Chapters But I already have a home
Fluttershy was scared. Not that being so was a significant change of pace for her, its just that this time she felt it was entirely justified, and therefore worthy of note. Waking up in a dumpster can make any amount of fear totally justified in her opinion. Especially when said dumpster is not where she went to sleep the night before.
Tempting as it was to just stay there and whimper forlornly to herself even she could see that doing so wouldn't really help other than to sate her own fear and so she endeavored to escape her current confines. The 3ft of foul smelling garbage made that harder than it really needed to be but eventually she managed to hook her front hooves over the lip of the dumpster and gingerly poked her head out.
"Oh where am I?" she said with an adorable frown. Taking a moment to gather together what stray nerves she had left she made to leave the dumpster by flying out. Normally in her experience this would have worked perfectly well as a means of dumpster evacuation but as it was all her flapping did was cause her to gracelessly flop over the edge and do a rather spectacular yet painful faceplant on the garbage strewn tarmac 5ft below.
"Ow" she said softly after having rolled onto her back. She lay there for a short while wondering why her wings hadn't worked, and also wondering what kind of pony would make a dumpster so tall. She also put a few moments towards thinking about why she was there, but couldn't come up with anything that didn't basically boil down into 'because magic', which isn't very useful. Realistically she realized she should put thought into getting up and moving on but the world was spinning an awful lot and thinking was a good method of passing the time until the world righted itself around her. Still lying on her back she gently spread her wings and did her best to look at them. They appeared unharmed but were incredibly filthy as was the rest of her.
"I guess they're just too dirty to fly with" she said to herself, unconvinced that was the actual reason but seeing as how she had no other theories coming to her she stuck with the most obvious reason since 'because magic' wasn't very useful here either, no matter how close to the truth it may actually have been. Rolling onto her front and standing up slowly since her legs still seemed to think inaction was the best course of action and displayed this by being ridiculously wobbly; she moved to the entrance of the alleyway step by timid step until finally she could see out beyond.
Fluttershy immediately regretted this course of action. Instead of seeing the comforting surroundings of Ponyville and the ponies that lived there she was confronted by somewhere completely unknown that was inhabited by creatures she had never seen before.
Emitting a barely audible 'eep' she quickly withdrew back into the alley and let panic have its way with her for a while.
"They walk upright like minotaur or dragons but lack full body hair or scales, or at least I think so since I can't see their bodies. They have no horns or spines, hooves, claws or anything else that relates them to minotaur or dragons." She sighed, "I have no idea what I’m looking at, but since they're wearing clothing and appearing to be communicating verbally they must be at least vaguely intelligent." Spying two of the creatures walking towards her she had a closer look in the hopes of learning more. Thankfully the warm weather had caused the creatures to not over dress which was helpful in allowing Fluttershy to at least make a guess as to which might be male or female. Judging by the curves and lumps and longer hair on the smaller of the two creatures she figured she had found a male and female couple. Taking a deep breath she trotted out in front of them.
"Um...hello." she said just loud enough for them to hopefully hear her. In the future she would forever regard the exact moment she approached these two as the single worst decision she had ever made.
For a moment the two creatures stood there staring at her until the possible female crouched down and said
"Oh thank Celestia you speak equestrian! And um...I'm a mare but, um...anyway yes I am lost so if you could show me the way to go to Ponyville or even Canterlot I'd be very grateful." Fluttershy looked at them smiling hopefully. That hope was somewhat dashed when the female reached over and attempted to tickle Fluttershy behind her right ear.
"Um...what are you doing?"
"Well aren't you just adorable." the female suddenly exclaimed still tickling Fluttershy.
"Could you, possibly, please stop that?" Fluttershy said feeling decidedly uncomfortable as anyone would at being publicly tickled by a stranger.
"Aww but look at how filthy you are you poor little thing, we should take you home and give you a nice bath, right Paul?" The last question had been directed at the male who so far had stood there with his arms folded wearing a look that said 'this is going to cost me money isn't it'. Looking at Fluttershy he rolled his eyes and sighed.
"Yes dear." Fluttershy quirked an eyebrow at that. Was this a matriarchal society where the males served the females?
"A bath does sound like a lovely idea but, I um...don't really want to go with you, I want to go to my home if you could just point the direction I should go please". Fluttershy looked between them; her optimism waning as her annoyance at still being forcefully tickled grew. She also looked around at the other creatures that walked by. Why did none of them seem concerned that these two were loudly and publicly planning her abduction.
"Look at the poor thing shaking, pick her up and carry her back to the car."
"But she's filthy!" the male, Paul, protested.
"Then take your shirt off and wrap it around her."
Paul sighed. "Fine" he grumbled before muttering something about how women would never get naked in public. Looking up, Fluttershy watched frozen as he took off his shirt, wrapped it around her then squeaked as he picked her up bodily. Just to make it worse the woman then reached out and tickled the bridge of Fluttershys' nose causing her to produce a cute little sneeze.
"Aww aren't you the cutest little doggy ever!" Fluttershy froze in the middle of rubbing her nose with her hoof.
"Doggy?"
"Come on lets go get you all washed and clean."
"Oh dear."
This, Fluttershy considered, wasn't too bad. Sure they thought that she was a dog despite the abundance of evidence indicating otherwise but right now sitting in a tub of hot, soapy water she decided she could, for the time being, forgive the creatures for their selective blindness and deafness and also for the rather abrupt abduction in the middle of a street.
Sure the shampoo bottle had a picture of a dog on it, as well as a flea with a big red cross over it and something written on it that looked sort of like 'for a glossy coat'. Not that she could easily tell, these creatures written language while having some similarities to her own, was different enough from equestrian to make translating a timely and difficult pursuit. The shampoo itself smelled a little funky compared to the products she used in her own home, but it was pleasant enough and she wasn't about to make a fuss since she wasn’t covered in stinky garbage juice anymore. What she did have trouble with was the female. Janet, as she had heard Paul call her on the way over; was insisting on washing her. It was awkward, especially since Janet kept babbling to her in baby talk and calling her 'my cute lil puppy wuppy!'
"I can wash myself you know." she said not that Janet seemed to understand her. She sighed and looked over to the bathroom door and the other issue that she had right then. Sitting in the doorway was a scruffy and demented looking gray cat, which went by the name of Fritz. Normally Fluttershy loved cats but this one, from the moment she had been introduced, had done nothing but glare at her. Naturally since Fluttershy hated confrontation, this had made her rather uncomfortable but fortunately the cat had done nothing else since her arrival and she was happy to keep it that way.
"Soon Paulie will be back with some tasty num nums for you and then we can show you around your new home! Won't that be nice my lil puppy wuppy? Hmm?"
Fluttershy didn't bother to conceal her excitement since she did not, in fact, possess any. After the horrific journey in the weird metal box the creatures called a car, Janet had dismissed Paul to 'get some food for my little cutesy.' Fluttershy had felt sorry for Paul at the time since he was clearly suffering under the yoke of domestic slavery and also because she had thrown up all over the cars back seat, just to add to the smell she had already gifted to the vehicle. Fluttershy hoped she didn't have to go in the car again. Speed and bumps did not a happy Fluttershy make.
Also why the couple had dog shampoo but not dog food or a dog as far as Fluttershy could tell, was a mystery. One that would probably go unanswered. Although she did suspect it was because normal shampoo would be wasted on that scary looking cat.
"Oh, yes, that would be...nice, very, very...nice." she finished lamely. What she had seen of the house so far had been nice enough, and she supposed she should be grateful for not ending up in some raggedy flat in a rundown area. It was clean and had a garden and therefore a means of escape as soon as she could fly again. The garden also had grass which was handy since these people thought she was a dog and therefore ate what actual dogs ate. Fluttershy knew better than to hope for a nice crisp salad, and therefore was thinking of her own methods of finding sustenance.
"Now that you’re all clean let’s get you dry hey puppykins?"
Puppykins thought Fluttershy, as a towel descended upon her, that’s a new one . The care that Janet had put into washing her clearly did not extend to her drying methods which Fluttershy compared to being wrapped in flannel and thrown down some stairs. After being abused by a towel for a couple minutes Janet ceased her ministrations just in time for Fluttershy to look up and gaze into the fiery gateway of Tartarus itself.
This would be frightening enough for even the staunchest of pony but for poor, timid Fluttershy it was enough to make her jump backwards at an appreciable fraction of the speed of sound. Into a shelf. Where the shampoo was kept. Or at least it was kept there until 50lb worth of pony slammed into it. Now most of it seemed to be either on the floor or on Fluttershy.
"Bad kitty Fritz, you scared the poor puppy." Janet scolded.
After several moments of quivering panic Fluttershy looked up to see a certain grey feline gazing at her once more, albeit with a look that was altogether too smug by far. Making eye contact she realized what had scared her so much. Fritz had the most intense stare she had seen on anything outside of a mirror.
"So that's what that feels like." she whispered to herself as she watched Fritz saunter off looking for all the world like he was sniggering.
Sometime later, after another session of rinsing and overly vigorous drying, Fluttershy was having her promise of a tour delivered and was doing her best to be interested. The fact that Janet was giving the tour in yet more baby talk wasn't helping.
"I don’t suppose you could just show me my room, it’s been kind of a long and stressful day and I just want to lie down. Oh and if it’s not too much trouble could I possibly have a glass of water as well, please."
Janet must have picked something up from this. “Oh I’m sorry puppy, you don’t want a tour do you? You’re still hungry and that naughty Paulie still hasn’t come back yet with your din dins.” Janet frowned for a moment before lightening up again. “But I can get you something to drink can’t I!”
Thinking to herself that Paul had clearly taken the opportunity to escape his life of servitude Fluttershy followed Janet downstairs and into the kitchen where a bowl of water was produced and placed on the floor in front of her.
“Um…can’t I have it in a glass, and possibly with a straw?” Looking up at Janet’s expectant look Fluttershy remembered that ‘dogs’ don’t use glasses. Or straws. “I guess not then.” Wilting under Janet’s continuing stare Fluttershy started drinking the water while making an unfortunate amount of slurping since normally she would have picked up whatever she was drinking from.
“Gosh you must have been thirsty” Janet exclaimed once Fluttershy had had her fill. “But I guess you’re still hungry though.”
“Actually no I just want to go lie down now.” Fluttershy said, while shaking her head hoping that Janet would pick up what she meant. “If I can that is.” She added, ever polite.
As fate would have it, and much to Fluttershys’ shock Paul returned at that moment bearing a large colourful bag and a collection of tins. He also smelled strongly of breath mints although Fluttershy had no idea why that might be. She was more concerned with the pictures of dogs on the bag and tins. This must be the fabled ‘num nums’ she had heard so much of.
“About time you got back! Where have you been?” Janet demanded.
“There was…uh, traffic and I…um, got stuck.” Paul grinned a rather desperate grin since he knew full well the store was just around the corner and that he had walked there, thus negating any and all traffic problems.
From her perspective nearer the floor it seemed to Fluttershy that Paul seemed to be swaying a bit.
“Well now your back I can finally feed poor Puppy. I hope you can forgive yourself for making her wait.” Fluttershy suspected he could.
“Her? You don’t know it’s a girl. You don’t even know what type of dog it is.” Paul said right before unleashing a rather suspect smelling burp into the world.
“She seems kinda feminine so I’ll say it’s a girl.”
“And I say it could be some kind of crazy, hermaphrodite cat dog creature from outer space for all you know."
“I’m a pony.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It could be one of them wolves, or a giant mutant Chihuahua.”
“I’m also a Pegasus.”
“Giant. Mutant. Chihuahua.” Janet deadpanned
The small pink and yellow Pegasus took this opportunity to spread her wings and do her best to flap them in this enclosed space. For some reason this failed to get the slightest amount of attention from the arguing couple. More worryingly for Fluttershy it also failed to produce even the slightest amount of lift.
While distracted with worry about her failure to fly Fluttershy had stopped listening to the conversation and so failed to notice that Paul had walked around behind her. The first thing she knew about it was his breath on her back. The second thing was the hand clumsily exploring places where hands should not be exploring at all. She never got to a third thing because by that time her instinct had bucked Paul in the face. Hard.
“It’s definitely a girl.” Mumbled Paul from several meters away as he clutched his face.
“And why would you say that?” Janet replied sweetly
“Only a girl would have let me get that far before kicking me in the face.”
“I didn’t even know dogs could kick like that.”
“Yeah, it’s a frigging miracle of nature.” He said whilst watching a panicking Fluttershy run off to hide.
A while later after they had managed to coax Fluttershy out from her hiding place behind the sofa, and after Paul had been forced to give some rather unfeeling apologies about invading her personal space; Fluttershy found herself sat in front of a bowl of what could loosely be described as food. If you were blind and had no sense of smell it probably wouldn’t be that bad to be near as long as you didn’t have to eat it. As it was Fluttershy had both good eyesight and a rather finely tuned sense of smell, and both those senses was telling her nothing she wanted to know.
It was clearly meat. It may have been cut up into nice little chunks and covered in some kind of weird jelly stuff but none of that detracted from the fact that this was meat. Or that she was expected to eat it.
