Shy
Lyra let out a wail of agony as Tanzick pressed a hoof hard into her stomach, stopping Rover from approaching any closer. “Amazing how quickly you all lose confidence when your ringleader is down.” He grinned with malice. “What’ll you do without her I wonder?”
Lyra grunted from under the peryton’s step. “In all honesty? They’ll probably still win. Rover has proven to be a competent leader in th—” she had to stop as her speech was interrupted by more, painful screaming.
“You won’t talk much longer if you don’t shut up!” Tanzick snarled.
“Missus Lyra, please don’t antagonize him!” Rover said slowly and seriously. His eyes were narrowed on the monster. “I can’t help you if he’s already killed you.”
“We can’t help her,” Spot corrected, gripping tightly to his daggers. “Truly though, what are our chances?”
“Slim, most likely,” Lyra choked out, still unfazed by her assailant. “It always is in these situations, or at least mostly.”
Again Tanzick snarled, forcing his forelimb deeper into her stomach and bringing her to scream again.
Rover saw a small chance as the monster had taken his attention off of them, leaping to try and help his friend. He swung his flaming blade, trying to sever the creature’s antlers. He knocked Tanzick back, forcing him off Lyra as he had intended, but the antlers didn’t give way so easily and caught the weapon as Tanzick regained his balance. As Lyra rolled over to get herself back up, Rover tested his strength against the peryton as the two of them pushed back against one another.
Tanzick grinned venomously as he easily started to overpower the dog with his mighty antlers, snapping his jaws to try and tear away a chunk from him. Rover had to keep hopping back and away to avoid the crunching fangs, until he tripped and fell backward. Tanzick gained a wicked flash in his eyes as he aimed his teeth for Rover’s throat, diving in for his kill.
He wasn’t expecting, however, to feel something pierce the knee on his right hoof. He screeched in agony, forced backwards before he was met with a powerful slice that chopped off his ear. After collecting himself he saw the other two dogs standing by their leader, Spot with an outstretched hand without a dagger, and Fido bringing his axe down from a swing. Tanzick suddenly felt very lucky to have only lost an ear. Looking down he saw that in his knee was the absent dagger.
“Dogs will not tolerate this,” Spot spoke through a curled lip. “We fight as a pack!”
“Then you’ll die as one too!” Tanzick gripped the dagger with one of his talons, ripping it out of his knee and tossing it aside. He let out a howl before charging the three, flaring his wings with his left struggling to stay up from his earlier wound.
Fido charged back as Spot brought his remaining dagger behind his head. They made their move to strike, but as Spot flung his blade and Fido whipped his around, Tanzick forced his wings down and himself up.
“He flees!” Fido cried, attempting the follow the creature with his gaze.
“I doubt it,” Lyra returned. She coughed as she tried to get over the pain from being forced underhoof. She flipped through her encyclopedia again, trying to relocate the entry on perytons.
Spot ran over and retrieved both his daggers, holding them tight and looking up to the skies in anticipation of their enemy’s return. “Does his kind have any weakness?”
“Not really,” Lyra answered. “Then again this guy isn’t just an average peryton. He could have taken us by surprise but he didn’t. That isn’t normal for them.” She ran her eyes quickly through the text for anything that she could use.
Rover brought himself back up to his legs before he saw a large shadow swooping down over them. He readied his blade before noticing the shadow shrink away and mimic his own and retreat into the trees. He looked in its direction in confusion.
“Uh… Missus Lyra?” Rover asked. “Is there anything about shadows in there?”
Lyra looked up from her book with a grim expression. With a nod she seemed to express that she knew exactly what Rover meant. “You’ve been marked…”
“Fluttershy? Is that seriously you?” Rainbow asked, smiling. “You just saved our plots!”
The unkempt pegasus didn’t answer, merely knocking her hoof on the head of the living tree she stood from. He answered in kind by raising his spread palm like a platform. She stepped onto it and was lowered before the two of them, keeping a stern glare as she approached. The other trees began to decorate her as she marched closer, with a crown of antlers and a cape formed from various pelts with fangs hooking it together.
“Fluttershy, why don’t ya talk ta us?” Applejack asked with concern.
Still she said nothing. She stood mere inches from the two of them before she began sniffing at the air, drawing closer to pull a scent from other parts of their bodies. Dash and AJ looked horribly confused, but didn’t dare object with the wooden giants surrounding them.
Eventually the pegasus stopped her dog-like sniffing and blinked rapidly. When she stopped, an animalistic quality left her eyes and she held a look of intelligence. “Rainbow Dash… Applejack… Why are you here burning my forest?” Her voice wasn’t as soft as they remembered, holding an undertone of anger.
“Your forest?” Dash asked, confused. Fluttershy’s gaze fell onto her, eyes narrowing and piercing Dash’s nerve, forcing the normally loud pony to withdraw.
