To Brave a Storm

Chapters

I. Sacrifice
II. Chance
III. Return
IV. Tale
V. Regret

I. Sacrifice

Ever alert – sometimes to a fault – Fluttershy’s luminous azure eyes followed the arc of Celestia’s sun, Helios, as its slow, pondering descent brought it close to the horizon line; standing over Ponyville like a monolithic guardian was the snow-capped bulk of Mount Cayuse, and she took a brief half-second to appreciate the way in which the dying embers of effulgent amber light kissed its glittering peaks. If one were feeling fanciful, you could almost describe it as a million tiny fireworks going off at once. With a small shake of her head, Fluttershy retrained her attention on the way home. Though the skies were now beginning to shade from blue to grey, she could just about make out her tiny cottage on the other side of town. Not long now. Icy fingers of cold air pressed against her from all sides. In spite of her thick yellow coat, she shivered involuntarily. Home. Hot chocolate. Snuggling with Angel Bunny. The evening would be something to savour after a long, trying day.

Some ponies were of the opinion that Fluttershy didn’t like to fly, but they were wrong about that; it was true that she didn’t have much of a head for heights, but she did enjoy the purely physical sensations associated with being in flight: the beat of her wings, the rush of air, her pink mane and tail whipping dramatically in the breeze. Especially at night, with nopony around that she might accidentally bump into, Fluttershy could almost believe that she was alone in the world and consequently she felt a little freer in her movements. The vibrant shades of orange given off by the setting sun, colouring the landscape ahead of her in brilliant coral tones, lulled her normally fidgety mind into a state of relaxation: with nothing and nopony around for miles, she was able to simply fly to her destination in her own sedate, undramatic way and not worry about what anypony else thought of her. In so many ways, Fluttershy knew, she was the exact opposite of her best friend, Rainbow Dash.

Banking into a turn in order to avoid a sudden updraft that would’ve upset her delicate balance, Fluttershy suddenly became aware of the spicy scent of cinnamon being carried on the air currents; she inhaled a bit more of the heady aroma, quickly realising its source: she was passing over Sweet Apple Acres, and her eyes scanned the verdant orchard that was in the full bloom of spring. Mighty trees brimming with green thrust toward the sky filled with juicy, red apples. A wry smile crossed her muzzle as she recalled the time she’d been accidentally turned into a bat-pony by Twilight. Her stomach chose that moment to rumble, reminding Fluttershy that she hadn’t eaten in hours. There hadn’t been time to, what with one thing and another happening today.

Briefly, the thought crossed her mind of dropping in on Applejack on the way home and begging for a slice of Granny Smith’s famous apple crumble; assuming her senses weren’t letting her down, Fluttershy was pretty sure that’s what that delightful smell was as she made a low pass over Sweet Apple Acres, her belly practically grazing the tips of the trees as she did so. Reluctantly, as she picked up a little height, she decided not to. She didn’t want to bother the Apples so late in the day. The fact that they’d be welcoming and polite to a fault would just make her feel even worse about the half-baked idea. There’s plenty of food at the cottage, and more than that, I’ll get to see Angel again. Could life get any better than that?

Fluttershy knew that she was many things, but she didn’t count being superstitious as one of them; still, when a sharply-pronged fork of grimy purple lightning sizzled across the sky – bringing a brief false dawn to this side of Ponyville – she couldn’t help but get the impression that somepony, or somebeing, had just given her unvoiced question a profoundly negative answer. She hovered in place above the farm, trying to take in the enormity of what it was she had just seen. Fear sent a cold chill along her spine as she remembered the weather report from earlier that day: no storms had been scheduled for the village. This was not the work of her fellow pegasi at the weather factory, which meant that … it was a rogue.

Rogue storms: those weird, unnatural phenomena generated in places where magic was allowed to roam free and unchecked like the Everfree Forest; they were totally beyond the control of even the most powerful of ponies, and the advice for dealing with them invariably boiled down to a single command, “Run!”

Nine times out of ten, Fluttershy’s rational mind knew, they were nothing to worry about, save the occasional bit of property damage if they got too close to a town or village; as they were born from magic, once they were freed from the place of their birth they would rather quickly burn themselves out with no new intake of energy to sustain them. Irrationally, however, Fluttershy felt very, very unsettled by this particular rogue storm. Deep in the core of her being, past the flesh and bone – right down to the spirit, the very essence of magic that tied her and every other pony to Equestria – she sensed the wrongness of it somehow. It wasn’t that it was alive and radiated a sense of evil, as far as she could tell, anyway, but … Fluttershy hesitated. Some dormant pegasus instinct inside her longed to understand it. On impulse, she approached the heart of the storm as it churned over Sweet Apple Acres.

Its central mass appeared to be nothing so much as a roiling, sable-coloured cloud; not a cloud in any traditional sense of the word, but more like the noxious fumes that were said to bleed out of the smoking pits deep beneath Tartarus. Fluttershy could easily believe that this thing was hell-spawn itself. It pursued an erratic path across the sky, spitting out bolts of amethyst-tinted lightning seemingly at random. With a tilt of her head and a curious expression on her muzzle, Fluttershy wondered at its purpose. Twilight had told her that there was always a reason behind every form of magic, even the more arcane and esoteric sorts.

The last of the sunlight’s dying embers shed no radiance upon the core of the rogue storm; whatever light did hit it was immediately drawn away, lost forever in its inchoate interior spaces. Fluttershy soon found herself forced to duck and weave in a fashion that she was most unused to in order to avoid being singed by the wildly coruscating bolts; quickly, she reasoned that making any sort of close approach would be tantamount to suicide. Her natural affinity for weather magic might offer her a modicum of protection, but she wasn’t willing to bet on it. The sensible thing to do would be to get to the Castle of Friendship and warn Twilight. If this thing didn’t die out before reaching Ponyville, there could be disaster …

Apparently having exhausted the possibilities of fooling around with the now-elusive pegasus, the storm returned to thrashing around wildly through the skies; Fluttershy, her eyes widening in alarm, saw Applejack exit her house and trot along the dirt path – utterly heedless of what was happening high above the farm – toward the orchard and its trees, either going for a post-dinner stroll or intent on getting an early start on the apple harvest.