“I’m not eating this.” She said quietly while looking at the floor just in front of the bowl. “I’m a pony, I don’t eat meat.”
She wished her declarations could have actually made a difference but that selective hearing the creatures employed was in full swing as Janet once again stared expectantly at her. Paul was elsewhere at that moment which Fluttershy was glad of. Janet may have been a baby talk babbling loony but at least her hands were kept to herself.
“Go on then, eat up.” Janet ordered as a means of encouragement. “You need to eat something.” She added as a full stop to her well thought out argument in favour of eating that meaty sludge.
Once again looking at the contents of the bowl before her Fluttershy noticed some round things underneath the meat that looked vaguely biscuit like. Using her hoof she gently scraped the meat aside to have a better look, much to Janet’s confusion.
“Don’t you like the meaty chunks?” Janet asked dumbly.
Rolling her eyes Fluttershy attempted to fish a biscuit out of the bowl with a hoof. Having succeeded she gulped before placing the biscuit into her mouth and chewing on it.
It was just as horrible as she imagined it would be. It was dry and somehow managed to taste foul despite having no discernible flavour. Gagging, she quickly swallowed and drank a mouthful of water before looking up into the distant stare of Fritz who was reclining on the sofa and seemed to be enjoying the show.
“There, that wasn’t so bad was it?” Janet cooed at Fluttershy.
Fluttershy looked up at Janet with a look full of hatred. That is to say with barely any hatred since this was Fluttershy after all. “If you try some I’ll eat all the rest with no complaints.” She said against all hopes that Janet might actually hear her this time. Since Janet did nothing to react it was obvious that she’d once again gone unheard. “Didn’t think so.” She muttered darkly.
Taking a few calming breaths she looked at the bowl. If she could just eat a few mouthfuls of the biscuits Janet would probably accept that she had eaten and stop staring at her. Maybe sometime they might let her into the garden so she could at least find some vegetation to eat.
Drawing in a deep breath she practically nosedived into the bowl and stuffed as many of the biscuits into her mouth as she could, chewed and swallowed as fast as possible and repeated the process a few times while doing her best to avoid touching the meat. After a minute or two she finally relented before drinking as much water as possible to wash the taste away which somehow seemed determined to linger.
“There, who’s a good puppy?”
I am. Thought Fluttershy before catching that stray thought and mentally pounding the crap out of it. “Can you please show me my room now, please?” she pleaded.
An hour had passed and Fluttershy had still not been shown to her room and she had at the moment opted to lie on the carpet in the middle of the living room floor. Not to say that she had really opted to occupy the carpet but when she had attempted to sit on the sofa she was quickly and firmly pushed off again before being sternly told “dogs stay on the floor.”
She had gestured to Fritz, who was purring contentedly at Fluttershys’ unfair treatment, and attempted to show that it was totally unfair that he got to lie on the sofa but not her.
“Fritz isn’t a dog, he’s a cat.” Janet pointed out using her mastery of the pre-school sciences.
“So you can tell he’s a cat but not that I’m a pony.” Fluttershy said with a very flat look. “Well that’s just marvellous, I guess I’ll just sit here on the carpet and…and…oh forget it.”
And so it was that Fluttershy was reclining on the floor, feeling rather ill after the dog food and she was increasingly growing in need of the bathroom. Not that she could ask, or wanted to ask afraid that the creatures would subject her to some new kind of humiliation.
Internal pressures were unfortunately not that patient and she finally got up and fruitlessly attempted to ask where the bathroom is using her usual collection of overly shy um’s and uh’s.
“I um…need to uh… go to the bathroom, if its ok.” She said before facehoofing at the blank look Janet returned to her. Normally if her canine friends needed to go to the bathroom they would pine and scratch at the door, which was fine for them since they happily attended to their business outdoors. That was something Fluttershy was neither willing nor prepared to do.
“I uh…bathroom, please.” she tried again. “Toilettes sil vou plait? No? Don’t understand Prench? How about toire onegaishimasu? Don’t understand neighponese either? Ok what about germane, toilette bitte? Bitalian?” Fluttershy hung her head and sighed. “I’m going to have to pine and scratch at the door, aren’t I?”
Standing up she trotted over to and up the stairs taking care to not jostle her delicate stomach and her increasingly full bladder. Waiting for Janet to follow she trotted to the bathroom door and scratched at it in a feeble manner.
“What’s the matter puppy?”
Fluttershy facehoofed again. She had the feeling she would be doing that a lot during her time here so she may as well get used to it.
“Um…oh bother. Um…woof? Bark? Whine?”
“Don’t be silly puppy; you don’t need to go in there. You’re already nice and clean.”
“But…but…please!”
“Come on puppy, stop being silly and come sit back down stairs.”
“But…but…no!” Fluttershy squeaked.
Fluttershy sat there for a minute with her forehead planted against the door. Janet had already departed back down stairs leaving her to openly vent her despair. She looked up at the altogether too high handle and then looked at her woefully ineffective wings before sighing for what seemed like the thousandth time that day and heading back down stairs and over to the patio doors.
“Oh you want to go out.” Said Janet “Why did you think that was upstairs you silly puppy?”
“Yep, that’s me, a silly little puppy.” Fluttershy said quietly to herself before trotting out of the now opened doors with her head still hanging low. Standing in the middle of the garden she surveyed the best place to do her business before a feeling that she was being watched caused her to look back at the house to see Janet standing there, staring at her once again.
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to stand there and watch.” Fluttershy asked before sighing yet again “You are aren’t you.”
Looking back to the garden she took some time to properly study it. The tall wooden fence and big iron gate complete with big iron padlock that led round to the front of the house didn’t deliver much promise when it came to escaping. The garden itself was just a big square of surprisingly well maintained grass with a path that led to a small shed at the far left corner.
There were also some miscellaneous bushes in a row at the back of the garden that went behind the shed. Figuring that was her best hope for privacy she trotted over to the shed and squeezed through the gap between the back of the shed and the bush there. To her (very) small delight there was a narrow, open space between the shed and the fence that was not only sheltered but most importantly, private.
A short few minutes later a furiously blushing Fluttershy squeezed back out of the gap and trotted back towards the house where Janet awaited while looking, in Fluttershys’ opinion, far too pleased that her garden had just been soiled.
“Who’s a clever puppy not messing up mummy’s nice garden?”
Fluttershy suspected it may have been her but was too busy channeling her inner Rarity by holding her nose in the air and summoning her most indignant look while trotting into the house that she didn’t really respond to what might have been, in theory, a compliment.
“You are not my mother.” Fluttershy said in as haughty a tone as she could muster.
Walking around with your nose in the air is not particularly safe, especially in places you don’t know. Fluttershy found this out when she walked right into Paul who, like the big lump he was, didn’t even move while Fluttershy was left cradling her nose which was still kind of sore after her earlier nosedive out of the dumpster. Thinking about it she missed the dumpster. It was quiet in there and probably wouldn’t mistake her for some kind of dog.
“Hey there sport, guess who has an appointment tomorrow?”
“What are the chances it’s not me?” Fluttershy responded sarcastically.
“So they had a booking available?” Janet asked after closing the doors.
“Sure did, although when we sign her in we will have to give them a name for their records.”
“Ooh right. How about Lassy?”
“My names Fluttershy.”
“Lassy?” Paul snorted “How clichéd are you trying to be?”
“Ok then smart ass. How about Flossy since her hair is all fluffy and glossy.”
“My name is Fluttershy.”
“Flossy? Can’t you think of something simpler like…like…I dunno, lady?”
“It’s Fluttershy.”
“Or” Paul continued “if it’s actually a boy how about Butch?”
“What!? No! I’m a mare and my name is Fluttershy!”
“It’s not a boy Paul. Nope I like Flossy.” Janet said oblivious to Fluttershys’ efforts to be heard.
“But…but…oh fu…fu…fu…feather it all!” was all Fluttershy could say to the yet further humiliation dumped on her in the form of a silly sounding name.
“Yep, Flossy,” Janet said still ignorant of Fluttershys’ distress “We’ll tell the vet her name is Flossy.”
“Vet? Oh no, oh no no no no I am not going to a vet!”
“Fine, Flossy it is.” Paul said before walking away sparing his wife the sight of him rolling his eyes. It also spared him the sight of Fluttershy lying down, forelegs wrapped protectively around the back of her head with her face on the floor, as she screamed silently into the carpet.
Author's Note
First two chapters of my first story, feel free to point out my grammar mistakes .
Fluttershy was tired and grumpy. Not a common problem for a pony that liked early nights and seldom got angry at anything and the feeling was damn near smothering her.
It turned out to Fluttershy’s dismay that she didn't get to have her own room, although by her own admission that shouldn't have been too much of a surprise considering how much the universe currently seemed to hate her; and she could have lived with that except it turned out that Janet and Paul (mostly Janet) were the kind of weirdo’s who liked to have their dogs sleep in the same room as them. Even as an animal lover herself she wouldn't make any of her animal friends do that.
At the time Fluttershy had been too tired from the abundance of weirdness the day had thrown at her that she had simply lain down on the folded up duvet that was presented to her as a bed and tried to go to sleep.
Try being the operative word. After Paul and Janet had spent some time talking between themselves, Fluttershy had finally got the quiet she craved. It lasted about ten minutes, and ended when those two started making strange grunting and ahhing noises that she was purposely trying to not think about.
Because she knew damn well what those noises were and oh sweet Celestia she was thinking about it again!
Since the bedroom door had been shut preventing any means of escape she'd had no choice but to lie there with her hooves over her ears and hope it ended soon. It turns out Paul was a bit of a champ in the bedroom, not that Fluttershy wanted him to be.
After that, sleep had not been much of a feature in her life that night and morning had quickly come around, complete with coddling from Janet, a foul tasting breakfast courtesy of doggybix and nausea provided by the car she was currently in, heading to the vets.
Yay.
Arriving at the vets a very ill feeling Fluttershy was picked up and manhandled into the building; a process that had caused her to vomit into her mouth just to add to her woes. Luckily for Paul she had enough presence of mind to swallow it again rather than give him a coating of semi-digested dog food. Not that he wouldn't deserve it, the pervert.
After dumping her in front of the reception Paul was dismissed to purchase the items on a list that the couple had concocted over breakfast. Fluttershy hadn't been listening as they compiled the list, since she was too busy trying to figure out how to eat without tasting anything; so she had no idea what it contained but she suspected it was nothing she would appreciate getting.
Turning her attention to Janet she overheard the conversation going on between her and the receptionist.
"So you found her in the street? Just like that?
"Oh yes! The little darling just walked up to us like she had chosen us to be her mummy and daddy; absolutely adorable."
"I was asking for directions and you abducted me..."
"I see," said the receptionist, drawing the 'see' out as if unconvinced of something; most likely Janet’s' sanity if Fluttershy was asked. "Well it’s a good thing you brought her in; stray animals tend to catch all kinds of nasty things."
"Oh yes, that's quite true, you should *cough* just let me *cough* go before I *cough cough* infect you all!"
"Well that's why we brought her; I'd hate to think of the poor darling suffering from some terrible disease."
"It’s an awful condition called Janet'itis-paulemia. Symptoms may include bouts of un-controllable crying, feelings of frustration and anger and you may find your appetite diminished since everything you eat tastes like dog food. Especially dog food."
"Well before we can do that we'll need a few details about the animal. Name?"
"Flossy."
"It’s Fluttershy!"
"Gender?"
"We're pretty sure it’s a girl although we're not sure. When Paul tried to find out yesterday the poor dear must have thought he was attacking her and she kicked him in the face."
"You suddenly get felt up by a strange creature and see how much you like it."
"Kicked him," the receptionist said slowly "in the face..."
"I know, it was the strangest thing."
"Okaayy, we'll put female in for now and change it if the doc says otherwise." the receptionist said missing the frustrated sounding groan from fluttershy. "If you want to take a seat over there" she said gesturing to some chairs, half of which were occupied by other visitors; "I'm sure the doc will see you soon. We can finish filling out the forms when you know more about her."
Fluttershy followed Janet over to the waiting area and sat on the floor next to her, like a good little doggy she thought bitterly. As she sat there staring at the floor she slowly became aware of something. Or rather something that was no longer there. When she had come in the other animals were making the type of ruckus only animals can make when a group of different species are forced into close proximity. Normally she would have made a fuss of them but her focus was occupied with imagining the horrors that could soon be visited upon her.
Now, however the animals were all silent. Looking up Fluttershy soon learned why, the animals were all stood like statues, staring at her. Even the chameleon had managed to convince both eyes to stare in the same direction for once, specifically, at her.
"Um...hello...everyone...um..."
After what felt like an eternity of being stared at, but was in fact little more than half an hour, Janet and Fluttershy were summoned into the vets office, although Fluttershy had to be carried in since between the staring and her rampant imagination she had started hyperventilating and was now little more than a quivering, curled up ball of pony. She did risk a look at the vet though, who was female and young looking, if Fluttershy was any judge, with blonde hair done up in a ponytail. She doesn't look very scary. Maybe this won't be so bad thought Fluttershy, relaxing slightly.
