You awoke to the sun shining down through your window, causing your grey coat to slightly heat up. It felt nice, waking up to warmth.

Going over the night in your head, you recalled the conversation you had with Twilight. You told her about your past, and the dreams you had been having.
Speaking of the dreams, you didn't have another one after you went back to sleep. This meant you could get an actual good nights sleep, despite waking up in the middle of it.

Hopping out of bed, you followed your usual routine you had established over the past few days.
Wake up, shower, then head downstairs to greet Twilight and Spike.

"Hey, Storm!" they both said, happily, in their usual positions. By now you had come to expect that Spike would be placing books on the bookshelves and Twilight would be reading.

"How'd you sleep?" Twilight asked, closing her book. You assumed she was talking about your dreams.

"Pretty good. No bad dreams or anything!" you replied with a smile, assuming Spike didn't know what that meant.

Despite being busy and stocking the bookshelves, the dragon still managed to contribute towards the conversation.

"How do your wings feel?" he asked, with a strangely happy tone.
You figured they both believed your wings would have been fully healed by now, yet they weren't.

You could move them painlessly, fold them perfectly fine, yet they were still bent slightly out shape. Noticing your silence, Twilight hopped up from the couch and had a look at your wings herself.

"They're almost healed! You wouldn't be able to fly with them yet, but by tomorrow they should have healed!" she explained happily.

You weren't entirely happy about the healing of your wings, thinking back to your conversation with Rainbow Dash.

“Just so you know, I am the fastest flyer in all of Equestria, so don’t expect to beat me in a race, ok?” It would appear the mare was subtly challenging you to a race.

“We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?” you replied, an equally cocky smirk on your face.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Twilight whispered to you with a smile on her face.
She must've known exactly what you were thinking of.

"Got anything planned for today?" you asked them, attempting to change the subject.

"Actually, we were gonna go down to the Everfree forest and pick up some things for Fluttershy!" she replied, strangely enthusiastic. Not even in the show had you heard someone be so happy to be entering the Everfree forest.

You were almost expecting the Alicorn to ask you whether you knew what the Everfree Forest was, but thankfully she didn't. You didn't want Spike to know about your secret just yet.

"Why can't Fluttershy go in there herself?" you asked, already knowing the answer, but decided it was best to keep up the act for Spike.

"Because she entrusts me, Twilight's number 1 assistant, to adventure into the forest for her!" the baby dragon retorted, turning around and striking a superman pose on top of the ladder.

Unsurprisingly, the ladder then proceeded to fall backwards, slamming Spike down into the floor. Both you and Twilight laughed before the purple scaled dragon stood up dizzily.
"I'm o-ok..." he said, holding the top of his head.

"Aren't you supposed to have a crush on Rarity?" Twilight asked the slightly injured dragon, laughing.

He didn't respond, and simply continued moving around groggily.

"Anyway, the real reason is that Fluttershy is afraid of the Everfree forest," Twilight explained, "But you probably knew that already..." she whispered with a wink.

You laughed nervously, hoping Spike hadn't heard, but thankfully he was too busy getting his bearings to notice what she had said.

"So, when are you going?" you asked, curiously.

Twilight turned and looked at the dazed Spike who was walking clumsily around the room.

"Right now!" she replied, thinking it best to get Spike out the house, "Come on, Spike!"

Twilight picked up Spike and threw him onto her back, before opening the door with her unicorn magic.

"You can always come with us if you want." she added, stopping in the doorway and looking back at you.

It was Saturday, and you didn't have to do work at Sweet Apple Acres on weekends. And that meant you had free time, and could do anything you wanted to do.

"You know what? Sure, I'll come with you!"

Spike let out a 'Yesssss!', seemingly recovered from his ladder incident, as you followed the duo out the door as it slammed shut behind you.

—————————————————————

After a quiet walk through Ponyville, you eventually saw the dark green trees of the Everfree Forest beginning to emerge over the horizon, as well as a small cottage with leaves growing out of its roofing.

