//------------------------------// // 26 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Far from the world Fluttershy was on, four beings were currently somewhere else solving an entirely different problem. One of the four said beings was small round and pink, with stubby arms and two half circle or oval shaped feet, he was the smallest and most dangerous of them. At the same time this pink being was naturally quite innocent of aggressive tendencies and was overall incredibly friendly, unless he was angered badly. Currently he was exceedingly angry and that equaled to becoming completely unstoppable by anything. Despite his small stature the pink spherical creature was capable of destroying gods with such relative ease that many omnipotent gods who knew of him both good and evil stayed very far away from this particular being. They also stayed out of his home of the dream systems knowing very well that wandering too close or messing up the peace of his world ever so slightly might stir his improbably powerful wrath. This being was known as a star warrior, a being of incredible potential and unstoppable cosmic might packed into a really small package. All he wanted to do was eat, protect his world and make the dreams of all beings in the universe happy ones. Now back on the magical star shaped planet with Fluttershy who has just annoyed a living breathing and very much intelligent tree with a history of incredibly violent tendencies. “Um… I’m sorry for climbing on you?” No one could say Fluttershy never tried for a peaceful solution to this situation; unfortunately the tree was less understanding considering her left hind leg was still stuck in its mouth. A powerful blast of wind caused Fluttershy to scream as her hindquarters launched upwards. Her death grip on the tree’s nose with her front legs kept her from being launched into the air and the end result was her rear end slamming bodily on top of the branch causing her to grunt cutely. Once she regained her senses, she quickly had all four of her hooves tightly wrapped around its nose and she might have hurt the tree a bit by accident when her entire body flopped on its nose. Fluttershy was willing to admit to feeling a bit of pain herself at the moment. “Can we talk about this, you look like such a nice tree and…” Once again Fluttershy tried to find a peaceable solution for everyone, one that ended up with her getting the much vaunted apples and the tree happily going back to its nap. She had been stopped mid sentence by the tree when it took its next action. The tree shifted its face to the right slightly and then spun its face around in a circle to the left really fast. Fluttershy wondered how the tree could spin a full three hundred and sixty degrees without breaking its neck and realized it didn’t have a neck at all to really worry about. That and its face seemed to be capable of sliding along its own body easily enough without actually twisting itself up. Fluttershy tried to hang onto the branch, but her grip quickly was weakening and she was slipping down the nose until she had barely any grip on the tip of it between her two hooves. Once she lost hold of the tree’s nose entirely she went flying in an uncontrolled tumble through the air until she slammed into the ground bouncing and rolling a few times before coming to a very dizzy and bruised stop. Picking herself up Fluttershy barely managed to stumble to the side just in time to avoid being speared by a large brown spike that jutted up from the ground at an angle; the shockwave from it erupting from the ground still managed to knock her over again. The pointy brown spike looked like one of the tree’s roots and probably was. If there was a type of tree that Fluttershy would have wanted to be, it would have to be one that was like this one that can move around. Only she’d be far less dangerous and angry. She idly wondered if eating her own apples counted as cannibalism if she did become a highly animate tree. She scrambled once again to her hooves and ran to the side avoiding another root that spiked upwards from the ground. “I know I upset you, but this is a little much. Can’t we just be friends? I really like trees and I’m really good friends with quite a few of them.” The tree had Fluttershy dodging around as it seemed to be big on disproportionate retribution for even touching it at all, especially by spiking its roots upward in an attempt to skewer her. She decided to try and call for advice as she continued to avoid the roots and the holes they were leaving in the ground that were attempting to trip her up. “Luna, Twilight, Applejack, any pony, I could really use some advice right about now!” “What is it Fluttershy… I was having a right good dream until… huh, where am I? I must still be sleeping and my mind must be playing tricks on me again, though I have never had a dream where an apple tree of mine was trying to murder you.” Applejack appeared from out of the forest looking about in a daze and her form didn’t appear very solid which was confusing to Fluttershy that she was even present at all. “I’m sorry to be a bother, but I don’t think your dreaming!” Fluttershy wished she was sleeping, because she was literally feeling quite a bit of pain at the moment as a gash was lashed into her side from the tip of a now blood covered root after getting a solid hit in as it wiggled wildly in her direction. Fluttershy whimpered in pain as she clutched at her side with her right hoof and back away from the tree on three hooves the best she could, but she couldn’t get far before a wall of roots popped up behind her preventing her from escaping. “Well I don’t reckon any of this is real, but if it’s real to you then I guess I better buck this ornery varmint into next week since I know how to handle a bad apple!” Applejack charged forward spun around on her front two hooves and bucked outward only for her hooves to phase into the tree. “What that hay?” While Applejack may not have