AfterLife

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

“Um... Excuse me...” Fluttershy mumbled, trying furtively to get the shopkeeper’s attention. Her hoof scuffed at the ground, kicking up a small amount of dust as she peeked up at him from behind her pink mane. This prolonged greeting was nothing new, as her naturally quiet voice, combined with the fact that the slightly elderly stallion was more than a little hard of hearing, made such a visit to his market stall an experience that lasted far longer than one would expect it needed to. “...Sir...?”

The stall owner continued to rummage for something in one of the large earthenware pots he used for hauling his goods into town, his wheezy mumbling accompanying the clanks. It was like she wasn’t even there; his ears hadn’t so much as perked up at her voice.

“Excuse me?” Fluttershy ventured again, a little more loudly this time. It wasn’t much, but it was a milestone for her. Unfortunately, she made just as little headway as her first attempt.

She frowned in mild consternation. She never wanted to be a bother, but though she would never admit it, being ignored had never been an easy burden to bear. When you were as sensitive as she was, you felt as bad when you were ignored as you did when you felt like you were interrupting something.

“Sir?” she called a final time, raising her voice just a smidgeon louder than the general murmur of the marketplace crowd milling about Ponyville Plaza behind her. “I would like to buy some berries, if that’s not too much trouble?”

“What kind...” the stall owner mumbled. Fluttershy’s eyes lit up. “...What kind of swindler sells you a clay jar that cracks a week after you bought it? Darn con artist Filthy Rich thinks he can get away with anything, thinks he owns this whole darn town!”

Fluttershy’s long pink mane pooled on the ground as her head drooped. She knew he couldn’t hear her anyway, but relented with a soft “That’s no problem, then. I can buy some berries later.”

As the creamy pegasus trotted off towards Ponyville’s library, she wondered what she would tell her friends when she turned up to the book signing without anything to contribute to the snack food table. Twilight had specifically asked her to buy berries that morning, so they would be fresh when ponies began to make their way to the event.

Fluttershy hoped her lavender friend wouldn’t be mad at her, or worse... Disappointed. She tried her best to not think about it—after all, when had her friends ever really been mad at her? Of course, that would just make it all the more horrible if they started today...

Having finally reached the library, she raised her hoof to knock—gently—on the door, but it abruptly swung open before she had the chance. Fluttershy leapt out of the way, landing lightly to the side as Rarity came trotting out into the square.

“Oh, good morning, Rarity!” Fluttershy greeted cheerily, glad to see a friendly face. “Um... You don’t think Twilight would be too upset if I turned up without any berries for her customers, do you?”

The dressmaker stared in her direction for a moment, confusion etched on her face. Her neck twisted as her head moved left and right. “Wherever could she be?” she questioned, quietly, as if to herself. “It’s not like her to be late...” She stared off to the side.

“Not like who to be late?” Fluttershy wondered aloud, cocking her head slightly. She ignored the fact that her greeting had itself been ignored, almost on instinct. She was too happy to see her friend to care. “Are we expecting any important ponies today? Ooh, maybe Twilight’s caught the attention of one of those book critics she mentioned?”

Rarity said nothing. She didn’t so much as turn her head in Fluttershy’s direction, instead simply scanning the crowd for the apparently late pony.

“Don’t worry, Rare!” called a scratchy voice from inside. “I’m sure she’ll turn up—Fluttershy wouldn’t miss this for the world!”

“I sure wouldn’t!” Fluttershy agreed, following Rarity back inside the library to see her oldest friend hanging a banner on the far wall. ‘Thaumaturgical Experiments Validating or Disproving Various Arcane Laws,’ it read in bright pink colors against a dark purple background. ‘By Twilight Sparkle.’

“I’m sure she’ll be here any minute!” Rainbow Dash added as she swooped down from the banner and back to Pinkie Pie. There was the light skreet of a marker when the party pony checked off another item on the checklist she was holding.

“Yeah, Fluttershy would never miss out on Twilight’s first book signing!” the pink party pony agreed. “Though I wish Twilight wouldn’t make me use a checklist. Parties are no fun when you have to organize everything!”

She spat out the offensive ‘O’ word like it was some kind of rotting vegetable.

“I sure wouldn’t!” Fluttershy repeated, feeling more than a little awkward at having to repeat herself. Not that she was unaccustomed to doing so, mind you, but she rarely had to repeat herself around her friends. “In fact, I’m not missing it right now.” It took her a moment, but after noticing the tension in her voice and the slight burning in her temples, she wilted slightly.

“As long as she gets here in time, everything will be fine,” the new author herself assured everypony from behind her podium, where she was still going over the notecards for the lecture Fluttershy knew she was planning on giving along with the signing. Twilight was expecting various intellectual elites from Canterlot to attend in addition to her friends in Ponyville, and she wanted to be ready to meet their undoubtedly sky-high expectations.

“Aren’t I here on time already?” Fluttershy queried, a tremor rising slightly in her voice. She glanced at the clock on Twilight’s wall, which confirmed that she had, indeed, arrived right when she had been asked to be there. None of the other ponies in the room replied. “...Girls?”

Why were her friends acting as if she wasn’t there? Not hearing her quiet little voice Fluttershy could almost—almost—understand. But how could they not see her when she was standing in the middle of the room?

Suddenly a terrible thought struck her. Were they... were they angry about her not bringing any berries? Were they planning on not acknowledging her presence unless she brought something for the snack table? She didn’t think they would do that, but was it really that important? But... If that was so... How did they even know she hadn’t brought any berries? Nopony had looked at her long enough to see if she was carrying a sack of any, much less asked her where they were.

“Hello?” she called out as loudly as she could. “Can anypony hear me?”

“Now, Ah ain’t one to blame Fluttershy if sumthin’ prevents her from attendin’,” Applejack spoke up from where she was organizing Sweet Apple Acres’ contribution to the snack table. “But what do we do if she doesn’t get here in time?”

“I am here!” Fluttershy pleaded, the tremor in her voice growing to a shake. She trotted right up to the cowpony and, in an act of bravery she never thought she would ever perform, even on her friends, looked directly into the farmer’s green eyes. “Can’t you see me?!”

Applejack’s ears perked up, twitching ever so slightly. She scrunched her face up, and then blinked. “...Did ya’ll hear sumthin’?” the orange earth pony inquired, looking around her uncertainly. “I coulda’ sworn...”

“Yes,” Rarity responded. Fluttershy turned to face the stylish unicorn, her face split with a smile, her eyes almost watering. The water welled up into tears when she saw that Rarity wasn’t even looking at her, but was instead peering out the still-open door. “Here come the first customers! Oh, I wonder what could be keeping Fluttershy? I do hope she makes it before the lecture starts!”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t anypony to miss that,” Rainbow Dash droned with thinly veiled sarcasm. Applejack shot her an icy look, but fortunately Twilight was focused too intently on her notecards to have noticed.

“Well, I suppose we’ll just have to start without her,” Twilight announced with a slight frown, tearing her eyes away from her notecards at last. “I hope she’s okay... It’s not like her to break a commitment...”

“Want me to go check out her cottage?” Rainbow questioned, sounding worried herself. “Maybe something happened...”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Pinkie Pie piped up, cheery as always. “If it was anything really, really, REALLY bad, my Pinkie Sense would have picked up on it! She’s probably just taking care of a sick animal.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Twilight agreed, though she didn’t sound all that convinced. “Well, whatever the case, we can all see her as soon as the book signing is over.”

The rest agreed, and went back to their work.

All except Fluttershy. She wordlessly fell to her haunches in the center of the room, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

She was surrounded by all her friends...

...So why had she had never felt more alone in all her life?

“Maybe... Maybe they’re pretending I’m not here...” Fluttershy postulated to herself, her spirits falling just as she had so many times at Flight Camp. Unlike then, though, it didn’t seem there would be a friend to help her pick herself up again. “...Because they don’t want me here.”

It was a paranoid, far-fetched, and utterly ridiculous notion. However, try as she might, she could think of nothing to counter it. Nothing else made sense. How could they not notice her unless they were consciously ignoring her?

