Scars of Suppression

by Harold Chaplin

Chapter Five: Yellow Foundation

Safe under her blanket Fluttershy sleeps curled in a warm ball while the memories of yesterday weave a wonderful dream in her mind. Razor is chasing her through the hushed darkness, dodging tables and chairs scattered throughout a never ending maze of carpet and black walls. Never ending it seems, until Fluttershy finds herself at a dead end. With the predator slowly closing in on her prey Fluttershy backs up against the wall ready to fight back the cannibalistic jaws of her friend.

Her bright yellow eyes, shining like a beacon in the dark, make their move as they lung into the air careening toward Fluttershy with a playful intent. The bandaged and scarred legs of Razor collide with the sides of Fluttershy's neck quickly wrapping around it, gently tackling her to the ground. She factitiously screams in fear as her predator goes in for the kill! She sees the sharp teeth sink in, feeling warmth and comfort emanating from each tooth that pierces her skin. The face watches her as it bites, slowly getting more and more surprised as its teeth sink deeper and deeper.

Razor's eyes open wider as she stares at Fluttershy. The shear amount of rising shock building on her glowing face begins to worry Fluttershy. "What's wrong?" she asks, as Razor's mouth detaches from her fur and raises up to look her more directly in the face. "What's wrong Razor?"

Razor looks up into the dark ceiling of the maze. With the same shocked expression, she stares into the ceiling watching as it slowly melts away in large sticky strands. Dim morning sunlight shines in through the soupy ceiling in rays as the songs of birds fill the air with an almost deafening noise. The walls of the maze begin to dissolve into large puddles in the newly forming grass springing up all around her. Fluttershy looks past the melting black walls across the landscape slowly forming around her into grassy fields stretching on further than her eye can see. Fluttershy looks back at Razor hoping for an explanation, but she just continues staring up at the sky in a daze.

Hoping to maybe jostle Razor out of her possessed state, Fluttershy reaches a hoof out to poke her. As her hoof touches her bandaged leg, Razor lifts it and slowly begins to walk towards her. Fluttershy raises up preparing to give her approaching friend a hug, but with each step Razor seems to move further away. "Where are you going?" Fluttershy asks her quickly departing friend. "Razor!?"

Without even a glance down, Razor's body glides over the horizon and out of Fluttershy's world. For a minute she stands looking at the fields surrounding her, void of any form of life besides her and the deafening call of birds. "Why am I here?" she asks herself, watching the sun beginning to rise over the horizon. The bright beams from the morning light wrap themselves around her body enveloping her in warmth, reminding her to Wake up, they're hungry.

Fluttershy's eyes snap open, revealing the dark bedroom she fell asleep in. She shifts her eyes around the room making sure it really is hers and not some strange dreams interpretation. She looks down and moves her legs around examining her bed sheets. Finding them just as comfy as usual, besides being very hot, she comes to the conclusion it really is her room letting out a long breath she had been holding in.

Relieved her dream is over she turns onto her side to go back to sleep. Getting a better look around, while on her side, she notices the amount of light shining in through her bedroom window. "Is it morning already?" Fluttershy wonders, kicking the covers off as she twists her way out of bed.

Through the glass in the window Fluttershy can hear the hundreds of birds waking up in the forest nearby. Each singing to one another with a different song, eventually jumbling together to make one large mess of noise. Accompanying the noise is the bright morning sky, void less of a sun, but bright enough to make out distant shapes. She can spot a few ponies already walking through town as well as one crossing the bridge back into Ponyville.

She can't stare out the window forever though, very soon she will need to get ready and go feed her animals, just like every morning. Fluttershy turns around and notices her bed sheets sprawled across the floor to her window. She gives out a sigh walking over to them remembering what Rarity had said, "...Twilight said to come to the palace for a meeting tomorrow. One to discuss how you all are doing on your assignments." Fluttershy stops and looks down at the pile of sheets, and a thought comes to mind. "How will I tell them about Razor?"

*****

After finishing her morning chores Fluttershy waves goodbye to her friends and heads off towards the crystal castle. She feels bad leaving her animals friends this morning, they all looked so worried when she handed out their food. And not a single one of them, besides Angel, had a happy face as she walked out the door.

