//------------------------------// // 13 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Aldebaran was a nice quiet world; it was the unlikeliest place for the Croakers to launch an attack. So far as Fluttershy was concerned, she was safe even if she wasn’t happy about it. Fluttershy held out a hoof as she sat on the ground underneath a tree with pale green and yellow leaves. A tiny foreign insect native to this world bounded onto the tip of her hoof, she smiled at it softly whispering sweet words to it before lowering her hoof to the ground and gently shooed it away after it hopped off. The bath Fluttershy recently had was like a spa trip. They had treated her very well and all, but even that treatment wasn’t going to lift her mood. At least her mane was brushed, combed and very lightly trimmed, her hooves were cured and her body felt much better from all the Aldebaran hospitality. They were particular about their hair care which Fluttershy liked. Any product of Aldebaran make was good for the fur and left her feeling soft and snuggly. The thing that would really make Fluttershy feel better would be a spell to instantly end up back in Equestria so she didn’t have to deal with so much heartbreak. She would have also gladly welcomed a cupcake right about now. The food on Aldebaran was for omnivores, never in her life did Fluttershy think that normal looking carrots could taste like blueberries. She preferred the red root looking vegetables as they actually had the consistency of broccoli. Fluttershy made sure not to eat any meat if she was offered, an Aldebaran was very much like a normal cat as much as Katt was in liking the taste of fish. The food was much better then what she got on Aquas or when she was riding around with Fox and his crew, not that the supplies from The Rampancy or the nutrient bar were too terrible. The air was fine, the food was fine, her body felt fine, but Fluttershy knew she wasn’t fine. She could feel magic in the air and it was quite a foreign feeling, she remembered what it was like to be levitated around by Twilight and this was nothing like that. Sure she wasn’t feeling pain or getting sick, in fact Fluttershy felt great especially after the wonderful hospitality but the foreboding feeling of dread was something she couldn’t get rid of. It was as if the magic of the world was trying to tell her something and she couldn’t hear what it was trying to warn her about. This world was just not home, despite its beauty in many forms from the land to its people that Fluttershy enjoyed, the Aldebaran culture was truly amazing and colorful. Fluttershy sat there quietly contemplating how she was going to get home, thus far she had been relying on the kindness of strangers for survival and usually said strangers had a lot of other things to worry about aside from getting a lost pony like her back to her home planet. One such thing was saving an entire system from beings that would just destroy everything. A long time ago when she was a filly, Fluttershy had looked up at the stars and wondered what it was like to be among them all the way out there, this wasn’t that long after she earned her cutie mark by falling to the ground to discover the beauty of nature for the first time. Since she had been missing so much below the clouds on which she lived early on in her life, she had wondered what it would be like out in space except she was too weak to fly that high unlike Rainbow who could seem to go on forever straight up until she started getting too cold and came back down covered in frost. It was only now that Fluttershy knew the answer as to what was out there, which was a predicament she didn’t rightfully know how to handle gracefully. Thus far she hadn’t really had the time to settle down and worry about it with her survival on the line. While there were so many wonders out here, there were also incredible dangers beyond all imagination. Suddenly the pony found herself lifted into the air by such a thing that could be considered highly dangerous if aggravated. “Are use okay fluffy wings?” The pony squeaked and looked up at what was termed a Betelgeusian Berserker Baboon. It was the only being that was larger than Katt on The Rampancy and despite the name sounding like it belonged to a species of monster, not to mention their naming conventions for sounding tough and even the females of their species come with a generally malicious appearance. On the other hoof the baboons were known to be quite friendly if a bit gruff and her translators understanding of their language was only slightly skewed, she chalked it up the slightly damaged headset she still wore. Fluttershy smiled up at Mr. Barge gently holding her in his arms while rubbing her belly with a single large finger causing her to go into a fit of giggles. He was quite a tough guy to have survived taking a direct hit fired from a plasma cannon. From what she had learned from Katt that was one of the main guns from the Croaker Mother-ship, the same kind of guns that took out the Catspaw’s shields so quickly before it was disabled. Croakers were quite terrified of Berserker Baboons and quite rightfully so if they can handle that kind of punishment, even Fluttershy didn’t want to make one mad after hearing about it. Not that the shy pony could think of or even have a good reason to get one angry on purpose anyway. The reality that they were big softies at heart made Fluttershy happy that at least some parts of the universe were truly wondrous when it came to friendly sentient creatures that were stronger than even Iron Will was. The pony nodded at the big well muscled creature, she has been feeling emotionally better lately and he was so nice to watch out for her. He was always nearby being so protective, but giving her the space she needed. He just gave her a goofy smile, patted her on the head, sat her back down under the tree and promptly stomped off to sit down and look at some flowers; Betelgusian Berserker Baboons were quite unique in their