When I woke up again – when did I fall asleep? – there was nobody around. Had the aches and throbs from a hundred different places on my body settled down any? Hard to tell; maybe a little.
For the first time since I somehow ended up here, I could finally relax a little. Maybe. I still didn't dare to fully let my guard down, even though there was precious little I could do about it if some kind of danger came my way. Unfortunately, relaxing only gave me more time to focus on the pain. That motherfucking pain ... I had to ignore it as well as I could, there had to be something else.
So, I was in an unknown place, surrounded by unknown things – probably demons – of unknown intentions. I was injured to the point of being a cripple, missing all of my clothes and supplies save for my sword, didn't know the language or customs, and had no chance of blending in with the colorful winged locals. Did that about cover it? Oh yes, and Genko was probably around here somewhere, likely trying to hunt me down this very moment. Well, shit. I could sum up the situation a lot easier than all that: I was fucked.
My quiet, peaceful contemplation of how fucked I was didn't last long, though. The door opened, and in came Fluttershy and Twilight, as well as a third woman, one I'd never seen before. She was much like the other two, but white with purple hair, and oddly she had no wings, but she did have a horn.
Well that was new! And it threw off a lot of what I thought I knew about these people. Did this one lose her wings somehow, or was she born without them? Fluttershy had called the other horned one a princess, so was this one also royalty? The elegant finery of her dress would seem to suggest that she was. Not like I was about to bow to them or anything. I wouldn't debase myself to demons, no matter the circumstances.
I clutched the thin bedsheet close to myself and eyed all three of them with suspicion.
Fluttershy didn't seem to take too kindly to that. She was probably used to more trust and acceptance from her 'critters'. Well, too bad. I didn't know if they were demons, some spawn of demons, or what, but I wasn't about to let my guard down for even a moment.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked.
“No.”
To be honest, I actually was feeling slightly better, but negativity felt good right now.
“Oh, that's a shame. I do hope you're recovering okay. I've never done surgery on anyone like you before.” Fluttershy looked away with a slight cringe, and I almost felt sorry for being so brusque with her. Almost. She gestured toward the new intruder, the white one. “This is Rarity – she's already finished washing your clothes, even mending them a little. Knowing how you probably feel about it, though, I didn't let her do any of the alterations she had planned out.”
Rarity looked away, sticking her muzzle into the air in disdain. The nerve of her, acting like taking care of my clothes was beneath her or something!
That did ingratiate me with Fluttershy, though. Now I did feel a little bad about how I was treating her. Unless she turned out to be a demon, of course.
“And, well, maybe I should just let Twilight explain the next part. She's better at explaining magic.”
Next part? What could possibly be next? And how could Twilight explain anything to me anyway? I couldn't understand a word of anything she said!
The purple one stepped up in front of Fluttershy, and I suddenly got a very bad feeling about this 'next part'. They were all of them smiling and acting perfectly friendly, even helping me out to a large degree ... but something about this wasn't right, and I couldn’t shake the idea that they were all some kind of demons, fucking around with me cruelly before they went in for the kill.
Twilight's smile faded when she closed her eyes and began concentrating hard ... her horn began to glow. And that's when I knew that my bad feeling had been completely justified.
What could I do about it, though? All I could do was cringe away and wait for the worst.
When it came, it was underwhelming. Just a slight tingling buzz in my brain, gone after mere moments. I blinked, looking all around as Twilight's ki attack died down, but nothing seemed different, nothing out of place. Nothing seemed to have changed at all.
Twilight smiled down on me again. “Okay, did it work? Can you understand me now? Bark once for yes, twice for no.”
“Do I have to bark? Yes, I can understand you just fine now that you're speaking...” But wait, she wasn't speaking in Standard, nor in any other of the languages I knew...
“Excellent!” She jumped up and down in glee. “This is amazing! The spell's description didn't say anything about giving the animal the ability to speak as well. I'm going to have to put this one in the journal, as well as send in reports to all the major spell curating houses to—”
“Hey! Did you fuck around with my head?” How did I know their language now? How could I be speaking it so effortlessly? There was only one way, of course, and that kind of ki was of the very, very forbidden demonic kind.
“Language!” Fluttershy shouted, ignored by everyone.
Twilight held her purple hands up in front of her. “Easy, easy. Don't worry, I didn't do anything bad. I just used a quick language-learning spell designed to let animals understand spoken language properly. It's nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about?” I would have jumped off of the couch if it wouldn't have half-killed me from the pain. “You mind-raped me, you purple fucking bitch!”
