Reversion: A Character Study
Fluttershy sighed contentedly as she took her seat on the train. She put the basket of apples Applejack had just given her underneath her seat. The only other luggage she had with her was a saddlebag full of supplies, which she was still wearing. As she leaned into the back of her seat and looked out of the nearby window, she vaguely heard Pinkie shouting something, likely directed at her. Knowing her, it was probably something comically overdramatic, and possibly a little condescending from Fluttershy’s point of view. It didn’t take long for her to decide not to worry about it. This was just going to be a relaxing train ride by herself.
“Is this seat taken?” she heard a voice from next to her. She flinched as she turned to face a lime green stallion with a dark green mane and a pair of large black square-shaped glasses. So much for relaxing by herself. She didn’t really want to have to spend time on a long train ride with a stranger. That the stranger was a stallion made her anxieties even worse, since, well, he was a stallion. Her reluctance wasn’t lost on him.
“Sorry, it’s just that all the rest of the seats are full,” he explained. Fluttershy looked between him and the aisle seat right next to her a few times, before motioning to it.
“Thanks,” the stallion said as he tossed his large saddlebag under the seat and sat down next to her. “I’m Crown Stone.”
“I’m Fluttershy.”
“Nice hat,” he said simply. Fluttershy adjusted the hat in question as she turned away from him. He did likewise.
For the next few minutes, Fluttershy just looked out the window at the passing trees, and Crown looked down the aisle at the passing passengers. She didn’t really want to talk with him much more at all. Fortunately, he remained silent—
“So,” he said. Fluttershy screamed internally. She turned to face him with a neutral look on her face.
“You’re going to Phillydelphia, too?”
“Y-yes,” Fluttershy said.
“What’re you going there for?”
“Well... I’ve been given permission from the Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures to, um, to observe the Breezies in the nearby field.”
“The Breezies? What are they?”
Fluttershy closed her eyes and smiled at the ceiling.
“Only the tiniest, most delicate, most adorable creatures in all of Equestria!” she cooed. “I’m going to discover so many things about them!”
“Cool,” Crown said. “So are you an animal expert?”
“Expert? No,” Fluttershy said. “But I do know a lot about animals. I have a lot of them at home and I take care of them every day.”
“Ah, I see.”
“So what about you? What’s your special talent?”
“Me? I play the french horn.” Crown reached down to open his saddlebag, revealing a small collection of french horn music books.
“Ooh,” remarked Fluttershy. “Do you play with anyone?”
“All my vinyl records, at the moment. I haven’t landed a gig with a real orchestra yet, but I have mastered all the horn parts of the Daring Do Movie soundtrack.” He probably intended for that to be funny, but Fluttershy didn't feel like laughing at the moment.
“Well, I hope you can find a job with an orchestra,” she said.
“Thanks,” Crown replied. Neither of them really had anything more to say, so the conversation kind-of awkwardly and abruptly ended there. While they did wish each other good luck with their respective trips as the train finally pulled into the station, they never ran into each other over the weekend they spent in Phillydelphia.
TOOOOOOT!
In the darkness of night, the train whistled as the next train departed from the station. In just a matter of minutes, Fluttershy’s train would arrive. In just a matter of minutes, she’d be on her way back to Ponyville. Her Breezy expedition, as Crown had put it, had been an unquestionable success. She’d found a quiet spot by the bushes where she could observe the Breezies without getting in their way. After only a weekend, she had managed to learn so much about the Breezies, their language, and their culture.
She kept her distance from the busy platform as she waited for the current train to leave and her train to arrive. She looked down at the basket she was holding in her wing. There had been more than enough apples in it to last her for the entire trip; she didn’t even have to buy any food while she was there. There were still plenty of apples left. She looked up towards the clock. It read 11:38. Her train was scheduled for 11:45. She didn’t really like being up so late, but this was the earliest train to Ponyville that was available. She stood there waiting for a couple of minutes, swaying back and forth and humming quietly to herself. But then, somepony bumped into her.
“Oof!” they both grunted. She only barely caught a glimpse of a vaguely familiar green coat before the figure galloped off, but what she heard from him was absolutely alarming.
Dammit... I’m going to kill you, Crown.
She looked in the direction of the stallion. She immediately started following him away from the train station as he rounded a street corner.
I’m going to kill you, Crown. Fluttershy kept thinking about those words as she followed the stallion down an empty street.
It had to have been Crown, the stallion from the train, who bumped into her just now; with that green coat and his glasses it couldn’t have reasonably been anypony else. But why did he say those words? And why did he say them out loud?