You recognised it immediately as Fluttershy's house, as it looked almost identical to the show's counterpart.

Twilight knocked on the door, and you could hear a faint 'come in' resonate quietly from inside the building.

The three of you entered, and instantly you saw the familiar green flooring and red flower carpet, as well as the white brick fireplace.
Fluttershy was walking down the staircase, holding an empty watering can in her mouth.

"O-Oh, Storm!" she said, surprised, placing the can down on the closest surface she could find, "I wasn't expecting you!"

Her voice was as timid as ever, yet you could still hear the surprise.

"I'm just here to help out with your Everfree Forest problem." you replied, trying to speak as softly as possible as you were still not all that familiar with this pony.

Out of all the ponies at Pinkie Pie's surprise party, Fluttershy was the one to talk to you the least. You didn't really blame her. You knew the feeling of social anxiety and meeting new people, especially when you were already incredibly shy.

"Oh, it's no problem really!" A look of guilt was on her face. She must feel guilty about getting you to do her work for her, even when she barely knew you, "I only need some flowers from the Everfree Forest to feed some of my animals, and they aren't even that far in..."
She stopped suddenly to catch her breath.
"I would go myself, but, well..."

You almost wanted to laugh at how pure-hearted this pony is, but you kept it contained.

"It's ok Fluttershy! He wanted to come!" Twilight interrupted, smiling happily.

You saw Fluttershy's mood switch from guilt to happiness as a smile crept onto her face too.

"Well if that's the case, then you're welcome to help! I just need some Red Lionflower from the fores-" Fluttershy's ears drooped and her eyes widened with shock.
You looked over to where she was staring, right out of her window, and you saw that a hole had formed in her chicken pen.
A chicken had escaped, just like in the episode 'Stare Master'.

"Oh, no, my poor chicken!" Fluttershy commented, panicked. If she wasn't as timid as she was, you assumed she would've been shouting.

She swung open the door, running over to the chicken pen with you, Twilight and Spike following.

The hole in the fence wasn't large, and likely wouldn't be too hard to fix, and thankfully only one chicken had escaped.

"Don't worry, Fluttershy! Me, Twilight and Storm will find the chicken and the Red Lionflower!" Spike exclaimed, extatically, feeling like a hero.

"Please just get my chicken back..." Fluttershy replied, solemnly, "I can always feed them something else."

You looked at Twilight, wondering what to do, and much to your relief it looked as if she was deep in thought.

"Ok, Me and Spike will go into the forest and find your chicken," Twilight explained with a determined expression, "Storm, you and Fluttershy stay here and fix the fence!"

"Just some time for you get to know her in person..." she added with a whisper.

You assumed she was talking about the show back on Earth. You already knew almost everything about all of the Mane 6, yet did you really know them?
No, you didn't.

And this was your chance to get to know Fluttershy.

You nodded, smiling, in response, letting Twilight know you were onboard with this plan.

"Ok, Spike, let's go!" She didn't have any objections from Fluttershy or Spike, so they both sprinted off into the depths of the Everfree Forest, only Spike was always a few paces behind.

Both you and Fluttershy sat in silence for what felt like half an hour, yet in reality it was only a minute or two.
You approached the small hole in the iron wired fence, and realised that only the wires had been broken.

"Only the wires were damaged!" you explained, cheerfully.

"W-What does that mean?" Fluttershy responded, nervously.
Despite having talked to her before at the party, you still felt uncomfortable due to her nervousness. You knew she couldn't help it though.

"It means that we just have to re-attach the wires, and it'll be fixed!" you replied, hopeful that it really was this simple.

Turning to look at Fluttershy, you saw her standing there with a puzzled expression on her face. Maybe she doesn't understand? you thought.

Without a word, she turned around rapidly and disappeared through her front door. What had you done to annoy her already?

Not knowing what you had done wrong, you simply continued to examine the gap in the fence. Thankfully, the other chickens knew better and were keeping far away from the escape hole, presumably terrified of Fluttershy's infamous stare.
Hopefully you wouldn't get the stare treatment when she returned.

