Painful Origins

“How could you never have told us this Fluttershy!” Twilight was ranting and angry, and for the first time I was actually scared of my friends.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash chided in. “I've known you longer than any of us and you never told ME!”

“Ah cain't even wrap mah head around it... Why in Equestria would you be goin' around lyin' to us like that! What else haven't you told us, huh?”

“B-but I –“

“No, no 'buts'! Applejack is right Fluttershy, if that's even your real name! Why did you lie to us?? We're your friends!” Twilight scolded me.

“I d-didn't...”

“I can't believe it, ME of all ponies you didn't tell, you know this is something that I feel like as your oldest friend I deserves to know!”

All the three of them continued to hammer with question after question and one accusation after another. 'Liar... Liar... LIAR!' All of a sudden it was like something snapped inside of me, where I normally would curl up into a heap and hide I couldn't do it anymore. 'Liar... Liar...' I wasn't a liar. I'd never told them anything that wasn't true, and who were they to demand this from me anyway? It didn't affect them –  They didn't have to deal with it every day of their lives, and yet they have the gall to stand there, yelling at me like it was their problem. They'd never even asked me about my past. I probably would've told them if they had, but no... They never asked and now they acted like they had some right to know the most intimate secret I'd ever kept – the most private part of my life that I'd tried to hide since I was a little filly! They didn't really know who I was, and here they were accusing me of being a... a LIAR!

“ENOUGH!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs while the tears started forming in my eyes. Everything was silent after that, and I couldn't hold it back anymore. “You have NO idea what it's been like for me! Since I was just a little filly, everypony has constantly made fun of me for one reason or another! You all think you have some right to know! YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME!! Not once have any of you ever asked me a thing about my past or where I came from, and now you're standing here DEMANDING that I tell you the most private part of my life!? Fine!! Here's the truth, my name is Fluttershy, and I'M NOT A LIAR!!”

With that I turned from them, and I flew off out the library window at a speed I didn't even know I was capable of. I was hurt. I was hurt worse than anypony had ever hurt me before. No beating, no taunting, no pain was worse than what I felt in my heart as I flew away from them. I thought I had friends that would support me no matter what, and would accept me without regard to anything. They didn't, and suddenly I felt more lonely than I ever had in my life. When I landed outside of my house I went limp. I could barely walk as I carried myself to the door, gasping for breath through sobs of sadness and heartache. I was angry at them because they hurt me, but I hated myself for retaliating and hurting them as I'm sure I did, and I hated myself with every fiber of my being for who I was.

…......................

“That was... horrifying...” The three ponies present at the site of Fluttershy's outburst finished in unison, still visibly shaken and locked in place by what they had just witnessed.

“TWILIGHT! APPLEJACK! RAINBOW DASH!” came a stern voice aside from where they had been. It was Rarity. She'd been about to walk into the library to join the meeting when she heard all the commotion. “I am absolutely appalled by your behavior just now!”

“OUR behavior!?” Rainbow began. “Did you even see what Fluttershy just did!? I thought that she was going to kill us!”

“Yes, I did see what the poor dear did when she was backed into a corner by some of the ponies that she trusted the most calling her a liar! Can you imagine how that felt to her??”

“But Rarity, she HAS been lying to us! You were there with all of us when Vapor Trail found us in the park – Fluttershy even ADMITTED it to us!” Twilight countered angrily to her friend.

“Twilight, I have to say that of all the ponies here I would expect you to understand this issue better than anypony else, and I'm severely disappointed in the way you've treated your friend in a time of crisis!” Rarity fought back in an equally angry tone. “We are supposed to support our friends, not overshadow their problems with our own! Or has everyone forgotten that lesson except me!”

“Oh, so we should just pretend this never happened, and all go back to fooling ourselves about her!? And I suppose that you're completely fine with this? You two see each other all the time and you're just going to go on like nothing ever happened!?” Twilight quipped, hoping that she'd catch Rarity in her hypocracy, but what she said next floored all of them.

“I've been 'OK' with this situation since before any of the rest of you even knew about it!”

“Wait, you mean to tell us, that ya'll have known about this since before yesterday?” Applejack asked with anger on her brow as well.

“Yes!” Rarity returned looking right at Twilight with a deadly glare. “Fluttershy told me the whole story this when we were just fillies! Who do you think has been helping her through all of this? It certainly hasn't been any of you! I've helped her through all of it, and I can assure you of this: Fluttershy has never once lied to any of you about who she is! Now I'm leaving to go find the poor thing because after what the three of you did, I can't even imagine how hurt she is.” Rarity slammed the door to the library on her way out, leaving the three friends still shocked at what they'd just heard from both Rarity, and Fluttershy.

“Great... This is just perfect. Now we've got two friends who are all buddy-buddy keeping secrets from us.” Rainbow chided with contempt.

“Ah still just can't believe that they've been keepin' it from us. And all the years we've been friends why wouldn't either of them say somethin'?” Applejack stated, feeling the same sense of betrayal that Rainbow felt. “Are you alright, sugarcube? You're bein' awful quiet...”

Twilight was quiet. She was going over the whole scenario from start to finish in her head. The whole story... The more she thought, the more she realized that they didn't have the whole story. They were in so much shock by the revelation of yesterday... They'd never asked Fluttershy about it. The more she thought about it she realized that the really didn't know Fluttershy that well at all outside of the fact that she was a shy pony that loved animals.

“Twilight..? What are you thinkin', hun?”

“I'm thinking that we made a terrible mistake... I mean what Fluttershy said is true. We really don't know that much about her...”

“Well maybe you two don't, but I'm her oldest friend! I know EVERYTHING about her!” Rainbow said with her confident tone shining through.

“Well... Where did she live? What was her family like?” Twilight asked hoping to gain some insight about her friend.

“Easy. She lived... Uh..." She drew a blank. "Well her parents were...” Rainbow suddenly realized she didn't know either of those things. She plopped to the ground searching her brain for anything to show that she knew her friend. “Ok, so she never invited me over! But I'm sure they were great and so was her house!”

“Rainbow... How much did you actually talk to Fluttershy when you were fillies?” Twilight asked hoping for a better answer than what she expected.

Rainbow thought about it for a minute. She pried every corner of her memory for the times she'd talked to Fluttershy, but she only came up with a handful, most of which were just passersby greetings when they saw each other. She dropped her ears and her head as she sat there in silence, realizing that she hadn't been as good of a friend as she'd thought.

“We had her backed into a corner demanding something from her that we didn't have any right to...” Twilight said as she started to feel a slight pang in her chest.

“Ah bet she was awful scared and hurt with the three of us all callin' her a liar too...” Applejack echoed, also feeling the guilt of her conscience weighing down on her.

“I think we should go find her, and apologize for what we did to her...” Twilight said as the three of them picked themselves up to walk out the door. “And let's just hope that she'll forgive us...” With that the three of them headed off out into the heat of the afternoon sun, to attempt to make ammends with their friend.