A Special Place

Moonlight shone through a window of the Golden Oak Library, illuminating the slumbering ponies laying on the floor. Various debris littered their space: bits of confetti, a few candy wrappers, some tossed-aside volumes of a lurid nature. Fortunately, the moonlight disturbed nopony their sleep, each breathing softly through her dreams.

Not that all of them were sleeping.

Fluttershy popped an eye open, carefully scanning her friends for any signs of stirring. Applejack rolled onto her side, but the orange earth pony made no moves otherwise. All the other ponies remained stationary, only the slight heaving of their chests indicating they were still alive. With great care, the yellow pegasus picked herself up and began to trot quietly towards the door, cautiously stepping over her dormant comrades…

“Mmh, Fluttershy,” Pinkie Pie squeaked.

Fluttershy froze in her tracks. Oh, feathers, she thought, heart beginning to race. She quickly ran every conceivable excuse through her brain: she was going to get some fresh air; she had to leave early, Angel was having heart problems; she needed–

“Fluttershy, don’t put that there. Gummy’ll eat it, and then his tummy’ll hurt, and then I’ll be sad…” the pink earth pony slurred, rolling over in her sleep. Fluttershy let out a quiet sigh of relief, slinking across the rest of the way and carefully slipping out the door. Her pace picked up once she was out of the library, going to full gallop once she was a good distance away. She only paused for a second to make sure nopony was following her, quickly resuming her gallop out of Ponyville, towards the Everfree Forest.

***

“Something’s up with Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash told Twilight Sparkle two days before. “She keeps disappearing, and whenever I see her, she looks tired.”

“Did you ask her about it? Maybe she’s just working extra-hard with her animals lately.”

“No, I came to you first because I think she’s a Changeling spy,” Dash rolled her eyes. “Of course I asked her! She said she was doing ‘chores,’ and wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

“And you don’t believe her?”

“Well, I asked if I could help out, since it takes her, like, forever to get her ‘chores’ done, and she said she didn’t want any. And like I said, she won’t tell me anything about what these ‘chores’ are!” Dash huffed, folding her forelegs across her chest.

“I’ll talk to her, don’t worry,” said Twilight, placing a hoof on Dash’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Good luck with that,” Dash mumbled, taking off to arrange some clouds.

Later that day, Twilight did go to see Fluttershy, finding the latter at her house. As the yellow Pegasus emerged, Twilight noticed her eyes had grown bags underneath, and her hair was ill-kempt and tousled.

“Uh, hi,” Twilight said, meekly raising a hoof.

“Heh, hi,” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Um, Rainbow Dash wanted me to talk to you. She said you’ve been disappearing lately, and she’s worried.”

“Yeah, I -yawn- remember. But I have, y’know, chores to do.”

“Chores in the middle of the night? You look like you could use some sleep. Maybe I could-”

“Please,” Fluttershy whined. Twilight looked on in mild amazement. Fluttershy almost never interrupted someone, unless she absolutely felt it was necessary…

“We’re just worried about you, that’s all,” Twilight finally said. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t need any help?”

“Y-yes, yes I am,” Fluttershy nodded, rubbing her eyes.

“Ok,” Twilight mumbled, mulling things over as she turned to leave…

“Actually, I was gonna ask if you wanted to come to a slumber party!” she said suddenly.

“Oh? When?”

“A couple days from now. I just thought, y’know, we’ve haven’t really had a proper hang-out lately, so why not make one!”

“I dunno, Twi,” said Fluttershy, eyeing Twilight with suspicion. "Applejack told me about the last time you tried to have a sleepover…”

Twilight chuckled with embarrassment. “Heh, well, I promise a tree won’t crash through the roof this time, ok?”

“Ok, I guess,” Fluttershy yawned.

“You just try to get some sleep,” said Twilight, patting Fluttershy’s shoulder a bit, before trotting off to other matters.

***

As the sleepover approached, Twilight busied herself with her plan. Procuring a butterfly-shaped hair clip from Rarity, the lavender alicorn set to work enchanting it with a tracking spell. She had Spike test the clip by carrying it around Ponyville, and when satisfied she could sense and follow it anywhere, Twilight moved on to phase 2: get the clip onto Fluttershy's mane. She mixed the clip into a bag of sundry goodies; during the party, she gradually doled the tchotchkes out to the partygoers as they won various games, like Pin the Tail on the Pony or Musical Cushions. There was just one problem: Fluttershy had yet to win a single game. She was too meek to complain, of course, while Twilight became increasingly tense as the night wore on. The alicorn took nervous glances at the clock; with one hour to go before bedtime, Twilight had to hatch a desperate plan.

“Hide and seek, everypony!” she declared.

“Hide ‘n seek? Where the heck’re we gonna hide?” Applejack snickered.

“Here,” Twilight began, zapping each of her guests and herself with a spell. “Choose an object in this room, and you’ll blend into it, so to speak.” She demonstrated by touching a stray pencil, her form melting into the pencil’s surface for a second. “Fluttershy!” said Twilight as she rematerialized. “Why don’t you have a go? No offense, but you haven’t won anything yet.”

“Oh, I’m ok with that,” Fluttershy insisted quietly.

“C’mon, Flutterbutt!” said Rainbow Dash, delivering a noogie upon Fluttershy’s scalp.

“Mmph, ok, fine,” Fluttershy squeaked. With that, she closed her eyes and began counting, while everypony else bolted towards their chosen object, phasing into their structures as Twilight demonstrated. As Fluttershy whispered “Ten!” she opened her eyes, the room apparently empty. However, she could hear a soft voice in the corner of her ear, so to speak. Her head swiveled about as she tried to locate the source, even as it sounded like it was growing closer.

Fluttershy let out a quiet gasp as she realized where the voice was coming from: her own head.

Fluttershy whined in her thoughts.

thought Fluttershy, sighing.

One by one, Twilight directed Fluttershy to the other partygoers, although once she’d found Pinkie Pie, the rest of them were quickly exposed. With Fluttershy finally victorious, Twilight could place the hair clip into her mane, the butterfly actually flapping its wings to everyone’s amusement. As the yellow Pegasus leaned in to hug Twilight, the latter found her heart sinking – or rather, plummeting – into her gut. Here she was, doing her friend an apparent kindness, all in the name of violating her privacy. Maybe she really was just doing chores, and Twilight was just setting herself up for a terrible falling out…

No! Twilight thought to herself, as she looked into Fluttershy’s baggy eyes. If she were just doing chores, why wouldn’t she tell anypony what they were? And besides, she’s not getting enough sleep because of this; she could seriously hurt herself at this rate!

Finally, sleeptime came, and everypony found some comfortable spot in the library to lay themselves to rest. Twilight pretended to sleep, as she suspected Fluttershy was doing, keeping her senses trained on the hair clip. After an hour, Fluttershy picked herself up and carefully snuck out of the library, apparently unaware she was being tracked. Twilight waited until she sensed the clip leaving Ponyville, then teleported herself to a spot about seven meters away from Fluttershy, continuing after her friend on hoof.

Fluttershy inadvertently led Twilight through the Everfree forest, until the alicorn could feel the clip’s movements halt. Twilight lit her horn for a moment, before remembering the secretive nature of her mission. She quickly put the horn’s light out, and instead focused her vision down to the infrared spectrum. Through this grayscale filter, Twilight snuck the rest of the way with nary a sound. She could feel herself getting close; just a few more meters and she’d be within eyesight of Flutter–

ROOOOAAAARGH!