Tumgik
#like.  okay first of all zecora um..
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A Day Off With Fluttershy - 2
1
“Sorry,” she mutters, lying next to the picnic basket which had fallen in the commotion.
“Aw, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for! You were just tryin’ to make sure I was doing fine,” you say as you lift yourself off the ground and immediately come face-to-face with the big-ass tree lying across the path right in front of you. A sharp ache strikes your forehead before lessening to a dull ache, the pain making you grab your head and steady yourself on the fallen tree as shock wears off and nausea hits you.
Fluttershy comes right up to you and nudges you away from the tree with her muzzle, causing you to stumble slightly in confusion and dizziness before she catches your arm with a hoof to steady you up. “We should, um, probably sit down. Okay, (y/n)?”
“Yeah, alright,” you whisper while trying to ignore the heat of your forehead and the discombobulation of your gut. Hitting your head was definitely a shock to your nerves, but it was more the sudden awakening on the ground like there was no time for falling that made you feel sick, and standing up too fast surely could not have helped matters.
Now sitting on a mossy rock after being given a helping hoof by Fluttershy, you space out as you rub your head and see Fluttershy talking. You say, “Sorry, I kinda missed that part. What were you saying?”
Fluttershy levels her most worried gaze at you and again says, “(y/n), I’m going to fly to Zecora’s house and get something for your head while you rest here for a while. Oh, um, if it’s okay with you, that is…”
You try to stand uneasily, and fail. “Fluttershy, I’m perfectly—” You stop as you see just how pale the butter-colored pony’s face has become. “... Alright, I’ll stay here while you get some bandages or medicine or something.”
With a faint nod, she comes up to you and gives you a warm hug before taking flight to hover in front of you, leaving you to sit alone on the rock right beside the evil tree that gave you your headache in the first place. 
Almost inaudibly, Fluttershy instructs you, “Now don’t eat any of the sandwiches, okay, (y/n)? I’ve left some water out for you, so get plenty of rest and liquids… Oh, and don’t trust strange insects…” You faintly see the basket of food and bottle of water set out beside you before you feel, more than perceive, the burst of cooling wind that signals Fluttershy has just taken flight.
Rubbing your forehead and taking in the fallen tree once more, the question of just how it fell in the first place comes into your mind. You briefly imagine a trio of huge, wooden beasts, the yellow light shining out of their soulless eye sockets on swiftly swivelling heads like a panopticon of pain, who would be more than capable of taking down a comparatively shrimpy—if wide—pine tree, but you immediately banish the thought since it just looks like it fell from simply dying of old age with no leaves on its branches.
…But your head is swimming now, and your eyes are playing tricks on you. One moment, it looks like huge claw marks of terrifying inscription scar the base of the tree, so sharp and gritty you can almost feel them cutting your eyeballs, and the next, the tree itself appears almost fake and cartoonish with an utter lack of detail and a two-tone pastel color scheme, almost as if it’s been wearing the skin of a tree this whole time and its true nature has only been revealed with the stress your pounding temple is placing on your brain.
You inevitably groan and close your eyes to escape from all this weirdness. At the very least, you could rely on the tiredness, lack of direction, rolling in your stomach, and heat of your forehead that accompanies you having been apparently struck sick. Thank God—or Celestia—that the day’s cooled down so much since the morning.
Just when you’re starting to doze off, you feel something tapping constantly on your shoe, but you figure that it’s not a big deal and just shut your eyes tight to help you ignore it. After a short pause, you again feel the insistent tapping of something, this time on your ankle, making you shut your eyes even tighter against whatever it is.
After, like, a minute of this shit, with the taps of the whatever-it-is getting more forceful and even starting to tingle or sting your ankle, you decide to just open your tired eyes and get to the bottom of this shenanigans.
You see a truly beautiful creature (more specifically, a beautiful huge stag beetle) standing to the side of your shoe and still tapping unendingly on the exposed part of your ankle where your jeans don’t quite reach. “Heh. Nice,” you mutter. Soon enough, it glances up at you and stops tapping away once it gets a load of your admiring gaze, even seeming to run away from you and crossing over top of the picnic basket to do so.
“Hey! Wait!” you call weakly after the scurrying brug. Curiously enough, it doesn’t stop, but it does turn around after a good moment and starts waddling towards you with some grasses and flowers in its pincers. It drops them on your shoe and stands in front of you like an expectant puppy, if one that looks slightly miffed, somehow.
You grab most of the debris and look at it. The grass seems normal (for Equestria) but the flower is truly special, with swirls of blue and cyan along each petal and a delicate softness that reassures you.that maybe things aren’t quite so bad as you first thought even with the disorientation coming back since you’ve opened your eyes, and the weakness in your bones accompanies your headache—.
Well, it’s a nice gesture, anyway. “Thanks,” you say as you pet the beetle with a finger, though, confusingly enough, it winces and scurries backwards at your touch. “Sorry. They’re very pretty flowers. Very… fragrant?”
