He lay on his belly in the hallway, the cool floor helping with his nerves. “Ugh,” he thought to himself, “These have been the longest months of my life.”
The light brown unicorn with the maroon mane rolled onto his side, not caring who would see, and tried to sleep. He found this to be a vain endeavor, so he opened his eyes, stared into the middle distance, and began to think on the events that led up to this moment...
=======================
Galavant Grey, or Grey as he preferred to be called, sat on a mountain ridge just outside Canterlot. The moon shone brightly in the sky, the stars twinkling around it. It had just risen, but Grey hadn’t noticed. He was busy staring at his front right hoof, which was bleeding from having been beaten against rocks.
There were dried tears on his cheeks. His breath was shallow and stuttered. He had been screaming, yelling, at no one. No one heard his rage filled mourning. No one cared. There was no one to care.
He thought back to where he had just been.
He was at a funeral. It was held in the large and extravagant foyer of the building he had known as 'Home'. There were many rows of seats, and there were press ponies with cameras and pads and pencils surrounding everything.
The funeral was his father’s. But that wasn’t why he was mourning. No, It was something else entirely.
Throughout the entire procession, no one wept. He sat there as multiple other businessponies went up and spoke about his father and how great he was. Not a single tear was shed by any in attendance.
And it was this moment that hit him. He was sitting here, surrounded by ponies who just didn’t care. His father had built up Grey’s future around these ponies, and built him into the business world. It was at this moment he realized that if he stayed in this world, no matter how successful he was, no matter how hard he worked, no pony would cry at his funeral. No pony would care about him.
Rage filled him as he stormed out of the building. He wandered the streets, and ultimately ended up out here, on the edge of the rock face, where he began his mourning.
When he was younger, his father was... cold, to say the least. Wanting his son to be a businesspony. Prestigious, wealthy, and a good holder of the name 'Galavant Grey'. It was his father's name, and he despised it. His father was cruel, stern, and wouldn't tolerate the slightest misstep in the world of 'high-class gentleponies'. And so young Grey was forced to live a life that was just as cold, stern, intolerant, and unsocial as his father did.
Worst of all, Grey had become exactly like his father. The same habits, the same uncaring decision making, the stern lack of tolerance for all things 'improper' and 'low-class'. He was the spitting image of the pony he hated most. And he hated that pony even more for raising him to be such a spiteful figure. He hated himself, and hated knowing that others hated him just as much.
Grey glared sharply into the ground, took a deep breath, and stood up. He limped over to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the fields below. They looked soft, welcoming, warm. The bliss of ignorance, of non-existance, and of freedom from his internal strain, invited him cooly below. He took another deep breath.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
Grey let out a small yelp as he quickly pulled back from the edge.
“Oh! I’m sorry, did I surprise you?” It was a mare’s voice. He didn’t respond. He just stood there taking deep breaths.
“Are you okay?” he heard. He listened as hoofsteps behind him got closer. He kept his head down. The hoofsteps stopped next to him, and he heard her sit down.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” she repeated.
“What is?” he asked snippily.
“The night sky.”
“Never noticed,” he said, not even bothering to look up. He didn’t care.
“Hey.”
He didn’t move.
“Hey!”
His head snapped up and he looked at her for the first time. He saw a yellow pegasus with a deep orange mane and a light pink, house shaped cutie mark, and she was staring straight at him with her soft, yet piercing, pink eyes.
He froze.
“Look,” she said, gesturing to the sky with one hoof. He looked forward and saw stars and the moon.
“What is it?” he asked, seeing nothing special.
“Look up.”
He tilted his head back some more until he was looking straight up. Then he saw it... the sky. It filled his entire field of vision.
He began to see it all at once now, the twinkling stars, the shining moon, the perfect balance of the lights in the sky, painted across the deep blue canvas, all looking down on him with light. He was suddenly filled with a sense of significance, despite feeling so small. He stared in wonder.
“Wow,” escaped his lips.
“See? I to- … Is your hoof bleeding?” she asked in shock.
“Oh,” he looked down at it, “Yeah, it is.”
“Don’t you want to take care of that?” She stood up and walked over to him with concern on her face.