"So," the vetinarian began "this must be Flossy, here for a check-up and her vaccinations?"
Vaccinations? No no no no! I don't need them! I hate needles! I take it back, you're a horrible vet!
"That's right," Janet said unaware that Fluttershy had managed to somehow curl up even tighter than before; "we found her wondering the street yesterday and since we've decided to keep her,"
"You pony-napped me!" Fluttershy shouted although it was somewhat muffled since she was still curled up.
"We will need to know if she's healthy and not carrying some icky disease." Janet said emphasizing the 'icky'. "We're also not sure if it’s a boy or girl and we have no idea at all what breed it is."
"Let’s start with the basics then, is this a boy or a girl?"
Inside her head Fluttershy was begging and pleading for this to not be happening as she felt the vet grab the base of her tail and lift it. She then stopped with a 'huh' as her tail was promptly dropped again two seconds later.
"This is without a doubt a girl." the vet said. "The lack of uh...male qualifications, makes that pretty obvious just by looking."
"I knew it!" Janet exclaimed while Fluttershy turned her head to look at the vet with a small frown on her face, slightly confused at the sheer anticlimax that turned out to be. "Wait until Paul hears this! I told him this was obviously a girl!"
"As for the breed she doesn't seem to have any one characteristic attaching her to any one breed. I mean the long hair around her head and tail would suggest an afghan hound but the short hair everywhere else suggests any number of other breeds so at best all I can say is she's a mixed breed."
"Well that doesn't matter does it poochy." Janet said before grabbing Fluttershys' cheeks and nuzzling the top of her head. "We'll love you all the same!"
"Oh goody, sounds wonderful."
After that the appointment had passed in a blur of various pokings, proddings, weightings and other activities of a medical nature. There was a brief moment of confusion when the vet checked Fluttershy’s teeth saying they were a bit flat for a dog, but the canines that she had developed during the bat incident convinced the vet her teeth were healthy enough.
The appointment then proceeded even quicker for Fluttershy after that because when the vet produced the syringes for her vaccinations she took one look at them and promptly fainted, slightly to her later annoyance since she had started thinking that she might actually learn something for when she got back home to her animal friends.
So far all she had learned was that she was never, never going to take an animal’s temperature using that method. She would have held the thermometer in her mouth, not that they even asked!
When she came around she guessed she hadn't been out very long since she was still lying on the vets table. She took a few moments to clear her head of the grogginess and wait for the ringing in her ears to stop.
"Fluttershy! Fluttershy can you hear me? It’s me, Twilight!"
Fluttershy rubbed her ear hoping the ringing would go soon, it kept sounding like someone was shouting her name but from really far away, and with a really bad echo.
"Fluttershy please! Can you hear me!"
Her flank also seemed to hurt. Guess that means the injections are over and done with, thank Celestia for small mercies.
"Ooh, I don't think she can hear me. We need a way to find a way to amplify the spells power."
Eventually the ringing trailed off and Fluttershy regained enough of her senses to listen in to the conversation between Janet and the vet.
"Well the good news is she appears to be completely healthy although she seems to be an unusual dog by all means."
"What if I told you something crazy like I'm not a dog? Would that help?"
"Anyway there are a couple of minor things you should look out for in case they get worse. Firstly, even though she's a healthy weight for her size if you put her hands on her sides you can really feel how bony her ribs are."
"They're called wings, as a veterinarian I'm pretty sure you should be able to recognise them since they're a common feature in a lot of animals."
Janet reached over and placed her hands on Fluttershy’s sides, over the top of her folded up wings. "Oh yes, I see what you mean. I guess someone's getting extra portions until they're nice and healthy."
Fluttershy sighed, "Joy..."
"The second issue is there's a small, curved ridge of swelling on her forehead that seems to be the result of something striking her repeatedly in the same place. Since I have no idea what might be causing it all I can say is to bring her back in if it gets worse."
"I can assure you it’s going to get worse." Fluttershy knew full well that the swelling was the end result of many a facehoof. "After all I've only been here two days."
The appointment had ended and right now Fluttershy was sat on the floor next to the reception desk where she had collapsed following the epic nosedive she achieved when jumping off the vets table. She had forced herself to recover quickly at the time since she was pretty sure she had spent enough time being poked and prodded in that room.
Since Janet was filling out the rest of those forms, Fluttershy was taking the time to recover. A process which involved cradling her increasingly sore nose, rubbing her sore flank and just cursing her luck in general.
"Why won't my wings work? It’s not like they're broken or anything."
This was getting too much and she was more and more feeling the need to break down and cry, and she probably would've if the animals in the waiting area weren't all staring at her again and especially since one of those animals was a scary looking Great Dane almost a foot taller than she was. Confronted with that even her tears seemed reluctant to show themselves.
Just because providence sometimes likes to shirk its duties for comedic effect, Fluttershy was totally unaware of Paul walking up behind her and when he nudged her in the flank with his foot she shrieked, leaping into the air just to smack her head on the underside of the desk.
By all accounts it made an impressively loud thud, not that its maker appreciated that.
"Heh," Paul said whilst grinning sheepishly and feeling increasingly small under Janets' frosty glare. "guess I must have scared her or something..." he trailed off nervously, totally unaware of the torrent of muffled curses Fluttershy was directing at him as she rolled around holding her head.
"Well," Janet said imperiously as Fluttershy slowly hauled herself into a sitting position; "since your here I can only assumed you've already bought everything we need for Flossy?"
Paul sighed. "Yes dear" he said before reaching into his pocket and bending down to reach Fluttershy, or more specifically, her neck.
It was a collar. It was pink and had silver studs going around it and it possessed a small bone shaped tag that said 'Flossy' on it. There was also a matching lead.
"A collar? A collar! Great! Now my life is complete! And look, there's a tag that says what my name isn't, so i can remember who I'm not!" Fluttershy was about ready to explode, a feeling made worse by its utter impotence. She settled for screaming as loud as she could, which admittedly wasn't very loud and it went unheard by all except the dogs in the waiting area, all of which started to howl in unison.
"Huh," Paul muttered, "that's weird."
"If you’re done gawking Paul could you take Flossy out to the car?"
"Yes dear."
"Oh great! Now the car again! That's just fantastic! Thank you, thank you very much!"
It had been some hours since Fluttershy’s return from the vets and even though she had calmed down some, things hadn't got a lot better, starting with her throwing up in the car again for which she was only slightly sorry.
When they got home, Janet, while Paul was cleaning the car yet again; had proceeded to show her the various toys, treats and other miscellaneous dog type items that had been purchased leading on to the piece de resistance, a giant pink fluffy dog basket.
Fluttershy had sat watching this with a growing sense of fascinated horror as she came to appreciate the meaning of the phrase 'killed by kindness.'
The irony that this was happening to her, the embodiment of kindness in the eyes of the elements of harmony themselves; was not lost on her.
The rest of the day had passed without much specific activity apart from the walk she had been forcibly dragged on. Even though everyone thought she was a dog being dragged along on a lead like one had been pretty humiliating.
Currently she was at sitting on the floor in the living room keeping a casual amount of distance between her and Paul who she had been left alone with since Janet had departed to some group meeting called a 'stitch and bitch', whatever that is . Before she had left Janet had insisted on taking pictures of her 'precious little darling' to show to her friends.
Normally she would've hated the idea of photos but right now they were little more than a drop in the ocean of despair that today had been, and she had just sat there with no interest at all as Janet clicked away.
Once Janet had left Paul started watching something he had called a 'tv'. It was like a projector film but in miniature and somehow worked without an actual projector. It was absolutely mystifying.
She was transfixed watching something called CSI Miami, not that she was really following the plot but since she had never seen anything like it, it was possibly the greatest thing she had ever seen.
Eventually a rhythmic tapping and a whistle managed to break through her concentration. Looking around she traced the sound to the sofa Paul was sat on. He was patting his hand on the cushion in the universally accepted gesture for 'climb aboard'. Although she was wary of Paul she was also pretty sick of being stuck on the floor, which wasn't exactly the most comfortable of places. Clambering up with no small amount of effort and a lot of ineffective wing flapping, she eventually made it up and made to sit on the opposite end to Paul, keeping as much distance as possible and watching him out the corner of her eye just in case he tried anything funny.
After a few minutes of looking between him and the tv she looked back at him to see him reaching over towards her. She froze. "Please don't touch me! Please no, please no, plea- ooooohhhhh..."
Instantly she was like putty as Paul's fingers magically found the one spot only a Pegasus could truly appreciate. He had found that one place that was almost impossible to reach.
He was scratching her between the wings, and it was heavenly.
After a few moments of scratching and embarrassing leg twitching he stopped, allowing her to sit up and compose herself. If she was cat and not a dog...pony, I'm a pony dammit ; she would probably been purring right now.
After a minute she looked at him out of the corner of her eye just to see him doing the same. When he looked back to the tv she shuffled slightly closer to him until he looked at her again causing her stop.
Trying to play it cool she looked at the tv like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world, and kept staring at it until he looked away from her giving her another opportunity to shuffle even closer.
After a few minutes of repeating this little routine of red light, green light type movement she had managed to shuffle her way right over to him and was again pretending like she had never moved at all. When he looked at her she saw he was smiling slightly, which encouraged her slightly, causing a small smile to grace her own features. Eventually he relented and scratched her between the wings again and she lay there enjoying it in a state of unparalleled bliss. Paul had earned a lot of points back in his favour with this.
"Well played Paul, well played." she murmured happily.
Author's Note
Chapter three. Hurray! Felt a bit forced at times, probably because I'm going camping next week and I was trying to get it done fast as possible. If its as bad as I get the suspicion it might be feel free to point it out so I can try for a bit of a re-write.
Anyway, hopefully this will be the end of the 'make Fluttershy's life awful' style of things. From here on out things should be a good deal more light hearted; starting with chapter four: Ponydog vs. Devilcat
It had been roughly three or four weeks since Fluttershy's arrival in...this place she arrived in, she still didn't know where it was. Anyway, since she couldn't read the calendar she couldn't tell exactly how long it had been. Three or four weeks seemed about right despite the fact that time seemed strange here. Individual days would crawl by, seeming to last an eternity in themselves, yet somehow the last few weeks had flown by like they had barely happened at all. It was all rather confusing so it’s a good job the time and date wasn't something Fluttershy spent too much time dwelling on.
In the time that she had been here, however long that may be; things had gotten better for Fluttershy. True, her situation was no different; she was still being held against her will by two people who continued to think that she was a dog, but through some effort on her part she had made leaps and bounds in making life more bearable.
The first step in that was finding a method to open doors, a method that had been provided to her through the use of an umbrella with a curved handle that she had found in the hallway, and had quickly sneaked to the bedroom and hidden under their bed. Normally she would have been aghast at the idea of taking something without permission but after almost a week of sharing a room with those two it was a small principal she was willing to sacrifice if it meant not putting up with their...shenanigans.
She had found that if she held the shaft of the umbrella in her mouth she could use the umbrellas handle to manipulate the doors handle. Not that it was easy, and it had taken a few trial runs before she got it right. The first time she tried it in the bedroom she learned that the umbrella was one of those that opens when you press the button. When she was trying to hook the door handle she had hit the button causing the umbrella to spring open while it was in her mouth. Although it had hurt a bit it was the shock more than anything, and between her squeaking and the umbrella springing open she managed to wake up Janet and Paul who had been very confused about the umbrella that had suddenly appeared in their bedroom. It was still being talked about days later.
A couple nights later, after reclaiming the umbrella and sneaking it back upstairs; she had tried again after finding a pillow case under the bed and tying it around the shaft preventing it from opening. This time though, she had knocked the handle on the door a bit loudly since trying to hook a door handle with an umbrella that's held in your mouth while your head's cocked sideways isn't easy. She ended up waking Janet and Paul again, but this time had managed to hide the umbrella and jump back into bed before they could catch her. She had tried using her hooves but for some reason she had been struggling to pick things up and hold them with any sort of finesse since she had got here. A human analogy would be trying to do things without the use of your thumbs. It was possible, but hard.
On the third attempt the night after, she had taken a pair of socks out of a draw and pulled both of them over the handle, so that if she did knock something the noise was a lot less than it otherwise would have been. The most important part is that it worked.
Since then she had practically given herself the run of the house at night, as long as a door wasn't locked, she could open it. She had soon availed herself of the bathroom facilities and quickly picked up a fondness for late night baths as they helped her to not smell so much. Her 'owners' didn't seem inclined to wash her unless she was filthy and washing like a dog would wasn't exactly Fluttershy's idea of good hygiene. Thankfully they had bought her a toothbrush; although she had to brush her teeth twice with their toothpaste just to get the taste of the nasty canine toothpaste they insisted on using out of her mouth. Having her own toothbrush also meant not having to use one of theirs which was one personal boundary she really didn't want to cross.
She had also gained access to the kitchen in her new found freedom and had quickly found a way onto the worktops via the use of two chairs and a stool as steps. Once she was up there she had access to actual food, including the fruit bowl which she had practically emptied on the first night in an orgy of non-dog food flavoured delight.
