Rays of light pierced the curtains, brilliantly illuminating the extravagant décor of Rarity’s bedroom. What was an ordinary bedspread suddenly became a beautiful work of art, hoof stitched by the host, of course. Fluttershy ran her hoof along the blanket, admiring the handiwork. She didn’t remember how she got there, but she didn’t want to leave either; all she knew was that she felt safe here. The pegasus’ eyes opened more, allowing the beaming light to flow into her pupils, awakening her mind.
Memories started flooding back to her like a rushing river. Waves crashed against the edges of consciousness as her eyes shot open, allowing her full view of her situation. The dinner, the dancing, the laughing, the words… Those words…
“I love you”
She cringed at the gravity those three simple vocalizations carried; never had she planned to utter them, but then again never had she planned to wake up in Rarity’s bed this morning. The mare began to question why she was in her bed in the first place, the memories of the night faded after her words, possibly because she drifted into slumber.
The blanket quietly shifted as she adjusted herself to take a look around the room and gather her bearings. She searched in front of her to find the door to Rarity’s closet, and scanned further to find a mirror. It wasn’t the mirror that intrigued her, but the pony inside it; that pony making it the most beautiful mirror she’s ever seen. Her vision blurred as the physical form of Rarity materialized in her vision. The fashion pony was prepping herself for a day of work, brushing her coat and mane.
Fluttershy opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out, only a silent breath. The yellow mare found herself transfixed by the beauty of her partner, her eyes again being drawn to her cutie mark, a triangular arrangement of diamonds, so brilliantly complementing her smooth white coat. She felt ashamed for letting her eyes be glued to Rarity’s flanks again, but she couldn’t break away from her stare.
“Fluttershy, glad to see you’ve returned to the land of the living, I see you’re enjoying yourself.”
Blood rushed to her face for another time as the peeping pegasus realized she had been caught. Again. This time was different though, she had confidence, maybe she wasn’t overflowing with it, but she had it nonetheless.
“Good morning, Rarity, what time is it?”
“It couldn’t be later than eight; I’m surprised you’re up so early, you had quite a night last night.”
Fluttershy raised her eyebrow at what the mare could be implying, but was reassured by Rarity.
“That dinner really wore you out.”
A sudden thought entered the timid pegasus’ mind. “Rarity… did we… did we sleep in the same bed last night?”
Rarity was surprised, but at the same time had expected this question to come. “No dear, I slept on the couch and left you
alone here, you were really out.”
“Oh, okay,” came Fluttershy’s reply. She knew that the unicorn wouldn’t do anything malicious; she just wanted to know some of the technical information.
“Anyway darling, I must get to work on Octavia’s dress. There’s a nice breakfast for you downstairs if you would like to partake of it. I’ll be in my workshop if you need me.”
The pink maned mare nodded as Rarity departed, leaving her eyes wandering beautifully designed room in full light. She noticed her gown from dinner hanging upon a mannequin, which she found to be strange. Her eyes continued to wander until the came upon the space next to her. The blanked upon it was sagging a bit, and she uncovered it to reveal a warm pony sized impression in the bed. A realization crashed down upon her; Rarity lied. It was completely understandable, considering the circumstances but she wasn’t being truthful nonetheless.
“I need to ask Rarity about this,” she muttered to herself. “Um, if that’s okay with her.”
She would have continued to ponder her next course of action if she wasn’t interrupted by a low rumbling. That breakfast Rarity had prepared sure sounded good right now. The aroma lifted her body out of the bed as she clumsily stumbled down the stairs. The kind pony was greeted with the sight of a mountain of pancakes, but it wasn’t the pancakes that stunned
Fluttershy, it was the presentation. The unicorn put a lot of effort into this simple breakfast; just for one young mare.
