Click.
Fluttershy blinked and then clicked her tongue again, “I can do it!” she said with a small cheer.
“You couldn’t before?” I asked and tried a small click myself, “Not working for me.”
“Not everypony can,” Fluttershy said softly with a smile, “My mother can do it. She can tell the shape for a room by clicking like this, I couldn’t before!”
I slowly nodded, “That…” I said and frowned, “That makes sense. It must have been bleeding through the curse. Just like your hypnosis thing.”
Measurements also set her at stronger than a pegasus, almost at earth pony levels.
Super strong flying ponies that drank blood, could hypnotize ponies, see in the dark, hear heartbeats clear across the room and navigate by echolocation…
Super soldier thestrals must have been bucking terrifying back in the day.
Apex predators of their environment. No wonder they resorted to a curse to bring them back down to a more normal level.
I stayed with her as the Sparkle twins were off doing the actually theorizing. The least I could do was to keep her company through this.
“P-page…” Fluttershy said after a long moment, “I… I’m getting hungry.”
“Ah,” I said, “Well… we did plan for that. You want me to go get it?”
She looked slightly sick at the idea, her wings shifting but she didn’t answer. I just waited. It had been over 24 hours since she ate last.
She was bound to get hungry sooner or later.
Fluttershy finally nodded, “Y-yes.”
“Okay, I’ll go get it,” I said and walked out through the door at the other end of the corridor. It didn’t take a lot of time to gather everything, we had prepared in advance after all.
Soon I pushed the door open again and walked back inside, carrying the bowl in my magic.
The moment I walked inside, Fluttershy’s head snapped in my direction, sniffing at the air. Add super nose to the list of powers.
Yeah, other ponies had been right to be terrified.
An army of super thestral trained in fighting… it would have been absolutely horrifying.
But that didn’t give them the right to threat Thestrals like they were now.
“Here,” I said and slipped the bowl through the bars and set it down on the floor, “Remember what we discussed before?”
Fluttershy swallowed and nodded firmly, looking determined as she moved over to the bowl at the edge of her chain before she sat down, looking down at the bowl for a long moment before she shook her head, closing her head for a long moment, taking a deep breath with a small shudder.
“One.”
“Two.”
“T-three.”
She started to slowly count, taking a deep breath going to the next number.
“How does it smell?”
“Heavenly,” Fluttershy said softly, “Twenty one.”
I nodded, “Remember, to thirty. Then a taste. Then back to one. Then eat.”
“Twenty five,” she agreed and nodded.
It had been an idea we had come up with. If she could resist just gulping it down like that, then she’d be more likely to be able to resist… eating somepony if she was stuck like this for a while.
“Thirty,” Fluttershy said and leaned in, sniffing the bowl and then giving it a lick like an overgrown cat.
Her entire body shuddered and she gasped, trembling before struggling up to sit again, licking her lips, her eyes locked on the bowl, “Thirty.”
“Twenty nine.”
I settled down with my book again as she slowly counted down, taking a breath between each breath.
“Two.”
Breath.
“One.”
Fluttershy leaned in and started to drink, lapping at the warm blood in the bowl. It came from the donations to the Canterlot hospital and I had warmed it with my magic on the way here after putting it in the bowl for her.
I waited as she ate, “Feel better?” I asked as she finished, licking blood from her muzzle.
Fluttershy shook her head, “T-that’s… it should be disgusting…”
“But it tasted good,” I said, shifting my wings, finishing for her.
She nodded and leaned in, licking at her bowl for a second, taking in the scent before she took a deep breath and sat back up, pushing the bowl away, “T-thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said and floated the bowl out of the cell.
“Not just for the food,” She said quietly, “F-for… staying here with me.”
“I’m not about to leave you to face this alone. I got you into this.”
Fluttershy looked at me and shook her head, “No. No, you didn’t. You’re trying to help us, help everypony. M-make it so we can w-walk around like anypony else. S-so that little f-fillies a-and colts can not be afraid. This is what… what I can do to help.”
I shook my head, “It’s not all you can do,” I said gently, “You can give ponies a sense of hope, a role model that’s a thestral. Something I can’t do as an alicorn. But that sort of attention, I could never ask you to do that.”
She looked down at her hooves, “E-everypony seeing me…”
“Yeah. One of the six elements. The element of kindness… a thestral,” I said gently. I was being manipulative. I knew I was. By doing this, she had done more than anypony could possibly ask of her.
To ask more. To ask more before it was even over. Especially something that she would absolutely hate doing. Could ruin her life.
It made me a bad pony.
Fluttershy shifted her wings and then retreated back to her cot, “I… I need to think.”
“Get some rest. Sparks and Midnight should have some results soon.”
It might make me a bad pony.
But I was still asking.
Because it could save more ponies.