Fluttershy and I just looked at each other for a second. For a moment, we weren’t sure if what we thought had happened, had actually happened. After I determined that it had, I stared Fluttershy square in her bright, turquoise eyes. As she gazed back into my beady black ones, still a little unsure, she said in a soft whisper, “I understood what you said…” I slowly nodded at her in disbelief.
My eyes dilated. I watched as the confused look on Fluttershy’s face slowly grew into a wide smile. I was about to say something back to her when she suddenly screamed so loud that Toad probably heard her in the shed.
“I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU SAID!!” Fluttershy bounded off the bed and started jumping up and down. I was as surprised as she was, but I attempted to restrain my excitement so I could try to keep her under control; it wasn’t easy. She started pacing back and forth and yammering so fast she could put Pinkie Pie to shame.
“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! This is great! Now we can actually talk about stuff! I won’t need to guess what you’re saying anymore! Oooooooh I can’t wait to—” She stopped herself as fast as her mouth had just been moving.
“Wait…… how?” After the long pause, Fluttershy turned and looked at me with what seemed like a combined expression of confusion and fear. I had no idea either…
I replied, “I don’t know… So wait, you understood every word that I said?” She nodded at me, dumbfounded. I decided to test it, and make sure it wasn’t a fluke. “What if I turn around?” I flipped around and said, “Touch your left ear with your right hoof.” I gave her a moment to comply, then turned back around. She was still staring at me with the same, slightly scared expression, but with her right hoof resting lightly on her left ear. I was struck dumb. After the fact sunk in, I asked, “How did this happen?” Since the only other being in the room didn’t know either, it was kind of a pointless question.
However, with this question, I saw the Fluttershy I first met return. She lowered herself to the floor, ran her hoof through her mane, and began to stutter. “Um, w-w-well, uh, m-m-maybe it was the, um, ‘experience’ we had with each other last night and just now?”
I raised a brow at her and asked, “You mean the sex?” She made a small squeak as I said it. Though she seemed a bit embarrassed to use the word, this seemed pretty legitimate to me. I also realized something else. “Maybe. That, and your cutie mark talent could be at work here, too. Maybe it isn’t just small creatures that you’re really ‘good’ with.” I gave her a small smirk, which she returned with a nervous shrug.
"Did we, um, maybe, connect somehow?”
“You know, I was thinking that a second ago, when we both stopped at the exact same time…” I must have unknowingly realized it before she did, and if the sex did indeed have something to do with it, then whatever happened between the two of us had probably happened the night before. We just didn’t realize it.
After Fluttershy let this new knowledge sink in, she seemed to shake off the fear, and began slowly pacing again, but with a lower voice. “Oooh this is great! I can’t wait to tell the girls! They are going to be so—”
I cut her off. “Wait a second. Maybe we shouldn’t tell them. Maybe we should keep this between us.”
“Huh? Why?” She looked kind of worried again. “Are you ashamed that we—”
“Oh no! Absolutely not! In fact, it’s been one of the best times I’ve had since I got here. For obvious reasons, but also because I got to spend some special time with you!
“But here’s why I say that— if the other ponies find out you understand me, then they may try to figure out how to do it, too. The two factors that we think caused it are unique to you alone. One is your cutie mark, and the other is, well, that ‘connection’ we just had.” If she was going to squeak every time I said ‘sex,’ I figured I’d try another word until she got over it.
I continued, “Nobody else here has your cutie mark, and I’m not going to go ‘making connections’ with every other pony in Ponyville just so they can talk to me.”
Fluttershy sighed. “You’re right. And you know, Spike might get jealous. He was really happy being the only one who could understand you, and being in the spotlight. If everypony finds out that I can speak to you also, then they may not ask for his help anymore…”
“That’s true too. See? So I think this should stay just between us for now.” Then I looked over at the door and shook my head. “And Angel, apparently.”
“Huh? Why Angel? EEP!” Fluttershy turned around and put her hooves to her mouth as she saw what I had seen a few moments before her— Angel was standing at the door with his little arms crossed, tapping his foot again. When both of us were looking at him, he made a few gestures that I was able to make out quite clearly due to my recently obtained charades skills: I came up here because I heard pounding. What’s going on here? Fluttershy turned around, put her head down, sighed, and shook her head.
Angel and I were a little confused at her reaction at first, but since Fluttershy had her back to him, Angel took the opportunity to make a few more gestures to me that I was able to make out. Were you going at it that hard? Or was that her jumping up and down because she knows what you’re saying?
I thought to myself, Oy, this bunny is too naughty and smart for his own good… I first wagged a finger at him and gave him a little smirk, at which he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Then I motioned to him that it was her jumping up and down. I asked if he heard us talking about her being able to understand me, and he nodded like he was saying duh! I rolled my eyes and told him that he needed to hush about this new fact. He nodded, smiled as he gave me another thumbs-up, motioned like he was zipping his lips, then hopped out the door and down the stairs.
