A Wrong-Sized Tail

by Impossible Numbers

The Tail

At Carousel Boutique, late enough in the evening for the sky to burn itself out, Fluttershy stood in one of the changing cubicles. The curtain was drawn.

Rarity had also shut up shop, locked the front door, barred it, put the shutters up, and drawn down every blind she could find. As much as Fluttershy knew it was as necessary as putting a padlock around a piggybank in a safe and then burying it, she hadn’t always had a sense of proportion over this issue and was just calmed – a little bit – by seeing Rarity take it so seriously.

Just like old times. And even back then, Fluttershy had fainted the first time she’d tried this.

Now the curtain rustled as Rarity joined her in the cubicle. Suddenly, her face was all business. The orange glasses signalled as such; Rarity wore them to do her most important design work.

Fluttershy gulped.

“All right,” Rarity said, as business-like as the glasses. “You’re sure about this?”

“No. Let’s do it anyway.”

“If you’re not sure, just say the word –”

“Please? I have to try.”

“Very well. Let the record show I did give you an out.”

Business gave way to a sort of bedside manner in Rarity’s voice, and once more Fluttershy marvelled at how no-nonsense the fashion expert could become. She herself saw nothing but nonsense. So much nonsense it was all she could do not to bolt in shame…

“Fluttershy, dear, I’m taking the extensions off, all right?”

“Mm hm,” was all she managed.

“Excellent… three, two, one… now.”

There was a click. Fluttershy’s tail suddenly didn’t tug so much on her dock with its weight.

She was out, she was out, she was out, out, out, out right in front of Rarity! No matter how many years she’d been doing this, how often Rarity never spoke like anything but an unfazed professional, she, Fluttershy, still bit her lip against the urgent and frantic desire to faint, escape, get well away…

Drily, Rarity said, “I think you’ll want to turn your head if you intend to look at your reflection.”

Fluttershy turned her head, enough so she could see the reflection behind her.

“And open your eyes, please. I think it’s best to get this over with.”

Fluttershy opened one eye, enough so she did see the reflection behind her.

There. She’d done it. The other eye opened without hope.

She looked fine up above and down to her hooves her tail was too short. Her mane curled freely and even elegantly her tail was too short around her face, where her eyes watered in a way Rarity would surely call demure her tail was too short. Her wings slid across her coat, preened to perfect points along her pinions her tail was too short. Her hooves sparkled her tail was too short. Her haunches seemed the right size her tail was too short. Her legs her tail was too short. Her withers her tail was too short. Her… Her tail was too short too short too short!

All she could do was force herself to stare.

Her tail was too short.

No. No good. She looked away from it.

Before she’d gone to Rarity, long ago, she’d seen a doctor about her tail.

A tail like that: supposing it was a disease she didn’t know about? She’d closed her eyes the entire time she’d been inspected there too, silently apologizing for ruining the doctor’s day and wasting her – thank goodness the doctor had been a her – wasting her time.

Nothing dangerous, the doctor had said happily. In fact, there was no disease. The tail was most likely a simple genetic quirk, perhaps a little odd compared to most tails, but tails that stayed short were nothing to worry about. Growth slowed and stopped past a certain amount, but there were easy ways around it if it was distressing her. Did she know anyone in the family with a similar problem? Yes? A grandmother, you say? Don’t worry, Miss Fluttershy. Lots of mares have short tails, even in… oh, say, the fashion industry.

Fluttershy had left, convinced the doctor was lying. She’d started reading fashion magazines by then. The mares always had long, luxurious tails.

Admittedly, that was at the same time she’d learned about tail extensions, but back then she’d been too slow to connect the dots.

And the “nothing to worry about” tail was right there. Where Rarity could see it.

Fluttershy forced herself to look again, neck straining.

Her tail was too short.

It looked like someone had hacked it off close to the dock. Fluttershy never got it to behave, no matter what battery of brushes and arsenal of accessories she fought it with. The thing made her want to be sick. How could a doctor look at that and say it was healthy? Yet Fluttershy couldn’t stop staring at it, because anything, anything was better than seeing Rarity’s face and knowing that she could see it too.

Her tail was too short.

Fluttershy herself could see the extensions hovering nearby, under Rarity’s magic. She wanted to seize them and cover up everything, screaming at Rarity to look away.

Her tail was too short.

She bit her lip hard and forced herself to keep staring.

Her-tail-was-too-short.

