Chapter 45

Paradoxical Advice

Fluttershy waited till she was sure that Heartbreak had fully entered the tea shop before allowing herself permission to anxiously chew on her forehooves.

"She did not sound happy... Oh sure, she said that everything was fine, but was it really?" Fluttershy asked herself as she could practically feel herself molting mid-flight.

Fluttershy landed next to the library door cautiously and looked around. "It is oookay, Fluttershy..." she told herself, reaching for the door. "Nopony is going to ask why you're going to the library. Even at this hour! Pinkie goes to the library all the time!" She reasoned to herself, about to knock.

"Wait. Should I knock?" She asked out loud, pulling her hoof back. "What if I knock and disturb ponies who are reading? And they're studying something really important? What if Twilight is studying something important that will help Heartb- H.B.!" Fluttershy scolded herself.

"Her name is Heartbreak, but she likes to be called H.B.!" The pegasus bit her lip. "Fluttershy, you need to talk with Twilight."

She tried to knock, only to pull her hoof back. "But... What if I ask for advice and Twilight thinks that I can't do this? Or worse... that I'm a bad teacher?!"

"She's your friend, Fluttershy, she'll understand if you ask her for advice..."

"But she's also under so much pressure! She's trying to research H-H.B.'s brandings to help her!"

"I am going to go into the library and talk to Twilight. Afterall, we're both teachers in this, right?" Fluttershy nodded, whimpering. "A-and that means that we should try to... uhm, what would Twilight say? Collaborate? No. Touch bases? Yes. We're just touching bases..." she told herself, pushing the library door open.

"T-Twilight? Twilight, are you there?" Fluttershy asked in the loudest, quiet voice she could force from her lungs.

Much to her dismay, or maybe relief- she was far from certain at this moment, there was no answer.

"I guess I'll just go ho- '' Suddenly, her face crumpled as her nose was assaulted with a...unpleasantly familiar scent.

Among the airs of old books, yellowed paper, the faint waft of vanilla-esk oak, there was an unmistakable odor. The... smell of something... wet, fetid, rancid, with a touch of moldy rot that was coming from only one source... A source she was hoping to Celestia that it wasn’t...

Fluttershy perked into the kitchen and frowned before she covered her nose. Fet. It was exactly as she feared.

There in the sink was a sight that was almost like a broken record on replay: a random assortment of dishes cluttering the small space accompanied by a wet foulness.

"Does nopony know how to do their fetting dishes!?" screamed a voice inside of Fluttershy's head as her feathers fluffed.

"Fluttershy?" came the cautiously confused voice behind her.

"Yes!?" Whinnied the pegasus as her head snapped back to the now terrified little dragon, who had almost seemingly manifested right in front of her.

Spike jumped back and held his hands up defensively, cowering at a clearly frazzled Fluttershy. "I-is everything okay?" He dared ask after a tense moment.

She flapped her wings and seemed to hang in the air as her hooves pointed out to the cityscape left to molder like ruins in the basin. "There. Are. Dishes. In. The. Sink!" she resounded in a voice so high, Spike swore he heard several dogs outside whimper and whine.

"I-I'm sorry?" Spike sputtered, his eyes going wide as he cowered, his ear frills drooping down.

Fluttershy suddenly felt pangs of guilt run through her as she looked at the terrified baby dragon sitting on the ground, trembling at what she could possibly do.

"N-no..." she replied, offering him a hoof up. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't mean to..." her voice faded and caught in her throat.

Spike slowly raised a hand to reach for Fluttershy's shoulder. Upon touching it, he could feel her tense up before crumpling. He looked into her watery eyes that were growing past the point of tear filled.

"Rough week?"

With those two words, Fluttershy could feel something inside her, an AcHe, a CrAcK in a wall, somewhere finally gave way and BrEaK...

"N-n-" she attempted to deny, but with the tears no longer being able to be held back and no real reason to be upset with the baby dragon before her, she started to nod. "Y-yes!"

"Oh geez..." Spike said, sympathetically. "You... want to talk about it?"

She sniffled, nodding but still eyeing the odiferous "C-can we do your dishes too?"

Spike held in a sigh. "If you think it'll help."

