“Angel, stay with me!”
Fluttershy tugged on the hoppy bunny as they navigated the Ponyville marketplace, all hustle and bustle since becoming a popular tourist destination. Having a magic castle and a weird school could do that to a location. She ducked under a dragon wing and swerved around a mighty yak as she beelined towards her destination.
The Orange Store.
Inside the store were oranges.
Many, many oranges.
Fluttershy wasn’t prepared for this many oranges.
She bit her lip.
“Oh, Angel, I’m a little overwhelmed. The recipe said an orange, but this orange store has so many kinds of oranges.”
Angel chittered and chattered in the special language of critters that only those in the know, including Fluttershy, knew.
“I know I should ask for help, but everyone else looks so busy. I wouldn’t feel right bothering them.”
A huff flew from Angel’s lips as he chitter-chatted again.
“I understand what the sign says, but every store has that sign,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t want to come off as a bother.”
She walked around, marveling at the sheer variety of oranges on display.
“I didn’t know they made green oranges,” she murmured.
Angel chattered something significant.
“Angel,” she huffed and she picked up and examined a fruit that claimed to be an orange but didn’t look like an orange or appear to be in season, “ I understand the difference between orange as a color and orange as a fruit, but it’s different when you see it in person.”
She put the weird orange back in its place and sniffed around the store. Her nose usually helped her.
But not in this store. There were too many oranges.
She kept sniffing anyway so she could weed out the white noise and differentiate between what her nose knew was an orange and what the store was telling her oranges were.
Fluttershy flitted her wings to get some elevation—they built stores like that nowadays—and closed her eyes so she could sniff out the orangiest of oranges.
No dice. She didn’t have years of experience in citrus agriculture. Everything smelled like oranges. Everything smelled orange. So she opened her eyes and used them to visually sift through the produce on display.
That one was too yellow.
The one over there was too red.
This one had a belly button.
This one was too small.
And this one didn't look very much like an orange at all, in her opinion.
She exhaled and softly landed as to not disturb the other folk in the store. She knew how testy Ponyvillians could get, especially with all the out-of-towners these days. Angel was pointing at something she wasn’t paying attention to.
“Oh, I just don’t know what to get.”
A salespony trotted up to her. “Hi! Do you need help finding anything?”
Fluttershy thoughtlessly waved the salespony away. “Thank you, but I’m just browsing.”
“Okey dokey, just let me know if you need assistance,” the salespony said and trotted away to ask another customer if they needed help finding anything.
“Oh my,” Fluttershy said, immediately regretting not taking the offer up as she found herself confronted with yet another wall of oranges. “I could really use some help figuring out which orange to get.”
Angel pulled his ears in frustration.
She put her thinking cap on. It was a Hippogriffish recipe, so the orange must be from that area. She cantered over to the Hippogrifffish oranges.
There were quite a few Hippogriffish oranges. Fluttershy was flustered anew. There were green oranges, yellow oranges, and a blue orange. She sighed and said to Angel, “I might have to ask someone to help.”
Angel gave her the Stare. It didn’t work on her, but she knew what it meant. Sighing as she trotted over to the counter, she proclaimed, “I’d like to buy an orange,”
"Well, you certainly came to the right place!" The salespony winked with a smirk and asked, “What orange do you want?”
Fluttershy fluttershyed for a moment, then said. “It’s for a Hippogriffish recipe.”
A twinkle sparkled in the salespony’s eye. “I know which one you want.”
A cerulean glow encapsulated the exact orange Fluttershy needed for her recipe. She wasn't sure how she knew. It seemed like it was meant to be.
A roseate glow bloomed across Fluttershy’s face as she nodded. “Thanks, how much?”
“That’ll be two bits.”
Fluttershy reached into her satchel and said, “I’ll give you three bits for the help."
The salespony grinned. “In that case, take another one on the house.”
“Oh, well, um... the recipe only said one, so, um... thank you... I guess...” Meekly placing the extra orange in her satchel under the salespony's watchful gaze, Fluttershy completed the transaction and headed for the door. She took a breath, then let it go.
“It’s always fun to go shopping at new places, isn’t it, Angel?”
Angel responded in the chitter-chatter and was very chitter-chattery.
“Please,” Fluttershy huffed as she left the store and trotted into the sunlit square. "It's not every day that you’re cooking for the General of the Hippogriffish Navy.”
Angel chitter-chattered a mouthful and then some.
Fluttersy giggled. “I know ponies use the term Admiral for Naval legions, but I’m pretty sure there’s a good reason the Hippogriffish General is called the General. You’re always so nitpitcky.”
Angel huffed, displeased by the entire exchange. Fluttershy didn’t mind, as she was used to his particularities. She knew she just had the right orange now. All she needed to to was get home. That involved scampering under a dragon, accidentally bumping into a hippogriff, and breaking out of the miasma of the town.
“Come on, Angel, hop on.”
Angel did so, and was rewarded with a carrot Fluttershy hid in her satchel for just such an occasion. Fluttershy took flight(she asked nicely first)and headed off to her home to prepare her meal.
Something was bugging her though. She wasn’t entirely sure how she could skin an orange with her hooves. Maybe Discord had a thing for that., the thought of which made her shudder.
