THE FOREST IN THE LIVING ROOM
By Lucky Dreams
PART ONE
In which Rainbow Dash can’t put her fears into words — The filly in the darkness —
A blizzard — The forest howls — “It’s gonna die anyway” — An unwelcome visitor
Rainbow Dash had trouble keeping the impatience out of her voice. “Easy now, Fluttershy. Carefully. Carefully.”
It was the evening of the last scheduled snowstorm before Hearth’s Warming, and it was going to be a doozy, a blizzard of incredible proportions—what better way to celebrate the seventy-fifth annual Ponyville Hearth’s Warming pageant than with all the snow a pony could wish for? And it wouldn’t be long, now. Fearsome looking clouds were gathered in the sky, and even the Everfree Forest, with its own notorious, fickle weather system, seemed keen to join in on the action: there, the snow had already started. It blanketed the mountains far in the distance, transforming them into towering masses of white. It weighed down the branches of trees. It carpeted the entire forest before stopping abruptly right beside Fluttershy’s cottage, where, at that moment, Rainbow Dash was helping her friend move certain pieces of garden furniture into her home before the snow had a chance to bury them.
Sweat trickled down Fluttershy’s brow as she struggled with a large dog house, the other side of which was being lifted by Rainbow Dash. “You’re doing great,” Rainbow said, panting under the dog house’s weight. “That’s it. A few more steps.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold on,” Fluttershy said.
Rainbow laughed. “After you looked a dragon in the eyes and calmed a manticore, you’re gonna let a dog house get the better of you? Sheesh. Keep it together. Just a little further.”
Rainbow hadn’t, however, counted on the patch of ice in Fluttershy’s way. A second later, the yellow pegasus slipped spectacularly, yelping as her side of the house crashed to the floor. Before one of her hooves was crushed, Rainbow let go and leapt out of the way—
Smack!
She crashed face first into a tree. Fluttershy gasped. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! I’m so sorry. Are you O.K?”
Rainbow Dash groaned. She looked at the house lying on its side, and then, rubbing her head, glared at Fluttershy. “Yeah,” she said. “Never better.”
She dusted herself off, her expression determined. It was a look to let Fluttershy know that they couldn’t, on their honour as ponies, be defeated by a dog house.
Except...
Except Fluttershy wasn’t paying it any attention anymore, and she gave no notice to Rainbow when the blue pegasus waved a hoof in front of her face and said, “Hellooo? Anypony in there? What are you looking at, Fluttershy? What?”
Turning around, Rainbow’s jaw dropped as she saw straight away ‘what’: where not even an hour ago there had been nothing but grass underneath the tree, there was now the most beautiful plant growing there (had she fallen two hooves to the left, it would have been ruined).
That it was growing in the dead of winter was in itself a miracle, but even if it had been spring and all the other flowers had been in bloom, one look would have been enough to tell that this was no ordinary plant. The stem and the leaves were a deep gold, so close to the real thing that it would’ve been easy to mistake it for the actual precious metal itself; it was the flower, however, which entranced, for fifty ponies could’ve searched the world for fifty years and not have discovered anything half so wondrous. It was so delicate that the two ponies caught themselves thinking that just looking at it would be enough to damage it. The petals were brilliant orange. They were speckled with every sort of yellow and brown and red, and the specks were so vivid that they appeared to be dancing all over the flower, making it look as though it was on fire.
“What... what is it?” said Rainbow Dash, voice trembling. A smile crept over Fluttershy’s face.
“Oh, isn’t it wonderful?” she replied as she knelt down to take a closer look. Rainbow shook her head. Chomping down on Fluttershy’s tail, she dragged her away from the plant, away from its intoxicating smell, like an entire bed of white lilies rolled into one.
“What d’you think you’re doing, huh?” Rainbow snapped. “You don’t know what it is or where it came from! What if it’s dangerous? This is like, magic and stuff, so let’s get Twilight over.”
