.

“Aah! Stop! Stop!”

Fluttershy leaped away from the boulder as though it were on fire. “A-Applejack?”

Applejack took several short breaths before speaking again. “That ain't... ain't gonna work.” Her face contorted in pain. “Shoot, maybe if we had Twi here to teleport the whole rock away at once...”

Fluttershy frowned. “Twilight's in Canterlot.”

“Yeah,” Applejack said. “Yeah, I know that.”

“I'm sorry.” Tears carved wet paths in the dust on Fluttershy's cheeks.

“Hey, it's okay,” said Applejack. “It ain't... it ain't...” She took a sharp breath and coughed, leaving a dark trail of red spittle on her chin.

Fluttershy knelt down beside her friend, wiping Applejack's face clean for her.

Applejack glanced up into Fluttershy's eyes. “Hey sugarcube? You deal with hurt critters a lot, so you've seen stuff like this, right?”

Fluttershy winced, then nodded.

A cold sliver of fear crept into Applejack's voice. “How... how bad is this? Am I gonna die?”

There were some things in life you just didn't do. You didn't stare at Derpy's eye. You didn't take the last piece of cake if Pinkie hadn't had any yet. You didn't mention the name Tom when Rarity was within earshot. And you never, ever lied to Applejack.

Fluttershy ran her hoof through Applejack's mane. That old hat must have been buried beneath the landslide, because it was nowhere in sight. She took a quick glance down, and saw that there was blood seeping out from under the boulder. Fluttershy locked eyes with Applejack. Her tone was steady and even.

“You're going to be fine, Applejack.”

Author's Note

This one didn't get uploaded to the TMP tumblr because reasons.

4: Kindness's Legacy [Sad]

((Prompt: Kindness can be the greatest cruelty of all.))

Harry the bear was so very hungry.

He wished the gentle yellow one would come back to feed him, but she did not. The purple one had come to the cabin one day, and said something to her. Harry did not understand the words, but the way it caused the yellow one to shake with fear had made his lip curl in a snarl at the purple one. The ponies had left, and neither one had returned in weeks.

He clutched at his stomach as it twisted and churned. It hurt. It hurt like he never knew a stomach could hurt before. When he had injured his leg once, that had hurt, too. The yellow one had made it feel all better. She could make this all better, too, Harry was certain. If the purple one hadn't taken her away, she would be here to give him food and make him feel better.

A growl bubbled from Harry's throat. Damn the purple one! Damn her for taking away the sweetest, kindest creature he had known in his life! She was the reason his stomach was empty! She was the cause of this pain!

Harry got up on four shaky paws, weak from hunger. The cottage was in shambles. The furniture had been torn apart, and the contents of every cabinet and cupboard in the place were spilled out across the floor as the dwindling remnants of the house's residents had desperately foraged for food. He tried in vain to sweep the mess into a pile. The yellow one would be upset when she came home to find it so disheveled.

After a few fumbling tries with his enormous paws, he gave up. He could move the big things around, but it was the job of the squirrels and birds to get at all the empty nutshells and inside-out sacks of rice. The birds and squirrels were gone, because there was no food left.

What he wouldn't give for a nice juicy fish like the yellow one would catch for him. He smacked his lips, almost able to taste it just from the mental image alone. Or maybe a big bowl of berries! Yes, that would make Harry so happy right now.

He glanced out the window, and his eyes widened. There, across a clearing at the edge of the forest, there was a whole bush full of bright red berries!

Harry pushed his way outside, the door sagging on its hinges as it allowed him through. He charged across the field and greedily stripped every last one of the little red treats he could find. Sated, he sat on his haunches to digest the meal.

An hour later, he was wretching into the grass. All that was in his stomach—mostly the red berries and little else—hurtled out of his mouth and onto the ground. He didn't think it was even possible, but the berries had made him feel worse! Harry moaned pitifully.

His eyes roved up the road. Beyond a small grove of trees, the path led to many more pony-dens.

Of course! The gentle yellow one was a pony, and she knew how to get food. In town, there were lots of ponies. Surely one of them would feed him! Harry loped down the road into Ponyville.

There were no ponies out in the streets. Perhaps because it was night. The yellow one never stayed out after dark; he had to come inside to find her when the sun was not out. Harry walked up to one of the buildings, sniffing at the door. He could smell vegetables and bread and good things beyond.

Licking his chops, Harry pushed at the door with his nose. It did not budge. With a grumble, he pushed a bit harder. Still nothing. Frustrated, Harry reared up on his hind legs and beat his paws into the wood. The door shattered apart.

A high-pitched shriek stung Harry's ears. “Aaah! Bear! I'm being attacked by a bear!”

Harry moaned, and pointed to his stomach. Once this pony understood he was hungry, she would help him.

The shrieks rose in volume. “It wants to eat me! Somepony help!”

A potted plant struck Harry in the head. Lights came on up and down the street, and ponies poured out of their homes, shouting.

“It's attacking Berry Punch!”

“Get it!”

Soon, Harry was pelted with a rain of blows from rocks and hooves. One of the ponies' horns glowed, and suddenly his tail was on fire. Harry roared in anguish and turned to flee.

“Go back to the Everfree, monster!”

Harry was not certain how long he ran, only that by the time he stopped he was exhausted, covered in mud, and lost in the middle of a dark, scary forest. And still incredibly, unbearably hungry.

He collapsed in a pathetic heap, his breaths coming shallow and ragged. He wished the yellow one were here. She could fix this.

6: Teacher's Favorite [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: Her most faithful student has started to doubt.))

“Fluttershy, would you please demonstrate for the class the technique we have learned?” A gentle mare whose pink mane was tied in a bun turned toward Fluttershy.

The yellow filly squeaked as dozens of eyes turned toward her. She shrank beneath her mane, trying to bury herself in the clouds while her teacher peered down at her. “Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy shook her head.

Her teacher wore a patient smile. “Please, won't you show the class, sweetie?”

“M—” Fluttershy began, but stopped herself, biting her lip. “Mrs. Posey,” she said, “I can't do it. I'm not strong enough.”

Fluttershy's classmates wouldn't dare laugh at her while Mrs. Posey was there to hear. They had learned that lesson the first day. But she could hear them all biting back their breath. Holding it in. Saving it, for when teacher wasn't around.

Mrs. Posey looked at Fluttershy with a pair of supportive eyes. “You are strong enough, Fluttershy. You just need to try.”

Fluttershy winced. There was no arguing with those eyes. She swallowed hard, and stepped with trembling hooves to the edge of the cloud.

She made the mistake of glancing down at the ground far below. The sudden wave of vertigo made her swoon and nearly fall over. Her mouth went dry and she flicked a bead of sweat off her brow. Her pulse pounded in her teeth.

“F-first, you have to spread your wings, like this.” Her wings did not spread on the first try. Nor the second. Only through the greatest of effort did she manage to coax her wings open.

Fluttershy glanced at the teacher, who nodded at her encouragingly. “Then,” she continued, forcing her wings to stay open. “Then, y-you have to make a little jump, like this...” She shifted her weight onto her rear legs and pushed off of the cloud into the air. For a moment, she remained hovering there, her wings naturally beating against the wind to keep her aloft.

Then her eyes passed over the stares of her classmates. They were all watching her. Waiting for her to fail. One steel-blue filly whispered something to another who looked like she could be her twin. Fluttershy couldn't hear what was being said, but she knew, she just knew it was something about how terrible a flier she was.

'How long 'til she falls?'

'Isn't it so sad, a filly her age still can barely fly?'

'I don't get it. Why is she the teacher's favorite?'

'Heh, I know why...'

All the imagined whispers whirled through Fluttershy's head until there was nothing but a throbbing buzz. Her wings seized up and snapped to her sides, and she plummeted out of the sky like a stone. A panicked squeal followed her down as the cloud shrank away above her.

She landed with a yelp on a soft puff of cloud. Mrs. Posey held the tuft with her hooves, panting from her dive. “You were doing well, sweetie,” she said, beaming at her with pride.

Fluttershy responded with a gurgling sob.

The teacher carried her back up to the class, where Fluttershy spent the rest of the day burying her face in her hooves, trying her best not to hear all the other fillies and colts not-laughing at her. Before long, the bell rang, and she heard the trampling hooves and flapping wings of her classmates leaving.

One set of hooves remained. A wing rested gently on her back. “Fluttershy, dear, it's time to go home.”

Fluttershy looked up into the patient eyes of Mrs. Posey. “Mom,” she said, her voice wavering, “can you please not call on me so much? I... I don't like showing the other kids how weak a flier I am.”

Her mother swept her up in a hug. “Oh, honey, you aren't a weak flier! You just need to give yourself a chance!”

Author's Note

Not sure... should this be tagged [Sad]?

7: Can't Talk. Kittens. [Slice of Life] [Comedy]

((Prompt: An unannounced arrival.))

Nature did not tend to plan things out. Sure, it had its rhythms, and its patterns, and sometimes you could sort of guess what it was up to. But on the whole, nature generally happened when nature happened, and it was left to everyone else to clean up the mess when it did.

Right now, nature was happening in Fluttershy's cottage.

It wasn't entirely unexpected that the stray cat she had brought in a week ago might have kittens. It had been clear when Fluttershy had found her that she was very, very pregnant. But whether those kittens came yesterday or today or next week was entirely up to fate, and fate had chosen the night the weatherponies had scheduled for the biggest storm Ponyville had seen in years.

The wind and rain roared against the little cottage, making the windows rattle in their frames. “Angel bunny, is the water hot yet?” Fluttershy glanced over to the stove.

Angel stuck a paw into the pot to test the temperature. He looked back at her and nodded.

“Good. Can you bring it here, please?”

Angel looked at his tiny paws, and then at the pot that could easily hold ten of him. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her.

Fluttershy pinched her eyes. “Oh, right. Um, Brock?”

A brown and gray badger shuffled up to the stove, a hot-pad in his mouth so he could safely grab the pot by its handle. While Brock dragged the pot across the floor to her, Angel retrieved a few clean towels from the closet.

“Thank you,” Fluttershy said, smiling at both of them. She took stock of her supplies. “Water. Plenty of fresh towels. Sterile gloves. Whatever this thing is.” Fluttershy picked up a vaguely medical instrument that seemed to resemble a pair of pliers. She set them back down and inched away from them.

A strike of lightning lit the place up in a bright flash, and the cat let out a long, pained yowl.

“I've got you, honey, it's okay,” Fluttershy cooed, petting the cat behind the ears. “Just remember to breathe.”

The door swung open. At first Fluttershy thought the wind had blown it off its latch, but it was in fact a force far less predictable than wind.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie cheered, oblivious to the fact she was drenched in icy rainwater. “There's a lightning-counting party at Sugarcube Corner! You've gotta come!”

Fluttershy did not take her eyes off her patient. “I'm sorry, Pinkie, but something else has come up.” She worked to steady the cat's breathing.

Pinkie peered over her shoulder. “Aw, did the kitty eat too much ice cream? Look at how big her tummy is!”

A bead of sweat formed on Fluttershy's brow as she concentrated. “No, Pinkie, she didn't eat too much, she's pr—”

The door swung open again. This time Rainbow Dash stood in the doorway, and she seemed very aware of the fact she was soaked. “Fluttershy, where the hay have you been? I need everypony with wings out there, or this storm is gonna spin off into Trottingham!”

Fluttershy grit her teeth. “I'm sorry, Rainbow, but this can't wait.” Angel mopped her forehead with a washcloth.

Before Rainbow Dash could shut the door, another pony entered the room. “Whoo-ee, that sure is a humdinger out there!” Applejack tipped her hat and a cascade of water fell to the floor. “Pinkie, we need ya back at the party. We can't count the strikes without yer Pinkie-sense tellin' us when they're comin'!”

Fluttershy shut out all the noise and focused solely on the cat. “You're almost there, sweetie,” she told her.

The room was filled with a bright pink flash. Twilight and Rarity appeared, the only two dry ponies in the house. “Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “we need you to settle an argument. Exactly what breed of cat is Opalescence?”

Fluttershy glared at all her friends. “Out!” she shouted. “Everypony that is not currently delivering a litter of newborn kittens, get out!”

There had never been five ponies in all of history that had ever scrambled so quickly out of a cottage into the freezing rain.

It was an hour later when an exhausted Fluttershy, hooves covered in things Rarity was best advised not to identify, allowed them back inside. Pinkie Pie squealed in excitement as Fluttershy introduced them to six tiny mewling kittens.

“Omigosh!” she cried. “I've got to put together six birthday parties!”

8: The Card Shark [Comedy]

((Prompt: Vacationing in Los Pegasus.))

Fluttershy finished her tea and stood up, stretching her legs. “I'm sorry for leaving early,” she said, shaking her wings out, “but I need to get back to the cottage. The mice are putting together a soccer league, and I'm supposed to be the referee. Thank you for the tea.”

Twilight and Rarity both smiled and waved goodbye. “It's always good to see you, darling,” Rarity said.

Fluttershy nodded her head and quietly pushed her way out the door.

Twilight took another sip from her cup as she watched the door swing shut. “You know, I've never quite been able to ask...”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Ask what, darling?”

Twilight hesitated before answering. “Where does she get her money?”

