And Now For Something Completely Different

“Oh my God, are you okay?!”

Somehow, someway, Pinkie was the one panicking. Despite being called in, ostensibly to support her friend, Pinkie needed consoling when faced with the damage done to Fluttershy. It was a strange sight to anyone who knew the two; Normally, it was Fluttershy having a breakdown, with the bright, bubbly personality of Pinkie being necessary to calm her down.

Fluttershy looked as if she had run through a shredder, with slices and slashes all across her shirt and face. She had bandaged up the gashes on her cheek, but the lines of dripping red, seeping through the white of her tank top showed that she had much first aid still to come in her future.

“Oh, don't worry.” Fluttershy had a gentle chuckle to her voice, despite her mildly-mauled state. “Just a little bit of a run-in with a badger under the cottage. He was a little scared, scratched me up a little, but we managed to talk it out.”

“Do we need to take you to the doctor?” asked Pinkie. Even as she spoke, she scrambled for her phone to dial the girls, an ambulance and, perhaps if necessary, Princess Celestia herself. “We gotta get you to a hospital! Here, I'm calling AJ and Dashie, then can help carry you and then—”

“Pinkie, please. It's okay, I'm fine,” promised Fluttershy. “No hospital necessary. I just need your help to bandage up these cuts. He got me on my back, and I can't quite reach. Would you mind?”

“If it'll help, I'll do it!”

With a quiet utterance of thanks, Fluttershy went about pulling her shirt over her head, turning to show Pinkie her back. Pinkie thought she was prepared for what she would see. She was expecting blood, bruises, torn flesh. What she wasn't expecting, however, was the toned, chiseled physique Fluttershy had cultivated. Pinkie's eyes went wide at the lats, traps, delts, and other muscles she wasn't enough of a gym rat to know about, utterly bewitched by how such a gentle, soft, tender woman like Fluttershy could be built like that.

“Pinkie?” Fluttershy’s voice snapped Pinkie back to reality. “Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah. Just… Wow. You're, uh… pretty buff.” Pinkie blindly reached for the first aid kit, her eyes glued to Fluttershy’s statuesque physique. “Do you work out?”

“Not really. I do yoga with Rarity, but nothing too crazy. I guess working with animals so much keeps me in good shape.”

“I'll say…” Pinkie took a rag from the kit and wiped away the blood from Fluttershy’s wounds. Once she was clean, it was just a matter of securely wrapping the wounded areas in gauze. The job was done, and yet, Pinkie couldn't help herself; She reached forward with both hands and pressed her fingers against Fluttershy’s musculature. Her soft, smooth skin was betrayed somewhat by the hard, taught, powerful muscles that it covered. “So firm…”

“Are you… caressing my muscles?”

“Hng… M-maybe just a little?” Pinkie was doing more than “just a little”, running her fingertips along the grooves and ridges of Fluttershy’s back. She could almost feel each individual muscle fiber, hard as stone and sending shivers down Pinkie's spine. “Sorry. Should I stop?”

“Well, if you like that…” Fluttershy giggled. “I've been told I have a pretty nice six-pack, too.”

“Are you rizzing me up right now, Flutts?”

“I… don't know what that means? But, um… I'm asking if you wanted to touch my abs, so… yes?”

Pinkie’s eyes snapped up, and she had to wipe the drool from the corners of her mouth.

“Oh yeah. Awesome.”