Author's Note

Art by nekojakun

You don't want to read this fanfic.

No, seriously, you don't. And that's perfectly fine. It's quite alright if you just downvote it and swish on by. And I'm not saying that just to be a drama queen. This story will not have anything that will appeal to anyone who is not me. That's why there's no "Porn" tag. And as for the tags that do exist... it'll be lucky if we get to any of them (the juicy ones, at least) within this century. The story--if you can even call it that--will have a pace that would put Shellstrings to shame. Anyone here remember Shellstrings? I seriously doubt it, because having clicked on that fic even once back in 2016 would mean that all your sperm would have died and thus nothing could have foolhardily tempted you to click this first chapter so you'd end up reading this unnecessarily long and self-deprecating author's note.

And here's another necessary confession: I wrote this chapter and the four to follow back in December of 2018, about six months prior to upload. So not only is the fic long, pedantic, and meandering--but it's also a phantom text lost from time and mental locomotion. It'll be pure luck if I summon the strength to continue the dayum thing... which isn't that much of a hard sell for something that's already 28k words into a pretentious sissy manifesto.

So, it begs the question. Why even upload this thing? Odds are, despite all of my melancholic meta gargling in this author's note, the tags and synopsis alone will doom the story to never even remotely gracing the feature box. Which is fine. It doesn't deserve the feature box. It doesn't deserve your eyeballs.

I'm putting this story up because I want to... and I will go insane if I don't. Then again, I'll go insane because I do. So, long story short, I'm just insane. You too would be insane if your "epic comeback" of 2019 was to write super-niche softcore fetish fics about the fandom's least favorite character featured minimally in the lesser of two televised cartoon horse programs.

But, still, I gotta do it... because so much of this year--and so much of me--has been a whole lot of not accomplishing things. And I believe... or at least I want to believe that that's the crux of it all. Inaction. Fear. Doubt. Acceptance of the rigor mortis quo.

What you see in these first six chapters is me at the height of believing in myself--or in a concept I was willing to sell--back in December of 2018 when I had plans. I had plans... for many many things. I was so confident in these plans that I put this story on hold to work on other stuff, because I thought I'd be offering up a cornucopia of smut upon the ringing of 2019's New Year bell. I didn't leave this fic because I lost faith in it... but rather cuz I had too much faith in something nebulous and with no anchor that just... never fell through.

And then I hit a slump--as I knew I would. But although I knew I would hit that slump, I still didn't prepare for it. And stuff like this fic lingered in obscurity... among everything I've ever pretended to value about my Sturgeon's Law-Abiding potential as of late.

And then just a few days ago, I dusted the documents off and re-read these huge, monumental, sissy-stained chapters of a melancholic Flash Sentry being cuddled back to the light--with the hopes of the sparkling dicks to come(sic). Tonally, these chapters work. That still doesn't make them "good," per se, but they still blend... they still gel... they still hold promise of a grand narrative that explores sissification and pet-play smut from a rigorously introspective angle.

In other words, I would very much like to see this story go somewhere--anywhere. I doubt it ever will, and every corner I turn is drenched in regret, shame, and lethargy. And for all of those reasons, I must quote an ancient poet being quoted by a contemporary superior:

Maybe some good will come of this. Maybe some motivation to melt the glacial plot and flood the seaside cities of hesitance... or some other 2012-worthy Skirstian metaphor. No, if you're actually reading this, please don't comment and upvote just to placate some pathetic lemur beyond the curtain. I've long despised the very notion of Author's Notes, because they always seem egregiously conceited and whiny... so naturally here I am in 2019 writing one that's longer than the subreddits complaining over Game of Thrones' finale.

I've been... off for a very long time now. Or, perhaps, I've always been off but the last few years have punched enough holes in me that the Dr. Pepper has completely drained empty and what's left is the whiffle ball neckbeard whimpering in the wind. A lot of y'all have likely noticed it... perhaps by not noticing it. Because I've vanished. I've drifted off into shadows--like an asshole. And let's face the music: the reality of depressed people is that they're generally assholes. Depressed people aren't entirely deserving of the unmitigated lurve, coddling, and platitudes that social media aspires to propagandize. Generally, many of us just sit around, grow fat, and unfairly defecate on those around us whom we've previously pretended to appreciate because the act of burning bridges seals us in a cocoon opaque enough to mimic the comfortably looming malaise in our heads that we quietly know we deserve.