In what could only have been a massive coincidence, the core of the rogue storm chose that moment to lance through the sky toward her.

Fluttershy called out to Applejack, but she was already under a thick canopy of trees and couldn’t hear her desperate cries. Come on, her body screamed at her to get moving, Rainbow Dash would already have covered this distance by now!

Trying to shout over the storm venting its fury was an exercise in utter futility, but still Fluttershy bellowed at the top of her voice. There was just no way she could reach Applejack in time. She’s an animal in trouble, isn’t she? You can do this!

Without an iota of thought to her own safety – concern for her own well-being now shunted aside in favour of an adamant determination to warn Applejack and her family of the danger posed by the rogue storm – Fluttershy dive-bombed toward the ground, picking up speed at a tremendous rate; the wind whipped at her, dust smacked against her eyes and caused them to water, but still she continued to flap her wings furiously until they throbbed with pain. Somehow, she kept pace with the flailing black mass of its core. It continued to spit bifurcated projectiles all around it, but through a combination adrenaline and long-buried reflexes coming to the fore Fluttershy managed to avoid each and every one of them. Doubtless, it was just the stress of the moment playing tricks on her sense of time perception, but once or twice she could’ve sworn that her body was moving well in advance of a bolt being fired off!

Soon, though, her reserves of adrenaline were all but used up and Fluttershy felt the wave of tiredness come crashing over her like a wave; she’d asked more from her body than she’d ever done before – even when helping Rainbow Dash transport the water up to Cloudsdale – but it wasn’t enough. She tried shouting out Applejack’s name once again, but between the vicious snarl of the storm raging beside her and the thick covering of trees, it just wasn’t enough to catch her awareness. Her wings were heavy and leaden, muscles cramping, and sweat was pouring copiously from her brow. Urging herself onward, though, Fluttershy started moving again.

Somehow, she made it through the dense blanket of trees before the storm. Leaves and branches snapped angrily at her, but Fluttershy ignored the red welts they cut into her skin. She could deal with them later. Her eyes scanned the orchard quickly and found Applejack bucking trees a short distance away. Over the sound of her hefty kicks, everything else was just the buzzing of flies. Fluttershy had seen time and time again, when Applejack was in the zone like this, Equestria could be invaded by Changelings and she’d be none the wiser.

“Applejack!”

From somewhere behind and above her, Fluttershy could make out the sound of a hideous crackle; craning her back, a look of dread was etched deeply into her muzzle as the rogue storm burned away the tops of the trees, sucking up any loose detritus into the swirling vortex that was its cold, black heart.

Another bolt of lightning arced its way out of the cloud.

Fluttershy’s tired, tense eyes followed its path.

It was going to hit Applejack!

Everything, it seemed to Fluttershy, was happening to her in slow-motion all of a sudden; she felt as though her brain had been mired in a sticky layer of treacle, and she was having to paddle furiously – in a metaphorical sense – to keep up with what was happening. Crying out in a blind panic to warn Applejack of the danger – the sound of her name seemingly dragging out to infinity – she charged at her, forelegs outstretched, determined to shove her out of the way of the bolt.

At the last possible second before Applejack’s body was struck, Fluttershy’s extended hooves made contact with her sturdy ribcage; ordinarily, she wouldn’t have had an ounce of the strength necessary to even nudge her never mind knock her over, but Fluttershy’s body surged with a lightning of its own: her impressive speed had caused her to build up so much kinetic energy that even a tough earth pony like Applejack couldn’t remain standing in the face of it. Her hat went fluttering into the breeze as it was unseated from her head.

Applejack, for her own part, had only just become aware that anything was wrong at all when she felt something collide with her; her jade-hued eyes registered surprise as they met Fluttershy’s own, just in time to see them opening wide in a mixture of horror and pain as she was struck solidly in the back by the deadly probing fingers of the storm.

Her scream was the stuff of nightmares. An agonised bawl as every nerve ending lit up in a fiery paroxysm of untold anguish.

And then, Fluttershy was gone. Only smoke and ash remained, drifting on the wind.

The storm’s central mass seemed to convulse sharply, as if it had swallowed something rotten, then turned itself inside out and disappeared. The clouds and lingering forks of lightning soon faded back into the ether along with it. Applejack scarcely noticed.

“What the-?” The absurdity of what she had just witnessed was almost enough to make her laugh, but other than those words, Applejack found that her throat couldn’t do much of anything else but make strange choking sounds. There was absolutely no way in Equestria that what she’d seen had been real, right? It was a dream. It was a nightmare. It was one of Rainbow Dash or Discord’s pranks. Wasn’t it? Some gut feeling told her otherwise, though. Applejack paced back and forth over the spot where she’d quite clearly seen Fluttershy hit by the lightning bolt, her mind racing furiously to find some alternative explanation that meant her dear friend was still alive and well. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but her legs were filled with a nervous tension and wouldn’t let her stand still to process things. Her heart felt dull and heavy.

She felt her knees turning to jelly. Fluttershy. Gone. Applejack fought to stay upright, scrabbled with an outstretched limb for the comforting solidity of one of the trees, but missed and sank despondently into the dirt, knocking over one of the bushels of apples that she’d been happily filling moments ago; for a long time, she just lay there, eyelids pressed tightly shut as she fought back the tears which threatened to overwhelm her. This can’t be happening.

