Fluttershy would like to be a tree. But she doesn't want to be an animal.
Fluttershy just wants a little pony company. It doesn't have to be conversation. Maybe she'll just sit and sip the water as it melts off the ice cubes from her empty drink, and watch the other ponies talk. That would be nice.
Or maybe something entirely different will happen.
It was a slow night at the Carrot and Stick, even for a Tuesday. It was a small, old-fashioned earth pony bar, the kind with timber framing, sawdust on the floor, and one dartboard. A few regulars stood clustered together at the far end of the bar, which was the warmest spot on a chilly evening. They had run out of opinions on what the weather should be next week, the lineup that the Ponyville Plowbusters should use against the Coltwich Coursers in next week's hoofball match, and natural versus artificial fertilizer. They were now nursing their drinks silently, staving off for another few minutes the return to homes that were either uncomfortably empty or uncomfortably full.
One of them, an earth pony stallion with a maple-sugar coat and mane, glanced again to the other, emptier end of the bar, where a yellow pegasus mare sat by herself, her eyes locked with those of her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
She seemed not to notice the occasional blast of cold air when somepony went in or out the door behind her, except to shake her head when it blew her long pink mane into her eyes. Every so often she sipped at her empty glass, or swirled her cinnamon stick to mix the remaining ice cubes with a sound like hooves on gravel. The bartender had long since given up asking her if she wanted a refill.
The stallion called to the unicorn tending the bar, then nodded toward the yellow mare and said something. The bartender nodded, levitated two bottles from the glittering array of liquors on the shelf behind him, and approached the yellow mare with them in tow. She grabbed at her empty glass protectively when the bartender tried to fill it.
"Courtesy of the gent over there," the bartender said, pointing down the bar with his nose. She looked, and the earth pony smiled and tipped his hat.
She pulled her wings in more tightly. "Oh, no, I'm fine, really," she protested; but so quietly he had to lift both ears and pivot them towards her, and by then the carrot juice and gin were already in her glass.
She hadn't planned on anypony buying her a drink. Now she'd have to talk to him. She smiled back at him, weakly, but strong enough that he stood up, drink in hoof, and walked over and took the stool next to her.
"You looked kinda far-off," he said. "Something on your mind?"
She raised her eyes to him guiltily. "I was just thinking that I should be going. It's getting colder, and I need to close the chicken coop door after the hens go in or the chicks might get cold at night. I need to wake the mice up, they're nocturnal you know, or they'll sleep in too long and won't get enough to eat before daybreak, and—"
He raised a hoof to interrupt her. "Now, hold on there. Slow down. Take a breath. You don't seem the type who comes here to drink. That means you came to talk."
Fluttershy considered this. It might be true. The last time anypony had spoken to her had been over a week ago, when she'd restocked on birdseed. The clerk had told her the total and asked if she needed anything else.
"But you haven't talked to anypony since you came here, have you?"
She frowned, then shook her head almost imperceptibly.
"Well, how about you talk to me for three minutes, and then go close your chicken coop. Then you won't have made a trip for nothing, and I won't get my fragile male ego hurt from being cruelly scorned by a beautiful young mare."
"Oh! I'm not… I wouldn't… I mean…"
"Let's try starting with names," he suggested. "Mine's Red Maple."
"I'm… Fluttershy," she said.
He waited a few seconds, as if expecting more, before taking off his hat and saying, "Pleased to meet you, Miss Fluttershy. Please do forgive me for buyin' you a drink, but you were suckin' rocks there."
She sipped dutifully at her refilled drink, then spoke, turning her head only part-way toward him and glancing at him with one eye every few words. "Thank you. But really, I didn't come to drink or to talk. It was nice just to sit with some other ponies for a while. I had a nice time."
He set his tumbler down and turned to face her. "What, ain't you got friends? Family?"