But something's gotta come out of all of this. At least... something more focused and poignant than the popcorn farts I've lazily plopped forth over the past six months. An even bigger mistake than attempting to re-brand yourself as a producer of NSFW material is to half-ass it. As of now, that's all I've ever done. At some point in time, a flow was broken... a flow that never was. And even if all the silly sissy epics that would have potentially trickled from those naughty tributaries harbored a titanic complement of downvotes, at least they would have exhibited confidence which--in the end--is the best a fanfic writer could ever hope to possess.

Since 2016, I've harbored so many goddamn different and varied "Flash Sentry vicariously lives out feminization fantasy X" in my head that it's virtually driven me insane. It's a vicious cycle, really. I'd conceive of one idea, but then would think of a bunch of other kinks/tags/concepts that wouldn't gel with it... so I would conceive of another... but then that idea would strike me as unsellably niche... so I would go back to the original idea and tweak it and keep tweaking it until (Nietzschedammit) it turned into yet another idea... and suddenly I have too many different-but-similar smut concepts being spun on turgid rods while the backstage performer is too anxious and self-doubting to hop into the limelight and choose a single plate to save while allowing the others to shatter into a million gazillion pieces which they already are anyways.

F'naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the entire time the stage performer knows that everyone yawning in the audience is waiting patiently although somewhat angrily for the main attraction that keeps receding away... all because this flighty and limp-legged amateur keeps insisting that someday, somehow, he'll make the spinning dream rotary-blade itself off the stage and into a sea of fireworks overhead.

And as the clock ticks on--six months in a bleary-eyed blink--one can't help but look over his shoulder at the collapse of the universe. There's so much going to waste. You've got a show that's ending. You've got a fandom that's self-cannibalizing. You've even got people who are fucking dying.

Really, when you think about it, maybe we should all just be... impulsively slapping up fics that aren't really worth anything but their affirmative weight in megabytes.

I did a blargh recently... in which I appealed to the good grace of the marsupial alumni to help out people in need. One of them is a close friend of mine, and as of the start of June of '19, their GoFundMe budget has been completely secured. I'm pretty dayum sure this wouldn't have happened had I not made that blargh. I also have a dayum good inclination on who a few of those "anonymous" contributors were. And... let's face it. I owe them. I owe you all. More than I can ever pretend to say.

That'll be for another blargh, methinks... as if this isn't one on its own (or is it). But, long story short, I've been walking circles in the wilderness for an interminable fart in time... and this story is the manifestation of one of the many sins that has had me exiled here for a full forty years... or at least until Moses freaks out over a stone. Maybe it'll help me--if not for being born than at least for being killed. Fanfics--you gotta admit--fulfill their purpose in both directions, both felicitous and fatalistic.

Except for one, at least. And--as I've already confessed, to my undying shame and contempt--I owe people. I owe people big.

But I also owe things to myself as well. Here's one such sacrifice. Let's hope the earth doesn't swallow too many former slaves into the desert as recompense.

Forever yours,
-a certifiably not-insane lemur

Boring But Tonally Necessary Prologue Exposition Drivel

The first time Flash Sentry stuck a brush handle up his butt, he was looking for magic. It wouldn't come easily; among other things. In fact, magic would choose to find him in a far more crazier way, and when he was much older. Still, it didn't stop an antsy young Flash from experimenting, spurred on by far more curiosity than lube, much to the poor sap's detriment. The following day, Flash lurched to the school bus stop with a sailor's gait. Lots of classmates snickered and laughed at him, but the young boi was used to it. He was used to being a constant object of misunderstanding and ridicule... or just an object.

Since the foggy days of his youthful innocence, Flash Sentry was convinced that he was a great deal more... delicate than he was supposed to be. Between confused afternoons spent doing staring competitions with the mirror and breathless escapades at the school P.E. field, he got the distinct impression that all the other males his age were considerably bigger, rougher, and more muscular than him. The contrast grew all the more apparent into and beyond his adolescence, when his best buds grew taller than Flash by the foot with each progressive year, and less and less of these supposed "friends" would show up for his subsequent birthday parties—either because they had lost all respect for the young man or mayhaps they were convinced that the poor waif was going to shrivel into noodly nothingness one day.

