//------------------------------// // Fluttershy: Apoptosis // Story: Game of Worlds // by DualThrone //------------------------------// Fluttershy smiled contentedly and snuggled into the broad lap of Angel as he ran a comb through her long mane. Nearby was a basket of carrots that never diminished, a quiet outdoor scene with all the happy animals she could think of and of course, a small flock of butterflies to represent her cutie mark. She both grateful and regretful when the pretty cloud drifted by: grateful that in her favorite dream, there was nothing scary that could hurt her or her little friends, regretful that a peaceful place where Angel-bunny was kind to her instead of a spoiled little lapine was just her favorite dream. The momentary crisis passed when she lost sight of the butterflies and collected a carrot to nibble, letting the peaceful dream wash over her again. The swarm of butterflies wandered placidly through her vision, introducing the strange mix of happiness and regret again. And there was a knock at the door. The brushing stopped as both the dream Angel and Fluttershy looked at the door to her cottage. Like the actual cottage, it was a whimsical and homey design built into a weeping willow with the thick umbrella of branches covering the durable and practical roof. In the dreamscape, it was also slightly blurred, a part of the background, something that was part of the dream and not. Even Luna, completely dominant over the substance of dreams, always entered by walking up the path and over the little bridge, never by the cottage. There was another knock at the door. The cloud of butterflies grew and settled in a harmless mist of fluttering wings and and alert antennae, not menacing or agitated, merely interested. Fluttershy looked up to Angel and the giant rabbit gave her a helpless shrug, then returned to looking at the nonfunctional door to the blurry showpiece that was supposed to remain colorfully in the background. There was a knock at the door, very slightly more insistent this time. The swarm of butterflies seemed a bit more reddish than they were before and they hovered a little closer to Fluttershy. “Hello?” she said. The knock came again, and once again it seemed a little more insistent than it was at first. This time, the butterflies were much more distinctively red and the cloud moved a little closer around Fluttershy, almost protectively. Fluttershy looked up at the swarm in surprise. She had always supposed that the butterflies represented her cutie mark somehow, and that she subconsciously included them to remind herself that as much as she loved the peaceful, soothing dreams, they were her wishes and fantasies, not her reality. But there was something about the butterflies now that seemed… unlike her. Well, unlike the her that she preferred; there was that other her that came out when she tried to learn how to be more assertive from Iron Will. That other her frightened her a little, or at least, she reflected, she used to. After the affair of the Guardian, she found herself being a little more open to her other her. Borrowing a few things sometimes, carefully borrowing a few things sometimes. The sense of being in control, for example, was what had made the other her so very, very comfortable before her friends brought her to her senses and made her realize what she was letting herself become. But having no control at all, having nothing but fear and helplessness before the terrible Guardian, having to rely on help from Nightmare Moon of all ponies, made her realize something: Being Kind, being really truly Kind, needed something more than being quiet, and gentle, and helpful, and compassionate. Just like Pinkie stopped at times and helped brokenhearted ponies Laugh again and touch a little bit of joy after losing something or someone, Fluttershy knew that a Kindness being held back by helplessness and timidity would deprive an angrily-suffering pony of that little touch that would let them heal. With a little bit of peaceful time to think, she also realized something else: the herself that she was afraid of didn’t come from Iron Will’s slogans and self-help program, but because she went from timid to cruel instead of going from timid to confident. So she sought him out again. And it turned out that the bombastic minotaur was comfortably wealthy for a pretty good reason. And so looking at the red-tinted butterflies, Fluttershy started to wonder if she’d been wrong about what they represented all along. But that could wait; in the time she’d paused to think, the knocking had come again and was becoming a bit louder and more insistent. “It’s open,” she said as she walked over to it, noticing that it seemed to become more crudely-formed the closer she walked to it. The flock around her had become blood-red and extremely agitated, pressing in closer to her and yet, she didn’t feel threatened. If anything, she felt confident that in her own dream, where her wishes and imagination were really what mattered, there was nothing to be timid about. “It’s open,” she repeated even as more knocking thumped on the door. “Just take the knob in your teeth and pull it down.” There was a long, long pause in the insistent sound, and then a knocking that seemed more like pounding than a proper, polite knock. Fluttershy sighed and leaned down to take the handle in her mouth and bite down, releasing the latch, and then she pulled it open. “There! I don’t know why you couldn’t have…” She straightened up to see a grin in the black field. A wide grin, a very wide grin. Too wide. “Thank you.” The sun stung her eyes as she fell out of her bed, screaming, folding her legs in close as she curled into the instinctive position of defense, making herself as small as possible, wrapping her body around the soft flesh of her undercarriage. The door left its hinges and rocketed across the room, shattering as a half dozen griffons poured in, razor talons and beaks bared, intensely predatory eyes looking for something to rend and tear. “Lady Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” She could hear the words, even understand them, but the part of her brain that was hearing and understanding was washed away by the still-present feeling of overwhelming panic. She could feel her heart racing, her head becoming lighter, breathing hard and rapidly, shivering all over as she rocked back and forth on the ground, the thoughts bouncing around her head over and over again Coming to get me, coming to get