I looked down at the map floating in purple magic. "Are you sure we're not over here?" I pointed with a yellow hoof at the area to the left of the cross. "Twilight. I think we're here."

Everypony looked at me in surprise. We stood before a huge forest that seemed to stretch on, when we flew above the treetops, forever. This instead of the magic-blasted wasteland that should have been here was confusing.

"Are you sure you copied this from your map properly, Twilight? I couldn't see all the way to Manehatten, but I did see some farms past the forest," Rainbow Dash said. She was just as concerned about it as I was, I could tell.

Being with my friends filled me with more confidence than normal, which was good when shy was in your name.

"But these mountains," Twilight said, pointing at the mountain range to our left, "are here." Her hoof moved to rest on the map. "So we are here, but instead of a wasteland there's—"

Applejack cleared her throat before cutting in fully. "A huge helpin' of forest. How old was your map, Twilight?"

"It's not as accurate as the cutie map, but they shouldn't have been more than a year or two old. This is meant to be the wastelands that the sirens created before Star Swirl The Bearded sent them to—well—the human world." Twilight scuffed a hoof on the ground. "Maybe somepony worked out how to fix the damage?"

"I could always see if I can ask any animals?" I asked, but my voice was too soft for anypony to notice. That happened a lot more than I wished it would. The worst times were when somepony else came up with the same idea, usually after trying something else first. I let out a little sigh and turned toward the forest.

The huge trees looked old—ancient. I walked to the closest and lifted one hoof up. Tree Hugger was the right pony for this job, not me. Something seemed odd about the tree, and—when I pushed some of the pink mane from my eyes—all of them.

Not a single tree showed the usual signs of age-wear. Thousands of days of rain and thousands more of bright sunshine should have left their mark on every trunk, but didn't. I walked between two of the young-old trees and scuffed my hoof on the leaflitter. "Um, girls?"

They were still arguing about mountains and curves in train tracks. I let out a little sigh, and that did the trick. A pair of cerulean ears turned my way, then drew the rest of their owner's head. I knew how much Rainbow Dash appreciated a good argument, which is why it meant the world to me when she slipped out of them—like now.

"What's up, Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash asked.

I kicked more of the leaflitter aside to reveal more sandy soil. I pointed at it with my foreleg. "That. Under the leaves it's full of sand, just like a wasteland should be."

"Huh. Great work, Fluttershy." Rainbow Dash's words made me feel amazing—useful.

I fluffed my wings a little and tilted my head up to look into the trees. Rainbow Dash had already turned to get everypony's attention with my news, so I had a few more moments of just enjoying a calm forest before voices intruded.

"What did you find, Fluttershy?" Twilight asked. She, and the rest of our friends, walked up—of course Twilight literally walked onto the bare, sandy soil I'd exposed.

"Um. You're standing on it." I pointed at the ground.

Applejack, single-minded and bullish, pushed up between everypony. "What in the hay? That's not the right kinda dirt for a forest."

Keep calm, I told myself, this is business as usual. I didn't have to like the way it always seemed to happen. "I was trying to tell everypony: this is the wastelands, but something has made all these trees grow here. The trees are old, but not weathered."

"Well, if we are at the right place, then the town should be north of here," Twilight said. Looking down at her map, she seemed to miss seeing that she was facing directly at a tree.

"T-Twilight?" I asked.

"Come on, girls!" Putting her hoof forward, Twilight Sparkle walked right into the tree she hadn't been looking at.

"There's a tree in front of you." I looked at Rainbow Dash, who was looking at me with a grin on her face. I tried not to giggle at our bookish friend.

Pinkie Pie jumped up beside Twilight. "Oh! I get it now. We have to go over the trees. Good thinking, Twilight!" And with that, Pinkie walked up the side of the tree and into the canopy above.

Asking how or why Pinkie Pie does something was a folly I had long-since given up on. Besides, I was in a forest that wasn't the big and scary Everfree. This was a literal walk in the park. Perking up, I started walking forward.

As if the forest wanted to relax me more, a birdsong cut through the tall trees and met my welcoming ears. Hello?, it called, There is so many seeds and nobird else to eat them! It was, given the topic, one of the happiest songs a bird could sing. I picked up my pace.

"Hello!" a voice called. "Welcome to Our Town. Can I help you with anything?"

A stranger. I felt like the forest suddenly closed in around me—no, the whole world. Tilting my head down a little, I hid half of my face behind my mane and turned to look at the stranger. He was a pegasus with a light-brown coat and chocolate-colored mane and tail. His cutie mark was of a sun wearing sunglasses with a big smile. Oddly, though, the sun had green tendrils snaking around it.

What was stranger than all of that, of all the weirdness that could possibly be packed into one pony: he had a horn. Wings plus horn should mean alicorn, but he wasn't a mare, and the horn didn't look like any I'd seen before. The horn looked like a green stem of a plant, tapered down to a point—it even had a few tiny leaves sprouting from it.