Through her grief, a word popped into Applejack’s mind; something very much like resolve coursed through her, and she found the strength returning to her wobbly legs as the word repeated itself. Carefully, she pulled herself upright, her eyes steely and determined. Fuelled with a tenuous glimmer of hope, Applejack fled in the direction of the Castle of Friendship. The word was simply, “Twilight.”

If anypony knew how to fix this, it would be her.

II. Chance

Normally, being this close to the Castle of Friendship would’ve stirred up warm feelings in the heart of Applejack as she recalled all the good times that she’d spent here with her friends – not just the adventures, but the parties, sleepovers and silliness that was day-to-day life in Ponyville – but this was so far removed from normal that, once again, she felt the strange urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all build up inside of her. Staring at its crystal edifice, reflecting the moonlight that shone so brightly upon it, all Applejack could find herself thinking about was what had happened to Fluttershy back at the farm. All of a sudden, the castle didn’t feel quite so safe with its jutting spires and the odd shadows it cast over the town. Get a grip, AJ, she told herself. Still, Applejack couldn’t help but shiver. She’d come here as fast as she could, but the cold, onerous night and its attendant darkness had arrived first.

Having spent so much time hanging around with Rarity and her pretensions of proper ladylike behaviour, you might have expected that some of those mannerisms would have rubbed off on Applejack by osmosis, but you would have been sorely mistaken; while it was true that the Apples were known to be absurdly polite and welcoming, they weren’t sticklers for the social niceties at the best of times, and these were not those times. With the events of earlier weighing oppressively on her mind and desperate to be out of the chill air, Applejack charged at the heavy golden door with her stout withers and almost took it off its hinges. She grunted softly in pain, still tender from where Fluttershy had struck her earlier.

She pushed me out of the way, she belatedly realised, goosebumps forming on her skin as she did so. Fluttershy sacrificed herself to save me! That revelation numbed her.

“Twilight!” Applejack said, yelling into the inky blackness of the empty lobby, her voice cracking with the strain. Having come here at a dead run, she’d forgotten how out of breath she was. Slowly, Applejack padded inside, a sense of unease flowing through as she did so. During the day, when fully lit, the castle’s interior was a dazzling arrangement of polished, translucent columns. Now it was an obsidian nothingness every bit as terrifying as … whatever that thing had been back at Sweet Apple Acres. “Twilight?” she tried again. Perhaps she and Spike weren’t here? Perhaps the Cutie Map had called them off at the last minute on some urgent business? “Something awful’s happened to Fluttershy and I need your help! Sugarcube?”

So far, the only response was her own voice coming back to her, echoing mockingly off of the castle’s walls. It sounded at once frightening and depressing, and Applejack’s spirits, somehow, managed to sink even lower.

Padding restlessly at the floor with the hooves of her forelegs, Applejack was relieved to see a faint orange glow approach her from one of the many rooms that branched off from here. Twilight Sparkle, an old oil lantern held in her magical grasp, stepped into the lobby. She looked a little worse for wear herself, barely able to keep her heavily-lidded eyes open as she took heavy, thunking steps. The elaborate silken dressing gown that she was clad in had Rarity’s signature all over it. Clearly, she had either been asleep or not far from it. She rubbed at her eyes in order to clear away the thin film of gunk that had collected there. Feeling a tad more alert, Twilight looked at Applejack properly for the first time and realised the distress that she was in.

Suddenly, any thoughts of rebuking her for barging into the castle like this in the middle of the night were banished from her mind. She tensed. “Applejack, what is it? Wait, did I hear you say something about Fluttershy? Is she hurt?”

“Oh, Twilight,” said Applejack breathlessly, words tumbling out of her mouth as she bounded up to Twilight and threw her forelegs around her neck, “it all happened so fast. I mean, I didn’t even know anything was happening until-”

“-Whoa, Applejack, slow down.” She placed a hoof on her friend’s wither, patting it gently to try and calm her. Her sleepy eyes were forced further open in surprise when she felt the hard knot of tension that had taken root there, to say nothing of her rapidly beating heart pounding against her own chest. “Just relax. Start over.”

Applejack’s eyes met Twilight’s. She took a deep breath and more slowly went on, “It was a storm. But not a normal one. One of those freak magical things that escapes from the Everfree Forest every few months. I was in the orchard trying to get a head start on the harvest, and I didn’t even realise that anything was wrong until Fluttershy was knocking me to the ground.”

“So. You’re saying … what are you saying, AJ?” Twilight felt a lump form in her chest. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer to this.

“A bolt of lightning from the storm was going to hit me. Somehow, Fluttershy saw it coming and she was able to push me out of the way before it struck.” Applejack was impressed at how coolly she managed to speak those devastating words. Maybe it was something to do with Twilight’s comforting presence and the belief that, somehow, she could make everything just like it was before?

Rather stupidly, the first question that popped into Twilight’s mind was, “What was Fluttershy even doing near Sweet Apple Acres that late in the evening?” The weight of Applejack’s words hadn’t fully settled yet, and she was certain that she’d just misheard or misinterpreted them. Fluttershy wasn’t the kind of pony to go throwing herself in front of random electrical discharges after all, was she? “Is she-?”

“-She’s gone, Twilight,” said Applejack flatly. “I mean, one second she was pushing me out of the way; the next, she was hit herself and … what’s that word? Vaporised.”

Twilight felt the first prickle of tears behind her eyes. I’m still asleep. This is all just some ghastly dream. Princess Luna, please appear to me and tell me this is just a really bad nightmare I’m having? She closed her eyes tightly, and visions of having to inform Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and the others of what had happened flitted in front of her. Her parents and brother back in Cloudsdale, too, would have to be told. “Vaporised?” There wouldn’t even be a body for a funeral.

“It was like-” Applejack made an expansive gesture with the hooves of her forelegs “-poof, you know? Kinda like what happens you teleport, I guess, only she was screaming.” Applejack shuddered, remembering that bloodcurdling howl of suffering Fluttershy had loosed as she’d been struck.

