Chapter 7
The next two days passed by in near silence. The only words that passed between Fluttershy and Smolder were questions of when to stop for rest and their position relative to their destination. They were getting closer, and Smolder knew the area from the tales of earlier Journeys, so hopefully there wouldn’t be any more surprises.
It was only on the second night after they left, when they made camp in a small cave, that they had a serious conversation.
As per their usual routine, they set up a camp. Fluttershy pitched the tent, while Smolder lit the campfire itself with her flame breath and began preparing their meals. She cooked Fluttershy's first, then let her teacher move away as she started cooking meat. Once that was done, they sat down to eat, and for a while, did so in silence. It was only once the food was nearly gone that Smolder spoke.
“Professor Fluttershy... did you want to come on this trip?”
The question caught Fluttershy off guard. She looked at her student, and the only word that she managed to get out was “What?”
“It just feels you’ve been really nervous since we started. And you seemed rattled after we left the Diamond Dogs, too.”
Fluttershy took a deep breath. “Well... I’ll be honest with you, Smolder. I don’t like to travel much. I enjoy my cottage, and I don’t feel very comfortable leaving my animals in the care of anypony else, even if they are someone I trust.”
Smolder grinned. “I understand. I’m honestly worried what those knuckleheads are up to. Yona will probably scare them with all her jumping around, and Gallus might end up picking a fight with that bear.” She noticed how worried Fluttershy looked. “Oh, don’t worry. Cozy Glow will keep them in line. She always seems to know what she’s doing.”
“That’s true,” Fluttershy said, looking calmer.
“But you really don’t like to travel? I think that’s a surprise. You’ve been everywhere.”
“All part of my duties,” Fluttershy said. “I am always happy to help out when I can. In fact, I love helping people. But I’d rather be doing it in Ponyville.”
“Is that why you opened up your animal sanctuary?”
Fluttershy nodded. “Ever since my cutie mark appeared, I wanted to work with animals. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but I was saving up my money. Then I became a Bearer, and so many doors were opened to me. Eventually, I had everything I needed to make the sanctuary.”
“Being friends with Princess Twilight didn’t hurt either, huh?”
Fluttershy smiled. “No. I don’t think the Cutie Mark Crusaders would have been able to open their camp if they didn’t have such close ties with her, either. But the point is, I’d be happy staying at home and enjoying my passion.”
“So, you don’t actually like anything you do?”
“Well, I didn’t say that.”
Smolder looked at her, wondering what to make of that.
“I love helping ponies... I love helping just about any creature who needs it,” Fluttershy said. “And when I traveled, I got to see a lot of animals I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And all my experiences, even though they weren’t all pleasant, made me a stronger pony. There was a time I was too afraid to speak to anypony.”
“Really?” Smolder said. “You never had a problem speaking in front of the class.”
“Would you believe that I was nervous? I was afraid that I would never be able to do it. But when I started working on a lesson plan, I started to get excited. I was crushed when Neighsay put so many restrictions on us, and I was so sad that I wasn’t even really thinking about the fact that I was getting in front of so many ponies. Then Twilight decided to go over Neighsay’s head and open the school. By the time the first class started, I was eager to do it.”
Bringing up Neighsay lowered the mood, but the conversation kept going.
“My friends have always made me better. Rainbow Dash always stuck up for me in flight school, even before she knew who I was. Then I moved to Ponyville, and I met Pinkie. She was a little scary to me at first, but she did everything she could to make me feel welcome. Then I met Rarity, and she wanted to do a lot of the same things I did. Then I met Twilight and Spike, and then I really met Applejack, and we stopped Nightmare Moon. Before I knew it, my life had changed.”
There was another moment of silence. Fluttershy was mulling over her words, wondering what to say next.
“I want to keep going, Smolder,” Fluttershy said at last. “I want to keep going. I’ve already learned something on this trip, and I want to keep learning.”
Smolder smiled. “Looks like I made the right choice after all.”
Fluttershy smiled back. “Where are we going next?”
