Inner Strewth

Chapters

1 Mic-Dropping
3 Camp Cottage Camp
2 Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

1 Mic-Dropping

Twilight Sparkle could hear it with her right ear, and she could hear it with her left one too. Twilight Sparkle could smell it with her right nose, and she could smell it even more when she left to move to the other room.

Twilight had the power to move to any room anywhere, in an instant, via the magic of teleportation. However in this crisis on infinite noses, she was so alarmed that she forgot.

She also seemed to forget that she was a princess, and WALKED!! Like on her four hooves, just like the common unicorn. Oh, she had been a common unicorn once; but the great act of uncommoning had made her a commoner no longer.

Thus she walked on her four legs towards what she had determined was the source of her sensory distress.

"Spike's an asshole, making himself alcohol!" Sung an unsuspecting young reptile.

"Who?"

Spike just glared at the owl. And in that moment the feathery one realised that it no longer belonged here. So he left. He would go hang out with Cadence and other minor characters in the Crystal Empire.

Twilight waved and sang to the departed Owlowishious. "Now I only waaaaant you goooooone."

With that normality over with, Twilight acknowledged her number one assistant's strangeness. "Why are you trying to get drunk? Did Rarity reject you again?" Twilight tried to keep from laughing at that very very very possible scene playing out in her head.

The dragon looked hurt. Like he had eaten an unripe gemstone, and broken his little toothy-woothy. But his reply came none the less. "Be real Sparkle. How could anypony say 'no' to all this pure draconicness?"

Twilight matched his wit and then some. "By being a lesbian horse like me." She stated flatly, then made panicked pony noises and exclaimed, "You have to forget what I said, okay? How could a baby like you, ever even begin to understand that his big sister is gay!?"

Spike folded his baby arms. "I'm not a baby, I just have baby arms." Then paused to think. "Like a T-Rex!" He stated triumphantly.

"Well in that case, can my little T-Rex forget my sexuality related revelation until tomorrow?" She asked with what she hoped was her most winning smile.

Spike gave much consideration to the idea of jumping out the window, so that he could follow his feathered friend in crystalline retreat. Anything was better than looking at Twilight's royally messed up teeth. What, was she originally from that Commonwealth city of Cloudsdale or something? Oh good Luna, the teeth had started to move!!

"I knew I could count on Rarity's favourite dragon, to forget something big like this." She said, kissing his cheek. "I'm so proud of my tiny forgetful one." She smiled even wider.

Spike was sweating now. Afraid of seeing more of those choppers near him. "Well, Rarity won't go hit on herself." He tried to chuckle, but his nerves made it sound like he was choking on the booze.

"Not unless she finds the mirror pool, and uses it. Then dozens of Raritys could come into existence, each with the only intention to do anything you ask of them," Twilight said scratching at her nonexistent beard. Then looked back at Spike. "Er, why are you drooling?"

"The drooling means I'm happy," he drooled.

Twilight shook her head. "Nope. That doesn't make any sense. You would always be drooling whenever you see me, if that was true."

Spike recoiled in horror. "Gross, gross, gross, gross!"

Twilight just shrugged, not picking up on what was tormenting her dragon brother. Then walked towards the door that led to one of a multitude of the castle's hallways.

This was a big improvement on the zero hallways, that her old tree house (the one made of wood) had had. Her new tree house was so great that it had to be shrunk down so as to not blot out Celestia’s sun. It was also made of one hundred percent non-recyclable plastics, and it spoke! But no-creature could figure out where to insert the triple-A batteries so the voice was very low and very slow these days. Therefore the mastermind behind it only used the voice when absolutely necessary.

Twilight operated her Re-bigulator which doubled as an Awesomeporter to the town centre when set to that particular setting. Nopony batted an eye at the Princess' sudden appearance, or when she subsequently grew back to 'normal' little pony size. The growth stopped when she was just taller than the average mare her age.

The word 'NERD' however was called out at her, from all angles. Just like it always did whenever she went into town. But strangely there was one voice calling it out louder than the rest.

Who could it be? Twilight closed her eyes and guessed based on the evidence at hoof. Which only amounted to a high pitched, giggly, and girly voice. One she knew belonged to an element of harmony bearer. One that was accompanied by the sounds of a pony bouncing up and down.

This was next to nothing to go on, so she just defaulted to the factory setting of guessing it was Fluttershy. Thus the shock of Pinkie Pie's smiling face in front of her when she opened her eyes, turned a hair in the beard she still didn't have a light grey colour.

"Hello, fellow grey beard." Pinkie said, overjoyed with something as she tapped just below her pink chin. "You're a NERD today! Not to be confused with you being a NERD last week. Or next week, when that one violent earth pony chick is going to Cheerilee’s birthday party. Gosh I would hate to be the pony organising that party," she said with great relief in her voice. She continued being the dominant force in the conversation by asking, "Now where's my treat?"

Twilight looked at her perplexed. "Treat?" She nerdily echoed the loud mare.

"Yeah, you're supposed to give me a treat, silly. Oh, no. Wait, that was for my indoors voice, not my other one!"

Twilight tried to mutter something like, "Pinkie has an indoor voice?" But the Pie mare heard her with her Pinkie hearing.

"Of course. But you may know her better by the name of, Fluttershy!"

"Fluttershy? Here?" Whispered Twilight in alarm.

"Nope she’s at her cottage. Lalalalala." She replied and sang, bouncing off, to You-know-who knows where.

Twilight knew that she knew, where the cottage of the easily frightened pegasus was. It was near the very frightening forest. The forest that was home to a very harmonious tree, that had even created her own current tree house.

Maybe that wasn't a meer coincidence, maybe there was supposed to be a connective force between the two ponies.

