I do not remember when specifically it occurred, but I do remember that Pinkie Pie took us to his grave once. I remember she looked up at the troubled, overcast sky and said, “It’s sad that he’s gone, but I like to think that he’s home now.” Behind a plate of glass, which had been fixed in his granite tombstone, there was a headshot of him, of the human, with a calm smile. It must’ve been cold then because I remember that the glass had fogged up and there were tiny grey water droplets stuck on it. My brother stared at his grave with somber eyes that I never saw on him anywhere else before.
Though he had died when we were only five, the way that Pinkie spoke of the human, who had been a good friend of hers, and the stories about him that she told to us had helped my twin brother and I fix firmly his being into our minds. He lived vividly in our imaginations. Sometimes we even considered him to be our third playmate, which led to many arguments.
“Not fair, Pumpkin,” my brother would shout at me. “You had him on your team last time! It’s my turn now!”
My brother, even when we grew too old for such imaginary exploits, continually held onto Pinkie’s old stories of the human and attached to them a special significance that I do not think ever went away. There were times when he seemed to confuse her memories for his own. I remember he would lie on the floor of our bakery and, pressing his cheek on the floorboards, roll from end to end of the room while repeating things Pinkie had said of him.
“He used to walk in here all the time,” he’d say. “He had a real sweet tooth, you know.”
I pretended not to notice whenever he did this, though if he started to disturb our customers too much I was expected to tattle on him or face my own punishment for not doing so.
I dealt with such immaturity daily from both him and my own classmates. But at my age, I knew that I was different from them all. By reading Prancy Drew, my favorite mystery novelist, I grew vaguely aware of a secret world that existed in the minds of the ponies around me, mainly in the grownups, that governed their beliefs and actions, whether they knew it or not. Everypony had a hidden life inside them, innumerable secrets that were only hinted at by their lifestyle, behavior, and their unique quirks and mannerisms. But Prancy could see into that secret world because she had intelligence, wit and a shrewd eye for detail that never failed her when she analyzed her suspects. She always sympathized, too, at the end when the cornered culprit would tearfully confess to their misdeeds. They too were victims, often weak in spite of their actions, and eventually I was able to share in her pity for them. I worked hard to hone my own detecting skills so they were similar to hers, and I longed for a chance to use them and solve a real mystery. I was ready to open up to experience.
All the way to Fluttershy’s house the bright midmorning sunshine flooded our faces and made us tired as my brother and I dragged our hooves across the warm dirt. We had been babysat by her before and thus knew by then the quality of day that was ahead of us. And that it was Saturday of all days was an injustice that my brother felt need to complain about the entire way there.
Fluttershy lived in a cottage out by the green valley’s surrounding town, and was thus removed from the tight-knit collection of thatched roofs and two-floor homes that we were used to. We always felt like we were going to another world on this walk, and that the universe was taunting us on the way as we passed by favorable sights of our friends, who were all out forming teams for street sports, running and jumping in the park playgrounds, or hanging out in front of the drug stores, with candy and comics in their hoofs.
Both my brother and I did not like Fluttershy. She was not suited for the task of watching us without having us get bored, especially my brother, whose rambunctiousness could always be counted on to upset her quiet and sensitive nature.
The only pony who could really watch over my brother was Pinkie, who was the one adult whom he fully trusted. Her friendship with us had always felt authentic and not like a cover that was used to keep tabs on our mischief. She was a great and friendly pony—all our friends were jealous that she was our aunt—and we were both proud of how well we knew her. Fluttershy lived alone unremarkably in her cottage and filled any needs for connection she had by caring for her animals. We never saw her unless we were being babysat. She was never in town or present at any fun events, like Pinkie’s parties. I had heard of her adventures as an Element of Harmony, but they were so far removed from my experiences with her that they may as well have been about somepony else; besides, she was reluctant to speak of them.
Soon after we arrived at the cottage I found myself in a familiar spot as the guest at a backyard tea party with Fluttershy. The chair I sat on, the tea cups, the folding table and the table cloth covering it were all colored pink like a piece of unwrapped bubblegum which still had that chalky dust-like residue resting on it. This plastic set for kids had always annoyed me—but I never said anything to her about it. It was important for us not to upset Fluttershy in any way, as our parents expected perfect reports from her when they picked us up; but the task of pleasing her always fell to me. Though my brother’s discontent was easy enough for her to detect, she always felt that I had enjoyed all our time spent together.
