II: The Exile
Rain beat against dry leaves. A breeze wandered amid boughs and they rustled in reply. Somewhere an owl hooted inquiringly.
Derpy opened her eyes.
Where am I?
She lay draped, almost gracefully, along the firm dirt floor of the forest. Leaves were whimsically scattered about as though by an impact, but she felt as if she’d been sleeping peacefully. In fact, she felt wonderful. The rain soaked her fur and ran gently down her face, but it was a cool mist on an otherwise warm night, and she didn’t mind it.
Slowly she raised her head.
It was dark, but the cloud cover moved swiftly through the night sky and offered occasional canyons through which the moonlight could visit. The trees were still, busy gathering the precious moisture and oblivious to Derpy’s presence. Her mane was wrapped long against her body, cleaner and fresher than she could remember it being in some time.
She shut her eyes and yawned.
A disjointed memory of the night before floated into her head. She stopped to consider it, trying to re-live the events in sequence. When she’d gone as far as she could recall, she shook her head.
Dreams are so random. Especially mine.
She batted a wing idly as the sleep melted out of her muscles. She was just making ready to stand up when she felt a small weight on her ribs and startled slightly. She had to crane her neck around uncomfortably to see.
Perched on her side was a small bunny, its gray silhouette hard to discern against the night. It stared at her with black eyes full of profound curiosity. She stared back.
A beam of moonlight passed languidly over a spot about five feet behind the animal, and revealed there was a pony, watching her, very still.
Derpy shrieked and leaped up in a cloud of dust and leaves. She strained her widened eyes at the spot where the pony had been, but the light had changed. There was only darkness.
“H-hello... ?”, she murmured. “Anypony there?”
Silence. The owl hooted.
She gulped and stood frozen, unwilling to move, begging the moon to come back.
Hate scary, hate scary, hate scary, really really hate scary, maybe I’m still having my scary dreams, maybe I’m about to wake up... wake up, Derpy... wake up wake up wake up--
The moon. A face, inches from her own. Wide, bottomless eyes, blinking into hers.
YEEK!!
RUN RUN RUN RUN---
RUN RUN RUN RUN---
RUN RUN WAIT---WAIT---WAIT---... Wait...
Derpy stared back, mouth open. Her heart was thumping and her breath was short but somehow this wasn’t scary. It was a shock, but it wasn’t scary. Wait, was it scary? No, it wasn’t... Why wasn’t it scary... ?
She took a step back. The pony didn’t move. The way she was looking at her, it was so strange. She recognized that look, she’d just never seen it on a pony before. It felt wrong.
She took another step back. The moon was more consistent now and she squinted to have a better look. Whoever this pony was, she was... filthy. Beyond filthy. This wasn’t someone who’d been rolling around in the dirt, it was... more like they were the dirt. Earth and mud caked almost every inch of her fur, clung to her ratty mane, stuck in the spaces behind her ears and legs, and the rain was barely affecting it. It just seemed to rinse off an outermost layer, running in dark streaks down her legs.
Has this pony been living out here? In the woods?
“Um... hi there,” she offered. “I’m Derpy.”
Something changed behind the other pony’s eyes. A long moment passed. The pony’s mouth opened, then it closed again. She looked down ponderously.
“... What’s your name?”
The pony’s head shot back up, but could only look at Derpy helplessly. Her mouth started to move again, but no sound came.
The clouds parted now, longer than before, and something registered familiarity. Derpy could make out a yellow coat beneath the matted dirt, the long pink mane now wildly overgrown.
“... Fluttershy?”
The pony’s eyes suddenly lit up with understanding. She turned away from Derpy as though overwhelmed.
“Fluttershy? … Is that you?”
A faint, squeaky whisper drifted back on the wind.
“Fluh... ttur... shy...”
Derpy approached her gingerly. “Fluttershy... I just saw you yesterday. What happened to you?”
Fluttershy seemed to be shaking her head slowly back and forth. Derpy took a moment to look her over more carefully. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head? How did you get so dirty?” Derpy’s gaze wandered lower and her eyes widened in horror. “Holy pony when was the last time you shaved your fetlocks...?!”
Fluttershy looked back at her, the same pained expression on her face. She seemed trying to exert her will over something, something invisible, something internal...
“Um...” She moved her lips slowly, like clumsy things, like forgotten things...
“Words... are... hard.” Derpy stared, uncomprehending. “Been... so long. Long here. No... ponies. No words. Just Fluttershy. Here.”
“I don’t understand... I saw you, it was just... yesterday...”
“Yest-er-day? Can’t... Can’t. Sorry.” Fluttershy shook her head sadly. “Was years... since...” She closed her eyes and struggled. “Poh-ny-ville?” As she finished the last syllable she looked back at Derpy for confirmation. Derpy nodded yes, yes. “Can’t... be Fluttershy. There. Can’t be Fluttershy. Ponies went... wrong?”
