After Pinkie’s story, the three ponies and dragon said goodbye to Second Sight before leaving for Pinkie’s home. After such a busy day, they all decided to turn in early, though Twilight decided to spend the next few days hearing some of the other ponies’ stories. At least if they were willing to share them.

To her surprise, the next day many of the town’s ponies were actually willing to talk to her. It seems that her purifying the crops had relieved quite a bit of stress on the ponies, and they now saw her in a more positive light, even if they were still a bit suspicious. Twilight was just happy that they were now willing to talk to her, even if there was still a bit of hesitation. At least she could start somewhere.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You want to hear my story?” the mare asked, stopping in the middle of picking a potato from the garden. She was a grey pegasus with a blond mane and had a set of bubbles for a cutie mark. Her eyes were bright yellow, and actually pointed in different directions. When she looked from the plant to Twilight, they had moved to focus on the purple alicorn.

“If it’s ok with you, Derpy,” Twilight said nervously, trying not to stare at the pegasus’ unusual eyes. “I want to learn about what it’s like to live under…less benevolent alicorns, and I think hearing some ponies’ stories would be a good way to at least start doing just that.”

Derpy nodded and smiled.

“Sure, we can talk about why I left,” she said, reaching down and pulling up another potato from the dirt. “Though, mine might not be so interesting.”

“That’s ok,” Twilight replied. “Any new info that helps me understand you all better is appreciated.”

“Okey dokey,” Derpy said, and she took a deep breath to begin.

“Now I was lucky in that I didn’t have Thorn as my lady, but my lady, Crown, still wasn’t very nice. She wouldn’t be unnecessarily cruel, but she had a…bit of an ego. Everything was about her, all the time. Anytime we did anything good, it was because of her. Anytime we failed, we were making her look bad and it was our fault. It…got to most ponies after a while, made them actually start to believe what she said.

“Her estate was located on the boarder of Equestria near a thick forest only partly corrupted by the Cloud, located far to the west. Or was it east? One of those two. Anyway, she helps import lumber to the rest of Equestria, or at least to places where alicorns can’t grow trees. To get the most wood efforts, she usually spreads her ponies out really far, and it was the job of ponies like me to deliver messages to the ponies far away from her mansion. I was basically a mail mare, only for this one estate.

“Punishments weren’t all that bad, usually just temporary imprisonment or being locked in stockades for the day, but the fact that she always seemed to be looking down on us made many of us feel insignificant. When I was a filly, I…had an accident involving a rabid dog. I survived ok, obviously, but my eyes were a bit messed up. My sight is mostly intact, and being able to use my pegasus magic to detect the wind lets me fly without problems, but because of how they look…”

“You were a target,” Flash said, sympathetically. Derpy nodded, but amazingly, she was still smiling.

“She tried to insult me, to make me feel bad about myself, but I never let what she said get me down. It was just words, and even if I had a few accidents, usually involving crashing into things while running messages for her ponies, I still finished my work just fine. No pony’s perfect, so I didn’t try to be.”

“But if that’s not why you left, why did you?” Spike asked.

Derpy’s smile fell.

Her right eye rotated to look over near the wall of the village.

Near the wall, a few foals were playing a game of tag. Among them was a young unicorn filly with light purple fur and a blond mane. She was currently trying to avoid a yellow filly with a red mane and a big pink bow on her head. Behind them, an adult unicorn with a light purple coat, two tone purple mane, and three perfect diamonds as a cutie mark was watching over them.

“I left to protect my little muffin, Dinky.” Derpy said sadly. “I already had an older daughter named Sparkler, but her magic was only at an average level, or so I was told. I don’t really know too much about unicorn magic, but I’m trying to learn for them. I was a little worried about Sparkler growing up under Crown, but she turned out to be perfect.

“Anyway, when Dinky was younger, she saw Crown yelling at me for something I didn’t even do. I…” She gave a short, hollow laugh. “I don’t know what happened. On minute Crown was yelling, the next she being levitated and covered in vines. Dinky was having her first magic surge, something I never had to deal with when I had Sparkler. Dinky was only four at the time. When Crown realized this, she immediately teleported out of the vines and stopped her. She then declared that Dinky be enrolled in the Butler training program as soon as she was of age.

