//------------------------------// // 218. Please // Story: Azure Edge // by Leaf Blade //------------------------------// Girls. Fluttershy really liked girls. Who didn’t, right? Well some people didn’t, but fuck them. Girls are amazing. Talking to girls, spending time with girls, thinking about girls, lusting after girls, kissing girls… so good. Fluttershy tried to keep that in mind as she and Applejack stepped into the Canterlot castle ballroom. Applejack was girls, Fluttershy liked girls, Fluttershy should like Applejack. Of course Fluttershy knew it wasn’t that simple but she hoped reducing it to something that simple would help her quiet down the voices screaming at her in her head to hate Applejack. She really didn’t want to. It was something that gnawed at her mind over and over again, on an endless loop, how her relationship with Applejack could sour so quickly over something so completely inconsequential. They both loved Pinkie Pie; that was a wonderful thing. So why didn’t it feel like it? “You wanna get a drink?” Applejack asked pleasantly. “Sure,” Fluttershy replied shortly, following behind Applejack in a daze, lost more in the maze of her own thoughts than the ballroom which felt like it was full to suffocating with ponies. Ponies that would kill her without a second thought if they could. If they knew what she was. Fluttershy sipped her own drink. She felt like she was drowning. Applejack said something? Fluttershy wasn’t sure, and she definitely wasn’t listening. The chatter of the partying ponies felt like torture on Fluttershy’s ears but she was too spaced out to care. Everything was awful, but what did it matter? “Hey hon?” Applejack asked concernedly, Fluttershy lazily glancing over at her. “You wanna take this into the gardens? All these ponies are uhh, makin’ me a mite antsy, y’feel me?” Fluttershy didn’t answer, but she followed as Applejack led. Fluttershy barely processed the trip but soon enough they were in the gardens, and Fluttershy felt like she could breathe. So breathe she did, in through the nose… …and out through the mouth. And then the tears came. And they wouldn’t stop. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Applejack asked, taking a step closer to Fluttershy to comfort her but stopping short out of hesitation. And why wouldn’t she? Fluttershy had been nothing but cruel to her. Fluttershy wanted to say something, if only to reassure Applejack that she didn’t need to worry about Fluttershy, but all she could do was keep crying. She fell on her knees, hands cupping her face as she cried her eyes— and everypony else’s ears— out in the middle of the Canterlot gardens. Maybe it wasn’t the middle? Fluttershy honestly barely had a clue where she even was. It was all just hitting Fluttershy at once. How horrible she’d been, how horrible everyone else had been to her— not Applejack or Pinkie Pie of course, but people from her past. Her magic teacher, the other students, all her colleagues from back home, the other kids from the orphanage. She didn’t want to be like all of them, and yet here she was acting like a damn ghoul toward Applejack because of… what? She was awful toward Pinkie too, treating her like an object to be possessed, and even Rarity, who she treated the same way, regardless of her bullshit ‘hierarchy’ that she believed in, an awful, ghoulish idea that did nothing but poison her brain and her relationships. She was an awful person. A monster. Fluttershy gasped quietly as she felt something land on her head. It was Applejack’s hat; Applejack was sitting down next to Fluttershy, soft smile on her face and hand on Fluttershy’s back. Fluttershy couldn’t stop crying. Her tears flowed like a broken faucet, and before she knew it she was cradled in Applejack’s arms, crying her eyes out into Applejack’s chest, her hat on Fluttershy’s head. How did it come to this? How was Applejack the one comforting her? What was wrong with her? “W-why are you b-being s-so n-nice to me?” Fluttershy blubbered, and she tried but she couldn’t bring herself to look up at Applejack. “I want to be,” Applejack shrugged. “Just feels right. Nothin’ more to it’n that.” “Okay,” Fluttershy let out a pitiful chuckle. She whimpered and whined as she tried to keep her tears under control, but in seconds she had broken into full-on sobs again, Applejack holding her close and humming gently as she rocked Fluttershy back and forth. Fluttershy was ready to scratch her damn eyeballs out. She shot up to her feet like a bullet or something, rubbing and scratching her arms as she gasped for breath in a vain attempt to stop her tears. Her eyes were red and sore already, and she probably looked like a disgusting troll. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. BREATHE. She wished Twilight Sparkle were here. “Hon?” What was that buzzing sound? That piercing frequency resonating in her ears? It wasn’t Applejack; that sounded like a dig against her, but that’s not what Fluttershy meant. Something was in her ears, something was in her brain and she just wanted to dig her nails in and get it the fuck OUT. Fluttershy’s heart was beating. It was pounding, thundering like a war drum, it was so fucking noisy why wouldn’t it just STOP?! Please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please. Fluttershy looked up at the moon. So pretty. She was sure she looked pretty too, with the moonlight glistening off her tears. She wiped them away. Enough crying for today. As she moved her hands up to her face, she remembered there was something on her head. Applejack’s hat. It was… soft? She wasn’t sure; Fluttershy couldn’t parse the texture, her fingers were numb. They were shaking too. She wanted to drive them into her own eyeballs. What the hell was that humming? Ow. What was that? Fluttershy felt something prick her hand, like inbetween her fingers. She raised her hand to check and there was something sticking out. A thorn, black as night. It was an ugly, ugly thing. It made Fluttershy want to scream, to go berserk. Fluttershy snarled at the horrid thing, but she didn’t think to take it out. The idea of touching it with her fingers made her feel sick. She felt nauseous, and in a daze. “Fluttershy?” Applejack. APPLEJACK. She was the one who was causing Fluttershy all this grief. If Pinkie had never started dating Applejack, Fluttershy wouldn’t have had to confront all this garbage inside her. She would’ve been able to just live happily with Pinkie Pie, and everything would’ve been perfect. Applejack ruined it. Applejack ruined everything. “Applejack?” Fluttershy turned slowly to look at Applejack, a hideous red haze clouding her vision but she saw Applejack with perfect clarity. Fluttershy snarled and bared her fangs, her eyes glowing with a shower of teal light as her skin ripped away in favor of scales and fur, antlers sprouting from her head as her fangs grew in size to the length of a pony’s body, her claws outstretched, digging into the soft earth. As the dragon standing in the Canterlot gardens looked down at the pony who seemed so small, she could only thing of one thing to say. “Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy snarled, as Applejack took a cowardly step back, “she is going to LOVE ME!”