As she was careful to put everything back where she found them, so far neither Janet nor Paul had cottoned onto her late night schemes even if they suspected something was up as there was food missing and they kept finding her passed out asleep on the sofa in the mornings. Fluttershy felt bad for doing it, especially for Paul, who had so far made five or six different attempts to fix a bedroom door that wasn't broken; but she wasn't about to give up her ponyanity just so they could live the illusion that she was the perfect little pet.
Anyway the point behind all this past tense story telling is to basically say that while things weren't great, they weren't terrible either. Except for one small thing.
One small, grey, furry and be-clawed thing called Fritz.
Ever since she had met Fritz, the cat had been hostile to her. At best all he tried to do was scare or intimidate her; at worst he was downright cruel. If she walked by him he would swat at her, or if he was on a ledge higher than her he would try and knock things over onto her. Fluttershy's least favourite thing though was when he hid somewhere, waiting for her pass, before jumping out onto her back, riding her like...well, like a pony.
He was vicious, spiteful and cruel; and Fluttershy needed to do something about it. Soon.
It was morning on the first day of Pauls two days off which possibly meant it was a Saturday, not that Fluttershy could be sure. Right now Fluttershy was trying to stare her breakfast into submission, Fritz was sat on the kitchen top above her and in the face of all good hygiene sense Janet was letting him stay there while she mixed up batter for pancakes. Paul was still in bed.
Janet was humming a flat, toneless ditty that was making Fluttershy cringe as it tended to make her ears buzz weirdly. She might even have been put off her breakfast if she had ever wanted it in the first place. There was no way someone should be that bad at humming but it still wasn't as bad as that one time she had heard her singing which Fluttershy had compared to filling a bag with cats and kicking it around a room with a really bad echo; not that she would ever be that cruel but it was the closest description she could find for the warbling screeches and complete tone deafness Janet had displayed.
After a few minutes of this terrible aural torture Janet set the bowl of mix down and wandered off upstairs muttering something about 'lazy, good for nothing men', leaving Fluttershy alone with Fritz. She was about to use this opportunity to tip her breakfast into the bin when SPLAT!
Fritz had knocked the bowl off the edge of the worktop and onto Fluttershy, covering her from head to tail in pancake mix.
Fluttershy stood frozen with shock for a few moments before slowly turning to look up at Fritz, who was sat there maintaining a look of feline nonchalance; a look cats had mastered centuries ago after they had learned how gullible humans are.
"You!" Fluttershy spluttered. "How...how could you!? How dare you! You think your so clever being such a meany, but you’re not! You come down here and say you’re sorry right now!"
All Fritz did was move back from the edge so she could no longer see him. Still infuriated, Fluttershy stood on her hind legs, resting her fore hooves against the cupboard, allowing her to see more of the worktop.
"Well mister? I'm waiting! Apologise right now!"
Fritz didn't apologise. What he did do was knock the still open milk bottle over towards Fluttershy, absolutely drenching her. He then lapped up some of the milk before he jumped down and ran off at the sound of footsteps coming downstairs; leaving her leaning against the cupboard, unmoving except for her mouth which was opening and closing slightly while she tried to comprehend just what had happened.
"Flossy!"
Fluttershy flinched and slowly lowered herself back onto all fours. Uh oh...
"What did you do Flossy?! There's pancake stuff everywhere! And look at the mess you’re in!"
"But...but it wasn't...it wasn't me..."
"And you spilt milk everywhere!"
"I didn't...I wouldn't..."
"What have you got to say for yourself young lady?"
"It wasn't me! It was Fritz! I wouldn't...I wouldn't do this!"
"Get yourself outside right now. You can wait 'til I've cleaned this up and made breakfast again before I even think about washing you."
Fluttershy sighed and with her head down and tail tucked between her legs, trotted past Janet and out into the garden.
"It wasn't me."
Fluttershy was sat on the edge of the patio poking at some dirt with a hoof. She had been out here for well over an hour with no mention of being let back in or bathed. In the sun the pancake mix was starting to bake onto her and was getting itchy as well as just feeling gross. It was also starting to smell a bit rancid.
"Ooh that Fritz! When I get my hooves on him I'm going to...to...um..."
And that was just it, what could she do? He was a cat and like all cats he did as he pleased. She couldn't talk to him like she could the cats back in Equestria, she couldn't physically discipline him since even if she knew what would work she couldn't actually bring herself to do such a thing to him. Her stare was utterly ineffective against him since the stare she got back was ten times worse, meaning she was left with nothing.
All she really could do was hope that eventually she could find some way to befriend him or at least make him stop being quite so vile to her. But to do that would take time and she wasn't sure she could put up with this for much longer; Angel bunny had been...difficult, at times, but Fritz was a whole new level of maniacal compared to him. She sighed; she missed Angel and the rest of her animal friends, and her pony friends too. Putting up with that furry, grey monster wasn't helping.
Luckily her spiral into despair was interrupted by the welcome sound of the patio doors opening. Getting up she trotted to the door before stopping when she noticed the stern gaze upon Janet’s face. When the gaze continued she took a few nervous steps back before dropping to the floor as if the gaze was physically weighting her down.
"You. Bathroom. Now." Janet said before stepping aside.
Fluttershy practically crawled on her belly past Janet before galloping the rest of the way to the bathroom and jumping into the already filled bath. Itchiness and rancid smells first, cat problems later.
Fluttershy was lounging on the sofa idly picking bits of pancake mix out of her mane, tail and feathers. Janet had done a pretty poor job of washing her which is odd considering she had practically attacked Fluttershy with a scrubbing brush. She'd go for another bath as soon as those two were asleep tonight but until then she would just have to put up with it. She would have gone now since Janet and Paul had left to go to town like they did at least once a week but she had a feeling that if they came home early and caught her, she'd somehow get into more trouble just for trying to get clean, which would be far too ironic for her to effectively deal with.
Normally she would have gone with them, which was nice, albeit embarrassing as she was stuck on a lead, as it allowed her to learn her way around in the unlikely event of an escape; although seeing the alleyway she had arrived in and approached those two from made her facehoof every time. After this morning’s mishap though she had been left here as some poorly thought out form of punishment. Being left here almost makes this morning seem worthwhile but she would have to be careful to not allow that sort of thing to happen too often in case she found herself being restricted around the house as further punishment, although ideally such things would never happen again but that would be wishful thinking with Fritz around.
Laying there on the sofa would have been quite relaxing if it wasn't for the fact that she had no idea where Fritz was. Over the last few weeks she had become increasingly paranoid about Fritz's antics and with good reason as he tended to ambush her whenever possible.
It's quiet. Too quiet.
Sliding down from the sofa she resolved to find him just so she could ease her nerves. He may be a Tartarus spawned demon cat who should be avoided like the plague, but it was still better to keep at least one eye on him. Preferably from a long distance.
She quietly sneaked from the living room to the kitchen, taking care to not miss any detail along the way; nothing there. She moved onto the hallway to the front door, still nothing. She snuck back to the kitchen and on to the utility room that lead to the garage, where Fritz had a cat flap. She stuck her head through and found yet more nothing. She was starting to worry, expecting the feel of claws on her back at any moment. Her heart was thumping in her chest and each hoof fall echoed in her ears as a small, strange voice in her head told her to avoid ambushes out of air vents; which was daft seeing as how the house didn't even have air vents.
She crawled back to the living room, towards the stairs; her eyes darting around examining every shadowy nook and well dusted cranny. She peeked around the corner and there he was, sat in the middle of the floor, staring at her while purring pleasantly. She watched him and he watched her. She blinked and he was still there afterwards. He licked a paw and rubbed an ear making Fluttershy flinch.
This is ridiculous . She edged towards the stairs while keeping an eye on him before turning to gallop up to the safety of the bedroom and shutting the door behind her. She let out a sigh of relief before her nose crinkled up in disgust.
"What is that smell?" She soon found out when she trotted over to her bed. The bed was, to her shame, one of the guilty pleasures of her dog’s life. It was supremely comfortable and if she could have it in a different room away from her 'owners' she might have done her best to live in it. But now that comfort was ruined because Fritz had left a small, odorous gift in it.
"FRITZ!"
"What am I going to do?" Fluttershy said aloud, as a lot of private thought often is. She had shut herself in the bathroom, as the bedroom absolutely reeked, and was seriously considering staying there until Paul and Janet came home. That demented moggy was clearly out to get her today and she was still at a total loss for what to do about it.
Even now she could hear him doing something down there. The occasion muted thump could reach her in the bathroom and she was thinking that she should probably go find out what he was up to but that would expose her to whatever scheme he was currently cooking up.
After a while the noises stopped just for them to be replaced with the sounds of the front door unlocking and people walking in.
At last . She rushed out of the bathroom and almost fell down the stairs in her haste just to be confronted with a disaster zone. Papers were scattered around, the potted plants were not as potted as they used to be and there was mess everywhere!
"FLOSSY!"
And she just so happened to be standing in the middle of it, with the actual culprit nowhere in sight.
"Why would you do this?! Get outside right now and stay there!"
"It wasn't me!"
"Now!"
Isolation. Fluttershy had spent years of her life cultivating it before truly discovering the magic of friendship. Since then she had tried so hard to get out and meet new ponies, struggling to overcome her innate shyness and be more assertive in everything she did.
Right now though she would have greeted isolation like the old friend it was, if it meant she got to avoid her current company. While she was stuck in the garden Fritz was sat on the roof of the shed radiating smugness as he watched her pace around, fuming and muttering to herself.
This was hopeless. After all the events of the last few weeks the thing that was finally getting to her was a cat! There was nothing she could think of to do and...and... She sighed.
Eventually she collapsed in a heap in her dirt poking spot. She would just have to accept that there was nothing she could do, even if it meant spending the rest of her time being relentlessly tormented by a cat. For the mean time she could just poke the dirt with her hoof some more, after all at least the dirt couldn’t do anything to hurt her.
I could split a hoof on a stone... She quickly stopped poking at the dirt.
After some time a bowl of water was provided for her, which was the highlight of the second hour. The third hour was spent on various attempts at singing but her heart just wasn't in it. She then made an attempt at flying again but still couldn’t achieve more than a breeze; even chickens could fly better than her right now. In the fourth hour, at her own risk, she went back to the old staple activity of dirt poking, and she was still doing that when she became aware of a presence.
Fritz was sat next to her, purring.
"What do you want?" she asked sullenly. He obviously said nothing but did keep purring. Right then it was possibly the most infuriating sound she had ever heard.
"What? What is it? Here to bully me some more? Make me feel even more helpless than I already do? It’s bad enough that I'm stuck here in a place I don't know where everyone thinks I'm a dog." she was starting to tear up and her voice was beginning to crack. "I've been stuck here for weeks, with no one to talk to and I haven't seen my friends for ages and I'm so lonely here on my own!"
Fritz had stopped purring by now and appeared to be frowning in concentration.
"And," Fluttershy continued with a little hoofstomp "the one thing here that I thought could bring me comfort, that's always been there for me, is my animal friends! But instead I get a horrible, mean bully like you! So just go away! Go away and...leave me...alone." she collapsed, burying her head in her forelegs as she trailed off into broken sobs.
*****************************
Fritz was confused. Not a normal state of mind for a creature that was one hundred percent sure of himself at all times. He was several years old now and had spent his years loving, fighting, tormenting small helpless creatures and becoming father of half the cats in the neighbourhood. Yet here he was completely stumped at the sight of the strange not-a-dog crying her eyes out.
"Meow?"
No reaction. He batted at the end of her mane but there was still no reaction. He moved a little closer and prodded at a bit of nose he could see poking from beneath her legs.
"Go 'way."
Aha! Success! He rubbed up against her, purring.
"Go away!" she shouted, still in tears, before turning away from him.
Fritz was at a complete loss. Not even the two-leg-food-givers had ever done this. This was...wrong. A new emotion was sinking its way into his psyche like a lead weight. He felt...bad, he felt...sorry. He was discovering something called remorse and he had no idea how to express it.
Maybe...maybe the not-a-dog would feel better if he brought her a gift.
It’d been roughly 6 hours since Fluttershy’s banishment from the interior of the house and although she had calmed down somewhat, she was still rather fragile. At the forefront of her mind though was the fact that she was seriously bored, especially as she had stopped poking the dirt thinking she might get into more trouble for ‘digging up the garden.’ The sun was starting to set and it was getting chilly which was making the day even more unpleasant than it already had been. Thankfully though, she hadn’t seen Fritz since earlier.
“Who does he think he is? Doing all this to me then thinking he can win me over with being all cute and friendly.” She was convinced that Fritz would never actually try and be friendly with her without some hidden agenda. Trusting him would be a mistake.
“Meow.”
“EEK!” Fluttershy leaped in air and somehow turned around mid-flight so that she was facing Fritz when she landed. She slowly took a few steps back and narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”
He picked something up off the floor and carried it to her before dropping it at her hooves. It was a mouse; or, rather more disgustingly, it was a dead mouse.
“Meow *purr*.”
