Greene
Ponyville was very very very different from Canterlot, Elizabeth decided.
For starters, there was a forest, its leaves browning and reddening and fa-a-aling down before her eyes. It was a very deep forest, from the looks of it, and she could've sworn she saw a flash of blue inside of it as she followed Fluttershy.
Second, it was much smaller than Canterlot, even the individual buildings were smaller, and of slightly different design. It wasn't built into the side of a mountain. It had no castle. Though she could still see both in the distance.
And lastly, where in Canterlot most of the equines had been unicorns, here even the few dozen equines she saw in the crowd off the train had been mostly earth ponies. She'd get a lot of earth pony essence here, of that she was sure.
Of course, her friend hadn't wanted to cut straight through Ponyville, even if she was in what Greene decided was a 'hurry'. Instead, they had cut around the town, heading towards a little house close to the forest. Fluttershy's Home?
"Worried. Why?" she asked.
"O-Oh, it's just, when I was in Canterlot with you, um, I had Spike taking care of all my animal friends. But now, uh, um, he's tied up with Twilight researching... something, so I don't know who's been taking care of them!" Fluttershy shuffled her hooves, but tried to keep moving, resulting in her tripping and faceplanting on the soil. She got back up. "S-Sorry for that," she muttered.
"Not fault, no offense." Elizabeth tilted her head. "Animal friends?"
"O-Oh yes," she said, continuing her hurried walk. "I take care of animals. Food, water, shelter. If they're injured I do my best to help them out, but..." She lowered her ears and head, slowing down briefly. "I'm no licensed vet."
She had no idea what a licensed vet was. "Animal talent," she rasped. "Sure you do fine."
"Eep! Um, t-thank you, Elizabeth. Oh, I really do hope they won't be too mad at me." They continued on.
She still wasn't entirely sure about the Elements being only able to be used by the good, but like the sun and moon being strange strange strange for some reason that she just didn't know, she was just going to have to accept it and move on. She had trouble remembering who went with what Element, though. She knew Fluttershy was Kindness and Twilight Sparkle was Magic, and she felt Applejack was... Generosity? No, no. Honesty. She kept losing track! She should know it, it wasn't that hard! Six things! Six six six!
Fluttershy rushed towards her home, Elizabeth following after her at a mild walk. Greene noticed just how many animals were around. Small furry things, small feathery things, a bear, many of which she felt she should've recognized but didn't. They ran around, chasing each other, but as she approached every last one of them stopped to stare and, in more than one occasion, ran off to hide. She frowned. They were scared of her. That made her sad sad sad.
The Kindness Element hurried into her home and began rapidly chatter-braying to the animals, all of which seemed to Listen to her. She manipulated several large bags filled with what smelled vaguely like food. Over the course of the next few minutes, Elizabeth watched silently as Fluttershy ran in and out of her house (Filled with bird cages and birds, among other things). She was acutely aware of every animal staring at her, but she was even more aware of how uncomfortably humid it was, making her skin tingle.
She groaned and flexed her fingers stiffly. Then she noticed there was something white that stuck out among the rest of the animals, and it was looking right at her. It was extremely small, though she couldn't quite place what type of animal it was, and trying caused sinking drowning choking. Long ears, beady eyes, it leaped to a nearby table as Fluttershy ran outside with some kind of seeds and it glared at her.
She looked back at the creature.
The creature tapped its foot, then pointed out the door. She tilted her head curiously. What was it gesturing for? "Can you speak?" she asked it. Why not?
It shook its head, and pointed insistently at the door. She frowned. She didn't understand.
The rabbit brought a paw up to its face, smacking itself. Then it took two fingers, and pointed at its eyes. Then it pointed at Greene. She still didn't understand.
Fluttershy came back in and brushed past her. She paused, then turned back to Elizabeth. "O-Oh, Elizabeth, this is Angel Bunny." She gestured to the creature. "He's my, um, pet rabbit." The rabbit crossed his arms and nodded. "Angel Bunny, this is Elizabeth Greene." She gestured to Elizabeth. "You two play nice, I have to get Mr. Bear's fish ready." With a surprising amount of speed, Fluttershy bolted off, returning a moment later with a scaly wet wet wet thing under a wing. She left the building again.
The other animals conspicuously hid in little homes, watching as Elizabeth and 'Angel Bunny' stared at each other. Elizabeth got the feeling the animal didn't like her. That was fine. It was just an animal.
