Fluttershy Digs Deep

by MagicS

Subterranean Splendor

Fluttershy crawled and scraped through the constrictive tunnel that went down at a sharp angle below the forest. The little light on her hardhat only showed so much as she dug down, and down, and down. She didn’t mind getting her hooves dirty like this, especially if it was animal or rescue related, but she was still a bit dainty for this kind of thing and she knew it. It was slow going too because of how cramped it was. So far she wasn’t in danger of getting stuck but she still had to pretty much drag herself down the steep tunnel. She didn’t have the room to turn around but if she could she was certain she wouldn’t be able to see the entrance to the tunnel anymore. But she didn’t want to think about that, it was the kind of thing that might make her panic and her heart start to beat too hard when she needed to just keep calm and focus on going lower.

Her hardhat scraped along against the dirt roof of the narrow tunnel, sometimes brushing up against tree roots and rocks. She was very thankful for it for more than just the light now. The rest of her body, and especially her wings, kept snagging and scraping on stuff like that too though. Each time made her worried that she would get stuck even though the tunnel hadn’t gotten any narrower. By the time she got to the bottom of this she might be covered in cuts and bruises along with a whole mountain of dirt.

“Oh, Angel, I hope you didn’t get hurt while falling down here...” Fluttershy gulped.

She was already getting a little hurt and she was going down here on purpose. Bunnies were tough little creatures though, and Angel especially. He knew how to take care of himself… most of the time he just chose not to. She loved him all the same though, he was her very special friend even back when she was still struggling to make friends with ponies. Oftentimes she wondered if he really knew just how important he was to her? It helped for her to think about these sort of positive memories right now and she even smiled when she thought of all the times he had gotten jealous over her friends or Discord. Angel had to be her number one priority, that’s how he wanted things.

Her worries quickly came back to her though as her pessimistic mind thought about how horrible it would be if she lost him. How badly she’d miss him. It made her speed up her crawling even though that probably wasn’t very smart. She wanted to get out of this steep tunnel and find whatever cave or cavern it led to. There couldn’t be something too big below Ponyville, right? Ponies would’ve found it or something. This had to just be a lone tunnel or maybe the remnants of something dug by other animals long ago. But when was she gonna get to the bottom? She had been going down it for so long already.

The air might get a little too muggy or thin the further down she went, she had to be careful and really pay attention to that.

If she ran into any subterranean animals she could probably ask them for help too. So far though it seemed this tunnel was empty. Fluttershy hadn’t even seen any bugs or worms squirming through the dirt. Although her light might’ve been scaring some of them away and Fluttershy still couldn’t really see too well.

“Um… if there are any helpful critters in here, or down there, I would really appreciate any help you could give me,” Fluttershy asked out into the tunnel.

But it was just as silent as ever. The only sounds were from her own movements and scraping along down it.

Fluttershy loved the quiet. She loved when things were nice and calm. But she didn’t love being alone. Not like this at least. It had to be on her own terms. A calm and relaxing afternoon with some tea and a book, that was the good kind of alone. This was the bad kind of alone that made her afraid and made her body tremble in fear. Or at least it would tremble if she had enough space to do that.

With a grunt, Fluttershy realized something: the tunnel was getting narrower.

Only very slightly but it was indeed becoming a tighter fit the deeper she went.

“Oh no, what if I get stuck? I might not even be able to wiggle back out now!” Fluttershy yelped. “I can’t even turn my head...”

She was on the verge of panicking again. Hyperventilating and letting her fears overtake her at the worst possible moment. If she started breathing fast and hard she’d run out of breath sooner, she might accidentally inhale dust, she might accidentally dislodge too much of the tunnel around her. But even as she knew all these things and knew she couldn’t do them the possibility of it all happening was like a snowball effect in her mind. The more she worried about it the harder those worriers were to quash even as she tried to be sensible about it.