me, coming to get me, comingtogetme, comingtogetme, comingtogetmecomingtogetmecomingtogetme… Wingpony! Fluttershy shuddered as the soft mass hit her and hung on as she rocked in place. Miss wingpony! The rocking started to slow, the shivering calmed marginally. Miss wingpony, why afraid? She managed to hold a shaky, trembling breath, blinking a little. Comingtogetmecomingtogetmecoming… coming… not coming to get me. Safe. Safe. Griffons are right there, no one will hurt me. Little friend hugging me. Nothing… nothing to be afraid of. Just a dream. A nightmare, but still just a dream. Just… a dream. Fluttershy shuddered and started to relax, forcing herself to uncurl and extend her legs, willing her heart to stop pounding, idly beginning to run a hoof over the fennec that had leapt on her during her panic attack. “Had a… bad dream,” she told the little creature, petting it lightly. “Saw something very scary.” She shivered again as the image of that horrific and impossible grin echoed through her memory. “I’ll… I’ll be fine.” Oh. Good. The fennec gave her muzzle a lick and hopped off. Miss wingpony going to be fine. Fluttershy let herself giggle. “Yes, miss wingpony is going to be fine.” She finally gathered herself enough to look over to the griffons. “I’m sorry for scaring everyone. Bad dream,” “We’re just relieved that you’re well, Lady Fluttershy,” the griffon (Fluttershy remembered his name as ‘Esper’) said. “And we’ll… uh… fix the broken door.” Fluttershy gave him her brightest and most reassuring smile. “As long as it’s not too much trouble.” “No price is too high to keep one of the bearers of the Elements safe,” he said, nodding to his fellows who immediately started to leave. “Especially after your friends saved us.” “I hope it wasn’t too hard to rebuild,” she said as she followed the griffon out onto the broad landing outside her room. “After they… um… had to use fire to burn the swarm.” “It wasn’t too hard to rebuild,” he said as he reared up and put both claws on the railing around the landing, looking over the vast and colorful city, far more vast and colorful than Fluttershy had ever imagined a city in such an arid land could be. “A little work, some paint, good as new.” Fluttershy turned to look curiously at the griffon. “Didn’t they set several stalls on fire, trying to corner it?” “They set several stalls on fire, trying to corner it,” Esper agreed. “A little work, some paint. Good as new.” The response made her blink. “O… oh. That’s nice.” “Nice.” He looked off into space a few moments. “Set several stalls on fire, but no price is too high to keep one of the Elements safe.” He smiled to her. “Would you like to see where we rebuilt? I believe there’s a shop there with many little animals that the owner lets walk around. Animals seem to like you.” The suggestion cleared away the touch of confusion immediately. “Oh! Oh yes, that would be very nice!” Esper nodded, still smiling, and launched from the edge of the railing into the open city, Fluttershy following him a moment later. She’d never been the strongest flier--in fact, she’d been mediocre and content with that fact for the longest time. But being barely able to handle flying at all was nearly impossible with Rainbow Dash in Ponyville. She couldn’t put a hoof on it, but there was some… quality about her friend, some invisible force that hung on her and radiated from her, and whatever it was made Fluttershy want to fly, if only so she could watch Rainbow’s talents in the air from the air rather than the ground. So she’d talked to her bird friends and quickly had as many suggestions as there were friends. It was almost counterintuitive that she, a pony who was intimidated by nearly everything, found herself being tutored by sharp-beaked raptors instead of more sweet and harmless songbirds. Learning to read the thermals and sail comfortably and easily on them fit her far more than flitting about like a butterfly or beating her wings like a hummingbird and she learned that flying could be very relaxing. And useful: the Ponyville weather team revealed to her that half the equation of building and controlling storms was a flyer who could ‘anchor’ the entire effort, providing a steady, unhurried rhythm to time their own movements against. She never completely understood what made her so useful to them--aerial theory, any kind of theory really, was something she preferred to let Twilight busy herself with--but even before Iron Will or the Guardian, anchoring the weather team made her feel more sure of herself and confident. She could let her attention and mind drift to what she was like before, and what kind of flying she discovered that she enjoyed, because sailing the currents around the griffon settlement was unusually easy and intuitive. There was hardly anyone else in the air with them, and she could just follow Esper along the winding, generously-spaced paths to the pet shop he’d mentioned. As they banked into a slightly narrower street, Fluttershy looked right to see how the market stalls where Spite had unleashed fire to drive the swarm-beast into a panic. It was a relief to see that it all looked put back together again since yesterday: banners were flying, the wood of the stalls had been all replaced with new timber, and the market was bustling. “A little work, some paint, good as new,” she said quietly as they banked again and started downwards to the shop. It proved to be pretty much the kind of shop she was used to: some animals roaming freely within, some resting contentedly in their pens, and a few insects that each had their own glass tanks with all the things they needed to be comfortable. Fluttershy couldn’t help but make a beeline for the tanks, having heard that the Provinces had very unique and colorful insects. Her path took her by the one empty tank in the row and she glanced curiously at it as she passed, noticing that it was also dimmed despite the sunlight coming through the front windows. ...to you straight… The sound of the voice, slightly accented, slightly hushed, with a lisp made her jump and look around wildly. ...city ist just for fun. I know she is… The voice came again, slightly louder to her right, and Fluttershy whipped her head around, seeing only the empty glass tank. She started to turn her head to look in the other direction, when something about the tank caught her eye and she turned back to look at it. It was just as empty and dim as it was before and Fluttershy stared at it a moment, trying to figure out what