The End of Ponies

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Chapter Twenty-Two: Evershy

        It was a red robin that made Scootaloo pause in mid-trot. Upon scarlet wings, it shot away from her in a tail-burst of fright. The time traveler froze a bare meter from the door to Fluttershy's cottage, glancing about with a sudden blink as several more squirming things viciously fled her peripheral vision. These, however, were not the horrific, indiscernible shadows of a moonvisioned Briar, but very warm, very colorful, very frightened animals spurred on by a four-hooved stranger steeled in her mastery of fear. Several sets of beady eyes—mammalian, avarian, amphibian—peered out from an array of sun-glistening hiding spots all along the worn stone path leading up to the cottage door.

        Scootaloo stood, suddenly aware of the warm, breathing heaven that took a thorn-brambled hell to get to. With a bloodrush of guilt and awkwardness, she remembered that she was an invulnerable shell, an alien projection of her soul self in the skin of an exiled Alicorn. Though she came from a twilight Wasteland that knew no sleep, it didn't excuse thrusting the otherwordly shadows of the future upon the emerald glen that quivered under her every impatient hoofstep.

        Twitching amber eyes remembered a sea of frightened foals, Cheerilee's wincing face, the pale blinks of the entire Apple Family from across a dinner table. They were all fated to die, and Harmony knew this because she was fated to see their happiness right before their annihilation. By sheer miracle had she arrived at this calm, glistening haven hidden within the forgotten history of the world.

        How many times was she allowed to get away with such ventures? Would the Ursa Major be waiting for her when she returned from investigating Fluttershy's portion of the past? Or would a pack of timberwolves finally do her in, or a group of vengeful dirigible dogs, or blood-thirsty trolls?

        If this was Entropa's doing or simply pure happenstance, Harmony was at a loss to guess. She could only act—act and discover, and do so in the spirit of the same pleasantries that adorned that Age like Hearth's Warming tinsels. So, once more an avatar of time, the spirit of Scootaloo moved that copper body forward. Harmony smiled at the animals on either side of her and, with a swish of her amber-streaked mane, sashayed the rest of the way towards the cottage door, limping and leaning desperately towards the one melodic voice that lulled her there through the shimmering dragon's tooth in the first place.

        The front door alarmed the adult pegasus with its tiny size. The cottage seemed an impossible dwarf to her decaying memories. Piercing such trembling realizations, Harmony raised a hoof and knocked three polite times against the entrance's red wooden finish. There was no response, no silken voice, no smiling face or glistening blue eyes, none of the soft colors that had rarely flickered through the last pony's gray-glossed dreams.

        Harmony sighed; she knocked again. Still, there was no response. Tiny fluffy animals stirred out of hiding behind her. A small nose-twitching thing furriedly bounced bravely past the strange equine's leg. Harmony glanced down, her brain taking three times as long as her stomach did to categorize the forgotten specimen: “chipmunk.” Somehow, the true name of the creature sounded a heck of a lot more ridiculous than “airship food.”

        The pegasus knocked a third time. As she did so, she finally heard a voice, but it wasn't the melodic tone of her anchor, but rather a blunt and flavorless voice, a biting and chewing voice, a voice that was as related to “Fluttershy” as a cold chunk of moonstone was to a daisy. Harmony briefly remembered something that a gray, markless foal had said several million years ago when she first landed outside the cottage from the green flames of reverse-time. It was a breath of curiosity—not ignorance—that urged the pegasus forward. With squinting amber eyes, Harmony realized that the cottage door had been left slightly ajar. Shuffling over, she pressed a hoof against it...

        ...and gently pushed open the squeaking entrance to Fluttershy's warm and dry home. The orange filly shivered in a wet pile before the hearth. Young Scootaloo gave a deep, shuddering breath before leaning her scooter against the outside of the cottage. In a sudden air of politeness, she then pushed the door all the way and trotted aside to give the yellow pegasus room. Fluttershy hurried in, her mane reduced to a damp pink towel from the thick afternoon downpour. She set her empty basket down on the wooden green floorboards and stifled an inbound sneeze before smiling sweetly towards the dry depths of her antique dwelling.

        “It's alright! You can come out! Mommy's home! And she brought a guest!”

        On cue, several squirrels, songbirds, ferrets, and various whiskery members of winsome rodentia pitter-pattered out of an elaborate assortment of holes, wooden lattices, and pet doors all throughout the homely interior. With adorably programmed trust, they all scampered to Fluttershy's flank and took turns nuzzling up against her legs and wet tail.

        The Ponyvillean animal tamer smiled and nuzzled them back, her tongue and lips clicking in some hidden code of fauna. Fluttershy was utterly soaked to the bone, but that didn't stop her from making a bee-line towards a large wooden cabinet from which she dutifully produced one bag of feed after another, treating each gathered animal to a pre-evening snack before letting them scamper off to their luxurious hiding spots.

        All of this, an eight-year-old Scootaloo observed, blinking from the entrance to the cottage. Under the echo of rain drops, she shuffled inside, grinning wide. “Wow, Fluttershy. It's like you've got a whole friggin' army of furry things at your beck and call!”

        “Oh no. I would never think of sending my precious little animals off to battle anypony!”

        “Heheh—Come on, Fluttershy. It was a joke. I just think it's pretty awesome how they all trust you and stuff.”

        “I only ever mean to give them shelter from the elements, such as what we're experiencing today.” Fluttershy gently motioned with a soaked head out a nearby window. A sudden thunder rattled the panes. She yelped, wide eyed and shivering, then sighed with relief. “Ahem.” A nervous, blushing smile. “Any affection they give me is merely a fringe benefit, you see.”

        “Yeah, sure.” Scootaloo winked back. She took a deep breath, overcome by the soothing fragrance of the place.

        True, there was the predominant odor of animal fur, the dusty fumes of dozens upon dozens of bags of bird seed, and even the offensive hint of rabbit droppings in the distant background. Through it all though, a sweet aroma permeated the dwelling, as if the fluid of Fluttershy's heart that had given her voice its melody and her eyes their twinkle had marked an immortal perfume upon the grainy skin of the place. The effluent shades of Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle clung to the memory of a giddy night once spent there, and it made the orange foal feel toasty inside. For a briefly blissful second, there was no such thing as empty barns, or tears for that matter.