“There's nothing wrong with—”
“Nothing wrong with what? Going around inside other people's minds and fucking around with them like you own the place? You are all demons! Get away from me!” I reached for my sword, but it was too far away, and the torn muscles in my arm blared with pain from just that one motion.
Twilight winced. “Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I didn't know you felt that way about it. Here, I'll undo the spell so that—”
“NO!” My shout was near-deafening. “Stay the fuck out of my head! Just stay OUT!”
“Okay...” Twilight – and the other two women – slowly backed away from me, letting a tense moment of silence hang as they glanced back and forth between each other and me.
As the quiet stretched on, though, I began to come to terms with it. Was it really that bad? Yes, definitely. Did it mean they were evil demons? Not really. They completely disrespected all of my boundaries, intruding both on my body and my mind ... but it was fairly evident that they had done so with good intentions, at least. Probably, anyway. They could still just be fucking with me for laughs, but at this rate, that was beginning to seem less and less likely. What would the point of such a cruel joke be? They were putting in more and more effort, and for what payoff? Would they all suddenly burst into laughter the moment I dared to trust them, and then devour me?
What did it matter, anyway? If they were demons set on devouring me, what did it matter if they got a laugh before the end or not? I should probably trust them at least a little, or at least appear to, in order to appease them. If there was a chance that they really were just friendly but misguided, then I had nothing to lose by playing into that.
I gulped. “I... I'm sorry about my outburst. It's just that, where I come from, performing mind magic without the permission of...” Wait, why did saying 'ki' in their language automatically come out as 'magic'? Did they not have a word for ki or something? I tried it again, “Magic, magic, magic.” Huh, weird. I shuddered, my skin crawling at the thought of how this distinction didn't come naturally – it had been put there by someone else. Disgusting.
At the sound of me repeating the same word over and over, Fluttershy shooed the other two away with her hands. “Come now, she's had quite a lot of shock and a pretty bad concussion ... this isn't the time to be putting such stress on her system. If you want to catalog her for your reference books, Twilight, you'll have to come back later when she's feeling better.”
Now that was something I couldn’t argue with, though personally I didn't think I had a concussion. Unless this was all in my mind, which would mean I had a very, very bad one.
As the other two reluctantly left, Fluttershy came back to me. “Now you rest up, Miss Tanaka. You have a lot of healing to do. I'll make some herbal tea that should help with the—”
“Missus,” I corrected her. “Missus Tanaka. I was married ... once.”
“Oh, but not anymore? Isn't that a shame?”
I'd never really thought of it as shameful. I've just always had more important things going on in my life. Any thought of getting married again or even starting a family ... that was just ridiculous. I had an army to lead, demons to slay. And where would I even find a...? I shook my head clear, then immediately regretted it from the splitting pain that rushed in to fill the gap left by those thoughts.
I had more important things to focus on right now. “Where am I? Who are you people? Where is Genko?”
“My goodness, you really aren't from around here, are you?” Fluttershy paused for a moment, tilting her head to the side ... hopefully deciding which question to answer first. “I've never heard of anyone named Genko, and I know the names of every critter near Ponyville. Who is that?”
Of course she would answer in the least helpful way possible, by asking me another question. “He's a demon, and if you don't know who he is, you can't help me. Where is this place and who are you people?” Best to be direct ... and with the way my sides ached when I took in a deep breath, it would be best not to get caught up in a long conversation.
“Oh, um, okay... You're in my cottage, on the outskirts of Ponyville.” When she didn't see any recognition in my eyes, she added, “In northwest Equestria.”
Still nothing. Wherever Genko's stupid little glowing egg took me, it was somewhere completely outside of anywhere I was familiar with. On the plus side, none of my reading about the demon's realm – as limited as that reading was – mentioned any place called 'Ponyville' or 'Equestria'. That probably was good evidence that this wasn't part of the demon realm.
“And my name is Fluttershy. Those other girls you met are my friends, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, oh, and Scootaloo. She's the little one who—”
“No no no, I know your names.” I actually didn't know all of those names yet, but names weren't important – although at least they didn't sound at all like demon names. “Who are all of you ... what are you?”
“Oh. We're, um ponies. Have you never seen ponies before?”
Again with the pony thing. I shrugged a little, supposing that they really did consider themselves ponies. “But ponies have four hoofed legs, they're not as colorful, they don't have wings or horns or magic, and they definitely don't talk.”
“Maybe you're thinking of horses?”
“They're the same thing, aren't...? Oh never mind.” I laid my head back down on the pillow. “It doesn't matter.” They seemed harmless enough for the moment, even helpful. Or were they? That purple one was a threat, to be sure. She'd already shown the ability to completely control me physically, and she could – and would – at least exert some influence mentally. I shuddered again, thinking of that.
