Chapters Fluttershy finished poring the last of the food in to the dish. She was noticing how many of the animals where staring at it anxiously, ready to pounce on their lunch as soon as it was finished being pored. Fluttershy noticed this "Now now, don't everybody rush at once". Some of the animals decided not to listen, and instead lunged for the food. The rest of the animals began to scold those who had been so quick to get to the food, and they began to eat at a slower pace. "And for you, Angel" she trotted over to the kitchen and came back with a bowl "your garden salad."
The Rabbit hoped over to the bowl to find his normal meal of lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers and began to eat. He still wished it was a bit more than just a normal salad, but after the last time he asked for a better salad, it caused an episode in which Fluttershy attended a help seminar held by a Minotaur named Iron Will, and for a time, she became a monster. He decided instead simply to eat his salad without complaint.
Fluttershy walked over to her door and began strapping on her saddlebags. "I'm going to go get some more food and return a book to Twilight. I'll be back in a little bit" she said to the bunny. "I'll see you later Angel!" She said as she was walking out of the door. Angel turned from his food to give a quick wave, and then went back to his salad.
Fluttershy had just gotten the food for her animals, and she was heading over to see Twilight. She had been informed by Spike that she was doing research on the edge of the Everfree forest close to sweet apple acres, and after returning the book to spike, she was on her way to see what they were up to.
When she got their, she found Twilight and Rainbow Dash looking at what looked like a test tube glued to an angle mounted on a stake, while Twilight seemed to be giving a lecture to Rainbow Dash.
"Hi Twilight, hi Rainbow Dash, what are you guys up to?" She announced herself to her friends. Twilight replied "Not much, just setting up some equipment". Fluttershy looked at the little device on the ground with confusion. "This device is a rain gauge." Twilight explained "In the spring, we use a lot of rain to help farmers grow their crops. Well, the Everfree forest also has a lot of storms too. What I am trying to do is see how much rain will fall in the next few weeks using this to see how much rain makes it in the tube, an with that, I can estimate how much rain falls in the Everfree forest every week"
Fluttershy looked back up at Twilight. "So, you're just going to see how much rain falls?"
"Yes"
"No"
Twilight's face went from content to annoyed "Rainbow!". Rainbow interjected "Twilight and I went over to Zecora's the other day, and long story short, Zecora says she gets and achy knee every time a storm happens. Twilight wants to be able to see how well it works, and whether or not it's like Pinkie's Pinkie-sense" Rainbow explained smugly.
"My experiments are in the name of science!" Twilight proclaimed "I will not have more sensing going on in ponyville without it being properly tested!"
Fluttershy sunk back a little, frightened by Twilight's outburst. "Oops, sorry Fluttershy" she replied after she noticed the frightened pegasus "guess I got carried away". The Pegasus propped herself back up and returned back to her content mood she was in before. "Okay, I'll see you girls later then" She replied as she turned to leave "I have to go tend to my animals at home". "See ya!" "Bye Fluttershy!" she received as replies as she began to head home.
The rest of the day was rather tedious, and involved simply tending to the rest of the animals. After all of the work was done and every animal was taken care of, it began to grow dark. She began to lay them to sleep in their beds one by one and preceded to blow out the lights in the downstairs rooms. She was on her way up the stairs, when she heard a noise coming from outside.
It was faint at first, like a distant cry without direction. She moved over to the back door and, as she listened further, she found that it was exactly that. A distant cry, much like a howling in the distance, but one that sounded distressed and desperate.
She thought about what it could mean, and instantly came to the very real conclusion It was calling for help.
"Oh no, oh no" She thought out loud, frightened out of her mind "There's a poor animal injured in the Everfree forest!". The phrase carried several different meanings. The first was that there was an animal out there, perhaps alone and very injured, who needed her help, and she felt compelled to go rescue it. The second was that she would have to go in to the Everfree forest, which was quite a scary thought, and she shuddered a little bit when she realized this. The third meaning it had was that she would have to do this at night, which made her shudder even more at the thought of going in to the Everfree at night.
She let the thought sink in for a little bit, thinking about how scary it would be but also how compelling it was to help the poor animal. She thought about this for a few minutes, growing more and more scared and confused until eventually, she slammed her foot down in place. "No!" she proclaimed "I will not let my fears get in the way of helping a poor, innocent animal, even if it means going in to the Dark... scary... forest... Her words trailed off as she looked out unto the dark forest in front of her.
She took a large *gulp* and went over to angel. "Angel Bunny" she gently nudged him from his sleep. He awoke and looked up at Fluttershy. "I need to go out, please make sure that nothing goes wrong while I'm gone." He gave a gentle nod, and rolled back over to sleep
She had packed her bags with what she thought she would need for a quick trip in to the woods: a small medical kit, a flashlight, some food for the animal, and a general map of equestria, which had the everfree forest on it and was the only map she had.
