Chapter Two - Jarred Gargilly
Millions of tiny, white specks drifted toward the ground. Fluttershy closed her eyes and felt the snowflakes land on her snout, on her mane, and on her back. They tickled her furled wings. There was a slight chill as the snowflakes melted into her, like a gentle touch from the sky. Fluttershy raised her head skyward.
How relaxing… hmmm.
She smiled. A woodpecker jackhammered away at a tree nearby — clickclickclick, clickclickclick — and a family of squirrels chirped cheerfully as they burrowed into their underground home. Only the lightest of brisk breezes sailed through Fluttershy’s impossibly long, silk-like pink mane.
Pure peace, she thought.
Then a hefty CLUNK tore through the air.
“Fluttershy!!! You ready for our trip into the Everfree Forest?”
It was Pinkie Pie throwing open the cottage front door. Fluttershy opened her once-relaxed eyes and turned to watch her friend zoop right next to her. Pinkie was all smiles, covered with just a blue-and-white stripped scarf and some snow boots.
“Well? Are ya?” Pinkie asked again. She looked Fluttershy in the eye, but Fluttershy had learned over the course of the previous two days that it wasn’t a good idea to stare back. It made her feel funny. So, she just looked past Pinkie and smiled with a clear of her throat.
“I guess I am. It’s not like there is much to prepare for. I see you have your saddle bags.”
Pinkie jumped up and down and let the burlap bags tied around her haunches flop wildly in the process. She saluted and replied as if she were addressing a drill sergeant.
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Fluttershy, sir — ma’am!”
Fluttershy giggled.
“Okay then, I’ve got mine. Let’s get a move on before it gets too dark. It’s quite cloudy today!” She turned toward the Everfree Forest and immediately wished she hadn’t. Fluttershy swallowed the lump in her throat. The sinister, snow-capped treetops of the Forest seemed like spires of an evil fortress. Fluttershy took a confident step forward, then another, and breathed out shakily. Pinkie hopped beside her as the two began their trek.
“What do these flowers look like again, Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked a few minutes into the journey. Fluttershy shifted her eyes from side to side. Her body felt uncomfortable and stiff. The ground inside the Everfree Forest was nearly barren of snow, the canopy above so thick it acted like a shield to the elements. Fluttershy responded nervously.
“T-They’re green and yellow. The flower is called jarred gargilly. It only grows in the winter, at least that’s what Zecora said. She also said it can be made into a special tea.” Fluttershy lightened up as she distracted herself with the conversation. Her lips automatically curled into a gentle smile when she looked up at Pinkie, who appeared intrigued, if not a tad confused.
“Special tea?” Pinkie asked. Fluttershy nodded.
“Mhm. Zecora says it makes your body feel so comfy, so warm, even if it’s really cold out, you won’t feel anything but pure, cozy bliss. I thought we could have some tonight, since the pegasi are planning a blizzard.”
A branch snapped nearby. Fluttershy yelped and leapt close to Pinkie, bringing their bodies to a touch. Fluttershy turned red when she realized how she had reacted, but Pinkie snickered.
“It’s just a branch, Flutterscared! Hee hee.” Pinkie wrapped her hoof around Fluttershy’s neck. Fluttershy instantly basked in its warmth. “Don’t worry! I’ll protect you from any meanie-bo-beanie monsters! Nothing in here scares me! Remember what Granny Pie said?” Fluttershy backed away with an embarrassed throat clearing and a cock of her head. Pinkie waved her hooves.
“Whaaaaat? You don’t remember? The Laughter Song?! The first time we came to the Everfree Forest we ran into those scary trees, and then I sang that song about laughing at everything to make it not scary anymore!”
Fluttershy turned away and sighed.
“Sure, I remember, but it’s easy for you to say, Pinkie. You’re much braver than I am…” Fluttershy trailed off.
A lone crow cawed from somewhere in the distance.
CAW.
CAW.
CAW.
Everywhere Pinkie and Fluttershy looked around was the same. Tall sentries of thick, ridged bark with twisting, gruesome limbs blocked passage and hid away all manner of beasts. Horrid ferns and creepy undergrowth were aplenty. Beards of green moss hung down on the tree branches – that, or cobwebs. Only the cleared path forward, made by Goddesses knew what many centuries ago, was navigable. Fluttershy’s bottom lip quivered as the duo reached a thin path that veered off from the main one.
Fluttershy breathed out slowly and then sucked in air. She did this repeatedly, not quite hyperventilating, but not far off either. Pinkie stopped beside Fluttershy and stared at her with a concerned, soft brow.
