//------------------------------//
// 2 Two More Volunteers 
// Story: The Griffonstone Infestation 
// by Brass Polish 
//------------------------------//

	The train ride to Griffonstone Junction the next day ended in a surprising way for Fluttershy. She was expecting George to be waiting on the platform for her, but the station halt was virtually empty. Also, there appeared to be a large cloud over the city in the distance. All the same, the possibilities Crosspatch had suggested kept Fluttershy pumped, and the long trip up to Griffonstone seemed to only take a few minutes to her. Now that she was just outside city limits, the large cloud didn’t look as big. It was still the most dominant thing in the sky, and she could see several griffons flying around it. She took to the air to get a closer look at the top of the large cloud. Unfortunately, she was so focused on it that she wasn’t looking where she was going. She banged the top of her head on something.
“Hey, watch it!” snapped a familiar voice.
Fluttershy shuddered when she realised she’d bumped into the underside of Gilda’s scone cart.
“Oh. It’s you,” Gilda flew away at once, towing her good-smelling cart behind her.
Fluttershy rubbed her head as she watched Gilda fly towards the large cloud. She quickly lost interest in it and went back down to the ground.

Fluttershy looked around. There were plenty of griffons around; some of them waved politely to her when they saw her, others paid no attention. But none of these griffons had osprey heads or snow leopard tails. She pulled out the envelope George’s invitation had come in and checked the address. Then she remembered that George was a peanut farmer and knew she’d definitely know it when she saw it. After several minutes of walking around town, she came across a plantation that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a peanut farm. She reached the farm house and knocked on the front door.
“George?”
There was no answer. Fluttershy knocked again and still no one opened the door. Fluttershy, feeling audacious, tried the handle. The door creaked opened and she stepped in. Her imagination had run away with her at first, but everything appeared to be intact, and there was no sign of a struggle. Beyond the front hall, Fluttershy could see the living room was full of assorted domestic animal accessories; small treadmill wheels, a nylon rope spread from the couch to the coffee table, and an assortment of hoops hung from the ceiling and mounted on posts on the floor.
“Looks like George’s project has something to do with rodents,” said Fluttershy.
She looked around, but she couldn’t see any rats or hamsters or rabbits. There weren’t even any cages, empty or otherwise.
“George?!” she called.
No reply.

Fluttershy looked all over the house, and there was no sign of George.
“Maybe he’s out in the field.”
She went out the back door and looked around at the peanut plants. The only thing she could see standing amongst them were two wooden poles. Then she noticed something crumpled up between them.
“Looks like the scarecrow fell down,” she observed.
She decided she’d pick it up and put it back on its posts. But when she knelt down and took hold of the old tattered jacket, it jumped into the air.
“What?!” it cried.
Fluttershy leapt backwards in shock as the scarecrow stood up.
“George?”
The scarecrow’s clothes fell off to reveal the very griffon Fluttershy was looking for.
“Oh. Hi, Fluttershy,” smiled George.
“Why were you out in your field sleeping and dressed as a scarecrow?” asked Fluttershy.
“Oh. I’m having a pest problem,” yawned George. “I don’t even know what’s been coming into the field at night and eating my peanuts. I had a stake out last night, but I guess I fell asleep.”
Fluttershy looked around. “It looks like no animals took advantage. There’s still lots of peanuts on these plants.”
“Huh. I guess I got lucky,” shrugged George.

“Was this the project you mentioned in your letter?” asked Fluttershy. “Do you need help catching these animals?”
“Uh, no, this isn’t it,” said George. “I only found out about this shortly after I gave Gabby that letter.”
“So what is your project?” asked Fluttershy.
George chuckled. “I’m surprised you missed it.”
He pointed to the large cloud over the city.
“Oh,” said Fluttershy. “What is that?”
“We’re trying to open a weather factory right here in Griffonstone,” grinned George.
Fluttershy blinked.
“Let’s have a look, huh?” suggested George.
“Um, but don’t you want to have breakfast first?” asked Fluttershy. “You only just woken up.”
“Well, Gilda’s catering the project with her delicious scones,” said George. “We can get breakfast up there.”
Fluttershy tried not to pull a face.

