Today is a good day!!

Twilight and Spike finally got out of Therapy, I’ve gotten to train with magic alongside Trixie (albeit basic ass stuff at the moment but I’ll take what I can get.) and now…

Rarity’s finally started work on our dresses!

...Well, she never planned on doing it, I actually had to wait for when Twilight and the others inspired her to make the dresses.

It was gonna take a few hours for my dress to be ready, because of size issues, so I was gonna have a look at mine in a one-on-one presentation, so I thought the best way to pass the time would be to further practice my newly realized magical talent as I waited.

Of course no amount of juiced up mana reserves was gonna allow for raw power output, no matter what somepony would think, so the only way my magic was gonna get better than levitating things and combusting tables was to actually train myself to form the spell-glyphs I need for each incantation.

Negative, I had this weird mana equivalent of constipation whenever I had to slowly make the shapes and runes I needed, not fun.

Positive, I had multiple points that were not directly connected with my skull, so I didn’t need to have the whole thing be mental, and I could draw out the glyphs in the air!

I had actually been doing this on my own for several days, during the night, when I was at home with nothing to do, even when I was waiting for my cakes at Sugarcube Corner. It had been a lot of considerable effort, but today I actually made progress with it! I have finally gotten all the glyphs memorized for one of the first spells I read from a grimoire at the library. ‘Intuit Arcana’s A-Z of spells’, so yeah, it was gonna start with A, sue me.

“Okay, and the last one… there! Accelero!” I declared happily as I shifted each circle to overlap, and then charged the formed spell, and then it shone, then dissipated, and I waited for the effect.

...still waiting…

...I still didn’t feel any faster…

“Oh come on, really? I thought this was a speed spell! Ugh, I need a drink of water.” I got up and wa-*ZOOM!!* “AH OH SHI-” *WHAM* … well, I would’ve walked, turns out the spell was actually working even if I didn’t feel the energy in my body, thus the sudden sprint, and of course… my meeting with Rarity’s nice newly furnished wall, full force.

...note to self, be thankful that enchanted cock-coverings prevent solid objects from enacting blunt force trauma to genitals.

“Fluttershy? Whatever are you doing to my wall?” I heard Rarity as she came out to check the commotion.

“Um… I… there is literally no way I can say anything that makes this less awkward is there?”

“Probably not.”

“Alright so I’ll just say I’m dry-humping the dry-wall to see if I can make it wet-wall.” I dispelled the Accelero and turned to a now Cherry-Rarity.

“Okay, but why say that?”

“So that somepony will be just as embarrassed as I am… but either way, never speak of this again?”

“Never speak of this again, now come on, I’ve just finished your dress, I’m sure it’ll really bring out your true self.”

I nodded eagerly and cautiously walked to the room… hey, I’m still new to magic, I didn’t know if I actually stopped the spell or not.

Thankfully no impacts to flat vertical planes occurred further and I was able to go in and see… my dress on a strange rack, I could tell there was a lot of green and nature to it with a gentle breeze of life at the lower half, but on the upper half I saw… thorns, not actual ones but the design of them that wrapped around the arms, and the chest looked like two large leaves of poison ivy, and a rose head-dress.

“Sorry about leaving it unceremoniously like that, but I didn’t have any Ponyquins that worked with your… *ahem* unique, stature, I did however took the liberty to set you up a changing room and a mirror to see how it would look on you.” She lead me to a curtained off room and hoofed me the dress, leaving me to my privacy.

{1 minute later}

“So… what do you think of it?” Rarity asked as I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was… strangely concerned by the design.

“It’s… nice…”

“Fluttershy, I know you’re not as shy as you were before, that’s not going to work on me.”

“Oh no! I mean it, it’s nice, I like the colours, I like how it mixes my kindness with my new tough demeanour but… I have one issue.”

“And what’s that? The others told me their problems.”

“Oh I know they did.” I said with an eye roll.

“So what’s wrong?”

