Fluttershy felt uncomfortable. More unconformable and unsafe than she had felt in a very, very long time.
She could, she supposed, reason herself that out of all the places she had ever felt unsafe in her life, this was the safest place yet. But this did not help her by any means.
At a glimpse, this place was, looked and felt nice. The ponies here where friendly and they seemed to have their own, if strange, high morals and boundaries of right and wrong. The houses where simple yet inviting and their foals where always playing with each other. And most of all the good fact that they where seemingly thriving in the middle of nowhere, in the desert miles away from any sign of civilisation that was marked on a map.
Fluttershy had thought all this at first as well. That was, of course until she had spent more than a few hours here and the town had slipped from welcoming to horrifying. Not only had the mayor of the town stole her and her friends cutiemarks, stole her friends and was trying to convert them all but it only took so long before the smiles here went from friendly to uncanny-valley and the houses could be viewed like death traps.
The Yellow Mare's body crouched over a small wooden table as she fluttered her itchy and sweaty wings out into the small breeze. Wide eyes looked at her from across the table questioningly and another shiver fell down her poor shiver-abused spine. Pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies alike stood around the table outside of Sugerbelle's bakery to meet her.
The harsh sun beat down on her heavily and her eyes blinked through the harsh bright light the desert was bringing to her eyes. She felt eerily spooked out as the ponies stared at her uncomfortably and there smiles never faded off their faces as they talked.
After her confusing conversation and interrogation with Starlight Glimmer the Yellow Pegasus had walked out of the large cottage to search for some answers. She had originally just wanted to talk to Sugerbelle about her whole situation and get some help from the kindest mare in the village. However for some strange reason and to Fluttershy's dismay she hadn't been in.
So she had began to wait outside which of course had attracted her new "friends" to stare at her widely and ask her some questions.
And to put it simply, Fluttershy was doing quite bad at doing so.
"You have a lovely mane..." One of the wide eyed stallions pointed out as he helped himself to one of the muffins Sugerbelle had left out for late costumers. "It's very different to the mane everypony here has though. But don't worry we'll get it looking equal in no time!".
"Oh~ and you have such pretty wings" Another nameless mare pointed out as she touched the some-what sweat covered yellow feathers "Maybe you could take my child out for a fly sometime? He's always wanted to fly but his fathers always busy so can't teach him".
Fluttershy just nodded her head at the generic praises that where thrown at her and continued to wave her wings in the wind. The desert was such a hot place and the ongoing stares of these ponies weren't helping her calm down any quicker.
"So..." A blue mare with light sky blue eyes who's name Fluttershy couldn't place asked slyly, "What was your life like before you came to our humble village?".
Most of the ponies around her immediately became awkward at this question and turned their stares from Fluttershy to the curious Pegasus. Fluttershy felt her heart skip a beat as a sudden silence filled the once chattering table of ponies. A crushing, guilty silence that made the yellow Pegasus swear that she could have heard a pin drop.
Suddenly but understandably so a few of the ponies stood from the table and left awkwardly as if the conversation had ended; some even leaving their food behind in the baking sun.
Confusion filled Fluttershy's mind as she and only three or four ponies remained at the table; wide eyes still burrowing into her soul as friendly as unrelieved tension could.
"U-u-um it was very bad..." The Element Of Kindness squeaked as she delved into her brain to find the right answer.
"No, no, no..." The mare replied back teasingly as she gently waved her head from side to side as one would reply to a small foal who had misbehaved "I meant what your society was like. Many ponies here come from very dark backgrounds where nopony is actually equal. And we where wondering what you lived like. Was it bad for you? Did you and your friends fall out all the time?"
"Yea" A stallion with a orange coat butted in as he elbowed the other one to stop talking "Starlight tells us that other society's treat ponies like us incredibly badly. She says that talking about our pasts when we get here is another way to realize the true friendship and harmony we've been given!"
"But I thought you where not really allowed to talk about your pasts here" The Element Of Kindness gulped. The mares expression suddenly turned to one of distaste. Her eyebrows bent into a scowl and her lips frowned almost menacingly.
"No and yes" she scoffed as she used her hoof to swipe away some stray hairs away from her snow white mane. "Unlike one pony who I won't name who has been locked back in the reformation room we hate the idea of getting our cutiemarks back. We are allowed to think about the times we had our cutiemark with hate and happiness of the fact we don't have one anymore."
