“I don’t know, Pinkie; it just strikes me as odd.”

Your increasingly frustrating search for Fluttershy had somehow led to an unlikely pony to vent towards.

”Dunno what to tell ya, Nonny: I haven’t seen Fluttershy even in passing these past few days.” Pinkie ruminates on that for a moment before giggling, ”hehe, that sounds funny, doesn’t it? ‘Passing these past few days.’ “

Though, if anyone would be keeping tabs on her friend’s whereabouts, consciously or not, it’d probably be Pinkie.

“I just think… I don’t know. Maybe something happened to her? An accident? It’s not like her to skip out on visiting.”

Pinkie throws her forelegs crossed onto your table, innocently peering up into your eyes.

”Sounds like you miss her.”

You sigh.

“Behavioral conditioning via artificial regime is a bitch, I guess.”

”I think they call that Stockholm Syndrome, Nonners.”

You raise an eyebrow. “They call it that here too?”

Pinkie cocks her head in return. ”Call what it?”

This is no hill to die on, Anon.

Thankfully, you’re no stranger when it comes to going with the flow. That might be why doing all this wild goose chasing feels doubly bothersome. As much as you don’t want to admit it, this whole process is a lot more enjoyable when Flutters is doing the chasing.

Er, easier.

You recline back on your haystack stool, leaning your body out from under the umbrella of the Sugarcube Corner’s outdoor seating. The spot seemed utterly slammed today, and with Pinkie on break, the line began to funnel out from the building. “Agh– you’re right Pinkie, I’ve been marching to and fro across town all day today. She’ll come when she comes.”

Pinke giggles. ”That sounds kinda funny too. ‘Come when she comes.’ “

Eh, about what you expected from Pinkie. She’s either no help at all, or somehow nets you exactly what you needed all along. Seems the former today, but good company all the same.

”Honestly, I’d expect you out of anypony to know where Fluttershy might be at any given time, Nonny.”

“Just because we’re always together doesn’t mean it’s by choice.”

Your tablemate rubs her foreleg, a pantomime of being taken aback. ”Yeesh, that’s harsh, ‘Nons.”

A frown worms its way onto your face; but before you can get on damage control and reassure Pinkie that you didn’t mean it that way–

”Pinkieee!” Mrs. Cake’s whine carries across the crowd overflowing out from the bakery’s door. ”C-can you get back in here? This lunch rush is never-ending and the line is spilling out into the street! We could really use you in the kitchen!”

For better or for worse, your conversation is cut there.

You send a coy smirk Pinkie’s way as she scrambles to revert from break-mode back into working order. ”S-sorry Nonny! Duty calls; but good luck on finding Fluttershy!” At that, Pinkie zips away, disappearing into the increasingly-irritated crowd of murmurs piling up outside Sugarcube Corner, leaving you once again alone with your thoughts.

Not for long, though.

”Is this seat occupied?”

“No. You’re welcome to sit.”

”Ah, I appreciate it, sir.”

You answer on autopilot, still lost in your own head with your eyes shut. While the waiting ponies continue to stack around you, steadily filling the air with idle conversation amongst one another as they wait, your two-person table keeps an aura of silence for a minute or so.

”... Not many seats open out here, is this place always so congested?”

“By this hour? Shouldn’t be. Everyone got a late lunch, I suppose.”

Your new company mumbles under his breath. Maybe he was lost in his own thoughts too. ”I-I hope I’m not bothering you, I just thought I’d heard somepony’s name, then I saw the open seat. Been traveling all day, you see.”

Seemed this guy wanted to chat, so you crack open your eyes and properly engage yourself back to the table. Not everyday you see a pony with a mustache. “Just looking for somewhere to collect yourself then? This spot’s hardly the place to do it, what with the crowd. You new to Ponyville?”

The stallion fiddles with his hooves, dodging your eyes. ... Yeesh, was that the wrong thing to say? Maybe Pinkie was right: You are too harsh.

”Y-you could say that, yes. It’s not very often I leave Cloudsdale. I work in the Weather Factory, you see.”

Well, it’s been clear thus far that you weren’t going to be making any headway into finding Fluttershy.

... Not like it’s even a pressing matter anyway. You were just curious why she hadn’t shown up the past few days. There really isn’t much reason to be so focused on it, come to think of it. You’d just been without anything else to do this weekend.

Right?

Better to spend your time with a potential new friend than loitering outside Sugarcube Corner, getting nothing done. Surely you’d send Twilight through the roof with the news too, if you manage to not blow this. God knows you need more guy friends too.

“Well… hey,” you put a hand on the table, pointing a thumb toward the nearby park with the other. “There’s a much better spot to relax around here. Plenty of foliage too, if you’re into that kinda shi- stuff. I can show you there, if you’d like.”

Your new companion lights up, his wings even fluttering slightly at the news. ”Really? Oh– w-well, sure! Admittedly, this was the first place to sit I saw when I was flying down here, but the noise is a bit much. A park sounds like a much better alternative.”

You simply nod, stretching as you take your stand. "Follow along, then. Can even give a bit of a tour as we go too. Name’s Anon.”

Surprise briefly flashes across the stallion’s face, but it’s gone before you can really wonder why.

”G-Gentle Breeze, pleasure to meet you.”

