Across the Universe

by JewishKamikaze

Juxtaposition

What she felt was neither loss nor remorse. Other than a yearning for direction in her heart, the circumstances of her departure had not forced her to feel anything or go anywhere; they had just improbably popped her into a new situation. In fact, departure would indicate that she had exited Equestria. In her case, she was simply no longer there. The life she had left had no indication of changing or stopping, only not continuing. Thus, Fluttershy shed no tears over her new spatial coordinates and kept on her way purposefully. Living became the top priority.

When she reached a dense wood, she found herself in a copse of trees rife with a vibrant array of dragon fruit. After a brief lapse, she zipped behind the cover of a sturdy trunk, having matched the name of the fruit to her mind’s eye.

Steadfast in her decision not to retrogress any further into cowardice, she furrowed her brow and gritted her teeth. Wincing as she did so, she inched towards sustenance, slowly ripped a fruit from its stubborn stem, and brought it toward her face ever so glacially. After taking cover from an incendiary bombardment, the red, fireball-shaped skin offered no solace as she peeled it. Once the peel was off, however, she consumed the mildly sweet interior and the seeds with determination.

Sated and refreshed, she wandered on, perceiving faint flitting amongst the branches as unseen forces passed overhead. Paranoia descended, driving the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. Fluttershy began to hum a comforting song. She thought the lyrics as she hummed, attempting to dislodge her distressing thoughts. …big adventure, tons of fun!…

Before long, she was trotting along in a state of claustrophobia as the mysterious woods as they grew quiet. She finished the session of jittery humming and found herself in a bright clearing bathed in white sunlight unhindered by the leaves’ filtration. From the perspective she possessed, the clearing formed a shining oasis in the middle of a treacherously crepuscular zone. The land around her darkened ominously as an apathetic cloud enjoying its midmorning glide bumbled overhead.

Fluttershy swiveled around to face an imagined sound. Many pairs of beady red eyes flashed at her atop a low-hanging branch as the cloud navigated beneath the sun. Fluttershy stood petrified, trapped by the moment. She sank down submissively and hunched her shoulders about her head, inching away from the perceived danger. The menacing aura emanating from the eyes sparked a contemporaneous drop in blood pressure, and Fluttershy grew faint. She managed to keep her eyes trained on the isolated spots of red amongst the dark greens and browns of the dense foliage encasing the abnormalities.

The cloud passed over, contented, and replaced the gray with white and the darkness with enlightenment. The owners of the red, beady eyes were an assortment of small, sprightly, dragon-like winged-creatures almost, but not entirely unlike the species draco volans. In fact, they were more like songbirds, with bulbous bodies seamlessly molded into a head without any perceptible neck and short, twig-like legs suited for nothing but holding onto twigs of the same proportions. With Fluttershy on the verge of fainting, a well-tuned whistle rang out. As it gained clarity, the others joined the melody, to which Fluttershy mentally added lyrics ...until you all shared it with me… The little things—the little birds—had learned what she had just hummed. Feeling at ease once more, she sang with them.

She made a small forward motion to fix one of the birds’ notes, but the transfixion was shattered and they retreated out of sight. Feeling alone and wayward once again, she began to plod steadily in a direction not quite where she wanted to go, but close enough to that direction that she retained a feeling of spontaneity. After some time, she mustered up the feeling in her bones to sing another song. …Whoop it up with the weepy. Chortle at the kooky. Snortle at the spooky… She stopped and heard a sudden fluttering. Behind her were the same red-eyed animals as before. They shifted expectantly. So filled delight was Flutteshy’s heart, a dainty squee filled the circumambient coppice.