“Fluttershy, are you okay there sugar cube?” The stare on her friends face had Applejack pensive about what was going to happen.
Fluttershy simply walked up to the apples sniffed them and turned towards Luna and Applejack with a strange look that just crossed her face.
“I’m fine, for some reason I don’t feel a gnawing hunger or craving for these apples.” It was odd that after all the trouble she caused trying to get some, now she didn’t seem to want them at all and as perplexing as that was she was alright with the fact that she wasn’t having those rather disastrous cravings at the moment. “After all that trouble and now I don’t want them and they’re right in front of me?”
Pitch chirped something to Fluttershy and she tilted her head.
“Oh, is that his name? Well not much for it, I already tried to apologize for disturbing him and I really don’t want to meet Mr. Woods again.” In fact Fluttershy was going to be looking for trees that have a face from now on as long as she was on this planet. It took a moment of silence for Fluttershy to realize that she couldn’t feel the weight of her Saddlebags anymore; the root hadn’t damaged her saddlebags because they simply weren’t on her at the time and it was only now that she noticed that they were missing. “Oh no my saddlebags, where are they!”
“Do not panic Fluttershy, you’re new friends picked them up after your bad scuffle. They were knocked loose from you when you weren’t paying attention; you were certainly quite busy and preoccupied at the time. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to summon a conference while someone retrieves your belongings.” After watching the purple owl fly off, Luna’s horn glowed and she used her dream magic to bring more astral projections to this world. This world seemed to bend reality, it was responding as if to aid her in her endeavor, before long a surprised astral projection of Katrina, Celestia and Twilight appeared.
Only a second later was it that Pinkie Pie popped out of nowhere looking around with wonder and excitement, that wasn’t Luna’s doing. The planet had likely felt Pinkie through Luna’s and Fluttershy’s connection to her, why the planet brought her here too was a question Luna was curious about.
“Wow I must have finally crashed from all that sugar. Hey, this isn’t candy land!” Upon spotting her, Pinkie leapt for Fluttershy and passed straight through her cringing form. Fluttershy had her eyes closed as if she was expecting Pinkie to somehow actually connect with a grand hug as she believed her perky friend personally capable of anything. While it might not have connected it did leave the mutated pony feeling slightly warmer. The pink pony flopped uselessly onto her back from where she painlessly landed on her head. “Oh phooey, you really need to stop being lost soon Fluttershy so I can throw you a birthday party! In fact once you get home I’m going to throw you so many parties you won’t go an entire week without me being within five feet of you!”
Fluttershy shuddered at what sounded more like a threat then a friendly remark, Pinkie never liked missing the parties that could have been and her possibly overcompensating for it later was just a way to show that she cared.
Celestia just stood by blinking a bit in confusion before she looked to Fluttershy, then to Katrina sizing up the tall old cat lady and slowly leaned her sights towards Luna and Applejack after taking in the situation she opened her mouth only to stop for a moment. She looked at Twilight who was still blankly awed by her surroundings; shaking her head she opened her mouth again.
“It seems as though my dreams of a room full of banana cakes will have to wait…” She said slowly taking in the surrounding landscape and the five strange animals that seemed to resonate strongly with one another, a sixth one joined them carrying the saddlebags that obviously belonged to Fluttershy in its talons.
“And it seems my dreams of a room full of willing strapping handsome males will have to be put on hold.” Katrina had never seen so many blushes before and she smiled like a cat that caught a canary, she still had it after all these years to be embarrassing even to a magical race of four legged creatures. Looking to Fluttershy her ears wilted and her tail drooped, she felt sorry for what has become of the wayward pony and anyone else under the same circumstances would have cracked by now.
Coo held out the battered saddlebags to Fluttershy who graciously took them and this time tightened the straps a little bit stronger around her body after she got them on. She checked her supplies and noticed all the carrots and some of the water was missing, she looked to the animals and could see three of them were smiling sheepishly at her. Her glass knife was perfectly fine, made of alien substances it was tougher than some metals she had come across on the Valhalla. Her universal translator was even more damaged than before and she sighed sadly as it looked to be completely totaled this time.
