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Prologue - The Return1,508 words
Catching Up1,656 words
Honesty1,945 words
Nature of Nostalgia911 words
Kindness1,341 words
The Feeling of Flight2,274 words

Nature of Nostalgia

Strolling through the fall can be fun. The autumn leaves are all crisp and beginning to change color, and most of them drift down and paint the ground in their reds and yellows. The air is biting and gentle all at the same time, just like the mare I’m going to visit. Birds chirp as they plan for their trips to the south for the upcoming winter. Ponies enjoy the calm weather before the blizzards and snow, and I could’t help but smile. What lovely things to remember, in times like this. What a time to remember the past.

I couldn’t help but sigh in a brief flash of nostalgia as I strolled down the roads by the Everfree. I remembered days in the Whitetail woods like that, where I simply strolled down the trails to see the colors. I remembered pumpkin pies and apple pies and long nights with obscene amounts of roasted marshmallows. It’s amazing how fast a dragon’s metabolism works.

But the nostalgia of fall faded to the background as I thought of my latest query. Instead came back memories of days after my wings grew in, and days spent with birds and animals and, best of all, Fluttershy. She had always been one of my favorite ponies - hadn’t they all, in the end? Fluttershy had a certain charm about her; something that made her cute yet firm, strong yet oh so fragile, all at the same time. She could melt your heart as quickly as she could shatter it.

I remembered spending entire days with her. She often needed help with things and was simply too timid to ask for help; I went by often to help her, whether she asked or not. It seemed like the right thing to do. She certainly appreciated it. Each day she would thank me for my help, and each day I would tell her it was no problem.

And it wasn’t. I honestly enjoyed those days of busy work somehow turned idle. Things I had thought of as chores had become meaningful tasks of friendship - it was just a different kind of friendship. This was with animals; not ponies. Some dragons saw no difference, but it was clear as night and day to me. Maybe it was because I owned a pet, for a brief time. PeeWee and I were still best friends, and he even came with me every so often. That’s what friends do, right? Hang out? Our friendship, I think, sparked something in me. A longing for something more. Something new. That turned out to be taught to me by Fluttershy.

Ponies don’t appreciate nature anymore. We treat it like another chore - another thing to change, to take care of, to make sure it stays correct - when it should be treated like a gift. Fluttershy showed me the difference between ponies and animals. She showed me their lives. Animals lived in their habitats with their families, surviving in the wild like scavengers in a hard pressed world. They tried to live as they wanted, but truly as they needed. How are we so different, I asked her. What sets us apart?

Living, she told me, for an animal is not the same as it is for us. There is one key difference, between us all. Ponies, she said, live and die.

Animals, she said, live and die at the end of the day, and are re-born the next in their hope to live to their next death.

At first, what she said was very depressing to me. But, as I thought on it, the truth behind it all unfolded before my eyes. Animals live, not knowing it they can survive that single day alone, much less a week, and much less a year. Ponies know they will live long; they do not ‘survive’. They don’t even really live. They are born and they know. Animals… they don’t know.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. I beg to differ - I think knowledge can be bliss as well, and both can be harmful. Kindness is bliss - for it is through kindness that we are kept in the dark or brought into the light. Without Fluttershy telling me that, for example, I would have been kept in the dark and had been quite happy; but since she told me, since she brought me to the light, I am stronger and happier for it.

The memories of the past tumbled away as I spied her cottage. Now the time has come to return the favor. Because she might not even have a day left, much less a week, and much less a year. She would not live long, but I knew she had lived. She was born, and she knew - she knew far better than any - the truth behind it all. She knew the ignorance and the intelligence that plagues pony and animal kind; and she learned, through no fault of her own, what Kindness can do.

I walked to the door and knocked. I waited. The door opened.

“Oh,” a small voice said. “I-I wasn’t expecting company…” Her teal eyes reached mine. “Oh…” A tired smile reached those lips. “I guess I can’t say I’m afraid of grown dragons anymore.”

I chuckled softly. This was going to be painful - but at least she’ll be kind about it.

Author's Note:

A short little chapter. I dunno... No editing. Just posted. Just felt like it. It's quite late here, so sorry for any sleepy talk that got in here!

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