The alicorn thought of nothing else on her way to the burger stand, then she thought on it more, while on her way to the edge of town. With two burgers levitating in front of her, she made her way to a part of Ponyville where everycritter enjoyed a little kindness.

Most of the wide variety of animals looked nice and relaxed, including a recently massaged Harry the bear. Oh how Twilight would just love to get a violent, full body massage from Fluttershy. But unlike the bear, she did not have an adorkable smile. This made her frown adorkably.

Twilight was greeted by many beautiful sounds as she got even nearer to the cosy cottage. The birds chirped in a happy and harmonious tune. The fish splashed like happy Magikarp in the small river that went under the little bridge. The mammals sat quietly, plotting the demise of the other two animal groups. And the plants blew gently to and fro in the light breeze, making their own soft sound if you listened closely.

So listen closely Twilight did. Which was when she heard a pony’s voice. The voice was, like earlier, an immediate mystery to the purple horse. All she had to go on this time, was that the voice was scratchy, and owned by a bearer of the element of loyalty. She could pick up no actual words yet, so she did the only thing a Princess of Friendship could. She listened harder to the unknown talker who was in Fluttershy’s home.

“Awesome, twenty percent cooler, awesome, in ten seconds flat, awesome, awesome.” The murmurs came from someone inside. But who was it? “My name is Rainbow Dash.” Surely those words could be spoken by anypony, right? “My other sister is a walking chicken joke.” Someone with at least two sisters? Was it Big Macintosh? “I could beat Applejack in a hoof wrestling match.”

Twilight let out a small whisper to herself at this, “Oh it’s Rainbow Dash; gosh I’m so so silly. And the one that she’s talking to in Fluttershy’s cottage must be..." Twilight tapped her chin in silent thought. “Fluttershy?”

There was a squee of delight at Rainbows continued antics. The squee was unmistakable in its belonging to her shy friend. So it was Shy who Twi concluded was at home with the Dashinator. The two were close, but Twilight knew that neither would shun her intrusion. So she started to think a happy thought, so as to activate her god-tier ‘pure’ magic. She was however interrupted by a hideous male alicorn OC who flew by.

He yelled, “My tragic backstory, is that I stub my hoof on an oak tree, at the end of every single month!!”

A sing-song voice came from inside the cottage, “I hope you stub your hoof on an incredibly well sharpened sword.”

Ah, what would Equestria be without Fluttershy vanquishing the most horrid thing in existence (alicorn OCs) from the world? And with that out of the way for now Twilight thought of the first time she rode a broom stick. This happy thought was just enough to activate her magic to knock on the door. But Sparkle didn't want to knock, she wanted to teleport herself into the house and surprise-congratulate Shy on her latest victory against the forces of clichéd writing.

Twilight was interrupted in her search for a happier memory, by the rough voice of Rainbow, who was evidently trying to be smooth, "Now if only you could confess your hidden feelings of love to her, like you just expressed yourself to that guy."

There was a squeak of shyness from inside in response. Twilight heard it and wanted to hear more. No. She needed to hear more. Just needed a name. While she wasn't one for gossip she also wasn't one for pressing her ear flat against the door to listen in to private pegasi conversations. But that didn’t stop her.

While desperately trying to eavesdrop harder. She heard something that made her heart capsize and sink to the pit newly formed in her stomach. It was just a small whisper. But it changed her. “Rarity wouldn't like me back though, not like that. Not like the way that I feel for her."

It was Rarity. Fluttershy was lesbian for Rarity the unicorn. The dress maker, extraordinaire, mare.

It even made logical sense. They had known each other for a longer time. They both loved fashion and creating. They could both sing in such a way that made even such a wreck like Twilight feel good about the world. What's more the elemental names 'kindness' and 'generosity' that they both used to battle evil together, have similar meanings.

So what if the Princess of love shipped them heavily. So what if Rainbow was encouraging Shy to confess her feelings for Rarity. Twilight realised that in her head, she had thought the name 'Rarity' with extreme distaste. That would not do. That was not friendship. She corrected herself by mind-speaking her friend's name like she imagined Fluttershy would.

'RawRawRarityRaaaaw!'

Twilight tried not to throw up from the thought alone. So after considerable effort she did not end up vomiting onto the shrunken plastic castle in front of her. Oh. She must have somehow made it back to her home from Fluttershy's without noticing any of the usual cheer that Ponyville ponies would have doubtlessly dished out. She shuddered as the De-bigulator worked its magic.

It didn't feel like magic though. Even before the magic of friendship was unveiled to her, she had loved the study, and practice of non-friendship based magic, immensely. But today seemed intent upon destroying her heart completely.

Thankfully her books remained. They were her first love. But also her other unrequited love, because there was no book that felt the same about her as she did for it. Or maybe, just maybe, there was one that came close.

“Spike, I’m gonna write to the human world, do you want me to pass on any message for you?”

“Hey Twilight, say, if you do pass on would I get your castle?”

”No, if I pass on you get an orphanage, young sir.”

“Sweet I’ve always wanted to have kids of my own! So prepare to die, my wish is coming true this day.” Spike tried to engulf the princess in his fire breath. But Twilight had made a whole list of defences against such a flaming death since he had ‘accidentally’ burnt that one book on constellations, just before a certain owl entered their lives.

The simplest method of defeating fire, was to stop it at the source. Thus she activated her magic once more by remembering the happy memory of... Ah yes, herself looking into Spike’s adorable face for the first time, just after she had hatched him. The magic grew inside of her, allowing her to mould it into a teleportation spell that, with surgical precision, removed Spike's lungs.