Fluttershy picked up the pace as he ran into an abandoned building. Whatever he was trying to do, she had to stop him.
Crown entered the building.
Fluttershy followed.
He took off his glasses.
She galloped toward him.
He walked up to a brick wall.
He tossed his glasses to the floor.
And he started banging his head violently against the wall, grunting angrily with each blow.
Fluttershy was horrified.
“STOP!!!” Fluttershy cried out. The stallion turned his head towards Fluttershy as she stopped in front of him. This was definitely the same Crown who sat next to her on the train a just a few days ago.
“What are you doing?” Fluttershy asked with clear worry creased onto her face. The stallion scoffed.
“Why do you care?” he asked. Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at him.
“You said you were going to kill yourself.”
“I say that all the time,” Crown said with an eyeroll. “It’s just a habit, I never actually do it.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say, though!”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion!” After Crown snapped at her, he turned back to the wall, thumping his head against it one more time, this time a bit more gently.
“I know you were at the train station,” he recalled. “So go back there, wait for your train, and stop wasting your time trying to salvage this piece of garbage.” Fluttershy looked at him, shaking her head slowly.
“If I miss this train, I can always catch another one,” she said. “Please, tell me what’s the matter. What made you angry?” Crown turned back to Fluttershy with a glare.
“Nothing ‘made’ me angry, I decided to be angry,” he said. Fluttershy didn’t buy it one bit.
“And there had to have been something to influence your ‘decision’ to be angry,” she countered. “So what was it?” Crown grunted and put his head back up against the wall.
“Please, Crown, what was it?”
“Leave me alone...”
“Crown...”
“Leave me alone.”
“Crown, please-”
“FINE!” Crown finally yelled, at the top of his lungs. Fluttershy gasped, taking several steps back. Crown’s voice was loud and powerful. In a fit of anger he was a terrifying presence despite his average-sized frame.
“YOU WANNA KNOW THAT BADLY, HUH?! FINE! THIS WHOLE STUPID THING STARTED TWO WEEKS AGO! I ALWAYS GET SO ANGRY OVER THE STUPIDEST THINGS! BUT IT’S MORE THAN THAT, BECAUSE EVEN IF THE STUPID THING GETS RESOLVED, I’M STILL ANGRY! I CAN’T EVEN STOP; IT’S AS IF I LIKE BEING ANGRY! AND MY FAMILY CAN’T TAKE IT! NOT EVEN SPARING THEM BY RUNNING AWAY HELPS BECAUSE THEY ALL INSIST I COME BACK TO... I DON’T KNOW, START MAKING THEIR LIVES MISERABLE ALL OVER AGAIN, I GUESS! SO GUESS WHAT HAPPENED OVER THE WEEKEND? I FINALLY CAME BACK TO THEM, IT WAS ALL JUST FINE AND DANDY, LOTS OF HUGS AND KISSES, BUT THE VERY NEXT DAY, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, I STARTED GETTING ANGRY AGAIN! I’M NEVER EVEN MAD AT ANYONE BUT MYSELF, AND IT STILL BOTHERS THEM! THEY HATE THAT, BUT THEY JUST... WON’T... LET... ME... LEAVE!!!” There was a stunned silence that followed as he cooled down. It took Fluttershy a few minutes to regain her composure, which was good, because it’d be a few minutes before he’d talk again. He was breathing heavily. Fluttershy couldn’t tell from her point of view, but Crown’s face was covered in pins and needles at this point. Too much more intensity and it probably would’ve made him pass out.
“They keep telling me I’m getting better and better every week,” he continued in a much calmer, but no less angry, tone. He was getting choked up. “But then I keep getting angry and yelling at them, and it feels like... like-”
“Like you’ve forgotten everything you’ve learned?” Fluttershy finished for him. “And that you just aren’t going anywhere, and you feel useless for it?” Crown looked at Fluttershy, a surprised look on his face.
“You...?” was all he could manage to say.
“I don’t have quite the same problem as you,” Fluttershy said. “But believe me when I say that I understand your position.”
“How?”
“Well...” Fluttershy paused, to gather her thoughts. Crown sat patiently, and after a short pause, Fluttershy finished her introspection and started relaying her experiences to Crown.
“You see,” she began. “I’m... I’m easily frightened. It really doesn’t take much effort at all to scare me. My fears range from going on scary adventures or getting eaten by gigantic, terrifying dragons to speaking in public or not remembering to feed my pets until five minutes after I usually do. But guess what?”
“You realized your pets don’t really care about waiting for five more minutes?” Crown asked sarcastically. Fluttershy shook her head.
