Anthology of Graybles

by Str8aura

Heartbreaks (Fluttershy; Nebulously Toned)

Planet Equus was blue.

Fluttershy looked up at the tiny marble, suspended so far away she could lift her hoof under it and feel as if she were gently lifting it like an injured bird, sometimes enough to forget how massive it was in actuality. There was something humbling about grasping the earth that reminded her of her childhood, when she would catch frogs in her yard and hold them, feel them vibrate in her grasp, feeling their every tiny breath and trying to comprehend that such a beautiful and complex creature could be stored in such a small size. Her home planet was the most complicated creature she knew, and still it appeared no larger than a spider egg to her eyes.

The School of Friendship, much of the mountain it was built adjacent to, the walkway that led up to its front doors, and a handful of stepping stones floated through space aimlessly, carrying their only occupant further and further away from the planet Equus.

Fluttershy didn't mind it much, but there was one problem, and she had nearly forgotten about it in her stargazing. She quickly shook her head, standing up from the edge of the walkway she had been sitting on, legs hanging over the broken concrete and dipped into the abyss below. She began to speedtrot back towards the front doors and pushed them open with her head thoughtlessly, patrolling once more through the empty corridors.

As usual, a terrible ghastly silence was everpresent, and she made her first goal an abandoned gramophone in what had once been one of Pinkie's classrooms, the only thing in the room not covered in a fine layer of dust- she had never bothered with any of the other various supplies for parties and games she couldn't use alone. Instead, she always returned to the gramophone, occasionally idly straining to remember what possible lesson it could have been used for. As usual, the remaining discs lay in a neat pile next to them, and she picked her favorite from them and put it in, gently easing the needle to one of the lines running its length with the soft touch of a wingtip.

Heartaches...Heartaches...

She bobbed her head with a small smile, before leaving it to continue playing as she worked onwards. With no air, sound shouldn't be able to travel as far as it did, reaching every hall as if the school were an echo chamber, but she shouldn't be able to breathe up here either, so she didn't pay it much mind.

Her hooves tapped nimbly to the lulling music as she found her wings unconsciously unfurling from and returning to their rest in a rythmetic exercise. They occupied her thoughts as she trotted past award cases and paintings hung in the halls, both professional and student drawn. Back when she was still earthbound, the jarringly placed marshland in the center of one of her classrooms had been explained away as a magical teleportation incident from a trial headmare, but they had skirted around the identity. She had never had time to take it out, and it remained one of the only spots in the school where life still thrived- curiously as she understood it, it was still intrinsically tied to the swamp it had been placed on, and best the blades of grass knew, sunlight was still shining on them, and rain still periodically cultivated it.

She didn't know how it worked, and didn't pretend to, but unfortunately removing any part of it would dismember its connection to the planet far above, and she had reluctantly relented to enjoying it within her own classroom and nowhere else.

Things had changed. She had discovered something that would allow her to displace it- several things, in fact.

She scoured the land over with her gaze until she found it again, snout scrunching into a tiny smile. It was a tiny blue flower growing from the damp mud, painted with nearly symmetrical streaks of deeper blue along its inside, stigma dotted with dewdrop-like dots of pure milky white. From under her wings she produced a tiny shovel she had found in what used to be Yona's dorm, presented proudly on her nightstand, and an empty beaker from the science lab.

Delicately, she dug in a circle around the flower, creating a cylinder of solid mud around its protected roots, then scooped it up carefully, balancing it on the blade. Then, in one swift move, she transferred the flower topped cylinder to the beaker.

She had done it marvelously. The beaker now contained the flower sticking out, but it now began to sag, no longer reaching out to the nurturing sun. It was in a foreign vacuum now; she had to move fast.

---*---

Water soaked through the dirt, carving paths to rest at the glass floor, soaking the tips of the grateful roots.

The flower began to bloom again, facing out the windowsill it rested on towards the passing sun, still moved from the earth behind them. It would remain within view of the flower for the next six hours, by Fluttershy's measurements.

For her finishing touch, she slung a row of bubblegum pink hearthswarming lights she had found in Pinkie's old office from their last party together. Plants generally rejected green light wavelengths; blue or red were better for their growth, and pink was the closest she could find. She couldn't stay with it for very long; being in such close proximity to the sun already half blinded her, but she did her best to make sure it was well accommodated before returning inside.

---*---

Several hours later, Fluttershy returned to the empty dorm she took residence in. Several knick knacks she had grown fond of were rested in tidy rings on the floor, including decks of cards, rubix cubes, and a bust of Twilight. She looked them over fondly as she trotted over to her bed. Behind it, above the head, a window gazed out into space, turned away from the planet Equus and out into the void to the road she was now along for.

And in the center of that picturesque window to the outside, a beakered blue flower grew. It was dipped low again now that the sun had passed a little ways away, but it looked much healthier, more like it was tucking into itself to nap. Fluttershy patted it fondly and rested her head on her forelegs, smiling out at the sea of stars.

Planet Equus was blue.

Author's Note:

The picture that inspired it

Comments

[Casketbase77]

"Nebulously toned" is right.

Subtext is an under-utilized tool nowadays, but this Snippet is a reminder that sometimes what isn't said matters just as much as what is. What happened to the rest of the Mane Six? How did Fluts get expelled into space, how long has she been here, what emotions did she go through before arriving at the zen state at which this scene finds her? There are no answers because there don't need to be any. As the opening and closing lines of the story indicate, there is no past or future anymore. Soft Rains Will Come is the most obvious influence here, but the property that most comes to mind is actually Postmortem of a Puppet. There's a tangible mixed mourning in seeing powerless protagonists stay calm in the face of a hellishly uncaring galactic abyss.

Am I over-romanticizing? I don't think so, because Fluttershy's flower is a symbol of whatever she needs to stay sane in her lonely antechamber. Faith, work, a legacy, anything. The flower blooms and Fluttershy is satisfied. That's good enough for her, good enough for the narrator, and so it must be good enough for the reader.

I can't even keep a cactus alive when I'm present.
When I'm gone it's a groundbreaking botanical epic.
From desolate to Little Shop of Horrors in a second,
it's weird knowing life thrives more when you exit.

[Str8aura]

11002699
Thank you for showing me that comic. I know what I'm writing for thursday; well, what ELSE.