Metanoia

by littlerobotbird

13 [Arc 01 - Perturbation, Part Nine] <rev. 09.14.2014>

“Oh, Fluttershy? Fluttershy? Where are you, Fluttershy?” the voice sang the questions sweetly. “Where have you gone? Where could you be?”

“There you are!”

Fluttershy squealed as hooves hooked about her waist, dragging her from her hiding spot beneath the couch and into the air, spinning her around the room before drawing her into a familiar embrace.

“Awww, you found me!” she cried out in faux disappointment, pouting dramatically.

“Well, you shouldn’t leave your tail hanging out then,” came the reply, complete with a hearty laugh.

“My…” She quirked an eyebrow.

She hadn’t considered her long pink tail at all, the tip still resting just in front of the couch, making it obvious where she had been hidden.

“Oh… well…” Her once-dramatized pout edged gently into reality.

Dissatisfaction, however, was soon buried by a sudden fit of laughter as her pursuer blew a big, wet raspberry right on her exposed belly.

“M-oooom!” she cried through the sudden onslaught of the dreaded giggles, her mother coming up for air to give her a moment’s respite.

“Oh no, Fluttershy!” she cried out in mock horror. “It’s the dreaded giggle monster come to get you! Rar!” With that, the pair of auburn eyes dipped and a fresh set of fits seized the little filly as she squirmed in her mother’s grasp.

“Qu-quit it, m-mom!” came the stuttered cries of not-yet-surrender.

Her mother halted momentarily, glancing up with a cat-like grin before pressing her assault once more.

“Pl-ea-ease!”

Another brief respite as her mother looked up.

“Please whom?”

“Please, mom!” Fluttershy responded immediately.

“Hmm… not sure….”

“Please, ma’am!”

“That’s a girl.” Her mother gave a curt nod, rolling off the filly and up onto the couch. “Ready for bed then, squirt?”

“But I wanted to wait for daddy,” Fluttershy murmured, staring at her mother with a big, begging eyes. “Just a few more minutes?”

The elder pegasus hummed. “Alright, a few more minutes, but he’s not off work ‘til really late, honey. Sure you can make it?”

“Oh, I’m not tired at all,” Fluttershy replied with a nod.

“Alrighty, ‘Shy. So what should we do while we wait then?”

“We could play a game… maybe. If you want to, I mean,” the little filly replied, stumbling over her words.

“Sure thing. How about…” She trailed off for a moment, eyes rolling over the nearby bookshelves. “Oh! How about we play Weather Wars? Your little friend seemed to really enjoy that one.”

“Oh… um… maybe…” Fluttershy mumbled as she recalled her rainbow-maned friend’s veritable repertoire of victory celebrations.

With a few precise flaps, her mother zipped over to the shelf, grabbed the game and was back before Fluttershy could muster a more proper protest.

“Oh… seems we’re missing some of the pieces…” She dug around in the box for a moment, the rattle of plastic rather muted. “A lot of the pieces.”

She looked up to find her daughter’s head hidden behind a wing, the bright red of her blush filtering through the feathers.

“Um… sorry…”

They had spent the better part of an hour tracking down pieces after a particularly exuberant shuffle sent the game, board and all, scattering out the window. They probably hadn’t even found half by the time the sun had set and they were called inside.

“Well… so much for that game.” Her mother was quiet a second, eyes searching the cloud home before settling on the staircase. “Oh! I have a great idea!” she shouted excitedly, shocking Fluttershy out from behind her wings. “Wait right there!”

In a flash, the older pegasus was up the stairs.

Fluttershy could hear mumbles issuing forth from the bedrooms. Then a loud crash, Fluttershy wincing at the sound, followed by a long string of words that brought an even heavier blush to the little pegasus’s face.

A moment later, her mother trotted happily down the stairs.

“Tah-dah!” she declared with a flourish, clutching a large bucket in her mouth and looking somewhat more disheveled than usual as she set it down.

“What’s that?”

“What do you mean? You don’t remember the last time we were out at Grammy’s cottage?”

Fluttershy thought a moment and shook her head.

“Oh… well, I guess it has been a while,” her mother murmured, tapping a hoof on her chin. She shook whatever deep thoughts from her mind and glanced down. “It’s a bucketful of clay!”

“Dirt?”

