Sapphire

Fluttershy walked home by way of the same street she always walked home, familiar hard-packed dirt underneath her hooves and another setting sun turning the sky red-orange-pink over her head. But this time her walk home didn’t give her any of its usual comforting sense of familiarity, of another good day ended or another pleasant evening with friends concluded.

Fluttershy felt like she had a cottage full of undone work waiting for her when she arrived home, like she had a million things to do and no time to do them—empty bird feeders, empty food  and water bowls, foul-smelling wet spots on the floor and cushions, whining desperate scratches on the front door and pecking at the windows, Angel stomping on her hoof, cupboards empty, a trip to the market needed, weeds in the garden, wild critters digging up the vegetables and herbs and flowers, friends calling for her to come out and play, friends calling for her to come out and help, storm clouds over the Everfree, winds blowing stronger, the first drops of rain hitting her window panes, and all of her critters still out in the open, vulnerable, in danger.

But it wasn’t just that she didn’t have time, it was more like she had forgotten how, like she recognized the work all around her but didn’t know how to do any of it, didn’t understand it anymore, and she stayed in her cottage and lay in bed and cried instead.

Except she didn’t have any work to do. She had filled the bird feeders and bowls before she left, cleaned and tidied the whole cottage, checked on all her critters, and there was no storm on the horizon. The only storms were the ones in her head. But those were always the worst.

Most times when she walked home after an evening at the spa with Rarity, Fluttershy felt calm, soothed, that even if there was hard work waiting for her at home, like a new puppy that needed housetraining or a robin that had come down with the flu, she knew she could handle it. She would have spoken with Rarity about it and told her friend everything, and Rarity would have assured her that she was up to the task and if she needed any help, Rarity was available.

But this time the problem was Rarity.

No, the problem was Fluttershy. Rarity had simply illuminated the problem that was herself. All of Rarity’s attempts to help Fluttershy were only making her feel worse and worse the more Rarity revealed of her inadequacy. It was something, or a lack of something, Fluttershy had always known lay hidden inside her, just underneath her skin, maybe somewhere around her heart, maybe just in her head. It was maybe something she had never learned or maybe something she had simply been born without and would never understand. She had never before known its full extent. Now Rarity was yanking it out into the open for Fluttershy to see, and Fluttershy had no idea what to do with it except go home and tuck it back inside and try to forget about it again.

Worse, Rarity’s attempts at digging at her and understanding the problem that lay underneath had brought forth something else entirely, something equally terrifying and confusing.

It’s not Rainbow Dash!

It had been Rainbow Dash once, a long, long time ago, when Fluttershy was a filly. If Fluttershy had ever ceased being a filly. She didn’t know anymore. But it had been Rainbow Dash once, when Fluttershy was at flight school and all the other foals made fun of her every day, all except the scruffy loud little filly who had jumped, incredibly, unbelievably, to her defense. It hadn’t been anything more than a foalhood crush. Fluttershy had grown out of it. Rainbow Dash had dropped out of school and moved away. It wasn’t Rainbow Dash anymore.

Because it’s you.

Because it was Rarity, and Fluttershy cursed under her breath. She thought a couple ponies walking nearby might have heard, but she didn’t care anymore, and she didn’t bother to check. She kept her eyes on the ground.

Fluttershy was so stupid, so socially inept, so unaware of herself and her own feelings that she had never noticed until just hours earlier, when she had nearly blurted it out before understanding what she had said.

Of course it was Rarity. It would have been obvious to anypony else. It would have been obvious to Fluttershy, too, if she didn’t understand so little of romance and relationships. She did understood now just how ignorant of love her heart really was.

It was Rarity. It was Rarity’s whose voice soothed her. It was Rarity who she spent hours with at the spa with every week. It was Rarity’s whose neck she imagined herself kissing. It was Rarity who she thought of when she thought about marefriends. It was Rarity who she came to whenever she had a panic attack. It was Rarity who then let her work in the Boutique, or helped her in the garden, or who let her play with her mane.

And it was Rarity who thought Fluttershy was a filly, a foal, a child.

You should really consider learning how to act on these feelings.

And that was all Fluttershy could do with these newly discovered feelings—consider them. She couldn’t act on them. An adult could have. Rarity could have. Any of Fluttershy’s other friends could have. But Fluttershy couldn’t. She didn’t have any idea how.

Fluttershy had harboured feelings for Rarity for years, and never even realized they were there. But she knew about them now. Here they were, laid out before her, and she had no idea what to do with them, didn’t even understand them, because Rarity was right. She was a foal. Foals didn’t understand relationships, didn’t understand what it meant for one’s chest to go warm and stomach fluttery just at the sight of somepony, and neither did Fluttershy.

She looked around. It was already dark out. The sun had set. She must have been walking slower than usual. The path to the cottage wasn’t much farther. Soon, she would step inside her home, and Angel and the rest of her critters would greet her and comfort her. She could lay in bed and forget it all in sleep for a while. Until then, Rarity’s voice went on and on in her head, repeating all she had said at the spa.