Suddenly, you hear the front door of the cottage swing open, quietly. Then you saw Fluttershy walking towards the chicken coop, smiling, a roll of duct tape in her mouth.

"Maybe this might work?" she asked, passing the tape to you.

Now that you thought about it, how were you even picking things up? You didn't have fingers to grip objects, it was like anything you wanted to hold simply attached itself to your hoof. It was very low effort, and frankly you loved it.

"Yeah, thanks Fluttershy!" you say, magically picking up the tape with your hoof.

For seemingly no reason, Fluttershy seemed a lot less nervous than she had moments prior. Maybe it was because she was helping?

The memory of attempting to find the end of the tape suddenly hit you. The pain of being unable to find it hurt more than being stabbed in the chest ever could.
But thankfully, that wasn't a problem here. The tape had been magically created and altered so that the end was always visible and usable.

Holding down the four broken iron wires with one hoof, you carefully position the tape over the centre with the other. You gently laid the tape over it, and then twisted upon reaching the end, causing it to snap off.
You looked down at your handy work, anticipating the end result, and much to your surprise, it stayed together.

The fence had been fixed.

"Oh, thank you so much, Storm!" Fluttershy thanked you, the timidness once again returning to her voice.

"It's no problem! I did want to help after all," you reminded her, "So what do you want to do while we wait for your chicken to come home?"

Fluttershy thought for a second before finally coming up with an idea.

"Well, we only talked once at the party, so why don't we tell each other about ourselves?" she suggested.

That wasn't a bad idea. Although you already knew a lot about her due to Earth and the party, you never told her much about you.

"Good idea!" you reply, causing her to smile slightly, "I already know about you though..."

You were expecting this to be a slight damper on her happiness, but to your surprise, it wasn't.

"Oh, that's ok. We can talk about you instead!"

Maybe this was what she wanted to talk about to begin with, but she just didn't want to tell you. Either way, you were glad to finally have the opportunity to get to talk to Fluttershy properly.

But, now that you think about it, there wasn't too much to talk about. Your past in Equestria only goes back to the day you crash landed here, and you certainly weren't telling her about Earth.
Not yet anyways.

"Well, I like flying a lot, that's what my cutie mark means." you lied. Back at it again with the lies.

"Oh, I think you'd make great friends with Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy suggested, "She loves flying too!"

She didn't need to remind you. You could only delay that race for so long. While you could just say you weren't feeling up to it, you definitely weren't throwing away an opportunity like this when Rainbow practically gave it to you, flightless or not.

"Well, what about you? Don't you like flying?" you asked, attempting to take the conversation away from Rainbow Dash. Talking about her made you feel happy, yet panicked at the same time. And those two feelings together created an incredibly strange sensation that could be best described as stress.

"Well... I like flying, but... well..." she answered, timidly, "I'm afraid of heights..."

Normally, you would have laughed like a crazy pony, but you already knew about this, therefore eliminating any comedic effect it may have had.

"Hey, it's ok..." you said, attempting to console her. "Everyo-pony's afraid of something, right?"

You'd been here for nearly a week, yet the regional dialect still caused you to slip up from time to time. At this point, though, it could almost always be blamed as a slight stutter.

"I guess so..." Fluttershy responded, the quiet and weak tone in her voice now more noticeable than it ever had been since you'd arrived here.

Suddenly, before you could respond to her, you heard movement coming from the bushes of the Everfree Forest.
And it was coming your way.

"Eek!" you heard Fluttershy yelp quietly, but all you did was stare at the shaking foliage, awaiting the emergence of whoever was behind it.

Instead of some Everfree Forest monster, out of the brush emerged Twilight Sparkle and Spike, who was holding a small, white chicken.

“Hey, Fluttershy! Storm!” Twilight shouted over to you.

Fluttershy’s smile widened upon seeing the safe return of her chicken.

