Consciousness slowly stirs to life amid the rustling of scaly wings. A gentle breeze is mingling scents in the air: the cloying sap of late-summer pines; the ozone of distant Cloudsdale and petrichor of the land underneath; the rousing musk of a thousand tiny bodies. Spindly legs stretch and delicate antennae twitch. The red glow kissing the horizon is calling us once again to the dance.

Awakening to so much motion always disorients me for a moment. I fumble for a connection, trying to make sense of it all, and the roiling storm of sensation resolves into more concrete feelings. Fresh air filling my lungs. A hint of chill as moisture evaporates from my outstretched yellow-and-pink wings, hardening them for flight. The tickle of antennae on wings and the jostle of bodies as the others crawl past me on our perch. My feet scrambling for a solid grip on the smooth surface as a bump sends me staggering sideways. I am deep in the center of the swarm: two days out of the cocoon and a bit smaller than the others, but full of restless life. The tails tapering from my hindwings are particularly beautiful, long and deeply hued, delicately spiraling at the end.

As the orb of light inches upward and the sky catches fire from end to end, the others start taking off one by one, and I join the swarm—flapping up through thick trees to the open air, wheeling and diving and soaring and pairing for hours as the distant and brilliant sky twists in its course. Finally, exhaustion drags us back to earth, and we flutter back to the secret place deep within the trees, casting our eyes to the brilliant pastels on the horizon as sleep overtakes us.



Consciousness stirs to life amid down pillows and silken bedsheets. I try to squint the dawn away, and fumble for a connection until my brain links up to leaden legs. I roll over, then reach up a hoof to brush pink mane out of my eyes.

Awakening always disorients me for a moment, until I remember that I'm not a butterfly.

---

I'm up well past my bedtime, and everything's so dark. Ponyville is a dense cluster of points of light in the distance below us—as if we were meant to be surrounded by an unbroken sphere of stars, but somepony had taken a broom and swept up all the light from the fields and hills and forests into a single spot to await the dustpan.

Twilight Sparkle leans over her telescope, peering through the eyepiece while making some adjustments. Even though the newly cleansed moon shines brighter than ever, I can barely make out the stars on her flanks.

I stare at them, glance back at my own hindquarters, and wonder if she dreams of being a star.

Stars seem so similar to butterflies. I can picture them perching, unmoving upon the bowl of the night, glowing in insectile slumber, and then waking up and taking flight with the day. If only we could see them, swooping and arcing and mating mid-flight, pregnant females depositing bellies of eggs into the dusty stripe of the galaxy. Or perhaps we do, and the night sky is a freeze-frame of that slow-motion dance.

And here among us, fallen from the heavens and pining to ascend on lost phosphorescent wings: Twilight Sparkle.

It's a ridiculous thought, but my mind refuses to let go of it. It would explain so much about her. The encyclopedic knowledge of astronomy. The social awkwardness which at times exceeds even mine. The personal tutelage of the Sun. And didn't that book of prophecies even say the stars would aid in Luna's escape? How better than to send their favored daughter?

Twilight sighs, rolling her head to stretch a kink out of her neck. "I hope Rainbow Dash didn't forget about that cloud she was going to put in front of the moon," she says. "The telescope is pointed straight to where the nebula should be, but I can't make anything out in this light."

I stare out into the sky, squinting, and my mind wanders. The mythology of Twilight's cosmic adventure rapidly falls together inside my head. Thus the Star would come to befriend the gemstones of the Earth and the balloons of the Air and the lightning of the Storms. (The Elements of Harmony, indeed.) Then she came unto the things which grew and the things which crawled, and befriended the fruits of the trees and the butterflies of the beasts. Every part of creation represented. How else could you cleanse one of the great celestial powers?

"Fluttershy?" the stars say, and I nearly leap out of my skin before my brain snaps back into the moment and realizes the sound came from Twilight, off to my left.

"Um," I say, "yes?"

"Is everything alright?" Twilight asks. "You've been awfully quiet tonight."

I swallow and nod. I don't think she sees it, because she keeps silently staring in my direction. I gently clear my throat, not sure what else to say but knowing that she deserves more than silence, and what falls out of my muzzle is, "Do you ever feel like you're out of place?"

