//------------------------------// // By royal decree // Story: The Mystery of a New World // by Fanthrose //------------------------------// Chapter 6 Fluttershy arrived at Twilight’s house at around 12 in the afternoon. She wanted to come earlier, but she had to take care of her animal friends first. She also had to take note of any supplies she needed to go shopping for after her visit to the library. As she began to lift her leg to knock on the door, her stomach started to growl informing her that she hadn’t eaten yet today. Blushing, she made one last mental note to get some lunch after this visit before knocking on the door. It was answered by a very tired looking purple unicorn. “Oh, hello Flu-Fluttershy.” Twilight yawned, stuttering out the pegasi’s name. “Oh, um hello Twilight. Didn’t you get enough sleep last night?” Fluttershy asked, concerned about Twilight. “It’s ok, after everything that happened yesterday, we forgot to set up the extra bed for me last night and I had to sleep on the couch,” Twilight said as she pointed over to the couch. Spikes basket bed was lying at the foot of the couch. “It’s not the most comfortable place to sleep.” Twilight noticed something hanging out of Fluttershy’s saddle bags. “What’s that?” Fluttershy turned her head to look at what Twilight was talking about. When she saw what Twilight was looking at she blushed slightly. “Oh, um well, when I feel scared and lonely, I always like to snuggle up with my big teddy bear Mr. Fuzzles. I just thought AJ might like something to snuggle up to, so I found my old stuffed bunny Mr. Bun Bun and fixed him up. Do you think he’ll like it?” Fluttershy stood there for a minute and shuffled her hooves as Twilight just stared blankly and shrugged. Blushing a bit brighter, Fluttershy remembered Twilight’s leg. “How does your leg feel? Does it still hurt?” Twilight just looked at her left hind leg and sighed. “Yea, but don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’m just worried about AJ” Fluttershy just nodded. “How’s he doing?” “Well he’s up, but…” Twilight looked towards the stairs, concern in her eyes. “He won’t let anypony get close to him. Whenever Spike and I try to get close with some food or juice, he just curls up and starts shaking again.” Twilight stepped aside and let Fluttershy inside. “Oh my, the poor dear. I’d like to go up and try. I mean, if that’s alright with you.” “Go right ahead. Spike’s watching him right now, just send him down if you think it will help. As for me, if I don’t get some coffee in me, I don’t think I’ll make it through the day,” Twilight said as she half hobbled, half shuffled into the kitchen. Fluttershy made her way up the stairs where she saw Spike glancing between the TV and AJ’s bed. “Hello Spike, how are you today?” Spike looked over to the staircase and smiled. “Oh hey Fluttershy. I’m good, but I don’t know about him.” Spike pointed over to AJ. “When he’s not curling into a ball, he’s just staring into space doing nothing. It’s starting to creep me out.” “Well he’s been through a lot Spike. Would you please go down stairs for now? Maybe he’ll open up to me.” Spike just nodded and left the room. Fluttershy climbed the stairs to the loft that held the bed. Once she reached the top, she saw AJ just sitting there staring straight ahead at the wall. If it wasn’t for his blinking and the movement of his chest whenever he took a breath, it would have looked like he was a corpse someone had propped up in a sitting position. “Hello, how are you today?” Fluttershy asked, but got no response. Not even a slight twitch. She took a step forward. “Are you in any pain right now?” Worried about the state AJ was in, Fluttershy started walking to the bed, causing him to curl up in a ball and start shaking. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Fluttershy stepped away from the bed again and waited. It took a few minutes for AJ to calm down enough to come out of his ball, and start staring at the wall again. ‘Hmm, what can I do to help the poor dear,’ Fluttershy thought as she sat on her haunches. Then the idea came to her. She was able to talk him down yesterday, why not try it again. She took a slow step towards the bed and judged his reaction. After she saw no reaction, she took another step, he tensed up. “Shhh, it’s going to be ok, no pony’s going to hurt you.” Hearing Fluttershy’s voice seemed to calm AJ down so she took another step forward. “Everything’s going to be alright. I won’t let anypony hurt you.” This continued until Fluttershy was at the side of the bed. While AJ was still shaking a bit, he wasn’t trying to shield himself from her anymore. Fluttershy looked over to the end table and saw a bowl of potato, carrot, and broccoli soup sitting on it. “Are you hungry?” AJ just slowly nodded his head. Fluttershy smiled at the reaction and reached for the bowl. “Oh my, it’s cold. Hold on, I’ll go have Spike warm this up for you.” After Fluttershy got him to eat the soup, she went to making sure his condition wasn’t getting worse. The bruising on his face had gone down. His jaw seemed to have mended just fine and the swelling had gone completely. His eyes were no longer glazed over, but they were still having trouble focusing. The rest of the visit went well. She got him to eat some food and drink some apple juice. She was still worried about how he reacted to everypony, but she knew that it would take time to break the shell that had formed. Before she put AJ to bed, she walked over to her bags and pulled out the stuffed bunny. “I know you must feel so alone right now, and that’s why I want you to have Mr. Bun Bun. If you ever feel lonely or sad, just give him a hug and know that he will always be there for you.” Fluttershy placed the stuffed bunny on the bed next to AJ who didn’t react at all. She made AJ lie down before turning to place her bags on her back. As she started to fly down from the loft, she turned her head to look at AJ one last time. She smiled when she saw that AJ had fallen asleep, hugging Mr. Bun Bun to his chest. Fluttershy walked back downstairs to see Spike cleaning up the library a little bit. “Hello Spike. Where’s Twilight?” Spike just pointed to the kitchen. Confused Fluttershy walked over to the kitchen and poked her head in. She couldn’t help but giggle a little at what she saw. Twilight was sitting at the table snoring lightly. Her fore hooves were wrapped around a cup of coffee that was sitting in front of her. Her head was resting on a pile of pancakes on a plate in front of her as if it were a pillow. Smiling, Fluttershy just retrieved the blanket Twilight left on the couch and placed it on top of her, before exiting the library. Over the next few days, Fluttershy made varying levels of success in getting AJ to come out of his shell. She was able to get near him without him shying away, and she even got him to look at her when she was talking to him. He even started letting Spike and Twilight get near him. She was still having trouble getting him to understand that nopony was going to hurt him when they touched him, but they were making progress. ******************** It had been six days since Fluttershy started taking care of AJ. She was running a little late because Angel Bunny was making a fuss about eating his food again. She knocked on the door and Spike answered the door. “Oh, hello Spike. I’m sorry I’m so late. Angel didn’t want to eat breakfast again today.” “I swear that bunny is a demon in disguise,” Spike said as he crossed his arms. “Oh, he’s not so bad once you get to know him. He’s actually a big sweetheart when he wants to be,” Fluttershy said with a big smile on her face. “So, how’s the patient?” “He was still sleeping when I went to go check on him,” Spike said with a shrug. “I brought him a glass of water and an apple for when he wakes up.” Fluttershy thanked Spike and trotted upstairs. What she saw was the last thing she expected. When Fluttershy looked up into the loft, AJ was out of bed. He was standing in front of the mirror on the other side of the room looking at him self. “What’s wrong, you should still be in bed.” She got no reaction from him as she just stared at him for a minute. She was about to go over to him and help him to bed when he started talking. “Why are you doing this?” Fluttershy was surprised at this. Not only was AJ out of bed, but he finally said something. After the shock of this new development past, Fluttershy was able to find her voice. “W-what do you mean?” AJ just stood there for a minute as if he was in thought. “All of this. When everyone else just seemed to want to hurt me, you helped me. You never even once tried to hurt me. Throughout the week, all you’ve done is help me. Why are you doing this?” Fluttershy didn’t know what to say. Nopony had ever asked her that. Everypony