A friend to the end

                                                                       Bidziil's point of view

it had been three days since Bidziil had gone with Fluttershy to the event where Starlight was introduced, and Fluttershy was going about her everyday business, which was feeding all the animals. They had fed all the animals outside. Now Fluttershy was feeding all the animals inside her house, Fluttershy had asked him to go and find some wood for the hearth, winter was soon coming and Fluttershy needed to stock up on wood for the fire. He slowly looked around, he was used to getting wood, he would normally get it to make a fire with in his days as a rogue. He soon found large branches, and small logs. He had a net like object, it was strapped around his chest, and was made of leather, he quickly put the wood onto it as he dragged it along.

He didn't go into the Everfree forest to look for any of course, he hated it there and hoped to never go back. Of course eventually he would have to, he couldn't stay with Fluttershy forever. He admitted he was developing feelings for her, and it was obvious it was vice versa, however, he remembered his last dream, and lied to Fluttershy, he did know what it meant. He was bound to die, it was the only way to save this land, and although he knew not of it's inhabitants, Fluttershy lived amongst them. Besides he had nothing to hold him back, he had nothing to lose, he had lost everything. However, this was not the only thing holding him back from even considering Fluttershy to be his mate.

He still love, her, his first love, Kiotie, of all the wounds his ex-tribe members gave to him, her simple words hurt the most, “your a monster.....” the memory still burned with just the mere thought, not quite as badly as it had when it had actually happened, but it still painfully wrenched his heart. He shuddered at the memory as he shook his head, “I must focus on the task at hand.” He continued pulling the branches when he saw a small log, it was perfect for carving a small design. He then remembered the sweater Fluttershy made for him, he smiled a bit as he took the log and unsheathed his belt knife as he sat down on a tree stump and began working on the idea that suddenly popped into his head.

                                                         Fluttershy's point of view

Fluttershy was currently by the pond throwing bread to the fishes, the fishes ate heartily as the crumbs fell into the water. She smiled as she sat down and watched the fish gobble it all up. However, she quickly turned around, feeling as though she were being watched. She smiled when she saw it was only Bidziil, he didn't have any branches with him, she frowned at this as she said, “um.... i-is something wrong?”

He smiled at her, surprising her quite a bit as she said with a smile still on her face, “well you seem happy, what happened?”

He shrugged as he said, “not much, but I can now accept your gift.”

She smiled wider as she said, “really, why?”

He quickly took out a necklace, made of string and carved from wood into a butterfly.

He frowned as he said, “it's not much, but it was the best I could do with all that I had unfortunately, I hope that-”

He was interrupted as Fluttershy got up and glomped him in a big hug, nuzzling his cheek as she said in a gleeful tone, “oh I love it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

He couldn't help but laugh as he said, “your welcome Fluttershy.”

She kissed his cheek and said, “so you'll accept your sweater now?”

He nodded as he said, “yes, I will get the wood for the fire, whenever your ready to give it to me I will gladly acce-”

she smiled as she pulled it out from behind her saying, “here you go Bidziil, I hope you like it.”

He looked at her, face hard again as he said, “I am very fond of this gift, thank you.” He then tried to slip it on, unfortunately, he had never worn a shirt in his life, male warriors never did, only mares. So he didn't know how to put it on, taking to merely staring at it confused.

Fluttershy frowned as she asked him, “is everything alright Bidziil?”

He nodded as he said, “{of course, but what do I do with it?”

She giggled uncontrollably, so much in fact that she got a light blush to appear onto Bidziil's face. Finally she said, “you put it on” -he stared at her blankly- she continued with, “here let me help you get it on.”

She quickly walked over and helped him squeeze into it, after a couple minutes of struggle, they finally got it onto him, once on, she stepped back to get a good look at him. She smiled as a blush came to her face, “you um... look good....”

He nodded as he said, “I will go and finish what you asked me to do.”

She nodded as she said, “okay, I'll see you inside then I guess.”

He then walked off to finish getting the wood for the hearth.

                                                               Bidziil's point of view

Bidziil felt awkward in the... whatever this thing was called, it was itchy, and tight on him, to say the least, he disliked it. But wasn't about to take it off, he had made the trade, accepting her gift, and wasn't about to reject it now, not only was it dishonorable, it was rude, and would surely hurt her feelings to know that he disliked her gift. He sighed as he found the net he used to carry the wood to be little trouble. He quickly strapped himself up, wanting to get this over with, and soon. He then went off at moderate trot back to Fluttershy's.

