Something to be Shy About (or, on Courage)
Something to Be Shy About
Or, On Courage
~~~~
It wasn't so much that Fluttershy loved turtleneck sweaters and long, flowing and above all form-obscuring dresses so much as she hated her work clothes and the way they accentuated and drew attention to the things that Fluttershy least wanted to emphasize.
The cargo shorts weren't so bad; they were amorphous, baggy garments - and besides, it wasn't her hips and legs that drew stares and whistles of 'appreciation.' And the galoshes and rubber gloves were actively anti-sexualized, especially when caked in mud and worse while she mucked out the animal enclosures.
It was the rest of the outfit. The rest of that sun-blasted, mortifyingly form-fitting outfit.
She had to wear a pink t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of "Ponyville Shelter - No Critter Left Behind" that was just big enough for her to put on comfortably - there were no bigger sizes for t-shirts she could find; XXL Tall only came with the sort of fancy dress that Rarity sold! - and even then it was so tight across her chest that the outline of a (ugly, plain, white, industrial strength because come the dawn and dusk, her aching back!) bra pushed through - thank the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, it was at least tall enough to tuck into her shorts so it wouldn't draw attention to her torso by contrast with the cream color of her furry midriff.
And she couldn't close the khaki cargo jacket that came with it (because, again, no one had thought to make one that accommodated such a formidable bosom as Fluttershy's), meaning that it hung open... pale khaki around the saturated magenta of her shirt... accentuating her already grossly prominent chest.
The end result was what felt like hundreds upon thousands of (often otherwise completely inoffensive -but not NEARLY often enough) mares and stallions staring at her rack in a way that Fluttershy could well imagine could burn a hole through her shelter battledress and cause a wardrobe malfunction, to go along with the panic attacks those open-mouthed stares triggered.
Rainbow Dash once had introduced her closed hoof to one paragon of wit and charm at the shelter who dared presume that an offer to "carry your puppies for you" would accomplish anything but making Fluttershy want to run, hide, and sob (preferably into Angel's fur). He wasn't working for the shelter anymore; Dash had not merely seen to that, but had helped Fluttershy see to that personally, guiding her through the process of filing a harassment claim and making it stick. No doubt Twilight had used her royal influence to blacklist him too.
"I felt guilty about that at the start," Fluttershy told Rainbow Dash later, over a battered titanium kettle of cocoa; Fluttershy was bundled up in baggy skirts, scarves, and layered tops for reasons unrelated to the frosty cold outside. She was not relaxed enough to be able to fully retract her wings, but they were slowly inching their way towards rest.
"For that plothole? Fuck him," Rainbow Dash replied, laying face-up on her soft naga-hide and fleece sleeping bag. Her wings were caught in-between fully folding and fully spread. She had shucked her overcoat and thermal pants and boots, and was now clad only in a loose tanktop and a pair of boyshorts. "I know his type. The only thing that'll teach 'em to keep their pie-holes shut is losing a job or two."
They had pitched a tent at a riverside campsite in the woods (not the Forest; never the Everfree Forest) just outside of Ponyville, having just earned a vacation by working overtime wrapping up Winter at the shelter. The spring they had welcomed was particularly beautiful this year, and Fluttershy always liked camping; not merely for the solitude, although that was VERY welcome, but to be out in nature - out around living things that were older and (Fluttershy imagined) wiser than the eldest pony alive, and that counted the High Princesses.
Rainbow Dash had merely allowed that camping wasn't unpleasant when Fluttershy had invited her - but Rainbow Dash had this way of understating her enjoyment of things, as if admitting that she liked something would diminish the pleasure she took in it. It was true of her love of fantasy and adventure novels - something Rainbow Dash still feared would result in cider-bottle glasses arriving express-mail at her door - and it was true of camping.
Fluttershy had invited Rainbow Dash because she suspected it was true of something - someone - else. Hoped it was true.
"You were very brave, doing what you did," Fluttershy told her, as she looked down at Rainbow Dash. "Helping me the way you did."
"Nah, not really," Rainbow said, chuckling. With anyone else, she would have said Well, yeah. Course I was. I'm awesome. Tartarus' Gates, Fluttershy was surprised that Dash admitted that to her. "Punching a guy that deserves it? Really not that hard. Pretty awesome; not that hard. When it's really fucking obvious what you need to do, I'm not calling that bravery. Not even when I do it."
"Mmnn." Fluttershy nodded.
