G. Gilda.
As they walked back to the carriage, Gilda reviewed the words of both Lunch Pail and Rainbow Dash in her head. The conversation would have gone much differently if they had been griffons instead of ponies. A griffon would never have admitted his problems with the town. And any griffons witnessing an outburst such as Lunch Pail’s would have mocked him instead of trying to help him.
This...this was the ‘magic of friendship’, wasn’t it? Like many an immigrant and visitor to a foreign land, Gilda knew things about her adopted land that natives were ignorant of. According to the official philosophy of Equestria, Harmonism, ponies were supposed to find commonalities and help one another instead of exploiting their weaknesses. Rainbow’s story was a clear demonstration of one of the elements of harmony, Gilda was sure of it. She could never remember what they were or how many of them there were (seven? nine?), so she couldn’t put a claw on which element, but it sure felt like one of them.
# # #
A few minutes later, the carriage was skirting over the edge of the Everfree.
“Dear, are you sure this is safe?” Windy asked her husband. “The map clearly says that it is very dangerous to fly over the Everfree.”
“We’re not that far in,” Bow assured Windy. “And we’re both trained weather ponies, so we can handle some rogue weather. Besides, Rainbow needs us. The sooner we can get to Canterlot, the sooner she can tell us what’s really troubling her.”
Gilda was flying a couple dozen ponylengths away from the carriage, scanning the forest below her for any breaks in the canopy. Slowly, she drifted further and further from the carriage as she flew over one such clearing. She saw a set of stone ruins with two partially intact towers between a demolished central hall, and a deep chasm alongside. She drifted downwards to get a closer look.
Gilda’s mind was a mess of thoughts: her guilt over not wanting her new human friends to leave, her worries about what she was going to do with her life long-term, and the idle continuation of her thoughts at the cafe.
Just then, a thought that was not her own drifted into her brain. Ever since she had learned about unicorns and their reputations, she had been alert for a number of highly-unlikely scenarios, including this one. At first, the sound in her head was like a xylophone being played in a highly complex manner. And then the musical tones shifted into a voice—a voice that Gilda was never supposed to hear again.
“Who are you?”
“Mom?!” Gilda exclaimed, clutching her head with her claws.
Gilda dropped out of the sky. She started frantically flapping her wings, but instead of a gust of wind buoying her upward, she felt a suction pulling her down even faster. None of the trees below her were affected, so this was obviously her magic going haywire, just as the big note attached to the Everfree Forest on the map had warned her.
Seeing the trees coming closer and closer, Gilda tried desperately to fly her way out of this, but still found that her own magic was pulling her to her doom. She saw that she was clearly headed for the sharp rocks of the ruins. At that moment she counter-intuitively flipped onto her back, and was then sucked upward into the sky. By tumbling her body around, she was able to propel herself away from the clearing, and towards the edge of the forest. This was complicated by constant fluctuations in her magic, which reversed in direction a couple of times completely at random.
As she tumbled, she connected the screams she had been hearing for the last several seconds—the ones that weren’t her own screams—with the carriage plummeting down towards a smaller clearing closer to safety. Like Gilda herself, it was being pulled chaotically in every direction, but mostly down. Gilda wanted to fly down there and help, but knew that with the wild magic that was impossible. “I’ll get help!” she cried out before she lost sight of them. She hoped they heard her.
H. Rainbow Dash.
After the crash, the survivors—which was everypony—took stock. The worst hurt was Fluttershy, because she was in the carriage when it had crashed and crumpled, and got badly bruised as a result. Leading to her limping, one wing spread over Rainbow Dash’s back.
Initially, Dr. Tarbell wasn’t going anywhere, not until he was able to secure all of his books and notes. The distant roar of a manticore caused him to decide on leaving the books for now. “But somepony has got to retrieve them!” he vowed.
As they made their way towards the slightly brighter light of a small clearing, Rainbow noticed that Fluttershy seemed much less scared than any of them. “What’s up, Flutters?” she asked carefully.
“We haven’t been noticed yet,” Fluttershy said in her usual low voice—for once the exact correct volume for the situation. “Pay attention to all the noise—if that stops, we’re in trouble. I think something else has spooked them.”