“Well, did you have to make it so… revealing?” I gestured to how the leaves I had mentioned earlier were just able to cover enough of the front to actually be considered a top for a dress and not some form of green bikini, but only just.

“Well, I only had so much forest green on hoof, and you are rather… sizeable…”

“*sigh* yeah… I get that a lot.” I sat down.

“...this isn’t just about the dress, is it?” She asked as she looked at my downtrodden expression.

“No…”

“Would it make you feel better if you talked about it?”

“A little…” I looked at her as she looked back with this warm smile, waiting for me to speak in my own time. “Ponies keep judging me for my new form, I’m happy I was able to get all of you to accept who I am now but… the stares and the judgement of all these ponies looking at me like a freak… it hurts, it hurts and it makes it really hard to be strong when so many eyes just look on at you in fear and disgust, and it’s only lessened now because of Celestia just talking to me like a normal pony but…”

“Oh there, there, Fluttershy.” She comforted as she moved to hug me at my side. “You don’t need to worry about those ponies, they’ll come around eventually, and even so you still have me, Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack and Pinkie, and we won’t judge you because of how you look now, you’ll always be our friend.”

“Thanks… the… the front doesn’t really worry me as much anymore.”

“Oh no, don’t backpedal now, I can just order some-” *grab* “Wait, Fluttershy, why are you lifting me up? Now wait that seems a bit too close I think-”

*smoooooooooooooooooch!* “I. Like. The Dress.”

“...o-okay…”

“Don’t suppress your artistic vision just to make us happy.”

“Okay…”

I placed down the unicorn who could now pass herself off as a genderbent Big Mac, and left, a weight pleasantly lifted off my shoulders.

Now it was time to deal with the dumpster fire that was…

The fashion show, dear Celestia the ‘fashion’ show, with what I was seeing calling this event anything involving ‘fashion’ is like how EA can somehow still call itself Electronic ‘Arts’! It was absolutely terrible, it was a very, VERY clear difference in quality between my dress, and theirs.

I hadn’t hoped to go this far, I had hoped all of them seeing me in my outfit would have them realize how bad they looked in those things… then again they probably never saw it before and probably thought this was how I requested it. This was going to be too much humiliation to Rarity, I would not allow that, not after the kiss, it was time for… some tough love.

“...you guys look ridiculous.”

“What? Why’d you go and say that??” Applejack said, the group feeling hurt, I was ready to take it ba-

NO! YOU ARE NOT JEOPARDIZING RARITY’S BUSINESS! FULL CHARGE! NO SURRENDER!

“Oh, well since you volunteered, how about you Miss ‘20 gallons’?” she grabbed onto her hat protectively. “Look at those unneeded overalls, and heavy work boots? You work on a farm where you buck trees with your bare hooves! What could they protect you from that your hooves can’t handle on their own?”

As I saw Applejack back off in a bit of shame that made my heart break, I moved to Rainbow. “You look like you’re dressed for war, not a runway, seriously, do you think it’s fashionable to look like you’re about to head into Gladitorial Combat?” She seemed to have this prideful grin on her face. “It isn’t, it makes you look paranoid.” Aaaand there it goes.

“Now hey! This looks cool, it’s better than some stupid dress.”

“If you didn’t want a dress, why didn’t you just ask for pants and make the flowing dress a cape, or wing extensions instead?”

“Why would Rarity let me wear pants?”

“Well she lets me wear pants.” I hiked up the dress to show them.

“Oh.” with her entire argument dead, she moved to join Applejack.

Now to Pinkie. “...you don’t look like you’re in a dress, you look like you tumbled through a crate of party supplies.” She grinned. “That’s not a good thing, you look like a mess, not something festive.” She deflated at that. “This better not be how you think you should be seen, I like to see Pinkie, not just the party.” That somehow got her to cheer up, but thankfully gave her that needed moment of self-clarity that made her justifiably self conscious.

