//------------------------------// // 16 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Fluttershy had a very good reason for apologizing to these three sentient crustaceous bipedal creatures. She was the cause of their deaths after all and she had to make sure they understood that it was all her fault. The light in the crustaceous trio’s eyes died a little. They knew what she said, why she said it and what she meant by saying it. They were going to die and there was no stopping their deaths. Weirdly enough they were forgiving Fluttershy for all this as they ceased their struggles to move. The first to die was at the front of the triangular formation, three powerful raptor talons burst through his chest splattering the room with his blood and organs. Fluttershy stayed unblinking even as the alien blood and organs showered her in gore. The creature that just killed that crustaceous being pulled its right leg out of the dead corpse and turned to the other two, looking from the one on the right to the one on the left. The large deadly creature leapt onto the bipedal crustaceous being on the left ripping off its clawed arm and started to rend the body limb from limb in a messy fashion. Even then the last crustaceous being didn’t fight back or resist what was coming; it slowly lowered its arm and waited patiently staring into Fluttershy’s eyes. Fluttershy refused to avert her gaze. The creature’s powerful legs were stained with alien blood and it moved towards the last crustaceous being, once close enough it shot its head forward and it decapitated the last being with its beak. It was a quick clean jerking motion resulting in a splatter of more alien blood. The only thing Fluttershy could think of at this moment was that at least their deaths were quick. She stared into the creatures eyes and then her eyes began to wander the form of the tall creature. She had thought the creature was some form of reaper, that its blood red eyes and immediate action of slaying those crustaceous beings with energy weapons meant it was a monster that finally came to end her suffering. On a second glance Fluttershy noted that its eyes were pink, it was covered in green fur or were they feathers? It had a strange mohawk shaped crest sticking from its head. It was definitely avian in appearance and it slowly walked towards her on two incredibly well built legs that had a heavily packed musculature. It was hard to tell if this thing had wings or not, because if it did then they were really small wings and it resembled a cassowary or ostrich only a lot more powerful in appearance. Fluttershy closed her eyes and let her body fall to the side, she laid there bleeding out on the floor waiting for her demise. Something gently pressed against her face and cooed at her softly with a long sad sounding trill. She was dying and she didn’t think the bird creature could help her, she felt its beak run through her mane gently and then she felt it messing with the feathers on her left wing for a bit. It was after a few moments of bleeding out that Fluttershy realize the creature wasn’t going to end her life, instead it seemed very reluctant to if the soft touches at her bleeding shoulder meant anything. It even pokes at the leg covering the torso wound that went in one side and out the other. As she felt the beak wrap around her body she lost consciousness. -- With a gasp Fluttershy woke up again. She didn’t know where she was or how long she had been out, but the pain she was in seemed currently muted. How could she still be alive? Her head was burning up, she probably had a fever at the moment and with her injuries she knew walking was impossible at the moment. She opened her eyes slowly, taking in the light around her. Despite the dull nagging pain, Fluttershy was really in a comfortable position with something pressed up against her body. She was in what appeared to be a nest located in an open enclosed space with what appeared to be a large white object sitting in a corner underneath a strange circular shape in the ceiling. Why wasn’t she hungry or thirsty and was that warm feeling that was pressing up against her belly? Shaking her head Fluttershy’s vision blurred a bit, she wasn’t feeling very well but she could still think clearly enough to take in her surroundings better. The nest she was in was made of what she figured to be foreign bits of what she assumed was an alien form of wood, she was laying at the edge of this nest with something smooth and snuggly placed against her form. With her head propped up against the edge of the nest she didn’t have to lift it to get a good look around at what was around her. Looking down at her body her mane fell a bit into her face and she couldn’t lift a hoof to move her mane out of the way. At least it looked particularly clean of any blood that it would have been covered in considering her last memory of falling to the floor and waiting for the large two legged bird creature to end her. With her mane covering her right eye, Fluttershy’s left eye spotted what the smooth object pressed against her body was. It was a relatively big egg and it was lying against her fur. Upon further inspection around her waist was what looked like large plant leaves somehow meticulously bound together by some form of strange sap. Turning to her right shoulder where she was shot there was even more leaves wrapped there. Was the creature that killed those aliens with beam weaponry intelligent and did it really just leave her alone with it’s… a loud clang sounded out drawing her attention away from the nest. Her vision once again passed the large white object sitting underneath the circle in the ceiling and towards the wall the clanging sound had come from. Slowly the metallic wall started shifting out of the way and Fluttershy could see the green bird pushing it open with one leg. It had opened a passage into this room with its physical strength; it was quite amazing to watch the leg flex its prowess. It looked at the nest and looked clearly surprised to see her awake. Turning back and moving through the open doorway the bird creature bent its head down to start dragging something towards her carefully. After it reached Fluttershy, the large green bird turned around and gently nuzzled the egg with its large beak and then carefully moved the pony’s mane out of her face while cooing at her softly. “Thank