"Nah. You were the brave one." Rainbow Dash inhaled; it was as if a boot on her chest - right below her bosom - had been lifted, and she had instinctively took a deeper breath as soon as there was more space to fill. "You were the one who had a scary choice between bad now and worse later, and you managed to pick 'bad now.' THAT takes some guts, Fluttershy." Rainbow grinned fangs at her. "If you wanna say you were borrowing some of my courage, though, I'm not gonna stop ya."
"I couldn't have done it without you, Dashie." This was the truth, stated simply; matter of fact. Perhaps there was a little bit of the warmth that Fluttershy was trying to put into her words, but if so, its volume was diminished by the softness of her voice.
"Dashie? We're going with Dashie, really?" Rainbow rolled onto her stomach, and let her right wing - the one closest to Fluttershy - unfurl fully. It was half again as long as Rainbow was tall, the same sky blue as her fur, and disheveled - stray feathers sticking out at odd angles. "Help me preen, Fluts?"
"I'd think that would be more of Rarity's job," Fluttershy said, smiling, as she leaned over Rainbow's athletic form.
When some people thought of an athletic form - of athletic mares, and of athletes in general - they imagined grotesque caricatures, like the weightlifter and cheerleader Bulk Biceps. But Bulk was a bodysculptor; the entire point of his weightlifting, as he'd mentioned once to Fluttershy in passing, was an exaggerated muscular form. He was a horrible flier as a result; in anything other than weightlifting competitions, he was at a severe disadvantage - and sometimes even then, when up against someone with less noticeable but far more powerful abdominal muscles.
Rainbow was, to put it mildly, not at any disadvantage as a flier or general athlete.
Her body had muscle mass and definition; but this was hidden by a layer of body fat that smoothed the sharp angles of her shoulders, hips and legs into a short, well-proportioned figure with legs that - well, Fluttershy hadn't a violent bone in her body, but she could imagine that Rarity would kill for them. If her arms were flexed, Rainbow Dash would have fairly obvious bulging muscles between her shoulder and elbow; slack and at rest as they were almost tucked under her body, they were merely sleek and shapely. Her spread wings showed off her toned trapezium minor to great effect. And her chest -
Okay, Fluttershy might kill for that. Or at least trade with her. They would have been modest, almost flat, on anyone who was not in such excellent shape as Rainbow Dash was; as it stood, her toned deltoids jutted out and up and gave Rainbow Dash what Fluttershy privately considered a perfect rack.
She was too wrapped up in admiring it to be envious of Dash, most of the time. On any day where she had to endure catcalling, her envy became almost palpable; but now, here with Dash alone - she just thought it was beautiful.
Fluttershy began to gingerly comb her fingers through the pinions of Rainbow Dash's wings, seeking loose and stray feathers. She didn't force it; if it didn't come out easily, it wasn't time for it to come out. But she took the first cyan pinion that slipped free and tucked it behind a white magnolia and her pink waves of hair; and other bits of down and stray feathers soon followed it.
Rainbow Dash groaned appreciation.
"Is that good, sweetheart?" Fluttershy asked.
Rainbow laughed. "Where'n Tartarus did the 'sweetheart' come from, Fluts?" she murmured, half-asleep.
"I -" Fluttershy hesitated, and what she was going to say caught in her throat.
Rainbow immediately sensed the change in the air, the metaphorical cold front, and stopped. "Fluttershy? Did I say somethin' wrong just now?" she asked, craning her head and ears around to her tentmate.
"...You are a sweetheart, you do know that," Fluttershy said, feeling her cheeks turn a radioactive red glow. No, no, no! she wailed inside her own head. This was not how I was supposed to do this! I wasn't supposed to freeze up the moment she commented on my flirting!
"You would be the expert on sweethearts," Rainbow said, laughing. Fluttershy could have strangled her for insensitivity - until she noticed something.
She was blushing too.
And her smile barely reached her wide, nervous eyes.
Somehow, that was enough information - enough reassurance, enough hope - to allow Fluttershy to press on. She gifted Rainbow Dash with a beatific smile and started to gently rake her fingers through the athlete's wings again, only this time she wasn't doing it as preening. Well, not only preening.
"Do you like that?" Fluttershy murmured.
Rainbow's wings twitched, and she rolled her neck. "Feels fucking great. Fantastic. Dawn will come and I needed this so bad."
The thought Dawn won't be the only thing to come passed through Fluttershy's head, and it was so silly and so filthy to her that she had to giggle. She made no attempt to hide it.
Then she stretched out her own wings, and very carefully and deliberately brushed Dash's with the very tips.
"Dawn and Dusk, that tickles, what the hey -" Rainbow Dash tried to roll over and up, so she could see what was going on, but Fluttershy softly placed her hands over Dash's and kneeled over her, on all fours.
