//------------------------------//
// Kinks 
// Story: We Were the Ones You Used to Make Fun of 
// by EpicGuy 
//------------------------------//

Fluttershy stared at the floor aimlessly, her eyes blinking solemnly. Although she appeared to be in a stable condition on the outside, her heart was palpitating rapidly and her mind was racing a marathon on the inside. 

"I've always liked Pinkie..." she said softly to herself, gazing at one plain gray tile against a sea of darker slabs of stone. Immediately she fumbled over her words and she blushed heavily. "Not like as in love, though... I mean, I really really like her, but a mare with a mare... Wouldn't that be odd?"

The butter-coated pegasus chuckled, more so to assure herself that her way of thinking was true. "That's just silly, Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie knows that, as do I. It's just not natural..."

Silence screamed in her ears. "...Right?"

She squealed loudly and collapsed on the floor, unannounced and unexpected tears beginning to flow. "I just don't know!" she wailed, her voice shrill with sadness. "I don't know these feelings, I don't know what to do, I don't know-"

She sniffled. Her mind darted to the memory of her and the friendly pink mare sharing a sundae at the local parlor in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie, grinning like a madman, had swiftly twisted her own striped straw into a heart and eagerly presented it to her. Could that seemingly harmless meeting over ice cream really be something more?

"No." replied Fluttershy bluntly. There were no subliminal messages in any of their multiple "dates," as the earth pony had called them. She was sure of it. 

Her ever-curious consciousness couldn't resist the temptation, and she dug deeper still into their meetings. Once, Pinkie Pie had playfully disappeared into a bush at the park and reappeared, mere moments later, with a bright crimson rose between her jaws. She looked as perky and peppy as could be, yet Fluttershy winced as she noticed the bountiful thorns across the emerald stem.

"Doesn't that hurt, Pinkie Pie?" she had asked quizzically. 

Pinkie wriggled her behind and deposited the gorgeous flower in Fluttershy's silky mane, just behind her ear. "I can ignore the pain for you, Flutters!" she had responded cheerfully. 

"How could I have thought nothing of it?" the shy pegasus pondered. Her hooves sounded like sleighbells as she raised herself up. 

There was the time that she had witnessed a faithful bird fly in the huge hurricane a year back. Even though the storm still raged on, she had bounded into the rainfall to retrieve the fallen blue jay. 

Gales with the strength of ponies thrice her size battered at her weak wings and threatened to pull them out of their sockets. Thunder screamed in her ears, warning her to turn back while she still had a chance. But Fluttershy had seen the poor, brave bird collapse at the strike of a lightning strike- her resolve could not be shaken, her sight could not be swayed by the elements. 

After hopping over toppled trees and flooded ponds, Fluttershy had the creature in her peripheral vision. It was strung over a branch, charred and smoking slightly, its eyes blank as moons. She carefully lifted him into her mouth, and darted back to her home as swiftly as possible, ignoring the flutter of his downy feathers against the roof of her mouth. The sensation was annoying, yet manageable considering her dire situation. 

Once Fluttershy had entered her home, she immediately lit three candles and slammed the door shut, racing towards a cabinet stocked with bandages and gels. She didn't notice the magenta mare sneak in, quiet as a dormouse, and slip into the shadows beyond the candles' flames. 

Fluttershy gazed into space, remembering her fond friend sitting, waiting, as she tended to the blue jay. She had applied multiple soothing creams made from fresh aloe to his severe burns, plentiful cloths soaked in rainwater to his hot-to-the-touch wings, but his condition seemed to be at a standstill. Fluttershy seriously considered giving up and letting the pitiful creature spend his last minutes peacefully on the windowsill, watching the hurricane that snatched his life roll by, when her pink aquaintence spoke. 

"Maple, sugar cane, and ruby shavings, Flutters." Pinkie Pie had said quietly. 

Fluttershy had not dwelled on the thought of Pinkie entering her domain without her knowing- she simply took to collecting these strange, seemingly random ingredients and setting them on the same wooden table as her precious blue jay. Within minutes, a maple leaf full of chopped sugar cane rested beside him. It took her a few moments of soul-searching, but the pegasus had remembered Rarity's present to her for her latest birthday (A stunning ruby amulet, coincidentally) and confusedly shaved a few centimeters off it by grinding the item into the table. 

