Fluttershy slowly trudged her way towards the stairs, her steps soft and quiet so as to not rouse her father from his musings. As she climbed up the stairs, Fluttershy couldn’t help but wonder how she had ruined this day for herself and her father. At the top of the stairs, Fluttershy sighed, her head hung low in shame and despair.
“I guess dad just doesn’t want to spend time with me.” the filly sniffled as she walked towards her room.
“Fluttershy?” her father’s coarse voice called out from downstairs.
“Oh no! Dad’s mad at me, isn’t he!” she said to herself as she meekly flapped her wings in an attempt to hasten her speedy escape from an inevitable reprimand. Unfortunately for herself, all this managed to accomplish was to trip herself over her splayed, flailing appendages. Despite this painful setback, Fluttershy managed to get into her room and shut the door.
“Fluttershy?” the same voice called over the steady beat of hoofsteps coming from the stairs.
Fluttershy wasted no time in searching for a suitable place to hide herself. She quickly dashed over to the closet and opened the door. The dark interior of the closet contrasted heavily with the bright fluorescence of her cloud based room. For a brief second, Fluttershy started to recall a story that her friend Rainbow Dash had told her.
‘And when you least expect it, a monster is gonna pop out of your closet...AND RIP YOU TO PIECES!’
Fluttershy immediately shut the closet door. Monsters did not seem like such good hiding partners if they were going to eviscerate you afterwards.
Her head turned to the side, the filly scouted additional spots in her room as potential hiding areas. After she ruled out the chair for being too small to even hide behind, the curtains of her window being too see-through, Fluttershy’s face lit up in realization. She jumped over to her bed and lifted up the skirts that touched the cloud. With a gasp, she pushed her head and neck through the gap, only to feel burning sensations come from her awkwardly bent legs. After a few seconds of struggling, Fluttershy gave up.
“Oh, why did my legs have to grow so big!?” She lamented.
And then she heard the knocking at her door.
“Fluttershy? Are you in there?” Her father said outside of her door.
The filly’s eyes became verdant pinpricks in a white lake, her mouth screamed a silent terror. Desperate for a solution, her mind flew like a frenzy of desperate gulls, clawing at every corner of her subconscious.
‘What do I do? What do I do?!’ the thought persisted in her mind, like a jingle played ad nauseam.
‘Go to bed, child.’ a voice said, its haunting presence sending a chill down the filly’s spine. It took most of her will not to scream. Instead Fluttershy fell onto her haunches, petrified.
“Who...who-?” the filly squeaked out, her fear of her father now replaced by her fear of her new guest.
‘Ask no questions. Go...’ the voice faded off, but it had its effect, for the filly concluded that she did not to be out in the open any longer. Fluttershy shot into her bed just as the door opened up.
*****************
Blazing Glory couldn’t help but smile. His stomach was full, the housework was done, and the day was still very much alive. Today, there would be no training to addle him through the morning and the night, no papers to fill out in the afternoon. No, today he was going to be the father he always wanted to be.
The stallion turned his head towards the kitchen and called out for his daughter.
“Fluttershy?”
He was half expecting the filly to come running out of the kitchen. What he got was silence. Cautiously, the stallion moved slowly towards the archway of his kitchen.
“...Is this payback for brushing you off?”
The stallion sighed at his insensitivity. This was not something he wanted right now.
“Listen, I’m sorry about earlier kiddo, it was really rude of me to...just…”
What Blazing Glory saw made him freeze in horror.
The kitchen looked pristine, the dish rack was devoid of any dirty plates, there was no water splashed anywhere, no specks of dirt on the floor. But this wasn’t Blazing Glory’s problem.
What was his problem was that his daughter was nowhere to be seen.
The stallion felt his body tense up, the hairs of his body stood on their ends as fear and anger built up in his mind. With much hesitation, the stallion looked towards the small, rectangular window from where light was coming into the kitchen. It was sealed and locked. As the stallion looked around the barren kitchen for any signs of struggle or intrusion, he heard a small thump come from upstairs. Immediately, the stallion ran towards the stairwell with as much speed as his legs could carry him, nimbly avoiding the archway.
“No, no, not again!”
The stallion began to gallop up the stairs as he heard a door slam down the hallway.
“Fluttershy!?”
The stallion kept his pace steady until he heard a distant voice in his mind.
