Fluttershy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned as the sunrise started to pour light through the crack in her curtains. At first, she tried to recall what had happened in the other world, but found it difficult to do so. Just like any dream, the memories were faint and felt as though they were fading as she became more and more awake. She got out of bed and fell over onto the floor, having tried to walk upright on her hind legs.
“Oof!” Fluttershy exhaled as she landed on the ground. “I guess I must have gotten used to having hands and feet.” She said, rubbing her muzzle, which was the first part of her to hit the floor.
She stretched out her limbs as her mind got re-accustomed to her pony body. The weirdest feeling was that of having wings again, as well as not having fingers. Going over to the curtains, she opened them and let the morning light flood in. She looked down at the silver chain around her neck and watched as it sparkled in the sunlight. Then she trotted over to her nightstand and placed the chain into the drawer. The memories of that other world started to become gradually clearer as the minutes passed and she made her bed. Suddenly, there was a crash downstairs. Quickly, Fluttershy opened her door and looked downstairs to see if her animal friends were in trouble. It was in fact Angel bunny who had knocked over a stool while hopping away from a very Discord looking fox.
“Discord!” Fluttershy said in a scolding mother sort of tone. Angel bunny frantically hopped up the stairs and hid behind Fluttershy’s leg. “Just what do you think you are doing, mister?”
Poofing back to his original form, Discord nervously laughed and put the stool back up. “We were just having a rousing game of tag,” he said, then quickly changing the topic, “How was the first day of your other world adventure by the way. Just as you wanted, you were there all on your own. I didn’t even so much as peak into how it was going, but I do want to hear all about it. Did you choose to become a trainer?” He said, poofing a Pokéball into his paw, “Because I was so hoping that you would.” As he said this, a red beam sucked Angel into the ball, which Discord then dropped to the floor and it opened up, letting Angel out and scampering into the kitchen.
More focused on the question rather than Discord’s antics, Fluttershy fidgeted, “Oh… well, umm, I think I did. I’m actually having trouble remembering much of what happened.”
Suddenly, now beside Fluttershy, Discord lay on the stair railing and shrugged. “That’s to be expected. It was your first time after all. It’ll all come back to you soon. I assume that you also feel a bit strange to be back in a pony form as well.”
Fluttershy unfurled one of her wings, stretched it out and looked back at it. “Well, a little bit.”
“Perfectly natural.” Discord said, waving his talon hand, as though to brush away concern. “First time shape shifters who transform into something completely different from themselves,” he said, turning into a cat and hopping on top of Fluttershy’s head, “have to deal with the same sort of sensation during their first transmorphic experience,” he then turned into a hat which retained his eyes and mouth, “when they take on a new shape or return to their original form,” and finally transforming back into himself, downstairs on the sofa, “after spending enough time in that form to have gotten used to it. The awkwardness of swapping forms goes away with experience. A few more nights of becoming a human in another world, then returning to this one to be a pony, and the transition will become as natural to you as anything else.”
Walking down the steps, still getting used to having hooves and walking on all fours again, Fluttershy asked, “And what about the memories of that world? Will it always be this disorienting?”
“The same thing applies to that as well,” Discord said, leaning back and resting his head on his paw and talon. “Your mind is still not sure how to take the memories of that world. Since your dreams are being used as your way into it, it’s a bit tricky for you to register it as anything else but a dream. It shouldn’t take more than an hour for your subconscious to sort it out, and just like with the body change, it will get easier and quicker with experience.”
“Oh.” Fluttershy sighed. “That’s a relief.” Fluttershy looked over at the mirror and noticed how incredibly messy her main was. “Goodness. I should probably wash up before anything else. Maybe I’ll remember enough to tell you about it when I’m done.”
Looking at his wrist, as though he had a watch on, discord said, “And I’d stick around to hear all about it, but I’ve got some chaos to attend to. I’ll be there when you tell the rest of your friends.”
Fluttershy gave him a stern look. “What are you up to?”
“Oh nothing much.” Discord said, scratching the back of his head. “I just made Celestia’s morning coco powder taste like chili powder, and she’s about to have a cup.”
Her stern look subsided to make way for a look of surprise. “Isn’t that just a little bit childish for you. I mean, that’s still not very nice, but I was expecting something a little more… well, chaotic,” she shrugged.
Discord slumped a little bit. “I’m reformed, but I’m still the spirit of Chaos. I spread it wherever I can without causing any real harm, but with certain individuals, I have to use kid gloves. Most of all when playing with Celestia,” he said, crossing his arms grumpily. “Still, the look on her face as she takes that first sip should be enough for a good chuckle,” perking up at the thought, he disappeared with the snap of his fingers.
Fluttershy shook her head. “I hope the Princess won’t be too upset,” she said to herself.
Drawing herself a hot bubble bath, Fluttershy lay back in the water, closed her eyes and let the tension in her shoulders melt away. The feel of the bath and the steam filled air seemed to be very mentally calming for her, and memories started to come back to her one at a time. The nice old professor and everything he taught her about that world, Gary, Damian, Misty, Bulbasaur and Pidgey. All of the wonder and excitement of that world came racing through her mind and brought a smile to her face. After soaking for about five minutes though, she suddenly remembered her panic attack and bolted upright in the tub. Holding her hooves close to her chest, she breathed heavily and did her best to calm down, remembering her talk with Princess Luna.
“That’s right,” she said to herself, pulling the plug and turning on the shower head for a few moments to rinse off the suds. “Princess Luna came to see me.”