The beetle shakes its head “no” and comes up to the rest of the plant matter, pincing it over and over before looking at you with a stern professor’s gaze. Oy.
“What? What are you doing? You want me to eat those or something? ‘Cuz I don’t eat flowers like the other—like the ponies. And I especially don’t tango with flowers from the forest, nooo. Not anymore,” you tell it emphatically.
The beetle seems to throw up its forelegs and its face in disgust, before slapping its face in resignation.
“Rude…” you mutter darkly.
Now, it seems like the beetle is standing on its hind legs near the fallen tree and gesticulating furiously at you to come over to it.
Fine. You do so. “Okay, what now?” you ask them.
The beetle just rubs its arms together evilly and rushes to the side to get on top of the fallen tree before knocking its pincers into it over and over.
“Hmm,” you opine.
Suddenly, a patch of the tree where the beetle was forcefully swings away from you on a hinge, launching the beetle away from you! 
“A door inside a dead tree?” you exclaim. This makes no sense. The headache’s coming back… “Nope. This doesn’t have anything to do with me,” you decide, and sit down again on the rock. Maybe now the stag beetle won’t bother you anymore.
But the beetle, having returned from its involuntary flight to now hover over the opening in the tree with a menacing buzz, has started loudly hissing and clicking like a little whining puppy. You can’t take it anymore. This fuckin’ guy may have a frankly beautiful iridescent shell and wings composed of the most gentle song-whispers of… goddamn oatmeal or something, but he’s also annoying, and you really feel like just moving from the spot Fluttershy put you in just to get out of here and get some peace for your aching head.
“I told you, you dumb beetle, I don’t care about that tree-house, or whatever it is! So beat it!” 
But it doesn’t seem to be addressing its alarming sounds to you, but rather to something inside the tree-hole, which is slightly concerning given the beetle’s transparently malicious glee. In an instant, though, the glee turns to barely surprised horror as a fanged muzzle snaps out of the tree-hole at the beetle. He just barely dodges in time by doing a loop before flying panicked to scurry under the rock you’re sitting on.
The fanged muzzle is attached to a strange head that pops out of the hole in the tree. The creature inside also puts two hooves outside the tree to hang off the edge of the hole, so, clearly, this is a pony. It’s a pretty weird-looking pony, kind of like a shiny black-scaled bug with green wings, a horn, and holes in its hooves. You stare at it a moment, and it slowly blinks its solid-blue eyes at you with a neutral, cattish expression.
It actually doesn’t shock you to see such a creature as a bug-ish pony. It’s definitely the largest bug-like thing you’ve seen so far, but the size of the bugs here stopped being shocking about an hour ago, when you met the earwig. Besides, the bug pony’s probably pretty smart, if the other insects are anything to go by. Might even be a pretty good talker, being pony-like and all… probably has some pretty funny stories…
Well, that’s all going to stay theoretical, since you still have to nurse your now-splitting headache, though your balance has come back, which is nice since you won’t have to worry about throwing up from that, at least. You decide to get away from the boulder with the detested beetle and you just shamble over on the other side of the path, picking a relatively soft-looking patch of moss to lie down on. Briefly, it crosses your mind that if Fluttershy saw you lying prone like this, she might go into hysterics, but you’re more worried about cooling off your forehead.
After what seems like only a second of lounging on the damp moss looking up at the swaying pines of these trees, these peculiar trees looking not quite unlike either a redwood or a pine, yet wider than both… after only a short moment of that, you feel the unmistakable boop of a muzzle in your side and hear a faint clicking sort of purr.
Lazily tilting your head down and to the right, you see the bug-pony nuzzling your side with its eyes closed and a self-assured grin on its face, as you may have well guessed. Its big blue eyes slowly open very similarly to the cheeky eyes of a round cat to meet your gaze when you lift your head, and it stares at you a moment before blinking ponderously and suddenly jabbing its forehead into your side. It occurs to you that it may have been able to gore you with its horn, but a quick glance confirms that the pony deliberately only headbutted you with the part of its head below the horn to spare you getting poked.
This pony might be dangerous. You might be playing with fire here. After all, it might just be a wild animal, even wilder than the ones Fluttershy seemingly tamed. It certainly looks monstrous enough, though in a vague way, like an uncanny valley skinwalker of a pony, or like the mockery of an alicorn.
You give the creature an appraising glance as it bonks its forehead into your ribs again and the slight discomfort makes you realize that your headache, if not the side pains from the pony’s headbutts, seems to have been eased by the sight of the little bugger. You look at it, and you see that, despite its frankly weird resemblance to ponykind and alongside the shadow of gothic beauty it holds, the thing’s just damn cute. 
That usually being a good enough guide to which creatures are good or bad in this place, you then go on to further reason that if it had some evil in it or some bad will against you, it would have shown it already, and anyway, it would be a bit too late to do anything about it if it did decide to take advantage of your lying prone and bite your neck with its fangs (or something), so you might as well just enjoy life and keep going on in the moment like everything’s just fine.
