Flutterquest

As Fluttershy fell through the air, a question occurred to her.

How exactly do wings work?

Fluttershy screamed as the hard ground zoomed ever closer. She frantically flapped her wings in a blind panic. For once, blind panic seemed to work as Fluttershy managed to remove some of the momentum before she crashed painfully, but non-fatally, on to the ground with her face in the dirt and her flank sticking up in the air like a fluffy, yellow lighthouse.

The yellow pegasus stayed in the humiliating position for a few seconds. She slowly got to her hooves and spat out most of the dirt she had swallowed.

“I’m alive?” She checked her body to make sure everything was in place. She looked back at the hibernation facility; a large, blocky, white building. She seemed to have landed quite far from it. “I’m alive!”

Then the hibernation facility exploded.

Fluttershy instinctively curled into a terrified ball as the building went up in flames. For what felt like an eternity, all she could hear was large thudding sounds as pieces of the building fell all around her. One half of her mind was telling her to grow a backbone and run for it, the other half was begging her to stay put and pray for luck.

Eventually, the second half won and Fluttershy stayed in her ball as rubble rained down all around her. After a minute or so of silence, the yellow mare plucked up the courage to open one of her eyes. Only one for now, she would open the other eye when she was ready.

All she could see was darkness.

“Am…..am I dead?”

“No, your life signs are stable,” TWI’s distinctive voice said.

“Oh. Then am I blind?”

“You appear to have above average eyesight, Fluttershy.”

“Then why is it so……dark?”

“Because your face is pressed into a piece of debris.”

Fluttershy quickly drew back her face. It had indeed been pressed into a piece of rubble. It was huge; at least ten ponies tall, and seemed to have missed her head by a mere inch or two. Lucky. Looking down, Fluttershy could see a similar piece of debris had also missed her tail by mere inches. Very lucky. The two enormous rocks loomed over her on both sides. All around her, there was a field of bricks and various other bits of debris stretching out in all directions.

“It appears the reactor overloaded,” TWI stated.

“Thanks a lot,” Fluttershy said, taking a rare indulgence in sarcasm.  She felt the situation called for it.

She suddenly remembered Pinkie. She felt selfish for having forgotten her friend and began frantically looked around.

“Pinkie? Pinkie, where are you?” Fluttershy shouted. As she shouted, a shard of glass fell out of the sky and just missed her. Fluttershy let out a frightened cry and resumed her position as a terrified ball.

After a few more minutes of building her courage, the yellow pegasus looked up and saw that a pane of glass was suspended between the two tall pieces of rubble on either side of her; directly above her head. Her shouting must have caused part of the glass to dislodge.

“I recommend keeping noise levels to a minimum,” TWI said.

“Don’t worry,” Fluttershy said, “I’m good at that.”

Inch by painful inch, Fluttershy began to crawl out from under the glass. She even tried to make her breathing quieter than usual; she knew it was silly but she wanted to be extra sure that she wouldn’t become a pony fillet.

She eventually reached the beginning of the brick field. Carefully, Fluttershy placed her left forehoof on the bricks and –

She slipped.

A brick moved a few inches and make a slight noise.

Fluttershy winched and looked up at the glass. It seemed fine.

“Phew, that was a close one,” Fluttershy said as she gave a relieved laugh.

Releasing her mistake, Fluttershy quickly jumped onto the nearest pile of bricks as the glass rained down behind her in a deadly shower. She took a few heavy breathes as she lay, bruised, atop the pile of bricks.

After a few moments of appreciating the fact that she was still breathing, Fluttershy began searching through the rubble for her pink friend. After what felt like hours of searching with no luck, Fluttershy’s panic continued to rise.

It was sunset before she had any luck.

“Fluttershy, you’re standing on me!”

The yellow pegasus quickly removed her hoof and saw that she had indeed been standing on Pinkie. The pink head laid on the ground, covered in dust and dirt.

“Oh, Pinkie, I’m so glad you’re okay! Are you okay?”