you.” As soon as Fluttershy said it the bird nuzzled her cheek, then it turned around to what it dragged into the room, a giant leaf loaded with bizarre number of strange plants. It started to take some of things in the huge leaf into its beak. Several crunching sounds were heard and it turned back to her then gave her a rather suspicious look, Fluttershy head was rather fuzzy so she could have just been imagining it. The bird quickly lunged forward and jabbed its beak into Fluttershy’s shocked mouth that had opened for a scream, it parted her lips and she could hear it start retching. Was it really going to do what Fluttershy thought it was going to do? She felt her mouth fill with pulped alien plant mush. This might explain why she wasn’t hungry or thirsty anymore and the bird obviously didn’t want her fighting its attempts to help her recover. So it had lashed out quickly to pin her to the nest with one foot and had got her mouth open to spew the already chewed life giving food into her. With her mouth full, Fluttershy felt a gentle rubbing of a single curled talon that had pinned her on her throat from the birds left leg and her reflexively swallowed in reaction to the touch. Now Fluttershy fully understood what it was like to be a baby bird being fed by its mother with already chewed food being regurgitated down her throat. It was a bit slimy, not to mention a tad disgusting even if the taste of food was welcoming. She didn’t think this experience would come quite like this with a large alien bird that she knew was obviously female at this point. Fluttershy didn’t think she’d ever forget this experience for as long as she thought she would live, which she figured wasn’t long if she died of sickness or her magical mutations, not to mention all kinds of bodily and mental trauma that could still befall her in between then and now. Fluttershy hadn’t been paying attention to the bird as it shoved something else in her mouth, it tasted nasty and horrible. Not that tasting regurgitated food from an alien bird was any better, but this stuff wasn’t already chewed and it was being forced down her throat. The bird wasn’t going to let her spit it out and it was giving her a firm look and after she roughly swallowed it rubbed its beak against her face cooing happily and started singing a foreign song to her. Fluttershy’s eyelids drooped at the foreign song as the egg was pressed further into her side by the left leg again. She tried to fight going back to sleep after having only woken up for a short time again, but the bird was persistent in singing so softly and calmly in a melodic manner. This was the creature that had slaughtered three crustaceous beings that were armed with weapons without hesitation? It was downright odd, then again when was anything Fluttershy experienced in the universe not odd. The pony curled around the egg and her eyes fully closed, the lullaby fully petered out. She felt a caressing touch running through her mane, petting her softly until she lost consciousness again. -- Waking up again Fluttershy felt an agonizing pain in her shoulder, her eyes snapped open and she saw the most curious of sights. It wasn’t the female green ostrich thing that was for sure. It was a small blue green monkey creature with no tail and two cute little antennas poking out of its head. It was hard to definitively tell what color it was in this lighting, but what she could see was that it had a thick fur around its neck like a lions mane only smaller. It squeaked and jumped at seeing her eyes snap open and in its right hand it held a blood covered leaf. In its left hand was a fresh leaf with some strange form of sap on it; was this the thing that tended to her wounds earlier? She heard two other sounds and it turned to the two other beings like it in the room and they then all performed a synchronized musical chatter. They were small, but they had a strange camaraderie about them. One was panicked so they collectively sung to calm down the one Fluttershy had spooked. Now calmed down a bit the creature then moved over to her and quickly slapped the leaf against her shoulder as the other two gathered more leaves to finish wrapping her shoulder and most likely to get started on her torso. Fluttershy had a lot of things running through her mind. What were these creatures? Were they friends with the bird? Seeing that they didn’t move the egg from her body, they most likely were given they were tending to her wounds even if that sap was causing a burning, itching and overall painful sensation in her shoulder. One of them shifted the egg from her grasp and if she wasn’t so infirmed Fluttershy would have fought against it. The egg didn’t go far, it was just put on the far side of the nest and Fluttershy relaxed as two of them worked together to force her body upwards. They were dexterous and strong little creatures to have lifted her up as much as they did, the third one went about fixing up her bloody leaves with need sap covered leaves that caused to her to wince as they were slapped into place. She doubted these three alien monkeys would have been capable of taking on those more intelligent looking crustaceous beings. Memories of the crustaceous beings were going to be giving Fluttershy nightmares for quite a while; they were clearly fully sentient and armed with incredible technology geared towards causing harm. Even if they cared little for her existence, Fluttershy still felt sad for them and how they died. Fluttershy felt herself being dropped back into the nest; they stared at her curiously as she did to them. She opened her mouth to inhale and a rasping sound came from her throat when she did, her throat was so dry and her nose felt like it was rubbed raw and she most definitely had a burning headache. One of the three monkey being pointed at her while squeaking something to the other two, they all looked identical so it was hard to tell which one was the leader or if there were supposed to be any differences between them. They were all friends and seemed to be keen on working together for a common cause. The alien monkeys went over to the several large leaves filled with various plants that now littered the room; one hefted out a large heavy looking purple pimply gourd and had a little problem with its weight almost falling down. The other two monkeys assisted, coming to its aid and then