Fluttershy endures one of the most frightening experiences of her life. (It is a testament to the utter terror that can be Fluttershy's life that confronting a full-grown Dragon counts as only "one" of the most terrifying days of her
How does Fluttershy feel about being forced to confront her worst nightmare -- a full-grown Dragon? Can she be brave and conquer her fears -- or will she be the coward she knows she is inside, and fail her friends at the worst possible moment?
S1E07 "Dragonshy," from Fluttershy's perspective.
Very early September, YOH 1500. Part of the Flutterarc. Side story to Chapters 3-6 of All the Way Back
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.
The six friends had assembled in the main room of the Golden Oaks Library, which was Twilight's home and their unofficial command post.
"What, in the name of all things cinnamon swirl, is a full-grown Dragon doing right here in Equestria?" asked Applejack.
Everypony well knew that Equestria had treaties with the Dragon nations, prohibiting Dragons from taking up residence in Equestria save with the permission of the Realm. The Dragons generally abided by these treaties, not so much out of a kindly regard for the well-being of Equestria's Ponies -- they could be quite cruel to those Ponies who were their subjects in the Old Worlds from which they came -- but rather from a kindly regard for their own draconic well-being.
After the Banishment of Luna, some dragons -- imagining that Celestia alone, the Sun Princess who styled herself the High Lady of Peace, would be easy to defeat in the absence of the Moon Princess, who had been styled her High Lady of War -- attempted to settle on Equestrian soil. Many of them also slew or plundered Ponies in the process.
The result was commemorated not only in history books but also in popular plays, stories and songs, of which the Song of Syhlex and His Seven Sons was only the most famous. The point of all these works was the same. Dragons who came to Equestria and harmed Celestia's little ponies would learn why Celestia was named the Sun Princess -- not merely because she controlled the Sun, but also because she commanded its powers on Earth. Gouts of sunfire hot enough to not merely melt but vaporize solid rock -- or the toughest dragonscales; balls of that hellishly-hot substance which left smoking craters hundreds of yards wide under rising mushroom clouds where once had been draconic lairs and hoards -- such were the weapons she could wield, and did wield against foes who deemed themselves safe merely because Celestia was physically far smaller than them.
There was a stern and ruthless side which Celestia hated to show to her subjects, because she wanted to reign as a beloved monarch rather than impose her rule with the iron hoof of a dreaded despot. This side she showed to the invaders, and they literally melted away before her wrath like snow under a hot summer sun.
Surprisingly -- if one did not know that Fluttershy came of the highest and oldest lineage, and what that meant -- Fluttershy was well aware of that part of history. As young teenagers at Flight School together, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had deliciously thrilled each other with that special joy that only Pegasi -- even rather timid yellow-and-pink Pegasi -- know from the vicarious participation in extreme physical violence, declaiming parts of the old sagas to each other. Strangely enough, it was Fluttershy who had usually played the part of Celestia, striking the dramatic poses, while Rainbow had been alternately the brave Pegasus scout who brought word of the draconic invasion, or the evil Dragon who menaced the peaceful Ponies.
Then, Fluttershy had not the slightest idea of just what sort of warmth she was feeling from her friend, just why Rainbow Dash had loved it when Fluttershy had spread her wings and reared before her, the Sun streaming through her mane. Her only experience of sexual desire from another had been that upsetting late-night assault by her cousin Ill Wind, and the adoration she received from Rainbow Dash tasted entirely different to her empathy than had Ill Wind's lustful aggression. Now, of course, she understood exactly why that was the case -- which didn't make her appreciate Rainbow's love, or love her in return, any less.
The fact that Rainbow Dash herself appeared to be unaware of her own emotions suited Fluttershy just fine, most of the time. It meant that Fluttershy was under absolutely no pressure to express the sexual side of her own nature, a side that scared her -- though not nearly as much with a mare she'd known almost all her life, as it would have with any stallion, in the wake of what had happened to her when she was sixteen. She still felt sexual attraction toward other Ponies, both stallions and mares, but she greater feared the consequences should she try to express such sentiments.
Such might be unsafe and unpredictable, and Fluttershy liked to live in a safe and predictable world.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Twilight's first action after gathering her friends at the library had been to grab a pile of hopefully-relevant books and speed-read through them in the hopes of finding something -- anything -- at all relevant to their problem.
"Sleeping," said Twilight firmly, in reply to Applejack's question.
Four of her friends gasped in astonishment.
Fluttershy wasn't astonished at all. She had long known as much of the biology of Dragons as was openly known in Equestria -- the fact that she was terrified beyond all reason by Dragons did not reduce her normal fascination with them as living creatures. That was one reason she found Spike so interesting -- he was a Dragon, yet not at all terrifying -- rather warm and cuddly, in fact. She had a rare chance with Spike to see, hear and smell a living Dragon without being frightened at all.
"According to Princess Celestia," Twilight told them, tossing books into her travel bags, "he's taking a nap." She turned back to regard her friends, her expression somber. "His snoring is what's causing all this smoke."
He's a smoker, Fluttershy thought to herself. Draco fumidus. He can belch out tremendous volumes of smoke: actually a mixture of carbon oxides, sulfur oxides and microparticles evolved -- or engineered -- to be produced at just the right particulate sizes to blot out the Sun over immense areas. Mildly toxic, too. If he does this long enough, he'll destroy the whole ecosystem for dozens of miles around his mountain. Her mind reeled at the thought. All the poor animals!
It did not occur to her to share this information. She figured that Twilight was already aware of all this. And she knew that nopony would listen to her in any case.
"He should really see a doctor," commented Pinkie Pie to Applejack, then turning back to Twilight. "That really doesn't sound healthy at all."
"Well," said Rarity, trying to see the bright side of the situation, "at least he isn't snoring fire. What are we meant to do about it?" She was almost whining, clearly intimidated by the prospect of going up against a full-grown Dragon, a sentiment with which Fluttershy could sympathize completely.
Actually it would be better if he were snoring fire, Fluttershy thought. The more complete the combustion, the less smoke. Again, she did not venture to share her opinion -- she was certain that Twilight Sparkle had thought of this anyway, and it did not suggest any actual solution to their problem.
Especially any solution which would enable Fluttershy herself to avoid actually having to go out there and facing down a full-grown Dragon, which was the solution which Fluttershy's considerable intellect was right now seeking. Unfortunately, no such solution appeared to be presenting itself to her frantic mind.
"I'll tell you what we're meant to do," asserted Rainbow Dash. She was actually flying in the middle of the library, wings beating with cheerful excitement. Her eyes were shining with happy battle-lust "Give him the boot. Take that!" she cried, whirling to double-kick the bust in the center of the library.
She would have knocked it over had Twilight Sparkle not reached out with her aura to stablize the heavy wooden sculpture.
"And that!" cried Rainbow Dash again, circling around for another pass at her wooden foe.
This time Twilight lifted the bust out of the way of the blue rainbow-maned pegasus.
Rainbow Dash darted through the space where the bust had been and crashed into a pile of books, finishing upside down on the floor, rainbow tail alone preserving her modesty as she sat on her head.
Twilight looked down at the bellicose pegasus in some irritation.
"We need to encourage him to take a nap somewhere else," she informed Rainbow Dash. "Princess Celestia has given us this mission," she said very seriously as Rainbow rose to her hooves, "and we must not fail."
At that, Rainbow Dash actually saluted, her own expression solemn as she responded to Twilight's leadership.
"If we do," Twilight continued, "Equestria will be covered in smoke for the next hundred years!" Twilight looked alarmed as she contemplated this prospect.
Fluttershy gasped, shivered in fear. It had just occurred to her that it would be very difficult to get out of this mission. Of course, Twilight wouldn't force her to go along. But -- given how important it was -- if she refused, Twilight Sparkle would never trust her again. And Rainbow Dash -- Fluttershy didn't want to even think about what this would do to the friendship that had been near the center of her world for more than half her life.
But how could she go? Nopony understood the utter terror which the mere thought of facing a full-grown Dragon evoked in her. Let alone the paralysis that would certainly come upon her if she actually had to confront such a creature.
"Hmmph!" snorted Rarity. "Talk about getting your beauty sleep!"
They probably do that to grow and molt. The speculation penetrated the cold fog of fear that had settled over her soul. Even at a moment like this, when she would have to choose between physical and social annihilation, Fluttershy could not be anything but a naturalist.
"All right, everypony," said Twilight Sparkle, throwing some last items into her bags and settling them over her back, "I need you to gather supplies quickly. We've got a long journey ahead of us." She gazed at her friends, her eyes full of determination. "Let's meet back here in less than an hour."
"Okay, girls," said Rainbow Dash, ascending into the air in the center of the library, wings flapping in a hover, eyes shining happily at the prospect of a life-threatening heroic mission, "You heard her!" She somersaulted in midair in sheer joy, dove down to fling her forearms around Rarity and Pinkie Pie, who smiled at the attention. "The fate of Equestria is in our hooves!" She flew to one side and shouted "Do we have what it takes!"
Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie reared up, affirming that they did.
"You betcha!" said Applejack.
"We can do it!" squeaked Pinkie Pie.
"Obviously," added Rarity.
As Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow trotted proudly out of the library, Fluttershy hung back uncertainly, stopping at the door. "Um, actually ..." she started to say.
She wanted to point out to them that a fully-grown Dragon was gigantic, aggressive and dangerous. That its armored scales were proof against any harm six Ponies could wreak. That its breath weapon could annihilate them all in a single spray. That its claws were long enough to impale a Pony as an owl's did a mouse, its teeth capable of crunching through their bones without difficulty. That, in fact, a creature of such size could kill them accidentally, regardless of any international treaties or personal higher purpose, and that it was foolhardy for six poorly-trained mares to face such a monster one-on-one.
That she didn't want to die, and that she didn't want any of her friends to die either.
Fluttershy trudged home in utter horror, her mind a whirl of conflicting terrors. Her life had narrowed to a point of decision, and whatever course she chose, she was doomed.
She wondered briefly how the others felt.
Twilight, she knew, was so consumed by determination to prove herself to her Princess, by the stern code of honor that was the steel hidden beneath the silk of the ladylike Canterlot scholar-mage, that the danger was to her just a mathematical consideration; a set of hazards to be navigated on the path to victory. She had seen Twilight Sparkle like this once before, in the death-zone that was the deep Everfree, standing unafraid before the terrible form of Nightmare Moon. Fluttershy had been out of town the night last week that Twilight had stood up to and defeated an Ursa Minor.
Twilight seemed born for situations like this. Fluttershy knew that she was not.
As for Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy's oldest friend was probably in ecstasy at the thought of getting to fight an actual full-grown Dragon. Pretending to be heroes of the Realm had been fun when they had been young fillies together: Fluttershy knew that it would be far less pleasant in reality. She feared that Rainbow might do something stupid when actually face-to-face with the Dragon.
Face-to-face ... with ... a ... Dragon. She stopped halfway to her house, gasped frantically, deeply, and shivered in her tracks, once again feeling that horrible swirling sensation, the contraction of her vision to a point. She sank onto her belly and whimpered. The change in posture checked her hyperventilation, and in a minute her vision cleared. Strength began to come back into her limbs. Yet she remained prone.
Images flashed through her brain. Huge dragon jaws, clashing shut over her, a moment of incredible pain and bodily violation by immense dagger teeth, before her life fled. Clouds of choking smoke, swathing her, rolling over and over in the furnace-hot breath, her burned and gasping form crushed like jelly under an immense uncaring weight.
Worse -- she cringing safely in a crevice, unnoticed by the great monster as her blue-coated, rainbow-maned protector flashed in to draw off its attention -- only to be met by a vast tail swipe that met that great courage and shining soul and smashed it wantonly against the solid rock of its cave-lair, all that bravery and love snuffed out in a careless instant, a broken and bloodied corpse sliding down the stone wall to the cavern floor, reduced to nothing more than organic deitrus. And she herself -- in this vision Fluttershy survived, to live all her remaining days knowing that somepony far better than herself had thrown away all her great possibilities to preserve Fluttershy's own unworthy hide.
To her even greater shame, Fluttershy could not tell just which nightmare was worse. The death of Rainbow Dash to save herself would scar her soul for the rest of Fluttershy's life, but there would be a "rest of her life." Fluttershy very much wanted to have a "rest of her life." And the fact that she wanted this even if it meant her best friend's death showed that she so very much did not deserve it.
Fluttershy struggled to her feet. Her knees were weak as she walked the rest of the way home.
Rarity ... to her this was probably a question of fashion. What does one wear to face a Dragon? Fluttershy smiled to herself at the thought, then winced at the possibility of lovely, warm-hearted Rarity in a dragon's clutches. Rarity was not as blindly brave as Rainbow Dash, and she was actually better at close combat, so she was more likely to survive. But still ... Fluttershy hoped that Rarity could talk her way out of danger, she was good at that. Rarity's love for Fluttershy was cooler than Rainbow's, it was more purely friendly, but Rarity was someone Fluttershy very much did not want to lose.
Applejack -- she supposed that Applejack was being seen off with kind and loving words, and even more kind and loving packages of food and other supplies, by her family. Her grandmother probably still half saw her as a young filly, but among the Apples the duty to risk one's lives for family and friends went unquestioned -- in their code of honor they were very Pegasus like, by the standards Earth Ponies. Certainly Commander Hurricane, Fluttershy's own ancestor, would have respected and admired Applejack more than he would have his own distant many-times-great-granddaughter, the cowardly Fluttershy.
Pinkie Pie -- Fluttershy had no idea how that strange pink pony perceived the whole situation. She was fairly certain that Pinkie didn't realize her own mortal danger, as she was an insane optimist -- who most of the time seemed to be functioning on the level of a hyperactive filly who had just received her Cutie Mark. Still, she had those strange flashes of intelligence, and even stranger flashes of ... utter strangeness, as if something vast and cool and not entirely Pony was looking out from behind those innocent-seeming blue eyes.
Fluttershy liked Pinkie. It was impossible not to like Pinkie. Certainly, she could at times be very annoying, and Fluttershy wasn't entirely comfortable with the way that she increasingly seemed to be monopolizing Rainbow Dash's attention. Nor was Fluttershy entirely comfortable with her own jealousy in that regard -- she didn't like to think of herself as a Pony who was so petty regarding the attention of her best friend. And if Rainbow Dash was more than just her best friend -- that way lay emotional implications with which Fluttershy was far from comfortable.
Pinkie Pie danced past dangers in blissful ignorance, like the painting of the Fool on a tarot card, and yet somehow she survived. Fluttershy wasn't sure how or why, she had simply noticed it to be true. This was a bright thought in the depths of Fluttershy's depression: for all her recent resentment of her, Fluttershy would not want to see a world bereft of Pinkie Pie.
She was at the door to her cottage now. She had an urge to bolt the door and hide behind it, or flee into the fringes of the Everfree, where at least she knew the dangers did not include a Dragon. If she refused to go now, better if she hid, would Twilight Sparkle pursue her? Would Rainbow Dash?
Perhaps, but she did not think so. They had a mission, given to them by none other than Princess Celestia. And that mission was more important than ensuring the obedience of one Pegasus deserter. She was sure that they could defeat the Dragon without her. Twilight Sparkle was awesome. She could defeat anything, and she would have Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie Pie at her side.
Fluttershy opened the door, stepped inside. Her animals flocked around her, then retreated before the frightened solemnity of her visage. Even the normally-demanding Angel Bunny stepped back. Fluttershy took her sidebags, began piling in canteens, boxes of crackers, loaves of bread, all the supplies one might desire for a trip across rugged and unpopulated countryside.
And if I desert? She supposed that this would be technically a military crime, as she and Rainbow Dash were both in the militia reserve, and a letter from Celestia commanding Twilight to take her friends to face the dragon could be construed as an official call to arms, albeit on a small scale. She didn't think that the Realm would actually pursue it as a criminal matter.
But that's not the point, is it, she admitted to herself.
For one of two things would happen. Either Twilight and her friends would come back from this quest, or they wouldn't.
If they came back, how could they ever forgive her for leaving them in their hour of need? Oh, they might mouth the words, but Fluttershy could see in her mind's eye the looks of disapproval -- of disappointment -- of scorn in their faces.
The hurt in a lovely pair of cerise eyes, as they looked at her and the mind behind them thought "coward." Traitor. How could Loyalty have any love for one who let her down so badly? Rainbow Dash might pretend to forgive her, but Fluttershy would be able to sense the emotions behind her words, would be painfully and horribly aware of the absence of that love which had once burned so brightly.
Rarity -- Rarity might forgive her for real. Rarity understood Fluttershy's weakness, always gave her the benefit of the doubt. But Rarity would not respect her for this. She was not as sternly honorable as was Rainbow, or Applejack, or Twilight herself, but Rarity had a high and indomitable courage of her own, a faith in her fabulosity. She, too, might have made a proper Pegasus. She would still be kind to Fluttershy, but she would from that point on regard her as a thing forever broken.
They would all see her as broken. Which she was. She had been broken years ago, time and time again, until there was nothing of herself but a facade. No heroine, just a cowardly and soft creature, an unfit heir to the legacy of her ancestors, not even a proper Pony at all. Just some weak pathetic thing who everypony foolish enough to befriend had to protect, a burden.
Surely they'd be better without her on this expedition. Wouldn't they?
But there was a worse possibility than her staying behind and them going on the quest and coming back victorious to view her with scorn. At least that way her friends would still be okay, maybe they would even eventually forgive her and come to be her friends again, feed her a little friendship even if Rainbow Dash would probably never gift her with her love again ... she could live on friendship, she could live even with scorn if she knew that her friends were okay.
The worse possibility was that she would stay behind and they would go off and she would never see them again because they wouldn't come back. The Dragon would kill them and afterward maybe Princess Celestia would destroy the Dragon, and there'd be flashes of light on the far horizon and thunder rumbling over the plains and a great mushroom cloud climbing to the stratosphere, and the threat to Equestria would be over and the poets would make new songs about it ... but that wouldn't bring her friends back.
And she'd have to live the rest of her life knowing that perhaps, just perhaps if she'd been there, she might have been able to do something that would have kept them from dying. Knowing that she'd betrayed the only true friends she'd ever had in her life, the only Ponies who had ever really loved her ...
Other than her mother.
She hadn't thought about Sweetwing Wind in a long time. Her mother was five years now in the asylum, five long years of care by strangers -- perhaps not cruel strangers, not even Pegasi were normally cruel, but strangers nonetheless, Ponies who did not really love her.
It had been almost a year since Fluttershy had been to see her mother. She visited her on her mother's birthday, brought her some presents -- not much -- she wasn't allowed much at the asylum. Each time Fluttershy went to visit her, her mother seemed worse, further separated from reality, more paranoid.
Sweetwing would rant -- about her childhood, about the friends of her youth, most of whom had completely deserted her when she went mad. She would rant about things that Fluttershy knew were all too true -- about a certain menhir-crowned hill deep in the Palomino Desert where it faded into the Badlands, a hellish cave-riddled mesa that overlooked it, and the creatures that lived in that mesa, all black-shelled and buzzy and glowing-eyed, things able to assume or drop Pony form in flashes of green fire ...
... creatures who Fluttershy knew with horrid certainty to be real, for she knew that she had herself been sired by one of them. Within Fluttershy, under the facade of yellow fur and pink hair, behind her soft blue eyes, a monster slept. A monster that needed love to live, that could sense that love empathically, could drain it for strength, that could employ that strength to fuel an incredible and frightening power. The Stare, the power to overwhelm another's will. It could do much more, so much more than stun fish and worms. It wanted to do much more, which is why Fluttershy so greatly feared that side of herself.
And she ranted about Dragons.
Fluttershy had never fully understand why -- perhaps it was because of Sweetwing's brother Leed Wing, who had disappeared on a mission to the Northern Isles across the Stormy Sea, presumably slain by Dragons -- but her mother was utterly convinced that Equestria in general and Cloudsdale in particular was destined to suffer an invasion of Dragons, that they would specifically come looking for herself and her daughter, to slaughter them in any number of horrible and explicitly-described fashions.
From her earliest fillyhood memories, Fluttershy remembered her mother going on and on and on about the Dragons. Calling her inside from play, barring the doors, shuttering the windows, crouching fearfully in their cloud house, turning off all the lights, demanding complete silence for fear that they might attract the attention of a patrolling Dragon. It wasn't until she had started school that Fluttershy had realized that the dragons were imaginary, that they lived only in her mother's morbid mind. And it wasn't until Fluttershy had been much older that she understood that they were a defense mechanism, a substitute for something else -- perhaps the hostility of her own family -- that Sweetwing feared too much to openly name.
