“Here you go Angel Bunny, a fresh salad full of nice yummy vegetables for lunch.” As Fluttershy set the salad bowl down she mentally checked off the last item on her to-do list for the afternoon. All of her critter friends were now taken care of, at least until dinner time, and Fluttershy’s pony friends all had plans of their own for the day. “I guess I’m going to have the rest of the day to myself. I could do some knitting, or read a book, or maybe I could…” Fluttershy glance at a large cupboard as a small grin crossed her features. “You know,” she said to herself, “I haven’t had a chance to do that in almost a whole moon.” Her mind having been made up almost as soon as the though had crossed her mind, Fluttershy began darting to her cottage’s windows and drawing the curtains closed. Once satisfied that nopony could peek in and see her, Fluttershy went over to the cupboard and pulled it away from the wall. While to the untrained eye the cupboard may have appeared to be quite heavy, it had been built with a set of cleverly hidden caster wheels which allowed it to be easily moved. Pulling the cupboard away from the wall revealed a doorway that had been hidden behind it. The doorway opened to a flight of stairs that led to a small underground vault. The vault had been built by the cottage’s original owner, an especially odd stallion named Alpha Strategy. Fluttershy wasn’t entirely sure what the vault’s original purpose had been, and to be honest she suspected that she really didn’t want to know, but now it had become the perfect hideaway for her to indulge in her favorite guilty pleasure. Fluttershy could scarcely contain her giddiness as she pranced down the stairs and opened the soundproofed door (an addition of her own devising). Slipping into her private sanctuary and closing the door behind her, Fluttershy prepared herself for an hour or two of uninterrupted enjoyment.
*********
“Are you sure we’ve gotta do this?” Gilda groused as she flew alongside Rainbow Dash.
“Just suck it up and deal with it, it’s your own fault you were such a jerk the last time you were here,” Rainbow Dash shot back. “We’re going to go to Fluttershy’s cottage and you’re going to apologize to her yelling at her until she ran off crying. I still can’t believe you did that.”
Gilda grumbled under her breath, but she didn’t argue the point. While Gilda had known that she was going to have to start making apologies for her previous behavior, this wasn’t how she expected her return to Ponyville to play out. Initially it was just supposed to be a simple get together with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, and at first everything had gone just fine. But then Pinkie Pie had started talking about Gilda’s last visit to Ponyville, and of course it turned out that the little yellow pegasus that Gilda had sent off crying was actually one of Rainbow Dash’s closest friends. Needless to say Rainbow Dash was less than pleased by this revelation, and she promptly insisted that Gilda come with her to Fluttershy’s cottage so that she could apologize for her behavior.
When the pair reached the cottage, however, it didn’t appear that there was anypony home. “Huh, weird,” Rainbow Dash said as she circled the cottage, “I didn’t think Fluttershy had any plans today.”
“Ah well, we’ll just have to come back later,” Gilda said before letting out an exasperated sigh at the glare she received from Rainbow Dash. “What do you want from me, Dash? I can’t apologize to her if she’s not here.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Rainbow Dash replied as she inspected one of the windows, “but something about this just doesn’t seem right. Like, why the hay are all the curtains on the windows shut?”
“Who knows, maybe she just wanted some privacy or something,” Gilda snorted, not bothering to hide her impatience.
Rainbow Dash ignored her, however, as she went over to the cottage’s front door. “Hey, Fluttershy! Are you home?” Rainbow Dash called out as she banged on the door. When Rainbow Dash didn’t receive an answer she tried the door itself and found it to be unlocked. Pushing the door open, Rainbow Dash began to step inside, much to Gilda’s alarm.
“What do you think you’re doing, doofus?” Gilda asked as she tried to grab at Rainbow Dash’s tail to pull her back.
“I just want to take a quick look inside to make sure everything’s alright,” Rainbow Dash replied. “It’ll just take a minute; if nopony’s home we’ll leave and that’ll be that, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever,” Gilda grumbled as she followed Rainbow Dash inside. “Let’s just get this over with.” The cottage’s interior was more or less what Gilda had expected, almost cloying cute and cozy. There was something about it, however, that was putting her nerves on edge. It wasn’t anything that she could put her talon on precisely, just an odd feeling that there was something more to the cottage than what she could see.
“Hey, Gilda,” Rainbow Dash said, keeping her voice down, “do you hear that?”
Gilda’s first instinct normally would have been to reply back with a sarcastic comment, but before she did so she paused and realized that she did in fact hear something. It was faint, scarcely audible in fact, but Gilda could definitely hear a steady thumping noise. “What the hay is that?” Gilda asked as she tried to pinpoint the sound’s origin. “It kinda sounds like it’s coming from underneath the floor.” Her curiosity piqued by this new mystery, Gilda began to look around for the source of the noise until she walked right into Rainbow Dash. “Hey, what’s the big—“
“Whoa, check it out,” Rainbow Dash said, apparently oblivious to Gilda’s irritation. “I think the sound’s coming from over there.” Following Rainbow Dash’s gaze, Gilda could see that her friend was staring at the entranceway to Fluttershy’s secret vault. What’s more, as Gilda approached the previously hidden doorway she could tell that the mystery noise was definitely coming from inside.
