The expanse of nothing was vast.
Whichever direction you chose, you could fly forever on, without stopping, or you could go up, or down, but either way, it never ended.
Flurry was never able to explore its entirety whenever she visited it. Even with how little there was here, what was, was important.
Flurry glided through the expanse with her wings, soaring above it in no particular direction. She let the nothingness flow around her as she flew through it.
Currently, Flurry was searching for something in this realm she explored. She darted her eyes around as she flew about, searching for anything that might catch them, but as minutes passed by, nothing.
Flurry closed her eyes for a moment and let herself glide smoothly downwards into the abyss below and smiled.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes again and felt refreshed knowing she didn’t find anything, but she quickly lost the smile and her composure as a bright light began shining far below.
Flurry began banking back around to fly back over the light as her eyes tracked it. She watched the light very carefully for a few minutes, watching as it fluctuated until it began dimming down.
Before the light dimmed completely out, Flurry sped into a dive towards it.
Just before the light vanished, Flurry smashed right on through it, which made it shatter into a million sparkles throughout the expanse before dissipating.
Flurry pulled herself up into another glide and watched as the sparkles disappeared.
After a minute from the last sparkle disappearing, Flurry took a deep breath in. She had been holding her breath since she hit the light, but she had reached her limit.
It took a moment for Flurry to recompose herself after that, but once she did, she carried on as she had before, soaring through the expanse in search of something, likely more lights.
Flurry flew for a few minutes again with nothing happening until she finally went in for another drive. There was no light below her though, so once she entered the dive, she went as far as she could.
There was no bottom in this expanse, so for a good ten minutes, Flurry kept a solid speed downwards as she plummeted into nothing.
While it was hard to tell what was happening, Flurry finally decided to spread her wings and slow herself down and glide to a stop. Whatever counted as a stop, Flurry seemed to know as the feathers on her wings and her mane stopped flowing through the nothingness and came to a still, only for her hair to begin flowing as it did when she stood around.
At the moment, Flurry just hovered in place, her legs dropping below her as if she was flying, but her wings weren’t flapping. Just stillness.
Once again, Flurry decided to close her eyes and began to smile.
It seemed whenever she failed to find a light, she grew happy, her smile relieving her of any worry that was wrought through her body, though the worry always seemed to come back when a light was spotted.
There was another, further down below, just shining like a beacon for Flurry to spot. She frowned before going back into another dive for it.
Though when Flurry approached this new light, she brought herself to a stop with her wings and slowly glided down next to it unlike the previous one she encountered.
Just a few feet away, Flurry landed, her hooves touching down against nothing.
Where she stood was on plane with the light before her, so she was able to walk right up to it. When she did, the light began to dim, but not because it was loosing strength, but because Flurry approached it.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light until it no longer blinded her, which revealed a small filly with their head hung low. The faint sounds of crying came from them.
Flurry froze the moment she saw the filly appear before her. She was mid step as she approached but at this point, she refused to even smudge a little.
A slow exhale later, Flurry breathed in and carefully placed her hoof against the nothingness under her so as to not disturb the small filly.
Once Flurry stood there with all hooves grounded, she was able to focus on the filly.
The filly didn’t look at Flurry as they hung their head down low, tucking it in towards themselves in an attempt to make themselves as small as possible. They were completely oblivious to Flurry.
Flurry took the moment to take careful control of her breath before she finally decided to step forward, but instead of walking towards them, she chose to walk around them.
Each and every step Flurry took was carefully planned and thought out, each hoof being put down with the most care in the world so it didn’t interrupt the filly.
Flurry was doing this so she could examine the filly, she was curious.
The filly was a earth pony with a monotone color. There wasn’t anything special about her that Flurry could notice, well, besides the fact they had no cutie mark.
Flurry stopped in her tracks as she rounded around the filly and stared at the filly’s flank as if the lack of a cutie mark was bad. Flurry began regretting her decision to inspect the filly now, but it was too late now.
Flurry herself let her head hang low as well as she continued to round the filly until she stood right back in front of them. Once there, Flurry inched herself close to the filly and sat down with them.
Now though, Flurry held her head up while she looked down at the filly, who still held their head low as they cried. Flurry just watched for a good moment as her facial expression slowly deteriorated. A faint frown formed on her face before she had to look away.
A ever so small tear began rolling down Flurry’s face as she looked away, which crept through her fur until it dissipated enough through it to stop.
Flurry took a sharp inhale and looked back at the filly.
The light they had been emitting before had dimmed a lot now, which was Flurry’s que to be quick before it was too late.
Flurry stood back up and spread her wings before she walked forward and knelt down into the filly and embraced them.
Flurry’s wings wrapped around and fully encased the filly with her protective aura, one that brought the calming warmth of her presence.
Not only did Flurry’s wings wrap around, but so did Flurry’s hooves, which locked around and pulled the filly into Flurry’s chest.
While before, the filly hadn’t acknowledged Flurry, once they were brought into the encapsulating hug, they broke out into tears as they smothered their face against Flurry’s coat.
Flurry nuzzled her head against the fillies' own, which helped quiet the crying.
As Flurry gave full protection for the filly, it was time.
It didn’t matter how many times Flurry did this, she never got used to it. Each and every time, it broke her a little, and every time she healed up immediately afterwards, so whenever it came time again to do this, she felt the full weight of her decision smash down onto in full force. The only thing that helped was getting it over with, so Flurry squeezed.
Flurry squeezed and squeezed the filly with all her might until at last, they popped.
Flurry’s wings and hooves fell in on themselves as she tumbled forward and began falling downwards after the nothingness she stood on disappeared.
The sparkles of light that spread throughout the expanse ever so slowly dissipated and the entire time, Flurry watched each one, until they all died out and the expanse once again became empty.
Flurry still fell, though it wasn’t like before. Currently, she just fell in free fall, letting her body spin around however many times it wanted a stream of tears flew out of her eyes.
At last, her body stabilized on its own and she fell head first downwards. Now that she no longer spun around, Flurry simply let out a loud scream, one so loud it might even rival her mothers- No, Celestia’s own voice.
And there was no one to hear it.
Flurry’s voice died away as the last tears left her eyes.
And then she caught herself.
Her wings spread wide out and her descent slowed until at last, she was gliding downwards. With a few flaps of her wings, she changed her momentum forwards.
For how much Flurry wanted to think over what just happened, life never went like that as a new light further below started to shine.
And without much else to think, Flurry dove towards it and after a few seconds, she smashed through the light and it lit up the entire expanse yet again.
Flurry didn’t cry as the last bits of sparkles died away, she never did when she smashed through the lights. It was always the ones she hugged that did.
