//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Between Chaos and Creation // by Donnys Boy //------------------------------// Chapter 5 “Do you remember what we said after all that? Do ya?” Yes. Yes, of course Fluttershy remembered. She remembered that first day in Ponyville as clearly as if it had happened just last week. She wasn’t the kind of pony to miss important things simply because she wasn’t paying attention, nor was she one to mistake what was worth remembering for what wasn’t. For something that was meaningless or frivolous. But Fluttershy would have been lying if she’d said that her heart didn’t skip a beat when she realized that Pinkie remembered--that Pinkie both remembered and wanted her to remember, too. Very quietly, the pegasus replied, “We both said that Ponyville felt like … like home.” Those blue eyes lit up in response. “It totally did--and it still does! I mean, the Cakes are super great, and there’s Pound and Pumpkin, and of course I have all of you girls and Spike too! You guys are my family, no ifs, ands, or buts, and Ponyville is where I belong. I know it is.” There was a “but” lurking somewhere, even though Pinkie didn’t actually say it, and Fluttershy nodded for her to continue. “But there’s something I maybe never told you, ‘Shy. About the day you moved to Ponyville.” Pinkie crept forward a little nearer, close enough that Fluttershy could now feel the soft, enticing warmth emanating from the other pony. “When I said Ponyville felt like home, it wasn’t ‘cause of Applejack or Rarity or Dashie, because I hadn’t even met any of them yet. When I said Ponyville felt like home, it was because … because ...” Fluttershy held her breath. She could feel a blush burning on her cheeks, but for once she didn’t care. For once, it didn’t matter. As Fluttershy sat and held her breath, the very air between she and Pinkie seemed to crackle and hum with an energy so tense that it almost hurt. “It was because of you, ‘Shy. You felt like home.” Pinkie smiled, then, a smile as fragile and as beautiful as a hummingbird’s wings. “And I know we were friends for a really long time before we ever started going out on dates, but I think I always kinda sorta wanted to kiss you? Especially that day. I think I wanted to kiss you a whole, whole bunch that day.” Fluttershy swallowed over the thick lump in her throat. Her heart beat so loud in her ears that she feared it might actually, finally explode. Glancing away, Pinkie began fiddling with her fore hooves, like a nervous foal. “Kinda like I really want to kiss you a super, duper lot right now. But I know you don’t wanna kiss me right now and--and even if you did, I know you don’t like it when I grab you and hug you without asking, so I’m not gonna--” And suddenly Fluttershy was kissing Pinkie Pie. Her forelegs were around Pinkie’s neck and clutching the earth pony tightly, so tightly that Fluttershy was almost afraid of hurting her, and it was warm and it was wonderful and it was perfect. Fluttershy held on for all that she was worth. She held on as though her life depended on it. In a way, she supposed it did. Because she was drowning, and drowning was a scary thing, scarier than any dragon--but she didn’t let go. She dared not let go, because she knew she wasn’t drowning alone. Only after long minutes did Fluttershy finally lean back and pull away from the kiss. Even as she did so, her forelegs still rested loosely around Pinkie Pie’s neck. “Oh, Pinkie,” she whispered, her eyes huge and wet with tears. “That’s why Ponyville felt like home to me, too. Because of you.” She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting of Ponyville, but it wasn’t this. It actually proved to be almost overwhelming, how very not overwhelming Ponyville was. Behind the train station’s ticket counter there sat a drowsy stallion, snoring softly, and nearby there was a young unicorn mare exchanging hugs with an earth pony who’d just stepped off the train. Beyond the tiny station stood rows of cozy cottages and quaint little shops, with a handful of ponies trotting to and fro along dirt-paved roads. This place could hardly be more different from Manehattan or from Fillydelphia. That much was certain. There were far too few ponies and far too much greenery. Almost despite herself, Fluttershy smiled. Meanwhile, the mare standing beside Fluttershy, who’d been shifting uneasily from hoof to hoof while Fluttershy took in the sights, suddenly took off. The other pony seemed aimed for the tallest building in town and was shooting through the air like an arrow from a bow. Startled and more than a little flustered, Fluttershy hustled to follow after. Nearly every pony along the way grinned and waved as the two pegasi sped by. While Fluttershy mumbled greetings in return, the mare ahead of her merely nodded as she tore through Ponyville’s streets. Finally, Fluttershy caught up enough to to call out, “Rainbow Dash! Where are we going?” “You see that big building up ahead?” The other pegasus briefly glanced over her shoulder, just long enough to point to their destination. “That’s gonna be the town hall, and that’s where we’re gonna find out about this place’s weather pony.” Fluttershy frowned. “It doesn’t really look like a weather control bureau office ...” “Yeah, that’s ‘cause it’s not!” Dash laughed and shook her head. “A town this size? They’re not gonna have their own entire