Becoming Fluttershy

by Hope

chapter 2: Mind games

Considering my new digestive tract, taste buds, and quite possibly brain, the pancakes' taste is unchanged. This is remarkable enough but due to a bit of apprehension and maybe some fear I don't want to spend too much time thinking about how much I've changed. How much I'm not me anymore, but Fluttershy. It's striking, to see her nose out of the corner of my eyes. I wonder if she woke up in Equestria with my body. How frightening that must be.

But I feel an unusual drive to my actions this morning, to keep going and keep trying instead of regressing into self pity or contemplation. Like, is Fluttershy okay? Not a question I should be addressing at the moment, as cruel as it seems to leave it behind. So I take a deep breath and sigh before turning to Julien, who has finished his own breakfast and was watching me.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah."

He doesn't start the car, and I frown a little.

"I need to know where to go."

"Right!" I chuckle, before guiding him back onto the main road and towards FedEx.

As we drive, he does pause a few times to look me over, and I cross my forelegs and return his appraisals.

"Don't you feel odd not wearing any clothes?"

For some reason that hadn't been one of the questions on my mind, and I looked Fluttershy's body over curiously. Most of the bits that humanity has deemed inappropriate seem to be non visible, and I'm not about to start prodding.

"Um... I'm not really in my own body, I guess I'm detached from the whole thing?"

He shrugs and takes a turn to pull into the parking lot, before he stops to look at me, his hand on the door handle.

"You know, do you want to just hide in the back? I don't know if they'd believe that you are real."

Without any debate, I slither into the back seat and huddle down out of sight.

"Good?"

"Yeah, you should be hidden."

He left and closed the door, while I waited. But after a minute of waiting I couldn't just lay there anymore, it was giving me far too much time to just think and ponder what has happened to me, and that's not really productive to staying calm. So I poked my head up over the seat to watch him waiting in line, a few other customers also waiting. None of them talking. I wondered if lines were supposed to be semi private, with no one talking to eachother, all bubbled inside of their predetermined task. The rumble of tires on asphalt alerted me to another car pulling in, and I ducked down under the seat again, heart pounding.

I couldn't hide forever, someone would eventually see me, especially if I intended to do my job for much longer. As if I had a financial choice.

Cautiously, I looked up again. The new car had two kids in it, both of whom were occupied with their smart phones, though one of them saw me and looked up, eyes growing wide. She didn't say anything though, as her brother kept focusing on his phone. She snuck up a hand to cautiously wave at me, and I waved back. Raising her phone, she seemed to wait for my approval to take a picture. I climbed up onto the spot behind the back seat, and sat down like I had seen the ponies do in the show, legs tucked in, neck straight up, smile. She tapped the screen and then mouthed "thank you" to me.

It felt weird, being thanked for a picture, but I didn't have any more time to think about it as Julien left the shipping center and I hopped back down onto the seat, soon joined by a pile of boxes.

"Hey, you okay?"

I grin and hop back into the front seat.

"Yeah! I was just making friends. They had all the boxes?"

He nods and gets into the driver's seat, starting the car.

"Oh? Did you talk to them?"

"No, I just waved. They didn't seem as surprised as I thought they would be, though."

Julien just laughs and gets us onto the freeway, headed towards California. It takes a few moments of giving directions and starting the navigation on my phone before we got back to our idle conversation, but he is the first to speak.

"So, how is this going to work?"

With my new-found determination, I straighten my back and turn to face him.

"I'll have to go inside to help, so we can just hope they are understanding. I hope they don't have any dogs."

He doesn't argue, and we ride in silence. Nevada has been my home for the past four years, but I didn't come here because I liked the idea of living in a desert. In fact, I'd much rather live almost anywhere besides the sage brush coated rocky hills that make up the eastern sierra. I came to Nevada because there was a girl I loved, and I valued being closer to her more than I valued my surroundings. We had an odd romance, she was in school with her life in track while I was working full time, just trying to stay afloat. The relationship lasted a few years but I turned out not to be what she needed after all. She needed a "Real woman."

I wipe a few stray tears away from my eyes, the recent heartbreak still painful even to think about, and look out of the window to see the towering trees and greenery of california encroaching on the road. My heart soars. I don't know if this is because of the body I'm inhabiting or because I'm just so sick of the brown, but I tap on the window to get Julien's attention.

"Julien, can we pull over? We got an early start, I just want to relax for a bit."

He doesn't reply, but the tires hum as they hit the rumble strip along the side of the road, we stop with the right side of the car resting in soft brown soil. The car isn't even in park when I pop the door open and leap, wings open.

It's so different, the air here. I wonder if Rainbow Dash feels that slight change in the moisture and altitude like I do, I'll have to ask her if I ever meet her. But the glide takes me down the embankment and a few beats of my wings slow me down enough to land on my hooves. A successful little flight, I think. The grass crunches pleasantly under-hoof, though the swish and roar of cars behind me reminds me that I'm not as deep in the grip of nature as I'd like. I'm just at it's very edge. I feel like it's a violation of the tranquility I'm looking for, except that the trees are still here. They've survived. These trees stood for a hundred years before asphalt and steel became their neighbors. I can certainly survive being near the road if these trees can.

I curl up under the boughs, the moisture soaking quickly into my coat as I lay my head down on my forelegs. It's such a profound feeling of safety, despite all that I've been through. Julien watches from beside the car, checking the time on his phone and looking up at the clouds overhead. I wonder at this simple scene, is it the pony or the person that has the right idea? I cling to nature and look up only to see what is right in front of me, the majesty and power of the earth, while he stares up into the sky above and its endless possibility.

Humanity has scaled the highest peaks and flown above the breath of the world, but we seem by so many accounts to be miserable. Ponies live every day in bliss and friendship, but the highest they have flown might gather frost on the feathers of their wings. The greatest tragedy of humanity is that it fuels its creations with its own misery. Cars were invented because someone was miserable with their inability to get around quickly, the very rubber in the tires was the product of war.

How many times has this one piece of land I sit in been fought over? How many people had to die before it became a strip of trees next to a freeway? It begs the question, when did humanity stop caring for each other? Ponies never stopped, they would give up their possessions in a second if it meant that others would be happy. I interrupt my own musings with another thought, when did I become a philosopher?

With a sad chuckle, I roll around in the grass a bit before cantering back to the car.

“Ready to go?” Julien asks.

“Yeah, I think so.” I chime, before hopping into the front seat and finishing off my orange juice.

“Into the great beyond, chauffeur.” I say with a silly grin as I point my hoof off into the distance, and the metal machine grinds to life to pull us forward into the flow of traffic.

Author's Note:

Rewrite of chapter 2. Sorry it's not a new chapter, but I want to continue work on this.

Comments

[The Spy of the Tiger]

These trees stood for a hundred years before asphalt and steel became their neighbors. I can certainly survive being near the road if these trees can.

Is this a joke about Fluttershy not being a tree?

[Pinklestia]

Cute pony rolling over the grass, yay!