(♫)
Rarity made her way over to the Golden Oaks as soon as she heard what had happened at Spike’s meeting- which, admittedly, was late the next morning when Pinkie Pie stopped by with her breakfast. And then, of course, she had to wait until the gown she was assembling was at a good stopping place… so, perhaps, a few hours after she’d first heard. It would have to do.
The library’s windows were open, and she could just about make out some sort of movement inside. She knocked lightly on the door- the Oaks might technically have been a public building, but she felt it would’ve been quite rude indeed to simply barge in. It was perhaps ten seconds before she heard Spike’s voice rasp “Come in?”
She opened the door and stepped inside. The main room was surprisingly clean- cleaner than it had ever been when Twilight had been in residence, in fact- and aside from a few cardboard boxes stacked near the main table, everything seemed to be in place.
The topmost box was open. Inside, Rarity could see a collection of ancient, expensive-looking comic books neatly wrapped in transparent plastic sleeves- Ponies of Dark Water, Detective Comics #34, and other titles the tailor barely recognized. All of them were creased from heavy use and occasionally marked up with neat, blocky script. Some of the writing was Twilight’s; most of it was Spike’s, and for the first time Rarity realized how similar the two styles were. Underneath were a few framed photographs of Spike, Twilight, Commander Shining Armor, and two unfamiliar unicorns in and around the Royal Academy campus in Canterlot; a collection of stiff-bristled brushes presumably meant for scales; and a thick, neatly-folded wool jacket of Abyssinian cut. Feeling suddenly, horribly voyeuristic, Rarity quietly closed up the box with her telekinesis and stepped away.
She could see Spike through the doorway to the study, hunched over his desk, sorting through a pile of incomprehensible papers. He looked up when she entered, and waved slightly, but didn’t say anything.
The tailor cantered over to him. “I heard about what happened with Marigold…” she prompted.
“She’s a grown mare. She’ll get over it and move on with her life, on a Captain’s salary now.” Spike stated matter-of-factly, without looking up from what he was doing.
“I was… more concerned with how you were holding up,” Rarity amended.
He stopped leafing through the stack and leaned back in his chair. Contrary to how Pinkie had described him at the meeting, Rarity thought he looked to be in no particular physical distress. His scales were glossy and bright, his spines straight and slitted eyes focused, but there was a sort of hollowness to the way he carried himself that she couldn’t exactly put in more concrete terms. “I’m doing about as well as could be expected, I guess,” he explained, “I’m still trying to figure out how best to break the news to Celestia and Shining Armor… and the rest of my family, too. I don’t expect I’ll be back here once I do,” he chuckled, mirthlessly, “hence all the packing.”
Rarity shook her head. “Spike, darling, you can’t just give up. There’s still so much left to do!”
He stood up from his chair -rather abruptly, the tailor thought- and made his way into the main room. “I don’t really think there’s any point, when the whole rest of the project won’t listen.” He plucked a collection of ledgers off the table, gave them a perfunctory once-over, and then tossed them on top of one of the boxes. “Without Twilight, I’m just a sixteen-year-old freak of science in way over my head.”
Discreetly, Rarity skimmed over some of the notes on his desk out of the corner of her eye. One was a letter, written in Princess Luna’s distinctive mixture of flowing modern script and nigh-indecipherable blackletter. It took a bit of effort, but she was just about able to make out the words “absence”, “Doctor Sparkle”, and “realm of dreams”. She turned back to the dragon. “Spike, do you think it’s at all possible that Princess Luna could’ve just… missed Twilight? Ponies who are completely unconscious don’t dream.” That had actually been a plot point in one of her favorite Shadow Spade novels- ponies did dream under local anesthetic, and the Midnight Crew had tried to have such a dream admitted as legal testimony because ponies were not supposed to be able to dream under general anesthesia, and therefore the events must have actually occurred. She’d thought the distinction implausible at the time, but had looked up the properties of anesthetics and found the portrayal to be accurate. “And if Twilight’s somewhere in the Everfree, as far as she knows she could only have been gone for a few hours.”
“So, either some kind of… of gang, or terrorist outfit’s been deliberately keeping her drugged and unconscious, or she’s so deep in a distorted part of the forest that it could be decades before she finds her way out again, or anypony finds her.”
Rarity discreetly adjusted the curls in her mane. “I’m… not really helping you, am I?”
