“This cloud will do,” thought Fluttershy.
She flared her wings and touched down on a tuft of cumulus, nearly a mile in the sky, and laid down, making herself comfortable on her new perch. Normally these heights would have frightened the meek mare, but today things just felt different. She felt she needed some time to herself, something she rarely was able to do with all the animals that inhabited her cottage. She also needed time away from everything. Everything and everypony. She just needed her time. There she lay, nearly a mile in the skies above Ponyville. She knew this was a height most pegasi never bothered to fly to, so it was highly unlikely that her moment would be marred by the presence of another pony.
The view was nothing short of breathtaking, and she took the time to appreciate every little detail. The sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains off to the west, painting the sky with a beautifully stunning red hue. The table of stratus clouds below her formed what could have been perceived as another level of the ground that she loved so much. Indeed, at this moment in time, she felt secure in its presence. As much as she feared heights, seeing those clouds below made her feel safe, but today, she wished she could see the ground clearly.
It was at this moment she allowed herself to relax fully, rolling onto her side. She let her head rest lazily on her perch, and her long pink mane fell all about the cloud; her breathing was slow and steady as she continued to watch Celestia’s sun set below the horizon. It was just starting to meet the mountains now.
Why am I so afraid all of the time? she thought to herself. Spike had always teased about her being ‘a pegasus afraid of heights’, and as she thought about it, she let out a soft giggle, and brushed a rebellious lock of her mane out of her eyes.
How ironic is it? After all, flight is all we as pegasi have... But my problem is more than just heights... how could I be afraid of the one thing that sets my race apart? she thought. She barely noticed tears starting to form in her eyes. She rolled back onto her belly and looked to the mountains again in the distance.
The sun was just starting to set below the horizon, and the beautiful reds were slowly starting to yield to the calming purples of the evening twilight. Behind her, she noticed the first signs of Luna’s night start to manifest themselves in the form of stars.
Suddenly, a streak of blue cut straight across her vision and startled her. Of all the luck.
‘Likely’ doesn’t mean ‘impossible’ I guess... Maybe she won’t notice me. Still, what is Rainbow Dash doing up so high? she pondered. The prismatic mare noticed Fluttershy and flew up to her.
“Fluttershy?! What... wow, what are you doing up here?” she asked as she touched down on what had been up until that point been Fluttershy’s fortress of solitude.
“Oh... nothing. I’m just... relaxing...” she said passively.
“I’ll bet you are. Must have been exhausting for you to get all the way up here.” said Rainbow.
Fluttershy outwardly sighed at this statement. She was used to being underestimated by everypony, but this was coming from Rainbow Dash, her longtime best friend. It hurt more than it probably should have. Rainbow must have noticed the impact of her statement, because soon a wave of concern washed over her face.
“Hey, you alright? Something you want to talk about?” she asked.
Why is she prodding? This isn’t like her. Just... please go away... “Oh, um... it’s nothing Rainbow, just... nothing.” said the mare, hoping she sounded convincing enough to make her go away. Rainbow, however, saw through her facade. She had known Fluttershy long enough to know that something was bothering her. And right now, this certain something seemed to be bothering her much more than usual.
Fluttershy sighed again. “You aren’t going to let it go are you?” she asked.
Rainbow chuckled and sat down on her haunches. “Dude, seriously, how long have you known me?” she asked. Fluttershy giggled at her friend’s brashness. It wasn’t that Fluttershy liked Rainbow Dash in that way. It was just a trait that she loved about the mare. She adored the way the she was able to speak her mind and be who she really was without fear of judgement. Her brashness, her athleticism, her way of dealing with problems... Rainbow Dash was everything Fluttershy wanted to be, but felt she never could be.
She looked back to the horizon. Celestia’s sun was halfway concealed by the mountains, and a noticeable chill was filling the air around them. Fluttershy started to shiver. Rainbow offered her wing for warmth and Fluttershy was happy to accept, cuddling close to her best friend. She knew Rainbow wasn’t going to leave her alone. She was, after all, called loyalty for a reason. She steeled her nerves and asked a single question.