The mare leaned in to Fluttershy and whispered the last part suspiciously into her ear, so close and quiet that the element of kindness swore she could feel the mares tongue shaking as it ever-so-gently flicked at her ear.
"However if we think or talk about the legume in a positive light, then we get sent to reformation."
Fluttershy felt her breath hitch as the Pegasus drew back and looked into her eyes. Trusting blue sapphire orbs locked with sunken almost glazed over ones and another gulp fell under the yellow mares throat.
A small realization quickly hit Fluttershy about how brainwashed these ponies really where but quickly dismissed it as the blue mares sudden low patience seemed to start appearing on her face.
"I would really not talk about it" The Element Of Kindness lied through her teeth as she stared awkwardly at the morbidly curious mare "It was...uh...quite...damaging to my psyche."
Yep, ever, ever so damaging
"Oh... sorry for asking then..." The mere replied, her lips smirking in a taunting sense and her eyes still fixating Fluttershy's forehead. "It's just..."
SLAM
Fluttershy instinctively hid under her mane as a strong snow white hoof pounded against the wooden table; stopping the mare from finishing her sentence mid-through.
"Now, Night Glider, you know Fluttershy is our friend but she is a new friend and you shouldn't be putting her in the spot like that, understand? Now break is nearly over, please can you all go back to your current occupations?"
The element of kindness didn't even have to look up from her vision of pink strands to sense the fear in the small group of ponies and Night Glider herself. For a moment all the element of kindness could hear was the eight pairs of hooves echoing on the soft sandy ground, leaving the front of the bakery with nervous haste.
However, Fluttershy had no time to come out of her scared haze as Double Diamonds hoof latched onto her face and pulled it towards his own.
His snow white fur covered the the yellow mares vision and the scent of sweat on him was almost unbrearable as they stared each other down; snout to snout only a few centimeters apart.
"I'm sorry about that..." That was a lie. Fluttershy could tell; his voice was too serious for any real sympathy and his eyes had flicked from hers when he had spoken. "But your new here. So I'd like to inform you, that, in retrospect, I'm glad that they told you the basis of our rules..."
The shy mare felt his eyes begin to Pierce into her own as his voice turned venomous and his strength on her face tightened.
"But remember this. All we want is freedom for all, cutiemarks are the legume, for they keep us in mandatory roles."
It was dark. A grim pitch-black dark atmosphere that filled the single street full of barely made houses and just working lamps. Shadows aligned between the bricked walls as the clouds covered and overlapped the piecing light of the full desert moon; the harsh pouring rain making the houses shine blinding in its light.
One could not hear but a sound accept the ongoing torment of rain the dry earth received. The droplets in their hundreds and thousands laying waste to the civilians houses and grinding and readying the stone for it's eventual collapse. The smell of moist yet burning wood filled the air as some of the still awake ponies burned the element in there chimneys in the sheer hope to get some warmth from the fire.
It was a stormy night in the small isolated equality striven town. And unknown and unfortunate for the Element Of Kindness, the worst the town had received yet. Dark and gloomy rainclouds covered Fluttershy's curtain's, the once beautiful sky and the sun she had saw this very mourning would barely have been seen through the fog; making the night much darker than Fluttershy had anticipated.
Frozen rain lashed heavily against the small windowpanes and the yellow Pegasus had lost feeling in the edges of her hooves hours ago due to the harsh frostbite. The white blanket was soft and cold to the touch around her body but that helped little as the draft of fog lifted the warmth from the room.
The young mare had concluded that whoever built this house had no idea that the weather would get so bad; as it could barely stand the rain as it is!
The Yellow Pegasus hummed lightly as she turned in her sheets and felt her limbs spread out into the cold ocean of fabric her body was surrounded in. Fluttershy had already begun to crave for her cottage in Ponyville. With stable walls, good weather, nice furniture and actual central-heating. Her poor animals and probably been waiting for her tonight but she couldn't feed them could she? The poor things; but she had to stay here in this town and let her animals starve and get her friends cutiemarks back. It was all for the greater good she supposed.
Yet how cruel fate had treated her lately; all she wanted to do was cuddle up to her animal friends and be at peace under Ponyvilles normally blue sky. But now she was sure that she couldn't even do that now. She could barley communicate with a bird! How was she supposed to do what Starlight recommended she do and live here when her main talent and the thing that had made her...her had been stripped away?
