Here’s the thing about falling, movies tend to stretch it out. In some cases people have enough time to turn around in midair, do a silent prayer to whatever god they believe in and think about all the moments leading up to their fall. This wasn’t Fluttershy’s case, the only thing on her mind was falling.

Eventually, fear released its icy grip on her lungs and finally allowed Fluttershy to gasp for air. Sadly, almost all of it was immediately expelled through her screams of terror. She thrashed her arms and legs around, as if trying to find something solid to grasp into existence. Fluttershy was panicking and she had every right to be. She was going to die, there was no way she could survive from this height. As the green floor of a clearing in the forest grew closer and closer, the grim reality set in and a strange calmness was sent through Fluttershy’s mind.

There was no fighting this, her wings still refused to open and everyone was still to preoccupied with the race to even notice she was gone let alone that she had fallen. Ironically, a race that was originally for her benefit would be the thing that brought her life to a sudden end. She would have laughed if the wind wasn’t practically suffocating her. Shifting her weight, Fluttershy turned herself to face the very clouds she had fallen. The people on them had long sunken away to mere blobs of color, blissfully unaware of the teen hurtling to the ground.

Fluttershy laughed humorlessly as tears welled up in her eyes. She let them fall with no restraint, no one would see them anyway so why even bother. Funny she thought, I did everything to not be noticed by others. Now I’m going to die forgotten. Fluttershy smiled a painful smile before squeezing her eyes shut awaiting the pain and nothingness of death. Suddenly, her body came to a screeching halt cushioned by some amorphous force. There was no pain, no nothingness, she didn’t even lose consciousness.

“Is this Heaven?” Fluttershy wondered aloud, her eyes still squeezed shut.

“No, this is Marigold.” a thin, whispery voice answered.

Fluttershy tore her eyes open and she sat up searching for the source of the voice. Before she could even call out to the speaker, she looked down at her new location. Her jaw dropped as she realized what had happened, her saviors were butterflies. Thousands of them, each with unique shades of pinks, yellows, and blues, she had never seen such creatures before, the only things that flew high enough to reach her were usually birds of prey or the occasional group of migrating geese. But these were so new to her, they were fragile looking yet here they were supporting her entire weight. Something was calming about them, so serene, she almost felt like singing. But she wasn’t exactly some songwriter or something so it wasn’t like a song was just going to pop in her head. The butterflies beneath her began to calmly and slowly disperse, allowing Fluttershy to spread her wings and hover on her own.

She didn’t even have trouble doing it like she normally did in class, watching the butterflies calmly flap their wings spread serenity to her frazzled nerves allowing her calmly fly on her own without pressure. Fluttershy watched them fly off to their various homes, all but one. This was one was a bright merrigold with black and brown spots on its wings and it hovered just above her head. It seemed like it was curious about something, That’s fair, I would be pretty curious if something fell on me in my home.

Remembering the rules she had read about dealing with wild animals. “Shhh. It’s okay, thank you all for saving me.” Fluttershy spoke softly.

She held her hand as a perch and the butterfly landed to rest its wings. Fluttershy’s heart leap with excitement, not only she had saved by a beautiful cloud of butterflies but now one landed on her finger with no coaxing. She squeed with delight, watching the butterfly calmly opened and closed its wings.

“You’re so beautiful!” she cooed happily.

“You are as well.” another whispery voice said flattered.

“Huh?” Fluttershy blinked. She scanned the clearing she landed in. With the exception of herself and a few woodland creatures there wasn’t anyone else there.

Must have been the fall she thought, allowing the butterfly to fly away. I’m still pretty shooken up. It’s not like animals can talk or something like that, Fluttershy rolled her eyes at the very concept. That’s something for a kids’ show or those the Disneigh movies that always made her tear up. The butterfly, after getting a rest, made its way to one of the tulips that lined the clearing. Unbeknownst to butterfly, a thin, almost invisible spider web lay in wait for an insect enticed by the promise of nectar. The silk entangled the creature’s wings and trapped it only inches from its food. Its violent thrashing triggered the owner of the web that lunch was served. The spider crawled out slowly, choosing the support threads to walk on and get closer to its earned meal.

“Wait!” Fluttershy flew towards the web, doing her best not to stir up a wind to blow both creatures away. She arrived just inches in front of the arachnid.

“That butterfly is poisonous, if you eat it you’ll die.” she warned, hoping in some alternate world the spider would be able to understand her.

For some reason, this strange otherworld seemed the one she lived in, as the spider paused for a moment and then using its fangs and front two legs to cut the web holding the butterfly, setting it free.

“Whew, thanks kid.” chittered oddly feminine voice.

Fluttershy looked around again for a person because there was just no way a spider thanked her. There’s no way that spiders even have the mental ability to form a language let alone one that she, a Skyling, could understand. I must have gotten a concussion from the fall, she shook her head. Before she could further question her withering sanity, an deafening boom erupted through sky and explosion of colors flew across the afternoon sky.