“That age was five, and Dinky’s birthday was only a month away. Until then, they were going to force her to wear a magic restraint to keep her under control.”

Derpy sniffed, and her voice started breaking. “E-even at the young age, h-her Butlers are forced to do really dangerous jobs. M-most alicorns make their training hard, but make sure e-every child survives so they can grow up to serve them, but Crown doesn’t care about that because she has so many ponies. Not…not all of those she picks survive. A-and if they do d-d-don’t make it, s-she just blames the p-parents. T-tells them they didn’t r-raise them to be strong enough.”

Derpy sobbed, and Flash wordlessly stepped over and draped a foreleg around the pegasus’ shoulders. She gave him a watery grin and wiped away a few tears, but they kept coming. “I-I couldn’t let that happen, I wouldn’t! But…but I didn’t know where to go. Where I could go. But then, he came back.”

“Who?” Twilight asked.

“The doc,” Derpy said with an actual smile, and she seemed to be calming down. “He… it’s hard to explain but he doesn’t have a lady, or a real home. He…moves around a lot, says he’s trying to find a way to fix things, but he comes to visit me pretty often, especially since he’s the girls’ father.” She smiled while the others just blinked in surprise.

“We met one night when a freak storm tore through Crown’s estate. I was looking for shelter and, well, I crashed into him. He didn’t mind, and even offered me a place to stay. I… can’t say what his house looks like, since he wants to keep it a secret, but I will say it’s blue. He was one of the first ponies not to judge me based on my eyes. The ponies here were the second, but he was the first. That night, he showed me so many amazing things that I had never known.

“Granted, I didn’t understand half of what he said, but he said that was normal. Afterwards, he would keep coming back to see me, saying that I helped keep him grounded. Occasionally we would sneak off for adventures, but he would always get me back before I was missed. I…I fell in love with him, and when I told him, he just smiled and pulled out a small ring,” As she spoke, she tapped her leg, causing the ring to flash into existence before vanishing again.

“Crown never questioned the pregnancies, and I was still able to do my job either way, so she really didn’t care. But when I needed Doc the most, he came back. He managed to get the restraint off of Dinky and then got us out of Crown’s land. He had to go again, but he told us where we would be safe.”

She giggled, and Flash declared her calm enough to squeeze her shoulders and release her. “At first I thought he was crazy when he said we should go to the Everfree Forest. But he’s never been wrong before, so I trusted him. I nearly had a heart attack when Fluffy found us, but then Dinky ran right up and started petting her belly, and she rolled right over and began purring. She’s such a silly kitty. After that she led us back to the village, and we were welcomed in once we explained our story.

“And we have lived here ever since.” Derpy finished. Twilight was about to ask more questions, but was interrupted as Dinky ran under her mother, quickly followed by the slightly bigger earth pony filly.

“Oops, I’d better stop them before they break something,” the pegasus said, smiling as the two foals started running circles around the other gardeners. “I hope this helped.” She waved goodbye and began to chase the foals.

“It did. Thank you!” Twilight called out, trying not so smile as a stallion jumped backwards to avoid the foals and the mare chasing after them.

“That was much nicer than Second Sight’s,” Spike said.

“But still, having such a blatant disregard for foals’ lives?” Flash said, shaking his head in disgust. “I hate alicorns like that. Makes me sick just thinking about it.”

“How did this even happen?” Spike asked. “I mean, they used to be all nice when everyone was an alicorn right? So what happened?”

“I have no idea,” Flash said. “You have any ideas, Twilight?”

She shook her head. “Not really. But we’ll leave that question for another day. Right now, let’s go see who else has a story to tell.”

“Ok,” Spike said. “By the way, where’s Pinkie?”

The others blinked, not realizing that the pink mare had left. Looking around, Flash smiled and pointed. Pinkie was bouncing merrily after the two foals, and Twilight couldn’t figure out if she was helping Derpy catch them or if she just wanted to play tag.

They were all smiling though, so Twilight, Flash, and Spike decided to let them be and ask around a bit more.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You…want us to tell you our story?” the mare asked nervously, looking to her concerned sister.

After listening to a few more ponies in the garden, the group had told Pinkie they were moving on and had set off into the residential area. Almost immediately, they ran into the pegasi sisters that had been rescued the day Twilight had first tried to fly.

