20 minutes later

20 minutes later

"Go on."

Being naturally observant, Twilight continues to write down additional details on a notepad levitated via magic, commenting as she dots the end. "I don't want to speculate, but this is all kinda..out there." She reiterates her statement, a hint of disbelief leaks in her tone. "You make it sound like you died." She looks up from her notepad, subtly analyzing Daniel while he's slumped back leaned against one of the book walls as he continues to recall some more vivid memories for her to write down.

Daniel grimly reminds himself 'Tell her things that led up to it, not everything that happened, stupid..' as he tries to skirt away from personal memories, having shared some with Twilight inadvertently.

He adds to her grim insight, "In construction, we work with rebar frames for concrete supports. You know what that is?" Twilight assuredly nods, he continues. "..well I fell on that. And I think I—" Balling pressure resumes in his stomach. 'Ugh..' He's feeling that same way he felt before, guilt and dread, he can recognize the emotions now. "..I hope you realize what I'm saying Twilight, because it's really hard to fu—" He stops and tries to correct his vulgar language. "—look, it's just really hard say it." He shows visual signs of discomfort, closing his mouth and softly grasping his upper stomach, slowly reverting back into a hostile tone she recognizes.

'You acted the same way when I told you to remember last time..' Twilight's mentality shifts, trying to be more sympathetic as he starts to get hostile. "You don't have to say it Dan.. I think I know what you're trying to say." A quick glance at her notes, she can't help but say in disbelief, "I just can't understand the end of it." She re-reads the excerpt with his spiral into depression and the apparent suicide that followed after, trying to think back and piece together any form of explanation as to why he's here if that's the case. "It just doesn't make any sense, logically, or magically. You're not..well, you're here physically. " Placing her notepad on the table beside a wooden horse head bust, she gives up trying to think of an explanation all at once, giving a tired sigh as she makes in indecision.

"..I need to talk with professionals about this, especially Luna when I get the chance tomorrow. She knows more than me on dreams, or.. memories. I don't know what to call all this. I may even need some further guidance with this, but right now I just want you t—"

Twilight's interrupted by a young male voice, calling out from the door frame adjacent to her. A short purple and green decaled dragon walks in with a serving tray grasped in his claws, holding two coffee mugs on top up to Twilight, enthusiastically calling aloud despite her close proximity.

"Coffee's done!" He looks accomplished and proud. Not wanting to disappoint her eager young assistant, Twilight grasps both coffee mugs carefully via her magic and levitates one over to Daniel as he cautiously grasps the handle and blows on the light steam hovering above the hot liquid. He thinks 'Hmm. ' as he takes a sip, detecting traces of Hazelnut mixed inside, a sense of deja 'vu washes over him. As eager as Spike may be, Twilight catches a discrepancy as he takes off his pink apron, strews it upon a wall hook and leans with Daniel against the book wall, mimicking his laidback pose. She asks Spike something, her tone shifting as she comes to a conclusion.

"Spike, aren't you supposed to be in bed? It's late." She pulls the hot coffee mug away from her lips as she's about to take a careful sip, Spike can recognize the expression, Daniel looks away nervously to avoid her dark lavender eyes as Spike looks confused in response to her question. Focusing more on his own gesture, he blurts out an excuse while passively pointing a finger towards Daniel.

"But Danny said yeah to some, so I kinda figured I could.." He stops his explanation as Twilight raises an eyebrow towards Daniel instead, waiting for him to reply, knowing it's not possible for him to ignore a conversation literally beside him.

"..Dan." Her more serious sides shows, Daniel looks minimally meek, quietly muttering out his own excuse as he takes another sip of the hazelnut flavored coffee.

"Well, he offered.."

Twilight silently grumbles, placing her coffee mug upon the table beside the horse head statue, suggesting to Spike in a comparatively less negative tone. "Spike, I think maybe you should head to bed. I appreciate it and I'm sure Dan appreciates it too, but it's really late for you to be up."