She decided to look around; she doubted Fluttershy would mind. She went around, up stairs, down stairs, through doorways. She shivered as she entered a small room with what her memories said looked kind of like a toilet, and a shower. A sink. She shivered; she got the impression she really wouldn't like the sink. She backed out, closed the door, and turned to find Angel Bunny still watching her, tapping a foot from the floor. She leaned against a wall, curious as to what would happen, and extended a small splatter of tendrils from her, putting her shivers at ease.
The rabbit's eyes went wide and it bolted. She heard the door opening and closing.
That was odd odd odd. She pulled the warmth back and headed after the creature, to find it on Fluttershy's back, gesturing wildly at the pegasus as she walked inside. "Now Angel," she said, craning her head around and somehow understand the animal's wild gestures. "Elizabeth's a friend. Like Rainbow Dash."
"Thought name Angel Bunny," she asked. "Abbreviation?"
Fluttershy yelped in surprise, taking off a few feet into the air before hovering back to the ground. The white animal was, as a result, flung into a wall. "E-Elizabeth! You startled me."
Elizabeth Greene frowned, stepping back and looking down. "Didn't mean."
"I-It's okay," Fluttershy said, still breathing deeply. Her one visible eye went wide. "Angel!" she rushed over to the animal's side. "Angel are you okay?" The rabbit swatted her nose, then held its head. She breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness. I am so so so sorry, Angel! I promise, first thing after I'm done getting the otters' meals ready I'm going to the market for some of your favorite carrots. Carrot Top's specialty."
The creature pushed her snout away again, closed its eyes, and its breathing evened out. "Okay Angel, you just get some rest." Rest? Had it been concussed?
Fluttershy scooped up the white creature and, still followed and under Elizabeth's gaze, moved it to a little bed with all sorts of cloth filling it. After fretting over him for a few minutes, she turned back to Elizabeth.
"Won't distract," Elizabeth said hastily. "Go to forest, hunt while you're doing this."
"Oh Elizabeth," Fluttershy said, approaching Elizabeth and gently touching her ankle. She stiffened, but reluctantly allowed the contact. She could trust this equine if none other. "You're not distract - the Everfree Forest?!" she suddenly squeaked.
"Forest name Everfree?" she asked.
"Y-Yes," Fluttershy said, a faint blush showing through her fur. At having been loud when saying the forest's name? Odd odd odd. "Elizabeth, I don't know if it's a good idea to go in there. There's a lot of dangerous animals in there. Timberwolves, manticores, cockatrices, just to name a few!"
"Can't be more dangerous than me," she rasped, stepping back from Fluttershy's touch. "Hunt. Eat." As if to punu... punctu... help her point, her stomach growled.
Fluttershy nodded. "A-Alright, Elizabeth. Just, um, a few things. First off, well, I can't think of many things that could really hurt you, cause you, um, you know, if it's okay for me to say - "
"Heal," Elizabeth said.
"Yes, um, that," she said, looking down and pawing at the floor. "But, there are a few things you need to look out for. First of all, if you see any bright blue, um, flowers? Don't touch them."
"Flowers?" she asked, unimpressed by the supposed dangers of the forest. Then again, these equines were like brittle tanks compared to her.
"Yes, those bright blue ones are called Poison Joke. They're magical. If you touch them, they do..." Fluttershy shivered. "... unpleasant things. Trust me, it's happened to me before. Just don't touch Poison Joke."
"Won't," she rasped. She wasn't keen to play around with magic. That stuff still made her uneasy. "Other dangers?" she asked.
"Well, you really should watch out for the cockatrice."
"Cocka... cockatr..." she attempted, tilting her head back.
"It's a chicken with the body of a dragon," she said. "Kinda like the ones you saw outside my cottage, but scalier and, um, less friendly."
"Dangerous how?" Elizabeth asked skeptically, tilting her head.
"If it makes eye contact with you," Fluttershy said with a tremor in her voice. "You'll turn to stone."
She sucked in a breath. Turned to stone. There wasn't anything she could do about that, was there? If she were stone, she wouldn't heal; rocks don't heal when broken. She couldn't spread her Blessing. It wouldn't save her, either. It couldn't save her from her Wayward Child's Curse, which had overcome her gift's defenses without a moment's pause. Why would it be able to protect her from the same effect that had defeated a creature as powerful as Discord?
"Eye contact needed?" she asked weakly.