As much as she didn’t want to, the yellow mare found herself taking a seat and scarfing down the pretty breakfast, not letting manners impede her gorging. She soon found herself staring at a plate of crumbs. A quiet burp escaped her lips as she started giggling at her situation, not that it was funny, but because it was absurd. Here she was, chowing down on an amazing breakfast in the home of the mare of her dreams, and she was worried about where she slept.
It was during her fit of laughter that another thought entered her mind: she hasn’t seen her friends since her and Rarity became a couple, they must be worried. That notion bounced around in her head for a while as she thought about what her friends would think about their relationship. She questioned if they would be accepting, she and her partner being both mares. This was something she needed to ask Rarity about, she would know what to do.
Inspiration suddenly struck with an “Aha!” Vinyl said that she should do something unexpected, and what would be more unexpected for Rarity than her making such a bold request of her? ‘Brilliant,’ she thought to herself.
Fluttershy returned to the stairs and began the slow climb up them as she still found herself to be tired from the events of
the previous night. She found her mare toiling away at some fabric.
The pegasus decided to start off with a general comment before asking the difficult question. “Rarity, that breakfast was delicious.”
The unicorn stayed hard at work for a moment before responding, “Oh, well thank you. Just something I thought I’d do for a wonderful pony such as youself.”
Fluttersy blushed. “Well thank you very much.”
Rarity let her tools continue to slave away as she turned her head to the yellow pony. “So what would you like to do today?”
The pegasus froze. “Actually… I was wondering if we could do something really important to me… If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course dear, what is it?”
“I- I want to tell our friends about… us.”
The unicorn released her work from her magical grip. The thought hadn’t yet crossed her mind that she had forsaken spending time with her other friends for the past few days. “My… That is quite important. I wouldn’t expect one such as yourself to think about that, we really need to take that into consideration.”
Fluttershy smiled, that crazy blue maned unicorn actually knew what she was talking about. “Should we… should we tell them individually?” For obvious reasons she didn’t like the idea of being surrounded by four other ponies bombarding her and Rarity with questions.
“I’m not so sure that would be the best of actions, Fluttershy. Telling them one by one could have its own problems. No, we should break the news to them all at once, that way we won’t have any communication errors.”
The confidence Vinyl had given Fluttershy was suddenly lost as her voice quieted and she looked down at the ground.
“Oh… Okay, whatever you think is best, Rarity.”
The more up front of the two put her arm around her partner. “Now you don’t worry about a thing, I’ll make sure it’s nice and clear what our intentions are, they will be perfectly fine with us.”
“If you say so… I’m- I’m just a little worried, that’s all.”
“Well worrying doesn’t get us anywhere, now does it? Let’s get going, we have no time to waste. We’ll ask Twilight if we can all meet in her home, it being the largest.”
Fluttershy nodded as the unicorn began to lead her out of her boutique, remaining close by her side. The couple trotted down the path to the Ponyville library when a somewhat practiced speech resurrected itself in Fluttershy’s mind.
“Rarity… did we… do anything last night?”
The fashion pony was visibly shocked by the question; she thought she had already cleared that up. “Well of course not, I thought I already told you; you slept in my bed and I slept on the couch.”
“But you didn’t!” came Fluttershy’s rebuttal, her voice picking up. “I saw the imprint of your body where you slept!”
Rarity didn’t expect this kind of accusation from anypony, and definitely not this particular pegasus. She hung her head low as she replied “Look, I… I felt safe next to you. It just seemed like the right place to be last night, and I’d never want to confine myself to that uncomfortable couch. I would have asked you, but you were sound asleep. I’m sorry.
“To answer your question, no; we just went straight to bed, understandably so. You and I were both exhausted. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have lied.”
Fluttershy pondered Rarity’s response for a moment before a wave of embarrassment flooded her. “I’m sorry I raised my voice, I should have trusted you. I’m… I’m just new to this… this whole um, love, thing.” She stumbled over the word. Love; such power within such a simple word.