Dragons were not the only thing that Sweetwing feared, of course There were Buzzies, and Griffons, and Simurghs -- a whole bestiary of improbable aerial attackers, massing in some great alliance specifically to persecute Sweetwing's little branch of the Wind Clan.
And then there were other Ponies. There were spies who watched her for signs of weakness (Fluttershy later learned that this may have been half-genuine, as her uncle Windvane at one point had hired detectives to investigate his sister Sweetwing, in hopes of finding her engaged in some sort of illegal or immoral conduct). There were brigands, who lurked right outside and sometimes inside Cloudsdale, waiting to snatch up a little pegasus filly like Fluttershy and rob her or kill her or commit other half-specified atrocities upon her helpless person. And bullies, who would taunt and beat Fluttershy, eventually escalating to maiming and murder. (The bullies were real enough, though not in the numbers or to the degree of viciousness Sweetwing imagined, and around the time they began to afflict her seriously, Fluttershy had found Rainbow Dash to protect her).
By the time that Fluttershy, at fourteen, learned of the one key element of her mother's ravings which had actually been true, she had long since come to realize that Sweetwing was hopelessly mad.
But by then, the damage had been done.
Fluttershy was afraid of Dragons. Not with the ordinary, healthy fear that a Pegasus should have for a flying carnivorous archosaur many times her length and mass, armed with claws and teeth able to tear through stone, a breath weapon able to destroy everything within a wide cone, and scales thick enough to turn most pegasus-portable weapons. No, Fluttershy feared Dragons with a visceral and unreasoning terror that made her heart stop and her wings clench in paralysis at the mere thought of any close meeting with such a creature. And the mere fact that Fluttershy knew her fears were irrational did not mean that she could overcome them. Phobias did not work that way.
It was strange about Spike. She didn't fear the little Dragon, quite to the contrary, she rather liked him. He was friendly and funny and sometimes when she hugged him she could feel the warm slightly-alien affection boiling off his scales. It tasted somehow spicier than normal Pony love. She wondered if she would ever get to see him grow up, and if she would fear him when he got larger. She supposed not -- it was difficult for her to imagine Spike as anything other than a friend.
But Spike was the exception.
This Dragon they would be facing would be no friend -- he might not be an active enemy, he would almost certainly not want to actually start killing Ponies, not because he loved Ponies but because he feared the wrath of Celestia. But he had come here for a reason, and his draconic pride would not let him retreat easily, not from six seemingly-ordinary mares, not even if they bore with them the mandate of Celestia herself. All the old sagas, all the histories, had been very clear on this point.
There would be a confrontation, a confrontation that would pit them against the will and power of a great beast. A great intelligent creature, not amenable to her ability to befriend mere animals. Strongwilled, perhaps immune or at least resistant even to The Stare.
And if they made a mistake, they could very easily wind up dead. All of them.
She didn't want to do this.
But she had to do this. If she didn't at least try, she would never be able to face her friends again. If her friends perished because she was not there, she would not have saved her life at all. She knew what lay down that path.
She opened a locked drawer, withdrew a thin dagger with an antique ivory handle, pulled it from her sheath, examined it briefly. No signs of rust or tarnish -- it had been forged some fifteen hundred years ago from old titanium steel alloy, the wonder-metal of the Golden Age that had ended in the Cataclysm twenty-five hundred years even earlier. Provided that one occasionally honed the blade, it was as sharp and deadly as it had been the day it had left its armory in the lost City of the North-Realm.
It was the ancestral honor-blade of the Wind Clan, an artifact which her uncle Windvane would dearly have loved to possess, and it was not really a weapon in the conventional sense. For it was not meant to harm enemies, but rather to remind her of the course of honor, and -- should she fail to steer that course -- to redeem her honor in the only coin that could purchase something so precious -- her own heart's blood.
Fluttershy gazed at the blade. Light glinted from its lovely little length, a light which reflected in her own blue eyes, and she was resolved.
I'll try. I don't know how far I'll get, I don't know if my courage will fail at some crucial point, but I'll try. I can't desert my friends. I can't let them down without even trying.
She resheathed the blade, put it back in the drawer, closed and locked the compartment. The honor-blade was far too puny, physically, to be of any use in fighting a dragon. But by reminding Fluttershy of who she really was, from what she had come, it had already played its part.
I will face the dragon, she thought, trembling. I hope I can still feel this way when I'm actually on top of that mountain, but I will try to face the dragon.
There was a scent of sulfur in the air, whose origin she knew well. But the darkness within Fluttershy was clearing, at least for now.
Were this a children's fantasy, especially of the morally-improving animated kind which became so popular some decades after the end of the Shadow Wars -- preferably one with cute yet oddly sober-toned talking hairless monkeys -- Fluttershy's decision would have been the end of her inner conflict. Her fear would have been conquered, the matter settled, and the rest of the story would have simply been about facing and fighting the monster.
Things were, of course, not so simple in the real world of Equestria.
To begin with, Fluttershy understandably wanted to seek some sort of safety. Unfortunately, she owned no suit of armor: what she managed to dig up was an old hoofball uniform from her Flight School days, complete with helmet, chest pads and foot guards.
When Rainbow Dash saw this getup, her first reaction was to laugh. Not quietly and decorously -- this was Rainbow Dash, after all. Instead, she guffawed, clutching her sides, launching herself, tumbling repeatedly in midair, to sink to the ground rolling around, pointing and laughing uncontrollably.
Thankfully, none of Fluttershy's other friends witnessed this. Fluttershy shrunk into a little ball, wishing she could somehow vanish entirely out of reality, perhaps to drop back in again after a millennium or so when everypony had forgotten this embarrassment. Instead, she simply dashed back off home, disposed of the hoofball gear. Which truth be told was a bit too heavy and confining to be ideal for a long march, and had the distinct disadvantage, as Fluttershy quickly realized, of being almost entirely useless against the formidable set of natural weaponry possessed by a fully-grown Dragon.
When she returned, Applejack and Pinkie Pie had arrived, and she noticed that Rainbow Dash was looking at the orange Earth Pony with some resentment. Fluttershy also noticed that the rainbow-hued paint with which Rainbow had previously decorated her face, had been removed.
"I still think it would have been awesome," grumbled Rainbow Dash, glaring at Applejack.
"T'aint camoflague," pointed out Applejack. "You were standing out like some kind of Bird of Paradise."
"Paradise has some really neat birds," observed Pinkie Pie. Nopony, including Fluttershy, had any idea to what Pinkie referred, and as usual they simply dismissed it.
"Right," said Rainbow Dash sarcastically. "Like the dragon is going to overlook my mane. Want me to shave it bald?"
"Naw," said Applejack with exaggerated good cheer. "Ah'll gladly clip it for you. I think I got some shears packed in mah travel bags," she continued. "Pinkie, you want to hold her down for me?"
"Okey-dokey!" replied Pinkie Pie, taking a step toward Rainbow Dash, who immediately went airborne.
"Touch my mane and I'll wallop you!" promised Rainbow Dash.
"Jest funnin'," laughed Applejack. "You can keep your purty purty mane."
Rainbow glared at her.
Rarity stepped onto the scene. She was wearing a dappled-green hat, tipped at a jaunty angle and embellished with a bright red rose and pink and violet feathers. "I hope I'm not tardy," she said, "but I wanted to make sure that my camouflage hat made the proper splash, so to speak. Gets noticed."
"Ah think yer missing the whole concept of "camouflage," said Applejack drily. "The idea's to not be noticed."
"Oh no, darling," Rarity replied. "One always desires to be noticed." She looked at Fluttershy and smiled. " All ready for our great quest?"
"Um, no?" Fluttershy said, in a very small voice.
"Wonderful, said Rarity, smiling. She had obviously not even clearly heard Fluttershy's reply.
"Yeah, this is going to be awesome!" shouted Rainbow Dash, pumping her right hoof into the air while balancing on both rear hooves with the aid of her wings.
"Whee!" cried Pinkie Pie, bouncing about merrily.
"Yee-haw!" shouted Applejack enthusiastically, rising on her hind hooves to kick her forelegs at the air. "Let's go!"
The others whooped enthusiastically. Lost in the commotion was Fluttershy's opinion.
"Um, let's ... not?" she squeaked.
Nopony heard her.
At that moment the door to the Golden Oaks Library swung open and Twilight Sparkle stepped forth. Her face was solemn, her whole manner very serious; she looked every inch a leader.
Moved by some impulse they could barely name, Rainbow Dash and Applejack stood at attention in line as if they were Royal Guards; Rarity followed Applejack's lead, and Pinkie Pie, smiling happily, stood next to Rarity. Fluttershy, trembling every step of the way, crept up to join her friends' impromptu formation.
"All right girls," Twilight said, "listen up. I'm mapping out the fastest route, but we've all got to keep a good pace if we expect to make it up the mountain by nightfall." She had seen that they had instinctively assumed the role of her guards, and she as instinctively stepped into the role of their commander.
Which she was, essentially. She was acting as a representative of Princess Celestia herself, who had ordered her to drive out this dragon; her five friends had volunteered to follow her, and thus were her deputies in this matter. Twilight had spent many hours watching her brother Shining Armor and the other Royal Guards in training, and she was of a class used to taking charge in a crisis. While she was not about to hold her friends to strict military discipline, she knew that firm leadership was their best hope of succeeding at their mission, without suffering any losses.
Fluttershy, however, had noticed the key element in Twilight's statement. "M-m-mountain?" she stammered in fear, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints.
Twilight pointed down the valley to the southwest, toward the nearest reach of the White Tail Hills and the huge mountain that towered above its companion heights.
"The dragon is in that cave at the very top," she informed them.
"Looks pretty cold up there," commented Applejack, frowning.
"You bet it is," asserted Rainbow Dash, clearly happy to be in her literal element. "The higher you go, the chillier it gets." She grinned at Applejack, as if daring her to brave the frigid weather.
"Good thing I brought my scarf," said Rarity smugly, opening her bag and withdrawing a long white-and-pink striped garment of the type mentioned.
"Ooh!" said Pinkie Pie, acting almost mesmerized by the way the colorful woolen length waved in Rarity's grip. "Pretty!"
Rainbow Dash laughed scornfully. "Oh yeah," she commented. "That'll keep ya nice and cozy."
Fluttershy shivered as she considered how cold the climate might be atop a peak that high. She did not herself enjoy high flying, but she was well aware of the point Rainbow Dash had mentioned.
She looked up at the smoke-wreathed summit. Way up. Way, way up. Fluttershy trembled. She had just realized that it was a long, long way up to the top. She gulped in fear as she considered the implications.
Fluttershy was afraid of heights. This seemed silly for a Pegasus -- was silly for a Pegasus, but Fluttershy knew that in moments of extreme terror her wings would fold tight shut. Pegasi did this on the ground in social situations to indicate extreme submission. It was a gesture which was worse than useless when the entity to which the submission was being made was gravity -- gravity would still dash one against the unforgiving ground below, and with her flight field shut down by the closure of its radiating surfaces, such a collision would probably be fatal.
Fluttershy had once in her life already almost died that way: that had been the time the butterflies had saved her and she had received her Cutie Mark. She could reasonably guess that if this happened again, there would be no swarm of butterflies to save her, and all she would receive would be massive and probably mortal injuries.
She did not want to go up a mile-high mountain.
Maybe if she voiced her fears to Twilight Sparkle, her friend would understand and decide that she didn't want Fluttershy on this expedition?
Fluttershy looked over at Twilight. The lavender mage had just unrolled a map, suspending it in midair with her aura, and was comparing it to the terrain she could see stretched out before her.
"Um ... excuse me, Twilight?" said Fluttershy, in what was almost a direct fashion by her own standards. "I know you're busy, but..."
"Uh-huh," replied Twilight, in a minimum acknowledgement of Fluttershy's presence. She bent over the map. "Well, we could go this way ..." she muttered to herself.
"But ... If I could just have a second?" asked Fluttershy in a friendly fashion, putting a little more energy into her voice.
"Uh-huh," said Twilight again. She looked at another portion of the map. "No," she said decisively, "we want to avoid that." Her hoof poked at that part of her map, by way of emphasis.
"So ... um ..." said Fluttershy. "I was thinking that ... uh ..." It was remarkably difficult to directly say it. She kept thinking back to her previous fears that all her friends would despise her ... but surely they wouldn't if Twilight told her to stay home? ... and what if her friends died ... but, no, they were in Twilight's capable hooves. "Maybe I should just ... stay here in Ponyville." The last she said quickly, and as she did she felt greatly ashamed.
"Uh-huh," said Twilight casually, poring over another part of the map.
She doesn't mind!
"Oh!" cried Fluttershy in surprised relief. "Good." She turned and began walking slowly away. "I'll stay here, and --"
Twilight did not react for a full second, then suddenly realized what Fluttershy had said.
"Wait!" Twilight called out. "You have to come! Your way with wild animals will surely come in handy!"
Fluttershy stopped in her tracks, caught both by the instinct to follow her leader, and more deeply by her own sense of duty. She turned around slowly. "I -- don't think I --"
"Oh," Twilight added, "and don't worry about your little friends in the meadow. Spike's got it covered while you're gone."
Fluttershy glanced down to see the little purple-and-green Dragon amiably looking back up at her, mild affection emanating from him.. He was carrying several of Fluttershy's animal friends, and being followed by several more.
"You can count on me!" Spike said loyally, striking a dramatic pose.
Angel Bunny climbed up on Spike's head and began drumming on his skull with one hind foot.
"Hey!" cried Spike as he dropped the animals. "Hey!" a bit more frantically as they ran off in all directions. "Wait!" Spike ran off in pursuit.
"I don't really think he's up to the task," Fluttershy pointed out doubtfully, as Twilight rolled up her map and replaced it in her travel bag. "Maybe... " She noticed that Twilight was already walking away. "But... But... no!" The last despairing squeak verged on the ultrasonic.
Rainbow Dash flew over to Twilight Sparkle and said something to her in a whisper. Fluttershy couldn't hear it, but from the looks they both shot back at her it was obvious that she was the topic of discussion.
They probably both despise me now, Fluttershy thought in despair. She looked down morosely, and suddenly spotted an big shadow beneath her. If that's being cast by something airborne, she realized, it must be immense -- a Dragon! "Aaah!" she cried out, rearing away from it in terror, then leaping into a bush for its scant safety.
As she poked her head out she noticed that Rainbow Dash was giving Twilight Sparkle an I told you so sort of look.
She then realized that she had, literally, been spooked by her own shadow.
Twilight Sparkle merely walked a bit ahead. Then she turned to her friends.
"All right, girls!" Twilight called back with cheerful determination. "Move out!"
They galloped off toward the moujntain, Fluttershy all the while uttering semi-articulate protests as she was borne along in the general charge, emotionally-unable not to follow her friends.
"But ... but ..." she tried to say. Then she shrieked.
After a while the road climbed, and they were in the mountain's foothills.
Suddenly there echoed through the vale the most terrifying sound Fluttershy had ever heard, worse by far than the roar of a bear or even manticore, worse in its sheer primal savagery even than the more sophisticated madness of Nightmare Moon's laughter. It was a low, basso snarling rumble, suggestive in its undertones of air being forced through complex and immense vocal passages, of the sort which would require a head considerably larger than an entire Pony, indeed larger than most Pony houses. There was a hideous bestial fury in that sound, combined with an even more horrible hint of supernal intelligence.
Everypony stopped in their tracks. Fluttershy gasped in utter terror and hid behind the largest nearby object, which happened to be Applejack's hindquarters.
"Whoa ..." said Rainbow Dash, clearly impressed. "What was that?"
"That," said Twilight Sparkle calmly, as she stopped and pointed, "was what it sounds like when a Dragon snores." There was a hint of friendly good-humor in the last words, that implied that a Dragon was merely yet another routine obstacle, one that the proper application of courage and intellect could easily conquer. Everypony relaxed at that tone.
Well, most of them did.
Fluttershy poked her head back up over the bush of Applejack's luxuriant golden tail. She followed Twilight's gaze upward to the mountain top, and shuddered. "It's so ... so ..." she was having trouble finding the right word for it. "... high," she concluded, logically but a bit obviously.
Rainbow Dash flew overhead, looked down at Fluttershy scornfully.
"Well, it is a mountain," Rainbow said. She gazed up at the peak. "I'm gonna fly up there and check it out!" she declared.
Fear flared higher in Fluttershy's heart. She remembered her previous mental image of a small, bloodstained blue corpse in a dragon's lair.
Rainbow gathered and launched herself upward in a trail of rainbow contrail. This launch was abruptly aborted as a pair of strong orange jaws closed on her tail. "Wah!" she cried.
"Hold on, now," pointed out Applejack, releasing Rainbow's tail.. "Ah think we should all go up together. Safety in numbers an' all."
Twilight, Pinkie and Rarity gave looks of silent assent.
"Oh, all right," said Rainbow Dash, crossing her arms before her and pouting in mid-air. She was clearly a bit miffed that she was not going to immediately get to be the great hero of the quest.
***
Five Ponies started up the mountain, walking directly up a steep slope.
Applejack was in the lead, grasping hold after hold with her sure hooves. Rainbow Dash slowly paced her in the sky, her every bodily line radiating discontent at her inability to simply shoot up to the summit. Following Applejack single file were Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Twilight, who was simultaneously climbing and checking her map.
Watching from the valley below, completely ignored by the others, was Fluttershy She regarded the sloping cliff before her, considering the perils of putting her hooves on that stone, and flinching at the at the prospect. Maybe I can work up the nerve -- she thought. No, not yet -- maybe a bit later ...? She stood there, trembling in fear and despising herself for it.
Rarity and Pinkie Pie were joking about the prospects of gaining treasure from the dragon's hoard. All four mares save for Twilight Sparkle laughed at the thought.
No, that wouldn't be good, thought Fluttershy, a Dragon would hate it if you took any treasure from his hoard. She might have said something to the effect, had she not been down here and they up there.
Twilight said something in annoyance and they fell silent. Then she turned to speak to Fluttershy, and finally noticed that she wasn't beside her.
"Hey!" Rainbow Dash shouted down to Fluttershy. "What are you waiting for? An invitation?"
"Ooo!," cried Pinkie Pie in excitement, popping out of sight behind a ledge. "I think I have one! In my bag!". There was a popping sound as one of her party favors exploded. Confetti sprayed everywhere.
Fluttershy looked up the cliff and hid behind a bush. She was quaking in fear. "I-it's so... so... steep" she finally said.
"Well," pointed out Rainbow Dash sarcastically, waving at the mountain face, "it is a cliff. You could just, oh, I don't know, fly up here?"
Fluttershy cringed at the contempt in that beloved voice, saying nothing in reply. There was nothing she could say. She knew she was a coward, and now everypony else knew as well. She wished she could just dwindle away into a point.
"C'mon, Fluttershy," cried Pinkie Pie in encouragement, "you can do it! Flap those wings!" She waved one hoof as if it were a wing, by way of illustration.
"Oh... okay," said Fluttershy, squeezing her eyes and tensing her body to launch into flight. She made an incoherent soft little cry, flapped her wings, and suddenly found herself flying, hovering halfway up to the point the others had attained.
At that moment the Dragon made a second mumbling, grumbling, roaring snore.
Ice stabbed through Fluttershy's heart. She whimpered in terror, her wings folded tight to her sides, and she plummeted down into the bushes.
With her flight field mostly shut down, she felt almost all the impact. She was fortunate to have fallen into the bush -- otherwise she might have broken a leg. As it was, branches poked her in the barrel and belly; bruised her limbs. She staggered out of the foliage, grunting softly in pain. She tried to unfurl her wings again, but the muscles were locked in hysterical paralysis.
More painful than any consequence of the impact was the look of scorn on the face of Rainbow Dash.
"Ugh!" said Twilight Sparkle. "We don't have time for this."
Fluttershy could tell that Twilight was barely able to contain her frustration. She despises me too, now, she thought in despair.
Applejack grabbed Twilight's map.
"What are you doing?" asked Twilight.
"Ah'll need this, if Ah'm going to take her around the mountain another way." Applejack consulted the map, rolled it up and put it in her own travel bag.
"Aughhh," groaned Rainbow Dash in disgust. "Around the mountain? That's gonna take them forever."
Ignoring Rainbow Dash, Applejack made an expert leap, and slid right down the steep slope on all four hooves. She pullled into a perfect side-slide near the bottom, grinned encouragingly at Fluttershy, and hopped off.
The dragon roared again.
Fluttershy gave up trying to unfurl her wings. Instead, she rolled right over on her back, all four legs in the air, and eyes wide open in terror, right before the startled Applejack.
Applejack looked back up the mountain. "Don't worry, Twi," she said affectionately. "We'll be there lickety-split."