And to be frank, Flash feared it too. Worse than suffering an unimpressive height, his limbs could scarcely function with the dexterity that was required of a growing teenager—especially a male. If it came time to rearrange his room—something Flash was forced to do often—he could never carry more than two things at once. His tiny wrists felt only good for waving, and he couldn't clench his fists for more than ten seconds—not that he had any pertinent reason to do so. Lawnwork became a massive hurdle, seeing as Flash couldn't push a mower past ten yards before feeling the need to pass out. More than once, the poor boi went to the doctor's to see if he was suffering from some sort of heart condition or muscular atrophy, but each visit turned up nothing clinically debilitating.

Flash Sentry was—simply put—a very petite and soft boi. Exercise did very little to improve the matter, and the classmates at school made a show over the fact that every girl and lower grader could very easily defeat him in arm wrestling: an embarrassing public competition that he certainly never volunteered for. It didn't help that Flash's fingers felt extra sensitive to the slightest breeze, and he'd wince at the mere touch of another peer—which made them laugh even more at his expense.

Sudden, tiny changes in temperature would make Flash either shiver or sweat, and while he didn't get sick often (a singular stroke of luck in a pitifully short life) he could just as easily be labeled "infirmed," considering how lightweight and trembly he was. Lots of bullies immediately targeted him for shoving around the hallways, until they eventually gave up out of some sort of extreme boredom-induced pity.

More than once, Flash Sentry tried—in perpetual futility—to "toughen" himself up, and it always ended poorly. There were times when he felt that he picked up guitar-playing simply as a means of disciplinning the skin of his fingers through scab and tear. In the end, Flash would spend many an afternoon hiding in his room, crying like a baby over the blisters that he suffered. In truth, from his childhood and into his teenage years, Flash Sentry cried. A lot.

Still, there weren't many people to hide from. Flash spent the majority of his youthful days alone, and this included most weekends, holidays, and even summer vacations. His parents were rarely there to accompany the young boi, and not for the melodramatic soap opera reasons that one might predict. In fact, Flash's family supported him richly... perhaps too richly. He had the blessing (or curse) of being born when his folks were in their early sixties and immensely successful at their jobs. His mother and father were rich business people, taking broad leaps into the realm of medicine as they built their own branch of a semi-famous pharmaceutical empire. His mother—in particular—was the Assistant Executive of her department, and when she gave birth to Flash at age sixty-one, many of her fellow business partners proclaimed it was a divine miracle.

Flash's mother evidently interpeted it as a bout of freakish circumstance. She and Flash's father had already sired a child twenty-five years prior—Flash's older sister Magnolia Buckler—and Magnolia had clearly taken up the mantle by setting upon a business career of her own, thereby filling up the niche of the family's lucrative expectations. So when Flash came along, he most certainly was a mouth that the household could afford to feed; they just didn't particularly feel enthused about it. So they bought a few summer and winter houses sprinkled like parmesan across the state and shuffled Flash's tiny butt around whenever circumstances necessitated it. There were times when Flash wondered if he had any right to exist in the first place. He would later find out that his mother was contemplating running for a local mayoral position the same year that he was conceived, so it was likely that he wasn't aborted simply for saving public face. But then his mother failed at the primaries and he grew up without her ever kissing his forehead—even once.

But it wasn't as if Flash suffered from the lack of love and affection in his youth. If nothing else, years of spending mornings, days, and nights alone in the comfort of sterile whitebread halfway houses taught him more than a thing or two about self-reliance. By age ten, he already mastered basic cooking skills, housekeeping, gardening, and even a little bit of sewing on the side... or perhaps more than a little bit. By age fifteen, he had more than enough practice in record keeping and paying bills—even if it was all his folks' money.

And when he needed help—especially in his younger years—he had countless servants and assistants paid by the family to fill in the gaps. Later in his teenage years, such people would be solely on-call, but there was a point when these individuals were all that a young and blossoming Flash had to turn to. It made for some adorable awkwardness when he was scarcely past his toddler years. While many of his family servants were incredibly friendly and amiable, the majority of them had the unchangeable status of being... well... ninety-nine percent female.

Truly, there was almost never a male servant or butler among them. So when it came time to learn the ways of maintaining a daily life, Flash was literally imbued with the feminine touch at all instances. When his male friends started drifting away from his delicate presence, the mothers among his family's maidservants—perhaps in a stroke of undeniable pity—ushered a young Flash into a corner to play and associate with their children. The thing is, most of them were daughters, the majority of them being older than Flash. Aside from a few language barriers, they were very pleasant to hang out with. Most importantly, they never tried to bully Flash like all the bigger kids at school did. If nothing else, they brightened at his presence, and he found their adoring company to be quite welcoming.

