Her Dream
You hurriedly ate lunch, wondering exactly what this dream was that Fluttershy had in mind. She appeared to be fairly happy in her situation taking care of animals. She was however very shy and easily frightened, just like her pony counterpart from My Little Pony. You still didn’t know if she was exactly happy with being that way, but that would be something you would ask for another time. Despite your rushing your lunch, Fluttershy seemed to take her time enjoying the meal. She didn’t talk to you much although you guessed that the fact that she was alone for a while was the cause.
Finally with lunch over, she said, “Do you still want to hear about my dream?”
“Sure,” you say to her as you get up from the table, ready to go somewhere.
“Oh you can stay here,” she says, “I’ll be right back.”
You hear her hurriedly making her way up the steps and then entering a room. You guessed she was entering her bedroom and looking for something. You understood now why she didn’t want you following her up there, not after when you accidentally went in there thinking it was your room and after the bathroom incident. It was going to take a while before she would trust you to go into such a private space. You heard the floorboards creaking and things being opened up before finally she returned down the steps carrying a worn looking journal.
“This is a Dream Journal,” Fluttershy says sitting down, “I keep all the dreams I wanted in my life written down.”
“Neat,” you say as you reach out to read it, but Fluttershy suddenly holds it tight against her letting out a whimper of fear.
“Sorry,” you said retracting your hand, “I thought you wanted me to read it.”
“Oh I do,” she said with a lilt in her voice, “Just not the whole thing.”
With that she turned around and began to flip through the pages, stopping to check to make sure you were not seeing anything else. You wondered what was so secret that she didn’t want you to see it even though she wanted you to see at least part of what was contained within the journal. But then again she was a very shy girl normally, so it didn’t really come as a surprise. Finally she flipped to a certain page and turning back around lay the book down in front of you. Looking at the page you could see a design of what looked like the shape of a butterfly, oddly similar to the one she wore as a necklace and the one the Fluttershy had as a cutie mark from the show. Upon a closer look the “butterfly” was surrounded by a darkened area. It’s body looked like a road while the two wings were dotted by circles and rectangle buildings.
“This looks like a map,” you said, “what is it?”
“It’s my dream,” Fluttershy said looking happily at it, “Actually it’s what I want the animal sanctuary to be. I want to make it a place where everyone can come and learn about animals. There would be information about them, a petting zoo, educational buildings, and oh, maybe even a café for guests to eat at!”
You could tell that this was a dream that was long imbedded in her mind. The more you heard about it, the more you also pictured it in your mind as a wonderful place where you could help animals as well as teach others about them. But in your revelry you almost didn’t notice the fact that Fluttershy’s happy demeanor changed to sadness.
“What’s wrong,” you asked her.
“It’s just that I can’t do this dream,” she said, “I mean I want to do this, but I don’t even know where to start and I can’t do this on my own while taking care of the animals. Then there’s the money. I can barely take care of this place as it is much less improving it the way I wanted to. Sometime I wonder if I’ll ever make this dream a reality of if it’ll just stay here on this journal.”
With that you could see tears forming in the corners of her blue eyes. At that moment your heart melted at such a scene. You hated to see this wonderful girl who took you in not see her dream come true.
“Have you tried speaking with others about getting money from them?”
“No,” she said in between sniffs, “I tried to, but I’m too shy. I usually end up making a fool of myself. Oh I wish that I could be more confident and not such a scarred girl!”
With that the floodgates opened and Fluttershy buried her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. You grab a box of tissues nearby and try to get her attention with it, but she was too sad to notice. You then held you breath as you tried something that you vowed not to do as you knew how she would react. It this case there was no choice to have her get your attention otherwise. You reached out and tapped her on her shoulder. She shuddered and looked up at you, not with the same frightened reaction as she did before. You could tell she was too sad to be afraid.
“Fluttershy,” you said in the softest tone you could muster, “Please don’t cry. I want to help you. I want to help make your dream come true.”
“Y…you do,” she said as her tears stopped flowing, “Why? Why would you want to help me?”
“Because I like you,” you said before adding, “as a friend of course. You’re such a kind girl allowing me to work with you and live with you… I mean not with you but in the same house. I would hate to see you not see your dreams happen.”
“Oh thank you,” she said happily, “No one has ever helped me before, so it means so much.”
“My pleasure,” you say happy that she was happy, “So you need money to get this project going, but you also want to overcome your shyness so you can talk to others, right?”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“Well, I think I can help you with both, if you’re willing to work with me.”
“Oh, ok,” she said.
“Then it’s settled. After we finish outside your lessons start.”
“That would be wonderful,” she said as the two of you walked outside. You committed yourself to helping her, yet although you didn’t want to admit it you had no idea where to start helping her to build her dream or how to help fix her shyness! Hopefully you’d come up with an idea as you helped her with the animals.
“So that journal has other dreams of yours, right?”
“Uh huh,” she said looking at you wondering what you were getting at.
“So besides helping you improve the animal sanctuary and helping you with your shyness, are there any other dreams that I can help you make come true?”
“No,” she said suddenly, taking you off guard as you could her face red with embarrassment, “I mean, not at this time.”
“Alright then,” you said with a shrug as you followed her towards the waiting animals, wonder what other dreams this girl had in her journal.