With her tranquil little cottage located so close to the periphery of the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy – even before Twilight Sparkle had come to town and gotten them all mixed-up with the Elements of Harmony, leading them on one crazy adventure after another – had already seen many of the strange and unusual sights that Equestria had to offer. Ever since she'd taken up residence here to pursue her dream of becoming a great animal caretaker, in fact, she'd felt her life gradually becoming a series of strange events.
Or rather more aptly: a series of strange encounters.
A typical night for her – though night and day were purely arbitrary designations in a realm where pony influence did not extend and observed its own arcane natural laws – could consist of anything from tending to a gaggle of newly-hatched manticore cubs to shooing both predators and poachers alike away from the last of the cockatrice nests.
Once in a while, she counted herself lucky enough to catch a glance of the ever-surly cragadiles who made their homes in the many swampy marshes dotted across the forest and were content to be left to their own devices for the most part; still no success in finding any hydras tonight, but she lived in hope. Hope tempered with realism, of course. Fluttershy knew well-enough now to not linger for too long around here. So many of the unusual beasts that made this place their home would be happy to make a pony-sized treat out of her, even if she was only trying to help them.
Adventures with her friends and other animal-welfare duties permitting, Fluttershy had taken it upon herself to create an informal census of the things that lurked in the Everfree Forest and she did her utmost to update it at least once every few months; she found it a rather onerous burden to carry, but it did give her a certain amount of satisfaction to catalogue all of the new creatures coming into existence. Some were spawned through magical means – so much of it had leaked out of the Castle of the Two Sisters after the battle and it would take thousands more years for it to dissipate fully, Celestia believed – and others were via more conventional methods.
Since the Everfree Forest was such a chaotic place, subject to shifts in climate both subtle and extreme, Fluttershy thought it important to keep tabs on all of the animals and their environments; for instance, it was raining right now, but just a few minutes ago there had been snow and tropical temperatures within just a few feet of each other.
Some beings were ushered into existence already fully-adapted to this insanity and raring to go, but others – such as the breezies which had lived here once many, many moons ago – needed to be transplanted as their tiny bodies were so fragile that even a good, stiff wind could knock the stuffing out of them.
It was often said that the weak had to perish so that the strong could survive, and Fluttershy – ever a naturalist – believed in that up to a point; but her own valuable experiences had shown her that just because somepony was weak didn't make them any more or less important in the grand scheme of things, and there was nothing in the rule book that said you couldn't stack the deck in their favour once in a while.
Nopony who'd known me in Flight School would ever have believed that I would go on to become one of the Elements of Harmony. One of our nation's foremost defenders. It just goes to show that all of us have a hidden strength within us, waiting to be accessed should the need ever arise.
Fluttershy was just finishing up a quick survey of the cragadile swamps; a bask of them, she realised, had been patrolling an area much further out from their central habitat than usual, and she had found their collective mood to be rather on edge. They were naturally very ill-tempered and wary of outsiders, of course, but this had been something altogether else. It struck her that they seemed worried about something. She quickly discovered why that was: several of the females that she could see enjoying a good mud-bath sported enlarged bellies indicating that they were carrying young.
A fearsome, spine-covered male approached Fluttershy and growled a guttural warning at her.
She got the gist of it easily enough: do not approach any closer.
Many of the animals in the forest tolerated her because she helped them, but only to a point and Fluttershy knew all too well what could happen to those who did not respect the natural order of things. Even in a place like this whose natural order was so different to the one in the outside world.
Her rounds all but finished, she made her way along the well-worn route back to Ponyville; thanks to Zecora's presence and her strange magicks, the path was usually kept clear, but Fluttershy was wary all the same. She stopped suddenly, certain that she'd heard something out there amidst the mire.
A cry, perhaps?
She shrugged. That wasn't all that unusual; things cried all the time, and there were certainly plenty of beasts in here that could cause one to cry out in alarm. The sound repeated itself.
Her ears pricked up; something about the noise tugged at her, making her heart beat slightly faster. It was so familiar. So primal.
It was not a cry of distress nor was it the cry of a victorious animal.
It was crying.
Fluttershy bit her lower lip softly; the plaintive wail was coming from somewhere deep in the tangled brush, and it would mean leaving the relative safety of the main path in order to track it down. She knew that she'd been fortunate not to run into any problems so far, and she didn't want to risk pushing her luck to breaking point. Zecora's hut was not far from here, but the zebra herbalist would likely be deep in her meditations at this hour and would not want to be disturbed.
