Wednesday, July 6, 2016

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AUGUST

Today's Horoscope (Virgo): Dog walkers get all the bitches.

Morning

Largely due to the physical and emotional exhaustion of the last couple of days, everyone wakes up at a more reasonable time for summer break today. It's half past eight when I wake up, tangled up with Twilight and Pinkie on Twilight's bed. Sunset went back to her room when we all got tired of watching late movies.

We're all still a bit wrung out, so everybody's doing their own thing today, not really talking much. We all wander in and out of the kitchen, getting breakfast and taking it to the dining room or the lounge or back to our own rooms. I'm not really hungry, so I grab a pop-tart and munch on it while I write my parents an e-mail and do a little web browsing.

At half past ten, Fluttershy knocks on my bedroom door. "Hey, Flash?" she asks.

"Yeah?"

Fluttershy shifts her weight, leaning against the doorframe, and runs a finger through her hair. "Would you mind maybe spending the day with me? I...I need to get out of the dorm for a little while, and I have some shopping to do anyway, and...and I could use some company."

I nod. "Sure." I shut down my computer, grab my wallet and my phone, and follow her out, stopping by Twilight's room long enough to tell her I'm headed out for the day.

Daytime

We borrow Cadance's SUV for our outing. Our first stop is a bulk pet supply store, where Fluttershy picks up several incredibly heavy bags of dry dog and cat food, as well as large bags of hamster shavings and bulk packages of birdseed and hamster pellets.

The kind they eat, not the kind they make.

Once we've loaded it all up, we drive it over to the animal shelter to drop it off. Fluttershy spends a few minutes checking on all the animals and filling food and water dishes, then talks to the volunteer on duty—Tree Hugger, that stoner chick from CHS—for a minute before heading back to the SUV.

"So you buy all the pet food and stuff for the shelter?" I ask.

"When it's my turn," Fluttershy says. "It's charged to the shelter. The store has the credit account on file and knows whose turn it is to do the supply run." She stretches, then gets into the car; I pull out onto the road.

"Where to next?"

"The mall," Fluttershy replies. "There's a sale today and I saw a dress I kind of liked." She pauses, then adds, "Besides, I need some new bras. Ever since about our third day at Sweet Apple Acres, mine have all been pinching like crazy."

"Oh, so that's why you went without a bra for a little while there."

I can feel Fluttershy's glare burning into the side of my head. "Pervert."

"What? I'm surrounded by a forest of tits pretty much all the time. It's kinda hard not to notice."

Fluttershy snorts.

"You should probably get a new swimsuit or two while you're there," I suggest.

"Hmm...will I even be needing one? I don't think we're planning another beach trip, are we?"

"You never know. Better safe than sorry." After turning at a particularly bad intersection, I add, "Tell you what. I'll buy you a swimsuit."

"Anything to get to ogle my body, huh?" Fluttershy shakes her head. "Okay, I'll take you up on that. On one condition."

"Name it."

"There's a movie I wanna go see somewhere in between you buying me lunch and all the shopping."

"Sure."

We decide to have lunch first since the movie Fluttershy wants to see doesn't start until a quarter to one. We stop at a casual dining place on the outskirts of the mall grounds. It has a nice atmosphere with dim lighting and decent food, and isn't terribly packed. The only thing either of us can think to complain about is that the staff are fighting over which station to play over the ambience system; the music coming from overhead keeps changing mid-song. By the fifth time the station changes in the middle of a song, Fluttershy is visibly annoyed.

I can't say I blame her. It's kind of aggravating.

"Okay, enough is enough," Fluttershy declares, pulling her tablet out of her purse. After a few minutes of her doing...whatever the hell she does, the station locks on classic rock and doesn't change. Fluttershy puts her tablet away with a smile just as the server brings our food.

Once the server is clear of the table, I lean forward and whisper, "Nice choice."

"Thought you'd approve."

