One of the most terrifying days in Fluttershy's life to that point began as a fairly normal morning at the start of the September of the Year of Harmony 1500.
It was perhaps testament to either the nature of Fluttershy's life, or what she assumed was her own cowardice, that this was only one of the most terrifying days she had suffered so far, and that the qualifiers "one" and "so far" are necessary for strict honesty. It was not, for instance, as terrifying as the day six years ago, on which she discovered her true heritage on a hill crowned by menhirs older than Equestria, deep in the Palamino, where the desert becomes the true Badlands. Then she had fled for her life -- or freedom -- from a monster that called her "Princess" and began to whisper impossible revelations into her fourteen-year-old brain.
Nor was it as terrifying as a day she would have two and a half years from now, when she would meet that very same monster at a royal wedding in Canterlot. On that earlier day, she had been alone; and on that later day, she would be a helpless captive as the creature leered at her, promising her a high and vile destiny. That was the day on which she would have to admit both to her most-beloved friends that she had been lying to them all along about an important aspect of her own identity, so it would be really bad in all sorts of ways. Even though those friends would (mostly) forgive her for her mendacity.
It was of course hardly the worst day in her life, either. There were several candidates for worst day in her life, with the winner having to be a morning four years ago, when she was sixteen and saw in a broken flowerpot the proof of her own worthlessness. None of the others were even half as bad, though one of them, eight years ago, had seen the worst sort of betrayal by her older cousin Ill Wind; and her discovery of her ultimate power, under highly-upsetting circumstances. Though, really, The Stare had prevented that day from being even worse. Ill Wind had avoided her since that day, which suited Fluttershy just fine.
And there was a day many years to come -- of which she was mercifully yet unaware, when she would once again confront her cousin Ill Wind, under rather dramatic circumstances, in the flying fortress-city of their ancestors, with the fate of Equestria in the balance. Then, as had so often been the case in Fluttershy's life, her very best friend would get there in time to save the day in the most spectacular manner -- only to plummet from that battle burned and broken, nearly a corpse -- and Fluttershy would not care at all about her victory in the moment that she realized its terrible price.
Most of those other days had begun, or would begin, quite normally. Or at least not too badly.
This day began beautifully enough. The warmth of summer had not yet departed, and a bright Sun had climbed more than halfway to the zenith as Fluttershy fed her animal friends.
Many Ponies would have been shocked to know this, but Fluttershy was perfectly-willing to hunt to that end, as long as she did not have to take avians or mammals. For her hunting was easy -- she could sense the life of fish in the stream, or worms in the ground; stun them with her mind, and grab the unconscious creatures. Some other Ponies would have been shocked to know that she could directly sense life and stun things with her mind, too, but Fluttershy didn't bother to tell them.
The life-sense was part of her paternal heritage, and so, she supposed, was the Stare, of which stunning animals was the least of its capabilities. Fluttershy was gentle and kind, but she had a distinctly ruthless side to her character where serving her animal friends was concerned, one which would have given hope to her true sire -- had that being known of her actions.
So she fed fish to her otters and worms to her many friends, both avian and mammalian, who cherished such fare. (Fluttershy had a strange soft spot for arthopods, especially flying insects, which may have derived from the fact that a swarm of them had saved her life on one occasion). And the Sun warmed her, and the breeze cooled her, and she was truly happy on this fine late-summer morning.
Finally, she turned her attention back to Angel Bunny, her closest and most special animal friend. To those who saw Fluttershy as a witch, Angel would have been her familiar. Fluttershy was peripherally aware of, though little concerned by, the fact that there were some Ponies of that sentiment. She had been living by her own rules since she was ten, and of all Ponies, only the opinions of her two best friends Rainbow Dash and Rarity truly concerned her.
The first thing she had done was to feed Angel Bunny a carrot, which the rabbit now consumed voraciously. Fluttershy was glad to see that he liked the carrot, but was worried for his digestion.
"Not too fast now, Angel Bunny," she cautioned him, "You don't want to get a tummy ache." She expressed all the warmth and affection to her rabbit that she feared to express to most of her fellow Ponies, that she wanted to express to the foals she would never bear unless she learned to conquer those fears.
Irritated by her disapproval, the big buck rabbit glared at her, put down the carrot, and ostentatiously wiped his forepaws.
Fluttershy was shocked by this total rejection of the food. Trying to take it as a joke, she chuckled.
"You really should eat more than that, don't you think?" she asked him.
His response was to go bounding down the path from his hutch, leaving the uneaten half of the carrot behind.
Now Fluttershy was somewhat hurt. She picked up the carrot in her mouth.
"It's not play-time yet!" she called after the departing rabbit. Then, realizing that Angel Bunny was paying no heed to her, she launched heself into the air, quickly overtook him, and landed right where he was about to run, forcing him to stop rather than have her land directly on top of him. "I know you want to run, but ... just three more bites," she said affectionately but firmly.
