Fluttershy's Night Out

by Bad Horse

In the evening

It was a slow night at the Carrot and Stick, even for a Tuesday. It was a small, old-fashioned earth pony bar, the kind with timber framing, sawdust on the floor, and one dartboard. A few regulars stood clustered together at the far end of the bar, which was the warmest spot on a chilly evening. They had run out of opinions on what the weather should be next week, the lineup that the Ponyville Plowbusters should use against the Coltwich Coursers in next week's hoofball match, and natural versus artificial fertilizer. They were now nursing their drinks silently, staving off for another few minutes the return to homes that were either uncomfortably empty or uncomfortably full.

One of them, an earth pony stallion with a maple-sugar coat and mane, glanced again to the other, emptier end of the bar, where a yellow pegasus mare sat by herself, her eyes locked with those of her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

She seemed not to notice the occasional blast of cold air when somepony went in or out the door behind her, except to shake her head when it blew her long pink mane into her eyes. Every so often she sipped at her empty glass, or swirled her cinnamon stick to mix the remaining ice cubes with a sound like hooves on gravel. The bartender had long since given up asking her if she wanted a refill.

The stallion called to the unicorn tending the bar, then nodded toward the yellow mare and said something. The bartender nodded, levitated two bottles from the glittering array of liquors on the shelf behind him, and approached the yellow mare with them in tow. She grabbed at her empty glass protectively when the bartender tried to fill it.

"Courtesy of the gent over there," the bartender said, pointing down the bar with his nose. She looked, and the earth pony smiled and tipped his hat.

She pulled her wings in more tightly. "Oh, no, I'm fine, really," she protested; but so quietly he had to lift both ears and pivot them towards her, and by then the carrot juice and gin were already in her glass.

She hadn't planned on anypony buying her a drink. Now she'd have to talk to him. She smiled back at him, weakly, but strong enough that he stood up, drink in hoof, and walked over and took the stool next to her.

"You looked kinda far-off," he said. "Something on your mind?"

She raised her eyes to him guiltily. "I was just thinking that I should be going. It's getting colder, and I need to close the chicken coop door after the hens go in or the chicks might get cold at night. I need to wake the mice up, they're nocturnal you know, or they'll sleep in too long and won't get enough to eat before daybreak, and—"

He raised a hoof to interrupt her. "Now, hold on there. Slow down. Take a breath. You don't seem the type who comes here to drink. That means you came to talk."

Fluttershy considered this. It might be true. The last time anypony had spoken to her had been over a week ago, when she'd restocked on birdseed. The clerk had told her the total and asked if she needed anything else.

"But you haven't talked to anypony since you came here, have you?"

She frowned, then shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"Well, how about you talk to me for three minutes, and then go close your chicken coop. Then you won't have made a trip for nothing, and I won't get my fragile male ego hurt from being cruelly scorned by a beautiful young mare."

"Oh! I'm not… I wouldn't… I mean…"

"Let's try starting with names," he suggested. "Mine's Red Maple."

"I'm… Fluttershy," she said.

He waited a few seconds, as if expecting more, before taking off his hat and saying, "Pleased to meet you, Miss Fluttershy. Please do forgive me for buyin' you a drink, but you were suckin' rocks there."

She sipped dutifully at her refilled drink, then spoke, turning her head only part-way toward him and glancing at him with one eye every few words. "Thank you. But really, I didn't come to drink or to talk. It was nice just to sit with some other ponies for a while. I had a nice time."

He set his tumbler down and turned to face her. "What, ain't you got friends? Family?"

"I have lots of friends!" she said, and her face lit up. "Rabbits and chickens and frogs and mice. Dozens of little friends!" Then the glow faded. "Not many ponies, yet. But I've only been in Ponyville a little while. I'm sure I'll make more friends, somehow."

"Uh-huh. So, you're pretty comfortable with animals?"

She nodded. "I guess so." Why had she felt compelled to leave them and come sit in a dingy room that smelled like beer and strange ponies? She took a longer drink from her glass.

"You're in luck! I'm something of an animal myself," he said with a laugh.

