A Wrong-Sized Tail

by Impossible Numbers


A New Species of Kindness?

“Fluttershy, dear, wait a mo!”

So yet again, she stopped on the path out of Whitetail Woods – deliberately looking away as though to give Rarity privacy – whilst Rarity, cursing under her breath, upturned a hoof and flicked stones out of her own frogs. What was left of her mane fought against bramble and thicket, looking like the world’s most ravaged purple bush. Fluttershy scowled into the distance. Really, such a fuss over dirt.

“Dratted…” Rarity rubbed the back of a leg turning pink. “All these… plants… Eugh, so icky…”

Fluttershy turned back, committing fully, to give her a respectable amount of attention. As she did so, she noticed the slight leftover threads of pink on the ground beside herself, where her own overlong tail hadn’t turned around fully. Instead, it dragged on the twigs.

She knew it was too long. Always too long, every time she waded into the wilderness. Too long, too short… How had ponies not laughed at how wrong it always was? Wherever it was?

Even when she flicked her tail’s dock and the rest of the tail was thus tugged out of sight, its weight left traces on her, as though someone else had tugged it and made her yelp. She had yet to recover from the threatening aches.

Looking Rarity up and down, she wondered how someone could look so elegant even with bits of mud and twig on their coat. It shone through like a priceless vase with bits of clay on.

“If it helps, I think you look pretty,” she said.

Rarity snorted, not looking up. “I swear I’ll never walk on this hoof again! Oh, the aches! The pain!”

“Really, I do,” insisted Fluttershy. “You look like a gardener.”

“Oh, jolly good. Snap a picture. They’ve got a page for me in the Flower’s Digest.”

“I really do mean it. Like a sort of modern-day Auburn Hip Dray, only she had a squirrel’s nest on her, well, hip. And her hat looked less ragged. And she didn’t curl her mane like you did. And it was a different colour. And so was her coat. And she lived in Manehattan. And I think I’ll stop there. Now. Um.”

Fluttershy kicked at the dirt irritably.

Brushing her coat down as much as possible, and levitating the hateful spray can again, Rarity blew through her lips, summing up in one nonsense burst all the treatises she clearly wanted to write in response to Fluttershy’s nonsense.

I really wish you had my eyes, thought Fluttershy, in the damp echo chamber of her mind.

“I just wish you wouldn’t –” she began.

“Wouldn’t what, pray tell?”

Ah. That voice.

Fluttershy pressed on suicidally. “Wouldn’t… whine so much.”

Rarity drew herself up, contriving to indicate that under Nature’s leavings a storm of a queen was coming, thunderbolts raised and lightning on a leash.

“I am not whining!” she declared, and the skies rumbled among the shivering trees. “I am complaining!

“Kinda?” whispered Fluttershy before Her Majesty.

“You know, it really is time I explained to ponies the differences between ‘complaining’, ‘whining’, ‘critiquing’, ‘condemning’, ‘offering tactful suggestions for improvement’, ‘indicating’, ‘demonstrating’, ‘joculating’ –”

“OK, OK.” Fluttershy’s wings waved her off. “I didn’t mean to be so rude. I was trying to be honest.”

“Rude? Honest? So you think I’m a prissy little loudmouth for whin– urgh! – for complaining all the time?”

“No,” said Fluttershy too quickly.

Her Majesty the Thunderous Queen Rarity finally calmed, bringing back the sunshine and the tinkling raindrops of titters. “Puh-lease, Fluttershy, I can tell when you’re lying. Your face goes red when you’re lying.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said desperately.

And it’s gone even redder now. Practically rosy.”

“It was only a little…”

“Ah?”

“It’s not much of a not-un-lie.”

“Ah?”

“It’s… an itty-bitty little lie?”

“Ah.”

“OK, OK, I lied! I’m sorry. But I didn’t mean to, I-I just thought you meant –”

And just like that, Rarity’s laughter restored the calm and the charm. Her good, sporting hoof patted Fluttershy on the withers gamely, and then wiped itself on a sleeve when the mud stuck to it.

“Oho, it’s cruel of me – do forgive a mare her indulgences, dear Fluttershy! – but there’s something beautiful about your insistence on being nice all the time. Sincerity is a style all its own.”

