Fluttershy's Mixed-Up Pets

“Okay, I… think that's done,” Mix-up said, putting down his paint cans.

He took off, wings flapping too hard for a moment as he compensated for the weight he wasn't carrying any more, and surveyed the result.

Overall, it looked pretty good. It wasn't his most colourful design, maybe – that honour still went to the glow-in-the-dark clouds he'd proposed months ago, and which hadn't gone down well – but it fitted what he was after, and it meant he finally had a place to call his own again.

Adjusting his course, he flew once around the newly-painted cloud-house and alighted down near his neighbour.

“How does it look?” he asked, a little nervously. “I wanted to make sure it fitted in...”

“I think it looks good,” Fluttershy replied. “Um… the blue underneath is going to mean animals don't notice it as much, and the green top is nice too, it fits in with the trees… it is a bit higher than the trees are though.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about just leaving it white,” Mix-up admitted. “I've done some of the indoors in different colours, though… I might experiment with the top, as well, but I'll leave the bottom half sky-blue.”

Fluttershy nodded.

“Well, um… you'll always be welcome to visit,” she said, and the stallion smiled – looking at the distance from his new front door to hers, which might take perhaps twenty seconds to fly for a fairly slow pegasus.

“I'm sorry I won't be able to join you tonight,” Fluttershy added. “I'm afraid Twilight invited me to a sleepover with her old foalsitter…”

“Oh, huh, hope you enjoy it,” Mix-up said, then blinked. “Wait, I heard about this… isn't her old foalsitter Princess Cadence?”

Fluttershy nodded slightly, looking faintly embarrassed. “Yes, um… but I don't like to think of her as Princess. I like to think of her as a friend I met through another friend.”

Mix-up understood what she meant, and changed the subject slightly. “Well, I hope you enjoy it – I think what I'm going to be doing tonight is mostly making sure everything's in the right room...”

Fluttershy knocked on the door of Twilight's castle, and Spike answered the door.

“Oh, hey Fluttershy,” he said, smiling. “It's great to see you've arrived!”

Fluttershy smiled as well. “Well, um… it's nice to see you too?”

Spike nodded. “Yep, everyone's glad to see everyone else...” he paused. “Oh, yeah, and it means now I can head down into the basement with Shining and get that O&O session going.”

The pegasus tried not to giggle. “Oh, um… so Shining is here as well?”

“That's right, I guess they left Flurry Heart in the care of Sunburst,” Spike shrugged. “I know Glimmer teleported over there as well, so I guess they'll be able to take care of her?”

Fluttershy thought about that. “So do I...”

Spike gave her a thumbs-up, then went off towards the steps leading down.

Fluttershy adjusted her saddlebags a little, making sure they had what she wanted, and trotted towards the upstairs bedroom Twilight had told her they'd be using. If Cadence was already here – and with Shining here, that seemed like a sensible guess – then they were only waiting for Fluttershy to get started.

It didn't seem polite to make them wait.

Climbing the stairs took just a few minutes, and Fluttershy knocked on the door with a smile.

When the door opened, though, both Twilight and Cadence took one look at her before both starting to laugh.

“Is… is something wrong?” Fluttershy asked nervously, noticing that her friends were already wearing fluffy pyjamas – Twilight wearing a pair with her starburst cutie mark all over them, while Cadence's pair had crystal hearts on them.

“Oh, sorry Fluttershy!” Twilight said, still smiling. “It's not you, it's just…”

“I turned up wearing my pyjamas already, and Shining was teasing me about it,” Cadence took up the explanation. “And then when I came in, Twilight was wearing her pyjamas already, and it turned out Spike had been teasing her about being ready well in advance!”

“So when you opened the door, we were half expecting you to be wearing your pyjamas as well,” Twilight finished. “I think we would have laughed no matter what you were wearing, though – it's just a funny coincidence.”

Fluttershy sighed in relief, glad she hadn't done something wrong. “I, um… I guess that is funny,” she allowed, smiling slightly. “I've got mine in my saddlebags...”

“Well, come in and you can get changed,” Twilight said, stepping back from the door a little – her horn glowing as she pulled it open. “I've got some snacks ready, too… I made sure to read several books this time so I had an unbiased opinion on what a sleepover should be like!”