For a second, Fluttershy wondered whether to bring up the irony that Ponyville’s most reckless pegasus was lecturing her—her—about keeping her snout out of danger... but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, for the idea of saying something so assertive was enough to make her blush. Besides: a few moments ago, her friend had been laughing, joking, and beaming as she had helped carry in the last few pieces of furniture; now, her eyes were wide and she was visibly shaking. Something about seeing the bravest pony she knew quiver with fear, and because of a flower no less, was enough to make Fluttershy’s stomach churn...
Fluttershy bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash. Um, I’ll get Twilight to look over it first thing in the morning, but it’s going to spend the night in the house.”
Rainbow blinked. “What? Are you crazy?! It came outta nowhere, it... it...” She stamped a hoof, frustrated that she couldn’t put into words what it was that had her so spooked. Fluttershy gulped.
“What are you worried about?” she asked.
“Me, w-worried?” said Rainbow. “Hah! But don’t ya think you should just leave it? Why does it have to come in with you?”
Fluttershy avoided her friend’s eyes. “I can’t leave it in the snow to die, not when I can help it.”
“But it’s just a dumb flower, it’s gonna die anyway. Why waste the effort?”
Rainbow peered at the flower with the air that it was a bomb ticking down to zero. Fluttershy sighed. Was it worth explaining that she had never seen a plant like this? Would Rainbow understand? Fluttershy wanted to believe that, with her competitive streak, Rainbow would understand the value of being one of a kind, of being like nothing else in the whole world. Then again, she also wanted to believe that she wouldn’t be freaked out by a flower, albeit one so out of the ordinary.
“I’m really sorry, Rainbow Dash,” she said after a pause, “but... but I’m afraid I’m putting my hoof down. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. Please don’t be mad at me.” Fluttershy raised a hoof, and brought it back down again gently but firmly. It was Rainbow’s turn to sigh.
“Well, whatever,” she said in an attempt to appear cool, though the shiver in her voice betrayed her nerves. “But ya know it’s not like the stupid plant has feelings though, right? It ain’t gonna thank you for this.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Fluttershy thought for a second, biting her lip. “Just because it doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t mean it’s not special. It’s the right thing to do.”
The answer earned her another snort from Rainbow, but Fluttershy’s mind was set. She trotted into the house to fetch a shovel and a pot. A gust of wind blew Rainbow’s mane as she stood with her back to the plant, refusing to give it a second look.
And the first flakes of snow started to fall.
Blue skies and bright sunshine don’t always result in pleasant days.
The sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen; yet it was so humid that the two little pegasus fillies felt as though the very air itself had turned on them, as though hurt they had abandoned the open sky in favour of the ground. The air weighed down on them, making them sluggish, reminding them that pegasi were meant to fly, were meant to stretch their wings and soar to their heart’s content. “Where are we even going to, anyway?” asked Rainbow Dash in between deep, exhausted breaths. A pang of guilt struck Fluttershy. She was aware that only for her and her alone would her friend ever agree to come down to the ground like this, and that again, only for her would she agree to walk the rest of the way instead of fly.
“Oh, you’re going to love it! It was the most wonderful place,” Fluttershy told her, glancing at her cutie mark: it was of three pink butterflies arranged in a triangle. Less than two days old, it was already the pride and joy of her life, and she was desperate, simply desperate to share her talent with somepony else—thank Celestia for Rainbow Dash. “Um, it was somewhere in those woods over there. There was a pool.”
Rainbow perked up. “A pool? Mind if we go swimming?”
Fluttershy giggled. “We could meet the little fishies! Oh, but... do you think they’d mind us being there? What if they don’t? I’d hate to think I was being a pain...”
Rainbow didn’t answer, and if the humidity hadn’t already painted her cheeks red, then her face would have burned up. Forget about worrying over the fish; they hadn’t even reached the woods yet, and she was already being a pain! “Sorry Rainbow. I um... I know you don’t care about this stuff, but it’s very important to me, and it’s... um...”
Fluttershy stopped in her track, a few feet short of the treeline. Rainbow must have stopped as well; she couldn’t hear her. “R-Rainbow?”
