When Angels Lose Their Way

The songbirds sang a beautiful melody, lulling Fluttershy into a sense of peace and tranquility. She lay on a blanket in a grassy meadow, a small array of foodstuffs arranged on the blanket between her and that most wonderful pony in the world: Rainbow Dash.

        “Isn’t it lovely?” Fluttershy asked as she sipped a mug of chamomile tea.

        Rainbow Dash swished her sapphire blue and pink streaked mane with a flick of her head, and flashed Fluttershy a heart-melting smile. “Heck yeah it is!” She lit her horn and raised a sandwich to her mouth. “This is the best daisy sandwich I’ve ever had!”

        Fluttershy’s cheeks bloomed, swishing her hips in joy at the compliment. “Thank you.”

        Rainbow set down the sandwich and scooted over on the blanket till she could just reach Fluttershy. She stretched out one massive purple wing and wrapped it around Fluttershy, filling her with a warm tingling in her belly. “You’re the best marefriend a mare could have,” Dash said.

        Fluttershy melted against the alicorn, listening to her heartbeat. Slow and steady, matching Fluttershy’s own. “I love you, Rainbow Dash,” she said as she nuzzled into Rainbow’s feathers.

“I’m not Rainbow Dash!” said Rainbow in a bookish, librarian kind of voice.

        Fluttershy laughed, and looked up into her marefriend’s violet eyes. “Of course you are,” she insisted. “Who else would you be?”

        “Fluttershy.”

        Fluttershy blinked. “What?”

        “Fluttershy!”

        Fluttershy's slumber broke amidst the boom of explosions and the sound of screams.

“Fluttershy!” Spike shrieked for a third time as he shoved open the door to her castle bedchambers, his armor clanging as he ran. He opened his mouth to shout again, but his foreclaw caught on the carpet. He fell flat on his face.

        “Oh goodness, Spike!” Fluttershy gasped as she sat up, drawing her wings together. “What's going on?”

        He gasped for air. “We're... under... we're under attack!”

        Shy leapt out of bed, scattering sheets and quilts every which way. Taking the rope in her mouth she opened her blinds, revealing nighttime Ponyville, much expanded in the last year, beyond the twinkling purple shields guarding the castle.

        The few scant street lights, normally glittering like fireflies, flickered and washed out underneath the light of fires burning in buildings all along Market Street. The outer town shields were raised, but they cast only a pale shadow of their usual full glow, flickering and wavering underneath cannon fire. An occasional shot punched through, exploding and setting more homes ablaze.

        She could also see members of the Sparkle Guard, the castle's defense service and Ponyville police force, engaged in battle against hulking beasts.

        Centaurs.

        Each centaur that Fluttershy could see carried a massive longbow larger than a pony's full length strapped to their back, bearing glittering gems of various colors. They also carried long, wicked tipped spears or nasty, barbed swords. Though most were wearing bardings of plain steel, she saw one wearing golden, gem-encrusted mithril.

        One of the Sparkle Guard, a rose colored pegasus, gripped a spear in her mouth as she attacked a centaur with vicious stabs. The centaur raised a bracer and blocked the blows in rapid succession; the final blow glanced off and the pegasus lost control over her spear. The centaur snatched the spear by the shaft and slapped the Guard pegasus to the ground, following up with an impaling stab.

        Fluttershy gaped, shutting the blinds before Spike could see any more. Or her. She felt a tinge of nausea. That centaur just killed that pony... She'd seen death before, of course. It couldn't be avoided in her line of work. But it was always the death of an animal, usually—thanks to her work—to old age, rather than injury. To see a pony cut down so brutally like that...

        “Oh goodness...” she murmured.

        “...I… I guess Twilight's negotiations didn't go so well...” Spike said.

        “No... no they didn't,” Fluttershy agreed. She didn't understand why. Yes, the centaurs had been making demands for ages now, ever since the Tirek incident had awakened them from their centuries long slumber. But for Twilight, and the others, to actually fail?

        She didn't want to believe it, but the attack she'd just witnessed didn't lie.

        “Spike,” she said, leaning down so she could look him in the eye. “We have to help everypony! They're going to need us.” She shivered. Help how, she wasn't sure yet. But help she would. She had to.

        “Right!” Spike said. “Follow me! Trixie and Big Mac are waiting for you in the map room!”

        Fluttershy nodded, and followed him as swiftly as her hooves could take her.

