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// Fluttershy 
// Story: And Yet... 
// by Xepher 
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The weather had been unusually crisp that morning, and even though the running of the leaves was still several weeks away, the air smelled sharp, catching at the top of the nose and the back of the throat with a bite usually reserved for those days of first frost, despite the still-green leaves and grasses clearly on display.

Fluttershy trotted out of her cottage, eager as ever to see to her charges in the bright dawn. She'd quickly darted between the various feeders, homes, and shelters for the animals with special needs or circumstances near her cottage. After those were assured, she moved further afield, following narrow paths in and through the woods to the secluded homes of the less needful creatures she none-the-less looked after.

Rainbow Dash often teased that Fluttershy would hoof-feed every animal in the Everfree, given half the chance. The nominally-timid pegasus would blush and look away shyly, part of her of course wishing such a thing were truly possible. But when left to her own devices, she was much more practical. In reality, all the animals she directly tended lived within a few hundred yards of her home. It wasn't as if she sought out sick animals, but somehow, word seemed to spread among the wilderness, and any creature that was injured, sick, or in a family way often found itself residing within those precious few hundred yards of Fluttershy's cottage. Equally curious was how, once hale and hearty, they seemed to simply disappear back into the wild, making room for more in need. Few ponies ever noticed it, and to Fluttershy herself, it was simply the way things were. Everypony knew pegasus magic only influenced the weather, flight, and—some scholars debated—possibly gravity, but it certainly had nothing at all to do with animals or their behavior. It wasn't magic, and yet... Mrs. Robin's son had flown away as soon as his wing healed, and the cozy bird house just under the back eaves was hosting a very exhausted blue jay and her two eggs by the end of the same afternoon.