Fluttershy placed the quill gently next to her now signed letter to Princess Celestia. Exhausted, she rolled up the fine parchment and clipped the royal ribbon seal around the outside to keep it neat. After cleaning her quill, she remembered she had some other cleaning to do.
Fluttershy removed the tape holding up her Iron Will posters and brochures, piece by piece, until she had a slightly crumpled mess of glossy paper in her hooves. She thought about every cheap catchphrase, every bad piece of advice Iron Will gave her. The posters crumpled in her hooves and Fluttershy clenched her jaw. She shuffled past all of the sleeping creatures staying with her in the living room, and slowly creaked open the back door.
It was late at night, and the cold breeze rushed to greet her at her back stoop. The full moon shined brightly in the black starry sky, and illuminated Fluttershy’s path. She walked down the steps to her back yard, bordering the everfree forest, and set everything that reminded her of iron will into her fire pit. She stopped for a second, and stared deep into the erie treeline. The forest was pitch black. The heavy blanket canopy of the treetops completely prevented any particle of light from entering the thickets of bramble bushes and ferns. She wondered if there were spots in the forest that never saw any light. Realizing she forgot her matches, Fluttershy placed a rock on top of the crumpled mass of posters, and snuck back inside to the kitchen.
Thankful she did not wake her furry guests, she entered the kitchen and retrieved her box of matches from their spot in the in the cupboard. Before closing the cupboard door, however, she glanced up to see a bottle of cider, almost completely obscured by a bag of grain. Thinking back to cider season, she remembered purchasing the bottle, and squirreling it away, “For a rainy day,” she said. She took the bottle out of his hiding spot, and rolled it around in her hooves.
Fluttershy whispered to herself, “If Rainbow Dash knew I had this she would finish the bottle faster than I could offer her a glass.”
The moonlight poured in through the kitchen window, casting ominous shadows and splitting the room into contrasting segments of light and dark.
A slow, prickling feeling grew across the back of fluttershy’s neck.
Was it a draft? No, she thought, it felt like she was being watched.
She froze.
Fluttershy was never really afraid of the dark, not since she was a filly, but for whatever reason reason she was petrified with fear.
Fluttershy silently set the bottle on the countertop.
She turned her head…
“Oh! Angel, its just you.”
Fluttershy let out a long sigh of relief and leaned her back up against the edge of the countertop. She tried her best to slow her booming heartbeat.
“you really scared me for a second there sweety.”
Angel hesitated, and then hopped over to Fluttershy’s left hind leg and gave it a loving hug, warming her hoof and sending a smile across her face.
“Did I wake you?” Fluttershy inquired, staying mindful of the others sleeping and keeping her voice down.
Angel shook his head. He was visibly shaken.
Fluttershy set her arms down quietly, leaned close to Angel and whispered, “Did you have a bad dream?”
Angel hopped up and grabbed the cloth strap of Fluttershy’s saddle bag, using it as a sort of rope to hoist himself onto her back, and, shortly after, loose himself in her warm mane, as he so often did when frightened.
With Angel taking comfort in her mane, Fluttershy loaded the cider and matches into her bag, and slithered back outside to her fire pit. She pulled an old wooden chair off her back stoop and positioned it close to the pit. She arranged tinder and readied firewood, like she had done so many times before. With a crack, a match fluttered to life, and fluttershy placed it gently underneath the small, arched canopy of dried grass and wood chips she crafted. Excited to warm her cold hooves, Fluttershy eagerly coaxed the fire into a small blaze, and added larger sticks to the smoking pile.
Satisfied with the fire she created, Fluttershy leaned back in her chair, and Angel crawled into her lap, welcoming the loving embrace of Fluttershy’s cheek, and the radiant glow of the fire before him. Fluttershy carefully, and without disturbing Angel, leaned over and rescued the cider from it’s precarious position near the expanding flames. Without hesitation, Fluttershy cracked open the cider with her teeth, and took a long cool swill from the opaque brown bottle.
“Oh Angel,” Fluttershy cooed, “ I feel so ashamed.”
Angel lifted his head and gave Fluttershy a worried look.
“I’ve said things to my friends, done things to ponies that I, well…”
Tears formed in Fluttershy’s eyes. She did her best to hold them back, but it was no use. She took another swig from her bottle.
“I blamed it all on Iron Will, and, well why shouldn't I have!”
Fluttershy’s expression changed from anguish to frustration.
“After all, it was his stupid workshop thing that made me act that way!”
She took an aggressive sip from her bottle.
“No no no…”
Fluttershy started softly crying to herself again.
