Flutterlich

Chapters

Dark Wood Journey (Chapter 1)
Visits and Contemplation (Chapter 2)
Darkness Inviting
Foregone Conclusions

Dark Wood Journey (Chapter 1)

In the forest where the monsters roam
Which evil creatures call their home
A dark and ancient power sleeps
With passed souls which it keeps

A force devoid of warmth or life
The blood-stain on a blackened knife
It haunts the earth below the ground
Until its summoner is found

When it shall at last awake
And their body overtake
Granting power great in size
But taking without compromise

The Everfree Forest was not a locale to be visited lightly. It was no sunny beach for a leisurely vacation, nor a tepid but welcoming holiday foliage that greeted wayward ponies with open branches. Quite the contrary, in fact. Even at the outskirts of the great foreboding wood, ominous shrubberies and great leering trees of questionable origins stared back at passerby, sneering at them, daring them to enter the mysterious darkness of the forest proper.

It was not an invitation many ponies made good on – and yet, here was one visitor, unexpected; ventures into the Everfree were often preceded by ample preparation, or at the very least undertaken by stoic and steadfast explorers, willing to ignore the looming ever-present danger in pursuit of the mysteries of the forest. The pegasus flying at top-speed beneath the hanging bows of the trees fit neither of these descriptions. Her eyes were almost completely shut, and the wind-trail of her flight carried with it an echoing shriek – the left behind squeak of panic she was letting out at a constant volume.

Fluttershy did not like the Everfree Forest. That her peaceful home cabin was so close by had always been a point of discomfort – she liked to believe that if she vowed to leave the forest and its denizens in peace, they would do the same to her - and yet, here she was, trekking boldly forward into the darkest depths of the woods. It was not a decision she had made lightly.

The panicked squeak subsided, to be replaced with a more coherent communication – a frightened voice calling out into the darkness of the forest.

“Sir Roostington? Please come back! It’s not safe here!”

Fluttershy cast her gaze back and forth searching for an errant feather or orange beak peeking out of a nearby bush that might indicate the presence of the wayward birdl she had followed well past the boundary of both the forest outskirts and her own comfort. Commitment to the animals came first and foremost, and she couldn’t bear to think that one of her beloved creatures was wandering scared and helpless in the ominous winding growths of the Everfree - and yet, wasn’t that exactly what she was doing now?

The forest was too dense going forward to continue at any reasonable speed. Fluttershy’s reasoned that the less time she spent inside the forest, the better, but she couldn’t risk missing Sir Roostington in a clump of grass or tangled mess of tree branches. Besides which, given her eyes-half-shut method of flying thus far, she’d be just as likely to crash into one of the Everfree’s unpleasant residents as her missing chicken – or perhaps even just the unwelcoming sturdiness of a tree-trunk. Proceeding cautiously seemed like a much better idea.

A small bundle of dried leaves wafted upwards as Fluttershy landed, her wings sending tiny gusts over the ground, shaking the blades of dark green grass underneath. The path she had followed seemed to be made for her – it looked as though the native flora had grown up all around her, towering black oak trees and gnarled maple boughs tangling overhead in a mess of intertwining branches and dying leaves. The sky was barely visible through the cover of deadened limbs, with only hints of the bright blue peaked through the cracks in the cover. After several minutes of timid walking even those patches had vanished, and Fluttershy found herself whimpering quietly as she proceeded into the increasing darkness of the forest.

Over and over, she repeated a mantra in her head, willing herself to continue.

Don’t panic don’t panic don’t panic don’t panic don’t panic-

Her repetition was cut short at the sensation of a presence on her hind left hoof.

The branches of every nearby tree shook with the volume of her scream. Clenching her eyes shut in fear, Fluttershy dove forward into the closest bush, burying herself in the dense thicket that had guided the path thus far. After several seconds, she managed to open one eye and peer out of her naturalistic hiding place, praying that whatever creature had followed her had been unable to keep track of her movement as she dove to safety.

As her bright turquoise eyes peered out of the shrubbery, a pair of beady black dots stared back at her.

“Angel!”

The pair of eyes bobbed back at her in response. Fluttershy poked her head out of the bush in hopes of confirmation – and there waiting for her was the furry white form of one Angel Bunny.

“Oh, thank goodness! Angel, you frightened me so much when you snuck up on me like that!”

Angel shrugged apologetically as Fluttershy crawled out of her hiding place. She shook one of her hind hooves after exiting to rid it of an errant leaf that had attached itself.

“I’m so happy to see you, Angel. This forest is so dreadful… even the trees look frightening. I’m glad I have someone to come with me.”

Angel raised one of his front paws and tapped it against his forehead in a salute. Though normally his behavior could best be described as ‘flippant’ or ‘sarcastic’, it was apparent that he understood the necessity of solidarity in his friend’s time of need. Besides which, it would take a heart of stone to be anything other than sympathetic to Fluttershy as she shivered underneath the menacing canopy of the Everfree Forest.

Fluttershy sighed in an expulsion of relief, her eyes closing briefly before snapping open in determination.

“All right, Angel, let’s go find Sir Roostington and get out of this awful place.”

The bunny nodded in affirmation, and together the pair hopped down the increasingly foreboding trail deep into the heart of the forest.

The deeper into the forest, the darker the trees became, and the more foreboding the ominous lingering aura of the forest became. Fluttershy had been visibly shaking at the very edge of the imposing woods – now she was practically forcing herself from a huddled cower into walking, prodded along mostly by Angel’s insistent encouragement, dragging Fluttershy along by one of her yellow hooves deeper into the Everfree.

By this point, Fluttershy was considering calling off the search party and making haste back to her warm, safe cabin far away from the miserable depths of the leering trees with their twisted branches, and watchful eyes of unseen creatures from the darkness.

“Oh, Angel, what if we’ve missed Sir Roostington further back? Maybe we should just turn around and-“ Fluttershy found her suggestion for retreat silenced by a glare from the fluffy companion at her side. Angel had an economy with words – or rather, the lack thereof – that was always able to bring his pegasus friend around one way or the other. Staring back into Angel’s insistent gaze, Fluttershy sighed in resignation, begrudgingly trudging forward along the increasingly ominous path to the center of the forest.

Where had the path even emerged from? Now that Fluttershy began thinking, she couldn’t recall a clear separation from the normally untamed and haphazard array of partial openings in the dense foliage. She had simply flown her fastest, and ended up touching down on the clearly linear walking trail. Following it at the time had just made sense… but now there was a feeling. An ominous foreboding, that made her feel as though the path – or by virtue, the forest itself – was leading her somewhere. Fluttershy swallowed loudly at the thought, prompting a sideways glance from Angel as he practically pulled her forward.

The texture of the forest was… changing. Even at the perimeter of the darkened woods, the trees had at least maintained a degree of natural formation and simplicity. Now they seemed… strange. More so than their simple intimidating nature had from Fluttershy’s first steps into the forest. Now it was as though the limbs of every tree-bough had begun to twist in alien way. Leaves sparkled in the darkness overhead, giving off faint glimmers of bizarre colours from out of the shade. It was enough to prompt more than a batted eyelash from Fluttershy, already more than sure that every unchecked corner of the forest was home to an unknown creature waiting to leap forward in search of an evening meal. Though her kindness knew no bounds for even the most hostile of critters, there were some animals that did not respond very well to pleasant, welcoming gestures.

“Angel, I really don’t think we should be this far into the forest,” Fluttershy whispered her complaint quietly, still well above the ambient whispers of the forest leaves and snickers of hidden creatures in the distance – and where her previous anxiousness had only received Angel’s characteristic deadpan stare, now he bobbed his white fluffy head in mild agreement. Neither of them had ever seen this part of the forest before, and with every inch it was quickly becoming a locale not to be visited again.

But to turn back now – that would be so much wasted time, and abandoning the poor helpless rooster alone in the darkness of the forest besides. Though Fluttershy was not possessed of the degree of fearlessness her more courageous friends were capable of demonstrating, her loyalty and concern for her animal companions was unrelenting. So if that meant trekking into the farthest unexplored reaches of the Everfree, then so be it.

With that thought firmly in mind, and her resolve steeled firmly, Fluttershy gritted her teeth in determination. Angel gave a knowing nod; he recognized that expression. And further forward the two of them ventured, down the winding trail that beckoned them to even darker depths of overhanging brush and leering faces carved in the boughs of the many trees.

The pair continued onward for several more minutes before Fluttershy broke the staunch silence of their determined march.

“Angel, look!”

Fluttershy gestured pointedly towards the source of her exclamation – though, doing so was largely unnecessary. Angel’s attention had been focused there since the approach from several feet away. There, at the end of the path that had emerged from nowhere, guiding the two into the Everfree Forest, was the climax of its winding trail-work – an opening in the tangled tree branches and irksome shrubs, leading to a clearing. A huge grove, it seemed – and from within, emanating outwards, pulsing rhythmically like the heartbeat of the forest, the ground surged with a vibrant violet light, darkened underneath the canopy of trees overhead, but still illuminating everything it touched. Fluttershy’s mouth hung open in amazement. Though she had mentally prepared herself for any number of strange phenomenon during her unpleasant but necessary foresting excursion, crackling leylines of magical energy had not been on that list. Even Angel gawked wide eyed, astounded at the sight in front of him.

It was Fluttershy who broke the silence, Angel’s characteristic economy with words leaving him to absorb the scene quietly.

“Angel… what do you think that is?”

Angel shrugged, perplexed.

Fluttershy approached the entrance to the glowing grove with utmost caution, practically tip-toeing as her hooves neared the first point of the crackling lilac emanation. As it shimmered and turned in jagged arcs through the forest floor, an ambient hiss washed through the air, tugging at the attention of Fluttershy’s ears like a light left on in an empty room, or a shrill, constant whistle from miles away: loud enough to be heard at the back of the mind, but not definable enough to be pin-pointed.

Fluttershy hovered her hoof over the final step for some time. The point of contact between her and the sizzling energized ground was a mountain she wasn’t sure she was ready to climb, especially if she had no guarantee going this far was necessary in the first place. What if Sir Roostington was ambling along in some concealment of brush behind them? They should probably just turn back and search more thouroughly –

The warbling call of an errant rooster gave pause to her thoughts immediately. She swallowed loudly, her lips dry in anticipation of the plunge waiting ahead of her. Reaching to the farthest corners of her mental reserves, and reasoning in the back of her mind that, if Sir Roostington could venture this far, then there was no reason for her not to be fine – Fluttershy gasped a loud intake of breath, before nervously slamming her hoof into the electrified ground.

She let out a high pitched shriek that shook the branches above, sending all manner of irritated birds flying into the distance.

Hoof planted firmly on the ground, she timidly cracked open one eye.

Angel Bunny stared back at her with an unimpressed glare. He was standing amidst the swirling purple energy, tapping one of his hind legs impatiently.

“Oh… I guess it’s safe after all.”

Angel rolled his eyes, but nodded in assurance, before gesturing forward. The grove was much more open than the trail, fantastic in its size, but there was still a tiny part more left to explore, an area just out of the field of view from the opening’s entry.

Fluttershy gulped again, before placing her other hooves on the magical current and walking forward at Angel’s behest.

Just a short walk further yielded the de facto destination of the pair’s trek. Again, their mouths hung open in astonishment, but many seconds more passed before their awareness was recollected. Some time passed before the two could draw their eyes away from what they found at the edge of the flickering purple grove, what seemed to be the source of the mystical energy surging all around them. A giant stone formation – a circle, or runic construction of some kind. Five stone pillars reaching far upwards to the furthest height of the forest, arranged in perfect symmetrical formation in a circular fashion. Where the rest of the surging lightning underhoof was chaotic, it seemed to find purpose at the border of the stone structure – bright violet lines were tinted blood red, spanning perfect parallels connecting every piece of the stone formation in a bizarre criss-cross, like an ancient rune or arcane language long forgotten.

After finally collecting herself, Fluttershy began to titter nervously. Even Angel could feel a chill in the air – an ambient electricity that permeated the space between every breath, sending shivers up and down his spine.

“I don’t think we should be here, no no no, we should go…”

For once, Angel was content to agree with his companion’s cowardice – he had seen enough.

The two had just turned tail to exit the grove when they heard the sound.

The shrill caw of an errant rooster.

Slowly, Flutershy turned back to the monument. There, plucking idly at the shimmering red and purple ground, was Sir Roostington, oblivious to the terrifying ambience surrounding him.

“Oh! Sir Roostington, finally! Please, you have to get out of there, we need to get out of this awful forest, right away!”

The chicken squawked obliviously, pecking at errant strands of grass as he ambled in the center of the arcane circle.

“Ohhhhh, Angel, I have to go get him.”

Angel lifted a paw in pause. He would have normally been the first to suggest immediate action, but this didn’t feel right.

Fluttershy felt it as well – the uncomfortable ambient energy swirling through the air, the fear that caught every breath as the blood-red lightning crackled between the joints of the stone structure. And yet, what else could she do?

I have NOT come this far to give up now. Sir Roostington is my friend and I am going to get him out of here, no matter what!

And with that thought cementing her resolve, Fluttershy boldly stepped forward between the pillars or stone, into the great red circle.

She breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened.

“Okay, don’t worry! Sir Roostington, we’ve come all this way, and we’re going to take you home, and never come back into this awful forest ever again!”