Gentle Breeze, as you’d come to discover, carried with him a fiery passion; along with a mental library worth of knowledge regarding said passion. All it took was one idle comment about the weather to break the ice. A new stallion entirely burst forth beside you, commenting on the current cloud formations overhead as though it was self-evident as to why they’d been placed where they were. Not that he was condescending, far from it, but instead his ease of articulating such foreign concepts to your still-adjusting earthly mind spoke to his excess knowledge. You spend much of your walk through Ponyville merely listening, genuine interest spurned up from Breeze's eloquence alone.

”... A-and, I mean, it’s just so relieving to know the Factory is going to be in good hooves. I could’ve retired years ago, you see, but I’ve been putting it off. I tried telling myself it was for the sake of ensuring the greenwings would have all the skills needed for cloud management and tracking; but these days the youngsters are so adept that I’m having trouble keeping up with them! Ahah… It’s a bit melancholic, but I suppose it’s no different than what everypony else goes through at this age.”

With good conversation, you find that your initial offer of Ponyville sightseeing had taken a back seat to Gentle Breeze’s explanations, not that you minded at all. A bench overlooking the fields where foals played made for a much better place to chat.

“Ah, a born-workaholic. Couldn’t be me. Is it the love of the job that keeps you around?”

Breeze shakes his head. ”No, well, yes– but there’s more to it than that. So much of it is in the camaraderie: The likeminds with the same passion and goal as yourself, right? I love my family to pieces, and my Posey has her favorite clouds that she’ll go gaga over– but I’d bore her to death if I ever tried discussing the nuance of wind patterns and the dominoes the Weather Team needs to set in place to ensure a specific cloud formation needs to get from it’s starting placement to it’s objective finish for busting.” He laughs to himself, pantomiming a sweaty brow in his delightfully reserved manner. ”Celestia knows Zephyr wouldn’t hear of it either– he’s my colt, you see. The only pony who could at least stomach my ramblings is Fluttershy, and that’s just because she’s so darn passionate herself. If you think I’m driven, hooh, you should see that filly during the bunny census.”

Fluttershy?

That personal little buzzword of yours nearly made you zone out from the conversation entirely.

...

Shock assumedly very much evident on your face, if Breeze’s now-concerned look was any indication, the pieces click into place.

There was no way.

You have such an… odd relationship with Fluttershy, the idea of her having a brother -let alone parents- somehow hit you harder than such a mundane, obvious truth should have.

And here was her father: The stallion that raised her. A guy you could’ve passed by on the street without even so much as a second cursory glance of vague-recognition.

Huh.

Even still, you have to ask the question. “You’re Fluttershy’s dad?”

A few moments pass, before Gentle Breeze bursts out laughing. It doesn’t take him long to gather himself, but you had the feeling he didn’t laugh like that very often. ”Ah, ehaha– I-I’m sorry, but that was quite the reaction. I had a hunch that you might be the stalli- human Fluttershy is always writing to us about, but she never sent pictures. After you introduced yourself, it was confirmed.” Wiping his eye, Gentle Breeze continued. ”I hope my daughter’s passion hasn’t been too hard on you. You’d never think it, if you only saw how she acted from a distance, but that mare is so much locked up in just one pony.”

“I-I’ll say.”

Breeze bounces a hoof about in the air, apologizing retroactively for all his daughter’s trouble. ”Seems she’s had her eye on you for quite some time, but the feeling isn’t mutual.”

Fuck, just what has Flutters been telling her parents?

You’d assume (and maybe hope) that she left out a lot of her more questionable schemes.

“It… isn’t.”

Hell, you did NOT expect to be telling your stalker’s father that you weren’t into his daughter today– at the park of all places. Thankfully, the admittance doesn’t yield an immediate fist fight or something in front of the nearby foals. Instead Breeze nods sagely, his tone never wavering from it’s prior gentleness.

”Mhm. I know Fluttershy can certainly live up to her name, but even she wouldn’t wait two years simply watching a crush from afar. I won’t ask why; your feelings are your own and I’m sure this is awkward enough for you as it is– I will at the very least say that mare is, well, inexperienced when it comes to love.”

That’s one way to call your daughter a virgin…

”Yet, I’ve only ever known one other pony who had been so accustomed to such a woefully unprepared-for fight, and still fought everyday regardless. I’m sorry if it’s troubled you, Anon, but that mare got her passion from me–”

”And she got her bravery from her mother.”

Author's Note

Anon's little sidequest of sorts! After I'd first finished this story, my first thought was that maybe Anon should've been on a journey similar to Fluttershy's, if for perhaps different reasons. Maybe he just so happened to be running into the Mane Six's parents by accident, always just missing Fluttershy as she herself hopped around Equestria. It would've given me the chance to bolster up Anon as a character, and perhaps give more insight into why he's been turning Shy down all this time (I won't spoil, but there IS a reason, at least) as well as perhaps let it slowly dawn on Anon the extents Shy's willing to go for him & perhaps some of her own feelings told to him through a pony without the baggage of having bothered him daily for the past year.

Of course, this epiphany didn't come to me quick enough, and (shocker)– I hate doing rewrites. While I like the above idea, I'll say too that it presents its own host of challenges in the realm of continuity, so even if I was dead-set on making those revisions, the story itself would've probably needed an entire rewrite or two rather than just the inclusion of new Anon-focused chapters. Who knows– maybe I'll be really bored one day and start from the ground up. I wouldn't hope on it though.