        “I will get a fire going shortly,” Fluttershy murmured. She lowered her head so that her front hooves had access to her damp mane. Squeezing puddles of rainwater out of the soggied threads, she shook her muzzle and looked up. “Then we can wait out the storm. If Rainbow Dash is leading the weather team, then it should hopefully not last all too long—” Fluttershy suddenly stopped in mid-sentence to bite her lip. She gazed pensively at the young guest's legs with an awkward shudder of distaste. “Oh... Erm... Oh dear...”

        “Huh?” Scootaloo blinked crookedly at her. She looked down. Her hooves were utterly caked in dirt, and a fresh pile of mud had been tracked into the house, soiling the immaculate emerald finish of Fluttershy's wooden floor. “Awwwwww shoot.”

        She winced, her breath hissing out through a clenched forest of teeth as she wobbled upon the offensive tripod that her soiled limbs had suddenly become. A palpitating throb boiled from deep beneath her orange coat, piercing her with guiltier and guiltier vibrations as she took into account every serrated centimeter of that pathetic situation. She should have known better than to have come there; she wasn't smart enough, strong enough to have anticipated such foolishness. In the rainsoaked joy of the moment, Scootaloo had squandered Fluttershy's extreme generosity. She knew it, but she would only collapse further if she showed that she knew it.

        “You think... uh... there's a talent for cutie mark crusader mud wrestling?” Scootaloo produced a nervous giggle, and then immediately rolled her eyes at her pathetic self.

        “I wouldn't know. Eheh... Uhm...” Fluttershy looked the foal's way with a frazzled yet reassuring smile. “Do not worry, Scootaloo. I'll take care of it—”

        “Heck no!” There was a shrieking voice. It wasn't until after Scootaloo's eyes shrunk into pinpricks that she realized it was her own. “What I mean is... erm... Allow me!” She glanced every which way until she saw a bucket and mop lying in an abandoned corner. “It'll only be a moment!” She scampered splotchingly towards it like a monorail of mud. “I'll mop it clean in a jiffy!”

        “No no—Please!” Fluttershy extended a hoof, hissing. The foal froze wide-eyed, balanced in mid-lunge on a single hoof as the adult pegasus hovered her way. “Just... Just don't trot another meter. Stay put. I'll clean it up.”

        “But Fluttershy, it's my fault for giving your floor the diamond dog treatment!” Scootaloo said, wincing yet again. Her eyes quivered, as if this delightfully warm, heavenly dry, and impossibly dreamy place would be flung out from under her at any second, and she would be thrown back out into the rain and her lonely life beyond it. “I wanna clean it up! It's only the second time I've been to your house and already I'm making a stupid mess of things!”

        “Scootaloo, dear, it's alright.” Fluttershy bore a soft smile that could melt the ice caps off of mountains. She eased Scootaloo down to her haunches with a gentle hoof before stepping behind the bucket-and-mop and nudging them over towards the mud-splotches. “Everypony makes mistakes. Besides, I know my way around my own floor.”

        “But I made the mess. I should do it.” Scootaloo frowned.

        In her peripheral vision, she observed a blank space in the living den's corner where an ill-fated blue table had once stood.

        She gulped. “Besides, don't you have more animals to feed? I can't imagine where they all would have run off to in this storm!”

        “Oh, uhm, well—Yes, I do have quite a few precious things to tend to,” Fluttershy absent-mindedly murmured aloud as she pumped a well of water into the bucket and added a liberal dash of soap. “The manger out back behind my cottage acts as a shelter for most of the animals too shy to come inside, but I'll get to them in a moment.”

        “Fluttershy, why not get to them now?” Scootaloo glanced up at her between shameful examinations of her own muddied hooves. “There's no need to keep them waiting all because of me. I can do the mopping!”

        “You're my guest, Scootaloo.” Fluttershy exhaled calmly, reaching onto a nearby shelf and clasping a clean rag which she tossed towards the foal. “I'm not bothered for having to clean up.” She smiled gently as she carried the sloshing bucket over to the mess. “It's worth it for such delightful company.”

        The foal forced herself to briefly ignore the warmness of those last few words. “I don't just want to be delightful company; I wanna be polite!” She wiped the muck off her limbs with the rag before standing back up and stubbornly grasping the mop's handle from the yellow host with two hooves. “I promise—Pinkie Pie Swear—that I won't do anything but mop this little piece of floorboard here! I'm not gonna go on a crazy crusade that would tear your awesome cottage down to its foundation! Please, Fluttershy?”

        “My, my.” The mare giggled under her breath. “You are most certainly adamant about this, Scootaloo. But haven't I already said that I can take care of it?”

        “Fluttershy, I don't have a cutie mark,” Scootaloo woefully murmured. “But you do—So that means one pony in here knows what her talent is. Now, there are animals out back that need you. Isn't it right that you go take care of them?”

        Fluttershy gazed prolongedly at the young foal. She glanced out the open door and towards the scooter that was glistening in rainwater, its metallic body reflecting the emptiness of the rumbling gray world outside. If there was something in the caretaker's vision that grasped a separate truth, Scootaloo couldn't tell, nor could she care. At that moment, all the filly desired was to undo a wrong... and clean up the past.

        With a gentle smile, and a gleeful breath that sounded like the yellow pegasus who flew down unannounced at the Everclear Memorial, Fluttershy suddenly granted that chance. “Very well, Scootaloo. But promise me you won't try to fix or clean anything else.”

        Scootaloo smirked and gave a campy salute with a stiff hoof. “Yes, Stare Master!” She started dousing the mop in the bucket before wiping concentric sudsy circles across the stained floorboards. “Maybe afterwards—with your permission—I could help you with the animals in the manger too! I've volunteered to help Apple Bloom at Sweet Apple Acres from time to time. I'm willing to bet that your livestock is a lot less likely to trip me into a feeding trough!”

        “Hmmm...” Fluttershy trotted towards the front door, pausing to look back. “It amazes me that your parents didn't bother taking you to a Wonderbolts show. With a daughter as responsible as you, it would be a shame not to reward her!”

        Scootaloo smirked devilishly, for she had already prepared a dashing rebuttal: “The best reward, Fluttershy, is being given such a rad place to take shelter!”

        “Eheheh...” Fluttershy blushed slightly. “I didn't think I was capable of doing 'rad.'” She gulped and faced the outside world. “I will be out back. If you need help with something, feel free to wake up Angel. He always knows how and where to find me.” With a squeaking grin, the yellow pegasus bravely galloped back out into the rain.