Unless there is something that you could do…?
Finally, after the span of a half second that the entire thought process took, you figure “Hey, what the heck,” and you extend your hand to the bug-pony’s nose. After a tentative sniff, it lowers its head and lets you pet its noggin. Now that you can see past the horn, you notice that instead of the manes most ponies have, this one has a sort of fluorescent fin which kind of trips you up as far as stroking it goes, but it seems to enjoy the head pats regardless, and its mane is still about as soft as a pony’s.
But is this pony really an “it”? You softly ask, “What’s your name, little bug?” but it just looks up and stares at you unblinking. “Never mind,” you mutter, and scratch its ear a little bit.
Finally, it seems content to just sit down there beside you and put its head on your stomach, smiling all the way as you stroke its fin. The whole sight seems to have banished all the lingering effects of your aches and pains—and especially the nausea, which really breaks any sort of lingering apprehension you may have had towards the little fella…
The bug horse then instantly gets up off its hooves and turns to face the path, ears straight up and twitching from activity. You sit up curiously and find with a little surprise that it doesn’t hurt at all. With a little bit more surprise, you see that Fluttershy's back as she touches down on the path gingerly, saddlebags clinking with what you suppose to be magic potions.
“Oh, hey Fluttershy!” you call out as you stand up to go meet her.
“(Y/n)?” Fluttershy gapes at you. “You look so healthy all of a sudden! You—” She stops as the bug-pony flies over to her and buries its head in her chest fluff so as not to poke her with its horn. You see her look turn into one of loving care—and maybe to one of a caretaker’s pride?
“Oh, my, little Pickaxe,” Fluttershy addresses the ponylike critter, “did you make (y/n) feel all better?” They nod their head almost imperceptibly against Fluttershy. “Awwe, that’s a good changeling… Oh, I just feel so much joy that I could shout out loud to the whole forest.”
Taking a deep breath, she shouts from the depths of her emotional being in a voice that could rock Canterlot, with a declaration that would cause armies to fall back and wars to end by its hopeful message: “Yay!”
That’s what the changeling (as she called it) thought, at least as far as the look in its eyes and the goofy grin on its face would tell you. 
As for you, you were more than a little amused to see her close her eyes and meekly say the word “yay” with about the same volume and apparent enthusiasm as a filly telling their parents that they got a D+ on their test.
Snorting, you walk over to Fluttershy. “I kinda wondered if you might know this little guy—mare?” you ask, tilting your head at Fluttershy.
“Stallion,” she replies as she hugs Pickaxe to her body. “They all are, or at least all the drones in the hive… It’s a bit complicated. But I’m just glad that the two of you got along so well.” She looks sidelong at Pickaxe, then back at you. “You two did get along, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yeah, we were doin’ all right while you were gone, we just lied down over there and I pet him, a little bit,” you assure her. Something comes to mind. “So I guess he used his ‘changeling’ magic to get rid of my nausea and everything?”
“Oh! Um. Kind of? Well, you see, changelings maybe kinda…”
“What?” you ask.
“...Feed off emotions?” she finishes uncertainly, ears flopping down and her big eyes looking at you pleadingly. “Oh, please don’t blame him for that! He has to do it to survive, since so many ponies hate him just because he looks like this and can’t even get near him without poisoning him with it! Please give Pickaxe a chance!”
You blink. And sigh with the wind. And kneel next to Fluttershy before petting her mane comfortingly. “He hasn’t done any wrong by me,” you reassure her, “and I don’t mind if he… fed off my emotions? Even if it is a bit creepy to think about. It didn’t really feel like it hurt or anything, so I don’t really mind. I don’t see what that has to do with him getting rid of my pain, though.”
“It’s because I ate your pain away,” he says. Pause. Eyes widening. “You’re welcome, by the way,” he adds smugly.
“Aha!!!” you exclaim as you stand and point at Pickaxe with a manic gleam in your eye, though that did kind of put off Fluttershy a bit. “I knew you should’ve been able to talk! I just knew it!”
Pickaxe smirks. “Guilty as charged!”
Fluttershy looks between you and Pickaxe confusedly. Finally, she inspects you with a stare as she asks Pickaxe, “You didn’t even talk to them at all, and they still snuggled with you?” 
You rush to defend yourself. “Well, y’know, it’s just… ponies are snuggable, okay? Anyway, that’s not really what’s important here—”
Fluttershy levels a firm gaze at the changeling. “Pickaxe… did you change into anypony?”
Change? “He’s always looked like this,” you assert. “Can he change into other people—or ponies—or…?” 
You ask Pickaxe, “Hey, d’y’think you could change into a human?”
“Oooh no, you don’t!” Pickaxe glares at you. “Don’t think you can con me into using my transformation skills to make a monkey outta me, as interesting as trying that may be…” 
Ignoring your sputtering about him calling you a monkey, he continues, “I’ll have you know that ponies pay good money for changelings to take on their appearance so they can see themselves in motion. Idiots…” he says in general, scowling at the forest, before putting a hoof on his chest and making a bold proclamation while buzzing himself up with his wings. “Why, the rich nobles of the Canterlot elite all line up to have me do them, with the head of House Blueblood himself making absolutely certain that he gets to be the first one in the door!” 