“Oh…uh, um, is that meant to be a present for me?” She was taking care to try and sound even voiced when what she really wanted to do was chide him for murdering some poor innocent creature. “Well I um, like it very much. It’s very…nice. Yes, nice.”
He rubbed up against her and purred. This was all very strange for both of them, Fritz wanting to befriend something four legged, rather than disembowel it; and Fluttershy was concerned this was just some trick, although that would be crediting a little too much intelligence to a creature that washed itself in its own spit.
“So does this mean you’re sorry?” Fritz purred and rubbed the top of his head on her chin. She couldn’t help but smile, this was surprising in the best kind of way and her resistance to his charms was quickly dissolving. The fact was that she had missed this kind of relationship with animals and craved this kind of attention from them. Most of the animals around here just stared at her weirdly. She didn’t want to appear so soft hearted but she needed this and the more he rubbed up against her the more she gave in.
“Ok, ok,” she giggled lightly “I get it, you’re sorry.” She smiled; something she hadn’t done freely for some time. “Does this mean no more being mean to me?” He looked at her dumbly before meowing. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She nuzzled the top of his head and in return he rubbed against her neck.
It might be a mistake to trust this so fast, but hopefully she had made a friend today, and with friends at her side she could endure anything.
Author's Note
Proof that Fluttershy will never lose a fight. Even if you win and she never throws a punch, you've still lost.
Endings a bit weak but meh. Next chapter won't really be that much of a chapter but rather a short collection of randomness that would never have made it into chapters themselves. I call it 'Pony meets horse and other randomness'. It will have no bearing on the plot (yes this does have one) apart from one small part right at the end.
How long has it been? Is this all dream? Was my life before this a dream? What does it even matter? Fluttershy was rife with existential conundrums as she lay on the sofa hugging Fritz like he was the only real thing in her life right now. Since hearing the disembodied voices of her friends Fluttershy had fallen into a deep melancholy as she tried to remember a life that five months ago, had been all hers. Or had it been?
Had she just created that life to escape the reality that she was just a really intelligent dog? Or was what she had thought to be true, actually true? Had she really been a pony living in Equestria, before becoming trapped in this place; losing herself to her growing doggishness? Were these hooves even hooves? Or was she just seeing hooves because she wanted to see hooves? Not to mention the wings that she was sure only she could see.
Her head hurt. So it was a good job that a whistle from by the front door distracted her from her dark thoughts.
"C'mon Flossy!" shouted Paul "Walkies!"
"Coming!" she shouted back eagerly.
Paul had taken her to something that he had called a dog park. Why he called it that, she had no idea. She couldn't see any dogs so why was it a dog park? Admittedly these thoughts weren't high on her list of priorities as she was led through the big iron gates of the entrance.
This place was amazing! There were trees, and rocks and a pond! She shook her head and tried to stop thinking like a dog and look at this place as a pony. It did look pleasant enough and hopefully there would be an opportunity for her to explore the surroundings without having to pull Paul around on the end of her lead.
That opportunity came sooner than she expected when he reached down and let her off said lead. She suddenly felt strangely exposed.
"Well go on then." Paul tried to encourage her. "Go run round."
Fluttershy watched him walk over to a bench and sit down. She looked around unsure. Neither Paul nor Janet had ever let her off her lead outside the house. She sat there for a while tapping her hooves together, looking very insecure when Paul's voice floated over to her.
"Go on Flossy. Its fine, go on and run around. I'll be right here."
"Well, ok then...you better not be lying to me." she said before slowly trotting off down the slope towards the pond. It wasn't a very exciting pond, there weren't any plants or fish or anything really. It was more like an oversized puddle than an actual pond. She looked back at Paul just to check he was still there. He was, thankfully.
She sighed and spent a few minutes sat by the pond, watching the birds.
"Oh how nice it must be to be able fly around and be so free." She looked back at her own healthy, but ineffective and possibly non-existent wings and sighed as she flapped them experimentally.
Then the thought struck her. She was here on her own, not being watched too closely and not tied to anything. Why wasn't she taking the opportunity to escape? Why hadn't the thought come to her as soon as she was freed, and why was she more worried about Paul leaving her here?
She rubbed her forehead with a hoof. Why was thinking clearly so hard for her these days? She looked backed at Paul who was leaning back on the bench, basking in the sun. Could this really be her chance? And if it was why was she so nervous?
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and steeled her resolve, setting off in the opposite direction Paul was in. The closed eyes thing didn't really work at first as it caused her to stumble into the pond which did rather spoil the moment. She clambered out of the pond and set off around it, leaving a trail of drips behind her.
It didn't take long for her to find out the park wasn't very big and was enclosed with a tall, wrought iron fence. It was quite the disappointment when after fifteen minutes of brisk trotting she was back at where they had entered, and even more so when it only took another ten to take get back to where she had started.
Feeling rather put out she returned to the pond and slumped down on the raised concrete ledge overlooking it. The best opportunity she'd had to escape since arriving in this place and it turns out she was in a big, grass filled and classily enclosed prison. Typical.
She lay there moping for a while until the feeling that she was being watched prodded her conscience enough to tell her to look behind her. It was a good job too because sat on the floor, staring at her, were six dogs of various sizes.
"Oh, um...hello there little friends. Nice day we're having isn't it? I bet you'd all love to be off running around, enjoying it, instead of sitting here...staring...at...me..." She bit her bottom lip nervously. The dogs hadn't moved. She stood up and slowly walked off the ledge. "Of course if you want the ledge it’s all yours, I won't get in your way."
As she started to trot off all the dogs suddenly ran up and surrounded her, forcing her to stop. Then to make things worse they started sniffing her. Everywhere.
"Um...if you could not do that I'd appreciate it very much." The dogs continued sniffing regardless of her protests. "Please...please st- yeep!" One of the dogs had pushed its head up under her right wing. "Get your head from the- ah!" That time a cold wet nose found its way into her left ear. "Please don't do that! It’s not very nic- EEK!" Fluttershy leapt forward and looked back at the dog that had stuck its nose somewhere a dog’s nose had no business being.
She stood there a moment facing off against the dogs before taking a few experimental steps towards Paul. The dogs followed her while keeping their distance.
"Um...Paul?" she whimpered. She cleared her throat and tried again a bit louder. "Paul?" She stood there hoping against hope that he would notice her. He didn't to her never ending lack of surprise. There was nothing for it, she would have to run.
She swallowed and without warning turned and sprinted towards Paul as fast as she could.
"Paaauuuulllll!" she wailed as she ran, the dogs right on her heels, running with an eerie silence. When she reached the bench she leapt up besides Paul and climbed up on him, hugging him tightly around the neck and burying her face in his shoulder.
"Waah!" he yelled in surprise. "What the hell Flossy! What's the matter? He then noticed the six dogs that had been chasing her. "These dogs bothering you?" Fluttershy remained silent but nodded gently, a single tear rolling down her cheek.
"Go on! Get outta here! Git!" he shouted. The dogs, of course, did nothing. "Um...shoo?"
Eventually the owners of the other dogs wandered over and dragged off their respective pets, leaving just the two of them with Fluttershy still very much attached to Paul. After a few minutes of tickles he managed to coax her into releasing him, although she was very reluctant to go more than few steps from him. She didn’t like this dog park anymore, there were far too many dogs here.
“Can we go home now? I really don’t want to run into anymore dogs.” she asked, looking at the ground. Clearly the patron deity of irony was listening in because the response she got was far from the one she wanted.
“How about a game of fetch?” he suggested with a grin, brandishing in his hand the weapon of canine amusement known as the ball.
Fluttershy groaned and rolled her eyes, and then she grinned. “Ok then, you’re on. Since we’re in a park how about you really throw it? No holding back!” She ran off, taking care to run opposite to the way the dogs had been dragged off in.
He waited until she was a good distance away before launching the ball in her direction. Her flank fell to the ground and her jaw went slack as she watched it soar over her head and keep going for quite some distance.
“Good arm…” she muttered in wonderment before chasing after it.
They had been played fetch for a while until Fluttershy was pretty much collapsing from exhaustion which, in turn, caused her to overcome her fear of the other dogs enough for her to go and wallow in the pond in an attempt to cool down. Paul was sat back on his bench, leaving her alone which was good because what happened next might have been a bit weird even for his broad standards.
While she was splashing in the pond, blowing bubbles through her nose and listening to the water sloshing in her ears, she slowly became aware of voices.
“Omigosh! She’s drowning! Pony the lifeboats!” There was no mistaking Pinkie Pie’s voice. Fluttershy sighed and tried to sink further into the water. Not this again…
“Fluttershy! Get up! You need to swim!” “C’mon sugarcube! Don’t give up!” came two more voices. And there’s Rainbow Dash and Applejack, the crazy club’s all here… She stood up and shook the water out of her ears. The pond didn’t even come up to her withers.
“I’m not drowning.” She stated quietly to a small collection of disembodied ‘Oh’s.’
“Then what on Equestria were you doing darling?” asked Rarity after a moment.
“I was trying to cool down.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s hot out here and I was completed fried after playing fetch so I’d thought I’d have a little swim to cool down.” She said matter-of-factly.
“Playing Fetch?” came Rainbow Dash’s disbelieving voice “What the heck were you doing playing fetch?”
“It’s something I play with Pa-.”
“GIRLS!” shouted Twilight suddenly “I know you're happy to see her and want to make sure she’s ok but keeping this spell running is not as easy as I’m making it look!” The other voices fell silent. “Look, Fluttershy. I’m not sure how long I can keep this working so we’ll have to make this quick. You’ve been sucked into another dimension and we can get you back but you’ll need to get back to where you arrived in that world in the next three days.”
“Why should I?”
“Wha-, what do you mean ‘why should I’?”
“Why should I listen to some disembodied voices telling me to escape back to some filthy dumpster in some dingy back alley? What reason do I have to listen to voices that might well only exist in my head?”
There was silence for a quite a few seconds before Pinkie spoke up. “Boy she’s really got you there Twilight. I mean last time you went loco in the coco you blew up half of Ponyville with that ‘want it, need it’ spell!”
“Like you can judge,” said Rainbow “you had a party with rocks and bucketful of turnips!”
“Hey! Don’t forget Madam Le’flour and Sir Lintsalot!”
“Girls!” Twilight shouted again “Not helping!” There was a short chorus of sorry’s. “Fluttershy, you have to believe us, we’re you friends! We’ve been trying everything to talk to you and get you back!”
“Really? Because I’ve been here for ages and this is the first time that anyone’s mentioned getting back.”
“Ages? Whaddya mean ages? It’s only be-.”
“Fluttershy.” Said Twilight, cutting over Applejack. “I know this may seem weird but you have to trust us. Get back to the spot you arrived in in the next three days and we can get you home.”
Fluttershy stood there a moment, head bowed and deep in thought, her eyes twitching side to side. Should she try and escape? Trust the disembodied voices of her friends? She stood there for a few moments more before Pinkie said something surprisingly wise.
“C’mon Fluttershy! Where’s the harm in trying? You gotta take a leap of faith!”
She followed up with something less wise but definitely worthy of Pinkie Pie.
“I’ll throw you the biggest ‘welcome home’ party ever if you do it!”
Fluttershy thought for a moment longer. Pinkie was right. Maybe it was better to just have a go and fail rather than never trying at all. She was going to do it but not before she had a couple of questions answered.
“Ok, I’ll do it.” She said to the sound of cheers. “But I want to know something first Twilight.”
“Sure!” Twilight replied, sounding relieved but strained. “Ask away.”
“Why do I have to go back to the alleyway? Why can’t you just take me home from here?”
“Oh, that’s simple. When you arrived in the world you’re in, you punched a hole through the dimensional barriers between worlds, creating a passageway, or tunnel, between here and where you arrived. That hole is the best way to get you back. To get you back from where you are now would require more magic than I, all the princesses and even Discord could muster. It’s as much as I can do just to talk to you.”
“So I need to get back to the exact spot I arrived in because it’ll be a lot easier to get me back?”
“Exactly! I can’t leave the portal open there all the time in case creatures from that world cross into our world and it would take far too much energy to keep open continuously. I’ll leave a spell like the one we’ve been using to talk here in the alleyway. When you get there just shout my name and I’ll open the portal as quick as I can.”
“Why three days?”
“I’ve been using an artefact from the Crystal Empire that Cadence lent to me called the Crystal Cynosure. It draws magic to it and stores it like a battery. But like a battery it’s only charged for so much and needs time to recharge. In this case it would take a month, maybe more to recharge. When I open the portal it’ll burn out pretty quick. That’s why you have to be there in three days; after keeping the communication spell open in the alleyway for longer than that it won’t have enough charge left to open the portal. Look Fluttershy, I can’t hold this for much longer so I’ll just say to be there within three days or you’ll be stuck there until we can try again!” She was sounding very strained now. “Good luck!” Twilight grunted. “Hope to see you so- Ah!”
“Twilight!” There was silence. “Twilight? Ooh I hope she’s ok…”
Fluttershy dragged herself out of the pond and set off towards Paul. She tugged on his trousers with her mouth and started trotting towards the park exit hoping he would get the hint. If she was going to escape in the next three days she would need a plan because this wasn’t going to be easy.
