Chapter 2: The Spell and Rules
Ponyville
Fluttershy was still flying away towards Ponyville after leaving her house, though she was now going at a much slower rate. She slowly began to calm down as the distance between her and her house that held the horrifying, terrible Angel increased.
She eventually landed and began to walk, “It’s okay; there are no bunnies around here.” Fluttershy thought with relief, hoping that Applejack had gotten sleep and didn’t accidentally send a mass of bunnies running through town like she had before.
She only managed to walk a few more steps when she heard.
“Bunnies for sale!”
She gasped and turned to see the local pet-shop owner pony, a blue Earth pony with a black mane and tail standing outside of his quaint pet shop. The small shop had a huge poster in the window that read “Rabbits For Sale” in big, red letters. The pet-store owner pony continued to shout about it to the public.
“Get your cute, cuddly rabbits!” the owner shouted out. “There are brown rabbits, white rabbits, rabbits that are a mix of both!”
He held up a rabbit that had a mostly white coat except for a brown ring around its eye and a brown, front paw.
Fluttershy began to nervously back away from the shop when she bumped into somepony behind her. She turned around to see a yellow unicorn with a scowl on her face, and a pet bunny by her side.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going! You almost ran into Scruffy here,” she scolded, pointing at the little black rabbit. All of Fluttershy’s attention, however, was on the rabbit, apparently named Scruffy, rather than the unicorn herself. It didn’t take long for Fluttershy to let out another shriek before she sprinted off towards Sugarcube Corner, hoping to find some safety and security there with Pinkie Pie.
Yeah, that was going to end well.
Once she was inside the shop with the door shut, she let out a sigh of relief. She trotted up to the front counter where Mr. Cake was busy putting blue, decorative frosting onto a large, white, three-layered cake that would have looked absolutely delicious to Fluttershy had she not been completely overcome with fear. Mr. Cake stopped frosting and turned to see Fluttershy standing at the front of his store.
“Oh hello there Fluttershy, do you need anything?” he asked with a smile.
“No Mr. Cake, I was just wondering if Pinkie Pie happened to be around.” Fluttershy asked meekly. “I hoped that I could talk to her about something.”
“Oh yeah she is. Hang on,” he said before turning to face the kitchen, “Hey Pinkie! Fluttershy’s out here and she wants to talk to you!”
“Okie-dokie Loki! Should I bring the cake out?” Pinkie Pie shouted from inside the kitchen. Fluttershy couldn’t see her, but her joyful, excited voice was recognizable. Hearing it made her feel more at home and her fear from earlier began to subside even more.
“If you’re done with it, yes.” Mr. Cake said sternly.
“Okay! Oh Fluttershy! I know you’re going to absolutely, positively love this cake!” Pinkie Pie shouted joyfully.
Fluttershy sighed and took a small step forward and waited for her friend to come out of the kitchen. She put on a smile so that Pinkie Pie wouldn’t become upset upon seeing her. Well, either upset or call for an emergency party to make her feel better, something that Pinkie Pie had done before.
A few seconds later, the door burst open and revealed a cake being wheeled in on a cart. But this was no ordinary cake, oh no, where’s the humor in that? It was a chocolate cake in the shape of a giant…wait for it…rabbit.
The cake was about as tall as one and a half ponies that stood on each other. The entire pastry was chocolate except for the gumdrop eyes that seemed to be taunting the frightened little pegasus in front of it.
Fluttershy’s jaw dropped as Pinkie Pie popped out from behind the cake and jumped in front of it with pure enthusiasm, “Well, do you like it? So you? Huh? Huh? HUH?” she asked with a silly grin, inching closer to Fluttershy with each utterance of the word “huh” she made until her face was merely inches away from Fluttershy’s.
Fluttershy’s focus, however, was on the cake rather than the hyperactive pink pony that was directly in front of her. She let out another scream and flew out of the shop.