they were all chattering to each other in a relatively fast manner and every once in a while their beady little eyes that reminded Fluttershy of a newborn foal looked back towards her. After a moment all three of them started to do something odd, they gnawed the top off the gourd and started eating the insides of it. They hadn’t looked particularly hungry, but they were quick to consume the food as fast as they could and all that they had left was empty hollowed out gourd. They all turned to her and chattered something unintelligible to each other before they went over to the wall dragging the gourd with them and started climbing on top of each other’s shoulders. These three creatures were a marvel and quite intelligent as instead of using strength like the large ostrich creature, there was a clicking sound and they pulled the metallic door open slightly peering through the opening. From what she could see the next room over was the lit one that she had stared the crustaceous being to their deaths, she knew because she saw the headless corpse on the floor from her position in the nest. The three dead crustaceous creatures were likely moved out of the way. Looking to the three monkey creatures Fluttershy saw that while in the dark their fur looked green, but in the light it was a happy bright blue color. The three little alien monkey creatures scurried out having seen no danger apparently, one quickly poked its head back in to gaze at her before the door closed shut leaving Fluttershy to the darkened room. Where were they going? Why were there so many leaves with food in them, it was like they were preparing for something. Fluttershy felt her vision blur slightly and blinking she found that the three creatures were back in the room and the egg was once again pressed up against her body. When had they come back? Did she fall asleep again? One of them crawled up to her and held up the gourd they emptied earlier to her lips and tilted it forwards slightly. Water flowed into her mouth and she drank it greedily, without an ounce of hesitation. Once she finished it all, the creature pulled it back chattering happily. “Thank you.” Giving it a smile Fluttershy didn’t care if it understood what she said, it excitedly started chattering with the other two and they sang something in unison. Yawning and ignoring the cheerful little friendly things for the moment, Fluttershy tried to stay awake this time. Looking towards the white object Fluttershy saw something she hadn’t noticed before. It was larger than she thought it was and so was the cube shaped room and the circular indent in the ceiling above it was larger than that. She wondered what it was; her question was partially answered as the she watched the three monkeys gather around it noticing her staring, they opened a door on the thing and started dragging food filled leaves up the ramp into the large white object. Fluttershy stared in wonder, how had she not noticed these things earlier? Oh right, she was sick, injured and not feeling very well at all. A clang was heard and she slowly shifted her gaze towards the wall as the three alien monkeys quickly made their way over to the wall and quickly got it open with panicked looks on their faces. At least she now knew the bird and the monkeys were friends, slowly she nodded off having lost the strength to stay awake. -- The blaring of sirens, lots of unseen explosions, the entire room was shaking and there were red lights flashing all over the place. These were the things a confused Fluttershy now woke up to and she heard multiple clanging noises, she looked towards the wall and tried to get up. Her head spun and she stumbled dizzily still clutching the egg in her left hoof, she laid back down as standing up had not been a good idea. The doorway to this place obviously wasn’t opening for some reason and Fluttershy could hear the shrill cries of alarm from her caretakers. This was even above the loud siren currently threatening to make her go deaf; something very bad was obviously going on here. Her new sensitive bat ears twitched at something, she heard a soft hissing noised under all the louder noises taking place. She looked towards a corner of the room towards where the softer sounding noise was coming from. A sickly yellow substance started eating through the floor. Fluttershy’s pupils shrunk as the room started to slowly fill with the acidic liquid, as if the world coming to an end wasn’t bad enough for her. There was too much going on for Fluttershy to concentrate, but there was one thing she knew she had to do. She held the egg in her one good hoof and tried to push herself away from the acid starting to flood into the room at exponential rate with her hind legs. Fluttershy barely got further than a foot or two as it was close enough to start eating into her tail hair. An explosion of rainbow colored light ripped through where the doorway used to be. Fluttershy was dizzy, terrified and not the most sound of mind at the moment, so she could be forgiven for thinking someone had just fired Rainbow Dash through the door at the speed of light to save her life. Through the destroyed doorway Fluttershy saw a tall figure that was most likely her savior, said being turned around and ran off at incredible speeds as her four caretakers ran into the room in a panic. The large green bird grabbed her by her mane and started dragging her quickly towards the white object just as she lost about a good third of the hair from her tail to acid. Fluttershy stared sadly at the nest as it melted; she clutched the egg protectively to her chest. The three monkeys were busy opening the door on the large white object and as soon as Fluttershy was pulled in, the monkeys made it slam close and ran forwards. The bird followed still dragging Fluttershy until she could see through the glassy substance from her position on the floor in the front of this large thing that the circle above had opened up to the sky. There was movement and they passed by the circle in the ceiling, they were rising and only now did Fluttershy realized that this was a spaceship. The caretakers who were nursing her back to health all had grim looks on their faces, all their eyes were glued on one of the monitors as they left the planet’s atmosphere. Witness to the end of a world, Fluttershy went catatonic as she just couldn’t handle the stress anymore.