“And you.” I turned to Twilight… oh boy, this one was gonna HURT. "You look like you’re trying to cosplay as Nightmare Moon’s Security Blanket."

“You mean Luna’s Security Blanket?”

“No, I mean a Security Blanket her corrupted self would have.”

With a loud *Fwoom!* I was surprisingly witness to Twilight scorching the dress to dust.

“I wish I didn’t need to be so brutal, but it’s not only your dignity on the line, but a friend’s reputation, a reputation for having high standards and artistic vision.” they looked at me with confusion. “Rarity! I let you go out in those Frankenstallion’s mess of clothing you made her sew for you, and you’ll destroy her business!”

“Oh yeah? And what makes you think your dress is any better?!” Rainbow said, confirming they didn’t know who designed it.

“Because I didn’t have it changed, I trusted my commercial clothing designer expert of a friend to give me something I looked good in, I trusted Rarity to know what I needed in a dress, and not what I wanted, I mean for Celestia’s sake she was making them for free.” in my anger I had turned around. “I thought you would have more faith in her than that.”

The gasps from behind me made it clear I hurt them more then than when I picked apart their choices in fashion.

“I’m sorry… but if I didn’t say it, you’d learn it the hard way…”

I didn’t have the heart to go ahead with the fashion show, nor the courage to look the four in the eye, so I ran home, ignoring their calls as I fled to my cottage and slammed the door.

I felt the weight of what I had said fully hit me as I slumped to the floor, and sobbed.

There was nothing more to really say, that morning I felt absolutely broken, I knew what I said needed to be said, but it didn’t make it any less wrong to say it, and that left me hurt and practically emotionally dead. I didn’t even care when Angel got upset at me for making breakfast late that morning, but later on I would look back and appreciate that he didn’t continue when he saw the state I was in.

Though I do still hold a slight irritation that he let my friends inside the house when they arrived without my notice.

“Fluttershy?” I jumped from the table, turning to find five sorrowful faces look back.

“Oh… hey girls, I’m not exactly in the mood to talk about last night.”

“Good, then you can listen instead.” Rainbow said sternly. “You… you were right.”

“What?” I blinked in shock, I get maybe Applejack but I never expected Rainbow to admit to such without some coaxing.

“When you left we decided to talk to Rarity about the fashion show.” Twilight began. “It took a little longer than we thought, but we convinced her to actually be honest about what she thought about our requested designs, the fact that she broke down in shame sent a few signals… so Applejack had an idea.”

“Was a bit underhanded, but we continued on with the Fashion Show and left it completely anonymous.” Applejack continued. “...you were a lot nicer about the dresses than the ponies were.”

“One of the reporters called me a ‘relief mare’ for the royal barracks!” Rainbow said in anger. “And they called Pinkie a… actually I don’t think I could repeat it…”

“I don’t even know what ADHD is, but I think it’s something bad.” Pinkie spoke up, giving me the info I needed.

“I’m so sorry you had to push yourself to do that Darling.” Rarity moved to comfort me. “I should’ve admitted I was concerned with the designs to begin with instead of blindly making every request.”

“It’s not your fault Rarity, you were making something for your friends, it’s normal you’d try everything to make them happy… even if you focused on want more than need.”

“But I-”

“Don’t make me kiss you again, I’ve already had to stop one of these back and forth situations.”

“Meep!” and like that, she clammed up, causing the other four to stare between us in shock and awe.

Eventually the awkward air died down and we ended up laughing it off like… like friends.

“Yeah, we were all kind of jerks, Fluttershy, so we’re not really mad.” Twilight explained.

“Yeah! Say if we forgive you, could you forgive us?” Dash added.

“...I can live with that.” I smiled as I pulled them all into a big hug.

“Eek! I’m being squished by boobies!” Pinkie giggled out.

“Okay. moment’s gone.” I drop them all unceremoniously to the ground. “Dammit Pinkie.”

Yeah Pinkie, just… never change.

Author's Note

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!