“If I remember the stories correctly, we should be heading into cyclops territory next.”
Fluttershy suddenly tensed up. “C-cyclops?”
“That’s right.”
“As in, the huge, pony-eating, one-eyed, offspring-of-sea-spirits cyclops?”
“Well... they eat more than ponies, and it’s not clear if they really are the offspring of sea spirits, but yeah, pretty much. We’re going to have to be careful.”
Fluttershy gulped. “I...I’ve heard tales about them. How they’re huge monsters that eat anything in their path. They even say that if you run into one, you never tell them your name, or else they call sea spirits to strike you down!”
“Oh, don’t worry. Most of that is just rumors,” Smolder replied, waving her hand. “Cyclops are big, but they’re as dumb as a sack of rocks. If we fly high enough, they won’t be able to reach us.”
“Are you sure?”
Smolder nodded. “We need to be careful about anything they throw, but they should lose interest in us pretty quickly. We’d be pretty small meals to them.”
Fluttershy gulped again. The idea of being eaten wasn’t appealing to her. She had seen the act in nature, and it wasn’t very pleasant.
“Pretty soon, we won’t be able to camp out in the open. We’ll need to find places to hide at night. But like I said, it shouldn’t be a problem. The cyclops aren’t very observant and aren’t too bright.”
Fluttershy wished she was reassured. They didn’t speak for the rest of the meal. The next words spoken were to tell each other good night before crawling in their sleeping bags.
Fluttershy laid down, her head resting on her pillow. She was missing her cottage at the moment. As great as nature was, there were modern conveniences even she wouldn’t want to do without.
Her thoughts drifted to her friends. Discord was probably moping that she was gone, maybe annoying Spike and Big Macintosh with whatever wrinkle he’d put into Ogres and Oubliettes. Twilight was no doubt still scheming to take down Neighsay’s “Ponies First” policy, as she had made it her personal mission since opening the school. Applejack was working all day, obviously. Rarity was probably missing having Fluttershy for a spa partner, and Rainbow Dash was probably missing having her as a cheering section.
But all her thoughts kept drifting back to Rukil. The way they had left the now-united Diamond Dog city was less than ideal. They weren’t even sure what the name of their new home was. All kinds of things could go wrong. Old hostilities could open up, there could be more loyalty to the Alphas than previously thought, the new government could be just as bad as the one it overthrew…
She sighed. Rukil had been so kind to her. He deserved to have a happy ending.
“Thinking about your boyfriend?”
Smolder’s words cut into her thoughts like a knife. She shot straight up.
“I wasn’t thinking about Rukil!”
“I never said it was Rukil.”
Fluttershy turned red.
“So, you felt that way about him. That’s good. I could tell he felt that way about you.”
“..Yes, I could tell. But I don’t feel that way about him. I was just worried about him.”
“Oh. So you have someone back home?”
“Um, no. I don’t have a partner.”
Smolder sat up and looked at Fluttershy, her jaw slack. “Really? That’s surprising.”
“Oh, really? Why’s that?
“Well... a lot of the students back in Ponyville think you’re really pretty. We all thought you must have had a partner by now.”
Fluttershy blushed. “Well... I guess I never really thought about it. I’m nervous enough to approach ponies as it is. I wouldn’t know how to ask a stallion out.”
Smolder grinned. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have to. If you just walked into a nightclub, stallions would be lining up to dance with you.”
Fluttershy bit her tongue. She didn’t want to have to tell Smolder about some of the experiences she had had when she traveled out of Ponyville. In places that didn’t know her, she was hit on, at least until Rainbow Dash scared them off.
“Seriously, I bet they’d act the way Spike does around Professor Rarity.” Smolder paused. “Those two aren’t actually together, are they? I don’t think so, but some of the students are saying it’s true.”
“Oh, no. Rarity appreciates Spike, but he’s far too young for her.”
“I thought so,” she said. “It’s a shame. Spike’s a nice guy.”
Fluttershy looked at her. “Do you have a crush on Spike?”