You look around at the empty, secluded forest. “Doesn’t look like it,” you say.
That brings Pickaxe back down to earth. “Ah, well, then there’s the political situation, you see.”
“Yeah.”
“Point is that if you want me to do you, you gotta shell out some cash,” he concludes.
You sigh and roll your eyes. “If this is what it takes to further science,” you mutter. “How ‘bout, hmm. Two bits?”
Pickaxe hisses at the very idea. “I’m not some two-bit stallion! I’ve perfected this down to an art! First you lay down and I give you a massage…” At your incredulous look he adds, “What? You can’t expect me to get into the mindset of a whatever-you-are without you letting me feel you up first, now can you?”
“Whatever. Three bits?”
Pickaxe scoffs haughtily. “I’ve never worked for so little in my life! Even the stingiest of the Canterlot elites would still shell out hundreds of bits for my services.”
You raise an eyebrow and gesture to the trees.
“...Point taken,” he states deadpan. “Four bits.”
Well, that’s a shocker. You really expected he would never actually give you a decent deal. “Four bits,” you agree.
Pickaxe just stands there for a moment. “...Plus an extra bit. For insurance,” he assures you unassuringly, and completely seriously.
Goddamnit. You throw up your arms and relent. “Okay. Five bits. Final—”
Fluttershy interrupts with a stern glare at the changeling. “Pickaxe, did you seduce (y/n)?”
“What?” both of you shout at the same time, before you devolve into “ewwww”s and Pickaxe into “YIIIICCCH”
Finally, Pickaxe gains enough presence of mind to firmly state to Fluttershy, “No, I did not hypnotize them with the mesmeric qualities of my changeling magic so I could bed them and eat their lust.” Phew! Also, what? Pickaxe continues with a more assuring nuzzle to Shy’s muzzle, “Don’t worry, Fluttershy, I’ve learned my lesson about stealing emotions from ponies… And you know I’ve stopped doing that kind of thing ever since the little incident with Prince Blueblood.” Huh, I guess that makes sense for a race of creatures that feed off emotions. Also, double what?!
“Also,” he sticks his tongue out at you, “this ‘(y/n)’ is really not my type.”
“Hey! …Thanks, I think?” you say.
Fluttershy holds onto her stern gaze for a moment longer, inspecting Pickaxe with a dubious eye as he looks up at her with an innocent smile… before it softens like a pillow fort falling to the playing destruction of friends. “I believe you, Pickaxe,” she tells him gently, and pulls him in for a hug, before gesturing to you to come in as well.
You gladly do so, kneeling to get on their level, and it’s suddenly like nothing ever happened, like you you never punished that tree with your face or got sick at all. An overwhelming sense of comfort comes to you, and buries you in a sea of fluffy horses. Feeling your pain and weakness evaporate in the face of such a siren call, you can’t do anything but smile.
Fluttershy on your left has her usual longer coat for you to lose your fingers in, and her mane, now known to you, tickles your face as she nuzzles your cheek sweetly. Pickaxe on the right, however, has a short and coarse-ish coat, that not at all detracts from the surprising warmth emanating from him towards you, and also no mane, but where he snuggles into your armpit you have enough arm room to pet his fin some more, as before. Both ponies have their wings blanketed around you. 
Here, in the middle of the woods, the three of you met by complete chance, in a place where nopony could hear you scream. However, no sooner after the first few words of introduction and a mild conversation have you come to trust each other implicitly, and connect with each other enough to come together in a group hug.
Such is the way of the magical pony.
Fluttershy eventually breaks up the hug, to the dismay of Pickaxe and your implacable satisfaction. She looks thoughtfully at her saddlebag and says, “Well, I guess I won’t need these potions from Zecora anymore.” To Pickaxe, she adds with the sly grin of one who was proven right, ”Especially since you were nice enough to give us some of your love stores, if that pleasant numbing feeling in the air was love.”
Pickaxe looks away. “Yes, hmm, well I figured it was just as well that I do something like that. I can’t expect to get any love if I don’t give any in return, right?”
It would take a bulldozer to get rid of the smug, self-satisfied look on your face as you stand up and stretch your joints. “Nice,” you tell him, popping a particular spinal column back into place that gave you a bit of trouble from lying on the ground. Peculiarly, that alien sense of comfort that made you forget your soreness is gone, and with it comes the return of the outerlying sensations of the human body. “That the same reason why you snuggled right up to me instead of just saying ‘Hi’?”