Her hooves shuffle in the grass for a moment. "Ponyville's been nothing but welcoming, if that's what you mean. It's definitely been an adjustment from Canterlot, but I'm lucky to have such wonderful friends."

"No," I say. "I mean…" Then the terrible ridiculousness of it hits me anew. "Nothing."

Twilight is silent for just long enough to let me think she's going to drop it. Then: "Nopony's harassing you, are they?"

"Oh," I say quickly, "not at all. You're right, we've got such lovely friends."

Twilight stands and folds her forehooves over the telescope, staring out at the lights in the distance. "Our friends are wonderful, no question about it," she says, and then her voice softens. "But maybe…I think I know what you mean. As much as I'm coming to appreciate Ponyville, it's just…it's so strange living there, you know?"

"Yes," I say, heart quickening.

"Like…" Her head swings around, then fixates back on the stars. "I have so little in common with other ponies."

"Exactly."

"No, I mean, really. I just feel so weird sometimes. If I were to meet them halfway across the world, in a dark alley, would they even guess that I was a pony unless they saw me?"

"I dream that I'm a butterfly," I blurt out.

There's a moment of awkward silence.

"Well, I was going to say, I get more requests to use the library for parties than I do to check out books," Twilight says, "but, yes, same sort of thing. That's another perfect example. You have a really deep connection to nature that I don't think other ponies truly appreciate."

My mouth goes dry. That isn't how this was supposed to go at all. Now she's going to find out how crazy I am and laugh at me. "Don't you?" I manage, lunging for the one long shot that might save me.

"You mean, have that connection, or appreciate it?"

Dream about being a star, I try to say, but words fail me amid the icy grip of panic. "Dream," I whisper before my throat locks up.

Twilight turns to stare at me, though in the darkness I can't make out her expression. "Well, of course I do," she says. "Everypony does."

"About what?" I say desperately.

I can see her silhouette shrug. "Most recently, Princess Luna, although really that's a special case."

My fear derails, and I drag curiosity from the wreckage. "Wait," I say, "what?"

"When she came to thank me for saving her from the Nightmare. Didn't she visit you?"

"No."

"Weird. Rarity and Pinkie Pie said they got visits too, so I had assumed it was all of us." Twilight taps her chin. "Though there are plenty of reasonable explanations for why she wouldn't visit us all in one night. It might take a while to locate somepony in dreams, or she might have had other things to do, or she tired herself out because she's still recovering her alicorn magic." She steps in close enough that I can see her smile, and brings a hoof to my withers. "I wouldn't worry about it. It sounds like you were having a pretty good dream, anyway."

"It was," I say sincerely. The life of a butterfly is so simple, so carefree, so far removed from the terrifying social intricacies of ponykind.

"Then maybe she just didn't want to interrupt. When she showed up, I was in a library, having another anxiety dream about studying. Heavens know I was grateful for the break." Twilight chuckles. "What were you doing in last night's dream? I've got some great books on dream symbology—I might be able to look up what your subconscious was trying to tell you."

I'm rescued from further awkwardness by a cloud drifting across the moon. The silhouette of a short-maned pegasus waves in our direction, then dashes off into the night. Twilight squeals with glee, then excuses herself to her telescope.

The nebula looks like a newly eclosed butterfly unfurling its wings.

---

It is a week and a half before anything unusual happens in my dreams.

I am spiraling through a breeze, wing-tails ribboning behind me, showing off for a potential mate, when I hear an unfamiliar voice drifting on the wind from below. It is loud, low and feminine.

The swarm, moving as with one mind, takes no heed, but the feathery hairs of my antennae curl. That's a pony voice.

I abruptly peel away from the dance and glide down toward our hidden glade, gripped by an unfamiliar emotion which it takes me some time to realize is fear. Some small and quiet voice from another life is whispering urgently in my head, and the voices tickle memories at the edge of my consciousness. The combined effect so shakes me that I veer away from our perch mid-descent and land in a nearby tree.

Hooves thrash through the underbrush, stepping in my direction. I flatten my wings against the branch and freeze. "My lady Kindness?" the pony calls, and then a dark form steps into view.

The sight of a pony sends memories flooding into my consciousness. The sight of this pony steals my breath. The pony I remember being has seen Princess Luna before, both at the height of her dark wrath and stripped of it, but she has never seen the Night Incarnate who now weaves through the forest shadows. She is tall and sleek, eyes solid black, crown gleaming with reflected glory. Her mane is billowing and radiant, burning like the sky. I am concealed against the wood of my hiding place, flattened and frozen, yet even so it is an effort not to bow.