She turned around to look at Rainbow.
She was greeted with a nightmare.
Not only had Rainbow Dash vanished, but so had everything! The trees were gone. The grass was gone. Everything was shrouded in blackness, everything that is apart from the strange new pony that had taken Rainbow’s place, a tiny filly that, whilst not exactly a new-born foal, was nonetheless some several years younger than herself. She had a white coat which seemed to shine in the darkness, and her mane and tail were a ghostly, silvery blue. She was staring at her hooves, her long mane covering her face.
“H-hello?” said Fluttershy, but the filly didn’t answer. Fluttershy gulped, her stomach cold, and though only seconds had passed she had managed to have forgotten all about Rainbow Dash and the animals in the woods; and looking at this silent filly was making the hair on the back of her neck prickle. There was no grass beneath Fluttershy’s hooves. There was no sky above her head. It was just her and the filly, and the dim sense that there was something monumentally important that she had forgotten...
“Hello?” Fluttershy said again. “Um, I’m sorry, but did you see where my friend went?”
At last, a response! Fluttershy’s heart raced as the filly lifted up her head and their eyes met—
Dead, cold eyes devoid of life. Fluttershy let out a scream which nopony could hear, and—
She woke up with a start, her brow drenched in sweat. “It’s O.K, it’s alright,” Fluttershy whispered, hugging herself as if to say that yes, she was really here, and in her own real bed where she was safe. “Oh goodness, what a horrible dream that was...”
There was an itch at the back of her mind, a small voice saying the things she wouldn’t dare say out loud. That was more than just a dream.
“No,” she said to herself firmly. “You’re tired, Fluttershy, that’s all. It was a nasty, spiteful dream, and it was nothing more than that.”
But those eyes, replied the voice in her mind. They looked so real. That was more than a dream and you know it.
“No it wasn’t, and no I don’t.”
You’re not alone tonight. Nothing is as it seems. There’s something else in the house with you.
“Well of course I’m not alone!” Fluttershy snapped at the voice. “My precious Angel’s here to watch me, aren’t you Angel?”
Suddenly, she felt remarkably awake. She flicked on the lantern beside her bed. Angel, her bunny rabbit, was sitting up on a heap of pillows underneath the window, his head titled and his face a mask of confusion. Fluttershy laughed nervously. “Um, did I wake you up? I’m so sorry if I did.”
She watched Angel’s eye twitch as he attempted to make sense of the situation, and to try figure out who in Equestria she had been talking to. Eventually though, he sighed, before settling back down on the pillows and closing his eyes once more.
Fluttershy switched off the lantern. She wished that she too came with a built in off button.
The room was cold. Each breath she took misted in front of her face, and as she lay there in bed, rubbing her forelegs together, she listened to the snowstorm batter her house and her window; it was exactly as promised, the blizzard of the century. The curtains were drawn but she could imagine it so clearly, all the snow covering her garden and the brook frozen over. And not that she was ever lacking for peace and silence, but it wasn’t the same as after the snow, it wasn’t as magical—it was special, delicious silence that nothing else could compare to. The brook didn’t babble. The birds didn’t tweet. It was the closest the world came to switching itself off, and even the colours were muted, all white and grey after the blazing tones of autumn.
Fluttershy frowned. Any other night, the promise of such delights would’ve been enough to soothe her to sleep, but tonight, something was different. She could see those eyes staring at her every time she shut her own, white eyes with no pupils, pure white, whiter than snow. Try as she might to convince herself she was being silly, she still couldn’t shake the thought that she was being watched, and not by Angel...
She screwed up her eyes.
Across the room, the filly from her dream stared unblinking. A shadow crept over her, a shadow made from pure malevolence and deep, deep evil. It enveloped her, covered her like a blanket—
Fluttershy shot up once more, batting the air in an attempt to shake the shadow off of her; except, there was no shadow. It was in her head. It was all in her head. “You’re being silly,” she told herself. “Silly filly. There’s nothing to worry about. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Fluttershy lay down, resigning herself to the fact it was going to be one of those nights, the ones which never seemed to end.
