//------------------------------//
// Rainboom.  Won the Race.  Where's Fluttershy? 
// Story: More than Winning a Race 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

Fluttershy was a friend in uncounted ways, like in how she reminded me that grace in athletics was almost as important as strength.  And that I had to do my homework every day.  In return, she got a fierce pony to hide behind and somepony to talk to when nopony else seemed willing to break through her shell.  It was little wonder that when "dumb" Bell and Hoops trash-talked Fluttershy that I swooped in.  

I raced to defend Fluttershy's honor.  I won the race and incidentally created a magnificent sonic rainboom.  

And, aw yeah, earned an awesome cutie mark.

When I returned to the starting line and the cheering faded away, I searched for the aforementioned filly friend whose honor I had heroically defended.  When I asked Westley, a blue-maned pink filly and her friend, "Do you know where Fluttershy went," everypony else was already flying away.

She looked around.  "Oh my gosh!  I remember her with the flag, but after that we all were, like, trying to see the race.  Frieze, you see her?"

The tan pony shook her head.  As they flew off, Frieze added, "With Fluttershy, you don't expect her to stay around to chat, you know."

Well, I had expected she would.  Frieze was right, though.  Nopony else seemed to know where Fluttershy disappeared to.  I shot home to announce the great news.  

Father flew loops in his enthusiasm.  Mother smiled and hugged me, acting more restrained, probably having hoped that a more academic or practical talent would have shown, something that indicated I might join the family business with Father.  She knew I worked to be the son Father didn't have, and wouldn't have, and that counted, too.  Father had been a Wingforward in pro Wing Ball until grounded by an injury.  We talked often about our trophies that sat shining in the bookcase at home.  As far as Mother was concerned, that Father had built the largest cloud construction company in Cloudsdale deserved the biggest trophy of all.

You wouldn't know we were wealthy looking at the two-story townhouse that Father built for us in the center of town.  It showed when he did something special, though, like booking my cuteceñara three days later at the Grand Heights by the Castle in Canterlot, when Cloudsdale would be drifting by the royal city.  Ice cream at the Wacky Horse Trough that night—need I say it—was awesome too.

I couldn't wait to invite Fluttershy.  But she didn't show up at homeroom next morning, or Equestrian history or phys. ed. that afternoon.  Mr. Tripper, the gray-maned old codger of a guidance counselor knew Fluttershy and I were friends and didn't put up a fight when I asked for her address.

Fluttershy came from old money.  You could tell by the buttresses and filigrees in the four-story standalone house.  The doric columns even had flutes.  Today's modern home went for straight lines and curves, favoring functionality over ornament.  Hers even had a frieze of soaring ponies below a gable, built from a storm cloud in semi-stasis so it slowly roiled and looked inspiring with its ominous dark cloudy-blue tinge.  Unfortunately, the structure also showed signs of disrepair; missing dentils in the gable, a broken-off volute on a column, and a cracked window that ought to have been replaced some years ago.  

I knocked on a brass clad door gone verdigris with age.  The sound echoed sadly.  When nopony answered after minutes, I turned away, increasingly worried for my friend.  Even my hoofbeats on the steps sounded sad.

A door creaked open: a basement access.  A teenage colt's voice asked, "What do you want?"

In a flash, I was perched on a railing looking down at a ruddy-maned stallion with white and tan pinto coloration.  While ponies rarely resembled their parents in coloration, unlike me, they often did in form.  This had to be Fluttershy's brother.  He had the same tall thin bones as his sister, and her good looks.  Though he kept his mane spiked up and his tail short, the lustrous volume of it reminded me of her.  I asked, "Is Fluttershy here?"

He had the same emerald eyes, even if they weren't as haunted as his sister's were.  He said, "I don't know.  Are you her friend?"

A duh question.  Then again, maybe bullies came calling for her.  "Yes, from school."

He smiled.  "Didn't know she was capable, but it's good.  It's real good.  Wait."  He disappeared inside an energetic flutter through an open door in a way that didn't seem an invitation to follow.  

After long minutes, he landed with a whoosh on the top step.  He put down an unusually heavy brown paper bag he'd carried in his teeth.  "Sister didn't take her lunch.  I checked her bedroom; it hasn't been touched since the maid cleaned yesterday.  She's found herself another roost."

"Didn't your parents—"

"—notice?" he asked, rolling his eyes.  "Dad's been away in Manehatten, or was it Las Pegasus, for a few weeks now.  On business, maybe.  And Mom's out doing whatever she does.  That's a good thing, by the way."

"How could that be good?"

He reared and shadow boxed with his hooves a few good jabs.  "Flutters and I know how to be seen and not heard, and preferably not seen."

"That's—"

"—terrible?  Pathetic?"  He looked at me appraisingly.  I must have looked particularly shocked, and I was, though I'm usually too collected to let it show.  He added, "You really are her friend.  Good for her.  Never thought it would happen."  He scooted the brown bag towards me.  "Besides the lunch, there's a few of Mom's bits to allow Sister to feather her roost."

"Won't you get in trouble?"

Quietly serious, he said, "I'm faster than she is.  The way Mom usually is, she may not even notice.  Take it."

"What about you?"

