One part of pegasus magic is called "airfeel." It's the ability to sense what the wind is doing, and how your own actions interact with it. Talented flyponies like Rainbow Dash use airfeel every time they move their wings, to create eddies in the air that pull the pegasus forward instead of holding her back. Most pegasi can use their airfeel to stay in the air more easily than they would without it.
In the greater scheme of things, airfeel is at best a rather tiny part of Harmony.
At least that's what most ponies would tell you, if they've ever thought about airfeel at all.
***
According to unicorns and human researchers (who invented "chaos theory" independently in two different worlds) many of our world's events might appear random, but aren't. They merely SEEM random, because we can't possibly understand them.
Even the tiniest motion--even one flap of a butterfly's wings--creates a small eddy of air. That small eddy can slightly change how a larger breeze moves around a shrub or a cloud.
The effects cascade, growing larger and larger.
Months later, a hurricane might strike a different part of the coast than it otherwise would have. A city versus a forest: which is the least bad target? Because when we're talking about hurricanes, no target is a good one.
If you were deeply, truly aware of your own actions? What a terrible responsibility.
If you were a pegasus, you might even be afraid to flap your own wings.
***
"I don't know why you find this so hard," Brass Whistle said. "You spread your wings, you let your pegasus magic sense the air's flow around you--"
Fluttershy's wings twitched nervously. "Eek!" the pegasus filly screamed in a tiny voice. She folded her wings back against her side.
"Sorry," Fluttershy said. "It's just--it's just too much for me, sometimes. It's like a million things all crashing in on me at once."
Brass Whistle reached up and rubbed his mustache. "It's ok," he said. "Go as slowly as you have to. Even if it takes you a while to get used to it."
Moving very slowly, seeming to quiver with fear, Fluttershy unfolded her wings almost all the way. Her eyes went squinty, as if she was struggling with an urge to block out the world.
"Good!" Brass Whistle said. "Closing your eyes is good, if it helps you concentrate on your airfeel."
Fluttershy shivered. "Eyes open or eyes closed, it doesn't really help. It's pretty bad either way."
Brass Whistle nodded. "Just stand like that for now, with your wings open. Well, I've got to go help all the other foals too. Good luck!" He clapped Fluttershy on the shoulder as he went to check on the rest of the class.
The slap on Fluttershy's shoulder forced her wing on that side to move in an awkward, unintended angle. "No!" she said, screaming almost as loudly as a mouse. But with the rest of the class talking and playing noisily, and the wind blowing in everypony's ears, Whistle didn't hear her.
As far as she could tell, he usually didn't.
***
It had been the worst flying accident of Fluttershy's entire life. She'd only slowed her fall very, very late. In the last moments before what could have become her death, Fluttershy had encountered a strange new kind of updraft and taken advantage of it.
She was lucky not to be seriously hurt.
Lucky indeed! If you could call it that.
For the first time in her life, Fluttershy was on the ground.
Fluttershy felt a tiny breeze as something moved. She turned her head to look. It was a small, colorful creature, which seemed to be almost all wings, and only a little bit head and body.
Fluttershy giggled. "Well, aren't you the cutest thing?" she said. The creature's flapping was very gentle. Fluttershy thought it was the way she herself would like to fly, if only her body was built for it.
Unfortunately, her body was much larger and heavier than a butterfly's. To stay aloft, she had to exert hundreds or thousands of times as much force. The invisible eddies and ripples moved out in every direction, pushing uncountable consequences into the world. She couldn't feel all the indirect effects (no pegasus could) but she could feel enough to make it very uncomfortable for her.
To Fluttershy's extraordinarily sensitive airfeel, her own flying was like somepony constantly screaming in her ears.
No wonder she didn't like it.
But if she could make friends with these ground creatures...grounders? Earth ponies? Whatever they were called? Then she could just stay down here.
They sure were weird looking. Even the fliers were pretty strange. They hardly looked like ponies at all.
But they seemed nice. Especially the hopping ones with big long ears. Fluttershy had heard donkeys had big long ears, so these were probably donkeys.
But she'd also heard donkeys were ugly. And THESE donkeys looked kind of cute!
Maybe the ground wasn't nearly as bad as she'd been told, Fluttershy decided. She'd been here for at least five minutes and nopony had bullied her even once. It wasn't like flight camp at all!
Maybe this would work out just fine.
Fluttershy felt a life-changing musical number coming on.
