1 ~ First Attempts

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"I just don't know about this is all," Fluttershy replied after had taken a good, long moment to ponder the question. She stared at the back of the spoon in her her hoof, watching her reflection's pursed lips bulge into a wide frown. Slowly, she slipped the spoon back into the pot, giving it a therapeutic stir before speaking again. "It's just that she's so…so…"

"Determined?" a voice offered from up the stairs. "Daring? Maybe even daunting?"

"Well…yes…a little bit. A tiny bit." Fluttershy's voice shrank as she gave the pot a less aggressive, meeker stir.

"Oh! Here we go!" it broke the silence, drawing Fluttershy's attention to the stairs. "Is she enn-nergetic!"

"Yes."

"Eggs-xuberant?"

"Yes."

"Especially, extensively eager and evidently enthusiastic?!"

Fluttershy giggled before replying. "Quite."

"So where's the problem?" the voice asked, the familiar snorting laugh that followed a nervous shudder down Fluttershy's spine.

Well, there's of course that I am most certainly, one-hundred percent not those things... she thought quietly, sliding on the lid and closing the damper as she set the pot to simmer. "Oh, I just don't even know where to begin with all this. It seems so quick. So sudden. I'm just too nervous."

"Well, we'll just have to fix that now won't we?" the voice cheered from upstairs before adopting a more thoughtful tone. "Now, how exactly do we go about that?"

Fluttershy cocked an eyebrow as a nigh imperceptible smile cross her features at the rather loud hum of plotting seemed to vibrate the very air.

"Oh! Oh! I know! I know!" came the sudden cry of realization, followed quickly by a mad scrabble of hooves, interrupted by a rather loud thump before promptly resuming.

"Be carefu—"

The words of warning had barely reached the pegasus's tongue when the chaos of too excited hooves reached the top of the stairs only to be followed by a cacophonous mix of yelps, thumps and bumps of pony tumbling down steps. Fluttershy instinctually scrambled back as the tumble of pink spun past her and slammed right into the kitchen cupboard.

It teetered dangerously a moment. The ingredient the pegasus had carefully stacked atop it swayed before a large sack of flour slid from its proper place, plummeting to the floor in a plume of white powder.

"Oooo…owwies..." came the muffled groan.

Fluttershy rushed through the soft, white fog, the flour settling down around them to reveal a white and pink-speckled earth pony. With a heavy thunk, the bag slid from the bedazed pony, sending another—albeit much smaller—plume of flour shooting across the floor.

"Oh my goodness... are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, her voice low in spite of the continued fraying of her already frazzled nerves, lending a tremble to her hooves. With care, Fluttershy dusted off the earth pony with delicate strokes of her wings. She quickly checked the earth pony for any signs of permanent damage before grasping her head, staring in the pair of sky-blue yes swirling crazily about their sockets.

"Wowies, that first steps is sure one heck of a dooOOoOoooOOozy..." she murmured with an odd, happy sort of grin. Taking a hold of her head, the earth pony shook herself free of the remaining flour.

"You really"—Fluttershy coughed as the flour settled around her—"really need to take it easy." She took great care in inspecting the other pony's heavily bandaged forehoof. "Especially around stairs."

"You aren't kidding!" she replied excitedly, bouncing up onto her hooves before collapsing to the floor as her weight came down on the injured hoof. "Ooo…more owwies. I don't like owwies," she pouted. "They hurt."

"Aww..." Fluttershy cooed gently as the pink pony plopped back onto her hindquarters, face the very definition of melancholy. "Does somepony want Momma Fluttershy to make it all better?"

"Mmmhmm..." she responded, lower-lip out-thrust and trembling. Her eyes quavered and even her curly mane seemed to droop with the effort.

Fluttershy bent down and kissed the earth pony's forehoof before glancing back up. "Better?" she asked, running a soothing hoof over the bandage.

"Uh hunh..." the pink pony replied in a soft voiced, fighting back a smile as Fluttershy tenderly kissed the hoof again. "Lil' bit better."

"And what have we learned?" Fluttershy asked with a genteel smile.

"To be more careful around stairs?"

Fluttershy nodded, giving the curly mane a playful tousle, a shower of excess flour cascading from it before helping the pink pony to her three good hooves. Fluttershy found herself quite suddenly grabbed into an awkward one-hoof embrace.

"Thanks, Fluttershy!" the earth pony squealed, clutching the flustered pegasus tight.

"Y-you're welcome," Fluttershy squeaked out, that one good hoof quite enough to squeeze all the air from her lungs.

"Oh!" the pink pony gasped, dropping the pegasus to the floor rather unceremoniously. "I almost forgot my idea!"

"Yes?" Fluttershy croaked out from her place, sprawled on the floor.

"You wanna hear it? Huh?! Huh?!" she asked, bouncing on all threes with surprising expertise as she encircled the downed pegasus pony.

"Okay?" Fluttershy murmured uncertainly as she pulled herself up into a sitting position on the floor.

"You should practice"—she immediately halted, playing the air bugle complete with sound-effects fit for a discount princess before beaming, toothy grinned and wide eyed at Fluttershy—"on me!"

Fluttershy didn't reply as blood filled every capillary in her face.

"Great idea, hunh?!" the pink pony asked eagerly. "I mean, it's the best idea! It's a…a...one second." She hurriedly dashed to the fallen sack, prying a well-dusted book from beneath it before skidding to the table. She scanned over the page ravenously before slamming her good forehoof down on a page. "It is a superbly, superlative... supreme..." She paused a moment to stare down at the book. "Oh bramble dings…I lost my place again. Now I'm gonna have to start all over again." She sat down with a harrumph, glaring at the offending pages.

"Um..." Fluttershy began nervously, drawing the pink pony from her precarious precipice of pouting. "I just don't know…it might be a little..." Fluttershy paused a moment to scratch at an imagined stain on the floor. "Weird..."

The pink pony gasped aloud before swallowing the gasp, cheeks ballooning out and deflating with a sudden exhalation of breath. "It will not!"

"Oh, I just mean…that it could be—" Fluttershy was cut off as the pink pony shot up onto her hind legs, one hoof over her heart and the other held in the air.

"I do hereby, heretofore, hitherto solemnly swear," she started, a look of pure determination written across her features, "that it will not, can not and shall not be weird in any which way." She finished, stone-faced with a nod of head and a hard salute that sent her flipping onto her back.

"I—"

"Before Fluttershy could even muster a protest, she confronted by the full, unbridled fury of that most dreaded of puppy-dog and baby-kitten stares. That quavering lip seeming to have doubled in size, perhaps to keep pace with the veritable oceans of sadness that implored Fluttershy consideration.

"Pretty, pretty please?"

"I..." Fluttershy sighed, thoroughly defeated. "Fine."

"Woohoo!" the pink pony whooped, pelling Fluttershy to her hooves before staring at her, the water in her eyes replaced by determination and unbridled excitement. And then...

...they just stood there a moment. The pink pony silently stared and Fluttershy's blush deepened by the moment beneath the onslaught of those sky blues.

"Well?"

"'Well' what?" Fluttershy replied with a start, nearly scrambling back at the sudden break in the silence.

“Well, aren't you going to say 'Hi, Pinkie', you silly filly!” she replied with a knowing smile.

“Oh... um, of course...” Fluttershy cleared her throat, suddenly unable to look the other pony in the eye as she began. “H-hi, Pinkie.”

"Hiya Fluttershy!"

"I-I'm r-really glad you, um, decided to come and, uh, came?" Slowly the pegasus seemed to be folding in on herself. Unconsciously, she sat, letting her long mane flow out in front of her.

"Fluttershy?"

"Yes?"

"You should really make better eye contact."

Fluttershy allowed her bangs to part just enough that a single, confused turquoise peered out.

"Remember: 'Don't be shy! Look 'em in the eye,'" the pink pony recited, voice suddenly judicious of tone.

"Where did you hear that?" Fluttershy asked, allowing her mane to flow back as she stared up at the other pony.

“I read it in that book you had underneath your dresser’s leg,” she explained. “It had lots of neat sayings. And most of them rhymed too! I love rhyme!” she exclaimed before suddenly staring at Fluttershy intensely. “By the way, your dresser is really, really crooked. You should fix it.” She brightened back up. “It had so many cool, rhyme-y sayings! I can't wait to try them!”

“Oh...well, you shouldn't take that book too seriously. It could lead to some”—Fluttershy fell quiet for a moment—“bad behavior.”

“Oh. Soooo... I shouldn't look other ponies in the eye?”

“Oh, no, no. I mean, that's good advice, but some of the other sayings are... not so good advice.”

“Ah...” She pondered this little tidbit a moment, turning to glance at the clock. “Oh, but we're running out of time! Where were we?”

“Um... 'Hello'?”

“Oh, right!” She bounded over to the table. Grabbing a pad and pencil, she spent the next minute scribbling furiously before glancing back over at Fluttershy, finishing with a flourish of the pencil. “Greetings, check!” She paused a moment. “Well," she erased a bit, ”mostly check. A three-quarter check." And then erased a bit more. "Maybe two-thirds of a check? I mean, we covered them, but we didn't 'cover' cover them, right?"

Fluttershy's face fell in increments until it was resting atop her hooves.

"This really is a bad idea." She blew a bit of mane out of her eyes before burying her face into the wood grain, quietly hoping to disappear into a fissure or a knothole. "A terrible, awful, horrendous idea."

Silence reigned as Fluttershy stewed in nervous self-pity on the floor. She shuddered as a hoof came to rest on her shoulders.

"Aww... c’mon. It is not a 'bad' idea. In fact, it's a wonderful, spectacular, super especially awesome idea! It's the bestest sort of idea!"

"Oh... I'm just too nervous," Fluttershy murmured, glancing up at the beaming pink pony before standing up, a panicked look in her eyes. "I can still call this off. I’ll-I’ll say I have the feather flu and have to be in bed,” she rambled on, staring at the floor as began to trot. “Have to get lots and lots of rest. I can't do this. I just ca—"

She was interrupted mid-stride to the door by a flash of pink, the world swirling about until she found herself pinned to the floor by a rather aggravated-looking earth pony.

"Fluttershy, you are doing this!"

"Bu—"

"No ifs, ands nor buts of any sort!” she declared. “You will do this. You will like this and you will be happy darn it!"

"Bu—"

"No, I won't let you ruin this for yourself. You will talk, you will like each other and you will be in love and it will be perfect!"

"It's just... I've known her for so long. I couldn’t bear to lose her as a friend."

The pink mare's face softened. "You wouldn't be losing her losing her as a friend, silly! You..." She paused a moment, tapping a hoof to her chin. "You'd just be making her your super special bestest friend forever and ever."

"But what if she doesn't want to be my, um... super special bestest friend forever and ever?"

"You know better than that," came the reply, a pink hoof patting her mane as the familiar grin set the butterflies in Fluttershy's stomach at ease. "Is she really the kind of friend that would just abandon a pony?"

"No... she's always been a good…no a great friend. But... Oh, I just don't know how she'll react if this all goes badly." Fluttershy mewled as the pink pony helping her back to her hooves. "It's scary."

"It's okay that it's scary, but that doesn't mean you should just give up!” the pink pony cried out, drawing the pouting pegasus into a tight hug. “Remember, you're an awesomely fantastically amazing friend and she totally knows that. Nopony would want to lose you as a friend.” Her grip relaxed to allow them to look eye-to-eye. “Got that?”

“I think so... maybe?”

The pink mare grinned. “You can do better than th—”

They were interrupted by a playful rap-a-tap-tapping on the cottage's front door.

“Whoopsies! Outta time!” Fluttershy was immediately released, the pink pony dashing towards the stairs only to skid and crash into the bathroom in a clatter of shower curtain rods and toiletries.

“Are you oh—”

“No time!” came her reply from the bathroom before she dashed back to grab the pegasus by the shoulders. “And remember," she grabbed the pegasus's cheeks, pulling them in a smile, “confidence!”

“Okay,” Fluttershy nodded, voice hardly more than a whisper squeezed through her clenched smile.

“Alrighty! Now, go, go!”

Without warning, Fluttershy was sent hurtling towards the door, bouncing across the cottage floor before coming to a rest in front of the door.

“Go on!” came the very loudly whispered encouragement as Fluttershy's vision was filled completely and utterly by the seemingly massive door before her.

Oh... my...

The rapping of hoof on the door seemed to come in slow, thunderous poundings now, matching, blow-for-blow, the steady nervous thumps of her heart in her throat. She stared at it as if it were about to fall, crushing her like so many ill-conceived hopes and dreams.

Thump.

“Psst! Fluttershy?”

Thadda-thump.

“Hey, Fluttershy?

Thadda-thump-thum—

“FLUTTERSHY!”

She shot to her hooves, the voice shocking time back into its normal cadence, the rap-tap-taps on the door now forming a familiar melody.

It's just your friend... you’ve known her for years... nothing to be afraid of... except everything that could go wrong of course... yes, but just that. No big deal.

With a nervous gulp, Fluttershy brought a trembling hoof to the door knob and began to twist it... ever so slowly... inching it along its circular journey—

“OPEN IT!”

With a not-so-quiet eep, Fluttershy's hoof jammed the knob all the way and the door exploded inwards in a shower of confetti and streamers.

“SURPRISE!!”

The familiar, ear-splitting cry rang in her ears as Pinkie slid into the cottage in a proper showmare's pose, pink top hat tilted forward over her eyes as the bits of rainbow color fell down all around her.

There was a moment of silence as the bits of paper settled to the floor.

“Fluttershy?” Pinkie, maintaining her pose, tipped the hat back to find Fluttershy staring up at her from the flat of her back, eyes wide and body rigid. “Oh... um, too much?”

“Y-yeh-yeh”—she hiccuped—“Yes,” Fluttershy stuttered out as Pinkie popped up onto her hooves with a bounce.

“Sorry... been working out my entrances for surprise parties—the Cakes are going to be having one soon—and you've always been honest with me and I figured you'd be honest now and you were!”

“Um... you”—another hiccup interrupted—“ you're welcome,” Fluttershy offered as she lifted herself from the floor, a hoof rubbing at her chest as she willed the hiccups away.

“Was it the confetti? The streamers? Oh! Oh! I know! It was the volume." She paused a moment, nodding sagely. "It's always the volume.” Pinkie rambled quietly to herself a moment. “Or maybe I should try sparklers instead. What do you think, Fluttershy?”

“Sparklers?” Fluttershy muttered, voice containing more than a note of rising panic.

“Yeah! Like this!”

Pinkie vanished out the door, Fluttershy rising to follow before her friend burst back inside, now wearing a vest covered in reflective sequins and glittering top hat complete with sparklers sticking up from it and her hooves.

“Surprise!” Pinkie shouted, albeit at a marginally lower and less hazardous volume.

There was silence in response.

Pinkie tipped the hat back again and glanced down. “Oh, you're on your back again.”

Fluttershy looked up from the floor, legs sticking straight up in the air, frozen in shock.

“Eh, I'll work on it later. But for now”—in one fluid motion of her hoof, Pinkie slipped out of her ensemble and tossed the outfit out the door—“let's get you back to the party.”

Working quickly and with a gentleness few would expect of the self-proclaimed 'Party Pony of Ponyville,' Pinkie worked the pegasus's legs from their state of shock-induced rigor mortis.

“There! All better,” Pinkie said with a smile that Fluttershy returned wholeheartedly.

“Th-thanks, Pinkie.”

Oh, the plan!

“Um... hiya, Pinkie!” Fluttershy said with what she hoped was a happy, confident voice, giving an exaggerated wave of her hoof.

“Heya, Flutters!” Pinkie replied with giggling snort. “Little late for hellos. You should work on your timing.” She gasped as a light came over her, smacking her forehead with a hoof. “Pumpkin and Pound could help! They're super good with timing! Although... they're not so good with puns.” Pinkie sidled up to Fluttershy, sending a blush across the pegasus's face as the party pony's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Just between you and me, I think they got that from Mr. Cake. That pony just has no appreciation for proper pony punnery.”

Fluttershy giggled, if only to cover up the nervous tremble in her throat.

“So, what's up, Shy-Shy?” Pinkie chirped as she slipped away from Fluttershy, the pegasus nearly tipping over due to the earth pony's sudden absence.

“Oh! Um... nothing really... except you! You're here and that’s, um... that's nice.”

“Super duper nice, I hope?” Pinkie inquired, giving the pegasus a friendly pat on the mane, smiling wide.

“Oh, um, of course,” Fluttershy replied, straightening out her mane as Pinkie went bouncing into the living room proper.

“And how are you, my most pinkest of avian friends?” she heard Pinkie ask.

Fluttershy's eyes went wide, the pegasus slamming the door closed and whirling around to find Pinkie and a flamingo staring at her.

“You alright, Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked, frozen mid hoof-to-webbed-foot bump with the flamingo which stared at Fluttershy, neck craned at a perturbingly perfect right angle.

“Oh! Yes! Fine! Completely fine!” Fluttershy squeaked, sliding back against the door with a relieved breath.

“So how 's our phoenicopteridae friend doin'?” Pinkie asked, completing her customary greeting with the lanky wading bird, taking care to avoid hitting its heavily bandaged wing.

“Um, Phoenico-what?” Fluttershy asked nervously, her heart rate jumping once more.

“Flamingo!” Pinkie said with an excited bounce. “I was at Twilight's earlier and I saw a book on birds and thought to myself, 'I could totally study and help out my friend Fluttershy with our bestest flamingo friend Flammy because that's what friends should do!’” Pinkie explained gleefully, having taken to doing a strangely choreographed dance with the flamingo. She hopped between her hind hooves whilst swinging her forehooves rhythmically, Flammy mirroring her actions with flipper and wing.

“I suppose they do...” Fluttershy trailed off as she became enamored by their dance.

I’m forgetting something... The idle thought appeared, her brow furrowing as she watched the dance.

A certain, out-of-place odor tickled her nose before she heard the clattering of metal from the kitchen.

“Oh, my goodness! Our dinner!”

With a hard flap of her wings, she bolted through the pair of prancing fools into the kitchen, nearly smashing into the oven as she landed hard on her hooves.

Oh, please don't be burnt, please don't be burnt...

She thought she might cry as she switched off the fire and shoved aside the clattering lid, a plume of smoke wafting up from blackened sludge inside.

Oh, pony feathers... she swore quietly, her eyes tearing up. It's all ruined... everything is just ruined...

She felt the tears begin to run down her cheeks, a quartet of hesitant hoof steps moving around behind her.

“It's alright, Fluttershy,” the voice said as a pink hoof gently massaged her shoulder.

Fluttershy sniffled as she glanced up at Pinkie's smiling visage, Flammy lurking just behind.

“The important thing is that we're here and we're gonna have a fun time, right?” Pinkie stated, flicking away a tear as the flamingo bobbed its head rapidly in agreement.

“Th-that’s right,” Fluttershy replied with a blush. “Thanks, Pinkie.”

“We can always order something in.”

“That sounds nice,” Fluttershy replied, the tears subsiding.

“Well...” Pinkie began, a sinister-looking grin flowing over her face. “Anypony up for some hay shakes?” Pinkie asked with a wide grin before dashing outside. “I bet I can hit Señor Super Grains from here!” Pinkie shouted from outside before Fluttershy lept at the sound of cannon fire.

~o~0~o~

“Okay, so it took like twenty shots... I still hit them,” Pinkie stated smugly before taking a enormous bite out of her third hay-steak burger.

“I think they'll be cleaning up all day tomorrow,” Fluttershy mused, glancing over at the outskirts of Ponyville.

Even at a distance, one could see the masses of streamers and confetti strewn across the rooftops and streets, some still dancing in the evening breeze.

“Still... it was impressive, right?” Pinkie asked with a grin. “Right into the trot-thru window!”

Fluttershy pondered it a moment before cracking a smile. “Yes.”

“Hah!” The table shuddered as Pinkie’s hoof, pointed squarely at Fluttershy, slammed down on it. “I knew you had a little streak of mischevity in ya, Flutters,” Pinkie stated with a jovial grin, giving the blushing pegasus a soft jab in the shoulder.

“Maybe...” Fluttershy smiled. “Just a little, tiny one.”

“Hey, you roll with the Pink and we'll have you up to a hoof-wide streak in no time flat.”

“Hoof-wide?” Fluttershy echoed, glancing down at a hoof.

“Baby steps, Fluttershy. Baby steps,” Pinkie replied before digging into her food wholeheartedly, coming up for air a minute later with a ketchup, mayo and hay-streaked face, her cheeks packed full with fries.

“You've, um... got a little... on your face.”

“Mwhere mwat?” Pinkie's eyes crossed as she tried to see her own face. “Om mwy teek?”

“Uh...” Fluttershy motioned with a hoof to her right cheek, then her left and her forehead and then, with a disbelieving shake of her head, simply motioned to everywhere.

With a solemn nod, Pinkie flipped her tongue out of her mouth, stretching it, in ways Fluttershy wouldn’t have thought physically possible, to slurp up the dripping mess of condiments in one clean swipe.

“Gowt it?” she inquired as she shifted the lump of foodstuff from one bulging cheek to the other.

“Um... yes,” Fluttershy replied, eyes wide, her face flushing a bright red as she was unable to do anything but stare at Pinkie as she quickly finished her meal.

Um... quite impressive... yes... she thought as she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. I wonder what else... that is... I... wow...

The honking, avian equivalent of a chortle from Flammy cut off her rambling thoughts. Fluttershy shot the pink bird a look of disapproval as it sat a few feet away, head craned over a bowl half-full of fish. The bird simply cocked its head, launching into a series of impatient honks.

Now? Right now? As in 'right now' right now? Fluttershy’s mind panicked as she glanced from Flammy to Pinkie, the pink-coated pony finally swallowing her dinner. *As good a time as ever...*

“Um... Pinkie?”

“Yeah, Fluttershy?”

“I, um... I did kind of have a reason I asked you to come here tonight...” she began, rising from the table. “Something I wanted to tell you...” For a moment, she just stood there, unable to look up into those familiar soft blues.

“Well, I’m here. Ask away,” Pinkie said with a cordial motion of her hoof, her smile always present.

“I... I... um...”

She glanced over at the flamingo, the bird giving her a scratchy squawk of encouragement.

I can do this... it's just Pinkie Pie... it's just... She broke out in a nervous sweat as she stared at her friend... eye-to-eye.

All the words she had spent so long thinking of, all the words she had stayed up thinking of in a seemingly endless cycle of revision, seemed to flow together into a mish-mash pile of nonsensical gibberish that wedged itself deep in her chest.

I... I ...

“Um... Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked worriedly as the pegasus trembled before her. "Are you feeling okay?"

I can't do this... I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can—

She let out a panicked squeak as a beak nipped her flank, shocking her from her catatonia. She looked up to find Pinkie now standing atop the table, sloshing bucket of water in hoof, ready to soak the pegasus.

“Good thinkin', Flammy! Now we don't have to clean up!” Pinkie chirped excitedly, sliding the bucket down on the table before giving the flamingo a quick pat on the head to which it replied with a satisfied squawk. “Feeling okay, Fluttershy?”

“Um... no. Not really,” Fluttershy replied honestly, frustration bleeding into her otherwise carefully chosen tone. She took a quick drink from the bucket, silently contemplating jamming her head into the water and having a nice private scream of frustration.

“Is this about earlier?”

Fluttershy didn't answer, too busy stewing in her own self-disgust.

“I can try to do an order differently next time if that's what's bugging you...” Pinkie stated sadly, leaning down to try and catch a glimpse of the pegasus's face behind the long, pink mane.

“No… that's not it...”

“What's up then?” Pinkie asked, cautiously brushing the long pink mane away. “You know you can always tell your auntie Pinkie Pie what’s got you down”

Fluttershy laughed softly at the term. Auntie Pinkie Pie... friendly... familial.

“I know... it's just...” Fluttershy glanced up, but immediately felt her throat constrict. “It's nothing... I'll be fine.” She ignored the worried nibble of the beak on the back of her mane as she swallowed her words.

“How 'bout I make us some tea?” Pinkie offered quietly, all her usual excitement buried beneath worry. “Chamomile with a sprig of mint, right?”

Fluttershy simply nodded.

Pinkie disappeared into the kitchen with a backwards glance before the pegasus slumped down to the floor, Flammy curling up beside her as the flamingo quietly preened her ruffled feathers.

I can't...

~o~0~o~

“I just really, really, REALLY hate to leave while you're still so down in the dumpies.”

"It's okay... I know you have other things to worry about than me."

Pinkie made as if to say something but snapped her jaw shut and simply stood, just outside the cottage door. "You sure you're feeling better?"

"A hundred percent better," Fluttershy stated, masking the grimace she felt forming on her face with a smile, the tea curling up into a comforting lump in her stomach, her careful words having long since dissolved.

Pinkie simply stared at the pegasus, eyes narrowing before suddenly brightening.

"Oh! I know!" She bounded past the pegasus, spinning Fluttershy about on her way to the table. "You can prove it to me tomorrow!"

Fluttershy stared in horror as Pinkie grabbed a pencil in her maw and began to scratch at a notepad that had been carelessly tossed atop the couch. After a few seconds of scribbling, Pinkie tore off the top of the pad and bounced back to Fluttershy.

"Fer yew!" she exclaimed, the scrap of paper held in her teeth as she presented it to the pegasus.

“'One Free You-Should-Visit Muffin For One Super Spectacularly Awesome Friend,'” Fluttershy read aloud, glancing up at Pinkie before continuing. “Void Where Prohibited. No Monetary Value?”

“Standard legal release,” Pinkie explained, taking the scrap out momentarily.

“If Lost, Please Return To Fluttershy, k? Thanks, bye! Good Tomorrow Only So You Totally Have To Come Tomorrow Or Else Miss Out On A Totally Awesome Muffin.”

“Amnd they mwill be aweshome!” Pinkie shouted ecstatically around the coupon, drawing a smile out of the otherwise morose pegasus.

In the corner, there was a hastily sketched drawing of a poofy-maned, grinning pony beside a long-maned one with a similarly big grin.

"Thank you, Pinkie Pie," Fluttershy stuttered, letting Pinkie release the coupon into the her hoof. "It's... very thoughtful of you."

"Be sure to come by," Pinkie implored before hooking her hooves around Fluttershy, drawing her into a quick hug before bounding away towards the still confetti-strewn streets of outer Ponyville. "Sleep tight! Don’t let the bedbuggies bite!" she called back before disappearing down the road.

"Bye..." Fluttershy replied quietly, sitting down in the doorway as the cool night breeze swirled through her mane. Behind her came a soft, mournful squawk, followed by the sound of webbed feet slapping against wood.

I couldn't do it... I just couldn’t...

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of green light up the door frame...

It's just too hard...

…the slaps of webbed feet replaced by the gentle clip-clop of careful hooves drawing nearer and nearer as she stared out at Ponyville...

And it'll always be hard...

She didn't even flinch as the hoof ran through her mane.

"It's okay, Fluttershy..." that familiar voice cooed as she turned to face it.

"I..." Fluttershy croaked out before abandoning words altogether and burying her face in the cloud of pink.

All was quiet as she sobbed into the familiar mane... it even smelled the same: a mix of cotton candy and sugar cookies.

"It's okay... we just have to practice a bit more. That's all," it stated uncertainly, running a hoof down her back as they embraced awkwardly. "We'll just practice a bit more and then everything will be perfect and you'll be so happy. It'll be great. You'll see…I'll make sure that next time is perfect. Absolutely perfect."

Maybe…maybe she's right ... maybe with just a bit more practice...

2 ~ The Morning Rush

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Chili powder? No... A pinch of paprika? Nope.. A snifter of sesame? Nah... way too simple... Turmeric? No, no, no! she scratched at the paper angrily with her quill. Needs something more... unexpected... something... exotic...

Pinkie glared at her open notebook, eyes straying occasionally to the wide array of spices and ingredients standing in neat, orderly regiments before her like the good little soldiers they were, prepared to fight the good fight in Hell's—or, rather, the Cake's—kitchen for the taste buds of Ponyville's multitude of morning-muffin masticators.

"That's it!" she announced excitedly to nopony in particular, one of her pink hooves sending a swath of ingredients into a tactical retreat as her eyes took on a dark, almost malevolent sheen.

Zipping over to the Cake's industrial size—and strength as active stress testing as proven—pantry, Pinkie stood, a throaty laugh welling up from her belly. She flung open the doors and began her hunt.

"Flour, flour... sugar... vegetable oil... partially hydrogenated vegetable oil... corn flour... cottonseed oil... more flour, huh, thought we ran out of these on Tuesday," she remarked, pitching the bag of flour up onto the top of the pantry.

I'll be seeing you on Saturday... she thought to herself, a somewhat embittered smile crossing her features before she perked right back up. Ah, but the twins come later.

"Hay, oats, brown sugar"—deeper and deeper she dug into the cabinet until only her hind legs could be seen—"Yellow #6, Blue #2, Red #40... Aw, what a gyp! No chartreuse?"—her voice echoed back, hind hooves threatening to disappear among the stockpiled ingredients—"Oh!" Squirming for a moment, the pink pony shot back from the cabinet with a resonant pop, a head-sized jar clutched in her forehooves. Triumphantly she thrust it ceilingward with a squeal of excitement.

Pinkie Pie's Spectacular Super “Secret” Ingredients, the jar read, full to bursting with items the pink pony had collected over the years: a sample of liquid rainbow, flowers from a patch of poison joke, an adolescent fire ruby, a doggie bag containing a chocolate-rain-spawning cotton-candy cloud and a few slivers of zap apple ringed the top of the jar, jostling loosely as she slid it onto the counter. She gripped the lid in her mouth and flipped herself up into the air, spinning around it before coming to a halt.