"I'm graduating soon.  Then—" he waved a wing "—bye-bye."  And with that, he zoomed through the cellar door, his slipstream slamming it behind him.

The bag weighed a few pounds.  It had carrots and apples and about fifty bits; not bronze ones, mind you, but gold ones.  Too worried the bag might tear, I took them home—then hid it at the back of my closet, except for a few coins just in case.  

Now I had to find Fluttershy.  

And her new roost.  

Preferably before my cuteceñara.  

That didn't happen.  

We rented this wonderful wood-paneled salon with wide windows that overlooked Canterlot castle from a nearby hill.  It even had an awesome view of the earthquake fault that had opened from some magical misfire running from the castle, straight through Canterlot city, and on to the horizon.  That it had happened the day of my sonic rainboom made it doubly awesome, but probably not as awesome as the castle tour Father had somehow scored for us later that afternoon.  Me, amongst about twenty-five athletic club friends, school chums, and a couple of cousins, not to mention Aunts and Uncles, balloons, streamers, and a Rainbow Dash dark-fudge rainbow cake, I still found myself staring into space, trying to figure out what could have happened to her.  

She had't returned to school.  Principal Gold Ray said her parents hadn't responded to him.  I'd asked everypony at school if they'd seen her.  I'd even wandered around town to the knitting stores and other places I thought she might hang.  She indeed had had no other friends besides me, and nopony had seen her.

Three days.

Without a bed or a meal.

"Hey, Boomer."  My father's new nickname for me.

I looked up into his golden eyes.  "Hey."

He blew his rainbow mane off his face.  The mauve color of his coat seemed to magnify his concerned expression.  "Is something bothering you?  Did I forget anything?"

"Oh, no.  It's awesome.  It's just…"  I took a deep breath.  "Remember Fluttershy?"

"The friend you raced for?  She's not here, is she?"

"No."  I blinked to hide some very uncool impending tears and proceeded to blurt out everything I knew.  Everything, her disappearance, her bizarre family, everything—except the bits.  She'd need them when I found her.

The party over early, castle tour cancelled, we flew up to Cloudsdale, which slid eastward to the north of Canterlot mountain.  Father navigated through the constabulary until we sat with a detective who had already taken a truancy report from school.  The buff-colored mare, with brown eyes to match her mane, seemed uninterested but wrote down my story and said she would look into it.  Look at it was probably all she did, because when Father returned from work the next day he said Detective Gabs had told him she had resolved it with the family.  

Fluttershy did not return to school.

Detective Gabs found me in the waiting room of the Cloud Nine precinct building when she returned from detectiving.  She knelt so that with me sitting we were eye to eye.  Hard not to think of caramel looking at her.  I said, "Fluttershy's still missing."

"Not at school?"

"Not anywhere, and I've looked.  Even by her house and everything—"

Gabs sighed.  "Look little filly, I can see you're earnest about this, but there is nothing more to do."

"But—"

"Her family has plenty of money and they probably sent her to a boarding school—"

"Probably?  Did you see her?"

"No, I didn't.  But I saw her mother—"  

I felt a chill.

Gabs continued.  "—and the family says everything is fine.  The race probably overwhelmed her.  They say everything frightens her; she probably went home.  I talked with your friends and they agree she looked scared when you challenged them."  

"Who?  Hoops?  Bell?"

"They said you attempted some acrobatic trick.  You probably scared Fluttershy and didn't know it."

"She wasn't scared!  She thanked me."

Gabs shook her head, standing, acting like a parent about to issue orders.  "The family thinks you're scaring her, too, and asked me to tell you to stay away.  They also said something about some stolen bits—" 

I thought about the two gold bits rattling with a little pile of bronze ones.  

"—which I think was to convince me to keep you away.  Take my advice, these folks are old money and willing to use it to get their way.  Forget Fluttershy, hear me?"

She gave me the patented parental stare and I finally had to look away.  "Yes, ma'am."

I heard her; didn't mean I'd obey.  I thought about the gold bits and wondered if her brother had set me up, but I couldn't believe that.  What made more sense was that he really thought I was her friend and used the money to make me feel obligated to find and help her.  That made sense.


I revisited the race track behind school.  It was a sparse collection of clouds, arranged with markers to make a variety of long and short courses, some others for grandstands and starting lines, and a landing strip that was also used to support occasional non-pegasus visitors and freight for school.  As I flew around, I could see the green countryside passing below as Cloudsdale wandered around Equestria, today ahead of a warm front.

Trees and occasional ponds drifted by a half-mile down.

Fluttershy could fly just fine when she didn't think about it, but if she saw anyone looking at her or she became frightened, she often crashed.  Could it be?


I looked down at the trees and my heart convulsed.  

An instant later, flapping for all I was worth, I dove earthward.  Like any adventurous pegasus, I'd visited the undercloud wilds more than once, but to pay attention and actually search made the thing more real, not that the wall of green foliage, vines, meadows of yellow flowers, odd furry creatures, some big, some smelly, frightened me.  No, it was the stress of figuring out what they were and how they might attack me.  Beady eyes following you from a fur ball or a tweeting mass of feathers without hooves, or dealing with branches that sway unpredictably into your flight path—that could be unnerving.  Less so, admittedly than when I flew down the center of a canyon only to have massive red eels thrust themselves out of the rock-face trying to eat me.  Fortunately, I had a lightning bolt cutie mark and lightning fast reflexes to go with it.  

