“ANGEL BUNNY!!! OPALESCENCE!!! YOU TWO WILL STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!!!!” The yell would have echoed throughout the rustic cottage an irritable white rabbit and an equally irritable Persian cat had been grappling in, had it been anything louder than most other pony's speaking voices and so high pitched few could even hear it. Still, it caused the fighting animals to pause, even if it was just because upsetting the owner of the voice was more than either's black heart could take.
Fluttershy surveyed the damage done to her lounge. A few tears in the sofa, most books were knocked from their shelves, a vase had been broken and hardly any furniture was in the same spot she had left it. All things considered this had been a rather good session dealing with an ingrowing claw with Rarity's pet cat – all of the damage beyond the sofa was down to Angel, it was so familiar to the pegasus.
No, no quite, Mister Supposed Decoration… you just had to add to this, didn't you? The vase had somehow pulled itself together, complete with a flower that shouldn't have been there in the first place, and shuffled off sideways on ridiculously long leaves as awkwardly as a walking plant could manage. Nonsense had become all too familiar to Fluttershy as of late, but that was to be expected when a god of chaos considered you his best friend. “Discord, if you're going to hang around here can you at least show yourself?”
An almost gaunt, olive-coloured head adorned with mismatching horns, a goat-like beard and ridiculously bushy eyebrows poked out of the vase, the flower within it now perched comically on the end of a long muzzle. “Well, I wouldn't want to impose...” The Draconequus sounded thoroughly insincere as he swiftly teleported out of the vase, appearing by Fluttershy's side with a pop so he could hug her warmly. “Ah, who am I kidding? I love imposing!”
“That reminds me, you still owe Twilight Sparkle an apology for giving her dictionary wings the other day,” Fluttershy commented to a friend who, whilst he may not have been the oldest, was certainly the oddest.
“I also owe her apologies for...” Here Discord donned a pair of reading glasses and began flicking through a notepad he had pulled out of thin air. “Let's see, blocking her toilet on three occasions, completely reversing the order of her spellbooks, filling the slippers of her royal outfit with chocolate pudding, enchanting her mirror so her reflection pulled faces at her, five counts of drunk and disorderly conduct, three counts of breaking and entering and one instance of indecent behaviour with a butternut squash. She'll get her apologies all at the same time, which will be at half past never.”
Fluttershy rolled her eyes before getting back to her duties, which right now consisted of trying to remember where she had put Opal's pet carrier. “I really don't understand why you give Twilight such a hard time, Discord.”
“Really? And here I thought we had an understanding, Fluttershy!” Discord guffawed. “It's the same reason I give Celestia a hard time – they're big ponies and can take it, plus their reactions are just priceless!”
“Do you just like annoying alicorns, then?” Fluttershy asked absently, peeking underneath her dining table and finding nothing beyond a family of mice having a tea party.
“Oh not at all, just Celestia and her understudy, because they're just so serious all the time! I get on with Luna just fine usually, we even dated for a while a few millennia ago until we ran out of taverns to get barred for life from.” Here Discord pouted. “Lifetime bans are really harsh when you're immortal, Fluttershy, it's just as well I never cared about the rules else I'd never be able to set foot anywhere. As for Cadence, she's just so nice, and I don't want to get within a mile of the only buttons I know I could push with her. I may list 'being a mild irritant' amongst my hobbies, but even I have standards!”
“Also last time we visited the Crystal Empire Flurry Heart beat you in a wrestling match,” Fluttershy noted, checking a cupboard and only finding a stockpile of fruit tea.
“She cheated!” Discord stamped his one hoof irritably, although Fluttershy knew it was just for show. Sometimes her friend could be almost predictable in his attempts to be unpredictable – of course one of the most powerful beings in Equestria, if not all creation, was going to wind up losing a fight with a toddler, even one as magically gifted as the only known pony to be born an alicorn. “Went into business for herself! I was supposed to hit that elbow from the top rope!”
“You were trying to stage a fight with her?”
“Since when did I ever not stage my fights to an extent, Fluttershy? The bad guy has to lose sometimes, if one side wins outright it's just boring! Oh, by the way, is this what you're looking for?” All of a sudden Discord handed over Opal's diamond-studded carrier.
“How long have you had this???” Fluttershy gasped.
“Five seconds,” came the indifferent reply.
