//------------------------------// // 31 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Well Fluttershy had found a star warrior at least; he wasn’t what she was expecting him to be. He was so small and yet had a grim fierceness in his rather diminutive form. She would have called him cute if she didn’t have to worry about him running her through with that magical sword. Even after he said he wouldn’t attack her with it, Fluttershy really didn’t want to push it. So a Star Nomad was a friendly being and usually traveled with a partner. They were always moving around, must be hard to find even one out there. Fluttershy had wondered if the reason they had partners was because they hardly ever run into one of their own kind, to forever be wandering the stars. It would have had a poetic feeling to it to see infinite beauties and horrors for the rest of her life, if Fluttershy wasn’t finding it to be the most bothersome thing about her predicament in the universe at the moment. Feeling something nudging her Flutter looked up at the wheelie that revved softly as it leaned against her. She had befriended something that was quite heavy and could move faster than an average earth pony could run and mind you a team of strong earth ponies could drag entire trains at quite a good clip. She didn’t even know how it was biologically possible, but she would believe this planet up to being capable of anything considering how big or weird all the animals could get. “I’m okay, why don’t you trot… um… roll on back to your family now? I’m sure they miss you and I wouldn’t want to separate you from all of your friends. I’m sure your injury will heal with some time, so don’t push yourself to hard.” The wheelie made no movement to leave Fluttershy or stop snuggling into her side making purring engine noises. Obviously Mr. Wheel liked her and strangely his metallic skin wasn’t cool to the touch, it even felt alive as it seemed to be breathing in and out. It made Fluttershy curious as to whether or not if this is what a slug or snail would be like if it had a round foot. “You really don’t need to thank me that much.” The wheelie seemed rather insistent about not leaving and Fluttershy sighed, she just rested in the grass and didn’t really plan to do much or go exploring. If she couldn’t be on this planet for very long then she wasn’t going to go looking for adventure. She just preferred staying safe and sound right where she was. It gave her time to think of all the wonders she was seeing, there was so many of them and everything was much more incredible than just seeing the ground for the first time. Idly the Fluttershy noted that ChuChu had gone off in the direction of the lake. ChuChu figured that since Fluttershy was sitting right outside Kirby’s home, what was the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to her? In any case Coo was still around and just sleeping in the nearby tree, if anything went wrong the owl would lend his aid. It was a bright day out, everything was rather peaceful and slow. Even the odd blue bandana wearing Waddle Dee walking by just waved at her and continued about his way, he seemed more energetic then most of his kind, he was using a spear as a walking staff and looked to be simply enjoying the day. Fluttershy found the beings known as the Waddle Dee to be a strange if highest reoccurring somewhat sentient race on the planet. Speaking of planetary bodies, Fluttershy wondered just how the sun and moon covered the whole world if they only stayed above one part of it. They only lived on one side of the planet and didn’t seem to rotate around it, but that’s what it looked like was happening at a distance in space. Now that she was up close and witnessing it from being on the planet things made even less sense then they previously did. “Excuse me Mr. Wheel; I’ve got to go test something out.” The wheelie revved in a questioning tone as Fluttershy quickly galloped off, a minute later the Head Hunter lifted off and flew away in a straight line. It was a few hours later that it came from the opposite direction and then settled down right behind Kirby’s home once more. The waiting wheelie watched as a completely befuddled pony slowly meandered her way back to her resting spot just to lie back down. Fluttershy had even more questions then she had previously, this world was kind of a mad house of inconsistent mind boggling illogical workings and if she were Twilight her brain would have snapped from the strain of trying to wrap her mind around it. She had flown around the entire planet twice, the mind boggling thing is that it was daytime everywhere with the exception of a section of the world where it looked to be under a constant sunset. Fluttershy hadn’t the foggiest how this was possible and logically it wasn’t, but this world was called Dream Land so obviously anything she saw here would be completely possible if it were a real dream. Fluttershy wasn’t going to worry too much about how this world worked, as she had figured out that it just did and that thinking about it