Kinda like what happens when you teleport. Utilising her sister-in-law’s much admired relaxation technique, Twilight took a deep breath and released it, fighting to stem the rising flow of hysteria that threatened to muddy her thinking. Now, more than ever, she needed to keep a clear head and process things in a sedate manner. “Applejack?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to get your hopes up, but there’s a chance Fluttershy isn’t dead.”

“How much of a chance?” asked Applejack with bated breath, not even daring to believe at this stage.

“A small one.”

“You have a theory?”

Twilight nodded. She set the lantern down on a convenient nook in the wall; sitting down cross-legged on the floor, she bade Applejack to do likewise. Once relatively comfortable, she began, “Pegasi react differently to environmental effects due to their weather magic, yes?”

“If you say so. I don’t know much about that kinda stuff,” replied Applejack.

“Well, they do,” said Twilight, the wheels in her mind turning like the cogs of some vast and powerful machine. Thousands of facts about ponies, magic and how they reacted were being marshalled in her brain. “They’re more attuned to what’s going on around them, too. Remember when we were teaching Rainbow Dash the history of the Wonderbolts?”

“How could I forget?” said Applejack with a wry smile, blinking away years. “We had to darn-near rope the entire town into help with that one. What does it have to do with Fluttershy, though?”

“The pegasi ability to passively absorb information around them while in flight. Even Fluttershy does this,” Twilight said patiently. She was still unravelling all this herself. “Her body would’ve been gathering information about the storm, adapting itself, trying to figure out a defence.”

“Is that possible?”

At that, Twilight had to shrug. “I mean, coupled with the extra magical juice she’ll have gained from her Element of Harmony and the Rainbow Power over the years, there’s a remote chance that she survived.”

“Then, where is she?” asked Applejack.

“You said it yourself, it looked like a teleportation effect. Maybe it was. Maybe all that magical power coursing through her sent her off … somewhere.”

“So. She’s alive, but lost out in Equestria somewhere?”

“Or beyond.”

Applejack was immediately back on her feet. “We have to find her!” The itch to get moving surged through her. It was the longest of long shots, yes, but she would quite happily tear the whole world apart just to see Fluttershy one more time. “We need to wake everypony up and-”

Waving a hoof under Applejack’s muzzle to attract her attention, Twilight said firmly, “I’m clutching at straws, remember? Even if I am right about this, it still means that we have an entire planet to search. Depending on how powerful the storm was and whether Fluttershy had any conscious control over the teleport, we have to balance being methodical with covering the most amount of ground in the shortest space of time. She might’ve teleported out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were.”

“Actually,” a polite, well-mannered voice said quietly, “I’m standing right here.”

As one, Applejack and Twilight turned to the door to see Fluttershy standing in the threshold, waving courteously to them. Even bathed as she was in the moonlight, they could see the sweet smile on her muzzle.

“What?” Twilight and Applejack said in unison.

III. Return

Being closer to the door than Twilight, Applejack made it to Fluttershy first; not even worrying about how much she was crushing her dainty body by doing so, she embraced her in a tight bear hug, glad to feel her warm yellow coat brushing against hers. She felt relief flooding through her in great waves as she became aware of Fluttershy’s heart beating against her own. “Oh, Celestia,” said Applejack, almost hysterical with delight, “I can’t believe you’re here. We thought-”

“-Um, rumours of my death and all that,” replied Fluttershy, doing her best to wriggle free of Applejack’s inflexible grasp without hurting her feelings. She appreciated the sentiment, but earth ponies were already naturally very strong and years of hard work on the farm had only made her even more robust. The hug was nice, but she quite liked her bones where they were. She cast her eyes over her friends, her broad grin only increasing. “It’s really good to see you guys again. It’s been … way too long.”

“What d’you mean by that?” Twilight asked quizzically. She studied Fluttershy with a curious expression, though there was more to it than that, but both Fluttershy and Applejack had so far missed the slightly darker cast to her muzzle. “We just saw you this morning.”

By the light of Selene, it was a little tricky to make her out properly, but it was Fluttershy, right? The bashful smile, the trailing mane of pink underneath a battered and threadbare Stetson, and the warm glow to her pale blue eyes. There was something that just seemed a bit … off, though. Twilight’s scrutiny became more open and her horn ignited. She levitated the lantern over to them and held it particularly close to Fluttershy. The extra light allowed her to see the crow’s feet developing at the corners of her eyes, the flecks of grey streaking her mane, and the brittle look to her primary flight feathers. If she hadn’t known any better, Twilight would’ve assumed that she was looking at a pony who was a good twenty or thirty years older than she knew Fluttershy to be. “Applejack, step back!” she said acidly. “That isn’t Fluttershy.”

“Sugarcube, what’s gotten into you?” asked Applejack, too surprised to follow Twilight’s command right away. “Of course it’s Fl-”

“-Look at her properly.”

Fluttershy, for her own part, continued to smile; if she was offended by how her friends were acting, she was stoic enough not to show it. She allowed Applejack to peer at her intently, not offering any comment one way or another. Instead, she kept her gaze level with Twilight’s. Her horn was brimming with magical energy, illuminating the castle’s walls with veiny purple light. She doesn’t like being told what to believe. She has to figure it out for herself that I’m not a Changeling, or a Siren, or even Discord playing some kind of ridiculous prank on her.

“Who are you? Really, I mean?” asked Twilight coldly. Both her earlier heartache and premature sense of joy had been roundly buried underneath a cold, diamond-hard layer of practicality that came with the territory of being a princess and a protector of Equestria. Applejack, her own examination of the impostor concluded, seemed to be reaching much the same verdict and she backed away slowly from the pseudo-Fluttershy, dropping to an alert crouch, her teeth bared in anger. “And do you have something to do with the disappearance of the real Fluttershy?” added Twilight.