"They looked at me like, something was wrong with me?" Fluttershy thinks as she makes her way onto the small bridge crossing into town. She stops for a minute and looks down into the stream below. The reflection shining back was as normal as ever. "I don't understand?" She says to herself, examining the other Fluttershy in the water.

Finding no answer she raises her head up to continue on her way, but freezes as her eyes meet with another mares across the street. The other mare quickly looks away embarrassed she was caught staring and trots off down the road. Feeling a bit uneasy now, Fluttershy continues on down the street.

As she makes her way through the streets of Ponyville more and more eyes meet Fluttershy's. Some are quick glances, while others are long worried stares looking her up and down. She picks up her pace but all the attention is nearly to much for her to handle. Feeling ready to take off in a bolt down the street any second now, a pony confident enough to talk to her approaches.

He asks, "Um, Fluttershy?" Fluttershy stops in her tracks and meekly answers, "yes?"

"Why do you have all those bruises on you?" He points a hoof out towards her sides, reminding her of the consequences from last night. Fluttershy takes a few steps back, quietly stammering out an inaudible response.

"I'm sorry, but, what did you say?" the pony asks watching the shivering savior of Equestria in front of him.

Quickly trying to think of something to get her out of this terrible situation Fluttershy whispers out the only excuse she can think of. "Um, I... have to go to, Twilight's."

"Uh... I'm sorry again, but what did you say?" The other pony leans in a little closer grabbing the attention of other nearby citizens. A crowd slowly begins to form around them, as the pony listening tries to piece together what she said out of her quiet mumbles. Fluttershy continues quivering as more and more ponies gather around them muttering to each other about her bruises. Finding no words to leave her mouth Fluttershy closes her eyes and slows her breathing to try and calm down.

Seeing Fluttershy so afraid in the presence of this other pony the crowd soon turns their attention onto him. Whispering phrases like 'He's probably the one that hit her!' slowly turns the sympathetic crowd into an angry mob. The other pony sees their angry faces and quickly takes to action, "Um, Well, that's good to know Fluttershy! I'll be on my way now!"

With a nervous smile plastered against his face he hastily nudges his way through the crowd. After many apologies for bumping ponies aside he breaks his way out of the mass and briskly trots off. After he disappears around the bend, the crowd's mentality turns back to a sympathetic tone. Fluttershy calms down a bit and opens her eyes again meeting all the faces around her.

"Are you ok Fluttershy?" a mare asks from the edge of the crowd. "Yeah, who was that guy?" another one asks. "Are you hurt?" more and more questions begin to flood from the audience.

"Do you need a doctor?" "I think I know a spell or two about healing?" "She has bruises? From what?" "Those look like bite marks?" "Did one of your animals do this?" "Is that Fluttershy?" "Fluttershy, it's ok. Tell me what happened."

"Don't treat her like a filly, she's defeated beasts thirty times your size!" The questions pile up further and further as Fluttershy attempts to answer each one. "No. It's fine I... Um... Well, NO never. Yes. I can't I have to..."

"WAIT! She's trying to say something!" a stallion yells out instantly silencing the crowd. Everypony leans forward listening intently for what she has to say. Fluttershy looks away from them towards the ground whispering, "I have to go to Twilight's right now, so..."

The mare in front of her gives an apologetic smile towards Fluttershy, "I'm sorry Fluttershy, we didn't know you had to be somewhere." She backs up into the crowd pushing away the mare beside her to make room for Fluttershy. The rest of the crowd soon follows, opening up to let her out.

As she walks through the crowd looking back and forth between the apologetic and worried faces of the townsponies, she can hear a few ponies in the back still asking about what's going on? Finally passing through the crowd Fluttershy continues down the street waving back at them as they all say goodbye.

The crowd only dissipates slightly as she makes her way around the edge of a building. Hugging the wall she thinks to herself about the meeting at the castle.

---

Twilight leans back in her chair letting out a relaxed sigh. "I take it, you like what I've done with the place?" Twilight pressing back in her thrones new pillows closes her eyes and almost falls asleep before nodding and answering, "Definitely!"

Rarity smiles back at her, "I knew you'd love it! Those old thrones were just to hard for any derriere to find comfortable."

"Eeyup..." Applejack closes her eyes now laying across her new red throne, "...they sure are." Soon she quickly falls asleep.

