Fluttershy's climb gradually becomes more and more effortless the further she advances up the mountain.  As her goal approaches the sky clears, and even the glance down to the archives of the library seems far less menacing.  She gazes around to look at the scenery, taking in this world for what it truly is: a creation of her own mind.  The more she realizes exactly where she is, the better everything starts to become.  There are actually animals in the scene, rather than it just being a barren wasteland save the other two ponies following her around, and for once she can see the sun.  The higher they climb, the more like nature the background gets, and so, the closer they get to their ultimate goal.  

"Uhm... N-Numbers?"  Fluttershy turns to the slightly distracted unicorn version of herself and asks.  "Is this getting easier because I want it to...  o-or because I'm getting used to the environment?"  

Numbers, currently shoving away the mocking hooves of one very bored Courage, takes a second to readjust her glasses before answering.  "The answer to that question is 'yes'.  A little bit of both really, you're becoming more comfortable in your mind, and therefore everything is starting to take shape as a slightly more comfortable environment."  At the end of her statement, Courage sneakily baps Numbers on the back of the head, knocking her glasses loose and nearly sending them crashing to the ground.  "You're so lucky that you're a necessary component for Fluttershy's sanity or I'd throw you off this mountain right this instant!"

"Hah, I knew I could get you to snap."  Courage sticks her tongue our and snickers at the frustrated unicorn.

"Brute."

"Nerd."

"Girls!" Fluttershy yells to try and break up the quarrel before it gets too bad.  She immediately apologizes after she has their attention, however.  "Please...  We need to keep moving.  We're almost there."  

"No we're not, Co-pilot."  Courage steps away from Numbers and points her hoof over Fluttershy's shoulder.  "We're already there."

"H-h-how did... How did that happen?"  The pink-maned pegasus stares in awe at the larger-than-expected mouth of the cave at the summit of the mountain.

"Decisiveness I'd venture to assume."  Numbers readjusts her glasses and tries to set her hair back, doing so almost without any effort whatsoever.  "You ordered us to quit goofing around, and in effect you ordered your mind to quit goofing around.  Whether you know it or not."

"So if I tell you two to do something it'll change the world?"

"Not exactly...  Whenever you're talking to us you're just talking to yourself.  However that comes to pass in this place is as much up to chance as it is up to whatever you say or think."  Courage throws a rock into the cave and listens intently for the echo.  

"Your interpretation of what you say to us, ehm... yourself... is what drives this world, Fluttershy.  The fact that you're actually well-read and fairly intelligent only makes that more complicated.  If you were dumb and brutish like... say... Rainbow Dash, we'd have been here and back ages ago... but since you have irrational fears, inhibitions, interpretations, functional analyses of specific situations, and such a great memory coupled with so many emotional and sensory cues that you might as well have a standing stone in your mind with all of your experiences chiseled onto it for eternity... well, that just makes this whole journey longer, more difficult, and of course, more frightening."  Numbers ends her long-winded statement with a sigh as she looks over to see Courage amidst throwing things off of the precipice of the cliff.  "They say ignorance is bliss, and I must say Courage is a pretty solid example of that as a fact."

"Hey!"  Courage stops dropping various objects off of the sheer cliff face and turns around at the insulting mention of her name.  

"So... should we go i-inside?"  Fluttershy looks up to the mouth of the cave and feels as if it gets bigger and darker every single second.  It seems to her that her mind's last defense of this memory is to scare her away.  

"We must go inside, Fluttershy.  It's not a matter of whether we should or shouldn't... to be quite frank you 'shouldn't' even be here, but you need to be here."  Numbers uses her magic to throw the remainder of Courage's pile of rocks, various articles of clothing, even a few gold coins off of the cliff and then drag her back toward the group by the tail.  Needless to say, the earth pony is not amused.