***
Applejack had first tried to get Fluttershy to her hooves, to get her to climb the mountain with her under her own power.
This failed to work. When Applejack physically rolled Fluttershy right side up, she stood on her hooves all right -- in a stiff-legged and unnatural posture, eyes still fixed in a thousand-yard-stare, mind racing on the doom that she could scent in the sulfur-laden air, feel in the air all around her, sense in her own bones every time the Dragon roared. Applejack tried to encourage Fluttershy to walk, but her voice came to Fluttershy as if from a great distance or heard through water, far less relevant than the terror coursing through her veins, the frantic pounding of her own heart.
Finally, Applejack simply rolled Fluttershy over her own back, legs hanging down and almost scraping the ground -- Fluttershy was a tall slim mare, while Applejack was by comparison stocky and powerful -- and fastened her there with her lariat. This was not the safest way to climb a mountain, but Applejack had already discovered that if she did not tie Fluttershy to her, Fluttershy would simply slide off.
"Cain't have that happenin' at the edge of a cliff," Applejack reasoned, looping the rope around both their barrels.
Fluttershy was in a daze as all this happened to her. She neither helped nor resisted. Fluttershy could feel Applejack's warm hide against her belly, her long blonde mane whipping across her face in the wind, the clean sweet soap-and-sweat-and-apples scent that was Applejack, sensed the even cleaner lifescent of Applejack's soul.
Applejack was saying something to her as she walked up the winding trail, something that Fluttershy could only make out bits and pieces of through her fog of fear. The tone sounded kindly, as did the few words she could focus upon. "It's okay," she was able to focus on. "No need to fear." And, of course, the repeated endearment, "sugarcube."
She extended her special senses gingerly, expecting to be overwhelmed by the Earth Pony's utter contempt. To her surprise, she all she could detect were concern, gentleness, friendship. Very slightly, Fluttershy tapped that friendship, and the haze of terror around her lifted just a tiny bit.
"See, we're almost a third of the way up there now," Applejack was saying. "Nice wide trail. Plenty of hold for mah hooves. No need to be scared."
"I'm not as scared now," Fluttershy squeaked.
"Oh good, you're comin' out of it," Applejack said brightly. "Good to see yuh."
"I'm sorry," Fluttershy said.
"Whut for?" asked Applejack.
"All the trouble I'm causing."
"Trouble?" asked Applejack. "Well, you ain't doin' it on purpose," she pointed out, "and we all need help from time to time. That's whut friends're for."
"You're not scared," said Fluttershy. "You're never scared."
"Don't be silly," said Applejack. "Course'm scared. We all are."
"You don't seem scared," said Fluttershy.
"No point makin' a big show of it," Applejack said. "Look -- when you're goin' into real danger, only an idjit ain't scared. Question is, what do you do about it?"
"Run away?" asked Fluttershy.
"You can," Applejack said. "Ah could too. Ah could run right down off this mountain, any time Ah want to."
"Then why don't you?" Fluttershy asked.
"Ah'd be lettin' mah friends down," Applejack explained. "And mah family. If we run away, and this Dragon stays, he'll pizen all of Sweet Apple Acres in time. All of Ponyville. Maybe the whole plain between Dunnich and Canterlot."
"I know," said Fluttershy sadly. "And drive all my animal friends out of their territory. Many of them will die."
"Course," reflected Applejack, "it's not as if the Sun Princess will let the Dragon just stay up there. If we fail, she'll send other forces. Maybe kick him out herself."
"Wait, you know that?" squeaked Fluttershy.
"Yep," said Applejack. "Matter o'fact, Ah saw the Moon Princess and a squadron o' Night Guards makin' for the hills west of here, not so long ago. Ah reckon this is only part of a bigger invasion, an' our mission's just one of many in kickin' them lizards back home."
"Archosaurs," said Fluttershy quietly.
"What?" asked Applejack.
"They're archosaurs," she repeated. "Like birds, or crocodiles."
"Wow," said Applejack. "Ah did not know that. Ah mean Ah know that birds came from reptiles -- Ah read books, after all -- but Ah did not know that birds, crocodiles and dragons were all related like that. Thank you, Fluttershy."
"For what?" Fluttershy asked.
"Fer teachin' me somethin' new." Applejack turned her head back and smiled at her. Her face was open and friendly, her eyes a beautiful shade of green. "Hey, do you think you're up to walkin' on your own four hooves now?"
Fluttershy considered. The fear had receded for now.
"I suppose I am," Fluttershy said. "I might get scared again."
"It's all right," Applejack said. "Ah'll still be your friend then, too."
Applejack loosened the cords, and the two separated. Applejack stretched and grinned. "That feels better!" she said. "Ah love you, Fluttershy, but two on one pony's hooves ain't the easiest way of climbin' a mountain!"
They went up a bit further, Applejack leading, Fluttershy following in her hoofsteps.
"If you know it's dangerous," Fluttershy said after a time, "and you know that Princess Celestia will handle it even if we fail, why do you want to do it?"
"Cause it matters to Twahlight," Applejack said. "The Princess gave her these orders to see if she could handle the job. Showin' her that she can is very important to Twah -- Ah'm not gonna let mah friend down. And ... and also cause we Apples don't just wait around for somepony to save us from trouble, not when we can do somethin' about it our ownsome. Jest not our way."
"I can understand that," said Fluttershy. "I'm -- we Winds have a similar tradition. Death before dishonor. Seriously."
Applejack nodded. "We Apples ain't as formal about it," she said, "but it amounts tah the same thing."
"And I'm afraid for Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy added quickly.
"Really?" said Applejack. "Ah would think Miss Rainbow Dash can handle herself, more than most." She kept looking ahead up the trail, and Fluttershy could not see her expression.
"She's too brave," Fluttershy explained. "She'll throw herself into a fight without thinking about the odds. What if she tries to do that when we face the ... the .... you know, what's on top of the mountain?" she concluded.
Applejack turned, gave her friend a searching look. "Ah can see where that might be a problem," she acknowledged.
"I want to help," Fluttershy said breathily. "I want to be there for her. But all that happens is that I freeze up again and again and wind up letting her down. And worse -- what if I freeze up and she tries to save me and -- and it costs her everything?" Her eyes were moist now. "If anything happened to Rainbow Dash because I failed her, I could never forgive myself!"
Applejack's expression softened. "Aw, sugarcube, Ah know that she means the world t'you."
"You do?" asked Fluttershy.
"Yep," Applejack said. "She's one'a mah best friends, too, you know. She talks about you sometimes. It's plain as dew on a mornin' field that she thinks the world of you. And anyone seein' you two together, the looks you give each other -- you ain't hidin' nothin', you know."
Fluttershy blushed. But -- for the first time since she had heard those roars -- she was smiling.
"She still thinks the world of you now," Applejack continued. "She was just a little frustrated-like, that you couldn't just fly up with her. She don't always understand how others feel. She don't even understand how she feels, half the time. But she still loves you. Ah can tell that."
"She's always tried to be there for me," Fluttershy said. "Always tries to save me from whatever stupid mess I get into. What if this time the mess is -- that thing up there -- and she bites off more than she can chew?"
"Ah can see why that worries you," agreed Applejack. "But think about this. What if, this time, she needs you to save her from whatever stupid mess she gets into? Don't you want to make sure that you're there fer her, if'n that happens?"
"Then how can I make the right choice?" asked Fluttershy, in almost a despairing wail.
"Ah don't rightly know the answer to that," Applejack admitted. "Ah've made some choices in mah life, an' some were right and some were wrong and some Ah still ain't sure about. Ah can't claim to know it all. But there's one thing Ah do know ..."
"What's that?"
Applejack turned and gazed deeply into Fluttershy's eyes. Fluttershy found herself almost drowning in those clear green pools.
"If'n a friend's goin' into danger, and you're there with her, you might be able to do somethin' to help her when she needs it. If'n you're not there, sure as shootin' ain't nothin' you can do to help her. Do you understand that?"
Fluttershy nodded.
"Good!" said Applejack cheerfully. "Now let's trot right smart up this trail, and see that we don't make Twah wait too long!" She gave Fluttershy a broad grin.
Fluttershy smiled in return, and they trotted up the mountain.
***
It would have been beautiful to have reported that they arrived at the conjunction of the trails energetic and happy, with Fluttershy proudly clip-clopping along under her own power.
Unfortunately, in deference to Applejack's own iron code of ethics, Honesty must trump Beauty here, and in point of fact, when they were three-quarters of the way to the meeting place, the Dragon essayed a truly terrible series of snores. Smoke billowed, the mountain shook, dust and small pebbles rollled down its face, and even Abigail Jacqueline Apple herself felt what she later described as "a mite perturbed" at this ominous display of Dragon-might.
As for Fluttershy, she gave a stifled little shriek. Her pupils shrunk to points, her ears pinned back, and she fainted dead away. Applejack actually had to catch her before she slid off the side of the trail in a fall which could have been fatal and certainly would have been unpleasant in its consequences to the yellow-and-pink pegasus. Afterward, her eyes opened but they were once again wide, terrified and focused on nothing Applejack could perceive. And this time, the ground was too narrow for Applejack to feel entirely safe tossing Fluttershy over her back -- a mistake might be lethal to her Pegasus friend.
So it was that, when Fluttershy again came into view of her friends, she was flat on her back, legs pointed stiffly up at the air, eyes wide open and unseeing, and being dragged backward by her tail by Applejack.
"We ... made it," gasped Applejack, sinking to her own belly in exhaustion. She would clearly need a little rest herself before resuming the ascent.
As Fluttershy's head flopped over to regard her friends, she saw Rainbow Dash, flying upside down, whisper something into Twilight's ear with what looked like a very exasperated expression.
Twilight Sparkle, for her part, merely looked disappointed. Very disappointed.
Fluttershy was unsure just which expression stung her worse.
From the small plateau, they continued up the mountainside.
The trail snaked up along the side of a winding crevasse, at the bottom of which flowed a stream. Rainbow Dash scouted, flitting around them, while Twilight led the way, followed by Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Applejack and Fluttershy formed the rear, with Applejack perforce at the extreme rear because she had to keep nudging Fluttershy's actual rear to keep the frightened Pegasus moving. At points, Fluttershy's legs locked completely, and Applejack physically pushed her along the trail.
Fluttershy knew that Applejack was constantly helping her, practically babying her up the mountain. One really amazing thing was that the orange Earth Pony remained unwaveringly kind and considerate to Fluttershy, no matter what difficult and exhausting thing she had to do in order to keep Fluttershy moving while preventing her from tumbling off the side of the ledge on which they marched. Fluttershy was grateful to Applejack for this.
She was also humiliated. The terrifying snores had stopped, but her fear just wouldn't leave her. She was showing to all her friends that she was a total coward, a weakling, unfit to be of their august company. Nopony else was like this. Twilight was determined, professional, the friend submerged in the role of leader. Rarity might have been tiring a bit, but she remained jaunty and unintimidated by the bleak landscape and the rotten-eggs smell of the Dragon's emissions, now tinged with an unmistakable odor like that of some impossibly-great crocodile. Pinkie Pie was now walking normally instead of bouncing, but her mien remained optimistic.
And Rainbow Dash ...
Fluttershy didn't even want to look at Rainbow Dash. She didn't want to see the contempt and scorn that she knew must be fixed on Rainbow's face now, every time she saw Fluttershy. Fluttershy was disgracing not only herself, not only her ancient Wind clan, but the whole Pegasi Kind, forcing Rainbow Dash to uphold the honor of their race all by herself. Were it not for Fluttershy's own unworthy fear, Rainbow Dash would have a wingpony to ease the task of scouting, to watch her back should some danger manifest. If anything happened, Fluttershy knew she would be able only to watch helplessly as her oldest and dearest friend fell to her doom.
The others didn't understand this. They were wonderful Ponies, but they were not Pegasi. They did not have the same Traditions. They did not realize how profoundly Fluttershy was betraying Rainbow Dash -- her friendship, and her love. She was so very unworthy of her best friend -- so unworthy to be her friend, let alone more.
But she could not help looking. Rainbow Dash was so fleet, so agile, so perfect as she darted above. She was the distillation of everything Fluttershy admired in her own Kind -- so full of courage, of spirit, of high ideals. She had known her share of blowhards and bullies among her own maternal kin -- but the very fact that there were Pegasi like Rainbow Dash affirmed the merits and the honor of the race.
Once, they had been fillies together. Once, they had giggled as they pretended to be heroines of Equestria, going up against perilous foes. Reality had caught up with their games, and Rainbow Dash was throwing herself against the foe with the same gusto she had shown in their fillyhood frolicking, the same eagerness for fame and glory, undaunted by the fact that there really was a ... a dangerous enemy ... at the top of that mountain.
It was she herself, Fluttershy, who was letting her fillyhood friend down. She who was showing herself to be a worthless coward.
She wanted to cry, but crying would only make her shame all the worse.
***
After some walking, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie came to an obstacle. The course they needed to take crossed the crevasse, where the trail continued on the other side. However, there was no bridge, and it was a long drop to the stream many hundreds of feet below. The three Ponies stopped for a moment to size-up the gap.
Rainbow Dash galloped along the trail and athletically leaped the gap, flapping her wings to increase her hang time. Observing that the ground on the far side was firm, Twilight and Rarity realized it was a fairly easy jump and bounded across it themselves, followed by Pinkie Pie and Applejack.
Fluttershy stood indecisively at the edge, looking across the abyss to her friends on the far side.
"It's your turn, Fluttershy," said Twilight gently.
Fluttershy clung to an outcropping on the near side, as if the ledge were likely to suddenly tilt and pitch her down to the stream below. "But ..." she said, "it's so ... wide."
"Come on, Fluttershy," repeated Twilight. "We should be much farther along by now."
Applejack smiled warmly at Fluttershy. "You could just ... leap on over," she suggested.
Fluttershy looked doubtfully down into the gorge. The stream was flowing rapidly, and it was a long way down.
"I ..." she began.
Suddenly the Dragon made a horridly-carnivorous sounding noise.
Fluttershy's eyes went wide with fear, and she flung herself to the ground, shivering, teeth chattering like a terrified foal.
"I don't know," she said.
Twilight and Applejack both shook their heads sadly.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," Pinkie Pie piped up. "it's just a hop, skip and a jump." At the word 'jump', Pinkie demonstrated what she meant by bounding across the chasm. "See?" She smiled down at Fluttershy, then began singing:
It's not very far ...
Just move your little rump!
You can make it if you try with a hop, skip and jump!
Once again, on the word 'jump' Pinkie leaped the gap, this time back onto the far side with the others.
Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash looked disgusted.
"We don't have time for this," Twilight said impatiently.
Pinkie Pie continued singing, her beat growing increasingly frentic:
A hop, skip and jump,
Just move your little rump,
A hop, skip and jump,
A hop, skip and jump,
A hop, skip and jump,
A hop skip and jump,
A hop skip and jump!
Like some crazy pronghorn, she bounded back and forth, back and forth over the chasm.
Watching her, Fluttershy smiled.
"O-okay," she said, getting up. "Here I go. A hop ..." she leapt to the edge of the gorge.
"That's it," said Applejack, smiling at her and hoof-pumping the air.
"You've got it," confirmed Twilight.
"Almost there," added Rarity.
"... skip ..." continued Fluttershy, putting her weight on her forelegs and raising her hind legs into the air, then lowering and pushing off with her hind legs to propel her in a leap ...
As she did this, Twilight added some advice of her own: "Just don't look down."
So of course Fluttershy did.
It was a very long way down.
Fluttershy's eyes widened, her pupils pinned to points, and her wings closed. She gave an incoherent little whimper as she fell forward. She closed her eyes, only to feel her front hooves touch the far side ...
... as her rear hooves touched the near side.
She opened her eyes to observe that she was standing spread out across the chasm, which was no wider than the span from the reach of her forelegs to the reach of her back legs, a leap which would have been ridiculously easy for her to make had she not been paralyzed with fear. This was, in fact, why Pinkie Pie had been able to hop back and forth across it in such a manner -- it had not been some strange Pinkie power, but an act well within the normal physical capacity of any Pony of any Kind who happened to be in tolerable good health. Let alone a Pegasus, who even without her wings had legs intended for powerful jumping and light, hollow bones to reduce her total body mass.
Oh, she thought to herself. I'm really an amazing coward. To make matters worse, she was now stuck: if she moved either forelegs or hindlegs, she would tumble into the abysss. Any proper Pegasus, of course, could have gotten out of this by simply unfolding her wings and flying the few feet to safety, but she was no proper Pegasus, and her wings remained paralyzed by what was now a combination of fear and shame..
All her friends were frozen in amazement at her signal failure to surmount such an absurdly tiny gap. Twilight Sparkle said nothing, seeming silently saddened by the spectacle. Rainbow Dash groaned and drew a foreleg across her face in utter disgust.
Rainbow Dash simply flew back over the gorge, got behind Fluttershy and shoved her, pushing forward and up on her bottom, as if she were a mother trying to move a recalcitrant foal. Rarity and Pinkie Pie reached forward, each one grasping one of her forehooves with both of their own.
Fluttershy shot forward to the far side of the canyon. Rainbow Dash, surprised by the degree of force which Rarity and Pinkie had exerted, flew forward even faster, so that Fluttershy wound up on and across Rarity's back.
"I guess I forgot to jump," said Fluttershy, smiling sheepishly. She was so happy to finally be on the other side of that terrible gap that her relief in part overcame her depression.
At least this has to be the worst things get, she thought, before we reach the ... the thing's lair.
She was, of course, dead wrong.
***
The path wound to the right along the edge of the canyon, which lay far below to the left. The ledge widened ahead. Above, the cliff rising to their right looked steep, broken and unstable. Great slabs of rock seemed to be leaning outward, as if it would take put a slight tremor to send them tumbling down onto the trail.
Twilight led the way. Behind her, Applejack kept Fluttershy close company, walking on Fluttershy's left, the better to interpose her own body to block Fluttershy from any slide off the ledge. Following them were Rarity and Pinkie Pie, with Pinkie taking the rear. Above them cruised Rainbow Dash, keeping an aerial eye out for any danger.
"Let's keep it down," said Twilight Sparkle, softly, looking up to her right to eye the obviously-fractured cliffs above them. "According to my map, we're entering an avalanche zone."
Applejack looked up nervously. She clearly did not like the looks of these cliffs either. She slowed her pace, watching them for signs of slippage.
"The smallest peep could cause a huge rock slide," Twilight continued.
The other ponies stopped for a moment, watching Twilight walk forward.
Fluttershy was horrified by the implications. If the rock faces were normally unstable, what would the loud infra-bass of the Dragon snores have been doing to them? She tried to point this out, but her own thoughts terrified her too much for her to speak coherently -- or in a sufficiently low tone of voice.
"An... an ava... ava..." she began, stuttering in a normal conversational tone.
"Shhh!!" hissed Twilight, stopping and turning back to her.
Fluttershy realized that speaking loudly on this -- or any -- topic could make things much, much worse. She decided to remain silent. The chance of the face giving way just as they were passing it was fairly small -- unless, of course, they made noise.
The party resumed their advance, walking in single file. They stepped slowly and carefully, not wanting loud hoof-beats to trigger an avalanche. Twilight was of course in the lead, followed by Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. Rainbow Dash kept pace overhead. Fluttershy, slowed though not quite paralyzed by her fear, lagged behind.
***
At the place where the road bent to the right and around the unstable prominence, a tree clung to the edge of the canyon side, its roots anchoring it precariously to the mountain. The tree grew on the outside of the trail, but some of its branches hung down toward the ledge.
As Rainbow Dash passed the tree, she ran into one of those branches. It was but a glancing collision, hurting Rainbow not at all, and merely dislodging a few leaves from the branch. Fluttershy, cowering down to almost crawl along the ground, failed to notice what was happening ahead and above.
The leaves fluttered down.
One landed just an inch forward of Fluttershy's dock.
***
Fluttershy -- her nerves keyed up almost to the breaking point with the fear that at any moment tons of rock could crush her into paste, felt something touch her back right in front of her tail.
She reared up in blind terror, hooves lashing out to strike at nonexistent foes, and shrieked "AVALA --!"
That was all Fluttershy could get out before Applejack, her eyes wide with almost as much fear and teeth gritted with the effort of not making a sound, grabbed her friend and gagged her with Applejack's own right hoof. For a moment, Fluttershy tensed to struggle, then realized why Applejack was doing this to her. Slowly, carefully, Applejack turned her head and looked up at the cliff face.
Everypony stood rock still, neither moving a muscle nor making a sound, as the echo of Fluttershy' brief cry rebounded back and forth from the canyon walls. For a moment, nopony even breathed.
Nothing happened. The echo died away.
They emitted a collective sigh of relief.