I walked over to Fluttershy, who still had her head down. She seemed really upset, so I caressed her mane. She looked up at me, apparently a little worried. I asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She looked up at me and responded, “I never wanted Angel to see us like this! He’s too young! What is he going to think? What if he figures out what we were doing?”
I couldn’t help but laugh inside. From the way Angel ‘helped’ me, I could only assume that he was nowhere near as innocent as Fluttershy made him out to be. But I reassured her, “I don’t think you need to worry about Angel. We had a quick chat just now, and I convinced him you were just so happy that you were jumping up and down, and it wasn’t anything else. I don’t think he’ll get any naughty ideas in his head.” Besides, I’m sure he’s had them for a while anyway. She sighed again, but this time it seemed to be one of relief. I decided to make sure. “So we agree, this is going to stay between us… and Angel?”
“Um, yes, I think that’s for the best.” Fluttershy put a hoof through her mane, then slowly brought it up to her mouth again, this time not seeming as worried, but still looking a bit concerned. She flashed me that little embarrassed smile again, then asked, “Um… do you want lunch?”
After that day, I slept upstairs with Fluttershy every night. We became much closer, even closer than before. Everyone in Ponyville noticed it, but they weren’t totally sure how or why at first. After about a week, and with some pressuring from Rarity in particular, Fluttershy finally admitted to the other five (she asked me first if she could, and I said it was alright) that we had slept together. She relayed the conversation to me: the other five ponies, especially Rarity, all giggled with glee. She didn’t go into any details, but what she did tell them was that my tongue could do more than just turn Diamond Dogs into eggs (Rarity seemed to get a particular amount of joy out of that). Just like we agreed, however, she did not tell them her newfound ability to completely understand me. After another week, Fluttershy had something else to report to them all at the library.
“He’s healed! His leg is all better! He’s even able to jump again!” I had explained all of my abilities in the Mushroom Kingdom to Fluttershy. Because my injury was bad enough, I hadn’t told anyone about them before. I wouldn’t have been able to do them anyway. This changed, however, when Fluttershy told me my leg was strong enough again. “Look! Come see! Spike, we need you. He wanted to tell us some details.”
Spike beamed. He had been tagging along with us in public lately, telling all the ponies in town things I wanted to say to them, but it had been a long time since he had to translate for Fluttershy. He had been a little suspicious when Fluttershy stopped needing his help altogether, but at this moment, his suspicions had faded.
I was standing outside the library door when the seven of them came outside. After they stopped all talking at once, which I had to put up my hand to get them to do, I motioned to Spike, who nodded. I began a quick explanation: “This is one of my easier moves. It’s called the double jump.” I gave a bound off my newly healed leg, then bounced high off the ground over the ponies’ heads and landed on the library balcony. All the ponies started to cheer. I jumped back down, landing pretty obviously on my healed leg.
I then began another explanation: “That’s my easier jump. This is for farther reaches. It’s called the flutter jump.” Rarity turned to Fluttershy and smiled, and I knew why. “No, it was called that before I came here. That’s a coincidence.” I repeated my previous actions, but then did my famous flutter, and landed on the library roof, which was at least another five feet above the balcony. I turned around and smiled. All the ponies except for Fluttershy had their mouths agape, but she quickly mimicked this action (I of course had shown Fluttershy all of this earlier, but we agreed that to make it seem like she didn’t understand me, she would follow all the others’ actions).
I jumped back down again, and they all began stomping on the ground. “Most of my other abilities you’ve already seen. I just couldn’t do these because of my leg, which Fluttershy has very kindly taken care of.” A moment after this, Rarity began smiling, but Twilight nudged her. I knew what they were both thinking; thankfully, Twilight had the common sense not to talk about it in public.
Then, Twilight asked something I wasn’t expecting. “Hey Yoshi, wait— what about your friend, Toad? How is he doing?”
While I was unprepared for this question, Fluttershy seemed to have been expecting it. “He’s alright, but he still needs more time to heal. His injuries were incredibly severe when he arrived here.”
“Well darling, that’s rather unfortunate,” Rarity said
“Yes, I know, but I don’t think I can delay any longer. It’s time for the search. I think Toad will forgive me for starting without him. I’ve really enjoyed being here, but I’ve been gone from the Mushroom Kingdom way too long. Mario is probably going absolutely crazy in that time loop Discord created.
“However, there’s something I need to do first.”
Pinkie Pie decided to speak this time, with her usual bouncy tone. “What’s that?”
“I have something to return to a certain young pegasus. I owe her big time.”