“Dash swapped with Rares,” Doug says, his eyes lighting up as he builds momentum. “She wanted to go over how May’s weather has been working out so far. I mean, it’s not been bad, per se, but it reeks of a novice planner. And Dash hates that.”

“Mhm,” Fluttershy responds, the barest minimum to let him know she’s listening. The nuts are frustrating to work with, but she’s got the first hoofful done. She knows she needs to jump in at some point, to add something and segue into a topic she cares more about. But she can’t bring herself to just force it away with some non-sequitur, especially with how happy he looks talking about her long time friend.

“So we started brainstorming ways to make it better, and I hit up one that I haven’t seen in any of the books.” Doug glances over at Fluttershy. “You done any cloud pushing?”

“No,” Fluttershy responds curtly, gritting her teeth as she works through the next few. She keeps pressing too softly to crack the shell, and having to press again and again from multiple angles before it breaks apart. And she can’t help but think it’s a stupid metaphor for how hard it is for her to jump in, except that every time she doesn’t break the nut somepony else does and then it’s on to the next nut of conversation and she just gets left behind without anything to say!

Doug glances over, frowning at watching Fluttershy struggle. He continues, “Well, my first day here, Rainbow Dash pushed a cloud after me that was raining.”

“Oh, um, I hope that didn’t trigger any bad memories,” Fluttershy says apologetically, her frustrations with the nuts forgotten along with any thought of steering the topic away. She wants, needs to comfort the poor, injured stallion, just like if she found a bird with a hurt wing.

Doug waves away her concern. “Nah, it’s fine. It just reminded me that ponies can push clouds while they are raining, and even storming. On a normal day that calls for rain the weather pegasi spend all day pushing clouds that carry, let’s say, an inch worth of rainwater each. And they spread these clouds out all over Ponyville, or whatever farms need the rain.”

“Mmhmm,” Fluttershy says as she finishes the remainder of the nuts. She puts the seeds on a plate and walks over to Doug. Now she’s curious where he’s taking this, and tenderly steps onto the couch. One of her wings gently brushes against his leg, purely by accident, but he must have thought she meant something else because he drops his leg and shifts so he’s facing her completely and there’s noplace else to go except right next to him and she hopes her tail doesn’t tantalize him even further but she doesn’t want to seem like she’s avoiding him!

Doug frowns slightly, not quite oblivious to her discomfort. He rests one hand on her withers, gently pressing into her coat. Her shoulder muscles are extraordinarily tense, almost crying out for one of his impromptu massages. He has to be very careful with Fluttershy, though; the mare is very sensitive, nothing like Applejack or Rainbow Dash. Those two, Dash especially, absolutely love it when he digs in as hard as he can. Even Rarity likes, on occasion, for him to go full bore, though that’s generally after a longer and gradually building massage session that frequently leads to something more.

“Well,” Doug continues, feeling the mare tense at even the light contact; he slows down even more, now barely gliding over the most egregious parts, “when they’re first delivered, the rain clouds are full of rain. About ten inches worth. They water the nearby fields and forests, and that eventually drains to streams and rivers. But put those aside. Occasionally the excess - nine whole inches, sometimes - gets dumped into lakes or aquifers, because they want to keep the clouds at one inch of rain or whatever you need. But that’s all wasted effort; you see, later on, whenever Cloudsdale comes by, they somehow vacuum up that water back to their water tanks.”

“A waterspout,” Fluttershy says, the phenomenon a near constant occurrence when living in the cloud city. Her wing offers the plate, and he happily accepts a quick bite.

“Right.” Doug nods, chewing as his hand returns to her side. He’s getting excited just discussing this, and digs in a little harder than he might normally. The mare’s quiet ‘eep’ isn’t enough to distract him, and he shifts to better access the lumps of muscle. “Anyway, the point is that water isn’t going to a river, or watering a farm. It just sits in a lake until they need it again. But, and this is the crux of it, what if you don’t do that?”

“Huh?” Fluttershy asks, her wing halfway to her mouth.

“What if you set those clouds up so that only a portion of the, let’s say a farm, is covered at a time?” Doug pulls his hands away to mime a cloud raining on Fluttershy’s side, one hovering above her and the other lightly tickling her side. He draws a contented giggle from the mare, her legs stretching out and kicking at the air. “And then you move the clouds so the rain is distributed evenly.” His hand shifts from her shoulder to her wing, and it automatically poofs out.

Fluttershy gulps as his hand musses her damp coat; her stress sweat must be obvious to him, even as he starts rambling about preliminary testing with Rainbow Dash and, when she got tired, Clear Skies. It doesn’t help when his hand stops moving, and she can feel the wetness seeping in, and his grimace and glance at her side. She hunkers down, even though there really isn’t anywhere to go. If she returns her wing to her side it would just trap his hand and make it worse!

What should she do? She’s supposed to be more assertive, more like the other mares, right?

The silence that follows is unbearable, Fluttershy halfway to bolting upstairs and hiding out, if not in her bathtub, then under her bed.

“The nuts were good,” Doug says, and Fluttershy gets the strong feeling that he’s repeating himself. It just makes her feel even worse. “Did you want to have more?”

Oh, dear. What would Rainbow Dash do?

“Um,” Fluttershy stammers, her head sinking into her body as far as it will go. She awkwardly reaches a wing behind her, severing her tail extensions and then musses with her mane to try to emulate that characteristic wind-swept look.

