//------------------------------//
// Day 1: Fluttershy 
// Story: Magical Mystery Cure (my take) 
// by Phazon_Corrupted_Unicorn 
//------------------------------//

	Fluttershy blinked as a sliver of sunlight poked through the blinds and shone right into her eyes, jarring her from sleep. She groaned as she slowly rose to her hooves. She normally didn't sleep on the floor and that blast from Twilight's horn had really thrown them all for a doozy. She shook her head to clear her mind of the sleepiness that still clung on, then she gasped. It was morning, and she was in the library, and she hadn't fed her friends, and Angel was probably mad at her, and she needed to leave!
This thought occurred in about a nanosecond of time in which she barely had time to register that there were the other five girls still knocked out. She didn't pay too much attention to them as she ran to the door then opened it and left, closing the door behind her. She ran through town, noting that the sun wasn't too high in the sky so she hadn't slept in too late.
She ran down to her cottage, over the stream, and knocked on the door softly. She didn't want to wake any of her friends that were still asleep, so she gently closed the door behind her. She tapped it with a hind hoof then jumped as the door slammed shut, causing many of the birds in her home to squack in protest to the loud noise.
“Oh, um, I'm sorry. I didn't think the door would close that hard. I'll do something to fix it,” she whispered, then she turned to look around. Many of her friends had already been awake when she came in and she smiled as she saw Angel standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He tapped his hind leg on the ground impatiently.
“I'm sorry Angel. I guess I just slept in later than I wanted.” Fluttershy strode past Angel into the kitchen and started to make some breakfast. Angel raised an eyebrow as he looked at her, seeing something off about his caretaker and friend. Fluttershy started putting together a small salad for Angel and her, pulling things out of the fridge and placing them on the counter.
She turned around to look at Angel as he started to squeak about something. “What is it, Angel? Do you want anything special?” He continued to squeak and point behind her. Fluttershy turned around and stared at the salad, then she looked back at Angel. “Do you not want a salad?” she asked. Angel furiously shook his head, then ran over and grabbed the head of lettuce from the counter and scampered away.
“Oh Angel! Now's not the time to play games! We need to eat so we'll have the energy to do things today,” Fluttershy tried to stop him as he ran out of the kitchen and climbed up a bookshelf. He waved the head of lettuce down at her as he sat, perched on the top of the bookshelf. Fluttershy trotted over to look up at him. “Silly Angel, I need that lettuce.” Angel just waved it at her with a smile on his face.
“Fine, if you won't bring it to me, I'll have to come up and get it!” This seemed to make Angel happy as he smiled down at her, then gestured with his paw. 'Bring it.' Fluttershy smiled up at him, then leapt up and spread her wings.
Unfortunately that's not what happened. As she leapt up, she instructed her wings to unfold, but she found that she couldn't do that. She landed, not-so-gracefully, on the ground with her hooves splayed out. She stood up, then jumped up again. She was worried as her wings didn't unfold and catch her, and she ended up falling back to the floor. She looked up at Angel who still smiled down at her.
“Why aren't my wings-” Fluttershy started to say as she looked at her back but stopped as something caught her eye, or rather the absense of something caught her eye. She gasped, then spun around.
“No! Nononono! This can't be happening! Where did my wings go?” Her jaw dropped as there, where her wings should have been, was a smooth coat of butter yellow fur. She ran her hooves over her back, trying to find some sign of her wings. She teared up as she found no such indication that she'd ever had wings. She started to cry, tears running down her cheeks, as Angel climbed back down the bookshelf, setting the lettuce aside.
“Oh Angel! What happened to my wings?” she sobbed. Angel started to run his paws through her mane, trying to calm her down. Fluttershy thought back through the past day of events, finally resting on the spell that Twilight had cast. Maybe that was the culprit. She should go see Twilight later today to see if she could reverse the spell.
But first, there was the matter of feeding her animal friends. She stood up, rubbing her eyes to clear them from the tears, and strode into the kitchen, Angel following with the lettuce. She finished her salad and ate it, along with Angel, then turned to tending her animal friends.
She glanced around, locating the bags of feed in one corner. She trotted over and picked up one of the bags with her mouth. She hefted it and found it lighter than she remembered. She sat it down next to several bowls and, checking to see if any holes were in it, tore it open. She stood on her hind legs as she poured the feed into the different bowls, making sure that everyone got some food. She sat the feed down and watched her friends eat.
As they ate, she stared at her hooves, thinking. The bag wasn't opened and it didn't have any holes. She'd had a harder time lifting them when she'd bought them, even with her wings. But she didn't have her wings, so why were they lighter?
She reached a hoof up, feeling her head but not finding a horn. If she wasn't a unicorn, or a pegasus, then that left only one left. She rested her hooves on the ground and stared around at her home, it slowly sinking in.
She was an earth pony.
“Well, I guess now we know what that spell does,” she whispered to herself. She sighed then moved over and grabbed a bag of bird feed. She looked up at the bird feeders hanging from the ceiling several feet above her, thinking how easy it was to refill them.
She rose up on her hind legs and reached for one of the feeders. Finding that she was still a foot too short, she set down the bird feed and tried again. To her dismay she found that dropping the feed didn't make her any taller and so she started to hop up and down, swinging her hooves to try and get the feeders down.
There she stayed for several minutes, trying all different ways to get the feeders down while Angel and her animal friends sat by and ate their food like popcorn, enjoying the show. Finally Angel shook his head, then hopped over and patted her hoof. She glanced down at him, then saw him motion toward a chair.
“That's true, Angel. But I don't think it will get me close enough,” Fluttershy stated, then trotted over and grabbed a few thick books from the shelf and placed them on the chair. She got behind it and pushed it over underneath the feeders then, smiling to Angel and herself, hopped up onto the chair and then the books, grabbing the bird feeders with ease.
She hopped off the chair and ripped open the feed bag, then filled the feeder and placed it back in its spot, hanging from the ceiling. She sighed, there was one done. Then she looked around the room and hung her head. There was a total of a dozen feeders, each in a different location throughout the room. She smiled and shook her head, they weren't getting filled with her just standing there.

