Most ponies don't remember their first kiss. Sure, they remember their first romantic kiss. They remember their first special somepony's kiss. But they don't remember their first actual kiss.
Fluttershy remembered every kiss she'd ever gotten. Her memories were almost entirely reflected through the medium of soft lips, hers or somepony else's, lightly touching a coat or an ear, pressing against a neck or a chin or forehead, or even pressing against another soft set of lips, both hot and full of blood and slightly damp and maybe parting around smooth teeth and warm breath.
Fluttershy's very first kiss was shortly after she was born. Her memory then was mostly shapes and colors. She was a small, quiet newborn in her plastic hospital crib, freshly cleaned and swaddled. Her eyes were wide and far too new to focus on anything in particular, or even make sense of the blurry shapes and motion happening around her. They still seemed to look around from object to object, cool, neutral, giving the impression of being reflective. She looked far too old in the way her eyes flitted from one thing to another, as if she expected them all to be there, and was just confirming her own idea about how the outside world should look.
The pegasus that leaned over her was not her mother, nor her father. It was the nurse that had cleaned and swaddled her. The nurse was just passing back through among the little red-faced newborns who were thrashing their little hooves and screaming for whatever reason newborns scream, or else fast asleep, exhausted just from being fully alive and a wholly separate creature for the first time. All except Fluttershy. Something about the little yellow pegasus with the wide blue eyes made the nurse lean down over her little crib.
A long white snout and soft lips that eclipsed her view of the room had brushed against Fluttershy's forehead, and she'd felt a surge of warmth, and the pulse of breath and life, and the strange sort of excitement and connection with another living thing that would characterize many of her kisses in the future. She tilted her tiny infant head, letting her own lips just barely touch the bottom lip of the nurse. The impression of the thoughtless touch of an unknown animal bestowing on her some impulsive sign of affection would stay with her and form the majority of the memory, and the nurse would also remember the smallest kiss she'd ever gotten.
There were many more small touches of affection as she was growing up: A brush across a cheek as a wing encircled her shoulder, a touch on her forehead before she went off somewhere, or a goodnight kiss placed lightly on the end of her nose, like the touch of a butterfly. Fluttershy remembered each and every one.
She was never good with crowds, and was even especially bad with very small crowds, up to and including her and any other pony. She was small and thin and awkward, and she kept her hair long to hide behind and kept her head down to hide further and always had trouble really finding any words at all to make the interactions that everypony else seemed to effortlessly maneuver through. But Fluttershy had no problem with kisses. She could understand and appreciate receiving a hug or a kiss as a greeting or a farewell, and casually, without trying, would be just as close or far away as she should be, or use her wing or a hoof in a half or full embrace, whichever was more appropriate, or make her lips just barely graze the other pony's coat, or press lightly against her kissing partner's cheek or neck or own soft lips, and when she gave those casual, social kisses which normally had very little meaning, the other pony would walk away feeling just a little bit better about life in general, even if, most of the time, Fluttershy would slink off immediately into whichever corner was least occupied and try to become as invisible as possible for the rest of whatever event she happened to be attending.
When she was straddling the border between filly and mare, there were much fewer opportunities for kissing. At that awkward age, nopony could unreflectively distribute kisses as they had as younger children. The gesture's innocence had been infected with threads of meaning and emotion that seemed to sneak through every glance, word, and gesture for those in the twilight between adult and child. But more than any other gesture that had once been innocent, the kiss had a special potential to be drenched in significant meaning.
Fluttershy advanced through school, growing up without making any significant social connections. She was too weak a flyer to be recruited for any sports teams, and her crippling social anxiety kept her from making friends. Academically, she was mediocre, preferring to lose herself in daydreams and novels rather than study. She knew she had no future as a weather pony, and didn't have a head for math or chemistry. School for Fluttershy was an unpleasant community where any active interactions were always uncomfortable, and she found it more difficult to slip into the background like she could when she was younger. She would frequently hide in a mostly-unused storage closet that the janitor would often forget to lock. She would listen to the hoofbeats of the other ponies, the unmoderated chatter of their conversations, and see the light and color of the hallway through the sliver of the barely-open door as the silence and darkness of the close space helped to calm her. She tried to divine, from listening, the secrets to navigating the social interactions she would certainly encounter when she went out into the hall again, but it seemed so easy for her peers. She didn't think they felt cold sweat or creeping terror when somepony went up and asked them a question. In the closet, though, she was safe. She liked knowing there was only one way in or out. Nothing would surprise her. She liked to pretend she was a small, timid animal, safe inside her den.