"Ovh comth onth!" she muttered, lips sealed around the tin lid.

As she glared at the petulant jar, she felt herself listing slowly to one side before, with a crash, she landed crash on the kitchen floor, lid popping out of her mouth and clattering to floor, a thousand scents pouring from the opened jar.

"Woohoo!"

Come to momma! With a toothy grin that most ponies would have certainly qualified as a bit too wide if not downright unnerving, Pinkie jammed a hoof into the jar, digging around for a bit before she came up with the object of her pursuit.

"Ahhh..." She felt a deep rumbling laugh beginning in her belly as she turned the object over in her hooves. "Now we can begin."

~o~0~o~

"Deep in the jungle highlands of Ponidad, where few ponies have ventured and even fewer have returned"—she let the sentence hang in the air a moment, casting a dark gaze over the captive audience before—"There, the native Ponidadidadians—" Bluh…tongue-twister. "—cultivate a most spicy, most deliciously, dangerously, delectably wonderful thing, the name of which even they dare not utter in vain." She crept along the countertop, the audience's eyes ever upon her, the darkness of the shop casting shadows beneath her eyes as she reared up for her finale. "The dreaded Naga Viper Peh—"

"Can we just order already?" a surly voice interrupted as the lights flared to life inside the bakery.

Pinkie blinked for moment, eyes adjusting. With a frown, she hopped down from the counter, propping herself up on it and staring at the brown-flanked stallion standing beside the light switch. Idly, she tapped a hoof to her chin.

"Well…I did have another thirty-seven-point-six-eight seconds budgeted for the introduction—virility ceremonies, grand adventures, the resurrection and defeat of a MIGHTY PONY GODBEAST—buuuuuut…if you're so eager to get to the main event... okie dokie lokie!"

The crowd of ponies murmured as the pink pony smiled her trademark smile. The crowd parted nervously as the brown stallion made his way to the counter before congealing behind him.

"So, didja want to try our new muffin? Huh? Didja didja?!" Pinkie asked, nearly jumping over the counter in her excitement. "Guaranteed to put the pepp' in your pep!"

"Yes, fine, just get on with it already," the stallion replied with a snort, not paying the pink mare much attention. "I'm late for work as it is."

"Okie dokie!" Pinkie stated, ducking behind the counter before popping back up, thick apron covering her front and her face obscured behind a pair of welding goggles. "One moment please."

She disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a long pair of iron tongs in hoof. A chorus of gasps lifted up from the crowd as they saw it held at the far end of the tongs, the strange muffin pulsing with red light.

Cautiously, Pinkie lowered the muffin onto the counter before tilting up her goggles, the fur on her face now lightly toasted, and smiling at the still unawares stallion.

"That'll be two bits, mister."

"About time," he growled in reply, one hoof tossing the muffin into his open maw as the other threw down a pair of bits. "I shwear the shervice fhere jus' keeps getting..." He chewed and swallowed the muffin whole in hardly more than a bite as he began a trot towards the door. "Gets..." His pupils dilated as sweat began to fall down his brow in broad rivulets. "Oh... ho ho ho..." He began to pant, tongue lolling out as his brown coat seemed to dip twenty shades into the red end of the color spectrum before he opened his mouth and screamed, "OH, DEAR SWEET CELESTIA, IT BURNS!"

The crowd split, some ponies having to dive out of the way as the brown stallion shot out of the shop, narrowly missing the doorway as he left a pony-shaped hole in the wall.

"Remember to fill out a comment card! We appreciate your feedback! They're by the door!" Pinkie called after the stallion before turning to the decimated crowd before of her. "Anypony else want to try one of Auntie Pinkie's Brand New Solar Flarin' Lava Muffins? Two bits for a limited time only!"

"I'll just have—"

"OH, HELP ME, CELESTIA! LUNA! DISCORD! I BESEECH THEE! ALL OF THEE!”

"Just a blueberry muffin if that's okay," the gray-coated mare finished, pulling herself up with the aid of the countertop.

"Aww, that's okay! One blueberry muffin coming right up!"

~o~0~o~

The day passed, morning became noon became afternoon, and Pinkie remained at her post behind the counter. The breakfast rush had given way to the doldrums of the late morning lull had become the lunch rush had once more settled into the afternoon stretch.

Just two more hours before school’s out...and still no Fluttershy, she thought quietly as she leaned heavily on the countertop, the lull before the storm starting to get to her, eyes drifting towards a lonely plate of baked goods. And nopony else has tried my new muffin either!

She watched as a fly alighted on the tip of her nose, buzzing away after she gave a little snort before landing again.

Still…I hope Fluttershy isn't still all down in the dumpies, she thought with a sigh. Hmm...I wonder if she'd like to try my new muffin...She glanced to the remaining plateful of her creation, reaching out a hoof to feel it, the red hot glow having faded away, leaving them lukewarm at best. At least somepony would be eating them then...

Pinkie perked up as a bell chimed, the door swinging open to admit just the pony she'd been hoping to see all day.

"Fluttershy!"

"Pinkie!"

They collided, both in mid-hop in the middle of the shop, collapsing in a heap of giggles.

"How ya doin', Shy-Shy?" Pinkie asked as she hugged the pegasus close. "You look like you're feelin' lots and lots of better."

"Oh, I am, Pie-Pie," Fluttershy replied with a giggle as both mares got to their hooves. "Now that I'm here, I feel great!"

"Glad to be of service, Madame Fluttershy," Pinkie stated with a curtsy before springing back up. "Ready for that free muffin?"

"Oh, yes, please!"

"Comin’ right up!" Pinkie stated, zipping into the kitchen and back, plate balanced on her nose as she returned. "Lemon poppy seed like always, right?"

"Sounds abso—" Fluttershy paused mid-hop, settling down to the floor before restarting, excited tone shifting to a more demure one. "That sounds wonderful, Pinkie Pie. Thank you."

Pinkie tilted her head to stare at the pegasus before quickly snapping it back upright as the plate on her head threatened to slide right off. "Woopsie! That was close."

In short order, Pinkie led Fluttershy over towards one of the Corner's booths, slipping the muffin onto the table before both mares sat down.

As Pinkie watched, Fluttershy stared at the muffin. The pegasus gave it tentative sniff before glancing up at Pinkie.

"Lemon poppy seed is still your favorite, isn't it?" Pinkie asked, feeling her stomach give a nervous lurch. Had she forgotten something like that? About one of her bestest friends?

"Oh, um... favorite... of course," Fluttershy replied with soft blush, leaning close to the muffin for one last sniff.

Oh, no…is there something wrong with the recipe? Pinkie thought, glancing nervously towards the kitchen. Lessee, a tablespoon of lemon zest, two of poppy seeds, cup and a half of yoghurt— Pinkie's thoughts halted as Fluttershy leaned in to lick the muffin before taking a teeny tiny bite, the pegasus's eyes going wide. Ohnoohnoohnooh—

Fluttershy snapped up half the muffin in her jaw with squeak of satisfaction. "It's gweat!" she exclaimed around a mouthful of cake, Pinkie's nervously thudding heart suddenly leaping for joy as the pegasus downed the rest of the muffin in one bite. "Thim thah bwest thwing I eber hab!" she declared wholeheartedly.

"Wowies!" Pinkie gasped, not realizing that she had been holding her breath so long. "Had me really worried there, Shy. You're good!"

"No, you're good!” she replied, seemingly oblivious to the nervous heaves of the earth pony’s chest. “That was delicious, tasty, divine, nectar fit for the princesses themselves... titillating even!" Fluttershy exclaimed, the usually quiet pegasus seemingly bursting at the seams with praise for the pink pony.

"I, um, double wowies," Pinkie replied, a blush growing on her face. "Thanks, Fluttershy, I don't think anypony's ever been so...um..."

"Effusive?"

"Yeah, let's go with that," Pinkie answered, eyebrows knitting as she stared at the brightly beaming pegasus. "You feeling okay?"

"Never better! That muffin was awesome!" Fluttershy smiled, even wider were that possible before it suddenly dropped. "Oh! I almost forgot."

Pinkie reared back in her seat as Fluttershy nearly lept across the booth to clasp hooves.

"You should come back to my cottage! Tonight!"

"Oh, are you sure? You seemed kind down last night and—"

"Very sure! Things will be better! Better than better! I'll make sure that absotively everything is just perfect!"

"Oh, well..." Pinkie gave Fluttershy one last look, the creep of beseeching tears around the pegasus's eyes sealing it. "Of course, Fluttershy, I wouldn't miss it for all the cupcakes in Cupcakesylvania!" Her tummy grumbled. "Ooo... that sounds good..."

"Alright! See you tonight at, um... eight sharp!" Fluttershy cried out, shooting towards the door, leaving Pinkie to collapse face first onto the tabletop. "Sound good?"

"Sounds grea—"

"Oh! What are these one?" Pinkie glanced up to find Fluttershy eying the stack of Lava Muffins hungrily.

"Oh, those are my new muffins! I call them—"

"Devicious!" Fluttershy declared around a mawful, the stack having decreased by roughly half. She chewed a moment before, as Pinkie stared wide-eyed, her mane burst into flames. "AND HOBT!"

In a streak of smoke and flame, Fluttershy shot out doorway.

"Wow…maybe I should half the peppers or—"

"What the buck is going on?!"

The sound of overturning carriages and the wanton destruction of pony property filled the air.

"The hay was that?!"

"A comet?!"

She could hear a fire hydrant burst, sending water shooting into the air.

"My stand! My stand is on fire! Somepony help!"

As she watched through Sugarcube Corner’s newly plastic-bagged, pony-shaped window, the Ponyville fireponies arrived with sirens blaring.

"Or... maybe I'll just... substitute another ingredient..." Pinkie whispered, blushing a deep pink.

Beginning a nervous trot back to her place behind the counter where she might hide from the imminent wrath of the Ponyville Fire Marshall—she was at two strikes for the month after all—Pinkie was knocked to the ground by a blur of yellow.

"Oh! Oh my goodness! Pinkie, I'm so sorry!" came a familiar voice as Pinkie found herself staring up into a pair of twitching turquoises.

"Oh! Heya again, Flutters!"

"Oh, I'm so, so sorry! Let me help you up!" Fluttershy gasped out, pulling Pinkie to her hooves before nervously brushing her pink coat clean of dust. “I was in a hurry! And-and the street was flooded and on fire and-and—”

"It's okay, Shy. Just happy my muffin didn't hit you for too long! Wouldn't want you on fire when we hang out tonight!" Pinkie replied with a giggle, giving the pegasus and firm, reassuring hug.

"Muffin?" Fluttershy echoed, tensing in the hug. "Tonight?!"

"Eight o'clock sharp, yep!"

"Eight o'clock, eight o'clock sharp?"

"Yep!"

"Tonight, tonight?"

"Yes, silly! I won't forget, Pinkie promise!" Pinkie stated with a smile, drawing a hoof across her heart. "You haven't even been gone a minute, after all. Don't worry so much, Auntie Pinkie's gotcha covered!" She winked at the pegasus as she let her out of the hug.

"Not even a... a minute?" Fluttershy gulped before shooting out through the door. “Gotta go!”

"See ya tonight, Shy!" Pinkie called after her.

Slowly, things settled down outside and Pinkie returned to pony the counter.

Wow... Fluttershy sure seems energetic today,she pondered a moment, watching as water continued to rain down outside. Ooo…I should bring the squirt guns tonight! That'll be the best!

3 ~ The Afternoon Sprint

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Fluttershy trotted quickly through the streets, chewing on her lower lip as she swung her head from right to left, searching for any sign of her still elusive other self.

Oh dear, oh dear... went the whispered mantra as she wracked her brain over where her wayward charge had gone. It’s all my fault if... if… oh, dear, what if somepony sees her? What if a guardspony sees her?

Her heart quickened as did her steps as her thoughts drifted back to that morning.

How stupid had she been? How selfish? Just lying there in bed, hooves grasping at that warm spot that had come to be such a familiar comfort. She had still been able to smell the strange mix of flour, sugar and gunpowder.

But just how long had she laid there, hoof playing across the still warm spot beside her? How long had she let herself imagine the fantastical reality, that she could trot downstairs at anytime to find the pink pony there with a plate of muffins and kiss on the cheek waiting?

How long had it been before she had realized that reality was still reality and that her new friend was absent?

It must have been nearly noon when she had finally come downstairs, the tears of the prior evening buried as she took stock of the cottage's ground floor with a smile prepared especially for her friend sure to be downcast mood.

But she hadn't been there, downcast or otherwise, and Fluttershy’s heart had lept into her throat to land with a dull thud, lodging itself between larynx and windpipe as she, with hard kick to the flank from a certain lapine friend, tore out of the cottage towards Ponyville and the first place she had thought her lost friend would have gone.

And she had been right.

Late... but right.

Where else could she have gone? Fluttershy wondered to herself. She can't know Ponyville very well except for what I told her about my...

Fluttershy's eyes widened as she came upon Ponyville's bustling Market district where she could see the very top of a familiar building, the noon sun glinting off its ornate merry-go-round facade.

The boutique!

~o~0~o~

Every scrap of a design.

Every half-thought out scrawl of an idea discarded for being beneath her standard of quality.

Every measurement and profile shot from the entirety of the boutique's lifetime, even from prior the unicorn’s time as owner, operator and purveyor of all things fabulous.

She could find any of these seemingly on a whim

But not the measurements she was looking for.

Oh, where did I put them. I know I kept them, the mare bemoaned silently as she sifted through her file cabinet—artfully disguised within an antique armoire—by hoof, the convenience of magic forgotten in her panic save for a casual adjustment of her red spectacles. I simply will not be able to forgive myself should I not be able to find it in ti—

Her thought was interrupted by the chime of the entry bell.

"It will be just a moment," Rarity called out in the sing-song voice she reserved for her clientele, her attention still fully focused on the drawer before her. She jammed her hoof as far as she could into its shadowy depths, thrashing it about in desperation for some loose piece of documentation that had somehow evaded her well-kept filing, but coming up with naught but a warrenful of dust bunnies.

Bleh... disgusting... The unicorn wrinkled her nose, making a note to tidy it up and possibly reorganize it at a later date as she wiped away the dust on a bit of too-green fabric close at hoof. Her face fell, frustrated grimace becoming a scowl.

"Welcome to the Carousel Boutique," she began listlessly as she turned to face her prospective client, guilt weighing heavily upon her. "How may I help—Fluttershy! Darling!"

"Oh, sh-should I come back later?” the pegasus stammered out, falling back onto her rear at the unicorn’s outburst. “I-I'll just go now and—"

"Nonsense!" Rarity gasped out, sweeping the trembling pegasus into her hooves and moving briskly towards the back of the boutique. "It's fortunate that you came back! I daresay almost serendipitous!"

"Fortunate?"

"Most fortunate, dear," Rarity echoed as she rushed the blushing pegasus up onto a pony-sized turntable, a trio of mirrors flanking it. "I’m rather embarrassed to say so, but just as I was about to begin my design—and I assure you again that it will be absolutely gorgeous—I discovered, much to my dismay, that I had misplaced my measurements from the Gala." Fluttershy winced as a measuring tape snaked up her leg, Rarity’s magic seeming to be focused everywhere at once. "Terribly unprofessional of me. Losing such a valued friends measurements and when she has allowed me to partake in her quest for her special somepony on top of it!"

"I—I—"

"Yes, yes, I know, darling! Truly dreadful circumstances! I could scarcely look myself in the mirror tomorrow were I to fail you after you had asked so kindly," Rarity cooed, horn sparking as fabrics of all manner of color and texture began to swirl about them. "Perhaps this is a bit short notice."

"Short notice?"

"Well, tonight is cutting it a bit close if you don't mind me saying so," Rarity intoned, Fluttershy letting out a squeak as her trembling wings were none-too-gently plied open and measured. "Oh, pardon, darling. I know you dislike having them touched so, but trust me, it will be worth it. And Rarity is a mare of her word."

"I…thank you?"

"No, no, no. No 'thank you' until we are done and you are one-hundred and ten—no wait!—one-hundred and twenty percent satisfied!" the unicorn declared as an unadorned ponnequin was yanked roughly to the platform, scraping noisily across the floor. It shimmered and shined as it was squeezed and stretched, taking on a pegasus’s proportions as a pair of wings were pinned carefully to its sides. Meanwhile, Rarity's eyes seemed to never leave her ever growing list of measurements even as she double- and triple-checked the pegasus's inseam again.

As it went on, Fluttershy could feel her heart thudding away in her throat, limbs shivering as she was held still on the slowly turning platform. She was sure that she couldn't take it much longer as a half dozen measuring tapes crawled over her like an army of paper centipedes, passing over her flanks in a steady stream. She thought she might scr—

"And voila! We are done."

"Oh, thank goodness," Fluttershy gasped out, collapsing as the numerous measuring tapes fled to their respective corners of the shop and the fabrics began to sort themselves out into drawers.

"Are you quite alright, dear?" Rarity asked, peering over her spectacles with concern. "Oh, I do hope I haven't overwhelmed you on your big day."

"N-no…I'm just…" Fluttershy paused a moment to compose herself, stepping shakily from the platform to the blessedly stationary floor of the boutique. "Can I ask y—"

“Oh, no! I cannot believe I’ve overlooked it!” Rarity interrupted, flopping to the floor with a dramatic wail. “Your mane!”

“My mane?”

“Of course!” Rarity balked at the question, scissors and curlers floating over to surround the pegasus, turquoise eyes gradually widening. “You certainly cannot have a fabulous ensemble without an equally fabulous mane cut. It simply is not done!”

Fluttershy cowered, the scissors snipping at the air as they drew closer and closer, a curling iron flanking her to the left and curlers to the right.

She was surrounded.

“Let us begin...” Rarity whispered as she stalked towards the now shivering pegasus, flanked by cans of hairspray and tubs of mousse.

Oh, dear...

~o~0~o~

Normally, the excitement of the market around noontide, the bustle of the ponies, the thousand little pieces of conversation swimming about would have been enough to sate a filly's interest.

"AJ... how 'bout now?"

"Not yet, Apple Bloom."

But it seemed to be less and less adequate as the week had worn on.

Tryin' ta get a sellin' cutie mark, my hindquarters, Applejack thought ruefully, ears twitching at the sound of impatient trotting behind her.

"How 'bout—"

Applejack lurched to the side as the filly's hoof hit her haunch. She regained her balance quickly, but shot her little sister a dark look as the apple pyramid she'd been building atop the countertop scattered to the ground in a series of soft thunks.

"Er, sorry, AJ," Apple Bloom shrank down a bit as she lowered back to all fours. "Sweetie was sayin' we might try our hoof at gettin' some dancing cutie marks... I was just tryin' t'practice a little."

Applejack trained her glare on the filly just a moment longer before her resolve softened. "Just don't be practicin' any of them high hoof kicks on my flank, alright?" She gave the filly a reassuring smile.

"Sure thing, sis," Apple Bloom replied quickly, backing away a bit before collapsing into one of the bushels of reserve apples.

Applejack turned her attention back to the street again, watching as another of the sellers packed it in for the day.

Gonna be last mare standin', it looks like, Applejack thought as she scanned the market, hoping, praying one of the ponies passing by to have apples on the mind.

"What about now?"

"Apple Bloom!" Applejack growled in frustration.

"What?" The little filly jerked up in the basket, looking back at her older sister's glare with confusion.

"Ya'll were the one that asked 'bout helpin' me sell today!"

"I know, I know... but I thought I might have a shot at getting my apple selling cutie mark"—She lifted a hoof to wave at the assortment of unsold produce—"and I don't anypony is getting any kind of mark here today."

Applejack sat down on her haunches, rubbing her hooves over her temples. Well, she ain't fibbin', Applejack.

"Bloom... y'all gonna have to learn some patience one day," she began cautiously. "Selling ain't just about...selling."

Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow.

"What I mean is, you ain't gonna always be lucky, Bloom. Sometimes you gotta wait things out... be persistent."

"But I am persistent!"

Applejack frowned. "Bloom, there's persistent and then there's assault."

"I said I was sorry!"

"And that's the only reason you're still here today. Lucky, Mayor Mare didn't buck the book atcha. She a litigious sort."

"Litigic? She's allergic to reading?"

"Y'll wish." Applejack rolled her eyes, recalling her last run in with Ponyville's rather verbose zoning regulations. "She ain't the sort to take kindly t'misbehavin' fillies an' let's leave it at that."

Apple Bloom just humphed in reply.

"Bloom, I know y'all is sick an' tired of waiting. I was your age once too, y'know. Just got to be patient."

"Aww, that's what you always say..." Apple Bloom groaned, collapsing back into the bushel, scattering a few apples. "'Just keep workin' hard and you'll get your mark,'" she said, dropping her voice an octave as she waved her forelegs about dismissively. "I've been workin' hard for months, sis! All three of us!"

"Bloom..."

"We've tried joinin' the road crew, gardening, hedge trimmin’, plumbin’, phone repair, subterfugery—whatever the hay that means—and that's just this last weekend!"—the little filly blew her mane out of her eyes—"We're runnin' out of ideas, AJ!"

"Bloom..." Applejack trotted over the languishing filly and giving her mane a gentle brush with her hoof. "Have y'all considered focusing on just one thing? Might be surprised what a little bit of time'll do."

"She's right!"

Applejack yelped, foreleg catching on hindleg as she spun to face the sudden voice, flipping herself right into the bushel beside Apple Bloom with a loud squish.

"Fluttershy!" Applejack cried out in surprise as the pegasus peered down at her, obviously suppressing a chuckle.

"Oh, hi, Fluttershy..." Apple Bloom murmured dejectedly.

"Hi—" a snort cut her off, Fluttershy's eyes bulging a moment as she visibly swallowed her snicker—"Oh, I mean, hello, Applejack. Um, Apple Bloom?"

"What the hay are you doin', 'Shy? Scared me near half to death there, sneakin' up like that." Applejack jabbed a hoof accusingly at the red-faced pegasus. "I'd expect that from Pinkie or Dash, not you!"

"Oh! Really? Thank you!" Fluttershy brightened up, grinning widely.

"Uh... that weren't a compliment..." Applejack stated, but the pegasus seemed undeterred.

"Oh, right. But anyways, you're right, you know." Fluttershy stated with a knowing nod of her head before turning to Apple Bloom. "She's right, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what all you 'big' ponies say. Be patient, yadda yadda. Stick with it, blah blah." She waved a dismissive hoof at the pair of older ponies. "I don' wanna be patient," Apple Bloom grumbled, sinking into the bushel a bit. She closed her eyes a moment before hot breath blowing in her face caused her to open them again, her vision filled with a pair of turquoise eyes.

"But she's r-i-g-h-t right! If you want to get super good at anything you need to work at it! You need to work at it haaaaaard..."

"That sounds... um... hard..." Apple Bloom sputtered, hoping for a moment to disappear beneath the apples as the pegasus smiled eerily at her.

"It is!" Fluttershy chirped, snapping back with a little hop. "But it's totally worth it! Even if you don't get a cutie mark!"

"Even if I don't... wuh-huh?" Apple Bloom gaped as she slowly worked herself out of the bushel. "But what point is there if you don't get a cutie mark? That's just silly! You're silly, Fluttershy!"

"Nuh uh!" Fluttershy stuck her tongue out at the filly.

"Yuh huh!" Apple Bloom returned the gesture.

The... what... Applejack thought, still stewing in her bushel of partially sauced apple.

"It is! It's silly!"

"No, it's not! It's not! It's not!"

"Ain't no point!"

"Yes there—ghmeris!" Fluttershy shot back around the orange hoof over her muzzle before glancing up at its partner taking her temperature.

"Y'all feeling alright, Fluttershy?"

"Frine," came the garbled reply.

"O...kay..." Applejack took a step back, before turning to the angrily pacing Apple Bloom. "Bloom, what we're trying to say is that maybe y'all are goin' about a little too lackadaisylike. I mean, think if you'd gone about fixin' the clubhouse like this. You would've never even gotten the wall patched up running around all reckless like a chicken with its head cu—" Applejack's jaw snapped shut with a loud clack, a blush overtaking her features. "Um... sorry there, sugarcube."

"For what?"

Applejack blinked. "Um... nothin' really, I suppose. Just, y'know, chickens. Know y'all still got Miss Cluckington in yer thoughts and all."

The pegasus thought on this a moment. "Okay." She smiled.

"Uh...anyways, why don't you three settle on something and work at it good an' hard for a week or so. See how things go."

"I... I guess we'll at least run out of ideas slower this way." Apple Bloom huffed, kicking at the dirt. "Hey! Maybe we could try some of our old ideas another try!"

"There ya go, Bloom. Now how 'bout you get along," Applejack said, smiling as she willed the blush to leave her face. Quick like, Bloom, while I still got some dignity.

"I know what we should try again! Cutie Mark Creature Catchers!" With that, Apple Bloom shot off.

"Y'all jus' keep out of Everfree, y'hear!"

"We will!" came the shouted reply as the little filly tore around a distant corner towards the Ponyville basin.

"Y'all better." Applejack grimaced.

"She seems nice."

Applejack started, skin rippling as she forced her nerves to settle themselves.

"Oh, um... sorry. I'll be...um... quieter..." Fluttershy scooted back from her spot just little bit too close to the apple farmer.

"Sorry, 'Shy. Just a little on edge with everything goin' on."

Fluttershy cocked her head to the side. "Is something wrong?"

"Y'know, just all the guards, Twilight and such... ain't been too good for business if you know what I mean." Fluttershy simply nodded along, eyes tracking a patrol passing by, one of her wings rustling ever so slightly. "Anyways, what can I do ya for, Fluttershy? The usual?"

"Oh, right! I have a list!" Fluttershy exclaimed, jamming a hoof into her saddlebag and thrusting a piece of paper into Applejack's face.

"Um... Fluttershy, this is a recipe."

"Yes."

"For"—the earth pony glance at the page, clearly torn out of a cookbook judging by the jagged edge—"'Slice of Love Cake'?"

"It's going to be fantastic!"

"You... you havin' yourself a git t'gether?"

Fluttershy's eyes widened. "Oh, no it's not for me! I m-mean it is for me, but not m-me or not just me, I mean." The pegasus quickly jammed a hoof into her uncooperative maw, smiling as widely as she could around the appendage.

"Well, somepony got a case of the jitters, don't she?" Applejack asked with a grin, giving the pegasus a playful jab with her elbow. "Who's the lucky somepony?"

"Oh, I couldn't say. I'm not supposed to!" Fluttershy eyes danced back and forth in a panic, cheeks flushed a tomato red.

"Aw, you know I wouldn't spill the beans." Fluttershy simply shook her head. "Alright, suit yerself. Now lessee about this cake."

Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief, slumping to the ground as Applejack read over the ingredients list.

"Well, ain't nothin' too exotic in this, if you have the time, I could probably help you get it all together."

"Oh that'd be gre... oh, but I have so many other things still left!" The pegasus shot to her hooves, taking up a nervous half trot around the cart. "I still have to go back for a dress, get picnic supplies, talk to the weather ponies and Twilight Sparkle! Oh my, oh my, oh my..."

"Whoa there, sugarcube," Applejack said, sticking out a foreleg to halt the pegasus's nervous gait. "No worries, Fluttershy. I'm jus' about done here. I'll get all yer ingredients and drop them by your cottage tonight, okay?"

"Really?" the pegasus gasped. "Thank you!"

Applejack reared up as the pegasus thrust her hooves around her in a bone rattling hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she said, grip tightening with each repetition.

"No... problem," Applejack grunted, breaking the pegasus's grip and settling both of them back on all fours. "Shoot. Reckon I could even come over and get it ready for you."

See this pony fer myself while I'm at it, she thought with a soft smirk.

"Omigosh! You will?" Fluttershy's eyes positively glistened with liquid joy at the offer.

"O' course I will. Would I lie to you?"

"Thank you!"

Applejack cringed, expecting another rib twisting hug from the pegasus.

Fluttershy gasped as the distant bell tower rang out the hour. "Oh, I'm late! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she called out as she skipped away down the semi-crowd market, looping around a rather confused set of royal guardsponies.

"You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome!" Applejack called back at the vanishing pony with a chuckle, the pegasus's enthusiasm infectious.

Well, at least I’ll have something to do tonight, an’ who knows? Maybe Fluttershy finally found herself somepony special. Applejack smiled at the thought before giggling at another. Rarity's going to have a right fit! Her little Fluttershy all grown up an’ datin’!

~o~0~o~

The sun was shining, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and she wasn't due for her shift for another two hours.

The perfect time for a nap. Rainbow Dash pushed her carefully selected cloud towards one of the quieter corners of Ponyville before flopping onto it, tufts of white peeling away from the impact before fading into nothingness.

Carefully, she molded the cloud beneath her, shifting its fluff about for maximum comfort and lateral napitudinal strength.

Just a little more underneath and…perfect! She grinned as she snuggled herself into its oh-so-fluffy comforts.

She lay there quietly for a moment, feeling the cool breeze flow over her, rustling her feathers and balancing out the noontime sun heat as it beat down upon the town. She blinked once, twice before scanning the town. As much as she liked naps, she did prefer to keep an eye on Ponyville just in case.

A nap interrupted was almost worse than no nap after all.

