//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Visit 
// Story: Trials of a Fillyfooler 
// by Skylight77 
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	Fluttershy fiddled with her fore hooves and hind hooves as her anxiety got worse. No matter what she tried, this feeling just wouldn’t stop bothering her. And now, it was severely affecting her duties with her animals.

Fluttershy got up and paced around as she thought back to her last mistake. When she reached for a bag of secured feed on a high shelf, she had stumbled because the animals below were impatient and hungry. In her rush, she had dropped the bag, causing it to burst open for all the animals to feed off of.

Even with her socks, she was too afraid to do much to stop them as they craved on the food like wild animals. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but others had joined in eating the food that wasn’t meant for them. They wouldn’t listen to her pleas anymore because of their lack of attention. She eventually managed to get them off and clean up the mess, but a large amount of it was craved. With some of the animals feeding off of food that wasn’t meant for them, some of them got sick as a result.

“Oh… I’m sorry my little ones,” Fluttershy continued to pace as she thought out loud. “I know I haven’t been very active, or affectionate with you lately, but…”

She closed her eyes as she thought back to how all this began. It all started that day Rainbow Dash helped her with her animals. Some time during that dinner she invited her to, an accident had happened that caused her to have these strange feelings with her hooves. Rainbow Dash told her she would get used to it eventually, but lately it’s felt like it’s been spreading to further parts of her body.

“Why won’t this problem go away? I can’t keep caring for the animals like this…”

There was something else she remembered Rainbow Dash telling her. Something about trust and herself.

“I do have trust in you, and I have trust in them to. What is it about me that I don’t trust?”

Thinking more deeply, there was more. Rainbow Dash mentioned that she had a similar problem with herself once. She must’ve gotten used to it, yet she trusted Fluttershy to keep it a secret between them.

“I’m sorry, but I have to do something about this.” Tears were on the verge of breaking from her eyes. “I can’t take this problem anymore. I have to see somepony about this. I need to know what's wrong with me.” Opening her eyes, she held her head up high. “I have to see-”

“Nurse Redheart-” a sudden voice disturbed Fluttershy’s thoughts and made her flinch, “-will see you now.” Her eyes glanced to her right, noticing two ponies, one of them being a nurse, while the other was a familiar mint green unicorn with a burnt tongue. “And can you stop talking to yourself? Other patients are here too you know,” the nurse finished while her patient walked towards her creamy earth pony friend.

With the voice breaking Fluttershy’s train of thought, she now realized she was already in the hospital while she was thinking all of that. Every patient sitting in the waiting room was currently staring at her, some annoyed, some confused, and one filly stifling a giggle. With all eyes centered on her, she sheepishly giggled in embarrassment and hid behind her mane. Reaching a leg out to her right, her first step made her squeak and rush off, creating a yellow and pink blur as she zipped past the nurse.


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Fluttershy sat there in the face of the nurse, half nervous, half calm. The stethoscope Nurse Redheart was using cooled her coated chest as it was being pressed beneath it, touching skin. Redheart adjusted it multiple times and listened for the heartbeats while Fluttershy continued to steady her breathing every time. She constantly had to be told to relax so that Redheart could analyze her health. She didn’t have to be perfectly calm, but calm enough.

Soon, Nurse Redheart stopped re-adjusting and moved the chestpiece away. She removed the stethoscope from her ears and went to her notes, taking several glances towards Fluttershy as she reviewed them. The glances made Fluttershy swallow a few times, but she sat still and waited patiently for the results. The room was speechless until Redheart moved her notes aside.

"Well," Nurse Redheart started. "As far as the diagnostics go, your health is normal."

Fluttershy cringed at the results. "But... that can't be right. There has to be something wrong with me."

Redheart put a hoof under her chin as she pondered. "Can you repeat what you told me earlier? Why do you feel that something is wrong with your health?"

Fluttershy closed her eyes and fiddled with her hooves. "Mmm..." she tried to think, nervous about speaking her thoughts.