"I have lots of friends!" she said, and her face lit up. "Rabbits and chickens and frogs and mice. Dozens of little friends!" Then the glow faded. "Not many ponies, yet. But I've only been in Ponyville a little while. I'm sure I'll make more friends, somehow."
"Uh-huh. So, you're pretty comfortable with animals?"
She nodded. "I guess so." Why had she felt compelled to leave them and come sit in a dingy room that smelled like beer and strange ponies? She took a longer drink from her glass.
"You're in luck! I'm something of an animal myself," he said with a laugh.
"Oh!" she gasped, shifting slightly away to her right. "I don't... That's not a very nice thing to say."
He raised an eyebrow. "It isn't? I thought you liked animals."
The gin and carrot juice had begun to warm Fluttershy's cheeks, and she felt a strange clear-headedness come over her, a confidence that the words forming in her head were important and true and that there was no reason to hold them back. She sat up straight, flicked her wingtips, and looked him in the eye reprovingly. "I love animals," she said. "I love them when they run up and lick me and cuddle me. And I love them when they growl and snap, and try to bite me because they're scared or annoyed or just ornery. I love them no matter what they do. They can't help it. They don't really know what they're doing. They're just being animals."
He nodded and waved a hoof dismissively. "Sure. And ponies aren't?"
She inhaled sharply. "Of course not! Ponies know better. Ponies have duties and responsibilities. Ponies have... morals." She sighed sadly. "And they're terribly smart."
He lowered his head thoughtfully for a moment, then looked back up. "Ponies are complicated, huh?" He gestured around the room with one hoof at the unicorn drinking quietly off to her right, the bartender, and the last three old-timers in the far corner. "Maybe even a little scary?"
She blushed and nodded.
He leaned in alarmingly close, and spoke in a soft, low voice. "Just watch what they do, and pretend they're animals. You'll figure it out a lot quicker."
She squeaked and turned her head away. "No," she insisted, frowning. "That's wrong. And that's a terrible thing to say."
"Well," the stallion said, still leaning in, "would you believe two plus two is five?"
She blinked, and cocked her head sideways at him. "But... you know that's wrong."
"Yeah," he agreed with a smile, turning back to his scotch as though he had scored a point. "But it didn't make you mad when I said it."
She just stared at her drink, and sipped it again, to have something to do and somewhere to look.
"All I'm trying to say is, if you want to understand ponies, you'd do better watching your animals than reading books." He laid a hoof on her foreleg. "Look—hey, look at me. I'm trying to help you here."
She looked back at the overly-intrusive pony, wishing he would take his hoof off her foreleg. Then she could escape back home with her animals. She heard a strange thumping sound and realized it was her own heart.
"Seems to me you don't really know what you're doing," he said. "And that's okay! It's okay to be a pony who knows what she wants sometimes, and it's okay to be an animal who doesn't really know what she wants sometimes." He lowered his voice. "But to think you're being a pony who knows what she wants, when you're really being an animal who doesn't, is looking one way and pulling the other."
He finally took his hoof off of her. "That's three minutes. Now go home."
She looked up, confused.
"No, I mean it. Go. Maybe you think you came here 'coz you were bored, or curious. But maybe part of you wants to meet somepony special. And maybe another part of you just wants to be mounted and knocked up and squeeze out a foal or two. No, listen," he said, tugging at her foreleg again as she turned crimson and tried to look away. "Go home until you figure out what you are and what you want, before you get something else."
"Thank you for the drink," she said, pulling away, "but I don't think I want to talk anymore." She tried to busy herself with her drink again, and found, to her surprise, that it was empty.
He let go of her foreleg. "Sure," he said, "sure. Good luck, kid." He dropped a mouthful of bits on the counter and backed away from the bar. Fluttershy kept her eyes straight forward until she felt a blast of cold air on her flank and heard the bar door slam shut.
She let her breath out and looked behind her. He was gone. She pressed her empty glass tightly between her hooves and stared forward, waiting for her racing heart to slow. How had he known about her romance novels? Could everypony tell just by looking at her?
