The Forest of the Golden Abalone

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 5: The Idiosyncrasies of Flying Machines

Fluttershy was awoken abruptly to the sound of snoring. Namely, her own. For a moment, she did not know where she was. That blissful moment of unawareness was followed with the sudden realization that she was in a forest, leaning against something warm. Something that she had drooled on in her sleep. Or, rather, somepony.

She jumped so hard that she nearly toppled the wooden structure—but there was not much in the way to go. She had been pressed in a small space, warm and cozy against his body and covered in a woolen blanket that they shared. Her heart racing, she realized that he was already awake. He had donned a pair of reading glasses and was looking through an exceedingly complex looking textbook of snail biology, his notes at the side of them, a pair of quills held in his magic as he took two sets of notes at once.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m in my 40s—I didn’t mean to—”

“Yeah. I know. Weird that you don’t age.”

“Huh—what?”

“I guess I don’t either. Unicorn and all. I’ll look like this for a century at least. Maybe two. Weird to think about it.” He closed his book and notes, putting them into a small bag. “Are you ready to wake up? I didn’t want to move because you need sleep. Seems like you had a rough day. And that wing won’t heal itself otherwise.” He paused. “Actually, it’s something you’ll want to get a doctor to see. That’s why wing surgeons make all the bits they do, eh?”

He stood up and stepped out of the shelter. He was not wearing his poncho or bags, and as such was completely nude—and although Fluttershy had of course seen him naked hundreds of times before, she could not help but feel embarrassed.

He stretched. “Sun’s coming up. Twilight sure is punctual. We should probably get going.”

“Going where?”

“North. That’s where the crash came from. I know a path. But we probably should hurry.”

Fluttershy stood up, feeling her whole body aching. “Yeah,” she said, quietly, knowing there was no reason to hurry at all. They were surely already too late.

Snails was indeed adept at navigating the zone. He seemed to know it well, and the paths he took across hillocks, stones, and through grass had been deepened by years of use. To Fluttershy, he seemed at home in this forest as she was in her cottage.

It took about four hours to reach the site, a distance that seemed impossible. The terrain was rough, but Fluttershy could hardly believe that it had gotten so far in the time it had taken her to hit the ground. She wondered what must have happened on board. If Sampson had attempted to regain control, or if he too had jumped. Without a parachute or wings, though, he would have fared far more poorly than she had.

Realizing this, she immediately stopped thinking.

When they reached it, they found that the crash site was enormous. Trees had been snapped at various levels as the craft had come down, and metal pieces were embedded in various places, some already being chewed apart by various types of snail. The sound of raduli on aluminum was frightful, but not so badly as the silence of the crash itself.

Little remained but charred, still-smoldering wreckage and ash. The vague shape of the vehicle could still be seen, half lost in the moist soil. Thin wisps of smoke were still rising from it, although any fires had been put out by the rain earlier in the morning. Sampson had not been lying. The alchemical reagent which powered the engines had indeed been flammable.

She took several steps closer to the ash, feeling her feet crackling in the black charcoal of the impact. Snails approached too, looking strangely nervous. In the wreckage, something stirred. Fluttershy did not see it, at first, but her eyes focused on something black against black. It stopped its chewing, and then quickly slithered out. It was not a snail. It had no shell. It was a large black slug, and it moved with surprising speed, quickly vanishing into the charred grass with a rustle.

Snails took a sudden step back, looking distinctly displeased. “We shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice filled with an unexpected nervousness. “It hit harder than I figured. If he was in there…”

“Then he’s still in there.”

Snails shook his head. “No. That’s not how it works here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t want to know.” He looked out toward the horizon, at the rising hills and mountains that were barely visible through trees and enormous ferns. “It came down too close to the outskirts of the ruins. I don’t come here. This is as far as we go.”

“What’s beyond here?”

Snails did not answer.

Fluttershy sighed. “We might need to back track. If he jumped, he might be hurt.”

“Were there others?”

Fluttershy frowned. “Flim and Flam.”

Snails nodded knowingly. “I know those guys. Bought a mechanical pencil from them in college. Spent four weeks in the hospital after that one. What jokers.” He frowned. “Why were they here?”

“They owned that thing.”

Snails nodded again. “Explains why it, you know, crashed.”

“There was also a pilot.” Fluttershy suddenly shuddered as the repressed memory came back. Of a pony hitting a full-throttle propeller. “He didn’t make it.”

