Fluttershocked
(Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Hasbro or Lauren Faust, and certainly have nothing to do with My Little Pony™. I am simply an author writing a story for my own entertainment and for readers like you.)
Upon knocking on the door three times, the pegasus that knocked upon said door waited anxiously for her friend to open the door. She was scared, however. After five years, she didn't know how Fluttershy would react to her suddenly appearing on her doorstep, even if she had sent her a letter asking to stop by for the funeral. Rainbow Dash fidgeted as she continued to wait, feeling more and more uncomfortable with every passing second spent standing outside Fluttershy's cottage. After waiting for an agonizing five minutes, Rainbow Dash sighed, and slowly turned away. Fluttershy probably wasn't home. She was about to take up flight when she heard the quietest of creaks, the tell-tale sign that Fluttershy had opened her door. She never did have that creak fixed; perhaps she could give her a few bits to fix it. She turned around, and opened her mouth to start a greeting that never left her lips due to a sudden heavy impact.
She had been crying. Of course, who wouldn't cry when their friends died? There was just too much pain the memories that they had together, along with the bitter realization that she would never see her friends walk this Earth again with her. She had sent a letter to Rainbow Dash, asking if she could be here for their funerals...She doubted she could show up, though, or that she would even get to read the letter at all. There wasn't much else Fluttershy could do, though; she had spent the past few days bawling her eyes out with Angel trying to comfort her, to no avail.
Then, she heard knocking upon her door. She looked up, uncertainty mixed with a glimmer of hope etched on her face. Could it be...? No, it couldn't. Her mind quickly raced with possibilities of ponies that could be knocking on the door, with the pony with the least chance of appearing as Rainbow Dash. There were just too many things that the Wonderbolt was probably doing, having fun, making more friends, doing...Whatever it was that a Wonderbolt did in their spare time. She didn't immediately answer the door; she couldn't bring herself to see who the pony was.
She couldn't stop herself, however. There was that automatic urge to open the door, to see just who it was that had knocked on her door, if they were still there, that is. It took her awhile, though; everything just seemed to move in slow motion, as if none of this was real, which it never should have been. She could barely feel herself turning the knob on the door, opening very, very slightly. She winced as the door creaked; a small detail that shot memories of her friends opening the door to her cottage. She really should've had that fixed by now, but...There were just too many memories that came with it. A little, supposedly insignificant thing brought back memories of her friends, and it was oh so painful for her.
When she opened the door and peeked through that tiny crack, the pony was still waiting outside, although it looked like they were about to leave. The creaking of the door must have startled them, as they turned around. Fluttershy's breath got caught in her chest as she got a full view of who it was staring back at her. It was her...Her old friend, Rainbow Dash. She quickly forced the door open, and tackled the surprised Wonderbolt, hugging her tightly while sobbing into her coat, happy that she still had one friend to find comfort in.
Rainbow Dash was dazed and, quite frankly, surprised. She just assumed Fluttershy was out; although, the sobbing yellow mare that was hugging onto her for dear life quickly shot down that assumption. This was a rather uncomfortable position; that was saying something, since Rainbow Dash had been in plenty of them. She awkwardly wrapped her hooves around Fluttershy, doing her best to calm her down with quiet murmurings and nuzzles.
Eventually, Fluttershy managed to stop crying so hard, and was reduced to sniffles. She got off Rainbow Dash, and offered a hoof towards her. Rainbow Dash accepted her hoof, and got back up on her hooves. The Wonderbolt took a moment to look over her friend. She looked like she was one of the drunk ponies that Rainbow Dash usually found on the streets of Canterlot; her feathers looked unkempt, there were bags under her eyes, and her eyes themselves were red from what she assumed to be from a lot of crying. She pressed her side against the distraught pegasus, and laid a wing over her back. She spoke in a quiet, reassuring voice.
"It's alright, Flutters, I'm here, I'm here. C'mon, lets go inside, it's getting cold out here."
She didn't respond; poor Fluttershy must have been suffering pretty badly without her, the Wonderbolt realized. She started walking towards the cottage, and after awhile, Fluttershy followed her inside. They both entered through the door, and Fluttershy suddenly detached from Rainbow Dash to the kitchen. Slightly lost as to what to do next, she decided to sit down on Fluttershy's sofa, and took a quick look around her living room. Despite the fact that five years had passed, nothing seemed to have changed in her home.
Angel suddenly came by, and looked up at the pegasus, a distrustful look on his face. She didn't blame him; she was gone for five years, so there was no guarantee that she was the same pony from before. He continued to stare at her; then, shrugging, somewhat satisfied in his observation of the pegasus, he scampered off towards the kitchen. As she watched him leave, a picture frame on a shelf caught her eye, and she got off of the sofa to inspect it. She nearly broke down as she picked up the picture and looked at it.
It was a portrait of the six of them smiling as they were grouped up together; She remembered taking this photo for Twilight when she had asked all of them to show up for a group photo so that she could send the picture to Princess Celestia in what was then the next of her letters. Rainbow Dash held the picture frame close to her chest, her wings twitching slightly as she remembered that day...