And what was this she was feeling? Fluttershy knew fears the way some ponies knew fine wines. From the morning fear, that heaviness on your chest when you wake up and suddenly remember who you really are, to the final evening stomach-lurch as you're falling, falling, falling, into a dream or into a nightmare, she knew every variety of fear, and was as sensitive to the gradations between them as an arctic pony is to the density and granularity of snow. This feeling she had now, it made her eyes open wide, like the fear of the dark; it made her body tense, like the scent of a griffin. But unlike any fear she knew, it made her want more of it.
"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.
Fluttershy woke early the next morning, and smiled as she watched the strange dark-blue stallion—her stallion—sleeping beside her. She giggled. She still didn't know if his name was Smiles or Nosey. But that was unimportant. A name was nothing compared to the bond they now shared. She got up, careful not to disturb him and not to let her hooves click as she walked to the kitchen, and hummed quietly as she moved around preparing breakfast.
He came in, yawning, just as she was setting coffee and two dishes of alfalfa sprouts out on the table. He blinked at the domestic scene before him.
"Would you like sugar with your coffee?" she asked.
"Oh, that's lovely. Really sweet of you. But I have to run."
She stopped, then set the sugar bowl down slowly on the table. "Oh. If you have to."
"Afraid so." He gave her a quick peck on the neck. She sighed happily. Then he turned to go.
"Wait!"
He stopped in front of the cottage door, looking over his shoulder, one hoof suspended in the air. "Train to catch."
She shook her head at him lovingly. "You need my address, you silly colt. To write to me."
"Of course," he said, although he looked a little confused.
She dashed into her bedroom and found a pen and a scrap of paper and quickly scratched out her address on it. She tucked it into the little cloth neck pouch that he kept his money in. "And I want to give you something else," she said excitedly. He raised his eyes questioningly. She motioned for him to open the door. "Outside."
They stepped out into the yard, and went to a shed behind the chicken coop. The hens rushed out and began running about the yard when she walked by, expecting to find seeds, but she'd take care of that later. She disappeared inside the shed and appeared a moment later, carrying an empty flowerpot in her mouth. She set it down next to the chrysanthemum bed, carefully scooped out the earth around several flowers, and transplanted them into the pot.
"Take this," she said, and smiled proudly.
He looked uncertainly at the flowers, then at Fluttershy. "You do know I'm going to Appleloosa?"
"It's just a little pot. I'm sure you'll figure out a way to carry it." She beamed at him, confident in his cleverness.
"And I'm not going to be back in Ponyville for some time." He spoke hesitantly, like a colt caught playing truant.
"Yes, so these will help remind you of me!"
Smiles, or Nosey, took a deep breath and looked her in the eye, as if he were about to say something big. Then he exhaled, looking down, and just said, "Did you have a nice time?"
"Oh, I had a wonderful time."
"Well. Good. Good luck, kid."
His words and his look reminded her of the brown stallion from the night before. He smiled with one side of his mouth, and obediently picked up the little flowerpot with his teeth. She liked that about him, that he wasn't above using his mouth, even though he was a unicorn.
"Keep them damp," she said. "Not full of water. Just damp." He nodded, winked at her, and set off down the road.
Fluttershy watched him until he disappeared over the hilltop, then went to get the seed for the chickens. She noticed it was running low, and she'd have to head to town soon to get more. Ordinarily that filled her with dread. But that morning, it seemed like a delightful prospect. She laughed at herself for ever being afraid of walking to town. It was a beautiful day, and who knew who she might meet along the way? Ponyville was full of lovely ponies, and she should spend more time getting to know them. In fact, she would go to town right now. Maybe she would even stop and see the town's new library that was being built.