... And that’s when she heard it.
It rose over the sound of the snow pounding her windows, and even above the wind wailing through the trees like a gaggle of banshees: howling like none she had ever before, and like none she wished to hear again. It cut right through her. She could practically feel the teeth sinking through her, tearing her skin, stabbing through her heart.
The howl didn’t belong to a wolf, Fluttershy was sure of it. But what else could it have been? Bears didn’t howl. Neither did manticores, or any other of the fearsome beasts that called the Everfree Forest their home: basilisks, dragons, sphinxes, chimaeras. The howl felt dangerous, raw, almost elemental, as though the Everfree itself was the one howling, the spirits of the trees, the soul of the forest. It was a disturbed, wild sort of noise. And the creature, whatever it was, was obviously in such tremendous agony that merely hearing its howling was enough to make Fluttershy share in its pain...
After what felt like too long, the howling died down. When Fluttershy sat up once again, she did it slowly, as though any sudden movements would be an invitation to be pounced upon by monsters lurking in the shadows of her room. Her gaze drifted towards the curtains. Something warm brushed against her leg.
“Eeep!”
Leaping out of bed, Fluttershy ended up in a heap on the floor. She glanced at her bed to catch a glimpse of her attacker. It was small and fluffy, and with long pointy ears...
Her heart calmed a little, and she sat up. “A-Angel?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
It was. The rabbit hopped off the bed, and a weak smile broke out over her face. “Angel, you scared me! Um, I’m really sorry, but you simply must promise not to do that again.”
Angel nodded. Fluttershy wrapped a foreleg around her rabbit, and he snuggled closer to her, burying his face in her coat; it was only then that the pegasus stopped to consider how strange this was. To be sure, Angel always slept in the same room as her, sometimes even abandoning his pile of pillows in order to join her on the bed, however that was as far as it usually went. Angel didn’t like being stroked. In particular, he didn’t enjoy hugs, so for him to seek one out, and to be shaking and for his fur to standing on end... it was unheard of. Angel was many things, however, a wimp he was not...
Fluttershy’s breath quickened. Her heart beat faster. First it had been Rainbow Dash with the flower and now it was Angel with the howling, and as she sat there she could almost hear her friend’s confident, self-assured voice. Me, w-worried? Hah!
The howling cut through the night once again. Angel shivered. Fluttershy’s heart sank as any hope that this was in her imagination melted away like snow in sunlight.
“There, there, Angel. It’s alright. It’s nothing to worry about. You’ll see.”
She clutched Angel harder than ever. Outside, the dreadful howling stopped.
But the silence which followed was worse.
It had always baffled Fluttershy how ponies could be scared of spiders—what was more adorable than a sweet furry tarantula with cute legs and a funny little face?—yet scared they were, and she even knew a few such ponies. They always told her the exact same thing: if you knew there was a spider in your room, it was better to know exactly where it was. Once, Celestia forbid, you lost track of it, then it could have been everywhere and nowhere at the exact same time. The thought would eat at you, chipping away piece by piece. Was it under the bed? Was it in the bed, waiting to bite you when you went to sleep? Was it hiding on the shelves? The bookcase? In the cupboard?
Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy placed Angel on the floor (with difficulty, for he was holding on as hard as his paws would let him) and slowly, slowly, walked over to the window. She opened the curtains. She unlocked the window and shut her eyes.
“There... two... two and a half... two and three quarters... one.”
With that, she opened her eyes once more and then opened the window, because as much as she longed to dive under her blanket and spend the rest of the night there in a quivering heap, she had to be sure. Where was the howling coming from?
The first thing which struck her was that if it had been chilly in the bedroom, then it was nothing compared to outside. In all her life, Fluttershy had never experienced cold like this. It went beyond normal winter weather. The snow blew in her eyes, and the wind was a thousand knives digging into her coat. In the gloom, she could make out huge banks of snow piling up around her house, and snow blanketed her garden, snow everywhere, everywhere was snow; and thank Celestia she had let the chickens sleep the kitchen tonight for the coop was completely buried, and she was sure that, come morning, the dog house would have been lost under an ocean of white. Though Fluttershy reminded herself that the weather team had promised, it was hard to shake a stubborn, troubling thought from her mind. This wasn’t normal weather. This wasn’t normal at all.