On his way he couldn't get his feeling for Fluttershy out of his head, he didn't notice before, but he was slowly getting over Kiotie, and falling for Fluttershy. If not for his dream, he would definitely consider asking her to be his mate. There was no telling how she would react of course, love in his society and love in her's were completely different. If he recalled, she told him that the “proper” term for a mate in her society was somepony's, “special somepony”. he thought it was simply foolish to call it that, and if he were to ever ask her, he would use the actual term, which of course was a mate.

He soon reached her house, quickly pushing the personal thoughts out of his head so that he wouldn't make a fool of himself, and put the wood next to the back door as she had told him earlier, then he headed inside the house. He wasn't surprised to find her in the kitchen getting the animals food and whatnot. He walked past her as he said, “I got a good amount of wood, in my opinion of course, let me know if you would like me to get more.”

She looked up and smiled as she said, “oh, that's okay, if you think there's enough there then there is.”

He didn't respond to this as he wiped his hooved on the carpet, and washed his hands. She didn't really like dirty hooves on her floor, which led to the reason he had wiped them off. He was soon done, he then walked past Fluttershy as he said, “please let me know if there is anything else you would like me to do.”

She nodded as she said, “I really don't have anything else for you to do Bidziil, so you can go and r- she smiled a she said, “actually, there is something I would like you to do.”

He turned to her, looking at her expectantly for her answer.

She scraped her hoof on the floor nervously, a blush coming onto her face as she said, “um... would you like to take a walk with me?”

He stared at her, and gave her one of his rare smiles as he said, “of course Fluttershy, I will walk wherever you walk.”

She smiled a bit more as she said, “wonderful, lets get going now”, she then headed to the door, having done her job feeding her animal friends, she walked out the door, Bidziil on her heels.

                                                              Fluttershy's point of view

Fluttershy was very happy right now, she was about to show Bidziil a place she had never shown anypony before. Although others knew of the place, they did not know how much it meant to her, or that she went there at all to be exact. She smiled as Bidziil walked up to her side and said, “so where exactly am I following you to?”

“Its a place I go to a lot, not many others know about it, so I hope you know how much this means to me that I am showing you this place.”

He nodded as he said, “I understand exactly how important it is to you now that you've explained it to me”, he didn't ask anymore questions after that.

There was an awkward silence between the two as they walked on,  finally Fluttershy decided to try to break the silence as she asked, “so um... Bidziil, are you still planning to go back to the forest?”

He looked at her as though she were crazy but said, “do you.... want me to? If you do I will humbly go back to th-

“oh no, I want you to stay Bidziil, your great company, my house has never been this lively before.” In truth she was very lonely before he came along. Of course she had her animal friends, but Bidziil.... she had never felt this way about “anypony” before in all her life. She didn't know what the feeling was, but it felt.... wonderful. She wanted to be with him all the time nowadays, she only hoped he felt the same way about her, of course she doubted it. He probably only saw her as a friend, if anything more than a simple domesticated pony. There was a time when she feared that wild ponies were like their stereotypes, eating the flesh of their own kind. Now she felt guilt for those thoughts, Bidziil was nothing like that, of course he seemed a bit different from his own people too, if his description of himself was anything to go by, but still, he was the sweetest stallion she had ever met outside her family.

He was silent a moment, Fluttershy couldn't tell if he was thinking or simply ignoring her, either way she disliked it.

Finally he nodded as he said, “then I'll never leave you.”

She smiled as she looked away, a blush on her face as she said, “o-okay...”

                                                                            half hour later

They had now made it to the place Fluttershy wanted to show Bidziil. Fluttershy had never shown anypony this place before, so this meant quite a bit to her. The place was the lakeside just outside of Ponyville. Nopony really came this far out into the middle of nowhere except Fluttershy. There was a small forest of cherry blossom trees about half an acre all around. However, Fluttershy had never seen all the territory around the lakeside, she only cared about one place in the entire forest, which is where she would go to get her thoughts straightened out.

She smiled at Bidziil as she said, “we're almost there Bidziil”, she quickly took the lead as she marched onward, they were now in the forest. She led him to a tree, it was a large, thick tree, but average compared to the other tree's. She sat down in front of the tree, Bidziil doing the same as he sat down next to her. She blushed a bit at his presence so close to hers, each and everyday she was growing more  infatuated by him. She finally worked up the courage to look his way with a smile as she said, “I love this place, it's so peaceful”, a couple squirrels ran past them, as they played chase, she giggled as she said, “and lot's of little woodland creatures live here too.”

Bidziil nodded as he said, “when I was an apprentice, my mentor would always bring me to a place similar to this. We would pick the cherry blossoms, easy food for the food pile, and very delicious. However, the difference was that there was only one cherry blossom tree on our territory, so we could only pick a few of them once a year. I have never seen so many in one place before.”

