Chapters There were certain concerns involved in taking care of a species which you didn't know anything about, and Fluttershy was fully familiar with all of them. Any deliberate attempt to tell herself that a dopey-seeming bird couldn't possibly be any trouble was neutralized with a memory of Philomena, and when it came to preventing the ground parrot from hurting itself... she was desperate for a guidebook. If she just had any degree of extra information...
There were a lot of paper scraps in the cage. Most of them had slid down to the bottom of a shallow, bowl-like depression which had been shaped into the soil which lined the bottom. As a result, they were decidedly stained. And torn from repeated talon contact. Others had been befouled in a different way, and just about nothing was legible.
Fluttershy sighed, cleaned the cage, and went back to work.
Experience, added to an expert estimate of the bird's weight, allowed her to figure out how much it should be eating: inspection of the cage's removed debris and the bird's droppings allowed her to work out what it liked beyond the berries, and she quickly managed to sort out a diet from the cottage's supplies. But she didn't know what risked making the kākāpō sick. What it liked to do, and the things it avoided. She really needed to figure out what would set off a fear response, and quickly.
Because so far, the answer to that last was 'nothing'.
She tried to keep an eye on it as much as she could, but there were dozens of cottage denizens who needed care. (Also some other birds: new adolescents, and she had to give two of them the usual caution after she caught the pair being very birdish indeed.) It meant she had to rely on regular reports from long-term residents regarding what it was doing, and...
The kākāpō was becoming more active as Moon took control of the cycle. But it wasn't exploring the cottage. It just -- blundered. It moved around the completely new environment of indoors as if trees had always come in wall shapes and there just hadn't been any point in worrying about it up until now. Demonstrating curiosity or fear over the changes would have meant recognition of -- anything.
There were times when she got to directly watch its face as it encountered something no forest had ever held, like a softly-glowing lighting device. And it was easy for her to describe the bird's expression, because she was the team's medic and multiple Bearers had been knocked unconscious during previous missions. To truly black out was to temporarily lose all of the brain's anchors -- including the temporal. It was part of why ponies who were reconnecting to their own forms tended to say some odd things because for all that first randomly-firing neuron knew, there actually was going to be a Final Exam starting in five minutes.
The kākāpō moved through the world like somepony who had been knocked into the concern-free bliss of the deepest concussion and never, ever had to worry about coming back out.
It didn't treat the other animals as a concern. It didn't seem to know what concern was. And the good news was that a bird who'd been described to her as being in heat wasn't making any untoward moves on the cottage's other avian residents -- but it also wasn't showing any signs of wanting sex at all .
It wanted to move around, and it very much wanted to climb . The claws were very good at wrapping anything under a given diameter and when that happened, the bird inevitably tried to go up. And it was good at the 'up' part. It wasn't demonstrating any actual thinking skills, but it had an absolute lock on the sort of short-term anti-genius which was only possessed by those who wanted to reach high places and had no safe ways of getting back down. You generally found it in kittens and pre-adolescent pegasi. The kittens were easier to reason with.
And the kākāpō wouldn't talk to her. She kept trying to start conversations. How did the parrot feel? What would make him more comfortable? What did he want -- well, other than the obvious, but still. And it just kept blundering along while she took care of all the other residents and loud thumps from poorly-chosen hop-down surfaces suggested the bird had some issues in taking care of itself.
It didn't run away from her. It didn't really run from anything. But it hadn't truly approached, either. It would look at the loops of the trust hat around her ears, and her mane. But then it looked away. Every time.
Don't force the relationship. It took time to make a new friend, and he was so far from home. Of course he was going to be skittish. But it also felt as if 'skittish' was beyond his emotional vocabulary.
She had to take care of him. To make sure he didn't get hurt, and that she herself caused no harm. The pegasus was desperate for helpful information, and had a squirrel runner posted at the door to report on returning courier wings -- along with keeping a personal eye out for any flickers of green flame. Nothing had arrived.
But with night fully closed in, and so much of the cottage starting to prepare for rest -- she noticed something.
The kākāpō was at the front door. And the nostrils (large for a parrot) kept sniffing at the traces of air which came in around the frame.
Do what's best for him.
There was a non-joke among those who studied animals: the unnatural act was the one you couldn't do. The cottage grounds were safe: a hundred carefully-arranged protections made that so. And the kākāpō wanted to go outside. A natural desire. And he was in heat. A state which she'd been asked to keep him in. Going outside meant he was likely searching for a mate.
You had to be careful. Animals who couldn't find a mate had been known to go a little -- weird. A rabbit buck in heat, denied a doe, tended to work out his frustrations upon the inanimate. (Bowling balls were popular, and never asked for child support.) But the parrot hadn't tried to move on any of the cottage birds. Not even his distant relations.
He wanted to go outside. And to interrupt or deny his natural behaviors -- even on the right diet, that would chance losing the heat state. Which risked the preservation of a critically endangered species.
He would be safe enough on the grounds. But Fluttershy still decided to supervise the initial stages.
They'd be together, while he did -- whatever it was male kākāpō did while in heat. She would be among the first Equestrian naturalists to witness that.
Maybe he'd want to talk about it.
He didn't.
For the most part, she'd stayed in the air, a little off to the side: it was easier to watch the area under full moonlight that way, and -- she'd noticed that when something was directly above the parrot, he froze. Just for a moment. A natural response to the increase in shadow, and the first indication of something approaching a fear response. Or maybe he was waiting for fruit to drop down -- although she was almost sure that wasn't how he managed. She'd seen enough movement to recognize that the bird was pretty good at climbing. Enough narrow, strong branches tilting down to ground level, and he could climb to his food. Presumably getting back down again was a Future Parrot Problem.
But he wasn't trying to eat. The parrot had done quite a bit of that before going out that door: loading up on calories for whatever the mating behavior was. And then...
He'd wandered the grounds for a while.
(The chickens had madly stared at him from their coops, and he'd failed to recognize that chickens existed.)
Eventually, he'd found a boulder. There were a few on the property: Fluttershy had cleared out most of the soil, because exposed earth could take seed and grass was a meal for so many -- but there were animals who preferred the high ground. Snakes and lizards liked to warm themselves on Sun-heated stone, while cats enjoyed tall perches because when it came to condescension, superiority was clearly aided by height. Also, Pinkie had told Fluttershy that there was at least a small chance of Maud dropping by and given the overwhelming number of animals around, it was best to retain something which the earth pony could relate to.
The parrot had examined the area. Carefully, to the point where it almost seemed as if he was on the verge of thought -- but it was just every instinct coming to the fore at once. Then he puffed up, breathing deeply, making his feathers stand out -- and Fluttershy instantly realized it was a display.
Coming on to the females? But there aren't any --
-- no. The talons were scratching the ground, over and over, and the beak ineffectively jabbed at empty air. Wings spread, uselessly beat as the bird made a sound very much like a growl. She hadn't thought it was capable of the noise, but -- parrot. Only flight (and possibly intelligence) had been sacrificed. The sound reproduction was still there.
Too much aggression in the display. He's trying to scare off other males. Telling them this is his territory.
Except there weren't any other males, and Moon appeared to be less than impressed.
The bird's feathers settled down. Wings refolded.
The talons, however, went to work.
"...I don't get it."
The kākāpō ignored her.
"...I really don't," Fluttershy told bird and night from the midst of a fast-tiring hover: it was late, and she'd been in the air for too long. "Could you just tell me...?"
Or maybe it wasn't ignoring her. The parrot might have forgotten she was there. Words were clearly meaningless, especially when they were pony ones...
"Please talk to me?"
And it didn't look up.
It had been -- scratching at the soil. For hours. Digging , and while a lot of birds would dig down to food, you seldom found those who were this dedicated to the pursuit. Especially when he wasn't eating anything which got turned up. The parrot appeared to be a pure herbivore: all insects, grubs, and worms were just as ignored as Fluttershy, although presumably less miffed about it.
The result of all the digging was, quite naturally, a hole.
...technically.
Well, to be fully fair about it, the bird hadn't even gotten that much right. There was a bowl-like depression in the soil. The edges were roughly oval, conforming to roughly a pony's length along the wider end while accommodating the parrot's wingspan at the narrow. The deepest part of the dip was about a hoof-height below the edge, and the central result was that Fluttershy now had a significant amount of extremely torn-up lawn.
But it was what the kākāpō had wanted to do. The natural behavior. So she hadn't interrupted, and all her questions had gone unanswered.
The parrot settled into the deepest part of the bowl.
And that was it. The bird folded its legs, and stared out at the Equestrian night. Nothing else happened.
Fluttershy's hover bobbed. Dipped, and nearly came apart entirely as the first yawn hit.
"...we have been out here a while, haven't we, Mister -- Mister..." and stopped. It was hard to give someone a nice, loving, funny name when they weren't speaking with you. "And you didn't want to stop." "Are you hungry? I can get more berries."
Nothing. The parrot was now a green and yellow ball within the Moonlit night. Whiskers lightly brushed against the soil.
"...you want to be outside during your mating season," the pegasus finally sighed -- and then yawned again. Trying to keep up an entire conversation was exhausting. "That's the natural thing for you, and I shouldn't interrupt that. And you're safe enough out here. I know that. I'll still set someone to watch you, of course." A nightjar. The false owls weren't the least bit predatory, but were equally as nocturnal as the hunters whom they resembled -- and would be willing to watch from a distance. "She'll tell me if you need anything. Unless you want to, right now...?"
She repeated the whole thing in what she currently understood of Basic Kākāpō, to the extent which the limited vocabulary would allow. No response.
"...all right," the weary mare temporarily gave up. "I'll see you in the morning." Maybe they could get off to a fresh start after she'd gotten some sleep...
Nightjars weren't slow birds, and that was another reason she'd chosen one as that night's bodyguard. They could fly at a rate of three gallops per hour. The fastest bird in the world was the peregrine falcon and they could reach nearly five gallops, but only when in the heart of a hunting dive. And besides, she hadn't wanted the new arrival to be stared at by a predator for hours. Not on his first night.
So when it came to alerting her to any possible problems... all Fluttershy had to do was leave a window partially open onto cool fall air. The nightjar was fast enough.
It just wasn't faster than sound.
Ponies are a prey species.
For Equestrians, it can be argued that this is largely true on technicality: after all, you're looking at a trio of equine variations who can levitate enemies, shock them into unconsciousness, or just kick them into the middle of next week. But it's a dangerous world, and when compared to some of what populates it...
The herd, united and coordinated for group survival, is a globe-taming force. The individual pony, facing down a hydra, is prey. She's also probably too freaked out to remember she can teleport, so the whole 'run away' thing is about to get a lot more complicated.
