Years of Growth, Days of Dying

by FlutterPal

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Adventure, Tragedy, Main 6
Length: 3406

There's that one tree that held everypony's life for years on end. What if that tree just, disappeared though?

In a world where a tree held everypony's lives in its branches, for years and years, it was quite important. But what if everything in that tree, including those ponies' lives, just, disappeared?

Published 2013-09-30 01:50:04 UTC
Last updated 2013-11-15 05:55:15 UTC

Chapter One [Revised]

In a different world of Equestria, one day in the middle of a breaking village, two ponies walked silently on the rocky sidewalks of Ponyville. One was a sky blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail as well as dark pink eyes. The other one, a yellow Pegasus with a soft and long light pink mane and tail and turquoise eyes with a kind tone to them. Each of them just walking, in the dark days. Each day was stormy and dark, so what is there to worry about?

Walking and walking, both of them tried to force small talk into their walk. Rocks fell at their touch, and leaves broke and fall when they walked past trees. Not noisy, but the ponies wanted to talk away.

The yellow one, finally spoke up and went straight into a conversation to think about. “Umm, do you ever wonder how ponies were born?” the yellow pony said in the sweetest, yet quietest voice.

The blue pony looked at her friend pony, and sighed. “Why does everypony think about that?” she said in a more angry tone.

Lots of silence passed on suddenly. Silence. Just the exact thing Ponyville’s heard for years and years. Small talk, rumors, and tiny conversations sometimes escaped all ponies’ lips, but silence was almost a big thing in life. After both friends thought about this, both thought about the conversation they almost had. “Well, I think that ponies were made by a thing, like something in nature with ponies growing inside of it every second. It may sound silly, but it feels so true! Oh Rainbow Dash, what is it? Something HAS to be going on!” the kinder Pegasus said breaking into tears.

Rainbow Dash looked at her friend with complete sorrow and said, “We don’t know, Fluttershy! The only one who could EVER know about this sort of thing is Twilight! But she is still getting research about…” Rainbow Dash trailed off.

Fluttershy looked at Dash, who was on the edge of tears herself. “Only Twilight could ever help us with this mess Equestria’s in!” Dash cried out through sobs.

“I-I can’t do anything, Rainbow. We don’t even know this mess, who caused it, and if we can even fix it. Your prophecy can wait, and when Twilight comes back it’ll all be clear, ok?” Fluttershy explained.

The ponies continued to walk. More thoughts continued to come. Like that prophecy, and what it meant. That prophecy;
Two ponies will travel together,
Both will be challenged by monsters and weather,
But maybe one will save this land,
By saving a tree that may perish by one touch of hand.

Rainbow Dash was thinking hugely about message from the princess herself. What tree? What two ponies? What adventure? All too many questions that probably didn’t have an answer. The prophecy did tell a lot, but not enough.

But if this-land- was Equestria, then maybe Dash could save it! She needed to go on the adventure, but with whom? Applejack has a family to take care of, Twilight’s researching stuff back in Canterlot, Pinkie Pie would probably slow her down, Rarity- self-explanatory, but Fluttershy? She was a good friend and, would be a good travel partner but could the timed Pegasus handle the trip?

Fluttershy would need training, survival skills, and the feel of knowing that Rainbow could not protect her every single step of the way. Maybe she could, teach her? Train her? Get her on the trip?

This adventure was going to be a lot harder without a partner, not even to mention the fact that Dash didn’t know where to go! All she knew is that according to the prophecy and Twilight’s words Equestria was on the precipice of disaster! This tree they needed to save? That could be the thing to save our land, but where is it, and how do they save it?

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash got back to the topic of finding a partner, while Fluttershy was thinking about something only partly the same.

The shy pony still thought about how everypony is made, and yet how each of them never died. There had to be something holding back their deaths, and making every single one of her kind live forever, in some sort of way. Like, this tree in the prophecy? Maybe that was the thing these two ponies had to save. But it seemed like nonsense. Complete nonsense! Why, why, why?!

Fluttershy needed a nap, a bath, something to make her relax and not think about the prophecy. Trees, things, why ponies lived what seemed like forever? Nothing made sense! If all of her friends were here right now Fluttershy would be calm, but Rainbow and her were the only ones living in Ponyville! Everyone else moved out and is living in all of other towns in Equestria. Why were they so alone?

