As she picked her way across the tree roots that criss-crossed the floor of her throne room, Princess Fluttershy found her mind drifting back to a conversation that she had once, fifty-six years ago almost to the day:
“So you’re the Princess of… Kindness, was it?” the journalist had asked.
“Yes,” Fluttershy had said simply.
The journalist--one Nosey Nag, of Ponies Magazine--had shuffled her papers.
“What exactly is the political philosophy behind Kindness, then?” she had asked. “Doesn’t exactly seem like the sort of founding principle that one can build a government around.”
They had spoken just over a year after Fluttershy had gotten her horn, which had happened almost entirely by accident. Princess Celestia had picked out Twilight to become the next Princess, and had groomed her specifically for the position. The entire time, Fluttershy had been content to wait in the background, as she always had.
But destiny had other ideas.
Princess Celestia had asked Fluttershy, almost as an afterthought, if she could try and reform Discord, the spirit of chaos and disharmony. No, not reform--the two of them hadn’t used that word until much, much later. But nevertheless, it is what she had asked. Fluttershy hadn’t exactly relished the idea, but she had proven resilient to Discord’s influence last time around, and, after all, she was the most qualified of her friends to give Kindness a shot in the first place. So, despite her misgivings, she had tried.
And that one, single act--managing to convince the spirit of disharmony, the physical embodiment of unfriendliness, to give friendship a try--had made Fluttershy a Princess.
“Kindness isn’t a governing philosophy,” Fluttershy had said, slightly confused. “Not in the same sense as democracy or monarchy.”
She had been so shy back then, fifty-six years ago. But Discord had convinced her to do this interview, and Rarity had helped her with her mane and makeup, and even Pinkie Pie had sat still long enough to help Fluttershy rehearse. And, with their help, she had finally felt confident enough to sit down for an interview with somepony. Privately. On her terms. But she had done it, finally, and it had been the first of many...
“True,” Nosey had insisted. “But ‘being nice to each other’ turns a blind eye towards a great deal of equine nature, wouldn’t you say?”
Fluttershy had shaken her head. “No, I wouldn’t,” she had said. “Kindness is more complex than just ‘being nice.’ It includes principles like empathy, forgiveness, trust, and understanding. In my experience,” she had continued, “everyone responds well to knowing that they are loved and valued, no matter who they are.” She had flashed a coy smile, one Rarity had taught her just for times like this. “That might not be enough to solve problems on its own--but at least it tends to bring everyone to the bargaining table.”
Nosey had tapped her pencil on her notebook.
“That’s all very well and good,” she had said, slightly irritated. “But what happens when that’s not enough? What happens when… oh, what’s the phrase…” she had looked at Fluttershy over her glasses. “ ‘you have to be cruel to be kind?’ ”
Princess Fluttershy ducked underneath a low-hanging tree branch. Ever since taking on sole rulership of Equestria, she had been growing taller. She’d always been tall for her age, but now she was taller than even Celestia had been in her prime, if memory served. She would have asked someone to prune that particular tree branch for her--but it happened to be the favorite nesting spot of a family of bluebirds, and she would hate to disappoint them. After all, it was in an excellent spot to catch the warmth of the setting sun…
As she walked, Fluttershy looked around her. The whole of the old throne room was filled with trees, her own personal forest. Even her throne had been carved into the living trunk of a massive redwood. And the forest teemed with life: songbirds, and squirrels, and foxes, and entire herds of rabbits. She knew every one of them by name, just as they knew her. And they all knew that, at this time of day, she needed to make her visit alone.
Fluttershy made her way out of the old throne room, and into the outer hallways. The two royal guards flanking the doorway bowed, then fell into step beside her, both of them trotting to keep up with her long stride.
When Celestia and Luna had stepped down after the Battle of the Bell, Fluttershy had moved into the Canterlot Palace in their place. She would have much rather stayed in Ponyville, but her hut had been destroyed long ago by Tirek, and she had never fully adjusted to living in the Palace of Kindness. However, Canterlot presented a unique opportunity: the chance to build a palace of her very own. And so, she had never repaired the damage from the Battle of the Bell. Instead, she had planted a forest--a menagerie--on and around and through the ruins of what remained. She didn’t see very many dignitaries here--she rarely needed to see anyone, in fact--so most of the time, Fluttershy was alone with her guards. And so, the locals had taken to calling it “The Palace of Silence.”
A little dramatic, perhaps--and yet, it was incredibly relaxing to spend the day in quiet contemplation, the only sound being the wind in the leaves…
The guards trotting alongside Fluttershy knew where she was going, without her having to ask. She was going where she always went at this time of day. To the Retreat.