“What? No. He’s nice and all, but I don’t feel that way about him. Besides, after teaching him how to fly, it would be weird. I still like hanging around with him, though. He’s kind of like a little brother.”
Fluttershy grinned. “Well, I know Twilight is grateful to you for helping him. She’s always wanted him to make connections among the dragons.”
There was silence for a moment as both of them turned the conversation over in their heads. Fluttershy had never thought about it, but she supposed she would like to meet someone. While she was still young, her thirtieth birthday wasn’t too far off. With the clock ticking, maybe it was time to find a partner.
“Are you interested in one of the other professors?” Smolder asked suddenly.
“What?”
“There’s a pool among the students, betting that you’re dating one of them. Are you interested in one of them? A lot of them have money on Rainbow Dash.”
Fluttershy winced. “We’re not dating. In fact, you probably shouldn’t even suggest that to her.”
Smolder suddenly looked worried. “Why? She’s not... against that, is she?”
“Oh no. But it just annoys her that so many ponies assume that because we’re close, we must be dating.”
“...Ah,” Smolder said, looking guilty.
Fluttershy thought for a moment. “Well... I guess if I had to answer, I’d pick Applejack.”
“Applejack? Why?”
“Well, she would want a simple life like mine. She likes the outdoors, and her path would let me stay in Ponyville. I could picture dating Twilight or Rarity, but Twilight’s being groomed by Princess Celestia for great things in Canterlot, and Rarity wants to be famous. I wouldn’t be happy long-term. Applejack would be the best bet.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“What about you? Any of your friends that you’re interested in?”
“Nope.”
The answer was so blunt that Fluttershy wasn’t sure how to respond to it. Fortunately, Smolder went on after a pause.
“They’re nice, but I don’t feel that way about any of them.”
“I can understand that,” Fluttershy said.
They didn’t speak another word that night. They just lay there. As Fluttershy drifted off to sleep, she wondered how everyone back home was doing.
The work was getting done with surprising efficiency. They weren’t sure how it happened, but Cozy Glow seemed to have worked her way into a leadership role. They had been working all day, and while they were covered in soil and other elements of nature, Cozy looked as clean as she had ever been.
She had spent most of the day sitting at a makeshift desk made from a crate, handling the less exciting parts of the housesitting job: sorting the mail, paying the bills (these would need to be approved by Princess Twilight, but she was writing down how much it cost in a little book), and filling out order forms for more supplies.
She seemed uncharacteristically nervous whenever one of the others came near, quickly covering whatever she was working on. When asked, she simply answered, “I’m sure Professor Fluttershy would like as few eyes as possible on her finances”, something they all accepted.
The sun was well into its descent when Sandbar approached Cozy. She wasn’t nervous this time, as she had been packing up her work anyway.
“Alright, Cozy. I fed the ferrets. What next?”
“Well gee, according to the list, the only thing left to do is give Angel Bunny a bath.”
“Give a bunny a bath? That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Yeah, well, don’t say that out loud,” Cozy said, rising to her hooves. She started trotting over to Angel’s burrow, with Sandbar following. “Rabbits are cute, but they're fast. We don’t need to waste time and energy chasing them down.”
They reached the burrow and saw Angel napping on a rock. Cozy started moving slowly, Sandbar following behind her.
“Remember, keep quiet. We don’t want them to know about the... bath.”
Immediately, Angel’s head snapped up, his eyes wide open and his ears standing up straight. He looked at the two with wide, terrified eyes.
“Now, now,” Cozy said slowly, coming toward him, “Fluttershy asked us to do it, and you know she knows best...”
Angel ran.
“Go after him,” Cozy said. Sandbar had galloped three steps before he realized he was obeying.
“You could have helped me, you know,” Sandbar said a few minutes later, in-between gasps for breath.
“Gee, Sandbar, I’m so small I couldn’t hope to catch up with something that fast,” Cozy said. “I thought you’d see that.”
Sandbar just gave her a dirty look before passing out.