Rainbow looked over at Bow, Windy and Tarbell, who were all looking nervously around them.
“Did you hear that?” Windy whispered.
“Did you feel that?” Bow added. “Something brushed my wing!”
“Be quiet!” Tarbell exclaimed, a hoof held up to his head.
Bow’s left wing suddenly lifted on its own, and a second later Bow toppled over, pushed by an invisible force.
Windy and Tarbell went to pick him up, but at that moment the unicorn’s horn went off, the magical blast missing Bow’s face by inches.
“I didn’t do that, honest!” Tarbell exclaimed.
“Then kindly turn your head!” Windy exclaimed. “I...I mean, I’m sorry. I’m just on edge.”
“I know what you mean,” Dr. Tarbell replied. “I’ve been in this wood a dozen times for research. I’ve had these feelings of wrongness before in here, but never this strong.” He lowered his voice before adding, “something’s been awakened.”
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked at each other. Neither of them felt this sense of “wrongness.”
The group stumbled into the clearing. A couple of deer scattered on seeing them. The four ponies moved to the center of the open area, feeling safer with clear sky above them.
Fluttershy leaned over to whisper in Rainbow Dash’s ear. “Those deer are watching us,” she said. “I think they’re intelligent...”
“...And not friendly,” Rainbow said, completing Fluttershy’s thought. She looked around her, trying in vain to see the watching eyes in the foliage.
A few minutes later they witnessed an interesting sight: three pegasi, their wingtips touching, floating down out of the sky.
“They’re maximizing their wind resistance,” Rainbow Dash told them. “Which means they’re probably not using their magic.”
“Then how do they expect to get us out of the forest?” Windy asked.
“We walk,” one of the arriving pegasi answered, as the trio hit the ground simultaneously and tumbled to a stop equidistant from each other. He was a light gray stallion with an orange-and-tan mane.
“Wow, that stunt looks worthy of the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow said.
“Thanks, I just got in,” the stallion pegasus said. “My name’s Fire Streak, and we’re going to get you out of this forest.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and sorry that I may have put all of our lives in danger,” Bow Hothoof said sheepishly. “I tried to cut corners, and look where it got us!”
“Don’t worry about it,” one of the two pegasi mare rescuers said. She was pale yellow in color, with a blue-and-cyan mane. She was wearing a dark orange knit sweater. “We were in the area anyway. My name’s Lofty, and I’ll be leading you out of the Everfree—I’ve been poking around the outskirts for years, giving tours to academics...like Muck here. Hi, Muck!”
Dr. Tarbell grumbled an acknowledgement.
“Muck Tarbell?” Fluttershy asked Rainbow, who snickered.
“You’ve already met Fire Streak, the pony who figured out how to get us down here safely.”
“And I’m Mane Allgood,” the third rescuer introduced herself. “I know all about the animals in the Everfree. Well...the ones that didn’t spontaneously generate in the past month or so.” Mane’s coat was an orangish color, while her mane was white and pale gold. She was wearing a buttoned-up yellow-green explorer’s shirt. “So let’s get going.”
Dr. Tarbell gestured back towards where they had entered the clearing. “I sort of left my books back there.”
“Sure you did,” Lofty deadpanned. “Is your carriage salvageable?”
Bow looked back and shook his head. “Not really.”
“Then Ponyville will send a cart out tomorrow to retrieve them.”
The unicorn looked back regretfully. “What if it rains?”
Lofty shrugged. “Are you going to wait with them?”
The manticore roared again, closer.
“No, let’s go,” he said quickly.
# # #
It only took a few minutes for the group to walk out of the Everfree Forest. Yet Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy noticed on several occasions that the group would turn as one back towards the forest without realizing it, and had to be directed each time back to the proper path by Lofty. As with the other strange magical manifestations in the Everfree, the two humans in pony bodies failed to notice anything wrong.
Mane Allgood spent the entire time looking cautiously around her as they walked, poised to handle any dangerous animals they might run across. Luckily for them, there were none on this trip.