“The important thing is just to have fun,” Cadence pointed out. “And I'm sure we'll be able to work out how to do that between us.”

Mix-up landed with a thump on his front 'lawn', a stretch of cloud he'd painted a bright fuzzy green to act as his landing area, and opened his door so he could take the last of his belongings into his new house.

It was kind of a funny thing to think about, really. He'd had an apartment in Cloudsdale, back before Discord had forcibly moved him to Ponyville by pulling him out of a cupboard, but he'd never actually had a house of his own – and the lease on his apartment hadn't let him do things like get paint all over it, which was really discrimination or something for an artist pony.

Fluttershy had let him do some painting in her spare room, but she'd been so nervous about getting anything spattered that Mix-up had taken the hint – though the fact that Angel had left Priscilla the Porcupine in his paints had helped a bit in making the decision.

“Hey!”

Broken out of his wondering by the sound of a familiar voice, Mix-up left the smocks in a pile in his art room and trotted over to the door.

“Rainbow Dash?” he asked. “I was just moving in. Thanks for your help with getting the clouds.”

“Oh, uh – you're welcome,” Dash replied, then crossed her hooves – hovering just off his lawn. “But I didn't come over here for that! I came here to deliver a message.”

She inspected him suspiciously, in case his cutie mark had changed spontaneously into something sneaky, then relented. “So, uh… you know how you showed me those coloured clouds and stuff? And how I said they looked kinda tacky but Fluttershy asked me to give them a chance?”

Rainbow scratched the back of her neck with a hoof for a moment. “So I told Spitfire about them, and I guess she was kind of interested? And she told me she should be able to talk some time tomorrow about it, between two and four, and I guess you should bring an example of what you can do so she can see what it's like.”

The rainbow-maned mare leaned in. “You think you can do that?”

Mix-up frowned, thinking about it. “Hmm… well, if it's going to be a Wonderbolt thing then maybe I should make a Wonderbolt cloud to show off… I think I've got the right yellow, and the blue is what I used anyway on the base of the house.”

Thinking it over, he nodded. “Yeah, I can do about two in the afternoon. I'll only do a small one, it'll take most of the morning, but it should be ready by then.”

“Right,” Dash replied. “Well, I'll let Captain Spitfire know you'll be there at two. And...”

She paused, then pointed at her own eyes and then at his. “I'm still watching you.”

Mix-up watched her fly off, then shrugged.

He'd get the base coat started on the cloud, at least.

Fluttershy sipped the milkshake Twilight had made for her, tasting the sweet flavour, and put it down again on a table – out of the way of anything it might fall onto, just in case.

“Those are nice pyjamas,” Cadence told her. “I like the bunny pattern. I was expecting butterflies, though now I think about it I'm not sure why.”

“Oh, I do have a butterfly pair,” Fluttershy replied. “It's just, um… I have quite a lot of clothes, because Rarity made them for me when I was a model, and she wanted them to all be a bit different.”

She looked down. “I… didn't really like being a model, though.”

“Oh, I thought you looked familiar!” Cadence realized. “I saw you in a few magazines, I think – I was a bit busy at the time, though.”

Fluttershy's reply was interrupted by a clatter as Twilight put a board game box down on the table. “Hey, girls, why don't we try playing this?”

The other two mares looked at the board game Twilight had selected.

“Um… this is about organizing library shelves?” Fluttershy said. “It… looks really complicated...”

“No, it's not that bad,” Twilight defended her choice. “You get books out of a book deck, and then you need to fit them in place while following a set of rules about alphabetic structure and Decimal Dewey's categorization system...”

“Fluttershy has a point,” Cadence agreed gently. “What about something where we all work together? Like that one?”

“That one?” Twilight repeated, looking where Cadence was pointing. “Oh, right… heh, I forgot I had that one.”

“What's it about?” Fluttershy asked, as Twilight levitated it down from her shelf. “I don't think I've seen that one before...”

“It's called Royal Rescue,” Cadence told her. “It's where each of the players is one of the Princesses of Equestria – including Twilight and myself – and they have to work together to get out of trouble. It's great fun, Shiny and I played it when they sent us a copy to get our approval.”

“I, er… didn't realize that's why they sent it,” Twilight admitted. “I didn't read the rules.”

“Then I'll teach you as we go along!” Cadence smiled. “It'll be like when I was foalsitting you and teaching you how to play Chess, except I won't keep losing.”

