//------------------------------//
// What's In a Name? (Fluttershy) 
// Story: The Masks of the Mane 6 
// by AlicornPriest 
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Twilight was having tea with Fluttershy like she did every Tuesday. It was one of the few regular things she did with her friends. Everything she'd been told the past few days was still jostling about in her mind, so she wasn't making much for conversation. Finally, though, she offered to Fluttershy, "Are you... afraid of me?"

Fluttershy retreated behind her wing, a gesture Twilight hadn't seen in a while. "...A little, yes," she replied.

"When you talk with me... do you want to run away?"

"...No." With effort, she put her wing back in place and sat up straight again. "I trust you, Twilight. I like having you as my friend. You... challenge me."

Twilight didn't know what to say to that. After a few seconds, Fluttershy said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"How do parents choose their foals' names?"

"That's a really big question, Fluttershy," Twilight answered. "Some families use surnames, like Pinkie's, while others prefer theme naming, like mine or the Apples. It really depends."

"But how do they choose accurate names?" Fluttershy insisted. "Are the parents prophetic?"

"No, nothing like that." Twilight shook her head. "As far as I'm aware, magic can't predict the future. They just choose a name they like."

"So why would my parents name me Fluttershy?" she asked. "Did they want me to be shy, or..." She slumped down on her cushion, distraught.

Twilight looked on sympathetically. "I couldn't say," she answered. "They really should have told you why when you were younger."

Fluttershy shook her head. "Well, they didn't. They rarely spoke to me back then. They probably don't even know I've left Cloudsdale."

She said that so straightforwardly, yet when Twilight thought about it, the concept was absurd. "Fluttershy, that was over ten years ago. When you 'left Cloudsdale,' you almost died. How could they not know you're gone?"

"Either they don't know or they don't care." She sighed and looked away. "You'd understand if you had been shy when you were younger."

"But I was shy when I was younger!" Twilight sat up and unwittingly shifted into her "teacher voice." "When I was just a filly, I was so engrossed in books and learning that I hardly ever talked. I had no friends, and--"

"Twilight, you weren't shy," Fluttershy interrupted her. "And you had friends."

"What? Of course I didn't! That was the whole point of coming to--"

"Moondancer? Twinkleshine? You didn't spend time with them, but you were friendly to them, and they were friendly to you." Fluttershy began to tear up. "You didn't have bullies... You didn't fear the universe..."

"Oh..." She'd never thought of it like that. She'd assumed for some bizarre reason that the lowest you could be on the "friendship meter" was zero, rather than negative... "I'm so sorry, Fluttershy. I hadn't thought..."

"It's okay. I understand." Fluttershy sniffed and tried again. "But that comes back to my name. Why would my parents name me Fluttershy?"

"Again, I don't know," Twilight replied. "It's a fairly common name for pegasi, though. The 'flutter' part is pretty self-explanatory, and the 'shy' part helps it sound like 'butterfly.'"

"But did I become shy because my name had 'shy' in it? Or did people treat me as though I were shy because of my name, and I changed to fit their expectations?"

"I don't know," Twilight said again.

Fluttershy held her forehooves in front of her face and stared at an invisible potentiality. "I don't want to be shy... It's given me nothing but pain my entire life... Not even my parents love me... But I can't change it... From as soon as my parents named me, I was trapped..."

"Fluttershy..." In a snap decision, Twilight teleported to the other side of the table and wrapped her in a hug. "Your parents may not care about you, but we do. We love you."

Fluttershy flinched for a second, then the words came tumbling out of her, like she didn't want to say it. "And yet you didn't know about my parents."

"...What?"

"No, I'm sorry, that came out wrong, I--"

"Talk to me, Fluttershy!" Twilight insisted.

"Y-you say you appreciate me, but you don't know anything about me, who I am, who I was..."

"I..." That was... technically true, Twilight thought. But she felt it wasn't as simple as that. "But we're trying to. We're trying to help you open up so we can learn all that!"

"So you pity me." Fluttershy looked up at Twilight with liquid eyes that were filled with pain. "You think I'm broken, and you're trying to fix me."

"What? No!" Twilight backed up as she tried to fix the words in her head.

"No, I understand. I think I'm broken, too." Fluttershy heaved a sigh and looked over to her animal pens. "I think that's part of why I love taking care of animals so much. Because when I see them hurt and sick, I see them as broken like me."

That clicked in Twilight's head. "That's not it, Fluttershy. You're not kind and nurturing because you're broken. You're kind and nurturing because you're you. That's what we love about you. That's why we want to be your friend. Because you are tender and sweet and oh so smart, and you've known suffering but you soldier on anyway." Twilight flew into Fluttershy's embrace and held her even firmer than before. "You are a wonderful pony, Fluttershy. And nothing, not even being shy, can take that away."

A weak trickle of tears pattered down Twilight's back as Fluttershy cried. "I've n-never, not once, heard something like that before. Thank you, Twilight."

They stayed like that for a while, until Twilight finally let her go. "Fluttershy..." she began, "if you wanted to... change your name, maybe, I'm sure all of our friends would support it."

Fluttershy smiled and gave a weak laugh. "I suppose, but... what about the butterfly thing? It is my cutie mark, after all." She tipped her head. "And how did they--"

"Seriously, I don't know." Twilight laughed. "You could go with 'Fluttersweet,' I guess, or 'Flutterby.' The 'flutter' part still kinda references it."

"I'll have to think about it." She paused and said again, "Thank you, Twilight. Really."

"Of course." Twilight teleported back to her spot, where her tea was starting to get cold. On a whim, she added, "Seriously, we love you, you know that?"

"Mm-hmm. Better than I did before." Fluttershy smiled and took a sip from her own teacup.

"I'm glad." Twilight sipped some tea as well, and the tea party resumed like nothing had happened.