Fluttershy Digs Deep

by MagicS

The Singing Mushroom Brothers

Fluttershy hopped off a ledge in the crag and continued walking between its narrow walls. Thankfully it didn’t branch off anywhere, she only had to walk straight. Un-thankfully though that strange scent she had started smelling earlier kept getting stronger. It was similar to how a swamp smelled but not quite the same. Something like decaying plants or flowers or maybe really bad smelling flowers like rafflesias. That icky smell that was still natural but no less revolting.

The humidity and moisture had increased as well to the point droplets of water were dripping down the walls of the crag and little puddles of it formed on the floor every now and then. At least that was a start.

Fluttershy intentionally walked through some of those puddles just to get her hooves a little less dirty. Looking up with her hardhat’s light she saw that it really wasn’t just the humidity that was the cause of this water gathering here, little rivulets flowed from cracks higher in the ceiling of the crag. There must have been a source of ground water or the bottom of a river or lake somewhere far above that was the cause of this. That was good news to Fluttershy. A real source of water could mean plant life somewhere as well as animals that used it for survival.

With a smile she continued her trek through the crag, looking for any further signs of life or activity down here that would lead her to Angel.

She couldn’t imagine him willingly staying in a part of these caves that smelled so bad though. Angel Bunny would’ve ran through here with a paw pinching his nose shut the whole time. Fluttershy even considered using her feathers to mask the scent if it kept getting worse. At least it was just a bad smell and nothing nauseous or dangerous like a gas or sulfur. In her travels she had been to swamps and other places that had stuff like that. As far as she could tell this was just a bad smell coming from something further in the crag or maybe on the other end of it.

“Is there anypony else down here? Or anything? If there are any cute, cuddly animals I promise you I’m friendly!” Fluttershy called out as she walked, the light of her hardhat giving her more than enough light to safely travel so long as she didn’t run.

“I know there were bats down here, do any other animals call these caves their home? Are there any bears or salamanders down here?” It’s true she may not have been an expert on caves but she was an expert on the kinds of animals that lived in caves. This was most certainly a bit too deep for bears though, they didn’t live in these kinds of caves, Fluttershy was maybe just being a little too hopeful. There were a lot of other animals that just generally lived underground too that she might come across. That she hoped to come across.

Besides them the only other things would be Diamond Dogs.

Who Fluttershy hoped to not come across.

Frowning at the lack of response, Fluttershy continued on while more water dripped around her. She went right underneath a steady stream of it falling from the ceiling and used her wing to cover the hardhat. The light probably wouldn’t be damaged from something like that but she wanted to be extra careful. It was her irreplaceable lifeline after all. She thought about pausing for a second under the stream to take a drink but decided otherwise. It would be better to find clearer water that was probably safer to drink, rather than some that probably had just dripped between a whole bunch of rocks and dirt.

Her journey through the crag took several more minutes before it looked like things might start to change for her. The smell finally stopped getting worse and merely stayed at the same strong level for quite a while and the floor of the crag soon became flooded with a low level of water. Her hooves were soggy now as she walked through it, making the slightest of splashes, the pitter-patter of her steps in the water echoing off the walls. At least it was a different sound than her own voice or breathing. Now she had something else to listen to. She almost got lost in the pattern of that sound, just because it was something to occupy her mind with other than her own inner voice.

So when a new sound suddenly appeared through the echoing of her steps, she was rather startled.

Buzzzzzz~

Fluttershy’s ears perked up and she stopped, shining her light forward to see what was making that buzzing noise. She didn’t have to wait long at all. Attracted by the light atop her hardhat, a mosquito the size of her hoof flew right towards her from deeper within the crag.

“O-Oh!” Fluttershy started as it buzzed right up to her face. “Hello there, Mr. Mosquito. Or is it Mrs.?” Fluttershy put on her kindest smile for the insect. “Is this your home? Um, sorry to intrude but do you perhaps remember seeing a white rabbit come through here earlier?”

The mosquito didn’t respond except to buzz harder and attempt to jab its sharp proboscis directly into the light on her hardhat.

“Ah! No, don’t do that!” Fluttershy squeaked and ducked, letting the mosquito fly right over her head. Fluttershy frowned and turned around. “Please Mr. Mosquito, I need this light, and I need to find my friend, can’t you help me?”

With an angry glare on its tiny face, the mosquito buzzed directly at her light again.

Evidently not.

