Clock Is Ticking

Deception came naturally to Fluttershy.

It wasn't that she was a good liar. If cornered, she would tell the truth almost every time. That was less stressful than trying to think of something convincing on the fly. Besides, she couldn't have ponies finding out how untrustworthy she was.

It was more that she was practiced in stealth. Trickery. Manipulation. All the instruments of passive warfare which she had been honing over years of playing the introvert.

So when Twilight came calling one bright day, asking for a pile of leaves, Fluttershy knew how to shut her down.

"Oh, Twilight, you know I'd love to help you, but my poor baby rattlesnakes need those leaves to eat."

"Eat? Since when do rattlesnakes eat leaves?"

"Since I talked them out of eating mice! Poor Professor Cheesington was nearly eviscerated a few weeks ago when one of them 'broke veg' and tried to plant his fangs in the Professor's stomach. And that would have been horrible, because Jakob is a world-renowned scholar!"

"Wow, this mouse is a famous scholar? What does he study?"

"Cats."

It was thus that the greedy, ungrateful Twilight Sparkevil was turned away from gracelessly seizing Fluttershy's treasured horde of leaves--that was what Fluttershy told herself.

After all, what kind of liar doesn't even believe her own lies? The kind that gets caught, that's who.

And Fluttershy would not be caught.