Suddenly, Fluttershy

by Nehem

Chapter 7 - Of Cars and Dragons

Almost two hours have passed since you left your house to go shopping, that’s what the clock on your phone is telling you anyway. You’ve never had to deal with window replacement before, so your former estimate of “not too long” was just a tad inaccurate. At least they’ll be able to replace it today; that’s a miracle straight out of fiction. The crisp winter air caresses your face as you walk through the exit of the store and pocket your phone.

You open the door to your car and deposit the bags of groceries inside. As you remove the plastic bags of various sizes and weight from the shopping cart, you curiously observe the somewhat greenish bale of hay that sits in the back of your vehicle. Yeah, that’s something you never imagined you’d buy. You also never imagined just how cheap it would be. On this day full of surprises, that one was a pleasant one.

A yawn escapes your mouth as you climb into the driver’s seat. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll fall asleep while driving ba- okay no. You can’t die here, your vacation is almost over and you already used up all of your sick days. Not to mention the whole “cartoon pony in your house” thing.

Alright, maybe a nap when you get back might be a good idea. You don’t usually consider suicide unless it’s monday morning and you’re out of coffee. Luckily you’ve already forgotten about your morbid idea to escape doing work by the time you exit the parking lot. Before you know it, your house is within your range of sight, giving you a sense of relaxation and telling you that your chores for the day are almost over.

---

“So, you have carriages that are able to move on their own?”

You nod in affirmation, unpacking the last of your groceries for the week.

“I guess you could call them carriages. We call them cars, though. Funny enough, some parts of a car’s power is measured in ‘horsepower’, though.” you state, giving a small laugh at your own attempt at humor.

Fluttershy holds a blank expression for but a moment before letting out a small giggle of her own. Good, you were hoping that “horse” wasn’t some kind of racial slur in Equestria. Who knows, maybe it is and Fluttershy here has more of an offensive sense of humor than one might think.

“That seems like an odd measurement, honestly.”

You shrug.

“Well, we did and still do use horses to do a lot of our work, it’s probably some historical relic of a bygone era or something of the like.”

The slight look of amusement on the mare’s face fades as a look of contemplation replaces it.

“You said before that in your world horses are just animals. If you use them for work, is that what you were worried about happening to me if I were to go out?”

You’d rather not think of what would happen if word about her existence were to spread, but you do your best to assuage her worries without bringing up any of the possible morbid outcomes.

“I doubt that. Honestly, I bet most of the people around here would probably just like to talk to you, maybe give you some food, a scratch behind the ear, and tell you how cute you are.”

A smirk grows on your face when she blushes with a look of disbelief at your last few words.

“Relax,” you say with a chuckle. “I’m just messing around. People around here are nice. They’d respect your wishes and decisions. That’s an advantage to living in a neighborhood where the majority of the population is retired grandparents. I’m just paranoid, overprotective, and really have no idea what I’m doing. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve never had smaller siblings or a child…”

Now you just hope you didn’t insult her. Sure, you may not mind being compared to an ape, but most people probably don’t like being compared to a small, cute animal. On top of that, this is a small pony who could have their feelings hurt more easily than usual. Not to mention this is Fluttershy, yadda yadda yadda…

With a sigh, you add on to your last statement. “Sorry about that, I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings. I know you aren’t just some weak animal. I don’t mean to try to play the victim here, but this whole thing is pretty jarring for me. I’m just trying to keep a positive atmosphere around here while we figure things out. Cultural barriers are a real bitch, y’know?”

Fluttershy, blush already faded from her face, smiles warmly.

“It’s okay, I understand what you mean. I really don’t know a lot about you… or even this world.”

You relax a bit. Considering her nature, you don’t know if Fluttershy would truly let it be known if she was offended or not, but right now, she seems genuine.

“I guess we’ll just have to keep learning from each other, huh?” You ask, having mutually walked with her back to your recreational room with her in tow.

“I would enjoy that, I think. We got to talk to each other during breakfast, but there is only so much you can find out in one meal.”

Sitting down on one end of the couch, you respond.

“Yeah, you’re right. Hey, at least we skipped the dating and decided to live together, that makes everything move a lot faster!”