“No! Well… yes, technically, but a specific kind of dirt. You really had a real tal”—she paused a moment, tongue stuck out in concentration as she tried to work the lid with her hooves before giving up and gripping it with her teeth to yank it open—“talent for it too. Just need to add a bit of water,” she hastily interjected as Fluttershy scrunched up her face at the dry, powdery mass inside the bucket.

Fluttershy gave the grayish clay an experimental sniff as her mother clomped into the kitchen.

It had a nice smell to it, a familiar scent that directed a pleasurable shudder down her spine.

By the time her mother had returned with a pitcher of water and a few large towels on her back, Fluttershy had relaxed a great deal, smiling at the pleasantly earthy odor.

“Ha! Knew you’d remember.”

Fluttershy sat up, smile replaced by a grimace. “What’re the towels for?”

“So your father doesn’t”—she drew a hoof across her neck and gurgled dramatically—“me.”

Fluttershy stared at her mother, wide-eyed.

“So we don’t make a mess of things is all. Sorry,” she apologized with a sheepish grin. “Don’t think your daddy would appreciate us smearing dirt all over the living room, right?”

“Oh… of course.”

She recalled the last time her mother’s friends had come for the evening, leaving the living room a mess. A strange silence had hung over the house for a full week, broken only by iterations of ‘Fluttershy, tell your father this,’ and ‘Fluttershy, tell your mother that.’

“We certainly don’t want that,” her mother stated, giving Fluttershy a quick, assuring nudge before dumping the pitcher into the bucket. “C’mon, let’s get to it.”

“What do we do?”

“Well, first we need to mix in the water, I think…” she muttered uncertainly, jamming her hooves into the watery clay with a soft sploosh and a squelch.

“Can I help?”

“‘Course. Hop up.”

Fluttershy jumped onto the coffee table cautiously. Peering into the bucket, she watched the mare’s forelegs working the now grey-brown mixture. Tentatively, she reached her hooves in, her mother pulling away as Fluttershy’s hooves sank into the muck with a delightful squelch. She couldn’t help but giggle at the feel of it, the coolness wonderful on her hooves.

“Good idea, huh?” Her mother grinned. “Almost thought you should have been born an earth pony the way you took to Grammy.”

Fluttershy didn’t reply, far too busy working the heavy lumps of clay, the water seeming to disappear as the lump took shape.

“Alright, looks like you’re done. Now for the fun part.” Her mother pulled away an area rug, spreading out the towel on the cloud floor itself, weighting the corners with whatever was close at hoof.

Then, rather unceremoniously, she dumped out the lump onto the spread towel.

“Now we create! Muah!” She let out a single deep laugh akin to those Fluttershy had heard from the scientists in those monster movies her parents didn’t know she’d seen with Rainbow Dash.

“Create what?”

“Whatever we want to…”

[o-0-o]

“Hey… Fluttershy…”

A pair of hooves shook her gently, eliciting an unhappy grumble as the pegasus merely turned over in her seat.

“We’re here, ‘Shy. It’s time to wake up.”

“Buh. It’s too early…” the little filly muttered, curling up even tighter to shut out the encroaching sunlight.

“It’s past noon.”

“…more sleep…” she demanded blithely, trying to roll over only to flip herself out from her seat and onto the cloudy surface of the parkway. “Wha?”

“We’re at the fair,” the voice cooed, a hoof hefting her up before flicking a stray tuft of cloud from her mane. “Told you you shouldn’t have stayed up so late.”

“Oh… but we were just having so much fun… and Daddy was—” She broke off for a moment as the words stuck in her throat. “Did Daddy come home?”

“Yeah… tried getting you up for breakfast so you could say goodbye, but you well all tuckered out,” her mother chided her gently, lifting the filly onto her back. “He ended up having an early shift so we thought that you and I could have the day together.”

“Just the two of us?” Fluttershy perked up at the notion.

It’d been months.

“Just the two of us.”

Fluttershy smiled as her mother tossed a few bits the cabby’s way, the surly-looking pegasus snatching them out of the air as he took off for another fare.

“Well… somepony’s huffy today,” her mother muttered. “Well, won’t be letting anything ruin today now, will we?”

“Nope!” Fluttershy chirped excitedly.

“That’s m’girl!” Her mother grinned, giving the little filly a nuzzle. “So what should we do first? We could try some of the booths or the concession or one of the rides! I heard they were preparing an awesome cour—” She halted, craning her neck up to stare at something. “Oh…”

Fluttershy followed her gaze, her stomach doing a preemptive flip.

“Oh… my…”

[o-0-o]

It was a much greener Fluttershy that wandered out of the flight course, followed by her ecstatically gushing mother.

