//------------------------------// // 3 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Nothing but ocean again, Fluttershy woke up to it every day for what she thought was the last few weeks and was barely surviving on what she could scavenge. Time was hard to track on this world and the shy mare couldn’t figure out how to tell when a day had went past considering how many times she saw a moon and or a glimpse of the sun in a day. She had come to a decision about the metal ships, she’d stay away from them until she had no choice but to try and board one of them. They stuck to a particular area of this world, as far as she could tell and they were clearly aggressive. From what little she garnered the aliens were taking some of the sea creatures aboard and those creatures didn’t leave. Fluttershy didn’t want to become a statistic and stayed far away from those larger metal flying boxes, even if they could possibly help her get home. Every time she saw them they’d disgorge their triangular, bee or pyramid shaped metallic objects. What they did Fluttershy hadn’t a single clue. She didn’t get a good feeling from being near them, especially after having watched the triangular ships dump clearly toxic waste into the sea a few times ruining what was a beautiful and serene world. She had seen the creatures that hadn’t been polluted and they were docile as lambs. The entire world was slowly becoming quite hostile to those who couldn’t live in the sky, given she was the only one that could Fluttershy was doing pretty well if in need of some more of that sea fruit she had recently discovered. It would be worse if she had to survive on a raft as touching the water drew those sea creatures near the polluted areas to come after her. Fluttershy was just trying to get by and survive the best she could and she was doing well enough despite her meek physical strength. She was staying well out of the path of the sludge dumpers ships and she was feeling a bit healthier after having found a few bits of strange vegetation that she called sea fruit. Fruit trees that survived in sea water would have really interested Applejack; they were a wondrous bit of vegetation that had aided Fluttershy in staying healthy. Missing her friends was the one thing that she kept coming back to as she pulled a green pear shaped fruit from her saddlebag and started eating it after rubbing it thoroughly against her personal cloud. She couldn’t stay on the planet of the endless ocean for much longer. Nibbling the fruit, it tasted sour but it proved that it was at least keeping her scurvy free. Taking care of her teeth was a slightly different problem; she had to make floss from seaweed, figuring out a way to clean her teeth further then that without toothpaste was problematic. She was on a whole different world, what wasn’t her problem at the moment? The vast ocean was a fantastic place aside from all the danger, the less toxic and mutated creatures were much more enjoyable to study when the water was much clearer instead of murky and ominous. She heard a large groaning sound in the sky and her ears went straight up, her pupils shrunk and with the fruit clenched in her mouth she turned around to look at what was coming. It was too late her little nest cloud she had formed for herself, it had shattered against the metal hull that flew through it. Fluttershy whimpered in pain as she felt her body hit something with the consistency of glass. Fluttershy had quickly figured that her luck had finally run its course this day; it was larger than those small metal ships but not nearly as large as those box shaped ships. Looking through the glass window she could see a strange creature working the controls before it stopped and looking up blankly at her, it looked as coldly metallic as the surroundings inside the ship. Fluttershy squeaked and tried to back away from the window only to hear a strange voice, she looked around for the blank emotionless voice and it continued talking. Fluttershy kept eating the fruit from her position on top of what she figured to be one of those strange flying space bound vessels, she spat a few seeds aside into her saddle bags and hoped they stayed dormant. She would have to be able to glide for a nearby cloud and hide out there once she finished her fruit. She needed her strength so she kept eating the fruit, it was all for not as two arrowhead shaped small ships arced out and away from the large flying object she sat upon. Now there were three different voices talking as Fluttershy tried to make herself as small a target as possible and continued to eat the fruit carefully from her perch on top of the metallic vessel, trying not to choke on it as the memory of Angel inevitably popped up in her head. How were all her little friends doing without her? She could only hope her best pony friends were watching out for her other little friends. One of the voices sounded angry and sarcastic, Fluttershy didn’t understand what he was saying but it was clearly a young hot blooded male