"A p-prank?" asked a shocked Fluttershy.
"Yeah," answered an apologetic Rainbow Dash, "but when we saw that it was you, we didn't!"
A relieved Fluttershy set down the patchwork turtle made of felt and buttons. She had found it by the lake. Not sure what to make of it, having never seen the species before, Fluttershy brought it into Ponyville. The caring pony had spent the better part of a day asking everypony what it was. She ended up at Mrs. Cake's Bakery, where she found her good friends Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.
Pinkie Pie gave a small bounce. "We know you're much too sensitive for pranking! So I pranked Rainbow Dash instead!"
"Yeah yeah, you got me. But I got you back when-"
As Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie recounted their past pranks against each other, Fluttershy stared hard at the fake turtle. She wasn't too sensitive, was she? Rainbow Dash told her to be more assertive. She could take a prank! Yeah, she could even prank some other pony! Maybe...
"Um." Fluttershy faltered, "I- I could prank somepony."
A silence filled the room as the two turned to look at Fluttershy, their eyes wide and their jaws agape. Suddenly, laughter erupted from the two. Fluttershy stood, feeling much less assertive than before, until her friends collected themselves.
"Oh Fluttershy," said Dash, wiping a tear from her eye, "that was hilarious!"
"I-I'm serious!" Fluttershy huffed, stomping the floor with her hoof.
"Okay" started Dash, throwing up her hooves, "Prove it! Next week is April Foal's Day. Pull a prank on anypony by then, and you win."
Pinkie Pie jumped up and down, bubbling excitedly, "Oh! There should be a prize! There should be a prize!"
"Yeah, when we win, you have to, uh..." said Dash, pondering broadly, hoof tapping her chin.
"I know! You should help me bake cupcakes!" Pinkie volunteered.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "No, it has to be good. Like...you have to do all of my Pegasus chores forever!"
Fluttershy began to worry. "F-Forever?"
"Alright fine, a month." Dash relented.
"And cupcake baking!" Pinkie Pie added.
"W-what happens if I win?" asked Fluttershy, looking down.
Rainbow Dash hovered with her wings, puzzling, pondering, and puzzling some more.
"Aha! I got it!" Dash flew out the nearby window, leaving the pink and yellow ponies giving each other bewildered looks.
A moment passed, and Rainbow Dash was back, with an envelope in her mouth. She spat it on the table, and looked smugly at Fluttershy.
"If you win, you get that."
Fluttershy opened the envelope carefully, hoping that it wasn't filled with confetti. The cream paper sported the Royal Seal of Princess Celestia on it, but the contents were even more remarkable. It contained a single black foil slip with the words "ROYAL GARDEN PASS" in gold lettering. Trembling with excitement, Fluttershy squinted to read the fine print.
"This entitles the holder to visit the Royal Gardens for one full year!" Fluttershy squeaked, barely believing what she had just read. "How did you get this? I thought the garden was only open during the Grand Galloping Gala!"
"Not for the Wonderbolts!" boasted Rainbow Dash, "When I got to hang with them, they had a bunch of sweet gifts. That was one of 'em. I also got a Wonderbolts headband! You wanna see?"
"I do!" squealed Pinkie Pie, bouncing about the room.
"No, that's alright," answered Fluttershy. "I mean, not right now. If that's okay."
Fluttershy eyed the ticket with a hunger. "I could go to the garden during the night, or even in the winter! I've heard that the snow is made specially for the Princess!" Fluttershy's eyes started to glaze over, as she imagined all the wonders to be had.
"Yeah, I guess." said Dash. "I mean, it's cool and all, but I don't really need to see flowers twice."
"Um, I could take it off your hooves, if you like." suggested Fluttershy.
"If you win the prank contest." smirked Dash.
Suddenly Fluttershy wasn't so sure she could do this. She had never pranked anypony before. But the Royal Gardens called to her, with all the cute little animals to play with and the beautiful flowers to see.
"Okay," announced Fluttershy after only some hesitation, "I'll do it."
***
All in agreement, Fluttershy flew home. It was getting late so her pranking would have to wait until morning. She had four days to come up with a prank to play on somepony. Not a mean one, though, she thought. It had to be good-natured, and where nopony would feel bad, and that wasn't confusing, and-
"Not a prank at all." Fluttershy interrupted her own thoughts, as she closed the door to her little cottage on the outskirts of town. She was beginning to have second doubts. And third doubts and fourth doubts. Her stomach felt like it was filled with butterflies. Angry butterflies.
