//------------------------------//
// A Light In The Storm 
// Story: The Raging Thunder Act-1 
// by Thunder Bolt 
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Chapter 8


The air in Ponyville’s spa felt cold on Fluttershy as she left the herbal bath, causing her to shiver. She walked over to Lotus, one of pony twins which ran the spa, and asked her kindly for a towel.
“Ah, of course Fluttershy! My apologies for not having them ready.” The spa pony was quick to retrieve them from a back room, allowing Fluttershy and the rest of her friends to dry themselves off. Having dried herself, Fluttershy realized it was getting quite late and that she needed to hurry back home. Wanting to say goodbye real quick, she went over to Twilight who was at the moment speaking with Zecora.
“Hey Zecora, I was meaning to ask you earlier, are you alright? You seemed a little..different when you’d caught up to us.” Twilight asked Zecora.
“Yes, yes, friend of mine
It’s nothing that you need mind,
By the way, could you take this bag
If you’d be so kind?” The zebra responded, shoving a large sack out from behind her.
“Oh! The herbs I asked for. Thanks a ton Zecora. I was hoping to research into that book, but it’s hard to do when you have to go all the way to the forest to find a lot of the ingredients.”
“Don’t mention it my pony friend
I have plenty more herbs I could lend.” Fluttershy stood there during this whole conversation waiting patiently for a spot to cut in or for one of them to notice her.
“Uh, hey Fluttershy, did you want something?” Twilight asked, finally realizing her standing there. The sudden speech directed towards her gave her a small shock.
“Oh! uhm..I’m. Going to go now, if, that’s okay. I need to take care of some things at home.”
“Okay?”
“Oh uh, I just thought I should let one of you know, in case somepony asks.”
“Uhm, alright then Fluttershy, I’ll take care of that.”
“Thank you Twilight.” Fluttershy said as she backed away slowly at first, before quickly turning around and trotting out the front door of the spa.
Fluttershy quickly made her way through the town square, her wings flapping just enough to keep her a foot or so off the ground. Normally she wouldn’t be in such a rush to make it back home, but it was around this time of day that she always went out into the forest to leave a small meal outside of his cave. It wasn’t as if it was something she really had to do, but ever since she found him out there one day, whilst searching for her chicken Elizabeak who had just so happened to get out of her coop, she felt bad for Thunder being out there all by himself, so she decided she’d start leaving small meals out there for him to maybe let him know some pony cared. Since then, she’d been leaving two meals a day, and somehow she managed to never show up when he was out there.
Arriving at her home, Fluttershy ran inside and into the back room, quickly putting together the meal, going back and forth grabbing bits of fruits and vegetables from her ice boxes, humming a little tune to herself as she did so. She felt a bit cheery today after everything that had happened, so she worked a bit more on it today, placing more bits of fruit around it and putting quite a lot of effort into the presentation. Once it was finished, she placed it into a small box and wrapped it in a cloth which she held with her mouth. She left her house and quickly went off into the forest, careful not to thrash the food around any. It was a short walk for her fortunately, because cave wasn’t actually that far inside the edge of the forest. This was good because Fluttershy was typically terrified of the forest, and if the cave was any deeper in she probably would never have found it in the first place. Now getting closer to the cave, Fluttershy slowed down a bit and watched around herself carefully as she walked, watching as she passed each tree, and as every shadow slowly moved over her. She didn’t quite enjoy the walk out here in the evening, because the sun had begun to lower, and the evening made it a lot darker in the forest, but there was a large gap in the trees near the spot where she always left the food, so it was particularly easy to find.
Fluttershy arrived at the spot just a little ways outside Thunder’s cave and set the box gently down on the ground. She moved the cloth off of it and began to open it, but was interrupted by a sound. She paused and looked up, listening for the direction of which it was coming from. It was faint, but it sounded sort of like whimpering. ‘Isn’t that coming from Thunder’s cave?’ She thought to herself. She never went any closer to his cave than this, but if she was hearing whimpering then something might be wrong, so she decided to walk closer to the cave and try to take a look. She slowly made her way over to the cave, sticking close to shrubs and sneaking around trees in a poor attempt to be stealthy. Once the mouth of the cave was clearly in sight, the first thing she noticed was a huge brown mass laying in front of the cave. ‘A bear?’ She thought, ‘Why is he laying outside of his cave like that?’ She knew that Thunder had been sharing the cave with him, be she’d never seen the bear outside the cave like this, let alone whining. Stepping out from behind a tree, she approached slowly, the bear soon noticing and turning around quickly, letting out a low, deep, rumbling growl.
“Shh shh, it’s okay big guy. I wont hurt you.” She said to calm the bear, taking a small step back to give him some space. The bear looked at her for a moment then, realizing she wasn’t a threat, lowered his head a little. “There, now show me what’s wrong?” The bear took a step to the side and turned a little, letting out a short whimper and pointing his nose at the brown heap laying on the ground behind him. Fluttershy gasped softly and slowly walked closer, the bear making way for her. She looked down, instantly recognizing Thunder laying there. “I-I-Is he..” She dropped down to get a closer look and noticed the glass protruding from his eye. She touched it, rubbing a bit of some liquid off on her hoof and held it up to her face to examine it, sniffing it lightly. “Oh no...this..” She put her hoof back down then gingerly rolled Thunder over onto his back and lowered her head, pressing her ear to his chest to listen. It was quiet for just a second, but she quickly heard the sound of a heart beat. “Oh thank Celestia, I’m not too late, but I have to hurry.” She stood up and looked over at the bear, getting his attention. “I can save your friend, but I need your help, can you carry him?” The bear nodded and reached his large paws around Thunder, picking him up and carefully sliding him over his head onto his back. “Alright, now follow me, we need to be quick, but be careful.” She turned around and quickly they began to make their way back towards Fluttershy’s home.