that reminded her of how Rainbow Dash sounded. The other new voice sounded older and wiser, much more like a grandpa, but also male he seemed to be having a discussion with the other one with the emotionless voice coming up every now and then. They were taking positions above the winged pony seemingly to watch her like hawks while keeping pace with the larger slow moving metallic object. Fluttershy knew they were talking about her, how could they not be? She quickly finished off her fruit and hoped that she could get away when they were distracted; there was no way she could fly faster than these things. She had seen what the other small ships like it could do and they had weapons that had somehow burned the sea creatures that flew out of the waters to their horrific deaths, she had stayed as far away from anything resembling that scene as she could. She still hadn’t figured out what the weapons were, but they were definitely more powerful than a unicorn’s horn and they flew much faster than anything she has ever seen. She carefully moved back to the glass like substance and huddled up next to it, they wouldn’t fire their weapons at her if they risk destroying the larger flying metallic thing or damaging it. She had learned that the larger ones carried the smaller ones like a mother alligator would carry its young in its mouth, one of the things she remembered telling Pinkie Pie about when discussing Gummy once upon a time. Pinkie Pie took such good care of her pet. Fluttershy could hear the two emotional responses from the two different voices as she went back to what she thought was relative safety. The older one seemed to be giving off an emotionally friendly positive outlook where as the other one was grumpier sounding, she didn’t know what they were saying. The only thing that mattered to her at this moment was whether she was safe or not just standing here pressed against the glass with the strange being working the panels below her position. Breathing in deeply, Fluttershy tried to calm down. She took some comfort in the fact that these didn’t look like the ships that were dumping toxic wastes into the ocean and doubted the ones who were would care if she was an intelligent being or not. She shivered and curled up in her position making sure to keep her wings firmly tucked into her sides as she listened to the two voices that seemed to be in an argument of some sort. A fourth voice came up and it sounded a bit high pitched for a masculine voice, it seemed to be offering a compromise of sorts. Whatever it said Fluttershy soon found one of the arrowhead flying objects nearing her position. Fluttershy quietly pressed her back to the glass to watch what was happening, the ship lowered and the top of it opened up somewhat. Curiously a creature with the head of the rabbit hopped out and started saying things in a caring tone she’d expect the same of herself to give to injured wild animals in their time of need. Her ears perked up and she slowly made her way across the surface towards the large rabbit, while paying a small bit of attention to the other arrowhead thing keep watch over her from above. She didn’t know whether she could trust this thing or not, but she would do so if it didn’t mean her any harm. She looked up to its large grey ears and its old face; it looked to be a rather spry rabbit thing for being so old and they stood there looking at each other as her hair whipped lightly in the wind. She only noticed it as being strong the further out from what part of the large metal objects she had been standing on. After a moment the rabbit creature held out a hand like a minotaur would have and gave her a hopeful friendly smile. It was offering her a bit of kindness, holding out her hoof she put her life in this rabbit creatures hands they stood there for a moment holding hand and hoof. The creature carefully and gently led her to its flying device. Stepping onto the wing and into it, Fluttershy found herself slowly squished in the cramped space which was slightly unpleasant. Fluttershy patiently watched as the rabbit also got in and worked the things on this flying object and it closed up with them inside before it sped off causing her to squeak and cover her face with her hooves. After a moment she felt the rabbit creature give her what she assumed a few kind words and patted her head soothingly, as he kept his left hand on what she assumed was steering the flying vehicle around. Looking out the window curiously in the cramped space, they sped away from the front of the large metallic ship where she had been stuck on. It was oddly designed and had four large wings, green lettering on the side she couldn’t read and a large red symbol of a fox with wings. The rabbit curved them gently around to where she could see a large opening. The one that they were currently flying towards that was well lit, the flying object slowed as they entered the larger flying object and then they stopped. Fluttershy marveled at the wonders of the place she was now in, it looked