Chapter 4 – Opposites Attract.
As Fluttershy looked on, concern filled her for the sphinx now that she could not see him. Soon, the timberwolf too was out of sight. But she could still hear it growling. She took a few steps away from her door towards the entrance of the Everfree, a hoof to her chest. Her critters went to her and, with a clamoring of squeaks, chirps, and other assorted animal noises, started tugging at her tail and pushing her legs towards her cottage. Finally she let herself be pushed and pulled into her home.
She locked the door and looked out the kitchen window, watching for any sign of the sphinx – or, Celestia forbid, the giant timberwolf. When neither appeared immediately, she locked the kitchen window, then flew through the cottage closing and locking all the rest of the windows and doors to the outside to be safe. Panting, she then flew to her bedroom and looked out from the window there—the best vantage point in the house. Nothing stirred in the Everfree. The timberwolf was silent. But, where was the sphinx?
“Oh! I hope he's okay,” she said as she slumped beside her bed. In her mind, she visualized him. That masculine lion's body. Those strong arms and wings. Sleek fur, all the way to the tail. Paws that she knew must have been hiding powerful, sharp claws.
Most of her critters were downstairs, either in her kitchen or living room. The appearance of such a large timberwolf so close by had them all agitated. Angel Bunny tried to calm them down with the help of some of the critters who were close friends with the rabbit. And while they did a fine job, where was their caretaker? He looked up the stairs and tilted his head thinking, “What is she doing in there?”
Angel and some of the smaller critters and birds scampered up the stairs to Fluttershy's room to check on her. They found her sitting under the window next to her bed, with her head down and her face hidden behind her mane. But before any of them could even decide how best to help...
THUD! Something fell from the sky right outside the window and landed in the backyard with an impact that could be felt all through the house. Fluttershy’s head shot up, and she saw her critters gawking at the window. Angel looked at her and started jumping and pointing at the window, and she immediately jumped onto her bed and looked down into the yard. There, lying on the ground, was the sphinx, bleeding.
“Oh my goodness! Mr. Sphinx!” Fluttershy opened the bedroom window and flew down to him directly. She tried to lift the sphinx but he was a bit heavy. In her haste, she almost tried to drag him inside, but stopped and considered that that would only make the bleeding worse. She was going to need some help. She went to her kitchen door, only to realize she’d locked it from inside. But just as she remembered this, the lock clicked and the door swung wide open, pushed by Angel. The rabbit then turned and whistled into the cottage, signaling their bear-in-residence to come lend his considerable strength.
“Okay now, careful Mr. Bear! He's hurt pretty bad! Angel, get the medical supplies, stat!” The bear carried the sphinx to the kitchen, where he laid him on the kitchen table. Fluttershy followed, taking note of the blood trail the sphinx was leaving behind.
Angel, with the help of his posse of little critters, carried a medical briefcase over to Fluttershy. First, she went to her kitchen sink and Angel handed her a bottle of special soap from the medical case, meant to sterilize hooves to medical standards. Then, she began to work on the patient. She treated his wounds with special potions from Zecora, cleansing them while also reducing the bleeding to a trickle. This allowed her to pick out the splinters from in and around each gash. Though she remained calm and collected, she could not deny that she was admiring him. Whereas she had only gazed at him from a few meters before, now she was touching him with her very hooves. His body was indeed taut and lean with muscle. Even his nasty wounds and gashes somehow managed to look...nice-ish—they revealed the healthy-looking flesh underneath his tight skin. Despite her fascination with this new creature, she continued to work professionally, picking out every last splinter inside his wounds. But she found herself glancing at his face every now and then. It was amazing how it remained expressionless, like it was made of ceramic. It really felt creepy, and at the same time, majestic. Every time she would glance, she would see those deep, black voids in his eyes, and her heart would leap and stop. The strange sensation of awe and fear returned, making her queasy. She decided it would be prudent to avoid glancing at his face. She took a safety razor and shaved the wounds clean of fur, then washed them out again with Zecora’s wound cleaning potion, making sure that no fur was in the wounds. Angel dabbed the sweat from her face with a small cloth. Once she was satisfied that no splinter or fur remained inside the wounds, she took a stainless steel surgical needle and thread from the case and began to suture them. She slid that surgical needle into his flesh again and again. It penetrated deep enough for the thread to take a good grip on the flesh, and when she pulled on the needle, the thread tightened, closing the wound shut. Finally, she washed the now-sutured wound once more with the medical cleaning potion, then repeated the process until each and every open wound was treated and sewn.
