Out in the full light of Princess Celestia's sun, Fluttershy automatically started the spell mantra going in the back of her head. Not that she really thought she might open up and expose herself, and not that there was anypony around to see if she did. But she'd had too many close calls in the past to risk it.
Normal fillies had a chant, too, she knew from health class back in her school days, and there were times she found herself needing to use both—when Big Macintosh had gotten hurt and Fluttershy had gone with all their friends to help Applejack with the apple bucking, for instance. Seeing him standing there watching all bandaged up and miserable had made her want to go over and comfort him—and that had sent her thoughts spinning off in directions that got her a little hot and bothered. And when he would look her way, the things she imagined him thinking...
She reached the outskirts of Ponyville, then, waved to Roseluck and Lily and the others who waved to her as she flew overhead. Knowing their eyes were on her always made the spell work better, after all, made the spot between her hind legs feel more secure and closed-up than anything else ever did.
A few more minutes of flight, and she left the town behind, glided along the treetops in the morning breeze till she saw the peak of Applejack's barn rising out of the leaves ahead.
Which was all it took for panic to blast through her; suddenly unable to catch her breath, she folded her wings, dropped through the tree canopy onto a branch, and wrapped herself around it. What had she been thinking, coming all the way out here?? She couldn't just fly out to wherever Big Macintosh was working, tell him she was in love with him, then open herself up to show him her penis! That was crazy!
Eyes clenched, she pressed her face into the bark of the branch, refused to imagine his shock, his disgust, his—
"Well, howdy, there, sugar cube!"
The sudden call made Fluttershy bleat like a goat, her hoofs flailing, her wings splayed and frozen. Losing her grip on the branch, she tumbled, leaves and twigs swatting her till she smacked headfirst into the ground, her ears ringing like she'd slammed into a gong.
"Fluttershy?" Applejack's familiar accented voice asked. "You OK?"
Squeezing her eyes open, Fluttershy saw her cider-colored friend standing upside-down—
No, she realized quickly; she was the one upside-down. Standing on her head, in fact...
Fluttershy managed to unclench enough to flop onto her back, her hoofs in the air, her eyes blinking at Applejack's concerned face above her. Drawing her first breath in what felt like minutes, she squeaked out, "I'm fine."
"Uh-huh." Applejack cocked her head. "Hope you don't mind if'n I disagree with you."
"No, that's OK." Fluttershy took another breath, shifted her weight, tipped herself over till her hoofs touched the ground and she could climb shakily upright. "I was just saying I was fine to be polite," she murmured.
Air burst from Applejack's lips. "Land sakes, Fluttershy! We're friends! Ain't never no need for you to be polite to me!"
That made Fluttershy grin. "Thank you. I'll remember that."
"You'd better!" Applejack grinned back, and just like always, that was all it took for Fluttershy to start feeling better. "Hope I didn't bother you helping some bird up there," the earth pony went on, craning her neck to stare up at the tree Fluttershy had just fallen out of.
"Oh, no," Fluttershy said, and immediately wished she hadn't. Because Applejack's next question, of course, was:
"Well, then! What'cha doing all the way out in these parts?"
"I—" But her thoughts were so tangled—if she couldn't tell Big Macintosh, then she certainly couldn't tell Applejack even though Applejack was her friend and maybe wouldn't scream and shout and run away like Fluttershy's dad had—she couldn't get anything to come out of her mouth except: "Do you need any help today?"
Confusion crept over Applejack's face, but she gestured to a cart sitting in the orchard's morning shadows not far from the tree Fluttershy had just fallen out of. "Well, we's clearing stumps, and we can always can use help with that."
Fluttershy could see gnarled roots sticking crooked from the cart, and—
"Wait." A chill rippled Fluttershy's wings as Applejack's words finally sank in. "We?"
Applejack was starting back toward her cart. "Any trees don't make it through the winter, me and Big Macintosh kicks 'em down, then he pulls the stumps out, and I hauls ev'rything back to the barn to chop into firewood."
"Big Macintosh??" Unable to stop herself, Fluttershy stretched her neck, let her wings flutter her a few inches off the ground, strained for some sight of the wonderful red bulging muscles of—
She stopped, swallowed, settled back to the ground, but it was too late. Applejack's grin had widened. "You're here to see my brother, ain'tcha?"
Fluttershy didn't answer, but, well, she was pretty sure that the blush spreading over her like warm maple syrup spoke louder than any words ever could.
Applejack smacked the ground. "Well, it's about time! I swear to Granny, the way you two been making cow eyes at each other all these years, I didn't reckon I'd live to see the day!"
"You—" Fluttershy stomach quivered. "You knew??"
"Oh, sugar cube." Applejack smiled, and it was so friendly and honest, most of Fluttershy's shivering just smoothed right away. "Ev'rypony and her sister knows how you and Big Mac feel 'bout each other! I mean, I been trying for two-and-a-half solid years to get that boy to ask you out! He's plum crazy for you!"
Ice and boiling heat shot through every part of her, and Fluttershy couldn't move, afraid she'd shatter like a dropped porcelain figurine. Applejack was going on: "Five or six times, I got him all cleaned and combed and strung 'round with wunna Poppa's ol' bolo ties as purty as a big galoot like him's ever likely to be, but he'd come all over stubborn at the last minute, wouldn't budge outta his room, said he didn't wanna disturb you!" She gave a snort. "Ain't got as many brains as a goose, that one sometimes."
"You mean he—" It came out more like a cricket's chirp than anything else; ears folding, Fluttershy cleared her throat. "He likes me?"
