Fluttershy always felt small when she stood before the Everfree Forest. It was tall and dark and vast and deep, and she was just a little pony. She could feel herself shaking as she took the first hesitant step forward. It was a step into a world where wild animals roamed and twisted tree branches grew, and she simply didn’t belong in a world like that.
The gentle breeze that blew through the trees seemed to press against her as she took her next steps. It was a soft push—barely even noticeable—but she could almost imagine it as a warning. The forest’s way of telling her to turn back.
She would have agreed with it. In fact, she wanted nothing more than to run back to her cottage, where she could be far away from the Everfree Forest; where she could be safe and snuggly and warm. But she couldn’t turn back. It took only one look at the ground, where big floppy bunny feet had sunken into the mud, to remind her of why: her Angel Bunny was in there.
Angel...
Fluttershy tried her hardest to ignore her shaky knees as she stepped past the boundary between the Everfree and the rest of the world, and she tried to ignore the bitter cold that enveloped her. She thought of Angel, all lost and alone, even colder and scareder than she was, and put another trembling hoof forward.
“It's not for me,” she whispered, as much to the trees around her as to herself. “It's for him.”
It had only just been evening outside, when she’d stepped into the forest, but the darkness surrounding her now felt like night at its blackest. The branches and leaves of the Everfree trees seemed to swallow up sunlight, leaving precious little for Fluttershy to see. She took deep breaths to steady herself as the forest sounds echoed around her: leaves crackling softly beneath padded feet, whistling birds, and cricket chirps.
She told herself that these were all sounds she’d heard before, in the Whitetail Woods, where it wasn’t dangerous at all. Her own pounding heart knew the truth of things, though: everything was something worse when it couldn’t be seen. Even the crickets; even the birds. And there were big, hungry beasts in the Everfree Forest—there was no denying that. Any one of them could have been lurking, prowling, waiting for the right time to strike. Any one of them could easily snap her little Angel up in their giant jaws, without so much as a thought.
I know you’re upset, Angel...
Her pace quickened. She strained her eyes against the dark, making absolutely sure that she was still following bunny tracks, and that they hadn’t ended where they’d crossed paths with something that had much bigger paws. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw they were still there, for the moment. Fluttershy hoped it wasn’t too late. Dear Celestia, she hoped it wasn’t too late.
Tentative half-steps became a quick canter became a full gallop. She wanted to find Angel and leave, as fast as she possibly could. Fluttershy didn't like to think hurtful thoughts—there wasn’t a lot that she couldn’t eventually learn to accept—but she realised that maybe she did hate the Everfree Forest. She hated the strange, evil shapes its trees grew into without ponies to prune them and keep them in check. She hated the lurking shadows, the sharp teeth and claws awaiting innocent little creatures so that they might rip and tear and swallow them up like snacks. And, most of all, she hated that the forest had taken her own baby Angel Bunny.
She hated, she hated she hated—until a gnarled old root stretched out and tripped her mid-gallop.
It wasn’t a terrible fall. There weren’t any cuts or bruises that Fluttershy could find, but it was enough to convince her that it was a bad idea to run where she couldn’t see. Slowly, she stood herself up, panting from the effort of running so far and so fast, and sat down by the tree that had tripped her. She had to rest for a moment.
Only for a moment, of course. Angel was still in danger. But she had to rest and regain her bearings. Just for a moment. She sat down at the base of the tree, scraped some of the mud off her coat, and gave herself time to get her breath back.
I know you’re upset...
From her resting place beneath the tree, Fluttershy looked up at the sky. It was hard to see through the branches; perhaps it was still evening, perhaps the sun was still slowly sinking beneath the horizon... Or perhaps night had already fallen and that was starlight seeping through leaves above. She wasn’t sure, but she would have liked to know. All the most terrifying things came out at night.
She listened again to the sounds that surrounded her, and she thought she might have heard a timberwolf howling in the distance. But maybe she hadn’t. It was more comforting to think that she hadn’t, and that it was only her mind playing tricks on her.
