Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom

Sun was on the descent, and Fluttershy carefully activated the lighting devices in her sitting room. She was going to need enough lumens to read. Which would hopefully also be sufficient for finding what she was supposed to be reading, because she'd been sorting through every non-contract thing the stallion had left behind and so far, none of it was carrying any ink.

There were plenty of berries. Rimu fruit turned out to look a lot like very small strawberries with no outer seeds and some false thorns along the skin. A faint glow within the bag told her it was enchanted, and would keep the fruit fresh .

She eventually located the trust hat: it had been in a wool envelope, stuck under the right edge of the cage. And when it came to simply existing as a hat...

Fluttershy didn't know what to make of it, and suspected that even Rarity's sometimes-dubious milliner skills would have had issues. It looked as if somepony had gone to a historical armor exhibit at the Museum Of Barding, studied the ring mail samples, and then tried to apply the results to headgear -- while completely leaving both metal and the concept of 'coverage' behind.

The trust hat was a half-fused, mostly-interlocking group of large, well-spaced interconnected white loops. They were somewhat like fabric to the eye, as flexible as cotton, seemed to have hollow channels running through every fiber, and tasted like nothing Fluttershy had held against her tongue. The sensation was slick: almost oily, without any of the actual texture. There was no real scent to the thing, and she'd tried to pick up on any such aspect for nearly three minutes: the assumption had been kākāpō pheromones applied to some sort of native plant byproduct.

Two of the loops were somewhat larger than the others. The pegasus quickly checked their alignment, then enlisted some help and waited until the raccoons had gotten the entire thing anchored at the base of both yellow ears. Some further assistance pulled long, long locks of manefall through the other holes, until the trust hat sat more properly while still being somewhat visible. Keeping it fully hidden would clearly be counterproductive.

Maybe it's enchanted.

But there was no glow, no note. She had no other ways to know.

The cage itself sat in the center of a recently-cleared space. She'd just finished the standard discussion with the cottage residents regarding a completely new arrival: give him some space, be polite, if he does anything unusual you come to me first, and NO HUNTING ANYONE WHO LIVES HERE. The usual. But it gave him full safety on the grounds.

She hadn't found the pamphlet, and a dark suspicion was beginning to press against her dock.

"...just one place left," she told her usual crew, and Angel's back left paw thumped against the floorboards with frustration while three squirrels rolled their eyes. "But maybe we got lucky..."

But she already knew the answer to that, and the first scrap of paper to ride the air gust which came from opening the cage landed directly in front of her eyes.

gency guide to the care of kā

Which turned out to be the largest legible piece, because some unspeakable idiot (or maybe just a stressed-out intern) had decided to store the pamphlet inside the cage, without even a protective envelope for shielding. And a sleepy ground parrot, who was probably just trying to make things comfortable for himself, had talon-shredded the entire thing.

Fluttershy softly sighed to herself. Looked at the round mound of bird which was just barely starting to stir again, asked the residents to keep an eye on him, and straightlined for her own library.

She came back after discovering everything her shelves held about kākāpōs: one journal article, which simply noted their placement on the critically endangered list. Because there were potentially thousands of bird species and when it came to those which ponies didn't know very much about, only so many book and magazine sales to go around.

A carrier pigeon was quickly recruited, with the dispatched leg-tied note meant for Twilight: a request to send whatever material was available, express -- even if it meant tapping into the library exchange program. Because there was presumably one expert, and she wasn't back in Equestria yet -- but maybe that mare had sent a few article submissions ahead.

By the time that was done, the ground parrot was most of the way out of the opened cage.

It was usually best to let new arrivals emerge at their own pace. There were too many strange scents and sounds, especially for those who were accustomed to being prey. Pushing them out into the middle of that which only registered as foreign claws and teeth, before they were ready for it -- that didn't end well. Fluttershy had been known to give the most skittish of boarders an empty room to themselves for several weeks. But she'd told the residents to leave the parrot be, allow it to make every first move.

And now it was coming out.

Two narrow aquamarine rings looked over the assembled animals. (Angel's back paws trembled, longing to thump.) And Fluttershy simply supervised, waiting to see what the strange parrot would do. To direct, channel, interrupt, or -- explain. Tell the round feathery ball that no matter how far it was from home, it was safe. Even in the face of so much strangeness, being among some of those who would normally hunt and kill...

It was still looking.

Blinks were triggered, mostly as a biological necessity.

Kākāpōs were parrots, and parrots were among the most intelligent birds in the world. Intelligence was used to evaluate new situations. To figure out which actions were necessary for survival. Intelligence, even at a non-sapient level, for a creature this far from its home, would dictate caution.

The kākāpō was currently facing a puppy.

The young canine wriggled. Then it yipped a little, raised its rear while lowering the front of its body on bent forelegs, and wagged its tail. It was trying to figure out whether this was a friend who wanted to play, and a bird -- even those who couldn't fly, seeing a creature which was likely like nothing it had ever known -- a normal bird, even a curious one, would have been skittish.

The newest cottage arrival stepped out onto a patch of carpet, proved its bird status by relieving itself on the spot, and then wandered off towards the nearest piece of furniture. Strong claws poked at the legs of the nearest visitor bench, and then tried to climb up.

Gravity noticed.

The parrot picked itself up and, with the nonchalance which came from not bothering to remember whatever had just gone wrong, located one of the more curving bits of wood which Fluttershy had placed along the wall as preliminary chipmunk rungs. It began to climb, and did so with no regard for anything which was watching it. Fluttershy included, because any spells on the trust hat obviously hadn't kicked in yet.

She felt the most interesting part was in watching the cats. She always had to caution them with new arrivals and because she was dealing with felines, she understood that most of them were telling themselves that they were only obeying her because they didn't have to. There would usually be a faint hint of 'But I would totally pounce if it wasn't just so much work,' lurking about the edges of most encounters. But this time? If she had to describe the attitude of the cats in pony terms, then she would have asked her friends to imagine a marked gambler being offered a table game which had been rigged to pay out forever -- and trotting away, because there was no challenge.

The cats didn't want to hunt for the same reason a true high-roller would never waste time on a sure thing. And the parrot, surrounded by what would have been enemies anywhere else in the world, incapable of personally hunting because that took a certain amount of planning and she wasn't sure the bird could sneak up on a blade of grass -- was currently, visibly struggling to reach the threat recognition skills of a rock.

(A theoretical rock. Fluttershy had met rocks. For a rock, the recognition that anything was taking place would have represented a major achievement. Tom couldn't pull it off. Maud's pet Boulder was still trying to complete that part of his training, and the eldest Pie sister neutrally sort-of-insisted it was simply a matter of patience. His, not hers.)

A stone which had just found itself among strange non-rocks and, after going through the level of total lack of consideration which carefully failed to learn the definition of 'counterevidence', had decided they were all very rocklike.

Also that while rocks technically had a natural predator, that was obviously just for the more faceted variety and the local dragon was never going to be hungry enough to sacrifice that much meal quality, so safety was assured.

"Hello?" Fluttershy tried. The bird had found one of the gaps between branches. Chipmunks jumped that. The bird couldn't fly, so it had to know about jumping --

-- right?

It looked at her.
It looked at the visible anchor rings of the trust hat.
The beak opened.

After fifteen seconds of intense thought, multiple adjustments for a new species, and intensely comparing the vocalization to everything she'd ever heard before, Fluttershy's talent translation attempt ultimately bottomed out at "Food?"

"...well," she sighed, "...at least they always have that..."

She fetched the berries.