The group emerged from the Everfree to reach a dirt trail that stretched from horizon to horizon, parallel to the edge of the forest. Camped on that road were several ponies, some in carriages, some not. Pacing back and forth on the side of the road were the two leaders of this caravan, both unicorns: one was a pink mare with an indigo-and-dark-blue mane done up in a beehive, and the other was a larger-than-usual stallion with a light gray body and brown mane, including a bushy mustache. Sitting beside them was Gilda. She jumped up when she saw them emerge.
“You all made it!” she exclaimed, running up to the group. “Thank you three so much!”
Lofty nodded and walked over to a round pony who had been waiting for her, with a pale amber coat and a fluffy red-and-orange mane. “See, told you it would be easy,” Lofty said. “You’ve got a good friend here in Gilda,” she told Rainbow Dash and her companions. “She made a very convincing argument for us to rescue you.”
“The griffon lied, is what she’s trying to say,” Mane Allgood explained with a friendly smile, as she walked up to another large stallion, this one an earth pony with a tan coat, purplish mane, an off-white explorer shirt open at the chest, and a dark gray slouch hat. He had a papoose around his neck containing a sleeping foal with his purplish mane and Mane’s orangish fur color. “And I’ll prove it: have you folks ever heard of a unicorn filly named Rarity?” She took the papoose from her mate while she waited for an answer.
The pink unicorn mare produced a small cameo painting from her hairdo, and presented it to the downed travelers. It showed a white unicorn with a beaming smile and a quite distinctive violet mane.
Rainbow Dash took the cameo and frowned. She could have sworn that she had seen a young woman of about her own age in downtown Canterlot City once with that exact same hairstyle, but that information would not be useful here. “I’m afraid I’ve never seen that pony before,” she said.
Fluttershy leaned over to look at the painting, and shook her head.
“And I’m afraid we don’t get out of Cloudsdale much,” Window Whistles said after looking at the picture. “She’s not one of the few unicorns I’ve run into up there.”
“That’s all right,” the large gray unicorn stallion said, taking back the cameo after everypony had looked at it. “Rescuing you folks was the neighborly thing to do. Rarity here is our daughter, and she went missing sometime yesterday.”
“She got pulled out of town by some mysterious force,” a reddish-pink earth pony with lighter pink-and-pinkish-gray mane said. She was the same age as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Fluttershy thought she might have seen a woman with her colors during her brief tour of Canterlot High School, but that woman was at least a decade older than this filly.
“And we’re the ones tasked with tracking ‘er down,” the large tan earth pony stallion said in an Australian accent—or its Equestrian equivalent. “It’s my special talent.”
“Why are there so many of you?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I’m sure you all care about her, but wouldn’t a smaller group be able to travel faster?”
“Like Cheerilee said, Rarity was caught up in some mysterious magic,” Lofty’s companion said, also with an Australian accent. “Her parents might not be enough to face it, but like they always say: You can solve any problem if you throw enough ponies at it.”
“I’m glad we were able to rescue you, lie or no lie,” said Rarity’s mother. “But I’m afraid we really must be going. There’s no telling how far away our Rarity is by now.”
Just then a head poked out of the beehive, of a white unicorn foal, with a curly purple and pink mane and great big green eyes.
“There, there, Sweetie, back to sleep,” the mare said, rocking her head gently back and forth and humming a lullaby. In a few moments the foal’s eyes started drooping, and she retreated back into the beehive.
“You all go ahead,” Fire Streak said. “I’ll lead them to the Ponyville clinic. I’ll be able to catch up easy, so don’t worry about me.”
“Thank you all again!” Gilda exclaimed, waving exuberantly as the caravan set off, led by Mane Allgood’s mate, who had his muzzle down to the ground like a bloodhound.
Rainbow waited until they were out of earshot before asking, “What was that about?”
“What was what about?” Gilda replied.
“That whole performance,” Rainbow said. “You being nice.”
“I can be nice!” Gilda retorted, bristling a bit. “And I was worried about you. That magic went wild!”
“Yeah, I think having no magic made us immune,” Rainbow said.
“So you didn’t hear a voice in your head?”
“You heard a voice?” asked Dr. Tarbell, inserting himself into the conversation. “Are you sure?”
“100%” Gilda replied. “You said you researched the Everfree for one of your books?”
