Necessary Love

by Zurock

Chapter 2: Helpless

Fluttershy staggered back and forth. Each beginning of forward movement was immediately erased by unsure hesitation. Clearly she had an innate desire to attend to the emotional wounds that the stallion before them had so publicly suffered, but just as obvious was her uncertainty in how exactly she should have even approached such a broken pony whom she had never met before. But the sight of him bawling away was a powerful enough call to action to eventually trigger her motherly confidence. She set down her bags of animal food, put one hoof steadily before the other, and started towards the fountain.

"Woah, hey, wait. Maybe we shouldn't," James called to her skeptically.

"Oh, but look at the poor fellow," she responded, gravely sympathetic.

Look he did.

The miserable pony's body was roiling with fierce sadness. His legs shivered and shuddered, so little strength in them that it was only by some miracle they still held him up. His frayed tail was awkwardly spun down one of his legs like an upset child clutching their parent. Around his submerged head the water was a boiling mess, a big sign of just how badly he was polluting the fountain with his snot, tears, and sorrow.

Dunking his head had been a bizarre reaction to having been publicly dumped, but his shame and sadness was at least understandable by any pony with an ounce of sympathy in their heart. However, swooping in to 'rescue' this unknown pony was something too soon and far too sudden.

"Yeah, I see," James told Fluttershy. He stretched his words out uncomfortably and continued, "but... I mean... it's not really our business, you know? We shouldn't interfere."

"But he's so sad!" she said back, her soft side already intimately absorbed in the other pony's troubles. "He needs somepony right now." Ignoring the man's take on the situation she went up to the wailing pony's side.

"Oh, geez...," James murmured. He looked to Rainbow Dash for her opinion.

"Don't look at me," the colorful pegasus instantly felt his gaze and commented with a shrug. Yet regardless of her apathy she tossed aside the bags she was carrying and trotted over towards Fluttershy.

James shook his head.

These ponies...

Fluttershy's concerns weren't out of character or anything; that overflowing kindness was who she was. But it was almost like she was helpless against NOT helping. Like she was absolutely unable to resist a cry for assistance after seeing a hurt pony so in need, even if there were socially awkward or dangerous ramifications. Furthermore, they had no idea who this guy even was or what had defined his relationship to the mare who had just let him go, nor any knowledge of why they had just broken up in the middle of the street. But despite all that ignorance Fluttershy for some reason had felt she had to act anyway. Whether by personality, or nature, or magic, she HAD to act!

He just couldn't figure it out.

The seeds in his bags rustled as they shifted while he safely set them down. He scuttled his and the others' abandoned bags to the side of the road so that they might be out of the way of any passing pony, and then he made his way to the fountain. At this point, what choice did he have but to join his friends?

Fluttershy very gently poked the whimpering stallion on his side in order to get his attention.

"Um... excuse me?"

P.V. pulled his head out of the fountain to look at her. Water flowed down his face in such volume that it rapidly dribbled onto the street like a broken showerhead, and it was impossible to distinguish between the fountain's excess liquid and his own salty sorrow. There was a wobbly blur to his enlarged eyes, like they were made of frosted glass and were encasing an endless supply of tears waiting to be shed. He was so far out of his comfort zone already that he didn't care about having had his ungovernable sulking disturbed, nor did he even seem to care who the pegasus standing before him was. He merely stood there and stared at her, sniffling in ultimate sadness.

"Are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, an absurd question which came out preposterously straight. It drew very awed, nearly ashamed reactions from Rainbow Dash and the freshly caught up James.

"Alright?" P.V. questioned. His very core shook worse than his voice. "Is the pony whose heart is left on the tracks 'alright' after the train comes rolling through?"

Back towards the fountain he turned his head, dangling it for a brief pause before he suddenly dropped himself into the water again. The splash cleared and then the submerged blubbering began anew.