Daniel momentarily thinks 'It's like 10 'o clock Miss Stickler..' as Spike audibly grumbles and walks up the stairs, defeated by Twilight's light persuasion, heading off to bed as she takes a grasp at her coffee cup with her magic again with an audible sigh. She continues her train of thought, taking a quick sip of coffee as she asks Daniel,

"Dan." She catches his attention, continuing. "Do you have anything else you'd like to share?" Her notepad levitates beside her, as does a quill; a notable example of her ability to multitask seamlessly. He ponders for a moment, bustling aching feelings start to erupt in his stomach as he worms the words out of his head.

"..yeah, I do. It's about Fluttershy." The dread aches, turning him visibly uncomfortable. "Kind of a weird thing." Twilight listens curiously, Daniel continues with an odd sounding statement to say out of context. "She may have drugged me a little."

"..define a little.." Twilight looks in disbelief, moreover bordering to confused at his odd statement, reiterating her reasonable request. "..did you say 'drugged'?"

Daniel's thoughts flood with regret, repeatedly telling himself 'I probably should have started with that first..' as he reluctantly answers her. "Yeah..with bear anesthetics."

"She did what??" She yelps as she places her coffee mug suddenly on the table beside the horse head statue, spilling a little over the edge, though she doesn't seem to care about that in particular. "She did..what—Why? Why did she do that??" Daniel suddenly feels a tug to his shirt, spilling a bit of the coffee from his mug onto the floor as he's suddenly yanked towards the ground.

"Wha—Hey!" Daniel yelps as he's forced onto one knee, Twilight orders him directly.

"Tell me how you are." He looks confused. "Do you feel anything in your stomach? Do you feel drowsy? Do you feel fatigued? Do you feel sick? Do you feel—" She's interrupted by Daniel, caught off-guard by her sudden decision to bring him down to her level yet again.

"I feel like I'm being interrogated.." He's not sure how to respond met with an over analytical Twilight other than badly-timed sarcasm as she analyzes and questions him repeatedly with her sporadic dark lavender eyes, concerned for his immediate health and condition. She orders him to do something again as she suddenly pulls him closer, face-to-face.

"Open your mouth." After a moment of reluctance, he does and his shirt is yanked backwards suddenly and she momentarily chokes him as she pulls her head away.

"Augh—Blech!" Offended by his mouth odor, she pulls away as her magic yanks him the opposite direction, forcing him onto his back with an audible thump. She yelps, huffing air out of her nostrils. "Wha—Something's wrong with you!—Ugh!"

Daniel puts his two cents into her insulting theory, breath having escaped his lungs just as soon as the coffee spilled onto the floor. He says quietly to her with the last gasp of breath in his lungs as she lets go of his shirt. "I just drank coffee, of course it smells bad you fucki—" He takes in a deep breath of air, relieved from the grip of her magic snare shutting off his throat, quickly deciding not to finish his redundant line of thinking. After a quick cough, he quickly recovers as he gets back onto one knee as Twilight seemingly recovers as well. Trying to calm her down, with an irrational fear she'll forcibly strap him down to a table in her current state, he says "Jesus, calm down! That was yesterday, I'm fine!" He readjusts his shirt, she seems to have stretched it out a little, her magic surprisingly strong when she puts her mind to it.

"Ugh..I'll see about that.." She shakes her head, readjusting her state of mind as she got momentarily dazed, grasping onto his head with her magic and walking to him instead. She comments aloud as she analyzes him, "Well you don't look sick.. not flushed other than—"

She suddenly realizes what she did as Daniel rubs his neck, she follows up with a small apology as she continues to analyze him silently. "Er..sorry Dan, I just want to—" She's interrupted, it's surprising. It doesn't sound angry, it sounds sympathetic. Daniel finishes Twilight's initial sentence, the tone is familiar somehow.

"You just want to help, don't you?" His tone sounds about as serious as her own. "Twilight." He affirmatively grabs her attention. "Seriously. Calm down."

She sighs, letting go of his head and dropping her hooves to the ground, encouraging him to explain further. "Alright, alright. Just.. explain it to me in detail." He duly does, sitting calmly with her on the floor as she seemingly takes a rag out of nowhere via magic and begins wiping a small puddle of coffee splattered along the wood floor.

