The jungle was hot and humid as three brave daring adventurers cut apart the bushy undergrowth; trying to carve a way through the desolate place. Hoping to establish some form of base camp and hopefully a strategy to find whatever treasure awaits them. The leader of the trio, a creme-filly with a red bow in her hair turned to her comrades and said:
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER JUNGLE EXPLORERS! YAY!”
...Or screamed... whichever.
“I don’t think Fluttershy’s garden counts as a jungle Apple Bloom.” Scootaloo replied with a raised eyebrow.
“Well O’ course it does, look at the size of this place! There’s bound to be somethin’ in here that’ll lead to our cutie marks, just wait and we’ll find it for sure!”
Apple Bloom seemed incredibly confident, as if she’d finally cracked the cutie marks code, then again the last time that happened they ended up cleaning for weeks and still hadn’t got the barn to smell normal again.
Scootaloo however seemed unconvinced, it was a hot enough day as it was and the... jungle of Fluttershy’s garden wasn’t making it any easier for the orange pegasus filly. It was only the second week of the school holidays and Ponyville was already looking more like Snoresville.
Sweetie Belle seemed totally relaxed in the warmth of Fluttershy’s gardens, while Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were getting into their usual arguments, this time over discovery and jungle related cutie-marks, she decided to wander off to find some shade.
“For the last time Scootaloo Super Extreme Penguin Roller Blading isn’t a sure fire way to get a cutie mark!” Apple Bloom argued.
“Look all I’m saying is, if we tried Blindfolded Bull-Riding on Ice then this is at least worth a shot.” Scootaloo argued back.
“Do you think we should give the Super Deluxe Paint Cann-”
“GIRLS! COME LOOK WHAT I FOUND!”
Sweetie Belle cut the argument short. Her voice cracking as she screeched toward her friends. When Sweetie screeches; something really, really exciting is always sure to follow. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo hurried over to their friend’s side.
* * *
The cutie mark crusaders stood outside an immense building, dusty signs reading ‘KEEP OUT!’ dotted all around the perimeter, across the door were two very familiar and ungodly staring eyes. Only one kind of pony had a stare like that.
This was Fluttershy’s shed.
Fluttershy’s shed was practically a legend on the school playground. Local colts and fillies tell stories of how they see Fluttershy stumbling out of her gardens trailing a cloud of smoke, her eyes as red as the apples from...well the apple farm, as she adopts a macabre grin on her face, before laughing and slamming the door to her cottage.
Fillies shudder to imagine what inequine horrors lie beyond that door.
Sweetie Belle took one very tentative step forward before being dragged back by Scootaloo;
“What are you doing Sweetie Belle!? This is Fluttershy’s Shed! The rumours were true! We gotta get out of here!”
“Or...” Apple Bloom said in a tempting manner. “We could go IN, and bring something back to school to prove it exists.”
“...Cutie Mark Crusader Conspiracy Breakers?” Sweetie Belle chimed in.
“Hey this might actually work!” Scootaloo agreed while a wide smile grew on her face.
Walking as one, they opened the door to the unknowns of Fluttershy’s shed, took a deep breath each and stepped inside.
* * *
The door to Fluttershy’s shed slowly creaked as the three fillies stepped inside, the first thing that hit them was a dank overpowering smell. Damn it smelled bad in here.
“Sweet Celestia, what does Fluttershy do in here?” Scootaloo asked, covering her nose with a hoof.
“Well ah don’t quite know. But ah reckon it has something to do with those!” Apple Bloom shouted.
Her hoof pointed towards a vast array of strange looking plants, hundreds; perhaps even thousands of plants lay out in organised trays, stretching far back to the other end of the shed. Each tray being coated in the harsh glare of a powerful lamp adding to the horrible smell that seemed to be assaulting their noses with no remorse.
The three fillies looked on and walked on slowly in a mixture of wonderment and disgust. Sweet Celestia, what was that smell?!
“Girls look!” Apple Bloom shouted again. This time she pointed to a set of stairs, hidden by a poster that seemed to have slipped from the wall it was hanging on. Slowly descending, the cutie mark crusaders found thousands of trays containing that strange plant and the scorching lamps to go with them.