connected with her buck, it distracted the tree from skewering Fluttershy for a moment and it just unleashed a blast of air that sent Applejack rolling away. The farm pony wasn’t hurt, but she did feel disoriented and a little confused by all of this. If she couldn’t hit the tree then why was it able to knock her away? The tree took a deep breath and spat an eggplant, if Fluttershy hadn’t been so busy dodging roots she would have gawked at what was coming at her instead of running to the side and avoiding a direct hit by the volatile exploding vegetable that struck the ground next to her. Fluttershy gasped in pain as a shotgun blast of plant matter knocked her to the ground onto her right side where her blood started covering the grass; her pained whimpering was a lot more vocal now. “This is one quirky nightmare if I ever saw one.” Applejack didn’t like all the nightmares that had occurred because of how she was part of the reason Fluttershy turned into a twisted mutant bat pony. This one seemed particularly horrible because she couldn’t do anything but watch Fluttershy get hurt. “It isn’t a nightmare Applejack, this is actually happening. We’re asleep, but Fluttershy is not and I admit to being confused by the situation.” A ghostly Luna appeared trotting onto the scene having felt a dreaming pony’s consciousness rocket off into the universe because of some strange magic and she finally figured out how to access Applejack from whence she went to. Applejack and she were both asleep, but Fluttershy she wasn’t asleep and this was really happening to her as far as Luna could tell. “Fluttershy is very much in real danger and we are witnessing that danger as it is.” “What, there’s got to be something we can do to help her! I mean the tree blew me back when I tried to buck it one, maybe we can do something to get it to stop attacking Fluttershy.” Even as she said this, Applejack watched as Fluttershy feebly roll out of the way of a large spike that burst from the ground almost impaling her through her cutie mark. “She’s getting roughed up something mighty fierce.” Fluttershy had no idea what was going on, but it was really weird as she could see both Luna and Applejack. While not exactly fully physically here, Fluttershy wasn’t about to let her friends watch her perish and she struggled to stand up while holding her bleeding side as the tree inhaled again. Fluttershy quickly cantered to the side in a limp as the tree exhaled firing a huge carrot like it was a cannon ball, the carrot even created a small trench in the ground causing her to shiver. This tree was far more dangerous then she had originally thought if it could do that with a carrot on top of everything else it was doing already. Nightmare Moon had only made those trees look scary, this tree was more terrifying just in what it could do alone than its goofy appearance would belie. “I really would like some advice here… that is if you’re not just hallucinations brought on by how much stress I’ve been under in the last few weeks or because of the situation I’m currently in right now.” Fluttershy squealed and ducked under a root that shot over her head where it used to be a second ago. “Couldn’t you just… oh right you can’t fly and that varmint is keeping you trapped tighter then a pig in a pet carrier.” The odd saying aside, given no pony has ever seen a pig in a pet carrier before, Applejack looked at the tree blankly. “Well I got nothing, maybe you could use the… oh shoot I’m sorry for even coming close to suggesting it Fluttershy.” “It’s okay Applejack… it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway…” Using the stare was how she got turned into a mutated twisted pony in the first place and she really didn’t want to hurt the tree when it was just being really cranky. A smaller quicker tree root shot up and grabbed her by her hind legs and hauled into the air screaming as she was brought towards the face of the tree which started inhaling. Fluttershy was sniffling quite audibly as tears tracked their way down her face as she was held upside down trying to cover the wound in her right side with both her front legs. All Fluttershy had simply wanted was some apples; she even knew and saw this coming as soon as she got off The Head Hunter. She actually wanted to explore the world around her and now this happened. Was it so bad to want to see all the wonders another planet had to offer without something disastrous happening to her? “Fluttershy, Luna you got to do something!” Applejack turned to the saddened looking Luna. “We are not physically here nor are we physically in the waking realm we are seeing; there is little we can do.” Luna lowered her head tears brimming in her eyes. She could connect to her subject at such vast distances and yet she can’t do anything to help or save her. “I wish I could save Fluttershy, but my hooves are tied in this matter.” “I wish there was something we could do to save Fluttershy to.” Applejack despite being a known tough pony started crying, if Fluttershy was capable of flight she wouldn’t be in the mess and it was her fault that she ended up in this situation while flightless. An eerie glow overtook both of the ghostly ponies causing them to look at each other, everything froze and even the tree stopped inhaling to look curiously at the vibrant glow. Just as quickly as it came, the glow faded into nothingness. Shaking its face the tree turned to exhale a giant metal pine cone that would completely shred Fluttershy to pieces. A yellow star rammed into its face before it could, its tree root loosened and dropped Fluttershy who fell on top of something that felt really squishy. It softened her landing considerably and she soon felt herself being placed gently on the grass. Both the ponies blinked owlishly at what they had seen. Whatever they had just done caused a pink blob like creature to come in from out of the sky riding on the yellow star that it had just leapt off of to catch Fluttershy. “Chu!” The