=========

"And that's everything that's happened up to this point..." Heartbreak said, the cup in her hoof hole trembling a little from all the tea that she had imbibed. "It's like, I know Fluttershy is trying to help and I know that all those things aren't her fault, but do I? Am I actually growing resentful of Fluttershy?" She stared into the contents of the cup, the loose leaves, colorful flowers, and dregs making a vague figure eight pattern before falling back into disarray with the tilt of a hoof and what tea fluids that remained.

Subtle Brew had remained wide-eyed and quiet throughout the whole epic of a story as the only sounds that could be heard was the flowing water from the small, mossy green fountain, the chiming of her magical aura as she regularly refilled H.B.'s cup, and the whir and clicks of Hiko Jikan-chan as it occasionally turned in her mane.

"I want to say 'no' because, honestly, none of this- the cat bite, the fire ants, the fracturing of my leg, fet, even me getting sick! None of that was her fault!" Heartbreak said, gesticulating with her hoof to the point where she almost sloppily drank her remaining tea, only for it to be snatched in midair by the magical tendrils and plunked back into the cup.

Heartbreak sighed, bemused. "T-thanks." She said sheepishly. "I... apologize for you having to keep doing that. " she said embarrassedly before delicately slurping in what little fluid there was left in the cup.

The lotus blossom white mare tilted her head to the left slightly and smiled.

"Is no problem, no problem at all! Is why I am here!" Subtle Brew said, waving her kimono sleeved covered hooves before streamers of magic came off her curved horn to pick up the teapot and refill Heartbreak's cup.

"What... what do you think?" Heartbreak hesitantly asked, tapping her hoof and glancing over at her.

Subtle Brew took a deep breath. “What I think?"

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes. "I feel... silly for even having to ask for... advice. Like, I know what I should do, and how to do it too, but..."

"But?"

"But, it feels like Equestria itself is out to get me!" Heartbreak exclaimed, her right hoof going to her temple before dragging it down her face as her eyes went wide with panic. "Or it's challenging me like it does with all the others, and I am just failing over and over..."

"Hmmm, are juu... always being dis hard on jourself?"

"I..." Heartbreak paused before sighing. "...Yes, I guess I am... I mean, how can I not? Being hard on myself that is... the reason I'm even here in the first place is because I fetted up!"

Subtle Brew had tilted, a confused sad look on her face. "Juu are in my tea shop because juu... fu-e-te-du up?"

Heartbreak nearly choked on the tea she was drinking. "No! Well, yes... sorta? What I mean is, I... think I... messed up with Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy... and maybe even Cream Puff, and then I came here... Not that... I... don't..." she muttered into her cup.

"Ooooooh, I is understanding now. Do not be worrying, was small misunderstanding, " Subtle Brew said with a soft smile.

"I... apologize... I guess I'm really worrying about saying or doing the wrong thing right now..." Heartbreak inspected her cup, eyes tracing along the golden cracks as she rotated it.

"Let me ask juu... Why do juu sink Fluttershy would be saying right now?"

"You mean if she wasn't the nervous wreck of twitching nerves that spending time with me has made her...?" Heartbreak's words dragged at the end as she saw Subtle Brew's thin black eyebrow raise while she crossed her hooves. "Uhm, right... try to be kinder to myself..."

Subtle Brew nodded. "Yes. Now, please be continuing."

Heartbreak took a deep breath and closed her eyes, her mane relaxed to the point that it almost took on the appearance of the demure mare… “She would most likely tell me something like you've said: that I'm being too hard on myself, and that while I've gotten hurt a lot, I've tried my hardest not to lash out, and that if I feel that I've offended anypony, I can always apologize and we can talk things out."

"Dat does be sounding like what Fluttershy would be saying..." Subtle Brew said, smiling.

Heartbreak chuckled a little, her mane returning to normal. "Why does it just sound like I'm repeating myself somehow?"

"In the stream of our lives, we often might find ourselves trapped by whirlpools," Subtle Brew began, filling up a white jar cup with a tea leaf carved into the side.

"Let me guess, the only way out of said spinning vortex of insanity is by recognizing that you're in it?" Heartbreak asked, attempting to hold back any snark.