“We were runnin’ from trolls, Sugarcube. You saw ‘em. We had ta do somethin’ or they’da slaughtered us!” Applejack answered in a more collected manner.
Fluttershy nodded but frowned. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“We were sent to look for you,” Dash retorted, her voice more controlled and calm. Fluttershy’s interest was recollected. “Twilight told me to find y—AUGH!” She stopped and winced as she felt pain in her wing once again. Fluttershy was quick to identify Rainbow’s pain and went to her wing, lifting it and finding the source of the injury. A troll’s severed hand had been sinking its nails into the pegasus’ limb. Fluttershy was quick to pull it off and stab it with one of the thorns that lined her hoof. Slowly the hand shriveled and died.
“How’d you do that?” Applejack asked.
“Toxin to destroy regenerative capabilities,” was all Fluttershy said in response, turning to look in their immediate area. She grabbed some herbs from underneath her cloak and turned to Rainbow Dash, placing the herbs around her wing like a bandage. She motioned a hoof to the tree she had used as transportation and he brought a finger to the wing, sap spilling from the tip and sticking the leaves to the wing.
“Thanks,” Dash said. Fluttershy’s only response was a simple nod. “Twilight sent me,” Rainbow continued. “Equestria could be in trouble, so I need to collect the other elements and bring them home.”
Fluttershy seemed to pause then shake her head, the crown of antlers giving the appearance that they were her own.
“What do you mean no?” Dash asked, returning to her usual loud self. “We didn’t come all the way out here just for you to shake your head and walk away!”
“And as the last of The Wilds I cannot simply leave,” Fluttershy responded without raising her own voice.
“Last of the what now?” Applejack asked.
Fluttershy sighed. “We have a need to catch up.”
“I’ll say,” Rainbow added. “I’m not even sure I’m talking to the same Fluttershy I once knew.”
“You’re not,” Fluttershy responded. “I’ve changed… grown. It’s hard to communicate through words anymore, but I’ll try. Come.” She stepped back onto the tree’s hand as two others offered their own to Rainbow and Applejack. “The treants will take us to the glade. We will talk there.”
Dash and AJ obeyed and were hoisted up by the treants, following the larger one that carried Fluttershy. The thudding sounds of the roots taking step kept a rhythm going as they walked in unison. It was a much safer feeling to be atop these tree-like titans than to run along the ground of the forest.
They were taken deeper into the forest through the bog as the mud squished beneath each oaken footstep. Dash and AJ could see small movements in the waters, staying close to the trees’ roots as if they were waiting for the ponies to fall in.
“More trolls, and their pets,” Fluttershy answered their unspoken question. “You don’t want to fall in. The water holds worse than the mud.”
Dash swallowed hard at a lump in her throat, glad to be high above the lurking shadows.
It seemed an hour before the treants slowed their march, all the while Applejack and Dash wondering about the horrors beneath, catching the occasional glimpse of an eyestalk popping out or a claw or fin breaching the surface. None of the beasts seemed interested in tangling with the wooden guardians however, only looking up hungrily and hiding when they noticed they had been spotted.
A glance to Fluttershy told the two of them that she held no fear in her heart, something they both found very odd and were eager to inquire about.
Finally they felt their ride stopping as they approached a thick copse of trees. It was impossible to see what was on the other side as life seemed to return to the wood, leaves and branches obscuring their view. The treants pushed through the foliage, guarding their passengers from thorns and branches that swung back out.
As they breached the thicket, AJ and Dash took in a gasp of amazement. They had come into a clearing, adorned with glistening grass, gorgeous flowers, and a glittering pool of fresh water in the very center, with a large stone sticking out of the middle, set up as a natural pedestal, with what looked to be an elegantly carved bed on top. The glade was occupied by beautiful and graceful creatures that seemed much more like the company they had normally associated with the timid pegasus.
Fluttershy spread her wings and drifted towards the stone platform, bringing herself gently down as a tornado of butterflies erupted around her, giving a rather dramatic flair to the simple action.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash were brought back to the ground, mouths agape and minds stirring.
Fluttershy looked back down to her old friends. “Welcome to my new home…” she paused. “Your first question?”
Her directness threw the two of them aback, but Dash was quick to shake it off and ask the question scratching at the back of her mind.
“What are you doing here?”
“Doing my duty as a Wild and protecting my forest.” Fluttershy’s return came without hesitation or pause.
“Yeah, about that, what in tarnation do ya mean by that, Sugarcube? Ya sure have changed, but ya don’t seem very ‘wild’ ta me,” Applejack picked up, Rainbow nodding her head in silent agreement.