“Rainbow Dash... why do you deal with me?” she asked.
“Huh?” she responded, completely taken aback by the bluntness of her friends words.
“Why do you and the others deal with me?” she asked again. She started to curl herself up, trying to make herself as small as possible for the great shame she felt at asking her friend such a question.
“What? Flutters, why would you ask that? I don’t understand what you mean.. I mean... why would you ever think like that?”
“Well...”
She continued to retreat into her friends wing, not feeling worthy of her kindness and concern. It was then that Rainbow realized just how adversarial she had been. She silently chastised herself as her friend started to slowly fall apart.
”I just...”
She felt like she was about to break down. She wanted to just run and hide like she always did. She wanted to jump off the cloud and fly away, never to be seen again. She wanted...
“Hey...” said Rainbow Dash, “hey, Fluttershy. Snap out of it girl.” Her tone was gentle, but firm; a very uncharacteristic tone for the tomboyish mare. She gave her friend a light shake with her wing, breaking her out of her self-imposed mental prison with a soft squeak.
“Fluttershy,” sighed Rainbow Dash, “is this what has been eating you?”
Her response was a soft, and barely audible “yes”.
Rainbow normally didn’t get herself involved with emotional issues like these, but Fluttershy was different. They had been best friends for so long that Rainbow knew when something was really wrong. This was not the Fluttershy she always knew. Something about her demeanor was completely off. She was always meek and vulnerable, and that much still held true, but there was something else about her that Rainbow noticed.
More than anything, Fluttershy looked tired. She was not physically tired. No, the friend that she held so dear looked like she was mentally exhausted. Her face could easily belong to a mare twice her age; her sunken eyes and half lidded gaze could barely take in the beautiful surrounding landscape; her tired mind could even scarcely begin to appreciate what her eyes gave it.
Minutes passed, and finally Fluttershy spoke up.
“I just feel so useless sometimes.”
“Useless?”
“I know how it sounds, but it’s how I feel. It’s something I have been feeling for a long time. Why does everyone always deal with me? Sometimes I feel like everypony would just be better off without me.”
What in Equestria is she saying? Thought Rainbow. Oh no... oh no no no no... she’s not...
“Is that why you came all the way up here?” she tentatively asked..
“I’m just so tired Rainbow. You and the girls always tell me otherwise, but it doesn’t stop how I feel sometimes. I try so hard to be better than who I am, but no matter what I do I just...”
She started to choke.
“I...”
Her choking turned to gasps.
“...”
Finally, her defenses crumbled, and she buried her face into Rainbow’s neck, crying for reasons Rainbow thought were long since past. She held her tighter as her friend unloaded her mental burden. She didn’t hold anything back. Her tears began to mat Rainbow’s coat, but she didn’t care. Her friend needed her. Between her screams and sobs, Rainbow could barely make out something about ‘being a failure’. How she didn’t feel she deserved anything that she had. She didn’t hear much, but the parts that she did hear made her blood boil, and her heart sink at the same time.
The sun was three-quarters below the mountains now.
Finally, Fluttershy’s sobbing stopped. It was Rainbow’s turn to speak now.
“We were worried about you, you know? We were all worried about you.”
When Fluttershy didn’t respond, she continued.
“The girls and I. We were worried about you. I’ve been worried about you. It was Twilight who saw you fly all the way up here. I’m just glad I followed. We would all hate to see something happen to you, you know.”
Fluttershy pulled her head away from her friend and looked down in shame.
“Fluttershy...”
No response.
“Fluttershy.” Rainbow lightly gave her another shake with her wing, snapping her friend out of her trance again.
“I can still hear them Rainbow...”
“Hear who?”
“Everypony... everypony who has ever teased me, taunted me, bullied me. I can still hear them. It just never stops. Picking at every little thing I do. Every single mistake I make. Everything just... why won’t it just stop?”
