Cicadas whined overhead, invisible in the upper branches of the library. Twilight shielded her eyes from the bright sun with one hoof. She wanted to step out of the sunlight, back into the tree’s shade, but she was still waiting to welcome the mayor to the library.
The mayor didn’t come to the library as often as Twilight thought she would have. The library was a long way from Town Hall, all the way at the far end of Main Street, out on the edge of town, past where the cobblestones gave way to dirt and mud and then to just grass. It was a funny place for a library, now that Twilight thought about it. It’s not a library.
The mayor still hadn’t looked at her except in an under-the-eyebrows way that didn’t invite talking. She kept frowning at Rarity, who had the mayor by her left forehoof and was leaning in close to tell her something. Sometimes she looked at Fluttershy and Applejack, clustered together on her right, and then down at the hard-baked dirt at her hooves, shoved up in blocks by the tree’s roots and then cracked by the sun. She didn’t look at Rainbow or Pinkie at all. The two police mares with her studied Twilight guardedly. They kept glancing at the Element of Magic around her neck, flashing in the noon sun. Probably it intimidated them. Twilight had hung it on a string that Rarity had thrown out in the trash, just until she could find a proper gold chain for it. It’s plastic, and probably also from Rarity’s trash.
Rarity tried to lean in to the mayor to say something else, but was interrupted by a particularly self-important cicada, and they both stood back upright and waited it out, Rarity cocking her head and aiming her eyes up above everypony, the mayor looking relieved. It was hard for anypony to get anything said, between the cicadas, the flies, and the mad burning sun, but nopony but Rarity looked like talking anyway. The police mares just glanced up at the sky when anypony looked at them: Can’t talk; too hot.
Twilight finally stepped back into the shade. A few flies that had been circling there settled on her flanks, and she flicked her tail at them ineffectually. She felt the restlessness she felt whenever all the Elements were together. Probably the mayor had a mission for them.
“You know it’s for her own good,” the mayor said to Fluttershy and Applejack.
“Her good? I’m the one whose business is suffering!” Rarity exclaimed. She glared at Twilight.
Twilight was going to go over and see what Rarity was so upset about, but she saw the sharp look in her eyes. So instead Pinkie hopped over, stood up, and spread out both forehooves to encompass all four ponies. “Aw, don’t look so glum! You know who needs a party?” She poked one hoof at each of the four somehow. “You do!”
“Pinkie,” Twilight said, “leave them alone for a minute. They have something to discuss.” Twilight spoke authoritatively, but she was secretly glad for Pinkie’s irreverence. Pinkie didn’t over-analyze things or worry about what other ponies would think. So often she did the things that Twilight secretly wanted to, but couldn’t. That’s why Twilight invented her.
“And all that screaming last night,” Rarity went on. “It was simply dreadful.” Rarity feels sorry for herself for having to listen to Twilight being attacked.
Applejack gave Rarity a hard thin-lipped look, then leaned in towards Fluttershy, as if shielding her. “It ain’t your fault, Sugar cube.”
Fluttershy pawed at the ground. “If you say so.” A cloud of gnats circled her head, but all she did was blink once. She thinks it's her fault.
“Well, she can’t stay here anymore,” the mayor said, “after what those two did last night.”
Twilight realized they must be talking about the two stallions who’d tried to get into the library after dark last night. “It’s okay,” she said. “They didn’t get any of the books. Then Rainbow chased them away, all the way to the Everfree Forest.” No she didn’t; she isn’t real.
“You bet I did!” Rainbow said, swooping overhead. “You shoulda seen ‘em run with their tails pulled up under their asses!”
“Rainbow!” Twilight said.
“What? They did! Served ‘em right, too!”
“Language, Rainbow,” Twilight said. Still, it was hard to hold back a grin. Sometimes she wished she could say just what she wanted to other ponies like Rainbow did.That’s why she invented her.
“You don’t have to do this, honey,” Applejack told Fluttershy. “We got room at the farm...”
“No,” Fluttershy said, “I want to.”
“It ain’t your fault!”
Fluttershy looked over to Twilight and smiled weakly, like she had the night she’d said, I want to be friends and taught Twilight the Magic of Friendship. It gave Twilight a feeling in her stomach like eating Mexican, both satisfying and ominous. Now Fluttershy, Fluttershy was a foolish and vulnerable pony. Twilight had to look out for her.
“Come on, Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “I need you to give me a hand—I mean, a hoof—with, with Angel.”Trying to go along with Twi’s pony fantasy.
“Fluttershy, I’d love to, but you know the Princess said I have to look after the library.”
Rarity gave a tiny lady-like snort. “Which princess was that? Seems we have a new princess every week around here.”Seriously, Hasbro.
Twilight laughed. That was funny for some reason, though she couldn’t remember why.
Fluttershy herded Twilight away from Rarity and the library. “Spike wants to show he can take care of it by himself,” she said. “He told me so. Please, Twilight.”Dragons aren’t real.
Mayor Mare laid a forehoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder, then turned away. The police mares just watched with folded forelegs. One spat on the ground. Fluttershy was her friend, so Twilight let her guide her, away from the library, down the grassy path on the edge of town that led to her cottage. Rainbow and Pinkie came too, sometimes zooming ahead or behind. Fluttershy just walked. Fluttershy never flew. She has no wings. And her name isn't Fluttershy.
“You remember this place, don’t you?” Fluttershy said when they arrived. At first it looked long and square like a trailer, but little details filled themselves in one by one: the window lattices that looked like plastic but were in fact a highly polished exotic wood; the hulking brown square that was once a recycling bin but, she could now see, had been cleverly converted into a chicken coop; the green that had looked like mossy shingles — how could she have mistaken it? — was a fat thatched roof with grass growing on top. It’s a trailer.
