Fluttershy waited in anticipation for Twilight’s response to her question. The lavender mare bit her lip and looked away from her friend, unsure of how to phrase her answer. “Fluttershy… I don’t know how to tell you this, but… you can’t go back in time.”
The words Twilight spoke made Fluttershy’s hope sink like a stone. “W-what?” she stammered, any semblance of positivity leaving her body.
Twilight rested a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. “I can’t send you back in time. It’s just too-”
“No!” came the furious interruption from Fluttershy. She had been through a lot lately, and anger was beginning to boil up inside of her. It was atypical of the pegasus, but with all that had happened in the last twenty four hours, she wasn’t entirely in control of her emotions. “Don’t tell me you can’t do it!” she angrily shouted at Twilight, shoving the lavender hoof away. “You were working sending Spike back in time yesterday; are you really going to refuse to do the same thing to me?”
Twilight took a few steps back from the indignant pegasus. “Look, Fluttershy, even if I could get the spell to actually work right, there might be complications. It’s just not safe.”
“I don’t give a flying feather whether it’s safe or not! Just send me back so I can save Angel!” replied Fluttershy. Switching to a harsher, more demeaning tone, she continued. “If you were really my friend, you’d help me save him…”
Twilight groaned and brought a hoof to her forehead in exasperation. “I am your friend, but I can’t do this for you. I’ll help you and Zecora take care of Angel, but I am not sending you back. Just calm down.”
Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed. “I guess we aren’t friends then. I should have known it would be a waste of time asking you for help.” She continued ranting at Twilight, oblivious to the magic building up in the unicorn’s horn. “Maybe I should have gone to somepony who isn’t a fuc-”
Fluttershy’s curse was cut short as a brilliant blue light emanated from Twilight’s horn and filled the room, sending Fluttershy into a deep slumber.
---
Fluttershy awoke lying on the dirty cobblestone floor of a building she didn’t recognise. Getting to her hooves, she felt a brief wave of dizziness pass over her. Bringing a hoof to her head, she tried to remember why she was in this unfamiliar place. Her memory failed her; the last thing she remembered was entering Twilight’s library and finding the unicorn passed out, her muzzle buried in a book.
Try as she might, Fluttershy couldn’t figure out how she had gotten to this place from the library. “Twilight?” she called out, her voice echoing off the walls. “Spike?” There was no response – even if there was anypony around, they weren’t speaking.
Fluttershy gulped, but set off down the long hallway she was in. Confusion or not, she had to keep moving. She was never going to figure out where she was or how to escape by just standing still.
The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, and soon Fluttershy felt as if she had been walking for an eternity. She was unsure if she had even made any progress; the walls were completely devoid of decoration, and the hallway showed no sign of ever ending. Sighing in exhaustion, Fluttershy leaned against the wall, only to feel it slowly fade away, becoming ever softer. She stood straight up, lest she fall.
An alcove had opened up where she had been leaning, just the right dimensions for a pony to fit through. Unwilling to continue walking down the hallway, unable to tell if she was making it any further towards her final destination, Fluttershy chose to enter the alcove. As she left the hallway, unbeknownst to her, black tendrils of smoke began to spring up from the ground she had just left.
As Fluttershy walked through the passage, she became more and more hopeful that she had made the right decision. For one thing, the path she was now travelling actually had an end in sight – a bright light marked the end of it, resting just a hundred meters or so in front of her. A smile graced her muzzle as she broke into a trot.
As Fluttershy passed into the light, she was forced to suddenly skid to a stop, for the path gave out just ahead of her. After ensuring that she was in no danger of falling over the edge, she looked up to take in her surroundings, and gasped in amazement. She was standing on a thin and narrow bridge jutting out from the exit of a massive stone tower. Ordinarily, this would be extraordinary enough, but what made this situation truly odd was that the tower was floating in space – far off stars and planets being the only things Fluttershy could make out.
Actually, that wasn’t true. Just ahead of her lay a substantially smaller stone structure, this one only about a meter or two larger than the destroyed bridge she stood on. Laying on that platform was an unfortunately familiar sight – her precious bunny in a puddle of blood.
With a cry of “Angel!” that seemed to echo off the stars themselves, Fluttershy took a running leap off the bridge towards the white rabbit, spreading her wings. With a few mighty flaps, she reached the platform, only to have Angel fade away, leaving a bloody mess where he had laid. With a scream of rage, she stomped her hoof against the stone, causing cracks to emanate from where her hoof had landed.
A familiar roar sounded in her ears, and Fluttershy was treated to the reappearance of her pet. To her dismay, he was impaled on the impossibly long claws of the wyvern. Tears streamed from her eyes as the rest of the wyvern appeared from nothingness. Though she knew it made no sense, the wyvern seemed to be much larger than when they had first met, with a single one of its fangs the same length as her legs. Stranger still, it appeared to be growing even larger as the seconds ticked by.
