//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: The Princess Fair of Everfree 
// by Briarpelt 
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	The years, after that day, passed quickly. Fluttershy spent half her waking time caring for a growing community of small woodland creatures around her cottage, and the other half in the Everfree, learning its ways and discovering its secrets. Under those arching boughs, all her shyness seemed to melt away; what the ponies of Ponyville feared, she loved and thrived in. But she was afraid that if anypony knew, they would fear her, too, or they would come and take the forest away from her. They would change it, cut down its trees, drive out its many unique species. So she kept her second life a secret, and pretended to be deathly afraid of the strange wood.
She grew from a long-legged filly into an attractive teenager, and her tea parties with Rarity turned into spa sessions. Other than that, her life was peaceful and calm, little changed from the way it had been since she first moved to Ponyville. But five years after her arrival, something happened that forever changed her life. The Everfree Forest came under attack.
She learned of it through a breathless hummingbird who had zipped to warn the inhabitants of her cottage about the danger. “The Fire-Serpents! They’re coming! They’re coming to take over the forest!” she twittered, zipping around the garden in agitation.
Pandemonium broke out. Squirrels, chipmunks and mice raced around the clearing in various directions, while birds of all colors and sizes fluttered through the air. Fluttershy, at the center of it all, stood frozen, the hummingbird’s message sinking into her head. My home! They’re coming for my home! She wanted to break down and cry, or go hide until it was over. She stared at her beloved trees, imagining them burnt to form the serpents’ dwellings, or torn down in the conquest. She watched her animals, the ones who looked up to her for care, race hither and thither in total panic. And something inside her said, No.
I’m not going to let them take over my home, she thought. Then, she said it aloud. “I’m not going to let them take over my home. Our home.”
Every animal in the clearing stopped to stare at her. “That’s right,” she continued, “they’re not going to take over. I won’t let them.” Now firm in her resolve, she directed the most helpless creatures to various safe spots, and asked the most capable among them to prepare to either fight or help heal the injured. Spontaneously, with the small forces she had, Fluttershy prepared for battle. She went into her kitchen and chose the sharpest, wickedest knife she possessed. Weasels, cats, otters and wolves all sharpened their claws, and without another word, they raced into the forest towards its southeastern edge, where the fire-snakes slithered to their newly-sighted kindling.
Fluttershy herself led the charge. Fuelled by anger and fear for the Everfree, her wings buzzed faster and stronger than she had known they could. She wove around trees, soared over rivers and ravines, and dashed onward, knife in her mouth. Then she burst through the final branches, into an open field, and saw them.
The Fire-Serpents glowed with scales like embers, in colors from blood-red to bright yellow. Their eyes were black, like dead coals, set in their large, flat heads. Tongues of flame licked from between their jaws, and the earth was scorched beneath them where they slithered. The serpents were massive, ranging from one to two feet thick, and great lengths of coiling tail stretched behind them. And they were led by the hugest serpent of all, a good 5 feet at his thickest, whose body rippled with all of the colors of a raging forest fire. In his forehead was set an obsidian disk.
Fluttershy screeched to a halt in midair as she saw the towering monster. Her wings snapped to her sides and she fell, quaking, terror filling her breast and immobilizing her completely. She stared up at the King of the Fire-Serpents, rooted to the ground, hyperventilating. But as she gasped in air, something else entered her lungs: smoke.
She coughed, chest burning, eyes stinging. The pain snapped her out of her terrified trance, though her fear did not lessen. The Fire-Serpents had hardly noticed her, and continued to slither towards the forest. They’re almost there! I have to do something! She remembered her knife and sprinted towards the nearest serpent, slicing at its yellow-orange scales. Smoke billowed from the wound. Around her, the animals who had followed her launched their attacks.
The snake she had cut shrieked, a terrible sound somewhere between a hiss and a screech. It turned on Fluttershy, and she leapt into the air, just barely evading its wicked fangs. Though Fluttershy was terrified, though her world was a blur of fire and sky, she managed a single coherent thought: I can’t believe I just did that! I actually managed to wound it! Her heart rose now with the flame of courage beginning to kindle within it, a flame igniting to destroy the fires that would burn her home.
The serpent lunged at her again, and she dove to avoid its jaws, slicing at the underside of its neck as she passed it. Around her, she heard the pained hisses of other snakes and the shrieks of wounded animals, mingling in the sound of battle. Fluttershy rose above the reach of the serpent she fought, briefly surveying the scene, and her heart wrenched.
Though the serpents had halted their approach to engage her and her friends, it was clear that the battle would be short. Animals howled as their paws, used to claw the burning skin of the snakes, were scorched. A cat screamed as she was crushed in the burning coils of a bright red snake; a wolf’s cry was cut off as he was snapped in half by the powerful jaws of a blindingly white one. Few serpents had been injured, and none were dead. And the king of them all slid forward still, towards the forest.
The king! Fluttershy’s heart quickened as she saw him mere feet from the tree line, and without thinking, she dove in his direction. With a battle cry that rang across the battlefield, she charged, and sank her blade into the king serpent’s neck. He roared and whipped his head toward her, and she pulled her knife out just in time, tumbling backwards out of the spot where his jaws had just snapped. She caught herself, pulling out of her aerial loops, and shook her head to clear it, but she saw the head coming a split second too late. The king grasped her tail in his mouth, and whipped his head back and forth, attempting to drag her with it. But the end of Fluttershy’s tail crumbled to ash at the fiery snake’s touch, and she flew free, shooting upward and spinning around, batting at the flames to try and put them out. Pain seared her hooves, but her tail was no longer aflame, and she dove once again toward the snake.
This time, she aimed for his eyes. Charging towards his head, she turned the knife in her mouth so that it pointed straight down, and squeezed her own eyes shut in preparation for the squishy impact.
It never came. Instead, her right side was hit with a heavy, scorching blow. Her eyes flew open as she hurtled through the air, once more out of control, and saw the forehead of the King Fire-Serpent follow through with the strike. He had hit her backwards, and she flew towards his tail, which waited to coil around her body and crush her to death. But as he had anticipated her attack, she now anticipated his, and turned in midair, using her wings to push herself even faster toward the tail. At the last moment, she rolled around it, slicing it open with her knife. Then she dove, as the serpent’s head shot after her, and pulled up just in time for it to crash into the ground.
Seeing her opportunity, Fluttershy folded her wings and plunged straight downwards. Using her own weight to strengthen the force of the blow, she drove her knife into the very center of the obsidian disk on the King Fire-Serpent’s forehead. It cracked, splitting straight down the middle, and a great cloud of burning smoke poured out. Then everything went white.