Fluttershy Is Free

Chapters

Chapter 1 : Chorion
Chapter 2: Caterpillar
Chapter 3: Chrysalis
Chapter 4: Imago

Chapter 1 : Chorion

"... And then the mother butterfly lays about a hundred eggs, which is an awful lot of babies for a pony but actually isn't that many compared to some insects," Fluttershy said. "You'd imagine the eggs would be fragile, but they're not: they're protected by this hard outer shell, the chorion. We actually have this too, but in mammals it's just a soft membrane because we're in our mommies' wombs when we're developing: butterfly eggs get laid out in the open, and they need protection from the weather and things they would eat them, so they're much tougher."

Rainbow Dash was only paying marginal attention to Fluttershy's lecture on the butterfly life cycle. What she was paying attention to was Fluttershy. Specifically, the fact that Fluttershy was speaking directly to her, making eye contact, without cringing, stammering or trying to hide behind her long pink mane. She thought of saying something about this, but she knew that if she did, her friend would once again become self-conscious. She didn't want to do that -- she liked looking at and listening to Fluttershy when she wasn't being shy.

They were in an absolutely beautiful place. Rainbow Dash did not usually talk about beauty, but she could appreciate it. She loved, for instance, the serene beauty of the Earth from high above, where the air grew thin and cold and everything was spread out beneath her like a blanket of green earth and darker vegetation and glistening bodies of waters, with pony roads and towns arranged like Celestia's own play set. She loved in a different sort of way the three-dimensional colorful reality of the world flying low and fast, with everything whipping by her at speed and life become a second-to-second game of terrain awareness and dodging, nap-of-the-earth with the reward surprising the other side in the games, the penalty for failure being bruises or even broken bones.

This was another kind of beauty.

They were in an alpine meadow on the southeastern side of the Pegasus Mountains. A small waterfall descended from the heights above, splashing into a brilliant-blue tarn, pooling there before burbling away as a stream to the east, where it eventually joined the Ghastly and from there flowed through the Everfree past Ponyville, hundreds of miles northeast of here. Directly east and below was a green and pleasant meadow, with here and there a small hamlet; they were far from the railroads and the navigable rivers, and the population around these parts was sparse.

South, things became sparser. There was a road skirting the southern Pegasus, running west all the way to Applewood, and along that road were dotted Pony farms and settlements. South of that, though, the green plains faded off into browns. Far to the south, she knew, were the scrublands of the northern San Palomino Desert. There was little there to attract ponies, though some explorers and prospectors occasionally wandered in there to get into trouble.

Their little meadow was like a natural watchpost placed above all that, from which they could see the world without themselves being seen. This would be a great place for an air station, Rainbow thought, but the thought felt strangely jarring with the rest of her mood. She was glad that no one else had agreed with her, because it was so peaceful here with just 'Shy and herself.

The afternoon sun shone from the southwest, illuminating the whole scene brightly so that all the colors of the day were pure and brilliant, with just enough shadow to give a sense of solidity to what she was seeing. To the direct west and northeast of the meadow was a light forest. They were well below the treeline, and only the highest branches were stunted by cold mountain winds. On the marges of the pool here and there were bogs, above which insects hovered and small birds flitted to take them.

"Are you ... um ... are you interested in this?" Fluttershy was asking, looking a bit uncertain. Anyone but her would have been annoyed.

"What?" asked Rainbow. "Oh, no, sorry ... I was just sort of spacing out on how nice and quiet this place is. Sort of ... peaceful. Sorry, 'Shy. What you were saying was interesting."

"It is lovely here," agreed Fluttershy. "Sometimes I come here when I want to be alone ... away from even my animals." She looked guilty at that, as if her non-equine charges had first claim on her soul. "I've never shown another pony this place," she admitted, then ducked her head, letting her mane flow around forward in such a way as to cover half her face.

"This is a really cool place," said Rainbow, clapping her friend's shoulder affectionately. "I'm honored."

"Oh, I'm glad," said Fluttershy, smiling and letting more of her face peep out. "I wasn't sure you'd like it."

"No, it's really great ... it's like the swimming hole, but more awesome!" Rainbow was pretty sure Fluttershy didn't want to hear her thoughts about the military potential of the small rise upon which the two pegasi sat. "So, what were you saying?"

"Oh, um .... just that where we are now is actually around where they lay them, but of course they won't have laid them yet because they don't mate until they migrate south for the winter. They gather around the pool, and mate on the wing, and try not to get caught by the dragonflies and birds and other small predators. Though most don't like how they taste, so they're in less danger than you might imagine."

"Tough life," commented Rainbow Dash. She'd never really thought of butterflies as tough before, but then they lived in a dangerous world, where most things were bigger than them and there was an abundance of creatures which would try to eat them, if they didn't have a defense.

"They enjoy it, though," said Fluttershy. "I can feel it -- their love and happiness. Even though they only live a year or so at most, they love their lives. Makes you feel good to be around them."

"I suppose ..." said Rainbow vaguely. This was one of the many weird things about Fluttershy she accepted -- took for granted, after knowing her most of their lives -- but did not really understand, any more than she understood how Pinkie Pie could get from place to place faster than she herself could fly, even though Rainbow could never see her running to get there.

What Rainbow knew was that Fluttershy could talk to animals, and make them understand her, and understood them back in return. She also claimed that she could sense their feelings -- Rainbow wasn't sure how that worked, but she supposed it was possible, in a world which included magic. Then there was that whole strange Stare thing 'Shy could do when she got really worked up, where she'd just look at something and it would back off.

Since that had saved her own life within the last month, Rainbow Dash wasn't complaining.

They made camp in the lee of the rise. It was a good spot -- high enough above the water table that the ground was nice and dry, but not so high up that gusts of wind would carry their tent away. One thing that their stint in the militia had taught them was how to make camp. Rainbow built a small hearth out of stones, while Fluttershy gathered the wood. They had a standard-issue two-pony militia tent, large enough to sleep in with some comfort if you were buddies, but small enough to be easily portable on foot or wing.

