Perspective

by Flutterpriest

Try, Try Again

I wake up in the morning, just like any other pony would. I get to my hooves, one at a time, make my way to the bathroom, and stare at myself in the mirror. I eye my massive frizz of pink bedhead and the dark circles around my eyes from another night of poor sleep, then finally look into my eyes. The cyan eyes that I look at every morning, the ones that stare back at me with the same questions I ask myself.

Who am I fooling anymore?

My name is Fluttershy, and I don't have a heart.

It was ripped out of me in a five pronged clutch of a lost soul who I can never hope to attain. His attack was quick, merciless, and the sweetest numbness that I've ever experienced. The posture of his confidence numbed my skin for operation. The smile that curled on the edges of his lips cut the skin and his cool tone of voice had my heart in its clutches before I could even breathe.

When he first came to Equestria, my whole world changed. I've never dealt with the concept or even idea of romance before. In some ways, there was never time. Taking care of animals is a full time business. You never know when one may fight another. An animal might get sick, one could get lost, or even worse. My job in Ponyville is to care for each and every animal in their own way.

And Anon was the first to make me question my life's calling. As I knew well, better than any other pony, Anon isn't a creature, or critter, or animal, or any of the other sort. He's a human. He can understand our words and speak back to us in proper conversation. He has likes and dislikes. He can perform tasks for work, and has a self-awareness that other animals don't share. While most animals can serve as pets or create homes in the wild, they cannot fully integrate into our society and form their own lives for themselves.

Anon is different.

He, in exception for shape, was no less alive and aware than a Diamond Dog, Griffin, or any other Pony. But, in this world, appearances are everything. And the human, is an animal. An animal, that I am hopelessly, mercilessly, painfully in love with. And so my eyes stare back at me in the mirror, and I ask myself a single question: 'How long can I keep trying?'

---

I sit at my kitchen table, a bowl of oatmeal sitting in front of me. Oatmeal seems to have three temperatures. Molten lava, just right, and frozen solid. Which, frankly, speaks to me. I take a spoon of my breakfast and lift it to my mouth. The searing temperature burns the skin on the roof of my mouth and I instantly spit it back into the bowl. Taking a sip of water, I stir the food absent-mindedly, a hoof on my chin.

It didn't always used to be this way. What happened to the days of building up over an hour of confidence to walk up to him and say 'Hi'? What happened to the days of asking if he'd like help choosing a pet? What happened to the days of asking him to dance at a Pinkie Party?

The days and memories feel so distant and forgotten, like a friend that forgets to keep in touch after moving away, or a one-time lover who's name you never knew. Cold. Distant. Forgotten. An icy chill washes over your mind as you work through your logic in your head again.

Rarity says that Sex Appeal captures a stallion's interest. And I was background noise to him.

First, I started with swaying my hips more when I was around him, hoping he would stray his eyes my direction, silently, as if he thought he was sneaking glances when I didn't know. But I did know, and he did not watch. I tried talking to him more, I let him talk about things he was passionate about, and it backfired on me.

He was so handsome when he was focused. When Anon talked about something he loves, there was a light in his eyes, a spring in his step, a worldly wonder that I couldn't possibly touch, for fear of breaking its fragile form. There was a genuine quality to him that I've never seen before in any stallion. What I saw, was what he was, and what I see, is what he is.

However, the world has a funny way of working.

As I sat back and listened to his concerns, listened to his stories of Earth and life long lost, I became more than background noise. I became a friend. I became a trusted confidant. I became close to him. But, I did not become loved. I was still unloved. I am...unloved.

I blink my eyes and stir my oatmeal before lifting a bite to my mouth. The heat finally dissipated from the meal as I chewed my breakfast. Now... things are different.

After becoming just his friend, I was encouraged to come onto him again. Peer pressure, I believe it's called. At the time, my friends didn't seem too concerned that he wasn't a pony. He had became friends with all of us. I sat on his lap once, on a crowded couch. He didn't get the hint. I pretended to fall asleep on him once. He didn't get the hint.

I asked him to carry me home once from a party, feigning too much alcohol. He didn't get the hint. And... I wasn't sure what else I could do. The suggestions my friends had for me were failing, and I knew I needed to do something. I had to step back and re-evaluate my situation.

Anon is a human. He's not a pony. Humans are animals, scientifically speaking. And, while some animals mate for life, there is courtship involved. There's various ways to have an animal fall in love with another animal. The color of the fur, the color of the feathers, the sound of their voice, their songs, their eyes.

Anything could have provided a key to winning a human's heart, but I didn't know where to start. I figured... the best thing I could do was be open, honest, and direct. Be assertive. Overcome my fears. Be the pony I wanted to be. I told him... that I loved him.

I take a bite of oatmeal, and it was cold, pressing itself deeper into the raw burns inside my mouth. I welcome the pain, invite it in like an unexpected reunion of a lost friend. I wipe a tear from my eye.