Sweetie Belle trotted up to one of them and sniffed before reeling back and gagging,
“It’s the plants!” Barely audible with the hoof over her nuzzle.
“What DOES Fluttershy do with all these?” Scootaloo asked hesitantly approaching one of the plants.
Before they could speculate further they heard a familiar mare’s sweet voice, singing happily to herself as she approached the entrance.
“Oh horseapples,” Apple Bloom cursed aloud. “Hide!”
* * *
Fluttershy eagerly walked to the location of her well hidden shed. On her back sat Angel carrying some kind of paper and a small metal box. Her walk sped up to a trot as Fluttershy sung. Today was Friday after all, after feeding the chickens and massaging the bears she had the whole day off to do whatever she liked.
And whatever she liked was right in this shed.
‘That’s strange, did I leave the door open last week?’ Fluttershy thought to herself as she noticed the ajar door. She would never leave the door open, she’d let all the funk out. Then people would ask about it, and asking leads to telling and telling eventually leads to dealing.
Stupid Fillydelphia and their nosy ponies, she was NOT jumping ship to another town again.
Fluttershy carefully walked in; making sure to shut the door behind her and began inspecting her plants, nothing seemed to be out of place. She found everything just as she had left it. Still to be sure, she better check the harvest downstairs as well.
Darn, the stupid poster fell off again. Fluttershy frowned as she picked up the useless tack she put in to hold it in place. Clearly failing at it’s one job. ‘You had one job tack,’ Fluttershy thought to herself, her frown turning into a scowl ‘One job!’
Pushing the tack into the wall, Fluttershy proceeded downstairs to inspect her OTHER shed.
* * *
The three fillies left cowering under a desk were shaking with fear as they heard the pony’s gentle footsteps descend the stone staircase. Fluttershy entered the basement and looked over a few trays of her strange plants. Shortly after, Angel Bunny arrived flicking the top off his metal box and playing with the button inside.
A small bright flame burst out the top of the box, before dying when Angel took pressure off the button. He flicked the flame off and on again looking bored as Fluttershy continued her investigation.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders watched in fearful awe as Fluttershy continued checking her plants, while Angel performed some bunny metallic wizardry. Fire magic, in a box. That’s awesome.
Seeming satisfied, Fluttershy made her way towards one of the back walls where a dusty looking couch, a music box and a lava lamp sat waiting for her. She took a seat and beckoned Angel Bunny over to her. Meanwhile, the Cutie Mark Crusaders crept further along the floor for a closer look.
“Was that couch there before?” Scootaloo whispered with confusion in her voice.
“Angel just made fire in a box, so I’m pretty sure he can summon couches.” Apple Bloom whispered back.
“I wonder if I’ll be able to summon couches one day.” Sweetie Belle whispered excitedly.
“What in the hay would a couch summoning cutie mark look like?” Apple Bloom countered with a frown.
Their attention was drawn back to Fluttershy as she took some stems from a plant and placed them into a different metal box, she twisted the top for a few seconds as a rough grinding noise came from the box. She took one of Angel’s paper thingies and took the top off the grinder. The canary mare placed the crushed green plant into the paper, carefully rolled it up tightly and placed it in her mouth before taking Angel’s fire box and igniting the end.
“That’s it?” Sweetie Belle whispered disappointingly, “Plants and fire boxes?”
“Well it doesn’t seem all that scary, do you think we should go ask her?” Scootaloo replied.
“Well I dunno, somethin’ round here might be real sinister.” Apple Bloom argued. Pointing a hoof towards the looming lava lamp and music box.
Fluttershy lounged back on her sofa, damn this thing was soft. She took a drag, flicked on her lava lamp and pressed the ‘Play’ button on her music box. Mellow music flowed out of it and filled the basement with surreal, mournful tones and lyrics.
“Oh Sapphire Shores, you so crazy.” Fluttershy said aloud, smoke billowing from her mouth as she spoke. Angel nodded in agreement. She scratched his ears and took another drag, letting out a cloud of smoke after a short while.