It got very quiet for a little while, until Fluttershy finally worked up the courage to ask, “So, um ... what exactly are you?”
“Wolf.”
“You... You don't look or really act like a normal wolf would. Where are you from?”
“Far away. You've never heard of it.”
The short replies were definitely putting her out of sorts, but again, I wasn't feeling like having a long conversation. And trying to explain where I was from to these people would be a long conversation, I had no doubt. I wasn't even sure if I could explain it.
“Oh...”
The silence hung again, and I let it. Enough with all of this. I wanted more than anything to be back home where I belonged. To be healed again. Nothing felt right here, everything was different. And of course, I felt the loss of ki keenly. If that Twilight had so much ki, couldn't she just heal me? Apparently not, or else she simply didn't want to, which was definitely a possibility for a being who was willing to commit mind-rape.
“I'll, um, I'll just let you rest for a little while then. I'm sure you've been through a lot and you need to recover your strength before answering too many questions.”
She wasn't wrong about that. I would be needing a lot of rest before I felt like answering anyone's questions. I'd already had enough of this place, which wasn't a good sign, since I'd likely be here for a lot longer. Still, as questionable as their methods had been, these people had shown me great kindness... “Fluttershy?” I called out before she left the room, stopping her in the doorway. “I, um... Thank you, for all your help. I'm sorry I've been so difficult.”
She left the room without another word, but she smiled before she did.
Good. It felt good to have someone here I might be able to count on ... maybe. If they weren't all demon-spawn out to fuck with me. Ugh, this was going to be hard.
So don't worry about it. Never one to let my worries get in the way of pragmatism, I shoved it all aside and focused on drawing in whatever little scraps of ki I could, for use in healing. Now that I was farther away, I could tell that all the little bits of ki I could gather were coming from just one direction, back where I'd crashed into the ground. It must have been coming from the stones that crashed through with me ... not exactly an abundant source of ki. No wonder I could barely find any to use.
But there was also one other source, in a completely different direction. Very weak, almost undetectable, but with a completely different flavor. Genko... He was out there somewhere. But never mind, not now. Right now, I needed to heal. I could worry about Genko later.
* * *
Hours passed before Fluttershy came back. At first I assumed this was because I'd offended her with my terse responses to her questions. I almost even felt a little bit bad about that.
She soon laid that concern to rest, though. “I'm sorry I was away for so long. I do have quite a lot of animals to feed.” She offered a steaming cup, raising it in my direction. “I have some herbal tea that should help ease your pains, if you're feeling up to it.”
Wow, I should never have underestimated these strange people's capacity for kindness. I didn't deserve any of it, but that didn't stop me from nodding my head slightly to accept her offer.
Coming over to me, she sat down on a little sliver of the couch I wasn't using. The cushion barely moved at all when she did – her touch must have been so feather-light and delicate.
When I moved to grab the cup, she gently held down my arm, and I let her. “No, no,” she said. “You need to conserve your strength, and trying to move too much might just hurt you more.”
I let her hold the cup to my lips. She was slow and careful – annoyingly so, as I waited for the warm tea to finally reach me – but when I finally got a taste, I was glad of her caution. The stuff tasted terrible, as bitter as any herbalist's brew I'd ever had. I almost coughed and spit it back out, but I forced myself to keep composure and swallow it down. After all, it wasn't as if I'd never had bitter medicine before, though I'd rarely needed medicine when I had ki to heal myself with. Still, I steeled my resolve, and when she held it up for another sip, I drank deeply, ignoring the almost-scalding heat and the astringent taste that made my mouth feel full of bitter chalk, despite actually being full of hot liquid.
And maybe I felt some need to impress Fluttershy with my fortitude. I don't know why I cared so much about that.
I didn't feel any immediate effect from the brew, but I trusted her enough to think that she would probably not give me anything harmful – or even anything that tasted that bad without providing some benefit.
The thought that I trusted her was strange. Why did I already trust her so much? For all I knew, all these people were some weird kind of demon, and she had just poisoned me... But why would they want to poison me? Why go to the trouble of that? I was already helpless, already completely in their power, both in body and probably in mind as well, if they saw fit. What could they possibly stand to gain by tricking me into drinking awful-tasting tea?
“Feeling any better yet?” Fluttershy asked.
Maybe I would have been feeling the effects by the time I finished if I had drank it slowly. But that would have only prolonged the suffering. Rather than answer her, I addressed the one accomplish-able thing I could think of that actually would make me feel more comfortable and secure. “I want my clothes on.”
She winced. “Are you sure you’re ready for that? I don't think you should be up and moving much for at least a couple days...”