“Yes,” Tarbell said sadly. “And if I had managed to uncover anything original, I would have actually published it to guaranteed rave reviews.”
“Voice-in-your-head,” said Gilda. “That’s unicorn magic. Have you ever heard of a mad unicorn living in the Everfree?”
“I haven’t heard of it,” said Tarbell, “but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. In fact, that has to be what’s going on. The idea of some Everfree monstrosity developing mental telepathy is too horrific to contemplate.” He walked off to join the others as Fire Streak began to lead them towards civilization.
“What did it say?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“What did it sound like?” asked Fluttershy.
“It just wanted to know who I was,” Gilda said. “And it sounded...it sounded like my dead mother.”
There was an awkward moment of silence from the two ponies.
“Was...was she ever in the Everfree?” Rainbow asked.
“No,” Gilda replied firmly. “I think whoever...or whatever spoke to me, plucked the voice out of my head. Mom was the only authority figure I ever respected. The voice seemed honestly curious.”
“Maybe you were the first griffon to ever get close enough for her to sense,” Fluttershy suggested.
H. Fluttershy.
It took twice as long to reach the clinic on the outskirts of Ponyville as it did to exit the Everfree. When they arrived and Fire Streak told what had happened before departing, they were immediately set upon by a pair of nurses who checked them all over. To Dr. Tarbell’s surprise, they were both armed with magimeters.
“The two fillies have both lost their magic,” said one of the nurses, a white earth pony mare with a pink mane done up in a bun. “This is a common effect of Everfree exposure. We can get them recharged, which will also heal them of their wounds.”
Dr. Tarbell quickly stepped forward. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that in the case of Rainbow Dash,” he said. “She actually lost her magic yesterday, and I’m taking her to Canterlot for study. Charging her now will completely ruin my data.”
The nurse pony looked doubtfully over at Rainbow, Windy and Bow to see how they felt about this. When they didn’t show any signs of objecting she pointed at Fluttershy. “Well this filly at least definitely could use a dose.”
“Well I don’t know...” Dr. Tarbell said.
The nurse rolled her eyes. “The charger is funded out of the royal treasury,” she said in a disappointed tone, “and is free for anypony who has survived the Everfree.”
“Oh well in that case go right ahead!” Tarbell said happily. He failed to notice the judgmental looks everyone was giving him.
The nurse walked over to a large glass box and opened up one side. A large collection of tubes and bulbs hung down over the top.
Fluttershy looked hesitant. Rainbow excitedly gestured for her to go in. Fluttershy gently lifted one wing, revealing Angel Bunny resting underneath, and lowered him to the ground, before walking over, looking carefully inside, and then walking in and settling down on her stomach. “Okay,” she said in a whisper.
A doctor stallion with an amber coat and a brown mane who had been overseeing the work of the two nurses stepped forward at this point and quietly pressed a button. His cutie mark was an electrocardiograph, so apparently he had some facility with medical equipment.
The device in Fluttershy’s eyes looked hopelessly primitive, like a poor man’s attempt at steampunk. She just knew that something bad was going to happen, and sure enough it did. The warm pink light that was bathing her body was suddenly replaced by darkness.
Fluttershy wondered for a moment if she had been blinded. But soon she was able to make out some details. There was a sort of abstract landscape around her, but it was so dimly lit as to be very hard to see. There were floating motes forming a sort of meandering path, and at eye level were a number of flat rectangular objects facing the path, each one darker than the dark gray surroundings.
Fluttershy looked down, and saw that she was somehow illuminated with the light of day, despite not having a visible light source. Also, she was human, and wearing her favorite sundress.
A bright spotlight of purest white suddenly shone on her, shone through her. It made very slight movements, seeming to point at different parts of her head. A variety of random memories popped into her head in quick succession, not the sights or sounds, but more how these different moments in her life made her feel.
Fluttershy had a strong suspicion that this was the entity in the Everfree that Gilda had encountered. She thought it a sort of cheap shot that it had decided to come after her next.
A voice rang out in the darkness. “What are you?” It was the voice of Principal Cinch.
Fluttershy cringed in horror. “Not her, please not her!” she begged. “T...try this one.” And she thought hard about an alternative.
