“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where everything is— Oh! Hello, Scootaloo.”

“No time to talk,” gasped the little pegasus, darting past Rarity and up the stairs. “Crusader business.”

“Scootaloo,” called Rarity with a note of concern. “Sweetie Belle is doing her homework right now before bedtime.”

“Come on!” shouted Scootaloo as she darted down the stairs, her young unicorn friend close behind. “Apple Bloom. Caught. Homework. Hurry!” They had their helmets on before reaching the door, and the scooter and wagon were blasting down the road at a blistering pace before Rarity could even get to her boutique door to call out. Slightly disappointed, she returned to her work. They were a good little bunch of fillies and should be home before bedtime, although she could not remember the last time Scootaloo looked this eager to do homework. Or even the first time.

What most ponies called Timber Wolves were actually less wolf, and more timber due to Everfree magic. Because not all of the trees in the Everfree were ‘nice’ trees, a number of them drew magic from deep underground reservoirs of hatred and bitter pain. Sometimes the magic killed the tree and froze the dead wooden body into a rictus of agony or sometimes the tree was able to survive by concentrating the corrupted magic in a limb and dropping it.

When these limbs gathered together into one location, the creature that resulted was an amalgam of the forest magic itself, little mobile knots of hatred on four limbs with fangs and claws. They acted like wolves because they ‘thought’ they were wolves, gathering together in cords to hunt whatever creature crossed their path with generalized indifference to their ability to actually digest their prey. Although they still savaged and killed their prey, there was a greater joy they took in pursuit, perhaps feeding off the fear of the frightened creatures while howling through the forest.

Monster was afraid.

The hammering spike of raw terror that surged through her body before she teleported away was like the scent of a fine apéritif, wafting through the trees to the Timber Wolves in their lairs scattered throughout the forest. Had Shining Armor and Princess Cadence returned to any of the sites where they had encountered Monster recently, they would have found dozens of the fierce beasts sniffing around. The scent of fear and destruction drew them together for tens of miles. In some small section of their magical intelligence, they knew to avoid Monster when she lurked through the forest. Even the clopping of pony hooves caused them to cringe back into the scrub, while the sight of purple drove them into panic-filled flight. But after she was gone…

“Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo called out carefully while approaching the site of her recent encounter with the terrifying monster. Something appeared to have taken an enormous bite out of one side of the bush, as if a monster had simply eaten foliage and soil together without chewing. “Apple Bloom, are you in there?”

“What?” The little yellow filly poked her nose out of the bush before bounding over to her friends. “What are you two doing out here? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be in the Everfree Forest?”

Sweetie Belle thought about that for a moment. “But you’re in the Everfree Forest.”

Scootaloo gasped and pointed. “Apple Bloom, what happened to your ear?” A ragged brown line of dried blood adorned the right side of the filly’s face, and the tip of that ear appeared ever so slightly shorter.

“I dunno. I musta cut it on something when Monster ran away. Somepony scared the crabapples out of her.” Apple Bloom glared at her pegasus friend, who was caught between indignant and embarrassed.

“Wait a minute.” Sweetie Belle looked around the clearing and backed up a few steps in the direction of the path. “There’s a monster here?”

With a sigh, Apple Bloom filled her friends in on her ‘other’ friend. Scootaloo seemed more interested in the homework end of the discussion while Sweetie Belle was simply aghast, or agasp, or something starting with an ‘a’ that her sister had once used to describe breathing really heavy.

When Apple Bloom finished her explanation, Sweetie promptly added, “We’re going to go tell somepony about this, right now!”

“What about the homework?” asked Scootaloo, seeing hours of worthwhile cutie mark crusading spiraling down the drain and replaced by desktop drudgery.

“Well, I ain’t going,” said Apple Bloom, plunking her rump down and crossing her forelegs. “Monster ain’t dangerous—” She glanced at the crater that had replaced half of the bush “—much. She’s just afraid. We go tell big ponies about her, and they’ll come a rushing out here and scare her even more.”

“You gotta come with us, Apple Bloom. You’re the one who knows Monster. If she’s a good monster like you say, they’ll believe you. We’ll all be there to back you up.”

“All of us?” asked Scootaloo. “I’ve got to get back to the shop to help clean up and—”

“No! Monster’s scared, and I’m going to be here for her when she comes back. I don’t care how long it takes.” Unconsciously, all three fillies looked at the lengthening shadows that had begun to transform the frightening forest. “She’s afraid of the dark, too,” Apple Bloom added.