Taking off the hat and letting it fall by its cord around her neck, Fluttershy smoothed out her frizzy mane. She’d been aware that this could happen, and she was doing her best not to be angry or bitter about the interrogation; instead, as she’d done with her animals so often, she tried to see it from their point of view. As far as Applejack is concerned, she saw me explode not too long ago. They’re both panicked and nervous. “Both of you know me so well, I think you’d be able to tell if I was lying or not,” she said with much-practised patience. “I realise that things are a little weird right now, but I’ll try to explain.”

“How about you start by telling us something that only the real Fluttershy would know?” said Applejack. It would be much too easy to let the impostor ramble on about basic information like names of parents and easy stuff that anypony could find out with a bit of digging, but something deeper, something that only the real Fluttershy could possibly know, would at least make for a stronger case.

Thinking for a moment, Fluttershy’s eyes darted back and forth as she considered the options, before her expression suddenly brightened as something occurred to her. “A few months ago, we were in Las Pegasus to solve a friendship problem at Gladmane’s resort. At first, you thought it was something to do with Flim and Flam having had a falling out, and so you flatly refused to help them after all the trouble they’d caused us in the past.”

Twilight shot a sideways glance at Applejack, who nodded. “Yeah, that happened. We were the only ponies in the room at the time, so unless this is Flim and Flam pulling one of their scams ...” If this was an impostor, then they’d gone above and beyond the call of duty to learn some random detail like this just to fool them. “If it helps, I don’t think she’s lying.” Applejack might have been the Element of Honesty, but she’d had to explain to many ponies that it didn’t mean she was able to detect lies as such. It was more that she got a sense of when a truth was being told. It might not always be the whole, unvarnished truth, but it was usually enough to get a read on a pony’s intentions. Suffice to say, Applejack was starting to believe that this pony wasn’t dangerous.

That didn’t mean she thought it was Fluttershy, though, and Applejack said as much to Twilight. “I mean,” she added helpfully, “I could be wrong about that.”

For a further few moments, Twilight allowed the energy to flow from her body and into her horn; just because this doppelgänger wasn’t lying, or didn’t think it was lying, didn’t necessarily mean anything. Too often, they’d ran into problems by being trusting, and she didn’t want a repeat of incidents like what had happened at the school. That said, some indefinable feeling told her that this was Fluttershy. Maybe it was their connection through the Elements of Harmony? Perhaps it was a more subtle sense of always knowing who your friends are, no matter how they might have changed? Finally, Twilight made a decision and allowed her horn to go dark. “What happened?” she asked, just the slightest edge in her voice to show that she still wasn’t a hundred percent certain. “With the storm, with you, with … everything?”

Had the lightning bolt somehow prematurely aged her? It didn’t seem possible, but they’d encountered stranger magical side-effects out there than this, she supposed.

Fluttershy smiled happily, glad that Twilight’s famed ability to keep an open mind wasn’t going to let her down now. “I’ll be happy to answer any and all of your questions, but-” she extended her frail wings and shook them out falteringly “-it’s one heck of a flight from Canterlot to Ponyville, so would you mind if we did this whilst sitting down and having a fresh pot of coffee, maybe?”

“You drink coffee now?” asked Applejack sceptically.

With a wry look on her face, Fluttershy padded across the threshold and into the castle proper. “I’ve been drinking coffee since before the two of you were even born, I’ll have you know.”

Applejack and Twilight simply looked at each other askance.

IV. Tale

Placing the mug of vile, steaming brew on the marble table in front of Fluttershy, Twilight took the opportunity to have another up close and personal look at this interloper who was pretending to be one of her closest friends; she just couldn’t understand why they’d put so much effort into the deception, recreating her almost perfectly – even that airy, lavender scent which clung to her coat – yet having got the age so spectacularly wrong and coming up with this weird cover story, too. If she, it, whatever, was, in fact, a Changeling or some other shape-shifting creature, then it was extremely important, Twilight knew, to uncover its plan before any other pony came to harm. She hoped that the real Fluttershy was alive and well somewhere, and could be rescued once the doppelganger’s deception was exposed.

“Thank you.” A faded yellow hoof wrapped around the cup, and Fluttershy enjoyed savouring the warmth that thrilled through her having spent so much time in the cold. Both flying here from Canterlot and having waited in the doorway for so long while Applejack and Twilight had made their minds up about her. She inhaled the pungent aroma of the dark brown liquid deeply, smiling in satisfaction. With her eyes half-closed, she said to Twilight, “Princess Celestia gave this blend to you as a castle-warming gift, and you always wondered why when she knew that you didn’t drink coffee.”

“I never told you about that,” replied Twilight, eyebrow raised doubtfully. It seemed that her suspicions were confirmed and the impostor had finally given away something that it shouldn’t have known about. She tried to keep her surprise a mask so that she, it, wouldn’t know that she was on to it. Applejack, she noticed, was hovering behind Fluttershy, probably ready to tackle her to the ground if she attempted to escape once she knew that her little scheme was rumbled. “So how could you have possibly known that?”

Taking a small sip of her drink and offering Twilight a tight grin, Fluttershy said, “It was my idea for her to give it to you.” She sighed in satisfaction as the zesty, tangy taste tickled her tastebuds as it always did when prepared correctly. “It’s my favourite flavour, from deep in Saddle Arabia, and I wanted to make sure that you had some waiting for me when I got back home. To be honest, I was getting worried that you might’ve thrown it out at some point.”

Looking at each other again, Twilight knew that her and Applejack’s thoughts were lining up almost perfectly: it was Fluttershy, but it also wasn’t. It looked liked her, it spoke like her, it even acted like her, but it was also subtly different. Less jittery and tense, maybe? Even around her friends, she’d never been able to fully relax, but there she sat seemingly without a care in the world despite the serious accusations being levelled at her. It was a Fluttershy who’d finally embraced the many, many assertiveness lessons she’d been made to learn.