        Scootaloo blinked in mid-mop. “'Angel'?” She glanced every which way until her violet eyes finally found the snuggled patch of white fur in question. “Oh, right. You.”

        An ivory bunny rabbit was curled up in a tiny bed beside the cottage's staircase. A twitch of its ears, and it flickered open one beady eye before frowning demonically the orange visitor's way.

        “Don't worry, I don't bite.” Scootaloo winked. “But I have been known to peck.” She fitfully giggled.

        As she mopped the last of the mud away—bringing a shine to the floor as she brought ease to her own conscience—the steady downpour outside lulled her mind to a warm hush, so that she briefly leaned against the wooden handle and sighed several lone weeks of anxiety out through her lips. The world was a wet and lonely place, and the filly's stomach was a constant hollow of pain and anguish. But none of that mattered, because she was there... and her youthful ears still rang with the hum of a melodic voice. A joyful aura filled the lengths of the cottage, including the empty space where a blue table once sat.

        “I don't think I could ever live in a place like this,” the young, flightless filly mused. She mopped and mopped before smirking the slumbering bunny's way. “Or else I'd be coaxed into dreamland every waking minute, just like you!”

        A malevolent pillow was thrown across the room, slamming brutally into Scootaloo's face.

        “Ow! Sonuva—!”

        When her amber eyes refocused, Harmony caught sight of an alarmingly claustrophobic front room, its labyrinth of pet walkways and wooden lattices forcing the copper pegasus to duck as she trotted her adult body nervously inside.

        With a haunted breath, she glanced past her flank and saw a series of steps leading towards a seat of emerald cushions. There was nothing remotely striking about the sight, until an orange shadow suddenly descended within the blinking frame of it. Harmony had to look away, wincing for some reason. As her heartbeat returned to normal, she shuffled slowly forward, glancing every which way for the source of the grumbling voice that had permeated the otherwise angelic cottage.

        Something smelled rotten. It wasn't so much the combined scents of all of the cottage's animal occupants that burrowed an inflammatory itch into the last pony's nose, but rather it was the stale musk wafting off of a bizarre, nameless, joyless elder pegasus suddenly clopping across the widths of the wooden house, her muzzle upturned haughtily as she dictated in a morose tone to a familiar yellow figure wilting pathetically in the corner from her sharp shadow.

        “It's bad enough that there's been no check on the surplus population of localized rabbits, but now I find out that you've been altering the diet of local foxes? Surely you must realize that, as Ponyville's chief animal tamer, your job is to keep local carnivores from being unnecessarily domesticated!”

        “Yes, Captain Redgale.”

        “We also can't afford to have canines of the upper food chain lose their taste in meat! Otherwise the borders of the Everfree Forest will run rampant with rodents and marsupials! Need I remind you of that one horrible rabbit stampede that destroyed so many priceless gardens in Ponyville last year?!”

        “No, Captain Redgale.”

        “Shouldn't I?! Young lady, in barely five years of being given responsibility for the local wildlife, Ponyville has been attacked by an Ursa Minor, encumbered by the smoke of a hibernating dragon, haunted by a hydra from a local bog, and almost utterly demolished by a rampaging swarm of ungodly parasprites! All of these things could very easily have been avoided well in advance if somepony had been more attentive to her job—which, might I remind you, has been funded almost exclusively by my fellow cabinet members at the Cloudsdalian Animal Commission with enough bags of golden bits to break two-thirds of the First Canterlotlian Bank!”

        “Yes, Captain Redgale.”

        “And for the love of Nebula, Miss Fluttershy!” A sneering mare stopped pacing in circles long enough to glare at the filly in the corner. A pair of off-ruby wings matched a graying mane of scarlet as the blue-eyed Cloudsdalian elder regarded the humble pony like a fecal blemish on the green floorboards. “Do you have anything more to say than just 'Yes' or 'No?' You're the head animal tamer of Ponyville, for Celestia's sake! Shouldn't you be acting like it?”

        “Yes, Captain Re—erm...I mean...That is an affirmative—That is... erm... mmmmmmm...” The nervous pegasus resorted to a pathetic whimper, cornered by the elder's looming ire.

        “Nnngh...” The weathered Cloudsdalian facehoofed. “I cannot fathom how this same cowering creature before me was capable of allegedly pacifying a manticore on the evening of Nightmare Moon's return.” She stamped her hooves down and frowned at the girl, moreover out of exhaustion than frustration. “Miss Fluttershy, we have a crisis on our hooves. The Cloudsdalian Animal Commission has nopony else to turn to but you in this time of need. Please understand that it troubles me to have to remind you of all the mistakes that have been made at this post before laying out this new task ahead. I've had to literally fly through hoops of flame to defend your position here in Ponyville. Believe me, I want to give you this chance to prove your worth, but you have to show me that you have what it takes to find the missing creature spotted falling towards Everfree or else we'll have to resort to sending in a team of weather fliers instead!”

        “I have searched all over the eastern stretches of Everfree that were detailed in the reconnaissance, Captain Redgale.” There was a ladylike toss of Fluttershy's pink mane, enshrouding her submissive features. “I've seen deer, possums, several lizards, a wayward flock of geese—even a rather perturbed peacock. But none of them fit the description of what was seen falling into the forest canopy. The largest animal I saw was a wayward emu.”

        “We're talking about a Capricorn, Miss Fluttershy.” The aptly titled Captain Redgale snorted. “It's hard to miss.” She resumed pacing across the cottage, her aged hooves threatening to stomp holes through the tranquil interior. “The creature was sighted three days ago, and since then none of the regular Cloudsdalian flight patrols have seen it return to the heavens. It has to be in the forest still! So long as that cosmic creature is unaccounted for, it serves as a threat to all magically sensitive creatures who make a natural home in the Everfree Forest!”

        “But Captain!” the young mare remarked, blue eyes blinking. “That is so utterly unlike a typical Capricorn! Zoological reports have never chronicled their kind as acting so selfishly harmful to the rest of the environment!”

        “You think I don't know that, young lady?!” The off-ruby pegasus frowned. “This is why you must find it sooner than later! The sooner you retrieve this creature from Ponyville's backyard, the closer the Commission will come to finding a solution to this mystery! I do trust you are up to the challenge?”

