//------------------------------//
// Forgiven 
// Story: The Phantom Pony of Everfree 
// by LightningSword 
//------------------------------//

Twilight Sparkle meandered through town on her way back to the library, taking her time to analyze what had happened mere hours ago.  Even remembering all the hard work and persistence Fluttershy had put into helping Nocturne didn’t make everything connect as well as it should have.  Was it shock?  Some sort of cognitive dissonance?  A small anomaly in the sequence of events that Twilight couldn’t see?
 
Whatever it is, I still don’t understand, she thought as her slow steps carried her down the dirt roads of Ponyville.  Nocturne insists on being alone, and never leaving the forest. But now, all of a sudden, after his talk with Fluttershy, he comes out on his own, asking for food like he just moved to Ponyville?  Were her words that effective? After refusing her friendship for so long, did she finally get through to him?  After too much scrutiny of the subject, Twilight sat down, overwhelmed, in the middle of the road and sighed.
 
“Now I’m just as confused as Fluttershy.”
 
After a brief, restful pause, Twilight stood back up, and almost started back on her way when she saw a brief spot of yellow in the corner of her eye.  She looked up, and saw Fluttershy trotting briskly through the streets, a determined look on her face.
 
Whoa, Twilight thought.  Even Fluttershy looks strange after that. She looks so serious. She’s not heading home, is she? After what just happened, I don’t . . . could . . . could she . . . .
 
Twilight waited until Fluttershy was a good distance away, then took to the sky as soundlessly as possible.  She rose up high enough so that Fluttershy was nothing but a yellow speck on the ground below, and followed, staying airborne and staying well out of her Pegasus friend’s line of sight.
 
“I have to be sure . . .” she whispered to herself as she steadied herself on the air currents.  “I just need to be sure . . . .”
 



 
Fluttershy was back at the entrance to the Everfree Forest again.  There wasn’t even a need to think about her next move.  Nocturne had made his, and it warranted this, without a doubt.  There were too many questions left unanswered and issues left unresolved.
 
I should have spoken up earlier, Fluttershy reminded herself.  But I suppose better late than never. I just hope Nocturne can forgive me.  She took a long, steady sigh before speaking gently into the darkness beyond the trees.
 
“Umm, Nocturne? Can . . . can I talk to you for a minute? Please?”
 
A few seconds went by, and Fluttershy was startled by the sudden response of, “Come in.”  Fluttershy already felt uneasy; she’d never been welcomed into the Everfree Forest before.  With a slightly trembling hoof, she stepped in, and only a few steps deeper into the woods, she saw him.  Nocturne's back was turned, his wings still folded, and the full bushel of apples leaned against a tree close by.  His blanket—the same blanket made by Rarity weeks earlier—was draped over it.
 
Nocturne's head slowly turned, and he greeted Fluttershy with downcast eyes.  Fluttershy was thrown by this look; it was unlike anything she’d seen on him before.  Instead of his usual angry, defensive behavior, he was passive, almost melancholy, as though he’d reached the end of his rope.  But even beneath the heartbreaking look of misery, he still had the faint traces of a smile on his face.
 
“Just couldn't stay away, could you?” he croaked, his voice almost lost in the quiet of the woods.
 
“Look, I . . . I won't keep you,” Fluttershy soothed, “but, I just wanted to ask you . . . see, I was surprised to see you at Applejack's today, and . . . well, I was wondering . . . what made you come out today?”
 
Nocturne glanced at the bushel and paused.  As he spoke, he stared at Fluttershy’s hooves.
 
“I told you . . . I was hungry. I needed . . . more food . . . .”
 
“I’m sorry Nocturne, but I don’t believe you,” Fluttershy replied, softening her earnestness as much as possible.  “You haven’t had trouble finding food up until now. Why today, so soon after we spoke? And why Sweet Apple Acres? They’d already caught you stealing years ago.”
 
Nocturne visibly cringed at that last detail, and Fluttershy briefly wondered why until she remembered Granny Smith recounting the same event—and Nocturne’s subsequent consequences.  Afterwards, the stallion released a heavy sigh.
 
“Couldn't fool you, could I?” he replied in that same weak voice.
 
“Nocturne, if you’d wanted to see me, you could have just said so,” Fluttershy told him, taking a step towards him.  “We would have understood. All of us.”
 
“You’re not the only pony who feels fear, you know,” Nocturne moaned, standing up long enough to turn and face Fluttershy before sitting again.  “Then again, since you’ve been here to see me half a dozen times, I can’t imagine you know what it’s like to lose your nerve . . . .”
 
“You have no idea,” Fluttershy said simply before sitting in front of Nocturne.  She placed a hoof on his shoulder and looked deep into his face.  “It’s okay. Whatever you have to say, I’ll understand.”
 
There was a brief pause punctuated only by another deep sigh from Nocturne.  Fluttershy felt her heart race, but stayed calm—the culmination of everything that had happened for the last three weeks required it.
 
“Maybe you’ll understand . . . but I still don’t . . .” Nocturne said, sighed again, then continued.  “I wanted to talk to you about what happened that day . . . I thought a lot about what you said. About how I scare ponies away just to be left alone.”  He looked back up at Fluttershy, his eyes looking more and more solemn.
 
“You were right about me. You were right about everything.”
 
Fluttershy felt a pang in her heart.  There was no satisfaction in knowing she’d been right.  In fact, it made her feel for him that much more.
 
“Don't be so hard on yourself, Nocturne,” she replied calmly.  “Anger, bitterness, loneliness, it hurts ponies in different ways. And sometimes it makes you do things you wouldn't normally do.”
 
