//------------------------------//
// Quick to Wait, Slow to Change 
// Story: Chaser 
// by sslacyhadals 
//------------------------------//

        I really hoped Applejack would be back quickly. Waiting inside wasn’t doing anything except filling me with slowly suffocating dread at the thought of the horde gathering outside the hospital doors. I could almost hear them, chattering excitedly to each other just on the other side of the wall.
I tried my hardest not to think about it, but of course, the harder I tried, the faster and louder the images came. Ponies everywhere, all around me, staring, gawking, surrounding me. Escape would be impossible. Couldn’t run, couldn’t fly, couldn’t hide. They were probably surrounding the building. How had this happened?
I wasn’t built for this kind of pressure. I had come here to get away from scrutiny, to disappear into the background… Instead, I had somehow managed to turn myself into a local hero in just two days. How was I supposed to discover myself with everypony in town watching me? I just prayed that the ponies in this town were easily bored or distracted, and that all of this would die down soon. If it didn’t... I supposed I could just stay in the hospital, feign illness, wait until dark. I could try and sneak out the back once every pony had gone to sleep...
“Um, Chaser?”
Fluttershy… I had been so busy worrying about my situation, I had completely forgotten I wasn’t alone in the room. I lowered my hooves from my forehead, where they had been softly massaging my temples. “Huh?” I croaked.
“Are… you okay?”
“Er...” I cleared my throat, took a shallow breath, and tried again. “Um, yeah, I’m just a little anxious.”
She gave me a quizzical look for a moment, then shook her head lightly, a delicate smile playing across her muzzle. I couldn’t help but take in the way the sun streaming in through the window behind us played in her mane as it softly swam around her face, dancing across her features...
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m sure Applejack will be right back.”
I blushed in embarrassment. “Actually, it’s not Applejack that has me worried.”
“Oh?” She looked around the room, hoping there was some clue as to my nervousness in sight. She turned back after a moment and asked, “Then, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s wrong?”
I pointed towards the doors. “There’s a crowd right outside waiting for me to come out. Applejack left to go find somepony to help clear them out, so I don’t get trampled leaving.” I shrugged. “So... we’re waiting for that.”
Fluttershy turned to face the door, regarding it for a long moment before turning back. “Oh.” Two hoofbeats of silence punctuated the room, and we both sighed in unison. She chuckled, brushing her mane from her face, and I found myself doing the same. I don’t know if it was nerves, or if there really was some hidden joke in all of this, but we laughed lightly for several seconds. I felt something in the room, change a little, and the bright light outside suddenly seemed cheerier.
Composing herself casually, Fluttershy gave me a knowing smile. “You know, I know what that feels like, actually.”
I was a little perplexed by her statement. “You do?”
She nodded. “Mm-hmm. A little while ago, Rarity needed my help, um, modeling some new fashions for a photo shoot.” She grimaced slightly. “And I sort of became famous for a few weeks.”
I drew back slightly in bewilderment. “Wow. Really?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t easy. Crowds aren’t something I’m very good at to start with… Especially when they keep asking you to pose for the camera.” She stuck her tongue out and made a gagging face. “I really couldn’t stand it.”
I barked a laugh at that. “Sorry,” I said, waving a hoof apologetically, “I just, um… That sounds crazy. I can’t imagine.”
She giggled. “I know. It was so out of the blue, too. I wouldn’t have done it at all if Rarity hadn’t begged me to. The worst part was that she only begged because she thought I wanted it!”
“What?”
“She, um, thought that I wanted to quit because she was hurt that I got famous instead of her dresses, and she didn’t want me to give up on my big chance at fame to try and save her feelings. It was kind of a mess.”
I sat back in my chair, and tried to envision all that. I let out a low whistle. “Well, at least it makes a good story now, right?”
She nodded, then turned to me. “What about you? I mean, you’ve got to have a few stories to tell.”
“No.” My response was flat, and even I was surprised by it. I thought for a long moment. “Well,” I tried again, “I mean, nothing anywhere close to anything you’ve done, I’m sure. And really, nothing since I was a colt.”
Fluttershy looked out the window. “Well, we aren’t going anywhere for a few more minutes…” She pawed her mane and let her gaze trail from the window to the patch of sunlight it was splaying over the floor. “I shouldn’t get to be the only one telling stories.” She simpered at me, then blushed. “I mean, if you don’t mind.”
I almost reflexively went to decline, but then I looked at her, into her eyes… “Uh, sure.” I heard my voice saying. “I mean, if you really want.” I sat back in my chair and tried to think of a halfway decent story. My mind was sifting through what felt like another lifetime of memories, distant and foreign. It had been so long since I had looked back. Did I even have a good story from my youth?