"No..." Subtle Brew said, sprinkling in small Gen crystalline grass into the now streaming cup. "That... would be zee first step..." she took a quick sip, looked thoughtful, and then sprinkled several now before using a bamboo stirrer to help it dissolve. "Zee next step is zometing many pony find hardest..."

"That being?"

"Asking for help."

"Ha... yeah.. I was afraid that's what you were going to say..."

=========

"And that's everything that's happened..." Fluttershy quietly murmured, rotating a plate between her flight feathers.

Its white reflective surface was more than clean enough to show her the one thing she didn't want to see right now.

Herself.

"Geez..." Spike said, snagging the clean dish from Fluttershy so that she couldn't spend anymore time contemplating on it. "All that happened just within one week?"

"It feels much, much, much longer." Fluttershy picked up a spoon from the sudsy depths, chains of bubbles falling away to once again reveal, at least in her mind, a distorted failure of a pony.

Spike plucked the spoon away and dunked it into the rinse water before placing it with its siblings in the drying rack, handle down, of course.

Fluttershy felt her lip tremble. "Oh, Spike! What am I going to do!?" she cried, covering her hooves.

Spike nearly found himself fumbling some of the small plates in the drying rack as his dragon-y fingers raked across them with Fluttershy's sudden outburst. "I-I-I!" he yelped.

Fluttershy looked at him with desperate eyes. "What if I’m just a terrible teacher?! What if I can't teach?! What if she fails?! What if Princess Celestia doesn't like the lesson?! What if she fails?! What if she hates me-e-e because of it!?" she cried out in a pitch that Spike was almost unable to hear.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Spike raised his hands in surrender motion, practically feeling like a very heavy stone was being thrown or shot at him like rapid fire bullets. Looking at what seemed like a very calm pony one moment now on the verge of hyperventilation, he realized that he had to act quickly.

"Animal facts!" he blurted out.

"W-what?" Fluttershy asked, her face screwing up.

"Tell me nine animal facts! Any animal!"

"But what does-"

"Don't think about it! Just nine random animal facts!"

Fluttershy nodded. "Uhm…cats slow blink to say 'I love you', dogs can’t eat chocolate, monkeys need to eat citrus, bunnies practice coprophagy, they say that there's a mystery cryptid in the snowy mountains that's bipedal, ponies are born with-with what's called feathering on their hooves to protect their mothers during the birthing process, spiders are arachnids, bats have arguments, and rats shouldn’t eat oranges!"

Spike felt a moment of disgust then confusion passed through his scales at several of those facts. "Uhm..."

"You said facts about animals..." Fluttershy meekly said, dragging her hoof on the floor and looking away. "Technically, ponies are animals..."

"It's not that... I just thought that all pegasus all ha-" He started to say 'hatch from eggs' but with Fluttershy's disheveled mane, wide nervous eyes, fretting hooves, and current state of mind; he decided that any questions he had about the pegasus life cycle could definitely wait. "Alright. So-"

Fluttershy shook her head. "I'm sorry to have dumped all those questions on you..." She bit the tip of her hoof and flicked her wings, unintendedly sending soap suds splattering across the kitchen. "Oh! Sorry! I didn't mean to-"

Spike preemptively saw the panic attack coming and put up a claw. "I-it's okay, Fluttershy. If any place is going to get wet, it's going to be the kitchen..." he paused and tapped his chin. "Or the bathroom." He shook his head.

'Fluttershy needs you! Focus!' he told himself.

"I really wish Twilight was here..." Fluttershy admitted. "Then I could ask her for some advice..."

Spike opened his mouth about to say something, but then closed it, tapped his chin and then looked at the pony before him. "I'm sorry that she's not... but what about me?"

Fluttershy blinked and looked exhaustedly confused. "Uhm... what?"

"My advice. I could give you some advice!”

“You would do that?”

“Yeah! We’re friends, right?” Spike asked.

“Of course we are!”

“So, you want my advice?" Spike asked, crossing his arms.

Fluttershy took a deep breath before letting it out, looking at the baby dragon as if he possessed all the wisdom of the universe. "Yes, please..."

"Don't follow my advice," Spike said, holding up a single claw and looking ever so proud of himself.

Fluttershy let the words enter her ears, but once they washed upon the shores of her mind, all she could do was tilt her head in confusion.