Slamming a hoof down on the table, almost putting a dent in its smooth alabaster surface and jolting Twilight who had been starting to fall asleep again, so worn out was she by the events of the evening, Applejack scowled at the impostor as she blithely continued to drink her coffee, seemingly unaware of the violence of her act or the implication contained therein. “Listen, whoever or whatever you are, you’d better tell me this instant just what in blazes is going on here. I just saw one of my best friends get vaporised by lightning – to say nothing of saving my life in the process – and here you show up moments later pretending to be her, but you clearly can’t be. Why not just cut the act and come clean? We’re decent ponies. We won’t hurt ya so long as you tell us the truth. Did you cause the storm? Was it a plot to try and replace one of us so you could learn more about the Elements?”

Exhaling a little wistfully, almost forgetting how to the point Applejack was, Fluttershy placed her now half-empty mug back on the table and said, “Okay, I suppose you’ve waited long enough. We all have.” She smiled enigmatically. She met Twilight’s eyes. “You were mostly right about the storm’s effect on me. My weather magic did save my life, and I was teleported away. I wasn’t sent somewhere else, however, I was sent somewhen else.”

“You were displaced in time?” said Twilight, letting out a gasp of shock. “But that’s-” she stopped herself before uttering the word impossible when she considered all the myriad absurd things that had happened to her since she’d first moved to Ponyville “-very, very unlikely, isn’t it?”

Still not believing a word of it, Applejack asked, “Oh, really? And just when did you end up exactly?” She leaned on the back of Fluttershy’s chair, angry eyes fixed on the greying mane as if that were all the proof that was needed something was off-kilter here.

“I woke up to find myself in the orchard during the day, but when I called out for you, there was no answer,” replied Fluttershy, her eyes taking on a glassy look as she recalled the events of so long ago. “I went to the house and found a young Big Mac and a young...er Granny Smith there. That was my first clue that something was dreadfully wrong somewhere.” She remembered thinking that the storm had made everypony younger or something at first. “I flew back to Ponyville and it was very different, too: fewer houses, no castle, Sugarcube Corner had different owners.” Fluttershy shook her head gloomily. “To cut a long story short, I eventually found a newspaper and saw that the date was almost thirty years in the past. Somehow, the storm had sent me spiralling backwards in time.”

Though she was doing her best to remain detached, Twilight still found the story concocted by the ersatz Fluttershy to be compelling; from her own experiences with Starlight Glimmer, she knew that time-travel was theoretically possible, if incredibly dangerous to actually do. The memories of those destroyed and distorted Equestrias she’d encountered would not soon leave her mind, anyway. She shuddered involuntarily. Things had worked out here, but Twilight couldn’t help but feel that, somewhere, those battles were still being fought. It made her sad to know that there were versions of her friends out there who didn’t get the happy endings that they deserved and were instead destined to live in abject misery, fighting wars and losing loved ones.

Her mood was not improved one bit by the knowledge that this rogue storm from the Everfree Forest of which Fluttershy spoke had the power to send ponies back and forth through time; it was the kind of thing that Equestria’s enemies would love to get their hands, claws and other protuberances on. Should it ever reach them, well, Twilight had already seen multiple times what could happen to her beloved homeland when such power was misused.

Softly, Twilight asked, “After making this discovery, that you were stranded thirty years in the past, what did you do?”

“You don’t actually believe this, do you?” asked Applejack, glowering at how easily drawn by a good story Twilight was. “Don’t get suckered in by its lies.”

“I’m keeping an open mind, like I said I would,” said Twilight, raising a hoof to ward off any more interruptions from Applejack. “Nothing more than that.” She said this last part while gazing at Fluttershy.

Once they were done talking, Fluttershy resumed her story, “As a matter of fact, I took a page out of The Book of Twilight.” After another small sip of her drink to wet her dry throat, she said, “I went to Canterlot to speak with Princess Celestia. I figured that she of all ponies would be able to help me out.”

“And she believed your story?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, she did.” Fluttershy inclined her head slightly in a nod. “Because it wasn’t the first time that she’d heard it.”

This got both Twilight and Applejack’s attention. “This has happened before?” they asked together.

Again, Fluttershy nodded. “That she knows of, at least fifty pegasi have been displaced by these storms since she first became aware of them.”

“Only pegasi are affected, then?” Applejack asked.

“Don’t ask me to explain the details of it, but as Twilight said, it’s a unique reaction between the storm’s own and our weather magic.” Fluttershy looked pensive and started fiddling with her mug. “It’s pretty much random where – er, when, that is – you end up, too. I was luckier than most to still be relatively close to what I thought of as the present. Princess Celestia told me stories of some ponies who’d been sent back as much as five hundred years. Others might have gone even further back to, uh, the time when Discord was still in charge.” She trailed off, leaving it up to their imaginations to fill in the blanks there. If there was a fate more awful than being cut off from those that you loved by the cruel, unfeeling barriers of time, the morose Fluttershy did not want to know about it.

“If these things are so powerful, so dangerous, why hasn’t Celestia ever told me anything about them before?” Twilight asked curiously. “I’ve never heard mention anywhere, even in Canterlot’s archives, of anything remotely resembling these time storms. You’d think that she’d want me to be on the look out for them.”

Adjusting her posture slightly as her back began to seize up – one of the many delightful things she’d learned about getting older – Fluttershy said, “They’re one of a very small number of things that Celestia has chosen to keep to herself. She didn’t want anypony, but especially villains like Discord, Sombra, Tirek and Chrysalis, from having access to a viable form of time-travel. As remote a possibility as it might have been, she was scared that somepony might figure out how to harness the power of the storms and use them to screw the timeline up beyond repair. From what you’ve told us of your battle with Starlight Glimmer, you know firsthoof what that would be like.”