Spike sat down again, on one of the stools surrounding the big central table, and scratched under one of his fins. “I don’t know. Just… having somepony to talk to who isn’t demanding answers or trying to tell me what to do is nice.”
“Well I’m glad I can do that, at least…” She thought for a moment, and then slipped onto the stool beside his. “You know, darling, come morning, I’ll ask around town, and see if I can find at least a few ponies who’re willing to help you out. I… don’t like to brag, but I’d say around half of Ponyville owes me a favor for one trifle or another. And… perhaps you might want to… talk to Applejack about this whole… horrible business with Twilight?” she added, more gently.
“Thanks.” He just sat there for almost a minute, staring into space and drumming his claws on the tabletop. “Although, I think Applejack’s got her own problems to deal with right now… and, honestly, if I had the choice… I’d rather just talk to you.”
For a moment, the tailor wasn’t quite certain how to react to that. She thought of the remaining stack of unsewn patterns currently sitting on the table in her workshop, and all of the associated deadlines. Then she looked around her, at Spike’s piles of packed documents and personal effects. She leaned forward and crossed her forehooves against the table. “For you, Spike, I can make the time.”
Ponyville weathered two more muggy, oppressive early autumn days of utterly uneventful waiting. By some unspoken agreement, townsponies and Station personnel alike found themselves keeping silent on the issue of the dead mare from the Bog. The Constabulary informed the Governorate, the proper forms were filled out, and Shutterfly began the long, slow, quiet process of becoming yet another inconsequential cold case. The whole town seemed to have crouched down and dug in, waiting for… something, but nopony really had the faintest idea what.
Spike was only rarely seen; Rarity made a point of checking in on him several times a day, and usually found him asleep. She always left him a small velvet bag of gems; partially because it seemed the courteous thing to do and partially because she wasn’t certain he’d remember to eat if she didn’t.
Fluttershy, for her part, remained locked in her cottage. She left only for vital provisions and one or two trips up to the Golden Oaks, and spent the rest of her time reading every reference and bestiary she could get her hooves on.
(♫)
This time, when Corporal Subtle Spark once again knocked on her door in the wee hours of the morning, she was actually relieved.
Fluttershy followed him back out to the Station with scarcely a word. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were already there, alongside Private Rain Chaser from the Night Guard, just as she had been expecting. This time, however, neither Spike nor Captain Marigold were anywhere to be found.
“I was flying my patrol route as we’d agreed,” the bat-winged Lunar pegasus was currently explaining to Rainbow Dash, “and did hear movement in the bushes to the east, at mayhap oh-three-fifteen as we reckon it now. One of the wagons I saw was out of its row, and as I drew closer I saw a figure in a cloak flee into the brush- with a light blue tail, perhaps, I could not be sure.”
“So, what happened?” Dash asked, “How’d she manage to lose you?”
“I did not pursue,” Chaser dipped her muzzle downward in a vaguely guilty gesture, “but remained here and checked each of the wagons and box-cars I could see. The enemy has made such a use of tricks and diversions… I feared being deceived into abandoning my post…”
“Dun’ worry, sugarcube, you made the right call.” Applejack gave the Lunar pegasus a gentle rap on the shoulder armor. “No sense tearin’ yerself up over what mighta’ gone wrong.”
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash had taken flight, and was now hovering over one of the carts on the very edge of the storage yard. “Hey, Chaser, is this the one they were messing with?”
Rain Chaser looked up and nodded. “Aye, the very same.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but unless this is all just an elaborate scheme to steal all the packing straw in Ponyville or something, I’d kinda like to know what’s in these carts that’s so valuable.” The cyan pegasus looked first to Applejack, then to Rain Chaser and finally to Fluttershy, and when none of them made a move to stop her she ripped off the cart’s canvas tarp in a single, rapid motion.
Inside was a large pile of ragged, dull gray stone.
She flew backwards a few yards, obviously confused.
Applejack chuckled, and then burst into full-fledged, unabashed laughter. “That’s a loada’ rubble Doctor Verse needed us to haul offa’ Castle Rock the other day,” the farmer explained, “but it’d got hit with some kinda’ corrosive spell, so the town dump wouldn’t accept it ‘n Ah didn’t know what else to do with it.” She kicked idly at a loose stone. “Shucks. If’n Ah’d’a known them varmints were gonna take it off our hooves, Ah’d’a stuck a coupla’ ten-bit pieces under that tarp for their trouble…”
Fluttershy swallowed hard and stepped forward. “So… umm… what does everypony want me to do about this?”