A prey species, upon hearing a strange noise in the night, wakes up. Ponies are just the ones who can think about the consequences of what they've just heard.
It doesn't help.
The sapient brain, jolted out of sleep, generally scrambled to define whatever had just brought it into a survival state while simultaneously trying to figure out what to do about it. Reaction time for this varied, but a prey species needed to be capable of moving in a hurry and even when it came to those whose personal recorded flight speed record was decidedly lacking, this was Fluttershy . Her subconscious registered the sound and finished telling her waking mind about it while she was already hovering over the bed, ready to break for any given window as the wing-flung blankets were still falling to the floor and two inadequately-disciplined young rooks were doing their best to clear the room.
(She'd slept in the trust hat. Corvid talons nearly wound up hooked.)
"...what?" the mare gasped as the survival part of her mind lined up on east: that way, if things went really wrong, she had the option to keep going until she reached the capital. "What was --"
The sound repeated.
The sapient mind tries to define events: after all, if you can lie to yourself about knowing what's going on, then you've clearly got it all under control. As such, Fluttershy's brain did its best to assign some level of initial meaning to the sound, and mostly came up with -- bass.
It was one of those low, reverberating bass notes which treated every solid surface as one more sounding board. It effectively came from everywhere, at any given moment, at just about the same time -- and then the echos lingered for a while. It had projection, range, and resisted fading like the best of Rarity's dyes. It was its own interference pattern. It was sonics as a shapeless drape of pressure with no true origin and a single target: her.
(Her fur kept rippling. It was like being next to a gramophone's speaker -- if somepony had deliberately overwound every mechanism and then enlarged the sound cone to the size of a small kitchen.)
It was possible to think about the sound in more detail than this, but there was some difficulty involved. Applying the sound directly to rationality was somepony like trying to examine the interior of a gold nugget through applying aqua regia to the surface. Technically, it worked.
The noise defied reason. It spat on sanity, then beat up common sense and stole its lunch money.
It also sounded vaguely like something going VHNOOOOOM as if the consequence for stopping was immediate death, but that was mainly by coincidence.
The cacophony briefly stopped. Echoes tried to fade, then desperately attempted to do it faster. A nightjar came in through the window gap, frantically twittering at the species signature pace of a court stenographer trying to keep up with a narcissist who'd just been asked to talk about himself.
"What's going on out there?" Fluttershy desperately asked -- and now there was sound erupting from all over the grounds, every last sleeping animal awake again and growling, hissing, mewing, barking and yelling while the nocturnals tried to figure out what had done that and how much distance they needed to put between themselves and it, the entire cottage was awake and the land beyond the property borders was going to be right behind... "Did something --"
The sound hit again, dove into her ears at a speed no peregrine could match, and slammed into an invisible button marked TALENT.
To most of her hearing, the noise simply repeated, only louder: VHNOOOOOM
To her magic...
SEX
Fluttershy softly groaned. No part of that got through the main reverb line.
SEX WITH ME
"...oh, no..."
I AM THE LOUDEST NO OTHERS HEARD I WIN SEX SEX SEX
...natural behaviors. 'Why' was a major question and when it came to the species being endangered, having to attempt sleep in the vicinity of a horny parrot turned that inquiry into Just Now? But for being in heat, this was just what a normal male kākāpō did .
...she was really, really hoping this was normal. For a naturalist to have tried to save the species through using the one oddball out of the group indicated either a very poor naturalist or some well-hidden traits which really needed to be passed on and while Fluttershy hadn't known the parrot for very long, she was guessing none of them were 'intellect'.
"...I can't stop him," she sighed to herself. "Not if this is normal, and not when I don't know how to get him back into heat if trying to make him be quiet knocks him out of it. The berries might not be enough to maintain or restart..."
Words she could barely hear, because the parrot had just gone off yet again. And the cottage, confused and scared, was getting louder as all of the confusion ramped up with every fresh blast, looking for a way to lash out --
-- yellow wings flared, and the pegasus got the eastern window open, easily passing through the giant Emergency Exit gap. It was the fastest way to begin an emergency outer circuit.
"It's okay! Nothing's wrong! It's the new one, I'm on top of it, everyone can just go back to sleep now or start playing again and go back to getting your share of Moon-graze time in, everything's fine...!"
The parrot, who had yet to experience the joys of reproduction and felt that was not fine, went off again.
She circled, calling out, darting into the cottage on swoops because the interior residents needed to be reassured and then coming right back to the grounds again. But there were so many animals, none of them had been through anything like this and she had to calm down them over and over, trying to reassure them that there was no threat while the kākāpō just repeated the sound without mercy or the ability to recognize that mercy could exist. Repeated sonic bursts and explosions, destroying what had been the peace of the night.
VHNOOOOOM
She tried to anticipate itself, brace herself for the impact. But it was a clockwork bomb, going off without fail. A localized sonic calamity. She tried to block it, attempted to use cotton wadding to muffle the effects. It didn't help. Stopping it via countervibration -- even at the outside edges of theory, that would have required an audio expert. And perhaps not even that would have been enough. At the darker limits of fantasy, to bring Vinyl Scratch within range might have risked seeing the unicorn demarked and, nearly as bad, dewubbed.
The parrot wouldn't stop . And she had to hear all of it on every level, because she needed to keep her talent activated. Track the cries of confusion from the cottage, locate the truest distress.
The rest of the world got to hear VHNOOOOOM. But with her talent in play...
At the base, animal vocabulary didn't contain a lot of terms. Still, you could find a sound which represented "Food?" for just about every species, and it was possible to build a lot from there.
If you wanted a truly universal term... that which arguably served as the foundation for all language everywhere...
The kākāpō took a breath.
WANNA FUUUUUUUUCK?
The world did not. And so the question was repeated, long into the night.
Somewhere around three a.m, a rather fed-up and extremely promiscuous saltmarsh sparrow attempted to scream back with a rough equivalent to I'LL THINK ABOUT IT IF YOU'LL JUST SHUT UP!
It didn't help.
Bird conservation was one of the most important things ever . Fluttershy understood that instinctively, on the level of her mark. Because she believed that ponies had been meant as the custodians of the natural world. Quite a bit of the collective magic was certainly pointing in that general direction and if you had that sort of power, then you clearly had an obligation to use it responsibly .
And yes, there were probably those who would say that the first pony obligation had to be towards other ponies, but there were only four -- six? -- how was anypony working out the math there? -- pony species and they were all at least theoretically sapient. Possessing sapience meant that when a true crisis arose, there was a chance that somepony might think of a way to not die. (Realistically, that was probably going to be Twilight.) By contrast, there were potentially thousands --
-- could there be that many? So much of the planet was unexplored, and that made the mere thought exciting! --
-- thousands of bird species in the world -- but to lose even one meant a little light of life had gone out forever. And the pegasus certainly understood that there were thousands -- tens of thousands! Possibly hundreds of thousands! -- of other, non-feathered species out there. Very few of which could truly think and just about all of whom needed love, understanding, and protection -- but birds were a little different.
Fluttershy recognized that when it came to avians, some species kept trying to extinct themselves.
She regularly dealt with Equestria's fully-native Green-Crested Warblers, and those were known to naturalists everywhere as an bird so relentlessly stupid that it didn't actually fly: it was just that ignorant as to how gravity worked. You needed special efforts to keep Warblers alive and if she caught one eating, she politely reminded it to remember about the swallowing part.
But it was all built into her duties within the endless cycle. She was proud to play her part --
-- all right: so there were times when Fluttershy felt that her part was being called upon somewhat more often than was strictly necessary. Because ponies were connected to the natural world, and so there were mares and stallions whose marks allowed them to speak with most of it -- in segments. Those who could translate the growls of great cats often accompanied exploration teams in the name of a little extra warning, the ones tied to lizards tended to wind up in warm climates, and of course zoos were always hiring. There were enough specialist communication marks to keep everything moving in a more-or-less steady forward gallop -- but if one of those ponies wasn't available and a generalist could try to fill in for a while...
it just felt like far too many zoos, conservation societies, and protective organizations saw her as their primary backup. That was most of it.
A significant remainder came from having all of everypony else's problem children just turn up at the cottage. Without prior notice, warning, or anything approaching an advance arrangement. Just a pony with a carrier cart, perhaps shivering and sweating somewhat as they waited for Fluttershy to sign the paper which said she now had temporary custody and legally, whatever happened next was probably her fault. As if she would just automatically take them in every last time! Because she was obviously such a pushover --
-- no. She -- helped. She always wanted to help. And they usually remembered to tell her about how crucial she was, how she just had that way with creatures...
(The warning still would have been nice.)
Besides, it let her meet new animals!
(Any degree of warning.)
And wasn't that the most special thing?
(Any.)
Most of what she remembered about the deliverypony from the dropoff visit was the trembling. The stallion existed as something which was trying to harmonize with the universe, mostly through trying to figure out the specific vibratory rate of all local matter and then making his body match. He never entirely stopped shivering, and failed to do so while lacking any final commitment on rate and direction. When added to his natural hues, it gave him the look of a saffron harvest which had been caught in a dust devil -- or of somepony who was more than a little frightened.
It was a fairly small cart. (She took a lot of deliveries, and so had frequent basis for comparison. However, because traffic to the cottage could be fairly intense during the day, most of the big dropoffs were made at night.) The cage in the cargo area wasn't particularly big, nor was it all that reinforced. The side bars were too thick for her to make out the contents from a distance, but the scent...
Fluttershy maintained her position on the cottage's front stoop, standing within the opened door's frame. Several animals peered out around the edges, curious about the new scents, the potential intruder, and whether anypony had brought a treat. The regular deliveryponies for the cottage route nearly all eventually started bringing treats, largely because when you needed an emergency distraction, it helped to fling something.
Normal late afternoon in autumn. Weather schedule has it a little warm. (Later, she would consider that the stallion had potentially made a very specific effort to turn up while Sun was still raised.) And all of the animals visible in this area are on the small side. No major predators, and Harry isn't even within scent. So when it comes to temperature, he doesn't have any reason to shiver like this, same for the audience, and for what he's been hauling...
She took another breath. The faint odors produced by a healthy uropygial gland swirled in her snout.
Wen she considered what he was supposedly hauling, the stallion's fear didn't make any sense. And it was her making that decision. The irony was almost palatable.
"...bird," Fluttershy carefully said. "Just one bird."
"Yes," the shivering stallion eventually delivered, mostly in vibrato. "But I can't tell you that much about it."
"...you can't," had been layered with extra caution in self-defense, and the effort was doomed to fail.