“Fluttershy… listen, why don’t we turn back? We don’t need to try this special tea stuff, not if it means forcing you to do something that you’re so scared to do!” Fluttershy smiled at the concern, only looking into Pinkie’s ocean-blue eyes for a moment. Fluttershy shook her head.
“It’s okay, Pinkie. I’ve already resolved myself to do this. It’ll be worth it, I know it!”
Fluttershy tensed her shoulders and furrowed her brow. She inhaled deeply then snorted like a bull about to charge.
“Let’s go!”
Fluttershy tore down the thin path, leaving a surprised Pinkie in her wake. Pinkie gasped.
“Fluttershy, wait! Confidence is one thing, but don’t go crazy! This place isn’t exactly the Royal Canterlot Garden!”
The narrow passageway weaved and bobbed every which way. Pinkie struggled to keep up with Fluttershy, who was running on pure adrenaline, eager to have the entire experience behind her. She deftly jumped over the snags and briars along the route, Pinkie calling after her the entire time.
Finally, the pair came upon a clearing filled with green and yellow flowers. Fluttershy stopped to catch her breath.
“In the shape of a glowing green fire, watch for yellow, too, and it’s the one you desire!” Just like Zecora said!
Fluttershy beamed victoriously. Pinkie ran up beside her, gasping for air.
“F-Fluttershy… please tell me… this is the flower...”
Fluttershy snatched a gargilly and threw it in one of her saddlebags.
“Sure is! Let’s hurry before I decide to look up and get scared again.”
Pinkie and Fluttershy spent the next few minutes gathering as many flowers as they could stuff into their saddlebags. Fluttershy had made it clear that one could never have too many jarred gargillies, as they stayed quite fresh after being picked and could be used to make warming tea for months afterward. When both mares had bulging sacks of green and yellow hanging from their hindquarters, Fluttershy announced they would be leaving. She made the mistake of looking up at the same time.
The clearing the two stood in was surrounded by needle-like, white trees. In between the rows and rows of trees were glowing yellow eyes partially obscured by darkness. Fluttershy’s pupils shrank to pinheads.
“Gah… BAH… AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed.
Fluttershy broke off back in the direction her and Pinkie had come, hollering the entire way. Pinkie chased behind her with frantic concern.
“Just calm down Fluttershy! Wait up! Watch for—!”
*CRACK*
Fluttershy’s left hoof got caught in a jutting root and she crumbled onto her left side as her hoof gave out. She slammed into the frigid soil and slid on the forest floor until she collided with a bigger, more solid root. Stars flashed in her eyes. Pinkie cried out.
“Fluttershy! Ohmigosh, are you okay?”
Fluttershy groaned. When she tried to use her right hoof to feel her forehead, just the mere movement of her right side was enough to send lightning bolts of pain coursing through her left side. She quietly moaned in pain.
“Fluttershy! C-come on, let’s get out of here—”
Pinkie wasted no time. She nudged her head underneath Fluttershy’s body and moved forward. She worked Fluttershy onto her back, and with a great effort on Fluttershy’s part due to the intense pain, she was safely attached to her friend’s back. Fluttershy wrapped a desperate right hoof around Pinkie’s chest to hold on as her left hoof hung limp off its own side.
“Ahhh! P-Pinkie Pie, y-you can’t…”
But Pinkie didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by Fluttershy’s presence on her back. She even managed a laugh, a more serious laugh than Pinkie usually made.
“I don’t wanna hear it, Fluttershy. There’s no way I could leave you behind. This was the only way! I’ll get you back, safe and sound. Pinkie Promise!”
Every step that Pinkie made sent vibrations of sharp pain through Fluttershy, but she endured. She had to. When the two got back to the main path, Fluttershy finally let her neck relax. She nestled her head into Pinkie’s cotton candy mane. The scent of sugary delights, with a hint of strawberry, cleared her mind and relaxed her pain. She let out an inadvertent hum of happiness.
Pinkie was a furnace. Fluttershy hugged Pinkie’s backside tighter with her own backhooves, as if she were a koala. Her heart started to pound. Pinkie was way too warm. Way, way too warm. It made Fluttershy feel safe amid the forest of her nightmares. She felt the world drain away around her as sleep took hold.
The last thing Fluttershy heard was her mouth producing words her more conscious mind would never allow.
“You smell… way too good… Pinkie Pie...”
* * *
Something crackled. Was it a fire? Fluttershy heard the pop of steam pockets bursting through wood bark. She was so warm, so much warmer than she felt when she was on top of Pinkie. Cozy didn’t even begin to describe it.
