She stood quietly on the frost-coated stoop of the cottage and listened to the endless flow of lies. And she did so because she was being kind.
They were good lies, she felt, at least in the sense that the sheer degree of repetition had given the liar so many opportunities to smooth off any rough edges, resulting in a perfectly smooth concoction which spread across the ears like the most finely-polished horse apple smear, with every bit as much stink. Anypony who had any degree of regular non-retail business with Caramel had heard some barely-changed version of the lies, for while the stallion had endless time to work on refinements to the original product, he sometimes seemed to have very little imagination when it came to creating anything new, and so the stink grew ever-fouler as the product continued to decay with age. This was the fifth time Fluttershy had been through her very own personal edition, the one where the only changes were the names involved, the specific excuse for allowing the miasma to spread from the chilled compost heap, and the time of day -- and that last within a very small range of variance: Caramel typically dropped by and lied to her around seven in the morning, give or take, for he knew she would be awake and busy with the endless labors of animal caretaking, work she had to get back to as quickly as she possibly could, and that further improved his odds of getting the lies off quickly and then trotting away to see any ponies he had to lie to during a more typical business hour.
She could have said them in perfect-if-hesitant chorus with him. There was an option to beat him to every last lack of punchline. And all she did was stand and listen.
Again. Always.
Oh, she knew the cause of the lies: it sometimes seemed as if virtually everypony in town did. There were so many ways in which Caramel could be seen as a kind, giving, gentle and generous pony. Certainly the mares he entered relationships with never had any initial complaints about his behavior, especially when it came to the little gifts which so often accompanied courting. Except that, with Caramel... the gifts weren't particularly little. He loved to express his adoration in escalating physical tokens with ever-increasing costs, and Caramel wasn't particularly rich. To the best of Fluttershy's passed-along knowledge (gained from Rarity, who had spoken to so many of his ex-marefriends and so gained a full comprehension of the situation), the stallion had enough of an income to support himself in comfort and conduct romance on a semi-lavish scale -- a scale he continually ignored right up until the moment the chains snapped.
The Bearers joked about Rainbow's total lack of financial ability sometimes: the myriad ways her expenditures matched her income to the tenth-bit, her related talents for never saving any money at all and finding herself completely broke the night before the next paycheck. But for all that and their concerns about her should a financial crisis arrive which the weather coordinator had nothing set aside for, this much could still be said: the books always balanced. Oh, Rainbow dropped by at mealtimes in the name of what was supposed to be friendship visits which just happened to include free food, she was forever trying to snag a few 'samples' from Sweet Apple Acres while claiming it was lending a hoof in the quality control department, she grumbled endlessly after every seasonal poker game about what could have been done with the bits she'd just (always) lost, and there were times when she asked to borrow money. But as soon as that next paycheck was cashed, she flew about Ponyville repaying everypony. No loan incurred by Rainbow ever had a repayment period of more than two weeks. She was unable to save -- but she seemed equally incapable of dropping into debt.
Not so with Caramel. He cherished his reputation as a romantic, showered presents upon those he cared for to a degree Rarity found disturbing. But he managed that by taking bits away from every other part of the budget he'd never figured out how to make. He was the darling of the retail stores in town, the great sales love of the craftsponies -- and his rent was late, his taxes were supposedly in arrears, he was rumored to have moved into Ponyville after fleeing a tidal wave of red ink elsewhere on the continent and if so, he had learned exactly nothing from any of it.
So he lied. And today, he was lying to Fluttershy.
Again. Always.
She could have spoken the lies in chorus, or beaten him to them entirely. She did not. Instead, she stood in place and let her ears just barely listen, for the words were no longer important: only the inevitable results. It was her inner voice that echoed his while adding a few comments which he would never say.
Unlike some others.
And there's a cart wheel he just had to replace, a very important cart wheel, which is a round thing and so it's substituting for the full set of hoof anklets which Clearwater was prancing around in two days ago. Additionally, he has to do some repairs to his home, which is nonsense because he rents and so his landlord would have to do them, or it would be if he wasn't three months behind and the landlord was trying to stall a bit as an object lesson, which will probably lead to Caramel dragging him into small claims court while going on rent strike because now he's not getting any services for the bits he hasn't been paying. So there may be damages, or there may not be, and it doesn't matter in any way at all except for the one where he finally wraps it up by saying
"So I'm sorry, Fluttershy, I really am, but... I just can't manage to pay you anything towards my outstanding balance right now. Maybe next moon, if my luck is a little better..." Or if his luck was a little worse, in the sense that every attractive single mare in Ponyville was either committed, experienced, or fully warned. "You understand."
She understood that he was lying.
"...yes."
"So I'll see you next week for another followup on my ferret?"
A ferret who had an extremely rare condition of the blood. A condition which could not be cured, but could be controlled -- courtesy of some extremely expensive herbs which were normally only harvested from wild zones at great personal risk. A risk Fluttershy had taken herself the first time around, followed by a week of recuperation from the injuries, the relief of finding out the emanations of the Cornucopia Effect from an earth pony majority town were enough to let her replant the cuttings and start raising her own... but other ingredients had to be added and some of those were controlled ones, with no seeds available and thus no way to create a local crop. Caramel's much-beloved Shimmy needed that mixed medicine every week without fail or the ferret would die. And as with every potentially fatal condition, Ponyville's resident actual vet had taken a single glance at the possible damage to her perfect record before Sweetbark did what she
Again. Always.
did every time: gave over directions to the cottage and refused to ever see patient and companion again.
