"Go! Flee to the castle! We haven't much time!"
This sentence rang out into the darkness of Faith's dreams as the shapeless world of his sleeping mind formed shapes of grey and black, indistinguishable in form or function and menacing to behold. He felt the ground around him shudder, as if an earth quake had hit it and the sensation of his legs moving, carrying him far away. He twisted in his dream and looked behind himself, shadows of blackest night following after him, shifting and without form.
Fear gripped him as he moved up a set of stairs and through a pair of doors, bellowing out orders for the doors to be sealed immediately. A loud boom reverberated in the silence. He heard muffled voices, his body turning to see various shadows milling around this grey filled void that he had entered. He couldn't make out anything that looked recognizable at all, not even himself. Finally he turned back towards the door and spoke, but even his own voice was muffled, as if absorbed by the room. His vision blurred then faded, the only audible sound was his heart, beating out firm and strong. He couldn't help but feel that whatever this was he was dreaming about, it must be of some importance. As he strove to make the world of his dreams to reform...
"Good morning Sleepyhead!"
Faith jerked awake suddenly to see the cyan eyes of his guest, Fluttershy, staring down at him, a wide smile upon her face. Faith sighed and let his head drop back to the couch, thinking about his dream. Whatever it had been, he felt that it was of significant importance to him, something that he needed to know. All he knew currently was that there had been some sort of castle. It was all so confused, all jumbled and meaningless, despite feeling that it had some sort of meaning to him, he couldn't force the images to return.
He growled softly and pressed his hooves to his eyes, his head throbbing in pain, a headache that had just know hit him. Fluttershy noticed this and backed away from the couch slowly, looking at her host with a look of fear and concern, had she upset him?
Faith noticed this and forced out a smile through his pain and said, "Its nothing, just a bad headache, that's all."
Fluttershy smiled a little in relieve and turned back to the kitchen. Faith watched after her until he realized with a jolt that she had been making a sizeable breakfast for the two of them. He smiled a little before dropping back onto the couch covering his eyes to block out the sun. He had no idea what had caused his headache but regardless, for the coming days events, after all, they had quite a lot of work to do, Fluttershy was just under half way done with taking the well apart, and he had a lot more left to do in the garden. He hoped very much that his headache would go away.
He sighed gently as his head pounded, the sound of the skillet over the wood stove serving only to exacerbate his migraine. It wasn't too much later when he heard a light cough next to him. He pulled his fore leg down to look at the source, seeing Fluttershy standing there with a cup of some sort of dark tea in it. It didn't quite smell of tea which caused him to look questioningly at her, she nodded and he took the drink, drinking it down quickly. It was a tea of sorts, but held a very bitter taste to it that made him grimace, despite not wanting to upset Fluttershy.
However, all she did was smile and take the cup from him, placing it in the kitchen sink before turning back to what she was cooking. Still trying to clear his mouth, Faith slumped back onto the couch and covered his eyes again. It was a few minutes before he noticed his head ache ebbing away. Whatever had been in the tea to make it so bitter had obviously been an herbal medicine of sorts, yet another element about her that he liked...
At this Faith opened his eyes and stared up into the blackness his foreleg created. Had he just admitted to liking her, he barely had known her a week and he liked her? It was strange, but he couldn't help but like her. She was the sweetest pony that could ever remember meeting, but that raised another topic, one that made his goofy smile slide into a frown. He couldn't remember meeting any other ponies besides Fluttershy, well, apart from those he traded with for materials and supplies. He must surely have had parents and friends, but he could remember none of it.
With a heavy sigh, he sat back up and looked over to the kitchen, seeing Fluttershy preparing two plates of food, her soft voice floating over to him as she hummed gently to herself. He smiled and watched as she worked, watched as she put out the wood stove, placed all the dishes she'd cooked with into the sink and finally set the table, lavishing a little extra care on the small bunch of flowers she had arranged in a vase there.
She turned back to the couch and noticed Faith watching her, his piercing gaze made her blush with amazing intensity. He smiled at her and her blush deepened to a shade he didn't think possible. Sliding off the couch and walked over to the table and sat down at it, motioning for Fluttershy to join him. Still blushing she sat down at the table and focused on her food, trying to get rid of her pounding heart, not looking at Faith as she ate.
Faith watched Fluttershy eat for the first couple of moments before turning back to his food, loving every bite of the delicious meal that she had prepared. Despite her previous cheer, a deep quite settled over the pair of them and despite all of Faith's attempts to break it, the silence continued for quite some time. Finally, after a full ten minutes of silence, the meal came to an end, Faith moving to cleaning up before Fluttershy had even blinked.
He took her empty plate and his own, placing them in the sink before looking at her, her eyes shining brightly in the light of the morning sun. He smiled at her to reassure her but her face darkened to a deeper red and she looked away. He had never in all his life known many ponies and the first one that he had spoken to and been around for longer than a day was the most shy pony he'd ever met.