"Hello." I said, my voice barely making its way through the lump in my throat. "I—"

"There you are, Fluttershy! We've been trying to catch up for the last half an hour!" Rainbow Dash had just appeared out from behind a tree, hovering beside me. It was then she turned to look at where I was looking and spotted the stallion.

"Hello! My name's Bright Day. Can I help you?" Bright Day asked.

"Uh. Yeah. Hi." Rainbow Dash, I could see, was trying not to stare at the stallion's horn by the clever trick of staring at his horn. She wrenched her eyes away from it and looked at me. "The rest are right behind me. Do you know this guy?"

"N-No. He was just saying hello when you arrived." Keeping my voice low was easy—something I did practically all the time. I spared a look at the stallion again and noticed how happy he looked, and how open.

Because I was looking at him, I caught the widening of his eyes when our friends stepped around the same big tree I had. As if his eyes widening in surprise wasn't enough, Bright Day dropped to one knee.

"Your Highness! Welcome to Our Town!" With his head bowed, Bright Day's horn was even more visible than before.

His reaction actually raised him in my estimation. Too often Twilight went places and nopony would so much as blink at her wings and horn, but here was a stallion bowing to her. The little frown I'd been cultivating since being interrupted by Bright Day was starting to curl back the other way.

"You, uh, you can get up. Please. We just need to know where the town is out here. We have official business there," Twilight said.

Just as Bright Day was standing up, however, Rarity rushed forward. She gasped as she drew up before him, and offered her hoof. "How unusual to meet a prince in the woods. Please, tell me everything!"

Rarity was a mystery to me sometimes. She could switch between being confusingly stuck-up about her opinions and being suave and worldly. I could tell, for example, that right now she was the latter. Rarity was playing up every bit of her skills from selling dresses to tease information from Bright Day.

Then there was Pinkie Pie—the other major source of information. If she was in the right mood, Pinkie Pie would blurt every last thing about a specific event that you had just spent days figuring out, other times she just wanted to eat cupcakes. Which was why her worried look was a little shocking—seeing a worried Pinkie was never a good thing.

Rainbow Dash was now looking at Bright Day as if he were going to turn into King Sombra (and now my anxiety is going up just thinking about "K.S."). Applejack just wore her slightly curious/slightly accusing look she tended to affect any time we were out on friendship business. Twilight looked like somepony had just given her an A- on her report card.

Then there is me. Fluttershy. I was scared of all the little things that a strange pony could do, and all the stranger things that might happen as a result of us following him. But what helped me fight back against all that fear was how friendly he looked. I was, as Pinkie Pie would say, terricurious.

The trees seemed to part into a wide clearing. The town lay in the center, but it wasn't exactly the typical pony town. For a start, several houses had sprouted into huge trees that threatened to cover the town in more shade than even the forest provided, while others seemed to be tangled in vines and runners from everything including tomatoes, pumpkins, and even roses.

Then I froze. I just stared at the ponies wandering around. Nearly every single one was just like Bright Day—with horns and wings—but even the normal-looking ones were odd. The obvious unicorns and earth ponies had two branches growing from their backs that looked to resemble erect wings, meanwhile the pegasi and earth ponies all bore plant-like horns.

Stranger ponies yet wandered in their midst: ones with huge plant tails bobbing behind them, others with wings that looked fit for a pony twice their size, and one particular pony that looked to have a bit of everything. A stallion, he was a pegasus with huge wings, a tail and horn that resembled the plants Discord's plunderseeds grew into.

He seemed to notice us, spread his wings, and shot into the air like a missile. Swooping down again, he landed just before us as a unicorn—unicorn with sheaves of wheat for wings—left the crowd and trotted over to us.

Rarity and Bright Day had stopped, and we reached them just as the unicorn and pegasus did. Bright, to everypony's shock, pranced up to the two and kissed the unicorn mare, then the pegasus stallion with equal vigor.

The stallion had a light pink coat with bright green wings with a mane and tail that matched the blue-green of his strange tail. The mare looked pregnant with a cerise coat and magenta mane/tail. They were, when they drew up beside each other, clearly a couple, but the kiss Bright Day gave each confused me there.

"Welcome to Our Town!" both new ponies exclaimed together.

"My name's Tight Squeeze, and this lovely mare beside me is Sugar Belle. You've already met Bright Day?" Tight Squeeze asked, introducing us.

Rarity looked stricken. I watched her forelegs wobble a little, and could share her desire to suddenly bow. Everypony here looked like an alicorn. Just as suddenly as her sewing machine strikes, Rarity seemed to take control of herself. She stopped wobbling, she stood tall, and offered her foreleg to the strange ponies. "Rarity." She then started to point around our group, naming us. "Applejack. Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie." Her hoof finally gestured to Twilight. "And I present, Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville."

"A princess!" Tight Squeeze looked shocked, but then he looked at Sugar Belle knowingly. If I didn't know any better I would have said they were talking, but they weren't.

Sugar Belle rolled her eyes at Tight Squeeze, then faced us fully. She looked directly to Twilight and spared a simple nod of her head in greeting. "You'll excuse my husband, he is a little excitable. Welcome to Our Town—please don't come in."

Author's Notes:

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