//------------------------------//
// One Step At A Time 
// Story: Autumn Falls 
// by PapierSam 
//------------------------------//

The sunset lays scattered on the ground, and the sky is overcast.

Fluttershy rests on the side of the hill. From it, she sees her small town continue without her. 

She breathes in autumn.  

“Pow!”

“Eep!” Fluttershy recoils.

Rainbow Dash slides down beside Fluttershy, chuckling. “Easy, now, scaredy-cat. You’ll roll all the way down if you ball up like that.”

Fluttershy uncurls herself and shifts a bit to give Rainbow more room – despite it being a fairly large hill and there being enough room on it for a hundred Rainbow Dashes to lie on it.

For a moment, Fluttershy’s mind imagines more Rainbow Dashes on the hill than abandoned leaves. They’re all grinning.

“What’ch’ya thinkin’?” Rainbow asks.

Naturally, Fluttershy answers, “Nothing.”

Rainbow smiles with her eyebrows upturned. “Yeah? You just chillin’ on the hillside, then?”

“That sounds nice.”

“No – “ Rainbow folds her arms behind her head and stares at the sky “ – it sounds super boring.”

“We could do something else. What did you want to do?”

“Dunno. Wanted to see what you were up to, I guess.”

There isn’t much of an answer to that, but the way Rainbow says that, it makes Fluttershy ask: “Is it really that easy?”

Rainbow’s expression slips for just a moment, and though she’s grinning, her voice sounds smaller. “You feelin’ down, eh?”

Fluttershy picks at some grass mindlessly. “I’m fine.”

Rainbow nods slowly. “Good.” She looks sideways. “That’s good to hear.”

Which, in itself, was good to hear; some days, Fluttershy doesn’t know if she says anything that’s good to hear.

It’s a silly thought, though. “Were you going somewhere?”

“Nah,” Rainbow says, turning back to watch the crowded clouds. “Well – like, I was headin’ over to Spitfire’s, gonna run over soccer techniques for the spring season. But I saw you, so I figure I gotta tell you how lame you look right now.”

Lame isn’t the word Fluttershy would have used; small, maybe. Quiet. 

Fluttershy doesn’t notice the pause in the conversation until Rainbow breaks it. “So, y’know. You’re pretty lame lookin’, hangin’ here by yourself. Come with me to Spit’s place. There are trees there. Prob’ly a squirrel, too. I dunno.”

Fluttershy breathes a giggle. She isn’t sure what she’d do at Spitfire’s house, except maybe stay in the corner. “I – um –have to get going soon. Maybe next time.”

“Yeah? Then I guess I’ll – “ Rainbow makes a mocking face “ – um – stick ‘round here ‘til you go.”

Fluttershy wants to tell Rainbow that that’s a nice idea. Instead, she says, “Okay.”

Nodding, Rainbow repeats, “’Kay.”

And like the wind, the conversation stills for a bit. It’s pleasant, Fluttershy feels, watching the sky like it’s a silent movie. Pleasant still is watching it with someone. 

Autumn has a smell, part of Fluttershy registers. Cold. Crisp. Hints of – 

“Rarity’s been losing it over the whole pumpkin spice bet she’s got on with Applejack.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow chuckles. “But, like, I’m pretty sure AJ’s taking it worse. Remember how she used to say stuff like, ‘it ain’t no fall weather if there ain’t no apple cinnamon’. Like, I’m pretty sure she’s got some deep-rooted emotional attachment to her frickin’ fritters.”

Hints of spices. Apple cinnamon, pumpkin spice. Coffee in the morning before school, a gentle warmth when it starts to get colder.

Rainbow sighs. Fluttershy almost does, too, but stops herself. It would've sounded like she was just copying Rainbow Dash. “Crazy, both of ‘em. It’s just one type of food. Start a diet or somethin’, I dunno!”

Well, Fluttershy thinks. That could be applied to most things. It’s just anything, and there’s always something else. Like: it's just any thought, it could be said by anyone else.

Autumn feel vague to Fluttershy. She isn’t sure she could ever put that into words. 

“Don’t you think?”

Fluttershy isn’t sure she could put most of the things she wants to say into words, and that may be the crux of the problem. 

“I guess.”

There’s a pause, and then Rainbow stretches her arms out so wide one smacks Fluttershy in the head. She yawns loudly, then rolls over on her side to face Fluttershy.

“Man, I just – I’m not good at this, you know that.”

Fluttershy knows she herself isn’t that good at this, either. 

“I wanna help,” Rainbow continues casually, bellyaching. “I just don’t know what to say.”

“I think you’re saying all the right things,” Fluttershy says, and it sounds quieter than she plans it to.

Rainbow huffs through her nose. “Yeah, well, you’re no expert on these things, either.”

Fluttershy agrees.

Rainbow continues, almost a little more carefully. “And – I don’t – gah. I’m just gonna be straight up with you: I don’t get it.” She grins wryly, like it’s a confession to finishing the last slice of pizza. “Sorry, I really am.”

“So am I,” Fluttershy says, and she hopes that explains it.

It doesn’t, it seems. “C’mon. Help me help you.”