Fluttershy still kept crawling along despite the increased difficulty, refusing to let those fears and doubts stop her. Maybe old Fluttershy would’ve let that happen but she’d been through a lot with her friends. She was more worried and scared right now than she wanted to be and it was probably making things more difficult than they should be but at least she hadn’t frozen up completely.

The reason for that was because she had to do this for Angel. No matter how scary it got, Fluttershy wasn’t doing this just for herself. If a friend, or a pet, or any sort of animal was in danger and needed her help then Fluttershy would always be there for it. That was what drove her on right now. Even if she hadn’t fully quashed the fears and worries in her mind she was still beating them with the mantra of having to save Angel.

“Hng!” She now struggled a bit to move further, the walls of the tunnel constricting around her body and twisted roots that felt like they were pulling at her hardhat and wings waylaid her. She really did feel like an earthworm now.

The light on her head just kept showing a little bit ahead, it wasn’t very helpful at the moment. She was starting to get sweaty and exceedingly uncomfortable too. The tunnel might keep getting smaller and smaller, Angel was a lot smaller than her after all, just because he could make it through the whole thing didn’t mean she’d be able to. If it really did end up bunny-sized she’d have some impressive squeezing and wriggling to do.

How many feet had she actually gone down below the surface now? Fifty? A hundred? She couldn’t be sure.

One thing she did notice after a little bit of change was that the tunnel was starting to get less steep. It wasn’t practically vertical anymore, it was beginning to level out. She hoped that meant it would eventually stop and open up into a larger chamber but she really didn’t know. She just had to keep chugging along until she either found Angel or ended up somewhere else. Futtershy wanted to call out for him again but if she was too loud could she cause a cave-in? The words Fluttershy and loud didn’t exactly go together but if she was trying to find Angel she would most certainly project her voice as much as she could.

It was then that she finally actually saw something ahead for once. The tunnel ended only a short distance away. Fluttershy could see the circular edge of it as it opened up into somewhere else. She would’ve sighed in relief if she wasn’t so pained and exhausted right now. She still had to drag her body through the dirt towards it but eventually her front hooves passed the edge of the tunnel and grasped the ground outside. It felt like much more solid dirt and rock than the loose soil she had been digging through.

Only problem now was that with how narrow the tunnel had gotten, the exit was even narrower. When she tried to pull her head and shoulders through she got stuck. The hardhat, for all the light it provided, was now making things more difficult for her.

“Ohhh, come on,” Fluttershy whimpered as she tried to push herself out of the tunnel, the hardhat still banging on the roof of it. She was trying to dislodge the dirt so she could fit through.

The more she struggled the more progress she was making as the dirt started to break apart and fall down in clumps over her hardhat. At last she finally felt like she had made enough room and with another strong pull of her hooves and push of her body she got her upper body out of the tunnel. Her wings she was able to shimmy out soon after too. Now it was just her flank and back legs left and those came very easy since Fluttershy could pull with the strength of her entire body and wings now. With a pop she exited the tunnel completely and took a sigh of relief.

But before she could even look around her new location a low rumbling sound came forth from the wall of earth around the tunnel. Fluttershy swiveled her head back to the tunnel and saw with her hardhat’s light that cracks had gone up all around it and dirt was falling inside it thanks to how much she had disturbed it trying to leave. To her horror she watched as the entire tunnel and cave wall collapsed in on itself, making the way she came in (and likely the way she wanted to leave) vanish. Rocks and dirt all tumbled together and the wave of it fell right to her hooves before it stopped and things were stable again. A cloud of dust was knocked up from the disturbance and Fluttershy raised her wings to try and protect her face, though it didn’t stop her from coughing quite a bit.

Once the dust had settled and her coughing fit was over, Fluttershy looked at where the tunnel used to be and immediately paled. “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

The pegasus ran to the dirt and started trying to dig through it to hopefully reveal a still intact tunnel beyond. Her hooves frantically scraped over piles of dirt and rocks as she hyperventilated and grit her teeth in sheer terror. Trapped! She was trapped down here! The entire tunnel was buried and she had no way out! She looked all over the wall of the cavern with the light from her hardhat, trying to see any other tunnel or opening, but there was nothing left after the mini rockslide that had cut her off from her entrance.