From far, far above -- where a convexity in the cliff prevented them from seeing its upper slope -- came an ominous rumble.
Everypony looked up in dawning fear.
First a sifting of dust, then a few stray pebbles, began to rain upon the trail.
***
Twilight Sparkle, ahead of her friends and facing back toward them, began backing away slowly, her face tense. Even at this terrifying moment, though, her ears remained alert, her eyes looking right at the source of danger, her every sense straining for the information which might mean the difference between life and death for herself and her comrades.
And then the first sizable stones began to fall. First hoof-sized, then head-sized, then bigger. Much, much bigger.
"Avalanche!" they all screamed, fully aware now that any purpose in silence had just passed.
Twilight Sparkle seemed to freeze for a moment, her eyes fixed on the death coming down toward her. Then she darted back along the trail, in the direction from which they had come, as she saw plainly that the bulk of the lithic doom was falling upon the path of their planned advance. As she did so, an immense boulder the size of an ordinary house buried itself into the ground right where she had been standing, and Twilight found herself in a fight for her life.
***
Fluttershy stood paralyzed by fear as she watched what looked like the last moments of her friends' lives.
Pinkie Pie darted forward, shrieking, toward the avalanche. Fluttershy had absolutely no idea why Pinkie would do anything so crazy, but through her fog of fear she did notice a strange method to the pink Earth Pony's progress -- it was as if she knew where the stones would strike, and stepped only into the spaces where they would not. But that, of course, was impossible.
Rarity darted out from a protective overhang past a fallen boulder and made straight for safety, moving with moderate rapidity but extreme determination. She managed to clear the danger zone before any more really large stones could fall in her vicinity.
Applejack followed, not letting even large boulders check her speed -- she simply hopped from one to another, her strength and coordination astounding. She was very aware of her surroundings, or very lucky, or both. At one point she leaped off one boulder the size as a shed, just as a smaller one, the size of her body, slapped against the bigger stone exactly where she had been poised; onto a second large boulder, and then in an arc which took her just short of a house-sized one that slammed into the ground inches ahead of her nose. For a moment -- but a moment -- even Applejack stood still -- first shocked by what had nearly happened to her, then looking around to determine her next course of action.
Rainbow Dash was a streak of light, whipping through and dynamically-dodging the deluge of boulders. She treated the avalanche as an aerial obstacle course -- retro-thrusting and somersaulting to let a huge rock fall ahead of her, then streaking ahead and jinking away from the trajectories of one after another lethal missile. In those few seconds, her life was saved again and again by her flying prowess, while Fluttershy watched with astonishment. Rainbow Dash was, exactly as she imagined herself to be, the ultimate Pegasus.
Suddenly something heavy slapped into Fluttershy's right side. She had time only for a squeak of alarm before a weight pinned her down and the world went dark.
***
Twilight Sparkle was desperately racing toward safety, but she was in the middle of a major fall of huge boulders. Her senses were wide open, her mind attempting to keep track of all the trajectories, discern the patterns the knowledge of which would mean the difference between death and survival. But it was all too complex, too chaotic.
A house-sized boulder descended toward her from ahead and to the right; she dodged left slightly to let it miss her by half a body-length, then raced forward before it could roll onto her. There was a another huge crash farther ahead and to the right of her -- she thought she was safe but then something flashed right in front of her face, nearly grazing her muzzle. It was not foresight, but sheer dumb luck which saved her at that moment.
"Oh no," she said, realizing that her intelligence had failed her, that she had lived through that instant by blind chance -- and that the boulders were falling around her with increasing rapidity. "Help!" she called out uselessly, feeling her courage beginning to give way in a situation where her mind was useless, where her strength and agility were not enough, where the one thing her knowledge told her was that the odds were rapidly mounting against her survival.
She bounded forward, and realized her mistake a moment too late -- she could see the biggest boulder yet falling right for the spot upon which she was about to land. She shrank back, but there was no way to change her course -- time slowed to a crawl as Twilight realized she was going to die, her adventure ending here ...
... and an orange blur came from her right and powerful forelegs picked her up as if she were no more than a foal, bearing her out of the danger zone. Twilight's head turned to see Applejack somehow running on her hind legs alone, leaning far forward in a position rendered even semi-stable only by the immense speed and strength of Applejack's hindquarters. Applejack tucked Twilight into her own belly and rolled, taking the bruising impact of flesh against stone with her own hips and back and shoulders, not letting her leader so much as scrape a limb against the rough surfaces until their speed had slowed sufficiently to render it gentle.
An immense cloud of dust whipped over them both and everything went dark for a while.
***
And behind them, unseen, Pinkie Pie collapsed in exhaustion upon a rock, satisfied in the knowledge that she had succeeded. The effort had drained her -- she had shifted worldline after worldline, grasping at every straw of possiblity, every improbable but conceivable coincidence that could have altered the trajectory of this or that boulder, safely out of sight of any observer and hence not directly threatening causality. She had never done anything this complex on such a scale before -- her mass unweaving of Nightmare Moon's spell in the forest of fear had been by contrast a repetitive effect which merely acted to destabilize an existing alternation of reality. Within Pinkie, her reserves of entangled particles were dangerously depleted; her link with Paradise at the lowest bandwidth it had been since she had gained her Cutie Mark. She would not be able to warp reality again until she had rested for a good, long time.
But it had been worth it. With what were left of her extra senses, she could smell that her best friend was still alive and unhurt.
You're not going anywhere, Pinkie thought to herself, smiling in relief. The party's just starting, and this time you're staying with me. I'm not losing you this time, Minty.
***
The dust slowly lifted, to the sound of Ponies coughing.
Twilight Sparkle looked at her friends, full of joy at simply being alive. She and Applejack lay side by side. Rainbow Dash was a little farther away in the same direction, and Rarity and Pinkie Pie were off to one side. Pinkie looked back at Twilight and gave her a dazzling smile.
Twilight looked fondly at Applejack. "Thanks to you I am," Twilight said, leaning her head forward and turning it to rub her cheek against Applejack's forehead. At this moment, she felt very glad to know somepony like Applejack.
Applejack smiled shyly, as if to say that it was only what any friend would do for another.
Pinkie beamed happily at both of them.
***
Realizing that she was buried under a pile of earth, Fluttershy knew a moment of immediate physical panic, struggled, pushed her head out into the light. She saw her friends sitting and standing ahead; before them was an immense pile of rubble completely blocking the trail. It had only been by great good fortune that all of them were unharmed.
I nearly got them all killed, she thought to herself in horror. I nearly got my friends killed..
Rarity made a sound of immense disgust as she shook grit and dust from her white hide.
Incredibly, Pinkie Pie was bouncing up and down in joy. "Whoo-hoo!" she cried. "Let's do it again!" Pinkie was now covered in much of the dust that had come from Rarity, but it clearly didn't bother her.
How can they all be so happy? Fluttershy thought. They almost died. How can other Ponies just get back up after something like that?
"Uh!" said Rarity. "This is why a girl always packs extra accessories." She reached into her bag, pulled out a striped pink scarf and put it on. Then she looked worried. "Oh, please tell me I brought the tiara that goes with this."
Apparently, she had forgotten to pack that part of her attire.
Rainbow Dash flew over to confront Rarity. "Uh," she pointed out, indicating the huge rockfall. "Think we got bigger problems than making sure our hairbows match our horseshoes."
Everypony stared dejectedly at the immense obstacle. The tiny margin of trail still remaining on the outside of the fall was clearly too dangerous to traverse, as even a slight shift of the pile could send the party hurtling into the canyon.
"Oh." Fluttershy sighed. She had not only nearly gotten everypony killed, she had also made their progress more difficult. "Sorry." Sorry for blocking your way,. she thought. Sorry for almost murdering you all. Sorry for being such a failure.
"Aww," Applejack said, smiling at her kindly. "No big whoop, sugar cube."
"Yeah," said Twilight cheerfully, smiling as well. "We'll just have to ..." she turned her head, regarded the huge rockslide, "... climb over."
The last part of that came out as almost a whimper.
***
So they climbed over.
Twilight led, followed by Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, with Fluttershy in the rear. This time, Rainbow Dash watched over Fluttershy.
The pile was steep, and not yet settled into its final angle of repose. The dirt constantly shifted beneath their hooves, forcing them to exert both strength and caution to avoid tumbling down. There were large rocks underfoot, some of which dug painfully into the soft and suckered portions of those surfaces. They were already close to exhausted from the climb this far, followed by that frantic race for survival, and they gasped and groaned as muscles and tendons strained to keep them going forward. Even Pinkie Pie no longer seemed cheerful, just as grimly determined to press onward as any of them.
Fluttershy looked up once to see Rainbow Dash pacing her slowly overhead. Rainbow looked back down at her with an expression of irritation. She could sense no friendliness from her.
She's coming to resent my cowardice, Fluttershy thought sadly, the way I've slowed us down, nearly gotten us killed. She's disgusted by me.
And why not? I'm disgusted at myself. I'm the most pathetic, timid excuse for a Pegasus who has ever lived. My uncle was right. I'll never amount to anything.
I became the Bearer of Kindness by a fluke, a mistake. I just happened to be there, and the Element couldn't find anypony else at the time, so it chose me. They're all heroines, champions. I'm a failure. A fraud.
I'm not even a real Pony. Just some kind of monster that happens to look like one. I don't even know what I am in truth.
While thinking these dark thoughts, Fluttershy managed to reach the top of the rockslide, and was now making her way down the other side. On footing this uncertain, descending was considerably more difficult than climbing. She had to lean her whole body back on her legs, with each leg strained in a painful and unnatural position, hooves digging into the ground to avoid slipping. Her entire body trembled with the necessary effort.
And then she slipped. Her back legs went out from under her and she tried to dig in her front legs, then use the friction of her own rump to stop herself, but nothing worked. Her hindquarters slid completely under the rest of her body and with a pitiful scream she found herself sliding down the far end on her back, hind hooves first.
Those hind hooves slammed into Rarity's rear. The white unicorn gave a surprised and pained grunt, followed by a cry of alarm as she found herself sliding down face-first, on her belly.
Applejack turned toward the noise, but her reflexes were slowed by exhaustion and the pain of her many minor injuries, and she had only managed to raise herself and twist half around before Rarity's face and front hooves collided with her back. Applejack cried out in dismay as all three of them slid to the bottom. Pinkie Pie had, whether by luck or some other reason, managed to avoid the pile-up.
Rainbow Dash flew over to help the three mares, who lay groaning at the bottom of the slide.
"My apologies," said Rarity as Rainbow Dash was forced to strain hard to pull her to her feet.
"Not your fault," replied Rainbow Dash, who glared at Fluttershy.
Fluttershy whimpered pitifully at the Pegasus she had always counted as her best friend.
Rainbow Dash merely looked down her nose at her and flew away.
Nopony else said anything to Fluttershy.
There was nothing they could say. Reality had been eloquent enough.
***
The trail wound up toward a natural rock arch. Twilight Sparkle unrolled her map, studied it carefully. They went through the arch. The road turned right, onto a wide rock ledge.
Rainbow Dash flew up beside her
"Still think it was a good idea to bring Fluttershy along?" the blue pegasus asked.
"We're about to find out," said Twilight, some trepidation creeping into her voice.
The cave was immense. Great quanties of sulphurous black smoke proceded from its mouth. There was only one thing that cavern could be.
All six of them could have walked down it in line abreast. It was almost twice as high as it was wide. A decent-sized house could have been stuffed into the entrance, and there would have been room for alleys on either side.
They lined up before the tunnel and peered in, silenced for a moment by the implications of this immense cavity. This close, the stench of sulfur was almost overwhelming. That could have come from natural volcanic emissions, but there was also that subtler scent, alien and yet horribly familiar in a way that raised their manes with primal fears, of some immense archosaur. In some instinctive sense they all knew that creatures like this had once hunted Ponies, and it took every ounce of their courage to avoid fleeing in terror at the close presence of the Dragon.
Fluttershy crouched at the left end of the line, which was also the end nearest the path she had just climbed up. She did this instinctively, ensuring that if was necessary to bolt and run she would be the closest to the only route of escape which did not involve hurling herself into the immense void which surrounded the mountain, a leap which -- her wings paralyzed as they were with fear -- would surely prove fatal. On her immediate right was Applejack -- Fluttershy drew strength, both moral and otherwise, from the protective presence of the big orange Earth Pony. Next were Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight in order. Rainbow Dash was at the far right of the line, which suited Fluttershy just fine, for it meant she did not have to bear the look of contempt for her that surely lay in her dearest friend's reddish-pink eyes.
Twilight Sparkle stepped a little ahead of them, surveyed the situation, for a moment seeming as overwhelmed as any of them. She lowered her head. Then she turned to give her orders.
"Rainbow Dash," she said softly, "you'll use your wings to clear the smoke."
"Mm-hmm," affirmed the blue pegasus. She launched herself skyward and readied herself to perform this task.
"Rarity and Pinkie," continued Twilight, looking at those two Ponies, "you'll create a diversion to distract the dragon if things get a little hairy in there."
Pinkie Pie was quick to respond. She produced a yellow rubber chicken squeaky toy, grabbed it by the neck in her teeth, and proceeded to vigorously whip it back and forth before her.
Rarity stood next to Pinkie, looking and pointing at the antics of the pink Earth Pony with an expression of confusion on her own face.
Twilight stared at this for a moment, uncertain of exactly why Pinkie was doing this. Then she turned to Applejack.
"Applejack," Twilight asked, "you're ready with the apples in case he decides to attack."
It was a statement rather than a question; Twilight obviously had complete confidence in her.
Applejack grabbed two apples from her bags and nodded, smiling. She demonstrated her capabilities by tossing them behind her and bucking each one in mid-air with her hind hooves, slapping them accurately into a target tree. The fruit hit with enough force to completely splatter. She gave Twilight a fierce look, indicating her confidence.
"But it shouldn't come to that," continued Twilight, "because Fluttershy will do what she needs to do to wake him up ..."
A wave of utter terror swept through Fluttershy from nose to tail at the very concept. I knew I was going to do this, she thought to herself, but I'm actually supposed to wake ... up ... a DRAGON?!! Oh no no, if the Dragon's asleep let him stay asleep because when he's asleep he won't be tearing us all to pieces!
"... and between the two of us, we should be able to get him to understand why he needs to go." Twilight concluded.
I'm going to go into that dark .. stinking ... horrifying ... cave and wake up a DRAGON? Fluttershy mind cycled again and again and again on the same thoughts. What if he doesn't like being woken up? What if he crushes me or eats me or crushes me AND eats me?
"Is everypony ready then?" asked Twilight.
Four Ponies affirmed their readiness. Rarity and Applejack nodded, standing there with brave determination. Rainbow Dash hovered, ready for action. Pinkie Pie bounced up and down in glee at the prospect of getting to meet a real live dragon.
Fluttershy cowered in the dirt. I can't go in there. I just can't! She wanted to not be a part of this. Don't look at me! Don't notice me! her mind was screaming.
"Okay then," said Twilight, narrowing her eyes with determination. "We're going in!"
She turned and walked slowly into the cavern mouth, assuming that Fluttershy would follow her.
Fluttershy did not get up to follow her. Instead, she closed her eyes tight shut and buried her face in the dirt. Fluttershy hid under her own mane and tail, trembling in utter terror, desperately hoping that nopony would pay any attention to her.
Nopony did, for quite a while.
Fluttershy was not quite sure why. She was aware that, sometimes, when she really didn't want to be noticed, she wasn't. Ponies who should have seen her, or known where she was, seemed to slide their eyes over her without registering her presence, or even forget she was there. Sometimes this happened to her without her consciously willing it to occur. It was a good way of avoiding attention.
It bought her a couple of minutes this time. Nopony noticed that she had not gone into the cave with Twilight Sparkle.
Until Twilight Sparkle herself noticed Fluttershy's absence.
***
"Come on!" cried Twilight Sparkle with an edge of exasperation in her voice, grabbing Fluttershy's wingtips in her teeth and pulling painfully backward, until Fluttershy was forced to pull her face out of the dirt. "We have to do this!" She got her nose under Fluttershy's rump and pushed upward, trying to make Fluttershy stand up.
Fluttershy did, for a moment, but as soon as Twilight pulled her head back, Fluttershy sat back down again on her rump.
"Now!" insisted Twilight, in what only the scholar-mage's extreme emotional self-control and the knowledge that there was a potentially-hostile Dragon in the cave was keeping from becoming a full-fledged shriek of rage. She resumed pushing.
Fluttershy felt somepony else also shoving at her, and dimly realized that it was none other than Rainbow Dash. Her fear was so great that this knowledge only slightly increased the dull pain at the core of her being. She dug her front hooves firmly into the ground, struggling with all her might to prevent herself from being forced to get up and confront the Dragon.
"Every ... second longer that dragon ..." Twilight said in a voice rising slowly in volume and pitch, interspersed with her grunts of effort "... sleeps is another ... acre of Equestria that is covered in ... smoke." Rarity, then Applejack and finally Pinkie added their strength to the effort to force Fluttershy to her feet.
The pressure was immense. Fluttershy was only a single Pegasus, and five other Ponies were uniting their strength in the attempt to move her. But they were not animated by Fluttershy's stark terror: her adrenaline surged, and somehow she found the ability to withstand their combined efforts.
Isn't this ridiculous, some detached, sane portion of her mind commented. I've gone berserk with fear. I can summon all this strength to stop my own friends, but I can't find the courage to face the Dragon. Or even to face my friends. They don't understand why I'm doing this -- I have to tell them ...
Fluttershy did what she should have done at the start of this. She spoke.
"I ... I ... I can't go in the cave.," she said.
Everypony stopped pushing, looked at her, and groaned in exasperation.
"Oh, great," said Rainbow Dash, flitting up to the top of the cave mouth. "She's scared of caves now, too!"
"I'm not scared of caves," Fluttershy addressed Rainbow directly. Through everything it was still important to her that Rainbow understand that she was not a total coward. Maybe someday Rainbow would forgive her this betrayal. Fluttershy looked away, ashamed to admit the truth. "I'm scared of ... dra ..." she mumbled the rest of it, afraid to name her horror.
Applejack stepped over close to Fluttershy, a concerned look on her face. "What's that, sugarcube?" she asked.
Fluttershy looked away from those soft green eyes. "I'm scared of dra ..." again, still flinching from the word.
Twilight came up on her side. "What?" she asked.
Fluttershy rose to her hind legs, forelegs gathered close to her, and forced it all out in a single burst of speech. "I'm scared of Dragons!"
Possibly by coincidence, possibly because the Dragon may have already been coming awake, there came from the cave mouth a titanic snore, the infrabass undertones shivering through their bones and shaking the whole ledge, immediately followed by an immense cloud of choking, sulfurous smoke.
Fluttershy screamed and hid in what instincts dimly remembered from her foalhood told her was the safest place possible: behind Mother! She tried to crawl under Mother, but for some reason her mother was too close to the ground, so instead she pressed her own hindquarters against Mother's, crouched to the ground, and curled herself up very small.
Her actual mother, of course, was interned in a mental hospital in far-off Cloudsdale, in part because of an even more extreme and irrational fear of Dragons. So how could she be here? As the capacity for logical thought returned to Fluttershy, she discovered that she was, in fact, hiding under Applejack's tail. Applejack, with her usual kindness, tolerated this familiarity.
Twilight Sparkle bounded around Applejack. "But Fluttershy," Twilight pointed out, "you have a wonderful talent dealing with all kinds of animals,"
"Because they're not Dragons!" replied Fluttershy.
How to explain the sheer terror of it -- something huge and carnivorous, something so brilliantly malicious, so sadistically willing to tear apart comfortable safe seeming homes like the one in which she had been raised and seek out and tear apart helpless little pink-and-yellow fillies hiding under their beds? They would never understand. They would just think she was crazy. Like her mother.
"Oh, come on!" shouted Rainbow Dash, waving her forelegs in midair by way of emphasis. "We've seen you walk up to a horrible manticore like it was nothing!" Rainbow's expression seemed to change, less contemptuous and more annoyed.
Maybe she can understand -- that I'm not a complete coward, Fluttershy thought, a faint hope kindling in her breast. That this is different ... Fluttershy knew that she had to make the effort.
She turned, looked straight at Rainbow Dash, silently pleading for understanding. "Yes," she said, "because he wasn't a Dragon."
Manticores could be savage in the hunt or a dominance fight; males killed the cubs of their rivals; and they were certainly capable of killing Ponies. However, they were beasts like any other -- innocent, and gentle to those they considered friends. Dragons were different -- they had an evil, sapient cruelty that had been created specifically to search out and destroy helpless little Pegasi like herself, she knew it, that's what her mother had constantly told her and even if it didn't make sense it was seared into the depths of her soul.