Pinkie Pie’s face went from showing excitement to showing bewilderment as she scratched her head, “What the hay was that about?”
She turned to Mr. Cake, who let out a sigh and shook his head, “Pinkie, what have I told you about customers and respecting their boundaries?”
Pinkie Pie thought for a moment before she grinned, “Oh yea that right, you said…” she then cleared her throat to change her tone of voice to make it sound more commanding and masculine before she mimicked Mr. Cake with great enthusiasm, “…Pinkie Pie, if you keep invading the customers’ personal space, I’ll never sell another cake in this town.”
After her little performance, Pinkie Pie grinned in satisfaction while Mr. Cake just stared at her with complete annoyance.
“Good…as long as you remember.” He said unenthusiastically before he continued to decorate the cake he was working on, all the while thinking, “Why do I even bother to speak logic to that pony.”
***********************************************
Twilight’s Library
“What are we going to do?” Rainbow Dash asked nervously as Twilight ran from shelf to shelf in the library, looking for a book that could help with Flutershy’s problem.
Spike was still upstairs sleeping like a log, as Twilight had allowed him to sleep in as a reward for being such a good assistant.
Also present in the library was Rarity, who had been waiting for Twilight to get back from her visit with Fluttershy so that she could rent out a book on dress designing that Twilight had promised her.
Now that Twilight was back, and she had managed to get the book she needed, Rarity was simply listening to Twilight and Rainbow Dash to see why they were acting so frantic. After all how could she ignore such nervous behavior from her friends? But she was still confused, and so far the only thing that was clear to her was that something was wrong with Fluttershy.
“I don’t know; spells dealing with phobias are hard to find, and those that exist don’t often work out.” Twilight said as she continued to search the shelves.
“What are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“It’s hard to make spells that deal with changing a pony’s mind work.” Twilight grumbled as she finished going though the book in front of her, “Ugh, nothing in here!” She put the book back and trotted over to another shelf to look at another book.
Rainbow Dash held her hooves out to interject, “Hang on, so you’re telling me that you can teleport things from one place to another, and you can make things levitate, but getting rid of phobias is difficult?”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Twilight muttered as she brought another book down from the shelf and opened it, flipping from page to page to see if she could find anything that could help, “a ponies mind is very complex. We can’t just cast a spell that “changes how she thinks”, it won’t stick.”
“Why not?”
“I’m terribly sorry and hope I’m not being incredibly rude by interrupting,” Rarity interrupted from where she was standing, “but I can’t help but feel confused about what exactly is wrong with Fluttershy. I didn’t hear what you said earlier. What happened with her? She’s afraid of honey?”
“Bunnies, Rarity, she’s afraid of bunny rabbits.” Twilight corrected before she continued, “she got attacked yesterday and she hasn’t even been able to look at Angel since then. Rainbow Dash and I are both extremely concerned about her.”
Twilight finished flipping through the book that she had in front of her only to realize that there was nothing about ridding oneself of phobias. “Rats! Nothing in here, either!”
“Well that’s just so unfortunate, poor Fluttershy.” Rarity said, “If there’s anything I can do to be of assistance, please let me know.”
“Thanks Rarity, but before we can do anything I need to find a spell that can help.” Twilight muttered.
Just then they heard the door to the tree-house burst open as Fluttershy darted in at speeds she normally would never reach. Hell, she flew into the library faster than she flew when helping make the tornado with the other pegasi.
“Look out.” She shouted, which in reality was at the volume of the speaking voice for most ponies. Nevertheless, she did manage to have enough volume behind her warning to draw Rarity’s attention to her.
But it was too little, too late.
“Wha…” Rarity began before Fluttershy smashed into her, sending them both tumbling across the floor before stopping in front of a bookshelf. Rarity’s back hit the shelf and about three hardcover books landed onto her head one after the other, causing her to grimace and rub the top of her head in pain. Fluttershy was sprawled across Rarity’s lap, her own eyes spinning from the dizziness that the collision had caused.