Fluttershy’s eyelids flew open. She brought herself up with her right hoof and scanned her surroundings. She was in the upper level of her cottage, lying in bed with a thick, wool blanket wrapped around her. The fireplace was ablaze. She remembered that she had had an accident in the Everfree Forest when her left side throbbed anew with pain.
“Ouch!” she cried, laying back down and bringing her right hoof over to comfort her left side. The pain had subsided enough that if she was slow and gentle, she could use her right hoof without causing further discomfort to her left side. Pinkie rushed up the stairs.
“Oh, you’re finally awake! Thank Celestia!”
Pinkie ran up to the side of the bed and smiled motherly at Fluttershy, who could only blush back. But she didn’t take her eyes off Pinkie. There was some new look in the ocean-blue eyes of Pinkamena Diane Pie. Fluttershy had seen the old look of worry when her other friends were in trouble — the new look was definitely different. Fluttershy couldn't put her hoof on what it was that looked so different. It demanded her attention.
“I wasn’t sure when you were going to wake up,” Pinkie said quietly, “If I knew it was going to be so soon, I would have waited up here for you! I was making that tea you were talking about, with the jellied gargoyles.” Pinkie transformed her somber smile into a wider, wilder, more Pinkie-ish one, and Fluttershy laughed from the heart.
“W-what?” Pinkie said with a frown, her head turned. Fluttershy stifled her snickering behind her right hoof.
“Pinkie, it’s jarred gargilly, not jellied gargoyle!”
Pinkie’s smile slowly returned as she realized the mess up of her words.
"Oh! Hahahaha!"
She tittered and chortled along with Fluttershy. The jiggling in Pinkie’s cheeks, and the wiggle of her snout, was not lost on Fluttershy. A stray thought careened into her mind.
Pinkie’s really cute…
Fluttershy looked away from Pinkie with a snap of her neck and her cheeks ignited.
Did I really just think that? Cute as in ‘cute’ cute? Or was it the other kind of cute…
Pinkie poked Fluttershy with her hoof.
“Hey! Once the tea is done, I’ll bring you some, okay? I don’t want to leave it by itself down there, buuuuut…” Pinkie leapt over to the top of the stairs and held out her hoof over the banisters as if ushering in somepony. “I think these guys can keep you company in the meantime!”
A stampede of woodland critters, great and small, came up the stairs and jumped up onto Fluttershy’s bed. Fluttershy yelped as she became covered in furry creatures: squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, stoats, ferrets, one deer, and one huge bear named Harry, whose presence on the bed elicited a painful groan from the wooden structure.
Of course, a wet-eyed Angel Bunny had tackled Fluttershy as well.
Pinkie took her leave with a snicker as Fluttershy cuddled the animals, who were squeaking with concern. Fluttershy instantly felt a million times better and beamed.
“Awwww, hello everyone! Were you worried about me?”
Every creature chimed in at once with affirmative squeaks. Fluttershy giggled.
“I’m okay. I had Pinkie with me!”
Fluttershy laid back and closed her eyes, letting time wash over her like a tide. She relished the feeling of her animal friends and the cushy, heavy blanket on top of her. It was the life. At some point, the aggressive hissing noise of a steamy kettle resounded throughout the cottage from the lower level. Fluttershy opened her eyes.
“Oh, the gargilly tea…” she whispered. Some of the animals rose their heads and looked at Fluttershy. She cleared her throat and addressed them.
“The tea makes ponies a lot more, well, relaxed. And Zecora said, sometimes, it makes you just say whatever’s on your mind. So, I had this idea to—”
“TEA’S ZEDDY!”
Fluttershy flinched out of surprise. Pinkie crested the stairs with a jubilant step, holding a plate with two teacups on it between her teeth.
“P-Pinkie!” Fluttershy cried, blinking rapidly. Pinkie placed the plate of teacups on Fluttershy’s bedside end table with a clink. Pinkie doubled back to the stairs.
“I’m just going to go grab us some supper then I’ll be back!”
From the bottom of the stairs Pinkie continued.
“Don’t worry! I already fed the animals!”
Fluttershy looked at her animal friends. They all looked rather satisfied with that night’s supper.
“I suppose Pinkie overfed you then, hmmm?” Fluttershy asked, seeing the blushes on the furry faces of her friends. She giggled again. “Well, one night’s okay.”
A few moments later, Pinkie was back with another, larger plate between her teeth. Two big, soft puffs of hay bread took up most of the room on the plate, but there was also a collection of grapes, cheese, alfalfa, wheat stalks, and oat biscuits.