The howling started again, and if there had been any doubts about it than they were swiftly banished. The Everfree. Of course it was coming from the Everfree.
Slam.
Fluttershy squealed as the window smacked shut: it was Angel. He gave her a look cold enough to freeze fire, and though he couldn’t talk, he didn’t need to, for the question on his face was as clear as daylight. What do you think you’re doing?!
“I’m sorry Angel, but I had to make sure. What if there was a monster just outside?” She shivered at the idea. “Why, we would’ve had to have brought all the chickens upstairs, and fast!”
As if they knew they were being talked about, the chickens downstairs sent something crashing to the floor—a plate perhaps, or a mug—and the resulting smash made Fluttershy jump. “Oh dear,” she said. “I told them to be careful in—”
She paused, and Angel gave her a funny look as she rubbed her forehead, thinking to herself. The smash sounded as if it had come from the living room. By itself, that wasn’t so startling... not unless you ignored the fact that the chickens were locked in the kitchen.
That was more than a dream and you know it. You’re not alone tonight.
Stronger than ever, the sensation that of being watched returned, and every shadow concealed a ghostly presence, in every corner lurked a monster. She rushed to switch the lamp back on, fumbling with the switch and whimpering.
The lantern’s yellow light filled the room, illuminating the walls, the ceiling, and the floors. When she had done this a few minutes ago, it had calmed her, had tricked her into thinking that she was safe. But no more. Like the chicken coop buried under three feet of snow, just because she couldn’t see it, that didn’t mean it wasn’t there; somepony was in the room with them, she could feel it...
Fluttershy’s gaze fell upon the door. Though she remembered shutting it, it was slightly ajar, and the thin sliver of blackness stared back at her...
The howling had stopped. Now that she had noticed, she was uncomfortably, obsessively aware of it. Why wasn’t the creature crying in pain anymore? Unless, of course, that it no longer could, in which case Fluttershy had been the last pony to ever hear its call...
Something wet trickled down her cheek: her eyes were watering. As frightening as the beast had sounded, Fluttershy couldn’t bear the thought that she had heard the last moments of its life.
“Don’t even think it,” she warned herself. “Don’t even say it.”
She felt a tiny paw on her hoof. Angel was looking up at her, his eyes wide and fearful. Fluttershy drew herself up. “I’m... I’m going to go downstairs,” she said in an attempt to distract herself from the cold dread growing in the pit of her stomach. “And I’m going to bring all the chickens up here. I’m sorry this has been such an awful night, Angel, but it’ll be morning soon enough, and then we can sleep all day. Um, if that sounds alright with you.”
Though the fear lingered in his eyes, Angel nodded, and stood beside her with his paws on his hips, staring down the door.
There was a gust of wind, and the door opened a little more. Fluttershy stepped towards it.
She pushed it open.
“Hello?” she called out, quietly at first. “Hello? Um, if there’s somepony here, would you mind telling me? If it’s not too much trouble, I mean.”
There was a slapping sound: Fluttershy glanced behind her to find Angel with his paw over his forehead. And the only other response to her question was another smash as, downstairs, something else was knocked on the floor, and whereas before she had only been half certain it hadn’t come from the kitchen, this time there was no denying it. Somepony was in her living room. Or something.
Gathering her last scrap of courage, and replaying all the adventures she and her friends had ever been on over and over in her head—the time she had faced down a dragon for her friends, the time she had calmed a raging manticore—she crept down the staircase into the darkness. If there was a spider in the room, it was always best to know where it was.
And now Fluttershy stood by the light-switch, her insides frozen, and she trembled wildly. Before she could change her mind, she forced herself to switch the light on. “I’m sorry about this, but whoever’s here, I’m going to have to ask them to lea... to... to um...”