George guided Fluttershy up into the sky.
“I’ve never actually gone straight to the building site,” he said. “I volunteered to divert all the migrating birds around the big cloud.”
“Volunteered? Is the project entirely volunteer based?” asked Fluttershy.
“Yep,” nodded George. “Gilda got through to quite a lot of us when she said we don’t really need the Idol of Boreas to be a great civilization.”
Fluttershy grunted. “Well, you know, it was my friends Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie who told her that.”
“Yeah, but who around here would’ve taken a couple of ponies word for it?” scoffed George.
Fluttershy frowned.
“I mean, at the time,” said George hastily. “I won’t lie. I used to think ponies were soft and weak and annoying and easy to squash…”
“Easy to squash?!” exclaimed Fluttershy.
“Uh, the point is,” George went on, “when Gilda told me about what those friends of yours did for her, I realised Equestria must have something to offer. That’s why I went there to see if they had any clubs relevant to my interest in animal languages.”
George glanced around and spotted Gilda nearby serving a few griffons with scones. Fluttershy saw her too, and now noticed that her scone cart was held up by balloons.
“Listen, I gotta go sign in with the project manager,” said George. “Why don’t you go get us some breakfast from Gilda while I’m at it?”
And off he went.

Fluttershy considered how it had been Gilda who set the wheels in motion to encourage community spirit in Griffonstone, and this made it much easier to approach her cart.
“Hi,” grunted Gilda. “So are you joining this project?”
“Uh, I’m actually here with George,” said Fluttershy.
“George? So he’s gonna pitch in, is he?”
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “Hasn’t he been involved all along?”
“If he has, he’s been hiding from me,” replied Gilda. “What’s a peanut farmer gonna do up here anyway?”
“He said he’s gonna divert the migrating birds away from the site,” said Fluttershy.
“But it’s summer,” objected Gilda. “What birds migrate during the summer?”
Fluttershy scratched her head. “George must be hiding something.”
Gilda hadn’t heard her. “Rainbow Dash told me your dad worked in Equestria’s weather factory. Haven’t you got some info? We’re all armatures here.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Maybe I will!”

Fluttershy forgot all about her suspicions about George when he returned. She gave him his scones and told him she wanted to offer her services.
“My dad told me lots of things about where he worked,” she said.
“Oh, that’ll be great,” said George, crumbs falling from his beak. “You must have lots of information for the research team.”
“Yeah. I’d be happy to contribute!” beamed Fluttershy. “Where do I sign up?”
George pointed to a griffon with a clipboard. Fluttershy went straight to her and told her what she had to offer. She snapped her up at once and pointed out the research team.
“This is Fluttershy,” said the project leader to the research team. “She’s got some information for how to run the machinery and craft snowflakes and regulate how often it should rain.”
So the research team showed Fluttershy to a table and grabbed some pen and parchment. 
“Alright, so where do we start?” they asked.
Fluttershy opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She drew a complete blank. Her dad certainly had told her a lot of things about the work he’d done at the weather plant in Cloudsdale, but she found she couldn’t remember a word of what he said.
“Uh… well… when you have a rigid schedule for rainy days,” she said, “griffons will be able to plan outdoor activities and festivities.”
The research team gave Fluttershy a nod that said quite plainly “We know that.”
“And, uh… oh, there’s a simple recipe for rainbows,” Fluttershy went on. “You take a…”
One of the researchers showed her a sheet of paper that had the very recipe she was about to recite written on it.
“Right,” Fluttershy smiled weakly. “Um, also, you need some specific tools to make snowflakes…”
“Miss, these are basic weather-making facts. We want information about the type of machinery required, the appropriate measurements for water vats and pipes, and stuff like that. Can you tell us any of that?”

George did have some birds to guide around the building site, but he spent most of his time just flying around looking around at all the other griffons working. For a while, he saw nothing flying towards the site, but soon, he spotted something flying away from it.
“Fluttershy?”
He flew after her.
“Fluttershy, what’s wrong?!”
Fluttershy didn’t respond and carried on flying away. George caught up to her and grabbed her tail.
“What is it?!” he demanded.
Fluttershy spun around, red in the face.
“I made a complete fool of myself!” she groaned. “I don’t have any useful information at all! I don’t remember a thing my dad told me! I can’t be useful at all!”
“Take it easy,” insisted George. “Okay, so you don’t know as much about weather factories as you thought. That doesn’t mean you can’t be useful at all.”
“Yes, it does,” groaned Fluttershy. “I’m not the only one in Equestria who can keep Discord in check now that he’s got Spike and Big Mac and their Guys Night, I’m not the only one in Ponyville who can get intrusive animals out of ponies’ property, I’m not even the only one who can understand animals now!”
George didn’t know what to say.
“No one really needs me anymore,” Fluttershy choked as she spun around to leave.

