Twilight awoke for the second time that day with a headache. This time it came from hitting the bakery's door head first. She also again had a back ache from sleeping on the ground and a hunger that she could almost feel was eating her from the inside out.
Twilight began to stir. She could hear faint voices around her, but they sounded far away.
"-waking up."
"Shush! Now girls, let her wake up slowly. I can't fly, or cast shields, or whatever Pinkie does, so if it ain't Twi, I want to be able to run a'fore she's up and angry." she could hear Applejack say.
"Twilight!" *bang* pinkie was apparently the wake up committee, and apparently the wake up committee still had the cymbals from her anti-parasprite arsenal.
Twilight jumped to her paws, fully awake and ready to run.
When her vision finally caught up to the rest of her over heightened senses, she realized that, as fate held it, she had been laying in such a way that when she jumped up she had knocked over and landed on top of Applejack, her only friend still present other than Pinkie.
Judging from the trail of rainbows leading from the scene, she could assume that at least Rainbow Dash had also been here not a second prior.
"Sorry AJ, Pinkie startled me." Twilight said with an awkward laugh.
Her laugh was cut short as she was bucked below the ribs.
"Darn beast! Get!" Applejack shouted as she fought Twilight off of her.
Twilight, on the other hoof, was not fighting back at all. When Applejack bucked her in her already pained stomach it was all she could do to stay upright.
"Applejack! It's me! Twilight!" she coughed before her legs couldn't take it anymore and she fell over. Once again unconsciousness held her.
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Twilight awoke for the third time in what felt like twenty minutes, still with a headache, backache, and hungrier than ever.
She moaned as she sat up. She noticed several disturbing things in quick succession: first, from the window she could tell it was already getting dark out, meaning she had been out for hours and not the minutes it felt like. Second, the window through which she looked was not one of the Cakes residence, but rather Fluttershy's cottage. Finally, she noticed that said cottage's owner was only a few hooves (or paws) away, cowering behind a lamp.
"Fluttershy? What happened?"
The pegasus let out a sigh of relief as she began to stand up.
"Why am I in your cottage? What happened at the Corner? Do you have anything to eat? Seriously, I feel like I could eat a horse!"
Right back down into a trembling ball the pegasus went.
"I'm kidding Fluttershy! But seriously, I'm starving. Do you have anything I can eat?"
The pegasus barely mustered the courage to look at her friend.
Twilight tried to give a reassuring smile, but it served the opposite effect. The ball of yellow only grew tighter at the sight of Twilight's newly exposed teeth.
"Fluttershy, don't be- argh!" Twilight let out a cry of pain as she attempted to go towards the shy mare.
Immediately the situation changed. Rather than being startled or more upset by Twilight's cry of pain, Fluttershy was instantly at her side checking the IV line Twilight had unknowingly pulled out.
"Twilight, I need you to relax and lay back." Fluttershy said with calm authority.
Twilight obeyed as best she could. "So, uh, how am I doing? Is there something wrong with me, other than the obvious?"
Fluttershy continued to work, wrapping Twilight's lightly bleeding leg. "Oh, no, you are fine, it's just after you passed out you wouldn't wake up. We tried to, but when you didn't we all took you here to get better. ...The cakes didn't like the idea of a predator passed out on their floor." Fluttershy concluded as she finished her bandaging.
"Ok, well, thank you for taking care of me. So, uh, am I ok to go?" Twilight asked.
"Are you ok to? Yes, but before you go I really would suggest that you let me-"
Twilight hadn't heard anything past the confirmation that she was free to go. As soon as she heard the "yes" she had leapt from Fluttershy's bed and opened up the door with her magic (that still thankfully worked) leading to the central room of Fluttershy's cottage.
As usual, the room was filled with many creatures of varying sizes and species. Unlike usual though, the entire room was not bustling with the activity of dozens of scurrying animals. Instead, they were all frozen in place, staring directly at Twilight.
"Oh no little ones! Don't worry! Twilight won't eat you! Right Twilight?" Fluttershy cooed as she came around from behind Twilight.
"What? Of course not! Why would I..."
The animals, despite their trust of the yellow pegasus, listened to their instinctual fear and began running to their burrows, holes, and homes.
"Fluttershy, what's going on?" Twilight asked.
"Well Twilight, you kind of, sort of, maybe, and I don't mean to be rude, look like a wolf." Fluttershy said in a meek voice as if she was relaying some terrible news.
"Yes, I realize that but that doesn't explain why they are all so..." Twilight let the words die.
"Well, it kind of does... You see, wolves are, well... carnivores." she put emphasis on the last word as if it was acid on her tongue.
"What's the big deal? I've seen you have tea parties with bears, squirrels, and beavers at the same time before. They never ran in fear, and I am quite sure that a bear is carnivorous."
"While that's true, most bears are considered carnivorous, they don't actually need meat. Even in the Everfree most bears eat a diet of more than three fourths vegetation. But Mr. Bear has gone full vegetarian, and all the animals are ok with that." Fluttershy explained.
"So? Just tell them that I'm a vegetarian too! There's no reason to be afraid of me."
"They'll know I'm lying if I told them that."
Twilight was almost as personally offended as she was confused, "Why would they think you were lying?"
"Because I would be. While bears can receive nutrition from plants and vegetation, wolves are strict carnivores..."
Twilight cringed in anticipation for what she knew Fluttershy was about to say next.
"Wolves cannot survive on a diet without meat."