“That sounds nice,” Twilight agreed.

Half an hour later, the quest against the evil forces of Lord Dark the Dark was in full swing.

“Right!” Twilight said proudly. “My turn, so I'm going to use Ray of Light and dazzle that minion! It can't attack for the next three turns, so we can get past and make it to the airship!”

“Good work, Twilight,” Cadence smiled. “Though I still think it's quite funny you're playing as Princess Celestia.”

She turned to Fluttershy. “It's your turn next. What are you going to have Luna do?”

“Well, I...” Fluttershy began, drawing her next card. “I – oh, this is a good one, I think?”

She showed Cadence, who nodded. “That is good!”

“What does it do?” Twilight asked.

“It's a Personal Speech card,” Cadence told her, as Fluttershy turned the card so they could see. “You have to say something personal about yourself, but it'll give all of us an extra turn.”

“That's great!” Twilight smiled. “All right, let's use it!”

Fluttershy hesitated. “Um… it says I have to say something, not 'my Princess'. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Cadence confirmed. “It's one of the cards where you need to do something in real life.”

She looked at Fluttershy's reaction, leaning forwards a bit. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, um… I'm just trying to think of what to say,” Fluttershy said. “Does it have to be something important?”

“Well, I don't think so,” Cadence replied. “I guess it depends how you feel?”

“It's okay, Fluttershy,” Twilight smiled. “We're friends here.”

“Okay...” Fluttershy nodded a little.

She took a deep breath.

“Um… I'm okay with the fact you're both wearing diapers.”

Somewhere, Discord started laughing and he didn't know why.

“What!?” Twilight asked, her wings flaring out in shock. “What do you mean, diapers? I-”

“Fluttershy, where did that come from?” Cadence said, speaking over her. “Both?”

Fluttershy shrank back slightly. “Um, w-well… I did say I was okay with it? I don't mind...”

“You can't just say something like that!” Twilight said. “And, and… how, why...”

“It's the rustling,” Fluttershy explained. “It, um… I could hear it, and I didn't want to ask because it's not a problem, but…”

She waved a hoof at the game board. “I… wanted to do the speech thing, like the card said...”

“You could hear it?” Cadence asked. “I mean, um… oh, blast...”

The Princess of Love sank back onto her haunches, and groaned. “I really thought that enchantment would work...”

“An enchantment?” Twilight said, seizing on the new topic with relief. “Was it an adaptation of Bowler's Expanded Hat?”

“Yes, it was,” Cadence confirmed. “I cast it on the pyjamas and put them on before I left to come here, because-”

“-because you need to cast the spell before you put the clothing on, and that means otherwise you'd be putting on-” Twilight continued, then slowed. “...I mean, otherwise you'd be putting on diapers after you got here.”

She sighed. “That's exactly the plan I had.”

“Don't feel upset,” Fluttershy volunteered. “I said I was okay with it, so… it's not a problem, and if you're both wearing diapers, you know not to be upset about what the other one's doing?”

“That does make sense,” Twilight admitted. “I… it's just really something that makes me blush to think about, that anyone else might know. I think Spike does but he's never said anything, and that's… yeah…but...”

“Actually, I do have a question,” Cadence said. “Fluttershy, how do you know what a diaper sounds like?”

“Well, um… I don't wear them myself, but… but I like other ponies doing it,” Fluttershy said.

She took a breath, tensing, then let it out. “That's how I met my friend Mix-up. Discord found out that I was interested in that sort of thing, and… well… pulled him out of a closet?”

“So you've actually been doing that?” Twilight asked, the game forgotten. “Or, he's been doing that and you've been helping? What's it like?”

Her horn lit up, and some paper and a pencil floated over from the shelf. “What do you find works best? Do you do anything else with it? What's, um… what's it like to use-”

“Twilight,” Cadence cautioned. “I think Fluttershy is embarrassed enough about this already.”

Fluttershy squeaked a quick 'thank you' to Cadence.

“Oh, um… right,” Twilight realized. “Sorry, Fluttershy...”

She sat down herself. “But… what do you do, then?”

“Well… I don't just like the diapers thing,” Fluttershy elaborated, fidgeting. “But I do like it a lot… one of the other things is cute animal costumes on top of the diapers. Rarity has made me some, and… and they look really cute… and then Discord made some headphones which mean that if you're wearing a suit you feel all fuzzy and it's easy to just act in character...”

