Chapter One
She sat in the clearing, crying, when I found her. Her lovely grey coat had splotches or blood on it, possibly from coming through the tree branches so fast; I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that she had a fork held between her hooves, and was pointing it at her right eye, and I had to stop her before she did something stupid.
My wings, while not initially strong, have the ability to move me very quickly, for a short amount of time. That’s just what they did then. I rocketed forward, and I tackled the sad little grey pegasus from the side, causing her to drop her fork. I glared at her, panting for a moment.
“What? Now you wanna beat me up too? Go ahead!” she shouted as even more tears streamed down her face. “I… I don’t even care anymore.”
I slowed my breathing down and walked slowly towards her, causing her to back up several paces before she tripped over a root. She tried to scoot further away from me, but I countered by trotting closer to her.
“Derpy, I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered, and wrapped my foreleg around her in a gentle hug. “I want to help you.”
She struggled in my grasp, and finally managed to break free, before moving into an defensive stance. “Yeah? You wanna help, then you can grab that fork and finish what I was trying to do!”
I sighed quietly, wishing she weren’t like this. She used to be so nice and sweet when we first met, but the world was always so cruel to those who needed kindness most.
“No. I won’t gouge your eye out, because there is nothing wrong with it.”
“LIAR! It’s ugly, and everypony hates it! I hate it! I know you do too!” she screamed, flaring out her wings, preparing to take off. “Just leave me alone!”
“I’m not going to leave you alone!” I shouted, causing her to widen her eyes in shock. “I’m going to help you! And you are going to let me.”
She blinked slowly a few times in confusion, before she closed her wings, and sat down, hanging her head. “Why?”
“Because, I want to, and that’s the only reason I need.” I explained, moving over to sit next to her, and draped my wing over her.
“Okay.”
~~~~~~~~
She was curled up on my couch, snoring lightly with each rise and fall of her barrel. Her left wing was injured, having been sprained when she entered through the woods’ canopy and hit it against a tree. She would be grounded for quite some time.
I smiled, pausing in the cleaning of my living room, because the sight was frankly quite adorable. No matter what Derpy said, she wasn’t ugly; she was beautiful. Having a wall-eye didn’t automatically make you ugly. I knew, better than most, that our flaws are part of who we are. Mine was my shyness and my severe scopophobia*.
A quiet mumble from the blond mare made me freeze, as she stretched her legs out and curled back up, smacking her lips. I grinned even wider, almost giving way to the infamous ‘squee,’ but I restrained myself, and went back to my cleaning. I was glad that Discord was busy in Canterlot, assisting the Princesses in finding some long lost artifact-I wasn’t really paying attention-since, I’m sure that Derpy would insist he make her eye straight… I would forbid it, of course. He would instead, give her the means to fix the eye, which would likely send her on some epic quest, by the end of which she would realize she didn’t want to change.
He would help her in his own twisted way. In short, he would try to be a good friend to the sad mare.
He… he was learning and I couldn’t be more proud of him.
“Fluttershy?” I turned to the small voice, and my heart sank. Her face had fallen and she looked heart broken. “Why are you crying?”
I raised a hoof to my cheek, and felt the small streak of moisture.
“Is… it because I’m here? I’m a burden, right? I’ll j–”
“No,” I said sharply, causing her to flinch. “I was… thinking of someone special, that’s all.”
“You have a special somepony?” she asked, tilting her head sideways.
I giggled at her expression. “No, not that kind of special. He’s just a good friend, that’s all.”
“Would you ever consider it? W-with him, I mean…” she asked, blushing a little, probably from realizing what her statement implied. I sighed and turned back to my cleaning.
“Well, I might… but there are…” I trailed off, not knowing how she would take it, since she was from Cloudsdale. “… reasons.”
“I’ve heard the rumors… are they true?” she asked and, as I looked to her, I could see in her face that she already knew the answer.