        “Oh, of course, Captain Redgale! But I regret to inform you that my search so far has been unfruitful—”

        “Then search harder, child! I don't care if the reports claim the Capricorn as being in the eastern half of the forest! It could very easily have wandered deeper into the foliage! A creature that big can't simply vanish! Either search harder or I'll be forced to find another pegasus more competent!”

        “Ahem.” Harmony cleared her throat in a timely fashion. She steadied the strangely adrenalized blood coursing through her veins and strolled bravely into the midst of the two. “A pegasus more competent than Ponyville's famous animal tamer?” she murmured with a plastic, programmed grin. “I highly doubt it!”

        “Oh truly?” Redgale squinted her blue eyes Harmony's way. The elder's lips pursed with a dubious breath. “And you are...?”

        It was with suddenly remarkable ease that the last pony introduced herself. “'Harmony.' Or 'Harmony' for short.” A flippant giggle. “And I hereby uphold the competence of the lady who owns this house, or else why would Princess Celestia have sent me her to observe her much lauded duties first-hoof?”

        “Hmmmm...” Redgale regarded Harmony's cutie mark like she was examining a dam for leaking holes. “Canterlot Court, I see. Well, Celestia's elite stands to be corrected already on one account; Miss Fluttershy does not own this cottage. It's been lent to her over the years by the Ponyville Department of Wildlife Affairs, which—if I may remind Her Majesty's Court—gets funded directly through my association, the Cloudsdale Animal Commission.”

        “I take it that this is an introduction, madame?” Harmony slyly smirked.

        “Ahem.” The elder put on airs and stood up straight. “Captain Redgale of the Cloudsdale Animal Division, at your service.”

        “Whew! Now there's a bit-ful! It's an honor to meet you.” Harmony extended a hoof.

        The Captain muttered under her breath and begrudgingly stretched forth her own hoof to shake it—

        “OH!” Harmony suddenly raised her hoof out of the Captain's reach and banged her own skull. “Where is my brain today?!” She chuckled throatily and smirked with eye-twinkling innocence. “Princess Celestia ordered that I provide a very important message. Ahem—There's been a report of a parasprite sighting in the forests bordering the western city limits of Trottingham. She needs somepony in high connections with Cloudsdale's animal control to get a close look right away.”

        “A parasprite sighting?” A yellow pegasus un-wilted with tightly coiled wings. “How terrible!”

        “Yes, yes, Miss Fluttershy.” The Captain silenced the filly with a wave and turned to face Harmony again, squinting. “If there was such a horrible development, I surely would have been warned of it well ahead of time.”

        “And you are.” Harmony's iron brow furrowed. “I'm telling you.” She smirked once more towards the corners of the place and dusted her hoof off an opposite leg. “But if you're too busy here with your... authoritative redundancies, then I'm sure that I can write the Princess a cover story to explain why you weren't there to save Trottingham from pastel-colored horrors.” She produced a chirpish giggle. “We pegasi gotta look out after each other, eh? Ehh?” She leaned over and nudged the elder mare in the shoulder with a brutish wink.

        Captain Redgale frowned and brushed her coat off as if it had just been littered with asbestos. “If you're suggesting we deceive the Royal Court—perish the thought! Unlike some ponies, a Captain such as myself knows how to balance her responsibilities.” She cleared her throat and marched proudly out of the den and towards the yawning cottage door. “Miss Fluttershy, I do hope you'll put more effort into performing your search than humoring this... most studious Canterlotlian clerk. Ahem. I'll come back to check on your progress in finding the Capricorn. As for now, I have a potentially ravenous swarm of infernal insects to hunt down.”

        Harmony grinned steely at her. “Break a leg.”

        Captain Redgale gave her a double-take, blinked, smiled nervously, then tossed away the sight of the invasive messenger with a twirl of her scarlet mane. Off-ruby wings stretched out majestically, and the Cloudsdalian officer took towards the skies beyond.

        The last pony stared after her, bitterly swallowing a wad of spit down her cold throat. “Friggin' sky maid. What crawled up her plot and died?” With a shrug of her copper-coated shoulders, she spun—pleasantly smiling—towards the corner of the cottage. “I do apologize for showing up so unannounced, Miss Fluttershy. As I said, my name is Harmony, and I've come to—” She stopped in mid speech, blinking, for the corner was empty: no blue table and no pegasus. She twitched and turned about until she noticed the sight of the yellow pony trotting briskly towards a rack of food containers. “Uhm, Miss Fluttershy...”

        “Mmmm-Yes. Miss Harmony, I presume?” the frazzled filly managed while yanking three different jars down from the shelf, juggling them, and opening the containers one after another before filling various empty dishes with the outpouring feed. “I must beg your forgiveness. That meeting with Captain Redgale took far too terribly long. Ohhhh...” Her golden face scrunched in pitiable stress. “Mmphh—I haven't had a chance to feed my precious animals in over three hours! Erm... I can tell from your cutie mark and pleasant manners that you've come from the Court of Canterlot, and I am most honored by your visit, but you must understand that I have obligations here to attend to...”

        “Yes! Yes—!” Harmony beamed, scampering back and forth across the cramped cottage in a desperate attempt to keep up with the floundering caretaker. “That's exactly right! And—uhm—you tend to your duties so well, Miss Fluttershy. That's why Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, has sent me to—Whoah!”

        The dainty Fluttershy nearly barreled Harmony over as she shoved a food dish over towards a throng of stomach-rumbling ferrets. “I do beg your pardon. Much thanks.” Her pink mane was a fuzzy mess as she fluttered over the animals and dropped several scoops of birdfeed into a pair of hanging parrot cages below the cottage's ceiling beams. Her voice came out in petite, porcelain murmurs. “Feedthebirds. Checkthepond. Cleanthetrays. Mmm... Rosemouse, Elizabeak, Nutkins—Ohhhh poor Nutkins! What will I ever do about your tummy ache?!”

        “Ahem—The Princess has sent me to see how well you do your job and—”

        “Angel! Angel—Ohhhh—Where are you?”

        “—and also hopefully get you to answer a few desperate questions that the Court—”

        “Oh there you are, Angel!” Fluttershy managed her first smile since the time traveler got there. She knelt down beside a familiar white ball of fur that was presently shoving a large carrot down its hungry throat. “Remember what I told you, Angel? Hmm? Slowly. Chew slowlyyyyyyy.”

