A Tear in the Fabric

by Cold Bolt

06: Nice Day

"Waaaaaaaaaah!"

Though her eyes were shut tightly, Fluttershy could tell from the wind whipping past that she was not only rocketing through the air, but also losing altitude. Surely she was about to hit the ground and perish! She braced herself for the inevitable impact.

"..."

Perhaps it wasn't as inevitable as she thought?

Curiosity soon replacing fear, she carefully opened one eye, then the other, and looked around. She was still in the air, but no longer plummeting - her wings had caught her while she was still several feet off the ground, which she was now approaching at a much more comfortable pace.

She let out a breath she hadn't noticed she was holding as soon as her shoes touched the dirt, a shiver running through her body as the adrenaline ebbed. Only then did she actually start taking in her surroundings.

Gently rolling hills stretched as far as she could see, covered in grass and interspersed with broad leafy trees and the occasional pond. Warm daylight came down from above, pleasantly complemented by a cool breeze blowing through that shifted the grass as it went, looking like waves on an ocean of green.

In spite of her worries, Fluttershy found herself taken in by the serenity of the place, closing her eyes for but a moment to let it soothe her nerves.

The dirt she had landed on turned out to be a road leading off behind the hills in one direction, and turning to the other made her gasp: an enormous building towering over the nearby landscape stood before her. It looked ancient but surprisingly well kept, its cool white stone columns and angular roof glossy in the light. It reminded her of ancient temples she'd seen in history books.

The temple was surrounded on all sides by tall walls of that same stone. A gap in the wall where it was met by the road should have granted access, but it was sealed off by a much more modern-looking chain link fence gate. Fluttershy approached the gate slowly, noting it was locked up tight and adorned with a very serious sign.

By local ordinance 017a, entry onto temple grounds is prohibited without written permission from Mayor Pifer. Please direct all inquiries to Lumina City Hall.

Fluttershy stared at the sign. If she saw fit to investigate, it would be a simple matter to fly over the fence... but she didn't want to get in trouble! Then again, what if her friends were in there? They had to be somewhere; it was bothering her that she hadn't seen any sign of them yet.

A chirping sound from nearby interrupted her thoughts. Whirling around, she found herself staring at a tree where several birds had stopped to rest, some of which were eyeing her curiously.

Fluttershy's face lit up - this was perfect! Hands held close to her chest, she took several slow steps toward the tree and cleared her throat. "Um, excuse me! Could I please talk to you for a minute?"

After a moment of hesitation, one of the birds left its perch and fluttered down to Fluttershy, landing in her now outstretched palm. On closer inspection, she realized she couldn't identify what species it was, but she pushed her curiosity aside for the time being; she had very important questions to ask.

"I'm looking for my friends," she said to the bird. "Have you seen or heard anyone around lately?"

The bird responded with a series of chirps, chitters, and tweets, Fluttershy nodding along seriously.

"Mhmm... a bright yellow light and a scream... from up there?" Her eyes followed along as the bird pointed its wing at a large opening high up on the front of the temple, not far below the roof. "But... that was me, wasn't it?"

This earned her an affirmative chirp.

"Are you sure that was it? No one else appeared or made any noise? Please, there must be something..."

The bird shook its head.

Fluttershy sighed, the ears atop her head folding back in disappointment. She glanced at the landscape once more, its peacefulness now making her feel more isolated than anything else.

"Well... thank you anyway." She began to raise her hand to prompt the bird to fly away, but suddenly stopped as she remembered something. "Oh, wait!"

The bird tilted its head at her.

"Do you know where, um, 'Lumina' is?"

With a chirp, the bird pointed its wing down the road, away from the temple.

"Okay." Fluttershy gently rubbed the bird's neck with her index finger, earning a happy twitter in reply. "Thank you for all your help."

A moment later, the bird took off to rejoin its fellows.

Another shiver came over Fluttershy as she started down the road.

---

Tall concrete walls rising over the trees meant that Fluttershy had finally found her destination, and she jogged ahead for a better look. An enormous open gate stood before her, a guard tower perched on one side causing her heart to skip a beat before a closer inspection revealed it to be empty.

Slowly, she made her way up to the gate and peered around one of the giant wooden doors for a better look inside. Old-timey houses packed fairly close together lined either side of the street, to be replaced with taller buildings stretching into the distance. Though she could see people going about their business a good ways down the road, there wasn't a soul for well over a hundred yards.