“Move over, sister!” Pinkie cried through the plate as she dove into the air. Fluttershy watched in horror as every item of food hovered in the air, being knocked off the plate. Pinkie barreled down onto the bedspread with a brutal rock of the bed and effortlessly collected all the food as it fell down. She burst into a jitter of laughter as she put the plate between her and Fluttershy on the bed.
“Sorry, haha, it’s just way too much fun to get into bed that way, haha! I had to!”
The animals shared Fluttershy’s shocked expression. But after a moment, Fluttershy regained her ability to breath and managed a chuckle.
“Only you, Pinkie,” she said. The two mares dug into supper as the animals either napped or rested their eyes.
When the plate was halfway devoured, Fluttershy’s deer friend got off the bed, picked up the plate with the tea on it with her teeth, and brought it over to Fluttershy and Pinkie. Each mare took a cup in their hoof.
“Oh thank you, Bambo,” Fluttershy praised.
“Thanks, my deer,” Pinkie said, with a snort of laughter. Bambo the deer blushed and got back onto the bed. The cottage started to rock from the harsh wind outside. Fluttershy looked out her window and saw the beginnings of a blizzard whizz past as she brought her teacup to her lips for the first sip.
“Guess it’s really starting out there…” she said quietly. Pinkie ‘mhm’d!’ around the rim of her teacup as she, too, took a sip. When she pulled away, Pinkie smacked her lips and contorted her face into a bitter expression.
“Wowzers! That’s some tea, alright! Woo!”
Fluttershy, more used to strong teas, hummed in delight instead and smiled.
“Isn’t it? It’s got that perfect kick, but it’s not too overpowering.”
The two friends sipped and sipped and sipped as they talked about different topics. The blizzard outside got crazier and crazier and crazier as the early night stretched on. The tree cottage creaked all around the mares as the battering of its bark from the onslaught of ice crystals outside intensified. Despite the blizzard, however, Pinkie and Fluttershy felt their bodies gush with warmth and tender numbness as more and more of the bitter ichor entered their blood.
By the time both teacups were dropless, Pinkie and Fluttershy were definitely feeling it. Their cheeks were taut and flushed, and Pinkie couldn’t stop giggling.
“T-that really IS quite the tea, Fubbershy, haha.”
“Fubbershy?” Fluttershy lost control and started to laugh boisterously. “You just… you just called me… Fubbershy!” She rolled onto her back and started to wave all four hooves in the air like a playful newborn.
Pinkie stared blankly at the giggle-stricken Fluttershy as she slowly absorbed the information behind the words. Suddenly, she also broke into a fit of laughter and fell onto her back beside Fluttershy. Their lungs burned from the nonstop laughter. They didn’t notice their bodies were touching. The laughter became high-pitched, almost maniacal, and the furry animal friends took their leave, the awkwardness of the ponies’ states forcing them downstairs.
The last of the giggles died out and Pinkie and Fluttershy turned onto their sides to look at one another. Pinkie raised her hoof towards Fluttershy and stared at it, holding it in a magnetic gaze.
“My hoof is, like, alive, you know?”
Fluttershy shook her head in agreement.
“I do, I do know, Pinkie. My hooves are alive, too, see?”
She shifted her fore and back hooves over to Pinkie’s side of the bed and started to tickle the pink mare at her most vulnerable areas (Fluttershy learned about them during a few times in the past when the depressed Pinkie needed a pick-me-up).
“Tickle tickle tickle,” Fluttershy teased, in a silly tone she'd never use under normal circumstances. Pinkie lost herself in a mad fit of laughter as Fluttershy assaulted her with the light, fuzzy touching. Fluttershy did not relent, picking new weak spots when Pinkie defended the zones that got tickled the most. Fluttershy started to laugh too, and both ponies engaged in a tickle fight, all the while the storm raged on outside.
When the dust settled and both mares were thoroughly tickled and fuzzy-headed, Pinkie and Fluttershy found their hooves tangled over one another and their bodies much closer together. Both had to catch their breath with heavy pants. After a minute, Pinkie chimed up.
“Y’know, Flutters, I like you.”
Fluttershy was momentarily awoken from her tea stupor and blushed.
“O-o-ohhh, y-y-you do?”
Pinkie looked at her seriously.
“Of course, of course I do. Flutters, you’re THE mare. Y’know? You just…” Pinkie slurred. She waved her hoof around as if searching for what to say, her mouth agape and lost for words. “You’re like, great with animals. Really nice. You’re just… you’re cool, okay? Uhuh?”