As a show of trust—and perhaps in desperation to blend in—Flash found himself accomodating to their tastes. Oftentimes, he found himself playing "house" with the girls, listening to their gossips in multiple tongues, smiling when they smiled, dancing when they danced, and even sharing "tea time" with a copious amount of table sets. And dolls. And dresses. But mostly the dresses.

Predictably, all of this stopped on a dime well before Flash entered middle school... but the gentle bliss of those moments... the sheer joy and tenderness of being enfolded in femininity and cuteness and superficial pink innocence never quite left him. And there would be evenings—very lonely weekends between Flash and the imposing walls of whatever house he was staying at—where he'd sit down to an old Disney animated movie or children's dvd set in order to recreate those tiny precious moments when Flash felt accepted... felt safe... and even—perhaps even—felt adorable.

And as time went by, and the rest of the world grew taller, tougher, and rougher than the lonesome boi, his pining for the softness of the past would intersect with the undesired delicateness of the present. One night, Flash would be watching Cinderella twirling in a glittery pastel dress, and then an hour later he would be staring at his half-naked self in the mirror... and he was at a loss to tell the difference between the princess and the mid-pubescent stranger reflected before him.

This was no exagerration. Flash Sentry was beautiful. His skin was velvety soft—like pillowy porcelain dreamed up by a pastel paintress of dreams. His hair had a satin sapphire quality: ocean blue mirth rooted in a perfectly-framed head and flowing like a nebula. Stars were born in his eyes with each twinkle, as if a studio light was aimed at him at all times, and Flash could swear that even his pink lips had a puffy lusciousness to them worthy of slaying supermodels with envy.

And while all of these descriptions appeared ridiculously narcissistic, the fact of the matter is that it was all a source of contention—and confusion—for the poor trembling boi. Try as he could, Flash could never grow a mustache. Nary a single thread of stubble bothered to sprout from his fair rounded face. The rest of his body was a follicle no man's land. His smooth supple chest lacked the same bristly forest as the rest of his peers whom he may or may not have stolen glances of in the school gym lockeroom. His groin was even more frighteningly barren, but that was just the pale naked tip of the nubile ice berg.

Flash Sentry just... wasn't very big. And that was putting it nicely. In reality, he was tiny... miniscule... infinitesimal. When looking straight down, he couldn't even see himself unless he bent his upper body at a weird forward angle. It was such a pathetic situation that standing up to pee in a urinal proved... depressingly difficult, to the point that—even in private—Flash almost always found himself sitting down on the toilet to do Number One. If the poor young man hadn't been circumcised, he was certain it would have looked like a second belly button below the belt. It certainly didn't help that his testicles visibly dropped at such a late occasion that he legitimately thought he was born a different species.

And—as could be expected—this all had a severe impact on his flimsy facsimile of a "sex life." Every year introduced a new adventure of self-discovery during lonesome nightly showers. Flash Sentry knew that he was due for some changes; he was intellectually mature for his age, having self-taught himself on the topic of biology outside of school. But the "erections" and "emissions" he had consistently read about never came (no pun intended). At least, when it did come, it happened in a way he didn't expect... and would eventually learn to hate. Seminal fluids were produced seemingly at random—and then at the most inopportune time, until it became a tiny, persistent, and untameable force on a consistent basis. The situation—at least—would be amusing if he spontaneously ejaculated on the spot, but instead it performed like a trickling river, or a gentle flow—and with far less milky-white proof of potent manhood than was desired. Such a thing proved insanely frustrating when in public or at school, and a thoroughly flustered and blushing Flash found himself spending an extraordinary monthly budget on laundry materials and countless packs of extra young adult male briefs. At long last, after suffering Freudian seasons of private embarrassment, Flash recorded his first sustained erection. Two years later, he'd be old enough to vote.

He wished he could say that his first "adult" orgasm was spent sneaking onto a pornographic website and watching busty adult cheerleaders do stuff that most actual cheerleaders were too young to do. Flash wished he could say that he came home and immediately masturbated to a fresh memory of brushing shoulders with a hot sexy substitute teacher who had winked at him just the right way. He even wished that he could owe it to the lingerie section of a department store catalogue or a National Geographic issue.