Faith sighed and said, "Fluttershy, you don't need to be this embarrassed around me. I've already proven to be more than kind to you haven't I?" She nodded silently and continued to stare resolutely at the floor. As he stood there watching her, a thought occurred to him, maybe she hadn't spent much time around a stallion, maybe all her friends where mares. Thinking on this he asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
The second he finished his sentence her face went such a dark shade of red that he thought she was going to faint. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before managing to say, "I...I...I don't..." He had thought as much, she was shy around stallions; she socialized most frequently with her friends, which must surely all be mares. On this he smiled and said, "Well, how about we get started today, after all, we don't want to waste daylight."
Fluttershy silently nodded, still completely stunned by her hosts complete lack of tact, and followed Faith as he walked out from the house.
Hours later….
Fluttershy sighed wearily as she finally removed the last of the destroyed stones from the well and tossed it into the large wheel barrow she'd used yesterday. The work had proceeded much smoother than Faith had expected, he had long since finished reploughing the fields and had been sowing seeds for his garden for the past three hours. It looked like she could be heading back home earlier than she had expected.
Somewhere in her heart she felt a slight pang of disappointment at the idea of leaving this comfortable little home. Even though she found it difficult to socialize with Faith, his earlier question had kept her flushed for two full hours, she still wanted to help him grow, to open up more to the world. She had tried to formulate ways in which to talk to him, or introduce him to others, maybe even get him to come to one of Pinkie Pies frequent parties, but she wasn't sure of how to do it.
She turned to look back at Faith, who was busy sowing seeds down at the far end of his garden and with a jolt she realized that he was almost done with it. The speed with which he worked clearly indicated to her that he had done this a number of times, his deft movements flowing easily as he tossed seeds into the recently ploughed earth.
Fluttershy sighed and turned towards the wheelbarrow, grunting with exertion as she pushed it over to the pile of rock that she'd cleaned up the previous day, tipping it over with a heave and spilling the rocks out onto the pile. She let the wheel barrow fall back to the ground with a thud and felt rather than heard Faith approach her, she turned to see him standing a few feet away from her, looking like he was about to say something. He seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say and merely smiled and nodded.
She smiled back a little and pushed the wheelbarrow back towards his tool shed, following her host. He set his bag of seeds down onto a little shelf inside the shed before standing aside and allowing her to push the wheelbarrow inside. Faith moved to leave and brushed up against her, the cramped tool shed was never built to hold all of his farm equipment and two ponies. She felt the spot on her shoulder burn with nerves but she ignored it the best she could and followed out past him.
Hitching a smile on her face she asked, "Well, um, we are done for today…should I make dinner?" Faith turned to look at her and smiled before shaking his head, "No that's alright; I'll take care of it. You just relax." To his surprise, Fluttershy shook her head and insisted, "No. I'll do it. You've done much more than I have today, you sit down and relax."
Caught off guard at her sudden show of assertiveness he nodded and moved inside, Fluttershy opening her mouth to protest until she saw him head into his small work shop.
With a sigh she went into the kitchen and proceeded to fix dinner for the pair of them. She felt sort of proud that she'd managed to take this chore from him, especially as he'd been so adamant about it. She started humming to herself as she began cooking. It wasn't long after she started that Faith came out of his workshop and headed outside again, though why he'd go back outside left her confused, had he forgotten something? Still pondering on what it was he was doing, she continued with her work.
After about fifteen more minutes, she set the table and walked over to the front door, pushing it open to tell Faith that dinner was ready. She paused as she set eyes upon him; he sat there on the porch of his home, slowly whittling away at a piece of redwood that he held between his hooves, the blade of his whittling knife making practiced movements as he scored shaved and carved at the wood, his deep voice humming out in a calming tone as he worked. She was entranced by what she saw in spite of herself, she had never seen such skill in all her life and yet it seemed to come to him with ease. She just wanted to sit next to him and watch as the wood carving came into being, to marvel at its design and crafting.
Fluttershy moved and sat down next to Faith, who spared her a glance as he cut another stroke into the wood. Still staring in amazement Fluttershy asked, "How do you do that?" Faith turned his head away and spat the blade out of his mouth, the sharp tip burying itself in the wood. He examined his work a little before answering, "Very carefully."
Fluttershy giggled sweetly and reached out for the carving, which Faith handed to her. She looked it over with a smile, it was the starting of a carved house, probably the same one they were staying in but the detail he had managed to work in with the knife was amazing; everything from the outline of the door to the windows was perfectly square. She handed the carving back to him and he stood up and stretched a little, "I assume that dinner is ready?"
Fluttershy nodded, smiling as she turned and went back inside Faith following behind her with his carving and knife left on the porch as they both went to dinner.