"You know I can't help you unless you give me something to go by."

The heat in Fluttershy's body increased. Talking about herself was not something she was always so fond of. Her shyness continued to absorb her thoughts while the tingle and itchiness spread along her features. They were eating her up until she took a deep breath and let it out.

"I used to be so happy... and comfortable with taking care of my animals. Being i-in there presence is a lot more comfortable than being here." Fluttershy paused and took another breath. "I used to understand them so well. I could take care of them and live a happy life."

Fluttershy managed to work up the courage and turn to Nurse Redheart, who stayed silent and listened carefully. "But now... I just can't feel that anymore." Redheart scribbled things in her notes as Fluttershy spoke. "Whenever they get close to me, I shy up. Their presence make me more nervous than being in a crowd. I can barely understand them now."

Nurse Redheart nodded and followed up. "So now you feel as if you've developed a strange fear for animals?"

Fluttershy hummed to herself before answering. "I don't know... I-I still want to take care of them. But because of this problem, it's been so exhausting that I can barely keep up." Her eyes glanced slightly away. "Now that they lack attention, they've been more demanding... and less understanding to me. Some of them wander towards Ponyville or the Everfree Forest all on their own. Some of them start picking on the other animals like bullies... and I can’t stop them..."

Fluttershy paused and winced before mentioning her next. "A-and today, I've been so off track that I accidentally fed them the wrong food. Now they've been getting sick, and here I am unable to do anything." Fluttershy humphed depressingly as she slouched in her seat. A few tears had shedded from her eyes that she wiped with a hoof.

"Uhuh..." Nurse Redheart when back to her notes and flipped through them, pondering what could be causing this. "We could be drawing a blank here. Pegasi don't normally have these connections with the animals in the first place. Any normal pony would theorize that you're probably just losing that part of your ability."

Fluttershy stuttered a gasp at the nurse's response. "B-but it's not just a part of me, it's really who I am, my special talent."

Nurse Redheart held a hoof up in the air. "I didn't say that's what was happening, it was just a selfless theory." She paused to see if Fluttershy had anything to say, but Fluttershy stayed silent in understanding. "Tell me, how long has this been going on?"

Fluttershy took a few seconds to think, counting the days. "A-about a week?"

Redheart nodded. "Has anything happened in between those weeks? Like something different or difficult? Maybe something that has changed your light on them?"

Fluttershy had to hum to herself once again as she thought. She had to think a little further back. But then her mind cringed up as she remembered a certain day. The thought made her end up biting on her hoof nervously as it came to mind. She clenched it so hard, she released a painful moan while the thought chilled her features.

“Hmm?” Nurse Redheart tilted her head when her patient’s mood suddenly went into inner overdrive. “Did… something happen?”

Fluttershy managed to stop biting her hoof as she released some tension from herself. The bite marks on her hoof were still present, but the physical pain was refreshing considering her internal.

“S-sorry,” Fluttershy said. She hadn’t wanted to think about it, but she could at least say something. “I have a personal pet who has been away for a while. His name is Angel.”

“Angel, hmm?” The nurse smiled at the name.

“Mhm,” Fluttershy nodded. “He’s a very special bunny to me. He may be a little grumpy sometimes, but mostly, he’s a sweetheart who really helps around the house.”

“Hmm…” Redheart pondered for a second. “Grumpy, but helpful. Mind if you elaborate?”

Fluttershy shook her head and answered. “Well, whenever I forget something important, he reminds me by beating it into my head.” Nurse Redheart stumbled when those words were, not only spoken, but spoken so calmly. “Like, when I was late to a very important party, he presented a watch to me to show me the time. And to ensure that I wouldn’t waste more time and miss it, he locked me out of my cottage.”

Nurse Redheart could barely contain bursting out a questioning gasp as she listened to this.

“When something bad happens, he throws stuff at me to grab my attention. And when I give him something he doesn’t want, he slaps me and shoves what he really wants in my face. I can’t understand him like the others, so he has to be assertive or else I won’t understand him.”