The lungs lay on the floor between them. So Twilight walked over to them. Pushed them towards the dragon that was now unable to breathe, and so lay powerless on the floor. "What it?" She moved the respiratory organs further towards him giving him hope. “Can’t have it!” She was having the time of her life, making the most obscure reference.

Spike turned his little face to her in pain. Pleading with his eyes, to save him from the fate she was seemingly imposing upon him. With a flash of light, and the memory of eleven seconds ago when she avoided death in the most intelligent of ways. Spike found that new lungs were rapidly growing inside his chest. He would not die this day. What a win!

He ran up to hug Twilight, accidentally kicking aside the old lungs of his on his way, and launched himself at her. He got something warm and red on her coat, which was probably from the kitchen, and most certainly not from his blood vessels.

“So,” Spike said, “what was that about the human world?”

“Oh yeah, I’d actually nearly forgotten. Thanks Spike, I knew that I kept you around for some reason.” And with that she pranced off to the library to get a special book. She just hoped to Celestia, that the other books wouldn’t be jealous.

With the book, quill, and ink retrieved Twilight sat down and thought of a plan.

‘H E L P’ She wrote, using up a whole page for each letter of the word. Then finished the message off on the fifth new page of the book. ‘With my platonic love, that is intrinsic to our general friendship, Princess Twilight Sparkle.’

While waiting for the former terrific member of Canterlot high, Sunset Shimmer, to respond she got up and retrieved a piece of parchment out of the closet. It was of a rare black colour. Dark like the contents of a mind capable of the teleportation of the lungs to the outside of a ten year old friend.

Twilight liked to look at the paper from time to time. It reminded her of a time when the very same parchment had been pristine and blank. When she still had had a blank flank, and was trying to get her cutie mark in being a lesbian.

A cutie mark would help her with coming out to her family. So she had sneaked out in her ninja costume to go round her female classmates houses, ones that she had already arranged kissing times with. That had however come to an end, when Stout Shield, captain of the royal guard at the time, caught her.

He had made a strange point of telling her that, there was definitely no reason that he was out. Then his eyes shifted about. He had continued to tell her while marching her home that he most certainly did not want to kiss Princess Celestia.

She had gone on to get her cutie mark in magic. It had been that day that she had resolved to tell her parents that she liked mares, but had put it off that day, and every day since.

Now she was in the current day putting it off yet again, when she felt growing tremors from the ground.

Not one to miss an opportunity, she ordered Spike to pour her a glass of water. She was watching the surface ripple, and imagining she was in that one Dino movie. This was interrupted by the sounds of Spike running off, and moments later the activation sounds of the De-bigulator, then a voice.

“I’ve taken a dragon hostage, and I demand to speak to the owner of this castle!”

Well Twilight only knew one pony besides herself, that could stop a dragon. So the voice must belong to...

“Hey Fluttershy. Where did you find a dragon in these parts?” Twilight walked to greet the yellow one, then rounded a corner to find an angry Rainbow Dash and a struggling Spike in her grip. The lavender alicorn realised her mistake immediately, she had never taught spike any self defence against pegasi. She also mistook Shy for Dash but really who could blame her, as all pegasi look and sound the same to Twilight.

Rainbow responded, “Don't try and change the subject, and don’t say Fluttershy’s name, you false friend!”

Twilight was alarmed by this. Had what she had done really constituted ‘changing the subject’? Why couldn’t she say that name? And what was a ‘friend’ Ms. Sparkle was super sure that she had never heard that word before.

Rainbow wasn’t giving her the time to think properly, as she continued saying stuff, like words, ya know, “So giving me the silent treatment huh? Well three can play at that game.” The blue pegasus made not a noise, as she covered Spike’s mouth with a wing.

Meanwhile at Celestia’s royal chamber of solitude. There was a delayed reaction to the magical book she had created years ago. While there were few who knew about the dimension crossed pairs of connected books. Only 'Celly from the Telly' knew about the triplet to the presumed twin of books. This book allowed her to read everything that was written in either the human world’s book to its Equestrian copy, or vice-versa.

Noting that Twilight needed ‘H E L P’ with something, and recalling that she had not checked up with the young alicorn for over a year. The oldest pony on the planet decided to send the young one; mail!

Rainbow’s wing had a small hole burnt into it, but don't worry, it was getting larger as the panicking mare ran about. Green flames growing and growing, raising the temperature of the hallway slightly. All the while, Spike who was not yet free of her hold, was carried round and round the hallway.

Twilight was primarily concerned with the letter which spike had fired out, it was obviously for her. She reasoned that if she did nothing, it might get trampled. So she tried to get a grip on it with her hooves, realised hooves are terrible for absolutely everything, and grabbed it with her teeth.

Oh now that's interesting, the letter was from her favourite princess, Celestia. At least that was her hopeful guess, it was rather difficult to concentrate with all the screaming. So Twilight didn't even attempt to concentrate but instead to focus, focus on a super happy memory, one of her first memories in fact. This was also the moment that started everything. It was the one of herself going to the toilet.

Wait, no, wrong memory! Hmmm. That’s it, seeing Celestia for the very first time, at the summer sun celebration.

With the memory all set, she spell casted away. First bubbles of silence fixed onto Rainbow and Spike’s heads. Then a temporary force field of imminent vacuum around the flaming wing to put it out. Lastly she transfigured the ordinary scroll into a Howler and patiently waited for it to start screaming at her.

There was some considerable amount of magical energy left over from the happy memory's energy. Realising this Twilight simply donated that to her favourite charity, ‘The I’m Not Tirek Trying To Escape Using Your Magic Fund’. Or TINTTTEUYMF as the hot chicks call it. Speaking of hot, was something burning? Oh right the howler should start yelling right about…

“SO TWILIGHT SPARKLE MY MOST FAITHFUL GRADUATE,” screeched the howler, ” THIS IS CELESTIA HERE ASKING FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON REALLY IF YOU NEED ANY H E L P?”