For the second time that day, Fluttershy’s jaw dropped as she stared at the mixture of sound and color flying overhead. As the boom faded away, her ears were filled the sounds various voices all yelling at once. Fluttershy’s hands flew over her ears to try protect from the sounds’ assault on her eardrums. Where were they coming from? she scanned the forest again, there so many voices it had to be a lot of people, but how could she have missed them?

“What was that?” a high pitched female voice squeaked.

“To the pond children, it must be a predator!” a older male voice chirped.

“Flee! Flee! Flee!” a group of voices sang in unison.

“Hide in trees, the birds cannot get us all!” the same whispery, thin voice squealed.

“Wait! Birds?” she wondered aloud. Fluttershy was confused why would a human ever be afraid of birds nevertheless after an explosion.

“Flee, princess!” a songbird hovered a few inches in front of her face. “The skies are ablaze with light!”

Fluttershy stared slack jawed at the bird, she was too stunned for words. Those voices weren’t from people, they were from animals. More importantly, they were all terrified from that “sonic rainbow” thing, they needed to be calmed down. Gathering all the courage she possessed, Fluttershy walked towards where she heard most of the voices, on the edge of clearing. She cleared her throat and prepared her most calm and collected voice.

“Shhhh.” she shushed. “It’s okay.”

The voices stopped. Various burrowing animals poked their heads out, from snakes to bunnies. Fluttershy gave them a kind smile and they followed her into the clearing. Cupping a hand to her ear, she walked to the pond where she could hear some otters duck into the water.

“It’s alright, you can come out now.” she spoke loudly this time, ensuring they heard her voice.

After a few minutes, an otter family surfaced together. After climbing onto the grass, they greeted her by rubbing their heads against her legs affectionately, she returned the affection with soothing pats on the head and tummy. Eventually, the birds returned one by one as the rainbow sat peacefully overheard. They chirped happily, landing on the grass next to her. Fluttershy tucked her sundress underneath her so could sit comfortably with the animals, she felt more at peace here than she ever did in the clouds. Here there were no tests, no competition, no one to force her to be something she wasn’t. Just her and theserene beauty of nature, she could get used this. As the thought of staying here passed through her mind, Fluttershy felt a warm glow spread to her shoulders before a white flash of light shone. When the light faded on her shoulders were left with three pink butterflies. Fluttershy’s smile grew a mile wide, Even destiny agrees with me, she quirked. She felt like a Skyling with a new lease on life, now she had a constant reminder of her purpose in life.

“It really is an honor to meet you, Princess.” the voice returned again.

Fluttershy looked up only to be greeted by the merrigold butterfly from earlier that afternoon. “So that voice was you, huh?” Fluttershy put her finger out for the butterfly.

“Yes, your highness.” the butterfly obliged landing gracefully on her finger.

“You shouldn’t call me that, I’m not a princess.” Fluttershy corrected.

“What do you mean, even we butterflies can tell royalty when see them.” the butterfly replied assuredly.

Fluttershy shook her head. “No I’m not, the only true royal is Queen Celestia and she doesn’t have any children.”

She wasn’t wrong, the only family even distantly related to the great Solar Mage was Prince Blueblood and even then it was so diluted at this point any noble could say they were related. The relation was in name only and he had no real power in leading the land.

“Only the Fae of royal heritage have the power to us. If you are not royal, how are we speaking right now?”

“Look Miss...”

“Marigold, your highness.”

“Miss Marigold, I can only speak to you all because of my cutie... What did you just say Fae?” Fluttershy exclaimed. What in world was a fae?

“SHY!!! What, in the of the name of the Goddess Faust, are you doing down here!” an all too familiar voice bellowed, shocking her out of her calmness.

“Oh no.” Fluttershy moaned.

“Do not trust him. He will try to deceive you. Be on your guard.” Marigold warned, fluttering close to her ear.

“W-what do you mean?” Fluttershy stuttered.

Marigold didn’t answer, she took off back into the forest. Fluttershy watched her disappearing form. What did she mean? Who would try to deceive her? she thought as her Coach approached. A chill ran down her spine, her wings shuffled on her back, itching to spread and fly away. All of her nerves were at attention as if they were ready to spring into action. She instantly hopped to her feet as he marched furiously towards her.

“Well!” Arduous crossed his arms, tapping his finger waiting for her response. He had gotten so close to her, he was only an arm’s length away.

Fluttershy didn't answer to preoccupied with her thoughts, it didn’t make sense. Coach didn’t ever move far from his seat until class was done, never before. How did he even know she fell, he was asleep the entire time and how would he know where she fell? Her eyes glanced to forest where her Coach emerged from. And why did he come from the forest and not the sky? she wracked her brain and none of this made any sense.

