//------------------------------// // Today's The Day The Teddy Bears Have Their Picnic // Story: If You Go Down In The Woods Today // by SilverNotes //------------------------------// It was moonlight streaming through the trees again, and the walking had slowed. Fluttershy knew that Zecora would never say anything about it, but she'd noticed that her movements were growing slower and stiffer, her legs seeming to resist moving more and more. She'd considered offering to pick Zecora up and fly again, but hesitated. She'd hurt her the first time, applying the kind of pressure necessary to carry her, and she didn't want to make it worse. She couldn't see the bruises anymore, through the bark. She couldn't see anything, where it had replaced flesh. The transformation had even robbed Zecora of her cutie mark, with bark along her flanks not even showing a hint of the sun shapes that had once been there. Fluttershy realized that she'd never asked what Zecora's mark was for. It was one of the ways it was so easy to mistake her for a pony, being one of the few other species that had marks, but while with ponies the subject would naturally come up... Zecora had never breathed a word of the meaning of the sun mark, nor had she ever showed any curiosity about theirs. Did marks not mean as much to zebras? Were they something more private? Fluttershy didn't know, and she found herself feeling a fresh wave of shame for her ignorance. When-- If --When they got out of this, she would ask Zecora about her mark, and apologise for not having done so before. The forest had been silent for so long, no sounds of animals, no speech, that when Fluttershy finally heard something, it had her jerking to a stop. She didn't even register what it was at first, just that the quiet had broken, and when she was certain that she wasn't feeling any unusual compulsions and that nothing was swooping down on them, she rotated her ears and gave a proper listen. Birdsong. Specifically, the songs of the earliest birds as they woke right before dawn. Fluttershy stood there, listening for the moment that the sounds would distort, that the nightmare would continue, but it never did, the birds just continuing to sing their announcement that they'd survived yet another night. She looked back at Zecora, whose own ears were perked, and they both shared a hopeful smile. The sky was in transition, the first rays of dawnlight shining through. The birdsong had had new voices join the chorus. If she concentrated, Fluttershy would be able to hear the meaning of each note, but she was trying to conserve her energy after all of the walking, running, and flying, and keep an eye on Zecora. One of her back legs was barely moving anymore, and Zecora was half-dragging it as she walked on the other three. And Fluttershy wasn't sure whether the leaves she saw in her mane had fallen from the branches of the trees above them, or if they'd grown there. They needed to get back, and soon. So focused she was on monitoring Zecora, she almost didn't notice the ground, until one of her hooves slid into the dip in the earth and she pulled back with a start. She looked down at the marks in the dirt, and her eyes widened when she realized what she was looking at. Zecora started digging at the ground when Harry disappeared. These are her hoof marks! Fluttershy looked around, and spotted her own hoofprints. There were no paw marks, but the two sets of hooves were clear as day, leading off into the forest. She looked back again, gesturing at the prints with her wing with delight. This time, Zecora's smile back was more strained. "Zecora, look!" Fluttershy flapped her wings and flew the short distance from the hoof prints to the packed dirt that led through thinner trees. She could hear more than birds now, her ears moving to hear scurrying paws of rodents, wings of bats settling in for a day's rest, and the far-off roar of a manticore, all the familiar sounds of morning in the Everfree. "It's the path we took! We can follow it back to Ponyville and..." She stopped, realized that Zecora hadn't walked up to join her, and looked behind her. Zecora hadn't moved. She couldn't. Her wooden hooves were planted against the ground, and twisting roots extended from each, sinking into the earth. "I'm sorry... but I think you'll have to finish the way home alone." Fluttershy didn't wait for a rhyme. She raced back, and grabbed one of Zecora's legs with her teeth. The taste of wood made her grimace, but she still pulled, trying to yank the roots from the ground. She dug her hooves in and pulled until her jaw and neck ached, and her teeth felt like they might leave her gums. When Fluttershy let go, she shook her head sharply. "No, Twilight will know how to cure this!" She went around behind Zecora instead, ignoring the way the bark bit into her shoulder as she tried to push. "And if she doesn't, she can send a letter to the princess! Celestia will know what to do! She's a thousand years old, she must have seen this before!" Fluttershy's legs slid from under her during her hardest shove, sending her into the dirt while Zecora stayed rooted. "You're going to be okay." "You'd better go," Zecora said softly. "We don't know how long it's been. Your friends will be worried about you." Fluttershy had never asked about the rhymes. None of them had. Yet hearing their absence was more frightening than anything within the forest had been. "They're our friends!" She walked back around to Zecora's front, and stretched out her neck so that she could lay her forehead against that of the taller mare. "I'm not leaving without you." Zecora didn't say anything more. She just closed her eyes, and they stayed there, like that, until Fluttershy felt bark against her forehead instead of fur. She pulled back, and