The folded paper then ended its transmission in the formal way, by ripping itself to tiny bits.

Rainbow Dash didn't let Twilight even begin to respond, she was after all completely unaccustomed to being ignored for such a length of time. Thus Dash used her few recollections of gorilla sign language to communicate the following: ‘This Rainbow is gonna start killing, if she didn’t get her answers!’

Twilight understood none of this, but she did read the subtitles that appeared at the bottom of the screen. So the message was received, and the lavender alicorn asked, "Um, what answers did you want specifically? Surely you don’t need a simple princess like myself, to help you find the truth, right?"

Rainbow responded the only way she knew how, by screaming in such a violent way that a small noise leaked out of the bubble of silence still around her head.

This was of course adorable so Twilight squeed in delight. Which in turn caused Dash to get all up in Twilight’s face. Dash was not in a delight causing mood!

So it came to pass, that Rainbow while still holding the dragon named Spike. Stood right next to the Princess of Friendship, and was about to lay down the law.

“I have platonic love for my gay sister Fluttershy and you should too, you anti-friend-equation-ist you!” Is what Dash tried to communicate to Twilight, but you know, the bubble of silence strikes again.

Seeing this but hearing nothing, the alicorn decided to finally kill the bubbles. Which crumbled and died, ironically making a few noisy protests, insults and questions like: 'Why give me life only to kill me? I won't go quietly. You suck!'

Twilight smiled the smile of a bubble murderer.

Meanwhile Rainbow tried to calm herself after witnessing the bubbly deaths. "I guess you are actually the one with the most experience in killing, huh."

Twilight continued her smile and gave a nod.

"So teach me."

"What like how to use unicorn magic?"

"Yeah."

"What, like have you ascend, thereby becoming an alicorn too?"

"Yeah."

"What, like you being a princess of gay pride?" Twilight said, while pointing at Rainbows most colourful hair.

"Actually it's Fluttershy who is gay." Rainbow responded lazily pointing in the general direction of the cottage.

"Why are you saying this in front of Spike, if you are mad at me for finding out?"

"Oh, I'm just mad that you left food in the open near the cottage. That food is not for critters and if any of them had taken a bite. Instant death. I just used the whole you are a bad friend thing, to add length to my rant. I rather like being mad." Rainbow quickly explained.

"So is that all you just wanted to stop by tell me to be more careful around animals, and yell while doing so?"

Rainbow Dash smiled, and finally put Spike back down to the floor. Then she zoomed off back in the direction of Fluttershy's cottage (after activating the Re-bigulator of course).

This made twilight grumpy. "Well I guess, I'll have to close the door then." She tried to do just that with her hooves. Remembered for the second time that day, that they were absolutely useless and closed up with her mouth instead. Then she used her mouth to talk! "I'm just glad my little brother didn't hear any of that." Wiping the sweat from her brow she turned around to find her little brother, and he was hearing all of that!

"Er, Twilight what was that about?"

"Spike were you eavesdropping?" Twilight asked cautiously, trying to keep the shock from her voice, while more sweat appeared on her brow.

"Um, I was here the whole time, remember?" He looked worried about something, most likely the possibility of getting told off.

"So you were eavesdropping then, in that case how much did you hear?" She needed to know. The truth would hurt sure, but she needed to know.

"Literally all of it, seriously what is up with you today?" He must be getting inpatient with the lecture before it even begun.

"Well it clearly went over your head, being that it was a conversation on mature subjects." She gently condescended.

"I’m ten and a half, also it's modern times so how would it go over my head exactly?" Why was he bringing age into this? Was he homophobic as well as ageist? This might be more tricky than expected.

"Well, you should know that It’s wrong to think less of ponies for their sexual orientation." A lesson worth of sending to Princess Celestia herself.

"DO YOU THINK I'M DENSE!?" Well look at the baby, all tuckered out from a hard day of learning not to judge others.

"I'm so proud of you for finally seeing the light, and not judging others based on things like this."

So they walked off together into the library, which was just past the kitchen area. When suddenly there was a relatively large explosion behind them.

Twilight grinned. "Well, that would be the alcohol you made!"

Spike froze and looked at her terrible teeth. "Errr…"

"Looks like the end of my day will be spent helping you clean up the mess in the kitchen after all. Race ya!"

So they ran towards the melting remains of a kitchen made of plastic. Hoping that the toxic fumes being produced wouldn't kill them both.

3 Camp Cottage Camp

“... And a new chapter of my life begins?” Twilight asked, with the power of hope kindling in her eyes.

“More like the final chapter,” Rainbow responded, with the power of we-didn't-start-the-fire, aimed at her close friend.

“Yeah; well," Twilight sniffed at Dash, "your face smells like poop.”

“And your poop smells of faces,” Dash sniffed back at Twilight, lazily defecting the insult.

There was always the option to join in with the fun. Fluttershy knew this, of course she knew this. She had discovered just shortly after Twilight Sparkle's move down the mountain to Ponyville, that the book loving pony thoroughly enjoyed 'Squabbling That Obliterates Ponies'. Or STOP, as it was commonly known.

This STOP activity was a kind of unnatural selection process. To weed out, in the pony species, any who thought that they could squabble with another, but were in fact woefully inept squabblers. It was the defining trait that put ponies in the unique position to form a utopian society. Only the bravest most talented ponies would dare to squabble amongst themselves. The rest were either obliterated or kept their silly squabblious views hidden.