But it didn't happen that way. It was a lonely night after hours of writing a social studies paper, and Flash was trying to fall asleep to his two thousandth viewing of Sleeping Beauty... when suddenly he imagined himself in the place of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip was replaced by his old band mate Thunderbass... and then his other handsome classmate Sandalwood... and then the tall and strapping student who sat next to him in math class named Curly Winds... then Bulk Biceps... then that goofy green-haired young man from Camp Everfree... then—not one—but three of his former bullies from middle school, only magically grown up and inexplicably debonair. And in all of these phantom instances, Flash Sentry was dancing with them—oftentimes against his will... until he was effortlessly swept away in their strong arms and ferried to an opulent manor where he was eventually doing other things with them... also more or less against his will. And they enjoyed him. They enjoyed Flash... sometimes all at once, and he couldn't even find the space to breathe, much less cry. They wouldn't let him do scarcely anything else.

That's when the erection happened. And—just as quickly—it left him. Desperate, scared, and maybe even whimpering, Flash attempted to summon it back... but he suddenly didn't know how. So he re-attempted something that he hadn't tried since the very beginning of his pubescent years: ritualistic pillow-humping. It was an awkward, clumsy, fluffy affair—like he always remembered—but his heart was racing like it never had before, and his starry eyes were filled with fantastical montages of meaty proportions. Whether or not he achieved a true full climax, the teenager could never quite recall—but he forever had the takeaway of just what brought him to that peak, if only to drop him like a slowly fluttering feather.

For the months that followed, Flash Sentry strove and sought to stoke this unnameable flickering spark nestled deeply inside the soft pink fabric of his beleaguered mind. Every search through his thoughts brought upon new waves of confusion, and every venture into the Internet carried with it a certifiable layer of shame. Moreover than not, he was embarrassed at himself for not finding the answer more quickly. Was he gay? Was he trans? Was this something essential to his soul that his body had been sculpting towards all his life? Or perhaps it was just a phase?

Flash always identified as a male. Or—at least—he always wanted to. With each passing year, this proved more and more difficult. He used to hate himself for it—hated his body and his delicateness and his unreasonably high voice. But as high school culminated and Flash enjoyed a blissful solitude apart from the youths that used to tease him—he found himself admiring... things that he hadn't before. More specifically, things attached to the male students around him... or the ones he imagined attached to them... tucked away like veiny prisoners behind zippers and denim and flimsily-contained testosteronical fury.

All his life, Flash Sentry wanted the sexuality of a normal man. But, perhaps, he only ever wanted the sexuality of a normal man. He wanted to bring him—it to the pleasurable heights and explosive bliss that he long felt lacking in himself. Possibly, this was just some super-psychological desire for displaced sexual confirmation. Or—judging from the summer addiction to bukkake porn videos that Flash inexplicably endured—he just wanted to be the subject of adoration... even if that "adoration" came at the end of a great deal of non-adorable actions. It was the strange, gross, erotic, sexually-transmuted bookend to the blissfully innocent "adoration" that Flash recalled from his youth... in the company of those who were once fairer than him. To that extent, to preserve the bliss, Flash always sensed... always needed a "feminine" presence in his burgeoning fantasies. It was necessary. Necessary for him to feel relatively... safe in this definitively queer exploration of this brand new/nubile self.

So it was one week that Flash found himself trying to play this feminine role intimately (not to mention literally), which led to the introduction of the brush handle. It only made an already nervous session of fantasizing all the more twitchy, and Flash found himself—fatefully—limping to the bus stop like a bow-legged sea fairer, pelted with the ocean spray of laughter and teasing from all sides. Most things considered, it was the absolute most awkward time to spontaneously gain a girlfriend. Which is precisely what Flash Sentry did. Without knowing it.

At first, he thought this strange new student was bullying him. Why not? She was over a foot taller than him, flowing with scarlet hair, cursed—or perhaps blessed—with Permanently-Resting-Valkyrie-Face. She had the fury of an unbridled mare. And yet—behind the immolating veneer—this young vixen possessed a hint of graceful softness... a softness that she reserved for this little pipsqueak of a teenage boi that she had suddenly confronted. Seldomly—but she did indeed have a gentleness to share with him. It was just as frightening as how swiftly and viciously she had barged into his life—almost with a masculine rashness. Weak-wristed and too afraid to think, Flash Sentry simply bent to her will.