Pickaxe reproaches you with a sharp look, “Well, of course I couldn’t just waltz up to you and say, ‘Hello, I’m a changeling! My personality is unpleasant; please turn me into the authorities!’” At this Fluttershy winces away from Pickaxe. He doesn’t notice and continues on proudly, “I’ll have you know that this technique works with every pony I have ever tried it on—including Fluttershy here! It’s the absolute best way to garner affection from mares, stallions, and fillies!”
Fluttershy, looking at the ground and shaking her head ponderously with pity, says, “Pickaxe…”
Now it’s Pickaxe’s turn to cringe away from Fluttershy, before apologetically adding, “Well, maybe my motivations do come from another place than my manipulative machinations, bearing in mind that even the altruistic giving of love by ponies has an ulterior self-serving motive for the individual to feel better about themselves…” he rambles disconnectedly. 
At this point you start to get bored, and you notice the picnic basket lying on its side in the grass over by the mossy rock, so you go to investigate.
“...But I absolutely stand by the fact that who I am on the inside is absolutely repellant to all, as is that of each and every changeling!” he finally declares, steel resolve in his final eye-twitching look to Fluttershy.
The heavenly scent of bacon still comes from the basket, but unfortunately, it smells rather subdued compared to how it was back at the cottage. Maybe it’s gotten a bit old. Or maybe…
Unfortunately for Pickaxe, Fluttershy’s patented Gentle Stare could melt through steel with the force of a billion tender embraces. She levels him with its full power, pleading with implicit tears causing her eyes to glitter, “Please don’t say that about yourself, Pickaxe. I know that changelings have a different… culture, from us, but—” she smiles, “---everypony is wonderful just the way they are, and you especially are one of the nicest, most caring ponies I have ever met, so please don’t think you don’t deserve friends like us!”
“Friends?” That makes you pause. “Friends?” you repeat, and gesture to the picnic basket’s open lid with your other hand. “If we’re such great friends, then why did he eat all the bacon sandwiches?” you accuse him.
That got Pickaxe out of his funk with an uproarious laugh, startling Fluttershy for a split-second before she gives a resigned sigh and a smile. “No, no!” he spits out between guffaws, lying on the ground holding his sides, “I left out a piece of bacon for you…!”
You slowly and incredulously take out a single, anemic sliver of bacon, causing him to burst out laughing once again. Even Fluttershy looks like she’s getting into the spirit of things, as she’s holding a hoof in front of her mouth and trying to keep from tittering, much to your bemusement.
“Pickaxe,” Fluttershy giggles out, “how generous and kind of you to leave some bacon for (y/n)!”
You cannot believe this.
Fluttershy comes over to you with a reassuring smile at the basket and the piece of bacon and, even more astonishingly, she eats it out of your hand! And starts chewing it with relish! Literally, relish!
Your mind fills with a million questions even as the sound of the changeling’s laughter pounds against your head like the tree that he lives in: How could she do such a thing to me? Isn’t she an obligate herbivore, or whatever? How would she even be able to tolerate the smell or taste of another animal? Where the fuck did she get relish? Seriously. Relish? Also, am I going crazy, or do I see a slice of lemon hanging in with the bacon?
But before your mind can even begin to understand to ask these questions, Fluttershy gives a good-natured eye roll to Pickaxe and says, “Okay, you’ve had your fun, now undo the illusion. Um, that is, if you feel like you want to,” she adds defensively.
“Oh, I suppose I might as well,” he finally manages to wheeze as he’s busy getting back onto his own four hooves. “This little skit of ours is taking too long, anyways.”
As he says so, standing up straight with his eyes closing in the deep concentration you’ve seen from a few unicorns practicing focus magic, green flames suddenly erupt from his horn, before then encompassing the bacon piece that Fluttershy’s chewing on and several sandwich-shaped pockets of air in the basket…
You stare at the glowing inside of the basket in frank disbelief. “The sandwiches! They’re back!” you exclaim. As you look to Fluttershy for an explanation, you see that the bacon-with-relish-and-slimline-lemon-but-no-ice she was munching on has now turned into a simple rose from one of her own rose sandwiches.
Pickaxe smugly gives you the eyebrow as he says, “What? Did you forget that I’m a trickster kind of creature? I’m a changeling, baby! Also… I literally can’t eat bacon, just emotions.”
Fluttershy in turn gives him the well-meaning stare reserved by mothers to use against precociously cheeky bastards. “Sorry, (y/n), but I couldn’t resist playing along with his little prank. It lets him use up some of the accumulated negative energy that he passively gains in the forest, while getting some amusement into his stomach.” She grimaces. “Please don’t take that out of context…”
You, simply enough, give Pickaxe a stare plainly showing exactly what you feel, which is, well… really something. “But… but…” you confusedly start out, “but I felt that there was no—there was just air there!”
“Ah. Yes. Illusion magic,” he hoofwaves. This does not reassure you.
Fluttershy steps in between the two of you. “I think we should get going. Only if you’d like to do so, though, (y/n),” she meekly states. With a look back at her full saddlebags, she adds in a low voice, “I guess I’ll have to give these back to Zecora…”
You give your forehead another check with the ol’ back-of-the-hand and you find it to be just what the doctor ordered: Ambien… You strut over to the fallen log that serves as the changeling’s home and doubles as your mortal enemy, and duck under it to reach the other side effortlessly. It’s somewhat anticlimactic, in a way.