“Okay? I’m more than okay! That was so much fun! First Twilight was like ‘Jump!’ and then you were like ‘ARRRGHHH!’ and then I was like ‘Geronimo!’ and then I landed here and then the big building was like ‘BOOM!’ and then I got bugs in my mouth! Let’s do that again!”

“Oh, thank goodness. Pinkie, I want to hug you but…..”

“That’s okay, Fluttershy. It’s the thought that counts!”

“I don’t want to lose you like that again, Pinkie. I was worried sick.”

“See that rope over there?” Pinkie gestured (somehow) at a slim piece of rope lying among the wreckage. “You could wear me like a necklace. I’ve always dreamed of being an accessory!”

Fluttershy eventually fashioned a harness (Pinkie kept insisting on calling it a necklace) by putting the rope through Pinkie’s poufy, firm mane. With Pinkie dangling from her neck and TWI still around her hoof, Fluttershy climbed out of the rubble pile for the quaint looking town beyond.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but think this was one of the weirdest days of her life. It was certainly in the top three.

The town looked like it had once been a nice, peaceful place to live. Now it looked like a stampede of rampaging buffalo had torn through it. The buildings were dilapidated, the streets were deserted and an aura of uneasy silence hung over the place. A memory leapt back into Fluttershy’s head.

“Ponyville. What happened here? You both mentioned something about a plague earlier, right?”

“Don’t you remember, Fluttershy?” Pinkie looked up at Fluttershy’s chin as she spoke. “Did you bump your noggin when we jumped out that window? ‘Cause I sure did!”

“The current state of Ponyville is due to the Up North Project and decades of neglect,” TWI chimed in.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy caught herself. “I mean, TWI, could you do into more detail please? I mean, if that isn’t too much trouble.”

“Not at all, Fluttershy,” TWI said.  “An infectious plague of unknown origin caused an epidemic across Equestria. Victims would typically die within seven to ten days. As previously stated, Twilight Sparkle was a victim of said plague.”

Fluttershy winced at the casual mention of her friend’s passing. “Go on.”

“Eventually, Princess Celestia began the Up North Project. Every uninfected citizen of Equestria would migrate to the Frozen Wastes, far away from Equestria and the plague. There, they would construct a city dubbed ‘Up North’ and begin on developing a cure for the infected ponies, who were placed in suspended animation in hibernation facilities across Equestria.”

Fluttershy’s heart almost leapt out of her chest. “Um, could you say that last bit again please?”

“The infected ponies were placed in hibernation.”

“But, I was –”

“Yes. I am sorry, Fluttershy.”

It took a few moments for the news to sink in. Fluttershy fought back some tears. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“The plague is mostly symptomless. That is what makes it such an efficient disease. You will feel mostly fine until a few hours before your death, when it will be become increasingly difficult to breathe. Until –”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.” Fluttershy said, even quieter than usual.

Pinkie had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the conversation. “Fluttershy, I’d give you a hug right now, but…..”

“That’s okay, Pinkie. It’s the thought that counts.”

“That’s why I stayed down here. I wanted you to see a friendly face when you woke up. Nopony should be alone.”

“TWI,” Fluttershy said quietly, “How long would it take to get to Up North?”

“My estimation program is telling me a week or so. Fluttershy, it is unlikely that –”

“I don’t care.” Dozens of memories came back into Fluttershy’s head.

“It has been eighty-seven years. They have likely given up on finding a cure.”

“I don’t care. It’s not about the cure. My friends might still be alive up there. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die with all my friends at my side.”

The average lifespan of a pony was one hundred and twenty years. There was a chance that Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were still alive. They’d be positively ancient, but there was still a chance.

“Oh, oh, oh, can I come?” Pinkie said, her bubbliness coming back.

“Of course you can, Pinkie.” Fluttershy noticed that it was almost dark. “Let’s find somewhere to sleep. We’ll set off in the morning.”

They eventually came to Fluttershy’s old cottage just outside the Everfree Forest. TWI had said they would need to travel through the forest to get to Up North so Fluttershy thought the cottage would be a good place to spend the night.

Fluttershy’s freshly returned memories of the cottage were of a cosy, warm, friendly place. The decades hadn’t been kind to the cottage; it was now a run-down, partially collapsed shadow of its former self.

