"Erngh....Ugh...eeeeengh...oooooooOOOOOOOH...GAAAAAH!"
The sounds of labored grunting rang out loudly through the otherwise quiet air of the forest. It echoed for several feet both around and upwards to the sky; birds flinched in the middle of their flapping. Squirrels and Rabbits and even three ferrets all stopped what they were doing immediately to look in the direction of the grunts. Their faces held unnaturally exaggerated looks of confusion, although anypony might after hearing anything that sounded that suggestive.
The sounds were not at all made for the reason you might think though. No, this repitive sound was the product of one single pegasus trying to tug a heavy body with her mouth, and making minimal progress at it. The pony had to constantly over work her leg and neck muscles to get her luggage moving for even an inch, often making her resort to the use of her powerful wings at time. Her far too adorable blue eyes were shut rightly with each grunt and groan she voiced. But eventually her hard work finally paid off; she pulled the mysterious mass into her house and then all the way towards her beige couch. She caught sight of Angel Bunny staring at her from the side, chewed up food visible in his dropped jaw.
"Don't e-eat...eeeeeeeergfffh...with your m-mouth ooooooooooooFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!...*WHEEEZE*..." The Pegasus let go of the tasteless leather piece in her mouth and twisted her neck to relieve it of the pain. It didn't work of course, but it did make a few sizeable cracking sounds. "Don't eat with your mouth open like that Angel. It's impolite."
With that, she reached down and grabbed the clothing her mouth again to drag the strange body the rest of the way over to the couch. It took a good eight minutes to perfectly nudge the body onto her couch and a few more minutes to position it to where it wouldn't fall off abruptly. Finally, the mare sat down on her haunches and drooped her head to catch a breath. Or two. Or three hundred.
She reminded herself that today was Tuesday, one of the worst days of her week because of the sole fact that anything as well as everything happened to her. Bad luck pranced around her during the whole day, throwing territorial bears or quick-mouth cheapskates or food shortages or money shortages at her with a laugh. Fluttershy knew how sadistic Tuesdays could be: it would soothe her with a perfect morning unlike other mornings and she'd eventually trick herself into thinking that today would different from other Tuesdays.
Just before paint was accidentally knocked into her hair by Derpy.
Just before being vomited on after thinking a hug would cure Starlight of her tummy aches.
Just before catching Rarity in a 'try on these four hundred dresses pretty please' mood.
Today she got to drag in the body of some foreign creature that appeared in a puff of fire and smoke. It definitely wasn't a pony or any creature she'd heard of, but it did hold some resemblance to the description Twilight once gave regarding humans. It had two arms and two legs without the usual coat of a pony, just strange clothing to cover it up. It had on a leather trenchcoat over a thick black vest as tough as metal and above pitch black pants. Funny; hardly anypony wore pants...or clothes with human skulls painted on them for that matter.
"...O-Oh my..." She took notice of the human's face and how many bruises it had with shock. Both of his eyes had ghastly purple circles around them, his nose was a bit more than just broken and his left cheek had a huge gash on it. She made wet coughing sounds at the oozing blood there, but managed not to throw up. "He's hurt Angel...I-If it's a 'he'. I need to clean up that wound."
A light bulb could have shined above her head in that moment; she had a new supply of towels she could use to clean up the blood and possibly something to close up the cut. She trotted off and walked into the kitchen to begin her search for the rectangular pieces of fluff. She flew up towards the top of her cupboard to peek at the organized assortment of towels that she had. She considered which one she wouldn't want to use again after this, and then which color would work well with it. Deciding that using a white towel to suck up red liquid would make her Tuesday even worse, Flutterhshy opted on an all black towel.
The towel was chosen quickly, which just left her to find that giant glass popcorn bowl of hers. She filled it up halfway with water from the sink and let the towel fall from her teeth into the bowl. Fluttershy gripped the bowl in her arms while her wings carried her all the way back to the couch. She barely registered what was on the couch when she arrived, and set the bowl down next to the couch.
