Fluttertype

“Girls girls girls!!!” Rainbow Dash slurred, teetered, hiccuped, and slurred some more. While everyone stepped evenly out of the dining establishment under moonlight, her path was a certifiably serpentine one, anchored only by the steadying hands of Rarity and Fluttershy on either side of her. “Heeeeee hee hee hee!” She waved towards the heavens. “Tall girls!” She gestured towards the stars. “Muscular girls!” She kicked at the parking lot asphalt. “Even prissy girly girls!” She turned her head with a flash of spectral hair and growled in the direction of her other friends. “Ya hear that, Timber?! Sunset?! Y'all got some competition! Hic! So help me Goddessssss—!”

“Is...” Twilight Sparkle stepped evenly with Timber Spruce towards where their SUV was parked. “...is she talking about m—?”

“Nah. Just an incredibly pink simulation.” Timber Spruce waved over his partner's violet head. “Good luck with her, girls! Maybe make a coffee stop or two along the way home!”

“We should make it that far...” Rarity grunted, trying to keep Rainbow steady as she, Fluttershy, and Starlight approached where the fashionista's luxury town-car was parked. “Oh—my stars and garters—why do we always encourage her?? Such a small, petite frame! She should really stick to those family-friendly sports drinks.”

“Hell yeah—I'm a bite-sized subatomic clam-eater zooming straight out of Jodie Foster's Particle Accelerator at the speed of clitorises!” Rainbow Dash wheezed and whooped. “You want disaster lesbians?! Well—HIC!—I'm the Goddess-damn Fukushima meltdown of scissor conventions! Want your carpet cleaned overnight?! Just slap some t.A.T.u. on the radio and pull my string and I'll be all done before you can scream the complete works of Sappho! Hah!”

“Everything you just said was completely plebeian and offensive,” Rarity muttered. There trailed a tiny smile. “I can't wait to recount it all to Ms. Pommel on Monday.”

“Uhm...” Starlight Glimmer fidgeted in mid-step. “...is Rainbow Dash going to be okay?”

“Ohhhhhhh, she's harmless~” Fluttershy managed a motherly smile while gently guiding Rainbow towards their car. “We just need to get her home to a warm shower and bed.”

“Maybe she should be the one sleeping on the couch,” Starlight said with a nervous smile. “It's a lot closer to the toilet.”

“Don't be a sssssssilly pony, Starscream!” Rainbow stuck her tongue out at their Equestrian guest while Fluttershy fumbled with the rear passenger door. “Hic! If our bathroom was as far away as Pluto, you bet I could still run towards it! Twenty seconds flaccid! Hic!” She squinted at Rarity. “That's the meme, r-right...?”

“Only a decade behind, darling.” Rarity huffed, looking at the woman wrestling with her. “Fluttershy, when you're quite done—”

“Absolutely, Rarity.” Fluttershy finally succeeded in situating Rainbow in the backseat and closing the door. “Uhm... Starlight, if you wouldn't mind—”

Their guest was already opening her side of the rear seat. “Strapping her in with that flat rope thingy?”

“It's called a 'seat-belt,' and yes.” Rarity sighed, smiling guiltily at Fluttershy. “I'm afraid I've had too much wine.” She teetered slightly. “Otherwise I would gladly—”

“That's quite fine, Rarity.” Fluttershy threw back a gentle smile, walking around to the front left side of the car. “I agreed to be the designated driver long before Starlight even joined us.”

“You'rrrrrre always designateddddd, Ffffffootershyyyyy...” Rainbow could be heard slurring as Starlight slunk into the seat beside her. The Equestrian visitor reached in with fumbling human hands, strapping the safety belt around Rainbow as the sloshed athlete continued to ramble, gesticulating wildly. “Designated by nature with big... gargantuan... massssssssssssive...” Rainbow was massaging two empty spheres in the space of the car before her, but she quit halfway to smirk aside at the person buckling her in place. “Did anybody ever tell you that if she did a handstand, she'd poke her own eyes out?”

“Wowsers...” Starlight couldn't help but smirk. “What I wouldn't give for one of those human doom slabs that can capture things.”

“A phone? You're better off, dear pony friend.” Rarity paused before entering the car to wave fabulously at the rest of the splitting group. “So long, Applejack! Pinkie Pie! Sunset, Twilight, and the rest!”

“I'm the rest!” Timber Spruce could be heard shouting back across the parking lot.

“I'm so long!” Flash Sentry, as well.

“Dang you!” Sunset's voice echoed, swallowed by a heavy swatting sound.

“Hahah! Careful! You'll throw the bike off balance!”

“Good night, Rarity! Fluttershy! Rainbow Dash!”

“So long, y'all!”

“Heehee! See ya tomorrow, Starlight! We're gonna have loads of fun!”