"Oh gosh," Fluttershy gasped, daintily soft yet intensely concerned. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

The bubbles pulsed and popped at a more rapid rate as if he were trying to say something through his soaked sobbing but naturally he couldn't produce a discernible response.

Once more the worried pegasus lightly prodded the distraught pony.

"Sir? Excuse me?"

This time, however, he didn't surface.

Rainbow Dash heaved an annoyed sigh and bit down on P.V.'s tail. Flapping an inch off the ground she gave one good, powerful yank backwards to lift him out of the fountain, and then she hauled him a step away from the water.

The stallion rocked in place for a moment before his hind legs gave out from under him and he plopped into a sitting position. His head stayed hung in sorrowful shame and he still wept, his grieving no longer masked by the fountain's cover.

Now able to get directly in front of him, Fluttershy gave him the warmest look should could produce while encouraging him to pick his head up a little.

"I would very much like to help," she invited.

Something she had said or done seemed to at last break through to the shattered pony and he tried to rein in his tears, though only a small amount of control came back to him.

He managed to look right back at her and respond, "Miss... you're very kind... but I don't think there's anything you can do for this broken heart."

Between the airy softness of his accent and the still present strain of despair in his voice it sounded like he was spitting out words through tissues stuffed down his throat.

"Oh no!" Fluttershy exclaimed, a hoof clasping against her mouth in fright as she pulled back a step. It was like she could see every torn fiber of his heart; he was about to die on the operating table. Immediately she promised, also turning to her two friends, "We'll do whatever we can to help! Isn't that right?"

Rainbow Dash gave another sigh, this one in surrender to her friend's wishes. After all, she had originally come here to have been helpful anyway, right? Besides, if things got really bad then she imagined that she could have always pulled out her 'cloud duty' card and zipped away.

James, however, began to protest, "I really don't think we-"

Fluttershy's eyes widened, and their tender light was the most powerful plea all of their own.

The man rubbed his face to block out the sight of her undefeatable eyes. He groaned, letting out a strained sound that was mired in disbelief.

Fine. They'll try to help... or at least, try just a little bit.

The man immediately took to P.V.'s side and knelt down, and with all the genuine sympathy that he could pull together he said, "Listen, sir... far be it from me to tell you anything about how to react to... losing somepony close to you... but... it LITERALLY just happened. Like... a minute ago. We all saw it. So, maybe instead of... like... crying it out here in public, you should go home for now? Give yourself a little time and space? Let it sit? Think about it for awhile?"

"Home...," the limp stallion mumbled in response. "A simple, small, three room, low rent place on Stirrup Street. All I can afford really. There's a single dusty old table with one leg slightly shorter than the rest... the curtains that hang on the only window are faded, passed down from my grandmother... and the view they block is of a thin alley that the trash crews often forget about... The plumbing works great, though. I saw to that."

He sniffled once as he stayed staring at the ground, and he continued to mutter, breaking up.

"Home... Where my heart is... 'Is?' ... 'WAS.' The only thing of true value that had ever stayed there... was-... was... HER!"

The cracking dam shattered and he quickly fell to pieces, his tears coming on again in full force. He rushed forward, pushing past Fluttershy, and for another time he dunked his head into the fountain and wailed away.

"Yeesh!" Rainbow Dash moaned while she gave a disinterested look to the side.

Straight away Fluttershy went about trying to comfort the broken stallion, sitting down next to him and pouring her tenderest pats and coos over him.

James, as he was somewhat ashamed to have admitted, was in agreement with the rainbow pegasus. P.V.'s behavior was embarrassing and ridiculous. But even be that as it was, it wasn't their business to stop him from coping in his own incomprehensible way.

The man tried to reason with the caring pegasus, "Fluttershy, this guy really only needs some time to just cry it out. We should go. Let's leave him to his... fountain sulking thing..."

"Oh, but we just have to help him! How could we leave him like this?" Fluttershy still insisted desperately. She gently patted the back of the sad snorkeler.