“You’d be surprised. Was he a unicorn?”

“No. He was a Peg—” She paused. “An earth-pony.”

“What was his name?”

Fluttershy opened her mouth, but suddenly felt sick. She had never even asked.

Snails nodded. “Right. We’ll backtrack it’s course, but it’s nothing but mountain-swamps and the bog back there. I like the bog, but I don’t think you will. It’s very...boggy. I can ask around. I have a flare in camp three. If we wait till dark and I send it up, anypony around should be able to find us.”

Fluttershy managed to control her breathing. “You’re awfully levelheaded, aren’t you?”

Snails shrugged. “Well I don’t know if I’d say ‘awful’. But sure. You have to be. If you’re gonna study snails, you have to think like one.” He smiled. “Snails can’t run away from things, you know? Not usually anyway. But they still don’t panic.” He playfully pushed her shoulder. “It’s why we made such a good team at buckball, eh? You were always the aggressive one.”

Fluttershy blushed. “I...was?”

“Sure.” They started walking back on the path the plane had fallen. Whoever had designed a heavier-than-air aircraft had quite clearly been an idiot. “Another thing I can thank you for. No way I would have gotten in to college with my grades if it weren’t for buckball. Played four years on that scholarship.”

“Oh, wow.” Fluttershy paused, but then proceeded to admit her embarrassment. “I...never graduated middle school.”

Snails shrugged. “Most ponies don’t. I don’t hold it against them. Wouldn’t myself if I didn’t have the knack for snail biology, don’tchaknow.”

Fluttershy had never really considered that thought, although she of course knew it. Aside from Twilight, none of her close friends had greater than an elementary-school education. Rainbow Dash might be considered the only exception, although Pegasus education was performance-based, focused on flying rather than academics. She herself had attended the same school until she had dropped out. Literally.

What she would have done with an education eluded her. Becoming an actual veterinarian was out of the question; even the thought of the sight of blood would lead her to faint. And she was most certainly not cut out to be a biologist. Perhaps she would have attended technical school, like her father. Or resorted to wizardry, as her biological father had.

Still, she was impressed by Snails’s dedication. She saw the way his eyes darted to each tree, each blade of grass, taking into account each snail, from the smallest brown-snails to ones that glimmered with mists of magic as they phased in out of locations.

Then, as they walked, she saw him wince.

“What’s wrong.”

“Dunno,” he said. “Some kind of headache. It’s fine. Probably the smell of burning plane.” He stopped, looking down at the ground. “Huh,” he said.

Fluttershy looked as well, and realized what she saw. Hoofprints.

Except that something was off—and strangely so. The prints of various paws, claws, hooves and feet was something Fluttershy knew well. And these were wrong.

“Those are from a pony,” said Snails. He looked at Fluttershy. “Think he made it out?”

Fluttershy frowned, staring at the hoofprints—until she realized the problem. She looked up at Snails, and he seemed to understand that something was incorrect. Fluttershy pointed behind her.

“But we didn’t leave any. The ground here isn’t soft enough.”

Snails looked, and seemed to grow pale with apprehension. “Maybe it was wet this morning?”

“It’s a swamp. It’s always wet.” Fluttershy turned back to the prints. “These are too deep. They’re the right shape, but too heavy. Much too heavy.”

“Like he was carrying something?”

“Maybe.” Fluttershy shivered. “But he didn’t have anything on the plane.” She paused again. “Not even survey equipment…” She looked to Snails. “Is there a snail that does something like that?”

“It’s not a snail I’m worried about.” He winced. “But the necroslugs don’t make a pony heavier. Not like this.” His expression darkened. “But if he made it out, it’s not a safe place. You’re probably fine, and I’m okay, but if he doesn’t know what he’s doing…”

“I know.” Fluttershy swore under her breath. “Buck...I was supposed to keep him from getting eaten.”

“Been eaten. It’s not so bad. There are much, much worse things here.” He looked at the tracks. “At least he’s going south. Away from the ruins. That’s a good sign.”

“Should we follow him?”

Snails nodded, but then winced again. This time he nearly crumpled to the ground, bracing his forhead with his hoof.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t...know…” When he stood up, his eyes and ears were dripping with silver. “It hurts. Real bad.”

Fluttershy stiffened. “That’s a resonance injury.”