Suddenly, I found what I hadn’t know I was looking for, in the recesses of my memory. I smirked. “You know, there is one story. I don’t think I’ve ever told it to anypony.” I turned and sat forward, stretching my wings briefly as I readjusted. “Do you know anything about star spiders?”
Fluttershy shook her head.
I smirked wider. “Well, this one might take some telling, so I hope you’re comfy.”
 I glanced up at the clock across the room. It had only been two minutes since Applejack had left. It had felt like two years.
Somehow, that no longer seemed to be a bad thing.



“—was unbelievable. There was even cake in the mailbox!”
“No?!” Fluttershy placed a hoof to her mouth in shock. She had been hovering over her chair, gripping the back excitedly as I came to the end of my story.
I laughed again. “Yes! They found some in the chimney three days later, it was” —I sighed lightly— “just everywhere. It took the shop nearly a week to clean it all up, even with the four of us coming in after school every day.” I paused, savoring the nostalgia. “We were all waiting to be banished to Tartarus for it. And all that over a little spider! Sunny still won’t come near one. We were quaking in our hooves while Mr. Puff questioned Thunderjack about the whole thing. He covered for all of us. Said the spider had come from the attic, and the mess was incidental. Taps would have been beyond trouble if his parents had known we had been in the Harshwind caves. Great stallion.” The rush of memories—things I usually kept locked up—was nice. “We all slept with one eye open for the next couple of nights, anyway.”
Fluttershy maneuvered her way back into her chair, leaning in to me. “Did the spider make it home?”
“Wha- Oh, yeah. Thunderjack went and took it back there, without us, that night.”
A look of relief washed over her face. “”That’s good. I was worried the poor thing would never see its family or friends again!”
Her response made me pause for a moment, and the moment lasted longer than it probably should have. “Huh.”
She raised an eyebrow my way. “What is it?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing. I guess... I just never thought of it like that before.” I looked down at the sunlit patch of floor, briefly musing about the whole ordeal. “I mean, I never thought about how the spider felt.” I smiled. “I was so busy worrying about myself, you know?” There was another pause.
Fluttershy began staring at the sun-patch next to me, as we sat in the nearly empty space. She moved in her chair, almost brushing up against me as she cleared her throat. “Sometimes,” she admitted quietly, “I forget to think about my feelings… because I’m so busy worrying about the animals.”
I turned towards her. “I guess neither of those is good, huh?”
She slowly moved her head to look away from the brightness on the floor, and her eyes gradually met mine. There was something different in them. Or, maybe it was just the way she was looking at me that had changed. I found myself leaning in slightly, staring into her eyes...
“No,” she finally breathed, “Neither is good.” Her voice was slightly thick, and she was blushing a bit, too.
Several more moments passed, but this time I didn’t seem to notice the lack of sound around me. My heart seemed to be beating rather loudly in my chest for some reason. My mouth was going dry, and my vision was growing a bit dark...
No, wait.
I turned around to face the windows. Dark clouds, nearly black, and ready to burst, hung overhead. They looked a lot like the thunderclouds Thunderjack made back home, actually. The brief musing cleared my head. “Um, Fluttershy? Is there supposed to be rain today?”
Fluttershy leaned away, and I realized how close we had been to each other. She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. Rainbow Dash would have—”
KA-THOOM!
“AAH!” I yelped, and a moment later, found myself perched precariously atop the reception desk, wings twitching. The receptionist looked up at me, half-confused, half-angry. I winced a smile her way. “Uh, reflex. Sorry.” I had completely forgotten about her existence, a realization which only deepened the redness in my face. 
Suddenly, the door of the hospital swung open, highlighted by a second thunderclap. In the doorway stood an orange pony in a cowpony hat, a strange expression on her face. She looked like she was trying to steady herself. Maybe the thunder had startled her, too.
“Well, now,” she said with great control, “I know y’all are excited to see me again, but that’s no need to be jumpin’ on the desk and makin’ a scene.”
“Applejack!” I leapt off the counter, extremely happy to see her, and yet, somehow also annoyed. I flew over to her, stopping two paces short as I realized how silly I was being, and dropped to the floor, trying to compose myself. Unfortunately, I misgauged the drop. My legs, unready for the floor to meet with them so soon, slipped right out from under me, and I was propelled forward by momentum on my stomach, sliding across the smooth tiled floor right towards Applejack.
“WOAH!” she yelped as she jumped out of the doorway, narrowly avoiding a collision with my flailing form. Lucky for her, she had seen my approach in plenty of time to dodge out of the way. The front doors decided to move as well. Unfortunately, that move was to close, right behind Applejack, and right in front of me. I had tried desperately to right myself, turn, or otherwise avoid impact with the entrance, but all had I ended up doing was twisting myself up in my cloak somehow. I finally came to a stop when I felt my back impact the door. At least it hadn’t been my face.
