//------------------------------// // chapter 62. Savior. // Story: Becoming Fluttershy // by Hope //------------------------------// This time, the sphere is frozen. Franklin appears in the same garden he had been standing in when he put me to sleep, with its fluttershy shaped yellowed mark, and the grey pony frozen in a block of ice. The grey pony looks like she is at peace, her eyes closed, and wings spread slightly through the clear suspension. A trickle of snowflakes drift down through the air, beginning to coat the garden in white fluff. Nearby, he can see a ladder that descends to a lower level. Passively I observe him as he walks leisurely up to the block, and rests his hand on it a moment. “Spring has come,” he says. He picks up a watering can and irrigates the soil. “The sun arises, life has quickened, and Spring has come.” I can feel a bit of life stir in me, a bit of energy, though I still cannot do anything more than watch him, as he moves on to the ladder, and begins his descent. He whistles a happy tone, as he enters a room which holds a shadowy crowd of statues, figures, and displays. A plaque next to the door titles it, but a voice reads it for him. “The room of fears. My name is Hope, I’ll be your guide for this room, but not beyond.” The mare is tan with a purple streak in her mane, and she smiles cautiously. “Lead on,” Franklin says, but Hope shakes her head, remaining in place. “A guide doesn’t always lead. Why are you here, surgeon?” “Because the terms of the self-imprisonment have ended. Because the danger has been lifted, and one better suited to stand by your side has appeared. And because I’m about to be taken away to face the price of my mistake in judgment, and I will not do that without providing you the means to stand on your own. And perhaps I could do a mental lube, oil and tune while I’m here.” He smirks with the last sentence, before shrugging and looking away in embarrassment. “That sounded so much less wrong in my head.” He starts walking around the statues, as Hope trails along behind him. They pass by boogeymen and childish angry faces, but the apparitions of fear become more defined the further they walk, more vicious, more dangerous. “You want to make everything okay. That’s a noble goal,” she says with a small nod. “I do what I can,” Franklin replies. “And usually, I know my boundaries. That is always the danger with a psychologist, that we betray the trust given to us to harm. Even when that harm might be done in cause of helping the patient.” He takes off his glasses for a moment to polish them. “I never asked the humans I wished to save if they were being exploited by their ponies. I simply assumed that the attraction of being part of being considered by so many to be superior would be overwhelming, and that only one end result was possible.” Hope stops in front of a pedestal, on which a circlet of braided iron, copper, and brass sits. On each end which would normally rest on the temples are copper wolf heads. The plaque reads “Hubris” “You are not alone in that mistake. Erica understands it. Fluttershy has been afraid of it all her life. So why is it that you think you are entirely doomed and unredeemable? Fluttershy would forgive you.” “Yes, she most certainly would,” Franklin says with a smile. “Especially since in the long-term scheme of things I have done very little to impede her inevitable rescue. But my fate is out of her hooves right now. I am in the custody of the federal government, as an ally of a group that is very quickly proving to be a terrorist organization, with the unimpeachable testimony of the Element of Honesty to back them up. You are in a war right now, and there’s no room for gray in a war; only black and white; and I am far too dark gray for my own good. The best I can hope for at this point is to be locked away until tempers wane. “On another level, a level more important to me, is how I feel about myself. I...I have failed myself. Badly. I have let my crusade blind me to my ideals, and as a result allowed those I was supposed to care for to come to harm.” “For both of these reasons, my career is over. I will never be trusted to care for children again. Assuming I am allowed to keep a shred of my fortune and survive this encounter and ensuing prison sentence with my life, I will be forced to retire into some out of the way place where no one knows who I am. In short: I am finished.” Hope nods and steps down the line, stopping at a platform on which a pistol rests, broken in half. “You feel that you have betrayed yourself. It is still entirely possible that you will be considered an ally. Will your recovery of Erishy really make you feel like you have redeemed yourself? When you know more about the minds of ponies, and can do more to help them than anyone else, leaving them without