“Well, Ah was gonna have everypony search the area again fer wagon tracks’n the like, and we prob’ly coulda’ used a good tracker.” Applejack smiled and shook her head, “Now, though, Ah ain’t sure there’s even really much of a point.”
“Aye… the prowler I saw is by now likely long gone…” Rain Chaser added.
“We can’t afford to let down our guard, though,” said Rainbow Dash as she flew another quick circuit of the entire area, “These creeps’ve slipped up pretty bad, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still a threat.”
“Ah dun’ think so,” Applejack countered, “Ah reckon without their photographer pal, they’re up a crick as far as getting’ eyes inside Ponyville’s concerned. They tried another hit, just now, goin’ in blind, and got a nip on the muzzle for their trouble. That might just be enough to send ‘em runnin’ for good, really. The last thing they’ll want is to mess up even worse next time ‘n get themselves well’n truly caught.”
“I guess.” Rainbow Dash scratched at the back of her neck, and slowly drifted back down to ground level. There was a long pause after that before she scuffed at the ground and then continued all at once. “So, what, that’s it? We just… what, let them go? And try to go on just… just with business as usual, except without Twilight or Leafspring or Chamomile or… or Vortex?”
“Ah know it’s gallin’, sugarcube, but Ah dunno what else we can do. We could keep searchin’, but we’ve already turned this whole property inside-out ‘n come up empty, ‘n Canterlot ain’t exactly bein’ too helpful all’ve a sudden…” the farmer trailed off after that.
Rainbow Dash and Rain Chaser both just looked at her for a little while, and then at each other, and on some unspoken signal took off and glided away; Chaser towards the train platform and Dash towards the Weather Team building off the town square. Then Fluttershy, too, turned to go, but pulled up short and turned around when she heard Applejack step up behind her.
“Hey, uhh, Fluttershy? Ah know this is comin’ at awful short notice, but with Rarity bein’ so busy with her Canterlot orders ‘n also watchin’ over Spike now, she dun’ got much time left to take care’a Sweetie Belle. Ah figure Apple Bloom could use a little change a’ scenery fer a while, too…” the farmer fiddled with her hat, nervously, “And, well, the truth is, Granny ‘n Ah just think she’d have an easier time of it if’n she wasn’t around a buncha’ grownups who’re jumpin’ whenever a twig breaks- safer, too, if’n Ah’m bein’ totally honest. So… Ah was wonderin’… if maybe the two of ‘em and that other filly they hang around with, what’s her name again? Scooter-somethin’? If they might stay over at’cher cottage for a day or so?”
Fluttershy shifted from hoof to hoof. “Oh, my, I don’t know, I’ve been pretty busy myself, studying, and…”
“Yeah, that’s the other thing. You’ve been shut up in there for a little while now, just ‘bout turnin’ into a regular Twilight Sparkle, in fact…” Applejack must’ve caught the uncomfortable expression on Fluttershy’s face, because she immediately stopped, winced, and physically backed up a step or two, “Darnit, sugarcube, Ah didn’t mean it like that, but… you know what Ah mean. Ah just want’cha to think it over for me, okay? After all you’ve been through, some company might do you good…”
(♫)
Fluttershy sat at her small writing desk, one eye on the copy of The Natural History and Antiquities of Everfree spread out in front of her. Periodically, she looked over to the three fillies sprawled on the carpet in the sitting area, in their matching homemade red capes. Lacking much on hoof that she thought would be particularly entertaining to ten-year-olds, she’d even brought out her old Settlers of Canterine box from the basement. Back when she’d been their age, recovering from her near-fatal fall in the Ponyville hospital with no friends to speak of and little to do, she’d thrown out all of the settlement tokens and devised a way to run the entire game as a pure ecological simulator. The rules she’d written down on the box were admittedly fairly complicated, but she knew these three were bright. They’d figure it out.
She didn’t resent having to foalsit tonight, of all nights, or rather she understood the reasons why Applejack had decided to ask her. Unfortunately, that responsibility could not have come at a worse time. Twilight, Leafspring, Vortex and Chamomile were all still missing, and the more she read the less and less convinced Fluttershy became that equine saboteurs were responsible- in fact, she was growing ever more certain that their ill-fated spy had in fact fallen prey to the real culprit as well.
