//------------------------------//
// Questions 
// Story: Fluttershy's New Friend 
// by Theblindrat 
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Chapter 6: Questions

Roadie and Fluttershy were sitting inside her cottage listening to Roadie's favorite mix tapes, deciding on what music to pick for Friday night. They would listen to a song all the way through, and then look at each other to decide if they would play it or not. They listened to countless songs by Sublime, Bob Marley, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Dirty Heads, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Matisyuha, and a little bit of Noel Gallagher for good measure.

Sadly, out of all of the artists they were enjoying, they would only have time for five songs. Roadie already knew the parts for all of the music they were listening to; all he had to do was teach Fluttershy her part, which she would get done in no time. Fluttershy was sitting next Roadie on the couch while they relaxed to the music. Angel was pretty chill too, which was odd for the easily irritated rabbit. Roadie didn't want to bother the rabbit, and he didn't want to lean over to change to the next mix tape, because this was all he wanted, peace, and happiness. He was very happy with how he was living at the moment; it was perfect in his eyes. Roadie felt something soft, it was Fluttershy. She had her eyes closed, her head buried into his chest. As if on cue, the song 'Love don't love nobody' by Eric Clapton came on.

Roadie didn't want the moment they were sharing to end, the song was slightly lengthy, but 7 minutes of grace wasn't enough for him. He opened his eyes to catch another flying carrot, and to see Angel no longer relaxing, due to Fluttershy getting close to Roadie again. Roadie noticed that Angel's face wasn't showing jealousy, it was filled with uneasiness disguised as slight anger and irritation. Angel didn't trust Roadie around Fluttershy, because he didn't want him to hurt her feelings, but Roadie understood how sensitive she was.

Angel was surprised by how quick Roadie reacted, but was more touched by his understanding when Roadie extended a hoof with his carrot in it, offering a truce. Angel accepted the treaty, realizing that Roadie isn't a bad guy. He took the carrot and hopped back over to where he was previously relaxing and Roadie wrapped his arm around Fluttershy, who was oblivious to the scene that just occurred between Roadie and Angel. The song continued into the electric guitar solo, it was slow, and fitting of the current moment. Roadie found himself bobbing his head along with the solo, which almost seemed to describe his emotions. He was deeply lost in the music, almost to where he didn't feel Fluttershy nudge his arm, "Can we play this song?" Fluttershy had asked her question with the most pleading eyes she could use. Roadie nodded with a warm smile, because he was about to ask her the same thing. They both shut their eyes and enjoyed the music; it was the happiest Roadie had been since he befriended Fluttershy. They almost fell asleep listening to the peaceful song fade out during the last minute, and they would have if not for the loud knocking on the door.

Neither of them wanted to answer it, because they looked at each other and realized that if they did, then they would interrupt the moment they were sharing. Roadie saw that this would have been disrespectful to whoever was knocking and decided he would go answer it. He gently let Fluttershy down onto the couch and stretched his legs, as they had been sitting for at least an hour. He opened the door, and was surprised first off that it was still daytime. But he didn't have time to dwell on it, as there was a large brown earth pony colt with a thick, dark handlebar moustache. He was a police officer… from Manehatten. He was the officer that had nearly cut Anonymous. He held up a poster of Anonymous on it, it said WANTED in big bold letters at the top, there was not a reward on it though, Roadie assumed that they were still deciding on one. "Have you seen this Pegasus?" The earth pony said with a rather bold voice, it was gruff, and stone-like. Roadie put on a forced smile and shook his head. He was about to close the door, but the officer's partner stepped out from behind him, he was the blue Unicorn with the white mane and yellow eyes that had slashed Roadie's leg. "Wait… I know you…" Roadie was in a cold sweat, he knew that if the officer recognized him, he would be sent to prison for resisting arrest, or worse… assisting a fugitive.