‘Calm down. You need to think rationally.’
The stallion skid to a halt before he could bash down the door to his daughter’s room. Glaring at nothing in particular, the stallion began to reply to the disembodied voice in a hushed voice.
“Why should I? For all I know, my daughter is getting foalnapped! I am not going to just stand here and wait while my daughter gets snatched, not while I have anything to say about it!”
‘And so you would jump into the sea rather than building a bridge in order to get across.’
This brought the stallion’s rage to a standstill, his rage gradually being replaced by confusion.
“What!? Damnit Shade stop speaking in metaphors!”
‘Impatient as always.’
Blazing Glory groaned. The fact that he was being reprimanded by a voice in his head was not lost on him. He looked at the door in front of him, the need to break down the door and charge in screaming teared at his mind. The voice spoke one last time before it faded off.
‘Do what you will. But know your actions will have consequences. Act wisely.’
His eyes wandered downward, the scowl on his face never disappearing.
“...Fine. I’ll do it your way.”
The stallion took a few deep breaths before he, this time very slowly and calmly, walked up to his daughter’s door and knocked on it three times.
“Fluttershy, you in there?”
As the stallion waited for his daughter to answer, he thought he heard a muffled thump, so with another deep breath, the stallion twisted the doorknob and walked straight in.
*****************
Immediately the stallion made what could be described as something between a sigh and a groan.
Fluttershy’s room wasn’t messy. There were no overturned furnishings, no looted, broken open closets, no signs of a struggle. So for Blazing Glory, the good news was that there was no burglary of his house, or the kidnapping of his daughter. The bad news for him was that he got riled up for nothing, which only served in giving him a headache.
“Hey kiddo...you alright?” Blazing Glory gently whispered to his daughter.
“...!” The lump responded with a predictably pathetic sounding whimper.
The stallion sighed. He reached out his front hooves in order to try and peel the blanket off his daughter, but the lump shrank further into the mess of thick cotton when a shimmer of light exposed her frightened face.
“Fluttershy, what’s wrong?”
Once again, his answer was met by another whimper.
“Fluttershy, it’s me, please come out.”
The bundle of blankets stopped shivering, but the filly inside did not come out. The house was silent once more, the filly sniffling every few seconds or so, while the stallion stayed at his post, getting progressively more frustrated.
‘What the hell happened? ...Was it…’
“Fluttershy, are those boys from the flight camp bothering you again?” Blazing Glory asked.
“...No…” the filly whispered.
‘Good.’ the stallion thought to himself.
“Did something happen between you and Rainbow?”
“No.” the filly once again replied, her turquoise eyes now poking out of her blanket, looking downwards.
“Did anyone hurt you?” the stallion asked, a scowl starting to form on his face.
“No.” she said once more.
‘Why isn’t she making eye contact wit-’ the stallion thought, only to realize what was going on. His scowl disappeared, mellowing out into a neutral frown. He took off the beret and placed near the side of the bed, as to not scare his daughter further as he came to a conclusion.
‘...She’s afraid of me.’
“Fluttershy.” the stallion said quietly. This change of tone caused the filly to look up, confused as to why her father’s voice had become uncharacteristically flat.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.
“...Yes.” the filly closed her eyes and lowered her head, as if waiting for the inevitable.
“Why are you afraid of me?” Blaze asked, his tone still flat.
“...I…I...” Fluttershy began to speak, only to hesitate and quiet down.
The stallion raised an eyebrow to show his daughter that she held his attention, but otherwise his face was still frozen.
“...I thought, that...” The filly stopped as she choked down a sob before she continued.
“I thought that you might be mad at me.” she whimpered.
The stallion took pause, he let the new information sink in as he carefully considered his next words.
“...Why?” the stallion said.
Now it was Fluttershy’s turn to be confused. She poked her head out
“Why? What-what do you mean?”
“I mean, why would I be mad at you? You didn’t get in trouble, did you?” the stallion questioned his daughter.
“No.”
“Well then, what made you think I’d be mad?”
Fluttershy tensed up, as if expecting some sort of divine retribution to rain down upon her head as soon as she had spoken.
“...Do you promise not to be angry if I tell you?”
“On my life.” her father gave her a small smile. This got Fluttershy’s spirit up as she looked her father in the eye, her head now fully poked out of the blanket.