Maybe she would do something completely unexpected! She was now a mare who tried new things, and she felt giddy with the possibilities. From this day on, everything was going to be different. She could talk to other ponies, and understand them, and they could understand her. She wasn't a cowering filly any more, never knowing if the colts and fillies in flight school were making fun of her. She was a grown-up mare, entering into the world of grown-up ponies who related to each other on a spiritual level.
She put on her saddlebags and trotted down the path towards town, enjoying the morning breeze and the brilliant colors of the autumn leaves, which they had shaken off the trees, but which were still blowing about on the ground. She was still finding new colors when she crested the hill and saw a white leaf stuck in a bush just off the road. She trotted over to inspect it. Bending down, she saw it was the scrap of paper she'd given to her lover. It must have blown out of his pouch.
Farther back in the bush, she saw a little burst of yellow color on the ground, like fireworks, lying next to something with a strange shape and a burnt red color.
"Oh," she said, "oh."
The pot had broken into several pieces when it had been tossed aside. There was no point trying to repair it. She would have to get a new one in town.
Fluttershy stared at the broken pot and the flowers spilling out of it, and wondered what she'd done wrong. Everything had been going so well, up until when they, well.
Maybe she just wasn't very... good.
It was nice of him to try to hide the pot in the bushes. That proved that ponies weren't just animals. An animal wouldn't have done that.
She looked down the road towards town. It would be the busy morning hour by the time she got there. She imagined the grocer, the feed store clerk, and all the working ponies who would be milling around the hardware store at this time of day. They always impressed her, the way they walked down the aisles confidently, all business, knowing they belonged there, not noticing Fluttershy unless she cleared her throat several times.
She wondered how they would look at her if they knew whatever it was that Smiles knew. Then she remembered how the ponies last night had known so much about her. How they'd both looked at her when they left, when they knew for sure.
The same way ponies always looked at her.
She didn't need to go to town today. Besides, she felt itchy all over, like she was coming down with a rash. Maybe a bath would help. She didn't bathe every day, but it seemed important now.
She gently picked up the fallen flowers in her mouth. They needed to be replanted as quickly as possible. So she turned around and galloped all the way back to her cottage. But when she got there, she dropped the flowers in the yard, went inside, and shut and locked the door behind her. The hens kept milling around the yard for another half hour, waiting for seed to appear, before they gave up and returned to roost in the warmth of their coop.
"Ah don't know why you keep stopping here," Big Mac said as he and Fluttershy pushed through the front door of the Carrot and Stick. "We've got better stuff at home for half the price."
Fluttershy gave him a quick kiss. "Sorry, honey. It's a deep, dark secret. Now have yourself a nice mug of cider. I'll just be a minute."
She walked around the corner of the bar, kicking up a puff of sawdust with each step. She scanned the dimly-lit faces in each little group clustered at the bar or around a table. Halfway down the length of the bar, she stopped, one hoof suspended in mid-air.
The murmur of a dozen indistinct conversations, the creaking of stools, faded away until she was aware only of one face in a group at the other end of the bar, a unicorn stallion. His colors and details were softened in the haze of dust and smoke, but he had a distinctive twinkle in his eye as he set his empty mug down and laughed. She took a deep breath, then walked over to the group and quietly slipped up next to him.
"Hello, Nosey."
The dark-blue unicorn turned to her with a wide smile on his face. He paused, confused, then the smile crept out again. "Butterfly! Long time no see!"
She smiled back at him. "We need to talk."
His head, mouth, and ears all stopped halfway on to some other expression of pleasure, waiting for his mind to come back and tell them what to do.
"Excuse me, everypony," he said, standing up. "I'll be back in a minute." He took a step towards the stallions' room.
Fluttershy stepped back to block his path, still smiling. "We need to talk now."
The two stallions he'd been talking to raised their ears to catch this new conversation.
"You know, I meant to write, but—"
She raised one hoof to his mouth. "No, you didn't. Now be a good boy and come over here and sit down."