Fluttershy took my cup to refill it.
“It’s a very sweet tea,” Fluttershy said whilst pushing the cup to me. “But careful you don’t get a tummy ache. You drank those last three cups awfully quick.”
I had a habit of taking a drink whenever there was a lull in our conversation.
I nodded falsely and took a sip, this time with intent to taste what I had been drinking so far.
Pound could not sit still for the tea party and was instead flying over the fenced-in animals Fluttershy had. I knew he wanted to dive down on the grazing animals, but with Fluttershy nervously turning her head with every other pause in our talk he could not do so. So he flew aimlessly and with no vigor around the fences like a jogger running alone round a track course.
I took a sip of my tea and waited until Fluttershy felt her eyes had again sent their intent to my brother.
Finally she turned to me, picked up the kettle, and, holding it out for me, asked if I wanted some more tea.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m not finished yet.”
“Oh, okay,” she said as she set the kettle down, her eyes watching it.
We said nothing. Normally to keep her from awkwardness I would have to think of something for us to discuss, but she had not finished going through her routine questions yet. So instead I listened to the sounds that the birds made as they rested in their houses, and to the chickens clucking from behind their pens, and to the gentle breeze that my brother’s wings glided on.
Fluttershy looked down at her lap and I saw, under her brow, the slight movement of her lips, as though she was mumbling something to herself.
When this stopped, she turned up towards me again.
“So how has school been?” she asked.
“Okay,” I said.
“Are you still getting good grades?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I sit in the front now, since our teacher reassigned our seats based on our test scores.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said. “Your parents must be very proud of you for being so smart.”
“I guess,” I said with a shrug, reaching for my teacup.
She leaned forward slightly in her seat.
“Where does your brother sit?”
I nearly choked on my tea when she asked this and, scoffing, said:
“Very far away from me.”
Her smile left and, nodding gravely, she moved back in her chair so that she was sitting upright again.
“Oh, well, that’s too bad,” she said, looking away.
It was soon quiet again and, to fill in our talk, I began going through the latest Prancy Drew novels I had finished, summarizing them chapter by chapter so that their suspense and mystery would not be lost on her. She was a perfect listener, speculating aloud on the next twists and turns of the story—but it all felt like a chore to me.
Coming back from the bathroom, I was still in the cottage when I saw outside one of the windows that Pound, his head slanted and leaning on his elbow, was now in my seat, his eyes fixed to the door where I had entered. Having no desire to go back right away, I walked aimlessly around in the cottage, which was empty of any animals.
Upstairs, where I had never been before, I looked at some photos that she had hanging in her faintly-lit hallway. One was a happy group shot depicting her with all of her best friends, including aunt Pinkie Pie. In another she was cradling a baby bunny in her arms. She looked down lovingly at its short white hair and not-yet-open eyes, and, written at the bottom in the photo’s blank edge, was, ‘Me and Angel: Day One’. I did not recognize the rabbit from earlier visits and I knew better than to ask her about him.
My favorite picture was of Fluttershy as a filly. Flying all round her were green butterflies with pink wings, but she was aware of the camera and was looking away from it self-consciously. I wondered why she had hung this picture up until, looking much closer, I noticed that the edges of her mouth were faintly curled upward in a small and delicate smile.
As I passed one door in the hall, the backs of my eyes ached in response to a strange and thick chemical-like smell that crept up from under it. Curiosity getting the better of me, I pushed the door open slowly and entered the room, which turned out to be her own.
She had cream-colored walls and smooth pink sheets on her bed which had been warmed by the nesting sunshine’s open resting rays, all coming from a small overhead window. At the foot of her bed was a small bundle of richly-hued blue iris flowers, their stems wrapped in thick grey paper. They were the kind whose gentle outer petals opened so fully in bloom that they hung limp off of the flower, almost as though they were ready to fall. I wanted to eat one but the fume was making me sick.
My nose led me to the closet, which squeaked when I opened it, and there I found a pair of brown suede shoes for feet that must have been long and thin. The shoes were old looking and had scuffs all over them. The heel had been permanently smooshed and the toes were full of dark flaying holes. Next to these shoes was an opened can of shoe polish, a small stained rag still in it; and this is what I had smelled. I looked at the shoes, which were nearly as long as my body, and I wondered who could have worn them, and why Fluttershy had them. But what was more curious to me was that despite how worn these shoes were, to the point that they were garbage, Fluttershy was polishing and caring for them just as though they were new. And she was hiding them, too.