Nurse Redheart wanted nothing more than to just burst out that this little devil called Angel was the prime root of all her problems. But there was one fact that prevented her from doing so. Fluttershy said earlier that Angel had been away for around the past week. How could something like that missing from her life cause her so much problems?

“But perhaps the best thing about my little Angel, is that whenever I’m depressed or upset, he-”

Nurse Redheart shook her hooves in front of her. “No! Don’t say any-” she silenced herself before finishing by hacking and coughing.

“Hmm?” Fluttershy tilted her head in confusion while Redheart was clearing her throat.

“I-I mean, is there anything else that has happened?” She then whispered to herself. “Please… no more about that rabbit.”

Fluttershy couldn’t exactly make out what she said, but she thought about the other days. “Well, besides the pro-” she suddenly stopped herself when she realized what she was about to say. Talking about Angel got her so comfortable with speaking, she ended up going over a private detail without realizing it.

“Pro-mise?” Redheart asked, being released from her painful trance.

The hairs on Fluttershy’s coat stood. “I-I mean, nevermind!” She shook her head rapidly. “Nothing else happened!”

But the nurse didn’t leave the conversation there; anything that would draw attention away from that rabbit. “You won’t say anything because of a promise you’re keeping?”

Fluttershy could only respond by squeaking and flinching. She didn’t answer otherwise.

“Tell me, how do you feel about this promise that you’ve made?”

Fluttershy squeezed her eyes and whimpered. She didn’t want to mention its existence at all. And now by the slip of a tongue, she had. All she felt now was a regret that she was showing in front of the nurse.

“It’s nice that you are keeping a promise, but you should never keep a bad promise.”

Fluttershy’s eyes flipped open at those words. “B-bad promise? No!”

Nurse Redheart shook her head. “Convince yourself before you convince me. I won’t ask you what the promise is, but don’t keep it if you know it’s wrong.”

A heatwave filled Fluttershy’s body at these words. But this wave didn’t increase her embarrassment, it was making her… angry. “Y-you’re wrong! T-that promise is a-anything but bad. I-I s-shouldn’t even be talking about it!” The more she spoke about the promise, the more her body shook, all for Nurse Redheart to see.

“That may just be the root of your problem,” Redheart continued. “You refuse to believe something, you build inner regret, and the more your body will suffer.”

Fluttershy had an inner regret alright. She regretted ever revealing that promise. She regretted not being a good friend to Rainbow Dash lately. And now, she regretted coming here.

“I-I think I should go now,” Fluttershy said quietly as she got up from her seat. With nothing more to say, she walked out of the room. Nurse Redheart made no attempt to stop her and watched her go. When her patient left, her mind cringed all over again. All she could think about was that rabbit.

“That… didn’t just happen… did it?”


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Fluttershy flew through the skies, trying to release the tension that she had just received from her latest visit. She just couldn’t accept what she heard at all.

“I am not keeping a bad promise!” she said to herself. “And Rainbow Dash is not a bad friend!” She continued to increase her speed as she flew through the air. She wasn’t much for flying, but thinking about her best friend made her want to fly faster, faster than she had ever flown naturally. “If anything, I’m the bad friend. I gave her my word that I would never speak of it at all. And now I let it slip. Oh, Fluttershy, you featherhead!”

Fluttershy smacked both forehooves against her head at her mistake. She just wanted to punish herself so badly. “But her promise isn’t bad. It’s a good one. She has every right to hold it.” She looked far ahead and focused on her flight path. “In fact, I’m going to her house right now. I need to make this right by telling her what I did.”

While she was talking to herself, the cloud mansion soon came into view. She wasted no time in flying towards it. “She deserves to know so that she could punish me properly, and before something bad really happens.” With confidence, she took to landing towards the front door. Lifting a hoof, she was about to knock.

