In The Beginning

by flutterJackdash

8. Aware

She drew a hoof over the stubble of her shaved mane, sighing as she stared out a window into a limitless expanse of unyielding black. Cut only by the distant twinkling of torches. She cast her eyes toward her lantern, hung inside of her hut and swinging lazily from a breeze she hadn’t felt. She moved closer to the lantern, and inspected her wings.

Soft, butter yellow, with feathers entirely disorganized. She knew she ought to preen her wings soon, but nothing really compelled this. Flying was pretty much impossible in the darkness, so why should she even bother? Why should any pegasus, for that matter?

She cast a glance around the hut, and heard the sound of her stomach grumbling. She really wished she had some idea about what time of day it actually was, but it had become lost to everypony so long ago that she didn’t even recall when that was. A small creature scurried through the hut, and she flinched.

What was that?

She checked her surroundings, but found nothing amiss. Stomach growled again. Right, hungry.

Fluttershy took a breath, then stepped to the door of her little hut. Venturing outside was not her favorite thing to do, in fact, she would have to rate it among her least favorite things, but she’d find no food in her hut. She had to venture out, to find something.

As if today will be different from yesterday, if a day even passed…

Fluttershy rotated her neck, listening to and feeling several pops down her spine. It was a small and inconsequential relief, and a mild procrastination. She sighed, squeezed her eyes shut, then stomped a hoof before taking up her lantern and marching out the flap of her hut and into the woods.

The White Tail Woods used to be peaceful, a pleasant place for an afternoon stroll with a friend. Now is was just as terrifying as the Everfree Forest once was. She supposed that with the absence of the stars, moon, and sun all that whatever darkness flourished in the Everfree found nothing keeping it from spreading.

So she gave a slender tree a wide berth, noting the rustle of a high branch and begin to shiver as she continued her trot, squinting to see what she could through the faint light of her lantern. It never went as far as it really should have, or at least that was how she felt about it.

An ear twitched and rotated as a noise began from behind her, and she turned her head to follow and see what had made the noise. She could not slow her trembling, and a glint of something dark blue and shining through the darkness caused her to take a step back.

A darkened pink mare stepped out of some bushes set around the base of another thin tree. How the leaves of these bushes managed to live was something she didn’t know, and the leaves weren’t pleasant to eat but they could be eaten and that was all that mattered anymore.

Well, that and the strange mare approaching her slowly. Why wouldn’t her legs respond?

“Hello,” said the dark pink mare, quietly.

“H-H-Hello,” she replied.

“Fluttershy… It’s me,” said the sorrowful voice of the dark mare.

“Wh-who?”

“Pinkamena,” stated Pinkamena.

“P-Pinkie? Really?” asked Fluttershy.

“No, Pinkamena. I don’t… I’m not Pinkie anymore,” she said as she approached Fluttershy.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry… What are you doing here?”

“I had a dream,” stated Pinkamena.

“A dream?” Fluttershy asked as her nerves rattled their last and she stood more steady.

“Yes,” she said, “were you going somewhere? We don’t have to stay here, you know?”

“Oh, right. I’m foraging,” she said.

“Then let’s do more of that, we can talk at the same time, okay?”

“Yes, okay,” said Fluttershy quietly.

---

“Lightning Dust… The last time I saw you… you had…,” but Dash choked on whatever was left of that sentence and looked down.

“What the buck are you talking about, Captain?”

“And what am I wearing? What’s going on?” Dash asked frantically.

“You’re… you’re for real, aren’t you?” Lightning Dust asked, stunned.

“I don’t know…,” admitted Dash.

“...what?”

“I… I remember all kinds of stuff, but it’s all different! I feel like I’m not supposed to be here, but I don’t know! I remember agreeing to be Captain of the Shadowbolts… I-I remember flying away from my friends.” Her voice cracked as she said this.

“Captain, the only friend I’ve ever seen you have is yourself… Who else are you talking about?”

“Fluttershy, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity,” she said glumly.

“I don’t know any of those names,” said Dust as she shook her head.

Dash swallowed.

“And you…,” Dash looked up, now anger was drying the tears in her eyes, “you’d have let Scoots…,” she trailed off, hanging her head again as the anger was spent.

“Who?” asked Dust, cocking her head.

“No, nevermind that,” said Dash as she swallowed and dragged a foreleg across her eyes, “what’s the situation, anyway?”

Dust stood to attention at Dash’s sudden change in demeanor, saluting before responding.

“Ma’am! Slavers on the west end of Fillydelphia! Several diamond dogs and griffons have joined forces, they’re rounding up mares mostly!”

Dash nodded, her eyes narrowing, “Find the others, set up a patrol, and search out the Slavers’ camp, there’s bound to be other prisoners.”

“Ma’am! Yes, ma’am!” Dust saluted once more before darting off to find other Shadowbolts.

---

Pinkamena set another cluster of leaves into a basket as she spoke.

“I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know why I had that dream or… or who I was actually talking to if that wasn’t me, but I feel like I have to do something,” she stated.

“Oh my, what would you do?” asked Fluttershy

“Or we is better,” Pinkamena said.

“Oh, u-um… I-I mean,” stammered Fluttershy weakly.

“Do you remember anything else? I feel like I know more ponies than just you, but… I don’t have any names, any faces.”

“J-Just… that the Fluttershy that spoke to me? She seemed… confident… In a way that I’m just not,” said Fluttershy.

“Yeah… that… other me… didn’t call herself Pinkamena, either. It was strange… she… seemed happy?” Pinkamena finished in something of a query, unsure of her own words.

---

A twitching purple eye gazed fretfully at a pale, unconscious, dragonling, then drew upon an old chalkboard in an abandoned schoolhouse. The light was beyond scant, but she’d found her vision adjustment accordingly for quite awhile and so she wasn’t having any trouble seeing what was written there.

Princess Twilight Sparkle? Me?

Author's Note:

Yeah, these updates are slow in coming, and I apologize for that. But, I'm feeling my muse coming back and finding some inspiration here and there. So, I'll be continuing my stories again and you'll be seeing more updates to all of them. And you'll be seeing new one-shots to fill the gaps between, too.