After a pleasant and enjoyable lunch, we head to the mall, making it through the ticket counter and concession stand just in time for the twenty minutes of previews before the movie. It's an anime movie about cute young girls who are persuaded to become magical soldiers by an utterly adorable little creature that turns out to be a soul-sucking demon who conned them into making sacrifices they didn't understand. By the middle of the movie, it's turned from cute and fluffy to gory and violent.

Fluttershy loves every second of it. I can't help but feel like I'd rather be watching My Small Squirrel.

She must pick up on my not having enjoyed the movie very much, because she decides to go look for new swimsuits first. She models several very alluring bikinis and one-piece swimsuits for me before choosing the three that got the biggest—ahem—reaction. After that, we walk halfway across the mall to shop for dresses, underwear, and even some shoes—none of which I pay for, but all of which I have to carry.

We're halfway back to the parking lot when Fluttershy stops suddenly, looking in a shop that sells pointless gimmicky bric-a-brac. "Oh my," she says, her eyes wide. She rushes into the store; I watch her stand in front of a wall of huge, colorful plushies. The way she's rushing back and forth, looking at this one, then that with a wide-eyed, wonderous expression...

It's positively adorable. For the entire time she's in the store, I forget that this girl is a master hacker and smoking hot ninja assassin. All I see is pure cuteness.

After almost ten minutes, she comes out carrying two plushies: a fat white egg-shaped thing with a cat-like smile, rabbit ears, and a plastic red jewel on its forehead, and a turquoise platypus with a little brown felt fedora. She squeezes them and makes this absolutely tooth-rotting little 'squee' sound.

"Found something you like?" I ask.

Fluttershy blushes and coughs, her hair falling over one eye. "Umm...yes," she says quietly. "Let's...let's go back."

Evening

When we get back to the dorm, I help Fluttershy take all her new things to her room. She sets the plushies on her bed, adjusting them and admiring them.

"Well, I'll just leave you to have fun with your new friends," I say.

"Wait!" Fluttershy says, turning to me and shuffling across the room. She leans up and gives me a peck on the cheek. "Thank you for today," she says softly. Then, in an even softer tone, she adds, "Thank you for everything."

"Fluttershy?"

She sits down on the bed, hugging the white egg-rabbit plushie. "After what everybody said yesterday, I...I've been thinking," she says. "And I've decided...everybody's right about me being like Sunset Shimmer—and they're wrong about me being like her."

I sit down in her computer chair and turn it to face her. "Run that by me again?"

Fluttershy hugs the plushie a little tighter. "Zodiac turned us both into the worst possible versions of ourselves," she says. "But Sunset was already a bad person. People like her made me a bad person."

"I don't know if she's a bad person," I say. "I think she just has, well...a superiority complex and impulse control issues."

Fluttershy raises an eyebrow at me. "Don't tell me you're a psychology expert now."

I shrug. "Well, I'm not wrong."

"No, I guess not," Fluttershy agrees. "That does pretty much describe her." She shakes her head. "Anyway, my point is...from now on, I want to be the best possible version of myself." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "And if that...if that means giving Sunset Shimmer a chance to change the way you and the others did for me, then that's what I'll do."

I smile at her. "You really are one of the kindest people I know," I say.

Fluttershy blushes. "I'm not that kind," she says. She puts down her plushie, crosses over to her desk, and rummages around in it for a minute, then hands me a yellow thumb drive with a pink butterfly sticker on it.

"That's the first database I ever cracked," she says. "It's encrypted, of course, and the data is a few years old, so it's not really useful for anything anyway. I just kept it as...kind of a memento of my first thrill." She smiles wistfully. "I want you to have it. It doesn't seem right to keep it when I'm making a clean break with that part of myself."

"A clean break, huh?" I ask.

Fluttershy laughs softly. "Well...I'm not going to promise I'll be a good girl and keep my fingers out of other people's software, but..." Fluttershy ducks her head and gives me a sheepish smile. "I think I'd rather go back to spending my time on fluffy bunnies and cute kitties."