The Yellow Pegasus felt a sudden chill enter her as a sound of a door opening broke the routine sound of rainfall. The wooden door creaked open inviting a light into the cold yet humble abode and slammed gently in a sparkling wave of unicorn magic. Curled up neatly in the bedsheets Fluttershy didn't even have to turn her head to know it was Starlight coming back from whatever matters she had to attend to earlier.
Swiftly the mayor walked over to the simple bed and gently tugged the fabric away from Fluttershy who complied, if only to show she was awake. Then Starlight, after a few shuffled and turns, lay in the coldness with the Yellow Pegasus and stared up at the ceiling and sighed. A sigh to show that the weight of owning a village left from her shoulders and her ever deceiving mind was yet still working.
"So, Fluttershy my friend, how are you still settling in?" Her voice was as charming and deceiving as it had been the same mourning and a pleased smile swept across her face.
"Fine, thank you" the Element Of Kindness replied a full lie as she had had not-so-good experiences in this town already.
"Good, I would hate to think our new friend would be so uncomfortable staying with us. Unless you're not really our friend..." Starlight trailed off suggestively as she leaned to the frame of the bed. Her eyes burrowing into Fluttershy's temples in deep thought.
This was what she was trying to do wasn't it? Hardly a few sentences into the conversation and she was already trying to trip Fluttershy up. Well the yellow mare could play this game as well. She was defiantly not like Rainbow Dash who would never back out of a challenge. But her friends were on the line and that changed everything.
"N-n-no I would never!" Fluttershy convinced as hard as she could "It's hard to understand, yes but I would never turn back now Starlight Glimmer."
The purple mare coaxed her head and responded, scoffing quietly "Others have said that before, how can I, no, we know you're any different?"
"Because I like being here."
Short. simple. lies. That was Fluttershy's plan. Sure, it was'ent the greatest but it was much more preferable than blubbering in her own shyness like an idiot. And anyway, if she kept them short there would be less time for screw ups.
Oh, yes. She could play this game with Starlight Glimmer too.
"Really?" Starlight responded with a fake toothy grin, makinig Fluttershy unsure whether the mayor was tricking her or actually had gone insane after living for years in the middle of the desert wthought anybody at her level of intelligence to talk to (these ponies that she had hypnotised sure won't as smart as her, that was for sure).
"Thats good. I would hate for you to live here if you where sad. We're friends now and I care for you Fluttershy, here we all do!"
Short simple lies? That was the plan was'ent it? Well Starlight seemed to be good at this game too.
"Really?" the element of kindness responded with the most sweetness and "friendship" in her voice she could manage at once.
Suddenly, after Fluttershy made this statement she felf herself get flung to the wooden headboard and a large pound rediating in her ears. Purple limbs and hooves surrounded her and she felt her own limbs freeze in instinct as irational fear began to consume her slightly.
Starlight turned her head once, twice. A cruel smile crepping across her face as she realised that the shy mare was unable to escape her grasp.
Leaning her head close to Fluttershy's ear the mayor laughed a small but silently cruel laugh. No real effort put into hiding her real nature.
"Really."
The cold statment made the element of kindness grimace and her heart skip a beat at the pure helplessness of her situation. Here she was in the middle of nowhere, her friends captured, her soul purpose lost and being held essentially captive my a cruel dictator-ish unicorn who did'nt care about hiding her facade or not because she knew that no matter what; she was more powerful than Fluttershy.
Apart from a faint mark of bags under her eyes and a few hairs out of place in her mane she was still the mare she had been this mourning with eyes like a demons. The same motives, the same sadistic way of thinking and the same mind. And the same mare who had stolen her friends cutiemarks for her selfish goals. She was mean. She was cunning. She was the enemy.
Fluttershy was sharing a bed with the enemy.
The yellow mare's green eyes turned almost comically wide at the realization of what she was doing hit fast.
A new found strength quickly ripped through Fluttershy and before she knew what she was doing she was already tangleing her limbs around Starlight, around the covers and away form the headboard looking for something, anything that could get her ou-
Fluttershy felt herself retreat as her eyes widened for a finale time that day. Her fell back into the stern lavender mares grasp and her strength began to receed.
No...no...her kindness could simply not allow this! Even if it was for the enemy, the pony who had captured her friends nopony truly deserved this...right?
Starlight turned towards the element bearers face and her smile disappeared
She had noticed the blood.