The sentence died in her throat, never to be completed. And Fluttershy’s jaw dropped.
It was the plant, the same one Rainbow Dash had reluctantly helped her carry into the cottage that evening. They had put it in a pot and had left it under the window by the front door. That had been seven hours ago. In that time, it hadn’t just doubled in size, but had more than tripled, quadrupled; in fact, it had overtaken the entire room turning it into a golden forest. Vines sneaked up the walls, overlapping with one another, criss-crossing and twisting and twirling, an intricate dance being carried out in extreme slow motion. The base of the plant was as thick as a tree and roots spread out over the floor, digging themselves between the gaps in the floorboards, and Fluttershy saw the smashed remains of two decorative plates, dislodged from above the fireplace by the rapidly growing plant; and golden creepers hung from the ceiling and stretched right the way down to the floor.
And golden leaves rustled in a draft, but once more it was the flowers that caught Fluttershy’s attention. Each one was every bit as bright and as brilliant as the first, but now there were dozens of them littered all over the room, some growing in bunches, and others solitary. So much orange and red and yellow! It made the room itself feel alive.
“What, what is this?!” Fluttershy said to nopony in particular, weak at the knees and threatening to collapse from the twin feelings of wonder and terror. Out of nowhere, Rainbow’s voice sounded in her head. It’s just a dumb flower, it’s gonna die anyway.
In spite of the fact her wrecked house and her broken sleep, Fluttershy couldn’t help but grin. If only Rainbow could see the plant now, see how it had flourished...
“But ya know it’s not like the stupid plant has feelings though, right? It ain’t gonna thank you for this.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“... Just because it doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t mean it’s not special. It’s the right thing to do.”
Doubt sneaked back into her mind, slimy and sickly. Fluttershy wondered if Rainbow Dash had been right all along, and had bringing the plant inside been the right thing to do? The answer had seemed so obvious. But look at what had happened! Her house was ruined, and for what? For something which couldn’t even thank her for saving it.
And then she thought about Angle upstairs shaking amoungst his pillows. She thought of her dear friends, and especially of Rainbow Dash; warmth spread through her body, and despite everything, it was enough to make her smile to herself, if only for a moment. She loved her friends. She loved them more than life itself.
And then she thought about that howling...
Fluttershy felt, for a moment, on the verge of throwing up, because how dare she lay in bed thinking the worst of some poor, suffering creature. If the plant was worth saving, then what made the beast any different? Everypony deserved the help of a friend when they were in need.
It could kill you, said her mind.
“But I should still be helping it.”
Look what happened when you tried to help a plant! Don’t be an idiot. Just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should.
For some reason, she imagined these last few sentences as if they were being spoken by Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy wanted to kick the plant in frustration. Why was she like this? Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone like every other pony who had ever existed? It was none of her business, some loathsome creature dying alone in the dark and the snow. Why was it always up to her to help others?!
Perhaps Rainbow was right. Perhaps it was time to change.
“Come on, Angel,” she said, unaware of the harsh tone which had entered her voice (the rabbit backed away slightly, unused to hearing her speak like this). “We shouldn’t stay here tonight, so let’s get the chickens and go to Twilight’s—she’s closest. She’ll let us... let us...”
She trailed off once more. She clutched onto the baluster at the bottom of the stairs, paralyzed, not knowing whether to scream or yell, run, shut her eyes, stay still and don’t move. She had been right! This whole time, she’d been right and she hadn’t been alone. There really had been somepony else in the house with her and Angel.
A ghost.
Not just any ghost, but the filly from her dreams.
She saw Angel at the top of the stairs, poking a worried face around the door. “It’s not a ghost, it’s not, it’s not!” she said looking at Angel, but it was much more for herself than the rabbit. “It’s a foal playing a trick on me! A prank...”
The excuse was flimsy and she knew it, and Angel gave her a ‘you-can’t-be-serious’ sort of look.