"Look," James said, and his weariness started to carry into his voice, "it's not that I don't sympathize with what he's going through, it's just that... this is way too sudden! He should have some space first. And besides, we don't know him! We know nothing about him, or the relationship he was in, or about his girlfriend-, erm... I mean, his ex-girlfriend."

Even underwater the sorrow-laden pony had heard the particular correction and there was a sudden surge of blubbering bubbles.

The man sighed while rubbing his cheek and shaking his head.

However regardless of his protests the motherly pegasus would not budge. She declared, "Well then we'll just have to learn about him so that we can help him!"

Her efforts redoubled. More light and caring pats to his side; more reassuring strokes over his back; a basketful of warm whispers letting him know everything was going to be alright. Unfailingly she soothed him until finally there was a steady change. The fountain water stopped churning, going from bereaved boiling to sorry simmer and then to waters quiet and still. Inch by soppy inch he picked his heavily drenched head up.

"Good, good... shh," she encouraged, before she very carefully asked, "but now, um, if you could please... won't you tell us about your troubles? We really want to help!"

Urgently he tried to begin, "It's-, it's... Star Glitter... My Glitzy girl..."

But his use of that affectionate nickname brought back the echo of her stern warning that it was no longer his to use. She wasn't his Glitzy girl anymore.

In a sudden rush of heartbroken despair his composure fractured yet again and he wailed out loud. Or at least, he wailed for the brief amount of time it took him to plunge his head back into the water, reducing the noise to a bubbly churn.

The shock of his repeated stunt was really starting to numb for Rainbow Dash, and she shook her head dismally. She would have rather chosen to have simply believed that the distraught pony breathed water naturally and just left him to it.

But Fluttershy of course wasn't going to allow that, so in a tired drone the rainbow pegasus recommended, "We have to get him away from here if we want to get anything out of him. Or, you know, before he drowns himself."

Really, the worst thing was that she had interrupted her afternoon nap for THIS.

Again she grabbed P.V.'s tail, lifted herself into the air, and started flapping backwards. She hauled him away like pulling a bawling anchor out of the sea.

---

"Well, thank you very much, Twilight!"

"Oh, it's no problem, Cheerilee!" the unicorn replied as she straightened out the last pyramid of insect jars. She wiped away the beads of sweat caught to her horn and forehead while exhaling a final, satisfied breath.

It had taken quite a bit of effort to drag everything down to the schoolhouse from the hobby shop but she was undoubtedly sure that it had been worth it. Quickly she re-inspected the many collections of items that had just been arranged: plenty of jars fit to catch and hold bugs, several nets to help in that regard as well, and piles of pages that were filled with entomological details; many abridged guides to some of Ponyville's most minute residents. There were enough supplies for a whole class of students to spend an entire day searching for, catching, and studying all manner of creeper, crawler, flyer, or jumper.

"I can't thank you enough for preparing all this!" Cheerilee said while she looked over the supplies herself. "I was happy with my lesson plan on insects to begin with, but to be able to take my little ponies out on such an activity where they can study everything firsthoof is really exciting!"

Twilight again accepted the thanks graciously and elaborated, "When you told me what your lesson plan was, I knew I had to help! I remember when I was a filly still in school at Canterlot and we did a similar activity in the castle gardens. It was really so much fun! And Ponyville has an even more diverse set of insect life than Canterlot does! I hope your students enjoy it!"

"I know they will! Thank you again, Twilight!" the merry schoolteacher repeated her gratitude for a third time.

The two spent just a little longer verifying that everything needed for Monday's lesson was available in ample supply. Once they were both sure, it was time for Twilight to depart.

She grabbed her stack of letters from a stray desk where she had earlier set them aside. There hadn't been any time to have popped by the library and dropped them all off. The distinct personal letter she had received was still at the top of the pile, easily visible as the only envelope that had been torn opened from excited impatience.