The unicorn looked over to her partner as they approached Twilight’s doorstep. “That’s all behind us now; it’s time to move forward.” She lifted her hoof to knock before the door swung open revealing a studious purple unicorn with saddlebags full of books.
“Oh, hi girls. I haven’t seen you to in a while. I was just about to leave to drop some books off at Rainbow’s, do you need anything?”
Fluttershy turned, wanting to quickly flee. “Oh, if you’re busy that’s finemaybeanothertime.” She sqeaked as Rarity caught her and held her back.
“Fluttershy and I were wondering if we could all gather in the library. We have something important to tell you all.”
Twilight’s face contorted into in obviously confused yet intrigued expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong dear, we just have a big announcement and we want everypony to be there when we tell you all.”
“Oh, alright, I’ll let Rainbow know when I go and see her. I guess I’ll see you two here later.”
The couple was somewhat surprised at Twilight’s willingness, but she seemed preoccupied with other matters. ‘Probably stayed up too late studying’ both ponies thought to themselves.
Rarity and Fluttershy proceeded to leave the library to round up Applejack and Pinkie Pie, trying not to let their anxiety get the better of them.
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The unicorn and pegasus waited patiently in the library for their invited friends to arrive as the midday sun glared over Ponyville. The tension started to build, especially for Flutteshy, as all the possibly scenarios ran through their brains. What if they weren’t accepting of them? Or worse, what if they were flat out against their relationship? Despite its variety of couples, Equestria still had splatterings of bigotry, not to say that any of their friends wouldn’t accept them, of course.
Applejack was the first to enter, uttering a “Howdy” as she plopped down on the couch. Minutes later she was followed by Twilight and Rainbow Dash, the latter looking somewhat enlightened by the conversation they must have had. Twilight was the first to speak.
“Alright, looks like everypony’s here, except… Where’s Pinkie Pie? I thought you two invited her.”
Rainbow Dash spoke up as well. “Yeah, where is that pony? I have some awesome reading- I mean napping- to do.”
The couch started giggling as a pink flash jumped out from behind it. “HERE I AM DASHIE!”
“Oh Celestia!” Dash stumbled back and fell onto her rear as the pink pony rolled on the floor on a fit of laughter.
“Oh I got you good that time. You should have seen your face! I was all ‘Here I am!’ and you were all ‘AHH!’ and then I fell
over laughing which made me laugh even more and now we’re talking about it and we’re up to date on the times.”
“Pinkie, how long have you been back there?” Twilight asked, legitimately concerned.
“Oh Twilight you silly filly, I just got here,” she replied with a smile.
It was Applejack’s turn to speak up; she turned to Rarity and Fluttershy with a supportive tone in her voice. “Alright sugarcubes, you wanted to tell us something?”
The yellow mare held her breath as her marefriend began to speak.
“Fluttershy and I… We’re…” she found herself moving closer to her. “I am dating Fluttershy; we are together.”
Gasps of shock resonated through the room as each pony began forming assumptions and developing questions.
Being the one who asked, Applejack felt that it was her duty to reply. “That’s great to hear, you two. Ah’m really proud of you.” She walked up and gave the couple a quick hug, allowing the others to speak.
Pinkie Pie looked as if she was about to explode. “I KNEW IT! Well, I didn’t really know it because I couldn’t have known it because you two were off together but I knew something like this had to happen! Because Rarity is sooo pretty and Fluttershy is sooo nice BLAM! Perfect pairing! I should throw you a party! Better yet, multiple parties! At least three! I could take out my new DJ PON-3 album and we could jam! I’m so happy for you! Well, I was happy before but now I’m like a supercharged bundle of happiness!” Pinkie extended both her forehooves in a feat that didn’t seem possible and drew the couple into a crushing hug.
“Th- Thanks Pinkie Pie…” Rarity breathed, gasping for air. The party pony released them and allowed oxygen to return to their lungs. She stepped back with a large smile and let another pony give her thoughts. The pony that task fell to was Rainbow.