---

I grab my bag and make my way, one hoofstep at a time, towards Anonymous's home. I don't know when it began. I'm not sure how it started, but after that day, it's like something snapped inside of me. I knew my actions. I had full awareness of what I was doing. I went to his house, every day, to tell him that I loved him.

That I loved him so much. That I had dreams of being curled up together by the fireside. Dreams of walking down sandy beaches and feeling the cold water wash under my hooves, watching little crabs scuttle towards the ocean foam. That I thought, every day, of the contours of his face. He was kind, at first.

But, his patience thinned.

Soon, he tried not opening his door, but that did not stop me. He is an animal. And I knew I could court him, if I tried hard enough. Just as other species of animal could woo others, I could charm Anonymous.

I tried bringing him gifts. Flowers, Perfumes, Poetry, Meals, Baked Goods, Sweets, even occasional Jewelry. All of which failed. I brought him medicine when he was sick. I brought him warm soup in the snow. I brought him clothes when he ran out of bits. And sometimes... he'd even thank me. But, I did not feel he owed me. I did not feel like he was mine.

I wanted him to see... that if I loved him... maybe he could see a way to love me. But it didn't happen.

I never watched him through windows, or followed him through marketplaces, or tried to drug him at parties. Nothing so drastic. But... I did decide that... maybe a more primal touch would be necessary. I began to offer more than just my servitude. My love.

It took me a while to work the courage, but I offered myself to him. And I was refused.

I only blurrily remember the first time it happened. I stood on his doorstep, doing my best to use the lines I read from a romance novel Twilight lended me, but he slammed the door in my face.

Why? Was I ugly? Was my body not satisfying? Was it because I was a pony? I still don't know.

But now, I trot down this path, unsure of who I'm fooling anymore. I'm... unloveable. Nopony wants me, or my body. Is that why I so desparately fling myself at the human I want more than anything else? To feel wanted? To feel like I have some sort of worth?

I don't deserve him. He exists high on a pedestal that I placed him on, and now, my wings are too weak and tired to fly.

I step on his front porch, my voice cracking and eyes watering. I take a minute to clean myself up with the inside of my wing, that way, he won't see my turmoil. I knock three times. The same greeting, every time. I hear him groan from the other side. I don't cry at this anymore. After enough papercuts, you grow used to the pain.

He opens the door, and stares down at me with disdain. I avert my eyes, trying not to lose my composure.

"What?" he asks in a low, threatening voice.

"I... uhm."

"What? What fetish is it this time?" he asks cutting me off.

"Uhm..."

"Out with it," he says.

"I. Uhm."

And suddenly my guess for the day was gone. My time was gone, the time had passed. My friendship to the only human in town had turned to the cold form of inedible oatmeal. In that moment, I suddenly realized that I wasn't fooling anypony anymore.

I was barely fooling myself.

Anon wouldn't love me. He never would. I am unloved. I am unable to be loved. I will never be loved.

Tears formed in my eyes as I looked up to him, trying to hold back the groundswell within me.

"I love you," I said weakly, in a tone that sounded like a child trying to raise a parent who flatlined.

He grunted.

"Go home, Fluttershy. It's not funny anymore," he says.

And slammed the door in my face.

I felt a part of myself leave on that doorstep, a small fraction of my being fell to the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces, watering his flowerbed and welcome mat. In that moment, I felt myself die.

But, I turned myself, and followed the same trail back to my home, in a state of undead. Too tired, broken, and exhausted to be alive. Still too much life within me to be dead. I take a deep breath and shake my head, composing in my head a list of things to do today.

I only wonder what his perspective of this all might look like. Is it some sort of comedy? Some sort of game? Am I just some sort of nuisance, marring his peaceful, quiet life in Equestria? If I were gone, would he finally be happy?

I shook my head.

'Silly Fluttershy, don't think those things. Afterall, there's always tomorrow.'

Comments

[Lucky Seven]

First!

Just kidding, that was revenge for you doing it on my story, this story was pretty good, Priesty-pie

[Inucroft1]

Ah, i see you've moved this into it's own story.

[Flutterpriest]

7329044
It just... Feels too out of place in the original.

[nobody_in_particular]

Aww, that's so sad! I know a lot of people in the comments say that Fluttershy has problems and such, but I think this story shows more than they were able to see before.

[goaway]

[Lupus]

Poor Flutters...
i.giphy.com/Om2E6LgIWy8GA.gif

[Isumo1489]

7329049

Ah damn, almost makes you want to see if Fluttershy might finally figure out what she's doing wrong. I mean, the fetish thing, it's a fun gag if not taken too seriously, but this is straight up painful. Makes me wonder if, in all honesty, she just doesn't figure out any other way that DOESN'T involve that to connect with Annon and make her intentions clear. And if he really doesn't feel the same, to seek help about how to move forward without him. I dunno, I mean I've been through heartbreak myself a few times, it ain't easy and never ends well. But at least in my case, I had enough sense to bring in outside perspective and let them help me when I had no idea what to do. Kinda wish Flutters would get that kinda help now.