“Beg your pardon?” Rarity took a sip from her tea.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said, gesturing toward the door. “I mean, she spends more on birdseed in a month than most ponies spend on food for themselves. And then there's the vet bills, and she's got to make payments on her cottage somehow. How does she pay for it all? She spends all her time taking care of the animals, which is nice and all, but nopony pays her for it. She can't possibly make enough selling chicken eggs.”

An amused look spread across Rarity's face. “Actually, she doesn't sell the eggs,” she said. “She gives them away to anypony who asks for them.”

“She does?” Twilight asked, receiving a nod in response. “How does she do it? I'm a princess, for Celestia's sake, and I still have to fight the bill collectors out of the library with a broom!”

Rarity chuckled at the mental image. “You mean she's never told you?”

Twilight shook her head. “Told me what?”

“I suppose I'm not surprised,” Rarity said, shrugging. “It's not really a secret, but she doesn't often talk about what she does on those twice-yearly 'vacations' of hers. I never found out myself until the time I decided it would be fun to go with her...”

The room was dimly lit, full of the smells of smoke and alcohol. The band on stage at the other end of the den filled the place with a smooth jazz tune while the casino staff brought drinks on trays around to all the ponies that had elected to lose money at this particular establishment.

Around the poker table sat a collection of glamorous models, well-dressed businessponies, intimidating toughs, and also one meek, timid yellow pegasus who bit her lip as she peered at her cards.

“All right, show 'em.” A cigar-chewing stallion put his hoof on the table.

A businesspony with an obnoxious tie put his cards down. “A pair of aces,” he said.

A supermodel with bright jewels running up and down her ears grinned. “Three queens.”

A rough-looking stallion with a scar on his cheek smirked. “None of that beats a straight,” he said. The rest of the table turned to look at Fluttershy.

Her ears sagged. “Oh. I think I lost,” she said dejectedly. “All of mine are the same color, and only one has a number on it.”

9: A Game of Phones [Comedy]

((Prompt: Tall tales/Tall tails.))

“C'mon, Fluttershy! We're gonna be late!”

“Ow!”

“What's a matter?”

“Oh, it's nothing, Rainbow. My tail just got snagged on the door.”

“Here, lemme help you get it free.”

“Ow, ow, ow! Um, maybe you can fly ahead and tell Rarity I'll be a little bit late? I can handle this.”

“Sure, okay. I'll see you at the lake!”

“See you! Angel, sweetie, could you fetch me the scissors, please?”

“Why hello, Rainbow darling! Where's Fluttershy? I thought she was coming with you.”

“She'll catch up. She got her tail caught in the doorway. It was stuck real good.”

“Oh my goodness! Is she all right?”

“Yeah, she's just fine. She sent me ahead to let you know.”

“Such a thoughtful dear. We shall have to save the best spot of shade for her when she gets here.”

“Uh huh. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think that rope swing's calling my name. Cannonball!”

“Dreadful, Pinkie dear, just such a positively dreadful thing to happen to poor Fluttershy!”

“Oh no!”

“That's not the worst part, either. When she finally did arrive, the end of her tail was missing!”

“Gasp!”

“Of course, she put on a brave face for Rainbow and me, acted like there was nothing wrong, but that's exactly how I knew how much pain she was hiding. You can't just be missing half your tail and pretend everything's fine!”

“Poor Fluttershy!”

“Indeed, darling. That is why I am working on these tail extensions for her. It's the least I can do.”

“Good idea, Rarity! With all that's happened to her, we should all be extra nice to Fluttershy!”

“I'm glad you think so... Pinkie? Huh. Where did she go?”

“Applejack! You need to drop everything you're doing right now and help me bake a cake!”

“Pinkie, I can't jus' quit in the middle of a job whenever you need a bakin' buddy. I gotta get this field tilled.”

“This is important! Fluttershy is dying!”

“She... what?”

“I talked to Rarity, and apparently it took Fluttershy a whole hour to get to the lake from her house, and she's in pain, and she's losing hair from her tail, and omigosh, what if it's some kind of incurable disease?”

“Back up, Pinkie. You really bein' serious? Is she really that sick?”

“Uh huh! Rarity's making her a new tail to cover up the fact that it's all falling out, but we need to put together the bestest get-well party in the history of parties for Fluttershy, and to do that, I need you to drop what you're doing and help me bake a cake!”

“Yeah... you're right, Pinkie. You head into the kitchen an' get started, I'm gonna go see if there's anything Twi can do.”

“Hurry, Applejack! Before it's... before it's too late!”

“What?”

“Coughin' things up, hair fallin' out, the whole nine yards!”

“But she was just fine when I talked to her yesterday.”

“What could hit a pony that fast, you reckon?”

“Nothing good, Applejack. There's only a few things that could do this, and none of them are the sort of thing that goes away with a bowl of warm soup and a good night's sleep.”

“That's what I was afraid of.”

“You said Rainbow and Rarity had direct contact with her?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I need you to tell them to stay inside, and then keep an eye on them. If they start showing any symptoms, tell me immediately.”

“Gotcha, Twi. I—C-Celestia, what's that mask for? An' where are ya goin?”

“To the source of the infection, Applejack.”

“Oh, Twilight, I didn't expect you—eeek!”

“Stay calm, Fluttershy. Everything will be all right. We'll find you a cure.”

“W-what's that on your face?”

“Just a necessary precaution. I... wait a minute, you don't look sick at all!”

“Um, thank you?”

10: Filly Tales [Dark] [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: How the moon got her spots/How the sun got her fire.))

The little yellow filly crawled into her bed and burrowed snugly into the soft cloudy fluff. She was Mommy's good little girl, and she went to bed when she was told. She looked up and smiled as her mother tucked in the corners of her cloud.

“Mommy, can you tell me a story?”

Mommy smiled. “What kind of story would you like, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy looked out the window. As it always had, the moon seemed to contain the face of a stern mare glaring down at her. Fluttershy shrank deeper into her bed. “What are the spots on the moon, Mommy?”

Luna—no, that was her old name. That was the weak name that let others just ignore her. Nightmare Moon paused to examine her reflection in the glass. Though it was cracked and scarred from the recent battle, the window still showed her face to her.

She frowned. Imperfections; little spots and blotches marred the perfect black and silver of her face and helmet. She raised a hoof, and found that these spots smeared and rubbed off quite easily, leaving a red stain on her gilded horseshoe. Blood.

She looked up at the moon, and saw that it too was no longer the perfect white it had once been. It too was speckled and scarred now, reflecting her just like the window.

Mommy glanced out the window. “Those spots are kisses left by the moon's lover, sweetie.”

“Oh. Okay.” Fluttershy relaxed just a little bit. She felt the warmth of her blankets, and they brought out a quiet yawn from her, but they also reminded her of something. “Um, can I ask you one more, Mommy?”

“Of course, honey.” Mommy nuzzled her on the forehead.

“Why is the sun so hot?”

The Everfree was burning. Her sister may have been banished, and the threat of eternal night dispelled, but that did not put the fires out. Trees blazed orange. Thatched roofs turned into bright red cinders and flew away. It seemed like even the stone itself of their shared palace had lit up like a match, spilling coils of black smoke into the cloudless blue sky.

Celestia looked up. Her sun sat shrouded in the smoke, glowing a dull hazy orange. No longer was it the brilliant star it had been, shining like a million-faceted jewel upon the land. Now it was just one more fire, hanging in the smoke-stained sky.

“The sun is so hot because she loves everypony so much.” Mommy kissed Fluttershy on the cheek, and opened the firefly lantern to let the light out. The glowing bugs whirled around one another as they buzzed out the window to join the stars. “Goodnight, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy smiled and shut her eyes. “Goodnight, Mommy. I love you.”

Author's Note

[Dark] and [Slice of Life] are usually contradictory tags, but it seems to be the best means of describing what's going on here.

11: Hiding something? Me? [No Tag]

((Prompt: Lies and misdirection.))

((Note: The [No Tag] is there to keep from spoiling the end.))

It was nearing sundown when Twilight Sparkle knocked on the door to Fluttershy's cottage. Inside, she could hear a short string of hushed curses followed by two sets of hooves scuffling across the floorboards. There was a loud thump, and Twilight could hear her friend yelp.

Finally, after a minute of this, Fluttershy opened the door, though only just wide enough to poke her head through. “Oh, hello Twilight! I, um, didn't expect you here right at this moment.”

Twilight raised her head, trying to see past Fluttershy into the cottage. “Is everything alright, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy raised her head as well, blocking her view, and laughed nervously. “Everything's fine, Twilight! It's never been better!”

“Who were you just talking to?” Twilight asked.

“Myself,” Fluttershy said, nodding her head. “I was talking to myself. 'Oh, Fluttershy,' I was saying, 'the sun's about to set and you still don't know what you're going to have for dinner!' I'm uh, very indecisive like that.”

Twilight frowned briefly. “So there's nopony else here?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, definitely not. Just me and all my animals, that's all.”

“You haven't seen Rarity?”

A bead of sweat formed on the pegasus's brow. “Um, not since our spa date, no. Why?”

Twilight shrugged. “I thought I saw her headed this way. Strange.”

“Well, I don't know what to tell you, Twilight. There's no Rarities here.” Fluttershy gave Twilight a weak grin.

Hooves thumped against the floorboards upstairs. Both Twilight's and Fluttershy's eyes shot up to the ceiling.

“What was that?” asked Twilight.

“Nothing,” Fluttershy quickly replied. “Just... Carrie, the capybara, getting into my horseshoes. I should probably go check on her.” She began pulling the door shut.

“I could help,” Twilight offered, pushing on the door.

“No!” Fluttershy held the door firmly with her hooves. “She's uh, very shy.”

Twilight studied her friend's expression carefully. After a moment, she gave Fluttershy an understanding smile. “Okay, Fluttershy. If you see Rarity, please tell her I'd like to talk with her.”

“I will tell her the next time I see her,” promised Fluttershy. “Whenever that is.” She pulled the door shut.

The yellow pegasus kept an ear to the door, listening to the sound of Twilight's hoofsteps fading away. A smirk spread across her lips.

The smirk remained intact even as magical green flames flickered and changed them from yellow to white. Changeling magic flashed, and where there had been Fluttershy, there was now Rarity, grinning triumphantly as she sauntered up the stairs.

“That was too close,” she said as she pulled open the bedroom door. Inside, bound by thick, sticky green goo, the real Fluttershy struggled and murmured into her gag.

“Mmmh! Mrrh-m-mh!”

The changeling flicked her head, setting a lock of purple hair askew on her face. “I do wish we had the time for a chat, darling, but your nosy friends have me on a bit of a timetable, so I'm afraid we have to get right down to business. Now, let's see if we can find that pesky memory where you found me out...” Her horn glowed sickly green. Fluttershy's eyes widened in fear.

Zzap! The glow in Rarity's horn vanished, and her eyes lost focus. She listed to the side and then slumped to the floor. Green flames crackled as the changeling reverted to its original insectoid form.

Twilight stood in the doorway of the bedroom, panting. A wisp of steam rose from her horn. “That's for thinking I bought your Fluttershy act for a second!”

A few moments and a flash of magic freed Fluttershy from the changeling goo. “Twilight!” she cried as soon as her mouth was free. She threw her forelegs around the alicorn. “How did you know it wasn't me?”

“Your capybara is named Candy, not Carrie,” Twilight explained. “That's something you would never get wrong.”

Fluttershy glanced down at the unconscious creature on her floor, and shivered. “Wh-where's the real Rarity?”

“I don't know.” Twilight nudged the thing with her hoof. “But we're going to find out.”

Author's Note

This is another one of those stories that circumstances prevented me from submitting to TMP, so you guys are the first to get to read this one!

Also, this shares continuity with Spa Date, one of the stories in the Rarity compilation.

12: No, Ma'am, We're Ponies [Adventure] [Comedy]

((Prompt: It’s a hundred and six miles to Canterlot, we’ve got a full barrel of cider, half a pack of Timberwolves behind us, it’s eternal night, and we’re wearing the Elements of Harmony.

Hit it.))

“Darlings, I know that you're putting your all into it, and we really do appreciate your efforts,” Rarity said, steadying her element against her chest as a bump jostled everypony, “but if you could move just a little bit faster, we would all appreciate not being eaten by angry timberwolves.”

“If you wanna pull the wagon, be my guest,” Rainbow Dash growled through her harness. Next to her, Fluttershy simply whimpered as the rickety old apple-cart thundered along behind them down the dusty, unlit road. Snarls and howls sounded entirely too close behind the six ponies as they tore off into the unnatural night.

Applejack threw a rock, eliciting a yip from the pack of predators. “An' whose fault is it, again, that they're angry timberwolves instead of regular-type, give-up-on-chasin'-ya-after-a-mile ones?”

“Hey, how was I supposed to know that was their den?” Rainbow shot back defensively. “It just looked like a pile of sticks!”

“Um, you can tell by the coloration,” Fluttershy supplied. “A regular pile of sticks is usually dry and brown. If it's made of green, living branches, it's a timberwolf den.”

“This is a fascinating conversation,” Rarity said, gripping the side of the cart for dear life, “but may I reiterate my suggestion that we go faster now!”

The pegasi drawing the cart pounded their hooves against the road. Trees whizzed by on either side.

“Why are we even trying to get there by hoof, anyway?” panted Rainbow. “Can't Twilight just magic us there?”

“Sure, that'd be a great plan,” Applejack said, “If Twi weren't sleepin' off the mother of all hangovers!”