It did make me think, though.  I lived in a city.  I had only ever visited another city, Canterlot.  The world wasn't city-sized.  Trying to find where Fluttershy landed—or, I thought with a gulp, her remains—could not be done by just looking.  Cloudsdale earned its nickname as the "nomad city."  The city followed the temperature fronts.  Its technicians manipulated the moisture and the winds; pegasi captured the moisture aloft to make clouds.  Cloudsdale literally travelled everywhere in Equestria over a period of a month.  

Where had we been during the race?

Had anypony been looking, they'd have seen a rainbow streak as I strained my wings to get to the Cloudsdale weather service.  

"Kid, you're bothering me."  The camel-colored stallion with a crew cut white mane didn't even look up from his chart and a oddly-shaped set of straight and round slide rules.

"But—"

"Kid..."  His eyes were blue.  "It's late afternoon.  Reception is closed.  I've got a living to earn, so scram."

Fluttershy.  Shivering in the cold night.  Maybe with a broken leg.  I inhaled and opened my mouth—

"No," he said, not even looking up.  

It struck me what the Detective Gabs had said.  These folks are old money and willing to use it to get their way.  I reached into my messenger bag.  

The gold bit clanked and spun with a satisfying metallic sound when I spat it onto his drafting table.  Two minutes later, we had landed on the terrace atop the building.  He pointed at a glassed in hut at the top of a pole.  The thunderhead roof was decorated with fluttering orange windsocks and an anemometer with a spinning propeller.  "Don't mention me." 

I burst into the room and instantly shut the door when I saw papers lift.  Charts, papers, reports, and calculator strips littered every surface or cork board, with a few pasted to the glass.  Machines with lights and a wand drawing waves on a rotating chalkboard cylinder were stuck in a corner.  Another machine stuttered for a moment, stamping letters on a sheet, then stopped.  

Amidst the chaos stood a red mare with a dirty brown mane.  She wore a tan vest with a cloud and rainbow emblem.  Her cutie mark was a cumulonimbus cloud.  She held binoculars up with her wings and didn't even register my presence.  

Maybe not.  In a contralto voice, she said, "Hi."

I said, "Hi," back.  

"No.  My name is High."  She panned her binoculars to look west and added, "And you are?"

"Rainbow Dash."

Her eyebrows lifted.  She put down the binoculars and regarded me appraisingly with green eyes.  It was startling to realize a stranger recognized my name.  Sure, the vice-principals at school recognized me by reputation before I was ever sent to their office, but she had no reason to know me.

She said, "We've decided to call it a sonic rainboom."

"It— A what?"

"That optical meteorological phenomenon you generated five days ago.  Nice cutie mark, by the way.  I just tracked down the locus yesterday and ascertained you generated it during a steep dive.  The ring effect cleared unstabilized lower deck clouds from here out to beyond Manehatten and Point Vanhoover with effects noted far out to sea.  The shock wave triggered a magical explosion in Canterlot—"

The hair on my mane raised.  "The earthquake fault…"

"—stretching from Canterlot to Tartarus."

Oh, no.  Now I was in big trouble.  

"A coincidence.  Though there is magic in pegasus flight, Princess Celestia and I both agree that the effect was not causative.  The shock wave passed before the explosion occurred.  You didn't cause the explosion.  I was going to go find you; thanks for saving me the trouble.  I want you to join the weather service.  You may be a small filly now, but I bet there's a great talent in those wings and hooves, more so once you grow into them."

Cloud wrangling was one of the most strenuous and visible jobs out there.  Perfect for pushing my limits and demonstrating my sheer awesomeness.  It would do until I could qualify for the Wonderbolts.  But then there was Father's self-made construction empire, and his desire that I join him in the business.  

And Fluttershy.  A broke-leg, starving, shivering Fluttershy filled my mind.  

"Did you say you know where Cloudsdale was when I did my sonic rainboom?  Uh...  ma'am?"

"Come here, Rainbow," she said, lifting the binoculars off her neck with her wings, then looping the strap over mine.  I'd never lifted something that heavy with just feathers, even though they're as strong as steel.  My wings were barely long enough.  Shakily, I looked where she pointed.  Equal pressure caused them to adjust to the distance between my eyes.  Twisting changed focus.  

Eventually I found a weather team of stallions and mares of all sizes, moving, cajoling, and amalgamating clumps of clouds the size of a city.  They all wore tan vests and bronze-rimmed goggles.  The same reflection that showed the bronze in the goggles also showed that half were soaked by some errant cloud burst.  They worked in coordinated teams, with a big yellow stallion calling the shots.  It struck me as a good application of the teamwork we learned in sports.  

His yellow coat reminded me of Fluttershy.  

I looked at High who stood beside a map table.  She spat out the long needle compass she had been triangulating with and said, "Cool, eh?  Imagine doing that and getting paid for it.  Trainee pay is pretty good, too."

Yeah, I could.  Instead of taking the bait, I asked, "Did you find the place?"

