Whenever Fluttershy talked about her parents, ponies usually assumed that she inherited her quiet and reclusive nature from her mother. She wasn’t sure why, but ponies could be silly like that sometimes. Still, because both of Fluttershy’s parents were pegasi, and therefore lived in Cloudsdale, it was usually Fluttershy who visited them, not the other way around. Rainbow Dash usually tagged along for these vists, because somehow, she always just happened to ‘need to go up to Cloudsdale anyway’. Fluttershy may not have had the intrinsic sense for lying that Applejack had, but even she could spot such an obvious one. Still, she never questioned it too much, grateful for the buffering presence of her oldest friend.
Fluttershy and her parents didn’t entirely get along. They couldn’t understand her fascination and skill with animals, and she could never grasp more than the basics of flight, which disappointed both of them. Fluttershy hated letting ponies down, but sometimes it was unavoidable. And this was why Fluttershy liked having Rainbow there, mostly as a shield. And it wasn’t like Rainbow was oblivious to Fluttershy’s problems with her family. Her parents couldn’t really get started on all of Fluttershy’s failings with somepony else in the room. Still, if Fluttershy had to pick a favourite out of her parents, it was an easy choice for her-her father.
Most of the time, it was her mother who drove the train of failings fowards, and her father trailed behind. Pegasi are a naturally competitive speicies, and that competition is not always between ponies. Sometimes, it was with themselves, striving to be the best. Fluttershy’s mother was a prime example of this-she wanted her children to be the best they could be. Unfortunately, her mother’s worldview was rather archaic, in that she believed that no pegasus could, or should, have a talent tied to the ground so closely as Fluttershy’s was. Thus, Fluttershy was forced to endure constant railings against her flying ability, her weather working skills, which did little to endear her mother to her.
When Fluttershy and her father could get a moment alone though, he would only ever ask one question: “Are you happy?” When Fluttershy answered in the affirmative, he had nodded, and then expressed that while he was disappointed in her lack of flying excellence like her mother wanted her to be, he was at least happy that she was happy, and that she’d found her own special talent. Fluttershy would then give her father a hug, and then she and Rainbow would leave before Fluttershy’s mother could come back.
The truth was that Fluttershy hadn’t inherited her shy nature from anypony in her family. Both of her parents were completely unafraid of expressing what they thought, or what other ponies thought of them. She’d just grown up shy because of that. Her father was the calmer of the two, though, and it was for this reason that Fluttershy liked him a bit more.