Luna halts at the edge of the clearing. Her eyes trace a slow path around its edges. She takes a single step forward, hoof landing with a muffled crunch in the dross and deadfall, then freezes.

Her head swivels down.

She draws in a sharp gasp. A forehoof strays up toward her muzzle.

Luna stumbles backward, horn lighting up, and then with the lurching rip of wounded spacetime, she vanishes.

---

Within minutes of sunrise, I've thrown my emergency bit reserve into some saddlebags and I'm trotting into town. The expression on Princess Luna's muzzle is seared into my memory. I'm not even certain what I did wrong, but like a startled rabbit, my best defense is to bolt.

I nearly collide with Applejack half a block from the train station.

She blinks and sidesteps. "Whoah, sugarcube." Then, as she glances at the sun on the horizon and my destination behind her: "What's wrong?"

I freeze, pinned by her words to the entomologist's board of the street. "It's, um, private," I mumble. "Family trouble. I might be gone a while."

At those words, her expression immediately softens, and she throws herself forward into a fierce hug. I squeak as her iron grip squeezes the air from my lungs, and manage to flail a hoof at her shoulder in a paralyzed semblance of reciprocation. Applejack steps back, staring intently into my eyes, and says, "You stay strong, hon. I'll tell the others. What can I do to help?"

She's going to be so upset when she finds out I lied to her. Maybe it's not technically a lie. A butterfly's swarm is like family, right? And my dreams might as well be my family. I haven't heard from my parents since I earned my Cutie Mark and moved out.

But she's waiting for an answer, and there's nothing I can say that won't dig me in any deeper. I finally settle on a simple "I'll be alright."

Her muzzle scrunches. "Promise?"

"I promise," I say, trying my hardest to mean it.

She gallops off. I buy a ticket to the Underdale, in case any of the others think to ask after me, and step on the first train that blows its whistle for departure.

An hour toward Manehattan, my nerves finally begin to thaw. What am I going to do? If I'm halfway across Equestria from my friends, I won't have to see how disappointed they are when Luna banishes me, but she can find me no matter where I go. I can run from ponies, but I can't run from my dreams.

I close my eyes, and see her again—her sharp gasp, her eyes widening in shock. The image roils through my mind for hours.

In midafternoon, at the transfer station in Drayton, I sneak onto a train returning west. The red-eye to Canterlot.

I have to know what she saw.



As always, I dream of butterflies.



I awaken on my hooves in a stone alcove lined with midnight-blue tapestries. Stained-glass windows filter morning light onto my coat. The distant sounds of ponies echo through the corridor beyond.

I take a moment to get my bearings. From the decor, I'm within Canterlot Castle. I must have gotten through the guards at the front gate, then stepped off to one side for a few moments' nap. A nap long enough to dream. The train ride must have been more exhausting than I had thought.

I glance down the corridor in both directions. One side looks less familiar than the other, so I go that way. A minute later, I'm rewarded by turning a corner to a short dead-end with a door labeled "Lunar Tower." It's guarded by two ponies in dark armor with dragon-slit eyes.

The instant I come into view, those eyes immediately lock onto me. I can't see their bodies tense, but I can see the way their posture shifts when they do.

"Um," I say, "I'm here to see Princess Luna. If it's not too much trouble, that is."

"Name?" one says, without breaking the stare.

"Fluttershy," I mumble.

When their posture doesn't relax, I figure there's about to be trouble. But he responds, "Enter."

I walk between them to the door. Their bodies remain at rigid attention, their muzzles locked straight forward. But their eyes continue to follow me, like one of those creepy paintings in a haunted house.

When I push open the door at the top of the tower, Luna is seated at a table, horn lit, a quill jerking through the motions of scrollwriting. She glances up at my arrival, sets the quill down, and immediately walks over to a window, looking pointedly out. Her expression is tired, and her hair a dull pastel blue in the morning sun.

"Salutations," she says. "We had wondered whether we were to hear from thee."

"Um," I say, letting her door swing shut behind me, "hello."