Both Rainbow Dash and Twilight dashed over to their friends to see if they were all right.
“Ugh.” Rarity groaned as she continued to rub her bruised head. Fluttershy stood back up and she suddenly had a sad look as she saw what she did to her friend.
“Sorry Rarity, I didn’t see you there.” Fluttershy apologized as she quickly scrambled off of her friend before holding out her hoof to help her up.
“That’s quite all right dear,” Rarity muttered as she took Fluttershy by the hoof and pulled herself up into a sitting position before she fixed her mane and brushed herself off, “just mind where you’re going next time.”
Fluttershy nodded and looked around to see Rainbow Dash looking at her with concern while Twilight was scanning another book for a spell to get rid of Fluttershy’s fear.
“What are you girls doing here?” Fluttershy asked.
“Trying to figure out how to get rid of your leporiphobia.” Twilight answered with a reassuring smile.
“Leopriphobia?” Fluttershy asked.
“What’s leopree…leopripho…er…whatever Fluttershy just said.” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Leopriphobia,” Twilight answered, only to notice that everypony around her was still confused. She rolled her eyes, “a fear of rabbits.”
“Oh of course.” Rarity said with a small chuckle, as if she had known the definition the whole time, when in reality she didn’t.
“Oh, duh! Of course we were supposed to know that,” Rainbow Dash said sarcastically, “Geez Twi, not all of us are bookworms like you.” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I just thought that maybe because we’ve been talking about Fluttershy’s fear for the past hour you’d have an idea as to what I was talking about.” Twilight hissed before turning her attention back to her search.
“Well you thought wrong.” Rainbow Dash said as she put her hooves onto her hips, which would have looked really girly with anypony besides Rainbow Dash, who instead made it look badass.
Twilight picked up a book from the shelf and brought it down to her level before, once again, flipping through the pages to see if there were any useful spells.
“Oh Twilight I really appreciate your offer, but I think it’s something I need to deal with myself.” Fluttershy said quietly. “I don’t want to be a burden on you.”
Just then, for the second time, the door to the library burst open, revealing a familiar, orange pony with a stetson hat on.
“Good mornin’ everypony!” Applejack said with a smile before she made her way through the door. On her back, she was carrying the giant, chocolate bunny cake that Pinkie Pie had made. She was straining a bit to hold it up, sweat dripping down her face and her face showing some signs of a struggle. But the strong mare’s legs allowed her to carry it all the way to the library. After a few staggered steps, she reached the others and gave them all a friendly smile.
“Boy-howdy. Girls, what do ya think of this here cake Pinkie Pie made? Ah couldn’t help but buy it.” she said as she slowly lowered herself so the cake slid across the floor and stopped right at Fluttershy’s hooves as Applejack continued, “It sure was a doosey ta get down here, but ah think it was worth it. It looks mighty delicious, don’t it?”
Fluttershy’s eyes went wide before she backed away from the cake, letting out small whimpers. Applejack, who didn’t know anything about Fluttershy’s fear yet, rose an eyebrow, “Er, Fluttershy what’s the matter? Don’t ya like this here cake?”
“I…uh…” Fluttershy began nervously when Applejack suddenly interrupted her in the worst possible way.
“Ah mean, it ain’t scary or nothin’. In fact, ah think it kinda’ looks like Angel,” Applejack said as she looked at the cake before she put her hoof behind the head of the cake rabbit and pushed it forward so that it stared down at the frightened Fluttershy, “don’t ya agree?”
Fluttershy couldn’t take anymore and quickly pulled Rainbow Dash in front of her, as if to shield herself from the assault that the chocolate rabbit cake would put on her. Rainbow Dash just stood there with a very annoyed look on her face while her timid friend cowered behind her from the horrible nightmare that was a giant, chocolate rabbit cake.