it was about the empty container that had caught her eye. She leaned in closer to it. ...and use it. It can only be used on one of ye at a time so I do not know… This time, the voice was coming from directly in front of her and the sheer strangeness was making her less fearful and more confused. She couldn’t remember having ever imagined seeing or hearing things that weren’t actually there. She took a step back, and everything immediately felt quieter, although the step back made the sunlight glint off the tank beside the empty one and Fluttershy squinted… and then leaned in, again getting the feeling of something being strange about the tank but unable to put her hoof on what. ...planning to go somewhere east, a large icy plain where they think something ist… Another step back, and being forced to squint again, and Flutershy suddenly noticed what was strange: the tank wasn’t reflecting anything. When she moved, there wasn’t even a faint stirring of movement in front of her, no dim reflection, and the light that she could feel on her back simply did not touch the empty tank. Feeling her pounding heart finally settle a little, the spike of fear caused by being startled by the voice starting to fade, Fluttershy braced herself and took a much larger step closed to the tank. “...why they want to seize these specific points,” the voice said, now as clear as if Fluttershy was face-to-face with the mare, “but there ist clearly a reason that my masters would sacrifice so much for them. I think that I am not meant to know, that they believed if I was to know, I would betray them. Now they are convinced that I do know and every city I shelter in will die.” The voice was so forlorn that Fluttershy reached out with a hoof to lay it against the glass, as if its presence would somehow console whoever was speaking in the hushed and accented voice that seemed, improbably, to emanate from an empty insect tank. She was in the bed she woke up in only a few minutes ago but nothing else was the same. She wasn’t screaming in terror from the nightmarish specter of a too-wide grin, she wasn’t falling out of her bed, there wasn’t several concerned griffons breaking down her door… and she couldn’t move. She could immediately tell it wasn’t fear paralysis--she was sure that she had enough personal experience with that to be Equestria’s foremost expert--but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. She could breathe with no trouble, swallow, twitch her ears, and blink her eyes but when she tried to speak or do any other kind of movement, it was like she was telling herself to move, but herself couldn’t hear her. “Ye cannot actually hear me, can ye?” The same accented voice she’d been hearing said, out of her field of view. “So deep are ye that my voice cannot reach ye, and sheltering in this place, the very last place she would look, ist fruitless.” There was a subdued feminine snort. “Perhaps it ist better that way.” Fluttershy heard hoofsteps move above her and she tried to roll her eyes upwards to see but her own bangs got in the way and what she could see seemed to become… dim, somehow, as if color and light was slowly leaking away. “I do so love the desert, Kindness. It ist stark, and barren, and with almost no life. Very much like home, it happens, but with far more color and light.” Her hoof tingled and felt as if it was once again pressed lightly against something smooth and cool, and the drain of color and light continued. “Irony that I, who comes from a place of no light at all, nor Light, should see it fade in a strange place so much like the place from which I come…” The glass was very slightly warm to the touch as she pressed her hoof against it, feeling like it had been warmed by the desert sun that it wasn’t reflecting.  She blinked and pulled her hoof back, wondering why she would be reaching out and touching  the tank like that. She’d been around enough of her little insect friends to know that they didn’t appreciate it when some random pony wandered up and pressed her hoof against their home. Still, the pink-winged butterflies with their bluish bodies didn’t seem agitated by the annoyance and continued to flutter around in a trio. Fluttershy smiled a little at the fluttering insects, reminded of her own cutie mark, before looking to the left and watching a brilliantly-marked and surprisingly large scorpion neatly slice sections of most green off of some succulents growing in its cage with a dun-colored shrike, its beak long and hooked for puncturing the tough carapaces of large insects and arthropods--like scorpions--watching placidly from its perch atop the open aquarium. For some reason, she immediately thought of Rainbow Dash and idly wondered if aposemtism applied to ponies as well as she reached a hoof up and made a soft whistling noise to prompt the bird onto her hoof. Like Esper had suggested, she found the little open-roam shop relaxing, and the lingering effects of the nightmare faded even further back into the mists of memory. She wasn’t sure out long she spent in the shop, conversing with the animals, basking in their quiet and curious presence, admiring exotic stick insects and beetle endemic to the plateaus of the Provinces, but it came to her suddenly that while she remembered following Esper to the shop, she didn’t remember seeing him land and come into the shop, or say a word to her after he suggesting coming. Patting a lanky bobtail cat on the head as she turned, she clopped out to the face of the shop--and stopped. The street was empty. The stalls she knew she passed just outside weren’t there, and there was no sign that they ever had been. The banners were gone, the foot traffic she was equally certain of seemed to have simply vanished, and there were just buildings lined up outside the pet shop with none of the adornments she distinctly remembered idly looking over as she followed the vanished Esper to the shop. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again, blinking, and there was a pony walking up the street passed the shop, trotting along at a cheerful change of pace. She was a unicorn, her coat such a light lavender it was very nearly pink, wearing her purple mane streaked with light turquoise long--and no cutie mark. No scars to indicate it was ever there, nothing about her fur to point to it being painted over, just no cutie mark at all. The other mare didn’t seem to notice her or if she did, she gave no indication of it, going passed the shop and down the street as if she had a destination in mind. Looking back at the shop, teeming with animals that she was certain she’d enjoy spending hours more with, Fluttershy hesitated and then looked towards the shrinking profile of the blank flank mare, and started after her at a comfortable canter. She caught up with the other mare at an intersection and slowed to look in all directions, feeling a little shiver go down her back at the eerie lack of anyone besides herself and the other, before she coughed politely and tapped the other mare on the shoulder. “Uh...e… excuse me?” The pony jumped. There was a loud sound and Fluttershy was now looking at the sky, noticing that it was cloudless and yet, the sun wasn’t too harsh despite the Provinces being pretty arid. “Sorry.” The face of the mare centered itself in her vision, looking down at her sheepishly. “You sort of came out of nowhere.” Fluttershy blinked and rolled back to her feet, noticing that she’d been flung half a block back in the direction she’d come from, and gingerly checked for anything broken. “It’s OK,” she said in return. “But you didn’t hear me following you? The streets are sort of… empty.” “Are they?” The mare looked from side to side. “Oh. I… really hadn’t noticed.” Fluttershy eyed her. “Sort of a… big thing to miss.” “I’ve got more important things to do than pay attention to crowds,” the mare said testily. She left that hanging there for several moments. “More important things?” Fluttershy prompted her. “Yes, much more important.” There was another long silence. “Something private?” ‘No.” Fluttershy sighed after the mare, once again, let the silence fill the air between them. “So what’re these ‘more important things’?” The pony frowned. “I have no idea. I just know that they’re very, very important.” “You… have no idea.” “I just said that.” “But you know it’s important.” “Yes,” she said. “Vitally so. The kind of important that will save lives, lots and lots of lives.” Fluttershy blinked at her. “So the very, very important things will save lives, lots and lots of lives, but you don’t know what they are?” “Essentially.” The mare shrugged. “And I know that standing around telling you about them doesn’t help me get them done. So it was nice to meet you…?” “Fluttershy.” “....Fluttershy, but I have to go.” She frowned heavily. “I have to warn them. It’s under the ice, from what I can gather, asleep.” She went several lengths before Fluttershy shook off her bewilderment and caught up to her. “Warn who? What’s under the ice?” “Them,” the mare said. “And… I don’t know. It. I think it’s… extremely large? I can’t tell, I don’t remember. But it’s vital that I warn them about it.” “I’m very sorry and I don’t mean to be unkind but… you’re not making any sense.” The mare’s expression tightened in frustration. “Don’t you think I know that?” She snorted and one of her hooves struck with greater force. “I should know this, I know I know this, but I just can’t make it come out of my head. I know all of it, even the part I’m not supposed to know, but I just can’t remember what I know. I don’t even know how I know I’m not supposed to know something I know, but I know it anyway.” Fluttershy lost a few steps on the mare, unsettled by her vehemence, and feeling her gut twisting a little in sympathy for her plight. “And on top of all of that, you don’t know who you are, do you?” The other pony slowed as her ears lay down. “No, I don’t. Not for sure.” “But you think you know?” Fluttershy said hopefully. “Glamor,” the mare said. “Or shimmer, or something like that. I remember being told that my name reminded somepony of Princess Twilight Sparkle, that there’s some sort of word relationship, like synonyms or antonyms or something like that, between our names. But the closest I’m certain of is ‘Glamor’.” “OK, OK, that’s a start.” Fluttershy gave the other pony her best encouraging smile. “Anything else?” Glamor visibly thought a moment. “I don’t seem to have a cutie mark,” she said after a moment, “but that makes me happy. I think. I don’t feel sad, or frustrated, or like I endured a loss when I look at my blank flank. I feel… achievement, I think, like I… never wanted one?” Her eyebrows furrowed. “But that doesn't make sense, I’m sure that losing your cutie mark should be devastating and terrifying.” “Maybe you… didn’t like your cutie mark?” Fluttershy suggested. “I’m sure that with so many ponies out there, somepony must be unhappy with theirs.” “That could be,” Glamor said. “But how does it help?” “I don’t know,” Fluttershy admitted. “Maybe if you just… said everything you can think of, about yourself?” Glamor looked at her for a moment and shrugged. “Can’t do any harm, I guess, as long as we keep moving.” She resumed her previous rapid trot and Fluttershy had to canter briefly to catch up to her again. “You’re very determined to warn this unknown ‘them’ about an unknown danger,” she noted. “So…? “Alright,” Glamor said. “I’m pretty sure I’m from a medium-sized village in a very moderate part of Equestria--nowhere cold, nowhere desert, not a city. I think I currently live in a smaller village, in a desert.” She frowned. “No, in an… arid place. Like the Provinces, but not in the Provinces. I… had a friend. Or several. Or maybe they were village ponies and I’m a… mayor. I just remember a lot of happiness around me, but not being very happy.” As Glamor continued to spill forth details--that she thought she had a friend that died tragically, then was certain she was alive, then questioned whether it was a she--Fluttershy noticed a trio of fluttering butterflies flitting about, drawing near them, blue--winged with dark pink bodies, nearly red. If Glamor noticed her divided attention, she gave no sign of it, continuing to relate details--that she liked birds called ‘kites’, then thought she liked building and flying kites as a hobby and was mistaken about the birds, and then veered back to being certain she was a fan of the birds--while the trio darted near to her horn, and then fluttered towards Fluttershy. She smiled a little, finding the colors pleasantly familiar, and extended a wing towards the butterflies, inviting them to alight on the tip. They fluttered closer, circled the tip, and then moved over to hover just above her head. She smiled and paused, lifting a hoof this time as a second invitation. Once again, they fluttered closer, circled her hoof, but this time she felt the very light touch of… ...an oily and almost painfully cold mist brushing against her cheek as she looked up