Angel nodded and waved his paw in a silent cheer as Fluttershy advanced with determination on the oblivious rooster at the stone circle’s center. Sir Roostington was ambling just outside the middle point of the arcane structure, clucking as he paced back and forth.

Fluttershy was less than a foot away when she heard the crackling noise, like lightning in the air around her. Immediately, her eyes flew downward, out of natural suspicion, but also in deference to the fact that her hooves were cemented firmly to the ground.

The eye of the runic lightning was coiled beneath her in a perfect circle, at which she stood at the very center. The air sizzled again, and her nose smelled a faint burning, like the particles around her being ignited. Scanning around, panicked, she saw the peals of crimson lightning arcing through the great stone pillars with increasing ferocity, spitting to and fro idly at first, but doubling in intensity every few seconds, until the obelisks formed a wall of electricity, separating her from everything outside the stone structure.

Over the swirl of the luminescent vortex, she cried out.

“Angel! Angel, help!”

But her words were drowned in the tumultuous sea of electricity that swirled through the pillars. The ground underneath her was shaking, making her footing unsteady despite still being entirely fixed in place by a mysterious force – like the binding of rope, locking her at the center of the glowing red circle. Its lines increased in intensity, glowing brighter and brighter. Fluttershy screamed until she thought her lungs would give out, but the arcane vortex only continued to burgeon.

And all the while, Sir Roostington pecked at the ground only feet away, still seemingly ignorant of the chaos surrounding him, as well as his keeper’s pleas for help.

The brightness had grown too bright to withstand, blinding in its power. Fluttershy shut her eyes, crying behind them, yanking at her magical bindings to no avail, wanting this all to be over, wishing she had never walked so deep into the forest in search of a single wayward chicken…

With the roar at the height of its volume, the swirling torrent of magical lightning surged and pulsed outward, before exploding into the center of the relic with a fracture that split the barrier of sound, separating itself with a sound like the sky cracking wide open. The stone rune burst forth with a purple and crimson wave of energy, scattering outward into the forest and disrupting everything in its path: shaking the tree-trunks and sending torrents of leaves tumbling to the ground, as well as tossing a distressed white bunny rabbit upwards into the air before gravity delivered him unceremoniously back to the forested ground.

The explosive swirl of power was accompanied by a final crack, like a mighty peal of thunder matching the simultaneous splintering of each of the five pillars in the runic circle. Around the grove, the magical energy beneath the ground had vanished. Now, only black shadows stretched through the waves of branches that surrounded the mysterious hideaway.

Angel struggled to his feet as quickly as he was able, disoriented from the force of the blast. Around him, several trees here and there had caught fire – not all consuming infernos, but tiny localized tufts of flame, like invisible torches swirling from the branches, collateral damage from the power of the explosion. Wasting no time, Angel dashed to the center of the stone circle, the pillars steaming from their conduction, their moments ago smooth bodies of stone fractured and damaged beyond repair.

Fluttershy was there at the center, collapsed on the ground, her eyes shut tight.

Words not being his strong suit, Angel ran to her, his eyes welling brightly in distress. Though he was almost always the figure of staunchness to Fluttershy’s timidity, the thought of world without her was beyond the grasp of his stoniness to conceal his emotions. Squeaking meekly to himself as he reached the fallen pegasus, he prodded her side lightly with his head, willing her with all of his might to rise, and to prove that she was okay. To his relief, Fluttershy gave a small groan, stirring every so slightly.

Angel practically bounced upwards in joy before prodding her again, gently, pleading silently for her to be alright.

After several more nudges, Fluttershy managed to muster the tiniest squeak before attempting to speak.

“Ohhhh… Angel, what happened? I remember seeing lightning everywhere, like a tornado, and then an explosion…”

Angel pet Fluttershy on her back reassuringly, his tiny paw tracing her mane in a soothing fashion. Fluttershy was always content to have her hair brushed, finding it relaxing and capable of relieving her normal nervousness. Angel continued to stroke Fluttershy’s flowing pink mane for a minute before pausing abruptly.

Pink… mane?

This was not the normal colour of Fluttershy’s hair. This was quite different.

The strands of mane that slid along Angel’s tiny paw were more than a single colour, to start with. Normally Fluttershy’s mane was a single, bubblegum pink – now, strands of red and black ran through it, like woven highlights, blending in with the gentle pink hue surrounding them. Angel noticed too, besides the colour; with every other touch, he could see another tint, coursing through the strands of hair, like a tiny purple lightning weaving along the soft, single-hair conductors.

His pause gave Fluttershy concern.

“Angel, is everything alright? You’re not hurt, are you?”

Fluttershy had turned her eyes mid-way to examine her bunny companion when they caught a more urgent sight. Immediately, tears brimmed to the corner of her eyes.

Several feet away at the farthest edge of the grove, a lone tree had splintered and cracked, separating into a fallen trunk and sizzling stump, traces of bizarre fire sprinkling the charred husk still rooted to the ground.

Underneath the burning bough now toppled to the forest floor, a pair of chicken feet protruded.

“Ohhh, noooooo!”

Fluttershy’s exclamation was the only cohesion she could muster. As soon as her eyes found the first evidence of a conclusion she wished so badly not to come to, the other pieces fell into place – or rather quite literally, were scattered in place just so. Fluttershy was close to every animal in Ponyville – she raised them, cared for them, and nursed them back to health – the latter especially meaning she was no stranger to the more unpleasant outcome of an animal’s failing health. Usually, however, the result was not quite so graphic. She wished she had seen just a comical puff of feathers and rigid talons signifying Sir Roostington’s departure from the mortal coil, but instead the forest ground was stained red, this time from no mystical lightning. Feathers were scattered here and there, but they were accompanied by tiny, more composed pieces – fragments of bone, and… less pleasant other fragments of the deceased rooster.

Placing her head in her hooves, Fluttershy began to cry.

She laid in a heap on the ground as Angel pet her back soothingly again – the explosion had been disorienting enough, but to come all this way… Angel was no stranger to death either. He was a roamer of the forest, and had seen more than his share of unpleasant encounters between animals in a state of disagreement – but the sight still unsettled him, especially in this level of gratuity, and it was something he would never wish on Fluttershy, as long as he lived. He knew she didn’t deserve this.

The wind whistled through tree branches above as Fluttershy’s tears dotted the forest floor. She lay there for several minutes before another sound joined the mournful hollowing of the passing breeze coupled with her quiet sobs. She heard a voice, whispering just outside her ear, or perhaps at the back of her mind, a hiss of the lowest volume just loud enough to make out.

Stand up…

The words felt strange as they echoed in her mind, rasped as though spoken through parched lips. Fluttershy raised her head wearily, the strands of her newly recoloured hair flowing down like multi-hued streams of a secluded waterfall. She glanced back and forth, doing her best to avoid letting her eyes fall to the scene of carnage already burned into her mind.

“H-hello?”

There was no sign anyone else in the clearing, save for the still concerned looking Angel standing by her side. And yet, there was a voice, speaking directly into her ear.

Stand up… it said again. Though the credibility of an otherworldly disembodied voice was inherently suspect, Fluttershy felt strangely compelled by its direction. Shakily, she rose to her feet, hooves gaining a hold on the ground as the mournful gusts continued to shake the boughs of the trees overhead.

Go to him…

There was further direction. Still unsure, but with little reason to do otherwise, Fluttershy’s legs carried her shakily forwards. She didn’t want to have to look again, to see…

She stopped a foot away from the brunt of the remains, turning her head to the side in an effort to keep her gaze away.

Closer…

Fluttershy shook her head, but stepped timidly forward regardless. Every sentence sent tingles up her spine, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up from the feeling the haunting voice left in her ear, a combination of fear and compulsion running through her each time it spoke. She did as she was told, pausing this time only inches away from the pair of talons protruding from the still crackling fallen tree.

The voice was louder when it spoke this time, drawing her eyes open with its insistent tone.

What you must learn today… is that death is not the conclusion to existence. It is merely an inconvenience…
The sentence was punctuated with a small gust of wind, sending a clump of leaves tumbling upwards and off into the distance. All the while, Angel had stood, watching his pegasus companion with confusion from afar. He knew that dealing with the death of an animal was more than likely to impart some kind of mental strain – but Fluttershy’s behavior worried him regardless. He was torn between stepping forward for another attempt at consolation, or letting Fluttershy’s grief play out its natural course. But now, she was standing so close, he knew she wouldn’t want to see what was in front of her in any greater detail.

Fluttershy did not speak this time, having received no answer from her attempt previous. A thought simply played out in her head, intended only for herself as a result of the suggestion posited to her by the mysterious ethereal whisper.

I don’t understand...

The voice answered her almost immediately.

You will…

Her eyes widened as the answer echoed her own thought.

Reach forward, and let us show you…

Shaking, Fluttershy raised one unsteady leg, pointing her hoof forward at the feet of the late Sir Roostington. The wind howled louder,, like a the mournful cry of an ailed creature lamenting fate with its last breath. Fluttershy felt strange. Her foreleg was tingling, tiny pinpricks of static tracing their way through her body.

The ambient breeze intensified, growing more and more furious, swirling around her body like a miniature tornado. The strands of her hair began to lift into the air, framing her head like a multi-coloured halo as the torrential gust reached its apex, screaming outwards into the forest. Again, Fluttershy shut her eyes in fright, wishing so hard that she had never followed so far into the Everfree, wishing everything could just be better…

She felt a jolt run through her body, concentrating at the end of her hoof pointed outward. Peeking one eye open, a dark strand of something splayed outward, ridding her body of this tingling sensation as it did so, and ceasing the fervent howling of the wind as well. The gathered gust dissipated with a whoosh, causing Fluttershy’s eyes to close once more to block out the impact of the wind and the debris it scattered.

The sound of leaves and dust settling around her prompted another nervous peek. A pair of tiny black eyes stared back at her blankly.

“S-sir Roostington?”

The rooster clucked amicably, apparently unfazed by the last moment’s tumult. His head bobbed as he walked lazily around.

Fluttershy checked her surroundings. Though she was loathe to see the grim scene she had analyzed moments ago, she had to make sure. There under the broken tree – there was nothing but the darkened grass that had always been there. To the right, the tufts of feathers – they had vanished as well, leaving no sign of their presence minutes ago.

Sir Roostington clucked as he bobbed about in a patch of grass.

“Oh my goodness! Angel, look!”

The white bunny had been fixated since Fluttershy had stepped forward, so the demand for his attention was largely unnecessary – he was staring wide eyed at the now perfectly animate rooster in front of him – and, as an afterthought, gave a sideways glance at Fluttershy as well. Her hair had returned from its elevation in the breeze to framing her demure features, but the strands of black and pink remained. The former seemed perhaps even darker, permeating the neighbouring strands with the smallest flush of outreaching blackness as well. Angel blinked.

Fluttershy had no attention for the bunny at the moment, however. She ran forward to the now perfectly whole and healthy rooster in front of her, grabbing him with her hooves and bringing him up for a tight embrace.

“Oh, Sir Roostington, I was so worried! You had me so scared… I thought we’d lost you!”

The chicken clucked again.

“No more running off like that ever again, do you hear me? Come on, we should get out of this awful place…”

Uncharacteristically, the rooster seemed to bob his head in assent, and made no signs of discontent as Fluttershy placed him gently on her back where he settled in immediately. Sighing with relief, Fluttershy turned back to Angel, finally ready to make her way out of the ominous forest. Her welcoming smile was met with a look of incredulous disbelief from Angel.

She understood the expression. Moments ago she had been sure that one of her beloved animals was no longer for this world, having met his fate at the behest of a cruel magical mishap. But… here he was now, alive and well, and ready to follow the two back to their safe and comforting home. There were details she wasn’t clear on, mostly what had happened since they entered the mysterious clearing… and the voice that had whispered in the back of her mind – but everything was alright now, surely? She and Angel were fine, and Sir Roostington as well, ready to accompany them back home. She could worry about the details later.

“Angel… come on, we should go.”

She opted to forgo the explanation of her thoughts in lieu of making the trek back as fast as possible.

Angel was inclined to agree. He nodded eagerly, and hopped swiftly to Fluttershy’s side, the two of them beginning a brisk pace towards the trail they had followed.

As they exited the grove, another tiny breeze picked up behind them, blowing errant leaves skyward and sending rattles through the scattered tree branches. It carried, at its tail end, a darker whisper, the faintest words on the dying breath of its short lifespan before it dissipated.
At last…

Visits and Contemplation (Chapter 2)

The sky was almost pitch black when the group reached the edge of the forest. The trail had been less apparent than in its initial presentation. Instead of stretching out ahead of them like a custom tailored road, random splits and branches had ended in dead ends, and winding pathways sprung up at odd intervals. There was also the factor of speed – though they had walked briskly, Fluttershy’s initial venture into the forest had been a flight at top speed, with Angel running behind her – a pace they were unable to match now, exhausted from the fatigue of their encounter at the forest’s depth.

The moon was overhead to greet the trio as they emerged from the final overhang of crooked trees, illuminating the ground in a bath of silver light. Angel and Fluttershy breathed a collective sigh of relief as the cottage crested at the height of the horizon – finally, to be back home.

“I hope I never have to set hoof in that awful forest again as long as I live.”

Hyperbole aside, Angel nodded at Fluttershy’s exclamation. Though he had made his way into the forest times previous, today’s expedition left a sour taste in his mouth, and the sooner he could write off such an encounter in the future, the better.