After packing her bag, she thought about how she was going to get back. "I know, I'll get some stones from the river bed." She walked over to the front of the house and down to the river that ran in front of it. She grabbed some small, smooth stones from the bottom of the bed with her mouth and threw them in her bag.
She was all set to go. As she neared the edge, she could still hear the howl of the animal far off in the distance. She tried to give herself more confidence by thinking about how scared it must be, and so she resolved to herself "Don't worry, little creature, I'm coming to help" She spoke to herself as she made her way in to the forest.
As Fluttershy began her way in to the forest, she was reminded of why the other ponies didn't like to come in to the Everfree. The entire area was unsettling to say the least. It was densely packed with vegetation all around, making it nearly impossible for the pony to see any farther than a few feet in front of her. The overhead trees made it much harder for the moonlight to shine on to the forest floor. Even after she pulled the flashlight out and turned it on, she could only see what she focused the beam of light on.
The darkness would have been somewhat tolerable if it weren't for the eerie feeling of the environment. The added foliage gave one the feeling of being watched, and all around, Fluttershy got the feeling that she was being observed as an intruder to the forest, and that any move she made out of place could cause some sort of reaction. She was shaking and twitching all over at that thought, and eventually chose to hum a little song to herself.
"Giggle at the ghostly... hm hm hmm hm hmh hm..."
Every few steps, she kicked her bag slightly. The pebbles she were carrying fell through a small tear in the bottom of the bag, and she used this like a funnel. Every time she kicked it, one of the pebbles fell on to the ground below her.
She stopped several times to consider turning back and going home, but every time she did, she could hear the animal in the distance, still howling out of despair, and decided that she should press onward so she could at least get back home in time for at least a nap before dawn. If she could do that, she could give the animals a good breakfast and treat some of the injured ones before sleeping until lunchtime, or so she hoped.
The longer she walked, the more she began to doubt how long it would take to get home. After what felt like an hour, she noticed some rain begin to fall, which wasn't much of a problem, but still became an inconvenience because of the added mud. Fluttershy mentally added a bath to her list of things to do when she got home.
A little while after that, she got to a small river, just shallow enough to wade though. Fluttershy wondered how she would be able to get through the river and still maintain her trail back home. "I know!" she thought out loud as she picked up a large stick for nearby and stuck it in to the ground alongside the river "this stick will be the only one sticking out on this side of the river. That way I'll be able to tell which way to go when I come back!". she felt confident that she had been able to think that far ahead and, after putting some more pebbles in her bag, went on her way to the source of the noise.
Fluttershy continued to walk through the forest, all the while trying to keep her mind occupied so she wouldn't get cower in place from the eerie feeling of the forest. At first, the humming had helped, then the humming turned to quiet whistling. After she began to run out of songs, she began to think about what time she might get home, and what she would have to do to get her chores done and still have time to sleep. At first, the issue was getting home for breakfast. Then, the later it got, she thought Angel would be able to feed them breakfast, and she would get back in time to be able to eat a quick brunch. All the while, she never noticed that the stones that she put down became farther and farther apart, or that the rain had picked up and her legs where getting covered in mud.
Eventually, she got close to the source of the howling, and that's when she saw the thorn patch. I was a rather large opening, almost the size of her house, with nothing but dead thorn bushes strewn about in a large heap. She could hear the cries of something coming from within the bushes. She decided to investigate by flying around the pile to investigate. Flying over to the other side of the pile, she found just what was causing the noise.
It was a fully grown Manticore, stuck with its hind legs within the thorns. The dead plants were tangled around its fur, and it was bleeding badly from different points, showing that it had struggled.
When Fluttershy saw this, she was taken aback by the sight. She never liked to see an animal hurt, and with it being so far out in the woods all alone made her feel even worse for the poor creature. She moved in to see what she could do.
She started by flying down in front of the Manticore, so that it could see her. It didn't notice her as it continued to struggle. She advanced towards the creature, making very little noise doing so until she was right in front of it. She made her presence known by giving a little "Ahem". Immediately the creature turned from what it was doing to see the tiny pony in front of it. "You look like you need some help"
Just as fast as it had seen Fluttershy, it began to calm down. It recognized the yellow pegasus from before, when it was having problems with a thorn the]at seemed to come out of nowhere and attack it's paw. As soon as it laid eyes on her, it calmed down.
Fluttershy had seen this and began to waste no time pulling apart the thorn vines. Most of the thorns where large, and she had no problem finding better places to lay her hooves on the vine. Others where smaller, and gave her only some minor cuts
After pulling off most of the vines on top, she began to pull of the largest one which had the Mmnticore's back paws trapped underneath it. Pulling and flapping with all her might, the large vine opened up, reaching the point in which the Manticore pulled it's legs from the thorns and out of the thorn pile. Fluttershy began to let go of the vine, but as she did, her wing got picked by the vine, and pulled her on to the other vines.