at the ceiling of the room. The bed felt like she one she’d woken up in before, and she vaguely recognized the details of the room from her peripheral vision, but she found moving strangely difficult, as if something was resisting her ever effort. Breathing was easy enough, and she could move her jaw and twitch her ears, but everything else felt like a chore. “Where is it, webweaver?” Fluttershy felt her body involuntarily spasm and flinch away from the sound of the hissing, discordant, vibrato of the disturbingly silky and feminine voice that felt like it was nearly close enough to reach out and touch. “Where is the spell you offered as the price for your miserable existence?” A phlegmy, wet cough, almost a choking sound, replied to the disquieting voice and a whispered rattle that was clearly somepony’s attempt at speech. Steeling herself, Fluttershy began to force her head to turn to the side, moving by minute degrees, plumes of black smoke intermixed liberally with sparks of violet coming into her peripheral vision as she struggled to look at the confrontation she was hearing. “You. Do. Not. HAVE IT?” The sudden surge of primal rage crashed into Fluttershy like a physical force, making her body curl inward as if she’d been bucked in the stomach. On the up side, the movement made her roll on her side facing the confrontation; on the down side, she swiftly wished she hadn’t. Trying to describe the thing that was crouched in the room almost close enough to lean forward and touch with her muzzle was beyond her; she had no words for the roiling chaos of forms that changed at a dizzying pace, no frame of reference for the shape revealed in split-seconds and flashes through the darting mist that seemed to tremble like a living thing even as it bent and contorted. There was a pony in the thing’s grip. It was only because she could see it with nauseating clarity that Fluttershy was sure that what she was seeing was in fact another pony. Everywhere she looked was a ruin of gouges, slashes, holes where flesh had been ripped away like with a spoon, pitting, and the disturbing appearance of some parts of the pony’s flesh melted and running like candle wax. Sluggish rivulets of blood and other viscera ran over the brief patches of skin and coat that had somehow remained intact and as she bobbed up and down in the grip of the mist, Fluttershy could see wisps of mane being shaken loose in threads of golden hair. The face had been left largely intact, but for a pair of deep surgically-neat cuts that went from the edges of the pony’s lips all the way up to her ears in curves that were clean and precise in a way incomprehensibly at odds with the gruesome tapestry that covered the rest of her. The pony coughed, flecks of blood being expelled from her muzzle as she did. “If… you claim to… be surprised… I shall… laugh in your face,” she rattled, her voice weirdly steady and calm despite what were visibly agonizing wounds.  “We are each… what we are.” “What you are is a snack.” Fluttershy had a vague impression of something like a hoof tipped with fingers like Spike’s but far too long and thin to be natural, wave vaguely around the room. “But your shelter is a banquet.  Did you hope that feeding me these mortal kine would stay my wrath? Did you imagine that making a gift of these… morsels would throw me from your scent? Do you delude yourself into thinking that you will withstand my delving the sixth time when you barely survived the fifth?” “Even you… you, the progenitor… for whom all are named… cannot take what… I do not have.” The pony coughed weakly. “Delve. You will… find that I omit no… fact here. Then you will kill this husk… and be… just as bereft… as you were… before you came.” “Oh small and piteous wretch… with all your schemes and weavings you are still as limited as when your torn remnants limped into the Void.” Fluttershy’s impression this time was of a hand gesturing at her. “The pieces of the artifact are not all of a kind. This one heals, restores, purifies. It does not lash out, nor shield, nor burn. I shall find what I desire in time but for now, I have a vessel from which to pour all that I need.” The vaguely defined shape in the mist elongated, and the narrowed again, and as Fluttershy watched, resolved itself into a pony shape. “You are not an easy one to bind, Butterfly,” the still-concealed creature said, her voice now having naught but a whisper of the hissing and discordance. “That you awaken even dimly is a lesson.” She sighed. “It is strange to lack the impulse or need to destroy a foe, but there was never a reason to contemplate the measure until now.” “Now… of all times, you… discover a conscience?” “The Aspect radiates a subtle manipulation, but one that does no apparent harm,” the being informed the pony curtly. “It is subtle, and not potent enough to bend a will. That is immaterial now.” She learned forward and Fluttershy recoiled to see the face of Twilight Sparkle rendered in flowing, oily black substance, emerge from the fog, mouthed stretched into a toothy and impossibly wide grin, burning violet eyes radiating light from crumbling holes where her eyes should be. “It is time that you return to sleep, Butterfly; you are not nearly so useful awake.” “..why…” Fluttershy was surprised that she could hear the whispered word, and furthermore, that she could feel herself moving her mouth to speak it. “You can resist, and so long as you do the Aspect will strengthen your will and do as you would have it. When you sleep, you do not know what is, and so you do not resist.” She gestured behind her. “The Webweaver is within the shell and having no form, is most efficiently tormented by sensation. She who was born to the form does not know the damage inflicted, and never shall.” She gestured all around her. “I hunger, and they are my nourishment.” Fluttershy stared at the entirely matter-of-fact way that the creature spoke, finding that it was disturbing how much the calm, collected, dispassionate recitation went with the distortion of Twilight’s face. “You know this shape; it is close to you.” Fluttershy hesitated, but she couldn’t think of a reason to deny it. The being must have been able to discern the slight movement of her head as a nod, because she repeated the motion, albeit with greater freedom. “I will permit your speech. Tell me what this shape is.” Permit my speech? Fluttershy looked at her for several moments before opening her mouth, finding it as easy as it had ever been. “Are you why…?” “I