"..well, I was just sitting in my house for the day, I had nothing to do and nowhere to really go, so I was just lounging around trying to stay awake. I got up to get a snack that Pinkie stashed in my fridge, then I heard a knock at the door. It was Fluttershy and she was.. sorta eager to let herself in."

She finds his choice of words peculiar, but silently lets him continue without referring back to it.

"She suggested making some tea, I said 'sure' and she went to go make some. It felt.. odd." He looks toward Twilight, stretching his arm which makes a small pop noise as his joint briefly stretches, continuing his explanation. "I told her I didn't have any tea mix, I definitely don't have teabags, I figured she'd let it go by then but she said she brought some anyway in her saddlebags. I don't find the gesture odd, I find that she was prepared for if I didn't have any, that's what threw me off a little. But I didn't think much of it, she's.. a very caring pony, you know."

'Maybe she has some drugs in there too..I don't know how many backups she might have had, but she said she meant well..' He dismisses his miscellaneous thoughts and reminds himself about the initial question, immediately diverting back to the subject.

"I told her she simply didn't need to care for me as much, so I said to relax and I turned off the stove before she could make some. I went back to my chair and ate some of the chips, I offered one to her and she ate one. I noticed it was getting late, the storm was moving in from the distance and fog rolled in blanketing the entire outside of my house, I figured since she's afraid of the dark and thunder that she'd want to head home by then." Daniel feels the back of his neck, a strange feeling creeping behind him as he recalls the odd experience. "..she gave some valid excuses, her at-home pets weren't home and it was too cold and late to go out without something to cover her, I don't own a jacket or umbrella. I don't remember which one of us suggested we should head to bed and—"

Twilight decides to interrupt his explanation at that precise part, placing her rag aside.

"..did you say we? " Daniel simply nods in confirmation, passively placing his hands behind his head, an odd sight for Twilight as she addresses it from an outside view. "..so you two slept together?"

'Oh sweet Celestia please tell me they didn't..ugh..' She inexplicably, at least to Daniel, clasps both her front hooves to her forehead and shakes her head for a moment, asking the more-than-oddly-timed question to his perception. 'He always makes it sound like everypony's on estrus..' The thought is concerning, enough for her to immediately divert.

"Just.. continue, please." She shuts out her initial assumptions and lets him continue his weirdly worded recollection, himself still seemingly puzzled by her initial response to the implications he's unaware she's making. Regardless, Daniel seems to take the cue and continue his explanation, Twilight assuming he'll get to the key point soon enough.

"..alright then. She suggested we head to bed, she just bit onto the chip bag and whisked it away before I could answer.. I don't remember what I was thinking after that." Daniel hangs his head a little lower as he explains the rest, or at least the tidbits afterward. "I went unconscious, that headache.. thing happened and I fell over according to Fluttershy. I didn't have nightmares, surprisingly. I just woke up with a sore neck a few hours later, when I tried to get up I collapsed to one knee and..well, she just came to the doorway and helped me up. Long story short, she offered to pour me a glass of cranberry juice, I guess she just assumed I had some. She came and I drank some, at that point I started to..head to sleep. I couldn't stay awake after drinking it and I dreamt what I just told you, that Princess Luna made me come to terms with..all that. My problems should be over now." He decides to be honest with her, having gone to her for this exact reason, he seemingly starts to plead with her.

" But I keep having some hallucinations, whenever I get tired or disoriented. It's gotten worse, but in a weirder way. It's not happening just when I go to sleep anymore, it's.. different? It sometimes happens when I'm awake.. or start to doze off." Daniel feels the back of his neck, explaining what happened prior to coming to the library. "You might not like it, but once I woke up, I left to visit Pinkie. We went for a date.." He's met with an odd look from Twilight. He attempts to justify it minimally with a simple valid excuse, this being his first time using the word date as he recalls back to events prior. "..look, I haven't seen her in days, I didn't have any sleep then so I didn't have time before. Besides.. I promised her I'd take her out again."