Fluttershy had made the diagnosis six moons prior. Caramel had rendered a partial payment for the initial services the moon after that. And it had been the last one.
The lies did not change: Caramel seemed incapable of it. But Shimmy's blood was still the same, and always would be.
The Canterlot vets might take pony and ferret in, making up that expensive, horribly difficult-to-mix medicine, a fluid which never kept beyond seven days no matter what anypony did, and those ponies would provide -- for a while, until the ignored bills piled up to multiple ceilings and passed-along words threatened to close every door.
Without her, the ferret would die.
That hadn't changed either.
"...yes. Next week."
"Until then!"
She didn't answer. She simply watched as he trotted away through the light coating of snow she simply hadn't had time to clear away from the approach path, jauntily tossing his head in such a way as to make the loose scarf end do little pirouettes.
Feed bag delivery. Replacements for my broken beakers. Plasters and splints. All due today. Payment on arrival.
She turned, left the chill air of early winter behind for the warmth of the cottage. A warmth which sometimes felt as if it was diminishing by the year, and she felt the temperature continuing to dip as she slowly trotted forward, eyes downcast in her perpetual attempt to check for the smallest of the residents and make sure her path didn't come too close to theirs, trying to peer through the fall of her mane, wondering if the tears would come to soak the coral-pink blockade again. And the heat continued to ebb away with every step, right up until the moment the warm words reached her.
"You should have let me talk to him."
They were surprisingly soft words, especially given the sheer size of the white-coated body they had just emerged from. Most ponies expected shouts and exclamations and largely-faked enthusiasm delivered at a constant top volume, with all of it in monosyllables because those were the only ways they could perceive the stallion as being able to communicate at all. And they were words made all the more precious for the caring she heard within.
"Snowflake... I know you don't like to intimidate anypony..."
He sighed, and that too was soft. The stunted, incurably-damaged wings fluttered, a vibrato she so often saw when the stallion became frustrated with a particularly difficult portion of his training: at least two sessions a week every moon for nearly a year and a half now, learning how to be her substitute when missions came calling. A role given to the gentlest pony she knew. "I don't." With resignation and determination mixed in equal measure, "But I am intimidating. Whether I want to be or not. Just standing in place can do it. Very. Still. I don't like it... but it has its role, Fluttershy. You need those bits and he's never going to pay you. If you believe the stories, he'll move again first, just before the courts order him to pay anypony at all. Somepony has to scare it out of him before that, and... sometimes, all I have to do is... stand there."
A gentle, shy smile, and a tiny head tilt, the brush-cut mane just barely shifting. Waiting for a permission he knew he would never receive.
Again. Always.
"...no."
He quietly turned back to the textbook and flipped the page with his teeth. Made a quiet show of studying the pictures showing thrush discoloration of animal tongues.
With total neutrality, "Have you thought about dating him?"
She blinked. "...I... don't understand..."
"Yes, you do," Snowflake placidly said. His eyes were still fixed on full-color fungus-coated taste buds. "He's attracted to pegaus mares. That's more than three-quarters of what I see him lounging around town with. And based on the price of the gifts I see him kicking around in every direction, all you'd have to do would be to put up with him for two weeks while reselling all the results, and then you could take him off the ledger. Makeup dates twice a year after to recoup any future costs. Fixes everything. I'll run a comb through your mane and then you fly after him, flirt a little... a little will be all it takes."
She giggled, but there was something less than truth in it. "...it'll never work... you know I don't..."
"You could." A soft argument they kept having. Over and over, and her response was automatic.
"...so could you."
The sigh was softer than ever. Red eyes came up for a moment, rested on blue-green, and the mutual silence said the rest. A stallion who still heard the echoes of schoolyard laughter directed at deformity and a mare who had seen old maid status lurking in a mirror long before puberty ever came to call, while staring at the reflection of a misfit.
They had much in common, those near-siblings. Having given up long ago was only part of it.
Finally, "Trust me when I say I know I'm not his type?"
She giggled again, for it helped to create the illusion of moving things away from the subject. She trotted closer, answered a few questions, asked a few along the way to help him review, and that continued for two hours, right up until he had to head out for a snow-clearing job, leaving slightly early for no reason he cared to detail.
Fluttershy glanced outside a few minutes after he departed. The extra time had been used for clearing the approach path.
Again. Always.
Another pony arrived shortly after that. No bits came with her.
The cottage was not empty: it never was. Even when she wasn't teaching, if the other Bearers weren't visiting, when ponies didn't bring their companions for treatment and grooming and temporary housing and so many things which some took great pains not to pay for, she would have company. There were always birds and small mammals -- but at this time of year, the reptiles slept for so much of the day unless she kept them near the fire, some of the warm-blooded had dropped into hibernation, many of the avians had gone south...