Angel was removed from Fluttershy’s concerns for the time being; she was in danger herself, and she needed to escape or she would meet the same fate as her bunny. She flexed her wings, or at least attempted to, only to discover that crimson tendrils formed from the blood where Angel once lay had wrapped themselves around her, constricting her and stopping her from taking flight, or even moving. She struggled, but the tendrils only increased their grip, sending waves of pain through the pegasus.
Rendered completely immobile by the tendrils, Fluttershy could do nothing but scream as the wyvern’s mouth grew ever closer, now being large enough to swallow the moon itself. Her screams were cut short as the tendrils began forcing themselves inside any holes they could find – her mouth, her ear canals, and even her nostrils.
As the wyvern’s mouth engulfed the platform, swallowing Fluttershy and the tendrils whole, a faint whisper became known to her; a whisper repeating nothing but her name, over and over. As the darkness of the mouth became all that she knew, the whisper continued, getting ever louder. “Fluttershy… Fluttershy…”
---
“Fluttershy!” came the familiar voice of Twilight Sparkle, forcing Fluttershy’s eyes open. She was lying on a dirt floor in a room filled with scientific equipment and roots running through the wall, a far cry from the wooden floor of the library she last remembered standing on. She stood up, letting out a groan as she did so. Her friend’s voice rang out again, and she realised it was coming from the other side of the door. “Fluttershy, are you okay? Have you calmed down a bit?”
Red filled Fluttershy’s cheeks as she remembered how she had behaved – she had treated one of her best friends like dirt. Memories of the monster she had once been, New Fluttershy, drifted into her mind, making her wince. “Omigosh, I’m so sorry Twilight… I lost control and I didn’t realise what I was doing and I’ve had a really bad couple of days and I’m really sorry and if you don’t want to be friends anymore I understand… I’ll just leave now…”
“Fluttershy, it’s alright! You’re overreacting,” replied Twilight. “I still want to be friends, and I forgive you; I understand what you’re going through. Besides, you’re not the only one that screwed up. I wanted to get you to calm down, but I didn’t know how, so I just used my magic to put you to sleep. I hope you can forgive me for that.”
“Don’t worry, Twilight; I would have done the same,” said Fluttershy. “Well, if I had magic that is. I forgive you.”
The basement door opened to reveal Twilight, who strode up to Fluttershy and wrapped her forelegs around the pegasus’ neck in a hug. Fluttershy embraced back before they both let go and gave each other warm smiles. However, Twilight’s smile soon gave way to a look of apprehension. “Is there anything wrong?” asked Fluttershy, having noticed the change.
Twilight looked down at her hooves. “I have to tell you a few things. You aren’t going to like them; and after I tell you, I won’t blame you if you want to hate me.”
“I could never hate you,” replied Fluttershy.
“Just wait until you hear what I have to say before saying never,” said Twilight, returning her gaze to Fluttershy. The pegasus sat down on her haunches, waiting for Twilight to say what was so vitally important and volatile.
“Alright, so after driving off the wyvern yesterday, I carried Angel to Zecora’s hut while you rode on her back. We agreed that your cottage was too dangerous – the wyvern might return and attack again. Plus, Zecora has medical experience, so I felt safe leaving you and Angel in her hooves. After that, I returned to the library to look up more information on wyverns. I remembered reading about them before, but I wanted to refresh my memory.”
“Wait,” interrupted Fluttershy, “Zecora carried me on her back?” A faint blush adorned her cheeks at the thought of being so close to the object of her affection.
Twilight nodded and grinned. “Yep. She practically insisted on it, actually – something about not wanting me to use up too much magic carrying you.” The grin faded as she returned to the previous subject. “Anyway, by the time I got back to the library, Spike had most of my bestiaries and encyclopedias in a pile for me to read. I started looking through them, and there were a lot of entries about wyverns, but there were… inconsistencies.”
“What kind of inconsistencies?” questioned Fluttershy.
“By all accounts, wyverns are only two meters high at the most. I found two entries about ones who had grown larger to about three meters in height, but they were exposed to magical experiments. There was no record of any wyverns ever growing to be as big as the one at your cottage yesterday. Plus, all of the books I checked said that wyverns always travel in packs and never leave the forests or mountains they call home. Considering the biological aspects of wyverns, the one that attacked yesterday didn’t make any sense!”
Fluttershy frowned in disappointment. “So you didn’t find anything about it?”