Fluttershy actually wasn't the bravest, but she had other reasons for not taking part in STOP. One reason was that she was afraid of acronyms. That's why no one calls her 'FS'.

The other reason for Fluttershy not joining in with the STOP, was a bit of a misunderstanding. She was in the practice of vanquishing OC alicorns that plagued the land with their sudden and impolite appearances. And was, some might even say, good at this vanquishing. But really she just tried her best. The point is that she thought she should just keep to what she knew. What if she tried to branch out into squabbling and lost her alicorn vanquishing abilities.

That wouldn't be good.

It was however unknown to Fluttershy that the magic that so effectively caused the OC alicorns to be vanquished, was the very same that powered STOP.

Okay. Exiting the place of exposition and world building…

Now.

Fluttershy was exiting the place that was positioned between the outside world and the building she called home. Or she moved through the doorway to leave. One or the other. It didn't matter. Such things didn't bother her. Nothing could possibly bother her today.

Or so she thought. Reaching the pond she heard something most unusual. It came in the form of a very large, and very ugly duckling that said, “Quack.”

“Tehe,” Fluttershy laughed a little at the creature, “you'd certainly have to be quackers to think I'm a gay pony." She paused for a moment, before unintentionally letting some anxiety slip out as she added, "Um, none of you think I’m homosexual in nature, do you?”

She looked around for an answer. Trying to stay strong for her animal friends. But just how could she be tough enough to take care of all the wild animals, if they answered in the affirmative?

“Yessssssss”

“Sorry, I’m not a parseltongue, so I don’t know what you just said Mr Snake-Eyes." She gently reminded the aptly named reptile. Snake Eyes slithered away to play the hit mobile game 'Snake'. Without any hands he had to implement the use of a camera that could track his eye movements, and use that as input for the game.

Snake Eyes the snake got so good at the video game that the body of the virtual serpent could spell out short words. Words like 'YES'. Though one might wonder why the snake would bother as it owned the top place on the game's leader board and could spell out three letter words there.

Fluttershy however did not wonder that particular wonderment. Instead she wondered something troublingly different, which led her to her speaking her thoughts out loud, "Oh I wouldn't want to be a badger about this. It's just that I really couldn't bear the thought of any of my animal friends hating me.”

A bear and a badger looked on with ‘hating a Fluttershy’ levels of offence, as their respective species names were being taken in vain.

But what were they gonna do? Fluttershy owned them, their freedoms, their destinies, their secrets. She was like a little pony version of an unreformed Sunset Shimmer strutting through the high school like it was her kingdom. But Fluttershy's subjects didn't have to learn stuff with their tiny brains. They just had to eat, grow, and depending on whether death is cannon or not for pets, retire to that infamous farm upstate.

So they ate when Fluttershy released their food from her secret storage. And grew when the animators made sizing mistakes in their work. They generally lived in fear of the legends they were told of the farm upstate. It's not a magical place. Don't believe their lies!

Soon enough, though not too soon (never too soon) Fluttershy had completed her jobs for that day. As the number one animal caretaker in Equestria, she was content that her animal friends were loved and cared for to at least an adequate level. But as sure as day follows night, tomorrow would be another day. When that day comes the animal of Ponyville would need her help once more.

That was a day for another day though, so she went all the way back to her cosy little cottage to rest the rest of the current day away. What other option was there? Time traveling forward to tomorrow? No. Nothing fancy like that, she was content to keep it simple.

As per usual, she had gone all over Ponyville to do her job. After all you can't just expect everycritter to come to her. What a naïve thought. What would ponies do if they were led to believe that a saviour of the world was so inconsiderate?

Many of the potential pets she looked after needed subtle, yet important differences in ecosystems to thrive in their little lives. She knew this was an absolute fact because she had read that in a book from Twilight Sparkle's library.

Twilight had tried to read the book aloud to her but Fluttershy hadn't wanted to be a bother. Who knows what might happen as a result of her reading aloud? Even if Twilight had a Tara Stronger voice than most Ponies, the thought of a princess starting to lose her voice was a scary one.

Just before arriving at her own front door Fluttershy began to hear, a little hoarse, little horse voices from inside. She didn't pause and listen in to the conversation though, as there was no reason at all for her to act that way, so the thought simply didn’t enter her mind.

“Yeah well your mum weighs less than a duck,” Fluttershy heard as she gently barged into her own home, which all evidence suggested was still partially full of friends. That was probably Rainbow Dash's voice; filled with her typical anger, but some uncharacteristic tiredness was also audible.

“It’s pronounced ‘mom’ actually, and nopony gets your strange Monty Python quotes!” Yes and that was Twilight Sparkle's voice because Fluttershy looked up in time to see her friend's mouth moving as the words were made. The fact that the wheeze she uttered was still full of lots of arrogance and even more tiredness, was useful in confirming that it wasn't some kind of imposter alicorn. Still, that didn’t rectify the issue at hoof, they were starting to lose their voices. Oh, no no no.

“Nah, it’s totally mum, like as in short for mother,” Rainbow was just being silly now.

Fluttershy made slow work of the short remaining distance between herself and her friends. “Knock knock, er, if that’s okay with you…”

They debating duo looked to her in shock. A Fluttershy, here of all places?

But that shock could not keep their curious minds from commanding their respective voices to both answer at the same time, “Who’s there?"

It was working, Fluttershy thought, she allowed herself a small smile. Not too large as she didn't want to get caught up in the hilarity of her joke. “Interrupting cow,” she said.

“Interrupting cooo ouch!” They both cried out.

She got caught up in the joke.

Suddenly Fluttershy's rage that is usually directed at terrible alicorns was directed at her nearby pony friends.

Fluttershy had no secrets from her friends. except from her big gay one, and her smaller one that was gay too. So naturally they both knew of her random rage time of happiness.

