Fluttershy stared down at the inconceivable height below her. Balancing feebly at the edge of the cloud, she drew her sleep-deprived gaze over the frightening distance with a stillness in her soul. She felt cold, entirely invulnerable to the fear that such a drop should have ignited within her.

She should have felt at least a twinge of fear. Her final page lay just inches away, all it would have taken was a single step, premeditated or no... and she would be lost.

Yet Fluttershy felt nothing, even for one so near to death.

And it hurt. It hurt because Fluttershy, against all logic, wanted to feel that regret. She'd hoped so terribly that horror and anger would strike her in a moment of truth, simultaneously shocking the urges to jump from her treacherous hindquarters. Leading up to that day, she'd prayed in desperation that a warmth within her would stir, that a voice of velvet would whisper words of sense into her ears, and tenderly coax her from the border of expiry. She'd gazed for dangerous spans of time into the sun above until it stained her eyes, the orisons of her salvation clamoring in her mind as she searched for an answer. But the sun was surely as indifferent as her own soul, as not to send her one beam of hesitance from its heavenly mass.

A single, icy tear slipped down her cheek, the brutal lack of emotion no more rawer than in that moment. The lucent drop of liquid, having been touched by the altitudinal chill of the air, was quick to solidify and launch its hardened body from Fluttershy's chin. Fluttershy watched as the tear leapt from her muzzle and fell into the open air below, until it could no longer be seen through the distauncal haze atwixt earth and cloud. She would soon be just like the tear, descending freely through the mist, and ultimately waiting to feel the ferocious bite of gravity at the very end.

It wouldn't last long, she acknowledged. The unforgiving ground below would make short work of her, crunching her fragile bones in one halfhearted chew before spitting her out, an uneaten carcass. Oh, the joy.

Fluttershy took a deep breath in, allowing oxygen to fill her lungs up before forcibly expelling it all out. No more stalling, no more thoughts. Now it was time for action-- a final, crushing action at that. She let all the whispers in her mind float away like bubbles on a breeze, to be taken wherever abandoned thoughts go. She let her heartbeat calm in her chest, until it was nearly completely silent. The blood that screamed in her ears, she let bleed back to where it belonged. The feeling in her body melted away all at once, numbing her in preparation for the coming storm.

The filly's eyes fluttered closed, as she let her grip on the cloud falter and at last met with what lay beyond the solid verge.

What she met with was nothingness.

But that nothingness was soon filled with life! All around Fluttershy, in spirals of elation, swirled shimmering lyric and photographic events of her life. In the black of her eyelids, there stood windows into a world suddenly awakened by a gruesome demise. She felt as though she were floating, caught up in the haze of a unicorn's magical aura, spinning her endlessly through images and verses all tied together via the knots of mystical chanting. None of the whispers could have been cast from an equine throat; the sounds were more akin to a chorus of bells, chiming at exactly the right intervals to elicit their own understandable language. They spoke in riddle and rhyme, ever lulling the dying pegasus into a sleep of one final breath.

Fluttershy never felt the thud, for her consciousness was foggy with promises of spectra, cascading across the sky for her only.

Maybe not promises... but butterflies. Thousands of beautiful little butterflies blanketing her fall.

"Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy blinked as a room focused in around her. She remembered, now-- she'd thought for a moment that she had returned to that fateful day from only four weeks prior, but that was not so. She was in the hospital cafeteria, bound to a wheelchair, and staring dazedly off into the undetermined distance as she fiddled with the hay-fries on her plate. However, the voice had returned her attention back to her companion, Nurse Intapink.

"You've barely touched your oatburger, sweetheart. What were you thinking about?" She asked. The caregiving mare gazed kindly albeit concernedly at Fluttershy, yet the filly could sense she was seeking an explanation beyond what was verbally implied.

Fluttershy wasn't even sure that, if given the opportunity in a willing mood, she could give the nurse and her listening coworkers a thorough walkthrough of what was happening in her head. Honestly, no amount of cohesive speech would be able to describe the extent of the half-imaginary phenomenons effectively, thus the words would always end up dying on her lips.

With an overused shrug of her shoulders, the filly allowed her head to hang so that her mane would fall over her left eye most concealingly. "I don't know." She told Nurse Intapink, the trail of repetition ever an unbroken one.

