//------------------------------// // Fluttershy: The Fall // Story: A Darkened Land // by Soundslikeponies //------------------------------// Cloudsdale was a sanctuary, they said. A city built upon the highest clouds, as close to the light of the moon as could be. It hovered above a land called Equestria, they said. A place touched of darkness, an unsafe place from which many of their soldiers never returned. But they had to go. Although Cloudsdale could partially sustain itself off of the alto plant farms, the surface had many life-saving medicines, nutritious foods, and valuable supplies. All Fluttershy had ever known were Cloudsdale’s skies: the small cluster of freezing clouds high and far from anything else. She sat near an alto root patch of a farm by the edge of the city. The bed of moonlit clouds stretched beneath Cloudsdale to every horizon. On days both clear and clouded, she came out here to look down towards Equestria. She often wondered what it was like down there among the trees and found herself dreaming up stories about the ponies who lived in such a place. She dreamed of the unicorns and their magic, based off all the myths and stories they’d been told in school. She dreamed of cutthroat earth ponies, made cruel and cold from living in the darkness below. She dreamed of the kingdoms shared by both, magnificent cities which spiraled out of the earth. She dreamed—oh she dreamed—of any place other than Cloudsdale. “Hey, look, it’s Flapperfly!” Fluttershy instantly recognized the voice. She flinched, letting out a whimper as Dumb-Bell and Hoops walked over to her. They stood between her and the rest of the cloud. Dumb-Bell spoke. “So what’re you doing out here, Flapper? Hiding from something?” Fluttershy blushed at the name they called her. Everypony else had learned to fly long ago, but for some reason she still couldn’t manage anything more than desperate flapping to slow her fall. The lessons she had to take with the others were a constant embarrassment. Today’s test had been the worst. “N-no, I was just, um…” Hoops rolled his eyes. “Yeesh, it’s a simple question. Hurry up and spit it out already.” Fluttershy looked down at the edge of the cloud behind her, then at the two bullies in front of her, and began to tremble. “I w-was watching the clouds.” A part of her knew how pathetic she sounded, only making things worse. Dumb-Bell laughed. “Looking at clouds? We live on clouds! What kind of a dumb thing to do is that?” Fluttershy lay down on the cloud and covered her snout up with her hooves, hiding beneath them. She could feel the tears beginning to start as she sniffled. “Is she seriously crying already?” Hoops asked, grinning and sneering. “What a wimp. They should have just held you back a couple years so you could be with the other babies in junior classes.” The tears began to flow freely. Fluttershy clamped down on the top of her snout with her hooves to muffle her whimpers and sobs. The two older boys just stood there and watched her cry, whispering to one another and chuckling. Their words and their gazes didn’t hurt nearly as much as when she wondered whether they were right, wondered whether it was her fault that she had never had a real friend, or wondered whether she—as a pony—was inadequate. Cloudsdale was the largest city left, they said. So why did she feel so alone? She squinted, blurry eyed, and looked up at the two. Dumb-Bell had stopped smiling and now just looked at her with his lip raised in a sneer, but his eyes held what she thought was a bit of hesitation. It gave her pause. She found her tears had stopped, and she once again sniffled. “Seriously,” Dumb-Bell said, “sometimes it’s not even funny how much of a crybaby you are. You realize you wouldn’t last even an hour down on the surface, right? You’re useless. You should give up on that dream of yours.” He scoffed, turning away from her to his friend. “This got lame quick. Let’s go do something else.” Fluttershy wiped her muzzle and watched them fly away. As they left, the wetness around her eyes and nose turned chilling in the thin, high-altitude air. Again she was alone. Their parting comment should have stung, but it was something she had begun to come to terms with recently. Her mother had passed away young, and her father had passed away a Wonderbolt. Cloudsdale’s orphanage was always full, and she fit in there about as well as she fit in at school. If she could follow in her father’s hoofsteps and join the Wonderbolts, if she could just go someplace else, then maybe… but no. She would never be allowed into the Wonderbolts if she couldn’t show she was a strong flier, and