Fluttershy’s rage subsided and she stopped seeing red when she glanced from her purple friend to her blue friend. Her little Dashie was giving her the secret signal for ‘you’re going kinda too far here’. It was a little bit off though, like something dark had been transmitted to dash while she was giving the signal.

Letting her friends drop to the floor didn’t seem to help much, they just kept coughing and gasping for breath for some reason. Concluding that they must have rather parched throats, she left her friends there on the floor and wandered into her kitchen.

Oh, it was an epic journey into the kitchen. She had to punch paiharas, spit at snakes, hug hedgehogs, befriend bats, and love Lunas. It was the stuff of legends, but it was also all wrapped up in nineteen seconds and therefore it got cut for time. Mostly.

Prying herself out from Luna’s dreamy eye contact, Fluttershy started to create some refreshments. The routine of helping her friends stay hydrated brought her mind back to relative comfort. This comfort was shattered when she heard a set of hoofsteps, and accompanied flapping of wings heading in her direction.

There was only one explanation for these noises being paired together. Her oldest friend must be showing off again, in all probability trying to fly upside down while walking on the ceiling. Fluttershy had to admit staying near the ceiling was no picnic.

Unfortunately she could not join her friend as the umbrella she had stolen from Sherry Bobbins, had been stolen by Mary Poppins to complete the cycle. The mere thought had the power to make her cry a single tear of maximum drama.

Rainbow must have been getting light headed from the immense concentration required for her trick, so it was Twilight who comforted her in this, her darkest hour. Twilight teleported over to Fluttershy, or rather she tried. But teleportation is both an artistic form of science and a scientific form art. Therefore, even the most seasoned teleporters, will at one point send a part of their own consciousness into another for exactly twenty seven hours.

So that happened, and for now Fluttershy’s mind is part Twilight Sparkle. While Twilight’s mind is only mostly Twilight’s mind. And Rainbow doesn’t mind at all because she is not involved in this occurrence whatsoever, and she is the pinnacle of not getting involved sometimes (hope you're remembering all these key facts for later).

The Shy and Twi minds were, rather surprisingly, mostly compatible. While Twilight's inner voice had a tendency towards making lists, Fluttershy's inner voice had a tendency towards making lisps. When Fluttershy set her mind truly to something she made it done, when Twilight set her mind truly to it she made dung. Fluttershy was a winged pegasus in tune with nature, Twilight was a winged unicorn freak of nature. Twilight was a mare whose life was full of science, Fluttershy was a mare whose life was full of nonsense.

Twilight had a Rainbow Dash fall into her lap, Fluttershy had a Rainbow Dash fall into a nap. Thankfully it was the same Rainbow. No double rainbow here.

Rainbow Dash made a casual habit of defying the expectations that many would have set on her. This trend began moments after her mother had given birth to her. Dash's immediate response to seeing the world for the first time had been to go "Sup?"

Her parents had thought that it would be all downhill from there. That she would never do anything as cool as that again. But in the weeks to follow she both leant to fly and punched a rainbow in the elbow. The rainbow had been so impressed by this daring move, that it had given her most of the seven colours of the rainbow to her to have as hair. And decided to mostly follow her around when it could. Thus she gained a rainbow trail when the rainbow was in the mood.

There were too many other instances of Dash defying expectations to list. So many in fact that it makes all the times that Rainbow Dash fans on the Internet had to come to her ‘rescue’ and defend her actions in the show, look few in number.

At that moment Rainbow began talking in her sleep, she mumbled, “Tell me a story."

Twilight was shocked by the audacity of the sleeping pegasus. "Well that's rude, not even bothering to say a proper 'thank you'."

Rainbow just repeated herself. "Tell me a story."

"Um Twilight don't you mean please?"

"Tell me a story." The mumbling once more occurred.

"Fluttershy, I think that as the princess of politeness I can accurately judge the necessar-"

"Tell me a story."

The interruption was the last straw for Twilight. Sure they had tried to obliterate each other with their STOP, which had lasted most of the day. But they were both largely immune to obliteration, so the squabbling only ever left them a little tired.

Twilight decided she hated Rainbow. Now with her foe weakened, asleep, now she could strike. Hehe, just like catching a Pokémon.

But rather than throw a Poké ball, she was about to throw-down.

Seeing Fluttershy look at her sceptically gave her pause. Did Fluttershy not think that she could do this. Well time to murder two pegasi with one blast (metaphorically speaking). She would defeat Rainbow in single combat, and show Fluttershy just how impressive she could be.

Focusing on the most happy memory she could recall at the moment. The satisfaction of being able to overcome her fear of snakes enough to play three whole seconds of the hit mobile game 'Snake'. The power went to her horn, given it a visible wavy aura.

Fluttershy interrupted the process, holding out a hoof she said, "I think those are the only words she knows how to sleep talk." Fluttershy looked at Rainbow, who was indeed asleep. "Do you know any stories Twilight?"

Did Twilight know any stories?

As the resident Twilight Sparkle expert, Twilight spoke up to answer, "I have been known to read from time to time."

"Hello, we read like all the time, it's how we get ponies to do what we want!" Shy said to complete the well cultured reference.

"Oh, well in that case how about a love story called 'Blimey Bloody or Choice'."

(The complete 'Blimey Bloody or Choice' story parody could not be included in this fic as the story parody has yet to be created.)

Twilight wound down her story with a brief, improvised operatic performance. This concluded with an exhausted bow from the alicorn who sat and stared at Fluttershy.

And there she stayed motionless, waiting for her friend's response.

For her part Fluttershy put on her pony analysis face and said, "Well that was certainly an, erm, interesting take on a romantic story."