Fluttershy covered the light with her hooves and gently tried to swat the mosquito away with her wings. After all she didn’t want to hurt it. Just cause it enough trouble where it flew away on its own. She couldn’t afford to lose her light. And if he got mad and bit her instead it could almost be just as bad. Mosquitoes carried all kinds of diseases, if Fluttershy got sick down here…

“Please! If you don’t want to help or know anything then just leave me alone! There’s no reason to be mean like this,” she whimpered and tried to convince the mosquito to buzz off.

BUZZZZZZZZZ~

Fluttershy’s eyes went wide as she heard a much louder buzzing coming from behind her. Turning around she shined the light back in the direction the first mosquito had came from only to see dozens upon dozens of more oversized mosquitoes coming right for her. She gulped.

“Uh oh...”

The swarm washed over her immediately and Fluttershy squawked and dropped to the ground, splashing water everywhere. The mosquitoes buzzed all around her so Fluttershy flapped her wings a few times to try and knock them away. She could feel some landing on and probing her, others flying and poking at her hooves that covered the hardhat light. She knew she couldn’t just lie here and let them harass her for much longer. Fluttershy stood up quickly and shook her head, flapping her wings a few more times and then running forward through the crag. She had to get out of here. Where had these mosquitoes even come from? There must be something close up ahead.

She knew it was dangerous to run like this, she was barely even looking forward as she ran, she might hit a wall if she kept this up. But it was either that or lose her only light in these dark caves.

The mosquitoes kept up right behind her, their loud buzzing drowning out everything else.

But as Fluttershy briefly glanced up to see what was ahead, she saw her potential salvation—a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Wait, a light?” Fluttershy said to herself, utterly puzzled. How could there be a light down here? Was her mind playing tricks on her? No. When she squinted her eyes to make sure, the light didn’t change. There was something coming up soon once this crag ended. Fluttershy was now determined to make it there and see what it was, she wasn’t letting these mosquitoes get the best of her.

She sped up and ran through the water of the crag, splashing it up and making herself wet without any regard. A mosquito tried to poke her in the flank but she flicked her tail at it and kept running. Safety wasn’t considered as the end of the crag came up despite Fluttershy having now idea what was right outside it. She could be jumping off a cliff for all she knew. It was a risk she was willing to take—not like she couldn’t fly after all—she just had to be sure she had the space and time to adjust.

It might not have been the smartest thing to do in retrospect but once Fluttershy reached the end of the crag she jumped and extended her wings—and then promptly hit the ground with her hooves since it was just a foot below the floor of the crag. Fluttershy stumbled and started to tumble end over end down the hill that existed at the exit of the crag before she suddenly came to a stop on her stomach with a heavy thud at the bottom of whatever this new chamber in the cave was. It was wet all around her thanks to the water flowing from the crag, she was practically lying in an ankle-high puddle with her eyes just barely poking out the top thanks to her prone position. With a groan she managed to at least partially get back up and sat there. She didn’t hurt too bad, and the hardhat was okay, it was just a little unpleasant.

Now she could look around though and finally see where she had ended up.

“This is… not what I expected. Even more than all those crystals.”

Fluttershy was now in a rocky underground canyon, streams of water dripped over the ground and down the walls of it, it was at least a few dozen feet wide even at its narrowest part and the roof of this new place stretched up over a hundred feet high. Fluttershy could see massive stalactites hanging from the ceiling, all of them and it made of a cold dark grey rock. And the reason she could see it all so clearly in the first place became evident as she looked up at the ceiling.

Fungus growing all across the ceiling almost like a bed of grass glowed bright white, illuminating the entire cave and everything in it.

“Bioluminescence...” Fluttershy muttered. She knew a number of animals that carried the trait, such as fireflies and jellyfish among others, and she had heard of some plants that did it too but she had never seen any. Until now that is. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Oh, it’s beautiful.”

Buzzzzzzzz~

Fluttershy looked up at the crag she had emerged from and saw the swarm of mosquitoes come flying out. However, this time they took no notice of her, instead they all flew up higher in the cave towards the glowing fungus. Fluttershy blinked and looked up at the hardhat on her head, they must’ve been attracted to her light in the first place because it was the only source of light in that dark cave. Now that they were back here where everything was already bright they didn’t care about the little light on her head.

Speaking of which, Fluttershy reached a hoof up to the hardhat and flicked the light off. No reason to keep it on in here, it was better to conserve power. With a nod and a smile she continued to look around and see what else was in here.

That’s when her brain registered the fact that it smelled really, really, funky in here.

Fluttershy crinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out. “Just what is—oh.”

