A Ballad for Angel

Fluttershy was lost in a swirling whirlpool of all of the regret, guilt, and self-hate that had been piling up over the years. The yellow pegasus had many reasons and situations where she had regretted doing things, like when she had inadvertently caused a parasprite to multiply and attack the city, or when she had stolen the Princesses pet bird! The latter ended better than expected, but she still felt terrible about stealing. Even minor infractions crossed her mind, like the time she was throwing a candy wrapper into a garbage bin, and completely missed! She always hated herself for not picking it up afterwards, and had always felt extremely guilty about littering in a public area.

And then the flashbacks began. Flashbacks of mean Fluttershy, of cruel Fluttershy, of what happened at the Gala, of Angel. She couldn’t protect Angel. She wasn’t there for him. She let him die! A billion reasons came into her mind. I was mean to him! I shouldn’t have yelled at him! I should have brought him along shopping! This is all my fault…

Those thoughts commenced, and the guilt and regret just built up inside the tiny little pony. It was consuming her. The ashen tendrils crawled up her hooves, constricting her movements. It washed over her eyeballs, blotting out her vision and seeping into the back of her skull. It crept into her brain, filling it to the brim with memories of the times she regretted treating her little bunny the wrong way. It became harder for her to breathe, as it felt like black ink filling her mouth, and dripping down her throat, muffling her sobs. The ashen ink started to make its way through her nostrils, and she started choking as her lungs expanded bigger and bigger.

Fluttershy’s body shot upwards in the bed, sweat and tears mixing together, sunbeams reflecting off her drenched face. She felt awful, and she was afraid of what would happen. Afraid her bunny would die…was dead! Her body shivered as she sat there, just as the morning sun slowly crept through the window beside her bed. No, it wasn’t her bed. She examined the bed closer and noticed little pictures embroidered on it. The pictures were very primal, seemingly telling a story. She felt she knew what the pictures were about, but could not think clear enough that nothing came to mind.

A trembling hoof slid off the side of the bed, and onto the floor. The wood underneath her hoof felt cool and familiar. There were no planks, but solid wood. She looked down, and saw that there were more rings than she could count. She gently and slowly inhaled. The faint scent of the recently brewed herbs filled her nose. She listed them off, letting her eyes adjust and scan her surroundings. A cauldron, a spice rack, a scary mask, a sleeping zebra…Wait! A zebra?

Confusion spread across the pink-haired pony’s face. Her brain couldn’t process what was happening, or where she was. The last thing she remembered was seeing her little bunny in a bloodied state. Angel…the memory flowing back into her mind. She heard a shallow inhale followed by an equally shallow exhale. The breathing was coming from the left of her. She was paralyzed with fear and confusion. Her instincts told her not to turn her head towards the deathly sound. With her brain still trying to make sense of the situation, her common sense took a back seat to curiosity, and she slowly but surely rotated her head to her left.

Laying in a small circular bed, bundled up in tiny blankets, was Angel the bunny. Fluttershy trotted softly over to the bed, listening quietly to the harsh breathing of the white rabbit. Tears welled up in her eyes, a whimper escaping her throat. She moved her head closer to lift the blankets to see underneath them, but hesitated to do so, because she didn’t feel strong enough to handle seeing the gashes left by the horrific beast.

As if her brain had finished waking up, her mind came back to the present, and she looked around the room slowly. She knew where she was. She had been here countless of times. Once she came through the scary forest all on her own, because Angel had caught a bad flu, and Fluttershy sought out the help of Zecora for a natural home remedy. Not only was it one of the few times she’s been through the forest alone, but it was also the first time she realized how she felt about the zebra. Since then, every time she went to visit Zecora alone, she would always think about the reward of seeing Zecora, to trump over the fear that the forest seeded inside her.

Her mind rewound back to the first day of spring that year, and to the day her bunny was critically injured. The memory played back in her mind like a movie playing through a fuzzy projector. She remembered pushing a few ponies out of her way to get to the front of the crowd. She remembered seeing him there, lying motionless in his own blood. She remembered Twilight showing up and yelling things, but at that point, Fluttershy was gone from the world.

Only she and Angel remained in a never ending white. The bunny laying on a white floor, with the accented red soaking his cotton fur. She stood there traumatized, not knowing what to do. She took a few steps closer to the bunny, but with every motion forward, the red puddle grew in circumference. It expanded and expanded, flooding the white space, the level slowly creeping up the yellow pegasus’ legs. She screamed in terror as she watched her bunny become engulfed in red hot blood. The red sea filled the space more and more at an alarming rate. Soon enough, the pony was close to drowning; screaming out “This is wrong! This is wrong! This is…” escaped her mouth before the red encompassed her head.

The present time punched her in the face with a 2 tonne weight. Questions suddenly flooded her mind. What day was it? Where is the wyvern now? Will Angel get better? Will Angel be the same after? Will Angel die? She shook her head clear of all these questions, and started thinking logically. Okay Fluttershy, your bunny is dying, and you need to help him! Where can you go to find out more about wyverns? She thought long and hard, and it took her a few minutes to go through a list of people she knew that might be able to help.

