“Thank you for the lovely meal Mrs. Garden.” Rarity said to Fluttershy’s mother, Daisy Garden, as she finished the last of the fruit and hay salad that had been served for dinner. She used her magic to pick up a napkin and wipe any food scraps from her muzzle.
“Well, it was a pleasure having all of you over after Fluttershy’s wrote me so much about you.” Daisy said with a smile. It was her first time meeting all of Fluttershy’s friends, save for Rainbow Dash; as well as their first time meeting her. In many ways, Fluttershy’s mother resembled her. Both of them had a similar shade of hair, though Daisy’s being a couple tones darker. Her fur was also a darker shade of yellow than her daughter's. She bore a cutie mark of three hearts interlocking each other. “And I really wish you would come up to Cloudsdale more often, sweetie.” Daisy said to Fluttershy. “It’s ages since I’ve seen you.”
Fluttershy blushed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry mommy,” She said. “It’s just I’m always so busy taking care of my animals that I can never find the time. I could make some more though…if that’s what you want.”
Daisy Garden giggled. “Oh sweetie it’s fine. You come and visit your mother whenever you can.” She hugged her daughter, to which the rest of her guests let loose a “Daw.”
“Come on mares,” Fluttershy said as she got up from the table and pushed her chair in. “You can come and see my room…if you want to that is.”
“We’d love to,” Twilight said. She and the rest of her friends all got up from the table and followed Fluttershy; all save for Rarity that is. She stayed behind and helped Daisy with the dishes.
“You really don’t have to help me,” Daisy said as she ran the water in the sink. “You can go with Fluttershy and your friends.”
“No, no, no, ma’am, I insist on it.” Rarity said as she levitated the dish from the table and stacked them all neatly by the sink. “We are guests in your house after all. It would be terrible rude if we didn’t clean up after ourselves. Or at least, if I didn’t…” Rarity muttered the last sentence.
“Well, aren’t you very generous.” Daisy smiled. She took the top plate off the stack and put it into the water. Rarity came over and helped her wash and dry the rest. She used her magic to dip each plate into the water before giving it a good scrub and inspecting it very closely before putting it onto the drying rack. Soon all of the dishes were literally sparkling clean. “Alright we’re all done here. Why don’t you go and find your friends?”
“Actually, Mrs. Garden, I was wondering if you had any foal pictures of Fluttershy.”
Daisy smiled. “Of course I do. They’re up in my bedroom.” Rarity noticed that there was something slightly off in Daisy Garden’s voice. As if she was nervous about something. Nevertheless she followed her friend’s mother upstairs and into her bedroom. The house was a humble, two story, little cloud house. The kitchen was connected right to living room, which was littered with various knick-knacks and picture frames of Daisy Garden and Fluttershy. Some of them contained Rainbow Dash as well since she was a very close friend Fluttershy had ever since she was a filly. Rarity took note that none of these photographs contained Fluttershy’s father. Fluttershy would always get quieter than usual whenever the subject of her father was brought up, so Rarity decided it best not to bring it up to her mother either.
Upstairs there were two bedrooms, Fluttershy’s and Daisy’s, and a bathroom. There was really nothing much to the house, but Rarity could tell that Daisy was happy living here. She herself certainly wouldn’t have been satisfied in such a lodging. She would have required a lot more space for her dresses and other such things, but it seemed to be alright for Daisy and Fluttershy when she was still living here.
The two mares entered Daisy’s bedroom and Rarity immediately took a seat on the bed while Daisy bent down and looked under it. Rarity felt the quilt she was sitting on. It was made of cloud, as was most materials in the house, and all of Cloudsdale for that matter. Though this cloud had a different feel to it; it felt like an actual quilt as opposed to the hard wood feeling of the clouds used to make the table and floors. Rainbow Dash had attempted to explain to Rarity the concepts different types of cloud materials once before, but the unicorn fashionista hadn’t paid much attention since clouds weren’t a material she would ever be able to work with. And the idea of cloud clothing just seemed silly in the first place.