They were Flitter and Cloudchaser, and they had stuttered so much when they told her their names that Twilight wasn’t sure they would talk to her. Applejack had told them of Twilight’s situation when they were first rescued so they wouldn’t flee in terror upon seeing her, but they certainly didn’t seem comfortable.

Flitter had a light blue coat, a light green mane tied back with a bright pink bow, and three dragonflies as a cutie mark. Cloudchaser was a darker shade of blue with a white and blue mane and a shooting star as a cutie mark. She had angled herself strategically between Twilight and Flitter, but her confused look took any intimidation out of the pose.

“If it’s ok with you,” Twilight said gently. “You don’t have to, and I won’t force you to tell me anything.” The twins stared at each other, wide-eyed. They obviously had never met an alicorn that didn’t just order them around.

“Why…EXACTLY, do you want to hear our story?” Cloudchaser asked.

“I…don’t really know what it’s like to live under an oppressive alicorn,” Twilight admitted. “My lady was one of the few who was kind to everypony. But everypony here has had bad experiences, so I want to hear them so I can try to understand what most ponies need to deal with.”

“So you want us to tell our story, so you can understand what we went through and empathize with us?” Flitter asked.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

The twins looked at each other before asking for a minute and moving away to talk in privacy for a few minutes. But they did come back.

“Ok, we’ll do it,” they said together, still looking nervous, but also determined. Twilight braced herself. Something told her this wasn’t going to be as hopeful as Derpy’s.

“Our home was originally to the southwest, near the desert,” Flitter began. “Our lady’s name was Scorching Sun. Really fit, given how hot it was there.”

“Pegasi were a bit rare there,” Cloudchaser continued. “Not sure why, but there never seemed to be many born there, and Cloudsdale wouldn’t really send anypony except when they came with ours to deliver the weather.”

“Scorching Sun, though, never really liked pegasi. We didn’t have much weather there, so we had one of two main jobs. One was to travel to Cloudsdale to assist with weather transport, while the other was to make sure the weather we did have lasted as long as possible. She was always complaining that we weren’t working hard enough or that heat was our fault because we couldn’t give the property enough shade or wind or what have you.”

“Thankfully, she didn’t do what Thorn did to Rainbow Dash,” Cloudchaser said, and both pegasi shuddered. “But she still had a…rather bad punishment.” As she spoke, she gestured at her sister’s back. Looking closer, Twilight realized that she had small groves on the bone of her wing.

Scars.

“She…” Flitter began, taking a shaky breath, “She would p-pluck our wings if we messed up too badly. All of our feathers, j-just gone.”

“Isn’t that insanely dangerous!?” Twilight asked in shock. “My books said that the feathers closest to the wing are still connected to the blood stream, so if that happens…”

“We have severe blood loss and scaring,” Cloudchaser said, wrapping a wing around her trembling sister. “At least in Rainbow’s case, they could cauterize the wound and stop the bleeding, but for us…”

“You couldn't seal the wounds like that. There’s to many, and doing so would stop future feather growth, meaning there's a good chance of you bleeding out or getting an infection,” Flash said grimly. “Hard to believe losing your wing is less risky. But if that’s the case, then how…”

“Stitches.” Flitter said, looking away. “M-my family had to stitch my wings to stop the bleeding. I-It wasn’t even my fault! A dragon attacked the weather shipment, so of course there was going to be a drought. I-I couldn’t do anything, and she…she just—!”

Flitter broke off, breathing heavily as Cloudchaser rubbed her wing against her sister’s back and whispered to calm her down.

After giving them a few minutes, Spike asked. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Three years ago,” Cloudchaser said.

“I… haven’t been able to fly as well since,” Flitter said sadly. “But at least I still can.”

“What made you wait all this time before you escaped?”

“Scorching Sun was in a really bad mood after Canterlot,” Cloudchaser said. “She kept rambling about how lower ponies shouldn’t even be allowed to look at the Elements, much less touch them.” She looked at the Element of Magic in Twilight’s torc. “Didn’t really make sense till we came here though.”

“Not that we blame you or anything,” Flitter said quickly, wiping her eyes. “From what we heard, you were a victim of this as much as anyone.”

“Who told you that?” Twilight asked, wondering who besides Pinkie would defend her.