Precisely two parts of her body were touching Rainbow Dash's back. Fluttershy couldn't believe her own nerve in trying this. "And do you like this?" she purred.
She heard Rainbow Dash gulp. Then: "Yeah. Sorta. Kinda. Maybe?"
"Would you like me to keep doing it?" Fluttershy asked.
There was an eons-long second of silence. Then Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and lay her head on the pillow. "Never would have taken you for a dyke, not that I'm complaining," she said.
"Strange to hear that coming out of your mouth," Fluttershy said, not unkindly. She started to stretch out over Rainbow Dash, rolling her hips and her chest over her back and gently pulling at Dash's wrists to pop the cartilage in the joints and loosen her muscles.
"I mean, I - I kind of aggressively dated stallions because I happen to like them too and as kind of a 'fuck-you' to everyone who assumed I was a dyke instead of figuring it out, you know?" Dash was totally limp, and groaning or grunting with every little twist and shake that Fluttershy was bestowing on her. She continued to babble. "But you're hot, you know? You're hot, AJ's hot, Twi's hot, sunblast it all of my friends are hot," she growled.
"Shh," Fluttershy said, hugging her with her wings and arms both. "You don't have to explain anything to me. Just let me touch you, okay? Let me massage where it hurts, let me tickle -" she demonstrated with her wingtip "- where you're ticklish, and let me stroke where it makes you shiver." And she cupped both of Dash's breasts, and gently squeezed.
Rainbow Dash, miracle of miracles, did not say another moonbanished word as she submitted to the touch of Fluttershy's wandering hands and wings. She writhed, to be sure; she grunted and moaned as Fluttershy found her way under the elastic band of her boyshorts to a small, stubby knob and two soaking folds; but she didn't speak as Fluttershy played with her breasts and teased her clit and nibbled at her neck and ears.
She came in a violent shudder and silence, and Fluttershy smiled at her through half lidded eyes. She offered her fingers to Dash's mouth, and Dash sucked them as if they were popsicles.
"Do you taste awesome, Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked with a grin.
Rainbow Dash had a sudden fit of the giggles, which did not stop until she crawled up to a sitting fetal position and looked into Fluttershy's eyes. "You know it," she said, grinning, before taking Fluttershy's head and kissing her - eagerly licking at the inside of her mouth, her teeth, her reciprocating tongue.
When they broke off, Fluttershy rolled her own neck and started taking off her own clothes - off with the loose, baggy, vertically striped sweater; off with an amorphous, swirling skirt; and off with her industrial strength bra.
"What, your turn now? Is that what you're saying?" Rainbow Dash asked - as she rubbed her hands and grinned fiendishly.
Fluttershy nodded.
Rainbow Dash lunged, grabbing one of Fluttershy's great big breasts in both hands and lifting it up to her mouth - kissing, nibbling, sucking. Fluttershy made a sound she did not realize she was capable of making, having previously associated it with nursing kittens.
"God, you have the best tits," Rainbow Dash muttered. "I am so fucking jealous."
"I love you so much," Fluttershy told her, beaming from ear to ear.
Author's Note
This fic was directly inspired by a conversation I had with the girl who is Actually Just Human Applejack, who shares the blame with me for the Holy Trihorse Trilogy of smutfics being A Thing because she's my ideal audience for this stuff.
Specifically, I asked her why damn near every single humanization of Fluttershy I stumbled across gave her boobs three times the size of her head. My headcanon of her prior to this was a vegan hippie chick with all the curves and body fat you'd expect of someone who subsists on a steady diet of tempeh, arugula, and quinoa tabouli with craisins - that is to say, next to none.
"Obviously it's so she'll have something to be shy about," she said. "I know I'm embarrassed by how big my girls are."
You will notice that "Something To Be Shy About" is the name of this fic. This was the best and most coherent explanation of the typical Humanshy's vast tracts of land that I've ever heard - mind, most of the explanations that I previously heard boiled down to '[HEAVY BREATHING INTENSIFIES].'
Bodybuilders will note that there is no such muscle in the human body as the trapezium minor. This is a thing I made up that anthropomorphs with wings and arms have; the trapezium major controls the arms and the smaller trapezium minor, the wings.
Oh, and to Voodoo-Tiki, who drew the "y'all realize that Fluttershy works for an animal shelter that's ankle deep in critter poo, that's a horrible place for flowing skirts" picture:
First, you're amazing and the 'animal shelter battle-dress' you illustrated is now a major part of my headcanon. Second, I'm sorry that the first fic where I embraced that headcanon is a silly smutty Flutterdash joint, and I promise that the next one - well, is A World, Reflected, and therefore PG-13.