Rainbow had plenty of time to think about how her life had changed since the start of summer. That had been -- what -- just around four months ago? So much had happened already.

It had all begun that Summer Sun Celebration, when she'd first met Twilight Sparkle.

Rainbow had felt an unusual affinity from the first for that very peculiar mare. From the moment Twilight had challenged her to clear the skies in ten seconds flat, and Rainbow had done exactly that, Rainbow had respected her. She felt they were going to be friends -- no, she'd felt as if they had somehow renewed an old friendship. Yet she was certain she'd never met the lavender mage before.

What happened next was like nothing Rainbow had ever experienced, nor expected to experience out of her wildest fantasies of heroic adventure. The return of Nightmare Moon, whom she'd always assumed to be just an old nag's tale. That tense meeting in the Library. Going into the Everfree, that haunted night that should have been day, with everything starting to get colder and colder as the Sun refused to rise. Saving Pinkie Pie and Twilight when the ledge gave way. Fighting the manticore. Those weird trees, and the weirder way Pinkie had led them to victory against them. That huge river serpent.

The creepiest part had been that strange meeting with Nightmare Moon on the far side of the bridge to the ruined castle. Though she hadn't known that during the encounter. At the time there were these three strange ponies, all dressed in black, with the leader a mare with a voice like poisoned honey, a voice that had tried to drip through Rainbow's ears into the core of her soul. She didn't know exactly how she'd managed to resist that geas -- Twilight told her later that it had been her Element of Loyalty that had given her the strength. It was only when she'd been halfway back across the gorge, after rejecting the offer, that she'd realized that she'd been facing Nightmare Moon alone, at one point as close to her as if they'd been best friends. And hadn't that thought given her a shiver then, in the foggy air over the canyon? Even though she'd never told anypony, then or later, of her fear.

Then the final weirdness, though it had been good-weird -- that confrontation in the castle, with Twilight handing out the Elements to all of them, and telling each one of them why she deserved it. Funny thing -- Rainbow would have thought she'd be jumping for joy at this ultimate recognition of her own awesomeness -- but instead she'd felt all strange and solemn, like someone being knighted in one of the old tales. And then --

Rainbow had no words to describe what wielding the Element of Loyalty had felt like. She might have said "Better than sex," and she suspected it had been. She'd need to find a stallion to match her own radical coolness before she'd know that for sure, though. Maybe someday, when she joined the Wonderbolts ... anyway, it had been amazing. She had felt somehow expanded, as if the best in her had somehow grown godlike, as big as the Sun Princess herself; and then she could also feel the best in the other five. And they were pretty darn awesome mares themselves -- the best friends anyone could have. And all their amazingness had somehow joined as one to produce the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her life, the Rainbow of Harmony. And then ... well, actually they'd all fainted. Apparently some emotions were too intense for mortal mares to bear.

And then Princess Celestia herself was there, and Nightmare Moon had been replaced by a little filly, who somehow was Princess Luna, Celestia's younger sister, the pony she'd been before becoming Nightmare Moon. Rainbow didn't pretend to understand the metaphysics of any of this. Everyone was alive, though, and it had ended in a pretty great party. Rainbow was cool with any adventure that ended with a party.

The weirdest thing about this was that Princess Luna kept smiling at her, as if they were old friends. This was much better than having her throw lightning or monsters at them, though.

Luna was looking a lot at Twilight, now that Rainbow remembered. Though that looked different. Friendly, too, but also sort of ... nervous? As if she wanted to say something but wasn't sure what?

Oh well, a lot of those old tales had ended with the defeated bad guys becoming friends of the heroes. Maybe they'd all team up with Princess Luna someday? That would be way cool, especially if Luna could still throw lightning without even touching the clouds, as Rainbow had seen Nightmare Moon do. Foes beware!

Things had settled back down to normal after that, though. Luna had gone back with Princess Celestia to Canterlot. And Rainbow had gone back to the Weather Patrol, and Fluttershy to her animals, and so for all of them.

Except of course that Twilight Sparkle had moved into the old library. Which was good, because Rainbow liked Twilight. She was an egghead, but a really cool one. And occasionally, something interesting would happen, such as the time they all met that weird but friendly Zebra witch in the Everfree. Or when that goofball magician had come to town and tried to show off, only to accidentally get her wagon squashed by that Ursa Minor bear-thing.

Twilight was smart, and knew a lot of interesting things. She was also the most powerful mage Rainbow had ever seen. She'd handled that giant bear creature single-horned, tossing around a whole water tower full of milk as if it were a baby bottle, and then sending it back home to its mother. She'd broken a sweat doing that, sure, but no one Rainbow had ever met, except for maybe Princess Celestia or Luna, could have done that at all.

Twilight knew a lot of interesting ponies, too. She'd been born and raised in Canterlot, and was Princess Celestia's personal student -- wrote letters to her every week, mostly just about random stuff she'd done around town. She'd gotten them all tickets to the Galloping Gala, too -- that was going to be way cool, summer next year when they got to go. Rainbow hoped she'd get to meet the Wonderbolts in person -- maybe they'd want her on their team!

Yeah, things had gotten interesting since Twilight came to town. They'd all fought a dragon together -- Rainbow had kicked it in the head, which was awesome all by itself -- and then Fluttershy (who Applejack had practically had to drag up that mountain) had used The Stare on it and made it go back to where ever it was that Dragons lived, across the sea. Later, Rainbow had heard that this had been part of a whole dragon invasion, and that Princess Luna had sent several of them packing all by herself. Rainbow wished she could have seen Luna throwing around lightning and stuff, but Fluttershy staring a dragon down was pretty awesome in its own right.

The parasprites had been less awesome -- they wouldn't have been such a problem if Fluttershy hadn't brought them into town to begin with -- but heck, weird stuff came out of the Everfree all the time. You learned to live with that when you hung around Ponyville. Pinkie Pie had taken care of those in the end, in one of her typically-strange manners. And Princess Celestia had sent them disaster relief to help them rebuild, which was not an uncommon activity in Ponyville, because of all the aforementioned weird stuff out of the Everfree.

