Huddled in the corner, she knew where she was—home, of course, or her house, she should say, since a thing like her could never really have a home—but she couldn't quite remember how she'd gotten there. The sharp little pinpricks of pain all over her, though, made her think she must've crashed straight through the window when she arrived...
Unless maybe they were just the shards of her shattered dreams jabbing into her. But the salty stink of blood that curdled her nose every time she dragged in a breath leaned her more toward thinking it was actual broken glass.
She'd been nudged more than once in the however many minutes she'd been laying there, had heard concerned chirps and shuffles, had felt tiny claws gripping her here and there and a lot of odd little tugging sensations, but she'd found she couldn't quite manage to care enough to open her eyes and see what was going on. Maybe her animal friends had turned on her, too, were tearing bits and pieces from her to take home and feed to their families. Which would be fine, actually: she might as well be useful somehow...
A pounding curled her into a tighter ball, and when it was followed by Applejack yelling, "Fluttershy! You in there??" she couldn't even muster a whimper.
More pounding. "You open this door right now, you hear?? Or I swear to Celestia I'm bucking it down!"
"Go away," she whispered, but with all the pounding, she doubted the words got through. A familiar patter of paws over the carpet, though, caught her ear, and she cracked her eyelids, unraveled her front legs from the tangle across her face, saw Angel Bunny leaping for the lock on the front door, catching it, swinging his whole body around on it till it clicked.
The door burst open, then, Fluttershy squinting in the flood of light, a pony silhouetted there, her legs firmly planted, her hat set back on her head, her chest heaving. "Sweet mercy!" Applejack shouted.
Fluttershy covered her eyes again. "Don't look at me," she tried to say, not sure if she actually made a sound. "Please don't..."
Then hoofs were stroking her, the bunched-up end of a mane brushing over her, a voice that would've been Applejack's except for the cracking and the sobbing in it: "All my fault! Oh, Fluttershy, I never shoulda...shoulda just...oh, I'm so, so sorry!"
Which roused her enough to roll over a bit, fresh little points stabbing her, and look up. It was definitely Applejack crouched there beside her, but the pain and tears in the earth pony's sweet green eyes, that didn't seem right at all. And what had she said? "You're sorry?" Fluttershy asked, and this time, she could just barely hear the words. "Ummm, actually, I'm sorry." Her throat wanted to bunch up again, but she forced it to stay open long enough to get out: "The sorriest thing that ever lived..."
"Nunna that." A snort, and Applejack almost sounded like herself again. "Can you get up? Looks like the birds and the mice've plucked mosta the shards outta you, but we'll needta—"
"Why?" she asked, letting her eyes clench once more. "What's it even matter?"
The growl snapped Fluttershy's eyes wide, the look on Applejack's face fiercer than anything she'd ever seen there. "I'll tell you what it matters, little missy! It matters that I done this to you outta my own pigheadedness, and I ain't about to let you get hurt any worse 'cause of me! So now, you stand up if'n you can, or you tell me if'n you can't!"
Without even thinking, Fluttershy sprang quivering to her hoofs, and birds swarmed her—through her tail, up and down her shanks and flanks, along her back, between the feathers of her wings, over her withers, in and out of her mane—their beaks and claws combing her closely and thoroughly and so quickly, it was over before she could do more than gasp.
A robin settled on her nose, cocked his head to look at her first with one eye, then with the other; a flutter of wings, and he lit on the floor next to Angel Bunny, gave him a nod, and Angel turned to Applejack with a nod of his own.
Applejack's smile made her look more like herself, and the way she touched the brim of her hat and said, "Thankee kindly," pumped a little life into Fluttershy's deflated insides.
Angel nodded once more, and the pain in his eyes when he turned toward Fluttershy made her hang her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to cause a fuss. And thank you."
With a shuffling hop, Angel came over, reached out tentatively, touched her right front hoof; then he scurried away to the part of the front room where squadrons of mice and squirrels were picking broken glass out of the carpet and carrying it all to a couple raccoons with paper bags in their paws.
"C'mon, then," Applejack said, Fluttershy swinging her attention back to—and that she hesitated even for a moment before thinking of Applejack as her friend washed shame through her yet again. Of course Applejack was her friend! Even if Fluttershy didn't deserve her...
She was still speaking, though: "Looks like just a couple little bleeders on your forelegs. Nothing too serious, I reckon, but let's get you to the bathroom and check 'em to make sure."
Fluttershy swallowed, unable to look up from the floor. "I'll be fine."