The soft thump of hoofsteps and tiny rabbit feet was the only sound as the group made its way back to the cottage. As they reached the edge of Fluttershy’s house and grounds, the rhythmic tapping of their steps was punctuated by a shrill creaking, like the swinging of a rusted door hinge left open.

Fluttershy’s brow furrowed with concern.

“Angel, did you hear that?”

The bunny nodded in response. Sir Roostington, meanwhile, said nothing, having drifted off a long time ago as he was carried out of the forest.

“It sounds like it’s coming from the chicken coop…”

Did I leave the door open when I left in such a hurry? The thought was an auspicious one – Fluttershy dearly hoped that her stock of feathery friends were well in place. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than another venture into the forest to search for them.

Fluttershy walked slowly to the source of the emanating creak, the wooden frame of the tiny chicken house glowing silver in the moonlight. She saw it immediately, one of the side doors swinging open. She saw something else as well, a tuft of feathers at the edge of the coop, and a scuffled patch of ground, like dirt that had been tossed up by a large or rowdy visitor.

Her mouth fell open when her gaze followed the stray feathers outward.

All of them – every single chicken she had left behind in her pursuit of their errant member – lay dead on the ground. Their bodies were whole, but badly damaged – necks had been slit, bodies punctured, as if by a furiously wielded knife. Amidst the scattered corpses, blood was everywhere, painting the ground in the lunar glow, a canvas of crimson shining silver. Angel, normally the sturdiest of constitutions, turned his sight immediately upon witnessing the grisly scene, and was loudly sick into a patch of nearby grass. One dead chicken had been something, but this was beyond horrifying…

There were no words. Everything that had happened that day – the terrifying trek into the forest, the frightening encounter with the mysterious runes, Sir Roostington’s death and subsequent unexplained return – it had all been too much. There was nothing left in her reserve of emotions left for what Fluttershy saw now. She felt her eyes water and her throat dry, but nothing further. No tears, and no anguished cries. Instead, her legs buckled, sending her down to the slightly damp evening grass, drops of dew meeting only feet away with patch of bright red vitae sprayed across the ground.

Behind, the rusted door creaked loudly.

To say that Fluttershy collected herself would be in error – the response to such a sight could in no way tempered by any resultant composure – but she did, after a short while, stand again, Sir Roostington still sleeping soundly nestled safely in her wings. Blankly, her eyes surveyed the extent of the carnage.

She remembered the voice.

Unsure, but with little recourse otherwise, she shakily raised a hoof upward, pointing it in the general direction of the bodies scattered about in front of her. The tiniest whisper of a breeze picked up in the distance.

What was it the voice had said again?

As if on cue, the eldritch hiss prickled her ears with its answer.

What you must learn today… is that death is not the conclusion to existence. It is merely an inconvenience…

Fluttershy gulped, and closed her eyes, hoof still extended.

She didn’t understand any of this - not what had happened in that runic stone circle in the darkest reaches of the Everfree, nor the raspy voice in her head with no proper source. But she remembered the feeling that had enveloped her after the last time it spoke, before she had opened her eyes and seen Sir Roostington standing in front of her, whole and healthy. A kind of all encompassing swell of energy, that had sent tingles up her spine and made her feel… safe, somehow. Not safe in the normal fashion, sheltered by sturdy structures or strong friends nearby to protect her, but safe on her own. As though she could temper one of the many elements in life that had always seemed out of her control. So often others called her weak, or helpless, and she agree with their perception… but in that moment, ailed whispers at the back of her mind and some alien force directed at her projection, she had felt in control, for once.

She felt it again, and cracked her eyes to see so many shadowy tendrils reaching outward. They moved swiftly, the antithesis of the creeping lethargy of the voice that prompted their appearance – no, it was her, Fluttershy, who had done that. And she was doing it now. As if guided by intuition, she closed her eyes again, and heard the swish of a passing breeze, followed by the faintest of sizzling sounds. Her eyes opened again.

Seven chickens pecked idly at the grass in front of her, ambling about nonchalantly.

Fluttershy sighed loudly. Relief would be the wrong word… this felt different, much more tangible than relief. Relief implied gratitude at the benevolence of the universe to guide circumstance in a direction to her benefit, leading her to grovel at the kindness of fate to spare her from something more gruesome. This was much different. This was… inspiration. Empowerment. This felt much better.

Fluttershy grinned, in spite of herself, her smile brightened under the silver beam of the moon above.

“Angel, are you okay?” She turned back towards the moments ago distraught bunny, hoping quietly to herself that he had remained concerned with his disgust.

Instead, she found him staring blankly forward past her, eyes wide again as he watched the flock of chickens bandy about.

“Umm…” Fluttershy hummed quietly, unsure of what to say. Angel turned his head to look back at her, his expression saying more than could be put into words. Fluttershy answered his incredulous gaze with a quiet mumble.

“I don’t know… I don’t understand it either, Angel. But… but it can’t be a bad thing! Everyone’s okay now, Sir Roostington too…”

Angel cocked his head, apparently not as eager to acquiesce to Fluttershy’s acceptance of the situation.

“I know, it’s strange… I think it must have happened because of that big explosion in the, um, forest.”

A moment passed in silence. Angel’s glare remained incredulous.

“It feels like some kind of magic! I don’t know what else to say, Angel… I’m confused too. What if…”

The severity of the situation was beginning to take its toll on Fluttershy’s attitude. She had felt so sure moments ago, enraptured in the solution that arose at her command – but now, facing someone else, and explaining how she had circumvented the finality of death… she felt afraid again. What if the strange force at her command was something evil, or monstrous? She had never heard of any magic with that kind of power before, not even in all her conversations with Twilight, the most studious disciple of magic there was. Besides which, magic was the domain of unicorns, not pegasi – so why had she been able to conjure such a force with relative ease, bringing back a multitude of creatures back from the throes of their faded mortality?

A tear fell from Fluttershy’s cheek as the weight of her lack of understanding hit her.

“Oh, Angel… what if there’s something wrong with me? I don’t understand any of this…” Fluttershy forced her words through tearful cries, turning from confidence to fear in the blink of an eye. Though he was unsure of what to think given the things he had witnessed, Angel couldn’t stand idly by and leave his close friend in tears. He hopped over to Fluttershy as she wept, and let himself be picked up between her hooves, placing his tiny arms onto her body in a sympathetic embrace. Fluttershy’s hair fell forward as she leaned into the tearful hug, enveloping Angel in a wash of pink and black, though now decidedly more of the latter.

Sir Roostington’s clucking joined the rest of the chickens as he groggily awoke. The open door creaked amidst the sound of tears and contented chickens.

The morning of the day after Fluttershy’s journey into the heart of the Everfree, she enjoyed a moments peace upon awakening in the morning. The sun trickled lazily in through the glass window pane, illuminating motes of dust in the air as well as the interior of her bedroom. Fluttershy’s eyes parted groggily, and she gave a small smile as the warmth of the sun added to the already toasty comfort of her quilt.

The smile vanished when her bleary eyes glimpsed the several strands of her blackened hair that had draped themselves over her neck in her sleep, a very succinct reminder of everything that had happened the day prior. Immediately, the warmth seemed to drain from the room, the remembrance of the grim happenings and unpleasant changes that had taken place.

But still… she had convinced herself there was nothing further to worry about. Though the bizarre happenstance had sent her to bed tearful and miserable, every day could be taken one step at a time. Sir Roostington, along with the other chickens, was alive and well, and though she had no explanation for the mysterious magic channeling through her body, nor the source of its inception, all things could be investigated. A visit to Twilight and a calm relaxing day inside would make the future seem much brighter.

As Fluttershy roused herself from the last remnants of her slumber, stretching her limbs outward in an attempt to awaken her body for the day’s activities, her gaze fell naturally to the foot of the bed, where she found a pair of ears and glaring beady eyes staring back at her.

“Gah!”

Unprepared to find herself being watched as she awoke, Fluttershy grabbed the quilt and threw it over her head, shrouding herself in makeshift darkness. She curled into the still warmed blanket for a moment, shivering despite the heat, before a gentle tap at the corner of her impromptu fortress drew her attention. Timidly, she lifted a corner of the blanket and peeked outside. The same glaring face was waiting for her. This time, preparedness went a long way, and she gave out only a tiny ‘Eep!’, leaving the blanket pulled back.

“Angel, you scared me! What are you doing up here so early-“

The stern-looking rabbit answered the question before Fluttershy had finished asking it – silently, he held the source of his troubled expression aloft. Fluttershy shrunk back behind her hooves at the swiftness of Angel’s movement, before lifting her head up to see the cause for Angel’s early visit to her bedroom.

Sir Roostington clucked blithely at her from between Angel’s paws.

Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. After the previous night’s grisly scene that greeted her return, she had expected something far worse – the sight of a peaceful tuft of pudgy feathers floating in front of her was far better.

Although… ‘pudgy’…

Angel shook the chicken in front of Fluttershy’s face insistently from his place standing on her bed. Now that she looked closer… Sir Roostington was not the bastion of contentment and portly poultry he was the day previous. Patches of feathers and down were missing from his coat, leaving empty spots. That, and he looked considerably thinner, almost gaunt, as though the stress of the previous day had taken a serious toll.

Fluttershy’s empathetic instinct immediately kicked in. Putting the ambient worries in her head aside for a moment, she reached out her hooves to grab the ailing fowl and grasped him tightly to her chest.

She held him there for a moment, then blinked oddly. Screwing her face up in confusion, she squeezed the chicken close again, holding him slightly askew from her initial embrace. Her brow furrowed, concern blanketing her face. Perplexed, she held Sir Roostington at foreleg’s length, scanning him over in puzzlement.

“Sir Roostington… you seem different. Are you feeling alright?”

The chicken gave no coherent response, not even a complacent cluck as Fluttershy studied him. He simply turned his head back and forth, focusing on seemingly random fixtures around the room.

Something was most certainly different. Normally, Fluttershy savoured nothing more than the warmth in her heart when she was close to her animals – a closeness that brought the strongest sense of comfort and kinship she had ever known. But the blankly staring chicken she had just hugged – his embrace had felt cold, and empty, nothing like the chubby squawking rooster she had cuddled close many times before. It was cause for concern.

As Fluttershy reached the end of her contemplation, her eyes fell downward to meet Angel’s gaze once more. His face was still the pervasive picture of grimness, brow furrowed and ears folded slightly downward. The connection to draw was evident, but Fluttershy was hesitant to do so.

“Angel, do you think… this has something to do with what happened yesterday?”

Even in the greatest depths of his patience, Angel could not restrain his sarcastic glare in answer to this question. He titled his head in the ultimate display of contempt at Fluttershy’s imminent obliviousness, as if to say “No, you think?”

Fluttershy immediately tucked her head close down, squeaking meekly

“Oh… I guess that was kind of a silly question..”

Angel rolled his eyes, and then gestured with one paw towards the frail figure of Sir Roostington ambling about on the bedspread. Fluttershy’s eyes followed the motion of his gesture, pointing deliberately, before pointing towards the wall, out one of the windows – in the direction of the Everfree forest. He pulled his paws together, then brought the outward fiercely, eyes wide, before holding one aloft, and tracing the other outward from its end. The mimicry was fairly spot on, really.

Fluttershy bit her lip meekly in response. A thousand words raced through her head, most of them an expression of disbelief that a day’s events could so vastly change one of her beloved animals so – but then, it hadn’t been simply a journey into the forest. Angel had specifically gestured… the dark emanation that blossomed from Fluttershy’s hoof as Sir Roostington was brought back from his… less composed state. She had done the same with the other chickens upon their return as well-

Her eyes immediately widened at the thought. “Angel, are the others – are they…”

Angel nodded grimly. Fluttershy’s hooves flew to her mouth, tiny dots of moisture brimming at the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, no…”

Several moments passed in silent contemplation, save the rustling of tiny chicken feet on the bedding and Fluttershy’s sniffles. After letting the flow of emotion pass, Fluttershy gathered herself, before standing from the bed, planting her hooves on the wooden floor with a thump. Sir Roostington ambled pointlessly on one of the pillows. He had always been a tad distracted, but now…

Fluttershy let out a long breath, before turning to Angel, who had followed her down from the bed, and was now looking up with concern.

“Angel… I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.”

Angel nodded sympathetically, before cringing, a look akin to somepony who had forgotten their school lunch at home or left a burner on before leaving the house. Timidly, he gestured with a paw up towards the ceiling. Fluttershy blinked at him, before turning her head upwards.

Spreading outwards from the center of the ceiling, and all throughout the upper half of the room, was a darkened skein of black tendrils, like vines or vegetation, but far more limp and sinewy. They hung eerily from the nooks and crannies of the cottage roof, spreading down the walls towards the floor.

Fluttershy gave a squeak of surprise, her head spinning back and forth in an attempt to assess the bizarre appearance of the supposed plant-life in front of her. It had most certainly not been there when she had fallen asleep, but now half the room was nearly covered in it.

“Ohmigoodness, no! Angel, what is going on?”

Fluttershy’s question was more rhetorical than anything. She turned to and fro in a continued examination of the alien growth above her, flapping her wings in distress as she did so. Angel could only sigh, and look towards her sympathetically. Perhaps it would have been best if he had never pointed the strange development in the first place.

She could feel her final grasp of reason failing.

“I don’t know what to do!”

