Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter Twenty-Two

Big Macintosh lifted his head off of his pillow. The farmhouse was dark and quiet; he was sure that the rest of the Apples were asleep and that he could slip downstairs and out the door without any of them being the wiser.

He padded down the stairs—he had always been deceptively stealthy for his size. He was halfway across the living room when a lantern flared up. He froze in his tracks and beheld Granny Smith on her rocking chair, looking directly at him.

"Howdy there, Big Mac," she squawked.

"…Hey," he said, remaining motionless and only looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

She looked him up and down, smiling as she rocked. "You got somethin' to hide, son?"

"Nope," he said hastily.

"Goin' to see that pretty pegasus girl who talks to animals?"

"Eeyup."

"Is tonight the night?"

He gaped and blinked at her. "Mmmmmaybe?" he said cautiously.

She nodded and continued rocking. Big Mac flinched a little at each squeak.

"So, uh, can I go?" he asked.

"You a full-grown stallion, you can do whatever you want, boy," Granny replied.

"Okay!" he said. "Uh, see you later."

"You two are real cute," Granny said.

"Aw, thanks."

"You remember to treat her like a lady."

"Of course, Granny."

"Even when she's beggin' you to dig into her like a wild animal."

"GRANNY!" he gasped, mortified.

"Eeeeehehehehehe!"

He rushed out the door and slammed it behind him to cut out the sound of her uproarious cackling.

"Crazy old lady," he grumbled.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Big Mac arrived at Fluttershy's cottage with a rose on his disembodied lapel and a bouquet of flowers. He knocked on the door, and Fluttershy appeared, wearing a diaphanous dress of cream-colored lace.

"Hi, Big Mac," she whispered.

"Howdy," he said, passing her the bouquet. When she took it, every flower transformed into a butterfly one by one, and they all started flying toward the moon.

"Wow," Fluttershy breathed. "That's extraordinary…" She smirked at him. "So whose magic is this? Twilight? Rarity?"

"Rarity," he said.

"But it was all your idea, of course," she said.

"Eeyup. Completely."

"I love it," she said, nuzzling him with her face.

He kissed her forehead. "So, where we goin' to eat?"

"Oh… right here, of course," she said. She opened her door wider and revealed her living room: the dark room was lit only by candles and the fireplace, by which a full dinner and a bottle of wine were resting on a blanket.

"Well, hey," he said, walking into the house. "It's all right here in your livin' room, huh?"

"Well, not just the living room," she said softly. "The bedroom too, and the laundry room if there's any time."

He turned his head to look at her in surprise.

"…Did I just say that out loud?" she muttered.

"Eeyup."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Agh, I can't believe I said that… I mean, I knew tonight was gonna be, you know, but… aaaaaagh, damn it…"

"Hey, take it easy now," he said, gently touching her chin with his hoof. "How 'bout we just have dinner, huh?"

She gave a tiny smile. "Right. Dinner. A very good place to begin. Funny thing, though. I'm certain… which is amazing, because I'm never certain about anything… that this is right. That this is what's supposed to happen."

He rubbed his nose against hers. "I love you, Fluttershy."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

As the night grew colder, the wind blew, detaching the blossoms from a cherry tree on Fluttershy's property. As the blossoms twisted through the air, so did a pair of squirrels chase each other all over the tree. A bird returned home to his nest and family.

And in Fluttershy's house, Big Mac lay on his back on Fluttershy's bed, while Fluttershy herself snuggled her body into the fur on his chest.

Neither of them said anything. Being silent was a natural state for both of them; their relationship had thrown them out of their comfort zone. But now, after this night that changed everything, they each found that the best approach was to revert to their normal selves.

"Fluttershy," Big Mac whispered.

"Yeah?" she replied, opening her eyes.

"Can you do somethin' for me?"

"Sure."

"You… taught me somethin'," he said. "Somethin' I thought I'd never learn. And you… you still got a chance to teach it to everypony in Equestria. Can you do that? Teach Equestria what you taught me… how to love."

He stopped speaking then; his eyes closed and his head dropped onto the pillow.

Fluttershy lifted her head in alarm. "Did you just die?" she demanded.

He snored.

"Okay, just checking," she said softly. "Teach Equestria how to love? What could that… oh. Of course."

She delicately removed herself from his embrace, and lit a lantern, as dimly as she could to prevent waking him. She produced a quill and some parchment.

"I know the answer now," she said softly. "It was 'no' before, because… I didn't know, I didn't have all the pieces together, just most of them. But now… yes. The answer is 'yes'."