The janitor had walked in on her a few times. He was a brown pegasus with a short gray mane and yellow eyes, his cutie mark hidden under his coveralls. He seemed to instantly recognize her immediate reaction of distress not as a fear of being caught in an illicit act, so much as a fear of having to be out there. Fluttershy recognized an otherness in him, too. A silent stallion that was a transient spirit in the hallways, full or empty, he existed apart from the other staff and from the students. He had the invisibility and silence that Fluttershy wished she could possess, and he must have seen something of not just her terror, but her envy. After a few times, she found that closet perpetually unlocked and very little used, and she stopped hurrying out with mumbled apologies when he arrived.
She had always been a pretty mare, though, even as shy and awkward as she was. It was the primary reason that she could no longer meld seamlessly into a crowd of classmates. Even when she just stood at the back of the group and did nothing, other ponies would invariably come up and try to talk to her. There had been a few pecks on the cheek from potential suitors, and a few on the lips that Fluttershy had responded to in kind, but when the suitor started to talk she would just clam up and freeze in place. She could never even get out a "yes," or "no," or "let's talk about it." It wasn't that she didn't want to have friends, even very special friends, it was that she never knew what to say, even when some other pony approached her, and especially when an attractive pony tried to make friends. Her words would catch in her throat, and she'd only manage to squeak, trying to hide behind her long hair. She would either hurry away down the hall or else just stand there, not making eye contact, until the other party invariably left. She still understood kisses, though, and her suitors would remember the heat of her lips and the warmth of her body before she had been transformed by meekness and terror into somepony utterly unapprochable.
It went on this way for some time, her reputation becoming that of an unapproachable beauty. As far as her classmates were concerned, she was a stuck up, silent ice queen. She drifted through the school and the rumors made her poor academic and athletic performance into an aloof disinterest. Some dark secret had forced her into going to a regular school instead of living it up in the high society she'd come from, they said. She was so quiet and distant because nopony there was good enough for her. Nopony could meet her rigid standards of beauty and class. Maybe she was a hitmare for the pegasus mafia, or a secret assassin killer from Neighpon just there until she offed her mark (it was some rich businesspony, or maybe a gangster, who was into schoolfillies). The wild stories created an insulating barrier between her and her classmates until the the kissing closet incident.
It started when Fluttershy had been meekly hiding in the crowd of students at a big sporting event (Fluttershy never really payed attention to what it was), and her classmates had erupted into cheers as their team victoriously rushed from the field. All the athletes poured through the crowd, soaking up the adoration of their peers, both sides drunk off the power that runs like lightning through a cheering crowd. One of the athletes ran directly into Fluttershy, wrapping her up in her wings. Acting on instinct, Fluttershy brushed her pursed lips against the other pony's open, panting mouth, but the chaste kiss Fluttershy gave was returned much more passionately by the other filly. The pegasus radiated heat, smelled of sweat and adrenaline and had a liquid glimmer in her eyes that was both hyperfocused and impulsive. Fluttershy understood, as the other filly's lips pressed against hers, open-mouthed, panting through her grin, tongue barely touching the very front of Fluttershy's teeth, that she was probably kissed just because she was there. All the same, she pressed forward against the other pony, her feathers threading between the other's wings, and their breath shot back and forth, over teeth and tongues. Fluttershy tasted sweat and heat and victory.
Shortly thereafter, her hidden closet retreat took on an entirely different character. Fluttershy would hide there to stay away from the noise and the crowds, but mostly she was safe because no one, really, was bothering to look for her. When the door slowly opened, the shape silhouetted against the light of the hallway was slim, young and feminine. She didn't smell like sweat or victory, but Fluttershy recognized her anyway.