Author's Note
I'm choosing to believe ponies know what batteries are.
Anyway, next chapter will be all about Fluttershy watching the world cup. She expresses a lot of disappointment with Brazil.
Or she could escape. That'd probably make more sense.
So long and thanks for all the...dogfood?
Escape. Fluttershy had often fantasised about doing such a thing during the first couple months of her...captivity? Imprisonment? Dog-hood? Whichever. She never tried though because most of her fantasy plans involved flying away, which she obviously couldn't do; and a few other plans which centred around stupid ideas like seducing Paul into opening the front door and letting her run free. Where those ideas came from she would rather not know and even she had to admit those kinds of plans probably, definitely wouldn't work. There was also the problem that she'd had no idea where she was and had no idea where to go if she did escape; a fact that had been reinforced now the idea that she was in an entirely different dimension had been planted in her mind. Add to that the fact that her misplaced kindness stopped her from trying anything in case she upset her owners and you had a grand total of zero escape attempts.
As time went on and she became used to her situation she stopped even imagining it could happen and just got on with her life as best she could.
This was why now that she had to escape she didn't really know how to go about it. She was rarely on her own and when she was all the doors and windows were locked and beyond her ability to open. Other than somehow miraculously getting outside and running to freedom she had nothing other than the stupid plan she had tried the day before.
This feeling of hopelessness was probably why she was lying in the middle of the living floor, on her back with her head, legs, wings and tail splayed out in all directions. Fritz had found this fascinating and came to investigate by means of curling up on her stomach and was purring as he slept. This was an extra, though lesser problem for Fluttershy as he was sitting on her bladder, but she didn't want to disturb him.
She had two days left to escape after wasting the first day on a very silly plan that the dog part of her psyche must have come up with. She had spent about five hours amongst the bushes, digging a hole under the fence to escape through. That was fine until she had discovered she was digging into the neighbours garden. A garden she still couldn't escape from. That had led to her spending another few hours filling the hole back in to avoid getting in trouble; and several more hours feeling really stupid.
She groaned and crossed her forelegs over her face. "Why is this so hard?" She sighed. "For lack of a better phrase, can't someone throw me a bone here?"
Right then Paul whistled and shouted "C'mon Flossy, we're going to town!"
"Oh...well...uh...ok...um...thank you?" She gently pushed Fritz off, got up and ran to the door. After sneaking a trip to the bathroom, of course.
So far nothing much had happened and her opportunities had been nil. Jumping out of a moving car didn't seem like the safest of plans. This meant she was still stuck with Paul and Janet on their weekly shopping trip.
Whilst Janet did whatever she did on her mysterious errands inside the shops, Fluttershy and Paul were often just left to hang around outside. Normally this would have resulted in Paul muttering various expletives under his breath and Fluttershy would sit there twiddling her hooves. Today though she was alert and paying attention to any and every detail that could lead to an escape.
All she had really found out so far was that being attached to someone via a lead was making things a lot harder. Getting rid of the lead was the key to this endeavour. But how?
A tug from Paul reminded her to get moving. She got up and followed Paul but constantly kept her eyes open, not that there was a lot to see. She had never realised just how boring this town was. Everything was grey and uniform. No street vendors, no entertainments and most importantly nothing with sharp edges that could be used to cut a lead which was ironic considering how much the news went on about knife crime.
Letting out a growl of frustration she resolved to keep trying to find something even if it took all day. She looked at the nearest clock she could find and found it was twenty to one. At half past one Paul and Janet would typically go to a small corner cafe for lunch and stay there for an hour or so, leaving Fluttershy tied up outside with a bowl of water. It was the only time they left her alone in town, which seemed strangely trusting to her but this time she wasn't about to complain. She would have her chance; all she had to do was wait.
That might have been the most frustrating and lengthy fifty minutes of her life. She knew how long she would have to wait but watching Janet fret in indecision over which pair of shoes she liked, and watching Paul be battered with requests for his opinion just for that opinion to be totally disregarded was totally mind-numbing in the worst kind of way. By her reckoning Paul was muttering a yes dear at least every seventeen seconds for the entire exchange.
She had passed the time with sitting and exercising patience. For a while anyway, maybe ten minutes. She spent the rest of the time gently head-butting the metal post she was next to. She did draw some funny looks from passers-by but it was worth it if it meant not listening to Janet whining. Rarity didn't have anything on her.
Thankfully, although annoyingly, Janet finally decided the shoes she liked were too expensive and they moved on to the cafe, leaving her outside with a problem to solve.
Paul had looped the lead through itself meaning she couldn't untie it without un-clipping herself. She couldn't un-clip herself because her hooves couldn't do something that fiddly, especially when the clip was under her chin where she couldn't see. She was about to give up when she looked at the lead. Think more dog. It might take a while but she could probably chew through it.
This is a lot tougher than it needs to be . When she started chewing she thought this would be easy. Apparently pony teeth weren't meant to contend with the likes of leather; even her little canines weren't helping much.
Most of her hour was gone according to the clock she could see inside the cafe. So far she had gotten maybe just over halfway through and progress was slow as her jaw muscles were aching, feeling like they had the tensile strength of silly string.
She had maybe ten minutes to do this and she was starting to panic a little which wasn't helping. She chanced a quick look back in the cafe just to see Paul at the counter paying the bill. This meant she actually had about two minutes until they came out.
With a little 'eep' of panic she tore into the lead with renewed vigour and was still chewing when they came out.
"Flossy. What are you doing?" Paul asked slowly when she looked at him guiltily as she kept on chewing.
"Nuh-hing." she replied earnestly, still chomping away. It’s now or never! Before Paul could reach down and grab hold of her she pulled on the lead as hard as she could which initially choked her, but more importantly made it break the rest of the way.
Aha! Despite the fact she was struggling for breath after choking herself, she sprinted away for a few metres before looking back and freezing when Paul shouted "Flossy! Stop!"
She stayed there as Paul walked up cautiously while repeatedly telling her to stay.
What are you doing! Don't stay! Don't stay! Don't stay! Don't listen! Don't obey him! RUN!
Snapping back to her senses she shot off before he could grab her and set off down the street as fast as she could.
"Flossy! Get back here! Now!" Paul bellowed as he set off after her. She kept running even though part of her wanted to stop and obey before pitifully begging for forgiveness. Stupid dog brain!
She kept galloping down the street, dodging around peoples legs leaving a trail of unheard apologies behind her as she kept going. As far as she could hear Paul wasn't having the same luck as he barged into people in his frantic chase.
A shriek of "Flossy! You get here now!" informed Fluttershy that Janet had also joined the chase which was remarkable seeing as how Janet rarely travelled at a speed faster than the average sloth.
Her odds of getting away were pretty good since she could run a lot faster than they could, but her progress was hampered by one small problem. She didn't really know where she was going.
After running down long straight she took a right, followed immediately by another right that lead onto another long straight. She ran up that straight until she got to the end where she stopped for a second to look around. On her left was a dead end and on her right...was the cafe.
Emitting an 'ugh!' of annoyance at her stupidity she kept going straight across the road, only just avoiding being hit by a car and kept going up the street opposite before taking another right at the end followed by a left onto another street.
Taking another right she found herself on the main shopping street. She set off down there until she saw something that looked familiar. She turned right by that and found herself en-route back to the...cafe.
She gave a snarl of frustration and turned around, running back the way she came and turning right at where she had entered the street, crossing right in front of Paul and Janet who might have caught her if they had been a little faster. She pounded down the street for a while until she came to a road. A very busy road.
With those two close on her heels she needed to cross quickly but there were too many cars. After trotting on the spot for a moment she swallowed and ran out into the road with a squeak. Immediately there was a squealing of tires as a car just managed to stop before hitting her. The car itself wasn't as lucky as the car behind it smashed into its rear.
"Sorry!" She tried to go on, the car in the next lane over narrowly missing the end of her nose as she poked her head around the crashed car. Once it passed she ran across to the accompaniment of more squealing tires and made it to the barrier...in the middle of the road.
Looking back she could see that her pursuers had made it to the road and were being hassled by the irate owners of the crashed cars.
Getting up she ran across the rest of the road and looked back, seeing that Paul and Janet had opted to continue the chase rather than argue with the drivers. She turned to the right and kept running.
Their too close! Crossing the road had given them a chance to close the gap with her and the street was too crowded for her to easily weave her way through. Luckily Paul and Janet were having a worse time of it so they never really gained on her. I need to get out of this crowd.
After a few more seconds of running and weaving she got her chance when, to her left, she spotted a ramp leading onto some scaffolding. The scaffolding ran for several dozen metres allowing her to really gain some distance, leaving those two to struggle through the crowd.
Unfortunately though the scaffolding cut off in with the end of the building, and had no ramp leading off that she could see. Feeling unusually optimistic she spread her wings and started pumping them as she approached the end, hoping she would at least glide some distance.
I wish I could say she succeeded, that she had glided to the ground like a majestic swan, but no. What she did do was flop over the end and do a little flip in mid-air, landing on her back on the tarmac sidewalk in a move that made her look more like a common tit.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, including Fluttershy, that she was lost. She was wandering some backstreets that looked aggravatingly familiar while simultaneously being really confusing. It was probably because they all looked the same.
She had stopped running now and was doing her best to stealthily find out where she was and where she should go. Paul and Janet were also wandering around, shouting her name which made it a lot easier to avoid them.
She was trotting down yet another street towards a crossroads when a flash of pink down a side road caught her eye.
Going to investigate she found herself in front of somewhere she recognised. It was the mysteriously unnamed shop that her owners had gone to a couple of times. They had never taken her in so she didn't know what it was but, for some reason, the pink and the drapes in the windows reminded her of the backroom in the Carousel Boutique where Rarity sold her more...intimate designs. Not that she knew what they were, nosiree.
But that was irrelevant compared to the fact that she sort of knew where she was. If she went left from the shop and then right down this street she would come out at the...bus station! She gave a little cheer at not being lost anymore, although an echoing 'Flossy!' from behind her reminded her that her problems were far from over.
She headed left for a couple hundred yards and turned left behind the food place with the really weird writing and... There it was, the back alley where this all began. The birthing place of these last five months of doggy-dom.
She took a look around before entering and noticed three people talking with one of them pointing in the direction she came.
"Oh no! Please no!" She dashed back into the alleyway and started shouting. "Twilight! Twilight, are you there!? Please be there!"
"Fluttershy? Is that you?"
"Yes it’s me! Who else were you expecting!?" she replied testily. Paul and Janet were getting too close.
"Ok, ok. I just wasn't expecting you so soon! Give me a minute and I'll get the portal open."
Fluttershy counted a minute, then a second and third. She was well into her forth when she heard voices by the entrance to the alleyway.
Oh no! She froze as they came closer, unable to even think about hiding as they approached.
"Flossy! There you are! How dare you try to run away! We've been looking everywhere for you!" Janet looked furious, bright red, and close to exhaustion from actually exerting herself.
Paul looked just as angry but said nothing as he approached Fluttershy, who was now cowering pathetically on the floor. He was about to grab her when she was saved by the bell. An unusual bell to be sure but saying saved by the portal sounds silly, no matter how accurate the statement is.
The portal bloomed open to her right with a sound like a small sonic rainboom mixed with a drain gurgling. It sat there filling the alley with an ominous purple glow before Twilight's voice floated out of it.
"Come on Fluttershy, this won't stay open for long!
She got up and was about to run into it when she paused. It felt wrong to just run into it without saying something to Paul and Janet even if they didn't understand her.
"Twilight? Can you hold the portal open for a moment longer?"
"Ugh...yeah ok. Make it quick though. When I start screaming in pain from a possible burnout I suggest you jump in really fast.
"I guess that by now you've realised I'm not a regular dog. In fact I'm not a dog at all but for some reason you can't tell that. Anyway I'm going to go home now but I want to thank you for looking after me as well as you did. I mean it was a bit misguided but you tried which is the important thing. And...uh, well...that's it really. I guess I'll never forget you."
She got up and walked to the portal and was about to enter when another thought seemed to strike her.
"Oh, and take good care of Fritz! He's such a sweetheart once you get to know him." With a final goodbye and a wave she entered the portal and went home.
Or at least going home was the plan. What actually happened was she entered a big tunnel that had a real bad swirly, psychedelic thing going on.
'Huh' was all she could think as she flew along the kaleidoscopic passage. This definitely wasn't where she was expecting to go. Was she even really moving? This was weird and disorientating and really, really nauseating. The car was nothing compared to this. She also had some strange music that she couldn't quite put her hoof on stuck in her head.
After a short while she noticed a small circle of light ahead of her that was rapidly growing in size. As she was about to enter it she heard voices.
"Hey! I think I can see something! I think she's coming!"
"Pinkie! I told you not to look into the portal!"
"Aww c'mon Twi. What's the worse that cou-."
With a sound like two coconuts being banged together at near sonic speeds, Fluttershy emerged from the portal and smashed head first into the grinning face of Pinkie Pie, whom she knocked out, before rolling across the floor to land at Rarity's hooves, which she immediately threw up on.