Another tear slid down her cheek. Then another. And another...

Fluttershy finally broke down in tears, galloping out the front door. She narrowly avoided the first ponies to enter the library for the book signing, but they too didn’t seem to notice her or how she’d almost smacked into them. Was all of Ponyville in on this? How? Why?

If it was all really happening, did it really matter anyway?

Fluttershy didn’t know. She couldn’t understand, and wasn’t sure if she could understand anything if her friends had suddenly decided to up and abandon her without the slightest explanation why. Had she done something wrong? Had she hurt their feelings? If so, then why wouldn’t they even present her with the courtesy of telling her why?

She met nopony on the path back to her cottage, nestled comfortably away from the hustle and bustle (such as it was in the small town) of Ponyville. When she was all alone, it was easy to believe that she had made the whole thing up—that nopony was ignoring her at all. But if she went back... If they pretended like she didn’t exist again... No, she couldn’t bear that.

How odd was it that she felt less alone when she was physically so than when she was surrounded by ponies?

Fluttershy slowed to a trot as she approached her secluded home. At least... At least her animal friends would be there for her. Or... Would they? Would they just ignore her like everypony else was?

No. She couldn’t bear to think about that. Besides, they would never do something like that to her.

The yellow pegasus had left the door open so the animals that made their homes indoors could come and go as they pleased, since it was such a nice day out. She trotted through it and into the sunlit living room.

“I’m home,” she called out half-heartedly in a voice hoarse with sobbing. She had never needed to raise her voice with the critters. If push came to shove, and it rarely ever did, all she had to do to keep them from getting too pushy was a quick Stare. But no chirping, no scuttling, no purring, no barking, no sound of any kind made its way to her ears.

What was this? Where was everyone?

She scanned the room, but the birdhouses, the openings in the floor to the rabbits’ warrens, the mouse holes—all the habitats—were vacant.

“No...” Fluttershy whispered to herself. “No, this can’t be...”

This was worse than her animal friends simply ignoring her. If they had abandoned her...

No. No. NO. She refused to believe it. They couldn’t have left—they had to simply be hiding somewhere!

For the first time in a long time, the creamy pegasus took wing, flitting as fast as she could around her cottage. They were in none of their usual haunts. No kittens lounged in the sun’s rays on the kitchen floor, no bunnies chased each other through the garden out the back window, no birds sang in the indoor trees.

Her entire house was completely devoid of any life, silent as a grave.

Cheep.

What was that?

Meow...

They were almost painful to hear with how mournful they sounded, but the seasoned animal lover was no stranger to such sounds. There were animals here, and the sounds seemed to be coming from...

Scratch... Scratch...

Fluttershy looked up.

They were upstairs!

Flying faster than she ever had, the pegasus that had been so ridiculed at Flight Camp in her youth zoomed up the stairs and into her room and—

There they were!

All of them, each rabbit, dog, cat, bird, turtle, ferret, fox, otter, beaver, each critter from every side of the wilderness was there. Just through the doorway into her room, each animal surrounded Fluttershy’s bed.

One animal in particular was angrily—or was it desperately?—hopping up and down on the bed itself, or more specifically, on something in the bed...

No, not something...

Somepony.

Somepony was lying in her bed! That’s why all the animals were here—they must have cornered the intruder in her room!

Fluttershy sighed with utter relief, wiping the tears from her eyes as her face split with a smile of pure joy.

Intruders, as frightening as they might be, she could handle. Abandonment by the very beings who had given her the cutie mark she proudly bore, however, was not.

Of course, that didn’t get rid of the fact that there was somepony in Fluttershy’s bed.

“Who’s there...?” she called out meekly, fear slowly replacing, or at least muting, her joy like a cold chill. “Who have you all captured?”

But the animals didn’t turn to look at her, so enthralled were they by the figure in the bed.

“Angel?” Fluttershy inquired, coming closer. The white bunny was still hopping on the figure’s head, who for some reason wasn’t making the slightest bit of effort to stop him. It certainly couldn’t be very comfortable to have even something so light as the rabbit hopping up and down on their cranium, but the figure showed no sign that they even noticed it.

The room was dark, the blinds drawn to keep the morning sun from waking her up in the morning before she allowed the animals to do so, as they so enjoyed. Thus, she couldn’t get a good look at the figure, who was turned away from her.

“Excuse me, sir? Ma’am?” Fluttershy ventured, working up her courage. The sorrow she had felt from her recent experiences was starting to become consternation. This was her cottage, after all, and even if she didn’t mind sharing it with her animal friends she really wasn’t ready for an equine roommate. As much as she hated confrontation, it seemed that she would have to tell the intruder just that, along with a polite request that they return anything they had probably stolen, before kindly asking them to vacate the premises.

But the figure, the animals, even Angel... None of them responded.

Her irritation petering just on the verge of anger, an emotion Fluttershy was so afraid of that she rarely ever experienced it, she trotted around to the other side of the bed. It was hard to make out in the dark, but if she squinted, now she could get an actual look at this intruder.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened, or rather, they remained closed. Her heartbeat quickened to the breaking point, or rather, it didn’t beat at all. A cold sweat broke out on her coat, or rather, her coat remained dry and cold. She backed up hastily, or rather, she remained where she was, completely immobile.

Fluttershy screamed even as she remained utterly silent.

The figure, the face of the mare lying in her bed, who Angel Bunny was jumping on furtively with what she now saw was fear rather than anger, was her own.

“No...” Fluttershy whispered. Then she shouted, “NO! This can’t be happening! This is—this is all a bad dream! That’s it! None of this could ever really happen!”

The Fluttershy in the bed seemed to disagree. She was certainly not dreaming, nor would she ever again.

Her face was pale. Her veins were swollen with a sickly dark color. Her chest didn’t make so much as a quiver. No air escaped from her lips, nor did any find its way back into them.

“Is... Is this because I did something wrong?!” she wondered aloud to anypony who might be listening. “Am I being punished for being bad?”

Only silence answered.

It all made sense now. Nopony had noticed her... because she hadn’t actually been there. At least, her body hadn’t. All day, it had slept in a deep slumber from which it would never wake.

And she, a lost soul, hadn’t even realized she was walking around Ponyville without her flesh.

“NO!!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face. Or were they? If that was her body in the bed, then what was she even made of anymore? She looked down at herself, seeing the floorboards straight through her transparent limbs. “N-no...”

She broke down, sobbing, crying for all she had lost. Her tears rolled down her forelegs, but they did not pool on the floorboards. Not even her animal friends could see her now. She was truly all alone.

“But I’m not through yet!” she sobbed, her cries muffled by her forelegs. “I’m n-not ready to die!”

“Is anypony ever really ready when their time comes?” asked a soft, quiet voice as a cold hoof fell on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Does death really care whether or not we want to accept his calling?”

Chapter 2

Fluttershy gasped and whirled around, backtrotting as hastily as she could.

“Don’t worry,” soothed the voice of the stranger. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Fluttershy stopped backing up when two things happened.

The first of these was her rump failing to hit the wall behind her, instead passing directly through it. She let out an “Eek!” and leapt forward into the air, pulling herself back out of the woodwork. It had been the strangest experience, akin to feeling a cold breeze running across her coat... Only she was the cold breeze, or at least that small part of her had been, sliding through the wall as easily as a chill wind through heavy air.

The second thing that happened was that she realized that this newcomer could see and hear her.

“W-who are you?” she inquired fearfully, sniffing. She had always hated it when Rainbow Dash told those ghost stories around the campfire—perhaps now more than ever, as she was in one. One of the most frightening spectres to ever haunt her sky-blue friend’s tales was a monster who wasn’t really a monster at all, wasn’t really anything at all. It was the personification of absence, the embodiment of leaving. The Reaper Pony was that ghostly figure that met souls upon their death, to forever sever them from the land of the living.

The transparent equine before her looked absolutely nothing like the skeletal figure Dash had so gruesomely described, but that didn’t mean it still wasn’t the Reaper Pony simply wearing a disguise. Why the manifestation of Death would need a disguise was beyond her, however.

Perhaps this wasn’t the Reaper Pony after all?