Twilight nodded her understanding. She may not have liked having been kept in the dark like this, but Celestia’s reasons did make sense; she was all for as much information as possible being out in the public domain, but again, sometimes they’d been a bit too trusting when they should have been cautious. She sank back in her seat, wondering if this is what Celestia’s daily life was like: constantly having to balance ponies’ right to know what was going on versus the greater good of Equestria’s future. “Could she not have used Star Swirl’s spell to send you and the others home, though?”

Shaking her head, Fluttershy said, “Because we’d time-travelled via unnatural means, some kind of-” she screwed up her eyes in concentration as she tried to remember what Celestia’s exact words had been “-magical interference wave was being generated which made it impossible to use Star Swirl’s spell on all the affected pegasi.” She tried to forget how devastated she’d been when Celestia had told her this. She wasn’t sure how long she’d spent crying afterwards. “No, we were instead resettled.”

“Resettled?” asked Applejack.

“For very obvious reasons, we weren’t allowed to return to our own homes with the knowledge we had of the future,” said Fluttershy, her words barely above a whisper. Though she was speaking in generalities, Twilight was pretty sure that she was only talking about herself. “We ran the risk, even accidentally, of making changes in the timeline. I wasn’t allowed to return to either Cloudsdale or Ponyville, so I ended up staying in Canterlot until, well-” she shrugged “-until I finally caught up with the present.”

Neither Twilight nor Applejack were slow in detecting the palpable sense of sadness radiating out of Fluttershy’s voice. “Have you been on your own all this time, sugarcube?” asked Applejack tenderly, despite herself. Guess I’m finally comin’ round to believing her.

“No, I’ve never been alone,” Fluttershy said with a false sense of cheeriness. “I talked with Celestia nearly every day, and there were plenty of scientists who wanted to examine me and learn more about the storm’s effects on my body.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Applejack.

Fluttershy sighed deeply. “Again, for obvious reasons, I wasn’t allowed to form close relationships with anypony in case I screwed up their eventual destinies.”

“It must’ve been terrible, Fluttershy.” Her expression tender, Applejack placed a hoof on Fluttershy’s tensed wither before she even realised what she was doing. To suddenly find yourself in a situation, so far away from home, and you couldn’t even bond with anypony out of fear of what might happen … she didn’t want to imagine it. Fluttershy might not have been the most sociable of creatures, but she valued friendship all the same.

Dabbing at her suddenly moist eyes, grateful that Applejack was finally beginning to warm up to her even if she still had her doubts about her story, Fluttershy said, “The days weren’t so bad. Celestia gave me a job tending to the castle grounds so I had plenty of contact with animals, and I even made sure that the statue of Discord was kept neat and tidy.” A half-smile crossed her muzzle as she recalled their long conversations. “The nights, on the other hoof … I mean, I wasn’t exactly forbidden from going out and exploring, but knowing that I couldn’t get, um, intimate with anypony because of the timeline put a bit of a damper on things.”

“Did, er, did Celestia ever ask you about the future?” asked Twilight.

“I might have given her a few pointers.”

“Pointers?”

“Oh, it was nothing too on the snout or anything,” said Fluttershy quickly by way of hasty clarification. “She sensed my connection with the Elements of Harmony just as I think you did earlier and was curious about it. Whilst being as unspecific as possible, I gave her a quick overview of things like Nightmare Moon’s return, Discord escaping and so on. If you’ve ever wondered why she seems so calm when everything’s turning to chaos around us, well, now you know.”

Unsure of what to say now, Applejack and Twilight merely exchanged glances.

Fluttershy asked, “So what now? D’you … believe me?” Some of her old timidity was returning.

With a frown, Applejack said, “I don’t not believe you.”

“It’s a lot to take in, but-” Twilight chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully “-I believe you.”

The entire night had been incredibly tiring for all involved, and the morning was going to be even worse; how they would explain this to their friends, she did not know, but somewhere deep in her heart Twilight knew that this was indeed Fluttershy.

Fluttershy stood up, noticing that her friends were practically dead ponies walking and could barely keep their eyes open any longer. “I think we could all do with a good night’s sleep and we should continue this later when we’re rested.” Adrenaline and coffee were all well and good in the short term, but the effects of her rush were already beginning to wear off. She wanted to get home, see Angel Bunny for the first time in three decades, and crawl into her own bed. Idly, she wondered how he would react to her appearance. Or if he’d even notice at all. As far as he was concerned, it’d only have been a few hours since she’d left the cottage to perform a quick errand.

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Twilight, stifling a yawn. She approached Fluttershy and gave her a quick hug. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You, too.”

“D’you mind if I see you home, sugarcube?” asked Applejack.

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” replied Fluttershy with a smile.

V. Regret

Applejack, lost in thought, trailed a few uneasy paces behind after they’d wished Twilight a good night and took their leave from her castle; some part of her had come to accept that this was indeed her dear friend, Fluttershy, but her head still had its doubts. The story, as unbelievable as it sounded, had a ring of truth about it, and she was certain the first thing Twilight would do in the morning would be to send a message to Celestia confirming it. It was rather startling to think about, actually: all those times that they’d been visiting Canterlot, Fluttershy’s time-displaced counterpart had been somewhere in the background nearby. Wishing that she could somehow help them.

She felt a need to say something. What had happened to Fluttershy had been her fault, hadn’t it? If she’d been paying attention to her surroundings, the storm would never have been in a position to threaten her in the first place. Several times, Applejack’s mouth open and closed, but the words – the apology – continually formed and died in her throat. What can I say, what can I possibly say, that will make things right? Because of me, she’s lost thirty years of her life, trapped and alone without her closest friends. How she didn’t go mad, I’ll never know.