“What am I supposed to do?” Fluttershy’s hoof froze in the air before it made contact with the door. A voice had spoken. “She’s so naive, and innocent. It’s just so hard.”

“Hmm?” Drawing her hoof away, Fluttershy decided to lean an ear against the door. The voice sounded like Rainbow Dash, obviously. But who was she talking to?

"I can lead to it just fine, but when it gets to the talking... I just… lock up.”

Fluttershy left the door and flew along the side of the house to get a better hearing. The closer she got to the bedroom window, the more clear the voice was.

“I thought she would respond to the hints, but, either she's avoiding it, or she doesn’t feel that way about me.” Fluttershy stopped closing in when the words were clear enough for her. She used the walls of the house for support. But for some reason, she couldn’t hear who she was talking to.

“She seemed fine earlier, and after taking care of so many animals, I thought she would get them. But I guess it’s just not the same. Hmm…”

Fluttershy’s ears fell flat as guilt struck her for eavesdropping. “Oh… I really shouldn’t be listening to this… but…”

“I wonder how that would be like... “ Fluttershy’s attention was brought back. “Nah, she’d think that’s too weird. Ponies and animals are too different, at least to her. Why else would she be so shy?”

“Ponies… and animals…?” Fluttershy whispered to herself. “Is she talking to Tank?” She thought about that possibility and dismissed it. “No, Tank’s with Angel.” She decided to stay quiet and try to figure out what was going on.

“I’m not saying being an animal isn’t cool, it’s just… nevermind.” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat. “I’m just saying I want her to know how I feel. If I can’t tell her, how else do I do it?”

There was still no sign of that other voice. Maybe she was talking to herself, but it didn’t sound like it. But what she probably should’ve been wondering was what was Rainbow Dash talking about.

“I already convinced myself that she didn’t feel the same way. And, I was okay not knowing. But… I just don’t know if I can handle the answer.”

For some reason, Fluttershy’s heart started racing faster the more she listened to this. She put a hoof to her chest as that beating made it harder to breathe. She couldn’t understand why it was doing this.

“I’ve wanted to forget about it, but she keeps coming to me.” There was a pause. “No! I don’t want her to not come, it’s just…” Pause.

Fluttershy inched a little closer. It sounded like she was talking about their trip to Winsome Falls. Her features were getting more itchy and tingly, but she just didn’t want to tear herself away. Every fiber of her body persuaded her to listen in. And the more she listened, the more regret filled her.

“Is she fighting with herself on whether I should go to Winsome Falls with her?” Fluttershy whispered to herself. “Is she really that worried about me and can’t tell me?” The more she thought about it, the more it just didn’t make sense. And that sense was bringing more ache to her body.

“I’ll try, but I should probably just leave it alone.” Rainbow Dash seemed to let out a chuckle before continuing. “At least I’ll get to spend more time with her. Thanks Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy stumbled her flight as she heard her name being called. Her face ended up planting itself inside the thicker walls of the cloud house, being absorbed and stuck. She flailed her wings into flapping, desperately preventing herself from flipping and falling off the wall.

It sounded like Rainbow Dash flew out of the window just now, but with all this white in her face, she couldn’t see anything. She tensed up and expected Rainbow Dash to come back and find her, but she didn’t.

Fluttershy pressed her hooves against the cloud and pushed, trying to get her head unstuck as her silent grunts were being muffled by the cloud. Her head eventually got released with a pop and tossing cloud tufts in the air, but the momentum nearly caused her to lose balance. She flailed her limbs as her wings roughly allowed her to re-attach herself to the cloud wall.

Fluttershy released a sigh of relief after saving herself from falling. But when she saw the damage she did to that wall, she gasped in despair.

“Ahh! Oh no!” The damage was as wide and deep as her head. She frantically tried to fix it up by pushing other parts of the cloud to fill the hole. “It’s okay, I can just-” but in the middle of sliding her hooves, a large chunk of the cloud snapped off, making the hole bigger.