“He didn't really make me say any of that stuff…”
Angel continued listening intently.
“He just gave me some bad advice. It was how I chose to act on it that was truly despicable.”
She wiped her tears with her left arm and took another swill of cider with her right.
“I made my friends cry, why did I do that Angel?” Fluttershy choked up, and she took a second to compose herself.
“I really need to set this all straight… Im surprised Rarity and Pinkie Pie even came back for me after the way I treated them, the things I said the-”
Fluttershy glanced down to see Angel fast asleep on her lap. With the fire dying down, and the midnight wind chilling her to the bone, Fluttershy poured the remaining cider on the fire, retrieved her matches, and carried Angel back inside.
Fluttershy tucked Angel into his bed and gave him a kiss on the head, murmuring, “Good night my sweet little Angel.”
Her eyes drooping from a long, stressful day, Fluttershy slid herself into her warm bed, and fell into a deep sleep. That night, she dreamt about cider.
**********
The next morning, Fluttershy was boisterously prodded awake by tiny paws. Feeling stiff, Fluttershy broke into a massive stretch and smiled. Glancing out her bedroom window, fluttershy noticed the position of the sun, and checked her bedside clock for confirmation.
“Dear me Angel, we stayed up late last night. Its already 10:00 A.M.!”
Fluttershy rolled out of bed, and rubbed her groggy eyes. Angel’s Stomach gave a soft grumble, and he alerted Fluttershy to his problem.
“Oh, you must be hungry,” Fluttershy observed, “Everyone else too probably.”
Fluttershy rushed to the kitchen to retrieve food for her undoubtedly peckish guests. Fluttershy wrestled a huge bag of rabbit feed out into her living room, and poured a large helping into a wide ceramic bowl on the floor. Surprised, Fluttershy saw that Angel, a very picky eater, had his own spot in the circle of feeding rabbits, and was eating the food without a single complaint.
having fed all of her patiently awaiting furry friends, she put on her saddle bag, announcing, “Don’t worry everyone, I just have to deliver this letter and I will be back before noon.”
With her letter to Princess Celestia in her bag, Fluttershy set out to find spike, so he could deliver her important royal mail. It was a cool, windy morning, and the residents of Ponyville trotted about, happily unaware of Fluttershy’s woes. It didn’t take long for Fluttershy to find him. He was on his way out of the library, running errands for Twilight no doubt, when she caught him and delivered the letter.
“Hi Fluttershy. I’ll send this later tonight along with Twilights letter,” Spike said, taking the letter from fluttershy.
“Oh, Twilight learned something about friendship too?” Fluttershy wondered aloud.
“No, Twilight doesn't just send letters about friendship, She is Princess Celestias pen-pal too.”
“Oh, thats nice” An awkward silence followed.
“Twilight told me that you got some sort of assertiveness training or something, how did that go?” Spike asked, ignorant to the problems that training had caused her.
“Im sorry spike, I really dont want to talk about it…” Fluttershy bowed her head.
“Okay, Well, see you around,” Spike waved and went on his way.
“See ya,” Fluttershy mumbled.
Fluttershy searched for the clock tower and spotted the massive landmark easily. Its square silhouette was plastered plastered against the horizon. Fluttershy remembered the pony with the camera she threw against the bell. It seemed she could not stop reminding herself of the regrettable things she had done. Realizing she had plenty of time before noon, she started off for the Carousel Boutique in search of Rarity. A short walk later, Fluttershy arrived at the boutique, and stopped in front of the door. She took a deep breath.
“It’s okay Fluttershy,” She said to herself, “Just tell her the truth, like you did with angel.”
Fluttershy, after calming her nerves, gave a few timid taps on Rarity’s door, only to have it explode open seconds later, followed by a shrill, “HI FLUTTERSHY!”
Fluttershy nervously peeked through her hooves and, upon seeing Sweetie Belle in the doorway, cautiously rose from her cowering position in front of Rarity’s door.
“Im sorry Fluttershy,” Sweetie Belle said with a worried look, “Did I spook you?”
“No, it’s fine really,” Fluttershy replied, “Um, is Rarity home?”
“Nope, she went with Pinkie Pie to the farmers’ market.”
“She didn’t leave you here all alone did she?” Fluttershy asked, concerned.
“Not at all, Apple Bloom is here too!”
“Thats not really what I meant…” Fluttershy looked at the ground. “Anyway, you girls stay out of trouble.” Fluttershy gave Sweetie Belle a big smile, and turned away.
“Oh yea! Rarity mentioned something about a petition to ban Iron Will’s show thing from Ponyville.”