knew that it was just in Fluttershy’s nature to help others. “Well, you were hurt. I couldn’t stand to see you suffer like that.” AJ turned his head to look at Fluttershy. “Also you helped Twilight when she got hurt.” AJ just sighed and turned back to the mirror. He turned and started walking back to bed when the two of them heard the door to the library open. “Spike, I’m home! I got those rubies you were asking for!” Twilight yelled as she walked into the library. All AJ and Fluttershy could hear was a bunch of mumbling before they heard the clopping of hooves trotting up the stairs. “Fluttershy, Spike explained why you were late. Don’t worry abo…” Twilight was cut off when she noticed AJ standing and staring right at her. “AJ, shouldn’t you be in bed?” “I’ll be fine, Twilight,” AJ said as he climbed into bed next to the stuffed bunny. “Oh thank Celestia your better. I was starting to worry that you weren’t going to recover. You wouldn’t talk to us at all.” Twilight looked as if the world was lifted from her withers. “Oh, if only I didn’t bring you here, this never would have happened.” AJ shook his head. “You had nothing to do with me getting hurt. It was that crazy orange one who kicked me in the head.” Just remembering what happened made his head hurt. Hearing that made Twilight cringe a little. She knew why Applejack did what she did, and that she was sorry she did it. “I know you must be mad at Applejack, but trust me when I say she is sorry for what she did.” “I hope you can forgive me if I don’t exactly trust her word right now.” AJ was clearly starting to get a bit angry. “She chased me for god knows how long because she wouldn’t listen. She assumed the worst, and I ended up paying the price for it.” Both Twilight and Fluttershy were feeling very uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. They knew Applejack really was sorry, and wanted AJ to see that, but they didn’t want to force him to make a decision he didn’t want to. “I think it would be best if we let him rest right now Fluttershy.” Before Fluttershy could speak up, Twilight was already walking down the stairs. Fluttershy took one last look at AJ. “Are you sure you won’t give her a chance?” “Maybe, I don’t know. Right now I just don’t want to think about it.” AJ said lying his head down on the pillow. ******************** “Is that all Twilight?” Spike said as he finished writing down the letter Twilight had asked him to write. “Yes, please send it Spike.” Twilight just looked at the floor and sighed. “I just hope he can find it in his heart to forgive Applejack. I’d hate to see one little misunderstanding ruin any chance of a friendship between them.” Spike just stared blankly at Twilight. “OK it was a big misunderstanding.” “Umm, I should probably be going now,” came Fluttershy’s meek voice behind Twilight. “Mr. Chipmunk will need me to look at his cast again.” “Oh, OK. Thanks again for all you’ve done Fluttershy,” Twilight said as she turned to look at her friend. They all said their goodbyes and Fluttershy left to go take care of her animal friends. As soon as Fluttershy left the library, Twilight heard Spike gag and belch as green flame formed into a scroll. Before Spike could grab the letter, Twilight was already levitating it in front of her face reading it. As she read the letter, she started to turn a bit pale. “Hey Twilight, is everything alright?” Twilight slowly lowered the letter to the floor before turning to Spike. “The Princess is going to be coming back tomorrow.” “So, I don’t see the problem here Twilight,” Spike said as he stared at Twilight with a confused look on his face. “The problem is that she wants Applejack and the CMC there with her so they can properly apologize to him,” Twilight said as she started to pace. “He made it quite clear that he did not want to even THINK about Applejack right now, let alone be in the same room with her, and now she’s going to have to be here tomorrow to apologize.” “I’m sure everything will turn out fine Twilight. Maybe he’ll calm down by tomorrow and will be ready to talk to her,” Spike said trying to calm her down. “She also wants me to talk to Mayor Mare about an announcement she wants to make to everypony. I wonder what that is all about.” Twilight just sighs and lowers her head. “I guess we should go inform Applejack and Apple Bloom that they are to be here at noon tomorrow. Oh Celestia I need a