//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 The Fire 
// Story: Hollow 
// by Demonfire463 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 7
Joshua POV

Fluttershy and I walk back to her cottage. It is a decent walk, she doesn't live near the center of Ponyville. We walk in silence, she is a bit shy, but I don't mind. She unlocks the door and we walk in. I'm greeted by myriad of various creatures of the forest. One small creature shoots me a strange look upon seeing me duck down through the door. I shut the door behind me and sit down on the floor. "You can sit on the couch if you like." She tells me.
"Thank you, I'll be fine on the floor." I say that due to partially due to being humble and partially due to not being able to see the layout of her home. 
"You said you're from a swamp right?"
"Ah, you listen well. Indeed, I do come from the Great Swamp as most pyromancers do. In spite of my homeland however, I have seen very little of these creatures." I glance back in the general direction of the small animal, possibly a rabbit, which I can sense is still glaring coldly at me. "What's wrong with him?" I ask.
"Oh, that's just my bunny Angel. He can be a little jealous sometimes. How can you see through that mask you're wearing?"
"I can't. When you've been without sight for this long, your other senses become strengthened. I can feel the very environment around me. Most of it at least."
"Well how long have you been wearing it? If you don't mind me asking that is."
"It's quite alright. I've worn it for a few years I think. Time is very strange in Lordran. Distorted some even may say."
"So you don't know how long?"
"Not really, I do know that it's been a very long time since I saw anything though." I then take off the wooden mask and red hood with it, so that she can see what I look like and I can see what she looks like. I stare into her light blue eyes, blue as the clear skies. I see ger hair, a light pink color. Like the butterflies marked on her upper leg. "Much better, now I know what you look like." We both smile at this and I sense she is not as nervous now as she was when we first met."I used to be very shy as well you know."
"Really?" she asks in disbelief.
"Definitely, I'm from a swamp so I never really had anybody to talk to. One day long after my death, I was walking through Lost Izalith and I placed my summon sign down in front of a fog door. I was summoned by Agroth and we killed the Witch of Izalith together. Arthur was there as well. They met at the Duke's Archives where Arthur assisted him in killing Seath the Scaleless."
"Why did you kill all these things?"
"They were corrupt and very evil. They had to be destroyed. The three of us destroyed the Gravelord Nito, First of the Dead."
"So it's a good thing they're dead then?"
"Very. The Gravelord Servants have been stopped, some still remain loyal to the Gravelord, but will be stopped soon enough. Before we came here, we had been killed by the Four Kings, the Lords of the Darkwraith covenant. If we killed them, we may have stopped the Darkwraiths. But we failed... We could be invaded again at any time. Without all of your help, we'd have perished earlier, without a doubt."
"Nopony hurts any of my friends" she sits by me and embraces me with her forehooves and her wings "nopony."
"That's...that's very kind of you Fluttershy. We're...friends?"
"Of course we are." she says, still embracing me.
"T-Thank you." I find it rather difficult to speak. "I've never truly had a friend before." I return the embrace.