Fluttershy suspects from the moment Rarity knocks on her cottage door. There’s a little hitch in the rhythm of hooves on wood, a shy little hesitation that wouldn’t ever come into Rarity’s anything on a normal day. She suspects, but she won’t place any blame until she knows for sure. That wouldn’t be fair to Rarity. So she sets down the ladle and trots to the door, smiling graciously, and opens it wide.
Fluttershy is fairly certain, looking at Rarity now. Her mane is curled tighter than it has been in a while, and groomed perfectly, gorgeous and glossy and heartbreaking. Rarity knows Fluttershy doesn’t need her to look perfect, but she always does on days like these, as if the extra attention to her appearance will be some form of acceptable apology. The strange part is that it almost is.
And Fluttershy knows as soon as Rarity brushes past her, into the sitting room. A ghost of perfume hangs onto Rarity’s neck, light, floral, but with the spicy accents of pepper and fresh rain. It was probably an intern, one of those young, fresh creative minds Rarity can’t resist. Fluttershy entertains the thought of looking harder, to find more clues, more tells, to try and understand more about the other pony this time. She shudders lightly and closes the door against the chill evening breeze.
“How was your fashion show?” Fluttershy asks on her way to the kitchen.
“It went very well,” Rarity answered easily, a trembling smile on her face. She can’t quite meet Fluttershy’s eyes, and her tail quivers with a flighty, nervous tension. “I have twelve new commissions from Canterlot.”
The vegetable stew is well-cooked, with just a little springiness in the carrots, just how Rarity loves it. Fluttershy carries a steaming toureen to the table while Rarity places the tablesettings with her usual attention to detail. She flinches as Fluttershy’s wing brushes her ribcage on the way to grab the bread and salad. Did you meet nice ponies? Fluttershy can’t ask. She’d never be that petty, not to Rarity. She understands, in her own way. She knows better than many about the nature of change. She’s laid too many animals to rest to believe in fairytales. She’s spent too much time in introspection to deny that she’s changed a lot in the time she and Rarity have been together.
It’s not beauty - she knows she’s still beautiful; Rarity tells her so every chance she has, and she can see it herself in the mirror Rarity gave her a while ago. But Rarity needs excitement in her life just as much as she needs a stable place to rest, needs turbulence and drama to feel happy, to feel like herself. And Fluttershy doesn’t have that anymore. Life runs in cycles, cycles of death and birth and water and time and the two of them, together and yet so far apart. Fluttershy is part of Rarity’s cycle, the part that lasts. She has to wonder, though, if Rarity thinks she’s stupid enough to not see, if that's why she tries to hide it.
Throughout dinner, Fluttershy and Rarity fill up on chatter and warm, homecooked food. Rarity has stories of Fleur de Lis this and Fancypants that, tales of stupid models and wardrobe malfunctions and drunken adventures through the midnight streets of Canterlot. Fluttershy offers up her own little stories, of the young badger who claimed the teakettle as its den and wouldn’t leave for two days, of how Angel had tried to share a carrot with Opal before being scratched, of how Harry the Bear had finally caught enough fish to feed himself without her help. It’s meaningless and empty, blessed noise to fill the void between them, but it helps. By the time they finish the fruit course, Fluttershy isn’t choking on her own slow anger and it doesn’t hurt to breathe.
Rarity takes the dishes to the sink and attacks them with soap and washcloth, scrubbing and scraping at imaginary stains long after the china has reached the pristine, glowing white it was when they first bought it. Fluttershy imagines Rarity doing the same to herself this morning, before catching the train. She swallows bile and lies down on the couch with her nature journal, reading a light article on the mating habits of phoenix.
After a while, Rarity comes over and drapes herself across Fluttershy’s barrel, sighing in release. Fluttershy smiles and sets down her magazine, nibbling and tugging at Rarity’s elegant neck in the motherly gesture of trust and love and comfort they’ve both come to rely on. Rarity slowly turns to face her, nibbling Fluttershy’s ear gently in reciprocation, murmuring sweet happy sounds into it.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Fluttershy whispers, leaving a wet little kiss on the side of Rarity’s muzzle. Rarity smiles, and her eyes meet Fluttershy’s in full, and the world is glorious for those three long, breathless seconds...
“I missed you,” Rarity breathes, nuzzling into the hollow of Fluttershy’s collarbone. Fluttershy knows it’s true. She smiles softly and lifts Rarity’s chin with a gentle hoof, drawing her into a kiss.
One kiss becomes two becomes three becomes countless little meetings of lips and hooves and tongues and bodies, shifting in careful little shows of affection that all melt into one long, tender moment. And Fluttershy feels so right, so loved, so loving. But that painful, insistent longing and wrongness hovers at the edge of all the warmth and closeness, sending bolts of bittersweet pain through Fluttershy’s heart and mind. And then Rarity rustles her hooves through Fluttershy’s wings in the way she does when she wants to...
Fluttershy breaks the kiss and rolls over slowly to stare at the sofa’s back. She can’t stop thinking, wondering whose lips had been touching Rarity’s like this last, can’t help but feel dirty, secondary, used... She hugs herself with shaking forelegs and sighs angrily, trying to huff out the worst of the anger and frustration. The pain spikes and bites at her, and she can’t help but wonder at how the pain and the love are so tightly wound together. They come so close to each other in every way, to the point where she can’t tell one from the other anymore.
--TIME--
“Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” Rarity asks, stroking her mane cautiously.
I think we need to stop this, Fluttershy doesn’t say. “I’m tired, Rarity,” she sighs. “Maybe tomorrow?”
The pain and love flare up together, so strong that she’s shaking and keening and can’t stop for all the love and comfort Rarity is throwing her way. And she wonders again, if one would die if the other left. She’ll probably never know.