Winter
Again, as she had so many times before, Fluttershy walked deep into Whitetail Woods. She walked along the same well-trodden path, but the path was different now. For the first time, it had been marked by hooves other than her own. Rainbow Dash had walked it as many times as Fluttershy had that year, and it would bear signs of her presence for many seasons to come.
The forest was white with snow, and snowflakes flittered down from the sky like countless daylit fireflies and nestled in her mane and coat and tail. Snow-blanketed trees stood along the path, their bare branches, encased in translucent frost, reached up into the falling white and towards the glowing gray clouds above. The snow on the ground was perfectly undisturbed and pure except for the craters left by Fluttershy’s hooves in a trail behind her, quickly filling with new snowfall. The forest was silent and still but for Fluttershy’s hoofsteps, her calm breath, and the whispering butterfly-wingbeat of snow resting upon snow.
Fluttershy was alone again. She had almost forgotten what it was like to walk that path alone. As she walked, she saw the ditch Rainbow Dash had once tripped over while talking excitedly about a horseshoe contest won against Applejack and sprawled head over hooves to the ground and stuck her tongue out when Fluttershy giggled at her. And Fluttershy saw, too, the tree where they had met the squirrel who clambered up their legs and tugged playfully at their manes and followed them all the way to the clearing. Along the sides of the path, Fluttershy saw a hundred, a thousand happy memories, and did not feel alone.
She soon arrived at the brook, and found its water stopped in ice. She crept across the delicate surface and into the clearing.
In the open air of the clearing, with no umbrella of tree branches, the snow piles had collected and risen higher than anywhere else in the forest. Fluttershy waded through snow until she found a spot on the ground where she knew she had lain down with Rainbow Dash in springtime. She dug into the snow and sat down, tucking her hooves beneath her and folding her wings at her side. In the ground, some small remnant of the warmth she and Rainbow had shared there must have remained, as she began to feel less cold.
Fluttershy always returned to the clearing in winter. She didn’t know why. Perhaps to re-feel the sun, and re-smell the blossoms, and re-hear the birds and the running brook, if only in memory. She had never been able to. She had never seen past the stiff, lifeless reality of winter. And with all of the animals away or asleep or hiding from the cold, she had felt more alone than ever. All she had on those previous winter trips were memories of lost opportunities, and almost-beens but never-woulds, and yearning and longing for a friend who would never be anything more, and of all the years and springs and summers Fluttershy spent never as close to that friend as she knew she could have been, if not for her fear and anxiety and want of courage.
But something had changed. Something in the winter air, or the frozen soil, or the slumbering trees, or in herself, she could not tell. Where before on all those previous winter walks she had only ever seen leafless branches, now she saw the flitting, singing birds and lively blossoms of spring. Where before she had only ever seen the white-covered ground, void of warmth, she now saw the soft, dewy green grass. Where before she had only seen the air empty but for falling snow, now she saw herself and Rainbow Dash, tumbling out of the sky, holding each other fast. She felt the down feathers of Rainbow’s wings at her flanks, Rainbow’s hooves around her withers, Rainbow’s lips on her own, and the heat and passion and heady rhythm of their bodies in motion together.
Fluttershy realized it was everything that had changed, and that would never be the same again. The regret and the longing and the disappointment were gone, and replaced with memories of time not wasted, and songs not unsung, and sweet nothings not unspoken.
Fluttershy drew into herself, and the cold fell away, and the snow melted, and the trees bloomed, and the clouds were swept away. Night fell, and she rested her head on Rainbow Dash’s chest and listened to her lover’s slow, sleeping breath, and wind passed over them and they pulled each other closer. And Fluttershy knew the scene and the clearing and the spring would forever be hers.
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W-wait so...that's the end?
..well, as the moral of this story says, all good things must come to an end..
It was a beautiful story. More heartbreaking than I would of preferred, but it had a realistic, refreshing dash of melancholy reality that made it worth my read.
Thanks for the wonderful story, it's already added to my favorites
Goodness, this was such a wonderful story.
Was this for the Flutterdash contest with only one entry?