Winter was her slow time: it always was. It was the season in which she came closest to almost sleeping securely (for the few hours each night when she slept at all), when there were the least emergencies knocking at her door in the middle of the night, when the cries she sometimes heard coming from her neighboring wild zone dropped to almost nothing, with most of the monsters within the Everfree too chilled to seek prey. The exceptions were... things which cost her sleep.
In winter, there were fewer feed bills, for those who went into hibernation often required less food, or had consumed the bulk of it during the fall. (It was not a comatose sleep as so many ponies thought: those in hibernation still woke and moved and ate if they could -- just much more slowly.) There were virtually no newborns to take care of. The only part of the garden which required tending was the tiny indoor one where she kept those herbs which had to grow year-round because any pause in their production could hurt so many, a protected patch of personal soil which Applejack, who was also granted a degree of free time by the cold, took great pains to visit and personally tend, just in case the Cornucopia Effect wasn't enough. There had never been any problems with the two square body lengths of soil kept in the attic, and Fluttershy was grateful for the help in ways she could barely express.
In winter... the warm bodies who clustered around her when the pain swelled, when the weight of those she could not save and the burden of showing the way threatened to collapse her spine, when the mass of duty reached the point of crushing her... they were not enough to surround, to create the soft barrier which told her everything was worth it, she was doing the right thing, she was doing the needful, every act made a difference...
The warmth sometimes helped her to almost believe that. And in winter, there was not enough of it.
A small white rabbit hopped up to her. Small dark eyes stared at the prone pony form where it was pressed against stained floor, shaking slightly. Her tail had spread everywhere: it always did, and a few of the younger residents had clustered under it. Perhaps a dozen others were pressed up against her. But not enough. Not to make it stop.
She was thinking about bills again. And patients who would be coming by later, which included, inevitably, those she would not be able to save. So many didn't want to pay when her ministrations failed to fend off the inevitable: for a few, it was a form of emotional self-defense, refusing to account for the loss of a friend as numbers. She understood that. And in truth, those who found excuses and lies or simply decided she would never have the strength to come after them in court -- a truth which just kept on holding -- were the minority of her clients. It was just that... she was poor. She had been poor since the moment she had transferred the funds her parents had set aside for a never-attended weather college as her means of buying the cottage and surrounding land.
There were feed costs. Exotic herbs. Equipment for her little lab which the newborns always found ways to break. The yearly agony known as property tax. Books: there were seasons when she purchased more books than Twilight. So many species, each with its own medical lore, all updated every year in ridiculously expensive new editions which were never donated to any library, where perhaps two sentences would change and she had to give over the bits every time because those just might be two sentences she was going to need.
The cottage often needed repairing. It wasn't as bad as Applejack's ongoing barn situation, which even the farmer was beginning to treat as a running joke. But there would be larger animals, hurt ones who weren't friends just yet, they would lash out at something and on good days, that would be the walls and furniture. On bad ones... books had to be replaced. And the sheer range of (eventually) new friends who came to the cottage ensured a steady supply of bad days.
In winter... less of that, too.
But the sadists among the publishers centered their hardly-entirely-new editions around Hearth's Warming Eve. Less ponies traveled during the season and so fewer asked her to serve as temporary host for their companions while they did so. Her grooming service traffic dropped, and understandably so: longer coats were extra protection against the cold. Fluttershy's expenses came down somewhat in winter... but so did her income. She needed every bit she could get. If ponies paid their bills, she would be okay, at that usual 'just barely' level.
In reality, very few of her clients refused to pay. But those who did were almost always the ones who owed the most.
There were deliveries due later. She could pay for them. And then there would be nothing left. Nothing at all.
She was tired of asking her friends for little loans which they
Again. Always.
pretended to forget about two seconds after the bits had been passed over. She was tired of the responsibility. Of the weight. Of being the one who had to do everything. Of sometimes clearing snow away from the little graves behind the cottage, every burial site a battle she had lost and she was going to lose again, she was always going to lose because the battles were always hers and she didn't have all the weapons she needed, no vet did and the battlefield was always changing, she wasn't even a real vet and she shouldn't be in the fight at all except for her mark, the mark which told her she would go to war over and over again and just keep losing friends...
How many times had she been in this exact position, over all the winters since she had come to ground, weeping against the wood of the cottage floor when there weren't enough friends around her to keep the pain away? When the duty pressed on her, when her mark tried to tell her it was all worth it and never whispered about the toll, the price of so many deaths, the pieces of herself which had been buried with lost friends and barely enough remaining to leave anything solid behind at all, a hole-riddled heart threatening to collapse with a single extra grain of weight?
She wept. The little forms around her pressed more tightly. And it wasn't enough.
Angel's hind feet kicked into her snout.
Her head came up: one hard shake cleared just enough manefall to let her see the rabbit. He had maintained his position, legs clearly ready for another double-blow. And rabbits weren't really built to glare over their shoulders... but he was trying.
The kick had hurt.
"...go away."
The unblinking glare maintained. No Stare came back the other way. She didn't have the strength. She didn't know if she had the strength for anything any more.
"...just go away, Angel... I can't do this... not right now... I can't..."
He kicked her again.
"GO AWAY!"
The partial, nowhere-near-enough blanket shattered. Bodies scurried in all directions, including the vertical. Friends vanished. Angel's little head moved up and down: a single hard, fierce nod before he raced away. And then...