The pegasus gulps and takes a few steps toward the mouth of the cave.  All she can think of is the first time she'd been to the real-world version of this very mountain, and as such, the mouth of the cave becomes literally a mouth.  Jagged stalagmites and stalactites jut out of the floor like teeth, and the opening seems to have elongated around her.  She manages to fight the urge to just shrink up into a little ball and cry, knowing full well that her companions wouldn't allow it too well.  Just to get a look at her state of mind, Fluttershy looks around and tries to analyze the body language of the ponies behind her.  Numbers seems very calm and collected, observing her surroundings extremely thoroughly and with a kind of focus that Fluttershy has only ever seen in Twilight, while Courage steps through with her chin held high, nodding her head to some kind of tune that only she would ever know, and paying almost no attention to where she's stepping.  The pegasus gulps one more time, re-playing the quote that Numbers had mentioned outside: "Your interpretation is what drives this world."  Fluttershy doesn't really have to force it this time, but steps into the blackness toward the back of the cave, knowing full well that she has the strength to take on whatever lies ahead.  

Rainbow Dash opens her eyes to be greeted with the darkness of a nearly midnight hour.  She turns to look at Applejack, who has rolled out from beneath the pegasus and is sleeping in a somewhat awkwardly oriented position.  The only thought running through Dash's mind is how goofy Applejack looks when she's sleeping:  hair messed up, mouth open, snoring with the most adorable, quiet but still squeaky tone.  

The pegasus lays her head on the pillow and readjusts her position so that she's comfy, looking Applejack straight in the face.  Secretly, she wishes that the earth pony would open her eyes and be greeted with the wondrous image of  "hers truly", but all that the snoozing mare does is mumble something entirely incomprehensible (besides the word "apples" of course) and roll onto her back.  

Just my luck...  Rainbow thinks to herself, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling for a while.  A sliver of moonlight eeks its way through the curtains and paints itself on the wall, but nothing else of any interest occurs.  The cyan pegasus comes to terms with the fact that she won't be getting back to sleep any time soon, and so rolls off of the bed.  She's not quite sure where she's going, but figures she can get outside for a breath of fresh air and then maybe take a drink before trying again.  She stretches her wings and tries to sneak out of the room, though the exhausted earth pony probably wouldn't wake up for a train crash outside her home at this point.  

She steps out of the doorway and heads downstairs, glancing around to simply take in the quiet darkness of the rustic home.  Every single corner is pitch black, with only small sections of the rooms and hoof-crafted furniture being lit up by moonlight pouring in through the windows.  Cloudsdale is very different, almost always having a uniform coat of white painted on everything.  The clouds allow much of the light through them and so keep most of the darkness of night away so long as the moon and stars are out.  Rainbow watches the slivers of light through curtain-drawn windows cast a moving pattern on her body as she walks toward the front door of the house.  She takes a deep breath and turns the doorknob, slowly pulling the heavy wooden door inward and feeling the cold rush of winter night air hit her directly in the face.  The door squeaks with the loudest, most obnoxious tone that this pegasus had ever heard, at least relative to the nearly silent night atmosphere, and the noise causes her to visibly cringe.  Even the smallest squeak in the house makes her feel like she just woke the entire family up, so the stress from that obnoxious thing nearly sent her shrinking back inside.  

"The door sags a little at the hinges... if'n you wanna be quiet ya gotta lift it up a bit before you open it."  A deep, familiar voice calls out to the pegasus as she steps outside, startling her and making her freeze in place.  Rainbow looks over and sees none other than Big Macintosh sitting on the porch and gazing up at the stars.  "Ah hope you're not a-tryin' to run out on my sister again, Rainbow."  

"No!  No... nothing like that.  I just woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, thought I'd head outside for some air.  What're you doing out here so late anyway?"  She tries to take the spotlight off of herself, as is usual in cases of accusation, despite the fact that her intentions were true.

"Wull ya caught me.  Sometimes I like to come out here at night and look at the stars.  They're uhm... pretty."  The big Clydesdale uses his facade of a 'stallion-of-few-words' to hopefully get out of explaining his true intentions.