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Wind blew softly over Thunder’s back as his eyes began to slowly open. He grunted and stood slowly, feeling a little wobbly from his sleep. Patting back the mane on his neck, he looked around, but quickly found that he could see nothing. There wasn’t a thing around him but a large and empty blue sky. Looking down at his hooves he saw that he had been resting on a small cloud. ‘That’s strange,’ he thought to himself, ‘I don’t remember falling asleep here’. He stepped forward and looked down below the cloud on which he stood.
“Gah!” He shouted, falling backwards onto his tail. There was nothing below him either, save for an ocean. It was a never ending ocean, expanding off into the horizon all around him. “Wh-where am I? How did I get here!” The startled colt began to breath hard and his head spun. He went in circles on the cloud, trying desperately to find something besides water. After panicking for what seemed like ages, he finally gave up and sat back down on the cloud, his fear slowly subsiding into hopelessness. In this large spans of nothingness, he felt so small, and helpless. He could fly but where would he go? There was no place he could go. Lowering his head to the cloud on which he sat, he began to cry, tears falling freely from his eyes. Then he felt something on his back, but he didn’t look up. He felt wetness on his back. It had begun to rain. It started slowly, but it began to pick up, raining faster and harder. Still the poor colt cried, and cried, seemingly more so now as the rain meshed with his tears. The sky slowly grew darker around him, all of the light blotting out, the rain pelting him. Thunder opened his eyes again and found this time, that the cloud he was sitting on was beginning to vanish, growing smaller beneath him.  He cried in fright and stood up, now realizing what was happening around him just as he was suddenly jolted by a large boom of noise in the sky, and a blinding light. It seemed as if the sky was exploding all around him, creating large cracks of light in the sky and massive booms of noise. Fear began to fill him again, but it was different this time. He closed his eyes and covered his ears, trying to blot out the noise, but to no success. Then before he could realize it, the cloud had completely vanished, and Thunder began to fall. He tried to flap his wings, keeping him in the air for a few seconds, before he was struck. His entire vision was blotted out with light, and pain coursed through his body. Falling, he held his breath and splashed into the water below him. The pain was so immense that Thunder could not move, allowing fear to fill his entire body as everything began to grow dark and he sank into the depths.
“Thunder..” A voice began to slip through Thunder’s mind. “Come Thunder...swim..” His eyes opened and he looked up. Through all the darkness he could make out a faint light, far above him. He spread his limbs and began to swim, trying with all his might to return to the surface. The voice continued to call out to him, a voice which sounded so familiar to Thunder, yet he knew that he had never heard this voice. The light came closer to Thunder, he was almost there, but he grew every stroke became harder and he was running out of breath. The voice still urged him though, and although he couldn’t recognize it, it soothed him, giving him the strength to continue. Then, just before he reached the surface, the voice seemed to change somehow, almost becoming, darker. “You’re almost there Thunder. Just wake up!” 