Applejack put the cake back upright on the floor so it’s gumdrop eyes were no longer staring down at Fluttershy. She then tilted her head in confusion at her friend’s behavior, “Er, did ah say somethin’ wrong?”
Rainbow Dash groaned as she could feel her friend shaking behind her. “Ugh Fluttershy come on it’s just a cake! It’s not even an actual rabbit.”
“But it looks like a rabbit.” Fluttershy said nervously, “It has the ears of a rabbit, the body of a rabbit, the paws of a rabbit which undeniably have huge, scary, razor-sharp claws ready to attack me like the one in the garden did!” Fluttershy let out a horrified gasp as she finished talking and buried her face into her hooves in fright.
“Ugh.” Rainbow Dash face-hoofed, “It’s a cake!”
“I don’t care.” Fluttershy muttered from under her hooves while she continued to shake.
There was a long silence in the group, which was only broken by the sound of an obnoxious yawn from Twilight’s room. Everyone looked towards the staircase to see Spike slowly making his way down as he rubbed his sleep from his eyes.
“Ugh…Twilight what’s going on?” Spike asked groggily.
“Nothing Spike, just a little problem with Fluttershy.” Twilight answered before she continued to look through the book she had in front of her for answers.
“Oh, that stinks.” Spike said with a lack of interest, for his main concern at the moment was getting something to eat. It wasn’t that he was inconsiderate; he just needed to wake up and get something into his empty stomach. After all, he was used to getting up earlier, so he normally would have eaten already.
“Wait? Why is she scared of rabbits?” Applejack asked before scratching her chin, “ah mean she has Angel, and he’s a rabbit. How can she be afraid of ‘em when she has one as a pet?”
“According to what Twilight and Rainbow Dash here told me, she had a little accident yesterday that involved a rabbit in her garden.” Rarity answered.
“Golly, what do we do?” Applejack asked.
“Twilight’s looking for a spell as we speak.” Rainbow Dash answered.
“What spell!?!” came the cheery voice of Pinkie Pie as she landed directly next to Applejack, causing the country pony to jump in shock, her eyes the size of dinner plates as she looked at the crazy pink pony.
“G’ahhhhh Pinkie Pie! Where did ya’ll come from?” Applejack asked, her eyes bulging while she held her chest as if she was having a heart attack.
“Yeah I didn’t even see you come in.” Spike asked from the kitchen while scratched his head.
“D’uh! I walked in through the front door, not my fault you didn’t notice. Or maybe it is, and I’m a ninja!” Pinkie Pie let out an excited gasp gasp, “I’ve always wanted to be a ninja! What ninja name should I have? Hmmm Ninja Pie?”
“Um, Pinkie.” Twilight tried to interrupt, but to no avail. The pink pony was too excited to notice.
“Pinkie Ninja?”
“Pinkie…”
“Pinkie Pie Ninja Extraordinaire?”
“Pinkie Pie…”
“The Pink Mare Ninja Baker? I don’t know, what sounds best to…”
“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity shouted as she pointed to the frightened Fluttershy while giving Pinkie Pie a critical look.
Pinkie’s smile disappeared and she bounced over to Fluttershy, “Fluttershy are you okay? I hope my little greeting at the bakery isn’t why you’re like this. That would defeat the purpose of a Pinkie greeting, you’re supposed to be happy after it,” she pointed at Fluttershy, “and this is clearly not happy.”
“No, it’s not that it’s just…” Fluttershy swallowed hard before answering, “…I’m afraid of rabbits.”
“That’s no good.” Pinkie said before she had a light bulb moment of realization, “Oh! So that’s why you ran out of Sugarcube Corner today! Because I showed you this super cool bunny cake?”
Fluttershy nodded.
“Aha! I’ve got it!” Twilight shouted excitedly as she levitated the book over to the group.
“What have you got? Breakfast?” Spike asked as he let out another yawn, still sleepy from being woken up. He was opening cupboards in the kitchen as he looked for something to eat. “Because I can’t find any gems around here to save my life.”
