Your name is Harry, and you are a bear.
But you aren’t just any bear. You are the bear of Fluttershy, Equestria’s Element of Kindness. You are the bear who wandered out of the Everfree Forest one night as a cub, unable to find your mother and siblings, who then took refuge in a strange stone building filled with even stranger smells. You are the bear Fluttershy found in the morning, curled up with your head stuck in a bag of rabbit food (much to the dismay of Angel Bunny, though you only found that part out later). You are the bear she raised from that day on, making sure you never went hungry, never felt cold, and never had any tension in your back. You are the bear that she loves.
At least, you’re pretty sure she loves you. The problem is, you haven’t seen her for a very long while. You’re not sure exactly how long, but it’s been longer than a week, at least. Sure, maybe Dr. Fauna can make sure everyone is healthy, but it’s just not the same. Dr. Fauna only lets you hug her for so long before she has to run off and handle another patient. Fluttershy would have let you carry her around on your back if you so wished, perhaps sing a sweet lullaby while you fell asleep. Maybe she would have scratched you behind the ears, or called you the most handsome little man she’s ever seen, or would have hosted a tea party as a reward for playing nicely with the other animals.
You miss her. You miss tea time, too.
And that’s why you’re here, at her cottage. The very same cottage you spent most of your life at, before Sweet Feather Sanctuary was even an idea. You had to bribe Angel Bunny to let you sneak out, but luckily, all it took was getting a bunch of carrots down from the top shelf of the refrigerator. It sometimes paid to be roughly twice the height of a pony, and to have a white fluffy bunny friend who was very good at being a handful. You could hear Dr. Fauna’s utter confusion at the state of the butterfly garden as you snuck away.
But like it or not, sneaking into a cottage was a completely different story. Sure, you can fit through at least one of the windows, but you are big and loud and do not look normal climbing into a pony’s home. And while you aren’t concerned about Fluttershy noticing you, you are a little apprehensive about the snake horse man.
His name is Discord, but you knew him first as the snake horse man, and that’s all you’ve ever called him. The first time the two of you properly met, he snapped two talons of his bird-like claw, and you were suddenly careening downhill on a unicycle with a colorful ruff and a frizzy party hat. When you inevitably crashed, not knowing how to pedal a unicycle, he rubbed the torment in by summoning a red rubber nose onto your face, giving it a honk and laughing hysterically.
(He eventually apologized, but you know Fluttershy made him do it. Everyone knows she’s scary when she’s mad.)
He’s lived with Fluttershy for years. At first, it was out of obligation, but it wasn’t that simple for long. You think it was Angel who first started the joke of their owner wanting to marry the snake horse man, poking fun at how she would pace the house with him in mind. You didn’t think the joke was all that funny, but a couple of the others did. The idea of your owner with such a creature was humorous enough to warrant at least a wry smile.
Nobody thought they’d actually fall in love.
You recall Angel’s jaw dropping when he first saw the ring on a necklace around her neck, made entirely out of butterflies no less, and you didn’t blame him one bit. Despite first impressions, they had gotten married under oath of Princess Cadence herself. He and Fluttershy often went on little indoor dates when the sanctuary wasn’t so packed and busy, and went on journeys all through the cosmos for vacations.
Did he make her happy? Of course. Even with his scary oddities, he made her happier than anypony ever had, and that’s why you haven’t chased him off.
But did that mean you could crawl through a window on his watch?
There was only one way to find out.
You hoist your front paws onto the windowsill and give the window frame a slight push. The hinges give a slight creak as the window swings open, but thankfully, no one comes to check your entry point. You nudge your nose into the cottage, followed by your head, then your feet and shoulders and body. You know where you are: it’s the corner of the home between the bookshelf and the couch, with a lamp carefully wedged in between. It’s a miracle you didn’t accidentally nudge it over.
You sniff the air. It smells sweet, like sugar and honey. You start to head towards it, but your nose is faster than your brain, and the back legs you hadn’t yet gotten through cause you to stumble onto the ground with a soft THUMP.