“Fluttershy. We were a bit out of shape after three days of flying and another one in the forest. She was helping us before you blew up that wall.”

“I was surprised to hear her defend an alicorn,” Cloudchaser said. “But after she explained that you used to be a unicorn, we understood you might not be so bad. But given our experience with them…”

“You’re still wary,” Twilight said. “That’s understandable.”

“Getting back to the story, why did you choose now to leave?” Flash asked. “Was it because of Scorching Sun’s bad mood, or something else?”

“We had actually been planning of running since what happened to me,” Flitter said. “I… I never wanted to go through that again, and we knew that if we stayed it very well might, because everypony makes mistakes. We didn’t go though because I had to wait for my wings to recover. This was slowed down by a minor infection, which lasted a few months. Even then, I had to get used to flying with my scared wings, and we needed to save up supplies for the journey.

“We also wanted to bring our parents, but they didn’t want to slow us down. We tried to convince them to come with us for months, but they insisted they would just use up our supplies and make us stand out.”

“So when she came back all mad at everything that moved,” Cloudchaser continued, “we knew it was only a matter of time until she snapped at somepony and hurt them, so we didn’t want to wait around for it to be us.”

“So we grabbed what we could, said goodbye to our family, and ran,” Flitter said. “It…it was hard to leave our parents behind, but they promised they’d see us again. I…I hope they were right.”

“They were,” Twilight said, trying to sound reassuring. “I’m sure you’ll see them again. And… while I don’t know what I could do, if you need help, just ask. It’s… It’s the least I can do.”

Cloudchaser chuckled. “You know, for an alicorn, you’re not that bad, Twilight. Definitely wish you had been our lady instead of Scorching Sun.”

“I don’t think I could handle that kind of responsibility,” Twilight said, shuddering.

“Especially when you resort to time travel just because you’re afraid to be late for a project,” Spike snarked, earning a glare from Twilight, a laugh from Flash, and an amused look from the sisters.

“Do we even want to know?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Nope,” Twilight said, zipping Spike’s mouth shut with a magic zipper before he could speak again. “Anyway, thank you for telling us all that. I’m glad you got away and hope you enjoy your time here, but we really need to go. Thank you.” She turned and dragged her party members with her by their tails.

Pinkie and Flash just waved, smirking as they disappeared around the building. The twins just looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to looking for Applejack.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Sure, why not?” Bronze Sword said with a nod. The group had eventually ended up at a large building near the training field. They found Bronze Sword performing maintenance on a few swords. Apparently, the building served as weapon storage as well as housing for the village’s defenders.

“Just like that?” Twilight asked. The other ponies had at least been a TAD bit more reluctant.

“Yep, just like that,” she said. “Your little bodyguard helped us on a rescue mission, and you helped make sure we won’t have a food problem for quite a while, meaning we can put more time into training ponies who what to know how to fight, and give us time to find defensive plants.”

“Defensive plants?” Flash asked.

“Sure. Many of the plants here in the forest are dangerous. As such, we actually plant their seeds around the outer edges of the village. The closest ones are about a mile away from the village.”

“But what if a runaway pony accidently runs into them?” Spike asked.

“Fluffy finds any ponies that come within at least five miles of the village,” Bronze Sword said. “That’s partly why we go out to help them. Partly to make sure they’re not soldiers or Butlers, but also so we can guide them back without them getting caught in something dangerous.”

“I doubt they would stop an alicorn though,” Flash said.

“Probably not, but they would at least give us time to warn the village so we could evacuate or prepare to defend ourselves.”

“Smart.”

“Ummm… about your story?” Twilight asked, trying not to sound rude.

“Oh, sorry. Got a little sidetracked.” Bronze Sword said. “Well, my story begins the first time I met Shield Bearer.”

“Who?” Spike asked, but it was Flash who quickly explained what he knew of the stallion. “Oh, so he’s your friend?”

“Husband actually,” Bronze Sword said, giggling at the surprised expression on Flash’s face. “Don’t be so surprised, Flash. We have a strict rule of being professional when working.”

“Well, obviously, but still…”

Bronze Sword beamed. “Anyway, we first met, ironically enough, on the battle field. A group of mercenary griffons had recently been raiding both my lady’s and his lady’s land for gold and gems, and as such, both of them had dispatched us separately to go and reclaim the stolen riches. Of course, both groups just happened to engage the griffons at the same time, so things quickly got out of hoof.