Fluttershy was met with the faltering smile of her caregiver. Though, perhaps smile wasn't close enough a description. It was too simple for the flurry of emotions dawning on the mare's face, a mixture of disappointment and sadness slipping between her clenched teeth. For that's exactly what was on her muzzle; a mouth full of clenched teeth, such a thin veil of dying hope that only strengthened the wall Fluttershy had built around her heart.

"...All right, dear." Nurse Intapink eventually said, her sweet tone laced with defeat. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine with me, just please have at least one bite of your lunch. You need to keep your strength up, especially after the operation you've had."

Yes, Fluttershy recalled hearing of the operation. Now that she'd thought about it, the doctors had actually shown her much of their materials, though their explanations of her circumstance had been dumbed down to childlike language. That, Fluttershy thought, was almost more difficult to understand than if they'd simply been straightforward with her: she was not supposed to have lived. The fall had destroyed her ribcage, fractured most of her limbs and extremities in multiple locations, and both of her wings had to be almost completely recreated with faux bodily matter. Even the assembled practitioners, as they whispered words of comfort to Fluttershy, had gazed at her as though she had descended from the cervix of Celestia herself.

Fluttershy wriggled uncomfortably in her wheelchair, suddenly acutely aware of the several artificial structures holding her small frame together. Though she couldn't even feel the foreign metals enveloping her skeleton, the realization of their existence beneath her stitched skin was somewhat disturbing to the filly.

Her thoughts were broken for the second time when the plate of food was pushed even closer to her, via Intapink's pale yellow hoof. Fluttershy looked up from her sewn chest and into the nurse's azure irises, which stared back in sudden sternness. "Fluttershy. Eat." Intapink commanded, no longer pleading for the filly's compliance.

With that, Fluttershy let her mind rest and began nibbling at the oatburger placed in front of her, grimacing a little at how cold it was. The nurse raised an eyebrow at the face she'd pulled, the beginnings of a knowing smirk tugging at her lips.

Fluttershy gave her not the satisfaction of a glance.

When the hospital lights had ceased to shine and the sound of hoofsteps had finished resonating through the hallways, Fluttershy once again produced her quill and inkwell under the lantern's glow. One of the nurses had been so kind as to order her some paper, which lay in a stack atop her bedside table. Slipping one of the slender white sheets from the pile, Fluttershy slid it over her lap and began without a second thought.

A wound in cloud reveals an earth, thus summons thoughts to fall

To fold thy wings in empty air is a faux pas unspeakable

But who dost you be true to, and should you have the gall

To prove to all of pegasi, that bones are mortal, wings are not unbreakable...

Descendera, you feel a mother's love, a brother's pain

En same you sense the clockwork grinding life into your heart

Descendera, you break the rules, cascading yet again

Into the gaping maw of what shall tear your hope apart

As insect angels swim through aer, through sky into your hair

Their breath leaves warmth upon your ear, radiance too brilliant for e'en royalty to bear

They say, “Descendere de City of the Clouds, do not despair

For someday, you shall be a xana of their hope, and blisters shall be ne'er.”

Fluttershy's eyelids swept over her irises as silken beads began their stream onto her lower lashes, turning them sticky with salty fluid. Every time she pressed the feather's ink-coated tip to the paper, she experienced a feeling of elation she thought not was possible. Such was in her grief, she feared joy may never exist at all for her. But as the poems of her mind became more hopeful, she would find herself bathing again and again in the most passionate and lively of metaphorical waters.

But as it always did, the afterglow passed, leaving Fluttershy exhausted yet fulfilled. Almost instantly she found herself drifting into sleep, contentment written on her face as a rare and sincere smile.

Her bandaged flank slowly started to shine.

Author's Note

PLOT TWIST!

Yep, in this story, Fluttershy did not receive her mark at the same time as the rest of the Mane 6. This is a fact she is determined to hide from her friends until the end of time, forever concealed by the fake story she created for herself. Her mark, however, is still the same as it is in the cannon, just with a slightly different meaning. How she did eventually come to understand animals and nature shall be explained in the next chapter, or maybe in the one after that. We shall see.

Anyways, hope you liked that one. It's probably the one I've put the most thought into, and I'm actually pretty happy with the result. I'm finishing this up REALLY late at night, and I don't have the patience nor the energy to edit it fully, so if you spot something strange let me know.

Also, "Nurse Intapink." I'm way too proud of that one. XD

Have a good day or night, reader!

-Hiraeth