Twilight calmly sighs, matching his similar expressive tone and attempts to level alongside it. "Dan, I understand why you did it. And I'm sure Pinkie appreciates it coming from you, you mean a lot to her.. I just wish you came to me first once that happened." She raises one eyebrow, furrowing them as he meets with them. "You have a problem we're studying that messes with your perception, which made you hurt yourself before." She sits up straight and raises one of her forelegs, making a gesture he doesn't quite recognize. "Now, if you have something to say, then you should say it instead of acting on impulse."

Those words emanate a little closer to home than he likes, the balling feeling in his stomach resumes it's aching routine, only this time he knows why as he drops his head low; he's reminded of the incident, reluctantly addressing Twilight to it.

"..Twilight." He shuffles a little on the floor, placing one leg up in preparation to her probable response. "You're really not gonna like what I have to say then."

'She's gonna fucking hate me for this..just full on hate.' Accepting the most likely outcome and the inevitable physical consequence, he quietly breathes outward and mouths off the few beginning words.

"Twilight." She looks at him curiously, noting his uncomfortable gestures and body language as he shuffles his foot onto the ground as if he's going to stand.

'..fuck me.. I'm dead anyway. It's now or never.' His mind can't help but take that little bit of grim humor and irony as encouragement, he continues his candid confession looking clear towards her lavender eyes.

"..Twilight, when I woke up and panicked afterward, I—"

His sentence is interrupted by a light sound across the room, clearly audible through the aged-wood front door of the library.

Creak

"Huh?" Twilight words a quiet noise, confused by the sudden sound seemingly coming from her front porch as she leans to her right past Daniel in the way of her view towards it, her front door slowly creaks open centimeter-by-centimeter as a tidbit of information suddenly occurs to her.

"... I thought I closed that doo—"

They both spot something they didn't expect, slowly shambling through the doorway, unnaturally laden with a mis-step.

"Fluttershy?"

Twilight stands up from her previous sitting position and takes a step forward beside Daniel, confused by the sudden arrival but otherwise curious about her. "Oh, what are you doing here? It's a little.." Twilight stops her sentence when she spots Fluttershy simply walking in without taking notice to her or Daniel, seemingly taking careful and shaken steps inside towards the middle of the room, her expression looks perceivably blank; it's something Twilight recognizes, she's afraid.

"..Fluttershy." Twilight slowly walks over to her scared friend, stepping in front of her to take a closer look and grab her attention, something else catches her eye however. "Wha—" Twilight's eyes widen as she gently puts her hoof to Fluttershy's chin and lifts it upward, seeing light streaks of red across her cheek and the side of her head, small cuts and splices along her yellow coat; trickles of blood still lightly flowing from the seemingly fresh cuts above the large green scarf she has loosely wrapped around her neck. "My go—Dan, she's hurt!" The brief alert catches his attention and he immediately reacts, propping himself up by his already prepared knee and quickly walking towards them. Fluttershy reacts to his name as Twilight gently examines the side of her head, her eyes slowly looking upward at the concerned figure kneeling down beside Twilight, simultaneously examining as well. Twilight's tone sounds reasonably concerned, using her magic to brush away Fluttershy's mane for any other visible injuries as she questions what happened.

"Fluttershy, what happened?? Where'd you get all these cuts?" She doesn't seem to take any heed to her questions, her eyes fixated to Daniel's as he awkwardly tries to pat her head with one of the rags from earlier, her thoughts running with conflicting viewpoints and thoughts as Twilight constantly asks her questions and Daniel silently pats the blood away.

'...Dan—' The thoughts are interrupted by an aching feeling in her head, a clear and broad headache that seemingly cripples her as she closes her eyes and slowly loses her balance, her legs buckling as a result. Propped up consequently by Twilight and Daniel's physical support once they see her start to fall, she remains upward and stable enough to recover from her would-be fall, at least for the moment as the feeling painfully dulls.