The special letter caught her eye as her magic picked the pile up, and she smiled broadly again just thinking about the message's contents. The future felt so far away but she couldn't wait for it to arrive!

Her uncontainable pep pricked the other pony's notice; the unicorn so resembled an elated young schoolfilly that it was easy for the experienced teacher to spot it.

"Well, you certainly seem very thrilled about something!" Cheerilee stated buoyantly.

"Oh, just something that I received in the mail!" Twilight bounced. "An exceptional bit of luck that came my way!"

Twice she slapped the edges of the upright letters against the desk so as to straighten them out, and then she floated them into the air behind her and wished the teacher both a goodbye and a bundle of luck. Cheerilee happily returned the farewell and before Twilight exited the schoolhouse.

It hadn't been that long after Friday's school session had ended, and several fillies and colts still lingered on the school grounds participating in extended activities or playing with their friends. Twilight's earlier arrival with a mountain of odd supplies hadn't gone unnoticed by a few of them. When the unicorn at last emerged outside, a select group of them curiously stepped forward and intercepted her as she went.

"Hey Twilight!" Apple Bloom greeted. Her two friends, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, chimed in shortly after her with similar salutations.

"Hello, my little ponies!" Twilight readily responded, stopping to attend to them. "What can I do for you?"

"What was all that stuff you were dragging into the schoolhouse?" Scootaloo asked, backed by equally wondering glances from her fellow crusaders.

"I was helping Miss Cheerilee by bringing her the things she'll need for your lesson next Monday," the unicorn explained. Almost full of a vibrant envy for the fillies, she added on with a smile, "You're going to be catching and studying some of the different insects that can be found around Ponyville!"

The three crusaders gave each other awkward glances, not quite having the same ardor for the activity that Twilight seemed to carry. Though they made sure to always maintain manufactured smiles for her sake.

"That-... uh... that... sounds great, Twilight," Sweetie Belle said cautiously.

The others nodded in phony agreement, and Scootaloo inquired, "Yeah... uh... why exactly?"

"I'm glad you asked!" the unicorn glowed. If ever there was a question that reliably triggered her traps of knowledge it was 'why?', and she verbosely lectured, "The biosphere of this area is incredibly diverse and dynamic! Although we ponies certainly seem like the most present and influential organisms in Ponyville, there's actually a wide array of lifeforms that we share this living space with! It was always a fascinating subject to study, like so many others, but even I didn't have a good appreciation for just how amazing insect ecology is until Fluttershy showed me. Insects may be some of our smallest neighbors but they play a very big part in our ecosystem!"

If the Crusaders had hoped for a reprieve they were disappointed to find that her fast breath was only a break in her rambling.

"Whether it's in production of things that we use – like honey or silk – or in environmental management – like breaking down organic waste – there's a tremendously diverse amount of things that insect societies do for us! In a way, we're very co-dependent with them. We need each other to survive whether we think about it or not; we're sort of like a big family of critters in that way."

The three fillies had only polite faces for Twilight while they secretly gave dulled stares to each other, and they tried to save themselves by wedging their way into her next short break for breath.

"Wow... that's so... interesting, I guess?" Apple Bloom almost asserted.

"Uh, yeah! T-Totally awesome," Scootaloo faintly added.

Twilight's enthusiastic imagination blocked all sight of their disaffection. Borrowing her excitement for her own future fortune, she told them, "I bet now you can't wait for Monday to come!"

Scootaloo offered in deliberate measure, "Yeah... I can't-... I can't wait..."

"Lookin' forward to it..." Apple Bloom contributed.

Sensing the cracks appearing in their facade Sweetie Belle tried to rally her comrades to complete their escape. She took on a lightness far more falsely sincere than anything the others had mustered and declared, "Wow, Twilight! We're going to have a really hard time staying focused on crusading this weekend with THAT waiting for us!"

"Oh? So you plan to have a busy weekend then?" the unicorn asked, falling into the filly's well-laid trap.