The other pony was just as transparent as Fluttershy was, though the creamy pegasus could tell that the other pony’s coat was, or at least had been, a faded golden color. She stood a little taller than Fluttershy did, though perhaps that was because she wasn’t slouching slightly, unlike the shy pegasus. She was an earth pony, and her mane and tail were a soft rosy color, done up with green bows.

Wait, bows? The other mare looked just as ghostly as Fluttershy now did, so how could something that had never been alive be a part of her appearance as an apparition? Assuming, of course, that she was a ghost too... If not, then perhaps she really was some other, far more sinister entity... What if the Reaper Pony appeared different to all who saw it, and this was simply how it chose to appear to Fluttershy?

“Please, don’t take me away!” Fluttershy begged, doing her best to stay as far away from the other figure as possible without passing through the wall again. “I don’t want to leave my friends yet!”

“Take you away?” the other spirit inquired in a soft, yet firm, voice. “I’m not here to take you anywhere you don’t want to go. In fact, the only reason I’m here at all is to take you where you do want to go.”

“What?” Fluttershy uttered, hope warring in her voice with the last shades of fear.

“I’m, well...” The other equine sighed. “I’m like you are.”

She gestured to the Fluttershy in the bed. The soul that once inhabited the body frowned as she spotted Angel Bunny hugging its pale yellow ear, having given up on his desperate stomping and conceding to emotion. Fluttershy instinctively reached out with a ghostly hoof to comfort the rabbit, having never seen him so miserable before, but drew it back as she realized that it wouldn’t do a thing.

“Only I’ve been around for quite a lot longer,” she went on. “I’ve sort of fallen into the role of welcoming newlydeads around Ponyville, such as yourself, to the Hereafter.”

“So... You’re not the Reaper Pony?” Fluttershy queried, hope winning out in her voice. She tried her best to ignore the ‘newlydead’ comment. Even if that’s exactly what she was, any term with the word ‘dead’ in it was now something she definitely didn’t want to hear.

“The Reaper Pony?” the other spirit echoed, shock dawning on her face before a smile of realization took its place. She laughed slightly, shaking her head in amusement. “Oh, no. Not at all. He’s just too busy with plagues and wars to bother with most domestic deaths.”

“You mean he’s real?!” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Yes, but you probably won’t ever see him,” the spirit claimed. “I’ve never seen him myself. I’ve just heard things from the other ghosts.”

“There are more?” Fluttershy wondered, wiping some of the wetness from her eyes with a hoof. There were more ponies like her? Her mood lifted slightly as she began to ponder how she wouldn’t be as alone as she thought she would be. It... wouldn’t be as good as being with her friends, but at least she wouldn’t be completely ignored for all of eternity.

“Everypony who ever died,” the guide agreed. “They’re milling about the Afterlife somewhere. or, most are. There are those who...” She stared wistfully at the floorboards for a moment. “...Let’s not talk about them. I still haven’t introduced myself, have I? Imagine that; I spend years planning for this one welcoming and when it finally comes I get all off topic...”

“This one welcome?” Fluttershy questioned. “You’ve been waiting for years for... me?”

“Certainly,” the other agreed. “I am Dearly Departed. Although I am sorry we had to meet like this, I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Fluttershy.”

Dearly held out a hoof, which Fluttershy uncertainly met with her own. It still felt cold, but she realized she could actually feel the other ghost’s touch.

“Why would you be waiting for me?” Fluttershy wondered, worry creeping up her spine for reasons she couldn’t name. “And how do you know who I am?”

“This is going to sound really creepy,” Dearly Departed admitted sheepishly with a fitting grin. “But when you’re the only constant ghost around Ponyville, when most others take a Portal to the upper levels of the Afterlife, you can get quite bored. To keep me from going mad and going on a haunting spree, like most ghosts do who stay in the Hereafter for too long, I take it upon myself to watch certain ponies. You were one such pony; I’ve watched you grow up ever since you came to Ponyville.”

“You’ve been spying on me?!” Fluttershy gasped.

“Not all the time!” Departed protested. “I watch several ponies at once! I only visited you every once in a while.”

Nevertheless, a cold shiver ran down Fluttershy’s spine at the thought of having been watched by a ghost for pretty much her entire life without ever having known it.

Her life... That prompted her to notice a question that had been sitting in the back of her mind for a few minutes now. She looked at the other ghost, swallowing. “Do... do you know how I died?” She took a quick glance at her dead body, which her animal friends were still mourning over. She carefully examined the paled, slightly discolored skin of her face under her fur, her ethereal eyes running over the unnaturally swollen veins.

Dearly Departed let out a small cough. “No... but...” She stared through her hooves at the floorboards.

A block of ice formed in Fluttershy’s stomach.

“I... I think you were poisoned.” Dearly trotted to the body on the bed and gestured over it with a hoof. “I’ve seen enough deaths to know that somepony’s face doesn’t turn that color, and her veins don’t swell up like that, unless there’s something very toxic in her blood.”

“Poisoned?” Fluttershy echoed, shrinking. Her teal eyes scanned over her body’s face again. That... made sense. But how did it happen? Was it a poisonous plant? The cogs in her head began turning. The night previous, she was out in the Everfree Forest to gather some medicinal herbs. She had been so exhausted by the time she was done that she decided to cut through the forest itself and walk in a straight line back to her house rather than take the cleared pathway. As a pegasus, there was a small deposit of magnetite in her forehead that constantly gave this tiny, almost-unnoticeable tug in the direction of North, so she knew which way her cottage was. She wanted to just get back to her house as quickly as possible instead of taking the winding route, and flop down on her bed without a care in the world. She would have just flown, but she was just too tired... Did she get scratched by something on the way there and forget to treat the wound? Was that something poisonous?

She gasped quietly to herself. Did she leave the poison to fester all night? How could she have been so careless? Overwhelmed with a desire for closure, she immediately galloped to her dead body’s side and attempted to throw the sheets off, her eyes scanning for the incriminating wound. She was caught off-guard when her hooves simply moved right through the bedspread, inertia almost causing her to topple over backwards. Regaining her balance, she stared helplessly at the motionless figure.

Dearly Departed seemed to have noticed her efforts. “I think it was either a plant, or maybe somepony who really, really hated you...” Her sympathetic expression flicked to an amused smirk. “Or maybe somepony who was really, really insane.”

It took the old ghost a moment to realize that she had committed a faux pas by playfully mocking Fluttershy’s death so soon after it happened. Her eyes snapped wide open. “Oh... W-wait, I didn’t mean that, I—”

The young spirit had yet to glance at her, her teal eyes locked on the bedspread. “It’s fine,” she dismissed. She had something far more important to think of at the time.

She absent-mindedly noticed that she was stepping into a few of her animal friends, and gingerly lifted her hooves off, although it had no real effect.

She sighed discontentedly before taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes and shook her head softly. So she was... dead. “What now?” she whispered. She couldn’t communicate with anypony that was still living, which meant that she would never be able to talk with her friends again.

Well, actually, she would... several decades from now. But they would have probably forgotten about her by then. It wouldn’t be their fault; that's just what time does to a pony’s memory. At least, that’s what she feared would happen...

She opened her eyes and looked sadly over her shoulder at her only companion. “What do I do now? You... said you greeted ponies who came to a... ‘hereafter?’”

Dearly returned her gaze, soundlessly parking her rump on the floorboards. “Yes, we’re in the Hereafter, one of the seven levels of reality. The Hereafter is the shadow of the Mortal Plane, where the ponies who are still living are. Ponies in the Mortal Plane cannot detect you in any way, shape or form. Well, unless you want them to, and... erm...” She shook her head. “That’s not important. Anyway, there are five more levels, and... Well, most ponies who die eventually end up at the fourth level of them all: the Ethereal Plane.” Her expression brightened. “It’s a gigaaaaaantic city,” she said, emphasizing how big it was by lifting her forehooves in front of her and slowly drawing them apart. “The ponies there literally have all the time in the universe to build and perfect their structures, and more ponies are joining every few days.” She smiled at Fluttershy. “Why don’t you visit? You’ll certainly get a warm welcome.”