You can’t help but chuckling again when Fluttershy’s face heats up again and she freezes in place.

“Kidding, kidding! There, that’s one thing you can know about me; I enjoy being a nuisance.”

Yet again the mare recovers from your lack of tact and sits down on the other available armchair to the right of where you are sitting. This time, she manages to laugh it off as well. For once, you resist the urge to go even further and tell her that she is actually pretty cute when she’s flustered. You’ll just have to slowly ease her into the torture that is being around you.

You look at the clock, noting the time. It won’t be long before it’s time for your window to be repaired. Looking back at your housemate, you see that she’s just looking around the room, probably contemplating the current situation.

“Well,” you begin, “No time like the present. We’ve got about an hour before the window gets repaired, want to talk until then?”

Fluttershy shifts her focus off of one of your wall’s knick knacks and looks to you.

“Sure, I’m okay with that if you want to. Would you like me to start, or..?”

The pegasus trails off, waiting for your response. As much as you’d love to hear more about Equestria and mentally prove some really stupid headcanons wrong, it would probably be a lot easier for her if you opened up first.

“I can start if you’d like.” you offer.

Fluttershy seems to relax and nods.

“I’m okay with that.”

You scratch your neck in contemplation.

“Where to start… You know a bit about me, and I know a bit about you, maybe I can get you a bit more accustomed to my world. Let’s start with what country we’re in…”

---

The hour passes a lot quicker than you’d expect. Though you haven’t learned much new stuff about Equestria, Fluttershy has been deeply engrossed in your stories of Earth. You try to sugarcoat as much of the dark history that you can, but the talks of your culture and technological advancements have intrigued her deeply. If she’s this interested, you’d hate to think of what kind of situation you’d be in right now if it were Twilight you were telling all this to.

Fluttershy had taken a particular interest in how developed human settlements are compared to her world. Sure, they had larger modern looking cities such as manehattan, but that was just about it. She wasn’t too fond of the hustle and bustle of the big city herself, but it still managed to grab her attention nonetheless. When you told her how humans have had to make due with what the planet has provided them for medicine, she couldn’t imagine how hard it was to recover from various different things without magic, potions, or magical potions. You decided not to tell her about cancer and how tricky THAT is to get rid of.

In turn, she is now telling you about the many mystical elements of her world and the beings that inhabit it. You’ve feigned surprise throughout a lot of it, but she seems to believe your reactions so far.

“Man, we may not have magic, but your world sure sounds dangerous compared to ours! Dragons are fictional, but most of the time they’re not exactly the kind of thing you’d want to get near.”

You haven’t mentioned the overwhelming military force most nations have, but who knows just how humanity would be right now if it had giant fire breathing monsters that are also sapient roaming around the place.

This time, it’s Fluttershy’s time to smirk.

“You know, I actually faced off against a dragon once.”

You think you know what she’s talking about, but you humor her anyway.

“Really now? I’d like to have seen that.”

Her smirk slowly turns into a smug grin.

“I didn’t even have to lift a hoof to make him leave, either. All I had to do was stare straight into his eyes and give him a good scolding!”

You do your best not to crack up at how proud she is of her accomplishment. It’s just funny to see her so smug about triumphing over someone else. Though you can’t say that you’d have the guts to face something at least ten times your own size without a weapon of any kind.

“Well goddamn, that’s pretty good! Just remind me to stop teasing you in the future, okay? I don’t want to get on the bad side of a dragon slayer.”

The two of you share a good laugh. Despite it only being a little less than an hour, you can say that you feel much less awkward around her now. Hopefully she can say the same about you. Eventually the laughter dies down, and she speaks again.

“Dragons were one of my biggest fears. Really, they still are…”

Adjusting yourself in your seat, you lean in a bit.

“I’m not gonna lie when I say that it must have taken a lot of courage to do that. What happened that lead you to do it, anyway?”

You already know the answer.

“It was going to hurt my friends. When it happened, something came over me… I don’t really know what, but I just kind of acted without thinking. I had to save them. I didn’t want to see them hurt…”

Hearing her say that makes it seem so much more impactful than the show made it out to be. You hear about it all the time on the news, but it isn’t too often you get to hear it first hand from someone it happened to. It also isn’t often that you get to hear their side of the story after seeing it from a third person point of view.