There was a pause. “What manner of creature are you, child?” it asked, with the voice of Principal Celestia.
“I’m a human,” Fluttershy said, straightening up like this was merely a school oral exam. “My name is Fluttershy.”
Another pause. “I detected no ill will in you, Fluttershy. Why did you take possession of this pony?” One of the dark rectangles floated forward, and an image of Fluttershy the pony appeared upon it.
“I didn’t do this!” Fluttershy insisted. “We don’t know how it happened. It must have been some sort of accident.”
“There are no accidents,” the voice countered.
“We’re going to see the Princess,” Fluttershy volunteered. “She should be able to fix this.”
“Yes,” the voice said, as if in sudden realization, “the Princess will be able to fix this. She must fix this. The fate of Equestria depends on it. Please tell her that when you see her.”
“I will,” Fluttershy said, awed and a little confused. Nothing she had seen so far suggested anything special about her own counterpart, and the best she could say for Rainbow Dash’s counterpart is that she had broken some sort of speed record. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Five more dark rectangles floated over to join the first, each of them depicting a different filly. “These are the other ponies I am watching,” the voice explained. “Do you know of their fate?”
Fluttershy pointed at the image of the blue pegasus. “That’s Rainbow Dash, and she’s with me.” She then pointed at the white unicorn. “That’s Rarity. A bunch of ponies are currently looking for her.” She looked carefully at the remaining three fillies. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know—wait! That one’s Twilight Sparkle. I only know her as a human, not as a pony. Rainbow and I think she might be responsible for all the mind switches. I don’t know the other two, though.”
“Thank you for the information. I thought them dead because I could not see their magic, but it appears that their magic followed them into the land you came from. When you meet the others, tell them to obtain magic, as you have. If you are in the vicinity of the Castle then I can protect you from danger, but only if you have magic. Sadly, you are at the limit of my range right now, so I do not think this offer will be of much use to you.” As the voice of Principal Celestia said this, the six panels went dark.
“No, I guess you’re right. Thanks for the offer, though. If you don’t have any more questions, you better send me back—my friends are probably worried about me.”
“They will experience no lapse in time. Farewell, Fluttershy.”
The landscape began to fade into darkness.
“Wait!” Fluttershy exclaimed suddenly. “Who are you? What are you?”
“What’s happening?” demanded Rainbow Dash, after the pink light in the charging machine started blinking irregularly, accompanied by a high-pitched metallic whine from the pipes.
“I don’t know what’s wrong!” the doctor exclaimed.
And then the machine shut down and the glass door opened, before the doctor had even had a chance to press the emergency stop button.
Fluttershy walked out, looking wide-eyed at her surroundings.
Rainbow Dash noticed that she made absolutely no noise walking out of the glass container and onto the hardwood floor, despite the fact that she was absolutely walking with hooves. She lightly tapped her own hoof on the floor, just to confirm that they were in fact very noisy appendages compared to bare human feet.
The doctor looked at the numbers on the analog display and frowned. “This can’t be right,” he said. “If these readings are correct, you’d be dead from an overdose.”
The nurse picked up the magimeter and ran it over Fluttershy. “This doesn’t look like an overdose, Doctor. In fact, she’s a little lower than average for a pegasus her age.”
The doctor walked around to the black box that was apparently the source of the magic produced by the machine. Its display showed that it was completely empty. “This doesn’t make any sense!” he exclaimed. He picked up the magimeter from the nurse by hoof, examining it all over. “That magic had to go somewhere.”
The second nurse swung her own magimeter around, pointing it at each of the inhabitants of the room. The meter clicked to its maximum setting when it was pointed at a wall. The doctor, seeing this, used his own magimeter to confirm.
“The Everfree,” he said in shock. “The Everfree just absorbed 10,000 thaums.”
Fluttershy tried to look innocent.
“Are you alright, Fluttershy?” Windy asked her.
Fluttershy suddenly remembered why she had gone into the box in the first place. She lifted one wing, then the other. Then she tried lifting each of her legs, one at a time. “I think I’m completely better now,” she announced. “Thank you,” she said, addressing the medical staff. Her look communicated her wish to learn their names.