“Now,” said Rarity, and the sheer professionalism in her tone made Fluttershy feel two years young again, “I’d recommend a new-fashioned Twining Tweed, it’s all the rage in Canterlot at present and has the advantage of granting a rural charm to the piece, but Cosmare magazine insists the Deluxe Derriere is the cosmetic of choice. Ahem, I have here a selection of tail decorations –”

Her-tail-was-too-short.

The tray drifted into view. Still, Fluttershy stared at her own jagged tail, dimly noting the multitude of colours nearby.

Her-tail-was-too-short.

“– and as much as I appreciate you have your own eye for detail and it’s ultimately your choice, I would nevertheless be remiss if I did not recommend the addition of these dark clips –”

Her-tail-was-too-short. Her-tail-was-too-short.

“– which not only will maintain the integrity of the hairs –”

Her-tail-was-too-short-her-tail-was-too-short-her-tail-was-too-short.

“– but in my opinion add a necessary accent to the general –”

Her-tail-was-too-short-her-tail-too-short-was-her-tail-too-tail-too-her-too-tail-too-short-TOO-SHORT-TOO-SHORT-TOO-SHORT-TOO-SHORT –

“Rarity-I-changed-my-mind-I-don’t-want-to-do-this!” blurted out Fluttershy.

Her legs were shaking.

Why? She shouldn’t be losing control now! It was stupid.

She heard Rarity lower her glasses; the slight stroke of frame on muzzle sounded like a body dragged over a carpet. “You’re sure?”

“Yes! Please! Right now!”

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you, went Fluttershy’s mind. Rarity brought the old tail extensions closer and sent the tray away.

Yet a small part of Fluttershy curled up in shame. She’d almost beaten it this time. “Almost” wasn’t good enough.

One magical flash later – Fluttershy shut her eyes tight – she opened them again to see her tail long, whole, and rolling across the ground.

“I’m sorry, Rarity!” She choked on the words.

“Come now, no need to be sorry.” Rarity patted her on the shoulder. “I thought you did splendidly. You’ve made marvellous progress.”

“I thought I was on top of it, but it just keeps creeping over –”

“And now you’re controlling it. Last time, you barely looked at yourself in the mirror. We should celebrate our triumphs, should we not?”

Panic subsiding deep inside her furiously pumping chest, Fluttershy let it rise up and out in a long, drawn-out sigh of relief. Her tail was back. The curtains opened. She was free to go.

“This is stupid,” she said.

“The ‘this’ is not you. You’re the one fighting ‘this’, remember?”

“I wish I hadn’t dragged you into ‘this’, Rarity, whatever ‘this’ is.”

Rarity even laughed with class. “Oh, I’m like a vampire, dear. Invite me into your castle, and in that castle I’ll stay. At least you’ll get an intruder who knows how to wear tasteful evening dress, n’est-ce pas?”

The hateful tremble crept upon Fluttershy’s lips. She couldn’t control that.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she whined.

“Oh, Fluttershy. You’re just coming down from the shock, that’s all. I’ll make us a nice cup of lemon tea and you’ll feel right as rain again, how does that sound?”

Fluttershy utterly struggled not to let her lip tremble. “Rarity, I’m so –”

A gentle but firm hoof covered her mouth.

“Tea first. You’ll feel better. Is that understood?”

Mutely, Fluttershy nodded. The hoof removed itself.

They climbed the stairs to Rarity’s workshop – Fluttershy shuffling like a shamed servant, Rarity striding proud as a countess – and after a few minutes of sitting, shivering, and trying not to stare at anything other than the table top, Fluttershy smelled the lemon tang and reached out for her cup without so much as a word.

Both of them drank in silence, at least for the first few sips. If there was a flaw to Rarity’s unflappable image, it was her tendency to sip like a toilet plunger fighting a blockage.

How did Rarity do it? How did she stay so calm and collected, without even a hint of a smirk?

Probably because all this isn’t her problem, Fluttershy thought bitterly.

Then her brain smacked itself. That was just the shame talking. Rarity was fine, she was fine, it was Fluttershy who didn’t think straight, this whole ordeal proved it.

It had been Rarity, after all, who’d suggested the cunning Tail Extensions Scheme. So long ago…

Fluttershy, after recovering from her faint at the time, had wanted the big tail extensions immediately. Instead, Rarity sat her down – just like this – gave her a sugary cup of tea – er, not like this lemon one – and told her the scheme as though discussing a perfectly ingenious new dress design.

First, Fluttershy would wear subtler extensions, enough to look like the tail had grown a little bit without arousing suspicion.