...she was alone.
Completely alone.
After all, she'd just given them an order.
"...I... no... please... I didn't mean to... please, I..."
Tiny eyes reflecting in sheltered corners. Waiting for her word. Telling them to come out. To be her friend again. Because that was part of what the mark did, wasn't it? It gave her a talent for making friends with them.
She forced herself to her hooves.
A single word would bring them back. Make it loud enough, a volume she could barely ever reach on purpose, and even the resting ones would wake. She would be surrounded. Because of the understanding. The connection. The mark.
Did the magic of it order them to be her friends?
And without that, she wouldn't have left...
...she wouldn't be on the ground...
...alone.
Again.
Always.
She took the deliveries, paid those bills. Her scheduled clients had come and gone: no more were due for the day, and as much as the thought of leaving the cottage so often frightened her, the fear of not being there to help when an emergency came... she couldn't stay. Not every moment of every day, and the winter was the safest time to take the risk of leaving, with no newborns to get out of control and...
...her friends hiding in the walls. Waiting on her needs. Or her order.
There were days when she was afraid to leave the cottage. And there were times when she simply couldn't stand to be there any longer.
She bundled up: scarf, boots, a thick, heavy winter outer garment which perfectly set off her coat (for the little which remained exposed) and mane, all gifts from Rarity. Fluttershy never paid for any clothing: the designer wouldn't let her. It was claimed as generosity. It was also knowing Fluttershy couldn't afford winter clothing of any decent quality at all, let alone the pieces Rarity kept sacrificing year after year in the name of keeping somepony warm, the highest-quality fabrics with the strongest insulation...
...the most guilt...
The outer garment came in layers. Normally, when Rarity designed winter items for pegasi, she had to deal with the same problem everypony faced: the wings. It was impossible to form a heat-tight seal around the joints. Covering the wings in flexible fabrics to any degree without sacrificing some amount of flight... centuries had been spent fighting that challenge, and every battle had been lost. Pegasi who lived in the portions of the continent which went through proper winters tended to study the technique of heat-shifting. And as with every other technique, Fluttershy was no good at it. She could (barely) fly -- and when it came to inherent pegasus magic, that was just about all she could do.
So Rarity made bulky garments for her which outright covered the wings. And beneath that, a thinner, tighter-fitting layer which had her wings free. She could shift off the outer portion with a single practiced body shake and speed away, as much as anything she did in the air could have the word 'speed' attached. But until then, she would be warm, at least at skin level.
The cold was much deeper than that today.
She trotted towards Ponyville. She would have done so on most days, even warm ones: the fact Rainbow so often denied was that you simply saw more at a slower pace. There were things Fluttershy could pick up on from overhead, and aerial surveys helped her find so many homes of future
servants
friends, but a gradual ground progression away from the paths typically allowed her to find more. There was no point in trying it today, though... enough snow on the ground to cover many burrow entrances, and while her practiced eyes could pick up on the little distortions to the white blanket where animals had tried to hide their comings and goings, those who wished not to be disturbed in the cold simply shouldn't be. There would likely be no new
slaves
companions today.
The garment also hid her mark.
What if that's been it all along? If it's just my magic? Never friends... just influenced by the mark to come and stay near me no matter how they feel about it? What if I've never had a friend? Just a parade of the ensorcelled? What if I'm...
...alone.
Her mark was not singular: other triads of butterflies had appeared on pegasi over the centuries. But at least for her own race, her talent was. Others were connected to birds, some to the flying insects, a few to bats. But nopony was tied to them all while adding the ones who lived in soil and trees and upon the earth. No pegasus, ever. Until her. The one who had gone to ground, taking the freak talent with her.
She had never met another pony who shared it, not with the same range. Fluttershy had longed for that, to compare notes, to see just how other ponies operated with it, if they could share their friends, if the connections were the same...
...if they were all just giving orders.
Eventually, she reached Ponyville, trotted slowly past the scant hoof traffic sharing the streets with her, eyes down as always. Some greeted her: she nodded quietly and went on her way. There were other sounds of recognition as well and to her ears, many of them came across as less than friendly.
Covered wings.
There was only one pegasus in Ponyville who did that at all and Rarity, understanding the need for warmth, had accommodated her without a word. But it made her stand out. Yet another thing which set her apart from the herd.
And in years past, before a night which had lasted far too long, she would have continued her slow trot. Would have allowed the chill from the snow to soak through her boots and reach the core of her, that which felt as if it might never know warmth again. Added one more whisper to the constant inner babble of worry and fear and doubt which ruled her life in any moment when she was alone. This whisper was getting louder. Given enough time, it would become a shout. Then a scream.
The young mare of years ago would have slipped into outer and inner isolation until, if she was lucky, her oldest friend came of his own accord to pull her out of it... or until there was nothing left to hear.
This Fluttershy forced herself, hoofstep by pained hoofstep, to head for the Boutique.
"Thank you."
"...for what?"
"For telling me." Rarity's field sent the last of the floating ribbon spools back to their rack, put every needle away and tucked fabric samples into drawers. Soft blue coated the doors, activated the locks.