She already knew that whatever had attacked Applejack and herself was stealthy and strategic enough not to be seen, by ponies or domestic animals. It was clever and dexterous enough to manipulate relatively complex locks, and small enough to fit through a henhouse door- not much larger than a pony. Those facts alone ruled out the majority of the local wildlife, and in addition none of the chickens it had attacked had been eaten- just mauled. A pony could easily have accomplished all of those things, or some other animal under the control of a pony, but that explanation didn’t quite add up either. Something had killed Shutterfly out in the swamps, or at least forced her into a series of missteps that had ultimately proven fatal, and that wasn’t likely to be the doing of one of her own accomplices. There was another threat out there in the Everfree, and it was only a matter of time before it went after the rest of the Guards next- or members of the digging teams, or ponies on the outskirts of town proper.
She had considered informing Marigold of her suspicions, but wasn’t sure what possibility alarmed her more- that she’d be dismissed out of hoof; that she’d be taken seriously and great time and effort be spent only for her to turn out to have been wrong; or that the others would think they could handle whatever it was and charge blindly after a creature that had effectively dispatched several Royal Guards, an Academy mage, and a Shadowbolt.
So, instead, she sat at her desk and read.
… legends say that the first cockatrice emerged from an egg laid by a cockerel and incubated by a toad [10]. Whether or not this story is accurate, today's cockatrices are true-breeding [10, 8]. Dens are haphazardly excavated by as many as a dozen individuals in a loose hierarchy. Males greatly outnumber females in these flocks [11], and are distinguished only by their wattles and combs [12, 8]. Woodlands are preferred, but cockatrice dens have been reported in grassland, scrubland, peat bogs, and meadows [13].
While their diet consists primarily of seeds and petrified insects (which conveniently double in the creature's gizzard as both gastroliths and nutrition as they grind away) [14, 2], cockatrices fiercely defend their territories from anything they deem a threat, and the wanderings of rogue males seeking new spots to build dens sometimes bring them into unintentional contact with intelligent species [13]…
“Miss Fluttershy?” She jolted upright at the sound of Sweetie Belle’s voice, looking up from her reading to find the filly standing on the other side of her desk, slobbering all over the jacket of her mint-condition Ride the Lightning album. “Why’s this song called ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’?”
“I don’t know. I told you we should’ve just put it on the turntable,” Apple Bloom chastised, some ways behind her.
Fluttershy gently pried the record out of Sweetie Belle’s jaws with one wing, and looked the filly in the eye. “You know it’s terribly rude to touch another pony’s things without asking them… and some of those records really aren’t for fillies…” The fact that Fluttershy herself had been listening to that very album when she was the very same age held no bearing on the discussion. She had appearances to keep up, after all.
“Oh. Okay, then…” Crestfallen, the two of them plodded back to the carpet.
“Can we play outside?” Scootaloo asked, not even a second later.
“Oh, I guess that’s okay,” Fluttershy answered after some consideration, “Just stay inside the fence where I can-”
“Cool!” Sweetie Belle cut her off almost immediately. “I wanna check out the chicken coop! Scootaloo, have you ever seen inside a chicken coop? I haven’t…”
Just for a moment, Fluttershy thought she saw Apple Bloom flinch.
“Girls, actually, I… think it’d be better if everypony just… stayed inside, okay?”
All three of them nodded, one after the other.
“How do you even call a chicken?” Scootaloo asked.
“Like this,” Sweetie Belle grinned mischievously, “Scootaloo! Scoo-scootaloo…”
Fluttershy turned back to her reading.
…The cockatrice's ability to transform other creatures into stone is the creature's greatest defense, and a cockatrice lair can usually be identified by the petrified remains of predators [22]. Perhaps ironically, weasels and ferrets, the creatures most likely to slip into cockatrices' nests and consume their eggs [25], appear to be completely immune to the effect [27].
The interaction of cockatrices to the petrification of other cockatrices is not well-studied [26, 27] due to the difficulty of inducing specimens to attempt to petrify each other [27], although direct magical feedback is known to be lethal- having a cockatrice look at itself in a mirror is one of the most reliable ways to kill it [28]. Additionally, for unknown reasons, the cockatrice suffers severe mental and physical distress upon exposure to the vocalizations of ordinary domestic roosters [29]. Cockatrices are equally likely to flee or attack when confronted by domestic fowl; some reports describe relatively complex “raid-style behaviors” against flocks[29-31]…
“Miss Fluttershy?” Scootaloo called out. “I’m bored.”