One thing she was sure she had heard, though, was a soft little snicker; a cruel whispered laugh, so close that it could have been laughing at her.
Fluttershy began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the forest hated her as much as she hated it.
But why can’t we talk about this?
“You,” breathed a voice, so airy and light that it might have been just the wind, “are not welcome here.”
Fluttershy snapped her head around. Her eyes darted this way and that, searching for shapes in the shadows. “Is... is anypony there?”
Silence.
Fluttershy shook her head. No, she hadn’t heard a voice after all. It was her imagination again, playing tricks on her. She was scared enough that she was dreaming up dangers that weren’t even there, like monsters under the bed. But she had to control herself and keep focused. There were enough terrors living in the Everfree Forest. She didn’t need to imagine more of them.
You don’t have to be angry...
She stood up on legs that still felt tired and weak and stumbled back over to Angel’s tracks. She only had to follow them until she found him. Then the two of them could go home together and the nightmare could be over at last. It couldn’t be too much farther, could it? Surely it hadn’t been that long since he’d run away... She just had to follow the tracks and he would be there in the end. She would find him. She was sure of it.
I know it’s my fault...
The trail led on, deeper and deeper into the dark of the forest. Fluttershy followed it as well as she could in the dwindling light, keeping alert for that rustling in the underbrush, or a flash of white fur. Or anything, really. She had to be vigilant. It would be easy, in the forest, to walk right past Angel without even realising it... or, even worse, run right into something scary, with bright yellow eyes and slavering jaws and nasty, pointy, eat-you-up tee—
“Eek!” She shrieked as the bushes behind her started to move. She leapt into the air and watched closely, prepared to fly for her life... But it wasn’t a giant, terrifying monster that came out from those bushes. In fact, what came out of the bushes was little and fuzzy, with shiny black eyes and a cottonball tail and long, dangly ears she'd know anywhere.
It was a bunny! Angel!
Quick as a flash, she swooped down and took him up in her hooves and held him close. “Oh, Angel!” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “I was so worried!”
Then she looked closer at the struggling bunny she held in her hooves and realised that, no, it wasn’t Angel. A cute little bunny with cute bunny whiskers—but not her Angel. She held it up to study it more closely and realised that it didn’t even look much like Angel. The ears were raggedy and brown, and its nose was all the wrong shape. Better a bunny than a wild animal, though, she thought as she breathed a sigh of relief.
The real surprise was actually that there were bunnies living in the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy hadn’t known that. She’d never even thought there’d be bunnies in a place like the Everfree. The poor things. How could they live in a place where everything wanted to eat them? What kind of life was it where they could get eaten at any moment? She hugged tight the bunny tight to her chest and resolved to come back someday, after she’d rescued Angel. She’d come back and see if she couldn’t save as many of the critters as she could find. They deserved that much, at least.
I know you just want to play with your friends...
“I’m awfully sorry, Mister Bunny,” she said, finally setting the squirming thing down. “I thought you were—well... I thought you were another animal I knew.”
The bunny chittered at her angrily for a few moments and ran off without another word. She gave it a silent good-bye wave as it disappeared into another bush and turned her sights again toward the trail. Perhaps the bunny had been a sign, telling her that she was close, and that she had to keep going. So Fluttershy kept walking, deeper and deeper into the dark of the forest.
She was going to find him.
But you know I can’t watch you today...
The wind picked up again as she walked, and on it was carried the voice from before. “Leave, pony,” it hissed softly. “There isss nothing for you in thisss forest.”
What if you got lost?
“It’s not real,” Fluttershy told herself with some confidence. Seeing the bunny had rekindled hope in her that Angel was still alive. Freezing, frightened, and alone—but alive. And, for the moment, that made her hope stronger than her fear. “It’s not real. It’s just in my head. Focus on finding Angel.”