She trailed off, flushing furiously.

Neither Princess said anything for several long seconds, and Fluttershy wondered nervously if they were embarrassed with her. Then Twilight stood up.

“So,” she said. “Cadence, I don't know what you think about that, but… the main thing I'm wondering is if we bring some costumes here or go over to Fluttershy's house...”

“Well… it does sound nice,” Cadence admitted. “But… what is it like? About all we know right now is that Fluttershy's said she likes to see other ponies in diapers and some of the things she has… and I know that sometimes what a pony likes isn't what another pony likes even if it sounds the same.”

“That's a good point,” Twilight agreed. “If it's not too much trouble, Fluttershy, could you explain a bit more about what you've done?”

“Well… all right,” Fluttershy nodded. “I need to protect somepony's privacy, so I'll just call her something else?”

“What about Smarty Pants?” Cadence suggested, over Twilight's protest.

“All right,” Fluttershy repeated. “So… when Mix-up first appeared, Discord told each of us that the other liked diapers, and we started talking about it...”

Twenty minutes later, Fluttershy's soft voice reached the end of her story.

“And then, well… there are some things about us which make it hard for us to live in my cottage, which is why he's just moved to a new cloud house, but we're still close enough for that kind of thing. Which is good,” she said. “It helps me relax.”

She let out a long breath. “There. I… think that's everything.”

Looking up, Fluttershy saw that both Twilight and Cadence were blushing furiously.

“Well,” Twilight said, after a long moment. “I… t-that sounded… nice?”

She looked down at her notes, which were a bit scribbly. “I – well, when you said about what happened with Mix-up and Smarty Pants, it was just… wow. I r-really like that idea, the way you said it...”

Cadence looked a little stunned as well, but shook her head to recover a bit.

That done, she gave Twilight a warm smile. “What was it about that idea that you liked, Twily?”

Twilight hugged herself with her wings, smiling. “The idea of being all… able to stop thinking hard, and be cared for, really. Being all surrounded in softness, and… well… heh...”

She fidgeted back and forth. “It… it probably sounds silly...”

“It doesn't sound silly at all, Twilight,” Cadence told her, scooting a little closer and laying her wing across Twilight's back. “You're a very intelligent alicorn who works very hard – you've got at least two jobs most of the time as well as having to save Equestria on a regular basis, and you've been that hard working for years and years. And you're prone to feeling anxious as well.”

Twilight smiled, a little shyly. “I… yes, I suppose that's true...”

She looked up. “So… could we do that? Would that be okay?”

“I don't see why not, if we can sort it out,” Cadence replied. “Do you have the supplies, Fluttershy?”

“Well… yes, but… I'm not really sure it would work?” Fluttershy admitted. “When Mix-up and – and Smarty Pants were doing it, it was a bit hard to fit everything into the same room. It worked, but… um, you're a bit bigger…”

“Then we'll do it here!” Twilight declared. “I can teleport us to your house to pick up the supplies, and then we can do it in my rooms!”

Fluttershy thought about that.

It was true, Twilight's rooms were very big. The room they were in now wasn't the only one in Twilight's quarters, and it was bigger than the largest room in her cottage… in fact, adding it all up together, Twilight had a lot more space than Fluttershy's entire house.

There was even a kitchen, though it was mostly used by Spike when Twilight was busy doing research.

After that, it took her only a moment to make her decision. Her friends wanted to share something with her, and it was something that made her happy – and something that would make them happy too.

“Okay,” she said with a nod. “Then… let's go? If that's all right with you, I mean...”

The windows of Fluttershy's cottage lit up with a flash.

Inside, Fluttershy pointed. “Um… okay, so the changing supplies are in that cupboard…”

Twilight opened it and pulled out what she guessed was enough, which was two of everything and six of the thick diapers.

“Those are a lot bigger than the ones I've been using,” Cadence said, staring for a moment. “You really went all in on this, didn't you?”

“Well… it's something I enjoy a lot,” Fluttershy replied. “And… I have quite a lot of money from my modelling career, and I never seem to be able to find anything else to spend it on...”