Life was fun. And it was great to be taking some time off from the Weather Patrol, up here in the Pegasus foothills, hanging out with one of her oldest foalhood friends.

Being herself was just plain awesome.

Author's Note

Rainbow Dash is not the world's most complex character, though even she has hidden depths. But I do like her voice.

Chapter 2: Caterpillar

The Sun was going down. They both built their fire, and then Rainbow started it with flint and steel. There were plenty of dry leaves and underbrush to serve as tinder, and the fall rains had fortunately as yet not started. Soon a nice red and orange blaze was crackling away merrily amongst their arrangement of dead branches in the circle of stones Rainbow had laid. Rainbow was careful; the last thing she wanted to do was burn down Fluttershy's special place.

The warmth of the fire felt good as the Sun set in the west, making of the horizon a multi-chromatic glory. The air was fresh and pure up here, and the breeze blew the smoke away from them. They had some nice fresh water from the cataract, and Fluttershy combined some of their supplies with some edibles she had found in the forest and began cooking a savory vegetable stew in the iron pot they had brought and hung over the fire on a makeshift frame. She seasoned it, stirred it, let it boil briefly, then took it off the fire and ladled out portions.

The stew was remarkably good.

"Oh, I do this a lot," explained Fluttershy, smiling at her friend. "For my animals -- though I have to be careful with them, they sometimes eat different things than ponies -- and for myself. Especially when I come up here."

"You're a really good field cook!" said Rainbow as she enthusiastically conveyed the stew to her mouth with a spoon held in the suckers of one hoof. "Heck, you were back in the militia, too, but you've improved!"

"Oh, well," said Fluttershy, blushing a little, "It's pretty easy. And I know where all the edible plants are around here," she explained. "I've been coming here for a pretty long time."

"Mmm," stated Rainbow as she ate more soup. "This is delicious." Then, as Rainbow saw Fluttershy starting to hide her face in her own hair, she decided to change the subject. "How long have you been coming up here, anyway?" Rainbow asked.

"Forever," said Fluttershy. "Well, since soon after I got my cutie mark, and realized I liked it down here on the ground," she said. "Over a decade, now. I followed the butterflies one day and found that a lot of them came here. So I kind of made it my special place."

"You must come here pretty often."

"Well," said Fluttershy, "I did when I was still a filly. It's peaceful here -- and my family never knew about it." Her face grew somber, and she stared into the fire.

"You didn't want to see them?" asked Rainbow.

"That's a terrible thing to say," said Fluttershy flatly. "That I'd want to avoid my own family, when they wanted to come see me." She did not meet Rainbow's eyes. "I'd have to be a terrible pony to reject them like that." Her ears, her body, everything drooped listlessly.

"I'm sorry, 'Shy," apologized Rainbow. "I didn't mean ..."

"It's true, though," she said. "I did want to avoid them. And sometimes," she said, " I can be a pretty terrible pony."

"That's not true!" said Rainbow, defending her friend against -- her friend? Other people's emotions could be so confusing sometimes. "I mean, not that you wanted to avoid them. That's gotta be true if you say it's true. I mean, you're not a terrible pony. You're the nicest pony I've ever known. Too nice, sometimes, for your own good!"

"Thank you," replied Fluttershy, smiling, her ears going back up a little bit. "But I'm not always that nice. When ponies don't like me," she explained, "I don't always try harder to make them like me. Sometimes I just ... run and hide. That's my way, really. I keep company with ponies who really like me, and I hide from the rest."

Rainbow was moved. Fluttershy's problem -- her whole philosophy of life, really -- was very alien to the way she herself did things. Rainbow just did what she felt was right, and it if someponies didn't like her for it, it was their problem, not hers. But she could see how life must be for Fluttershy, and she wanted to somehow make it better. She didn't know how, though.

"Well, I like you," Rainbow said. "A lot. I always have, since we've been small."

Fluttershy blushed. "That makes me very happy," she said. "Your friendship has always made me very happy. I could always feel how much you liked me. I know I'm weak -- but your friendship has always made me stronger."

Rainbow was overcome by a warm and happy feeling, of complete love for her friend. She didn't know quite how to express it, so she clapped her lightly on the shoulder with one hoof, nearly making Fluttershy spill her stew.

Fluttershy must have understood the sentiment, though, because she smiled.

"Why didn't your family like you, anyway?" Rainbow asked. "I mean, you're pretty cool. I've seen you face down a dragon! You've gotta admit that's awesome!"

"Thank you, Rainbow," replied Fluttershy, smiling at the praise. "Though really I was terrified through most of that, until the dragon hurt you. Then I guess I just lost my temper a little."

"Yeah, well even if you were scared at first, I think you made up for it by what you did at the end. So like I said, you're awesome and I'm surprised your family didn't know it."

"Well, Rainbow, to be fair to them, I hadn't really done anything all that 'awesome' yet."

"Yeah," said Rainbow, "but they're your family. How could they not like their own little filly?"

Fluttershy sighed, turned so that her mane was completely covering her face from Rainbow's view, hung her head low. "I never told you, did I? About my family ...?"

Rainbow thought back on it. She knew that she'd never actually met Fluttershy's family, which was actually a bit weird given how long she'd known Fluttershy. Come to think of it, they'd never come to see her at flight camp, or at any of the competitions. Which was odd, because even Rainbow's own parents, who mostly just let her wander around freely once she got old enough to fly, would come to see her at public events.

"No," reflected Rainbow. "You never have. What gives with that?"

Fluttershy looked up. "Well -- did you know that we're a very old family?"

Rainbow considered certain things. The way that, even though she didn't actually make a lot of money helping ponies out with domestic animals, she never seemed to actually lack for bits when she needed them. The way that Fluttershy always spoke in that very cultured voice, with perfect diction and the most proper language, as long as she was speaking audibly at all. The fact that she'd never caught Fluttershy doing anything even remotely coarse -- or was it that, when she did it, something like mucking out an animal pen or treating a bite wound looked like a scene from a play about the old nobility? The way that -- when she really cared about something -- she took command with an automatic ease that utterly belied her normal timidity. This all led her to one conclusion.