The room was filled with a loud gasp as Thunder sat bolt upright in the bed, breathing hard as if he was gasping for air.
“Ah!”
“Eep!” Came two voices from beside Thunder. His breathing quickly began to settle and he started to look around him just as he felt a pair of hooves push down on him, forcing him to lay back down. 
“Woah! Hey, welcome back. Good to see you’re alright but you’ve got to lay still. Moving around will force the poison through your body and make it harder for the antidote to take full effect.” Thunder looked down at the hooves on him then to his left, seeing the purple pony with her head hovering over him.
“I...Wha...Where am I?” He asked, looking around the room. It was a small room made of wood which was furnished with a desk directly next to the bed, a simple dresser, and, oddly enough, a fireplace. There were three windows in the room which let in a considerable amount of light, flooding the entirety of the small room as well as most of the stairwell in the floor, which suggested he was on a second story.
“Oh. You’re in Fluttershy’s house. She found you in the forest and brought you back her to help you.” The bed was acutally so comfortable that Thunder was beginning to drift back to sleep before she could even finish speaking.
“Mm...oh..kay...Wait. Fl-Fl-Flut!-” He suddenly began to thrash around in the bed, forcing the purple pony to hold him down again.
“Will you, stoppit!? You need to lay still!” She finally got him to calm down once more and sat back on her haunches, rubbing her face with her fore hooves and sighing in minor frustration. “Fluttershy will you stop hiding and come explain everything to him?”  Thunder looked around the room and suddenly heard a shuffling noise come from the fireplace. Sure enough Fluttershy poked her head out and left her small hiding place, followed by a small cough of black dust as she stood there awkwardly in the center of the room. “Well?”
“Uhm..I..I..uhm, f-f..” She then abruptly covered her face with her hoof and turned her head slightly away and towards the floor. “I f-found you in the woods and saw you were hurt so. I, um, brought you back here and. Got my friend Twilight to help.” The last half came out as a bit of a mumble but Thunder understood it just fine. He looked over at her for a moment, his eyes somewhat wide in shock, and for just a second it seemed like he would smile. Quite contrary to that, his eye lids slowly sunk halfway and his face lost its expression. He nodded in understanding and slowly turned his back to them, laying on his side.
“Thank you.” The two ponies heard him say, in a flat and emotionless way.
“Uhm...okay then, well. Fluttershy, just watch him for a few days is all I can say. I just recently learned how to put this antidote together with that ‘Super Naturals’ book, so you’ll want to make sure it’s working. There shouldn’t be any problems though, it was relatively straight forward, but better safe than sorry.” The pony, which Thunder assumed was Twilight from what Fluttershy said, then took a look out the window over her shoulder. “Anyways I need to get going, Spike asked to talk to me about something earlier today, so, I need to get back before he falls asleep.” She turned and began walking down the stairs, Fluttershy following in a fluster.
“B-B-Bu-”
“Don’t worry Fluttershy, everything will be fine. He’s obviously no danger from what you told me and if I understand correctly who he was back then, then there’s no need to be shy. Now I really need to get going. Bye Fluttershy!” Twilight spoke as she headed out the front door of Fluttershy’s home, proceeding to quickly traverse away down the path.

It was very quiet in the room that Thunder had been left in. Save for the occasional chirp of a bird or chitter of some small animal outside, it was very quiet. He never realized it until now, but it always seemed in the forest as though every moment in time was filled with the sound of something, coming from in the distance or something small nearby. This made the room feel a lot emptier than it really was, as if the walls had expanded into some large void all around him. This was a strange emptiness though, because as quiet and empty as it felt, it was warm. This entire room emanated with a kind of warmth that Thunder hadn’t felt in a long time. He had felt it before, but when? 
His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a twinge of pain in his left eye. He raised his hoof to cover it, but only found the outside of a bandage, rather than an eyelid. Quickly he pulled his hoof away in shock, as if he had forgotten everything that had happened for just a moment, only to rediscover it.
“Uhm. Thunder?” The sudden speech gave Thunder a small jolt, making him twitch. He had lost himself in thought again, and hadn’t noticed the sound of Fluttershy climbing the stairs.
“Uh-yeah?” He replied softly.
“I, brought you some food. You were out for a really long time, so, I thought you’d be hungry.” She walked around the bed and placed it softly on the small desk next to him. “Is there, anything you need?” For a moment or two Thunder just stared at her quietly, his eyes half lidded. There was only one thing that he really would have liked in that one particular moment, and that was an answer. He couldn’t understand why out of every other pony he had ever met in his life, she was the only one that actually showed true concern for him. Even in the cave she had been trying to help him, but why?
“I...I’m fine. I just want to rest for now.” She nodded gently before heading back towards the stairs.
“Wait, Flu-ttershy?” Thunder spoke abruptly with a little stutter, turning over to face her. She turned to look at him. “I..uh, will I be blind? In this eye, I mean.” The question seemed to take Fluttershy for a bit of surprise, but she answered all the same.
“You should be, fine. Twilight helped with treating it and, the glass only managed to scratch it lightly. You might have a bit of a, scar over your eyelid though.” Thunder nodded and turned back over.
“Thanks.” He called back to her as she left the room, before closing his eye to rest and think.


End Chapter