'I am made from the dust of the stars, and the oceans flow in my veins: here I hide in the heart of the city, like a stranger coming out of the rain.'
It’s a rare thing in life to have the certainty of knowing we’ve made the right decision. He was Fluttershy’s.
A horror story.
With very special thanks to the usual suspects: Admiral Biscuit, Luna Farrowe, Thornquill, Itssopanda, and Suni, as herself. Thank you all for your input and occasional efforts to convince me to reconsider the entire thing. 
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Very, well, nice isn't the right word, very effective fic, quite compelling to read Fluttershy go from fear, to interest, to happiness, to love, to sadness and then finally to fear and sadness driven madness
Beware the quiet ones indeed
Hot damn that was a trip! I loved how nuanced the play was between everything. A very different look at this kind of situation that many wouldn't think could happen. Poor Flutter though.
10485797
And the ones who want them quiet.
10485828
Thanks! Took me six months to tweak it to the point I was happy with the balance of subtlety and brick-to-the-head; glad it seems to be going over well so far.
10486350
You know, during pre-reading, that little thought never crossed my mind. That’s a whole new wrinkle, and I can’t say that I like it.
10491922
Well, them. Not him.
Masterful as ever. The beauty in it really is that there were five pre-readers and five interpretations came out of it. What was obvious to me was less so to others, and vice versa.
I see a lot of my own experiences in this, and that probably explains my fondness for it. Exaggerated, maybe, but not necessarily wrong for it.
That was a bit dark there towards the end as I realised what was going on.
Indeed
Very powerful.
Jesus bro.
This is some hard-hitting fanfiction boy I tell you hwat
always do love it when Fluttershy is described as butter-colored
he’s just lying there! menacingly!
oof, feels all too much like how our world works. and this makes Fluttershy’s anxieties more justified if anything
ooh this is too relatable. very Fluttershy!
it is somehow a very Applejack thing to say this even though she is likely younger than Fluttershy herself
aww, that’s nice! it is a good thing that i do not read tags before starting to read stories now
hehe that is what Pinkie would do! great job capturing each of the Mane Six in these little interludes
hoowee
oh i can totally imagine this, Applejack just going over variations of that line repeatedly while everypony else gets sick of it
oh i am getting a bad feeling from the fact that literally nocharacter else but Fluttershy had ever seen this stallion, and how he always just happens to be on the same bench day after day…
love Rarity’s single, heavily-pencilled eyebrow, so good to express concern and skepticism with
well i am relieved that he is at least alive and real! but yes, that does raise questions
oof, really not painting a good picture of her friends here, even within their own logic
well, this really merited its “Horror” tag, in a way that turns out to be deeper and more interesting than where i thought it might be headed halfway through it. the prose was beautiful throughout and wow did that serve the story in that final, harrowing section.
and i know there are a lot of ways to interpret this, but the racialization of the stallion stood out to me, between the following:
as well as the communication barrier, which feels very much like a language barrier. just the way that all the other characters in this society have a suspicion of this stallion is so outsized and unspecified, and the scene where her friends met him where they were outwardly polite but looking for reasons to dismiss any chance of connection, particularly
really captures something real, and very well.
i really hate to imagine Equestria and the characters i love being anything like this. it upsets me a lot, actually! you did an excellent job with this work.
11873460
Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad people are still finding value in these however many years after I've written them, and I love getting thoughtful comments like yours when they do.
It was interesting to follow your changing impression of the titular character as you went through the story: from potential abuser to ghost (!) to just one of the victims of the piece, right beside our girl Flutters. As you said, I prefer to leave the specifics open to interpretation, but you did very much nail what I was going for with him -- the danger of othering, whether cultural, gendered, or on the basis of disability. That, coupled with the deliberate, consistent infantilisation of Fluttershy that is so often the hallmark of poor canon and fandom writing, made for -- again, as you said -- a chance to draw attention to something cruel, and grotesque, and abusive to everyone involved.
For what it's worth, I agree with your last point fully: this is not an Equestria I could imagine outside of a horror story. But I think for me, the horror of it lies in both the clear validity of the concerns the other girls brought up at the outset, and how they were twisted into something self-serving and oppressive when it suited the narrative they, in-story, wanted to paint. I'm glad you found those interpretations of the Mane Six to be believable (and thank you in particular for that compliment!
), but it was and is alarming to me, rereading through as I write this, how easy it was to reframe that into something that could be used to hurt.
As you say, distressingly real, even if -- happily -- nowhere near canon.