“Y-yeah! I can't wait!” Once Starlight shut the door, she turned towards the driver's seats as she buckled herself up. “So... uhm... how are Applejack and Pinkie Pie getting home?”

“Mr. Spruce is driving them~” Rarity explained, taking a moment to nonchalantly examine herself in a mirror. “He and Flash didn't have a single nip.”

“Huh...” Starlight blinked. “I haven't noticed.”

“Isn't that just so sweet of them...?” Fluttershy got into the driver's seat and spent a good century adjusting the mirrors and a/c dials, smiling calmly the entire time. “I swear. Sunset and Twilight have found such good... kind men in their lives~”

“Yyyyyyyyou know what Flash's type is??” Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out. “Princessesssss! Prissy prissy pony princessesssss!” She awkwardly fumbled before finally rolling a sliver of the window down and hollering in the direction of a dual-passenger bike. “Youuuuuuuuuuu dig a ponnnnnnnnnnny!”

“Now Rainbow...” Fluttershy closed the window up remotely. “No need to tell the entire city....”

“Well, I'll have none of that smorgasboredom, thank you very muchly!” Rainbow Dash slurred, teetering in her seat until she was resting—slumped—against Starlight's right side. “Gimme a buffet! A buffet of babes!”

“Yes, Rainbow, so we know—” Rarity droned without looking as Fluttershy drove the vehicle slowly out of the restaurant parking lot.

“I mean... babilicious babes! Women! Of the female variety! And vag! That last part is kind of important!” Rainbow lifted a finger, then two, then tried to place her tongue between them but ended up licking the upholstery of Rarity's backseat instead. “Mrmfff...” She shook the cobwebs of the light impact loose. “...yeah. I don't care if the carpet's thick neither! You can plug me right in and vrmmmmmmmm me straight through that shiet! Hah!”

Rarity sighed, then looked back at Starlight with an apologetic gaze. “I am terribly sorry. Can you manage...?”

“Absolutely!” Starlight smiled perkily as Rainbow's shoulder kept bumping into her. “I find this quite educational! If not borderline insensitive!”

“You just described this country's school system in a nutshell.”

“Education! LULZ!” Rainbow waggled a finger towards the headlights sweeping across the vehicle's interior. “Remember Assssssistant-Principal Luna...! Goddess damn did those blue legs of hers go all the way up!” Her cheeks turned rosy as she smiled with horny nostalgia. “And she always held her hands on her hips—y'know—like she was always squaring off at high noon with them weapons!”

“Heaven's silk~” Rarity cursed.

Fluttershy giggled as she turned carefully onto a straightaway.

“I wonder—hic—what that gorgeous... gorgeous woman is doing these days?”

“Not you, that's for certain~” Rarity said.

“Rarity...” Fluttershy calmly chided.

“All the best ones...” Rainbow blinked wearily, her drunken smile turning upside down. “All the best ones are the ones I just... I just can't, y'know? Take Sunset, for example...”

Starlight glanced aside. “Uh huh...?”

“Smokin' hot, right? Like... really smokin' hot... especially in that spikey leather punk getup she always squeezes into. But. Nope.” Rainbow dramatically shook her head. “Can't. Just can't. She's a friend. That's like... next door neighbor's sister times one hundred. Total Ew City... can't betray that...”

“Uh huh...”

“But is there any reward for my loyalty? Noooooo ma'am. Not in this awesome asskicker's life! Hic! You know Spitfire? Sun Goddess Incarnate, walking among us mortals?”

“Maybe...?”

“Well, she's my boss. Head Coach of the soccer team. Hot as hotness could ever get. And I still can't. I just can't.” Rainbow sniffed, snorted, sighed. “Loyalty saves. But it also kills. Y'know?”

“Funny—in Equestria, Spitfire's the leader of a flight team.”

“Cool. Does she still look good in spandex?”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh—”

“Star-Star-Star-Star...” Rainbow rested a hand on the guest's shoulder and leaned forward, the alcohol in her breath pungent as ever. “Lemme level with you. Sister to sister. I mean—you are a woman on at least one side of the mirror, right?”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Last time I checked.”

“Mmmmmm-take this to heart.” Rainbow gulped, gestured in the air, and took more than a few seconds to catch what she was aiming for. “When your tyyyyyype is someone bigger than you...” A sad sigh, sideways and sullen. “...all you ever do is feel smaller.”

“Don't say that, Rainbow...” Fluttershy's voice warmly wafted back as the driver took them gently into a subdivision. “The sea isn't quite that enormous. One of these days, Miss Perfect is going to find you. And then you won't have to feel like you're searching anymore.”

“Well put, Fluttershy,” Rarity said with a contented smile.