“Leave,” the voice insisted, and the wind blew just a bit harder, forcing Fluttershy’s mane back. “We do not want your kind here...”
What if you got hurt?
“K-keep walking. It’s just my imagination.”
“...And your Angel does not want you here either.”
Fluttershy stopped, not entirely sure what to think anymore. She was going to find Angel. Everything was going to be all right. She knew that. Or, at least, she believed it. If the voice was just her own fear talking, then why wasn’t it going away when she faced it?
I could never forgive myself if that happened...
“What—what do you know about Angel?” she asked.
“Enough,” said the voice. “We know enough. Now go home.”
“Please, can you tell me where he is? I want to talk to him. Just a few words. Please.”
"Go home, pony,” the voice repeated. “We do not want your kind here.”
The wind stopped and the forest went quiet again.
“All in my head,” Fluttershy told herself with somewhat less confidence. “All in my head.”
All in her head, yes. Surely it must have been. The voice had to have been lying. How could Angel not want to see her? Even after—Even though—And how would the voice have known Angel anyway? No, the voice was just another monster-under-the-bed. Another ghost-in-the-closet. Her own fears whispering doubts to her in the darkness. She wasn’t going to listen to it and go home. She was braver than that... when she had to be. And she had to be brave now, for Angel.
Please, just try to understand...
The trail still led onward, weaving its way through the tree-trunks and beneath the brush. The forest grew tangled, and the light faded further, but still Fluttershy followed the tracks. She stared at the path ahead of her, thick and overgrown; impossible to see through. But it couldn’t go on forever. She’d already come so far... Angel had to be close by now. He had to be.
“Angel!” she called, quietly at first. “Angel, are you there?”
Nothing.
Listen to me...
Perhaps she hadn’t called loudly enough. She tried again, with a bit more volume: “Angel? Angel, are you out there?”
Nothing.
Listen, before—
“Angel!” she yelled. “Where are you?”
The ground shook. Something roared.
You break something else...
A tree fell with a booming crash. Then another, then another, closer and closer to where she was standing. The ground shook again, in slow, rhythmic, thundering thumps, and Fluttershy saw the beast moving toward her. She saw the barbed scorpion’s tail, swaying in the air, and the spreading bat-like wings... and she saw the crimson-red lion’s mane, attached to the ferocious leonine face of a manticore.
Fluttershy wanted to run. She had to run. But when she tried to move her legs, she found that they wouldn’t respond, and all she could do was stare as the manticore drew ever nearer. Frozen in fear. That’s what it was called. Her wings were snapped tightly to her back, and her legs were locked in place. The manticore was going to eat her. She was going to die. And even if she had tried to run, there wouldn’t have been anything she could do about it.
You don’t have to act like this...
She stood there, eyes widening, until the manticore finally came to a stop and its hot, sour breath washed over her. Fluttershy looked up at it and locked its steely gaze with hers. A gurgling growl came from the manticore’s throat, and its nose passed over her with big, rasping sniffs. This, she realised, was what a wild thing looked like. The sort of beast that killed other animals and ate them.
“Please, don’t eat me,” she whispered.
We can still talk...
For a brief, insane second, she wondered if the manticore had eaten Angel before this, and if it had done so in exactly the same way. A little bunny, paralyzed with fright at the sight of a hungry manticore. Unable to flee before he was gulped down. She shuddered at the thought and wished she hadn’t thought it, but she hoped that, if she was going to die, she’d at least be able to see Angel again in the afterlife.
The manticore grumbled again, and another wave of its breath crashed against her. Slowly, it opened its mouth, revealing a cavern of glistening fangs.
It licked her.
And it walked on.
And as she stood there, motionless, listening to the sound of trees falling fading out into the distance... a memory came to mind, from a night long ago, when she had gone into the Everfree Forest with her friends. She recalled that she had met a manticore that fateful night, and that she had helped pull a thorn from its paw, and she remembered the words she had spoken thereafter: “Sometimes all you need is a little kindness.”
