A filly was once born in Cloudsdale on a spring evening. The mother, Painted Skies, adored her daughter with a pale yellow coat and a pink mane and tail. However, she knew that she couldn't raise a foal yet, as she was only seventeen years old.
"I love you, Fluttershy," Painted Skies whispered softly to the sleeping filly. "But I'm just not ready to raise you. I hope you'll understand one day." She knocked once, twice on the door of her best friend's home.
"Painted Skies, are you dropping off Flutters?" Firefly asked her dear friend, who had tears welling in her eyes. Firefly was nineteen and lived with her boyfriend, Rainbow Blaze, who was twenty.
"No, no, no!" Firefly gasped. "Please don't cry! You know you can come see her whenever you want to."
"I just don't want her to think I don't love her," Painted Skies said, still sobbing.
"She won't ever think that," Firefly responded with a smirk. "Obviously you loved her enough to have the fastest flyer in Cloudsdale raise her."
"I do wish you would stop gloating all the time, Firefly," Painted Skies said, rolling her eyes. She loved her dear friend, but Firefly sometimes drove her a little crazy.
"I promise I will eventually, but I'm still a teen technically," Firefly said sarcastically. She hugged Painted Skies. "And so are you. Just because you've had her doesn't mean that you aren't just a filly anymore. Please, please keep in touch, though. I hope you make it as an artist in Canterlot."
Painted Skies frowned at her friend's speech, and then turned away.
"I won't, don't worry about me," She said quietly. "Worry about her." She pointed her hoof at Fluttershy, causing Firefly to look at the filly. The slight distraction allowed Painted Skies to take to the air, flying far from Cloudsdale and into the royal city of Canterlot below.
When I was just a year old, the mare who had raised me after my real mother abandoned me dropped me off at a junior flight camp. I remembered her having a filly of her own with her boyfriend, Rainbow Blaze, and I simply found myself in that flight camp for orphans one morning.
"Fluttershy?" The flight instructor, Miss Atmosphere called my name on the first day of flight school when I was eight. I had missed the first three years of my schooling.
"I-I'm here," I whispered.
The flight instructor rolled her eyes at me. "How about Rainbow Dash? That one here?" A rainbow blur flashed by me, nearly knocking me off the could I was standing on.
"Yeah, I'm here," Rainbow Dash said, puffing out her chest in a cocky smirk.
"Great!" Miss Atmosphere smiled proudly. "I can tell that you'll be a great flyer, Rainbow Dash."
"Thanks!" Rainbow Dash said, a blush creeping on her cheeks. "I bet you're a great flyer, too."
"Oh, stop it," Miss Atmosphere said, smiling. She ran quickly through the rest of the attendance list, and the first day of flight school began.
During recess that day, foals were racing everywhere, back and forth. My wings couldn't support my body well, so I was tired from the few exercises we had done in the morning.
"Hey, Fluttershy!" An awful colt named Hoops yelled to me. "We made up a little song about ya!"
"W-Why?" I whimpered. I looked around the cloud made to be a playground for Rainbow Dash, hoping she'd see me.
"Wanna sing it, boys?" Hoops asked his friends, Dumb-Bell and Score.
"Yeah!" They said, sounding like idiots.
"Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can hardly fly!" They laughed at their song, thinking it was clever somehow.
"Hey, why are you dorks making fun of her?" Rainbow Dash said fiercely, landing between myself and the bullies.
"Shut up, Rainbow Crash," Hoops said, rolling his eyes. "You don't got any room to talk, you make fun of ponies who can't barely get off the ground just like we do."
"Oh, says the colt who hasn't gotten an A on a flight test in three years?" Rainbow questioned sarcastically.
"It's not like you could beat us in a race, you're just a little filly trying to get in the big leagues. Ain't she, boys?" Hoops retorted. His terrible friends nodded.
"You wanna find out?" Rainbow Dash challenged. Hoops and his gang agreed to race her, and soon I was standing alone on a cloud, a checkered flag in my mouth. I waved it, using the little strength I ever had to signal the start of the race. Rainbow Dash and Hoops dashed off, the force from their flight sending me off the cloud and plunging me toward the ground.
I was screaming loudly, fearing for my life. I didn't know what was happening, and I thought I was going to die. Adrenaline rushed through me as I fell, but then I felt myself stop. A pillow of butterflies had caught me, and I began to laugh quietly. This was all so beautiful and I wondered how had I never seen this all before.
"Oh, hello," I said softly to a cluster of bunnies. I looked into a small pond near where I landed, my scrawny figure making me look more fragile than the butterflies that had saved my life.
Soon, I began to sing, soft at first, but then louder as I introduced myself to all of the animals in the forest. It was almost as though I could understand them, and I adored the new talent I had found.
As I basked in the sunlight with my new animal friends, a loud sound made them scatter away from me. A large rainbow flashed through the sky, and I couldn't believe it. Rainbow Dash had just performed a Sonic Rainboom. I stood in awe for a few moments, and then searched for the animals that had run off. Within minutes, I had gathered them all back in the clearing. Suddenly, a flash of light appeared on my flank, turning the blank space into one with three butterflies instead. This was truly the beginning of my kindness.