She screamed the sentence to the world in general, causing Angel to shield his ears at the unprecedented volume. He could count on one paw the number of times he remembered Fluttershy raising her voice – but, if any occasion called for such a thing, this was indeed one of them. Once more over such a short span of time, he found himself next to the kneeling Pegasus, patting her side sympathetically as she wept. Bizarre changes, worrisome goings on, all secondary conduits for the feeling that overwhelmed her. That loss of control, the sense of being powerless – she had grown accustomed to it over the years, and yet still hated it more than anything. Maybe now, the feeling was additionally frustrating, because she had been so close to breaking free from the shackles of her own lack of control.

After minutes, Fluttershy collected herself. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly as she stood, closing her eyes in an act of focus.

“Ooookay.” She drew the vowel syllable out, letting out another long breath as she spoke, before turning to Angel.

“Okay. Angel, we can do this. We don’t have to worry… everything’s going to be fine.”

Angel tilted his head sympathetically. More than anything, he would like to believe that was the case – but though his faith in his gentle friend was unwavering, he felt that the situation at hand might just be out of her grasp to handle. As long as she needed his support, however… he would be there.

“First thing’s first. We have to keep to ourselves for a bit. I don’t want anypony seeing me… like this.” Fluttershy cast her eyes to an errant stranded of blackened hair, before returning to her manifesto.

“Next, I’m going to make sure I don’t do any more of… whatever it was that I did. I don’t understand it, and… even though it made all the animals better, then this started happening… so no more… whatever!”

Angel nodded enthusiastically before Fluttershy continued.

“And… if we wait for a few days, and things don’t get better, I’ll need you to talk to Twilight for me, okay? Whatever happened in the forest… it seemed to be some kind of magic, and nopony knows more about magic than Twilight Sparkle. Can you promise me you’ll do that?”

Angel nodded again, throwing his paw to his forehead in a mock salute.

“Good. So… now we just have to wait. Keep these weird things in check,” she said as a yellow hoof gestured at the vines hanging from the ceiling “and watch the other animals, to make sure they’re okay.”

And so the plan was set in motion. Fluttershy was taunted regularly for her meekness – but it could not be said that in a time of crisis, she knew how to come through. All that was left now was to hope that the plan of observation and inaction proved fruitful.

In tone with the day previous, however, life had its share of snags in store.

Darkness Inviting

The rest of the first day of observation went by mostly without event until the evening. Fluttershy had resolved herself to a quiet night with Angel in as much peace as she could muster, the two of them snuggled in front of the living room fire place, ignoring the sinewy tendrils of darkness than hung from the ceiling. The fire gave a particularly loud crack at just past ten, causing Fluttershy to jump ever so slightly in her seat. Angel gave her a sideways look, but only as a gentle ribbing, before nestling his head back into her coat, basking in the warmth of the flickering flames.

At five past ten, they heard the crash from outside; a cacophonous series of thumps that sounded like a barn being torn apart. Fluttershy swiveled her head in a panic towards the window, searching for the source of the violent emanation, before a second crash followed, and then a third, prompting the Pegasus to bury herself in the blanket, tucking the green fabric overtop her black and pink mane like a makeshift shelter. Angel continued to look around, peering out the nearby window as the series of thumps continued, like a sledgehammer colliding with a deteriorating home.

Eventually, the racket stopped, prompting Fluttershy to peer out of her blanket fortress timidly.

“Angel, what was that?” she asked in a meager squeak. Angel looked back concernedly, but could only shrug. He gestured towards the door simply with one paw.

“Do… do you think we should go outside and see?”

Angel shrugged again.

Though Fluttershy was normally content with Angel's laid-back mannerisms, right now she wished dearly that he could have tried just a little harder to inspire some kind of confidence. She was sure that he'd be there by her side if necessary, and supposed that would just have to make due.

Still, she was anything but eager to venture out into the darkness of night and confront whatever had been responsible for the horrible series of noises that had made her feel as though the world outside was being destroyed. Maybe it would be best just to wait inside for the night to pass, and analyze the aftermath in the morning. As long as everyone was safe inside, there was no need to spend any time searching for something terrifying. Fluttershy did a quick mental tally of the creatures in the house. Angel at her side, and the chickens...

Sir Roostington... and six others.

Where was the seventh?

Fluttershy looked to the door again. The tiniest crack she had failed to notice before brought in a small draft of cool air from outside. She immediately tried to rationalize the possibility unfolding itself. Surely one of the chickens had wandered off elsewhere into the house...

The echoing cluck from outside shattered her delusion instantly.

Fluttershy surprised herself with the rapid assemblage of her resolve. The question of investigation now wasn't really a question at all. Regardless of the semi-animate status of the gaggle of chickens currently occupying her cottage, Fluttershy wasn't about to let one of them wander off into the night amidst suspicious noises, especially given the events that had taken place the last few days. She just hoped dearly she could find him before anything more horrible happened.

There was no amount Fluttershy could prepare herself mentally for what might be waiting outside, but she a drew a deep breath in her best concerted effort. It seemed that world she had known and loved for so long in Ponyville had been turned upside down from a simple journey into the forest. The Everfree had always given her a sense of unease just from its proximity. Now, she vowed to herself that when all of this was over with, she'd never set hoof in the dreadful woods ever again.

Angel's ears raised in surprise as Fluttershy through the door open with a sudden shove, barreling outside into the cool night. After a minute, he recovered from the shock with a shake of his head, and ran after her, the door swinging open as his feet carried him past the doorway.

The air outside was cold and damp, like a shrill suffocating blanket, though the particles of the air seemed thick not with density, but a smothering electric sensation, unseen consequences and fear leaking into the body through every breath. It was enough to make the majority of Angel's hair stand on end, only intensified by the fact that upon his exit of the cottage, his yellow pegasus companion was nowhere to be found. He gave a fervent scan in either direction, but saw nothing but the forest in the distance, and the waving grass nearby.

It was the roar at the other side of the house that drew his attention.

The sound was unearthly. Angel was familiar with the cries of ferocious bears and other agitated and menacing animals from Ponyville's surrounding area, but the sound that pierced his ears cut through the night like a groan from an unseen abyss, a cross between a primal roar and dying cry of agony. His body froze in place, struggling inside with every impulse his brain sent to his body telling him to run. Only his commitment to Fluttershy staid him there, but it was not strong enough to overwhelm the fear, and so he remained frozen.

Fluttershy had a similar reaction, face to face with the creature that had made the noise.

Her limbs were stiff as a board, outstretched and planted firmly in the ground, in what would have otherwise been a stance of defiance if not brought about entirely by fear. On her back, Fluttershy's wings had flared outward, the tips glimmering in the moonlight, their usual yellow, but now tinted ever so slightly black at the edges. She couldn't move a muscle, nor could she break her gaze from its lock on the horrifying creature in front of her, standing in stark contrast to calmness of the evening environment surrounding it.

The thing looked like a bear grown to a grotesque size. It towered over Fluttershy, panting loudly, its face hemorrhaging steam into the cold night air. It's proportions were malformed in every direction, giant club-like legs and a tiny head like a spined pustule atop its shoulders. The demonic bear's face was a crude approximation of a misshapen skull, dented at one end with the skin either missing or grown incorrectly over top the monstrous bone structure. It's mouth was a frightening mesh of jagged teeth, like blood covered thistles spouting from both sides of its jaw and gnashing together in frustration when they met. It was standing on its hind legs, and in one of its spined paws it held the form of a desiccated chicken, which was utterly silent. The only sound was the horrifying panting escaping from the bear's mouth, and the sound of Fluttershy's heartbeat inside her own ears. Her brain told her to run, but her legs were unable to translate the message. She simply stood face to face with the creature that had aggravated her torment, waiting for it to make the first move.

In the back of her mind alongside the silent panicked screaming of her own conscience, Fluttershy heard the faintest traces of a familiar whisper.

"Show it... you are no longer as weak as you have been led to believe..."

As though sensing the synapse firing in response to the hidden voice's direction, the creature roared again, horribly, sending branches in the forest rippling from miles away. As it did so, it squeezed the chicken in its paw, spiked claws digging into the remainder of the bird's flesh, prompting it to let out a horrified cry. Apparently whatever semblance of its normality was left was enough to realize the situation at present was not a pleasant one.

Fluttershy heard her own voice screaming inside her head, telling her to run, to get as far away from her cottage as she could, do close her eyes and fly off and never look back - but the cowardice was cut in short spurts by memories, flashes of other things. The prodding of the other voice inside her mind. Remembrance. Shame. Fear. The way she had felt her whole life, diminutive and helpless. She remembered voices, shouting at her, mocking her, and how worthless she had felt. What she had done then was hide, when she could do no more.

The voice flashed across her mind again in the span of a single breathe, guiding her consciousness away.

‘You can do much more now...’

What would she have done back then, if she had been capable?

Another flash, bright, and black.

She had saved her animal friend. She had circumvented death at a whim. What more could she do?

Flash.

She saw the vision that would result from her helplessness. The bear's hand clenching around the shrieking bird and crushing it into a red pulp of meat and bones.

Flash.

She was standing up years ago, prying herself from a crumpled heap into a stance of defiance.

Flash.

Instead of tears, her eyes were filled with fire, burning away the world around her, staring through the souls of the three colts in front of her.

Flash. The bear clenched its hand. Flash. A familiar pose. Her hoof was outstretched, dark tendrils spiraling out from her leg - this time with a small group of cowering ponies in front instead of the remains of slaughtered poultry. Flash. Her leg raising again. The voice.

"Show them..."

Fluttershy saw black. Then red.

On the other side of the house, Angel, still partially frozen in fear, felt a chill run up his spine. The air had turned as cold as ice.

The creature sniffed the air almost idly, as though it was unaware of the microcosm of unbecoming unfolding in front of it. Fluttershy's body had become enshrined almost entirely in a black flame, tendrils even darker than the night's sky interweaving with the same mystic purple energy that had consumed the forest floor days before. It spun around her body like a vortex, sending wayward leaves and less than firmly rooted grass flying off into the distance, as though the earth itself wanted to be nowhere near her.

The bear feigned obliviousness. It lifted the chicken to its mouth and opened its gaping maw of jagged teeth.

Fluttershy's shout split the air in half. The same trees that had rippled minutes before with the force of the skull-bear's roar shook ferociously this time, branches at the farthest end of the forest arching backwards against the force of the tidal wave of force sprawling through the air. The night's cold that had moments ago chilled into ice had now shattered. In Ponyville, passerby felt their hearts pause too long, only to return with a gasp of cold air a minute later, left holding their ears and cringing in confusion.

The creature staggered in surprise, but held fast against the impact of Fluttershy's outburst. It leered forward at her, finally taking in the site of her body enveloped in dark energy. The scene seemed to give the monster pause - but as if by some instinct, its hand continued the journey towards its mouth, a now petrified chicken clenched between its claws.

"No."

The word came from a place Fluttershy had never heard herself speak from before. She recognized the feeling vaguely, the insistence of personality that came from her use of the only similar technique she had ever made use of. A verbal stare, magnified a hundred fold by the confidence coming in a way she had never felt. Her assurance was founded not just on her own strength of will, but on a literal strength, dark and powerful and coursing through her body. A single syllable sent the creature reeling with bird still in hand, using its other paw to claw at its own disgusting face, willing the brain-worm of a command out.

Fluttershy wasted no time waiting for the creature to recover. She stretched out one hoof again, and a beam of black spewed forward, hitting the creature on one of its hind legs. The impact sent it sprawling, and it let out another cry. This one sounded less fearsome, and much more like a wounded animal now realizing it was in far beyond its realm of reason. Its eyes swiveled in agonized confusion, darting down to its catch as a form of assurance. Fluttershy simply shook her head, and waved her hoof towards the chicken. The creature's sunken violet eyes widened as the bird changed. Its body expanded outwards, growing and distorting into a hefty mimicry of its original shape, pushing the bear's claws outwards and eventually bursting forth from the creature's grasp and sprawling onto the cool and now shaking evening grass. The chicken's fear was gone, now replaced by nothingness - its growth had expanded its bones outside the realm of its body, and the remaining pieces of feathers and flesh fell to the ground like tattered cloth.

The grass parted and sizzled at Fluttershy's hooves as she walked slowly towards the slumped over beast. The fire around her body had receded, leaving her with only the slightest hints of crimson lightning streaking occasionally across her fur, now coloured in black with strange symbols and patterns. She moved closer patiently, the creature's vociferous roaring and panting replaced with an almost frightened gasping for breath. She walked until she was so close to the creature she could peer right into its needle-mesh of a dental structure, the deformed husk of a chicken walking close behind her on her right side. Her expression was grim as she raised a hoof again, pointing it squarely at the creature's face, what could be called a nose in a normal facial topography. Dark energy blossomed at the tip of her outstretched limb, causing the air around it to deaden, like a shriveling dead plant away from a cancerous parasite, removing the life from everything around it. She paused for a moment, staring at the monstrosity in front of her. As the energy channeled, she looked into its bug like eyes, devoid of any animate expression, yet somehow consumed in terror. The compound lenses caught a glint of the moonlight as it beamed overhead - and reflected the frame of a scared, white bunny huddling at the corner of Fluttershy's cottage.

