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Where We May Lead

by Shadowmane PX-41

Chapter 3: Fluttershy and Meadowbrook: Back to the Bayou

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Fluttershy and Meadowbrook trotted across the planks of the bayou. The moisture-filled air flowed all through their manes and gave them the sense that they were walking through a tiny, yet still noticeable, veil of water. The trees towered above them and the sun often had to break through the leaves and branches in order to reach them, but they still received plentiful batches of rays on their travels.

"So, I'm a little curious, Fluttershy," said Meadowbrook, breaking the silence. "How did you and your friends find out about me?"

"Twilight and Starlight learned about you, actually." Fluttershy's wings opened up. "This was back in the day when Starlight was a bit of a... different pony. She wasn't Pony-of-Shadows-level evil, but she still had a nasty plan back then."

"Oh? How so?" Meadowbrook lifted a brow. "She seemed like a very level-headed girl back in Canterlot. What do ya think changed her mind?"

"Starlight had a little trouble dealing with Cutie Marks as a filly," Fluttershy started. "When Sunburst got his Cutie Mark before her, he was whisked off to a magic school and Starlight never saw him again. When she got older, she tried getting rid of everyone's Cutie Marks so that they didn't end up as she did."

"But she must've gotten over it. She sure sounds nothing like the Starlight you, me, and the other Pillars of Equestria met back there." Meadowbrook's gaze turned to the ground. "A Cutie Mark's supposed to be a wonderful thing, to be enjoyed by both the pony who gets one and the friends they made. So I just don't get why one little filly who lost their friend over a Cutie Mark changed her heart like that..."

"Twilight often likes using the word 'over' to describe Starlight sometimes. Overenergetic, overreactive, overpowered, overthinking..." Fluttershy unfurled her wings and used each individual feather to list off the different titles. "To make it easier, Starlight's a bit of a character, to say the least."

"Maybe she just needs a bit more time to come out of her shell a little." Meadowbrook looked over towards a nearby stream and watched as a little snake crawled out of an egg. "This Starlight gal sounds like the kinda pony who doesn't like to take things the right way. It might not be pretty, but the right way is the only way. Or at least, that's what Starswirl and Somnambula taught me..."

"Oh, Starlight has come out quite a bit now." Fluttershy retracted her wings. "But she still has a few episodes here and there."

"Hmm. I suppose I should get to know this Starlight a little better. Same goes for the rest of your friends." Meadowbrook cocked a brow towards Fluttershy. "Why, I bet you've all got quite a hoofful of tales to tell..."

"Oh, we're not that special, Meadowbrook. Especially not when we're comparing ourselves to you and the other pillars." Fluttershy's cheeks flushed bright red. "I mean, you've done things nopony else would even have dreamed of doing! You've outrun dragons, healed massive outbreaks, sacrificed your own beauty to preserve everything else's... And all we've done is fight a bunch of bad guys with the Magic of Friendship."

"Aw, don't be modest, sugarplum." Meadowbrook patted Fluttershy on the back. "If it weren't for you and your friends, we may not have had an Equestria to come back to. If anything, you deserve much more praise than what you're already given."

"Well..." Fluttershy squatted down and let out a weak chuckle.

"Actually, hold that thought. We're here." Meadowbrook cantered across the rest of the planks into the clearing beyond. "Come on now, Fluttershy. Don't wanna keep the ponies waiting now, do we?"

"I suppose not," said Fluttershy as she kept up with Meadowbrook's pace.

The swamp-like bayou was surrounded by murky waters, with a few lily pads sitting quietly on the waters. The sounds of crickets and other forest creatures chirped and echoed through the trees and wooden planks. The houses around Fluttershy and Meadowbrook, despite looking structurally intact from the outside, had all been boarded up around the windows and doors, and there were no ponies sitting out on the porches either. If it weren't for the animals, the place might as well have been another part of the woods.

"Strange..." Meadowbrook took a few steps forward into the empty town. "Where is everypony? Did some sorta plague hit while I was gone?"

"I don't know either." Fluttershy gently flapped her wings, raising herself a few feet off the ground. She flew over to one of the houses and rapped on the door with her hooves. "Hello? Is anypony in there? Apart from you, Cat Tail?"

No response came from the house.

Fluttershy shrugged and tried another house. She knocked on the door, pushed her ear to it for any footsteps, and was greeted by silence. How could there not have been anyone home? She knew that the bayou wasn't the most hygenic of all of the places she had seen, but surely, it was still worth living in. As more and more houses were checked, it became clear that there was nobody home.

