The moon rode high over a night sky like bruised purple silk, but Equestria still buzzed with life. All Hallow's Eve had arrived, and Ponyville was full of lurid and unnatural colours that even the darkness could not stifle. The sound of doorbells being rung and ponies being scared echoed out across the night.
“Oh, come on, Fluttershy. We'll never beat Applejack and Rarity this way!” Rainbow Dash scolded.
“T-t-this is a really, really bad idea, Rainbow Dash. I want to go home,” Fluttershy stammered, although she knew the other pegasus couldn't hear (the words spirited away by the whistling wind) and wouldn't have listened if she had.
The night had started off well, in a manner of speaking. The six had met on the high-street, already costumed up. Rarity probably had the most elaborate costume. Painstakingly applied zom-pony make up covered every inch of her flanks, and she'd dyed her mane a luminous, scruffy white. She'd even painted on scars and blood. Fluttershy could hardly bear to look at her. Applejack had also taken advantage of Rarity's makeup expertise, having been painted jet black for the night, and eschewing her normal hat for a pumpkin worn over her head. She was, in every sense of the phrase, a Night Mare.
Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, had decided to go with the traditional bedsheet-over-the-head approach, her reasoning being that if you saw a bedsheet zooming through the air towards you at high speed, you'd be pretty spooked too. Fluttershy thought it was scary enough without the flying, but wisely bit her tongue.
As for Pinkie? Well, they hadn't actually seen her, only heard her voice from behind some trash cans. She was, she said, disguised as a ninja for the evening. They'd looked behind the trash cans, of course, but found nothing. The idea that Pinkie Pie could be literally anywhere, waiting to pop out at them, sent a cold shiver down Fluttershy's spine.
Points for creativity, however, most definitely went to Twilight Sparkle, who hadn't even gotten a costume. Instead, she was using an illusion to make herself look like a full-grown dragon. To be fair, Fluttershy hadn't seen what was so scary about it herself, but the others were pretty impressed.
As for Fluttershy herself? She hadn't gone in costume. She knew how bad it felt to be scared. Why would she want to scare people herself? The other ponies had nodded sagely, agreeing that it was definitely like her.
And then, things had taken a turn for the worst when Applejack suggest a 'friendly' competition to see who could get the most candy. Faster than a starved piranha, Rainbow Dash bit. They divided into three teams- Unicorn, Pegasus and Earth Pony. The team with the most candy by the end of the night would be crowned the winner.
With that, they had split up. Fluttershy didn't like it. Bad things happened when you split up on All Hallow's Eve.
The Pegasus team, being the least scary team, had to maximise on their great strength: speed. As it turned out, though, there was a major flaw with Rainbow Dash's costume design: it made it very hard to steer when flying. Rainbow Dash being Rainbow Dash, she refused to slow down, weaving across the night sky like a sugar crazy parasprite, the bedsheet streaming behind her. Fluttershy struggled desperately to keep up, wishing very much that she was at home, where there was a sofa to hide behind.
And then, the inevitable happened, and the bedsheet (relatively well behaved thus far) tangled itself in Rainbow Dash's wings.
With ethereal slowness, the pegasus began to fall. She began to corkscrew elegantly as she plunged through the air in deafening silence, her shouts and screams drowned by the rushing wind. Fluttershy watched, eyes dilated, as her friend began to pick up speed. Her heart seemed to bounce against her ribs, it was beating so hard.
She felt the air rushing through her mane, and realised that she had gone into a dive.
Her mind went entirely blank as the wind screamed in her ears. It was like her body was an autopilot, as if it had always known this was going to happen, had always known exactly how to deal with it. A thousand emotions crashed through her, welling up in the pit of her stomach, jumping in electric arcs down her spine. This was fear, this was terror, this was simplicity itself. All that mattered was the pony streaking through the darkness towards the black earth below.
Too slow, Fluttershy realised. I'm much too slow. As if by themselves, her wings folded flat, and the dive became a freefall. The speed forced tears from her eyes. She might have been screaming. She didn't know. The ground was getting much closer, much faster now, but so was Rainbow Dash.
Lift!, some part of her screamed, and her wings opened once more, turning her dive into a swoop. The shock almost wrenched her wings from her sockets, but before she knew it she was hurtling not downwards but sideways. The sky and the earth turned until she didn't know which was which anymore.
Gracefully, the two ponies met in midair.
Fluttershy became dimly aware that she had snatched Rainbow Dash from her freefall. She was even more dimly aware that she was still flying forwards at a speed she had never known before. What she was most aware of was how very close the tips of her hooves were to the tops of the trees, and how, with Rainbow Dash's added weight, there was no way she could get any altitude.
Something clipped her left hind hoof, and the world started to spin with wild abandon, the greens and browns and dark sky bleeding and melting within each other, until, finally, they become a consuming, all engulfing blackness.
“Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked, five feet away on the grass. It was mossy grass, the grass of a forest. Trees towered above them.
“...Y-yes?” she breathed, her head muzzy, still reeling from the thick fog of unconciousness.
“You're a little crazy, you know that?” the pony said conversationally.
“I don't know how you do it all the time, Dash. I really don't,” Fluttershy muttered. Every muscle ached, especially her wings. Even her bones seemed leaden.
“It's almost dawn. See the sun rising in between the trees? We've been out for a while,” Dash said thoughtfully. “...I guess this means we lost the candy contest, huh?”
“Rainbow Dash!”
“I know, I know, not the most important thing right now. Sorry,” the other pony said, probably grinning sheepishly. She didn't have the energy to turn her head and check. “What do we do now?”
“I don't know, Dash. I don't think I'll be able to get up for a while...” she groaned, and another spasm of pain shot through her wings in confirmation.
“...huh. I guess we're relying on either some hocus pocus from Twilight, or maybe Pinkie Sense. Why is my confidence suddenly dropping?” Dash joked.
Four, five, six beats of silence. Something chirped. The forest was beginning to rouse itself.
“Although, I can think of worse things than being stuck alone in a forest with you.”
Fluttershy blinked and mustered the energy to turn her head, but Rainbow Dash had her back to her. Probably deliberately. There was another silence, a minute long this time, before Rainbow Dash spoke again.
“Fluttershy?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks. For, y'know, saving my life. You were...really brave.”
“N-not really. It just kind of...happened.”
“Doesn't matter how it happened, just that it did, I guess. Otherwise, I'd be a totally awesome pancake right about now.”
“..Thanks, Dash...”
“...Fluttershy?”
“Yes?”
“You think there are any bears in this forest?”