---

Fluttershy yawns. "Well, I want to peel down, change into my jammies, and cuddle my new plushie friends," she says. "Umm...see you tomorrow?"

"Isn't it a bit early for bed?" I ask.

Fluttershy shrugs. "I've got something I need to do at two in the morning. And no, I'm not telling you what."

"Oh...okay." I give her a dubious look, then shake my head. "Good luck with, umm...whatever." I wave and walk out.

Upstairs, I see Twilight and Sunset sitting in Sunset's room. I peek in. "What's up?" I ask.

"Well, Fluttershy was out all day, so I was running some of my theories about Leo and Red Flag by Twilight," Sunset says.

"We didn't come up with anything really useful, unfortunately, but at least we tried," Twilight says with a frustrated sigh. "How was your day?"

"Oh, you know...watched a movie that scarred me for life, got to ogle Fluttershy in a bikini," I say with a casual wave of my hand.

"Wow, you actually have the balls to admit that to your girlfriend's face?" Sunset asks in an impressed tone.

Twilight rolls her eyes. "I already know his heart belongs to me, so I don't mind if his eyes and his dick wander. Just as long as they don't wander too far and I approve of where they're wandering," she adds as a reminder, giving me a severe stare.

Sunset chuckles and shakes her head. "You know, you surprise me, Twilight. I never would've pegged you as being the overly permissive type of girlfriend." With a sly smile, she adds, "Can I borrow him?"

"Nope!" Twilight says sweetly.

"Darn," Sunset says, snapping her fingers. "How about Pinkie? Can I borrow Pinkie?"

"What would you want with Pinkie?" Twilight asks.

"I dunno," Sunset replies with a shrug.

Twilight smirks. "Tell you what," she says, "you can borrow Rainbow Dash. Nobody's using her right now."

"There's a thought," Sunset purrs, stroking her chin.

I shake my head. "Okay, you two are weird. I'm gonna go practice my guitar."

Twilight waves, and I head back to my room.

This has been one bizarre week, and it's only half over...

Late Night

A shrill scream pulls me out of the murky miasma of dreams. I sit up abruptly. I glance at the time; it's just after two in the morning.

Fighting my way out of my tangled bedsheets, I rush out into the hall, where Twilight's already coming out of her room. Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack come charging up the stairs a minute later.

"Whut's goin' on up here, y'all?" Applejack asks.

"Hell if I know," I say.

At the same time, we all notice that Sunset Shimmer's door is wide open. The screaming is coming from her room.

Glancing at each other, we carefully approach the door.

Sunset Shimmer is flailing around in her bed, her panties around her ankles and her hands tied behind her back.

There's a banana creamsicle jammed halfway up her pussy.

"GET IT OOOOOOOOOOOUT!" she screams at us.

We all look at each other. By unspoken agreement, we shove Rainbow through the door. She glares back at us, then walks over to Sunset, her face red, and pulls the creamsicle out, studying it with a nauseated expression.

"Okay, Sunset? If you're gonna do weird sex stuff up here at night, please don't wake us all up with it, okay?" Pinkie says.

Sunset pants loudly as she wriggles around on the bed, trying to rub some warmth into her crotch using just her thighs. After several loud, gasping breaths, she hisses out, "It...was...Fluttershy."

Fluttershy steps out of Sunset's closet, her phone in her hand and aimed at the bed. She flips her hair back and smirks. "I feel better now," she says cheerfully as she skips to the door, bouncing past us whistling a cheerful tune.

We all stare at her retreating back, then at Sunset, then at each other. Everyone has an expression of sick fascination and horrid confusion.

One by one, by unspoken agreement, we all turn away and head back to our own rooms.

As I close my door, I hear Sunset calling out down the hall:

"Hey, is anybody gonna untie me?!"