Her hornfield tugs at the edge of the heavy curtains, keeping as much of the sun out of the room as possible while still allowing her to stare at Equestria. "Would it comfort thee more to begin with the exchange of petty pleasantries, or to forego social rituals?"

Now that I'm here, I have no idea what to do, but at least that's an easy question. "The second one."

"Gladly. We find them a needless distraction, ourselves."

She still won't look me in the eye. That—and the fact she hasn't thrown me in the dungeon—is all that keeps me going. She did discover something, and we both know it.

I steady myself with a deep breath.

"What did you see?" I ask.

"A dream," she answers with no trace of hesitation.

"Um. Princess." She has to know that's not what I meant. "With all due respect—"

"My lady Kindness," she says, "we have traversed sufficient dreams to ken that a judgment upon the nature of one's subconscious is a woeful error. The true measure of a soul lies within their actions, and in that regard, there are but five others in all of Equestria worthy to stand with thee."

I shift my hooves. "Please. Tell me what you saw."

I can see her swallow. "It matters not. Thy secret lies in strict confidence—we swear upon the Moon that shines upon us both. And we shall do all within our power to ensure that none follow in our hoofsteps."

This is getting me nowhere. I steel myself, and voice my fears: "You saw the real me."

Luna turns her head to me, and I know I've struck home.

I fish a little deeper. "You saw a monster deep inside me that I don't have a face or a name for. A monster that will come out when I least expect it and ruin everything. You need to tell me what you saw, Princess. How can I fight what I don't understand?"

Luna slowly, deliberately, pulls the curtain closed, then paces across the darkened room. Silence hangs thick and heavy.

"My lady Kindness," she finally says, "thy concerns, earnest as they are, belie understanding of the nature of the self. It is not the occluded and caged darkness which takes thee over, it is the darkness which curls around thee, the one with which thou exchangest honeyed whispers. We…I…implore thee to trust in the word of the world's most regretful expert on the matter." She steps forward, muzzle to muzzle with me, staring earnestly into my eyes. "Thy heart is pure beyond ponykind's ken; to dig up thy secrets for fear of their contents would be the true tragedy."

I try to return her stare, but all I see is her fear and horror in my mind's eye. This time, it's I who can't meet her gaze.

"I'm sorry, Princess," I say softly. "I have to know."

Luna backs away, lighting her horn, and a small chest in the corner opens. A single stone on a long necklace—glowing in the gloom, but casting no shadows—floats up out of it. "I had feared it would come to this," she says quietly. "Know this, then. Were I to answer your question, my words would do little but sharpen the blade of thy desire. To know, thou must see for thyself." The necklace floats over to me. "If thou'rt determined upon this mad quest, take this not off until the truth hath found thee."

I nose my muzzle through the loop of the chain and silently turn to go.

"My lady Kindness," she says.

I pause, not looking back.

"One final plea." I hear her wings ruffle as she steps forward. "Thy fear is not one which answers can succor. We hear thy yearning to discover thy true self, yet the truth of identity is that it is naught but a tale we tell ourselves." A wingtip touches my barrel. "It is up to thee to determine who Fluttershy is. I implore you to decide that she is the pony whose life you are already living. 'Tis no lie, and 'tis the truth which both thee and Equestria need."

I nod and depart, more unsettled than when I arrived.

---

I chew on Princess Luna's words all the way back to the train station. When I dig into my saddlebags for the bits for a ticket back home, my hoof brushes past a crumpled square of paper.

It's the unpunched ticket to Underdale I bought when I left.

Maybe…maybe the princess was right. I'm working myself up over a dream when I should just be going home and living my life. I stare at the ticket for a few minutes, then hop on a westbound train.

I remember, in the dream, the nearby shadow of Cloudsdale. It shouldn't be hard to fly a circle at ground level around the city, just long enough to convince myself that the butterflies don't exist, that there's nothing where the glade should be. That this is all in my head.

That's all. I'll calm my fears and then let them go.



It's an overnight train ride. I fall asleep, and dream of butterflies.

The swarm is unsettled, shifting about in frantic motion. It's harder than usual to focus, but I manage to orient myself again. This time, I am out nearer the edge of the swarm, but in the same familiar body: two days out of the cocoon and a bit smaller than the others, but with long and deeply hued wing-tails, delicately spiraling at the end.