Rarity squees with pride and turns her gaze onto Pinkie Pie, bouncing on her new throne. "Do you like it? I added extra springs and Fluff to yours."

Pinkie stops mid-hop, "Did you say Fluff!?" She falls back to the ground and examines her throne's new cushion. A large zipper on the side catches her attention and she unzips it. As the zipper's teeth separate, globs off molten marshmallow bulge out in sticky lumps.

Pinkie gasps in excitement, "It is Fluff!" and scoops out several hoof-fulls into her mouth. She looks back up to Rarity covered and filled with the sticky marshmallow. While chewing she exclaims, "Water I'm gownna mwake a Fwuffer-Nutter!"

Twilight let's out a loud snort waking herself up. "Huh! Oh, sorry Rarity. What were you saying?" She looks over at Pinkie shoveling the contents of her cushion into her mouth. Thinking nothing of it she asks, "So Pinkie, have you helped any ponies yet?"

Pinkie painfully gulps down the last glob of marshmallow before gleefully answering. "Absolutely! I've made a list of everypony in town..." Pinkie pulls out a list of everypony in town running her hoof down the list, "... and I've helped each and everyone of them!"

"Well, except for a few Rarity asked to help." Twilight looks at her astonished, "Rarity you actually found time to help somepony?"

Rarity nods her head, "MmmHmm!" Twilight turns to Rainbow Dash to ask her, but Rainbow beats her to the question.

"Yes I have! He was a tough case, but after several days of intense arguing. I finally convinced him to be nice."

"And it worked?"

"Yup!"

Puzzled by her methods Twilight reminds herself to ask more about it later. She turns her attention towards AppleJack and attempts to wake her up. "AppleJack? AppleJack!" Her ears tilt towards Twilight's direction. "Have you helped anypony?"

"Eeyup... sorry for being short Twilight but, my bed ain't so soft... Goodnight." AppleJack falls back to sleep leaving Twilight with one more pony to ask. And she isn't here?

Suddenly the doors to the chamber door slide open as Fluttershy walks into the room. Twilight's turns to greet her but is instead shocked to see her bruised body. Twilight's mouth hangs open, Rarity's hooves come up to silence her gasp and Pinkie, in horror, wipes the marshmallow from her face.

"What's everyone looking at?" Rainbow asks turning around in her chair, halting after her gaze falls upon the purple splotched body of Fluttershy.

"Fluttershy?" Rarity asks through her hooves, "What happened to you?"

Rainbow Dash flies up to her to get a closer look. "They look like teeth marks."

"Teeth marks? Was it one of your animals?" Twilight inquires as AppleJack rolls over to get a better look at what all the fuss is about. She springs up into a sitting position after seeing Fluttershy's purple marks. "What n'the hay!?"

The butterflies in Fluttershy's stomach begin to accumulate along with her sense of dread as she tries to think of a response.

"Fluttershy! What happened to ya?"

Rarity hops off her chair edging closer along with everyone else. "Darling... what did this to you?"

---

"Um... nothing happened to me, I'm fine." Fluttershy nervously whispers looking up at the castle from a lonely alleyway in the middle of town. Even though she is a great distance away, Fluttershy's nerves demand her to stare at the castle; focusing in on the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the meeting. As each eye scans across, the nerves in her body build higher and higher on all the thoughts of how her friends would react. She even starts to feel queasy, frantically checking each window for signs of movement.

"It's kind of early I guess?" Her mind tells her after seeing no movement. "I should go back home and... Put on makeup!"

"Makeup!" The idea brings a slight relief to her as she turns around to leave the alleyway. She slinks between a few garbage cans and pokes her head out into the street. Besides a few ponies it seems relatively empty at the moment, and she takes this opportunity to dash across the street.

She dives behind a few bushes beside a house and pokes up to see if any pony saw. To her dismay a few ponies stand across the street puzzled at what they just witnessed. Feeling slightly embarrassed she gives up all hope in stealth and runs back to the bridge, crossing it to go back home.

*****

Across the street a few ponies watch as Fluttershy crosses the bridge back home. "What's going on with her?" Cagey asks in-between a few ponies that stopped to stare at the fleeing mare on their way to work.

"I don't know? I think she has an iron deficiency." A pegasus near Cagey nonchalantly states.

