“What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?” Twilight whispered to her friends, panic clear in her voice. The creature had started to walk towards their hiding spot as soon as it had heard the device starting to ring. It wouldn’t take it long to reach them with its long stride, and they didn’t have any other place to hide.
“Calm down Twilight!” Rainbow urged her friend quietly, while taking a look at the approaching creature. “If it wants to fight, I’m going to show it that nopony messes with my friends!” She flexed her muscles and took a stance, clearly ready to fight. She didn’t know if the creature was actually a monster or just some weird animal, but it could still attack them, and Rainbow wasn’t going to let it hurt either of her friends.
“Umm, girls?”
“Nonono! We don’t want to fight it! We don’t even know what it can do! You could get hurt!” Twilight’s voice was starting to rise slightly.
“I’m not scared!” Rainbow shot back, her voice too getting heated.
“Umm…girls…?”
“It’s not a question if you are scared or not, I just don’t want anypony hurt!”
“Umm…what if we just-”
“Then what are you saying, Twi? That we just run away?”
“No! I mean…I could just teleport us away and the we could reassess the situation so that we can conclude what’s the best way to proceed!”
“I don’t even know what that means!”
“Girls!” Fluttershy finally said loud enough to catch their attention.
“What?” They half yelled back at her in unison. They both instantly clamped their mouths shut when they remembered the situation they were in. They turned to look at the creature from their hiding spot. It was still some ways away, but it’s speed had slowed to a crawl. It had clearly heard them bickering, and was hesitating on coming any closer.
“Girls, we didn’t come here to fight. We came here to give the creature back the device it lost.” Fluttershy said as she held the thing against her chest. “So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go and give the thing back to it.” She said in a voice that brooked no argument. Both of her friend’s jaws hung open in shock.
“Fluttershy!” They both hissed to try and stop her, but it was too late, as she had already fluttered away from them.
Admittedly, Fluttershy had felt a lot more brave with both of her friends next to her, and as she circled the bush to get face to face with the creature, she felt her courage drain from her. As the creature came in to her view, her hooves started to shake a bit. What had she been thinking, she knew nothing about this creature. Even if her job was to take care of animals, she knew that there were many that were quite dangerous, and could attack a pony if you weren’t careful with them. Maybe it didn’t like to be near ponies and would react badly if she tried to approach it without permission. Maybe it was really shy, and didn’t really interact with ponies, and maybe it would try to run away and-
Fluttershy blinked and stopped, her brain finally registering what was happening in front of her. The creature had stopped, it had even taken a few steps away from her. It had lifted one of its hands in front of it, as if to block her. The creatures whole body was shaking slightly, but the worst was its eyes. They were wide open, fearfully looking around, but quickly snapping back to her again. The realization made Fluttershy feel like bursting to tears.
The creature was afraid of her.
It opened its mouth, as if to say something, but all it could do was take a shaky breath and one more step backwards. The creature looked like it was about to run away in terror. From her. From Fluttershy.
“No…nonono…” She gently whispered and flew a bit closer. The creature took another step backwards.
“No, I’m not going to hurt you.” She tried again, but the creature was starting to hyperventilate. It tore Fluttershy’s heart apart to see any creature so full of fear. She had to think of something fast.
“H-here…” She held the object with her hooves, which had stopped ringing, towards the creature. It looked at the object for a second, before fixing its eyes to her again.
“It’s yours, isn’t it? We came to give it back to you…” She said in the gentlest voice she could muster, and carefully flew even closer. Fluttershy could see sweat forming on its face, its legs were shaking, and its breathing hadn’t gone down at all. But it had stopped moving away from her.
“I don’t want to hurt you…I just want to give this back…” She soothed, and finally, painfully slowly, flew close enough to the creature that it could touch her with its long arms. The creature alternated at staring at her, her wings, or the device she was holding. Fluttershy held her breath, did her absolute best to appear as non-harmful as possible, and waited.
Almost a minute ticked by when the creature finally, with a shaky hand, reached for the device, and gently took it from her hooves. Fluttershy let her hooves fall and flew a tiny bit backward to give the creature space.