"Fluttershy!" Twilight attempts to grab her attention forcibly, tilting her head slightly to the left careful to avoid further injury to face her, her eyes still fixated and paying complete heed to him instead. "Come on, answer me.." She notices the attention she's giving to Daniel and wisely suggests an alternative to her own efforts. "Dan.. ask her what's wrong, she won't listen to me.. "

Daniel duly listens to the authority figure beside him and tilts her head back toward him, her legs still shaking seemingly in fear, he addresses the most important bit he got interrupted from.

".. Twilight, before I do, I should show you something." Ill-timed but deemed necessary, Daniel removes the green scarf and lightly tugs, both are surprised as more tiny shards of glass show themselves imbedded in the folds. He takes a deep breath and makes one last tug, revealing the familiar show of purple and dark discoloration of neck, hearing Twilight lightly gasp in response to the sight.

'..why would you..' The thought flutters in Twilights mind for a moment, the initial response he was expecting doesn't come, overlapped by the present injuries her friend has undergone seemingly recently.

"..sweet Celestia.. " Twilight examines her neck, about to quickly ask what he knows, interrupted immediately before she could mutter the first word.

"Twilight, I did this." He attempts to be more specific with his ill-timing, lightly pointing along her head and the small cuts across the side of her face. "Not these, I didn't do this.. When I woke up before, I panicked and I.." He ignores the strong feeling, seemingly tearing his organs apart. ".. I choked her when I saw that abomination, to me it was clear as day..I only realized I was hallucinating after I did this to her.."

Fittingly, Twilight looks utterly confused at these large bursts of information with conflicting circumstances, between her cuts and bleeding paired with the bruising around her neck, it all seems like too much. Daniel continues his on-going explanation, focusing back to their unusually silent and currently injured friend beside them.

".. but I didn't hurt her like this." He puts his hand by her other cheek, coaxing her to look towards him, it works for a moment as he begins to ask her a golden question. "Fluttershy. What happened? Why are you bleeding?" Her lip trembles as her eyes lower, her lips lightly ajar as her cheek muscles begin to flinch. She looks like she's about to cry, light traces of tears gathering by her eyelids as a clear sign, Daniel tries to stem the tide and calm her by pleading with her again.

"Fluttershy, please, tell us what happened.." He sees the tears start to flow, his own insides start to ache at the sight, the combination of injuries beginning to overwhelm his own capability to stay calm. 'Answer me, damn it..' His audible and non-audible request comes through finally, Fluttershy closing her eyes and quietly sobbing, bits of tears mixing in with the still present cuts; she stutters her distressing information, afraid it'll come again.

"I-I.."

Her breath grows shallow and more rapid, her heart rate increasing as the unbecoming figure starts to obscure Daniel's face, she lightly gasps as it's eyes sink and warp into a flatter yet gross mass of beige-colored flesh. "H-Hauh!" She attempts to pull away from him, consequently falling backwards along her rump, Twilight and Daniel kneeling down to her level as he himself questions what's wrong. Fluttershy suddenly blurts out aloud, prompted by the visual and audible horror that an abomination starts terrorizing her with as she tries to speak. "E-Ehh.." It's varied pitched voice overlaps her own, forcing her to listen as the other two remain oblivious to her current condition, the abomination grossly mimicking Daniel.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She shudders at the voice, the disturbing pitch subtly gargling. She repeatedly reminding herself of the truth, attempting to keep it as a constant, fueled by fear of the latter. '..that's not you..t-that's not you..' She starts to silently sob, an outside view showing her bundled up in a semi-fetal position crying on Twilight's floor as they both try to coax her out of her inner display of visual and audio horror. It repeats another overly familiar line, one that stems deeply as a promise.

"I didn't mean to hurt you.." She hears it's moist flesh rotate and ungulate as she keeps her eyes closed shut, pleading repeatedly and desperately against it, silently mumbling. 'S-Stop it..please stop..' It mimics Daniel again with another disturbing line.

"..I didn't mean it."

She suddenly feels herself get lifted, not violently, a more calming voice drowning out the audibly disturbing other.