***
"Found you!" Rainbow Dash said. "I mean, I'm here to rescue you."
Fluttershy giggled. "Rescue me from what?"
Rainbow vaguely waved a foreleg at the flowers and trees surrounding the two pegasi. "This. The GROUND."
Fluttershy smiled. "I kind of like the ground."
"What?" Rainbow said. "You're crazy!"
Fluttershy shook her head. "You know what a hard time I've been having at flight camp? How whenever I try to use my airfeel, I just get overloaded and freak out?"
Dashie just looked worried. "I...I know you can do it."
"Down here," Fluttershy said, "there's only half as much air around us." She delicately stomped a hoof. "Half of what's around us is just ground. The ground mostly just sits there. There's not nearly as much to keep track of. It's a lot easier on me. I don't even have to fly if I don't want to."
"O...kay," Rainbow Dash said. "Whatever you say. But what about the monsters who live down here? Aren't you worried about them?"
Fluttershy made a tiny snort. "They're not monsters, exactly. They're just different from us, that's all."
***
Years later, Fluttershy, Rainbow, and several of their friends rode the overnight train towards the frontier town of Appleoosa.
The sleeper cabin was dark. But with these particular ponies all together in the same room, the space was hardly quiet. It seemed somepony was always whispering and giggling, or even talking at full volume.
Rainbow Dash felt especially bad because she'd been responsible for starting the late night noise.
Rainbow knew Fluttershy needed a good night's sleep. But Dashie was also afraid her fillyhood friend was too timid to stand up for herself.
Rainbow had an idea. "I don't see why Bloomberg gets his own cabin. He didn't do anything to earn it. A tree just sits there...and grows, I guess. It can't do anything that makes much difference."
Rainbow snorted. "And Fluttershy's really quiet too. So why not let Fluttershy share the private cabin with Bloomberg? Let's just think of Fluttershy as a tree."
Fluttershy said, "I'd LIKE to be a tree."
Rainbow blinked. "Oh. Of course." She hugged her fillyhood friend, and whispered, "Of course, sometimes you would feel that way."
"Only sometimes," Fluttershy lied. "Being a pegasus doesn't make me worry nearly as much as it used to."
"That's good," Rainbow mumured. "I'm so glad you're feeling better."
"It's not as bad with friends," Fluttershy said. That much at least was true.
***
Discord sat on a large rock, looking out at the valley below. He wasn't cheerful.
Some ponies would call Discord a monster. Some would call him a demon. A few might call him a god...but not the kind they would want to worship.
It was lonely, being a creature no one could possibly understand. He seldom talked about it...because who would ever understand?
Nopony and nocreature, that's who.
Beneath Discord, a yellow pegasus walked across the grass.
Another boring, trivial creature, Discord was sure. The only interesting thing about this pegasus was that it was walking. Most pegasi would fly instead.
Maybe this pegasus was injured? Still pretty boring.
But Discord had promised Twilight and her little friends he wouldn't play bizarre, nasty pranks to try to make the world more interesting. The worst part was, after so many years of trying, Discord had come to decide that even his own perversity had limits, and he was bored with his own sick sense of humor.
His promise to rein himself in might have appeared to be a great sacrifice, but it didn't really cost him much at all.
The pegasus twitched a wing.
A tiny breeze from the pegasus' wing traveled through the air, brushing up against a buzzing fly. The fly descended slightly. A frog's tongue shot out, catching the fly.
Could it be? No, Discord thought. Just a coincidence.
The pegasus wing twitched again. Then a third time.
A minute later, a cloud of mosquitoes broke into two parts. Each new group went off in a somewhat different direction.
Two minutes later, the second group of mosquitoes flew past a dragonfly couple. The predator insects darted and tore through the mosquitoes, catching and eating their fill.
It was NOT a coincidence, Discord decided. With the tiniest, gentlest actions, that pegasus was deliberately using chaos in ways that any unicorn scholar could tell you were theoretically impossible. Because THE WHOLE POINT of chaos theory was, a pony COULDN'T use it that way. You COULDN'T control the outcomes like that.
But impossible or not, the pegasus was doing it. Just to help feed her little animal friends!
This was the most interesting thing Discord had seen in he didn't even KNOW how many pony lifetimes.
The strange mismatched creature slid off the rock, and walked downhill.
"Hello...Fluttershy, was it?"
"Hello, Discord." The pegasus smiled. "Are you here as a friend?"
Discord leaned sideways, casually resting one forearm upon empty air. "If you'll let me be."