And so eventually a somewhat cheerful yellow pegasus hit the road between her cottage and Ponyville, pet carrier containing a sulky white cat in hoof. Rarity's pet wasn't exactly the easiest of creatures to handle, even for Fluttershy, but a combination of coaxing and a certain Draconequus getting annoyed had forced a grumpier than usual Opal into her current position.
“Is your mommy okay, Opalescence?” Fluttershy asked her charge as she wandered into town. “She's been a little clingier than normal, I mean I know it's Rarity and she can be like that but… is there something I ought to know?” The cat gave a half yawn, half meow that translated to 'ask her yourself, it's none of my business'. Which didn't exactly help the yellow mare's mood, but what could she do? Her best friend had been flirting with her quite heavily as of late, and the pegasus was rather torn between enjoying the attention and assuming something bad was about to happen. Fluttershy was a lot of things, but oblivious was not one of them. Self-depreciating, on the other hand… well, how was a gorgeous mare like Rarity, a pony who had vented about her handsome prince so often, going to fit with a plain homebody like her? Even if she wasn't so certain that she was reading too much into things, It just was never meant to be anyway.
“Um… are you in there Rarity?” Fluttershy knocked on the door of Carousel Boutique after a diversion or two – Angel Bunny needed more lettuce, plus she had needed to call in at Quills and Sofas to buy some ink – and her mind raced about how to maybe come to a solution about the issues presented by the unicorn's affection. Unfortunately she had only come to one of two conclusions; kiss her friend passionately or hide in a blanket and never come out again. Right now the blanket seemed like the easier option. “Rarity?” The door turned out to be unlocked, so a mild push found the pegasus staring into a deserted showroom flecked with splatters of paint. This wasn't new, of course, her friend had been embracing her artistic nature a lot as of late, and whilst she seemed a lot less stressed there had been a minor side effect of the unicorn growing even more impulsive than usual, which was no small feat. Maybe she had ran out of paint or something?
“Rarity, you stupid old mare, stop this madness at once.” A voice from towards the back of the shop almost made Fluttershy jump out her skin, but there was something there that made the pegasus pause. Yes, that was certainly Rarity's refined voice, but... the tone seemed so miserable and so unlike the unicorn. When sad Rarity would wail and thrash and make a scene, especially if there was an audience, but this.... this voice sounded close to broken. Worried, Fluttershy made her way towards the source of the noise. “It's just a silly fantasy, nothing good can possibly come of acting on it.” Curious as to what was torturing her friend so, she crept forward and leaned into the boutique's kitchen, her blue eyes widening at the scene in front of her.
It seemed as if a thoroughly dejected unicorn was spilling her guts to one of her paintings, a half empty tub of ice cream in front of her alongside a nearly drained bottle of white wine. This wasn't the part that had caught Fluttershy off guard, although Rarity in a state like this was never a welcome sight. No, it was the picture she seemed so enthralled by that left the pegasus' mind reeling. Framed in what appeared to be high quality gold, it was a large oil painting that put anything else her friend had come up so far to shame. It was a true masterpiece but… well, she was having a little difficulty wrapping her head around the concept. Fluttershy was fairly certain that she was meant to be the main subject matter, but why her friend had decided to depict her as an angel… or a goddess… or a princess (honestly in Equestria there was barely much of a difference between the three) was quite beyond her. The more she thought about it the redder her face grew, the urge to just run and hide for the next week or so growing ever stronger.
Evidently Rarity had yet to notice her yellow friend peering in from the doorway, since she took a drunken swig from her bottle and waved it drunkenly towards her unfathomable masterpiece. “I should never have drawn you,” she slurred irritably. “I should certainly never have kept you, now all I can think about are what ifs! And now I'll have to hide you away before the real you comes round with Opal otherwise she'll think me crazy.” At this point Rarity's pet cat had had quite enough of this ridiculous performance, and alerted her owner to their presence with a rather irritable meow. “...and I lost track of time and she's behind me, isn't she?”
“Hello, Rarity,” Fluttershy offered, not really sure where to look.
“Hello darling,” the unicorn replied, turning round to reveal she had been crying somewhat. Somehow she looked paler than usual, which was quite the feat for a snow white pony. “I fear I'm going to pass out from sheer embarrassment in the next ten seconds, would you be a dear and make sure I don't split my head open on the kitchen tiles? Blood really doesn't complement my decor. Thank you!” With this, Rarity's hoof went up to her head, her eyes rolled back in their sockets and she fell forward with a whimper.