"Um, y-yes."
She nodded. "Listen for stone-chickens. Close eyes if needed. Hunt by smell and sound." She placed a hand onto her stomach, then removed it. "Hungry. Need to hunt. Will come back later."
"O-Okay, Elizabeth," Fluttershy said quietly. "Just, um, if I'm not here when you get back..."
"Can wait," she rasped. "Patient."
"Alright, be careful," she said.
Without further word, Elizabeth left her cottage, a small smile gracing her lips as she exited the humid air. In two leaps, she crossed the distance to the forest, sailing over the babbling gurgling babbling river that ran past the yellow pegasus's Home. In a single step, Elizabeth Greene entered the Everfree Forest.
It was very dark and the trees matched that, which she liked. Helped to block the bright light of the sun somewhere above. She walked through the forest, snapping tree roots as she passed them and sending smaller animals scurrying. She didn't go straight in, no no no, she went back and forth and forth and back, to cover the most area. Her nose was assaulted by a barrage of scents. Plants, animals, mostly small prey-things that wouldn't amount to much. No, if what Fluttershy said was true, there were larger animals here. She intended to hunt one and eat one. Be full for the first time since she'd been Cursed.
She dug her hands in the thick bark of a tree and hoisted herself up. She didn't have a quiet gait, and after about an hour of stomping around searching for something to eat, she decided a new plan was needed. Now in the trees, she leaped from branch to branch, searching for something to eat.
She froze on her newest tree. She waited a moment, listening to the buzzing, chirping, growling, and rustling around her. She dug her right hand into the tree, hanging off of it, and whipped her left hand out in front of her face. The buzzing stopped, and something squirmed squirmed squirmed in her hand. She opened it, just enough to let her see in but not enough to let whatever-it-was out.
It was a little ball-shaped... thing. Its blue carapace glinted in what little light got to it through Elizabeth's fingers, and its similar wings buzzed frantically. The creature's giant eyes darted back and forth. Greene scowled. That didn't look appetizing, even to her. It seemed too... crunchy. Very small, too. She opened her hand, and the orb-thing buzzed away in a blue streak.
Elizabeth sighed. Nothing so far. Nothing. She placed both hands into the tree and turned around, facing her next destination. She tensed her legs, ready to leap over to it. She did so, sailing through the air in a wide -
- something hit her.
She froze, startled, as she and the something flew through the air and hit the ground. Whatever had hit her bounced off as she landed, blinking once in surprise. Then her eyes narrowed, though she didn't know if it was in fear or anger. On one hand, one of the forest's residents had dared to touch her. On the other hand, it might be a cockatrice.
She sprung to her feet to look at what had attacked her.
It looked... familiar. In more ways than one, as well. It had the vague structure of an equine, but with smaller eyes that glowed as green as her static. It had claws on the end of each leg, fangs, as well as a thick brown armor that stirred painful memories. The armor was warped and jagged, with green leaves seemingly built onto it.
It didn't even closely resemble Fluttershy's description of a cockatrice. Which meant she was going to kill it. Doubly so for having actually snuck up on her.
Before she could, however, she heard things behind her. Spinning around, she saw a dozen other creatures approaching her, weaving between the trees. She smiled. She'd have a big meal.
Something scratched at her back, presumably the one she'd turned her back on. Had it grabbed her? The nerve! It dared cling to her without her permission?! She flexed her shoulders back, and the creature flew off of her, smacking into another tree with a pained yelp. The other armored-things were almost upon her. She brought her hands together and pushed out, hard.
The air before her compressed and blew outwards in a cone, snapping trees like twigs and sending eight - she counted eight - of the things flying backwards, limp. That left four of them after her. No-no-no, five. That one to her left was trying to sneak through the branches in the trees, to be higher up than her.
The four on the ground hesitated when they saw the destruction she'd wrought. That was good. With a hop, she reached the one trying to ambush her. Its glowing eyes widened when she approached, and it yipped when she grabbed it.
Her upward momentum continued, and she landed on the tree. She twisted around and aimed for two of the armored creatures on the ground, two that were close to each other. She pressed her legs against the trunk while upside down, animal still in her hands, and pushed off.
Slam. Crunch.
The impact shattered the animal in her grasp into pieces, its armored limbs littering the area. The one she'd landed on suffered the same fate, and the other, caught by the shockwave, was thrown into the air. Rebounding quick, Elizabeth leapt up and tore straight through it, leaving the two pieces to fall as a stray piece of her hair bounced against her forehead.