Dwelling on the very thought terrified her further and she once again hid behind the uncomplaining Applejack. There was something about Applejack in this time of utter fear and humiliation that reminded her of Mother -- not her actual mother, who had been confused and flighty -- but some ideal of Mother that was even deeper in her mind than her fear of Dragons. She knew that Applejack was only a couple of years older than herself, but at that moment she wished she could have been Applejack's foal. It was an embarrassing thought, but at the moment she drew immense comfort from the orange mare's nearness and warmth, and strength from her love.
"Spike is a Dragon," pointed out Pinkie Pie. "You're not scared of him."
For the second time that day, Fluttershy reflected upon Spike's nature.
Spike was not big and frightening. He was small and loveable. She knew he was potentially far more dangerous than he looked -- more dangerous than perhaps even Twilight Sparkle realized. He had teeth that could shear and claws that could gouge through solid stone, an armored hide impervious to anything but considerable and well-focused force, and a metabolism that let him breathe fire hot enough to set wood ablaze -- in a few more years, probably hot enough to melt steel -- but Spike seemed to have no inclination to use these natural abilities in any way that would harm Ponies.
For a moment, Fluttershy teetered on the edge of a general realization regarding Dragons, one she had long ago experienced regarding dangerous creatures in general -- but in the end her childhood conditioning was too strong. So she came to a different conclusion.
"Yes," she said, slowly peering out from behind Applejack, "because he not a huge, gigantic, terrifying, enormous, teeth-gnashing, sharp-scale having, horn-wearing, smoke-snoring, could eat a pony in one bite, totally all grown-up dragon!"
At this -- perhaps coincidentally -- the Dragon within the mountain let out a tremendous, snarling and ratcheting snore that Fluttershy felt in her internal organs and bones. Whimpering in helpless fear, Fluttershy flung herself down on her belly and pressed herself to the ground, eyes shut tight, making incoherent little cries and shaking uncontrollably.
"But --" asked Twilight Sparkle, utter frustration plain in her tone, "if you're so afraid of Dragons, why didn't you say something before we came all the way up here?"
Fluttershy looked away from everypony.
"I was afraid to," she admitted.
Rainbow Dash covered her own eyes with a foreleg. "Augh," she said, clearly disgusted at Fluttershy's cowardice.
Fluttershy felt a nudge up and under her rump, realized who it was, and offered no resistance as Applejack got her back up on her own four hooves.
"All of us are scared of that Dragon," Applejack said, giving Fluttershy a sympathetic smile.
"I'm not!" insisted Rainbow Dash.
Applejack frowned and rolled her eyes. "Almost all of us are scared of that Dragon," she amended her statement. Her face softened, and she moved in closer, smiling at Fluttershy, "but we've got a job to do." Applejack's expression grew more determined, but still friendly. "So, get in there with Twilight, and show her what you're made of!"
Fluttershy struggled with her fear.
"I ... I ..." she began. Her friends were all smiling hopefully and encouragingly at her, hoping that she would say yes. Except for Rainbow Dash, who looked angry. That's because she knows me too well, thought Fluttershy. She knows what I'm going to say. "... I just ..." She closed her eyes. She could not look at her friends when she was about to disappoint them all, prove to them her own utter worthlessness. She opened her eyes again for a moment. The image of her friends was blurred by her own tears. "... can't." She hung her head in shame, set her foot on the path down the mountain.
"Oh, Fluttershy," she heard Twilight Sparkle say sadly.
She had failed. Failed her friends, failed herself.
There was a painful hollowness in her heart. I've let them all down, she thought. I slowed them down, I nearly got them all killed, and then -- at the moment they needed me -- I let them down. I'm worthless. Less than worthless.
It would be a long way home. She'd have to wend her way down all those twisting trails she'd taken up the mountain -- climb over the rockfall, leap over the gorge -- at least that's an easy jump, she thought, then take the same back route that Applejack had carried her up along. Hours and hours of walking -- while the confrontation with the Dragon would be decided without her.
Step, step, step. She looked across the abyss of sky to Canterlot. The haze from the Dragon's breath was blown to one side by the vagaries of the winds, and the capital city was surprisingly bright and clear on its in the thin upper air. Beneath it the wide plains were hazy, lost in the combined effects of denser air and dispersed Dragonsmoke.
They'll win, she told herself. They defeated Nightmare Moon.
She looked southward toward the Castle of the Two Royal Pony Sisters. She thought she could see it, but even her sharp eyes could barely pick out the shape of old tumbled towers in the midst of the Everfree, and she was far from sure that she was looking at the right location.
You helped them beat Nightmare Moon, something within herself reminded her. Without you there would have been no Element of Kindness.
She stopped for a moment, considered that fact. There was a moment of pride, followed by shame, as she considered that she would not be there to help them this time. Then reason asserted itself.
That's because the magic needed six Element Bearers, she reminded herself. This has nothing to do with the Elements of Harmony. This is just straightforward diplomacy.
She stared down the trail again. Step, step, step. Each hoof-fall was a drumming against her own heart.
And the Manticore? that treacherous part of her own self asked her. What would have happened if you hadn't been there to calm the creature?
She stopped, shuddering at the memory. Not the memory of the Manticore -- Manny was a sweet kitty at heart -- but of the deadly battle that had nearly ensued.
Rarity -- magnificently mad enough to engage him in hoof-to-claw combat, rocking the huge felid back on his haunches with a spectacular spin-kick to the jaw, leaping away just in time to avoid being torn to pieces. Had her timing been slightly off, the elegant, generous mare who always made time to talk to her when Fluttershy was feeling sad would have been destroyed.
Applejack, cheerfully taunting him, leaping on his back and riding him in a deliberate, good-natured parody of the normal way a predator would leap on the back of a Pony. Applejack had been so kind to her today, giving her all the strength and support that Fluttershy's own mother had been unable to provide, and she too had put herself in harm's way to do her part fighting alongside her friends.
And Rainbow Dash -- that brave, shining exemplar of all Pegasus virtues -- trying to throw Manny off balance by catching him within a one-Pony whirlwind. Rainbow had actually been struck by the manticore's tail. Fluttershy remembered that horrible moment when that little blue form had tumbled helplessly across the ground, the way her own heart had stopped, time seemed to stand still until Rainbow got back up on her hooves, not soaked in blood or pumped full of poison from the deadly barbed tip of that tail, as Fluttershy had feared.
She could have died in an instant, Fluttershy reflected. My protector. My best friend. My -- Aware of how much Dashie despised her now, Fluttershy could not bear to complete the last clause, even in her own thoughts.
But Dashie didn't die! Fluttershy told herself. She got up, and Twilight --
And Twilight, obviously afraid that if they tried any further one-on-one delaying tactics some of them would get hurt, led the other four in a charge.
Which was a mistake, Fluttershy remembered. Manny would have had done with dominance displays then; he would have felt desperate and gone all-out against them. What would have happened then?
Twilight still might have won -- she was smart and powerful, and their friends were skilled fighters. But somepony would doubtless have gotten hurt -- or killed. Manticores were not only big, they were also fast.
And we didn't need to fight, Fluttershy remembered. I could see that something was bothering Manny, that he was more cranky and frustrated than genuinely enraged, that I could calm him down and make friends so we didn't have to hurt one another. I could see ...
And nopony else could see. Because she'd been there, what might have become a fight to the death had resulted, instead, in Fluttershy making a new friend, and they'd gotten past what Fluttershy now knew to have been one of the Nightmare-ridden Luna's traps, with no creature -- not even Manny -- getting seriously hurt.
I wasn't a burden then, Fluttershy thought. Nor a failure. I succeeded. I showed I was worthy. She smiled for a moment at the memory, then remembered. Except I'm obviously not really worthy. That was obviously a fluke.
I can't be worthy. Not given what I'm doing right now.
She stopped and thought to herself.
But I can't go into the Dragon's lair, she realized. I just fall on the ground and tremble helplessly every time I even think too hard about doing that. She began to shake a little even at the thought of thinking of doing that, proving her point. No, I have no choice. I can't go into the Dragon's lair, so I must go down the mountain.
She lifted a hoof to take another step on the downward path, when suddenly a thought struck her.
I don't have to go down the mountain, she realized, and I don't have to go into the Dragon's lair either. I can go back up to the ledge in front of the Dragon's lair, and just sort of stay there -- just in case they need me. Maybe they won't need me -- they'll drive away the Dragon on their own, and then they'll all despise me for my cowardice, and ... she winced at the thought of the contempt in a particular pair of purplish-red eyes, then considered that at least their owner would be alive to despise her ... and that'll be all right. Everypony knows I'm weak. But they like me. They'll still let me be their friend -- I hope.
But if they need me ... if their lives are really in danger ... maybe I can do something. Probably not much. But something.
And if it gets me killed ... well, everypony has to die someday, right? And if I'm worthless -- doesn't that mean I'm also expendable?
Something seemed liberating about the last conclusion.
She shuddered again at the thought of dying at the claws and teeth of a Dragon, but then shuddered even more profoundly at the thought of the deaths of any of her friends. She turned and looked up the mountain.
She hesitated.
Then she put a hoof down. Then another. Then another.
She began walking back up the trail. Toward the dragon's lair.
Toward her friends.
***
Twilight Sparkle
She was now all the way at the end of the straight section of tunnel. Ahead of her the way curved to the right. The tunnel might have begun its life as a lava tube, but certain features --- the regularity of the columnar sections of stone and the flatness of the floor -- made it obvious that someone or something had shaped this cavern long ago for a habitat. The work looked very old, and she didn't know how long the Dragon had used this cave. She suspected the carving was older than the Dragon.
"I'm going in!" she said. Her tone of voice projected a confidence she was far from feeling. She fully appreciated all the ways this could go wrong, and that some of them could result in her own messy and early demise, but there was no point dwelling upon them. She wanted to keep her followers -- her friends -- in good spirits. And she wanted to make sure that the Dragon, who might well be only half-asleep, knew of her courage. According to the books she'd read, Dragons responded far better to a brave approach than to a timid one.
"He --" Twilight searched for the most optimistic explanation of the Dragon's behavior "-- probably just doesn't realize what he's doing." She looked back toward the cave mouth, now invisible as she rounded the bend, but still noticeable by the indirect sunlight reflecting from the left-hand wall to dimly light her way. "Right?"
The voices of her friends echoed down the tunnel from the mouth, where they were waiting.
"Uh -- sure," said Applejack. She was, as always, a terrible liar.
"Of course," added Rarity. She managed to make it sound sincere.
"Easy-peasy!" chimed in Pinkie Pie. She sounded cheerful. Of course, she almost always sounded cheerful.
"If you say so," commented Rainbow Dash, sounding doubtful.
Rarity giggled nervously.
Their lack of faith in her slightly saddened Twilight. Not that she was really all that much more optimistic than they were -- she'd been counting on Fluttershy's talents at this stage of the mission. But still -- it was disconcerting to realize that the others saw it too.
She figured that there was a very great chance that the Dragon wouldn't actually try to kill her -- as long as she didn't try to plunder its hoard. In the past 500 years or so, unprovoked lethal Dragon attacks on Ponies in Equestria were almost unheard-of -- probably because Equestria had become strong enough that such attacks looked far too risky to a creature whose lifespan was normally measured in centuries, and sometimes millennia.
Still, the Dragon had free will. And it might just be in a bad mood.
If it was, her best bet was to teleport out of the cave, and ... ?
Twilight wasn't sure what to do next. Twilight herself might be able to teleport and Rainbow Dash fly to safety, but she couldn't just leave Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity to face the creature alone. No, in that case they'd have to fight, and if they fought Twilight wasn't sure that she had enough magic to win. Nor was she sure how any of her friends' skills could stop an angry Dragon.
Without Fluttershy, this whole quest had become far riskier than she had feared when she'd accepted the mission.
Twilight was intelligent. She had known all along how dangerous an expedition this might prove. But she also knew that she had to prove herself to Princess Celestia.
I'm starting to wish I'd come up this mountain alone, she thought to herself. That way, my poor planning would have only gotten me killed. Not anypony else.
Part of her was still cold and calculating -- colder and more calculating by far than she usually let on, for she knew how it could upset other Ponies. But part of her -- especially over this summer -- had thawed. These weren't just assets to be employed to ensure success -- not even just her followers. They were her friends
She could lead them as if they were a squad of Guards, but the fact was that if she lost any of them it would break her heart. Kindly, caring Applejack; brave Rainbow Dash; happy-go-lucky Pinkie Pie; elegant Rarity -- how would she be able to live with herself if she caused the deaths of any of them? At least Fluttershy's safe, she thought. That's the silver lining to her funking out like that. But there were still four hostages to fortune waiting outside that cave, whose lives might be lost if she made a mistake.
How do you handle this, Big Brother? she asked the absent Shining Armor. She knew he'd been in some hairy situations in his life, even though he tried not to let her find out about the worst parts of them. Are the Ponies under your command your friends too? How do you stay sane knowing that they could die if you mess up?
She would really need to have a talk with him when he came back from that long deployment overseas. She'd never fully appreciated what it must be like for him, commanding other Ponies he knew well, until she found herself in the exact same position.
The tunnel widened into a great cavern. To her right, a huge rope of solidified lava also widened into an oddly-shaped structure, roughly the length of one of Ponyville's streets and the size of a large building. Some sort of diffuse magelight illuminated this chamber, and by this light she could see a tremendous pile of gold, gems, jewelry and other precious items. Strangely, the great irregular lava flow seemed to be partially covering this hoard, a degree of neglect which seemed against everything she had read of draconic nature.
"Mr. Dragon?" she asked tenatively, wanting to establish that she was an unexpected visitor, rather than a hoard-thief. What she had read of the things Dragons might do to thieves had frankly horrified her, so she felt it important to make this distinction before this Dragon had time to act. She was embarrassed by the unfortunately frightened-sounding quaver in her voice.
Not because it gave a false impression, of course. Twilight was terrified.
It gave a true impression -- which was not the impression she meant to give.
But then, though she was honest enough by most standards, Twilight had never claimed to be Honesty.
She peered in all directions, looking for the Dragon, so caught up in this effort that she walked, face-first, into a overhang protruding from the mass of congealed lava. She stepped back, wincing at the painful contact with the rock -- the rock which didn't feel exactly like rock -- felt a bit too warm and slightly flexible to be rock, and smelled overpoweringly of sulfur and archosaur. She stepped back, looked up at the rock -- and for the first time got a really good look at the rock formation which filled half the cave. Looked up -- and up -- and up ...
Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.
The entire mass which she had assumed to be a rock formation -- mostly because it was much, much bigger than any living being she had previously observed -- was, in fact, the Dragon.
What she had collided with was the very tip of the beak of an immense, vaguely birdlike head, adorned with brow-ridges over the eyes and a crest of pink spikes, rather like the green ones adorning her foster brother and Number One Assistant. The difference, aside from the fully-adult proportions, with tremendously extended jaws and beak and relatively smaller cranium, was that while Spike's head was smaller than was Twilight's own, the head of this Dragon was roughly the size of the entire Golden Oaks Library -- with room to spare for a rare-books annex.
Oh. she thought numbly, as she felt her limbs weaken at the incredible sight. Oh.
Even her mind was silenced by this reality.
***
Pinkie Pie
The pink Earth Pony peered anxiously down the dark tunnel, as if by dint of assiduous observation she could somehow ensure that Twilight Sparkle would survive. The tunnel curved, and she could not see where her friend had gone. She was far more worried than her optimistic comment made it sound, but she did not want to depress anypony else.
The truth was that she was trying to perceive the curving chains of probabilities, the world-lines that were normally laid bare to her sight beyond sight. Normally, she could reach out and touch those chains, change the world-lines to favor her ends, ensure that she and those she loved would be safe.
But she had almost exhausted herself saving Twilight -- and everypony else -- from the avalanche. She was strong, but she was still only an Earth Pony. Not yet -- what Paradise promised she might become someday. When she tried to twist probability, pain burned through portions of her self which she lacked the words to describe, which even Granny Pie, even Paradise Itself, had not been able to explain to her. And nothing changed.
She could still see into the future a little bit. And what she could see scared her. She kept seeing horrible possibilities. Sometimes a crushed and mangled mess of blue fur and feathers that had been Rainbow Dash. Sometimes the corpse was covered in blood-soaked lavender hair. Sometimes all of them lay dead -- except, of course, for Fluttershy. She felt a moment of hurt disbelief at the knowledge that Fluttershy had deserted them. I thought she was my friend.
Get out of there, a familiar voice was warning her. If you die now you can't fulfill your destiny -- if you die now, it will be a generation, maybe more, before I can bring about your reincarnation. I need you, my one and only Beloved Pink Daughter. This world needs you -- the time is shorter than you realize!
No, thought Pinkie, firming her jaw. I'm not leaving them. I'm not leaving Dashie. I'm not leaving Minty.
The odds are against you, Paradise warned. Its voice consumed all her bandwidth, blinding her each time it spoke to all probabilities. Paradise was expending a lot of power to speak to her precisely, not with the vague intimations of her Pinkie Sense but direct psychic communication. I can't protect you ... you're not safe ...
It's not about the odds, thought Pinkie to her sire. I'm not just your Daughter. I'm a Pony. A Pie. And a Pie doesn't cut and run on her friends.
Disbelief.
You don't understand, said Pinkie kindly. But it's just that way. I can't let them die. Not again. Not if there's something I can do to stop it. If I stay, and we all fail, at least maybe we'll get a nice epilogue scene in the afterlife. It could be really heartwarming. If I run away and live, and they die, it -- it just wouldn't be funny.
At that moment, Pinkie felt something shift around her. Suddenly, the worldlines brightened, most of them stretching out to long and happy futures for them all.
Did you do that? Pinkie asked.
No, said Paradise. The connection cut off, as the last of their entangled particles were examined, their spins resolved.
Then Pinkie saw just who figured prominently in so many of those better futures.
She smiled openly. I just knew you wouldn't really let us down. She briefly glanced at a certain rocky outcropping. Pinkie couldn't see her -- not even so much as a strand of her long, light-pink mane -- but she felt the truth.
Wisps of black smoke trailed from the sides of its mouth. Behind the great head, a relatively slim neck led to a body bigger than most Pony buildings, half-hidden beneath immense leathery wings. This body was bent to its left, curled in something of the manner of an impossibly-huge cat, so that its tail trailed along the wall to the right of where Twilight was standing. What she had thought were strands of congealed ropy lava was, in point of fact, that tail. The whole upper surface of the creature was covered in red scales, which glinted in a distinctly metallic manner in the magelight.
That's because they incorporate metals into their structure, the part of Twilight still capable of rational analysis told her. Spike needs metals in his diet to grow new scales. He gets them both from gems and from anything metallic. She looked at the vast hoard in a new light. Hmm, I wonder if that's why they started to hoard in the first place? A ready food reserve? Though it must mean much more to them by now -- they're fully sapient, highly inteliigent ... That last point was either a very happy thought, or a very unhappy one, depending on the Dragon's mood.
The Dragon grumbled slightly, whether in response to Twilight's earlier words, or her accidental physical contact with the tip of his beak, she could not be certain. As he did so, great billows of black smoke issued the sides of its mouth.
"Uh ..." she said nervously, "Excuse me ..."
The Dragon grumbled again, and this time the great archosaur rolled over, exposing its belly to Twilight. As it rolled, its scales made a peculiar, metallic scraping sound against each other and the hoard upon which the Dragon lay.
Twilight noticed that the great lamellar scales of its belly were yellow. The coloration was different, but the boundaries between color zones were essentially identical to those with which she was intimately familiar from spending a decade with Spike.
"Mr. Dragon?" she asked.
He brought up his right arm -- a limb as thick as Twilight was long, but pipestem-thin compared to the Dragon's immense bulk, ending in a hand much more massive than Twilight's entire torso. With this appendage he casually scratched at those overlapping ventral scales, employing claw-tips as long as half-pikes to perform this office. There was a screeching of metal against metal, and sparks flickered from the points of contact.
Twilight was uncomfortably aware that the smallest of those talons could have impaled her alive like a vegetable on a shish kabob for barbecuing, without the Dragon even having to try hard. She tried not to dwell in too much detail on this fact, as doing so somewhat interfered with her ability to formulate her thoughts.
Abruptly his eyelids snapped open, and great glowing yellow eyes, slitted like those of a crocodile but bigger than her body in full extension, regarded her as the huge creature rolled back onto his belly
Twilight took an involuntary step backward from that gaze, an action she immediately childed herself for as irrational, since rather obviously the Dragon had known exactly where she was the whole time, and if he had wished to kill her, would have already done so.