"Already knew it.  I just wanted to confirm our position and plot out a heading toward that point.  I presumed you'd want that."  She nosed a heavy ruler in place and drew a line on the plastic-covered map with a grease pencil.  

I removed the strap by jumping at the ceiling, flapping to slam myself back to the floor, and completing the maneuver by grabbing the strap with my teeth and gliding to her side.  I placed the binoculars down gently without a sound.  

Sometimes showing off is second nature.  

"Impressive."

Since the Navigator kept Cloudsdale always oriented the same direction, I knew in an instant which city landmarks I needed to find my bearings to—  Outside a town called Ponyville, near a kink in the border of the Everfree Forest…  I'd been within 10 miles of the spot earlier today!  "Thanks!"

"So, can I introduce you to that weather team I showed you?"  She had to follow my trajectory as I flew over her head to the door.  

"Not today.  Got somewhere to go."

As I bit down on the door lever, she said.  "The offer stands.  Find Red Marlin in recruiting.  Tell him Major High recommended you."

I looked at her, out at the dots that were the weather team in the golden rays of the late afternoon, then to her with a smile.  "Yeah.  I will."  And with that I soared over Cloudsdale, found the two buildings, found my heading, and flew as hard as I could.  

I found the kink in the Everfree forest and saw reflections of the westering sun off what looked like a clock tower in a small hamlet at least five miles ahead.  The woodland was filled with clumps of wide-canopied trees spaced between meadows and occasional ponds.  Even at tree height, I found it too dense to see through.  Long shadows made it impossible to tell a pony from a bush, and made it dangerous to fly lower down at the speed my anxiety spurred me.  

I cried out her name as I flew a pattern over the mile square area I figured she'd fallen into.  Without some indication of her location, I would have to search on the ground, and with sunset rapidly approaching I would soon not be able to search at all.  I called until my throat grew hoarse.

Perhaps she had gone home and had been sent to a boarding school.  No, that just didn't make sense.

I saw movement, shadows playing against shadows.  When I banked around, slowed, and glided in for a low second pass, I didn't see much more due to the sudden condensation of clinging fog.  I had to remind myself that this was the wild undercloud.  As the air cooled, the humidity must have soared.  Tatters of mist filled in between the trees, competing with shadows to bring the visibility through the woodland down to yards in some places.  Worse, fingers of mist rose.  The dusky sunlight that did filter in painted it a ruddy gold.  I fanned my wings, bled off a bit more momentum, afraid that the confusing light might hide unseen branches of a spindly tree.  

Worse, I'd heard stories about the Everfree, that it was the cursed lands of an ancient queen of cruelty and darkness, a monster that had granted freedom to nature to break the bonds of civilization.  A place were selfishness and death reigned, where weather could attack as effectively as a fanged beast might.  And the Everfree was only a mile away.  Somethings had leaked out.  I grew sure of that as it seemed shadows moved around and below me.  The silence of the stillness was profound.  I found it hard to keep my horse brain from being spooked as I began to have visions of my shy friend having been eaten.  

But I was Rainbow Dash, a hero with a rainboom and a mission.  I had nerves of steel.  Errant mist did not scare this mare.  Nah uh.  

I slowed more.  I called out, "Fluttershy!"

The resultant cacophony hit me like a physical blow.  The foliage of the trees ahead of me and to my right burst into raucous motion as if a gale whipped the leaves but somehow missed the branches.  I saw little more than a explosion of particulate black shadows that expanded outward, then ominously began flying with pegasus-like coordination.  The blackness, like enchanted—perhaps cursed—smoke swirled about the seemingly denuded canopy, tightened into knots, and like a stone bucked by a giant horse, all shot my direction.

Stunned by the sight, I'd let the attack vector upward, cutting off forward ascent into the sky.  I banked left, accelerating down into the meadowlands and into the cool steamy air.  

The monstrous thing wasn't a thrown stone.  In my peripheral vision, it fanned out and thinned into a sheet of shade and vectored over and to my left, effectively surrounding me in a funnel.  A slower pegasus would have been caught in the flanking maneuver, but not I.  Mist swirled in my wake and bushes and trees zipped noisily by as I slalomed around them.  I visualized being squirted out like water from a squeeze bottle.  Now...  Up—!

Wham!

I retained enough control that I didn't break my neck, but fanning to a stop with a stunned wing is not a thing that just any flyer can do, even the one that generated the sonic rainboom.  I landed on my back, felt the dewy grass suck away my momentum while wearing away the fur across my spine.  I kicked, getting myself headed flank forward as bits of dandelion and seed head fodder ripped and shot over me.  With hopes of flipping myself over and executing a full fan stop at a reasonable speed, I pushed my head into my chest, flexing my forequarters.  

Up I went just as I hit the sticky mucky bank of a pond.  

Up.  

Over.  

Down.  

Splash!  Head down in cold water.

I found myself chest deep in shallow, muddy, stagnant muck, spitting and coughing the sour stinky stuff.

I staggered out, only slipping once, and shook myself out, throwing a shower of droplets into the ruddy corpuscular light.  I flexed my wing.  Feeling crept back; I felt the sting of a sprain, not a break.  It felt creaky as I flexed it.  I fought the instinct to preen, covered as I was with revolting mud.

