Tea Party For Two (Take II)
Flames. The once beautiful, peaceful, innocent town of Ponyville...now in flames. How many pony lives had ended at her hands, Fluttershy wondered. How could this have happened?
He was turning now, shooting downwards towards Fluttershy, ready to finally fulfill his revenge. Fluttershy knew death was upon her, and there would be no escaping it this time. There would be no miracle, no thorn to remove, and kindness was but a cruel joke to her now.
In Fluttershy's last moments, she reflected on how it had ended up this way. Amazing how so much tragedy could unfold from a tea party.
Her friends gone to the dragon migration, Fluttershy had felt so much safer at home. So far away from the tragedy that was now unfolding. She was in the middle of a peaceful tea party with her animal friends, pouring herself some chamomile (her favorite) tea and talking to her friends, when she heard the sound of wing-beats, far off at first, but growing in intensity and volume. Fluttershy recognized the sound immediately, and ran for shelter as soon as she could. She tried her hardest to get her animal friends to calm down and follow her into her cottage, but they were panicking so much that only a few followed her.
"Please!" She screamed. "Don't stay out there! Come into the cottage where its safe! Please!" Despite her loud shrilling, her animal friends refused to comply, too frightened to think rationally. They continued to dash about, knocking over her meticulously set picnic table which meant nothing to her anymore.
Fluttershy didn't want to leave them out there, but she didn't have a choice anymore. She locked the cottage door frantically behind her and dashed under the table as the ground shook. He was here.
"Hello, Yellow One." His voice came, furious and booming. "Come out...you should know its unkind to leave your guests...unattended."
Fluttershy gulped and sat shivering under her kitchen table.
"You seemed so brave back at the cave. So fearless. Where are your friends now, Yellow One?"
Fluttershy thought of her friends, ironically much safer from being dragon-food than her right now.
"Ponyville will burn if you do not let me kill you, Yellow One. Do you think I care about your pathetic pony lives?"
She knew he was right. She knew there was only one way she could save Ponyville from his unstoppable force of destruction. Fluttershy took one last look around her cottage, her few animal friends, her eyes finally resting on Angel Bunny, desperately begging her not to go out. For the first time Fluttershy could remember, he was crying.
"I'm sorry, Angel Bunny. Mommy will be..." She sniffled, trying her hardest not to cry herself. "Mommy will be right back, honey. Just stay safe in here. Mommy will be fine."
With that, Fluttershy opened the door to her cottage and crossed the yard where he was waiting by the picnic table.
"Please...please don't attack Ponyville. It's me you're mad at, right? Don't hurt anypony else..."
"You have the audacity? You have the audacity to think your words can shake me from my desires to make you feel the pain you deserve? You think I am so foolish as to assume your own pathetic life matters to you?"
Fluttershy was crying now, continuously repeating 'please' between her sobs.
The dragon looked down at her with disgust, before taking off in the direction of Ponyville.
"No!" Fluttershy screamed. "Stop! You...you big bully!"
Fluttershy tried her stare, like last time, but he wasn't facing her in the slightest. It would never work. She tore of across the sky towards him, flying her fastest...still significantly slower than even the smallest bit of effort the Red Dragon needed to cross the Ponyville Outskirts. Fluttershy continued to watch in horror as he spewed flames across the town, the delicate buildings in Ponyville burning and collapsing like paper, ashes coating the ground like snow, ponies screaming. So much death...at her own hands.
Ponies ran from the burning buildings, trying to navigate their way out of the maze of fire. Many were crushed by the falling buildings. Many others ran frantically about, their coats on fire. Fillies and colts cried over the flames, and right then Fluttershy no longer wanted to be alive to witness such horror.
Fluttershy knew deep inside that the dragon had no mercy. She had managed to reduce this very same dragon to tears, but not this time. The shame he undoubtedly experienced from his colony upon his return, the embarrassment of being bossed around by a pathetic pegasus, the long, cold nights spent looking for someplace to sleep. In the mind of a ferocious dragon, the lives of ponies meant nothing to him. He would exact his revenge before returning to his colony and leaving this unaccommodating land once and for all.
Ponyville now on flames, the dragon turned back towards Fluttershy, who landed when she saw him approaching. He landed, too, facing her with a malicious grin stretching across his ferocious maw.
"Remember, Yellow One. You caused this. You and your friends, who assume reign over a land that you yourself have previously stipulated belongs to all living creatures. For a creature of kindness, you certainly had no qualms about banishing one of natures more perfect creatures from a land that you have no power over."
"I'm...I'm sorry." Fluttershy begged. "Please...no more..."
The dragon looked at her, his grin only growing larger. He examined his work one last time, smiling at the burning town. Suddenly, he began soaring high into the air, before turning back around and darting downwards to finally fulfill his revenge upon these wretched ponies.
Fluttershy closed her eyes as death descended down upon her.