Her caution only made my resolve stronger. Besides, she probably wasn't taking the little bit of healing ki I'd been using into account. I nodded.
“Okay, well... Here, let me help you.” She grabbed the edge of the blanket covering me.
I grabbed onto it myself, holding it down firmly before she could pull it away. “I can do it myself,” I said, “if I have a little privacy.”
Fluttershy stood there and stared down at me for a long moment, her eyebrow slowly rising. But finally, she let out a sigh. “Alright, but I'll be in the next room over there. Just call if you need my help with anything.” Without wasting any time, she rose and left the room, taking the empty teacup with her.
I waited for a little while afterward, just to be sure that she wouldn’t be coming right back into the room for some excuse or other. But she was true to her word, and the door remained closed.
So I was free to get dressed. I was appalled to find that a part of me had hoped I would be interrupted, giving me some excuse to not do it, to just lie here in relative comfort. I quashed that feeling immediately – that wasn't the way I operated, not even when injured like this. I would tackle this just like I took on all my problems back home: head-on and with bull-headed tenacity that could push me through any barrier.
The moment I moved, though, I had second thoughts. The pain was incredibly intense; just the act of moving my arm to throw off the blanket it was enough to make my muscles twinge and contract, which only made it worse. I almost cried out ... almost. I had to choke the sound down in my throat, though. If I made so much as a whimper, that Fluttershy would probably come back in and insist on helping me. And, well, I wasn't accustomed to being helped and I wasn't accustomed to strangers seeing me in the nude. So I had to do this myself.
With fresh resolve, I swung my legs down and stood up, all in one sudden motion to keep myself from backing down from the pain.
I fell almost immediately, dropping to my knees and barely catching myself with my hands, keeping myself from going face-down on the floor. I yelped in pain – I couldn’t help it.
“Are you okay? Do you need my help?” She must have heard that ... damn it.
“I'm fine!” I growled, pushing myself back up ... only to fall again, my knees cracking hard against the wood floor. Shit! This wasn't working. Grabbing hold of the couch, I tried to pull myself back up on it, but my shoulder gave out, leaving me sprawling against the floor. Lying there on my back, completely nude and helpless, I finally came to the realization: maybe I did need a little help, as distasteful as that might be. I took a deep breath, then faced the inevitable. “... Okay, I guess I could use a little help.”
Fluttershy rushed in – she must have been waiting right behind the door. “Oh my goodness!” She squatted down next to me, forcing me to avert my eyes away from her skirt. “You should never have tried to do this without my help! Now let's get you back on the couch.”
“No.”
“Huh? But you're sprawled out all over the floor – it's terrible!” She reached down and started lifting my shoulders, already trying to help me up.
“No, I—” The pain made me gasp, but I struggled through it. “I'm going to get my clothes on.”
“Oh you couldn’t possibly. Let's just get you back to rest for now, and we can try again when—”
“No, now!” Just because I needed help didn't mean I had to lose my determination. I'd set out to do this, and I would do it.
She looked down at me, blinking. “Oh... Okay, I guess? If it's what you really want...”
“It is.” I struggled to get up again, and this time, with Fluttershy's help, I managed it. She held me solidly around my shoulders, keeping me upright when I couldn't do it myself. It was disgraceful, but it wasn't the first time I'd accepted disgrace in the name of success, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
“Okay now, let's get you sitting down...” She tried to guide me over to the couch again, but I resisted her.
“No,” I repeated. “No, I am not going to sit down and rest. I'll do this on my own if I have to.”
Fluttershy plopped me gently down on the couch, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. I was too weak to resist her surprising strength. Once I was down, she stood over me, holding her hands at her hips. “Now listen here. You are going to sit – not to rest, but so I can start getting you dressed without holding you up the whole time. You will start cooperating and stop complaining, or we're going to have problems. Serious problems. Do you understand me?”
I could do nothing but nod meekly, trying to cover my naked breasts with my hands. To see Fluttershy suddenly grow a backbone was shocking to say the least, and it put me in my place. I remained there, quite in shock, until she returned with my panties and socks.
She threaded the panties over my legs first, and I suffered the indignity of alternately raising each side as she slipped them up over my hips. My dignity hurt more than my wounds, but I endured it. At least I was covered a little more modestly once they were back on. The socks came next, easily since I didn't have to move much for her to roll them up to above my knees. When she picked up my bra, she set it aside. “Let's not put that on until your shoulders are healed a little better. I don't know if they can take the weight.”