“Here we are.” Daisy Garden said, pulling a scrapbook out from under the bed and taking a seat next to Rarity. The book was titled “My Precious Fluttershy” with brightly colored cutout letters. Daisy opened the book and let Rarity flip through it. She pointed to one of the pictures. “This picture here is when Rainbow Dash and her family took us to a waterpark all the way in Manehattan.” The picture was of Fluttershy peering timidly over the edge of the high diving platform of a pool. Rainbow Dash was standing behind her, looking as if she was giving Fluttershy some encouraging words.
“Did she jump?” Rarity asked.
“Rainbow was eventually able to get her to.” Daisy Garden was about to flip the page where there was a sharp shattering sound from downstairs. Pinkie Pie appeared in the doorway a moment later with a nervous expression on her face.
“Um Mrs. Garden,” She said. “There is a definite possibility that we might have probably broke one of your picture frames.”
“It’s alright…”
“I’m sorry!” Pinkie suddenly shouted as she fell to her knees. “It’s just that your cloud couch was so bouncy! It was super-duper-extra-spectacularly bouncy! Unlike Mr. and Mrs. Cakes’ couch, which is only super-duper-extra-extraordinarily bouncy. So I couldn’t resist jumping on it. Fluttershy told me not to but I did anyway! Then I started doing some flips and accidently jumped off the couch and hit the wall and….”
“Pinkie, darling.” Rarity interrupted. “Mrs. Garden said that it’s quite alright. Now I suggest you go downstairs with her and clean up your mess.”
“Ok!” Pinkie got back to her hooves and dashed downstairs.
“That Pinkie Pie sure is a piece of work,” Daisy Garden said.
“Oh you don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, feel free to look through the book.” Daisy got up from her bed and walked downstairs.
Rarity looked through the book at pictures of Fluttershy. There were pictures of her making sculptures with clouds, of her playing at the park, going to various events with Rainbow Dash, and of her and her mother at her high-school graduation. But the more Rarity flipped through the scrapbook, the more she noticed something very peculiar: none of the pictures seemed to show Fluttershy below the age of thirteen. These pictures were fine and all, But Rarity really wanted to see pictures of Fluttershy as a foal. So she neatly closed the scrapbook and looked under the bed. After a bit of digging around Rarity was able to locate another scrapbook. She pulled it out from under the bed so she could get a look at the cover.
It was titled similarly to the first one with brightly colored cutout letters, but with the title “My Precious Butterscotch”. Rarity had never heard this name before. Curious, she opened the scrapbook. The very first page was a laminated birth certificate. But it wasn’t Fluttershy’s; it was for a colt named Butterscotch. Upon closer examination Rarity noticed that this Butterscotch’s birthday was the same as Fluttershy’s.
That’s odd, Rarity thought to herself. Fluttershy has never mentioned having a twin brother before. But then again, Twilight never mentioned her brother before either. It’s just not the type of thing that comes up in casual conversation I guess. Rarity took a look at the next page. There was a picture of Daisy Garden in the hospital, looking significantly younger and holding a newborn foal wrapped in a blanket. Next to it was a picture of Butterscotch as a foal. His fur was the same color as Fluttershy, as well as his mane color. He definitely looked like Fluttershy’s twin. But there wasn’t a picture of Fluttershy on this page. Looking back to the picture of Daisy, Rarity noticed that she was only holding one foal in her hooves. She looked through more pages of the scrapbook. There were pictures of Butterscotch taking his first bath, eating his first birthday cake, learning how to trot, everything one would expect a mother to keep in a scrapbook dedicated to her child. But not a single picture contained Fluttershy in it.
Then Rarity began to notice something odd as Butterscotch got older in the pictures. When he was around six years old he began to let his mane grow out. By age seven his hair looked almost identical to the way Fluttershy’s does now. Some of the pictures began to show Butterscotch playing with dolls and trying on dresses as well. And still no pictures of Fluttershy. Rarity flipped on and found a picture that she thought had Fluttershy in it, but upon closer examination found out that it was still just Butterscotch. This one was of Butterscotch having a slumber party with Rainbow Dash and three other Pegasus fillies. The odd thing was though, that there weren’t any other colts in the picture, just fillies and Butterscotch. She flipped on and still found not a single picture of Fluttershy. The more she flipped through the book, the more feminine Butterscotch seemed to be. Almost as if he was trying to be like a filly. There were plenty of pictures of him playing with fillies, but strangely no colts as opposed to what most colts his age would prefer to do.