...So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind…
Fluttershy had remembered the words perfectly, because they had made no sense.
Princess Celestia had been preparing Twilight to be Princess for some time, which meant that her studies on history and magic had been subtly with mixed a great deal of reading on political theory. But Fluttershy had been thrust into the limelight, through no fault of her own, without that grounding.
Ever since they had tangled with Discord the first time, Twilight had been having a harder and harder time keeping focused. She was prone to inexplicable bouts of crying, or sudden, manic bursts of energy, or even spending all day, sometimes days at a time, just lying in bed. But one of the things that still brought her consistent joy were lists. So, with the help of Princess Celestia and Fluttershy herself, Twilight had pulled together a reading list for Fluttershy. Everything she would need to know about being a Princess--or, at least, everything that could be learned from a book--on one convenient piece of parchment.
The list had been almost laughable in its variety. There were classics, like How to Win Friends and Influence Ponies and The Art of Public Speaking, as well as dense philosophical texts like La Principesa and Leviathan. Twilight had even been thoughtful enough to include some “Lighter” readings for when Fluttershy needed a break--but these tended to be the sort of bleak, dour books that commented on the equine condition, like Lord of the Horseflies and Crop-22.
Fluttershy had been reading for four months before she had noticed Hamlet was on the list. And so, remembering the book of Shakespony sonnets she kept under her pillow, she had picked up the thick book and curled up in her little reading nook as the snow fell gently outside her window.
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
She had to re-read the passage three or four times to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood it. She had heard the phrase, of course, but had assumed it was the misbegotten invention of some political pundit, not Shakespony. The breezies had taught her that there was such a thing as being too kind, but outright cruelty? How could the author so lovely as to compare her to a summer’s day, or who said that, to him, fair friend, you never can be old, write something so blatantly evil?
After several days of thinking, she had decided it had been a bit of black humor on his part. After all, he had said, in the very next line, that when being cruel only to be kind, “bad begins and worse remains behind.”
It wasn’t until Rarity asked Applejack to be one of her fashion judges that Fluttershy fully understood. As they’d described to her later, Applejack had decided that pure, unvarnished honesty was the way to go--but her brutal honesty had broken hearts and crushed dreams. Doing bad things with good intentions was just as evil--if not more so--than evil for its own sake. And claiming you were doing bad things to someone in order to help them was the height of a hypocritical, self-righteous sort of evil.
“What happens when… oh, what’s the phrase…” Nosey Nag had asked. “‘you have to be cruel to be kind?’”
Fluttershy had shaken her head in response. She had started to grow a little taller already--not very much, just enough to be noticeable--but she hadn’t quite grown into her crown yet, and her head-shake had made it slide partway down her forehead. She adjusted it hurriedly, then looked back up at Nosey.
“Kindness is enough, nine times out of ten,” she had responded.
“And the other time?” Nosey had insisted, before Fluttershy had even had time to take a breath.
“Then there’s other tactics, too,” she had said, slightly irritated. “Try to lighten the mood. Or give them a gift to make them comfortable. Swear to stand by them, or share an honest secret of your own. Or maybe just convince them that you are their friend, too--that, despite appearances, the two of you are on the same side. Anything to show you care, really.”
Nosey had raised an eyebrow.
“So… the other Elements of Harmony,” she had said, unimpressed.
Fluttershy had nodded with a slight smile.
The other Elements. The memory made Princess Fluttershy smile her sad little smile.
Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, Magic. One for each of her six friends. Magic was supposed to be the Master Element--after all, it represented leadership, organization, and faith in the meaning of Friendship. And Twilight had all of those things in spades. But when the rubber hit the road, Magic alone hadn’t been enough.
When Discord broke free the first time, he stole the Elements, then had used his magic to turn Fluttershy and all of her friends evil. Well, almost. Discord had convinced every one of her friends to turn their backs on their principles--all of them except Fluttershy herself. She had stood strong against Discord’s attempts to persuade her, so he had to force her to change instead.
That’s probably why the magic hadn’t stuck.
As soon as Fluttershy had gotten back home, away from her other friends, she had noticed Discord’s influence weakening its hold on her. All it took was for Angel to give her a stern talking-to, and the spell had broken. She hadn’t known what to do at that point, of course, but she still managed to free Pinkie, and together, the two of them helped the others.
