Tabula Rasa

by Rose Quill

Questions instead of Answers

Fluttershy was whispering soothing words to the other Pegasus as she applied a salve of herbs to the wing to numb some of the pain, while her marefriend Sunset Shimmer splinted it.

"This is broken rather badly," Sunset said, turning to glance at Twilight. "We should get her to the hospital so it can be set and heal properly. I can only do so much."

The alicorn nodded, scanning the olive Pegasus' eyes for any sign that she had come out of the catatonic state she had seemingly sunken into. Since arriving at Fluttershy's cottage, she had accepted water and a small bit of food, but didn't respond to any questions or other words spoken to her. It was as though she had lost any of her sensibilities.

"What happened to her, do you think?" the lavender mare whispered, more to herself than either of the other ponies present.

Fluttershy shrugged. "The memory problems could come from the crash," she said in her sweet, demure voice. "We've seen Dash have some blank spaces after a few of her wipe outs."

Sunset's magic receded from the rough splint. "I don't think a crash could erase a cutie mark like this though," she said. "Starlight might know more, but it's also probably a sore subject to bring up."

Twilight bit her bottom lip, replaying the events of the last several hours. The Pegasus looked as though she had crashed, but the lack of hearing said crash made her wonder how long she had lain there before coming to. There could be more serious injuries than the broken wing.

"Sunset, can you get her to the hospital and have her checked out?" she asked. "I want to go examine the crash site and see if I can find out what might have caused it."

Fluttershy lifted her head with a questioning glance.

"You can come too," Twilight said. "But tonight is the full moon, so you shouldn't be out too long until we know how hard the curse is going to affect you."

Fluttershy shrank into her mane slightly, ears folding back. She had never truly recovered from the side effect of the spell Twilight had cast on the vampire fruit bats that had infested Applejack's farm a year past, and it manifested from time to time on full moons, with varying degrees of intensity.

"I don't think it will take too long," the Pegasus protested. "Any weather-related causes would have disappeared by now, and she's not that large, even for a Pegasus."

Twilight glanced over at the motionless mare, then nodded. "We'll make it quick," she decided. "One pass, then we're back here." Sunset leant over to nuzzle her marefriend, then lifted her charge in her magical grip and left the cottage.

Fluttershy nodded, and the two trotted out the front door, and took to the air.

---

Back at the crash site, the Pegasus and alicorn hovered above the forest canopy to determine the angle of the injured mare's crash.

"This makes no sense," Fluttershy said as she touched a broken branch. "The angle of this fall, she would have had to... I don't even want to think about it."

"Fallen straight down," Twilight finished. "She was unconscious or possibly not in control as she fell."

"And her cutie mark, that wasn't a burn that lightning would leave," the butter yellow mare murmured. "What could cause something like that?"

Twilight shook her head as she landed next to the bush the mystery pony had crashed onto. A quick search turned up a series of broken bangles and a few scraps of cloth from the bows she had had in her mane and tail.

"I don't know, 'Shy," she admitted. "She's a blank slate right now, and it seems that we only keep finding more mysteries."

Author's Note:

For more on Fluttershy's curse, see Eventide.

Comments

[Magnus Orion]

Huh, needs to be finished. Too early to say anything other than sheer potental.
But why was Sunset there?

[Astorius]

8463572
It's the continuation of Red and Gold and Eventide.

[totallynotabrony]

In the first paragraph of the first chapter, I'm not sure how you get clip-clop noises from wet ground.

Random capitalization or not of pegasus.

I like a good mystery. Let's see where this goes.

[Neece]

8463743
I do understand leaving that out of the description not to turn away potential readers, but it does help to understand a plot point that won't be explained in the story, it seems.

[Rose Quill]

8464106

From the story description

Continuity: Equestria 616

I include the Continuity list and rough timeline for my stories in the descriptions. This one is still a little rough since I don't have a lot of stories in this reality just yet.

[Fervidor]

Capitalizing the pony genera (like "Pegasus") looks really odd to me, though it's not technically wrong and somewhat supported by official sources, so I guess that's a matter of taste and habit.

However, if you capitalize Pegasus then you should definitely capitalize Alicorn as well. (And the other two, of course.) Consistency is important.

Fluttershy was whispering soothing words

Note that this is passive voice. You want to get into the habit of using active voice instead. ("Fluttershy whispered soothing words...") It generally results in clearer and more concise sentences.

Your chapters are extremely short. Now, word count is not actually a high priority, but narrative structure is. The purpose of chapters is not to cut the plot up into smaller pieces but rather to arrange it into a sequence of events that brings the story forward. You are still mostly establishing premise here, and for that purpose they would have worked better as one single chapter: "Twilight finds injured mystery pony and becomes concerned about the circumstances of her accident."

At any rate, never end a chapter arbitrarily - it causes distracting breaks in the story-line. A chapter should end once it has established a plot point that sets up the circumstances for the next one. Take your time to make them as long as they need to be: It will result in a story that flows much better.

[ScisetShimmerEvan]

They sure got quite the mystery that solve.