I heard a door on the ground floor open which set my heart racing. I quickly put everything back the way I had found it and, shutting the door with silent haste, hurried downstairs. Luckily Fluttershy found me next to the bathroom, but I had a hard time hiding my anxiousness when her nervous eyes caught me and her shaky arm touched the small of my back so she could lead me back outside.
“You shouldn’t’ve been away from me for so long,” she said anxiously. “I got worried for you.”
I didn’t think I had been gone long, but her deep breathing and the rhythm of her heaving chest depressed me to silence. I forced an apology, only half out of guilt.
“Something could have happened to you,” she repeated to herself; and I rolled my eyes but did so without malice, for I was still upset by her irrational, yet seemingly genuine, concern.
When I had come back outside my brother straightened up in his seat, as if I was there to tag him out so he could again keep his distance from Fluttershy. As soon as we reached the table he made an excuse to rise and it was obvious that he was preparing to take off just as soon as Fluttershy was not watching him with those heavy eyes of hers.
We continued our talk. She wanted me to start on another book but my heart just wasn’t in it, for my mind was moving into a dark fog of unanswered questions.
Then, suddenly, I felt I was sure that I knew who the shoes had belonged to. I hastily said:
“Fluttershy, did you know the human?”
She blinked twice and then turned quickly from my brother to meet me. Her fixed, serious stare told me I had found another topic she did not like talking about. I chastised myself for not knowing better than to ask and I immediately regretted my spontaneity.
“The human?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said, trying to seem innocent. “Did you know him?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t know him very well.”
It was obvious I had taken her by surprise, though, because she no longer looked at me or my brother but instead kept her eyes locked in the reflection in her tea cup. But what surprised me most was that all of her nervous energy seemed gone now, replaced by a solemn fixedness.
“Why do you ask?” she said, turning back to me.
I said I was simply curious and was glad when she let the matter drop, for I had a sudden fear that she would report my questioning to our parents. I turned to look at my brother. He had his back to us and had sensed his opportunity to escape long ago, but his wings were folded and his ears had swiveled in direction of our voices. It had never occurred to us to talk with Fluttershy about the human before.
Fluttershy returned to her tea and I eventually did too, pouring myself another cup, but also watching her carefully from the hidden places in my eyes from then on.
The cherry-colored sunset sky was still with silence on the way home. My parents, happy to have gotten a good report, asked us how our visit was and, instead of a stock answer, I said in a certain tone that it was interesting.
Back at home my stomach was mixing anxiously as Pinkie fed us sweets, behind the backs of our parents as it was late at night, and, in her usual ceaseless rhythm of speech, regaled us with the adventure she had just returned from (her cutie mark had started glowing that morning). She wouldn’t stop talking and I wanted to ask her about Fluttershy and the human. I knew for sure now that the shoes I found had been his because I saw them clearly in a photo that Pinkie had of him in her room. It was a group photo taken at the Summer Sun Celebration, and he stood crouched down at the end of a line made up of Pinkie’s friends. They were all there, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Princess Twilight; but not Fluttershy. I was not alone in my agitation. My brother and I had been sharing knowing looks with each other all evening and, as anxious for answers as I was, he suggested going to Pinkie for the truth.
Finally a pause in Pinkie’s monologue presented itself and I took advantage.
“Pinkie, did Fluttershy know the human at all?”
The question had the same effect as previously beheld on Fluttershy, and it interrupted the naturally erratic rhythm of her speaking. After a moment she recomposed herself and, wearing a blissful smile, shocked us both with her answer.
“Nope,” she said, “can’t say that she did.”
As she turned away from us and crossed to the opposite end of her room, Pound and I shared looks of disbelief with each other. On top of her dresser, and next to the picture of her friends, there was a cookie jar that was shaped like a birthday cake. She took the top off the cake and dipped her hoof into the jar.
With an unassuming air to her, she said, “What got you thinking about him and Fluttershy?”
She was probing us, trying to figure out why we would ask her that question. We had never lied to each other before and we always had treated her as a friend; it hurt to see this side of her for the first time.
“All of your other friends knew him,” I said weakly. “It just seems strange that she would be left out.”
