Fluttershy's Night Out

by Bad Horse

In the night

"That was beautiful," a new voice said off to her right, and she looked over. The dark blue unicorn off to her right had turned away from the older mare he'd been chatting with, and sidled a step or two closer. Seeing he had her attention, he came the rest of the way over. "What you said about animals." He kept standing upright, facing forward, not crowding her.

"It was?"

He nodded. "Show me your hoof."

Fluttershy blinked. "My hoof?" He merely kept looking at her expectantly, until she raised her right hoof and extended it gingerly toward him. He pulled it closer to him and peered down at it casually, as if she'd offered him a newspaper. She relaxed, sensing from his calmness that it must be okay for strangers to look at each others' hooves in bars.

"Interesting," he said after a few moments.

"It is?"

"Yes," he said, looking up at her, still holding her hoof. "I can tell that you're a very loving pony. Sometimes other ponies take advantage of that. Is that right?"

Her eyes widened, and she nodded. He glanced down at her hoof. "Sometimes you're afraid to try new things," he said, and looked at her again. She nodded again. "But sometimes," he went on, "you find the courage to do it anyway." He pulled slightly on her hoof, so that she was drawn closer to his face. "That's led to some of your most wonderful experiences." He said the word "wonderful" slowly while looking deeply into her eyes, and it sent a shiver up her spine.

"I think so," she said, gazing into his eyes. "But new things are scary."

He smiled and shrugged, as if to say, Well, what can I do about that? He released her hoof, letting it fall, and turned back to his mug of beer. Fluttershy turned back to her own drink, confused. Was that the wrong thing to say? Her heart was beating even faster now. She glanced back over her shoulder at the door and thought of leaving. Now this new pony was quietly sipping his own drink, absorbed in his thoughts. She could leave now. Slip quietly out the door, before anypony said anything else. She pushed her empty glass away from her. She could be back in her own house, in her own room, in her own bed, in ten minutes.

She realized there were tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

She looked again at the stranger to her right. He'd gone back to talking with the mare on his right. Something he'd said to her made her bray with amusement, and her eyes shone with excitement.

Fluttershy sighed, and clopped her two front hooves down on the bar in front of her. He didn't seem like the intrusive kind of pony. And she wanted to know how he knew so much about her. And... and it had been nice when he held her hoof.

"Bartender," she said quietly, but the unicorn behind the bar didn't hear her. She raised a hoof tentatively, then raised it higher, until he came over and looked at her questioningly.

"I'd like another. If you don't mind, that is."

He quickly poured carrot juice into her cup and topped it off with a shot of gin. Fluttershy gulped it down and felt the warmth spread throughout her body. Who was he, to think she wasn't adventurous? She had never come to a bar before tonight. She had never drank alcohol before, either, and now she'd had three drinks. She looked over at the mystery pony, but he was rolling his eyes at the older mare, to her great amusement, and didn't seem to notice Fluttershy.

She could talk to him. She was a pony who tried new things. She waited until he turned back to his beer, and then she coughed delicately. He looked up.

"Last week, you know," she said to him, "I... I bought a new kind of birdseed." Her own voice sounded loud and seemed to come from outside her.

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

Her face reddened. Oh, Celestia. She couldn't believe she'd actually said that. "Nothing, really. Only, I bought a different kind of birdseed. I usually get the unshelled. But this time I got the shelled. I was a little afraid that the birds wouldn't like it, you know. But they don't mind at all, and it's nice for me, because they stay at the birdfeeder while they crack it instead of just darting away again." She smiled weakly.

For a moment he stared at her blankly, like her teachers used to in flight school whenever she said something that had nothing to do with flying. Then his face broke into a grin. "Well, good for you! So you are an adventuresome filly!"

"Yes," she said, "yes, I guess I am."

"Really?"

She nodded vigorously, then stopped, finding it made her dizzy.

He smiled broadly. "Well, I know a little cafe around here that's open late. They have crazy fusion dishes on their menu, and I've been meaning to try their jalapeno-pickled hay. Doesn't it sound like the most terrible thing? I need somepony adventurous to try it with me."

It did sound terrible. But she was a pony who sometimes tried new things. Now he would be disappointed in her if she said no. And besides, he seemed like a good pony—at least he didn't say awful things, like that last fellow. So she nodded and settled her bill. She had to count her bits three or four times because she kept losing track, which was funny and made her giggle. The bits were small and far away, and her head seemed only to have room to keep track of herself, the stallion next to her, and the echoes of his confident voice calling her an adventuresome filly.

Before she knew it she was sitting with this strange pony at an outdoor table three blocks further into town, taking dainty bites of jalapeno-pickled hay (it made her eyes water, but it wasn't as bad as it had sounded) by the light of a gas streetlamp, listening to his funny stories about his interesting friends, and feeling oddly warm despite the deepening cold. He was a travelling salespony, and it was his last night in Ponyville. He had a saddlebag full of catalogs and samples at the hotel. Tomorrow he'd be heading towards Appleloosa, making stops along the way.

Soon he had one foreleg around her shoulders and was pointing out different stars and telling her their names, and she realized that she didn't know his name. But that wasn't important when they were laughing and looking up at the stars together. His cutie-mark was a herd of ponies, which was confusing but seemed like a good sign. She leaned up against him and felt more relaxed and comfortable than she had in years. She looked back at herself, standing terrified and alone at the bar just an hour ago, and wondered what she'd been so afraid of.