"You're an aristocrat," Rainbow said. "Aren't you? What, does it go back to the formation of the Realm, a thousand years or so?"

"Much older than that," said Fluttershy calmly. "Around three thousand years." She met Rainbow's gaze. "I am a direct matrilineal descendant of Commander Hurricane." It came out with neither pride nor shame, as if she were discussing what she'd eaten for breakfast that day.

Rainbow gasped.

"Wait, you mean the Commander Hurricane? The one from the old story ...?"

"Yes," said Fluttershy. "The one who led the Pegasi to Equestria when the Old Homeland was destroyed. Fifteen hundred years before the Realm was founded, five hundred before the Time of the Trickster." She looked sad. "So I think you can see why my family thinks I'm such a failure."

"Why --?" Then Rainbow Dash thought, really thought about it. Pegasus culture was a lot more relaxed in these peaceful days than it had been in the old times, but it was still essentially a martial one. The ideal Pegasus was a swift and strong flier, honorable in word and deed, and a highly trained fighter with hoof and weapon.

This had never bothered Rainbow much, as she herself was close to the ideal Pegasus, and indeed differed from such a standard only in being even more awesome. Indeed, awareness of the Pegasus ideal only served to increase Rainbow's own already-adequate healthy self-esteem.

But maybe, just maybe, a slightly unusual Pegasus like Fluttershy, might not seem all that excellent to a Pegasus not gifted with Rainbow Dash's own superior judgement of character. Perhaps such less discerning souls might even mistake gentleness for weakness, kindness for cowardice, beauty for fragility. Perhaps, they might even see her as some sort of "failure."

Especially if they had very high, if overly-narrow, standards.

"Oh," said Rainbow. "I see."

"The way my mother was didn't help," Fluttershy continued. "I don't know if I ever told you anything about her ...?"

Rainbow remembered scattered conversations with Fluttershy from the days of their youth. At the time she had been a small filly, and the revelations had merely been interesting. Now, her adult mind pieced them together.

"She was ... unusual," Rainbow allowed. There was no way she was going to insult Fluttershy's mother to her face.

"She was completely insane," said Fluttershy. There was not a trace of shyness in her voice now, though there was a quaver of something else. "She thought that dragons were going to attack any day and eat us all. She thought that there were monsters living among us that could take our forms, eat our souls. She thought I was a mythical creature myself."

Rainbow had not heard this. "Whoa," she said. "That's messed up."

"Also," said Fluttershy, "she said that I -- I was -- a bastard. That she'd cheated on her husband with someone she thought was an old love. Or was one of those shape-shifting monsters. Or the mythical creature she thought I was. The story kept changing, based on her mood."

"Double messed up," said Rainbow. Then, she considered the one part of it that sounded possible. "Wait, was any of this true?"

"I don't know!" confessed Fluttershy, and now the tears were starting to form. "I grew up half-believing her, and I never even knew which part of it to half-believe!" She lowered her face, let her hair hide it. "I think that maybe my mother's husband wasn't really my father," she said quietly. "Because I look a lot like my mother -- she's shorter and stockier than me but we have the same hair, the same coat. But I don't look at all like my ... well ... supposed father."

"Oh," said Rainbow. She'd been afraid of that, as it seemed more likely than mythical monsters. She also knew that this would be seen as more of a shame in the older families than it was among most Pegasi. And that families sometimes took such shames out on the innocent products of such illicit unions. "That must've been ... rough."

Fluttershy nodded, still refusing to show her face.

"My father ... hated me," she said. "The only way I could have made him love me was to be brave ... fast ... fearless ... all the things that you are, Rainbow. But the more he hated me, the more worthless I felt ... the more I just wanted to hide."

Rainbow saw tears dripping down beside the bowl of disregarded stew.

"You're not worthless, Fluttershy," she said warmly. "You're -- we would have taken some knocks trying to get past that manticore without you. And there's no way we could have handled that dragon. And ... well, you're my friend. You've never been worthless to me, not even when we were just little fillies together. I've always cared about you."

Fluttershy lifted up her tearstained face and smiled, but it was only a half-smile. "I know you care," she said. "I've always known."

"Right," said Rainbow. "You aren't worthless just because your mom wanted to cheat on your dad. That wasn't your fault -- you weren't even alive yet! And if anyone says it's your fault, then they're just dumb!

"And as for being some sort of hell-spawned mythical monster, well that's just silly! Your mom was just losing it -- she was living in a fantasy world. You're a pegasus, just like me, you're just a bit unusual. You have different talents than me. So what? Not everyone can be me -- if they could, there'd be a heck of a lot of me around!"

She grinned, and after a moment Fluttershy's strange expression turned into a genuine smile.

Then Fluttershy frowned.

"Actually," she said. "About the mythical monster part?"

Rainbow looked at her inquiringly.

"That part may be ... well ... a little bit true."

Author's Note

Poor Fluttershy. She has ... parental issues.

Hmm, what lepidopteran life stage comes after "caterpillar?"

Chapter 3: Chrysalis

Rainbow Dash did a double-take.

"What?" she asked, guffawing. "I mean, how can that even possibly and remotely be true?"

"Don't laugh!" cried Fluttershy, hiding her face again.

"Well come on, Fluttershy," Rainbow pointed out more calmly. "You're no mythological monster!"

Silence.

"I'm sorry," said Rainbow. "I'm sorry that I laughed. But how can you be anything but a pegasus?"

"Ididn'tsayI'mnotapegaus" came a very small voice from under the forest of silky pink hair.

"What?" asked Rainbow, leaning in closer. "I can't hear you."

"Ididn'tsayI'mnotapegaus" Fluttershy repeated.

"No, really, 'Shy," said Rainbow Dash. "I'm not kidding. I really can't hear you. You're doing that squeaky little voice thing that you sometimes do when you're really --"

"I DIDN'T SAY I'M NOT A PEGASUS!" Fluttershy's head came up as she screamed that phrase. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.