"Oh!" she gasped, shifting slightly away to her right. "I don't... That's not a very nice thing to say."

He raised an eyebrow. "It isn't? I thought you liked animals."

The gin and carrot juice had begun to warm Fluttershy's cheeks, and she felt a strange clear-headedness come over her, a confidence that the words forming in her head were important and true and that there was no reason to hold them back. She sat up straight, flicked her wingtips, and looked him in the eye reprovingly. "I love animals," she said. "I love them when they run up and lick me and cuddle me. And I love them when they growl and snap, and try to bite me because they're scared or annoyed or just ornery. I love them no matter what they do. They can't help it. They don't really know what they're doing. They're just being animals."

He nodded and waved a hoof dismissively. "Sure. And ponies aren't?"

She inhaled sharply. "Of course not! Ponies know better. Ponies have duties and responsibilities. Ponies have... morals." She sighed sadly. "And they're terribly smart."

He lowered his head thoughtfully for a moment, then looked back up. "Ponies are complicated, huh?" He gestured around the room with one hoof at the unicorn drinking quietly off to her right, the bartender, and the last three old-timers in the far corner. "Maybe even a little scary?"

She blushed and nodded.

He leaned in alarmingly close, and spoke in a soft, low voice. "Just watch what they do, and pretend they're animals. You'll figure it out a lot quicker."

She squeaked and turned her head away. "No," she insisted, frowning. "That's wrong. And that's a terrible thing to say."

"Well," the stallion said, still leaning in, "would you believe two plus two is five?"

She blinked, and cocked her head sideways at him. "But... you know that's wrong."

"Yeah," he agreed with a smile, turning back to his scotch as though he had scored a point. "But it didn't make you mad when I said it."

She just stared at her drink, and sipped it again, to have something to do and somewhere to look.

"All I'm trying to say is, if you want to understand ponies, you'd do better watching your animals than reading books." He laid a hoof on her foreleg. "Look—hey, look at me. I'm trying to help you here."

She looked back at the overly-intrusive pony, wishing he would take his hoof off her foreleg. Then she could escape back home with her animals. She heard a strange thumping sound and realized it was her own heart.

"Seems to me you don't really know what you're doing," he said. "And that's okay! It's okay to be a pony who knows what she wants sometimes, and it's okay to be an animal who doesn't really know what she wants sometimes." He lowered his voice. "But to think you're being a pony who knows what she wants, when you're really being an animal who doesn't, is looking one way and pulling the other."

He finally took his hoof off of her. "That's three minutes. Now go home."

She looked up, confused.

"No, I mean it. Go. Maybe you think you came here 'coz you were bored, or curious. But maybe part of you wants to meet somepony special. And maybe another part of you just wants to be mounted and knocked up and squeeze out a foal or two. No, listen," he said, tugging at her foreleg again as she turned crimson and tried to look away. "Go home until you figure out what you are and what you want, before you get something else."

"Thank you for the drink," she said, pulling away, "but I don't think I want to talk anymore." She tried to busy herself with her drink again, and found, to her surprise, that it was empty.

He let go of her foreleg. "Sure," he said, "sure. Good luck, kid." He dropped a mouthful of bits on the counter and backed away from the bar. Fluttershy kept her eyes straight forward until she felt a blast of cold air on her flank and heard the bar door slam shut.

She let her breath out and looked behind her. He was gone. She pressed her empty glass tightly between her hooves and stared forward, waiting for her racing heart to slow. How had he known about her romance novels? Could everypony tell just by looking at her?

And what was this she was feeling? Fluttershy knew fears the way some ponies knew fine wines. From the morning fear, that heaviness on your chest when you wake up and suddenly remember who you really are, to the final evening stomach-lurch as you're falling, falling, falling, into a dream or into a nightmare, she knew every variety of fear, and was as sensitive to the gradations between them as an arctic pony is to the density and granularity of snow. This feeling she had now, it made her eyes open wide, like the fear of the dark; it made her body tense, like the scent of a griffin. But unlike any fear she knew, it made her want more of it.

