//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: The Connection 
// Story: The Defective Warp Pipe 
// by Level Dasher 
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	As Spike predicted, I became quite well-known among the citizens of Ponyville. Every time I rolled into town, I got questions from at least one pony, and many of the same questions— what I was, where I came from, how I got there, etc. Spike was practically attached to me at the hip so he could translate for me, and there was all I could do to get him to go back to Twilight at the library so he didn’t stay at Fluttershy’s house with me at night. It became obvious to the citizens of Ponyville that I was staying with Fluttershy, so every now and then, someone would come to her house looking for me, and as long as I was up for visitors, Fluttershy was able to do some basic translating.

I told Toad about the rescue, and he was pretty impressed. He seemed to be healing rather slowly, and he never wanted to go anywhere. I was worried about him at first, but after a talk with him, he reassured me that he just felt out of place, and didn’t want to interact with anyone else. He said he couldn’t understand how I was able to adjust so quickly, but he didn’t want to make anything awkward, so he told me to just go about as usual, like I had since I had arrived, and not to worry about him. He would just take as much time as he needed. When I told this to Fluttershy, she got a spark of inspiration.
She said she had a shed behind her house that she could renovate into a sleeping quarters for him, so he could be alone if that was really what he wanted. Just continuing to show me how incredible she was, she did the whole job in a single day. She changed the shed into a little condo, including a bed, couch, bathroom, kitchen, everything Toad could possibly need. He thanked her profusely, and said that he would just stay out of the way. With that, Fluttershy stocked him up on some home and food supplies. He thanked her again (as did I), and we really didn’t hear much out of Toad for a while after that. I went and checked on him every day; he was always okay, a little bit better than the day before, but he was still healing very slowly. He always reminded me that he didn’t want to see anyone (nothing against the ponies— he just felt awkward), and I told this to Fluttershy after the second day. After that, anytime any other ponies came by her house, she would tell them, “Oh, and stay out of the shed!”

Even though Toad didn’t want to see anyone, I was very happy to. Some of the ponies I met were quite interesting, and the meetings occasionally occurred under odd circumstances. One such meeting was with the mail-pony, Ditzy Doo Whooves, or Derpy, as everyone in town had come to call her. One day, as I was rolling my wagon into town with Spike at my side, she crash-landed right in front of me, so we were able to have a conversation just between the two of us (with the assistance of my official translator). This led to me being invited to dinner with her and her family— her husband, Doctor Whooves, and their daughter, Dinky Doo. Spike had to accompany me, and I asked if Fluttershy could join us, which was happily accepted. 
It turned out to be a very educational meal— the Doctor and I talked a lot about space and dimensional travel, and he told me all about his TARDIS. It sounded amazing. He even offered to try and help me get home to the Mushroom Kingdom. I politely declined, saying that my friends were helping me more than enough, and that I needed to take time to heal anyway. However, I agreed to keep in close contact with them, as it sounded like he would help me better understand the whole time-loop thing Mario was probably still stuck in (and most likely going absolutely crazy).

After dinner with the Whooves family, Spike went back to the library, and for some reason, I was reminded of the awkward conversation I had had with Twilight and Rarity days earlier. During the past few days, I had been thinking about it, and I realized that they were right. Fluttershy had been acting much less shy around me since I had been staying with her, and in hindsight, some of her actions had been a bit flirty; I was clearly oblivious to them at the time. I had been so stupid! Fluttershy is an amazing creature, even if she isn’t a Yoshi. Why hadn’t I made a move?
I determined on that walk with her back to her house that if I was going to see if there was any potential, I would have to find out soon. When Fluttershy was walking upstairs to go to bed that night, and I was settling on the couch as usual, I determined ‘soon’ was right then and there. I figured I would try playing to her sympathies a bit at first.

“Fluttershy?” I squeaked at her.
“Yoshi? Is everything alright?”
I motioned to her: “My leg hurts.”
“Do you want to come upstairs with me? I think I know what will help.”
I nodded at her.
“Alright, then. Come on.”

I followed her up to the second floor, hopping one stair at a time on my good leg. When I got to Fluttershy’s room, Angel was sitting on the bed. When he saw me, he jumped off quickly, then gave me a little wink and hopped down the stairs; it seemed like everyone in their circle had been expecting this… Fluttershy didn’t seem to notice Angel’s actions, but she led me over to one side of her bed and helped me up and under the covers. I felt like I was being tucked in by my own mother, until she got in bed beside me.
I was looking out the window and shifting my body around when I felt a soft lick on my neck. “How badly does your leg hurt?” I turned over with a little difficulty; Fluttershy was looking at me with that flirty look I had seen before, but had previously been oblivious to. She had clearly seen through my charade, but she didn’t seem to object to it whatsoever.

I went along with it. I smiled and held my arms as far apart as I could in order to tell her ‘a whole lot.’
“I can fix that,” she said. She ducked under the covers and started rubbing my feet between her hooves. After a few minutes, she shifted my body across her bed, then pulled herself towards me, hugging my hips as she nestled herself— 

Nope, sorry. What happened after this, Fluttershy and I swore to keep to ourselves. What I will say, though, is that it was the best night I’d had since my arrival in Equestria…





When I woke up the next morning, Fluttershy was laying on top of me, her head resting on my shoulder. I didn’t quite remember which one of us had fallen asleep first, but at that point, it didn’t matter. I was reliving the amazing night we had just had.
Unfortunately, this déjà vu was cut short by a small bound next to my head. Angel had come upstairs; he was softly bouncing on the pillow next to me to wake me up. At first, I was a little worried by what he saw, but he saw the look on my face and shook his hands at me, smiling. Then he gave me a little clap. Geez, I thought to myself, this rabbit isn’t as innocent as I thought. However, Angel’s next gesture was raising one eyebrow and pointing at the clock…
It was 11:30! The one thing I knew for certain from living with Fluttershy for the past week or two was that Angel and the other animals ate breakfast at nine. I covered my mouth with my hand in surprise, apologized to Angel, and thanked him for being so patient. He then waved his hands with a “no problem,” gave me a thumbs-up and a wink, and hopped downstairs. I think both of us knew that if Fluttershy had caught Angel seeing what we had done, she probably would have been horrified, which was why he woke ME up instead of her. That was definitely the right move.

