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// 1 - Confession (Dragonshy) 
// Story: A Slice of Flutterdash 
// by UnlicensedBrony 
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Rainbow paced outside the front door to Fluttershy's cottage, screwing up her face in concentration as she worked up the courage to knock. You'd think, after facing down a dragon the day before, something like this would be effortless by comparison. But that thought had only brought her this far.

Shaking her head, she decided to just go for it. “What's the worst that could happen?” she reasoned. With that, a flick of her mane and a puffing out of her chest, she knocked three times on Fluttershy's front door.

“Just a minute!” said Fluttershy, her soft voice drifting out from the upstairs window.

Rainbow's body stiffened upon hearing it. She quickly realised that she still had a chance to bolt – Fluttershy hadn't seen her yet. When she did though, it'd be too late to go back.

'Get it together, Dash,' she told herself. 'She has to hear this. You can't just keep pretending it's not there.'

Rainbow took a steadying breath and planted her hooves. She wasn't going anywhere.

A moment later, the door opened, and Fluttershy stood there with a smile on her face and a towel wrapped around her mane. “Oh, hello,” she said. “I-I'm sorry, I didn't know you were coming over, or I would've showered earlier. I--” She broke off, and the colour drained from her face. “--Oh, goodness! We didn't have plans this evening, did we? Did I forget? I was sure that my calendar was--”

“Relax, Fluttershy. You didn't forget anything,” said Rainbow, holding up a hoof to calm her. Somehow, Fluttershy's sheepishness seemed to kindle a confidence in her, and she felt suddenly much more at ease. “I just came by to apologise.”

Fluttershy blew out a relieved breath. Then she did a double-take and blinked rapidly. “P-pardon?”

Rainbow shrugged and gave a 'back there' gesture with her head. “About yesterday. You know, when I was acting like a jerk – telling Twilight that you were a fraidy-cat and not to bring you along?”

“O-oh,” said Fluttershy. “You don't need to apologise for that.”

“Sure I do,” said Rainbow. “It was way out of line, and it had to upset you. You can't be okay with that.”

Fluttershy found a smile, shook her head and stepped outside, closer to Rainbow. “I wasn't upset. Honestly, Rainbow, I wanted so badly for Twilight to let me stay behind. I know I didn't say anything, but I really appreciated you trying to help me.”

“Yeah, but I-- Uh.” Rainbow let her mouth hang open for a moment before raising a brow at Fluttershy. “Come again?”

Fluttershy let out a tinkling giggle. “I'm terrified of dragons, I thought you knew that. I would've done anything to get out of that adventure.” She paused for thought. “Though, in retrospect, it's probably good that I didn't. Even so, I thought you were just trying to help, and it was very thoughtful.”

“Really?” said Rainbow. Fluttershy nodded. “Oh. 'Cause that's, uh, that's not exactly what I was thinking at the time.”

Fluttershy shook her head again. “It doesn't matter. You don't need to apologise.”

“Oh. Cool.” Rainbow gulped on air, suddenly finding a flaw in her plan. Fluttershy didn't want an apology. What was she supposed to do now? It was suddenly very warm outside, and she felt like flapping her wings and taking to the sky. “Okay, well, in that case, I'm just gonna take off,” she said lamely.

Without waiting for a response, she turned in place and trotted a few steps towards the bridge over the river, unfurling her wings as she did.

“Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow froze and cringed. She took a breath, then turned to give Fluttershy a questioning smile.

For her part, Fluttershy had her head tilted to one side and was wearing an unreadable expression. “If you weren't trying to talk Twilight out of it because that's what you thought I wanted... why did you do it?”

Rainbow let out the breath in a sigh. There it was. Fluttershy was smarter than ponies gave her credit for. There was no sense in backing out now – her plan might've failed, but Fluttershy had just given her a straight opening to be honest. She couldn't ignore it. So she turned around to face Fluttershy properly and averted her eyes, a little guilty. “Yeah, uh, that's kinda what I came to talk to you about, actually.”

Fluttershy blinked, but said nothing, waiting patiently for her to continue.

“Ever since this whole thing with Nightmare Moon,” Rainbow began, rolling her neck as she tried to forget the words she rehearsed over and over in her mind, “I've started... thinking about you.”

Fluttershy blanched. “O-oh?”

Rainbow nodded and took a couple of steps towards her, lowering her voice as she did. “A lot more than I should be. Going into the Everfree reminded me that there are actually things out there that can hurt you-- us. That can hurt us.” She closed her eyes, gulped, and forced herself to continue. “And I realised that I really don't want that to happen. Especially not to you.”

Fluttershy gulped too, and her voice quivered. “Why especially not to me?”

“Ah,” Rainbow grunted. She looked off to one side, which incidentally left her staring out towards the Everfree itself. All dark and gloomy and spooky, full of monsters and nasty stuff. She remembered their journey into there to find Nightmare Moon. She remembered how she felt when the Manticore grabbed Fluttershy.

She let out a sigh and looked Fluttershy in the eye. “Because--” Nope, it was no good. She looked downwards and kicked a hoof in shame. “Because I like you... and stuff.”

“...Oh.” Fluttershy stayed very still. Her voice gained a few levels of volume as she actually registered what Rainbow had said. “Oh!”

Rainbow shrugged and managed a look up at her from behind her fringe. “Yeah.”

Fluttershy held her eyes for the briefest moment, before lowering her head too, and though her mane was still tied up in the towel, the effect was the same. For an agonisingly long few moments, the awkward silence was disturbed only by the chirping of birds in the trees, and of Fluttershy shuffling her hooves against her welcome mat. 

“Well, um,” said Fluttershy finally. “Sh-should we do something about that?”

Rainbow blinked up at her. “You want to?”

“W-well, thinking about it, I suppose that I like--” Fluttershy froze, shivered a little, then offered a weak smile. “I mean, that I'd like to. Yes.”

Rainbow's eyes widened, and her face lit up with a grin. She let out a whooping “Yes!”, jumped into the air and backflipped to land on all four hooves. Fluttershy watched the display with one eye and that same, tiny smile. 

As Rainbow furled her wings, she cracked her neck and shifted back into her usual, cool demeanour. “So, Fluttershy – you wanna go on a date or something?”

Fluttershy nodded twice. That smile on her face was something that Rainbow wouldn't soon forget.


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