“We both got separated from our fellow guards in the chaos, and eventually ended up fighting together to survive. He was a master at defensive combat, blocking blows with his shields, both physical and magical, while I, better trained with offensive weapons, would use the openings he gave me to land serious blows and drive them back. We were the perfect match.

“I’ll be honest, I fell for him almost immediately. The battle was supposed to be quick: dash in, kill the thieves, get back the gold, retreat. But almost as soon as we attacked, griffon reinforcements came charging in. Apparently we were hitting a much larger group then we thought, one that was also stealing from the fragments of the griffon empire.

“The battle took place in a complicated cave system, so occasionally we, or the enemy, would retreat, leaving us alone to recover our strength. During these lulls in the battle, we would hide in a side cave to rest and regain our strength. Even though we were from different ladies, he was so kind to me. He would always take the first watch to let me rest, help me dress my wounds before even looking at his own, and would even cast a shield over us to keep us warm.” Spike grinned, but the earth pony gave him a light swat over the head. “Mind your manners, little dragon. It was the middle of winter, so we needed the extra warmth.”

She sighed. “But, of course, it couldn’t last. After a week, the griffons were dead or in retreat, and we discovered the treasure at the center of the cave system. There was FAR more than we thought there would be, almost ten times the amount that had been stolen from either lady. Now, our ladies weren’t friends. In fact, they had a nasty habit of competing in rather…deadly competitions – never by themselves, of course. So as soon as we sent somepony to report this news to them, they immediately sent the pony back with reinforcements and orders for us to kill the other lady’s guards.”

“But you didn’t,” Twilight said. “Because of Shield Bearer.”

“Yep,” Bronze Sword said, smiling happily. “Big lug got the orders first and literally swept me off my hooves and carried me out of the cave where we found the treasure. He refused to put me down until we were far enough away that we couldn’t hear the fighting. I was so confused until he explained. It may seem silly, but something about him just carrying me away from danger, even disobeying his lady for me, was just so romantic. I think it made me love him even more.

“So we snuck away from the battle and headed for the only place an alicorn would never look: the Everfree Forest. This was about…ten years ago.” Bronze Sword giggled. “Fluffy actually snuck up on us when we were asleep. We didn’t hear her until she picked us up by the scruff of our necks and carried us back to the village like we were lost kittens. I’ve never heard Shield Bearer scream like a little filly before, heehee.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” came the stallion’s grumble as he trotted out of the house, head down in embarrassment.

“You totally were!” Bronze Sword said, laughing at the stallion before planting a kiss on his forehead. That seemed to cheer him up immensely. “Anyway, after a little interrogation from Applejack and losing our weapons for a month while we proved our trustworthiness, we eventually joined the growing village. We even began training other ponies how to fight and brought up the idea of sending search parties to rescue lost ponies, rather than just sending Fluffy.”

“I will say I’m glad ponies found us instead of a Manticore,” Flash said.

“At least Fluffy doesn’t hold knives in my face to wake me up,” Twilight complained, causing the others to giggle.

“I doubt fangs and a scorpion tail would be much better,” Shield Bearer grumbled, prompting more laughter.

“Anyway,” Bronze Sword continued, snuggling up to Shield Bearer, “this goof, after two years into our stay here, finally popped the question using a diamond ring he found hidden in the griffon’s stash before we fled. It was quite the exciting event, especially since we were the first wedding to ever be held here in the village.”

“You had a wedding?” Flash asked. “Like, a full-blown wedding? Out here? How?”

Both ponies just pointed to Pinkie, who was currently sitting and holding her head in her hooves, humming a little tune.

“She managed to make all of the decorations out of forest materials. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony move so fast,” Bronze Sword said, smiling.

“Who authenticated?” Twilight asked.

“Second Sight.” Bronze Sword said, smirking. “They say ‘love is blind,’ so who better to make it official?” Shield Bearer rolled his eyes and smiled.

“Best day of my life,” he said.

“It was a great party,” Pinkie agreed.

“But that’s pretty much it,” Bronze Sword said, nodding. “We got married, and spent the next eight years helping protect and expand the village.”

“What about foals?” Spike asked.

