Fluttershy's Friends II

by the dobermans

Chapter 2

Some time had passed since she had left the cottage, but she couldn’t remember how much. A beautiful landscape was fading into view under the brightening sky, a soothing display of smooth, purple, rounded edges and lumps such as she loved to watch from her couch by the window. Clean and empty, like the face of a painted china dish. There was only one flaw.

The snow muffled things so nicely. The branches breaking and popping were not as startling as they had been during the storm. They were just playing along now, not trying to steal the show. So nice and quiet, and the snow felt like a cool, thick blanket that made her fall asleep all over. The wind had calmed, and the snowfall was thinning out. Flat-bottomed clouds were speeding across the horizon above the forest.

Where was the cottage? Somewhere behind her, maybe. Images began to overlap her vision. Poor mice panicking, running into glass walls, losing recognition of their own family. Her friends sharing a joke she didn’t understand. The enormous red dragon cowering and whimpering under her gaze. Rainbow Dash’s confident smile, hidden behind a silver-white web of cracks in a broken picture frame.

She was sleeping, and her eyes weren’t even closed. It was OK. She could just, just let Angel find the extra carrots she kept in the pantry by himself. He was such a good …

The clouds broke. Her eyes opened wide despite the bite of the dry air, and the crust of ice that weighed down on her lashes. There it was, perfect between the drifting gray mists, like a crystal ball that for once, after years of watching and wasted effort, for once had come to life. The moon was so much gentler than the sun, she had always thought. And it was prettier too, now that it was free of the shadowy mark of Nightmare Moon.

It seemed that she was still asleep, because a black shape was swirling, blossoming at the center of the pale circle. And there was a voice, clear and echoing from the bare glens and cliffs deep in the forest. She sighed and rested her head back down on her snowy hooves.

“Dame Fluttershy! Dame Fluttershy!” the voice was calling as it drew closer.

Fluttershy heard a soft rustle, then the grinding and crunching of snow that signaled approaching hoofsteps.

“Child, wherefore hast thou come to this inhospitable place?”

Of all the voices Fluttershy would have wanted or expected to hear, this was the last. Her blotted vision recovered somewhat as her heart skipped. She dared a quick glance upward.

Princess Luna stood but a few feet away, her impassive face backlit by the full, blazing moon.

“Oh no. Oh no.” Now she was the sick calf separated from the herd, the half-witted kitten that had ignored her mommy and fallen all the way down the watery well. Young or old, ugly or beautiful, she knew well that there were no favorites. She was no different.

“P-p-p-pr … Princess? I-is th-this the end f-f-for me?” she asked through chattering teeth.

Luna studied her for a few moments. “Yes, we think that it is.” She stepped forward.

Fluttershy mewed softly and tried to burrow her face under her frozen wing. She couldn’t bear to see it happening, not to her own self.

“Oh, dear child, thou canst hardly speak for the cold. And thine eyes, thou hast been weeping.”

The Princess had bent close, so that Fluttershy could hear her breathing. Luna had been unable to hurt her on Nightmare Night with so many ponies watching nearby. Now there was nothing to save her.

Her thoughts turned in a final panic to all of the animals she had wounded or put to sleep, all of the creatures she fed to other creatures so that they could live on a few more years, content to carry on in their instincts, perhaps becoming loyal to her, often not. Now her time had come, and her lifelong mistake had been laid bare. “I’m sorry, I’m, I’m…”

“No pony in our charge is sorry, gentle Fluttershy.”

Something in the Princess’s voice made Fluttershy abandon her apologies. She chanced one more look, expecting a cruel trick.

Luna was kneeling a tail’s length away, her diaphanous, dark blue mane floating and rippling as if suspended in a slow breeze. Fluttershy noticed how perfectly it blended with the sparkling night sky, as if all the heavens were woven within it. She noticed too that Luna’s eyes were the same aqua green as her own. Yet something moved within them, something difficult to believe, like the perfection and soft light of the moon.

“Here child, let us aid thee,” said Luna. A lock of her mane curled forward like smoke and touched Fluttershy’s face. It was hot, or rather, heat sparked from the tiny lights moving through it. The frozen streams of tears melted and were wiped away as the magical tresses passed over them.

Then light gathered at the tip of Luna’s horn, surrounding them both in an aura of steady warmth. The ice and snow that had encased Fluttershy evaporated with a hiss, and feeling began to return to her legs and wings. She even caught the hint of vanilla still lingering in her pink mane, a reminder of the bath she had taken at some forgotten hour before. Rainbow Dash’s Gala dress had disappeared.

She looked down at her bright yellow coat in amazement, then back into Luna’s eyes. This time, she understood what she saw there.

“Please, please, I, I can’t. I’m …” she stuttered as she stood, backing away from the Princess.

“Dame Fluttershy, wait! Please do not be frightened!”

Fluttershy had already taken flight, fleeing the shelter of Luna’s magic into the dark limbs of the trees.

Although the Princess had melted the ice and snow away, the winter air had chilled Fluttershy to the bone again as she’d retreated through the burdened branches of the forest. She could think of only one place to hide. Her Infirmary was dark, the dirty wooden floor littered with blackened bits of food, bones and the shells of insects fallen from the spiders’ webs covering the rafters. She was curled underneath one of the tables, just another piece of furniture, of interest to nopony.

The door opened, and a moment later the shadows scattered and rearranged as one; the moon had re-emerged from behind the clouds, and its light broke into the room from every window like a ring of searchlights. Fluttershy went as still and as silent as a frightened cat.