“Yeah, I think I’m ready to get back onto the road and get some more hiking in, Flutters. You could probably just keep the potions for if we really need them later, though.”
Pickaxe flies over to rest his barrel over top of the log. The effect is, quite frankly, adorable, and you have to try very hard to not get another heart attack at the sight. “Where are you both headed?” he asks.
Fluttershy hoists the basket onto your back and picks up the water bottle you neglected with her wingtips. That’s basically the only use for wings you condone, especially with what happened that one time when you temporarily gained wings—you shudder to remember it. Anyways, she ripostes, “We’re going to watch the birds returning from their winter migration! And we’ll talk, and picnic, and catalogue them, and sing…!”
“Ick,” he re-ripostes on his back on the log with his tongue sticking out disgustedly. “I just do not understand how ponies can bear to sing all the time,” he mutters confidentially to you behind his hoof.
“Ehh… I kinda like it,” you mutter back. “Definitely a little weird, but you do have to admit it’s fitting for ponies as a race to be obsessed with singing.”
Pickaxe gives a moue of disdain. “Whatever. Well, Fluttershy, I am not going to accompany you on your little journey, as I do not want to become bird food. Especially if there are any griffons around…” he finishes looking at the sky suspiciously.
Fluttershy nods sagely as she ducks under his home in the fallen tree to your side. “Well, I hope you meet some more friendly ponies soon.”
“Yeah…” you say. Pause. You notice that Fluttershy’s looking questioningly at you and Pickaxe, annoyed at you and you realize that you’ve been standing rooted to the spot in anxious uncertainty for some time now.
Well, this is it. It’s now or never to ask this question. You’ve just gotta do it.
“...Oh, and, uh, Pickaxe?”
“What?” he charmingly snaps back at you.
“What um. Did—did you chop down that tree you’re living in, or…?”
He shakes his head. “Oh, no. I found it this way. But I tell you, whatever—” Doom. Pickaxe breaks off in the middle of his words, shocked, almost as if he could tell what you were feeling just then. Although, a part of your brain tells you, as a creature that feeds off emotions, that could be more likely than not. That thought doesn’t get very far as the rest of your brain is preoccupied by a hostile intruder spotted in the back of your skull, one with greedy yellow eyes and skin made of bark—and it’s gone.
Pickaxe licks his lips. “Oh!” He starts suddenly. “Sorry, Fluttershy, but I ate (y/n)’s worries and fears about timberwolves. I’ve gotta say, though, his crippling anxieties and neuroses have some kick to them, at least compared to yours…”
Fluttershy smiles, but you can see embarrassment written all over her features—in red blush, no less—and you realize that she probably didn’t want you to know that she has crippling anxiety, or at least that a changeling tasted some of it at some point. “Well, it’s fine just this one time, I guess?” Realizing that you’re staring at her, she hastily covers her face with her wings (another approved use for them) and squeaks out, “We—we should really get going,” before shambling off distractedly.
And the both of you leave Pickaxe, finally, to get back to the trail with hasty farewells.
After a good while and the distraction of a very wide, very shallow babbling brook that needs to be crossed to put her mind off things, Fluttershy finally manages to be willing to show her face around you. She can just trot across the ankle-deep stream, but you have shoes. So she keeps you company as you painstakingly choose which rocks to vault onto to not get wet. 
She looks at you multiple times and opens her mouth before closing it soon after, looking down to the water when she does so. You figure she’s looking for a way to start a conversation she finds tough, and wait patiently enough as you stop to look at a fat fuckin’ frog sitting on a rock right in front of you, with a bumblebee resting on its nose, both of them seemingly at peace and snoozing away.
“So…” she hesitantly starts out, “t-t-timberwolves?”
You look at Fluttershy strangely. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” you tell her nonchalantly. “Right now, I’d rather talk about why, every time I do something with one of you girls, something goes wrong or we meet some strange people. Seriously! It’s like I’m in a kid’s show or something!”
[a/n: please please PLEASE send me some types and kinds of birds, bugs, flowers, and basically anything else cool and natural. I need more range in my choice of animals than things that I see when I go on my daily touch-grass journies...
