Chapter Text
The boys were out on a supply run while Nightmare sat in his study bored out of his mind!
Maybe he should have gone with them, but he had some work to do…
Said work he finished over an hour ago…
Then… He felt a deep sadness in his soul…
Curious. He quickly checked to make sure it was none of his boys… Nope.
He sighed in relief.
But where was it coming from?
He opened a portal to the source…
A storm raged through the area beyond the portal, more like a hurricane the Embodiment of Negativity realized.
He expected to feel the presence of many creatures in the storm but strangely despite there being a town in the distance it seemed to be abandoned…
Except for one creature in the cottage in front of him…
He teleported inside the cottage where on a couch someone was wrapped up in blankets and was sobbing.
He couldn't help but feed off the delicious negativity, but there was so much coming from this one creature that if he tried to eat it all he would make himself sick from overeating.
What would make one creature this depressed? And ashamed… And guilty…
Then he felt something else…
The whole world was slowly collapsing.
That explained why he felt the presence of no one else.
Who could have done this?
The way this whole place was falling apart it wasn't like anything anyone in the multiverse could cause, which meant it was likely this world's own doing…
Nightmare realized the feelings the creature was feeling were survivor's guilt and grief of losing everyone and everything this person had ever loved…
"Hi'ya."
The pony squeaked.
"D-Dis-" Her head turned, "Who are you!?!?"
The feeling of disbelief in her turned to fear and confusion.
Nightmare was used to this…
The fear of the sight of an octopus-skeleton made of pure negative goo.
"Name's Nightmare, while I would normally feed off that delicious negativity of yours there's just so much it would be like eating an entire buffet by myself… Way too much.
What even happened here for your world to be falling apart like this?"
The pony wiped the tears from her eyes with a hoof, "The Spirit of Chaos saved my life rather than letting me sacrifice myself to save the world…"
The pony seemed to not be scared anymore but still depressed.
"You don't have to be alone ya know? Everyone that I knew from my childhood other than my brother died thousands of years ago, but we have found other survivors out in the multiverse that we have made a new home with. Would you like to come with me to meet them?"
"I… Discord did give me his immortality so somewhere to go might be nice."
The pony got up from the couch and grabbed some things that she put in some saddle bags that matched a tattoo of three butterflies on her rump.
She had wings, a pegasus?
"My name's Fluttershy. It's good to meet you."
Nightmare opened a portal into the Dark Sanses' mansion.
The two walked through; Fluttershy turned around to see her house disintegrate into non-existence and a blank void in its place instead. Nightmare closed the portal, so Fluttershy didn't have to see it anymore.
~
"Oh shit!" Dust looked at the multiversal watch on his wrist, "Night is goin' to kill us if we are late for dinner!"
While the boys knew Nightmare wouldn't actually kill them, the Embodiment of Negativity was always unpleasant when they missed curfew.
This Fell universe had the exact things Nightmare had asked for this morning but due to the pesky Undyne here chasing them everywhere with her dangerous electric spears it had taken a lot longer than expected…
Error made a portal directly into the Mansion's kitchen so everyone could work together to make dinner.
All six of them felt the magic from the living room as they were finishing.
They noticed that Night wasn't coming to the dining room right away even as they were placing all the food on the table, he was going everywhere else but the dining room and kitchen, but eventually they saw why.
Behind Nightmare was a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, they noticed she had been crying. Nightmare was acting the same way he always did when there was a new member of their crew.
"Everyone, this is Fluttershy the pegasus, she is the last of her world and the Element of Kindness. She is joining us here. Fluttershy, this is my family."
Nightmare pointed at each of his boys with one of his tentacles, introducing Error, Horror, Cross, Dust, Killer, & Dream in turn.
Horror retrieved another place setting for the table as Fluttershy sat down.
They all reminded Fluttershy of humans...
Or at least the way Twilight described them... Except none of them had skin...
Skeletons like those creepy stories Rainbow used to tell on Nightmare night.
Thinking about Rainbow Dash caused tears to run down her face.
She was gone just like everyone else!
Dream acted immediately, cautiously approaching her, and giving her a hug.
"We are all here for you, if you need to cry right now, just cry and if you want to talk about it, we'll listen."
Before Nightmare got there, Fluttershy had already cried for what felt like hours...
Didn't Discord care about saving the world?! Now she was burdened with his eternal life and...
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Dream jumped back wincing in pain. "You shocked me, how did you do that?"
Fluttershy touched her hoof to the tablecloth experimentally, turning it from black to wild colors like Discord used to have at his house...
Pure chaotic colour.
Every skeleton's eyelights grew to the size of their eyesockets.
"It looks like one of Ink's abstract paintings!"
"You're right, Error!"
"I have... Discord's chaos magic."
"Hahaha! I told you my magic could be useful! Now every animal in Equestria will know that this place is a safe haven for all of them!"
It was a gift to Fluttershy to tell every animal in Equestria about her sanctuary for her first birthday after Twilight's coronation.
Things got remarkably busy in the animal sanctuary after that, but it made her happy to help new animals every day!
It hurt her to think she could never help anyone again...
"Only two other ponies have ever had this power...
One of them used it for evil and the other one her entire lifetime was affected both past and future.