Not flushed with adrenaline, she was cautious. She moved with purpose, but each step was careful; leg bending in a curve, slowly straightening, hoof placed just exactly there with a tap. Once inside, her back hoof touched the door, forcing the rectangle of light back down to the ordinary sliver. Her head moved slowly back and forth in the quiet darkness as she surveyed the shelves and assortment of larger supplies, the little nest Fluttershy made out of old towels, and Fluttershy herself, legs folded, wings pressed against her side, head downturned. The light just caught the blue of one of her wide, slightly sad eyes.
Fluttershy rose to meet her.
Fluttershy's lips met hers, pressing just firmly enough to create tension, letting the other pony feel her, allowing the other pony to respond. She pursed her lips against Fluttershy's, opening them very slightly, letting their breath mingle in the shared cavity of their mouths. Fluttershy turned her face slightly, just insistent enough to let the other pony know she could, herself, be insistent, and let the other pegasus push her back, part her teeth, stretch her mouth along the curve of Fluttershy's, locking them together in a slow, careful, exploratory kiss.
Their tongues met. They tasted fresh flowers (from Fluttershy), and chocolate and bits of almond (from the other pegasus). They could feel the liquid pressure of the other's tongue, Fluttershy drawing the encroaching tongue into her own mouth, letting her explore, feeling her breath through her nostrils along the top of her muzzle. Very slowly, the other pegasus withdrew, the thin line of saliva connecting their lips shimmering in the dim light.
She nodded. A few quick bobs of her shadowy head in succession, and then walked slowly out of Fluttershy's closet with the same careful but surefooted steps with which she had entered.
She returned to Fluttershy's closet many times, and soon other ponies did as well. Maybe she told her friend. Maybe it was an experiment to see if she would kiss some other pony. Maybe somepony just heard about it and was trying to peek. Regardless, when a pony came in to her closet with kisses on their mind, Fluttershy rose to meet them. Some were timid, some giggling, some forceful and direct. Fluttershy gave them all the kisses that her kind heart knew they needed. In the silence and the darkness of her closet, she was unafraid, and only the hoof falls and wet touch of lips and tongues ever disturbed the silence of the room. Each of her partners left feeling somehow bolstered. Like something inside of them that they hadn't known was hurting had been healed. It was a delicate magic, though, like a soap bubble, and it wasn't long before it burst.
Even though each of her kissing partners knew, on the inside, that the closet was a secret place, the den of a kind animal who could give them comfort, some of them just couldn't help but approach her in the hallways to talk to her. The kissing closet had eroded a lot of the reputation she'd acquired, and although she presented herself the same way outside of the closet as she always had, some of the ponies thought they had an "in" with her now. Some of them wanted her for themselves, and thought that they'd surely broken through the icy exterior of the fantasy mare they'd imagined she was. More ponies tried to ask her out, or even just tried to talk to her to make friends. Ponies argued with one another over her. Ponies performed increasingly elaborate attempts to prevent one another from seeing her, or to try and win her heart. Three ponies got expelled for getting into fights over who was going to ask her out for Hearts and Hooves day. In the end, no one did. A group of expectant suitors found the kissing closet abandoned. In less than a day, even her little nest and the warm scent of her body were gone.
Flight camp and the acquisition of her cutie mark were turning points for Fluttershy in the fundamental nature of her kissing. She'd essentially had to go. Pegasus ponies had to pass a physical exam in order to graduate, although it could be taken every year until the pony passed. Fluttershy had one more chance to pass and still graduate on time, so flight camp was really her only option.
She remembered standing quietly at the back of the mixed group of ponies who were there for the camp. Looking around, she could see a lot of younger ponies who hadn't taken their physical test and were probably trying to pass the first time, a lot of bored looking ponies who were probably there just to keep them out of trouble for the summer, and the other ponies her age: athletes who were looking to get an edge in tryouts, if she had to guess.