"Nothin' wrong with that...  But I get the feeling there's something else to it."  Rainbow Dash isn't fooled, she's always been able to read ponies.

"It's just my thinkin' place...  Nopony bothers me out here at night and I can just take a little time to mahself.  Watchin' Applebloom is a hassle and AJ's usually out doin' somethin' so whenever I'm not helping on the farm I gotta help with the filly.  Takin' some quiet time is, uhm, nice."

"You know.  You're absolutely right about that."  Dash doesn't really feel like she needs to say anything.  She knows the feeling and doesn't want to upset the big guy.  

"I've been meanin' to ask you about your relationship with AJ..."  Macintosh obviously has a lot on his mind, though he does a great job of trying to hide it behind big eyes and a quiet countenance.  

"Ask away.  I've got nothing to hide."  Rainbow proudly exclaims her disposition as she sits a few feet away from the stallion.

"Why her?  I mean I got nothin' against it, and as far as I know ya make her happy... I'm just curious..."

"Well...  I usually don't think about that.  I guess what attracts me to her is that she's strong, calm, tough, and can hold her own.  Fluttershy's too wimpy, and Twilight is waaaaay too nerdy, and Pinkie Pie is... well..."

"Pinkie is Pinkie..."

"Yeah... that.  She's nice and all but... well I don't think she even swings that way anyhow.  As for Rarity...  We're just two completely different ponies, and not in the good way."

"Good way huh?"

"Yeah.  They say 'opposites attract' and sometimes that's true.  If it's an interesting difference anyway.  Rarity is just too prissy and too obsessive for somepony like me."

"I get'cha...  I've just never thought about what two mares would look for in each other... well... even what they could look for in each other.  'Course I'm a little old fashioned like that."

"Hah... AJ wasn't exactly open to the idea at first either, Mac.  The way I see it, though, is that love can exist no matter who tries to pursue it.  Doesn't matter what's between their legs."

"I reckon that's a good way of lookin' at it...  I've never really had any problem with fillyfoolers and coltcuddlers and such... but I know Granny Smith isn't exactly open minded..."  Big Macintosh never takes his eyes off of the stars, he only flits them around and tries to pick out each one, almost as if trying count them all.  "You'll be good to her, won'tcha, Rainbow?"  He asks in a very rhetorical tone, knowing the answer already.

"Of course I will, Mac.  She means a lot to me."

"Did she tell you that she hasn't been in any other relationships?"

"She did, and I'll do my best to make her first one grea--"

"She didn't tell ya the whole truth there."  Macintosh tilts his head down to look at Rainbow right after the interruption.  "She's tried to be in relationships before, but everypony she's been with has ended up hurting her... bad.  She doesn't even consider them real relationships because they only ever lasted around a week or so, but they got close enough to break her heart, and that's close enough as far as I care."

"Well then... that's uhm.  That's good information to have."  Rainbow feels almost hurt that Applejack didn't tell her, but knows that she's probably just afraid to.  "H-how many?"  

"They've all been colts... and only three, but that's three too many times that a brother has to sit with his sister and listen to her cry, especially when they're as tough as AJ.  It just ain't right."

"Agreed...  Don't worry, I promise you I won't hurt her."

"I hope not.  Just know that I trust you, and I'll tell ya anythin' you need to hear, even if it ain't pleasant."

"Hah, well I'll keep that in mind."  Rainbow sits up straight and looks over at the very large stallion, trying to make eye contact with him, though he's not exactly making that easy by his stargazing.  "Either way, don't stress about it.  I'll keep her happy and safe, and I sure as hay won't hurt her.  She means a ton to me, especially after letting me stay here after the accident."

"My condolences for that by the way."

"Thank you, but just letting me stay here with you all is a massive help."

"Well as far as I'm concerned you're part of the family now, so we'll treat you like it.  Don't be afraid to ask fer anything."

"I won't, Mac.  Thank you."

"You're welcome..."