The creature looked at its device, caressing it with its hands, as if not believing what was happening. It raised its head and looked at Fluttershy again, its mouth still slightly open. Fluttershy finally took a breath, and offered a small smile to the creature. It just kept staring at her, before giving a nod so small that Fluttershy almost didn’t see it. The creature took few more steps away from her, before kneeling (Fluttershy feared that the creature would fall over, its legs were shaking so much) and then sitting down on the ground.
Fluttershy slowly lowered herself on the ground level too. The creature seemed to be calming down, its breathing was slowing, and since it was sitting, there was no fear of it hurting itself from falling over. Its eyes were still full of fear, never leaving Fluttershy for a long period of time. She kept the smile on her face, and took a few gentle steps closer. It didn’t react to her moving, it just kept dumbly staring at her.
Encouraged by this, she slowly moved next to the creature, and sat down. She took the opportunity to take a better look at the creature. Fluttershy could see, that besides the grayish beard the creature had, that was covering its entire chin and went under its tiny nose too, the creature didn’t seem to have much hair or fur. It had eyelashes and eyebrows, but otherwise it had slightly wrinkly skin. Its eyes were a bit small, and its ears were on both sides of its face. They didn’t seem like they would move much, and the tiny nose didn’t seem particularly effective either, further giving proof that the creature probably foraged its food, and hid from predators with the help of its camouflage.
It was also tall, but not terribly big, like a bear or a minotaur. Fluttershy’s head would reach just past its waist if they both were standing. It had hands similar to minotaurs, but it seemed to wear shoes. It probably had soft feet, she concluded.
Speaking of hands, Fluttershy noticed that one of the creature’s hands was slightly raised towards her, as if to reach out to her. She looked up and saw the hesitant look, which was thankfully less fearful now.
“It’s okay.” Fluttershy said and leaned her head slightly closer. The creature hesitated for a moment longer, before reaching out and gently touching her cheek. Its eyes went wide again, and it pulled the hand back. Why was it so surprised from the touch? As the creature contemplated it, Fluttershy leaned even closer, and nuzzled its hand. It jerked its hand back, but then reached out again and gently rubbed her cheek. Fluttershy giggled quietly and pressed her head against the hand lightly.
The creature looked unsure about what was happening, and it was still shaking slightly, but it was getting better.
“There is nothing to fear.” She soothed. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
“Fluttershy? Is everything okay?” Came Twilight's voice from behind her.
Oh no, Fluttershy thought as the pleasant moment was shattered. The creature immediately turned its head towards the voice, and its breathing was starting to get faster again. Fluttershy turned and saw both of her friends peeking past the bush, Rainbow floating in the air, wary look on her face, and Twilight half out from her cover.
“Girls, you shouldn’t- “
She stopped as the creature pulled its hand away. It crawled back a bit, before stopping and pointing at Twilight. It said something that Fluttershy didn’t understand, before its eyes rolled back in its head and it promptly passed out. Fluttershy immediately went to its side, quickly followed by Twilight, while Rainbow floated next to the bush, blinking at what had just happened.
“This is the lamest monster I have ever seen.” She muttered, not sure how disappointed she should be, before joining the others.
I'm hopping on the hype bandwagon
Hmmmm, bad encounters with horned ponies? The question is how long back the 'monster' has been here would be rather interesting. ^..^
7901743 By all means.
7901761 Who knows, maybe it'll be explained later in the story.
7901771 We give a like, and hope for a filling future of releases to come such as this one of good writing thus far.
Me likes!
Will Fluttershy be badass in this story?
This has been added to my list. I like it so far, even if the chapters are so tiny. Here's hoping this nice little story doesn't die like so many others!
Colour me intrigued. I quite enjoyed what you've written so far.
Huh... So for once, the human is scared of the ponies rather then the opposite. It is a very plausible reaction, if only beacause of how bizzare and otherwordly the ponies are.