“Yeah, I should.” His voice was apathetic.
“Come on. Follow me.”
“What?” He looked up at her. She was walking towards the city.
“I said, follow me,” she said without turning around. Hesitating a little, looking between the ledge, and this strange new mare who had distracted him from it, deciding. Having been temporarily snapped out of his rage, he thought a little more clearly through the decision, and decided to follow her.
Each step on his hoof stung a little as they made their way through the streets. They passed through the shop area where all the late night restaurants were still open. He imagined that they were probably filled with some of the ponies from the funeral looking for an excuse to get drunk and badmouth his father, now that he wasn't around to hear.
Grey thought it best not to speak on the way, as he didn’t want the conversation to go anywhere near his life, and the mare leading him didn’t seem to mind the silence.
They continued walking through various areas until they reached an apartment complex. It was a looped road; around it stood miniature looking two story houses. They began walking towards the one in the back with its lights off.
When they reached the house, she opened the door, turned on the light, and walked in. Grey stopped at the door step and looked at his bleeding hoof.
“Oh, it’s fine,” she said, “I can clean it up later.” She gestured to the wooden floor.
He slowly walked into the small living room. It looked almost bare except a couch, a coffee table, and a few pictures on the wall.
“You can lay on the couch while I go get the first aid kit.” She left into what he would have suspected was the kitchen.
So he took her advice. He walked over and rolled sideways onto the couch, keeping his front right leg extended past the edge of the cushions. The couch was decently comfortable, he noted. He wondered for a moment whether it was filled with compressed clouds. After all, even living in Canterlot, she was still a pegasus.
After a while of waiting and listening, he looked down at his cutie mark. It was a pillar made of clouds. He didn’t remember when he got it, or how. He had no clue what it meant either. He had tried multiple times to decipher it’s meaning, but to no avail. Nothing made any real sense given his lifestyle. Bored of looking at it, he turned back rested his head on the arm of the couch, and let out a deep sigh.
“Found it,” the mare said as she walked into the room carrying a small basket of supplies. She trotted over and sat down next to his bloodied hoof.
“So what happened?” she asked as she inspected the damage, and began cleaning the cuts.
“I...slipped,” he tried to lie.
“I wasn’t talking about your hoof,” she stopped working and looked him in the eye. He frowned.
Dangit! She’d seen him! She’d HEARD him! Crap! Why couldn’t he just jump?
“What did you hear?” he asked trying to be calm.
“I didn’t hear anything. I usually go walking out to that ridge at night to see the moonrise. When I got there though, I saw you contemplating a bad decision.”
Grey felt slightly more relieved at that, though she did see what he was going to attempt, so she stopped him ... wait … She stopped him?...
“What’s your name?” she asked, interrupting his train of thought. She proceeded to apply bandages to the wounds.
“Grey.”
“What’s your full name?”
He hesitated a little, and decided to switch the conversation over to her.
“What’s YOUR name?”
“Shy Sunflowers”, she said calmly. She was wrapping the last of some gauze around his injured hoof. “You?”
“Galavant Grey,” he said before he could stop himself.
Shy stopped in her work, leaving a small tail left on the wrappings, and looked at him with wide eyes.
“Oh! I am SO sorry! I had no idea!” she gasped.
He looked at her in confusion. “Why?” he asked.
“I'm sorry! I had no clue! I saw it in the news paper this morning and I had no idea that’s what...” She stopped herself by putting her hoof to her mouth.
‘Why?’ he thought to himself this time. Why did his father have to be his father. Why did he HAVE to be named after his father. He hated his name. How could a name that sounds so formal mean EXACTLY the opposite. He hated himself in this moment.
Grey let out a sigh.
“It’s fine, it was...”, he began.
What was it to him? Good? Bad? He didn’t care? No matter what the answer was, he definitely wasn’t going to tell her.
“It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“No. Really, don’t be. It’s okay,” he said with another sigh.
“Okay...” she said hesitantly, getting up from the floor taking the supplies with her. “Shtay hehr,” she said through the handle of the basket, and she walked back out.