She shivered and groaned, going stiff as her skin and suit turned numb in various places along her body. What... why had...?
One of the two remaining animals pounced at her, and she was too slow bringing up her tingling right arm to catch its throat. As a result, she punched it in the underbelly. The armor broke beneath her strength and it flew up, breaking through the branches and continuing in its journey. The other one, in her moment of distraction, pounced at her.
She landed on her back, still numb in various places. The animal on top of her snarled and clawed at her with its talons. Most of its claws broke on her tough skin, but one caught in her neck and tore a small wound, which sealed immediately. She narrowed her eyes, and the creature went still in panic. An organ around her spine clenched, and began to tingle. As if sensing something was wrong, the creature tried to get off of her, but she'd wrapped red and white tendrils around its limbs and it wasn't going anywhere because it had touched her and almost as bad it had cut her and it... was... going... to... die.
She grabbed its head with both hands and channeled the buzzing into them. Veridian electricity arced into the beast's head with a loud crack, and it immediately went still. She let it go and tossed the body to her left, still smoking, as her body restored complete normality, and stood.
She clapped her hands giddily as the one she'd punched landed and broke. Food food food! Her first hunt in ages! Oh it was so wonderful! Not to mention it had felt good to flex her muscles again.
She approached one of the creatures she'd caught in her shockwave and pulled off a leg. She bit into it -
- and spat it right out. Plant! It was a plant! Its armor was tree-skin! She knelt and investigated the carcass more closely. Water oozed from several holes in it. Its brown armor was pervasive, going all the way through. She backpedaled in disgust. No wonder she'd gone numb tearing through one if its blood was water. They were moving plants. All the short time fighting them had been wasted wasted wasted! She couldn't eat these. The equines probably could, but not her.
With an exasperated roar, she turned and began her hunt again. Time to find something she could eat for a change.
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
She looked down at her prey. It was a strange-strange-strange thing, like many things in this forest. Three heads, each of differing animals, a wicked tail, large to boot. It had breathed fire, ice, and lightning. Torn trees apart with its charge as it came to maul her.
She'd struck it once. She'd dropped beneath it, grabbed its tail and lifted it up, over, and around her, slamming its back into the ground so hard its necks snapped.
And now she was going to eat it.
She dove at it and buried her mouth into its flank, taking a deep strip. She chewed the flesh and swallowed, but frowned and backed away from the carcass. After the burned-cooked meat in Canterlot, it just wasn't the same. And the blood, the fluids, inside were less than appetizing. But she was smart, oh yes, she was ever so smart because she could make so many plans plans plans and all she needed was one.
She leaped into the air and slammed her fists together. The shockwave that burst out sent several branches tumbling to earth, and she arranged them into a pile. Then she knelt, warmth bubbling under her skin, and pressed her left fingers to the cool, damp soil. Her flesh began to drain out of her into the mesh of tendrils, which encircled the wood and rose up in two tall pillars on either side of it before she stopped, standing back up. She grabbed her quarry and held it above the pile of sticks, pressing a foot to her warmth. From both pillars, a 'bridge' formed, piercing through the animal and suspending it above the sticks. She let go and built up the tingling in her spine again, then blasted the wood with an arc of lightning.
Immediately, it caught fire. Her warmth kept the blaze contained and the creature above it, and so she began to wait. She found a tree adequately shaped for her, and leaned into the hollow imprint it sported.
She waited. Animals chirped and croaked around her, but none dared approach.
And waited. The orange glow of the sun permeated the canopy, casting dancing, oblong shadows in combination with her blaze.
And waited. The smell made her mouth water, but she knew knew knew to wait. It was common sense. You couldn't rush good things. Usually.
Alright, enough waiting, time to eat! She sprang forwards and grabbed the charred body, the bottom part blackened, and tore it off her warmth. She tumbled with it onto the ground and turned it over so she could see its cooked flesh and then she was gripping at it and tearing it and devouring it and there was no more blood or fluid it was cooked it was burned it was so good it was better than what she'd had in Canterlot this one was fresh it had organs and one that was spicy and its bones were so crunchy and the marrow sweet like... like... like something sweet and even the blackened-overburned parts were so good because they were smokey and mmph!