Pinkie hummed and then, counting the cookies she had taken out, returned to us with six chocolate chip cookies in hoof, two for each of us. She looked at us briefly, shrugged, and then turned quickly so she could sit down.
“Well, you know how shy she is,” said Pinkie. “Even after we introduced her to him, they never really did connect, you know?”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said.
Pound watched me from the corner of his eye and I could feel his spirit deflating under my words. Then Pinkie, with a silly eye roll and a mouthful of cookie crumbs, said:
“Anywho, to get back to the fun . . .”
At bedtime that night, Pound and I voiced our suspicions. We slept in separate beds at opposite ends of our room, but over the years we both had perfected the art of speaking softly with voices that were clear and carried far.
“Why do you think Pinkie lied to us?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But for some reason, Pinkie and Fluttershy both want us to think that she never knew him.”
“But she did know him, right?”
“Well why else would Fluttershy still be taking care of his shoes all this time?”
“I don’t get it, though,” he said. “So what if Fluttershy knew the human? Why can’t Pinkie just tell us the truth?”
“But that’s just it,” I said, turning over to his direction. “Why would it be so bad for Fluttershy to have known the human?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” I said. “They’re hiding something from us, Pinkie and Fluttershy. I bet if we had asked mom and dad, or Twilight, or anypony else they wouldn’t have told us what it is either.”
“So what are we going to do?”
I turned onto my back and gazed up into the darkness of our room. And though I spoke solemnly, and knew of the seriousness of the task before us, my heart pounded with glee and I could feel in my stomach that I was excited.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to go look for clues,” I said. “I want to know what it is that they’re not telling us.”
At the first sign of blue in the mornings it was me and my brother’s responsibility to get the bakery ready for the day’s business, with me placing the warm pastries behind the glass of the crumby display shelves and measuring the change in the till, and Pound cleaning all the appliances and mopping the entire floor until the water turned murky.
As I was wiping down the counter with a wet rag, the bell to the front door rang, which startled me since the door was usually locked until we had opened. It was only Pinkie, carrying her saddlebags. She then approached me and, right when I was to ask where she had been, she pulled a blue flower out of her saddlebags, which crinkled with something inside, and held it across the counter to me, offering me a bite. I eyed the flower silently, knowing that there was nowhere she could have gotten it so early on a Sunday. Pinkie, shrugging at my indecision, then sloppily ate it so that the petals, coming apart, stuck on her lips and slipped out the sides of her mouth, leaving bits of them trailing behind her on her way up the stairs.
When we were free, I knew exactly where my brother and I should search for clues. But when I told him where we were going, he turned white with dread.
The human’s house was a half mile down the east road leading out of town and it stood just the same as it had on the day when he was carried out its front door. Walking two blocks from the school house, you reached the road it was on and could see it in the distance. The general rumor at school was that it was haunted. Every year coming back from vacation, somepony in our class would come back with a story swearing that they had seen his pale spirit somewhere in or among the quiet home.
In going in the house all I was hoping for was to find proof the he knew Fluttershy, like an old picture of him with her in it, or a can of the same shoe polish I had found earlier. But my brother, who believed those playground stories, was certain that I was chasing a death wish and it took some carefully-directed teasing on my part to get him to fly down the chimney so that he could unlock the door for us to enter.
I waited alone for him on the porch for a long time. Whenever I thought I heard the dull thuds of Pound’s hooves coming to the door, I found I was mistaken. It was quiet. We had been careful not to be seen by anypony, as no pony was allowed to go in this house, and the stillness, which surrounded me and had gathered like dust onto the air here during the silent passing of years, was absolute. The longer I was left in it, the more I hated it. It seemed to be an unnatural quiet, foreboding and malevolent. I didn’t understand these settling anxieties, but I tried to reason myself against them by invoking Prancy’s brave spirit for my own. When my brother finally opened the door, my heart had started thrashing in my chest, thumping against its surrounding dark tight walls and hitting me in waves across my body, and I had trouble explaining to him why I seemed so shaken up.
After washing the soot off of Pound’s coat in a nearby stream, we entered the human’s house.
The house was clean and any and all items were either folded in drawers or stocked neatly in rows on the shelves; and the furniture was placed meticulously in the rooms. The sink was dry. The fridge was empty and quiet without power. And the lack of smell in the house—I had never been in a house before where I could not smell the warm odor of the pony living there—made me feel nauseous. We said nothing as we searched the house for clues, for the dead air was stronger than our voices, but we could easily hear each other on opposite ends of the house, skulking through the bare rooms.