~ * ~

        Twilight Sparkle had never quite stopped to look at Fluttershy  quite so closely before. But then, when would she have had time? Between all the misadventures they’d experience in the relatively short time since they’d met, and Twilight’s librarian duties, and her studies on friendship, and her other studies on other subjects like arcane physics, chemistry, alchemy, whatever Princess Celestia had assigned, she’d been too busy. But then, Fluttershy had just saved her life from a cockatrice! That doesn’t happen every day! Fluttershy clearly deserved her notice.

        And now that Fluttershy had it, sitting there bathed in the rays of the noonday sun, Twilight wondered why she’d never noticed how… beautiful she was. From an objective standpoint, like… like admiring the beauty of a statue or a painting. Those soft blue eyes, gentle, quiet, demure. Yet fierce enough to take on a cockatrice. Eyes were windows to the soul, Twilight had once read, and it was only now that Twilight was seeing the hidden strength lying within. And then her hair… it curled around her face just so, drawing in the eyes… a perfect example of local fashions worth study, of course, and Fluttershy wore it better than anyone else she’d seen. How did Fluttershy get it to shine that way? Oh, and then there were her wings! So different from Rainbow’s. Twilight just had to study them--purely for scientific reasons, of course--so she could see them in more detail. If Twili--err, that is, the pony volunteering for the experiment--were wrapped in them to keep warm, would their...fluffiness help or hinder as they embraced her in care and warm--

        “Um, Twilight?”

        Twilight's eyes popped as she came back to reality. Sitting across from Fluttershy, tea mugs before them. Fluttershy was fidgeting with hers, not really looking in her direction so much as at the table. “Are you... are you okay?” Shy asked.

        A blush came to Twilight's cheeks. Had she been staring? Oh no, she had. Darn it! “Sorry, Fluttershy! I, um...” she scrambled, reaching for any kind of excuse. “I guess I'm just so amazed you talked a cockatrice into unpetrifying me! You saved my life. How'd you do it?”

        “Oh! Um, well.” Shy rustled her wings. “It was my Stare.”

        Stare? Why had Twilight never heard of this before? Twilight cocked her head. “Stare, huh? Something in your eyes? Does it scare them?” It made sense. Maybe that's why Fluttershy's eyes had been so entrancing. Yes, had to be.

        “Something like that.”

        Twilight rubbed her chin. “Hmmm... I've never seen magic like that before! Do you think you could maybe come to the library with me? So I could study this Stare.” And maybe her wings too, while Twilight was at it. At Fluttershy's initial silence, she added, “I mean, if you'd be okay with that.” Not likely, after all that staring, Twilight groaned inwardly. And then again as she realized the inadvertent pun. This was just like that time in the third grade, with Storm Seeker. And then in fifth grade with Clear Skies. Twilight had earned herself a bloody nose for that one. She would’ve thought she’d learn her lesson over excessive staring by now. She was such a good student of everything else!

        Fluttershy gave her a watery smile. “I, um, can't, sorry. I'm meeting up with Rainbow Dash. She's going with me to watch the Butterfly Migration!” As she said the words Rainbow Dash her eyes lit up with such a glow that it renewed the fiery warmth in Twilight's cheeks. Fluttershy set her hoof on Twilight's, raising the blush from simmering to boiling. “Maybe some other time.”

        “Right!” Twilight clambered out of her chair, tripped, and fell on her rump. She laughed nervously and scrambled to right herself. “Right. I'll... I gotta go too! You know, books to read, papers to write, busy busy busy!”

        “Oh. Okay. Um, bye.” Fluttershy waved a wing.

        Twilight nodded far too fast far too many times and broke into a gallop. “Smooth, Sparkle, real smooth,” she grumbled at herself. “Way to creep out one of your best friends. One of your only friends!” She scowled. “What the heck is wrong with me anyway? Staring, stammering, blushing like crazy? It’s just Fluttershy, not some goddess of beauty in an old story!” She slowed her pace to a canter. “There has to be an explanation. I mean the only reason somepony would stare that much is because they’ve got a crush--oh no. No way.” She rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s completely ridiculous. I don’t get crushes on ponies. Especially not one of my best and only friends. I know enough about friendship to know how much a crush can ruin said friendship! But there’ll be no ruining, because there is no crush!”

        The image of Princess Celestia came to her mind unbidden.. With a groan she took that image, slammed it shut into a lockbox and buried it deep in a dark hole in the forest and threw the key behind the gates of Tartarus. “I don't get crushes!” she growled through gritted teeth. “I don't!” Nopony responded, since no pony was around, but if there was they would agree! They would!