Fluttershy screamed at the sight. She was causing even more damage to Rainbow’s house that way.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she spouted out her worries as she looked towards the skies. She needed to find replacement clouds to fill the hole. There were a few near the house so Fluttershy flew to the closest one.

“I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash! I didn’t mean to damage your house!” Fluttershy reached the cloud and tried to pull a small tuft of it off. “Don’t worry! I can fix it! I-”

Suddenly, lightning struck from the cloud. Fluttershy flinched away from the cloud, screaming in terror. Not wanting to make that mistake again, she ignored all of the other clouds that were in the air and frantically tried to think of another solution.

“What do I do?! If Rainbow Dash sees this, she’ll… Wait, Rainbow Dash!” While she was thinking, she remembered Rainbow Dash keeping lots of leftover clouds around her house. She also remembered Rainbow Dash using that to fix a wall earlier. With that thought, Fluttershy flew towards the window to head inside Rainbow’s room. After landing inside, she looked around, panting and worried.

“Where does she keep them? Oh… where should I look?” Her eyes pointed towards the bed, the drawers, and a few stands. And then it pointed towards the storage room.

“Ahh!” Fluttershy flinched away at the sight of somepony pulling a fierce stare on her with flared wings, blocking the storage. “Oh…” But her nerves were somewhat relieved when she realized it was just herself in cloud form. Maybe she could’ve used that, but the thought escaped her just before it even began.

Fluttershy’s sight went towards the washroom. She thought about searching the drawers, but didn’t want to invade personal stuff. She went to the washroom instead, heading straight for the cabinets under the sink.

Fluttershy sighed in delight at the sight of some leftover clouds filling the cabinet. She scraped small tufts of them apart and together until she formed one that was about the right size to fill the hole.

Grabbing the tuft, she flew back outside to where the hole was, placing the tuft inside the hole. It was a bit larger than the hole, but she could still squeeze it in. The cloud didn’t strike lightning like the ones in the sky, so she was able to slide her hoof along it, wiping the excess and smoothing it out. Eventually, the hole was fully fixed.

“Phew…” Exhausted from her worry, Fluttershy flew away from the wall and took to resting on the closest cloud she could find. Forgetting this was the same cloud that nearly zapped her, she rested upon it on her back with a calm mind, taking steady breaths. The cloud responded to her relief in a tame nature, and brightened back into a regular cloud.

While Fluttershy was catching her breath, her mind went back to the conversation, and how wrong she thought it was to peer into it. The last thing she wanted to do was damage something of Rainbow’s in the process. She was glad she was able to fix what she damaged, but if only she could-

“Hmm?” Something disturbed her train of thought. She felt something trekking along her forehoof. Something was trekking along both of them. Bringing her head up, she looked down at one of them. What she saw appeared to bubbles, and not from water. She lifted her hoof towards her snout and sniffed.

“Soap?” After smelling the cleansing flavor, she looked around. “Where did that…” Her eyes went towards the part of the wall that she just fixed. Getting up from the cloud, she flew up to it to have a look.

The wall was slightly oozing out suds from the squeeze, only to be absorbed as soon as it connected with the parts of the wall that didn’t get damaged. Fluttershy attempted to reach a hoof to it, but changed her mind and decided to go to where she got the leftovers.

Opening the cabinets, Fluttershy poked a hoof at the remains of the leftover clouds. Her hoof squished right through it like a sponge, and more suds of soap could be felt spreading along her hoof. Her eyes grew wide as an epiphany suddenly struck her.

“Is this where Rainbow Dash got the soap?” Fluttershy thought as she looked towards the shower room. She was mind boggled over everything that she had experienced in this cloud house. With careful steps, she walked towards the shower as her mind searched back through her fillyhood.

Fluttershy had lived her entire fillyhood on clouds, all the way until she got her Cutie Mark. She didn’t live in a luxurious house like this, but this was something she witnessed before. How much did she forget, or how much did she not know about how clouds worked?

