So, yesterday we talked about Rainbow Dash. Who should we tell stories about today? Twilight Sparkle?

Mark’s heard plenty about Twilight Sparkle. Let’s pick someone else.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right… what about Fluttershy? We haven’t talked about her much.

No, you haven’t. You hardly even mention her.

Well, that’s because Fluttershy has the least to do with our space program. You see, Twilight Sparkle got all her closest friends to help when the pony space program began.

But she thought that only pegasuses could be good pilots, so she made Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy her pilot candidates. She wouldn’t even consider me, which is why I ended up working with the changelings.

Worked out fine for us!

Anyway, Rainbow Dash is a born flier. Fluttershy isn’t. In fact, she’s one of the weakest and most timid fliers ever. They ended up using her entirely for ground and equipment tests. And when Flight Five almost crashed, she bowed out completely for a couple of years. She finally went up once for a day-trip to the space station to make sure some lab rats were doing well, but that was less than a year before we left, and she came right back down next day.

She almost was on our flight. Princess Twilight wanted unicorn, pegasus, earth pony on flight. But Fluttershy… how to say…

Fluttershy takes care of a lot of animals. They really depend on her. She can talk with them. She hates to be away for very long. It would have been tragic if she’d been with us.

Yeah. So I here and not her. Fluttershy rotten flier, but much better medic.

Wait a minute. Why was it important to have one each of all kinds of pony? Is there some sort of prejudice involved?

Prejudice? Hm… well, in a way, yes. The tribes intermarried after pony land was founded, and I know of an earth pony couple whose children are a pegasus and a unicorn, so it’s not like they’re at war. But there’s still a major cultural gap. A lot of towns are predominantly one tribe or another. And nobody likes it when ponies like them are left out of something really big. So it’s always important to remind ponies that we’re united, working together, all as equals.

Starlight, can we get this back to Fluttershy?

Oh, right! Anyway, that’s why you haven’t heard much about Fluttershy. Scared of heights, hates to fly, can’t talk to strangers, but she absolutely loves animals.

And she most beautiful pegasus anyone knows. Makes me feel like goose chick beside her, and I’m hot.

Oh yeah! There was this time Fluttershy had to ask ponies to help look after her animals because she’d got dragged into a… a job, I guess the word is? Wearing clothes and having pictures and, um, stuff for sell thing…

Advertising? Commercials? Wait, you mean she was a model?

From what I hear, for a couple of months she was the model.

Yeah! She offered to help Rarity by wearing clothes she made for our best picture-taker-

Photographer.

- and the what-you-said ignored the clothes and dragged Fluttershy off to, um, Manehattan?

Hat Hair City. I think.

Anyway, she was on everything- magazines, posters, newspapers, even banners pegasuses towed! Everybody wanted to see her, to meet her, to get her to help sell their stuff!

And a painfully shy pony did all this?

Oh yes! And she HATED it. Totally hated every second of it.

You see, Fluttershy thought Rarity would be sad if she didn’t use the chance to become rich and famous. And Rarity was jealous as a cat about it, because she wanted to be where Fluttershy was, but she didn’t say anything because she wanted Fluttershy to be happy. She thought Fluttershy was lucky, but Fluttershy was miserable and wanted out, and it took forever before they actually talked to each other about it.

Of course, once Fluttershy found out that Rarity only wanted her to be a model because she thought she’d love being a model, she quit right on the spot! And ever since, the only times she lets her picture be taken is when she’s modeling Rarity’s clothes. But she was the first of Twilight’s friends to get really famous.

Who cares about pony famous? Why don’t you tell about the important stuff? This is Fluttershy. She so scary she makes dragons cry!

What? I’m sorry, but what?

I hear this from cousin. This dragon, not going to say name, you can’t pronounce it, he moved his hoard and all into a cave in pony lands. Way up on top of a mountain, so he thought, no pony going to bug me here. And he settled in for a nap, might last a year or three, he thought, no trouble to nobody.

But that dragon spread smoke all over middle of Pony-land!

Yeah, he snored. But he didn’t know that. Nobody tell you these things, you know? Anyway, next thing he knows, one pony after another keeps waking him up. One of them tried to steal some of his hoard, and another kicked him right in the snout. Well, you get tired of that real quick. So there he was, about to kick them all off the mountain-

Wait a minute. This was Twilight Sparkle and her friends, right? Princess Twilight Sparkle?

Guess so. Story I heard didn’t name anyone but Fluttershy.

It was. But Twilight was only a unicorn then, not a princess. A pretty strong unicorn, but not an alicorn.

Yeah, anyway, alla sudden there’s this little yellow thing in front of his face, and then all he see are these two angry eyes. And by the time the pony was done talking he was crying in shame. Dragon almost as big as the Hab, crying and bawling like a hatchling, all because of one pony.

