The morning sun greeted her like a furious torch. Golden beams of light glistened off the fresh dew residing in the blades of grass below. The air smelled sweet, honey and flowers intertwined together tickling at Fluttershy's nose. She felt a cold gust of air rippling across her tail; a cool, refreshing breeze ran through her mane, and she knew the final throes of night were over.
Fluttershy took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of the rising sun. A pair of shaded goggles reflected a green world as she tilted her gaze earthward. Folding her wings to her sides, Fluttershy carefully dove down through the air until she was skimming across the grassy surface of the rolling plains. Sporadic ponds and rippling sapphire streams interrupted what was otherwise an immaculate landscape of high grass and strewn foliage. Several lakes loomed in the distance ahead, resonating platinum reflections of the rising sun.
Fluttershy's nostrils flared. As she darted mere inches over pond fronds and cattails, the scent of the air changed from sweet and sugary to lilacs and a freshly cut lawn. With grace, she spun upside down—gliding—and allowed her wings to break the top of several emerald blades. As a result, she was christened with a liberal spray of fresh dew. The sensation was cold, tickling the skin beneath her butter-colored coat .It was the first thing that made her smile in hours.
There was a deep lake up ahead. The waters were so tranquil that it seemed as though the basin had been filled with a piece of the baby blue sky. Feeling suddenly enervated, Fluttershy lowered herself to the sandy banks, relaxing her wings for the first time in the past hour.
Her hooves twisted and dug into the mud, relishing in its wet mushy feel against her tingling limbs. She loved how the tame tides tickled as they brushed up against her hooves. Trotting to the very edge of the lake, she raised her goggles, exposing a pair of squinting teal eyes that took in the sunrise, and then tilted down to take in her own reflection.
Fluttershy's mane was windblown, its pink colored threads flying wildly as a testament to her nocturnal journey. Her coat was disheveled, bespeckled with dust and glistening with the fresh dew from her sound landing. In spite of her emaciated features, the one thing not remotely affected was her eyes. They appeared as alive and awake, filled with curiosity as she looked around and examined the setting she was in. She watched as humming birds flitted through the air, and rabbits scampered from hole to hole as they avoided the watchful eye of winged predators from above. She let out a sigh at this sight, glancing into the pool and looking herself over. Then, she reached two hooves up to her goggles.
Removing the article, she sat down and examined them closely in her grasp. There was a great deal of condensation and grime gathered on the lenses. Fluttershy leaned forward and breathed out, deeply onto the goggles. Using her condensation, she wiped the twin lenses free, then moved to slap them back on her forehead. She paused, however, upon seeing the canvas strap of the item. There was an image of a prismatic, dashing mare, along with the initials 'R.D.'
Fluttershy stared intensely at the strap, lost deep in a maze of thoughts. She finally placed the article back on her head and gave her reflection one last look. Her yellow wings lifted, exposing a pure white saddle bag strapped around her body, tailor-made to fit snuggly around her fragile frame. Two pouches lined the outer side of her bag. One was fastened shut of that of an emblem of a full moon. The other one containing that of a ball of flame surrounded by solar flares. The solar bag alone was of big enough size to hold a generous amount of food. Instead of stocking herself up on nothing but bread, she balanced things out by bringing along basic first-aid supplies incase anything unfortunate were to happen.
Just then, a familiar sensation struck her, that of a golden glint being shone into her face. Fluttershy glanced lethargically at what was weighing on her neck muscles. A golden pendant hung just below her throat, emblazoned with a cotton candy colored pearl, formed to the shape of a butterfly. For the briefest of moments, she felt a sharp jolt of pain jump across each of her temples, and grasped onto it tightly. Her pain skyrocketed, the insides of her head felt like it had been filled with hot grease off of a frying pan. She gripped it tightly but the pain would not cease. Finally, she threw herself from the sandy shore into the cool waters presented before her.
After a major dunking, Fluttershy flung her head straight up. She gasped as her wet mane filled the air with a wild splash of lake water. Reveling in the cold sting, she grinned, finally the pain died down and she felt like her normal self again. She waded around in the neck deep water and relaxed as time passed her. She shut her eyes and imagined the good times back when she used to visit the salon with one of her best friends, Rarity.
Realizing that an hour had passed by, she snapped up out of the water back onto mushy shore. Shaking the mud off her hooves, the slipped her shaded goggles down, and took off once more towards the sky, gliding east.
The air bit harshly against her wet face. It served to remind her that she was alive and she was a free mare.
Afternoon came, and the hilltops drifting lazily beneath Fluttershy turned into jagged promontories and the green grass became rocky terrain as she came upon the crest of a mountain range. The sun was well overhead, approaching its peak climb over the globe of the sky. Fluttershy realized she was still squinting, so she raised a hoof up to her goggles and turned a dial. With a gentle click, the shades of the lenses popped back to reveal a clear pair beneath. She relaxed her teal eyes and kept floating eastward.