“And then the loop! Hit that going full-out!” she yelled excitedly, giving Fluttershy a crunching hug that only exacerbated the little filly’s gymnastically inclined innards. “And he thought that yer momma didn’t still have it. Well, we showed him, huh?”

Fluttershy managed only a weak nod, hooves uncooperative as she staggered forwards, trying to match her mother’s excited trot.

“Hey… you alright, ‘Shy?” A hoof appeared at her side to steady her.

“I’m—urp—fine…” she replied, choking down a bit of bile.

“Maybe we’ll um… do something a bit calmer now,” she offered, bringing the smaller pegasus to her side so that she might serve as a crutch. “Something with a few less G’s.”

“That sounds… nice.” Fluttershy blushed, her gaze stuck to the cloudy surface beneath them, watching to make sure her hooves contacted the surface properly. “Sorry I didn’t do so well, Momma…”

Fluttershy felt her crutch vanish for a moment as her mother halted rather suddenly. As the little pegasus looked back, her mother’s face was obscured by her mane.

“Momma?”

There came no reply for a moment, just steady breaths as Fluttershy moved to her side.

“Momma… something the matter?”

“Yeah… lot of things,” came a half-choked, chuckling reply. “But none of that right now, okay?”

Fluttershy fell quiet as she slipped beneath her mother’s mane. Looking up into her mother’s face, Fluttershy bit her lip at the bitter mix of humor and sadness found there.

“It’s supposed to be our day, ‘Shy. That means its your day too.” She paused. “Your day especially.”

“It’s okay. I just like it when you’re happy.”

“I…” She straightened up, hugging the little pegasus tight before brushing her own mane from her face. “You’re a great kid, you know that?” Her eyes were red but no longer teary. “So how about we find something we both like. Might be good for us both to just slow down and enjoy the day.”

Fluttershy smiled in response before glancing about. "Oh! How about the weather ride?” she asked, gleefully tugging towards the familiar attraction.

“You sure? It’s kind of a little filly ri—” She cut herself off as Fluttershy gave her a look. “Fair ‘nough. Let’s go.”

As the pair took off, neither noticed the world behind them tearing at its seams, a soft blue light cutting through the clouds as what was forgotten vanished into a gray mist.

[o-0-o]

“Ooooh…. my head…”

“…”

“Did it work?”

“I… I do not know.”

“Fluttershy? Can you hear us, Fluttershy?”

“…”

“Wait… what’s happening?”

“Tha… that can’t be right.”

“…”

“Princess?”

“…”

“Fluttershy?”

[o-0-o]

Minutes later, the pair were locked securely into a car, Fluttershy grinning excitedly as her mother squirmed a bit in the less than mare-sized ride.

“Do we need this?” she asked the attendant, gesturing to the bar pressed into her stomach.

“Regulations, ma’am,” the pock-marked colt replied blankly, moving on to the next car as theirs departed the station.

“Bah on your regulations,” she muttered darkly, Fluttershy giggling.

“Oh, momma. It’s not so bad.”

She continued to squirm beneath the bar. “I hate being trapped like this.”

“Shh-shh! It’s starting!” Fluttershy hissed as they came to first part of the ride, an excited stallion’s voice crackling to life.

“It is a question that had baffled ponykind for thousands of years,” the voice declared in a masterful show of practiced excitement. “How to create and maintain weather for all the ponies of Equestria! Back in the pre-alicorn era, before the reign of our dear princess Celestia…”

The voice rambled on, unimpressed upon by Fluttershy’s excited gasps at the spectacle around her nor by the hardly stifled groans of her companion fidgeting with the cart.

“There has got to be a latch or a button or a—Ha!” She spotted the emergency latch, sending the bar into an upright and blissfully open position. “Much better. I tell ya, whoever designed this did not have ponies in mind. I mean, who sits like that, honestly? Anypony you know?”

“Nope,” Fluttershy replied with a smile as the elder pegasus stretched out.

“Definitely didn’t have pegasi in mind.”

“Won’t we get in trouble?”

“Aww… what’s the worst they’ll do? Kick us off? Nopony’ll notice before we’re at the end anyways,” she stated before lowering her voice. “‘Sides, between you an’ me, I’m thinking that colt was a few droplets short of a raincloud.”

“Mom!”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes, but even she had to admit it. It was far more comfortable without the bar. She took a more natural position as she stared out at the displays.