“Oh, thank you so much!” she said, thanking the two for returning the chicken. Despite her happiness, her voice maintained its quiet overtone.

“Nice to see you didn’t die!” you joke, moving around to unlock the chicken pen’s gate.

“Not even close.” Twilight laughed in response.

The wooden gate swung open, yet the chickens inside were to afraid of Fluttershy’s rare discipline that they stayed backed in a corner far away from the gate.

“We found this little guy hiding in a- Ow! You little bitch!“ Spike screamed as the chicken plucked its beak into his scales.

Your mouth hung wide with shock, and Fluttershy’s eyes widened. You had no idea swear words still existed in Equestria, let alone did you expect the first one you heard to be from Spike. You had definitely never seen them on the show, or even anything that featured these characters.

“Spike!“ Twilight roared back at him, anger in her voice.

“He bit me!” Spike retorted, showing a burning red mark on his arm.

All the attention was taken away from Spike, however, when you noticed the now free chicken attempting to make a break for it.

It didn’t get far however, as Fluttershy was quick to begin staring it down.

You couldn’t believe it. You got to hear Spike swear and see Fluttershy’s infamous stare all in the same day.

Before long, the now cowering chicken had been corralled back to it’s pen, and no more business remained.

“Thank you. All of you.” Fluttershy thanked the three of you, gratefully, glancing back at the shaken up chicken that was now huddling in its pen.

“It’s ok, Fluttershy! We all wanted to help, after all.” you replied, causing her smile to grow.

Spike took a few steps forward and looked down at the ground, solemnly.

“Sorry for what I said...” he explained, remorsefully.

Was swearing really that big of a deal? Fluttershy didn’t really seem too bothered, just a little shocked, whereas Twilight seemed furious. Maybe it was just a rule one of them had? You weren’t sure.

“Oh, It’s ok, Spike. Just be careful ok?” Fluttershy replied, consoling the baby dragon.

A smile grew on Twilight’s face, satisfied with his apology.

“Well, Fluttershy, we’d better get going now!” she explained to the yellow Pegasus.

“O-Oh, ok...” Fluttershy replied, sadly, “Are you sure you don’t want anything in return for your help?”

She quite clearly felt guilty making you work for free, but it was your own choice to help her.

“We’re sure.” Twilight said back, causing some relief to her worry.

“It was nice getting to know you, Storm.” Fluttershy said to you, smiling.

Most of the nervousness that was once there had vanished, yet the timidness was still audible. Some things never change, but maybe that’s a good thing.

“You too, Fluttershy.” you replied, smiling back, warmly.

And with that, you, Twilight and Spike turned to leave the scene, crossing the familiar stone bridge over the small stream outside the cottage.

“So, what happened while we were gone?” Twilight asked you, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Not much. We just talked about the party and stuff.” you lied, knowing Spike would be able to hear you.

You move closer to her so that she is in earshot of your whispering.

“I had to lie about my cutie mark, I still have no idea what it means.” you whispered to her, hoping Spike wouldn’t be able to hear you.

Probably for the better, you didn’t get a response. Neither of you wanted to risk Spike hearing.

The sun was now beginning to set over Ponyville. The days went by surprisingly fast when you were with friends, but you knew what awaited you in the coming days.

As anxious as it made you, pretty soon, you were gonna have to race Rainbow Dash.

Author's Notes:

Still no Rainbow Dash, huh?

I wanted these last few chapters to be dedicated mostly to building on individual ponies characters. I didn’t want one for every one of the Mane 6, as I couldn’t think of enough scenarios, so I settled with half of them.
I had a Chapter for Applejack, then Twilight, and now Fluttershy because they are my favourite characters (behind Rainbow Dash of course). I did make Twilight’s chapter significantly shorter, however, as she’s already a pretty main character.

Only 1 or 2 chapters remain until the first chapter that focuses on Rainbow Dash, and I’m pretty sure that’s what most of you have came here for. But I like making you wait because I’m evil like that