"I'm just an intern ," the stallion helplessly declared. "I've been with the Conservation Society for a week. They mostly have me galloping around a lot. Today, they told me to gallop this bird to Ponyville. And not a lot else."
"...did they include the briefing pamphlet?" Fluttershy asked.
"Oh, yes!" her visitor exhaled. "I loaded that up myself when I took the cart!"
Which was essential: there was always a chance that she would be asked to look after a truly new species, and that meant she needed any information available. "...so what can you tell me? Personally, before I see what was written?"
He frowned with concentration. Some of the lesser fur strands around his mouth briefly stilled.
"It's a male," he finally said. "From a very long way off. It was being shipped back to Equestria, as part of a small group. At least a pair, I think. But there were some health concerns, and the others got held up for a few days. This one went ahead and arrived early. The mare who was supposed to accompany the whole group -- she stayed with the rest, and she's the expert . Her mark is sort of like yours, from what they told me. But for birds. So the Society is just asking you to watch over this one for a few days, until she catches up. A few days at the most. From what we know. Then I'll make the pickup, and she'll take it from there." Hopefully, "Usual deal for kennel service payments? I brought a contract. Nearly standard. There's just one new part..."
"...a male," Fluttershy tried, because it felt like the sort of word which almost had to lead into more information.
"...yes..." the vibrating stallion oscillated at her.
Fluttershy turned the single syllable over in her head a few times. Looked down from the little staircase at the repository of shaking silence, and briefly marveled at how strange it felt to be the aggressor in the conversation.
"...a male what?" didn't seem like very much to ask for.
"I really don't know much..." came across as oddly -- desperate.
She missed most of it in the sudden surge of strictly-internal frustration. There's a briefing pamphlet, because there always is. One which you apparently didn't glance at, when the responsibility for this part of the transport was yours. And you said a very long way off --
-- which meant this could be someone new , and her excitement rose. To be among the first in an entire nation who would meet a new kind of friend...
I don't know what this is.
But it was new . She would still be among the first. If she started taking notes early -- well, of course the mare who was on the way needed to receive full initial credit for any published papers, but Fluttershy was always happy to get her name in somewhere among the footnotes...
"...you know it's a bird," said her growing anticipation. "A normal bird? No magic?"
He hesitated.
"Nothing it does could be considered magical," the stallion finally decided.
"...nothing?"
"I'm sure somepony tried to counter..."
Her ears strained. "...sorry?"
Silence.
"...so why isn't it staying at the zoo?" Fluttershy finally asked, because you could only watch a terrified stallion silently vibrate for so long before wondering why there wasn't more of a hum in the air. "Or at Audu's sanctuary?" Because there was a noble who felt that the most noble cause was keeping birds alive, she was right outside Canterlot and even without a communication mark on the hips of the hostess, Ms. Bontemps' valley-bordering estate was the avian primary backup destination of choice. Fluttershy was more of a generalist --
"It's -- disruptive," the stallion half-frantically tried. "They've never had a bird like this." Far too hastily, "It isn't a threat to anything there! Or here! It's -- harmless . Technically..." And nearly rallied. "Furthest thing from a predator ever! But the expert has to personally arrange things once she arrives, and without her..."
Disruptive. Harmless. Two words which should not be trying to work together.
She was about to say something. Pushing a little, with the surprising strength which could sometimes arise from the heart of her talent. Doing whatever was necessary to take care of the natural world. But that initial surge of rising determination was temporarily lost in the stallion's followup push of decibels.
"It's in heat!"
Fluttershy blinked.
"...in heat," she repeated.
"Yes," the stallion quickly said. "And it needs to stay in heat." More hastily, as if he was trying to get it all out before some horrified part of his brain could recognize that he was talking about heat with a pretty mare, "There's a special kind of berry, from something called a rimu tree. You've got a good supply. Make sure it eats some every day, with every meal."
"...I can do that." But what about the berry made it important, and could she get substitutes --
"Oh," the stallion abruptly interrupted. "And the bird is called a kākāpō. I just remembered that." The vibration subtly increased. "Does that... help?"
But she was too busy thinking to fully recognize the sudden note of fear.
Kākāpō...
Potentially thousands of bird species in the world. (It was always going to be a thrilling thought.) Nopony could realistically be familiar with all of them. And she searched her memory, she tried to come up with anything connected to the term, but it was like trying to pull up pure water from the bottom of a swamp --
-- and then her brain delivered two vital words.
critically endangered
The mare's lone visible blue-green eye slowly closed with pain.
Thousands of species. None could ever be replaced. All she knew of this one was the name, and solely because it had appeared on a list of those whom ponies were trying to save.
She remembered that they were at risk, and not the why of it. That obscure.
She was being asked to host a bird who was likely among the last of his kind. To keep him in heat, because he'd clearly been sent to Equestria as part of a designated reproduction group. A vital member of an effort to save a helpless species. The females couldn't be that far behind...
Her duties were vital.
Slowly, unstoppably, shapely yellow shoulders and hips squared.
"...may I see him?"
The stallion vibrated out a nod. Fluttershy took one hoofstep forward, let her wings flare to their full span, and came in over the cart. The side bars were too thick for a good view, but things were considerably thinner over the top --
-- the bird just barely registered the sounds being produced by active wings, sleepily looked up, and Fluttershy hopelessly fell in love.
So much of the face was a round disc of green and yellow feathers, with speckles of darker spotting. And for those who didn't know enough to keep looking, the first thought might have been owl -- but the ponies who understood would quickly spot both the shape and placement of the eyes: too small, much more on the sides of the head than at the front. Nowhere close to being a predator. The main similarity to an owl was that the eyes were nearly all pupil. An aquamarine ring designated the iris, but nearly every other part of the orbs was actively trying to drink in light. Her first expert guess was that the bird was mostly nocturnal, and this would turn out to be accurate.
The facial disc suggested an owl. But the shape of the beak, the eyes, that little crest of the head...
Parrot.
A distant branch from a familiar tree, which had grown over strange shores. Because this was the strangest parrot she'd ever seen.
The feathering was beautiful. It also didn't work . Because the parrot had a basic shape, and it was 'round'. It was a ball moving on surprisingly-powerful legs, and it almost had to be the legs because the wings seemed to be completely out of proportion. They could spread normally, but there wasn't enough wing to actually do anything, and the muscles across the sternum were severely weakened: for that matter, the bone anchor of the keel itself had shrunken --
"...he can't fly," Fluttershy softly observed. "And it's not a birth defect, is it?"
She registered the stallion's head shake as a change in the vibration of the air. "I -- guess not? I don't think any of them can."
I can hardly fly, and he'll spend his entire life without knowing what it's like...
Fluttershy wondered if she should land. If she was making him feel bad --
-- then again, she wasn't sure she was making him feel much of anything.
The kākāpō was very unusual for a parrot. (Flightless! She hadn't known any parrots qualified.) For starters, it was heavy: that roundness had brought it to about a tenth of a bale in mass. The feet were normal enough, she supposed: the usual two talons going forward on each foot, to match two heading back. And they stood out on color contrast, because there were a lot of white scraps within a shallow depression which had been scraped into the dirt on the floor of the cage. Maybe he was the sort of male who liked to do some of his own nesting..
But the legs were more muscular because they had to do all of the work, she'd just realized that the face had whiskers because a bird who spent all of its time on the ground was going to have concerns about getting through small spaces and possibly evolve feelers to solve the problem...
Ultimately, it was about the eyes.
There were those little rings of color, all around the edges of the great voids. And to look into those eyes was to see -- well, an equine snout. In extremely distorted reflection.
Fluttershy looked into those eyes. She smiled at the bird, allowed her talent to project warmth and reassurance, and waited to see recognition looking back.a reaction...
Sun was going to be lowered soon.
Carefully, she landed in the cart. Waited for the springs to stop rocking, then looked down into the cage. Her talent rose, and her body tucked in on itself somewhat, from neck to tail. Scrunching inwards, becoming a little bit rounder. Her cheeks puffed out.
"Hello."
The bird stared at her.
...okay: it could be like that sometimes, especially at the beginning. Just about every species had the foundations of language -- in that if an animal could vocalize, then specific sounds were going to mean something. 'Food here' was a common expression, although some liked to keep it to themselves. 'Run!' was just about universal. But there wasn't much complexity to that kind of communication: there almost couldn't be. It could take some time of being within range of Fluttershy's talent before more advanced concepts began to arise in animal minds.
"...hello?"
Admittedly, this one appeared to be having a few issues with the concept of communication...
The flightless parrot slowly blinked at her. Aquamarine looked past her eyes, nearly focused on the long fall of her mane, and then came back to her face.
He yawned.
Right. Nocturnal. He would be more active after dark. All she had to do in order to make a truly unique friend was -- wait. It was just that...
Birds tended to have a sort of default look, which varied by species. Eagles possessed two: 'I am going to kill that' and 'I am probably too freaked out to kill anything, but I'm gonna try '. Pigeons had a baseline of 'Huh?' and it was a rare seagull who would move off 'MINE!' in their sleep.
Something about the kākāpō's sleepy eyes suggested a waking coma. One which lacked the creativity required for dream.
It was absolutely adorable.
The bird looked at her head again. (A male parrot was a tom , overlapping with cats. She didn't know if kākāpō had any gender titles of their own, and was hoping it was in the pamphlet.) Looked away again, and yawned for the second time.
"...I can sign now," the mare offered --
"-- hat," the stallion just barely said.
Yellow ears rotated, sieved through atmosphere to collect sound. The pegasus, who was fully accustomed to the efforts involved in hearing herself, decided to try for a fresh offering.
"...sorry?"
To her best (and slightly inaccurate) guess, the next words were "It's a -- trust hat. Trust. It's around here somewhere. That's part of this contract. They told me to make sure you signed. You have to wear it whenever you're around the bird. ...just... just in... just in case he..."
And stopped talking. Completely, utterly and, if not for the fact that the worst luck of his life would see him dispatched into the disaster of the pickup, just about permanently.
She might have noticed the fear. She was good with fear. But she was thinking.
Something the explorer discovered? Maybe some branches woven into a nest shape, using trees from his home, I wear it on my head, and he comes to it when he trusts me. Settles in...
Well, it would hardly be the worst thing a bird had ever done with her hair. It took some stern talks to keep the dollops out. Those working on nesting prep had to settle for shed portions of mane and tail, because Fluttershy could become very frustrated with those who tried to collect donations ahead of schedule. And that wasn't all. Because some birds were more intelligent than others -- but some were much, much less. And in any relationship -- any new friendship -- each party had to learn about the other. Set boundaries. That was work.
It was also a labor of love.
You could never have enough birds in the world. Unless you were dealing with geese, and then you already had too many.