[The Bricklayer]

Ouch, never read the original but this story really makes me feel for poor Flutters here.

[EbonHaste]

Somebody help me get off this roller coaster ride of feels pls! No more! Pls!

[fastnbulbous]

Emotional takes on "joke" stories always really tug at my heartstrings for an inexplicable reason. You're going to make me cry. :(

[Vitae]

Well I think one of her (and all the ponies') problems is that to consider a sentient being a animal is to seriously piss them off.
So forwards with asking the intimate questions but leaving out the most obvious ones that she's even asked herself before?

This shows that the ponies see him as a animal and even she is unconsciously doing this by not asking the simplest and most obvious reasons that he wouldn't return her feelings.

In short, ponies be racist.

[Skizzer64555]

I'm starting to think anonymous is the douche bag here, I mean she was clearly on her last leg here, and he still slams the door in her face, like it won't matter

[nothingtoseehere]

The blue cyan eyes that I look at every morning, the ones that stare back at me with the same questions I ask myself.

Blue and cyan mean pretty much the same thing.

The posture and pose of his confidence numbed my skin for operation.

Again, same thing. I mean, I get what you're trying to say: the substance was just as sweet as the shadow; the waking just as damnably intoxicating as the dream. It's just kind of clunky. And less purple.

had my heart in it's clutches before I could even breathe.

Its. It's means it is.

When Anon talked about something he loves, there's a light in his eyes, a spring in his step, a worldly wonder that I couldn't possibly touch, for fear of breaking it's fragile form.

Dude. Dude. You're killing me here. Also the verb tense doesn't agree between talked, loves, there's, and couldn't.

I became a trustee.

This is technically not wrong, but I think you mean more confidante than legal representative. Or not. Maybe she's some kind of duly appointed officer of the court in her spare time.

I welcome the pain, invite it in like an unexpected reunion of a lost friend. I wipe a tear from my eye.

CRAAAAWLING IN MY SKIIIIN

I take a minute to clean myself up with the inside of my wing, that way, he won't see my toil.

Toil means work. It has the same root as till, as in till the soil. Do you mean turmoil? Sorrow? Weakness?

I don't cry to this anymore.

At maybe?

Well shit, man. Goddamn. If I ever get to Equestria? If Celestia's sun is the light at the bottom of the bottle? First thing I do is gonna be to find Fluttershy and just hug the shit out of that horse. I mean, like, I'm gonna exercise my nuclear hug option. Motherfuckers from miles around are gonna feel that hug. You can bank on that shit.

This story reminds me of a quote from the book Purity of Blood by Arturo Perez y Reverte:

"I felt, and I wonder if you will truly know what I mean, like a man run through with a dagger: that I would live as long as it was not pulled out, and that removing it would kill me."

The passage it's from describes the first meeting of the narrator and hero of the book with the daughter of his sworn enemy and the eventual cause of his downfall. Thing is, he knows all this: knows who she is, what it means, and how it's going to end. And still, even knowing, he can't help himself. He embraces fate, turns his neck to the killing blow, because sometimes the heart wants what it wants, and be damned if a body can stop it.

Fluttershy... I feel for Fluttershy. I truly do. Yeah, I lurk around the threads sometimes, mostly waiting for that fucker Nebulus to finish that Bonbon thing, and I laugh at the continual failure of her neverending quest for the HMD, and it's all in good fun. But reading a story like this where it's all played straight; it makes me wonder. Is Fluttershy just a silly little poneh, consumed by fetishistic lust for the resident pan-demensional monkey man? Or is she an otherwise normal person caught up in the drama of someone else's story, a mare looking for the strength to either carry on or pull the dagger out, come what may? I dunno. It just makes me think, is all.

Still, I'm gonna hug the shit out of that horse.

[AMuffinlover]

Wait so the dream sequence is canon?

[Dragonskyt]

This is sad...

But then I remembered I read the Stockholm Syndrome Arc ten minutes ago.

I don't feel anything.

[Alexshy]

This really should be read as a cycle:
First - Fluttershy Wants in Your Pants
Second - This
Last - My Special Somepony (I personally prefer Love ending)

[forbloodysummer]

They're both so good at making each other unhappy

[Rotiyaz]

I wanted to ask why Anon doesn't just talk to Fluttershy about it, but then I realized that this is someone else's interpretation of Anon.

[IronTitan]

Once again I understand how anon feels but I also understand how fluttershy feels completely that's how I felt about myself every day for the past 7 years from 7th grade all the way to now

[Spazz Kid]

God dammit, now I'm sad!

10/10
Would read again, but that would make me cry.