It had been an effort – Rarity was surprisingly heavy for somepony so dainty – but Fluttershy had finally managed to hoist her comatose friend onto a subtly embroidered sofa. Then came the wait, as agonising as it was. Fluttershy decided to busy herself making tea for the two of them, trying hard not to dwell on what might have been Rarity had been right, she could have easily wound up taking a nasty spill had her pegasus friend not been there to shield her from the hard floor. So for now all thoughts of finding out what was going on were shelved in favour of making sure the fashionista was okay.
“I'm sorry, darling,” Rarity finally groaned as she opened her sapphire blue eyes. The was an element of defeat in her tone that Fluttershy didn't like one bit.
“W… what for?” The nerves were back in full force, and the yellow mare was rather glad Rarity could pick her own cup of tea up. It meant she could concentrate a little more on trying not to visibly shake. Today had seriously taken her out of her comfort zone. “It… it's not the first time I've had to catch you when you fainted.”
“Not just that!” Rarity waved her hoof for dramatic effect, spilling half her tea in the process. Apparently she was still fairly drunk, which was yet another reason to add to her friend's frayed nerves. “I'm sorry I forgot what time you were coming over! I'm sorry I overdid it on the wine before you arrived! I'm sorry….” Here Rarity paused, her eyes filling with tears. “I'm sorry about what you saw.”
“Why?” Fluttershy swallowed, trying to prevent her wings from carrying her away some place else. Some place far. Although she was curious, there could have been a million reasons why her friend had created that picture and why she seemed so embarrassed by it. They ranged from the likely and simply a little awkward to the unlikely and either disastrous or mind-bogglingly amazing, and Fluttershy had little faith that she was lucky enough for reality to lie on the 'amazing' side. “I thought it looked lovely.”
“Lovely but..?” Rarity sighed miserably.
“Well, uh… what made you want to paint me as an angel?” the pegasus finally blurted out. “It's beautiful, Rarity, but why me? I'm not beautiful at all.”
“Fluttershy, do we need to get you an appointment with an eye doctor?” Rarity snapped, harsher than she had intended, and her friend drew back slightly. Yes, running and hiding sounded really good right now. Maybe Discord could sneak her into another reality for a month or six. “Or better mirrors? Because I don't know what you're seeing in your reflection, but I'll tell you what I see right now. I see the greatest friend I've ever had. I see a pony I can trust with anything. I see the most divine, gorgeous mare I've ever seen in my entire life, one whose only real flaw is that she can't see any of this herself!” Rarity was openly weeping now. “Fiddlesticks, let me just be open about it, the damage is already done. You want to know what that picture means? It...” The unicorn grew quieter, trying to regain a little composure as her friend stared with increasingly wide eyes. “It is how I see you. It's how my heart sees you, that stupid, insufferable thing that won't leave me in peace! I… I love you, Fluttershy. I have for quite some time. I… I'm sorry it took all of this to say as much.”
Ding! Sense has now left the building, please enjoy your stay in 'Fluttershy doesn't deserve nice things' land! If Rarity had any more to add then she wasn't given the chance. Fluttershy had bolted out of the door so fast she might as well have teleported.
The speeding pegasus had no idea where she was going, all she knew is that she either had to move or give in to a full-fledged panic attack. None of this was supposed to happen! She was just meant to have a nice life, with her nice animals, just go day to day without event, and stay in the background where she belonged. Romance was just something that happened to other ponies, especially with somepony as wonderful as Rarity. She deserved so much better, and yet it seemed as if she had been hiding her feelings and beating herself up over this for some time!
And what did you do when she stopped and opened up? You took off and rewarded her with an empty room. She probably thinks you hate her.
Fluttershy skidded to a half as her mind finally caught up with her body. Why, exactly, was she running? Rarity wasn't scary, not really, even if her wilder moods could be a bit worrisome. The confession had been startling, but only really because the pegasus had refused to see herself as a pony that could be seen that way. Did she not like mares in that way? Not the problem, seeing as she was struggling to see stallions like that as well. In fact romance seemed almost appealing when it came to Rarity, and the closest to this feeling she'd ever encountered was with Rainbow Dash back in Cloudsdale. Which had just resulted in her pretending to be ill for about a week until the feelings faded. Apparently Fluttershy's instincts just really, really enjoyed ruining her life.
And Rarity's as well. She'll have probably slashed up that picture and be on her sofa sobbing out her broken heart by now.
“I… I'm a horrible pony!” Fluttershy wailed, taking off at full speed again. She had really messed this up and had no idea how to fix things. But she at least had friends who might.