Then he took her to another bar, this one in the basement of a restaurant, not really a bar so much as a big empty room with bare white walls and sofas where ponies relaxed and talked while a jazz trio played an unplugged set at the far end of the room, the pianist calling out the numbers before they played them and the drummer laughing at each one like it was a private joke. Fluttershy hadn't even known places like this existed. Her stallion seemed to know everyone, getting a nod from the players when he came in. The waitress came around every ten minutes or so and took orders, and called her stallion Smiles, though the bass player had called him Nosey. Fluttershy tried something called a Manehattan that was a little sweet and a little bitter. She drank it slowly, sitting next to him on a soft white sofa, not talking, just taking it all in.

Then they left that place and just walked around the block, touching shoulders, saying little, like old friends who'd known each other for years, and watching their breath mist in the cool air.

Suddenly Fluttershy realized it was very late, much later than she had stayed up in a long time. "I'm terribly sorry," she told her companion. "I really ought to be getting back home."

"Of course!" he agreed. "You need to introduce me to these animal friends you told me about. They sound adorable."

"Oh! Oh, they are adorable. But it's very boring. I just count them and make sure everyone made it home safely, and tuck some in and wake some up. You wouldn't want to watch that."

"I can't think of anything more charming," he said, and her heart jumped.

They trotted back to her cottage near the edge of the Everfree. On the way she told him the names of all the rabbits, and of the mice she'd managed to name so far even though they didn't answer to them. It was so nice to talk to somepony who didn't think she was stupid for talking to animals. She felt a little hot and a little dizzy, and stumbled several times, falling into him. Sometimes he'd prop her back up, and sometimes he'd cry out and sink to his knees like a bad stage actor doing a death scene and they'd fall into a pile, laughing together. She felt like the bubbles in a stream.

They arrived at the little garden in front, and they bent down low and crept quietly into the henhouse, where she counted the hens, the chicks, and tried to count the eggs but couldn't without waking up the hens, and she couldn't quite remember how many there ought to be anyway. She kept thinking how boring this must be to her new friend, and half-expected him to get impatient and leave. But he stood and watched patiently, the model of a gentlepony. Then when she was done they stood out in the yard looking at the moon, even though she was so aware of the feeling of his firm muscles pressed against her flank, of the scent of a stallion after a day's work, that she didn't really see the moon at all.

"I had a lovely night," she finally said to him.

"I'm still having one," he said, and rubbed his muzzle against her neck.

She looked over toward her cottage. "I should go inside now."

"You should," he agreed, and moved down to begin kissing her throat. She felt paralyzed, unable to do anything but breathe in gulps of air as he worked his way backwards and up along her neck and shoulder. He was standing beside her, backing up as he went, until he was nibbling at her withers and raised one foreleg across her back. She suddenly realized she was crouching and holding her wings out and her tail to one side, the way animals did when... well.

She pulled her wings back in and spun around to face him. "I think, if it's okay with you, I think, um," she said breathlessly, her wings still quivering.

He cocked his head and looked at her, but she didn't say what it was she thought. "Okay. I've been meaning to take a look at your flowers." He walked over to the flower garden and began calmly inspecting the flowers by the moonlight.

Fluttershy blinked. Wasn't he supposed to be... disappointed? Maybe he didn't really like her that much. Maybe he had just been trying to be nice. Or maybe she was being selfish.

"What are these called?" he asked, his nose in a bunch of flowers.

"Those are chrysanthemums. They're the only flowers I have that are still in bloom."

"They're beautiful." He bent down for a closer look at one. "Like fireworks frozen in time, but soft, and quiet. Like you."

"Oh," she said, very quietly. Maybe he did still like her, even if she was selfish.

He looked up suddenly. "What were those nests in the henhouse, the ones without chickens on them? Eggs, but no hens."

She frowned sadly. "Those are little orphan grannel eggs. A fox got their mother, so I took them inside and put a heating rock in each nest. It's a thing unicorns can make, that gives off just the same amount of heat as a mother bird." She smiled a little. "They follow the first thing they see after they hatch as long as they're chicks. They're darling little things."

"So they'll follow one of those hens?"

She blushed, and pawed the ground. "I was thinking... maybe I would be there when they hatch."

"Well. I think you'll make a wonderful mommy grannel." He stepped up beside her and rubbed his muzzle against her neck again.

She shut her eyes, and let him nibble at her throat, and realized she was crouching again. This time she didn't stand up or resist when he reached across her back. The last thing she remembered thinking was, So this is what it's like to be an animal.

Comments

[easonhooves]

this is good the kinda good that makes you warm inside

[jediinc]

drunken raep tiem

[IndecisiveOlivia]

FAVE!!!
Drunk Fluttershy is frisky Fluttershy.

[MCPonyRapper]

hey look, fluttershy didn't get raped

[Happy_McDull]

2046528 encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRV9TjVBSl1go1PSHhcg1W7ydS3-lQoC5FdPA7QOtqOCVHjiwIs

[Hothead99]

Shit, I donno how to feel about this... She's not exactly being taken advantage of, but she is still pretty buzzed. Hopefully he's just as nice of a guy in the morning as he was last night.

[Nyerguds]

He quickly poured carrot juice into her cup and topped it off with a shot of gin. Fluttershy gulped it down and felt the warmth spread throughout her body. Who was he, to think she wasn't adventurous? She had never come to a bar before tonight. She had never drank alcohol before, either, and now she'd had three drinks.

Oh, that'll end well

[Walabio]

¡HoroscopeTalk! ¡If it applies to everypony, it applies to nopony!

Post Scriptum:

All psychics are frauds wanting to defraud the credulous and naïve, or in the case of Miss Fluttershy, the naïf.