One hour, and quite a bit of work, later Fluttershy looked at the clock then gasped. It was time for her to meet Rarity at the spa today! She rushed around, grabbing her saddlebags and slinging them onto her back, then trotted out the door. She turned and looked at Angel. “Angel, be good and keep everyone out of trouble.” She turned back and closed the door, then trotted toward Ponyville and the spa.
She got there with ten minutes to spare, stepping through the door and smiling as she saw Aloe and Lotus sitting behind a desk. They perked up as she walked in.
“Dear Fluttershy, so nice to see you here!” Aloe smiled at her and she smiled back.
“Um, is Rarity here?” she asked, but frowned slightly as the spa twins shook their heads. “That's ok, I'll wait.” She sat down in one of the chairs to wait for Rarity.
As the minutes ticked by, Fluttershy grew more and more anxious. She knew that she and the girls had argued quite a lot yesterday, much more than she'd ever argued in her life. They had all been angry at each other, accusing one another of things. She shuddered as she thought back on some of the things that had been said, then her thoughts roamed to this morning. She'd been quite surprised when she'd found out that she didn't have wings, but she'd gotten over it. Sure it made feeding her bird friends harder, but she'd managed it this morning. And she was a lot stronger as an earth pony. She'd been picked on back at school because she couldn't fly very high or very fast, so it felt good to be able to do things on her own. Fluttershy smiled to herself, she might just enjoy being an earth pony.
Fluttershy was jostled out of her train of thought by Lotus entering the room.
“Fluttershy, it's time for your appointment.”
“Um, ok. Has Rarity shown up yet?” she asked, hopeful. Maybe Rarity wasn't so mad at her and the girls that she'd miss her weekly trip to the spa?
Lotus shook her head and Fluttershy frowned, then she stood up and moved to the door.
“Alright, I guess she's busy with work,” Fluttershy sighed. She followed Lotus out of the room and into the sauna, starting her spa treatment.

