“Flutters!!”
This was usual noise that would heard at two in the morning at Rainbow Dash’s house, not that this was common knowledge to anyone who was not a tortoise named Tank, but this was not that case. Rainbow Dash stood outside of Fluttershy’s house, rocking back and forth lightly on her hooves.
She was dressed in her usual track suit, having just finished up her morning exercise routine. Short shorts, a white t-shirt, and a dark blue hoodie which matched her shorts with two gold stripes on the side. She was antsy, something had come in the mail and she could not wait to share it with her best friend and something even more pressing to ask of her.
A window on the top floor opened slowly, to which a head of pink hair poked out. Fluttershy blinked blearily, rubbing her eyes and looking down at her. Given how dark it was, it took a few moments for her eyes to fully focus and adjust on Rainbow Dash down below. She went back into her room and turned on a light, then poked her head and shoulders back out.
“Rainbow...? What are you doing? It’s still dark…” Fluttershy yawned, “Is something wrong?”
“Come on, it’s five!” Rainbow called back up to her, doing a quick bounce to take into the air with a flap of her wings. She came up to her friend’s window, taking note of her large, thick, green nightgown that hid most of her body. It was cute though on her friend. She smiled, crossing her arms as she continued, “Can I come in?”
Giving a small sigh, Fluttershy nodded and ducked back into her room, “All right, come in. But just for a little while, okay? I’m very tired…”
With a quick first bump, Rainbow flew through the window and took a seat on Fluttershy’s bed with a grin, “Man, does this bring back memories, huh? You remember when I used to sneak into your room back when we were in school just to hang out?”
Yawning a little, Fluttershy sat down on her bed too, “Mm-hmm… So, what did you want to see me about?”
“Come on, stay up a bit. I got some news,” Rainbow said cheerfully, digging into her pocket to fish out a slip of paper, “I kinda forgot to do something yesterday and didn’t get around to doing it until around midnight. Namely, check my mail… but when I did, I found out I got a letter!”
“Who from?” Fluttershy yawned, blinking at her blearily.
Rainbow grinned at her, handing it to her, “Take a look! It’s from the Wonderbolts Academy!”
“Oh, I see,” Fluttershy nodded tiredly. She looked it over, just to humour her, “A VIP party invitation to the Wonderbolts press conference… I see. That’s very nice, Rainbow. I’m sure you’re excited for it…”
“That’s not all!” Rainbow snickered, reaching over to take it back and point out something, “Check this out; I got a plus one too! So, you wanna take a guess on who I’m taking with me?”
Fluttershy yawned again and stretched a little, rubbing her eyes, “Rainbow… I’m tired and it’s the middle of the night. You can just tell me, please.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes playfully at her friend, then suddenly tackled her friend back onto the bed, “I’m taking you, ya doof! Come on, isn’t it obvious after all these years?”
Now Fluttershy was more awake, with her eyes going wide and her senses on overdrive. Her cheeks flushed bright pink, taken aback by the sudden position between them. “...Me? But, why me? I’m sure Pinkie would be a much, much better choice…”
“Don’t you even try that back talk with me, ‘Shy,” Rainbow snickered pulling back to sit back up once more, “You’re my best friend, that’s why I want you to come with me! And why would Pinkie want to go there?”
“Um, Rainbow, you do know who I’m talking about, right?” Fluttershy said dryly, giving her a look.
“... Let me rephrase that,” Rainbow said with sigh, forcing her smile to be maintained, “I don’t want Pinkie to go with me, I want you. Come on, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, it’s just…” Fluttershy sat up a bit, “I do want to support you in this, you know I do. I just feel nervous at these kinds of things, Dashie. It’s not just the awkward socializing, either…”
Rainbow patted her on the shoulder a bit, gently laughing a bit, “Hey, I know you have agoraphobia and stuff, but you’ll be there with me, ‘Shy. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I just want to be there with my best bud and have fun. You know I like hanging out with other girls too, but come on. Is it really that weird I’d ask you come with me?”
“Rainbow, I don’t have agoraphobia,” Fluttershy sighed, shaking her head, “And no, it’s not weird of you to ask me. I just never feel comfortable at parties like that.”
“You totally do,” Rainbow said back to her in a slightly more serious tone, “ It’s the fear of being in situation that causes you feel scared, helpless, or alone because of enclosed or crowded places. I saw a thing about it on tv last night.”