I softly squeaked at Fluttershy and caressed her mane. She slowly raised her head, looked at me, smiled, and put her head back down on my shoulder. I knew that feeling; I’d had it before in the morning, but this wasn’t the time for that. I let out my tongue and tickled her neck.
She giggled, lifted herself up on the bed, and said, “Hey! What did you do that for? It’s probably early enough that we don’t need to…” She looked over at the clock, and I saw her eyes dilate. “ANGEL! Oh, he is going to be SO mad!” She bounded off the bed and tripped over my torso. She landed on the floor with a crash. She looked up at me and said, “Sorry! I need to make everypony’s breakfast!” I gave her a fast nod as she galloped down the stairs. If I looked too casual, she probably would have figured out that Angel and I had ‘talked.’

When I hopped to the top of the stairs, all the animals had formed a little group, and were tapping their feet in unison, with Angel right in the front. Fluttershy apologized profusely to all of them, then turned around and started making breakfast. As soon as her back was turned, again in unison, all the animals looked up at me, smiled, and gave me a silent clap. Angel had obviously organized this. I almost rolled my eyes— clearly they all knew that what happened last night was bound to happen eventually. I gave them all a thumbs-up in return, and motioned them a thank-you. As soon as Fluttershy turned back around, they quickly started tapping their feet at her again, and I flashed a worried look as she looked up at me and apologized… again.
Fluttershy had made them all one big breakfast to share. I knew from experience that she only did this in emergencies, because every critter usually got their own specific breakfast, and complained if they didn’t get it, especially Angel. But today, they all seemed to be taking the approach that it was so late, they just needed something in their stomachs. Fluttershy looked a little suspiciously at Angel, because even during emergencies, Angel usually was very picky, but he was going along with it today. However, she was so flustered that she just shook it off and was grateful.

I walked up behind Fluttershy and tapped her back, then I motioned to her, “What about you?”
“Me? …Well, I’ll probably wait until lunch. I, um… I’m alright from last night…” She smirked at me. “But would you like…”
I put a hand over her mouth and motioned, “Don’t worry.” I smirked back, and she giggled. Then she turned around and looked at all the animals. She flashed me an embarrassed smile, then did a double-take at the animals.
“Hey! Where’s Angel? Oh, I hope he didn’t go bounding around for his own breakfast again…”

Unbeknownst to the two of us, Angel had bounced around behind me, and as soon as she turned around, he landed on my shoulder and hopped onto my head. I looked up at him and he gave me a naughty-looking wink. I crossed my arms and smirked at him, wondering what he was planning. Suddenly, he licked his hand, bounded off my head, bounced in front of me, and smacked Fluttershy on her flank! Then, quick as a flash, he skipped back to the big breakfast bowl and nestled himself among the other animals.
Fluttershy whipped back around. “Hey! Watch where you—” She slowly raised a brow, then gave me the same flirty smile she had given me the night before. “Youuuuuuu… you looking for round two?” She turned back around and faced the animals, and in her usual sweet voice, said, “Everyone, I’ll be upstairs for a while. Hopefully that will hold you until lunch.” Then she turned back to me and gave me that look again. “Don’t worry about hopping. I’ll take care of it.” She ducked under my chest and bobbed her head up so I landed on her back, with my head on her flank. I looked over at the animals who, I assumed with Angel’s influence, were all pumping their arms and silently cheering. I raised my eyebrow at them all and smiled. I spotted Angel, pointed at him, and gave him a ‘thank you’ thumbs-up.

Fluttershy trotted up the stairs and said quietly so the animals couldn’t hear her, “Since that tongue of yours doesn’t want to stay put, I expect it to do some work!” It was here that I realized why Angel had licked his hand before giving Fluttershy that hearty smack. He had planned this quite thoroughly. I smiled and shook my head as Fluttershy walked into her room and gently laid me down on the bed. Then she not-so-gently hopped on top of me, but somehow was still careful enough that she didn’t hurt my leg.
She put her face right on top of mine so we were eye-to-eye and said, “Alright, mister, let me—” 

Nope. I’m gonna skip ahead a bit. 

Anyway, it was this second round with Fluttershy that I thought we must have had some kind of, connection or something, because however long it was later, we both… stopped at exactly the same time. I didn’t let the thought linger, I just let out my tongue and tickled her under her chin. I heard that soft giggle that I had come to love, and as soon as I had tucked my tongue back in, she put her head down so I could see her smirking at me. “Wow, you really are talented with that thing!” 
I shrugged with a smile. Then, without thinking, I said out loud, “Yeah, but it takes years of practice to be able to control it like that.”
With this, Fluttershy looked up and giggled again. Then she quickly put her head back down so I could see her face again, and she gave me a confused look. She just looked at me for a few moments, then she asked me, “Hold on— did you just say, ‘it takes years of practice to control it like that’?”
“Well yeah, it’s true. It’s not like I can just…” 

Wait… How did she know what I just…