Fluttershy was scared, well she tended to be scared quite daily, but this was not like any other day. She had woken up that day to the sound of the wind outside blowing ever so gently, to the fresh smell of flowers and the other foliage she happened to have dotted around her quaint little cottage, to the sound of scurrying of her animals downstairs, the sound of birds chirping was… not prominent. What?
Oh but they always wake me up with their beautiful chirping. Fluttershy’s eyes snapped open. The meadow fresh smells were permeated, subtly with an ominous undertone. And her animals scurrying now seamed hurried, were they anxious, or scared. The gently blowing breeze was the only part of her wake-up ritual that remained consistent, yet, what was that faint crackling sound?
Now the birds were chirping, in fact all her animals were in a full-on panic. She looked out the bedroom window and blanched. The trees gave off the same, usual sense of foreboding that they always did, it was made more prominent however, by the billowing, black, sooty smoke caught lazily in an up thrust and congregating above the forest. The Everfree was burning.
“Oh no. Oh no no no no, pleas no.”, she ran down stairs desperately and exited. The sound of crackling flames was much more pronounced outside, as was the heat. She ran back inside, “Angel, Angel? Where are you? Oh there you are, you must help me get the other animals outside and away from the forest!”, she cried, fear laced here words and drew the small bunny to action. He saluted her and obediently hopped off to commence his task. Fluttershy followed suit and together, Angel and her managed to evacuate the cottage rather swiftly. With the raging inferno steadily creeping nearer to her location the heat was starting to become blistering. How has no one else noticed the fire yet she wondered, hastily to herself as she set off, airborne at a fast yet dainty pace towards Ponyville. It was time to get help.
She needn’t have worried for barely a minute later and with her cottage, its edges now singing, still in sight she spotted a group of ponies led by Rainbow Dash and Cloud Chaser currently running or flying towards her, some levitating buckets of water while others, Pegasi pushed swollen and dark, sopping clouds. “Oh thank Celestia, we really need to hurry.”, Fluttershy stated, “can some of you come and help me search the forest for any trapped critters.”.
“Go, in there NOW? Are you crazy?”, a pony replied she looked at him pleadingly, a stocky built brown coated earth pony stallion with a fiery red mane; ironic really. He would definitely be beneficial to her upcoming search and rescue efforts.
“B but we can’t just leave the poor creatures to perish”, she squeaked at a half whisper; partly in shock and partly in desperation, “you must! Oh you must help me help them. What if it were you in there, trapped. Would you not expect other ponies to attempt to find you?”. Begrudgingly a small group consisting of five earth ponies, including the brown stallion, and a unicorn trotted over to her. “Oh thank you ever so much, umm… if that’s all right with you that is.”, her public shyness making an appearance once more.
And so it was that Twighlight Sparkle directed a group of unicorns to collect water from the town’s lake to dump on any encroaching flames, and to dampen any endangered buildings. Rainbow Dash directed a group of her fellow weather patrol team and any other able winged pegasi over the forest to dispense their payload of storm clouds upon the unsuspecting flames. They used the lightning that could be shot from the clouds by means of a hard punch to fell trees in a ring around the uncontrollable areas of burning forest in an attempt to isolate the area from the rest of the forest and let them burn themselves out. Fluttershy set about her frenzied search of the forest with her convoy all the while calling franticly to her cherished critters, the unicorn in the group, a pink furred green maned mare periodically brushing aside burning foliage that blocked the group’s passage.
It was ultimately this frenzied lack of caution that Fluttershy went about searching with that led to the next sequence of events. She had just emerged from a soldering ruin of a bush and had set off to investigate a strangely bare section of the forest. She entered the mysteriously un-scorched section of forest when there was a flash, a moment of deafening silence, Fluttershy froze. Her rag tag group had fallen behind and would only just bare witness. There was a dry snap followed by the thick creaking of freshly felled timber. Fluttershy looked up. She was too terrified to move. All present beheld the horrifying sight of the thick trunk of a scorched tree as it plummeted, still burning, towards the petrified, pink maned heroine. Somewhere above, Rainbow dash congratulated herself on finally felling the last tree and set off to regroup.
Fluttershy dimly heard screaming, terrified, muffled, but her focus lied solely on the tree as it fell towards her. She saw an indigo aura wrap around the tree and it slowed, slightly… until the magical aura dissipated with a flicker. There was a pained scream which caught her attention. She looked as the unicorn mare distantly recoiled from unexpected magical backlash. She saw the horrified looks present on her companions faces and took a step towards them, despite her own terror, to comfort them? She couldn’t say. But she barely completed her third step in their direction, sluggishly, like a mare in a daydream, when the inevitable occurred. There was a thunderous thud, a faint yet sickening crunch, instantly drowned out by the former. Screaming was revealed as an undertone to the toppling trunk, hers or theirs or both she was unable to tell nor distinguish between. Fluttershy felt herself being slammed viciously to the ground and pinned there unrelentingly. Then, just before blackness reached her, came the pain, hot, burning, agonising. Was she aflame? maybe. She knew that she wanted the pain to stop, needed it, she couldn’t stand it. It rendered any sentient thought asunder under its gruelling presence in her brain. She screamed. To the others it was a scream that was swiftly silenced as darkness descended over her mind. To her the pain, oh the excruciating pain seemed to last an eternity. �
