//------------------------------// // 5 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// It wasn’t long before she found herself staring back at the planet as they left it behind. Fluttershy was generally welcome aboard the space vessel; even the bird was less jumpy and temperamental around her. She stayed out of the way of those who lived on this space faring metal ship and spoke out loud on the things she was curious about as they flew away from the ocean planet, the frog seemed insistent that she talk out loud while pointing out his headset. Talking actually helped her think about her situation and allowed her to stay calm despite having no control of where she was going given she back in space again and not of her own volition. She was relying on the kindness of strangers to take care of her. The ocean planet had been nice when she was nowhere near the toxic sludge that was twisting the mostly docile animals of the world. Now she had no clue where these four bipedal animals were heading, but she was along for the ride and didn’t know what to do or say about her need to get home. “I don’t even know where home is from here.” Fluttershy lamented as she a saw a map of the current galaxy she was in, it all revolved around a central sun. A foreign concept to her but one she quickly accepted readily as to how things worked here. They were now on a route to another nearby planet that was also covered in water but actually had some land masses. What the four had to do there was unknown to her, but it didn’t matter as long as they weren’t trying to hurt her and seemed more worried about her presence on their ship. Fluttershy was entirely grateful that they were fine with her using their warm water and soap, bathing with cold water wasn’t pleasant even if it was necessary. The bathroom was almost just like the ones back home, so she had no problems with using their toilets and she figured she had surprised them somewhat with how well she managed to care for herself over the few days she had been onboard. Without little animals to care for she had a lot of time to worry more about her own needs. The fact that these males on the ship were all gentle stallions made her feel less shy around them, but she kept her head down and communicated with them to the best of her ability. It was later when she was given an important question by the fox. Where in the universe had she come from? The only answer that she was able to give them that was the best she got them to understand was this; she had ended up on the ocean planet and had come from beyond their solar system in a bubble and that she didn’t know how to find home. They knew she was sincere in being lost; the rabbit had gently run a hand up and down her back as a sign of trying to comfort her. She figured that they would scoff at the idea of a bubble being useful as a space faring transportation device, the bird had in fact done so. The frog didn’t, the fox was interested in what the frog had to say and the rabbit seemed to share the frog’s emotional sentiment that it wasn’t impossible that Fluttershy had in fact ended up in their system riding a bubble that had encased her from out of nowhere. What little they were able to show her that was related to the subject appeared to be stone images with engraved pictures of a strange bottle shaped thing with a bubble on it along with a series of other etchings related to it. How these transportation bubbles were made was not known or how she would go about acquiring the ability to make them should she even want to. The two legged animals on this ship only had some information about stuff like the bubble she arrived in actually existing and that was from the ancient ruins like the ones on the planet she had recently been on. From what little Fluttershy could understand this magical bubble stuff didn’t seem to exist now given how old the images seemed and hadn’t been around for a long time. The fox, bird, rabbit and frogs people instead focused on hardier solid modes of transportation and protection that didn’t seem entirely ludicrous to them or that’s the idea she was getting when the bird opened his mouth to let his derisive sounding remarks be known about the idea of bubble transportation. They didn’t seem to know what magic was, but Fluttershy thought she understood the story the images told. Whoever they were could use magic to make those bubbles through a very overly complicated method to traverse the universe with no real goal in mind other than to explore everything; they seemed to be wanderers or nomads that moved among the stars wherever they pleased and appeared to be capable of navigating to anywhere they set their minds on wanting to be. Some kind of great travesty struck the planet which hadn’t always been covered entirely in an ocean and the ones who had settled down there had likely fled the rising waters using this method. If Twilight were here she’d be able to get more details out of the most insignificant things Fluttershy was seeing, that or she’d overly complicate it and miss the obvious. Fluttershy made a note that if she couldn’t find a way home on her own, then she would try to find one of these nomads and ask them if they can help her find Equus or return home. She wasn’t as hopeful that she’d ever meet one or that they had the powers the images stated they did. The ability to find any place you wanted to be or go to in the universe would be helpful right about now. The fox being the leader of the group decided they should all move on to other things, his tone was one of authority and Fluttershy accepted his authority as long as she was going to be on this ship. Thus frog started to share what their worlds were like with her; they showed her vast cities even bigger then Canterlot and incredible feats of engineering that were hard to believe as not being magic. The notable thing about the diversity of every species in this solar system is that they all had animal characteristics related to the ones she would have seen as pets back in Equestria, this was alongside every single one of them being entirely bipedal and intelligent. Given some writing utensils Fluttershy was able to return some knowledge in the form of the cultural exchange currently taking place. She described a world where the sun and moon revolved around it, where there were three main types of her species and the amazing things they could do. When she made mention of ponies like her moving clouds around, the bird was proving to be ever the skeptic. Unfortunately they did not know of a place like what she described and were a little confused as to her odd insinuation that the sun revolved around the world like the moon did. The frog once again conversed with his friends and pointed out her home as being quite possible by the demonstration he showed all of them. Even with that bit of information they didn’t have an idea as to where her home planet of Equus was, even if they knew what to look for it would probably take their lifetimes to find it. They seemed particularly confused about something for a while and then it was made known to her that they were sad that her written language did not match up to that of the ones that came from the ancient ruins from the planets in their system. “Can I please get a glass of