Rainbow sighed. She knew where her friend was going, and she didn’t know what she was disturbed by more. Was it because her friend was still wrapping herself up in feelings of inadequacy brought on by a few bullies when she was a filly? Or was it because she had grown complacent about it. She knew her friend had problems, but she had hoped that she had put it behind her. Painful memories are harder to bury than she thought.
“It just... I can’t even think straight anymore. I don’t even know how to describe it. Shame, remorse, anger... no, rage. Maybe even hate,” said Fluttershy as tears started to well up in her eyes again.
“Dear Celestia, I hate them. I hate them so much. Just... why? Why me? What in the world did I ever do to them...”
“Listen... Fluttershy, I...” Rainbow Dash sighed as she tried to collect her thoughts. She would have to tread lightly.
“I know you’re not me. I dealt with my fair share of flank-holes in the past. Believe me, they would called me much worse things than ‘Rainbow Crash’, and you don’t even want to know some of the things they did.”
Fluttershy’s head snapped up at this statement wearing an expression of extreme concern and shock. Rainbow quickly shook her head and added to her statement, but had to stifle a laugh at her friend. Even in the darkest hole in Equestria, Fluttershy still held that immense capacity for empathy that everypony loved her for.
“It was never anything like that, thank Celestia. But the verbal abuse and harassment were constant. I used to beat myself up over it just like you are now. You know, before Twilight moved to Ponyville, before the whole ‘Elements of Harmony’ thing, I always admired loyalty in other ponies. It didn’t take a special necklace for me to see that in myself,” she said, a smug grin spreading across her face.
“But more than that, I saw you, despite all of the nonsense, going out of your way to be kind to other ponies. You know, there was a reason I stood up for you against Hoops, Score, and Billy the day we all got our cutie-marks,” she had to pause for a second, if only to see the curious look on her friend’s face, “it was because you, of all ponies, didn’t deserve to be tortured by ponies like them.
“You are just being way, way too hard on yourself. What is past is past, and that is what you need to understand. You are the kindest and gentlest mare I have ever had the honor of knowing. I’m not just saying that, by the way. We all think so. We consider ourselves lucky to have you as a friend. I can’t help but feel sorry for the ponies that mistreated you because they couldn’t see that.
“Think about it this way, what do you think would have happened that day that Princess Celestia asked us to clear that dragon away from Ponyville? Remember? I bucked that flank-hole right in the snout, but all I did was manage to tick him off. It was you who actually got him to leave. If it wasn’t for you... well, I guess it doesn’t need to be said what could have happened that day.”
Rainbow gave Fluttershy a moment to absorb her words, and it was to her great relief that a small smile started to form on her friends face and she wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye. Rainbow hugged her closer and tighter and continued.
Celestia’s sun was barely a sliver of light on the horizon now.
“All of us have accomplished so much in the last year, but you, Fluttershy... heh, you have probably gone farther than any of us. You need to stop selling yourself short. You need to be kind to yourself. You spend enough time worrying about everypony else, spend some of that kindness on yourself for a change.”
Rainbow gave her friend an affectionate nuzzle and stood up.
“Hey, we should probably go. Twilight and the others are waiting for us down below,” said Rainbow.
Fluttershy again wore an expression of shock, to which Rainbow responded with her usual grin.
“I did say ‘we all were worried about you’, didn’t I?”
Fluttershy wiped her face and stood up. She peered over the edge of the cloud and could make out the faintest light of a small campfire; the shelf of clouds that had been below had long since cleared. She looked back up at Rainbow and said, “Yes... I guess you did.” What did I ever do to deserve friends like these? she thought.
It was then that the full realization of where she was hit her, and she squealed in fear. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as she saw her friend stiffen in fright, her wings snapped firmly to her sides.
“Need some help getting down?” Rainbow asked with a slight chuckle.
Fluttershy’s face, body, and mind were frozen stiff. She couldn’t respond even if she wanted to.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rainbow deadpanned.