The timid pegasus shook her head, pressing her lips together. She rather liked the small town of Ponyville, and she liked living separate from the hustle and bustle even more so. Icy fingers closed around her neck as she recalled the times she and her friends visited the grand city of Canterlot, and how many ponies were milling about. She remembered the Hearth’s Warming Eve play, and the thousands of ponies that stared up at her from the crowd, expecting her to perform perfectly for them.

She closed her eyes and shook her head harder, her neck tilting slightly downwards. “N-no, I’m fine here...” she muttered meekly.

The ghostly earth pony frowned. “Are you sure? There’s a portal not too far from here. It’s like, a five-minute walk. And you won’t meet many dead ponies if you stay here... Like I said, most of them are on the Ethereal Plane.”

“Yes, I-I don’t want to leave...” Fluttershy opened her eyes and scuffed at the floorboards with her hoof. She noticed that it didn’t make any noise. “I...” She wilted, blinking away a tear. “I want to be back with my friends... Is there any way for me to get back to the... uh... Mortal Plane?” She gazed hopefully at her guide. She knew what the answer would be, but she desperately hoped it would be something else.

Dearly Departed stood still for a moment, blinking, before placing a hoof on her chin. “Well... not that I know of. But I guess it might be possible, if there’s a spell to bring back the dead. You’d have to convince a powerful unicorn to cast it on you, and since it’s a little hard to communicate with the living, you may find some difficulty there.”

Fluttershy gasped, her head popping up like a jack in the box. “Hard... but not impossible?”

She received a nod. “Yes, ponies in the Hereafter can communicate with the living... a little bit. But only a little bit. If you speak, your voice is so quiet that it can easily be mistaken for the wind. If you concentrate really hard, you can make physical contact with things.” Dearly Departed swallowed. “The dead have significantly more power at night, and even more if they’re in an area where it’s dark. If you can catch somepony in the dead of night in a place that’s really dark and quiet, you may even be able to speak to them... and they’ll actually hear you.” A cocky smirk formed on her face. “But this tends to scare them, so don’t overdo it.”

Fluttershy nodded absent-mindedly, thoughts and ideas surging through her mind like lightning through a conductor. That’s why Applejack was almost able to hear her earlier! Her chest swelled with excitement and she grinned widely, an epiphany hitting her like a freight train. “I-I can still talk to them!” she whispered in realization, her eyes sparkling.

“Talk to who?” Dearly asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“My friends!” Fluttershy shouted with glee. Well, her definition of shouting, which was more of a stage whisper.

The earth pony laughed. “Ohhhh! Heh heh, yeah, I guess you can...”

Fluttershy took one last somber glance at her dead body, more specifically at the rabbit quietly crying into its fur. She quietly approached it, bending down so her muzzle was right next to the bunny’s ear. “Don’t worry, Angel. I’ll get Twilight to fix this,” she said sweetly. She smiled as Angel’s eyes opened, and he propped himself up to glance at Fluttershy’s cold, still face with a perplexed expression. She giggled into his ear, causing it to twitch before he looked around in confusion.

Fluttershy’s smile grew with the hope that she’d be able to assuage her Angel Bunny’s fears soon, and she merrily trotted over to the wall she had nearly passed through earlier. She threw one last appreciative glance over her shoulder at Dearly Departed, who waved at her.

“Have a good one!” the earth pony chimed. “I’ll be here when you get back. Oh, and though you shouldn’t see any, just in case you do, try to stay away from the Shadows.”

With that, Fluttershy took a deep breath and bent her limbs, before launching herself into the wooden wall. Just like before, she passed right through it, the strange sensation of being turned into wind permeating her entire body. Soon she was on the other side, several feet above the ground. Spreading her wings, she soared towards the large tree-library in the distance.

She wasn't through yet.

In her giddiness, she hardly noticed the blue streak that rushed past just below her.

* * *

“...and so, with Alketra runes used in conjunction with Sillith’s Fourth Law, I have discovered that wearing a small phial filled with your own blood around your neck does indeed increase your magical capabilities, but only by approximately four percent. Plus, it’s morbid.”

Multiple sophisticated ponies voiced their approval, politely applauding the purple mare who stood proudly in front of a projector screen, poking various locations on slideshow screens with a long wooden rod.

A particular white pony’s face was a few shades greener than the rest of her body. “Twilight sure does have some... interesting facts in her book,” she said stiltedly, looking down at the hoof covering her stomach. “I’m... I’m just going to—mmf... excuse myself...” She then moved as quickly and quietly as possible to the library’s restroom. Thankfully, the door blocked the noises of retching coming from inside.

Pinkie looked at her wrist. “It’s been like, forty-six minutes.” The corners of her mouth sunk. “Yeah, this is super-duper booorriiiing. I thought it would be fun-a-fun-fun, but Twilight’s big lecture thingy is taking forever!”

“Ah think it’s interestin’. Ah never thought that Denetra runes didn’t work right ‘less you drew ‘em in four-by-four squares with one overlappin’ the four in the center.” Applejack received two strange looks—one a shocked expression by Pinkie, and the other a very confused gander by Rarity, who had just returned from emptying the contents of her stomach. Her green eyes flicked to each of her friends in turn. “What?”

“You’re interested in magic, Applejack? But... you’re an earth pony.” Rarity gazed at her farmer friend expectantly.

Applejack scrunched up her face. “So? Earth ponies can do magic too. It’s just, y’know... earthy.” She waved a hoof around.

“What do you mean?” Rarity blinked.

Applejack smirked. “How do you think me n’ the Apple family are able to grow apple trees despite what kinda land we’re usin’? Half of our East Field is actually solid bedrock, but there are fully-grown trees there.” An orange hoof gestured to Pinkie. “And how d’ya think Pinkie here seems to teleport when we ain’t lookin’? And walk on walls n’ ceilings? And pull things outta thin air? Ah mean, she’s better at earth pony magic than I am, so ya’ll won’t see me doin’ none-a that any time soon.”

Rarity blinked twice, before turning her head to the party pony, who was revelling in the small amount of attention. “Oh... I never thought about that,” she admitted, a white hoof resting on her chin.

Amongst their private conversation and Twilight giving her lecture, none of them noticed a particular ghostly pegasus flying right through the wall into the room. Well, actually, they wouldn’t have noticed her anyway.

* * *

Fluttershy smiled brightly at the sight of her friends, the hope in her heart flaring all the more fiercely at the prospect that she might actually soon be physically with them again. After all, Twilight was the most magical unicorn she’d ever met—she was Princess Celestia’s own student, for crying out loud—and if she already knew all this arcane knowledge about magic, then surely she knew a spell to undo death... Right?

Fluttershy gulped, fighting down the cold doubt that caused the hope in her heart to flicker.

Now the only problem was figuring out how to get Twilight’s attention.

Wait a minute, Fluttershy mentally realized. Do I really want to interrupt my friend’s lecture at her first book signing?

Sometimes it was very cumbersome when you thought about others more than yourself. But then again, wouldn’t contacting a spirit in the Afterlife impress Twilight’s guests more than anything she was explaining in her presentation? Lectures were all well and good, but wouldn’t theyreally think her the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria if they saw such powerful magic in action?

And then if Twilight did manage to bring Fluttershy back to life, then surely she would be the most magical unicorn of all time! Fluttershy simply hoped that the fact that she had never heard of any other unicorn performing such a spell wasn’t a sign that such a spell didn’t exist. Then again, even if such a spell was nonexistent, Twilight could write a brand new spell... Right?

“Stop worrying, Fluttershy,” the newlydead whispered to herself. “You’ll never be alive again if you don’t at least try!”

Careful not to pass through any of the ponies listening to the lecture, as it was still rather disconcerting to pass through a living being, the creamy pegasus trotted up to the podium. She didn’t want to wait until it was dark out to attempt contact, and the only light in the library was the sunlight streaming through the windows, so there wasn’t anything she could attempt to make things darker herself.

Mustering her courage against the fear that this wouldn’t work, she hopped up on the podium and stared directly into Twilight’s face. It had worked with Applejack, so it had to work with Twilight; to make herself actually heard, she’d just have to try even harder.

Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy gave Twilight a face-full of her best Stare and prepared to shout with all her might.

Her mouth opened, and whatever passed for air in the Afterlife sped past Fluttershy’s ghostly vocal chords and right to Twilight’s ears when—

The door to the library slammed open. Fluttershy’s scream—the loudest she’d ever utilized, alive or dead—was drowned out by the deafening THWACK of the door striking the library’s wooden wall. Everypony turned to look at the cause of such an interruption, including a severely agitated Fluttershy, to see a haggard blue pony struggling to breathe through wracking sobs.

“Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy wondered aloud. “I thought she was still here at the lecture... Where has she...” Her eyes widened. “Oh, no... Oh, no, no, no...”

The ghostly pegasus’ oldest friend shuffled into the room, barely able to walk, much less fly. Her wings hung limply at her sides as tears streamed down her cheeks. Finally, she collapsed in a heap in the middle of the room.

Everypony moved back to give her room to breathe, though the wracking cries seemed to be making that increasingly impossible.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight gasped, rushing from the podium to her fallen friend, the rest of her friends joining her in an instant. “What’s wrong? What happened? Where did you go?”

“I... went to... check...” was all the distraught pegasus could cough out. “But... but...”

“What is it?” Twilight pleaded, the extreme worry in her voice echoed on the faces of all of her friends.

“It’s okay!” Fluttershy yelled over the din at the top of her transparent lungs, already knowing it was in vain. Her voice was lost in the general murmur and Rainbow’s sobs. “I’m still here! I can come back! I-I’m—”

“Dead!” themulticolored flier screamed. “Fluttershy—she’s dead!!”

. . .

Chapter 3

“Dead! Fluttershy—she’s dead!!”

“NO!” the ghost yelled, blinking hard in a futile attempt to hold back her own tears. She shook her head vehemently (out of habit, since obviously nopony would see it), some of the phantasmal liquid flicking off of her cheeks and vanishing into the air. Her tears weren’t physical any more, after all. “I’m right here!!” She swooped down and tried to grab her fillyhood friend’s shoulders to shake her, but her hooves simply passed right through.

The library soon filled with the worried murmurs of the intellectual ponies, many concerned glances being cast Rainbow Dash’s way.

“Really is unsightly behavior at such a gathering,” one gentlestallion muttered to his friends.

“You shut the buck up!” Rainbow Dash’s sudden yell echoed through the small room as she flung herself at the startled stallion. The two toppled over one another, the cyan mare ending up on top of him and furiously smacking him over and over with her shaking hooves. Her teeth were grit with so much force, they threatened to crack. “She’s dead! Maybe I should make you dead too if you’re going to be a such a motherbucking disrespectful piece of... of...”

But she couldn’t finish, her blows devolving into weak slaps that faded into her crawling off of him and just lying on the floor, sobbing into her wings. The spirit of her friend tried to give her a comforting hug, but again was unable to make physical contact.

“Miss Sparkle, please do control your companions,” another highbrow scolded, earning nothing but a warning spark of the horn and a heated glance from the lavender mare, as well as every other native Ponyville resident in the room.

“Get off your pedestal, you cigar-chewing snob,” a wealthy-looking Ponyville stallion hissed at the Canterlot ‘elite.’ “Do you not realize how hurt she is?” He scoffed. “Typical Canterlot pony, about as sensitive as a tree stump drowning in his own arrogance. Don’t you know she’s one of The Bearers of Harmony, worth more than a hundred herds of you?”

The other Ponyville inhabitants voiced their agreement, several of them taking a menacing step towards the offending visitor.

“Everypony, please, calm down!” Twilight commanded, placing herself between the two opposing parties and stamping her hoof for emphasis. “Fighting each other isn’t going to get us anywhere. Now...” She turned to her distraught friend. “What’s wrong, Rainbow? Please clearly tell us what happened.”

Fluttershy could see the sweat beading on her lavender friend’s coat, along with the dark, desolate voids behind her eyes despite her controlled (and more than a little forced) smile.

“Are you deaf?!” Rainbow screeched, whirling on her unicorn friend. Every feature on her blue face was torn between anger and despair. She was sweating, but shivering as if she was cold. “She’s dead!”

“RD slipped out during yer lecture ta’ check on Fluttershy,” Applejack explained shakily, trotting forward. “We jus’ wanted ta’ see if she was alright.”

“And what did you see when you arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage?” Twilight inquired, her own voice losing its stability as she turned back to Rainbow. “Did something frighten you? Is Fluttershy missing? W-was there evidence of some kind of struggle?”

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, trying to calm herself as she wiped furiously at her eyes with a hoof. All it did was spread the liquid around, disheveling her fur and making her look like she’d been crying for hours. Her worried rosy eyes were bloodshot, evidence of the unfamiliar surge of emotions that were still roiling inside her. “I-I went to her cottage, and I knocked on the door, but Fluttershy didn’t answer, so I went inside and looked for her but I couldn’t find her I-I-I looked all over the place Twilight she wasn’t there b-but then I found her in her bed a-and her face was... her face... it...” She was stuttering uncontrollably, her words brought to an abrupt halt by a knot rising into her throat. She resigned to sinking back into her forelegs, her body wracked with trembles as she hid herself away from the world.

“You mean she was actually there?” Rarity asked, lifting a hoof to her mouth in shock. Rainbow struggled to nod her head, though she still refused to come out from her forelegs. After some obvious effort at self-composure, the white unicorn queried “I understand that she must have looked like she was in serious condition, but I’m certain she’s merely ill. It must be quite serious to have given you such a scare, darling, but I’m sure she’s still very much alive.”

“She wasn’t breathing!” Dash struggled to convey through her coughs. “I checked! She didn’t even have a pulse!”

Rarity gasped, her cheeks beginning to glisten.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy was hyperventilating. She would have passed out by then if she was still alive. She almost tried to anyway out of habitual instinct, but the loss of consciousness just wouldn’t come. She wanted to scream, wanted to demand attention, but she knew that it would do nothing.

Twilight was losing the battle to keep her ears perked up, and the corners of her lips seemed to have invisible boulders attached to them. “W-well, Rainbow Dash, m-maybe you were just panicking and y-you didn’t notice that she actually was breathing...” Her voice broke, as did her expression of forced happiness, and her throat swelled almost imperceptibly as a knot rose into it. Her mane swung around as her head jerked to the crowd of onlookers. “I-I’m sorry, everypony, but I’ll be right back... hopefully...”

With a brief flash of violet light and a sound not unlike thunder, five mares went missing from the room. Fluttershy looked around for a moment out of instinct, before she realized what just happened, and how she hadn’t been a part of it.

She also realized where those five mares would be shortly reappearing.

“Oh, no...” she whispered in a cold terror. All her life, she’d been afraid—afraid that something might hurt her, that somepony would judge her, that she would make a mistake. The constant fear had never really left her, but with time and the help of her friends, she’d eventually come to try and stand against it. It didn’t always work, but at least she had a chance to break free, if only for brief intervals.

Now, however, she didn’t have any of those friends to help her, because they were the very cause of that fear. They were the cause because they cared for her, and she wouldn’t be there to meet them and tell them that everything was fine, that she was alright.

Because she wasn’t, and she never would be again.

“NO!” Fluttershy screamed, causing several of the ponies left in the library to look around in confusion. The ghostly pegasus couldn’t have cared less at that point. She launched herself into the air and, not thinking twice about it, flew through the wall.

Even if she couldn’t be there physically, even if she couldn’t actually do anything, it didn’t mean she couldn’t try.

Fluttershy couldn’t feel the wind as it swept past her. She couldn’t feel the trees as she flew right through them. The Hereafter was a blank slate, and to it the Mortal Plane was nothing more than an illusion.

It couldn’t have been more than two minutes, but the lost spirit’s flight seemed to consume several hours. The only thing she felt were her ethereal tears, and even then, they still weren’t real.