He flicked his ears, but followed her to a table just out of earshot of the others. Nosey sat drawn up tightly in his chair like a colt taking a test he hadn't studied for. Fluttershy gave him another little smile, then looked down at the center of the table between them and began speaking quickly.
"I didn't get pregnant."
He let out a breath like a pony just acquitted on a technicality.
"But it hurt me. I was so lonely."
"I'm sorry," he said, a little too quickly. "I just wanted us both to have a good time. You said you had a good time."
"I was afraid," she went on without looking up. "I was afraid other ponies wouldn't like me. They'd see I wasn't like them. And then, you were so nice to me at first, and I thought…"
She swallowed, and blinked. This was the part where she'd imagined him leaning forward in his chair, his eyes widening as he realized what he'd done. But instead of looking downward in guilt, he looked relieved. Instead of drawing closer in sympathy, he kept glancing away as if he wanted to escape.
She could feel her mental focus pulling back into just the space behind her eyes, churning violently there. The salt shakers, the table, Nosey—they seemed far away, unreal. She had to plant both forehooves on the table to steady herself.
She hadn't realized she was still so angry.
She felt the words rise in her throat like vomit: She'd thought he loved her. She'd thought she loved him. As she imagined herself saying them, here in the bar, they sunk back down in leaden shame.
She'd loved her mother. Anypony who knew even that much about love had no excuse for such stupidity.
What she wanted most was to explain everything to him, make him understand how badly he'd hurt her. And that meant she mustn't explain it at all. This wasn't supposed to be about her.
She took a deep breath. "Well… I shut myself away for a long time, and almost missed everything. Everything." She glanced back towards the bar's entrance, where Big Mac was just a big, dark silhouette leaning over a mug.
Nosey frowned. "But you're okay now, right?"
"Yes. I'm okay now."
"I'm glad it worked out for you. That's great. Great. You moved on, I've moved on. No hard feelings." He leaned back in his chair, glancing around as if he were looking for someone to rescue him from this conversation.
She looked up. The bar had grown quiet around them. She stared over at his two companions, who quickly turned their heads away and started talking loudly to each other.
"I'm not asking for an apology," she said. "I'm trying to help you."
"I don't follow."
She sighed. "This isn't going right at all."
He nodded. "It's okay. Forget about it." He put his hooves on the table, ready to stand up.
"Wait." She indicated the other two stallions with her nose. "Are those ponies your friends?"
"Yeah, they're my friends."
"Good friends?"
He looked back over his shoulder at them. "Yeah, sure."
"Why don't you introduce me to them?"
He studied her with half a smile and cynical eyes for a few seconds.
"Okay. I don't see why not." He led her back to the two other stallions, who were still sitting at the bar: a pegasus with a goatee and intense, deep-set eyes, and an earth pony wearing an improbably-tall black hat.
"Gents, I'd like you to meet Butterfly, one of the sweetest mares I've had the pleasure of knowing."
"Fluttershy," she said. "My pleasure."
"Fluttershy," Nosey repeated. "And Fluttershy, meet Boxcar and Enigma, my best pals in Ponyville."
Fluttershy nodded at them each in turn. As soon as they had all sat down together and gotten out the standard greetings, she turned and called down the length of the bar, "Honey? Would you come over here, please?"
At the other end of the bar, the big silhouette raised its head, then stood and began plodding towards them. Nosey watched closely, flaring his nostrils, and began tapping the edge of his empty glass lightly.
She turned back to the ponies she'd just met. "I just thought you'd like to know that my husband is coming over here to, um, trample, your friend. If you don't mind."
The other two stallions looked up at the big red figure coming towards them out of the darkness, looked at Nosey, then looked at each other.
"Though," she added with an apologetic smile, "I'm afraid it won't make much difference if you do."
Their bar-stools were still rolling and clattering on the floor when they disappeared out the front door. Nosey sat up very straight, holding his breath.