"Ahh!" cried Rainbow, recoiling in pain, ears going all the way back and hooves covering them as she fell away from the sonic barrage. "Okay, so you agree with you that you're not some kind of monster!"

"Well, mostly," said Fluttershy in a more normal tone.

"What do you mean?" asked Rainbow.

"My mother believed in, well, flutter-ponies."

Rainbow covered one hoof, suppressed the urge to burst out laughing.

"Uh -- you mean those little things that flitted around flowers ...?" she finally managed to say in a normal tone.

"No," said Fluttershy with emphasis. "Flutter-ponies. About the size of pegasi, a bit lighter built, but their wings weren't birdlike, they were more like, well, those of butterflies."

"Oh," said Rainbow Dash. A light dawned in her head. "Is that why she named you ..."

"Yes," said Fluttershy. "She thought that she had made love with a Flutter-Pony and I was one too."

"But, 'Shy, you have normal wings," pointed out Rainbow. "You're just a bit mixed ... um, upset, because your dad was mean and your mom was nuts. I've seen you from foalhood to marehood, and there's no way you're anything but a pegasus."

"I know that," said Fluttershy. "I can see myself in the mirror. But ... well ... there was the other story."

"What," asked Rainbow. "That dragons were going to eat you?"

"She said that only when she was in a very bad way," explained Fluttershy. "Well, most of the time, before the end -- when they took her away, I mean. No," she continued, "I mean the other story."

"What, about soul-sucking monsters?"

"Exactly," said Fluttershy. "Have you ever heard of -- well, buzzies?"

"What, that old nag's tale?" asked Rainbow Dash. "About mysterious flying things that pegasi only ever encounter when they're alone, or drunk, or both? All black, or black with a few bright stripes, wings like a bee's, and glowing green eyes?"

"Yes," she said. "Buzzies."

"But that's nonsense," said Rainbow. "Every time somepony reports a buzzy -- if anypony bothers to check it out -- it just turns out to have been some normal pegasus going about her business that the pony just saw from the wrong angle or something like that.. Anyway, you look even less than that than you do like a flutter-pony!"

"My mother used to tell me that they were shape-changers," Fluttershy said. "That they could read minds, and make themselves look like whatever somepony wanted to see. Take the forms of their loved ones, suck their souls, take them away and nopony would ever see them again." Her voice was breathless, frightened, her breathing hard.

"I see where this is going," said Rainbow Dash. "Your mother was claiming that whoever she ... whoever your real father was ... that it had been a buzzy taking the form of her old coltfriend. Which meant that you were really a buzzy, which made you a mythical monster. And the reason why you look like a pegasus to me is because you're a shapeshifter, looking like what I want to see. Right?"

"Um ... yes."

"All right then," said Rainbow Dash. A weird little voice in the back of her mind was wondering if this was actually a wise thing for her to say, but then if she listened to that voice on a regular basis, she knew she would be at least 20% less awesome. "If you're a buzzy, then show me your true form right now. Come on! I'm not scared!" She assumed a fighting stance, reared back, hooves ready to strike.

"I ... well ... I can't," said Fluttershy.

"Ah hah!" Rainbow cried triumphantly. "You can't because you are not a buzzy!" Wow, she thought. I can do deduction too! Twilight Sparkle, eat your heart out!

"I never claimed I could shape-change," Fluttershy protested. "I never claimed to be a buzzy. I'm saying maybe I'm part buzzy, but I came out mostly pegasus.

"Can you read minds?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"Well, no," admitted Fluttershy.

"Suck souls?"

"No ..."

"Then why do you think you're part buzzy?"

"Well," said Fluttershy. "I think I can tell when someone likes me a lot. And I think I can get stronger from it." She looked at Rainbow Dash. "Usually, I think, you like me a lot. And it makes me feel stronger. Right now ..." her eyes teared a little, "... I don't think you like me very much. I think you're ... well ... annoyed at me. Frustrated."

"Well ... agh! ... I mean ... of course I'm frustrated!" said Rainbow. "Fluttershy -- you're one of my best friends. Ever. In my entire life. I'm sca ... worried, too."

"Worried?" asked Fluttershy. "About me?"

"Yes!" said Rainbow. "Of course I am . You're telling me some crazy story about your mom mating with demons and you being part-demon and, well, I'm worried that maybe your mom being crazy affected you too, and maybe made you a little crazy. Am I making sense here?"

Fluttershy looked up at her, sadly. "Well," she said, "I suppose ..."

"I'm worried because I like you a lot, 'Shy," said Rainbow quietly. "I don't want you to go crazy, too."

"You really do care, Rainbow," said Fluttershy, her expression melting into happiness. "I'm sorry that I told you all these crazy things. I'm sorry I made you worry."

She hugged Rainbow, and Rainbow hugged her back.

Rainbow Dash loved Fluttershy, though she would never have used such a mushy word to describe their friendship. She held Fluttershy, and Fluttershy held her, and the love coming from Rainbow Dash was very strong and pure.

"I ... I feel better now ..." said Fluttershy, releasing Rainbow with what seemed almost a moral effort. "Stronger. More able to face reality."

"I'm glad," said Rainbow. "I'm sorry I laughed at first. I didn't know that you actually believed any of this, even a little. I'd never laugh at you, 'Shy. You know that."

"I know that. And I'm sorry too. For being too ... needy."

Rainbow yawned. "Wow," she said. "This trip took a lot out of me. Must've been working too hard on the Weather Patrol. I think I'll turn in early tonight." She stepped over to the tent, started to crawl in. "Gonna join me?"

"Oh ... no, not yet," said Fluttershy. "I talked too much ... I just want to sit out here and think a bit."

"Suit yourself," said Rainbow. "I'll probably be asleep by the time you come to bed."

She crawled into the tent, into her sleeping bag -- and was snoring loudly before a minute had passed.

***

Fluttershy looked at the stars in despair.

I thought she'd understand, she thought. She really does love me -- more than any other friend I've ever known. I thought she'd believe me.