ways. Fluttershy would never imply a Betelgeusian was not tough looking or sounding, in fact it was inferred the angrier a Betelgeusian was the more likelier they were to survive just about anything. That possibly included the lack of breathable atmosphere because they could get so angry to the point where breathing is something they stopped needing to do entirely, the green rabbit native from Warren told Fluttershy that tidbit and it was regarded as fact by the squirrel that he was becoming closer friends with. The pony sat there underneath the odd tree thinking of what Twilight would do, Twilight would have probably found a way home through mapping the stars and their locations and would then do something involving math with them to find her way home. Fluttershy wished she had been a lot more interested in studying astronomy, now that she was where those stars were. The best Fluttershy could do was make a list of things she needed to get home, things like food, water, a good sturdy mode of transportation and a direction to head in to just get any closer. She had no idea where she was going to get a ship or how she would even pay for one. Getting a ship, a good mode of space transportation, would be expensive and having no money relevant to where she was currently. Suffice it to say Fluttershy considered herself at rock bottom. At least she was alive, had her health and was among friendly people that weren’t immediately hostile or willing to end her life. “Excuse me… um hello! Can you hear me? HEY, listen to me when I’m talking at you!” Suddenly getting yelled at had spooked the pony straight into the air and into the nearest low hanging cloud. “Hey get back here; I had something important to ask you! Ugh, I should be training right now; oh Master Jenny is going to be so upset with me if I’m not doing my best. How in the world is she doing that?” Fluttershy poked her head from the cloud and looked down at the impatient Aldebaran that had spooked her out of her peaceful thoughts about the future. Getting home would require technologically advanced modes of transportation that she might not be capable of controlling very well on her own, it would also require lots of bravery to go into the unknown and that was something Fluttershy thought she was always low in stock on. Taking in the Aldebaran, Fluttershy smiled a little, she looked a bit younger than some of the other adult Aldebaran cats she had seen. She had grey fur with long blue hair with a silky looking blue tail, like most of the Aldebaran cats Fluttershy had met she had a helmet that was like a tiara or crown with a jewel embedded in it over the general center of the forehead. An Aldebaran usually wore similar jewels on their wrists or bellies. The clothing this one wore was looked light and probably breathed well despite looking like a skintight suit, Rarity would have had a field day designing clothing for every last Aldebaran if she were here. Fluttershy had seen some Aldebaran who had more armored looking suits that were termed the guards of their home. This wasn’t a guard and it didn’t look like one of the nice maidens who wore skimpy clothing that coddled her so warmly while doing such an incredible job with her mane and tail. “Hey get down here and stop doing whatever it is your doing to cause the cloud to act like that.” The Aldebaran speaking to Fluttershy had to point out that the cloud was protectively blanketing Fluttershy, enwrapping the pony in its soft countenance almost as soon as she made contact with it. Slowly Fluttershy back flapped her wings several times to bring the cloud closer to the ground, once close enough she stepped off of it while giving the Aldebaran a sheepish look. “Is that cat bothering use? Are you sure use don’t need me to rough her up a bit?” Looking back to the large and strong Mr. Barge, Fluttershy shook her head no twice and he accepted it at face value turning away to continue staring at clouds or whatever it is Berserker Baboons did when they weren’t being angry and beating the odds quite literally with their fists. Fluttershy gave the cloud a push with her hind legs and it floated upwards slowly dissipating into the air. She turned her attention back towards the Aldebaran. The Aldebaran had been shivering at the sight of the large heavily muscled figure with what amounted to boundless fear from just his intimidating presence. Fluttershy was probably the only being that could get used to being near one after meeting such a large creature for the first time, then again Fluttershy had seen bigger given she had played with an Ursa Minor cub. “Whew thanks, that guy really scares me. He’s the first Berserker Baboon I’ve ever seen, they’re a lot bigger than in the stories I’ve heard about them and they weren’t kidding about how scary they could be. My names Felicia, what’s yours?” Felicia tilted her head awkwardly as she saw the pony neigh back at her in a language she couldn’t quite grasp, but the sound of the creature’s voice was quite heavenly on the ears. “Oh right, you can’t exactly speak our language can you? I was told that, I’m sorry that I forgot about it. Anyway I was sent to find you and ask you if you would join my grandmother for tea…. it might actually be interesting for once because tea time is really boring.” Fluttershy being curious as to what tea tasted like on other worlds nodded, the vegetable stew on this world was delicious as were a few of the other things she had tried that she considered safe for consumption. The reason why the vegetable stew was so good was because Aldebaran openly traded stuff with Warren… well at least until Warren was turned into one massive swamp. The green rabbit and the squirrel had talked about how Warren being destroyed really messed up the trade industry the other night. Felicia seemed rather impatient with Fluttershy getting lost in thought, so she was rightfully quite a bit angry with the pony while trying to get her attention. After Felicia had finally managed to get Fluttershy to