Fluttershy shook her head sadly and turned to Nosey, who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. "They weren't very good friends after all, were they? Oh, honey, this is Nosey. He's an old friend."
"Howdy!" Big Mac offered, looking down on the pair. "Your friends sure left in a rush."
"I was just telling him how frightened I used to be of meeting ponies."
Nosey said something choked and squeaky.
"What was that?" Fluttershy asked.
He coughed. "Sounds rough," he said a little more loudly, still looking up at Big Mac.
"Eeyup," Big Mac said. He looked down at the floor. "Fella dropped his hat."
"But," she went on, "you can also be afraid of getting close to them. Of sharing your secrets. Of getting caught. Afraid that the best thing in the world is behind one of the doors you haven't opened yet. Afraid of choosing. Of settling."
Nosey rapidly nodded his sincere and heart-felt agreement.
She looked up at Mac and smiled. "I've never had that problem. But I can imagine it could be scary."
Nosey looked back and forth between Fluttershy and Mac, who both had gentle smiles on their faces. "So… you're not angry with me?"
Fluttershy considered her answer carefully before answering. "I am angry with you." She frowned a little. "But that's not why I'm here. I hope."
"Look, Fluttershy. I appreciate your concern. But that's not me. I'm having a good time. I've got lots of friends."
"I saw," she said.
He waved his hoof dismissively toward the door. "Oh, forget those guys. I've got others. All over this part of Equestria."
"How many of them know your name?"
He snorted, just a breath, and pushed his stool back. "This conversation is getting needlessly personal."
"So you're going to run away again?"
The three ponies looked at each other in silence.
Big Mac cleared his throat. "I'm gonna go settle my bill."
"Okay, honey. I'll catch up to you in a minute."
"Don't worry," she told Nosey as she watched Mac walk away. "He wouldn't hurt a fly."
"Good to know," Nosey said, "but I'd still rather leave before he gets back." He stood up.
"Unless he thought it had ever done anything to hurt me."
He sat back down.
"So why are you here?" he asked.
"So you can see that I'm happy now."
"So what is this, some kind of passive-aggressive revenge?"
"Oh, no. No." She drew her head back and frowned. "At least, I hope not. I wanted you to see how happy my husband Mac is. But I think we scared him off."
Nosey swirled the ice cubes in his empty glass. "Ironic."
Fluttershy looked down to her right along the bar. Mac was waiting quietly in the background, while the bartender polished a glass and listened with a polite smile to a shaggy earth pony, three empty glasses before him, telling a story about a cow that was afraid of squirrels.
"I guess Mac and I aren't very expressive ponies," she eventually said. "But he is happy."
Nosey said nothing.
"Oh, it's hard sometimes. You wouldn't think we could shout at each other, would you? We do, sometimes. But not very much."
Nosey slumped his shoulders and started playing with his glass. "I'm glad to hear it."
She stared at him intently.
"A lot of ponies say a lot of silly things about marriage." She clicked her tongue. "No, that's not what I mean. Marriage isn't even what I'm talking about." After a glance at Mac, she lowered her voice and said, "I don't want a promise from Mac. If a day came when he'd be happier without me, I'd want him to go, and be happy."
He raised one eyebrow. It was the first sign of interest he'd shown. "So what are you talking about?"
She wrinkled her brow, thinking. "It's the most amazing thing... Sometimes, if you try hard, for a long time, to see what another pony sees, and feel what they feel... you do."
Nosey sat up straighter on his stool.
"It was horrifying the first time. I'd just gone out to the field to bring Mac his lunch, and he was holding it and looking at me, saying thanks, but I saw this look in his eyes that he gets when something is hurting him but he won't admit it. He was looking at me. I was hurting him somehow."