Fluttershy pressed her back against the gate and took a deep breath. She couldn't just stay out here; with no clues about where her friends had gone, she needed to ask someone for help... but what if they weren't friendly? What if they didn't like her because of her wings? What if they were mean to animals? What if...

She shook her head. Worried or not, she had to try; if there was any chance her friends were still out there somewhere, she needed to stay safe until she could reunite with them.

Summoning her courage, Fluttershy edged her way around the door and into the town. With no one close by to speak to, she walked carefully up the front path of the nearest house and stood on the porch. Her eyes lingered on the door, and the welcome sign adorning it; weather-worn though it was, she could tell the bright sunflowers on it had been hand-painted.

A brass door knocker sat above the sign. Slowly, she reached for it and struck it a few times, emitting a series of metallic clunk noises before taking a step back and waiting for an answer.

Several seconds went by in silence.

After a second attempt yielded similar results, Fluttershy glanced over her shoulder at the street behind her. She wasn't keen on trying every door if she could help it - drawing too much attention to herself was probably not a good idea.

As she reached for the knocker a third time just to be sure, movement drew her eye over to the window. She gasped - was that supposed to be a bunny? Only the ears gave it away; its round body was covered in sky blue fur, and it didn't appear to have any limbs to speak of. As it stared at Fluttershy, it began emitting a series of faint noises.

"Huh? W-What's wrong? You sound so scared..." Fluttershy blinked, tilting her head as she interpreted the bunny's frantic squeaking. "Someone's in danger? What should I do...?"

In reply, the bunny leapt away from the window and back into the house. A few seconds later, the door clicked and began to swing inward, the blue critter now hopping in place insistently on the floor behind it.

Before Fluttershy could voice her confusion at how a limbless critter could operate a door, it took off bouncing down the hallway, stopping at the end to look back toward her and continue hopping in place and squeaking.

"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" Fluttershy jogged her way through the hall, slowing to a halt once she had caught up with the bunny... and turned toward the kitchen.

Her heart nearly leapt into her throat.

A young man lay on the hardwood floor next to an overturned chair, a half-eaten bowl of soup cooling on the table nearby. He wasn't moving.

As Fluttershy stared in horror, the bunny took an almighty leap from the floor up onto her shoulder, snapping her out of her stupor.

"Oh no, oh no, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?" Her whole body trembling, she slowly knelt in front of him, gently lifting his head and shoulders. "H-Hey, are you okay? P... Please wake up, come on..."

Slowly, the young man's eyes fluttered open, but wouldn't focus on her. He drew in shallow, ragged breaths, and his pulse was almost audibly irregular. He looked like he had minutes left to live. "H... hos... pi... tal," was all he could manage in between gasps for air.

"Hospital... okay, I-I'll go find one! Hang on, please... You're g-going to be just fine," Fluttershy stammered, her own heart pounding like a hammer behind her ribs. Carefully as she could in spite of how much she was shaking, she scooped him up in her arms. He was lighter than he looked.

She was out the door in seconds, zooming down the street as quickly as her wings would carry her with a passenger and a half. Before long, she reached a street corner where a handful of pedestrians were going about their business. As soon as she rounded the corner, she slowed to a hover, took a deep breath, and yelled with all her might.

"S-Someone please help," she whispered.

Even if her pitiful cry hadn't gotten their attention, her bizarre appearance did; people began to stop what they were doing and gather around to stare at her, curious about the girl with wings carrying an unconscious boy in her arms and a bunny on her shoulder.

Unfortunately, stare was pretty much all they did. Fluttershy landed somewhat clumsily and staggered backward, shrinking away from their collective gaze.

"Out of the way!"

A tall figure forced past the other onlookers. An older man with patches of graying hair, he looked first not at Fluttershy, but instead at the boy she was carrying. "What happened?" he demanded.

"I, I, I... I don't... I just, I found..." Now it was Fluttershy's turn to gasp for air. When had she started crying? They weren't about to accuse her of hurting him, were they?

The man's tone softened somewhat. "Do you know where the hospital is?"

She shook her head.

"Can you fly over the buildings?" he asked.

She nodded.

The man turned around and pointed over the buildings on the other side of the street. "Downtown is that way, about ten blocks. There's a tall building with a large pink cross on it - that's the hospital, you'll see it from the air. ICU entrance is on the south side, facing the street. Have you got all that?"

