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Burning.

Shadows, monsters in the dark – burning, burning forever!

Fluttershy awoke in a cold sweat, shaking her head forcefully to clear the vicious nightmares from her head. Her breathing was heavy, and she gripped fitfully at her sheets as the morning sunlight began trickling ever so slowly over the horizon.

Just a dream.

Of course, it had only been a dream; Fluttershy berated herself as she crawled blearily out of bed, rubbing her tired eyes. Only a bad dream, nothing more. Those occurred more frequently since Angel had passed. She rubbed her eyes once again, the side of her hoof pushing against her lids as she willed the dancing spots away.

Fluttershy stifled a yawn as she set about her morning rituals, the silence of her home growing deafening. Thankfully, the chatter of birds outside heralding the rising sun was there to fill the emptiness, as Fluttershy wasn’t making any noise of her own. As she stood a bit absentmindedly in the kitchen, it vaguely occurred to her that she wasn’t even thinking very loudly.

At least, until the flittering and chipper tune of the birds reminded her precisely of what had happened the night before.

… How did I get back to my bed? She wondered, pondering the peculiar event. She remembered crying a lot the night before, and taking a walk… and… something about grass hats?

No. No, that wasn’t right. The birds-

Burning.

Fluttershy forced her breathing to remain steady, wings trembling. Philomena. The phoenix had… done something to her. That mad, dancing magical spark that had singed her very soul… and then what?

Vague memories of stumbling awkwardly home, collapsing in exhaustion into the bed. Feverish dreams, and incoherent thoughts. It was worse than the one time she’d agreed to Rainbow Dash’s constant pestering, divulging in a night of ‘getting blitzed’.

Oh, that was an uncomfortable awakening. She would never be able to look any of the Wonderbolts in the eyes again. Not that she was much good at maintaining eye contact before, so maybe it wouldn’t make much difference.

Pottering about with a little more forced enthusiasm, Fluttershy turned her thoughts deliberately away from the reason her home felt so empty time and again. Every time a memory of her little Angel bunny arose, she’d force her attention to something else.

She wouldn’t cry anymore; she wasn’t a little filly, and even though it hurt so much to be separated from Angel, she knew it would happen eventually. Besides, what good could she be to anypony if she just sat around moping?

“Coffee,” Fluttershy reminded herself aloud. “Silly Fluttershy. Get your head on straight, will you?” Talking to herself. Now she was talking to herself.

She shook her head a little as she carried the wooden water bucket to the pump outside, to fill it with the crystal clear reserves. However, no sooner had she pushed down on the rusty handle that it groaned mightily, and stuck in place.

Fluttershy stared at the blunt bit of metal for a moment, mentally kicking herself. She should have gotten it fixed last week, of course; she’d planned to. However, she’d found her enthusiasm to do anything at all waning drastically since she’d lost Angel, and that was not a good sign. She couldn’t keep sitting around with her hoof up her flank, after all. With a grunt of determination that was rather unbecoming of her, Fluttershy pushed down on the rusted pump handle as hard as she could.

The handle stuck fast.

Narrowing her eyes in agitation, the pegasus let out a puff of air, and pushed her mane from her face. She wouldn’t give in now – that coffee was the stuff of life, after all. With a mighty heave, Fluttershy changed directions in her efforts and yanked upwards with all her might on the rusted handle; and, inch by inch, the handle began to move. Feeling rather proud of herself, she repositioned herself so that she could gain better leverage over the handle, straining again and again as the pump slowly gave way.

However, so caught up in her machinations of obtaining water from the begrudging pump that Fluttershy didn’t even notice when the handle began to groan… and bend…

Eventually, as Fluttershy jerked upwards, the handle snapped violently in half with a loud crack! and splintered, leaving the poor surprised pegasus flailing her wings as she fell forward.

Directly onto the jagged end of the handle.

“Yo, Flutters!” Rainbow Dash stuck her head in through the window, calling the name of her friend. “You in there?”