“No, I found a spell that can help us get rid of Fluttershy’s fear permanently. The only problem is…” Twilight’s happy expression fell as she read on.
“Well?” Asked Rainbow Dash, “what is it?”
“Well it’s…it’s a really risky spell.” She answered, “and we all need to take part in it for it to work.”
“What’s the spell?” Fluttershy asked, lifting her head up from her cowering position.
“Hang on Fluttershy, I need to talk with the others.” Twilight said as she gestured for everypony else to follow her, “Spike, can you stay with her, we’ll be right back.”
Spike nodded and walked over to the shy pegasus to make sure she was okay. “Come on Fluttershy, let’s go see if there’s anything to eat.”
“Oh I could go for some oat now.” Fluttershy said happily as she went over to the kitchen to get some food with the baby dragon.
Once Fluttershy was in the kitchen, out of earshot, Twilight squinted and read the name of the spell as the book continued to float in front of her face, “Um, okay girls…this spell requires us going into Fluttershy’s mind while she sleeps and planting an idea in her subconscious. In other words, we all need to enter her dreams.”
“All of us?” Applejack asked.
Twilight nodded, “Yes, Spike can watch over us but we need at least five ponies to pull this off.”
“What?” Everypony asked in unison.
“This…this spell sounds mighty confusin’ Twi.” Applejack said, scratching her head.
“That’s nothing, wait until you hear all of the rules we need to follow.” Twilight said with a small chuckle. “It says that Fluttershy can’t know about us performing this spell on her. Otherwise her subconscious would know that we’re invading her mind and it’ll attack us.”
“Okay.” Rarity said as she scratched her head. “So we have to go into her dream and…get rid of her fear by planting an idea? How in Equestria is that supposed to work?”
“We have to create three different dreams in order to bury the idea in her mind deep enough that it will stick.” Twilight said. “If we don’t go deep enough, the idea won’t stay and she’ll wake up just as frightened of bunnies as she is right now.”
“What’s the idea that we’re giving her?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“That rabbits aren’t all scary.” Twilight answered, “so, like I said, to do this we need to put her into a dream within a dream within a dream.”
“Dream within a dream?” Rainbow Dash asked with a mix of shock and bewilderment that mirrored the confused faces of everypony else in the room.
“That’s right.” Twilight said with a nod.
“How in the hay does a dream within a dream work?” Applejack asked, her eyebrow was raised in confusion.
“Have you ever woken up from a dream twice in the same sleep. Like, you wake up in your dream only to wake up a second time because that was a dream itself, like when...” Twilight asked.
“Stop! Stop!” Applejack put her hooves to her ear, “Dang-it Twi, my noggin’s hurtin’ enough with all this dream-inside-a-dream explanation mumbo-jumbo makin’ it worse.”
“So what you’re saying is we invade Fluttershy’s mind, make her fall asleep twice so she’s in three dreams at once, and give her the idea that rabbits aren’t all bad and that will cure her?” Rainbow Dash asked. Twilight nodded and Rainbow Dash grinned before leaping in the air with her hoof pointed up. “That’s so awesome! I mean, WOW! Who's the brilliantly epic pony that came up with this spell?”
Twilight flipped through a few pages, “Um…it looks like it was somepony named Coltipher Nolan.”
“Cool, I have got to meet that guy!” Rainbow Dash said excitedly.
“Anyway, so that’s all. We just need to make sure she falls asleep and doesn’t know what we’re planning to do.”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie Pie shouted, putting her hoof up.
Twilight let out a sigh, “What is it Pinkie?”
“Well, I was just thinking what would happen if Fluttershy’s subconscious attacked us? Wouldn’t we just wake up, after all it’s a dream, and whenever somepony dies in their dream, they wake up in reality.” Pinkie Pie said with a smile, still in her typical, bubbly mood.
