Becoming Fluttershy

by Hope

chapter 59. Don't look down.

My dreams, as usual, are beyond my control.

But this dream is one I know by heart.

Maybe it is fitting that my biggest regret, the secret I sometimes hide even from myself would be my last dream before I pass away.
I am laying on a hospital bed, I was so young...

I am laying here, and in my forelegs I hold a shimmering form. It’s a filly, but that’s all I know. I never got to see her face. They told me that she would be given to a good family, and I heard in their voice, a better family. A real family. Not a family of two, made of a filly alone and a baby crying, but the sort of family I’d never had.

At least I could give her something I never had. But in this dream, I hold her, and she smiles at me.

These dreams are the ones that push me to care. What if that child is my daughter? What if that stallion is her new father?

Everypony is untouchable to me, because any one of them could be connected to my baby. But in this dream I get a short time to hold her, then she flies away, a willowisp on the wind, so I give chase.

Through hospital hallways, through cloud formed streets, through the air down to the ground, through the forest I chase her.

Then I’m answering the door.

---

I smile up at the human, Nate. I know his name somehow.

“Hello. My name’s Fluttershy.” I smile as I push the door wide open, to allow him in. “Welcome home.”

He has his mouth covered, whether to hide a laugh or to hide a sob, I can’t tell. But when he says thank you, and steps inside, it sounds like he is trying not to cry. I feel bad for him.

I lead him through the building, packed full of my friends. I wave to the girls who sit at a table talking about our past adventures, and I say hello to Julien as he passes by. Nate even waves to a few of the figures, though I think they were people I haven’t met yet.

“My room is this way, sorry if it’s dirty, it always seems crowded,” I explain, he chuckles along and waves a hand.

“It’s fine,” he assures me, and I truly feel that it is.

After opening the door, we step into the little room, and I take a few moments to wiggle a chair free from my project table for him to sit on, before retiring to my cloud bed.

I wait as he sits down, looking around at my room. “Hello Nate,” I say, smiling. It’s sort of like meeting him again, in a way.

“This is a very nice place you have,” he says, seeming to relax. “Cozy, friendly and safe. Reminds me of my brother George’s dorm room, before...”

I frown, just a little bit, before asking the dangerous question. “Before what?”

“Before he killed himself.”

We are quiet, and the hammer blow of fate that strikes with such admissions doesn’t come. Instead we watch eachother. He looks like he is too tired to cry.

“The signs were just so obvious, but nobody could see it coming,” he adds. “It’s why I became a child psychologist, to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again.”

I look down, at my hooves, as I remember my lost child... I’ve done so much in her name... Are we all motivated by loss? “You can’t save every child, Nate... Even I know that, as much as it hurts,” I mumble, looking back up to him.

“Well of course not,” he says, blinking as though trying to sort out his justification, and his pain. I wish I could help. “Nevertheless, his tragedy shaped my life, and in so doing, helped the lives of those who might not have had anybody to look out for them. Although,” he sighs in disappointment, metaphorically turning away from that topic, “it’s been a long time since I’ve taken on any patients that truly needed me.” Shaking his head, Nate looks back to me. “But this isn’t about me. This...this room of yours...I like it. Do you tend to spend a lot of your time here?”

“It’s a good place to spend some quiet time. To think about things and wonder. But out there with my friends and family, that’s really my home,” I explain, smiling.

He picks up one of my models, a toy rocket with little wings and tiny pots of flowers on board, a playful expression of adventure and of escape. Two things that I have become enamored with more recently. Nate smiles at the toy and puts it back down.

“Why can’t they both be? I’m not entirely sure about Equestrian ponies, but humans, especially American humans, need both society and solitude in order to function. At least...that’s what I’ve experienced.”

I nod in agreement, and really it does make sense, my animals served as a crowd for me even when I was too terrified to speak to a pony.

“Yeah. I need both. So, you comfortable?” I ask, laying back on my cloud bed and laying my wings over myself like a sort of feathered blanket.

In response, Nate reaches out into the air and I feel something I hadn’t expected, the feeling of a pillow on my back, a comforting pressure and soft plush, and then there is a pillow in his hand. It feels like it is supposed to be here, like it belongs in my room.

Nate tucks the black and white polka-dotted pillow behind his back. “I, uh, hope you don’t mind the modification to your dream. This is the least interfering that I’ve done in years.”

“I don’t mind,” I shrug, not worried about the good doctor’s minor alteration. “I can’t modify my own dreams, never have been able to. If you can then go on ahead. Oh! Can I have some pie? Pumpkin.”

“Pie?” he asks curiously. “Oh, are we going to be able to taste in this one? Senses are controlled by the dreamer, and most of the ones I have interacted with can’t manage more than sight and sound. But we can at least try.”

Standing up, Nate turns and where he was just sitting there is a nice little dining set with pie, forks, plates, and whipped cream. He serves up two slices and passes one over to me. Just then, I realize how small I am, just as big as I was when I fell from that cloud.

I put that aside for a moment, and I take ahold of the plate, setting it down so I can grab the fork.

“I, uh...think you can handle a fork, right?” Nate asks carefully, not wanting to leave me struggling. But I nod, gripping the fork and taking my first bite of imaginary pumpkin pie.

It doesn’t taste like anything, but there is a texture. I can feel the mealy soft and crumbly pie in my mouth, but there’s no realness to it. I wonder if that is the failing of my imagination, or if it has been so long since I have tasted it that there is no memory to draw from.

Regardless, I continue smiling, getting down to the last few bites of the pie, and deciding that it is wrong to keep him here, and force him to play this charade of a friend visiting a friend. I know why he is here.