She almost overshot her mark as she neared her cottage, nestled on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest. Her friends were filing into her house one-by-one, led by a very upset rainbow-maned pegasus. Fluttershy dove into the outside wall of the second floor, breathing heavily as she ‘landed’ on the hardwood floor, watching the doorway tentatively.

She couldn’t feel it, but she knew that the woodwork was shaking as her friends scrambled up the stairs, loud thuds and shouts indicating that somepony — probably Rainbow Dash — had tripped on the way up and taken a few of the others with them.

Fluttershy swallowed, chancing a look behind her at the bed, surrounded by... air. Her eyes widened. Her animal friends were gone, and... so was her body! Gasping, she silently galloped to the vacant furniture, taking to the air and performing a few quick circles. Where did it go? Where did it go?! “Dearly Departed??” she called out at the ceiling, her chest muscles instinctively tensing to accompany the volume of her voice. Only five sets of physical hoofsteps answered, her friends piling into the room and flopping over each other like lungfish jumping out of a river.

“What the...” an out-of-breath southern voice began, its owner’s eyes flicking over the empty bedspread. “...She ain’t here?” Applejack pointed at the sheets with an orange hoof, before turning to the pony who had caused her to worry. “...Ya’ll said her body was here.” Her gaze swiveled back to the bedspread, before her head slowly turned to fix Rainbow Dash with an accusing stare. “...Is this some kinda prank, Rainbow?”

Prank? Fluttershy thought worriedly. They’re not going to blame this on Rainbow, are they?

Having known the speedster longer than any of the others, the timid ghost knew that Rainbow Dash would never, ever pull a prank like this. Even she knew her limits.

Four pairs of increasingly suspicious eyes, however, seemed to disagree.

“That’s not really what all this is, is it, Rainbow?” Twilight inquired, her voice devoid of its previous worry and steadily filling with a dangerous tone. “Some kind of prank?”

Rainbow’s intense sorrow began mixing with utter confusion and a hint of betrayal.

“You think I would joke about something like this?!” she gasped. “I saw her there! I’m telling you, it’s the truth!”

“That...” Pinkie Pie breathed softly, a first for the pink party pony. The others instantly locked eyes on her, as something so subtle from a pony such as Pinkie Pie was like a shout from a mouse. “...That would be a really mean prank, Dashie.”

“It’s not a prank!” Rainbow protested, smacking her hoof down on the floor. “I can’t believe you guys! Do you really think I would be that rotten?”

“It’s not a prank!” Fluttershy asserted, leaping beside her distressed fellow pegasus. As was the new norm, her plea fell on deaf ears. “I really am dead!”

She froze, realizing what she had just said. She hadn’t wanted to ever think of herself like that... but it was the truth, even if she was determined to undo it... somehow...

“So what you’re saying is,” Rarity huffed indignantly. “that not only is our dear Fluttershy... dead, her body got up and trotted away?”

“Is this the part where you convinced Fluttershy to come in here dressed like a zombie?” Pinkie wondered, her eyes narrowed and her head cocked.

“No!” Rainbow asserted, her body shaking with frustration. She bent down, tugging at her mane with her front hooves and gritting her teeth.

Fluttershy felt a wave of compassion for her friend wash over her. Rainbow was telling the truth, but at the time the world seemed to be doing its best to discredit her claims. Swallowing, she reached over and tried to lay a hoof on the neck of her logically trapped friend. She focused on her limb, trying to be as gentle as possible, paying close attention and feeling for the soft sensation of fur.

Taking in a momentary breath, she smiled with pleasant surprise when her hoof actually seemed to make contact with Rainbow’s flesh. And then that gentle smile turned to shock as she felt her hoof sink into her friend’s body, the rest of her form being dragged along with it as her world grew dark. “What—”

Rainbow Dash suddenly gasped, her eyes shooting open as she began to convulse, her body wracked with muscle spasms and writhing on the floor. This went on for several seconds, garnering the worry of her friends.

“Rainbow Dash?!” Twilight gasped, reaching for her blue friend with a cautious hoof, but too frightened of being struck by Rainbow’s flailing limbs to get very close. Twilight just stared helplessly. Was Rainbow having a seizure?

Fluttershy’s vision restored itself in a flash, familiar yet strangely alien senses waking up after what seemed like a long sleep. Just moments ago, she could only see and hear things. Now she could feel the hardwood floor beneath her, smell the scent of the potted plants in her house, and taste the air as she heavily breathed in and out, her strong heart pounding in her chest. She blinked several times to banish the film over her eyes, pushing herself up off the floor. She looked around, seeing four worried faces staring directly at her. Wait, where was Rainbow Dash?

“Twilight, where—” Fluttershy’s irises shrunk as she heard her own voice. It was light and scratchy, and it cracked on the first syllable. It wasn’t hers at all. Her ears folded against her scalp, and her eyes whipped to several different points on the ceiling in fright. Brushing her mane out of her eyes, she looked down at her hooves. Thankfully she couldn’t see through them, but... they were blue. “W-what just happened??” Even though her voice had changed, her mannerisms and characteristically quiet volume had not. She shrunk down, pulling her limbs closer to her torso and staring coyly up at the four other ponies present.

“‘What just happened’?” Applejack echoed, confusion and disdain still tangoing on her face. “I suppose we might ask ya’ the same question.”

“No, but, I mean...” Fluttershy—Rainbow Dash? Fluttainbow Shash? Who was she anymore?!—tried to say, tried to express what in the world she was experiencing. But she couldn’t. There was no word in the Equestrian language for what she was currently feeling, other than...odd.

She could feel the sensation of having a bodily presence again, but it wasn’t her body. She had certainly never felt this physically strong and able before, and it was an odd feeling to have Rainbow’s finely honed wing muscles attached to her own back. She had never been a very strong flier herself, due both to her lack of self-confidence and being in the shallow end of the pegasus gene pool when it came to wings.

However, as strange as this all was, Fluttershy also suddenly realized that it was an opportunity. She was physically here, and her friends could notice her. Or would they only be noticing Rainbow Dash?

Whatever the case, she had to try.

“Twilight! Applejack!” she squeaked happily in the cyan mare’s scratchy voice. “Rarity! Pinkie Pie!”

She lunged forward, enveloping them all in a hug that incorporated Rainbow’s wings as much as it did her forelegs. Tears welled up her newly magenta eyes.

“It’s so good to see you all again!” she wept even as she smiled. “I thought... I was afraid that... that I was gone for good!”

Her friends said nothing, and backing up at last, Fluttershy saw why. They were merely looking at her with stunned expressions, unsure of what to think anymore. Rainbow Dash didn’t give emotional group hugs like that, and she definitely didn’t cry tears of joy during them. She just... didn’t.

“But you’ve been here with us the whole time,” Rarity noted haltingly. “You didn’t go anywhere you could have come back from.”

“But I did!” the currently embodied spirit disagreed. “I mean, Fluttershy did—I mean, I am Fluttershy!”

The stunned expressions and silence continued.

“...Is this more of the prank?” Pinkie wondered tentatively, now looking more than a little unnerved rather than suspicious and angry. She looked at the others, before looking back at the blue mare. “Dashie, you’re scaring me...”

“Rainbow wasn’t pranking you!” Fluttershy insisted, shaking her—Rainbow’s—head. “I really did... die... a-and I’ve been following you all around all day! I don’t know how, but now I’m in Rainbow’s body!”

The stunned looks of her friends were quickly dissolving into either absolute disgust or clearly disturbed fear.

“This isn’t funny, Rainbow Dash!” Rarity hissed, worry weaving its way through her anger.

“I’m not Rainbow!” Fluttershy told her former spa buddy. “I’m Fluttershy! I’m just inside Rainbow right now! Wait a minute... If I’m in Rainbow, then... where’s the real Rainbow?” She gasped. “I-is she floating around as a ghost like I was? Oh, I hope she’s not too scared!”

“Girls?” Twilight inquired, her smile even more forced than it had been back at the library. “Can we have a word?”

The others quickly nodded and filed out into the hallway. When Fluttershy tried to follow, Twilight stopped her with a hoof.

