In a city far removed from everypony they knew, a kindhearted pegasus wrapped a small ivory filly in her forelegs.

“Fluttershy, I'm so happy when we're together!”

The filly's sincere declaration set her heart aflutter.

“You're everything to me, Sweetie Belle.”

The yellow pegasus's gentle eyes were wet with the joy of that perfect moment and the knowledge that nothing would separate them for as long as they kept their love secret. The two glowed, radiating happiness, all their struggles and losses forgotten in that moment. Truly love conquered all.

Gently nuzzling the filly's cheek, Fluttershy breathed in the scent of her young love's swirled mane. Sweetie Belle blushed easily at the contact, and, closing her eyes, savored the sensation from the pony whose love and attention she always craved.

The young mare and the foal had been brought together through extraordinary events, by their mutual wish to be loved unconditionally, by Sweetie Belle’s innocently trusting nature, and by Fluttershy's immense kindness which, in their story, had taken the form of unprecedented bravery and determination. Being together had required abandoning everything and everypony they knew, but, as long as they had each other, it was more than worth it.

The winged mare reflected deeply. Until not long ago, Fluttershy had contented herself with the companionship of her animal friends. The day she discovered her talent had indeed been one of the happiest days of her entire life, had literally saved her life in more ways than one.

Beside the kaleidoscope of butterflies that had miraculously prevented her impact with the ground when she couldn’t fly, working with animals had performed the even greater miracle of catching her emotional fall. They had given her meaning and purpose outside of her uncertain home life. They gave her peace of mind, warmth, and affection. Thanks to the fact that she had made a respectable career working with them, her animal friends had even buffered her from the judgments of fellow pegasi who looked on her weak and timid form with pity at the best of times and sheer contempt at the worst.

As foal to two of Cloudsdale's most respected nobleponies, Fluttershy's weakness as a flier was an insult to her breeding among those proud pegasi who saw their superiority in their ability to literally be above others. Certain ponies among the Cloudsdale elite sometimes boasted of never having set hoof on solid ground. Due to her parents' status, Fluttershy had been one groomed for that greatness which she would inherit. It was no wonder she'd never before seen the ground and the wealth of creation it hosted.

Now, however, Fluttershy was the epitome of a humbled pony. Now, she relished that much more what her proud origins had prevented her from enjoying—the simpler things, the meek companionship of her animals, her flowers, and her trees. Most ponies didn't understand her joy, and, in true neighborly Ponyville fashion, many tried to help the pegasus come out of her shell. It was often a relief to her when they gave up and left her alone.

Ponies whom she felt really understood her seemed few and far between. Applejack was one of those. It made sense to her that a pony so connected to the Earth and ingrained in quiet farm life would appreciate what Fluttershy did. Twilight had been another who seemed to quickly comprehend the appeal of her mostly quiet companionship with animals. Twilight had also come from a life of status and chosen to leave it. It had caught up with her, of course, and Twilight had become the very essence of nobility—Fluttershy chuckled inwardly, thinking about the irony of it—but she saw, still, that Twilight was very much like herself at heart.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie may or may not have ever understood Fluttershy, but there were few ponies so magnanimous and kindhearted as they were. Fluttershy's friendship with them formed more easily than a summer breeze. Where their interests overlapped, Fluttershy greatly enjoyed spending time with the two, and where their interests didn't overlap, there had rarely been any conflict. This, Fluttershy thought, was probably because, despite their intrinsically social nature and talents, and despite inviting her to various social gatherings, the yellow pegasus had always felt comfortable in crowds, since they usually allowed her to blend in and go unnoticed.

What happened with Photo Finish had been quite the scare for Fluttershy, causing her to believe that Rarity's friendship would cost her her quiet hermetic existence or that she might have to damage the extremely close bond they shared in order to abandon modeling. It had been a huge relief when she learned that Rarity's intentions were not what they seemed, that she hadn't been pressuring Fluttershy to become famous for her own sake, but, rather, because she thought the pegasus would have enjoyed becoming famous as much as she herself would. Fluttershy would never complain about what had happened, since, in the end, it only strengthened their bond all the more.

Fluttershy nearly laughed out loud thinking about how she and Pinkie had become friends, but the thought of her own situation cut her mirth short. The short version of the story, Fluttershy thought to herself, was that the quintessentially pink pony had made it impossible not to be friends.

Rainbow Dash was a special case—a very special case, Fluttershy corrected herself. Their friendship stemmed in large part from their history, the fact that they not only attended Flight School together, but also dropped out together (and all that that entailed), and that Rainbow Dash's loyalty was hard, if not impossible, to turn away. The two were almost polar opposites when it came to hobbies and interests. Their personalities and temperaments were vastly different as well.

What made the opposites attract and form such a close friendship, Fluttershy thought, had to be the strong moral principles which had led Rainbow to champion the shy pegasus in the race that won them both their cutie marks. By extension, and perhaps most importantly, Rainbow cared deeply and genuinely for others. Fluttershy believed that that care even surpassed the blue pegasus's formidable care for herself. Of course, their friendship wasn't hurt in the least by Fluttershy's great admiration of how the aspiring Wonderbolt usually exuded so much confidence, something she herself wished she could do sometimes.

The pony friends Fluttershy had gained over the years had shown her there was something more to be had in bonding with a peer than she could ever find in the company of her animal friends, an emotional and intellectual connectedness that fulfilled her in a way she had missed without that bonding and that she yearned for at an ever deeper level. Years before Fluttershy encountered her current friends, that yearning had existed. Along with the pressures of flight school and her home life, the loneliness she’d felt caused her to spiral downward until, at last, her calling, her animal friends, had come to her rescue.