Grey looked around for a moment, and admired the little room. It was comfortable, and not extravagant. It was… relaxing, he might say. An escape from the larger-than-life world he had been living in. He took a deep breath and tried to get up, but he was interrupted.
“No!” Shy had been quicker to put the first aid kit away than to get it, “You’re staying here tonight. You can sleep on the couch.”
Grey knew what she was thinking he would do, and knew he couldn’t argue, so he rolled back onto the couch thinking it was just about as comfy as his king-sized bed.
“This couch is rather comfortable,” he stated.
“Compact clouds,” she responded on her way up the stairs that led over the entryway to the kitchen.
“Thought so”, he replied. He closed his eyes, and sighed.
-------------------------------------
In the middle of a small sandwich shop, Shy Sunflower was snickering. She sat across a small table from Grey, who sat there glaring at her while she chuckled at him.
“What?” he asked huffily.
“Ohoho...nothing,” she said through her giggles.
The night before, when Shy had found out he left, she decided to find him and say that in return for her first aid services, he owed her a lunch. Needless to say she succeeded in finding him.
“Really! What.” It was more of a command now. He wasn’t amused. He continued to glare as Shy chuckled with her hoof on her mouth. She eventually stopped long enough to talk.
“You’ve only known ‘fancy’ haven’t you? You just unfolded and placed a paper napkin at your hooves.” She smiled, almost beginning to laugh again. She managed to keep herself quiet.
Grey frowned at her, “Yeah? What else am I supposed to do with it?”
“You could just leave it on the table.” She smiled again.
“Just leave it on the table?”
“Yep!” Her smile didn’t falter.
After glaring at her for a moment, and realizing his desire to escape looking even close to ‘fancy’, “Fine...”, he said, using magic to throw the napkin back onto the table, not bothering to fold it back up. Shy giggled again, but only for a short time. Grey normally would not have allowed anypony to talk to him in such a way, but he found Shy so...so...
“Here’s your meal!”, a waitress mare interrupted, placing sandwiches on the table. Grey waited until she walked away to comment.
“A sandwich?” he asked.
“Yep!”, she said again before leaning in a taking a large bite of her’s.
Grey inspected his sandwich. It looked hastily thrown together with some of the daisy petals falling out, from the side, onto the plate.
“Come on! Don’t tell me you’ve never had a sandwich before,” she said through a half swallowed mouth-full. As it turned out, Shy wasn’t very shy at all.
“No. I have, it’s just...”
“Not a FANCY sandwich?” she snickered again. Grey let out a small chuckle as well. He instantly realized his mistake. Shy was looking at him with a smile of wonder.
‘Oh, great...’ he thought to himself. He proceeded to glare again. This only made Shy smile even more. He gave in.
“Fine...” He leaned down and took a bite. As he began to chew he found it rather good.
“Enjoying your sandwich?” Shy asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.” He took another bite.
“That’s good... and I think you’re making progress.” She smiled, then leaned down and took another bite of her sandwich. Grey raised an eyebrow to that comment.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he thought, hoping that she could read his face since he was occupied eating. Shy only smiled and continued chewing.
----------------------------------
“That was a lovely lunch,” Shy said, “Thanks.” She smiled and stood up from her empty plate.
“You’re welcome...?” he responded. He stood up as well and left a few bits on the table.
“What did you mean by ‘making progress’?” he asked as they walked out.
“Oh,” she paused, “I was talking about your behavior. You’re still stuck in ‘fancy’ mode as far as I can see, and it seems rather difficult to turn it off”
Grey stopped and thought about that for a second. He’d grown up with a business pony for a father. They had ALL the amenities. They went to ALL the nicest restaurants. They only spoke to certain ponies unless spoken too... As he went through this list in his head, he realized she was right. He wanted a new lifestyle.
“Oh...” he said.
“I could help you if you’d like,” Shy said with a wink.
“You…”
“Uh-huh!”
“You want to help me... be ‘un-fancy’.” His face took on a look that was half glare, half confusion.
“Yep!” She smiled back at his glare. He turned away from her and shook his head, and looked where he was going instead.
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Doing things ‘normal’ ponies did, in spite of his father.