Fluttershy shook her head. “The Wilds were a group of individuals deeply in tune with nature,” she began to explain, “druids who were able to communicate with the flora and fauna as easily as speaking with their own kind. In time, a skilled Wild could learn to adopt the features, senses, and even forms of different animals. I am the last of the Wilds.”
At the mention of adopting animalistic features, Rainbow remembered the primal look in Fluttershy’s eyes when they had first encountered her and the way she had sniffed at them. “So, how did you become a Wild?” Dash continued.
Fluttershy let out a sigh as she rested on her haunches. A familiar looking rabbit hopped out from under the bed and came over to the pegasus, leaping onto her back before lying down as well. Dash and AJ smiled at the image of Angel, okay and well.
“When Twilight left Ponyville, I turned to my animal friends more and more,” Fluttershy started. “There were times when Angel would run off into the Everfree Forest and I would have to go looking for him, and it began happening more often, but as it continued, he would go deeper every time, as if he were being called. When I caught onto this, I let him go on, following behind, and we found Lord, Bleat, and Shank, a chimera and former Wild.”
“Wait, which one was the Wild?” Rainbow inquired.
“All of ‘em,” Applejack returned. “She said he was a chimera, three heads but one being. Pain in the plot ta deal with.”
“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed. “Though chimera heads have their own senses and thoughts, they are of one mind.” Her words fell heavily on the two ponies as the chirps and chitters of the creatures seemed to go silent. “He guarded over this forest many long years, before his age finally caught up with him.
“He said that he had heard of me from the birds, and that he needed to pass on the legacy of the Wilds. I was afraid, but I couldn’t say no if it meant helping even more animals in ways beyond what I was capable of back then; to communicate with them on a deeper level.” Fluttershy seemed to lose herself in her story, falling silent as she stared dreamily into space. “He taught me, strengthened me, and brought me here. I learned the language of the forest, what creatures were my allies… and those that weren’t…” She looked grimly to the cloak of pelts on her back.
“As I overcame fears, I became more comfortable in these woods than I ever was in Cloudsdale... and sometimes even Ponyville…” She paused again. “So I’m sorry, but I can’t go back with you Rainbow Dash. This is my home now, and it needs me.”
Applejack let out a disappointed sigh and turned to look at a quivering Rainbow Dash. “You serious right now, Fluttershy? You have to be kidding, right?” Dash’s voice trembled with each syllable. “You’re gonna leave us when we need you most? What kind of friends are we to you? You know that Twilight wouldn’t send me unless it was serious.”
“Rainbow, sugar, ah think maybe ya might be a bit overstressed from the swamp an’—”
“AJ! NOT NOW!” Rainbow flashed a vicious glare back at her friend. “I have no doubt you’re right, stack that with the crap you dumped on me earlier and the damned ARMY of trolls, I’m not in a lecturing mood! You noticed too though, didn’t you? She didn’t even THINK about it, no hesitation, no pause. She didn’t even consider coming with us, or even ask what was wrong!” Rainbow’s rage drew uneasiness from the creatures surrounding them all, bringing snarls and growls in her direction.
Fluttershy looked to Rainbow Dash with eyes unblinking and without any change in her expression. Her stone-faced indifference only fueled Dash’s fury, however.
“You’re not Fluttershy, you’re no friend of mine!”
“STOP!” Fluttershy shouted.
Dash was taken aback when she looked up and watched her old friend’s mask begin to crack as a frown struggled to form on her face and tears welled up in her eyes. She began to sob, shaking her head.
“You’re right, I should have at least heard you out,” she started. “I… I guess I’m not as unafraid as I make myself out to be nowadays.” She shook her head and wiped at her eyes, careful not to slice her face with a thorn. Angel Bunny patted her head comfortingly. “I’m not suited for life in Equestria anymore; I belong to the wilderness… I don’t think I’ll do very well back in Ponyville.”
“You only need to come and hold your position as an Element,” Rainbow returned, calmed at the familiar sight of a crying Fluttershy. “King Gallows is threatening Equestria. Twilight sent Lyra and I to go and gather all the other Elements, because she believes that with all of us in one place, the griffons won’t invade.”
Fluttershy sniffed. “That’s terrible! I…I don’t know what to do.”
“Fer starters, ya could come an’ help us like we had planned,” Applejack chuckled.
Fluttershy shook her head again. “I can’t… not now at least.”
Dash’s brow began to furrow. “Why not?”
“For the past month or so the forest has been threatened by someone other than just the trolls, something smarter.” It was as if a switch had flicked inside Fluttershy that brought her back to a serious tone. “The treants can deal with the trolls and beasts, but this monster is smart and knows his way around the traps and guards in my command.”
“Right, so let’s go pummel this guy and get looking for Pinkie and Rarity. Who we looking for?” Rainbow Dash.
Fluttershy tapped a thorn against her antlers. “A peryton.”