“I’m Doctor Horse, and these are Nurses Redheart and Snowheart.”
“Thank you, Doctor...” Fluttershy did a double take before continuing. “...Horse, Nurse Redheart, Nurse Snowheart.”
“Don’t mention it,” said the doctor, his eyes on the depleted device. With a sigh, he turned around and led the group out of the room.
Angel hopped into the open charging chamber and looked up, clearly trying to figure out a way to turn it on. He heard a tapping, and looked to see that it was Fluttershy’s hoof.
“It’s empty, Angel,” she said in a disapproving tone. “You can try using a supercharge of pony magic to take over Equestria after my pony counterpart comes back. The last thing I need is to be held accountable for you getting into that.” She held open her wing.
Angel pouted for a moment, but then scrambled back up into his accustomed hiding spot.
# # #
The necessary paperwork having been filed, the group made their way out of the clinic. Along the way they stopped to look at a poster showing the plans for a future hospital to be built on this site.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Bow asked Rainbow once they were out on the dirt road leading into town.
Rainbow went through the same self-inspection that Fluttershy had performed earlier. “Yeah, I don’t think I was even touched by that crash. I just jumped and rolled at the right time, I guess.”
Bow checked his map. “Well, there should be a train to Canterlot. I’m going over to the station to buy some tickets.” He looked pointedly over at Dr. Tarbell.
“Right, I need to pay for that,” the doctor said. “Do you know where the station is?”
“Somepony in this town ought to know. Gilda?”
Gilda calmly produced a small bag of bits. “That should be more than enough for my share,” she said. “I’ll stay with these two.”
Bow nodded, and the two stallions set off.
Windy found a spot to sit down and recover from the stress of their recent adventure.
Fluttershy waited until Dr. Tarbell was out of hearing. “There’s six of us,” she announced.
“What?” Rainbow asked.
Fluttershy explained what she had experienced, concluding, “I didn’t get to find out who it was.”
“I think it was Harmony,” said Gilda.
“What?” asked Rainbow.
“Look, it said it was trying to save Equestria from some terrible fate,” Gilda explained. “Normally, I’d say a statement like that came from the Princess, but since this isn’t the Princess I’m going to go with the high goddess of the pony religion.”
“Wait, the ponies have a religion?” Rainbow asked. “They’re our religion.”
“And our religion is harmony,” said Fluttershy. “I agree. That was Harmony.”
“But you said it could only affect the Everfree. That doesn’t make any sense if it’s Harmony.”
“Well,” Gilda speculated. “I saw some ruins when I heard the voice.”
“It mentioned a castle,” Fluttershy said.
“Alright, a castle. And the ruins of this castle weren’t ruined because it was really old. It looked like it had been blown apart by an explosion a long time ago.”
“And how would you know the difference?” Rainbow asked.
“Well maybe one of the reasons I was sent to Equestria was because I helped a friend who was really into explosives demolish the Griffonstone library,” Gilda said innocently. “But you didn’t hear that from me. Anyway! So maybe this explosion weakened Harmony so it can’t protect Equestria anymore.”
“And that’s why it needs the Power Ponies,” Rainbow deadpanned.
“Hey, you humans have the Power Ponies, too?” Gilda asked with a grin. “Those guys are awesome.”
“Can you at least tell me that you’re a Rainbow Dash?” Windy Whistles was suddenly standing among them. “Even if you’re not my Rainbow Dash?”
Rainbow rushed over to pull her into a wing-hug. “I’m sorry I had to lie to you,” she said. “But Dr. Tarbell was never going to take us to see the Princess if he knew the truth. And yes, I’m Rainbow Dash. A weird alien Rainbow Dash from your point of view, but still Rainbow Dash.”
Windy sniffled. “Do...do you know if she’s OK?”
Rainbow sighed. “I have no idea. We think she’s in my body, on my world.”
Windy gently pushed Rainbow away, to study her face from hooves’ length. “That story you told in Hoofington...you’re an athlete. You don’t fly?”
“Nobody can fly on my world. Not without a machine. I’m an athlete now, and someday I’m going in one of those machines. Because I’m—”
“Meant to fly,” the two of them said in unison.