Hunh… Fluttershy sure looks energetic today... she thought to herself as her eye trailed over the market. Like... really, super energetic.

As Rainbow watched, the yellow-coated pegasus hopped and skipped through the market, going from stall to stall with a bright smile on her face even do a little hop around a pair of royal guardsponies.

Maybe she kept that monster's book after all… did her some good. Dunno what Rares and Pinkie were talking about...

Rainbow sat up for a moment to stretch and yawn, listening to the satisfying pops of her spine before settling back down. She looked down to find the pink-maned pegasus zipping through the rest of the market at speeds that gave even the Dashter the teeniest twinges of a echo of jealousy.

Just the teeniest tiniest ones.

Heh…maybe we'll get to try for the record again this year. Thousand wingpower no prob, she thought with a sleepy chuckle.

Rolling onto her back, she closed her eyes for a proper nap only to have them thrown back open by the slamming of a door below.

The hay?! Can't a weathermare get her midafternoon z's?! She grumbled, flipping over and poking her head through the cloud to glare at the source of the disturbance: Rarity's boutique.

"Wait a sec..." Rainbow muttered as she watched Fluttershy, hair full of curlers and eyes full of panic, trotting back and forth nervously in front of the boutique.

Rainbow twisted herself up, glancing back at the market, but she couldn't find any sign of the yellow pegasus she had seen. She looked back at the boutique to find Rarity on the porch, yelling something after Fluttershy as the pegasus streaked down the street, leaving behind a trail of curlers left in her wake.

Rainbow stared for a moment before flipping herself back up onto the cloud.

"Hunh..." she muttered as she glanced between the market and the boutique where Rarity had solemnly begun to collect her curlers from the dirt road.

Well…should probably help... she thought, giving the cloud a quick jab of her hoof before floating towards Rarity.

The cyan pegasus gave the market one last glance before it disappeared from her view.

Eh…it was probably Twister or somepony else…that'd explain the skipping at least... she reasoned silently as she alighted upon the ground just behind her prim and proper friend.

"Heya, Rares, need some help?"

"Oh, Rainbow Dash!" Rarity started in shock before settling back down, giving the cyan pegasus a disappointed pout. "You are surely going to give somepony a heart attack sneaking up like that."

Rainbow simply nickered, grabbing a pair of curlers from the ground, tossing them into the air and catching each on a feather. "I'll take that as a compliment on my awesome stealthiness."

"Take it however you like, darling," Rarity replied with a knowing smirk before resuming her work.

They scavenged quietly hardly a moment before Rainbow broke the silence.

"So...um…what was up with Fluttershy?"

Rarity halted her search, straightening up. She looked over to Rainbow, biting her lip. "Well…it is perhaps a somewhat personal matter, but…" Rarity put a hoof to her chin. "You've certainly known our dear Fluttershy long enough so I'm sure there's no harm,” she rationalized quickly, sidling up to Rainbow Dash.

"Uh... well yeah. I mean, we went to flight camp together and all..." Rainbow leaned a bit away from Rarity, the grin on the unicorn's face seeming just a bit too wide for the pegasus.

"Well," Rarity began, dropping her voice to a whisper, "It seems that our darling Fluttershy finally has herself a special somepony she's looking forward to—how shall I put it?—‘courting' this very night!"

"Really?" Rainbow perked up at the news.

"I know! I know! It's so exciting and beautiful and wonderful!" Rarity gave a gleeful little hop, eyes alight with barely restrained joy. "I've been waiting for this for, oh, I don’t even know how long!"

"Why?" Rainbow asked, taking a step away from the bouncing unicorn. “I mean... it was bound to happen sooner or later, right?”

"Oh come now, Rainbow. You of all ponies are certainly aware of her…insecurities, regarding romance... other ponies... most things."

"Well…I guess I've never really thought much about it…but yeah…I guess Fluttershy is kinda…well…shy."

"To put it lightly, darling! She is the very definition!" Rarity declared, Rainbow becoming acutely aware of how loud they were becoming as a blush curled across the pegasus’s face. "And that is precisely why this night has to be absolutely perfect."

"Yeah…I guess I can't see Flutters handling stormy skies very well..."

"Yes and..." Rarity fell silent a moment, her eyes glancing skywards before settling on Rainbow Dash. "Stormy skies... oh… oh! That is simply brilliant, Rainbow Dash!"

"H-hunh?" Rainbow stammered, taking a step back from the now downright maniacally grinning unicorn.

"Oh, Rainbow, darling!" Rarity cried out, snapping the pegasus up into a hug of fierce, excited nuzzling. "I’ve just had the most brilliant idea for tonight and you are just the mare for the job!"

“Uh... awesome?”

~o~0~o~

Held within a sparkling cloud of magenta magic, a vial half filled with off-white mixture floated across the table. The mare's purple eyes glared intently from behind her protective goggles at it as she spun it around before her.

Three-hundred and fifty milliliters of bihydroalicol pegasulfite mix—the tipped tipped over, emptying its contents into a rather large beaker set over a gently burning flame—Check!

The vial was discarded into a rather full bin beside the table with a clack of glass, magenta magic playing across a bookcase filled to the brim with chemicals, scrolls and manuals for her next ingredient.

Oh, where is it? She frowned, tilting up her goggles with a hoof as she stomped over to the bookcase. Heterosulfide Manganese… Borax... L-cysteine... Cochineal... juniper berries… brown sugar?

"The hay?" the unicorn gasped aloud as she ran down the shelf of carefully organized and labeled ingredients. "Flour? Frosting?"

Oh, he is so grounded if he’s been baking in the lab again...

"Spike!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, glaring up the long stairway to the basement door. "Spike! What'd you do with my ingredients?!"

"I didn't do anything with them, Twilight!" came the indignant reply as the baby dragon appeared at the top of the stairs, besmocked in a soft yellow apron. "Now can I get back to making your lunch now?"

"Spike, you've been down here again, haven't you?" Twilight accused. “Don’t lie to me.”

"Yeah, of course," Spike answered, crossing his arms as he matched Twilight glare for a glare. "Bringing you your meals. Making sure you actually get some sleep. Making sure you don't blow yourself up from being overtired and overstressed!"

"I..." Twilight bit her lip, letting her goggles snap back into place.

"Twilight…take a break."

"But I'm just so close!"

"That's what you said yesterday, Twi."

"But I mean it this time!"

"And that's what you said the day before that."

"I..." She swore for a moment she tasted copper. "I have to finish this, Spike."

"I know…I know..." Spike replied with a roll of his eyes. "The Sodium Biphosphate is on the table next to the Carbon Dihexochloride."

Twilight glanced at the table to find that it indeed was there. "Right where I left them." The sound of hoof contacting skull echoed in the basement.

"Yep.” He watched the bag of sugar that lazily floated behind her. “And the flour and frosting next to them is leftovers from your last sleepover with Pinkie and Rainbow Dash.”

“Oh...” Twilight blushed. “Right...”

“Yeah... right.” He tapped a claw angrily against his arm, stewing for a moment before it burst out of him. “It’s been weeks, Twi!”

“This is important, Spike!”

“More important than your health?”

“Yes!” Twilight shouted instinctively before biting her lip. “Well... it’s important. You know how on alert the guard is... how anxious everypony is. If I can finish this, everypony will be able to relax again.”

“Yeah... maybe even you,” Spike huffed.

"Sorry, Spike...I'll be right up just after I finish with this one last formula."

"You said that three days ago," Spike growled, turning to the leave before turning right back. "Y'know, Applejack came by this morning asking if you were still alive and kicking or not. You're starting to worry someponies, y’know…somedragons too."

"One last formula. I promise, Spike," Twilight said with a reassuring smile.

Spike simply shrugged, anger spent, and turned to exit the basement.

"Hey, Spikey?"

"Yeah, Twi?"

"How about we go out for hayfries tonight? I'll even get you a Sapphire Surprise Sundae at Sugarcube Corner."

“Sapphire... Surprise?” Spike echoed, Twilight giggling as she saw a bead of saliva forming in the corner of his mouth, tongue lolling out slightly."You promise?"

"I Pinkie Pie promise."

"Alright," Spike relented, giving the overtired unicorn a smile. "Just don't blow yourself up before we go, ‘kay?"

"Okay, Spike," Twilight replied with a chuckle, watching the little dragon disappear from view before turning back to her lab.

Ugh...can't believe I misplaced it... again…and blamed Spike...again... Twilight sighed as she levitated the last few ingredients over to the burner. But it'll all be worth it if this works. Now… just have to be careful...

~o~0~o~

"She had better not be fibbing..." Spike muttered to himself as he meandered into the library's kitchen, wiping away the stray bit of saliva that had formed on his lips at the mention of the oh-so-delectably-decadent Sapphire Surprise Sundae. Such things were not to be spoken of in vain.

Mrs. Cake is just getting so good with those gemcakes…her cutie mark should be a sapphire sundae instead of those boring ol' cupcakes, Spike thought to himself as the bead reformed itself again in the corner of his mouth. Ugh, control, Spike, control. Can't have ponies seeing you drooling like that.

Spike shook the images of sapphires and blueberry ice cream from his mind and hopped up onto the countertop where the ingredients of their lunchtime salad lay half-prepared. It was going to be a rather late lunch at this point, he thought as he grabbed a knife from a drawer.

Or dinner if Twi doesn't get herself out of that basement sometime soon!

Just as he held the knife over a carrot, Spike heard the doorbell ring.

Guh…can't anypony read? He grimaced, stabbing the knife into the chopping board angrily and jumping back down to the floor. “Closed for lunch.” Really not that hard to understand.

"Spiiiiiiike!"

"Already getting it, Twilight!" Spike yelled back preemptively as he trudged towards the door. He opened it in a huff, fully prepared himself to read whomever was there the riot act. "We're clo—"

"Um…hi."

He snapped his mouth shut immediately and painfully.

"Oh…uh, hey, Fluttershy," Spike mumbled as he rubbed his sore jaw.

"Hiya, Spike," the pegasus replied, standing in the doorway, digging at the ground with forehoof.

"Uh…fancy seeing you here?"

"Yes."

Spike blinked.

"Um…did you want to come in?"

"Don't mind if I do!" Fluttershy perked up suddenly, trotting past the baby dragon before stopping stock-still just within the library. "Oh, wow…that's a lot of books." Her eyes shined as the pegasus took in the vast collection.

"Well, it is a library," Spike replied, closing the door. "You feeling alright?"

"Lots of ponies have been asking that today..." the pegasus murmured, touching a hoof to her chin before turning her attention back to the books, moving down the line as her hoof trailed over their titles.

"Well…you seem a little…I dunno…off?"

"Oh?" she tilted her head thoughtfully. She walked over and plopped down in front of Spike, looking down expectantly.

"Yeah…I guess. Usually, you're not this up."

"Up?"

"Y'know, like, energetic…unless it's an animal thing… or, uh, me that one time I guess..." Spike recalled with a blush the attention the pegasus had lavished upon him in their first meetings.

"Oh…so I should be more…down?" she asked, voice dropping into a lower register.

"Yeah—I mean, no…well…just more, y'know... Fluttershy-y..." Spike paused a moment. "This conversation got weird fast."

"Yes," she agreed with a smile.

Spike found himself reduced to simply staring at the pegasus once more, jaw slackening.

She simply smiled back.

"So…anyways. What'd you need, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, right, silly me!" the pegasus giggled before catching herself. "Oh…I mean…right…I'm sorry, I forgot."

"Uh…that's okay?"

"Well... was just wondering if there were any”—she coughed, the tone taking its toll on her voice—“potion books."

"Well, yeah, tons," Spike replied, eyebrow cocked. "I think Twilight's probably tripled the inventory in the last month alone. Anything in particular?"

"Oh, well, uh..." the pegasus sputtered, making a show of her eyes darting back and forth nervously. "I was hoping that you had a potion..." She paused a moment, watching the baby dragon’s face for something.

"Yeah...?"

"A potion... that might make a shy pony less... shy?"

"Oh… well... I could check with—" Spike found himself cut off suddenly as the tree gave a violent heave. "Um… one moment."

Spike ran to the basement door to find green-tinged smoke curling up from the basement, the sound of somepony coughing violently below echoing up.

"Twilight! Twilight, are you okay?!" he shouted down, stepping nervously into the greenish haze.

"I'm"—the fit of coughs continued—"I'm okay, Spike. Was just a little”—another round of hacks and wheezes—“a little bit off with my measurements."

Spike watched as a magenta glow shimmered from within the verdent fog, an arcane wind suddenly swirling into life.

Within moments, the smoke was sucked into a vortex, a large jug levitating towards the bottom of it. Slowly, carefully the smoke was suctioned into the jug before a stopper wedged into place.

"Whew…there..." Twilight said with a sheepish grin as she tilted up her goggles before turning to find Spike with his claws clasped over his mouth, body trembling with laughter. "What? What is it? Something wrong with my mane?"

"Haha! Not just your mane!" Spike shouted out before breaking out in full laughter. Twilight brought over a mirror to find herself, save a pair of spots around her eyes, completely covered in greenish-gray ash. She felt a giggle start in her belly as she tilted to reveal her mane to be in a sort of a singed mohawk.

Good thing Rarity isn't here. She'd faint from the shock of my coiffure. Twilight smirked at the thought.

"You look ridiculous!"

Twilight had to agree as she shrugged off her lab clothes and made sure the lab didn't have any still smoldering fires to take care of. With a chuckle, she trotted up the stairs, collecting the still laughing dragon as she did so.

"Yes I do, Spike. Now—what was that?" she wondered aloud as a flashing, sparkling green light filled the top of the stairs for a moment.

"Oh, yeah, Fluttershy came by," Spike told her through gasped as his chuckles subsided. "She was looking for an anti-shy potion or something."

"Anti-shy?" Twilight echoed as she tried to smooth out her singed mane as best she could before stepping into the library's main floor. "Fluttershy?"

The library seemed to be deserted.

"Did she leave?"

"She was here a second ago."

"Oh, hi, Twilight!" came a shrill cry from the stairs.

"Oh, Fluttershy, what happened?" Twilight gasped as she took in the state of the pegasus. Her hooves were covered in dust and dirt, her mane a tangled mess with a few curlers still tangled in the long pink locks. She seemed to be completely out of breath as she stood huffing at the top of the stairs.

"Oh, I'm fine! Perfectly fine!" Fluttershy nearly shouted, eyes wild.

"I…you don't look fine..."

"Well, looks can be deceiving, can't they?" Fluttershy stated rather loudly before her face suddenly dropped. "Oh, I'm sorry, Twilight. It's just been, um, one of those days, you know?"

Twilight looked towards the basement. "Yeah…I'm having one myself."

"Oh, but I have to go now, okay?"

"Wait!" Twilight shouted as the pegasus disappeared.

"Yes?" Fluttershy came back into view, smiling even as her right eye gave the subtlest of twitches.

"I, uh… anti-shy potion, right?"

"What?" Fluttershy looked upstairs for a moment before returning her attentions to the unicorn. "Oh, um, yes?"

"Well, there aren't any really any potions like that... or spells for that matter. Manipulating the basic personality profile of a pony has been outlawed since the 2nd Discordian era," Twilight explained, eyes closed as she recalled her last reading of Chaos and Crimes: An Equestrian History. She opened her eyes to find the pegasus trotting nervously in place. "Oh... um... but if you're feeling really nervous..." she trailed off a moment before brightening up. Her horn lit up and a small, round tin floated from the kitchen on up the stairs where Fluttershy grasped it with a wing. "You should absolutely try some Zebrican tea. It's the perfect relaxant for nerves. I’ve even read that it makes a great meditation aide as well. It’s almost supernatural how effective it is."

"I…um…thank you, Twilight," Fluttershy replied with a genuine smile, her twitch seeming to settle somewhat as examined the tin. "I, uh, have to go now. Um…critters to feed. You don't mind me, um, using your balcony, do you?"

"Not at all, Fluttershy," Twilight answered with a smile. "It was good to see you."

"It was good to see you too, Twilight.” She disappeared for a moment before reappearing, motherly glare firmly in place. “And don't stay cooped up in that basement too long. There's a whole wide world that's missing you," she advised before disappearing once more, the sounds of hooves on wood and the opening and closing of an upstairs door echoing down the stairs.

"Told you ponies were worried," Spike muttered, arms crossed as he sat up on Twilight's back.

"And you were right, Spike. It's definitely time for a break," Twilight replied, giving the dragon a quick nuzzle, staining his cheek with soot. The dragon grimaced and wiped off the soot as best he could.

“Hey!” he gasped out before a thought struck him. “Hey... um... wasn’t that just regular chamomile tea?”

“Well... yeah... but on a pony like Fluttershy... the placebo effect can work wonders even beyond magic,” Twilight admitted with a nervous smile. "Now, how about we both get cleaned up so we can get you that sundae I owe you."

"Sounds like a plan to me!"

~o~0~o~

Far away, Fluttershy's cottage sat quiet, most of the animals content to laze about in the warm afternoon sun.

In the bedroom, a certain white rabbit had burrowed his way into the sun-baked comforter for his own midday nap. A content smile of his face, he opened an eye to glance about the room before settling in.

The master of the house—though she would surely balk at the term—had been gone for quite a while, leaving the whole of the cottage to the animals. Angel Bunny knew that this was meant to be a responsibility, maybe even an honor, but the call of the warm comforter had easily rendered his ability to abide the pegasus’s request to maintain the tidiness of her bedroom sanctuary insufficient as he twisted beneath the covers, swirling the wonderfully soft and comfy fabric about himself, incidentally knocking the all pillows to the floor.

The little bunny purred as his body was coated in the bliss of silken sheets.

But no sooner had he closed his eyes then did his ears twitch at a distant cry of forewarning. Burrowing up from the depths of his fluffy cave, he stood stock straight, ears held stiffly as he stared out the window.

He had nary a moment to process the sound as he lept from the bed, taking the comforter and most of the sheets with him as a pair of mostly yellow pegasi crashed through the thankfully still open window and into the bed.

The bed tilted up on its side from the impact before landing on its side with a crash, the pair of pegasi slipping to the floor in the heap of sheets and fortuitously placed pillows.

Downstairs, a cacophony of groans and growls and yips and yaps and twitters and tweets filled the cottage as the animals were stirred by the thunderous sound.

Upstairs, there came a pair of groans as the tangle of bedding, hooves and wings twitched. One of the pegasi thrashed about before successfully extricating itself from the other, bouncing onto the high side of the bed.

"Woo! We should so try that again!" it cried out in a familiar voice in an unfamiliar tone as it stared down at its doppelganger.

"No…le— let’s please not," the other murmured, sitting up, eyes dancing about in their sockets.

"Aww…shoot," the first sighed, kicking at the air before the bed suddenly swayed beneath it. “Whoa!” it cried out as the bed slammed back down into its proper place, a perplexed pegasus atop it. "Um...sorry, Fluttershy."

Oh dear, I hope she's oh— Fluttershy cut the thought short. No, you're angry with her, darn it.

Immediately, the imposter found its vision filled with a pair of infuriated turquoise orbs.

"What were you thinking?!" Fluttershy demanded, voice shrill and eyes alight with anger. “Risking yourself... your health?! You took off your bandages and... and went— went gallivanting all around town! Why?”

"I-I-I," her doppelganger stammered, eyes wide with shock and ears flattened against its skull as it dropped unceremoniously to its belly. "I was just trying to—"

"To what? To get yourself hurt or caught or even worse?!" Fluttershy twitched, pressing her face against her double's. "What if a royal guardspony had seen you? You know they're out looking for changelings? Why would you take such a...a… such a stupid stupid risk?!"

"It wasn't stupid!" the changeling retorted.

"IT WAS!" Fluttershy yelled in response, eyes on the verge of tears. "It was stupid because they could have found you and taken you away to do... Celestia knows what they’d do!"

"I…okay, maybe it was a little stupid..." came the meek reply. "B-but they never would have found me!"

"What? Because you were disguised?" Fluttershy demanded jabbing a hoof at the changelings leg.

"Well, I w—" the words were cut short as the changeling saw black chitin mixed amongst the yellow fur, green smoke peeling off the wound-like spaces as they arced with green energy. "I…don't— how—"

The changeling was interrupted by a pair of yellow hooves wrapping tight about it.

"Please," Fluttershy began, voice cracking as a few stray tears dropped into her doppelganger’s mane. "Just…never never do anything like that again. Promise me, Flammy?"

"I promise..." the changeling replied reluctantly, shifting nervously in the pegasus’s grip.

"Now"—Fluttershy relaxed her grip, separating enough so that they could look each other in the eye—"What possessed you to go hopping around town in the first place?"

"Oh! I had the best idea last night," Flammy chirped, face brightening considerably. "I am gonna make sure you have the bestest, most superbly awesome date ever!"

"You mean you were."

"Hunh?"

Fluttershy sighed, avoiding the mirror of herself as she stared at the mess of the bedroom around them. "Flammy... this is all…complicated."

"No it isn't!" the retort came quickly as a series of quick snaps and crackles filled the air, ignored by both.

"Yes, it is," Fluttershy intoned.

"No! It isn't! It's simple!" the changeling argued, face contorting in frustration. "You love her! That's simple!"

"I... maybe... yes, but that's just a part of it."

"But it's the part that matters! An-an—" the rest of the sentence became a nonsensical series of chirps and squawks as, in a flash of green fire, the changeling's disguise failed and its voice went up in smoke with it. After a few moments of incoherent gibbering, Flammy fell silent, murring in embarrassment as it looked at Fluttershy with its big, green-hued, segmented eyes: a dozen gazes of disappointment greeting the changeling.

"I... I'll explain it to you later. For now, you should probably relax... both of us should," Fluttershy muttered, dropping from the bed and trotting hesitantly towards the door. "I'm going to go run us a bubble bath…you’ll like those." Flammy simply nodded her assent sadly. "Then… maybe later… after this is all fixed… we can talk some more and I can explain all this to you." Another nod, even more morose.

With a sad look, Fluttershy slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the changeling to stare at the door as it closed, revealing, behind it, a rather angry looking Angel Bunny wrapped in a comforter.

The rabbit took a step forward and the changeling pressed itself against the wall, letting out a quiet trill of fear.

4 ~ Bit o' the Bubbly

View Online

Fluttershy gave a start as water splashed heavily down around her hooves, sloshing over the side of the oversized washtub. With her soft snore interrupted by a panicked gasp, she lunged for the faucet and yanked it closed.

Alas, her lower half had already been thoroughly soaked with sudsy water, a few bubbles whipping into the air on the breeze of her self-calming sigh.

Chasing her changeling patient all about Ponyville had been a—rather unsurprisingly—taxing event for the pegasus. With a grimace, she trudged to the utility closet, on the hunt for her mop and bucket even as she wiped what sleep remained from her eyes—the soothing, bubbling waters lapping at the edges of the tub beckoning her gently.

Work first, she reminded herself curtly, relax later, Fluttershy. She gripped the mop handle in her forehooves, feathertips curling around the top for added accuracy in her artful swirls of the mop, beating back the suds’ steady advance.

She glanced out the window as she strained out the mop, the sun just beginning to peer beneath the top of it. There wouldn't be much time for relaxation as it was if she were to take care of the changeling's… overeagerness.

To say the least...

A few more swishes of the mop and the floor was reasonably dry, the sheen of wetness that clung to it already wicking away into the air.

I'll have to go by Sugarcube Corner first… definitely first. Then to Rarity's boutique to explain this away… somehow. Then… Fluttershy let out a little sigh as she set the mop and bucket back into their respective places in the closet. Oh, I don't even want to think about how many other ponies she roped in—

A crash shook her attentions, the pegasus whipping her gaze up to stare at the ceiling. Several thumps and a second crash—followed quickly by the rather distinct sound of panicked galloping—and then down the stairs they came.

Fluttershy nearly had to dive out of the way to avoid the half-pony, half-changeling as it bounced to a halt. She could hardly muster a squeak of surprise as the changeling grabbed onto one of her hind legs, shoving her between it and the source of its most immediate mortal peril.

"Angel Bunny!" Fluttershy nearly shouted as the rabbit skid by the bathroom entrance, claws scrabbling against the smooth wooden floor. "What do you think you’re doing?"

Angel righted himself and straightened up before Fluttershy. He thought on the question a moment before blowing a big, wet raspberry at the changeling, said changeling promptly returning the gesture with gusto.

"What has gotten into you two?" she demanded, eyes narrowed.

But Angel didn't waver, glaring at the changeling as it shrank fully behind its yellow-furred protector, raspberry fading to a quiet blueberry and finally a silent, drooping strawberry.

"Angel Bunny..." Fluttershy’s expectant hoof taps filled the room.

He finally looked up, a grimace firmly entrenched in his rabbity features as he let loose a series of plaintive squeals.

"Yes, I am well aware that you are now quite late for your twelve-forty-seven nap."

He growled before jabbing an accusative paw at the cowering lump of fur and chitin.

"Well, I am very sorry that we interrupted your nap time, Angel Bunny, but that is no reason to act like this. Especially not towards a guest in our home."

The rabbit let out a snort.

"Angel Bunny, I expected far better behavior from you. Much better. Perhaps we won’t be visiting the Canterlot Carroteers Convention and Centennial Celebration after all."

The rabbit's jaw dropped. Ears pressed against his skull, he hopped up and down before Fluttershy, tossing down squeaks of indignity and squeals of accusation upon the changeling as the pegasus kept him back with her splayed wings. Settling down a moment, he turned his back to them, ears held high with pride.

"I do expect you to apologize, Angel Bunny."

A squawk of confusion from behind the pegasus was quickly echoed in the bunny's own confused squeak.

"Yes, I am, but that is still no excuse. Now apologize, mister." Fluttershy leaned down towards the rabbit, putting them on the same level as her eyes burned into his.

Mouth still agape, a paw thrust towards the steadily emboldened changeling in exasperation, the rabbit protested as verbosely and passionately as any bunny could.

Fluttershy's gaze did not waver. The rabbit's pride, however, finally did and, with a drag of the selfsame paw down his face, he let out half-garbled, just barely recalcitrant squeak.

"There. That's better. Now, both of you, hug!”

Another pair of echoes, this time of joined disagreement.

“I said hug!” Fluttershy addressed the pair sternly as she stepped from between them.

With a nervous creep of chitinous hooves, the changeling scooted forwards, the rabbit dragging its paws in an unenthusiastic shuffle. They glared at each a moment before, with a defeated sigh, Angel lept onto the changeling’s chest, paws clasping around the changeling’s neck, perhaps a little too tightly as Flammy gave out a soft, strangled cry.

“A real hug now. It isn’t nice to fake a hug.”

With a growl, Angel Bunny patted the changeling on the back in a steady, awkward cadance, Flammy returning the favor with an equally staccato beat.

“Okay, good. Now don’t you both feel better now?” Fluttershy smiled warmly as the pair quickly detached from one another. “Friends?”

With a roll of his eyes, Angel offered a paw to the changeling and, grinning happily, Flammy gave the rabbit’s paw a firm shake.

“Great!” Fluttershy chimed before grabbing the pair in a quick hug of her own. “Now, Angel Bunny, I'll be up soon enough to tuck you back in for your four-thirty-seven nap, okay?"

Angel muttered under his breath—sticking his tongue out at the still grinning changeling as soon as Fluttershy's back was turned to him—before hopping off.

The changeling returned the gesture readily, screwing her eyes closed as she thrust her tongue out at the rabbit with all her might.

"Flammy!”

Her tongue sucked right back into her mouth as she found herself sinking down before the pegasus with fearful churr.

“Don't think I'm not still very, very disappointed in you, Flammy."

Eventually, Fluttershy relented her glare, going about the business of preparing. Opening the window, the pegasus darted outside a moment, returning with the business end of a green garden hose.

“Let’s get you cleaned off first.” Fluttershy motioned the changeling into the corner of the bathroom where wooden floor gave way to tile, an oversized drain having been installed for her less cuddle-sized animal companions. “Now, this will be a bit cold, but just think how nice and warm and relaxing the bath will be once you’re all ready”

Flammy hummed in satisfaction before letting out a startled squeak at the first blast of cold water from the hose. Slowly, but surely, Fluttershy sent the stream across the changeling, the green goo clinging to her beginning to clump and drop away beneath the onslaught, leaving behind a thin film still clinging to her black armor.

“Okay, I need you to keep your eyes shut for now.” Moving the hose to beneath a wing, the pegasus quickly grabbed a bottle of shampoo she usually reserved for the stickier animal situations—as well as the few results of crusader activities while foalsitting. She squeezed it over the changeling, scrubbing it into into a sudsy mess with her free hoof before shutting off the water a moment.

A frightened churr came from within the formless mountain of shivering suds.

“That just means it’s working,” Fluttershy assured her, counting off the seconds as the suds gradually took on a greenish hue as they leeched the strange concoction from her armor. She could hear the changeling’s impatient hooves scraping at the tile beneath the mass, her churrs becoming more and more impatient. “Just a few more seconds.” She raised the hose up with her hooves, gripping the nozzle.

Fluttershy’s eyes screwed shut as she opened the nozzle as wide as it would go, sending a torrent of water at the changeling. She kept the blast focused on the corner, her hooves scraping against the floor before, at the sound of splash behind her, she flipped the nozzle closed.

“Flammy!” Fluttershy tapped a hoof, a pair of blue-green orbs peering out from beneath the mound of bubbles.

Sighing, Fluttershy grabbed a towel and sponge from the nearby sink, setting them beside the tub before, with a quick flap of her wings she lifted herself into the air and settled into the tub opposite the changeling. She gasped the lingering heat of the water but relaxed into its liquid embrace soon enough.