also, I do not edit these, so if you absolutely hate the direction the story is telling, give me some feedback with like a dm or something idk]
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mxbitters · 3 years
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i don’t know what else to do with my time apparently (false.  i have a million things i could do with my time right now that would me much more worthwhile) so i guess now i’m making a powerpoint about the problem with trying to explain nuanced topics like racism through analogy in children’s media and i’m using goddamn my little pony out of all things as the example
#actually there are PERFECTLY good reasons for me to be using that but yeah#people simply do not acknowledge some of the uhh.  earlier.  episodes.  and how like genuinely fucked up that was#like.  okay first of all zecora um..#like that first episode she was in?  like they were definitely trying to say something but the execution and like..#literally every detail about her is just.. excruciatingly playing into a really yikes stereotype#but like okay more relevant to my own culture i really wanna have a fucking chat with whoever came up with that buffalo episode#because they make this one episode and try and dumb it down into 'oh you have to share' like.. it's..not..that..simple..#like hey first of all one of these horses looks way too fucking much like a certain general custer but then like..#maybe not too analogous because of how they.. decorated.. the buffalo but like???#instantly with the kidnapping shit it just immediately falls under the same racist bullshit p*ter p*n was doing in that way#like ok the idea of the episode is they have this migration route right??  like it's really important to them and their culture#and then ponies move in and make an apple orchard literally in the middle of aforementioned route#and the buffalo?  rightfully pissed.  also not fond of the train lines.  REASONABLE#but it essentially results in some fucking.. pie-themed war between the buffalo and the ponies which eventually culminates in them..#liking the pies and changing their migration route in exchange for having...pie..#like first of all if we're going with the analogy?  that could very well be a stand in for assimilation essentially#second.  this..'migration route..' what's that even supposed to stand in for.  sacred land???#'oh well you're giving us this great innovative thing you created out of our sacred land we'll just make some other place sacred' i--#it's so bad.  soooo bad.#like okay in later seasons like 9???  sure.  they're able to revisit a similar-ish topic with yona and the idea of cultural assimilation#but the buffalo???  here's the worst fucking messiest part.  THEY NEVER SHOW UP AGAIN#like???  yeah.  that episode you made was really fucked up and you were rightfully called out on it#but considering the literal role buffalo have in like my tribe's history for example???#and the role that the mass killing of buffalo had especially back then in regard to cultural genocide???  literal genocide???#YOU CANNOT RESOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS BY LITERALLY NEVER MAKING THE BUFFALO SHOW UP AGAIN#like oh my god#these things should be taught to kids but when you muddle things up and try and make it seem simple and like an issue of personal relationsh#relationships*???  it simplifies racism from something institutional to something you can solve in 20 minutes#it's just.  complicated.  i know it's a kids show and these episodes were from like 10 years ago but i'm still making the powerpoint#just to like.  let it out somewhere because it's fucking irritating
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Episode 2-3
A rumble of thunder shook the Golden Oak Library.
"GAAAAH"
Tank Buster made a mad dash for the pillow pile, burying himself beneath it at blinding speed. Within seconds, all that was visible of him were a green snout and a pair of terrified eyes.
"What the hay?" Rainbow Dash's eyes darted back and forth between Tank's hiding place and the spot where he'd been standing just a moment prior.
"Oh no..." Frowning, Twilight slowly approached the pillow pile and sat beside it. "I heard about this from Big Macintosh after that last storm we had. Poor Tank has - "
"Wait a sec," Rainbow interjected. "You heard something from Big Mac that wasn't 'eeyup' or 'nnnope'?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Yes, Rainbow Dash. Big Macintosh does, in fact, talk. Just... not very often." She glanced away briefly at this admission. "Now may I finish?"
Rainbow shrugged. "Eh, sure."
Twilight's expression softened once more as her gaze fell upon the petrified pony in the pillow pile. "Tank Buster has astraphobia."
"Gesundheit," Rainbow Dash offered.
Twilight sighed audibly and raised a hoof to her forehead. "Astraphobia is an abnormal fear of thunder and lightning. In other words, he's terrified of thunderstorms."
Rainbow Dash was silent for a moment as she landed slowly and joined Twilight by the pillow pile. After a moment of biting her lip nervously, she spoke. "Aw man, I didn't know. I'm really sorry I couldn't warn you guys sooner..."
Twilight shook her head. "Don't blame yourself, Rainbow. If you weren't fast enough to warn everypony in time, then nopony would've been."
Spike peered over Twilight's shoulder. "So what do we do now?"
Twilight gave one of the pillows a gentle pat with her hoof as Tank trembled beneath it. "The best thing to do is to stay here with him until the weather clears up. We shouldn't be going outside anyway now that the storm's here."
"Yeah, no kidding," Rainbow agreed. "For anypony to go out now, they'd have to be - "
SLAM
"APPLE BLOOM!"
Rainbow Dash's statement was interrupted by the sound of the library door bursting open as a thoroughly sodden Applejack charged through it, looking frantically about the room. "Have any of y'all seen Apple Bloom?"
Briefly taken aback by the orange pony's abrupt arrival, Twilight glanced between Rainbow Dash and Tank Buster for a moment before responding. "Er... no, we haven't. Is everything alright?"
Applejack shook her head, flinging a cascade of droplets from her hat in all directions as she did so. "She was supposed to be back from Zecora's by now. I can't bear the thought that she's stuck somewhere out there in the storm..."
Twilight trotted forward and put a gentle hoof over Applejack's shoulder. "I'm sure she's fine, Applejack. If she was on her way back to the farm when the storm arrived, it's very likely she just stopped somewhere to take shelter from the rain. If we ask around town, I'm sure we'll find her before long."