        “—questions that the Court has... Erm...” Harmony lost a drop of sweat as she jumped out of the way to make room for Fluttershy's next desperate canter towards a cluster of hungrily squeaking mice. The smell of cheese lit the rustic den. “...about the state of creatures in the forest and Equestrian livelihood in general—Ahem—Miss Fluttershy, could you use some help?” The copper pegasus bit her lip nervously.

        “Help... Help? No. No, no help. I have to... Erm... What I mean is that I must do these things on my own. Especially with the task ahead of me and—”

        “Yeah, about that.” Harmony nervously shifted and gave Fluttershy a sideways glance. “What's all of this hubub about a fallen Capricorn?”

        “You mean you haven't heard?” Fluttershy looked breathlessly up from a ring of happily chewing rodents. “That isn't the purpose of your visit?”

        “I thought I made it clear that I was dropping by on behalf of the Princess who merely wants to check up on you and learn about—”

        “Wait—You arrived just now?!” Fluttershy absent-mindedly blinked. She tossed her pink mane back to smoothness and glanced at the open cottage door, the bright sunlight glistening outside. “And I didn't notice?!”

        “You didn't?” Harmony twitched, then cleared her throat. “Right, you didn't! Maybe I got off on the wrong hoof. Let me introduce myself again. My name is—”

        “Dinky!” Fluttershy breathlessly squeaked, her blue pupils shrinking in abject terror.

        “No, not 'Dinky.' It's 'Harmony'—” A yellow blur surged past the last pony, forcing her black mane to billow. “Where are you going?”

        “Dinky! Dinky! Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear—I'm such a bad, bad babysitter!” Fluttershy's hoofsteps pattered into faint obscurity beyond the walls and windows of the cottage.

        “Uhhh...” Harmony worriedly gazed at the door and then flashed a glance over at a tiny little fuzzball. “Do you have any idea what's eating her?”

        A half-eaten carrot flew violently into her skull.

        “Ow! Sonuva—!”

        “Dinky!” Fluttershy came to a grinding stop before the tiny teaset. Panting, she smiled with relief as she knelt next to the little gray foal. “Oh, thank heavens! I am so, so sorry to have neglected you! That meeting distracted me too, too much!”

        “But I'm doing just fine, Miss Fluttershy.” The blonde unicorn smiled up at her beside her stuffed animal companions. “Did you know that a cardinal chirps thirty-three times before moving to another branch of a tree?”

        “As a matter of fact, I did not know that!”

        “I counted. I think it's testing the acoustics of the oak tree to make sure its voice is being carried furthest to a potential mate.” The child computed out loud with educated clarity. “One of the books mommy bought me said that cardinals can spend an entire hour chirping nonstop before giving up. But I think the authors didn't know what they were talking about. They don't watch things like I do.”

        “Sometimes birdsong is just birdsong, Dinky.” Fluttershy bit her lip with pensiveness that humbled herself before the petite child. “But it certainly is pretty to listen to, yes?”

        “If I was a female cardinal, I would be less interested in how melodiously a boy sang and more interested in whether or not his voice sounded healthy.”

        “Erm... Yes, well, I suppose that would be the natural response.”

        “But when an owl hoots in the middle of the night, it's strictly territorial. It's because owls are birds of prey and they're more concerned about gathering food than mating—”

        “Dinky!” Fluttershy gasped, suddenly gawking at the sight of the empty pitcher in the center of the tiny table. “You drank all of the tea so quickly!”

        “No I didn't! It was—”

        “Are you dehydrated? Are you running a fever?” The yellow pegasus practically lunged across the teaset and felt the unicorn's horn with a forelimb. “Oh darling, you're positively baking!”

        “I have a darker coat than yours, Miss Fluttershy. It absorbs most of the colors of the visible spectrum. Since I've been sitting in the sunlight all this time, it feels as if I'm hotter than I actually am—”

        “I know!” Fluttershy nervously smiled. “I'll fill this up with water! Then you can come inside and enjoy the niiiiice coooool shaaaaade!”

        “But it wasn't me, Miss Fluttershy!” Dinky blinked her yellow eyes. “It was the pony that fell from the sky!”

        The yellow pegasus made an awkward face, unaware of the pony-shaped impression in the grass directly beneath her. “The pony that fell from what?”

        “Harmony!” Dinky pointed over yellow wings.

        “Pegasi will do that,” Harmony said, suddenly standing behind Fluttershy.

        The caretaker shrieked, flopping embarrassingly onto the ground. With a deep rosy blush, she scrambled up on all fours and scooted away from the copper visitor. “Mmm... Uhm... Hello...”

        “It's me, remember?” Harmony smiled placidly, though her amber eyes hardened. “From earlier? In the cottage? Ninety seconds ago?”

        “Oh, uhm, yes.” Fluttershy wiltingly curtseyed. “Pleased to do business with a servant to Her Majesty.”

        “Assuming we're doing business at all!” Harmony smirked. “I can see that you're obviously in the middle of a lot of things here—”

        “Is that an infinity symbol on your flank?” Dinky asked over Fluttershy's shoulder.

        Harmony's lips trailed numbly in the air. She blinked, then smiled icily at the tiny unicorn. “Err... Yes. Yes, it is.” She coughed and spoke once more to Fluttershy. “I don't mean to get in the way of things. I'm merely here to observe and ask questions so that the Court will understand how you do your job so well and—”

        Dinky droned, “Why would a servant of the Royal Court have an infinity symbol?”

        Harmony's eyes squinted at her. “Because that's how long I intend to live before I decide to foal any nosy little kids of my own.” She wrenched her gaze back towards Fluttershy. “And if you wouldn't mind telling me first off what this whole 'Capricorn' nonsense is—”
        
        Again, a youthful murmur: “Because it doesn't make sense for a solar crest to be framing an infinity symbol.”

        Harmony cast Dinky another icy grin. “Maybe we like tossing small creatures into the Sun.”

        “That would take some massive limb strength.”

        “Kid—Uhm, are you plugged into something?”

        “Do you know how much energy it would take to launch a small dog or cat outside of the planet's atmosphere—much less to collide with Princess Celestia's rising Sun?”

        “Uhhh—”

        “Even if you empowered the entire catapult artillery of the Celestial Defense Corps, it would not be enough to hurdle a small mammal any further than several kilometers in a single toss, and that's assuming you could muster the mammoth force of several hundred weighted ballasts in a single burst of energy.”

