Book four of "Who We Become".
After discovering the magic of friendship, Sunset Shimmer's senior year was one of the happiest times of her life. But it's been almost two years since graduation; all her friends have moved on to studying abroad, to pr...
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Fluttershy awoke with the first rays of sunlight, feeling rejuvenated after a blissful night's sleep. She would have stretched out, but she was being held down by a certain lavender alicorn. Fluttershy smiled and nuzzled closer to Twilight. Even though the change in season had brought warmer weather with it, Twilight had been extra clingy over the past few nights. Fluttershy didn't know if it was because of the week they'd spent apart, making up a couple nights before, or something to do with Sunset, but she didn't really care; she was loving every bit of the extra attention.
It turned out that also included extra attention from Sunset, and it was hard not to feel guilty about how much she enjoyed it. She had to keep reminding herself that it was okay, that they had all agreed on this. She was allowed to enjoy it. She was supposed to enjoy it.
And she did. She may not have been excited for the change at first, but she was definitely coming around to the idea. At first everything just felt wrong, like they were trying to force something that wasn't working out. Throughout everything, she'd been the one pushing for the triad relationship, but she'd mostly been doing it to make Twilight happy and to give Sunset a reason to get better. At best, she could have said she was open to the idea.
But being detached had allowed her to be bold. Since she wasn't emotionally invested in dating Sunset, she could take certain risks just to see how things would play out. Nothing extreme, of course. She did care very much about Sunset, and wanted the relationship to work for her and Twilight's sake. But a kiss on the cheek? That was an acceptable risk. It was a good thing too, as nopony else seemed interested in taking any. Talking over what was going wrong with the date while still on the date? Probably a bit much. But it had felt like her last chance to enjoy their new relationship. Not that she would have given up on it, she was going to give it her best shot no matter what. And if things didn't work out, she had planned on suggesting Twilight just date both her and Sunset, without her and Sunset dating each other.
Then something happened. While she was in between the two of them, she stopped worrying. Any question of if what they were doing was okay just faded away, and more importantly, she began to feel excited for their arrangement. Twilight and Sunset both loved her, and while she wasn't sure how she felt about Sunset anymore, she loved the feeling of being loved.
She also loved the feeling of Twilight's foreleg wrapped around her, but unfortunately she had work to do. Carefully, she extricated herself from Twilight's grip and got out of bed. She looked back at her sleeping fiancée. Twilight's ear twitched, and Fluttershy couldn't help but imagine she looked sad without somepony to cuddle up against. She picked up a stuffed fox and put it next to Twilight, who reached out and grabbed hold of it. "Love you, Twily," she said, causing Twilight to mumble something incoherent before rolling over with the fox.
Fluttershy left the room as quietly as she possibly could, and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. She planned to make some tea before heading out to take care of the animals, but when she walked into the kitchen, she found a coffee pot sitting in the sink. Even aside from the facts that she had just left Twilight up in bed and that Spike was probably also asleep, there was only one pony in the castle who actually drank coffee.