"C'mon, Rainbow Dash, at least stay still for this one picture!" A lavender unicorn called out. Unfortunately, the cyan pegasus that she was calling to disagreed with her, flying around three other ponies on the ground.
"No way, Twi, I don't slow down OR stay still for anypony, you know that! I'm the one and only Rainbow Dash, and she doesn't stop for nopony!" An explosive sigh from an orange earth pony caught the attention of the pegasus. Said earth pony was looking up at her critically while tipping her hat back; the over sized hat looked hilarious on her, although she didn't dare say it to her face.
"Rainbow, y'all get down now an' get ready fer the pick-chur, even if some of our friends ain't 'ere! Y'know this important t' Twi!"
Landing down in front of the group of ponies, Rainbow Dash looked irritatedly at the earth pony. "I don't see why we have to take a picture! We see each other every other day, so why do we need one?! It's not like something bad'll happen to us anytime soon!" The lavender mare sighed, and the pegasus suddenly found herself wrapped up in magic as the unicorn directed her to a position. "Hey, cut that out, Twi, it ain't cool and it's weird, floating in the sky and knowing it isn't because of your own wings, not that you would know!" The unicorn sighed in despair.
"I thought I told you earlier that this picture was for the princess! I told her what you five looked like, but I want to give her a picture as well for her to see! Besides, something bad could happen to us someday, if not today, tomorrow, right now, five seconds from now! Starswirl's theory on the universe states that..."The pegasus rolled her eyes, but stayed where the unicorn had placed her and mentally shut out Twilight's voice. She'd go through with this, if only to get this over with quickly. A delicate sounding cough broke the speech that the lavender unicorn was making, much to the relief of the pegasus, who was losing the battle in keeping her mental block up to Twilight.
"Well, it doesn't look as if our camera pony is ready yet, and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie haven't shown up yet anyway, dear, so perhaps it would be best to allow...Rainbow Dash, is it? To...Exhaust her pint-up energy for awhile. Goodness knows it would do her some good if she wouldn't fidget so much during the photo." This came from another unicorn, one that set higher standards for herself than other ponies would. Rainbow Dash couldn't exactly remember her name. Farity...No, that wasn't it...Oh well, she assumed that was close enough, and the lavender mare sighed as the pegasus began to fly around.
"Rarity, I was in the middle of-"
"Darling, not to sound harsh, but I don't think anypony could understand what you were talking about, dear. Please, not everypony can understand what you've learned." The pegasus readily agreed with her, and as a bonus, she knew her name!
"Yeah, Twi, you and your egghead talk makes my head spin trying to understand it! Make it simpler for us to understand, okay?!" The lavender unicorn spluttered, clearly annoyed.
"What?! I'm explaining this in the simplest way possible for you girls! I can't make it sound any more simple!"
"Dear, your words still don't make sense..."
While the small argument was going on, Rainbow Dash caught a short sight of a yellow pegasus slowly making their way towards the group, looking around nervously. She raised a hoof in greeting to her.
"Heya, Flutters! Glad you could make it!"
The pegasus in question squeaked, and hid behind a tree. Rainbow Dash sighed, and went behind the tree to see her filly-hood friend cowering rather pathetically.
"C'mon, there's nothing to worry about! It's just some dumb picture that the purple egghead making us do! You're taking it with friends, Flutters, it ain't so bad, once you think about that, alright?" Her words, while not exactly the best choice, did manage to coax the shy pegasus out from behind the tree, and into joining the group. Twilight Sparkle patiently ignored the egghead remark, and looked around, anxiety plainly shown on her face.
"Where's Pinkie? We can't take the picture without her!"
As if by magic, a pink earth pony bounced up to the group, smiling impossibly wide and speaking loudly.
"Hi girls! What're we doing here? Oh, it must be a party! Hold on, I'll get th-"
Twilight Sparkle sighed as she levitated Pinkie Pie over towards the group, who continued to splutter nonsense about a party, and looked over towards the rest of her friends. "Hey, girls! We're all here, so lets take the picture, I need to send it to Princess Celestia!" Although it took a fair while to assemble everypony in place, it was eventually accomplished, and the pony behind the camera allowed himself a small smile. A group of friends like these were a rare sight indeed. He readied the camera, and waited until the fidgeting stopped. He then smiled at the group of young mares.
"Smile for the camera, everypony!"
Rainbow Dash sighed as she remembered that moment; it was such an uncomfortable moment in her life, and yet, one of the better ones. She looked down on the photo again, and smiled. They were such good friends, locked together, forever, in a timeless moment. She almost didn't notice that Fluttershy was right beside her until she spoke softly. "I miss them, too." Startled, the pegasus quickly jumped up to take flight...Only to smack her head against the ceiling.
"Ow! Fluttershy, don't do that!" The yellow pegasus winced at Rainbow Dash's impact with her ceiling, and muttered softly.
"S-Sorry, Rainbow Dash, I didn't mean to do that."
The cyan pegasus sighed, and gently floated down from the ceiling, taking another look at the photo. "It's hard to believe that they're..."