"...you're going to lose --"
"-- business? Perhaps. They can always come back later. They generally promise to regardless, and breaking that vow today will mean no more or less than on any other. Fluttershy..." The white body settled onto a couch. "...may I tell you a story?"
Frowning, even in confusion, would have been less than kind. "...of course, Rarity..."
A twinkle of field adjusted slipping false eyelashes: Fluttershy pretended not to notice.
"Very well," Rarity began. "Some moons ago, shortly after Princess Cadance was wed and immediately after the press finally gained a somewhat permanent awareness of our identities, I was visited by a mare who claimed to be from Manehattan. She wished to engage my services for a charity auction. I would give over a certain amount of my work, she would fully identify it as such in the catalog, and the creations would be sold to the highest bidder, with a significant portion of the proceeds going to the less fortunate. Well, I presume it was meant to come across as a significant portion... she did an excellent job at trying to steer the subject away every time I attempted to pin a number down, which made me rather doubt the existence of a high percentage. And eventually, I had similar disbelief in the charity... but that was slightly later on in our discussion."
Fluttershy waited patiently. She knew Rarity felt the story had some bearing on her own situation, and just because she didn't see what that was yet didn't mean it wasn't coming. Besides, interrupting was hard.
"Well, I have been known to donate pieces to such things in the past. Generally in Canterlot, where the auction houses often do a spectacular job of both promoting the sale and losing my label. Apparently their belief that acts of charity should never be identified comes into play, although why such only seems to manifest with my work when it is placed alongside that from the major noble-owned fashion companies..." A deep breath, and the soft blue reworked most of Rarity's tail. "But never mind that. Sometimes I give over an extra piece. At other times, I will create a new one. But I donate where I can, so even if I was becoming increasingly dubious about both mare and cause, I was still willing to consider doing so on that occasion. So I asked her if she had a particular item in mind."
A long pause, as the disruption from the abrupt tail lash required still more work to fix.
"She wanted all of them."
Fluttershy blinked. "...all your pieces?"
"Everything on the floor. Everything in the stockroom. Everything in the sketchbook which I had yet to manifest in reality."
"...but that leaves you with nothing."
"A point which I made as well." Rarity's left forehoof gestured outwards, as if shoving stupidity away. "And her counter was to tell me that... I was simply not allowed to refuse."
More blinks. "...allowed? But... they're your goods."
"Not to her. Not once she had asked for them."
"...but... why?"
"Because I," Rarity softly said, "am Generosity. And to her, that was an absolute."
Opal wandered out of a dressing room during the silence, walked up to the base of Fluttershy's couch, settled down next to a carved leg.
"If I am Generosity," Rarity slowly continued, "then I am obligated to give ponies anything they wish for, any time they ask for it. My creations. My business. My home. For no compensation, with all costs borne by me. And when this leaves me starving in the street, should somepony ask for my final scrap of grass, my last act in the living world would be to give it over. Or how could I call myself Generosity at all? That was her argument, Fluttershy: that any exception to a single trait, even those born from what would be the most basic reasoning if only some ponies allowed themselves to think at all, invalidates my right to bear the Element. If there was a seventh pony virtue called Tolerance and I bore that instead, refusing her then as well, I am certain she would have rallied against me just as much for failing to indulge her conviction that I was going to pass over everything I owned. Because surely to not indulge somepony in their every belief, even when those beliefs hurt you, is the clearest possible sign of intolerance, and all the hypocrisy would be mine?"
It was the first honest giggle of the day. "...Rarity, you just got somepony trying to take advantage of you... it's like when that reporter tried to corner Applejack to get any honeymoon gossip and screamed that she had to give her Element back just because she refused to answer the questions..."
Rarity nodded. "Oh, believe me, there was talk of having me deposed as well. But that is part of the point, Fluttershy. I admit that there are times when I have briefly thought of myself as Generosity. But in the end, I simply bear that Element. There is more to me than a simple trait. I have... my selfish moments. I am generally quite aware of that, and when I am not..." Her eyes briefly closed. "...I count on all of you to remind me. But to be that perfect trait of Generosity -- and nothing else -- would ultimately leave me as nothing. Anything asked for, given over... and in time, somepony would ask for my life. Whatever there was to give of it -- for --"
She shuddered. It was common, and it was simultaneously an almost singular event. Rarity shuddered at excessive (any) amounts of mud, or terrible designs, and always at the sight of somepony wearing saddlebags purchased at Barneighs. There was a tremble for a violation of etiquette, or a total lack of understanding from a rather stupid pony, plus one for when she saw all three Crusaders approaching the Boutique. But this one came from none of those things, and Fluttershy knew the source on instinct.
" -- my identity would be gone."
Pure fear.
Slowly, Opal got up, majestically stretched, walked across the gap, jumped up onto Rarity and settled into the hollow of her back.
"I have thought about it," Rarity softly went on. "Dreamed about it, until Luna sensed one and spoke to me within it. The dread that using the Elements too often would attune us to more than our necklaces. Of having the pony virtues burn through us until there was nothing else left. And she told me... that it was much like those ponies who fall into their marks, allow them to dictate every moment of their lives. That if we open the door for it in our hearts, we could delude ourselves into having it happen... and simply being aware that we are thinking for ourselves, that we are more than a single virtue, will prevent it. And for those who enter the illusion... those who love them will pull them back. Fluttershy... when did Angel begin attacking you?"