“Ahhhhh!” Fluttershy couldn’t help but scream at her predicament. She clasped her hooves over her head and her teeth chattered as her whole body shook.

This was a nightmare. This couldn’t be real, could it? She was definitely dreaming and soon Princess Luna would show up and rescue her. That was clearly about to happen.

Fluttershy stood still and waited for Luna to show up.

Her eyes darted back and forth as she waited for Luna to show up.

Sweat started to pour down her head as she waited for Luna to show up.

Luna wasn’t showing up.

Fluttershy’s eyes rolled back into her skull and she fainted on the spot.

---

When she woke back up she took a quick look around and remembered where she was. “Ohhhh—fudgesicles.” She then covered her mouth with her hooves in shame. “Fluttershy, you’ve got such a bad mouth!”

The light on her hardhat was still working and hadn’t dimmed at all—thank Celestia. It must have a very strong battery for its size. Of course that still didn’t change her predicament at all. She was trapped. Trapped and lost deep underground and she still had no sign of Angel Bunny and no idea where he might be. With every breath she took it felt like the walls were closing in on her, closer and closer until finally the whole cave would collapse and-

“Ahhh!” Fluttershy’s imagination got the better of her again and she fell to the ground, covering her head and shaking all over.

With everything around her still quiet, Fluttershy eventually peeked an eye open to make sure nothing was collapsing. Despite the side where the tunnel had been falling apart, the rest of this cavern she was in looked okay. She managed to stand up and finally started to really look around the place with her light to see what it was like. Like she had felt when coming out of the tunnel, the ground was more rock and much harder packed dirt and when she looked up at the ceiling she saw stone stalactites hanging down at her. Fluttershy reflexively paled when she saw them. They looked like daggers, or teeth, or, or, something else dangerous and pointy!

Fluttershy shook her head. “Stop it, Fluttershy, just stop it!”

She was going to get nowhere like this and she knew it, she had to get some control over herself if she wanted to make any progress towards finding Angel. She swung the light over to the walls of the cavern to see anything but it didn’t penetrate the darkness deeply enough. She was going to have to pick a direction and start walking. With a gulp, she decided to walk in the opposite direction from where she had come in. She tried feeling for an air current or listening for any kind of noise but this place was still as the grave.

As Fluttershy walked she kept her head slightly tilted towards the ground so the light could see anything like a sudden hole or drop off. Luckily the ground was pretty level and she was taking things slow enough, probably too slowly, that she didn’t accidentally trip over anything. She was still breathing a little too hard and her heart was pounding but what could she do about that? Finally her light started to reflect upwards, warping as it hit a wall instead of just the floor of the chamber. Fluttershy squeaked and came to a stop, at first shaking in worry despite her best efforts at the sudden change.

She managed to straighten up her head and really checked out this new wall. At first it seemed like any other down in this dark cave but as she scanned over it she saw something that finally made her happy. Well, happy may have been too strong a word, but she was at least relieved. This new tunnel was much larger than the one she had come in through, more than twice her height so she could easily walk or even fly through it. Though she was still going to take things slowly. After all, the tunnel was foreboding in a different way.

Instead of stalactites, huge twisted tree roots came all the way down through its roof, hanging there and giving the entire tunnel a gnarled appearance. The entrance to the tunnel was completely covered in these roots and it was almost like Fluttershy had to walk through the mouth of some monster to go inside.

Fluttershy just barely stuck her head in the tunnel. “Angel? A-Are you in there?”

No answer.

“Guess I should’ve figured that by now...” Fluttershy sighed and took her first shaky step into the tunnel.

