A Cloudsdalian Hengstwolf in Ponyville

The skies were cloudy, fittingly enough. The town’s designated weather pony was out of commission.

Tombstones adorned the place, some were as basic as they came and others were more fanciful, but even the most old, degraded ones still had clear traces of love in them. They were tokens of the deep admiration all ponies had for the beings buried below them, beings that had accompanied their owners through the good and the bad, in peaceful and rough times.

Fluttershy sat beside one of these graves, as a variety of mournful animals chaperoned her. They formed a line to place their offerings, one by one. Most left beautiful flowers of all sorts, the remaining few left trinkets of sentimental value.

It was Fluttershy’s turn.

She hadn’t had enough time to assimilate the situation, but the funeral being organized as fast as it could be is also what she wanted. She just wanted to sleep peacefully knowing that, at the very least, her child was calmly resting below the soil that all living creatures had to forever lie in one day.

All she had to offer was a photograph of him on a sunny afternoon; he looked young in it, no more than a year old for sure. It showed him at a meadow, sleeping.

No tears rolled down, her soulless swollen eyes were tired from secreting them.

A toll for her alone and no one else, of all ponies. It’s as if the universe were mocking her, as if it had spat on her face for the crime of daring to be kind.

“I'm the only one to blame, right?’’

But that wasn’t true. She knew so. Not one soul would have ever foreseen the arrival of that bloodlusted vermin. Such was nature.

In the end, none of her rationalizations about the tragedy mattered.

She still wanted that thing dead.

❈❈❈

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Noises of violent thumping against a wooden door went unnoticed by a snoring Applejack, deep into sleep. By contrast, a little tortoise was more than aware of them, and climbed up to the resting mare's bed to get her up. Not much he could do besides weakly shaking her and nuzzling her, but that sufficed after a bit.

“Huhn…” She rubbed her eyes, “Tank...? What's the matter, lil' chap?”

Poor ol' Tank, turned into a quivering mess, pointed towards the hallway with his head; Applejack didn't get it, till she heard the banging herself.

“What in the—”

Her vision was limited, but she could tell Rainbow Dash wasn't in the bedroom. Now then, it didn't take a genius to know something was worryingly wrong.

After getting on her hooves, she walked close to the source of the disturbance. There was only one suspect, right?

“Rainbow...? S'all alright there?”

Then came the growling.

'Disturbed deeply' seemed to barely describe what she felt inside at that instant, but she wasn't one to let dread take hold.

Perhaps the beast sensed that bravery and interpreted it as a challenge, which gave it the strength to shatter the door open. Before she knew it, a wolf had landed on top of her, and it sure as hell wanted to dine her. As expected though, that mare wasn't going down without fighting! Panicky kicks made contact with her attacker's jaw, almost having disoriented it enough to let her escape.

Almost.

That was no timberwolf, and it wouldn't go out as easily as one, but that also meant there was the chance it wasn't as simple-mindedly rabid as one. After all, she was still alive, not mangled.

She was sniffed, a wet nose invading her neck. Applejack didn't know whether to shiver from cringe or be glad she was still breathing. Well, she could do both.
Such a unique scent, the carnivore recognized it almost at once. Smelled like bark, dirt, cider... and pegasus.

The curious wolf licked her. Its long tongue was disgustingly, sensually warm. So wet, so rough. She made an effort to not let the feeling get to the wrong parts of her body.

“W-Whadda hay yer waitin' for?! Just finish the job already!” Her mind was starting to go to some dark places. She found dying to be a better fate than whatever that monster of primal impulses was probably thinking of.

To her rescue came Apple Bloom, who ran away screaming the names of her granny and big brother after she’d peeked out of her room to see but a glimpse of the vile brute threatening her older sister. This wasn't worth the effort, the wolf concluded, there were easier kills out there. Morsels that wouldn’t make its cold beast heart strangely ache unlike this one.

So it ran—almost imperceptibly fast, and completely ruined the bedroom's window by gliding through it.

Putting the thoughts of how much it'd cost to have that fixed aside, she focused instead on the fact that thing looked like her good friend Rainbow Dash to an uncanny degree.

It looked way too close like her...

“Ah’ll be buckin' darned.”

❈❈❈

Dry fall leaves crunched under Applejack's hurried steps. She needed to find her, needed to find out what the hell she'd done this time to end up like... that. The only place she was sure she'd encounter her at was a certain shy pony's residence.

The moon above granted her the necessary light to carefully check out her surroundings. She was still a few meters away from her destiny, but surely she should've been hearing at least one or two growls by then.

Maybe she was approaching this from the wrong angle. Paw prints, Dash should've left some of those. There weren't any that went past where she was, she had to look back around and- there they were!... All following the exact same route she took...

...Ah. Seems she still was its dinner.

The marks on the dirt deviated towards a nearby large set of shrubs.

She gulped and took a deep breath.

“R-Rainbow? S’just me. You can come outta there,’’ she cried out.

At last, the wolf proved it was present. Rustling of small branches preceded the reveal of a glare from menacing eyes that gleamed sinisterly with a golden hue, and it wasn’t long before a recognizable shape came out of the vegetation it hid amongst.

Applejack instinctively took some steps back as her friend shortened the distance between them. Her body shivered as she unexpectedly felt rough bark against her back, stopping her from further distancing.

“Ya won’t…’’ she took a breath, "Ya won’t hurt me. Ah know you—’’

“Ah know it’s still you, love.’’

The wolf halted.

It produced a guttural sound that was like a nervous snicker. It was trembling, she could see it.

There it was once more, that warm feeling in its chest. It loathed it so much, it brought up memories from another life she couldn’t comprehend, boiling an internal conflict up.

She couldn’t help but chuckle; she was right, Rainbow Dash was still alive and kicking. That adorable bold pony that always put on a brave facade which crumbled so sweetly when Applejack wanted it to.

A saccharine voice whispered, “C’mere, hun.’’

The wolf shut its eyes, and Rainbow Dash blinked. She’d returned from her nap.

Gone were the bloodthirsty needs of a predator, overridden on a whim by something far more powerful. The beastly pegasus trotted towards her heart’s owner, landing roughly on her lap and fondling her tight, licking her face up just like Winona would, as her wagging tail brushed dirt off the ground. Overwhelming for the earth pony, no doubt, but it beat being torn to gutty shreds.

“Simmer down, lassie!’’ Applejack asked in-between awkward giggles. The canine obeyed, content with just nuzzling.

So she’d domesticated her friend, but the issue remained that her friend in question was still a shapeshifting monster that had killed a good bunch of animals. Either way, she was hopeful a certain somepony would fix the curse away somehow.

Did the rest really need to know about this? How would that affect the way they viewed Rainbow? Rarity and Pinkie could possibly take it, but Fluttershy…

The element of honesty could afford keeping a white lie just this once.

At the moment, though, she just felt like petting her big winged dog.