She blinked: the question had come from nowhere, had nothing to do with the story. She'd mentioned the kicks as part of her hurts from the day, because she had been so afraid of ordering him to stop... "...I don't understand..."
"You have had him for several years, yes? Well before you took your Element."
Fluttershy nodded. "...since a little after I moved into the cottage... he was the first -- animal... who stayed... but if I'm..."
That left forehoof came up: wait. "Well before, then."
She managed another nod. "...he was such a good leveret -- I'm sorry: it's an old word for a baby bunny or hare... and he was even a good buck with me, he was always a little aggressive with the other -- animals because he's so vulnerable and he was trying to establish territory, he felt he had to be fierce with them or they never would have let him keep getting close, he would have been crowded out... but he didn't do it with me, not back then. But then he..."
Rarity waited. Opal's purr reached across the room.
"...it started -- after. A few moons after we received the Elements. And he's been getting worse ever since... the salads... the cherries... he's always been like that with the other animals, I swear, but with me... worse..."
And starkly, "He wants you to kick him back."
The shock sent Fluttershy's wings flaring out: the jerk of her head put all of her mane clear of her eyes at the same moment her left wing nearly pushed her off the couch. "What? Rarity, I would never -- I couldn't!"
Rarity's own position shifted: she glanced to Opal (and the cat jumped free), then pushed herself off her own couch, took two careful steps toward Fluttershy. "Not literally, Fluttershy. Not with hooves. Angel is remarkably intelligent for a rabbit. He is not a pony, he does not think on our level... but I believe he has an excellent sense of what is going on around him at nearly all times, especially when it comes to things involving you. There is something which has been on my mind during our talk, and your approaching me today was an invitation to discuss it. I feel it has been on his for a longer period than that. He spends time with you, more than any of us. He is aware of what has been happening. It is my belief that Angel feels..."
The designer visibly swallowed, took two more steps forward.
"...that you are falling. Not into your mark -- but into your Element."
Shock. "...but -- you said that couldn't happen!"
"Unless you believed it could. Or wished it to." Another step. Almost all the way across now. "Fluttershy... for all your contact with us... for all that you welcomed such contact at all... your social hesitancy has not fully abated. It has diminished somewhat, yes. But I feel something else has taken its place. A new fear. That to keep the Element -- perhaps to keep us -- you must be that Element. The Gala... the eruption on Dragon Mountain... Iron Will... they all have common elements: that they were the only times you have visibily released frustrations at all. You let things build and build, because you are afraid to be anything other than kind -- and finally, the pressure explodes. Followed by regret, retreating, fear that you have finally gone too far... And you lock yourself in your cottage because to have an honest moment of anything other than kindness is not making yourself a monster: it is threatening to cut you off from everything you have gained, and so you preempt the process through trying to complete it. That is what I feel, Fluttershy." One more step. "Is that what is happening? Does Angel want you to yell at him -- because then you would be yelling at all? Because you need the release and he loves you so much, he is willing to risk losing your love for him in the hopes of providing a place to let go? Fight him, scream at him, be mad at him -- because it is anything other than kindness, and that is his sacrifice for you, from his love?"
Rarity almost took the final step then. Nearly climbed onto the couch. But it didn't happen.
Because Fluttershy came to her.
After a while, Opal pressed against them both.
They had talked for a while after that. The subject had eventually come around to her mark, and Rarity's answer had been simple. "You communicate. You know how to speak to them, and there are times when you understand the words they need to hear. But whether they listen has always been their choice, Fluttershy... if nothing else, let Angel be proof of that."
"...but my mark... if it's anything more..."
"It is not."
"...how can you know?"
"Because with any animals you cared for, Fluttershy... you would never let it be."
"...not animals."
Rarity had smiled. "Oh?"
"...friends."
She went back out into the cold: there was still some scant amount of Sun left, and Fluttershy was hopeful that Rarity could still pull a sale out of the day. She hoped Rarity could make money, and wondered how much of that was selfishness on her own part, because she was surely going to need another loan and even if her friends insisted on forgetting about them, Fluttershy never could.
Perhaps there was still some shopping traffic about: she could see ponies carrying packages. Few of them were gift-wrapped: Hearth's Warming Eve had come and gone, and the traditional offerings of welcome had been distributed. But there were always things to get for oneself for the ponies who had the bits, plus birthdays, anniversaries --
-- dates.
Caramel. Coming out of the convenience shop. Pushing a heavy new device on a little four-wheeled dolly. She could see the space in the window where it had just been removed from the display, along with the price tag which had been left behind. An amount four times that which he owed her.
The convenience store, being a place which sold magic-powered devices, tended not to work on credit or installment plans. Mrs. Wonderment insisted on having every last bit in her possession before the fresh purchase had a chance to explode.
All those lies. Over and over again, to me and everypony else he owes money to, just because he has a date coming up and he's trying to impress her...
There were a few other ponies on the street: about half that number above it. None of them were friends, and one was something much less. The other Bearers at home or work, Snowflake was doing clearing work on the other side of town, would be for hours. No animals around who would have insisted on her behalf and she never would have asked them to. Only her.