“Well in that case: I don’t appreciate being treated like that.”

“I apologize. Really!” Rarity straightened up, all humour running off to hide. “You’re just like Applejack at times, always being polite and gentle in your words like a true lady. If you didn’t muck in the mud so much… why, we’d be practically sisters-in-arms.”

Rarity chewed her lip, tasting the risks in her next manoeuvre. For once, Fluttershy backed off. She could read Rarity’s face like a glossy magazine, and there was no point in being rough with the pages in case they creased. So she breathed as quietly as possible and waited.

Overhead, birds rushed from branch to branch with a crash.

Eventually, Rarity said, “Well, there are higher beauties than what more mundane eyes can see. Below the surface, I mean. Erm… you ever heard of the story of Quartermaster?”

Recognition caught Fluttershy off-guard for a moment. “Oh, I loved that story! He was ever so kind to all the little birdies and the nesting sparrows and he even let the pigeons rest on the gargoyles…”

“Yes, Fluttershy, wonderful, trying to make a point here?”

“Oh, sorry. You were saying?”

“That’s my point, actually. Quartermaster might have been nothing but a bellringer for the Royal Guard, and he might have been hidden away because even his own parents hated the sight of him, and no one wanted an ugly hunchback representing the Royal Guard in public when he could play the bugle at dawn so that no one could see him on the tower, and…”

“Ahem? Rarity?”

“Ah, right-right-right. My point is… um…”

Whilst Rarity frowned and tried to spot her point from the branches overhead, Fluttershy resisted the urge to sit and wait. She could still feel her tail swishing as she flicked at a couple of flies that drew too close. Not harshly: just enough to stir the air around them and startle them to a more respectable distance.

Quartermaster, ah, she remembered that book. Quite an interesting romance, of course, and Rarity had recommended it. But the passages that always caught Fluttershy’s attention involved baby birds. Quartermaster had named them, checked their nests every day, even taught them how to fly despite not being a pegasus –

“Let me think…” murmured Rarity under her breath. “Mocked by mob, tragic love fails, left the city out of feeling unloved, lonely ending…”

“I think you’re trying to say,” said Fluttershy, out of sympathy, “that even though he was ugly, the problem wasn’t with him but with the ponies around him who misjudged him?”

Rarity blinked down at her. “Hm? What?”

“The lesson you were trying to teach.”

“Was I?”

Sympathy morphed into sharp annoyance. “Rarity…

“I’m only trying to make the point that kindness is a beauty all of its own, hunchbacked or otherwise.” Rarity took a deep breath, as though to fight a rival current. “Look… Looks… Looks aren’t the end… of the world…”

Fluttershy waited for Rarity’s face to stop drowning. It thrashed against the current.

“Ish,” Rarity finished, unable to take any more. “And even if you were an ugly hunchback, so what? Like Quartermaster, you deserve to be seen for the wonder you are! Ugly yet kind – a natural subversion, and –”

“So kindness is compensation for being ugly, is it?” said Fluttershy, voicing a lurking suspicion.

The moment she saw the panic burst on Rarity, she realized too late to keep her mouth shut.

“Ye– No! No. No, of course not.” Rarity glanced about desperately. “I just meant some things are more important than others… in a way.”

Squirming under the need to defend physical attractiveness somehow, Rarity hastily added, “Anyway, you aren’t a hunchback. You’re a fine-tailed young mare with a good eye for –”

“Rarity?” said Fluttershy in a sigh of a voice.

“Yes?”

Gaze firmly planted on Rarity, Fluttershy swished her tail along the ground, idly flicking at the leaves with the tip. “I know my tail’s ugly. When it’s not fake. You don’t have to make excuses for me.”

“Fake? Oh, we know well enough in the fashion industry what ‘fake’ is. Most just don’t talk about that sort of rot. Whereas this is simply the augmentation of a beauty that already exists in –”

Rarity.

“All right, ‘fake’. If you insist. But I really do mean what I say.”

Fluttershy glared into her friend’s suddenly widening eyes. If there was so much as a dart, or a twitch, or a quiver in that wet, reflected sunset…

Then she backed off, pulling her hair out of her own eyes. Ah, she was being stupid again!