"It's okay.. it's okay.." Petting the un-injured part of her face, he attempts to calm her given no other option than to move her somewhere more comfortable, following Twilight's otherwise silent suggestions.

Daniel lightly grips her back and her lower body with his arms, steadily lifting her up as she seemingly just sobs, Twilight directing him over to her own bed. The more calming voices sound distinctly different, though muffled like in water, the paranoia slowly starting to fade as she's placed onto Twilight's bed. Daniel keeps patting the side of her head to soak up the trickles of blood, light traces still present though otherwise clean, Fluttershy still being generally unresponsive to their requests and questions other than Daniel's physical gestures.

"I'll get her.. something, I think I have some first-aid downstairs." Twilight shakes her head at the lingering worry and attempts to shut it out, quickly trotting off downstairs silently, being careful not to wake Spike and distress him as well to the situation at hand. The thought lingers still, despite her efforts as she rummages through one of the cabinets beside a bookshelf, levitating aside several parcels and bundles of miscellaneous items and clutter in search for first-aid. 'I can't believe he.. no. No, focus darn it!' She shuts out her instinctual worry and focuses on Fluttershy's need instead, continuing to search for first aid.

Prompted by the now silenced abomination, Fluttershy quietly mutters something she tried to say earlier.

"I.." She starts to feel dizzy, the familiar pressure clamping down again subtly but surely, attempting to make her listen again as the abomination resumes it's audio torture with her eyes still closed. Daniel tries to coax her to say it, but she's otherwise preoccupied with the discomforting voice repeating a trigger phrase that makes her skin crawl.

"I should be fine now.." It sounds less varied, still distorted, but not in a pitch, the old phrase it's said sounds quieter.

She decides to open her eyes to inspect her immediate surroundings and sees Daniel staring right back down to her, in response to her looking back up, he's seemingly mouthing off something else her mind can't piece together; he's pleading but she can't understand what it is coherently. The muffled sound eventually starts to die down as the headache does in turn, she catches a small part of his plead.

"Come on Flutters.. speak to me." He still sounds muffled, but she can understand the words, the fact he's trying still warms her a little. Encouraged by his apparent support and use of her more at-heart nickname, along with seeing Twilight slowly approach with what she assumes to be a bundle of gauze, Fluttershy attempts to mutter the thing she tried saying earlier as she feels a slight stinging sensation along the side of her face.

"D-Danny.." She silently mutters, minimally flinching at the stinging sensation, Twilight cautiously and meticulously pouring alcohol onto a piece of gauze and lightly dabbing it on the open cuts to prevent infection. She grabs their attention, Twilight holding back the medical application to listen to shift focus to her words. Fluttershy wiggles her body a little, settling into a less awkwardly lain position, her head along the top of Daniel's lap instead of Twilight's pillow.

".. I.. I saw it.. " She hears Twilight mumble something, incoherent for the majority other than her being able to catch the words 'thing' and 'help', neither sound comforting. Daniel asks something else, the result being clearer but otherwise still muffled due to the dulled senses.

"What?" He appears in disbelief, unwilling to accept it, but still inquires about it with another question. "Did.. did it hurt you?" Fluttershy chooses just to settle her head into his lap in response to the question, feeling comfortable and overall safe despite her current and prior alarming injuries, expressing a mild surprise as she feels Daniel's hand brush along the side of her head away from her cuts. Daniel tries to coax more out of her, simultaneously seeing the need that Twilight's currently conveying, he continues to pet her lightly to keep her calm and open as he pleads something else related.

"Just stay still Flutters.. this is going to sting a little." And sting it does as Twilight applies some of the last dabs of alcohol, surprisingly ending fast as Fluttershy feels a light assortment of gauze be taped to the side of her head, presumably as a counter measure to the open cuts. Daniel asks the question once more, reiterated in a more specific form. "How'd you get hurt?..please think hard, Flutters."

In response, she simply nuzzles her nose into his thigh and settles in, comforted by the warmth compared to the cold outside she stumbled through for the past half an hour to get here. She shivers at the thought, but tries to recollect what happened prior to her arrival and during her scare. It's not hard for her to remember, the worrying, the fear, the fleeing, the pain.