“I'm not criticizing you, Fluttershy,” Cadence assured her. “I'm just… this is something I've wondered about for a while, and now suddenly this is everything that I thought it could be. It's quite unexpected.”

“Are these those headphones you mentioned?” Twilight asked, splitting her attention to raise up the two pairs on the side. “You said they made it easy to feel fuzzy and in character...”

“Oh, yes – they work for any suit,” Fluttershy told her. “So, um… if you both want to do it, those two pairs should be enough...”

Cadence looked contemplative, then tapped a hoof on the floor – making a clak noise. “How many suits do you actually have, Fluttershy? You mentioned several of them, but I don't think we got a list.”

“I can make a list!” Twilight volunteered, and Cadence smiled warmly.

“Oh, well, they're in the wardrobe over here,” Fluttershy said, leading them into her room. “I moved it in here when Mix-up moved out earlier today, because that way I don't need to worry about someone staying in my spare room finding them...”

She pulled open the door, and Twilight took a step back.

“Who made this wardrobe?” she asked. “It's huge!”

There was a flash, and Twilight looked around to see Fluttershy lowering a camera.

“Sorry, Twilight,” she said. “But Discord made the wardrobe, and he said that I had to take photos of anypony I saw looking into it for the first time...”

“That's all right, Fluttershy,” Twilight decided. “I'll… I might ask you not to share that with him, if that's all right?”

“Well...” Fluttershy smiled. “He only asked me to take the photo, not to actually show him. So that would be all right.”

While they talked, Cadence had been inspecting the suits in the wardrobe.

“These are amazing,” she said softly, pressing on the side of the fox suit and feeling how soft and plush it was. “They're made by your friend Rarity?”

“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed. “Though… I think she sort of got carried away, she keeps giving me new ones...”

“Oh – Twilight, look at this!” Cadence called. “There's a baby dragon costume!”

She took it off the hanger, revealing a big plushy-pudgy dragon costume with a spade tail and a pair of puffed-out wings. It was sort of like a reversed-colour version of Spike, with a green body and purple spines and other highlights, and the limbs even had plushy claws on them.

“Doesn't that look nice?” she asked, lighting her horn so they could see it better. “I think this would be a lovely cute costume for you, Twilight!”

Twilight's jaw worked soundlessly for a moment, and she swallowed. “I… w-well, maybe?”

“That sounds like a yes to me!” Cadence smiled. “Hmm, but if I'm picking the one you wear, then you should be the one to pick what I wear. Fluttershy, can you help show Twilight around?”

Five minutes later, half-a-dozen suits were orbiting around Twilight as she tried to pick which one would fit best.

“The fox one might mean that we'd both be in a mindset where we'd get into an argument,” she said to herself, eyes going back and forth. “But I don't know if the squirrel one would really work, the tail looks like it might end up dragging on the ground… and squirrels hoard things as well, so maybe that's not a good idea-”

She shook her head, sighing. “Sorry, Cadence, I'm just going around in circles...”

“Well… what about this one?” Fluttershy suggested. “It's one of the more recent ones, so it's a bit more stretchy. Like the dragon one...”

“Stretchy?” Cadence asked. “Oh, right, because we're a bit larger than most ponies.”

Fluttershy nodded her agreement, and Twilight looked around to see what Fluttershy was getting out of the back of the wardrobe.

It was a much more stylized one than most of the ones they'd looked at, with a bright red pair of wings on the back decorated with a pattern of black spots, and the majority of the 'body' of the suit made out of thick black plush. There was a pair of antennae as well, which bounced a bit as Fluttershy moved it, and Twilight paused for a moment.

“I, umm...” she began. “It looks like it would work, but I'm not sure about ladybugs...”

“I'm sure dragons are fine with ladybugs,” Fluttershy said.

“Besides, remember our song?” Cadence asked. “Is it okay if I'm the ladybug? Or, heheh, Cadybug?”

Twilight smiled, and the rest of the suits went zipping past Fluttershy to file neatly back into the wardrobe. “I think I'll be okay with a Cadybug, after Starlight helped me with it.”

Then she hesitated. “Oh, but… how would that work with the headphones?”

“That's simple,” Cadence said. “I want to see what the care-taking side of things is as well, so I won't wear any and Fluttershy and I can take care of a little hatchling dragoness together.”

Twilight seemed to have lost the power of speech for a moment, her blush becoming furious.