Now it was the crusaders' turn for genuine excitement, and they dropped all of their smiling disguises for confident brightness.

Apple Bloom spilled out, "You bet! We got all kinds of activities planned! We'll get our cutie marks yet!"

"Yeah!" Scootaloo burst, "We've got so much lined up! We're going to do EVERYTHING there is to do in Ponyville!"

And Sweetie Belle finished, "And that means that SOMETHING that we do this weekend HAS to be our special talent!"

"We can't lose!" Apple Bloom cheered.

Twilight chuckled, "So it certainly sounds like you'll be very busy. Best of luck to you there! Maybe I'll see you out and about at some point."

Her small crumb was just enough to lure Apple Bloom into asking, "What are you going to be doing this weekend?"

"Well, tomorrow is Saturday, which is my day with James," Twilight reminded them. "I'm not really sure what exactly we'll be doing, though. He can be... a little spontaneously driven sometimes." Intentionally she was avoiding the use of the word 'lazy,' even despite her freshly acquired knowledge of his slacking off with Rainbow Dash. "I have a bunch of possible suggestions I'll present him with and we'll see what he gravitates towards."

Actually, her assigned days with him had often been a case of presenting him with a list of options before they would then go whichever way the wind took them. She had in fact gotten used to scheduling certain responsibilities specifically for Saturday so that she could offer it up to him as a possible activity; responsibilities that if declined were usually easy enough to clean up herself Monday or Tuesday. Rarely had the man ever suggested activities of his own. While that behavior still triggered her worrisome side because of how it rang with seclusion, she had never questioned him directly on it, owing to her policy of trust: trusting him, trusting his trust of her, and trusting that her friends would have said something if such a behavior had become a problem in their eyes.

Regardless, she knew that she had enough options prepared for the coming Saturday that she would be more than ready. However, for once she was almost more eager to breeze past Saturday than to actually experience it. There was no offense intended to James, of course. Her opened letter (still hovering behind her with the sealed ones) just had such an exhilarating grip on her mind.

All three little fillies could feel the potent anticipation radiating off of her, and the fact that it seemed to reach beyond just her Saturday plans became obvious to them too.

"You seem like you're really looking forward to everything," Scootaloo said.

"I'm sure tomorrow will be great," Twilight asserted confidently, "and, I mean, I have some stuff of my own that I'll need to take care of on Sunday. Particularly something I need to put together to send in the mail..."

Her enthusiasm, which had slowly been tipping more and more with every passing thought on the subject, finally went over the edge. Her air of thoughtful calm whisked away, her smile glowed, and she buzzed while she suddenly announced, "Oh, you're right! I AM very excited for what's ahead! The future can't come soon enough!"

The crusaders got a brief glimpse of the precious envelope as she whipped it around in front of her face to look at it for another time. Most noticeable of all on it was one of its many stamps: a pleasantly red sunset staining a peaceful sea.

---

It took a long time before P.V. was calm enough to carry on a coherent conversation.

They had dragged him to the side of the street, into the shadow of somepony's thatched-roofed home. Waiting and waiting and waiting; it had almost seemed like the miserable pony's despair would have never dissipated. Fluttershy had never lost an ounce of her compassion over the endless minutes, and again and again she had tried to encourage P.V. to speak up. Respectively laying atop the bags of feed and leaning against building, Rainbow Dash and James only shared uncomfortable silence, trading their doubts between each other wordlessly.

But at long last the broken pony had recovered enough for all involved to have exchanged proper introductions. After his name, the three had received a quick rundown of his simple existence as a lowly plumber who lived in what some would call squalor but he considered 'austerity.' He hadn't ever really had an ounce of anything glamorous in his life; he had merely been content to have lived a life of handling some of the dirtiest work in Ponyville each day. But, and it had been fairly obvious by that point anyway, he had explicitly pointed out that there had only ever been one thing is his entire life that he had considered a valuable treasure.

