Something cracking in the woods near the border to the Everfree forest caused a pale yellow pegasus to flinch and walk a bit closer to the rainbow colored pony next to her. The other pegasus turned to give Fluttershy an odd look as she walked close enough for their sides to touch while walking.
“You okay Shy?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Fluttershy blushed and tried to stammer an answer but was unable to form the words. She didn’t mean to worry her friend, but she’d always been easily startled. A problem that was exacerbated by her ownership of a pair of the most sensitive ears of anypony she’d ever met.
Rainbow rolled her eyes and just kept walking, ignoring the moments of brief contact as something her friend needed to relax. It cost her nothing and there was a certain rush Rainbow got from the unpredictable warm brushes of the other pony’s wings or flank, that made Rainbow’s offer to walk her home from Pinkie’s “This one is going to run late because today was SUPER busy” Party a little less generous considering the inevitability of their situation.
Fluttershy always struck Rainbow Dash as a little odd the way she preferred peace and quiet, until she was on her own or out in secluded places. Then she became a nervous wreck that jumped at triggers nopony else could discern.
At Fluttershy’s cottage as the butter pegasus thanked Rainbow again for walking her home the thought struck RD again. Fluttershy didn’t like being out on the roads or paths leading out to her home but once she arrived she seemed to relax immensely. As the two ponies shared a parting hug, and Rainbow asked idly if Flutters was going to be okay, she wondered what it was about the place that made her calm down. Giving it up for the night Rainbow took after her moniker and dashed off into the night toward her own home.
Inside her cottage Fluttershy quickly finished the few chores around her home that needed done, checking on injured creatures to see that they were comfortable and making sure that they’d all eaten the dinner she’d left for them before she went to the party. She didn’t think particularly much of the difference between her home and the lonely paths leading out to it. The differences between the two was subtle enough that Fluttershy would have to think deeply before she could pick it out.
Nevertheless, it was that difference that allowed Fluttershy to snuggle down into her bed that night. She was a shy pony prone to flight at the first signs of danger like her distant ancestors, and around a lot of very loud ponies she’d complain that they were so noisy that she could almost hear their hearts bursting out of their chest, driving her to run and hide from whatever danger had excited them. Out in the secluded paths the only sounds she would pick up would be of things moving in the darkness and nopony else being around. Being utterly alone was terrifying to her. But here in her house where warm wooden walls and and rafters were full of tiny animals she could relax as their tiny feet skittered about their nightly tasks. The soft noises of dozens of little nocturnal animals that shared her home assure the gentle pegasus that she is not alone, and that everything. If she thought about it she would imagine that like the ponies hearts she imagined she heard in Ponyville, in her house where a hundred little animals hearts, each beating out their own little rhythm that turned the sounds of the night into an orchestral lullaby. And so Fluttershy slept like a foal everynight, under the unknowing music of the creatures she cared for during the day.