"Eeeeeeeewwwwwwww! Fluttershy!"
"Ugh...sorry..."
"Did you really have to throw up on me? I mean...argh! I don't even know wha-."
She was interrupted by the insertion of Applejack's hoof into her mouth. "How 'bout we don't go hasslin' the trans-dimensional pony? Hmm Rarity?" she said before removing her hoof.
"Right. Sorry darling."
Applejack smiled kindly. "Welcome home sugarcube." she said before giving Fluttershy a nuzzle on the cheek followed closely by another from Rarity.
Fluttershy tried to get up, failed, and opted to stay on the floor before looking around. They appeared to be in the ancient castle of the pony sisters.
"Why are we here?" she asked, looking to Twilight who was collapsed on her front with her blackened horn gently smoking.
Twilight tried to raise her head but it didn't seem willing to co-operate. Instead she just stayed where she was and muttered "Well some say the alicorn Faust first created the world and all the creatures in it although there are many differing opinions on the matter." She seemed kind of out of it.
"No, I mean why are we here, in this castle?"
"Oh, right. Get me some aspirin, and then I'll tell you."
Clearly that wasn't helpful. She looked round to where Rainbow Dash was trying to help Pinkie by means of poking her with a stick.
"Hey Rainbow."
"Huh? Oh...right. Heh…sorry. Welcome back Fluttershy!" she said before flying in to give her a hug.
Fluttershy lay there enjoying the feeling of being around her friends again before she was interrupted by Pinkie suddenly sitting up and saying in a hammy Trottingham accent "Cor blimey Miss Fluttershy, you gone an' done bonked me on the noggin'!"
At the silence she recieved she cleared her throat and in her more normal voice said "Hey Fluttershy! Your back! That means I owe you ...a party."
Yep. There was the proof that everything was fine. She looked around at her friends again before lying on her back with her eyes closed, just enjoying the moment. It was good to be home.
She wished that moment could have lasted a bit longer but the feeling of someone invading her personal space caused her to open her eyes again. It was unsurprisingly Pinkie, who appeared to be looking at her neck very closely.
"Sooo...Flossy..." Pinkie narrowed her eyes. "If that is your real name... What's with the collar?"
Fluttershy sighed. "It’s kind of a long story..."
Author's Note
To ill to edit properly so if there's anything really obvious point it out. I also think I need to work on my descriptive writing. Anyway, SHE'S FREE!
I will being doing an epilogue over the next couple of days which may as well be called 'exposition with purple smart.' It probably won't answer anything directly but it should throw a lot of almost-explanations around. Be warned.
On a lesser note there's a pub near me called The Laughing Dog. For the last couple of days I've wanted to shoop a collar onto a pic of Fluttershy laughing and sticking a picture of that on their sign.
Sometimes my brain should shut up.
Questions and wild theories
It had been just under a week since Fluttershy's return to Equestria, time she had spent re-aquainting herself with her friends and her animals and by purchasing a large dog bed. Apparently young habits died pretty hard too.
All in all her re-introduction had been pretty seamless. Most of that had down to the fact that, to Fluttershy's surprise, only a week had passed in Equestria. Most ponies assumed she had gone to visit relatives or something; a lie she was willing to entertain since telling everypony you've spent five months as a dog in a different dimension would probably cause comment. Especially considering that she would also have to explain how she managed to fit five months into the space of a week.
Apart from that everything was fine apart from one or two small issues. For example, Applejack now had to keep Winona as far from her as possible otherwise she tended to run away and growl at the confused canine from a distance. The number of grey, fluffy cats living with her also seemed to be multiplying on a daily basis. She had also been reluctant to part with her collar, claiming she felt strangely naked without it. She did remove the tag though; if everypony was going to ask about the collar she might as well save herself the aggravation of explaining why the tag said Flossy as well.
So far no one had mentioned the collar, thankfully, although ponies did have a tendency to look away blushing after they noticed it. She was also pretty sure Thunderlane had started to secretly stalk her from a distance, or at least he tried to be secretive but he was really easy to spot with the huge wing-boner he was sporting.
Today was a day she had been looking forward to. After telling her story to the others, Twilight had promised to do her best to provide answers to the many questions Fluttershy had. They were all going to meet at Rarity's place, since their usual meeting spot at the library had been blown up, and none of them seemed comfortable with Twilight's new castle...tree...thing yet.
The location wasn't important though, getting answers was.
"Right, thanks for coming girls. As you know, Fluttershy, after telling us what happened, asked me a lot of questions that I said I'd do my best to answer." Clearly Twilight was in full exposition mode today. "I'll be honest with you though. I really don't have any solid answers for you since trying to gather hard evidence on things that happened in another dimension is really...hard."
"Oh its ok Twilight, possible explanations are better than no explanations at all." She smiled encouragingly at Twilight, who blushed in return.
"Well...yes. Thanks Fluttershy. So...what do you want to know first?"
"I think what I really want to know most is why everyone there thought I was a dog."
Twilight frowned but nodded. "Ok well the thing is, without being there to study it I really don't know what the reason could be. You said you weren't actually physically transformed?"
"No, I was definitely still me. It’s just that they couldn't tell I had wings or anything."
Twilight went silent, deep in thought with her hoof cradling her chin. She was still like that a minute later when Rainbow burst out "Hello? Equestria to Twilight! Anyone home?"
"Sorry. I was just thinking, what if instead of transforming you, the transformation was in the eyes and minds of the humans." All she got were blank stares. "It’s more like a really advanced illusion that effected their entire conscience. So instead of just looking like a dog, you also sounded like one to them. If they touched your hoof, their mind would tell them it’s actually a paw. They never saw your wings because their mind just blanked them out thinking a dog couldn't possibly have wings. Any strange behaviour would be forcibly ignored because dogs wouldn't do stuff like that!" She was looking very pleased with herself now. "It’s so simple!" she exclaimed with a little hoof-clap.
Fluttershy didn't look so convinced, the others just looked confused. "I don't know Twilight; an illusion wouldn't make me start thinking like a dog."
"Oh, well its possible tha-."
She was interrupted by Spike. "Actually I might know why that could happen." Twilight pouted slightly at being talked over but motioned for him to continue. "When we went through that mirror to that other world and I became a dog I started doing dog things like scratching myself and liking tickles and dog treats and other stuff like that. Maybe what happened to Fluttershy also affected her mind making her think like a dog."
Twilight raised a hoof. "..." she lowered her hoof again. "Y'know what, that's actually pretty reasonable. Good job Spike." Spike beamed at the compliment.
"But why didn't the animals treat me like another dog?"
"As you of all ponies should know, animals tend to be very perceptive. They could probably tell you weren't an actual animal, but couldn't tell what you really were. So they just kinda ended up staring at you, unable to express themselves.
"Oh. Well I suppose that sort of makes sense.
"So what's next Fluttershy?"
"Um, I would like to know why I couldn't fly."
"Oh, well that's simple enough. Pegasus flight actually requires large amounts of magical energy to work, since, aerodynamically speaking, pegasi wings are too small to provide adequate lift, or any lift really, on their own. Most of this energy comes from the magic that saturates our world. In a world that lacks that kind of freely available magic a Pegasus wouldn't be able to get enough energy to fly."
Rainbow looked disgusted. "Well that would suck!"
Fluttershy just looked at the floor, thinking of all the falls she could have avoided if she had known that small factoid. "Oh yes, it sucked."
"I'm also certain," Twilight continued "that if Rarity or I had gone in your place we wouldn't have been able to use our magic."
"Ugh, perish the thought."
"It may also explain why you couldn't use your hooves very well. We don't really know how we can pick things up with our hooves since they aren't exactly flexible." She tapped a hoof on the floor for emphasis. "Current theory suggests a pony’s ability with her hooves is tied in with their integral magic, so in a place without magic that ability is lost too."
Applejack raised a hoof.
"You don't need to raise your hoof Applejack..."
"Oh...uh, right. So if it were me or Pinkie that went to that world, what'd we lose?"
Twilight thought for a moment. "If I were to hazard a guess you would lose your connection to the land around you, maybe find yourself losing stamina and getting tired easier. That and the hoof thing would be more noticeable since earth pony’s hooves are even more dextrous than unicorn or pegasi hooves."
Pinkie looked horrified. "Does that mean I wouldn't be able to make super yummy cakes and stuff!?"
"I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion but yes, you could still bake stuff, it'd just be a lot harder not being able to pick things up."
"Phew! Well that's a relief. At least now I know I could build myself a pie fort and a yummy arsenal to fight my way out if I found myself in dog-world."
Twilight shook her head. She suspected that if Pinkie ever found herself in Fluttershy's position no-one would ever believe she was anything other than a Pinkie Pie. "Next question Fluttershy?"
Rainbow spoke up instead. "Ooh ooh! Ask her about the time difference thing!"
"Um...ok. Time difference...thing. How was it a week here but five months there?"
"Weeeelllll...the short answer is I don't know. I mean there's nothing saying different dimensions have to work on the same time scale."
"So how much faster than us was it?" asked Rainbow, who seemed to be displaying a strange interest in this.
"Seeing as how it was a week here but five months there, roughly twenty times faster." she answered, giving Rainbow a strange look.
"So if I went there I'd be moving twenty times faster? I'd be Equestria's fastest Pegasus ever!" She looked around at the synchronized face-hoof the others did. "What?"
Applejack was the first to answer her. "Two problems sugarcube. Firstly, ya wouldn't be able t' fly, and secondly I'm pretty sure ya have to actually be in Equestria to be Equestria's fastest Pegasus..."
"That and it wouldn't actually feel any faster from your perspective." Twilight added as she watched Rainbow cultivate a very sheepish grin.
"Well, it was only an idea..."
"Not your best one darling," Rarity said "which is saying a lot. So Fluttershy, what's your next question?"
"The next question I have is-."
"Wait wait wait!" Pinkie shouted over her. "If time was twenty times faster there and we gave her three of our days to escape, how much time did she have in that world?"
"She would have had about two months."
"What!?" shouted Fluttershy. "Two months! I had two whole months! Arrgh!" She headbutted the floor. "No wonder you were surprised to see me so soon."
"Sorry Fluttershy. If I had known I would have said. Anyway you had another question?"
"Yes. I wanted to know why-."
"Wait wait wait!" Pinkie shouted, interrupting again.
"Yes...Pinkie?" Twilight said getting irritated at the amount of interruptions that had occurred in the last ten minutes.
"What if she hadn't made it and we had to wait for that crystally cyni-ini-ini-omature to recharge, how long would she have been stuck there?"
Twilight went quiet for a moment as she did the maths. "Depending on how long the Cynosure took to recharge at one to two months, she could have been there from a year and a half to over three years." Fluttershy just shuddered in response. "But...you know, I'm sure we could have found another method besides that." she added, quickly.
"Boy oh boy Fluttershy! You were lucky you got out as fast as you did. I mean three years stuck as a dog? Wow! You'd have been nuttier than two birds in a peanut eating contest!"
"Still not as nutty as you..." Rainbow muttered under her breath.
"Thank you Pinkie." said Twilight, stopping Pinkie before she could traumatize Fluttershy further with bad analogies. "Your next question Fluttershy."
"Um...why was it so hard to bring me back?"
"Well trans-dimensional portals aren't exactly simple but ok I'll try to explain it. A portal works by taking whatever enters it and turning it into a ball of magical energy. That ball then gets shot on a stream of magic from one end to the other, and re-materializes at the end in a process that takes micro-seconds. Now this stream feeds on magic from one end, taking it to the other, or if your portal works both ways magic enters at both ends and exits at both ends. In a world like ours there is plenty of magic to feed through the portal, but the world you were in lacked that magic so we had to find a way to make the portal and feed a load of magic through it to create a flow of magic coming back." She looked at them while tapping her hooves together. "Does that make sense?"
The others looked to each before replying. "Sure!" "Totally!" "Absolutely." "Yep yep yep!" "Um...a little bit"
Twilight wiped her brow with relief. "That's good because I just simplified it to the point that it was barely even accurate. Anywaaay...any more questions?"
"Yes, just one. I want to know how did I even get to that place?"
Suddenly everypony else looked as awkward as Twilight felt, except for Pinkie who was bouncing on her hooves in total obliviousness of the sudden change in the room.
"Ah, well...you see, the thing is...it may have possibly...been…my fault."
"Oh?" Fluttershy said pleasantly.
"After the whole Tirek thing and we got those new powers from the tree of harmony, I started thinking. What if we all needed to get together at the same place really quick in an emergency? So I started working on a summoning spell that I could use to bring you all to me. I had worked the spell out, or at least I thought I had, and was about to test it but something went wrong..."
"Hold on darling. You didn't mention that bit before. You mean to tell us that you were going to test a new, unused and potentially dangerous spell by summoning us to your castle as we slept?"
"Um...yes?" Twilight replied, with a nervous laugh. She looked around at the cold stares she was receiving. "So I miiight have got a little excited at the idea of testing it that I forgot it would drag you to the castle in the middle of the night."
Fluttershy cleared her throat. "So...you were saying something went wrong."