And another thing... Shy was beginning to intrigue him.
“So... how ‘bout it?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, “Thank you for the offer,” he also said, trying to be polite.
“See what you just did?”
“What?” he looked at her mildly confused.
“You said ‘Thank you for the offer’. If you’d have just said ‘Thanks for offering’ or just simply ‘Thanks,’ then that would have been okay, but you went all ‘fancy’ with your words on me. You need to learn to loosen up a bit.” She playfully nudged him in the side. He was almost mad until he realized that only ‘prissy’ ponies would have reacted to such a gesture.
“Right... loosen up,” he said out loud with a sigh, trying to get used to the language.
“That’s the spirit,” she nudged him again. He nudged her back. She laughed. He let out a small smile...
-------------------------------------
The trees swayed softly against the cyan sky. The noise of the rustling soothing all those that could hear it.
Both Grey and Shy were sitting in the grass underneath the trees. An empty basket sat next to them. They had already eaten their sandwiches and were simply enjoying the view of the woods.
“You ever sit in dirt before?” Shy asked prepared to giggle.
“Nope,” Grey responded with a smile. She giggled. He didn’t care anymore, he had been having fun for the first time in his life, and Shy had helped him do it.
Shy slowly got to her hooves and stretched. “Well then, let’s go have some fun.”
Grey raised an eyebrow...
She turned to him with a sly look, “Catch me.”
With that, she bolted into the trees.
“HEY! That’s cheating!” He quickly got up onto his hooves and pursued. His eyes searched through the trees. Every few seconds he would see a flash of yellow behind the large trunks, followed by a giggle. He darted towards it only to see another yellow flash elsewhere. So he stopped and waited. He listened, then he heard it... a small chuckle. He darted around a tree to see her trotting away. He followed behind, keeping her in sight this time. When suddenly, she fell. The motion was followed by the sound of a splash.
Grey quickly ran over up to the scene, and found that she had fallen into a tiny stream that broke away from the main Canterlot river. She was sitting in the water with an interesting smile on her face as she eyed Grey.
“Wha-...”
Suddenly one of her wings flared out and he saw a huge torrent of water heading straight for him.
He couldn’t duck fast enough, and when he finally did, he had been thrown off balance and slipped into the water. He could hear her laughing over the sound of him trying to stand up in the water. He eventually got to his feet, and tried to glare at her. Shy just laughed harder and fell back into the water. Grey kept his pose, he had a plan. When Shy finally got up and looked at him, he quickly flicked a load of water onto her with his front hooves. She cringed and sputtered as the water hit her face and mane. Now Grey was the one laughing... until he saw her face again. Her eyes were narrowed, and she had a bright smile gracing her features.
“Uh oh...”
Giggles echoed through the forest as he watched both wings flare to full size...
-------------------------------------
“When!?” he asked frantically.
“In a week, this was only a thing for school, a chance to study here. Afterwards I got a summer to chill, then I go back.” She shrugged with a slight frown.
Shy Sunflower had been spending her summer helping Grey, but now, she told him in the library, she had to go back home to Cloudsdale.
“So you can’t stay?” Grey accidentally let a little desperation slip into his voice. Shy smiled sadly.
“Sorry, I can’t... I can’t afford to live here... The school paid for this, not me,” she shrugged again.
“But... I could pay for it!” he suggested. Shy smiled even more.
“I’m sorry but I need to go back and help my parents now. They’re getting old and I need to be there to take care of them...” she said.
Grey tried to come up with something, but he couldn’t. He just stared at her with his mouth half open, waiting to be graced with a brilliant plan, but none struck. His heart sank in his chest, and he lowered his head in defeat.
“Hey.”
He didn’t move.
“Hey!”
His head snapped up and he looked at her. What happened next, he did not expect.
She kissed him.
It took him a second, but he kissed back.
Then they parted.
“Thanks for the great summer...” she smiled at him. He smiled back.
She turned to walk out of the library, “I need to start getting things ready now...”
“Wait!” he said quickly, before trotting over to her. He put one hoof over her shoulder and hugged her tight. “Thanks for helping me...” he said. She turned and smiled at him.