She touched quill to paper. Once she started, she couldn't stop. She wrote through the night, for she was committing to paper everything she'd ever held in her heart, if not her mind.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Early the next morning, Fluttershy rang the doorbell of Rainbow Dash's majestic cloud house. After a few seconds, she heard the distinct sound of Rainbow rolling out of bed and dragging her hooves across the cloudy floor.

"Whoever's out there, you better have a damn good reason for waking me up at seven in the morning," she growled.

"Sorry," Fluttershy called. "I was just… wait a minute, you're the weather supervisor. You're always up at seven."

"Well, I arbitrarily decided that today, I didn't want to get up that early, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it," Rainbow grumbled. She opened the door, and her eyes darted sleepily over Fluttershy's entire form. "Somepony got some last night," she said dryly.

"YES!" Fluttershy said gleefully, rushing to embrace Rainbow Dash and pushing her back into her house. "I wanted you to be the first to know, because you've always supported me and believed in me and pushed me to my limits…"

"Yeah, I did do that, didn't I?" Rainbow said thoughtfully.

Fluttershy beamed expectantly. "…Well?"

"Well what?"

"Come on, we went to camp together," Fluttershy said patiently. "We both know that I have a name that easily lends itself to cruel schoolyard nicknames, so what'll it be? Fluttertramp? Flutterho? Come on, hit me with your best shot."

Rainbow shrugged. "I was gonna go for 'Sluttershy', actually."

"Oh," Fluttershy said. "Well, that's… that's actually clever, unlike what I said. I feel embarrassed, now, that that's all I could come up with… that was lame."

"Well, you gotta leave the cruel schoolyard nicknames to the experts," Dash said cheerfully.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Fluttershy admitted. "So I'm Sluttershy. Yay!"

Rainbow continued to look at Fluttershy's new posture with interest. "You, uh… don't actually think you're a tramp, do you?"

"Oh, no, no, of course not," Fluttershy said. "I'm not ashamed; I slept with my steady boyfriend. My mother always used to say that's what ponies are supposed to do."

"Yeah, your mother's full of little nuggets of fake wisdom like that," Rainbow Dash said. "So, what are you and Big Mac gonna do now?"

"Beats me, but check this out!" Fluttershy said, holding up some seventy sheets of parchment.

"What's that?"

"It's Iron Will's kindness seminar!" Fluttershy said excitedly, passing the entire document to Dash. "I was up all night writing it. Something about all I've done with Big Macintosh, it really… inspired me. I hope he hasn't already found somepony to write it for him."

"Hmm…" Dash said, flipping through the pages. "If he has found somepony, I think it's safe to say that they're fired. This… this is… I mean, wow. This isn't just a kindness seminar. This is a crash course in embodying all of the Elements of Harmony."

"Oooh, you're right!" Fluttershy said excitedly. "I hadn't thought of that. I should re-write it that way, with equal amounts of time for each Element… I'll even give it a new title to reflect that! Yeah!"

"Oh, sure," Rainbow agreed.

"But I think I'll send this one to him as a first draft," Fluttershy said, more to herself than to Rainbow. "Yeah, just so he knows I'm up for it. I hope he likes it… I don't even care if he pays me. I just want to get my voice heard… I can make all of Equestria a sweeter place to live. I'll see you later, Rainbow Dash. I've gotta mail this off."

She absently floated out of Rainbow Dash's house.

"Yeah, go change the world, pal," Rainbow whispered. She realized she was still holding Fluttershy's writing. "Hmm, wonder how long it'll take you to realize you don't have it… ah, well." She set it aside. "How about that, eh? Who'd have thought losing it would make her all self-confident and stuff? I guess when it's the right pony… Yep. The right pony… for her. Big Mac and Fluttershy… didn't seem real until, like… just now, now that they've… uh-huh. Great day for Fluttershy… and sucks to be me."

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Endnotes

Sometimes I do stuff that's not for the readers; it's just for me. This chapter is loaded with such things, which is why this has been my favorite chapter to write even if it's not quite my best work. For starters, "stick that in your pipe and smoke it" has recently become my favorite expression, so I was glad for the chance to throw it in. Then there was Big Mac's speech. After I wrote it, I realized that I'd taken a guy falling asleep after making love—something which is impossible to take seriously—and made it sound like a guy's last words before dying. What do I do after such a narmy blunder? I lampshade it, of course. The sentence "Did you just die?" floated right out of my fingers, bringing to mind many a game of make-believe from my childhood. Good times.

And, finally… sometimes, I wonder whether this entire story, with all its plotting and complexity, was nothing but an excuse to somehow get Big Macintosh to say "maybe". That was very satisfying.