She had been wrong about flowers being the source of the smell. It was a different kind of plant life. No, that was incorrect. A kind of fungal life. On the bottom of the cave, on the ground, on the piles of rocks, partially crawling up the walls, were mushrooms, mushrooms, and more mushrooms. Some she recognized as oyster mushrooms, shelf mushrooms, deathcaps, and dapperlings, among others. These were mushrooms actually fairly common close to her cottage and in the Everfree. But then there were others that were completely unknown and foreign to her. And downright weird.

Bright yellow mushrooms, pink ones on white stalks that shot up a foot high, green ones that grew in clusters, all the colors of the rainbow and more were represented by these mushrooms. And some of them were very big. It wasn’t just the stalks of some that were tall or thick, their caps also blossomed out with enough room for a pony to sit on. Some were taller than her, others grew out all twisted and gnarled, and there were just. So. Many of them. She had fallen into a forest of mushrooms. So many different species. And so many that gave off a distinct and pungent odor.

The ground (that wasn’t either covered in mushrooms or water) was uneven down here so she flapped her wings and gently floated her way over the rocks and everything else. The breeze was going down deeper into the “canyon”. It sloped away from the crag she had come out of so it seemed Fluttershy was going to keep going down in these caves for now.

As she flew past them she couldn’t help but take more looks at all the mushrooms. It was just such a zoo of them, she had never seen so many and so many different types before. It was a fungal paradise. They seemed to grow bigger the further down she went too until some were the size of small trees, they would’ve towered over her if she was walking on hoof. Now it really was a forest down here. The colors just got even brighter and zanier too, she flew above the cap of a mushroom that had red and yellow stripes, and another group that had green dots all over them, including their stalks. Some of them were a sickly yellow color that radiated a particularly bad smell—almost strong enough to make Fluttershy think they could solely be the cause of the pungent odor in here.

“This is so strange, I have no idea what’s going to come next,” Fluttershy said to herself as she flew.

There seemed to be a large tunnel at the bottom of where she was going, and it was totally flanked by tall mushrooms. It also looked completely dark so it seemed there wasn’t anymore bioluminescent fungus down there. That was too bad but she still had her hardhat light with her. To get ready for the tunnel she stopped flying and plopped down with her hooves onto the rocks. A few slid out and tumbled beneath her when she landed on them but she kept her hoofing and trotted on. The mushrooms here were now pretty much all the same type, tall and thin white stalks with red caps and white spots on the very top. Fluttershy guessed they were probably a good ten feet tall each. At least the fully grown ones were, there were some that were only around her height or a little taller.

“I wonder if any of these are safe to eat… so many mushrooms are poisonous though,” Fluttershy bit her lip as she walked through the mushrooms and thought back on all the others. “It’s probably best not to chance it.”

The next tunnel was getting closer, it had a large mouth and looked very uninviting with the jagged shape of it. And it was pitch black like so much else of the caves. There were only a few tall mushrooms right outside it and as far as Fluttershy could tell none grew inside it. That made sense, even mushrooms and other fungus needed light to grow.

“Hello,” someone said from next to Fluttershy.

“Hello,” she replied without thinking. And then froze mid-step, doing a double-take at the source of the voice.

A mushroom was looking down at her.

And yes, looking, because it had a face on it. Complete with a mouth and eyes, a ten foot tall mushroom was leaning down and peering at Fluttershy. She blinked. The mushroom blinked in return and tilted its “head”.

And then Fluttershy did what Fluttershy does.

“Ahhhhh!” She screamed in fright and quickly backed up into the stalk of another mushroom.

“Hello.”

Fluttershy’s pupils shrunk down to pinpricks and she looked up, seeing this new mushroom also looking down at her with a smile on its face.

And this time Fluttershy didn’t scream. She fainted.

---

“So what do you think she is?”

“I don’t know, but that was quite the shriek earlier.”

“She has wings so isn’t she a pterodactyl?”

“Don’t be silly! She has four legs, she must be a dimetrodon!”

“Certainly not a mole, that’s for sure. Much too colorful.

“Do you think she’s okay? That was quite the fainting spell she had.”

“I don’t know but—oh, look! I think she’s starting to wake up!”

Fluttershy grumbled and turned over, rubbing her eyes and trying to make sense of all the voices she heard in her half-asleep state. It was all sort of a jumbled up blur to her.

“What happened?” Fluttershy asked as she stood up and looked around, trying to remember where she was right before she fainted. Everything came back into focus and she saw the tall mushrooms around her. She remembered now. Although she almost thought she had to be imagining it.

A shadow of one of the mushrooms happened to be cast over her and Fluttershy looked up and right into the smiling face staring down at her.