“That’s why Yona will take over.” The yak in question stepped forward. “Yona fast. Yona will catch the troublemaking bunny.”
Not far away. Somehow, he had gotten a small black uniform with a red cap, and was currently holding a small red hoofkerchief. He was standing tall, like he was a warrior facing an opponent.
Yona scratched the ground with one hoof. Angel held out the hoofkerchief, waving it.
Yona charged forward at full speed. Cozy stood still, watching in anticipation. Sandbar cheered her on.
Just as Yona got near Angel, she jumped forward, her forelegs stretched out to snatch her target.
It was at that point that Angel jumped to one side, dropping the red cloth right onto Yona’s face. Temporarily blinded, she reached up to pull the cloth off, twisting her body in the process. This was one reason she didn’t come to a graceful stop.
The other reason was because Angel had made a point of standing in front of the outside door to Fluttershy’s cellar. She sailed inside, not stopping until she hit the ground with a painful thud.
Angel caught a reprise in Fluttershy’s kitchen. After making it up to the counter, he looked around, hoping to find a place to hide, when Gallus came in.
“There you are,” he said. Angel jumped and started to hop away, but in a flash, Gallus was in front of him. “Nice try, but griffons actually hunt. You’re not getting away from me!”
Angel was actually afraid. He looked around and saw his salvation. With one lightning fast movement, he hopped toward a knife block and pulled out the first he got his paws on.
This caught Gallus off guard, as no other prey ever used weapons to defend themselves. But he was stunned for only a moment. He reached over and pulled out his own knife.
The two went at it for a few seconds, both swinging and meeting each other’s blades. Angel managed to get Gallus to back up until he bumped into the refrigerator. However, at that point, Gallus finally managed to land a good strike, knocking Angel’s knife away.
Now in a panic, Angel dove into the open drawer just below him and pulled out the first utenstal he could get his paws on, which turned out to be a metal spoon.
Seeing this, Gallus gave a smug chuckle. Then, closing his eyes, he stuck his head forward, his beak a bit upright, inviting Angel to have a free shot.
But Gallus was unaware that him hitting the fridge had caused it to shake. More specifically, it had knocked a bowl right to the edge, causing it to balance a bit on the edge before coming toppling down.
The contents of the bowl? Several coconuts.
The first one hit Gallus on the head. So did the second, third, and fourth. Gallus fell off the counter, groaning in pain.
Angel, seeing this, hopped off before his opponent could recover. Unfortunately, he didn’t get far before he ran into two more obstacles.
A now awake Sandbar was there, holding a net between his teeth. Silverstream was with him, holding one of her own.
Angel jumped away as two nets came down. Sandbar leapt toward him, but hit the couch as Angel went under it. When Angel came out the other side, Silverstream was there, bringing her net down. Angel dodged.
“Come on, Angel! We just cleaned this room!” Sandbar said.
Angel was not sympathetic. He kept hopping. His two opponents kept chasing, always just missing their target by centimeters.
The chase came to an abrupt end when Sandbar and Silverstream, not being the most coordinated with each other, dive into each other, smacking their heads together and knocking each other out.
Angel kept jumping until he got to the bathroom. He stopped, realizing he was now in a corner.
“Angel?” Ocellus said. Angel jumped up onto the sink, his fear propelling him. Ocellus’s hoofsteps were getting louder. He quickly looked around and found a soap bar.
“Angel? Come on, it’s just a...”
Ocellus was walking through the doorway when she spoke. Angel took the opportunity to toss the bar of soap onto the floor.
It was a perfect throw, landing right where Ocellus’s hoof stepped. Her hoof slid forward, causing her to fall. She moved quickly to right herself, but failed to step off the bar before she did so. This time, it caused her to fall forward.
Her face ended up landing directly in the toilet. Thankfully, it had just been cleaned.
She spluttered, trying to get out. Angel responded by jumping on top of her head and pressing the flusher down.
As Ocellus screamed in disgust, Angel hopped off and out of the bathroom.
