Like A Bolt From the Blue
Wallflower paced back and forth on the lawn in front of the high school, waiting for her girlfriend Sunset to pick her up and give her a ride. Both her hands fidgeted with a pamphlet, "Electroshock Therapy, Depression, and You."
"It's just to discuss it," she told herself. "You don't even have to make a commitment today. All you have to do is show up to your appointment, and listen."
"And then," she said, "maybe they'll help you stop having those crazy thoughts about razor blades, or walking in front of a car, or taking so much syrup of Ipecac you puke yourself to death."
As she walked, she tripped over the edge of a sidewalk and fell, rolling forwards. "Oh, fertilizer!" she said, as she smashed into a large stone pedestal.
But there was no smash. Instead, she felt herself pulled into a place that reminded her of the time she'd tried smoking the 'special herbs' Tree Hugger had given her.
A thousand different colors streaked by. Gravity seemed to go upside down, or in every direction at once. Even her own body felt like it was trying on different shapes, one after another.
Wallflower felt gravity and her own vision return to normal. She slammed into a hard surface, and rolled again.
She tried to say, "Wow." But what she really said was, "Squawk."
She stood up. She was in a...crystal castle? It looked like something Dunald Trallump might try to build someday...that is, if he became as excited about amethyst-colored crystals as VERY, VERY UNLIKELY RUMORS CLAIMED he was about gold-plated toilets.
"Squawk," she said again, although it wasn't what she really meant. "Squawk."
She turned around, and saw a large mirror, at least ten or fifteen times as tall as herself.
Of course! This must be the mirror portal she'd heard Sunset Shimmer and her friends talking about, the portal to Equestria. Wallflower had stumbled into it by mistake, and...here she was.
But what kind of pony had she turned into? Wallflower ran towards the mirror to look...or she tried to. Her body ached all over, and the best she could do was a slow walk.
When she was directly in front of the mirror, she looked at her pony self. But it was wrong. She had two wings...but the wings had lots of bare patches, where the feathers seemed to have fallen out. Also, she had only two legs, and an enormous, scaly-looking nose bigger than the rest of her head.
Without meaning to, Wallflower coughed and spat, leaving a nasty mess on the floor.
This figures, she thought. I can't even turn into a pony right. Just like everything else I should be able to do, but fail at.
She coughed and spat again, dirtying more of the floor.
From a nearby hallway, she heard animals (creatures?) tromping along. A voice like Twilight Sparkle's said, "It is SO HARD to keep eighteen million square hooves of castle floor clean. Sometimes I really miss living in the library. If ONE MORE CREATURE barges in here and tracks dirt all over, and makes us have to clean the floor again, I don't know WHAT I'll do..."
Wallflower squeaked. She'd only been here for moments, and she'd ALREADY gotten in trouble for making a mess. She walked as fast as she could, towards the closest exit. Good thing someone had left the door ajar, or she might not have been able to get out in time.
She escaped, into the outdoors.
The grass was green, the sky was blue, the flowers were....flowery, and ponies walked singly or in small groups across the landscape.
"Squawk," Wally said, frustrated by her inability to express herself.
***
Meanwhile, inside the castle, a little dragonling jumped up and down, shouting. "Who did this? WHO did this? I FINALLY finished scrubbing the entire entrance hall, and SOMEPONY--"
"Somecreature," a winged, unicorn-horned, purple pony princess said.
"WHO WAS IT?" Spike bellowed.
Twilight magically levitated a feather between herself and Spike. "I think it was some kind of bird. So all we have to do is--"
"Ask Fluttershy?"
"Ask Fluttershy."
***
Trying to hide from her messy crimes, Wallflower walked through a town of quaint cottages and some other, more eccentric buildings. She passed a dress shop that resembled a cross between a merry-go-round and an extra-tall hatbox.
Sometimes she coughed up a little more liquid, or a bit of ooze, but at least it was just an OUTDOORS mess, which she thought shouldn't be as bad.
She'd escaped, and no one knew she was the culprit. She wasn't in any trouble at all!
At least, until she heard a soft rattling from behind her, and a softly pattering shower of something fell on her tail. She spun around, to see a zebra holding a salt shaker in its mouth.
"I walk and explore in the Everfree
But no creature like you do I see."
"Squawk!" Following an instinct, Wally spread her wings and tried to fly away. But she felt too dizzy to take off.
"Silly bird. A shake of salt
Upon your tail makes all flight halt."
"Squawk! Squawk! SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK!"
"Now let's see, what kind of bird are you
And what in Ponyville do you do?"
Wallflower vomited all over the zebra's hooves. The zebra bent low over the mess, inspecting it closely.
"Hmm.
Hmm."
"Rhyming hmm with hmm is cheating!" Wallflower wanted to say. Instead, she squawked again.
Although the day had been almost cloudless, and looked sunny both up and down the street, drops of water fell upon Wallflower's head.
The zebra glanced up.
"Beware! Take care! You should take fright!
Of dark cloud's thunder, pegasus--"
Light, brighter than Wally had ever before seen, surrounded the sad, bedraggled bird. The thunderbolt's loud boom hurt Zecora's ears, giving her an instant headache.
When the smoke cleared...
"I wail! I weep. I shake my head!
I tried to save her, but now she's--"
A gray pegasus fell on top of the zebra, interrupting her lament. "Oopsie!" the winged pony said. "What happened here?"
