The Dazzling Opera

Fluttershy pranced along the outskirts of Ponyville, taking in the beauty of the world around her. The wind gently tossed her mane around as she moved through the fields. Suddenly, she heard a whimpering coming from the treeline. It sounded like an animal in distress. Without thinking she quickly jolted towards the brush to check up on this creature. Making her way to the source of the crying, there was a manticore laying on the ground.

“Oh goodness! What happened to you?” Fluttershy asked the manticore in a mortified state. The manticore had had its wings clipped off and bruises on its hind. Its legs had given out from its injuries, and it had collapsed on the ground. Apart from its injuries the manticore's face was covered in white makeup and had cherry red cheeks drawn on it. As she approached the manticore in an attempt to tend to the creature's wounds, it lashed out at her and nearly ripped her front legs off. Fluttershy quickly flapped her wings and rose into the sky.

As she was hovering above the ground, she heard the stomping of hooves coming her direction, quickly she hid behind the leaves of the closest tree. She was wondering why anypony would be out here in the brush besides herself.

“There’s the fucker!” a voice shouted as two ponies emerged from the shrubbery. As they approached the manticore it panicked letting out a shriek and tried to swipe at the approaching ponies. The first of the ponies, an earth pony, wearing a blue tunic with a black collar, quickly dug a whip out of a red bag with yellow stripes they wore across their neck and slapped it across the manticore's snout. The manticore’s head fell to the ground as it lashed about in agonizing pain, screeching and kicking. The second pony, a unicorn, wearing a red tunic with yellow stripes across it cast a spell on the manticore causing it to vanish in a puff of smoke.

“Well, I sent it teleporting to the backyard, we better hurry back so we can set up the big top,” the Unicorn told the Earth Pony. With that final remark they retreated the way they had come and vanished out of sight and sound. Fluttershy emerged from the leaves of the tree she was cowering in nearly in tears for how they had treated that poor animal and flew back to Ponyville to tell someone about what she had just seen.

As Fluttershy reentered Ponyville there was commotion from the denizens of the town surrounding a flier that had been posted on the billboard in the center of the market. Ponies were pushing each other over to see the news. It was an advertisement for a traveling circus and its accompanying sideshows that was performing in two days.

“Only two bits per admission! What a steal!” a pony near the front of the crowd shouted towards the back for those who couldn’t see.

“They’ll have a live changeling on display!” another pony squealed in excitement.

Fluttershy was observing the crowd and recounted what had just happened. She had seen a manticore in distress be taken away by ponies in unusual attire. She gasped in horror. That manticore that was being abused was likely part of this performance and everypony about to attend was giving the circus more reason to harm the poor creature.

“I have to find Twilight! She’ll know what to do!” Fluttershy thought out loud as she zoomed over the crowd towards Twilight's home. As she flew through town, she witnessed ponies who she had never seen before in the town posting papers on the doors of homes and signs that littered the streets. As she carried on her trek to Twilight, she could see from her spot in the sky that the Ponyville station was bustling with ponies transporting large boxes. After a few more minutes of flying through Ponyville, Fluttershy saw Twilight's home right in front of her and landed near the door.

As Fluttershy made her way inside she rushed to Twilight's library as she was most commonly found there. She pushed past the door and called out to Twilight who was sitting in the middle of the room surrounded by a pile of books. Twilight turned around to stare at Fluttershy.

“Oh, hey there Fluttershy. What brings you here?” Twilight asked Fluttershy before looking back down at her book.

“Have you heard of the circus that’s coming to town?” Fluttershy responded to Twilight's question with her own.

“Circus? I’ve heard of them in my studies, but I’ve never seen one before, you say ones coming to town?” Twilight looked up from her book again with a sparkle in her eye.

“Yes! And they hurt their animals!” Fluttershy exclaimed to Twilight.

“Oh, I read about that in my books, it’s not really harmful to their animals, they just use a few physical training methods to tame the most wild of creatures, they try to be reserved with it,” Twilight responded to Fluttershy's concerns.

“No you don’t get it! I witnessed it myself! They were beating an escaped manticore!” Fluttershy protested against Twilight sweeping the problem away.

“That’s pretty standard, an animal like a manticore is pretty resilient so it needs what looks like more than needed violence to keep it in line,” Twilight brushed off Fluttershy’s complaints, “plus it’s a manticore, they’re pretty violent by themselves and an escaped one could have caused serious harm to Ponyville. It’s good they caught it!”

“No! You don’t understand, its wings were clipped off and it had bruises all over it and-!” Fluttershy objected to Twilight's claims, but before she could finish Twilight cut her off.

“Wings being clipped off is standard practice in the industry, and they make sure it’s as painless as they can make it for the animal, are you sure those bruises weren’t just makeup that had been running off, it was escaped after all,” Twilight interjected to Fluttershy’s rant.

Feeling defeated, Fluttershy made her exit from Twilight's home and headed off to find Applejack who knew ethical farm animal practices. She was determined to expose the circuses conduct. She took to the skies once more and began to fly towards Sweet Apple Acres. As she flew through the town once more, she noticed a large red and white tent being set-up just outside town with various smaller tents around it and a few rides being assembled. Passing the market again the ponies had spread out and excitedly discussed the news among their friends. She thought she might be able to appeal to the common pony and dived down and went up to the smallest crowd she could find.

“Um, hello,” Fluttershy awkwardly started, “that circus abuses its animal performers!”

The group of ponies turned to look at her trying to identify her. After a couple seconds they realized who she was.

“Oh, you’re that pony who’s super sensitive about animals, obviously they need to use some harsh practices but you’re definitely blowing it out of proportion,” one of the ponies in the crowd responded. The other ponies exchanged murmurs and agreeances with the pony who spoke up. Now embarrassed, Fluttershy backed up before taking flight once more and continued on her way to Applejack's farm.