it was beginning to sink in that she was beyond the point of merely being a late bloomer. Someplace where no one knew her. Someplace she could go and become a new pony. That was the place she dreamed of when she stared down beyond the clouds or up at the ceiling in bed before sleep. A place where she could make a friend. Fluttershy returned to the orphanage far past curfew. She could never bring herself to try sneaking back in. Her parents had taught her not to lie. “Fluttershy,” her caregiver, Ms. WaterPuff, said with her cheeks puffed up, “you really ought to stop coming back so late. It’s important to your well-being and your schooling that you’re well-rested.” Ms. WaterPuff always moved about with a certain urgency as she took care of children at the orphanage, overcrowded as it was. Fluttershy bowed her head and dragged herself to her bed. Hers was the bottom of three bunks. The one above her belonging to Whisper, while the top one belonged to Cloudhop. Whisper raised her head from her pillow as Fluttershy walked over. She looked at Fluttershy, eyes squinted, with a grimace. “Oh.” Fluttershy paused before her bed, head turned down and away as she looked up at the older filly. “Sorry if I woke you or interrupted you trying to um... fall asleep.” Whisper rolled her eyes and turned away, pulling the covers up over herself. Fluttershy turned away from the older girl and hung her head. Silently, she climbed onto her bunk and slid beneath its covers, lying on her side with her cheek burrowed into her pillow. The ponies in the bunk next to hers were all fast asleep. As she closed her eyes, she let out a deep breath and tried to clear her mind of all its hurtful thoughts. Then she began to see someplace else. There was a plain—full of grass from the surface—and a pony there with her. They chased each other through the field playing tag, the other pony and her both laughing as they ran. She played as long as she could, until she fell asleep. Tears dripped down into the cloud at Fluttershy’s favorite place. She sat near the edge, sniffing and whimpering. Down far beneath Cloudsdale the green of trees and brown of the earth ran in long paths across the surface world. Class had been bad today. As she looked down at the other world below them, she couldn’t keep her eyes from stinging, knowing she would never be able to visit it. There had been another flying lesson today. Usually she got to sit on the sides during them, but the teacher had told her to try the lessons they taught years below their class. So she was made to do them, all while the rest of the class looked on and laughed to each other. “Earth pony,” they had whispered to one another with smirks. She just wanted to be a Wonderbolt: to see the world below, to be looked up to and respected, to be like those other girls who planned to become Wonderbolts. The teacher saw the other ponies mocking her and stepped in, but what she said to her had stung worse than any jeer from her classmates. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how you can be a Wonderbolt with the troubles you have flying... Maybe it’s time to move on to something else.” Fluttershy lay down on the cloud, burying her muzzle between her hooves. “Aw man, what a surprise to find you here again!” Dumb-Bell shouted. Stiffening, Fluttershy lifted her head, tears still fresh in her eyes. He was walking over to her with his two friends. Already they had grins as they approached her. “P-p-please, I want to be alone right now,” she said. “‘P-p-please?’” Dumb-Bell mocked. He turned to his friends. “Hey, you remember from class today? ‘B-b-but Miss Cloudfoot!’ Hah! Maybe we shouldn’t be calling you Flapperfly, maybe we should be calling you Stuttershy instead.” “Hah, yeah! Stuttershy has a way nicer ring to it!” Score said. Fresh tears welled up in Fluttershy’s eyes. She stood up and screamed at them, “Just go away!” The bullies raised their eyebrows at her outburst. Hoops and Score smirked at each other, unable to help themselves from chuckling at her. Dumb-Bell, however, narrowed his eyes and stepped in close to her, towering over her. “We would, you know,” he said, his words quieting the other two. “We would leave you all alone. We wouldn’t care at all about you, but your garbage flying skills are keeping us back from learning more advanced stuff. Stuff we need when we become Wonderbolts. Do you think we have any desire to be dragged down by you?” Fluttershy flinched away from him, taking a step back. The courage she had obtained during her outburst fled her. “I… I’m trying my best.” He took a matching step forward. “If you were really