Fluttershy set out the last bowl of water for her bird friends, and plopped onto her bed. Pulling out a half-filled book from underneath her pillow, she began to look for her favorite pencil. Spotting it, she began to write. Writing always made her feel better. She could take herself to new worlds, conquer her fears, all within the safety of the pages in front of her.
After a spell, Fluttershy's mind and insides had settled, and she drifted off to sleep.
***
The following days were difficult for Fluttershy. After putting great care and thought into what she felt were wonderful pranks, she was either too afraid to follow through or they failed entirely. She tried pulling a prank on Angel Bunny, giving him two carrots for breakfast instead of one, but he just ate them both. She tried replacing Pinkie Pie's saucepan with a slightly larger saucepan, but she didn't seem to notice.
Growing more desperate by the day, she'd taken to dropping unlit firecrackers in the road - only for the wagons to roll over them, leaving broken bits of paper and powder. She tried sneezing powder on Applejack's apple pie, but, considering the full dose to be too much, only applied "half a smidgen." Applejack seemed to actually like it.
She read about more aggressive pranks, but dipping a hoof in water just seemed mean and...mean. The only ponies she felt she could do something to were her friends, and they were the ponies she least wanted to prank. Dribble glasses, hot-chili gumdrops, exploding pens all went out the window; she couldn't do those things to strangers, let alone her best friends.
Fluttershy briefly considered hair-dye bath salts for Rarity; the dressmaker always seemed to complain about her glossy white coat being so hard to keep clean. Maybe something brown would hide the dust and dirt better? Fluttershy thought better of it; Rarity probably had nothing in her wardrobe to match that color.
Fluttershy returned home on the third evening feeling soundly defeated. For three whole days, she still had not managed to prank anypony, and the deadline was tomorrow. The ticket had just as well slipped through her hooves. She resigned herself to perform Dash's chores for a month. Laying on her bed, Fluttershy wrote a few more sentences in her book before going to sleep.
Fluttershy awoke the next morning to a polite knock on her door. Getting up, she took a peek through her window. It was Spike, with a small wagon in tow. Fluttershy always enjoyed his company, and he was the only dragon that she wasn't afraid of. Slowly opening the door, she greeted him with a warm smile.
"Good morning, Spike." she cheered weakly.
"Hey Fluttershy. Twilight sent me over to-" The baby dragon tilted his head, spying the thin leather volume folded underneath Fluttershy's wing, "What'cha reading?"
"Oh?" Fluttershy followed Spike's gaze to her side. Fluttershy squeaked; she had accidentally brought her book with her to answer the door!
"N-nothing!" as she threw the book across the room. "Just some light reading."
"Okay..." Spike trailed off, figuring it was better not to ask, "Anyway, Twilight asked me to come get some books that you borrowed from her. She says she needs them to study...something. You know how she is."
"Of course! How could I have forgotten?" Fluttershy turned to gather up the books but stopped herself.
"You can come in, I mean, if you want. Would you like something to drink?"
"No thanks, just the books." said Spike.
"Alright, I left one in the kitchen, the rest should be on the table over there." Fluttershy trotted to her kitchen and found the book she was referring to. When she got back to the living room, Spike was already loading the rather large amount of books into his wagon.
"So, how's the contest going?" Spike inquired, hefting a thick book onto the pile.
"Oh, you know about that." said Fluttershy, pawing the floor.
"Rainbow Dash told everypony. Twilight tried to give her a lecture, but had to do more...studying." Spike held up a particularly large book and made a face. Fluttershy giggled.
"Well, Spike, to tell you the truth, it's not going very well." admitted Fluttershy, eyes back on the floor.
Spike placed the last book into the wagon. "I'm sure you'll think of something. You still have all day today!"
Fluttershy saw her little friend to the door, and decided to head out herself. Perhaps some breakfast would give her some inspiration, even though it had failed to do so for the past few days.
***
After breakfast and checking in on all of her animal friends, Fluttershy was still out of ideas. She sighed to herself as she took a stroll through downtown Ponyville, passing by Mrs. Cake's Bakery.
"I guess I should just go admit to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash that they won."
Suddenly, she saw Twilight Sparkle running up the path into town with a sense of urgency. Pinkie Pie, mistaking Twilight's urgency for "desire to play" bolted from the shop and bounced around Fluttershy in anticipation.
"Oh oh oh! Are we gonna have a race?" Pinkie Pie asked, excitedly.