Caramel was pushing her feed bills. Her property taxes. Her new editions. Everything for the next two moons. With a smile on his face and a song in his heart and no intention of paying her, ever, because she was Kindness and she wasn't allowed to get angry or be anything less than nice, was that it? He could just postpone her forever because there would be no consequences. Because even with Rarity having told her, passing on a message Angel had been trying to send her for so many moons, she was still shy. Non-confrontational. Unwilling to drag anypony into court because it meant facing them down and doing so in a way that the Stare, something which always made her a little afraid of herself, didn't cover -- plus the lost hours, all that time away from the cottage, missing so much...
He was here now, though. And he hadn't seen her yet.
But how was she supposed to do it? She couldn't just yell at him, could she? He would just gallop away and never come back, and then poor Shimmy...
No. He does love her. He'd still come back. Because if he went to somepony else, he'd have to pay. Possibly in advance. He won't risk that.
Maybe she could confront him during that inevitable next time. After she'd used the intervening period to work up more nerve, just enough to --
-- stall more with.
Would Rarity be willing to face him down on her behalf? Of course she would. Fluttershy turned in that direction -- just in time to see three happily chatting mares trot into the Boutique. Customers, or at least the potential for same. She couldn't ask Rarity to claim Fluttershy's bits when the designer needed her own chance at income.
Back to Caramel. Who still hadn't seen her, who was lying to her with every squeak of dolly wheels. With nopony to help her at all.
Fluttershy took a step. Then another.
Then she flared her wings, pushed off the outer layer, and flew.
"...Caramel."
He pulled his forehead back from the silvery device, looked up. His breath frosted the air as a preparatory measure, creating something more solid to smear horse apples on. And there was no shame in his expression at all.
"Oh, hi, Fluttershy!" he brightly said. "I don't often see you in town during this hour. Is everything all right at the cottage? You should probably go and check... I know I'd be afraid to abandon the place for more than a minute if it were my responsibility..."
She had heard the lies so often. This time, she paid attention to the words inside them. The ones pushing on her fears. "Go back and check. Something could have happened. There could be somepony waiting with a sick friend. This can wait."
Except that I can't afford to help if I don't do this now.
"...what are you pushing?" she asked.
"Oh, this?" And he became inventive. "I won it! Mrs. Wonderment held a raffle! I just got the notice of my winning ticket an hour ago. Great timing, too, and Celestia bless my luck... you may have heard that I'm seeing Ratchette right now, and she just loves anything to do with new devices! So if you'll excuse me --"
"-- stop lying."
The thought had been hers. The words had not.
They both blinked. Turned to face the other pony who had emerged from the shop.
No friends. But one pony who was about the closest thing she had to an enemy. And everypony in the settled zone could say the same.
Flitter laughed, and the sound came out as it always did: harsh, an anger not even remotely hidden, the perpetual search for a fresh target having found something in need of pain. "Maybe you didn't see me in there, especially with the reflection from all those bits in your eyes. Passing over piles of them to get this... I'd be amazed if you could pick up anything over that little mountain of money, especially when you had to peer through the fog of your own ego on top of that, Caramel. Sticky little mess, isn't it, having a witness? You know, I always wondered about your name... is that why your parents passed it over? Because they knew you were mostly good for giving ponies cavities and occasionally going rotten on the ground, with somepony needing to scrape you off a hoof?"
Caramel went through the very visible and extremely typical reaction to an encounter with Ponyville's Bitch In Residence: he instinctively pulled back. But his lips were still over his teeth, and his tail was only partway between his legs. Most of the damage had been done to his creativity. "There was a -- processing fee?"
Flitter made a show of sniffing the air.
Caramel didn't know how to deal with the silence, and so made the mistake of filling it. "What are you doing?"
"I thought taking a public dump that size in the street would have to stink even more than you do." And with that, Flitter's head went down, her wings moved into the challenge position, her hooves scraped at the street...
...but she did not charge. Fluttershy was intimately familiar with what Flitter looked like when the perpetually angry pegasus was about to charge: there was a certain vibration in the bow. She just spoke to the ground, as if Caramel's face was no longer worth the effort to hate.
"Let me guess," Flitter said, and the calm was the greatest of lies. "You owe her money. Well, no surprise there: lots of ponies do and you... your reputation got here ahead of you and somehow, it smells even worse. And because you're stupid enough to believe you're kind of handsome and sort of charming and anything except a vaguely pony-shaped manure pile, you thought you could lie your way out of it, because that's what you always do. Do you know what's actually going to happen?"
Reasoning with Flitter was the last resort of the desperate. Caramel was overqualified. "Flitter, I --"
"-- you're going to push this thing back inside. You're going to get a full refund. And then you are going to turn every last tenth-bit of it over to Ponyville's favorite freak. Because if you don't... I'm supposed to be getting in some practice later. The Weather Bureau wants me to recertify on a few things. Like lightning. I'm supposed to practice my aim near the fringe, but you know, we've got clouds right here, it's a quiet day and frankly, a winter thunderstorm targeting every bit of very expensive metal housing in the vicinity would do a lot for getting ponies moving..."