The caretaker smiled.
"...you can take out the paperwork now. I'm ready to sign..."
The stallion's neck twisted back towards his saddlebags with ill-advised speed.
Fluttershy didn't let him leave until she'd finished treating the muscle pull.
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.
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.
Fleeing Hoofbeats In The Night
Sun had been raised. Fluttershy would have understood if it hadn't wanted to come anywhere near the horizon after that racket, but the noise had stopped about an hour prior to a half-deaf Moon being guided out of the area.
Fluttershy had gone outside and found the kākāpō asleep in his soil bowl. He'd been exhausted. Which, when compared to what the rest of the cottage had gone through, clearly meant he hadn't suffered enough --
-- natural behavior. It was just natural --
-- what was the purpose of it? Sapients could lie themselves into endless false motivations for being stupid, but animals didn't act in a given way without a reason! That had been a mating display, most likely a courtship ritual of some sort. And Fluttershy could accept that kākāpōs went through the routines known as leks , even if they were the first parrots she'd ever heard of doing so. But a lek only worked if it led to mating. So that sound had to be capable of luring in females. Just not any of the ones who lived in Equestria. And with the only viable candidates still in transit...
She gently brought the parrot inside. Made sure he sleepily ate and drank, because making so much noise for -- hours... had taken so much of his strength. Tucked him back into the cleaned cage, mostly for his own safety. And then...
...any other pony might have tried for sleep. Even Applejack could have theoretically called down 'Bad night!' to the rest of the family, rolled over, and closed her eyes in an attempt to find that precious extra hour: after all, she would do the same when those she loved were truly tired.
Fluttershy, as the only mare on the property, with triple digits of dependents to look after and nopony else to take on a tenth-bit of it -- sighed, took the coldest wake-up shower she could risk on a fall day, and went to work.
Most of the awake portion of the cottage was grouchy. The daywalkers hadn't been able to get any real rest -- Fluttershy understood the feeling -- and the nocturnals had found their routines completely disrupted by blasts of sound. Some had attempted to flee from the noise and charged directly into the nearest wall: all resulting minor injuries were carefully treated. There were signs of a few fights: little conflicts which she hadn't found in time, like scratches at the entrances to the most sound-resistant holes. The pegasus was finding sleeping animals in the strangest places, and briefly gave up on asking for explanations after discovering the otters snoozing in a cistern.
In fact, a lot of things were turning up in the wrong spots.
Fluttershy, upon finding a bit in the streets of Ponyville, would dutifully carry it to the police station and turn it over to the authorities. She didn't want to cause any problems for others by claiming their lost money. Besides, if nopony came looking for it after two weeks, then it was probably safe to call that coin her own. But if the impacted party had an emergency after that, she could always make arrangements for payback...
Regardless, she had no intention of turning in the spine-high slumping group of animal feed bags she'd just found barely within sight from the far end of the bridge, largely because she was certain that she'd already paid for them. It was just that when it came to her deliveries, she tended to find such hastily-dumped piles next to her front door.
Deliveryponies in a hurry, thought the weary mare, because no better explanation had the strength for coming to mind. Probably somepony new and running late. Cut corners through not bothering to round the corners. Just dump and go. Oh, dear...
Filing complaints was a lot of trouble and the bags were all there, so she wearily wrestled them inside, one jaw grip at a time. A lot of water washed the residue of canvas from her tongue, and then Fluttershy went back to sorting out a typical cottage day.
Sun had been raised. There were residents to feed, patients who needed to be monitored, and if she didn't catch up with the morning duties soon, she would still be trying to get the grounds settled when her first client came over the bridge...
It had been a surprisingly quiet day. The 'credit' for some of this could be laid at the kākāpō's talons, because you almost never got the entire cottage on the same schedule. Having every resident unexpectedly knocked into a waking cycle of Activity Is When That Sound Is Not meant just about everyone was getting some sleep and when it came to animal residents, the grounds were near-silent and still.
Pony visitors, however, tended to break into spontaneous cooing.
Fluttershy had the usual scope of appointments to deal with: some vet duties, a few basic checkups, scattered grooming added to some ponies dropping by to reclaim their companions from kennel services. And because she'd gone and left the parrot's cage in the sitting room, anypony coming in to see her would typically see him first. With a nice clear view, because the cage wasn't that tall and the bars were a lot thinner at the top.
Not that the sleeping kākāpō was causing any problems on sight . Because ponies were skittish, especially around new things -- but they also knew 'adorable' when they saw it and in the event that there could potentially be an issue, the confining cage was already there. They cooed, and awwwwed, and asked Fluttershy many questions -- just about none of which she could answer, and she kept checking for signs of Twilight sending anything back because the personal ignorance was getting embarrassing.
Everypony kept asking about the hat. She explained what she'd been told. The word 'trust' usually had to be repeated a few times, followed by 'not yet'.
She was also stumbling around the cottage. Just a little.
It wasn't exactly unexpected. The caretaker's talent did its best to help with every aspect of her duties, and a mare who needed to spend time with the resident nocturnals required much less sleep than the typical pony: about four hours per night. But she hadn't had any , and that took a toll.
She had to be careful. Fluttershy could manage all of her duties at this level for lack of rest, even the veterinary ones: she just moved cautiously and double-checked every decision. But two nights with no sleep... that would extract an increasing toll, most of which always seemed to be taken from a steadily-shortening temper. It wouldn't take all that long beyond that to reach the point where she couldn't trust her medical judgment --
-- somepony knocked on the front door, and Fluttershy instantly knew who was outside. It was a rather precise sort of signature knock. It had Beats. There was a little more force than might have been strictly necessary. It counted off a precise amount of time between impacts, and then it delivered another one because the pony who was outside had a lot of stress and in the absence of being allowed to scream in public, she had to kick something.
Only one mare knocks on a door like that. Why is she here?
Although Fluttershy suspected she knew the answer to that one --
-- no. If there had been any real complaints, then the knocking mare would have been younger and, physically, weaker. Also much more Authoritative and Official about the knocks, which would be accompanied by a backbeat of We Both Understand I'm Coming In Anyway. This wasn't Ponyville's police chief.
The pegasus hesitated in her current grooming maneuver, then deposited the jaw-held scissors to the workbench, asked the dachshund to wait, and went to open the front door.
The older mare carefully lowered her right foreleg. Raffia-toned fur, which was usually just enough out of grain to notice the errors, failed to settle back into place. Dark blue eyes carefully peered through half-lenses.
"Do you have a moment?" the mayor politely (if pointedly) asked. "I know there are very few good times for just 'dropping by'. Not with all you have to do."
"...it's just some grooming right now," Fluttershy softly answered. "I have to clean out some impacted anal glands in about an hour --" and saw the earth pony's expression. "-- it's a cat thing. This time, anyway. A little messy, but they feel better after. Right now isn't anything which can't wait, Mayor." Especially because the politician didn't exactly turn up without cause.
The older mare nodded, and the forward tip of the dyed mane executed a two-toned bob.
"According to the reports which reached my desk," the mayor began, "you had a feed delivery last night."
Very carefully, "...I didn't think Town Hall kept a schedule for my cart rounds..."
"We don't," Mayor Mare stated. "Until last night, I suspect the only ponies who knew about your delivery were yourself and the hauling pony. I just tend to receive interesting pass-alongs from the rest of the town."
"...pass-alongs..." was mostly being used to get that much closer to the incoming Issue.
"Like police reports," the mayor offhoofedly mentioned.
Several animals were gathering behind Fluttershy now. Angel was getting both back paws ready to thump. It wouldn't help.
"...I think," Fluttershy valiantly tried to intercept, "I may be able to explain --"
"The short version," utterly-faked neutrality cut in, "would be that your deliverypony had been picking up on what he'd felt were some unusual noises. However, it wasn't his first time hearing strange things near the cottage, as some of yours do become rather vocal in their seasons and of course, you get the occasional special guest. So he marshaled himself and pushed on. Continuing to do so until shortly before crossing the last bridge. Which was when he heard, and I quote, 'A worldbreaking monster which clawed its way out of Tartarus to destroy the planet'." She paused. "'And sanity'."
"...um..." didn't actually help.
"'And also eardrums'," Marigold Mare finished. "So he dumped his cargo. On instinct. He's not even sure why he did that. His best guess is that the monster might lose time tripping over it. And when the remainder of the panic reaction started to wear off, he found himself back in town -- where he immediately headed for the police station and begged them to dispatch an officer, because he was convinced he'd just left you to die."
"...um..." hadn't improved its skills with experience.
"He actually feels very bad about the whole thing," the older mare added. "Extremely guilty regarding your welfare."
"...that's... nice..."
"Tell him so yourself when you next see him," Marigold suggested. "It might help with the crying. In any case, Miranda sent out ponies -- who spotted you before reaching the cottage. Flying over the grounds, putting some of your residents to bed. There were no signs of monsters, much less sounds. So as you were clearly well, the decision was made to leave you alone and simply return to the station. Further details could wait for morning."
Fluttershy's most fundamental nature reluctantly signaled for her attention, then tentatively proposed a response.
"...I'm sorry for making everypony worry...?"
Raffia ears rotated. Checking the air.
"The cottage is quiet now," the mayor observed. "It wasn't last night. The end of a single performance does not drop the curtain against all future stagings, and your current half-expression more than suggests you know exactly what took place. Explain."
It was easiest to do so while she was grooming the dachie. Admittedly, it meant a lot of stops and starts to her sentences because her mouth was managing grooming implements most of the time -- but with Fluttershy, hesitations were going to happen anyway. The mayor steadily, quietly listened from the other side of the workstation table. The dog was mostly waiting for the 'treats' portion to kick in.
She made sure to use academic terms and in the name of keeping it that way, carefully failed to fully translate from the VHNOOOOOM.
"His reproductive cycle," Marigold finally said. "Estrus, or 'heat'. And that is what led to the -- 'sound'."
"...it's what's best for him," Fluttershy helplessly tried. "To indulge in his natural behaviors! He needs to be outside --"
"-- I will take your word for that," the mayor cut in. "And we have a rare instance of good fortune, Ms. Phylia."
"...we do?"
"In that we now have a very good idea of just how far that sound travels," the earth pony told her. "And the answer is 'nowhere close to any of your neighbors'. Not that you have anypony living all that close, of course: part of that is your proximity to the Everfree, and at least some of the rest is because the sounds from the property can already be disconcerting. But nopony from the Acres tried to check on you."
"...that's a very good way to measure," Fluttershy pondered, and did so a split-second before the guilt over nearly having woken Applejack kicked in. "I couldn't exactly try to leave the grounds and find out..."