“She what?” Fluttershy was running now, “Now I really have to make this right.”
**********
Fluttershy slowed as she entered the farmers’ market. She remembered the layout quite well, in fact she had been there just the other day. She thought back to all of the salesponies that tried to rip her off, just because she didn’t know how to stand up for herself. It reminded her of why she wanted assertiveness training in the first place. She searched feverishly for Rarity and Pinkie Pie, her head snapping from side to side, however it was apparent that the crowd was too thick, and the market too large for her to find them on foot. She tightened her saddle bag, and took off, trying her best not to draw attention to herself.
It wasn’t long before she spotted them; Rarity was holding a clipboard and Pinkie Pie was gaining the attention, and signatures.
Pinkie Pie yelled into the flowing river of shopping ponies, “Ban Iron Will! Do you even know what he did to our friend Fluttershy? He turned that nice, kind pony into-” Fluttershy swooped down in front of them, “-Oh hi Fluttershy! We’re collecting signatures for our petition to get that big meany Iron Will’s big mean workshop banned from Ponyville!”
“I know,” Fluttershy said, panting between words, “Thats why i’m here.”
“Oh,” Pinkie chirped, “You wanna sign too-”
“No!” Fluttershy interrupted pinkie, “I came to stop you two.”
“Huh?” Rarity and pinkie exclaimed in unison.
“Why would you ever want to do something like that darling?” Rarity asked.
“Yea,” Pinkie tilted her head, “If anypony wanted Iron Will gone it would be you right? I mean, he did make you a super mean meany cause’ he was greedy and wanted money and-”
“That’s not true at all!” Fluttershy yelled.
“What do you mean Fluttershy?” Rarity looked at Fluttershy, Intrigued.
“Well, at first, I thought that Iron Will was to blame too but… after a lot of thinking, I realized that he was giving me bad advice, not forcing me to do any of those things. I should have been strong enough to ignore what he was saying, and not let things get out of hoof like they did.”
“So,” Rarity looked confused, “When you called us two of the most frivolous ponies in Ponyville, I mean, is that actually how you think of us?”
Rarity and Pinkie gave sullen looks to the dirt in front of them.
“No of course not!” Fluttershy took a step forward, “The things we have been through together, the obstacles we’ve overcome-” Fluttershy looked into the faces of her dear friends, “-I could never think low of you, and I couldn’t live without you two. I dont know what got into me yesterday, but I should never take any of my friends for granted.” Fluttershy paused and looked down, “Will you girls ever forgive me?”
“Of course Fluttershy!” Rarity looked over at Pinkie Pie.
“Um, well, DUH!” Pinkie Pie lept at Fluttershy and gave her a firm hug. Shortly after, Rarity joined in.
“You are the best friends ever!” Hot tears ran down Fluttershy’s face, this time, they were tears of joy.
“Fluttershy, you shouldn't worry yourself like that,” Rarity said sweetly, “We all have days where we are a little uncouth.”
“I know,” Fluttershy wiped her tears, “So, uh, will you stop your petition please? I mean if you want…”
Before Fluttershy could finish her sentence, Rarity took the petition out of the clipboard, tore it in half, and lowered it into a nearby garbage can.
Rarity smiled at Fluttershy, “It was a silly idea anyway.”
Fluttershy, having been lost in the moment, searched for the clock tower once more.
“12:10! Oh, girls I would love to stay some more, but I promised the animals I would be back before noon.”
“We understand Fluttershy,” Rarity said. Pinkie pie nodded her head in agreement.
Fluttershy said goodbye to her friends, and flew home. A huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She arrived home that afternoon, and opened her front door to a house full of her animal friends. She was greeted with, hugs, kisses, and an entire assortment of different affectionate embraces.
“Hello everyone,” Fluttershy called out over the clamor of rattling bird cages and the pitter-patter of a hundred feet, “I had a great day today, what about all of you?”
All of her guests erupted in unanimous agreement that it was, in fact, a good day. Of course, only Fluttershy could hear the voices of these creatures that could not speak.
“Angel, will you get me some parchment out of my desk? The good kind please.”
After hours of playing and talking with the various animals that filled her home, Fluttershy sat at her old writing desk,and the piece of fine parchment in front of her. The afternoon sun streamed through the window, radiating off of the light beige paper. Fluttershy carefully picked up her quill, and dipped it in the inkwell. At the top of the page, in her best handwriting, Fluttershy wrote the start of another letter: Dear Princess Celestia...
Author's Note
Thanks for reading!