A loud snore echoed from the bottom of the cart. Twilight lay there, the Element of Magic resting askew on her face. Spike crouched next to her, shaking her shoulders, but if all the bouncing of the apple-cart wasn't enough to wake her, his efforts didn't have much chance.

“Twilight parties hard!” Pinkie remarked, a gleam of pride in her eyes. “I've never seen a pony down that much cider before!”

“Ya did tell her it was the hard stuff before ya gave it to her, right Pinkie?”

“Oh. Oops!”

Fluttershy looked up ahead. The only source of light was the moon, which glowered down on them with a menacing silver glow. But it was enough for her to make out the lip of the cliff up ahead. Where there should have been a bridge, there was just a couple wooden posts and a loose rope.

“R-Rainbow...” she stammered.

“I see it,” Rainbow Dash replied.

“Then why are we speeding up?”

In response, Rainbow raised her wings. Fluttershy swallowed hard and spread her own as well.

“Hang on tight, everypony,” Rainbow called back to them. “I wanna try something I read in a Daring Do book...”

Author's Note

Blues Brothers reference prompt. <3

13: Twilight's Mom Has Got It Going On [Romance] [Comedy]

((Prompt: An unlikely first meeting results in an unlikely attraction.))

“I'm so glad to finally get this chance to meet you, Fluttershy!” A purple and white tail swished in the doorway to the kitchen as Fluttershy found herself a cushion in the living room to sit down on. She found herself noticing that it was a very nice tail. Not in any lewd kind of way, just a passive recognition of where Twilight's shapely flank had come from.

A minute later the light grey unicorn mare to which the tail belonged emerged, levitating a tray of cookies. “I mean, I've caught glimpses of you and the others at Shining's wedding, and at the coronation, and my little Spark has told me a lot about you in her letters, but this is the first time we've had the time to do more than just smile and say 'hi.' Cookie?”

Fluttershy smiled gratefully at the mare and took the offered treat. “It's good to meet you too, Mrs... um.” She panicked briefly, trying to think if she ever remembered Twilight mentioning her mother's name. “Mrs. Twilight's mom,” she finally mumbled into the cookie.

The older mare laughed. She had a nice laugh, Fluttershy decided. “Velvet, sweetie. My name is Twilight Velvet. And yes, I realize it is very confusing to have two mares named Twilight in the same household.”

“Oh, it's not that confusing,” Fluttershy said. “At my cabin, there's a family of mice named Mr. Mouse, Mrs. Mouse, and Mouse Junior.”

“That's adorable!” Twilight Velvet set the cookie tray down on the end table and sat on the cushion next to Fluttershy. “Do they have big, medium, and little-sized holes in the wall to get to their den?”

Fluttershy grinned and nodded. “They do. It's very cute.” She took a bite of her cookie, and her eyes widened. “Mrs. Velvet, this is delicious! Is there mint in this?”

Velvet nodded. “From the flower pot in the window right over there. You like it?”

“Mhm!” Fluttershy took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. “I grow some at home, too. Did you get strange looks from all the earth ponies there when you went to buy the seeds, too?”

Velvet giggled. “I did! The shopkeeper even gave me instructions to 'give to my gardener!'”

They laughed together, and before long, there were only crumbs on the tray. Fluttershy looked around the house. “Where is everypony else?”

Velvet tilted her head. “Sparky is out with the other princesses.” A bit of pride welled in her voice. “And Shiny is on duty until seven.”

“What about Mr. Twilight?”

Velvet sighed. “He's at his home, probably. We're separated.”

Fluttershy's ears fell. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” Velvet gave her a warm smile. “We left on good terms. It just wasn't meant to last.”

Fluttershy extended a wing to wrap around Velvet, who leaned into her. The older mare's cheek pressed gently against Fluttershy's shoulder, and she could feel a trace of body heat through her coat.

Velvet's voice became quieter. “It frightens me, sometimes, hearing about all the adventures you and my little Spark go on. I'm glad she has friends like you to keep her safe.”

Was that a blush Fluttershy felt in her cheeks? Modesty, no doubt. Fluttershy was a modest pony, who blushed when others complimented her, not one who found inexplicable feelings welling up in her when her hoof was stroked by an attractive mare who happened to also be her best friend's mother. “I-it frightens me, too,” Fluttershy stammered. “I'd like it if those adventures had fewer dragons in them.”

Velvet smiled, and ran a hoof along Fluttershy's wing. “That's how I know you'll take good care of her,” she said. “You won't let her take any unnecessary risks.” She nuzzled the base of the wing with her nose.

Fluttershy twitched at her touch. “M-Mrs. Velvet?”

“Fluttershy, can I tell you something?” A soft glow of Velvet's horn played with the tip of Fluttershy's mane.

There was a significant portion of Fluttershy's mind that wanted to panic, but the continued gentle pressure on her wing made it impossible for her to muster up a very good freak-out. Instead, she swallowed and nodded.

A grin spread across Velvet's lips. “I've wanted to meet you for a long time, Fluttershy. Ever since my daughter told me about you.”

Fluttershy's heart chose this time to do funny things with the inside of her ribcage. “V-Velvet...”

“Mother!” Both mares jumped as Twilight Sparkle stomped across the floor.

Velvet pushed a strand of mane out of her face. “Sparky, welcome home! I, uh, didn't hear you come in.”

“Mom, let Fluttershy go,” the younger Twilight growled. “This sort of thing is why I never had any friends in Canterlot!”

14: Diplomacy [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: The Great and Powerful Twilight Sparkle!))

She was doubting herself again.

It was hard to spot. Any casual observer would look at Twilight and see a savvy diplomat rehearsing her talking points. She paced the room, a focused look in her eyes as she muttered her lines to herself.

“It is in everypony's interest... it is in everyone's interest if we... hm.” Twilight glanced at her notes.

It didn't look very much like panic to the casual observer, but Fluttershy was not a casual observer. If there was one thing she was familiar with, it was fear, and she could tell that Twilight was terrified. It was in the way she kept shifting under the weight of her crown. The way her voice cracked every now and then. The way she never made it past her first notecard in her rehearsal.

Fluttershy watched Twilight pace back and forth across the room, playing her terror off as professionalism. It was a convincing act; Fluttershy almost bought it herself. Almost.

“It is in everyone's interest if we agree to work together to...” Twilight's ear flicked and she glanced down at her notecards again. “If we agree to work together to... rrrgh!”

Fluttershy couldn't stand by and watch any longer. She stepped forward, extending a wing to stop Twilight's pacing.

Twilight's head jerked up, appearing startled to find there was anypony else in the room with her. Her eyes met Fluttershy's and her shoulders relaxed a little. “I'm uh, sorry to keep you here like this, Fluttershy. All this statesmareship must be really boring for you.”

Under another circumstance, Fluttershy would have responded to this with a denial, telling her it was actually very interesting to see the wheels of Canterlot in motion. Or reminded her that she had volunteered to come with so she could lend her expertise on the fauna in the area that was being discussed. Or even given her an admission that it was maybe a tiny bit boring, but it was okay.

Instead, she cut right to the chase. “You're scared.”

Twilight's eyes flickered. “Scared? Hah, no, just nervous! This treaty is a big deal, so of course I'm taking it seriously, but it's nothing I can't handle! There's no reason to be scared...”

Fluttershy patiently waited while denial poured out of her friend. Three, two, one...

Twilight dropped her gaze to the ground. “...Okay, I'm scared.”

Fluttershy wrapped both her wings around Twilight. “It's okay, Twilight.”

Twilight leaned into the hug, squeezing Fluttershy in tighter. “I just... I don't know if I'm ready for this! There's six gryphons in the other room there, and if I can't get them to sign this treaty, it's going to have real and lasting effects on both countries! This is... this is real, Fluttershy. It's not wearing a paper crown and parading around a book-fort declaring that it's cupcake day. I have actual lives in my hooves now, and I don't know what'll happen if I can't do this!”

“Shh.” Fluttershy stroked her hoof down Twilight's back. Purple feathers were all fluffed out of alignment, so she idly pulled them straight again as she held Twilight.

“Those gryphons in there are expecting Princess Celestia.” Twilight gestured toward the door. “What if they're insulted that they have to speak to one of the 'lesser princesses?'”

Fluttershy tugged on a feather. “I would be disappointed.”

Twilight pulled back, confusion plain on her face.

“I would be disappointed,” Fluttershy continued, “if I were them and they sent Celestia to talk to me instead of you.”

“Fluttershy...”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Twilight, you are the most amazing pony I have ever met. You could get a whole town together to change the seasons in just a day. You could bring the six of us together, even when we're at our worst, to overcome the impossible.” Fluttershy glanced away for a moment, smiling gently. “You can even get a scaredy-pony like me to face a dragon.”

Twilight sniffed, looking up at Fluttershy.

“There is nothing you can't do, Twilight. You are the smartest, bravest, kindest pony I have ever known, and anypony else that has spent more than a minute with you can tell you the same thing.” Fluttershy wiped the tears off of Twilight's cheeks and looked right into her eyes. “There are lives in your hooves, and there are no other hooves they would be better off in. Celestia is a great princess, but between you and her, I know which is the 'lesser princess.'”

Twilight blinked. She looked at Fluttershy's sincere smile, and slowly one spread across her own face. “You really think that, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy kissed her on the forehead. “Yes. I believe every word, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

There was the fire in her eyes. Twilight Sparkle stood up straight, brimming with newfound confidence. She turned and pushed open the heavy wooden door, striding purposefully up to the large table in the next room. “Hello,” she addressed the diplomats gathered there. “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle. Welcome, all of you, to Equestria...”

15: Love Note [Romance]

((Prompt: Spike didn't make it.))

Rarity opened her door before Fluttershy even had a chance to knock. “Thank goodness you've come, Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy nodded as Rarity practically dragged her inside. “Of course, I came as soon as I heard. What's going on, Rarity?”

Rarity paced to one of the large bay windows in the shop level of her boutique, chewing nervously on her hoof. After staring at nothing out it for a moment, she paced over to the other window and repeated the process. “I'm just not certain where I should turn to for this, darling. I've of course sent word to Twilight, because it involves her, but I think...” She bit her lip. “I think I trust your judgment most in this matter.”

“Rarity,” Fluttershy said, her feathers puffing up in agitation. “What is it?”

Rarity's eyes shifted back and forth. With a glow from her horn, she pulled a desk drawer open and levitated a small card over to Fluttershy. “I found this in my mailbox this morning.”

Fluttershy's ears flattened as she took the card in her hooves. It was a simple, undecorated piece of red paper, and it had five words written carefully on one side:

I love you. I'm sorry.

Fluttershy took a deep breath. “W-what does it mean?” she asked.

“I think Spike is thinking of, or has done, something drastic,” Rarity said, taking another concerned glance out the window.

“You... you think it's from Spike?” Fluttershy asked, holding the card.

“Of course it's from Spike,” Rarity said. “Who else could it be?”

Fluttershy shifted her gaze to the door. “Well, I mean, lots of ponies find you attractive, Rarity. It could be from anyone.”

Even under the circumstances, Rarity's vanity would not let go of the compliment without a small smile. “Perhaps, but Spike's affection for me has been quite clear since day one. He's such a sweet little thing, but...” Rarity sighed. “I should have made my position clear to him as soon as I noticed his little crush, but I didn't want to be the bad pony. Perhaps I enjoyed the attention, too.”

Rarity stared down at her hooves with a troubled frown. “It's the last part that has me worried. 'I'm sorry.' What could he mean by that?”

Fluttershy scraped a hoof on the floor. “Maybe... maybe he just means to say that he doesn't want to be in the way. That he's sorry if loving you makes your life more complicated.”

“That... that does sound like his kind of reasoning,” Rarity said. Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Oh no, what if he's planning to run away? We have to stop him!” Rarity snatched the card out of Fluttershy's grasp and hurtled toward the door.

“Rarity, stop!”

“No, come on, Fluttershy, we have to get to the library right away!” Rarity pulled on Fluttershy's wing.

Fluttershy snapped her wing back. “Spike didn't write the note.”

Rarity stumbled to a stop. “What... what do you mean, darling? How could you know who...”

Fluttershy tore her gaze away.

Piece by piece, it fit together in Rarity's head. She drew a sharp breath. “...You?”

A tear rolled down a yellow cheek etched with a pained grimace. “I'm sorry.”

16: Relics [Sad]

((Prompt: Old legends in the new age.))

Fluttershy never left the garden anymore. Decades ago, she had still consented to attend a few important events per year, at Twilight's insistence. Centuries ago, she could still be seen going to market with the others. It had been millenia since she had given up on her cottage, no longer at the edge of Ponyville the small town but right in the center of the growing metropolis of Ponyville, and moved to the palace with the other five elements, where at least the gardens let her have a little green in her life.

As said, she never left anymore. The world was too foreign, too strange for her now. She'd never been the most sociable, urbane pony even in her own time, but the mere thought of stepping beyond the gates of her little green refuge now made her tremble.

She had the worst of it, some would say, while others said she had it easiest. All of her friends felt the weight of the passing ages in their own way. Applejack spent nearly as much time in the gardens as Fluttershy, leaning against the trees and staring into the sky as bizarre machines shunted across it. Rarity and Rainbow Dash immersed themselves in the changing culture, parading from one end of the continent to the other as permanent celebrities, and only letting their exhaustion show in their eyes when they paid Fluttershy visits to share with her the wonders of the modern era. Pinkie Pie...