“It’s okay; I forgive all three of you for eating my carrots and drinking some of my water.” At the moment Fluttershy wasn’t really hungry anyway, she took a sip of water from her container and quickly stowed it away. ChuChu looked a bit angry with her friends and even started to berate them verbally. “No really, it’s fine. You don’t have to get angry with your friends on my account ChuChu.”
The pink octopus calmed down slightly. She was still angry with Rick and Pitch, though Kine tended to do badly when he went without water for too long so he gets a pass unless he ate one of those carrots. She’d slap them with a tentacle later, she was more interested and distracted by the strange nice sounding four legged visitor. Fluttershy didn’t look or even act evil, just strange and alien to this world. She thought something looked off with Fluttershy in comparison to her spirit friends.
“Where are we?” Twilight finally asked once she had come to her senses, she was far from coming to terms with what she was seeing.
“On another planet as ghosts Twilight, I mean duh! My right ear flopped, back left leg twisted to the left five degrees, my heart sped up and my eyes watered.” Pinkie stated as if it were simply the most obvious thing in the world.
“Wait a minute… you’re Pinkie Sense works even while you’re asleep?” It was actually Fluttershy that asked this question much to the consternation of the ponies that were here and this made a still quite befuddled Twilight even more mentally broken. It made her wonder if Pinkie had any trouble getting some sleep because it woke her up at night or did she just sleep through her Pinkie Sense twitches? In any case Fluttershy would look into this if she ever… when she got back to Equestria.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it? It means I made a new friend that’s the size of a planet… kind of odd as I’ve never had a planet sized friend before, so where is it?” Pinkie was hopping in place excitedly at seeing Fluttershy not being so riddled with injuries and scars; she then stopped hopping and looked at the ghostly Katrina. She leapt at the humanoid cat and actually connected this time knocking the old cat lady to the ground, Katrina started laughing as Pinkie snuggled against her. “You must be Katrina, hi I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“We are most likely standing on your new friend Pinkie, it is kind of impossible to miss.” Luna stated flatly, she liked Pinkie’s enthusiasm but it was kind of making them all lose focus of the situation. The princess of the night idly wondered if a pony could really befriend an entire planet as bizarre as Popstar was. They were at least finally meeting the mysterious voice known as Katrina face to face. Luna could only pull other beings into sharing Fluttershy’s dreams if they were within close enough proximity of her body. “I have called all of you here for a reason. Except for Pinkie Pie who may stay if she wishes.”
“I’m good, feeling really good actually. A little higher, yeah right there.” Pinkie said from her spot curled up on Katrina’s lap as the Aldebaran rubbed one of her ears with an amused smile.
“Not that I dislike your presence Pinkie, but why do you think you ended up here?” The planet would not be nearly as forthcoming and Luna was itching to know the answer as Pinkie might have been able to give it.
“I was dreaming about really wanting to see Fluttershy so I could cheer her up some about having to borrow that spaceship without asking nicely and then I got an invitation in my head! I lit up like a hearths warming tree when I accepted and here I am!” Well it explained Pinkie’s presence; it was just Popstar aiding dreamers in having good dreams.
If seeing her friends in pony was a good dream for Pinkie, then seeing her for real instead of just imagined would have been even better dream come true. To Luna, it seemed like Popstar had a thing for granting dreamer’s wishes to the best of its abilities and it tied in quite nicely into its single minded goal of producing good dreams. Even the less friendly creatures living on this planet most likely loved sleeping because of all the good and happy dreams that came to them so easily.
“Um, if it’s okay with you… I need to go refill my water container and to check in on the Head Hunter. In fact I might bring the Head Hunter here; this seems like a safer place to put it.” This world was quickly becoming one surprise after another and Fluttershy was feeling rather crowded with so many astral projections around, her shyness was in full force as one of her hooves pawed slightly at the grass. She figured that no one would mess with the Head Hunter if it was next to the heroic sounding Star Warriors rather humble looking house.