The story flow could get some work, but all in all it's kinda nice so far, I'd like to give your story a chance
'bout time people remembered Fluttershy is the brave one and Rainbow Dash is actually the one easily scared. Good start to the story! :)
Your first story got featured? Congratulations! This is great!
7902400
Yeah. Fluttershy has social anxiety and a thing about dragons, but she's not universally a coward.
It makes sense. A human visitor, having seen some of the things Equestria's ponies do, could well be terrified at what they could do.
Still, fainting is a very rare reaction. Maybe this human is just very tired and hungry, perhaps on the very verge of death.
Congrats on the one hundred upvotes! Nice story so far
Equiniphobia?
Not sure if that's how it's spelled, but that's my guess.
Holy pony butts, so many comments! Arrggh. Thank you all.
7902051 Aww, but tiny chapters allow me to post them more often. That and I have to strike while the iron is hot, so to say.
7902385 “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
― H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature. If you have suggestions on how to make my story better, I'm always open for critique.
7902571 Writing Zecora was tough, many times I had to huff. Writing rhymes, I do not care. That is unless, someone gives me a dare.
7902648 It does seem like she is often portrayed to be rather aggressive, doesn't she? My Rainbow, luckily, likes to think, but is still ready to defend her friends.
7903105 But then the mystery what it was would have been solved too easily.
7903350 Maybe the other one is his old one? Or maybe he loaned it from someone else.
A good start. Watch your perspectives and tenses though.
I'm interested to see where this goes.
7903358 Thanks, I'll try my best to write the best story ever. Hopefully I'll get someone to proofread my stories at some point, currently I'm just doing it myself.
This has captured my interests. Not very often I see find a story that has humans and ponies not able to talk right off the bat, so kudos to you. I look forward to reading more in the future.
7903377 Thank you.
Hmm, this is a pretty interesting start. I wonder if our local human has encountered Ponies before (which ended poorly), or it's him being scared out of his mind in general that caused him to faint when more of these mythical creatures showed up.
I am going to guess the later, actually - for one, being scared out of your mind is perfectly understandable if you have been dropped in to the Everfree of all places and have seen a couple of its inhabitants, which seem to come mostly from Greek mythology and other fiction. Meeting a couple of clearly sapient creatures - which also means you are likely screwed if they want your blood, and Everfree will swiftly teach you that everything in there is out to get you - might well be a nightmare scenario if you are wary and scared of everything. Outsmarting and hiding from beasts is one thing after all, but a trio of sapients? Poor guy probably thinks he got lured in a trap and is about to be cooked for dinner or something, heh.
I am also going to guess that he hasn't been in Equestria for too long. For one, his phone still has power - and those really don't last long, a week or so tops if you are being conservative. And given how bewitched and amazed he seemed at seeing Fluttershy, I'm going to assume he actually hasn't met ponies before either - which, again, is unlikely if you have been stumbling around the Everfree for any length of time - sooner or later you will either stumble out or come upon one of the tracks (which you will inevitably try to follow). And a human isn't very likely to survive in the Everfree for extended periods of time anyway - way too many predators with unconventional means of making you their snack.
So ... all in all, I'm going to assume this may well be his first encounter with ponies and that he hasn't been there for too long. Will be interesting to see where things go from here - though I am going to assume this will have a fairly comedic bend to it, seeing the silly ways the ponies behaved up to meeting out human.
7903442 Oh my, so many words. Lots of interesting thinking you have done there, glad to see someone is pondering what's actually going on. I do try to leave little clues to give some insight to things. And you would be right on the last bit. The story doesn't have a comedy tag because I'm not focusing on it, but rather on the interactions between two different species. Comedy is bound to happen, but how the ponies will react to the
humanshuman's antics will vary.7903464
The reason I suspected comedy was because of how Twilight went all "but ...but ...research!" the phone and their general huddling in the bush and arguing what to do, when normally the ponies are neither this cautious nor paranoid (Remembers Zecora ... hmm, alright, at least Twilight isn't :P ) and ... basically the whole lead-up to how they ended up in the bush and the human discovering them - it was all very light-hearted and a mix of silly and adorable.
