Obligations

by ArgonMatrix

Fluttershy

“There’s no way Fluttershy could be upset with me,” thought Twilight as she approached the little cottage which sat on the border of a vast thicket. “She’s so kind and forgiving, she could never hold a grudge. Maybe I can finally get some answers from her. Who knows, maybe I can let her know about my spell too!” The unicorn smiled as warmly as she could before rapping gently on the door. A faint squeak could be heard from inside and, just a few seconds later, a butter yellow pegasus opened the door and immediately frowned.

“Oh... hi, Twilight,” Fluttershy mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

Picking up on her friend’s adverse reaction, Twilight began, “Fluttershy, please don’t tell me you’re angry at me too. Both Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash went ballistic when I tried talking to them, but neither of them would tell me why. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

Fluttershy shrunk a bit. “I-I’m not really angry with you. I’m just, um...” The timid pony muttered something incoherently.

“You’re what?”

Another collection of shy sounds escaped Fluttershy’s lips.

“Fluttershy, I can’t hear you.”

Sighing, the pegasus finally let loose a single word, “...disappointed.”

Part of Twilight wanted to cry as she heard the sincerity ringing in her friend’s demure voice, but she tried to remain focused on figuring out the enigma at hand. “Why are you disappointed, Fluttershy?”

“I just, um... I didn’t expect this from you. You’re not normally one to play cruel jokes like that. But, um, maybe you had a good excuse... or maybe you didn’t really mean it... I don’t know...” There was so much trepidation in her voice that Twilight struggled to discern what certain words were.

“Cruel jokes? Fluttershy, you know I would never intentionally be cruel, not to you or to anyone else. Please tell me what happened, I really have no idea what I did to make everypony so upset.”

Fluttershy’s eyes grew wide as if something had shocked her profusely. She finally raised her head and made eye contact. “...y-you don’t know? So... you really forgot? But how could you forget something so... special?”

Twilight had run the events of the day through her mind so many times already that she had developed a headache. What could she have possibly forgotten that would elicit this kind of behavior from her most beloved friends? She wasn’t usually a forgetful type of pony. Then again, today hadn’t exactly been a usual day. Regardless, she was almost certain that she couldn’t have forgotten anything this important to her six friends; her friends were always her top priority, no matter what.

...right?

After a long silence, Twilight finally sighed. “Fluttershy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There was nothing special about today other than... well, I’ll tell you about that later. Please tell me, what did I do wrong? What cruel jokes are you talking about, and what did I forget? I don’t tend to forget things that are important to my friends, so whatever this is all about can’t possibly be that important. Can’t you just—” She stopped as her friend broke into quiet, hiccuping sobs. Something had clearly struck a nerve with her, as she looked just as upset as if one of her animal friends had gone missing.

“...Fluttershy?”

The increasingly upset pegasus averted her eyes again, flipping her rosy mane into a configuration which blocked her face. “I-I’m s-sorry Twilight,” she peeped out in between sobs, “I d-don’t think I can h-help you. Y-you need to figure this out f-for yourself.” She motioned to close the door as she sheepishly backed into her cottage.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight managed, reaching out a hoof to hold the door. Thinking better of herself after looking into her friend’s tear-ridden eyes, the defeated unicorn finished, “have a good night.” She hung her head low and began very slowly back towards Ponyville, part of her heart breaking as she heard the faint *click* of the door as it closed in her wake.

Comments

[APoeticHeart]

Now you made Fluttershy cry now Twilight. how could you? However, what is the one special thing Fluttershy talked about?

[Laluzi]

“There’s no way Fluttershy could be upset with me,” thought Twilight as she approached the little cottage which sat on the border of a vast thicket. “She’s so kind and forgiving, she could never hold a grudge. Maybe I can finally get some answers from her. Who knows, maybe I can let her know about my spell too!”

...Okay, Twilight's not being cool here either. At this point, she shouldn't be thinking about her spell at all, or who she can 'get away with doing whatever she did' with. Twilight as a character would be freaking out about why her friends were so upset with her, panicking, racking her memory, maybe even going a little crazy. And she does tend to jump to worst case scenarios. Her own personal triumph would be completely gone from her mind at this point; she'd be going to Fluttershy in hopes that she'd be the one most forgiving and likely to let her know what's going on, yes, but she wouldn't think about it in the way she did in that quote. There's way more horror, panic, and 'what have I done?!'

Fluttershy's 'I'm disappointed' thing hit hard, though.