too hard would call into question her slightly taxed sanity. She would like to continue with the illusion that she wasn’t lost in a completely insane universe where stuff like this was not caused by a self proclaimed lord of chaos, one of the main reasons she was still sane was because she had met Discord. This was not taking into account Luna’s revelation that the world itself might be a living entity which was even further compounding the problem with the living physical representations of the sun and moon that slept on the very planet itself. This world was beautiful and as the name of the world might have implied, it was like the world was a living dream. Oddities abound, this world would take forever for some pony scientists to just try and rationalize why the grass was the most average thing about the world. Fluttershy put a hoof to her head and rubbed it and inhaled, counting to ten she exhaled slowly. There she was all better now; no more worrying about a world that was completely round and still getting one hundred percent sun coverage. She would also ignore the planet being a flattened five pointed star shape and obviously having two sides meaning that it should be impossible for one sun to cover the entire world with light all at once. The wheelie revved loudly wondering why Fluttershy looked slightly catatonic and had shocked her out of it, it had been a few minutes and it looked like her breathing was slowing down. He was of a simpler mindset and as such never thought of the laws of physics being ignored by the entire planet itself alongside the beings that generally lived on it. He was just happy to live on a world with long stretches of land to roll across and was living a very simplified existence, until this tire patching pony came along and helped him when his days of rolling around looked to be at their end. “Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Wheel. Did you need something?” The wheel revved negatively, Fluttershy flicked her silken tail and sat back to stare at the drifting clouds in the sky. “Okay then, it sure is a nice day at least.” “Poyo!” A voice next to her said in a happy go lucky agreeing tone that caused Fluttershy to almost jump out of her fur. Catching her breathe from the sudden fright, Fluttershy hadn’t noticed a pink little being had taken up a spot next to her to watch the clouds too. The wheelie curiously enough was peeking out from behind the house and shivering in pure fear at the sight of the one called ‘the likeliest destroyer of all existence’. This was obviously the ever friendly and childlike, yet highly horrific destructive powerhouse known as Kirby. A star warrior whose most notable feats in life is surviving being stuffed into a black hole by a monstrous creature named Marx, defeating several god like beings of pure darkness or evil and being implausibly cute while violently rending the life from his enemies without a second thought mostly on instinct. “Oh my goodness, you scared me.” Clutching at her heart with a hoof Fluttershy couldn’t help but note that this creature didn’t look very dangerous and she knew looks could be deceiving. She has met parasprites and quite a few more deadlier creatures since then that looked really adorable. “Um, hello there, my name is Fluttershy.” “Hiiiii!” The being known as Kirby said with a cheery smile and waving his arms at her, he crawled into her lap and started to cuddle up against her. Kirby thought she was a friendly looking creature that was very warm and fuzzy. She also gave off an attractive energy of the likes that he had never felt before; it was a really inviting feeling. Kirby, being the naive creature that he was, had already forgotten about the events of what had happened with Magolor and was welcoming this new stranger he had found outside his home without a second thought. In his mind the only thing that was going on was the very thought that she might know how to make a cake. There was also the idea that she might be willing to share some with him if she did. Other than that, hugs! Fluttershy giggled, it was so childlike and adorable she couldn’t help but cuddle him. She wondered where his parents were or who he was. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist it seemed and he was male as far as she could tell. It kind of looked like Meta Knight except less armor, grouchy and sad. In a sense this being looked a lot like Meta Knight and was his complete opposite. He didn’t have a hardened outer exterior to match Meta Knight’s appearance, which Fluttershy thought was a rather visibly symbolic of his star warrior nature. In a way this guy was equally visually symbolic as he was soft, squishy and adorable. After a while of letting the creature sit on her back as she walked around smelling the flowers around the grassy area and just in general admiring the surroundings, Fluttershy’s stomach finally gurgled in hunger. Looking up at the sky, the sun was in the exact same position as it was previously. She figured it was best not thinking too hard about it, even if