Her name was Fluttershy. This was an appropriate name for the filly, because she was shy, and her conviction wavered under the slightest of uncertainties. Despite being a pegasus, she couldn't fly at all; whenever she tried, her wings would just lock up and send her into an uncontrolled tumble. The other foals teased her constantly for this, of course.
At the moment, she stood on a small cloud in front of Flight Camp's expert course starting line. So many people had shown up for this event, and she felt rather intimidated. However, there wasn't really any way for her to get back to the solid clouds of the campground at the moment, since she was acting as the timekeeper for the race. It would be awfully inconvenient for everypony else if the race had to be delayed for ten minutes while somepony else was found for the position, after all.
Fluttershy's gaze turned to the rainbow-maned cyan filly in the middle of the starting line. Her name was Rainbow Dash, and she was Fluttershy's best friend in the whole world. Admittedly, this wasn't too difficult, since Fluttershy hadn't actually managed to speak a complete sentence to anypony else in camp, but that didn't make Rainbow any less of a friend. Rainbow didn't just want to fly in this race; Rainbow was flying it for Fluttershy, just to try to get those two colts to stop teasing her so much. Acting as timekeeper was the least she could do to help her friend.
With that thought, Fluttershy tightened her grip on the flag, closed her eyes, raised her head, and waved it, counting out loud.
"One...twoooooooOOOOOOOOH!"
Fluttershy's eyes shot open as soon as she felt herself falling. She quickly realized that one or another of the racers must have buzzed the cloud she was sitting on, throwing her off it. She looked down, and immediately regretted the decision; the ground was just so big and it was coming up so fast! She tried to flap her wings, but all she managed to do was collide with a cloud, which she fell straight through, barely even slowing down.
When Fluttershy was about 100 meters above the ground, she gave up flailing her limbs entirely, and just closed her eyes, praying for some way out of her predicament.
Fortunately for her, Causality answered.
Contrary to popular belief, midsummer butterfly swarms are not in any way unusual for Equestria's fields and forests. Nor is it particularly difficult to imagine that they could hold a pegasus' weight; butterfly antennae are rather sturdier than water vapor, after all.
What is unusual, however, is the fact that this particular swarm of butterflies, upon receiving a dumbfounded filly passenger, made an immediate 90-degree turn and began to increase their velocity, as if they had to get somewhere in a hurry.
They even shaped themselves into a lounge chair and a stool.
Her name was Fluttershy, and she was confused.
Oh, she was certainly glad that the butterflies had caught her, and had thanked them profusely for it. She just wasn't sure why they'd thought it was necessary to carry her half a kilometer away from where she would have otherwise landed. She hoped they weren't trying to avoid something dangerous.
Fluttershy shook her head, and looked clearly at her surroundings for the first time since the butterflies had caught her. It was beautiful. The forest was so amazing; the plants were gorgeous and the critters were absolutely adorable. The sheer wonder of the ground's life made her heart soar like it never had before.
In fact, she felt almost like she could burst into song. But she didn't, because that would scare away the animals, and she wasn't a very good singer anyway. Instead, she opted for a quiet stroll along the edge of the trees.
Before she got very far, however, she heard a loud noise coming from overhead. She turned her head, and saw some sort of extremely fast rainbow-colored...something, diving in her general direction. In fact, it seemed to be headed for a cloud hoop that was hovering barely ten meters away.
...An extremely fast rainbow. "...Rainbow Dash?"
Fluttershy was never entirely sure what happened next, but what she was sure about was that the rainbow missile quickly became some kind of cloud wall that stretched, and stretched. As the stretching reached its limit, Fluttershy could make out the figure of Rainbow Dash reaching a hoof out towards the hoop, which was barely a half meter away from her.
Then the wall snapped like a rubber band, dissipating quickly.
Rainbow Dash had been catapulted into the air at a very, very steep angle, and at high speed, and there weren't any clouds or other pegasi around to catch her. All Fluttershy could think about was her own fall, and what would happen to Rainbow if no one caught her. It was for this reason that Fluttershy didn't notice she was no longer touching the ground.
The only thing that mattered was that she catch Rainbow, like the butterflies caught her. And so, she did.
Fluttershy was so focused at this point that it took her a few seconds to become aware of her surroundings. When she did, she nearly dropped Rainbow in shock.
She was flying.
Okay, so it wasn't very good flying; she hadn't caught Rainbow until she was already most of the way to the ground, and by the time she'd managed to come to a hover, the force of Rainbow's dive had sent the pair of them right back to the treeline. But it was flying, all the same.
"I'm flying...I'm flying, Rainbow! Can you..." Fluttershy's cheers died quickly when she saw just what state her friend was in. Rainbow was completely unconscious, and seemed to have been bruised, at the very least. Fluttershy looked back up at the distant clouds of camp, then gulped. "...Just hold on, Rainbow, I'll...I'll get you to the nurse's office. You're gonna be OK."
Luckily, Fluttershy only had to carry Rainbow halfway back up to camp before several councilors came down to help. As it turned out, they were astounded at what Fluttershy had accomplished; she had been flying straight up through some of the fiercest crosswinds in the area, but hadn't been pushed an inch. When they got back to camp, one of the councilors took her aside and explained that, as far as he could tell, she hadn't been flying well because she was taking the wrong classes. Apparently Fluttershy had been trying to learn quick, agile flying when what her wings were built for was slow, but powerful flight.