“You may go Fluttershy, we have much to discuss that doesn’t require you’re constant presence for the time being. Please be safe and wary of danger. Applejack you must stay, for I wish to test something.” Getting a nod Luna quickly gathered the other murmuring astral projections attention with her usual favorite method of gaining lots of attention. “BE THY SILENT! Ahem, we will begin discussing what is going on here and I believe this is an opportunity to continue the swapping of cultures with our Aldebaran friends.”
Fluttershy cowered when Luna got really loud; her bat ears really had some rather big downsides at times and they were ringing a bit. She stood up slightly dizzy and was about to go searching for water only to see Kine sitting on his lower fin in front of her with a dopey wide smile. He asked a question with a gurgling noise if she wanted to know where some good water was and if he could escort her to it, he was going in that direction anyway.
“I would like that.” After a moment Fluttershy giggled, she was a pony being led to water. Aside from that humorous thought she was quite impressed that Kine could survive out of water for so long, then again all the creatures of Dream Land likely had these kinds of quirks that one wouldn’t expect of a similar looking creature from any other planet.
“Chu!” ChuChu hopped onto Fluttershy’s back and offered her protector and guide while the pony was here, she knew a lot of the areas of Dream Land from riding around on Kirby’s head and the only better guide would have been the well traveled Rick. ChuChu wasn’t about to leave Fluttershy alone on this world after that nearly catastrophic run in with Whispy.
Sadly the Dream Land Defenders did have lives outside of protecting the peace while Kirby was away; like Nago who wanted to spend time with his girlfriend whose name was Shiro as an example. They were all now dispersing to continue about their lives, they’d look out for Fluttershy if she was seen in any danger but otherwise they had other things they would be doing. Only Coo stayed behind on a branch to watch the conversation that started with Luna explaining where they were.
“Okay then, let’s go.” A few feet later Fluttershy’s ears twitched and she stopped.
“Hey wait for me! I didn’t come here for any old reason, I came here for you!” Pinkie quickly caught up to her. “So… how are you feeling Fluttershy, is there something wrong?”
“Maybe… this world is so much like our own and at the same time it’s so alien. The sun and moon revolve around the planet; the air here is so much like that of Equestria that it’s vibrant and full of magic. There are so many familiar creatures with many incredible differences from all the other worlds I’ve seen and the lands here are beautiful, but it’s just not home.” Shaking her head and smiling lightly, Fluttershy stopped as they came upon a lake sparkling in the sun which proved her point about the beauty of this world. She watched as Kine wasted no time jumping in and swimming a small circle before diving. “I think I’m mostly upset with myself because my apple cravings got the better of me again, it was much stronger than even my better judgment at the time.”
“Well gee Fluttershy, no pony is perfect and you know I crave cupcakes all the time. You just need to do a hop, skip and a jump so you can move that little rump to getting back home, I’m going to make a ton of cupcakes all just for you!” While Pinkie was happy to see Fluttershy was physically okay, she wanted her to be okay mentally too and it was sad she couldn’t give Fluttershy a hug. Stupid reality for getting in the way of happy snuggles!
“Oh, you don’t have to do that for me Pinkie.” Kneeling down on her left hoof at the edge of the lake, Fluttershy slapped her right hoof into the water and a cloud sprung up from it, ChuChu stared at the cloud in wonder and jumped on it. Amazingly the friendly little native didn’t fall through the cloud Fluttershy had made. “If you don’t mind me asking this of you ChuChu, but could you please get off? I was going to squeeze the cloud for water and I’ll make us another one we can take a quick ride on.”
It was an odd thing to hear and now ChuChu was curious. Hopping off of it the octopus and Pinkie watched in awe as she squeezed the cloud into her open container in a solid deluge of water as if it were from a faucet.