Perhaps that was all the Everfree really needed: a little kindness.
She looked down Angel’s trail, and saw that the manticore had actually cleared a path for her through the forest. The tracks were ruined a bit, where the manticore’s huge paws had intersected with Angel’s, but they were still there. She hadn’t reached the end yet. She had to keep going. Just that extra bit farther and it would be over.
We can still work things out...
The wind rose again as she walked. “Ssssee?” hissed the voice as it whooshed past her. “Ssssee? The manticore proves it: Your kind does not belong here.”
But not if you won’t listen...
Fluttershy tried to keep moving. Tried not to listen to it. “I-I’m not listening to you,” she said aloud. “Go away.”
Angel, please, just be quiet...
She didn’t know what the voice was anymore. If it was a figment of her own imagination, or if it was somehow real, or... or anything. But she knew it was trouble, whatever it might have been. It didn’t have anything good to say to her, and so far as Fluttershy was concerned, she didn’t have anything to say to it at all. She walked on and kept her mind focused on finding Angel. That was what mattered at this point.
“You make trouble,” breathed the voice.
She had to keep walking. Couldn’t stop walking.
“You disssturb the order of thingsss...”
The end was in sight. She only had to keep walking.
“It’sss no wonder your bunny left you,” the voice continued. “It got tired of life in a cage.”
That was too much for Fluttershy. There was a line that wasn’t supposed to be crossed, and the voice had crossed it.
“I would never put anything in a cage,” she said. “Especially not Angel.”
“You are a pony,” said the voice, and the wind blew that extra bit harder. “You put everything in a cage, and you keep it trapped there. Even the plants. Even the sky.”
“Never...”
Just please stop and listen.
The wind picked up like a storm. The leaves rustled deafeningly as the trees themselves swayed, and Fluttershy found herself struggling to stand against the gale.
“You would make petsss out of us, if you could!” the voice shouted. “You would feed us and groom us and love us—and you would tell us what we could not do! Where we could not go!”
“I wouldn’t!” cried Fluttershy, but it was lost in the howls of the wind. She wasn’t sure she believed what she said anyway. Wasn’t it true, what the voice had said? Hadn’t she proved that with Angel?
Hadn’t she?
Please, Angel...
“For our own safety, you’d say! As if you knew better! As if it were your right to tell us what to do with our lives!”
“B-but—”
“Go home, pony!” the voice roared over the wind. “This is not a place for your kind. We are Everfree! Angel is Everfree now! And he prefers it that way! Who are you to say otherwise? Go home, pony! Go home!”
Please, be quiet now...
And something in Fluttershy snapped. A white hot rage flared that she hadn’t even known she had in her. She wanted the voice to leave her alone. To go away forever. More than anything in the world, she wanted it to stop saying these terrible things. But it wouldn’t stop, and It was too much for her to take. The dam broke, and everything burst out at once.
Please, just...
She screamed.
“Shut up!”
Suddenly the wind died. The trees grew still and the forest went quiet. “Point proven,” whispered the voice, and it spoke no more.
For a long while, Fluttershy stood there, motionless. She’d done it. She’d stared the voice down. Outshouted it. She’d faced her fears squarely and she’d beaten them.
And, for some strange reason, she felt... hollow. She felt hollow inside, now that she was alone.
Maybe it was because, in the end, she hadn’t been right. She hadn’t won because she’d deserved to win, but because she’d ordered it to shut up, and it had obeyed. She’d defeated the voice by sheer right of being meaner than it. Nothing more.
Just like with Angel...
Maybe the voice wasn’t a liar, and maybe it never had been. Maybe the truth was that Angel was happier with the forest than with her. Maybe he thought it was better to be free than to be her Angel. Maybe—after all she’d done to him—he did hate her...
And the thing that broke Fluttershy’s heart most was that she could believe it.