Alone. Is it all they would be? Is this how they live their life? Alone!?

Walking and crying, both ponies escaped to their homes. Rainbow Dash moved over to her new home in Ponyville which was claimed after Cloudsdale was destroyed by the dark days. Flutters went over to her cottage, not with all her animals she should have had. Both cried in their homes and both tried to relax. Equestria was sorta, kinda, doomed. What else could they do besides trying to save the whole entire land when they had no clue what they were doing and where they were going?

And what would they do next?

Saving a country was one thing, and sitting around doing something else was another. And if the two fail, if they fall and don't get back up, bad things will definitely happen. Even worse, Equestria will fall to a thing's death. But one mystery, or a couple, still remain. Who will be the ponies on this trip? Where are they going? How will they get there? And most importantly, what will they do?

Author's Note

HEY! ANOTHER STORY HERE! Awww yeah!

Chapter Two

In a tiny room, where little light shone, a cyan mare sat upon a chair, writing and taking notes on something. Little letters scribbled on the yellow scroll paper were being crossed out by the black ink that hung on the tip of a quill. Books around the room were stacked on top of each other, most colored and some just plain gray. The mare appeared to be grabbing most of the gray books yet some blue, and yet red. She flipped through the pages, looking for something. Just something that was very important to her. Word, by word, page by page, the notes were written down while the words were being read. And, let’s just say, that she was called Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash looked at the page blankly. Words, words, words, and words. Too much to research, just go to bed, the Pegasus thought. Save Equestria tomorrow…

But Dash couldn’t stop. She really had to find out how other prophecies were solved in the past, and how she could solve hers. There was a thing about Star Swirl when he was young solving a prophecy with three ponies, they ran into monsters, blah, blah, blah, they saved the land from a dangerous spell… What!? Rainbow had to go back in that book to find out how he picked out his partners. What ponies are best for the job? If no ponies got hurt on that trip, then it must be good decisions!

Rainbow threw her other book away and crumbled up the notes. She jumped up from her seat and began to search through the pile of books. Prophecies and Solving, no. The Spell, no. Daring Do and the Goblet of Fire? Heh, Dash could not resist! But Legends and Prophecies with Star Swirl the Bearded, YES!

Picking up the book, she tossed it across the room where it landed with a thud on the table. Rainbow flew up and sat in her chair, while taking out a new piece of scroll paper along with a new quill to take notes. Dash went to the page she marked, looked it over making sure it was the right one, and began to read, taking notes while doing so.

Blah, blah, ok, what now? Dash asked herself, yawning loudly and rubbing her tired eyes. They found their partners by, ok TOO complicated after those words. Reading, and reading, she finally found out that Star Swirl picked his closest friends that he trained through magic spells, and were very close, blah, blah, blah, and, that’s it?

Rainbow took the quill quickly and began writing about to do closest friends that you trained, cared for, and helped. Alright, now who is this pony? Rainbow asked herself. It’s like she had never trained anypony before! But, Fluttershy?

Darn, now Dash was back to that topic. She leaned back in the chair, which before Rainbow Dash knew it she fell on top of the chair, her back legs towering in weird places over her face. Dash let out a groan, and began to rub the pains on her back. If this was going to happen, Rainbow will talk about it with Flutters tomorrow. After all, she was REALLY tired. Yet hungry- did she just hear her stomach growl?

Gosh, stop it Rainbow, it's bed time! Dash thought fiercely. Your bed is only fifteen steps away. One, two, three…

Rainbow took fifteen tired steps down her hallway and into her bedroom to hop in bed. Tomorrow’s a new day after all, and dreams are all ways good, she thought before drifting into sleep.

**********************************************************

A very dim light shined into Fluttershy’s cottage as the dark morning spread drowsily across the sky. A loud thumping was heard next to Flutters, as if the sound was an alarm clock. She opened her tired eyes, which were rubbed by the bottom joint of her front legs not long after. On her bed, Angel Bunny was pointing towards the kitchen as he thumped- ten? Maybe eleven more times as he asked for food. Fluttershy looked at the impatient animal, a little impatient herself. With a long sigh, she heaved herself out of bed and gave her wings a good stretch. After that, she trotted slowly over to the kitchen door and opend it, hearing a small, creak.