drink.” ******************** “So…he’s all better now?” Applejack said in a low tone. “It seems so, and now Celestia wants you and the CMC to be there along side her to apologize properly." Applejack continued to stare at the ground. It was clear to anypony that this whole mess was taking its toll on her. She always seemed stressed out, and was clearly exhausted. “D-do ya think he’ll accept mah apology?” As much as Twilight wanted to say yes, she knew it was pointless to lie to Applejack. “I don’t know.” “OK, Ah’ll go tell Rarity and Sunburst that Sweetie and Scootaloo need ta be at th’ library tomorrow.” “Thanks Applejack. Now if you’ll excuse me, I still have to go talk to the mayor.” After saying bye, Twilight left for the center of the town. ******************** By the time Applejack and the CMC arrived at the library, Celestia was already there, waiting outside of the building. Bowing down to one knee, Applejack spoke up in an exhausted tone. “Why hello there Princess.” “Rise Applejack,” Celestia said as she smiled at the ponies before her. “Shall we get on with it?” Applejack nodded and followed Celestia into the library, the CMC in following close behind. As soon as she entered the building, Applejack noticed AJ sitting in a chair near the back of the library talking to Twilight and Spike. He looked up at her and narrowed his eyes slightly before standing up and walking over to the group of ponies that just walked in. Applejack immediately regretted getting out of bed today. She wanted to just jump into her bed and bury herself in her sheets. “It’s so good to see that you have recovered from your ordeals already,” Celestia said breaking the ice. “I’m sure you know why we are here, and I think it would be in your best interest to hear us out.” As Celestia stepped to the side, the three little fillies stepped forward before Applejack could even move a muscle. “We’re really sorry we attacked you,” Apple Bloom started off. “Yea, we were just afraid and acted without thinking,” added Sweetie Belle “So we’re sorry Mr. Monster. Please don’t eat us,” Scootaloo said earning glares from the other two fillies. “What?” AJ just smiled and shook his head. “I forgive you. I know what its like to be a kid and do stupid things.” His face suddenly got serious. “Just don’t let it happen again. Do you understand?” The three fillies quickly nodded their head. AJ smiled again, “Good.” The fillies all let out sighs and ran out of the building to go play now that their part was over. Applejack was next, and she felt like she was about ready to faint. She slowly stepped forward and the smile on AJ’s face fell. “Umm, h-hi.” AJ just continued to stare at her, waiting to hear what she was going to say. “Ah j-just wanted ta say that…Ah’m sorry. Ah’m sorry fer all th’ trouble Ah’ve caused ya. Ah’m sorry for accusing ya. Ah’m sorry fer chasing ya. Ah’m sorry fer kickin ya in th’ head. Ah-ah’m sorry.” Applejack lowered her head and closed her eyes, waiting for whatever punishment was coming her way. With her eyes closed she could only rely on her ears, and all Applejack could hear was AJ slowly pacing around the room. When he stopped, she started to worry again. The silence seemed to last hours before AJ finally spoke. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. Whether or not I should forgive you, or whether I should just say “fuck it” and kick you in the head as payback.” He was silent for a moment. "I'm not going to lie. It's taking every ounce of self control I have to keep from kicking your skull in right now." He started to walk around again as Twilight covered Spikes ears, worried that AJ might swear some more. “It took awhile, but I finally came to a decision.” Applejack heard the steps get closer and closer to her. She braced herself for impact. “I don’t know if I came to this on my own, or if it was because I don’t want to disappoint Twilight and Fluttershy, but I forgive you.” Applejacks eyes shot open and her mouth dropped as she looked up. She saw AJ standing in front of her with his hand out in front of him like he wanted to shake hands. She looked over to Twilight and Spike who were just smiling. Then she looked over to Celestia who just nodded. Applejack slowly stuck out her hoof and shook his hand. “T-thank ya kindly for accepting mah apology.” Celestia walked over to AJ and stuck out her hoof as well. “Thank you so much for forgiving everypony. While I