Another growl. "Don't you dare try that on me! Not after I sent you into that house when I shoulda knowed exactly what was gonna happen! If'n I'd been thinking, I—"
"You??" Something burst inside Fluttershy, caught her so completely by surprise, she couldn't've stopped it if she'd wanted to. Stomping one front hoof, she crooked the other at the center of her own chest. "I knew exactly what was going to happen in there! I've known ever since I first laid eyes on Big Macintosh what would happen if I ever dared show him what sort of a monster I truly am! Because it's the same thing that always happens, and I was only fooling myself when I went in there thinking this time it'd be different!" A lump rose into her throat, but she forced the words around it, the throbbing in her head making her neck droop. "Still, he didn't scream or break any dishes or hit me. I...I'll have to send him a thank you note."
The very air seemed to crackle around her. "You listen to me," Applejack said, her voice rough but quiet. "In the first place, you ain't anything like a monster. Anypony ever tells you diff'rent, you let me know about it so I can set 'em straight, y'understand? And in the second place,—" She stopped so suddenly, Fluttershy glanced up in alarm, hoping she was all right, and—
As usual, she couldn't find the word for what she saw on Applejack's face: angry and sad at the same time, her teeth clenched but her eyes wavering and shiny again. "You knows it ain't always the same when...when you shows yourself. 'Cause when you showed me, I...I..."
Another silence fell, this time real and deep. Fluttershy stared at Applejack's tears, and everything that had happened the past week, it all shifted in her head like a cloud changing shape as she flew around it, the realization making her knees go weak. "It was me," she whispered, her vision blurring. "I was the one who broke your heart."
***
All day long, Applejack had felt like she was running through a lightning storm, dodging thunderbolts of emotion deeper and stronger'n any she'd ever known she could have. Even just in the bushelful of minutes since she'd run full tilt outta Sweet Apple Acres, her joy at Mac not wanting Fluttershy had soured at the thought of what Fluttershy must be going through; finding the house locked up, pounding till the door opened, then seeing the pegasus sprawled on the floor, blood-speckled glass and varmints ev'rywhere...
And now, her whole mind and body clanging like a bell, AJ blinked at Fluttershy saying, "I was the one who broke your heart," and the words stripped her soul bare as a tree branch in winter. "Rarity told me," Fluttershy was going on. "She said you'd found out...you'd found out that somepony you loved didn't...didn't... Oh, Applejack, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't even know you were attracted to mares..."
"I ain't attracted to mares." She wanted to collapse, just wanted to fall right over dead right here and right now rather'n deal with the horrible, horrible joke biology had played on her. "And I ain't attracted to stallions neither. Ain't never been attracted to no pony till...till you opened yourself up, showed me your true, honest self. And ever since, I..." Gazing into the turquoise depths of Fluttershy's eyes, she couldn't hold back any longer. "I been thinking of nothing but you, been dreaming of you ev'ry night. You're the only pony I's ever felt this way about, but you wanted Mac, so I...I set that all up never once thinking he'd turn you down!" Love and lust slammed together inside her, and she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. "I mean, I was hoping he would, sure, but I knew as sure as I know the princesses are gonna bring on the night and day that there weren't no way anypony could turn down the most succulent pippin ever to grace the earth and sky of Equestria!"
A long moment of silence, then: "Succulent pippin?" Fluttershy whispered, her ears back, her wings partially unfurled. "Me?"
"Oh, sugar cube..." The air warm as bathwater around her, Applejack smiled, couldn't keep from stepping forward. "'Cept you're a thousand times sweeter'n sugar, ain't you?" Another step. "You're honeycomb and honeysuckle, rose and lavender." One more step. "Fresher'n fresh water and more glorious'n the sunrise." Not even a half step, and their noses brushed, AJ tilting her head in a way she never had before, stretching the tiniest bit to touch her lips to Fluttershy's, the strange mix of tension and relaxation coursing through her making her want to growl and sigh and sing all at the same time.
Perfect. Oh, so perfect...
A little flexing of her midsection told her what was about to happen, but for the first time in her life, when her lacinia pulled open, shame didn't flood her. 'Cause it was her choice for once, her taking the elements of rude biology and making 'em natural like she'd done her whole life out on the farm. She drank in the sensations—the firm softness of Fluttershy's lips, the gentle wildness of her scent, the taste of her ev'ry bit as succulent as Applejack had imagined—and forced herself not to think about how it didn't mean a thing since Fluttershy didn't want her, didn't want—
Fluttershy's lips moved against hers with a low moan, and AJ heard a wet crinkling sound, the muskiness of the air shooting up ten or twenty fold. "Oh!" Fluttershy gasped, and she pulled back the same time Applejack did. 'Cause AJ knew all too well nowadays what a lacinia sounded like when it opened. And since hers already was, it hadta be—
Standing less'n an inch away, she could feel the heat of Fluttershy's blush, could see the shock and alarm in her eyes. But when those eyes closed partway and Fluttershy leaned forward to kiss her, the shock raced through Applejack's body like the lightning she'd imagined herself dodging. Another little moan, and Fluttershy was sliding her head along Applejack's neck, her lips touching ev'ry inch or so with an explosive force that rocked AJ down to her hoofs. "Can you ever forgive me, Applejack?" she asked.
