Fluttershy was a special pony.
That isn't saying much, Every pony was a special pony.

But even among all the special ponies in the world, Fluttershy stood out.

Not because she was the strongest or the smartest or the fastest or the tallest or anything.

Fluttershy was the kindest.

At least, that's what her parents told her.

Each pony was special in a different way, each pony had a special talent that they were the best at doing.

Her talent was handling animals.

But more than just being the best at handling animals or being the kindest, Fluttershy could understand them.

Well, not necessarily understand what they were saying, she still only heard chirps or squeaks or barks or growls, it was closer to an understanding of the vague intent behind what they meant.

Her best friend Rainbow Dash compared it to almost being able to talk to animals, Fluttershy disagreed.
She wasn't talking to animals, she was speaking to them.

"Talking with somebody is a two-way street," as her father used to say, "You need to both understand each other, To listen to each other, Otherwise, you're just speaking to them, and when you're just speaking to them, the meanings get lost," He then said something about a work conference he went to in Prance and how he couldn't talk with many of his colleagues because he didn't understand the language.

Fluttershy was similar. She understands a squeak that tells her it's hungry, or a growl that's telling her to stand back, but she doesn't understand the precise meaning.
One growl can tell her to stand back because something dangerous is coming, another can tell her to stand back or they'll hurt her if she doesn't, and most of the time Fluttershy is unable to differentiate between the two.

That's not talking with animals, but speaking with them.

And Fluttershy was fine with that, she had her own cabin, her own little critter friends, she had her own animal sanctuary in the back, and even though she and her animal friends couldn't speak as well as she wished, there was still that level of understanding between them.

So when she heard her pet, and second best friend, Angel Bunny, start to scream from behind her house, she was initially worried.
She quickly walked outside to check if everything was alright, and that's where she found it.

A new Critter, one she had never seen before.

It was screaming, emotions of fear and confusion reverberating through it's voice, it was a lot for Fluttershy to listen to.

She was an emotional pony, perhaps more than most, just hearing the sounds of those cries, well... Fluttershy might have joined the two critters in screaming as well.

She would admit, that wasn't one of her proudest moments.

But seeing the creature faint, Fluttershy felt her body move before she could even notice.

One moment she and Angel were standing outside near the edge of the Everfree Forest behind her house, and the next she found herself laying the strange creature on a pillow inside her cottage, covering it with a blanket, and entering her kitchen to make it some salad for when it wakes up.

"!!!" She turned to see Angel Bunny tap the salad bowl, reminding her that he also hadn't eaten lunch yet.

"I'll make you your salad right after I'm done with our guests, Angel, Can you please watch over them until I'm done?" She asked the small white bunny, who nodded his head and hopped out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Fluttershy had an animal in need, she had to help it.

When Samuel Cohen opened his eyes, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar wooden ceiling.

He didn't care about the ceiling, He rolled to the side, flinging the blanket off his body as he fell from the coffee table he was sitting on onto the floor before landing on all fours.

He stared at his hands. Or at least, at where his hands were supposed to be.

"This has to be a dream..." He whispered to himself as he quickly stood up and started running towards the window, moving his short legs as if he always had them, and then he jumped towards the window.

And fell onto his face.

"Can't jump that high..." He grumbled to himself as he laid face first on the floor before pushing himself back up.
He raised his arms above his head and grabbed onto a nearby couch cushion. Swinging his lower body left and right as he started to generate momentum.
Before he pushed himself up onto the couch, using the swinging of his body to lift himself higher into the air, allowing him to land on the backrest of the couch, his face centimeters from the window.

He looked at his reflection, and he paused at how familiar it looked to him.

"Isn't this... One of those creatures from Daniel's show?" He whispered to himself as he moved his arms, watching the creature in the window reflection follow his movements.
"What was it called? Pokemon, right?" He touched his face, watching the reflection in the glass do the same, as he started feeling up this new body.

The short legs, the pawed arms, the small nose, the back and tail covered in hardened green scales, like some sort of half-hedgehog half-pangolin. With the shell around his head resembling a cartoonist depiction of a chestnut.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" He whispered to himself, "I died and this is my punishment, to live the rest of my years as this thing..." Sam sighed tiredly as he slid down the couch cushion, turning away from the window.

Sitting on that large couch... No, the couch was normal-sized, it was he who was smaller... Sam stared at the ceiling, a single thought passing through his head.
"I didn't say goodbye."

"You don't look dead to me!" Only to jump as a small white bunny popped his head into his field of vision and started speaking perfect English.

"Whoa, Who are you?! Stay back, I got a scholarship to UMich, Don't mess with me!" Sam didn't point out how UMich was a public university, or how he turned down the scholarship, but that didn't matter.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Calm down, I'm staying back, chill," The bunny told him, lifting his paws to show he wasn't a threat.

Sam took deep breaths, steadying himself as he stared at the bunny, keeping a healthy distance between himself and the talking rabbit, his eyes quickly roaming around the room in search of the quickest way out in case he proved to be dangerous.

"You can calm down, we're not trying to hurt you," The rabbit said, waving his arms softly in an attempt to calm him down, "We found you outside and you fainted, we're trying to help you, Well, Fluttershy is trying to help you, I'm just helping her help you," The bunny looked to the side, his ears picking up the sounds of someone else coming, "There she is right now, Hey Fluttershy! The weird guy woke up!"

Fluttershy walked into her living room, hearing Angel calling for her.

"I'm right here Angel," She said as passed through the door frame between her kitchen and living room, carrying three bowls of salad on her back.