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
How had Fluttershy decided to take a walk through that one specific valley on that particular morning at that exact time, anyway?
Discord had finally found somecreature who presented him with a mysterious play of chaos that even HE couldn't quite fathom. Fluttershy's chaos was kind in ways he could understand, and gentle in ways he sometimes couldn't even grasp the workings of. It wasn't drastic and mean and cruel at all.
No wonder he grew to love her.
***
One day in Ponyville, Twilight waved hello to Fluttershy.
Slight breezes from Twilight's movements brushed Fluttershy's wingtips. The pegasus' hyperdeveloped airfeel sensed an imminent interaction between Twilight and the Cutie Map. And what was that strange tingle? It reminded Fluttershy of Starlight Glimmer, that egocentric unicorn who had tried to reorganize an entire town around what she personally wanted. Glimmer had tried to make sure a specific fillyhood disappointment would never happen to her or anypony else ever again.
This felt a lot like that, but a million times worse.
It had a strong tinge of time travel too, like the week when Twilight had met her own future self, and had driven herself half-crazy trying to organize all Ponyville to make sure the future turned out the way it should.
But this time, the feel was both deeper and nastier. The connections seemed to stretch mostly backward into the past, and into many, many different possible outcomes for all Equestia and beyond. What a horrible mess!
Fluttershy felt too many timelines that just seemed to cut off, or taper off into worlds where nopony survived. Fluttershy shuddered.
There! Fluttershy felt a way through. Fluttershy could do a seemingly inconsequential thing, but in a moment of future trouble (or past trouble? Time travel with multiple timelines was hard to talk about) when Twilight felt lost and desperate, Twilight's memory of this moment would reassure the alicorn and cheer her up. It might even give her an idea or two.
Fluttershy asked, "Are you on your way to the spa, so you and Rarity can have somepony smear mud on your faces?" Fluttershy smiled. "Isn't it funny, how such a fussy pony would want to get her face all dirty?"
Twilight chuckled. "No spa for me today. I've been getting the strangest readings from the Cutie Map. I think something big is going to happen soon, but I don't know what."
"Oh. I hope you can take care of it. No, let me take that back. Whatever it is, I know you can solve it."
"Thanks, Fluttershy. I feel better knowing I have your confidence."
Fluttershy giggled. She said, "I know you do."
Greenish light shone through a castle window. Twilight said, "Talk later gottarun!"
As the princess ran towards the Castle of Friendship, Fluttershy said, too softly to be heard, "I really do know you can do it."
The timelines felt better now. It would be enough. Tomorrow would happen. Fluttershy and her friends would be in it, and they would still be together in a happy, peaceful Equestria.
***
Objectively, Twilight thought, the latest threat to Equestria seemed pretty bad. Should she be worried? No, she snorted to herself. She should be terrified.
But Twilight was sure that somehow, things would turn out ok. Twilight didn't know why the world seemed to work that way. Sure, the Elements of Harmony helped, but she thought there was more to it than that. Maybe the underground roots of the Tree, helping to hold the world together? Could be, she thought.
Twilight knew she didn't understand it. But Twilight was ever so glad to live in a world where, when a story impinged upon the future of the world, and affected everycreature in Equestria and beyond, Twilight could count on she and her friends somehow finding a way to a happy ending.
Twilight remembered the time she'd mentioned this mystery to Rainbow Dash. Why was it always possible to save the world?
Her fast flying friend said it was because of the friendship and teamwork between ponies of all three pony races, and the fact that pegasus magic was totally awesome. Even (or especially?) Fluttershy's.
Twilight giggled to herself. Pegasi barely even HAD magic! So of all the explanations anypony could imagine, at least there was one answer she could safely rule out.
But even if Dashie sometimes said things that didn't make a lot of sense, Twilight was still glad to have the pegasus as a friend. Friendship really was magic. And if Twilight didn't have all the answers? She would still keep looking.
Maybe Twilight would never understand everything, but she still had fun trying.
Author's Note:
Where do writers get their ideas?
A lot of different ideas in cosmology and philosophy can help playful minds to come up with ideas like this. For starters, you can look up the 'many worlds interpretation' or the anthropic principle (two different ideas, but some versions may be somewhat related.)
Since a great variety of people might be reading this, please do not confuse Fluttershy's situation with OCD, schizophrenia, or other disorders closely related to either. Especially if you HAVE one of those disorders.
(The things I do to try to be responsible!)