Two questions rung in Rarity’s mind: who was this Butterscotch stallion and why weren’t there any picture of Fluttershy here? But both these questions were answered when she reached the last two pages of the scrapbook. The page on the left was a laminated sleeve containing what appeared to be a medical form. After looking closer Rarity gasped when she discovered what the form was for: transgender surgery. She nervously looked to the page on the right. There was only one picture in the center of this page. It was the first and only picture of Fluttershy in the entire book. She was lying in a hospital bed with Rainbow Dash standing at her side. Fluttershy looked exactly as she did in the other book. Written under the picture was a caption saying “The birth of my new daughter”.
Rarity threw the book down in horror. “Oh Celestia!” She gasped. “Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, oh Celestia! F-Fluttershy is, was…a stallion?!” Rarity had no idea how to react to this. She thought back to all the embarrassing and personal things she had shared with Fluttershy. She then realized that she had actually been saying those things, things such as her heat cycle and sexual discovery, to a stallion. She thought back to every time she’d been indecent around Fluttershy, every time that she had been lax in concealing her private regions around her/him. Every time she hadn’t been afraid to get up close and personal to Fluttershy while taking her/his measurements for dresses. All this time she had been doing that to a stallion. The very thought of this made her sick to her stomach. She had to tell the others.
She found them all downstairs in the living room save for Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Daisy.
“Hey Rarity,” Twilight said. “Mrs. Garden stepped out to get a new picture frame. And Rainbow and Fluttershy are out back looking for a time capsule they buried in the clouds as fillies. We were just about to go and help her.”
“Never mind that!” Rarity shouted. “There’s something you all need to know: Fluttershy is a stallion!” Instead of the horrified reaction Rarity was expecting, everypony just stared at her with a confused one instead.
“Sugah cube what in tarnation are ya’ll talkin’ ‘bout?” Applejack asked. “The only pony that’s more filly than her is ya’ll. Ain’t no way a pony as timid as her could be a stallion.”
“I’m serious!”
“Rarity,” Twilight said. “I’ve filled in for her gynecologist before. I can confirm that she is in fact a mare.”
“Oh will you all just shut up and follow me?!” Rarity ran upstairs and back into Daisy Garden’s room. The other three were reluctant to follow her, but decided to just to see what she was going on about. Rarity opened Butterscotch’s scrapbook and showed her friends what she had just discovered. Slowly as they looked through the scrap book their expression shifted from ones of curiosity and confusion to ones of horror and surprise.
“Ah-ah-ah can’t believe it,” Applejack stuttered. “All these years, Fluttershy’s been lyin’ ta us? And Rainbow Dash too?”
“I can’t believe I’ve actually shared a hot tub with a stallion!” Rarity shouted in disgust.
“Wait,” Pinkie said. “If Fluttershy used to be a colt, then does that mean she used to have a…”
“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted.
“Hey what are you all doing up here?” Rainbow Dash said from the doorway. Fluttershy was standing next to her. “I thought you were going to help us look for our time capsule.” Everypony stared at Fluttershy.
“Um…” She said, looking away as she normally does when attention is put on her. “Is there um…something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Rarity said. “Perhaps you can tell us that yourself, Butterscotch.” Both Fluttershy’s and Rainbow’s eyes instantly widened as soon as Rarity said “Butterscotch”.
“Oh no…” Rainbow whispered.
Fluttershy began shaking and trembling. “T-T-That’s not my name…” She said, barely audible.
“You mean to tell us that these aren’t pictures of what you used to be?” Rarity held the scrapbook in front of Fluttershy’s face and flipped through the pages, stopping on the photograph of her after her surgery. “And that’s not you after a transgender operation?”
“I-I-uh-I mean…it’s not…”
Rainbow Dash began frantically shaking her hooves around her neck with gestures that could be read halfway across Equestria for her friends to drop the subject.
“Fluttershy ah can’t believe ya’ll been lyin’ ta all of us and tellin’ us that yer a filly.”