Small miracles.
“Chaser!” Fluttershy shouted, rushing over to me, as Applejack was already leaning over to help me up.
“You hurt?” Applejack asked as she began untangling my cloak from my hooves. She was grinning as she offered a hoof my way, and I had to grin back. At least, I tried to. It came out as more of a pained grimace.
“Just…” I paused, taking a deep breath as I finally got to my feet, looking over at Fluttershy’s concerned face, “my pride, I suppose.”
The two of them both sighed in relief, and Fluttershy even giggled a bit. Applejack adjusted her hat, and nodded at us. “Well, then,” she said as she turned to push the door open again, “If you’re finished with the theatricals, I think we can be—”
I dived behind Fluttershy in a panic. “Wait!”
Fluttershy looked bewilderedly my way, and Applejack smirked as the door swung wide to reveal… an empty pathway. “It’s alright. Everypony’s gone. Have been for a while, I reckon.” She chuckled softly.
My jaw dropped. “Wha...?”
“I told ‘em all to get packin’ on my way out. They must’ve up and left before I got back with—”
“The most AWESOME pegasus in Equestria!” A flash of kaleidoscopic colors flew past my vision, and there stood Rainbow Dash, the overly-aggressive pegasus from yesterday, leaning against the righthoof door. She looked very pleased with herself.
“Rainbow Dash?”
She looked at me quizzically. “Duh! Of course, me! Like there’s anypony who could even come close to this level of radical epic amazingness? No offense, girls,” she threw in last second, waving a forehoof towards her friends dismissively.
“None taken,” Fluttershy replied meekly.
Applejack cleared her throat loudly. “Anyhow,” She pointed at Rainbow Dash, “I asked Rainbow if she could grab a thundercloud and help… persuade the crowd to mosey along.”
“Yeah, but by the time we got here, all the ponies had gone already. Total drag city.”
“So you decided to set it off by the window?” I raised an eyebrow.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash exchanged a look, and then both of them screwed up their faces at the same time and started laughing. Hard. “Oh, gosh…” Applejack tried to speak.
“Applejack told me…” Rainbow gasped between guffaws, “That you’re… a jumpy pony… But that was something else! ”
Applejack looked apologetically at me, tears streaming down her face from laughter. “I swear, it just sorta slipped out!”
They continued laughing for several seconds, and gradually it died down to a chuckle, and then Applejack looked up at me from under her hat. “I, uh, hope you ain’t mad.”
I looked around at everypony in front of me, and then stepped towards Rainbow Dash. “Actually,” I said, “I’m… impressed.”
Rainbow Dash gave me a surprised look, and then flexed her wings and posed. “Well, duh. Of course you are.” Then her smile faltered a bit, and she looked over at me again. “About what?”
I pointed towards the window, and the thundercloud. “That’s a cloud from Snowfall, isn’t it?”
Her pose dropped, and she scratched her mane in thought. “Uh, yeah, I think so.”
“I know the stallion who makes those thunderclouds. It’s his talent, actually. I’ve never heard any pony knock a clap out like that from one, and I worked at the cloud factory, so believe me… I know what kind of noise they’re capable of.” I grinned, genuinely impressed.
“Well, let him know he’s in trouble if he ever stops making them.” Rainbow Dash returned the grin. “I special order them for stuff like this!”
This time, we all laughed.
As the laughter died down again, I turned to look at the late afternoon skyline outside the doors, the cheery sun beckoning warmly. “I’ll let him know next time I see him. Now, can we get out of here, or are we just going to stand around like a bunch of old ponies in the doorway?”
Applejack smiled and chuckled. “I reckon that might be why we came to get ya.” She turned, and nodded to Rainbow Dash. “Thanks for comin’ to help, Dash. Sorry we didn’t need you here.”
Rainbow Dash waved it off. “Puh-leeze. For a good laugh, I’ll be anywhere ponies need me.” She turned, and tucked into a takeoff dash. “I got some stuff to take care of right now, though, so I gotta jet. See you ponies later!” And then she was gone, leaving only a brief rainbow trail in her wake.
Fluttershy adjusted her mane, which had blown entirely into her face during Dash’s takeoff, and stepped out of the hospital. I followed behind, taking up the back of our trio. The afternoon was brilliant and welcoming, and yet, as I afforded myself one last look behind me at the waiting room, I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed something. Shaking the thought from my mind, I looked to the two mares in front of me. “So, uh, where to now?”
Applejack nodded out over the hills to the southeast, in the general direction Rainbow Dash had just vanished. “Takin’ Fluttershy home, of course.”
“Oh, right,” I grinned idiotically, looking over at Fluttershy. “You’ve been waiting in there with me this whole time, and I’m sure you’ve wanted to get home.”
“Actually,” She smiled softly, “I was enjoying our conversation.”