"No luck?" Meadowbrook finally broke the silence.

"Nope." Fluttershy shook her head. "Everyone's gone. And I don't even know where in Equestria they could be!" Suddenly, she heard a little crashing noise coming from the tree-shaped house in the distance. "Well... almost everyone."

"That came from my house!" Meadowbrook immediately darted off towards it. "I bet it's a raider trying to make off with some of my medicines!"

"Meadowbrook, wait!" Fluttershy flew after her. "I don't think you should really jump to any conclusions just yet!"

"It's been a thousand years since I was gone, Fluttershy. And so many more ponies have been born since." Meadowbrook leapt from the planks, landing hard on the ground by her front door. "I reckon that some mean ol' ponies took up residence in this here forest and are trying to make off with whatever's not nailed down!"

Fluttershy very quickly swooped down in front of Meadowbrook mere seconds before she ran into the door. Because neither of them could stop themselves, Meadowbrook ended up ramming Fluttershy into the house, bashing through the door and landing in a heap by a bookcase.

"Ouch..." Fluttershy rubbed her head.

"Sorry, Fluttershy." Meadowbrook climbed out of the two pony pile-up. "Are ya hurt? I didn't mean to do that. Honest." She started checking all of Fluttershy's limbs for any bruises or cuts. To her relief, there weren't any.

"I'm alright." Fluttershy stood back up and shook her body awake again. "It was just a little fall. Nothing to worry about."

"Well, alright then." Meadowbrook turned towards the stairs and immediately saw a pony's shadow coming down it. "I just wanna make sure you're not too hurt. You never know what to trust out here."

"Oh, I think I know what to trust, Meadowbrook." Fluttershy stepped closer to the shadow. "And I also think I know exactly who this pony is."

"Fluttershy? Is that you?"

The shadow finally disappeared to make way for a pony with a very chubby stature and a blonde beard hanging down from his chin. His mane was all braided and his Cutie Mark depicted a pair of cattails. Before he could even make it into the room, Fluttershy pulled him into a tight hug.

"Hello, Cat Tail!" Fluttershy smiled as she stared into his eyes. "So nice to see you again."

"Aw, Fluttershy." Cat Tail broke out of the hug and gave a big smile. "You always know how to warm my heart."

"Cat Tail?" Meadowbrook tilted her head at him. "So, you know this pony, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, yes." She nodded and let him walk off towards the kettle on the other side of the room. "When Zecora came down with a bad case of Swamp Fever, me and Twilight had to come all the way over here to find a cure. He was very kind to both of us."

"So ponies these days still get afflicted with Swamp Fever, huh?" Meadowbrook ran over to one of the books and plucked it off of the case, scrolling through the contents. "If it weren't for the fact that flashbees are the meanest little things on this planet, I would've started selling the cure myself."

"Yeah." Fluttershy rubbed her skin, thinking back to all of the times a flashbee struck her down. "Not even my Stare could stop them. And usually, the Stare works wonders on misbehaving animals."

"So, Fluttershy, what brings you here now?" Cat Tail took a drink of his tea. "Is another one of your friends sick?"

"Oh, no. Not this time, Cat Tail." She stepped forward.

"So it's a friendly visit, is it?" He grinned toothily. "Well, it's nice that you and your little friend came round to visit lil' old me. Not many ponies to talk to these days without making some big trip out of the place." He turned to Meadowbrook. "So, what's your name?"

"My name, sir, is." —She watched as he took another drink— "Meadowbrook."

Cat Tail was taken so off-guard with Meadowbrook revealing her name that he ended up spitting his drink out all over her and the floorboards. "Wh-what?! Meadowbrook? B-But that's impossible!"

"But it is." Fluttershy started cleaning up the tea from Meadowbrook's face with her feathers. "I know it was a bit of a shock to all of us as well, but this is her. The Mage Meadowbrook who came up with the cure for Swamp Fever and a bunch of other horrible diseases."

"B-B-B-But, I wasn't even born when you were still alive!" Cat Tail threw his front hooves in front of his face. "And just look at you! You don't look like you've aged a day from what I read about you!"

"Trust me, Cat Tail, it's a very long story." Fluttershy finished wiping down Meadowbrook's face and walked over to his side. "Let's just say that I kinda needed that mask for some big save-the-world thing. Me and my friends have a bit of a habit of doing that these days."