Pinkie would hardly have recognized herself if her past self had been given the chance to see her present. The realization that the world was too big and contained too many ponies for even her to make friends with everypony had been a hard one to take. These days she clung to Twilight like a life-raft. She still smiled, she still bounced, but it was always with a nervous glint in her eyes, as though she were afraid that if she let her princess out of her sight, she would be lost forever.

Twilight herself, though. In many ways, she had adopted the demeanor of her predecessors. She stood tall and proud, and ponies would often speak of her serene expression in much the same way they once had of Celestia. Fluttershy knew Twilight was visiting her in the garden before she ever rounded the corner or cleared her throat. There was something about a Princess's presence that transcended sight or sound.

Fluttershy did not look up. She continued her work, using a tiny brush to preen a bluebird.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said. She sounded as though she had more to say, but she left it at just the name.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy responded in kind. Her eyes never left the bluebird.

Twilight chewed her lip. For a moment, she looked ready to give up on her purpose and leave her friend to her garden. But she shook her head and pressed forward. “Fluttershy, the Summer Sun Celebration is tonight. This is the two thousandth one since...”

Fluttershy put on a small smile. A fake one, but a convincing fake. “That's great. I'm sure it will be a good one. Can you send someone here with a slice of cake after, please?”

A sigh escaped Twilight's lips. “Fluttershy, I was really hoping you could come to this one. All of us are going to be there, even Spike.”

“I can't,” Fluttershy said. “My animal friends need me.”

“That isn't true.”

Fluttershy's ears flattened at Twilight's blunt statement. She was right, of course. There was plenty of palace staff available to care for the animals in the garden, and even if there weren't, they would be okay for a night. Still, she kept running the brush through the bluebird's feathers.

“Look, Fluttershy.” Twilight took a step forward. “This is important. Spike is getting old, even for a dragon, and this might be the last time in a long while that we all are in one place. Please, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy was still for a long while. The bird, a bit puzzled, eventually squirmed out of her hooves and flew away. “Two thousand years is a long time,” she whispered.

Twilight sank to her haunches next to her, letting her wing rest gently on Fluttershy's back. “Yes, it is.”

A small sob caught in Fluttershy's throat. “D-did you ever think... I mean, of course I've never wanted to die, but...” she sniffed. “Did you ever think that maybe it's too much time?”

Twilight wrapped her friend in a tight hug. Two ancient relics, crying together on a green island in a sea of steel and concrete.

17: Chickensitting [Comedy]

((Prompt: Scootaloo gets a job.))

Scootaloo was never quite sure what to make of Fluttershy. On one hoof, she seemed to be every type of lame Scootaloo had ever heard of. She didn't fly fast, she didn't do awesome tricks, she was afraid of just about everything. All she ever seemed to do was hang quietly around her cottage taking care of animals. That one time she had stared down a cockatrice was pretty neat, Scootaloo supposed, but for the most part, Fluttershy was a boring pony.

But on the other hoof, Rainbow Dash seemed to think Fluttershy was great. Scootaloo couldn't quite wrap her head around how somepony as completely awesome as Rainbow Dash could possibly want to hang around a dull, not-awesome pony like Fluttershy.

Clearly, there was some piece she was missing. Scootaloo's current theory was that maybe Fluttershy was secretly a ninja warrior or something, and all her shyness and everything was an act to lull her enemies into a false sense of security.

She checked for hidden swords or throwing stars in the petunias stashed away to defend against would-be attackers. She didn't find anything but petunias. With a sigh of mild disappointment, she picked her scooter up and knocked on the front door.

The door opened a crack. “Oh, Scootaloo, you're here!” Fluttershy pulled the door the rest of the way open, allowing the filly inside. “Come in, please.”

Scootaloo dusted her hooves off on the welcome mat and stepped inside. Squirrels and chipmunks chased each other across the floor while the eaves of the house rang with a dozen chirping birds. Scootaloo lifted her hoof as a rabbit darted between her legs and dove under the couch.

“Thank you for coming to help me,” Fluttershy said, leading her through the cottage. “Rainbow Dash said you were looking for a summer job, and well, I can't pay much, but I am a little short-hoofed around here.”

“I can see that,” Scootaloo said, watching the woodland creatures whirl about the place. Perhaps it was just because they had her friends and herself to compare to last time, but the animals just didn't seem as tame as they had the night of the Crusaders' sleepover. “So, how do you want me to get started? Do you want me to fill the bird-feeders?” She buzzed her wings, and gained a few feet of altitude before dropping back to the ground, panting. “'Cause, I can totally reach the bird-feeders now.”

Fluttershy smiled at her. “Thank you, but that's okay, I can take care of the bird-feeders. I have a special job for you, Scootaloo. Follow me, please.”

A special job? Was this the part where she would take her out to a frozen mountaintop to train in the ways of a shadow warrior? Scootaloo held her scooter tight as she followed Fluttershy out the back door.

“Here we are,” Fluttershy said, stopping in front of a small wooden structure.

Scootaloo looked up at it. “The... chicken coop?”

“That's right.” Fluttershy nodded. “Elizabeak—you've met her—has pulled a muscle, and can't sit on her eggs. I need somepony to keep her eggs warm for her while she recovers.”

Scootaloo gaped. “You... you want me to roost?”

“Well, yes...” Fluttershy shifted on her hooves and chewed her lip. “Only if that's okay with you, of course. It's just that, you're small enough to fit in the coop, and it has to be a pegasus filly because you're light enough that you don't crush the eggs. If—if you don't want to, that's okay. I'm sure I can find somepony else...”

A few minutes later, Scootaloo found herself sitting on a clutch of chicken eggs. She huffed and tapped her hoof against the roost. Rainbow Dash was wrong. Fluttershy was totally lame.

“You're totally awesome,” Rainbow Dash said, watching the chicken coop from Fluttershy's porch. “Thank you for giving her this chance.”

Fluttershy followed her gaze and gave a troubled frown. “Are you sure she's ready, Rainbow? She has a long, difficult path ahead of her.” Her eyes raised to the mountains in the distance as a light breeze tugged at her mane. “One I left behind me a long time ago.”

“I know,” Rainbow said. “You know I wouldn't ask this of you lightly. I think she really has what it takes.”

“We'll see.” Fluttershy stared long and hard at the chicken coop.

Rainbow Dash clapped her front hooves together and bowed her head. “She will not disappoint you, I promise!”

Fluttershy returned the gesture and watched her friend soar off into the sky. “We'll see.”

Author's Note

This story is going on hiatus for a little while. Don't worry, I am coming back to it, but I have some stuff and reasons to deal with first.

18: You Leave Me Breathless [Romance] [Adventure]

((Prompt: Why does it hurt so much to love you?))

Fluttershy's chest ached. Her breath was rapid and shallow. She could feel her pulse pound in her ears, and her stomach twisted and churned. Her knees shook and her hooves trembled.

Fluttershy was in love.

Also, she was running for her life. The two tended to come hoof in hoof more often than she cared to admit. At least, they did when the object of her affections was the Princess of Magic.

“Left!” shouted Twilight. Her tail suddenly jerked to the side, no longer filling Fluttershy's vision and allowing her to see the sheer wall directly ahead of her.

Fluttershy's hooves skidded against the wet stone floor as she flared her wings to stop herself from ramming nose-first into the wall. If not for Twilight's warning, she would have. She used what momentum she had left to dart off down the tunnel to the left.

There was a terrific crash as their pursuer was not so quick to change directions. The sewers shook with the impact, sending motes of dust drifting from the dark, arched ceiling.

The name “glow-worm” was a terribly unthreatening term for the monster behind them. The creature nearly filled the whole tunnel, a good two pony-lengths across. Its tripartite maw was filled with rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth, and viscous green spittle erupted from it when the thing let out its ear-splitting roar. But what truly made the glow-worm dangerous was the glowing spines along its back from which it got its name. Those spines sucked all magic out of the area, making whole city blocks go dark and rendering unicorns helpless.

“Duck!” Twilight warned.

Fluttershy lowered her head as a low-hanging rusty pipe passed by. The tunnel filled with steam as the glow-worm barreled through it.

Twilight led the chase deeper and deeper into the sewers. Fortunately the place was lit by well-placed air-shafts instead of magical lighting. They would have gotten lost and cornered for certain if they had been running blind.

“Twilight,” panted Fluttershy. “Where are we heading?”

“The pumping station,” Twilight said, rounding another corner.

Fluttershy nearly missed the turn in her shock. “The pumping station?? Twilight, that's a dead-end!”

“Do you trust me, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy swallowed. Of course she trusted her. She trusted Twilight to the ends of Equestria. “Y-yes.”

She couldn't see Twilight's face, but Fluttershy knew she was smiling. “Good.”

A few more twists and turns and close calls with the worm brought them to the pumping station. Like Fluttershy had said, it was a dead end. Several large pipes led into the station, but they were covered with solid iron grates. Down below their level churned a reservoir. They would almost certainly drown if they tried to jump in and escape that way.

“T-Twilight?”

Twilight wrapped her hooves around a solid pipe at the end of the walkway. “Hold onto me, Fluttershy, and don't let go.”

Fluttershy nodded and put her hooves around Twilight's waist. There were worse ways to go, she supposed, than holding onto the pony she loved.

The glow-worm slithered into the cavernous room. It hissed and snarled as it drew nearer. Glowing magic arced between its spines, illuminating the whole pumping station. The light gleamed in its dull black eyes as it regarded the two morsels before it. The glow worm reared up to an incredible height, letting out a deafening roar.

Fluttershy squeezed Twilight tightly. “I love you, Twilight.”

Twilight smiled. “I know. Just hang on.”

A low rumble filled the chamber. The air stirred. The glow-worm glanced quizzically to the side...

...and was struck by a wall of water. Fluttershy hung on to Twilight for dear life as the sudden deluge threatened to sweep them off the walkway into the hazardous reservoir below. The glow-worm, having nothing to hold onto, toppled over the edge and disappeared into the murk.

Eventually the torrent subsided, leaving two drenched ponies heaving on the walkway. Twilight squeezed the dank water out of her tail. “Magical valves,” she explained, pointing to the inlets. “The glow-worm shorted them all out at once, so they flooded the chamber.”

Fluttershy peered over the edge at the churning water. “Where does it lead?” she asked.

“A drainage basin at the bottom of the mountain.” Twilight sat down beside her with a wet 'plop.' “From there, it should be able to find its way back to the swamps where it belongs.”

“Good.” Fluttershy rested her head in Twilight's lap. They both smelled like sewage, but she was just happy to be safe and sound.

Twilight let out a small laugh. “Happy anniversary, honey.” She leaned down to nuzzle Fluttershy's ears.

Fluttershy smiled. “Happy anniversary.”

Author's Note

And we're back on track. Not too long a delay, I hope.

It's funny... Twishy strikes me as a very gentle ship. So why do I have them running for their lives every time I ship them?

20: A Little Kindness [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: You can kill a pony, but you can't kill an idea.))

Gilda awoke to the sound of several rowdy thumps on the platform outside her door. The thick stone walls of her den muffled most of it, but she could still make out the sounds of laughter, and some kind of squeaking noise. The sounds rolled from one end of the platform to the other, occasionally getting rough enough to shake a bit of dirt loose from her earthen roof as something slammed into the walls.

Just about the time she was going to give up on the hope that whatever it was would move on and let her get back to her nap, a clawed fist banged against her door. “Hey Gilda!” called a voice from outside. Gus, she guessed from the 'I just pulled the wings off a fly and I think it's funny' tone. “One of your pony friends is here to see you!”

A huff escaped her beak as she finally rolled out of bed, brushing her feathers out of her eyes. Rainbow Dash picked the wrong time to come crawling back if she ran into Gus out there. She briefly considered just not answering. A few minutes putting up with Gus would be a fitting punishment for ditching her in favor of all those losers.

Gilda shook her head. A few minutes was enough time for Dash to give Gus a bloody beak. Which he totally deserved, but then he would go crying to the chief, and that was a headache Gilda didn't want to deal with. She yawned and pulled open her front door.

Sure enough, Gus was there. So was Glen, and Gretchen, and Gloria... geez, he had rounded up all his cronies! They were all perched in a semi-circle around the edge of her landing, snickering to one another as they played a rough game of pass-the-pony.

But the pony they were tossing around wasn't Rainbow Dash. Gilda identified the source of that squeaking noise as the flight of gryphons shoved a quivering ball of yellow feathers and pink hair back and forth across the platform.

Gus looked up and grinned. “Hey look, haymuncher! There's your friend Gilda! Go give her a kiss!” He pushed her to the ground at Gilda's feet.

Gilda peered down her beak at the pathetic creature. That was the loser from the market, right? The one with the ducks. What was she doing here?

The pony trembled on the ground. Judging from the alignment of her feathers and all the bruises under her yellow fur, Gus and his gang had been at their little game for quite a while before they knocked on her door.

“What do you want?” Gilda barked.

The pony's hooves shook. “I-I-I'm... I-I-I...” she stammered, but couldn't form any coherent words.

Gilda rolled her eyes, and knelt down to lower her voice so that the pony could hear. “Listen, twerp,” she hissed, “you woke me up from my nap. If you don't spit it out, I'm gonna just go back inside and let Gus and his friends get back to their fun. Do you hear me?”