“Can you wait in here for just a second, please?” the lavender unicorn asked. “Um... Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy wilted, staring up apologetically at her purple friend. “Oh... okay. I’m sorry...” She turned tail and quietly trotted back to the bedspread, climbing up on it before sitting down. She cast a shy glance at Twilight as the door was closed by a shimmering reddish aura.

“Girls,” Twilight began, turning to look at her group with a very disturbed and frightened expression. “Does anyone know why Rainbow Dash is doing this? I mean, I know she can be abrasive, but I’ve never seen her act so... weird.”

“She’s acting like Fluttershy,” Pinkie clarified in a hushed tone. The other three ponies looked at her.

Twilight worked the inside of her mouth. “...Yeah.”

“Personally, Ah think that she might be on some new medication or some’n, and it’s messin’ with her head.” Applejack nodded. “This is seemin’ less like a prank and more like a delusion...”

“Silly AJ,” Pinkie remarked with a good-natured giggle. “Dashie doesn’t take anything but ADHD medication.”

“...How do you know that?” Twilight wondered with a cocked eyebrow.

“I-I don’t sample them!” Pinkie quickly asserted with a quick shake of her head. She grinned nervously. “Or... anypony else’s meds...”

“Erm... I’ll explain how dangerous that is later,” Twilight dismissed. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “I... don’t know what to do about ‘RainbowShy’ in there.” She tapped the door with her hoof, her eyebrows drawn upward in the middle. “Maybe she’s just in some psychological pain, and is doing this to distract herself from whatever happened.” She scratched the side of her mane. “I don’t know why she picked Fluttershy dying as her fantasy, though...”

“Maybe...” Rarity spoke up, looking uncertain. “Maybe something traumatic did happen, something involving Fluttershy, but Rainbow Dash couldn’t process it? Maybe this is the most logical thing her mind could come up with to explain the situation?” Remembering how crass she’d just been to the troubled pegasus, she scuffed at the floor with her hoof, crestfallen.

Twilight perked up slightly, as if a light bulb suddenly flickered to life above her head. “Well, I think the best thing to do is to get her to tell us what really happened. Then, we can go from there.” She smiled at her friends’ various noises of approval. Arcane energy surrounded her horn as the door opened itself, causing the pegasus mare on the bed to look up at her guests.

“What were you all talking about in there? Um... if you don’t mind me asking, that is...” Fluttershy lowered her head into her hooves and peeked up from them.

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight began, approaching her friend with large eyes brimming with sympathy. “Are you okay?”

“I-I’m Fluttershy... and I’m fine...” the blue pony muttered through her hooves. “W-well, I’m dead, but... I can come back... I-I think...” Her magenta gaze traced the stitch lines on the blanket beneath her.

Her friends exchanged worried glances. “Dear, tell us what really happened to Fluttershy. Did you witness something bad happen to her? Whatever it was, we’re here for you, okay?” Rarity coaxed, laying a white hoof on her chest.

Fluttershy began to feel something strange. It felt almost like a pressure from within, steadily growing, jabbing at her insides like a caged animal trying to escape. Little whispers shouted at the farthest corners of her mind. Little scratchy whispers. “I’m Fluttershy. I-I died, remember? And I want to come back, but I need help.” Two amethyst eyes glided to the present magician. “Twilight, do you have any spells that can bring ponies back from the dead?”

Twilight just stared at her with a gentle frown. “Rainbow Dash, please, I know you’re struggling, but you need to tell us the truth before we can help.”

“I am telling the truth! I-I just...” Fluttershy’s eyes steadily widened as the pressure in her chest flared and the whispers grew into shouts. “I can’t... come back... on my...”

Fluttershy’s world became Tartarus for a split second, a deluge of liquid metal pouring over her body and burning away her skin. Her view tilted sideways and she yelped as she was thrown towards the wall, but fortunately her wings snapped out and she steadied herself before impact.

The first thing she noticed was that she couldn’t feel the chilled air of her cottage any more.

The second thing she noticed was that Rainbow Dash was back, lying on the bed in a mild daze, blinking rapidly. “What the... Owwww...” she moaned, curling up into a fetal position and cradling her skull with her legs. “My head...” She continued to release quiet groans of agony, slowly rocking back and forth.

Twilight gently laid a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Rainbow Dash?” she asked with a frown.

“I... I was... I... I couldn’t control my body... Something locked me out...” the blue one mumbled, her tone reflecting the amount of pain she was in. “It was heavy... Had to... kick it out... Head hurts now...”

Fluttershy simply hovered nearby, awestruck. Had she possessed Rainbow Dash? Could she do it to other ponies? Her gaze drifted to Rarity, the friend that had been the most skeptical. Maybe if she possessed her, she could convince her friends that Rainbow Dash wasn’t crazy.

She frowned as guilt seeped into her chest cavity. Just now she had taken complete control of her oldest friend and painted her in a light that destroyed her credibility. She had to do something to make up for it. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath before approaching Rarity.

“Poor dear... I hope she gets better soon,” Rarity whispered to Twilight. Little did she know that a particular ghost was standing just behind her.

Fluttershy took another deep breath. Okay, she just had to... do what she did before, right? Swallowing, she focused heavily on her front right hoof, reaching out to touch Rarity’s neck with it. When Rarity inevitably kicked her out, she would feel the same pain as before, and Rarity would probably have a severe headache like Dash, but... it had to be done.

“I do wish she would just tell us—” Rarity froze, her speech quickly devolving into incoherent squeaks, before she collapsed. Unlike Rainbow Dash, she didn’t suffer from violent spasms, but instead shook uncontrollably for a few moments as if afflicted with Tetanus, gasping and choking on her own saliva.

“Rarity!!” Twilight shouted, horror flooding her expression as she telekinetically shook her friend to snap her out of her strange condition. The other two ponies in the room — sans Rainbow Dash, who was still clutching her head — immediately ran to the white pony’s side.

After just a few seconds, it was over. Fluttershy coughed up some of her — no, Rarity’s saliva before getting to her hooves. Her new sapphire irises flicked to each of her friends in turn. Rarity’s body felt far different from hers and Rainbow’s. While Rainbow Dash’s body felt strong and muscular, Rarity’s body felt like extremely lithe. Fitting, seeing how Rarity was a non-active mare, but she still watched her weight. The skin under her fur also felt incredibly well-moisturized, and it was weird having a bone sticking out of her forehead. Lastly, the lack of wings felt extremely strange to Fluttershy. She felt like she was crippled.

“Rarity, a-are ya’ll alright?” Applejack laid a hoof on Fluttershy’s white shoulder.

“Y-yes, Applejack, I’m alright.” Fluttershy turned her head to give the farmer a gentle smile. “But... I’m not Rarity.” She gave a sapphire wink. “I was telling the truth while I was inside Rainbow Dash.”

Applejack’s face lost all of its color, and she began to back away. Her face split with an uneasy grin. “H’okay, Rarity, i-it’s nice that ya’ll have a... a sense’a humor, but y-you’re creepin’ me out now, so if ya will please drop the facade and go back to bein’ the normal Rarity, that would be much appreciated—”

“It’s not a facade, Applejack. I told you — I’m dead. If you still don’t believe me, I can possess you next... I mean, if that’s okay with you...” She shrunk slightly.

Applejack’s smile vanished, her eyes shrinking to the size of a grain of sand. “R-Rarity, please cut that out. Please. Y-y’all are gonna give me nightmares.”

Fluttershy sighed, turning to face her magically-inclined friend, who was staring at her with the same expression as Applejack. “Twilight, if you have a spell that could bring me ba—” Without warning, her skin began burning again, and she was violently ripped out of her friend’s body, thrown away like a hoofball. Fortunately she was not ejected with as much force as she was from Rainbow, and she was able to steady herself much more quickly. Fluttershy rubbed her chin in thought. She wasn’t able to stay in Rarity for nearly as long as she stayed in Rainbow Dash. Maybe she couldn’t possess ponies too much too often, or she wouldn’t be able to maintain it.

Rarity, on the other hand, was lying on the floor, but appeared to not have a severe headache. “Twilight... What... Ow...” She brought a white hoof to her temple, quieting herself for a few seconds. “I-I was... I... I couldn’t move... I...”