“Yes, Derpy,” I said quietly, and turned my back to her. “I’m gay.”
There was a long pause before she replied, and in that time, I grew more and more anxious; I was certain I‘d been wrong in telling her. “That’s okay, so am I.”
My head snapped around, and I stared at her in shock. “But you’re from…”
“Yeah, Cloudsdale… They, uh... They don’t really like us there, you know?” she practically whispered as a small, twitchy smile forced its way onto her lips that tore at my heart like an angry cat about to get a bath. Which is not pleasant… at all.
I fluttered over to nestle down beside her and draped my wing over her. “Yes, I do know.”
Suddenly, the wall-eyed mare buried her muzzled under her forelegs in an attempt to hide the tears that came. Of course, that did nothing to stop the body-racking sobs that soon overtook her. I let her cry, because I felt like she probably needed it. As I scooted a little closer, and pulled my wing tighter around her, I felt her stiffen for a moment, before she relaxed and leaned back into me. It was only a moment before stopped, and pulled her muzzle out to rest it on top of her legs.
“It’s all a lie, you know,” she stated flatly, causing me to raise my eyebrows to her. “The clumsiness, I mean. It’s all a lie, so I don’t have to face the hate. I tell everypony that I got kicked out of Cloudsdale cuz I wreck everything… but the truth is, my parents kicked me out. I was just a filly, then… I think I was about Scootaloo’s age. I was homeless for a few years, before I came here, and met Rainbow Dash. She recognized me, I think, and took pity on me.”
“She can be nice, when she wants to…”
“That’s the thing though, she wasn’t nice. If she’d been nice, she wouldn’t pity me, she’d see me as just another pony. I can’t even call her my friend… she lets me work for her, but it’s out of charity and I hate that.” Her brow furrowed as she continued, giving me a rather unnecessary reminder that she was getting angry. “All I ever do is push clouds. It’s never any real weather work! She doesn’t trust me to do any more–said so herself! The nerve of that mare!”
“Rainbow’s… like that, sometimes. That’s why we don’t share a house anymore,” I said, grimacing as Derpy pulled away a little, so she could look at me as I gazed out of the window next to the front door. “She thinks I’m helpless. She always tried to help me, even when I didn’t really look like I needed it. But… I do think she means well.”
“Probably… I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on her, huh?”
“Perhaps. Would you like some tea?” I asked, retracting my wing and hopping off the bed.
“Yeah, I’d love some,” she said with a faint smile as I set off towards the kitchen.
Just before I entered, I turned back slightly and said over my shoulder, “Um… just so you know, I don’t pity you.”
The smile she gave me was wide and genuine, and I realized as I walked into the next room, terribly contagious.
~~~~~~~~
“So, I have to stay here for two weeks?”
“Mm-Hmm. I need to make sure your wing didn’t suffer any permanent damage. Besides, you live in a cloud home. You’re in no condition to return.”
"Are you even qualified to make that kind of claim?"
"I'm certified in pegasus first aid, which does include identifying and treating sprained wings. It's actually a rather common problem."
“But then… work!”
“You’re on sick leave; I spoke to Rainbow while you were asleep.”
“But…”
I raised my brow at the mare, whose path to the door I now blocked. “But what?”
“I… uh… got nothing,” she replied sheepishly, giving me a grin of the same nature.
“I didn’t think so. Now head on up and get some rest while I tend to the animals,” I said, hardening my voice only enough to get the message across. She gave me a bemused scowl, and pointed a hoof at the couch. “Oh… right. I suppose it wouldn’t do to get too much rest… it might throw off your normal sleep… patterns… I… guess…” I floundered around for something to say, but only one thing came to mind and I blurted it out in such a rapid stream it probably would have confused Pinkie Pie. “SayhowwouldyouliketohelpmewiththeanimalsIthinkyoumightlikeit…”
Smooth, Fluttershy, real smooth.
“Um… I’ve never really dealt with animals before… is it hard?” she asked, pawing at the floor nervously.