Then, she’d progress onto longer and longer extensions, once a month, and if anyone asked, she’d tell them it was a late growth spurt. Stranger things had happened, and Rarity had read enough Cosmare magazines to know the dangers of using oversized extensions, and of using them too soon.

Finally, once she’d reached a length that complemented her mane’s own natural growth, she’d be perfect. Sometimes, Rarity would suggest modifications or ply her with embellishments, but the hard part had come and gone. For once, Fluttershy could look at her tail with pride.

Then that Foal Free Press had come out. It had made her come out, without consulting her. Published her secret for all to see.

That had been the End of the World.

Yet to her shock, no one had ever really commented. Ponyville, it turned out, was pretty blasé about that sort of thing. Besides, she and the ponies of the town knew each other well enough by that point. She was Fluttershy the Animal Expert first and foremost, and then Fluttershy the Coward, then Fluttershy the Pretty Model, and so on down a list. Fluttershy the Stubby-Tailed Freak didn’t even make the top hundred.

But it meant that the secret was out there. Any stranger could read it. And if they ever dared to glance at her tail, whether she knew they knew, or they knew she knew they knew, or she knew they knew she knew they knew…

If they ever dared, the old panic lurked nearby. Where she could practically see it.

So the ponies of Ponyville never brought it up. They were OK with it. Really.

Part of Fluttershy sneered. Sure they were.

Angrily, she threw back her tea and tried to drown and swallow the thought. It crept back. They might not say anything, but anyone with a brain is thinking it.

She had no proof. No one said anything. Most of those ponies were friends.

On the outside. What do they say when you’re not around?

Shut up shut up shut up.

She threw back her tea, or would have, except she looked down and saw her cup was empty. She – did not slam it down on the table. Instead, she placed it very carefully on its saucer.

That’s what it was: she was thinking about this wrong. The more she obsessed over her tail – her stumpy, hacked-looking excuse of a tail, a tail so short she could waggle it and it’d look as convincing as a paintbrush in a dog’s mouth –

The more she obsessed over her tail, the worse things got. She couldn’t obsess. She had to think of a way around this.

“Something on your mind, Fluttershy?” said Rarity, but as casual as the words sounded at first, Fluttershy heard the caution, leaning closer like an anxious doctor over her patient.

And to think, Fluttershy had been sitting here, moping…

“I’m… glad you’re my friend, Rarity,” she said. It was a confession. It was just a confession covering something else she didn’t want to confess. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Mucking out a bear’s cave, perhaps?” Even Rarity’s laughter tinkled with elegance, the way a princess might use a bell to summon her maid. “Oh, the pleasure’s all mine, Fluttershy.”

“It’s just you know so much about beauty and how to look good, and I –”

“Have a ‘freaky’ knowledge of sewing, as I recall.”

“I picked that off you.”

“And if I hadn’t been around, I daresay you’d have picked it off somepony else. Although I guarantee they wouldn’t be nearly as accomplished as me at sewing, ahaha. You have the instinct, and I should know.”

That was something else Rarity and vampires had in common: they never really doubted their own charm.

Fluttershy watched that particular thought with suspicion. Was it meant to be a flattering thought, or a stealthy insult? But then this was Rarity. The mare had a tendency to… dramatics. To act. To give the impression she believed in the script, yes, but also to remind ponies that there was a script in the first place. And she’d be just as good if another one came her way.

“Fluttershy dear, relax. I don’t speak idly when I say you have a beauty and grace most models would stampede for.”

“Don’t say things like that,” said Fluttershy coldly. “I know what my tail looks like.”

“Your tail? Ah me. If only you had my eyes, then you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“Rarity…” Her voice was a warning.

“I’m not just saying that, honestly! Forget the tail! You have to see the bigger picture here.”

“What, you mean like ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’?” Less warningly, Fluttershy cleared her throat. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t I? The whole fashion business is about the eye of the beholder. I try to make my dresses meet my standards, yes, but the trick is to see them through the customer’s eyes. Of course, it helps if the customer has an ounce of fashion sense, but I don’t let that stop me!”

Rarity’s cackling laugh was a tad too forced, and thankfully died a painful and awkward death, with much shuffling and sudden reading of tea leaves.

Fluttershy pushed her cup and saucer away. “I really do appreciate all your help, Rarity. I just can’t pretend my tail is pretty like you.”

Too late, she realized how that sounded.

She even heard the caution in Rarity’s words as they approached. “You mean pretty like I ‘pretend’, or pretty like me?”