Caramel stared at her. Flitter continued to decide the ground was far more interesting. Fluttershy, approaching an exquisite degree of coat-warming confusion, watched.
"I'll call the police," Caramel said. The words would have been a declaration if there had been any force behind them.
"You do that," Flitter said. "Of course, if you do, they'll have to write down the name of the pony who's making the complaint. Did you know they usually use that as a chance to do some research, just in case somepony's on the run from something? Like debts? By the way, is Caramel even your real name? Because I'm sure Ratchette will want something to call you when she inevitably catches on too..."
Her eyes finally came up, and the gaze was the coldest thing in the winter.
Caramel took a step. Another. He put the device between his body and Flitter.
And then he began to push it back towards the shop.
Bits weighed down the garment. Bits were in saddlebags which Rarity, shocked at both the request and the appearance of the pony who had made it, had sent out to the convenience shop. There were so many bits that Fluttershy wasn't sure she could have flown if she'd wanted to.
She had tried to make it clear to a finally-freed-and-retreating-fast Caramel that she still wanted to see Shimmy for the next dose. On schedule. Especially given that the stallion was now paid up in advance for so many moons to come. She was sure some part of it had gotten through and if the seeming nod from the galloping form had just been an incidental head motion, she could always just make a delivery.
The mares were leaving the shop. Fluttershy was struggling to keep up. There was something she had to say.
Flitter, however, spoke first.
"Don't."
"...don't what?"
"Don't you dare thank me. He's a jerk and you're --" her lips were framed for weak, twisted into another position "-- what you are. He shouldn't have to deal with you for more than that stupid ferret. Nopony should. And since you don't have the courage to take him on..."
"...I was going to... just before you showed up, I was --"
"-- really? Then prove it. Next time you get one who tries to trot all over you. Right in front of me. I'm not going to believe it until I see it. So make me see it. Otherwise, it didn't happen. And since it's you..." she sneered "... it never will."
Flitter's hooves parted from the ground, and she slowly began to ascend.
As it turned out, Fluttershy could take off after all. If only a little.
"...Flitter?"
"I'm paid up for all the things you've done and I'm not in the mood for hanging around your sickness. That Weather Bureau recertification wasn't exactly a joke, so I really don't care if you're excusing me or not --"
"-- you named your new kitten Killer... to remind me... didn't you?"
Flitter stopped. Hovered.
"Don't flatter yourself, even if you're so desperate for it that you're the first pony who's ever made the attempt --"
"-- do you love him?"
They stared at each other. No capital letters were involved.
"...he's healthy. Wonderfully so. Sweetbark would have seen him. And... you brought him to me for the checkup. So I could hear the name."
"Yeah, well, if there was anything wrong with him, there's only one pony in town sick enough to --"
"-- was there... any other reason?"
They both hovered.
"Go get your stupid extra garment before somepony steals it."
Fluttershy instinctively glanced down to make sure it was still in the street.
By the time she turned back, Flitter was gone.
She went to the graveyard before entering the cottage. The patch of land at the back where friends who had been lost were kept -- or at least, the shells were. Her friends, those of others. Companions. Every grave a battle lost, every name in her memory forever.
So much of her was buried with them.
She said the names, because she always did. Every last one of them. And when it was over, she stood in the pure, obscuring snow and looked at the winter flowers which Snowflake must have somehow found the time to place at the eastern end of each grave.
"...I don't want you to stay with me," she whispered. "Where you are now... is better. Without sickness, without pain. I don't want you to give that up forever if it's the only way you could ever come to me. And now I know... that my pony friends are there... when I need them. I finally learned that, I think. But... if you could ever let me know... that I... did what had to be done... and you didn't hate me..."
Had Snowflake placed the flowers? He would have barely had enough time to clear the approach path, even with his strength. But he knew where all the graves were, every last one because he'd stood there once with her while she recited the names, her lesson to him on why she never wanted him to perform the duty, because there were weights muscles were never meant to carry...
...he never would have placed them in one particular spot. Not where she was standing.
She had the area memorized. Snow or no snow, even with enough accumulation to completely hide the little mounds of earth, she never would have touched down directly on a grave. Only between the rows. Every time.
Had there been flowers in that exact place when she'd arrived? At all?
She didn't know.
Fluttershy gently lifted one in her teeth.
She knew the name from her books, for so many plants had uses in medicine. A large center cylindrical puff of yellow surrounded by gently dropping white petals, multiple blooms branching from a single base. Not a winter flower at all.
The botanical name, in the original Griffonant of the bloom's origin site, was Schizanthus.
Most ponies called it butterfly flower.
The conversation with Angel, such as it was, turned out to be short. She called to him and eventually, he came out. The little white rabbit hopped up to her, waited while she lowered herself to the cottage floor so she could look directly into the dark eyes.
She'd been working on what she was going to say all the way back, and so the words emerged immediately.
"I'll promise to get mad sometimes," she softly offered, "if you'll promise to stop trying to make it happen."
He stared at her. And then the little rabbit hopped forward again, pressed his head against her chin and pushed up: his way of insisting that she raise herself slightly. And when she did, he placed himself fully under her and tickled her with his ears.
She laughed. And the rest of her cottage friends came out to hear it.
Again. Always.