Fluttershy

Quinn

(One Week Later)

"Quinn, wake up!" I heard someone say. They were shaking my shoulders as hard as they could while I was sleeping in Zoe's bed. I was surprised though, since it was, one, the middle of the night, and two, it was a deeper voice of a man. My eyes flew open to see Nathan crouched over me in the bed.

"Nathan!" I yelled, but he put his hand over my mouth and grabbed my arm.

"Come on, we need to go back, now." Nathan said. I pushed away the hand and threw the covers off of my body.

"What's going on?" I demanded.

"Your little vacation has gone seriously wrong." Nathan replied, wiping my angry expression off of my face. "Zoe's in danger."

"So what? She'll be fine, you can help her." I said, pulling the covers back over me and going back to sleep. To my surprise, Nathan ripped them off of me and yanked me to my feet harder than he ever has. He stared at me in my face with the sternest expression I've ever seen on him.

"This danger includes you. Not only did you put the kingdom in danger by leaving it with a clueless human, you've endangered yourself by giving that human your DNA." Nathan said. He didn't let go of my arm.

"How did you even get here in the first place?" I asked.

"Same as you, through the willow tree. Let's go." Nathan said.

"Not until you tell me what's going on, and in the complete." I replied, yanking my arm from his grasp. His face turned red, from what I could tell in the dark anyways.

"I'm saving your life, as well as the human you left in Fluttershy." Nathan said. He turned to the window when I saw something on his neck. I quickly grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it down.

A long vein of his neck was covered in black web. It looked like dye in his blood, but worse how it covered the entire side of his neck and chest.

"What the heck happened to you?" I whispered, barely able to breath as I stared at the black web. Nathan pulled away and returned the collar of his shirt to his neck.

"One of the side-effects of your leaving. Do you even realize that today was your coronation?" He asked. 

I couldn't even speak. This is my fault?

"Do you have anything to clean a wound?" Nathan asked.

"What else happened?" I asked. He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a long, deep cut on his shoulder.

"Pine tree slashed me hard. You have no idea how fast I was going to try and get you." Nathan explained, removing the bloody shirt from his back. It was so dark, I didn't notice it at first. I flipped on my light and winced at the brightness. "So this is Zoe's room. Nice."

"How did you even know it wasn't me?" I asked, going to the bathroom to find a bandage and some rubbing alcohol.

"Zoe told me. It might have been nice if you left her with a little information other than "I don't want to be a princess anymore, you try," then knock her out." Nathan said. "Get me a shirt too."

"I never said I didn't want to be a princess anymore. I was going to come back.....I just didn't know when."

"You should have told me, Quinn. You scared me. I would have helped you do stuff on your own, but you leave me blindsided. One night I was with my most prized girlfriend, the next morning I'm with a complete stranger, who, might I add, is a human-fairy hybrid. This experience shocked me. I never knew you felt that way."

"Sorry, okay? I got scared, and I didn't want my life ran for me. I didn't know what to do, so I left." I returned to the room with the alcohol, towel, band-aids, and an extra-large white t-shirt.

"No, so you ran from your fears. That's not honorable at all. And once you start running, you can almost never stop unless you plant yourself and face it. That's not the Quinn I knew. That's not the Quinn that I fell in love with." Nathan said, taking the alcohol. 

He poured some of the liquid onto the towel and pressed it to his wounded shoulder, wincing as it started to sting. When he was finished, I handed him the band-aids.

"What are those?" Nathan asked demanding-like.

"They're band-aids. Here, I'll help." I said, removing each super-sized band-aid from its package. I quickly put them on his shoulder and pressed so they would stay. Nathan pulled on the t-shirt, but I couldn't help but notice that the black web was all around the left side of his neck and pierced down the front of his chest. The web stopped about an inch away from his abs.

"Mother Willow, what did that to you?" I asked, bringing up his shirt. He didn't seem to try and pull it down, as if he was teaching me a lesson about leaving.

"I'll tell you on the way. We need to go, and now. Still remember how to fly?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah, why?" I asked. Nathan grabbed my arm.

"Because we're going to have to fly a lot tonight."

"I'm a royal. I can only fly for about twenty minutes at a time, remember?"

"That's why I'm going to carry you for part of the night." Nathan said, pulling me to the window. "Get ready to unfold your wings."

"But if I'm in danger, why do I have to come?" I asked.

"Because if you don't, you could die in your snug little bed." He replied. I didn't understand, but he seemed to, so I didn't say a word as we flew to the same willow tree in the back yard where I had first came.

With his eyes glowing, Nathan pointed all of his energy to the willow and opened the tree's portal. A blue and yellow swirl met our faces in the darkness of the night. Remembering the light, I turned around and snapped my fingers, sending Zoe's room's light out like a flame. Nathan grabbed my wrist immediately after and pulled me into the willow.