Fluttershy froze. In an instant, the swell of energy and blooming decay at her hoof vanished, and with it the aura that had surrounded her body. The sizzle of burning grass at her feet vanished, and the lines of lightning arcing along her coat fizzled into nothingness, though traces of the arcane black pattern along her skin remained. Her stance faltered, and she fell from her posture of assured confidence into a slump, meekly balancing on her now wobbling knees trying to remain upright.

The creature piqued at this opportunity, and wasted no time before rising from the ground and running toward the dark branches of the Everfree forest. The low-hanging branches of the trees snapped as it crashed through the dense wood.

To Fluttershy's right, the mutilated skeleton of the chicken remained, now shrunken back to its normal proportions but still without its skin, now laying on a pile feet away from its hollow body. The chicken stared blankly into space with empty eye sockets, seemingly unaware of the shaking pegasus to its side. It remained oblivious as the patter of tiny footsteps darted across the grass, sometimes turning to a crunch as they crossed a patch of burned vegetation.

Fluttershy's legs finally gave out as Angel reached her, her body weight sending her sprawling into the ground at the unsympathetic behest of gravity. She made no attempt to bar her fall as the ground came up to meet her, letting her face land roughly. The force of the impact drew a weak cough as the ringing echoed through her head and she feebly attempted to remove the dirt from her mouth. She felt the distinct absence of Angel's touch as he stood just near enough for her to notice his withdrawal, hovering hesitantly inches away from her fallen form instead of reaching out to comfort her.

She understood his reaction... but she could count it singularly among the thing she understood about what had just happened, or what had been happening to her since her trek into the Everfree.

Thinking was too tiring. Fluttershy stared at the gaze of empty eye sockets in polished white bone as sleep overtook her.

It was very dark. Fluttershy’s eyes opened to what appeared to be nothingness, a black void surrounding her body. There was no sound, save the sporadic thumping of her hear ringing through her ears.

Fluttershy felt very, very alone.

"Hello?"

She managed to squeak out a tiny sound despite the insistence of her mind warning her away from doing anything. It reminded her of times she had awoken in the night to a strange noise from somewhere in the house, and had struggled to convince herself it was simply a restless critter or the house settling, rather than dragging herself out of bed to face whatever horrible thing might be waiting for her in a shadowy corner.

The darkness gave no reply. Her heart thumped more insistently.

In the periphery of her vision, Fluttershy noticed something startling - the black in her hair had vanished. It was back to its proper bubblegum pink. She almost jumped for joy, but caught herself in remembrance of her location, wherever it might be. Such a thing was no time for celebration.

In the back of her mind, she heard the faintest whisper of a voice now quickly becoming familiar... but it spoke without words, like an ethereal breeze passing through the an empty chamber room.

Fluttershy cringed instinctually at the intrusion of the incorporeal rasp in the confines of her thoughts. She shut her eyes immediately, responding as she always had when afraid, until very recently. One of her eyes peaked open as the thought crossed her mind. Was she still afraid? Separating the emotion was difficult; her whole being felt a strange amalgamation of the self she was used to, and the bizarre transformation that had occurred over the last two days. Despite the things she had done since that first change, Fluttershy realized wanted nothing more than to be back in her safe warm bed, surrounded even as it was my macabre fixtures and decoration. At the very least, it was away from here, separate from the dark and the sinister whispers creeping into her ear. At her remembrance she had been ready to give up her meekness and fear forever just a short while ago, but now the fear was back, and it felt familiar, almost welcoming.

Every second in the dark intensified the fear of Fluttershy's unknown surroundings. Another breeze like a dying breath made her jump. At last, something was materializing from the darkness, a swirl of grey smoke wafting in an invisible breeze feet in front of her face. The mist wavered and weaved up and down, condensing and separating until it finally formed a semblance of a coherent shape. At last, the voice had a shape in the form of a husk-like face formed from the condensed melting fog arisen from nothingness.

Fluttershy's heart stopped for a moment. The face felt horrifyingly familiar, though she knew she had never seen it. The hiss when it opened its mouth was like air escaping from the final minutes of a settling corpse.

'Welcome, holder... we are pleased to see you...'

Fluttershy abandoned all pretense of the personal certainty she had given in to over the past two days and placed her hooves firmly on her ears, cowering with her head to the ground and eyes shut. She wanted away from here. Away from the darkness and the hissing voice of death. She couldn't convince herself that being strong was worth this.

The face smiled, smoking decayed lips forming a horrifying curve illuminated against the impermeable background of nothingness. It spoke again, making Fluttershy feel as though her thoughts were crawling with ants.

'The past few days have been hard for you... the transition can be difficult. But we are ecstatic you have accepted the change so readily.'

There was no response that could coalesce Fluttershy's reaction into a single statement. She knew what the voice meant, but there was no part of her that wanted to accept it. She shook her head in resistance to the insinuation creeping into her conscience. Her mouth managed to form the only word that could contain her emotion, whether in regards to the voice's grim pliance of her supposed acquiescence, or as a gesture to herself, fighting against the impulses that had driven her actions in the first place.

"No..."

The word held no defiance. It was a meager protest stifled by Fluttershy's feelings more than the imposing nature of her verbal combatant, so meek that the voice seemed to give it no heed as it continued its ashen whispers.

'You make such good use of the gifts during your transition... and we feel the motivation behind your actions. This is the greatest benefit you could have hoped for, though we do not yet expect you to understand.'

She wanted to scream, but her lungs gave out their emotion before the first breath could be collected. Her legs gave out underneath her body of their own accord, sending her tumbling downward into an awkward heap. The weakness she felt was so great that even in the absence of someone to torment her, her own psyche was content to do the job. The tears wanted to come, but couldn't. Fluttershy managed to assemble a sentence out of her rapidly failing vocal cords.

"I don't... I don't want this. You're wrong. I want to go back to the way things were."

If the animate fog had been capable of proper expression, it would have sneered in utmost contempt - but instead, the tendrils of white twisted into their best semblance of a condescending grin. The leer made Fluttershy feel even more helpless; sapping the miniscule conviction she had attempted to put into her speech. She couldn't lie to the entity that had followed her through the darkness, no more than she could lie to herself.

As though it could feel the fog of emotion permeating the nonexistent air, the voice's tone grew even more taunting, like a mischievous bully taunting the pegasus from the intangible aether of darkness.

'We understand what your heart yearns for, that we are able to provide... All we ask in return, is your cooperation...' The voice let each sentence fade before continuing the next, like the breath of an elderly dying stallion, rattling his lungs and frame with the struggle of his final hours.

The words sent a dark flash of familiar remembrance through Fluttershy's thoughts. She didn't want to consider its suggestion - but that was just what she had done before a face close to her heart had pulled her back from her horrifying revelry. She had felt an energy then that was almost intoxicating. Never before could she remember feeling so in control, so sure of her actions, and certain there was nothing in the world that could stand in her way. The feeling was amazing... but as the last few days had borne witness, there were consequences to that feeling.

And therein lied her conflict and questioning. Was any part of that strength enough to give in to the dark force that had followed her from the forest? The one at the behest of the voice now taunting her from the shadows. The same energy had mutated and distorted her animal companions, and compelled her to act in ways she never before would have considered possible. It made her feel powerful, but the costs seemed to heavily outweigh the benefits in every regard.

She tried to raise her voice in defiance, but couldn't form the words to profess her protest.

Without receiving an answer, the dry wail lurking in the darkness and her mind let out a contented rasp of breath, and with it the ethereal fog separated into a tornado of whirling dark wisps around Fluttershy's body, prompting her eyes to widen in shock. Instinctively her limbs shot outward and flailed against the approaching blanket of sinewy blackness, a tattered macabre tapestry encircling her despite her struggle. The voice was at its softest point as it spoke before the dark enveloped the yellow pegasus.

"We understand better than even yourself... and we can be patient..."

The howl of the dark wind deadened the last of Fluttershy's lucidity, and soon the void around her was replaced with the more absolute darkness of unconsciousness.

The pegasus awoke with a start, jolting upright and sending the sheets flying from her body. Her eyes flew wide open, taking in an instant dose of the strongest moonlight which beamed in through her bedroom window, coating the room in a silvery glow.

Fluttershy wished it had stopped at the pane of glass the moment her eyes took in the sight of the room surrounding her. Even the darkness had seemed more welcoming.

She took a moment to absorb the sight of the unintentional decoration coating the walls of her wooden abode. The tendrils had spidered out even further, coating almost every last inch on the available surfaces. The book case in the corner had been woven over completely, volumes of sweet childhood stories and guides for animal care wrapped in disgusting black roots. Like the veins of a sickened heart crawling into the last vestige of her safety and sanity, leaving her a firm choice between acceptance and resistance. She didn't want any of this. She couldn't stand to see it. It would be so easy just to fall into bed, to let sleep overtake her and shut her eyes away from existence, ignoring everything until her world changed one way or the other.

A white blur at the corner of her closing eyes was reminder enough that there was still at least one reason not to give up yet.

Fluttershy turned sideways in her bed, the tangled sheets falling off her body drenched in sweat from her nervous nightmare. Angel's face was the most sympathetic she had ever seen in, his brow furrowed in concern, his bright eyes wide with emotion. His expression was yearning as his tiny paws reached outwards. Fluttershy didn't hesitate for a moment before throwing herself forward, grabbing the bunny with both forelegs and grasping him to her body, squeezing him as tight as she could without hurting him. The warmth of the rabbit's body against hers was more than comforting - it was a reminder that she was alive. And that was all the more reason to persist - if not for herself, then for Angel.

Angel, of course, said nothing, but the moment passing in silence as the two embraced said more than the longest diatribe ever could have. It was Fluttershy who broke the silence, whispering quietly in a voice carried from the softest part of her heart, a safety from the darkness that seemed to surround her further every day.

"Angel... I think tomorrow, we should talk to Twilight."

Still nestled in Fluttershy's arms, Angel nodded his head.

Foregone Conclusions

Fluttershy opened her eyes the next morning to feeble rays of sunlight creeping in through the shrouded glass of her bedroom window. The view was enough to make her wish she could have kept them closed forever. The tendrils hanging from the ceiling had fully enacted their ownership of the room, snaking over every piece of furniture and lighting fixture, save for the bed on which Fluttershy slept. The tips of the root-like appendages simply curled up at the edge of the bed-frame, layering the floor of the bedroom like a disgusting black carpet.

It was early. Fluttershy felt like she could have slept for hours - and as a result, whatever amount of sleep she had gotten overnight seemed woefully inefficient. The bags under eyes made her look years older - and when coupled with the new midnight black shade of her hair made her look like an almost entirely different pony. She felt tired, all the time now, though her perspective was marred beyond reconciliation. If she slept, she wouldn't have to deal with any of this. She could simply close her eyes, and never wake up...

Angel's head peeking from her door way was enough of a reason to finish opening her eyes. The white rabbit looked more timid than she could remember seeing him. He was peering into the newly decorated bedroom with a mix of fright and concern - more of the latter when his gaze fell on Fluttershy at the center of the bed. He made his way into the room with caution, touching as little of the dark growths as possible. The sheets flew up as he landed, and Fluttershy allowed herself a small smile. Angel questioned her wordlessly, to which she responded with a nod.

"The sooner the better, Angel. I need you to go get Twilight."

Angel nodded back. He turned his head to survey the room before leaving, his look of determination cracking slightly as he noticed the presence at the head of Fluttershy's bed. The chickens were there again, looking even less animate than the day before. Most of their feathers were completely gone, and the skin had begun to fall from them in patches, some of it collected at their feet in disgusting clumps. One of them was solid, walking bone. Angel shuddered. He almost stopped Fluttershy as she turned around, and immediately wished he had done so as she gasped, and drew her hoof to her mouth. He didn't want to stay to watch the tears, so he hopped from the bed and made his way down the stairs as fast as he could move.

The sooner he could bring someone who might be able to fix all of this, the sooner things could go back to normal, and then he'd be in a world where all of Fluttershy's fears and sadness would be something he could allay. Right now, he was awash in a tumultuous sea of unexplainable horrors and forces beyond his imagining. If anyone was the type to help get things back to the status quo, it was Twilight. Though, given the state the house was in, not to mention Fluttershy, Angel wondered if she might just turn and run as soon as he showed her the situation.

The sight awaiting the pair as they returned wasn't one Angel had taken proper time to assess. Invested in the tumultuous events that had taken place with Fluttershy at the forefront of his mind, Angel had been too immersed to take notice of what the cottage and its surrounding area might look like to an outside observer.

The grass outside Fluttershy's house faded to brown and then black about thirty feet from the door-way. The yard was a perimeter of dying vegetation, including the expanded hoof-prints of ash and scorched earth left from the night previous. Angel noted he could see several splintered boards and fragments of wood from the remains of the chicken coop peeking out from the side of the cottage towards the forest. As well as several patches of now decaying grass stained a bright red...

Angel noticed an absence of hoofsteps beside as he neared the door of the cottage. He paused and turned his head to see Twilight Sparkle standing several feet behind him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open as she took in the full extent of the changes to Fluttershy's previously cheerful housing. Even the house itself had changed... the wooden framework looked withered and sinister, and the whole thing seemed to have been tinted with darkness, like a stage light shone through a black gel. Instead of a smoking chimney from a cosy fire, the brickwork was overgrown with the far-reaching tendrils of black vines that seemed intent on overtaking the entire home. Twilight took the site of the whole thing in at her stopping point, her breathe stopped as the aura of the house washed over her. Nothing she could remember in her time at Ponyville had ever looked like this. Nothing had made her feel this uneasy before.