Twilight stared at her fellow unicorn with shrunken pupils, before glancing at Applejack, who was backed into a corner, her chest heaving.

“Oh no... Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no,” the farmpony rambled in panic. She knew that she was next. “No! Please, no!”

“Applejack, you won’t be possessed — th-there’s no such thing as ghosts,” Twilight stated, though her tone betrayed that she feared otherwise.

Fluttershy stared bewilderedly at Twilight, before lightly pulling on her mane. Great. The only pony that could bring her back to life was preconditioned with a belief that ghosts like her didn't even exist. And knowing Twilight, once she came to a conclusion about something, it took an ungodly amount of persuasion to get her to think otherwise. Fluttershy had half a mind to possess Twilight just to force the unicorn to acknowledge her, but... No, she couldn't be angry at her friend. Anger was forbidden. She just needed to calm down. She took several deep breaths, bottling up her frustration and shoving it deep inside, just as she always had.

She glanced at Applejack, who was wildly looking around in panic, searching for her. Fluttershy frowned. If Applejack was that scared of her, she didn't want to reinforce it by making her fears come true. At the time, she probably couldn't, anyway. She felt strangely... drained after hopping into two other ponies, and she didn't feel like she could do it again.

All day she had felt as if she had unlimited and boundless energy, almost like a Canterlot motor carriage battery was wired to her heart. No matter how fast she ran or flew, no matter how loudly she yelled, she never felt tired. But now, after using an ability that she somehow acquired after death, she felt sleepy. In fact, she felt like taking a nap. Could ghosts sleep?

Given how successful she was at trying to faint earlier, probably not.

"A-are ya sure?" AJ breathed, her irises still constricted. "B-but Rarity was actin' just like Rainbow just now, a-and I know that she ain't in on whatever all this is." An orange hoof swept across the group.

"She would be correct..." Rarity mumbled, her headache subsiding. "I-I felt like I was overshadowed by something..."

"See? It... it happened to Rarity too..." Rainbow's voice was muffled by the pillow on her face.

The room grew colder as seconds passed with no conversation. Twilight craned her neck, swallowing nervously. “Fluttershy...? Are you here?”

The newlydead opened her mouth to say that, yes, she was, she was here, but the words just wouldn’t come. She just felt so tired...

But she tried. Oh, how she tried.

“Yes...” she attempted to squeak, but even to her own ears, it sounded like an almost nonexistent whisper. “Yes...!”

She was feeling woozy now as her intellectual friend looked around. Logical doubt was creeping back up over Twilight’s view of the situation, and Fluttershy’s window of opportunity was rapidly drawing closed. If anyone could bring her back, it was Twilight, but first the unicorn had to believe that Fluttershy was there.

However, that didn’t seem to be happening.

Suddenly Twilight’s eyes grew wide.

“Maybe this wasn’t a trick after all...” she mused worriedly, looking to her friends, her eyes lingering with concern on Rarity and Rainbow Dash. “I don’t think even Rainbow would go this far, and I know Rarity wouldn’t...”

Fluttershy’s eyes lit up even as she struggled to stand.

“...There’s something in this room!” Twilight gasped. “Something that plays with your mind! I don’t know what—a hallucinogenic gas? A madness spell? But whatever it is, it’s tricking us! We need to get out of here, now!”

“...No...!” Fluttershy whispered with all her might as the lavender unicorn fled from the room, her friends following quickly behind her. Fluttershy tried desperately to follow them, but she seemed glued to the ground. It felt like there was a leech attached to her energy levels, greedily drinking its fill.

“That must have been what frightened Rainbow Dash when she first came here!” Fluttershy heard Twilight explaining as her friends rushed down the stairs. “Maybe that’s even why Fluttershy isn’t here herself! Whatever’s been planted in her room must have affected her, and she fled the scene!”

“Ya mean she’s still alive?” Applejack inquired hopefully, her southern drawl carrying up through the open bedroom window. They were outside now.

“In all likelihood, yes,” Twilight affirmed with an air of relief in her own voice. “But she might be severely disoriented. We don’t know how long she’s been exposed to whatever’s in there, or who planted it there in the first place... Maybe Fluttershy really was kidnapped, and the perpetrators left something behind to throw investigators off the trail!”

“Wait a minute...” Rainbow Dash spoke up. Oh, how Fluttershy wished she could muster up the strength to go over to the window and see them as well as hear them! “You think this is all the result of some crazy magic gas? I know what I saw!”

“You think you know what you saw,” Twilight countered. “Which is more likely? Fluttershy suddenly dying for some unknown reason, and then her body disappearing, or something making her leave and making anypony who sees her room hallucinate?”

“That... does kinda sense, I guess...” Rainbow sighed, and there was hope in her voice. Fluttershy knew she would feel the same — with this explanation, there was still a good chance that their friend was alive and well-ish. Too bad it was all false... and the longer it took them to realize that, the longer it would take them to finally get around to bringing her back. And who knew what was happening to her body in the meantime? She couldn’t exactly come back to life in a body that was already rotting!

“Have to... stop them...” the ghost uttered, unable to even take a single step despite how hard she tried. She could already hear them trotting away, talking about organizing a search party at Town Hall to look for a disoriented butterscotch pegasus.

After several minutes of simply standing there, unbearably tired but unable to sleep, Fluttershy could feel her strength beginning to ebb back. She finally lifted one hoof, then another, then a third, moving each limb faster than the last. Her wings at last were able to stretch.

She could move again! She had to fly back to her friends, had to... But no, any time she tried to interact with them again, wouldn’t they just think that it was the lingering effects of whatever ‘had permeated’ her bedroom? She would have to interact with them indirectly... Perhaps possessing another pony would help? Somepony who hadn’t been ‘exposed?’

“Fluttershy!”

The newlydead whirled around, seeing Dearly Departed galloping through the wall.

“Where were you just now?” Fluttershy demanded. Then, realizing she had spoken so brashly, she quickly attempted to amend things. “Um... I mean, where did you go? And where’s my body?”

“Your animal friends took it into the Everfree Forest,” Dearly informed her quickly. “But we have to go, now!”

“Go?” Fluttershy echoed. “Go where?”

“Anywhere but here!” Dearly insisted. “Come on!”

The other ghostly mare shot off towards the far wall, but Fluttershy swooped to intercept her. Timid or not, she wanted answers, especially when it came to something that blocked her from returning to her friends.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on!” Fluttershy retorted. “I mean, please! I need to know what’s happening!”

“Fine!” Dearly exasperated. “But on your head be it! I followed your animal friends to see where they would put your body so I could tell you where it was later, but unfortunately they took it to some clearing in the middle of the forest!”

That doesn’t seem to so bad... thought Fluttershy, wondering what all the fuss was about.

“Normally that wouldn’t be a problem,” Dearly continued. “But the clearing is swarming with Shadows!”

“Shadows?” Fluttershy echoed. “What’s wrong with shadows?”

“Not the kind that the Sun casts,” the ghostly guide explained. “Shadows are monsters who live in the Hereafter, even though they were never alive in the first place. They eat ghosts, devouring your soul until you’re nothing at all. They’re not too much trouble in small numbers, but there’s a whole swarm milling about your body. We can’t get near it!”

Fluttershy suddenly felt very, very cold. Something that could eat a ghost? Her mind couldn’t even fully grasp the concept of simply ceasing to exist. How could you become nothingness? The pegasus ghost wasn’t sure if she could think of a worse fate.

“What’s more,” Dearly Departed continued. “Some of them spotted me! I’ve been running from a pack of them since I got here, which means they’re right on my tail! We have to leave now, before they catch up to me and eat us both!”

Fluttershy’s eyes went wide as the feeling of cold turned to a howling blizzard in her chest. She nodded, turning to follow her guide as the earth pony ghost galloped to the far wall, only to screech to a halt.

Tendrils of darkness, looking as if somepony had peeled a regular shadow off the floor and rolled it up, were seeping through the far wall. Dearly backed up fearfully to Fluttershy, who could now see more of the shadowy tentacles sliding through all sides of the room.

. . .