Rainbow Dash mouthed “Shut up” at least at ten miles a minute.
“Do you have any idea how disgusted I feel about the things I’ve done around you because I thought you were a filly?”
“I-I-I am a…”
Rainbow Dash was now loudly whispering “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Beads of sweat were pouring down her forehead faster than she could ever dream to fly.
“I’m just amazed at how well the surgery went.” Twilight said in astonishment. “I would have never guessed you’re actually a colt.”
“I-I-I’m not a…”
“Oh!” Pinkie shouted. “Oh! Since you’re a colt can you tell me what it’s like to have a…”
“I’M NOT A COLT!” Fluttershy screamed so loud that the entire cloud house shook. Her face was bright red with anger, and bore a furious scowl to match. Everypony stared at her in astonishment. Nopony ever thought Fluttershy was even capable of even being angry like this. Then suddenly she started to cry. “I’m not a colt…” She muttered. “I-I’m just not…” She bolted down the hallway into her room and slammed the door shut.
Rainbow Dash growled at her friends. “Way to bucking go…” She growled. “Way to bucking go! If you weren’t my friends you all would be falling off Cloudsdale right now!”
“Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said, still feeling disgusted. “How could you not tell us that Fluttershy is transgendered?”
“Because it wasn’t any of your bucking business!” Rainbow yelled.
“None of my business? Well I’d say it certainly is my business to know what gender the pony I’m discussing my heat cycle to is.”
“She’s got a point Rainbow,” Twilight said. “There are certain things that you only do around other mares and not stallions.”
“Ah’m just offended that she lied ta all of us.” Applejack said. “Though it is mighty uncomfortable knowin’ that some of the things ah’ve with her…er him. Buck, ah even asked her ta take a look at a rash ah got on my rump once. No way in hay ah’d ever let a stallion take a look back there.”
“That’s just it.” Rainbow said. “If you would never have found out you would have kept on seeing the way she wants to be seen: as a mare.”
“And if I never found out about Queen Chrysalis we’d have all kept on seeing her the way she wanted to be seen: as Princess Cadence.” Twilight said.
“That’s different!” Rainbow shouted. “Fluttershy doesn’t want to drain all the love from your body. She just wants everypony to believe that she’s always been a mare so she can believe that too. She never wanted to be a stallion; it’s just how she was born.”
“But I’ve…” Rarity tried to say, but Rainbow cut her off.
“Oh shut up with that already! You’ve know damn well that Fluttershy likes mares and you still did those things around her. What, just because she used to have something hanging in-between her hind you feel disgusted by it?”
“How are you so ok with this Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked.
“Because I don’t care what she looks like on the outside! I mean, ok, I was a little weirded out by it at first, but then I remembered that she was still the same pony I grew up with. She was still the same pony who I defended from the bullies picking on them; the same pony who always let me eat some of their lunch when I forgot mine; the same pony who didn’t think differently about me when I told them I was a lesbian; the same pony who’s always been my friend. Butterscotch, Fluttershy, it didn’t matter to me. She was still my friend and her changing her gender didn’t do shit to change that. And if you all can’t see that, then just bucking go home!” Rainbow flew out the door angrily.
“Well, I feel like a big meanie pants now…” Pinkie said.
**********
Fluttershy sobbed weakly on her bed. It had finally happened. Her friends had finally found out about her darkest secret. She had always hoped that she could live her life as a filly and her friends would never find out about what she used to be; that she was born wrong.
But now they had. And they reacted just how Fluttershy thought they would, if not worse. They hated her. They were disgusted by her. And worse of all, they kept calling her a colt.
“I’m not a colt…” She muttered to herself. It wasn’t her fault that she was born the way she was. But now her friends would just see her for what she knows she’s not: a colt. A smelly, disgusting, perverted, dumb colt.
In the midst of her sobbing Fluttershy heard a tapping at her window. She unburied her face from her hooves and looked to see what the source of the noise was. It was Rainbow Dash, hovering right outside her window. Slowly, Fluttershy got up from her bed and opened the window to let Rainbow in.
“Hey,” Dash said. “Come on, you know they didn’t mean it.” She tried to wrap her hoof around Fluttershy’s shoulder comfortingly, but she just brushed it off.