bureau office, ‘Shy. Cloudsdale probably does oversight or something.” “Oh,” said Fluttershy, blushing. Rainbow Dash had always known so much more about Equestria’s Weather Control Bureau than she had. It was the one part of their schooling that Dash had consistently liked and been good at, to tell the truth, and it was the reason Fluttershy had always assumed Dash dropped out of school. To go be a weather mare. But it seemed as though Fluttershy had been wrong about that. About that and about a lot of other things, actually. Rainbow Dash slowed down as they approached the town hall, and Fluttershy reached out to her friend with a hesitant hoof. Dash’s shoulder tensed as soon as Fluttershy made contact. “Rainbow? I just wanted to say again how sorry I am that you and Gilda--” “Oh, hey, would ya look at that? We’re here!” Dash turned to face Fluttershy, a shaky grin on her lips and a hint of pain in her eyes. “C’mon, let’s go find out just who runs this two-bit town.” The answer to that question, as it turned out, was a very frazzled-looking earth pony sporting a brown coat and light gray mane. The two pegasi found her in a sparsely decorated room inside the building, pacing back and forth in front of a giant oak desk far too large for the tiny office that housed it. Fluttershy glanced over to Dash, biting her lip, but Dash simply shrugged in reply. “Um, excuse me?” Fluttershy offered, in a voice barely above a whisper.. Nothing. The earth pony mare seemed not to hear, as she continued pacing and muttering to herself. Reluctantly, Fluttershy cleared her throat and tried again. “Excuse me, ma’am? I’m very sorry to interrupt, but we--” At that, the older mare’s head whipped around. “A pegasus!” Then her eyes narrowed, in a way that reminded Fluttershy, rather uncomfortably, of the way a fox might look at a chicken. “Two pegasi, even!” Rainbow Dash snorted. “Uh, yeah. That’s us. Two pegasi. Anyway, we’re here because we were wondering if you have any info on a--” “You’re perfect! You’re perfect, and you’re hired!” The mare chortled a bit and reached out to grab one of Dash’s fore hooves. “Let me tell you, after our last weather pony, a pegasus is a real sight for sore eyes! Town nearly flooded completely. Utter disaster. Almost wiped out the entire orchard down at Sweet Apple Acres, and you know what that would mean for cider season.” “N-not really?” replied Fluttershy, who watched with increasing concern as Rainbow Dash got dragged away. The older mare chortled a bit. “Never again, I say! Never again will Ponyville hire an earth pony as weather mare, no matter how good her references are.” Suddenly she leaned in close to Dash, stage-whispering, “Though just between you and me, I think some of those references might have been faked.” Instantly, Fluttershy snapped to attention. An earth pony. An earth pony who’d been weather mare. “Where?” she blurted out. “Tell me!” Both Dash and the other mare whirled around to stare at her. The earth pony looked startled, while Dash’s expression teetered somewhere between surprise and admiration. “That is, if you don’t mind.” Almost involuntarily, Fluttershy began worrying her bottom lip. “I was just wondering where ... where that weather pony might have ... might have ...” Rainbow Dash grinned, a grin that Fluttershy had seen many a time before and had come to know almost as well as she knew her own name. With a gleam in her eyes, Dash turned to the earth pony. “Look, lady, here’s the deal. You want a pegasus for a weather pony? You got yourself a pegasus weather pony--if you tell us what happened to the earth pony who got fired.” “Oh, her?” The mare shrugged and took off her glasses, wiping them with the ascot that hung around her neck. “Well, there’s no need to feel guilty, if that’s what you mean. I hear she’s doing quite well as the Cakes’ new apprentice down at Sugarcube Corner.” Fluttershy sucked in her breath. Still grinning, Rainbow Dash draped a foreleg around the other mare. “You hear that, ‘Shy? She’s doing just fine. Down at Sugarcube Corner.” She glanced over and gave Fluttershy a wink. “Now, me and the lady here have to talk some business about my new job, so why don’t you go grab a cupcake or something from the bakery?” Fluttershy swallowed nervously. “Are you ... are you sure?” “Yeah. Everything’s cool. Get outta here.” Rainbow’s grin softened a bit. “And don’t worry too much, okay? After all, you’re pretty good at this whole ‘finding ponies who need finding’ deal.” With a grateful nod, Fluttershy spun on her heel and went charging out of the town hall and into the bright sunlight beyond. Once outside, she quickly glanced around in order to locate a pony who looked friendly enough to approach for directions. But instead, she spotted a huge, towering cupcake--or, at least, a building that had been built to look like a huge, towering cupcake. For a few moments, Fluttershy just stood and stared in awe at the ridiculously giant pastry. And as she stood there and stared at its terrible majesty, she knew. She knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if Pinkie Pie was to be found in Ponyville, she would be found in that absurd cupcake. She galloped through the streets of the town, doing her very best to ignore the curious stares from the myriad ponies she passed, as she kept her eyes locked on the gloriously pink spire of the cupcake building. When she reached