"Your... advice... is to... not follow your advice?"

"Yes!"

"But... by not following your advice to not follow your advice, wouldn't that mean I'm following your advice and that would go against not following your advice?" Fluttershy asked, lost in the mess of words.

"Ah!" Spike looked as if he was going to say something only for his finger to drop and the confusion to spread as his ear frills fell before he scratched the side of his head trying to untie the gordian knot that he had brought into being. "I... mean..." he frowned and paused again. "No... but yes... but no.." he finally shook his head. "What I mean is that you've been listening to everypony except for the one that really matters here!"

"Twilight? H.B.? Princess Luna?" Fluttershy asked, each name that passed the gateway of her lips sounding more and more desperate for a stamp of approval, only to be met with Spike shaping his head like an impatient border guard.

"No! Fluttershy!" He smacked his hand against his face. "I mean you!" he clarified.

"M-me?" Fluttershy stammered, her wingtips pointing at her face.

"Yeah! I mean, asking for advice about things is great and all, I do it all the time! Asking where the best trees to nap in from Rainbow Dash, which batch of cider is the tastiest from Applejack, which party favors are the... uhm...!" he paused as he listed off these things one by one, claw by claw, he then scratched his head. "Are the... uhm pack the most pow from Pinkie Pie..." he waved his hand in the air as if he was trying to shake the confusion of Fluttershy's face. "Whatever, what I really mean to say is that you're the teacher here and it's up to you to take that advice or not. Just like it's up to me to sleep in a tree that Dash suggested or my warm bed or whether I think that the cider AJ suggested is really the best or if it could use a dusting of cinnabar bark! You get what I'm saying?"

Fluttershy stared at the ground. "You go to the right pony for the right advice?" She asked, with a great deal of uncertainty in her voice.

"Right! And when I want advice about what the nicest thing to do for somepony else could be, I come to you!" Spike said, holding his hand out as if he was presenting the 'shy up for presentation. "You're the best example of what it is to be kind!"

"How can I be the best example when every time I've tried to teach H.B., she's only ended up getting hurt?" Fluttershy asked, her wings starting to wrap around her as she lifted her forehooves trying to hold back a sob.

"Whoa! Hey, now!" Spike said, rushing up to the pegasus to hold her hooves and keep those wings from closing completely around her. "None of that was your fault."

"But..." Fluttershy choked. "I brought her to all those places!"

Spike took a deep breath. "You didn't tell the tux cat to bite her did you?"

Fluttershy shook her head, tears still staining her cheeks. "N-no...bu-"

"And you didn't dig a hole under H.B. that had her ending up in front of the fire ants nest, right?" Spike asked, after putting a finger to her lips.

"No..." the mare sniffed. "Bu-"

Spike shook that same finger. "And you didn’t make it so that H.B. crashed on her bike and flew into that tree, right?"

"Well... no..." Fluttershy's tears had lessened, but just when she was about to say something more, Spike looked up with a pointed but compassionate gaze and put his finger up to her muzzle once more.

"And you and Cream Puff didn't knowingly put sunflower seeds in the muffin mix, right?" Spike asked.

"No... I'm sure that we didn't! The sunflower seeds were all the way on the top shelf! But-"

"But it could have been possible that some fell into the mixer when it was turned on or even while it was mixing! Which, while an oversight on your part, was not your fault!" Spike insisted. "Well maybe it kinda was, but you didn't do it on purpose! And what did you do after each of those things?"

"I..." it seemed strange for Spike to be asking that seeing that he had spent the last hour or so listening to the story in full. 'Well, he is a baby dragon... and maybe he's going somewhere with this… Gosh, he's so adorable! Go with the flow, Fluttershy.' "I took her to the hospital after Mr. Tux Cat bit her... which was really strange that he did, because he was rubbing against her leg just moments before that... Then, I tried to find her before the fire ants did, and then at the park, Rainbow Dash and I tried our best to stop H.B. before she crashed into that tree, but-"

Spike once again stopped her as he could see the CrAcKs in her was beginning to form again. "But you were still there for her along the way, doing your best in trying to teach her, keep her from getting hurt, and when she did, you did your best to fix it whether that was you doing it or finding somepony that could help!" The little dragon shook Fluttershy's hoof. "If that's not the dictionary definition of kindness, then I don't want to look it up and be wrong!" He said, waving a claw in the air again.