The Unicorn squinted at Roadie with thinking eyes, who was smiling rather nervously at this point. "Oh, aren't you a relative of Derpy? She's a close friend of the force; she delivers our mail down at Manehatten." Roadie sighed, rather relieved. He shook his head again. The unicorn almost seemed disappointed. "Oh well, you sure look like her, nice outfit by the way, peace, brother." They were about to turn around and leave, but Roadie had made the mistake of turning around first. The unicorn had a flashback of Roadie flying away from him, and cutting Roadie pretty deep with his sword, he was almost sure that he had bled out after he turned and flew off. Then he saw the familiar guitar sitting in the corner, which looked very familiar around the gray Pegasus standing in front of him. "Wait… now I know who you are, and you should come with us back to the station." Roadie was tempted to fly off, but instead he leaned in through the doorway and whistled to Fluttershy, "I'll be back soon, I have some… business to take care of." Roadie was welling with tears, and Fluttershy noticed, "What's wrong? Something's not right." She was really concerned. Roadie tried his best not to cry, and succeeded. But he whistled with a melancholic tone, "Let's just say that a mistake I made has caught up with me." She didn't completely understand, but what she did understand is that he really needed to do this. "Hurry back, we're not done here." She was disappointed about him having to go, but she tried her best to cover it up.

Roadie smiled as comfortably as he could and shut the door, reaching out his hooves to the police officers waiting patiently for him. They didn't put cuffs on him, they trusted him enough this time, his face was too honest. They ran all the way to Manehatten, they even trusted Roadie enough to let him fly, so the trip was rather short. They reached the station in 20 minutes, which was pretty good. They put Roadie in a questioning room, which was almost completely white, with a single rectangular light in the center of the ceiling, perfectly above a table, that was the same shape as the light, just larger. There were only two breaks in the whiteness of the square room, which was the one way mirror on the wall that they would use to see him answer questions, and the door to enter the room.

A white colt unicorn with a white coat and a gray mane stepped in, he had green eyes and his cutiemark was a magnifying glass. He had a smile on his face with a pair of glasses accompanying it. He sat down, and pulled out a clipboard. "So, you appear to be involved in a case related to finding a white mare Pegasus…" Roadie knew what he was going to say before he even entered the room. "Is that true?" The unicorn had a brow raised. Roadie nodded, and gestured like he was writing on something, and the unicorn guessed in his game of charades. "You want me to write something? You want to draw?" Roadie smacked himself on the forehead. "Oh, you have a headache!" Roadie shook his head and repeated the gesture of him writing on his invisible paper with his invisible pen, but much more exaggerated, and then pointed at himself.

The white unicorn finally got the message. "Oh, you need something to write with." Roadie sighed, relieved that he finally understood him. The unicorn leaned his head through the door and asked another colt for something to write with, he returned with a blank notebook and a black pen, he opened the notebook and set it down in front of Roadie, then returned to his seat across from him. Roadie clicked the pen and jotted down, 'Thanks, I can't speak, that's why I didn't answer your question.' He showed the colt the paper and smiled. "Well I'm glad we have that straight, and now you'll be able to answer my questions no problem." Roadie's smile slightly faded, knowing that he wouldn't like the questions that were to be asked.

The unicorn held up a paper with a picture of Anonymous on it, it didn't say wanted like the last one, it looked like an important document, he checked where it said name, and it said 'Unknown'. "Are you involved with this Pegasus?" Roadie nodded, he wasn't going to lie, as that would only get him into deeper trouble, as he had already helped what they called a fugitive, and resisted arrest. The colt scribbled something down onto his clipboard, and asked his next question, "How do you know her?" The colt leaned in slightly closer, as if curious to hear what Roadie was going to write about the mare. Roadie didn't change facial expressions, because he knew they would misjudge it and possibly call him a liar. He looked down at the notebook and scribbled, 'I was lost in the woods on the verge of freezing to death when she found me and helped me.'