"You! Butterfly or whatever! Stay the fuck away from me or I pluck your eyes out!" Fluttershy let out a shocked 'eep' as the brown and green creature she picked up less than an hour ago threatened her, jumping slightly in the air and dropping all three salad bowls onto the floor, breaking the ceramics and flinging the vegetables and leaves everywhere.

It wasn't the threat that shocked her, but the fact that she perfectly understood what the critter was saying.
Not like how she Understands her other critter friends, but actually understand.
Actual words left his mouth, even though all he said was "Ches Chespin Ches Pin Pin Chespin!"

"You can speak." She said as she stared at the creature, eyes widened in shock.

"I can speak? Wow, Thanks for noticing Captain Obvious! Now tell me where the fuck I am before I stab you with one of those ceramic shards you just dropped!" Fluttershy didn't need to be able to fully understand his speech to know that the creature in front of her was afraid.

It was a normal reaction for many critters who only just arrived at her cottage, they were scared and confused and didn't know what was happening.

"Please don't threaten me with physical violence," Fluttershy tried to give her warmest smile, this critter wasn't going to hurt her, he was just lashing out in fear, everything was going to be fine, "You're in my house, Angel and I found you near the Everfree forest, and you passed out, so we brou-" Fluttershy couldn't finish her sentence as the critter pointed at her.

"The Fuck you mean this is your house? This can't be your house, you're a miniature horse, who are the real owners?" Fluttershy tucked her wings closer to her body to make herself look smaller than before and she slowly started to inch closer to the critter.

"!!!" She heard Angel Bunny squeak, the critter's attention turning to him as she seemed to watch with rapt attention as Angel gave him an impromptu lecture.

"You're lying, She's not a human, she can't be the owner of the house- I SAID STAY BACK!" The critter quickly turned away from Angel and yelled her, his eyes dashing all around the room around him as if he was looking for something.

"There's no need to worry, I only want to help you-" Fluttershy tried to placate him as she slowly took a single step forward.

And then he burst into action.

Fluttershy watched as the critter grabbed onto the armrest of her couch and pulled himself up it, only to immediately jump off of it and grab onto the top of her couch's back cushion, swinging his body into a hasty scramble up the cushion before-

CRASH

He jumped out of the window!

Fluttershy started moving again, her legs taking her from the living room to the front door, hastily exited her house and watched the critter slide down into the creek beneath her house, his paws briefly splashing in the water before he jumped, grabbing onto an exposed root extending from the ground on the other side of the creek and use it to swing up onto the dry land on the other side.

"???" She heard Angel ask why he didn't just use the bridge, but Fluttershy didn't have time to answer. The critter was panicking and running away, it could get hurt, or worse!

She quickly followed the creature, watching as it used its environment like a playground to create more distance between it and her, jumping and swinging and sliding and all sorts of maneuvers she rarely sees animals do.

It was as it crossed the top of a nearby hill that it seemingly stopped, frozen in place, eyes locked onto something in the distance.

Fluttershy breathed heavily, unused to such a workout, as she slowly followed the creature up the hill, and gently sat down beside it, trying her best to give off an approachable aura.
Seeing that the creature wasn't running away, she followed its eyes to see what it was looking at.

Ponyville. The town she lived in. Well, she didn't technically live inside Ponyville, seeing as her cottage was at the edge of the Everfree, but legally she lived there.

"This is hell..." She heard the critter whisper as he stared at Ponyville, "God isn't real, and this is my Hell..."

"There's no need to be so dramatic," Fluttershy said softly as she gently moved her hoof to pet the critter's back.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Only to quickly retract it as he slapped her, his eyes wide and glaring at her as if she was the source of all evil in this world.

Fluttershy met his glare with a soft gaze, watching as the creature's heavily breathing chest slowly calmed down, his head slowly turning away from her to stare back at the small town down below.

She stayed there for almost twenty minutes before the critter stood up and started walking back to her cabin.

There were no fancy maneuvers, no jumps or anything of the sort, just a slow and silent walk back to her cabin.

Fluttershy followed the critter, making sure to let it lead the way as she followed it back into her own house, watching it get up onto her couch and lay on its back there, staring at the ceiling.

"Do you want some salad?" Fluttershy tried to speak to it, expecting it to shout at her for daring to address it or something along those lines.

"..." The creature's eyes turned to glance at her before he returned to staring at the ceiling, "I'm not hungry, Don't talk to me, I'm going to sleep, If you touch me I'll stab you," And with those words leaving his mouth, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Fluttershy watched him for a moment longer before turning to see Angel holding up a broom for her to clean up the broken ceramics on the floor.

She grabbed the broom and started sweeping, briefly glancing at the clock on the wall to check the time.
It was only six o'clock.
Fluttershy still had a few more hours before her usual curfew, but she was already tired.

Not just from having to make all this salad and then clean it without having the opportunity to eat it, but also from having this new Critter around that she could somehow miraculously understand, and the short fiasco that followed him.

Fluttershy shivered as she felt a brush of cold wind touch her wing, causing her to promise herself to get someone to fix the broken window tomorrow morning.

Miraculously, Fluttershy somehow never had a critter break her window, so she didn't know who she should look for in order to fix it.

"Rainbow Dash probably knows someone," Fluttershy nodded to herself as a plan for tomorrow morning formed in her mind.

And with all her cleaning done, Fluttershy went upstairs to get some early shut-eye.

She had a long day tomorrow.

Author's Note

Sam is doing the normal teenager thing that all nineteen-year-olds do when they find themselves in an alien body in an alien world, and that is lashing out in a panic at the people around you.