“Oh?”
“I think you’re a better storyteller than you let on, Chaser.” I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the smile playing across her lips. I felt my face flush again. I really needed to get that under control.
“Chaser’s got a story?” Applejack turned to look back as we walked. “What about, sugarcube?”
“Oh, just silly foal stuff.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t,” Fluttershy defended, “It was a great story. I mean, I thought so.”
“You been holdin’ out on us, Chaser?” Applejack was grinning at me.
“Uh, no. Not on purpose.” I shrugged. “I guess I didn’t realize how different growing up in the mountains can be. I mean, caves and storms and mountain trolls and—”
Fluttershy’s eyes went wide, and her knees wobbled as she crouched reflexively. “M-m-mountain trolls?!”
I stopped, and looked at the two of them, and then slowly smirked. “Uh, yeah. Mountain trolls.”
“Alright, looks like we got us a travellin’ story.” Applejack waved me up so I was alongside the two of them. “After all, you can’t just say ‘mountain trolls’ and not expect to be spinnin' a yarn about it.”
“Well...” I thought back again, feeling my youth bubbling back up to me from deep inside. I was surprised; I had never thought ponies would like to hear about my life, and I didn’t know what else to do except oblige them for it. I closed my eyes for a moment, and the scene began to play out in my mind as fresh as if I’d just come back from it. “It isn’t really about me,” I prefaced, “I was just there for it. It was the first time my dad ever took me out with one of his classes. He teaches creature studies at the university in Snowfall, and they take trips out to study local wildlife sometimes. I’d been begging him to bring me along for months, and I had finally worn him down—with a little help from my mom…”

“—So now they come every six months or so with stone carvings and gems to trade, and Clover meets them at the edge of town. She takes everything they bring, and sets up a shop in the market. During the week, she trades it for supplies and food, and then she and Bell Tandy take back whatever they’ve gotten in trade to the troll’s caves. It works out really nicely for the town, and it’s fostered a lot of goodwill with the trolls, which was really dad’s goal all along.”
We’d been standing near the top of the last hill before Fluttershy’s cottage for almost five minutes, while I finished my story. I had never had a captive audience before. It had been really nice, and I took in the feeling as the last notes of my story faded into the air.
“Wow.” Applejack said simply. “That’s quite the story.”
“I can’t believe your dad was so brave against the trolls.” Fluttershy had been silent almost the whole story, except for a few gasps or squeaking sounds during the exciting parts.
“Well”—I reached up and tugged lightly at my cloak— “he was a monster hunter before he was a professor. He told me later that those had actually been some of the friendliest trolls he’d ever had to deal with.”
“Really?” The girls asked in almost unison.
“Yep. That was my response, too.” I laughed, and they joined in.
I was actually feeling a little sad as I realized my story had ended so soon, and so too would our walk together. The girls, released from my tale, slowly turned and crested the hill. I followed silently, wondering if they would wait for another story, if I had one.
“Oh, Applejack!” Fluttershy exclaimed ahead of me. “She didn’t.”
“Course she did. Wouldn’t be true to herself if she hadn’t.”
Hadn’t what? I topped the hill, and looked out towards the cottage.
Lights, streamers, balloons, and a banner proclaiming ‘WELCOME HOME FLUTTERSHY’ had been decorated across the entirety of the structure. The banner was covered in animal prints of various sizes and varieties. Inside, the lights were on, and the sounds of many critters could be dimly heard.
“Hey, look at that,” I said, trying to sound pleased, “Pinkie Pie threw you a party.”
“We talked her down from her original idea. You don’t want to know. It’s just a little get together, nothing fancy.”
Fluttershy smiled. “Of course. Thank you for that.”
“Ah, no worries. Now, c’mon, let’s go have some cake and cider. I’m mighty thirsty after that walk.”
“Mm-hmm.” The two of them began trotting happily towards the house. They were halfway there before Fluttershy stopped and turned back to spy me, still at the top of the hill. “Chaser? Aren’t you coming?”
“Me? No, I shouldn’t…”
She began flying slowly towards me. “Why not?”
“Well,” I said in a fluster, “I mean, I wasn’t invited, and I’m not really any good at parties, and you probably want some time with your friends, and—”
Applejack had been tromping back towards us. She reached me, and gave me a withering look. “Now, hold up, Sugarcube. Do you really think I would have let you come all the way out here to a party if you weren't expected to attend?” She looped a foreleg around mine, and gave a tug. “C’mon, now. Everypony’s waitin’ for the three of us to come through that door.” Her emphasis made it quite clear where I was going to be in the next few minutes.
It looked like I was going to a party. I sighed. “A-alright.” I didn't want to admit how long it had been since I’d been invited to anything, let alone a party.
I briefly wondered if we could go back to waiting in the hospital.