Eventually, she lurched forward, one hoof in front of the other. More out of a sense that she needed to finish this than anything else. Whatever Angel thought of her now, she still wanted to see him, one last time. She couldn’t turn back without seeing him again. It wouldn’t be right to turn back now and let her last memory of him be a terrible one.
And there was still that faint hope in bottom of her heart that said he was lost and afraid. That he still needed her help, and was waiting for her to come save him.
The trail ended at a river, in a clearing where the trees weren’t so thick and, for the first time, the stars could be seen shining in the sky above. Fluttershy stared puzzled at the tracks and traced her hoof over the point where they stopped at the water’s edge. How could they simply end at the river? Had Angel stepped into the stream, and been washed clear away by the rapids? Or had he swum across somehow?
“I spy,” said a gentlecoltly sort of voice, “with my little eye... a pony!” It laughed. “We don’t get too many of those around these parts.”
Fluttershy looked up and saw that there was an enormous purple sea-serpent with a well-coiffed mane of orange hair staring down at her. He was a somewhat familiar sight, at least, unlike everything else she’d met in the forest so far. She vaguely remembered him from that night in the Everfree, when she’d met the manticore. He wasn’t anything to be afraid of, if her memory served.
“Oh...” she said dully. “Hello, again.”
“Hm?” A spark of recognition flashed in his eye, and he bent down to get a better look. “Oh, yes, I know you! You were—ah, don’t tell me. It’s on the forked tips of my tongue... Yes! You were one of those wonderful folk who helped me with my, ah, tragic moustache emergency.” He gestured toward the curly purple hair extending from the right side of his face, looking extremely proud. “I’m still very grateful, you know. Been taking excellent care of it. Is it not simply gorgeous?”
Fluttershy looked at it and smiled halfheartedly. “It looks... very nice,” she said.
“Ah, oh, dear, something’s wrong,” he said, scrunching his face up. “Surely a moustache this fine would incite more than a ‘very nice’! Tell me Miss...” he snapped his claws thoughtfully, searching for a name. “Wait, I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced?”
“My name is Fluttershy,” she mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Fluttershy.” A bit louder.
“Ah, Fluttershy! Lovely name. Well—I am the one whom they call Steven Magnet.” He bowed. “At your service. Now, tell me, Miss Fluttershy, what’s troubled such a fine, pretty pony as you on this exquisite night?”
“I’m not really sure I want to talk about it...”
“Nonsense!” he said. “Always better to air out your problems than keep them bottled up inside. Makes a mess of you if you don’t, trust me. Why, I might even be able to help! I really would like to repay you and your friends for your help with my moustache—did I mention I’m still grateful for that?” He flicked a loose scale off his shoulder and coughed. “I’m still grateful for that.”
Fluttershy sighed. Maybe it would help, to let some of her feelings out. She didn’t know Steven Magnet very well, but it seemed rude to refuse him when he was offering a shoulder to cry on. “I’m... trying to find a friend of mine, Mister Magnet,” she said.
“Oh, are you now?” he chuckled. “That would explain what you’re doing out and about at this hour. What’s the trouble, then? Can’t find them? I could help you look. I know some folks.”
Her eyes fell and her hooves kicked at the dirt.
“Am I right?” Steven asked. “Am I wrong? Come on, you have to work with me here, dearie.”
“The thing is,” she said. “I’m not sure he wants to be found.”
“Ah,” he said knowingly. “That sort of trouble. Why might he not want to be found, if it’s alright with me asking?”
“We had a fight,” she said, feeling a lump growing in her throat. It hurt to remember. “I said some things I shouldn’t have said.”
“And?”
“And he... ran away.”
“No!”
“And I was thinking that it might have been my fault,” she said. Tears were forming her eyes. She felt like she would break down and cry at any moment, but she tried to keep her voice steady. “F-for keeping him where he didn’t want to be.”
The sea-serpent sat deep in thought for a moment. “And your friend is... What? Another pony like you? A stallion? Coltfriend?”