Keeping three hooves firmly planted on the bottom of the tub, Fluttershy motioned with a hoof for Flammy to turn around, the changeling complying with hardly a chitter as Fluttershy set about the business of scrubbing away at what was left of the strange soot. Crystallized portions of it scraped away in chunks from her black armor.

A few minutes later, Fluttershy stepped back to admire her works, the sunlight glistening off the changeling's well-polished chitin.

"There we go. All clean." Fluttershy smiled as Flammy let out a happy little squawk and vanished a moment beneath the bubbly surface. The pegasus found herself forcing a smile as she reemerged beneath a mass of wet pink mane, the changeling's smiling, yellow-furred muzzle parting the long strands of hair as Fluttershy's stomach gave an uncomfortable twinge.

Flammy continued to smile blindly a moment, a pall of silence falling over the bathroom save the distant, unaware chirps of the summer birds. Her smile faded by degrees before she lifted the mane from her eyes to see the pegasus with a rather morose look on her face.

"Fluttershy?"

The pegasus remained silent.

Slowly, Flammy floated towards her, neck bowed and brow furrowed in worry. "You okay, Fluttershy?"

"No."

"No?" The changeling settled her hooves on the tub bottom, looking up into Fluttershy's stoic gaze.

"No, Flammy, I am not okay. I am angry. Very angry. With me, with you! I don't want to be, but I am. And... and more than that, I’m disappointed. I'm disappointed that you would risk yourself like this." Fluttershy let out a whoosh of air as if she'd been holding in a breath. "I…I almost wish I was even angrier with you. But I should be completely furious with you!"

"I'm... sorry?"

"Are you? I don’t know if you are."

"Y-yes? I mean, maybe?" the changeling sputtered, sitting down in the tub, ears flat like a naughty puppy caught with the well-chewed morning newspaper as her chin came to a rest at the water's surface. "I don't know? Am I?"

Fluttershy let out a choked, pained laugh, Flammy's expression turning dour as she blew bubbles in what remained of the suds.

"I didn't mean anything bad. Honest! I wouldn't want to have anything bad to happen to you. You've been so nice. I just wanted to see you happy."

"Flammy... I was perfectly content before," Fluttershy stated. “Besides all this, I’m perfectly content right now.”

"But you could be so much happier..."

Fluttershy let out a little sigh as her doppelganger sank slowly into the water until just her eyes and nostrils rested at its surface. "That just... that just isn't something that anypony can decide for somepony else. I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise. I let this go on longer than I should have."

A burble of curiosity rose from the waters as the changeling's eyes widened in expectation.

"A pony has to be able to choose for herself if she wants to pursue somepony else"—the changeling brightened up immediately—"or if she doesn’t."—before sagging again in defeat.

A burbled question breached the waters surface, the doppelganger's brow wrinkled and her eyes narrowed.

Fluttershy cocked an eyebrow, a nervous pink tinging her cheeks.

"But what if you never want to?" the changeling asked in earnest. "What if you never even try, even though you know you should? What if the whole, wide-wide, big, giant, enormous world says that you should try but you just... don't?" Flammy festered on it a moment further before adding, "Or can't?"

"I... that's just something that I will deal with, Flammy. And that will be nopony else's concern, but my own, okay? You understand, right?"

The changeling didn't move, just stared at Fluttershy, meeting her hopeful gaze with expressionless mask.

"Right?" Fluttershy reiterated with more than a note of desperation.

The changeling looked away, replying with a meek "...Maybe."

Fluttershy let out a groan of exasperation as her head settled into the soles of her forehooves.

"Sorry?" Immediately a pair of hooves found their way around her, clutching her tight in a confused, fumbling hug.

"What am I going to do with you?" the pegasus whispered to herself, caught somewhere halfway between laugh and sob. All the stress of running about Ponyville, all the worry and fear and elation of finally finding her had seemingly seeped into that one moment as the changeling awkwardly embraced her.

How had she let it get to this point? Sure, she’d indulged the changeling’s wont, but where along the had she let herself go along with it?

Fluttershy hardly listened as the changeling cooed softly to her in her own voice, the pegasus's breaths leaving in half-chuckles, half-sobs.

How was she even going to explain this to all her friends?

‘Sorry, cold hooves’? ‘Maybe another time’? ‘Feather flu season’? she wondered to herself. And if Flammy was going to such lengths after only a few weeks, how far will they be willing to go?

She truly wasn’t looking forward to those many conversations.

She sank gently into the still-warm waters, ears twitching at the sound of wind plying the thatched roof. It seemed the weather was starting to stir up—maybe a summer storm had been scheduled?—but gentle, soothing waters entrapped her.

How did I get myself into this?

She blew a few stray bubbles from the surface of the water, the soap tickling her nostrils as a gentle green glow settled over her.

Maybe I just need to relax for a bit before we sort all this out...

~o~0~o~

A steady thump-thump-thump shook the pegasus from her nap, a shiver running through her as the cooled water pressed down on her.

I wonder who that could be, her nap-addled mind wondered, hardly able to conjure more than the most cursory potentiality as she heard the door creak on its journey open.

"Well, howdy there, Angel. Fluttershy around?" Fluttershy heard a familiar twang and immediately the once warm bathwater felt very, very cold.

With a splash of water and an instinctive grab of her bathrobe, Fluttershy rushed into the living room. Stopping with a ripple of carpet, she halted her momentum just before crashing into Applejack, hood flinging up over her head as the earth pony was spattered with water.

"Well, I didn't think I needed a bath, but alright," Applejack stated, drawing back from the sudden spray of moisture. "Catch y'all at a bad time?"

"NO!" Fluttershy shouted, muffled by the absorbent fabric clinging to her face, before ripping away the hood with a smile as wide as she could manage. "I MEAN YES!"

"Well..." Applejack lingered a moment before stepping by the pegasus and towards the stovetop. "I figured I could get an early start on that cake recipe early seeing how it looks like it takes a few hours fer it t'set up good and nice."

"Cake?"

"Yeah, that Slice a' Love cake," Applejack replied, flipping down her hat to draw out the torn bit of paper. "Couple of the ingredients were a little bit harder t'find than I'd thought, but Pinkie’s got herself quite the collection in the Cake’s pantry."

"Pinkie?" Fluttershy echoed, turning slowly to follow the earth pony towards the kitchen.

"Yeah—um, 'Shy, y'need to sit down for a spell? Lookin' a bit paler than usual."

"N-no…I-I'm fine... just fine…" Fluttershy croaked out as she sank to the floor, watching the long shadows beyond outside the kitchen windows. “Just… still waking up a little.”

There came a squawk from behind her and as she looked, her blood swirled into a cocktail of chilled fear steeping atop a bubbling pot of infuriation.

“Apparently I dozed off in the tub…” she muttered, shooting an uncertain glare at the bird, but the flamingo just smiled its beaky grin before hop-skipping its way to the right of the doorway’s path just in time for the door to burst inward, a well and frazzled fashionista riding the back of a garment trolley that slowed before clanging to a stop against the stairs.

"Fluttershy! You're hardly even out of the bath?!" Rarity cried out in horror as she lept from the rack to the pegasus's side, grabbing her in her hooves. “Oh dear! Oh dear! And you’re all pruney!”

The pegasus let out a squeak of complaint as thread, needles, combs, brushes, scissors and all manner of beautification supplies levitated into view from behind the unicorn.

Setting the pegasus down, Rarity pressed a hoof to her chest solemnly. "Now is the time, Fluttershy, that separates beauty from beast." Rarity pressed her muzzle to Fluttershy's. "Let us finish what we have started."

"Gah, give the crazy a rest already, Rares."

Fluttershy peered over the unicorn's shoulder to find Rainbow Dash hauling in another pair of racks into the cottage.

"Well, if'n we don't have a party goin' on here," Applejack snickered. "Mighty brave of ya to get Rarity to help you out."

"I don't care much for that tone, Applejack."

"Tone nothin’. It sure is mighty brave... if a lil’ bit foolhardy." The earth pony snickered at her own words.

"Foolhardy?" Rarity gasped, indignant, though the tools surrounding her did levitate a few inches lower as the unicorn's ears drooped ever so slightly.

"Hey, Rainbow!"

"Yeah?" Rainbow replied as she hauled in a third and fourth rack of clothing into the increasingly cramped cottage.

"Y'all remember your last time out on the town?"

Out on the town? Fluttershy wondered to herself. But she hasn't gone a date in years...

"Uh..." The cyan pegasus turned a fair bit green.

"Heh, yeah, she remembers." Applejack waggled an eyebrow at Rarity as she leaned against the stove.

"That… that was simply an amateur's miscalculation… and I do believe we—all of us—agreed to consider that solidly in the past, Applejack," Rarity hissed, waggling a comb threateningly in the earth pony's direction. "Where it belongs… never to be spoken of again. Ever. Again."

"I’mma make this simple and honest as I can, Rares.” Applejack stated nonchalantly, shrugging off the verbal daggers. “This is for Fluttershy, right? And y'all is scarin' the bejiminies outta her for the moment."

Rarity straightened up, looking hurt for a moment before suddenly, the swirl of weapons in the war of beautification formed into neat rows beside her.

"You are indeed correct, Applejack. Eye on the prize, as it were." Rarity took a deep, settling breath before setting. "My apologies, Fluttershy. I should be aware of your particular proclivities towards such... rudeness on my part."

"S’okay..." the pegasus croaked out, having long since taken the opportunity to retreat into the protective cavern of her bathrobe.

Clearing her throat nervously as Rainbow and Applejack looked on, Rarity levitated Fluttershy down carefully and gently onto the nearby couch.

"And now that we all have our heads firmly in place, we may begin," Rarity chirped with a grin.

"Don't worry," Rainbow Dash whispered to Fluttershy, the cyan mare on her way past with the eighth and thankfully last rack, "AJ'll keep her in line. She’s good at that."

Fluttershy just nodded dumbly.

"No backing out now," Rainbow chimed with a rather morbid tone as the cottage door slammed shut. "Just relax and enjoy the ride."

~o~0~o~

“Ugh. We’ve already done this, Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo complained over her shoulder. “I thought we were sticking to doing new things.”

“I know we were,” Apple Bloom replied loudly from the wagon, eyes half-shut against the winds Scootaloo’s wings we’re buffeting them with, “but Fluttershy’s got me thinkin’ that maybe we gave up a bit quick on somethings.”

“Like what?!” Sweetie Belle yelled from the very back of the wagon, forehooves gripping the sides of it a bit harder than necessary as they bounced and lurched their way down the path towards the Everfree.

“I’m thinkin’ we ought to give Creature Capturers another try.”

“Really? That was, like, one of our very first ideas. And I’m pretty sure my Mom’ll kill me if she finds out I was in the Everfree Forest again. Besides, we haven’t even tried out being stuntmares yet.”

“I dunno, Scoots, that seems pretty dangerous too!”

“Only if you do it wrong,” Scootaloo said with a glare at Sweetie Belle.

“We can just put a pin in that’un for now. But c’mon. Think, Scoot. What if we’ve already tried something that was our special talent and jus’ didn’t give it a fair shake?” Apple Bloom argued in earnest. “What if we’re still blank flanks because we weren’t tryin’ hard enough?”

“Speak for yourself. Scootaloo always goes one-hundred percent!” the pegasus declared with a devil-may-care grin and triumphant double-hoof pump before a rather large bump in the road sent them swerving.

“Handlebars! Handlebars!” chorused Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle as Scootaloo gripped the handlebars of her scooter tight, jerking them back onto the path proper.

“Got it, I got it!” she declared, wings flared to the sides as she tried to slow their skidding momentum.

The trio skidded slowly to a stop, Scootaloo breathing heavily with the handlebars clutched in a deathgrip as Apple Bloom and Sweetie cautiously hefted themselves out of the wagon.

“See, we’re fine! Everything’s fine!”

“Yeah, well, maybe ya ought to give a hundred-percent to watchin’ where you’re goin’, Scoots,” Apple Bloom stated, brushing the dust from her coat. “Jimminies.”

“Hey, we didn’t crash this time at least. Besides, you two were distracting me.” Scootaloo rounded on her earth pony friend, pitching her helmet and goggles into the wagon where they hit with a frustrated clang.

“Girls.”

“Distractin’ you? What, the great n’ mighty Scootaloo can’t talk and ride at the same time?”

“Feel free to hoof it yourself next time.”

“Girls!”

“What?” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo asked together, looking to Sweetie Belle in confusion.

“We’re here. Stop arguing.” Sweetie motioned to the path, a humble cottage sitting at the end out it.

“We ain’t arguing.”

“We’re just having a discussion.”

“Yeah, like big ponies.”

Sweetie just rolled her eyes as she slipped off her own helmet, setting it gently into the wagon before Apple Bloom’s clacked off of Scootaloo’s, giving her a start. Sweetie turned to glare at the pair, but they were already headed up the path, the rather large bag that had sat between herself and Apple Bloom in the wagon slung over Scootaloo’s shoulders.

Gah, those two are made for each other, Sweetie thought angrily as she trotted to catch up with the pair.

“...so I figure we kin practice right here. Don’t even need to go into the forest.”

“Won’t that bother Fluttershy?” Scootaloo asked, looking towards the windows of the cottage. “I mean, they’re her animals. I think she’d have something to say about this plan.”

“Shoot no! Come on. Ain’t like we’re gonna hurt them or anythin’.”

“Wait, what are we doing now?” Sweetie broke in as they strayed from the cottage’s main path, heading for the paddock to the west of it.

“Figured we could just round a few of them up. AJ’s always havin’ t’round up them critters. Heck, cousin Apple Honey’s got himself a trappin’ cutie mark, so why not one of us?”

Sweetie frowned at the prospect of a trapping cutie mark, the idea of a cage adorning her flanks not the most appealing. But if it were one of their talents, it was her duty as a Cutie Mark Crusader to see the task through to the finish. Thus said the Cutie Mark Crusader credo.

Well, part of it at least. She knew it was somewhere between the headquarter visitation and alternative use regulations, and the section dedicated to the proper format for their meeting notes.

Scootaloo had turned out to be quite the stickler when it came to those. Sweetie supposed that if they were going to do something they may as well do it right... but did it really matter if the margins were quarter-hoof or an eighth-hoof spaced? Did it really matter? Honest to Celestia, did it?

“Sweetie? Equestria to Sweetie?”

“Huh-whuh?”

“You were all zonked out there fer a second,” Apple Bloom stated from her place sitting up on the paddock fence, looking down at the unicorn with concern.

“Yeah, we were just asking what you thought of our idea?”

“Oh, um, what was it again?”

“Ugh... Sweeeetie! This doesn’t work unless we’re all on board with the plan.”

“Sorry, sorry! Just tell it again.”

“Okay, so what do you reckon is the hardest thing t’catch outta all Fluttershy’s critters?”

“Um… I don’t know. Chicken catching wasn’t so easy,” Sweetie offered.

“Close, but we were thinking something a bit quicker. Something even Applejack’s had trouble with. And Bloom brought the perfect thing for it too,” Scootaloo stated with a grin, unzipping her bag to reveal—

You have to be kidding.

~o~0~o~

Fluttershy could but witness the commotion around her, ever the detaching observer as she watched Rarity work her magic, both horn-derived and metaphorical. The pegasus could only stare as she was jostled this way and that. Her hooves had to be polished, hoof tips taking on a mirror-like sheen. Her eyebrows had to be plucked and shaped to accentuate her eyes. The fur on her muzzle even had to combed as to minimize her nostrils, as Rarity put it, “decimation of her facial curvature.”

“And just a bit less length so the braid will set properly about the shoulders,” the unicorn went on to explain carefully, the ever watchful eye of Applejack upon her as she tugged, pulled and twisted Fluttershy hair behind her, curlers and bits of tinfoil clinging to the pink mane as it fell in front of her in limp, silvery clumps. It almost felt as though she were being prepped for take-home at a Dine-n-Gallop.

All the while, Rainbow Dash zipped between the racks of clothes and several trunks stuffed full of clothier’s supplies. Needles, thread, sequins, buttons, lace and all other manner of fabric and bindings were tossed from the cyan pegasus’s hooves into the maelstrom of magic Rarity had swirling about Fluttershy.

“No, no, these are simply the wrong color sequins for evening…” she muttered to herself constantly when she were not being interrupted by some vague assurance or explanation aimed at her nearly rigamortized pegasus subject. “Oh, this lace with blend wonderfully with your feathers! And with the moon tonight... Le magnifique!”

From the kitchen, a sweet, sugary odor had begun to permeate the cottage as Applejack worked feverishly—at least when she wasn’t ‘checking in’ on Fluttershy.

“An’ how’s our girl?”

“Fine and possibly more fine if we weren’t graced with these constant interruptions of my concentration.”

“Eh, she’s good, AJ,” Dash translated, earning a scornful look of her own from the unicorn.

“Good, good.”

And so Applejack returned to her cooking, Rainbow to her assisting and Rarity to her beautifying, the balance maintained.

“So, dear, you’ve told us little of your beau-to-be…” Rarity whispered audibly, Rainbow rolling her eyes as she tossed a curling iron into the unicorn’s magical field.

“Oh, well, I don’t know about beau-to-be…”’

For a few different reasons…

“Well, a little hint wouldn’t hurt. You know you can trust me not to gossip it all over Ponyville.” Rarity halted her work on the pegasus’s hair a moment, splaying a hoof wielding a curry comb across her chest with a sense of consequence. “Fashionista’s honor!”

“Rarity! If she wants to tell, she will! Don’t be trying to force it out of her!” came Applejack’s voice from the kitchen.

Rarity’s cheeks puffed at the indignity of the accusation, but she quickly recollected herself and continued on.

Fluttershy, thankfully spared a sudden interrogation at the unicorn’s hooves, just watched as the minutes ticked by the dozen, eyes glazing over before a jarring squawk snapped her from her trance-like state.

“What is it... Flammy?” Fluttershy asked, a sharp edge to her normally kind tone.

But the bird didn’t answer, just looked back with its hooked beak grinning and a happy honk for good measure.

“She’s going to look positively brilliant, isn’t she?” Rarity replied seemingly, although the range of the unicorn’s attention being what it was—she was a focused mare when it came to her work if nothing else—made to discount that possibility.

“We almost done?” Dash asked as she lay across the fireplace mantle—one of the few surfaces left uncovered by beautification or clothier supplies—her services having been in decline for the past half-hour as the maelstrom wore down.

“We do not rush perfection, Rainbow…” Rarity murmured, lifting the mane from Fluttershy’s eyes.

She could feel her hair being gently pulled backwards, the tingle of magic turning, twisting and weaving individual strands as Rarity’s gaze bore through her pink locks.

“But… Almost...” Rarity looked satisfied as she brought up a brush coated in pink blush, dabbing at Fluttershy’s cheeks before backing away, the swirl of scissors, shampoo, makeup, thread, dryers and even a portable sink settled to the ground as a mirror slid before them, covered in the thick quilt from Angel’s couch. “And I present to you… the refined, the elegant”—she slipped the blanket off the mirror—“Fluttershy.”

“Huh,” Rainbow intoned from the mantle, eyebrow raised as Rarity grinned smugly. “That is pretty good, Rares.”

“‘Pretty good’ nothin’... that’s a dang fine job you done there, Rarity.”

“Ah, the finest for a deserving client,” Rarity brushed their words aside, but the flush of her cheeks spoke otherwise as Fluttershy simply stared at her reflection.

“It’s… wonderful,” Fluttershy whispered as she turned this way and that, awestruck. “Thank you.”

“A pleasure, darling,” Rarity returned with a humble curtsy.

“Well, cake’s all done an’ I’ve got a right fine banquet all packed for you,” Applejack stated. “Dress’s done. Only one thing left t’get ready.”

“Well, two things. Rainbow, dear.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, flying up the stairs where Fluttershy could hear the squeak of her bedroom window opening and closing.

“Now, Fluttershy,” Rarity began, lifting Fluttershy’s head so that they were looking eye to eye. “Confidence and grace.”

“Confidence and grace,”Fluttershy repeated weakly.

“This your first go-round, sugar?” Applejack asked from behind the unicorn, much to her chagrin.

“Kind of?”

“Well, don’t think nothin’ of it,” the farm pony advised. “Whoever they are. They’re a pony just like you. Like Rarity’s saying, just keep your head high.”

“Indeed. Just think ‘I deserve this.’”

A squawk drew the trio’s attention, the flamingo in the corner nodding vigorously along.

“See, we’re all in agreement here. Smile, darling. Just see where things take you this night.” Rarity idly began to adjust the lay of Fluttershy’s mane, brushing off the odd mote of dust that had settled here and there in the less than adequate conditions of the cottage. “Be open with your heart, but not too open. Confident, but not brash. Strong, but grace—”

“Y’all gonna overload the poor girl,” Applejack intoned, pulling the unicorn back gently as she could. “Jus’ be true, Flutters, an’ you’ll do alright. C’mon, Rares, let’s get everythin’ out of here.”

“Oooooh!” Rarity trotting in place a moment, seemingly unsure of herself before grabbing Fluttershy in an unexpectedly strong hug. “Best of luck, dear, I mean that!” She broke away, smiling brightly at the pegasus and Fluttershy couldn’t help but return the gesture.

“Thank you. Thank both of you,” Fluttershy murmured as Applejack and Rarity began the task of clearing up everything their preparation had wrought upon the cottage. “And please thank Rainbow Dash too when you see her.”

“I will make she she receives your regards,” Rarity said with a schoolfilly’s skip in her step as the dress trains pressed through the doorway with Applejack bringing up the rear, sweat dotting her brow as she had clearly been unexpectedly left the bulk of the hoofwork.

“I’ll be wantin’ news in the morning, ‘Shy,” Applejack said with a playful grin.

Fluttershy simply blushed as the two disappeared out the door.

Maybe… maybe I will give this another try, she thought to herself as she did a little twirl in front of the mirror, her dress swaying elegantly, the rays of the setting sun giving it a wonderful shimmer.

A squawk and a soft poke in the flank got her attention. She looked over her shoulder to find her ‘flamingo’ friend stepping back, gesturing to a gently steaming cup of tea left on the table.

“Okay, okay. Since you’ve obviously worked so hard… we’ll try,” Fluttershy admitted, unable to rid herself of the soft smile adorning her lips as the bird let out an excited trill, hopping happily from foot to foot.

Maybe this will all work out for the best. Somehow…

5 ~ A Moonlit Rendezvous

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A well-bound cartload of accessories bouncing along behind her, Pinkie Pie hop-skipped her way up the path to Fluttershy’s. A grin on her face, the pink pony hummed along to her cargo’s unwitting percussion.

The sun had begun to the crest the tippy-tip-tops of the distant mountains, the songs of the summer birds having already begun to quiet—even prior to the earth pony’s cacophonous entry into the scene. But as she slowed to a hop-skips, her song came to a close in a quiet nadir and the imagined drums and bass calmed.

Hm… she remarked silently, mere hoofsteps from the cottage door.

Something had set the fur across the nape of her neck to tingly. She waited a moment, but there was no creaky hindhoof or cricked tail or to offer further elaboration.

“Hello?” she called out into the trees at a soft rustling of the branches, eyes narrowing.

Seconds later, a squirrel ran out across a bare branch, acorn clutched in its teeth as it lept into a neighboring spruce with a grumbling squeak.

“Oh, it’s just you, Monsieur Squirrelly.” Pinkie laughed, not noticing the soft smack that came from the brush beneath the squirrel’s former tree. “Or was that Mr. Bushybooty?”

Ah, but down to business at hoof. She grabbed the knot of twine twisted haphazardly about her bundle and pulled it free in one deft motion, revealing a treasure trove right out of every little colt and filly’s summertime dreamscape. Shall we begin with Señor Muchos Aguas? She picked up one of the more mid-sized rifles from her veritable arsenal of water-based, propulsive-force weaponry. The Froggy-Wog? A diminutive pistol, like one a yearling might get with their hay steak and fries Harmony meal. Or something with a bit more oomph! Ah, His Lordship Hydrogeddocalypse the Fifth… She grinned as she held up the flank-mountable water cannon, the water balloons jostling in its feeder ramp as she felt the satisfying heft of its plastic. Ai… mijodios… Sir Hydrogeddon clacked and sloshed back into its place in the cart, the pink pony’s eyes widening beyond their natural specifications.

“Oh, Momma’s missed you, baby,” she said, giving the side of the the rotating barrel a loving caress before giving it a spin, the plastic gears clacking along ever so satisfyingly. She checked the straps of the saddle mount before noting, with a twinge of sadness that the reservoir was bone-dry.

Oh, well… you’re for more advanced prankings anyways, she thought sadly before setting the fully-automated but tragically ammo-deficient gatler back into the cart. I guess we’ll start on the bottom rung and work our way up. In short order she had the thick arsenal bound back up save for a pair of small pistols and bandit masks after waffling for a moment on the matching pair of black Neighvadan dusters. This is going to be sooooo much fun!

“Oh, Fluttershy!” she called out in her sing-song way as she hopped up to the cottage proper, rapping out a few youthful, endearing charms with a hoof. “You ready to get your prank on, ‘Shy?”

“Hi, Pinkie, I’m glad you came,” came Fluttershy’s soft voice as the door swung gently inwards, the cottage dimly lit in the sun’s fading light.

“Are you ready? Huh? Huh?” Pinkie inquired with a giggle snort of excitement.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” the pegasus said as she stepped into the entryway.

“Wow… just wow, Fluttershy… You look great.”

“Really, you like it?”

Fluttershy had been adorned in a similar fabric to that which had formed the bulk of her gala dress, but instead of a palette soft greens and blues, the cloth faded from a vibrant green across her back to rich, deep purples at the outfit’s hemline hanging just hoof’s height over the cottage floor. Layered atop it was a dense, translucent lace with near imperceptible sequins weaved throughout it, placed just so to catch the light and lend it a shine not unlike that of a placid pond’s surface at sundown. Curved around her wings there were thin twists woven from of a stiffer blue-green fabric to fill out her silhouette. A similar twist formed a light collar about her neck, layered with numerous other fabrics twisted about it to give it a viney look.

Her mane had been sorted into a half-dozen thickly woven braids with lengths of iridescent ribbon threaded through them them, wrapping and binding them together in a tight, asymmetric twist. The whole mass fell to the side of her head, leaving her face entirely unobscured where a subtle mix of blush, lip gloss and eyeshadow only accentuating the creeping blush crossing over her features.

“That is one f-a-n-c-y fancy outfit, Fluttershy”—Pinkie paced back and forth, taking in the full scope of the pegasus’s ensemble as she projected the outfit’s impact on the potential fun factor—“and that’s awesome, buuuuut…”

“But?” The sheen of deep pink on Fluttershy’s face took on a slightly paler hue.

“Well, I don’t know if that’s the right thing for pranks. I mean I usually don’t wear anything at all—au naturale—but if you were going to, I think you’d need something a bit more rugged. Oh, I know, I have the perfect thing! It’s got night vision goggles and everything! Just give me a minute, two tops!”

“Wait! Pinkie!”

Pinkie aborted her dash, her spinning hindhooves freezing in place before she hit the ground with a solid clonk.

“Pranks?”

“Oh yeah, I had the bestest brainicane right after you left! Or maybe that should be brainado?”—she tapped a hoof as she considered it—“Nah, brainicane. Doh totally doesn’t go with brain. Anyways, I figured tonight’s the perfect night to start phase one of Operation Prankstershy. I brought the water guns and everything!” Pinkie gave a little hop, tossing a mask and one of her pistols towards Fluttershy.

“Pinkie!” The water gun, its liquid ammunition thankfully sealed tight, missed its mark as Fluttershy dodged gracefully to the side, the mask fluttering down onto her back. “Pinkie, I was”—she took a deep breath, collecting herself—“I was planning on something a little… different. That is… if you don’t mind.”

“Oh… well, I’m totally down for whatever you are.” Pinkie quickly collected her pistola and its accompanying mask, slipping them back into her mobile arsenal of supreme saturation with a flourish before shoving the whole cart into a nearby bit of brush... just in case. “So what’d you have in mind?”

“A picnic.”

“Oh, I love picnics! The sun, the sky, the trees, the lots of ponies! Who else is coming?”

“Well, I was hoping just the two of us.”

Pinkie mulled this over for a moment. Two didn’t seem nearly enough for a picnic. Certainly it wasn’t lots of ponies. Unless it was a critter picnic, but that would be more than two as well. Unless you weren’t counting the critters, but that would just be awful. Those poor critters. But Fluttershy would never, ever do anything like that.

“You sure?”

“I just thought it might be fun to have a picnic… just the two of us.”

Pinkie looked to be dubious of such a proposition, but a sweet, subtle scent had been working its way back towards the cottage on the summer breeze all the while and had finally reached pink mare’s nose, kicking her salivary glands into high gear and shorting the more reasoned cranial lobes.

“Oh, wow, is that it?” Pinkie asked, a bit of drool collecting at the corner of her mouth.

Fluttershy simply nodded, an unnoticed frown pulling at her lips as she watched the pink mare flutter in the air, trying to wrangle herself a good long whiff.

“That smells great!”

“I hoped you’d like it.” She offered a hoof to Pinkie with a curtsy.

“Yeah, let’s get this started!” she cheered excitedly, grabbing the offered hoof and yanking her out the cottage door and onto the path before pulling the half-stumbling, half-hopping Fluttershy along for the ride as they round the side of the cottage, Pinkie’s nostrils flaring as she tracked down the enticing scent of the picnic. “Omigosh! Fluttershy! That’s looks amazing!”