"Her name's Star Glitter," he finally arrived at the present, but her spoken name still caused mourning sorrow to drip from his lips. "We met in Canterlot a little over a year ago. I had saved up enough money to take a short trip there for a workshop I wanted to attend. During one of the breaks I took some time to see the sights, and I accidentally stumbled into some kind of garden party. Her family was hosting it...; they're high society bigwigs, you see. I don't remember much of what happened. I just remember seeing her for the first time..."

Briefly the air about him changed, a positive turn created through his mind playing back that particular vision of the past. Every last pitiful pain in the entire world was taken away; soothed by the warmth of that perfect memory, preserved eternally in his heart.

Lost in a helpless, hopeless, but oh-so-fulfilling happiness, he said, "I don't know how long I stared, but somehow we got to talk for a little while before I was noticed and thrown out of the party. I hardly remember what I said to her but... whatever it was... she-... she PROMISED to come see me in Ponyville. I didn't even attend the rest of the workshop! I just got on the train and went straight back home to wait for her! Of course after a few days back home I felt like an idiot. I thought I had only had some really nice dream and then did something stupid that made me lose out on the trip that I had saved up for."

But in recounting the tale he didn't bend to sadness. No, rather he shone with a simple a quiet light of a miracle.

"Until... one day... she actually showed up at my door, just like she had promised... How have I ever been so lucky?"

He sighed peacefully.

The serenity slowly passed and present reality started to seep back into him. More somberly he continued, "Anyway... I'm not a pony of means by any stretch of the imagination. I just... tried to show her around town some and then... somehow one thing lead to another and we started dating!"

Another sigh came out of him, this one far darker and full of torture. Some part of him surrendered; it accepted how things between them had ultimately turned out between them in the end. It was the lowly, piteous fate that better matched with who he was.

He asked the air vainly, "I'm so far beneath her... what did she ever see in me?"

"Oh, don't say things like that!" Fluttershy tried to support him. Again she was next to him and patting his back. "If she came to see you all the way from Canterlot after only one short meeting, and you two were together for a year, then there must be something special she saw in you, no matter what it is!"

"She's just so amazing," P.V. whispered. "A perfect beauty in every way. Her elegant grace... her refined tastes... her poise... she's such a lady! She rises hoof and mane above the rest!" Every infinitesimal part of her, every tiny thought of her, was enough to lift him up to new heights. "My jewel!"

But unfair reality lent him no breaks, beating its way back into him. Again he whipped from a dreamy state to a dreary one

"She-... she WAS my jewel..."

"Oh geez, she sounds like Rarity times one thousand," Rainbow Dash lightly teased.

The pegasus looked to James with a bit of a wise grin on her face, expecting her comment to have gotten a rise out of him or perhaps imagining that he would crack a joke of his own.

But strangely the man didn't take her comparison with any frivolity. He was almost sour. Rarity WAS a lady and there was nothing wrong with that.

Meanwhile Fluttershy was touched by how dedicated the stallion's affection was. He was so clearly taken with her in a way that was beyond reproach or measure.

"What happened?" she asked him quietly.

"I'm just a dirty, no-good plumber who can't provide for her, is what happened. Messy work, ugly looks, just clueless around others... I'm the opposite of her. I'm far from anything she deserves..."

He sunk low, his body drooping as his legs spaced out and his face nearly fell into the ground.

"Where she deserves romantic dinner dates at the classiest restaurants, I can only get her cheap takeout. Where she has earned trips around Equestria to see the grandest sights, I can only go with her on walks in the park. Where she should have royal parties in her honor, with fancy spreads and full orchestras; celebrations of her and all that she is... I can only tell her, 'I love you.'"

Sighing and moaning, he went on, "This past year I've only ever worked my simple job and done the smallest things for her. There's just nothing more to me. And today is-... WAS our one year anniversary, and what did I do? Used the only few extra bits I had this month to get her a little bouquet of flowers from a street cart. FLOWERS!"