Angel could feel Twilight's apprehension. Even for a dedicated student of strange magics, the energy at play was alien, and horrifying. Angel wasn't sure what he would do if his only hope turned and ran back to the safety of Ponyville. Fluttershy had told him to fetch Twilight because she was the most knowledgeable and industrious unicorn in Ponyville, and in Fluttershy's mind, possibly all of Equestria. So, if she was already having apprehensions, even just in her approach, what hope was there that she might be the one to provide a solution?

Twilight shook her head in an attempt to clear the instant mental cobwebs onset at the vision of death and decay in front of her. Her eyes shifted to the side anxiously, trying in vain to avoid letting them fall on any part of the blackened conversion around her. It was an impossible effort - everywhere she looked was darkened. It sent a shiver up her spine. The air felt heavy. It made her feel weak and helpless simply from proximity to the house that looked like a vision from her nightmares. She simply stared at the ground, unmoving for a minute. Off in the distance of the forest, a tree shook, and a flock of dark birds soared into the air. Twilight felt a chill run up her spine. Regardless of the intent that she had set out with when Angel had knocked insistently at her door, her resolve was rapidly draining. Everything in front of her seemed composed to drive her as far away as possible.

Twilight looked down. Even the ground at her feet was unwelcoming. The thought in her mind was pervasive - she shouldn't be here. She needed to go. Her legs tensed as she readied herself to turn and run, back to the safety of town and away from whatever horrible thing Fluttershy had immersed herself in. As Twilight's gaze shifted with the turning of her head, she caught a glimpse of the first speck of hope and life since she had set her eyes upon the decayed landscape. A bright ball of white, looking up at her with pleading eyes.

The two locked eyes for a moment. Twilight broke the staring contest by raising her head. After a second of thought, she lifted her hoof and began to walk again towards the blackened wood of the cottage's front door. Behind her, Angel breathed a sigh of relief.

As Twilight approached the cottage door, her horn glowed brightly and the wooden portal creaked open. Angel bounded inside, but took pause as he remembered Twilight. He turned to find her making her way timidly over the doorstep, her horn now shining with an intangible light, which she used like a candle to illuminate the darkened corners of the house as she entered.

"Oh my goodness...” she said to herself in a barely audible whisper. Her eyes were wide as she surveyed the extent of the changes to the house's interior. While the physical shift was slight, the aura of uneasy silence and overall unpleasantness was invasive. It made her thoughts drift back to the nightmares of her youth, when she had felt alone, and completely helpless.

Angel didn't feel the same sense of dread. The reason, in his mind, was evident. While Twilight was nothing if not a good friend, she could never have anticipated what would be waiting for her after an urgent beckoning from Angel to follow to Fluttershy's. She had weathered the staunchest obstacles for her friends, including the timid yellow pegasus... but that devotion was a simple familiarity. To Angel, it was much more than that. Despite any difficulties or misgivings that might arise, Angel and Fluttershy were closer than words could describe. They had a friendship that spurned the omnipresent aura of dread and darkness surrounding the changes that had followed them from the forest. That friendship was what had kept Angel confident in his actions - and after the moment of hesitation the night before, it was clear in his mind that going forward, he would do whatever it took to get his dearest friend back to her proper self. He just hoped that Twilight was the pony to help with such a thing.

Again, Angel found himself pausing, this time half way up the stairs to Fluttershy's bedroom as he waited for Twilight. She paused every few steps to analyze something, shining the beam of her horn onto a piece of dejected furniture, or a painting on the wall that looked as though it had been bled with dark ink, or burned in a fireplace. Angel understood Twilight's analytical mind was what made her an asset, but the urgency of the situation weighed heavily in his mind. Hoping to draw Twilight's attention, he tapped his foot on the wooden step with a mild thump. Twilight's head snapped up like a shot, her eyes even wider than before in sudden surprise.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Angel. This is... I don't understand. Is all of this why you wanted me to follow you? What happened here?"

Angel gestured towards the top of the stairs insistently, before hopping up the final stretch to the hallway before Fluttershy's bedroom. Twilight followed him with nervous hoofsteps.

The path to the bedroom was the worst part of the house yet. The floor was pocked with bulges at random intervals, like bloated soars on a diseased pony's body. Wooden boards swelled outward, and the walls were covered in the creeping tendrils of black vines. Twilight walked down the hall with hesitance in every step, pausing above a particularly noticeable bulge in the flooring. Her hoof hovered over it for a moment before finding a nearby section of wood that seemed more accommodating. Eventually, the arduous journey down the short hallway came to an end. Angel was waiting at the door to the bedroom.

"Fluttershy...?"

Angel nodded. He gestured towards the door with one paw.

Twilight swallowed with a dry throat, then pushed the door open. The hinges creaked ominously as the door swung open in no particular hurry. Where there had been tiny sprinkles of light creeping in through the windows in the main room or streaming down the hallway, the room beyond the door was utterly black. Twilight peered around the door, the light from her horn shining into the corner of the room, though she willed herself not to see what it might be illuminating.

"Fluttershy?" she whispered. Her voice was shaking with anxiousness as she scanned the room. She hadn't visited Fluttershy much, and certainly not enough to memorize the layout of her bedroom, so she continued to sweep the lilac beam of light across the uninviting blackness. The first comprehensible object revealed itself at the room's center - the foot of the bedpost, covered in the same black growths that had coated the walls along the highway. Twilight lifted the beam upward, finding the wooden frame, and further up, the pale bed sheets that appeared to be the only thing inside the darkness with even the slightest hint of brightness. This was the bed. And Fluttershy was...

Twilight screamed as her violet light hit the center of the bed. It faltered and vanished as her wail shook the vined walls of the bedroom. Eight red eyes stared back at her from the center of the bed, all of them on tiny beaked faces standing in a circle around the middle of the bed. Amidst the group, there was one missing space, red specks replaced by a blank two-eyed stare in a skull of bleached bone.

Fluttershy was there at the center of the stares with her blanket drawn up to her face, peering with her bright teal eyes overtop the faded fabric. Traces of violet sparked across her irises. She blinked, and lowered the blanket from her mouth.

"Twilight," she said in timid tones to the frightened unicorn standing in her doorway "I need your help."

The two ponies had made space at the dining room table, unused as of late but a suitable place for a discussion - or at the very least, a more pleasant place for doing so than the smothering darkness of Fluttershy's bedroom. Angel was milling about the floor of the table, trying to herd the chickens away from the conversation as it went on.

"So, explain to me again exactly what happened," Twilight directed, and furrowed her brow. Her eyes were narrowed in concern and concentration. Despite having heard every word of Fluttershy's first-hoof account twice, the situation wasn't one to assume she had all the details about, regardless of repetition. Fluttershy sighed, but launched into an exhausted explanation regardless. She brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and began the story again in her perpetually diminutive voice.

"I was going into the forest because Sir Roostington had gotten lost, and I knew I had seen him wander in that direction-"

Twilight raised a hoof to interrupt, the same way she had done so at various pivotal points in the telling of the events leading up to now in their previous detailing.

"The Everfree forest?"

"Yes, the Everfree."

"The forest teeming with magic and horrible creatures that nopony in Ponyville ever sets a hoof into?"

"Twilight, please!" Fluttershy tilted her face down to hide the beginnings of tears in her eyes. She needed Twilight here, being the only pony she could possibly imagine helping her fix what had happened since her mishap two days ago. But what she was hearing now sounded more like admonishment than an offer to make things better, and her mind was in enough of a state of stress already.

Twilight buried her face in her hooves, shutting her eyes in an attempt to corral her thoughts into their usual uniform organization. The whole sordid tale of events was a lot to take in, and her typical method of absorption was failing her.

"I'm sorry, Fluttershy, I don't mean to sound harsh... but you had to have known that wandering into the Everfree all by yourself was a bad idea."

Fluttershy recoiled slightly, leaning back in her chair. Angel hopped up onto her lap from his place herding the now more than half-dead poultry, and she responded with a pat on the top of his head.

"I wasn't by myself... Angel was there too."

"Right. But even still..."

"Twilight, if I had known what was going to happen, of course I would have acted differently... but I couldn't just let poor Sir Roostington wander into that terrible scary forest all by himself! Who knows what could have happened to him?"

Twilight tilted her head to the side as she mused. "Probably nothing worse than what's already happened..."

Twilight's eye caught a glimpse of Angel's face in the corner of her periphery. The white bunny's usually stoic expression was contorted into an even more reprimanding frown. Twilight raised her head and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Fluttershy, I'm just very overwhelmed. I've never encountered anything like this before, in all my studies."

Fluttershy's face fell. The light in her eyes dwindled, save the latent flashing of the occasional streak of violet lightning. Angel's expression did the talking again, saying more than anyone at the table could have hoped to with the use of words. Twilight saw such a deep pleading in the rabbit's gaze she almost felt her heart break. This might be out of her scope, but there was no way she couldn't at least try.

"I think I might know where to start looking though," she said, and the glimmer of hope in Fluttershy's eyes managed to eke out the tiniest smile, even in the dilapidated hovel of dark magic that had become Fluttershy's house. "It's going to require a lot of research though... wild magic is an area of study that not many ponies have touched on. I'll do my best to dig something up, but if I can't find anything, I might have to ask Princess Celestia for help."

The monarch's name made Fluttershy's irises shrink. She remembered how worried she had been when she'd errantly snatched the Princess's pet bird in a misguided effort to nurse it back to health. Ultimately, her fears had turned out to be baseless, but the idea of admitting to a millennia old alicorn that she'd foolishly gotten herself mixed up in a mixture of dark magic and horrifying creatures was enough to frighten her almost as much as the ethereal voice haunting her when she slept.

"Twilight... if we could, I'd really prefer not to bother the Princess with my problems."

"Fluttershy!" Twilight yelled, waving her hooves in the air at the absurdity of Fluttershy's objection. "This isn't something little that we should sweep under the carpet! For something trivial, like an animal being pouty, or somepony at the market overcharging you for pears, then yes, I agree, the Princess doesn't need to be bothered. But this is a big deal. A huge deal. We're talking about dark, probably ancient magic entering your body! Not to mention whatever that horrible creature is that you've said is tormenting you. I'm worried about you, more than you seem to be about yourself, and I'm not about to let one of my best friends suffer or die because she's afraid to bother the Princess with her problems."

The Angel and Fluttershy sat in stunned silence as Twilight concluded her rant, panting heavily with the force of her delivery. If Fluttershy had been uncertain before about Twilight's concern, her fear was allayed now, though the way Twilight had emphasized that Fluttershy's life might be in danger had done little to calm her other concerns. The enormity of the situation was overwhelming, and the whole of it was beginning to weigh on Fluttershy's mind. With a squeak, she receded behind her almost completely black bangs. Angel pet the timid ball of a pegasus on her side while Twilight stared on.

"Look... Fluttershy," Twilight began while leaning forward, reaching out one of her hooves which Fluttershy timidly met with one of her own. "I'm not trying to frighten you. I'm just trying to say that this whole thing is... weird. Really weird. It's not something I've ever heard of or seen before, and I don't know if I can fix it by myself." Fluttershy made a motion to recoil again, but Twilight grasped the pegasus' foreleg between her two hooves, looking her dead-set in the eyes with a look of steely determination. "But - I promise I'll try my best to fix this. If I can't, the Princess will know what to do. No matter what, we will manage to make this better. Okay?"

Fluttershy nodded, peeking out from her veil of black drapery as Angel continued to rub his paw along her side.

Twilight rose from the table, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before speaking.

"Okay. I'm going to need some time for research. I don't know how long it will take me... but I promise as soon as I find anything out, I'll be back as fast as possible, okay?" Fluttershy nodded again, trying her best at a weak attempt to smile. Twilight gave a curt bob of her head in response, and without further fanfare, turned to the door of Fluttershy's cottage.

"Just tell Angel to come get me if anything else happens, okay?"

"Okay."

The sound of the door closing provoked a chorus of haunting clucks from the gaggle of undead poultry, save for the one chicken completely void of flesh, who simply clacked its beak, staring into the distance with empty eye sockets.

"I hope Twilight can find something soon..." whispered Fluttershy, resting her head on her forelegs which were she placed on the table in front of her. Angel hopped to the table and ran his paw along Fluttershy's hair. As his paw moved back and forth, he thought he saw a single strand of pink still remaining in the weave of black.

As the rest of the day went on, Fluttershy found her anxiety increasing. The onset of the night was an ominous bellwether of oncoming tragedy. Every day since the forest, the sunset had meant nothing but horror and distress. The sky was just fading to dusk now. Fluttershy shut the curtains to the cottage window with a swish, darkening the interior of the house save for the meager light provided by the small fire Fluttershy had set up in the living room. She wanted nothing more than to convince herself everything was fine, and to spend an evening curled up with Angel on the couch, basking in the warmth of the crackling logs, not having to worry about what unspeakable horror might be lurking in the nearby forest waiting to destroy her property and torture her animals.