permit your speech to answer my question,” the being said. “If you do not, I will restrict it again.” “The shape is my friend, Twilight Sparkle.” “The whelp of the sun-princess, family to the moon-princess.” The creature nodded. “I understand the whole matter now, all the twists and turns of the manipulation. You have been more useful in seven words than my ordinary meals are in thousands; this requires some consideration.” “Why?” The being somehow seemed amused. “Because I will it. Now, Butterfly, I would that you should return to your dreams. Do not resist; resistance results in pain, and is futile.” A clawed hand emerged from the mist that seemed to hang around the shape of Twilight Sparkle and reached out to Fluttershy’s face. She recoiled impulsively from it, although her face didn’t move enough to make a difference, and the hand setted on her face, two razor tips resting above her eyes and moving down with a shockingly gentle motion. Fluttershy swallowed, and obediently closed her eyes, feeling the tips resting on her eyelids, and feeling as an abrupt surge of exhaustion encompassed her. The last sensation she felt as she slipped away was that… ...of the light breeze of the arid plains flowing over her face and her hoof, bringing the faint scent of flowers, a gentle perfume of star jasmine, and the very slightly acrid smell of unwashed mane from Glamor standing next to her and looking as if she had just finished saying something. “...and you didn’t hear any of that, did you?” she said. Fluttershy blinked at her, confused at why she was standing with her hoof extended into the air, and feeling her cheeks warm as she put her hoof down. “Um… no,” she admitted. The other mare eyed her a moment before nodding. “You must have just come back then. Don’t worry about it, it’s probably best that you not remember.” Fluttershy’s confusion deepened. “Come back from where?” “Awareness,” Glamor said. “Wakefulness. It was like that for me several times before I caught on to what was happening. So did you bring anything back with you?” Fluttershy stared at her. “You… sound like you know who you are.” Glamor smiled, although it had a very bitter edge to it. “I remembered after the first dozen times. I think I prefer not knowing but there’s nothing for it now.” “So you know who ‘them’ is, what the more important things are, what’s under the ice?” “Vaguely, yes, and vaguely, in that order,” Glamor said. “There’s no real hurry; it’s not as if I’ll be able to deliver the warning no matter how fast I run.” She looked Fluttershy over with an analytic eye, an expression that Fluttershy had seen often on Twilight’s face. “You’re Kindness, aren’t you?” Fluttershy just stared at her, trying to follow the abrupt shifts in conversation. First dozen times? She prefers not knowing? She can’t deliver the warning? And brought anything back from where? “I don’t understand.” Glamor sighed. “I don’t know what I can do about that. If you’re not aware of being drawn back into reality and being put back under, just telling you isn’t going to help. If I told you that nothing you see is real, that I’m real but not really here, that you’re not actually here, would you believe any of it?” “I… don’t really…” “My point exactly.” Glamor slumped a little. “Another thing there’s no help for. But at least you can answer the question because I know you know who you are: you’re Kindness, are you not?” “I bear the Element of Kindness, yes.” “Whatever. Point is, I can’t deliver the warning but you can.” “Why?” “Whatever force is locking us in this dream has trouble keeping hold on either of us, but I’m pretty sure its hold on you is weaker, and you have help.” She gestured towards Fluttershy’s cutie mark. “I only caught it out of the corner of my eye but I think that one of the times you were pulled out, it was because those were involved.” Fluttershy turned and looked at the trio of butterflies on her flank. “My… cutie mark?” “It would make sense,” Glamor said. “Cutie marks reflect self-identity. Take them away, and you lose yourself.” “Like you have?” “Like I wish I could.” Glamor looked steadily at her. “Don’t ask, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, there are others outside the dream, outside the city, who need to know what I know. You can do that.” “But…” Glamor put a hoof on the end of her muzzle. “Think, Fluttershy. Try to remember butterflies. A dream, a memory, anything with butterflies.” “I… remember there being butterflies inside a glass tank in the pet shop,” Fluttershy said. “How many?” “Um… three? I think?” Glamor nodded. “What did they look like?” “Pink wings with…” “...blue bodies?” “Yes, how’d you…?” Glamor took the hoof on her muzzle and gently turned her head towards her flank. “You saw your cutie mark in a glass tank. Trapped.” Fluttershy swallowed and nodded, feeling suddenly unsettled. “I… guess I did.” “When else?” “Um…” Fluttershy thought. “I… remember waking up from a nightmare.” “Were there butterflies in it?” “I… I think so.” “What did they look like?” “Like…” She closed her eyes, trying to picture them. “Like my cutie mark. But there were more of them. A flock of them. They… they started out pink. I mean, their wings did.” “They changed color?” “Their wings did.” “How?” “They got more red.” “Why?” “I… I don’t know. I think they were… upset?” “At what?” Fluttershy could swear she heard a touch of satisfaction in Glamor’s voice. “I... “ She stopped, thinking harder. “A… knock. At the door to my cottage.” “A knock at the door?” “From… inside of it.” Fluttershy frowned, her eyes still closed. “Which doesn’t make sense. My cottage doesn’t lock from the inside.” “Forget that. What happened?” “I…. remember saying that it was open.” “To whoever was knocking?” “Yes.” “What did they do?” “Knocked harder.” “So in your dream, someone was inside your cottage, knocking on the door.” “Yes.” “You were outside.” “Yes.” “With a swarm of butterflies that started out colored like your cutie mark, but then their wings turned red when the knock happened.” Fluttershy felt her heart beating faster. “Y… yes.” “What did you do?” “Told them how to open it.” “What happened next?” “They… knocked harder. The butterflies’ wings got more red. They came closer to me and they seemed upset.” “What happened next?” “I…” Suddenly she was there, in front of the door, pulling it open, chastising. “...I saw a grin…” And just like that, it all came back. Waking up from the nightmare, terrified and flailing. The odd way the griffons spoke. The voice