//------------------------------// // Breaking Point // Story: Independence Eternal // by Leafdoggy //------------------------------// Day Five Fluttershy blinks away the sleep and looks at the curtain over the window, backlit with golden light. She stretches her aching muscles, lets out a massive yawn, and gets up to walk over to the window. On a whim, she pulls down the curtain and drops it to the floor. Behind it she finds the sunny landscape of Ponyville, familiar streets and buildings stretching into the distance. Little signs swing in the wind, creaking wood and rattling chains still vying for the attention of passing ponies. Another beautiful day, all for me. How wonderful. She blows a wayward lock of her haggard mane away with a puff of air and turns away from the window. She means to make for the kitchen, but no sooner does she start walking than she stops again as her mind finally catches up with her. Wait… she thinks. How am I… I fell asleep outside last night. I’m sure of it. Why am I back in Twilight’s house? Fluttershy’s head snaps around, searching the room for any explanation, and she spots it on the vanity. Another piece of paper, one she’s sure wasn’t there before. She dashes over and grabs it immediately, her brow furrowing more and more as she reads the new note. That was fun! Smart move with the alarms, keep it up. But hey, don’t push yourself too hard. It’ll be no fun if you get seriously hurt. Let me do the pushing. Oh, and hey, if you keep yourself holed up in that tree forever I’m just gonna start doing stuff I don’t gotta go inside for. Just some advice. -Dusty Fluttershy rereads the note, then reads it a third time. With a scowl, she crumples up the paper and chucks it away. Arrogant jerk, she thinks. I don’t need your help. Leave me in the street next time. Fuming, she storms down from the loft and heads for the kitchen. She pours herself the last remnants of a box of cereal, along with the rest of the milk in the fridge, and sits down at a nearby table to eat. As she does, the gears in her head turn tirelessly. Just you wait, ‘Dusty,’ she thinks. I’m not the pushover I used to be. I’m going to catch you. I have to. Augh, but how? She leans forward, holding her head with her hooves. I’m too weak to outrun them, and I’m too much of a coward to do anything that might actually work. They’re just going to torture me for the rest of my life. She shakes her head, trying to hold back the emotions. She focuses on the voice in the back of her mind, so tiny now, urging her to keep going, telling her that everything will be fine if she just doesn’t give up. Slowly, she manages to muffle the anxieties overwhelming her. Fluttershy finishes her meal and goes to clean up, but on her way into the kitchen she snags a leg on one of the tripwires she’d set up. She tumbles to the floor and the bowl flies from her grasp, shattering when it lands.  Shards of ceramic tumble towards her, settling just by her muzzle. She stares at them, little symbols of her ineptitude. After a minute, she pushes herself up and stomps on the floor. “Fine!” she yells. “I didn’t need that bowl anyway! It’s not like I have any food left.” She turns around with a flick of her tail and kicks through the strip of tape that had stopped her. Useless. She doesn’t stop there. That strip leads to the next, then the next, and soon she’s tearing down all the traps set up around the library. Useless, useless, useless! I’ve been here almost a week and I haven’t done anything! She grumbles and carries the pile of dismantled traps outside, dropping them in a heap in the street. There. At least now I won’t be getting in my own way. The breeze sends a leaf flying into her face, catching her off guard. She jumps back, then growls and shakes her head. Get over yourself. Moping won’t get you home. So, instead, she sets off into town to search for supplies. You have to at least try, she tells herself. Quit being a wimp and put up some real traps. She wanders through stores, picking out sturdy wires and wide nets, anything she thinks she can use. No more Nice Fluttershy. She works away her frustration, or at least tries to. Scampering around Ponyville, she starts to fill the town with anything she can think of to trip Dusty up. Some netting here, some fishing line there, rickety, hastily made structures that Fluttershy hides as well as she can.  She realizes that she’ll have to spend a lot of time out and about keeping things together, so to make sure she can keep an eye on things she decides to set up some surveillance. She finds a store stocking radios and grabs them all. With a bit of tinkering and a lot of searching for hiding places, she manages to set up radios all over town. If there’s a noise, she’ll hear it. Her focus doesn’t waver until she notices the sun starting to set, and when it does everything hits her at once. The exhaustion from several hours of hard work floods into her, making her legs weak, and is made all the worse by the hunger that seeps in around the edges. The bare cabinets back in the library flash through her mind, and so begrudgingly she sets off in the opposite direction. The walk through Ponyville is long and arduous. Her aching legs don’t help anything, making all her movements sluggish. On top of that, Ponyville just feels wrong. The streets feel longer when they’re empty, and the sun feels more harsh. The houses all around her seem to have almost lost their color without the ponies they’re meant for.  That’s a thought that gets stuck in Fluttershy’s head. None of this was meant for me, she thinks. I barely lived in Ponyville. Is it even Ponyville anymore? None of its ponies are left. I certainly don’t count. Here I am, though. One of two citizens of beautiful Flutterville, the town where nopony loves you. Where you can’t even love yourself. A cool breeze greets her as she wanders into Sweet Apple Acres. It billows her mane into her face, which makes her flinch before roughly pulling it away. The farm glows softly in the waning sun, and the whistling of the wind through the hollow woods lends it a somber tone that does nothing to lift Fluttershy’s mood. The first thing she does after arriving is fly up into a tree and grab an apple, immediately biting into it. She eats it fast, juice running down her face, then tosses away the core and grabs another, eating it with the same fervor. With the third apple she slows down. She bites it lazily and starts floating towards the farmhouse. Might as well look inside while I’m here. Applejack isn’t here to object, she thinks as she pushes open the door and heads in. The house looks the same as it had the first time she came here. Worn furniture, empty for years. An unfinished meal, still undisturbed, somehow with no sign of decay. Creaking stairs leading up to vacant bedrooms. A home frozen in time. She makes her way upstairs, tossing her finished apple back behind her. It tumbles down the stairs with dull thumps. She passes Applebloom’s room, and Big Mac’s, not sparing them second glances, before walking straight into Applejack’s bedroom.  