Doug merely cocks his head the barest amount, his eyes narrowing in puzzlement.

Her wing searches along his belly; it’d be a lot easier if she was looking at him, or if her body was further down. “We could have y-yours.”

A low, strangled noise comes from Doug’s throat, and Fluttershy wishes she had Rainbow Dash’s ballcap to hide under, at the very least. But she’s not that mare right now! She rolls to ponyloaf, her once trapped wing easily able to unfurl and stroke his thigh, starting just inside the knee and working her way up.

“We could,” Doug says, obviously torn between bursting out laughing at the incongruity of the mare next to him and taking her literally, and if he does which direction. “Except I don’t think they’d fill you up.”

Oh, what does Rainbow Dash do? Witty banter? No, she gets straight to the point! “Oh, you’d fill me up,” she says, clenching her throat together to try to capture that raspy voice. It comes out sounding strangled. She adds, a second late, emphasized far too much, “Stud.”

“...Right. Fluttershy, are you feeling okay?” Doug glances down at her wing, then back to the mare. It’s not like she’s doing a bad job of tantalizing him, not at all, he’s just too weirded out for it to have any effect.

Oh, no! It’s not working! If only I had one of Rainbow's mock Wonderbolt suits! What would Applejack do?!

Fluttershy lifts her wings, imagining she is adjusting a Stetson as she pulls her mane to as close to Applejack’s style without a tie. She ends up with a quick and dirty braid, her dexterous wings making short work of it.

“Yer right there, partner.” Fluttershy nods, sternly but subdued. “Best to be tirin’ ourselves out workin’ first.” She hops off the couch, pointedly looking back at him as he stares at her. “Ya comin’?”

“Alright,” Doug says warily, wondering if playing along with whatever game Fluttershy has in mind is the best course of action. He stands, following her outside.

“Ah wuz thinkin’,” Fluttershy drawls out, a quick swipe of her wing placing an empty bird’s nest on her head, “that we’d be makin’ more birdhouses.” She nods resolutely, despite being surrounded by half a dozen extra birdhouses they made last week.

“Oo-kay,” Doug says, doing his best not to look at said birdhouses.

Fluttershy notices his lack of enthusiasm, of course. Her hooves swiftly rip the braid from her hair, using two sticks to tie a haughty bun that Rarity might wear. “Oh, darling,” she says with far too much affect, daintily and dismissively waving a hoof. “Those just won’t do! They aren’t fit to be turned into firewood, much less shelter our precious birds!”

Doug breathes out a heavy sigh, closing the gap between the two with a few quick steps. “Fluttershy,” he calmly states as he rests a hand on her neck. He crouches next to her as her head drops to stare at the ground. “What’s wrong?”

Fluttershy shakes her head violently; well, for her. The bun comes undone and spills her mane around her head and Doug’s arm. “I…” she starts, her breath catching in her throat. Tears well in her eyes. “I wanted you to like me.”

“What makes you think I don’t like you?” Doug asks plainly, shifting to his knees.

“B-because I’m not like the other mares,” Fluttershy stammers out. “I’m not fast like Rainbow Dash, or strong like Applejack, or as creative as Rarity.”

“Rainbow Dash isn’t creative like Rarity,” Doug counters, but this only makes Fluttershy’s head sink lower. “But that doesn’t mean I require her to be something she’s not.”

“But you didn’t like it when I tried to be like them,” Fluttershy pouts.

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, that’s because you exaggerated the obvious things about the other mares, but not the reason behind it.” Doug scratches into her mane, pulling her close. “Rainbow Dash doesn’t rush to sex because she likes finishing fast. It’s because we both love how it feels, how my hands run over and appreciate that toned body she’s worked so hard for, and it helps draw us closer to each other. That and it builds her cardio, especially when she takes the lead.” Doug winks at Fluttershy, and she shudders minutely.

“Yes, Applejack likes doing things on the farm. But she loves doing them with me, and I know it eats at her that we aren’t able to do more together. But we look past the, um, inadequacies, and focus on the intent behind it, which is the two of us getting to know each other better. And while Rarity might be ‘particular’ about certain things, I’m willing to go along with it because she loves it when we do things her way. Like the spelunking trips. She likes to plan out where we go, what we take with us, and what we take back.”

“But you love doing that stuff with them,” Fluttershy says quietly.

“My point is,” Doug says, wrapping Fluttershy in a bear hug, her trembles an earthquake to his heart, “that I don’t need, or want, another Rainbow Dash, or Applejack, or Rarity. I want you.” He pulls her head back to boop her snout with his nose, and smiles as her tear stained eyes cross to stare at the spot. “I like the calm and carefree Fluttershy, who likes simply listening to the sounds of the forest. Even what that forest freaks me out.”

“Oh, I’m not carefree,” Fluttershy says with a shake of her head. “I worry constantly.”

“Then you hide it well,” Doug says, chuckling to himself. “Most of the time.” He pats her soft mane as he stands, hauling her up as well. “Now, what would Fluttershy, and only Fluttershy, like to do?”

“Um,” Fluttershy gulps, her fears gripping her again. But she forces past it, motioning to the front door. “Maybe y-you can come inside? If you want?”

“I’d love that,” Doug says, smirking.

Next Chapter: Ch. 91 - Vivinsect* Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 28 Minutes