Fluttershy pressed the glass of water to her chest like it was possible for her heartbeat to carry its welcome chill through every inch of her body. The summer sun had mercifully gone down half an hour ago, but the scalding pavement of the Canterlot streets hadn’t seemed to notice yet. She wondered how Rarity still found the energy to gush about the ribbon gallery she had taken them all to visit that morning.
Much to her aching hooves’ surprise, she reminded herself that it was indeed just that morning. And after that, Twilight had led them to an outdoor book bazaar for its annual summer clearance sale. And then Pinkie gave them all a tour of a rock farm on the mountainside. Much to the surprise of the farmer, Fluttershy had noted. And Applejack had taken them to the stadium to scope out the renovations for the upcoming rodeo.
When it was her turn to pick the activity, all she had wanted to do was blurt out Sit down!
Rarity stopped speaking for half a moment—long enough to narrow her eyes at Fluttershy’s glass and curl her lips into a frown—and she was on again, gushing over the bolt of fabric in her magic’s grasp.
Fluttershy peeled the glass away, her coat clinging to its comfort as long as it could. She savoured a sip and settled it back on the table. The night would cool off on its own. Eventually. She held back a sigh.
Applejack gave her an understanding smile from across the table. She peeked over to Rarity, turned away and speaking with Twilight, rolled her eyes briefly, and used her icy glass to wipe the sweat from her brow.
Fluttershy slapped a hoof to her mouth and Rainbow Dash laughed beside her—stopping just in time before Rarity turned back around to study them with a raised eyebrow. The ringing bell over the restaurant’s door spared them from further scrutiny, and their waitress approached with a wide smile and pen and pad levitated at the ready for their orders.
A few moments after Pinkie Pie barraged the poor mare with questions about the handling and storage of the restaurant’s chocolate chip supply, Fluttershy let her gaze wander across the table. Applejack rolled her eyes—complete with an exaggerated neck roll—but Fluttershy quickly looked away. Pinkie was just being Pinkie. It was no use complaining about it.
Her eyes tracked over to the door at the sound of its bell ringing out again, but no pony stepped outside. Instead, the door shuddered back and forth, seemingly on its own until a tail swished into view close to the ground. A tiny little colt backed his way outside, and with one final kick to the door, he stumbled out, dragging a clear plastic bucket in his mouth.
Fluttershy chewed her lip and kept a wary eye on him. She wasn’t even sure he was old enough to be in school, yet there he was, a tiny thing all alone on the Canterlot streets, scraping his bucket along the concrete. The poor thing. She kept watching, but no pony else followed him outside. He just stayed there, sitting next to the door, and played.
Maybe the waitress knew who he was. Fluttershy waved at her as she walked away, but her muzzle was pressed into her pad, silently mouthing some of the questions she had written down. But she did stop long enough to wrap a foreleg around the colt’s neck and nuzzle his cheek. He giggled and tried to do the same.
Fluttershy held a hoof to her heart. She recalled that she had a few more bits left in her purse after shopping today. Surely Rarity would leave a generous tip, but didn’t the waitress deserve a little extra? For enduring Pinkie Pie if for no other reason.
Rarity yelped out her name and flung herself into Applejack so hard she nearly sent both of them tumbling down. Her hooves flailed about in a vain attempt to ward off the dragonfly zipping around her head, and her shrill cries threatened to drown out the round of laughter from the rest of the table.
Fluttershy reached up, and the dragonfly settled on her ankle. She giggled at the touch of its legs on her coat, and pulled it down to her eye level. It shone like an emerald under the light, so much like the first one she had ever seen as a filly. She recalled that one had landed right on the tip of her nose. Oh, how she had screamed. Screamed and blubbered and stamped and bucked, but nothing had dislodged the unflinching monster that had come from nowhere to menace her.
But now she cooed at her new guest. Its wings stayed splayed out at its side to take off at a moment’s notice, and she ran a hoof down its elongated body—firm to the touch like a coiled spring ready to unleash. They never seemed to relax, the dragonflies. Such a contrast from the gentle butterflies her younger self had experienced, but powerful insects as they were, they were still just nature’s creatures. Nothing for her to fear. Anymore at least.
Rarity cleared her throat—rather forcefully.