Still grinning, Applejack nodded, and another blast of pure, unadulterated panic tore through Fluttershy. "No!" Flaring her wings, she sprang from the dirt, focused on the clear blue sky just visible between the—
"Nuh-uhh!" came a grunt from behind her, and teeth clenched the feathery hair near the end of her tail. It didn't hurt, but the shock bulged Fluttershy's eyes, whiplashed her wings, and dropped her thudding onto her hoofs. The teeth let go, and Applejack went on: "Nunna that, now. Not when you've come so far already."
Her knees wouldn't hold her, and Fluttershy folded all the way, cowering against the ground. "Please," she whimpered, covering her eyes. "Don't...don't make me do this, Applejack. I...I can't..."
A sigh. "I won't make you do a thing, sugar cube." Leaves shuffled beside her, and Fluttershy peered out from between her front hoofs to see Applejack's sad face above her. "But I'll tell you that nothing in this whole wide world would make Big Macintosh happier than knowing that you'd come out to see him. I mean, can't you just picture him smiling at you? 'Cause I reckon you can..."
And Fluttershy could, too, suddenly couldn't think of anything other than Big Mac's slow, sweet smile, the way his face always seemed to light up whenever she looked over to see him looking at her. The warmth all through her got warmer, like the sun had just come out, and for an instant, she felt the tightness in her middle loosen a bit.
But that, of course, made certain other parts of her anatomy feel looser as well, and she gasped, covered her face again, whispered, "No, Applejack, I...you...you don't understand...."
Firm but gentle hoofs pressed against her wrists, pushed till nothing was covering her face, Applejack looking down at her with more patience than Fluttershy knew she deserved. "How 'bout you explain it to me, then? 'Cause knowing Mac and knowing you, I've gotta say you'd be darn close to perfect together. So I just ain't of a mind to let you outta my sight till you tell me what in blue blazes is going on in that little yellow heada yours."
Staring at her, Fluttershy felt as if she'd been sucked into a sudden wind shear, swept upward by the incredible news that Big Mac liked her only to be dashed downward by the knowledge of what she had inside her flap. But she focused on Applejack's calm green eyes, drew on the strength of their friendly, steady gaze. "I can't tell you. I...I'd have to—" Swallowing again, realizing she had absolutely no choice at this point: "I'll have to show you."
***
Applejack always found herself breathing extra slow and careful around Fluttershy, but today she was darn near holding her breath as she hauled the cart of tree stumps toward the barn, her pegasus friend flitting ahead from one side of the path to the other like a moth not quite sure which lamp to slam into.
"What exactly you gonna be showing me?" she asked for maybe the fourteenth time since Fluttershy had dropped outta that tree back in the north forty. That the gal was all het up was plain as the snout on her face, but then there hadn't been a minute since AJ had known her that Fluttershy hadn't been all blushing and stammering 'round Mac—more blushing and stammering even than she was 'round other ponies.
"When we get inside." She could barely hear Fluttershy's words, as whispery as a breeze through the upper boughs of an apple tree. "Somepony has to know, and you're good and honest and always try to help me. You can tell me if Macintosh...if he won't...if he'd think..."
She trailed off again, and AJ stifled a sigh, afraid the gust of air would blow Fluttershy away. Seemed like ev'ry time Applejack turned around today, she was finding another reason to dislike what biology did to folks!
Around one last hillock, and she pulled her cart into the yard around the barn, Fluttershy glancing back and forth across the empty space like she was afraid somepony might be spying. Putting one hoof in front of the other, Applejack got the cart through the big door, Fluttershy zipping in just overhead; AJ slipped outta the harness, trotted back to the door, gave it a shove with a hind hoof, and nodded when it slid shut, the place cool and dim and quiet after the hustle and bustle of the early spring outside. "Now," she said, turning back to Fluttershy. "What's so all-fired secret that we gotta—?"
The rest of the words jammed in her throat at the scene before her, Fluttershy stretching herself out on a pile of straw more gracefully than Applejack had ever thought a pony could move. "I just," she murmured, her eyes closed, "just need to...to think of Big Macintosh, just need to imagine that he's here, that...that he's lying down beside me and...and...and..." Her voice trailed off into a silky kind of a purr that made all the hairs along Applejack's neck shiver like a cool breeze had puffed by. And when Fluttershy rolled halfway over onto her side with her front hoofs tucked against her chest, the smile that curled her muzzle made the air around Applejack seem to heat up about twenty degrees. "And then," Fluttershy whispered in a voice that Applejack swore she could feel stroking her mane, "then he'd just touch his lips to my— And I...I'd—"
Applejack sucked in a breath, and the aroma of the air, the taste of it, wild and spicy and sweet and sleepy and strange and lively, it punched right through her skull and into a part of her brain she hadn't even known she had. Fluttershy's hind legs spread slightly, a swelling there, her delicate skin bulging till her lacinia parted like a perfect apple blossom, and—
Cold and sweating at the same time, Applejack couldn't look away from Fluttershy's gorgeous curving body sprouting the most beautiful penis. The sight hit her harder than any tree branch that she'd had fall on her, every inch of her responding to this wonderful, impossible, incredible, monstrous, glorious vision: her heart pounding, her lungs quivering, her knees near to buckling, her hide goose-pimpling, and her—Applejack gasped, her hindquarters suddenly as melty as butter on a stack of hotcakes—her lacinia springing open with a snap of pure lusty desire, something that had never, ever, ever happened to her afore.