“She died in her bed of natural causes,” the doctor said. His voice was deep and certain. He turned around with some difficulty in the small cottage and faced the group of ponies who had hastened him here with news of Granny Smith’s death. “There’s no mistaking it.”

“But doctor, her bed is made!” a mare quavered.

“Doctor, she is sitting in her chair!” shrieked another.

The doctor frowned. “Yes, I was wondering about that.”

“Doctor, what does it mean?”

“I suppose she wanted to face Death sitting upright. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return to my daughter.” He grabbed his medicine box, tightened the white coat about himself, and began to push past them out the door.

“But there's a dead body here!” somepony said.

“Rather out of my jurisdiction, I think. You want a priest, or perhaps an especially innovative zebra.”

“Wait!” said another pony who was new to town and had followed the crowd into the cottage. “Who are you?”

He stopped halfway out the door and turned. “I’m a doctor. Name of Shy.”

“What?”

“Name's Shy.”

“Pardon, I keep missing the last word.”

“Shy!” He shook his head. “Never mind, it’s a blasted speech impediment. I’ll be off, then, unless you have somepony I can actually cure….”

Fluttershy was sitting in the garden letting the birds sit on her and the pigs sniff her and the dogs lick her face when Daddy came home with news of Granny Smith’s death. Fluttershy knew what death was because only half an hour earlier Mister Ribbit Tickles had croaked, or rather, hadn’t.

The toad had been getting less green for weeks. Not jumping like he used to. Just sleeping when she talked to him about her day and the fillies at school.

“Mister Tickles?” she had said, poking him gently. The amphibian didn’t react. “Mister Tickles?” She tickled him.

He didn’t so much as ribbit.

“MISTER RIBBIT TICKLES!”

The funeral was the next week. Fluttershy watched through a thicket of legs as they carried the casket and gently lowered it into the ground. The whole town was there.

Mr. Ribbit Tickles had been buried in a small hole in the garden. Only Fluttershy had been there.

Applejack, a filly from school, wearing a straw hat that was too big for her, stood in front of everypony and said some things about apples. No pony even asked about Mr. Ribbit Tickles. Even Rarity, who had listened politely in class while Fluttershy whispered to her why amphibians were her favorite kind of animal, just looked distracted and said, “Who?”

Amphibians could live in the water and on dry land. They lived in places where life seemed like it started from nothing. A puddle of still water could explode with murky green activity by the time you came home from school. And if you got up in the middle of the night to see if it was still there, you might find things crawling in the mud, waiting to meet a friend.

A friend like Mr. Ribbit Tickles.

Fluttershy would have quite liked to be an amphibian that could also fly. That way she could be friends with the critters in the sea, and on land, and in the air. It was her favorite daydream. She thought about it now while the funeral went on and only noticed she was crying when Rainbow Dash bumped her wing against hers. Rainbow Dash was her only pony friend. Rainbow Dash was sort of everypony’s friend and even already had her cutie mark, but she stuck up for Fluttershy and tried to help her get better at flying.

“I didn’t know you were friends with Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Mr. Ribbit Tickles is dead.”

“I thought Applejack called her Granny Smith.”

Fluttershy wiped her tears. They weren’t helping.

*

Fluttershy made herself sleep. Staying awake wasn’t helping.

Fluttershy made herself eat. Starving wasn’t helping.

She sat in the garden not far from where Mr. Ribbit Tickles was decomposing in a hole in the ground. The birds tweeted nervously in the trees. The pigs stayed away. The sheep baa’d. The bees stayed in their hives. The dogs scratched and whined to come inside.

The weather was lovely. Not a cloud in the sky.

A storm swirled inside Fluttershy.

She let it grow. It was helping.

“Would anypony else like to present for Show and Tell?” the teacher asked.

Fluttershy raised her hoof.

“No pony? Oh, sorry, Fluttershy, I didn’t see you. You usually never volunteer.”

Fluttershy brought her box with her to the front of the room and took out a cloth. She laid the cloth on a table and opened it up.

“There was a cart accident yesterday.”

There were a number of strange fleshy wobbly tubes and lumps on the cloth, yellow and pale-purple and pink.

“No pony stopped or noticed the victim bleeding on the side of the road.”

She held up a yellow wobbly bit. “This is what a toad’s stomach looks like.”

“Ewwwww!” the class said.

She put it down and picked up another. “This is its liver.”

“Gross!” Most of the fillies and colts leaned away or made faces at each other.

“Fluttershy!” her teacher said. “This is not appropriate for school.”

Fluttershy held up a pink toad lung, shaking. “I, I can’t find the part—”

“Urgh!” a colt said. “It’s slimy!”

“Fluttershy, I will be having a word with your father about this,” the teacher said.

Fluttershy’s vision blurred as hot tears swam in her eyes. “I can’t find the part of the toad that makes them less than us.” She set the lung down blindly and groped for the dead toad’s heart. “I-It’s not there, and we h-have to k-keep being the things,” she cut off, throat burning, and wiped her eyes. “We have to keep b-being the things we thought we were, so, so….”

“She’s crying!” a highly observant colt pointed out to murmurs and giggles.

“Fluttershy, if you need a moment, you can step outside,” the teacher said uncomfortably. She stood up to take up the center-front of the room where Fluttershy and her gory cloth were the spectacle of the schoolhouse.

Fluttershy didn’t budge. In her mind's eye the storm clouds were darkening, their weight on the sky threatening to break. But she wouldn't let it. Not until the waters were enough to flood the whole earth.

It wasn’t as easy as just saying it.

It wasn’t as easy as seeing it, or feeling it, or holding a dying toad in her hoofs while his vocal sac expanded and contracted for the last time.

Not what the world was meant to be, but what she meant the world to be.

Did destiny choose her?

No. She chose her destiny.

Something burned on both sides of her flank, not like the burning in her throat or in her eyes. It burned like in her heart.

The fillies oohed. Fluttershy sniffled, wiped her eyes, and gazed at all the things gathered on her cloth that weren’t enough to make a toad alive, and weren’t what made it matter, either.

“Fluttershy, congratulations!” the teacher said. “Your cutie mark is three butterflies!”

“Far more than three,” Fluttershy said, not to anypony there, but to her future self, who would not be allowed to forget this day. “Far more than three….”

Author's Notes:

If you're wondering why Fluttershy's cutie mark is three butterflies rather than three toads, it's because cutie marks are genetically coded to be cutesy. They do their best with the symbolism under that constraint. It's also why Applejack's cutie mark isn't a tall, pointed hat, and Rarity's mark isn't a mare sitting at a table with a strong drink and several cats.

Fluttershy's mother died of an illness when Fluttershy was very young. Mr. Shy has not yet forgiven himself. Some of this attitude might have been picked up by Fluttershy, who blames herself when somepony on the opposite side of the world has a bad day.