"Uh...yes. When I cast the spell instead of doing what it was meant to it created a weird ball of energy that in simple terms, stretched the fabric of our dimension until it met the fabric of the other one. It then sort of turned into a portal. I tried to stop it but it kept feeding on my magic so I tried to throw it as far as I could, hoping to break the connection. It did but it seems that the portal picked you up on the way." Twilight wished Fluttershy would stop asking questions now.
"So why me?"
"The spell was attuned to only work on you five which is why it didn't pick anyone else up. It shouldn't have gotten you either but it seems that when I threw it towards the Everfree it was close enough to you to pick you up."
"Ok. Why did it go wrong?"
Twilight cringed before answering. Fluttershy had asked the one thing she really didn’t want her to. "I made a small mistake in the power infusion ratio." She tried to grin but it died under Fluttershy's stare. "I, uh...forgot to carry the two..."
“Those darn two’s should stop being so lazy and learn to carry their own weight!” said Pinkie, full of conviction.
Fluttershy got up and walked over to Twilight before sitting down right in front of her.
"You forgot to carry the two..."
"Uh, yes. That'd be exactly what happened."
"I got sent to a different dimension because you ...forgot to carry the two."
Twilight was almost collapsing under the weight of Fluttershy's silent rage. "Yep..."
"I spent five months eating dog food in a different dimension because you forgot to carry the two."
Twilight barely felt able to squeak a reply. "Uh-huh."
"I'm really sorry about this Twilight."
"Huh?"
Fluttershy swung a right hook that planted Twilight right on the jaw with a crack that made her fly several meters backward and made the others cringe in sympathy.
"Sorry Twilight." Fluttershy said again suddenly looking very small and guilty. Twilight sat up and spat out a tooth.
"'S'ok. I probably deserved that." She rubbed her jaw with a hoof. Damn Fluttershy could throw a mean punch. She was also going to have to look up that tooth growing spell. "I'm sorry Fluttershy."
"No, I'm sorry for hitting you."
“No. I’m sorry for sending you to another dimension.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
"Sorry." "Sorry." they said together before hugging; it wasn’t in the least bit awkward which was odd considering that Twilight was dripping a bit of blood from her muzzle onto Fluttershy’s coat, and looked really tense in her embrace.
“Soooo…” said Rainbow questioningly “How does forgetting a two change a summoning spell into a portal to another dimension?”
Twilight opened and closed her mouth a few times. “I have no idea.” She finally admitted.
Author's Note
Look! Spike contributed!
Anyway, I think I covered most things although I did write this while horribly ill and without any sleep the night before so I might have forgotten something.
Won't be around for a couple of weeks since I'll be busy at work then I'll start work on Alicorn in Wonderland. Watch this space.
Pony meets horse and other randomness
Time was a funny thing. Before her new life as a dog Fluttershy's time was measured out into caring for her animals, various social appointments and occasionally saving the world with her friends.
As a ‘dog’ with no specific need to do anything on a day to day basis she found that time had lost meaning as she often just drifted from one day to the next without doing anything of any worth to anyone, including herself.
As this went on her memories also became fragmented. Whenever she would look back on her days in this place, apart from a few significant events, most of her memories were just a big random jumble. Most of those fragments were not really connected to any particular day or moment, but for some reason, a particular few stuck out as being worthy of remembrance.
Fluttershy and Paul were out in the garden, playing fetch. Normally this would be a perfectly regular activity for a man and his dog, but when that dog is actually a small, fully sentient pony things can be a bit different. For starters she would often sigh and watch the ball as it flew off, she would then look at Paul and occasionally ask,
"If you want the ball so much why do you keep throwing it away?" This would sometimes be followed up with a sullen "You threw it, you go get it."
Paul on the other hand would look at her and say "Get the ball Flossy!" in a far more excited manner than Fluttershy felt it justified. He would then look at her with a confused, almost hurt expression that said 'why aren't you getting the ball? Dogs love balls right?'
Fluttershy would then finally give in and go get the ball to Paul's immense pleasure. This process would then repeat. A lot, to Fluttershy's growing annoyance.
Fluttershy had watched quite a lot of TV in her time here, especially since she had worked out the secrets of the remote, and had grown fond of something called Disney.
In these films she had discovered that the heroines often had animal companions and seemed to have the same ability to communicate with them as she did although they often did it through song.
"Maybe...instead to trying to talk to these people I should try singing?" she said brightly after watching the 'whistle while you work' song from Snow White. What she had possibly failed to realise is that cartoons and reality seldom mix and that her trying to sing to humans was probably not a fool-proof method of communication.
Paul was at work and Janet was off somewhere on some mysterious errand at a place that hadn't been explained very well since people rarely divulged their plans to the family dog. Since she was alone it gave her time to find a song that they might recognise. She would have used one of her old songs but pony songs only really happened on the spur of the moment and annoyingly were often duets leaving her one pony short.
Flicking through the channels she tried to find the perfect song, and eventually found one although she would have to be a bit creative with the lyrics to get her message across. She had made her plan, now all she had to do was wait.
After an hour and thirty seven minutes (in her excitement she had ended up looking at the clock every 10 seconds), Janet finally returned home and was surprised to see Fluttershy waiting by the door. Before she could say anything Fluttershy took a deep breath and started singing.
"Hey hey everybody, I need to shout, that the fact I'm a pony is what this songs about!"
"Flossy." Janet tried to interrupt but Fluttershy continued.
"Yeah, you thought I was a dog, but you’re wrong in every way,"
"Flossy!"
"So now listen up as I explain through song today! I got hooves, not paws. I can open all yours doors, if you look inside my mouth I got a different kind of jaw. If you thought that was different then how about these things, if you look a little closer they are a pair of-"
"FLOSSY!" Janet did not look happy right now.
"Wings?" Fluttershy trailed off dropping to the floor with her ears folded back.
"I know you must be excited to see me but do you really need to howl like that? Honestly, what must the neighbours think?" she said before walking further into the house.
Howling? That's what they heard? She face-hoofed, of course that's all they heard. Dogs made dog noises, what other noises could they possibly make? Well that plan was a bust.
"I like your hair by the way!" she shouted after the retreating Janet. "You could have just said you’re going to the spa."
"Go on Flossy! Get the ball!"
Fluttershy sighed and slowly trotted after the ball. This was ridiculous! She should be throwing the ball for a dog, not reduced to fetching the ball like one. She sat down next to the ball and stared at it. Such a small thing to have such power over both men and dogs, and here she was, neither man nor dog yet forced to bow to the every whim of this sphere of domination.
Maybe she should keep it. Make it hers until such a time that she bend it to her will, make her the thrower and man the fetcher.
"C'mon Flossy! Fetch the ball!"
Or not.
Paul had taken Fluttershy out into the countryside which was a pleasant change of pace for both of them. Fluttershy, because she hadn't been out in the wild in ages and Paul, because he had neglected to tell Janet where he was going and had mysteriously forgotten his mobile. Fluttershy had never seen him smile so much.
So far all had been pleasant enough although the sight of an entire flock of sheep staring at her had unnerved her for some time. That of course might have just been the sheep being sheep but she wasn't about to go find out.
As they walked along eventually they came across a creature that didn't look familiar while somehow it looked far too familiar all at once. It was big and brown with a hairy mane and tail. It also had hooves like hers which probably should have been the biggest clue.
Paul stopped by the creature which was at eye level with him. "C'mon then Flossy, say hello to the horsey."
Horsey? That's a horse? It was at least three times the size of her; even Big Mac would be dwarfed by this giant of a thing! She took a few steps closer to it and looked into its big brown eyes. The look that was returned didn’t exactly display the heights of equine intelligence she was used to dealing with.
"Um, hello there mister horse, sir." She waited expectantly for an answer. Nothing. She walked right up to the fence and stood on her hind legs, resting her fore-legs on the fence. This gave her an unrivalled view of its neck since its head still towered over her.
"Sorry, you might not have heard me down there. I said hello mister horse." She waited again and this time she did get a reaction, although not one she wanted.
The horse whinnied, revealing a set of very large and yellowed teeth, which then clamped down on the top of her mane. She leapt back with a 'yeep!' leaving quite a few strands of hair in its mouth.
"You’re a cannibal!? No wonder I've never seen any other horses around! You’re all eating each other!" The horse just chewed on what hairs it had gotten before sticking its tongue out in an attempt at spitting them out. Meanwhile Paul was just stood there seeming very amused by what was happening.
"It’s not funny Paul! That horse just tried to eat me!" Paul seemed unmoved by her plight so instead she turned her fury to the horse. "You! You do not eat other ponies you monster! If I ever catch you doing that again I'll be sure to tell your mother what you've been up to!"
The horse shook its head at her before finding some grass to nibble on.
"That's right. Grass, not ponies." She tried to wipe some of the slobber off her head with a hoof. "Great, and now I need a bath again. Thank you very much."
Paul started to pull on her lead then prompting her to start moving. She followed him confident in the knowledge she'd rather be a dog, than that.
"Fetch the ball Flossy!"
"I'm going, I'm going!" She said while trotting after the ball. It was strange but she found her resistance to not getting the ball dwindling. Somehow the task of retrieving the ball was becoming something that she was starting to get used to and almost enjoy.
Maybe Paul would enjoy it as well if only he would try it. She picked up the ball in her hoof and looked at it for a moment.
"Hey Paul! Catch!" She threw the ball and watched it sail majestically through the air just to see it descend and neatly smack him between the eyes. "Oh...um, sorry Paul...it was an accident."
Luckily the ball was only a tennis ball and wasn't exactly hard by any definition. All it really did was stun him.
"Uh...good throw, Flossy." he muttered
Fluttershy had a bowl of strawberries. She had found them on the patio table and had quickly claimed them as her own. She hadn't had strawberries for months so finding a bowl full of them was clearly a sign that was universe was starting to forgive her for whatever transgression she had committed to get here.
She was lying on the patio, with the bowl between her legs and was about half-way through them when Janet emerged onto the patio and saw her gorging herself on the little red berries.
"Flossy! Are you...eating my...strawberries? Huh?" clearly struggling to believe what her eyes were trying to tell her.
"Their nof your thwarbewwies, their my thwarbewwies." Fluttersy replied with her mouth full.
"Stop eating them right now!" Janet snapped before bending down to grab the bowl off her. Fluttershy turned away from her, still clutching the bowl and without realizing she was doing it she growled at Janet. It was a pretty feeble growl but Janet seemed to get the idea. Janet backed off before trying to grab the bowl again, which elicited another growl from Fluttershy.
Janet stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do before she took the easy route of deferring the problem and punishment duty to someone else, namely Paul.
"When Paul gets home you’re in big trouble young lady!" she said with a sniff before strutting back into the house.
Fluttershy didn't care. She thought, correctly, that Paul would probably just laugh about it. But even if he did carry out some form of punishment it wouldn't matter to her. Fluttershy had strawberries, that's what was important right then.
"You ready to get the ball?" Paul held the ball above his head and was twitching his arm, pretending to throw it.
"I'm ready! I am so ready! I was born ready!" she replied whilst trotting on the spot. "Throw the ball already!"
Even Fluttershy would have to admit this kind of behavior was far from the norm for her but her time playing fetch was exciting when the rest of her day was often spent lounging around doing nothing. As time went on she now found herself relishing the brief chase, mostly because it was entertaining just to do something. A smaller part of her also enjoyed the simplicity of it, she was the dog, so she fetched! It was so simple it was almost criminal. Another part also realized that all the dog food and late night snacks was giving her a pudge and so she needed the exercise, but that part tended to stay quiet if it knew what was good for it.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon throw the ball!" Paul did so and she chased after it, haring up the garden and into the bushes where the ball had landed. She dove in looking around but was unable to find it. She turned around and around before finally spotting it wedged between the branches of one of the bushes. She headed into the bush and was about to grab the ball when she heard something.
"Fluttershy! Fluttershy can you hear me?"
Fluttershy's ear twitched. That’s not Paul...
"Fluttershy are you there? Can you hear me?
"Twi...Twilight?"
"Hey! I think I heard something that time!" came Pinkies voice from nowhere.
"Pinkie! Where are you?" Fluttershy shouted desperately.
“You sure this things working sugarcube? All ah can hear is a load of fuzzy sounding noise.”
“Applejack! I’m here! Please listen to me!”
"Ugh, your right, I still don't think she can hear us and even if she can we can’t hear her. We still need a way to boost the power further without destabilizing the portal; Spike, take down a not-."
"Twilight! Twilight! I can hear you! Please! Please don't...go..." She was in tears now as her friends voices faded.
Was...Was that even real? Or am I losing my mind? Both possibilities presented her with confusion and worry. She sat there for a while unmoving as her brain failed to comprehend just what had happened. Eventually the sound of Pauls voice broke through the fog clouding her thoughts.
"C'mon Flossy! What’s taking so long?" Without really thinking she picked up the ball in her mouth and carried it to Paul, dropping it at his feet before she trotted on into the house.
She really didn't want to play right now.
Author's Note
If this makes sense I'm clearly not doing my job right.
Anyway onto the penultimate chapter. (Not including the epilogue)