After helping her correct her schedule, the councilor told her to take the rest of the day off. Fluttershy headed straight for her bunk; it really had been a long day.
The next morning after breakfast, Fluttershy ran straight for the nurse's office to check on her friend. To her surprise, there were already a couple of ponies waiting there. They turned to see who was coming, then froze.
The darker brown one fidgeted a bit, then said, "Uh...look, this isn't easy for us to say, but..."
The lighter tan one stepped forward. "We'll stop bugging you if you promise not to let your friend go on that course again."
Fluttershy blinked. "Um...not that I don't appreciate it, but...why would you..."
The tan one sighed. "We just wanted to take her down a peg, all right? We didn't actually want to hurt anypony. We aren't jerks."
The brown one nodded. "We just wanted a laugh, you know? But two of you guys almost went splat yesterday and...well, that just isn't cool no matter how you slice it."
Fluttershy paused for a bit, then nodded. "All right, I promise. Um...if you're going to be nice now...that is, I'm sorry, but I don't know your names yet..."
Brown blinked. "Seriously? I could've sworn...well, I'm Dumbbell."
"And I'm Hoops."
Fluttershy smiled softly. "It's nice to meet you two. I'm sure you already knew, but I'm Fluttershy."
It really was quite a nice conversation, but the opening of the office door put a halt to any further discussion.
The nurse had let Rainbow go, mostly because there didn't seem to be anything physically wrong with her. It seemed as though either Hoops or Dumbbell had managed to finish the course, which meant that Rainbow had lost . All this was explained while Rainbow and Fluttershy ate breakfast.
Rainbow Dash sighed. "So, Fluttershy, do you know anypony in camp who's got any...urgh...spare outfits?"
"Hmm...Well, one of my bunkmates, Cloud Kicker, really likes fashion. I think she's asked me a few times if I could ask you to try on some of her outfits, actually..."
Rainbow facehoofed. "Man...if she's who I'm thinking of, I'm really not looking forward to being stuck in the same room as her. I swear, she has the worst voice ever." She sighed again. "Well, I made the bet, and I lost, so I guess I shouldn't complain, but..."
A taloned hand came down on Rainbow's shoulder. "Ehh, if you lost a bet, you deserve to be able to gripe about it a little. That's how we do things where I'm from, anyway." The griffon smirked, then sat down next to Rainbow.
Rainbow smiled and shook her head. "Man, if my town was half as cool as yours, G...Oh hey, Fluttershy, you haven't met Gilda yet, have you?"
Fluttershy gulped. "Um...no, I haven't. It's nice to meet you, Gilda."
Gilda chuckled. "Cute mascot, Dash. Hey, when exactly did you need to show those two losers your stylish shoes, or whatever?"
Rainbow blinked. "Crap, I gotta get going! You guys just, hang or something, I'll be back later!"
Fluttershy watched Rainbow fly off, then turned to face Gilda. What she saw was a griffon with the most thoroughly predatory look she'd ever seen. "Okay, dweeb, here's what I think. I think you're too much of a wimp to hang with Dash. You'll just cramp up her style and slow her down, so you're gonna go away and leave her alone whenever you aren't in the cheering section. Got it?"
Deep within Fluttershy's psyche, a small, quivering part of her, much reduced in size and thickness over the past day, snapped. And the part of Fluttershy it had been holding back rushed out.
Fluttershy's eyes snapped wide open. "Now you listen to me. I didn't know how to fly until yesterday. I almost died yesterday because of it. Rainbow Dash almost died yesterday because I didn't know how to fly. But when she was falling down after that cloud shot her into the sky, I flew up and caught her anyway, because I didn't care that I couldn't do it. The only think I could think about was what would happen if I let her go splat, and I was not going to let that happen. Do you know what I learned yesterday? I learned that, if I think I can do something, I probably can. I think I could be a pretty good flier, by doing it my own way. I think I could go live on the ground and help take care of the plants and animals down there, and do a really good job. I think I am going to keep on being friends with Rainbow Dash, no matter what you have to say about it. And right now, I think I could hit you twice as hard as you hit me, if you tried anything. Which is why you aren't going to try anything. GOT IT?"
The cafeteria was so quiet, you could hear a fork hit the floor. Made of clouds.
After a moment, Gilda began to chuckle. The sound made Fluttershy realize she was standing on the table; she blushed heavily and sat back down in her seat. Gilda just smiled, shaking her head and laughing. "Heh...man, no wonder Dash likes you! For a total softie, you sure can toughen up when you want to! I think we could be pretty good friends." She extended a fist. "Put 'er there, dude!"
After a moment, Fluttershy bumped Gilda's fist with a hoof of her own. There was a pause. Fluttershy fidgeted, then asked, "Why is everypony still staring?"
Gilda shrugged. "Dunno. Hey, why are you dweebs staring at us?"
There was a pause, and then from somewhere to Fluttershy's left, somepony said, "...she just got her Cutie Mark."
And so she had. It was three roses, and they meant exactly what she said.
Her name was Fluttershy. Not for being shy and wavering, but for shying from wavering.