Taking a deep breath to allay her fears, Fluttershy placed one hoof daintily over the edge of the path; soon, the other three followed and she found herself racing off in the direction of the cry. Something that could be heard even through the thick canopy of trees, even through the many other noises competing for attention in the forest, was worth investigating.
If there's one thing that I cannot ignore, no matter how much it may put my own life at risk, it's the sound of a creature in pain. I HAVE to help or what's the point in my being the Element of Kindness?
Fluttershy brought her breakneck sprint to a halt, ignoring the vines and branches whipping at her face; it was rumoured that the hydra pits were around here somewhere, and while she would normally have delighted in spotting one now was not a good time for her to draw any sort of attention to herself. They would make short work of her and whatever it was that was on the other side of this craggy outcropping. At a slow trot, ears pricked up and operating at maximum sensitivity so that she'd have as much warning as possible should anything try to surprise her, Fluttershy made her way carefully around it.
Strangely, much of her anxiety had dissipated into the ether all of a sudden; despite the threats that existed all around her, despite the fact that she was suddenly discovering that this rock was suspended over a gloomy tar pit and there were numerous twisted bones of animals caught in a rictus of terror as they struggled vainly for their freedom, her own safety meant less to her than the well-being of another creature.
“Oh, Celestia,” Fluttershy said, exhaling sharply. Her eyes blinked of their own accord as her voice hit a register so high that her words would go unheard by most normal ears.
“Not quite,” a slimy, sinewy, yet also somehow bewitching voice said, its tones laced with a note of dry, mocking humour. “She's only a princess, after all. I'm a queen.”
Even though her heart was pounding and her legs urged her to flee toward Zecora or Ponyville, Fluttershy managed to say, “Well, going by your throne of rocks, it looks like you've been deposed, Chrysalis.” She took in the form of the Changeling Queen and – much to her chagrin – her initial fright quickly turned to concern. Yes, what she'd done at Shining Armour and Princess Cadance's wedding had been awful, more than awful, but it was patently obvious that she was not that same threat any more. Not since she'd been rejected out of hoof by the Hive, it seemed.
The one-time invader of Canterlot, the one who'd nearly replaced all of them, was now just another sick creature needing her help. Chrysalis' normally-lustrous black carapace was greying and numerous cracks had formed in the now-brittle shell leaving the underlying, necrotic tissue exposed. The holes in her legs looked larger, but Fluttershy – not an expert on Changeling biology – was unsure as to what this meant. Probably nothing good, anyway. Her aquamarine hair and wings were listless, and the fire in her malachite eyes was fading. “How long have you been lying here for, exactly?” she asked sympathetically.
“I don't want your pity, little pony!” Chrysalis said, her angry voice taking on a raspy quality that made Fluttershy jump back a couple of paces.
“I was just asking a question,” said Fluttershy sternly, resuming her original position. A difficult choice was brewing for her, and she frowned in consternation as she pondered what the correct course of action was.
“How long has it been since Thorax and those traitors turned their backs on me?” asked Chrysalis, her voice dripping with boredom, resigning herself to enduring Fluttershy's irritating presence for however long she elected to remain.
“About a month or so,” Fluttershy replied flatly, wondering if Thorax would want to know about this. Probably not. He'd tried and failed to bring the one-time queen to his side, and now it seemed that he was resigned to their being enemies.
“Then, I've been here for three weeks and six days.” Chrysalis smiled thinly at the feeble attempt at a joke. “It took about a day to fly from the Hive's nest to here. It seems to be as good a place as any for an outcast queen to meet their end, doesn't it?”
Fluttershy looked about the little outcropping and the bubbling tar below. “If you really wanted to die, you could've just flung yourself into the pit. Why didn't you?”
Chrysalis was too weak to shrug, but Fluttershy was under the distinct impression that she was trying to do just that as a slight tremor made her limp body shake slightly. “My race began here, did you know that? Not this exact spot, I mean, but in this general vicinity. It was a slow, painful birthing process, so I figured that a slow, painful death for the last of the Changelings was fitting.”
You're not the last, Fluttershy wanted to say, but she silenced her tongue. Antagonising the former queen would serve no purpose except to make her even more unwilling to accept help. She could see that Chrysalis was suffering from extreme starvation, had doubtless been attacked by animals given the state of her shell, and now that it was weakened she was also exposed to the elements of this chaotic place. Death could not be too far off now … unless somepony intervened. How she was still even alive at all impressed Fluttershy and it was testament to the ferocious will of the Changeling. She's one tough bug. If only she could be persuaded to join Thorax and the others.
“You should leave, little pony,” Chrysalis said, cutting into Fluttershy's musings. “The young hydra like to wander off from their roosts every now and then in search of-” her voice turned derisive “-snacks.” She inclined her head in the direction of the tar pits and added, “Not all of them died because they were trapped, just so you know.”