The strained attempt to not insult her friend was not lost to Twilight. "The lack of any real romance, was just such a very bold choice," Shy concluded.

"Ah, but you see it was never described as 'romantic'. I in fact, called it a love story," Twilight said triumphantly. "Check the story's description if you don't believe me."

"Oh, do you mean the short description or long?" Fluttershy asked. "Because I only ever take note of one of the two."

"Yeah, same for me. Who would read basically the same thing multiple times?"

Fluttershy retrieved her limited edition Poké flute, from her bag of more than one item. With the intention of waking up Rainbow though musical intervention.

So play she did, until her purple friend spoke up uninvited.

"Hey you're really good at that"

Fluttershy paused to give the flute a critical look over, and said, "Well, it's no tambourine but I make do."

Her intense snores relaxed in volume before they ceased entirely. Then slowly awaked the Rainbow Dash from her slumber as she mumbled, "Wartortle, Mew, Tentacruel, Aerodactyl!"

There was a pause as Dash stretched as though stretching was her main superpower. All the while her two friends look at her with stunned expressions.

"Arrg, don't tell men I ended up singing the Pokerap, just as I woke up, again?"

"Well actually, you forgot to say the 'Two' in 'Mew Two'." Twilight nerderly countered. "Now go back and do it again."

"Yeah I dunno why I glitch like that and start MissingNo. Such is life, I guess?" Rainbow looked around, eyes resting on the large kitchen clock on the wall. "Anyway I'm beat from a long hard day's rest, gotta head home and sleep the laziness off."

"Well looks like it's just you and me." Twilight nervously spoke.

"Actually it's just me and me," said Fluttershy, as a subtle reminder that part of Twilight's mind was in Fluttershy's mind.

Twilight didn't seem to get the hint and certainly didn't remember the teleportational mishap. She had put a magical chip in her brain to near-instantly forget her own mistakes. Like a more narcissism inducing version of Cortana from Halo.

Well one problem at a time. Fluttershy looked up to make direct eye contact with her alicorn friend. Only to find no one there. There was nopony in view as she looked around her perfectly organised and rusticly charming home. Looking out the window she could see a sunset. Just one. No double sun power here.

Well it would seem that Fluttershy had spent so much time thinking, that time itself had gotten away from her.

Coming to think of it was time still getting away from her.

As she rushed up the stairs to her bed, it was completely dark. As she wrapped herself in her blanket, the moon was at its peak in the night sky. As she closed her eyes waiting for the dream realm, the first rays of sunlight were lighting up the cottage.

Getting up from bed, Fluttershy was perplexed by this latest oddness. But before she wrote it down in her oddness, morning diary (the one which she knew that Discord read for inspiration) she had to brush her mane.

As the brushy brush brushed away brushily, Fluttershy tried to make eye contact with her reflection in the small mirror in front of her. This remained as difficult a task as ever, seeing that the mirror shy was naturally her opposite. This meant that the non-reflection Shy didn’t have a lazy eye half open, so the actual reflection Shy did in fact have one.

Fluttershy idly wondered what mirror world was like on the whole, and whether it would be easier to ask Discord or Twilight to plan a trip there. They were both good friends. Such nice creatures, she was so lucky to have so many wonderfully good friends in her life.even if she was a, if she w-was.

The lazy eyes half open eye of Shy suddenly wasn’t crying. Meaning non-reflection shy was.

They would all hate her. Hate her. They could even get together and plan to take away her animal friends! Take her cottage. Take her job. Take back all Rarity’s dresses she had a collection of.

But it wasn't all bad. After all, no matter what everypony took from thee thou cannot taketh thine dignityyyyyyyyy. Yeah she was the second most dignified pony ever, she thought while crying into her hair filled brush.

Her hair was falling out, like how her friend's would all fallout due to her gayness confession.

Oh, what a world.

Author's Note

"Not enough blatant video game references; LOL!"

-Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi_Brony, upon reading this fic.

2 Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

It wasn’t like Fluttershy to stay in bed all day. This was because she wasn’t crippled to the point of being bed bound. However she did have near crippling anxiety, which was strong with her today. Strong indeed, her midichlo-run-away-from-problems count was so high. Higher than her friend Treehugger; that one time she stood on a skyscraper to pose as Batmare.

And definitely higher than the black and red, male alicorn who was circling above the cottage, quite like a vulture. She could not see him though, as her eyes were closed, and she had no cottage skylight, and he was an invisible shade of black and red.

Not knowing that he wasn’t at all visible didn’t stop him from trying to teach the world about himself, so he started by saying, “My tragic backstory is tha-”

“I’m not in the mood!!” Fluttershy interruption-yelled, not at all concerned for the alicorn's feelings. She knew that he had no place here anyway, so he didn’t matter.

The yelling had strained her vocal cords, which hurt her, but at least she was definitely awake now. And her first act of the day had been to vanquish a petty foe. Now if only she could vanquish her own fears.

She was afraid of her today, and her tomorrow. It was all because of her yesterday. Oh yesterday, yesterday she had in her usual fashion beaten the sun to rise. That one small victory had carried her through most of the day, right up to the point of realising that her nerdy friend had been listening in at just the wrong moment. Right now Twilight Sparkle was probably preparing for war with her, and it was all Fluttershy’s fault.

But never mind blame now, let her come, Fluttershy had hamster grenades, and a sub-machine gummy. Why she was practically unstoppable. Yeah, she should in fact take the fight to Twilight. Right after she finished her daily chores that she had to do to get her golden sticker. Twilight would be so jealous of her immense sticker collection for being good, yes jealous to the point that she would just die.