Fluttershy normally spent most of her evenings quietly in her house, so any attempts to feign conversation would have felt additionally artificial. Instead, Fluttershy tried to calm her nerves in front of the fire, closing her eyes and letting the warmth of the nearby flames soak through her body. Angel was beside her, joining in the uneasy relaxation in the hopes that pretending might bring the pair closer to a real sense of calm. The snap of the fire every few minutes was enough to send a jolt up Fluttershy's spine, and Angel found himself roused on a regular basis from the pegasus's jerks. In addition, the flock of chickens made the atmosphere inside additionally unsettling, staring at the pair on the couch unwaveringly. Once in a while one of the chickens would announce its presence with a choked warble or cluck, which was also enough to shock Fluttershy from her attempt at convincing herself everything was alright. She wasn't sure which was worse - the dying attempts at animation from the now almost completely skinless birds, or their completely silent stares, gazing through her soul and the world at large.

The hours passed slowly. Fluttershy kept catching herself glancing towards the curtain covered window, expecting a shadowy mass to run past, or maybe even burst into the cottage in a spray of glass and furious roaring. But the clock ticked its hands down to ten pm, and still the only sound was the crackling of the now fading fire, and the occasional unearthly cluck from one of the chickens. Fluttershy's startled response to the sudden noises had mellowed since the beginning of the evening, and now she barely caught herself moving at all when an errant spark popped from the fire. The heat washing over her, as well as Angel's fuzzy form nestled against her body made her feel almost safe for the first time in days. She spent several minutes struggling to keep her eyes open, taking longer and longer with each blink, until she finally closed her eyes completely. Angel, who was still awake, gave a long nuzzle into Fluttershy's side before hopping up from the chair the two were sharing. He made his way upstairs, intent on finding a blanket, leaving Fluttershy asleep in front of the fire.

‘We are disappointed in you, holder... you seem to have regressed since our last encounter...’

Fluttershy tucked her body inwards instinctively. That voice again, like dry raspy leaves carried by a dying breeze. Where was she? Fluttershy scanned around, turning her head rapidly. She found nothing, the relative comfort of her living room replaced by complete blackness.

"Angel?" she called out to the void surrounding her. The sound faded into the distance, and met no response. She was alone.

Fluttershy remembered the last time she had heard that voice, and she wanted no part of it. She wanted to be back home, to the way things had been before she had trudged into the forest, cozy and safe and free from creeping black tendrils and ominous voices and giant monsters tormenting her. Fluttershy could feel tears coming on as she started to cry, falling forward onto the insubstantial black emptiness that was the ground. She buried her face in her hooves and sobbed, her crying echoing out into nothingness. Her crying was the only sound for minutes, alone but for the ethereal presence that had spoken upon her arrival. At last, it spoke again, beginning with a long hum, as though in contemplation.
‘We do not understand... are you not with the power you have been beset with keeping? The ability for complete authority over life and death, and at last over your own existence... does this not make you happy?’

"No, it doesn't!" Fluttershy screamed, raising her tear stained face as she hollered in defiance. The shout cascaded into a fading echo as her words before had done. Though there was no body in front of her, Fluttershy thought she sensed the voice of the darkness recoiling ever so slightly.

“Of course I don't want this... I don't want any of this! I want everything to go back to the way it was. No more magic, no more horrible creatures, just me and Angel and the other animals, happy and peaceful-“

‘And weak, spineless, miserable in your own shell of a soul?’ the voice answered back, almost taunting her. ‘We are not unaware of how you lived before you found our gift, holder. We have seen the spark within you that beckons to the most powerful of magics, and we know there is a part of you that wishes nothing more than the power it offers...’

Fluttershy shook her head rapidly, sending tears falling from her cheeks onto the ground where they vanished into the dark.

"No, no, no! I don't want that, I just want my life back!"

The darkness was silent again for a moment longer.

‘Upon deeper reflection, we believe you may reconsider, holder. We know you were chosen for a reason, and we have faith that you will not fail in your pursuit. There is much more to life than banal pleasures and simpering complacency... you wish to be stronger than that, and we have felt it.’

Fluttershy clenched her eyes tightly, still shaking her head, her cheeks stained with tears.

‘Do not distress. We are confident you will understand soon...’

Fluttershy awoke with a start. The fire in front of her was still burning, though the flames had begun to dwindle in size as the logs faded to embers. The house was silent save for the gentle crackling of the fireplace, and the quiet shuffling of skeletal chicken legs on the floor. Fluttershy took a deep breath, turning to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Almost midnight. She sighed, and sat back in her chair, shifting one of her forelegs to bring Angel closer. Her motion only moved the air.

Instantly, Fluttershy's eyes widened with panic. "Angel?" she called, standing from her chair and scanning the room. Everything was dark, and the only motion was the gallery of chickens, staring at her from nearby the windowsill. On her gaze's second pass, Fluttershy stopped on the front door to the cottage. It was swinging wide-open, and a grey mist lingered in the door frame. The door was swinging slightly in a strong night breeze, which also carried wisps of the ominous fog with its passage.

"No..." Fluttershy's whisper faded into the howl of the wind, and the fog crept further through the air, entering the house like smoke from an unseen fire. Fluttershy's eyes were locked on the open door, staring out into the night. Through the fog, she could see stars twinkling in the sky overhead and the Everfree Trees waving in the distance. She stared out the door for a minute, holding her breath subconsciously, remembering the last time she had rushed out the open door of her cottage at night.

The familiar roar from outside made her bones shake. The creature was already close. It sounded feet away from the door way, maybe circling the house. The memories began to play in her head. Flashes of black and red. Electricity coursing along her body. The sight of the bug-eyed monster, cowering on the ground as she raised her hoof. All of them things she wanted gone, never to remember. The final scene blinked in her mind's eye. Her lips moved silently, mouthing the word 'Angel'.

She couldn’t let him go too.

Fluttershy dashed out the door, flapping her wings to give herself extra speed as she lifted off the ground and flew along the side of the house, hoping to find the white ball of fur before the creature.

At the top of the stairs to the bedroom hallway, Angel tumbled down, a pile of blankets scattering on the steps as he descended. His head spun immediately, scanning the room for Fluttershy, but finding only the five chickens staring at him from afar. The roar had brought him back from his quest for bedding, and the open door was the first thing to draw his attention. It was still waving in the wind, the grey fog that had seeped inside now hovering over top the house like a cloud of smoke.

Without hesitation, Angel ran outside, his hind legs pounding the ground as he began his circle of the house in search for his missing companion.

As the bunny left the cottage, the fog overtop the door twisted into a curve, and the sound of dry leaves from a dying throat crackled underneath the wind, sounding ever so slightly like a laugh.

Fluttershy could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she hovered over the ground. She snapped her head from left to right as she glided, searching for some sign of Angel. The thoughts in the back of her mind were a tumult of fear. IF she didn't find him in time, or worse, if she found him just in the clutches of that thing - she didn't know if there was anything she could do. The parts of her mind clashing against each other, one of them urging reminding her with the aid of the eldritch voice that there was a great deal she could do, and the other screaming at her, telling her everything that had happened was rooted in that first event, the first time she had done anything like that; doing it again might only make it worse. She didn't want it to come to that - but she could feel her stomach drop before she crested the corner of the house.

The thing was there, waiting for her. It sniffed the air distractedly, towering over her even in her flight above the ground. Fluttershy's wings locked up almost instantly, every reminder of fright and helplessness surging through her mind and body, and she fell to the ground, landing on the dying grass. The impact knocked most of her breath away, and the sharp exhale caught the creature's attention.

She couldn't see Angel. Maybe that meant-

The grotesque bear sniffed at her again, this time pointing its horrifyingly misshapen face downward, searching for its target. It didn't seem blind, just unaware. Its uneven nostrils sent steam into the air as it breathed; a hot sick sounding groan with every intake before spewing it out as a hot fog. Fluttershy hadn't studied it this close before. The thing was huge. It could have crushed her in a single step, or even worse, grabbed her in one of its paws and shredded her body with its serrated claws. And she couldn't move.

The bear seemed to notice her, finally. Its bug-like eyes were gleaming in the moonlight, sparkling a little extra with the excitement of finding the delicious morsel in front of it. Fluttershy squealed and pulled her body in close as the thing leaned towards her, showering her body in a veil of its disgusting steam. Its face was inches away from her. She couldn't move. She couldn't make a sound. It was there, great and horrible and monstrous; and she was there, meek and scared and worthless. Everything she had been capable of was pushed away, replaced by an all consuming sense of dread.

Why had she thought herself anything more than what she had always been? Poor pathetic Fluttershy, living in the shadows and debt of everyone else. Sudden illusions of power and strength had only brought her misery. Maybe this was right. It was right that she should be here, cowering the same way she had done all her life, waiting for forgiveness for what she had done to her friends, and to nature. Wherever Angel was, he would need to forgive her to. This could be penance.

The bear seemed almost uninterested in Fluttershy's quivering misery as the tears began to stream from her face. It raised a paw almost leisurely, as though compelled only out of obligation, and threw it down, aiming the razor sharp set of elongated spikes directly at the huddled pegasus. Fluttershy couldn't make the sound to scream. She had convinced herself that if the way she had dealt with her problems all her life was to bring her here, then this was the fate she would meet. The set of blades gleamed in the moonlight as they crested their arc towards her body. Fluttershy shut her eyes.

The impact sent her flying. Instead of barbed talons digging into her side and ripping her wings to pieces, she felt a firm but insistent shove, toppling her body into the dirt. The force of the shove made her body roll in circles along the grass, the way a filly might roll down a hill in a youthful frolic. The spinning took a while to stop - she'd been pushed hard. But the thing hadn't killed her. As the world stopped its spinning, Fluttershy opened her eyes, wings still clutched tight against her body.

Angel was there, his white coat glimmering against the moon. He was panting, a foot away from Fluttershy in the grass. The creature was several feet away from both of them. It looked confused.

Fluttershy couldn't find the words. Thank you, she wanted to say. Angel, I was so worried. I'm sorry, for everything. This is all my fault. I never should have dragged you into the forest. She opened her mouth, but nothing came.

The bear-monster had noticed its target had moved now. For something so unspeakably horrifying, its brain worked quite slowly. The white and yellow standing out against the darkened grass and black of night would have been hard to miss though. Exhaling with a loud groan, the thing turned its head towards Fluttershy and Angel. It considered the pair. Angel, despite being several hundredths the size of the beast, spread his stance wide, extending his tiny paws and backing up to stand in front of Fluttershy.

The creature seemed almost amused. Its horrible clustered needle-mouth twisted into a bone-chilling approximation of a grin. Without further thought, it raised its paw again, and swiped.

Fluttershy didn't have time to shut her eyes before Angel moved, jumping backwards and bringing Fluttershy with him. Despite his size, the kick of his hind legs against the ground was strong, and more than enough to move both himself and Fluttershy out of the range of the giant claw aimed towards their bodies. Not by much though. Fluttershy clenched her eyes tight as the knife-pointed tips sailed through the air just inches from her face. They made a noise as they flew like a blade through a thin sheet of paper. Angel kept his stance, unwavering.

This wasn't going to work. Even if Angel could move Fluttershy without her body cooperating, the creature's swings were effortless, and Angel, while plucky and determined, was small. He would run out of strength. The creature's stamina didn't seem to be a factor, if it was even properly alive.

Fluttershy was sobbing now. Her face was matted with the river flow of tears cascading down her cheeks, falling onto the blackened blades of grass underneath her hooves. Angel kept his eyes locked on the beast, ready to evade when it moved next - but he had to look back at the pegasus behind him. Fluttershy cried even hard. Finally, the words came.

"Angel, I'm sorry! I'm sorry for this, for all of this... I can't do anything! I'm weak and useless and this is all my fault... please, just leave me here. Let me..." she couldn't manage the last word. Angel's eyes were wide. He didn't need her to finish. He didn't want her to. She'd given up, and that was all that needed to be said.

In the depths of his heart, Angel didn't consider blaming Fluttershy for a second; but, that meant things were on his shoulders now.

Logistically, it was hopeless. The creature might be slow, lumbering, and dim-witted, but it could still tear either him or Fluttershy without so much as a thought. Angel was never the type to give up in the face of a challenge - but this might be beyond that. Like hurtling himself into a brick wall coated in serrated knives.

But he couldn't give up; not with Fluttershy like this. If he gave up, then everything was gone. And no matter how bad things had gotten, with the shambling chickens and decay everywhere - he couldn't lose his closest friend that way.

Angel was done thinking. He ran forward faster than the creature had time to notice, and jumped into the air, springing off with a burst from his powerful hind legs. The height from his leap was admirable, putting him at about waist level on the bear. His momentum was good, and he collided with the things stomach in seconds, his face screwed up in determination as he slammed his feet into the lumbering hulk with all the strength he could muster.

The creature noticed him, but it didn't seem particularly distressed. It let out a small grunt, noticing what must have felt like a tickle on its stomach. It raised one of its claws and swung it lethargically inward, trying to saw the annoying white thing away.

Angel was immeasurably faster than the creature's response, and by the time its malformed claw was resting on its belly, Angel had jumped off and landed on the things arm, pounding down with his hind legs and biting at the things fur. The teeth must have been noticeable, because the thing let out a louder groan this time, sounding distressed.

Fluttershy was hypnotized by the sight in front of her. Still, her body was locked in place, cemented firmly in her patch of dirt and dead grass. Angel was fighting the thing, a hundred times bigger than either of them. He was gnawing and thrashing at it like a bunny possessed, and all Fluttershy could do was watch. He was fighting for her.

'You can end this much quicker,' a voice reminded her in the back of her head. Fluttershy shut her eyes tight and shook her head, trying to clear it away.