it made it really hard to tell time on this world. She’d fly around the world twice later tonight; the spaceship was getting easier and easier to understand on a basic level. With a little more practice she’d be able to avoid more possible death and dismemberment with slightly better piloting skills. “Poyo?” Reluctantly hopping off the pony’s back as he had been enjoying the ride, Kirby ran off to find some food for his new friend. Fluttershy shrugged, she went to the nearby lake and puffed out a cloud to drink from and came back to the house of Kirby the star warrior. Was that pink being Kirby? Mr. Wheel rolled out and revved in a scared tone, seeing as Kirby was no longer present to scare the oil out of him. “There’s no reason to be scared, I don’t think he means me or even you any harm. If he tries to hurt you I’ll just have to be firm with him.” Despite reassurance Fluttershy took in the wheelie’s reluctant form as he took up a position beside her. “Mr. Coo sorry I’m to disturb your nap, but was that Kirby?” Coo yawned and looked opened his eyes and ruffled his feathers a bit from his perch; he nodded sagely and then went back to snoozing. Kirby was around and awake, that meant anything relatively less dangerous was already wary of coming anywhere near his house. Many Dream Land creatures had immediately evacuated the general vicinity for about three miles around the house; the wheelie was rather brave to still be around even when it hid from Kirby’s sight at first. Fluttershy really didn’t wonder how Kirby was a star warrior despite his innocent nature, she’s already seen multiple cases of things being more then they appeared to really make a good judgment call on him except that he was adorable. Kirby returned carrying all kinds of fruits and strange foods all piled up on a large silver platter, Fluttershy didn’t even bother questioning where the platter came from or how Kirby got it as some of the food on it looked familiar to her. The pudding was definitely something nice as she hadn’t had a dessert in a while and she avoided the foods that looked like they had meat in them. Now that she was nearly full Fluttershy felt Mr. Wheel cowering at her side and looking at Kirby, apparently he was something worthy of fear for some reason if her friend was acting like this and he was likely only still here because of her. Kirby didn’t seem to be paying attention as he was stuffing his face with food in a gleeful manner. Fluttershy honestly had no idea where all that food was going to and he seemed to have a black hole for a stomach, if only she knew it was the size of a universe. “Um… I hope you don’t mind me for asking this, but what exactly do you eat Mr. Wheel?” As she asked this Fluttershy saw Kirby look up from his food at the wheelie and then just went back to eating. The wheelie shuddered at his horrifying casual glance, after a moment of determining whether to roll away at high speeds it finally revved at the idea of something that looked nice on the platter. “Oh, okay. Let me get that for you.” The wheelie wasn’t disrupting anything and it was a friend of his new friend that gave piggyback rides, so Kirby was continuing on with his little feast. Ignoring the armored wheel’s presence, he was happy to have another friend to share a meal with. Picking up the potato salad, Fluttershy was curious as to how exactly most Dream Land creatures ate. There was obviously lots of food in Dream Land though she didn’t exactly see anyone cooking it, it did lend to the fact that the beings without mouths must have eaten in some way. “Now what Mr. Wheel, I’m afraid I don’t know how you eat or drink exactly.” A quiet puttering noise was a response and Fluttershy had this oddest look on her face as she did as she was asked. Fluttershy didn’t like the idea of wasting food, but for the sake of curiosity she dumped out half the potato salad into the dirt. She was still a little bit hungry so she nibbled at what remained a bit. It taste like potato salad with mustard and yet she hadn’t seen any widespread farmlands or grand civilizations since she got here, the mustard had to be manufactures somewhere right? Unless mustard naturally occurred on this planet as much as cooked food does, it would explain the hot vegetable lentil soup at least. The wheelie zoomed over the chunky food and it disappeared into nothingness. Well that explained why the bigger wheelies had fangs pointed towards their fronts, they ate with their tires which makes up the most of their body. Kirby just clapped as he never seen a wheelie eat before, it was interesting to him to see something new and exciting. “Well that was interesting, can you eat anything?” If her interest in an animal was piqued, Fluttershy would naturally want to know what the animal thought was nutritional to it and what it ate. The wheelie answered in an overly complicated series of chirps, puttering, revs and growling noises. Wheelie’s in general liked soft mushy substances, what they disliked was anything that was hard or crunchy as apparently that led to