Hmm, which reminds me of something I wanted to ask, but forgot to - is there a specific storytelling reason you chose to set this story sometime before the end of season 3 ?
I have never seen a more adorable introduction.
lovely
Equestria has 4G cell towers?
TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
RAINBOOOOOOOOOOOOW
YOU DONT JUST SAY
"THATS THE LAMEST MINOTAUR IVE EVER SEEN"
YOU JERK
7910853 *facepalm* I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that the human is a Neanderthal, neanderthals don't have advanced camo. Now iffin I've got you all wrong just let me know.
Held
Lame you say?
I really liked this, the first time interaction between the Human and Fluttershy was adorable, and then Twilight RD ruined it.
just something that stood out to me. Foragers tend to have some of the strongest noses from my understanding. Other then that I'm loving this
The guy to me sounds like a Middle Eastern soldier... Is he suppose to be American?
That is a great quote for the start of a story
So he thinks he is hallucinating... makes sense. These colorful ponies that he thinks are in his head end up being corporeal, then a unicorn literally pops out of the bushes a couple yards away. I get him freaking out.
Im geting sick of storys like this.
Puns! Glorious puns!
7918033
That's humans for you. We are such a pathetic race physically. But, we always win.
Forgot to capitalize.
8670421
Oh my, better go fix that right away.
8435773 The black hole on its way to Earth right now would beg to differ.
Humans win only as long as space doesn't fling anything at us.
8435773
It is actually wrong that we are "physically pathetic".
We are one of the most enduring animals on this planet. While we are not as strong or fast as other animals, we can outlast pretty much everything on the planet and survive injuries that would kill most through the shock. We are also extremely adaptable and can survive pretty much everywhere.
Its just that most modern humans are really untrained.
8825885
Which is in nearly its entirety only true in the kind of subtropic environment we evolved in. Trying to do an endurance hunt in any place where "heat exhaustion" isn't a thing will only end up in you getting outperformed by creatures build more for long-distance running - physically, as in the purely mechanical sense, not the "energy efficiency under certain environmental limitations" kind of sense.
Ultimately, we survived by being smarter than everything else, with a body that meant we didn't also expend a disproportionately larger amount of calories than everything else. Ponies are nonsense because they're pretty much everything that's superior about us without suffering from everything that sucks about us, despite having a native diet that's just ridiculously incapable of providing the energy for both their brains and whatever is expended on their absurd magic powers. Trying to put it in realistic terms makes as much sense as wondering how Superman is literally millions of times more efficient than a solar cell, despite running on the same energy source.
8826030
And this argument validates the argument to NEVER QUESTION THE PINK ONE.
I never understood why the guy is allways sich a huge pussy in these man
9664573
are you perhaps Germany?
I don't get humans being terrified of ponies. They are smaller than us and they are a prey species; so I don't see why we would be scared of them. Their appearance isn't intimidating, but I can see that we can be creeped out by how different they look form normal ponies. We would be more amazed that there are unicorns and pegasi than scared. The only way it would to make sense to me is that if the human has fear of equines or mythical creatures.
11136860
Well, I would be scared shirtless if something that clearly shouldn't be real stood right in front of me.
Imagine you've been wandering around the evergreen forest for 3 weeks, hiding from the countless freaks of nature that prowl around there. A goddamn chicken can turn things much larger than It into stone just by looking at it.
Plus, giant eyes, while cute, would look extremely uncanny and take some getting used to, especially if they were on ponies, which should not be sentient in the first place.
I doubt the human would be too keen on meeting up with the pony elf things. Personally I would just be looking for a way to go back from where I came, thinking that this must have been where all those people who went missing in the woods ended up. Or maybe I'm dead or something. In another dimension. Slipped into the backrooms. It's all bad juju. When you start to hear the animals talk, it's best to not talk back.
That's the kind of line of reasoning here, I think. He's been avoiding the ponies even though he was tempted to ask for help from them. It'd just be all a little bit too crazy to actually go and do in that kind of situation.
The forest is familiar. It might be terrifying, but at least it makes more sense than whatever is going on over there in those german looking houses.