“Er…” Fluttershy ducked the question. “I meant it’s wrong, and it always will be. I need those extensions.” However pathetic and weak and doomed and hideous that makes me sound, she added privately. “Um… Oh, I don’t know! I need something else.”

As apologetic as Rarity sounded, her tone was still aspiring to Canterlot. “When you say something else, what exactly am I missing?”

“It’s like every time I think about this, all I end up seeing is my own tail and there’s a mirror right in front of me and I can’t look away and –”

Rarity stood up quickly. “Another cup of tea?”

Blinking, Fluttershy looked up. “I’m sorry? What?”

“Fluttershy, you’re getting worked up again. You sound like you need one, if I may be so forward. Another lemon?”

“Oh. Oh, yes. Please. Thank you. Sorry.”

From the sink nearby, Rarity’s voice continued over the rumbling of the kettle. “Just remember you are getting better at it.”

Don’t patronize me, said Fluttershy’s pride. “Thank you,” said Fluttershy’s guilt, which got to her mouth faster.

Rarity was right. She kept obsessing over this, even in her own head. What she needed was a distraction. A distraction, most of all, from the fact that she was infected with this… this… disease and Rarity – for all her help, for all her understanding, for all the near-saintliness that shone as readily as her most splendid dresses – simply wasn’t. It was easy to be kind to ill ponies when you were healthy yourself.

A distraction, then? But she’d tried so many. And yet every time she came to Rarity’s, to someone who knew about beauty inner and outer, they all melted away as if she’d never even tried anything, and… then…

That was it. Rarity was the help, but also part of the problem. She didn’t mean to be. Thanks to her manner, though, in her presence Fluttershy felt like a servant crawling up to a queen. It wasn’t level. It wasn’t encouraging.

The long and the short of it was: Rarity knew the most about beauty. All kinds of beauty…

Maybe there was something Fluttershy knew that she didn’t?

“Rarity?” she called as hoofsteps returned and cups steamed. “Can I… make a proposal?”

“So long as it’s not a wedding one!” Laughter followed the chink of china plates. “Oh, Fluttershy, don’t look like that. I only tease.”

“Mm hm.” Fluttershy shook the rage out, flapping her mane, and hardened to the strength of an eggshell. “We go to the spa once every week. I do enjoy it. Really. I really do. But it’s more… your territory, isn’t it?”

“I always think of it as our territory.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Assume for the moment I’m out at sea. Talk to me until I say ‘land ho!’”

“Um. Yes. Well…” For moral support, Fluttershy sipped the scolding tea, scolding herself under her breath. “It’s more a fashion and beauty sort of thing, but I like other things more. So, if it’s OK with you, would you…? If you’re not busy or anything, I can always set a better time…”

Rarity sipped her drink. “‘Land ho’, I believe, is le mot just. I see what you’re getting at.”

“Would you like to go on a nature walk with me?” Fluttershy immediately dived into her own tea again.

A thoughtful pause and the constant rising steam warmed Fluttershy too much. She looked up, into a face suddenly frozen and cracking at the edges.

“A nature walk?” repeated Rarity.

“Not for long. Whitetail Woods is much nicer than the Everfree Forest. We could go there for an hour or two.”

“A nature walk?”

“I think the evening would be best. The sunset makes the sky look so lovely.”

“A nature walk?”

“We’ll pack some mineral water to keep us hydrated. I know it’s your favourite.”

“I repeat just for clarification, you understand: a… nature… walk?”

Fluttershy watched the ice twitch under one eye. “Yes?” she said.

It took a while, but Rarity’s pout broke through the frostiness. “Can I ask why, exactly?”

“I want to show you something.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“In… nature?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Who finds nature so… icky?”

“Yes! Please!”

“In nature?”

“Please stop staying that. Do you want to or not? I’m asking nicely, and you can just say no.”

In the manner of a hired help suddenly finding the job is week-long and on reduced pay, Rarity swirled her words around her mouth and glanced up as though the ceiling would tell her how they tasted. Fluttershy hoped she’d say yes. That was how this whole thing should go. She was suddenly very sure of that.

To her relief, Rarity downed the last of her tea without even a pretence of ladylike grace. That meant she wasn’t concentrating well enough to act poised.

“D’oh, all right,” Rarity said. “Tomorrow after work. But just this once. I’ll need to find a sacrificial dress to wear. And some spray; it’s horsefly season.”

Now it was Fluttershy’s turn to give a knowing smile, and she dipped her head, and sipped her drink, and wagged her tail under the pressure of pleasure before she even realized she could feel the tips striking the tiles below.

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