“It's not that simple,” Nocturne said.  “I've been lonely ever since I was a foal. I was feared, bullied, ostracized . . . my childhood was all pain and isolation. I've had to repress my memories to forget the pain.
 
“Repress your memories?” Fluttershy asked, suddenly remembering Zecora’s spell and why it wasn’t as effective as it should have been.  “You don’t really mean . . . ?”
 
“Yes. Nine-tenths of my childhood is all just a blur to me. All I remember is the pain, and knowing I never wanted to experience it again, even if it was just memories. So I pushed it all away . . . forgot everything about my life in Ponyville, the good and the bad . . . I lost so many memories . . . I can't even remember my true talent, or how I got my cutie mark . . . .”
 
Fluttershy released a small gasp at this.  She could have guessed at many aspects of Nocturne’s life, but she never could have suspected this.
 
“That's . . . that's awful!” Fluttershy squealed, and Nocturne nodded.  “How . . . how could you go on not knowing your purpose in life after you just learned it?”
 
“I’ve been asking myself that question for years,” Nocturne replied before continuing.  “After two years in the woods, I’d completely forgotten my past. By then, all I had left was anger. Anger at having to stoop to that level. Anger at everypony I ever knew for casting me aside, like I meant nothing. It’s why I came here . . . in spite of the danger, I felt safe here. The darkness hid me, made me look the part of the monster they thought I was. I removed myself from the life that never wanted me, and if they ever found me, I . . . I . . .” he then turned away and shut his eyes, “. . . I wanted to make them pay.”
 
The pain in Fluttershy's heart intensified; the more she learned about Nocturne's psychology, the more she realized that she was in over her head.  Not even she could have predicted the circumstances of Nocturne’s turmoil.
 
But I won’t leave, she thought.  Not now. Not while he needs me.
 
“You don’t deserve this life, Nocturne. It doesn’t matter who said what, or what you made yourself believe. You’re not a monster. You never were. You just needed one pony in your life to remind you of that.”
 
There was another long, agonizing pause as Nocturne considered Fluttershy’s words.  His line of sight was vague, undefined, as though he were staring into some unseen crack in space-time.  The look in his eyes, however, was a different story.
 
He really believes me, Fluttershy thought.  I think he finally believes what I’m saying.
 
“I never had that until you came along,” Nocturne replied at last.  “I had never had somepony approach me the way you did. Speak to me the way you have. Treat me the way you did. You were something I’d never really seen before . . . you . . . you were the first pony I'd ever met that didn't treat me like a monster . . . .”
 
As he hesitated again, Fluttershy felt her heart swell at his words.
 
“More reason for you to be right about me,” Nocturne went on, his voice starting to break, “I should be ashamed of myself. After what I saw in your face the day we met, when I scared you away . . . I saw somepony scared, terrorized, in pain, like I was . . . and even after all that, you came back.”
 
Despite facing Fluttershy, Nocturne still couldn't bring himself to look his former victim straight in the eye.  Under the shadow cast by his hat, Nocturne’s face worked into a grimace of woe, and he sniffed occasionally.  The guilt almost seemed to physically weigh him down; his posture slumped and he shook very slightly.
 
“That day . . . I saw so much in you that I didn’t want to admit . . . I was in denial for days, but now I know . . . I saw myself in your eyes. For the first time, I saw the scared little foal I used to be, and I also saw the beast I had become . . .”  Nocturne closed his eyes tightly as he spoke.  “And the way you kept coming back over and over again after the way I treated you . . . for the first time in my life, I knew just how far gone I really was . . . I saw you as nothing more than a nuisance, but you saw more in me than anypony ever had, even myself . . . you’d showed me compassion for the first time in my life, and I did nothing but cause you pain . . . .”  By now, the stallion’s breaths were brief, shaky and staccato, and his voice had broken completely.
 
“I'm sorry I scared you, Fluttershy. I’m sorry I hurt you and your friends. And I’m sorry I made you cry . . .”  Then, at long last, he looked up at her, and their eyes met.  Fluttershy could see, in the dim streaks of light coming down from the canopy, tiny sparkling droplets raining down from Nocturne’s face.
 
“Please forgive me . . . .”
 
Nocturne blinked, letting the tears fall from his crimson eyes.  The guilt finally made him collapse under its weight, and he sank down into the grass on his stomach, face buried in his forelegs and wings drooping at his sides.  The longer he lay there, the longer he sobbed, shuddering under the weight of his own sadness.
 
Until a feathery wing touched him.
 
Nocturne pulled his face up from his forelegs and saw Fluttershy lying next to him, draping her left wing over him.  This seemed to do the trick, as his crying slowed down almost immediately.  Fluttershy looked deep into his tear-soaked eyes and smiled at him.
 
“There's nothing to forgive, Nocturne. We're friends now. That's all that matters.”
 
Nocturne merely stared back at her, dumbstruck for a good few seconds.  Residual tears descended his cheeks as he lay there, silent and confused.
 
“I . . . I-I . . . I don’t get it . . . I thought you’d just walk away again . . . I didn’t . . . I didn’t think you’d actually say . . . I don’t understa—”  He stopped when Fluttershy pressed a gentle hoof to his lips.
 
“Shhh,” she cooed.  “Friends always try to forgive, as long as they show they’re willing to work it out. That’s what friendship means.”  She then wrapped her forelegs around Nocturne’s neck and hugged him close, sighing contentedly.
 
Nocturne let the last of his tears of sadness fall into the grass, and he smiled as they began anew, as tears of joy.  His breaths came out softly in half-sobs, half-laughter as he returned Fluttershy’s embrace, burying his wet face in her fragrant mane.
 
“So, Nocturne, how do you feel?”
 
“. . . Free . . . .”