//------------------------------//
// Forest (7/25/2017) 
// Story: A Pony a Day 
// by OfTheIronwilled 
//------------------------------//

Fluttershy's sigh was swallowed up in a cacophony of rumbles as she drove the machine farther into the Everfree. The metal behemoth underneath her left shallow markings in the soft soil paths; its rattling tore up her hooves while she pulled levers and pushed buttons; its noise scattered birds all around. 

At one point, the size and loudness of the machine had been so... gulp... s-scary. It had sounded like a monster, and sometimes it still made her so nervous. The smoke that came out of it almost reminded her of a d-dr-dragon... Still, she'd mostly gotten used to it. After she'd gotten used to her itchy uniform, her little button adorned with the letters "FF" that would poke her uncomfortably sometimes, and the noise this thing made, after countless hours working -- well, it wasn't so bad. After all, she didn't have to talk to many ponies, and some of the places she went were pretty. In fact, they were gorgeous! For a little while, at least.

As Fluttershy rumbled up on her machine, a small white rabbit darted out across the trail-- with a shrill squeak, Fluttershy broke hard. The bunny was fast, thankfully, and so it got away without being smashed. After it bounced off, Fluttershy couldn't help but stare at its retreating form. Its ears stuck straight up and its legs bound away as quickly as the little critter could manage. It had seemed... scared, hadn't it? Just as scared as Fluttershy felt when she first heard that awful, loud noise...

Fluttershy wondered what it would be like to hold that bunny and tell it that she knew how it felt. To hug it close and get rid of all of its fears. To protect it and understand it.

Her blank flank tingled for a second -- but then the tingle died away.

She sighed again. There was no point fantasizing about something so silly, especially when her bosses and all kinds of other ponies depended on her to do her job. It would be rude and cruel of her to shirk her duties, no matter how much she wanted to. Besides, she did need the money.

So she drove her machine over to the nearest marked tree, and pressed her hoof to the giant orange button on her control panel. As the giant hungry claws on the front of the machine roared to life, and shredded the tree in a horrific screech of metal and wood that echoed through the entire Everfree, Fluttershy pretended she was okay. She pretended that this machine didn't scare her, or sound like a monster. She pretended that seeing the Everfree Forest slowly destroyed didn't hurt her in a deep way she couldn't understand, in a way that made her heart and soul and blank-flank hurt.

Most of all, she pretended she didn't see that little bunny in the distance, its body locked up in pure terror.