In Her Own Skin

by mayorlight

Chapter 3

The following day at the animal shelter, Fluttershy took Cecil with her to back to an empty office while Sugarcoat cleaned his terrarium. The snake tasted the air curiously as Fluttershy carefully placed him around her shoulders. After closing the door behind her, she fished her smartphone out of her pocket and brought up one of her favorite belly dance songs.

Cecil regarded the string and percussion instrumental curiously. Contrary to popular belief, snakes, despite their lack of visible ears, were not deaf. Although they did not process sounds the same way humans did, they were capable of hearing low-frequency airborne sounds and were especially sensitive to vibrations. Coupled with their acute sense of touch, they were able to feel the slightest shift in the ground beneath them.

Fluttershy channeled her geode's power as she gently whispered to Cecil.

"Um...you're going to feel a little bit of movement, but don't be alarmed."

Keeping her shoulders level, she began to slowly undulate her abdominal muscles. For several bars, she pulled her belly up, out, down, then back in (Pinkie Pie once likened the motion to 'your belly button riding on a Ferris wheel'). When Cecil gave no outward reaction, she proceeded to slowly circle her hips. Now the snake registered a tiny bit of surprise, but his alarm lasted for only a few seconds. Throughout the song, she lifted, dropped and shimmied her hips, gradually increasing her speed to match the tempo. Cecil was no doubt aware of her movements but did not emit any signals of distress. If anything, he was probably curious about what she was doing. By the end of the song, he seemed completely at ease resting on her shoulders.

Fluttershy whispered to Cecil once more through her geode.

"I'll be doing the same thing very soon with um, louder music and some...people watching. Would you...accompany me?" To her surprise, Cecil craned his body around so that he could look directly at her. She hesitated for a moment before adding "Please?"

Fluttershy stilled her breathing as Cecil regarded her with his small, dark beady eyes. He seemed to be mulling over her request, not even flickering his tongue. She wondered if he could sense the quickening beating of her heart. After what seemed like an eternity, he gave off an affirmative vibe.

Fluttershy smiled as she gently ran her fingers over his scales.

"Oh, thank you so much."

***

Over the next couple of days, things fell into place rather quickly.

As it turned out, Canterlot High School's gymnasium was available the Saturday after next. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were both very enthusiastic about the event and happily agreed to oversee it. Dean Cadance likewise agreed to attend in support of her students, as did Chiffon Veil and several members of the adult belly dance class. Shining Armor was more than ready to help his sister. Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Sunset Shimmer readily volunteered to help with set up the gym, sell tickets and usher. Applejack even asked her brother Big Macintosh if he could help Shining Armor with "security," to which he agreed with his usual subdued enthusiasm. As always, DJ Pon3 jumped at the chance to serve as their sound engineer.

Fluttershy spent the next week rehearsing group routines with her friends and her own solo number. Every day that she came into the shelter, she spent a little extra time with Cecil, playing various belly dance songs and getting him accustomed to being on her shoulders as she danced. Given her longtime, steadfast support of the shelter, the director easily approved her request to take Cecil the morning of the event, although she did not share any specifics about how the snake would be assisting her that day.

The afternoon before the event, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie stopped by the Sweet Shoppe for smoothies. A few days earlier, Mr. and Mrs. Cake had given them permission to put up a flyer for the event at the front entrance. The flyer, created by Pinkie and Sunset Shimmer, featured an abstracted silhouette of a belly dancer and cited the date, time and location of the event. Each of the girls had also made sure to post the flyer on their MyStable accounts. Today, the entire cafe was abuzz with talk about it.

"Belly dancing?"

"Isn't that the one with the grass skirts?"

"That's hula."

"I thought it was that Bollywood stuff."

"Nah, that's something different altogether."

"Check it out," exclaimed Snails as he lifted up his shirt. "Truffle shuffle!"

Several students laughed as Snails wiggled about like a pink elephant out of an alcohol-induced fever dream. Snails joined in with a crude mimicry of the (in)famous "Streets of Cairo" (AKA "There's a Place in France") tune as he raised his hands level with his shoulders and slid his head from side to side.

"Nyah-nyah-nyaaa-nyaaa-nyaaa!"

Pinkie laughed while Twilight and Fluttershy quietly tuned out their classmates' antics. The flyer had not revealed that they themselves would be the ones performing. Nobody in the cafe could have guessed that three belly dancers were sitting in their midst. Despite the skepticism of some, several of their classmates seemed genuinely curious about the event.

"I've seen it before at a Ren Faire," said Watermelody. "Nothing at all like what we see in the movies."

"The costumes are sooo beautiful," remarked Blueberry Cake.

These responses were very encouraging for Fluttershy, who still felt a tiny bit nervous about performing. Perhaps she really had been making a mountain out of a molehill after all. She happily sipped her banana, orange and strawberry smoothie as she ran through her solo routine in her mind.

***

On the other side of the cafe sat Sweet Leaves and Sandalwood, two mainstays of Canterlot High School's "eco-kid" clique, enjoying their usual Friday afternoon fruit salads. Like a good number of their classmates, they had noticed the belly dance event advertised in the flyer.

"I'm surprised they approved such an event," said Sandalwood through a mouthful of cantaloupe.

"Didn't you hear about the one a couple of weeks ago?"

"No, what was it?"

"It was a recital for a local belly dance studio."

Sandalwood raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Like many of their peers, the only belly dancing they had ever seen was in movies based on the Arabian Nights, campy espionage thrillers, and in cartoonish video games featuring a half-genie protagonist. Sweet Leaves chewed on a grape before continuing their conversation.

"I hear it's really good exercise, kinda like yoga." She paused for a moment before adding, "Why don't we go check it out?"

Sandalwood froze, stopping his fork just short of his mouth. His hesitation was not lost on Sweet Leaves.

"Never figured you for a prude," she giggled. "C'mon, let's go! There's a LOT of percussion in their music. Maybe you'll pick up a beat you can use."

Sandalwood lowered his fork as he considered his friend's suggestion. Even if he did go to the event with Sweet Leaves, part of him could not help but feel like he might be out of place. Still, it was a chance to experience something new, and he always took the opportunity to expand his horizons, especially when it might inspire new beats he could tap on his conga drums. After a moment, he found his tongue once more.

"Sure, why not? It is to help the animal shelter, after all."

Author's Note:

Thank you all for your patience as I completed this chapter. Between starting a new job and babysitting the best niece ever, RL has been crazy of late.

Although I had previously written Fluttershy literally talking to animals through her geode in The Monkey Business, I opted for a more subtle interpretation in this story.

Part of the scene at the Sweet Shoppe was originally written for Our Principal Is A Belly Dancer before I decided to focus on Principal Cinch as the sole hostile audience member.

Comments

[The Bricklayer]

So the school's interested. Things are going great, is it wrong if I'm cynical enough to wonder when the other shoe's going to drop?

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

9870691
Nah, I'm kind of on a similar page myself. I keep expecting some complication to spring up, but I'm just not sure what yet...

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Solid work as always! Definitely glad to see another installment of this story, and I'm interested to see what'll happen with Fluttershy and Cecil next.

[Jedi Wolf]

I wonder if the junior class will soon see a rise in members.

[Monty Eggman]

Pretty interested to see where things will go with the snake... and also this Sandalwood guy.

[Miss Vixen]

Another new chapter and another song I can't track down, "Streets of Cairo" (AKA "There's a Place in France"). I don't know if I have just bad luck or what, or is it also called "The Poor Little Country Maid" because I kept getting that one. Sauce for the song you're referring to please.

[mayorlight]

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