“I’d say that’s a very… noble thing to do. I hope that I’d do the same thing to protect those that I care about if push ever came to shove.”

Fluttershy’s expression brightens a bit again after hearing what you have to say.

“I don’t like conflict though. I’d much rather just enjoy a nice day either by myself or with my close friends.”

Leaning back and sprawling out a bit, you throw your opinion in as well.

“Yeah, I’m not a big fan of loud commotion either. I’d much rather just take it easy and take life as it comes.”

The sudden ring of your doorbell cuts the conversation at a decent stopping point.

“Guess that’s the repairmen. Do you mind staying back here for a bit while I take care of things?”

Though a bit reluctantly, Fluttershy complies with your request.

“I understand. Do you think it will take too long?”

You seem to have gained at least some amount of trust from the shy pony, and despite being a bit of a loner, having someone to talk to in a strange place is probably preferable to bearing the weight alone. You haven’t wanted Fluttershy to feel alone since she got here, and especially not now that you’ve forged a bond, no matter how small.

You put your hands in your pockets and look down at the floor.

“Honestly I’m not sure. This has never happened to me before. I’ll be sure to come back in as soon as I can, though.”

Her mood seems to lift up a bit, and a small yet bright smile comes back to her face.

“I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Author's Note:

It's still Friday where I am, motherfuckers. I told you I keep my promises. I'll try to have something out within the next two weeks or so.

I'll ramble for a little bit. It's nothing important, so if you don't care, feel free to skip this.

Fluttershy is one of my least favorite characters to write. I can never seem to strike a good balance between "Shy, but not completely incapable of socialization", and "Complete inability to even talk to a rock". I think I did pretty decently here, and hope to keep doing so in the future. I think I've also nailed a pretty decent characterization for our protagonist here, and I think it'll make for a fun time in later parts of the adventure.
As stated before, this was a greentext I wrote for /mlp/ back in 2014, then I remade it in 2016. I've read over it and honestly, I think it's more of a shitfest than the first one. I'm still using the remake as a reference for what to do, but the storyline is going to need a major overhaul. I've been working on the same story for five years, so let's hope to god that the third time's the charm.

EDIT: Made a few changes to reduce redundancy.

See ya later, my fellow spladoodles. 👍

Comments

[Dashfriend]

Good to have you back
In my opinion Fluttershy works pretty well here, since she's only talking to one person who is also more like an "animal" to her it's plausible that she's not extremely shy.
I'm wondering how all the little lies and secrets that anon keeps from her will play out.

[DiamondKittyCat]

Great chapter.

[Ghost2003]

Remake of this story https://ponepaste.org/2284

[Nehem]

11009561
Oh hey, you found it! I was gonna make a blog post about this and might still, but since you posted it, I'd might as well explain myself. First up is what you linked. That is a remake if a story that I wrote in 2014. If you read the remake and compare it to what I wrote on here, you will probably see that it is pretty much the same, just in prose and with a few extra things added. That's because this story was just going to be that one but in prose. Converting that over however, meant I would have to read it. Let me just say, I'm not a big fan of my own work, and often times I begin seeing flaws that I wish to correct. Well, this time I began seeing a lot of flaws I didn't like in terms of the storyline as a whole. One thing lead to another and before I knew it, that story became a reference for a remake that would be put on here. I began to overthink stuff and get overwhelmed, and then I went to the store to buy cigarettes and never came back. I really don't have a lot in life keeping me from writing right now, so maybe I might just continue converting this to prose and post it here, even if it means living in a constant state of cringe while doing so.

[Ghost2003]

It is a pretty cute story 💛 fluttershy is my favorite

[ItsYaBoiSatan]

"I'll be back as soon as possible."

*Leaves us and never come back*
"Bruh"

[nt_nacht]

God damn it, he died didn't he?

[Lunar_Flare6234]

“I guess we’ll just have to keep learning from each other, huh?” You ask, having mutually walked with her back to your recreational room with her in tow.

"Mutually" and "with her in tow" are redundant.

“I’m not gonna lie when I say that it must have taken a lot of courage to do that. What happened that lead you to do it, anyway?”

Led