We do not take off to dance. The others walk frantic little circles on our perch, and I cannot stretch my wings enough to leap free of them. Some small inner voice dares not be pushed to the ground, so I dash around in pointless motion with the rest.



I wake up in my bed, in my cottage at the edge of the Everfree. Luna's necklace is around my neck.

A punched ticket to Underdale is in my saddlebags, joined by a punched ticket home. My wall calendar is torn off to Sunday—two days after I left Canterlot. The Sunday paper on the doorstep backs that up.

Angel waits for breakfast with grudging patience, and I chop up fresh vegetables as I grope for memories that aren't there. I remember the train. Then the dream. Then…nothing, until today.

As Angel's eating, it strikes me how calm he was. The last time he missed a meal, he was upset at me for a solid week—and yet I forgot to ask Applejack to cover for me when I left. Three whole days. Did somepony feed him for me while I was gone?

A further search of my house and saddlebags turns up no further clues, so I sit down for a moment to think. I've always had problems when I sleep on trains, but this is ridiculous. I need to tackle this a different way.

I study the schedule at the Ponyville station, then purchase a ticket on Monday's early-morning westward express with my dwindling savings. I can get a good night's sleep beforehoof in the comfort of my own bed, arrive with an hour of daylight left, and fly at least some of my circle before fatigue sets in.

After a restless day of chores, I tear off another page on the wall calendar, then hoof-stroke Luna's necklace as I drift off to sleep. It's warm against my chest.



I dream of a restless swarm, marching in endless loops.



I stir to consciousness with an ache in my neck and an odd pressure underneath my haunches.

I sit up in what turns out to be an uncomfortable wooden chair, my muzzle pulling away from an open book titled "An Encyclopedia of Equestrian Insects." I glance around the room. I'm in Golden Oaks Library. I fell asleep on the last page of the "Butterflies" section, and a pair of punched Underdale tickets is the bookmark at its beginning.

I quickly riffle back through the chapter. There's not a single Equestrian butterfly whose wings are yellow and pink.

A key rattles in the front door, and I hear the lock scrape back to accompany Twilight and Spike's muffled banter from outside. Adrenaline explodes through my veins, and I take to the air, locating an open second-story window more by instinct than by thought.

Nopony sees me as I creep home along back streets, and I slip back inside my cottage with a long sigh of relief. That lasts exactly long enough for Angel to slam his empty food bowl against my leg, thumping his foot agitatedly on the floor.

The vegetables in the crisper are wilted around the edges.

The wall calendar in my room is still on Sunday's page, but Monday's and Tuesday's newspapers sit at the front door, and Monday's mail lies unread in my mailbox. The animals are restless, and a few of the wilder ones have vanished back into the woods. I hurry through chores as quickly as I can, then sit down to take stock.

On one forehoof, I have my answer. My dreams are impossible: my butterflies don't exist. I am working myself up over mere dreams.

On the other, it certainly seems like there's something the butterflies don't want me to know. And how can something that isn't real care about my trips to Underdale?

On the hindhoof, in between my missing memories and my improbable awakenings, I'm beginning to feel less real these days. I'm reminded a great deal of that ancient Qilinese philosopher—the one who dreamed of being a tiny lizard sunning himself on a rock, then after he woke up, was never again certain whether he was a dragon dreaming he was a lizard, or a lizard dreaming he was a dragon.

On the fourth hoof, even if I'm a butterfly dreaming of being a pony, Princess Luna's undeniably real—both halves of me saw her. And Luna's visit is at the heart to my mystery.

Fluttershy can't see what Luna saw.

But maybe I can.

---

Consciousness slowly stirs to life amid the rustling of scaly wings. The swarm is restless again, stampeding in loops around our perch. I am two days out of the cocoon, on the small side, with delicately spiraling and richly hued wing-tails. I am jostled roughly around, pushed into marching lines, prodded from behind into frenzied motion.

I flare my wings, brace, and plant my feet.

The marching line of lepidopterans piles into me. Several lose their footing and slip off the perch, wings frantically beating. Others try to sidestep me, colliding headlong with scaly bodies scurrying in the other direction. Within moments, the logjam has mutated into three-dimensional chaos, the swarm taking confused flight.