Stepping in the shower room, she pondered using it again to relive those times. Though, it was very strange of her to think like this because, this would be her third washup today. Yet, she couldn’t get her mind off of it. She could hear the laughters of fillies in her head. As much as she wanted to think they were the cruel laughters from bullies, they were not.

Fluttershy pressed a hoof against the wall of the shower room, reaching inside for a small tuft.

”Check this out, Fluttershy” Rainbow Dash said as she ripped off a visible tuft of cloud from the wall, making Fluttershy squirm within the water.

“A-are you sure you should be taking that?” Fluttershy asked.

“It’s cool, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash responded without a care for punishment. “It's easy to replace clouds. And look!” 

Rainbow Dash moved the cloud tuft to Fluttershy’s mane and started rubbing it. Large amounts of suds started foaming in her mane while Rainbow played around with it. 

“Raaawr,” Rainbow growled as she pulled them upwards to make them stand, making Fluttershy look like she had spiky thorns on her head. Fluttershy flinched back, and the thorns couldn’t stay in place. They fell from Fluttershy’s head and smacked against her cheeks and under her chin. She winced as the soap teased to spray on her eyes, but didn’t.

Rainbow Dash stared at her for a few seconds, but couldn’t help laughing out and pointing at her. Fluttershy gazed and felt around her head, noticing that the cloud soap Rainbow decorated her with was now forming a long beard. She could only imagine how funny she looked right now. Normally she hated being laughed at, but in this instance, she couldn’t help herself from laughing as well.

Fluttershy pulled the tuft of cloud out as she thought back to that day. It was before they had their Cutie Marks and during one of their sleepovers at Rainbow’s place. She could barely remember those good laughters. She could only remember the bad that came from those bullies. Even Rainbow’s laughter came out as one of those bullies.

But now, as Fluttershy turned the showers on with this sponge cloud on hoof, that moment was no longer a memory of despair, but rather a memory of delight. There were many cool things Rainbow Dash showed her with clouds. She wasn’t as good with them back then as she is now, and most of the time they just crumbled back into one regular cloud.

One of these tricks was combining a cloud with soap to make a sponge that would dissipate as it was used. Fluttershy scrubbed that sponge along her features as the rain poured down on her. The heating cleanse that wafted across the shower room reminded her so much of Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy moaned as she felt her friend’s touch from that sponge. The deep steam in front of her that formed from her breath showed the very image of Rainbow Dash scrubbing that cloud sponge on her. They were fillies playing around with the water and the bubbles, but the most memorable was that scrub.

But as Fluttershy scrubbed that cloud tuft along her features, it soon vanished, along with the image. That wasn’t right… The tuft was supposed to last longer. What did she do wrong?

Fluttershy stuttered a gasp as the present resurfaced to her conscience. Her heart was heavy and beating fast as the rain peltered her body. Gasping for breath, she quickly turned the shower rains off. Despite the hot water rain ceasing, her body continued to heat up.

“W-what have I done?” Fluttershy asked herself. “Why did I lose myself like that?” Squeezing her eyes, she pushed those thoughts away from her mind. “It was like my body had a mind of its own…”

Fluttershy shook herself of the rain that pattered her body. Anything that controlled her mind couldn’t have been good. She never wanted to lose control of herself again like she did with her assertiveness training. She had to keep control of herself.

Clearing her mind, she exited the shower room and exited Rainbow’s home through the bedroom window. The more she thought about Rainbow Dash, the more lost she was. Was her second option yesterday really the better solution in the long run? She didn’t want to think so. She wanted to be with Rainbow Dash. She wanted to continue hanging out with her.

And she would. They were taking a trip to Winsome Falls tomorrow. She did not want to be a bad friend and cancel that plan. They were going to hang out and have fun. She had to remember that.

But there was one thing that kept resurfacing, something she heard earlier today.

“You refuse to believe something, you build inner regret, and the more your body will suffer.”

Was constantly asking to hang out with Rainbow Dash, being a bad friend?