“Actually, I did. After I realised the bestiaries were useless, I started going through other books for anything relevant.” Twilight held up a dusty, tattered book. “I eventually found something in one of Star Swirl’s private journals.” Opening the journal to a section in the middle and floating it over to Fluttershy so she could read it, Twilight continued. “It turns out there has been a prior appearance of a wyvern the size of the one that attacked yesterday – maybe even the same one! Star Swirl’s description of the one he saw almost two thousand years ago matches up to the one who hurt Angel yesterday. The scale colors, the size, the scar on its left eye – it’s all the same!”
“What?” asked Fluttershy with a gasp, “That would mean it’s been alive since the founding of Equestria. How is that possible?”
Twilight frowned. “Normally, it isn’t possible. Ordinary wyverns don’t live more than seventy years, and I can’t imagine the Everfree having enough resources for the large one to survive for 20 years, let alone two thousand.” Her frown deepened. “I have a theory about it, but… this is the part you aren’t going to like.”
“Please tell me. If it can help us get rid of the wyvern, I need to know!” insisted Fluttershy.
Twilight took a deep breath. “Alright, since the pages following mention of the wyvern in the journal were ripped out, I don’t know anything about how he got rid of it, or if he actually figured out where it came from. What I do know is that he was working on a spell to send himself back in time when it appeared. The same spell that I was trying to cast yesterday.”
Fluttershy’s face was blank. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“My theory is that he did something wrong when casting the spell, just like when I messed up yesterday,” replied Twilight in a shaky tone. “I think the wyvern appeared because of that spell; because we were trying to mess with the natural order of things.” Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as she continued to speak. “Fluttershy, it was my spell that brought that thing here. It was my fault that Angel nearly got killed!”
Fluttershy’s face remained blank for a few moments, before shifting into a faint smile, borne of amusement and an urge to comfort her friend. “Twilight, that can’t be right,” she said, placing a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder. “Your spell just froze a part of your wall, how could it end up summoning a wyvern?”
“Time magic is chaotic in nature,” replied Twilight, still visibly upset. “The spell could have done anything when the casting messed up!”
“Relax Twilight, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” Fluttershy said, reassuring her friend. “No sense worrying about its origin now. We need to find a way to make sure that wyvern never hurts anypony, or bunny, ever again. Do you have any ideas?”
Twilight wiped the tears from her eyes. “W-well, I’m not sure yet. I bet the missing pages in Star Swirl’s journal detailed how he got rid of it, but I have no idea where those could be.” After a moment of thought, she smiled, having arrived at an idea. “I’ve got it! We could capture it!”
“How?” asked Fluttershy. “It’s too big for a cage or anything, and I doubt I could lull it to sleep.”
“I have a few spells that will either immobilize it or put it to sleep,” said Twilight. “After it can’t move, I can carry it to an area where we can keep it away from anypony for a few days.” Noticing the doubt on Fluttershy’s face, she gave her a comforting smile. “Don’t worry, the wyvern isn’t much bigger than that Ursa Minor I got rid of a couple of years ago. I can handle it. After we have it captured, I’ll send a letter about it to Princess Celestia, and she’ll send it to the sun or turn it to stone, or something like that.”
“That sounds like a good plan. When are we going to capture it?”
“Right now, unless you have anything else you need to do first,” replied Twilight.
Fluttershy gave Twilight’s words some thought. “Angel,” she said after a few moments. “I need to see Angel. I want to make sure he’s getting better.”
Twilight nodded. “Alright, we can do that first. Zecora’s hut is in the Everfree anyway, so it won’t be out of our way at all.”
After yelling to Spike that he was looking after the library until she returned, Twilight left, followed closely by Fluttershy. The two of them were intent on reaching Zecora’s house as soon as they could, and as such, travelled at a brisk trot.
---
As they journeyed to the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy’s thoughts turned towards what Twilight had said in the library. Despite telling the unicorn that there was no way her magic was responsible for the wyvern’s appearance, she had yet to convince herself of that fact. She was not well versed in magical knowledge, but if Twilight – one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria – thought her spells may be at fault, there was a chance that it was true.
But then it would be my fault, thought Fluttershy. She had been the one who caused her friend to miscast, and if that miscasting had summoned the wyvern, it was entirely her fault that Angel had been hurt. Despair filled her mind, as she realised that she would still be planning a birthday party for an unhurt Angel had she showed up to Twilight’s library a minute later – assuming of course, that the unicorn’s theory was valid. All of this is because of me…
“You’re being quiet, even for you,” commented Twilight, startling Fluttershy. The pegasus realised that she had been so focused on her thoughts that she hadn’t even spoken a word to her companion, or noticed that they were already in the Everfree Forest, well on their way to Zecora’s home. Twilight gave her a concerned look. “Is there something on your mind?”