trying, you wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. “Seriously, are you a moron? We’re born to fly. What’s worse is the way you talk about your hopes to join the Wonderbolts, like you’re making fun of everything they stand for. Their sacrifices are what keep this place alive.” “B-but I never meant to make fun of them,” she said, trying to get away from him. He followed, staying right in her face. “My brother was a Wonderbolt. He died during a trip to the surface. Do you think you’re stronger than him?” Fluttershy took another step back. “No! I only meant—” she began, but her voice cut out as her rear hoof dipped instead of meeting cloud. Her other rear hoof near the edge slipped along with it. Gravity took a hold of her. “Whoa! Hey!” Dumb-Bell said. It was all she heard before she slid off the cloud altogether and fell. From her back, she stared up at her outstretched hooves above her, and up at the cloud from which she’d fallen. The bullies had flown off the cloud and looked down at her, mouths open in shock. She then realized what they must have: they weren’t experienced enough fliers to catch her. She was falling far at the edge of Cloudsdale, and there was no one around who could save her. Wind rushed past her ears as she began to plummet. The underside of Cloudsdale raced away from her—or her from it—and by no will of her own, she tumbled from free falling on her back to a head-first dive. She stared at the upside down horizon, a nauseous wave of vertigo filling her. The ground slowly grew nearer, but she knew it would only be a matter of time and that the closer she drew, the faster it would approach. She had time, but not much. Hesitantly, she opened her wings. Only a little at first. The air rushing past violently tore her feathers, jerking and twisting them about. Details on the ground had become clear. How long had she been falling? A minute? Ten seconds? She could now quite clearly see the ground becoming nearer. There were thousands of the trees she had always heard about. Should she aim for them or find a field? They always said the ground was much harder than clouds. Clenching her teeth, she angled her wings and desperately tried to slow her fall, but the air rushing past was too much. She could barely keep her wings from being forced completely upward, and within seconds she could already begin to feel her muscles cramp. The world of the surface met her all at once. One second she could make out the individual branches of the trees, the next she was about to hit them. Her eyes clenched shut. Something touched her left foreleg, causing the entire limb to go numb. Smaller branches whipped and scraped the sides of her stomach, and at the same time, the shin of one of her rear legs cracked against something hard and she could no longer feel it. She couldn’t tell where else the branches hit her, or how many did. It all happened as one flurry of blows, and then with the same sudden ferocity with which it began, it halted, and Fluttershy found herself lying on something hard. She didn’t open her eyes. Her entire body felt hot and made of burning, and the ground beneath her seemed to be tilting uncontrollably. It felt… It felt as though she should just let go. Pain. Her stomach rose and fell with her breathing. Every bit of the motion caused her agony. Any movement in her left foreleg caused it to feel as though a spike were driven through her knee. Same for the shin of her right hind leg. It was hard to tell what she could or couldn’t move, but with how much everything hurt, she didn’t want to try anything to find out. She opened her eyes. Dirt. They’d learned about it in class; most of the surface world was made up of it. It was what all the surface plants grew in. She couldn’t believe she was actually seeing it. Great, thick brown things sprouted up out of it. Were those trees? It was strange seeing them up close. They were so big and there were so many of them. From the spot where she rested her cheek against the dirt, they were all she could see ahead of her. This was that boy’s fault. Fluttershy’s eyes widened. The air grew thin and hard to breathe. She began panting, her legs and side flaring in pain as she did so. Burst of pressure beat down on her skull and hammered against it with every pulse of her veins. The dark. They had learned about the surface’s poisonous air in class. Fluttershy tried to focus and slow her breathing, but for every breath her suffocation grew, keeping her rapidly gasping great lungfuls of the toxic air. So many thoughts flashed through her mind, all clawing at one another once she realized she was dying. If