She held her head under the shower head and let the water run over her mane and face, all the while, thinking about what Luna had said. How would her life had turned out if Luna had been there in her childhood nightmares, when the bullies were plaguing both her daily life as well as the dreams she had almost every night? Would she be more outgoing? Would she be brave?
As she thought this, Twilight’s words came back to mind. “The element of kindness could be no pony but you. And you’re also by far, the bravest pony I’ve ever met.”
Walking over to the mirror, she wiped off some of the steam and smiled. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I am who I am, and maybe that’s not always a bad thing.”
Fluttershy emerged from the bathroom with her mane wrapped in a towel and her bathrobe on. There wasn’t much point to wearing a bathrobe other than the fact that she loved how comfy it felt in the morning. She spend the next few hours like any other day. Getting some breakfast, taking care of the various animals around her cottage, fluffing Angel’s tail.
“There you go Angel.” She said as the little bunny admired the well groomed fluff ball at the end of his rump.
There was a knock at the door and Fluttershy got up to see who it was.
“Well, good morning, Zecora.” Fluttershy pleasantly said to the zebra at the door, who greeted her with a smile.
“Morning greetings to you as well; you’ve had a good one, I can tell.” Zecora said, in her rhyming way, observing the happy glow that Fluttershy seemed to be emitting.
“Well, it’s been an interesting night and morning, to say the least.” Fluttershy said, once again reflecting on the events of her adventure.
“Sounds like you had a visit from the spirit of chaos; how you put up with it leaves me at a loss.” Zecora replied, looking around to see if Discord was anywhere.
Fluttershy giggled. “He’s not so bad,” to which Angel thumped his foot in protest. “In fact, he did me a really nice favor last night. He just likes to play with ponies in his own sort of way. I just hope Celestia isn’t too mad about him pranking her.”
Zecora laughed. “Like the animals, around you he is tame; speaking of which, I need more of the same,” she said, producing a glass jar from her saddlebag.
“You need more snake venom? I’ll go ask if they feel up to it today.” Fluttershy said, leading Zecora to the snake burrows.
Over the course of the past few weeks, Zecora has been trying to help a large creature from the Everfree with a toothache that it’s been having. But it was apparently so big that it needed very high strength pain killers made from snake venom. This was the third time in the passing weeks that Zecora had to come by and ask Fluttershy for help with milking the snakes. Since she can communicate with animals, she only needs to ask them for it, as long as they are in a helpful mood. Which they usually are for her.
After they got the venom, Fluttershy helped the snakes tidy up their burrow as thanks. Then she had tea with Zecora, who had brought some very exotic tea leaves to brew. After a while, Zecora left and Fluttershy was for the most part finished with everything she wanted to do that morning. It was about midday when she decided it was time to head over to the castle, and she didn’t know whether to be scared, nervous, or happy about what she had to tell her friends. It’s not that it was bad or anything, but she didn’t know how they would react. Would they be concerned for her, happy for her, or would they be upset because she is doing a fun adventure without them. Could she even bring them if they wanted to come with her? How would that even work? She could always ask Discord for more of those chains, but this was supposed to be her adventure alone. Not that she wanted to be possessive or anything, but the point was to push herself into having an adventure without her friends holding her hoof through the whole thing.
Fluttershy kept going back and forth about this in her head as she walked the path to the castle. It was really tearing her up inside. She kept jumping from one extreme thought to another. On the one hand she could see her friends being upset with her for not inviting them, then on the other hand, she thinks that they would never be upset over such a silly thing and they would be supportive. But as she always does, she kept psyching herself out by overthinking and jumping to the worst conclusions, even when a part of her is telling her that it’s ridiculous. By the time she got to the castle, she was a nervous wreck.
Standing at the base of the golden steps, Fluttershy took a moment to calm herself and looked up at the castle. In all honesty, the structure was rather tacky, but she would never say that out loud. And what’s worse was that it completely clashed with the esthetics of Ponyville, making it somewhat of an eyesore. In all honesty, if the tree that was holding up the crystal castle, was actually a tree, like Twilight’s old library, rather than crystal in the shape of a tree, it probably wouldn’t look that bad. Fluttershy shook her head at these thoughts. Normally she wouldn’t be so critical about such things, even in her own mind, but after seeing the Viridian Pokémon center, how massive and unique it was yet it didn’t clash with its surroundings, she could see by comparison that the castle had some shortcomings in design. As she finished her thoughts, Fluttershy was suddenly pulled back into reality when someone said her name.
“Hey Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said, walking up to the castle with Pinkie. “Are you just going to look or are you going in with us?” she joked.
“Oh, good afternoon, girls. Did you have fun at the Bogeymare’s nightclub?” Fluttershy said, gingerly waving to the two of them.
Suddenly, Pinkie came bolting up and pulled Fluttershy’s face close to her own. “It was amazing! Though things got a little hectic when Richard showed up.”
Fluttershy looked over Pinkie’s shoulder at Rainbow. “Who’s Richard?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Apparently that’s what Pinkie calls the massive hydra that crashed the party. Luckily, Spitfire was there and the two of us teamed up and kept it busy while everypony got away. Then Princess Luna showed up and scarred it off. It was a pretty crazy night. Oh, and the Princess said that you had something to talk to us about. So, what’s up?”
“She did?” Fluttershy said, getting nervous and hiding behind her mane. “Well, actually, I need to tell all of you. I started something…. fun last night that I wanted to tell you all about.”
“Cool.” Rainbow said, opening one of the double doors to the castle. “Was it as fun as our night?” She joked, doubting it as she walked into the entrance hall.
“Oh, I certainly think so.” Fluttershy replied quietly to herself.