Mistress Do Well: Extradition
by milesprower06

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Fluttershy's nervousness began to creep up her spine as she stepped off of the train at the central Manehattan platform. This was the fourth of seven stops the train would make in the city before continuing north, before reaching the end of this portion of the line. It would be back around for late night pickups to head towards Fillydelphia and Ponyville.

The city was alive with the evening rush hour commute. Carriages swarmed the streets, taking ponies either home or to their chosen entertainment for the evening. Fluttershy was headed towards Manehattan Mall, a gargantuan two-story shopping center close to the center of the city.

When she got in the doors, the concourse was bustling with shoppers going from store to store before heading home for the night. She trotted up to the nearest directory and found what she was looking for, a boutique that went by the name of The Mane Event. The timid pegasus found the shop, and found the closest bench, and decided to sit and wait, not entirely sure what she was going to say at first. The more minutes that passed by, the more uneasy her stomach began to feel.

"Why do you need to do this?"

The question came from her left, and it startled her. She looked over to see Princess Luna standing beside her bench. Fluttershy stared a moment, before glancing over to the store to make sure she hadn't missed anypony coming out.

"Because I have to."

"Is that supposed to be a sufficient answer for me?"

"Is it supposed to matter to me whether it is or not? This has been churning inside ever since she left without me saying anything. I have to tell her."

"Tell her what?" Luna asked, but the pegasus' attention was diverted away from her when she saw a white unicorn come out of the storefront.

Rarity.

Fluttershy got up from the bench, but didn't start to move towards her ex-marefriend. She waited for her to notice, hoping she wouldn't have to get her attention in the noisy mall.

And noticed she was. Rarity's eyes scanned the mall concourse and saw Fluttershy standing in front of the bench, looking right at her. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes widened in surprise. It took her several seconds to shake herself out of her stupor.

The former fashionista moved slowly and timidly towards Fluttershy, as if she needed permission for each step.

"F-Forgive me, darling... I don't know what to say. When the Princess told me I might be having a visitor, never in my wildest imagination did I think it would be you."

Fluttershy meekly smiled at her, taking a few steps closer to her, now standing three feet from her.

"H-How are you doing?" Rarity risked asking. It seemed like the best place to start a conversation, before getting to whatever reason Fluttershy had for coming here.

"Well... Not... Not too good, to be honest. That's why I came here to talk."

Oh, so talking was the reason she came here. Deep down, she felt like Fluttershy had more to say when she had returned to Ponyville, but she didn't dare press it when Fluttershy barely listened to her apology. Some things took time, and now, here she was.

"Of course. Whatever you need to say to me. Princess, is there some place we could talk privately?"

"With the locale and circumstances, I would suggest the back corner of the food court. I can provide a Bubble of Silence, if you like."

That was the closest, wasn't too crowded this close to closing, and with a silencing spell from Luna, they'd have all the privacy they needed.

"I'm ready whenever you are, darling."

Fluttershy gave her a nod, and the two of them walked down the concourse under the watchful eye of the Princess of the Night. They silently walked to the food court, where only a small number of ponies were eating late night meals. They found a table in the most isolated corner, and sat down across from each other. Luna sat nearby at another table, and silently cast a barely visible blue sparkling bubble around them.

At a table even further away, sat a grey-coated unicorn stallion, with a black mane and tail. His most distinctive feature was his silver-colored horn, discolored from the rest of his coat.

Discord rarely used his pony disguise, but it was best here. He wasn't quite in the mood to be a table or chair right now. Luna was kidding herself if she thought her Bubble of Silence was going to keep his ears out of the conversation.

"So what can I do for you, darling?" Rarity asked, her voice rebounding off of the bubble slightly.

Fluttershy shifted in her chair, trying to find the right words.

"This is probably unexpected, and it's goin to be short for coming all the way out here to say it but... I'm... I'm sorry."

Seconds passed while Rarity took in those two words.

"Fluttershy... What could you possibly have to be sorry for?"

"E-Everything... Everything that's happened. It all started with me."

"No it didn't, it was my fault."

"Not all of it. Yes, you went too far, and that blame is yours. But I asked you to start it. I kept pushing you for more. I didn't realize when we both crossed that line into unsafe. I've just... I've been holding this inside, and I have to accept my part of the blame.

Rarity wasn't sure what shook her more; the fact that Fluttershy wanted to share the blame for everything that had gone wrong in their relationship, and the horrors they inflicted upon Rainbow and the others... Or the fact that she had a point.

"Fluttershy, it was my responsibility to know where the line was, and-"

"No!" Fluttershy interrupted, slamming both her hooves down on the table. Outside the bubble, Luna took a step forward, unsure if she should intervene. There was also a grey unicorn that Rarity didn't recognize that showed some concern.

"I didn't sit on a train for eight hours to come here just so I could be coddled and rendered blameless. I need to accept responsibility for what I did, before things get worse."

"What do you mean 'worse'?" Rarity asked, wondering what her ex-marefriend was getting at.

"This churning inside my stomach, this... This guilt, has only been getting worse since Applejack and I have been together."

Rarity swallowed the lump in her throat.

"If you really want to share the blame; if that's something you feel you really have to do, fine. But if you were expecting to come here, do a little talking with me, and walk out the door feeling better... I'm sorry, sweetheart, but that's not going to happen. What I did to the five of you, especially you and Rainbow... I'm going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. So are you. You're going to have to come to terms with not knowing your limits, and not putting a stop to it when I pushed you too far."