“...What? I thought it was just the fear of open spaces…” Fluttershy frowned in confusion.
“Unless the medical channel is wrong, I don’t think so,” Rainbow said with smirk, “But whatever, that’s not the point. We’re talking about you coming with me as my guest to this Wonderbolts conference.”
“Right…” Fluttershy nodded, then gave a soft sigh, “Okay. I’ll go with you, Rainbow… I know how much this means to you.”
Rainbow again threw her hands up to cheer, “Yes! Awesome!” she leaned back with a smile before she noticed her friend’s expression. With Fluttershy looking away slightly, Rainbow sat up like watchdog, “Hey, are you okay? This is going to great! Don’t look so down…”
“I’m not, I just… Rainbow, I don’t want to hold you back,” Fluttershy sat up a bit more, “I’m not very social and I don’t want to hold you back from mingling.”
With a nod, Rainbow reached back over to place her hands on Fluttershy’s shoulders, “Don’t be like that! You’ve never held me back before, so why would you think that you would now?”
“I just don’t want to ruin the fun for you,” Fluttershy reasoned, “But, I’ll go with you. If you want, you can even mingle and I’d wait for you in a designated spot.”
“Come on, don’t be like that!” Rainbow replied, patting her on the back, “I want you to feel like you can talk to folks and do stuff. Heck, or even just hang on me while we’re there!”
“Are you sure about that?” Fluttershy looked at her hopefully.
“Of course! You know I’m all for that,” Rainbow replied with a shaky grin.
Fluttershy sighed, then nodded as she gave her friend a hug, “Okay. Then we’ll talk about this later, Dashie. I have to get back to sleep.”
“But it’s five in the morning,” Rainbow countered once she pulled back from the hug, “Come on, stay up with me. Heck, I’ll even make you breakfast if you do!”
Letting out a sleepy whine, Fluttershy sighed, “Oh, all right… Just give me a few minutes.”
Rainbow grinned, getting up from her friend’s bed, “I’ll take it! I’ll head down and start cooking; you come down when you’re ready! But if I finish first- well, you better hope I don’t!”
“...Finish first?” Fluttershy blinked, not catching on to her meaning.
“Finish breakfast before you get downstairs, duh,” Rainbow smirked at her before heading out of bedroom, “Don’t keep me downstairs waiting all morning!”
Groaning a bit, Fluttershy fell back on her bed, her body longing for a little more sleep. She very much appreciated Rainbow’s efforts, but just wanted to rest. Then again, she also didn’t want to be rude. But Rainbow did barge in and essentially keep her from going back to sleep. Then again, it wasn’t as if she had gotten no sleep at all. Fluttershy groaned and rolled over, pushing herself back up again. Laying down would only get her body too tired.
She trudged over to her closet, picking out some clothes to wear. She had bought many things over the years, some being gifts from Rarity and others being things she had been given from her parents. Some of which she couldn’t see herself wearing.
Fluttershy pulled her large green sweater over her head, carefully fitting her wings behind her with it. After that, she wondered out of her still missing her bottom half. Oh well, it was large enough to cover her all the same. She needed to wake up, that was what Fluttershy had on her mind now. She almost sleepwalked into her bathroom after she left her bedroom, turning on its lights. She ran some water, icy cold, in her sink. Letting it rush down and over her hands for a few seconds, Fluttershy splashed her face.
Shaking it off, Fluttershy reached for a towel to dry her face. At least, before a dawning realization struck her mind.
“Oh my goodness! Rainbow’s here and she’s making me breakfast!” Fluttershy exclaimed to herself in a loud whisper. Her heart pounded furiously, to which she leaned against the door and breathed heavily. It was all happening too fast! Yet, now that she was more awake, the entire situation was far more favourable than before.
What should she do now? She was still missing her bottoms, but should she keep Rainbow Dash waiting now? This was an impossible situation, something out of a dream. Her friend, a target of her affection, was downstairs in her kitchen making her breakfast and here she was, in her bathroom, almost shivering from the context of situation. She had to think, change or go down stairs. Her worry was building, she had to make a choice…
“I can’t keep her waiting…” She took a deep breath, deciding to head downstairs.
Already, Fluttershy could smell the distinct aroma of eggs as she came into the kitchen. Rainbow Dash was at the stove, cooking some scrambled eggs while popping some bread into the toaster. But it wasn’t just that. Much to Fluttershy’s surprise (or should it have been?), Rainbow was singing to herself.