Rainbow Dash blinked wearily at the driver's seat. Then—without removing her eyes—she leaned casually into Starlight. Her next breath was just audible enough for the two rear passengers to hear: “You wanna know a secret...?”

“Do I have a choice?” Starlight asked.

“She and I...?” Rainbow's mouth hung open, as if undecided over laughing or sobbing. What came next was neutral at best: “...we were once an item.”

Starlight blinked. Hard. She looked at the front of the vehicle, then back towards Rainbow. She leaned in. “You and Fluttershy...?”

“Mmmmmhmmmmm,” Rainbow produced quietly, squeakily, through her nostrils.

Starlight toyed with a lock of her own hair, contemplatively. “I mean...” Clearing her throat, she brought her voice down low again: “I mean I guess I could see it...”

“She likes 'em small,” Rainbow confided, breathily, squinting at the distant driver's seat like it was a sniper's nest and she had to remain as low as her tone. “Small and dainty. Delicate. Needy.”

Starlight gulped. The bumps in the road were considerably more pronounced now, or so she told herself. “I see...”

“But it was not meant to be. So... like Sunset and Twi—Flutters and I just remained friends.”

Starlight looked at her slowly sobering companion. “What about it all failed?”

Rainbow winced visibly.

Starlight corrected herself: “What about it didn't work?”

“Mmmmmm...” Rainbow brandished a bittersweet smile. “...in the end... I just wasn't her type. And—honestly—she wasn't mine.” A fragrant exhale, and her eyelids fell, heavy and defeated. “And that's cool and all. We're still there for each other. But... it sucks, y'know? Cuz every other mountain I've spotted since just seems...” A long yawn, a sigh, and she cozied sleepily against Starlight. “... … … lame.”

“... … …” Starlight gazed at Rainbow, then past her, at the cosmic tide of lights swishing past the window, like so many lost opportunities spotted on the knifepoint fringes of a dirty mirror, neither this side or that. Then suddenly—those specks of light froze, and she was startled by Fluttershy's voice singing from the front:

“~We're home~”

“!!!” Starlight shot up in her seat, fumbling against the meager weight of the inebriated athlete against her. “Uhm... I-I think she's truly conk'd out...”

“It's for the best, honestly.” Rarity stepped out of the car first. “Do be a dear and unbuckle her so that I can—”

“No need, Rarity.” Fluttershy—already exited—swept in place of her. “I've got her~”

“Well, if you insist.”

“Insist—?” Starlight blinked in awe as Fluttershy opened the door and effortlessly swept Rainbow's body up in her arms. Her jaw dropped as she watched the tall woman bridal-carrying her friend towards the front entrance of their suburban townhouse. “Oh. Oh wow.”

“I know, right?” Rarity chuckled, politely helping Starlight out of the vehicle and locking it shut behind them. “I've seen her carrying Great Danes to and from the Animal Shelter with twice as much grace.”

“I'll pretend to know what that last sentence means,” Starlight said, her eyes glued on the wholesome procession.

“If you can walk on your own for a moment,” Rarity said, patting Starlight's shoulder before rushing ahead towards the front door, fumbling through her purse for the house keys. “I'll get the door for you both.”

“Thanks, Rarity.”

“Mmmrmmmffff...” Rainbow curled tighter into Fluttershy's towering embrace. “...Fl... Flutters...?”

“Yes, sweetie. I'm here~”

“Grmmfff...” Tiny tiny tears beaded in Rainbow's shut eyes as she clung to her friend's torso. “I'mmmmm sorry that I said that you have big tits earlier...”

“Hmmmm...” Fluttershy chuckled breathily. “It's quite alright, Rainbow. So long as one of us is sorry for them~”

“Viola!” Rarity opened the door triumphantly, gesturing with fabulous flair. “Our palace awaits!” She winked from Fluttershy to Rainbow to Starlight. “You too, Miss Glimmer. Our esteemed guest most assuredly deserves a comfortable nightcap.”

“Thanks a lot...” Starlight stepped after the rest, making herself at home in the front foyer. “Really. This is super kind of you.”

“Well, the three of us ladies have managed well enough rooming together, so it's only fitting we invite one more—if even just for a week of vacationing away from Equestria.” Rarity closed the door and locked it behind them. “It's no penthouse in Manehattan—but I haven't quite earned that yet, have I?”

“All in due time.” Starlight stood in place, smiling at Rarity.

Rarity, meanwhile, cleared her throat and pointed at the phalanx of loose shoes resting on the tile floor.

“Huh? Oh!” Starlight snapped out of her tipsiness and slowly kicked her shoes off. “Sorry. It just... takes forever getting used to having to put them on and off so much...!”

