It had been a week since Luna, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash had returned to Ponyville from the wilds, and most of the worst damage from the flood had been repaired, so the 6 bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and the two rulers of Equestria had decided to take a break to hear the story Fluttershy had said she would tell Luna when they had more time: The story about how she discovered The Stare. The others had found out that Fluttershy had said as much when Luna made a passing remark about it while describing the strange magical phenomenon to her sister over breakfast that morning, and now they all wanted to hear it.
As they filed into the Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie found them a table big enough for all of them to sit at, and directed Fluttershy, the last pony to enter, to sit at the head of the table. Fluttershy sat down, obviously nervous about telling the story to seven of the most important ponies in Equestria, but eventually worked up her courage and started telling her story, nervously at first, but building up her confidence as she spoke, “It was about a month after I moved to Ponyville.”
Fluttershy was having lunch with Rainbow Dash, who had just moved to Ponyville a few days prior, and a bit jumpy, not being used to spending time on the ground (at mention of this detail, a loud groan could be heard in the library), and Pinkie Pie, who was still in the process of meeting everypony in town, with Dash being her target of the moment.
The cyan pegasus and the pink earth pony were doing most of the talking, with the yellow pegasus mostly focusing on her sandwich. She listened to the two of them talking about Rainbow's desire to get into the Wonderbolts, and wondered if her friend ever would manage to become one. She then let her mind wander off to her time at Cloudsdale, and why she left, when the other two turned their attention to her.
Rainbow asked, “Why did you leave Cloudsdale, Fluttershy?”
“I don 't want to talk about it?”
“Why not, Fluttershy? Unless it's some terrible thing that happened, or something like that, because that would just be mmpth.” Pinkie said, before Rainbow, who knew her friend wouldn't respond well to being pestered for information, put a hoof in her mouth.
“It's personal,” Fluttershy said in a barely audible voice, while shrinking back into her mane.
Fortunately, the other two seemed to have gotten the hint, since Rainbow decided to ask, “was this house here when you moved her, or did you have it built?”
“It was here, but I made some changes, after I moved in.” Fluttershy knew that there were still a number of modifications to the house that she wanted to make, like some indoor roosts for her birds, and a chicken coop out back, the latter of which could provide her with a steady stream of income. Just to make sure of that, she asked, “Pinkie, is Sugarcube Corner still looking for a local egg supplier?”
“Yeppers. Nopony around here raises chickens, so they have to import them. Why?”
“I was thinking of adding a chicken coop.”
“Oh, that would be great. Then we could have eggs from right here in Ponyville and everyone will be happy and-”
This was interrupted by a short scream from Rainbow Dash, who, when the two ponies looked, was gone, and a bear was standing next to her seat. “Harry, you should know better than to scare our guests like that.”
Harry made a short, apologetic grunt, to which Fluttershy said, “It's okay, just don't let it happen again.”
Harry let out a few more quick grunts, while motioning towards the Everfree Forest. “Wait, Rainbow ran in there? Oh no! We have to go help her!”
(Rainbow decided to tell this next part, and Fluttershy didn't stop her) When Rainbow Dash bolted away from the pony eating beast that had seemed ready to attack her, she quickly ran off in the direction of “away.” Unfortunately “away” ended up with her going straight into the Everfree forest. When she stopped and looked where she was, she realized she had made a big mistake, and was now lost.
After looking up, and seeing the impenetrable canopy above her, meaning flying out of the forest wasn't an option, she started trotting back the way she had come, hoping it would let her leave this unnatural place. She knew it housed horrible creatures, and everything worked on its own, but beyond that, she knew nothing of Everfree, except not to go into it. She tried to figure out how far in she was, but gave up quickly, not being, as she would later put it, an egghead. Hoping she would be out in a few minutes, or at least run into her friends, who she assumed were searching for her, she quickened her pace.
A few minutes later, she heard a bush rustling, and it took all of her willpower to keep from running off again. She stood there, watching the bush, hoping that it was Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie here to lead her out of the forest. Sadly, it seems her luck only extends to her avoiding injury when crashing, because out of the bush popped a cockatrice that was none too happy to see this blue pegasus in its territory. In her fear, not wanting to run off again and become more lost, and having no clue what she was looking at, she quickly met its gaze, and almost instantly became a statue.