water?” It was one of the easier things for Fluttershy to pantomime; she said it out loud as emphasis. She wanted to show them that what she was trying to tell them was real. Any pegasus can easily create a cloud with some water, the rabbit swiftly left to go fetch some for her. “I don’t see why we are entertaining this thing or even brought her onboard, we’re can’t be taking on inedible livestock when we’re so busy dealing with that big ugly monkey face.” It took a moment, but Fluttershy realized she understood what the bird had said. “Um… I’m sorry if I’m getting in the way of whatever it is you and your friends do Mr. Bird.” Fluttershy hoped he understood what she had just said and by the way he jumped, he had. “What the hell!” The bird said causing her to squeak and back away from him, frightened by his sudden reaction to hearing what she had said. Fluttershy shrunk into herself shivering with her tail between her legs and her ears clamped down tightly as the bird pointed an L shaped device at her only to have an arm placed in front of him by the fox. The fox looked over to the frog while raising an eyebrow. “I guess my universal translator device finally kicked in for her, it has sampled enough of her language to translate what she’s saying and she can now understand us as well.” The frog was particularly jovial and happy that his device worked. “Is that what this thing on my head is doing, that’s really amazing Mr. frog and I’m so glad that I don’t have to keep using my body language to communicate. Thank you for such a wonderful gift.” She gave them a cheerful smile; finally they’d be able to learn about each other much more easily. “You’re welcome. Oh and actually it’s Mr. Toad, even if I am a frog. My father’s grandfather was a toad who married a frog and… well yeah, not much to say there really. So what do we do now Fox?” The fox opened his mouth to answer his high pitched companion only for something to go off. “Message incoming, we have reached target coordinates for our staging area and will be receiving orders shortly. Fox proceed to the bridge at your soonest convenience.” The metallic voice was as dull toned as ever. “Right, you guys stay here getting to know our guest better while I go receive our orders. Just be nice to her okay.” The fox had singled out the bird in particular who gruffly huffed while crossing his arms and looking away. “I got the water, now what seems to be the problem here?” The rabbit noticed that his friends were being awfully quiet. He didn’t know they were a little put off by being able to understand Fluttershy verbally now. “Apparently Mr. Toad’s invention works, now we can talk now all hunky dory like. I don’t see the point, any one of us could be shot down at any time and all that’s going to do is make her cry if we even think of giving her any reason to form any emotional attachments .” Despite the snide tone, Fluttershy smiled at the bird and the fact that he actually cared about her feelings in his own unique grumpy way. “Hey, lay off her! We still need to know what she was doing on that planet.” The frog turned to ask Fluttershy when the bird got in yet another bit of his ever brilliant commentary. “Well that’s an obvious one; she was surviving and doing a barely half decent job of it until we literally ran into her. It’s just a good thing she was recognized as a non native species or we’d be wiping the smear of whatever she is off of our ship and I can’t be bothered to do windows at a time like this. At least we know she’s not one of those crazy bio weapons, she’s way too pathetic and small to be one of those nasty things.” Despite the blue bird’s awful comments, Fluttershy silently agreed that she was pretty pathetic and that whatever he just said actually sounded more like a back hoofed compliment. “What’s a bio weapon, does it have to do with those flying things dumping all those toxic sludge on those poor innocent creatures?” Fluttershy spilled her water on purpose and then slapped a hoof at it immediately creating a cloud as the splattered water became a cohesive gas formation before all their eyes. It earned shocked gasps and amazed reactions from her new friends who she had yet bothered to learn the names of and wasn’t bothering to ask as she did at least know Fox and Mr. Toad’s name at least. “Whoa, how did you do that? I mean I know you showed us you lived in the clouds, but I didn’t think you meant literally or that you could create them from any source of liquid.” The frog watched as Fluttershy squeezed fresh liquid from the cloud she had created out of what was once a puddle of spilled water. “My species can manipulate all kinds of weather phenomenon and most of us live in the clouds of our world; I prefer to live on the ground though with all my little animal friends. I’m a pony or more specifically a pegasus pony.” Fluttershy knew her tone drooped into a depressed tone and her wings went with her; making new friends didn’t really help her from being homesick for too long even if it did ease the burden by a large margin. “We can separate all kinds of contaminations from clouds for the freshest tasting water; my friend Rainbow taught me how to do it. It is how I’ve managed to stay hydrated back down on the infinite ocean, if I wasn’t able to do that I wouldn’t have been able to survive the first few days before I found the underwater fruit trees. I was almost dying of starvation before I could even get any food as soon as my bubble popped in the upper atmosphere of that planet. Thank you for taking care of me, I’m sorry to be such a burden to all of you.” “Oh think nothing of it Miss and to answer your question, a bio weapon is what those mutated creatures were. We took out the main problem and the thing that was perpetuating the pollution so the ocean and the sea life should return to normal right quick.” The rabbit knew exactly what to tell Fluttershy to make her feel a bit better. “And you’re not a burden; we took you onboard because you looked like you needed the help. You kind of remind me of my daughter in some way, I hope she’s alright.” “Well that’s good to know; at least those poor creatures will be able to live their lives in peace now.” Fluttershy felt so helpless and she was in fact quite helpless. What was she supposed to do to stop those ships from dumping sludge into the ocean, stare them and their dangerous weapons into submission from several miles away and hoped it worked? “So um… what are your names if you don’t mind me asking that is…? Oh I’m sorry; I really should introduce myself too all of you properly. My name is Fluttershy; my special talent is communing with nature and befriending animals of all kinds.” “Oh great, we just picked up a space hippie. You can just tell how she’s going to react to us when we tell her what we do for a living. If she acts anything like a Rhizomian about it, I am definitely going to scream bloody murder.” The bird sounded really peeved about something as he looked away with a grim frown on his beak. Fluttershy giggled a bit and already had a pretty good guess that they were warriors of some sort like Celestia’s guards. They did just save a planets ecosystem, even if they killed quite a few creatures that were horribly twisted by the ones who polluted it in the first place to do it.