He knocked himself in the head once, but it wasn't the hard strike that had him almost in tears. He was so ashamed by the insulting scale of his measly gesture.

"Oh, but that sounds very nice to me," Fluttershy again tried to mitigate his self-pity. "I think getting her flowers was a very sweet thing to do. And it sounds like you've been giving her all that you can."

Suddenly the pegasus dipped into a slightly reserved posture. There was something more she wanted to say, but there were hurdles of doubt to overcome. It was one thing to build P.V. up, but she had no honest intention to be insulting towards somepony she had never met before.

Still, she eventually decided to take the chance and said, "I think Star Glitter should appreciate you more."

In great surprise to the others, James suddenly entered the conversation, "Yeah. Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but don't you think... maybe you're putting Star Glitter on too high a pedestal?"

Frankly he agreed with Fluttershy's assessment of the mythical lady. Sure, it was hard to take the stallion's words at face value because he had just been crushed romantically a short while ago and his heart was bleeding pretty badly. But the story he had spun for them hadn't really credited his former girlfriend with doing all that much more than simply existing. The man perfectly understood the sappy-eyed kind of love that produces such circumstances; he had been there before in past years. But that was a phase in romances. Maybe it was time for this pony to learn a lesson and move on?

"No, not at all! I can't praise her enough," insisted P.V. desperately. "She's-... she's... astounding! I don't even have the words!"

"I'm sure she's great," James conceded a little, just to ease the agitated pony. But honestly she didn't sound like a nice girl if all of P.V.'s obvious devotion hadn't been cutting it for her. Likewise her supposed 'beauty' escaped James; she had looked like all the other fluffed up ponies to him. Probably just his biology; no such thing as a sexy pony.

"What I mean is," the man tried to press again, "aren't you giving her too much credit? How much of the relationship was you and how much was her?"

Rainbow Dash tacked on, "Yeah. Like... flowers were the straw that broke the pony's back? She sounds a little—"

She looked again at James and then decided to restrain herself.

"—sounds like she didn't do all that much."

"What?!"

The stallion was insulted, in a wounded sort of way. He resisted their insinuations, claiming direly and earnestly, "No, no, you're wrong! She did everything for me! Was everything! Gave up everything for me!"

"That's... not the impression I've been getting," Rainbow Dash responded, again with an extra amount of politeness.

Obviously they had hit a sore spot.

Fluttershy worked to try to keep P.V. calm, but he retreated behind a supremely guilty look which laid like a loose mask over his deep shame. He couldn't stop trembling, and his already-fragile emotions were strained.

"She had everything in Canterlot," he tried to explain to them. "Her family's wealth, the grand events of all the social circles she was a part of, and all the opportunities to be and have anything her heart desired. She left it all behind to come live in a cramped apartment with me."

She had traded down for him, and it seemed like he had never forgiven himself for having not been able to carry her back up again.

"Oh, I see," Fluttershy said. The news brought her a relieved smile and she happily told him, "But that just shows how much she really loves you! And if she misses those things so much, why can't you just make more trips out to Canterlot to see her family?"

But her suggestion didn't deliver the cheer she had expected it to. He slunk further instead, drenched with regret.

"We can't. When her family found out that her relationship with me was serious... they cut her off. They saw me for what I am: a mostly bitless, witless plumber from a poor family. I could never be a part of their high society... they knew that. They gave her the choice: me or them. That's why she had to move into Ponyville with me."

He suddenly got up, shaking off Fluttershy gently, and he took a few dismal steps away from the three. Down the street he gazed, at the square they had all come from where the fountain he had been pouring his sorrow into was. The stone pony fixture at its center smiled away eternally; a happiness locked frozen in time.

"When it happened, I tried to convince Star Glitter to give me up and go back to her family... but she wouldn't. She stayed... She stayed for me..."

A few little tears rolled down his cheeks again, and behind him the others were all afraid that he was going to take off galloping towards the fountain for another round of bitter blubbering. But instead he caught grasp of a strange solace.