She hadn’t noticed a line-up of griffons to Gilda’s scone cart directly behind her, and bumped right into the last griffon in line. A domino effect took place until the first in line got knocked into the cart, which bumped the head of the irate Gilda.
“What is it with griffons and silk curtains?!” she spluttered.
Looks of confusion spread across the line of griffons and Gilda herself.
“What the heck did I just say?” she asked.
Most of the griffons in line shrugged. The only ones who understood Gilda’s outburst were Fluttershy and George.
“That was the language breezies speak,” said Fluttershy.
George nodded. Fluttershy approached Gilda.
“You just said ‘What is it with griffons and silk curtains?’ in Breezian,” she told her.
“Who’s Breezian?” asked Gilda gruffly.
“It’s a language,” said Fluttershy. “Spoken by tiny fairy creatures called breezies.”
Gilda scratched her head. “Aren’t they those useless flying things that are completely dependent on others?”
Fluttershy’s lip wobbled, and she flew quickly away.

That evening, George found Fluttershy patrolling his peanut field.
“You okay, Fluttershy?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” said Fluttershy. “I was just keeping an eye out for any animals that might be eating your nuts.”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t appreciate that,” George faltered, “but I can’t help but think you just want a way to feel needed.”
“I know I overreacted back there,” sighed Fluttershy, “but I used to think I was useless until I made more friends than just Rainbow Dash. I realised I had a great gift being able to talk to animals and persuade them not to cause trouble, and I felt proud to have gotten through to the Spirit of Chaos and encouraged him to give friendship a chance. But now there are others doing all that.”
“Look, you don’t need to worry about the both of us being able to understand animals,” said George. “We live in totally different places. You’re still the go-to translator in Equestria.”
“I guess,” nodded Fluttershy. “Speaking of translating, what was that about Gilda speaking Breezian.”
“Eh, I have no idea,” shrugged George. “She must’ve picked it up from somewhere.”
“But where? I’m really curious,” said Fluttershy. “I may be in her bad books because I’ve bumped into her more often than Twilight’s bumped into Flash, but I know she’s not the meany she was when she was in Ponyville. Where does she live?”
“W-what? You want to go see her?” stuttered George. “Uh, why don’t you leave this to me? I am in the rare creature society. It falls to me to find out if there are breezies about during summer.”
Fluttershy looked objectionable.
“You still just want to feel useful, don’t you? Fine,” grunted George, pointing north. “Gilda lives that way.”
He watched Fluttershy leave his field, and as soon as she was out of sight, he left the field himself and headed south.

Fluttershy looked up at the building site as she made her way to what she thought was Gilda’s residence. It looked like all the volunteers had gone home. There were hardly any griffon flying about or in the streets either. Fortunately, Fluttershy did come across a friendly face.
“Oh, hi Fluttershy! Sorry I didn’t see you earlier. I was doing my rounds all day.”
“Hi, Gabby,” said Fluttershy. “Are you part of the weather factory project?”
“Well, I’m not involved in any construction, but I am passing out flyers calling for volunteers,” said Gabby. “Though I don’t think there’s much of a point now. The whole town knows about it. I mean, how could anyone not notice that?”
She pointed to the most ominous structure in town, and Fluttershy nodded.
“I’ll be honest, we got a lot more volunteers than I thought we would,” Gabby went on. “I heard even you got in on this.”
Fluttershy decided not to avoid this subject. “Well, I did get involved for a few minutes. But I didn’t realise until too late that I hardly have anything to contribute.”
“Oh. Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe that’s for the better. I think a lot of griffons in this town would rather our weather factory gets build and starts running without any Equestrian help,” Gabby explained.
Fluttershy considered. “Well, I guess that’d be good for morale if the griffons could pull this off on their own.”
“You know what else I heard?” asked Gabby. “Appearently Gilda’s bilingual.”
“I was actually just going to ask her about that,” said Fluttershy.
“Well, she lives down there,” said Gabby, pointing south. “I gotta go do my evening deliveries now. Bye, Fluttershy.”
And she left, leaving Fluttershy to realise George misdirected her.