(Fluttershy took over story telling duties once again at this point) Pinkie and Fluttershy were calling out Rainbow Dash's name, and moving deeper into the forest, both desperately wanting to leave this forest and go back to the latter's cottage, but one of their friends was in danger, and they needed to save her. After a few minutes, they bumped into a statue of a female pegasus with a short mane, her wings flared, and a look of absolute terror on her face. It took a few seconds, and a look at her cutie mark, for the two worried ponies to realize that this was Rainbow Dash, and she had been turn to stone. Fluttershy repeated over and over, “oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness,” while Pinkie screamed. This served to draw the cockatrice out of its bush again, and look at the two new unwanted visitors to its territory.
It first turned to the pony who had screamed, but, running purely on instinct, Fluttershy put herself between the strange creature and her friend. Her anger and protectiveness meant that when she met its gaze, the stare had been triggered, and it was game over for the cockatrice, though she didn't realize this at the time. While the creature was getting scared, and she was turning to stone (which she described as feeling like a tingling sensation like you get when your hoof falls asleep, followed by not being able to feel the part of your body that has been transformed), Fluttershy realized just what she was dealing with, and her knowledge of all things animal told her just what she needed to say.
“Who do you think you are turning others into stone? I should tell your mother what you've been up to, young lady. Now you turn my friend Rainbow Dash back to normal, and don't ever let me catch you doing this again! Do you understand?” After resisting for a second, the Cockatrice, more concerned about not pissing off its family than protecting its territory, removed the effects of its stare on her, and Rainbow Dash, before running off in absolute terror.
Fluttershy turned to see a disoriented Rainbow Dash with bits of stone around her, and moved to give her a hug. “Are you okay, Rainbow? I was so worried.”
“I don't know. What happened?”
“You ran off into The Everfree Forest, and apparently ran into a Cockatrice, that turned you into stone.”
“Wait, what? I was turned to stone?” Rainbow asked, inspecting her body.
“Yeah. It tried to do the same thing to me, but I managed to stop it, somehow.”
“Wait. How did you stop it? I remember seeing it, then suddenly seeing you two here. I don't think I had time to do anything.”
“It was so cool, you should have seen it. She just kept glaring at it and talking to it, while it turned her to stone, until it got scared and ran off. Is that why you're so quiet? Your voice makes things afraid of you?” Pinkie asked.
“No, I'm just shy.”
“Maybe we should discuss this on the way back,” Rainbow said, now very concerned about meeting another cockatrice.
The other two agreed, and, as they started walking back, Fluttershy said, “Maybe it had something to do with the stare I was giving it? I've never looked at anything that way before.”
“Maybe. Try it on me,” Rainbow said, and Fluttershy tried to, but, despite her best efforts, the glare wouldn't come out again. Eventually she gave up.
“Sorry, it doesn't want to come. It did come out on its own when Pinkie was in danger, so maybe it's something that comes out when its needed?”
“Maybe. Maybe we should put Pinkie in danger again and see if that draws it out.”
“No!” the other two said in unison.
“I had to use the stare three of four other times over the next two years, before Twilight moved here, which is how I figured out that that was what saved me and Pinkie from being turned to stone, and got Rainbow back to normal.”
“But why is it called 'The Stare'?” Celestia asked.
“Because that's what Pinkie insisted on calling it when she figured out what it was, and started telling other ponies in town about it. I didn't bother trying to stop her from using that name, because I kind of like it.”
Luna asked the next question. “Rainbow Dash, if you had been turned to stone by a cockatrice before, why did you rush off to meet the one we encountered in the wilds?”
“My wings work faster than my mind, sometimes, especially when my friends are in danger.”
“Like the time you kicked that full grown dragon in the nose?” Twilight asked with a chuckle.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow said, clearly not amused.
“I guess my biggest question, though, is have you found a way to control it?” Celestia asked.
“No,” Fluttershy half-lied. The truth was that she was sure that if she tried hard enough she could at least make a weakened version of it come out, but Luna's talk of “studying” the stare had put her off. “Could we have some lunch, by the way?” She asked, hoping to take the attention off of herself.
“Yeah, let's eat,” Pinkie said, in her typical jolly manner.
Author's Note
I write a spin off of a story (and have another planned), then I get more ideas for spin offs from that story. At this rate, I'm going to have created my own universe. In this case, the ideas are about Fluttershy's leaving Cloudsdale, Rainbow's leaving Cloudsdale and learning how to live with being near (or on) the ground (and I may end up tying Keeping Your Hooves on The Ground, a story I didn't write, into that), and Fluttershy's dealing with the reasons she left Cloudsdale when she goes back to support Rainbow Dash during the Best Young Fliers comp.
Also, on a random note, I've written the only two stories on FIMFiction with the phrase "the stare" in the title.
And if anyone's interested in doing a collaberation about Luna looking for her soulmate, I'm looking for a partner or two.