"Rather directly," the mayor wrapped up, "it means nopony lives within range to be disturbed at night, and the bird sleeps during the day. As such, unless the situation radically changes -- and I am counting on you to tell me about that -- I don't see him as a threat to Ponyville. Simply post signs at the standard entrances to your property and have them lit to be read at night. Telling ponies that you have an unusual, rather loud, but harmless visitor. And all should be well." Followed by a minor leftward head tilt and a question which, technically, wasn't one. Not the kind which had more than one permitted response. "You'll do that?"
But Fluttershy was too relieved to care. "...yes, mayor." With a smile, "I can do that."
Still... harmless . The deliverpony had said that. Harmless, but disruptive...
"And anchor one to a cloud," the earth pony reminded her. "You do get deliveries coming in high."
"...yes."
"And that -- hat?"
"...not yet. But I'll wait for it. To... know when he trusts me." The smile became stronger. "That first moment of real connection. It'll be worth it..."
Warm sunlight streamed through the windows, with all of autumn's chill held at bay.
They stood together within the beams for a few seconds. Simply basking their fur. And then the older mare took a slow, weary breath.
"No threat to Ponyville at this time," Marigold said. "But when it comes to the more immediate and local concern --"
"...I'm fine," Fluttershy tried. "Everyone at the cottage is fine, Mayor. We're just... a little more tired than usual..."
"Yes, you are," the earth pony sharply said. "To the point where, with you, the weariness is visible . And I'm aware of how much it takes to produce that."
"...right..." the pegasus winced as her body involuted somewhat around the withers.
"Along with what tends to follow it."
"...I've almost got the last of that settlement paid --"
"-- we," Marigold tensely declared, "do not need any more Little Incidents, Miss Phylia. Nopony does."
Neither mare moved. The dog, becoming impatient for a treat, wriggled.
So much more softly, as the older mare's grey streaks shimmered in the sunlight, "Do you need any help?"
"...I think I'll be okay..."
Gently, "Is there anything Town Hall, or Ponyville, can do to keep this from going out of all control?"
"...I'm... still waiting to learn what I should be doing," hurt to say. "But at least I have some idea, Mayor. Somepony just -- trying things... could make him sick. It has to be me..."
"If you need it," was just above a whisper, "will you ask for help?"
The younger mare's single visible eye silently looked through well-polished glasses until it met the tired gaze of the elder. And they both waited until the final echoes of the silence had faded away.
"Let the record show the question was asked, I suppose," Marigold sighed. "Again --"
-- and the sunlit air over the table began to brighten. Something which initially happened in small, random patches, but then began to connect into swirls of luminescent motion.
There was a flash --
The mayor had been very nice about it.
She'd waited on everything else. For example, "I'll leave you to your reading, then," had been pushed off until she was just about out the door. Because there could be little side effects from having Spike relay information to the cottage. One of them was that you got some letters very quickly, and another was having visiting animals respond to a sudden burst of heatless flame through totally freaking out.
They'd both gotten the dachie corralled. Fluttershy had made sure none of the scrolls were damaged -- and they were scrolls . She recognized Spike's clawwriting, even when it was so much more jagged than usual. She'd also seen the word kākāpō prominently featured on the exterior seal.
He and Twilight had wanted her to see that it wasn't a mission summons immediately, and that had helped. But at the same time...
The little dragon's trick wasn't always reliable with books. Sending bound texts via flame risked damage. But he'd wanted her to have the information in a true hurry, and he'd -- copied everything out. By hand.
His writing is so shaky.
Was he upset? Crying? The kākāpō being critically endangered... it distressed him that much?
It spoke well of Spike, that his empathy had struck so deep. It also meant Fluttershy knew the scrolls would be a rough read for her. So she steadied herself, dealt with the next two appointments plus a drop-in, wrapped her soul in armor of dread, and waited until she was truly clear before reviewing what she'd been sent.
The second scroll was about kākāpō care.
The first concerned their reproductive habits.
And the boy, who possessed all of the humor and restraint inherent to his gender and age, in copying out every word, had been laughing the whole time.
The Counter(re)productive Habits Of The Kaimanawian Flightless Parrot 'Kākāpō'
That was the title of a journal article, because the expert had in fact sent her first publication ahead.
That was the title.
Twilight had said something once: that the two scariest things in a lecture were a scholar trying to be funny -- and having that party succeed . Because to have a subject be so inherently soaked with insanity as to prevent the zero-humidity environment of academia from drying it out...
Counter(re)productive
The base text didn't fully neutralize the acidity of the nonsense.
It did, however, suggest some of the lines had been crafted as careful understatements.
Define 'life'.
That particular issue can get very complicated. But we don't need more than the basics here. Let's say... we're looking for something which needs to survive . A rock doesn't. You can change the environment to the point where stone can't exist in its current state, but your average boulder has no need to eat and no matter what Maud might say, isn't particularly worried about the weather conditions. Rocks simply go on. To be a living being means your existence likely requires the ongoing acquisition of resources. Something to metabolize, at the very least.
Survival. Maintain that fragile existence. Find fuel. Push that personal engine, keep it running. And when your own parts start to wear out... make sure you can create something which takes over for you. A next generation.
Because survival, in the evolutionary sense, is about the long-term strategy. We're looking at doing whatever is necessary to ensure the continued existence of the species . Individuals are mainly important because you need a bunch of those to make the kind of number which provides a degree of safety.
You can lose a few. In fact, for any species which is supposed to be experiencing natural death, you'd better lose some on a regular basis or you're going to have more problems. This tends to start with 'these things are still reproducing, and has anypony noticed that the one plant they eat is gone?'
You can't lose them all, because that's extinction. But from the survival standpoint, having too many is its own problem.
Consider the kākāpō. You'll have to do all of the work on that one, because this is a bird which is not capable of considering itself.
It's currently native to a very few islands in the southern hemisphere, all off the coast of Kaimanawa and yes, multiple ones. How did a flightless bird settle onto more than one habitat, when those locations are divided by sea? Nopony's quite sure. The experts are still looking for most of the fossils, and you can't find one just because you want to -- well, unless you have exactly the right mark, and those ponies are kind of in high demand. But it's possible that at some point in the distant past, the kākāpō could fly.
(Or there might have been one island, and then something very powerful became extremely angry in a defined area. That sort of thing happens in a world of magic, although it's fairly rare to still have parrots around after.)
Take a look at Kaimanawa itself. There's a decent spread of predators to go with their trying-not-to-become-meals, and it's a place which has its share of magic and monsters and all the mayhem you could ask for, only in a language which gets very hard to pronounce. And you apparently have to understand something about tattoos to go there. (Ponies don't really use tattoos. Using ink to make a picture means shaving away fur so others can see it and besides, the mark is obviously superior.) But it's an absolutely lovely country. Incredible views from the mountains, and the forests are just so green ...
With touches of yellow.
On the mainland, a flightless kākāpō's main threat would come from hunting birds and so the behavior response is simple: if something passes over you, freeze. The feathers readily blend into the jungle. A sleeping kākāpō, nearly motionless within the green, can be almost impossible for a harrier to spot. And if they're awake -- those legs have power. The parrot can no longer fly, but it can still outrun quite a few threats. Give it a second of warning, a clear shot at the nearest shielding bush --
-- on the mainland, in what was likely their original environment, life would have been a struggle. That's normal . Very few species get to coast on merit. And perhaps in time, as new predators rose, the parrot would have fallen. Become lost before ponies ever found it.
On the mainland -- and the expert, based on old drawings and feather-bearing artifacts, knows the kākāpō was there once -- the bird was lost. There are no living ones left.
But somehow, the species reached the islands. (Maybe it caught a ride. Or there was a huge magical battle and a lot of random teleports got involved.)
There are no harriers flying over the islands.
For a period of what was at least several centuries -- possibly millennia, and maybe for a lot longer than that -- there was nothing living on those islands which represents any threat to a kākāpō. Not a single living animal which was capable of killing them. There was nothing to thin the numbers down.
And the bird had no competition.
Was it evolution? It depends on whom you ask. There may be a certain 'use it or lose it' aspect for species traits on a generational scale: none of your ancestors could be bothered with flying, so now you're grounded. Or perhaps there was a single higher power responsible for the creation of the parrot, but it had just gone through thousands of butterflies earlier in the day and was clearly wiped out. Everyone makes mistakes when they're tired.
So creation, or evolution, or Discord on a day where he'd been really bored and so was absolutely never going to tell her about it, had looked down upon the wonder of life known as the kākāpō. And upon doing so, the determining force behind the existence of precious Life in a cold universe had said "Oh. No natural predators here."
This would have been followed by a very long pause.
"...horse apples."
Because the bird was stupid .
Admittedly, you needed to have sapient-level intelligence in order to see some of the problems coming, and Fluttershy knew there were ponies who weren't capable of working it out. But it was ultimately all about resources. There were rimu trees on the islands. (They bore fruit frequently, and the kākāpō reproductive cycle kicked in when the production was highest -- every two to four years.) Lots of plants. Plenty of food for a purely herbivorous avian. It would have no trouble at all in eating and staying healthy.
Well-fed, healthy animals tended to reproduce.
Subsequent generations would keep it up. After all, they were safe .
They were also utterly incapable of some pretty fundamental actions.
Like counting.
Or comparing ratios.
'Kākāpō to rimu trees': that was a pretty important one. Especially since it would have been on the generational decrease.
Followed by a plummet.
And a crash.
The parrots, with nothing remaining which could hunt them, left to their own devices and with no capacity for thinking about the problem -- would have eventually produced enough chicks to strip the plants bare. To eat everything on the islands, until there was nothing left within flightless reach. And the last of the kākāpō... flightless birds who could only climb so far would stare up at unreachable green canopies, helplessly flap useless wings... and starve.
Or rather, that was what would have happened to a species which, when the time came to have sex, would just saunter over to a potential partner and say "Your place or mine?"
Kākāpō weren't at risk of extinction because of their reproductive process: that was something which had only come about because of... sapience. Those who could think had thought about exploring, and had been a little too slow to spot the full consequences of their actions. They were trying to make up for it, because sapience was about taking responsibility.
But survival was about the long-term strategy.
Kākāpō were incredibly stupid.
If you're going to consider the flightless parrots of the far south... then try to see them as the feathered, fully-accurate incarnation of the adolescent pony male's worst fear.
Namely, that the entire world is in fact directly and purposefully designed to keep him from getting some.
For the kākāpō, that's exactly the case.
Because as a species, until the thinkers had arrived... the parrots had been exactly stupid enough to live .
VHNOOOOOM
That's a bass noise, and pinning down exactly where it rests on the sound spectrum is crucial -- because the secret of bass is that you can't pin it down.
