Growing Up Shy

It was a cloudless day (at least cloudless above them) when Posey decided to take her daughter to the local park. The park which consisted mostly of dense-cloud benches circling a large, flat cloudfield which had space for flightless fillies and colts to run around. Recently, she started to bring Fluttershy there, hoping to see her learn to interact with other children, as it was almost time for her to start school. So far, Fluttershy would spend the hour a week they were there sitting on the bench next to her mother, looking around silently or inevitably falling asleep. Posey hoped today would be different.

So far it wasn't. After finding an empty bench to sit on, the first ten minutes went by in silence, until Posey turned to her daughter to ask her a question.

"Do you feel like running around a little bit, sweetheart? There are lots of fillies here to play with."

She was answered with a shake of the head. Posey never wanted to push Fluttershy out of her safety zone, but she would not be able to help her at school. Fluttershy needed to learn how to interact with others, how to be without her mother. As Posey thought about every way the first day could go wrong, the shy young pegasus sat looking at the other children playing a game in the center of the cloudfield. She watch all the children run away from one colt who was chasing after them. After he caught up to and touched another colt, they all started to run from that one. It confused the young one, she tried to understand the game, but couldn't and gave up.

Silence continues for another few minutes before the young pegasus surprisingly broke it.

"mommy, what is school like?"

Posey, while caught off guard, answered, "Well, it's a place you go to learn things that you're going to need when you grow up. Everypony goes to basic school for a few years, and then when they graduate they have their cutie marks and go on to get a job and live their lives."

Fluttershy looked at her mother's cutie mark, a trio of pink flowers, posies specifically, but she was not old enough to comprehend how fitting her mother's name was.

"What do cutie marks do?"

Posey took a moment to come up with a good explanation. "Cutie marks represent a pony's destiny, what they're meant to do in life. I've always loved flowers, which is hard since there aren't many in the sky, so a long time ago I opened a flower shop so I could spread them throughout the city. And my cutie mark told me that it was what I was destined to do."

Fluttershy marveled at her mother's story, sending her into relatively deep thought.

After spending an hour sitting on a bench again, Posey decided that it was pointless to continue bringing her to the park. She didn't want to force anything on Fluttershy, but she still feared how her daughter would be able to sit in a classroom with new kids for hours, and answer questions and-

Posey lost her focus when she noticed her filly. Fluttershy was looking up at a bird perched on top of the bench, curiously studying it. Posey kept silent, waiting to see how this played out.

"Who are you?" the normally shy pony asked.

The bird answered with a segment of tweets that had a similar pitch to Fluttershy's voice.

She tilted her head in confusion, and the bird did the same. She moved her head down, and the bird followed again. Fluttershy let out a giggle, and she brought the bird through more movements, hopping, spinning around, and flapping her wings, until she was done playing. All while Posey was excitedly spectating, frozen in place. Fluttershy let out a laugh, and the bird mimicked it, letting out what sounded like a sweet, short song. Fluttershy thought a little about what this bird was really doing, but soon decided that it didn't matter. The bird was having fun with her, and Fluttershy was enjoying the bird's playfulness. Suddenly a resonating tweet came from the distance, and the bird looked away and flew off. As Fluttershy watched it go, she had a smile on her face, and she turned to ask her mother a few questions.

"What was that, mommy?"

Posey, now out of her stupor, told her. "I think it was a mockingbird. It's a very playful bird that likes to sing, so it copies other birdcalls and sounds. That's how it has fun."

Fluttershy sat watching the mockingbird fly off, until she couldn't see it anymore. She then turned to her mother.

"Mommy?"

"Yes?"

"Can you teach me one of your songs?"

"Of course, but why?"

"I want to teach it one when it comes back."

Posey leaned against the archway entrance to the shopping center, rolling her eyes and thinking how typical is was of Lightshine to be late. She glanced up at the clock sitting in the middle of the plaza to check the time. She had to be home in two hours. She stoop up straight when she noticed her friend walking out of the market to meet her.

"So you were actually planning on meeting me? What took you?" She expected a poor excuse, but asked anyway.

Lightshine scoffed and replied, "Some fool wasn't watching where they were walking and kicked out a big section of cloud from the stand. I had to help her fix it, and pick up all the merchandise that fell everywhere. I plan on running that stand someday, you know."

Posey rolled her eyes, "Yeah I know. You tell me everyday. And now you even have the cutie mark to back it up."

They both quickly glanced at Lightshine's flank to see an image of a shopping stand.

"In fact, one day I plan on running this entire market." She dreamed.

Posey waved a hoof in front of Lightshine's face to snap her out of her fantasy. "Can we just go already?"

Lightshine shot a glance at her in annoyance. "Where do you want to go so fast anyway?"

Posey opened her mouth to speak, but faltered, she didn't really plan on anything.

"uh... I don't know yet. Anywhere but here I guess."

"So you don't even have a place to be? You wanted to just walk around for two hours?"

"...maybe."

As the two fillies argued, a stallion with an out of repair flower cart was passing by, when the left wheel suddenly slid off. The cart toppled towards the two pegasi, causing one pot with a pink flower to fall off the cart and into the quick fore hooves of Posey.

"Whoa that was close, are you two ok?"

Posey answered first, "Yes, we're fine, and so is your flower." She looked down at her catch, a small flower with pink wavy petals. "It's really pretty, what's it called?"

"Oh that? That's a pink posy."

Posey's ears perked. "Really? My name is Posey!"

The stallion had a surprised smile. "How about that? That's a pretty amazing coincidence. Well since you caught it, would you like to keep it?"

Posey grew a big smile. "Yes, thank you very much!"

The stallion gave nod, slid the wheel back on, and went into the market.

Turning to her friend, "Lightshine, I'm just going to take this home now, so I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"

"Yeah, sure." She replied.

When Posey got home she put the flower on her windowsill, and day by day took care of it. When she first got it, them stem was slightly bent and the petals were weak. After a few weeks of care she had helped the flower reach full bloom. On that day she realized that she wanted to run a flower shop.

Posey walked up to the classroom and knocked on the door. After a few seconds the teacher came to let her in.

"Is there something I can help you with?" The mare asked.

"Um, yes. My daughter is going to start attending this school next week and I thought I'd introduce myself."

"Oh! Well please come in then, my name is Wonder." She led Posey to her desk where they could sit down.

"It's very nice to meet you, Ms. Wonder. My name is Posey."

Wonder took a second to remember which student had a mother named Posey. She then remembered. "You are Fluttershy's mother, correct?"

Posey nodded. "Yes, and I felt like I should tell you a few things about my daughter."