to be designed to go through space like the other ones. She could see similar devices that looked different to the one she was being coaxed out of. They were all blue and white with a red winged fox painted symbol painted on them, a cutie mark perhaps? One looked like it was a box that rolled along the ground with a large horn with the hole in the end and the other one was being looked over by a vulpine creature that looked like a tall bipedal fox. Her attention was quickly brought away from the fox hopping into the strange elongated transport by the snapping of the rabbit’s fingers and he motioned towards himself. Fluttershy warily hopped out of the flying object and looked around herself in wonderment, when a large blue jay like being gruffly came up to the rabbit and started conversing with him. Fluttershy put the rabbit between herself and the angry bird as they talked and she stayed at the friendly rabbits back. A being that looked like a bipedal frog walked in and up to her without a pause and held out a device to her. She looked over the device and then at the one on his head… did he want her to wear it? “Um… do you want me to take this?” Fluttershy said pointing a hoof at the device questioningly, the frog looked rather excited that she had opened her mouth and tried to communicate. After a moment the arguing rabbit and the bird, of which she hadn’t noticed moved away from her looked over at the frog questioningly before voicing something to him. The frog thrust the strange device into her hooves as he moved past her causing her to fumble with it a bit as he started talking to the other two odd beings. Looking over the device she twisted and turned it carefully not wanting to break it, the frog came back to her but she was too distracted by the device to notice. That was until the frog lightly tapped her shoulder causing her to jump. He held out his hands showing a placating gesture, she nodded at understand that he hadn’t meant to scare her. The frog motioned to the device he was wearing on his own head and motioned for her to put it on and was giving her directions on how to do so, nodding Fluttershy understood the instructions well enough. The pony placed the device on her head making sure to settle it down correctly around her ears and mane not knowing what to expect, but nothing happened to her thus far and if they meant her any harm they could have done so since then. The bird looked particularly jumpy with that strange device he kept fingering with his feathered hands, the rabbit and frog seemed much more at ease. Having slipped the device on her head the frog touched something on the device and a small microphone popped out, Fluttershy knew what a microphone was at least and she poked and decided to test it. She felt like one of those pop diva ponies that Rarity would always go on about. “Testing, one, two, three… is this thing on? What does this thing even do?” The frog looked particularly excited at her testing the microphone and talking into, all the excitement soon left them when they heard a voice, one that drew all of their attentions. The fox was standing on the elongated vehicle; he was motioning to the frog and yelling something to him, he swiftly crawled back into it after he was done saying his part. The fox sounded particularly serious, grim and possibly even passionate? The frog slapped his forehead and motioned for Fluttershy to stay put, she moved over to an out of the way corner to sit down as she watched the frog tinker with something causing a bunch of light wielding bits of moving metal to pop out and she watched as they moved along the elongated vehicle poking at it in several points. Fluttershy was curious, this was the first time she’s ever met real live aliens before and they didn’t seemed particularly evil despite the grim air about them. She watched as the hangar start flashing lights and she spread her wings pressing herself into the corner and watched as the vehicle slid forward and dropped away from the large flying object created a huge splash in the ocean. “Did they really just…” Fluttershy asked shocked at what they just did, they dropped the fox into the ocean in that vehicle. Didn’t they know that it was dangerous down there? What were they doing here and why were they doing it? To say that she was completely out of her depth here would have been a pun worthy of Pinkie. None of those other more box like ships dropped any live beings in the water, just toxins. She wandered over to the edge to see the elongated vehicle calmly sink into the ocean. She heard a voice calling out and she turned about and saw the frog waving to her to come back and away from the edge, she trotted over to him and wondered what was going on. Were they here to help the endless ocean from the toxic waste dumping invaders? She could only wish this were true. Unfortunately for Fluttershy, she had just unknowingly got brought aboard a ship in the midst of an intergalactic war. Harmony was just not something that the entire universe ran on.