To the ground he muttered, "Well... at least now that it's over she can go back to Canterlot and have all the wonderful things that she deserves again..."

Fluttershy held her hooves over her mouth, near a bout of tears herself. Rainbow Dash and James, though not completely unaffected by P.V.'s drama, were far less touched than their kind friend.

Leaning towards the man, Rainbow Dash whispered to him, "Can you believe this guy?"

"I don't know," James silently murmured back. "The way he talks about her, she's TOO perfect... but that's what being lovestruck is, you know? I think he's sincere about that."

First she was an untouchable beauty; a socialite of the highest standing; a queen amongst ponies, whose innate majesty merited endless blessings and total devotion. A devotion which she had been apparently lapping up selfishly, if only getting an anniversary bouquet that was purchased with the slim savings of a working class pony had been what had pushed her too far.

But then later she was suddenly the heiress who selflessly threw her enchanted life away to be with her true love: an underpaid plumber? The man realized he was hardly working with an unbiased source here but it was staggering how much the missing details painted wildly divergent pictures.

"In any case," he continued to respond to Rainbow Dash, "we're not getting out of this. Look at Fluttershy. She's NOT going to give this up."

Every ounce of P.V.'s pain had been taken into the compassionate pegasus' heart. It was hardly possible to imagine that she could feel for him more deeply. In that moment the heartbroken stallion might as well have been her eternal best friend.

"Technically," Rainbow Dash corrected James, "I could get out of here. Winter swap's coming up, you know. Somepony has to handle those clouds." Her wings unfolded and spread, ready for takeoff.

The man countered with a dry look.

Her grin cocky and her eyebrows wiggling, the flippant pegasus lifted off the ground...

... but she didn't actually blast off anywhere.

While she couldn't have cared less about the romantic conundrums of random strangers, every essential part of her was on board with helping out a caring friend. If this crazy task was what Fluttershy truly wanted to do... well then they were going to do it.

"This is going to get ridiculous, I know it," she asserted with a bit of a laugh and a budding smile.

Nodding in agreement, James sighed.

Naturally Fluttershy was incapable of acting any way but sympathetically to this stallion who had been torn to pieces, but now it seemed like it was wholly impossible for Rainbow Dash to betray her own loyalty also. She couldn't NOT stand besides her friend, even if her friend was standing for something so insanely awkward. He pondered it all again with a shake of his head.

These ponies...

It was noble and all but it was also a little ridiculous at the same time. What possessed them to do these kinds of things?

Light in steps Fluttershy approached the softly weeping P.V. again, and she came around in front of him so that she could look at him directly. Her bright, wet eyes concealed none of her compassion.

"Mr. P.V., you care about Star Glitter so much that you want to give her everything and more, and she cares about you so much that she left everything behind to be with you. It makes me sad to think that things could turn out like this..."

She looked over him, solemnly at her two friends, and in a perfect mixture of unshakable determination and heartfelt begging she declared, "We have to try to get them back together!"

Comments

[45north]

I have the feeling that Twilights weekend plans just got destroyed.

[JBL]

She looked solemnly at her two friends and, in a perfect mixture of unshakable determination and heartfelt begging, she declared, "We have to try to get them back together!"

This is not going in the direction I had hoped for so far..

[Jack Kellar]

4846028 Seconded. I have a feeling that Fluttershy's gonna receive a "STAY OUT OF THIS" before the end of the fic.

[Zurock]

4846028
:)

Then there may be good news for you on that front: this Star Glitter/P.V. stuff is just a shorter opening event that resolves quickly while letting me do some exploration for fun (the selection of Fluttershy, James, and Rainbow Dash is very intentional.) As far as the larger story goes, this sequence introduces some of the themes and concepts that will reappear or last throughout the story.

In other words, it's similarly purposed to all the stuff that happened before chapter 7 of Melancholy Days when the primary plot kicked in.