"M-Mmmnn.." Her eyebrows furrow as she gets a little uncomfortable at the thought, otherwise comforted by the warm hand repeatedly stroking her head. Taking a few rapid breathes, she opens her eyes slightly and begins to explain her experience, piecing together tidbits herself. "I.. I was waiting for you.." Daniel stays quiet, silently acknowledging her statement. "..I waited for hours.." She nuzzles herself into his thigh again, laying her neck just over with her muzzle between his legs and beside his knees; an otherwise comforting display if it wasn't for the situation at the moment. She continues, her tone getting notably more displaced. "..I did some things around your house..to spend some time with.." She redacts her statement, her debilitating condition not holding back her embarrassment and light blush across her cheeks. ".. I did some things while I waited for you.. it was.. dark.."

She retracts her forelegs in slight discomfort, quickly shuffling them back into place once she's ready to speak again with her eyes still shut, in reality it's taking more than a minute between responses and continuations to Daniel and Twilight.

"..I kept wondering where you were.. where you went..y-you.." She starts to tear up again, Twilight takes notice and hands over a piece of sterile gauze to Daniel to wipe herself for her. It seems to encourage Fluttershy to respond faster as he wipes away the trickles of tears, gathering by her blue and green tinted eyes. "..y-you told me you were going to visit P-Pinkie.." She takes a small amount of initiative and wipes a tear gathering on her right eyes against his pants leg, he doesn't seem to take heed. "I didn't want to make you think I just left you.. I kept wanting you to walk through the door.. I heard something and I went to check. I didn't find you, so I came back inside.." She nuzzles her nose into his leg repeatedly, her voice sounding weaker and saddened to admit it. "..I'm so sorry.. I was just so tired, and—"

Her ill-fueled apology is interrupted by a tender feeling atop her head, Daniel running his fingers to the back of one of her ears, both them and her tail flicking and twitching to their natural bodily response.

"M-Mmmnn..~" Tilting her head to the side, she comfortably settles with the encroaching hand cupping her head lovingly, supporting it along his leg. Daniel quietly says to her, trying to calm her, her still being in an odd displaced sense of responsibility.

"It's okay Flutters, just.. please continue." He withholds his hand and she duly continues, after a brief moment of confusion to the lack of feeling it had brought. Her ears lower into a sort of submissive position, to Twilight's very subtle bemusement as the actions unfold, however effective as they seem to be.

"..I.. I went to lie down in your chair to just wait.. I started falling asleep, it was nice..~" Fluttershy keeps her eyes closed and gives a small smile, turning into a frown as she continues. "I.. I saw someone.. outside.." She begins to shiver again at the thought, the recollection of the figure. "..I .. I t-thought it was you.. " Her limbs bundle up again, the mere thought discouraging her from remembering, the encouragement prior forcing her to share the rest. ".. it wasn't you.. " She lets out a rapid breath, a small cry in fear. " H-Hauh.. it kept looking at me.. it broke through your window a-and came in.." Fluttershy starts to tear up again, the memory distressing her as she recalls it's face. ".. kept looking at me.. but it couldn't.. it .. it shouldn't be able to.."

Twilight looks to Daniel, worrying about this thing Fluttershy is describing, whether it relates to him or not; it's clear in her mind that it represents itself as a threat. Just as Twilight's about to request for Daniel to carry her off to somewhere more safe, Fluttershy interrupts her as soon as she starts her first syllable, grossly remembering something else.

"I.. I ran.. I ran when it kept looking at me.. it kept making such terrible noises..saying terrible t-things.. " She lightly brushes her injured cheek against Daniel's leg, now covered by some medical gauze to prevent as much pain, inducing more pressure rather than strain. ".. I ran into and fell over the chair, and everything went black all of a sudden.." Her limbs lightly shiver, bundling up despite her supposed safety with Twilight and Daniel. "I opened my eyes and I was still scared, so I.. " She pauses for a moment, vaguely remembering the event wrongly, trying to piece it back correctly. "I.. I.."