“Oh, my. Maybe we should find somewhere else,” Fluttershy said.

“The other structures in Ponyville are likely just as bad,” TWI said.

“But half of the roof has collapsed.”

“Ah, c’mon, Fluttershy!” Pinkie said. “It’ll be just like camping! Remember that time we all camped in Rarity’s back yard and we gave Dashie a makeover while she was asleep?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh, right. Well, it was super fun!”

The interior of the cottage was a strange sight. The furniture was neatly arranged but a layer of dust and decay coated every surface. Frequent holes peppered the ceiling like pepperoni on a pizza. Fluttershy looked up through one of these holes and got a glimpse of a bedroom. The upstairs roof was in an even worse state; it was as if the entire roof had been ripped clean off by an angry dragon. Fluttershy couldn’t wait to get into the bed and forget her troubles in sleep.

At that moment, there was a crack of thunder and it began raining heavily.

“Oh. Looks like we’re sleeping on the sofa,” Fluttershy sighed.

“Oh, like what Mr Cake does when he and Mrs Cake have a doozy of an argument,” Pinkie stated simply.

“Wait,” Fluttershy said as the lack of logic occurred to her, “How is it raining? There aren’t any pegasi weather teams anymore.”

“In order to stop Equestria from entering a drought due to their absence, the Cloudsdale Republic placed all of Equestria’s weather on an automatic cycle,” TWI explained. “Rain such as this is common.”

Fluttershy laid down on the sofa and covered herself with a nearby dusty blanket to keep herself warm and dry. She had placed Pinkie on the armchair next to the sofa and, at the AI’s insistence; she had turned TWI off to so she could recharge her power source for the next day.

“Pinkie? Are you awake?” Fluttershy said after an hour or so of trying and failing to get some sleep. There was just too much on her mind.

“Yes, Fluttershy?” Pinkie’s voice whispered in the darkness.

“I used to have animals here, didn’t I? What happened to them?”

“They went to Up North with Rarity. She was super generous and looked after them while you were gone.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Pinkie, I have to ask, I still can’t remember. Twilight. Was she happy? In the end?”

There was a pause.

“Yes. Yes, she was. We were there for her.”

It wasn’t much, but it helped console Fluttershy.

As Fluttershy prepared to trek through the Everfree Forest the next day, with Pinkie around her neck and TWI around her hoof, the pegasus took one last look at Ponyville. She thought about the poor ponies back in the hibernation facility. She wished she could have saved them. It wasn’t fair that she had survived and they hadn’t.

The yellow mare then began walking through the forest. She had decided not to fly as she still wasn’t entirely sure how her wings worked or that she was even the type of pony capable of making such a flight. The thick mud caused by last night’s rain made walking difficult and slowed her progress.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy caught herself again. “TWI, are you sure you know how to get to Up North?”

“I have detailed geographical files. I am 98.93% sure they are accurate.”

“But what if they’re not accurate?”

“Then we may end up walking off the edge of the world. Do be careful.” Fluttershy couldn’t tell if the A.I. was being sincere or sarcastic.

A sudden cracking sound almost caused Fluttershy to jump straight out of her skin. She realised that she had just stepped on a twig. She sighed in relief.

Fluttershy had always had a love/hate relationship with the Everfree Forest. On one hoof, she loved the adorable animals and delicious vegetables that called the forest home. On the other hoof, she hated the darkness, the terrifying monsters and the unnatural vibe the forest emanated. Fluttershy’s special talent meant she was very in-tune with nature. A place as unnatural as the Everfree Forest made her feel very uneasy.

After a few hours of trekking through the forest’s increasingly thick undergrowth, Pinkie finally decided she was bored with her “Name The Tree” game (she’d named an oak “Reginald” and an elm “Barbara”) and that she wanted to play I Spy. Fluttershy was starting to think the pink earth pony was using her quirkiness to distract herself from her friend’s horrible situation.

“I spy with my pony eye, something beginning with T!”

“Um….tree?” Fluttershy suggested earnestly.