The story does have some really nice elements. However they come apart a little easy for my taste.
The plot seems run along preset rails, the events appear simplified to fit the tracks.
Why doesn't Dash break it off for exactly the same reason with her other partners in your other stories?
While the writing is good and most of the content too, the point you seemingly try to make isn't valid in my eyes.
5283555
What point?
5283805
I'm talking about the implication that a relationship between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash would be just a flash in the pan, an affair.
Flutterdash is one of the pairings where a true and lasting emotional bond is most believable.
Regarding communication, support and trust both of them could hardly find a better match.
The way they just shrug it off feels unsatisfying. It seems to suggest there never was a deep connection in the first place.
5284734
So do you think every FlutterDash fic has to end with them together happily ever after and everything working out? I only ask out of curiosity.
5285740 It feels like most fanfics that involve Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy drifting apart use the Wonderbolts as a reason, and from what I'm seeing, this story does the same thing. The problem I see with them drifting apart because of this, is that it isn't just something that would drift her apart from Fluttershy, but drift her from all of her friends. But we never see her friends objecting to her joining the Wonderbolts and instead are fully supportive. Even being in the same team for the Equestria games, Fluttershy was fully supportive of Rainbow Dash being on the winning team, because it was what she liked doing. But in the end, Rainbow Dash chooses her friends over the Wonderbolts, because they are more important to her in the end.
As Wonderbolt Academy suggests, the possibility of Rainbow Dash quitting her dreams as a Wonderbolt can indeed happen if the pieces are set together. But the Wonderbolts being the primary reason for them drifting apart doesn't sound very plausible since they've gone over this conflict from time and time again. (Heck, we're not even sure if being a Wonderbolt member means she'll have to leave Ponyville to stay in it.)
Of course, there can never be a happily ever after. There will always be more conflicts out there, but this story seems to end on a conflict they settled once before.
This had a surprisingly bittersweet ending but I'm still gonna need a sequel where RD comes back and they just pick up where they left off.
5285898
I guess I messed up then, because I'd meant to show that they began to naturally drift back to their normal relationship already, not for any particular reason, just because passion naturally dissipates over time, as this was meant to be a romance based more on desire than on love (which is what would inevitably end, not any FlutterDash pairing in general). Rainbow Dash becoming a Wonderbolt wasn't supposed to be the reason their relationship ended, but simply the marker of their relationship's end. Like a final nail in a coffin, except not nearly as terrible, because by the end Fluttershy hadn't lost anything, only gained new memories and experiences.
But oh well. Thanks for reading.
5287815
That's what I got out of the story; life happened, and they were better for it, even if it didn't last.
Oh, god, my heart. This is the very picture of my life after love.
This is the very picture of my life after love. Well done, author! This short, sweet story beautifully and oh so truly describes how wonderful bright-burning passion is, and how even a relationship that doesn't last can still completely change one's life and leave behind nothing but happy memories. I've long wanted a story that captures those feelings: that gratefulness for the experience and the memories; that total absence of regret or ill will; that, as you put it, "natural drift back" to the relationship as it was before it grew romantic. . . . I know all of those so well. Thank you so much for writing this. I'm kind of wondering if you're writing from personal experience, just because of how close to my own this hits.
This was sweet and sad.
This does not happen often, but I'm adding this to my favorites. What a deliciously good story you have here and I might check out more of your work in the very near future.
That was an amazing story!
Please tell me you didn't forget a tag.
Wow, that was both wonderful and damn sad. The beginning chapters were so happy, the seasons epitomized their whirlwind romance, only for it to crash and burn.
I'm assuming Fluttershy didn't just let hypothermia take her away in the end while she went through the memories of when she was happiest, though that is definitely one viable interpretation.
Yep, very conflicted, on one hand, really well done and a great short romance story, on the other hand, that ending makes me not want to read through it ever again.
Wtf dude? This had no sad tag?! This is so unbelievably sad as it unravels till the end.
Good story bro. Keep it up~
This is beautiful. The seasons help convey the trend of their relationship