The yellow pegasus nodded slowly. "I don't believe it myself...I keep trying to tell myself that this is all some bad dream, but I know that this is a dream I'll never wake up from..." Trailing off, the pegasus walked back to the kitchen, and this time, the Wonderbolt followed her inside. There, on a small table, were two steaming cups of...Something. She supposed that Fluttershy was making some hot drinks while she was reminiscing over the picture. Although she did eat before coming to Ponyville, she supposed that something to drink couldn't hurt. She sat down next to Fluttershy, lifted the cup up to her lips without looking at its contents...And nearly spit it out after choking on the taste slightly.
She had never liked black coffee. At least, without so much sugar and cream that it couldn't possibly be called black coffee anymore. However, she had just drunk straight, extremely strong black coffee, and she was struggling to adjust to the strong taste. Fluttershy noticed this all too well, and smiled nervously at her, hoping she wouldn't be mad at her.
"Oh, I'm sorry...I...Guess I forgot you don't like strong coffee. Here..." She reached over, and set down a small jar with some sugar in it. "I don't have any of that cream that Canterlot ponies use in coffee, sorry, Rainbow Dash."
The Wonderbolt sighed, and began spooning some sugar into her coffee. "I've never really enjoyed coffee, Flutters, especially not...Not strong coffee like this, at least without some kind of sweetener. I'd never drink coffee if it weren't for the fact that I got tired all the time in the Wonderbolts. Actually, never knew you drank coffee, either."
"Yeah, it's because of...Well, you know..." There was an awkward silence that was drawn between them; They spent a few minutes drinking coffee, and then,Rainbow Dash popped the question.
"How did they die?" It was short and to the point, a characteristic of her that she had never outgrown. It was sometimes considered to be a sign of being rude, but she never did care. Fluttershy cringed, and looked down at her cup of coffee, half of it having been drained by her earlier. She didn't know why she had started drinking it; It only seemed to remind her of the bitter way life turned around. She sighed, and looked back up at Rainbow Dash.
"I...Well, I don't know the full details behind each of their deaths, but...I'll try to say as much as I know, Dash. From what I've heard, Twilight tried to route the storm by herself, and, well, I'm not sure what happened to her. Spike is still alive, although he's taking it really hard. Twilight was like an older sister to him, and now...Well, he just doesn't act the same anymore." Fluttershy took a moment to sip some of her coffee; Rainbow Dash likewise copied her. Fluttershy paused for a moment before continuing to say what details she did know.
"Applejack was trying to get ponies into one of her cellars underneath her barn; she always did make sure other ponies were okay, first. Lots of ponies owe their lives to her. Big mac and Applebloom...They're taking it hard, like Spike. Well, I think her death was related to the apple trees. After all, with that much force in the storm, there's bound to be a tree in loose soil that...Gets uprooted and..." She took another slurp of coffee, and the Wonderbolt was about to copy her as well when she noticed that her cup was empty. Figures. She reverted her attention to Fluttershy when she started speaking again.
"Pinkie Pie and Rarity were found together, in Sugar Cube Corner, where, if you didn't see because you didn't notice it, completely caved in on itself. I'm not sure why it did...They were sharing tea...Just like...We're sharing...Coffee..."
Rainbow Dash watched as Fluttershy broke down crying, but made no move to comfort her this time. So, Fluttershy didn't know what happened to all her friends...At least, not completely. She got up from the table, and placed her now empty cup into the sink. She noticed Angel was glaring at her, and he was pointing at the door; well, she was going to go, anyway. She wasn't satisfied in knowing vague details of her friend's deaths.
"Well, Fluttershy, I'm...Leaving for a bit. I want to make a speech at the funeral service later, and...I need to know a little bit more about how they died. I also want to say a few personal words to them before they're buried. Will you be alright while I'm gone?"
Fluttershy nodded slowly. "Yes, Rainbow, I'll be alright, I have Angel, you know. That would be...Nice, Dash, the personal words, I mean. If you want details for Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie's deaths, just talk to Spike, Applebloom or Big Mac, and the Cakes. If you want to know more about Rarity, though, You're going to have to talk to...Um, I think it was something like 'Vinyl Scratch'.
That was a surprise. "Rarity and Vinyl are related? Huh, never knew Rarity was related to somepony as wild as Vinyl." Now that the pegasus thought about it, Vinyl did mention she had a 'Totally high standard, fruity dressmaker' as a sister, but she never thought that it could've been Rarity...
"I think so...I remember Rarity saying something about an 'uncouth, unsophisticated savage of a sister' once during one of our spa trips, and, after seeing her in pony and talking with her, they do have the same coat color and way they carry themselves...It was like seeing a punk version of Rarity." Fluttershy giggled a bit at that, and the Wonderbolt couldn't help but giggle as well.
The mirth soon ended, however, and the mood was once again somber. The Wonderbolt sensed that while she did want to spend more time with Fluttershy, there really was no reason for her to stick around right now, and she was (Rather morbidly) interested in how her friends had died. Rainbow Dash walked towards Fluttershy's door, waving a hoof. "Bye, Fluttershy. I'll see you at the funeral."
Fluttershy waved back, smiling slightly. "Goodbye, Rainbow Dash. I'll see you there, as well."
With that, the Wonderbolt nodded at her, and walked out of the cottage.