Fluttershy shuffles in place and speaks clearly aloud, feeling the gauze bandage as she comes to a sudden revelation.

".. I.. I leapt off the chair and I.. jumped through the window.. and I ran.. "

Twilight seems confused at this piece of information, asking for her to specify.

"..Fluttershy, please explain that, because you said it broke the window. Did you jump through a different one?" Fluttershy simply shakes her head, seemingly ignoring Twilight's question, continuing her recollection.

"..that window was broken, I know it was but.." She puts her hoof to her cheek and feels the texture, grainy and a little rough on the outside. ".. I still leapt through it and it shattered.." She starts frantically shaking her head, clasping her hooves to the top of her short mane, refusing to believe it wasn't real with how vivid it was and has been still. "No, n-no I saw it! It broke through and.. and.."

Twilight places her hoof on her head softly, calmly whispering to her worried and seemingly sporadic friend. "Fluttershy, it's okay. You're here now, we'll.. we'll go check for it if we can." Twilight glances over towards Daniel, who seemingly silently agrees with her plan, assuming she'll gather all the others for some sort of search party. "Dan, if you want to watch over her.."

He waves his hand, again silently accepting Twilight's plan as he starts to pet Fluttershy's ears again, addressing her frantic behavior. "Fluttershy, it's okay.. I'm here."

She feels a little at ease with the encouragement, willing to open her eyes a little to look at them both. She spots Twilight first, who nervously smiles as a show of care, Fluttershy gently rolls onto her back and looks upward towards Daniel to see the likely similar expression. She's mortified when she hears him speak, addressing her with a large mass of flesh undulating and amassing across his face, the visible features beyond sunken eyes have no distinction or definition; his face is blank and overridden by pulsating muscle beneath the blank skin.

"You'll be alright.."

Fear strikes into her heart, the sudden scare forces her limbs into action and she kicks upward with one of her hind legs as she shrilly screams, the mass of force hitting Daniel square in his face and forcing him off the bed onto the floor beside Twilight, writhing below with his hands cupped around his face; he yells an expletive of some kind, muffled by his hands and the shock of pain emanating throughout his face.

"AGH..!! Fuck..!!" He releases his cupped hands and sits up with help from Twilight, still dazed from the initial blow as Fluttershy's vision starts to clear from the utter blur it was when she looked at him. She sees something else mortifying. Something else she doesn't want to see. Something else, crimson red and strewn across the floor. Daniel looks towards his hand and sees traces of blood, he moves his hand to his upper lip and feels warm liquid slowly flowing downward, his sense otherwise momentarily dulled from the impact.

She broke his nose.

She doesn't want to believe it, she doesn't want to see it, simply mumbling repeatedly to herself at the sight.

"No.. n-no.."

Author's Note

Well this thing has been delayed to heck.

Enough that I've had to re-read the past few chapters to get briefed. That is ridiculous, I know!

A side note: After re-reading some of the past chapters, I have to say that the chapter 'Time to Appease' is REALLY suggestive. Enough to the point (and at a certain point in THIS chapter), in recollection, that I had to add the 'Sex' tag to the story. I had honestly forgotten how suggestive I had written it. :p

This story is still on hiatus, but I will have to go back-and-forth with this and 'FTL: Operation Restoration' when I'm not working on one or the other. I have to finish this!

THANK YOU to all the people who have read thus far, especially anyone who has stuck especially THIS far into the story.

Please provide positive AND negative feedback in the comments below. Whether I get a like or dislike, I'd like to know as to why! :) I like the feedback, albeit this has been delayed for a long while.

Edit: Almost forgot the end picture, it's been a while. I'm awfully fixated on pony-petting in this story, it's kind of a keypoint, so naturally I like anything related to such. A good visual of said petting is this, albeit Daniel does not pet a pony's back, myself having this odd headcanon as that being too personal of a spot unless they're okay with it. Much like petting ears!

https://derpibooru.org/649701?scope=scpe1062ec6bbe019523408a342881a08a005b8fba35