Derpy was utterly lost, but didn’t dare interrupt now that Fluttershy was finally speaking.
“It’s... all moon now. Made it... wrong.” She put her head down in what Derpy interpreted as profound shame. “Sorry. Came here. Forgot words. Forgot ponies. Had to come here. Sorry. Sorry.”
Slowly Fluttershy began to walk, her head still hung. Derpy bounded after her.
“Fluttershy, please. I don’t understand. I know I’m not the sharpest hammer in the shed but... please! You hit your head, right? And fell in a ditch? And... and...” She struggled to find ways to reconcile what she was seeing with the pony she remembered from only yesterday. Fluttershy just looked up at her morosely and shook her head.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll go get Twilight Sparkle. She’ll yell at me and probably try to make it my fault but she’s smart, she’ll be able to fix it and---”
Fluttershy was staring at her. “... Twi-light sparkles?” She shook her head again, this time with the immense frustration of helplessness. “Sorry. Sorry.”
They were coming to a small clearing. The rain had let up and the moon shone brightly at last. Fluttershy stepped forward into it and began to peer about. As Derpy watched, she closed her eyes and threw her head back, and began to sing.
Or, that was the best way Derpy could describe it. She’d heard Fluttershy sing before. It wasn’t as measured and precise as some ponies, but there was technique to it. This was something else. It was raw, and rough, and more matched the howls of the forest wildlife than any kind of pony music. Though there was music... a low, mournful dirge. A song with feeling, a song without understanding.
The ground seemed to move. There was a great clamour and rustling of underbrush. Alarmed, Derpy hopped into the air and ascended to a safe distance. The forest floor was teeming with animals, swarming up over Fluttershy’s body in a strange, wild communion. She seemed unperturbed by this, nuzzling each one almost sadly as they leaped and played atop her. The way the moonlight silhouetted the frenzy of fur and feathers in the darkness made the fur on Derpy’s nape rise.
She looked around the grove. There was a large shelter - no, more like a den - to one side, made from dried mud and branches. It was strewn with rotting vegetables, animal droppings and a sort of improvised bedding. Fluttershy lowered her head to it and rummaged around, coming up with a sort of root. She held it up to Derpy as though in offering.
“Uh, no thanks?” said Derpy. Without a word Fluttershy lay down amid the makeshift hovel and began to gnaw on the root. It all seemed perfectly normal to her. She looked back up at Derpy and swallowed.
“Home.”
Derpy glided down and landed nearby, taking a seat next to her. The animals stopped where they were and eyed her suspiciously.
“Fluttershy, I... I don’t know what’s going on, but... I’m going to find you help, okay? I’ll go tell Twilight and find some way to fix this. She’s a clever pony. She’ll know what to do. Just... hang in there, okay?”
Fluttershy looked up, chewing. Her eyes betrayed no comprehension. “Fluttershy’s home. Please go.” She held her gaze for a moment longer before returning to her meal. Derpy didn’t know why a shudder went through her, just then, but it certainly did. She rose to her feet.
“I’ll be back. I promise.”
Fluttershy didn’t answer. The bunny was beginning to regard Derpy with something resembling hostility now, so the mailmare took that as her cue to go. Whatever the solution was to this, she couldn’t find it here.
Looking around, she realized she wasn’t going to find her way out of here on foot. A beat of her wings lifted her from the ground and she began to ascend, limbs outstretched, up towards the treeline.
That’s starting look thicker than it did from the ground...
Really thick...
Really, really...
Uh oh.
She winced and pressed her eyes shut as her upwards momentum dragged her bodily through what must have been eight feet of dense canopy. Wet, cold leaves brushed past her flank as branches and twigs dragged and snatched at her mane. The best she could do was flail through it, punching a hole through the boughs the best she could. With a final burst of speed she broke through the scratchy brush and sailed freely up through the night sky.
She shivered a bit. It was chillier up here, and she was still damp from the rain. The forest was beautiful from above, silver light sprinkled over each tree-top like so many mint-chip muffins... except that... wait...
No...
No, that’s impossible...
High above the world where the moon should have been hung only a large circular void - impossibly black against the night sky - ringed with a corona of searing white light. The light arced outwards as though desperate to be free, but the black orb held it fast. As Derpy saw it something wrenched in her gut, the unmistakable recognition of the unnatural.
Tears welling in her eyes, she whirled desperately towards Ponyville, where there now sprawled an ocean of lights, all arranged into neat grids. They seemed to reflect the stars, only they never twinkled, but glowed as silently and eternally as ghosts.
Nopony below saw the tiny black silhouette of a gray pegasus suspended in the sky that night, nor could anypony hear her desperate, confused sobbing pierce the silence.