cute little pink creature screamed aggressively, it had a pink bow on the back of its head and rosy cheeks, it looked angry as it sat protectively in front of Fluttershy. It didn’t look very dangerous by any stretch of the imagination and was incredibly adorable. The tree shivered, it didn’t like this situation knowing about the creature in front of it and started to shake its branches wildly causing a bunch of apples and spiked balls to fall toward the blob that protected Fluttershy by slapping the objects away from them with an extending pink tentacle. While the defender was distracted the tree quickly uprooted itself and crawled off as fast as its roots could carry it with a frown on its face. It did not want to fight the pink blob and feared it excessively for some reason that the watching ponies couldn’t fathom. Fluttershy smiled slightly as there were so many large apples, she could taste them already. She tried to reach a hoof towards one that landed near her, but the blood loss over time from the deep wound had quickly caught up to her and made her pass out before she could get her teeth into it. “Excuse me; I thank you for saving my subject. Now I would respectfully ask that you save my subject again before she dies of blood loss!” The pink blob Luna was addressing looked to her and then to the pony and squeaked in a shocked manner, she quickly let out a shrill cry and five strange animals quickly came running out of the surrounding forest. Immediately the little pink blob took charge of all the strange creatures and the one weird, largely out of place on land, hopping fish that showed up. They gathered and ate a few of the apples not wanting them to go to waste at Applejack’s behest and they worked together to start moving Fluttershy for some reason. Curious as to what they were going to do, Luna and Applejack followed them as they carried their universally lost injured friend away from where the onslaught took place. The pink blob seemed to be the leader of the strange band of creatures. It was hard to tell what species half of them were, but the purple owl, the tiny green bird and the large calico cat with the closed eyes were easy to define. Luna had no idea what the fish, the large rodent bear or the cute pink thing was and she was just happy that her and Applejack’s wish came true. It made Luna pause; she wondered why that had exactly happened as it seemed too fortuitous to be true. She closed her eyes and felt around for whatever it was that took in their wish and granted it. “Applejack, stay with Fluttershy. There is something important that I must attend to.” With a flash Luna teleported away before Applejack could respond. She reappeared in a large cavernous space; the wish she and Applejack had made, the energy that was pulled from their dreams came to here and Luna followed that pull. What Luna saw was breathtaking. It was a well crafted fountain and there were all forms of what Luna recognized to be dreams flowing from it in the waters that spilled from its bountiful basin. There were no nightmares to be found here and it was as peaceful as it was beautiful. In the center of the fountain stood a white and red swirled rod with a simple sparkling five pointed yellow star on top of it. Luna quickly divined its purpose by trying to scan it with magic and she felt the entire world Fluttershy was on turned its magical prowess towards her, it really spooked her quite a bit. The world told her through its magic what she was looking at. It was simply a star rod, a mystical rod of good dreams, one of the many of its kind found in fountains of dreams. They were artifacts of the star people, those who are warriors, nomads and all who are named of the stars. Its purpose was to allow dreamers of the dream systems part of the universe to have nothing but good dreams. In essence it would have been a bad dream for Applejack and Luna if Fluttershy were to die in front of them and the fountain had acted accordingly by creating a warp star next to a being of Dream Land that would immediately heed its call. “Thank you for hearing our pleas, Popstar was it?” Luna bowed to the fountain, the rod within and possibly to the entire planet for aiding her subject in a time of need. Luna was given something else, as information came to her that Fluttershy wouldn’t be entirely safe on this world. It was only allowed to interfere for the sake of the dreamers as long as they were here. It wasn’t perfect as waking nightmares could still break in and disrupt its powers. It idly mentioned that some of the creatures of this world were also quite dangerous if disturbed and couldn’t interfere with them as much either because they were wakened beings as well. The last thing the fountain did was give Luna a warm fuzzy feeling that she was welcomed for saying thank you and that her dreams would be pleasant for her and her subjects as long as they were visiting. It was quite stunning for Luna to learn of this and hear mention of the star races that Fluttershy has only mentioned in passing as being a possible key to her getting home. She tried to talk to the magical locale to learn more, only it was unresponsive to her questions and seemingly remained so as the rod had stopped sparkling. Her and Applejack’s possibility of having a bad dream having passed, she guessed it became completely inactive and would only stay active for so long after having done its job. How efficient of it, Luna wryly thought. It was still a glorious sight to bear witness to; Luna had much to tell her sister about the incredible happenstance that had saved Fluttershy’s life. Yawning, the dreaming princess laid down in the warm waters filled with tons of happy dreams as they ebbed and flowed around her, a smile came to her lips as she rested easy and simply vanished into the fountains spilling waters. As long as Fluttershy was in the dream systems, all the ponies that lived on Equus and the humanoid cats of Aldebaran would sleep soundly.