"Fluttershy was returned, she was back from the dead, she could sing, and laugh, and love again.
Only she wasn’t.
Well, she was.
Except she wasn’t.
It’s complicated.
Fluttershy was not herself."

There are some that say I should never tell my tale at all, that such things are better left abandoned and forgotten. Perhaps they are right. My conscience, however, will not permit me such complacence - I will not sit by in idle silence as ponykind repeats my same mistake. Let there be some good, at least, that comes from this sorry tale.

So listen here, and listen well, and I shall tell you the whole of my life, from beginning to end, and you will hear a mare spun of folly, of arrogance, of ambition and obsession. Judge me as you may, judge me guilty where I stand, but hear my tale. I will tell my story so that you may learn something from it, that it may teach you the lesson of foolish pony meddling, so that no young scholar, like myself, may come across such awful knowledge again and seek to use it. Some things must not be tampered with, some mountains were not made to climb.

Sometimes fire burns you. Sometimes sleeping dogs should be left to lie. Sometimes dead is better.

I should have left Fluttershy in her grave.

Written for HapHazred's Change of Pace contest. Go check out the other entires here!