Twilight shook her head, “No, if we’re killed in the dream we go into the furthest dream state, a dream state that would be difficult to wake up from and even if we do,” Twilight gulped as she pointed to her head, “we could be mentally dead. We could be stuck there for years, decades even.”
“Decades?” Rarity said in shock, which reflected everypony else’s facial expression.
“That’s right, time in a dream moves faster, so more time passes in a dream than in reality.”
“Oh so that’s why I can dream about an entire week of tryouts to join the Wonderbolts in one nap?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight nodded. “Precisely”
There was silence among the five friends as they let the risk Twilight just said sink in.
“Oh my…I’m not sure if I want to take part in this anymore.” Rarity muttered. “I mean, possibly losing my mind if I’m killed and living years in a dream. I don’t want that.”
“Ya Twi, ah think that’s unnecessary.” Applejack confirmed, “ah ain’t scared of much, but risking bein’ asleep forever? Ah don’t know.”
“I told you it would be risky.” Twilight said sadly as she closed the book. “But Fluttershy need us, and if any of us were in her place, she would do this in a heartbeat.”
“Are you sure about that, Fluttershy gets frightened pretty easily.” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, she’s afraid of flying high and she’s a pegasus.”
“Not when her friends are in danger.” Twilight answered, “Just like the time she confronted that dragon, she’d put her fears aside to help us. Am I right girls?”
Everypony nodded in agreement. Twilight sighed and took a few steps closer to the kitchen area so that Fluttershy could hear her.
“Hey Fluttershy!” Twilight called out, which did manage to get Fluttershy’s attention. Twilight noticed that she and Spike were eating their breakfast.
“Oh what is it Twilight?”
“We were talking about having a slumber party, are you in?”
“Oh yes, definitely.” Fluttershy said with an excited smile.
Twilight smiled, “Great! Then it settled!”
Fluttershy nodded and continued to eat as Twilight then turned to the other girls, “The book also says we need a way to know if we’re dreaming or not.”
“Well does it say how we can do that?” Rarity asked.
“And why’s it bad to think you’re in a dream?” Pinkie Pie asked, “I mean, I’m never sure if I’m asleep or if I’m awake. And sometimes,” she leans forward to whisper to the others, “I feel like we’re being watched, like somepony is following us in whatever we do.”
“Pinkie Pie that’s ridiculous.” Twilight scoffed with a small chuckle before getting back to the spell, “Now, the book says we each need an item that is personal to us, and we must not show anypony what it is. You can’t even show it to everypony in this group. Only each of you can know what you have. It has to be unique, something none of us could imagine but you.”
“Well then can ah run home to grab somethin’?” Applejack asked.
“Yes,” Twilight said, “all of you meet back here when you find what you want to use as your item. And be fast because there are a few other rules that we need to cover.”
Everypony nodded and ran off, except for Pinkie Pie, that is.
“Um, Pinkie?” Twilight asked with her eyebrow raised, “don’t you have to grab something from your house for testing reality?”
Pinkie Pie shook her head, “Nope! I’ve got one with my right now.”
“Really?”
Pinkie Pie nodded and gave a smile, “But I can’t tell you what it is!”
Twilight rolled her eyes “Whatever, as long as you have something.”
She walked back over to the kitchen to join Spike and Fluttershy.
Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie looked shiftily from side to side and pulled out her “unique item”, or a “totem” as it’s referred to by Inception fan-boys.
It was a top that she had picked gotten a while back. But it was unlike any top that existed in Equestria; in fact, it looked like it belonged in a different dimension all together.
“Nopony will ever think of you.” Pinkie said before putting the check mark into her mane for safekeeping, “Besides, it’s not like anypony here has seen the movie. That Mister DiCaprio sure was nice to let me borrow this.”
And just like that, Pinkie Pie bounced off to the kitchen.
“And as long as you stop spinning, I’ll know that I’m awake.”