“That’s a neat trick Fluttershy, how come I don’t see pegasi doing that more often?” Though Pinkie really wanted to cheer up Fluttershy she was getting distracted by the bright colorful lands, the strange creatures wandering around and the abnormal objects like the odd yellow blocks with little five point stars on them sitting everywhere.
“It helps me get water from any source no matter how polluted, not all clouds have to be made in a weather factory you know. Rainbow taught me how to do it when we were little and went camping on the ground before I even met any of you. It’s helped me survive quite a lot, I’m thankful that every place I’ve been to has edible food or else I would be…” Trailing off Fluttershy silently slapped both her hooves on the surface of the water and a slightly larger cloud was made. “Any pegasus can create a cloud, but it takes a factory to make one to do something specific.”
“I’m sorry; I’m not really helping you at all am I?” There was a slight deflation noise coming from Pinkie’s mane.
“Actually, it’s nice to remember where I come from and to be visually reminded of what I have to live for. I really miss your cupcakes Pinkie, come on ChuChu.” The pink pony brightened up as Fluttershy sat there and waited for the octopus to stop bouncing on the cloud like it was a soft bed in childish glee, it actually made her sad smile widen to see such simple joy on ChuChu’s face. She started flapping her one feathered wing while gripping the cloud and it rose into the air. At about twenty feet she stopped it and looked around. She saw Applejack disappearing in the distance with a circle of curious onlookers and looking to her left she saw Pinkie was floating in the air; she guessed astral beings weren’t exactly bound to the ground. “ChuChu do you remember where I was attacked, I need to go somewhere near there.”
ChuChu didn’t know why Fluttershy wanted to go back there, but she obliged and started giving out directions with helpful tentacle pointing. Fluttershy was good at understanding the directions at least and upon reaching the area where she parked the Head Hunter; she saw something that was definitely trouble.
“Hey, look at all those wheels! Do you think Trixie knows about them?” Pinkie pointed a hoof directly at a ton of strange wheel shaped creatures ramming themselves into boulders with a hint of excitement.
Fluttershy took note of and started studying the wheel creatures.
There were a lot of small plain black round ones with eyes jutting slightly out from the sides of their circular bodies rolling around at incredible speeds. They seemed to be the young of the flock of living wheels.
The older looking ones were slightly larger and had red metal carapaces that protected their front as they shattered boulders with what looked like their version of eyebrows that were small handlebars. Fluttershy had no clue as to the purpose of the four pipes that poked out their backsides. They looked to be slightly more aggressive and a few of them were using the Head Hunter as a ramp to launch themselves into the air. These were the most numerous and they all looked like adult wheels, some looked feminine while others looked masculine based on their eye colors.
The ones with the odd shaped green carapace looked rather docile, they had what looked like a small flashlight from a mining helmet with small handlebars attached to a very small horn on its forehead and had fewer pipes that were small. Fluttershy surmised that they were good at getting around at night and were more active then. They all looked rather feminine given the brown soft thing that looked like a cushion sticking from the top of the green metal carapace. Fluttershy wasn’t really sure any of these wheels even had genders to begin with.
The last were the scariest and thankfully the fewest, they were slowly puttering about seemingly guarding all the other wheels with their imposing large size. They had large black heavily armored carapaces and had what looked to be sharp fangs poking out their fronts and Fluttershy was pretty sure these where for pouncing on unsuspecting prey as much as slamming it down on intruders with lethal intent or just skewering them by running them down like a minotaur. They had what looked to be an oblong chunk of glass sitting on their crowns and it was noted that they seemed to be in charge of all the other wheels given they could stop the smaller ones without carapaces from fighting one another with a simple large roaring noise; they were like the kings of their herd and extremely masculine looking.
All these wheels were gathered around the Head Hunter and Fluttershy frowned not knowing what to do as she stared blankly at them, she didn’t want to disturb them when so many of them looked to be dangerous or rather aggressive beings. She also couldn’t take the risk of them damaging the Head Hunter and knew she would have to disturb them to get it out of there.