The girl's name was Sunset Shimmer, and the two of them dated for a year. It felt like a century.

And then she dumped him like a bag of garbage. Twelve months of Flash Sentry's life: stolen, mangled, and trampled to the ground. And despite the time that it lasted, Flash could never quite figure out why it had even begun in the first place. For sure, there were multiple times when the whole debacle should very well have ended. He wasn't entirely happy being Sunset Shimmer's boifriend, and the rest of the student body especially suffered for it. As part of some darkly divine purpose, Sunset Shimmer was only using her relationship with Flash Sentry as a means to an end. Flash couldn't contemplate why; he was far from the most popular student in school. Maybe she found a way to make others pity him, or she used her own (undeniable) hotness to elevate him and establish something attention-grabbing. In some pathetic way, Flash was actually somewhat flattered to have been chosen by Sunset—despite the cruelty and bossiness she employed during every waking moment of their coupling.

But the joy of flattery ended swiftly on every occasion they hung out together. It became clear very quickly that she wanted a lot from him... that she expected much from him. And when he proved incapable of delivering whatever it was that Sunset nebulously desired, she let him know it. In stereo. She rebuked him... belittled him... insulted his already miniscule manhood from every angle. And—in some gross way—the familiarity of such bullying and nagging made Flash feel... strangely comfortable. And her constant attention—albeit mostly caustic and abrasive—was still a warm contrast to the perpetual loneliness Flash had experienced throughout the years. So—for better or for worse—he endured the hurricane that was Sunset Shimmer... until finally she herself got bored of the whole debacle and she became the one to end it, and not his own cowardly self.

Flash even felt like blaming himself after it was all over with, despite the fact that it completely buried any hope he had of digging himself out of the deep pit that the rest of his schoolmates had long-abandoned him in. Before Sunset, Flash was an effeminate weakling with poor social skills and a squeaky voice. After Sunset, Flash was a guilty accomplice to bullying with a short-lived legacy of social standing and a permanently ostracized fate... and he still had the squeaky voice.

To say the least, it left him feeling intensely confused and more than a little bit melancholic. Most students attached blame to him for all of the terrible things Sunset Shimmer had gotten away with during her ravenous climb to popularity and fearmongering dominance. He was twice the outcast now with little to no social standings. It would take an angel of complete innocence to so much as give him the light of day.

Coincidentally enough, that very same angel arrived. Her name was Twilight Sparkle, and for the one short week that she graced Canterlot High, she wanted nothing more than to be a princess. This would be a source of commonality. Flash Sentry was instantly entranced—if not by Twilight Sparkle's beauty, then by her penchant for grace and innocence and pleasant gentleness. For the first time in ages—while in her presence—Flash felt the same bliss he did as a child, surrounded by female surrogate friends, enmeshed in innocence and femininity. Only—he no longer felt possession of that essence. Instead, it was fixated in a counterpart. An other whom he could identify. And he felt joy—not to mention confidence—in that identification.

It went without saying that this bliss was significantly devoid of any of the awkward, cringe-inducing eroticism that Flash had explored prior to his run-in with Sunset Shimmer. Suddenly, the world felt different. Changed. New. It was love at first sight, and it was every bit as goofy and superficial as in the fairy tale cartoons that Flash had long grown enamored with. But that was precisely what thrilled him about it all. Perhaps—just maybe—he could start over. Maybe the form in which the world had shaped him all these years was merely an accident, and he had one first and final chance to actually prove his manliness... a manliness he never had a chance to exhibit with someone as toxic as Sunset Shimmer.

And so he leapt upon it—as gentlemanly and handsomely as the petite boi could manage. And—much to his joy—it worked... or at least it felt like it worked. Like a knight in shining armor, he had shown up in time to help this mysterious new Twilight Sparkle feel welcome. He had saved her from being framed for a crime she didn't comit. He even summoned the strength to ask her out to the Fall Formal—which was an adorably goofy affair, considering she towered a good foot and a half over him as they danced together. But she didn't seem to mind. In fact—if Flash Sentry's eyes weren't deceiving him—her eyes glimmered and her cheeks flushed at the mere sight of him. For once in his life, he was bringing joy to another person... and in a perfectly vanilla, heterosexual, totally-not-naughty way.