Angel Bunny shook his head in a dramatic no.
"Two more bites?" suggested Fluttershy.
Another no.
"One more bite?" asked Fluttershy, pushing over the carrot with one hoof.
Angel Bunny firmly ignored her.
"Pretty please?" begged Fluttershy, bending her head down and fluttering her long, lovely eyelashes in a fashion which might have stopped the heart of most males -- and many females -- of her own species. Unfortunately, she was not dealing with a member of her own species.
Angel Bunny kicked the carrot away, then bounded off back toward his hutch.
"Oh," sighed Fluttershy in disappointment.
Suddenly, Angel Bunny began coughing.
Her annoyance instantly forgotten, Fluttershy leaped to his side.
"Oh goodness," she said, "are you okay?"
He coughed again.
"Are you coughing because there's a carrot stuck in your throat?"
Angel Bunny coughed again.
"Because you need some water?" guessed Fluttershy.
The rabbit put one delicate forepaw to his face, then emitted a tremendous hacking cough, grabbed a hunk of Fluttershy's long delicate pink mane, forcing her to look at him. He then pointed directly to the southwest, where a huge extinct volcano towered over the southeastern tip of the White Tails, right where they merged into the Everfree Forest.
Fluttershy gasped as she saw the tremendous sooty, sulfurous black cloud trailing from the mountain top, wafting over her home, and drifting over Ponyville beyond in the direction of Canterlot.
"Because of that giant cloud of scary black smoke?" she asked.
Angel Bunny threw the half-eaten carrot, which bounced off and over the back of Fluttershy's head.
Fluttershy turned back to see Angel Bunny glaring at her.
"I'll take that as a ... 'yes,'" she decided.
***
As Fluttershy galloped into Ponyville, she quickly discovered that nopony else had even noticed the ominous black cloud overhead.
In White Tail Park, ponies were relaxing and enjoying the warm late-summer day. A blue unicorn mare with a strikingly-streaked dark blue and white mane, in company with a white-coated pink-maned one, trotted on the trail out of town, caught up in some conversation. Cherry Berry, her bright pink coat and brighter yellow mane almost garish in the sunlight, walked and talked with a cheerful blue Earth Pony mare with long curly light-blue hair. Three children romped past them.
Cherry Berry's cousin Berryshine slept on the side of a slight grassy rise, surrounded by the glints of empty wine bottles. Daisy and some yellow-coated, blue-maned Earth Pony stallion stood a little off the path, laughing together and seeming to have eyes only for one another.
Nopony was paying any attention to the ominous black cloud wafting its way over the town.
"Help ... help!" cried Fluttershy. "Please ... help!" Her voice ascended to a normal conversational tone, scarce-heard amongst the frolicking crowds. She ran past the park's central fountain.
To her left, that peculiar light-green, blue-and-white-maned unicorn with a small harp for a cutie-mark -- Lyra? -- was bending over something. One of the incredibly-numerous Apple Clan watched with friendly interest. Off behind them Cloud Kicker was watching with another kind of interest, which might or might not have been innocent, attended by her grumpy friend Raindrops, and another pegasus who was extremely green.
Normally, Fluttershy would have been intimidated by Cloud Kicker, who sometimes cast her the most disturbing sorts of glances, and occasionally outright said things that were even more upsetting, but right now she was too worried about the black smoke cloud to remember her trepidations regarding the purple-coated, blonde-maned pegasus.
A second Apple mare, this one yellow with a flamboyantly red and pink mane, sat on a rise, watching a small gray pegasus colt with purple hair. They watched Lyra and Cloud Kicker, completly ignoring the frantic Fluttershy.
Fluttershy ran up close behind three more mares -- one a brilliant-yellow unicorn with a blue mane; the second a light purple unicorn with two-toned blue hair; and the third a light blue coated, blonde-maned pegasus. They completely ignored her, wrapped in their own conversation.
Above flew two Pegasi mares she recognized -- gray-coated, blonde-maned Derpy Hooves, with her strange wall-eyes; who flitted upward, followed by Derpy's purple-coated, yellow-maned friend Parasol. They did not even spare a look downward, and thus did not notice Fluttershy.
On the bridge, two Earth Ponies -- Golden Harvest, a yellow-coated mare whose orange hair proudly proclaimed her a Carrot; and her pink-and-blue-maned, yellow-coated friend Bon-Bon, who Fluttershy knew mostly because she was often rude and surly, looked happily into the stream, paying absolutely no attention to the frantic Fluttershy.
"It's headed this way," Fluttershy tried to explain to the unconcerned multitude, as two more mares walked by her unheeding -- one a teenaged purple-coated, purple-maned unicorn she vaguely remembered was somehow in Derpy's family, lost in conversation with another young mare, this one an orange-coated Earth pony with a curly pink mane.