your help could be depriving them of their only hope in some situations.” She stops, and looks back at him, one eyebrow raised. “You need to bring to them your prowess, no matter the cost.” Franklin stops his survey of the cavern to look back at Hope. “You really still believe in me, despite everything I could do to you from in here.” He looks around him. “I certainly wouldn’t say the same, were our positions reversed; no man was ever meant to have this power.” He gazes down at his hand. “It may not be a power I entirely control.” “I am sure that you have more hope in you than you are willing to admit.” Hope turns and makes her way to the end of the hall where a statue of Discord stands. “You are afraid of him, aren’t you? Fluttershy sure is.” “I am his servant,” Franklin admits, his head bowed, before jerking his head back up. “I...I was actually not prevented from saying that! Huh, imagine that--a scenario he didn’t think of.” He looks over at Hope. “Discord discovered that I wished to prevent human and pony minds from merging, told me he wanted this himself, and gave me the power to enter minds in order to achieve that goal. He used my reasoning to explain his, that he couldn’t have his ‘fun’ with you if there was one mind in each body instead of two. Then he twisted my request that he not reveal our connection, into making me unable to tell anyone either.” “It sounds like you thought you would give yourself to save the humans from us wicked ponies,” she says with a chuckle, polishing the plaque in front of Discord before moving on to a door, with a red warning label on it. “Are you sure you want to bring Erishy back?” She asks, sighing. “Yes,” he says with utmost earnesty, kneeling down and placing his hands over her hooves. “Everyone deserves the chance to live, the chance to realize their potential, the chance to work, to play, to live, to love! The chance to be the best Erishy you can possibly be!” She laughs. “You are a cheesy bastard. This door contains her more recent suffering, things not yet made into solid fears. Beyond it is the symbolic door into her current feelings of fear and safety.” “You know I can’t fix everything in one day.” “No. You will suffer through this room. You will only leave ripples in your path. But it is how you will get to where you need to go,” she steps aside, so he can get to the door if he decides to. “Of course,” he said simply, before rising to his feet. “Sharing our pain is the very essence of psychoanalysis. Friendship, too, but I have my professional pride to think of, so we’ll stick with psychoanalysis for now. Thank you for your time, Hope. It was good to speak with you.” “And same to you, Surgeon. Have a... safe trip.” The doctor smiles and nods once last time at his guide, before opening the door and stepping inside. The door swings open with little to no resistance, as though the room on the other side is pulling at it gently. Beyond the doorframe is darkness, and in the far distance is a tiny rectangle of light, that is assumed to be a door. The first step into the room sounds like the slam of a door, but the door is still open behind him. The second step smells like a cheap motel, and a man’s sweat, while the sound of creaking bed springs echoes in his ears. With each step he lives through the sensations that I had been most afraid of, in the last few days. They paint a dark picture in his mind. “Oh, Erishy,” he says sadly. “I wish I could have been there to help you while this was happening. Actually,” he adds, growing thoughtful, “I’m not sure which therapy would be best. If you were entirely human, I’d give you the tools to track this man down, so that he might answer for his crimes. I’d get you into self-defense classes, so you could learn how strong you really are, so you know that if necessary, you could stop or even kill anybody who ever wanted to hurt you again. “But as a pony, I suppose the better therapy would be to find this man and convince him to let us both into his mind, perhaps in return for reduced charges. You could find out why he is the way he is, and maybe show him that there is another way. Because if I understand ponies correctly, they could find it in their hearts to forgive anybody that stands any hope of redemption, a state that it takes a human in the same circumstances so much longer to reach. “In any case, I would like to help you after all of this, if at all possible. I won’t be an easy process, and I’m afraid you’ll be doing far more of the heavy lifting than I will on this journey, but I will take whatever load I can. If not as your therapist, then certainly as your friend.” Seeing no obvious response to his words, he continues to make his way through the room. As his foot moves forward, a chuckle reaches his ears, and the feeling of handcuffs being removed from his