        “Look, I really don't think that it's—”

        “Not to mention that it would take an astronomical effort to get any thrown object to exit the planet's gravity at the precise ninety degree angle required to maintain a full orbit at half the moon's length, much less to extend that revolution by such a length so as to collide forthwith with the burning corona of the Sun—”

        “Right—I get it! You're from Space Equestria! That's cute, kid. Ahem.” Harmony limpingly turned to face Fluttershy once more. “Miss Fluttershy, all I wish is to have a few minutes of your attention—” She went bugeyed, for the pegasus was again gone. “Uhhh—What the heck?”

        “Mmmm?” The animal caretaker's head rose from inside the windowframe to her cottage, several trots away. She was juggling a stack of dead fish in twin baskets as she panickedly managed, “I'm so sorry! I'm behind schedule! Do excuse me!” She disappeared, and the sound of the cottage's rear door squeaking open announced that she was rushing over towards the babbling brook in the back yard.

        “Though I suppose it would be possible to use the Elements of Harmony to trans-locate small animals beyond the planet's orbit and avoid such a gravity-defying feat of long distance propulsion altogether, but that would have to involve a severe magical transgression worthy of the Princess' banishment to the moon.”

        “Mmmmmm.” Harmony grit her teeth and mowed several clumps of grass with dragging hooves as she lurched away from the scene. “Keep at it, kid. You'll be a marshmallow in no time.”

        Harmony secretly fumed. Fluttershy's wayward movements resembled a certain crusader whose foalish annoyance didn't become palpable to the last pony until that very thundering second. It was a miracle that she hadn't disappeared in a puff of green flame from the self-imploding irony of the moment. Trotting—more like stomping around the house—she rejoined Fluttershy just in time to see her tossing the piscean food into the waiting maws of several weasels crawling hungrily out of a waterside burrow.

        “Miss Fluttershy—”

        “I have to feed the ducklings and transport the frogs and check on the butterfly cocoons along the gardens and—”

        “Miss Fluttershy.” Harmony flew down directly in front of the pegasus and planted a reassuring hoof on the filly's quivering shoulder. “Could you slow down for a second? What's the harm in just letting the formal introductions get out of the way?”

        “Erm...” Fluttershy shifted nervously where she stood, half of her face hiding behind a pink lock of her mane. “How formal?”

        She suddenly looked so frail and tiny. Harmony didn't realize it at first, but she wasn't used to staring at the yellow pegasus at eye-level. With Applejack, it was different; the farm mare was big and strong no matter what angle the last pony remembered staring at her from.

        But Fluttershy—a silken-voiced caretaker from years of foalish wonderment—was suddenly a veritable, porcelain twig bending in a hurricane breeze; she always was. Harmony found her endearing in a different yet equal way to the mare she dreamily recalled.

        “Oh, uhm...” Harmony realized Fluttershy was awaiting an answer. “We don't have to be formal at all! Princess Celestia has heard a lot from you, and so she's scheduled that I act as an observer and see for myself how you manage to—”

        “Oh dear, is this because I insulted Princess Celestia when I took Philomena under my wing and attempted to nurse her back to health?”

        “Huh? No! This has nothing to do with—”

        “Mmmmm—Oh goodness.” Fluttershy bit her lip and sagged deaftedly towards the earth, dropping the basket of dead fish onto the grass beside the pond. Her eyes hung towards her hooves in a souless slump. “Is... Is this about the one time I drove a stampede of garden animals into the Grand Galloping Gala?”

        “You drove a stampede into the Gala?!” Harmony balked, wide-eyed.

        Fluttershy recoiled as if she had taken a bullet to the chest.

        Harmony blinked, gulped, then cleared her voice. “Er...I mean yes! You drove a stampede into the Gala! Hahaha... Ahem. But Princess Celestia has forgiven you for that!” She glanced briefly aside. “Somehow...” She chewed on her lip for a moment, then bravely smiled towards the pegasus before murmuing, “But your noble actions in the name of... uhm... peaceful coexistence between fauna and ponydom have done wonders for Ponyville over the years.”

        “I-I see...” Fluttershy squirmed where she sat and picked her basket back up, placing it on her backside. “I only wish the Cloudsdalian Commission shared the same enthusiasm as the Canterlotlian Court.”

        “Yeah, well, ponies of a feather—y'know?” Harmony chuckled with her eyes shut. When she reopened her gaze, Fluttershy was gone. She flashed her skull every which way, stifled a deep groan, and quickly trotted after the distant figure towards the front of the cottage once more. “Miss Fluttershy, I swear, I was sent without the knowledge of 'Commander Spinsterwind' or whoever you were butting bridles with just a moment ago.”

        “'Captain Redgale.'” Fluttershy corrected, and in a suddenly dry voice she murmured, “And it's not nice to call ponies names behind their flanks. I find it rather rude.”

        Harmony's heart jumped, as if to be even remotely chided with the melodic voice of this pony meant being stabbed by invisible broken glass all over from mane to hoof. It felt somehow worse than a troll's stab wound to her leg or a phoenix's burn across her chest. She fought to maintain her adult composure. “I meant no disrespect, Miss Fluttershy, which is the least I could say about her. I'm merely a servant of the court, not an expert on psychology, but something is seriously barking up her tree. And when I say 'tree,' I mean the stick that she refuses to take out.”

        “Eeep!” Fluttershy's cheeks burned rosily as she darted in through the back door of the cottage with the copper pegasus following. “Are all servants of Princess Celestia so... 'poetic?'”

        “Only the awesome ones.” Harmony smirked. “Seriously, though, what's her deal?”

        “Oh...” Fluttershy sighed long and hard, briefly pausing before returning the basket to a stack of several wicker containers just like it. She wandered across shelf after shelf of foodstuffs in a breathless canter. “She's my chief supervisor in Animal Caretaking and Taming. I've answered to her ever since I was a young filly volunteering in Ponyville.”

        “If she's been around you that long, one would think she'd be a bit more supportive—Cuz she's seen you do a more than competent job. Otherwise, why would Ponyville still let you take care of the precious creatures around here?” Harmony smiled proudly. “Am I right?”