Afterward, everyone had been more than a little shaken, but Twilight had taken it especially hard. She was supposed to be the one who could fix everything on her own, but she had failed. Fluttershy had tried to help her as much as she could, of course, but Twilight just kept on slipping deeper and deeper into her depression. As time went on, and as Twilight proved more and more that she simply wasn’t up to the task, Fluttershy found, to her astonishment, that her friends were starting to turn to her for advice.
At first, that had terrified her. And, truth be told, it still did. But, as time went on, she had started to get better at it. She convinced everyone to leave Rainbow alone, let her have her fun, instead of dressing up like superheroes and making her feel bad for herself. She had talked Applejack through her troubles when she didn’t want to admit that she had lost her rodeo. And she had helped Spike feel better about himself after his first, failed trip to the dragonlands. True, her friends helped her out a lot, too--but, more and more, it seemed like she was the one helping them.
“So… the other Elements of Harmony,” Nosey had said flatly.
Fluttershy had given her a little nod, but Nosey still hadn’t been satisfied. Instead, she clicked her pen shut, put it down on the table, and leaned forward.
“Your Highness,” she had said, “I mean no disrespect, but I am genuinely curious about your answer to the question--the question that you seem to be doing your very best to dodge. By all appearances, your philosophy in life is to turn the other cheek. But what happens when you run out of cheeks to turn?” She brushed away a stand of her mane. “In short: what happens when, finally, there is someone that you can’t kill with kindness?”
Princess Fluttershy didn’t remember much of the conversation after that, truth be told. She was pretty sure she had given another one of those non-answers that Twilight had trained her in, then ended the interview shortly after that. And she was pretty sure that she had gone home and cried for a while. But she could never be sure, because the question itself echoed too loudly in her mind:
“What happens when you have to be cruel to be kind?”
Well. She’d had ample time to figure it out by now.
There had been more than a few who she hadn’t, as Nosey had so quaintly put it, been able to kill with kindness. Tempest Shadow, for one. Her heart was so broken and twisted by twenty years of hatred that she refused to listen to reason. And the Battle of the Bell, too: three creatures who wanted nothing more to scour Equestria clean of the very concept of Friendship. Fluttershy had tried to be kind, as much as she could… but sometimes, she still found herself waking up in the middle of the night weeping into her pillow, haunted by dreams of what she had done to them.
Of course, Discord always did his best to keep her from doing things that he knew she would regret later. And her friends had, too, while they were still… still alive. And Fluttershy was thankful for that. But part of her wished that they didn’t have to--that, somehow, things could work out like they were supposed to. That Kindness really could, in the end, overcome all things.
Hence, the Retreat.
From the outside, the Retreat was nothing special. Just a small stone house, surrounded by a high fieldstone wall, on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley below. But it was no ordinary house: for one, it was technically part of the Palace, though it stood in the farthest and least interesting corner of the grounds. Second, it was guarded at all times by a small squad of pegasi and unicorns, with all the flares and magical signaling devices they’d ever need to call for help in case something happened. It never did, of course--and it never would. And yet, Fluttershy knew who lived in the house, and what she represented. So, the flares remained.
The Princess of Kindness had no need for dungeons. After all, an entire society founded on the principle of treating each other with respect and care made for very few criminals. There was no need to steal, for example, if everyone had all their needs taken care of. Hence, the Retreat was not a dungeon, nor a prison. it was simply… The Retreat.
As Princess Fluttershy drew close, she nodded to the guards. They nodded in return, then unlocked the gate in the wall and pulled it open. Fluttershy ducked her head, and walked inside.
As she approached the little house, she looked it over critically. It was made of light-brown stone, with a peaked wooden roof and tall, narrow windows. A close copy of the original--at least, as close as they could build on short notice.
As she looked away, she felt herself shiver. She had been coming here for forty years, and yet, something about the place still shook her to her core…
Fluttershy pushed the thought out of her mind, then walked up to the front door. She knocked twice, then pushed the door open and ducked inside.
She found the lone occupant of the house exactly where she knew she would: sitting at the kitchen table, just finishing her evening meal. When she saw Fluttershy, she stiffened, then sat up straight.
“I knew you were lying to me,” she snarled.
Fluttershy ignored the comment. Instead, she bowed her head in greeting. “Good evening, Starlight,” she said.
The years had not been kind to Starlight Glimmer. When she had met her, so long ago, she was still so young--barely an adult, by all accounts. But to look at her now, with lines carved deep into her face, her eyes sunken and brooding, and her mane thin and brittle, it was hard to believe she had ever been the same pony. And yet, even after all these years, she still styled her mane in those odd, divided bangs she had when Fluttershy had first met her.