“Goddess, Shy. You’re hopeless” Arduous facepalmed. “Come with me. Now. And maybe I won’t mention this little hooky day of yours to your parents.”

He reached out to grab her but she took a step back to avoid him. Arduous narrowed his eyes and made another attempt to reach her. This time Fluttershy simply moved to away without moving her feet. Her wings spread, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

“Fluttershy, you are already in deep enough trouble as is. Do you want you want add disobedience to playing hooky.” Arduous growled, shooting a heated glare at her.

“I wasn’t playing hooky.” Fluttershy snapped, surprising herself.

“What are you...”

“I fell from the clouds.” she cut him off. “And a real teacher would be making sure I didn’t seriously hurt myself from the fall. Or that I, amateur flyer, didn’t hurt my wings from trying to catch myself.”

Arduous Hooves’ eyes went wide with shock and a slight twinge of fear. He shot out an arm towards her, she jumped out of the way and took to the skies. Fluttershy never flapped her wings so hard in her life, she fought hard against gravity but felt a strong hand grip her ankle. She turned to find her teacher or whatever creature looked like her teacher gripping her ankle.

“You aren’t going anyway, Little princess.” he hissed through his inhumanly sharp fangs.

The eyes of her teacher faded away in a green flicker and were replaced with pupilless blue ones. Fluttershy tried to kick her leg free, in response the creature to dig its nails in her skin. She cried out in pain while a sickening smirk spread over its face almost too eager to cause her pain. She felt her sticky, warm blood flow from the wound.

The creature pulled her leg down while still keeping its claws in her ankle. Fluttershy pulled up as hard as she could while shaking not caring if it made the wound open more. The creature fought against her, raising its other arm to grab her ankle better.

Before the fake Coach could reach her, a hawk swooped in and pecked at the hand holding her leg. The creature hissed inhumanly clutching its injured hand. The hawk dived slashing with its talons at the creature’s face trying to get at its eyes.

“Flee, your highness. We will deal with it.” a noble sounding male voice screeched at her.

She turned and headed towards the large clouds that her flight school was seated on. More birds swooped in from the forest and began dive-bombing or clawing at the creature. Not all of them had sharp talons like the hawk but what they lacked in claws they made up in sheer numbers, as many went for the face and eyes of the creature. With the chaos of the birds, a male deer charged from the forest and knocked the creature over. The Fake Arduous, giving up acting human, hissed openly and slashed upwards at the new threat. The deer narrowly dodged and retaliated by lower his head and charging antlers first. Fake Arduous tried to stand up and dodge at the same time but wasn’t as agile as the deer and was stabbed in the abdomen. If the eyes were enough of a hint of the creature’s inhuman nature, its green fluorescent blood was confirmnation.

Fluttershy felt her stomach churn, nearly causing her to vomit. This was the first time she had seen violence like this, but now wasn’t the time to stop. Not wasting this opportunity, she took off to safety of the clouds. Had Fluttershy been timed, she was certain she would broken all of her old speed records and even the records of other members of her class. She was that fast, well to be fair she was that scared. Fluttershy sped past the clouds her class was on not even bothering to spare it a glance. She didn’t stop flapping her wings even as she flew past that Rainbow girl who was busy celebrating something. Fluttershy was so not interested, she kept going until she reached the familiar gate of her house. Finally, she landed in front yard nearly on the verge of tears. Fluttershy had never been so glad to be home, not caring about her wound she ran to her front door.

Now on a normal day Fluttershy would remember that she put the key under the mat or politely knock on the door. However between; the shock of falling and thinking she was going to die, finding a clearing full of animals she hadn’t seen outside of a book, seeing a sonic rainbow thing in the sky, finding out she could talk to animals, getting her cutie mark, and being attacked by some shape-shifter disguised as her teacher, this was not a normal day. Fluttershy proceed to pound on the door like the police at a magic grass house. After half a minute, her younger brother finally opened the door.

“Alright jeez, don’t you normally have the key.” Zephyr Breeze yawned, despite the fact it was almost 4 in afternoon.

Beside herself in relief and exhaustion, Fluttershy collapsed into a hug much to the shock of Zephyr.

“Whoa, what’s up with you?” taller boy questioned holding his sister up.

“I’m just...” Fluttershy said dreamily. “So glad to see you.”

With that final statement, the exhaustion of flying and all the events of the day took ahold of her and she passed out into her brother’s arms.

Author's Note

Have you ever been writing and listening to music, only to realize you’ve been writing the lyrics. I’m not kidding it took me a whole paragraph to realize I wrote lyrics to Death of a Bachelor. I probably wouldn’t have noticed until I reread it, I’m such a great writer . Thanks for putting up with my atrocious writing and reading this story you guys, I really do appreciate it.