I hugged my arms even tighter to myself at that. I'd always been secretly a little self-conscious about how big they were. But I had to give up even that modicum of coverage when Fluttershy raised my arms to put on the loose-fitting top I wore under my armor, leaving my boobs hanging completely exposed to her for a moment while she slipped it over my head. I didn't know why it bothered me so much – she'd obviously already seen all of it. She was probably the one who took all of this off of me while I was unconscious. But still, it felt wrong.
The loose trousers came on next, with even more difficulty than the panties. Fluttershy had to slip each leg in, then stand me up so she could pull the waistline up around my hips.
But once it was back on, I could lie down and breathe a sigh of relief. It felt good to be clothed again. In a way, it made me feel more comfortable and actually even more in-power than before. I felt like I had a little control over my life back, and that was worth it, despite the monstrous amount of pain it cost me. My armor, my bra, and my boots still sat in a neat pile next to the couch, but that was okay. I didn't need them right now.
I looked up at Fluttershy as she gently laid me down. “Thank you,” I said, surprising myself that I was genuinely grateful for her help and understanding.
“Of course.” She lifted the blanket again and covered me with it. “Anything for a friend.”
“We're friends?”
She just nodded and smiled.
So... I had a friend here, apparently. That was unexpected. I still wasn't entirely sure about these people, but they probably weren't demons. This one sure didn't act like a demon, at least. Any demon I knew wouldn't have passed up such a perfect opportunity for a rape ... but Fluttershy handled my vulnerability with gentleness and respect, never doing anything untoward at all. Maybe I could learn to trust these people. But then I remembered the purple one ... my mind had already been violated once here. Could I really trust my memories of what happened between me and Fluttershy? Could I trust my own feelings about it?
I took one more look at her sweet smile. Yes, yes I could trust her.
* * *
As the days went by, the slow trickle of ki I could manage did its healing work. It was frustrating, waiting for it to properly take effect, but I forced myself not to take any more unnecessary risks like I had in getting my clothes back on in the first day. After that day, I took Fluttershy's advice much more seriously, and I do have to say that I greatly benefited from doing so.
I found myself growing more and more fond of her, despite my caution. I knew she was friends with that Twilight, and I knew that it's often very accurate to judge someone by the company they keep ... but I just couldn't stop her from winning me over. Her caring and gentle nature was just so blatant – how could I doubt it?
It was two weeks before she saw fit to take me farther than the occasional trip to the bathroom, and even then, she insisted on possessively holding my hand the whole way.
But as I stepped out through her front door and saw real sunlight for the first time in a fortnight, I couldn't help but think that I was ready to take on the whole world myself, right that moment.
“Take it easy now,” she said as I carefully stepped down across the threshold of her cottage. “Don't get ahead of yourself.”
That's the same thing she said when she was helping me get my boots on. Okay, well, when she was putting my boots on for me. I hadn't really had much to do with that effort, other than enduring a little more pain. It was nothing like as bad as when I'd first gotten dressed, though, so I managed just fine.
“You're really doing very well. I don't know of any other creature that would be up and walking so soon after such terrible injuries.” Despite her compliments, she didn't let go of my arm.
I wasn't using it for any support, not really. I just kept hold of her to make her feel better about this ... well, to be honest, maybe it did make me feel a little better as well, knowing she would be there to catch me if this little stroll turned out to be too much for me.
Ugh, such a disgrace! To think that I would be brought so low, as to think a simple stroll through a country garden was a challenge. It was disgusting, I was disgusted with myself for showing such weakness. But what could I do about it, other than trying to recover and slowly – agonizingly slowly – regain my ki? Oh, Genko would be in for it when I finally found him. He would pay for what he'd done to me, the pain, the weakness, the lost time ... he would pay dearly for them all when I—
“Watch out now, there's a little bit of a step here.”
Fluttershy's gentle warning snapped me out of it and forced me to pay attention to the path again. Step by laborious step, I was getting better, regaining my strength and confidence, even though my ki was still sorely lacking. Genko's ki would surely be depleted as well, though, and his recovery would be just as slow. The important thing was for me to get up to strength faster than he did, to find him before he was ready.
I stepped over the little bump in the path without any difficulty. It didn't even hurt anymore, not much. “I think I'm ready to see the town now.”
“What?” Fluttershy stopped in her tracks. “You've done well today, but let's not get carried away!
“No, I want to. After all you've told me about it and the ponies who live there, I have to see it for myself. Don't worry about me, I've been through worse.”
She looked at me and sighed. By now, she knew that if I set my mind on something, it would happen. Shaking her head, she put an extra hand on my arm to steady me more. “Okay, if that's what you really want, we'll go. But I want you to take it easy, remember that.”
I would remember that. I'd still get what I wanted, but I would also do my best to listen to her advice. That lesson had been driven home to me enough times already.