The colt scribbled into his clipboard again, this time his eyes were wide and his face looked fearful, which threw Roadie off. The colt sighed and removed his glasses for an effect of added seriousness, and asked another question, "Are you aware of what this mare actually is?" Roadie was now extremely puzzled and thrown off by this question; he raised a brow and wrote in his notebook, 'She's a kindhearted mare who is clearly misunderstood.' The colt looked really worriedly at Roadie and stated with a serious and concerned voice, "She's no pony, she isn't what you think she is, we have no idea what she is, but we know what she isn't and what she does." Roadie was hurt, he thought the colt was joking with him, but this was really not funny in the slightest.

Roadie quickly wrote again, 'Then tell me, what does she do?' Roadie looked at him with a face that said 'I dare you to lie to me', but the colt didn't see it. The colt took a deep breath, "… She's an omnivore, but she eats more meat than she does plants, and not just any meat, ponies and animals. But she still eats food that you and I enjoy every day." Roadie was on the verge of a blind rage, he wanted to rip the table out of the floor by the bolts and slam it over this colt for lying about his friend. Roadie didn't even move his head, he was still looking the colt in the eye when he wrote, 'you're lying she isn't like that, she's too kind.' The colt shook his head, "It's true, and it's important you answer my questions truthfully, so that we can help you." Roadie thought for a second about the word 'help', as he didn't need it, or at least didn't know what he needed help from.

Roadie was a very kind and helpful soul who's passion was to help others and play his guitar to spread happiness, and most ponies were almost sure that he didn't have a bad bone in his body, but this colt lying about Anonymous gave him enough rage-induced strength to buck a tree right out of the ground and straight into orbit. The colt placed the glasses back on his head, looked at Roadie, and asked, "Where was she taking you?" Roadie grasped the pen and wrote, 'She was taking me to a motel so I could get out of the cold.' Roadie looked back at the colt's face, which had the same worried expression he had before, who said, "She was probably taking you there to eat you where there were no witnesses." Roadie resisted the urge to stab the colt with his pen by writing, 'If she was going to eat me, then why did she help me in the woods, instead of eating me there?' Roadie raised his brow, as did the colt. The colt was beaten, it was a fair answer, but he ignored Roadie's question and changed the subject with a final question, "Do you know her name?" Roadie knew what he was doing, he was trying to squeeze her name out of him so that they could track her easier, and Roadie didn't want that. Roadie shook his head and the other colt didn't actually write anything in his clipboard this time, he only did what looked like a checkmark. "You're free to go…" he stopped, as if busted because he didn't know Roadie's name. So Roadie wrote quickly, 'Roadie' and showed it to the other colt, "…Roadie. But we will come to re-collect you if you are needed further." The colt smiled and showed Roadie to the door, but on the way he was stopped by the blue unicorn that had slashed his leg.

His face was apologetic, and his tone of voice was quite the same. "Look, I want to apologize for the nasty gash I gave you back a few days ago, we thought you were a perpetrator, turns out you were a victim." Roadie was hit with realization when he said 'victim'. That's what the other colt had meant by 'so that we can help you…' they thought he was a victim, of Anonymous'. But they had it all wrong; she was just a mare that had been misunderstood just because she looked different. Roadie smiled at the unicorn, and extended a hoof in an offer for a shake. The unicorn took the offer with a smile. Roadie took his leave, and exited the building, more confused than ever.

It was still day, the time he spent in the building only amounted to about an hour. He thought to himself, 'Am I really a victim? What if they're right?' He then smacked himself for thinking in such a way about his friend. He wanted to scream, laugh, and cry all at the same time, because he was annoyed at how the world looked at Anonymous, and he wanted to laugh about how she was still alive, which he was really happy about. But most of all, he wanted to cry, because he didn't know where she was, and he just wanted to see her again.

Roadie wanted to play his guitar, but he had left it at Fluttershy's, which gave him another reason to add to the list of reasons he wanted to go back to her house. He wanted to go back just to see her as well; she made him happy, and inspired him more than ever to make others happy. Roadie then took flight, and headed back for Ponyville.