But I was stunned when, after we had searched the house twice over, we found almost nothing of note. Except that I did see on his bookshelf that he had dog-eared the pages of a few of his books, including some books on astronomy, the principal laws of magic, and ones which had picturesque photos depicting meadows. And I did think it was odd that in the middle of his bedroom there stood a single chair, which I recognized was part of a set that was downstairs in the kitchen.
Finally, though, I went downstairs, empty-hoofed, and found Pound, who was studying the wood floor closely. He stopped when I came down and, reading my grave face, asked what we should do next.
I furrowed my brow, trying to think, but the silence, both of me and of the house, had done enough to unsettle us and we were anxious to leave.
But when we reached the door, we discovered a new problem.
“How are we going to lock the door behind us?” said Pound.
In thinking, I absentmindedly moved the door and, as the door slowly swung closed, my eyes caught sight of a framed picture which had hung on the wall behind it. My initial surprise and confusion at the picture’s odd placement dropped out of me following a rise of shock at the first appearance I had seen of Fluttershy that day. It was a group picture, with her standing at the end of a line made up of her friends—but without the human.
My brother was eager to bring Pinkie to the house right then and make her explain, but I asked him to wait, for, looking at the picture, I sensed something familiar in it that I could not place. I took the picture down and I studied it, studied the smiling faces of her friends, the faces of Pinkie and Applejack and Rarity and Rainbow Dash and Princess Twilight, until I recalled in them a match in my memory, a match of another picture.
“This is Pinkie’s picture,” I said. I turned to my wide-eyed brother. “This is the same picture she has on her dresser.”
I pointed at the end of the line, where Twilight was, and there was a moment of silence between us. Then we lifted our heads and our eyes met briefly, and I turned the picture over to open the frame. What did I see when it was open but the human, crouched down and smiling, staring back at me from where he had been folded over years and years ago.
We did not speak on the way home. My brother had a sour brooding expression on his face that lasted him all day. I was proud that I had found the proof we had been looking for, though it did raise more questions. We decided to wait until after dinner to confront Pinkie because we knew that she would invite us into her room then for snacks. Later, I felt sick with dread leading up to it, like my stomach was sinking along with the sun. After dinner, as we were taking our seats on her bed and she was about to cross her room, she saw the saddlebags I was wearing and asked me what I had brought. Seeing her kind eyes, I could not help but turn away when I silently reached into my saddlebag and then presented the picture to her.
For a while, she said nothing. She looked from the picture in my hoof, to the picture on her dresser, and then back again, all in silence. I hoped she would eventually explain herself on her own, but my brother, who had no patience or sympathy for her shock, gave her no chance.
“Why did you lie to us?” he said bitterly.
Her ears turned down at his voice and she could only look at him for a brief moment. She turned to me slowly.
“Where in Equestria did you two find that picture?” she asked.
“In his house,” I said. “We snuck in and found it there.”
For some reason Pinkie did not seem to believe me, as she asked us again and again where we had gotten the picture. But when I kept repeating what we had done she fell silent; and then Pound again demanded the truth from her. She looked at both of us, sighed, went and locked her door, and then came back, pulled a chair from the corner of the room, and sat before us.
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll tell you why I lied.”
Her eyes, which had been cast down, rose up and met ours and she leaned towards us with a serious look on her face.
“But I have to tell you right now that this story does not leave this room. You can’t tell your friends, or anypony else about what you’re about to hear. Got it?”
I nodded and then nudged Pound, who had crossed his arms and was looking away, until he also nodded.
“Fluttershy did know him,” she said. “She knew him as well as anypony would know their best friend.”
I saw Pinkie was looking longingly at the picture. I held it out for her and she took it and stared at it for a while before speaking to us again.
“When he first came to Equestria,” she said, “he wasn’t happy for a long time. He wouldn’t talk to anypony, let alone make friends. We tried to help him. We wanted him to feel like Ponyville could be his new home. But everything we did just made him feel more upset that he was here.
“Fluttershy was the pony that eventually got through to him. And once he started listening to her voice, things got better. We saw him smile for the first time. He changed, to the point where he could talk to anypony on the street and make their day brighter when they left, just as if he had been doing it all his life. We never saw him unhappy anymore. If he had a problem he’d just talk to Fluttershy about it, and eventually he would feel better.