“Darn it! Okay, I spy with my pony eye, something beginning with B!”

“Bush,” TWI stated simply.

“Oh, you’re good! I spy with my pony eye, something beginning with T!”

“Is it ‘tree’ again, Pinkie?” Fluttershy said in her usual kind tone as she shook some mud off her left forehoof.

“Nope!”

“Tendrils,” TWI said as Fluttershy crawled through some low-hanging vines.

“Don’t be silly, Twilight! There aren’t any octopuses in the Everfree Forest!”

“Octopi.”

“That doesn’t begin with T.”

“No, octopi is the correct plural form of octopus.”

“Okay, Pinkie, we give up,” Fluttershy said after several more minutes of fruitless guessing, “What’s do you spy that begins with T?”

“Timber wolf!” Pinkie said cheerfully.

As soon as Pinkie revealed her answer, a cracking sound emanated from the treetops. Fluttershy looked up and saw a ferocious timber wolf. It was growling at her and disgusting amounts of drool were falling from its wooden jaws.

“Um, nice timber wolf,” Fluttershy said whilst trying not to assume her terrified ball position.

The wolf dropped down from the tree and landed in front of Fluttershy with a loud thud.

“I recommend an immediate retreat,” TWI stated.

“Say what?” Pinkie said.

“Run.”

Fluttershy didn’t need to be told twice (but, apparently, Pinkie did) and the pegasus began running for her life. She tore through the undergrowth as the beast followed closely behind her.

“There is an 88.13 per cent chance it will catch us,” TWI said.

“Never tell us the odds, Twilight!” Pinkie yelled.

At that moment, Fluttershy tripped over a tree root and fell into the thick mud that still caked the forest ground. The timber wolf was running straight at her. Thinking on her hooves, Fluttershy threw some mud into the wolf’s face. The wooden creature panicked and ran straight into a tree. A large branch fell off of the tree and pinned it to the ground.

“Bad boy. Don’t ever chase innocent ponies again. You got that?”

The trapped timber wolf began howling.

“I think it’s calling for help,” Pinkie said.

The sound of dozens of hungry timber wolves crashing through the undergrowth got closer and closer.

“Oh, I was right!” Pinkie said, a little too proudly.

Fluttershy began running for her life again. She could hear snarling and heavy breathing right behind. At one point, she could have sworn one of the wolves snapped at her tail and just missed.

Just when she thought her body was going to give in to the exhaustion, she suddenly began falling head over tail down a hill. When she finally came to a stop, Fluttershy was lying in the mud; battered, bruised and with stinging pains in her right wing and her head. She could still hear the ravenous timber wolves coming for her.

She faintly heard Pinkie and TWI pleaded with her to get up. She attempted to, but the pains all over her body quickly put her down again.

At that moment, a very unexpected thing happened.

Applejack fell out of a tree and bucked the lead timber wolf in the face. The other wolves stopped charging and began to stare at the orange earth pony that was standing between them and their lunch.

“Alright, ya wooden varmints. Who wants to tango with Applejack?”

In her half-conscious stare, Fluttershy still managed to be surprised. “Applejack?”

“Stay down, Sugarcube. Ah don’t want nothin’ happening to you on my watch.”

The remaining timber wolves jumped over their unconscious leader and launched themselves at Applejack.

With some enthusiastic “Yeehaws”, Applejack began bucking as many wolves as she could. Eventually, the wooden creatures either lay injured on the ground or running off into the forest with their tails between their legs. One last timber wolf advanced towards the earth pony.

“My, my, ain’t you a big ‘un,” Applejack said. “Come here and meet Bucky McGillicutty and Kicks McGee!” The orange pony bucked the wolf in the snout before crying out in pain.

“Dang, got a splinter.”

The splinter distracted Applejack long enough for the large timber wolf to smack her out of the way and into a nearby bush. The ferocious beast began advancing on Fluttershy, Pinkie and TWI.

No longer than a second after Applejack had been smacked aside, a blue streak burst out of the very same bush. The blue streak carried the timber wolf into the air with tremendous speed and threw the beast so it would land miles away. The blue streak came to the ground and landed in front of Fluttershy with the same incredible speed.