Starlight Glimmer just sneered at her. “I knew you had more magic than you were letting on,” she spat. “I never should have trusted you.”
Fluttershy pulled out the other chair at the table and sat. “Are you comfortable?” she asked.
Starlight barked out a hollow laugh. “This is my house,” she said, gesturing around her. “Of course I’m comfortable.” As she looked around, she grimaced, then started rubbing the back of her neck with her hoof. “But your guards sure did a number on me, I’ll give you that. I’m going to have a word with my lawyer tomorrow, as soon as you let me see him…”
Fluttershy said nothing. Starlight wouldn’t take it well if she knew the only pony who had laid a hoof on her in nearly fifty years had been Father Time...
“Speaking of,” Starlight continued, looking around, “where are the rest of my friends?” She shot Fluttershy a twisted little smile. “Not very kind to keep me under house arrest, then scare my friends away…”
Fluttershy bit her lip.
Double Diamond broke his neck in a skiing accident.
Sugar Belle bled out giving birth to her second foal.
Party Favor hung himself after his party supply store went belly-up.
Night Glider hadn’t been seen in a decade…
“They’ll come by tomorrow,” Fluttershy said.
Starlight just snorted angrily. “Yeah. Like I’m going to believe that. They live just down the street, and still haven’t come to see me?” She rolled her eyes. “Bet you don’t have a clue what that’s like, your Princess-ship,” she added. “Being left all alone by your friends.”
Fluttershy’s mouth tightened. She felt the anger rising inside her, and briefly considered letting it explode out of her--but no. Starlight didn’t deserve it. She had no way of knowing that Applejack’s funeral had been just last week. That she had been the last of the five who remained. That Applejack, the last time she had seen her, had asked about Starlight--asked, in her delightful country dialect, if Fluttershy “still had that old bat in her little cage.” She had even gave Fluttershy an odd little look, then asked, in a quieter voice, “What in Equestria d’ya keep her around for, anyways? Just to torture yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Fluttershy had said.
But they had both known that was a lie.
Starlight leaned back in her chair and smirked. As she did, Fluttershy sighed, then mentally ran through her notes. Finally, she spoke.
“Speaking of friends,” she said, “have you seen Sunburst recently?” she asked.
Starlight frowned, then sat up. “How do you know about Sunburst?” she hissed.
Fluttershy shook her head. “It’s not important,” she said. “But I want to know: have you seen him?”
“No,” Starlight spat. “I haven’t seen him since I was eight.”
“Would you like to?”
Despite the fact that he is a husband, and a grandfather, and hasn’t thought of you in decades?
Starlight’s face contorted. “What sort of question is that?” she snapped.
“An honest one.”
Starlight shook her head angrily. “Not in a million years,” she said. “He abandoned me. Just like everyone else.”
Fluttershy nodded slowly. “Is that why you did it, then?” she asked.
“Did what?” Starlight snapped back.
“Founded your Equalists,” Fluttershy responded. “You needed new friends, so you created your own…” she swallowed. “Organization?”
“I started the Equalists because Equestria is unfair,” Starlight retorted. “Why should you get all the glory, when I’ve worked just as hard as you? Harder, even? You made a friend, so what? I overturned the fundamental laws of magic! I figured out how to steal cutie marks! And what do I get for that?” She gestured angrily out the window. “That… eyesore of a wall around my home, and house arrest until further notice. Tell me how that’s fair.”
Fluttershy took a deep breath, then let it out. She knew what was going to happen next before she even said it. It had happened the same every day for thirty years.
“So you’d do it again?” she asked. "All of it?"
“Of course I would,” Starlight said, her words echoing a thousand, thousand times in Fluttershy’s memory.
And yet, the words still hurt.
Fluttershy let out a long sigh, then closed her eyes and bowed her head. Magic flowed up through her body, and into her horn.
“Wait a second,” Starlight said. “What are you—!”
And then, with a blinding flash, the light went out.
Fluttershy counted to three, then opened her eyes. Across the table, Starlight sat still, eyes wide and unseeing. Fluttershy watched her for a moment, then stood.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Fluttershy watched Starlight for a moment, hoping that, somehow, she would respond… but knowing that she wouldn't. At last, she sighed, then turned to leave.
Starlight wasn’t actually evil. There was no doubting that. She wanted to do good--or, at least, she said she did. But doing bad things with good intentions was still bad, just like Applejack and her brutal honesty.