“Whew! Thank you, Angel,” she said as he dabbed a cloth to her forehead and face for the last time. “Okay, I hope I did a good job here. Mr. Bear, could you gently bring our guest to the living room? Angel, please help me take out the extra mattress. The rest of you, move the table away from the sofa so that the mattress will fit.”
The sphinx woke up to the sound of chirping and squeaking, surrounded by many tiny creatures, and a bear. In the middle of the menagerie was the tender-looking, soft-yellow coated, pink maned pegasus pony, lying on her tummy, looking at him. They were all looking at him, and he looked back at all of them. An awkward smile went up across Fluttershy's lips.
Without turning his head, he perceived the treatment that he had received for his injuries. He noticed too, that some of his blood remained at the bottom of Fluttershy's hooves, though she herself was not aware.
“Fluttershy.”
The animals went silent at his voice. Fluttershy inhaled deeply at the sound of her voice being spoken by such a creature – in his regal masculine voice.
“Mmm?” was all she could say.
“Thank you. Your kindness...”
He took a moment to focus his perception on the kindness in his midst, singling her out from all the other myriad lives under the cottage roof.
“...is beautiful.”
Fluttershy gushed. “Oh...mm-my...”
Fluttershy had so many questions to ask, but he barely spoke. He just laid there on the mattress, like a cat on his tummy, front paws crossed by his chest. Fluttershy was getting used to him, despite the fact that she and her critters felt that they may have let a deadly predator into their midst. Fluttershy dismissed the feeling, however, reasoning that a lot of her critter friends were predators themselves. Why, Mr. Bear probably was the highest predator in the cottage before the sphinx.
She gathered extra pillows and a blanket and set them beside him on his mattress. He just watched her go about the cottage. He barely took notice of any of the other creatures, great or small.
When evening came, it was an awkward moment. All of them had their respective dinners, but the sphinx just looked at his dinner once, which was laid on a small table next to him, and went about silently watching Fluttershy once again.
After dinner, Fluttershy and the critters got ready for bed. She had to ask this one question, “Uhm, Mr...Sphinx? What...what should I call you?”
“My name...is Sadie.”
“Sadie? But that is a girl's name, and...well...you are so...male. That does not make any sense.”
He gazed at her pondering, her trying to make sense of why he would be named “Sadie.”
“Fluttershy?”
“Huh?” said Fluttershy who was torn away from her pondering.
“As someone I know would say, ‘What fun is there in making sense?’”
Fluttershy perked up. “You know Discord?”
“Yes...or at least, I used to know him.”
“Used to?” Fluttershy wondered. “Why, what happened?”
“I suppose there are a number of reasons.” He looked away at the window. “Which should I say? ‘His interests led him to a different path?’ Or perhaps ‘He grew distant?’ Or the simplest of reasons, ‘He changed.’” He looked back down at Fluttershy, who was looking up at him intently. “That happens at times, even between good friends, you know? Don’t worry, he still knows me, though we are more like distant acquaintances now.”
“Do you know we are friends, him and I?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I...don’t want to get ahead of myself or anything, but,” Fluttershy looked at him, straight into those dark eye holes, and with sincerity said, “I’ll help you get back with him if I can.”
Sadie purred, “Thank you, Fluttershy. Perhaps...perhaps you will be the new ‘interest’ Discord and I will have in common. Yes, a common friend. And even if it still does not work out between Discord and I, at least, I will have you.”
Fluttershy blushed, “Oh...my...two magical beings, one more powerful than the Regal Sisters, and the other, a majestic new creature...having me as a ‘common friend?’”
That evening, the moon shone through Fluttershy's bedroom window. In the quiet of the night, though it was hard to see, it was rather easier to hear the slightest sounds and smell the faintest scents than if it were day. Fluttershy found herself coming in and out of sleep, apparently rubbing her hooves around her muzzle and lips and touching them with the tip of her tongue. She woke up at last, startled, at what she found herself doing—sucking the bottom of her hooves to a faint familiar scent.
She sniffed at her hooves. “...blood?” Her pupils narrowed as her mind recalled the sphinx's wounds trailing blood on the ground—she must have walked on all that blood—and the surgery she did on him—more blood upon her hooves. Did she even wash up after the surgery?
“Oh! Oh no no no nononono!” she said as she quickly got up, almost to a panic, never stopping saying “no” in rapid succession, and went into her bathroom to wash her hooves.