“What? What is?” Fluttershy gasped as they skidded to a halt, the pegasus landing atop the pink mare for a moment.

“A sky picnic!” Pinkie squealed excitedly as Fluttershy peered around her bounding mass of magenta mane at her paddock.

Parked at the center was the town balloon, bits of gingham-patterned cloth tied about the struts in fanciful bows.

“Oh,” was all Fluttershy could muster as she looked the balloon up and down before she unceremoniously hefted into the basket alongside Pinkie Pie.

“This is a great idea! A picnic, but in the sky. Are we the first ponies to try this? Do you think we are? Somepony has to have tried this before, right?”

“I… don’t know, Pinkie. I hope maybe we are.”

“Oh, man, that’d be great. First ponies to have a picnic in the sky! All we need next is… Oh! A ginormohuge balloon, maybe a turntable, maybe some spotlights lights! Oh, oh! Or strobelights and glow sticks! Glow sticks everywhere! Then we can jam!” Pinkie rambled on excitedly as Fluttershy simply looked on, frown forgotten as she could but simply smile as the pink pony’s imagination ran off with her. “Or would that just be a zeppelin party?”

“Maybe we can see how this one goes first. Then we can try a zeppelin later,” Fluttershy offered, not so subtly tilting up the lid of their picnic basket.

“That sounds great!” Pinkie found her senses filled once more with the scent of fresh cooked delights, taking a great big whiff of it. “And smells great too...”

“I’m glad you like it, but I’m sure we shouldn’t just be staying on the ground.”

“Righto! After all, what’s a hot-air balloon stuck on the ground?” Pinkie declared, hurling the ballast from the corners of the basket one by one, sending it lurching up into the air. With a few blasts, the balloon began to rise gently into the air.

Fluttershy peered over the edge, watching her cottage fall away as Pinkie glanced up at a rapidly approaching cloudbank.

I thought tonight was supposed to be all cle… Pinkie’s thoughts trailed off, her hoof slipping from the valve as it slid itself closed as a sudden silence graced them. Wow…

They had pierced the clouds only for a their ascent to be slowed first by the lack of fire and second by the safety rope binding the balloon to the cottage below. But Pinkie wasn’t considering their sudden lack of up, but rather staring out at the carefully sculpted clouds before them as she made her way next to Fluttershy at the basket’s side.

To one side of the balloon there was a veritable cloudscape to behold, dips and valleys and waves of cloud all deliberately drawing the eye to a point at the far end of a cloudy tunnel. The sun had already set below the clouds they were staring out across, but the moon had just begun to rise, streaks of pink and orange below fading to soft purples and blues cast above them. The crest of Luna’s orb filled the far end of the tunnel, the sculpted edges of cloud framing a perfect interplay of sky and land, the moon casting its soft over the distant reaches of Everfree and the mountainous peaks beyond.

Oh, wowies… Pinkie felt her thoughts slowing, her usually boundless energies fading as she took in the beauty laid out before them. She hardly even noticed Fluttershy hoof entwining her own or the way the pegasus rested her head on the earth pony’s shoulder. She simply leaned forward, mouth agape as she stared.

Soon enough the moon had crept into the upper edge of the open canvas of clouds, its light scattering through a lattice of condensed moisture as a pale rainbow shimmered in front of them before it lifted out of view.

“That was beautiful,” Pinkie murmured quietly, leaning heavily against the basketside as she tried to catch a few last fleeting glances of the moon’s path. “How’d you…”

As the pink pony turned she found a veritable banquet laid out before her, candle light shining as the flame above slowly flickered out so that they could enjoy the night’s quiet.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Fluttershy said with a blush as she sat down across from Pinkie.

“Oh, I could have a bite or two… or three,” she amended with a snorting laugh before she caught sight of a rather delectable looking cake in the shape of a heart with a frosting flower atop it, its sugary leaves shimmering softly.

~o~0~o~

I wonder, I wonder… will he be tall… will he be dark and handsome… will he be mystery wrapped in enigma, wrapped in charm, wrapped in another, more mysterious enigma…

“Rarity?”

Perhaps he will look just like Duke Peckinchest, his mane rippling in the moonlight as he lifts her into his mighty zeppelin without even a strain of that flexing musculature. Oh, it’ll be just like the bicentennial issue of “Mares of Manehattan” where he proposes to Lady Imayou before the city skyline at dusk, her white fur and lavender mane glowing in the moonlight as he slips the ring over her ho—

“C’mon, Rares, we’re sharin’ here!”

“Well then scoot over so that I might have my share!” Rarity nearly shouted as her airborne fantasy was broken by a familiar, weathered duster dipping into view.

“I am scooted over!”

“Well, not nearly enough it seems. I can hardly even see the path from here, much less the cottage.”

“Ain’t like I’ve got such a fine an’ dandy view here neither.”

“Either.”

“What?”

“Either. I haven’t such a fine and dandy view either.”

“Rarity, you’re serious? We’re sittin’ in a bush spyin’ and y’all concerned about grammar?”

“Proper diction is always of concern.”

“Is that a spider?”

Even before Rarity’s squeal of terror at the hypothetical arachnid could enter her throat, Applejack’s hoof had clamped itself over her mouth, leaving the prim unicorn squirming uncomfortably in the brush.

“Hush it! We’re supposed to be keepin’ it quiet,” she hissed.

Rarity burbled something around the farm pony’s hoof before looking up at her, a devious glint in her eyes.

“Hey!” Applejack withdrew her hoof, face wrinkled in confoundment as Rarity spat in as ladylike a manner as equinely possible to their opposite side. “You licked it? The hay, Rarity!”

Rarity just stuck her tongue.

“What’re we, foals again?”

“You could do a more acceptable job of keeping yourself clean, Applejack.”

“And y’all could do a mite better job of proper growin’ up,” Applejack muttered to herself, wiping the sullied hoof off with a nearby leaf. “Actin’ like a little filly just off’a weaning.”

Rarity levitated the canteen from her pack, took a swig and spat into the brush, sending a rather unhappy, spattered squirrel scurrying up the trunk.

“Oh, tell me yer kiddin’. Is that—”

“Shush!” Applejack was quickly silenced by a well-pedicured hoof as its opposite pointed to an almost indistinguishable shudder coursing up the pink-coated pony at the core of their now shared discontent.

“Hello?” the pony called as her pair of onlookers ducked deep into the brush, hoping to hide themselves from Pinkie’s seemingly preternatural hide-and-seek talents.

A rustle above drew their attention for a moment, something flitting between the branches of the tree beside their hiding spot.

“Oh, it’s just you, Mr. Squirrelly…. Or was that Mr. Bushybooty?” There came a familiar laugh and the pair shared a collective sigh of relief as the pink pony moved her way up the path towards the cottage door.

“The heck is Pinkie doing here?”

“You don’t think…?”

“Maybe? It ain’t still early, is it?”

“No. It’s quite the proper time. Nearly right on the dot in fact.”

They fell silent for a moment.

“Well, it isn’t like… huh...”

“Yes… it does seem to be.”

“You worried?”

“A tad… a tad.”

Applejack looked back at Rarity, tipping her hat back so that she could rub her achy brow.

“I mean, it’s jus’… I don’t really remember anypony bein’, y’know, attached t’her.”

“To either of them, really. It is curious though. Exciting even.” Rarity smiled before Applejack’s firm frown wiped it from her face. “Oh come now. It’s not as though they’d hurt one another. They absolutely adore each other.”

“An’ that’s what’s worryin’.”

“Oh come now. Don’t be such a wet blanket, Applejack.” Rarity reached out and adjusted the farm pony’s hat back into its proper position. “Que sera, sera, dear. Whatever will be, will be. And if it isn’t… well, I’m sure Pinkamena has at least enough appreciation of the situation to be gentle with Fluttershy, yes?”

“Maybe,” Applejack replied as they watched the pair walk down the path together. “She does look right stunning, don’t she?”

“Positively divine if I do say so myself.”

“Of course you would, little miss humble,” she stated with a grin, earning a soft shove from the unicorn.

As they watched the balloon take off into the air with a blast of the furnace, the pair stepped out from the brush, Rarity taking the time to pluck the various bits of detritus from her coat as Applejack just stared up as the balloon vanished into the clouds, naught but the tie-off rope left in view.

“And there they go.”

“Nervous?”

“Of course.”

“Me too.”

“About what?”

The pair nearly lept out of their horseshoes at the young voice breaking in through the silence.

“Twilight?”

“Spikey?”

Twilight looked on in amusement as the pair collected themselves, taking a bite out of the hay fries leftover from their late dinner. Spike meanwhile stared at the pair with a more… accusatory look in his eyes as he transitioned a single stalk of hay from one end of his mouth to the other.

“What are you two up to?” Spike asked in measured tones, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently.

“Uh… nothin’ much,” Applejack replied, pawing at the dirt.

“Yes, nothing at all, dears.” Rarity simply smiled, sweat beading across her brow.

“We uh… best be goin’. Evenin’ to ya, Twilight, Spike.” Applejack broke into a quick trot, Rarity following shortly behind her.

“Yes, things to do, ponies to watch!” Rarity shouted over her shoulder as Twilight and Spike watched Applejack mutter something under her breath at her before they disappeared around a bend in the path.

“So, should we go check on how Fluttershy’s doing or… we’re going to follow them, aren’t we?” Spike asked as Twilight craned her neck to peer as well as she could around the bend.

“Spike!” She looked positively scandalized by the little dragon’s inquiry, hoof pressed dramatically to her forelock. “That would be a terrible infringement on their privacy. Even if they’re acting more suspicious than a filly with a hoof in the cookie jar. They’re our friends and we should trust in them that they have the best of intentions at heart. I’m shocked you’d even ask.”

“So we are?”

“Oh we definitely are.”

~o~0~o~

Food first. Dessert after, Pinkie had to remind herself of the pegasus’s words as her eyes kept lazily trailing from the, albeit delicious, spread of food to the tantalizing wonders of the desserts tucked in the corner of the balloon’s basket. Food first. Dessert after… very soon after. Right-right after.

Fluttershy in the mean time, simply watched, giggling at the earth pony’s show of control—or lack thereof depending on one’s selection of sliding, tipping and tumbling scale for the occasion—as Pinkie’s right forehoof constantly trailing towards the dessert corner before receiving a sharp rebuke from its fellow.

“Thvis ivs awl wreally gowd, Fwuttershry!” the pink pony complimented as Fluttershy was forced to maintain her smile in the face of a soft spray of vinaigrette, the subtle scent of apples filling the air.

“Some decorum, Diane!” she could hear her mother’s voice speak up from the dark, not visited anywhere near often enough recesses of her mind that really wished she would write more often. “It has been a whole week since I’ve heard from my little, darling Pinkamena.”

Self-consciously, Pinkie Pie straightened up and swallowed the overlarge lump of salad she’d been noisily chewing on.

“Really, Fluttershy, this has all been so good! I can hardly hold back! I just want to eat it all!” Pinkie declared even as the tremble of her already swollen stomach begged a redress of grievances.

“Well, I do hope that you’re still saving room for dessert,” Fluttershy said as she quietly packed away some of the eaten through dishes, leaving the cake in the corner unguarded for the moment.

“A-Always,” Pinkie replied almost uncertainly as her left forehoof pinned the right to the balloon deck, winding around it tightly as it struggled towards the corner and promised bliss. “I always leave room for dessert… and I always leave dessert for the proper time.” And so Righty gave up its hunt for the prophesied land of cake and frosting, quelled only by the promise of a future bathed in rich sugary delight—along with the rather strong chokehold provided by its sister Lefty. “Fluttershy?”

Pinkie had looked up to find the pegasus no longer packing things away or eating or staring at her oddly as she had been to some extent all evening. Instead, she found Fluttershy leaning against the side of the basket, mane blowing softly in the gentle, summer’s breeze, taking deep, concerted breaths of cool night air. As Pinkie looked on in silence, the moon caught the edges of the pegasus’s dress, gifting her a soft blue halo set against the blues reflected in the dress’s sequins and darkening greens of the dress proper.

“It’s lovely tonight, isn’t it?” Fluttershy murmured quietly as Pinkie joined her.

“Yeah. It really is.”

“I don’t really think I’ve had a chance to appreciate how pretty the sky is at night here.”

Pinkie laughed quietly. “And here I was all jealous of you and Dashie.”

“Hm?”

“Well, you two are pegasuses, duh.” Pinkie tapped a hoof against one of Fluttershy’s wings to demonstrate. “You guys get to fly and soar and zoom around the sky as much as you want to! I can’t even imagine how great that has to be!”

“You think?”

“Just thinking about Rainbow pulling off the Rainboom or the Wonderbolts with all their stunts and tricks!” Pinkie’s eyes bugged out of her skull as her hooves went through a pantomine of the Filly Flash, the Buckaneer Blaze, the Pilots Penultimate Panopoly and a half-dozen others she didn’t even remember names for. “Have you seen Dash’s face after she’s pulled one off?! It’s like she just visited the Canterlot Candy and Cake store with a buy-one-get-a-bajillion-free coupon or something! It’s crazy!”

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just… I don’t know. I’ve never really seen it as something so amazing.”

“But it totally is! You’re amazing, Fluttershy.” Pinkie grabbed up the pegasus’s hooves, bringing them eye to eye. “You get to, anytime, anyday, just fly up, up and away and go see things I never could without, like, a lot of prep work! You have no idea how much hoofwork and elbow grease a pony-powered helicopter takes! It’s a hoofful, lemme tell ya!”

Fluttershy chuckled. It was a soft, almost nonexistent sound as she grabbed her braid in a hoof, hiding the lower half of her face behind it while she ran a hoof over it thoughtfully.

“I mean… I’m kinda jealous of you girls sometimes.”

“Well, I’d let you borrow them sometime… if I could,” Fluttershy offered.

“Huh, I wonder if Twilight knows any spells like that…”

“She might.”

Pinkie looked over at the pegasus, brow furrowing as the pink pony tried to parse the expression on her friend’s face behind the obfuscating braid. Something seemed… off with the pegasus tonight.

“I don’t even use them all that much.” She gave them a cursory flap. “Certainly not the way Rainbow or the Wonderbolts do.”

“I… guess. But that doesn’t matter so much, Fluttershy. Y’know?”

The pegasus looked up, a thin film of liquid rimming her eyes.

“I mean, you use them how you use them. They’re your wings, you use ‘em how you wanna, right?”

“Maybe it’s just that,” she began, Pinkie wrapping a hoof around her back and drawing her closer, “most everything I love is on the ground. The plants, the trees, the animals”—Fluttershy’s head came to a rest on the earth pony’s shoulder—“the ponies. Everypony I love.”

“Yeah… ground’s pretty great too,” Pinkie murmured back as the pair stared out over the now rumbling cloudscape beneath the moonlight. “But this is still just… amazing, Flutters.”

“Pinkie?”

“Yeah, Fluttershy?”

“Can I ask you something?” she whispered, clutching Pinkie so tight that the earth pony couldn’t twist to look her friend in the eye. “Something kind of important?”

“Sure. Shoot,” Pinkie replied uncertainly, working at the pegasus’s sudden death grip with a free hoof.

The grip tightened a bit and Pinkie could feel a tremor run through the pegasus before, with a deep, trembling breath, she went suddenly lax.

“Pinkie, do you… love me?”

~o~0~o~

Far below the balloon and its thick cloud cover, in the hoof-dug swampland behind Fluttershy’s cottage, a pair of flamingos stood in the shallows.

The first stood still in the small clearing, ducking and bobbing her head as she tried to catch some glimpse of the balloon above through the perforated clouds, the second sidling ever closer, moving as smoothly as a gangly, flippered avian could whilst balanced on one leg.

Distantly one could hear the sounds of Equestrian—bickering and arguing if past experience was anything to go by—and one could even still hear the panicked yells of fillies coming from the rabbit pen in the opposite direction where an impromptu round-up was going on.

But there, in the small pseudoswamp nestled between the trees at the edge of Everfree, it was peaceful, almost idyllic with how beautiful the night had become. Wreaths of night fog curled across the warm surface of the water, lit only by the moon and the lazy, wandering paths of the lightning bugs.

If ever there was a time more perfect for Sir Pinkington the Third, it had been a long time and a long ways away from his present circumstance.

With a cooing squonk, the dapper old bird fluttered his wings, the male carefully showing off his well pinkened plumage as a show of his overall suitability. But the female was undeterred by the male’s display as she continued to peer into the clouds.

Flicking his head back and forth as he slowly guided her into a march, her eyes remaining skyward until his beak met hers, shocking her attentions back to the ground.

At a confused warble from her, he stretched his wings once more before entwining them for the briefest of moments, a loving coo rumbling through their long necks before he released her.

Head cocked to the side until it would be considered absolutely topsy-turvied by any reputable purveyor of perpendicularity, she echoed her warble of confusion until the male simply sighed.

With a quick stroke of his wings, Pinkington lept from the water, bringing his waders together in two sharp claps before splashing back down.

From somewhere in the bog came a long drawn out note as a haphazardly buoyed table—really a nightstand jury-rigged with empty shampoo bottles bound by lengths of yarn to its legs—floated out of the nearby reeds, the tablecloth already lit by a lone candle.

As Sir Pinkington smiled as widely as a hook-beaked avian could, the pair stepped to the table. With a wink, he nudged a bowl, brimming with delicious algae towards his date.

The female’s feathers could but flush a rather unnatural shade of red as their necks entwined again.

And, for a moment, there was no balloon hanging over them in the clouded skies, no towns or ponies yelling at one another in the background.

There was just a pair of flamingos together in—

“SQUAKONK!”

The female shot up in the air, her flippered feet scattering the bowl and candle into the water as the table bobbed violently beneath her.

In a burst of green flame, she launched herself desperately into the air only to crash back into the, thankfully shallow, swamp water, good wing buzzing fruitlessly. She got a mere few inches above the water with a second jump, holed hooves scraping against the surface as the Pinkington let out a panicked honk of concern for her.

“Look over there!”

“Oh my gosh!”

“Get it, Scoots!”

~o~0~o~

“Pinkie, do you… love me?”

“Of course I love you,” Pinkie replied in confusion. “I love all my pony friends”—she thought for a moment—“and all my not pony friends too! You’re all great!”

“No, Pinkie”—Fluttershy’s hooves dropped from her moments before Pinkie felt herself being spun to face the yellow pegasus—“I mean actual love. Love-love.”

“Love-love-love?”

“Pinkie… what did you think this… this dress, the picnic, the stars and the moon”—the pegasus pointed her hooves all around—“what else could all this be for?”

“Test run for a, uh, sky party?” Pinkie offered weakly, slumping against the outer edge of the basket, a gentle buzz ringing in her ears.

Fluttershy simply giggled as she slid down on the opposite side of the basket.

“Pinkie… maybe it’s kind of silly… but I think I really might, you know? I love your laugh, your smile, the way you are with everypony and every animal you meet and the way”—she choked a moment on her words—“the way you can’t help but leave all of them smiling and laughing when you do.” She took a deep breath as the inside of their little balloon seemed to darken. “Please. Just answer me honestly... Do you?”

Pinkie rose to her hooves, biting her lip as she trotting anxiously in place, her face growing steadily more red.

“I don’t know!” Pinkie finally shouted out, Fluttershy visibly deflating as the pink pony rushed to her side. “I don’t know, Fluttershy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She tried picking the pegasus up, but she just sagged again and again. “I do love you just like I love all our friends. I just don’t think about you like that. I-I don’t even think about anypony that way... okay? Fluttershy?”

“That’s okay,” Fluttershy muttered unconvincingly as the whirring in Pinkie’s ears grew steadily louder and louder, becoming more maddening by the moment.

“You know what we need? The ground! Let’s all get our little hoofsies back on the ground where we can just think about all this,” Pinkie declared and quickly grabbed hold of the balloon’s release valve, delighting in the distant sound of hot air flowing out the top.

At the very least it drowned out the buzzing.

~o~0~o~

“So, Rainbow left because you were being—in her words—creepers and that didn’t tip either of you off?”

“Whatever do you mean, darling?” Rarity asked, batting her eyes innocently as she sat primly on

“Rainbow Dash, the pegasus that has collected no less than twenty-five training yokes via quote-unquote ‘patent pending’ means from various Wonderbolt training camps all around Equestria from Las Pegasus to Manehattan, said you were being creepers.”

“C’mon, Twi. This is completely different,” Applejack argued, glaring at Twilight as Spike sat munching leftover hay fries on her back.

“How?”

“Well, for starters, we at least know the ponies up there.”

“Yeah, and how does that not make it worse?”

“Well, you’re doing the same to us!”

“She’s got you there, Twilight,” Spike offered between mouthfuls.

“Not helping.”

“Sorry.”

“Thank you, Spikey dear.”

“A-anytime... Rarit—Hey!” Spike grabbed for the bag of fries now held in Twilight’s telekinetic grip as she glared over her shoulder at him. “What? It’s the truth, Twilight.”

“What we’re doing to prevent what they’re doing is completely on the level. Probable cause. That’s guard-training 101, Spike.”

“Still creepy.”

“Whatever,” Twilight groaned as the little dragon hopped off her back and against the log Rarity had perched on. “And what are you doing?”

Spike slowly lowered the clawful of hayfries from his maw. “I just like to watch.”

“Now that’s creepy.”

“What? It’s entertaining,” Spike replied, indignant. “Do you have any idea how boring working in a library all day gets? You pretty much have to pony watch.”

“It’s simply the way of things,” Rarity mused, giving the dragon’s spines a little tousle.

“Thank you,” Spike said, crossing his arms.

“Ponies are rather fascinating when they think no one is watching.”

“I know, right?”

“Okay, and now both y’all are creepin’ me out,” Applejack muttered, tipping her hat forward.

“Says the pony stalking one of her best friends on a date,” Twilight said with a huff.

“Well… more’n one actually,” Applejack said sheepishly.

“Ladies?” Spike’s voice echoed.

“Wait, what? Really?” Twilight looked up, eyes widening with interest.

“Um, ladies? Girls? Mares?” Spike tugged at Twilight’s tail, eyes on the sky.

“Wait, so if… And Rainbow went home, so…” Twilight thought for a moment, brow furrowed before she looked up, incredulous. “Really? Huh, didn’t call that one.”

“Call that one?”

“Twilight, have you been—”

“Oh no… never… a little bit.”

“Uh, Twilight?” Spike yanked a little harder even as Twilight pushed him back with a hindhoof.

“Ugh, and you’re calling us creepy.”

“What? You’re going to tell me you haven’t?”

“No, I haven’t actually,” Applejack stated as a matter-of-fact.

“AJ?” Spike stared up, eyes growing ever wider.

“I’ve… dabbled,” Rarity admitted, running a nervous hoof through her lower mane. “I mean it’s just a little journal.”

“Rarity?” Spike stepped back, eyes skyward as his claw felt for the prim pony behind him.

“Really? You should try a board, it makes it far easier to plot out the various interconnections,” Twilight offered, a wide grin forming on her face. “A journal just doesn’t give you a proper visual scope… um, not that I would know from experience.”

“Heh, I’ll bet.” Applejack snickered.

“GIRLS!”

“Yeah, Spike?”

“What is it, darling?”

“Um, was any of that in your date plan?” Spike pointed up.

“I daresay… it was most certainly n—”

Rarity was shoved off the tree stump she had been so comfortably enthroned upon just as a few scattered plates crashed down around them, a heavy platter embedding itself into the wood. She hadn’t even the time to thank Spike for his quick thinking—much less time to decry the state of her now dirtied coat—before she and said dragon were tossed onto their hooves and footclaws respectively with a bit of Twilight’s magic.

“C’mon!” Applejack yelled.

The quartet found themselves running flat out towards the listing hot air balloon as it plummeted away the ground, a black swarm of activity surrounding it.

“Waitwaitwait!” Twilight suddenly yelled as the remainder of the quartet rain headlong into a magically projected wall.

“Consarn it, Twilight!”

“Just look!”

The wind had picked up under the influence of the now dissipating swarm, sending the balloon crashing down... right at them.

“Everypony down!”

Twilight threw up as big a wall as she could manage as the balloon was shredded apart by the trees, basket crashing down into the dirt, casting a cloud of dust over everything.

The basket skidded and rolled and tumbled until it slammed into the barrier with a loud crunch and a crackle of magic. It tipped, wobbled once and slammed back down onto the ground.

Slowly, the magic wall cracked and broke apart, falling to ground in a shower of magenta fragments as they vanished back into the aether.

“Everypony okay?” Twilight said as she puffed and wheezed, rubbing a hoof over her throbbing horn as she waited for the dust to settle.

“We’re fine, dear, but…” Rarity answered as she, Applejack with a half-conscious Spike slung over her back materialized out of the settling dust.

“What about Fluttershy and Pinkie?” Applejack muttered, looking wide-eyed at the shredded nylon remnants.

“Present…” came a dazed and confused voice from somewhere above them.

“Pinkie!” Quickly Twilight mustered the strength to coax a small vortex of air to blow away the dust, revealing a brown and pink spattered pony hanging by her tail from the tree above, face a smear of frostings.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Rarity asked as she glommed onto the sweating, exhausted Twilight. “Aren’t you going to get her down?”

“A bit too… tired. Can’t risk… dropping her… find a ladder maybe?”

“No worries, Twi,” Applejack interjected, hefting a length of rope from the crashed basket that she quickly knotted into a lasso. “You both get looking for Fluttershy.”

“Oh my goodness! Fluttershy!” Pinkie shouted from above as the lasso hooked over the branch she was suspended from, knotting securely around her hind leg. “My only love! They have her!”

“Your love?”

“Who?! Pinkie, who has Fluttershy?”

“A whole swarm of them right out of nowhere!” Pinkie yelled out wildly, thrashing about. “We have to go save her! C’mon!”

“Prinkie! Kit hurkin’ aroond!” Applejack yelled as best she could around the rope in her mouth before the pink pony’s tail dislodged, dragging the farm pony up and off her hooves as Pinkie plummeted towards the ground. “PRINKIE!!”

The pair crashed into each other midway up before falling, in a tangle, into the brush.

“Pinkie! A whole swarm of what?!” Rarity demanded, hefting the pink pony from the bush.

Before Pinkie could answer and before Twilight could even react, a thrashing bundle of yelps, yells and yipes crashed out of the brush, taking Applejack along with it.

“J’accuse! Briseuse de ménage!” Pinkie screamed and flung herself into the bouncing mass of fur and feathers.

When all was said and done, there were three exhausted crusaders donning their zap apple harvest best bunny costumes, one very irate farm pony lecturing them on the finer points of utilizing farm property for non-farm purposes, one possibly concussed dragon as well as one highly irritated pink earth pony at the throat of a pink- and black-feathered changeling while a flamingo and two unicorns yanked on her poofy magenta tail in an futile attempt to dislodge her.

6 ~ Lovingly Lovestruck

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With what felt like hundreds of waxen wings buzzing around her, Fluttershy could hardly hear much less think as she watched Pinkie bounce off the steadily falling hot air balloon, her hooves outstretched.

For the briefest of moments, their hooves found each other. Pinkie’s mouth moved wordlessly, a strange greenish sheen washing over her normally sky blue eyes. The pink pony pulled at the pegasus and then she was ripped away, their hooves twisting from one another.

Fluttershy could only yell after her as the swarming changelings closed in tight around her, the last image of Pinkie Pie being her twisting form plummeting towards the forest below.

“Pinkie!” she cried out out, shooting up straight...

In bed.

In her own bed.

Chest heaving and heart thudding away in her chest, she glanced over at the window to find the morning’s light streaming in through the curtains, lending a cheery warmth as a sweet scent reached her nose.

A dream… it was a dream. Just a dream.

As her pulse slowed, she took a look around, vision wavering ever so slightly. She rubbed her eyes with the back of a hoof, ridding herself of whatever sleep lingered on. Quickly, the fireplace halted its gyrations and her focus shifted elsewhere.

“It was just a dream. A nightmare. Your imagination’s getting the better of you, Fluttershy,” she whispered to herself.

After all, surely her charge calling down a changeling horde was just as absurd as Princess Celestia banishing her to a pre-banished dungeon. Much more likely a result of stress and overexertion the last day than—

What happened yesterday? The thought struck her as she swung her hindlegs over the side of the bed.

She could recall many things, but her sleep-addled mind couldn't quite parse through them all.

There was Rarity’s boutique…

Sugarcube Corner…

Golden Oaks Library…

Then she recalled relaxing in the tub and drifting off.

Have I been asleep since then?—her nostrils flared unconsciously—Are those banana pancakes?

Fluttershy closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath as she let the sweet odor overtake her senses. Her mouth watered ever so slightly, her tummy rumbling quietly, plainly suggesting she make for the kitchen as fast as hooves could carry her.

“Who would be cooking?” Especially banana pancakes. Angel Bunny absolutely loathed banana pancakes, the taste and the smell.

Could it be Fl—

Fluttershy’s stomach interrupted with a plaintive grumble and she quickly acquiesced, heaving herself onto the floor before tracking the sweet scent out the door.

She could hear somepony humming now as the scent grew stronger by the step as she descended the stairs.

“Flammy? Is that you?”

There wasn’t a response. If anything, the humming seemed louder.

Fluttershy came to the bottom of the staircase, turning into the kitchen to find a pair of cyan flanks swaying rhythmically in front of the oven.