        Fluttershy's upper body was flushed upon hearing that. She failed to hide it, instead busying herself in the rummaging at hoof. “You are... as kind as your name is pretty, Miss Harmony. But you must understand, Captain Redgale has a much... stricter method of appraisal.”

        “Yeah, no crap.”

        “Assuredly no fecal matter—Oh—That was another poetic expression, wasn't it?”

        “Yeah, I'm full of it,” Harmony chuckled, then blinked at what she just said. “Of poetry. Er... Wh-what I meant was—”

        Fluttershy went on, “She may appear harsh on the outer surface, but I've been working for her long enough to realize that she has very subtle ways of letting a pony know if she's doing her job right.” She paused to exhale, hard. “On some occasions, at least...”

        Harmony glanced at her sideways.

        Fluttershy cleared her throat and spoke over a hanging basket of feeding jars dangling from her neck. “Mmmff—Ahem. She came just now to inform me of a most deplorable situation.”

        “Something about a Capricorn, right?”

        “Mmmhmm. Are you familiar with Capricorns, Miss Harmony?”

        Harmony opened her mouth to reply. She lingered in mid-gape, her mind floundering over several gray horizons, throngs upon throngs of dark clouds, scores of indiscernible dead creatures, too many fossils to have ever righteously accounted for the many varied things—both graceful and despicable—that once “lived” on the sun-kissed bosom of Equestria.

        Fluttershy didn't wait for an uneducated answer “It's a celestial creature, living most of its adult years in the cosmos, much like Ursas and Scorpios. They hail from Equestria originally, though. Instead of blood, they have pure unfiltered mana filtering through their veins. They are brought into this world in a beam of pure magic channeled through a mother's horns. That energy then solidifies into the graceful creature we come to known as Capricorns, and then they migrate into the heavens, coming down every now and then only to regenerate their health via mana crystals or when it comes time for them to magically foal new young.”

        “Yeah, okay. Now I kind of regret never seeing one.”

        “Most living ponies aren't lucky enough to see a naturally appearing Capricorn.” Fluttershy knelt before a gathering cluster of squirrels at a windowsill. She fed them several bread crumbs from the basket and gently nuzzled a furred head or two before continuing. “But just recently, one was seen falling from the night sky and into the thick of the Everfree Forest. I'm the closest and most... qualified pony to immediately investigate. You see, in the last few years, I've been promoted to chief ranger of the Everfree Forest. With the help of Zecora, a shaman from the Northwestern Zebrahara, I've begun keeping a record of all the creatures that are discovered in the woods. Several scholars and taxonomists in Cloudsdale are expecting me to deliver a solid report every month, as well as to handle... uhm... unforeseen emergencies that happen along the forested border.”

        “Like... this emergency.” Harmony nodded slowly. “That's what has gotten your beloved Captain's tail tied in a knot.”

        “She's right to be so distraught.” Fluttershy sighed, staring forlornly past the circle of bushy tails swishing in front of her. “The Capricorns are an endangered species. If one was to die in the Everfree Forest, so close to Ponyville, and under my watch, well I... I-I...” She bit her lip and her eyes started to water uncontrollably.
        
        Harmony blinked. “Uhhhh.... Uhm... Miss Fluttershy?”

        The pegasus shook and shivered.

        “Are you... Are you gonna cry?” Harmony's heart began beating harder and harder. “Oh crapola—You are, aren't you?”

        “Is it n-not enough that... that such a beautiful and precious creature is going to d-die so needlessly that I-I also have to c-come this close to losing the gr-greatest j-job in all of Equestria??”

        But before Fluttershy could so much as drop a tear, the time traveler was rushing up and planting both hooves on her shoulders.

        “I'll help you!” Harmony panted, eyes twitching like a madpony. The future was in flames. The Wasteland beyond it was forever gray ash and snow. She was going to die, the end of ponies, and this was her one and only opportunity in the entire history of time to find a way to bring the Sun and Moon back. But she was not about to let Fluttershy cry. “I'll... uhh... I'll help you find this Coppertone!”

        “Capricorn.”

        “Whatever. I mean, how hard can it be?”

        “Even if I did accept your kind generosity...” Fluttershy sniffed and trotted out of her grasp, sidling up to a reading seat's window and gazing forlornly out towards the lengths of the Everfree Forest stretching beyond a nearby chicken coup. “It wouldn't be right.”

        Harmony raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

        “You heard the Captain.” Fluttershy sighed. “I need to prove myself. If I accepted another pony's help, in any capacity, then it could look dis-favorably on my record. I am being tested here. That much is obvious.”

        “Hey—Do you want this Capricorn thingy to live or not?”

        “I...” Fluttershy fidgeted and kneaded the windowsill anxiously with yellow hooves. “Of course I do...”

        “As a Royal Canterlotlian Clerk, it is my duty to make sure that all creatures in Equestria live long and prosper!” Harmony was processing the words through her mind a bare fraction of a second before bravely uttering them. “I'm here to observe the way you do your job, Miss Fluttershy—if you let me. I'm not here to tell you how it's done. If your—ahem—all-knowing Captain can't see that, then she can sure as heck take it up with the Princess!”

        Fluttershy sniffled one last time. When she glanced back over her shoulder at this sudden, blessed stranger, it was with a soft smile that poured gold into the pores of Harmony's soul self. “I must admit. I do find your proposal to be... erm....”

        “Awesome?” Harmony winked.

        “Very kind.” Fluttershy grinned gently, her voice like a bedsheet falling through an afternoon's haze and spreading silkily across the lengths of the room. “Please do forgive my distractedness, Miss Harmony. I really didn't mean to be rude. It is not often that a stranger like you shows up so... punctually.” Her soft eyes narrowed earnestly on the strange pegasus. “I must ask, though—Have we met before?”

        Harmony's heart froze. “Uhm... Huh?”

        “Oh, I know it's awfully silly of me to ask. But I could swear that you're familiar somehow. It would be a shame not to remember somepony with such a gorgeous mane—Heehee—But, it's something else...”

        “Oh, I don't get around Ponyville much. All I've known about you I've... uhm... I've read in Twilight Sparkle's letters and... and...” Harmony's gaze had fallen numbly towards the side. She fell into a zombified silence.

        In the far corner of the adjacent kitchen, isolated and forgotten in the dusty shadows of the rustic cottage, was a bucket. Lying in this bucket was a mop, dried and unused for an unknowable time. The longer Harmony stared into the bristled white threads of the thing, the deeper she drowned, trapped in that ivory forest of filament, like a deep descent via moonvision.