“It isn’t very big, but I have a little room where I can put out a cot for you. We’ll have fun, okay, Twilight?”
“Hey, what about me?” Rainbow said.
“You can sleep on a cloud, silly!” Pinkie said.
“There’s a tub in the bathroom, it’s full-sized, and I’ve got a rubber duckie and soap that bubbles, and we can get you all washed up,” Fluttershy said. Twilight is filthy from living in a tree.
Twilight looked at the cottage, and stamped one hind leg uneasily. “Fun?” That feeling like Mexican food was back. Once she wanted more from Flutters.
“Fun,” Fluttershy said solemnly. The look on her face reminded Twilight again of that time before: I want to be friends.
Twilight rubbed her jaw thoughtfully.
I just want to be friends. That’s what Fluttershy told Twilight.
Something buzzed behind one of her eyes, like it was trying to get out. Twilight knew that feeling, and how to deal with it. She squeezed her eyes shut and searched in her head for another buzzing that could match it and drive it out. She makes stuff up to fix the truth.
She opened her eyes. “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s going to be fine, Fluttershy.” Because the second buzzing was one that had come to her last night, while Dash was chasing those naughty colts away, and was what she had wanted to tell Rarity and the Mayor. It was that now she was a princess too! She made that up while being attacked, to cope.
Now that she thought about it, it was funny that nopony had asked her about the wings that now lay folded tightly on her flanks. They were probably too worried to notice. Oh, but if she showed Fluttershy that now they could be together in that bright blue sky... Maybe she would take to the sky, too! They would swoop and dive about each other, and Fluttershy would smile like she used to, before...
She bounded up onto the low roof of Fluttershy’s chicken coop. From there it was a quick jump onto the roof of the cottage itself. The yard spread out below her like the bottom of a sea, a mere boundary of no particular importance now that the real world of three dimensions was open to her. She spread her new wings and crouched. “Watch this!” The wind threw her mane over one shoulder and ran its fingers over her face and through her feathers.
Down in the depths below, Fluttershy held both hooves to her mouth. “Twilight! Come down from there!”
“Go for it, Twi!” Rainbow shouted from above.
But Fluttershy had fallen to her… knees?... and was hiding her face in her hooves, sobbing, just barely audible: “please don’t. please don’t. you can’t… i mean, ponies can’t fly. i’m sorry. i’m sorry but they can’t. ponies can’t fly.”
Twilight climbed down carefully from the roof and nuzzled Fluttershy until she looked up. Twilight reached out to stroke away Fluttershy’s tears. She could see them glisten but couldn’t feel the wetness through her hooves. She wished she had some way to cheer her up. Fluttershy’s eyes were large and unfocused like those of a horse that had just been broken too hard. But who would break a horse? Twilight squeezed her eyes shut. Humans would.
She saw the princesses in her mind, prancing by one by one across a dark background. Celestia first, shining like a candle in the dark, the oldest, the one who made them all possible because once you knew her, you knew that she had to exist, that a thing couldn’t be that perfect without being real, too. The others had all followed after her, then: Luna, whispering Twilight’s name in the dark, cast from the reverse side of Celestia’s mold, a cold blue glimmer next to Celestia's burning glare. Cadence, not shining like a flame but glowing like a smile, nothing like Celestia or Luna but somepony that anyone who loved them both would recognize, the third dimension that grew out from the first two, that you couldn’t imagine until you’d been there and couldn’t stop seeing after. And then she saw herself, grown, she’d been just a filly until now but hadn’t known it, and now she was graceful and desirable and had some great power that drew ponies to her and that she could control if only she knew what it was.
“It’s okay, Fluttershy!” she said, opening her eyes. “Everything’s going to be just fine!” And it would be. Fluttershy, Twilight realized, was going to be a princess, too! They would all be princesses!
Twilight galloped off down the path back towards the library to find Rarity and let her know. She would be so excited! Fluttershy ran along after her, because Fluttershy never flew.
Author's Note
If you're still confused, look closely at the picture, and the tags, and the names of the groups I added it to. If you're still confused, see Normal Again. And if you’re STILL confused, read it again and highlight everything to reveal the white text.
I thought it wasn't hard to understand — there are over a dozen major hints that all point to the same thing — but a lot of people were confused. Please let me know if you did get it without reading the author's notes or the white text, or if it left you confused.
Several folks, smart ones, said I shouldn't have written this story, because it's sad without having a purpose. I don't know whether that's true. I wrote the story because the idea wouldn't go away. I thought maybe it was about dealing with mental illness. But it doesn't show mental illness realistically, and I know that I was more interested in Twilight's feelings than in Fluttershy's. I'm drawn to the notion of her being optimistic and worried about others despite the terrible things happening to her. Now I think maybe it's a metaphor for religion, because I have many religious friends relatives whom I would have to call literally crazy due to the extreme extent to which their religion warps their perceptions, but who often seem to be happier and better people than me as a result.
Some of you know that I’ve been reading Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses”. I titled this story before I knew that book existed, and even when I checked it out from the library, I had no notion it would have any connection with this story. But my first version of the story was too sparse at 1000 words long. I tried to figure out what I needed to add to it, and I couldn’t, but I could imagine sort of what Cormac McCarthy might add to it. He’d add a lot of details about the scenery and exactly what everypony was doing in the places where things move slowly, so that you could slow down and feel the patience and tiredness of the characters. I don’t write like him, but I managed to add another 800 words to give back the quiet spaces where they had been skipped over, by thinking about where he might add something.