“I’m too sexy for~ Yeah, I’m too sexy for my shirt~ Too sexy for my shirt,” Rainbow mock sang aloud, shaking her hips back and forth to the rhythm in her head while she scrambled the eggs. She looked very happy surprisingly, bopping her head all the same.
Fluttershy had to lean against the doorway, trembling a little bit. Her eyes never left Rainbow’s swaying hips. The vision of Rainbow then stripping her shirt off, true to the lyrics, didn’t even relent. Oh, she wanted so much to toss logic and reason out the window, grab her best friend, and ravish her. The desire had been building for however long she could remember, now. But Fluttershy felt her knees go weak, rendering her legs useless.
This went on for a few more moments as Rainbow sang a few more of the lyrics to the song before realizing she did not know anything past that corus. She shrugged, humming the beat as she finish scrambling the eggs and turned away to fetch glasses from Fluttershy’s cabinets. As fate would have it however, this caused her to catch a glimpse of her friend in the corner of her eye just as she took two drinking glasses out.
With a grin, Rainbow set them down on the counter and waved for Fluttershy to enter the kitchen, “Sup, bud? Come on in, it’ll be done in just a few!”
“Um… okay,” Fluttershy managed to say, taking a few steps into the room. Her movement was shaky at best, but at least she didn’t collapse.
“Sheesh, you sure are out of it this morning,” Rainbow snickered at her friend as she continued to finish up cooking, “You gonna be okay?”
“Fine! Yes! Of course!” Fluttershy burst in squeaks, standing up straight.
“Go ahead, take a seat!” Rainbow pointed over to the kitchen table, “You usually do this stuff for me, let me handle this. Then, we’ll have breakfast.”
Nodding, Fluttershy made her way to the table and sat down, this time without a hitch. She looked to Rainbow, her cheeks a bit pink, trying all she could to think of what to say. It wasn’t hard, she usually knew exactly what to bring up for conversation with Rainbow. For a moment though, she felt uncertain.
Taking a few deep breaths, Fluttershy considered a possible starter, “Um… so, what were you doing this morning?”
“Uh, coming over here,” Rainbow laughed a bit, seeming to finish with eggs as she turned off the eye of the oven. She had already fetched plates and was dividing them up, “I was gonna wait until later, but I just couldn’t hold in the news! So, I came over here. I just figured you’d be up, but I’m sorry that I woke you up.”
Fluttershy was a bit confused though, glancing toward Rainbow, “Um, but Dashie… doesn’t the mail service start at eight in the morning? How did you get this letter before sunrise?”
“I already told you,” Rainbo walked over, sitting a plate down in front of her friend, “I got it yesterday, but I didn’t read it until after I got home. It was late and I was so freaking tired. That didn’t work so well as you can see. Anyway, here ya go!”
“Oh! Oh, right…” Fluttershy blushed sheepishly, “I’m so sorry. I was too tired to focus, wasn’t I? Um, never mind. So… when is this, anyway?”
Rainbow chuckled at her, “Next week. I wouldn’t spring something on you totally last minute, Flutters! It’s on Friday of next week, around noon ‘til about six.”
Fluttershy nodded, a bit relieved, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t implying you would do that. Besides, I don’t think it would be very professional of them to send a special invited guest an invitation so close to the last minute.”
“Eh, you’d be surprised,” Rainbow shrugged to this, but smiled all the same, “But it could have come late if something was wrong in the mail or if I just never got to looking at it.”
“At least you did, then…” Fluttershy sipped her glass of juice, “Um, what are you going to wear?”
“Does that matter?” Rainbow rolled eye eyes playfully at her friend. “Maybe that dress I wore for the Gala? Or maybe I rent a tux for the evening. Depends on how I feel that day.”
“...You would wear a tux?” Fluttershy looked at her with mild surprise, “Not to say you shouldn’t! I’m just… well, I’m curious. You never minded wearing dresses, I just… didn’t know you would go wear a suit.”
Rainbow Dash rubbed her nose with a flick of her thumb much like boxers do, then shoot Fluttershy that toothy grin she used on her everyday to dismiss something, “Eh, I’m just thinking about classing myself up for the event! You know, make a good impression and stuff. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into Soarin and Spitfire while there! If I did, I could really get in a good word with them and see about them looking over my stats again. I mean, come on, it would be pretty cool if they decided to let me in on the spot, right?!”