Fluttershy frowned as she said, “really? I always thought that this was the only place they were found.... I-I never knew they were in the Everfree forest also...”

Bidziil nodded a he said, “there are few, or that I have seen, the only one that I know of is on what was once my territory.”

Fluttershy nodded as she said, “oh”. She smiled at him as she said, “well that only makes this even more special then.”

Bidziil stared at her a moment, a blank expression on his face, however, soon he smiled at her as he said, “yes, I suppose it does doesn't it?”

Fluttershy smiled as she giggled a bit, nuzzling his shoulder a bit.

Bidziil stared at her a bit, making her blush, he then slowly began getting closer to her, until he was nearly touching noses with her, she now was blushing intensely. He slowly brushed some mane out of her face and said in a gentle voice, “Fluttershy......”

“Y-yes?”

“You have something on your face.”

Fluttershy stared at him as she said, “wh- what? You mean that was it?”

He looked at her with a slightly cocked head as he asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well you got so close to me,  I thought.... never mind....”

he looked at her confused as he said, “did you think I was going to.....” A slight blush came to his cheeks as he said, “o-oh... I see now, please forgive me for that.....”

she giggled a bit as she said, “don't worry about it Bidziil”. She got up as she walked over to the water saying, “now what do I have on my face?”

He followed her to the lake as he said, “a bit of grass is on your cheek is all.”

Fluttershy nodded as she looked at her reflection. “Sure enough, a bit of grass was on her cheek. She simply brushed her hand across her cheek, removing the blade of grass from her cheek, then said, “there, all gone, right?”

He nodded as he said, “yes, it is no longer on your cheek.”

She smiled as she said, “good”. she then sat down where she once stood, right next to the lake. Bidziil was not far from her as he too sat down. She smiled as she laid her head on his shoulder, the sun was setting now, changing the color of the sky from blue to orange. The moment was perfect.

Unfortunately Fluttershy ruined it as Bidziil quickly moved away looking at her wings strangely, something was pushing on his side. He stared at her in confusion.

Fluttershy however was completely embarrassed, her face being pure red, as though the fur on her face were different from the fur on the rest of her. Being by Bidziil had sent waves of pleasure through her. The problem was, her wings had grown erect as they sprung out above her body. Thankfully Bidziil didn't seem to know what was going on with her wings, it would have been even more humiliating then.

None the less, Fluttershy panicked as she quickly got up and ran away deeper into the forest than she had ever ventured before.

                                                                     Bidziil's point of view

Bidziil simply stood there utterly confused as to what had just occurred,  “what could have happened to make her run off so humiliated? Was it something I said? How? I didn't say a word, it can't be that, hm, well I suppose I will simply sit her and wait for her to come back when she's ready.”

And so he sat down and patiently waited for her return, “hm, it's beautiful out here, perhaps I'll take a little nap while I wait for her.” He then laid down on his back as he closed his eye's, and began to drift off into a peaceful sleep. Not really caring what had had Fluttershy so riled up. Mainly because he didn't understand it, she didn't seem hurt, so more than likely she was okay.

                                                                       Fifteen minutes later

Bidziil was awakened as he felt himself being taped on the shoulder, he quickly opened his eye's and looked up to see Fluttershy, he gave her a curious look as he said in a sleepy tone, “oh, hey Fluttershy, where did you run off to?”

She blushed as she said, “um... I had to take care of some things....”

he nodded, not really caring much as to what she was doing, it was none of his business after all. Although he was a bit annoyed at being awakened, he didn't bring it up as he stood and gave a good stretch, then said, “well, I think I will sleep here for a bit longer, I will meet you back at the house later tonight okay?

She simple nodded as she said, “okay Bidziil, have a nice nap”, she then walked off back to her house.

He smiled, he was falling in love all over again. He could never be with this one either of course, he was bound to die. He couldn't do that to her, it would be cruel to be with her while knowing it was only a matter of time before his time came. Eventually he would die, it was rather depressing actually. He shook his head, “I need to stop thinking about this, I don't even know if it will even happen or not, maybe... maybe it was just a dream, and it won't actually happen....” He tried to convince himself that this was the truth, however, it did not work. No mater how hard he tried, he could not make himself believe a lie. He sighed as he laid down, he would be getting no sleep now, all that would be in his mind- as it had always been since the dream first occurred- would be the fact that he was to die for a land he did not even care for.

He tried to sleep, but it never came. However he was not about to walk back to Fluttershy's empty handed, he would sleep if it killed him. He snorted in annoyance as he shut his eye's and tried to force himself to sleep.