“She was the only pony that he always wanted to be around no matter what. When we all went out to do something, the two of them were always next to each other. They just seemed to have the most fun when they were at each other’s side.
“But everything changed when Fluttershy fell in love with him. For some reason, even after all the time they had spent together, after making each other happy for so long, he didn’t love her back. He just couldn’t see past that she was a pony.
“After a while he decided he didn’t want to be friends with us anymore, and he went back to living in that sad and lonely way he used to. None of us knew why he felt hurt enough to do that, but it was most devastating for Fluttershy. She tried really hard to get him to open up to her like he used to do, but he just couldn’t anymore. I guess he just thought things were too different between them after that, and she couldn’t reach him anymore.”
Pinkie closed her eyes and bowed her head, shaking it slowly.
“No pony could.”
She gave me back the picture. I looked down at the human’s happy face in a way I had not done before.
“I’m sorry I lied to you both about what really happened,” Pinkie said. “But when you first started asking me to tell you about him, I knew you were both too young to hear any of what I just said tonight. And, well, Fluttershy hasn’t been the same since we lost our friend. It still makes her sad to think about how their friendship turned out, and I didn’t want the two of you to accidentally hurt her feelings by letting something I told you tonight slip.”
Now I had all the answers I had wanted. But as we were leaving, I pointed something out in the picture to Pinkie.
“Pinkie, you said that they never left each other’s side, but in this picture they’re on opposite ends of the line. Why is that?”
Pinkie took the picture and studied it until a small smile of recognition developed.
“She hadn’t confessed yet,” she said. “We all thought that she was going to confess to him that night. She had held it in her for a month already by then and we were pressuring her. I remember she was really nervous.”
My brother and I spent the rest of the day in our room, a solemn silence oppressing us both as he daydreamed in bed and I idly flipped through an old Prancy Drew of mine.
I thought about Fluttershy and understood now why she was so fearful and delicate; and I felt sorry for her and for what she had loved and lost. In a strange way, too, I held her in a higher regard than I had before. Like a pillar of strength, she had survived her tragedy and still stood on her own.
I stared proudly at the picture for a while before putting it safely away in my saddlebag. It was then that my brother spoke up.
“Do you think Pinkie told us the truth?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “You think she didn’t? Because I’m sure of it.”
He shrugged his shoulders and said quietly that he was not sure. I tried to explain to him the conclusions I had drawn from hearing Pinkie’s story and he listened to me with a blank face and open eyes. I did not mind this look, though, as I spoke mainly to make him feel better, and I knew that he was too stupid to really understand anyway.
“Believe me,” I finished, “I’ve gone over it in my mind, and everything we just heard about Fluttershy and the human was the truth. I’m sure.”
A while later I heard him sigh heavily and turn over in bed, his back facing me.
“How can we be sure anymore,” he said.
***
I could not sleep. As the windows turned black and our room filled with shadow, my brother’s words clung to my heart, and my mind, everything concerning what I had uncovered about Fluttershy, began descending into doubt. Pinkie’s story, while seeming true, did not answer for all I had found out about, and the more I gave heed to my feelings of doubt the more I mistrusted what I had been told. I, too, began to wonder if Pinkie’s words were to be believed and whether there was more to this story than she had told.
I sat up in bed and let the cold air crawl onto my back. I could see the pointed stars outside shining on our window. It was as though my brain had just lit up. I was trembling, full of nervous energy. I felt that I had to talk to Fluttershy right then, regardless of whether I upset her or not. I took the picture in my arm and crept slowly and silently down to our front door where, opening it slightly, I squeezed past the crack between the door and the frame, silencing the bell above me.
I stood at the edge of our front step in the silent cold and stared hesitantly into the dark, trying to judge the once familiar street by the shapes of its shadows. For a long time I was still because of fear. But then I thought of Pinkie and how I had seen her that morning, coming in from some secret journey and humming pleasurably as she swallowed the torn petals of the iris. That’s when I finally started towards Fluttershy’s cottage; it was when I began to fear, even more than the dark, that if I did not see Fluttershy that night then I would never discover the truth of what I really wanted to know.
I walked briskly until I was free of the sleepy houses and onto the well-trodden dirt which was bordered by chilly grass that separated me from the nearby woods where on the breeze was carried the noise of gently thrashing branches and leaves, the lonely howling trees.