Not for the creating source.
Ask anypony who's ever had to set up the sound reproduction system for a cinema: the treble bar's placement needs to be determined by the sort of arcane formulas which are half-math, half-mark -- but the speakers for the bass? Kick those anywhere . All you need is raw power, and the sound will fill the space. The best way to determine where bass sound is coming from is through being right next to it. At least then, all of the fur ripples are trying to flee a central source.
Let's take a look at the soil bowl. When viewed in terms of evolution trying for a flourish or a creating party looking for applause, it's going to come up short either way -- initially. Because the parrot has, through the mechanism of non-thought, dug out a depression which amplifies the sound he's making -- while simultaneously putting in some extra work on distorting the fine edges. Then consider that the bird likes to set up the bowl near a boulder. Why? Because he couldn't find a cliff face. The islands of his home are volcanic remnants: high vaults of stone, rich soil. The best spots for males to boom is right next to the stone mountains, because that rock is going to do its part for the sound and besides, that's where instinct said to go. A boulder is being used at the cottage because when it comes to local mountains, Canterlot's a fairly long way off.
Also, we just had some plurals there. 'Males'. 'Spots'. Because in the kākāpō's home? Heat season is determined by the fruit production of the rimu tree. And that means all of the boys are heading to the breeding yard. At the same time.
Because that's the nature of 'lek mating'. A given parrot tom is in active, open, and ultimately (rather) vocal competition with every other bird. If their starting positions are fairly close to each other, you'll get territorial displays of strength: failure to back off by at least one party may lead to a fight over the best spots. This isn't likely, because kākāpō are fairly solitary birds: the young play together and the adults can make friends, but their individual habitats can have a lot of separation: in particular, females may live a third-gallop away from the males.
But on this night, all of the breeding-age toms will be sounding off. They're all trying to put on a show, in direct competition with each other: something halfway between a display of prowess and a mating ritual. They make their sound. All of them, hour after hour, as sonic bursts of twinned, utterly pure Bass and Horny echo into the island night. Because somehow, nature has decided that the single best way for the males to prove themselves to the local girls as the winners -- as the single best possible worthwhile contributors to the next generation -- is through being REALLY, REALLY LOUD .
The boys sit low in their bowls and VHNOOOOOM all night long. Because the girl of their dreams will track down the best parrot. And then there will be sex.
That's what the tom parrots are doing.
There is a tremendous racket coming at you from all directions and none, at the same time. It's disorienting -- no, it's worse than that. It's sonics as body blows: you don't take a step, you just get knocked in a given direction by the next burst. And none of this can be tracked , because bass masks its own origin point -- and there's more than one of those things, but good luck stumbling across a specific site as the waves overlap and interfere.
As a hen, you're at least somewhat interested in sex, because this is about the rimu fruit as much as anything else and all of the parrots are eating the same thing. But every time you try to locate a male, all you get is this horrible rock-bounced, bowl-distorted, cliff-warped ruckus .
The entire island night is screaming in a single voice which comes from a thousand throats, and it has a question.
WANNA FUUUUUUUUCK?
Strictly and sexually speaking, anything which thinks this noise is a good idea needs to be left alone. Forever.
But instinct calls, and it means the hen kākāpō has her own response to that.
WOULD ONE OF YOU MOON-DAMNED MORONS MIND TELLING ME JUST WHERE, EXACTLY, YOU ACTUALLY ARE? OR, OPTIONALLY, COULD ALL BUT ONE OF YOU SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE SO I CAN TRY TO NARROW IT DOWN A LITTLE?
To which the males, who cannot truly think, have a single reply.
WANNA FUUUUUUUUCK?
This is, in terms of useful information provided, somewhat unhelpful.
Pony studies on the kākāpō condition were just beginning, and so just about every number in the initial articles was openly labeled as an educated estimate -- but the expert was writing from observation added to intuition and mark.
It was the sonics. The females couldn't track them. (Ponies with marks for acoustics and sound design were being sent recordings in the hopes that they would be able to narrow the living source of the reproductions down to a single square gallop.) The males couldn't be taught to do anything else, because mating behavior wasn't exactly learned . And when it came to the hens...
The males made their bowls during heat season. And the females wanted to lay eggs -- but the expert had some early suspicions which suggested the hens responded to that kind of horrible noise in the same manner as everything else: Trying To Get Away. It was just that... they couldn't track the sources. And if you didn't know which direction to run towards , then you also didn't know where to run away . Ultimately, the two would become confused.
Technically speaking, it was possible that no male kākāpō ever actually won his fair lady. Instead, a battered hen, tossed about the island by the random battering of decibels, will randomly stumble into the lucky bowl.
The male, upon seeing an Actual Girl, does the following: rocks from side to side, makes clicking sounds with his beak, and then gets up. Once he's standing, he'll turn his back to the hen, spread his wings as a display, and -- try to walk backwards towards her. This last will be repeated for nearly an hour, until sex takes place or the hen leaves.
That's what the tom does. There's some question as to whether he's doing it because he's identified a female's presence in the bowl or if he'd put on the same display if a mouse wandered by -- the expert has some questions on the parrot's ability to reliably ID his own species, and isn't going into details -- but he's certainly doing all of that.
Very much to the point: he does all of this instead of continuing to try for more night hours of VHNOOOOOM. Suddenly, the endless sonic confusion being produced by the screaming darkness has a single spot of relative safety, which is occupied by the one person who isn't currently yelling at you.
The intercourse arises from instinct. The demands of the blood. And if the females are the slightest bit more intelligent than the males, it might also be Thank You For Shutting Up.
(In terms of recent pony history, this was similar to the period immediately following the invention of the gramophone -- because that had rapidly led into The Discovery Of The Pony Who Plays Their Entire Collection At Top Volume Around Two In The Morning. (And liked the high-impact sounds of yak music. A lot.) Entire communities had Discovered their own version of that pony, then spontaneously came together to do something about it. Sex-based celebrations of silencing success could be presumed in nearly every case, excepting those where monsters had invaded the town, smashed the offending residence into two-dimensionality, and then wandered off to get some sleep.)
There was another possible reason for sexual interaction to arise, and the expert mentioned it -- then dismissed her own thought, as that kind of rationale was the sort of thing sapients did. Still, there are females of every thinking species whose stated reason for not wanting to have sex is because they have a headache. It's questionable as to whether the hen kākāpō have ever indulged while in any other state.
And then there will be chicks. Or at least, there will be eggs, because females wander back to their own territory and set up the nest by themselves.
A successful male, who doesn't have the brains to question his luck, will respond to his improbable triumph through remaining in the bowl and making more sound.
Who knew? They might get lucky twice ! And wasn't that what was really important?
In the professional opinion of the expert, approximately ninety percent of all bowl-based lek mating rituals failed. Anything which worked out could be presumed to have done so by pure accident. It was a breeding system with slightly better odds than a roulette wheel, and a much darker sense of humor.
And that was why the kākāpō, as a species, had survived.
Because their environment was too safe. There was nothing hunting them. The volcanoes which had formed the islands had gone dormant, and the natural weather of the region tended towards the anti-dramatic: you couldn't even ask hazardous conditions to bring the numbers down. Subtract accidents, the rare disease, and kākāpō in the time before discovery had basically lived until they died from old age.
Give a species which lived in safety the ability to reproduce at will, with efficiency , and they would outbreed their food supply.
Extinction.
And so the kākāpō had been gifted -- truly gifted -- with a joke. Something which meant you mostly got new chicks on sheer luck . And because the attempts failed so often, there were just enough of the flightless parrots around to breed and blunder and try to do it all again in the next generation, because survival required a long-term strategy which worked and for the kākāpō, total sexual idiocy was ultimately protective. A species of nearly fearless innocents living in perfect safety, because the intelligence needed for anything more normal would have been -- counter(re)productive.
Prey responses? What was going to threaten them? Sapient creatures hadn't come to that part of the world immediately and when they'd first done so -- it had been mating season. They'd heard the bass long before getting close enough to spot a source. And when a thinking being heard that kind of racket, it tended to have thoughts along the lines of I Should Probably Leave That Alone.
The kākāpō had wound up producing an accidental defense mechanism. It had taken generations before anyone had approached the Screaming Islands.
Then they'd discovered the source was -- harmless.
(But disruptive.)
And they would have left it be -- but ponies, and the other sapient species, seldom traveled alone. Especially when using ships .
The kākāpō had been on islands. The first major approach had been by boats. And you got rats on boats: those wanted to eat the eggs. And you got cats to keep the rats down, but nothing was as easy for the disembarked cats to hunt as a kākāpō and not all felines were as sporting about it as the cottage ones. The silly parrots couldn't recognize a predator when they were being pounced on by one...
A rapidly-dropping bird population suddenly needed a reproductive strategy which operated with rather more speed and efficiency. But evolution didn't work that way, and any direct creator was presumably still sleeping off their post-beetle exhaustion. (The world had a lot of beetles.) The kākāpō couldn't ask their blood to help them, and they couldn't save themselves.
And thus the conservation efforts. Those who could think had thought about the consequences which had arisen from exploration, and were trying to help those whom they'd never meant to harm. Currently, that required removal of all invasive animal species from the islands -- while evacuating the kākāpō to safety, until their home was truly theirs again. Protection, caring -- and, at the very end of the copied article, something about an upcoming, undescribed development called a 'trust hat'. Or at least, that was what Fluttershy thought it said. Spike had been laughing a little too hard at that point, and the words were barely legible.
But ponies had to help. That was the responsibility. Because they hadn't meant to change things... but they had.
And as the expert noted, due to the fallout from exploration of the island...
The mare who'd written the article didn't believe it was what had actually been happening. She'd said so, directly, and Spike had presumably cupped a hand to hide the next precisely-copied words from Twilight, along with refusing to tell his sibling what all the giggles were about.
But in the expert's opinion, ponies had to get involved.
It was no longer possible for an entire species to survive on pity fucks.
It was all right to regard the kākāpō reproductive situation as being somewhat ridiculous, and Fluttershy knew that recognizing the inherent silliness didn't make her a monster. The monster sense of humor, in the few cases where it could proven to exist, centered on the sadistic.
A naturalist simply needed to understand that in the end, the only thing survival cared about was exactly that: survival . 'Dignity' was nowhere near the consideration list, and as a mare who automatically memorized every emergency exit from a new room... Fluttershy was in a good position to understand that. It didn't matter how silly she looked during her escape; just that she'd gotten away, was safe, and had survived. Plus anything which wanted to chase her occasionally paused to consider that due to lack of any adequately-sized exit windows, the shapely mare had just casually put a hole into the wall.