only those three had just left her alone. If it weren’t for Dumb-Bell scaring her, she never would have stepped back off the ledge and fallen off that cloud. If it weren’t for them always bullying her, she wouldn’t have been so scared of him. If it weren’t for almost everypony she met treating her like a burden and destroying her confidence, she wouldn’t be getting bullied. Then maybe she would have a friend. You have none. Tears sprung to her eyes. She didn’t want to die, not when she had finally visited the surface, not when there was so little she had experienced, and not before she knew what it felt like to have a true friend. She wanted to live. More than anything, in that moment, she wanted to live and no longer be alone. A wet cough forced its way from her throat with what little air remained in her lungs. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, and when she opened her eyes, she saw she had spat out something black and foul. With that, suddenly she could breathe. She gasped til her lungs were full. The poisonous taste had vanished from the air, and her thoughts gradually grew clearer. Pain from her limbs returned. It felt as though dozens of spikes lay beneath the skin of her legs, twisting and stabbing with the slightest move. She looked down between her forelegs for the first time to see the coat of her stomach red and full of lacerations. Time passed. Fluttershy lay still, barely able to keep herself awake. Everything around her was quiet, not a sign of life. Every now and then a ghost of wind blew through the trees and set the forest alight with whispers. She grew used to the coolness of the soil beneath her. When she closed her eyes she could almost imagine herself lying in the bed of a home with a fire, someplace far off and safe. But then a pain or a chill would drag her violently from it. She wasn’t sure how long she had lain there in that dark forest, but it was long enough that she no longer knew with any certainty which phase it was. She floated in that place for some time, with nothing but the loneliness of trees to comfort her. It felt as though she drifted at the edge of consciousness, but she wondered why, in all the hours that she lay there, why had she not slept? She had been without food or water for longer than she ever had, but in her pool of pain she had not felt an ounce of hunger nor thirst. Had she really died after all? Her bleeding had stopped, and even though she could feel and see, she couldn’t say for certain whether she was alive. Where there should have been hunger and thirst, she instead felt something foreign fill her stomach. When she concentrated on it, she could feel its presence, but that presence filled her with a horrible dread. After more than two cycles and less than three, her solitude was broken. She met it first as a sound: a low rumble she first mistook for thunder, but as her ears twisted in its direction it became clear that it was far too low and near, and she recognized it for what it was: the growl of a giant. Fluttershy froze and remained perfectly still, unable to run. Great, heavy steps fell upon the earth with its approach. They stopped just behind her. She met it next as a touch: something lightly grazing her back. The giant snorted and sniffed at her, and she could feel its warm breath on her coat for several seconds until it stopped. Finally, it walked around in front of her, and she stared up at it. It was a massive, hulking beast a fair deal larger than any pony and many times as thick around. Shaggy, thick black hair covered every part of its body except the tip of its nose, which was naturally black all on its own. It curled its lips back, revealing two rows of sharp teeth, as a low rumbling came from deep within its barreled chest. Its mouth opened wide with a brief but powerful roar. Fluttershy stared up at it, quivering and frozen stiff. After the roar, it simply stared at her and, after a few seconds, took a seat on its haunches to watch her. She licked her lips and cleared her throat, feeling them dry. “Um… H-hello?” The bear lay down on its front legs, resting its chin on the ground. Fluttershy noticed for the first time the massive claws extending out of its paws, especially now that a set of them rested by her forelegs. She and the creature stared at one another for some time, her cyan eyes peering into its large pale ones. Eventually she asked, “Um, are you alone out here?” The behemoth grunted. Fluttershy chewed her lip. Looking into the gigantic eyes of the beast; it seemed docile—almost obedient. Once more, hesitantly, she spoke. “Would you like to help me find a friend?”