“Of course! Twilight should have a book about wyverns!” she said aloud to herself. Forgetting that it was early in the morning, she looked over at the slumbering zebra to make sure she hadn’t woken her. It seemed like Zecora had done a lot to help out Fluttershy and her bunny, but she did deserve a rest from it all. Fluttershy appreciated everything Zecora had already done, and planned to repay her somehow, but right now, Fluttershy had to take a book out of the library, and fast!
The yellow Pegasus pony hurriedly galloped out of Zecora’s treehouse, and raced her way out of the Everfree Forest. Running as fast as her frail little hooves could take her, she reached the edge of the forest, and where her cottage was situated. Instead of her little house sitting where it usually did, what looked like an old abandoned building replaced it. The wyvern had done a number on her cottage, but it was still mostly intact. She slowly trotted over to the front door that was hanging from its bottom hinge. She gently pushed it open, and walked inside the disaster. Aside from mostly everything being thrashed about and broken, her house seemed redeemable.

She trotted into her room. She smiled faintly seeing that it was fairly untouched, and had the least amount of damage out of the whole place. Opening her closet door with her mouth, she poked her head in, and pulled out her traveller’s bags. She set them upon her back, and walked over to the window. She looked out at the area surrounding her house. Her garden, the chicken coop, the pond in the middle… The list went on, and it became apparent that the monster had wrecked more than just her house. She shook her head, opening the window to let in a slight breeze.

Leaning over the windowsill, her hair being tugged by the invisible fingers of the wind, she looked up in the sky. By the position of the sun, she figured it was now getting close to eight in the morning, and had plenty of time, but she didn’t want to waste any time. She backed away towards the door to her room, about to leave from that exit. She hesitated with her mouth holding the doorknob, and then closed the door, with her still inside. She jumped up and spun right around, facing the opposite side of the door. She readied herself, hooving at the wooden floor, building up her wits. Hot air was jetting from her nostrils before she jolted forward. A flash of pink and yellow streaked across the room, and out of the opened window.
When Fluttershy was clear of the window, she stretched her dainty wings out, and glided around her house. She felt the air streaming around her wings. She felt free. She felt all the things giving her stress melting away. Ever since Rainbow Dash suggested flying to take away her stress, she always flew around when she wanted to get something off her mind. Coming closer to the ground, she flapped her wings a few times, and soared upwards into the big cloudy sky.

Not only was flying a stress reliever, but it was also much faster than walking. Fluttershy arrived at her friend’s front door in under no more than 5 minutes, a personal best. The shy pony knocked on the front door gingerly with her right hoof. She heard a rustling inside the library which sounded like books being thrown around. Fluttershy knocked a second time, and she heard a familiar little voice ring out from the tree.

“Yeah, yeah one second please! I’ll be there soon enough!” it was Spike, Twilight’s baby dragon assistant. Fluttershy had remembered the first time she had met him. The pink haired pony was certainly a lot more shy back then, and had toughened up a boatload since that day.

After a bit more shuffling noises from inside the library, the doorknob to the front door slowly turned, and the door swayed open. What was to be found opening said door was a short purple baby dragon with green spikes crawling down his spine. Not only was it Spike at the door, but an impossibly tall stack of books lead from his right hand to three or four times the height of the reptile. He silently set the stack aside, to get a look at who was at the door, and a shocked look replaced the lazy and tired one that he often wore.

“F-Fluttershy…” he started, but he couldn’t form a sentence because he was sincerely baffled. “W-what are you doing here?” he then questioned. “H-how is Angel?”

Fluttershy shook her head at the mention of her Angel bunny. She did not want to think about the condition of her baby right now. She had more pressing matters to attend to. “I’m sorry Spike; I don’t want to talk about it. Is Twilight home?” she replied, answering the prior question. Fluttershy walked inside the disaster area of a library, and gasped. She hadn’t seen the library in this much of a mess since the day they all defeated Nightmare Moon.

In the middle of the clutter, was a lavender unicorn; a book opened to a page, and her face planted in those pages, not reading them, but snoring gently and drooling slightly on them. Fluttershy paused at the sight, then glided over to the sleeping purple pony. She nudged the lavender pony lightly with her nuzzle, sweetly singing the Morning song. A look of disgust stretched over Twilight’s face, as she recognized the song. Twilight hated the song, ever since the time she and Rarity had slept over at Fluttershy’s house once.

“N-No… not that song…please…” she stated as she slowly opened her eyes. The lifted her head from the book, and groggily looked over at her yellow friend. She yawned wide, and rubbed her eyes. “F-Fluttershy!…W-what!?” she exclaimed in a surprised tone of voice. “Why are you h-here?” she questioned.

“Twilight, I need your help! I want to save my bunny, and I think the only way is to go back in time, and make sure that mean old wyvern doesn’t even come close to my little bunny! I want to learn about how to kill a wyvern first, though. I don’t want something like that rampaging around Ponyville! Do you?” the pink-maned pony asked her friend, with tears welling up in her eyes.