“Don’t mention it...” she almost whispered back. She shrugged out of his embrace and started out the door. Grey just watched, trying to hold back tears, as that might have been the last time he got to see her. The door closed behind her...
Then an idea struck... a crazy idea...
His head shot up, his eyes wide with revelation. He was in a library! There had to be something about it in here somewhere, he just KNEW it!
Grey darted into the great maze of walls filled with wisdom, determined with a force he’d never felt before.
“No running!” somepony harshly whispered towards him as he wizzed past. He ignored them. He was on a mission...
=======================
Grey thought about that week, and the crazy amounts of searching. After almost two days he had given up on finding it, until he realized that he didn’t need to find it because it never existed... he needed to MAKE it. He spent the next five days studying everything from ‘Transfiguration’ to the ‘Properties of Gases,’ trying desperately to put a seemingly simple spell together.
Eventually, he succeeded.
Grey continued to look at the floor... he lifted a hoof, and let it fall. It hit the cloud with a soft thump. He smiled and rolled onto his side again, still remembering that couch.
He had created a spell that allowed him to walk on clouds. They were no longer a simple mist through which he would fall, but a solid surface that put a small spring in each step.
He smiled into the floor, remembering the look on Shy’s face when she opened the door. Complete shock and confusion. “How … what … HOW!?!” she had managed to sputter out. After he had gotten her calmed down, he explained what he did. Needless to say, she was thrilled... and flattered.
...And eventually, they got got married.
Grey smiled at the ceiling, thinking back on their wedding day, and the smile that Shy beamed at him through the entire ceremony. It was a precious memory that would be forever given a place on the most prestigious shelf of his mind.
*Click*
Grey snapped out of his thought to look up at the noise. It was the door he was waiting for. Out of it came a nurse mare with a soft orange mane.
“We’re done,” She smiled at him. He stood up and smiled back.
“One moment,” he said. The nurse nodded and walked away down the hall.
Grey turned to look back at his cutie mark. He had finally figured out what it meant. The cloud pillar on his flank. He smiled as he turned back and walked up to the door.
He opened it slowly, and looked around the corner to see his wife laying on a bed, smiling at him through those soft pink eyes. He noticed that they were near tears when they looked down at something. He followed their gaze into his wife’s arms, and what he saw amazed him.
He began to slowly walk around the bed up next to his wife. As he moved, his perspective revealed the face of a small, sleeping, yellow pegasus with a soft pink mane. He smiled as his eyes began to go blurry.
“She’s beautiful isn’t she?” his wife said.
“Absolutely...” he whispered. The tears began to stream down his face now. He smiled harder, and resisted the urge to dance on his tiptoes. He was a father! The father a little filly pegasus! His smile forced more tears out.
“What should we name her?” Shy asked.
The thought had never come to his mind. He had always avoided the subject of names.
“I don’t...I don’t know”, he tried to think.
“I like Butterfly...” his wife whispered.
“That’s... nice,” he said, “What about, Sunflower Petals?”
“No!” she whispered back almost giggling, “We are not naming her after my fa-...”
The small foal in her arms shifted. Their eyes quickly locked onto it.
The filly proceeded to stretch out her tiny body, her little appendages extending downward as her mouth began to take the shape of a small ‘O’. A whispering breath was heard as her delicate wings, her short legs, and her eyelids gave a small fluttering movement before her body slowly curled back into place. Her mouth closed around a tiny tongue, gently pushing it back in.
Both of her parents were in tears with huge smiles on their faces...
“She has your eyes...” Shy said gently.
Grey, somehow, smiled bigger then before. He smiled proudly as he watched his daughter sleep through his waterlogged aquamarine eyes. He thought about everything in his life up until that moment, and silently swore to himself that he would never let his daughter suffer what he did. He vowed in that moment to give her the best life a little filly could be given.
Grey looked down onto his daughter with joy.
He leaned down to his wife and kissed her cheek. “Fine,” he said softly, “We’re naming her after you...”
“...Fluttershy.”
His wife smiled, forcing more tears out of her already filled eyes.
“My little Fluttershy...” she crooned, and began rocking, ever so gently, the small filly in her arms.