        A deep breath left the last pony, for she had just mopped that very same floor weeks ago, in that she had mopped it up twenty-five years ago. But this was twenty-five years ago. This was the past, and yet it wasn't the past. All of this was really just a projection, a billowing cloud of happenstance that was anchored to a dead ghost of a pegasus, and the only reality that was awaiting Harmony's beating Entropan heart was a dark dank hovel in the center of a dead world where there stalked a giant cosmic bear inside a gigantic thorny sarcophagus of stone, waiting for its scrumptious morsel to reappear any startling second on a vomit of green flames coughed up by a purple dragon that had lived three hundred years back and forth across the same twenty-five years.

        The last pony did not expect so soon to be retracing her own paths, though they were taken with different hooves, legs that were hers and yet weren't hers. She suddenly felt very sick, very alone, and very naked. An infant breath inside of her whimpered for the gently swaying embrace of the Harmony's hammock. Before she could even comprehend the irony of that impulsive desire, a melodic voice drifted silkily across the room, so that she instinctually curled towards it, as if willing herself into unfoaling.

        She gasped at having been embraced by a pair of yellow forelimbs, as soft and warm as she had ever remembered them. Incapable of sweating, her projected soul self trembled to glance into the pegasus bracing her. She gulped and muttered: “Fl-Fluttershy...?”

        “Are you okay, Miss Harmony?” the mare worriedly breathed, weathering the visitor's sudden trembles.

        The last pony very swiftly, very quickly smoothed her rough edges out and stood up straight, shaking her black mane back over her neck. “Ahem. Sorry. I've been... uhm... flying all day. I guess I didn't realize how tired I was.”

        “Maybe you should lie down. I'll have Dinky fetch you some water while I fix a soothing broth—”

        “N-no need, Miss Fluttershy.” The time traveler recited the reassurances of a foalish guest, blinked the dancing shadows of yesterday away from the all-too-familiar room, and spoke with greater ease. “Now, what were you asking me just before I had my dizzy spell?”

        “Erm...” Fluttershy bore a slightly suspicious squint. “How could you know what Twilight Sparkle has written about me to the Princess?”

        “Erm—Huh?”

        “You said that you knew about me from Twilight's letters.”

        “Oh, I did say that, didn't I?” Harmony grimaced. “I... It... Erm...” She brightened, then smiled hopefully. “Her Majesty tends to read her letters out loud! Yes! And, well, the palace walls of Canterlot are... uhm... they're kind of thin... I guess.” She cleared her throat as she navigated the pathetic dead end that she had trotted her tongue into. “Her... uhm... Her younger sister has the same problem. Especially with all the letters Princess Luna... gets... from...” A stupid blink. “...the Wonderbolts.” She bit her lip for a few prolonged seconds. “They write about flying n'stuff.”

        “I... see...” Fluttershy swam through a confused breath of air directly in front of her.

        “So!” Harmony leaned back with a bright expression and clapped her front hooves together. “When do we go hunting for Capricorns?”

        “Not quite so soon, Miss Harmony.”

        “Oh. Okay. Ahem—Why not?”

        “If you are still generously willing to observe me in such a procedure, I'm afraid you have to wait until later this afternoon.”

        “Lemme guess. You've got more animals to feed.”

        “Well, in addition to that I have to babysit for Dinky until her mother gets here.”

        “Why not just—I dunno—bring her with us?”

        “—into the Everfree Forest?!” Fluttershy explosively gasped as if a stick of dynamite had been ignited in the base of her lungs. “Miss Harmony, have you ever ventured into that place?!”

        “As a matter of fact, I have,” Harmony said. Thorns, brambles, and squirming black shadows flickered across her aged mind. Then she took one stupid glance outside a nearby window and suddenly remembered that this was a green world. “Oh, wait. Nevermind, it's been a while. Eheheh—”

        “You and I may be aptly capable of looking after ourselves,” Fluttershy murmured as she shuffled up towards a window, gazing forlornly out at the tiny unicorn and her teaset. “But I would rather be banished to the moon than put a little foal's life in danger!”

        “Okay, what's with ponies of this time period and this rampant phobia about moon-banishing?”

        “Miss Harmony...?” Fluttershy bilnked confusedly.

        Harmony sighed and returned to the subject at hoof. “Would it please you to let me assist in your next search for the Capricorn this afternoon?”

        “Oh, I would most definitely be blessed by anypony's assistance.” Fluttershy rosily nodded. “But I do not think it will be an easy feat.”

        “Hey, we're pegasi.” Harmony trotted up and smirked. “Since when did we do anything easy?”

        “I would say that is Captain Redgale's philosophy.”

        “Then I already feel like cutting off my own tongue.”

        “Oh heavens! Do not think of such a thing!” Fluttershy sputtered.

        “Miss Fluttershy, it was a joke—!” Harmony blinked. Deja vu throttled her brain, an orange foal briefly balanced on her long copper legs like stilts, then flickered away in a rain-soaked gasp. Fluttershy suddenly looked like a tiny porcelain doll gazing up at her. The last pony had to fight the bleeding urge to cry. With a brave chuckle, she exhaled, then said, “In the meantime, how can I best observe you at your work?”

        “Uhm... Hmmm...” Fluttershy breathed as she cast soft blue eyes towards the edge of the cottage. “I suppose you could assist me in the manger. I still have my regular rounds to go through.”

        “Just how many animals do you have in this place, Miss Fluttershy?”

        “Two hundred and thirty-three, not including the fish and insects.”

        Harmony blinked. “Oh. Wow. I... uhm... didn't realize you actually kept count.”

        “Oh, but of course!” Fluttershy smiled brightly for once. “I would absolutely hate myself if I lost track of any of my precious little friends. I keep a constant head count every morning just to be absolutely sure that none have gone missing or... or worse.”

        “Do you name them all too?”

        “Mmm, no.” Fluttershy ran a forelimb across her pink mane while glancing back out to check on Dinky. “Only a few whom I've come to adopt.”

        Harmony smirked and motioned over her flank towards a certain white fuzzball. “Like Little Miss Sunshine over there?” A clattering food dish ricocheted off the back of her copper skull. “Ow! Dang your eyes!”

        “Angel! Bad! Very naughty!”