“Yes they did, they did mean. They meant everything they said.” She covered her eyes with her hooves and sobbed more. “They all hate me now.”
“No they don’t Shy, they’re just surprised by it is all.” Rainbow Dash hugged her timid friend, but she didn’t stop crying. “Come on Flutters, do you actually think Pinkie Pie is even capable of hating somepony?”
Fluttershy looked up from her hooves and at Rainbow. “N-No…”
“So do you think she hates you?”
“N-No…”
“And I’m positive that everypony else doesn’t either.”
“But now they’ll all just see me as some dumb colt…”
Rainbow Dash turned Fluttershy’s head to look at her. “Well do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” She asked.
“W-What?”
“A beautiful mare.” Fluttershy blushed and wrapped her hooves around Rainbow Dash in a tight embrace. Rainbow quickly returned the embrace even tighter.”
********
“Well, I think you all deserve to feel ashamed of yourselves.” Daisy Garden said as she sat on the couch and stared crossly at Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity after hearing about what happened.
“We know ma’am…” Twilight said hanging her head low in shame. All of them were.
“I hope you realize how bad you made my poor Fluttershy feel.”
“Yes ma’am,” Rarity said shamefully. “We do realize it.”
“You have no right to judge her on her lifestyle.”
“We know ma’am.” Applejack said. “We're mighty sorry…”
Daisy Garden crossed her hooves. “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” She nudged her head towards the stairs.
The four of them nodded and slowly ascended the stairs. Time seemed the move slower and slower for them with every step they took. The feelings of guilt and regret weighed heavily on their shoulders. When they reached Fluttershy’s room at the top of the stairs they all looked at each other, hesitant to knock on the door.
Twilight finally decided to be the one to set things in motion. “Fluttershy,” Twilight said as she tapped her hoof on the cloud door. “Fluttershy, can we come in?” They heard the faint sound of a lock turning and took that as a sign to enter the room.
Fluttershy was sitting on her bed, looking away from everypony. Rainbow Dash was sitting next to her, scowling at the four of them.
“Fluttershy,” Twilight began. “We’re all very sorry for the way we acted earlier.”
“It’s just that we were just shocked ‘bout findin’ out ya’ll used to be a colt is all.” Applejack said.
Rarity hung her head low. “I hope you can forgive us for everything we said.”
Fluttershy looked up. “I was never mad at any of you…It’s just…you all reacted exactly the way I thought you would when you found out. I thought that you all hated me now…”
“Hated you?!” Rarity said in surprise. “Fluttershy we could never, ever hate somepony as kind or sweet as you are. What on Equestria would ever make you think that we would?”
“Not everypony reacted kindly to Fluttershy’s…change.” Rainbow Dash said. “Some of the ponies that she thought were her friends abandoned her and even started to bully her.”
Applejack gasped. “No sugah cube, we’d never do that ta ya.”
Rarity approached Fluttershy and sat down next to her on the bed. “Darling, though this knowledge will take some getting used to, we promise that we still see you as the same Fluttershy we’ve always known. To us darling, you’ll always be a mare.” Pinkie Pie and the others joined them and wrapped Fluttershy in a group hug.
“Thank you…” Fluttershy said crying. But this time she was crying out of happiness instead of sorrow.
Twilight took Fluttershy’s hoof. “Fluttershy, would you like to help me write a letter to the princess?” Fluttershy gasped and curled up. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell her.”
“Ok…” Fluttershy said.
********
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that everypony is different; and that friends are no exception. Everypony has something that makes them special and unique. And sometimes these qualities will seem weird and unusual. But in order for friendship to thrive we need to look past what we see on the outside of a pony and look to see what’s on the inside. Because that’s all that really matters in the end. Nopony helped me realize this more than Fluttershy did. She helped me learn that true friends always care for each other, even when we don’t entirely understand them.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle.
Author's Note
So one day I was browsing random MLP head cannons online and stumbled across one that said Fluttershy was actually a transvestite. I couldn't resist writing this afterwards. I'm not sure if there's already a fanfic like this out there, but if there is I had no way of searching for it.
So what do you think?