coming from the tank. Being in a room, paralyzed, hearing the voice more clearly as she said things that didn’t make sense. Suddenly being back in the pet shop with her cutie mark inside the tank. Meeting ‘Glamor’ and talking to her until three butterflies came to her. Waking up paralyzed, with that terrible voice, rolling to a side and seeing the horror of a pony being tortured and a thing in the mist. A thing with an impossible grin. She opened her eyes to see that Glamor was still looking steadily at her, but the city was different. The streets were full of oily black smoke, tendrils of it snaking up and down the streets and into the sky, entwining around the shapes of griffons like some terrible plant wrapping around a tree. The sky was wrong, the sun above muted and distorted as if seen through a dirty lens, and there was a horrible stillness around her. “What… what’s happening?” Fluttershy managed to gasp out, looking around, her heart hammering with rising terror. “You tell me,” Glamor said, gently. “The… I saw something when I was awake,” Fluttershy said. “She looked… like my friend, Twilight Sparkle, but completely wrong. She looked like she was made of tar, and her eyes were glowing holes in her head, and she had a grin, impossibly wide. She had smoke all around her and… I… I think that smoke is… it’s everywhere. It’s around all the griffons, blotting out the sky.” She shook her head. “It’s another nightmare.” “Nightmares end.” Glamor looked around her. “Reality does not, and I’m afraid that what you’re seeing is real.” “How?” Fluttershy shrank before the obscured skies and trapped griffons filling the streets around her, instinctively drawing closer to the calm visage of Glamor. “How is anything this… terrible? How can it be capturing an entire city? What is she?” “I do not know.” Glamor awkwardly reached out with a hoof and patted Fluttershy on the shoulder. “But if she could eat you, she would. If she didn’t fear you, she’d leave you be and mock you. You are Kindness, Fluttershy. A full sixth of an artifact that everyone once thought didn’t exist outside of foal’s tales. I don’t think you’re as helpless as you think you are. I don’t think you have as many things to be afraid of as you think you do.” “B...but she said that Kindness can’t attack, or shield, or burn.” “If she attacked you, she doesn’t understand the Elements all that well,” Glamor said. “There are stories, and I believe them, that Luna and Celestia both have the power to simply unmake cities if they wish it… and the Elements overshadowed Luna twice without rebounding on their users.” “But it’s in a vault, in Canterlot,” Fluttershy pointed out, her fear ebbing slightly at Glamor’s unruffled demeanor. “Is it?” Glamor patted her shoulder again as Fluttershy noticed a nearly-silent sound of fluttering wings. “Then why can’t she eat you, like everyone else? If all that power lies locked in a box somewhere, why does she care whether you slumber or not?” “I don’t know.” “Neither of us do, but we can deduce an answer: you are Kindness and Kindness is you. An object doesn’t carry the power of the Element, you do.” The sound of wings grew louder and before Fluttershy could turn, a swarm of butterflies engulfed her sight, blocking out the nightmarish streets, the trapped griffons, and Glamor. “But it’s always needed the other five to do anything!” she protested to the wall, raising her voice slightly. “I doubt you’ve ever tried,” Glamor replied, her voice at a normal conversational volume, her tone as if she couldn’t see the butterflies. “But remember: the dose makes the poison. And be sure to tell them that there is a great and terrible power under the ice in the east, and if Evil obtains it the results will be unimaginably terrible.” The fluttering of wings almost deafened her, and the flurry of them obscured everything but the sea of red and blue. She felt as if the swarm was carrying her away, the world seeming to become fuzzy… ...and she was back in the room, on a very messy bed. She blinked and shook her head, the movements coming easily to her, and she rolled to her side. She was there. The oily smoky mist still cloaked her and she was still a crude imitation of Twilight, but there was something different about the being; it took a moment for Fluttershy to realize that the vague sense of wrongness, and a vague aura of discomfort and fear that seemed to hang over the creature the first time was simply… gone. She watched silently as Fluttershy scrambled off the bed and stood on her own hooves, the glowing holes that served as eyes sputtering like flames as she stared, and she seemed to be waiting for Fluttershy to speak, or otherwise act. “What are you? She asked. The being watched for several moments. “The beginning, and more ends than I can count,” she said, her voice silky and feminine without the slightest hint of the hissing vibrato that made it disturbing. “Those like me are oft called death, the destroyers of worlds. We were once named ‘zambet,’ which means ‘smile,’ and so I took the name for my own, for I alone have the right to carry it.” “The pony called you the progenitor.” “A folly of hers. I bear no offspring, so I am not a progenitor. Others are patterned after me, crude copies to vex until a more terrible being slays them.” Zambet inclined her head towards her. “You have slipped the chains fitted to you. All the better; you will be a useful herald to proclaim what followed when Zambet herself visited her wickedness on mayfly mortals.” “I’m not going to let you.” “Little Butterfly, who has deceived you into thinking you have a choice?” The being turned away from her and her shape began to dissolve into the mist. “Were the deviant one standing before me, I might contend with her. You? You are gentleness, Kindness, a mender, and to fight you is beneath me.” “Deviant one?” “The female one of many colors who favors females,” Zambet said. “Such wastage very nearly offends.” Fluttershy blinked at her. “...what?” Zambet stopped dissolving and turned back to face her. “You are not aware of this.” “That she and Gilda had a crush on each other?” “So the deviance truly is of the husk and not of Grymmilnia.” Despite the edge of her head having become indistinct and her expression frozen from what appeared to be the permanent impossibly wide grin, Zambet somehow appeared contemplative. “Fascinating. Useless, but fascinating. And by your question, you were clearly aware of the deviance… and yet it does not seem to trouble you.” “It… should?” “It