“How can you believe it?” she said, almost in despair.

“How does the sky turn orange at sunset? I don’t know! What else am I supposed to do, make up stories?”

“Rarity, I want you to be honest. Are you being honest?”

“As honest as the day is long.” Rarity glanced up at the sunset. “In a manner of speaking. F’shaw! You know what I mean! Beauty is as I find it!”

And yet there was always a part of Fluttershy that muttered, You lie.

It didn’t sting at all, though. Other parts of her pointed out that, if Rarity was lying, she was at least rushing to lie by Fluttershy’s side.

Besides, she didn’t know Rarity was lying. Especially under Applejack’s influence, Rarity could tell the truth if pushed, and this seemed like enough push to have had it out by now.

To make sure, and hating herself for the stubborn doubt, Fluttershy added, “I’ve always respected your honesty. And I am progressing. You said so yourself.”

“Fluttershy…” Rarity’s face reddened.

That was when Fluttershy struck upon an even weirder idea. “You don’t just think I’m pretty and graceful like a model, do you?”

Ah, now the red face turned even redder. “This is not a fruitful area of discussion.”

“You actually like –

“Fluttershy! There is such a thing as impropriety!” said Rarity’s mouth. Rarity’s eyes said a tiny yes.

“Be honest.” An even more shameful smile cuddled Fluttershy’s face. “You don’t just think I can be pretty with a short tail, you think I’m especially pr–”

“My-word-doesn’t-the-sunset-look-lovely-today!” Rarity wiped the muck off her own face and sagged with relief.

Letting her go this time, Fluttershy turned to watch the sunset vanishing blaze by blaze over the bulging treetops. Perhaps she was being just a bit too cruel. Rarity said she was sensitive in the matter of beauty, and if the poor unicorn happened to really like a certain style, or if her senses were, in a sense, overloaded… well, she didn’t ask for this either, did she?

“I’m just teasing,” said Fluttershy, more calmly.

“Yes. Well. It comes as a shock to the system, I can tell you! You never used to tease.”

Really?” said Fluttershy with exaggerated interest. “Then I must be getting better.”

She turned back in time to see Rarity roll her eyes and mutter, “Where do you pick up things like that?”

“Oh, here and there, here and there.”

Rarity caught the glance. “All right, you’ve had your fun. May we retire to our domiciles, now?”

“I could still invite you over for tea, if you like. It’d be my treat. Besides, I owe you some rest and relaxation, after all the hard work you’ve done today.”

Rarity’s mouth thinned, like a balance weighting up this proposal. “Very well, confound you. Earl Grey, if you have any. Extra sugar. Just for what you did to my nerves.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

They rounded on the path – Fluttershy flicking her tail around properly – and ventured further into the forest. Through the branches could be seen the grassy fields and bush verges that lay closer to their Ponyville homes.

What was the point of all that?

The question popped up of its own accord, while up ahead Rarity cursed and stumbled through the bracken.

I just wanted to be nice, thought Fluttershy at first, before she gave much thought to it.

No, what was really the point of all that? The question buzzed worse than a horsefly. Fluttershy curled her lips against it.

She wanted to show there were all kinds of beauties, out there in the world, and not fake ones either. Show Rarity she really had been learning.

Then, after shouting at a log that had caught her by the ankle, Rarity spun round on a sudden impulse. “Fluttershy, what exactly was the point of –?”

“I wanted to show you I knew real beauty,” said Fluttershy, who’d been expecting it.

Eyebrow, rise! Rarity didn’t disappoint in that department, at least.

“Indeed?” Rarity said, trudging over some potholes on the path as though clearing mines. “Well, there are ‘fake’ beauties and there are genuine beauties, but ‘fake’ beauties can be genuine if looked at the right way. Beauty is beauty, however you get there.” She yelped and stumbled, turned, glared at the path, and added, “Unless it involves a nature walk.”

“Oh Rarity, you do go on. It’s only an hour’s walk.”

“Two hours more than I was prepared for, then!”

“Two hours?”