Her spa treatment passed quickly and Fluttershy found herself missing Rarity and her conversations of work and gossip. Without the distraction, her mind began running down trains of thought she didn't want to think about.
What if they all started fighting again after I left? Maybe they don't want to be friends any more. Maybe Twilight'll move back to Canterlot and we'll never see her again! That would be horrible! I can't let that happen, but I'll need Rarity's help. I'm too shy to bring this up and she'll know how to talk to the rest of them. But why hasn't Rarity showed up? Is it that she's too tied up with work? Maybe I was too bold during the argument, but they didn't need to tell me that my wings are useless. I use them, almost every day too.
It was hard work trying to feed my bird friends. I hope that this spell can be reversed. Maybe I'll talk to Discord, perhaps he could help us? I don't like friends fighting and I really don't like not being able to help them.
Fluttershy stood up as she finished her treatment. She grabbed a towel and dried herself off, then slung her saddlebags onto her back and walked to the front of the spa. She handed over a small bag of bits to Aloe and left with a smile. I'll go back and ask Discord if he can do anything about this.
She trotted through Ponyville and arrived at her cottage, pushing open the door and stepping inside. She looked around, then inhaled a huge amount of air. She was going to do something that she didn't like to do, but would be necessary.
“Discord!” she shouted. If anyone had been standing next to her, they would have thought that she'd just sighed, unable to pick out the single word from the squeak that came out of her mouth.
Fluttershy waited a few minutes until she heard a knock on the door. She opened it up and saw a pink umbrella that was folded up, standing straight up.
“Discord,” she smiled. She had long gotten used to the many ways that he'd taken to appearing. A pink umbrella wasn't the most unique. That award went to how he'd appeared, then had found out about her secret.
The pink umbrella stood still for a second, before popping open, eliciting a squeak from Fluttershy, and revealed two feet, one hooved and the other clawed. The umbrella rose up as a lion's paw grasped the handle, revealing the god of chaos himself.
“Why hello, Fluttershy! Such a wonderful day!” Discord smiled down at Fluttershy, then blinked once as he took in her lack of wings. “Why, what happened to your wings? I promise I didn't steal them this time.”
Fluttershy smiled back up at him. “That's actually what I wanted to ask you about. You see...”

Several minutes passed as Fluttershy related the happenings of the past two days, Discord using a small cloud to rest on as he listened.
“And so that's why I want you to give me my wings back,” Fluttershy finished.
“Hmm,” Discord thought out loud, his lion paw stroking his beard, “return you to normal, huh? Well, I don't see that I can, dear friend.”
Fluttershy blinked at him. “Why not?” she asked.
Discord laughed heartily, “why not, my dear Fluttershy? It's because—Oops, I almost spilled the beans! Let's just say that soon, the same your friends won't be.” he smiled again, then snapped his fingers and vanished.
“Discord!” Fluttershy stomped a hoof on the ground, only to hear his laughter echo through her home. She sighed, then stepped back inside and closed the door.
She spent the rest of the day taking care of her friends, coming to realize how much she really relied on her wings. It wasn't too long before night fell and she made her way up to bed. She flopped down onto her sheets and turned over to stare out at the window. She really hoped that their friendship wouldn't break after a simple argument. She rolled onto her back, letting her legs splay out. She started as she felt one of her hooves touch something and she shot upright. She reached down and picked up what she'd touched and found a piece of paper at the foot of her bed. She moved into the moonlight to read it, seeing ink on the page.


There soon will come a day you'll find
The friendship you cherish in heart and mind
May dwindle and fail like Twilight's last light
No matter your strength, no matter your might

Will Harmony be enough to stand time still
Or shall it fail against thy will
Soon the one who lacks the gift
Will be the one who makes the rift

Unless the six the choice do make
The ravages of time, the one they'll take
Twists and turns this rhyme does span
The answer you'll find back when it all began.


“What? What does it mean?” Fluttershy whispered to herself. Her eyes started to close with sleepiness and she fell back onto her bed. She tried to ponder and think about it, but she was just too tired and sleep enveloped her in it's warm embrace.