A mare walking down the street halts hearing the comment and angrily trots over to the pegasus. "What do you mean she has an iron deficiency?" she sternly asks.

"Well she was covered in bruises and when you have an iron--"

"No! They were bruises from bite marks." The annoyed mare coherently declares, staring into his eyes with an insulted look about her. The pegasus stares back at her blankly as one eyebrow slowly rises. He adjusts his posture and begins an explanation for his statements, "I'm sorry. I was at the back of the crowd that gathered around Fluttershy and I did not see or hear what--"

"That was Fluttershy?" Cagey interrupts, feeling it would be important to start taking mental notes.

"Yes! And she is very hurt!" The mare gives the same insulted stare back at Cagey as he puts a hoof to his chin and turns away, completely ignoring her. He looks up into the sky as to not get distracted from his thoughts, and annoys the mare further. The pegasus chuckles from the display and asks her, "So she was bitten?"

The mare looks to him, furrowing her brow into a deeper scowl. She bites out her answer, "Yes!"

"Interesting..." the pegasus puts a hoof to his chin and looks up into the sky as well. "VERY interesting indeed..." he turns around facing down the street and continues on his way to work chuckling to himself.

The mare rolls her eyes and also continues on down the road in the opposite direction leaving Cagey alone to think. "Fluttershy went into Razor's yesterday without any bruises, but did she leave with them? Did she even leave till this morning? Why was she at Razor's dump anyway?"

Cagey looks back down towards the direction of Fluttershy's cottage where he can see she just arrived. "Big purple splotches all over her, all from Razor? " Cagey starts off on his way to work, "Twilight better do something about this."

Fluttershy bursts through the door greeting the silence that comes after the morning feeding. All of the animals had left for the day to live their own lives, before going back to the free hotel known as Fluttershy's cottage. All of them except Angel who hops into view wondering what Fluttershy is doing back home? "Hi Angel!" she says walking towards him.

Angel had plenty of plans for the day and none included Fluttershy! His displeasure is clear as she lays down in front of him. "I know you had plans today, but I just wanted to say that, I'm sorry for this morning."

She scoots a little closer to him, "I had completely forgotten about my bruises... and, I just wanted you to know that they don't hurt, and you don't have to worry."

Fluttershy greets Angel's un-amused stare with her own apologetic smile, before pulling him in for a hug. "Thank you for understanding." Fluttershy tells him, gently holding him in her hooves. He simply rolls his eyes and pats her on the head before jumping out of her grasp.

Hopping away Fluttershy's voice stops him, "Um, and don't worry about your plans. I wont stick around for long!" Angel nods his head, not fully understanding or caring what she plans to do, and hops off. Once he is gone Fluttershy walks to her bathroom to look for her makeup supplies.

She opens the makeup cabinet on the wall and begins digging around the multiple makeup kits inside. "Foundation is what I need, right?" She checks the covers of all the kits, each with a birthday or Hearth's Warming Eve tag reading Love Rarity.

Pushing her hair extensions kit aside she pulls out several makeup packages and lays them out on the sink. Checking through them she finds several shades of yellow. Fluttershy opens the box and pulls out the brush with her mouth.

She dabs a bit onto the brush and lowers her head to reach her shoulder. With a bit of finesse she brushes on the color and looks into the mirror. "Woo-Hoo!" The makeup covers up most of the bruise! It still looks fairly bad, but with more makeup it should eventually disappear.

After several more strokes her bruise is finally covered. She sets down the brush and looks into the mirror appreciating her effort. She turns to get a better look at her new shoulder and notices the multiple other marks across her back. "How am I going to reach them?" she wonders out loud as this new problem arises. Fluttershy opens her bathroom door, calling out for assistance. "Angel!... Are you busy?"

*****

Back at the castle Twilight sits in her hard crystal throne coughing on the dust filling the air and covering her ears from the sound of drills. A large chunk of dust flies into her lung, "Ahk! cough cough Rarity can you call off your sculpting crew for a minute!"

Rarity sneezes before answering, "I'm sorry Twilight, I thought break time was sooner." Flattening her ears from the noise she hops out of her chair and walks towards one of the ponies drilling into the walls.

After tapping on his shoulder she asks, "Excuse me! But, could you pause construction while we are in here!?" The pony sets down his drill and pulls off his mask. "Sure thing ma'm. Hey Zipper pack yer things!"