“Oh you poor dear,” Windy said, pulling Rainbow back into a hug. “Stranded far from home, without your family that loves you.” She pushed away once more, a look of concern on her face. “They do love you, don’t they?”
“More than anything.”
“And you!” Windy said, turning her head to look at Fluttershy. She held out an inviting wing. “This must be even worse for you!”
Fluttershy gently allowed herself to be pulled into the hug. “It’s not that bad,” she said demurely. “I’m meeting a lot of new animals. And I trust your Fluttershy to take care of my family.”
Gilda waited until the trio had hugged themselves out to speak up. “I hate to encourage the telling of even more lies, but I don’t think you should be telling pony Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy that part about having the fate of Equestria in their hooves. I don’t think any foal could handle that kind of pressure. I know I wouldn’t be able to. I hope that Harmony at least has the decency of waiting until they grow up before springing their new job duties on them.”
Windy sighed. “Yes, I suppose that is best.” She looked over at Rainbow Dash. “And now I really am sorry that you can’t get your magic until we get to Canterlot. You may never get the chance to fly with your own wings.”
Rainbow stretched out her wings and looked back at them sadly. “Yeah,” she said. Then her expression suddenly brightened. “But you know what would make me happy? Seeing you fly, Fluttershy.”
“Me?” Fluttershy asked in shock.
“Yes, you! You have magic now, so that means you can fly.”
“I doubt it will be that easy,” Fluttershy said, looking for an excuse not to.
“You won’t know until you try,” Rainbow countered. “Just flap your wings a few times, and see what happens. Oh, and think about being light as a feather—that part’s important.”
“Or a butterfly,” Gilda suggested, pointing at Fluttershy’s cutie mark.
“Right!” Rainbow exclaimed.
“A butterfly...” Fluttershy whispered, closing her eyes. She slowly extended her wings and then began flapping them deliberately, imagining one of the butterflies that made up her mark taking off from a twig. She stopped when she heard a holler from Rainbow. She opened her eyes, to see that she was a few inches off of the ground. In a panic, she snapped her wings shut, and dropped back down in a heap. After a moment, she climbed back to her hooves, none the worse for wear.
“That was great!” Rainbow exclaimed. “What did it feel like?”
“It was natural, like swimming,” Fluttershy said with a hint of a smile.
Angel Bunny, who was sitting beside some bushes watching the performance, offered up his commentary.
“Yes, well it was my first time,” Fluttershy replied, then her eyes went wide. “I can understand you! This is my special talent!”
“Congratulations,” Gilda said dryly. “So are those the only two things you’ve gotten from magic so far?”
“Everything looks a little different,” Fluttershy said with a frown, looking around her. “There’s this sort of glow that I can’t describe. It’s almost like a color I couldn’t see before, sticking to everything, but especially around living things. I think...” She looked over at a unicorn filly that was crossing the bridge ahead of them, an ice cream cone suspended in her magic. Fluttershy had to squint to block out the bright light she was emitting. “Yes, I’m pretty sure I’m seeing magic now.”
“Uh oh,” Windy said, rising to her hooves.
The others followed her eyes, to see Bow and Dr. Tarbell returning, dark looks upon their faces.
“We’re not getting to Canterlot tonight,” Dr. Tarbell told them.
(Unseen by the others, Gilda sighed in relief.)
“What’s wrong?”
“The train from Manehattan has broken down,” Bow said. “Until they fix it, the only choices are to take the dawn carriage up the Canterhorn, which takes an hour, or to walk, which takes two hours and is not recommended due to the path’s steepness. The wind’s too unpredictable for flying. There’s an afternoon carriage as well, but we missed it.”
“So we’ll have to get a room for the night,” concluded Windy. Putting on a smile, she hooked a hoof around Bow’s arm and said, “We’re on it!” She then dragged him over the bridge into town.
(“Do you really need me for this?” Bow whined. “You’re the best at driving bargains between the two of us.”
“We need to talk,” Windy said through clenched teeth. “Far away from Dr. Tarbell.”)
Gilda looked back at the clinic. She had just realized that nopony there had treated her any differently there than a pony. “Let’s take a look at this Ponyville, then,” she said.