"What if... What if I still don't know my limits? I keep asking Applejack to push harder and harder. I had to ask her to beat me just to get me to tell her that I wanted to come here to see you. What if I don't know when to stop her? What if what happened to you happens to her because I don't know when to stop?"

Rarity's stomach began to feel uneasy as her friend continued to pour her heart out.

"It took Rainbow a year to recover from what we did to her, and that was only three days. I... I let you do those things to me for two years... And blame is equally mine as it is yours. I feel so broken inside that I don't know if I can put myself back together... I just... Just... I'm scared to death that I'm either going to push her away by wanting more and more, or... Or that what happened to you will happen to her... My most intense, erotic dreams lately always involve her whipping me... Beating me... I beg her to stop, and she doesn't listen... That's my favorite part..."

Fluttershy's words devolved into sobs as she dropped her head onto the table as she buried her face in her forelegs.

For Rarity, she would have liked to think that right there, everything had fallen into place with those words. But the truth was, it had just shattered on the floor, the pieces of her ex-marefriend scattering across the marble tile of the food court, irreparable and unrecognizable.

The full impact of what they had done lay bare before her, and she fought back the incredible urge to vomit.

Silently crying herself, Rarity got up from her seat and walked around the table to her former marefriend, and embraced her.

"Sweetheart, I'm so, so sorry about the way things turned out between us. But the help you need you can't get here from me. You know what you need to do? You need to go home. Right now. Go home to Applejack. She loves you dearly, and so do the rest of them. They'll know how to help you. Trust me."

It took a few moments for Fluttershy to get herself under control. She released herself from the embrace, and sniffled.

"I'm very sorry..." She whimpered.

"I know you are. So am I. I'll be okay. You need to go home so your friends can make sure you'll be okay."

Fluttershy sniffled again, wiped her eyes, and nodded, managing a small smile.

"Alright... Alright, thanks for listening."

Fluttershy turned from the table and walked through the bubble of silence, the spell dissipating as she walked through it.

"If I catch one of tonight's trains I can make it home by morning."

Rarity silently nodded, and watched as she departed down the concourse. She waited until she was certain Fluttershy was out of sight, then got up from the table and approached Princess Luna. Her horn glowed as she cast her own Bubble of Silence. The moment it encapsulated them, she glared at Luna.

"Are you kidding me? You let her have those kind of nightmares and you didn't do anything about it?!" She screamed at Luna, who only showed mild surprise.

"I can sense nightmares. To her, they weren't. Apparently, it's exactly what she wants."

'What she wants and what she needs are two entirely different things, Princess. What she needs is help."

"I agree, wholeheartedly."

"And we've only got eight hours until she's back in Ponyville, so you've got to listen to me and listen good."

The Princess of the Night wasn't sure if she had heard her correctly.

"What? I'm sorry, are you suggesting you can help her?"

"I know one way to help her."

"What she needs is therapy and the support of her friends."

"That is one way. But Celestia only knows how long that could take... With how long she's been like this..."

Luna decided to ignore one of her rare pet peeves, her sister's name being taken in vain, and focus on the conversation at hand.

"And what would you suggest? How could you possibly know what's better for her than licensed therapy?"

"Therapy would take time. It would be years before she can function normally again. I have a solution that could achieve the same results within months."

"Do tell." Luna invited.

"Before I went full tilt with my sadism, we were talking about trying something else... Another kind of submission, one where pain isn't the point at all. Regression. It's all about control, and lack of it. They could break her down, to her most basic levels, and build her back up again."

"'They'? As in her four friends?"

"Princess, Fluttershy needs help, there is no doubt of that. I think her friends can help her much faster than therapists can. I can give you all the details you wish, but that's where my involvement would end. Don't wonder if you can trust me with this, but if they think they can trust themselves."

After a full day of cider selling, Applejack decided to spend the night at Fluttershy's cottage, so she could surprise her when she returned from her trip in Manehattan. Falling asleep on the couch had been easy, especially after the day she had gone through. Now it was six in the morning, just before dawn. If Fluttershy didn't get here soon, she was going to have to call this surprise off, and get back to the farm for another day of cider. She decided to wait until the sun started to crack above the treeline. Just as she decided to return to the farm, she heard the key in the lock, and the door opened to reveal Fluttershy.

The pegasus looked at her marefriend and smiled, coming in for a hug.

"Hey there, hun. Your trip go alright?"

"I'm... I'm not sure yet..." Fluttershy answered.

Applejack released her from the embrace, to find her surrounded by a faint blue aura.

"I... I guess I didn't get enough sleep on the train ride home..."

With a jaw-stretching yawn, Fluttershy fell forward as the aura faded, and Applejack caught her in her front hooves to find her fast asleep.

"What in tarnation...?"

Without warning, Luna appeared with a flash just behind the slumped Fluttershy.

"Princess, what gives?"

Luna silently levitated Fluttershy over to the couch and gently set her down. Then, she turned back to the earth pony, and an unsealed scroll appeared beside her, which she levitated over to her.

"You need to read this. You have a decision to make."

Author's Note

Just one more, my dear readers, and then we're done.

I'm not going to pretend that everyone in this small little group that has read this far is going to like what I've come up with, but to be perfectly honest, it's the only thing I could come up with that I was wholly satisfied with.

Make no mistake; it's going to be just as dark and twisted as the previous 100,000+ words I've written, as well as pay final homage to Kaidan's original story that inspired me to write this much.

Thanks for reading.

Miles