“I’ve gone on many scary adventures, and I even worked up the courage to face a gigantic, terrifying dragon to rescue my friends. If I’d kept cowering in fear then, none of us would’ve survived, but I overcame my fears when it really counted! Now, that didn’t mean I never became afraid again, or that because I went on one or two adventures that I suddenly became Daring Do, but I did learn what I’m capable of when it really counts.
“The real thing I took away from all of those experiences is I can’t let my old habits discourage me from improving myself. And, as it turned out, the more time I spent improving myself, the less of a problem they became. Sure, they haven’t gone away completely yet. And realistically, I’m not even sure they ever will. But to say, after everything I’ve been through, that I haven’t improved at all? That would just be untrue!
“So listen to this, Crown, maybe you’ll continue to get angry for bad reasons. Don’t let that be the end of it. Don’t let that discourage you from becoming a better pony. Keep working at it, and eventually your problem will be so small, you won’t even know it’s there!” Crown looked down, processing what he had just heard.
“I...” he said. “I guess I have been getting over it more quickly over the past few weeks. One time it didn’t even last five seconds.” Fluttershy beamed.
“That’s more like it!” she encouraged him. Crown sat down, and just stayed there for a second. He still felt bad, but he didn’t want to be mad anymore. His pent-up emotional energy was still there, and with anger out of the question there was only one other emotional outlet he could use. He smiled at Fluttershy, and as he did, tears were forming in his eyes. As they were watering up, his lip was quivering.
“I... I...” was all he could say before he lost it. His forelegs buckled as he crashed onto the floor. He curled up, and began crying. Fluttershy, on instinct, came over to the heap of emotional overdrive and started caressing his back. The two of them stayed like that for a while, Fluttershy letting Crown cry his excess emotional energy away. Eventually, he spoke up.
“My family are asleep by now,” he croaked, before swallowing and clearing his throat. “They don’t even know I’m gone right now. I have to get back to them.” Fluttershy nodded.
“You know your family loves you, don't you?” she asked.
“I know they do,“ he replied, tearing up even more as he said it. He wiped them away before asking about something that Fluttershy, to be honest, wasn't keeping track of at this point.
“Did you miss your train?” Fluttershy looked out the window. When she didn’t find a clock of any sort, she just looked at Crown and shrugged.
“Probably,” she said. “But this was much, much more important.”
“Why? You aren’t one of my friends, and you’re not part of my family either. You don’t even know me!”
“That is true. But I couldn’t just let you run off and do who-knows-what to yourself, not when I could’ve done something about it.” Crown waited for a bit, but then slowly got up, getting ready to go home.
“...Thanks, Fluttershy. For... Catching me just now. I actually really needed that.”
“You’re welcome, Crown.”
Dear Crown Star,
How’s your life been going since the train station incident a few weeks ago? I’ve been thinking about you occasionally and I’m curious to find out how you’re holding up. Are you okay? Did you patch things up with your family?
Sincerely, Fluttershy
Dear Fluttershy,
First off, my name is Crown Stone, but I won’t hold a grudge against you for that. We only met once or twice, after all.
I’m fine, don’t worry. I thought a lot about what you said on that night, and I wrote your words down to help me remember. I haven’t run away since that night, and I haven’t even gotten angry since then, either! I’m living the good life! 8-)
I’m really glad you caught me on that night. I just felt so terrible, I didn’t know what I was going to do. After you shared your experiences with me, and what you learned from them, I started thinking about how I could use it in my own life. So far, it’s been smooth, but I won’t be naïve enough to think that I won’t get mad for stupid reasons again. I won’t let that be the end of it, though. Thanks to you, I’m going to move ahead in life and keep on improving myself. Even with the constant threat of reversion.
Sincerely, Crown
Author's Note
I wrote this little story for two reasons. The first, which is the main reason I'm taking this story so seriously, is because it's a reflection, if an exaggerated one, of my own personal struggles. Crown was based off of my general appearance and the way I get angry at myself for stupid reasons, although he's not a 1:1 copy of me. Writing this out has become a reminder that this bad habit doesn't have to control me.
The second reason, which is the reason why I'm making this story public, is because the one character trait of Fluttershy's that many people hate is the one character trait that I find so relatable and inspiring. Yes, Fluttershy frequently goes back to being a(n adorable) scaredy-cat even after she proves she can be courageous. But she grows so much in spite of that. She's helped out her friends on numerous occasions despite being afraid at first, she joined a music group despite being afraid at first, and even taught the value of friendship to a powerful chaotic god. Yeah, she still gets afraid from time to time. But that doesn't diminish what she's become.
So thanks for reading this! I hope you liked it!