What looked like a forced smile streaked across her face; the couple could tell she was happy for them, but couldn’t pinpoint what her true feelings on the matter were. She embraced the two ponies in a hug. With a sniffle and a grin she said in a shaky voice, “I’m so happy for you two. I just know you’ll be happy together.” A tear began to roll down her face she spoke.
‘What has gotten into Rainbow?’ Rarity thought as she wrapped her hooves around her cyan friend. She was going to inquire about it, but her marefriend beat her to it.
“Dash… What’s wrong?”
Rainbow took a step back as she wiped her face with a hoof and regained her composure. “Pfft, oh nothing. It’s just uh, some sappy book Twilight’s making me read. Isn’t that right, Twilight?” She looked over to her studious friend.
The unicorn obviously wasn’t very practiced in lying. “Oh, yes. Those, um, romance stories can really hit your soft spot.” She shook her head slightly as she walked up to her friends and embraced them each one at a time. “This is a nice surprise, I’m glad you two are happy together.” Her tone was a little more stern than they expected, but not thoroughly rigid. Everypony’s reaction was better than what Fluttershy had anticipated; she assumed they would all shut her out, or worse yet, call her a fillyfooler.
A silence didn’t have time to settle as Pinkie took a deep breath and started bouncing up and down in place. “So how about we get this party started!” She ran over and kicked a record player, putting the disc in place as it began to play an upbeat
tune.
Twilight used her magic to take the needle off the record, seeing Fluttershy curled up against Rarity. “That’s nice and all, Pinkie, but I don’t think they are in the mood to party” This was a nice gesture, but it was apparent the unicorn had other matters on her mind.
Rarity silently thanked Celestia for her intervention. “Yes Pinkie, not that we don’t absolutely love your parties, but we have our own matters that we need to attend to.”
Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared inches from Rarity’s muzzle, giving her an intense stare before her face sprang back to its usual cheerfulness with an “Okie dokie lokie!” leaving the unicorn to release her held breath.
Wanting to avoid another confrontation and seeing the unicorn’s discomfort, Fluttershy spoke up. “I, um, really need to get back to my animals.”
Her partner stood up, seeing this as a definite escape. “That’s right! We must see to it at once!” She grabbed the winged mare and led her out the door, all in fear of upsetting Pinkie Pie by rejecting another one of her parties, because she knew what happened the last time Pinkie was upset.
One by one the other ponies followed, leaving Rainbow to say a couple of quick words to Twilight and receive a hug from her before departing herself. The room became quiet before Spike half fell, half ran down the stairs, a little bit late.
“Did I hear Rarity’s voice? Was she here?” The young dragon was almost floating at the thought of the elegant mare drawing a giggle from Twilight.
“Oh Spike, maybe one day you’ll understand.”
“Understand what, Twilight?”
The unicorn shook her head, her mane waving back and forth. “Nothing. Come on, let’s go get some lunch.”
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Angel tackled Fluttershy in what would have been a cheerful hug if he hadn’t pulled her to the floor, standing on her chest and tapping his foot impatiently. He pointed to the calendar and the clock, emphasizing what the problem was.
“I’m sorry Angel, I’ve just been so busy.”
The irate bunny expressed his displeasure by jumping up and down quickly.
“I know you want me to spend more time with you, but I’m not sure if I can as much as I used to.”
The bunny would hear none of it. He enclosed one of his hands into a fist and brought it to his other palm in a mock punch. It was at this point that Rarity decided to intervene, using her magic to drag the bunny off of his owner. She gently let him down to the ground as he continued to pout, powerless against the magic of a unicorn. Rarity then got to the ground and lifted Fluttershy off the ground, receiving a breathed “Thank you”.
“Fluttershy, darling, you really must not let yourself be walked upon by that rabbit. Literally!”
“I know, I know. It’s just that somepony needs to take care of him, he does no good all by his lonesome.” It saddened the pegasus to think about Angel scared, alone and hungry. This was reflected in her expression, which Rarity picked up on.