She blushed under her other friends’ chuckles and made to pull her hoof away from the table. The dragonfly had none of it, leaping further and further up her leg until it alighted on her shoulder. Fluttershy forced a pleading look at Rarity, but the only answer was a raised eyebrow. She sighed and whispered a word to the dragonfly, brushing it away.
The table returned to Rarity’s desired Canterlot civility, but Fluttershy only paid cursory attention to the conversation while she kept an eye on the little thing. It didn’t have a bad idea by circling over their heads next to the streetlight. They must have made fertile hunting grounds, given how often Rarity complained about the swarms of insects they attracted and how they could ruin a lovely nighttime stroll.
Fluttershy bowed her head with a guilty look across the table. Complain wasn’t the right word. Rainbow Dash and Applejack might have called it whining, but Rarity would never. A lady... wondered about the clouds of bugs, maybe? Noted? Whatever the correct word was, the dragonfly didn’t seem to have any luck yet. It darted away from the light and smacked into one of the restaurant’s windows.
The small colt jumped and cried out, only for the surprise in his eyes to fade away into wide-eyed wonder, matched by his jaw hanging slack from his shout. He took a step forward, but the dragonfly skittered over his head. The colt spun around with a laugh, bucket in tow to try and catch it.
Fluttershy cracked a smile as the dragonfly led him in a chase. He was certainly showing more courage than she did, if this was the first time he had seen a dragonfly. She thought it was. It wasn’t every day something as alien and beautiful as a dragonfly landed right next to a young boy. Plus, there was a note of surprise in his laughter every time it flew away from him.
Flying...
She tapped Rainbow’s hoof, but Rainbow moved it away. Fluttershy chewed on her lip. That was okay. Rainbow would rather be the one doing the flying anyway, rather than watch somepony else be impressed by it. No one else at the table seemed to notice what was going on either. She guessed the show was hers alone.
The colt had crouched this time, his tail flapping wildly in anticipation. The dragonfly landed once more, and he sprang forward to slam his bucket down around it. He pushed and pulled the impromptu cage until the insect took flight, though Fluttershy wished he would just pick it up again and see what Mr. Dragonfly could really do. He was so much more dynamic than what being trapped in a little dome could show. Certainly more than so than she.
Maybe he was more like Twilight. Maybe he had fun learning about things instead of playing with them. If this was the first time he had seen a dragonfly, she could hardly fault him for wanting the moment to last. She might even be seeing the start of Equestria’s next great entymologist, all because of this one special moment that opened his eyes to the world. Didn’t she get her cutie mark the same way?
She looked down the table once more, but Twilight was reading aloud from her new book about the early Canterlot-Ponyville trade deals. Before Fluttershy could interject something, Applejack slapped the table and snapped a comeback at Twilight’s last quotation. Best not to get involved. But when she looked back to the colt, she saw him looking right back at her, and the smile drained away from his face.
Oh dear. She never wanted to interrupt him. Fluttershy tried to smile back at him—not too much, of course, so as not to startle him, but certainly giving him enough warm interest to encourage him to continue studying the animal. This was a magical moment she was intruding on.
The colt tipped his bucket up. He stole another glance at her, and back to the dragonfly as it crept out.
Before she could make an effort to stop it, he slammed the bucket back down.
Fluttershy had never heard such a crunch before. She heard it over Rarity’s chastisement of Applejack. She heard it over her own hoof slapping to her mouth. Its echo in her memory left her deafened to the sound of the dragonfly’s wings helplessly beating against the bucket crushing it into the roasting, unyielding cement.
A second crunch followed, and a third and a fourth reached her ears, but her eyes were blinded to the violence. All she could see was the colt’s smile. His wonder as the dragonfly flew over his head. Now...
What had she done? What had gone wrong? No answer came as the colt scraped the dragonfly’s remains into an emerald paste. And then he looked up at her again.
He grinned.
That smile. The same smile he smiled at the dragonfly.
Fluttershy took a mouthful of water. Some of it spilled from her glass because of her trembling hoof. No one noticed. No one noticed her. No one noticed the colt put the bucket on his back and go inside.
It was okay. It was all okay, he just... didn’t know any better. He didn’t mean to hurt the dragonfly. He just didn’t know what it was. That it was alive. That it could have been his friend.
He would learn. It was all okay.
No one noticed how she huddled over her glass and watched the ice melt until it was time to go home.
