//------------------------------//
// Forbidden Love 
// Story: Thirty Minute Ponies 
// by Arcainum 
//------------------------------//

Prompt #101: Romance 101 with Professor Fluttershy

“So, um, how is the food?”

Fluttershy’s companion nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!”

Fluttershy smiled and traced absent-minded designs on the table with her hoof. The night had been perfect so far and the trend promised to continue. The restaurant ambience enveloped them like a blanket, the sounds and sights and smells taking the couples dotted around the plush dining room into private, romantic worlds.

Fluttershy’s date cocked her head quizzically, and once again Fluttershy was drawn to how beautiful she was. The contours of her body, the turn of her slender neck, that little peak to her snout that made Flutershy just want to boop her on the nose… She was perfect. Just thinking about it made Fluttershy regret having to rush here after her research at the Equestrian Life Research Center, filthy lab coat draped over her chair shamefully.

“Oh, is, um, something the matter?”

Pausing for a moment, her date shook her head and smiled, eyes twinkling as she raised her glass. Fluttershy giggled and brought her own to meet it, the clear ring of glass-on-glass a tinkling reminder of their devotion. They sipped their drinks and their gazes met. Fluttershy felt the ocean of emotion rise within her, but before she could say the words that wanted to escape, unbidden but welcome, her companion spoke.

+++ CREATOR, MY EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS RUN AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY ONLY FOR YOU +++

A stream of tickertape spewed from the gaping port in her lover’s gleaming chest, mirroring the static-edge buzz of her voice, and Fluttershy shivered in delight at the sound that had first set her heart afire. She found the courage to say what she had wanted to say for so long, what she had ached for in the long dark nights. She reached over and took her date’s cold metallic hoof in hers and looked deeply into her glowing eyes.

“I love you too, Experiment 101.”



Notes: ...What? I like robots, okay? But seriously. This was a "oh god I only have half an hour left" rush-job and it shows. If I'd been thinking about it more I'd have put some stuff in about the other patrons looking at them and judging, and Fluttershy assuring 101 that they were just idiots and stuff. It would have been way funnier. But thems the breaks. Also yes, I know, #101, but I totally forgot to post it at the time.