By. Luna’s. Mane. That stank. The three Crusaders curled up into balls holding their muzzles as they desperately tried to block out the horrid smell of the burning bush.
Sweetie’s Belle began to find it difficult to keep her eyes open with her eyes watering like Roseluck’s water can.
“Is that it!?” Scootaloo whispered loudly, “smelly plants, fire and music?”
“I dunno,” Apple Bloom suppressed a gag. “We need to take something back to school to confirm the rumours,” she spluttered as Sweetie Belle was damned near choking.
“Well I say we get the hay out of here. Forget it, it stinks here AB.” Scootaloo argued back.
‘Ohboyherewego.’ Sweetie Belle thought, her lungs burning she finally took a breath.
“OH COME ON!” She screamed from under the table.
Fluttershy flipped out as she heard the filly’s squeal.
“GAH! Girls, what are you doing down here! No one is supposed to be down here! This is my shed! I-” Fluttershy stopped herself before she swore. Like actually swore. None of that ‘horseapples’ shit, she thought. First there’s weed then there’s swearing. One disaster to explain to kids at a time Fluttershy.
“WHY ARE YOU DOWN HERE?!” The pegasus suddenly screamed, giving them a full blast of The Stare.
There are no words in the Equestrian dictionary to describe the fear that passed through those fillies at that moment. It was like having a soul-sucking wrench work its way into your heart as it prised answers from your innermost secrets. Fluttershy was a god, and this wasn’t even her final form.
And Scootaloo would know, she had homework to read an entire dictionary for sleeping in class. Which she totally wasn’t gonna do.
“Well we-”
“Yeah we were, uh-”
“Yeah! Uh-”
The three fillies stammered one after another. The Stare, not asking, but commanding answers from them. Finally almost trance-like, Scootaloo said frantically at speeds Rainbow Dash would have been jealous of;
“Well we were in your garden being Cutie Mark Crusader jungle explorers when we found your shed which is a rumour at school so we went inside hoping to take something back to confirm the rumours but all we found was plants and then we heard you come in so we hid then you made fire and it stank and then Sweetie Belle screamed and now you're screaming and for the love of Celestia PLEASE STOP STARING.”
‘They knew, holy shit they knew, all of them.’ Was all Fluttershy could think as she processed the word ‘rumour’. She was NOT jumping ship again, she grew a mighty fine stash here over the years and Celestia-damn it she was not going to lose it because of three overly adventurous little pains!
She groaned loudly, “Fine! But you better promise not to tell anyone what you found here, this is private. VERY PRIVATE!” Fluttershy began getting more flustered as she realised more and more how bad the situation she was now in. Please say yes, please say yes.
“YES!” Scootaloo shouted and bolted for the door, Sweetie Belle squealed some ineligible noise and took off after her.
“...No” Apple Bloom said defiantly, and parked her flank on the ground. She reached back and yanked her friend’s tails, sitting them down next to her. “Not ‘til you tell us what all this is for.”
The three adopted malicious grins that would make troublesome characters out of a foals fantasy movie look like perfect little angels in comparison and gave Fluttershy their own version of The Stare.
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at the attempt. Silly fillies, they had a lot to learn before they could even begin to have that kind of power.
Still, asking eventually led to dealing...
Fluttershy groaned aloud again; “Fine! It’s weed! Marijuana or whatever you wanna call it. It’s a drug you light on fire and smoke to chill and mellow out, I grow my own and smoke it on weekends.” She huffed, and retrieved her blunt from the floor.
“Look girls, it’s a bad thing for little fillies your age, I just do it because I can. No one bothers me near the cottage, and everyone stays out of my gardens seeing as it’s so close to the Everfree Forest, and that includes staying outta my shed. So no, you can’t have any, not until you’re of age. Now go, and not a word to anyone, no one at school, your sisters or anyone.” Fluttershy stood and pointed a wing towards the stairs.
“Out. Please.” she said, her eyes getting more and more Stare-y.
Has a pony ever lived through getting the Stare twice? Welp, buck that.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders did as they were told. For once.