“Okay, since you really want to know;” the filly began before she took a deep breath.
“Last night when you weren’t looking I had two cookies a bottle of soda in the fridge even though you told me not to have any then when I woke up I made you breakfast so that you might be happy today so we could spend time together but when we were cleaning in the kitchen I thought you were mad at me for cooking when you did all the cooking for yourself so I hid so that you wouldn’t punish me please don’t hurt me!”
The filly panted, her short but breathtakingly rapid explanation left her with little air. She looked towards her father with some hope that he would understand her explanation.
“...”
“...”
The filly lowered head again, this time she was sure her father was angry.
Or at least she did until her father went mad.
“Hehehehe, hahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” The stallion cackled, his roaring laughter echoing throughout the house. Fluttershy was sure she broke her father. So she did what she did best. She froze up. It was only after another minute of mad laughter did Blazing Glory finally calm down.
“Sweet Celestia,” the stallion coughed out as he tried to catch his breath.
“I haven’t had a laugh like that in a long time.”
“S-so...you’re not mad at me?” the filly blurted out, unsure of what to make with the whole situation.
“Fluttershy, when I was your age, I did some pretty stupid things. That was nowhere close to stupid. What you did was very sweet of you. So no, I’m not mad at you.” the stallion finished his explanation by wrapping his daughter in a great big hug. Fluttershy reciprocated by wrapping her forelegs around her father’s neck.
“Did you like the food, daddy?”
A hearty rumble of a chuckle emanated from the stallion's throat before he answered.
“Yeah, I liked it a lot kiddo. Guess this means you’ll cooking for both of us from now on.” Blazing Glory playfully remarked.
“Really!? Oh thank you so much dad, I promise I won’t let you-” Fluttershy began to beam with joy before her father interrupted her.
“Let’s not jump the gun now, Fluttershy. I was only kidding.” Blazing Glory tried to clarify to his daughter what he had meant. Fluttershy wanted to pout but saw that her father was not yet finished speaking, so she waited as he continued.
“But since you really seem like you want to help, I’ll tell you what. You can help me cook, but you’re going to have to follow my instructions to the letter. Understood?” the stallion offered.
“Yay! I get to cook with you now!” the filly cheered, the sight of his daughter so elated brought cheered the stallion up.
“Alright well, now that that’s out of the way... anything in particular you wanna do today Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy did not expect her father to say that. Though she had spent the last week preparing herself for her first family vacation, she expected her father to have something planned out. So she naturally she said the first thing on her mind.
“What?”
A sheepish grin worked its way onto the stallion’s face as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.
“Heh, yeah...sorry about that.” he weakly muttered before continuing.
“I...actually never really thought about what we’d do with my vacation time before they threw me out.” Blazing Glory emphasized his statement with an absent minded flick of a forehoof, which bumped the beret back into Fluttershy’s view. Fluttershy frowned as she looked at the piece of headwear.
“...Actually, there’s something I wanted to ask you.” the filly said as she looked at the fallen beret.
“Do you now?” the look of disappointment and frustration on the stallion’s face was replaced by one of attention and focus.
“What’s that?” a yellow hoof directed Blazing Glory’s view towards the maroon beret.
The stallion sighed wistfully as he gingerly picked it up, as if one were to hold a child. The memento had seen better days, tears and rips snaked along the worn fabric of the woolen cap. Even the centerpiece, the proud coat of hooves that adorned the vine colored beret, had lost the sheen that it once held. A flurry of emotions pervaded his mind. Sadness. Anger. Pride. Shame. Joy.
“You want to know what this is?” he held the beret up to his daughter so she could get a better look of her father’s keepsake. The filly nodded, which prompted the stallion to look at the clock, the small and large hands over the 12 and 6, respectively. This prompted another dejected sigh from the stallion.
‘Probably can’t stall a curious filly for eight hours.’
“It’s a long story, kiddo.”
“We have time.” the normally demure filly said. Blaze frowned for what this entailed, but behind his stony exterior he laughed.
‘That’s exactly what her mother would have said.’
“You sure you want to hear it?” Blazing Glory warned one final time. But his daughter just nodded again, her curiosity remained steadfast. The stallion closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, before he began to tell his daughter about the last day of his old life.
“Well, it all started nearly 25 years ago, at a small town called Dodge Junction.”