ought. All things must create more of themselves; there is no other purpose to life. What deviates from this purpose must be pruned. Among that which is aware of its own awareness, this pruning is accomplished by shunning that which deviates; this is meant to be better than simply destroying it to make the things more pure and focus them on that singular purpose.” Zambet looked at her. “And yet you are unaware of that which all things ought know. Perhaps, if your equine kind exist after our success, the Maker can repair you of this fault.” Fluttershy felt her cheeks color. “Rainbow Dash does not need to be pruned! There is nothing wrong with how she felt about Gilda!” Zambet fixed her with a steady look. “Truth angers you.” “It is not truth!” The steady look continued for several moments. “It must be like this with those that adhere to one of the gods and are told that their icon’s nature is not as they believe it to be.” She turned away and began dissolving again. “I shall remember this advantage for the future. Thank you.” Fluttershy looked hard at her, her cheeks warming. She was vaguely conscious of the flutter of wings nearby but she brushed it aside, focusing on the very collected Zambet. “It is not truth,” she repeated, a shade more quietly than before. “The word ‘truth’ offends you then?” There was a touch of mockery in the tone this time. “Perhaps I should call it fact?” “It is not…” “Objective reality?” “It…” “Come now, Butterfly, what word ought I use for a thing that is absolutely true?” Zambet snorted haughtily. “And why ought I choose a word that soothes your fragile mortal sensibilities?” “They are not sensibilities.” Fluttershy told her, surprising herself with how her offense was becoming somehow… remote to her. Like it was someone else’s anger, and she was just watching it from afar. “Rainbow Dash is not a deviant. Glida was not a deviant.” “You are angry with me, aren’t you?” Zambet stared at her, and her immobile and partly-dissolved face radiated a contemptuous pity. “Little Butterfly, you do not seem to understand your situation.” Suddenly, Fluttershy found herself muzzle-to-muzzle with a pony’s skull, scorched and blackened, amethyst light radiating from every orifice, eye sockets a conflagration of violet fire with a sputtering flame of blood-red serving as slit pupils. It felt like reality itself was twisting around the terrible visage, everything but Zambet’s face melting into the background, oozing and running like candle wax, and Fluttershy felt her legs go out from under her as a crippling vertigo hammered her to the ground. “You soothe, Butterfly,” the discordent, silky voice hissed, the rumble of a stoked fire echoing behind the pronouncement. “You heal, you mend, you comfort. You are a faint, flickering candle of vain hope, sputtering in a hurricane, helpless to stay the roaring storm around you. A mayfly of fickle summer, rising to the dawn, breathing your last as the inevitable night yawns around you, devouring the light and life alike. However long this power in you preserves your insignificant breath, you shall never see a thousand worlds rise from the muck and be crushed to ash before the Void that laps always at their edges, endless, eternal, and implacable. You tremble with hate and anger at my sufferance; do not imagine that your will wrought the stay of the noose.” Mist flowed over the skull and took the form of flesh being laid over it, forging a face that vaguely resembled that of Princess Celestia but sunken and narrowed with famine. The vertigo vanished and the world stopped melting and twisting, but Fluttershy remained sprawled on the ground, stunned at the sudden surge of anger and show of power. “You seek to hammer a nail with a looking-glass.” Zambet said in the silky, feminine voice she’d used before. “You cannot heal me to death, Butterfly; you can only shatter yourself. Begone, while I still permit it.” Fluttershy remained on the ground, panting and staring up at the more patrician face Zambet had put on. The faint sound of fluttering wings came again and again, she put it aside. “Why?” “Why not? I have siphoned what I wished from you. I have no fear of whatever power you might wield; even the Dread Empress, were she here at this very moment, has not the power to slay me but merely wound. You awake far too late to break the chain that drags you and yours to the appointed doom.” A fastidiously-groomed eyebrow that Fluttershy could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago arced. “And there is not enough of you to flavor my meat. Save for ephemeral pleasure, there is no purpose to trifling further with you.” Fluttershy pushed herself to her hooves. “But you’re going to consume everyone else in the city.” Shoulders formed and shrugged. “The wolf cannot feast on the sweetmeats without tearing out the throat.” Fluttershy watched as more of the mist formed into solid features. “You’re doing it now.” Zambet dipped her head. “As you say.” As before, the mingled fear and anger seemed remote. “I won’t let you.” “You can no more stop me than the egg can break the rock. You cannot heal me to death, Butterfly.” “I don’t want to kill you.” Fluttershy felt herself smile, not even sure why. “I don’t even want to hurt you; that’s not what Kindness is for.” “And what is Kindness for, Butterfly?” “Healing the throats you tore out.” Just saying the words made her feel lighter, and the room seemed a little brighter than it did a moment ago. “If you want to talk anymore, I won’t be long.” Zambet’s features clouded. “They are mine.” “They were.” Fluttershy continued to smile but the sensation was starting to feel… odd, like the smile was a mask she was wearing, and the peaceful certainty that she had no reason to be afraid of Zambet was a artful dress. “Now they’re mine. If the wolf could take a doe from the bear, she would.” Zambet snorted. “You are no bear.” “No.” Fluttershy recognized the voice as hers, and felt her mouth moving, but the water-harp resonance to the word was definitely not her... and neither was the person speaking. “I am the steady fire in the tower, to guide the wayward home. I am the inevitable rising of the sun after the deepest night. And as you say, I am a healer, a mender, and a comforter. And I am Fluttershy as well.” "But at this moment, Zambet,” her voice said as the room became almost blindingly bright around her, outlining the starved lines of Zambet’s pony face even more starkly, “I am apoptosis. And you are not necessary.”