Tears welled, slowly flowed.

Well, how could anypony believe me, she reflected. I'm a physically-normal pegasus. I can't change my shape. And I don't know if the real ... I don't want to think of them by that silly name ... I don't even know if they can read minds or suck out souls.

All I can do is feel the emotions of other beings, she said. Specifically, positive emotions. Friendship. Love.

And if I feel it, I can ... feed ... on it. I don't know exactly how. I just know that, in moderation, I can do it without hurting anypony. And it makes me stronger. Somehow.

I took too much from Rainbow, she thought. It was unexpected, after the anger. I think she was angry because she was afraid for me, wanted to help me, didn't know how.

Ponies are so complex. Animals are much simpler.

She sighed and looked toward the tent.

She'll be all right, Fluttershy thought. I've never really hurt anyone, just made them sleepy. I don't know if I can use this power to hurt someone. I know I don't want to hurt anyone. It would be horrid to hurt someone who loved me!

She considered, not for the first time, the irony of possessing an ability to drain the most from those she wished to hurt the least. She wondered if it was some kind of curse. Then, if maybe she deserved it because she was fundamentally evil.

But if I'm evil, how was I able to wield the Element of Kindness? she wondered. No. The power's not evil. It just is.

She speculated on whether or not it had something to do with The Stare. Surely I can't have multiple unconnected psychic abilities. She understood biology extremely well, and she knew that such would be evolutionarily improbable. On the other hand, she also knew that she lived in a world where mad metaponies periodically re-arranged pony heritage. So evolution might have nothing to do with it.

At least I'm free, she thought to herself. And will continue to be so, as long as I stay away from that horrible hill. She remembered that hill only too well. It still haunted her nightmares.

She had been around fourteen, had lived on her own for some years by that time. Her mother sometimes pleaded with her to come home, to come help protect her mother from the dragons she was sure were going to attack any day now. She usually refused such entreaties. Not only did she not want to spend time around someone who kept insisting that they were surrounded by monsters, who sometimes became terrifyingly violent, but she even less wanted to see anyone on her father's side of the family.

This time, though, her mother had claimed illness. Fluttershy feared that her mother might be dying. She wanted to make sure that if her mother was seriously sick, she got medical attention. In the last extremity, she did not want her mother to have to die alone.

Her mother was not dying. She wasn't even that seriously ill -- nothing worse than a bad cold. She was lonely, and Fluttershy found herself incapable of resisting her mother's need. So -- making arrangements to see that her animals would be cared for in the interim -- she spent a while with her again.

She heard the usual rants about the creatures. Only this time, perhaps because she was older and her mother felt that she deserved to know the details, perhaps because her mother feared that this might be the last chance she would have to recount them, her mother told her exactly where she had met the thing which she had claimed was the lover of her youth, and which had not really been a pony at all.

Deep in the desert -- she had a map -- there was an old hill. Once upon a time, her mother said, this had been a fertile plain. Then the world had changed, and the streams dried up, and the Sun and Moon gone strange, and the land become the desert it was today.

It was said that this hill had once been a home to the Flutter-Ponies. The legends did not go into details, but they had always been a shy and retiring race, and after some sort of curse had been put upon them they hid from the world forever. But it was also said that they had strange secrets.

Her mother had been a romantic sort of mare, and obviously back then already deeply unhinged. She flew alone to the hill without telling anyone where she was going. There, she said, she saw that the circle was crowned by standing stones, the ones that the legends said were older than the present Sun and Moon, older than the Age of Wonders, older perhaps even than Ponykind.

There she had an unexpected encounter. It had not been her old coltfriend, of that she was quickly certain, yet somehow she thought it was. And she had lain with him on the top of the old hill, between the standing stones; lain in adultery with a strange stallion chance-met in a wild place. Romantic, and deeply-unhinged, indeed.

Afterward, they remained together in the glow following love, and then he left, passing between the stones. She watched, dreamily, for she felt a strange lethargy, and then she found the energy to rise. And she saw him on the side of the hill, looking at a mesa beyond ...

And then he changed! In an instant his semblance was gone, and there was a black thing with bright green stripes, its carapace and wings like that of some impossible insect. As she watched in horror, it buzzed away toward the mesa, and into a cave there, into which it crawled and was gone.

A moment later her mother realized her own danger and also flew. For if there were things that monstrous, and living in secret, surely they would not treat well any Pony who spied them in their true forms. And she raced back home, and did not speak of it again ...

.... and then a month later, realized that she was with child. And a year later, gave birth to Fluttershy, after a gap of time that made her think that her husband had not been the sire. For a while she had managed to trick him, because it was remotely possible that Fluttershy had been born prematurely, a fact to which the child's overall physical weakness gave credence.

But eventually, her husband had suspected, when Fluttershy grew old enough that her features were more distinct, and it became obvious that the foal resembled her mother, but not at all her supposed father. And then came the accusations, and the arguments, and the separation. Fluttershy dimly remembered the last of it. She had just been old enough by then to become aware that her very existence was destroying her mother's marriage.

***

Fluttershy listened to this story, mostly in silence, for she was afraid that if she interrupted something she said would knock her mother completely off the track, onto something even madder and less plausible. Then, overcome by her own emotions, her mother had dozed off. Later, Fluttershy wondered if she herself had had something to do with her mother's curious lethargy. For though her mother was mad, her mother did truly love her, and listening to that story, Fluttershy had felt the need for strength.

She wondered to this day why she had taken the map. Why she had leaped from Cloudsdale and beat away southward, toward the desert, toward the very point outlined on the map. She certainly had no intention of meeting a demon-stallion, or laying with him, or bearing him a three-quarters demon daughter. She was, she thought, probably so innocent back then that the obvious peril had not even crossed her mind. Let alone the more sinister ones.

The desert fell away beneath her wings. She had rarely made a flight requiring such endurance, before or after. She was not a good flier -- it was one of her many sources of shame -- and she later thought disquietingly of her mother's somnolence, and what she might not have done to her in her own emotional turmoil.

