Purse around neck, Fluttershy stepped out of her house ready to go to Le Marquette, as her destination was called. She walked for about fifteen minutes through some light forest and came to a ravine, six or seven metres across and ten down, with a river flowing through. The inconvenience was the bridge being out, a metre-long piece of wood caught on a couple rocks in the river and a chunk of dirt missing on either end the only things to suggest one had ever been there. She never liked to use that third of her limbs, but that particular occasion was more annoying than fearsome.

It didn’t take long before the next unusual thing, a light grey earth stallion jumping from the trees to tackle her. He had a strangely friendly and welcoming look, as if he was going to have a weird accent and explain that this was how ponies were greeted where he was from.

“Hello,” Fluttershy said, the H subject to a few quick stammers.

“Would you like a kiss?”

“No. I—”

Regardless, he put his hooves behind her head and tongue-kissed her. She shook her head, squirmed around, and tried to push him back, but nothing worked. This went on for about fifteen seconds, although it felt slightly longer to her, then he broke the kiss and got up.

“Wha... what do you—”

He hit her in the cheek. It was harder than what would be called a slap and noticeably weaker than a punch. “You know what, bitch?”

“Don’t hurt me....”

“You just got Sexually Assaulted!”

A couple well-hidden cameraponies made themselves apparent to her, and suddenly she thought she recognised him. She had seen that dark grey mane and wrestling cutie mark somewhere, but she was more focussed on not crying than searching her memory. Her tremoring and speechless state wasn’t what the show wanted, so he backed away and tried to comfort her. “It’s okay. You can get up.”

She took a couple deep breaths before she got up. “I feel like I recognise you from something.”

“It’s more than likely this show. You seem like you’re overcome with disbelief at somepony finally kissing you, am I right?”

“I thought you were going... you were going to rape me....”

“Do I get that a lot! Anyway, you aren’t turning happy about this, so I’m sorry, but we can’t put you on the show.”

“I... will you let me go now?”

“Yeah, you can go.”

Sprinting was another thing she didn’t do very often.

Still visibly somewhat sad, Fluttershy came up to a shoulder-high pink ribbon between two trees. There was a driveway on the right joining the main path a few metres beyond it, which marked the second of two houses before she made it to Thatchguard where Le Marquette was. Two other ponies were also behind the ribbon, and she slotted in on the right.

“What’s going on?” she asked the adjacent pony.

“There’s a shootout going on, maybe you can make out the policeponies through the trees.”

“Now that I look, I can see.”

“There was gunfire about a minute ago and one of the police fell dead or unconscious, but now they’re waiting for the pony in the house to be in front of a window again.”

“Do you know why—”

“No, they were like this when I got here.”

The audience had to wait a few minutes before the next bit of excitement.

“Alpha-two,” one of the three policeponies still in the fight said.

“Alpha-four,” another said.

“Charcoal,” said the first.

The second charged towards the door and jumped at it hooves-first, crashing through it. The other two followed him in, and a few seconds later there were several gunfire sounds, the actual fight out of view. After a minute of silence, the two policeponies who didn’t break the door came back out, and one of them went up to the end of the driveway.

“You can go across now.”

Everyone went across, and luckily for Fluttershy, she dropped behind the other two and didn’t have to talk to them.

Finally, she emerged from the forest and made it to Thatchguard. It wasn’t much, just a village of a hundred houses or so at an intersection, but it had a small pet supply store which Fluttershy frequented. She made her way there, and as she came through the door, realised she hadn’t brought a way of carrying anything. It probably wouldn’t matter; all she wanted was a bag of birdseed which would be far too heavy for her mouth, but probably fine for her back. She looked where it normally was, but the brand wasn’t there in any size. She looked up and down the entire aisle, and as she came back to the end near the front of the store, the cashier spoke.

“Are you looking for something?”

“Falkenrath Diet.”

“We’re all out of that.”

“Oh....” It would feel weird to just leave the store. “That’s all I was looking for.”

“Sorry....”

She decided she would look around for a backup to get. Then after deciding to do it, she did it. She quickly found a bag of X-Seed 4000 the same size as the one she planned to get, the brand she always got before trying Falkenrath Diet. She tried to pick it up, but fell over and dropped it on the floor. “I’ll get it,” the cashier said. She levitated it to the desk as Fluttershy got back up. “This’ll be fourteen bits.” After a few tries, Fluttershy got the money out.

“Do you want a bag?”

“Just put it on my back.”

As Fluttershy passed by the house not involved with law enforcement that day, which unlike the other had a front lawn right by the road and generally looked like a normal house in a suburban neighbourhood apart from being alone in the forest, there was something there that wasn’t before: a pony sitting by the road with a platter of chocolate cookies. “Free sample?” he said. The noise made her look briefly, but she continued on without responding to him.

She came to the river. Crossing it was simple enough, as she held the bag to her chest, but then she had to get it on her back again. After taking a minute to formulate a plan, she decided to lie on her chest and lift the three-kilogram bag over her head onto her back. She got it mostly on her back, but also on top of her head and neck, and it slid off when she tried to stand up. She tried it two more times and the same thing happened. Flying so close to trees or higher than trees was out of the question for her, and so she stood there looking defeated at the bag of pet food until someone else came along. This took the better part of an hour.

“Fluttershy?!” the red unicorn said. She teleported across the river. “Holy crap, I can’t believe it! You’ve always been my favourite on the show. Hey, are... you okay? Sorry if you didn’t want me to bother you, I know this probably happens all the time, and ponies make an apology like that all the time, and ponies mention how they’re making an apology all the time, and... well, anyway, I love you. Not like that, though.”

“Could you get this on my back?”

“I’ll carry it for you,” said the unicorn whose mane and eyes were also red, matching her half-visible cutie mark depicting a flame. “Sorry, I’m not usually like this, I swear, but I can’t believe I’m actually seeing you.”

They went back to Fluttershy’s house together, the less notable mare rapidly spouting some generic words about how much she loved her that could easily be referring to anyone her side of Pinkie Pie in terms of extroversion.

“So... I guess this is it....” She put the bag on Fluttershy’s back.

“I enjoyed... listening to you.”

“You really mean it?”

“Well... it didn’t make me feel worse.”

“I wasn’t annoying? Because the last thing I remember about the other famous pony I met was when he pushed me to the ground.”

“You didn’t annoy me.”

“That’s really good to hear. So... goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

She dropped the bird food and approached one of the parrots. “They didn’t have Falkenrath, so we’re going back to X-Seed for a bit.”

“Chiiiiirp.”

“I know, but it’s the best they had.”

She spent her night reading the rest of an okay book she was told had a great ending that made everything amazing in retrospect, only to find that it didn’t. Next Chapter: Chapter 12: Pinkie Pie’s Pointless Puerile Pranks Produce Petty Piques Estimated time remaining: 17 Hours, 51 Minutes