“Not at all! But I have to count the baby bunnies… and they require a little bit of delicacy,” I explained, shuddering as I remembered how badly it had gone during… that harvest season…
“I can handle delicate.”
“Are you sure? I mean, I asked Twilight to help once and she wound up getting frustrated and used her magic to gather them…” I paused for a moment. “Actually, now that I think about it, that was really efficient and the bunnies seemed to like it…”
“Fluttershy. See these eyes?” I winced as she asked her question. “They don’t see too well. I’ve got horrible depth perception. You learn real quick to be extremely delicate with your hooves and patient with the world. I think I can handle a bunch of bunnies.”
“If you’re sure… then okay.”
~~~~~~~
“Come on, little bunnies, it’s just little old me…” I whispered, as I sat nestled down in front of the little bunny hole. I smiled as a mingled group of tan and white rabbits cautiously scampered out of the hole, and came up to sniff my hoof. “Missus Bunny, is this all the babies?”
The tan rabbit nodded happily, hopping forward to stop one if the babies from scampering away. I chuckled quietly at her, then looked over at my temporary housemate.
She was hunkered down with her head close to the ground as a baby bunny cautiously sniffed at her nose. She had her eyes closed and her ears were laid flat, but she smiled softly. Her expression reminded me exactly of the little bunny she was nose-to-nose with. My eyes widened as her hoof slowly reached out and came close to the bunny’s head. I almost shouted for her to wait, but her hoof came to rest gently on her new animal friend’s head and began rubbing in soft, deliberate circles.
“Derpy… how?”
“I told you, gentle hooves. I can’t see the bunny, but I can feel her and I can tell just where to pet and how hard to do so,” she explained quietly and rotated the hoof to rub under the bunny’s chin. “It’s almost like being blind, but I can just open my eyes if I need to.”
“I’m… um… wow…” I muttered, before I turned back to count the bunnies. I could feel my face burning up and I prayed that Derpy wouldn’t notice. Thankfully, she didn’t, and we soon finished and returned inside to have a bit of tea.
“So, what now?” she asked, holding her teacup in her hooves, and took a near silent sip.
“Nothing, actually. You’ve stumbled upon a rare day when I have plenty of free time,” I replied, taking a sip of my own tea before sitting it on the table. “I was thinking of practicing my Tai Chi, but I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in that…”
“Actually, I'm a bit of a martial artist myself,” she said bluntly, sitting her teacup down. “My dad taught me Pegasus Kenpo, Tai Chi, and Kendo up until I got kicked out. That crap was practically drilled into my skull.”
“Kendo?” I asked, recoiling a bit in shock. “But that’s nearly impossible for any non-unicorn…”
“I never said I was that good,” she said quietly, picking her cup back up and burying her face in it. “Actually, I kind of stink at all of it, except Pegasus Kenpo. I can at least hold my own in that field.”
“Well, you just keep getting more and more interesting, don’t you?” I muttered, realizing too late that I’d said it out loud. I felt my eyes go wide as her face flushed red and her good wing twitched awkwardly. “N-no, I didn’t mean–”
“It’s okay, I knew what you meant,” she said sweetly, and smiled at me. “Everypony’s different on the inside, right? What you see is rarely what you get, and what you get in rarely what you expect.”
“Um, yes… that…” I said, trailing off. She was wise, kind, and gentle, more so than even myself in two of those.
I wondered what else I would learn about her as she quietly sipped at her tea, while I did the same. “I’m gonna go get settled into my room. Just, holler if you need me.”
“Oh please, have you heard me holler?” I said playfully, which is not something I typically would do… I found it odd, but I felt really comfortable around my new friend and I couldn’t wait to get to know her even better.
“No, why?” she asked, turning back to look at me.
“Oh, never mind,” I said, waving a dismissive hoof at her.
Yes... this was the start of something wonderful, I could feel it in my heart.