While they both only had it temporarily, it's permanent for me now...
Having a whimsical life was something I couldn't live without... I fell in love with him & it's partly why I married him but... I had told him before I didn't want him to use his magic to prolong my life, much less make me immortal!"
The seven skeletons watched the newly widowed mare wearily.
Even the ones who couldn't read emotions directly could feel the betrayal and grief in the air around her.
They were used to destructive outbursts when a new member of their team was just starting out, so they let her fume and cry through dinner.
Surprisingly, the apple pie turned out to be a great idea for their dessert on a whim.
Fluttershy at first burst into yet another waterfall of tears, but eventually she started to remembrance about an old friend...
One of her best friends by the name of Applejack.
Apparently, her family ran an apple farm...
Even though her biological clock had been turned back by her immortality, there was an old look in her eyes...
And even after dinner she continued to tell her new companions stories about her life...
When everyone moved to the living room for tea and to continue listening to Fluttershy's fascinating stories she was asked what her favourite tea was.
"Ginseng."
Without even meaning to she summoned a singing Ginseng teabag...
She giggled sadly.
"Discord and I used to have tea every afternoon we could.
The first time he invited me over to his place was a complete disaster...
He thought that I wanted him to be like a normal pony but...
He wasn't normal and that's what I loved about him!
It took him almost dying to realize that..."
The singing tea ended up in a cup with steaming hot water...
Her magic dissipated when she got so sad like that...
The residents of the mansion knew someone would need to be watching her at all times just to make sure she didn't break anything until she got used to her new powers...
She was clearly one of the most powerful of them if she had control...
A sweet older lady who was grieving her universe and true love.
~
As time passed Fluttershy gained control of her powers...
When any of the others ended up venturing into her bedroom there was always something new...
One thing that stayed the same was a magical garden, which was the easiest way to explain it...
There were plants but the main focus was recreations of the animals of her homeworld... Everything from rabbits which she seemed to have a strong fondness for to creatures like manticores, cockatrice, and parasprites...
Despite having the ability to, she never had the heart to ever bring back more intelligent species of her world...
But she wrote down everything she could remember, and she was so glad she had a copy of the diary her and her friends made all those years ago...
Sometimes while caring for the animals in the recreation of the sanctuary, she forgot everything that happened...
Then there would be a knock on the door and one of her new companions would come through shattering the illusion that everything was still okay...
One time that happened it was Nightmare.
"Hey Flutters, I came here to give you this: the Star Sanses wanted to invite you to their Giftmas party.
I know you don't go out much, but I think it would be good for you."
Nightmare handed Fluttershy a letter.
Physically she could do what she used to do when she was younger but mentally, she was the same pony who was in her twilight years...
She intended to spend those years with Discord, but her life had other plans...
When was the last time she celebrated Hearth's Warming?
Oh...
The year before everything started going wrong...
She had spent it in Canterlot with the mane six and all their families...
It was the last time everyone was together...
Safe and happy.
There was a great feast at the Palace, singing songs, and resting by the fire...
The last thing she remembered that night was falling asleep in Discord's arms...
It turned out that like Discord she no longer needed to sleep anymore...
But she still did sometimes when she had nothing better to do...
Insomnia turned out to be normal at the Dark Sanses mansion...
When she rarely left her room in the middle of the night she'd go and watch TV with Nightmare and Dream...
Her chaos magic and guidance from the other residents of the mansion allowed her to freely travel the multiverse...
The problem was though there were many worlds where she couldn't just blend in as herself...
She had taught herself how to disguise herself as a human or skeleton, depending on what suited the situation...
If she did that, she preferred to be a human...
But places like Horror's Homeworld were not safe for humans...
It wasn't like she couldn't defend herself but...
Being chased around was not her idea of a good time.
She preferred to go to post-pacifist peaceful worlds anyways whenever she did go out...
Usually going to places where she wouldn't see others and just let herself look up into the sky...
Sometimes she would fly around...
Even though she didn't need to use her wings anymore, sometimes it was just nice to...
She felt something nuzzling one hoof, "Devil! What are you doing that for?"
The Pegasus laughed as the adorable black rabbit nuzzled her...
Personality wise this little black rabbit was so much like Angel...
Except for the complete opposite color scheme...
That's why her name was Devil.
There was a real rabbit a lot like her but with a white patch over his eye back in her original world...
Discord had named him Diablo...
It was both in honor of Discord and of Angel that beautiful little black rabbit was named...
She was a young rabbit...
The first generation born after the initial ones Fluttershy had conjured...
She always carried one rabbit with her when she left her new sanctuary...
It was usually Devil.
Fluttershy carried Devil on her back as she walked over to the gazebo in the middle of her garden...
Surrounding the gazebo were statues like Canterlot's old statue garden...
But this one was special...
Housing the figures of every creature Fluttershy cared about and lost...
She fondly looked over at the statue of Discord...
He was much more relaxed than when he had been frozen in stone either time...
He just looked happy...
At peace.
All the statues did...
Inside the gazebo Fluttershy set the multiversal clock to go off just long enough for Fluttershy to get ready for a party, then she shut her eyes and let herself dream about a happier time...