“Rainbow Dash?!”

“Fluttershy!”

She had hardly a moment to process before she was hoisted into the air, trapped in a tight hug.

Rainbow squeezed her for all she was worth, nuzzling into Fluttershy’s chest as her wings beat steadily to keep them aloft. She looked up, a sly smile on her face.

“Missed you,” Rainbow whispered, giving her a quick peck on the lips as they settled back down to the floor before returning to the stove with a flourish—at least Fluttershy assumed a double backflip with a half-twist qualified as such. “I’ve almost got our usual all ready to go!” she called over her shoulder as she gave the pancakes a skilled flip.

“O-our usual?” Fluttershy burbled, stomach well and settled now, the neurons connecting her nasal cavity to her brain having been repurposed into an emergency what-is-going-on camp. Thus far, their results had been inconclusive.

“Well, duh. It’s Thursday. Breakfast in bed. Bananacakes, just like you like them.” Rainbow shrugged, flipping the pancakes before glancing over her shoulder, a daredevil grin on her face. “But since you’re down early, how ‘bout breakfast and a show? Check this out.”

At those words, Fluttershy instinctively dove to the floor. It was a look she knew well.

Rainbow’s forehoof slammed down on the panhandle, hurtling the pancakes right at the table. With a hard flap of her wings—and a double-hoofed kick off the cabinets—Rainbow beat the hurtling discs of delicious fluff to the table, smashing a hindhoof on the edge of the table to tip it up for the catch.

Fluttershy yelped as she was unceremoniously popped up into the air and into a seat—kicked under her by Rainbow’s other hindhoof—by the table crashing back to the floor. She heard the faint hiss of aerosol and the sound of hooves clopping to the ground.

When Fluttershy finally managed to open her eyes, she saw a pair of pancakes with whipped cream and banana slice smiley faces on them.

“I know, I know.” Rainbow held up her hooves as if to quiet some imaginary crowd. “I’m awesome.”

Fluttershy simply stared as she hefted herself upright in her seat, trembling.

“C’mon, I know you love that little bit of excitement in the morning. All courtesy of your best marefriend ever, the Dashter,” Rainbow declared with a grin, eyes half-lidded.

She leaned across the table expectantly and, when Fluttershy didn’t take the hint—a protective rigor mortis still leeching into the air—leaned further, planting a quick kiss on the nearest cheek before messily digging into her breakfast.

“C’mun, dere gewd, Fwuttershy,” Rainbow reassured between bites before gulping down an apple-sized chunk. “I didn’t even burn them this time. Thanks to you.”

“Marefriend?” came Fluttershy’s delayed echo, brain finally catching up as equal parts migraine and temptation pulled at her conscious, the delicious scent filling her nostrils completely at such close range.

“Yeah, duh. We’ve been going out for, like, forever,” she replied, a few bits of pancake and whipped cream flicking out. “Well, a couple of weeks at least.” Her confident look seemed to fade in favor of one of concern. “You feelin’ alright, ‘Shy?”

This is not normal.

“Where’s Flammy?”

“Who?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“My flamingo?”

She simply shrugged.

“Tall, pink bird?” No reaction. “A little gangly? Hooked beak?”

Another shrug and she returned to scarfing down her breakfast as Fluttershy stared around the cottage.

It seemed rather… empty.

All the animals that were normally scurrying about—over furniture, under carpets, along the walls, across the ceilings, and generally anywhere a claw might find purchase—were mysteriously absent. Even the color of the living room beyond seemed somehow muted compared to the cheery oranges and yellows that subsumed the kitchen.

“Excuse me a moment, Rainbow,” Fluttershy mumbled, stepping back off her seat, keeping the oddly amorous pegasus in sight as she stared into the living room in the periphery. “I just need to… check my, um, mane.”

“You look fine! Come on, dig in. This took all morning.”

“Oh, that’s sweet, but I just need to… go,” Fluttershy squeaked out, twisting around to dash for the living room, but just as she crossed the threshold, her movements slowed.

The air itself seemed to vibrate right through her, rattling her flesh and bones as the dullness of the room receded, beiges and grays pushed out by their more vibrant replacements. And then Fluttershy was released, hooves hitting the living room floor with tremulous clop.

“Where are you off to, darling?”

Fluttershy froze at the new voice, skidding into the center of the room.

“Something the matter?”

She turned to find Rarity sprawled comfortably across the couch, tail flicking gently as she looked on with heavy-lidded eyes that shone in the new light. Adjusting herself slightly so that she was on her side, hindlegs crossed as one forehoof rested on her flank and the other motioned for Fluttershy to have a seat.

“Rarity?”

“Yes, dear? Something on your mind?” the unicorn murmured, idly smoothing out the creases in the couch before glancing back up. “I know there’s something on mine.”

“What are you doing in my house?”

“Well,” Rarity scoffed, sitting up fully now, “that’s rather rude.”

“Oh, I’m sorry… it’s just”—Fluttershy paused a moment to reassess—”Wait, no, I’m not sorry. This is mad. Rainbow’s in the kitchen saying we’re marefriends—”

“Oh my, what scandalous behavior!”

“—and now you’re here on the couch doing… I don’t even know what you’re doing.”

“It is known as a come-hither stare, darling. I should assume you are well-versed in the basics of our relationship.”

Fluttershy quirked an eyebrow, one of her eyes giving a little twitch and a spasm.

“Although, I fully understand your stress.”

“You do?”

“Well, of course,” Rarity declared, swinging off the couch to take Fluttershy in her hooves with a graceful pirouette thrown in for good measure. “To have such a crass, uncultured pony like Rainbow Dash as a gentlemare caller. Why, I am all in a tizzy just thinking about it.”

“That’s not very ni—” Fluttershy began her reproach, but was cut off by the tightening of the unicorn’s grip.

“Of course, this is why we are such a natural fit, you and I! You don’t needn’t some brute of mare to redeem. Somepony in need of fixing!” Rarity decreed, lifting Fluttershy in an embrace. “You require somepony with class, with style and elegance! And you have made me ever so happy, darling.”

“What?” Fluttershy cried out.

“Oh, I know we haven’t told anypony,” Rarity bemoaned, bending back with a hoof pressed to her head. “With my career, happiness is never so easy a pass. I know that skulking about in secret, keeping our love hidden from watchful eyes, cannot be an easy proposition for you. That is why it means so much to me that you would go along with this.”

“What?”

“Oh, but that element of danger!” Rarity swung her around, dipping towards the floor as if in a dance. “Isn’t it invigorating!” She trailed soft kisses up the pegasus’s chest before swinging her upright once more.

“I don’t think this will… um…” Fluttershy could hardly think up an excuse as she squirmed in the unicorn’s grip.

My goodness… has everypony gone mad? she wondered as the cottage trembled around her as if from a blow.

“Fluttershy, dear?”

Another tremor.

“Do you hear that?”

Oh what n—

She had not even the moment to finish her bemoaned thought as the wall of her cottage crashed inwards in a flash of red fur, muscle, glass and splinters.

“Big McIntosh?!” Fluttershy cried out in surprise as she was yanked from Rarity’s well-manicured hooves and hefted up into a pair of burly, bulgingly muscular forelegs.

“Oh my!” Rarity stared up in awe, eyes sparkling as she swooned back onto the couch. “What romance! Saving you from my dirty, dirty, unclean hooves! Sweeping you into his magnificent muscles to carry you off into the sunset!”

“Eeyup!” he agreed, clutching Fluttershy to his chest, orange mane flowing in the breeze—presumably flowing in through the new, unfinished patio door—as she stared down at the apparently penitent unicorn.

“Um… no thank you?”

“Hey, what’s going on in here?” she heard Rainbow’s voice echo angrily as the pegasus stomped into the living room, rose eyes wide and fiery. “What the hay?!”

McIntosh simply stood, mane keeping up its heroic flutter even as Rainbow’s muzzle pressed against his.

“Rainbow Dash! How could you? To be such an incorrigible cretin! Can’t you see that this is the truest love? Not some pitiable reclamation project.”

“Eeyup.”

“But what about Fluttershy and my true love? Huh? What about that?” she demanded angrily of the unicorn. “We’re made for each other, dangit!”

The three broke into elegant arguments, spirited swearing and monosyllabic affirmations respectively.

All the while, Fluttershy watched…

Fluttershy listened…

And Fluttershy thought.

Why yes, Fluttershy, everypony has gone mad.

“We’re talking in circles!”

“This is goin’ nowhere!”

“Eeyup.”

“You realize what we need?” Rarity queried, eyes taking on a conspiratorial gleam.

“A contest!” Rainbow declared with competitive grin.

“Of class!”

“Of skill!”

“Of strength!”

“To prove who’s worthy of the good Lady Fluttershy’s hoof!” Rarity decreed with a flourish as she hustled Rainbow Dash and McIntosh—the blankly staring Fluttershy still in his hooves—through the gaping hole in the cottage.

There in the not-so-far distance, Fluttershy could see a shimmering gauntlet of wood and iron—miraculously already set up and prepped—with a crowd of townponies cheering from the brightly colored, pink and yellow bleachers.

Completely… completely mad…

~o~0~o~

An hour later, Fluttershy found herself ducking between the branches of an elder oak, cowering just above the wandering patrols of ponies. She’d slipped away from her place as contest prize sometime between her suitors sparring atop a tipping and swaying balance beam, and seeing which could bench the most—hay bales for Big Mac and ice clouds for Rainbow Dash—before a crowd that seemed to contain every pony she couldn’t quite recall the name of in Ponyville.

She could still feel her face burning from their friendly hellos, the pegasus stammering ceaselessly as their names eluded her. The embarrassment was nearly too much for the mare.

She snapped her head down into the leaves as a pegasus mare—was it Dizzy Twister? Or maybe Orange Swirl?—popped up above the branches, casting a glance around for the wayward prize.

Oh please, oh please, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease, Fluttershy silently prayed, hooves wrapped tight around the old oak branch as she listened to the steady beating of the other pegasus’s wings mix with the thudding of her heart.

Slowly, the palpitations slowed, the wingbeats fading away.

Even as silence settled around her, however—the roar of the makeshift coliseum’s crowd fading into memory—she clutched the branch, only daring to poke her head out after a solid minute of silence.

She was free.

For the moment.

Where to go? Where to go?

Clearly something was wrong in Ponyville to have so many ponies in the stands. Not to mention how her friends had been acting. Rainbow and Rarity had already been affected—along with Big McIntosh of course—by whatever spell was at work

But perhaps one of her other friends?

Fluttershy glanced down from her hiding spot. She was still relatively near her cottage, halfway between the Everfree Forest and—

Sweet Apple Acres!

Of course, Applejack could help her!

If the spell hasn’t gotten to her as well… but…

That was simply a chance she had to take.

~o~0~o~

“Applejack,” Fluttershy squeaked out, shucking off the bush she’d been employing as mobile cover as she ducked into the Apple’s barn, quickly pulling the door shut behind her.

She’d heard somepony working from a distance—the steady thump of hay bales unmistakable—as she’d approached. With McIntosh previously engaged as it were, there was only one pony it could be.

“Fluttershy?” Applejack glanced up, tossing her bale onto a stack with buck of her hindlegs before wiping the sweat from her brow. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Hiding!” Fluttershy hissed, blitzing to the earth pony’s side and clamping her hooves around the earth pony’s muzzle.

Applejack simply quirked a brow as Fluttershy stared fearfully at the barn door, listening as a pair of hoofsteps neared it.

“Quiet… Be quiet…” Fluttershy muttered, partly to herself and partly to the now rather bemused mare beside her.

Soon enough, the hoofsteps trailed away and, with a sigh of relief, Fluttershy let her hooves fall before the rest of her body followed, collapsing to the hay-strewn floor, wings flopping at her sides.

“Mind lettin’ a mare in on the joke here, ‘Shy?” Applejack rubbed at her muzzle for a second, smoothing out the hoofprints Fluttershy had left.

“Everypony’s gone crazy!” Fluttershy gasped out, hooves stamping on the floor as she shot to her hooves, grabbing Applejack again. “I think maybe it’s a magic spell o-or love potion in the water o-or something. I don’t know! But you’re still normal, right, Applejack? Right?”

“Uh, I reckon so,” she replied uncertainly, pulling out of the pegasus’s grasp to grab another bale. “What’s so crazy ‘bout them?”

“Well, I woke up this morning and Rainbow was making me breakfast.”

“Uh huh.” Applejack hefted up on the hay bales, settling it on her back before trotting over to the pile. “Not really all that odd if’n y’all ended up with charcoal cakes.”

“She made banana pancakes and they smelled great, but that’s not even the really weird part! She was talking about how we’re marefriends, so I tried to leave, but then Rarity was there!”

“Y’don’t say.” She bucked her hips again, flanks rippling and sweat shining even in the dim light of the barn, each and every muscle outlined as the haybale settled atop the stack.

“And she was talking about how I needed a refined mare, that she was the one I should be marefriends with!”

“Huh.” The bale settled atop the pile as Applejack leaned back against it, looking Fluttershy up and down as she wiped away some sweat with her stetson before tossing it to the side.

“And then Big Mac crashed through the wall and grabbed me! And then Rarity’s talking about how big and strong his hooves are! It was completely crazy!”

“Ain’t so crazy to want some strong hooves to fall into, Fluttershy.” Applejack quietly worked the band from her mane and tail, letting them fall about her shoulders and hocks respectively in a shower of gleaming blonde.

“And then there was the… the… gladiators… Applejack?” Fluttershy felt herself running hot and cold in the same moment, a soft blush settling across her face even as her veins ran icy.

“Reckon maybe you were jus’ wantin’ a more… feminine touch,” Applejack stated, smouldering eyes half closed as she strode confidently up to the pegasus and grabbed Fluttershy in her work hardened forelegs. Grinning, the work pony leaned down, eyes closing as her lips drew closer and closer to the pegasus before hitting…

Nothing.

“Fluttershy?” Applejack’s eyes snapped open to find her hooves grasping nothing, nearby a door clicked closed. “Well, huh. Guess not then.”

~o~0~o~

In the meantime, Fluttershy found herself crawling through the darkened Apple family living room, trying avoid making even the slightest noise lest somepony else come along.

Is this a curse? She glanced over her fur between steps, looking for any sign of magic.

A glow.

A shimmer.

A shine.

Something to let her know what in the name of the sun and moon was going on. Then, as she crawled towards the front door, all the lights clicked on.

“Surprise!” a chorus of young voices shouted out.

Turning, Fluttershy felt her jaw drop—tragically not a terribly far drop—and smash into the floor with a painful thump that sent her reeling, clutching her muzzle in pain as she fell onto her back. But jaw fractures could only distract so long.

Eventually she had to look up to find three little filles on the couches in various poses that she would later be unable to recollect for the ponderously large mental blocks required.

Quickly, her wings shot up to cover her eyes, face burning a bright cherry red as she stammered and stuttered, hoping to perhaps stumble on some heretofore unknown magic incantation that would save her.

But it was not to be as a pair of surprisingly strong orange hooves prized apart her wings, looking upon her with a sultry stare as she rolled a tootsie pop from one corner of her mouth to the other.

“We can get the blindfold if that’s what you’re into,” Scootaloo offered as Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom poked into view.

Within a second, Fluttershy burst straight up in the air, crashing into and then clutching onto the wildly swinging chandelier. She stared down at the trio of fillies, halfway between losing the breakfast she hadn’t eaten and curling into the fetal position. Instead, however, the logical adult part of her brain decided to make one last stand.

“I am ten years older than you!” she screamed at the fillies, as though the unspoken rules would banish them to some faraway place—perhaps the ball pit a McHaygles Restaurant and Funtime Palace where their innocence might be restored whilst she jammed her head into an aqueduct to wash the idea from her brain.

Then she heard an unsteady clop of hooves at the top of the stairs, unfortunately at eye level to her.

“Well, if’n them young’uns ain’t yer speed, why don’t you try these ol’ bones on fer size.”

She didn’t want to look.

She really, really did not want to look.

An uncooperative eyelid crept open for the barest of seconds, followed immediately by a crash as a pegasus-shaped hole appeared in a nearby window.

At the top of the stairs, Granny Smith posed, black negligee clinging tightly to her frail, withered body as she watched a bit of glass fall to the floor.

“Coulda jus’ said no!” the old mare shouted, adjusting the straps as she continued to mutter beneath her breath. “Young’uns these days. No appreciation for a fine, aged mare.”

~o~0~o~

The Golden Oaks Library, hub of all things book and scroll related for the greater Ponyville area, sat quietly for the moment. Were one to step into the foyer, they would be immediately confronted by the utter stillness of it.

Books and scrolls were not the most active sort after all.

Then there came a murmur. The dust motes that had hung serenely in their warm shafts of light stirred from their slumber, beginning their timeless dance.

Then the murmur became a rumble. The dust motes’ dance turning from a waltz to a quickstep in short order. The books joining in with a quiet tap-tap of their spiny feet as the scrolls rustled along to the beat.

Then the rumble quickly became a roar, the distant sound of somepony shouting for help piercing even the thick bark of the oak tree come library. It was enough that the keeper of the books had to poke her head down below.

Twilight could only raise an eyebrow behind her half-moon spectacles as the door burst inward, the long plea for help finishing in full stereo sound as she was tackled in a blur of yellow feathers and fur.

“—a shield, something, anything! Twilight! Save meeeeee!” Fluttershy cried out as her momentum swung her around the unicorn’s neck, the pair smacking down onto the stair step.

Beyond the door, a great herd of ponies—brilliant flowers, candied hearts, oversized cards, twanging lutes, entire romantic dinners on carts, the odd statue or topiary in tow, and even gondola complete with crooner skimming the top—descended on the library en masse.

In short order, one raised eyebrow was joined by the other above wide wide eyes, Twilight’s horn flaring into life as a magenta bubble popped into existence around the tree.

“Goodness…” she murmured, staring at the rippling wave of ponies as it buffeted the shield.

She watched the mass legs scrabble up the side before the crowd fell back on itself in a tangle of fur, hooves and tails before she quickly shut the door and drew the windows, reducing the roar to a confused mumble.

“Well, wasn’t expecting company. How are you, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked almost drolly, eyes still wide and focused on the now closed door.

“Absolutely terrified!” Fluttershy cried out from beneath Twilight.

“And what’s going on with everypony?”

“I don’t knooooooow!” Fluttershy wailed.

Carefully, Twilight heaved herself off the shaking pegasus, making it halfway down the steps before the yellow blur hit her again.

“Wait! Are you normal? Please tell me you’re normal?”

“Um, normal as ever,” Twilight offered from the flat of her back, grimacing as Fluttershy’s hooves dug into her chest.

“Oh my goodness! I’m sorry,” Fluttershy murmured, quickly hopping off the unicorn.

“It’s okay,” Twilight said as she was pulled to her hooves, Fluttershy making a show of dusting her off as best she could with a wing. “So, what’s, uh, going on?”

“I don’t know,” Fluttershy repeated, the wail replaced by a long note of panic in her voice. “I woke up this morning and everypony’s gone completely crazy! Rainbow Dash thinks I’m her marefriend, Rarity’s tried to seduce me, the entire Apple family is courting me”—deftly, she left out that which shall not be named—“and now the whole town is after me with flowers and cards and chocolates and topiaries! Somepony was chasing me with an entire cartful of topiaries shaped like me!”

“That sounds like… quite the story, Fluttershy.” Twilight looked at her incredulously even as she trotted towards the front door.

“But it’s true! You saw them,” she stated in return, moving to the unicorn’s side and lifting open one of the curtains.

As they looked, the ponies outside milled around just beyond the barrier with their various gifts. One held up a sign that read Fluttershy = Love on it.

“I think it’s a-a magic spell or love poison or… I don’t even know.”

Twilight experimentally tapped the glass window, the segment of ponies nearest lifting up onto the closest part of the barrier as if magnetized to her hoof. “You may be right.”

“Really? How do you think we can fix it?” Fluttershy asked, letting the curtain fall into Twilight’s hoof as she gave a little hop of joy into the center of the room. “Do you have a spell in mind? Do we write a letter to Princess Celestia?” She turned towards the stairs, eyes shimmering. “Should I go find Spike?”

“Well, I don’t know about that”—Twilight raised a hoof to quiet the barrage of questions, letting the curtain fall shut—“but there’s at least one bit of good news in this.”

“Yes, Twilight?” Fluttershy turned to look at the unicorn, eyes brimming with a hope that quickly dimmed.

“At least we’re all alone now,” Twilight decreed amorously, a tingling cloud of magic running down the side of Fluttershy’s face as a shy smile creased the unicorn’s face.

“No! Not you too!”

Is there anypony left? She slipped from the magical grasp, backing away from the approaching unicorn, her eyes on the floor.

“I have to confess something, Fluttershy…”

You’ve always loved me, don’t know what to do, we’re already marefriends, going to be so happy together. Take your pick, she groaned mentally, eyes searching for some avenue of escape before her flank hit wood and metal.

“This is hard for me to say, but…”

A door!

Fluttershy quickly flung it open and lept through, uncaring of where it might lead. Anywhere was better than here. She didn’t make it far, however, her hooves hitting and then plunging through something soft and slimy and cold. Hooves trapped for the moment, she flapped her wings as she could, Twilight’s voice drifting down from above.

“I’ve always had a crush on you, Fluttershy.”

“No you haven’t!” she shouted back.

She gave a hard push at the barrier and then stopped, greenish slime dripping from her as the cocoon cracked outwards, the pegasus’s saturated body hitting the dirt as she felt weak, completely drained.

Wh-what? she could hardly think as she tried to open her eyes.

Her ears filled with angry buzzing—as though she’d fallen into a particularly argumentative colony of bees—but as soon as her eyes had opened the buzzing fell into a hushed smatter of chirps as dozens upon dozens of glowing blue eyes stared at her from the shadows.

With a hiss, something black and shiny confronted her, staring at her with narrowed glowing blue eyes as it pushed her back into the cocoon’s cool embrace.

“What? What’s…”

Her echoing voice soon became muffled as the eyes disappeared from view, the cool liquid soothing her as her brain slowly, gently was lulled off back to sleep.

On the other side of the cocoon wall, the changeling hive picked back up right where it had left off bickering over its newest and presently only source of sustenance.

7 ~ Bright Lights, Bit Cagey

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Closer and closer it stretched through the bars,, but still her target lay just out of reach.

“Sweetie, gimme another one,” Apple Bloom hissed, tossing the long-handled spanner into a bit a carefully prepared hay and holding a forehoof behind her.

“Got it.”

A hoe slid into said forehoof, the filly carefully pressing it through the cage bars as the trio huddled beneath the curtain.

The arguing on the other side grew louder for a moment, all three glancing over before letting out a sigh of relief, the handle’s journey halting for a moment.

“Apple Bloom!”

Apple Bloom yelped in surprise, sending the long-handled tool jabbing right into the black lump’s side before she quickly withdrew it.

“What? We ain’t poking it!” Apple Bloom declared as she was quickly sandwiched between Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, the tool not so surreptitiously swaying overhead.

Applejack just stared at her a moment, sweat drops blooming all over the fillies’ collective faces before the tool fell into her pile of discarded tools with a clang. All three fillies gave a chrous of defeated groans.

“Sorry, Sis… I was just worried it had... um, gone to that big ol’ hive in the sky?”

“That’s all well an’ good, but with a stick?” Applejack coked an eyebrow as Scootaloo kicked the hoe a bit further away, giving the little pegasus a look that plainly stated her disapproval. ”Y’all know that ain’t proper etiquette.”

“But that’s how all the ponies in the pictures do it,” Apple Bloom argued.

“And comics!” Scootaloo added before finding a rather interesting stain on the floor to stare at.

“And in books!” Sweetie Belle chimed in, the only one of the three managing to smile beneath the elder mare’s stare.

“Scootaloo, y’all in enough trouble as it is when I get a hold o’ yer parents,” Applejack stated steadily, adjusting her hat. “And Sweetie, you best be getting along back to Rarity’s shop before we do call yer mom an’ dad. So the three o’ y’all best get along back inside and wait.”

“Yes, Miss Applejack,” the trio chorused before falling quiet, the omnipresent air of argument quickly filling the silence.

“I’ll be taking the lead here, okay? I am obviously the most qualified as far as general knowledge and expertise is concerned—not to mention... Wait, why am I even arguing this with you?” Twilight declared as Applejack hurried the trio of crusaders away from the cage, the unicorn having made up an old barn door and a pair of hay bales into a makeshift desk across which copious notes and vials were littered.

“Not even a clue!” Pinkie Pie replied cheerfully before downshifting a good half-dozen octaves, eyes smouldering as she snapped at her bonds before turning towards the cage with a growl. “Lemme at her! Justice calls for vengeance!”

“No. Just… no.” Twilight looked up at the well-trussed pony as she swayed overhead, tied to one of the barns cross beams.

Why she hadn’t tied up the pink pony someplace far and away was beyond her. Perhaps from a tree far, far away from her...

She shook her head again. “Absolutely not.” Her voice was tinged with a quiet exasperation born of some long and permanent interpersonal strife.

Applejack just watched on, paused mid step towards the kitchen door.

“Okay, so that’s settled.” Pinkie’s angry curse of dissent went ignored. “Is everypony ready then?”

A chorus of affirmations and one more—quickly muzzled—cry of discontent.

“Bu—”

“Crusaders! Get already!” Applejack quickly cut off any further debate from the fillies, quickly rounding them back up again from the cage’s side, silently cursing the distraction.

“But we’re the ones that caught it!”

“What if there’s a bounty?” Sweetie cried out, eyes shimmering with excitement.

“A bounty?”

“Y’know, Scoots. Bits for creature capturing,” Sweetie explained quickly.

“We could be making bits at this?!” Scootaloo grabbed Sweetie by the head, pressing their faces together. “Why didn’t anypony tell me?!”

“Girls…” Applejack groaned.

“Well, we gotta get good at it first.” Apple Bloom quietly tried to pry the pegasus off of from Sweetie.

“Eye on the prize, Bloom! We could’ve been the Cutie Mark Crusader Bounty Hunters this whole time…” Scootaloo trailed off, eyes looking off towards nothing in particular.

No doubt scenes of ponies in dusters and spurs dueling in abandoned towns playing in her mind. She really did read too many of those Silverstar Shooter and the Wide, Wide West comic books.

“Uh, Scoots,” Sweetie sputtered between the pegasus’s crushing hooves.

“...so awesome…”

The kitchen door interrupted with a creak.

“Y’all spotted Rainbow yet, Mac?” Applejack asked, her brother having stopped midway through the door, expression stating all anypony needed to know about his feelings towards the situation.

“Nope.”

“Mind taking care o’ these three afore I do something I regret?”

“Nope.” The stallion quietly and carefully hefted the three fillies up onto his back, ignoring Apple Bloom as she poked into the top of his view.

“Aw, Big Mac!” she whined, wrapping her little hooves around his neck as well as she couldl. “Ain’t like we’re gon’ git in the way or nothin’!”

“Y’all heard your sister. Now you’re gonna go on gettin’ on,” he commanded, staring straight up into his baby sister’s eyes. “Got it?”

“Got it,” a pair of the fillies echoed as Big Mac made his way into the house proper.

“Bounty hunters…”

“Scoots, you’re droolin’ on mah brother.”

The door shut noisily, a suppressed sigh filling the room.

“Well, I suppose this will be a rather lengthy discussion between mother and I,” Rartity declared, choking back a bit of nervous laughter that edged her polite, reserved tone. “But on with this… unpleasantness.”

“Well, let’s see where we are then.” Twilight cleared her throat, standing up from her makeshift desk to pace. “We’ve got a changeling incursion at the edge of Everfree; Fluttershy has been captured and presumed cocooned; she apparently had taken in a changeling among her animals by mistake; the royal guard task force has yet to answer my summons in spite of the urgent nature of our situation; and I have no idea what’s happening with Celestia and Luna since nopony is answering my letters.”

“And we, of course, now have the aforementioned changeling,” Rarity added.

“I was getting to that,” Twilight replied curtly. “Yes, we also have one changeling captive.”

“It even awake yet?” Applejack asked, tapping the shrouded cage.

Twilight grinned as her horn flared into the life, all the lights in the barn going dark.

“If it isn’t, it will be.”

~o~0~o~

Consciousness came none too gracefully to the changeling, coming as it did with a jab right to the carapace. Her eyes snapped open just as darkness descended around her, whatever light there had been hiding behind a sway of pleated shadows. Thankfully, the dark took the offending shaft of wood with it as well.

Glancing about, she could only make out that she was in a small, enclosed space. As she strained to hear, she could only detect the barest of whispers and mutters beyond the veil, the barest hum of magic laced through every thread of the shroud covering her… whatever it was.

So she merely settled down, resting her head on her chin as a warm, happy feeling flitted about her synapses at a job well done.

The changeling paused a moment longer to think.

It rather seemed as though things had not gone quite as planned, but… two out of three wasn’t bad, right?

“—will be.”

The changeling’s eyes widened at the sudden breach of sound before quickly narrowing to the barest slits as the veil was torn back, a burning spotlight bearing down on her just as a deluge of freezing water hit, an ice cube or two clacking off her armored hide.

“Wakey-wakey!” a voice shouted.

It was the unicorn from the library, the changeling realized dimly, only able to let out a frightened trill at the suddenness of it, eyes adjusting in a hurry as the spotlight glinted off the well and sopped cage floor.