“Hello there!” The mushroom said to her. “Are you alright?”

“Um… yes. But I’m starting to think I may have hit my head somewhere...” Fluttershy said, practically frozen as she stared back at him.

“Oh? Why’s that?” The oblivious mushroom asked.

“Well… I didn’t know there were mushrooms that had faces.”

The mushroom raised an eyebrow at her. Somehow. “What’s so surprising about that? How could we talk if we didn’t have faces?”

“Oh,” Fluttershy pondered, bringing a hoof up to her chin. “That makes sense.” She smiled up at the mushroom. “And you’re clearly very polite and considerate, so thank you for worrying about me.”

“You’re welcome!” The mushroom said, beaming. “Now though… is it possible for you to answer something me and my brothers are curious about?”

“Brothers?” Fluttershy looked around and noticed that almost all of the fully-grown mushrooms here had faces too and were grinning at her.

“Yes! My brothers!” The first mushroom said. “Allow us to welcome you to our home!”

“Well it’s nice to meet all of you,” Fluttershy smiled and waved to him and the other mushrooms. Normally she’d be a bit shyer but… these were mushrooms. And they were friendly. And she had been trying to work on her shyness when it came to meeting new creatures. “What did you want to ask me?”

“Well we were curious but… what are you?” The mushroom asked her.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Fluttershy giggled. “I’m a pony, a pegasus to be exact, and my name is Fluttershy.”

“Hahaha!” The mushroom laughed. “Then we are pleased to make your acquaintance, Fluttershy. You seem to know that we’re mushrooms, I suppose ponies must be quite the knowledgeable folk. And my name is… Phillip! And my brothers-”

“Jeremy!”

“Albert!”

“Frank!”

“Steve!”

“Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla!”

And so on and so forth did each mushroom name and introduce themselves while Fluttershy smiled and waved to each one. She was quite happy right now to meet some, er, creatures that were actually friendly. They had some very odd names though. When they were finished, Phillip laughed again and smiled brightly down at Fluttershy.

“And just so you know, we aren’t just any talking mushrooms.”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at him. Truth be told any talking mushroom already was quite the event for her. “You’re not?”

“Not at all!” Phillip looked over at his other brothers, they all shared a few winks and smiles with each other while Fluttershy watched on in confusion.

The mushrooms all took deep breaths and-

“Da da da da da da!”

We are The Singing Mushroom Brothers!~

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped and her eyes went wide as they all broke out into song together, their bass voices creating a loud chorus together in the cave.

We live down here together~
Though we can’t leave truly ever~
It doesn’t bother us one bit~
Because we can always just sing about it~

Some of us grow long and tall~
Others short and stout~
Some of us don’t sing at all~
And for others that’s what we’re all about!~

Our stalks keep us here~
And friendly faces are always near~
We greet anyone we see with a great big smile
Because we hope they’ll stay awhile!~

And now something called a pony has come~
A wonderful pony named Fluttershy~
We hope our friend she will become~
And it will be some time before she says goodbye!~

Fluttershy clapped her hooves together and smiled. “Oh, that was wonderful, I loved it!”

“Thank you, thank you!” Phillip said to her as he and the rest of his brothers congratulated themselves on a well sung song. “And there’s plenty more where that came from, you can believe it!”

“I’d love to hear some more, it’s a very nice change of pace down here after everything else I’ve been through,” Fluttershy told him.

“Oh?” Phillip raised an eyebrow again. Somehow. “Haven’t had a pleasant trip through the caves? What brings you down here anyways? Me and the brothers are here cause that’s just where our stalks happen to be planted, haha!”

Fluttershy grimaced briefly but managed to keep a smile on her face as she told Phillip all about what she had been through and what happened to Angel Bunny. It occurred to her that it had only been one crazy morning so far. Although by now it might be getting late in the day. Phillip was very understanding for a giant mushroom and seemed to be quite glad that he and his brothers managed to be a pleasant reprieve from the rest of her adventure so far. It was nice that Fluttershy felt she was able to make new friends during something like this. Certainly unexpected.

“And so, if you’ve seen a white rabbit come through here recently I would be ever so grateful,” Fluttershy said as she finished up with her story.

“Rabbit… rabbit… I do not know what kind of animal this may be,” Phillip said as he glanced upwards in thought. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen him. We mushrooms don’t know anything that we haven’t seen here in this cave of ours after all.”

Fluttershy rubbed her chin as she sat down and thought. “Well, I could describe what he looks like for you?”

Phillip eagerly nodded. Somehow. “Alrighty then, we’ve certainly seen a fair number of creatures come through our cave. Maybe we have seen this Angel Bunny and just didn’t know!”