Fear danced in the pony's eyes. She swallowed and nodded. “I... I'm sorry,” she said.

Gilda snorted. “Just get on with it!”

The pony shook her head once more. “No... I-I mean, that's why I'm here.” She rubbed her eyes, and looked up at Gilda. “To apologize.”

“Apologize?” Gilda quirked an eyebrow.

“Wh-when you left, you were so upset,” the pony explained. “M-maybe it was just chance that all the pranks happened to you, but...” She put her hooves under herself and slowly stood up. “B-but it was your party, and if you weren't having fun, we should have found out what was wrong. I'm sorry that you didn't like your party, and... and I'm sorry you and Rainbow got mad at each other.” Without warning, the pony wrapped Gilda in a hug. “I'm sorry!”

Gilda stood frozen in shock. Of all the stupidest reasons... this pony came all the way out here, let herself be an equine pinball for Gus and his gang, all to tell her that she's sorry?

Gretchen sniggered from her perch. “Aw, isn't that precious? The ponies hurt Gilda's feelings!” The other gryphons burst out laughing.

Gilda felt a surge of hot blood rise to her cheeks. She shoved the pony back. “You are some kind of dense, you know that?” she snarled.

The pony's jaw trembled. “I... I... I”

“You think I give a flying feather about Rainbow Dash, or any of you ponies and your stupid parties?”

A terrified whimper rose in the pony's throat.

Gilda grabbed her by the nape of the neck. “Get out of here!” she bellowed, heaving her into the air. “Don't ever let me see you again! Got it?”

The pony's yellow wings snapped open with a yelp, and she scrambled to gain altitude and distance.

A smirk played on Gus's beak as he watched her hobble toward the horizon. “Hey,” he said, nudging Gretchen in the side. He picked up a stone the size of a grapefruit. “I'll bet you two fish I can knock her out of the sky.”

Gilda's eyes fell to the sharp rocks far below. The mental image of the pony plummeting to the ground came unbidden to her mind.

Gus cocked his claw back, lining up his shot. Gilda's eyes darted back and forth between him, the pony, and the ground.

She spun and kicked him in the ribs with her back paw.

“Oof!” His throw went wide, the stone flying harmlessly into the hills. “What's the big deal, Gilda?” Gus rubbed his ribs tenderly.

Gilda ran a talon through her crest. “You owe me two fish,” she said.

The other gryphons pointed at Gus and laughed, exchanging high-fives and talon-bumps. The yellow speck shrank unmolested into the distance.

21: Agoraphobia [Dark]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as a horror series.))

Noise.

Terrible, deafening, suffocating noise. Fluttershy was pounded, beaten upon by wave after wave of cacophonous noise. She could not hear herself think. She couldn't think, not with the incessant, overpowering buzz that assaulted her ears.

Perhaps she could handle it, ignore the sheer volume of it if it were just meaningless static, but it wasn't. It was words. Ponies having conversations. Shouting, whispering, whistling, humming. All of it was on the verge of coherence, and no matter her efforts to tune it out, Fluttershy's brain twisted itself in knots trying to sort out the babble. It would be rude if somepony was trying to tell her something and she was caught not listening to them.

Fluttershy forced her eyes open.

She immediately regretted it. A swirling blur of colors filled her vision. Some part of her mind helplessly tried to identify all the bright shapes as coherent things. Pony, brown, stallion. A barrel of pears, green and brown. Pegasus, white, mare.

Her breaths came short and shallow. The straps of her saddlebags dug into her sides. It's just the market, she told herself. It's just the market. An open-air market. Completely safe. Nothing to fear.

The deafening buzz crowded out her feeble attempts at reassuring herself. The crowds closed in around her. She was going to get stepped on, and it would be her fault for being in the way! There wasn't enough air. Everypony was too close, and she couldn't breathe. The space around her shrank, leaving her with a diminishing circle of hard cobbles and a fading patch of sky above giving way to the encroaching bodies.

“Ma'am?” A voice bubbled to the surface of the soupy pool of sound.

Fluttershy looked up into a pair of eyes. They stared at her, probing her for weakness, judging her sins. She withered beneath their gaze.

“Ma'am, that will be four bits.”

Somepony stepped on Fluttershy's tail. A terrified squeak leaped out of her throat. Before she could bring any sort of will to bear on them, her legs carried her in a yellow streak, fleeing the market square.

As the crowds thinned, Fluttershy slowed, finally coming to a stop to lean against a plaster wall in a deserted alley. She gasped for air, licking her dry lips. The claustrophobic heaps of bodies in the market had been too much for her. Here, she could breathe. Here she could think.

With the return of clarity to her thoughts, she realized what the shopkeeper with that pair of eyes had been saying to her. Four bits. Oh, Celestia, she had been buying something! She'd left without paying; she was a thief! The tightness returned to her chest. She tore her saddlebags off her back and began digging through them. Perhaps if she gave the items back, they might forgive her. Maybe they wouldn't send the guards to come lock her up forever.

Her teeth chattered together as she realized she didn't even remember what she had bought. How could she return the item if she didn't know what it was? How could she even find the market stall again in that terrifying miasma of ponies and products?

The silence of the alley pressed in around her, and she began to miss the crowd's roar by comparison. The market had been terrifying, but at least there were others there. Here in the alley, she was all alone. Fluttershy sank to her haunches, her hooves trembling. Alone. The word by itself shook her. She did not dare contemplate the full extent of its meaning. She was alone, and vulnerable, and lost, and... what was that??

Her ears shot up as a set of hooves echoed through her alley. She wasn't alone. There was somepony here with her! Fluttershy dove behind a barrel. It couldn't possibly be anypony good out here stalking the alleys. All the good ponies were in the markets, shouting and whispering and laughing with each other. The only sort of ponies that came out to deserted alleys blocks and blocks away were the sort that stole things and left without paying.

She wanted to go back to being alone. Alone was good. Alone was great. There was nothing wrong with alone. Just please, oh please let this other pony just pass on by and leave her alone!

Fluttershy held her breath. She tried not to think, for fear she would think too loudly and give herself away. Her heart hammered against the inside of her chest, screaming at her to flee. The hoofsteps drew nearer, and it was all she could do to keep from obeying that instinct. It wouldn't do her any good. She wasn't fast, or strong, and if she tried to run, this frightening alley-pony would doubtlessly catch her. Her only hope was to hold still and maybe they would mistake her for a heap of trash somepony left outside.

No such luck. The hooves stopped right next to her. This was it. The end of the line. Somehow she had always known it would end like this, at the hooves of some wandering thug in a dirty backstreet.

“Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy looked up at the thug. They were awfully pink for a thug, and they wore a smile that seemed a lot more genuine than the smirk she expected to find on the face of a street tough. “P-Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie helped her to her hooves. “Fluttershy, what are you doing out here?”

Fluttershy's chin quivered. “I... I...”

Pinkie pulled her into a hug. “You look like you could use a nice, big cupcake. Come on, let's go to Sugarcube Corner.”

Author's Note

Sometimes, I think I identify with Fluttershy a little too well...

22: Dangerous Mission [Dark]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as a war story.))

The blood wasn't what scared Fluttershy. She had known blood before the war. She knew its color, knew its coppery smell. There was just more of it now, spurts and gouts and pools instead of the little drops of it she had known a lifetime ago, bandaging up hurt birds and field mice. It was just much more of the same, and the blood wasn't what bothered her.

It wasn't the fire, either. The haze of smoke that never truly left, and made it hard to tell night from day. In the first days of the war, she had been afraid of all the fire, but that fear had run itself dry. It was just a part of her world now, oily black plumes choking out the sky and a persistent red-orange glow on the horizon. Fire was nothing more than a tool, something to warm up next to during the freezing nights, to cauterize wounds before they bled out.

The screaming wasn't even what scared her. She would always hear somepony wailing, somewhere. Sometimes, there would be a loud bang, and the screams would suddenly stop. Sometimes, they would keep going at a newer, more frantic pitch. But that wasn't what scared Fluttershy.

It wasn't the claustrophobic trenches, filled with mud and bodies. It wasn't the haunted look she saw in ponies' eyes when she passed by; glassy, dull, halfway to joining the unseeing stares of the dead among them. It wasn't the constant threat of another enemy air raid, or another brutal unicorn firebombing.

War wasn't what terrified Fluttershy. What terrified her was how damn good she was at it.

Infiltration, that was her job. Before the war, her job had been taking care of animals, but there were no animals here, besides the ones that marched off with spears and swords clenched in their teeth and iron plates on their hooves, seeking to kill one another.

Infiltration was easy. It just meant being quiet, and Fluttershy excelled at being quiet. It was amazing how many things a pony could do just by being quiet. She could report enemy movements so that Twilight and her unicorns knew where to launch their deadly volleys of magic. She could slip into enemy territory and sabotage their supply lines. Hunger cut far deeper than any sword, and she did not dare think about how many of the bodies she passed in the trenches were there because of the depots she burned.

The one thing that cut deeper than hunger, though, was fear. Fluttershy knew about fear. Fear was her constant companion. Fear was her guardian, and her weapon, and the thing she curled up with when she slept at night. Fluttershy understood fear, knew how it worked, knew how to use it. A fresh contingent, well-equipped and ready to make a flanking charge would wake up the morning they were supposed to advance, find all of their commanding officers missing, and break into chaos. A fortified position, dug in deep to defy any kind of offensive movement, would quickly empty when a sweet-smelling green fog fills its corridors.

Her coat color might have seemed to be a disadvantage when slipping from place to place under the cover of darkness, but it really wasn't. In the mud of the trenches, everypony's coat was the same gray-brown. Rarity would have been appalled to see what had become of her mane. Cropped nearly to her skull, and caked with mud. If she were here...

She shook her head. She couldn't afford to think about that. She had her mission. Stay quiet, watch, listen. Do what she can to make sure that the good ponies win, and the bad ponies lose.

It got harder to tell every day which was which.

He was a general, apparently. That was what her briefing had told her. He was a general, and critically important to the enemy's plans. What he was doing so close to the front, Fluttershy could not guess, but she was not a general, she was an infiltrator. She did not make strategies, like him. She waited, and stayed quiet, and did what she could to make the enemy half as afraid as she was.

He must have been near the front for a long time, because his guards were exhausted. They were half asleep, and it was hardly a challenge for her to sneak past them. Her hooves fell silently on the packed earth as she crept up to his prone form.

He looked peaceful, there on his cot. He did not look like a pony who made a living of ordering the deaths of thousands. The way his sheets were twisted, she could see that his cutie mark was a windmill; he had probably been a miller before the war. But a glance around the room told her that he was indeed a general now. Maps were laid out on the table, full of pins. Coded correspondences laid next to an enchanted decoding ring. A faded green jacket hung on a hook displaying rows and rows of medals he had earned for killing ponies.

Fluttershy slipped a thin-bladed knife out from between its hiding place among her feathers. One throat, and the end of the war would become months closer. One throat to save thousands of throats. To bring back blue skies and green grass, and maybe some day she might look in the mirror and not need to scream at what she sees.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, as quiet as a knife in the dark.

23: Chasing Butterflies [Adventure] [A.U.]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as cyberpunk.))

A pony ain't nothing more than a lump of muscle and bones.

My granny told me that once. She's as sweet an old mare as you'll ever meet in this world, but one of the hardest lessons this century has taught me is that grannies are wrong. Love never solved nopony's problems, wishin' on stars just gets you a sore neck, and a pony is so much less than muscle and bone.

Take my friend Rainbow, for example. She lost a wing in a tram accident, and the doctors gave her a new one made of metal and ceramic. Trouble was, it didn't balance well with her good wing, so she had them lop that one off and replace it, too. She ain't the mess of feathers they hauled out the back of the hospital. She's that steel streak rattling the windows on all the buildings in the lower commerce district. Muscle and bones don't mean squat to what a pony is.

I keep telling myself that while I do my best to stare down the lump of muscle and bones that's scowling at me from the other side of the counter. My brother's big, but this guy looks like he could toss him like a beach ball. He's got real old, rusted prosthetics slapped on him, making him blend into the junk he's trying to sell, and he's got one cybernetic eye that keeps flipping colors while he stares at me. It gives me the impression he's winking at me, and it don't do nothing to make him any less intimidating.

I cough to clear my throat. “I, uh...” Damn mouth's gone dry. “I'm lookin' fer some celery.”

The eye flips colors again. “Try a supermarket, kid. This is a scrap store.” His voice don't quite match up with the way he looks. Too high, too nasal.

I get a bit angry, and I bang my forehoof on his counter. “I know what I'm lookin' for, dangit! I heard you got it.”

He stares down at me. That dang eye flips colors one more time. Finally a grin spreads across his ugly face. “Ah. You must be the one Hob Nob said was lookin' for some Princess, aren't you?”

I push my hat back and nod. “You got it or not?”

The big guy glances around the shop. It's empty except for me, but he still takes a suspicious sweep around the room. Apparently satisfied, he bumps a switch beneath his counter, and a cool hiss fills the air as a compartment opens up underneath.

“Can't be too careful,” he said, pulling out a small black box. “Authorities've been cracking down on this stuff. Ain't hardly worth keeping around anymore.”

“This'll make it worth it,” I tell him, slapping down almost half a year's pay. I don't need to count out the bits; I know the going rate for Princess by heart.