through the tears in her eyes, she saw a new, zebra-shaped sapling, with a pattern in the bark that looked like Zecora's sad smile. "NO!" Fluttershy's hooves pounded against the wood as tears rolled down her face. "You can't take her!" Her wings flared open in defiance as the edges of her hooves clawed at the bark, wild with the thought that she may be able to find the familiar striped coat beneath. "Give her back! Give her back!" Tears, sweat, and blood mixed with the dirt as she threw herself to the ground, and birds fled branches at Fluttershy's anguished scream. Her sides heaved with heavy breaths and wet sobs. "Please..." she begged, her voice barely a raspy whisper. "It was me you wanted... Take me instead..." The plea was spoken from the depths of heart and soul. Light poured from the new tree as the magic answered. Few could deny that Ponyville was a strange place. A stone's throw away from Canterlot and a stop that many travelers took between there and elsewhere, it looked like any small township in Equestria at a glance. The majority of citizens were earth ponies, but there were enough pegasi to keep the weather managed, and it wasn't hard to find a unicorn either. Plenty of cows, sheep, and pigs lived on the outskirts, hosted by farms, and there was one elderly donkey jenny who was such a quiet, peaceful presence that most forgot about Matilda entirely until she was right in front of them. However, things happened in Ponyville, and the more often you had contact with the place, the more likely it would be that it would happen to you. An Ursa Minor rampaging through town, a nearby dragon filling the air with choking smoke, a swarm of insects devouring buildings, a cockatrice on the loose... But one of the strangest sights was also one of the most benign, and even here, spreading out their picnic blanket to enjoy the spring day, some of the townponies were giving Zecora and Fluttershy a wide berth. Or maybe they were just wary of the grizzly bear who was sunning himself nearby like a gigantic housecat. After they'd both come home, Twilight had gone through every book she could find for information on what had happened to them, and when that had turned up nothing, she'd sent a message to Canterlot. It'd taken mountains of books, combed through for any scrap of information, to slowly put together a picture from accounts of what had, previously, been thought of as fanciful folktales or the ramblings of madponies. It had taken all that time to even have a name to apply, to the place and its magic both: The Wyld. A place that could only be found if it let someone in. From the point of view of their friends, Fluttershy and Zecora had been gone for a single night, appearing with the next sunrise, and so nopony had realized yet that either were gone at all. Harry had no memory of leading them into the depths of the woods, but Fluttershy hadn't expected him to; she'd figured out before reaching her cottage again that it had never really been him who'd beckoned her from her home in the middle of the night. The why was still a mystery. Why her, why them. But Fluttershy had a feeling that it wouldn't happen again. The Wyld had allowed them to find the way home, and so it likely wouldn't try to call them again. If she went out into the Everfree and asked to return, maybe, but she had no plans to test that theory, not when she was finally home. As for what had happened to them, nothing had been able to reverse it. Twilight hadn't been able to find a single spell, potion, artefact, nothing that would revert them to what they were before they set hoof within the Wyld, and Fluttershy had eventually gently asked her to stop trying. Both of them were just happy to be home. Fluttershy set down the basket full of sandwiches, and then stretched out across the blanket, soaking up the sunlight. On the right side of her body, light reflected off her yellow coat and feathers, marred only by the set of scars along her back from where she'd been slashed by rotted claws. On her left, the light instead bounced off of pale white bark similar to a birch tree, and her wing was replaced with a branch dotted with soft green leaves and pale pink flowers. More pink flowers filled her mane and tail, and her eyes constantly burned with a slight green glow. Zecora settled onto the blanket as well, mirroring Fluttershy in more than just body position. The left side of her body was as it used to be, covered with black and white stripes and her flank carrying a mark of a styled sun. Her right, instead, was coated in bark, mostly white like Fluttershy's but occasional cut through with darker patches. Her tail was still a branch, and more leaves had grown there, as well as her mane having nearly been replaced entirely with long leaves mimicking its old style. Her eyes had the same green glow, flickering with the magic trapped within. Nopony came near them. Some were likely still afraid that the condition was contagious, and Fluttershy couldn't blame them. They'd been dubbed magically stable, able to safely be among others, but this was something new, and ponies instinctively steered clear of what they didn't fully understand. That was okay. Fluttershy had been a pegasus who chose the ground over the sky, and Zecora had been a zebra among ponies. Neither had ever entirely fit in even before this, so they could handle being even more apart from the herd. Fluttershy looked at Zecora, laying with her eyes closed, a peaceful and truly happy smile on her face, and was content. Even if things never went back to normal, life would go on, and they'd have their friends, and each other. And if the rot ever did seep out, slipped the Wyld's containment and tried to sink its claws into Equestria... the two of them would give it a nasty surprise.