And yet, she was still a good pony, deep down. They’d been talking, for an hour a day, for forty years. Fluttershy had gotten to know her well during that time, and she was a good pony. Fluttershy was convinced of that.
Starlight wasn’t beyond saving, not by a long shot--and yet, for some reason, she just wouldn’t let go. Fluttershy had tried to talk to her, to empathize, to listen--and it hadn’t worked. For some reason, Starlight hadn’t responded to anything Fluttershy had tried. Applejack had thought--and Fluttershy was inclined to agree--that she was lying to herself. That she had been telling herself for years that everyone hated her, hence, no outside influence, no matter how kind, was going to change her.
Twilight had suggested, more than once, to show Starlight a little Tough Love. Let her see exactly what the consequences of her actions would be. Fluttershy had considered it--nearly gone through with it, even--but she had finally decided not to. After all, being cruel in the name of kindness was still cruelty.
Fluttershy had thought that part of Starlight’s stubbornness might have had something to do with the Retreat itself. Starlight knew she wasn’t free to leave, and that she wasn’t being treated fairly, and thus, hadn’t let herself trust Fluttershy.
So, after a great deal of thought, Fluttershy had used a memory charm on her, once--just to make her forget how long she had been living in the Retreat. But once she started using those spells, it had been hard to stop. And so, Fluttershy had been chipping away at Starlight’s problems every day for--what was it, thirty years now?--with Starlight herself none the wiser. She still seemed to think that she was living at home. That she had been recaptured just the day before. And that Fluttershy should be a whole head shorter, still the frightened little Princess she had been the day they first met.
The memory charm wouldn’t hurt Starlight--it never had. In an hour or so, she would wake up, then explore her house top to bottom again, only to find everything exactly where she had left it. She would usually read the same few pages of her novel, or sometimes explore the secret escape tunnel, just to make sure it was still there--but other than that, the fact that she had done all those same things the day before seemed just a dream to her.
When Fluttershy had told the others that she had started to modify Starlight’s memory, they had been horrified. Discord, in particular, tried to convince her that wiping her memory every day would leave Starlight a broken husk of a pony in the end--but even Twilight had to admit that no one had done research on the topic. Fluttershy had waited patiently for their shock and fury to wear off--as she knew it always would--and then quietly explained herself.
No, the memory spells weren’t ideal. But what else could they do? Starlight had been in solitary confinement for a decade. The world was already forgetting her. Her father had died from a broken heart, Sunburst had just proposed to Maud, and even what was left of her village had collapsed into ruins. Even if Fluttershy managed to find the secret key to her soul tomorrow, it would destroy her to return to the world that had left her behind.
Given all that: was it really that unreasonable to make her forget? Wasn’t it kinder, when all was said and done, to keep her from remembering everything that she had lost?
In the end, they had all come around to her way of thinking--or, at least, had learned not to bring it up. Secretly, Fluttershy was glad that they didn’t. Rarity and Twilight had taught her how to make an impassioned argument--but hadn’t taught her how to believe it.
(She had admitted to no one, not even to her animals, that it was no small relief that only Fluttershy herself would remember all the mistakes she made with Starlight at the end of the day…)
As Fluttershy stepped back out of the gate, she sighed. Starlight was a good pony, deep down. Fluttershy just needed to figure out how to reach her. Because, if she could, that meant she was right. That Kindness really could conquer all. That, given the exact right tone and inflection of voice, even the most hardened, unrepentant criminal could be made to see the light, and live up to the goodness within them.
But part of her was afraid. Part of her knew that their conversations had been growing shorter and shorter for at least two years. Part of her saw the deepening lines in Starlight’s face, and the growing tremble in her limbs. And part of her knew that, before long, all the repentance she would be able to get out of her was a deathbed confessional.
And yet…
She turned and looked back at the Retreat. At its lone occupant, who, every day of her life, had been given a new chance to do better. Who had no idea how long she’d been cooped up in her little house. And, who went to sleep, never knowing that everyone and everything she had ever cared about had withered away decades ago.
As she stared at the retreat, Nosey Nag’s question popped, one final time, into her mind:
“What happens when you have to be cruel to be kind?”
And Fluttershy felt like she was going to be sick.
Author's Note
Quick chronology, in order to avoid confusion:
- 57 years ago: Fluttershy becomes Princess.
- 56 years ago: Fluttershy talks to Nosey Nag
- ~40 years ago: Starlight Glimmer is captured.
- ~30 years ago: Fluttershy starts using memory charms on Starlight.
- 2 years ago: Fluttershy's interrogations with Starlight begin to stall.
Thanks for reading!!