Fluttershy looked back forward to see a soccer ball flying right at her head. Demonstrating her quick Wind reflexes, she shrieked and ducked. The ball whizzed rapidly by her head.
The ball's owner, Rainbow Dash, flashed even more rapidly by, intercepted it with her head, and began bouncing it rapidly upon that extremity.
"Don't be such a scaredy-pony," Rainbow said, grinning at Fluttershy. A quick wash of casual affection tingled Fluttershy's empathy in a manner which she normally would have found quite pleasurable. "It's just me, future Equestria ball-bouncing record holder. Three forty six, three forty seven... " Rainbow said, counting her bounces.
"This calls for a cele-bration!" cried Pinkie Pie, springing out of nowhere. It was odd how she could catch one by surprise -- one would imagine her to be the most noticeable of Ponies, yet sometimes it seemed as if she could simply manifest somewhere without having traveled through any of the places in between origin and destination. Pinkie darted away again.
"Oh no, Pinkie Pie," said Fluttershy softly to the departing pink blur. "This is no time for celebration. This is a time for panic, for --"
"Oooh!" cried Pinkie, somehow appearing right in front of Fluttershy. "I'm gonna need balloons! One for every Pony in Ponyville!" She went away again, this time bouncing merrily.
Fluttershy ran after her. "There's-- there's smoke," she tried to explain. "And-- and where there's smoke, there's fire. And--" For some reason, although she was running and Pinkie merely bouncing, Fluttershy could barely keep up with the pink Earth Pony.
Pinkie stopped on a dime, in a manner which seemed to violate the Laws of Motion. But then Pinkie had never studied law.
Fluttershy, who considered inertia to be more than just an interesting suggestion, ran full-on into Pinkie's rear end, which was much harder and bonier in a collision than a pony would have imagined from its pink roundness. Fluttershy was momentarily dazed.
"Let's see," said Pinkie, untroubled by the impact. "That's one, two, three ..." She began trying to count every Pony in the vicinity. Some of those Ponies peered back quizzically at her. "Four, five, six ..."
Fluttershy briefly noticed that Lyra was lying across a bench in a very strange posture as she conversed with the blue Earth Pony mare with whom she'd previously seen Cherry Berry conversing.
"Three hundred fifty four, three fifty five, three fifty six ..." said Rainbow, becoming increasingly distracted by Pinkie's counting. "No, wait .." she bounced the ball threel times without counting it ...
"Seven!" cried Pinkie, poking Rainbow in the chest.
Rainbow Dash dropped the ball, caught it under her left wing.
"Pinkie Pie!" scolded Rainbow, almost sobbing in frustration. "Now I have to start over!"
Pinkie recoiled in dismay from Rainbow's furious expression.
"We're all going to have to start over," insisted Fluttershy softly, standing at some distance from her two friends. "In a new village," she said a bit more loudly.
Completely ignoring Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash whirled around and took off almost straight up, at an 80 degree angle from the ground.
"... 'cause ours is gonna be ..." Fluttershy said a bit more quietly.
"Hey, Rainbow Dash!" cried out Pinkie Pie to the departing streak of rainbow light streaking back from Rainbow's propulsive surfaces, "Wait up!"
"Oh, please," said Fluttershy to nobody in particular. "This is an emergency." All of the other ponies in the park ignored her. "I -- I need every pony to ..."
"Listen up!" came the voice of a mare, amplified by a mild application of acoustic magic.
Everypony in the park whirled to regard Twilight Sparkle, standing on the bridge over the stream, Spike riding on her back like some sort of oddly-mounted weapon. Everything about her, from her proud posture to the determined look in her eyes, communicated that she was a dominant mare, a leader. The Ponies responded appropriately, immediately paying heed to her every word.
"Smoke is spreading over all of Equestria," Twilight declared.
A gabble of shocked voices competed with one another in reaction. "What?" ... "Oh no!" ... "This is awful!"
"That's what I've been trying to --" said Fluttershy, softly, hopping up and down, wings. Nopony paid her any attention.
"But don't worry," Twilight told the crowd. "I've just received a letter from Princess Celestia informing me that it is not coming from a fire."
Fluttershy sighed in relief. A forest fire, causing immense suffering amongst the animals and possibly threatening the town as well, had been her worst fear "Oh, thank goodness," she said softly. Nopony heard this either, but it didn't matter.
For the next words from Twilight Sparkle sent her spiraling into stark terror.
"It's coming from a dragon." Twilight stated.
The crowd gasped. And Fluttershy's eyes went wide open. Her whole body shivered in terror.
"A ... d-d-d-d-dragon?!!!
The world spun around her. For a moment her vision darkened.
Nopony would have noticed had she fainted, any more than they had noticed anything else she'd said or done.
It didn't matter. The horrifying reality wouldn't have changed if she'd fainted, anyway.
So she didn't.