She nodded.

He took a step back, waving an arm at the crowd to encourage the same of them. "Then go. Now."

Fluttershy instantly took to the air once again. She fought to keep her breathing steady as her wings started to tire... but allowed herself a sigh of relief when a building adorned with a pink cross quickly came into view.

---

It was hard not to feel thankful that this was one of very few times Fluttershy had occasion to visit the hospital.

His name was Riley Maudlin, as it turned out. The hospital staff had identified him rather quickly; evidently, this was far from his first visit, though it had been quite some time since his last. Having finally stabilized after an agonizing period of intense care, he now lay unconscious in bed, hungrily drawing in oxygen through a mask connected to a large canister nearby.

When the police showed up and asked her for a statement, she'd nearly fainted right then and there, but there were enough eyewitness accounts of her deeds that they saw no reason not to take her word in spite of her nervousness. Thankfully, their suspicion regarding her pony form seemed only surface level at the time... but when the lead officer left her a parting warning about "keeping an eye out for the sake of public safety," she couldn't help wondering if it was meant as a threat.

"Are... you sure he'll be okay, Miss Eclipse?" She glanced down at the bunny in her lap, whom she was idly petting as much for her own comfort as anything else, relaxing only slightly as she received an affirmative squeak in response.

"Riley!"

Fluttershy flinched as a middle-aged couple rushed into the room, taking no notice of her as they leaned over Riley for a closer look.

"Oh thank the stars," the man exclaimed as he gently clasped Riley's hand with his own.

The woman, however, quickly turned to Fluttershy. "You must be..."

Fluttershy gulped loudly, placing Eclipse the bunny on the chair behind her as she stood up. No one yet had attempted to accuse her of hurting Riley, but she still found herself waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her fears were again unfounded as the woman stepped forward slowly and gave her a careful but fierce hug.

"Thank you... thank you, thank you for saving our son," she sobbed.

Fluttershy cringed, standing as still as possible while this strange woman cried into her shoulder. "Um... y-you're welcome...?"

After an awkward eternity, she finally pulled away. "Oh, I'm so sorry... where are my manners? My name is Lily, and this is my husband Louie."

"I'm, um... Fluttershy." Before they could start asking curious questions, she turned toward the bed. "So... what happened?"

"Heart condition." Louie sighed. "Had it since he was a baby. Thought he was getting better." He shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Guess not."

"Miss Flutter...shy," Lily began, doing her best to sound like she wasn't incredibly curious about Fluttershy's name, "is there any way we can repay you? Please, there must be something..."

Fluttershy twirled a lock of her hair around her finger and glanced away. "Oh, that's not necessary... I'm just looking for my friends, that's all. We're, um... more than a little lost at the moment."

"Stay with us then."

Fluttershy and Lily both stared at Louie.

"You just flew through the air and saved a kid," he explained. "News will travel. Better to stay put - if they're looking, they'll know you're here."

Lily blinked, a smile slowly forming on her lips. "That's a wonderful idea! If you're lost, you must need someplace to stay, mustn't you? She could borrow the guest room," she added as she turned to her husband, who nodded in agreement.

Fluttershy's ears folded back. They seemed genuine enough, and it wasn't like she relished the idea of wandering a strange world by herself... "I, I mean if it's... not too much trouble. I wouldn't want to impose..."

"We would be terribly remiss to do any less," Lily insisted. "Come now. Where are your things?"

"Oh, I didn't bring anything with me," Fluttershy admitted. "We weren't exactly, um, planning to visit, so..."

Lily gasped. "Then you'll be needing a change or two of clothes, won't you?" She turned to Louie. "I'm going to take her by the department store and then help her get settled in. Will you stay here with Riley so he's not alone when he wakes up?"

Louie flashed her a thumbs-up. "You two get going. I'll be fine here."

"Wonderful! Would you come with me then, dear?" Lily beckoned Fluttershy as she started toward the door. "We'll be sure to get you a nice hooded cloak so you don't stand out quite so much. Oh, and maybe..."

Fluttershy followed along mutely, Lily's voice fading into the background as her thoughts absorbed her mind. This would probably be best, wouldn't it? If her friends were looking for her, they would expect her to find someplace to bunker down instead of braving the unknown by herself.

If they weren't, well. At least the people here were... nice?