All in all, a fair crash landing.  I remembered the loud crack.  Feathers as strong as steel, I thought and smirked.  "You should have seen what I did to that bush!"

Then I remembered the attack.

Crouched, I scanned around me, ready to buck, or rear and box, whatever it took.  But the sky remained clear.  The mists drifted and filled in the tunnel through which I'd slid, soon hiding the path I'd flattened through the anonymous field.

My heart racketed in my chest.  The intelligent part of my brain said those shadows had to have been birds.

Birds flocked.

I'd probably spooked them, causing them inadvertently to fly my direction.  Mindlessly.  

I told myself this.  

The center of the pond had clear water.  I used it to bathe, splashing water through my wings, and gathering my courage.  I still had to find Fluttershy and I might have to stay the night.  Preened and ready, I looked through the fading light.

I was a pegasus pony, wasn't I?  Even I could bust clouds, even lazy miscreant ground hugging fog.  I remembered my lessons, waved my tail and fluttered my wings, then lunged.

The fog receded before me in a gratifying circular wave.  In moments, it revealed my crash landing through the weeds half way to the tree line.

Eyes blinked at me in the tall mature grass, glinting in the last light.  Single eyes, as if I were being watched askance.  I saw four or five, but as I circled the pond, I saw one here, one there.  Then a rustle.  Something hidden taking little leaps.  Worse, I caught a glimpse of something white.  My breath caught.  Teeth…?  A fang?

Slowly, I became aware of the night's cricket chorus.  The rattling seed heads of the fodder grass smelled grainy and tasty, not that hunger hovered anywhere near my consciousness.  I heard scratching against bark and saw a larger animal waddle along a hefty branch stop and glare in silhouette.  Birds now jumped between branches.  Small globular creatures perched on twigs, regarding me momentarily and fluttering on.  Becoming more unnerved, I unfurled my wings but stiffness and a tinge of pain made me wary of leaping into the air, only to crash.  

I did not want to be here.  Not with the living world sizing me up for supper.  

Ponyville lay about at least five miles due north, and I could judge direction by the setting sun.  I could see blue sky; later I'd see the stars.  A careful trot might get me to roads and a city—okay, an earth pony Podunk village—in an hour or so, with a doctor, a meal, and a bed.  

I set out towards the trees the flocks had roosted in.  The eyes in the grass came to attention, gathering in tiny leaps around my path, watching me.  Furry, hopping, hungry monsters, a few even with small sets of wicked, sharp, multipoint antlers.

I stopped.  They were trying to intimidate me; succeeding actually.  Wrong pony for that.  I crouched, then jumped forward with a "Rrrrarrr!"

The close ones hopped or skittered away.  Well...  There!

That worked for awhile, but I knew they closed in behind, but kept their distance.  I avoided the trees, but kept my direction despite the occasional warning hiss or chittering, ducking as birds dive bombed me unexpectedly.  When bats did that, it was darn scary.

The gathered monsters seemed none-too-happy about my direction, but in the growing gloom, what choice did I have?  I roared and snorted at a small critter with a big bushy flicking tail in a tree.  It ticked and squeaked at me, then threw nuts that bounced off my head.  

Then a lump of darkness separated from shadow and gloom.  It reared and grew taller as it approached, easily twice the mass of the largest stallion, and as tall as a stallion rearing.  I froze, but it lumbered closer.  It rumbled deeply in its throat.  I saw glints of sharp teeth.  

Predator, the horse brain told me.  Fear, that I had always kept a tight cap on and sipped gingerly for the rush it provided, began bubbling and roiling inside.  Instants left until it wiped away all control, I made what I figured might be my last decision as instinct made me rear and whinny.  

"Harry, stop that right now!

A yellow flash zipped around the monster and interposed itself, wings flared, huge, between me and death.  A full, very pink tail flicked and snapped like a whip with annoyance.  "Please!  Rainbow Dash is my only pony friend!"

To my amazement, the dark furry mass of muscle and teeth subsided onto all fours and whined.  

"You know you'll throw your back out if you do that type of thing.  I'll massage it later," the mare promised in a kindly but authoritative voice.  

Yellow mare.  

Pink tail and mane.  

A cutie mark of three pink butterflies...  but not shy.

She'd saved my life.

I'd never cried uncontrollably before.  But I stood there, still rearing, tears streaming down my cheeks.  "Fluttershy?"

She turned, lithe, delicate, and awesomely graceful.  So the opposite of me.  "Oh, Dashie, are you okay? I'm sorry Harry scared you!" she added, turning away.  "He's just a big cuddly fluff ball, yes he is."

"Cuddly?" I asked, my voice barely a squeak as I dropped to all fours.

As if to prove it, she trotted up to the creature with me cautiously behind.  As my eyes adapted and I came closer, I recognized the animal from some science book.  A brown bear.  I gasped as she threw her forelegs around his scruffy neck and wrapped her wings around him for good measure.  "Cuddly, and warm too."