"So do you get many marefriends?  I can only imagine the ladies swarmin' all over a big stud like you."  This comment makes Big Mac blush a little and prompts a snicker from the pegasus.

"Ah, no, not really.  I've never felt like I needed a marefriend..."

"Not much of a surprise... mares can be bitches sometimes."

"Don't be usin' that language around Applebloom, heh..."  

"Psh, we're all adults here...  Don't worry though, I won't expand her vocabulary with anythin' dirty."

"Either way you're right.  I'm kind of a simple pony if you haven't guessed..."

"Gee... the thought never crossed my mind..." Rainbow sarcastically remarks toward the big stallion with a mischievous grin.

Macintosh clears his throat and gives Rainbow a deadpan look.  "...Anyway... Ponies that always want me to buy 'em stuff and spend tons of time with 'em and all that kinda drive me nuts...  We don't have a whole lot of money here in the family and there's always a lot of work to be done, so I can't really ever cater to those wants and needs.  Seems best to me to just stay out of it."

"Well maybe you're just lookin' for another stallion like yourself to keep you hard at work."  Rainbow smirks a little and knows this is about to pluck a nerve.

"Hey now don't joke about that.  Somepony's gotta give Granny Smith some great grand-foals, and ever since you came along AJ's outta that rodeo.  Though honestly I have given it some thought..."

"Wull I was just teasin' you... but if you really do feel that way don't bottle it up.  I know from experience that it doesn't go away if you try to hide it."  

"I'm not really sure how I feel or I'd tell ya, Rainbow.  Maybe I'll just look at it the way you do and try not to think about right n' wrong if I'm put in that situation..."

"That's the spirit.  When it comes to love, there isn't a right and wrong, there's only love."

"Them's fancy words from a pony like you who always seems to be gettin' herself into some kind of trouble with her inflated ego."  Big Mac's turn to return the jeering.

"Hah! Well I deserved that one...  Either way, do what feels good to you, nuts to whatever everypony else thinks."

"I'll keep that in mind, Rainbow.  It was good talkin' to ya, but I think it's about time we head inside."

"Yeah, it's freakin' cold out here."  

Fluttershy steps across the rocky surface of the cave floor.  As of now, the lights have gone completely dark, and the only illumination comes from Numbers's horn casting a slight aura on each of the three ponies' faces.  The sounds of water dripping in the distance once again bring to life the fear that Fluttershy has been swallowed whole by some menacing beast, but each time the thought creeps into her mind she simply dispels it.  As if out of nowhere, the trio spot a light at the end of the tunnel, though with the darkness enveloping them Fluttershy feels as if they're in a completely flat plane.  The void extends in all directions, even down since they can't quite see their hooves.  

The three ponies hurry toward the light, figuring it should be the goal.  Fluttershy quickens her pace, eager to get out of the cave and into something a little more cozy, whatever that may be.  The second she steps out of the darkness she realizes just exactly where they ended up: her old bedroom from Cloudsdale.  She was just a filly, and so still has legions of stuffed animals littering the shelves and floor, as well as several other small playthings.  On the wall made entirely of clouds sit crudely done drawings of her early work, most of which containing the visage of her and her mother.  She stares in awe at the sight, just the existence of this place starts to bring her back into painful memories.

"Be strong, Co-pilot, you have to do this."  Courage rests her hoof on the mare's shoulder, trying to give her a little extra strength.  Even she can sense the disturbing nature of the place through Fluttershy's mind.  

"We need to find the tome...  It should look just like any other book, with the obvious augmentations associated with these memory books.  Anything strike your fancy?"  Numbers asks as she patrols the perimeter of the room, lightly pushing aside small objects in search of that one specific book.

Fluttershy instinctively looks toward her small, colorful bookshelf.  Out of the dozen or so books that she has perfectly organized and lined up, one single one juts out into the room.  She begrudgingly reaches her hoof out and tugs at the thing.  To her surprise it comes out with no friction whatsoever, only slipping away into her hooves for the other two ponies to see.  The cover of the book doesn't have any kind of title, which prompts them all to think that this must be it.  