“Don’t worry too much about him, I’m sure he does quite fine on his own for short periods of time.” She motioned to the gluttonous bunny laying in a pile of carrots that he harvested himself.
Fluttershy let out a near silent “Oh…”
“Now come, let’s feed these animals like we came here to do.” Normally Rarity wouldn’t trouble herself with tasks such as this, but this was for a very special somepony.
While Rarity herself wasn’t necessarily useful, her magic definitely was. It made tasks that would normally take Fluttershy a sizable amount of minutes mere seconds. She used that magical horn of hers to quickly change out various animal’s water, food and pick up some of their messes, all keeping herself well away from the filth, of course. Why Fluttershy was so fascinated with these creatures was unknown to her, but none the less it’s what she liked doing, and that was enough to
justify getting a little dirty. Even if it did ruffle her mane a tad.
Her pegasus partner was absolutely delighted to see how much help Rarity was being. Seeing the unicorn do something was so unlike her, so… generous. Fluttershy thought about it for a moment, why wouldn’t Rarity help her? Giving her time and resources to other ponies was her element after all. She soon entered a what-can-I-do-for-her mentality, wondering how she could help her marefriend.
“Well…” she said to herself as she floated, cleaning a bird’s cage, “I do know a lot about dresses.” An imaginary light bulb flickered above her head as a thought entered her brain. “I’ll help her with Octavia’s dress!” she exclaimed in what felt like a yell, but in reality was a quiet chirp. The now exited pegasus landed on the ground and finished up the last chores before returning to Rarity, too happy with herself to care what Angel thinks.
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Night began to fall upon Equestria as the pair entered Carousel Boutique. The trip had taken longer than either of them had anticipated due to their large amount of talking, well, mainly Rarity talking, and multiple detours to look at Ponyville’s more beautiful locations. It was when they had entered Rarity’s workshop that Fluttershy asked how she could help.
The fashionista gave it some thought before considering all that her pegasus friend, no, more than friend, could be useful for besides company. The reality was that her magic made her more than capable of doing quick work on her own, but she could tell by the look on her partner’s face that she really wanted to help.
“Let’s see, if you could bring me the fabric from that drawer and lay it out for me that would be spectacular.”
Any other pony would have been distraught at such a menial job to be given, but Fluttershy was happy that there was anything at all for her to do. She set out on her task, delicately setting out the material with enviable precision, determined to make Rarity happy.
The unicorn took note of the quiet mare’s insistence on laying out the fabric in such a precise manner, she was reminded of her “freaky knowledge of dresses”.
“Fluttershy,” she said, making a split decision. “Would you… would you like to sew for me?”
The pony hopped into the air, elated by the idea of helping even more. “Of course! I mean, only if you’d want me to…”
Rarity smiled and giggled, the pegasus’ politeness was sometimes too much for her. She led her marefriend to the machine, placing her earthly yellow hooves upon it. The fashion pony placed her own on them, enjoying her close proximity to the beautiful mare. Minutes went by as the worked on the fabric in unison, Rarity leading her in a working dance, each leaning back and forth into each other. They worked well into the night before a question rolled out from Fluttershy’s lips.
“Rarity… What are we?”
“What do you mean dear?”
Fluttershy removed her hooves from the machine and sat down in a nearby corner of the room. She gulped as she continued her sudden inquiry. “What do I mean to you? Where are we going?”
Rarity saw the shine of a turn in her blue eyes and walked over to her, tightly squeezing her. “You are…” she took a moment ponder her next word. “Everything.”
Tears began to stream down her face at her beautiful friend, but her crying was soon silenced by Rarity’s muzzle. She used her magic to arrange a pile of fabric for them to lie on before she broke the kiss. Luna’s brilliant moon gazed upon them
through the window as Rarity leaned in once more with a single word.
“Everything.”