Fluttershy took the last steps to the cupboard and got the bunny food out, only to drop it on the floor. “Oops! I’m so sorry, Angel! I just,” but the white bunny rolled his eyes and ate from the bag instead of his bowl.

She giggled at the rabbit, how he didn’t care and just ate it straight from the bag of food. Fluttershy looked at him for a moment before hearing a rapid knock at the door. “Come in!” she squeaked.

The Pegasus heard the door being opened quickly, just for a burst of rainbow wind to blast in her kitchen and knock Fluttershy down. The yellow pony looked up to see a worried Rainbow Dash standing atop of her. She widened her eyes at the instant topple, but relaxed when Rainbow loosened her grip on Fluttershy, allowing her to get up. “W-What’s wrong? What happened? Oh Rainbow Dash, is it the prophecy again?” Fluttershy squealed out in a blur of words.

The rainbow-maned Pegasus tried to catch her breath before answering. “Yes, but, it’s a question to you, really, you know, about the quest part,” Rainbow Dash said through one of her breaths.

Fluttershy suddenly noticed that Dash was really tired. Wrinkles below her eyes were visible, and her eyes were pinkish around the edges. “Well, what is it?” she asked, not really hiding her concern.

The cyan mare took a long and steady breath, until she stopped shaking ang asked, “Will you train for the quest to go with me?”

Flutters widened her eyes even more, and hid under one of her kitchen chairs, as a gesture to say, ‘no’.

But Rainbow was too urgent to save Equestria, especially when she knew that something was going on. “Please, Fluttershy! This is really important to me! I’ll train you, you’ll be fine!” Dash pleaded.

Fluttershy peeked her head out from under the chair, a sad but determined look on her face. “If you’ll train me…” Flutters murmured.

Rainbow smiled widely, and pulled the shy pony out from under the tables. “Alright! Let’s train you!”

********************************************************

“Up, down, up!” shouted Rainbow as Fluttershy did her wing-ups. “Only forty more to go!”

Fluttershy was crying her eyes out, while trying to work out and maintain the responsibility of going on the quest. “Thirty more to go! Come on, push those wings farther down!” she heard Rainbow Dash shout.

“Thirty…” Flutters whispered before collapsing on the ground of dirt, as well in tears. “I’m in pain!”

Rainbow Dash was the most definitely not impressed. “Suck it up, Fluttershy! It’s only one-hundred wing-ups! I’ve seen…” but before she could say anything, Flutters cries had already beat out the sound of her voice.

Rainbow Dash set down a pillow and a bottle of water in front of Fluttershy, sighing heavily. “You were almost there, you know. But still, Fluttershy, you have to do this many more three more times. That’s part of what shaped me up to be the fastest flyer. You see, you're my best friend, and I’m only trying to help you out on this quest training."

Fluttershy peeked out from between her hooves and put her head on the pillow. “Oh, Dash, I do know that. It’s just, I’m not used to it, that’s all,” she whispered.

Rainbow Dash sighed again. “Ok, ok. I do go a bit hard on you sometimes. But, that’s just my breakouts, and it does happen. But please, please, please grow a spine and man up! Now let’s start this over again…”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Fluttershy muttered.

Chapter 3

Applejack glared at what was supposed to be a story. But all she could see was couple of words on a paper that most definitely made no sense at all when you put them into a sentence. Her career of writing was going to fail hardly, despite her work of trying to get bits.

If she took this in to publish at the local Publish Shop in Manehattan, once the workers looked at it for one second the paper Applejack wrote it on would be torn in half faster than a bunny on racing day. Or at least, that’s what AJ would give as an example.

She glared at the sentence even more, until she actually found out how to put the words she wrote down- Red Apple Acres Acre All Apples- and switch it up until it made sense. It could be Apple Acres All Acre Red…

The thought of that made her go face-down onto a table that Applejack just noticed was there.

“What!?” she shouted, all of a sudden just realizing that she worked so hard to write those words without a hard surface, almost tearing the page. “I did all that for nothin’!”

With that, she slapped her own face with a hoof and cried, knowing that her family would lose everything she ever known without those bits.