It was okay to find the humor in the situation. (Although she was annoyed about the mayor having felt the need to remind her about posting a sky sign. She was a weak flier, but she was still a pegasus. She would have thought of that on her own. Eventually.) And she really couldn't blame Spike for laughing: nopony could stick that kind of material in front of a boy of his age and not expect a reaction But for her, as a naturalist -- as a pony , one of the designated caretakers of the world -- it was mostly about responsibility. Ponies had accidentally put the kākāpō at critical risk. Ponies had to be the ones who fixed it.
So the expert had captured a few of the parrots, and was planning to secure more. Create a breeding pool and bring it to safety. But during the initial effort, one of the males had wound up being sent ahead...
Harmless, but disruptive. She understood that now. Realistically, the kākāpō would have some issues with hurting just about anything: the beak could potentially draw blood on a lucky strike and the talons were certainly capable of doing some damage, but the parrot couldn't hunt -- and had lost everything about what it was like to be the prey. It was much like what the expert had written regarding the wings (and that mare had said she'd been quoting a much better writer): the kākāpō had forgotten how to fly -- and then it had forgotten having originally forgotten that. Constantly trying to reach high places with no real idea of how to get back down, when the wings would only serve as airscoop parachutes for short drops. And when it came to fighting...
The parrot might wound in a panic, or during a struggle -- but that was it. In terms of any desire to seek out the chance at inducing pain, the bird was harmless.
It also went VHNOOOOOM.
A lot.
And that was why it wasn't at the zoo, or in Audu's care. In direct confrontation, the parrot was harmless. But to place the noise created by raw Horny among so many species who weren't ready for it, without the expert to carefully direct the construction of what Fluttershy guessed to be a special sonic confinement zone... that was disruptive . She'd seen the results on the cottage scale. Things fled from that sound, tried to get away, and not everypony had the mark talent which allowed them to try and talk everyone down. The mountain bird sanctuary would have been recovering residents from all over the slopes, every vet at the zoo would be seeing a full slate of panic injuries, and had nopony considered what would inevitably happen at her residence? Had even one solitary pony taken so much as a single second to think about her needs --
-- bird conservation was important. One of the most important things ever. Fluttershy understood that on the level of her mark. Ponies had created this problem, and not having meant to do so didn't matter. Ponies had to fix it.
The weary pegasus nosed the scroll aside. Glanced at the smaller one, which had the more steady clawwriting. The one exposed blue-green eye checked the window, then noticed how the lighting devices had mostly taken over from Sun as the orb was steadily brought closer to the horizon. She examined the crowd of small animals waiting around her reading station, all holding on an explanation she could never fully make. And she sighed.
Disruptive...
And yet harmless. The terms went together: not what he was, but what he did. And regardless, Sun would be lowered soon.
The care scroll had told Fluttershy that she could take some pride in herself: she'd reverse-engineered just about the whole of the bird's diet, with only minor adjustments required. But it also said she had to keep him in heat. Rimu berries every night. And she presumably had to keep wearing the trust hat, because she hadn't received any instructions to the contrary and besides, he clearly didn't trust her yet.
It wouldn't be all that long before Moon was raised. She could see hints of stirring motions within the cleaned cage. The nocturnal parrot was waking up.
She had to do what was best for the bird.
He needed to be outside.needed to be in his bowl.
How many nights...?
She didn't know. All she could do was hope that the expert would hurry.
In an absolute sense, the problem really wasn't that bad. The sound hadn't reached town, so ponies weren't complaining. And during the day, the kākāpō was no trouble at all. Even with ponies gathered around the cage and cooing at him -- the tom, if you'd never heard him vocalize, was strictly adorable -- the most he would do was open his eyes for a few seconds and then go back to sleep. He wasn't doing any harm to Ponyville, hadn't had the slightest impact on the business side of the cottage, and represented the chance for her to study a new species.
He was also going to be costing her at least one more night of sleep, because the only way Fluttershy could keep the cottage from being fully bucked off the rails was to be there to settle any fallout. If she became tired enough, she would start to make mistakes -- and then animals would be at risk.
And it was more than that. Lack of sleep shortened Fluttershy's temper: she knew that about herself and tried to watch out for it. But the cottage denizens...
It happened with just about every companion. An animal would know if you were upset. If it loved you, then it would want to do something about that. And should it happen to interpret a bit of behavior from its pony as 'This is the thing which is making me upset and I would feel so much better if it Went Away...'
There were many reasons for Fluttershy to be careful about her anger, and one of the biggest was that it was seldom just hers.
She really didn't need any more Little Incidents.
How long until he's reclaimed?
She didn't know, and there were ways in which it didn't matter. If she became too weary to maintain the cottage and keep her duties going in safety, she would have to ask for help. But until then, it was her durance, and hers alone. She was the one who had the truest chance to understand him.
The light coming in through the windows dimmed. There were more stirring sounds from the cage.
A tired "Food?" drifted out between the bars.
The mare sighed again. In terms of direct conversation, the single word was all she'd gotten out of him. Not even a basic greeting, or the most simple expression of curiosity. Merely demands for more berries. You really couldn't build a relationship on that.
"Who's a sleepy little moron?" she liltingly, warmly asked the parrot, because with true vocabulary still on the way, so much of it was about the tone. "You are!"
No response.
Fluttershy sadly shook her head, and went to get the berries.
Time blurred like hoof-rubbed wax.
Ultimately, it was only a few days. She kept telling herself that, because it proved that the sleep deprivation hadn't cost her all ability to count.
Nights were defined by her endless attempts to keep the bird's proud mate-summoning attempts from putting the cottage into self-destruct mode. Days became the periods when Angel, on request, kicked her a lot. The pony form was adapted to fall asleep standing up and while this could be a blessing during those missions where no beds were available and Rarity was approaching her third nervous breakdown over that, it wasn't exactly helpful when it came to 'If I just stand very still for a few seconds and try to collect my thoughts, I'll be fine'. Because if she were going to collect her thoughts, then she might as well close your eyes so she could see where all of the thoughts were. And then her breathing slowed, and then there was a rabbit kicking her awake. Again.
Friends dropped by, because it was uncommon to have too much time pass without somepony visiting. She didn't give them the full details: that would only make them worry. But they saw she was tired, they were always going to ask about that, and she -- toned it down. Twilight had part of the truth, because Spike's giggling had caught her attention -- but the thaumatologist was specialized for magic research. She didn't speak naturalist, and so lost just enough details for Fluttershy to downplay the whole thing. And of course no big sister was going to really listen to her little brother, so Spike's new expertise mostly went unnoticed. Additionally, everypony kept turning up during the day , so Fluttershy was the only one getting The Full Kākāpō Experience.
(She considered that the parrot could enter heat during Equestria's autumn, thought about what it was like to hear the sound for the first time, and wondered if the zoo was willing to have Moon-observed Ponies Meet Kākāpō sessions around Nightmare Night.)
Still, they all wanted to help and oddly, none of them would accept that 'help' did not mean 'I'll help you pack up the cage and then we can get a relay teleport to Manehattan'. But some of them were capable of watching the grounds for a Sun-lit hour, allowing her to get just enough rest to prevent collapse. (Spike, who really wasn't good with the cottage denizens, scattered some feed around and then got out of the area before the beaks closed in.) She appreciated every last tenth-bit of assistance -- but she was aware of how close her frustrations were to the surface. Fluttershy was at that point of sleep deprivation where she had to double-check everything , and that very much included her own emotional responses. One slip...
And it wasn't just the noise which was frustrating her.
It was the kākāpō.
He wouldn't talk .
...he wanted food and would make sure she knew it. That technically counted. But there were no friendly greetings. No real notice if she entered a room and wasn't carrying the rimu berry pouch. He might look at her mane for a moment, as he'd done after the first time he woke up. The narrow aquamarine rings would ever so briefly focus on the trust hat.
But then he would look away. Go back to climbing everything in sight, instantly forgetting every fall, he wasn't anywhere close to being carpet-trained because that would indicate some capacity for learning, she couldn't say he was exploring because that suggested being interested in what he found, and he just wanted to MATE. Which meant making THAT NOISE.
Over and over.
She asked him about his island. His life. If there was anything she could do. And he had but one thing on his mind.
The pegasus was a naturalist. She understood . It was his instinct. She... didn't blame him. Blaming didn't help anything and really, neither would yelling, or shouting, or screaming about how she just wanted this to end until her throat collapsed. None of that would help at all, across blurry days and tumultuous nights.
But she'd just wanted to make a friend...
There was one tiny sliver of Moon still visible, at the absolute edge of the sky.
Fluttershy stumbled into the soil bowl. She hadn't meant to, but... she'd never been the best flier and when she was this exhausted, her landings suffered. She'd come in just behind the edge, landed partially on the little ridge, and -- well, she hadn't actually tripped or fallen. It had just been a highly-visible stumble, where the only witness was the kākāpō.
The movement got his attention. He looked up as her wings clumsily flapped, trying to help her balance out again. Her shapely form rounded into itself somewhat as four legs briefly stalled out on the little incline, and then she was approaching him at the staggering non-speed of enervation. The forelegs, which had led into the stumble in the first place, were doing just about all the work.
She just wanted to get him inside. Into the cage, with some food and water. And then there would be clients arriving, medicine to triple-check dosage numbers on -- no, Applejack was coming later: the farmer would verify Fluttershy's labeling there. Even better: the earth pony could fill in on some basic dog grooming. A precious hour of rest was only most of a morning away.
But the parrot was looking at Fluttershy. At her lone exposed eye, and the manefall which blocked all view of the other. At the anchoring loops which secured the trust hat.
He was -- looking at her. And she couldn't see any light of intelligence in those thirsty light-drinking pupils, but the focus ...
Fluttershy stopped moving. A flicker of consideration from her talent had her sit down in the bowl.
The parrot, who had been resting in the soil, got up.
He stretched, because it had been a long night. Turned in place as he spread his wings: at one point, this had him with his back to her.
The tom walked around the bowl. Went behind the pegasus, as she held her position. Letting him make the next move. Every move.
Then she felt the weight on her dock.
The bird was -- walking up her back, starting from the base of the tail. She could feel the talons carefully moving across her skin: four on each foot, two forward, two back. And he was scratching her a little, but -- he didn't know any better, and she was used to birds. Although there was an oddness about the movement, as if the talons weren't being planted properly.
But he was approaching her. That was the most important thing. Coming up to her after days of treating the pegasus as an oddly-shaped rimu tree which dropped off berries on request.
She needed to let him act naturally , and so she simply remained still and quiet as he advanced forward, following the spine to the neck and then up to her head --
-- he stopped.
