Thirty Minutes Shy

by Esle Ynopemos

6: Teacher's Favorite [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: Her most faithful student has started to doubt.))

“Fluttershy, would you please demonstrate for the class the technique we have learned?” A gentle mare whose pink mane was tied in a bun turned toward Fluttershy.

The yellow filly squeaked as dozens of eyes turned toward her. She shrank beneath her mane, trying to bury herself in the clouds while her teacher peered down at her. “Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy shook her head.

Her teacher wore a patient smile. “Please, won't you show the class, sweetie?”

“M—” Fluttershy began, but stopped herself, biting her lip. “Mrs. Posey,” she said, “I can't do it. I'm not strong enough.”

Fluttershy's classmates wouldn't dare laugh at her while Mrs. Posey was there to hear. They had learned that lesson the first day. But she could hear them all biting back their breath. Holding it in. Saving it, for when teacher wasn't around.

Mrs. Posey looked at Fluttershy with a pair of supportive eyes. “You are strong enough, Fluttershy. You just need to try.”

Fluttershy winced. There was no arguing with those eyes. She swallowed hard, and stepped with trembling hooves to the edge of the cloud.

She made the mistake of glancing down at the ground far below. The sudden wave of vertigo made her swoon and nearly fall over. Her mouth went dry and she flicked a bead of sweat off her brow. Her pulse pounded in her teeth.

“F-first, you have to spread your wings, like this.” Her wings did not spread on the first try. Nor the second. Only through the greatest of effort did she manage to coax her wings open.

Fluttershy glanced at the teacher, who nodded at her encouragingly. “Then,” she continued, forcing her wings to stay open. “Then, y-you have to make a little jump, like this...” She shifted her weight onto her rear legs and pushed off of the cloud into the air. For a moment, she remained hovering there, her wings naturally beating against the wind to keep her aloft.

Then her eyes passed over the stares of her classmates. They were all watching her. Waiting for her to fail. One steel-blue filly whispered something to another who looked like she could be her twin. Fluttershy couldn't hear what was being said, but she knew, she just knew it was something about how terrible a flier she was.

'How long 'til she falls?'

'Isn't it so sad, a filly her age still can barely fly?'

'I don't get it. Why is she the teacher's favorite?'

'Heh, I know why...'

All the imagined whispers whirled through Fluttershy's head until there was nothing but a throbbing buzz. Her wings seized up and snapped to her sides, and she plummeted out of the sky like a stone. A panicked squeal followed her down as the cloud shrank away above her.

She landed with a yelp on a soft puff of cloud. Mrs. Posey held the tuft with her hooves, panting from her dive. “You were doing well, sweetie,” she said, beaming at her with pride.

Fluttershy responded with a gurgling sob.

The teacher carried her back up to the class, where Fluttershy spent the rest of the day burying her face in her hooves, trying her best not to hear all the other fillies and colts not-laughing at her. Before long, the bell rang, and she heard the trampling hooves and flapping wings of her classmates leaving.

One set of hooves remained. A wing rested gently on her back. “Fluttershy, dear, it's time to go home.”

Fluttershy looked up into the patient eyes of Mrs. Posey. “Mom,” she said, her voice wavering, “can you please not call on me so much? I... I don't like showing the other kids how weak a flier I am.”

Her mother swept her up in a hug. “Oh, honey, you aren't a weak flier! You just need to give yourself a chance!”

Author's Note:

Not sure... should this be tagged [Sad]?

Comments

[Brakyo]

Personally, I don't think it needs a Sad tag.
So much "D'aww" at the end right there.

[Midnight herald]

I don't think it's so much sad as ... there. There's familial love in it, and you can see just how much Ms. Posey lives Fluttershy, but when that love is actually causing the problems between them, I don't think it's sad in the [sad] tag way. I just think it's sweet and beautiful and painful all at once. But I hang out on the Angst Hotline way too often, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Preferably salt distilled from pony tears.