"Oh, good," she said, with unfeigned relief -- she had feared most that the Dragon might accidentally crush her by shifting in his sleep -- "you're awake! Please allow me to introduce myself ..." She knew that by giving him her name, she would be acting in a friendly fashion, and she had read that Dragons normally treated honorably with those who approached them openly as prospective guests. "My name is Twilight ..."
The Dragon gave an immense grumbling yawn, such as a sleepy stallion might make awoken from a much-desired nap (an occurrence with which a filly who had grown up with a father and a big brother was intimately familiar) and mumbled lazily. An immene belch of sulfur-laden gas, mingled with the smell of long-rotten flesh and the gaseous products of digestion, blew across Twilight with enough force to not only whip her mane about her but also push her backward, sliding on her hooves across the smooth cavern floor. That last should have been impossible from the air current alone, and Twilight could plainly feel the paramagnetism playing across her hide.
Dragon magic works through their breath, she remembered, just like Unicorn magic works through our horns, or Pegasi in their wings.
She had time only for that brief thought before she coughed and gagged on the incredible stench surrounding her. That was something for which experience of the males of her family had not prepared her. It reminded her vaguely of some of the smells Spike emitted, save that Spike's were of course of much smaller quantity, and he did not normally belch right into her face. What the Dragon had just done was not an actual use of his breath weapon -- that would have wounded or killed her, especially at point-blank range -- but it was a far-from-pleasant experience.
It had been not only rude, but also a casual demonstration of his power, rather like a very big stallion slightly shoving a much smaller one. Except the difference in scale here is more like that between a big tomcat and a very small mouse, she thought, then -- remembering what cats usually did to mice -- wished that the analogy had not occurred to her.
Nevertheless, Twilight gamely attempted to go on with her introduction. She covered her nose and mouth with one hoof, and said, "...Sparkle ..." she was talking through her nose, breathing out as much as possible, trying to avoid smelling any of the scents now surrounding her, "... and my friends and I are residents in Equestria ..."
At that the Dragon narrowed its eyes and snarled. He obviously knew well the terms of the treaties Celestia had signed with the Dragon realms, and that his own right to be here was less than hers.
It would not have been honest to say that Twilight was unafraid at this point, but she also knew that the Dragon was still listening, rather than attacking her ... which probably meant that it also knew that killing Equestrians on Equestrian soil would not be conducive to its long-term survival. If I'm reasonably polite about this, I should live through this day, she thought, and later was honestly amazed at her own self-possession.
"... Ponyville, to be exact," she said, reminding herself that Dragons respected courage, and successfully keeping most of the terror out of her voice. "We've come hereto ask that you find another spot to take your nap," she said, deliberately adopting an imploring tone. "It's just that you seem to be doing an awful lot of snoring,and every time you do you send out a terrible cloud of smoke."
At this the Dragon demonstrated his capabilties in this regard by puffing out a small but particularly vile cloud of the substance from his nose, which completely surrounded Twilight, forcing her to stop to cough out the foul-smelling vapor from her lungs.
Twilight felt the paramagnetism binding the cloud together, and realized that this was not only on purpose, but a direct demonstration on the part of the Dragon of how precisely he could control his emanations. She was angered, but knew that the worst thing she could do at this point was to let the Dragon goad her into some hasty action which would enable him to blame any violent confrontation on her own rashness.
Also, she might not survive such a confrontation. That should have been a small consideration compared to her orders, but to her shame she felt her own fear rising at the thought of her own demise. I'm not as brave as my big brother, she sadly thought.
She coughed again, and this time went into a coughing fit that only ended as the Dragon let his cloud disperse. He was not trying to choke her to death, but he had just made it plain to her that he could so slay her, whenever he wanted.
"Equestria simply can't survive a hundred years in a dark haze. You understand ..." she lowered her head, then lifted it again to meet his gaze, "... don't you?"
The Dragon looked calmly, sleepily at her for a moment. He actually closed his eyes.
Then he got up and stretched.
The Dragon was, simply, immense. The cavern was big enough to contain any building save the Palace of Canterlot, or one of the skyscrapers of Manehattan, and it could have held the majority of such a structure. The Dragon could not straighten out entirely under the cave roof, and even slightly curled up, seated on his rump his spikes brushed the ceiling. He scratched at his sides.
As he stretched he made complex growling noises, which Twilight Sparkle greatly feared was a statement in his own language. Twilight knew a great many things, but she did not have understanding of the speech of Dragons, nor did this Dragon seem willing to speak Equestrian, even assuming that he knew the Pony tongue.
This was, of course, the exact problem which might have been solved by the presence of Fluttershy.
She decided that it was best to simply assume that the Dragon had agreed with her.
"So," she said hopefully, "you'll find another place to sleep?"
The Dragon flung himself back down on the hoard. The whole cavern shook, and Twilight was tossed into the air, partly by the vibration of his tremendous weight against the coins and rock, but more so, she knew, by the paramagnetic fields he channeled through the precious metals beneath him.
Oh, so that's one of the reasons they love gold, she actually thought in midair. Gold's highly electroconductive! She was really learning an awful lot about Dragons this way, but she feared that her research studies were over, for the next thing the Dragon did -- and she could swear that she saw him smile as he did it -- was to puff a huge cloud of smoke across her, which filled the entire cave to the point of endangering her ability to breathe. He can control the exact composition of that cloud, she thought. Dragon magic is really more flexible than I expected!
But there was nothing for it now but to leave. The importance of her diplomatic mission, and even her scientific curiosity were set at naught besides the sheer reality that she could not keep on living if she remained here much longer. The Dragon might stop before the brink of actually killing her -- or he might not, or he might overestimate her endurance and kill her by accident. In either of those last two cases, she'd be dead, her mission a failure, and hence this outcome was to be avoided.
Fluttershy
Thinking "don't notice me," Fluttershy had crept up almost to the cave mouth, trying to hear what was going on inside. It was amazing how well this ability worked, especially when all the Ponies around her were raptly intent on listening to Twiight's confrontation with the Dragon.
Though Applejack, of course, didn't know that she was there, Fluttershy still chose to stick by Applejack's side, hanging a little bit back because a Pony would notice her if she occluded too much of her visual field with her body. The presence of the big orange farm-pony was comforting.
She could sort of hear Twilight's voice, echoing down the tunnel from the dragon's lair. She could easily hear the Dragon, and what she was hearing bothered her. The Dragon -- whose name was Rubeannibaleum, which Fluttershy was fairly certain meant something like "Red Smoke" or "Red Haze" -- was claiming that he had laired in here for decades, and that it wasn't about to move because some pipsqueak Unicorn told him to do so. He asked her by what authority she dared to challenge his presence.
Twilight -- who didn't seem to be understanding a word the Dragon was saying -- simply told him that she was an inhabitant of Ponyville and that the Dragon should move because he was inconveniencing the local Ponies.
That wasn't going to sit well with the Dragon, who after all had no particular reason to care what the local Ponies thought, Fluttershy realized. Didn't Twilight know that Dragons were inherently rather selfish creatures, proud of their superiority to all other life and strongly of the conviction that, where their interests clashed, that other life should yield to the whims of Dragons?
Well, no, though Fluttershy ashamedly. She probably doesn't know any of this. That's what she brought me along to help her with. Except that I'm too much of a coward to face that Dragon -- Rubeannibaleum.
Rubeannibaleum.. Somehow, now that she knew the Dragon's name, he seemed just a little bit less terrifying. A faceless, nameless monster might rip one apart because that was what faceless, nameless monsters simply did, it was their reason for being. But Rubeannibaleum -- Red Haze -- he sounded mean, but he was just trying to defend his territory, protect his reputation which after all would be important to him among Dragonkind. He was a person, with his own thoughts and dreams and goals in life, not a creature who lived only to kill. Not a creature who lived only to kill -- or to scare -- little pink-and-yellow fillies.
He would know that eventually he would have to move, unless he successfully petitioned Celestia to be allowed to stay, because he had heard the songs and stories too. However, he'd want to make it difficult to move him, because if he made it too easy he'd lose status among his fellow Dragons. Of course he wasn't going to move just because some random Unicorn told him too.
Twilight should have told him that she was the personal student and diplomatic representative of Princess Celestia. She should have laid the titles and her status on pretty thick -- that would have told the Dragon that Twilight was somepony pretty important, somepony worth listening to -- somepony who yielding to would be no dishonor.
Twiight's being too modest, Fluttershy realized. No! Twilight! she wanted to call. You're doing this completely wrong! Ponies respect your humility, but this isn't a Pony!
She wanted to call out, but she dared not. The Dragon was getting quite tired of Twilight's lecture now -- she could read the rising irritation in his tone.
"Thou art but an insignificant little she-Pony with neither right nor might to make me go or let me stay," said Red Haze. "Begone! with thee, upstart! I hold back my full strength solely because thou art too puny a thing to survive my true wrath, and I would not come red-clawed before your Princesses!"
Fluttershy quailed before the anger in that great voice.
"So," Twilight said hopefully, "you'll find another place to sleep?"
Oh, no ... Fluttershy thought.
"Faugh! Away with thee!" cried Red Haze, and with that Fluttershy could hear the Dragon's breath hissing echoingly down the chamber. A moment later came a huge volume of black smoke, followed within seconds by a coughing Twilight Sparkle, staggering out of the cave.
She started to say something, then coughed, and then a moment later the Dragon's breath hissed even louder. An even greater amount of smoke -- enough to wholly fill the mountainside ledge, engulfed them all.
"So much for ... persuading him," Rainbow Dash said sarcastically in between coughs, as the smoke slowly dissipated.
"Now what?" asked Applejack, in a frightened voice. She seemed to be having second thoughts about the effectiveness of bucked apples as weapons against a Dragon.
Fluttershy was watching from behind her rock outcropping.
Good, she thought. Maybe they'll all give up now and we can go home and Celestia will handle the Dragon and nopony will get hurt. She was surprised by the sadness she felt at the thought of Twilight's failure. But it was a small thing next to the anguish she would have felt had any of them -- especially Rainbow or Rarity -- been slain. Twilight will be sad, but she'll get over it. Princess Celestia can't expect her to succeed at everything. And we'll all live. That's the really important part.
Rarity trotted forward, somehow managing to convert her cough into a ladylike "Ahem. Obviously," she said, posing herself with confidence, "this situation just calls for a little ..." she primped "...Pony charm." She tried to say it with pure sophistication, but on the last two words she dropped into lower-class nasals.
Rarity does that under stress, thought Fluttershy with some alarm. Rarity, what are you planning to do?
"Allow me, girls," continued Rarity, and walked into the cave.
Fluttershy's last glimpse of Rarity was of her hindquarters vanishing into the cave.
Rarity was actually sashaying.
***
Rarity Belle
It would be untrue to say that Rarity was not intimidated by her first sight of the Dragon.
His head was as long as a fashion runway, and his vast body trailed away into the distance, bulkier than anything Rarity had ever seen living. She might have quailed at the sheer size of him, had she not previously befriended Steven Magnet, the river serpent of the Everfree Forest. Steven was longer than the Dragon, but Rarity was fairly sure that the Dragon was much more massive.
Size doesn't matter, Rarity told herself, he's still male. I can charm anything male, and most females, ever born. Or hatched, in his case.
She knew for certain that her charisma worked on Dragons. Or on one Dragon, anyway. Though he was very small. And innocent. And had been raised by Ponies ... No! I mustn't doubt myself! Not now!
"I'm so sorry to in-ter-uh-hupt!" she said in a loud sing-song, walking right up to his great beak, which towered over her like the prow of a ship.
Eyelids as long as her own height slid open. Vast slitted yellow eyes regarded her, not unkindly. The Dragon looked relaxed, his great head resting on his arms, and seemed to be interested in the little white apparition.
Rarity cleared her throat and continued. "... But I couldn't possibly head back home without mentioning what handsome scales you have." Rarity trotted back and forth, getting a good look at the Dragon from several angles, and not coincidentally in the process offering the Dragon a good look at herself from several angles.
Only tasteful ones, of course. There was a subtle difference between being enticing and being trashy, and that difference was the course which Rarity steered at moments like this -- though, really, it said something about the strange path her life was taking that she was experiencing two "moments like this," complete with gigantic archosaurs, in the space of a single summer.
There was a metallic sound as the Dragon raised his crest, the better for her to admire it. Rarity's attempt to charm the Dragon was working. And the Dragon was, in point of fact quite attractive. Rarity really did think Dragon scales were beautiful.
Unfortunately, Rarity had found something even more beautiful in the cave. The Dragon's hoard.
This treasure -- it's amazing! I joked with Pinkie Pie about this earlier, but I didn't realize its true scale! Why, with but a small fraction of this wealth, an inconsiderable fraction, less than a hundredth of one percent, I could leap ahead years in my career! This could fund an expansion of the Boutique -- it could buy me materials, a whole publicity campaign in Canterlot or even Manehattan!
Rarity of course continued talking to the Dragon. It was essential to keep him interested.
"And those scales have to be hidden away in some silly cave for a hundred years?" she asked, donning a fine gold-chained necklace with a faceted red ruby pendant. It looked especially nice against her fine white coat, as if it was meant to be there.
Which is exactly the case, realized Rarity. That gem is meant to be there. I am meant to have a share of this treasure. What good is it doing that silly Dragon, anyway? And anyway, I'm doing him a service by, essentially, mediating between Celestia and himself. Mediators get compensated for arranging deals, usually with a percentage of the gross. I'm a mediator, and I deserve some compensation for my efforts. It's only fair ...
The Dragon rested his head, gave a complex rumble which almost seemed to be speech, and smiled fondly. Then he rose slightly, leaned down to her.
"Personally," she said, rubbing slightly against his beak as if she were a Pony-sized housecat -- though she was much smaller compared to the Dragon than any housecat compared to any Pony -- he lifted his head and she rubbed him under the chin with one hoof -- "I think you should skip the snoozing and be out there." She gestured dramatically by way of emphasis, pointing to some bright happy land of her imagination within which he might shine. "Showing them off!"
The Dragon was so caught up in her enthusiasm that he entirely failed to notice that she was now wearing the aforementioned necklace, a jeweled gold crown, a diamond ring on her right foreleg, and a chain of amethysts on her left hind one.
"Hmm," mused Rarity as she watched him preen his own scales. He's buying this hook, line and sinker. This treasure is as good as mine ...
Rarity Belle was fundamentally a very good Pony. And she never would have stolen like this from a fellow Pony. But she loved wealth, almost as much as did a Dragon. And at this point in her life, Dragons were not as really real to her as were Ponies. They were monsters, the antagonists of chivalric tales, the villains of story and song. The idea that they were simply people like herself would have struck her as seriously strange.
There would come a day when she would squirm in remorseful memory of her earlier disdain for Dragons, for one Dragon in particular would become very dear to her. There would even come a day when Rarity -- gaining a fuller understanding of her own Element -- would appreciate and argue for the principle that all sapient life had inalienable rights, and the responsibility to respect the rights of others, regardless of form or stature; and thus become one of the leaders of the cultural unification of the Earth.
This was not yet the day. And this was not to be Rarity's finest hour.
"Obviously, I would be more than happy to keep an eye on your jewels while you're gone."
The Dragon stopped preening. His eyes went wide in belated realization. He snarled angrily as he suddenly noticed exactly what Rarity was wearing.
One mighty fist descended to slam the cavern floor right next to Rarity, a pulse of telekinesis lifting her out of the way as he swept his hoard back to safety. She was momentarily frozen in terror, then ran, as a second pulse stripped her of her stolen finery. She did not resist -- she would rather escape with her life than her treasure, and the Dragon's manner made amply clear to her that her only choice was between one or the other.
As if an angry Dragon were hot on her tail -- whch was close to the truth -- Rarity bolted from the cavern.
Fluttershy
Watching from atop her outcropping, Fluttershy was frankly surprised Red Haze had let Rarity escape that cave alive.
Fluttershy had heard the Dragon raging at Rarity as he drove her from his lair. She had understood every word he spoke -- though some of them made her ears burn, and she didn't think she'd be repeating any of them literally to Twilight Sparkle later on, when they were safely off this mountain and she could tell the scholar-mage the details she had noticed. She knew Twilight would be interested in that, even if Twilight were still mad at Fluttershy for her failure. Twilight's curiosity was one of several things Fluttershy really admired about her, and she'd never let being angry get in the way of learning something interesting, would she?
Though Fluttershy supposed that Twilight might get angrier that she hadn't been informed before going into the Dragon's cave. So maybe she shouldn't bring it up at all. After all, Twilight didn't even really know Fluttershy was still there.
Fluttershy was just relieved Rarity was okay.
Rarity draped herself over a rock and pouted.
"I was this close," she said, putting her forehooves almost in contact with each other, "to getting that diamond."
Twilight noticed the object of the sentence, and its implications with regard to a certain change in Rarity's goals. She gave Rarity a far-from-pleased sidelong glance. "You mean," she said, "getting rid of that dragon?" Her tone sounded distinctly annoyed.
At some point Pinkie had managed to don a curious costume consisting of a big green box around her whole body wrapped by a yellow ribbon with a polka-dot bow worn in gront like a giant bowtie, as if Pinkie herself were some bizarre sort of birthday present. She had on dark glasses -- presumably so nobody would recognize her identity, balloon ears as if she were a giant rabbit, swim fins on all four hooves, and a bunch of balloons elevating her tail, for absolutely no reason practical or symbolic Fluttershy could discern.
The sight of her made even Fluttershy forget her fear for a moment, and giggle softly to herself. What did Pinkie intend to do in that getup?
Pinkie Pie blew her party horn again.
Rarity walked over, looking at Pinkie dubiously, while Rainbow Dash examined the party pony from an aerial angle.
"Exactly," said Pinkie Pie, brightly. "Sharing a laugh is a sure-fire way to get someone on your side!"
Fluttershy wondered about that. Maybe if Pinkie had been the first to speak to Red Haze, but he had sounded furious based on the way he'd ranted about Rarity being a "thief" and a "floozy," to take the least insulting and most repeatable of his descriptions of her. He didn't seem as if he would be in the mood for fun right now.
Still, Pinkie knew what Pinkie was doing -- Fluttershy hoped. Certainly, Fluttershy had never understood why anything Pinkie Pie did ever worked -- or failed to work -- before.
It seemed worth a shot.
***
Pinkie Pie
She was keeping up a brave front -- she didn't want to demoralize her friends -- but Pinkie Pie was almost exhausted as she staggered down the tunnel. Her attire had been designed for silliness, not practicality, and she had paid for its summoning out of her bodily energy -- her link with Paradise was down, her ability to see worldlines fuzzing to gray, and her personal mana long since overchanneled through aching hooves. All she had left was her intelligence, charisma and sheer stubbornness. She did not want to let her best friend down, no matter the risk involved in her attempt.
The dragon was no longer asleep. As she waddled into the main cave, moving with great difficulty in her cumbersome costume, Pinkie almost immediately saw him, sitting up, great yellow eyes glaring malevolently at her. He did not look in the mood for a party.
Had her mission not been so important to Twilight, Pinkie would have bolted at the sight of him. As it was, she made one game attempt to make friends with the Dragon.
"Hi --" she began, in her absolutely friendliest possible tone.
The Dragon whirled around, turning his back on her, and before Pinkie could react to the rudeness of the gesture, a tail bigger than herself smacked into her with potentially bone-shattering force.
Pinkie Pie looked soft and chubby, but she had grown up on a rock farm and even after leaving the farm still worked hard constantly, even though what she did would not have looked like hard labor to one who had never tried to cater at least one party every day. The fact that she loved her work did not change the physical demands involved. She was actually not that far inferior, in terms of raw strength and endurance, to Applejack herself.
So what was left of her reality-warping talent, channeling the last of her endurance through her burning body, had good odds with which to work. Her costume constituted impromptu armor (one of the criteria she had used in designing it), her remaining body fat padded her, and strong muscles provided flexible cladding for her thick Earth Pony bones. It was certainly possible that the impact was spread over her whole body, never reaching the point on any part of her skeleton where it would actually cause significant stress fractures -- and no external observer was watching her with X-rays at this instant.
Thus it was that, though Pinkie Pie was smacked hard by that huge scaly tail, an appendage which had the ability to batter down a small fortification, the collision was elastic and not a single bone was broken. There were some very minor fractures, some scrapes and cuts from her repeated lesser impacts with the tunnel walls -- and much of her body was covered with massive bruises, nicely hidden by her bright pink coat. All this would heal over a single night with the help of Paradise, once the link was re-established -- assuming, of course, that she survived to return home from this mountain.
She did her best to put on a brave front as she limped out of the cave mouth.
"Apparently he doesn't like laughing, heh," she said, trying to disguise the pain she felt with every bodily motion. "Or sharing."