Unlike earlier she now was keeping her eyes and light trained on the roots hanging down from the ceiling instead of the ground. She could just imagine one of them suddenly coming alive and grabbing her. And she wasn’t about to let that happen. Unfortunately a lot of the roots dangled quite low and Fluttershy had to push them out of the way or walk around them. Every time one of them just so happened to snake across her back she nearly jumped out of her skin. Unlike the tunnel she had taken down earlier, this one wasn’t straight either. It had twists and turns to it and also seemed to be just ever so slightly descending lower.

At this point Fluttershy really had no idea how deep she was. Applejack would probably know best about how deep some tree’s roots could go but Fluttershy didn’t really know. And that didn’t mean there couldn’t be some strange magic ahoof in the first place. Fluttershy was more than familiar with strange magic and weird things in general. Came with the territory, much to her regret.

Now the roots had gotten so thick that she again couldn’t see very well, there was barely any space for her light to penetrate. It almost made her panic and start just running through the swinging roots but she knew how bad of an idea that was. Fluttershy continued to sweat and slowly go through the underground forest of roots. She was like Daring Do trying to conquer a wall of vines in the deepest jungles of the world.

Only she was also bothered by the sounds that came from the shifting roots and earth above them whenever Fluttershy had to move one. Thanks to how normally quiet it was in here, and the natural echo, the slightest sound she made seemed to create a cacophony throughout the tunnel of scraping and crumbling noises. It helped stir up the panic more and more in Fluttershy, already she could barely see anything but roots in front of her, she couldn’t hear anything but their noises, and she kept feeling them slide over her back, head, wings, and tail like they were trying to grab her. She was starting to hyperventilate again and it was all because of some dumb roots. Fluttershy kept trying to tell herself to stay calm and just get through them but her own inner voice was being drowned out by everything else.

It was getting so bad that she didn’t even notice when her own hooves picked up the pace and she started trotting faster through the forest of roots. Twisting and turning, no longer paying attention to where she was going, the light on her head almost useless, still just slightly going further down and down. No sign of Angel. No sign of anything. She was all alone in this strange cave system underground and she was certain she was just getting more and more lost in it. This is what it felt like on old Nightmare Night’s for her, the kind of terror where she just wanted to hide under her bed and pretend that nothing was happening outside her door.

It happened in a flash. Fluttershy pushed through the last sheet of hanging roots in the tunnel and her eyes went wide as a twisted and evil looking visage stared at her from the cave wall in front of her.

“Ahhh!” Her whole body went rigid as she screamed at the monstrous looking thing illuminated by her hardhat’s light. She turned her head to look away but another face was lit up, growling and snarling at her, and then another one, and another one! No matter where she looked her light revealed some kind of horrific face glowering at her.

There was only one thing Fluttershy could do. In her fear she flipped the light switch off, turned around, and ran back under the hanging roots, diving onto the ground and covering her head. She shook like she was in the middle of an earthquake while she wrapped herself into a ball.

Darkness was scary too but not as scary as what she had just seen. In the dark she could at least pretend there was nothing around her, nothing scary or dangerous. In the dark she could tell herself that nothing would find her or hurt her. Fluttershy lied there curled up on the ground for a decent portion of time, the only sounds were her own whimpers and heavy breathing. The roots above her head had stopped swinging and making noise. It was only her down here in this tunnel.

“No more, no more...” Fluttershy shook her head. “This is already too much, A-Angel must be somewhere else.”

Fluttershy gulped and went to get up, heading back out the way she came.

But instead she paused.

“Angel...” she whispered.

Fluttershy looked over her shoulder at the darkness that led deeper and deeper into the cave. She didn’t know what those monstrous faces were, but she couldn’t lie to herself about Angel. Fluttershy would never give up on helping him just cause she was a little scared. But how could she conquer her fear? Did she really have it in her to turn the light back on and face whatever that was? It was horrifying. So, so, horrifying…

“What do I dooo?” Fluttershy whimpered.