And, for good measure three wrens landed on her shoulder and a particularly ugly bat fluttered down on to her mane.  I didn't know whether to be horrified, grossed out, or incredibly impressed.  Around us, a veritable army of critters emerged from the underbrush.  Now that I could see them more clearly, I could identify some of them: jackalopes, ferrets, frogs, and one that I think might have been a raccoon, but I couldn't see it well.  Animals that I thought had had fangs and had wanted to eat me—  Wrong.  All had wary eyes when glancing at me, but all looked adoringly at Fluttershy.

"What happened to you?" I breathed, overwhelmed by the shear incomprehensibility of it all.

She let go.  To the attendant animals, looking from one to the others, sometimes stopping to listen intently, she said, "Yes, I'm okay.  Oh, she's a good friend.  No, I'm alright.  Yes, you can leave if you want.  Look for others?  There may be other ponies, but try not to be so scary this time.  Oh, thank you," she finished as the bushy-tailed tree climbers—squirrels?—dropped a load of small nuts until there was a pile of them.  "Thank you ever so much."

Finally, as animals large and small skittered off leaving just a few (including Harry the Bear), she turned to me.  "Your mouth is open.  You're going to catch a fly."  She giggled daintily.

My jaws clacked together.  Orange and purple clouds lit by the recently set sun provided wane illumination, more than the previous sunset full of confusing shadows.  I could see, after a fashion.  I stared at her flank—with her cutie mark of pink butterflies with green bodies and curly antennae—rudely now that I think about it, and asked again, "What happened?"

She came closer, smiling.  "I fell from the sky and found myself, thanks to you Dashie, thanks to you challenging those bullies to a race."  

This calling me by an affectionate nickname was new, as was her not looking away but looking me in the eye.  I kinda liked it.  "Perhaps you did find yourself.  What happened?"

"Like I said.  I waved the starting flag, but those big bad bullies flew right at me.  Their slipstream unbalanced me and I spun right off the cloud and nobody saw.  It was so unexpected, I just fell spinning and spinning, barely able to get my wings to flap.  I did manage a good flare as I fell through the trees.  I might have still crashed, but I encountered a—literally—living cloud.  Butterflies, just like on my cutie mark; my cloud magic saved me, allowing me to float atop them.  They were so kind; they ferried me around and put me on solid ground.  I didn't know that insects could do that.  Did you?"

The only insects I took notice of were horse flies, and those I swatted with my tail.  "No."

"All around me were all these cute little bunnies and other sweet animals.  They had never seen a pony before, I think, and they followed me around.  I couldn't help but sing.  But not a minute after I landed, there was a bright flash in the sky and the colors of the rainbow strobed across everything.  That frightened the poor dears, but a thunder clap followed and spooked them one and all.  It was so sad.  I looked up and saw that whatever it was had passed.  I searched where the woodland creatures had hid under bushes, in trees, behind rocks, deep in a pond.  And…"  She took a big breath and looked down at her hooves, as if remembering the "shy" at the end of her name.  

"And?" I prompted.

"And when I told them it was safe to come out, they understood me."  She looked up.  "It's been so amazing.  They all have their own little languages, simple vocabularies; they even joke.  And I can't possibly speak how they do, but my special talent seems to also allow them to understand me—increasingly well when I speak to them many times.  Oh, Dashie!" 

Overcome by emotion, she reared and hugged me.  Despite being half-again my size and long boned, it was like being hugged by a feather pillow.  And it felt strangely good, except for where she touched my sprained wing.  She smelled of the musk of her animal friends under a layer of various herb scents and rotting leaves.  She also smelled as if she had washed in the impure waters of one of the ponds at least once.  She noticed my gasp and wince, but as she let go, she also noticed something else.  

"You got your cutie mark, too!  The both of us…  that, that— flash.  Rainbow-colored.  Was that you!?"  She squee'd.  "This is so nice.  They say when two ponies get their cutie mark about the same time— they're friends forever!"

She frowned at my wing, then turned toward Harry.  "Kind Sir, Can you show us home, please?  I need to help Rainbow Dash with her wing."

I followed the yellow mare, and the bear (who picked up the nut offering), as night descended fully.  The din of crickets and roar of disconsolate cicadas filled the misty air.

Home consisted of a lean-to of irregular logs, some more rotted than others, covered with moss and daubed with mud to keep out the wind.  A swarm of blinking fireflies glided silently in circles, providing illumination enough to see a bit of color and detail.  Without permission, Fluttershy nosed my hurt wing repeatedly, asked me to flex it, nibbled some feathers that had gone out of place, and put her ear to the joints as I moved it slightly.  "Nothing broken, or fractured."

I smiled.  "Doctor Fluttershy."

Her face reddened.  "Nurse 'Shy, maybe.  I have had to help so many hurt animals; I have gained a year of experience in just days.  Each species teaches me things that I can use on another, and what my little patient says about how I help her informs my work on the next.  There are herbs.  There are healing muds for the skin and mud plaster for splints.  There are foods that cure ills.  My head is filled to bursting.  I could really use my school notebook to write it all down."

"When you come home with me tomorrow—"

"No," she said flatly, laying on the grass, legs in front of her, and I did the same.  Fluttershy, looking away—into the glittering eyes of animals in the grass and trees as I soon realized—sheepishly added, "I am home."