Which, by the way, now only held the leather trenchcoat that belonged to the human.
She barely had time to feel herself pale when a voice spoke to her. It was half as quiet as her own voice, but was a lot more threatening. Or maybe it was the unsettling baritone the threat held. "Y' make one move and I'll blow your brains out through your eye sockets."
"o-oh d-d-dear."
Fluttershy didn't have to wait long for a response to her exclamation, albeit a slightly confused response. "Y'...uh, y' turn around slowly. No fast moves."
The pegasus began to shuffle around at the speed of a snail and barely moved her head until she could see a pair of poised boots in front of her, causing her eyes to reluctantly shift up the several foreign clothing items. Her gaze fell into the surprised, yet scowling face of the human she was preparing to help in the first place. The man's scars and cuts and bruises somehow added to the special glare he focused at her; a chill rolled down her spine as the effect of his stare. And that's when she noticed the strange black object in his hands.
His giant hands and fingers covered a bit of the object, but she could still make an obsidian rectangle that was connected to a nozzle aimed directly between her eyes. Fluttershy tilted her head and peered closer into the dark nozzle, but couldn't identify anything within it. "I...I-I'm sorry, but what is this? Is it a candle of some kind?"
"...eh?" Her question was apparently so random and so unbelievable that the human tilted his head at her with a scoff. So, she logically assumed that this object was no candle st all, and judging by the way it was pointed...it was a weapon. But what did it do?
A scampering sound was heard, causing them both to look down.
"...A-Angel Bunny?" Her thoughts were interrupted by a white blur scurrying up the pant leg of the human all the way up to his head, where it slowed down just enough to be seen as said bunny. He tugged at the human's thick black hair with all his rabbit strength while announcing a stream of warbled, very rude threats concerning his Pony keeper. The man slowly reached up to the ball of white fur and snatched his squirming body down from his hair, aiming his weird weapon at the nose of the bunny. "H-Hey! Wait!"
The man gripped Angel tighter, causing him to squeak in protest and be silenced by the nozzle of the weapon. "What'd I say about movin'? Huh?!"
Fluttershy held a hoof to her mouth in anxious worry. She could take anything bad happening to her on this Tuesday, but not to anyone she loved. "I-I'm sorry! I am! J-Just please don't hurt him!"
The man regarded her desperate pleas with a cringing frown, which looked from her to Angel Bunny and back to her. He snorted, dropping the rabbit roughly to the ground and several seconds later he lowered his gun entirely. A breath she hadn't realized she was holding was suddenly sighed out of her. Maybe this wasn't going to be the worst Tuesday after all.
"Maybe I should start over, eh?" He asked her with that strange baritone accent of his and holstered the weapon in a compartment attached to his belt. He looked behind himself briefly, leaning against the wall just slightly as if he would need to move soon. "....Wh...What's going here? Hmm?...How'd I get here?"
"...I-I'm afraid I don't really know, mister human sir." Fluttershy explained, using her 'extra soothing voice' for effect. She mostly used it for animals that didn't know where they'd come from and acted scared, which was similar to the situation here. Except, he was almost as large as a bear(looked just about as tough as one too) and she'd never used her voice on a bear. "W-When I found you o-out in the forest, there was smoke billowing off of y-you. "
One of his bushy eyebrows raised up. "Is that right? Suppose I was barbequein', eh?"
"Uh, no. You were actually just smoking. I-I took you back here, a-and I was about to clean your face...not that it's dirty or anything...I just thought nopony...nobody should have b-blood on their face."
He stood there stoically, so she couldn't tell what he thought of her explanation. His rectangular jaw wasn't as right as it what he spike to her, so perhaps things were becoming less tense between them. The pegasus was about to speak again when she was cut off with the most abrupt word. "Frank."
Her ears, which had been folded back against her pink mane most of the time, flicked forward in curiousity. "F-Frank...? Is that your n-name? Oh, it is. Well, I-I'm Fluttershy."