the building at last, a sign above the door informed her in cheerful lettering that this was, indeed, Sugarcube Corner. Fluttershy skidded to a halt just outside the building, her heart hammering in her chest--whether from sheer nervousness or from the exertion of all that running, she couldn’t quite tell. She licked her lips and stared hard at the door. Maybe this wasn’t where Pinkie Pie worked. Maybe there was a second earth pony mare, somewhere in Equestria, who’d wanted to be a weather pony. Maybe ... Maybe she was stalling. But she couldn’t back down now. Not after making it this far. Besides, she owed it to Pinkie Pie to at least try, and she owed it to Rainbow Dash. And perhaps, whispered some quiet, hidden corner of her mind, she owed it to herself, too. Setting her jaw and straightening her shoulders, Fluttershy stepped up and pushed open the door to the bakery. Inside she found a riot of different colors and sounds and smells. The entire room, from floor to ceiling, had been decorated to look like pastries and candies, just as the outside of the building had been. Her gaze kept bouncing from one corner of the bakery to the next, as she struggled to take it all in. Eventually her eyes fell upon the bakery counter. Pinkie Pie was standing eerily still and looking straight at her, almost straight through her. Only now and here did it occur to Fluttershy that her sudden appearance in Ponyville might not be the welcome surprise that she’d hoped. It took nearly all of her willpower to not flinch away from Pinkie’s unforgiving and unblinking stare, to not turn tail and flee the bakery. “I-I’m sorry,” Fluttershy stammered, struggling to fight down the urge to vomit. “I should have written to you. Or, um. Something. I should have done something. And ... and this was a very silly idea, and I’m so sorry that I--” At that point, she was interrupted by a sudden blur of pink that knocked her right onto her back. The world turned soft and sugary and overwhelmingly pink, as Pinkie Pie crushed her in a hug as strong as a pegasus tornado. “Fluttershy! You … you came to Ponyville!” Pinkie’s voice cracked, just the tiniest bit, before she burst into booming laughter that felt as warm as sunshine. “You’re here! You’re really, really here!” Now that they were this close, Fluttershy noticed that there was a rainbow-colored whistle dangling from Pinkie’s neck. Fluttershy sucked in a breath. The whistle had been her payment for that train ticket out to Los Pegasus. It wasn’t worth the price of a ticket, of course, not in terms of pure money, but it had been all she’d had to give. The most valuable thing she’d had to give. Slowly Fluttershy smiled, a smile nearly as big and as warm as the laugh of the bubbly earth pony atop her. “Yes, Pinkie. I’m really, really here.” “So ... what now?” It wasn’t a question Fluttershy wanted to ask, but it was a question that had to be. “What do we do now?” Pinkie didn’t answer for a moment. “I dunno. But we’ll figure something out.” “You always say that,” Fluttershy murmured, but there was no real heat to the complaint, no edge. “That’s ‘cause we always do!” Pinkie laughed, loud and pure, and Fluttershy enjoyed the gentle rumbling she could feel through the earth pony’s entire chest. “Maybe we just gotta … gotta remember what it was like when we first moved here. Just gotta remember how Ponyville was big enough for me and small enough for you, y’know?” Fluttershy turned that over in her mind for a bit before replying, in a soft voice, “You mean we should remember what we have in common and why we fell in love with one another in the first place?” “Yeah! Something like that!” Another laugh followed, a patented Pinkie Pie laugh that seemed to fill up the entire room, to fill up the entire world, and Fluttershy couldn’t quite help but giggle right along. That was one of the best and the worst things about Pinkie’s laughs, how infectious they were. They always made you laugh, too, whether you wanted to or not. It felt good, though, to laugh after all that crying. There was no denying it. As Fluttershy’s giggles faded away, leaving behind a warm, bright glow in the center of her chest, the pegasus nuzzled her nose into the other mare’s mane. “It’s not that easy, you know. I still ... I still don’t like big parties, and I still don’t like scary surprises, and ... and ...” “I know, ‘Shy. I know.” Pinkie Pie nuzzled her back. “But it’s a start, right?” Fluttershy supposed it was. She supposed it wasn’t a bad start, either, at that. “Just trust your good old Auntie Pinkie Pie,” the earth pony continued, in a gently wheedling tone, as she pulled Fluttershy up against her chest. “Sometimes, you just gotta believe a little. You gotta take a leap of faith.” Fluttershy smiled into the softness of Pinkie’s mane. “Just a hop, skip, and a jump?” “Exactamundo!” It still wasn’t an answer. It still wasn’t a plan or a solution. But in that moment, as she breathed in the slightly sugary scent of Pinkie’s mane, as she felt herself relax against the warm chest of the pony she loved, Fluttershy found herself relenting. She found herself believing--perhaps not in all of the mysterious things that Pinkie believed in, perhaps not in the idea that love could conquer all, but she found herself believing in something even bigger and something even better. “I believe,” she whispered into Pinkie’s hair. “I believe in you.” THE END