"The whole thing still seems like a load of hogwash to me..." Cat Tail slowly advanced on Meadowbrook. "I mean, you must be like, a thousand years old now! How is anypony that old supposed to look that young?"

"Mr. Cat Tail, let me explain before ya get your beard in a knot," said Meadowbrook. "When me and the other Pillars of Equestria found ourselves in limbo with the Pony of Shadows, time just stood dead in its' tracks. We didn't age, didn't move, didn't speak, and the next thing we knew, we were a thousand years into the future. Or maybe it's the present. I don't even know anymore. It's still very confusing." She ended up rubbing her forehead.

"Meadowbrook's mask, along with the other Pillars' artefacts opened a little bit of a portal to another world where the seven of them stayed for a really long time," Fluttershy added. "The only way to pull them back out was to find those things and gather them all together."

"Gosh, Fluttershy, you're cute and all, but neither of you are making any sense here." Cat Tail himself felt a migraine coming on. "Or maybe ya do and I'm just not seeing it. I was never really much of a magic kinda pony growing up."

"It's quite alright." Fluttershy's smile returned.

"So, Mr. Cat Tail," said Meadowbrook. "Do you think you could tell me what happened to the ponies here? I don't think we've seen anyone in this place other than you."

"Well, I could tell you..." Cat Tail turned away and looked out the window. "If I knew what happened myself."

"Huh?" Both Fluttershy and Meadowbrook chorused. "What do you mean?"

"Thing is, I came to this place and set down some roots while it was still abandoned." Cat Tail looked out at the waters of the bayou and how still they were. "I tried looking for other ponies around the place, but all of them packed up and left for who knows where. Not a single soul to be found. And let me tell ya, I'm not a fan of being alone. But I still manage to get by every now and again.

"Often at times, I go fishing or find myself some forest foods." He turned back to Fluttershy and Meadowbrook. "And when that doesn't work, only then do I go out and find something nice to eat in the market. And only then, I just see a few ponies; none of which come from my bayou."

"That sounds so sad..." Fluttershy felt her hair drape down in front of her face.

"Well, I appreciate your feelings, Fluttershy." Cat Tail brushed the pink hair out of her face. "But I don't think you and your friends need to worry about me. I'm living quite a peaceful life here. In fact, ever since you moved that hive of flashbees, I've been catching some real nice fish." He grinned. "Plus, now I'm getting to meet with the one and only Mage Meadowbrook, one of the greatest healers of all time! If anything, my life's on the up and up ever since you and your friends came into it."

"Well, we're mighty glad you think that way, Mr. Cat Tail." Meadowbrook gave another beam.

"Oh-ho-ho, please, Meadowbrook. Just Cat Tail will be fine." He chuckled. "I wasn't really one for fancy titles like Mr. or Mrs."

"Me neither!" Her own smile widened.


Meadowbrook, Cat Tail, and Fluttershy eventually walked up the stairs and found themselves in a bedroom with bookshelves aplenty. Having being fashioned out of a tree, there was a little hole on the ceiling for telling if it was night and day, but apart from that, it looked like an ordinary bedroom. Diagrams of ponies, sketches of ailments and the cures for them, and a variety of other books and knick-knacks lined the furniture around the place.

"Golly! This place really brings back memories..." Meadowbrook ran over to the bed and pressed down on the mattress with a hoof. "You know, I'll never forget the time my mama laid herself here when she had Swamp Fever. If I hadn't had that mask with me, she would've been a goner for sure!"

"I tried keeping this room as well-kept as possible once I moved in." Cat Tail picked up a book and blew some dust off of it. "But I reckon that you're a little more deserving of it than I am, Meadowbrook. I mean, it's your room, after all."

"Well, I have to thank you kindly again for taking good care of it." Meadowbrook stepped away from the bed and opened up some of the brighter books on the shelves. "I thought for sure that this place would've been a right mess without somepony's helping hooves."

"You're welcome, Meadowbrook." Cat Tail nodded and stepped outside. "If you two want me, I'll just be downstairs for a little while." He stopped halfway down the stairs. "Actually, Fluttershy? Do you and Meadowbrook want something to drink? I got some nice blitzberries from the forest today. They work right wonders for your tummy when blended..."

"Not really," said Fluttershy. "But thanks for the offer."

"What about you, Meadowbrook? You sure you don't want something nice to drink?" he asked. "You've been away for a real long time now and I'm sure that a drink'd be nice."

"Oh, I'll be fine, Cat Tail." Meadowbrook called as she took one of the diagrams from the wall. "I had a little drink on the way here."