After getting untangled, she found that her wings and back had been seriously injured, and that she wouldn't be able to use them for some time. she walked over to her saddlebags, which she had set on the ground prior to helping the manticore. She got out her medical kit and got to work dressing and bandaging her wounds on her back and wings. Once she was done with that, she got to work on the manticore's wounds on it's back legs, dressing them with rubbing alcohol and water from the rain
With her work complete, Fluttershy let out a gentle sigh. She would probably get home by lunch now, but it was worth it to help another living creature. The manticore, observing its wounds, got up and gave fluttershy a nice warm 'thank you' lick. She accepted it, speaking to the manticore afterwards. "Now, just be careful that you don't open up those cuts again, and you should be good to go". The Manticore understood this, and ran off in to the woods.
Now that her work was over, Fluttershy could see that the rain was beginning to die down. She packed her saddlebags up and started to head home. She found her first pebble on the edge of the clearing, and proceeded to go on to the next one.
If she could find the next one.
She assumed the pebble would be directly behind the one she was at, but she couldn't see it just from standing there. She moved forward, only to find that what she thought was soft ground when she entered was actually a rather large mud pile. "Okay," she thought "Maybe I'll just move on to the next one."
As she began to look for the next one, she found that that one was even harder to find than the second pebble was. Questions began to arise in her head. Did she just put it out farther? Did it sink in to the mud? She wasn't sure.
The more she began to search for the pebbles, the more worried she got. More questions piled up as she relentlessly searched around. Her mind began to come to only one conclusion, even though she wanted it to be anything but that. She hoped maybe it was just a little to dark, or maybe she was looking in the wrong places. More and more she began to worry until only one conclusion remained, one conclusion she dreaded to think about.
She was lost.
For how long she sat there, she couldn't remember. It was probably only a few minutes, but it felt like time had stopped. She had understood what went through her head, but in terms of understanding, her train of thought had derailed.
I'm Lost
She was aware of what was happening around her. The rain continued to pour as relentlessly has it had been. The bandages on her back and wings where beginning to get damp, and would need to be replaced. The flashlight she had been carrying was sitting on the ground in front of her, where she had dropped it, still turned on and point to the left where it had rolled towards.For only a few moments, that didn't matter, as Fluttershy continued to process her thoughts
I'm Lost
What will happen to Angel?
What will my friends think?
What should I do
More and more questions began to pile up. How will I get home with my wing like this? Where would I go?
What could be here in the forest with me? How will the injured animals do without me? More and more questions piled up, and Fluttershy was starting to feel overwhelmed.
As many different scenarios went through her mind, eventually she came to a breaking point. She sat there in the rain for almost fifteen minutes. After those fifteen minutes of sitting there, taking everything in, something i of her gave her a little kick, and knocked her out of her trance. She realized just how much the rain was pouring, and how dark it was now with the clouds.
The same thing that awoken her from her little also began to give her insight, like it was a part of her instincts kicking in. Find some shelter and get out of this rain . She did as she was told, and, after putting the flashlight in her bag, set off to find some shelter.
Going through the forest got even harder to do without direction. It gave Fluttershy a new sense of fear she hadn't felt before. Now, without having a specific direction to go, she became even more afraid of what she could stumble in to in the dark. The sense of being watched also grew, as it felt like something unfamiliar didn't appreciate her presence, and wanted nothing more than for her to leave.
Despite the fears she was facing, something else kept pushing Fluttershy to go on. Normally she would have found a place to hide, one where she could have stayed away from anything that could harm her. But all around her, the large trees and wild bushes would only keep her out of sight. Despite her desire to move in a nearby bush or up one of the nearby trees, she kept on her way, being pushed by the instincts that continued to guide her forwards.
Eventually, she reached a large intrusion in the forest. It was a piece of rock reaching up, higher than she could point her flashlight and still see in the clouded darkness. She started by looking to the sides, and discovered to the left a small cave leading in to the rock.
Fluttershy thought about it for a little, and quickly decided to use it as shelter for the night.
She entered the cave and found it to be much more pleasant than outside. The water from the rain ran through the bottom of the cave in a small creek, leaving the sides nice and dry and creating little noise. The sides were not grimy or covered in moss, but instead were dry like the floor, proving that the rock didn't have very many cracks the rain could seep through. Showing her flashlight around, she found very few bugs and no spiders or snakes. It would be just about perfect for tonight.
Going over to the side, she found a small intrusion in the cavern wall that, upon testing, she found could hide her view from the outside of the cave, in case anything came by.
Fluttershy took off her bags and took out her medical kit. Now half asleep, she added some more bandages on to her back and wings. There was no way she could fly anytime soon, and it might not be healed for a while.
After clipping the bandages down, she got straight to what she had wanted this whole time: some well deserved rest. Curling up in to the little nook in the cave, she began to drift off to sleep.