Rainbow Dash looked down at her, examined her searchingly.
Rainbow knew Pinkie Pie quite well. The last month, they had been getting together increasingly often, pranking the whole town, sharing as similar a sense of humor as anypony did with Pinkie.
Once Pinkie had seen an otherwise dark and dreary worldline in which she had lost most of her special powers, lost her way, become far less than her potential -- but her one consolation in that worldline had been that Rainbow Dash loved her. This vision had been one of the reasons why she had, in this worldline, made Rainbow one of her best friends. And in consequence, in the mainline, Rainbow Dash now knew Pinkie Pie very well indeed.
Rainbow Dash was perfectly aware of Pinkie Pie's physical toughness. And knew exactly what her wincing and limping meant in terms of the injuries that had been inflicted upon one of her best friends.
Rainbow's face darkened. Pinkie could see a little superimposed bar marked "Patience" run out, going first yellow, then red, before that particular element of Pinkie's Narrative Sense ran out of power and shut off.
Rainbow erupted in rage. "All right!" Rainbow cried out in disgust. "That's it! " She looked at Twilight Sparkle. "We've tried persuasion," she said, then at Rarity "... charm ..." She looked at Pinkie Pie, her face growing puzzled, "... whatever it is Pinkie Pie does ..."
Pinkie blew her party horn gamely, hoping the humor would calm Rainbow down.
"... It's time to stop wasting time!" stated Rainbow Dash. "I'm going in!" She darted forward.
Pinkie got a sickening flash of what was about to happen, but was too exhausted even to speak.
And, peering over the top of her outcropping, Fluttershy gasped in utter horror. She knew what Rainbow was about to do, what Rainbow had always fantasized about doing to a Dragon, what she had always said she wanted to do to a Dragon.
Rainbow was going to kick the Dragon. Just as in their fillyhood games.
But this was no game. This was real life.
Just as in Fluttershy's worst fears, Rainbow Dash was about to die.
She was sick of seeing her friends getting shoved aside by that big bully of a Dragon. Its brutality toward friendly, fluffy Pinkie Pie was the last straw!
"It's time to stop wasting time!" Rainbow Dash declared. "I'm going in!"
Without bothering to say anything else -- further talk would just mean further delay -- Rainbow Dash streaked forward into the cave.
She could faintly hear Twilight crying something -- it might have been "Rainbow! No!" -- but there was no time to listen. There was no time to do anything but act. To fly fast, and hit something -- which is what Rainbow Dash did best.
The tunnel walls whipped by her as Rainbow instinctively steered her course between them, not so much as scraping the stone despite her velocity. She saw the great bulk of the Dragon before her, its huge head rising on its neck to confront her, yellow eyes bigger than her own body glaring at her. It was just like in her fillyhood fantasies, but way cooler because it was real!
Rainbow Dash flew up to that big ugly kisser of a beak, stared it directly in the face, and -- still not dispersing her flight field, but instead focusing it on the points of her rear hooves, cried "Get ... out!" She swung herself around and discharged her full power into a punishing kick with both rear hooves together right on the end of that beak, striking it with so much force that its whole head rocked back on its neck. Even through her flight field, that stung Rainbow Dash, and hard -- for a moment she feared she'd overdone herself, but it was worth it to defeat the big scaly beast!
She saw the head trembling, waited for the monster to fall ...
It did not seem to be falling. Instead, the Dragon was making noises ... "Ah ... Ah ... Ah ... Ah ..." in a tremendous basso which shook Rainbow Dash's very bones, and made her wonder what the creature was going to do next. The noises reminded her a lot of something that Ponies did ...
"CHOOM!!!" The Dragon sneezed forth a tight cloud of smoke which smelt so much of sulfur that Rainbow Dash's eyes watered; nasty greyish-black snot splattered all over her lovely rainbow mane and blue fur and feathers.
Rainbow had no time to be disgusted by this, as a light of genuine anger came into the Dragon's eyes, and she abruptly realized that the glare that she had seen before had been but 'mild annoyance' on the Dragon's emotional scale. Even Rainbow Dash quailed in terror as the huge eyes bored malevolently into her own, as her whole frame was shaken by a chilling and complex snarl.
Rainbow Dash did not understand Dragon, but she strongly suspected that whatever the huge horror was saying was about as far as one could get from announcing itself to be the President of the local Rainbow Dash Fan Club..
She also realized that the Dragon had not really been hurt in the slightest, and that in fact there was absolutely no power she commanded able to cause the creature any genuine harm.
The reverse seemed hardly likely to be true.
It occurred to her that she was very likely to die now, and to absolutely no purpose.
"Heh," she said, grinning nervously at the creature. "Sorry ...?"
The Dragon roared.
To say this baldly does not do justice to the Dragon's roar. It was a complex sound, of the sort that would require vocal passages considerably more complex than those of a Pony, at a volume exceeding that of any loudspeaker -- physical or magical -- that Rainbow Dash had ever heard. The undertones shook Rainbow's skeleton and seemed to freeze her blood in her veins. A powerful beam of paramagnetism channeled the air into a near-solid ram which deafened all her atmospheric senses and blasted her back down the way she had come almost as rapidly as she had entered.
She had essentially no control over her trajectory. She slammed directly into Twilight Sparkle on the way out, her friend just barely managing to raise an almost-instinctive personal shield the instant before impact and thus avoid serious injuries. The impact of the Dragon's air ram and her own flight field on that shield created a pulse of paramagnetic energy which sent not only Twilight but also Applejack and Pinkie Pie flying. Rarity, who was actually quite close to the collision, was shaken but managed to keep her hooves.
Rainbow herself crashed into a solid rock outcropping overlooking the cave. The force of the impact overwhelmed even her own powerful flight field, and she fell to the ledge behind her friends, the world spinning.
***
Twilight Sparkle
Twilight staggered back onto her hooves, head hurting both from the sudden magical effort by which she had deflected most of the force of Rainbow's impact and from the bruises the portion of that force she had been unable to deflect had inflicted upon her all too soft and vulnerable physical form.
In the next moment, a great Fear overwhelmed her and everypony else. Twilight's eyes widened in terror, while by her side the normally indomitable Applejack screamed and ran like a frightened little filly. She and Rarity scattered away from the entrance, down which were coming thoom, thoom! noises which sounded like titanic footsteps, and which Twilight knew to signify exactly like what they sounded. Pinkie Pie looked to be concentrating intently, as if she were attempting to do something -- but nothing happened.
A great taloned left arm and hand reached out of the cave mouth, hitting the ground like a Pony angrily stomping the ground with a hoof -- but the hand alone was several times the size of any whole Pony. The next moment the head and neck of the Dragon himself pushed himself into view.
A mountain walked or stumbled, thought Twilight dizzily, reminded of a weird tale she had once read. Why am I so frightened? --- the part of her self which was still capable of rational thought asked, and the answer was plain to her: Dragonfear. Older Dragons can project fear as a psychic weapon. Was there a counterspell? Twilight was certain there must be, but she couldn't remember the spell or even its name, and she couldn't focus to try to remember either, for a primal pony within her finely disciplined brain was whinnying and bolting in stark animal terror, her sanity teetering before the waves of malevolence emanating out from that monstrous mind. Only the force of will she had honed through the prolonged practice of high-level magic was keeping her from utter panic.
Then, those last shreds of her will gave way. Exposed directly to the psychic power pouring from the Dragon, Twilight and her friends could do nothing but cling together in a fear-stricken mass, holding on to each other for comfort like foals clinging to their mothers.
The Dragon looked down upon them and roared with rage. A focused beam of smoke and air came from his mouth, knocking them all back against a rocky outcropping. The beam somehow had failed to kill them, but it shattered the rock behind them, and the outcropping crumbled. Twilight and her friends lay utterly helpless before the great creature, which stood there, towering tall as a skyscraper, ready to kill them all in the next instant.
***
Fluttershy
"All right!" Red Haze had roared, so loudly that Fluttershy could make out every word distinctly despite the fact that he was within the cave.. "That's it! Now I'm going to show you why you shouldn't kick a Dragon!"
Fluttershy had been watching from behind a smaller outcropping, protected by her "don't notice me" broadcast, when Rainbow Dash had come rocketing out of the cave. At first Fluttershy had been terrified that her dearest friend was dead, or would die when she hit something, but she soon realized that Rainbow's flight field had been strong enough to save her from serious injury, and that nopony was more than lightly wounded by the collision.
The next moment she had felt the first wave of fear come rolling from out of the cave. Fluttershy's psychic senses immediately and automatically recognized it as an attack, and her steel-hard mind shield, the natural legacy of the elites among her paternal Kind, snapped firmly into place. Dragonfear, she thought, trembling for reasons having nothing to do with the psychic attack and everything to do with its author. They use it to paralyze their foes with terror, to win battles without their victims even having a chance of fighting back.
Then had come the shocking emergence of that tremendous arm.
Even as she quailed in terror at the appearance of the Dragon, Fluttershy was fascinated by the anatomical structures, the shape of the great skeleton, the motions of mighty muscles beneath flexible metallic scales. She had seen some of this in miniature, in Spike, but now she was seeing that awesome anatomy at the scale for which it had truly evolved.
For a moment she almost forgot to be afraid, but then the huge head appeared, and Red Haze had spoken, saying: "I'm going to hurt you now," and Fluttershy remembered that she was standing in full view of a creature of considerable intellect and psychic power, who might any moment see through her mind-clouding. Fluttershy darted behind the larger outcropping behind which she had been hiding earlier, reasoning that this was the safest place to be if she had to remain in the vicinity of the Dragon.
She barely even noticed that, in this quick maneuver, she had made use of her wings.
She cowered behind the slab of rock, head down and tail up, trying to scuttle into a small crevice, and Red Haze roared again, shouting "Take that!" and she felt the rock shiver and crack before an immense telekinetic force. Then suddenly, horribly, her shelter, which had stood there for an unknown number of centuries or millennia after the first builders of this place had carved it as a shield to direct observation into the tunnel, crumbled away to either side.
She lifted her head in astonishment. Then she looked down and saw her friends lying below on the ledge, helplessly groaning in pain and confusion from the combined effects of Dragonbreath and Dragonfear. She collapsed in horror at the sight, then turned and looked straight up, directly at the Dragon.
He was huge. He was magnificent. He was powerful. He was, quite rationally, something of which she should be afraid.
She whimpered.
He turned to look down at her friends, and in the process, almost directly at Fluttershy.
Before the gaze of those two huge yellow eyes, Fluttershy had no choice but to cast her own eyes down. As she did so, she once again saw her friends lying helpless below her. Most looked frozen in terror -- Pinkie Pie in particular was looking straight up into the sky, eyes widened in shock. Rainbow Dash was lying on her face, possibly unconscious -- she would have no chance of dodging should the Dragon decide to consummate its revenge upon Fluttershy's best friend for her temerity.
Fluttershy looked up at the Dragon again.
She remembered all her mother's descriptions of Dragons.
"Bigger than mountains!" Sweetwing Wind had said. "Scales tough enough to turn cannonballs! They move like lightning and have the strength of a million Ponies! They can reach right across a town and pluck you out of your bed with their hideous talons and there's nothing you can do about it! They can look right into your mind and turn your soul to jelly with terror! They want nothing more than to hunt and eat little fillies, like you!" And so on, and on and on, again and again, until the young Fluttershy had trembled in the belief that a Dragon, vast and invincible and malevolently monstrous, would come and slay her in an instant -- and often, as she slept in her bed, Dragons would chase her through her nightmares, until she awoke screaming.
Now Fluttershy beheld a full-grown adult Dragon, the bane of her imaginings. Her eyes shrank in fear, but a strange thought slowly crept to the surface of her mind.
Wait ... she asked herself as she examined the Dragon. Is that all?
For the Dragon was big and the Dragon's scales were thick and brightly-gleaming, his teeth and claws were long and sharp, his breath capable of choking acres of farmland or scything through solid rock: objectively, he was indeed terrifying.
But no Dragon of actual reality, no matter how big and well-armored and well-armed, no matter how potent his breath, could possibly compare to the creature conjured up by Fluttershy's mad mother Sweetwing, and which had taken residence in the subconscious mind of a frightened little filly. It was big, but only so big; its scales were only so thick, its claws only so long and its breath only so deadly.
It was not an implacably-malevolent monster -- he was named Red Haze, and he was cranky and disrespectful because he actually had a decent claim to this lair but he thought it beneath him to give any accounting of his actions to mere Ponies, and he was really, really angry right now because Rainbow Dash had kicked him in the face. Which meant there was a very good chance that what he was going to do next was to kill Rainbow Dash.
She looked down at her friends again. There Rainbow Dash lay, a helpless blue rainbow-maned bundle, so small when not animated by her normal boundless energy and confidence. She remembered the many times they had laughed together, played together, that Fluttershy had basked in her best friend's pure and shining love. And Rarity -- so gracious and kind to Fluttershy, normally full of such dignity and elegance -- now a trembling white form, lying on her back behind Rainbow Dash. There was a good chance that any attack Red Haze made upon Rainbow Dash would kill or maim the helpless unicorn.
Brave Applejack, who had been so nice to Fluttershy, helping her up the mountain, never complaining even when Fluttershy's own cowardice endangered them all -- almost catatonic before the Dragonfear. Pinkie Pie, who had helped her across the crevasse. Twilight Sparkle, who had despite everything still thought her worthy enough that Twilight wanted her by her side ...
All her friends, reduced to helpless victims.
And, within Fluttershy, from beneath the shyness and the fear, from the depths of her soul a great anger arose. Red Haze was no unstoppable monster, he had just gotten lucky. His Dragonfear had overcome her friends, whom she had seen stand up to Nightmare Moon returned, but that did not make him unstoppable. If he had been unstoppable, he would have had no need for Dragonfear. He was just a big bully ... infinitely the inferior of any of her friends ...
And she had the measure of his mind, and knew hers to be the stronger.
She lifted her eyes a third time to the Dragon, and addressed him directly, saying, "How dare you?" Something was leaking from them. It was not tears.
The Dragon was now looking at her directly, curiously, for this was the first he had seen of her. "Because there's nothing anypony can do to stop me," Red Haze said to her, conversationally. "The weak must yield to the strong."
But Fluttershy was barely listening to his words. She rose into the sky and shouted angrily "How dare you?!!" And now the power began to build within her, readying itself for release. She felt it begin to tickle the edge of Red Haze's own shielding.
The Dragon's eyes widened in astonishment, and ... fear?
In a sudden winged leap Fluttershy vaulted high and hovered above the Dragon's snout, staring directly into those great yellow eyes. Each eyeball was bigger than her whole body, but her will and power were far greater than his own. She opened her own eyes wide, and her slumbering Stare awoke to slice through Red Haze's own mind shields, pinning him to the spot, unable to do anything but obey her.
"Listen here, mister," she said, punctuating the last word by landing with deliberate roughness upon the end of his snout. "Just because you're big," Fluttershy continued, walking up his snout to the bridge of his nose, Staring into his huge eyes from point-blank range, "doesn't mean you get to be a bully. You may have huge teeth, and sharp scales, and snore smoke, and breathe fire. But you do not-- I repeat-- You do not! Hurt! My! Friends!"
As she spoke each of those last words, she cruelly amplified her Stare, until the power pouring from her permeated every portion of the Dragon's brain. At this moment Red Haze was helpless before her -- she could have commanded him to do anything, to love her to the point of being her eternal slave, or to fling himself off the mountain to his own destruction, and there was a sadistic side to her own soul that very much wanted to issue just such commands. She almost did so -- and then she remembered that Red Haze was not some mindless monster, but a sapient creature like herself, and that if being big and terrifying did not give him the right to abuse her friends, nor did it give her the right to abuse him -- any more than was necessary to make him understand that she was serious, and his superior in psychic power.
So she slightly relented her Stare, and asked, in a soft and deadly voice: "You got that?"
Red Haze cringed. Literally cringed, as if he were a cowed cur the size of a skyscraper.
"Well?" Fluttershy asked him.
Red Haze looked pathetically up at her. Fluttershy realized that her control was still too rigid to allow him to speak, so she loosened her hold on his ability to communicate.
Red Haze spoke, in Equestrian, in what was for him a very small voice.
"But that rainbow one kicked me," he complained, pointing at Rainbow Dash.
"And I am very sorry about that," Fluttershy said reasonably, giving him a dose of mild pleasure for speaking reasonably to her, by way of reward-conditioning. She had used this technique before to tame recalcitrant animals; it worked almost as well on a Dragon. "But you're bigger than she is, and you should know better." She was now but gently scolding him. "You should also know better than to take a nap where your snoring can become a health hazard to other creatures," she said.
Red Haze nodded, his expression chastened. He seemed glad that this was going to end in a moral lecture rather than the psychic annihilation of his individuality.
"But I --" he started to say, a bit more gruffly.
"Don't you 'but I' me, mister, ' Fluttershy said sternly. She shifted to an imposing posture, vertical in mid-air with her forehooves planted over her hips. "Now, what do you have to say for yourself?" she asked him.
Red Haze considered the question.
"I said," repeated Fluttershy, an edge of annoyance entering her voice, "what do you have to say for yourself?
Red Haze cringed and whimpered. He tried to speak. Words failed him.
Instead, the huge dragon burst into tears and bawled like a heartbroken little colt.
Fluttershy let him do so for a while. Then she said, softly and soothingly, "There, there. No need to cry. You're not a bad dragon," she said, turned and flew down his immense length, admiring the sheer perfection of his anatomy on the way. "You just made a bad decision. Now go pack your things. You just need to find a new place to sleep. That's all."
Her voice was affectionate at the end, as she slowly released her Stare. She knew there was no more need for cruelty: she had tamed the Dragon, bent him to her will, ensured that he would and could never hurt her, or her friends. She wondered if she had done right, hoped that she hadn't used too much power upon him, as she had once done to ... but that was not important right now. She was older now, and wiser, and her friends all ran to her cheering, congratulating her.
"You did it!" cried Twilight Sparkle happily.
From the other side, Fluttershy could see Rarity coming up, smiling proudly at her.
Fluttershy smiled joyfully at the love she could feel wafting from her leader.
"I knew you could do it!" continued Twilight enthusiastically.
Fluttershy was briefly saddened by the fact that to do this she had been forced to Stare down the magnificent creature. She felt the wind from his vast wings blow across her, and looked up to smile in joy at his awesome form. He orbited the mountain once, then flew off, seeking another refuge.
She looked back at her friends -- Applejack grinning in sheer joy at their shared success, Pinkie Pie beaming happily. And up at Rainbow Dash, who was staring at her in open and unabashed admiration.
Happiness filled Fluttershy's heart as she once again felt the special, pure love of her oldest friend. The crisis was over. She had in the end proven her courage.
So they went down the mountain, which was on the one hoof much more boring and on the other hoof far less frightening than had been the journey up.
The Sun was already riding low on the horizon when they reached the rockfall. This time, Fluttershy had no problem flying, and she and Rainbow Dash combined their strength to carry their friends over that section one by one. The cliff face beyond was stil unstable, but the avalanche had been triggered, they moved quietly, and they had no trouble.
The Sun was setting as they got down to the crevasse crossing. It was an absurdly short distance from one side to the other, though Rainbow and Fluttershy hovered watchfully to make sure that nopony slipped. They were all rather tired then, with multiple aches and pains from their various injuries along the way.
Pinkie Pie was moving with especial stiffness; when asked she admitted that she'd gotten some "ouchies" when the Dragon had tail-lashed her out of his cave. As soon as they were across the chasm, Fluttershy got them to stop while she did a quick check on Pinkie to make sure that she had no serious injuries. As near as Fluttershy could tell, the pink party pony was not too badly injured, though unusually-subdued. She made Pinkie promise to see a doctor tomorrow, when they got back to Ponyville. "Okey dokey," replied Pinkie, seemingly lacking the energy for the "lokey" with which she usually terminated that phrase.
Applejack was also starting to limp a little. She was paying for that incredible burst of effort in the avalanche, when she had saved the life of Twilight Sparkle -- and also for the efforts she had made to get Fluttershy up the mountain. Fluttershy wanted to return the favor, but AJ merely commented, "Naw, I'm okay. I'll be fine after I get me some shuteye," and nothing Fluttershy could do could convince her to accept her help. Twilight kept close to Applejack, and Fluttershy saw the lavender mage was keeping a concerned and caring watch on her savior.
They were now in the shadow of the mountain itself, and though it was technically still not full night, the remaining skyglow barely illuminated the path. Twilight took the lead and lit up her horn with a diffuse glow, while Rarity took the rear with Pinkie and lit her own horn, each of them making sure that neither Earth Pony had to walk to trail alone in darkness. Rarity had managed to avoid more than minor bruising, and was in far better shape right now than was her pink companion.