"Well. Suit yourself." Cat Tail walked down the stairs and out of Fluttershy's sight. "Just give me a holler if ya need anything!"

Fluttershy shut the door and turned back to Meadowbrook, who was already scrolling through the diagram of a pony's anatomy.

"This Cat Tail's quite a clever little pony, ain't he?" Meadowbrook invited Fluttershy to come over with a wave of her hoof. "Look here! He's marked a lot of illnesses with the parts of the body that are afflicted... Rhinocerousitis, SWS, and much more! He's thought of everything."

"I'm sure that Cat Tail got all of that from reading your books." Fluttershy looked carefully at all of the diseases that had been scrawled down. "The house is full of them."

"I was never really much of a reader myself, but I loved finding cures for things and putting them down in a little diary of sorts." Meadowbrook giggled. "But sometimes, I'd get them muddled up with the stuff that happened at school... I ended up in a right pickle a number of times because I wrote my memories of a crush down where I should've put down how to cure whatever that poor soul came down with." She picked up another book. "Good thing I always kept some spares in case of that."

"It must've been really hard for you back in those days..." Fluttershy looked up to the little split in the roof. "Growing up, finding cures, and trying to balance a normal life while also working for the Pillars of Equestria. If I had all that responsibility, I would just scream."

"Oh, believe me, Fluttershy, it was a bit of a challenge." Meadowbrook pushed the papers away. "But knowing that I was doing my bit to help Equestria out was all worth it. Without me, who knows what might've happened to all those sick ponies?"

"They would've all been turned into trees without you making that brave little trip to the flashbee hive." Fluttershy tipped her hoof.

"Starswirl always used to tell me that everyone has their own role to play in Equestria." Meadowbrook put a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulders. "He said that everything happened for a reason, and that there was no such thing as coincidences and chance."

"So what's my role?" Fluttershy's brows raised ever so slightly. "What do I do in Equestria other than be the Spirit of Kindness?"

"Just do whatever comes naturally to you." Meadowbrook's hoof slid off. "If there's something that you really like doing, then keep at it and always work to improve your craft. For example, what do you like doing?"

"Well, I like taking care of a lot of animals." Fluttershy's hooves fell down besides her. "Whenever they're sick, in pain, or in trouble generally, I always do all that I can to solve their problems. I've been doing it ever since I got my Cutie Mark and I've met all sorts of weird, wild, and wonderful creatures in my life."

"Then keep on doing it. Always keep doing the things you love, get better at them, and you'll find your place in this world faster than you may think." Meadowbrook picked up yet another book and set it down beside her. "Apart from being one of the ponies trusted with the power of the Tree of Harmony, you would make a wonderful vet with enough practice. If there's one thing that's true in this world, it's that if you love something, then you'll only keep bettering yourself as time goes on. That's how I became a healer, and I know that deep down in my heart, you'll be a great vet someday."

"Thank you, Meadowbrook." Fluttershy felt a small tear come into her eyes. "That... means a lot coming from you."

"You're welcome, sugarcube." Meadowbrook pulled Fluttershy into a small hug. "Now, dry those eyes, will ya? How would you like to go on a little forage with me?"

"That sounds amazing!" Fluttershy's smile almost encompassed her entire face. "I've always wondered how you got all your other ingredients living in a place like this! I'd be glad to come."

"Great! Let me just get my mask and we'll be on our way!" And with not another word, Meadowbrook darted out of her room and off down the stairs, with Fluttershy following closely behind her.

Author's Notes:

I'm glad that you all enjoyed this chapter if indeed you did. I'm sorry if it seemed a little bit bland or bare. There's just nothing much you can do in an empty bayou with only three ponies in it. But regardless, I hope that it satisfied you all.

Now, I'm gonna be going away to Tenerife in a couple of days, so this might be the last chapter I put out before my flight. I'll be off for a week so that we can spend some Christmas time together before the big day (We literally come back the DAY before Christmas Eve).

But when I do get back, the next chapter will be a good one. Pinkie Pie and Somnambula. And I know that I'm gonna have a blast writing that one because, well, Egypt is my FAVOURITE HISTORICAL PERIOD OF ALL TIME. I love the lore, I love the gods, I love everything about Egypt, so I'm gonna have a lot of ideas when I do Pinkie and Somnambula's first chapter together...

But for now, I hope you enjoyed it and that you all have a nice day.

Next Chapter: Pinkie and Somnambula: High Praise Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 11 Minutes
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