"No! I can't..." Fluttershy couldn't explain through the tears that were still coming. She didn't need to. She knew the voice understood exactly what she meant. What it was responsible for, alongside her own actions.

'This can only end two ways, and one of them involves your adorable friend in a heap on the ground...'

"No!"

Angel evaded another swipe from the creature, this one more insistent. He darted up the bear's arm, making his way to its head and daring around behind the neck while avoiding the things gnashing maw of teeth. The creature roared this time as Angel kicked, searching for some sort of weakness in the thing's grotesque bone structure. The bear's face was contorted in its first glimpse of emotion, an evident frustration at the tiny white blur hopping around its body.

'Your weakness is sickening. We know you have always yearned to be stronger, to be greater than your old pathetic self - you have the chance now, if you will take it...'

"No!"

The creature was moving faster now, discarding the restraints of its leisurely movement. Angel narrowly dodged the creature's mouth as it turned its head, chomping down only onto air as Angel sprang across the creature's side.

Fluttershy did want to move. She wanted to fly away, to grab Angel somehow and float away from the world, from the darkness seeping into her mind and her soul. She wanted to be away from the voice taunting her. Every jab was a memory. When she had cowered before. Flashbacks. And Angel was moving again, running across the things back and delivering as powerful a blow as he could muster to its elbow, before darting again.
'Take control...'

"No..."

Angel gave a small yelp as the thing scraped the very tip of his tail with one of its claws. The bear was thrashing itself around rapidly, tearing up chunks of earth with its gargantuan feet as Angel scurried across its body.

'You are the holder for a reason. Reach out and take what you have always wanted.'

"No..." Fluttershy was grasping her face between her hooves. Her mind was a black flare, burning with ancient whispers and tortured memories, and the flash of Angel's white fur as she glimpsed it each time, running across the moonlit landscapes of the creature's disgusting matted fir.
'Do it.'

"No..."

'There is no choice left in the matter...'

No...

Words were gone. Fluttershy was paralyzed. Her heart was stopping as the last of her will to live, to do anything was sapped. The blackness of the night was comfort, it would wash over her and take away everything, all the sorrow and misery and the way she hated herself now, the dark would make everything better.

Two words came.

"I'm sorry..."

Angel turned his head to see Fluttershy collapse onto the ground, her eyes barely open. He paused.

The creature's claw caught him from behind, tearing him off its other limb and dragging him upward. Angel squeaked in natural response, a sound he had never made before, having no reason to be so afraid. Movement was impossible. He kicked his legs against the creature's paw, hammering away at its thick skin in an attempt to dissuade its grasp.

The creature let out a low, satisfied groan. It tightened its grip.

Fluttershy's eyes widened from the ground as the razor sharp blades crossed. She shut them as she saw Angel's face.

There was no sound for a moment, save the creature's laboured breathing. After several seconds, a soft tearing noise broke through the night, followed by a crunch. Fluttershy opened her eyes again.

With a soft thump, the remains of Angel's tattered body landed in front of her. His eyes were still wide open, bright and beady against the moonlight. His skin was torn below the nose. A trail of red was on the grass behind, a line of entrails sprawled across the ground. The creature chewed idly.

Nothing.

Nothing left.

Fluttershy screamed. She screamed wordlessly, devoid of articulation and depth but compact with all the meaning in the world. Her scream shook the windows of her cottage, and the glass began to crack. Her scream turned the creatures head, and it raised its paws to its ears to block out the sound of shattered hope. Fluttershy screamed. She screamed with the weight of a dying soul, her being exhausted and burned and torn apart and delivered to the air in a single, drawn-out sound. The air curled around her scream, burning away in her anguish. Fluttershy screamed. She screamed for lost dreams, and unimaginable despair, the whole of her existence falling apart inside her at that moment. Fluttershy screamed. Her mind cleared.

The voice was gone. It was no longer necessary.

A darkness spread from her feet. The grass, where it had been blackened and sickly before, disintegrated completely now, into a fine gray ash. The ground where it had been pulsed and glowed, and black tendrils emerged from the earth. Lightning sprawled from the touch of her hooves, arcing out hundreds of feet in every direction, turning the soil and scorching everything in its path. The forest in the distance lit ablaze, several trees bursting into flames.

The creature could feign no ignorance. It looked up, and saw Fluttershy. Its eyes filled with the first proper fear it had ever known.

Fluttershy did not speak.

Her stare was black and empty as she raised herself from the ground. Her wings were spread, wider than they had ever been, spreading out from her body like a blanket of night, shrouding the moon from the creature's eyes. Her hair stood on end, coiling out from her head like a mass of black vines, waving softly in an invisible breeze. The creature moved, attempting to turn, already readying itself to run.

Fluttershy did not speak. She extended a single hoof, and a beam darker than night extended, cutting through the air like a blowtorch. The air died around it, depleted of life and all the light that had ever been there, falling away from the energy like dead skin from a wound. The beam hit the creature before it could lift a leg, and it froze in place. It let out a sound like an ancient tree falling from centuries of life, bows breaking and collapsing with its last throes of effort.

The creature fell to its knees, and then to its stomach. Its legs didn't bend but fell apart. The sound of its bones shattering cut through the night, and the cracks and splinters gave way to a sound like sand pouring through a sieve, going from firm to cracked to splintered to powder, and then into nothing. It roared in anguish as its limbs dissolved from the inside.

Fluttershy floated towards it effortlessly. The creature lifted its head on the last vestiges of its strength to face her. Fluttershy's face burned into its mind.

With a flare of her wings, Fluttershy flew. She flew forward, through the creature's body. She cut through its head, cutting it clean in two as she soared forward, bisecting its body like a cleanly hewn rock. The energy around her body sliced it neatly, sending a circular arc of blood sailing into the darkened sky. Its death cry died before its body could voice it. Fluttershy's wings stopped perfectly as she reached the thing's feet. She wasn't done.

Without turning, Fluttershy reached her forelegs back and pointed both hooves at the creature, now split in two. Another dark energy crept out, interwoven with crimson lightning. The beams hit either end of the creature, and where they touched it, the skin melted away into nothing. Dark fur and powdered bone remains and organs and blood and flesh congealed together into a homogenous pile of bright, red gore, which spread across the ground, coalescing into a large pool. Fluttershy lowered her hooves, and the energy stopped. She floated to the ground.

Her breath was soft in the night air as she stood. The ground spread at her hooves, rippling away as it died. After a moment, the energy of her body faded away. she lowered her eyes to the ground.

Fluttershy looked different. Her body's transformation was complete, her yellow coat now only the occasional spot amongst the arcane runes spiralling through her fur. Her mane was all but pure black, a pink highlight or two amongst the thin strands of night. Her soulful eyes were empty.

She had failed.

In every regard, she had failed. She had started something horrible, and she had forced it to its worst conclusion. she had given in to the darkness brewing her in her soul... but what was more, she had given in to late. And now, despite her revenge, she had nothing. Angel was dead.

A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye.

There was nothing left. She had control over her own failure, now and forever more.

what had the voice said, days ago?
'You will come to learn, that death is merely an inconvenience...'

Fluttershy's eyes lit up.

She raised a hoof, and as if it was second nature, extended another tendril of dark energy into the night. The black beam found its target immediately, snaking and separating and touching every part of Angel's scattered body, dragging the pieces together effortlessly. Fluttershy closed her eyes as they met, and clenched them tight as the shadowy flare burned across her eyelids. She opened them again.

Angel was there. She saw his ears bob in the night, facing the other direction.

The dead ash around her feet blew away with the force of her wings as they carried her there, only feet away but an immeasurable distance. She tackled Angel, grabbing him with her forelegs and rolling into the grass, this time with only the best remembrance of hillside rolling as a child. Fluttershy laughed.

She had control over something more.

"Angel, Angel, Angel, I'm so happy you're okay!" She smiled and held the bunny close to her body as she tumbled, rubbing him against her chest and giggling. The darkness of the night was a sphere she couldn't see outside his bright white coat.

"I'm sorry Angel, so sorry for everything. I never meant for anything like this to happen... but you're okay, and I'm okay, we're both okay! And as long as we have each other, we can figure this out, and everything will be better."

Angel, of course, didn't speak. It was never his habit to do so. Fluttershy clutched him closer, hugging him hard with both legs.

She didn't feel the warmth of his fur that she was accustomed to.

"Angel? It's okay, I made you all better. You're alright, aren't you?"

Fluttershy held Angel at arm's length, letting the bright silvery moonlight wash over his body as she stared up at him.

Angel blinked. His eyes were empty, and he made no move to gesture his reassurance.

"Angel?"

An image flashed across Fluttershy's mind. A row of chickens, hollow and dead, staring at her from her bedroom window.

No.

Fluttershy's legs held Angel in place for a moment more as he stared back at her. Her newfound strength couldn't keep her in place, and she dropped him, letting him fall to the ground as she followed suit, legs collapsing under her body. Angel didn't brace himself against the fall, and simply tumbled awkwardly like a doll as he hit the ground. Fluttershy didn't watch him land. She shut her eyes, and buried her face in her hooves.

She couldn't bring herself to cry anymore.

Angel sat quietly next to her, staring into nothingness.

The sun crested over the hills in the distance, spreading light through Ponyville and most of Equestria. Twilight ran up the path to Fluttershy's cottage, a book jostling in her saddlebag as she moved. She had found very little. But any help was something, and something to allay Fluttershy's worries before involving the Princess would certainly be beneficial.

"Fluttershy!" Twilight called as she reached the cottage door, pounding on it loudly with her hoof. "Fluttershy, wake up! I found something I think might help..." Twilight didn't mention outright that the few materials she had unearthed gave very clear indication about the nature of the magic at play. Still, again, any information was better than nothing. Twilight pounded on the door again.

"Fluttershy!"

After a minute of pounding and yelling, Twilight sighed and closed her eyes in concentration. A burst of magic from her horn sent the house door flying inward, creaking loudly as it bounced on its rusted hinges. Despite the invasive entrance, Twilight made her way inside timidly, poking her head inside the unlit entranceway.

"Fluttershy? Are you here?"

Silence was her answer. Twilight stepped inside, treading cautiously over the now almost completely rotted floorboards. The cottage seemed to have deteriorated drastically since the day prior. Where the furniture and cabinetry had been at least vaguely recognizable, now they were broken and decayed, fallen away in places and grown over by the disgusting black vines in others. Twilight kept herself away from the walls as she made her way over to the stairs, which sagged under the touch of her hoof.

"Fluttershy?" she called out again as she walked upstairs. The only sound in the darkened house was her hooves on the wood.

She didn't bother knocking at Fluttershy's bedroom door. Pushing the splintered remains of wood caused them to fall to the floor, giving Twilight a glimpse into the entire room proper. It was complete with everything Twilight had seen yesterday; but no Fluttershy.

"Where could she have gone?" Twilight asked to the empty house.

Fluttershy lay back in the grass, rubbing her head and mane against the soft bristles and sighing softly. Around her where her body touched the ground, lines of lightning and bright violet and crimson sparks arced in every direction. The trees of the Everfree loomed overhead, blocking out the sun, and glowing in their own dimmed light, added to by the glow of Fluttershy's magic.

A chicken, completely bones, rattled as it walked over to her, and Fluttershy picked it up with her hooves and giggled.

"Do you want to play a game, Sir Roostington?" The chicken made no move to answer, but Fluttershy gave the tiniest, almost imperceptible dip of her head and its demeanour changed instantly. The animate skeleton apparently known as Sir Roostington clicked its beak enthusiastically, and flapped its featherless wings. Fluttershy giggled again, and set the chicken on the ground.

"Okay then. Let's play tag. Are you ready?"

Fluttershy nodded, and the chicken mimicked her, giving an undead click of approval.

"Okay then. One, two three - oh, wait!" Fluttershy turned, as though remembering something suddenly, and locked her gaze on the ground several feet away. Angel stared back at her. His eyes were sunken and hollow, and his skin was hanging loosely on his body.

"Angel, you have to play too." Angel gave no response, and Fluttershy sighed and floated over to the rabbit, flapping her wings effortlessly and sending leaves out from her lift off. She grabbed Angel in her forelegs and scooped him off the ground, cradling him like a foal.

"Now Angel, I know you're having trouble adjusting... but there's no reason to be so grumpy. You'll see just like I did that this really is for the best... we have the whole forest to ourselves if we want! No more scary things, no more being afraid, no more anypony telling us what to do..." Angel blanched. Fluttershy tipped one of her hooves up, and a thin, almost invisible black tendril flashed through the air for an instant between her limb and Angel's body. His eyes sparkled for a moment, and he gave a reluctant shrug. The gesture matched his usual composure, but it looked different, like a puppet mimicking a pony. Fluttershy hugged him close and squeaked regardless, then lowered him to the ground and clapped her hooves together.

"I knew you'd come around. Now, come on, we're going to play tag with Sir Roostington."

Angel nodded without a trace of emotion, and followed Fluttershy to the center of the forest grove. On either side of the clearing, burning walls of black fire barred the only entrances.

Fluttershy smiled. She had been wrong, about a lot of things. Most importantly, her journey into the forest had been anything but a mistake. It had simply been a very painful, very important stepping stone onto a path she had never realized was where she belonged.

The darkness wasn't frightening - nothing was anymore. Because she was.

"One, two, three, go!"