“We’ve decided against if for the moment. We personally think our jobs are too dangerous. Wouldn’t want them growing up without a parent. We do look after some of the younger ponies that want to learn how to fight, but other than that, we just decided to wait. Plus, this big lug needs me to keep him safe, so I can’t afford to spend nearly a year out of commission,” Bronze Sword said with a wink.

“I can take care of myself perfectly fine,” Shield Bearer defended.

“Sure you can, honey. Sure you can.”
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“I-I guess that will be ok,” Fluttershy said, hiding behind her mane slightly. After talking with Bronze Sword and Shield Bearer, the group had gone to Second Sight’s house for lunch. Once there, they found that she was also hosting Fluttershy. As the meal progressed, Second Sight recommended Fluttershy tell them her story.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Twilight said. “Second Sight already told us the basic details, so—“

“It’s ok,” Fluttershy said. “I can tell you.”

“Plus, it’ll let you see it from her perspective,” Second Sight added. Pinkie nodded.

“Ok then,” Twilight said. “Whenever your ready, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy nodded slightly and took a deep breath. “Well, as you know, both me and Rainbow grew up living under Thorn. H-Her son Storm Brewer was in charge of training the pegasi to work and how to fly. He…wasn’t very nice about it, though. He would constantly berate anypony that didn’t do well. A-And if you spoke out against Thorn, like Rainbow did, he would either make you do more exercises, or insult you in front of everypony.

“I was the worst flyer in the group, so he would berate me the most. He said it would build character, or motivate me to fly better. It didn’t, it really didn’t. I-I get nervous when others are watching me, so drawing attention to the fact that I had trouble flying only made me worse. It didn’t help that his criticism only encouraged bullies to tease me even more.” She looked down, but a small smile started to cross her face.

“That’s actually how I met Rainbow. She just showed up one day to defend me from the bullies. She was the best flyer in the class, despite her attitude towards Thorn, so they had almost nothing they could use to insult her. And yet, she came to the defense of somepony like me.

“We spent about three months together before…um, you know. She would always defend me from bullies, and even from Storm Brewer once or twice. She would even try to help me try to fly. It…It was probably the first time that I was actually happy at flight camp. But… then the test came.”

As if anticipating what would happen, Pinkie got up and walked around the table to wrap Fluttershy in a hug. Fluttershy leaned into it and gave Pinkie a small smile of thanks.

“O-One the day of the final flight test, Storm Brewer dropped a surprise on us. H-He said that if we didn’t pass, w-we would l-lose our wings. H-He said a p-pegasus that can’t fly h-has no n-need for w-wings. T-The idea of loosing my wings t-terrified me so badly I couldn’t even get them open w-when it was my turn to fly. And even w-worse, the cloud safety platform b-broke when I hit it, m-meaning I was going to fall a-almost a mile to the ground.”

Fluttershy shivered in Pinkie’s grip. “I-I though my life was over. That I’d end up as nothing more then a smear on the ground. I-I just closed my eyes and waited for the end. B-But then, I heard an explosion.”

“An explosion?” Spike asked.

Fluttershy nodded.

“R-Rainbow broke the rules and came flying after me. B-but in order to catch me, she accidently pulled of something a normal pegasus has never done before. A sonic rainboom.”

“Really!?” Twilight asked in shock. “I didn’t even think it was possible for a pegasus to do that. Even alicorns can barely do it, at least according to the books in Lady Celestia’s library.”

“It was a shock to me too,” Fluttershy said. “I was so amazed that I barely even realized that she had grabbed me and flown me safely to the ground. I…I was so grateful I just hugged her and refused to let go until the butlers arrived.” Fluttershy shivered. “T-They forced us apart and took us to c-cells. They put wing restraints on us and shackles on our hooves. I-I was so afraid as they left us for the night, but the memory of Rainbow doing what should have been impossible gave me hope. I-I can’t explain why, but it just felt like things would be ok in the end.

“The next day, we were brought out in front of everypony in Thorn’s property. S-She said I was going t-to lose my wings, and t-that Rainbow would lose one, m-me for failing, h-her for breaking the rules. B-but I didn’t even have a chance to let the terror sink in before Rainbow suddenly called Thorn out.