Fluttershy got up from her desk and trotted over to the rug, to find her Settlers tiles hadn’t even been taken out of the box. “Well, how about a different game?”
“A game?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Yes. Now, hop up on the couch, all three of you. Yes, just like that. Now, this is a game about who can stay quiet the longest, does that sound fun?” She poured as much smug arrogance into her tone and expression as she could manage, which admittedly wasn’t very much. “I’m the world champ, you know. Bet you can’t beat me…” She drew in an exaggerated breath and then clamped her jaws shut.
Apple Bloom looked at Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle looked at Scootaloo. Scootaloo looked back at Fluttershy and shook her head. “Wow. This game blows.”
“Scootaloo, you know, you… really shouldn’t be using that kind of language around other ponies…” Fluttershy stammered. She was going to have to have a talk with the filly’s parents the next time they were back in town. Assuming they ever did come back to town. Actually, on second thought, she should probably just cut to the chase and have her talk with Rainbow Dash instead.
“Yeah, well, your language blows, too,” the pegasus filly answered, her lips starting to curl into a smirk.
“Language doesn’t blow, Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle admonished.
Perhaps fortunately, the two were interrupted by the rattling of glass on wood in the corner. Somehow, Apple Bloom had managed to sneak her way over to the big vivarium behind the couch without Fluttershy even noticing her absence. The earth filly had already pried the lid off, and was currently prodding at the coral snake inside even as it curled back in one corner and raised its head in a clear threat display.
Fluttershy dashed over, her heart feeling like it was about to burst into her throat, simultaneously calling out “Apple Bloom, don’t touch that!” and fixing the snake in her gaze. “|calm| |safety| |safety| |forget|” she thought, and after a moment it returned to its disrupted burrow.
Apple Bloom jerked backwards as if shocked. Fluttershy slid the top of the vivarium closed again and then looked at the filly, who stared back at her with wide, confused eyes. “But… but… That’s just a milksnake in there. See the stripes? Granny always says, ‘Red on black’ll kill a filly. Red and yellow, don’t be silly.’”
Fluttershy sat down next to her, looked her in the eye. and shook her head. “Apple Bloom, Carl’s a coral snake, and coral snakes are very venomous. The rhyme goes ‘Red on black, now don’t be silly. Red and yellow kills a filly.’ And even if you were right, it’s still a mean thing to do to pull him out of his burrow and bother him like that. Think about how you’d feel if somepony came into your house at night without asking you and tried to get you to play with them?” The filly winced, ducked her head, and briefly looked away. “If you wanted to see him, you could’ve asked me first. He’s a friendly sort, he’d come out if I called him…”
She looked around again, and counted three disappointed faces. “I’ll tell you what. How would the three of you like to learn how to talk to animals like I do?”
Sweetie Belle cocked her head to one side, “You mean for real?”
“Completely for real.”
They nodded and grinned in eerie synchrony. “Cutie Mark Crusaders creature tamers!”
Fluttershy wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but chose to interpret it as a well-meaning oversimplification. Her own studies more or less forgotten for the moment, she stood up and once more walked over to her bookcase, reaching out a wing to the very top shelf. Cautiously, almost reverently, she removed her copy of Introductory Spellcraft and the Animal Kingdom. It was dog-eared and densely annotated, tattered from heavy use, too many relocations, and more than a little intentional abuse at the hooves of Fluttershy’s uncomprehending classmates. She opened the vivarium again and, as demonstration, silently bade the snake inside to slither up her wing and burrow in among the feathers near her shoulder. She knelt down on her haunches on the carpet and opened the book in front of her, reciting the introductory section almost completely from memory:
“Now, most creatures -even the ones we might think of as monstrous- share more in common with ponies and other sapient species than we might think. They can recognize our emotions and expressions, and interpret the way we behave. That’s why druidry, moreso than any other branch of magic, is as much about empathy and mental focus as it is about spellcraft and knowledge of the subject’s behavior. At the most basic level, a druid needs to remain calm around her subjects, and present a non-threatening aspect. While the aim of most traditional meditative practices is to elevate the mind -to exemplify those qualities which most sharply divide the sapient from the insapient- a druid must instead strive to dampen her abstract thoughts. Only then can she interact on the conceptual level of the creatures with which she seeks to commune. We can start out with a few simple exercises. Everypony, close your eyes, and-”
“Wow. Druids blow.” Apple Bloom stated matter-of-factly, before dissolving along with the others into fits of giggling.