Across the room a fairly taller unicorn looks over in surprise and sets down his chisel. Confused, he muffles through his mask. "Is it break time already?"

"Eh, yea. Grab your bag." Both the ponies pack up their things as Twilight magically blows most of the dust out of a nearby window. Once the workers leave the room Rarity walks back to her chair.

"I'm so sorry Twilight, I didn't know they would cause such a commotion during our meeting."

"It's fine Rarity..." Twilight looks up at her new ceiling, consisting of Celestia, Luna and Cadence swirling around the new princess of the land, while stallions of all races stand on pillars holding the ceiling on their backs. "... all this commotion is definitely paying off."

Rarity smiles with delight, "I'm so glad you like it!"

Besides her feeling a little strange having so many pieces of art of her, Twilight does think the castle looks much better. "It's wonderful!"

Rarity smiles back again shifting her weight in her chair. AppleJack shifts in her chair as well along with Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash goes to shift her weight but gives up flying into the air.

"Rainbow Dash, what's wrong?" Twilight asks.

"I can't feel my legs." Rainbow states, kicking them around to get the blood flow back into them.

"I'm sorry Rainbow Dash, I knew I should have weaved those pillows sooner." Rarity says watching her friend thrashing in the air.

Rainbow gives a few bucks at some leftover dust clouds before responding. "It's fine, I'm just not used to sitting this much."

Applejack, shifting her weight once again, turns to Twilight, "Twilight, I don't think Fluttershy's comin'."

Twilight looks back at her surprised at the statement. "Why do you think that?"

"She's probably too busy helping her pony to come join us."

Feeling the numbness forming in her legs along with the stinging in her rump Twilight, despite feeling bad for leaving out Fluttershy, decides to go along without her. "Your probably right AppleJack, let's start the meeting."

Using this as another opportunity to shift their weight everyone scoots closer to lay their hooves on the table. Except for Rainbow Dash, which simply floats nearer.

"So, who wants to go first?"

"Ooh! Ooh!" Pinkie raises her hoof jumping up and down nearly hitting Rainbow Dash.

"How has it been going with you Pinkie Pie?" Twilight asks, while everypony turns to listen.

"It's been going great! I made a list you see..." Pinkie pulls out a long scroll and sets it on the table. It quickly un-ravels revealing the names of all the citizens of Ponyville. "... I've helped nearly one-third of everypony in Ponyville so far!"

AppleJack chimes in, "How could you help so many ponies in, what's it been... two days?"

"Three if you count before the meeting." Together they all look at Pinkie, doubting her 'one-third of everypony' claims. "What? It really wasn't that hard. Most of them said a Party would help them! So I plan to throw one big 'Let's Make Friends' party after I've helped all the other ponies in town that didn't feel like going to my awesome party."

Feeling like a party wouldn't help, and wanting to hear how the rest of her friends are doing, Twilight moves the meeting along. "A party? Well, I'll ask more about your methods later. For now let's hear how Rainbow Dash is doing."

Rainbow floats back down into her chair clearing her throat. "It's, not going so good. It's going pretty terrible actually."

"How so darling?"

"Well he's just so... weird?" Rainbow leans in a little further to make sure her friends can hear her. "It's like one minute he wants to hug me... and the next he wants to beat the crap out of me!"

"Oh my!" Rarity gasps, while the rest of them share an equally shocked look. "That sounds like he has a bipolar disorder."

"I think so..." Rainbow Dash leans back into her chair thinking about all the out-bursts she had witnessed over only the past few days. Seeing her wear such a troubled expression compels Twilight to ask, "Rainbow, I know your supposed to help him but, maybe you should move on to somepony who's not so dangerous."

Rainbow waves a dismissive hoof, "No, it's fine Twilight. Nopony else is willing to help Twinkle, making me his only chance."

Twilight gives her a confident smile, "I guess you are." Rainbow gives an affirmative nod, before Twilight moves on to the next question in her mind. "You say his name was Twinkle?"

"Yep, Twinkle Hemorrhage." Twilight's smile dissipates, moving onto the next subject. "I'll ask more about Twinkle in a minute. I want to just, get the jist of everyone progress so far." Twilight turns her attention towards Rarity, "So Rarity... no, you've been in the castle all week."