"Now what?" she had asked the earth pony. 

"Stir everything with water and a feather." Pinkie Pie said cryptically. Her grin shone through the shadows like a beacon. "Then dunk 'em in it."

Bemused, Fluttershy had plucked a feather from her primaries and stirred her strange concoction together with more rainwater, something that wasn't in short supply. Squeezing her eyes shut, she slowly submerged the unconscious blue jay into the dazzling mixture. 

She remembered the following events as clearly as day. The room had flashed a brilliant scarlet, the shriek of a bird echoing in her worried mind...

And once the light had diminished, she glanced towards the table to see a perky blue jay sitting upright in the bowl, fit-as-a-fiddle as it splashed around in the chilly water. 

"Thank you so much, Pinkie Pie!" Fluttershy had carelessly flung herself unto Pinkie, burying her head in her friend's soft chest. "You're amazing!"  The soft thump-thump of Pinkie's heartbeat becalmed her, even a year later...

She had been utterly surprised when the pink pony had wrapped her hooves around her shy friend, slowly pushing her closer. "No problem, Fluttershy." she had whispered gently, embracing her once more. Usually a hug from Pinkie meant a bone-crushing squeeze that you'd feel for days, and occasionally a trip to Nurse Redheart, but this one could not have been more different. It felt warm. It felt loving. It felt... Passionate.

Fluttershy couldn't comprehend this. "Does Pinkie Pie... Like me?" she wondered aloud. "Roses, hugs, little heart-shaped straws... It all adds up."

Slowly, she got to her hooves, stretching her long legs with a newfound drive. "You know what? Pinkie Pie likes me, and I like Pinkie Pie. Nothing will ever change that-"

Suddenly, she was plunged back into another memory- one the yellow mare almost wanted to forget. She remembered it lividly-

They had been jogging together through one of Ponyville's secluded trails, enjoying the company of the festive birds and other fauna. The sunlight was practically blinding for Fluttershy, so she had opted to style her mane over her eyes in a stylish sweep of pink hair. 

"Flutters?" Pinkie Pie had asked softly. 

"Yes, Pinkie Pie?" Fluttershy had replied, focused solely on the fluttering leaves above her head. 

"I..." Pinkie Pie stammered. Her hooves sounded like cowbells on the musty ground, as if they were twelve pounds heavier than normal. 

"Yes?" 

"I... I just wanted to, um, confess something..."

"That doesn't sound like you at all, Pinkie! You can always talk to me." She smiled sweetly- little did she know that her pretty little grin made Pinkie Pie's heart melt, and her chest yearn to be beside her. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie hit her stride again, hopping in front of Fluttershy then leaping to her side. She was the prime example of bliss, an entity of happiness. "Duh!"

"Well, what did you have to say, Pinkie Pie?" Fluttershy asked again, engrossed in examining a bird's nest that had fallen onto the trail. 

"I just wanted to say... That..." The pretty pink party pony looked as if she couldn't bear to keep her secret any longer. "I love you, Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy prodded the firm branches of the nest, pushing a few stray fronds of dried grass back into place as she worked. "That's nice," she responded, not even listening to her friend's endearing words. 

Blinking away the beginnings of tears, Fluttershy stood agape and whimpered. "I can't believe I couldn't see it..." she whispered quietly to the stoic stones beneath her hooves. They listened intently for her, something she herself should have done all those months ago. "Pinkie... Pinkie loved me. She didn't just like me. And..."

Her eyelashes flashed across her misty eyes, and Fluttershy blushed of the point where there was no yellow pigment left in her cheeks. The earth pony's adoring gaze from across the table at Sugarcube Corner had been just that. There was no denying it now. 

"You know what? I love her too. I love Pinkamena Diane Pie, and nothing can nor will ever change that."

Eagerly, the pegasus whipped her wings to attention, unfurling them to their full span. Her eyes twinkled deviously in the delicate light. "Now, to rescue Pinkie!" she howled, beginning to slowly flap her wings. 

Before she could take off, reality whacked the mare upside the head, and she was suddenly grounded once more. For the first time in a while, she began to survey her environment- cold, dark stone walls, a single skylight covered with intersecting, rusted bars, and not a door to speak of. 

"Umm... Maybe I should get myself out first." she gulped.