“I could tell you how to break me,” I say calmly, thinking about it, it would be so easy, I would never have to worry again, I’d never be at fault again. I wouldn’t make any more mistakes. I would just drift away into the darkness.

“Oh, I don’t think we need to do that,” he says dismissively, “if you’re a good enough actress. I could simply tell you what you’re supposed to look like when my business is done, and hopefully that will fool them long enough for us to escape...or something.” He looks down at his plate, sorrow in his heart, but all I see is the barest tip of that emotion, a bit of sadness.

I look down to my plate as well, thinking about his sadness, wondering how I can help him, how I can make this easier. “Well... Sometimes the real thing is just better. Maybe I want to be broken. It might be easier not to control my own actions. An easy excuse,” I sigh, taking the last bite of tasteless food and licking the plate clean. I probably won’t have another chance to get that feeling, if this all goes badly.

He drops his plate into a wastebasket, and looks at me with a great deal of worry.

“Don’t...don’t say that, You’re somebody important, somebody with a destiny. If I break you, I’m not entirely sure I can put you back together again. I mean...I think that’s my destiny, but what if I’m wrong? I...don’t want to go down in history as the man who broke an Element of Harmony, who handed ultimate victory to...the bad guys.”

He won’t do it. But I don’t have a way out of this whole thing, I’m lost and I’m nearly alone, so all I have left to depend on is Nate. This doctor who doesn’t want to do what has to be done. I’m scared, of course. I don’t want to die, nopony does, but I know that this temporary sleep might be the only way for me to survive, for this all to end well. I’ll have to convince him to do it, force his hand, so that he won’t take the blame.

“Well that’s nice of you,” I hear a voice say as my mind drifts away, and I feel a bit of guilt. Tricking him into doing this, I am pretty much lying. It’s not a good thing to do, it’s not what friends do.

---

I feel my mouth moving, my legs moving, I am speaking but I can’t hear the sounds, the world goes quiet for a little while as the doctor explores my mind, and I rest, so tired after all that has happened, I let him stroll through my subconscious as I ponder what little future I have left.

---

Then I am standing in a garden, grass under my hooves, Nate standing in front of me.

He looks like he has been crying.

I wait attentively as he kneels in front of me, so his head is level with mine, hands behind my ears as though cradling my head.

“You are going to disappear, Fluttershy.”

I feel my heart catch in my throat, and I nearly pull away, but I manage to keep facing him.

“Disappear so that no one can hear you or see you.”

I feel a frightened little sob escape me, and I whisper “Will I be safe?” as I look into his eyes.

“Yes, yes you will be safe, and when it is time, you will come forth and do great things.”

With that statement, and the seeping cold that digs into me, I feel like I am falling asleep again, deeper and deeper...

I feel as though there is nothing left of me.

Comments

[Icanhazmochi]

Epic amazing action sequence in the next chapter...?

[PiMan]

I... don't really understand this chapter. Yes it appears to be entirely within her mind, and that other guy is there too, but I don't understand any of the important parts.

I'm guessing you've got this all planned out, given that you are one of the more diligent authors writing for this fanfic series, so I'll just have to see where you take it.

[Hope]

4309000 The next chapter is from Erishy's subconscious. That's why this chapter cuts out halfway through, Nate "goes deeper"

[Icanhazmochi]

4309167 Ohhhhh... Can her subconscious have an epic action sequence? xD

[McPoodle]

This is so sad!

[Pinklestia]

I’ll have to convince him to do it, force his hand, so that he won’t take the blame. Erishy has gone completely insane, she isn't showing kindness, she is being suicidal.

[Sidetrack]

Foal? Fluttershy? Hospital? What?

[Pinklestia]

4310359

Unless those are Eris the human memories being ponified, too much fanon for my taste.

[Hope]

4310494 It's fanon with a reason. I'm trying not to have too much of it intrude into this story, but when delving into the subconscious we start needing some sort of driving influence behind some of her actions. Don't worry, it won't come up again until after discord has been defeated, if at all.

[Hope]

4310056 even though she doesn't know it, yes. at this point Erishy has fallen into thinking that there is no way out except for her to be put into a transe or the bad guys to kill her. These chapters during which she is captured are the darkest out of the story. As this is not a "dark" story (despite the tag I added) this is temporary and the story will change tone.

[Proper Noun]

That was a bit bizarre, but not in a bad way.

The chapter feels kind of rushed, and I wonder if you intended to leave this sentence unfinished:

I wave to the girls who sit at a table talking about our past adventures, and

Mind, I'm enjoying the story. Just pointing out the obvious.

[StormyVenture]

Ok, that was bloody confusing.

[Hope]

4310885 fixed

[ferret]

THEN SHE DIES! THE END!

[Red Bomber]

So she's in a coma for a while until Reid and his group shows up?

[Hope]

4356297 Nope, I am still working on the next few chapters, sorry about the delay.

[Red Bomber]

4356406
Oh, I have to tell though, Reid must be panicking out of his mind or something once he restarts his side of the story. That's assuming he didn't get dragged into his own separate adventure.

[Hope]

4356481 Sadly, I have not heard much if anything from Reid, so I have no idea if that story will ever be completed.

[Red Bomber]

4356494
What...? What happened to him?

[Hope]

4356512 he has gradually talked with the group less and less, to the point where I do not know what his intentions are.

[Red Bomber]

4356561
I... I see.... Did you try contacting him on Tumblr maybe?

[blazikenking]

4365668 What's that?