Drawing to a halt, Fluttershy turned and faced Applejack; compared to the journey from Canterlot to Ponyville, her cottage on the other side of town was merely a short hop away. That said, after having sat still for so long, her legs had seized up, and she was having to constantly stretch them to try and get the blood flowing again. She didn’t mind getting older, and she knew that she still had a few good years left to her, but there so many little aches and pains that came with the ageing process she hadn’t been prepared for. She couldn’t but wonder how she’d cope with the pace of their adventures now. Well, that’s something to worry about later, she thought. “What is it?” Fluttershy asked, seeing the uncertainty creeping on to Applejack’s face. She had an inkling of what she wanted to say, though.

“It’s my fault-”

“-No, it’s not.”

“Would ya let me finish, Fluttershy,” said Applejack in a frosty tone that she normally reserved for her dealings with the recalcitrant Rainbow Dash. “I know you’re trying to be kind, but because I was so focused on getting an early start on the harvest, this-” she gestured at Fluttershy “-happened to you.”

“Applejack,” Fluttershy said mildly, “I’m the one who chose to throw myself into the path of the lightning bolt, knowing that it would likely kill me. I would have done it for anypony, of course, but I’m glad it was you. You and your family have suffered so much loss over the years, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if Apple Bloom, Big Mac and Granny Smith had to mourn your death, too.”

“Pity I wasn’t born a pegasus,” said Applejack thoughtfully, “I would’ve been able to see my parents again. Even if it was at a distance.” Her conscience was not in the least bit salved by Fluttershy’s words; the anger and pain behind her eyes was obvious if you knew how to look for it, even though she was doing her best to mask it. More had happened in those thirty years than she was letting on, Applejack guessed. Would she talk about it? Would she be allowed to talk about it?

As they walked, Fluttershy’s bright eyes took in Ponyville by moonlight as if she was seeing it for the first time; it was at once familiar yet also strange, and it would be exciting to rediscover it properly in the morning. True, there’d be a lot of explanations, but getting to spend time with her closest friends again – going off on those crazy, danger-filled adventures – would be worth it. So many things that she’d almost taken for granted, even Angel Bunny’s little tantrums, suddenly seemed incredibly important to her. Getting to know new ponies again! The simple joy of being able to talk to somepony without worrying that the slightest wrong word might have incredible repercussions for the future.

She wondered about those pegasi who had been sent hundreds of years out of their own time and how they must’ve coped; the culture shock would have been enormous, and even with Princess Celestia’s help, it would not have been easy for them to make a new life without their friends and family. Fluttershy, for her own part, had only got past those long, lonely nights by thinking about her friends and how she would be able to see them again when she caught up with the present. Even then, it had been … trying.

Shaking her head, she tried to loose herself from those dark thoughts; she was the master of her own destiny once again, and no longer had to worry about stepping on the wrong blade of grass or walking on eggshells around ponies.

Perhaps in a day or two, when the euphoria of being back had finally worn off and things got back to something like normal – or as normal as things ever got around Ponyville, anyway – she might have the time to consider what she’d lost; thirty years was a long time, and though Celestia’s own physicians had told her that she was in terrific shape and had no obvious health problems to be concerned about, she was beset with nagging little pains, got tired a lot more quickly, and her wings had lost a lot of their strength. She’d never been the best flier in Equestria, but now she doubted she could even make the journey between Twilight’s castle and her cottage without stopping for a breather half-way.

“Hey, sugarcube, are you okay? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Huh? Oh. Sorry.” Fluttershy flushed slightly. “I was just thinking.”

“Anything important?” asked Applejack. “Past? Future? Points in-between?”

“What you were saying about your parents,” said Fluttershy. “Celestia will kill me if I tell you this, so keep it to yourself, okay?”

Applejack mimed zipping her muzzle up and throwing away a key.

“When I could sneak away from Canterlot, I would travel to Ponyville and Cloudsdale just to see what you guys were up to. Watching all of you growing up, facing your own challenges, becoming the ponies that you were destined to be … it made what happened to me seem all right, you know? Like it was worth it,” Fluttershy said quietly. “I got to see whole new sides to all of you, and that felt like a precious gift: the chance to get to know all of you from the beginning, as it were. Does that make sense?”

Nodding, Applejack replied, “Yeah, it does. We probably all wish for something like that at times.”

Fluttershy’s eyes turned to the heavens above; a shooting star streaked through the sky, and she released a breath she didn’t even realise that she was holding. “I’m upset, of course, about losing those thirty years, but I’m not angry and I don’t regret saving you, Applejack. We all have stuff in our pasts that we regret, that we wish we could have done differently, but having lived through much of it with you, I wouldn’t want to change a thing. We’re all who we are because of the events of our lives.” Despite what had happened, Fluttershy knew that she wouldn’t have traded those precious experiences for all the coffee in Saddle Arabia. She switched her attention back to Applejack and favoured her with a small smile.

With nothing to add to that sentiment, Applejack settled for returning the smile and nuzzling against Fluttershy’s neck. They had stopped near the fountain at the centre of town to watch the stars.

“That reminds me,” Fluttershy suddenly said, unhooking the Stetson that still hung around her neck and handing it to Applejack, “you should probably have this back.” The hat was battered and faded, and there were several spots where it had clearly been repaired by an inexpert hoof. Rarity could probably bring it back to life, though. “I did my best to keep it in one piece over the years, but it’s been with me through more than one scrape, so it’s a bit, well, you can see for yourself. After it came through the storm with me, I saw it as a good luck token … and a small piece of home.”

Applejack felt a subdued smile twitch at the corners of her muzzle as her hoof made the slightest of contacts with its wide brim; like Fluttershy, it was strange to think that she’d seen the hat only a few short hours ago, but it was actually now thirty years older also. Finally, she pushed it back toward Fluttershy and said, “You should continue looking after this for me, I think. You’ve had it for a lot longer than I have, anyway.”