“Does your monster ever stay late in the forest?” asked Scootaloo, looking all around the forest clearing for signs of glowing eyes or sharp teeth.

“No. She normally leaves by now to go home. I-I suppose…” Apple Bloom crawled back in the bush and emerged with a mangled pile of pages that used to be a book until something chopped it cleanly in half. “I better take this too, so she don’t worry none afore I come back in the morning. I still don’t think talking to big ponies about her is a good idea.”

“It isn’t right to keep this a secret,” said Sweetie Belle firmly despite Scootaloo’s anguished expression. “I’ll go without you if I have to, but it has to be done.”

“All of us or nothing,” said Apple Bloom solidly. “Cutie Mark Crusaders stick together no matter what!”

Scootaloo looked at the mangled book as if it were going to bite her. “Does that mean we have to go with you to the library when you show what’s left of that book to Miss Dewey too?”

“…and that’s when we came back here to tell you, Madam Mayor. I swear, it’s the truth.” Sweetie Belle nodded sharply, followed by her two friends with somewhat more reluctance.

The Mayor fought to keep a yawn suppressed, and took a surreptitious glance at the setting sun. If it were not bad enough that the tiny town bordered on the Everfree Forest, ever since that weird place had become less monster-filled, the town’s inhabitants had begun poking about inside even more. When things inevitably went wrong, they came running to the town’s authority figure, of course.

Not settling for seeing actual dangers, now the three tiny terrors who seemed to be behind most of the real disasters in town had decided to make up an imaginary friend. And, of course, bug her about it right before the office was scheduled to close for the day. If only they were not so adorably cute, she might have been able to be angry at the little tikes. There was really only one way to handle this and still get to bed at a reasonable time.

“Very interesting, my little ponies,” said the Mayor, nodding her head and taking great effort to get just the right amount of sympathy in her voice. “I had no idea there was a Homework Monster inside the Everfree. My, that place just gets more strange every day. It’s probably for the good that the monster ran away, because your teacher assigns you homework for a reason, after all. Now I want you to do two things. First, you must never go into the Everfree Forest again without somepony older to accompany you. And second, I want you all three to go to your homes and tell them what you told me. Can I get you to promise, please?”

“We will,” they chorused in a dull monotone, obviously thinking of the upcoming consequences.

“…so sis, you believe me. Right?”

“Of course I believe you,” chimed Rarity, administering the bathtub brush with the same flair as a world-class conductor in front of the Phillyharmonic, with an entire orchestra of bubbles in the tub and one small soggy filly as an audience. “Now hold still, while I put in the conditioner. Otherwise your mane is just going to tangle something fierce!”

“…and after promising never to return, the Homework Monster went back into the forest and the three little fillies never saw it again. The end.”

“That’s nice, Scootaloo.” Aunt Quick Fix gave her favorite niece a warm nuzzle that smelled faintly of axle grease and cloud repellant before tucking the covers up under her chin and turning off the light. “You certainly have a vivid imagination.”

“…so I just gotta go back and see if she’s all right tomorrow. She’s so skeered I just don’t know what to do! Can you help me, sis?”

“Well, ah don’t know for certain.” Applejack rubbed her chin in thought. “There’s a heap of critters in them woods that’re real dangerous. That’s why we made you promise to stay out of them in the first place. If’n you did see some critter like what you said, how could it survive out there without being awfully dangerous itself? I just don’t like it at all. What do you think, Mac?”

The big red stallion had been unusually quiet during Apple Bloom’s entire story, with occasional glances out the window at the night. A low overcast had been laid in for a late morning spring shower, and without the moon or stars shining down, the inky darkness outside seemed to suck in the light from the house like a hungry animal. Finally, he shook his head.

“Nope. Don’t like it one bit. Starting tomorrow, I’m walking you to school and back. If’n we can’t trust you no more, ah don’t want you hurt none by sneaking off into that durned forest.”

“But what about my friends?” wailed Apple Bloom.

“They’re just gonna have to play out here, if’n they can to be safe. That thing out there sounds lot like the critter that attacked me last fall.” The big red stallion shuddered and glanced out the window again.

“That’s not like Monster. She’s skeered of everything.” Apple Bloom worked up the biggest, saddest eyes she could and directed them against her big brother, who was ignoring her completely. Instead he shook silently as his mind went back to last fall, his big green eyes riveted to the window as if in deathly fear of seeing a flash of purple against the stygian darkness.

Drawn by the scent of blood and fear in the darkness of the forest clearing, the Timber Wolves began to gather.