Luna’s hushed voice seemed to flow through the cluttered space, a night’s breeze in an impossible summertime, “Suffer thy Princess to approach thee, child. Thou knowest now that we have not come to harm thee.”

Fluttershy fought to keep hold of the sorrow that had always been with her, both her fortress and her prison. Her life’s entire comfort.

“We were flying abroad above our domain, as is our wont when we have again lifted the great moon from the shadows. We were not high above the storm when we sensed a … soul that was troubled. With all haste we caused for the storm to disperse! O child, our dear night is not a time for despair, but for rest and peace. Canst thou not tell us whence thy grief arises?”

Fluttershy remained facing the wall, but her tired green eyes rolled slowly towards Luna. “Please, Your Majesty, please, I don’t want to,” she whispered.

“Then wouldst thou but look upon us? Thy fear doth hurt our feelings.”

Fluttershy turned her blurry gaze upward, taking in the black ornamented breastplate, the inclined neck a few inches above the floor, the thin cloud of the starry purple mane, the hopeful smile. The ancient green eyes. Full of compassion and gentleness. She began to cry again, unable now to look away, and unable to run.

“Thou art yet troubled, but not, we believe, as before,” said Luna. Fluttershy nodded eagerly in the midst of her tears.

“Thou art alone, it seems, as we are alone. ‘We’? ‘Alone’? Those two words make not much sense together.” Luna’s voice faltered. Now a sparkling teardrop rounded her own cheek, shimmering in a line past her smile.

Fluttershy giggled despite herself, sitting up and brushing back her pink mane with her hoof.

Luna laughed. “Dame Fluttershy, let us leave off our weeping! It is clear that to us both something hath been revealed.”

“It must have been so terrible for you, all by yourself on the moon for so long,” Fluttershy managed to say.

“Terrible in many ways. We were not on the moon, child, but within it. We had embraced it, and were infused in its cold, cheerless stone. Embraced it like our envy of our sister, and the scorn we felt towards all ponies, in our utmost error. A thousand years of nothing. Nothing but hatred. It is not pleasant to hate.” Luna spied the shell of a dead spider, surrounded by wings and legs of flies, all still cocooned in silk. She blew at them, then cleared away what remained with her silver shod hoof.

Fluttershy nodded slowly. “Some ponies are cruel, or kind, to make things work for them, or because other ponies have been mean or nice to them. There’s always a reason. It’s part of being a thinking creature. I was kind to animals because, well, because they’re the only ones who could … could …”

“Thou needest not say the word. Not much time hath passed since we felt the power of the spark.”

“Spark?” asked Fluttershy.

“That which giveth meaning to the Elements of Harmony. So thou knowest, gentle Fluttershy, that mere animals cannot give thee what thou seekest.”

“Yes, I know. I always knew. I just didn’t know what else to do.” Fluttershy had become calm, her eyes huge and sparkling in the moonlight.

“It is given to us to know that, er, thinking creatures are not at peace with thinking. The pony mind is like unto a scepter swung as a mallet, the words as unwieldy in their mouths. Too many of our subjects are doomed to be divided for all of their short lives. Some even against themselves.”

Fluttershy bowed her head. “I’m not sure I understand, Princess, but I do feel better. I know at least why I tried to be kind.”

“And kind you shall be?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. It seems, to me, to be more cruel than kind to care for them. I mean, it hurts to see them in pain, when they’re so helpless. But, they never live for very long anyway, so …”

Luna smiled. “No, no they do not. Thou canst show them kindness as a trade no longer?”

“I, I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I still would like to ease their suffering,” said Fluttershy.

“Then be kind because it pleaseth thee to comfort them in their helplessness. Thou, the spark, needest no other reason.”

“Me? The spark?”

“Indeed. And thy friends in thy unity,” said Luna as she stood. Fluttershy crawled from under the table and rose with her.

Luna waited until Fluttershy was ready, watching the smaller pegasus take care to avoid bumping her head as she lifted it into the moonlight. “We wish to thank thee, gentle Fluttershy. Celestia saith that a Princess should be like unto a mother in dealings with her subjects. Only then shall their love be rightly given. To you, we shall be a sister. And already, we think, we are friends.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

They both moved, and embraced. Luna spoke downward, “O child, thou hast found peace.”

“It’s true, Princess. Thank you so much. It’s really true,” Fluttershy whispered into her companion’s dark grey shoulder.

“Please, we would have thee, of all ponies now, refer to us as Luna.”

Fluttershy smiled. “Of course, yes.”

They parted, and walked side by side to the door. Outside, Fluttershy stopped and turned to the Princess. “Luna, would it be OK if I took some time to think about everything we talked about? I don’t want to scare my friends by acting differently too quickly. I’d like to be able to explain it to them first, individually.”

“Thy compassion hath truly survived the night, sister Fluttershy. Let it so be done. Please, remember us at times, and visit us in Canterlot. Thou art always welcome.”

Luna unfurled her dusky wings with a broad smile, and leapt into the air. Her heart was full. Never before had she connected with one her subjects, her children, with such success. Upward she rose into the clear early morning sky, her joy bearing her towards the soaring white towers of her castle home and the breaking dawn. She looked up at the moon as she sped over the glistening fields and meadows, feeling as if only now had she been freed.

That’s when she heard hundreds of shrieking growls erupt from the direction of the Infirmary.