“So, I know you said Pinkie Pie has some sort of party planning cave; is having creepy secret lairs just a weird pony-thing that I didn’t know about?” Gilda asked as she peered down the stairs below.
Rainbow Dash ignored Gilda’s question as she investigated the secret passage. “Geez, I had no idea this place even had a downstairs. Just what the hay is Fluttershy hiding down there?” Rainbow Dash slowly crept down the stairs with Gilda following close behind until the pair reached the padded door at the bottom. While still muffled, the unidentified sounds were much louder here, so much so that Rainbow Dash thought she could tell what it was. “Hey, Gilda, is it just me or does it sound like there’s music playing in there?” Rainbow Dash asked as she hesitated at the door.
“Enough stalling already, just open the stupid door!” Without giving Rainbow Dash a chance to respond, Gilda shoved the door wide open. As soon as she did so the pair found themselves blasted by the deafeningly loud sounds of an electric guitar solo. The music was booming out of a stereo system set up against the far wall that even Vinyl Scratch might have felt was excessively large. The rest of the chamber’s walls were covered in a wide assortment of posters, many of which prominently featured an eight-legged stallion. Standing in the middle of the room was Fluttershy herself, whipping her long mane around in circles as she wildly thrashed about to the music.
For the first few seconds Rainbow Dash and Gilda simply stared into the room as their minds tried to process the scene playing out before them. Fluttershy, meanwhile, was blissfully unaware of the fact that she had acquired an audience. It wasn’t until Fluttershy spun around while singing along with the chorus that she finally saw Rainbow Dash and Gilda peering into the room. The resultant noise Fluttershy emitted in response, a high-pitched combination of a squeak and a yelp, was scarcely audible over the blaring music. The look or absolute horror on Fluttershy’s face, however, spoke volumes. Before either Rainbow Dash or Gilda could say a word Fluttershy dashed to her stereo and turned the music off before curling up in a ball on the floor.
“Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said gently as she slowly approached her friend, “are you alright?” When Fluttershy responded with a tiny whimper Rainbow Dash continued. “Look, I’m sorry we just kinda barged in like this, I was just worried because all the curtains were shut on your windows but the door was unlocked and…” Rainbow Dash’s voice trailed off as she tried to think of a way to comfort her friend.
While Rainbow Dash struggled to calm Fluttershy down, Gilda took a closer look at the posters covering the walls of the room. “Hey, Fluttershy right? That song you had playing, wasn’t that from Sleipnir’s latest album?”
Much to Rainbow Dash’s confusion Fluttershy stopped whimpering and poked her head up to nod in affirmation. “Uh, what the hay is ‘Sleipnir’?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“They're only the greatest heavy metal band ever!” Gilda exclaimed as she turned back to Fluttershy. “You’re seriously a Sleipnir fan? I wouldn’t have thought you were a metalhead.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Fluttershy said softly as she pulled herself up off the floor. “I mean, I enjoy listening to a few bands, but I wouldn’t really call myself a metalhead.”
“Well, you were sure moshing like one!” Gilda said with a broad grin. “So, who else do you listen to?”
“Um, well I also like Skyforce, and lately I’ve been listening to some of Tartarusborn, their more recent music, mostly.” As Fluttershy talked she seemed increasingly less upset and more animated. It was almost a little strange for Rainbow Dash to see her friend so excited talking about something other than small furry animals. “Sleipnir is still my favorite, though. My uncle introduced me to them when I was little, and that was actually how I first started listening to music in general.
Gilda and Fluttershy spent the next several minutes bonding over their newfound shared interest. “Hey, listen,” Gilda finally said in an uncharacteristically bashful tone, “about that whole, y’know, thing last time I was in Ponyville. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the whole thing, alright?”
“It’s alright,” Fluttershy said gently. “And, um, if you want to come over the next time you come to visit Ponyville…”
“Heh, sounds good.” Gilda replied happily as she clapped a talon around Fluttershy’s withers. Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, could only shrug at the whole scene. It just went to show that sometimes even somepony you had known for years could still find ways to surprise you. Silently, Rainbow Dash wondered what secrets her other friends might be hiding.
*********
Hidden away in a secluded corner of Carousel Boutique’s labyrinthine basement was a small nook Rarity had put together for one of her favorite monthly rituals. Reclining back on a spare fainting couch with a box of bonbons nearby, Rarity gingerly levitated the thick envelope containing her guilty pleasure du jour; the latest issue of Shetland Jump.
