A light yellow pegasus roams her cottage carrying a hefty bag of animal feed over her back. Her long, pale pink hair falls over her face as she tries to blow it out of the way of her eyes in order to see what's in front of her. You already know her name: Fluttershy. Eventually, Fluttershy tosses her head to the side to remedy the issue, her hair finally resting over her shoulders instead. Various furry friends of hers skitter around and between her legs in excitement, their first meal of the day just a bag opening away. She gives a small smile at their energy as she sets the bag down. One of the beavers had already taken it upon themselves to open up the bag with their teeth.
“Now now Skitter…” she gently pushes away the eager beaver from the bag. “We've gone over this…. wait until I fill the bowls up, okay?”
The beaver nods with regret, though it was easy to tell it didn't take the lesson to heart.
As soon as Fluttershy reached for the bag, a resounding noise flooded her ears.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three steady knocks. Three steady vibrations through the front door. Who would be visiting this early in the morning? The sun had only come up an hour ago. She came up with no answers. Were one of her friends in trouble...? She might as well see.
•
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He steps back after making his presence known at the door, probably waiting to see if someone was even there to answer in the first place.
He didn't have to wait long. Light hoofsteps from inside the cottage make their way towards his location. He steps back a little bit more, just out of range of the door if it were to open. The bottom half doesn't open, but the top does.
Fluttershy peaks her head through it and looks around, her teal eyes landing on the colt with hesitancy. Her shyness seemed to already be kicking in. This soon fades though, as she sees only a colt.
“Um… hello?” she says meekly, tilting her head in curiosity.
It takes the colt a second to respond. “...hi. Who are you?” His voice was scratchy and rough, almost like he was going through some kind of reverse puberty. He sounded like he needed to clear his throat… but also didn't. It was too natural.
The pegasus looked perplexed, either because of his voice, his oddly placed question, or both. She still didn't want to seem rude of course.
“Uhm… I'm Fluttershy. Who are you…?” she questions awkwardly. She wasn't quite sure where to take the conversation. Did she ask about his parents? Surely he couldn't be out here without supervision. Was he a runaway? She really hoped not, nopony should be unhappy enough to run away from their own home.
“I'm Zetche,” he says. “Sorry. My parents just moved there. I'm familiarizing myself right now. Is this some sort of animal sanctuary?”
Everything he said seemed to be blunt and to the point. Fluttershy found that odd, but maybe he was just that kind of pony.
“Oh! Um… no. Well, yes? I just… like taking care of animals,” she smiles now, the subject of animals having immediately peaked her interest. This turns into worry in a split second, “I hope they haven't bothered you any…”
He glances towards a rabbit hopping it's way past for a moment, “They haven't. Is the town spread out like your house, or do you just not like other ponies?”
Fluttershy thought that was a rather loaded question, but continued nonetheless.
“Um… no. Most of Ponyville is close together, besides Sweet Apple Acres or something like that…” she says, awkwardly looking off to the side.
“Okay. Thank you.” He picks up the sack, and starts walking away without another word. He's already crossing the bridge by the time Fluttershy recovers enough from the sudden exit.
“W- Wait!” she speaks up in a quiet voice. “Do you know how to get back??”
The colt simply nods, the contents in the sack clinking together like rocks. He's back on the main trail already, walking at a leisurely pace towards Ponyville. He seemed to have gotten what he wanted out of the conversation. The pegasus was just left perplexed, but thought it wasn't that big of a deal. She shuts the top part of the door before she could think about it too much.
~
The outskirts of Ponyville were relatively empty on the way back, just a well-traveled dirt road leading back to the town. The colt seemed to know his way back well enough considering he had just arrived. To be fair, there weren't any other major places to go around here besides Sweet Apple Acres.
Soon enough, Zetche had made his way to the town's edge, no other ponies visibly out and about right now. Fireworks could be heard in the distance, which was odd considering it was the middle of the day. Some kind of festival mayhaps? Regardless of what it was, it was a good opportunity for him to slip in unseen, if that was even his goal anyway. His eyes wander around the streets, soon stumbling upon something that looked like a Farmer's market. Various stalls and stands were set up with advertisements: A bushel of apples for 5 bits, celery sticks for 2, gardening decorations for a “debatable price”; probably bartering.
The colt has already wandered into that section of the street, his eyes darting across the various details of… well seemingly, anything in the area. His eyes lock onto a side alley, and soon enough, that's where he's heading. It looked to contain cast-aside junk. But where any other pony would have seen just that, Zetche seemed to spot some sort of potential. He sets his sack of goods down nearby and goes into the alley. He drags a rather large, wooden piece shoved into the pile and drags it out, with some difficulty, into the street.
It was a stall, more specifically an abandoned one. The wood it was made of seemed to be faded from exposed sunlight, some of the boards making it up cracked and splintered from natural use. One of the legs of it was broken, probably the reason it was thrown out in the first place.
Zetche wedges himself under the thing to lift it up, and attempts to stand it up normally. That proved impossible because of its broken leg. Being the problem solver he was, he uses one of his back legs to scooch a rock over and push it under the stump where the leg used to be. There. Good enough to stand, good enough to use. It was a bit tall for him to stand behind it seemed, so he drags a fully intact stool over from the previous junk pile behind it to stand on. Good use of recycling.
He fetches the put-aside sack and plops it onto the flat surface in the center of the stand. The old thing creaks from the wait, but luckily stays steady. The colt uses his hooves to empty the bag out, setting as many of the little items as he could onto the flat surface in a uniform fashion.
At first glance they could be perceived as very shiny rocks due to the sunlight shining in from the sky, but another look proved otherwise. They were scales, all around the same size as an adolescent pony's hoof. Stoney green in color, the boldness of their pigments showed quite the contrast against the pale wood of the stand. He seemed to be carrying plenty more in his sack as well.
The colt sighs and props his right hoof on the stand to rest the side of his head against, looking bored as all hell. Ponies were coming back now, idle chatter from them revealed common words such as “Trixie” and “Powerful”. The colt's ears twitched at these peculiar mentions, but he didn't seem too keen to ask anyone around what had happened. All he could do was wait.
So he waited.