Comments

[Bad Horse]

Things stolen from John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums":
* Gradual POV shift from objective to third-person limited
* Nameless antagonist
* Chrysanthemums

Thanks to GhostOfHeraclitus, ChessieCat, and Pre-reader #12 for their analyses. I've tried to make this story more than "emotional porn".

Picture is my GIMPed-up edit of the original Bitter Alcoholic Fluttershy by WhiteDiamondsLtd, used with reluctant but very kind permission. She wants to make sure you know that the mutant Fluttershy above is a bastardization of her superior but story-inappropriate work. The posture is wrong, and the right foreleg I drew still makes me flinch. Sorry, Fluttershy.

Please comment if you think something specific about the story can be improved. I'll agree not to take it personally if you'll agree not to take it personally if I ignore your suggestion.

[Elusive]

You deserve not 5...but SIX moustaches. Very nice

[Friendly Uncle]

That last paragraph kind of startled me a little. How did you get inside my head?

[IndecisiveOlivia]

Wow...very well done. On to the next!

[yamgoth]

In fact, this was already more conversation than she'd had in weeks.

Totally relatable! A few months ago, I went on a Union seminar trip thing (not quite sure way it was officially called). One really interesting tidbit they gave was that gals speak an average of 21,000 words a day while guys only speak a paltry 5,000 (or was it 6,000?). It was something close to those numbers.

I've been on midnight shifts since the beginning of the year, only in the past month getting back on days.

In RL, I channel Flutter's infinite shyness quite a bit. I dunno. I guess I suck at conversing? If it's on the phone, I think I get better. Might have something to do with not looking at someone's face.

Anyways, on those midnights I can prolly lay claim to speaking 100 words a day, usually work oriented conversations like simple delegation and answering bosses. There really aren't too many people to talk to, especially about more casual things. Nights usually have less deliveries (there's more volume of product involved, though)

I wasn't hanging out with friends much. I mean, kinda hard to if you're asleep at different times. I'm definitely rambunctious and crazy and sociable with them. Think of the crazy crap I do around here, BH, and you'll have an idea. Definitely channeling Pinkie in those cases.

When I got put back on days after like five months of this and had to talk to more drivers (deliveries happen frequently) and other colleagues (there are definitely more people on shift during the day and they're waaaaay more sociable), it became painfully apparent that I absolutely sucked at speaking. Talking too softly, cracking, mumbling, mispronouncing words, (all more so than normally) Freudian slips... it was rather embarrassing.

It took like a week to get back in the habit to speaking (relatively) normal. I know I can't even come close to speaking with clarity like an orator or even with the confidence and tone you do during your readings, BH. I just end up talking because it's necessary.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the voice needs exercise or it kinda starts to suck and fail.

I wonder sometimes if this has ever happened to Flutters; has she ever had cycles of these moments from not talking for a long time?

[Nyerguds]

All right. You got me reading this. Happy now, Bad Horse?

They were now nursing their drinks silently, staving off for another few minutes the necessity of returning to homes that were either uncomfortably empty or uncomfortably full.

The grass is always greener in the dingy bar with an alcoholic drink before you...

How had he known about her romance novels? Could everypony tell just by looking at her?

Hah!

This feeling she had now, it made her eyes open wide, like the fear of the dark; it made her body tense, like the scent of a griffin. But unlike any other fear she knew, it made her want more of it.

Welll now

[Pericardium]

I've typed up comments for this like three times before, but never posted them because I always struggled to think of what to say. But working on my own fics (in another fandom) has since made me realise that's a pretty bad thing to do to an author. If I don't say something now, I might never. So I'm just gonna be honest and not try to impress. Forgive the gushing; you're kind of a personal writing idol.

I genuinely love all of your fics and reread them regularly. You write with such honesty and attention to detail, and always impart some insight that makes me think about people in a different way. But this has to be the fic I come back to most since I read it in 2013. I must've been like 15. It's short but incredibly poignant. I used to not care for Fluttershy, but I found kinship in this deeper version of her, in her reluctance and fear and courage. Your understanding of people, and how you translate it to characterisation, is just amazing.

Please continue writing

[Bad Horse]

9531725 I have a special document called "Comments that help me keep writing", and I'm copying your comment into it. Thank you.