“Among other things...” Rarity droned. Then—with noticeably oafish “grace”—she stuck both hands underneath the back of her blouse. After three seconds, she magically removed her bra through the sleeve of one shirt, tossed her hair loose, and sauntered sloppily for the kitchen with an open-mouthed yawn. “Muaaaaaah... oh what I wouldn't kill for some ice cream right about now!”

“Oh Rarity—don't have too much!” Fluttershy could be heard calling from the other side of the living room. She could be seen fumbling to open the door with a snoozing Rainbow Dash curled up in her arms. “We both know that alcohol and sweets don't mix well for you!”

“I'll be chaste, darling~”

“We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow! It'd be a shame to be up late having indigestion nightmares!”

“I would be if it was Applejack spending the night with us and not Starlight! Stars and garters! Did you see the flannel she was wearing at tonight's dinner?”

“Oh Rarity—don't you start—”

“Smelled like she came right off the farm!” Rarity paused in the middle of the kitchen, sniffing herself audibly. “Good heavens... speaking of...” She called back across the house. “I'm taking a shower, darlings! Warning in advance if you intend to use some of the hot water!”

“Understood!” Fluttershy called back from Rainbow's room. “There you go, sweetie. Got your Daring Do plushie! Heehee! Isn't it just great to be back home...?”

Starlight Glimmer—in the meantime—made a beeline for the living room's couch. There, two separate bags full of things were gathered: most of them artifacts from Equestria that somehow survived the transfer through the mirror in one piece. It always amazed her how some things—like people, dragons, canines, ponies—could experience dramatic metamorphoses when making the trip between dimensions. Meanwhile, ordinary household items and tools of both hoof-and-hand would remain completely unaffected.

And then clothes—some of them would just appear out of nowhere. Starlight couldn't pretend to guess what unspoken rules of the universe were at work that decided this... metaphysical fashion for ponies who became ponies at a mirror's jump. There was so much about this side of the portal that remained unknown.

But this trip wasn't about figuring all this out. This was something arranged by both Sunset Shimmer and Princess Twilight. The School of Friendship's chief Headmistress was experiencing a lot of undue stress, and it was high time that she took a vacation to relax, chill, and commiserate with friends—or at least the bipedal friends of friends. Truth be told, many of these people—Sunset included—were trusted acquaintances at best. But perhaps that was a good thing. Starlight felt a different kind of relaxation around these young adults. She didn't feel constantly on guard to measure her spoken words as she did with her equine familiars back home. And without a minefield of eggshells to trot upon, it was open season for asking much more contemplative and provocative questions.

Like the ones she posed tonight—with more than a touch of inebriation. Had she gone a bit too far? She had witnessed Rainbow Dash well beyond her limit, and yet the young woman's friends were completely and totally accepting of it all. Perhaps—even in hoofing the line... or toeing it in this case—there wasn't as much risk to be had as Starlight feared. Spending years acting as a guidance counselor for prospective paragons of friendship back in Equestria had made Starlight a little too careful, and she was wondering if—perhaps—she had forgotten what it meant to be a bit more loose... more wild... more daring.

And open.

But—then again—she had left Trixie in charge of the school back home. What was more daring than that?

Starlight Glimmer chuckled to herself. She leaned over to prepare a makeshift bed on the couch when—

—that heavenly coo alighted her ears once again.

“Uhm... Starlight Glimmer...?”

“!!!” Teetering a bit, Starlight spun around and looked up... and up and up...

...into Fluttershy's eyes. It was only when the two were so physically close that Starlight realized just how tall the woman had grown in these past few years since that one adventure battling the metamorphosed form of Juniper Montage. Once again, those bumps resounded, but they had long exited the vehicle. Fluttershy's eyes were turquoise moons crashing through the atmosphere, and yet a tender softness cushioned the air between them as she said in a wispy and wispier tone:

“Did you still wish to know...?” Fluttershy said. Fluttershy bit her lip. Fluttershy's arms dangled at her side, hands clenching and unclenching.

Starlight absorbed each and every detail. She saw Rainbow's bedroom door in the background resting slightly cracked to allow in a sliver of light. She heard Rarity's shower starting in the distance. Right then, it was just her, Fluttershy, and the increasing pulse between them.

She challenged fates, stupidly: “Wish to know what?”

“Mmmmm...” Fluttershy glanced in the direction of Rarity's shower—or more appropriately the empty space between. She looked back at Starlight, speaking just above a meager whisper: “What my 'type' is...?”

Starlight gulped, nodded. “Absolutely.”

Fluttershy let loose a strong exhale. Relief? Weight? Entropy? She held a hand up—secretly between them—and motioned for Starlight to follow her.

And follow her, Starlight did, across the house and around a hallway corner... until they were both tucked safely away inside Fluttershy's room...

...with the door shut tightly behind.