“Aw, yeah! D-A-S-H, that’s the way you spell awesome!”

Before Fluttershy could even express surprise, the darkness took her.

Fluttershy came to in a sunlit clearing. She could feel the jagged wood of a fallen log jamming into her back.

Wait, came to? Had she been unconscious?

Apparently so.

She tried to get up and a sharp stabbing pain erupted in her right wing, causing her to cry out in pain.

“Please stay still, Fluttershy,” TWI said, “Your wing is sprained. You’re lucky it isn’t broken, you took quite the fall. How are you feeling?”

“Um…..well-”

“Owie is how she’s feeling! No, not just owie, super owie!” Fluttershy looked to her right and saw Pinkie balanced on a tree stump.

“I’ll be fine,” Fluttershy said in response to TWI’s question. “W-what happened to the timber wolves?”

“Our new friend fought them off! It was so awesome! Don’t you remember, Fluttershy?” If Pinkie still had legs, it was clear she would currently be bouncing up and down in excitement.

“New friend?” Fluttershy rubbed her throbbing head with her good wing. “You mean Applejack and Rainbow Dash?”

“Not exactly,” TWI stated.

A purple, insect-like creature popped out of the bushes on the edge of the small clearing; some berries dangling from its mouth. Fluttershy didn’t recognise the creature until a memory snapped back into her head like an elastic band.

“Ah! A Changeling! Run everypony!” The yellow pegasus attempted to get up and flee but was swiftly reminded of her wing injury.

“Oh, don’t be silly, Fluttershy!” Pinkie said with a giggle. “It’s only Critter.”

“C-Critter?” Fluttershy stammered as the giant purple bug sat down a few feet away from her and placed the berries it was carrying on the ground.

“Sure, don’t you remember her?”

“Perhaps, from now on, we should assume that Fluttershy will need everything explained to her,” TWI said, with a very slight hint of sarcasm.

“Well, Critter here was Applejack and Dashie’s pet after they moved in together,” Pinkie said. “You remember that, Fluttershy? My “You Two Are Moving In Together” party was the bestest most bamboozling party ever! There was streamers and punch and pin the tail on the pony and –”

“Pinkie, you’re getting just the teeniest bit side tracked,” Fluttershy said.

“Whoopsie, sorry! Anyway, Critter just wandered into their backyard one day. He seemed friendly, so Dashie and AJ took him in. They released him into the wild when they went to Up North. The trip was just too dangerous. Pretty big co-winky-dink that we ran into him, right?”

“Critter is an exceptionally talented Changeling,” TWI explained. “He is able to almost perfectly mimic his owners’ personality, memories and abilities.”

Fluttershy plucked up the courage to brave the waters. “Um, hello Critter. My name is Fluttershy.”

In a flash of green fire, the Changeling transformed into Applejack.

“Howdy, Fluttershy!”

“Um, thank you for saving me from the timber wolves.”

Another flash of green fire, and Applejack had turned into Rainbow Dash.

“Did you expect anything less from a pony as awesome as me?”

Another flash.

“Ah, stop yer bragging, Sugarcube.”

Yet another flash.

“It’s not bragging if it’s the truth!”

The Changeling’s impressions were spot on, but Fluttershy would rather have the real thing any day of the week. Still, the Changeling arguing with itself was bizarre enough to cheer Fluttershy up just a little bit.

“Um, will Critter be alright around me?” Fluttershy asked.

“The plague only affects ponies,” TWI said.

Critter (in his Rainbow Dash guise) stopped his argument and looked at the pegasus. “You’re infected? Man, I’m so sorry, Fluttershy.”

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy said entirely unconvincingly.

The Changeling shifted back into his natural form and pushed the berries towards Fluttershy with his snout.

“Um, thank you, Critter. That’s very kind.”

“Hey, we’re going to Up North to see our friends and find Fluttershy a cure, you wanna come?” Pinkie asked the Changeling.

Flash.

“Hay yeah, we are!”

Flash.

“Darn tooting, we are!”