“One of them was for packing.” Respectfully, Rarity nodded to her. “But there is something to be said for genuine beauties everywhere. That is, if you know where to find them.”

They trekked downhill in silence, back towards Ponyville. Well, in silence unless one counted Rarity’s squeaks and shrieks.

Deep in her chest, Fluttershy sensed the splinter of doubt. The doubt stayed at bay, never really gone for long.

Overhead, the dusk chorus began to tweet and twitter, calls crossing the branches as though small, squeaky friends greeted her.

Once or twice, Fluttershy stood still and sang back, a few rising notes to join the flying dance overhead.

Rarity paused to cock an ear. She’d often said Fluttershy’s voice was a rare bird.

If Fluttershy was sure of one thing, it was that she knew animals. They adapted. They came in all shapes and sizes. Every species had its own style.

“Quite a range you have there,” said Rarity, apropos of nothing.

Fluttershy focused on the branches above. Sometimes, she spotted a flash of bright blue wings, but mostly the rustling leaves misled her. Too many small things, too much movement, too much forest for them to get lost in.

It did matter if Rarity was telling the truth or lying, when it came to the short tail. The doubts insisted on it. The knowledge that the tail was and forever would be short: it would never leave Fluttershy alone. It would never let her show it in public. She had to live with that. It would never work.

But that in itself dwindled, became less of a problem, at least right now. Little concerns got lost and mingled in the forest. Even the overlong tail extensions vanished and became less than distractions again. Suddenly fussing over tails at all seemed petty. Tedious. Far too small-minded when Fluttershy tried to swallow the majesty of a thousand oaks or melt into the fiery sunset.

And those flames of beauty burned brighter around someone who would take it with good grace. A friend who would at least take the time to come and look at it. However much she complained or whined or whatever, at least she had come and met Fluttershy on her own turf.

If Rarity was telling a lie, it was an awfully small one in the grand scheme of things.

Heart aflutter, Fluttershy sucked in a tender breath and sang out once more in birdsong, with a voice motherly as milk. She let the series of notes escape, fledglings on their first flight, stronger and faster than the pathetic little wings would lead anyone else to think. She pretended not to hear Rarity’s sigh of delight beside her. It had, after all, been very quiet.

Distant crows cawed their greetings. Rough and coarse, but a style all their own. From afar, the titmouse family chattered and chirped their delight at knowing their pegasus friend was nearby. Hoverflies landed gratefully on Fluttershy’s coat. It was all she could do to scrape them off gently by hoof and relocate them to handy nearby leaves.

Soon, all was silent in the forest. Ready for night.

Duty done, Fluttershy marched on.

Rarity followed alongside. Together, they trekked onwards again.

When Fluttershy glanced sidelong, she noticed the bleeding blush under each of Rarity’s worn-out eyes. Her friend’s pale face twitched between a smile and a grim desire to get out of this wretched forest already.

What did Rarity see? What did she hear? What did she feel?

“Thank you for coming out with me, Rarity. I know it’s not your cup of tea.”

Once more, the mare of inspiration beamed at her and knighted her with a regal nod. “It has been an education. They are certainly not lying when they say true beauty is found within. I don’t need a fashionista’s eye to see yours.”

For once, Fluttershy felt no burning blush coming on. What was there to be embarrassed by here? “You still want that tea?”

“Oh gosh yes! I wouldn’t dream of saying no.”

Fluttershy hummed thoughtfully.

Those thoughts gently guided her mind into place. Not just the eyes of the beholder, then? The ears of the beholder, the tongue of the beholder, the nose and the skin and a dozen other places of the beholder: all could find their own kind of beauty. Even the eyes could learn to see, further and further afield, or to smaller and smaller scales, or deeper and deeper into another face, so that it all came together in the mind and in the heart of the beholder for one perfect moment.

There was beauty everywhere she looked. Even her cottage seemed much more radiant and luxuriant in its canopy-like rooftop as they drew closer.

Maybe sometimes, Fluttershy thought, beauty is wherever you look for it.

For instance: around her table, late in the evening, in her cosy den, where she would be drinking tea with a friend who smiled honestly, who laughed alongside her, and who blushed when she told just a little too much of a truth.