Fluttershy slithered her body ever closer. A scarlet tinge covered her cheeks.
“P-Pinkie, I l-like you too…”
Pinkie wore a goofy smile and stuck the end of her tongue out of her mouth.
“Awww, thanks Flutters, you always know JUST what to say.” Pinkie started to giggle and laid her hoof on Fluttershy’s side. Fluttershy closed her eyes and sighed.
“W-well, umm, I didn’t mean it like — I mean, I think—”
She opened her eyes and stared into Pinkie’s. She wasn’t nervous, not at that moment, not as the blizzard wailed outside in the blister and boom of the heavy snowfall. Pinkie stared back unphased, her goofy smile ever present.
Neither mare moved. Then Fluttershy started to shuffle imperceptibly closer to Pinkie with each second that ticked by. She didn’t really know why she did it, not with the gargilly tea numbing her usual sensations and inhibitions. Pinkie and Fluttershy were mere inches from their muzzles touching.
A particularly loud pop erupted from the firepit, drawing Pinkie’s gaze. She scrambled onto her hooves.
“Cheese and crackers! The fire’s almost dead! We’d freeze if that puppy went out,” Pinkie said, as if nothing had just happened. As if nothing was about to happen. Fluttershy’s heart sank, though she couldn’t figure out why.
Wait what DID I think was going to happen?
She looked up at Pinkie’s face, the orange-red glow of the fire dancing amid the pitch-black shadows covering her features. Pinkie got off the bed with unsure hooves, as if she were relearning to walk, and managed to get over to the stairs.
Fluttershy laid back down as Pinkie fetched more firewood. Fluttershy’s face was flushed, her breathing shallow, her wings slightly spread apart, and her heart performing a drum solo inside her heaving chest. She studied the swirl of the wooden ceiling and tried to pick apart her mile-a-minute thoughts.
W-what was about to happen? This tea might n-not have been a good idea after all… wow. It’s still so warm… and Pinkie.
Fluttershy let her mind wander over to images of Pinkie Pie. Her devil-may-care mane, the curve of her slightly chubby belly and haunches, the captivating gleam of her irises… Fluttershy’s cheeks burned hotter, and she was starting to think it had nothing to do with the tea or the fire.
Pinkie had always been one of the best friends a mare could have — Pinkie and the other girls were the only friends Fluttershy had ever had, truthfully— and Fluttershy cherished that friendship. She cherished the friendship she shared with all her friends. But what she was feeling for Pinkie — it couldn’t be friendship, or if it was, it was some new form of it.
After some time alone with her confusing thoughts, Fluttershy was once again graced with the presence of Pinkie, who had dragged herself up the last few steps of the stairs. Her tongue flopped out of her mouth and she struggled to catch her breath, a load of firewood and Gummy the alligator situated in her mane.
“Can’t… move… legs… too… tired…”
Pinkie took a moment to fill her lungs and dragged herself over to the fireplace. She tossed the load of timber into the fire with a wooden clunk and then scuttled back to the bed, Fluttershy watching with concern all the while. She quietly cursed herself.
“Oh Pinkie, I’m sorry I suggested that tea — I didn’t realize this would happen.”
Pinkie strained herself to get up, and with a throaty groan she plopped up onto the bed once more. Gummy slithered out and curled up on one of the pillows. Pinkie rolled onto her back and took a minute to suck in huge gulps of air. Then she glanced at Fluttershy with an understanding grin.
“Don’t be sorry. We had lots of fun, didn’t we? And it did keep us warm — it still is!”
Fluttershy nodded but didn’t return the smile. She looked over Pinkie’s face, trying to detect any hint that she was weirded out. There was none — Pinkie just looked like Pinkie, albeit a tired, tea-numbed Pinkie. Fluttershy forced a smile.
“I think we should hit the hay. What do you think, Pinkie?”
Pinkie stretched out all four of her limbs and sighed out in pleasure.
“Yeah… bed sounds… guhhh…”
Pinkie passed out with a loud snore. Fluttershy called down to her animal friends, who quickly joined her and Pinkie in bed. Harry the bear gently moved Pinkie onto her own side of the bed and laid her head on the pillow next to the sleeping Gummy. Harry smiled warmly at Fluttershy, who returned the gesture.
“Okay, okay everyone. Remember this is just for tonight, because of the blizzard. Get cozy and comfy now!”
Fluttershy watched the embers in the firepit crackle and pop as everyone else fell asleep. She studied the red flicks of fire as they moved to and fro.
I need to set things right with Pinkie about what happened. Oh, I hope this isn’t going to make things weird from now on…