Fluttershy’s cottage, when I recognized it down the road, had all its windows glowing so that it seemed to me like a candle lit at the end of a tunnel. There was even a light on in front so that I could see faintly the little bridge over the stream running in front of her home and the birdhouses hanging from each of the branches of her trees. When I knocked on the door I heard the rustling of her animals, sleeping in the knotholes of trees and under burrows. I suspected they were watching me, but I did not venture to check.
I heard her step towards the door. She gasped quietly, after a moment, and then the light from inside came flooding over me.
“Pumpkin, what on earth are you doing out at this hour?” she said.
She looked concerned, and for the first time I could feel the tiny tremors from the cold on my knees and arms.
“I want to talk to you about something,” I said.
Fluttershy asked me what for and her trembling and nervous eyes darted all round me until they rested on that picture I had cradled in the crook of my arm, resting on my breast. She seemed to calm down, looking at it. She held her hoof out to me and asked to see it, and I gave it to her so she could. I recognized the fixed, lost stare that her eyes were using to see the picture. I began to wonder, though, if she was actually looking at the picture or, rather, if she was just looking at something in her mind. I did not think I was going to get her to give it back either way.
“Fluttershy, I know that you lied when you said you didn’t know him,” I said sympathetically. “But that’s okay with me. Pinkie said why you didn’t want to talk about it, and I understand.”
She nodded slowly.
“Well,” she said, “it’s not that I didn’t ever want to talk about it.”
She then said that she was going to take me home right away before my disappearance drew notice. She came outside and closed the cottage door silently behind her. On the side of her face there was caught the faint light from the front window and I saw play for a brief moment the faint shadow of a smile, small and humble that, when she turned and started for the road, had gone.
“Please stay close to me, Pumpkin,” she said solemnly; her steps were slow and natural, and I stepped quickly to catch her heel.
At first it was quiet between us. Eventually she asked did anypony else know that I had found that picture.
“Pound was with me,” I said. “And later we showed Pinkie, but that’s it.”
“I guess Pinkie told you about us,” she said, “about me and him.”
“She told us that the two of you were really good friends, and that you loved him. But that he didn’t . . .”
She looked at me but I could not turn to meet her eyes.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I know what you meant.”
A reflective silence, which I respected, followed her after saying this, and I began to grow excited. I knew that soon she would open up to me, that soon I was to be her confessor, and I was quivering in anticipation of the truth and of her secrets. I wondered if she knew how much this all meant to me. No; no, she couldn’t have. We had never been close before this. We’d known each other for years and yet we were practically strangers. But that was about to change now, once she spoke. And I realized that I too could share with her something that I truly felt was a special part of me, something that she would feel touched to know. I remembered the odd feelings of admiration I had felt for her earlier in my room. Surely she would like to know all about them and all about how I truly felt for her now.
Finally, when we had stepped into the cool air of the valleys, I could tell she was going to speak, and I resolved that afterwards I would speak to her meaningfully for the first time ever.
She began:
“I gave him that picture,” she said. “It was the end of the day, after he had walked me home. I remember I hugged him. He was too big to actually wrap your arms around, but I always felt close to his heart anyways.”
She looked up at the stars in their open glimmer and I saw that her eyes were flecking in them all.
“He’s always with me on these nights. We used to go out walking, on the meadows by the edge of the forest. We’d talk, and spend all day together without even realizing.
“I’d wish it’d never end, but it’d get dark, being out there so long, and I would get scared until he took me home. I remember he’d hold the tip of my wing in his hand, just like I always thought a gentleman would do.”
Looking up, her face was dipped in moonlight, and I saw the first glimmer of tears gathering in the dark corners of her eyes. She looked down and hid her face from me and I turned and pretended that I had not seen her.
“We saved each other,” she said. “I saw his pain and he saw mine. We shared our whole spiritual selves, understood each other completely.
“But he never acknowledged the love that was between us, even though we both felt it. I tried to give him time, but then he started to push me away, out of his life.
“I couldn’t let him do that, though, not when we had so much to give each other. I started making sure that I’d see him every day, so I could remind him of how we used to be, of all the good things about us. I did this only for my heart, just like I had done before for him.
“It didn’t work. We started fighting. I got scared when I realized that some things we were saying could not be taken back. There wasn’t time anymore for us. All I could think of was that heartfelt hug that we shared, of his gentle hold on my wing, and of all those things that the life we could’ve had stirred inside me—and which was all dying.