Fluttershy had stopped listening, however; the choices continued to rattle around in her mind, and she kept coming back to one question, “What would Twilight Sparkle do?” Chrysalis' laboured breathing was an ongoing impediment to her concentration, as were the distant squawks, roars and rumbles of the animals who made this part of the forest their own. Doubtless, they could smell the Changeling's decaying body and they sensed that an easy evening's meal was on the cards. She strove for calm, trying her hardest to work out each of the decisions to their logical conclusions in the hopes of making the right one.
Twilight would probably tell her, “Queen Chrysalis is an enemy of ponykind and will most likely continue to be as she has shown no signs that she wants to or is even capable of reformation. She used some extremely disgusting tactics to get what she wanted, and while you could argue that the survival of her species was on the line she also ENJOYED taunting and manipulating us the entire time. If we hadn't stopped her, we'd all be dead or nothing more than love-batteries to be harvested at her whim. And I don't even want to THINK about what she was doing to my poor brother the entire time that he was under her spell.”
Her own perceptions told her, “Queen Chrysalis is a wounded animal and I am in a position to offer her the help that she requires in order to survive. I would pursue this same course of action if it was a manticore, a hydra, or any of the hundreds of other species which have shown themselves to be inimical to ponykind. Changelings have a right to survive, the same as we do, even if their methods of feeding seem cruel or abhorrent to us. I am a caretaker, I am a healer, and I have a duty to look after those who cannot do so on their own.”
“What … what in the Tartarus are you doing, little pony?” Chrysalis asked sharply when she felt her tired, injured body being flipped over on to its back and two skinny legs reached underneath her own forelegs. She let out a little squeak as Fluttershy's rough hooves hit some tender spots on her bruised shell.
“I'm sorry, but doing it this way isn't going to be much on dignity,” Fluttershy said, a mixture of regret and strain making her words sound more terse than she'd intended them to. Awkwardly hauling the former Changeling queen as if she were a sack of apples was going to tax her to her limits, but an fevered determination lit her beryl eyes up. “Unless you have the strength to transform into something that I can more easily carry, then I'm afraid I'm gonna have to drag you back home.”
Irritably, trying to dig her hindlegs into the ground to stall their progress, Chrysalis said, “Even if I wanted you to do this, which I don't, you're not going to be able to carry me all the way back to the Badlands on your own. Even if you do, what do you think my ultimate fate is going to be?”
“I'm not taking you to the other Changelings in the Badlands,” Fluttershy said, grunting and heaving with exertion. By Celestia, she's heavy! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised with that thick, armoured hide of hers, but otherwise she looks so thin! “I'm taking you to my cottage in Ponyville. You'll be safe there, I promise.”
“Safe?” Chrysalis practically spat the word out. “In Ponyville? Where the Princess of Friendship lives?”
“That's right,” replied Fluttershy brusquely, hoping to cut the chatter off as soon as possible. She needed every ounce of her meagre strength to get through this. And as captivating as Chrysalis' voice could sound, she had to remind herself that it was just an act to get what she wanted. “Twilight Sparkle is the Princess of Friendship, not revenge. She may not be happy to see you, but she won't harm you either.”
Using what scant reserves of energy were left to her, Chrysalis growled and barked at Fluttershy; she wriggled and squirmed in the pony's grasp, kicking at her back feebly in the hopes of shaking loose her grasp on her. “Crawling to a pony village will be the same as taking me back home-” for just a moment her eyes watered at the thought of home, but they were quickly doused when she remembered that the place she called home didn't exist any more “-you're only going to waste time and effort stabilising my condition so that you can bring me before Princess Celestia for my crimes. Better to just let me die here in peace.”
“I can't do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because-” Fluttershy stared deep into Chrysalis' eyes, her own blazing furiously “-it's not in my nature to do so.”
Chrysalis finally got the message and shut up. She told herself that she was simply too weak to argue her case any further, but in truth that stare … its power had chilled her to her malphigian tubules.
Ultimately, Chrysalis is a sapient creature and deserving of our empathy; she may not care about the laws which govern all of Equestria's inhabitants, but I will not ignore them simply because they are an inconvenience to me at this moment. What kind of pony – what kind of Element of Harmony – would I be if I allowed a living creature to die just because it was the easier path to take? Beyond my duty as a caretaker, I also have a responsibility to show this being that there is another way for her to exist, too. Perhaps she will be swayed, perhaps not, but my conscience will be salved by knowing that I tried my best to help.
