Fluttershy was just walking through the forest, enjoying nature and playing with some cute critters, when she heard the high pitched whine. "Oh dear, that sounded like a critter got hurt! Oh I hope they're all right." she said to herself in barely audible voice as she galloped towards the distressed animal.
After a short time, Fluttershy found the critter who sounded in pain, but it was no critter. A medium sized wolf lay before her, unconscious, bloody, and gravely injured. Fluttershy hadn't seen many wolves before but she could tell this one was unique, mainly due to the blue in its fur and the stripes along it's snout. "Oh my goodness, what happened?" Fluttershy said, the motherly concern she had towards all animals rising to the fore.
Fluttershy could see some immediate injuries, a gash along the face, multiple bite marks, and several other things. She knew that if the wolf stayed here without help it would most surely succumb to its injuries. So, with great difficulty and a lot of rearranging, Fluttershy managed to get the silver colored wolf onto her back. She may not have been the strongest pony in Ponyville, but she was determined to help this poor creature.
Struggling all the way, Fluttershy eventually made it back to her cottage. She slowly made her way upstairs and into a spare room she kept, carefully laying the injured wolf down. Fluttershy was exhausted, she didn't normally carry wolves out of the forest and the exertion was taking effect. "Can't rest now, I have to bandage him up..." she said fighting back the urge to stop and rest.
She found her medical kit downstairs and set about patching up the wolf, stopping the bleeding, disinfecting the wounds, and stitching the gash along his face closed. "There we go, you're all patched up now Mr. Wolf!" Fluttershy said to her self happily.
Now that her job was done, Fluttershy took a closer look at her new house guest. She noticed first off that he wasn't too big, about the same size as herself, and the blue in his coat was striking. She eventually found herself once again looking at the striped muzzle.
She carefully lifted one of his eyelids to check for pupil change, but was slightly unnerved by the amber eye that stared back. Suddenly the pupil shrank to a pinpoint, the iris taking almost the entire eye and producing a frightened squeak from Fluttershy. Fluttershy immediately felt a sharp pain in her head followed by more in various places around her body as if she was being bitten, and then it was gone just as quickly.
Fluttershy let the now normal looking eye close and placed a blanket over the unconscious wolf before backing out of the room. She made her way downstairs and tried to calm her nerves. "It's okay Fluttershy, he's just a wolf, an unconscious wolf. He can't hurt you, he can't hurt you..." she said, her nerves still on edge.
"Fluttershy! Are you there?" yelled somepony from outside. "Eeep!" screeched Fluttershy as she jumped up and hugged a beam on the ceiling upside down. "Come... come in." said the yellow pegasus, too nervous to let go of the beam.
A familiar lavender unicorn opened the door and walked in looking around for her friend. "Fluttershy? Where are you?"
"Up... up here Twilight." whispered Fluttershy from her hiding place on the ceiling.
"There you are Fluttershy, but what are you doing up there?" asked Twilight as she used her magic to gently place her friend down on the ground.
"Sorry about that Twilight, I guess I'm just a little nervous. Did you need something?" Fluttershy asked apologetically.
"Yes, I was hoping you could explain why Rainbow Dash said she saw you with a wolf on your back!" exclaimed Twilight, worry for her friend evident in her voice.
"Oh... umm, you see, I... I was just walking in the woods when I heard a whine. It sounded like a critter was in pain so I went to look for it. When I did find the hurt animal, it wasn't a little critter like I thought, he was hurt really badly so I decided to bring him here so I could help him. That's all." answered Flutershy, leaving out the part when she looked at its eye.
Twilight just eyed her friend warily, still concerned. "Okay," sighed Twilight "so long as you have this under control. We don't need a wild wolf running around town."
"Well, actually... could you maybe lend me a hoof? I don't know a whole lot on wolves." Fluttershy said sheepishly.
Twilight just sighed, resigning herself to her fate. "Okay, where is it and I'll tell you what I can." she said in an exasperated tone.
Fluttershy just perked up at the news and smiled at her friend, "Oh, thank you Twilight! Follow me, he's upstairs." Fluttershy said as she led Twilight to the unconscious wolf's room. "He lost a bit of blood and had a lot of bite marks when I found him. I bandaged him up as well as I could, but I don't know what else to do besides let him rest." Fluttershy opened the door and a gasp escaped from her friend.
"I've... I've never read about any wolf like this before." Twilight said looking over the silver fur mixed with dark blue and the striped muzzle. "I don't even know if wolves are meant to have just silver-colored fur, let alone with all this blue."
"Well, is he at least all right?" Fluttershy asked with genuine concern.
Twilight, still slightly uncomfortable with the idea of her friend caring for a wolf, answered "Yes, he looks fine. But please Fluttershy, once he's healed, bring him back out into the woods."
"Don't worry Twilight, I'll make sure he gets back home just fine!" Fluttershy stated proudly, "Thanks again for all your help!"
"Just be careful Fluttershy, please?" asked Twilight as she walked out the door.
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She Pinkie Promised, performing the required movements as Twilight walked back into town.