"Forgive you?" A whole 'nother part of AJ's brain seemed to have taken over, a part that didn't think or know or care about anything as long as Fluttershy kept doing what she was doing. "Whaddaya—? I...I don't—"
"I've been a fool." Fluttershy pulled away, brought her even-more-gorgeous-when-she-looked-so-serious face back around to where Applejack could gaze upon it. "You asked me when this all started if I was in love with Big Macintosh, and I said yes, but...how could I be? I don't know him; I've never even really talked to him! Everything I thought I loved about him—how strong he was, how kind he was, how gentle and deep and firmly-rooted he was—I only thought he was that way because you were that way, and he was your brother! I made him into the pretend pony I loved when the real pony I loved was right here all the time! Right—" She leaned forward again, rested her nose against AJ's. "Right here. All the time."
Applejack didn't want to move, didn't want to breathe, felt like she had a butterfly perched on her snout that might fly away any moment. But when Fluttershy flexed her neck and began stroking AJ's forehead with that thick, soft pink mane, she couldn't help whispering, "Sweet mercy, yes."
"So," Fluttershy was murmuring, "if you still think we should check my cuts, there's a bathroom upstairs. We...we'd kind of have to go through my bedroom to get to it, though, so if you wouldn't mind, could we maybe...maybe stop off there first to...to—" The warmth of her blush blossomed against Applejack's face again. "To check out some other things?"
Yes! her body shouted, and this time, AJ could only agree.
***
Tucked against Applejack's wide, wonderful chest, her wiggler still happily nestled inside her friend, Fluttershy drowsed, more contented than she'd ever been. She barely remembered getting up the stairs, the rich, earthy scent of Applejack's open flap driving out every other thought, though sheer habit had forced her to throw one of her special blankets over the bed when they'd charged into the bedroom. And then...then she'd had literally no idea what to do next, her little wiggler neither little nor wiggling, sheer desire howling through her like a midsummer thunderstorm.
Fortunately, Applejack—and oh, the lovely jolt that ran through her every time she thought that name—Applejack had taken charge at that point, had directed Fluttershy to lie on her back, her wiggler jutting eagerly into the air, had straddled her midsection with a smile, leaned forward, kissed her so dizzyingly that Fluttershy had almost fainted, and had slowly impaled herself, the sensation making Fluttershy cry out with joy.
Applejack had sucked in a breath, her eyes wide, her hoofs tightening on either side of Fluttershy's torso, and when Fluttershy had shifted her hips, sliding her wiggler into the liquid depths between Applejack's legs, the earth pony had cried out, a hot, damp explosion soaking Fluttershy's wiggler and making Applejack pitch forward to sprawl over Fluttershy, her hat flying off onto the floor.
Not sure what to do but not wanting to stop, Fluttershy had rolled the both of them onto their sides to more easily keep the gentle motion going. That seemed to have been the right thing, though, the way Applejack grabbed her and kissed her and exploded internally another nine times while the most incredible pleasure built and built and built all over and around and inside Fluttershy. Panting, thrusting, nearly swooning, she'd finally burst over the top herself, and Applejack's matching cries signaling explosion number ten were the last thing she remembered for a long, luscious while.
Drifting back to consciousness, though, she sighed to feel strong legs around her, to hear a relaxed in-and-out of breathing, to let her eyelids slide open on the marvelous, incredible, impossible sight of Applejack holding her, of Applejack pressed against her, of a smile quirking Applejack's muzzle as Fluttershy felt her wiggler puff up a bit in the warm embrace of Applejack's vulva.
"Well, now." Applejack's eyes rolled open, too, but only partway, the love and the desire in them making Fluttershy gasp and her wiggler give a larger twitch. "I'd been thinking that, soon as I could feel my legs again, I'd best be getting started on an apple pie I could carry with my apology over to Rarity's." She bent her neck to kiss Fluttershy. "But right now, I'm liking your idea a whole lot better."
Fluttershy kissed her back. "Were you and Rarity arguing?"
"Kinda." Applejack moved, and Fluttershy almost whimpered, it felt so wonderful. "I was saying love and sex didn't have nothing to do with each other and that consarned biology weren't nothing but the gruesomest sorta trouble." Hoofs stroked her mane, and Fluttershy gazed into Applejack's eyes. "I ain't never been so happy to be wrong in all my born days."
Moving her own hoofs, losing them in the depths of Applejack's blonde tresses: "Because you love me?" Fluttershy asked, the perfection of it all keeping her voice a bare whisper.
Applejack's smile was even more perfect. "Because I love you."
"Oh, yes!" Fluttershy wrapped herself around Applejack, both of them gasping as her wiggler surged again. "And I love you! Now, always, and forever!"