Fluttershy nodded in agreement, eating at her food slowly, “I think it would be silly if they didn’t put in a good word for you, Rainbow. You’ve proven your worth to them so many times by now. I really wouldn’t be surprised if part of the reason you were invited was because they wanted to make an official announcement.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Rainbow chuckled at that, taking the second plate for herself and sitting opposite of her friend, “But it’s a press conference, and not one of the major one’s either. It’s like one of those they do to talk about their show dates and stuff. But it’s cool! Just getting invited is awesome in and of itself!”
“Well, um… at least you’ll have fun,” Fluttershy murmured, turning her attention back to her food.
“We’ll have fun, Flutters,” Rainbow corrected with a grin, “It’s a party pretty much! We can mingle, drink fancy stuff, dance a bit. It’ll be great!”
Fluttershy sighed a bit, sipping her drink, “Can you… please just do me a favour?”
Rainbow raised a brow to that, then started to smile more gently, “Already done. I’m not gonna leave you alone, you’re gonna be right beside me the whole time.”
Blinking, Fluttershy then blushed and giggled, “Oh, Rainbow… you’re very sweet to remember. Thank you…”
“What can I say? I know you pretty well at this point,” Rainbow flashed a big, goofy grin at her, “But that got me thinking… we still got a week or so before the event. How about we do some assertiveness practice? You know, just to get you in the swing of things.”
“A-Assertiveness?” Fluttershy gulped, feeling a sting of dread, “Rainbow, no… The last time I tried, I went too far.”
“Whatcha mean?” Rainbow looked at her oddly before facepalming, “Oh, right! The whole… Iron Will thing, right? Man, I can’t believe I missed that…”
Fluttershy smiled sadly, “I think it’s best that you did. I can’t even imagine how much I would have ended up hurting you…”
Rainbow smirked at the thought, “You, hurt me? Not in a million years, ‘Shy!”
“But Dashie! I said such hurtful things. If you had come in the line of fire, I would have ended up hurting your feelings.”
“That totally depends on what you were being assertive about,” Rainbow rationalized with a playful shrug as if dismissing the idea, “At the worst, you might have said something like ‘Shut up and k-” She paused, then laughed it off, “Never mind! That might be asking for a bit much, even for me! But how about we do something like… self-confidence practice?”
“Um… how?” Fluttershy blinked.
“Well, we could- well… Huh, this is kinda a hard one,” Rainbow crossed her arms, pushing away from the table, “I can’t really say just be more confident and it’s not like teaching your to cheer. I guess we could go see Discord? Yeah! He did that one thing a while back that messed up our personalities, remember? You weren’t so kind, I was lazy, Rarity was- well, still kinda herself, AJ was a compulsive liar, and Pinkie was mean as heck. Maybe he could show ya how to be more confident and less timid?”
Fluttershy pondered this, biting her lip with uncertainty, “I don’t know… I never really thought of that. And I don’t feel right asking him to do things for me with his magic. I know he doesn’t mind and said I could ask for anything I want… But I wouldn’t want to take advantage of him.”
Rainbow gave her a slight nod, but continued on despite this, “Yeah, I know what you mean, but we don’t even had to ask him to use magic! We could just ask him for pointers for you. I mean, he obviously has some serious confidence considering what he wears. Besides, how would this be taking advantage of him?”
“...That’s true,” Fluttershy conceded.
‘So, why don’t we give him a ring?” Rainbow asked her with a grin. Obviously, she was not about to take no as an answer now.
Fluttershy sighed a bit, giving a small nod, “I suppose I could see if he’s not too busy.”
Rainbow for the second time that morning did another fist bump, “Awesome! We can give him a call after we eat. Just one thing though,” She tilted her head just slightly, “How would we even get to his place?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. He gave me a special way of contacting him, and he shows up where I request him to. He doesn’t make me go to his place because of how tricky it is to get there. He doesn’t want me getting lost,” Fluttershy explained.
“Oh,” Rainbow shrugged a little, “That’s convenient. Anyway, let’s dig in!”
Fluttershy looked down at her half-eaten plate and giggled, “Okay, Dashie.”
The sat down and ate, with Rainbow Dash occasionally making a few bad egg based puns. She even brought up a game of some kind about a evil egg called Flumpty, but Fluttershy disregarded it as silly nonsense. After almost half an hour of this, the two had not only finished eating, but drank most of her orange juice as well.