I dash from side to side on our perch—disrupting lines, buffeting stragglers with mighty wingbeats, headbutting others trying to cling to the margins. Within moments, the air is whirling in a rough approximation of our usual dance. I dash back and forth along the long, thin surface of the perch, hissing through vestigial mandibles, chasing away a few of my fellows gliding back down for a landing.

The swarm drunkenly lurches into the sky, leaving me alone on the perch.

I sit in quivering triumph, feeling my thorax burn, organs pumping fluid through me to stabilize my respiration against the burst of motion. My legs won't stop trembling. It was more energy than I had expected to spend. Too much. I can feel the weakness settling in.

I shuffle forward to the edge of the perch, bring my vision into the sharpest focus I can, and look down.

There's nothing but forest floor.

…I don't understand. What scared Luna, then?

I force my gaze back upward and look around the glade, the same way she did. Really look, in a way I never have; aside from the light of the sky and the shadow of the ever-present cloud and the comfort of our perch, nothing has ever really mattered. I see the vertical silhouettes of trees, furred with moss and spiked with branches; the sprawl of bushes; the sporadic glow of distant sky. Nothing worthy of her reaction.

I turn my gaze to where she entered the glade. In the depression of her hoofstep lies a broken spur of perch.

My heart freezes.

My gaze slowly falls to the perch directly underfoot. Time-weathered white, smooth and long, a delicate bridge between a stump and a log. An identical lengthy rod, to the side, gleaming amid deadfall. Atop the log, a dozen points and ridges, with thin and curving arches scattered haphazardly around.

It can't be. No. It can't.

I whip my head skyward. The swarm is a whirling silhouette of a dervish against the million fires scattered like jewels in a bowl. I have to squint against the glowing orb of the moon, painful in its blazing brilliance. The shadow of the permanent cloud shifts with the sky, but its edge hovers almost directly overhead.

My wings are in frantic motion even before my mind puts it together. The only thought I can muster is, over and over, She can't be. She can't be. I have to know. I know, but I don't dare believe it. I have to see.

I don't know which way Ponyville is, but the pony I remember being does. I orient myself by moonrise and flap higher than I've ever gone before, feeling the air currents buffet me, hoping I can ride the winds there before I'm spent.

The world sinks into haze as the land scrolls beneath me and the familiar caress of the swarm recedes. The lights of the sky melt together, then fade. Time slows to a crawl, then a blur. The muscles of my wings burn, then numb, and then I can only tell I'm still flapping by the blobs of pink at the corner of my vision. All I know is that somewhere ahead of me lies the truth. I have to reach it.

It coaxes me forward like a flame.

---

Consciousness stirs, heavy and dark.

It starts with a hollowness. Then pain presses in behind my eyes. I flail to beat my wings again, and something blunt and heavy lifts amid tangled swaths of silk.

I open my eyes, and morning sun explodes in my vision. I flinch back, squinting. Something stirs at my side.

The motion resolves into a white blob, which doesn't get less blobbish as my vision sharpens. Angel. He's thin and haggard, nuzzling my barrel where it emerges from the blankets of my bed, and when I reach over to him with a trembling hoof, he clings to it and doesn't let go.

I know exactly how he feels.

I fill my lungs with sweet morning air, get a leg underneath me, and push myself to my haunches. A flash of color slides off my chest, spiraling down to my bed without a sound, and a small, dull ball rolls after it with a muffled plunk.

I pick up the fragile wedge of yellow and pink. A dead Qilinese moon-moth, wings beautifully splayed in rigor mortis.

The ball is an inert, featureless stone. The setting in Princess Luna's necklace is empty.



I drink water copiously, ravage my cupboards for every snack I can find, and give Angel the run of my garden. He leaves it a wreck. It doesn't matter. I'll plant more.

I'm feeling better by sunset. The headache is almost gone.

I dream of moon-moths.

Or, perhaps, they awaken from a dream of me.



As I'm sweeping out the cottage in the morning—for the first time in a week—there's a knock at my front door.

"Fluttershy?" Twilight's voice calls. "Applejack said you were visiting family this week, but…okay, this is silly. I thought you were reading up on your Cutie Mark in the library a few days ago. Rarity said she saw you at the market, too. Are you in there?"

I set down my dustpan and walk toward the front door.

Twilight knocks again as I'm almost there. "Fluttershy?" she calls again.

I open the door, lunge forward, and hug her tightly.

"Yes," I say, and mean it.