“I must have been bitten by something—”

“I know resonance damage when I see it. You have to sit down. It will pass, but you have to hold on.”

She helped him to the mossy forest floor. He was starting to shiver. Fluttershy, being a Pegasus, was unaffected—but Snails was far more sensitive than any case she had ever seen.

She held his hoof, speaking to him as she would a wounded animal—firmly, and full of a confidence that she found she could rarely hold onto for long. “Is there anything in this forest that’s especially magical?”

“No,” he said, trying to remain stoic. “This has never happened before.” He raised his eyes, wiping away the silver liquid. “But there’s nopony else here…”

As he said it, the foliage around them was suddenly filled with the sounds of hundreds of pegasnails. They looked just like ordinary snails, save for the fluffy white wings emerging from the sides of their shells that carried them aloft, flapping slowly in complex formations. Formations that led them all in the same direction.

The light of the overcast sky was then blotted out, and even Fluttershy felt the hum of the magic engines as the airship passed. Not an airplane, but not a derigable either. It was not a balloon, and it was not lighter than air. She recognized the vibration and the taste of metal it made in her mouth and nose. The vibrations of an extremely powerful crystal reactor.

The heavily armored war-ship drifted overhead, lazily passing, held aloft by engines that hemorrhaged light as plumes of ominous runes. The crystal and steel underside held an insignia that Fluttershy did not recognize—a black shield emblazoned with the simple letters “Fe” in its center.

It passed quickly, and as it left, she heard snails breathing hard. The pain was substantial to those not familiar with crystal energy, and it was obvious he had never spent much time in the Crystal Empire.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said, holding his hoof tightly. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I can hear the snails,” he said. “They hurt too…” He looked up, his eyes watering. “What was that thing?”

“I don’t know.” Which was of course a lie. Fluttershy was many things, and one of those was a politician. Which meant she often had to deal with the increasingly fragile relationship between Equestria and the Crystal Empire—and she knew more than most. About the madness slowly consuming Cadence, her ever-darkening personality. And the war ships she thought she could hide from Twilight.

“We need to leave,” she said.

“No,” said Snails, standing shakily. “We need to follow that.”

“This isn’t the time to be brave, Snails. Whatever that is, we can’t deal with it. We need help.”

Snails frowned. He slowly shook his head. “Ponies only come to this place for one reason. I won’t let them hurt the snails, Fluttershy. I can’t.” He paused. “And I think you already know that. You weren’t going to leave, were you?”

Fluttershy steeled herself. “No.” It would seem that he understood her better than most.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

We’ll backtrack it’s course, but it’s nothing but mountain-swamps and the bog back there.

A respectable black-red mana base.

Becoming an actual veterinarian was out of the question; even the thought of the sight of blood would lead her to faint.

Reminder that Fluttershy has canonically set bones. To say nothing of her work in keeping the food chain connected.

Perhaps she would have attended technical school, like her father. Or resorted to wizardry, as her biological father had.

I have several questions.

Ooh, the plot thickens. Fascinating hints of a number of potential hazards, and a nice G5 tie-in to boot. Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

[Thought Prism]

11419042
Remember, my friend, this is an AU. Namely, it's part of the gigantic interconnected web of fics throughout the author's whole portfolio. I can only remember a scant few details, having binged most of their work, but many of Hole's novels are in the same AU. IDK if there's a name for it, but given Fluttershy's nature here, this one is certainly included.

[Opium4TmassS]

11420143
I remember he is one of my favorite authors here. And Fluttershy is the daughter of the devil. Satin Veil.

[ponepony]

11420788
Which fic was that again?

“I don’t know.” Which was of course a lie. Fluttershy was many things, and one of those was a politician. Which meant she often had to deal with the increasingly fragile relationship between Equestria and the Crystal Empire—and she knew more than most. About the madness slowly consuming Cadence, her ever-darkening personality. And the war ships she thought she could hide from Twilight.

All hail our god empress queen of love. She could probably defeat everyone just by making them all hate each other while she waits it out though.

[Brony4Lyfe]

11420143
The title of the AU was being referred to as Seventh World (because of the first fic within it, "To Devour the Seventh World") as far as I know. But that may have changed. There are also some elements of To Devour the Seventh World that aren't used in later fics (spoilers) such as unicorns having normal lifespans no different from other ponies, Shining going full-necromancer (among other things), and Dash being flung a few centuries to the future