His grin broadens as I slip the box into my saddlebag. “Can I interest you in any accessories?” he asks, gesturing toward a rack of items that were a bit... erotic in nature. “You know what they say about P. It gives you wings...”

I scowl at him. “Have a nice day,” I say tersely, and walk out.

I don't stop 'til I get home, locked up safe in my room. Only then do I take the box out and open it up.

'And gets you horny,' is the other half of that saying, if you were wondering. The libido is the first thing the little metal rings work on. It makes them real addictive; that's why they're a controlled substance. Well, that and the fact that if you're not careful they'll make your brain leak out your ears. Lots of ponies went into comas or died chasing some kind of high off of them when they were first invented.

I ain't looking for no rush, though. I'm after something different. I flip the things on, and the first thing I see lets me know I'm on the right track. It was just a flash in a jumble of sounds and images and thoughts, but I know it was there. A pair of pink butterfly wings.

See, Princess wasn't designed to be some kind of drug. The point of it was to form a connection, build a bridge between the minds of everypony that had a set. That means I'm sharing a headspace right now with one hay of a lot of addicts and burnouts sitting on a curb somewhere trying to forget their crappy lives.

But it's the only way for me to find her.

They tell me that she's gone. That I should give up on her, because she disappeared, and ponies that disappear the way she disappeared don't ever come back. But I know she has access to Princess. I know that whenever I get my hooves on a set, I see her cutie mark everywhere. She's out there, somewhere, and she's calling for me.

I know I'm close. I just have to follow the butterflies, and I'll find her. Maybe not her bones or flesh, but I'll find her.

I'm comin' for you, Fluttershy. And maybe I don't know how just yet, but I'm gonna bring you home, just you see.

Author's Note

Granted, this one has got more to do with Applejack than Fluttershy, but it still counts.

Also, this cyberpunk-verse was a lot of fun to worldbuild for.

24: Bringing In the Experts [Comedy]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as a home and garden show.))

Fluttershy's cottage burned down.

It happened more often than you would think. While she lived a quiet lifestyle and was quite good about fire safety, the fact remained that she lived in Ponyville, where buildings had a frequent tendency to end up under the foot of some hundred-foot monster, or eaten to the frame by parasprites, or in the path of some unstoppable heat ray courtesy of an out-of-control experiment of the town's librarian. The town always looked fresh and new because the paint hadn't yet dried since rebuilding from the last disaster.

This time it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Determined to make up for their failure as matchmakers the previous Hearts and Hooves day, they had decided to aim for matchstick-making instead. Based on advice from a book that, in hindsight, Twilight really should not have lent out to the young fillies, they had gone to Fluttershy's home to acquire some bat droppings as an ingredient. To make a long story short, they proved true the common wisdom around Ponyville that anything that might potentially combust definitely will when in proximity to the Crusaders.

Fortunately, Fluttershy's animals were all well-trained for fire drills. They all made it out of the place without sustaining any injuries other than a few soot-smudged faces.

The cottage, however, was gone. Fluttershy stood by with the fillies and her friends—pony and animal alike—and watched on as the last blackened stumps of what had been her home finally collapsed to the ground in a puff of ash.

Sweetie Belle's lip trembled. “I'm sorry!” she wailed. “I didn't know it would spread so fast! Now you're homeless, and it's all my fault!”

Fluttershy put a wing at her back and smiled gently. “It's okay,” she told her. “I know you didn't mean to, and I won't be homeless. I know some experts, and they'll have it rebuilt before the sun sets.”

“Experts like that can't come cheap, darling,” Rarity said. “Please, let me pay for it. If I had been keeping a better eye on the girls, this wouldn't have happened.”

“That's very kind of you to offer, Rarity,” Fluttershy said, “but they don't ever ask for bits. All they need is the wood to do it with.”

Applejack rubbed her jaw suspiciously. “I don't know, sugarcube. That sounds a mite too good to be true. What's the catch? They do shoddy work, or somethin'?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, they're the best builders I know.”

Applejack remained unconvinced. “How come we've never met these carpenter friends of yours?”

“Oh, you've met them,” she replied. “There they are, now.”

A troupe of beavers waddled up, noses twitching as they followed the smoke in the air.

Fluttershy grinned and fluttered over to greet them. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said to them.

They chittered and squeaked in reply.

“Yes,” she said. “We'll have to wait for the embers to cool before we can clear the space and start building, but we can start collecting wood from the forest in the meantime.” She looked up at her pony friends. “Um, they won't mind if you all help with that part, if you'd like.

25: Title [Random] [Dark] [Romance]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as a surrealist tragedy.))

Fluttershy owned a doll once, as a filly. Or her doll once owned a filly, perhaps. The semantics were arguable, and important enough for the common pony to shrug and ignore as they proceeded with their daily toil. The fact of supreme relevance was that she only possessed the doll once, and did not ever increase her ownings to two or more.

Her doll was a princess, for all fillies possess a princess. From birth up to marehood, they are ever gifted with something to smile and curtsey at, an idol before which to bow and scrape and plead with to never take away their family, even if their heinous crime warrants.

Fluttershy's princess was her doll, and she loved her princess with all of her heart. Fluttershy's doll was her princess, and she feared her doll with all her heart. She loved to fear her princess doll.

Every night she would play with her. She would look out her window in search of her precious possession and find her staring down at her from the sky, silver eye locked in the stone above her forever fixed on the filly she owned. The princess doll would point at Fluttershy's ratty feathers and tease her about her tail extensions and laugh and laugh at her until it drove her beneath her covers and she cried. They would have such fun.

And in the morning, Fluttershy's puffy, fun-stained eyes would chase her princess doll back into the toy chest, not to be taken back out until the next evening. Mother was adamant about this point; there would be no playing while the sun ruled the sky.

Fluttershy played her games with her princess doll for years. The princess doll would hurl rocks at her and call her a forsaken child and wish aloud for her to die in the streets, and Fluttershy would bow and curtsey for her, and thank her for her royal visit to her tea sets. Never a more wholesome relationship had been bred between a princess and her filly.

And then one night, it was day. No, one day, it was night. The semantics again tore asunder the truth of the statement, for it was either night or day, but not the one it was supposed to be. Fluttershy searched for her princess doll, but found naught but a dead orb sighing listlessly at the star-pocked sky.

She no longer had a princess, for she was a mare now. The filly her doll had lovingly beaten and screamed at was gone, and therefore her princess faded, too. Where fillies had princesses, mares had only dark forests and winding paths that led to a manticore's gullet. So Fluttershy smiled and curtseyed at her dark forest path and gave it the worship it was due. Five other non-fillies followed at her heels, and together they let darkness swallow them.

But at the end of the path, lo! Fluttershy beheld her princess once again! Not disappeared, but fully fleshed! Clad in silver and black and night and the blood of dreams, Fluttershy's princess stood. Her heart leapt and she cried silent and still for joy, for once more could her beloved princess doll torment her and prickle her with merciless needles. She could be a filly once more, and live in eternal night.

Laughingly, generously, truly, loyally, and filled with the spark of togetherness, Fluttershy slew her princess, casting her broken body into the void and leaving only a pale shell behind to weep at sisters and bow and scrape and smile and curtsey.

So cruel was this shadow, this not-princess. She did not bark at Fluttershy, nor berate her for her foibles. So monstrous was this thing that was not her princess that she did not even strike Fluttershy when she drew near. The lamentable shade instead wrapped her in soft hooves and shed tears and thanked her.

And weeks and years and decades passed and the not-princess refused to sink into her toy chest, even though the morning had clearly come. She wandered with regularity every time she had the whim, out of her stone dollhouse and down the cloud-lit road to visit the mare that had been the filly that had owned the princess she was not. She would sit on sandy beaches or in hammocks with Fluttershy, and speak not in angry shouts but loathsome kind words and pleasantries.

Over cups of tea and bargains and bets, they spoke. Not-princess and not-filly. And upon one day or one night, Fluttershy set her cup aside and let her hooves tremble, for she had dared to kiss her not-princess. There was the fear. There was the love. Her heart cried out in ecstasy, and then fell still, for she was a filly again, and she had her doll princess.

And then she woke.

Author's Note

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed writing this. Surrealism has a bit of charm to it, I guess.

Also, I have now shipped Luna in three out of the four compilations I have. So there's that.

26: Magical Super Gossamer Squad Go! [Adventure] [Comedy]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as a Magical Girl series.))

Fluttershy was in a field picking flowers or something equally appropriate to her established character. Twilight was there with her, because she was her friend, and she had nothing better to do, and hey, those flowers were pretty tasty. The two of them had a lovely time basking in the sun and enjoying the fact that there was not a world-ending threat they needed to get together and put down at the moment.

Alas, their peaceful frolicking was not to last, for with a sudden gust of wind, a blue-gray pegasus arrived on the scene, her pale teal mane tied with a bow. She skidded to a stop, panting.

Fluttershy dropped her basket of flowers. “F-Flitter? What's wrong?”

Flitter gasped for breath. “Fluttershy!” she said. “Come quick! Attack... town hall! Big!”

“Oh my!” Fluttershy's eyes widened. “Is it bad?”

Flitter nodded. “We need to hurry!”

Twilight rose to her hooves and joined the pair of pegasus ponies. “What's going on, Fluttershy? What's she talking about?”

Fluttershy coughed into her hoof. “Oh... well, you see, I'm sort of part of a group of ponies that is supposed to fight off monsters. I'm sorry, Twilight, I should have told you.”

Twilight snorted. “Well, yeah, I knew that. I mean, I was there for the whole Elements of Harmony thing.”

“No,” said Fluttershy, shaking her head. “I mean, yes, there is that, but this is something different.”

“Come on, Fluttershy! I don't know how long Bumble can hold it by herself!” Flitter jumped up and hovered in the air.

“I'm sorry, Twilight,” Fluttershy apologized. “I wish I had time to explain, but they need me now.” She flew off after Flitter.

Twilight watched the two of them fly away. A puzzled frown played on her lips. This was something she needed to investigate. Fortunately, she knew where they were heading. She powered up her horn. Being the most magical unicorn in Ponyville had its perks sometimes.

With a bright flash, Twilight teleported to the town hall.

...where she was immediately almost stepped on by a giant, chitinous claw. Twilight stumbled back with a yelp as she looked up at the creature that had nearly squashed her. An enormous green insect—a mantis, if she was not mistaken—towered over her, ripping out chunks of the municipal building with its spiked claws. It wore a loose white robe and carried a book in one claw that was twice as big as she was.

“Repent!” the mantis cried in a booming voice that shook the ground. “The Praying Mantis is upon you!”

Around its head buzzed a pegasus in a ridiculous black and yellow costume. “This is a no-preaching zone!” the pegasus shouted, batting at the mantis's antennae.

“Bumble!” Flitter arrived on the scene. Somewhere between here and the meadow, she had changed into an elaborate costume with a long, sectioned tail and transparent extensions on her wings. “Any luck?”

“He's too big,” Bumble replied. “My sting-attack just bounces right off his carapace!”

The Praying Mantis laughed loudly. “You cannot penetrate the armor of faith!” He lashed out at the two ponies, who whirled out of the way of the clumsy blow.

Bumble righted herself in the air. “Tell me you brought Fluttershy.”

“I'm here!”

Twilight's jaw dropped as she turned toward her friend's voice. Fluttershy also wore a brightly colored costume, but while Bumble's dress was bee-themed and Flitter's was a dragonfly, Fluttershy's dress billowed out in the shape of a colorful butterfly. Twilight was so surprised that she almost neglected to step out of the way as the mantis's claw came down.

“Finally!” Bumble pointed a hoof at the Praying Mantis. “Stun him with your Butterfly Hypnosis!”

Fluttershy nodded and turned toward the monster. “Um, excuse me, mister, could you please look at me?”

“These compound eyes of mine see all of you ponies and your sinful ways!” bellowed the mantis.

“Oh,” said Fluttershy. “Um, okay.” She flapped her wings, and the colors shifted in her costume. “Floating gentle on the breeze,” she incanted, “the butterfly's tranquility finds you.”

The mantis's mandibles hung slack. “I... hellfire... pretty colors... I believe... I will meditate for a time.” He swayed gently in the breeze, spellbound.

“Now, Flitter, use your Dragonfly Strike!” shouted Bumble.

Flitter saluted and took off into the air. After reaching a certain distance, she looped back, swooping low and fast. “On quick wings, the dragonfly strikes without warning!” She rammed into the mantis's leg, sweeping it out from under him. The Praying Mantis fell backwards onto the cobbled streets.

Bumble flew up to join the two of them. “Now's our chance! Go!”

The three pegasus ponies circled around each other, invoking some kind of chant. “On gossamer wings we fly, defending the innocent and preserving the balance of nature! In the name of the swarms, in the name of fluttering wings, terrorize others no more!”

Twilight shielded her eyes as a bright, tri-colored beam lanced out from the center of their formation, striking the prone mantis. “Noooooo!” the Praying Mantis shrieked as the beam hit him. He shrank, from his hundred-foot stature, to the size of a house, to the size of a pony, to the size of a housecat, until finally he was reduced to the size of a regular mantis.

The three costumed mares landed near the insect. Twilight could hear his tiny, squeaky voice hurling litanies of curses and threats at them.

Fluttershy produced a glass jar, and scooped him up into it. “I'll see to it he goes back to the forest,” she said, screwing a hole-filled lid onto the top. She gave the other two a smile. “Until next time?”