Fluttershy leapt in her seat, nearly knocking over her full cup of steaming coffee.

She couldn’t even bring herself to drink it.

Her trembling hooves gripped the mug tightly, the warmth seeping into her. She shook her head for the millionth time, clearing her throat.

“I-I’m in here, Dashie,” she replied croakily, feeling each reverberation in her vocal chords.

It didn’t even seem possible.

At this point, she shouldn’t even have vocal chords.

For what felt like an eternity, she’d lain writhing in agony next to the pump. Unable to scream, even though she tried as the darkness began seeping in. To the jagged offender, she’d lost such an amount of blood that it didn’t seem logical; however, just like her fur, it had all washed away into the grass so neatly.

She’d died.

“You okay?”

Fluttershy jumped again, this time knocking over her coffee. She watched it splatter over the table and onto the floor, and for a split second, she felt a little numb and expected it to be red.

“Fine!” the pegasus said much too loudly, cringing at the sound of her own voice. “I-I’m fine, Dash.” Fluttershy said shakily, swiftly doing her best to clean up the mess. Rainbow made to help her, but Fluttershy flinched and backed away from her.

“… Flutters, what in the world has gotten into you?” Rainbow Dash asked softly, a hint of concern lining her voice. The hurt expression on her face didn’t help.

A rusty piece of metal, that’s what, the sardonic part of her brain answered dryly, but she bit her lip.

“I-I-I’m sorry,” Fluttershy apologized quietly, dropping the coffee-stained towels into the sink. “I’m… having a rough morning.” She hated the lie that passed her lips, but what else was she supposed to say? There was no way in Tartarus that her friend would believe such an outrageous thing.

Yeah, Dashie. I bled to death about five or six minutes ago.

You died?

I got better.

She shook the imaginary conversation away, ridiculing it. No, at best Rainbow Dash would think she was out of her mind. At best.

“… Fluttershy?” the cyan blue hoof resting on her shoulder implied that her friend deeply wished to convey the level of compassion she wished, but was physically impossible. “You know you can talk to me about anything. Right?”

And right then, the butter yellow pegasus almost told her everything. Almost.

“Come on, Flutters. You’ve got to get over your pet.”

Fluttershy felt like part of her collapsed, her courage failing her. Of course, Rainbow thought it was about Angel.

Ironically enough, Angel was just about the furthest thing from her mind right then. An odd sense of guilt suddenly plagued her, as if she’d nearly forgotten him on purpose.

Taking a deep, quivering breath, Fluttershy forced the muscles in her face upwards.

“You’re absolutely right,” she agreed much too enthusiastically to sound genuine, although her friend didn’t seem to be catching on. “I think what I really need is to get out more.”

“That’s the spirit!” Rainbow Dash grinned ecstatically, clapping the pegasus roughly on the back. “I know just the thing to take your mind off all that trouble,” she nodded thoughtfully as she guided Fluttershy through the doorway.

“Hoofball?” Fluttershy guessed without much zeal.

“Nope.”

A little caught off guard, Fluttershy continued to list sports and other sorts of athletic activities, and Dash turned them all down one by one. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say her friend was growing more excited with each ‘no’.

“… Water polo?” Fluttershy asked, her curiosity finally tugging at her.

“Nah. You and me? We’re just going sightseeing today.”

“… Sightseeing.” She deadpanned, although she was thoroughly surprised by it.

“Yeah!” Dash nodded fervently, her grin widening. “I know this great spot – it’s a pain in the keister to get to, though.”

“Is… is that so,” Fluttershy said uncertainly as Dash suddenly pounced into the air, wind billowing behind her as she took off.

“Aw, it’s not so hard,” she replied, waiting impatiently for the pegasus to follow. “Besides; what doesn’t kill ya only makes you stronger, right?”

Fluttershy had no idea why that sentiment left such a foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach.

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Author's Note

I'm so glad to be back to writing this.