//------------------------------//
// Late Autumn 
// Story: Two Stories for Autumn 
// by Bradel 
//------------------------------//

Fluttershy's cottage was eerily quiet.

Twilight shivered as a late autumn breeze crackled through the half-bare branches of the tree cottage. Winter was less than a week away, according to Rainbow Dash. That meant Fluttershy should have been out helping her critter friends prepare their dens for hibernation, but nopony had seen her for three days now. Twilight was starting to get worried.

"Fluttershy? Are you in there?"

Silence answered, so Twilight pounded on the door with her hoof.  Still, she heard nothing. She peered into one of the windows beside the door, but the interior of the cottage was dark. Had Fluttershy gone away? Without telling anypony? It was possible, of course—in an abstract sense, anything was possible—but Twilight found the prospect unlikely. For the last few weeks, Fluttershy had been tending to an old field mouse who had been turned out of his burrow, and she could hardly stop talking about him. Surely she would have asked one of her friends to look in on the mouse, if she'd needed to travel somewhere.

Twilight cupped her hooves around her muzzle and shouted at the door. "Fluttershy, if you're here, I'm coming in. I want to make sure you're all right."

Still no answer. Sighing, Twilight used her magic to pick the door's lock. When she pushed it open, its creak sounded like the whine of an injured beast.

In the shadows beneath the stairs, Twilight's eyes caught a hint of movement. Her magic whip-cracked forward from her glowing horn, binding whatever it was she saw and floating it toward her. When the figure resolved itself into a pink-maned yellow pegasus, Twilight felt little surprise—though the sorry state of Fluttershy's coat and feathers brought a small gasp. Had something attacked her? Could that explain the absence of all of Fluttershy's creatures?

Twilight released Fluttershy from the bonds of her magic and rushed to comfort her, but Fluttershy flinched away as she approached. Twilight pulled up short, feeling anxiousness twist her stomach. She raised a hoof plaintively toward her friend. "What's wrong, Fluttershy?"

It took nearly a minute before Fluttershy would meet Twilight's eyes, and another minute before she could bring herself to speak. "Twilight," she whispered, "has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"