All too soon, there was nothing left. She sighed, and with a simple blast of air, she extinguished the embers of her fire. She pulled the warmth back in, and relished the feeling of fullness and warmth. That one creature had filled her so much. She wasn't quite full, not yet, but that could wait until the next day. As for now, it was time to head back. She wasn't yet sure where she'd stay. She knew Fluttershy wouldn't refuse her, but she could really sleep anywhere; she didn't get exposure, and her warmth let her make anything, even just the immediate air, into her nest.
All the same, she wasn't about to sleep out here in the Everfree forest. While the darkness was nice on her eyes, it wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't do to worry Fluttershy, since the equine had been panicked about the idea of her going into the forest, likely only letting her because she knew she wouldn't be able to stop her.
She tensed her legs, leaning over, and leaped as hard as she could. She sailed above the canopy of the Everfree, the sunset's orange light inundating her, even as the sun rapidly sunk below the horizon. She wheeled about in the air, and spotted Ponyville off in the distance. There!
She fell back down in a cacophony of breaking twigs, and instantly settled into a dead sprint back. Her mass, with the added flesh from her hunt, left deep prints in the soil and shattered trees in her wake as she plowed right through them. Animals scurried away from her as she approached, her clamor giving them only a moment to move before she herself arrived. A plant-animal-thing. A thing with a feline head and armored tail. She thought she saw something starry out of the corner of her vision, though that easily could've been the night sky. She continued on, approaching Ponyville, occasionally jumping again to make sure sure sure she was going the right way -
Stop stop blue flowers stop stop stop!
She dug up the soil in a brown fountain as she skidded to a stop. She'd only had an instant to register the flowers before she'd been upon them, but that had been enough. She kept moving, and realized she'd reach the small patch of bright blue flowers if she didn't do something. So she jumped over them, clutching the tree across from them (Which bent back with a pained groan) so she wouldn't fall into the patch. She shimmied around and landed a distance away from what she assumed were Poison Joke flowers.
She eyed them warily. They didn't look like much at all. Small flowers, bright blue petals, what more was there to say? Maybe a dozen and a half of them, waving back and forth in the light breeze. But magic was something foreign to her, something she didn't understand but she didn't really need to understand. All she needed to know was that if something was magical, it was dangerous.
She summoned her electricity to her right hand, holding out with her palm facing up. She envisioned the green power twisting and forming a spherical orb, roughly half her size. The vision became a reality, the sphere crackling with power. She pulled her hand away, and it remained, floating, feeding upon itself. It wouldn't last forever, but it would last more than long enough. As if controlling an extra limb, she moved the ball of emerald lightning forward, leaving a brilliant yellow trail as it soared through the air. It impacted the middle of the Poison Joke clump with an airy pop, exploding in a green nova of sizzling energy. The flowers were annihilated, the grass in the area of impact vaporized by her power and the dirt thrown outwards in clumps that didn't quite reach her.
She smiled. She still had it in her.
Back back back to Fluttershy's Home.
***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***
Twilight Sparkle
"This is bad," she said. "This is really, really, really bad."
"I-It's really not that bad," Fluttershy said, stepping back as Twilight's mane and tail turned ever more ragged.
"Are you kidding?! Not that bad?" Twilight levitated the newspaper over to Fluttershy's face, who leaned away from it. "Read this! Alien being assaults citizen of Canterlot! How is that not a bad thing?!"
"Well, it is technically true..."
"You said it was in self defense! It was, right? Or did she goad them into it? Did she have some sort of mind control gas?"
"Twilight," she whimpered. "You're starting to, um, scare me." She looked over to the nearby basket. "Also, you wouldn't want to wake up Spike, would you?"
She took a deep, cleansing breath like Cadance had taught her. Alright. Calm down. She could approach this calmly and rationally, like she did everything.
Want-it Need-it, her treasonous memory whispered.
Like she did most everything. She could do this in a logical, structures fashion. What did she know?
She knew that Elizabeth Greene had been attacked by a madpony in Canterlot. She had defended herself with gusto, to the extent of hospitalizing her assailant and only barely remaining within legal boundaries. The Princesses had suggested she come to Ponyville post haste, which she knew was polite, political maneuvering terms for 'Go Away, You're causing Trouble'. And now the newspapers had caught wind of it. The newspaper article had been horrifically biased, leaving out that Greene had been attacked first, skimming over how easy her strength made it to hurt ponies, and outright ignored that because of Elizabeth there was going to be a cure for wing cancer - bucking wing cancer - released to the public in a few week's time. Maybe sooner, if the testing went really well.