pay attention to her, the pony found herself being led to a nice table sitting outdoors in a well maintained garden where the High Artificer herself waited and didn’t looked nearly as testy as Felicia did. “Ah, how does Aldebaran’s hospitality feel, I do hope our maidens weren’t too amorous in their cleaning of you. You know they find you adorable and I must say I can see the attraction.” The High Artificer chuckled at seeing Fluttershy dropped her tail, clamped her hind legs together and blushed furiously. She couldn’t understand what the quadruped was saying, but she could see the clear embarrassment in her features. The pony wasn’t the only one she treated this hospitality to, in fact every refugee received some tender love and care and none of them were a danger to their secrets except possibly this cute creature before her who brimmed with a magical power all her own. “You’re not quite what I was expecting, you remind me of the time I dated a pirate from Canopis Three. It would be hard for me to explain our relationship if you’ve never met one of those four armed feathered folk, they can be quite rambunctious and they wear their emotions on their sleeves a lot of the time. Oh did they ever have sleeves… and the things they could do with four hands.” “Grandmother, did you not need to speak to this… pony was it… about something important!” Felicia looked at her grandmother aghast; she never knew her grandmother had been in that sector of space before. Given the number of pirates and ninja that operate around there, Felicia was a bit mortified to find out about her grandmothers preferences. “Ah yes, sorry about wandering off into old memories of times well spent with some rather handsome billed fellows. I’m not as young and virile as I used to be, but there are some things I’ll never forget.” With a wistful sigh as she stared off into space, after a few moments the High Artificer decided to do as her princess of a granddaughter asked and turned to Fluttershy. “Yes, well. I called you here because I wanted to learn about your magic and in turn teach you something about our magic. Be wary as you must keep our secrets if we are to tell them to you if you wish to learn and we will in turn promise to keep yours to the best of our abilities. One such secret involves something that will allow me to understand what you are saying. You may even be capable of using this ability, which can only be used on biological minds only.” Fluttershy was curious and she thought it over, well the nice cat lady was offering to help her out with communicating with other intelligent beings much easier. She understood little animals easily on a lot of levels, but something more sentient is a lot harder for her to see through. “I’m sorry for asking this, but may I look at your magic? It would be rude of me to look at it without asking for your permission first to see if you are even capable of what I want to teach as a sign of friendship.” After a moment the High Artificer received a shy smile and a nod, after a moment she leaned forward and held out both her hands in a gentle manner which soon found too hooves in them. Her eyes started glowing and she looked into the eyes of the creature known as a pony. “Now open your mind and speak your thoughts unto me.” “I Fluttershy hereby Pinkie Pie promise to keep your secrets to the best of my abilities, that is if you can truly help me learn to do this that is.” A fluctuation went from Fluttershy through to the friendly old high class lady. “A Pinkie Pie promise is the best kind of promise one of my kind can possible ever give, she is one of my greatest friends.” “You are capable of doing this method of communication on your own and are quite gifted with magical powers of the likes I have never seen before, yet there is a magic taint amongst your being. It is strange, yet not volatile or evil, yet the shape is dark and foreboding this taint. You have also used this method communication before if even subconsciously and at a much lesser strength.” The High Artificer spoke with such calm and hoped Fluttershy would be as calm as she was otherwise things could go wrong. “There where spikes where you used this power to communicate in you that still ripple in your magic. A large fierce creature that breathes flames, three children who never want to listen to their elders and it caused this foreign taint with the help of an outside source. Your spirit is a wondrous thing Fluttershy, I will make a Pinkie Pie promise to keep your secrets to the best of my abilities as well and I will work hard in keeping them as well.” Fluttershy gasped, she recognized the moments that the High Artificer talked about and they were very memorable moments in life, except for the ones where she became what her friends had called the Flutter Bat. Twilight’s magic had twisted her into a creature that was doing what the bats normally did, she was just glad she didn’t become a blood sucking monster. “The stare…” Fluttershy breathed in sudden realization; she was trying to stay calm as she didn’t want Felicia to hear what it was called. “Felicia, do you not have training to attend too? I believe Fluttershy and I will be quite a while.” Silently the High Artificer told Fluttershy with a look into her aquamarine eyes that she had just made a promise and she was not about to break it even for one of her own blood. She wanted to discuss what this power the mare had deep inside of her, it sang with a harmonious tune. That heavenly tune that sang seemed to be missing a lot of its parts and was a saddening sound against the backdrop of all the magic on Aldebaran. She could already tell that the tune wished to recombine with others from a vast distance through space; she would not dare touch such a connection so pure and loving. The taint in this painfully positively peaceful passionate soul might be something the High Artificer would be taking a further look into. She would have to tread carefully as this magic, while similar, was not of their world.