It, too, is the same as when she saw it last. Boots, too small for Fluttershy. Farm equipment, far too big. Saddlebags, which are in no short supply anywhere in Ponyville. There’s very few things of actual use to be found. She’s not here for utility, though. She isn’t actually sure why she’s here. She walks over to the bed, staring at a low-hanging shelf that looks ready to drop its contents on anypony foolish enough to sleep here. Stuffed animals, trophies, memories of the life lived here. She moves on, heading to the vanity to— Fluttershy nearly slams her face into the wall as she trips on something on the floor. She catches herself, barely, and tenses up as she processes what happened. She wheels around and, with a grunt, kicks the obstacle away from her. A sharp crack rings out as her hoof makes contact. It shatters loudly against the wall, wood splintering off and flying across the room, and only then does she realize what she’s destroyed. A birdhouse, carved intricately with designs of apples, sits in a pile on Applejack’s bed. Fluttershy recognizes it in an instant, because she’s the one who made it, a gift for a friend. She stares at the wooden carcass with a frown on her face. Her mind is blank, thoughts drowned out by a mental static. She stares at it for a long time, or at least what feels like a long time, before she finally manages to find a reaction. It starts with a sigh. Good job, Fluttershy. Now it’s just like the rest of your life. She clenches her eyes shut and shakes her head, but the thoughts won’t stop. Just get out of here before you ruin what’s left of Applejack’s life too.  All she can think to do is run away. She makes a beeline for the hallway, looking away from the shattered remains on the bed, and slams the door shut behind her. The noise shocks her across the hall, ringing out far more loudly than she expected. When she sees the cracks around the handle, she leans forward and growls in frustration before heading off down the hall. She doesn’t think about where she’s going as she storms away. It doesn’t matter, she just needs to be somewhere else, somewhere that isn’t that room. That somewhere ends up being a bathroom. It’s humble, just a small tub and a messy sink, complete with a mirror above the sink. Fluttershy can’t help but look at her own reflection, and she recoils at what she sees. She’s a complete mess. Scrapes and bruises run all up and down her legs, marking them with red and blue. Her hooves are caked with a thick layer of grime. Her mane is in shambles, complete with patches of dirt and twigs sticking out of it. She looks worse than she’s ever seen herself before. None of that is what bothers her, though. It’s all overshadowed by what she sees in her sharp, teary eyes. Rage, a deep, utter wrath is spilling out of her, plain to see in her ruthless gaze. She hardly recognizes herself. It is her, though, and she knows it. It’s her rage, her frustration that she’s failed to keep contained, and seeing what it’s done to her gives her one final push over the edge. “What?” she yells at herself. “Why are you so mad? It’s your fault. You broke it, just like you broke the bowl. You can’t even find your way through a library!” Just like that, it’s out, and she can no longer hold back the anger. She points an accusatory hoof at herself, knocking a cup filled with toothbrushes to the floor.  “What did you even do to deserve all those friends in the first place? You don’t even talk! All you do is sit around trying to act ‘nice,’ and that got you this.” She swipes her hoof through the air, knocking yet more toiletries to the floor. “Your friends are all gone, and you’re too ‘nice’ to get them back. All you can do is break things, and get lost, and cry. It’s pathetic.” She slams her hoof against the counter, sending a stinging pain up her leg. “Any other pony would have found a way home by now, so why can’t you do it? Huh? You know you’ll never see them again if you stay here, so what’s wrong with you?” She leaps into the air and flies closer so that she’s nose to nose with herself. “You know what? Maybe it’s better this way! You know you’re no good at being a friend. Look how much you’re hurting yourself here. The only reason that didn’t happen back then is because you were hurting them instead! If you can’t even get it together enough to find a way home, then you deserve to be here. So you better start getting comfortable, because you’ll never!” She stamps her hoof against the glass. “Ever!” She stamps harder. “Leave!” She stamps one final time, and the mirror cracks. Deep rifts scatter out from her hoof, cutting her reflection into a thousand little pieces. She stares into the cold, broken eyes before her as her vision starts to blur with tears. No more Nice Fluttershy… With a huff she pushes herself away from the shattered mirror and lands back on the ground. She makes a feeble attempt to wipe away her tears, but winces when the dirt caked to her legs stings her eyes. Can’t even do that right. How do you expect to get home if you can’t even keep yourself clean? She sniffs loudly and starts to wash her legs off in the sink. It takes a good few minutes, but eventually she manages to get them clean enough that she can at least feel comfortable rubbing her eyes. Then she heads downstairs, goes outside, and starts the long walk back to Twilight’s home. It’s dark by the time she gets back. A cacophony of rattling and klinking greets her as she opens the door and walks inside. She’s halfway to her bed before she stops in her tracks, remembering that she tore down her alarms earlier. Immediately, her eyes narrow and she growls under her breath. She turns around and looks carefully around the library. It’s not hard to find the note this time. It’s sitting on top of a basket filled to the brim with freshly picked apples. It’s short and simple this time. I’m bored. You don’t look hurt, so the game’s back on tomorrow. No holding back, kay? -Dusty Fluttershy just about tears the notes to pieces, but instead she goes to find a pencil and writes a note back on the same page. I’m done being nice. -Fluttershy Then she hefts up the basket of apples, kicks open the front door and chucks them outside, spilling them across the street. She throws the note out after them, slams the door, and storms off to bed.