The theory was confirmed. The only thing that traveled faster than light was Bad News.
"What are we gonna do, Fluttershy?" she asked. "Tomorrow Greene's gonna come into Ponyville, and everypony's gonna think she's a deranged lunatic!" Plink! Another stray fur. "She's gonna be chased out of town!" Plink! "She'll go back to her home planet and start an interplanetary war where the humans she despises ally with her and rain down fire on us with their technology!" Plink! Plink! Plink!
"T-Twilight, please, calm down. Take a deep breath," Fluttershy insisted.
"Calm down?! How can I calm down when - in, and out," she did, suddenly transitioning. After a few moments of the breathing exercise, she was fine-ish. Her mane and tail were still frazzled, but the world was not spinning out of control.
"Twilight," Fluttershy asked, working up the great amount of bravery she needed to approach her. "What happened? When you left Canterlot you were perfectly fine." Her eyes widened. "N-Not that you're not fine now but, um, I'm sorry you're not fine," she said, squeaking out the last bit.
"No, no," she admitted. "You're right." She sat down and brought her tail around her body, stroking it with her forehooves. "It's just, when I got back home, I started going on the same thought process I was when we arrived. A-And Rainbow Dash tried to help, but she really only made it worse. And then I was researching whatever I could about Elizabeth Greene's powers, and it all just... got to me. I'm sorry. I should know better than this by now."
She glanced over at her notes on Nosokinesis, piled high around her. Nosokinesis was defined as the manipulation of disease and disease causing agents by thought. It was a very rare and little-practiced form of magic, used primarily by the royal Pathogen and Vaccine Research Branch to classify various illnesses, among other things. While the research branch used only the benign aspects of Nosokinesis, Twilight's research had turned up much more... sinister applications, not the least of which was the pandemic of 243, some fifteen hundred years before Nightmare Moon, caused by the unicorn Black Spread.
Black Spread had, with just one single spell, kickstarted the worst plague ever witnessed in Equestria. He'd died to his own disease, of course, but in the few weeks it took even the Princesses to figure out the cure, one third of everypony in Equestria died.
Elizabeth Greene had natural Nosokinesis, and despite not knowing just how powerful it was that premise terrified Twilight Sparkle. Magical or biological, it wasn't a field one simply dabbled in. Not even herself.
"It's alright, Twilight," Fluttershy said, pulling her out of what was surely about to turn into another spiral. "And really, it won't be that bad." Fluttershy looked down and fiddled with her hooves momentarily. "I mean, there's really nothing anypony in town can do to force Elizabeth to leave. I've seen what she can do." She shivered. "She'll probably ignore them, or hiss at them to ignore her. She can be really scary when she wants to."
A chill went down Twilight's spine as she stopped stroking her tail, which was now smooth. "Yeah, I noticed. Carnivores. Alright. Thank you, Fluttershy. We'll handle this... one step at a time. What's Elizabeth doing tomorrow?"
"Well, she's probably coming to the spa with me and Rarity - "
"Rarity and I," she corrected out of pure instinct.
Fluttershy hid further under her mane. "Oh, sorry. She's probably coming to the spa with Rarity and I. I don't think she'll like the massage; Elizabeth really doesn't like it when anypony touches her. But she'll probably like the bath, a-and the sauna. After that, it'd probably be nice for her to go to Rarity's. She wants to make something nice for her to wear."
Twilight nodded. "I guess I can see where she's coming from. Greene's been wearing that same suit since she came here, hasn't she?"
Fluttershy nodded. "Yes. I didn't want to mention anything to her, it really would be mean to bring it up, but... she could really use a trip to the spa."
Twilight nodded. "Alright. But what about everypony else?" She shook her head. "No, no. I can do this." She shook her head again, mane going smooth as well. She took another deep, relaxing breath, and let it out. "We are the Elements of Harmony. W-We carry a lot of weight, even if we don't always notice it." She nodded, smiling at herself. "Yes, we'll simply tell everypony what really happened in Canterlot, and that Elizabeth as alright. She'll go with you and Rarity to the spa, then to her Boutique, then who-knows where after. They'll understand. I'm not blowing this out of proportion."
Fluttershy stepped back in fear, and the words left before Twilight could stop them. "What could possibly go wrong?"
Fluttershy's eyes went wide. Twilight gulped, realizing what she'd done. She smiled sheepishly.
"Oops?"