“Eggs and bakey!” Pinkie’s jovial tone joined in, having worked the bit of makeshift gag out of her maw, bits of saliva-ridden straw falling back to the floor.

“Hush, darling. The professionals are working,” a rather prim and proper voice whispered as blue magic tucked a fresh bit of hay back into the pink pony’s mouth.

“Good. You’re awake,” Twilight mused darkly as a rather sinister grin creased her face—quite consciously ignoring the other ponies in the room. She let the emptied washbasin drop to the barn floor with a clatter as she approached. “Now, here’s how this is going to go. I am going to ask you a question and you are going to answer that question. Simple, yes?”

The changeling gave an uncertain nod, shuddering at the wispy reds steaming off the unicorn in the darkened room.

“Good.” She turned for a moment, just long enough for the changeling to take a step before she spun around, slamming her hooves against the bars. “What are you doing here?!”

The changeling let out a plaintive squeak, bursting into a overwrought mess of conciliatory chirps and explanatory squawks detailing how she’d come to Ponyville in the first place…

...before noticing the high, quirked eyebrows and impenetrable expressions of her audience.

Slapping a holey hoof to her head—for she was indeed being, as the pink pony would say, a silly billy—the changeling’s horn lit up...

“Spike!”

“On it!”

...and was subsequently extinguished before she could change into a form more conducive to an Equestrian interrogation, a spray of thick, greenish sludge hitting her smack dab in the face, a liberal coating of her head following quickly.

A mix of mint, berry and a rather putrid, ammonia-like scent assaulted her senses as she rolled on her back, flailing her hooves in an attempt to escape the mass of goo. Her magic crackled wildly before going out entirely with an impotent spurt of green fire. Her panic lasted a moment longer however, a steady stream of viridian smoke filtering up from her horn tip when she finally settled down, the various facial orifices blessedly cleared.

“Prisoner successfully incapacitated, ma’am!” Spike stated with a salute, a bit of the green sludge dripping from the water pistol tip clutched in his claw.

“As you were, Spike.” Twilight grinned smugly as she again rounded on the changeling, a notepad levitating just within her peripheral vision. “There will be no escaping by magic, changeling, transformative or otherwise,” she began, voice fluctuating in intensity as she snuck a peek at her notes. “Now, answer me. Where is your hive?!”

“Don’t you mean ‘why are you here’?” somepony chimed in from the background.

“Thank you! Why are you here?!”

“How long have you been here?”

“Where is here?”

“How many of you are there?”

“What is here?”

“What is your plan?”

“Can there even be a here?”

“Pinkie Pie, cut that out!” Twilight yelled over her shoulder at the gently swinging earth pony, the ropes creaking as she swayed back and forth. “For the last time, I am running this interrogation.”

“Awww, but I’m so good at them!”

“She actually is, Twilight,” Spike spoke up before shrinking back in the face of Twilight’s immediate glare. “I mean ma’am, Twilight ma’am. Ma’am Twilight?”

“Not the point, Spike,” Twilight interrupted the sputtering dragon. “Pinkie is obviously under the influence of some kind of changeling pheromone or magic or… or something. She was speaking fluent Prench for pony’s sake!”

“Ze language of ze looooove…” Pinkie crooned before launching into a fit of maniacal laughter. “I vill get you, my chitinous little friend!”

“And now she’s speaking atrocious Prench… fantastic.”

“Well, this is Pinkie Pie we’re talking about,” Spike offered.

Quietly, he watched said pony swing herself into the cross beam—perhaps in service of some ill-thought out escape attempt—smashing into it for a third time before letting out a quiet ‘ow’ of realization that solid objects colliding with soft flesh could only equal pain.

“But yeah, still weird.”

“Noted,” Twilight huffed.

“Oh! Oh!” Pinkie spoke up, one hoof having escaped its binds to rub at a bruised spot on her skull. “I know what you need!”

“What?”

“A good cop,” she said with a sagely nod. “You can’t just have bad cop.”

“What?”

“A carrot to your stick, darling,” Rarity elaborated.

“I know what good cop means!”

“Oh, fantastic, darling. Then we just have to decide who is the good cop and who is the bad,” she declared with excitement in her tone, entirely overlooking Twilight screaming into her hooves. “I believe I would make an excellent good cop should you wish to continue playing bad cop. Although it would be remiss of me to not discuss my qualifications for the latter.”

Twilight sputtered for a moment before turning in a huff and plopping herself face down onto her makeshift desk, contenting herself with a stack of messily organized papers.

Any carefully planned interrogation she might’ve planned had falling quickly to pieces.

In the meantime, the changeling watched in rapt confusion.

Quietly, Rarity drew herself up in front of the cage. Eyes closed, she pressed a hoof to her chest to take in a deep, steadying breath. Her eyes flashed open, lids settling somewhere between sleepy and seductive as she looked the changeling over.

“Now, darling, I know my friend has been a tad… harsh,” Rarity cooed, sliding a hoof down one of the bars. “But you simply must understand that your… compatriots have taken a very, very dear friend of ours. You do understand that, don’t you?”

The changeling nodded, scooting a bit closer to Rarity, her kind aura a comparative comfort to her fellow unicorn’s.

“Are you quite certain? I’m unsure of how much you may or may not—no offense intended—understand the crux of my issues with your actions nor the depth of friendship that we ponies enjoy.” A soft blue glow gripped the changeling’s hooves, dragging her to within hoof’s reach of the ivory unicorn as her aura took a bitter turn. “Or perhaps you don’t understand the depths to which we are willing to go to reclaim our friend. What do you think?”

The changeling gulped as a pair of white hooves pressed her to the bars that they might look at one another directly, eye-to-eye.

“Now, being such a dear, dear friend as I am… well, any good friend would be quite beside herself were anything untoward were to happen,” she continued, calm tone suddenly aberrant in the company of the pinpricks her pupils had become, boring further holes into the changeling’s hide. “Perhaps like, oh, I don’t know, some hive of love-sucking demonic bugs swarms out of the sky to kidnap her whilst ripping her away from what may well have been her true love!” The unicorn’s eyes were alight with fire and brimstone, voice dropping an octave or two past terrifying as her hooves held to the changelings skull, chitinous hooves dangling just off the floor. “Now, where have they taken her?!”

“Rarity!”

There came shouts and cries of panic, but the changeling couldn’t pay much attention due as her focus was fully on the death glare slowly leeching the life from her body.

“Now—”

The changeling’s eyes bulged as she was pulled hard against the bars...

"—where—”

...and harder…

“—is—”

...and harder, compound eyes pressed almost directly against the unicorn’s.

“—she?!”

Quickly the situation devolved into screams and shouts as the white unicorn was tackled to the ground by a pair of purple, and purple and green blurs.

“Rarity, get a hold of yourself!” Twilight yelled, smothering Rarity’s magic with her own.

“No, you get a hold of yourself!” Rarity yelled back as Applejack looped some rope around her middle and yanked her back.

The screaming went on for a few minutes longer as the changeling gasped on the cage floor, letting out a loud trill of discontent.

“Wow. And you were saying I’m crazy?” Pinkie chimed in, her free forehoof rotating around her ear.

The changeling let out a squawk of agreement, followed shortly by a few chirps.

“I know! I can’t believe that either!”

“You kin understand it?” Applejack glanced up at the pink pony as she switched a bit of rope from mouth to hoof, dragging the still smouldering Rarity onto a hay bale, Spike atop her to lend a claw with the knotwork.

“Don’t be silly! Of course not. But come on! Some things are just obvious,” Pinkie answered cheerfully before her demeanor darkened, refocusing with a laser-like precision on the caged changeling. “Now where is she, you chitinous curr?! You brackish blight! You feculent philiaphile of fastidious formulations!”

Applejack simply groaned, finishing binding Rarity to the heavy bale of hay, the paled unicorn’s breaths finally coming in something other than enraged snorts.

“Okay… okay… I am calm. I am quite calm,” Rarity muttered, her face finally flushed with something other than anger. “And quite embarrassed. That wasn’t effective in the least, was it?”

“Well, I think it’s had enough of bad cop at least,” Spike affirmed, glancing at the cowering changeling.

“Maybe we oughta give friendly cop a try.” Applejack, having been sorting through the barrels at the barn’s side, emerged with a basket on her back and made her way up to the cage.

The changeling cowered before a sweet scent reached her nares, drawing her back onto her hooves.

“Feelin’ a mite peckish in there, am I right?” Applejack asked, setting down the basket before lifting out an exquisitely red apple. “I know I can get that way with all this excitement.” Falling quiet, she took the moment to buff the apple up good and shiny before holding it through the bars. “Go on. Free sample on me.”

With an excited squawk, the changeling dashed to the bars, snatched the apple from the farm mare’s outstretched hoof and retreated back to the far corner to munch on the fruit.

Applejack hummed quietly to herself as Twilight drew up alongside her, frustration replaced by curiosity.

“What are you thinking?” she asked idly.

“Jus’ gimme a sec with it.” Applejack stepped up to the bars again, staring down at the changeling as she set down the unfinished half of apple. “Now… I’m gonna ask real nice-like here, so I’m hoping you’ll answer nice in return.” The farm mare took a deep breath to calm herself. “So, where’d your swarm take our friend?”

The changeling thought a moment, then shrugged her shoulders with a noncommittal chirp before launching off into the same explanation that she’d given Twilight earlier.

“Wait, wait, wait…” Applejack interrupted. “Can’t y’all speak Equestrian?”

The changeling waited a moment to parse, but nodded.

“So… what’s with all the chirpin’ and squawkin’?”

The changeling trilled, pointing at first to her throat then to her still smoking horn.

“Huh…” Applejack looked over the prison, testing the bars with a hoof before turning her back on the cage. “Spike, I’m gonna need you to run the hose in.” She motioned to Twilight. “A moment of your time, Twi.”

~o~0~o~

“Okay...” The book Twilight had been poring over snapped shut in her telekinetic grasp as she grinned at the changeling. “This should hold up well enough under the circumstances,” she declared, turning to her fellow ponies and dragon, “and if it doesn’t, Spike and Rarity are well-prepared with the backup plan.”

The changeling leaned to the side to find the now freed unicorn and diminutive dragon standing with rather large water cannons in their respective grasps, a sludgy green sloshing about inside the reservoirs. As she gulped, she spotted a cartful of similar arms just behind them.

“Well, ready when you are, Twi.” Applejack raised up the hose, a hoof on the nozzle as Twilight took a step towards the cage, her horn aglow.

Slowly, the unicorn’s eyes closed and the light from the horn form into a solid beam that drew across the bars of the cage, shafts of magenta light forming across the gaps. With a curious glance, the changeling pressed a hoof to the space between the bars, finding it solid but springy before she was cast back by a sudden blast of water.

She struggled against the spray as it shifted across her body before, sputtering, the changeling emerged clean and glossy.

“Alright. Do your thing, changeling,” Applejack stated as she cut off the flow.

The changeling glanced up in confusion before noticing the impotent sparks of magic had faded away, the crooked horn glowing solidly once more.

Applejack looked away as the changeling burst into green fire, fading to reveal a pink earth pony standing in the cage.

“Test… check… check test...” the second Pinkie muttered aloud, rubbing a hoof over her muzzle and throat. “Wowies, that is much better.”

“You! You faker!” the first cried out, sullenness written all over her features. “I am at least twice as adorable as that!”

The second Pinkie was taken aback. “Hey! I’ll have you know this is a perfectly good Pinkie Pie!”

“I know! That’s why it’s terrible! I woul—mmmm!” Pinkie was silenced, if only temporarily by a bit of rope held in magenta light.

“Applejack, please continue,” Twilight nodded her head at the changeling turned earth pony.

“Alright, changeling, you—”

“Oh, you can call me Flammy.”

The gathered ponies’ eyes collectively widened.

“Like the…”

“The flamingo?”

“Of course!” Flammy stated matter-of-factly.

“Wait... just how long have you been in Ponyville?

“A few weeks, I think?”

“And you’ve been hiding out as a flamingo this whole time?” Applejack asked, a bit awestruck as Twilight furiously scribbled on her notepad. “Y’all can do that?”

“Of course.” Flammy’s eyes quirked in confusion. “I also got to try out being Miss Pinkie Pie and Miss Fluttershy too. I wanted to try a few others... buuuuut one thing led to another and I didn’t get the chance.” The pseudopony looked positively downcast at the realization. “Oh well, everything turned out alright in the end. Well, not for me so much, but for Fluttershy and the hive everything should be fantastic!” She smiled brightly, clapping her hooves together with excitement that quickly faded at the looks on the ponies’ faces.

“How in the wide-wide world of Equestria d’ya reckon it’s good for Fluttershy to be ponynapped?!” Applejack cried out incredulously.

“Well… um…” Flammy stammered, sifting through her accumulated words carefully. “She wasn’t happy and now she will be happy! The hive will makes sure of it! After all, a happy pony is a pony that gives an awful lot of love and an awful lot of love is exactly what a hive needs!”

“And how exactly will they go about doing that?” Twilight cut in as Applejack’s face took on a slightly greenish tint.

“Well, Miss Fluttershy will be taken to the hive and all her wants will be real and it will be wonderful and she’ll be very, very happy,” she stated slowly, wishing for a moment she had her books. “And then the hive will feed on her love and the hive will be happy too.” Flammy nodded, but her eyes bespoke of uncertainty as she glanced between the blue and green auras of the ponies and dragon.

Had she missed something?

No. Everything had gone as it was supposed to.

“Okay… so where is the hive?”

Flammy shuffled nervously. Aches, pains and echoes of angry yells served as a reminder of the responses to said query.

“We only want the truth, Flammy. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.”

“I… I don’t know where Queen has gone or where she might have started a new home… but wherever she is, she’ll take the best care of Miss Fluttershy! I promise!”

Flammy’s smile had all but vanished by now, replaced by a nervous grimace as she sat and held up a hoof, crossing her heart with it—or at least crossing where a ponies’ heart would be were said pony, in actuality, a pony.

“Promise!”

“Applejack.” Twilight waved Applejack back from the cage.

“What is it?” Applejack asked curiously, no longer looking at the cage nor its occupant at all.

“I think it’s telling the truth,” Twilight muttered darkly. “Or at least what it believes to be true.”

“But it is true! I would never, ever do anything to hurt Miss Fluttershy.”

The pair ignored the outburst, dropping their voice further.

“That don’t bode well.”

“It really doesn’t… we have a vague direction for where the swarm went, but we have no way to find them unless they went straight all the way to their hive. And that’s not even to mention the numbers we’re looking at going against,” Twilight murmured as she studied the changeling carefully. “We have some advantages, but I think it might be best if we turned the changeling over to the academy.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Yeah, what?!” Again, the changeling’s outburst was ignored. Albeit their conversation finally did return to a more reasonable volume.

“They’re the best equipped!” Twilight stated. “Especially if there’s nothing more we can do by ourselves. We might just have to wait for a proper response from Canterlot.”

“If’n you’ll pardon mah poor Prench, that’s a whole load’a bullhonky, Twi, “ Applejack spat. “We ain’t gettin’ nothin’ done while waitin’ on a bunch of pencil jockeys to come around.” She turned to the fake Pinkie, eyes now shining with a new fire. “You.”

“Yes?” the changeling pony squeaked out, a burst of flame racing across her hide as a thick pink mane formed for her to cower behind.

Applejack paused a moment, aura tinged green again. “Uh... can’t y’all find the hive somehow? What happens when one of you changelings gets lost or soemthin’? You got to have some way of findin’ yer way back.”

“Umm… we can sense one another when we’re close enough,” Flammy replied in Fluttershy’s soft soft, almost pleading voice.

“Huh…” Twilight scratched something down on a notepad before turning to her compatriot. “Applejack, I really don’t think we should be pressing this. What would happen if all the Elements of Harmony are captured… or worse?” Twilight asked, putting a hoof on the farm mare’s shoulder.

“An’ what if the Academy’s anything like the rest of the Canterlot’s high falootin’ bureaucracy? We’re gonna want an answer here before them anyways. Ain’t got time for their sort of chicanery.”

“I hardly think that’s anyway to describe the duly elected authorities of Equestria—”

“Twi… y’ever have to deal with the EAA describin’ the legal distinction between a jonagold, a pink lady and a mcintosh apple inasfar as taxes and transcontinental commerce regulations so they can serve a temporary injunction on your flippin’ livelihood for the duration of a—and I quote—‘thorough investigation of the facts brought to their attention by The Flim Flam Brothers’ Apples and Apple Products Limited’?” Applejack asked rhetorically. “It’s a merry ol’ go-round-and-’round-and-around if you enjoy that sort of ride.”

Twilight opened her mouth, then clamped it shut.

“Got my point?”

“Yes.” Twilight sighed, rubbing at her temple with a hoof. “And I’m sure that some of the higher ups in the academy would surely intervene at the chance for more specimens”—Flammy’s yellow fur shifted several shades towards green—“to test with everything that’s going on.” She shuffled her hooves nervously, giving a sidelong glance to the barn door.

“I'm sensing there's a 'but' comin' round that corner..." Applejack grimaced.

"But we still need to keep the Princesses informed at the very least. And maybe talk to some of the local guards. We can use all the help we can get, right?"

"Fair enough. We round up some guards and fire another letter to the princesses and then we get this little dog, pony and whatsit show on the road, agreed?"

"Agreed.” Twilight nodded before the pair turned to their friends. “Rarity, why don't you come with me to fetch the guards?"

"Me?"

"Well, if we're gonna be… convincing the guards, we need to put our best hoof forward," Applejack stated as a slight blush overtook Rarity's features.

"Oh! Oh! Me too!" Pinkie said with a violent swing, the rope holding her up lurching down the cross beam. "I can be all sultry and seductive too!" she declared, giving it her best pout.

Or perhaps it was her best impression of a mallard; Flammy wasn't quite sure.

"Pinkie… you, uh…" Applejack stammered for a moment. "Stay 'ere an' keep watch over the prisoner."

"Twilight ma'am, yes, ma'am Twilight!" the pink pony saluted before her eyes suddenly bulged out at her once doppelganger, Flammy scooting back as far as she was able.

Applejack leaned in close to Twilight to whisper. “I’ll go get Big Mac to watch the both of them. Shoot, I best figure out where the hay Rainbow’s bedded down for the night.”

“Take Spike.” Twilight hefted the dragon onto the farm pony’s back, swapping out an anti-changeling cannon for a more traditionally water-filled one with a wink. “For cloud testing.”

“On it, Twi ma’am!”

Twilight turned to face the changeling. “And as for you..." Behind her, a saddlebag levitated off the wall, held in a cloud of magenta light, flipping open as a small vial of soft blue fluid hovered out. "We'll be talking again real soon."

The contents of the vial spilled out only to be caught in Twilight’s magical aura. The fluid danced a moment in air before, with a soft blow from the unicorn, it became a cloud bearing down on the changeling.

"Okay… talk to you later, Twilight..." Flammy staggered up, seeming a properly inebriated pegasus before face planting into the middle of the cage floor. "Bye—" Her soft farewell became a quiet squawk as her disguise failed along with her consciousness.

~o~0~o~

"Tomorrow, they said... Bah! ...I say."

The changeling stirred ever so slightly, trying to stretch out only to find her hooves bound, rope looped through her hole-ridden appendages, cool dirt scraping along her back.

"Don't they know the agony? The agony of every minute spent separate? Don't they understand?" the pony muttered in front of her, an oddly bright green vibrating around it, a core of pink throbbing at its center. "No, of course not, Pinkie. That's why we’ve taken this into our own hooves!"

They stopped suddenly, the changeling gasping as a pink hoof drove the breath from her, stepping onto her stomach.

"Alas! Please, forgive me, Twilight and Applejack! Rarity and Spikey! And Big McIntosh! Especially Big McIntosh! Forgive me for I do this... for love!" Pinkie stared back, hoof held out as if in want towards the distant Ponyville. "Oh, sorry!"

The changeling squeaked in reply as Pinkie stepped off her, muzzle loosely bound with a short length of rope, the remainder of it hogtying her hooves.

"Oh, wait… should I be sorry? Are we still doing good cop, bad cop?" Pinkie rambled for a moment before smacking her forehead with a hoof. "Silly little Twinkie Pinkie! Now we're doing renegade cop! She don’t take no guff! She don’t follow no rules! But she gets results!"

Flammy's eyes grew wide as the pink pony leaned down close, voice dropping a few more octaves than she would've thought anypony possible.

"Now, listen and listen well, punk… You took somepony very, very special to me and now you're gonna help me get her back… capiche?" Pinkie demanded angrily, a click and the sound of scraping metal echoing.

Flammy cocked her head to the side.

"Capiche?" Something silvery glinted threateningly in the dark.

The changeling had no response.

"Oh, c'mon! Neightalian Mafiosi?" The shimmering object drew closer to her bruised carapace. “Scarflank?”

But still the changeling had no response save to cringe as much as her binds would allow.

"Fine, first you help me unponynap Fluttershy and then we get you some proper Equestrian culture," Pinkie declared. "We'll start with It Came from Everfree! I bet you'll love that one. Monster movies are the best! Aren't they?" It came out half question, half threat.

The changeling nodded as fast as she could before a gasp caught in her throat, something sharp flashing in the dark. Her eyes screwed shut on instinct, preparing for a strike that didn't come.

"Alrighty then, on your… you still call them hooves, right?" Pinkie asked, eyes alight with genuine curiosity as the ropes fell away.

The changeling let out a chirp of surprise, watching the metallic object twirl about in the pink pony's hoof.

"Oh this?" Pinkie began, following the changeling's eyes as she flipped it open again. "Tactical sporkife, never leave home without one… tool of a thousand uses! Or at least three." She turned the combination spoon, fork and knife over in a hoof to let the changeling admire it before she tucked it away in her mane.

The changeling simply shook her head however, motioning to the snapped binds now littering the ground.

"Oh! That. Well, you're not going to run, right?"

The changeling thought a moment, then nodded.

"And you're going to help me, right?"

A second, less certain nod.

"Close enough!" Pinkie declared with a hop and a skip, pulling the changeling to her hooves. "Also, I am absolutely under the influence of I no idea what”—the pink pony bounced higher and higher—"so maybe this is all a really terrible idea!"

She let out a gasp as Pinkie spun in the air and landed atop her, hind hooves kicking against the changeling’s sides.

"Now onwards!”

She reared in surprise before breaking into a panicked gallop without even a second thought.

“In the name of love!"

~o~0~o~

As Twilight looked upon the scene—an empty cage, a dangling length of rope, and a well and dazed Big McIntosh, face dripping with what appeared to be chunks of apple pie and whipped cream as he dangled from the rafters by a hind hoof—she could think of only one response.

“Dang it, Pinkie Pie.”

# ~ The Glasshouse Appendicies (Spoilers ahoy!)

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Author's Notes:

The Glasshouse Appendices

Last Updated - August 3rd, 2014

First off, an explanation of the what-the-hay-hay of an appendix existing:

The following are scenes that are considered canon (albeit still somewhat malleable canon) to A Glasshouse Butterfly but, due to various limitations of my past imagination, were left on the cutting room floor. Fun fact time! Glasshouse actually started off as a one-shot idea. It was really just something I could get done by a deadline. All the questions the first chapter raised were never intended to be answered fully. Had my own thoughts of course, but it really wasn't until a bit after my little finger had hit submit that I realized... damn, that's really not all that satisfying as a one-shot, is it?

Anyways, to make a long story short, I glommed onto the easiest mode of progression available and just kept the plot moving on forwards, but that still left a lot of questions that were better answered in the story's past (such as, how exactly did Fluttershy end up with a changeling in her metaphorical closet?). I think that, someday after it's actually got a capper on it, I'll want to reset the story's timeline so that instead of in media res beginnings, we start at the beginning proper (or possibly just with a quick jaunt backwards to get all caught up prior to the date), but when you've started a shipfic this close to a relations reveal point... it seems sort of cruel (doubly so with the time that's lapsed between updates).

Appedicies Currently Available:
Appendix01 - Introductions
(Author's Notes: This scene is one stab at a beginning set at the actual beginning of the storyline. Biggest issue for it at the moment is likely how tonally different most of it is...)
Appendix02 - A Storybook Romance
(Author's Notes: Set perhaps a week—of the roughly two before the first chapter—into Fluttershy caring for her changeling charge, a possible second chapter to skip us to the funner, more pertinent stuff that would happen in the likely 1 or 2 chapters prior to the present first chapter)

AppendixS.06.01 - While You Weren't Looking: Edition the First
(Author's Notes: Extended version of chapter 6's introductory scene.)

~Appendix01~

~Introductions~

The hollow of her abdomen and the absent replies.

They were all that she could sense as she tumbled down from the branches once again , crashing against the hard forest floor. She trembled, rising on legs shaken too many times by the impact, carapace pliable where it should have been strong, the strange breeze of her impotently buzzing wings both comfort and reminder. Memories fumbled in her head with each ill-placed hoofstep, lessons and observations all a jumble. But most of all, at the fore of it was the hunger, gnawing rapaciously at her innards, threatening to leave her bereft, and the silence, the lack of chorus in her acts.

Hunger and silence.

She trembled at the ever-present realization of it. The unfamiliarity, a sudden lack of guidance plying her mentally as the Everfree tore at her physically. She found her thoughts hewing to old, well-trodden edicts and even older instincts as she swept through the barren gray of ancient forest, seeking a spring, an oasis.

The thorns and branches of the brush mattered little as they scraped at her once hard, plated hide. And though the beasts and plants of the forest might have her eventually, it seemed to her that they would not be quick enough to their claim. It would be starvation.

She felt a weight settle upon her as she realized the thought, the sole creation of a singular mind abandoned.

The now silent voices had once whispered warnings of such things, of an end inevitable for such a state of singularity. Thus had the hollow once been filled to the brim.

But how long since?

Weeks? Perhaps months since she had been satiated?

Despite the occasional satisfaction to be had in the lessers of Everfree, she found herself weak and emaciated as she forged on without direction.

She recalled for the briefest of moments the plan that had left her in such a state. There, a brief burst of anger at the memory before it was quickly culled from her thoughts, fading to a gentle, pervasion of longing and she quickly shifted her mind to its basest cause, uncluttered by context or effect.

The princess. The prince. The pair, once a greater source than could be recalled by the whispers, had been the cause, the flame to the moth.

Even as she was cast from the city of Canterlot, the physical blow of their barrier sending her careening towards Everfree, she could feel something beneath it. The source of their barrier a purest of sustenances, just beyond her reach.

She recalled that the first moment of silence had been then. The chorus fell quiet, an assault of silence upon her as her mind had raced to fill the void with the anger and fear that filled her so copiously. She recalled the swirling path of the sun in her vision as she had tumbled down, wings unable to steady her before she had hit the first tree, the first trunk, the branches and then the ground.

She found her way into a small clearing,looking back a moment at her disabled wing, the glossy surface shimmering softly in the morning’s light, sun glinting off the glassy edges of the crumpled chitin. For a moment her horn and wing glowed green before a twist of her abdomen reminded her acutely of the hunger. She grimaced and pressed on into the brush.

Then, she felt it.

The tiniest, quivering sense of it. Distantly, she sensed it. A lilting scent of it wafting on the forest breeze, her mouth hung open as her mouth salivated slightly and her stomach made its demands known.

An unrequited desperation set amidst the deserts of absence.

A lush oasis in the grand empty of the forest.

Excitement coursing through her, she scrabbled through the brush to find a proper, albeit disused, path worn into the forest. In the distance, drawing closer as she ran, the hint chimney smoke curling into the atmosphere from a small cottage at the edge of Everfree, awash in the scent of sustenance.

Nearer and nearer she galloped, edict, training and instinct forced beneath by desire, but still their hooves scraped and dug and clawed at her conscience until she halted mere yards from her destination at a sudden swing of the cottage door.

With a cascade of dirt sent down the path, she dug her hooves in and lept for the brush that had taunted her for so many moons, seeking safety in the spiky leaves of a holly bush.

After a bit of fidgeting, she managed to worm her way to the ground beneath the brush, burrowing down, staring out from under the leaves at her potential prey. Quietly she stared at the yellow-hewn pegasus as she closed the door, a long-legged bird having followed close behind her, the wondrous scent emanating from both.

And, surely, edict and instinct returned fully to her.

~o~0~o~

"Angel Bunny! You come back here this instant, mister!" Fluttershy called after the rabbit, mixed worry and reproach tinging every syllable of her attempted affectation of authority. "It's dangerous!"

She hovered meekly down the path towards the forest, eyes darting between her rabbit’s bouncing white form and the bobbing pink form of the lapine’s quarry.

"Angel Bunny!" She folded her wings, dropping into a steady trot as she crossed the subtle threshold that separated Ponyville and the Everfree Forest. She turned a moment and the rabbit was ahead, nary hide nor feather of the pink bird was left.

As the sun’s light dimmed overhead, the forest leaves seemed to sharpen, branches becoming more wicked with each subsequent hooffall.

"Angel, what are you doing? She’s gone by now."

The rabbit simply glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowed angrily. Fluttershy could only wonder at the lagomorph’s motives.

Usually it was food or the lack of food or the lack of quality of the aforementioned food or a lack of qualified presentation of the aforementioned food, quality-lacking or non. Something to do with food.

But he seemed relatively satisfied with the fulfillment of his dietary needs—after all, she had been extra generous with the vegetables lately. He just seemed so arbitrarily moody as of late, more so than usual, just staring out the windows of the cottage for hours on end without even a word. Not even a squeak of discontent or a hard-tossed, well-aimed carrot from the rabbit.