It had been a couple of hours since Twilight had left, and Fluttershy was in the kitchen making some soup. Humming a little tune to herself, Fluttershy poured some of the finished broth into a bowl and went upstairs to the sleeping form of the wolf. She caught herself once again pondering the strangeness of the fur. Shaking the thought from her mind, Fluttershy set about trying to get the fresh soup down the wolf's throat, but to no avail.
"Come on Mr. Wolf, you need to eat to get better." she said, hoping her encouraging tone would somehow help. And much to her surprise and relief, it did. His eyes opened partially as a groaning whine escaped throat. He snapped up suddenly, whipping his head back and forth before resting his amber eyes on Fluttershy.
Zeviathan had a dull feeling of pain running throughout his body, every bit of him ached. He could barely feel his tail, but he could feel pressure placed around his torso and his muzzle no longer stung. He managed to open his eyes just a crack, the effort of finally waking drawing a groan from him. He looked around, not really paying attention to anything. But when he did take heed of his surroundings he snapped up immediately, albeit painfully, and swung his head every which way to take in the strange environment he was in.
That's when he saw the yellow and pink creature before him, faintly remembering something similar before falling unconscious. He rested his gaze on the creature before him, 'Where am I?' Zeviathan wondered to himself. He attempted to move forward, but yelped from the pain it caused him and fell back down pitifully. The creature rushed over and caught him before he hit the ground. "Easy now Mr. Wolf, you've been through a lot I'm sure. My name is Fluttershy." it cooed softly, placing him down gently.
Zeviathan looked at the creature called Fluttershy and thought 'Thank you'. A look of shock came upon Fluttershy's face, "You're… you're welcome." she stuttered slightly. Now it was Zeviathan's turn to be puzzled, 'You, can hear me?' he asked in his mind, to which Fluttershy nodded. 'What are you?' he asked, slightly dumbfounded.
"I'm a pegasus, but I can't normally hear animal's thoughts." she responded apparently just as befuddled as himself. "But here, eat this. It should help a little bit." Fluttershy said pushing the bowl of soup towards him "It's soup, now you just try to rest, I need to go do something but I'll be back really soon."
'Thank you again, Fluttershy. My name is Zeviathan, by the way.' he thought, causing a smile to flash on Fluttershy's face before she left out the door.
Fluttershy walked along a dirt path leading through the Everfree Forest, careful not to touch the Poison Joke that littered the sides. She was on her way to Zecora's hut in hopes that she might be able to help with that wolf Zeviathan. She found the tree hut soon enough, the lights and smoke spilling from the gnarled trunk an easy give-away.
Fluttershy was about to knock on the door when it opened, Zecora greeting her warmly
"Hello my good friend, what brings you out here towards this day's end?"
"Well, you see, earlier today I found a wolf and he was really badly injured, so I brought him back home and bandaged him up. At one point I was going to check for light respones so I lifted an eyelid, but when I did the pupil shrank to a really small dot. Now I'm hearing his thoughts." she explained quietly.
Zecora nodded her head thoughtfully, "Hmmm, I will search my books for what I can find, for this wolf seems to have one special mind." she said in her rhyming fashion.
Fluttershy looked slightly downcast at the news; she had hoped for an answer immediately. But she understood that this was a really strange turn of events and it could be hard to pinpoint what may be causing this. So she bid Zecora a soft goodbye and thank you and started her journey back through the mysterious Everfree.
No sooner than five minutes into her walk back, she noticed something had changed. There, in the middle of the dirt path, rested a glistening dark stone. 'That certainly wasn't there before...' she thought, carefully approaching the rock. She felt drawn to it, to protect it like a mother bird would an egg, like it was alive and helpless. 'It's still something from the Everfree, just like that parasprite,' Fluttershy thought stubbournly, yet despite her best judgement she picked it up and continued on her way.
After finally making her way back home, Fluttershy gently placed the stone on the couch. Despite its size the stone was fairly heavy. Sneaking her way upstairs, she opened the door to Zeviathan's room just a crack. He was fast asleep and the bowl of soup empty, bringing a smile once more to her face. She quietly picked the bowl up and went back downstairs, but when she got there, the bowl dropped to the floor with a clunk.
The smooth, glistening stone that once rested on the couch was broken, shattered and cracked in thin pieces like a shell. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear, what happened!?" Fluttershy cried, frantically looking around the room. Her answer came when she looked at the fireplace, for laying in front of it was a full grown snake, white as marble, staring at her.
It slowly made its way over to her strangely though, instead of slithering on the ground, it kept its head high in the air moving it forward first then followed by the main body. As it got closer Fluttershy could see that it had deep green irises, which seemed to hold her in place, she could even see small sharpened teeth along with the fangs. But when it was right in front of her, it did something completely unexpected. The snake seemed to smile, then proceed to curl up at her hooves, completely content.
It took Fluttershy a moment to piece it all together. The stone she found in the forest was broken, and here was a strange snake laying at her hooves without a care in the world. She had to be certain, leaning down her head, Fluttershy whispered "Hey there little guy, this may seem a bit strange, but you wouldn't happen to think I'm your mother, would you?" Only for the serpent to look up with what could only be described as a smile and say "Mother." in a warm voice before laying back down.
Fluttershy, though, was terrified.