wrists washes over him, though he hadn’t noticed them before. “You’ve been good so far. No escape attempts. Don’t care what you are, I wouldn’t leave my dogs out in that weather.” The voice is accented faintly, and drawls as though fighting a lisp. “Thank you.” Nate is forced to speak as his next step falls, though he hears my wavering voice. The next step is a pause, though he can feel like he is being watched, and phantom wings on his back rustle nervously. “You’re going to have to sleep on the same bed though, can’t have you trying to slip out,” the directionless male voice says firmly. “O... of course,” Nate chokes out, a cold sweat breaking out, his hands feeling clammy and stiff. The feeling of a pair of massive hands wrapping around his waist knocks him off balance, and it feels as though he is being lifted up, though his feet never leave the unseen ground. He feels himself being laid down on a soft surface, and hears the ring of metal tapped by a fingernail. “Fancy necklace you got there. I’ve been told it’s magic, not to try to take it off of you. How does that work?” The man asks, amused, as he can feel his legs go weak out of fear. The next step brings only his own breathing, echoed back on him. “You can tell me, it’s just a piece of jewelry,” he chides. Nate’s expression is forced to match mine, as I had gone through that horrible experience... One’s emotion is very strongly tied to the expression on your face--try watching a sad movie with a Joker-style rictus on your lips if you doubt this. But somewhere deep down, in the part of Nate’s face that was actually his face and not hers, was...well not much of any expression at all, really. It wasn’t especially easy under the circumstances, but he was remaining calm. Experiencing all of this, most certainly not ignoring or belittling it, but at the same time not doing what he wanted to do, which would be to burn this room and everything in it to the ground. Because he knew it wouldn’t help. It would feel super special awesome, but it wouldn’t help. A pulse of warmth shoots through the room, accompanied by the taste of apples. After the warmth leaves, the sensations in the memory feel slightly dulled, and Nate can suppress the urge to play along a little bit. Unfortunately the content of said memory does not change. “It’s part of me. It... It’s my element,” he is forced to give in and explain the necklace to him, somewhat. Next, a large and rough hand lays itself on Nate’s chest, trying to slip under the element, but all it manages to do is make it hard to breathe. “Damn, you’re... What’s wrong?” The man asks, as Nate wheezes out “Breathe...” The hand pulls away, before it lays itself more cautiously on his stomach. “Fur, eh?” Fluttershy’s voice doesn’t reply, her heart pounding, wings clamped against her sides in sheer terror. The door looms close as Nate keeps walking, he can see the handle, and through a small window he can see a well lit room, but the memory isn’t done with him, and he can feel his steps getting shorter as the memory slows down. He cannot see anything, but he can feel Fluttershy becoming more and more afraid, until an unwelcome kiss is forced upon her, unable to move as she is held down, and her captor presses his mouth against hers, her struggles useless as his hand moves down... Then, with a slam and a riot of noise, color fills his vision and he is standing in a small room, safe, and free of the memory. From the open doorway, Nate can see that every available surface besides the floor is filled with potted plants and small framed writings. Some of the writing is english, and familiar. Others are smudged graphite under glass, indecipherable even to it’s creator. Sitting on opposing cushions are a pony and a human, who are both looking at the doctor with utter pity and sorrow. “Do you think he survived? We can’t do much with a brain dead surgeon, can we?” The human says, sighing as she looks away. “He’s fine. I know he will be, all we have to do is give him time,” the pony replies, still watching him. The human is tall, for a woman. Her head is adorned with soft curls of golden hair. Her muddied green eyes dart from plant to plant, looking for anything but the newcomer to focus on. She is dressed in plain dark grey robes, that obscure most of her features. The pony, however, is a riot of insane colors, that almost hurt the eyes. Her wings have feathers of every color or hue, though mismatched and disorganized. Her fur shifts from neon green at the tail, to green-brown on her snout, but her tail and mane are plain white. Her eyes are a piercing blue. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you. Do you remember your name?” The outrageously bright pony asks. “I would say ‘George’, but that would be too easy,” the man replies, laughing at a joke that only he understands. “Call me Nate.” “I see, Nate. You can call me Distraction,” the bright pony says, watching him with a smile. “I’m Determination,” the human says with a sigh. “Because it’s a shitty joke.” “Greetings to you both,” Nate says with a bow. “Although, if I knew in advance that I could be a personification, I’d pick Distillation: everything I touch becomes more concentrated. Not necessarily for the better.” The last bit is added under his breath. “Oh come on now, what do you think they would have done with us if you hadn’t been available? Let us go?” Distraction laughs, shaking her head. “You aren’t the center of most worlds, you know.” “Yeah, just the center of yours. I wonder if you are scared of what you would find if you went into your own mind, Surgeon.” Determination turns, her scowl lacking any real fire behind it. “Oh I know what I would find,” Nate says with a cold smile. “You can’t become a licensed therapist without being thoroughly analyzed yourself. My mind is a magical machine that turns others’ misfortunes into my own guilt and determination, a desire to reach out and help others to atone for a failure to save my brother, a fault that is mine in my heart no matter how many arguments my brain conceives of to absolve me. It’s not especially healthy, but it’s functional, and in my business ‘functional’ is the best we can strive for.” After a pause, the human looks away, her head in her hands. “Fuck.” The pony just giggles, trying not to fall into a full blown laugh attack. “He totally said it.” The human rolls her eyes, glaring at Nate again. “He most certainly did,” Distraction says, smirking. “I don’t get it,” Nate says flatly. “Not that that really matters. So, what’s next? Hundred-yard dash, or metaphorical dragon slaying?” “No, you said her name!” Distraction crows. “We get bored. We make up rules. Usually we make up rules for insane scenarios that could never happen, like a human in a suit wandering into our room. You said my name, so now I have to help you. You win.” She stares at him, as though waiting for him to do something. “Huh. OK,” Nate says, at a loss for words. “Oh!” He reaches into his suit, and impossibly removes a small gold loving cup, which he presents to Distraction. “Here, have a consolation prize for not being stuck with me.” He then turns back to Determination and holds out an arm as an invitation. She stands up, rolls her eyes, and takes his arm. “Where to, mon capitan?” “The lower decks, I would think. It’s time to stoke the eng--wait, that’s even worse than the last time!” “Oh, you want it to stop snowing? That’s easy. You just tell it to stop snowing.” Determination tries to snap a finger, but can’t get it to work, and ends up stomping her foot, which takes them to a spot floating next to a fluttershy made out of snow, who seems to be exuberantly tossing snow into the sky to let it fall down to the sphere. “Stop that,” the girl demands, making the snow pony droop and mope as she starts to float away. “Where to next?” “Okay, that was just silly,” Nate said. Determination raises an eyebrow. “You want an actual explanation? Okay. So Erishy is creative enough to want some other mode of being in stasis besides being in a coma or dead, because both of those scare her. The fantasy shtick of being frozen in ice is better to her than the alternatives, so she chose that way of representing her suspended animation. The ice would not have made sense on it’s own, so she added the idea of having snow falling in her mind.” “Oooooh!” Nate exclaimed. “I can work with that. The primary function of a child psychologist is to be ridiculous, after all.” And with that, he began jogging around the block, chanting as we went: “Forward, backward, inward, outward, come and join the chase! Nothing could be warmer than a jolly caucus race. Iowa! Backward, forward, outward, inward, bottom to the top…” “Excuse me.” The human grabs hold of his arm. “Symbolism is not the same thing as insanity. If you want to melt and free Erica, and let Fluttershy grow back, you just have to tell them what they’ve always wanted to hear.” She looks almost bitter, or ashamed as she crosses her arms, looking away. “You need to tell them that you forgive them. That it isn’t their fault.” “But they never…” He stops himself, and sighs deeply. “I hold no animus,” he announced. “I forgive you for your insults, your assaults, your crimes against me both intentional and accidental. I wish to welcome you, with open arms, into the company of both human and pony society!” Like a switch being flipped, the world around them lit up, and warmth washed over them. “They will be waking up shortly, you may as well go so you don’t get swarmed by their apologies and gratitude, as you’ll get it all over again in person.” “Alright,” Nate says with a laugh. “Thanks for your help!”