Angel, what aren’t you telling me?

He’d just been so ornery lately, ever since Sir Pinkington the Third had been spending time with that female flamingo. Pinkington had been so lonely for such a long time. Fluttershy was happy for him, but Angel… Angel seemed to be holding a grudge against the pair.

Is that it? Are you just jealous, Angel Bunny? she wondered as she quickened her trot to a slow gallop to catch up.

As they arrived in the forest proper—her cottage having finally disappeared from sight as the pegasus made her frequent check of where she’d been—the rabbit seemed to slow, stopping every few hops to sniff at the air. His whiskers twitched in agitation, eyes carefully examining the branches above as Fluttershy caught up to the rabbit.

"Angel Bunn—"

She was cut off by a fuzzy little paw pressed to her lips, the rabbit's eyes glinting. Before Fluttershy could even lift a hoof to remove the rabbit's paw, Angel had grabbed ahold of her mane and swung himself onto her back. He landed, digging one of his toe claws into just the right spot of her back and involuntarily, the pegasus bucked her hindlegs with a panicked flare of her wings, sending the bunny rocketing into the branches.

"Angel!" Fluttershy gasped, guilt immediately burrowing into her conscience as she heard a rather loud series of thumps from the tree tops.

Then there came a squawk and honk in answer as leaves began to shake down from the topmost branches of the tree. Fluttershy watched, aghast as the tremors moved about the canopy.

Instinctively, she scrambled back as a lump of pink and white crashed down to the ground.

“Angel Bunny! What are you—” she tried to reprimand the rabbit—being jealous was one thing, but this was simply unacceptable behavior—but before she could the rabbit’s hind paw thumped against the avian’s skull, sending a wave of green fire across it.

A black and blue, pony-sized lump lay there, a pair of glassy, insect-like wings buzzing in a panic beneath the now triumphantly-posed Angel Bunny.

Fluttershy froze, pressing herself to the ground as she stared wide-eyed at the fallen changeling, the strange holes in its armored shell, the shimmering black chitin glinting threateningly in the low forest light, the sharpened horn and protruding fangs... the crumpled and torn wings... the fearful sheen to its wide eyes... forelegs held to its chest in a sign of submission...

And then it whimpered.

"Angel Bunny!"

The rabbit's triumphant grin all but vanished as Fluttershy stared him down. Forelegs crossed, he hopped off the changeling, giving the dirt a petulant kick before plopping down in a huff, back to the both of them.

The changeling gave out a relieved sigh before sucking it right back in as it found itself beneath the full force of Fluttershy's piercing stare.

Stepping closer as she stared the changeling into continued submission, she finally dropped her gaze to the rest of it. Dutifully, she examined it, taking its limbs one-by-one in her hooves, muttering softly to herself as one of the changeling's forelegs refused to extend.

"On your stomach," she ordered in her soft voice and the shocked creature immediately complied, rolling over with a slight wince. Cautiously, she ran her hooves over its crumpled wings. "Shhh... shhh... it’s okay..." Fluttershy hushed as the wings began to buzz haphazardly between her hooves.

It settled down, wings stilling.

"Okay, now stand."

It stared at her a moment, head cocked to the side.

"Just as best as you can, okay?"

It nodded, lifting slowly up on three of its legs, holding one of its forelegs gingerly in the air.

Moving quickly, Fluttershy moved beside the creature, worming her way under its belly until it rested not terribly comfortably on her back, the changeling giving a little yelp of surprise as she did so.

"Okay, Angel Bunny. We’re going back to the cottage now."

Angel's jaw dropped. Letting out a series of disbelieving squeaks, he hopped up and down in front of the pegasus, jabbing his paws at the changeling accusingly.

"Yes, I understand that."

Angel settled down, rubbing at forehead with a paw before letting out another series of less panicked rasps.

"And that's why you're going to run ahead and tell everyone. So they no one panics when we get there."

Angel threw up his paws in frustration, letting out a dissatisfied grunt.

"Angel Bunny! You know better than that." She paused a moment, looking over her shoulder at the thoroughly flabbergasted creature on her back. "Changeling or not."

Angel stewed on this point for a moment before drawing a paw to his eyes, pointing to the changeling and then back to his eyes again. But, with an angry thump of his hind paws on the dirt, Angel complied with Fluttershy's wishes, shooting back along the path to the cottage as the pegasus began her careful trudge back home.

"Oh dear..." she whispered quietly as she caught a glimpse of Ponyville and Canterlot beyond through the trees, thoughts of dungeons and banishments racing through her head.

But she couldn't very well do nothing.

All creatures deserved at least a little kindness after all.

~End Appendix01~

~Appendix02~

~A Storybook Romance~

“Hm… How about…” Fluttershy sifted through the books that now littered the living room carpet, trying to find one that might strike her charge’s fancy. She tilted her lantern forwards, dusting off the cover of a particularly disused volume.

Somewhere in the darkness of drawn curtain, she could hear the ruffle of hooves and buzz of wings before a thin, pink tome thumped down in front of her, landing atop a hardbound collection of Bird Fancy Quarterly’s Aviaries of Equestria Roundup.

It was pink—a smile crept across Fluttershy’s features rather incidentally—with embroidering of both red and white flowers encircling its title with floral heart.

“This one?” She glanced up, eyes matching the changeling’s seemingly pupilless blue eyes with her own quizzical one. But, with a nod from her charge, she took up the book in her hooves. “‘The Tragical Tales of the Lives and Loves of the Ladies Primrose’? Oh, that sounds a little too”—she hesitated momentarily as the weight on her back shifted, a pair of eyes peering down over top her mane—“tragic?”

An assertive chirp silenced any grievances, however, and with a pat-pat from its hole-ridden hoof on her mane, the pegasus come pillow pushed back the encroaching nest of texts to lay open the tale before them.

It was a rather old volume, perhaps the oldest in her meager personal collection—which, mayhaps, did not speak as ill of her literary tendencies as one might think, considering one would have to compare said collection to those of her more… inclined pony friends. It was one that she could faintly recall having heard bits and pieces of before her mother had decided the content was a bit overly… intense for such an emotionally sensitive soul.

Fluttershy had to admit to herself that the drudged-up image of her mother’s face, scrunched into a look somewhere betwixt disgust and bewilderment whilst scanning through the latter half of the book did lend a modest amount of intrigue to it.

Besides, it had love right there in the title. How tragic could it honestly be?

“In a realm of creatures pellucid, one—”

A gargled chirrup halted Fluttershy’s recitation as she felt trio of hooves hop awkwardly over her back, scraping past her folded wings. She watched over her shoulder as the changeling walk-hopped over to the largely now empty bookcase, returning quickly with a familiar, gently gnawed book balanced atop its head, fangs tucked sheepishly inside its lower lip as if in request.

“Thank you. That’s much better behavior. Did you want to…?”

The changeling nodded fervently, setting her book to Fluttershy’s side before gingerly nudging it open to the P’s with a hoof. Fluttershy simply kept watch, a wry smile upon her face as the bird intently scanned the pages, flipping dutifully through with careful slides of her beak. After a few minutes, it let out a cheerful squawk and nudged Fluttershy back towards their chosen reading.

“Alright.” Clearing her throat, she began again. “In a realm of creatures pellucid, one and all, beneath Sun’s light”—Fluttershy paused a moment as the changeling settled its head atop her bent foreleg, eyes glancing between her and the storybook—“there was born a pretty little filly whose future role could not be foretold whether by sage’s breath or Moon’s starry sky.

“Hers was to be a role most unnaturally natural amongst the royals of her empire.

“From birth she held a crystal circlet upon her crown and a spoon of silver within her jaw—as any respectable pony of House Primrose was expected.

“She was a curious and innately rapacious pony, blessed and cursed with the entirety of the royal library to draw from in her foalhood quests. Since first the runes had changed in her mind from nebulous shape to concrete letter, she spent all time not reserved for the study of etiquette and decorum befitting her station utterly ensconced in the deep lake of verbosity.

“Worlds crept up from the pages to invade her thoughts, filling her head with dreams of far off oceans and mountains ripe for conquest, deep jungles to be explored, heretofore unknown creatures to be discovered. The land outside her kingdom was one of

“But, as with the many of her ilk, she was a mind exposed to the world, a condition most unfortunate for the events to come. Indeed, upon her entry into marehood, the most unfortunate of events that could befall any such princess did transpire:

“Suitors.”

~o~0~o~

“—it was on the night of the Full Hearts’ Centennial Ball that she would meet the unscrupulous rapscallion that was to be the third of her suitors.

“Where Sir High Lord Ironstag the Twenty-Third had merely been an incompetent—his ‘high lordship Flint,’ as he was so wont to be called, having been kept blessedly harmless in his circle of serviles and kept far from actual power by his born privilege—made the fool revealed, and Grand Duke Upperlip of Trottingham had simply been far too stodgy an old codger to merit the allowance of a mutually assured pursuit, this newest suitor was not just a stallion of means and ways, but one of desire and cunning.

“For many a year, this stallion had waited in the background, of parties and festivities, of social functions and receptions. Anywhere the princess had gone, he had followed under the auspices of duty and obligation, having worked his way into her graces to become her ladyship’s solemn, ever present confidant.

“And, naturally, it was in this role that she did discover and dismiss so many of her prospective suitors out of hoof.

“Too old. Too young Too feeble of mind. Too feeble of body. Too involved in his body. Too lost to the pursuits of the mind…

“The list of potential defects close at hoof numbered perhaps tenfold, nay, twentyfold the suitors awaiting their opportunity.

“Indeed, what use was a royal alchemist to his lady were he not available at ev—”

A chime of the clock from upstairs cut the story short as Fluttershy gently lifted her wing from beneath the languid changeling’s form.

“Alright, it’s time for changing,” she said with a smile, stretching out her stiffened legs before trotting towards the bathroom before a soft, mournful churr halted her. “Now you just wait there a moment and I’ll be back before you know it.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, smile replaced by a frown that furrowed her features with worry.

“Oh, what am I even thinking…” she muttered to herself as she dug through the lower cabinets for a fresh roll of gauze.

And that was when she heard it.

"Oh, hiya!" came the familiar high-pitched greeting. “I haven’t seen you before.”

Fluttershy's blood ran cold as she heard the clunk of the cottage door knocking against the interior wall as it finished its inward swing. Nary a moment later, the pegasus skidded into the main room, fresh roll of bandage dangling from her mouth, just in time to see Pinkie Pie strolling happily into the cottage, saddlebags bulging at her sides.

"Painkay?"—she spat the roll onto the carpet—"Pinkie Pie? What are you doing here at this hour?"

"Fluttershy!" Pinkie chirped excitedly, "I was just saying 'hiya' to your new friend here… wait, this hour?"

Eyes wide, Fluttershy glanced about before settling on the rather conspicuous pink flamingo hopping languidly on one leg behind the earth pony.

“Did I miss daylight savings?”

"Oh my, goodness, you shouldn't be… up like this yet," Fluttershy gasped out, fumbling with her uncertain reproach as she fluttered past Pinkie and slipped beneath the lanky wading bird. "What are...? How did..." The slight verdant gleam in the bird's otherwise yellow-pink eyes granted relief and apprehension in equal measure. "Later..."

The bird gave a honk of agreement as it nested between the pegasus's wings.

"Aww... you two look so cute," Pinkie cooed, sliding her bags onto the large table at the center of the living room before trotting back to Fluttershy. "Soooo... who's your new friend?"

"Oh, um." Fluttershy glanced up at the flamingo expectantly.

"She hasn't got a name yet? Aw, that's so sad!" Pinkie pouted. "Oh, lemme help! Please, please, please!" she begged, pressing her forehooves together and letting her eyes water just the right amount. “I’m great at names, I promise!”

"Oh, that's not up to m—"

A squawk cut her off, the flamingo giving the pink pony's mane a playful nip before nodding its assent.

"Yes!" Pinkie shouted triumphantly before shooting to her hooves, staring at the flamingo. "Okie dokie... so what kind of flamingy do we got here..."

Around and around the pink pony went, circling around the pair as Fluttershy found streaks of sweat streaming down her brow and stinging at her eyes.

"Lessee... Andes? No, too masculine. Jamie? No, too pink for that. Oh! Pink! Pink Flaminkie! We can even call you Pinkie for short!"

"Pinkie?"

"Oh, right, that's taken already. Can't be confusing everypony with two Pinkies, right? That’d just be silly.” Pinkie tut-tutted quietly a moment, lifting the bird’s unbandaged wing for a closer examination of its plumage. “Besides, more of a fuchsia anyways."

Fluttershy just stared in shocked silence as the pink pony rubbed a hoof over the fur on her chinny chin chin so fast the pegasus worried she might cause a fire or at the very least an awful abrasion.

"Hmmm… mmmmmmmmmmm… hm!"

Fluttershy stared upwards as the flamingo craned its neck over her head, the pink pair staring at one another in silence as the pegasus fidgeted as quietly as she could.

"Oh, how about Flammy? Flammy the Flamingo!"

"Flammy the Flamingo?" Fluttershy echoed, her charge cocking its head to the side as if in consideration, Pinkie beaming at them in assumed triumph.

"I think she likes it," Pinkie declared as the flamingo patted her on the head with its curved bill. “Alliteration never goes outta style. Never.”

"Well... Flammy it is." Fluttershy smiled, fears assuaged for the moment.

"Please t'meet ya, Flammy the Flamingo!" Pinkie declared, thrusting out of hoof in greeting. “I’m Pinkie the Pony.”

"Oh, she's hurt, Pinkie, I don’t know if..." Fluttershy watched as the pair worked out a complex, albeit slowed down shake of their hoof and flipper, the flamingo letting out a pleased churr when they had finished. "Well... at least you're being careful."

"Careful is my middle name!"

Fluttershy opened her mouth to comment on the fallacious nature of that particular statement but found herself already being forcibly pushed towards the table. With an audible thwump, the pegasus was seated at the table and, with a few quick zips about the room, Pinkie had the newly christened Flammy on a cushion beside her.

Another round of zippety-zop-zops later, the pink pony had rounded up a dozen or so of the pegasus's resident critter friends; Mr. Mouse and his family were seated around a rodent-sized table atop the regular-sized one; a somewhat disoriented Angel Bunny, nightcap well and truly askew, had found his sleeping basket flipped into a table for lagomorph and mustelid alike; an immature crabapple tree had been jury-rigged into a perch for Hummingway, Roby, Elizabeak and the rest of her in-house aviary.

Pinkie stepped back for moment, framing the tabled menagerie of critters and pony with her hooves before nodding in satisfaction. Everyone in their proper place, Pinkie grabbed up her saddlebags and, with a expertly choreographed twirl of her head, sent two empty plates of cupcakes onto the tabletop, somehow still looking fresh from the oven, lilting trails of steam and all.

"Whattaya think?" Pinkie grinned from across the table at her self-assembled audience.

"Um... they look… tasty,” Fluttershy replied uncertainly as she held back a drooling flamingo from clambering up onto the table.

Pinkie just stared a moment before forehoof met brow with frustrated thonk. "Oh Pinkamena, you silly pony. Have to start with the pitch!"

Fluttershy cocked an eyebrow as the pink pony burrowed headfirst into one of the saddle bags, inexplicably fitting the whole of her upper body into it.

"A-ha!" she yelled in triumph, popping out of the bag, arms filled with papers and a easel. "Now, I've been working on this for Mr. and Mrs. Cake, so I want you to be completely, one-hundred—No! One-hundred-and-twenty-nine-point-five percent honest with me."

"Of course."

"I mean it, Fluttershy." Pinkie was suddenly muzzle-to-muzzle with Fluttershy, eyes pleading and watery. "I need your most brutally honestly honest honesty! I need you to be the most savage of critics, stalking the plains of Pitchistan, tracking down the coarse and the unpolished before sinking its mighty criticisms into it—RAWR!"

Fluttershy found herself leaning about a far back as she could, her stock stiff wings the only thing keeping her from being on her back as the earth pony snapped back, the bestial growl buried once more beneath her wide, wide smile.

"'Kay?"

"I, um"—Fluttershy shrank back a bit as Pinkie's pouting personage filled her vision—"I'll do the best I can."

How else could anypony respond to that face? Either of them…

"Perfect!" The pink pony grinned, slapping a black top hat onto her noggin before suddenly all the carefully arranged lanterns in the darkened cottage went out.

Fluttershy sat a moment in silence, blinking as her eyes tried to adjust to suddenly black as pitch room before, with a double clop-clop of a pink hoof, a spotlight flared into life. There before them, in a halo of light, was Pinkie Pie, now sporting a monocle attached to a gentlemarely vest and pipe in addition to her top hat.

"Sweets," she began almost tonelessly. "For centuries—NAY!”—she stamped a hoof for emphasis—“for millennia, ponies everywhere have enjoyed these magnificent morsels of pure and plenty, oh so superiorly saccharine—if you'll allow—for the sublimely sagacious among us." She paused a moment to blow a few bubbles on her pipe. "But, alas—alackaday!—there are the most venerably vulnerable amongst us whom give to us so much love and hardly asking anything in return. They have been cut off from the exquisite ecstasy of flavor that are desserts for far, far too long!" Pinkie slammed a hoof onto the table. Her pipe slipped from her mouth at the impact, nearly clattering to the floor before the pink pony snatched it up between her teeth, glaring up at the assembled audience before snapping back into her place of regal revulsion. "Our most faithful of friends and most courteous of companions neglected, scandalously shunned by our overt oversight."

Fluttershy raised a hoof.

"Yes, the pegasus in the back row."

"Um,”—Fluttershy blinked as her thoughts collected themselves—“well, if you don't mind me asking, who are we talking about?"

Pinkie shifted her pipe from one side of her mouth to the other, squinting her eyes accusingly at the pegasus. Quickly though, her expression morphed into her normal joyful one, monocle popping out and dangling from her lapel.

"Our pets, silly!" she called out with a slight bounce, grabbing the top sheet of paper on her presentation pad and tearing it off to reveal a rather simplified drawing of numerous animals in various stages of sweets mastication, a flurry of hearts drawn over their bowed heads. "I was thinking of all the fantastic treats we sell at the Sugarcube Corner and how all the poor little pony pets don’t have their own Sugarcube Corner to go to so they never get to consume the cherishable custardiness of a cannelle or to partake of a perfectly piquant pineapple pudding without their owners worrying themselves to pieces! I know couldn't take if Gummy were to get sick and I know all the other ponies feel the same way, so…" She smiled brightly before tearing off another page; 'Pinkamena Pie's Palatably Perfect Pet Partakeries' it read in fanciful magenta calligraphy. "Or P.P.P.P.P.P. for short!" she stated, sounds for a moment not entirely unlike a stalled zeppelin, sending a tiny bit of spittle into the air. "We'll have everything from apple tarts for aardvarks to zucotto for zorillas! Doughnuts for dogs! Cakes for cats! Butterscotches for bunnies! Bundt cakes for birdies!" Fluttershy's eyes widened at the earth pony's increasingly excitable tone. "There are no limits to where we will go and what we will eat when we get there! Mayhaps someday we shall reach the moon and taste of its cheese!" Pinkie lept onto the table, taking up her still bulging pack and thrusting a hoof towards her quadruple-P—her perfectly perplexed pegasus pal. "Will you join me on the tabletop? In this brave new world, this final frontier for all ponypetkind?"

Fluttershy couldn't help but let out a giggled as she allowed herself to be yoinked up onto the table. Pinkie hugged her with one forehoof as the other began to toss plate after plate of confection after confection from her bag, each dish clattering down in front of a different animal.

"Then let us feast not famine!" the pink pony declared triumphantly and the animals quickly dug into the desserts, barks, yips, coos and chirps of satisfaction soon following.

"Um… Pinkie?"

"Yeah, Fluttershy?" Pinkie asked, still holding the pegasus in one arm.

"If I'm going to be honest..." she hesitated with her words a moment as the earth pony stared at her, eyes shimmering hopefully. "That may have been a teensy-weensy little bit…”

"Too much?"

"Too much."

"Aww, pickles and sauerkraut," Pinkie harrumphed, clopping a hoof as the spotlight went off and the curtain rolls all flipped up with a fwap-fwap-fwap from the windows, letting the fading daylight stream into the cottage. "I was so sure I had it too."

"Well, maybe it was a bit too… inspiring."

"Aww...but that's exactly what the book said to do"—she put on a most businesslike expression, voice dropping into a lower, more serious register as she relinquished her hold on the pegasus to strike a dignified pose, forehoof tucked into her vest—"'Don't just sell to your client; INSPIRE them to reach the very heights of commerce!'"

"I’m not sure they meant that kind of inspiring..." Fluttershy trailed off as she stepped back into her seat, the pink pony plopping down opposite her. "I um..."

"Pleeeeease, Fluttershy. BRUTALLY honest," Pinkie reminded.

"Well…" Fluttershy took a deep breath, holding it while she looked over at the smiling pony. "Okay." She closed her eyes, focusing on the mental checklist she had dutifully compiled. "Your performance was over the top, your diction was lacking, the alliteration was way, way overdone, and your tone was simply not conducive to a business proceeding." The pink ponies eyes widened by degrees as the list wore on. "And your initialism sounds like a zeppelin that's run out of fuel."

"Oh..." Pinkie murmured tonelessly.

"I mean, parts of it were nice… maybe you just need to relax a little."

The pink pony looked crestfallen, but soon pepped right back up. "I knew that I shouldn't have gone with a voiceless bilabial stop. No wonder Pound and Pumpkin couldn't stop giggling in rehearsal!" She gave the table a determined tap of her hoof. "But how can I relax, Fluttershy? This is serious business. I want"—she paused—"I need to prove I can handle things. Serious things! Business things!"

"Why would you have to prove yourself to Mr. and Mrs. Cake?"

"They don't trust me," Pinkie stated with a little sigh, letting her head flop onto the table top, top hat tipping askew over her eyes. "I mean look at what happened with Pound and Pumpkin!"

"What do you mean? You've been great with them. You foalsit almost every week.”

"Yeah, now!" She flopped back, hat settling on her belly as she waggled her forehooves in faux surrender. "But they went and asked everypony else they could find before I even got a chance! They even asked Rainbow Dash before me! Have you seen Dashie with foals?"

"Um, no I haven't."

"I know, right?!" Pinkie shouted, popping up into a sitting position with hooves held skyward before they clopped down in front of her. "Not even a shred bit of experience entertaining and playing with foals, and still they asked her first. Rainbow Dash! She wouldn't know the first thing about dealing with foals. She can’t even deal with fillies and colts unless they're chanting her name!" The pink pony froze a moment. "Oh! Don't tell her I said that! She's awesome. Just, y’know, less awesome with foals." Pinkie's cheeks flushed as she glanced around the cottage, certain the walls had grown a cyan-furred ears and magenta eyes.

"But… didn't that already prove something to them?" Fluttershy questioned, trotting around the table to comfort the distraught earth pony. "Surely they wouldn't have you foalsitting their foals if they didn't trust you, right?"

Pinkie sighed. "I know. But I want them to trust me all the way with serious things. I mean, even when I open the shop, Mr. Cake double, triple and quintuple checks all my work. They don't think I can take things seriously at all."

"Well..."

Pinkie pressed her forehooves against the pegasus's chest, looking utterly aghast at the implication. "I can totally be serious! Look!" Pinkie frowned, pursing her lips tightly as her eyes narrowed. "See," she began without hardly moving, "serious face."

"Pinkie," Fluttershy intoned gently. "Just relax and explain your idea to them normally. You don't need to go overboard. You really do have a great idea and, as business ponies, I'm sure the Cakes will appreciate it. Just think of all the pets in Ponyville that could use a cake on their birthday, a Hearth's Warming pie or just a sweet treat when they've been good." Fluttershy smiled her widest grin at the still grimacing earth pony. “It’d be wonderful.”

"I know! And all they get right now are treats that taste like dog treats! Or cat treats!" Pinkie's face scrunched up into a look of disgust. "Would you want to eat a dog treat? They're awful!"

"You ate a..." Fluttershy flushed green for a moment.

"Hah! Gotcha!" Pinkie laughed out loud before pulling the pegasus into a quick, tight hug. "Thanks lots, Fluttershy!" Pinkie zoomed quickly out of Fluttershy's unconscious grasp, rounding everything back up into her saddlebags in a whirlwind of pink and magenta.

"You're very welcome."

"I'll be sure to bring the first batch over as soon as I can!" A cacophony of animalistic cheers greeted the news, Fluttershy letting out a sigh at her animal friends' eagerness for more treats. "Wish me luck!" the pink pony shouted before zooming right out the cottage door.

"Good luck!" Fluttershy called after the pink pony.

Moving methodically to shut the listing cottage door, she hardly noticed the flash of green from the table before she found herself face to face with—

"Pinkie?!" she cried out, tumbling back onto her rear as the earth pony stared down.

"Na-na-na-no," the pink pony stated with an odd stutter as she experimentally tapped her tongue against her palate. "Oooo…fun."

"Not… Pinkie?" Fluttershy murmured, face flushing as she noticed a slight glimmer of green in the earth pony's eyes. "Flammy? Wh-why are you being Pinkie?"

"Beeeeecause you like her!" Not Pinkie stated with a little, three-hoofed hop. "You like her, you like her, you like her!"

"Well, of course I like her; she's my friend," she replied, face flushing further as her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Na-na-no! I mean like-like-like! The other like! You like her lots and lots!"

"She has always been a good friend."

"No-no…I..." Not-Pinkie grimaced, growling in frustration. "Like love! Like this!"

With that, the doppelganger tackled Fluttershy to the floor, their muzzles meeting in a furious and incredibly awkward kiss before Fluttershy instinctively bucked her legs, sending the pseudopony crashing against the table some many feet away.

"Oh my goodness!" Fluttershy cried out as she realized what she'd done, rushing to the gently writhing changeling's side.

"I was right!" it declared triumphantly if a bit deliriously as its eyes danced in merry little circles in their sockets. "You doOOoo like-like-like her..."

"We're friends," Fluttershy muttered somewhat uncertainly, blushing furiously as she found herself unable to look the pink pony in the eyes. "Why would you do that?"

"So you'd know too!"

"I, but, I don't even think about things...like...that."

"Do too!" The pseudo pony hobbled to its good hooves, making its way to the bookcase as Fluttershy watched in horror, nearly galloping over to support the injured creature.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, sliding herself under its belly as it rummaged through the shelf before letting out a triumphant squeal.

"These!"

Fluttershy's eyes widened as the changeling hefted her somewhat extensive 'private' book collection from its place masquerading as a full run of the Equestrian Bestiary Volumes i through xxxii.

"Oh…my..." she gasped as the titles flicked by: The Secret Diaries of Madame Firefly, Romancing the Knight, A Offer from a Gentlemare… the latter having a well-worn cover behind which an elegantly scrawled ‘Rarity U.’ could be seen. "How did you find these?"

"Saw you reading them," was the simple response, the changeling grinning, clapping its ill-gotten hooves together with a joyful clack of keratin. "You like-like-like those and you like-like-like her, don't you?"

~End Appendix02~

~AppendixS.06.01~
~While You Weren't Looking ~ Edition the First~

“I don’t know!” she finally shouted out and Fluttershy felt herself sink, hiding in the waves of fabric of Rarity’s beautiful gown. She could still hear the pink pony talking, but the words came upon an uninterested mind.

“That’s okay,” Fluttershy answered rotely. She felt strangely empty all of a sudden, as if the butterflies that had flocked to her abdomen had fluttered their way off to some faraway land. Now there was simply a crumbling chasm in her stomach as her mind slowed more and more, a peculiar scent lingering in the air.

Pinkie was yelling something now. The clouds and the night beyond had all disappeared from sight behind a great black wall as Fluttershy vision wobbled and blurred. The scent was oppressive, her head swimming her face flushed a sickly green.

The balloon began to list, the balloon collapsing in on itself as hot air escaped the open top while the swirling black drove away any replacement air. Pinkie seized the gas pull with her teeth, basket in her hooves, opening it full blast and illuminating the swarm for what it was.

Changelings, dozens of them in tight formation as the orange flame reflected off their shining chitin, the buzz of a hundred wings almost deafening. Still swinging from the pull, Pinkie began hurling plates, silverware and leftover food at the swarm until, low on ammunition, she pitched the basket at them. She dropped back to her hooves, flames dying out as she released the pull.

As Fluttershy cringed in the corner, Pinkie grabbed the only thing left, hefting the shimmering dessert before the balloon suddenly pitched to one side. Losing her footing, the cake smashed into the pink pony’s face before she was carried away in a sudden stream of black chitin.

Trembling, Fluttershy stared as the swarm rose high into the air and streamed towards her, fangs their glinting in the moonlight. She heard yelling somewhere over the dozens of buzzing wings as she was swept up into the swarm, leaving the falling balloon behind. There, between the mass of chitinous hide she saw a flash of pink cresting the balloon.

Pinkie gave a bounce and lept towards them, hooves outstretched. She grabbed onto a changeling’s leg, clambering into the swarm proper.

With a jump off the changeling’s back, Pinkie grabbed Fluttershy hooves and pulled hard, eyes wide. It was there that Fluttershy noticed an odd green sheen to the earth pony’s eyes before, moments later, she was ripped away, their hooves twisting for one anothers.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but yell for her as the swarm closed in tight, her last image of the pink pony her plummeting towards the forest.

“Pinkie!” Fluttershy cried out out, shooting up straight.

In bed.

In her own bed.

~End AppendixS.06.01~