However, a new resolve was overtaking her, seizing control of her nervous energy, supressing it, shoving it to the corners of her mind where it couldn’t overwhelm her. Standing here wasn’t helping. If she was going to make sense of the situation, she would have to take matters into her own hooves; a frightful prospect, but she had had enough of being so scared all of the time, every single day, startled by every little thing—even though deep down she knew that there was nothing stopping her from being brave like Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy was no fool. She knew that Rainbow felt more fear than she let on, a lot more... but the difference between them was that Rainbow faced her fears, and worked through them. She didn’t let them control her.
The ghost wandered backwards, passing through the front door and into the blizzard. Fluttershy gulped and gulped again. She jogged on the spot and flicked her tail. “Alright,” she said under her breath. “Come on, Fluttershy. You can do this. Just take it easy, one step at a time.”
Not taking her eyes off the ghost, she crossed the living room, unlocked the front door and, after tearing the vines off it with her teeth, pushed it open—with the snow, this was more difficult than she had anticipated. For the second time that night, the cold ploughed into her with the ferocity of an artic storm. Flakes of snow blew into her cottage, the wind rattled picture frames, and it ripped leaves and flowers from the plant. Fluttershy paid these things no attention. All she cared about was that the trail of glowing hoofprints carried on through the snow, the garden, and past the fence. They kept on going, right into the Everfree Forest...
“I think it wants me to follow it, Angel.”
Angel hopped over to her and shook his head frantically, but Fluttershy’s mind was made up. Two different nights stretched out before her. In one of them, she surrendered to her instincts, and either rushed upstairs to spend the rest of the night shaking under the sheets or else she tossed Angel on her back and ran to Twilight’s, where, without a second to waste, she would climb into the guest bed and, again, spend until morning crying from fear.
... But in the other night, she wouldn’t allow fear to rule her life. She’d wrap up warm, follow the ghost into the woods and face whatever was waiting for her at the end of it. There had to be a reason the ghost wanted her to follow it. Maybe it was leading the way to the wounded creature. Perhaps somepony was in danger. It was this thought more than any other that caused her to make her choice. “If somepony really is out there then I have to go. Goodness! I’m sorry Angel, but it’s the right thing to do.”
Angel clutched her leg, and just then, something occurred to her: what was to stop her from getting extra help? With weather like this, running to Twilight’s and back might be a hassle, but if it meant not having to face the forest alone then it was more than worth it.
What if the ghost disappeared in the meantime? What if it didn’t want to be seen by anypony else, and would vanish if she brought along another pony to follow them? And assuming the ghost led to somepony who needed help, what if there wasn’t much time left? What if the wounded pony or animal needed help right away?
Or what if, Celestia forbid, this was actually a trap and the ghost was evil? Fluttershy wouldn’t forgive herself for leading somepony else into it...
She searched her mind for an excuse—any excuse at all—not to enter the forest alone, yet there was no way around it. This adventure was for her and nopony else. As it truly dawned on her that she was actually going to do this, her skin prickled with dread and excitement, horror and wonder. She about to enter the forest by herself, but it was night-time, and with the stormiest weather she had ever known...
“Stay here, Angel,” she said as she turned around, ripped off the vines which covered her coat rack and slipped on a woolly hat, a scarf, and a rugged, waterproof jacket, an early Hearth’s Warming gift from Applejack. The hoofboots were from Rarity, and they were as woolly and snug as they were stylish. The clothes didn’t fully block out the cold—with weather such as this, what could? But then again she liked the idea that what she was wearing had been given to her by her friends. In their own, small little way, they made her feel like she wasn’t alone.
This was it.
“Angel, stay in the house,” she said as the rabbit followed her outside. Angel stared at her. Fluttershy frowned. “Don’t make me give you the Stare. You know how much I hate doing that.”
It broke Fluttershy’s heart to see so much worry behind Angel’s eyes, but it was for the best; if nothing else, it would’ve been so easy to lose him in the snow. With a last, sad look, Angel shut the door behind him.
The wind picked up. The snowfall got heavier.
Fluttershy pulled her hat on tighter, held herself high, and walked into the unknown.
