Charismatic.
A trapped rabbit.
In the dark of night, Fluttershy always found it very difficult not to slip into memories of what had happened to her.
She knew that dwelling on it did her no favors.
Really what she was truly damaged by is what she’d become since then.
She always felt like she was teetering on the edge of becoming an avatar of vengeance.
And that terrified her.
That in the end, there was no other way than going out in a final act of retribution.
So dissociated.
So disconnected from reality.
So far gone.
It was under her skin, and she didn’t even feel equine anymore.
It was not like her to want to hurt others, and in this confusion she had achieved a fragment of clarity.
One little thing to keep her and everyone else safe.
Charismatic.
A trapped rabbit.
So removed from it all she looked back with a dull apathy on the actual event and all she could think of is that
It was over.
This was the next part.
She was no longer hungry, so she stopped eating.
Fluttershy looked down at the overflowing bowl of salad, not a single leaf displaced from when she had made it. The carrots and tomatoes likewise had remained untouched, and just looking at them made her complexion pale.
"Here you go, Angel," Fluttershy said softly, pushing the bowl over to the opposite side of the table, where her pet bunny sat, watching her. Usually, he'd balk at the idea of eating Fluttershy's leftovers, but this time he fished a carrot out from the mass of leaves. Popping it into his mouth, he half-heartedly chewed on it before he grabbed another few carrots from the bowl and offered them to Fluttershy.
"Oh, no thank you," she said, smiling weakly. "I'm full."
Fluttershy removed herself from the table, walking to the couch in her cottage living room. She wobbled as she walked. She was skin, and she was bones.
Those bones could be seen through her pale yellow coat. So tight around them. She was a skeleton.
She held her wings tight to her body. They were a ghastly sight. Missing more than half their feathers. A few more fluttered to the ground as she advanced towards the couch. Sitting down, Fluttershy leaned against it, her frail form barely moved with each breath.
She had sent all her animals away to Treehugger. All except Angel, who in his eternal stubbornness, refused to leave the cottage. She hadn't wanted them to see her like this, and the same went for her friends. She had kept herself locked up in her home, and her friends respected this and gave her her distance, after a while.
At first, they had shown up every day, asking her to come out with them. She had declined, and through stalwart denial, they had come to accept her reluctance. After a week or two, even Pinkie Pie had stopped coming to see her.
She couldn't be there in the outside world. The sky came crashing down on her, the earth rose to swallow her, and even the trees and solitude of nature that she once loved so much made an effort to strangle her in a cage of compression. Ponies looked at her from all sides, gazing right through her and seeing every single dent and chip in her history and personality. She couldn't even make eye contact with her friends, for she was afraid they were able to read her mind and judge every single strange and personal thought.
She had fled inside, where she hoped her animal friends could offer her comfort. But after a while, even they gave her the sensation of constant scrutiny. Failures of the past she knew no one but herself were privy to were coming forward, and through some unexplainable act of dark magic, anypony—or anything—could see her darkest heart. Only Angle remained, and as awful as it sounded, she loathed to look at him.
Years ago, when they had first met, Fluttershy had gone to Twilight about the overwhelming feelings. She’d recommended a psychiatrist at the Ponyville Hospital.
She’d of course offered a caring shoulder to cry on, and an attentive ear to listen with.
"I know you're not much of a drinker," Twilight had said to her while inspecting the small, white bottle Fluttershy had been given. "But these have a potentially lethal reaction with alcohol. So just be careful to stay away from hard cider, alright?"
Now the bottle was sitting on the table next to her couch, right next to a small mug of hard cider from the barrel Applejack had gifted her years ago. Twilight was right, she wasn't much of a drinker—that barrel had never meant to be touched. But now, in this horrible world where everything collapsed on her and nothing was safe, not even in her mind... well, it only seemed right.
Right here.
Charismatic.
A trapped rabbit.
The pills hadn't worked; she hadn't told Twilight that. At the time, she hadn't wanted to upset her. She knew this would upset her more, but there was nothing else she could do now. She couldn't leave the house.
Much less look Twilight in the eye and talk to her.
Already she had to grapple with being barely functional. Already she danced upon a frayed tightrope of anxiety and overreaction.
Then it happened.
He had been gone for a while now. He had been dead for a while now. He’d dropped from the sky like a lead balloon and crushed himself against the ground under his own weight.
That stallion was gone. That stallion was dead.
After every thing he’d done to her
Why didn’t she hate him?
Why did she still feel an empty pit in her gut that made her wonder
If she could have done anything to prevent this?
To save him
Even though he, by all accounts, had not been worth saving?
He’d treated her body like it was something he owned. Like it was his. And she did everything she could to please him, to show him a different way, and yet
She had failed.
Can’t shake this little feeling
That she’d never do anything right.
She took the remaining twenty or so pills in the bottle and downed them. Dry in her mouth, the cider chugged next, leaving a terrible taste behind. The world grew fuzzy, and Fluttershy closed her eyes. She had expected to feel something, anything about leaving behind everything in the world.
As her fragile body grew heavy, the oddest sensation washed over her.
Pure, unadulterated relief.
Fluttershy smiled.
This is true kindness.
Little paws clutched and dragged against her leg, melting into a faded numb nothing.
Charismatic.
A trapped rabbit.