Her cheeks were already hot with embarrassment. She was lucky that nopony else from her school was there. She knew she was going to end up with the little kids, more likely than not, and the reputation that kept her safe from teasing at school was entirely absent here. She stayed away from ponies her age, gravitating toward the back of the group with the really young fillies and colts and a few older ponies who seemed oblivious or completely disinterested as the head coach had explained that they'd be sorted in groups based on their ability. (Fluttershy remembered that the weakest group were Bumblebees, but couldn't remember the names of the other two.)
She watched a little filly make a little cloud creature while a group of ponies flew around the track and the coach went on about something. Because she was looking at her hooves and trying to be unassuming she noticed some little bits of something on the ground and decided to push the pieces over to the filly to use as eyes for her creature. The filly had thanked her with a little kiss in the hollow of Fluttershy's throat. She remembered the small lips against the racing pulse in her neck.
She had ended up a Bumblebee, had made a clumsy idiot of herself trying to even get onto the course to try out, and had been ruthlessly mocked until a very young Rainbow Dash, then a stranger, had defended her and challenged the bullies to a race. Of course, the coaches were all paying attention to the best group (on reflection, Fluttershy thought they may have been called "Falcons"), and so the race was entirely unsupervised and unendorsed, witnessed only by kids who probably should have been doing something else.
After waving the checkered flag, the rush of the racers had toppled Fluttershy, entirely unnoticed by anyone else, from her perch at the starting line, and she'd plummeted to what would have been her death if she hadn't been caught by a flock of butterflies moments before she slammed into the ground. She was filled with a sense of wonder on the ground, surrounded by all the animals. She'd never been down there before, and she'd loved the way the grass felt under her hooves, how it was perfectly normal to walk instead of fly from place to place, and most of all, the little animals that surrounded her.
After the thunderclap she'd later learn was a sonic rainboom, she'd discovered her special talent by calming the animals, watching their fear melt away as they looked into her eyes. The animals operated almost entirely through body language, and the tenor, tone and volume of the sounds they made were more important that any specific syllables. The fear and anxiety she'd always felt when dealing with other ponies was completely absent when dealing with these creatures, and the ice in her throat had melted, the fear flowed out of her body through her hooves like a lightning rod, and she'd held and cuddled each little animal.
She'd noticed that even the animals enjoyed her kisses, and she enjoyed kissing each of them. Unlike ponies, who really only varied significantly in size as far as their mouths were concerned, the little animals had all sorts of mouths. She could feel a bee's small tongue just touch her teeth, the smooth, hard shape of its head pressed into the cushion of her lips. The little squirrels had thin, almost nonexistent lips and little noses that were active in their nuzzling against her face. The birds all had smooth, hard beaks and soft feathers for her lips to slide against, and they flapped their wings and called to her, rubbing their beaks against her mane, neck, cheek and lips as she seated herself on the grass and felt the soothing presence of the animals all around her.
She stayed there almost all day, kissing, coddling and petting every little creature she could find. For the first time in her life, she was absolutely certain of something, consciously aware of a decision she knew she had to make. She would spend the rest of her life around animals. She wanted to take care of animals, there on the ground.
In the early evening, a coach who had the good grace to appear to be embarrassed had flown down to look for her, explaining that nopony had said anything about her being missing and the coaches had been so busy with the other students that they hadn't really noticed. Fluttershy, free from anxiety for the first time in her life, had explained that she didn't really think she needed to go to flight camp after all, and wanted to know if a pegasus could maybe transfer to a school on the ground.
She'd had no trouble flying all the way back up to the camp, wind whistling past her feathers, and had given the the coach a big hug, nuzzling against his throat, when he told her that she didn't have to stay at flight camp.
She'd even managed to find the blue pegasus, although the filly was at an age where kisses had gone from common to embarassing. Fluttershy had leaned down quickly, her lips touching just at the corner of the filly's cheek and muzzle. She could taste sweat for a moment. Rainbow Dash turned quickly, flustered, and Fluttershy turned with her so their lips met. The filly had kept her lips tightly shut, fitting between Fluttershy's fuller, softer lips, and Fluttershy had tasted the ghost of something sweet. Rainbow Dash had wiped her cheek and mouth with one hoof, spitting and blushing, and had called Fluttershy gay.
Fluttershy didn't even care.