Rainbow Dash leaned against the cider barrel, a smirk playing on her lips. "Did you know earth ponies used to smoke pipes packed with dried apple leaves?" She blew a wobbly smoke ring that drifted up toward the barn rafters.
Applejack snorted from her hay bale perch, shifting her weight. "My grandpappy still does. Smells like rotten compost, though. Ain't natural."
Twilight Sparkle muttered something about pulmonary decay rates, her quill scratching furiously across parchment. Pinkie Pie bounced by with six cupcakes stacked on her head, warbling an off-key tune about tobacco taxes. Rarity wrinkled her nose and levitated a lace handkerchief to her face. "Darling, must we dwell on such provincial habits? It's dreadfully unfashionable."
Rainbow chuckled, twirling her unlit cigarette like a baton. "Relax, Princess Prim. It's just ancient history." She nodded toward Fluttershy, tucked by the chicken coop and half-hidden behind Buttercup's feathers. "Hey, Flutters, you ever tried—"
The words hung in the air. Everypony froze as Fluttershy reached out—not hesitant, not trembling, just steady—and plucked the cigarette from Dash's abandoned pack. Like she was checking a rabbit's paw for thorns.
The paper touched her lips. A match hissed alive in her hooves, sharp as tearing silk in the sudden hush. Twilight's quill snapped, ink spilling dark across her diagrams. Pinkie's cupcakes tumbled into the dirt, forgotten.
One long, slow drag. Fluttershy's cheeks hollowed, the cherry glowing fierce crimson in the dim barn. Smoke curled from her nostrils in thick, gray serpents—strangely elegant against the hay and apple scent.
It tasted of burnt autumn leaves and dusty attics: acrid, sharp, biting her tongue. Heat bloomed in her chest, pressing against her ribs like an insistent secret. She held it, counting Buttercup's frantic heartbeat against her leg, the rasp of hay under Applejack's shift, Rainbow's stifled breath. Her eyes—wide, unflinching—swept the stunned group: Dash's slack jaw, Rarity's hovering handkerchief, Twilight's dripping quill.
Then she exhaled. No cough, no sputter—just a controlled stream, cooler than the fire inside. Her lips pursed, shaping the plume. A perfect gray ring floated toward Pinkie's frosting-smeared muzzle. Another followed, larger and wobbling, drifting to Applejack's discarded hat like a ghostly halo. A third, smoother, aimed at the broken tip of Twilight's quill, where ink pooled like midnight.
The rings hung in the air longer than they should, defying the barn's lazy drafts—silent exclamation points over their shock.
The barn fell quieter than dust. Buttercup clucked uneasily against Fluttershy's foreleg. The air shifted: woodsmoke layering the sweet hay and apples, edged with that sharp tang where Fluttershy stood. Twilight stayed frozen, eyes darting from ruined notes to Fluttershy's calm face, horn flickering uselessly—no book in her head could explain this yellow pegasus breathing smoke like mountain mist.
"I... uh..." Rainbow's voice cracked like dry straw. Her cigarette lay in the dirt by Pinkie's scattered cupcakes. She stared at Fluttershy's precise lips forming yet another ring, watching it sail toward the swinging barn door.
Fluttershy tracked it with serene eyes. Only a faint tremor in her feathers, catching the sunlight, hinted at anything beneath. She inhaled again, the heat settling familiar and aching behind her breastbone.
Applejack stomped forward, hooves kicking up dust that cut briefly through the haze. "Fluttershy! What in tarnation?"
Fluttershy didn't flinch under the shadow. Her wide eyes met Applejack's glare, a flicker of deep sadness softening the calm. She tapped ash from the cigarette with a gentle hoof; it fell near Buttercup's claw. The hen pecked once, squawked in offense, and fluffed her feathers against Fluttershy's leg.