Tales

by geopol

7

Tales

by

George Pollock, Jr.

VII. The Third Turn: Fluttershy

I was told Fluttershy refocused on the animals after I left Ponyville. I guess she was always more comfortable with them.

Not that she forgot her friends there. She just started spending more time with the animals. In fact, she finally moved out of her house to be closer to them. All the way to the Everfree Forest. And you'll never guess where in the forest.

Zecora's old house. I kid you not.

Now, this was after Zecora left Ponyville. And again, nopony knows where she went. But Fluttershy once said Zecora told her, "Someday I might leave and roam. When I do, my house will be your home." Guess you don't get clearer than that. For Zecora, anyway.

I found all this out a few years after I moved back to Canterlot. Now, I'd been back to Ponyville a few times by then, and Zecora's house was still empty. And Fluttershy was still living in town. We'd get together on my first few visits, and she really liked Promise and Purpose. She got really shy around Rex – more than usual – but I didn't blame her for that. I was pretty shy around him the first few encounters we had, too.

But then she seemed to change.

Rarity and the others said she started to spend more and more time in the forest, then bring home strange plants. And sometimes, she'd bring back an animal that seemed injured. The next day, she'd open her door, and the animal would scamper out, looking apparently healed. And then she'd speak to it in a language nopony could understand. It became creepy, they said. And Fluttershy seemed to be at a complete loss about how so much animal speak had come to her.

Then one day, she just moved out of her house and into Zecora's old place. Ponies asked her why. She just said it felt "more comfortable" to be there by then.

Now, a while after that, I thought I saw Zecora again. I was visiting Ponyville by myself and saw a pony heading away on the path to the Everfree Forest. The pony was wearing a hooded full-body cloak like Zecora's. And I thought, "It's Zecora! She's back!" So I started trotting toward the pony – it was quite a way away from me – and I started calling Zecora's name.

The pony sort of shook and then froze. And then it started galloping off into the forest. Well, I wasn't about to lose Zecora after all that time, so I galloped off after the pony and kept calling Zecora's name. The zebra knew my voice – I didn't doubt that – so I kept thinking, "Why is she running away?"

By the time I got into the forest, I lost the pony, but I could still hear its galloping and followed it. In a few moments, I realized I was heading in the direction of Zecora's old house. I suddenly thought it might not be Zecora but Fluttershy. I'd heard the stories about her by then. But I'd never seen Fluttershy in a cloak like that before.

I saw the house just as the front door slammed. So I went up and knocked on the door and yelled, "Fluttershy! It's me! Open up!"

Nothing. So I knocked and called again, and finally, the door opened. A little. It was Fluttershy. And she was wearing a cloak. She peeked out from under the hood, and her mane was covering one eye, as it sometimes did.

And just for an instant, I swore I saw her visible eye flash brightly in the shadow of the hood.

But when she saw it was me, her expression turned meek, and she said in her usual quiet way, "Oh, it's you. I'm sorry. Please come in. I didn't mean to make you worry."

I'm going to tell you now: I remembered a lot of what she said that day. There's a reason. I'll tell you later.

So I went in, and it was the strangest thing: The place looked almost like it did when Zecora lived there. Now, there weren't any of the carved wooden masks that Zecora had, but her bed was there and the bottles of stuff hanging by cords on the wall. The place was filled with books and potted plants and stuff I didn't recognize. And Zecora's giant caldron was in its fire pit.

Fluttershy took off the cloak, and I asked her where she got it. She said Zecora left it hanging up in the house with a note, which she showed me. It read, "Please take my cloak and wear it well. The comforts it brings – who can tell?" It rhymed. Zecora wrote it, all right. Fluttershy said the cloak was comfortable and that she liked wearing it. As much as she could – it felt that good.

Then I asked her how she'd been, but before she could answer, I heard this really eerie sound from across the room. It sounded like "Mee-OWWWWLLL …" Fluttershy glanced at a basket on a table and blushed. And she said, "Forgive me a moment. I have a friend who's been sick and on the mend.."

We went over to the basket, and in it was a black-and-gray-and-white-striped cat lying on its side on a folded blanket. It looked tired – almost asleep. When we looked in at it, the cat looked up at us and blinked once.

Then something else creepy – really, really creepy – happened.

Fluttershy started meowing.

The sounds went up and down, and the pacing changed a lot. It was like she was talking to the cat. Of course, I didn't understand a thing. I didn't think any pony could use cat speak. I mean, almost every non-pony in Equestria knows pony speak, like we use.

The cat was quiet, then let out a few meows. Fluttershy nodded and meowed some more. The cat nodded slightly – I didn't know cats could even nod – and it closed its eyes like it was going to sleep. Then Fluttershy took some of the blanket in her teeth and covered the cat up to its neck with it.

She looked at me meekly and said, "He hurt his paw a few days ago, and treating him … well … I don't know. I just did."

So I asked where she learned cat speak. She said, "When I met him, I just … knew. I understood him. It wasn't hard to do. I don't know why."

Then she told me she just started to understand a lot of animals' natural languages. And that somehow, the cures and remedies for the animals just began to come to her. She'd be walking in the forest – usually wearing the cloak because even in the summer, it could get cool in the woods – and when she looked around at the plants, certain combinations began to make sense when there was a problem she was concerned about. She didn't know how it happened. "Feelings" just came to her.

I asked whether all that frightened her. She was quiet for a moment, then said, "You know, I suppose it really should, but when it happens, it's OK. I'm comfortable. It feels good."

Well, it sounded like she was OK and happy, so I was glad for her. She asked me to stay for dinner, and The Steed knows I never turn down a free meal. I admit I was surprised at how good a cook she was. She figured it was all the time she spent mixing things together. Seemed to make sense.

We talked the night away, and at one point, she put the cloak back on. She said she was feeling cold. I didn't notice anything, but we both weren't as young at that point as we used to be, so I figured her tolerance for cold was different from mine.

And she told me a funny thing. Remember Angel the bunny? The one who was practically Fluttershy's sidekick back in the day? Well, he'd been Angel the rabbit for years and years by then, and he'd been married a long, long time. And he had his wife had had 21 kids. At last count. And about 350 grandkids. At last count.

It made me think of Mac and Pinkie Pie. The difference was I'd expect big families like that from rabbits. Ponies? Not so much.

Well, it got late and time to go, so Fluttershy nuzzled me goodbye at the door. And then she said something that seemed like it was coming to her from far away. She said, "Please be safe, my friend. Be well. I hope The Steed watches you through your visit's end. So good night."

And then I went home. Well, actually, I stay at the Ponyville library when I visit, and I even get to sleep in my old loft. The librarians there have always been really sweet about it. Maybe they're just humoring a grandmare. They've all been about my age when I lived there. I can't believe I was ever that young.

So I went to bed that night. Being in the loft has always been so comfortable for me. And I thought about how Fluttershy's life had changed so much. About how she ended up with Zecora's house. And about how she still helped animals but now with skills like Zecora's. And how much comfort she seemed to take from that.

And that made me think about how comfortable Fluttershy said Zecora's cloak was. The one she said she almost always wore now.

Then I froze in bed. Because I suddenly thought about all Fluttershy had said that night. And how – if you really thought about it carefully …

A lot of the things she said …

Rhymed. Somewhere.

I tried, but for the life of me, I couldn't get to sleep that night.

I couldn't stop thinking about the cloak.