getting a tire popped. What they usually ate by Mr. Wheel’s description was mushrooms, moss, oily foods or substances, plus the occasional unfortunate creature that is reduced to carrion that was affectionately referred to as ‘road kill’ by the wheel. “Can you tell me more about yourself or your kind?” All Fluttershy had to do was ask and the wheel went into the grand history of rolling and speeding around at incredible speeds. All of wheelie kind was nomadic in nature and tended to like temperate weather. Cold weather was a bit of miss for them and warm weather was generally okay for them. Overheating and or freezing up were sicknesses a wheelie tended to avoid by staying in motion or rolling over cooling puddles of water or slowing down. Wheelies didn’t like slowing down, but they tended to do so when their health was at risk because overheating was more damaging then freezing to them. Kirby just sat back and enjoy the lesson on what wheelies liked. He liked riding armored wheelies, but for some reason they didn’t like him coming near them and he couldn’t fathom why that was. The day was quite peaceful and he liked it when Dream Land was this way, only he saw something that was about to ruin his day and he frowned slightly as a cloud drifted over to the point that it stopped above their picnic casting an ominous shadow. A second later a colorful four legged figure appeared from out of nowhere and she smiled as she came over to Fluttershy. A faint rumbling was heard and it went mostly unnoticed by those at the makeshift picnic, Kirby tensed up and a slight glare came to his eyes. “Hey Fluttershy, how’s everything been going so far on that star planet you're on?” Rainbow appeared to be in good spirits and Fluttershy would have answered her, if it weren’t for the sudden monster attack. Kirby managed to push Fluttershy and Mr. Wheel out of the way of the explosive ground sundering blast of lightning with a mighty leap. Kracko the cloud had reformed once again and it was challenging Kirby and everyone near him to a fight. In general the cloud was always ready to rough house and always attacked Kirby, this time it actually sought him out instead of waiting for Kirby to travel through a sky world again. Kracko was a large white cloud with large yellow spikes poking out of it and it had an equally big dark eye that was glaring down at the flash charred food and slightly fried Kirby. “Oh my goodness, are you alright!” Fluttershy was about to go up to Kirby when Mr. Wheel got underneath her and wheeled her out of the way of another lightning bolt. “Whoa, that’s one angry monster cloud thing.” Rainbow didn’t seem particularly worried that it was attacking Fluttershy as she was paying too much attention to how awesome an intelligent cloud creature would be to have as a pet. Shaking her head once she realized this, Rainbow glared at the monster for attacking her friend. “Hey, stop attacking my friend you big jerk!” All Rainbow Dash got for her effort was distracting Kracko from sending another bolt at Fluttershy and the wheel that carried her to safety of the nearby trees. Kirby shook off his soot covered body and stood up. Not only had Kracko just charred his food, it had just also attacked his friends. Kracko couldn’t have dug itself any deeper in the span of a few seconds that it had started attacking. Insert angry faced Kirby mode, because that was definitely something that would set him off. Inhaling the ruined food into his mouth with a powerful vortex, Kirby leapt into the sky and released three spiraling five pointed stars of varying sizes into Kracko’s eye with maximum force. This caused the attacking cloud monster to flinch and become temporarily stunned. Looking around for more ammunition Kirby turned to Fluttershy and the wheel, focusing on the wheelie he dashed forward and when he got close enough he started inhaling. The wheelie being smart enough to know what Kirby was going to do, rolls away frightened at seeing that angry visage coming towards him. Fluttershy, having no idea what Kirby was doing or how he even did it, was swiftly sucked into his body and swallowed whole. The astral form of Rainbow gawked as her friend was swallowed alive by what looked to be a creature she was friends with a minute ago. Within the span of a very short time Fluttershy had somehow ended up behind Kirby shivering. She didn’t know how she ended up in outer space a second ago only to reappear behind Kirby after being swallowed alive by him. She was mostly just glad that she somehow didn’t die by her blood boiling or sudden asphyxiation. Looking at Kirby she noticed something odd about him, he was floating high up into the air and his white glowing angry eyes brought out a sense of familiarity within Rainbow and Fluttershy. It was seconds later that Kirby launched a massive rainbow beam at Kracko whose singular pupil shrunk to a tiny speck before the beam bigger than it encompassed its entire form. At least Fluttershy could honestly understand just exactly why Mr. Wheel had been so very wary of Kirby now.