“S-she insulted her, said that she wouldn’t know a good punishment if it kicked her in the flank. Thorn was outraged, and said she would cut her wing off herself. A-And then Rainbow offered up the b-bet. She said she could lose both her wings without crying out in pain, that she could handle it. Thorn said she was bluffing, but Rainbow persisted, and said that if she could, I-I would go free, and c-could keep my wings.”

Fluttershy hugged Pinkie like she was a stuffed animal, burying her face in the earth pony’s mane. “S-she didn’t have to do that. I-I know it hurt her. W-When the first wing was c-c-cut off, she nearly cried out. B-but then she looked me in the eyes. I-I could see her fear, see the pain, b-but as soon as she saw me, something overrode it. S-She had a look I had seen many times from her. One of pure d-determination.

“She didn’t even flinch when she lost her second wing. Thorn was so mad s-she tried to c-cheat. She e-extended the bet until a-after she had u-used the flames from a nearby t-torch to close the wounds. S-She wanted to make Rainbow cry out, b-but she never did. S-she just looked at Thorn and s-said ‘I win’ before passing out.”

“A-And I had to watch it all.”

By now, Fluttershy was sniffling frequently.

“That was very brave of her,” Flash said gently. “I just can’t believe Thorn actually upheld the deal.”

“I-It’s because she actually forgot about me. S-She was so m-mad that Rainbow won the bet that she just wanted to make h-her pay. I was just ignored, which I really didn’t complain with. I still had my wings bound, b-but she left me alone after tossing me in the farm’s cellar. Actually, if she hadn’t put me on the farm, I may have never discovered my special talent.

“You discovered it because of the mole, right?” Spike asked.

“Oh, um, partly.” Fluttershy’s eyes widened, like she hadn’t thought about this memory in a long time. “He was the first time I realized that I could talk to animals, but I didn’t really think much of it since I was still so sad. But when the other animals on the farm realized I could understand them, they all worked to cheer me up. They wanted me to smile and feel better, a-and something about their encouragement just made me feel better.

“It was only when I helped one of chickens that had a broken leg that I realized that helping the animals, just like they helped me, was what I wanted to do with my life. It was then that my cutie mark appeared. It…It was perfect.”

“But then I’m sure Second Sight mentioned the farmer, and how he suddenly became extra cruel. I…I don’t know what happened. When I first arrived, he just didn’t seem to care about us at all. But then it was like we were the worst criminals in Equestria. He would work all day and into the night, then give barely enough food to survive.

“I…I was the newest one there, so I-I thought I could go the longest without eating. T-There were ponies who needed it more than I did, so I gave it away.”

“And nearly got yerself in a whole heap of trouble,” Second Sight said. “I was scared to death you wouldn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy said. “But I just wanted to help. Just like Rainbow helped me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, and I knew some of the others wouldn’t make it if they didn’t get enough food.”

“But then Rainbow came?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nodded and smiled slightly.

“She was so reckless. She just broke the door down, picked me up, and started running once she was sure the others were following. When the farmer tried to stop us, I…I thought for sure she was going to kill him. But…I asked her not to.”

“You what?” Twilight asked in surprise.

“I asked her to spare him. He was just doing his job, and Thorn was probably the one pushing him to be cruel, or at least I though that might be happening. But he wasn’t to blame, and…killing is never the answer, even for somebody as cruel as him, or even Thorn.”

“Even Thorn?” Spike asked, “Even after everything she’s done?”

“Even her,” Fluttershy said. “Death is never the answer. Maybe if we found a way to lock her up, that would be ok, but killing her? No. That would just make us as bad as she is. We need to be better than her, or the other alicorns, otherwise nothing will ever change.”

Author's Note

More stories inside stories, many of which help expand our view of Equestria beyond Thorn. Also, The Doc, enough said

In other news, I have great news. The rough draft of act 1 is now fully complete. The next two chapter are done, and i must say, it was SO SATISFYING to write what I did. However, there is a chance I may not be able to post them next week. My editor, who is amazing, still has to deal with real life, and I am asking her to review two chapters instead of one. I also plan to release the chapters together to spare you all the cliffhanger, because I'm not that mean (yet).

So if I can't post them next week, I will write a journal entry to let you know, and may give you a few lines from the chapters just to keep you excited. Anyway, enjoy the chapter, and let me know what you think

Next time: How much are you willing to give, to protect those you care for?