Fluttershy stood up and deposited her snake back in the vivarium. “O- Okay, okay, girls, that’s… really… enough…”
Still sitting on the carpet, Apple Bloom reached up underneath Fluttershy’s writing desk and tapped at the brace holding up one of the extendable leaves. It slid sideways, collapsing the entire leaf with a deafening crash, scattering books and papers all over the floor, and reducing a good portion of her mother’s Trotterford Crystal tea service to very expensive shards.
Slowly, Fluttershy pulled herself up from where she’d crouched, and tried to will her heart into beating slowly enough that she would once again be able to speak.
“Miss Sergeant Leafspring dun’ mind when Ah take things apart…” Apple Bloom muttered, seemingly more to herself than to anypony else.
“I… think now would be a good time for everypony to go ahead and go to bed,” Fluttershy suggested, feeling strangely uncomfortable the longer she looked at the filly’s crestfallen expression.
“But… it’s only eight o’clock…” Sweetie Belle protested.
Fluttershy stood up straight and picked her way across the debris-littered floor, gaze fixed on the three fillies. Almost immediately Apple Bloom seemed to outright crumple, and headed for the stairs. “Ah dun’ wanna argue, Ah’m headin’ up…”
Her two friends followed a moment later.
They had already slipped into Fluttershy’s own bed all as a group by the time she followed them upstairs, and the pegasus mare didn’t bother to protest. Her couch in the living room was more than comfortable enough.
She blew out the bedroom’s solitary candle, eased the door shut, and started down the stairs.
Then she pulled up short at the sound of voices behind her. She slipped back up to the landing and pressed one ear against the door.
“Ah really do miss Leafspring,” Apple Bloom was muttering, “She was awful fun to have ‘round the farm. She’d show me how to build things, if’n Ah wanted to, and she let me stick around ‘n listen whenever she ‘n Granny’d sit down with their drinks ‘n talk about their war stuff.”
“At least you got a cool pony from Canterlot,” Sweetie Belle replied, “I got a dumb one, and he isn’t even really a pony either. All Spike does is sit around and talk to Rarity all day, and ask me why I don’t help her more. One time he said he’d read a comic with me if I was good, and he said it was about Supermare being raised by dragons and it sounded really cool, but it was all just a bunch of talking and not any fight scenes. He also said he’d teach me how to balance an inventory, whatever that means, but I didn’t finish my homework on purpose so we didn’t do that. Now Rarity’s always just working on her new Canterlot dresses and going over to the Library to visit him, and she’s all mopey all the time. It’s dumb.”
“Mah sister says Leafspring’s the one who made Big Mac mopey, too,” Apple Bloom interjected, “just like Ocean Breeze did, but Ocean Breeze was never that nice, so Ah don’t know why she thinks that…”
“Yeah, that comic sounds lame,” Scootaloo interjected, “Rainbow Dash lets me read Sapphire: Equestrian Commando sometimes.”
“I asked Spike if we could read that once,” Sweetie Belle continued, “and he said it’s not a comic for fillies. But then he said it’s a comic for adults who never grew up, so I don’t know what he meant. He’s weird.”
“I think Rainbow Dash’s really worried about that creepy Vortex pony, too, though,” said Scootaloo, “But don’t tell her that, she’ll just lie and say no…”
Fluttershy took her ear away from the door. She swallowed hard, glided back downstairs as quietly as possible, and set about reassembling her scattered collection of reference material.
(♫)
Perhaps an hour later, something in her front yard went crack.
She looked up from her book. After a few seconds, something went crack again, and then she heard the squawking and fluttering of alarmed chickens.
She stood up from her desk and slunk over to the window. Nothing seemed remotely out of place in the yard, but she couldn’t actually see the chicken coop from this angle. Very cautiously, she eased open the front door and stepped outside. She focused on the treeline and made a low, almost inaudible hum in the back of her throat, and after a few seconds a lumbering brown figure easily twice her size became visible. Bears made poor watch animals for anything outside of their usual territory, but in a direct confrontation there wasn’t a lot that could get in their way.