would have understood your decision if you hadn’t, I’m glad it didn’t come to that.” AJ took her hoof and shook it as well. “Now, I believe there is more business to take care of at the town hall.” With a flash of her horn, everypony in the library was teleported to the town hall. ******************** When they arrived, Twilight trotted away to go inform the mayor that they were ready for the announcement. AJ and Applejack looked as if they were about to blow chunks all over the place, not being used to traveling like that. “Ah don’t think Ah wanna do that again,” Applejack said shaking her head. “I gotta agree with you there,” AJ agreed. “What are we doing here anyway?” “Oh you’ll see.” Celestia said with a mischievous smile on her face. Applejack and AJ just stared at each other in confusion. “OK Princess, your up,” called Twilight as she trotted back through the curtain. Celestia thanked Twilight and walked through the curtain to address the crowd. “Hey Twilight, mind telling me why we’re here?” AJ asked as he pointed to Applejack and himself. “Well, Princess Luna and the scientists have yet to find a spell to send you back yet, and Princess Celestia doesn’t want to see you become some kind of cave dwelling hermit, so she’s going to have you live here in Ponyville,” Twilight said smiling. “I’m sorry what?” AJ clearly did not like this idea. “We all saw what Applejack here did when she met me; god knows what will happen when the entire town knows about me. I don’t like the idea of getting kicked in the head again Twilight.” “Trust me, the Princess knows what she’s doing,” Twilight said matter of factly. “She’s never steered me wrong before.” “I don’t know, I think I’m just going to sneak out of here while I still have a chance,” AJ said as he started walking away. “Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to my guest,” came Celestia’s voice from beyond the curtain. “Oh, that’s your cue, get out there,” Twilight said jumping in front of AJ. “Twilight, please move, I don’t want to have to deal with all of this right now,” AJ said trying to get around Twilight. “Princess Celestia is waiting for you, you can’t just let her wait there forever,” Twilight said as she kept blocking AJ. “Hey, stop shoving, oh, don’t make me use this.” Twilight said as she pointed to her horn. AJ just narrowed his eyes. “I’d like to see you try.” AJ immediately regretted those words. Twilight lowered her head and started lightly jabbing AJ, getting him to move in the direction she wanted him to. “What are you doing, ow watch it, hey, watch where you stick that thing!” Slowly but surely, Twilight was able to move AJ to the curtain. With one last push, she shoved AJ through the curtain. AJ stumbled and quickly stared in the direction of the curtain. “TWILIGHT YOU TRAITOR!” After his little outburst, AJ noticed just how quiet everything was. Turning his head, he saw a sea of pastel heads all staring at him some in intrigue, most in fear. Hushed whispers could be heard throughout the crowd, along with somepony screaming “The horror! The horror!” in the back before fainting. “Umm, hello?” After about a minute, Celestia finally spoke up again. “I would like to introduce you all to AJ. He will be here in Equestria for awhile and I would like you all to treat him like a friend. Now, would Applejack please come out here?” A confused looking Applejack came walking from behind the curtain. “What can ah do fer you yer majesty?” “Applejack, while AJ is here, he will need a more permanent residence. I would like to ask that you allow him to stay at your farm. I’m sure he would be willing to help around the farm.” Applejack looked over to AJ who just shrugged, looking just as confused as her. “Of course Princess, room and board is th’ least ah can do after what happened.” Celestia smiled. “Then it is settled. I Princess Celestia, herby decree that the human AJ, will live here in Ponyville on the Apple family farm, until further notice.” **************************************** (This ends the introduction of the story. From here on out, it will be more of a slice of life story with each chapter being on its own for the most part. And for those of you wondering, I’m making the background ponies Sunburst and Sunny Delight Scootaloo’s parents. If her parents are reveled in the show, I will be sure to retcon this decision.) My little pony © Hasbro Friendship is magic © Lauren Faust