An out of breath Twilight Sparkle stopped abruptly in front of them.
"Girls," Twilight gasped "round everypony up and meet me at the library, I just discovered something terrible!"
"We aren't going to have a race!?" cried a shocked Pinkie.
***
Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy had all gathered at the library, where a distraught Twilight Sparkle was having trouble telling the other ponies about her findings.
"It can't be true!" Started Twilight, "And yet all the facts add up!"
"Slow down there, sugarcube." said Applejack, Ponyville's resident cowpony.
"Just take it one line at a time." Assured Rarity, the most fashionable one of the group.
Taking a deep breath, Twilight continued. "According to this book, an Ursa Major is set to appear in Ponyville! Tonight!"
Rarity fainted. The other ponies gasped. Rainbow Dash wasn't so easily fooled.
"Yeah right, nice try Twilight. I already played that joke on Derpy this morning. Didn't work; she wanted to give it muffins..."
Twilight was taken aback. "What? No, this isn't some stupid joke like your hot sauce on my sandwich this morning, Dash." Twilight glared at Rainbow, both for the prank and for not taking her seriously.
"Oh! That was yummy!" bounced Pinkie Pie.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "This is serious! According to this book of prophecy, Nightmare Moon would appear at the exact same time that she did, and that she would be defeated in almost the same way!"
"Almost?" Interrupted Applejack.
"One of the ponies had a much larger role than the others." Continued Twilight. "But it also correctly predicted the Ursa Minor attack, and even a dragon smoke cloud threatening the town: which came down to 'a terribly shy pony overcoming her fears and saving the day'! "
Fluttershy gave a small whine, as everypony turned to look at her, before turning their eyes back to Twilight.
"What do we do? What do we do?" Pinkie Pie squealed.
"That's the problem, I don't know!" Twilight started to panic. "The book ends mid-sentence!"
Rarity promptly fainted again. There were worried looks from all the other ponies.
"So how do we beat-" Rainbow Dash gulped, "an Ursa Major?"
Twilight put the book down, continuing to pour over the text with a piercing look in her eyes. "That's just it, I don't think anypony has ever managed to stop one!"
Fluttershy, puzzled, peeked at the book Twilight was reading while the other ponies were panicking, and Pinkie Pie was running around in circles. Fluttershy gave a small gasp.
"Alright, that's not assurin'." admitted Applejack. "What if we, uh... sang it to sleep? Like last time?"
"That was an Ursa MINOR Applejack! A lullaby won't-" Twilight was interrupted by a small squeak of laughter.
"Who could be laughing at a time like this?" Rainbow Dash's voice cracked.
After a moment, all eyes turned to the source.
"Fluttershy! What are you laughing at?" said Twilight.
"Oh, well, um, you see..." Fluttershy started, "That's my book."
Everypony looked at her, a mixture of horror and surprise on their faces.
Twilight was the first to speak. "What?!"
Fluttershy shrank into herself. "I-I like writing, it helps me calm down before I sleep."
"So, we're not gonna git attacked?" said Applejack, relaxing a bit.
"Oh, no." assured Fluttershy, "At least, I don't think so."
Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were still in shock. Dash shook her head. "Y-you pranked us?!"
"Oh no! I would never do something-" Fluttershy was interrupted by Pinkie Pie falling to the floor, giggling.
"She got us Rainbow Dash! She got us good!" Pinkie said between fits of laughter.
"I don't believe it!" said Dash. "You actually pulled off a prank!"
"No, um, you see, I was writing, and, um, Spike must have-"
Dash interrupted. "You wrote a book just so Twilight would would find it? Wow, that's...pretty cool, Fluttershy."
"But-"
"You knew that Twilight would believe anything she read!" Pinkie erupted with more laughter. "So you made up a fake prophecy! Oh boy that was great!"
"Hey!" snapped Twilight Sparkle, more than a little embarrassed.
"No, that's not-"
"Fluttershy, as much as I hate to admit it, you got us." Rainbow Dash said, putting her hoof Fluttershy's shoulder.
"Hoo doggie, I can't believe I fell fer it." said Applejack, making to leave.
Twilight was bewildered. "What- why... huh?"
***
Fluttershy floated gently through the trees of the Royal Garden. Even though all the flowers were not in bloom, it was still a wonderful place to be. She had spent all of her free time there for the past few days. Fluttershy looked up into the clouds. She could see a certain weather pony up there, muttering something about having to do her chores.