And then—in just as quick of a blink—Twilight Sparkle vanished.

That bliss in Flash's life—shortly rekindled—was snuffed out just as quickly. Flash Sentry was saddened—and as much as he hated to admit it, it wasn't due to the loss of Twilight Sparkle (a uniquely special and remarkable human being in her own right). But Flash mourned the loss of his one opportunity to prove that he was something that he thought he could be, despite what the circumstances of his life had sculpted out of him. He allowed Twilight's existence to define something in him that he only felt needed to be there. And now that she had vanished from Canterlot High—from the lives of everyone—it was as though he had suffered nothing more than a fleeting, euphoric dream. In the end, he was left with his petite, delicate self... and the familiar old confusion was more suffocating than comforting.

The guilt from having been Sunset's partner for so long resurfaced, only now it was accompanied by a brand new guilt: of having transfixed some squeaky-clean fantasy onto a strange girl he had hardly known. It was something deeper than melancholy that afflicted Flash now, something that drew him into a brand new numbness... where even his usual crying sessions couldn't liberate him from the pit that had formed in his tender thin stomach. Suddenly the emptiness of his rich sterile halfway houses felt fitting, and the aloofness of his family even more deserving.

Over the coming seasons, Flash Sentry became vaguely aware of fantastical things happening all around him. Magic poured in from another dimension: an absurd place of whimsy from which Twilight Sparkle herself had hailed. As if a direct result of sorcery, Sunset Shimmer transformed into a legitimately nice person overnight, forming a tightly-knit group of friends who embodied the harmonious virtues of Canterlot High. Then—if that all wasn't wild enough—a veritable doppelganger of Twilight Sparkle appeared, although she was somehow a fundamentally different individual than the maiden who had once breezed through Flash's topsy-turvey life. Soon, Sunset and Twilight's friends were gaining metaphysical abilities and every other weekend there was some bizarre phenomenon that they conquered or otherworldly villain that they combatted. It was all quite terribly confusing, and if there was anything Flash felt comfort with: it was the numbing hush of normalcy.

Already a loner, the boi withdrew even more, until even Sunset and her friends became strangers. This sparked a very cold and lonesome time in Flash Sentry's life, marked by the gray stretch of nameless days into even more colorless years. Graduation came and went. Flash didn't even attend the ceremony; somehow he knew his tiny self would just trip on the gown, no matter how fabulous it looked. He limped on to college—unenthusiastically so—where he lazily plucked at his general electives with the speed of molasses. It didn't take long for his folks to catch on to his ennui—and they were far from pleased with their infant son neglecting to kick-start his grandiose business career. It was bitterly ironic, considering that such ire was the only attention they had given to the boispawn in nearly a decade. Naturally, they sent his older sister Magnolia Buckler to whip him into shape, but she was even less dedicated than he was, and completely keen to spend all of her days of visitation conducting important business calls on the phone while the boi continued languishing away in the shadows.

At some point, between the afternoons slept-in and the occasional Internet binge with the house lights off, Flash Sentry blinked and realized that he was aged twenty-two. Nobody could tell at a glance; from across the room he looked like he still belonged in middle school, much less college. It would take a few sentences of mumbling conversation until anyone gave a second thought to the fact that he was a male beneath all of that tender melancholic softness... not that there were many souls around to notice. Or care. Besides himself, that is.

But it soon dawned on Flash that he could no longer escape the future that was looming before him... no more than he could escape the delicate body that life had sculpted for him. If things didn't change in his college life soon... if he didn't make the necessary, bold choices to pursue something even resembling an academic career in business or technology, then his parents might actually disown him... as if they didn't already assume his nonexistence. Nothing about Flash's life was very opulent; he had even sold back the car that had been gifted him in high school. What was the point in having wheels if there were no friends to ferry oneself to?

More than that, nothing amounted to much in Flash's life. Everyone his age towered over him physically and had moved on socially... emotionally... and even sexually. Or—at least—he was convinced of all this. And it solidified the walls of his self-imposed cell... until he finally felt like a princess trapped up in her tower.

Problem was, it didn't feel quite as warm and fuzzy as he had long fantasized. The bliss from fairy tale movies and childhood skits simply was not there. It was gone.

Or... perhaps...

...it was waiting to be drawn from him again. Not in a burst, of course, but—like most things in Flash's life—in a gentle... trickling flow.