Fluttershy felt a giggle trying to fight its way to the outside world at the absolute absurdity of the last thing Spike had said.

That very same giggle then became a frozen butterfly that shattered into millions of shards piercing her heart as she remembered what happened next.

"But what if she's still upset after what just happened in the hospital?" Fluttershy asked, the heartbreak in her voice beginning crystal clear. "She almost froze to... to..." she bit down on her hoof not even wanting to say the word. "We didn't even know! The only sign was her telling us that she was feeling cold!"

"Well, that just sounds like poor foreshadowing on the author's part..." Spike said off the cuff.

Fluttershy blinked in confounded conflicted confusion. "Uhm... what?"

"Oh!" Spike's eyes darted back and forth. "What I mean is that... It's like in the latest Danger Mare book when all we had to go off of was that the McGuffin she needed to stop the Apocalypse Ponies was a box that her brother gave her that was only special because it sparkled slightly in the fifth chapter!"

Fluttershy's confusion persisted.

"Sorry... it's been a long week for me too... what with Twi' leaving me to do library duties, then showing up, barely saying a word, just study and sleep..." he looked at the sink. "Not to mention she took my sipping cup when I told her that she wasn't allowed..." Spike said, frowning.

"It's... it's alright..." Fluttershy replied, gently patting Spike's head. Clearly being alone in the library with all these responsibilities wasn't healthy for him. "But what if she still hates me?" she repeated, her voice like broken glass. Suddenly, she found herself in a scaly and warm embrace.

Part of her felt like running and hiding, another part felt like she didn't deserve such a gesture, still another part of her wanted to break down crying and return the hug. She didn't know what part to listen to, but what Spike said next made the choice easy.

"That's impossible, you're Fluttershy, nopony could ever hate you," he said with a gentle squeeze.

Fluttershy could not help herself any longer and returned the little dragon's hug, sobbing into his prime scales. "Even H-H.B.?" she whinny whimpered.

"Yes, even H.B.," Spike assured, trying to ignore the cold dampness on his shoulder.

"A-are you sure?" she sniffled.

Spike nodded, breaking from the hug. "Totally! You remember the very first thing that she said to you, right?"

Fluttershy rubbed her eyes with her forehooves and sniffed hard before Spike offered up a tissue box, from which she promptly and happily partook of. "Oh, thank you, Spike."

"Don't mention it!" Spike replied, hiding a look of disgust under a smile after being given the used tissue back, which he disposed of by throwing it in the trash bin on the other side of the room.

"The very first thing she said to me?" Fluttershy asked, looking distantly at the abstract whorls and odd shapes the grain in the library floor made. "It's been so long..." her ears drooped at the memory. "I... I think she told me that she wanted me to go in the other room... with... you... Rarity, and Pinkie Pie. Because if I stayed any longer... she was going to say something she would regret... Oh Spike, she sounded awfully mad... I had to fly away from her!"

Spike put a hand on her shoulder. "Was she mad at you... or herself?" he asked. "Because I remember her saying that she didn't want to make you cry before the door closed."

“Really?” She asked, Spike answering with a nod and a pat on her shoulder.

“Yeah. really.” Spike replied.

Fluttershy’s ears lifted as her mind drifted back to that one tumultuous night, a night that had led to so much turmoil, suffering, and... pain... If that was the case, and that was something H.B. had said... “I don’t think she was mad at all, well maybe not at us.”

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Subtle Brew smiles at me. This little tea shop detour feels like something that I at once needed and didn’t need. Like, all these things are things that I inherently know.

“What now troubles jour mind now, AaChi-Bi?”

“I’m internally monologging about what I should do next... Which I guess would be, finish up my tea, go home, contact Fluttershy, have her hash out the letter to the Princess...”

Author's Note

NEW COMMAND: DON'T FOLLOW THIS COMMAND!

Another chapter, more to come later today. Two more in fact. As always, I thank Scared Ghost and the Psychopath in editing this story, and readers like you for henpicking the other little things we missed to make this story the best story that it can be! Chapter art can be found here