You lay there, flat as a pancake, pressing to the floor even flatter as the crash’s sound bounces across the walls. Thankfully, there was still no one coming after you, although you are slightly saddened that you couldn’t show off the rug impression you’d been working on. After a long moment of silence, you stand, peeking your eyes over the top of the couch.
It had been a while since you’d been inside for longer than a medical visit or a special feeding time, and while not much had changed, certain parts were drastically different. Photos lined the walls, many of Fluttershy and her friends, family, even her and Discord on their wedding day. One is with you on your very first birthday, a colorful bib tied loosely around the fluff on your neck and your maw covered in bits of fresh honeycomb. A couple of curtains and rugs didn’t match up, some flower petals and loose stuffed animals were scattered around, but nonetheless, it was home.
Strangest of the oddities, however, was the Thing in the center of the room.
You don’t know what it is. It’s not something you’ve ever heard Fluttershy describe, or any of your other animal peers for that matter. It’s a long box made of wood, elegant symbols carved through with the roots and stems of flora, swaying gently on two crescent-shaped legs. Every square inch is sprouting leaves and flowers of all different colors, all climbing upwards to create a hooded plant canopy at one end. From there, a rogue vine snaked out, holding a web of various colorful animals above the box.
As quietly as you can, you plod your way past the couches and chairs to reach it. You stare at the overhanging vine, nudging the decoration above with your nose to see if you can catch any unfamiliar scents. To your surprise, it spins, the mechanism ringing softly like a wind chime on a breezy day. The animals glisten in the sunlight filtering through your entry point, twirling like dancers. You can name them from experience: a sheep, a lion, a dragon and a deer. You even spotted a bear, covered in a thin layer of soft brown velvet. The limbs of each swayed with their motion, like they were running in the air, soaring above their box like birds.
How delightful, you think, and you spin it again, taking a seat on the room’s rug and watching it go round and round. It’s soothing, watching the group spin in little circles. You almost forget why you came over there in the first place.
Until you hear something inside the box make a snuffly-sounding giggle.
You don’t know why you didn’t think to look inside before, but you do now. You find a small blanket, quilted with pink and white fabric in a plaid pattern, tucked haphazardly inside the box’s lining. Even stranger, underneath it is a little creature, who meets your gaze with a wide smile, two sharp teeth jutting out prominently.
You tilt your head. You’ve never seen anything like this before, either.
It was alive, you know that, and you had a general sense of what pony babies looked like. It almost looked like one, with dusty yellow fur, a pale pink mane with strands of white laced through, and curious red eyes.
But it couldn’t be a pony, not entirely. Its ears were pointed like a bats, its snout was long like a dragon’s, and it had two little horn stubs, much like the ones of a deer and goat respectively. Its legs, too, were each different shades of brown, ending in fuzzy appendages that were certainly not hooves.
To your surprise, one of its paws looks just like a bear cub’s.
You nudge your nose a little closer, blowing an inquisitive huff of air at the creature. This makes it laugh again, the same gurgly chortle you heard before. You’re not sure why this entertains the creature so, but you don’t mind. You like making ponies happy, so what difference did it make between pony and creature?
You nudge the creature’s paw with your nose, this one resembling a squirrel’s. It laughs again, but this time, it does something you don’t expect.
It grabs you.
You freeze, out of surprise more than anything. You’re not used to being grabbed onto, not by the nose especially. You make a small grunt of defiance, gently lifting your snout upward, in the hopes that the creature would release its hold.
It did not. In fact, it did quite the opposite.
You cross your eyes to make sure you’re seeing the sight correctly, but it’s true. The creature is hanging by your nose, gently flapping the tiny bat wings by its sides to stay on. Its body is longer than you thought from the box, and its even longer tail wrapped itself around your maw, bits of hair tickling the gap between your eyes. Despite the new heights, it showed no signs of panic, but rather joy at its new vantage point.
You’re not sure what to do. If you shake it off, you will hurt the creature. You couldn’t do that to it, but you also couldn’t safely keep it perched so precariously on your nose, where it could easily fall. You don’t know how far your head is from the ground, but you know the creature is too small to have strong bones.