Rarity looks at the murals engraved across the walls, "MmmHmm!"

Twilight frowns from the cheerful statement, knowing Rarity doesn't want to help. With nopony else to ask she turns to the last remaining pony in the room, "AppleJack... well, tomorrow you'll visit the pony your helping, right?"

"Sure enuff'. I'm gonna catch the train to Dodge City tomorrow to help out my neighbor's relative that lives there." Twilight raises an eyebrow, "I thought you would be helping somepony here?"

"I thought she lived here too, but when I asked where she lived they said Dodge City." AppleJack scoots a little closer into the group, "They said her name was Apple Ho-Down. Which got me thinkin', I might just be going to help a distant relative of mine!"

Pinkie Pie pulls confetti from her main and flings it into the air after hearing the wonderful news. "Yee-Haw! I've got a new cousin!"

Brushing the confetti out of her hair Rainbow asks, "What are you talking about Pinkie?"

Pinkie's eyes grow wide, "You don't you remember the scroll I found saying that I was related to AppleJack!?"

"Uh... kind of? Maybe?"

Pinkie leans back into her chair, "Well let me tell you all about it!"

*****

Back at the cottage, Fluttershy watches through the mirror as Angel stands on the sink grumpily moving the brush back and forth across a bruise on Fluttershy's back. The brush wipes nearly all its powder off onto the mark, barely covering it up. Angel re-fills the brush with the makeup kit, resulting in emptying one more kit of the right shade of yellow.

Fluttershy pulls the yellow-less kit off of the sink and sets it in the pile of other used kits. She reaches next to it and pulls up the last good one, opening it up and placing it next to Angel. "This is the last one Angel. Can you finish with it?"

Angel lifts the brush away from her and shrugs, doubting he can. "I hope so..." He presses the brush back onto her and continues with his work, attempting to use as little as possible. It takes a long time to cover the wound and Fluttershy's attention soon shifts away from the mirror and onto the floor.

After a few silent minutes pass by staring at the floorboards, Angel smacks Fluttershy on the rear indicating she should turn around. "Ooh! Sorry." she spins around revealing the other side to Angel.

Angel counts the wounds on her body and looks back at his remaining supply of powder. There is enough to last two more bruises, but not enough for the other three. Figuring he doesn't want to waste the time to cover only two he gives a sorrowful look to Fluttershy.

"There's not enough?" Angel shakes his head, placing the brush inside the new kit. Fluttershy lets out a heavy sigh, "Ok, thank you for your help." Angel pats her on the head again and hops off the counter, exiting the room.

Fluttershy looks at herself in the mirror, comparing her painted side and her purple splotched side. "So much for the meeting. At least I can still go to Razor's." She walks out into her living room and looks around for Angel.

"Angel? Um, I'm going out!..." no response. "Goodbye!" she opens her door and steps outside. A thought knocks at the back of her mind halting her as she closes the door, "What time is it?"

Fluttershy looks back inside at the cuckoo clock mounted on the wall, "3:14... the meeting will be over soon." The thought of her friends wondering where she is knocks once again. "Maybe I should leave them a note."

She walks back inside and trots over to her drawer pulling out a pen and paper. "Hmmm?"

---

Dear Twilight, Friends,

Hello! I'm sorry I missed the meeting, but I've been helping out Razor Sharp (my pony) all day long. She lives on the road towards Cloudsdale.

---

"I can't write where she lives, they'll come and see me. And Razor will be right there to take the blame..." Fluttershy crumples up the paper and tosses it in a waste basket nearby. She pulls out another sheet and gets to work.

---

Dear Friends,

Hello! I'm sorry I missed the meeting, but I've been helping out Razor Sharp (my pony) all day long. I hope you didn't worry about me, and I'll make sure to definetly show up to your next one!

Love, Fluttershy

---

Fluttershy studies her work, pondering on whether or not it's convincing. "Maybe I should have written more? Well, it's probably fine." she reaches into the drawer and pulls out a tack. Carefully holding the tack and paper in her mouth, she closes the drawer and trots back outside.

She pins the note to the door and before fully closing it yells, "Angel?... Goodbye, again!" Hearing no response, again, she closes the door and heads off down the road. "I should probably go around Ponyville." Fluttershy thinks to herself remembering the crowd that gathered around her. I hope my animal friends don't notice me."