It was then that a very happy and important memory popped into Fluttershy’s head courtesy of her great friend, Pinkie Pie. It was all the way back from when they first met Twilight and Princess Luna returned as Nightmare Moon. They had to go into the Everfree Forest and while there they were temporarily waylaid by a group of trees with scary faces on them that terrified everyone. But not Pinkie. She had helped them all with a little song, a little tale of her childhood, and a little laughter. After that, things weren’t so scary anymore.

Pinkie Pie wasn’t here right now but Fluttershy still remembered it all. M-Maybe she just needed a little of that.

Fluttershy faced the way deeper into the caverns, light still off, and began to say- “W-When I was a little filly a-and the sun was going down...” Her voice cracked and wavered a few times but she managed to keep going. “T-The darkness and the shadows they would always make me fro-own...”

She gulped and with a quivering hoof, reached up to flip the light on her hardhat back on while she sang.

Learn to face your fears~
You’ll see that they can’t hurt you~
Just laugh to make them disappear~

“Ha… ha… ha...”

At first her eyes were still squeezed shut but as Fluttershy opened them all she saw again was a wall of hanging roots. She took a deep breath and continued singing while walking through them.

So, giggle at the ghostly~
Guffaw at the grossly~
Crack up at the creepy~
Whoop it up with the weepy~
Chortle at the kooky~
Snortle at the spooky~

She made it back to where she emerged from the hanging roots and saw those scary monster faces, whatever they were. She closed her eyes again but still kept the light shining and finished up the song.

And tell that big dumb scary face to take a hike and leave you alone and if he thinks he can scare you then he’s got another thing coming and the very idea of such a thing just makes you wanna… wanna.. wanna…~

“L-Laaaaaaaugh!” Fluttershy finished and opened up her eyes.

There was no snarling monster in front of her. What had scared Fluttershy so badly was nothing more than a tangled mass of roots and rocks in the wall of the cave that merely suggested the visage of a monster. Her own fear and imagination had done the rest. As she looked over with her hardhat’s light she saw that everything else was the same, just rocks, dirt and roots. No monsters, nothing scary or evil trying to get her.

It was just a cave.

“It’s just a cave, Fluttershy,” she told herself. “And Angel is somewhere deeper inside it.”

She nodded and walked past the obstruction, the roots stopped hanging overhead and her light illuminated the rest of the walls and ground around her until she came to the next segment of her journey. Another hole. Unlike the one Fluttershy had dug through earlier this one was much wider, enough for two pegasi to fly side by side in, and it went straight down into even deeper darkness. Fluttershy looked around to make sure there wasn’t anywhere else to go and came to the decision that this hole was indeed the only way forward.

“Angel?” Fluttershy called into the hole. Her voice echoed down and down it but no voice in return came back up.

Fluttershy glanced at her wings, they were still shaking a little but she was still able to unfurl them. There was only one thing to do now after all. With a few flaps she gently floated to the center of the hole and looked down. It was impossible to see how deeply this one went, the light just didn’t go far enough. Fluttershy had no idea how much longer she’d be down here or how much further she’d need to go but at least she had conquered a bit of her fear. Hard part was over. She wouldn’t let something like that impede her progress on rescuing Angel.

With a confident nod to herself again, Fluttershy descended deeper into the caves.

Author's Note:

Chapters should be out every 4-5 days.

Comments

[GTthe4th]

“Ohhhh—fudgesicles.”

*GASP!*

Fluttershy, there are kids reading this!

But seriously, love the atmosphere already. We hardly ever see the underground in Equestria, and that means that the imagination can run wild for anyone who wants to write about it.

Weird wonders, creepy crawlies, and scary sights, Fluttershy will get through it all, because she's just as brave as the rest of them, and all she needs to do is dig a little deeper.

[MagicS]

10874641
Yep, the show lends itself well to this kind of exploration and adventure in my point of view. Even the weirder stuff that I have planned still fits the show pretty well. I'm glad you're enjoying so far.