You compromise by laying down flat on your stomach, huffing through your nose and staring at it pleadingly in the hopes that it would move on its own.
Thankfully, it does, taking the floor as yet another start of an exploration. It babbles in a language you can’t determine, not as an animal nor as a pony. You do notice, however, that its back legs are also a mashup of fauna, with the two brown legs of a bunny and a bat to match the two oddities at the front. The dusty yellow at its head and chest faded into a warm dark brown at its torso, and then to a vibrant red at its tip, connected to a fuzzy tail.
It reminds you of the snake horse man, but you’re not frightened by this one.
Instead, you turn your head to watch as it stumbles around you on its little feet, uncoordinated and clumsy but determined to make it to its destination. It head-butts your shoulder as it rounds your side, the little nubs on its head doing little to actually hurt the arm underneath your thick fur. Finally, it reaches a gap of soft belly fur and finds its lodging, plopping down on its side contently.
It yawns with an almost melodic hum, and just as quickly as it was woken up, it went directly back to sleep.
It astounds you how quickly it decided to make you its new bed, but you can’t say you mind. You had been a bed before. Younger animals and smaller animals alike sometimes flocked to you when nights at the sanctuary got cold, so it was nothing you weren’t used to. Even Fluttershy had made use of you as a headrest when she was too exhausted to make it to her own bed, all those nights ago when she had first become an Element of Harmony.
It’s that thought that makes you remember what you came to do in the first place, but you soon find that you don’t even have to get up to finish it.
Because a soft gasp of shock behind you suddenly catches your attention, along with the metallic rustling of silverware.
You turn over your shoulder sheepishly, finding who else but Fluttershy herself, making directly eye contact with you. At first, she seemed genuinely frightened, but once she connects the dots of your face, she settles down just slightly.
“Oh, Harry. You scared me…”
You whimper apologetically as Fluttershy sets her tea set on the nearby table, and the yellow pegasus pets your head without skipping a beat, although her expression still holds some worry.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t hear you come in, I was so busy making breakfast- did you sneak in through the window again?”
You nod your head, staring at your owner with pleading eyes. She sighs, the sound tired, but smiles gently, like a concerned parent.
“I know, you didn’t mean to scare me, but you know you need to ask permission. Somepony could get really scared if you drop in without telli- oh my.”
Fluttershy’s voice dropped when she looked downward, spotting the creature curled up at your side, practically halfway underneath your fur. She doesn’t seem mad- confused, maybe, but not mad. Not even when she lowers her face down to the creature does she look upset. She knows you wouldn’t hurt anything.
Just in case, though, you rest your head on the ground as a sign of peace.
“Well, if you’re all cozy… I guess you can stay.”
You quickly realize it isn’t you she’s whispering to, but rather, the little creature bundled up nice and warm. She gave it a little pat with her hoof, taking a deep breath and exhaling.
“Harry, this is Ambrosia. I’m so so sorry, I meant to introduce her, but I kept getting so busy… be gentle with her, okay? She’s just a baby.”
Suddenly, it all comes together. It- or rather, she- is not a creature, but rather, a baby. Fluttershy’s baby, just like you once were when you were a cub. You understand that she loves her just like she loves you.
And that thought makes you love the baby even more.
You nod and tuck your head inward, curling your body loosely around her, sighing contently and closing your eyes. Perhaps if Ambrosia thought it was nap time, then it was nap time. Even when you eventually hear the sound of the snake horse man’s bipedal hoofsteps, followed by a peal of laughter at the absurdity of the view before him, you do not budge. You were not going to budge until the baby wanted you to.
Your name is Harry, and you are going to be the best older brother Equestria has ever seen.
Author's Note
Honest admission: I’ve never written anything in second person before. In fact, I kept accidentally writing in third person when I was drafting this. Lmao.
Hopefully that’s all fixed, but do feel free to tell me if there’s any errors I didn’t catch. ^^