She was not sure what she had expected -- or hoped -- to find. Surely not the menhir-crowned hill, surely not the cave-riddled mesa, leering out over the landscape like a maggot-eaten corpse. There was a strange sense of unreality in Fluttershy's mind as she landed on the hill, as if she had left the sane normality of Cloudsdale and Ponyville, indeed of all Equestria, behind her, and entered some nightmare realm in which the fantasies of delirium were as one with the realities of the sunlit day.

She landed on the hill. Was she insane? Perhaps she too, had been romantic, and more than a bit unhinged. She touched down gingerly, imagining that it might melt away beneath her hooves, vanish like a mirage.

It did not. The dry earth crunched under her feet. The desert wind whispered lonely through the time-eaten stones. Had they really stood here, been waiting here already when Equestria was founded, when the Pegasi migrated under the leadership of her illustrious ancestor, waited grinning and forlorn here back when the Cataclysm shook the Earth and the Age of Wonders vanished forever? Could they have been many millennia old, even then? Surely, nothing reared by Pony hooves was that old, was it?

Then she heard something.

It wasn't the wind. It wasn't the sand. It wasn't even sound, she realized fearfully, it was a voice, whispering in her mind. No, not a voice, for those sibilant, harsh, buzzing words surely issued out of no Pony vocal apparatus. Nor were they words in any Pony language she had ever learned or heard spoken. And that was not the worst of it.

The worst of it was that she could understand them.

Or at least some of them.

Pony, they said. Pegasus, mare, alone ... capture? they asked. Or feed?

She looked frantically all around her, but she could see no one. Yet the buzzing, rasping voices continued.

No, they said. Not pony. Not pegasus. Lifescent ... wrong.

Infiltrator? one of them asked. Hive ... rival? Kill?

She was terrified now, beyond logic, beyond reason. She turned, whirled, tried to peer in every direction. She could see nothing, no one, nothing but the stones, the hill, the mesa and its anomalously regular cave-mouths.

No, a voice said. Lifescent ... ours. Pony. Hybrid.

Unplanned. Danger. Kill?

There was a scuffing sound on the hillside. It did not seem to have been the wind.

Her eyes were huge, her muzzle foamed. She whimpered. She could feel her sanity slipping away ...

Wait, the voice said. Ask ... Queen. Ask ... Chrysalis.

The name, which was more a concept, triggered something deep within her, something she did not understand. Loyalty? Love? Belonging? Enthrallment? There was no proper Pony concept to describe what she felt. But on some level, deep inside, Fluttershy realized that if she yielded to this emotion, if she gave in, it would be the last free act of her entire life. She did not know why she knew this, or how she knew this, she just knew that it would be true.

Suddenly, her mind started working again. She leapt up onto a monolith with one smooth motion, then shrieked in stark horror as from this new perspective she suddenly caught a brief glimpse of two black-armored, blue-striped forms that scuttled out of sight behind the terrain. There was a scuttling behind her as well ...

She launched herself and flew. She flew as she never had flown before. The fatigue of her arrival was gone, replaced by fear at a level she had never previously known in her young life, a fear to which the fear of falling when she was a blank-flanked foal was mere intellectual worry in comparison. As she launched herself she heard a buzzing -- a buzzing from behind her, below her, she wasn't sure from where but she knew it was the hideous stridulation of great insect-like wings.

She did not look back. She did not dare to look back. She knew what creatures owned those wings, she knew that they wanted her, and she feared that if she looked back what she saw might stop her heart in an excess of primal fright.

She knew that, if the Flutter-ponies had ever lived near that hill, or in that mesa, they had been supplanted by something too terrible for her comprehension.

But that was still not the worst of it.

For, as she flew faster than ever before in her life, as the buzzing behind her began to fade with the excess of her speed, she felt a voice speak into her mind, a strong and clear voice, a female voice she understood full well.

Child, the voice said with a seemingly infinite kindness which she knew was a mask for cosmically-overwhelming evil, Come back. You are not a Pony. You are offspring of our Hive. You can have your true place here, as a new Princess serving the Queen. Serving me.

Chrysalis.

Remembering those words, Fluttershy shivered uncontrollably, in a manner which had absolutely nothing to do with the night. She knew she was not a brave pony. But she knew she was a pony. Not some horrible thing that lived in the wastes and drained pony lives. If that was what they did.

She remembered what she had done. She had shut her mind to the voice. She had severed whatever strange link she felt to the creature, killed whatever strange compulsion might enslave her to the monster who called herself Chrysalis.

She thought now that she knew what she had done. She had used The Stare. On her own mind.

She would never serve that thing. Never give up who she was.

She was Fluttershy, and within her was more than just the timid little filly who hid under her own hair. Deep within her she knew she was the daughter of proud Pegasi, ones who would never bend the knee to any tyrant.

She was Fluttershy. And she was free.

Author's Note

The "weird little voice" here is common caution, when you live in a world full of improbable creatures. But then, if Rainbow listened to that voice, she would be considerably less awesome.

Plus, Rainbow Dash never saw the Twilight Zone movie.

Chapter 4: Imago

Rainbow Dash dreamed.

She was alone in a void.

No, not alone. Something else was there with her.

Something terribly old, and unbearably evil.

Element ... it hissed. Alone .... threat ... prey?

Then she was with no transition galloping down a narrow stone corridor, so narrow that when she tried to spread her wings they brushed against the stone on both sides.

I can't fly! she realized in momentary panic. I have to run on my hooves!

The thing was behind her, she knew that. It was following her with slow, clumping steps, far outpaced by herself, and yet somehow it was gaining on her.

I can't escape! she realized in fear. It'll get me!

She knew that if it did it would do something terrible.

Then she realized something else.

Wait a moment, she asked herself. Why the buck am I running?

She whirled and faced the creature.

It was an amorphous mass of shadow, from which an unknown number of yellow-glowing eyes glared balefully at her, though she could not actually see them.

Ugly sucker, she thought and reared up on her hind legs, forelegs ready for action.