"But..."  I sputtered.  "That's no house.  What kinda shelter will it be in winter?"

"Ponies are descended from horses.  They may be giant feral animals, but they do just fine without shelter and I suspect I will, too.  And my friends will need my help even more in winter."

I didn't want to argue that a horse mare was almost as big as Harry, and would retain heat better.  Then again, if I got her a winter coat…  No, I had to convince her.  "Food—"

She snorted.  "Harry?"

While he dropped the nuts, all cracked in front of me, Fluttershy addressed her other friends.  Soon we had a raw feast fit for a princess spread before us.  

"Go ahead."

The nuts crunched delicately and tasted better than the best almonds I'd ever tried, with an interesting bitter aftertaste.  I had never grazed in my life, so I'd never eaten wild seed head fodder.  The nutty-oaty grains seemed to burst with awesome flavors against my tongue.  Combined with the celery-herbal taste of the bran and stem found only in hay cut at the right moment of curing, sent me into paroxysms of gastronomic bliss.  I had heard stories of earth pony farms and the families running them eating better than Princess Celestia herself.  Suddenly, I believed.  

"Uh, sorry.  I didn't mean to eat it all."

She smiled, having undoubtedly been watching me while I ate, and whispered, "You are so easy to read, Dashie."  Then, "Yes, I graze and I do not care because I am not going back to school and nopony is going to make fun of me again.  I can live here.  I will store food for winter, and, well, Ponyville is a hop, skip, and a jump away if I get in trouble.  I simply will not be away from my little friends and that is all I have to say about that."  Her voice lowered to a peep as she evaluated her words.  She added,  "Sorry Dashie, I know you mean well."

"I understand.  I met your brother.  I know about your parents."

Her mouth dropped open and she inhaled for the longest time until she physically could not.  "As a daughter, I'm a worthless piece—"

"No!"  I stood and shouted her down.  "No.  Never think that.  Never say that.  Whatever is was, it's not your fault!"  I swooped in and hugged her as tightly as I could, even wrapping my wings around her, too, despite the pain.  She fought me at first, then melted and began to sob.  I held the broken mare as if I could heal her by sheer strength of will alone, though I knew better than to think I could make it true.  Even the woodland creatures sensed her pain and need, and despite having Harry join into the hug, and having all manner of creature from bunny to badger pressing around us, I held her and continued to hold her until the storm cloud drained all its fury and the last drop of rain fell.  And then some.

She fell asleep in my embrace.  

Well, that proved awkward.  In the end, I disengaged myself and ended up sleeping under the stars pressed against her, with Harry on the other side, keeping her warm.  Don't go thinking I'm touchy-feely, because I'm not.  Still, I did a lot of thinking that night, with the cold breezes blowing across my face, never having been close enough to feel another pony's heart beating.  And liking it.

Who knew that friendship for me meant fulfilling a need to find somepony I could protect.  It literally scrambled my jock mind.  But then again, Father was a jock's jock.  He still has ponies asking for him to autograph balls these many years after his injuries.  And he was an awesome good father.

I now worried I would disappoint him.  I had choices to make.

The next morning, I asked Fluttershy to fly to Cloudsdale to explain what had grounded me.  She said she couldn't.  I should have known she wanted to remain missing.  She wouldn't even accompany me to Ponyville, though she walked me to the road and did stop in a pasture to converse with some particularly loquacious cows.  Ponyville had a huge population of pegasi.  Who knew?  One big buff teenager named Bulk Biceps escorted me to the Ponyville hospital and volunteered to fly to Cloudsdale.  

Hospital food tasted like ashes compared to last night's meal.

Surprisingly, Father and Mother didn't ground me.  I told my story, fully, despite that telling might result in runaway Fluttershy being forcibly returned to Cloudsdale.  I trusted my parents and they didn't disappoint.  My mother was unaccountably proud of me, and told me in excruciating detail what she felt, even calling me "sweet."  (I barely had the discipline to keep myself from making gagging noises at that, which would have ruined her moment; call me sentimental.)   Dad told me that he had learned more about Fluttershy's parents from his businesspony buddies.  He added that the proper thing to do would be for me to go to Detective Gabs and repeat my story.  Child services would likely find a foster home for Fluttershy.  

He finished by saying, "Boomer.  I'm telling you that you should talk to the constabulary, but I'm also saying that I also trust you to do the right thing."

In other words, he meant it was my responsibility.  Being called "sweet" deserved a nod, but this—this being trusted thing—deserved a hug.  He wasn't into that stuff, but I knew he would suck it up for me.

About those choices I knew I had to make: Well, I had asked for a play house some years ago and Father hadn't said no, instead he said I'd have to work to pay for it.  The first thing after school the next day, I flew to the weather service.  That weekend, Major High even tutored me in weather scrying and how to kick the stuffing out of the worst storms.  And the pay wasn't as good as I imagined, but she assured me I wouldn't be a trainee for long.

Every weekend, I visited Fluttershy.  Each time, I tried to convince her to return to Cloudsdale, to stay over at my place, but that never worked.  I brought her a tent I purchased from an earth pony in Ponyville.  I brought her notebooks, and school books so she could continue her studies (and tutor me), and a waterproof box to keep them in.  I didn't like imagining a homeless Fluttershy.  She was no horse, despite the iron will secretly hidden in that delicate girly body.  I got her a coat to celebrate the running of the leaves.  And blankets, and worked my tail off to get more bits.

