Growing cold. Hungry. Food. Find food.
Cottage. Somepony home? No. Away. With friends, perhaps? Doesn’t matter. Food.
Door locked. Fragile. Easy to break. Wham. Easy break door.
Warm. Fireplace. Put out not long ago. Embers still warm. Left recently.
Fridge. Plenty of food. Hungry. Eat.
Ate well. Plenty of food. Mostly homegrown. Lots of time on hooves.
Sound. Animals. Lots of them. They’re scared. Too much noise. Quiet. Quiet! QUIET!
Got them. Covered in blood. Warm blood. Too long since last kill. Others fled. They’ll be back. Wounded animals. Should not have been able to come here on their own. Had to have had help. Long standing trust. Trust born from aid. Owner helps them. They trust owner.
Who lives here? No family. Only animals. Lives alone. Name? Picture?
Bedroom. Picture. Pegasus. Pink mane. Yellow coat. Butterflies for Cutie Mark. Talent for animals? Makes sense.
There. Letter. Recently writ. Delicate hoof writing. Fragile. Can’t wait to break her.
Fluttershy! That’s her name. New target. New game. Fun game. Too long since last game.
Shriek outside. Fluttershy home. Not ready yet. Too early. Still need to plan for games. Leave.
================================================================
“Oh my goodness!” Fluttershy exclaimed as she looked over what was left of her living room.
Her furniture lay in broken heaps, as if thrown about in a powerful fit of rage. The walls had cracked in more than one place from the force of impact. Blood covered nearly everything she could see, and it was all too obvious where it had come from. Dozens of her animal friends had been brutally torn apart, their entrails dangling from their ravaged carcasses. Some of them even appeared to have been… by Celestia! Could somepony have tried to… eat them?
Bloody hoof prints led upstairs, to her room. Could whoever had done this be looking for her? Could they still be here? What if they were still here? What if they were waiting for her? What could they want with her? Did they want to… hurt her?
A crash sounded from upstairs. It was enough to make the already terrified pegasus panic. She flew off, shrieking, tears streaking from her eyes. Fluttershy didn’t even know where she was going. She just needed to put some distance between herself and the horrific scene at her house.
As luck would have it, she ran into Rainbow Dash. Literally. The two of them tumbled in the air for a bit before Rainbow corrected herself.
“Whoa, what?” Rainbow Dash said, worried for her oldest friend. “Fluttershy, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“R-r-r-rainbow,” Fluttershy stammered, crying heavily into her friend’s rainbow-colored mane. “Somepony… Something broke in… such a mess… Those p-p-poor animals… d-d-de-de-dead…”
“WHAT?!?” Rainbow was caught completely off-guard by that. For one of the few times in her life, she felt genuinely scared. “Who could… who would… never mind that! We’ve got to tell somepony! We’ve got to tell the guards!”
“I’m… I’m scared,” Fluttershy said weakly, breathing raggedly. Tears still flowed freely from her closed eyes, if not as much as before. “P-please… I… I don’t want to…”
“Don’t even think about it! Nopony is going to hurt you! Not while I’m around!”
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, it‘s just so frightening… What if… What if they…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Rainbow said, in the most calming, reassuring tone she could muster. “You’re alright now. I’m here for you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
“Oh, thank you so much, Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy said, relief and gratitude plain in her voice. “I just know I’ll be safe with you around! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“It’s no big deal,” Rainbow Dash replied, blushing from Fluttershy’s complete trust in her. “You’re my friend. Would kind of pal would I be if I didn’t do my best to keep you safe?”
“Thank you so much, Rainbow. I know I can count on you!”
“Thanks, Fluttershy. Now, come on. We still need to tell the guards about this.”
================================================================
The entrance to Fluttershy’s cottage was blocked off by yards of crime scene tape. Royal guards constantly patrolled the area, looking for evidence, hoof prints, identification, anything that could point to whoever did this. So far, aside from the prints on the stairs (which were judged to be useless), they had turned up empty-hoofed, but that did little to deter them.
Tears were still flowing freely down Fluttershy’s face, but she wasn’t sobbing anymore. Rainbow Dash was right next to her, occasionally cooing reassurances. Pinkie Pie, normally hyper and joyous, sometimes even annoyingly so, could only stare dumbly at the carnage through the windows. Twilight Sparkle and Spike were attempting to ask the investigators questions about what had happened, but they were always met with the same mute annoyance and ignored. Rarity was trying to convince the crime scene investigators to allow her to fetch a few things for Fluttershy, but all they would say was “Tampering with the scene of a crime is a criminal offense,” much to her chagrin.
“Golly,” Applejack said. “Ah’ never thought anypony could be so cruel as to do something like this…”
“I swear,” Rainbow Dash muttered, mostly under her breath, “If I find whoever did this, why, I would-”
“Hold your horses, Rainbow,” Applejack interrupted. “Don’t you go looking for no trouble, now, you hear! Whoever did this ain’t no namby-pamby! You could get yourself hurt.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Just wait for this to happen again? What if somepony’s home next time? What do you think would happen then?”
“Fluttershy’s the only one that lives this far from town. If he strikes anywhere in Ponyville, the guards will take care of ‘im.”
“But-”
“Applejack is right,” Twilight said, having finally given up on her attempts to extract information from the various guards and investigators on the scene. “Just leave this to the experts. I’m sure that they’ll find whoever did this.”
“But… But… Fine,” Rainbow reluctantly agreed.
“Oh! We’re going to need a party when they get him!” Pinkie Pie said, back to her usual self. “Something big! With lots of tasty sweets! And a ‘Welcome Back Home’ party when they finish looking at this place and Fluttershy can move back in!”
“That does raise a question, though,” Rarity said, having finally given up with the guards. “Where do you plan to stay until this blows over, darling? I refuse to let you stay here, not with the mess and this madpony on the loose.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy said meekly. “Well, I, um…”
“She can stay with me!” Rainbow Dash said. “There’s plenty of room at my house. And she wouldn‘t have to worry about whoever did this!”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want to impose, but, if you’re offering, then…”
“Don’t sweat about it. It’s the least I can do!”
“Okay, well, thank you, then,” Fluttershy said, a smile forming on her face for the first time in hours, since she first found her home ransacked.
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Fluttershy girl has friends. Five of them.
Orange Earth Pony one to worry about. Looks tough. Back legs strong. Might break bones.
Rainbow Dash Pegasus aggressive. Will want to get me. She’ll get angry. Make mistakes. Then I’ll have her friend.
Purple Unicorn good with magic. Can feel it. Powerful mage. Worrisome. Have to deal with her first.
Other ponies there. Will have to find out more about them. Might have to risk going into town.
Better start. Preparations to be made. Games to be played. Need to find somewhere to play them. Safe. Isolated. No one to help them.