In her earliest years as a small filly, the quiet pony found several ways to cope so that she could coast and sometimes lift herself out of her severe anxiety-induced blues. One of her more secret and, she admitted to herself, shameful methods was frequent sexual release. Since she was old enough to form memories, she recalled rocking herself with her teddy between her flanks. She hadn't known what it meant, only that it felt extremely good at the end.

A lot had happened since those formative years, the most important of which—she recalled only briefly at the moment—had been a spiritual awakening. So many fears had vanished as she discovered her place in existence and sought guidance through Harmony, yet, almost immediately, life had found new ways to test her. Though she remained stalwart and tried to live right by her new standards, mistakes were inevitable. While she felt she'd known it at some level from the beginning of her very young ecclesiastical commitment, she eventually came to learn that her sexual escapades were in direct conflict with the faith she trusted. The foalish naughtiness she'd once felt about touching herself in a dirty place grew into guilt, and thus began a long and repeating cycle of frantically searching for an alternative form of comfort to escape from daily stress, followed by the ultimate giving in to old habits, then guilt, shame, swearing to herself she'd stop, stress again, and relapse. Guilt and sexual pleasure gradually mixed together both bitter and sweet, and, with time, Fluttershy could no longer remember them separately. As a budding young pegasus, she felt compelled to push boundaries and take risks in search of higher heights, and it wasn't long before she began doing things she'd be utterly mortified to be caught in the act of.

It felt liberating in a way, despite the addictiveness. As a blank flank she remembered masturbating in the oddest of places, and, in private, indulging in what had later become her biggest fetishes—free, but in direct opposition, oftentimes, to what she knew was expected of a proper young lady. Meanwhile, she became trapped in patterns of self-denigration until fear of losing her friends' respect eventually tempered her compulsiveness.

Fear was a poor motivator, she found, and the urges she felt would always remain a weak point for her. To that day, she still acted out and often felt ashamed of it, worrying about Celestial retribution or public humiliation. On the other hoof, the actions she thought of as weak and shameful drove away her every care with such intense excitement that she never forgot why it held her in its obsessive control, and, when it was over, the release of pent-up tension and hormones soothed her aching loneliness in a wave of oxytocin.

What would cause a pony like her to fall in love with a filly so accepting, so vulnerable, so eager to please, and so kind? If their similar dispositions weren't enough reason, then the yellow mare's long-standing proclivity to imagine being with a partner whose age matched her own back when she first started to experiment sexually probably was. Reliving vicariously the discoveries of first times, the feeling of being so youthfully uninhibited, sharing the intense magical feelings of arousal and release to bring relief to a young filly who faced rejection and frustration with her peers (as she knew all too well) while at the same time fulfilling part of her biological need to be a mother, doing what came, perhaps more to her than most other mares, completely naturally—all of it tied together with over a decade of learned sexual dependency and her want for a relationship with a filly just like Sweetie Belle.

Fluttershy wasn't actually in a far away city with her foal, now. She lay in the dark of her chamber in the crystal palace, waiting to fall asleep. In her effort to forget what troubled her, Fluttershy had turned to the fantasy of the ivory filly with whom she'd been smitten since the day they were introduced. In this effort, now, she'd been derailed.

She thought again, instead, about Twilight.

A certain realization dawned on her that morning, the morning after Twilight returned from the world beyond a certain magical mirror. Fluttershy had been so used to how her relationship was between her and her closest friends. Even Twilight's coronation hadn't worried her too much. She merely expected she might see a little bit more or less of her friend, depending on how much her royal duties would require the assistance of one adept with animals or needed to make use of the element of kindness, but the way Twilight had blushed, talking about her otherworldly crush and the guard in their own world who reminded Twilight of him, had challenged Fluttershy's expectations.

The ever-kindhearted mare was happy for her friend, even felt a small thrill to know that Twilight could finally have found a prospect for love. At the very least, Twilight finally seemed ready to consider giving love a chance in her life, and Fluttershy's excitement for her had been evident as she and their other friends had pummeled her with questions. What Fluttershy hadn't been prepared for was how she felt about herself, seeing the friend she felt she shared so much in common with entering that stage of her life ahead of her.

Maybe “ahead of her” wasn't quite right. Fluttershy, after all, had had romantic feelings, perhaps longer than any of her other friends, but hers weren't ones that could be entertained lightly, if ever at all. Without her, was much more accurate, she thought. Twilight would actually be able, nay, encouraged by society to follow her heart. Fluttershy doubted that could ever happen for herself. If Twilight did pursue romance with her dream mate, she could live happily ever after, quite literally, like the princesses in fairy tales. If Fluttershy pursued her own romantic interests ... she shuddered to think.

Considering the consequences of having somepony she dreamed of, if anypony were to find out, or the consequences even if somepony were to discover that she was the type of pony who wanted to fiddle with foals, Fluttershy trembled, and, with a pained expression, tears began to roll down her petite muzzle.

Her fantasy lay before her, crushed. There would be no relief for her tonight, and she desperately wished she had Angel Bunny to cuddle up next to. Eventually, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Author's Note

Last revision published: 22 January 2015
- for punctuation, flow, and detail

I will probably write chapters more frequently if there is more interest.
This is my first fanfic.
Leave your comments please to let me know what you think and how the story can be improved.

Edit - 12/25/14 : Revised for punctuation, flow, and detail
Edit - 9/2/14 : Revised for format, punctuation, and wording.
And thanks to Setokaiva for the follow-up proofreading.