And I worked to meet earth ponies in the neighborhood, making sure they knew that Fluttershy lived here.  One of them, MacIntosh Apple, asked if Fluttershy really had a way with animals, that he had some stubborn pigs that needed "some doctoring" and "varmints" that "needed convincing to stay in the fallow fields."  I had to accompany Fluttershy to her first real job, but she exceeded my expectations.  Not only did she figure out that the pigs had eaten some rotted food, all the mice (and other creatures) streamed from the farm to the field and Mr. Apple could not be more delighted that they would be turning over the soil and making it much more fertile.  

He also said, "Ain't she just as cute as a button?"  I kicked him, and so did his sister AJ.  He was too old for Fluttershy.  AJ invited me over for cider, but that's another story.

Soon I was fetching Fluttershy veterinarian books from the Ponyville library.  Not long after, her reputation grew and she brought in a small stream of her own bronze bits.  (I could never convince her to charge what she was worth.)

As the time for Winter approached, and Cloudsdale travelled on an arctic cold front, Father nabbed box seats at the coliseum for the Radiants vs Busters game.  I popped for the peanuts and the hay burgers because I wanted to celebrate.  During half time—around a mouth full of peanuts I should have finished chewing, but I'd wanted to stop one of Father's glory days stories before he built up a head of steam—I asked, "Remember that play house I wanted?"

He chuckled and blew the hair out of his eyes.

"I want to build a real house, now."

His eyebrows raised and he looked at me.  I'd grown in the months since I'd gotten my cutie mark.  A lot really, both physically and—who would have thought—emotionally.  One might call me more mature, or maybe not.  It was time for those choices.  For the big R.  Responsibility.

I continued, "I got the job I asked for.  They're assigning me part time to the Ponyville weather team.  By the time I finish high school in three years, Major High thinks I might even qualify to lead the team.  I can pay for it."

"You want to move to Ponyville?"

I'd actually been thinking I would anchor the house low over Fluttershy's meadow and give it to her, but what came out of my mouth was, "Yeah, I do."

Emotions played over Father's mauve face.  His golden eyes went unfocused, which left me confused.

I rushed on, "I know you wanted me to join the business.  And I'm not saying no.  No way am I saying no.  You did not raise a stupid mare, Father.  It's just, that, well, you know, that, that—  That responsibility thing.  And you've been a great Father.  Awesome, you know.  It's just, well, you lead by example and that's the way I want to be, too.  You were into athletics as a colt, captain of the team, and you parlayed that into a career.  As Fluttershy once told me, you found yourself.  You did your best; earned your rewards.  Then when life intervened and grounded you, you went and found yourself again.  I need a chance to find my greatness, too.  And face it, Father.  You're not some old codger.  You'll still be fine ten-fifteen years from now, when I discover I need to settle down, or life insists I do, or when I find a stallion—or when somepony else is the fastest or the better daredevil acrobat, or when cloud busting or Wonderbolts stunt flying becomes as the Major High says, "The thing that younger ponies do," I will be there to help you.  And I will be back if the need comes earlier.  Family is family, and I won't ever forget that; I'm probably incapable of forgetting that.  But I must also make my own family.  I need to do this."

Father stood there, silently taking it in, and silent when I stopped.  The sound of the crowd and bustle of the vendors hawking peanuts and the confusion of fans waving flags—all of it receded into the background.  His nostrils flared as he breathed and his jaw trembled as he clenched his teeth.  He blinked and blinked more.  His eyes seemed moist.  Even his skin seemed reddened.  I could not read him, but I did trust him.  

What ever he said, I would obey him.  I meant what I said about family.

His breath came out as a huge sigh.  His voice came out as a barely controlled moan, "When did you grow up?  Sweet Celestia, how did I miss that?"  His eyes misted up.

I hugged him.  Neither of us wanted to see the other's tears.

And he refused to charge me for the house, a neoclassical four-story tower with a fifth floor domed terrace, with non-structural ornamental doric columns, complete with a rainbow fountain, two rainbow ponds, and regenerating falls.  "Happy Birthday, Boomer!  You can pay for the furniture," he told me.  "Two days a week, you sleep at home."

So, that's how I ended up moving to Ponyville on my Birthday.  

My other birthday present was Fluttershy: she could not refuse to sleep over in my new house since it hovered anchored only a hundred feet above her meadow.  Birthdays trump anything.

I'm so awesome sneaky.  After over half a year sleeping outside, she actually enjoyed staying inside that night, steeping for hours in a hot bath, and burrowing into my guest bed for a long sleep.  

It became a habit.  But it was short lived.

She finally accepted her brother's gold bits, used her veterinarian earnings, and accepted some bits I had saved up.  She bought herself a fixer upper, with emphasis on fixer: a beat up cottage within spitting distance of the Everfree, only a half-mile from Sweet Apple Acres and our friend AJ.  She didn't mind the location.  

She had her animal friends to protect her.

And me.  You see, Fluttershy is family.