//------------------------------// // 12 – Vermin // Story: Applied Starlight // by Unknownlight //------------------------------// 2. Deal with the animals and this “Fluttershy” girl. Her encounter with Rainbow Dash may have encouraged her, but she still felt slightly hesitant about creating yet another pony who could very well go ahead and send her on another fetch quest. But, again, it wasn’t as if she had any better ideas. She focused. The stars swirled. The bright white light did its thing. A butter-yellow pegasus appeared before her. Screw “undramatic”! The creation of life is starting to get downright boring! Then again, there were two new interesting things about this particular creation of life that would hopefully make this not-quite-boring. The first thing she noticed was that the pegasus—Fluttershy, hopefully—had a camera on a strap hanging around her neck. This was the first time an inanimate object had accompanied her life-creating. Wait, no, that’s not right at all. Applejack had a cowboy hat; doesn’t that count? …Okay, never mind. There was one new interesting thing about this particular creation of life. And that was that the mare in front of her was looking around in confusion, surprise and fear in her eyes. She was acting as if she was aware of her sudden appearance in the world, unlike the all other ponies she’d made who had all acted as if they’d been there all along. Wait, that’s not right either! Pinkie looked disoriented when I first created her as well! …Okay, screw it. There wasn’t anything new or interesting about Fluttershy’s birth. It was exactly the same as all the others so far. Then again, Pinkie was the only pony she’d met so far that seemed to be aware of reality—Applejack and Rainbow Dash seemed to be living in their own little dreamworlds (sure, she hadn’t really tested it with Rainbow, but the way she said the prank wouldn’t be until “tonight”—implying that it was still daytime—suggested she was living the same illusion as Applejack). Therefore, the reason Pinkie looked disoriented when she was first created was probably because she was aware of her own creation, and so had to take a moment to get her bearings. If Fluttershy was looking disoriented, then that probably meant she was aware of true reality like Pinkie was. In fact, if she’d only— Her inner monologue was interrupted by the quiet yellow pegasus finally speaking up. “Um… hi, Twilight,” she said meekly. “I was, um, just a moment ago I thought I was… somewhere else. Um, did you teleport me back to Ponyville? There’s nothing wrong, is there? I hope there’s nothing wrong…” Well, there goes the idea of her being like Pinkie Pie. She’s no more aware of reality than the others were. Darn. “Hello, Fluttershy.” (On reflection, she realized she didn’t know that the pony in front of her was Fluttershy, but at this point she was basically just assuming.) “You say you were ‘somewhere else’? Where were you?” Fluttershy blinked. “Um, you… you know, the Amarezon. Um, where I’ve been for the past few weeks. I… I got to study some of the rainforest animals. D-did everyone forget I left? Oh no, no one forgot me, did they…?” The pegasus sounded so pathetic that she felt like she should be pulling her into a hug and reassuring her or something. She waved a hoof as if she was trying to brush Fluttershy’s problems away. “No, no, you know me! Forgetful as always! Ha. Ha ha ha!” Wow, that sounded awkward. Let’s try that again: “So, the Amarezon, huh? How was it? Did you take a lot of pictures?” That was a bit better, good. Fluttershy’s face brightened. “Oh, yes! It was very fun! I met a lot of animals I’d never even heard of before! I took so many pictures. I can’t wait to show all you girls!” “Heh, quite the shutterfly, aren’t you?” The pegasus blushed. “So… I guess you’re wondering why I tore you away from your vacation?” On cue, Fluttershy turned serious. “Something bad happened, didn’t it?” she said weakly. “Oh, I hope it’s not too bad, that would be awful… it’s not too bad, right?” Yikes, even if something really bad did happen she wasn’t sure she’d be able to break it to the girl. “It’s kinda bad. While you were gone there was a drought here, which meant your animals had nothing to eat.” The pegasus gasped, already looking like she was fearing the worst. “They’re okay though, but only because they’ve been eating all of Applejack’s remaining crops. Sorry for pulling you out of your vacation, but Applejack needs you to take care of your animals so that she can try to start growing her apples again.” From what she’d seen of Fluttershy thus far, she expected her to look pained, or gasp, or… something. She didn’t expect the look of hard determination and responsibility that instead graced the pegasus’s eyes. “No, you don’t need to be sorry, Twilight. You did the right thing. I’ll get on it right away.” And, with that, she suddenly flew off toward the farm. She watched the pegasus retreat into the distance. “Um… goodbye?” she said aloud. The sudden farewell took her by surprise. Granted, she didn’t know Fluttershy very well, but it still seemed unlike her. When she thought about it, her entire conversation with Fluttershy was actually fairly similar to her conversation with Rainbow Dash. They were both shallow and short, to the point, and with a sudden goodbye. Odd. Maybe it was just a pegasus thing.