They’d arrived at one of the largest scenes: a scale model of the whole of Equestria lay about them, complete with slowly moving weather systems the PA droned on about.

She swore that she could even see a pony or two moving about if she squinted real hard. It just seemed so small from where she sat.

“Big, huh?”

Fluttershy looked over at her mother, an eyebrow cocked.

“Well… the model too, but I meant the real thing.”

“Oh… yeah…”

“I mean, just look at Cloudsdale.”

Fluttershy glanced to the left of giant spire that was Canterlot Castle to the floating city of Cloudsdale. She could make out the coliseum and the city proper. She could nearly even make out the block upon which they lived.

“And just think, we’re tiny little specks somewhere in there.”

“Yeah…”

Their car passed by a particularly nasty-looking patch of weather, their narrator talking about weather wrangling as a squadron of tiny mechanized pegasi intercepted the storm.

“Makes you think.”

“I guess…” Fluttershy muttered, her eyelids beginning to droop as the narrator’s excited drone faded to a steady, soothing tone.

“I’ve been thinking, ‘Shy, I think… ‘Shy?”

Fluttershy merely yawned in response.

“Still sleepy?” her mother asked, scooting over to heft the smaller pegasus up into her hooves. “That’s okay, baby… we can always talk later.”

“You can talk now… if you want.” Fluttershy stifled a yawn as her eyes closed, her mother’s hooves swaying her gently back and forth. “I’ll listen…”

“It’s alright… we’ll talk later. Just relax.”

Fluttershy snuggled into her mother, digging her head into the soft chest fur, wings fluttering as she got comfortable.

“Momma?”

“Yeah, ‘Shy?”

“Can… remember when you used to sing?”

Her mother was quiet a moment. “Yeah?”

“Can you sing to me?”

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”

“Thanks, Momma,” Fluttershy whispered.

She coughed and began to hum, voice cracking slightly before she began the song proper.

“Hush now, quiet now,

Time to lay your sleepy head.

Hush now, quiet now,

Time to go to bed…”

Fluttershy’s eyes closed fully as the song went on, the dull drone of the narration vanishing, leaving her with only the lullaby. Memories of a bygone time bubbled to the surface, a feeling of peace she hadn’t felt in years returning.

“Hush now, quiet now,

Time to lay your sleepy head.

Hush now, quiet now,

Time to go to bed.”

Unbeknownst to the little pegasus, something had shifted around them. The model Equestria had changed. The once blurred edges of the models had crystallized. The once plastic trees and magical apparitions had been replaced by something truer as, up from the Everfree Forest, there rose a shadow.

“Drifting off to sleep,

The exciting day behind you.

Drifting off to sleep,

Let the joy of dreamtime find you.”

Up from the forest the beast rose, attacked and pestered by a blur of red. In a distant corner of her mind, she could hear the familiar brow, her brow creased as a cold sweat broke out along her. The skies above swirled with the strange clouds, crackling with an arcane light, glowing a deep magenta before, with a flash, the light cut through the dark.

The echo of a scream filled her ears just beneath the song.

“Hush now, quiet now,

Time to lay your sleepy head.

Hush now, quiet now,

Time to go to bed.”

The car ground to a stop, the lights above dimming as the ride was filled with the magenta light. The thick cloud walls that blocked the ride from the rest of the fair bulged beneath the influence of a soft blue light before they suddenly burst inwards, Fluttershy shooting up as tearing winds ripped through the ride.

“Hush now…”

“Momma, what’s happening?!” Fluttershy cried out, burying herself further into her mother’s grasp, staring up with frightened eyes at the seemingly oblivious pegasus, her eyes closed as she continued her song.

“…quiet now…”

Their car heaved to the side violently, the magical track it had been following vanishing along with all the other cars beyond them, bursting into shadowy motes.

“Momma!”

Hooves slipped as both were sent careening from the car, Fluttershy’s undersized wings beating hard just to keep herself steady as her mother’s grip vanished.

What’s happening?

No longer was she above a model Equestria.

She was hundreds of miles above the real thing, her mother tumbling down through a hole in the clouds as storms raged about them, tearing apart what remained of the ride’s facade.

“…time to lay your sleepy head…”

Fear coursing through her, Fluttershy instinctively folded her wings and dove.

Her mother seemingly locked in her position, an automaton’s hoof running through a now absent mane as the song gently rose to greet Fluttershy.

“Hush now, quiet now…”

“Mom!”