Applejack looked up at Twilight and nodded, adjusting her hat. "Yeah... you're right. Thanks, Twi."
Twilight offered a reassuring smile before turning to look over her shoulder. "Come on, Rainbow. We'll need your help too."
Rainbow scratched her head and gestured at the pillow pile. "Um... okay, but what about Tank? You just said somepony's gotta stay with him."
Twilight blinked, hesitating as she pondered the problem. After a moment, she returned to the pillow pile and crouched low to the floor until she was at eye level with the pony buried within. "Hey... Tank?"
Tank turned his head a fraction of an inch to meet her gaze.
Twilight smiled softly at him, just as she had with Applejack. "Will you be alright if we leave you with Spike while we go looking for Apple Bloom? I promise we'll be back before you know it."
After a moment's pause, Tank's response came in the form of an almost imperceptibly small nod.
Twilight's smile broadened as she stood back up. "Stay strong. I know you can do it." With that, she turned back toward the others. "Okay then. Spike, I need you to come over here and sit with Tank. Applejack and Rainbow Dash, let's get moving. We need to stay in sight of each other at all times for safety's sake; the storm's not getting any lighter by the looks of things. Ready, girls?"
Applejack's expression hardened. "You bet your bottom bit I am."
Rainbow Dash threw her forehoof into the air. "Let's do this!"
"Let's go!" With a glow of her horn, Twilight threw the door open and the three ponies charged out into the darkening storm. Spike watched as that same magic closed the door behind them before jogging his way over to the pillow pile and unceremoniously plopping down onto one.
Never really sure what to do with himself without Twilight around, the little dragon spent a moment staring at the claws on one hand before a sudden thought struck him. "Wait a second..." The pillow beneath him slid easily on the smooth wooden floor as he spun around to face Tank. "Does anypony else know about the sinkholes on the forest path?"
It seemed to take a moment for this question to sink in, but when it did, the force of Tank sitting bolt upright sent some pillows flying several feet away. "No... no, I don't think they do!" The realization seemed to be momentarily distracting him from the storm as he rose from his hiding place and began pacing slowly. "I didn't find the first one until just after Apple Bloom passed by, and I didn't get the chance to mention it to anyone just now because we were distracted by that weird book."
Spike raised his hands to his face in alarm. "So does that mean Apple Bloom didn't make it back because she fell in one and got stuck and now she's trapped in a hole in the middle of a storm?"
"If it is, then the others will never find her in time," Tank declared. "That settles it, then. It's up to - "
A loud thunderclap headed this statement off at the pass, resulting in Tank immediately diving underneath the nearby table and covering his head with his forelegs. "Nope nope nope it's up to somebody else 'cause I'm not going anywhere no thank you"
Spike tugged insistently at Tank's tail, slowly dragging him out from under the table. "Tank, come on! Apple Bloom needs our help!"
"Our... W-Wait, that's it!" In spite of the trembling, Tank beamed as the idea came to him. "Y-You can go f-find the girls and t-tell them where she is!"
Spike put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, sure! I'm totally going to catch up to three full-grown ponies who are running full tilt through a thunderstorm when all I've got are these stubby little baby dragon legs." He stuck one out and pointed at it for emphasis.
Tank hesitated for a moment before offering an encouraging grin. "Uhh... I believe in you?"
This elicited little more than an impatient glare from Spike.
Tank's smile faded as he gave a quiet sigh of defeat. "I... really have to do this, don't I?"
Spike nodded. "I know you're scared, but Apple Bloom might be in serious danger. We have to try." With that, he climbed onto the prone pony's back and gave him a gentle pat. "Don't worry. You'll be fine as long as I'm here!"
Slowly, steadily, Tank rose on four shaky legs and made his way to the front door, opening it with one trembling hoof. The town was nearly pitch black as the rain came down in sheets; where the street lights weren't lit, he could barely see more than a few yards through it. As far as Tank was concerned, he may as well have been staring at a brick wall for how willing he was to walk through that doorway.
"Stay strong. I know you can do it."
While this ostensibly hadn't been what she'd meant, Twilight's words echoed in Tank's mind nonetheless. His gaze lingered on the falling rain as his mind processed the task ahead of him, prompting the trembling to pick up once again. "...Okay. I can do this, I can do this. Apple Bloom needs our help. I can do this..." He closed his eyes, the better to focus on slowing his breathing and retaining what control he could manage over his nerves. "Okay. I'm... I'm gonna count to five, and then we're gonna go. We're gonna... we're gonna do this thing. Okay." Another deep breath punctuated this sentence. "One... two - "
RUMBLE
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Tank's eyes shot open as the loudest thunderclap yet rolled its way through town as though swallowing it whole. With a scream that might have curdled milk, he took off like a bullet out the door and into the storm, aiming as best he could in the gathering dark for the Everfree Forest.
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