“But I didn’t give up. I fought for our love, for myself and for everything that was good between us up until . . .”
Her voice, which to me had moved throughout her speech like a flower petal turning itself over and over again in the air of her emotion, now sailed to a stop and gently curled up with its back on the ground. We emerged from the meadows and walked on edge in the streets between the stoic shadowed houses.
Then I heard her first sobs, which she muffled by holding her hoof to her mouth. But her body, unable to hold her grief, began to shudder.
“I miss him so much.”
I held myself perfectly still as she sniffled a while, getting her voice under control, before continuing.
“Everypony looks at me differently now, after what I did, but they can’t understand what we had lost in each other. There were things about him, things he told me, that only I knew, and that only I will ever know. But they don’t understand, and they never will either.
“We were in love,” she said, her speech breaking. “Just as soon as it began, though, it was over. I didn’t know he was going to . . . Oh, I miss him so much. I just want to see him one more time, tell him that I love him again, and that I’m sorry, maybe, but . . .”
We walked on in silence and came upon my home a few minutes later. And though I wanted to leave her, for I felt sick and helpless at all I had been told, we stopped, still side by side, a short distance from my door. She turned to me.
“Pumpkin,” she said, “I probably won’t babysit for you again. I’m not supposed to . . .”
I waited for her to speak some more, but she did not. I couldn’t see anything when I looked up at her for her face was dark.
She took a step backwards, effectively telling me I was free then, and I avoided turning back as I walked away and squeezed past the door.
“I’m sorry,” I heard her say faintly behind me. “You’re a good friend.”
Though I had meant to leave right away, once I was through, I was stopped when I heard her voice. In my mind I saw, under her tear-stricken eyes, that smile of gentle benevolence showing. It was down in the darkness of my heart where she thought no pony else could see. I flinched at this vision, which seemed to exist around me in the closing dark, and began searching the wall behind me, my hooves fumbling for the light switches. I had to see Fluttershy once more that night, had to help light her way home, however briefly. I found the switch and, flicking it, turned the outside light on. It floated softly inside, from the window to its shadow, like a ghost and I winced at its harshness for it made my eyes blurry. But I stood up anyway and looked out the window, waiting for my eyes to develop. Slowly my sight reemerged, and I saw that she was already gone. I turned the light off and stood perfectly still, knowing that I was alone in the dark. All over my blue, shaky body I felt cold.
My eyes were burning from tiredness and my throat ached. I tried in vain not to think of Fluttershy, but her smile draped over me with a gentle touch, willing my thoughts towards her. I turned and went up the moonlit stairs and then crossed into a shadowed part of the hall. Now I understood how truly lonely she must have been all this time knowing that the one who had understood her best was gone.
I lay myself down in my bed and, burying myself under thick blankets, fought the chill seeping into my skin. Close by I could hear my brother’s snores rising up in our room. I began to question my own role that I had held in her life since his death, and I wondered if I had ever truly helped her be happy. Whenever I would come over, whenever we’d have our tea parties and talk to one another, did she always look forward to the next time when we’d be together again? She had unburdened her pained soul to me now, and what had I done for her? I had said nothing to her, denied affirmation of her pain out of some confused diffidence, hindered myself from giving her any warm feelings which I truly felt for her now and which, just maybe, might have helped her to escape her empty, loveless, and lonely life.
Teardrops rose and collected on the edges of my eyes. She had been nothing but kind to me, done nothing but care, and I had never told her even once that I had liked her.
I turned over in bed and saw again out my window the stars. There were more of them now and they had collected on my window like frost. In their clear beauty, their bright receding bodies, my soul found for a time a peace which I had felt before but could not remember when or where. The stars were moving before my eyes, headed away from me and towards some unrecognizable and final darkness. Fluttershy, too, was out there somewhere, walking away from me and moving towards whatever was next for her. Maybe someday the unchanging ghosts of her past would stop hindering her, and they would simply trail behind her within her shadow while she walked brightly through town, just as though he was by her side again. I hope that I can look at her then, in that way that I had had for her so briefly when in my room before. I felt my heart opening up softly to all I had ever known as I gazed in amazement at the multitude of stars, too many to count and all for one sky that went far beyond sight, until I fell asleep and drifted into a peaceful dream.