Fluttershy rushed towards her mother, hooves outstretched as tears were torn from her eyes to join the chilling rains .

“It’s time to go…”

She grasped at her mother, hooves missing once… twice… before they found her the third time, looping beneath the elder mare’s shoulders.

“Mom! Please wake up!” she begged, pulling and yanking at the frozen pegasus. Her wings beat as hard as they could, but were unable to slow, much less stop, their descent. “Please!”

As she cried out the second time, she clutched her close, a strange warmth filling the filly. A pink glow flowed out from daughter to mother.

“Wha? Fluttershy?!” her mother gasped, eyes wide and panicked, her hooves immediately grasping at her daughter. “What’s happening?!”

“I d-don’t kn-know!” Fluttershy choked out, still beating her wings as furiously as she could.

Glancing down to see the ground rising to meet them, her mother immediately flared her wings wide, clutching Fluttershy to her chest before angling them slowly out of their dive. They glanced over the top of Everfree, leaves and branches whipping at them as her mother dodged around clawing treetops, trying to level them off properly.

Her mother yelled something over the roar of the storm, the winds buffeting them as the rains finally caught up with them, sending them deeper and deeper into the dense woods.

“There! There!” Fluttershy shouted, spotting the familiar patch of grassland.

Just beyond her cottage… her—

Her mother cried out as they were dragged downwards by an added weight, sending them both tumbling to the thankfully muddy ground.

All was quiet for a moment, just the distant thunder and rains settling around them.

“Fluttershy! Baby, are you alright?”

“I-I think so…” Fluttershy whispered as she carefully disentangled herself. “Are you…”

Fluttershy’s mother didn’t reply, simply staring at the filly turned mare in disbelief, eyes tinged with tears.

“Y… you got big…” she muttered, words almost lost in the howling storm.

Fluttershy looked at herself to find that her mother was indeed right, her lanky filly form replaced by her… well, by her normal body. A strange sense of foreboding settled in the pit of her stomach.

“Mom… we have to go…” she whispered, frightened thoughts dancing in her mind.

“Go? Go where? And what happened? You were so small and now you’re… big and I…” Her mother choked on her words, grasping Fluttershy tight to her as fear filled her voice. “I-I remember. Oh, Celestia…”

“Mom, we need to go. We need to run!” Fluttershy implored, fighting the older pegasus’s fearful grasp.

“I’m so sorry, Fluttershy. I’m so, so sorry…” Fluttershy could feel the warm tears as her mother buried her face in her chest. “Please forgive me…”

“I… I don’t…” Fluttershy murmured in confusion, awkwardly patting her sopping mane with a hoof, but there came no reply.

The storm began to slacken even as the darkness around them grew thick. Fluttershy watched in horror as forest edge darkened and then swelled, shadows stretching towards them like a hundred grasping hooves.

“We have to go! We can talk a little later, but for now we have to go.”

Fluttershy dragging her mother back from the shadows before suddenly being halted by a sudden cry of pain.

“Mom!”

Her mother collapsed to the ground, twitching and writhing in agony.

Fluttershy’s eyes darted over her, seeking some source for her distress, but she found none.

“What’s wrong?!”

There was no reply, just a groan as the darkness crept forwards slowly.

Fluttershy begged and pleaded, pulling at her mother’s hoof even as her own hooves struggled in the mud. She stared down at her mother’s heaving chest and then, aided by a flash of lightning, she saw it.

There, a tiny tendril of shadow running into her mother’s chest from the inky black shadows.

“I-I’m sorry, Fluttershy…” she gasped out, half-buried in the muddy earth as Fluttershy slipped and landed with a wet plop in the muddy field.

“I won’t leave you, Momma…” Fluttershy clutched her tight, watching through tear-streaked eyes as the formless shadow drew fully from the forest, a wall coming towards them.

“I… I’ll find you, Fluttershy… I promise…” her mother whispered, blackened eyes fluttering and hooves clutching blindly at her daughter.

“You don’t have to find me. I’m right here, Mom,” Fluttershy muttered blankly as the dark crept up her mother’s hindlegs. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You need to,” she whispered, voice distorting strangely. “It’s getting cold…”

“I’m no—”

Fluttershy was cut off as the dark hit them, sending her falling back out of instinct, hooves slipping from her mother’s.

“Mom!”

She made a run at the dark barrier, but was yanked back roughly.