“Until next time,” Flitter and Bumble agreed. They exchanged hoof-bumps and went their separate ways.

27: Jailbird Singin' [Comedy]

((Prompt: Re-imagine MLP: FiM as a courtroom drama.))

“Will the defendant please rise.” Judge Gavel peered down from his high seat at the head of the courtroom. Fluttershy had seen him around town once or twice before, and he had never seemed like a terribly imposing figure. A little chubby, even.

However, in his wig and robes, he now gave the impression of an unassailable mountain. His lips were pressed in a thin, humorless scowl. His hoof tapped impatiently against the corner of his podium.

Swallowing hard, Fluttershy rose.

“We find the defendant, Miss Fluttershy, guilty of non-participation in a musical sequence,” he declared.

Fluttershy squeaked, covering her eyes with her forelegs.

“Your honor!” Twilight shot to her hooves. Her mane was tied into a bun, and she wore a pair of sleek reading glasses. “That is for the jury to decide,” she objected, pointing her hoof toward the jury box, where twelve randomly selected Ponyville citizens sat, sleepy looks painted across their faces.

Gavel grunted and glanced at the jury. “Well?”

A few ponies shrugged. The rest looked on disinterestedly.

“It's for them to decide,” Twilight repeated, “after they have heard all the evidence!”

Judge Gavel rubbed his temples. “Fine, fine. Just get on with it, then. I've got lunch with Mayor Mare today.”

The prosecutor, none other than Applejack's neighbor Golden Harvest, took this as her cue to call her first witness. “The prosecution calls Bon Bon to the stand.”

A cream-colored earth pony mare was escorted to the front of the room and sworn in.

“Now then, Miss Bon,” Golden Harvest said, straightening her cravat. “Let's get the first thing out of the way to circumvent any kind of distraction tactics on the part of the defense. Bon Bon isn't legally your name, is it?”

Bon Bon hesitated for a minute, then shook her head. “No.”

“It is, in fact, Sweetie Drops, is it not?” A wave of murmurs and snickers passed through the courtroom.

A blush burned bright on the witness's cheeks. “...Yes,” she grumbled.

Golden Harvest cleared her throat. “Can you tell the court why you go by Bon Bon?”

“Because Sweetie Drops is a stupid name!” Bon Bon/Sweetie Drops cried.

The carrot farmer-turned-prosecutor smiled. “Thank you. Now that that's cleared up, why don't you tell us about last Tuesday?”

Bon Bon took a deep breath. “Well, I was out watering my flowers when, as you all know, Lyra had her song.” Everypony in the room nodded; Tuesday's musical outburst had been one of the bigger spontaneous productions the town had done that month. “I of course joined in, juggling my flowerpots while Flitter and Cloudchaser flew loops above me. But then I looked over to the side, and... and...” Tears welled up in the mare's eyes. “I saw Fluttershy just mouthing the words! She wasn't singing along, she just made her lips move! I've never seen anything so shameful! To think I once wanted her autograph!”

Fluttershy shrank beneath her mane, casting a sidelong glance at Twilight.

Twilight gave Fluttershy a reassuring smile. She took off her glasses and folded them as Golden Harvest ceded the floor to her. “Miss Drops,” she said. “Oh, sorry, Miss Bon.”

Bon Bon glared up at Twilight.

Twilight responded with a disarming smile. “I'm not your enemy, Miss Bon.” She leaned in close to Bon Bon, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Iamgoingtoaskyouaverysimplequestion,saywhatifyoudon'tunderstand.”

Bon Bon blinked. “What?”

Twilight slammed her hoof on the wooden table. “Ha!” She turned to the jury, pointing her hoof at Bon Bon. “If she can't hear and respond to a simple question spoken directly to her, how could Miss Bon possibly have heard whether my client was singing or not? She's practically deaf!”

“What?” Bon Bon shook her head vigorously. “I'm not deaf!”

“That will be all, Miss Bon,” Twilight said, putting her glasses back on. “The defense calls Fluttershy to the stand.”

“But I'm not deaf!” Bon Bon objected. “I do voice work as a side-job! My hearing is perfect!”

“I'm sorry,” Twilight said, raising one eyebrow. “You probably didn't hear me the first time. Can we get a hoof-sign interpreter in here to tell Miss Bon she can leave the stand, please?”

Fluttershy kept her head low as the bailiff dragged Bon Bon off of the stand and escorted her up to replace her.

Twilight gave her a supportive pat on the hoof. “Now then, I only have a couple of questions for you, Fluttershy. First, did you participate in Lyra's musical sequence on Tuesday?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Did you sing?”

“Yes.”

Twilight cast a glance at the jury. “That ought to be enough to prove the innocence of my client,” she said, “but for the sake of completeness, I would like to ask you one more thing, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy sank in her seat. “Okay.”

“Will you please sing for the court?”

Fluttershy swallowed hard. “O-okay.” A few notes rang from an unseen piano.

“I'm sorry if I'm not so loud.
My voice doesn't carry so well in a crowd.
But just because I sing quietly doesn't mean I don't participate.
Sometimes the softest voices can carry the most weight...”

Three verses, two refrains and an instrumental section during which Rarity had a softshoe dance-off with Berry Punch later, everypony found their seats again. Twilight gave the courtroom a satisfied grin. “The defense rests,” she said, falling backwards into her chair.

Author's Note

This went overtime. I could probably have cut out the Bon Bon/Sweetie Drops thing and that would have brought me in under the limit, but I was in a kind of stream-of-thought mode when I was writing it.

*Shrug* I hope no one takes me to court over it.

28: What We Have [Sad] [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: We may not have wings, and we may not have horns—but we’ll show you just what earth ponies do have!))

There were feasts, and there were Hearth's Warming feasts. And then there were Hearth's Warming feasts at Sweet Apple Acres.

The previous year, the traditional Apple family feast had been delayed on account of Applejack's invitation to participate in the play in Canterlot. This year, they seemed determined to make up for that. The table creaked under the weight of all the food piled on top of it. Every imaginable recipe for apples was represented—there were apple turnovers, and apple fritters, and apple salads, and apple pot pies... somepony had even figured a way to make apple gravy, which was much tastier than it might sound, drizzled over the top of steamed potatoes.

Gathered around the table to enjoy the diverse array of apples was a diverse array of Apples. It wasn't quite a whole family reunion, but it was close, as Apples from as far away as Baltimare and Vanhoover filled every available seat. The farmhouse had run out of chairs to set out, so many ponies sat on overturned baskets or wooden stumps. All of them laughed merrily, shared stories and sang.

Hearth's Warming at Sweet Apple Acres was all about family, and there was lots of family to go around.

Applejack pushed herself away from the table as she heard a knock at the front door. “Wonder who that is?” she wondered aloud. “Maybe Uncle Julius changed his mind and came after all?”

“If it is, ask him if he brought his harmonica,” said a cousin in a wide-brimmed hat. “We could get a real song started in here!”

Applejack grinned and trotted around the corner to the door. She grasped the handle in her teeth and pulled. Her eyebrows raised as she saw the shivering form outside. “Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy tugged on her scarf, pulling it tight against the wind. Her ears perked at the sound of laughter within the farmhouse. “H-hello, Applejack. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”

The chorus of a carol rang from the dining room. It sounded like everypony was joining in. “We were just havin' dinner,” Applejack said.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” Fluttershy's ears sank. “Of course you're having dinner, it's Hearth's Warming! I'm sorry, I'll come back tomorrow.” She turned around, squinting as she faced into the wind.

“Hang on just a second,” Applejack said.

Fluttershy paused.

“What are you doin' out here, Fluttershy?” Snow began to drift inside the doorway, but Applejack held the door open. “How come you ain't celebratin' with your family?”

Fluttershy continued facing outward into the wintery fields. “I... most of my animal friends are hibernating,” she said.

Applejack's eyes narrowed. “That ain't what I asked. Where's your folks, Fluttershy?”

The pegasus was silent for a long while. Slowly, her head sank. “I... don't know.” An orange hoof found its way to her back, drawing a short sob from her. “I haven't spoken with them since... since I came to Ponyville.”

Applejack's eyes widened. “That long? Sugar, what happened?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Nothing. It's normal, for us.” She raised her wings briefly, then dropped them again. “When you leave the nest, you just... don't go back.” She shrugged, and took another step away from the door. “I'm sorry, Applejack. I shouldn't dump this on you. I'll see you tomorrow.” She spread her wings.

Applejack stepped out onto the icy porch and wrapped her forelegs around her. “That ain't no way to do things,” she said, hugging her friend tight. “C'mon inside, hon. Get yourself a hot meal an' sing with us.”

“I can't,” Fluttershy said. “It's just for your family. I can't intrude.”

Applejack pulled her towards the door. “Nuh-uh. Tonight, hon, you're an Apple.”

29: Who Are You, Pinkie? [Romance]

((Prompt: Who is Pinkie Pie, really?))

Who are you?

How can I ever answer that question, Pinkie? You are so many things, so terribly many things all at once, and I don't think I could ever say them all.

You are loud. Not just in your voice, but in everything about you. You eat loud, you walk loud, you live loud. Every moment with you is a lesson in just how noisy life can be. You are a one mare marching band trampling through my head. I can't hear myself think when you're near me. I can't hear myself think when I think of you.

And yes, that makes you obnoxious. There, I said it, you are obnoxious, Pinkie Pie. I can't handle you and all of your parties and your games and your jokes and all your noise. I am just not made for the kind of fun you bring. I am a peaceful, quiet pony, and you come in here turning everything upside down and sometimes, I'm sorry, I just wish you would leave me alone.

But you are stubborn. Celestia, but you are stubborn, Pinkie Pie. I would say you're as stubborn as Applejack, but truth be told, I think you're even worse than her when you get your mind set on something. You get an idea in your head, and there is just never any going back from there. When the world according to Pinkie Pie is different from the world according to the world, it isn't ever you who bends first. You'll bounce all the way to Tartarus and back to get your way, and you'll have that grin on your face the whole time. Chances are, you'll drag me with you the whole way, whether I want to come or not.

I am afraid of you, Pinkie Pie. I never know for sure what to expect from you, and it scares me. Will the 'surprise' you say you have for me be a new tea set, or an adventure to some volcano lair? When you say you want to do something for me, do you mean hatching scorpion eggs or a kiss on the cheek? I can't tell, you're always smiling one way or the other.

But maybe I need that uncertainty in my life. While I've never been able to guess what comes next, the one reliable constant is that it's always been for the better. Surprises can be startling, but at least with you, they're always pleasant surprises.

And you work so hard to make them that way. You never stop, you never give up until you've put a smile on my face. Even if it takes a trip to Tartarus and back to do it.

For every time I've ever wished you weren't at my side, I've been ten times as glad that you were. You do for my life what I would never be brave enough to do for myself. Without you there to pester me, drag me to parties and make me have a good time, I would surely close myself off and hide in my little cottage by the woods. You open me up and let me actually live my life.

I need your noise. You are loud, and it makes up for my silence. We make a beautiful duet, you and I. Cacophony and quiet.

Who are you, Pinkie Pie? The answer to that is so very complicated, and yet really, so simple.

You are the mare I lov—

“Fluttershy? Are you alright?”

“Hm? Oh, I'm fine, Pinkie. Why do you ask?”

“'Cause I said something, and then you just kinda stared off into space for a few minutes.”

“Oh. I'm sorry, Pinkie. What was it you said?”

“Oh nothing. I was just being silly. I said, 'Who do you think I am?'”

“I think you're Pinkie Pie. And that's all I ever need you to be.”

30: Letter From a Coward [Sad]

((Prompt: Daddy's little girl.))

To my dearest daughter, Fluttershy:

One of the things that has kept me from writing this letter is that I don't know how I should start. Should I ask you how you're doing? Would that even mean anything, coming from me? Maybe I should start by telling you that I'm sorry? Sorry for not being there, for leaving your mother to raise you by herself? Sorry for all the birthdays I never saw, the talks we never had, sorry for the big, father-shaped hole I left in your life?

I am sorry. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I hadn't been such a coward. You deserve much, much better than that. I could go on with all the excuses I've told myself over the years—I wasn't ready to be a father, I would have messed it up worse by staying than by going, etc.—but the simple truth of the matter is that I was afraid. I was afraid, and all I know to do with fear is to run away. I am sorry your father is such a coward.

I saw you in the papers. Saved the world from eternal night. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read about it. I wondered for a while if it was maybe some other Fluttershy, because I couldn't believe anypony related to me could be so brave. But there you were in the picture, with your friends and the Princess. I know I don't have the right to be, but I'm proud of you, Fluttershy. You've grown into an incredible mare.

I'm in the Guard now, myself. Your grandmother would be so proud of me; she always talked about “continuing the family tradition.” A recruiter found me in a bar and talked me into it. I wouldn't have guessed that the Guard needed ponies that were good at running away and hiding, but I guess that makes for a good scout. I spend a lot of time by myself outdoors, and it's nice. Quiet. Except, of course, when I come across an encroaching dragon; then I do what I do best and scamper out of there.

It's ironic, I guess, that I ran away from fatherhood into the safety of fighting dragons and minotaurs. Maybe you'll understand some day how much scarier the one is than the other. I just hope you don't do the same thing I did when that happens.