“Hello!” A voice shouted, from right next to her. Shy hid under her blanket. Wait, what was she doing in bed still, oh that’s right she had only thought of getting up. She had to actually move herself to move herself.

“Rainbow Dash, I’m naked in bed right now! Have you no shame?”

Rainbow Dash proceeded to close her eyes and lift Shy out of her bed, and onto her floor. “Er sorry, better now?”

Now that she was naked and out of her bed of course things were better, but rather than lecture her best friend on pony decency, Fluttershy just said a small, “Yes.” She was tired and had a lot to do today. As much as she enjoyed looking after her animal friends it was no easy thing to do, even when she felt at her best, and she felt far from her best right now.

There was one thing that Shy wanted to clear up with Rainbow now that she had had the time to think. “Do you think Twilight Sparkle is a dirty rotten liar?” She gently inquired to her friend who was flying down the stairs to the main room, while Shy herself simply walked down them.

“What? Liar? I don’t know any liars. And I’m not a liar. Why would you ask me something about liars?”

Had Fluttershy not deduced yesterday that Rainbow was lying to her when recounting the ‘friendly chat’ she had had with Twilight yesterday, then this would have been the great moment of realisation. As it was, Fluttershy just frowned. There had of course been no friendly chat, because the alicorn had simply forgone being a dirty rotten liar, instead favouring the truth. The truth must have been that she hated ponies like Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t even like Fluttershy, but the hole burn into her wing must have been from Twilight, a punishment for still caring for a pony like herself. Now with a damaged wing, Dash would never join the Wonderbolts. A crushed dream, much like the dream of Shy’s crush for Rarity developing into a mutual crush was now a crushed crush of a dream crush.

There was only one thing for it. They both needed to swap dreams. So Fluttershy stared deeply into Rainbow Dash’s eyes with resolution that surprised all the animals present and said, “You need to hit on Rarity.”

Rainbow had been shaking slightly before with silent terror from the thought of her liar nature being revealed. Now she was violently shaking with loud terror in her voice as she spoke, “What? But she might think that I’m a lesbian! There is nothing more terrifying than ponies thinking you’re a lesbian, especially if you happen to be straight like me.”

“How do you think I feel?” Fluttershy asked, her resolve slipping away. “I’m gonna have to join the Wonderbolts if we are going to swap dreams properly.”

“But Fluttershy, you’re afraid of heights!” Dash said, in alarm.

The yellow mare whimpered. “Then I will just have to ask them to keep it very close to the ground.”

“But Fluttershy, you’re afraid of speed!” Dash said, in a bit less of an alarmed voice.

The butter pony whimpered harder. “Then I will just have to ask them to keep it very close to motionless.”

“But Fluttershy they’re called the Wonderbolts, not the Walkabouts.”

They both tried looking away from each other, but soon they could not resist a glance. They resumed eye contact, and at the sight of each other trying to hold in their respective giggles with ridiculous expressions aplenty, they both burst out into pure laughter.

The laughter lasted so long that Rainbow Dash got tired, and tried to sneak in a nap when she thought Fluttershy wasn’t looking. Fluttershy didn’t know how her oldest friend thought she could fool the ‘Stare Master’ herself. She also didn’t know how a nap from the only other pony she had to talk to would go amiss under any circumstances. Well unless she was doing her boring aerial stunts, which would in all likelihood put the watcher to sleep. At which point the performer could just sleep at the same time.

When the laughter started to subside, after way too many minutes of it, there was another sound easily heard. It was the sound of multiple voices shouting out the word ’Nerd!’. Fluttershy connected this occurrence with the similar one yesterday, it had happened a short while before Twilight Sparkle tried to visit with lunch. While Shy swiftly figured out what this meant, she wasn’t able to communicate this latest concern to the other pegasus before there was a single knock at the door.

Apparently Dash didn’t think it rude to open the front door of a house that was not her own, because that’s exactly what she did. “Heck yeah, Twilight Sparkle’s here,” Rainbow said in an overly casual tone, “let's have a ‘friendly chat’ just like yesterday.”

“Yes I remember it well,” Twilight responded, “and just like you mentioned back then, there is no rain today. So I suppose there won’t be any rain at any point in the entire future of this world either.”

“What are you talking about Twilight I never implied any of that while I broke into your castle, took a child hostage, and shout-argued with you, and that all happened less than twenty four hours ago.”

There was a brief pause. Then Rainbow said, “I take back what i just said, we both just had a friendly cha-”

“Rainbow,” sighed Fluttershy, “what have I told you about committing various crimes when you try to help me out?”

“That I should only do the stuff I can get away with,” Dash said, as if it was the hundredth time doing so.

“Exactly if you cannot do the time, don’t do the crime," Fluttershy practically sang, “And Twilight what is the time?”

“Um, lunch?” The princess responded, with hope in her eyes.

“Okay then,” Fluttershy said with a note of confusion, “you two eat, and I’ll tend to the animals.”

Twilight excitedly rushed towards the kitchen, unknown to anypony present something was passed from herself to Fluttershy. Something dark. Something that went with the shy pony when she left her cottage to greet her tiny friends.

“Yay sandwich time!” Twilight shouted, unaware that something had been lifted from her.

“Twilight, you do know how to make food that isn’t between two slices of bread, don’t you?”

The alicorn thought hard, but only for a moment then resigned herself to a quiet utterance of, “No.”

The blue pegasus sighed at her friend’s failure. “With that kind of spirit you will never become an omelettehead, you simple egghead.”

“Will you teach me the ways of non-sandwich making?”

“You must first, unlearn that which you have learnt,” Dash replied sagely.

“Aw, but I don’t wanna!” Twi replied most unsagely.

“Then this chapter of your life is over.” Rainbow said with a wink to nopony in particular.