“Lemme go! I have to get her!” Fluttershy cried out, looking down to find strands of blue glowing thread laced across her body. “What are you doing?!” She glared at the purple silhouette just behind, the presence of another silhouette, this one a soft blue, only serving to deepen her frustration.

“Go… Fluttershy… go…”

Fluttershy struggled against the magical bonds to no avail, limbs twisting against it weakly until the thread dug painfully into flesh.

“Save her, please!” Fluttershy begged the silhouettes, her body slackening.

The purple silhouette looked to the blue before staring off into the dark. It seemed frustrated as it levitated the now limp Fluttershy onto the blue silhouette’s back.

“Please…”

With a determined huff, the purple silhouette moved into the dark, horn glowing as a thousand needles materialized from the aether to flank it. It turned back momentarily, nodding to the blue silhouette before its horn ignited with magic, a shower of needles plunging into the dark.

Fluttershy shuddered as the roar once more filled the air, the shadow writing as it rose into the air, the blue silhouette taking a few, cautious steps backwards.

“Oh, please no…”

Fluttershy watched in horror as the inky black began to collect a meld into something cohesive, something recognizable. She didn’t have long to watch, however, as a wispy branch, held by a shimmer of magic whipped the blue silhouette’s hindquarters, sending it into a mad gallop.

“No, wait!” she cried out helplessly, watching at the dark formed into a enormous, clawed fist and, as it slammed to the ground.

The unicorn silhouette dodged it as once, rolling aside beneath a second before the third hit and it burst apart, purple motes of light settling around it.

No… not again. Not this again…

She had little time to think as she struggled against her bonds.

“We can’t leave them!”

But the blue pony only galloped harder towards her cottage, reaching it as the dragon’s roaring head burst the shadows.

We can’t just abandon them… we have to go back…

Her silent pleas went unbidden as they rounded the cottage, Fluttershy’s eyes going wide at what she found where her chicken coop had been.

“A… a cann—” Fluttershy gasped as the blue silhouette bucked its rear, sending the bound pegasus up and into the enormous cannon’s barrel, sliding down to the bottom. “Oh, no, no, no, no…”

A small hatch near her head opened to reveal the blue silhouettes featureless face. Somehow she could feel it’s smile as it nodded its head rapidly ‘yes, yes, yes, yes.’

“I can’t! This is crazy!”

The silhouette paused a moment as if to ponder the pegasus’s words before turning back with that same implied grin, nodding vigorously as if to say ‘Yes, and very much yes’ before grasping at the binds around the pegasus, breaking them with a good, hard tug of its teeth.

“Bu-but my wings!” she sputtered out, lifting a limp wing to demonstrate.

The blue silhouette simply gave her a friendly noogie before slamming shut the hatch.

Fluttershy sat in the dark, hooves pressed against the slick innards of the cannon as it began to shift, the cranking of gears echoing through the firing chamber. She watched as the sky shifted around above her until the cannon was pointed directly at the moon.

All was still for a moment before there came a gentle ratta-taptappatap-tap-tap from the cannon wall.

Fluttershy cocked an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t move.

Then it came again, the melody familiar.

Is… that’s… Fluttershy lifted a hoof hesitantly to the cannon’s side.

The melody repeated once more and the pegasus finished it off with the last two notes.

Wait a—

In an explosion of streamers, confetti and what appeared to be a rather large birthday cake, Fluttershy hurtled from the cannon, screaming as she arced towards the moon.

Twisting about in the air, her half-extended wings and her momentum keeping her steady, she looked back at the rapidly shrinking cannon.

No…

She watched the shadow dragon loom over the oblivious silhouette, the blue mare’s hooves waving excitedly as it bounced on its hindlegs.

No no no no no!

It shattered, the beast’s massive clawed foot piercing cannon and silhouette in one go.

Fear rippling through her, Fluttershy spread her wings painfully as she reached the top of her arc.

Her attentions turned to her inevitable destination deep within Everfree. Her wings already cramping, she began her descent, the roaring winds lifting the loose feathers and down from her as she tried vainly to control her flight.

A sudden burst of lightning nearby startled her, wings snapping shut instinctively.

She plummeted, a familiar sight rising to greet her.

The beginning…

Out of the corner of her eye, a blur of red wings hurtled towards her.

[o-0-o]

“Please, Fluttershy… please wake up…”

“…”

“A moment…”

“What?”

“Jus’ do like she says, Rainbow…”

“I… but… okay…”

“…”

“Fluttershy… if you can hear us… we have something to tell you…”

Author's Note:

[revised 09-14-2014]