I'm not in any position to ask you for anything, Fluttershy, but I'm writing this letter because there's something I really need you to do. It's important, and I'll understand if you won't do it for me, but please, do it for yourself.

Don't be me. Be brave and strong, Fluttershy. Stand up for the ponies you love, and don't ever leave them on their own. Give them a shoulder to cry on, a couch to lay down on. Always be there for them, no matter how scared you might get.

Because without the ponies you love, you're all alone. Nothing is scarier than that. Take it from a professional scaredy-pony.

Give your mother a hug, but don't tell her it's from me, or she might not take it. Whatever happens, please know that I love you.

Sincerely,

PFC. Pansy IV

Author's Note

The end.

Keep an eye out for the next installment, An Apple A Day, coming to a FimFic near you!

5: Laughter is the Best Weapon [Adventure]

((Prompt: I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing at you.))

There were many that considered Fluttershy a coward, of sorts. This wasn't exactly true. Certainly, fear had a way of getting the better of her more often than others, which did seem like the mark of a coward. But the truth was, Fluttershy was simply more keenly aware than most of one simple fact: that she was part of a race of small, squishy, candy-colored creatures in a world teeming with nasty, sharp-toothed things that did not bother to take the time to distinguish between candy-colored creatures and actual candy.

This fact had never been fresher in her mind than it was now as one of such nasty, sharp-toothed things wrapped its black scaly coils around her legs, hissing.

“Why don't you scream, little pony?” the naga teased, her mouth full of needle-like fangs. “I've always wanted to have a pony sing for me.”

Fluttershy struggled against her bonds, but the serpentine coils just squeezed tighter.

The monster chuckled. “Of course, we both know it won't do you any good, screaming. You're the only pony for miles and miles.” She hissed each time she said the letter 's.' A long, clawed finger reached out to stroke Fluttershy's wing. “Little pegasus is a long way from her friends, isn't she?”

Fluttershy continued squirming uselessly. “Please,” she pleaded, looking up into her slitted eyes. “I'm... I'm sure you're a very nice venomous serpent-lady. You don't really want to hurt anyone, right?”

The naga shook with laughter. “Ha! That's a good one!” She gave Fluttershy a big, toothy grin. Fluttershy could smell rotting meat on her breath. “But yes. If it means feeding my children, I very much do want to hurt someone.”

Four younglings, not yet grown into their gills, writhed in the mud below and stared up with hungry eyes. Fluttershy might have found them cute, if not for the prospect of becoming their dinner.

“Don't worry,” the mother said, smirking. “I'll make sure you won't feel it by the time they dig in. I may be cruel, but only so much.” She opened her jaw, exposing rows upon rows of venomous fangs.

Fluttershy's eyes hardened. She glared up at her captor, untempered force of will pouring out of her as she hit her with the Stare. “You don't want to do this,” she said slowly.

The coils began loosening as the naga's jaw slackened. “I... don't want to do this,” she repeated.

“You are going to let me go, and feed your children healthy fish like they need to grow right.”

“I am going to... agh!” The naga buried her head in her claws. “Pony trickery!” she hissed, tightening her coils until Fluttershy could barely breathe. “You know what? I've changed my mind, little pony. You will be eaten alive!”

As the coils tightened around her, Fluttershy let out a tiny sound. The naga leaned closer to listen. Perhaps she would get her singing pony after all.

But it was not a scream. “He-he...” Much to the naga mother's bewilderment, the yellow pony was laughing!

“Wha'tss sso funny?” she hissed, emphasizing her slur.

“I'm sorry,” Fluttershy said, smiling and shaking her head. “It's just... he-he! It's just something you said, how I'm all alone, and I don't have any friends. It's really funny!”

The naga's eyes narrowed. She glanced around the darkened bog. There was no one else around, she knew it for certain. She would have sensed motion in the water otherwise. “You are alone, pony.”

Fluttershy burst out laughing. “I'm sorry! I shouldn't laugh, but it's just so silly! I always have a friend just a giggle away!”

“Enough of this nonsense!” the naga snapped. “It is time for you to—” She was interrupted as her vision filled up with pink.

“Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie! What's your name?”

The naga reeled back with a startled hiss as a pink earth pony appeared from what seemed to be quite literally nowhere.

“'Hhssssssaaaah?'” Pinkie repeated, dropping to the muddy ground with a splash. “Wow, that's a mouthful! What if I just call you Snakey-Pants?”

“What trickery is this?” 'Snakey-Pants' made an angry lunge at Pinkie with her claws, but the baker was too quick for her, bouncing behind her with another wet splash.

Pinkie giggled. “That's not a trick! I just got a feeling my friend was laughing at something funny, so I thought I'd come see what it was! Boy, Fluttershy, you were right! Miss Snakey-Pants is a riot!”

Fluttershy smiled. “I think it's her birthday, Pinkie.”

Stars glistened in Pinkie Pie's eyes. “Happy birthday!” she shouted.

Before she knew what was going on, the naga and her children each had party hats on their head and a slice of cake in front of them. Confetti rained through the air.

“I wish we could stay for longer,” Pinkie said, lifting Fluttershy out of the creature's coils, “but Fluttershy and I have to get home! Have a great party!”

The naga watched in stunned silence as the two brightly colored dots disappeared into the murk. Her children munched happily on their slices of cake, crumbs spilling into the mud.

19: Afraid of Her Own Shadow: The Climactic Finale [Adventure]

((Prompt: Write the ending to a story you have unfinished.))

“One!” Hat Trick cackled, the flashing lightning catching sparks in his eyes. A trickle of blood ran from the base of his horn down over the mad grin on his face.

The strange metronome kept on clicking in its triplet rhythm. One, two, three. One, two, three. Energy arced from the top of it, feeding the glowing orb above. The ball grew and grew, expanding like a balloon, if balloons were massive blood-red things that crackled with bolts of arcane lightning.

“Two!” The mad sorcerer kept spinning, his hooves dancing to a waltz only he and the metronome could hear. The wind whipped his mane and tail into a spiral in the air as magic poured from his horn.

The orb nearly rivaled the sun and moon in the sky now. Soon it would; that was Hat Trick's plan, after all. Fluttershy clung to the yellow pony next to her, squeezing her eyes shut against the howling wind. If only she had paid better attention! If only she had listened to what he was trying to do, instead of getting distracted by her own problems, she might have stopped him, or at least warned somepony who could. Now Equestria would be torn into thirds, and it was all her fault!

A white rabbit emerged from her mane and charged toward the center of the dais. “Angel, no!” cried both of the yellow ponies in unison.

“Thr—” Hat Trick was interrupted from his count as a half-chewed carrot smacked the tip of his horn. He glared down at his tiny assailant. “Filthy, disease-ridden rodent!” he snarled, spittle flying from his lips as he wrapped Angel in his hazy telekinetic aura. “Breed no more of thy pestilence!” The aura darkened as he squeezed.

Angel squirmed and struggled against the magic field. With a tiny squeak, he pointed over the unicorn's shoulder. Hat Trick glanced behind himself.

No longer guided by his magic, the metronome went out of control. One, two. One, two, three, four, five. One. Sparks and smoke poured out of the machine.

“No! Nononono!” Hat Trick cried in panic, dropping Angel on the floor and rushing over to the metronome. “One, two, three! One, two, three! Work, thou infernal contraption!” He circled the thing, desperately trying to return it to its three-part beat.

The orb above lost its red color, turning pitch black. Gravity slowly reversed its course, lifting small stones off the platform and sending them hurtling upwards into the orb.

Angel struggled to his feet and scurried back to cling to Fluttershy's mane. Fluttershy shared a glance with the teal eyes of her doppelganger. Both of them wrapped their hooves around the stone railing at the edge of the dais.

Hat Trick did not seem to even notice as he was lifted into the air. He had begun ramming his head into the metronome as he shouted at it. “One! Two! Three! One! Two! Three! Damnation!” His voice faded under the howling wind as he was sucked upwards into the swirling storm of blackness above. Soon he and the metronome both disappeared into the void.

A low groan sounded out as pieces of the old castle crumbled and fell into what was now a spiraling fissure in the sky. A moss-crusted tower shattered into rubble and tumbled upwards. Fluttershy cried out in terror as pieces of the railing she held onto broke away.

Dust filled the air as a massive crack split the dais. Fluttershy's double shrieked as she fell upwards.

“Shy!” Fluttershy reached out and caught her hoof with one of her own.

“Fluttershy!” Shy held on, terror plain in her eyes. “Fluttershy, you're slipping!”

Fluttershy's hold on the railing was indeed failing. One hoof was just not enough to hold the weight of two ponies. “I... I've got you,” she said, sweat forming on her brow.

“No, you don't.” Shy met Fluttershy's eyes. “...Fluttershy, you need to let me go.”

“What? No!” Fluttershy's grip slipped another hair.

“Look.” Shy's voice took on a serious tone. “Ponyville only needs one Fluttershy.” She smiled through her tears. “It's okay. Let me go.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I need you, Shy. I won't let you go!” Her hoof held onto the rail by only the very edge.

Shy smirked grimly. “Do you want to flip a coin for it?”

“Shy, no!”

Shy opened her hoof, letting go of Fluttershy's. She fell backwards towards the sky.

Her rear hoof was grabbed tightly between both of Fluttershy's front hooves. Shy's eyes widened and her lips formed an 'o' of surprise as her fall was arrested once again.

Fluttershy hung by her tail, which was tied around the stone railing. Angel Bunny tugged on the knot and waved.

The fissure eventually folded in on itself and collapsed into nothing. Both Fluttershies fell to the ground, exhausted. The sky slowly returned to its natural blue, an eerie calm settling in the wake of the magical storm.

Shy laid on the stones, panting. “Fluttershy...” She coughed on the dust. “Did you... did you mean that? About needing me?”

Fluttershy rolled over to face her. “I meant it,” she whispered, running a hoof through her tangled mane. “Please, don't leave me alone, Shy.”

Two yellow ponies returned to Ponyville that day.

Author's Note

This was a bit of an unusual prompt, which, by it's nature, leaves this without a lot of context.

This is a possible ending for one of the stories that has surfaced now and then on my 'to-write' list. Afraid of Her Own Shadow is an adventurous Fluttershy selfcest story that I would write if I didn't keep coming up with other ideas before getting around to it. I would say that I really ought to work on it, but I'm finding myself saying that a lot, and dislike repeating myself too much.

Hat Trick does have his own villain song, though.

Bonus Chapter: Subtle Hints [Romance] [Comedy]

“Darling, thank you for coming over. I have some things I need to tell you.”

“Of course, Rarity. Actually, I had something I needed to say to you, too.”

“This will only take a minute, Fluttershy. I really must get this off my chest.”

“Um, I really would like to put this out in the open before I lose my nerve.”

“Well, you'll just have to talk over me, darling, because I cannot hold this in any longer.”

“I'm sorry, but I might do that.”

“As you well know, I appreciate subtlety. Often times, I would rather imply something than just say it outright.”

“I don't do well with words. Not when I really need to get the idea across. So it's probably my fault you didn't catch it when I mumbled at the spa.”

“I am entirely to blame for you not picking up on the nuances I have been using while speaking to you on our spa dates. I have tried leaving you hints...”

“My animal friends have been helping me leave you clues...”

“Gift after gift...”

“I don't know if you've noticed, but every time you've come over to my cottage, the woodland creatures have made a point of giving you cuddles and making you feel at home.”

“Honestly, darling, how many times do you think Opal has really been sick over the last few weeks? That excuse for dropping by has got to be wearing thin.”

“I thought for sure you would notice that it was the same dress that kept getting mysterious holes that needed repairing.”

“Lingerie, darling. Exactly what do you think it means when a friend makes exciting undergarments for you and says she hopes to see you in them sometime?”

“I think Angel Bunny maybe went a bit overboard when he organized all the birds to spell out, 'Kiss the yellow one, already,' in the tree outside your bedroom.”

“And yet, somehow, you haven't gotten the message.”

“But it still doesn't seem like you understand.”

“So I am going to lay this out in the plainest, most explicit terms I can manage.”

“So it's time for me to pony up and just say it.”

“I am laying my heart out on the line, Fluttershy. You can take it, or you can leave it.”

“It would be really nice if you decide you'd like to go with this, but, um, it's up to you. Whatever you decide is okay.”

“This is it... Oh Celestia, it's harder to say aloud than I ever imagined.”

“I... I... um, remember that part about me losing my nerve? I think that's happening right now.”

“No more putting it off. This is too important to stay quiet about.”

“I have to say it. I can't go on regretting not saying it.”

“Fluttershy...”

“Rarity...”

“I love you.”

“I lo... Y-you do??”

Author's Note

Ha! I fooled you all! You thought it was over, but you were wrong! The Fluttershy never ends!

Some of the time, I don't have an idea of what to write until I see the prompt. But sometimes, I've got something I want to write, and am just holding onto it until I get a prompt that fits for it. That's the case, for example, with Over Again in the Rarity compilation, and Lungs, Lips and Life in the Dash compilation.

This chapter was an idea I had that I was saving for the right prompt, but the right prompt never came. And with both Rarity and Fluttershy's time behind me, I wasn't going to get a chance to use this one. So have a special extra bonus chapter with extra fluffy Flarity goodness in it. After all, I started this with a Flarity that was a bit of a downer; it's only appropriate that I end things with a more upbeat Flarity to tie it all together.

The end for reals this time, I promise!