"...say again." It sounded more like a statement than a question.
"F-Fluttershy."
"...I really picked the place t' land in." He sighed gruffly and eyed her couch longingly, moving quietly across the small distance like a lumbering tiger and seating himself on the orange thing. She stared at him dumbly, even when he gestured to the bowl of water next to his feet. "Y' mind if I use this towel here, sal'?"
"Yes of course, I..." She trailed off into a blank, almost annoyed stare towards Frank. "Wait...Sal'?"
"Yer hair is a salmon color. So, Sal' is yer nickname. I got a buddy back where I'm from that I call Red."
She narrowed her eyes slightly, her apparent distaste for the name. "...Fluttershy is also a nice name."
"...That's right." Frank nodded at her just once and fished out the wet towel, slowly pressing it to the gash on his cheek to clean off some of the dried or still wet blood. Fluttershy turned away squeamishly to look down at Angel Bunny. Her little rabbit crossed his arms in a defiant manner and glared at her.
"He can't be that bad, Angel." Fluttershy whispered softly, lowering her head down to his level to make sure Frank didn't hear. "I for him to lower whatever weapon that was, so he can't be all bad."
Angel rolled his eyes and hopped away with a sarcastic frown. She turned back to face Frank, who was looking around the entirety of her house as if taking mental notes on it. She briefly imagined how much he'd be able to get just by scanning the cluttered walls and the rugs. "Um, how is your cheek, Frank?"
"Eh, it's just fine. Just fine..." Frank nodded solemnly at the question, but never once tore his gaze away from the walls. At least until eighteen seconds later, when he gestured to the kitchen with his head. "I'm gonna need some thread, and maybe a few other things to sow up this cut."
She gasped loudly. "You're going to close that wound yourself? While you're still awake? Won't that hurt?"
"A whole fΠcking lot, yeah. I done worse." The man told her in a mysterious tone, hinting at his shady past that wouldn't be elaborated on any time soon. "Now, y' got any of that stuff, sal'?"
"Well, yes I do actually. But you need to ask me for it. It's the polite thing to do, you see. " She finished that sentenced with a bright grin. Frank didn't do much other than roll his eyes at her, but she didn't let up with her adorable smile. Even Discord fell against the might of her yellow, upward curving lips.
Sure enough, Frank breathed in deeply and sighed just as loud. "Fine, sal'...Would you please get me those items..?"
Fluttershy nodded, but before she could finally start moving towards the kitchen to find those items another thought struck her. "I-I was going to make a bit of raspberry tea with a pinch of honey. You wouldn't happen to want a cup, would you?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not, eh?" The pegasus turned around only to be stopped once more, this time by Frank coughing to get her attention. His gaze fell on his hands as he pretended to wipe them with the towel, but he'd occasionally glanced at her as he spoke. "You...uh...T-Thanks, sal'. For helping' me out here...If y' knew me well enough, I'd probably be the last person you'd want sittin' on your couch, sippin' on tea."
"Oh, I doubt that, Frank. It's Tuesday." She said as a matter o' factly, starring to walk into the kitchen with a friendly grin. "Since things can't get worse, I'd be happy the rest of this day no matter what I know or what happens."
A crash rang out through the air suddenly, as loud as thunder roaring into a microphone. The sound was jolting enough to make Fluttershy shriek at the top of her lungs and for Frank to level his weapon at the source of the crash: right in the center of the living room. The two carefully peered into the dusty mess and saw that something had fallen clear through the roof and left a sizeable hole in it.
Frowning at the mere imagination of the endless hours she'd have to spend fixing that hole, Fluttershy gazed down at the impact hole just in time to see a body crawl out of it painfully slow. It was a human body, but unlike Frank's it was shorter and a bit more wiry. It was also covered from head to toe in some kind of strange clothing, composed of the colors of apples and Bluejays. Frank and Fluttershy exchanged similar glances, before two large white lenses stared at them in a daze.
"...H...H-Hey Everyone."