“|stay here| |guard home|” she whispered.
The beast growled in acknowledgment and hunkered down near her front door.
“|good boy|: (|later|, |big fish|).”
She grit her teeth and stepped back around to the rear of her cottage. Two of the boards originally making up the side of the coop lay on the ground beside it, and a few chickens wandered aimlessly inside of the fenced-in section.
Fluttershy swallowed hard, jumped over the fence, and peered inside the structure. This time, there was no blood to be seen, no scraps of flesh or ruined shelving. In fact, aside from the hole through which she was looking, nothing seemed remotely out of place.
She squinted at the boards, and then at the spots where they’d once been attached. She was no carpenter, but it looked as though they’d been nailed to the plywood floor and not to the frame underneath. When the floor had been broken up they’d come loose at the bottom, and little by little worked their way free from the top as well. Once one fell off, the strain must’ve pulled the other down in short order.
She gingerly picked up one hen in her forehooves and set it back inside the coop, then the other, and then pressed the boards back into place as best she could. She’d have to call Silver Spanner back over to fix it all properly next morning.
Still flushed with adrenaline, she trotted back through the front door on unsteady hooves, sat down at her desk, and paused.
The interior of the cottage was utterly silent- the muffled conversation she’d been ignoring from upstairs had stopped completely.
Briefly, Fluttershy wondered if the three fillies had in fact simply fallen asleep, but then she looked at the clock over her mantle. It was barely after nine.
She stood up and circled the room, already fighting the panic that threatened to spill up into her throat. Fluttershy had kept the map Twilight Sparkle had made of her path through the Everfree on her desk ever since she’d assisted in the search party four days ago. It had ended up on the floor along with the rest of her papers when Apple Bloom had collapsed her desk, and when she’d picked up the rest… she didn’t remember where she’d put it. Wherever that had been, the map was now gone.
Very quietly and very carefully, she climbed the stairs to the bedroom. She took one more deep breath, and eased open the door.
Inside, her bed was empty, and the window next to it was open.
“Apple Bloom? Sweetie Belle? Scootaloo?” she called.
There was no response.
She stepped over to the window and called out again: “Apple Bloom? Scootaloo? Sweetie Belle?”
Nothing.
Looking down over her first story roof, Fluttershy realized for the very first time just how low her cottage was, and how easily some small and nimble prowler -a filly, for instance- could leap from the window to the first story and then down to the yard. She swallowed hard, climbed up onto the windowsill, pushed off and glided to ground level.
Something was moving, ever-so-slightly, on one of her fenceposts- a small scrap of cheap red cloth. Nearby, the grass was faintly trampled and pushed to either side, forming a clear trail that headed directly for the Everfree Forest.
She turned and set out for the road to town. Then she stopped, closed her eyes, and shook her head, trying to clear it. She thought of Amethyst Star, and her smiling dismissiveness as she took Fluttershy’s statement. She thought of Captain Marigold, slouched in her office chair as Spike screamed himself hoarse. She thought of the Dominion officials up in Canterlot, or rather she thought about their absence. Finally, she thought about her flight-camp counselor snickering right along with Cirrus Cloud and Parasol after she’d slammed face-first into a slalom gate.
One way or another, she was likely on her own.
She turned back to her cottage and grabbed her saddlebags. Then she opened up the box of survival gear she kept in the corner of her kitchen and extracted a lantern, a short field knife, a packet of weatherproof matches, her healer’s kit, a compass, flares, and a second map of the Academy routes into the Everfree. She paused, and then packed her small signal mirror as well, in a side pocket within easy reach of her left wing.
She stopped at her front step, once again concentrated, and spoke in growls and grunts. “|go to forest| |follow me|.”
‘Harry’ looked up at her, reddish-brown eyes big and bright and uncomprehending. “|forest|: |danger|. |I||guard| |home|.”
She shook her head. “|No|. |Cubs in danger|. |Need you|: |near me|. |Less danger|.”
“|I guard| |home|.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “|Follow| |important|. |Cubs in danger|.”
“|Home| |important|. |I||guard| |home|.”
Fluttershy closed her eyes and let the communion link fade away. “Fine.” She put her muzzle to the ground and set off down the trail.