She felt his weight shift. Leaning forward, perhaps. Sniffing at something, or feeling her mane with those whiskers.
And then he leaned his mass into the trust hat.
This was followed by an almost-immediate withdrawal: just a slight pulling back, as if he was unsure to have gone so far that quickly. But then he moved again. Roaming across her head, looking for a place to settle in. To get -- comfortable.
She felt his talons hook some of the slick, half-hidden slickloops. And then he moved a little more, shifting his weight over and over. Back and forth, with a bit of a circular motion added in. Her scalp was becoming somewhat scratched up by all of the activity, but -- she was used to birds, and learning required sacrifice. So did relationships. And he'd come to her, come of his own accord, he'd chosen to approach --
-- the movement accelerated.
Stopped.
I should put something on those scratches was a natural thought. And it feels like... something happened with the hat? It feels more oily around my ears than before --
-- a green and yellow head looked down at her, and did so while the parrot was still balanced at the front of her skull: the parrot was very awkwardly angling itself for the best possible view. The huge dark pupils blinked.
On one level, he looked extremely pleased with himself, and Fluttershy was on the verge of asking him why. But the most dominant aspect was fully familiar, and that held her back. It was a vaguely besotted sort of look.
"Hello," said the kākāpō.
It was the expression of a bird who had just hopelessly fallen in love.
And during the instant when her heart was singing and an overloaded talent was trying to process everything she wanted to say in order to keep it from all emerging at once, the bird leaned back, tucked in head and neck, then silently fell asleep.
She didn't move. She didn't want to wake him. She wanted to hold the moment pressed between gentle teeth forever --
-- but that was when Sun was raised."There's a stranger on the road."
The caretaker sighed, because the peace never lasted. Her best hope was a truly minor medical situation: somepony waking up to find their companion was having stomach issues. Easily resolved. And if she was that lucky...
She carefully trotted towards the bridge, careful not to disturb the sleeping parrot. And when it came to getting lucky -- that wasn't her role in this.
Sun had been raised, and everypony's luck ran out.
Fluttershy wasn't sure whether the saffron fur had started to spontaneously vibrate at the exact same frequency as the intern approached the grounds, or if the stallion had never stopped .
Naturally, declared the irritation which normally would have been buried under four normal hours of sleep. I finally make the connection, we're just at the very start of our journey together -- so this is the pickup. She and the kākāpō were only beginning, and so the world had decided their time was up.
...maybe they'll let me visit . It was the least of what the Society owed her. But she was far too busy to follow the intern into Canterlot today, and that was a pity. She wanted to speak with the expert.
"Um..." the cart-hitched stallion vibrated. "Hello? I -- hope it -- hasn't been... too much... trouble?" Words which kept trying to collapse into themselves under the weight of excess disbelief. "I'm here for --" and his eyes went wide.
"...good morning," Fluttershy's weariness failed to lie: it was (just barely) morning and surely it was a good one for somepony. "I just need to go inside and pack his --"
The male's voice was faster now. "Is -- I can see him there... he's with you? He's perching on you? He --"
"...it just started," Fluttershy admitted. "Before you --"
"-- don't move !"
She froze, and felt the parrot's weight sleepily shift on her head. The stallion's shoulders shifted, and the cart's hitch slipped backwards. Seconds later, he was past her, at the front door, opening it, going inside --
-- all Fluttershy could do was listen, and the animals barely had time to react. The stallion emerged with the cage balanced in the small of his back and the berry pouch gripped in his teeth. He galloped to the cart, a buck of the back legs got the empty cage launched to the carrier area, the head toss deposited the berries, and then he was in front of her.
The saffron fur was still vibrating, and there was a certain fear in his eyes. Fluttershy had an easy time spotting fear, and so also got to see where it had moved aside to make room for the growing light.
"Follow me," he softly said, and she carefully tracked him to the cart. "We need to get him shifted..."
It took some very careful hoof prodding from the stallion to wake the parrot up, and the flightless bird stumbled towards what he knew best in the world. The cage and the berries.
"...goodbye, Mr. Thumpdrop," Fluttershy sadly told him. "I'll try to visit."
Her heart felt heavy, because it was at least a temporary goodbye. Her head, which had just shed a parrot, felt as if it should have been somewhat -- lighter.
The cage door was carefully closed, and then the intern turned towards her.
"I..." Every limb was shaking. "...I need the hat..."
"...I needed help to put it on," Fluttershy admitted. "It's not easy to secure. But I can probably get it off by myself." Lower her head as much as possible, scrunch her body, get a back hoof to the base of the ear. "Or -- could you take it off for me?" It was that or ask a raccoon for help. And she didn't usually like having a stranger so close to her face, but... her heart was still warm.
It was a good feeling.
"...it was so nice," the pegasus smiled. "When he came up to me. When he trusted me. I hope you get to find out what that's like -- are you sick? You're really shaking. I was worried the other day..."
"...I'm fine," the intern trembled. "Hat? Please?"
"...just nip it off me," Fluttershy politely offered.
"Um," the shaking intern said.
"...you won't hurt me if you just use your teeth as a probe. Lower jaw comes in first. Then ease the loop up over my ear. Pull slowly after that, because I have a lot of my mane laced through it --"
"-- can you just... maybe -- hover upside-down over the cart and let it fall in?"
Fluttershy silently reviewed both her own anatomy and a lifetime of flight camp test scores.
"No," she flatly said. "Just take it off me."
"But if it drops in --"
"-- what's so wrong with biting into it?"
The stallion, in the last public demonstration of brainpower he would ever make before the pegasus, hesitated.
Then he gave up on Sapience and in the name of a faster escape, when no thoughts were arriving to save him, switched to the perpetual mistake of Talking.
"It's in storage mode right now," he rushed through the words. "I don't want to touch it. In case that disrupts something."
In the official court transcript of the eventual testimony, "...storage... mode..." became the last two words recorded from the mare before the mistake officially triggered a Little Incident.
And at a verbal speed which made a nightjar look as sleep-deprived as the cottage's now very short-tempered hostess, the intern said "Well, did you read the pamphlet? I think it was in the cage. You can keep the pamphlet, by the way. It had stuff which I don't think made the articles yet! Because the kākāpō, it does all the weird stuff to get a hen, but we're not even sure it can tell what one of its hens is half the time. Although they won't do anything with other birds, and sparrows are right out. But when they're in heat and they start to trust somepony, really trust them, the expert noticed a pattern and after she cleaned herself up, she started working on the enchantments! So I need the hat. Because that is what's going to save these sillies! But please shake it off? Because it sort of magically pulled in everything, it's storing the stuff right now and if I bite that, accidentally sever a strand with my teeth -- this is a new spell and, and, and I don't want it going down my throat ..."
He automatically gulped, and swallowed naught but his own fear.
Then he spotted the mare's face.
And by the time he realized that the mane had flipped back, with both blue-green eyes ablaze with furious intelligence as a shapely form began to charge him down and dozens of Extremely Upset animals began to pour out of the cottage, with every last one having just decided about the why of their mistress being so upset for days and figuring it would be so much better for her if it Went Away...
...well, by that time, it was well past Too Late.
In fact, in the intern's terrified opinion, a warning would have been nice.
Any degree of warning.
Any.
To some degree, the trial suffered from a certain lack of prosecution witness credibility. After all, the jurors had been through a few days of watching a socially reticent mare trying to muster the strength which would make her audible during questioning. Having that same pegasus described as 'a screaming she-beast of vengeance directing an endless flood of claws and teeth to do her merciless bidding' nearly got the whole thing kicked out of court right there.
Admittedly, the stallion had been injured. To wit, the cottage's residents had scratched him up, and done so To The Wish: nowhere close to dead, but given a choice between instantly perishing and three more weeks of painting on salve, he was going to need a few minutes. And yes, he'd definitely been attacked by animals who were the caretaker's responsibility. She admitted that freely, along with blushingly explaining how they responded to her moods, and how tired she'd been.
(So weary as to not even recognize when a bird was moving backwards up her spine.)
How angry .
And few things made the pegasus more incandescent than having ponies underestimate her.
Yes, she had a way with animals. But she was not a pushover. And she understood the Full Realities of the situation. What she wanted was respect. To be told all of the little details, because she was a professional veterinarian who did some kennel hosting on the side, and this wasn't even close to the first time for a bird having sex with her mane because that was what the feathery little idiots did, there were rooks just the other night and if you stopped at merely 'I accept that' and couldn't try to love them all the more for it, then maybe you weren't a pony who should be taking care of birds.
So yes, she'd chased the stallion off her property. She'd felt it was a reasonable response, especially when she felt like he'd put the crucial pamphlet into the cage in the hopes of having it torn up, because -- maybe he'd thought she wouldn't have agreed if she'd known? Of course that had made her angry!
...she was very sorry about having been angry.was . A true naturalist accepted the consequences. Always.
...also, a spell which stored sperm and kept it fresh for artificial insemination of kākāpō hens! That was incredible! She wanted to know more details. And to have somepony explain them to her in a way she could repeat back later. Because she knew a scholar who'd be fascinated. A good friend. Also, she needed a word for 'sperm' which wouldn't have its true meaning spotted for about five moons, because her friend was sort of sensitive about sexual things. Was 'emission' vague enough?
Although proper naming was very important.
For example, things would have gone much differently if the stallion had just given the new invention its true designation of Thrust Hat.
...the kākāpō had only bothered to say 'Hello' to her after they'd already done it.
According to one of the mare's friends, that was the most male thing ever .
In the end, the jury let her go. It was an uncommon sort of Not Guilty, but Equestria has some unusual legal defenses on the books. The 'sufficiency clause', which may be the best known, technically allows the committing of crimes in order to save lives: breaking into a house to reach somepony having a heart attack. It can take some work to explain sufficiency for a jury pool, but most ponies will readily tumble to a defendant's invocation of He Had It Coming. Because really, any warning, from the supposed professional to the real one, and everything would have been fine.
Also, the pegasus defendant (who was apparently slightly famous, but it never really came up) felt that bird conservation was one of the most important things ever and even if the jury didn't fully agree, they realize that understanding arose from the level of her mark.
Ponies who deliberately dedicated their lives to the protection of adorable, self-extincting little morons... those ponies were a precious resource. And of course, when it came to precious resources? The sperm samples were intact. That was vital, and somepony from the Society finally remembered to tell Fluttershy she was too. It was most of what she'd wanted. Acknowledgement that, in many ways, she was crucial .
Cowardly stallions too frightened to speak of What Must Be Done, however, were more or less optional.
There were only about two hundred and fifty kākāpō in the world, and every last one had to be protected.
But when it came to ponies, you could always lose more interns.