“A b-bunny. H-his name is Angel.”
“That’ll happen,” he said, nodding. “Lots of animals don’t like being told what to do. Some of us like to be wild and free and—goodness!” He winced as her knees gave way beneath her and she broke down into sobs. “Oh, I’m such an idiot! My sincerest apologies.”
“N-no,” she sniffled. “It’s my fault. I’m the reason he’s gone and won’t ever come back.”
“I don’t want to hear another word of that,” he said, firmly but gently. He gave her a reassuring grin. “You know there’s an old saying: If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it’s yours to keep.” He waited for her to choke out a few more sobs before continuing. “I think—and this is just what I think, mind—that you should go talk to him. Let him decide if he wants to come back before you go deciding he doesn’t.”
“B-but the voice said—”
“A voice, you say?” Steven Magnet scratched his chin. “Well, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to voices. Might have been a lamia—they feed off despair, you know. Or it could have been a kobold. They always give me the heeby-jeebies...” He thought on it some more, and shrugged. “The point is that it’s best not to worry yourself too much about it. It’s terrible for the complexion.”
“I don’t know...”
“Let me tell you something now, Miss Fluttershy,” said Steven Magnet. He leaned in close, and his voice dropped to a hushed, secretive tone. “Nothing is ever as it seems. Especially not here in the Everfree Forest. Now, sticks and stones can bruise you like a tomato, but there isn’t a thing words can do to you if you don’t let them. You listen to what you think is right, you understand? Don’t ever let anything tell you otherwise.”
Fluttershy nodded. She wasn’t really sure she understood, but she had an idea of it, and nodding seemed like the right thing to do.
“That’s what we call aplomb,” he said with a wink.
Fluttershy snorted and laughed a little at how silly that sounded and found that she’d stopped crying. She sniffed again, one last time, wiped some of the tears from her face, and got herself back to her hooves.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“I t-think so,” she said, suddenly aware that she did feel better, now that she’d gotten it all off her chest. “Lots.”
“Now,” said Steven, “It just so happens that I ferried a moody-looking bunny across this very river not too long ago. If you hurry, you should be able to catch him.”
She flapped her wings and rose into the air. “Thank you, Mister Magnet,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the snout. “You were very, very helpful.”
“I do try,” he said, blushing bright red. “Now go find your bunny-friend. And good luck.”
She gave him another quick kiss for good measure, and flew off over the river and into the woods. There were tracks again, on the other side. Bunny tracks. And they looked fresh. She flew quickly in following them, feeling lighter than air. It felt as though a great weight had suddenly been taken off her shoulders, and she felt better now than she ever had before. Angel was close. She could feel it.
Then she saw it: a small pack of fluffy white bunnies, tussling and frolicking in between the trees. Everfree bunnies, and at the center of the pack, she could see the bright, smiling-wide face of her Angel.
He wasn’t cold or lost or lonely or scared. He’d found friends. He was playing with them. He was... happy.
“Angel!” she cried, unable to hold it in. Most of the bunnies were startled and they bolted into the protective cover of the forest. But one bunny stayed put, staring up at the pony who’d called his name: Angel.
“Angel, I’m so sorry!” she said, landing and running toward him. She grabbed him and hugged him tight and set him back down. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Angel simply stared up at her with those big, soulful black eyes of his, and he hugged her hoof to tell her that yes, he did forgive her. Then he pointed toward where his friends had run off and ran off to join them. He stopped to give her one last wave goodbye and disappeared into the forest.
Leaving Fluttershy to be alone.
The breeze blew, and a voice, light and airy, whispered, “We told you so...”
But she thought about it some more, and it occurred to her how big the smile on Angel’s face had been when he was playing with his new friends, and she let a smile come to her own face.
The breeze blew again, and another voice came on it, whispering, “If you love something, let it go...”
And that sounded right to Fluttershy, so she listened to that voice instead.
And she finally knew what to do.