He was stopped by his final opponent.
Cozy Glow was glaring at him, looking quite angry.
“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” she said, advancing on him.
Cozy, twice as big as Angel despite her small stature, was a pretty intimidating sight, and there was only one thing he could think to do.
He made a jump, and managed to stay one step ahead of Cozy. Jumping, he made his way to the stairs, clearing each of them in a single leap. Cozy jumped after him, and was rewarded with a facefull of stair. The dazed state allowed Angel to get further ahead.
By the time that Cozy recovered, Angel was at the top. Seeing the little Pegasus come up the stairs, he quickly ducked into Fluttershy’s room, shutting the door.
Cozy laughed as she got to the top. “You fool! I made sure every door and window was locked when you ran in here! You’re as good as trapped now! I’ll get you eventually! You have...”
She opened the door. She found herself not looking inside a room, but down the barrel of a cannon.
“...no... thing...”
The cannon fired. Luckily, it only fired pillows.
The feathered projectile struck her face and sent her falling back down the stairs.
Unfortunately, by this time Sandbar and Silverstream had recovered from getting hit and were coming to investigate the noise.
Cozy Glow hit them, and at the force she was going, the three of them ended up tumbling in a ball towards the basement door.
At that moment, the door opened, and Yona stepped out, swaying a bit.
“Yona okay...”
The three struck Yona, causing all four of them to fall back into the basement.
“...Yona not okay.”
Angel hopped out of the cottage, a triumphant look on his face. After making it back to his burrow, he went to the nearby wall, took a piece of chalk, and added another mark to his “Babysitters Owned” tally.
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I wouldn't trust cozy glow if I were you but then again you guys don't know yet this is during the time in the middle of season 8
“Thinking about your boyfriend?”
Smolder’s words cut into her thoughts like a knife. She shot straight up.
“I wasn’t thinking about Rukil!”
“I never said it was Rukil.”
Fluttershy turned red.
Ohhh you got her lol 😆
Well then that was pretty interesting chapter so it looks like smolder and Fluttershy still continuing on their Journey to the Dragon Land and they had a pretty interesting conversation with each other it's always pretty nice of them to talk to each other meanwhile it looks like the young six and cozy glow kind of underestimated that crazy funny and that's the kind of reminds me of a little bit of a Tom and Jerry situation trust me angel will get his soon he may won the battle but the war is not over yet crazy bunny 😡 but this was pretty funny I wonder what's going to happen next guess we'll find out next time
Nice to have Fluttershy and Smolder continuing their journey again. Their talks are nice. I also liked the conversation about Cyclops being offspring of sea spirits And you shouldn't tell them your name. It sounds a lot like Odyssey.
It was also nice to see the rest of the students taking care of Fluttershy's home. I knew Angel would give everyone trouble. That little demon is like an unstoppable evil.
By hitting back at them, of course. And not in the metaphorical, innuendo, sense either.
A normal bunny? Maybe. Angel Bunny though...that's a whole other ball of wax.
Angel Bunny watches too much Tom and Jerry. Clever little hellspawn...
To angel
Well... it certainly sounds like this journey can be quite the perilous endeavor, given that Smolder and Fluttershy have gotten out of one dangerous situation only to be at risk of meeting another. I mean, it's not much of a surprise, given what Ember said when the story began, but still... it's not nice to know they are about to be in danger again. Good luck to them both in getting through it safely.
Though on the danger front, any dangerous creature they meet will have an unknown rival in Angel Bunny, given the ordeal he's putting the remaining Student Six through. The best that can be said there is that he doesn't yet seem to be quite as dangerous as the Killer Rabbit of Caerbanog. One can only hope that's not Angel's inspiration and he isn't practicing to get there...
The worst part has to be Cozy Glow, though, given what the audience knows about her but the characters don't. Hopefully she won't be able to get up to anything nastier than what we already know she did.
In either case, I'm very much enjoying where this is going, and look forward to seeing more of it, both when it come to Darth Link's remaining content and the portion that will be written by you.