********************************************************

Fluttershy stretched her wings out and almost immediately wobbled from the pain that came. The muscles pulled tightly from soreness.

Maintaining her balance, she folded her wings to her sides and limped to the kitchen. She pushed the door to the kitchen open and covered her eyes from the dim morning light coming from the only window there.

Flutters went right away to making breakfast by getting out a box of cereal with her hoof out of one of the many cabinets, shutting it as she put the cereal on the counter and made her way to the fridge. Fluttershy opened the fridge, grabbed a carton of 2% milk, and set it on the counter. Lastly she flew up to another cabinet and grabbed a small bowl out of it, setting that on the counter as well.

Quickly, she made some cereal for herself and brought it on a small wooden table. Almost immediately afterwards she made a quick little bowl full of food for Angel Bunny and set it on the floor in a usual spot for it.

Fluttershy gobbled up her breakfast unlady like before trying to stretch out her sore muscles from exercising yesterday once again. But like last time, the pain was too much to bear. Before Shy maintained her balance, she fell to the ground with a loud ‘thump’.

Hurt even more this time, Flutters rubbed her head with a hoof and got up from the wooden floor, still wobbly.

She was able to get to her bed and lay down before she fell on the floor again. Fluttershy quickly got a notepad reminding her to get a trip to the spa a couple miles out of Ponyville soon.

Suddenly, Shy heard a creak and a twist and saw Rainbow Dash at the side of her bed in the blink of an eye. “Dash?” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”

By the looks of it, Rainbow had been in a hurry to get here. Her messy rainbow mane was a little more messy than usual, she was sweating even though it was the middle of fall, and Dash was breathing heavily. “Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash gasped out in deep breaths. “Di-did you get the news yet?”

Fluttershy shook her head, starting to worry.

Dash handed her a roll of paper with fine printing. Shy grabbed it gently from the cyan pony’s hoof just before unrolling the papers gently. Rainbow reached a hoof over and flipped a few pages and stopping when a picture of Twilight Sparkle- Fluttershy’s friend- was displayed below an article title that said, “Celestia’s Head Student Gives Us Knowledge of Prophecy".

Flutters began to read the article the seemed to pull her in just from the title.

Twilight Sparkle uncovered a prophecy about a month ago and after hours and hours of studying, she reports the people who will go on the journey that was stated in the prophecy. . She says that as she was studying, there was a bright flash of light with a vision. Twilight Sparkle saw a rainbow and pink butterflies. She says the vision ended with a yellow pony and a sky blue pony, both Pegasi, going on a journey. She reports to us that they seem familiarly like her two friends, living in Ponyville, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. All she can say now is that she hopes they read this newspaper.

Fluttershy was shocked. She dropped the newspaper and hugged Dash as hard as she could, but definitely did not squeeze Rainbow to death. The cyan Pegasus put on a cool smile and hugged back. “Yeah, isn’t that good news? We actually ARE the ponies of the prophecy!”

Shy nodded. “But you DO know that this will mean more training?” Rainbow Dash stated smartly.

They both stopped the hug and she nodded again, this time a frown now planted across her face. Rainbow chuckled. “Ok, it’s not THAT much work! Come’n, now we have train if we will save whatever is wrong with Equestria.”

“I know, I know…” Flutters whispered. “But do you want some breakfast first? I have some cereal and milk…” She was not able to finish her sentence, for Rainbow Dash went in and kissed Fluttershy on the cheek, quickly and hugged her tightly. The butter colored Pegasus had the deepest red on her cheeks, burning hot. “Well, since we’ll be on an adventure together… Well, I’ve had this feeling f-for a long time, a-and I-I sort of kinda like you…” Dash stumbled.

Shy smiled and nodded. “T-Th-That’s ok… I guess I sort of do too…” Flutters returned a kiss on Dash’s cheek. Letting go of the hug, the yellow Pegasus settled down on her bed and closed her eyes.

Rainbow Dash left at the flick of her wings and a trail of rainbow smashing through Fluttershy’s now open window. But if she said goodbye, or talked to her in any way before she left, Flutters didn’t notice. She was too happy. And had one thought on her mind right now:

Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.

Author's Note

Well, it's fast-paced. I'll get this edited, 'kay?