Rainbow Dash seemed unusually subdued. Right after their victory, she had been joyful, but before the Sun set Fluttershy had seen her casting troubled looks in her own direction. Fluttershy was still feeling love from her, a quiet steady pulse of it, but she could tell that her oldest and dearest friend was sad. She had her suspicions as to the reasons why, but now was hardly a good time to talk about them -- assuming that Rainbow was ever willing to talk about it directly. Fluttershy knew that Rainbow was never very good at expressing any softer emotions.
By the time they reached the plateau, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were stumbling, and even Rainbow Dash was admitting that her wings hurt. Twilight ordered them to halt and set up camp. The descent the rest of the way would be long or steep, depending on which path they took, and there was absolutely no point in defeating a Dragon and then losing one of their party to a stupid accident made inevitable by exhaustion.
Fluttershy still felt fresh, which didn't totally surprise her. She hadn't used her wings much going up the mountain, and had actually been carried part of the way by Applejack. She had avoided most of the sources of injury that had bruised the others. And she was getting so much love from everypony now that she was full of energy -- seeing the state of the others, she tried to tap it as little as possible, as it would not have taken much right now to make somepony collapse.
Fluttershy and Rainbow flew down to the forest to fetch wood. Fluttershy found a large dead tree. The two Pegasi took turns collecting the wood and carrying it back up the mountain to their friends. Rainbow Dash said very little besides the minimum needed to coordinate their efforts, and Fluttershy was a bit worried by this. She'd camped out with Rainbow Dash many times, especially in the militia, and it was usually more difficult to get her friend to stop than to start talking. She also noticed that Rainbow Dash was increasingly grunting with effort when she bucked the tree or first lifted a load, and was breathing heavily during her periods of rest on the ground.
After a while they had a huge pile of wood on the plateau, Rainbow Dash was clearly wincing with every motion now, and Fluttershy decided that enough was enough. If the fire died out in the night, so be it -- there were not likely to be any dangerous animals here, high in the White Tails, and the night was chilly but not lethally cold.
"We have enough wood," Fluttershy said softly. "We should rest now."
"I'm up for more," Rainbow Dash declared, got up and stumbled slightly as she positioned herself for the launch off the cliff for another trip down. She caught herself instantly, but her face twisted in a spasm of momentary pain.
"Well, I'm not," Fluttershy declared with unusual firmness. "And I certainly want your company in the middle of this big, scary ..." she looked around, "... ledge," she finished, somewhat uncertainly as there was absolutely nothing at all frightening around them.
"Okay," said Rainbow. "I guess I should stick around ... to protect you."
"I would like that very much," replied Fluttershy.
Applejack and Twilight had already gotten a fire going. Between them the party had three large blankets, each big enough to wrap around two ponies, and several smaller items of bed-clothing -- though the only bed they had to clothe was the bare rock beneath their bodies. Applejack and Pinkie Pie had wrapped one of those big blankets around the both of them and had collapsed almost immediately. Pinkie Pie had a remarkably loud snore, but it didn't seem to be getting in the way of Applejack's ability to sleep.
Twilight and Rarity were under another blanket, conversing in low tones, sometimes looking worriedly at the two sleeping Earth Ponies. Fluttershy and Rainbow walked over to them.
"We should set watches," Twilight said. "We'll want to keep the fire going, and keep an eye out for anything dangerous. Two awake at a time; we're all exhausted and a single sentry will just fall asleep." She glanced in the direction of the snoring Pinkie Pie and the unconscious Applejack. "I think they should take the predawn -- they were almost falling asleep on their hooves this last stretch."
"Makes sense," said Rainbow Dash. "Do you and Rarity want first watch, or second?"
"First," said Twilight, "You and Fluttershy can get some rest, I'll wake you in a few hours."
"Sure thing," replied Rainbow Dash. She and Fluttershy assembled their bed efficiently; they'd both done this together before, many times in the field.
Finally, they lay their weary heads down to sleep. The night air was cold, but the blankets were warmed by both their bodies, and Fluttershy was calmed by Rainbow's familiar scent.
Fluttershy still had a little energy left.
"We did it," she said happily. "And everypony's okay."
"Yep," said Rainbow Dash. "That we did, and everypony is. As one would expect, with yours -- ahh, never mind." She didn't seem to even want to make the effort to complete the boast.
"Are you feeling all right?" Fluttershy asked her friend.
"Sure -- I just -- ahh, we can talk about this another time," said Rainbow, rolling so as to turn away from her.
Fluttershy felt a bit sad. She knew Rainbow wasn't mad at her.
It was hard for her to read, because it didn't map well onto a love-hate axis, but she thought Rainbow Dash was feeling guilty.
She thought she knew why, too. But this would be a complex conversation, and now was not the time for it.
"Night, Rainbow," she said softly.
"Night, 'Shy," came Rainbow's sleepy mumble.
There was silence for a long while. Then, from Fluttershy. "Rainbow?"
Rainbow emitted some alarming sounds, which swiftly settled into her usual stentorian snores.
Fluttershy fondly smiled. "I love you," she whispered, so softly that Rainbow, even had she been awake, might not have even heard her. The snores were comforting. Fluttershy's whole body relaxed, and a dreamless sleep soon claimed her.
***
Seemingly the next moment, Twilight was gently shaking her awake with a hoof, her horn glowing to illuminate them both
"Fluttershy," Twilight was saying. "Your turn on watch."
Fluttershy mumbled something which sounded vaguely like Equestrian, and forced her eyes open.
There was a warm familiar-smelling fuzziness cuddled up against her chest. The fuzziness opened her pinkish-red eyes and said, loudly "I'm awake!" and detached herself from Fluttershy's forelegs.
Neither of them displayed any embarrassment about their situation. They were both seasoned campers, and had awoken like this more than once on a cold night. Others might rib them about it, but they did the same thing: when one slept under the stars, it was instinctive to seek the literal warmth of another pony.
Especially if one loved her. But this wasn't the moment for that conversation.
"My watch was quiet," Twilight told them as they got to their hooves. "Just Rarity and myself, and the dark mountainside."
"You make it sound so boring, darling," came Rarity's familiar sleepy voice. "You're forgetting all that fascinating information we exchanged."
Twilight smiled. "At least now I know exactly why they call Golden Harvest's older brother 'Scapegrace' Carrot," she said wryly. "And why he might have decided not to come back to Ponyville."
"But do not repeat any of this to Applejack," Rarity reminded her. "She won't appreciate the topic, trust me."
"I won't," said Twilight.
She and Rarity retired to their blanket, and Fluttershy and Rainbow took their places by the fire, sitting side by side, positioning themselves so that they had the mountainside to their backs, commanding the most important fields of view. Militia habits were well and truly ingrained within them.
There was a long and awkward silence. They murmured small pleasantries, compared minor notes. They were waiting for something, and that something soon arrived in the form of Twilight and Rarity's snores.
The silence was finally then broken by Fluttershy.
"You were very brave yesterday," Fluttershy said. "Fighting that Dragon."
"Yeah," said Rainbow Dash bleakly. Then, with a momentary pride: "I kicked it in the face, you know!"
"I know," said Fluttershy with unfeigned warmth. Among Pegasi, doing something of that sort was admirable in and of itself, for the courage it required. Even when it hadn't been a very good idea. Which perhaps, Fluttershy sometimes thought, exemplified what was wrong with Pegasus culture. But she was enough a daughter of that very same culture that she shared, to a lesser degree, Rainbow's own sentiment.
"I guess it was a dumb thing to do, though," Rainbow admitted. "I nearly got myself killed. Nearly got all of us killed." She sighed to herself.
"Well, it was perhaps a bit too fearless," Fluttershy said. "For a moment I thought that Red Haze was going to kill you."
"Red Haze?" asked Rainbow, turning to look at her. "Who's that?"
"The Dragon," replied Fluttershy, looking into the fire, admiring the beauty of the flickering flames. "Oh, I should probably tell Twilight about all of that later. He said his name, in his own language, when Twilight was talking to him."
"You speak Dragon?" asked Rainbow disbelievingly.
"I picked it up," Fluttershy explained. "Part of my Talent."
"That sure is a useful Talent," Rainbow said.
"It can be," admitted Fluttershy.
Another long silence fell. The fire cast dancing shadows all about them. Part of it guttered low, and Rainbow fed it a nice thick piece of wood. She gave Fluttershy a long look; Fluttershy noticed from the corner of her eye but said nothing. Rainbow looked away again.
"I'm sorry," Rainbow Dash said abruptly.
"What for?" asked Fluttershy, turning her head slightly. She thought she knew for what Rainbow was apologizing, but she wanted to be certain.
"Being so rough on you," Rainbow said, looking directly at Fluttershy. "I got mad at you when you ... had trouble flying, and then when the avalanche happened, and you didn't want to go into the cave and ... I was a jerk. And I'm sorry I was mean to you. And I ..." Rainbow looked down at the ground, ".. I hope we're still friends."
Fluttershy looked into the fire. "Of course we're still friends," she said firmly. "Nothing could change that. And I forgive you. I ... I was being a pretty big baby myself. I made mistakes that could have gotten us all hurt. You were right to blame me for that."
"There's more," said Rainbow Dash, eyes still downcast. "When Twilight asked us all to do this -- I didn't want you along. I ... I thought you were weak, I didn't want you to get hurt, I didn't want you to embarrass yourself. So I nearly took this away from you. Your win. I don't know how you can forgive me for that. I don't know how I can forgive me for that."
"I was weak," Fluttershy admitted. "And you wanted to protect me. I knew that. You've been protecting me ever since we were both small." She was quiet for a moment, then added. "Often I've needed your protection. Rainbow -- if you hadn't been there for me, so many times, I don't know if I'd be alive today. Or sane. You were my friend at times nopony else was. And ... even when you're not there -- when things get tough I think of you. That you care about me, and it makes me think that maybe I'm worthy, after all."
Rainbow looked at Fluttershy in surprise. "Oh, Fluttershy!" she said. "Of course you're worthy! Hey," she nudged Fluttershy in the side, "you just drove off a great big Dragon! You stood up to it and told it -- him, I guess -- exactly where he could get off. And he did! It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life!"
"Thank you," said Fluttershy, smiling at her friend.
"But I've never minded protecting you," said Rainbow. She looked into the fire and said. "When we were young I used to imagine that you were some great lady like in one of the old tales, about the Clans and their wars in the time before the Unification. And I was your loyal bannerpony, and I'd go out and fight for your honor, and it would be all epic and awesome and stuff." She looked up at Fluttershy, blushing. "I guess it's all really dumb, huh?"
"No," said Fluttershy, still looking into the fire. "That's not dumb." She turned and gazed quite seriously into Rainbow's eyes. "I think it's wonderful. I think your friendship is wonderful. I think you're wonderful. And I think you have the heart of a real hero, as strong as that of anypony from the old legends."
Rainbow blushed deeply, smiling in almost disbelieving joy. "Thank you," she said. "I don't des -- thank you."
"But we're not just little fillies playing pretend any more," said Fluttershy, speaking very gently, to soften what she was about to say. "We're adult mares, and this was real life, and we both made mistakes, ones that nearly made things turn out very badly. I made most of them ..."
"No, you saved us all .." protested Rainbow Dash.
"In the end," said Fluttershy.. "After I was scared, and was a burden, and nearly got everypony hurt ... or worse." She frowned for a moment. "I need to be more honest with myself," she finally said. "With everypony. I'm not always an honest pony. It's one of my faults."
"You're a great Pony, 'Shy!" said Rainbow Dash, standing up and looking a bit confused, as if she wanted to fight the one who was insulting her friend, but unable to find a target.
"Thank you," replied Fluttershy. "I try to be, though I don't always succeed. But I think I'll try to be better from now on. I don't want to risk the lives of my friends again by my failure." She looked deeply into Rainbow's eyes. "I don't want to risk yours." She smiled. "After all, you're my most loyal bannerpony."
Rainbow Dash grinned. "No peril is too great in My Lady's service." Her bow was almost a mockery, but the adoration that accompanied the gesture was very real.
Fluttershy giggled. "I'm lucky to have a great warrior like you to protect me."
"What great deed shall I do next?" Rainbow asked.
"Just stay by my side," answered Fluttershy.
"There's nowhere I'd rather be," said Rainbow.
Rainbow sat down again next to Fluttershy. They sat companionably like this for a long while, looking into the fire and thinking.
"Rainbow," said Fluttershy. "Be careful, okay?"
"Careful of what?" asked Rainbow, looking at her curiously.
"Your life," said Fluttershy. She looked into Ranibow's eyes. "Do you know my worst fear?" she asked.
Rainbow thought a moment, shrugged. "Dragons?" she asked.
"No," said Fluttershy, very seriously. "You. Dying."
"Eh," said Rainbow Dash, . "I'm young, and strong, and healthy. And the fastest thing with wings." She grinned at Fluttershy. "I'll still be kicking flank and taking names decades from now."
Fluttershy smiled, then her face grew more serious again. "Just don't take any unnecessary risks," she told her friend. "Rainbow -- you're already my hero. And you're becoming a hero of all Equestria. And I think we may have to do dangerous things again," she shuddered for a moment at the thought. "You'll have a lot more chances to be a hero. Don't put yourself in needless danger. Because ... I don't want to have to face a world without a Rainbow Dash in it." Sadness overcame her at the thought.
"Aw ... I was just doing what I had to do ..." said Rainbow.
"You kicked a Dragon. In the face!" Her voice was still low, but there was an angry edge.
"I know you said that was mean, but he was being pretty mean to Pinkie ..." Rainbow started to explain.
"It's not about him! It's about you!" Fluttershy said, her voice brittle with stress. "You could have been killed! And it wasn't necessary!"
"Wasn't it?" Rainbow asked.
Fluttershy looked at her in shock.
"Everypony was just standing there, no idea what to do next," pointed out Rainbow Dash. "Even Twilight didn't know what to do. I got things moving."
"But ..." started Fluttershy.
"And I think it was when you saw me got hurt that you got mad enough to stop being afraid," Rainbow said. "Isn't that why there are heroes? To lead by example? Even if they fall?"
Fluttershy started to say something, then stopped and thought. A lot.
"You ... you're right," Fluttershy said. "Without you being brave, I might have continued to be scared. I might have just kept hiding behind that rock while things worked out without me. And without me, I think someponies would have died."
"Heh," said Rainbow smugly. "And at Flight School they kept saying my tactics were too rash." She frowned. "Actually, I think Gilda's bunch said the same thing about me more than once. Which is weird, because Griffons are mad-aggressive." She shrugged. "I dunno. But it worked. And we're both alive to enjoy the cake. Mmm, cake." Her stomach rumbled.
"We don't actually have any cake," said Fluttershy, a bit sadly. She was starting to feel hungry too.
"Which is also weird, because Pinkie Pie usually has a ton of cake," commented Rainbow. "But she hasn't been popping out anything like that since the cave. Weird, huh?"
"Or too normal for Pinkie," laughed Fluttershy. She walked over and rummaged in her bags. "Here," she said. "I've got some greens, and some carrots and tomatoes, and trail mix ...some spices ..." She took out a pan and poured in some water from a canteen. "I can make us a quick veggie stew."
"I'm hungry now," Rainbow complained.
"Here's some bread," Fluttershy said, tossing her half a loaf. "You can have that while this is cooking."
Rainbow did. Then they had stew.
Afterward they sat side by side, conversing about everything and nothing in particular.
Finally they just relaxed together, leaning against one another and looking out at the dark small hours of morning. It was quiet now; most of the things that moved in the forest far below were stealthy and nocturnal, and it was far too early for most of the morning bird chorus.
"We used to do this a lot together," Rainbow said. "Back in Flight Camp ... later in the militia. It was nice."
"I agree," said Fluttershy. "I've missed camping out like you with this."
Somewhere, an owl hooted.
"I have the Weather Patrol, you have your shelter -- we don't have as much time as we used to. We don't get to do this enough any more. We should do this again."
"I'll skip the Dragon next time," said Fluttershy, smiling at her friend.
"Yeah," chuckled Rainbow Dash. "You got that right."
"Would you really like to go camping again?" asked Fluttershy.
"Sure!" said Rainbow Dash. "When do you want to do it?"
"There's a place I go, middle of every October, in the eastern spur of the Pegasus. There's a butterfly migration I like to see then -- it's really beautiful out there, and I've never been there with anypony else -- it's kind of special to me," she finished, feeling suddenly shy. "Would you like to ... come with me this year?"
"Sure thing -- it's a date!" replied Rainbow Dash, and then she was the one to be embarrassed. "Um, I mean, like a camping trip."
"I know," said Fluttershy, smiling to herself. She thought about the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago she'd been sleeping safely in her bed, unaware of what she was going to see that morning, of the call that would come to draw her into terror and adventure ... and conflict with her best friend, but a conflict that had ended in a closer reconciliation.
"It's been a pretty good day," she said to Rainbow Dash. "An awfully scary day," she amended, "but a good one at the end of it." ' "We beat a Dragon!" Rainbow affirmed, nodding, then modifying her statement. "Well, you did."
"You were right the first time," Fluttershy said. "We beat that Dragon, together. All of us. Myself, and Twilight, and Pinkie, and Applejack and Rarity. And especially you," she said. "I could never have done this without your love."
Rainbow looked away in happy embarrassment.
They sat there a long time, just enjoying each other's nearness. Fluttershy put a wing around Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow silently rubbed her cheek against Fluttershy's chest, then leaned in to let her taller friend cradle her in her forelegs. Occasionally, Fluttershy gently caressed Rainbow's mane, or Rainbow nuzzled her chest.
They said nothing. There was nothing to say, nothing that wasn't already being adequately communicated by their shared warmth, by the love Fluttershy felt radiating from Rainbow. Both were afraid that anything they might say, anything they might do beyond these minor but precious intimacies, would spoil the perfection of this moment.
Eventually Rainbow let out a very large, indelicate yawn. She looked up at the sky.
"Wow, we should wake AJ and Pinkie," she said. "By the stars, we're an hour late to do that."
"Oh ... I'm sorry," said Fluttershy. "I didn't notice." Actually, she had, but she'd been enjoying the closeness a lot.
"I did," said Rainbow Dash. "You were just being such a nice pillow I didn't want to move." She grinned and rolled to her hooves. "But I think we should get some more sleep before we head home."
Applejack was a bit muzzy when they woke her up. Pinkie Pie was straight-out incoherent.
"Ten more minutes, Maw," Pinkie said, waving her hooves. "It's too early to start turnin' the rocks." Her mind was obviously somewhere far from their mountain ledge camp.
"Aw, let her sleep," said Applejack, coming to her hooves. "I got plenty of rest, and she got banged up pretty bad by that Dragon at the end. I can stand watch solo."
"All right," said Rainbow Dash. "I guess it don't matter."
The two tired Pegasi sought their blanket, crawled in and lay down. Under the blanket they touched hooves, meshed the suckers on their pads in the Pony equivalent of squeezing each other's hands, smiled briefly at one another. Then they closed their eyes, and soon returned to the land of slumber.
***
When Fluttershy awoke again in the morning, the golden light of the Sun streamed down upon the mountain ledge, and the air was already beginning to get a bit warmer. Some time in the night, Rainbow had once again rolled over into her forelegs and was embracing her, but that didn't bother Fluttershy at all. Though it was Twilight who woke them up, and the strange look she gave Fluttershy upon seeing their sleeping posture did embarrass her slightly.
She wanted to say "Nothing happened," but that would not have been entirely true, though what had happened had been far more on the emotional plane than the physical. She and Rainbow were reconciled, and would be closer friends again now. And something had passed between them, some sort of understanding that Fluttershy found difficult to name. She knew that the emotion Rainbow felt for her was love, and there was something romantic in there, but not what any of it meant. She simply lacked the experience to understand Rainbow's feelings -- or her own.
So she remained silent.
It didn't matter.
They'd succeeded. They'd driven off the Dragon. Twilight Sparkle had proven her worth to the Princess, and Fluttershy had proven her worth to Rainbow Dash, and to herself. And nopony had died, or even been hurt too seriously. Applejack had broken out the coffee, Rarity was making tea, and Pinkie Pie, regenerated by a good night's sleep, was bouncing happily around the campsite. Rainbow stretched against the Sun, her limbs and wings at full extension, healthy and strong and brave and beautiful beyond compare in Fluttershy's eyes.
There was tea, and coffee. And Pinkie Pie's eyes sparkled as she reached ... somewhere ... and pulled forth something beyond all price on an early morning after a very rough day, something which she shared with all her friends.
Pinkie had cake.
There was no need right now for complex questions.