“Okay, let’s see then!” Fluttershy beamed with an ecstatic smile on her face and clapped her hooves together. “Well first of all he’s white all over. He’s furry like me. He’s got two big floppy ears, and two big back legs. And he has a puffy cotton tail. That’s um… that’s about it.” Fluttershy bit her lip for a second. “And… he was probably pretty angry and saying some rude things if he was stuck down here.”

“Hmmm...” Phillip thought, he was joined by Jeremy, Rufus, and the others in that.

Fluttershy just kind of pattered about, waiting for them to respond to her now. They were very kind so she could at least be patient with them. Though they didn’t seem like the quickest thinkers. They were only mushrooms after all. Oh! Fluttershy gasped internally after thinking that, what a rude and horrible thing to think! Just because they were mushrooms didn’t mean she should think less of them in any way.

“Aha! I do recall such an animal!” Phillip suddenly exclaimed.

Fluttershy immediately flapped her wings and flew right up to get level with his face, imploringly locking eyes with him. “You do?!”

“Mhm, almost certainly! You see, I’m now remembering that earlier today some of the moles came through here.”

“Moles?” Fluttershy tilted her head.

“Yes, moles often come through these caves. We see them more than any other creature. The moles from earlier had what I think must’ve been your so-called-rabbit tied up with them.”

“Tied up?!” Fluttershy gasped in horror.

“Yes, I’m sad to say. You see the moles aren’t exactly very friendly, it’s part of why we greeted you so happily, we wanted you to have a good impression of us down here and it was nice to see another smiling face,” Phillip told her.

“Thank you, but now I really need to find Angel,” Fluttershy said hectically. “It sounds like he might be in danger. Where do these moles live?”

“Moleville.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

“Obviously none of us have been there or know how to get there, but the moles always come up first from that tunnel back there,” Phillip said and gestured to the big tunnel Fluttershy had been going towards in the first place.

Fluttershy looked past him and gulped at the imposing tunnel before looking back at him. “Well, thank you for all your help, Phillip. I wish I could do more to thank you.”

“How about listening to another song?” Phillip grinned.

Fluttershy giggled and set herself back down on the ground, smiling at him and the other mushroom brothers. “I think I can do that.”

“Alright, brothers! Let’s take it from the top!” Phillip shouted and took in a deep breath.

“Da da da da da da da!”

The Singing Mushroom Brothers are happy you could stop by~
Happy as any mushroom down here could ever be~
Happier than any odd day we would never lie~
But now it is time to say goodbye to thee~

We’re glad we could make your acquaintance~
We hope we weren’t a bother~
Come back soon if you have the chance~
And then we’ll all sing together!~

“Yeah!”

Comments

[GTthe4th]

Ah, it's this kind of whimsical and fantastical adventure that I wish the show had more of. Granted, it was mostly slice-of-life and comedy, but it never hurts to throw some good old fashioned adventure and world-building in there too.

I hope you don't mind, but I've kinda accepted your Lost-Verse stories as a head-canon, since they don't contradict anything in the show, and in fact go out of their way to expand upon the world while retaining what made the show so great. This is the kind of potential Equestria has as a world.

[Dashie04]

”How could we talk if we didn’t have faces?”

There’s that Alice In Wonderland logic coming in, with absurd things being treated completely normally, with normal things being treated as absurd.

The songs could use a little work, but otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this chance encounter.

[MagicS]

10886064
Yeah that kind of "in tune with the show" nature is what I've always been going for with these stories. I'm glad you like them enough to do that.

10886169
The songs are the hardest part to write for me so yeah, it's definitely not my talent.

[redmar]

I'm surprised tht the mushrooms mention a pterodactyl and a dimetrodon since I wouldn't have epected anycreature down there to know about long extinct animals.

[MagicS]

11128482
All part of the silliness. And a partial reference to Journey to the Center of the Earth.

[RoboRed]

...A swarm of fist-sized mosquitos is definitely a kind of nightmare fuel, yep.

“Um… yes. But I’m starting to think I may have hit my head somewhere...” Fluttershy said, practically frozen as she stared back at him.

“Oh? Why’s that?” The oblivious mushroom asked.

“Well… I didn’t know there were mushrooms that had faces.”

The mushroom raised an eyebrow at her. Somehow. “What’s so surprising about that? How could we talk if we didn’t have faces?”

Perfectly solid logic, yes.🤔

And my brothers-”

“Jeremy!”

“Albert!”

“Frank!”

“Steve!”

“Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla!”