"You killed her, you incompetent, clumsy, irresponsible--"
Magic swirled up from the ground, forming a shape like a glowing pink whirlwind. When the swirl disappeared, a healthy bird stood up, with perfect, glossy feathers, shiny eyes, and a gorgeous voice that beguiled everypony with beautiful birdsong...
"Squawk! Squawk! Squawk squawk squawk SCREECH!"
I guess you can't have everything.
"Wow!" The gray pegasus marveled at the healthy, sleek-feathered bird. "I just don't know what went right!"
***
A distraught redhead ran across the high school's front lawn. "Wally! Wally! Where are--YES!" She rounded the pedestal, seeing her girlfriend sitting on the grass. "I was so worried. When you just DISAPPEARED from our shared Hoofle Map, I thought maybe...I thought maybe you were dead."
Wallflower smiled, cute little dimples appearing in her cheeks. "Oh...I DID die, kind of. But I got better."
Sunset's eyes narrowed. "You got better?"
"Yes! Zecora and Princess Twilight explained it to me. It turns out, on the other side of the Mirror Portal, I'm a phoenix. That's--"
"I know what a phoenix is." Sunset knelt to hug Wallflower. "Huh."
Wally said, "I never knew, before today. It's a bird that every so often catches fire on its own, without so much as a match. Next, the bird vanishes in a swirl of magic. But right afterwards, the bird comes back again, good as new."
"I wonder what that's like," Sunset remarked.
"It's like...getting to reboot your computer when it's malfunctioning, so it works properly again. Or cleaning any bad chemical imbalances out of your brain. WHOOSH! Right out of your head!"
Wallflower held up her wrinkled electroshock pamphlet. "Just like the articles from THIS world about antidepressants and electrotherapy talked about. But if you're a phoenix, you don't even have to go to a doctor. Just...boom! And you're good as new!"
"'Boom,'" Sunset quoted. "So...it doesn't hurt?"
"Not if you're a phoenix, in Equestria. I feel right as rain. Which I guess I should, after having been turned into a phoenix, rained on, and killed by lightning. I feel better than I ever have since I was a little girl. You can't even know how wonderful it was, Sunny. Because if I was a human, and I tried to set myself on fire, it would just hurt a lot."
"You ARE a human, Wallflower. At least on this side of the portal, you are."
"I know. In this world, catching on fire would just be horrible. It would be the worst kind of agony. It wouldn't help me at all!" Wallflower shuddered. "Even if someone wanted to commit suicide, that would be just about the most terrible way to do it.
"But in Equestria, I can be my real self!" Wallflower saw the look on Sunset's face. "I don't mean that this ISN'T my real self. I just mean...it was so nice having my depression treated properly. Because here, I was so scared to even tell people about it, or go to a doctor. But in Equestria...WHOOSH! It only took a moment to fix it, and I was all better! I didn't even have to go to a clinic."
"I'm happy for you," Sunset said. She kissed Wallflower's cheek. "I'm so happy you had such a wonderful adventure in Equestria. But promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"Unless a proper doctor is involved, don't you dare try to electrocute yourself on this side of the portal. In this world, your body is human. Human bodies can't take these things the way an Equestrian phoenix body can. So please don't try to kill yourself or hurt yourself at all. Please, Wally, promise me you won't."
Wallflower whispered in Sunset's ear, "It's a promise."
Author's Note
This author's note comes in at least three different versions!
⬛ Serious Version ⬛
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, or even just feeling depressed, you can check out the resources at the end of Monochromatic's "The Choices We Make." (link) The story itself is partly about helping people understand that it's ok to explore those resources, because every life has meaning and value, and there are people who want to help.
⬛ Somewhat Less Serious Version ⬛
"Because you can NEVER have too many stories about Wallflower and depression!" 
I mean, that's just a documentable fact.
⬛ Contest Version (Because I Considered Entering a Version of This Story Into Estee's Crossover Contest) ⬛
To qualify for Estee's contest, a story must include a qualifying character from one of our world's animated films, who...oh, you can see the rules over here. (link)
The salt shaker was a character in an early(-ish) animated cartoon made on Earth. This piece of ~~Displaced kitchenware~~ KiE 'Kitchenware in Equestria' resides on a shelf in Zecora's home. Every time she picks it up to salt her food, the shaker whispers so softly it's hard to know for sure whether it's talking at all, insinuating eldritch suggestions about what to do with birds' tails.
A specific contest-qualifying animated cartoon is listed in "Film Cartoons: A Guide to 20th Century American Animated Features and Shorts" by Douglas L. McCall.
925 Knock Knock (November 25, 1940)
Producer-Director: Walter Lantz; Andy Panda. Woody Woodpecker (debut); A looney woodpecker pesters Andy and his Pop, so Andy tries to catch him by putting salt on his tail; The first cartoon appearance of the little red-headed woodpecker who would become Walter Lantz’s most popular cartoon star. His trademark “ha-ha-ha-HA-ha” laugh even
spawned an Oscar-nominated hit song in 1948 called “The Woody Woodpecker Song” (from Wet Blanket Policy). Woody, who was voiced (from 1948 on) by Lantz’s wife Grace Stafford (1904—92), appeared in 195 shorts (1940—72); Voice—Mel Blanc (Woody).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZzXvHHURc0
⬛ Happy Easter? ⬛