"I'm not scared of you!" she cried. "Come any closer and I'll put your lights out!"

The creature hissed. She caught some sort of foul exhalation from it, and it smelled like ... Nightmare Moon? No, not exactly the same, but similar, as if this were the Nightmare's cousin. It did not smell at all like Princess Luna.

She could catch its whispers.

No ... yet .... prey ... strong, the thing said. ... now ... wait ... later.

It retreated, but did not leave entirely.

She was in the void again. But it was somewhere out there.

She sensed a motion beside her. The dream partially faded, as she came closer to consciousness.

She could feel Fluttershy getting into her own sleeping bag, beside her.

'Shy, she thought happily as she smelled the familiar odor, so very different from that of the horror existing in her dream. She imagined that she could sense her mind, her dear heart. She felt warmth, love ...

Something shrieked in pain in the void, and fled in terror.

Then she passed into deeper slumber, and slept straight through till morning.

Of course, she forgot her dream.

***

Rainbow Dash awoke to the dawn light shining brightly on the tent, illuminating the narrow strip she could see through the front flap. Yawning, she crawled out of the tent, taking care not to disturb Fluttershy, who was still asleep.

Probably had trouble getting to sleep last night, Rainbow thought, after all those strange fantasies. Her parents really messed her up, between her dad blaming her for her mom cheating on him, and her mom telling her she was some kind of flutter-pony or nameless horror. I wish I could help her with that -- but if I tell her it's nonsense, I'll hurt her feelings. And if I pretend to believe it, I'll just be making things worse.

This was a deep psychological dilemma. Rainbow Dash did not do deep psychological dilemmas very well. She frowned, looking out at the tarn.

I could talk to someone who might understand this, she realized. Like Twilight! Twilight would know what to do!

But, she almost immediately realized, Fluttershy told me this in confidence. I don't know if she actually said "Don't go blabbing that I think I'm an inequine monster," but it's pretty obvious that when your foalhood friend tells you something like this, in her special place that she's never invited anyone else to see, that she means you to keep it a secret.

This was a deep moral dilemma. Rainbow Dash did not do deep moral dilemmas very well. She frowned some more.

Wait, I could talk to someone who's deeply moral! she realized. I could talk to Applejack!

No, wait. That runs into the same problem as telling Twilight. Except AJ would probably get mad at me for blabbing a friend's secret. That doesn't help.

Wow, I wish I could just fly really fast, or hit something. That's how I usually solve these kinds of problems. Something occurred to her. Oh yeah. I usually don't solve these kinds of problems.

She looked at the waterfall for inspiration. The waterfall burbled, but it didn't have any words of wisdom for her.

Or, I guess I could just keep on being Fluttershy's friend, and hope that whatever's making her think these crazy things just goes away. Like a cold. Ponies usually get over colds.

Yeah, that'll work! she thought happily. She looked up to the sky. Then she saw something.

She raced back toward the tent.

"Fluttershy!" she cried. "Come out! You've gotta get a look at this!"

The tent shook, as if a mare was scrambling out of a sleeping back and coming to her feet inside it, only then realizing that the tent wasn't tall enough to stand in. A moment or two later, two bleary blue eyes looked out through the tent flap, in a canary-yellow face framed by light pink hair.

"Whuzzat?" asked Fluttershy, with all the bright intelligence one would expect of a mare suddenly awoken from slumber.

Rainbow Dash pointed to the northeast, at the sky over the foothills.

"Look!" she said triumphantly. "Look!"

Fluttershy stumbled out of the tent. Then she looked at the sky.

At which point she came instantly awake.

"Oh, they're here!" she cried out in excitement. "They're here!" Her blue eyes shone with the reflected radiance of the rising Sun as she leaped into the sky in sheer joy, her wings beating happily as she rose to meet them.

Rainbow watched for a moment from the ground, utterly bewitched by her beauty and vitality. She passed before the rising Sun, and for a moment Rainbow almost thought she could see a radiant horn springing from her head, as if she were not Fluttershy but instead some new Alicorn. It was only a momentary illusion, but Rainbow remembered it, first in happiness. Much later she would have occasion to remember it in awe, and wonder just how fast she sometimes traveled.

But only for an instant, and then Rainbow leapt into the sky to join her, as the swarm of pink butterflies, their wings the same hue as Fluttershy's hair, as her Cutie Mark, rose above the hills, and a stream came down toward the tarn which was Fluttershy's own special place. The darkness of the night was banished, and the ecstasy of daylight surrounded the two Pegasi as they cavorted through the air, doing spirals in sheer exuberance around the descending butterfly stream.

***

Later that day, the two friends sat happily on the hillside, watching the swarm of butterflies flitting around the tarn, sampling the flowers with their long tongues, mating on the wing.

"They ... are ... awesome." said Rainbow Dash. "But listen ... you can't tell anyone that I'm being all mushy about this. Because I have to consider my reputation for absolute coolness. Understand?"

Fluttershy giggled.

"Your secret is safe with me," she promised. "None shall know that you liked the butterflies."

A thought struck her.

"Oh, and ..."

"Yes?" Rainbow asked.

"You don't need to tell anyone either about all that silly stuff I said last night about madness, and monsters," Fluttershy said. "I know I was just reacting to all the strange things my mother has said over her lifetime. I know that I'm me," she said, "Fluttershy, a pegasus -- not some sort of changeling demon out of horror tales. I'm who I want to be, and I'll always be your friend."

Rainbow smiled. Obviously the psychological cure by friendship technique had worked perfectly. And ponies paid good money to see psychiatrists! She felt very superior at that moment.

"Sure, 'Shy," promised Rainbow. She looked at Fluttershy, and grinned widely. "And I'll always be your friend, too. I'd love you just the way you were even if you were some kind of monster."

Fluttershy looked incredibly happy.

"That's wonderful, Rainbow," she said. She smiled warmly at her friend.

"After all," Fluttershy concluded. "I need love."

END.

Author's Note

The "imago" is the butterfly's adult form.

And how's that for a warm and fuzzy ending?

Till next time ...