The earth turned progressively uneven below. When the mountains began, the topography shattered into a craggy affair. The air above these sharp formations grew misty, coalescing into thick clouds that gathered into a gray miasma above the sharply rising landscape. She distractingly traced the winding paths with her hooves. It looked like people used to travel out this far before, but it has probably been years, maybe even decades since anyone has walked these roads.
She touched down onto the ground and walked across the dehydrated gravel covering the caravan path. Very little rain made it out from the grassy knolls and treeless plains. The air was dry, and the lack of a breeze made the air sufficiently hotter than most places she was used to. It reminded her of one of her vacations to the desert landscape of New Mexicolt. From her position, the sun's ray bent over the peak of the tallest mountain in the range. It cast a spectacular array of orange hues casting a breathtaking sight. After taking in all of her surroundings, Fluttershy lifted up off the ground and continued following the trail east.
As she flew further inwards, the clouds descended closer and closer towards the ground. The thick tufts of fluff compiled together to form a barrier, blocking most visibility starting there and traveling eastwards. Fluttershy had no choice but to fly into the thick of it. Things eventually became so blinding she could barely see within a ten foot radius of herself. With exercised caution, she backed herself out of the fog and looked for a way around. She was adamant about making a speedy pass over the mountains, but she wasn't about to stupidly plunge into any hidden rock faces beyond the clouds.
Rays of sunlight danced around Fluttershy in swathing beams. In mid-glide, she reached a hoof out and played with the many yellow bands. Her mind wandered, and for the briefest of moments she could have sworn she heard the sound of little foals playing around and enjoying their days off from school. Her eyes blinked beneath her goggles, and the sensation left her, trailing on the fringes of a deep sigh.
The was a sudden gust of wind. If not for Rainbow Dash's training to help bring water to Cloudsdale, she would have been tossed wildly into the ether, but she swiftly countered for the gale attacking her wings. She leveled out and hovered up, getting a good view of the landscape beneath her as the misty clouds parted.
She spotted a sudden dip in the mountains. A deep ravine had formed suddenly, and a heavy current of cold wind was billowing down to fill the canyon.
As Fluttershy coasted the top of this landscape, the clouds dissipated, and she was taken back by a sight ahead of her. Two mountain ranges rose sharply and met a single point, as if bluntly colliding. The result was a pair of tall summits, twin spokes of ancient rock that pierced the sky like granite antennae.
Fluttershy hovered in place, staring for a prolonged period of time at the image. She couldn't help but feel as if the twin peaks looked familiar. Bothered by her lapse in memory, she spun cyclonically through the mountainous currents until she found a dry mesa of pale rock to perch on. A sharp rise in craggy stone behind her canceled out the wind, giving her a peaceful spot to touch down and reach back for her saddlebag.
She slowly removed the contents of her pack: a canteen of water, five loaves of dry, crumbling bread, 2 rolls of bandages, some gauze, a bottle of antiseptic, a compass, a container of flint and steel, three blankets, and finally a green-bound book. This last item she placed carefully back in the bag, not wanting to tear the binding or dirty the pages. One last time, she reached into the very bottom of her saddlebag and dug around inside. She produced a paper scroll with a royal seal from the depths of her bag.
Unrolling the scrap, she stretched out a rich detailed map labeled 'Known Realms.' In the center of the amber parchment was a landscape etched in black ink. Fluttershy's eyes started at the mountainous summit of “Canterlot Mountain,” then traveled to the right past “Everfree”, then past a broad stretch of dotted paper titled “Rambling Rock Ridge.” She traced her hoof even further across the paper, past “Dodge City,” past “Hayseed Swamps,” even further past “Baltimare,”. There wasn't suppose to be anymore land past this point, the map showed everything east of Baltimore to be a long stretch of sea. And still she traveled, days after leaving the city and there has yet to be any water.
Fluttershy looked up. She saw two enormous peaks lingering two kilocanters in front of her, bathing a thick shadow across the grand, misty ravine surrounding the plot of land she was standing upon. She looked back down. The land simply didn't match up with what was printed, there wasn't anything marking down the two hulking masses of land ahead.
Unsurprisingly, this made her worry. She was about to leave Equestria, leave the safety of the princesses, and travel onwards into a land unknown to her. This all seemed a little daunting to her, she wasn't sure how much further she would have to walk, to fly, to swim. Eventually there would be no more land to travel, the world couldn't possibly stretch on endlessly.
She rolled the map back up. She put away her belongings, making sure not to break anything or trash the inside, and clasped the saddlebag shut with its crescent-moon and solar flare buttons. Hoisting her goggles back over her eyes, she stood against the wind, glanced back to give the terrain one final good-bye, and floated up into the air before taking off, soaring between the two peaks as if they were a doorway into a new land. One with new creatures for her to meet and new environments to see.