Hesitantly, Fluttershy looks to each of her sides, gaining the 'go-ahead' from both Courage and Numbers, who eagerly look over her shoulder.  She opens the book to the first page: it's a coloring book, but the images are certainly swirling and holding the same properties as the other 'memory' that she read earlier.  Unlike the one she read earlier, however, she doesn't slip into the memory immediately.  She takes the time to focus directly on the page for a little while, watching the swirling and blurred images flash before her in typical, disorganized memory fashion; she turns the page to the next.  This one holds a very similar set of images, and from the coloration she feels that these must simply be happy childhood memories from out of Cloudsdale.  One more turn of the page reveals another swirling mass of images with a very disturbing overlay.  In deep, black ink atop the page sits one single word: Cry.

"What's this?"  Fluttershy asks Numbers while pointing her hoof to the eyesore of a word on the page.

"That, Fluttershy, is an emotional cue.  The memory won't be revealed until you're... uhm, how do I put this delicately?.. unbelievably miserable.  It's a very large cue, so that means it's a narrow umbrella for what exact feeling you'll have to tap into."

"Hey, Co-pilot.  I heard Angel Bunny got hit by a runaway wagon."  Courage chimes in with this lovely little piece of 'information.'

Just the imagination of such a horrible thing makes Fluttershy's heart sink down deep into her chest.  "What?!  What's wrong with you? Why would you say that?"  Tears well up in her eyes as anger and sadness take their hold on the usually quiet and submissive mare.

"Because you need to be sad to get this to work, so I figured I'd try a little something easy..."

"I hardly think that's the way to go..."  Numbers interrupts and casts Courage a look of displeasure.

"Why?  She's got tears starting to form, just look... By the way, Co-pilot.  All that time you spend trying to eat healthy and exercise isn't working, you've got some saddlebags startin' to form by your chubby flanks."  Fluttershy shrinks away and tries to hide herself as Courage brings up any mention of 'fat'.  She's secretly self-conscious about her weight, though unnecessarily so; all this statement accomplishes is embarrassing the poor mare and hurting her feelings. "Uhhm... The only reason Twilight is staying with you is because she's so desperate for someone to love she'll settle for the bottom-of-the-barrel type ponies like you."

"Now that's just..."  Fluttershy sniffles at the mental assault.  "That's just uncalled for..."

"No, 'uncalled for' was the way you ran away from Twilight after that restaurant incident when she stood up for you and all you could do was bend and sway to the prying eyes of the other ponies... She actually had a backbone where you were just gonna curl up and wish they would all go away... then you had the audacity to fly away from her and blame your little depressive dip on her!  If anything you should have stayed there and kissed her hooves, but you can't keep a grip on yourself long enough to realize when somepony's trying to do something nice for you."  

The bullying works, poor Fluttershy can feel herself break down and drop the book on the floor.  A single tear drips off of her chin and lands right in the middle of the page, seeming to dissolve the ink around it.  Just that one tear does the trick, everything quickly starts to clear up, the ink melts away and disappears to the furthest corners of the book.  

"There you go, Co-pilot.  Book's clean... my work here is done.  By the way if it makes you feel any better I didn't mean any more than about half of what I said there.  You're pretty great, at least... I think so, I haven't had much of a chance to talk to anypony else."  Courage gives an extremely half-hearted attempt at cheering the extremely sad pegasus up.  

"She's trying to be sincere I'm sure..."  Numbers steps over and gently rubs Fluttershy's back.  "At least the book is ready.  You should read it now, darling, I know that this is going to hurt, but it's something that we all need for you to do."

The pegasus sniffles and looks down at the swirling mass of crayon-colored images.  Each one seeming to depict a piece of her childhood from before Flight School.  She gazes into the eyes of her filly self as she steps inside the door one day and finds that odd feeling of being pulled into a memory flow over her once more.