So he pack up and moved back where he came from, and he told other dragons. Word got around. Don't mess with yellow pegasus with pink hair.

And I tell you that story so I could tell this one.

Uh-oh.

One of those, huh?

Shut up. After Rainbow Dash first walk in space, Twilight Sparkle ask all astronauts come to her space center to train for space walk. I was only astronaut for dragon space program, so my boss order me to go. About twenty astronauts there, all different species, ponies and changelings and griffon and I don’t know names. And me.

Train for EVA is hard, you know that. I had trouble. Kept get turned around. Train building takes away, um, things you look at to tell you where you are and where you going.

Reference points.

Huh?

Reference points. A point you can refer to that tells you where you are.

Thought reference was when boss calls your friend, says, What kind of worker is he? It a thing Jim Rockford don't have.

It has a lot of meanings.

Dumb language. Anyway, real easy to get mixed up. I’m fail test after test. And I’m thinking, “Don’t wanna be here anyway, just give up, maybe boss will let me quit this time.” But don’t wanna be quitter or failer either.

Then this pony I don’t know talks to me. Real quiet voice, almost whisper. Asks me what’s wrong. I say get lost, but she asks again. So I say, I’m no good at spacewalk. And she looks me in the eyes and says, “I know it’s hard, but I believe a smart dragon like you can do anything he sets his mind to.”

That sounds like Fluttershy, all right. And a very good translation, Fireball.

No way! I was there too, and I never saw her!

I didn’t see her there either.

It was the first time she came back to the space center since Flight Five. She was really pushing herself. We found her on her side, rigid, right outside the EVA training building. We took her to the infirmary until she woke up, and then we had a couple of pegasi fly her home. She wasn't there half a day. The next time she set hoof on a space center grounds after that was when she visited you lot for the joint development of… of the first successful space probe.

Yeah yeah yeah, listen. Anyone else, especially any pony else, I blow it off. But when she said it, it felt like she was right. I knew she was right. When she look you in the eyes, it's like... well... no pony, no dragon. Just soul and soul. Sounds mushy, but that's how it is. She told me a couple hints to do better- one helped, other two didn’t- and then wished me luck, walked away.

Well, that explains the unconscious part. She must have had a bad reaction from meeting you.

Not fair to insult me, boss pony.

No, it’s not an insult. Didn’t you know? Fluttershy is scared to death of dragons.

That’s right. Phobic, except for Spike. Twilight and her friends dragged Fluttershy up every inch of that mountain to face your dragon friend-of-a-friend. Add to that her normal social anxiety and her night terrors about Flight Five… you say she spoke to you first? You didn’t say hello to her or anything?

I didn’t even see until she spoke, and then- whoa! Right there in front of me. And you say she afraid of dragons?

Like some ponies are afraid of heights, or shadows, or the number five. Absolutely involuntary. Though come to think of it, Fluttershy is also afraid of heights… and shadows… don’t know about the number five, though.

That really weird, even by pony standard.

I know- Fluttershy’s got all these fears, but she loves even the biggest, wildest animals. I mean, she even made friends with Chaos!

Aren’t you Chaos’s friend too?

In a way, I guess. But Fluttershy was his first and closest friend.

I heard she even stared down a, a, I forgot the word, chicken-snake-thing! Like a basilisk, only not! Instead of turning to stone, she made it release her friends that it had turned to stone!

What? Are you saying she stared down a cockatrice?

That’s the word! And that’s what I heard from Kevin!

Who’s Kevin?

Oops! I wasn’t supposed to say that. Forget that name. There is no such changeling as Kevin.

You can’t give us that! Tell!

No, seriously, everybody, let it go. The maddest I ever saw Chrysalis was when I asked her who Kevin was. Let’s not get Dragonfly in trouble.

Changeling Chrysalis hates that much? I wanna meet.

Guys, please, who is this Fatass you’re talking about?

Oh, Mark…

Author's Notes:

An experiment. Also a stalling tactic, since I can't get to my copy of the book our crew will choose until I get home from the current trip.

By the way, I'm staying over in Kansas City Sunday night, so I might be available at 8 PM or so to say hi to, assuming you didn't go to the convention (Sausomecon).

I might have to go into CSP and alter a couple of things for this one, but for now I'm saying that Fluttershy did try to come back to help, and it didn't go well for a long time.

EDIT: Experiment failed big time, so tomorrow I get to add about 400 more words to turn this into a standard chapter instead of just dialog. Which is a shame, because it was fun to bounce conversation back and forth without said, said, said.

EDIT: Color text restored at the request of someone doing a hard-copy version.