Everypony knows you have difficulty asserting yourself at times, and though it may sound strange, I believe being intimate can bestow upon one a great deal of confidence. It takes a certain amount of courage to wholly open oneself up to another, to allow yourself to be vulnerable.

Maybe that’s what Fluttershy lacked, the thing every other pony had that she didn’t, the thing that made other ponies normal, the thing that let other ponies flirt and kiss and date—courage.

Fluttershy, weak and pitiful, naive and childish. Maybe that was why she was strange, why she was still a foal, why she didn’t understand her feelings or how to act on them. She didn’t have courage, and she never would.

But—no.

Fluttershy had faced a dragon. Fluttershy had faced a changeling army. Fluttershy had faced Discord, and he was one of her best friends now. They wrote letters to each other every week! Most other ponies were still scared of him, but not Fluttershy.

“No,” Fluttershy said, just a whisper. She hadn’t run and hid when a sudden, unexpected storm had spilled out from the Everfree and into the sky over Ponyville just a week before. When the lightning struck and the thunder rumbled, her critters looked to her. And in her they found a bastion of strength and support. She gathered them all up and got them to safety, and comforted them until the wind and the rain subsided.

“No,” Fluttershy said again, loud enough that anypony nearby could have heard. She had courage. Her friends had shown her that. Rarity may have revealed something scary and confusing in Fluttershy today, but Rarity had also revealed to Fluttershy her own inner courage on a hundred different days before that. Fluttershy had courage. Being scared didn’t make her weak, it only meant it took her more strength to be brave, and Fluttershy had that strength. And she had been brave. More times than anypony could count.

If all Fluttershy needed was courage, she had it. She wasn’t a child, and she would show everypony, and she would show Rarity.

But then the question arose in her mind again.

Who?

Fluttershy knew the answer this time.

Rarity.

She didn’t want to be with anypony but Rarity.

Could Fluttershy do that with Rarity?

Fluttershy scolded herself for acting like a foal again. Sex. It was sex, and that’s what adults called it and that’s what she would call it.

So, and her stomach somersaulted at the thought, could she have sex with Rarity?

Fluttershy bit her lip but nodded to reassure herself. She knew her feelings and she had courage. She didn’t need anything else. Yes, she could and she would.

Fluttershy swiveled around on her hooves and began marching in the opposite direction, back towards Ponyville and Carousel Boutique.

She would knock—no, she wouldn’t even knock. She would walk right in, because that was the kind of thing the ponies in Rarity’s romance novels did. Rarity would be preparing to go to bed or doing some late night work, and Fluttershy would walk right in the front door and then walk past the storefront and up the stairs to Rarity’s loft, and she would go into Rarity’s workroom and grab the unicorn and kiss her right there.

Fluttershy tried to imagine the scene, feeling her face go warm.

She opened the door, and Rarity stood by a shop-shod pile of interlaced fabrics on the floor, the skeleton of what might someday be a dress, and behind her work glasses—the little red ones that rested on the tip of her nose and made her look like a cute, older librarian—her eyebrows raised. “Fluttershy?” she asked.

Fluttershy didn’t answer. She strode purposefully across the room and slipped a hoof around Rarity’s neck and pulled her close. She kissed Rarity on the lips.

But imagining the scene revealed the fantasy that it was.

What would Rarity do then? Scream? Throw Fluttershy off her? Demand to know what improper and boorish spirit had overtaken Fluttershy? Or, more likely, Fluttershy would never make it that far. She would stumble over some loose fabric on the floor and fall on her face as soon as she walked in the room. She would hyperventilate in the stairwell until Rarity found her and rescued her from herself. She would stop at the front door and knock too quietly for anypony to hear.

However the scene played out, it always ended the same way.

Fluttershy would go home alone.

She turned slowly around and walked back in the direction of her cottage, and kicked at the ground. How stupid she had been! Such a child! She was still such a child. Only foals believed in ridiculous fantasies. It would never, could never happen. She and Rarity would never, could never, ever happen.

If only there was any other pony, so she could prove herself an adult to Rarity. But Rarity was the only pony, and Rarity was impossible. Any other pony, and Fluttershy would have to flirt and kiss and go on dates and face rejection and ridicule. She could do it, she knew she could, but why bother? She had the courage, but none of the desire. Even if she went on a date, she would never enjoy it, would never truly care as long as the other pony wasn’t Rarity.

If only there was any other way, any other way at all. She was an adult. She just needed to show Rarity. But if only there was something easier, simpler, so she wouldn’t have to face the heartbreak and the rejection.

Fluttershy looked up and saw a typical Ponyville building. Single story, thatched roof, wooden walls, covered windows. But on the sides of those windows, through uncovered slivers, Fluttershy saw the golden light of a lamp. When she looked closely into that light, she saw Velvet sitting behind a desk.

Without thinking, Fluttershy cantered to the door.