Her eyes unfocused, and her nose drifted down, pointing vaguely toward the bar's glossy surface. "And then I remembered him telling me that his mother always brought lunch out to the fields at noon on the dot, no matter what, and smiling when he said it. I'd decided I'd do the same thing, only then I didn't. It was much more efficient to feed all the animals at the same time, you see. And it took so long sometimes. Each day I said to myself, 'Tomorrow,' until I stopped doing even that."
By now she'd drifted so far into the past that Nosey could have slipped off unnoticed. But he sat stock still, his empty glass forgotten.
"I'd gotten so used to seeing him and talking to him that I was just seeing him and hearing him. Not feeling him. Like he wasn't as real inside as me. And now my husband was looking at me, not complaining, but I saw what he saw. The pony he loved, who couldn't be bothered to feed him before her animals. I felt him feeling… ignored. Ashamed. There was another… another I there, as alive and real as me, hovering somewhere near me, looking out through its eyes like I look out through mine, and suddenly I saw what it saw. I saw how phony my smile looked. How I'd handed him his lunch like I was just getting rid of it. And he didn't even know how easy it would have been for me to step away from the animals and bring him his lunch on time, to show he was important. I was even worse than he knew."
Her head drooped slowly as she said this, her eyebrows squeezing together in an inverted V, until she looked like she might cry. "And all the while I kept remembering other things I did, or didn't do, and every one of them felt heavy. He had just gotten used to carrying around all this weight. And I could feel him still loving me from underneath it."
Nosey leaned towards her, raising a hoof uncertainly toward her shoulder. But she took a deep breath, and raised her head up straight. "When that happens, you've either got to shut it out and run back to the safety of your own head… or you've got to do something. Mostly just little things you never bothered to, or didn't really think mattered. But you've got to keep on reaching out for that other I, trying to feel what it feels, and keep on doing, until you can stand to see yourself through those eyes. And then, strange things happen."
As she spoke, Nosey's jaws slackened, and his hoof dropped slowly to the bar.
"You start saying 'we' more than 'I'. You care about twice as many things. You notice twice as much as before. You don't have all the same opinions, but you can sort of understand them all, twice as many as you did before. You do twice as much. You feel twice as much alive."
There was a long silence. Then the other pony let out a breath, leaned back, and rubbed his chin. "I admit… it sounds nice."
"And when you try to imagine—and sometimes you do—what it would be like if you left them, you can't. Because it wouldn't be 'you' anymore. It would just be that half-pony you used to be."
Nosey scowled abruptly. "Now that's romance-novel talk. It's creepy. And it can't happen."
"It could have," she said. She looked into his eyes. "I would have given that to you. Everything I am, for the rest of my life."
He shifted uneasily on his stool and ran one hoof over his mane. Looking closely, Fluttershy noticed the hair around his eyes and horn had begun to turn gray.
"I'm glad I didn't," she said. "I'm too quick to love. I'm the opposite of you, that way. You closed that door, not me. But you didn't even stop to see what was inside."
He slumped all the way forward, laying his head on his hooves and not even looking at her. "Congratulations. You win. I made a mistake. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"No." She reached over and touched his foreleg. "I wanted you to know that it can be worth it. Really, really worth it. I want to help you not be afraid."
He stared at her, opening his eyes wide, as if she had just now appeared next to him. "Who are you?"
"Just another pony who's been afraid."
He looked down at the bar. "It's too late."
"It's too late for you and me, that way," she said. "But it's not too late for you. And we can still be friends. I think you need a friend. A real friend."
He said nothing, so she got up and set the stools back up that his friends had knocked over in their haste. Then she turned to leave.
"River Pebble," he called after her.
She turned. "What?"
"River Pebble. That's my name."
She smiled. "That's a lovely name."
She rejoined Big Mac by the front door. "Don't tell me you been looking for that fella all this time," he said as they left.
"Okay."
They blinked in the sunlight outside. Big Mac snorted lightly, in the way that Fluttershy knew meant he was annoyed and amused at the same time. "But we're not going back there again, are we?"