“No, nothing,” lied Fluttershy. In truth, her despair was proving to be quite a burden on her mind, but that wasn’t something that Twilight needed to know. Looking ahead of her, she saw something that was strangely unsettling, though she didn’t know why. Tendrils of smoke drifted up from something unseen, just a short distance ahead of the two. She raised a hoof and pointed towards the smoke. “What is that?”
Twilight gave her a puzzled look. “Uh, that’s just Zecora’s hut. She’s probably brewing a potion or something that’s causing the smoke. It wouldn’t be the first time; I remember her brewing a mane growth potion for Rarity that made me think that her hut was on fire.”
“Oh,” was all that Fluttershy could manage, feeling dumb for her mistake. The two continued to Zecora’s hut in silence.
Having reached Zecora’s house, Twilight knocked on the door. A rhyming voice answered her. “Who is that there? Are you not aware, I am quite occupied, with this bunny who nearly died. ”
Twilight called out to the zebra through the door. “Zecora, it’s Fluttershy and I. We’ve come by to check up on Angel.”
“Time for you two I can certainly spare,” came Zecora’s response, mere moments before the door opened and the zebra beckoned for her visitors to enter. “If only to see the one in my care.”
Fluttershy followed Twilight into the hut, the acrid smell of smoke assaulting her nose, causing her to cringe. Noticing this, Zecora offered her a few words of apology. “Although the air may smell funny, it is needed to help your bunny.”
“It’s alright Zecora, I understand,” said Fluttershy, walking up to the bed where Angel lay, wrapped in blankets. Still unwilling to lift the blankets to reveal his wounds, she turned to the zebra mare. “How is he doing? Will he be okay?”
“Angel’s wounds were truly grave, but not beyond what I can save,” replied Zecora. “His health is not in its prime, but he will recover with time.” As the pegasus gently stroked the rabbit’s forehead, the zebra spoke again. “Why else have you come to this place? Worry is displayed across your face.”
“Well, we decided that the wyvern that attacked Angel needed to be captured, so we’re here to hunt it down,” answered Twilight.
Zecora gasped. “Ponies, you really should not welcome such danger. The forest holds the wyvern, and things much stranger.” She turned her head towards Fluttershy. “Is this true, my dear Fluttershy? You do not know ahead what may lie.”
Fluttershy nodded, albeit with a barely noticeable blush on her cheeks from being called ‘dear’. “Yes. We can’t let that nasty wyvern hurt anyone else.”
“Is there any way for me to change your mind? The Everfree is no place for one so kind,” insisted Zecora.
“We can’t risk letting the wyvern leaving the forest again,” replied Twilight. “It only made it to Fluttershy’s cottage last time. I’d hate to imagine it showing up in the center of town, where it could cause much more damage. No, this will end today.”
Zecora sighed. “I see that you will not be dissuaded; that beast is one that is truly hated. Before you go into a place so bleak, to Fluttershy alone I must speak.”
Twilight nodded. “I’ll be waiting for you outside, Fluttershy.” With that, she left the hut, a trace of a smile on her muzzle.
The pegasus’ blush increased in intensity as Zecora approached her. “I can’t thank you enough for aiding me and Angel… I don’t know what I’d do without your help.”
“Think nothing of it, my dear friend. To my aid there will be no end,” replied Zecora, smiling gently. “I am certain that painless his recovery shall be, that is, as long as I have you helping me.”
Fluttershy returned the smile. “Oh, of course! I’ll come by every day to help you take care of him. It would be rude of me not to!”
The zebra nervously pawed at the wooden floor with a hoof. “Forgive my forwardness, my aim is not to offend, but an invitation to my home I will extend. I think you will be less annoyed, since your home is still destroyed.”
Fluttershy froze. Had she heard right? Was Zecora really offering to share her home with her? Regardless of whether it was a platonic gesture or not, it was still an opportunity for Fluttershy to spend time with her crush, and take care of Angel at all hours of the day. Her grin grew wide. “Oh yes, that would be lovely. If you don’t mind…”
“Of course not; I did not make that claim in jest,” replied Zecora. “You staying here would truly be for the best.”
“Thank you, Zecora! I’ll come back here after we capture the wyvern, and then help you take care of Angel,” replied Fluttershy, unable to hide her glee.
“Just be careful, dear Fluttershy. It would be a shame for you to die,” said Zecora. With this, she leaned in close and nuzzled the Pegasus, who let out a squeak of delight. As the two parted, they each wore warm grins, and equally warm blushes.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be safe,” replied Fluttershy, as she left the hut, various thoughts running through her head. What did that mean? Was she nuzzling me as a friend? A caretaker? Or, could it be… No, she can’t like me that way… Can she?