There’s something there that Fluttershy wants to talk about. She wants to tell Rainbow Dash that just being there, just trying, helps. Helps a lot, in it's own way. Somehow.

It doesn’t come out like that. “I’m fine.”

Rainbow frowns this time. “Pretty sure that’s a red flag, or somethin’. I know you’re not fine, you know you’re not fine, but if you told me why I could help.”

It isn’t that easy for Fluttershy. Talking wouldn’t be too hard, but words – the right words, the ones Fluttershy thinks would mean something, make a difference – don’t come easily to her. 

Rainbow cuts in. “Just tell me what you’re thinking. What’s in your mind, right now. This moment. Shoot.”

Fluttershy almost instinctively deflects it, but Rainbow Dash just has a way sometimes.

Besides, it doesn’t work if only one of them is trying.

“Well – “ and it still come with difficulty to Fluttershy, but she tries to push her words around that barrier in her mind that tells her they just won’t mean anything “ – that, I guess. I think. Um. Talking is hard.”

“Tell me how.”

“Talking about anything…I don’t know if I – if what I say is worth saying.” Fluttershy rolls some of the pulled grass between her fingers. “I don’t – maybe it’s because I don’t use the right words. Maybe someone else could say it better.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe.”

Fluttershy isn’t looking at Rainbow when she speaks, but the small voice comes back, with hesitation. “Yeah, well. I wanna hear what you think, right words or wrong.”

Part of Fluttershy tries to stop her from speaking her mind. Another part says she’s already got one foot in the grave. “But it doesn’t matter. What I think, what I say – does it?”

She hears Rainbow start a word, but then give up on it. A beat, then, “I mean, I’m gonna say the same things I always say. I think it matters when you tell yourself, ‘hey, I think it matters’. Y’know?”

They’ve had this conversation. Every autumn, every time the leaves begin to fall, every time Fluttershy falls quieter with them.

She’s usually consistently quiet, though. The others – Rarity, AJ, and the gang – haven’t known Fluttershy every autumn for years. Rainbow Dash has. 

And, even then, Fluttershy couldn’t even explain to her why. Most of the time, she can’t even explain it to herself. 

“I think that’s it,” Fluttershy continues out loud. “I don’t really know it myself. It just – um – it feels like the-the clouds, when they cover the sun.”

“Uhh?” Rainbow asks, prompts Fluttershy on. 

Words, Fluttershy reminds herself. Use words. “Umm. Like, when the sun covers the clouds. It just happens, and you can’t control it. It rains anyway.”

“Remind me to write that down in a song,” Rainbow mutters as she pushes herself up on her hands. She looks down at Fluttershy, with an almost-smile. “Rain pours, ‘Shy. Get an umbrella.”

Fluttershy is inclined to blame herself for the Rainbow’s metaphor confusion, somehow. Instead, she level Rainbow with a steady half-smile. “It still rains.”

There’s a break in pace after that, where Rainbow’s face falls. Like she’s thinking, and it’s not a face Fluttershy’s used to seeing on her.

Then, “Oh.”

That’s supposed to be Fluttershy’s word, so she asks, “Hmm?”

Rainbow still has that pensive look on her face when she speaks. “I dunno. Something about that – made sense, y’know?” She shrugs, and it brings back the carefree grin of hers. “I dunno. I say that a lot, don’t I? ‘Cause I don’t know, y’know?”

Fluttershy may have, but she’s still stuck on what Rainbow said. 

Trivial, part of her says – the same part that checks and rechecks everything she says before she says it – but for a moment, Fluttershy felt like Rainbow really understood, heard the words as Fluttershy meant them. 

That, for a moment, Fluttershy had said what was on her mind, exactly as it was. And, somehow, it made the difference.

Fluttershy smiles at that.

Rainbow, in turn, grins wider. “What’s so funny? I can have hang-ups, too, y’know. I’m not much of a winter myself. Hate heavy jackets. And how Sunset can rock a just leather jacket and not get cold.”

Fluttershy wants to make a joke, but stops short when she can’t come up with one.

One step at a time. Tiny baby steps that crunch orange leaves under them.

Rainbow fills the silence by ruffling Fluttershy’s hair, then grabbing a handful of leaves and grass and tossing them over her. “I still don’t get it, but I get that much, so – I dunno. I’ll wait ‘til summer when you just won’t shut up about the blue jays and stuff.”

She wants to tell Rainbow Dash that there aren’t words that could make her feel better, there aren’t things that could happen. That they could talk about this for years, just like they have, and Fluttershy could still feel like it wouldn’t ever come to the conclusion she wants it to. 

But conversation comes stilted – any season; autumn, somehow, just brings her down – and maybe there aren’t enough words to say everything right at all. And maybe that’s the difference between feelings and words. 

It’s an immeasurable divide, Fluttershy thinks, as she pushes Rainbow over and follows behind as they roll down the hill childishly. 

Sometimes she’ll feel better, and sometimes she’ll feel worse; it comes and goes, like the seasons, with the seasons.

“Race ya to the top,” Rainbow shouts, already clambering up and kicking the leaves up behind her.

Fluttershy watches them fall back down helplessly. She feels the same. She tries to make the most of it.

She thinks she should shout something back, but instead bounds up the hill behind Rainbow Dash, one step at a time.