Green Butterflies
Green Butterflies
The sun was setting, its rays of light picking through the trees of the Everfree before landing on the cottage that sat on the forest edge. All around the cottage laid small wooden houses meant for all sorts of animals that scurried along into them before the final ray of light went out. All the while, a yellow pegasus with a pink mane watched from just outside her cottage, enjoying the sight. For her, it was the joy before sadness that each night brought.
The last ray of sunlight faded and a light breeze started to blow, rustling the leaves and brush on the forest edge. The pegasus kept her eyes on the trees, watching them intently as if looking for something out of place in the moonlight. Minutes passed but the pegasus didn’t move, always staring at the leaves.
Then everything stopped.
The wind stopped blowing. The leaves and brush that should have been moving remained still. It was like everything stuck in place as time stopped. The pegasus’s eyes began to show sadness as she took her gaze away from the tree leaves and into the forest knowing what was coming next. One by one small orbs of green light appeared in the thick of the forest. They bounced and fluttered through the air as they slowly came closer to the pegasus.
“Fluttershy.”
Voices called out in unison to her from the forest. All of them sounded different yet oddly the same. It could have been from where each voice sounded young, as if belonging to a child that made them sound similar. It made the pegasus’s fur stand when they called her name. They always sent a chill down her back when they came.
“Fluttershy, it’s time,” they said in unison.
They got closer now surrounding Fluttershy and she could make out their forms, butterflies. Always butterflies glowing green, fluttering in the air as if nothing was wrong.
“Do I have to? Does one have to go tonight?” She asked.
“You do,” half of the butterflies responded.
“One does,” the other half-replied in unison.
Fluttershy let out a defeated sigh and lowered her head, a few tears fell to the ground from her watering eyes.
“Let me go get the mask.” she said.
She turned and walked into her home. Like outside everything was frozen in time. Her pet bunny, Angel, was in mid leap, jumping off the couch, now just a statue in the air. The clock that would always click with each second was silent and unmoving. Yet Fluttershy moved through the house as if nothing was wrong.
She made it to her bedroom, where underneath her bed she pulled out a small box. In the box was a white cloth mask meant to go over her muzzle. Slowly she put the mask on. As she did her emerald eyes changed, they remained green but now glowed with the same light that the butterflies did. She then made her way back outside.
“It’s time,” the butterflies said as Fluttershy exited her cottage.
The butterflies began to fly to Fluttershy, surrounding her, and soon forming a sphere around as they flew in a circular motion. Then Fluttershy blinked.
She blinked and everything changed. She was no longer in front of her cottage, nor was she surrounded by the butterflies. Now she was in a hospital room which was an all too familiar sight for her. It was the same scene as before just arranged differently. Four ponies were in the room, one was the doctor recoiling with fear in his eyes and another pony lashed out at him with a face full of anger. The third pony was weeping next to her partner who was lashing out at the doctor. And the final pony was a foal laying on the hospital bed. The whole scene was frozen in time as Fluttershy walked past them to the bed.
She didn’t need to read the chart to see what was wrong with the foal, it never mattered in the end as he would not recover. If the foal could she wouldn’t be here right now. It was always too late for them when she came.
She walked up next to the bed and looked down at the foal and recoiled a little. It never changed, the sorrow she felt while looking down at them. So young and innocent, yet hopeless. Their body made weak or destroyed by the afflictions that plagued them caused, whatever that may be.
Fluttershy closed her eyes and took a deep breath before raising her forehoof. In a quick motion she brought her hoof down onto the foals neck, flinching at the sickening sound of her hoof hitting flesh and bones snapping; tears flowed from her eyes the entire time. She did what the others could or would not do, give peace to the suffering foal, but she still couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.
She brought her hoof away from the foals body, as she did he started to disappear, then the rest of the hospital faded as she was brought back to her front yard, the butterflies glowing and fluttering around her.
“Thank you.” they said in unison.
One by one the butterflies started to fly back into the Everfree. One by one the green light they emitted went out as they faded into the darkness of the forest. Fluttershy never counted them but she knew that there was one more butterfly added to their flight that night. It does every night.
As the last butterfly faded into the darkness the world started to move again, the breeze catching her mane made her aware of this. She took a minute to watch the leaves being blown by the wind before heading back into her cottage. She walked up to her room, and pulled the box out from under her bed. The glow from her eyes disappeared as she removed the mask and put it back in the box before crawling into her bed.
She laid there, silent for a moment before bursting out into a full blown weep. The tears flowed freely as she started to pray for at least one night, just one, where she wouldn’t have to perform that necessary kindness.
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slight punctuation error; the comma here needs to be a semicolon as it's transitioning into its own complete sentence.
other than that, this was... wow. I mean, I've never read anything quite like it. this is so good, I think I need to make a journal entry about it. brb.
3295081 Fixed. Thank your for pointing that out.
At first I thought this was going to be one of those "One of the mane 6 is a sadistic psychopath" stories. Glad I was wrong.
Just one thing though, if she breaks the foals neck then wouldn't people notice?
Wow, I... I... have no words. A shiver went round my back while I was reading and I have to say, I almost cried.
A great story, short but perfect that way. The fact that was Fluttershy the one who... Well, the main character, added more sadness to the story.
I know authors write each part of a story in the way that pleases them the most.
That said I would like to say that I find Fluttershys method of release rather jarring given the tone of the story up to then. If I might suggest, something a little softer, more in line with Fluttershys persona.
Perhaps touch the foals chest and release them that way, whisper something in their ear, (peace, run free,
fly away ? ? ? ) perhaps the lullaby Hush now, Quiet now. Even with the jar this is well written and gets the up vote.
That was pretty good. I liked it.
Most certainly one of the more original and interesting concepts I have read.
hey. congrats on the Feature.
That was really well done. I felt like crying at the end of it, no joke.
You have my respect, and my like and favorite.
that was amazing. though i cant help but feel sorry for fluttershy. i love it.
So, I downvoted this. Now, normally I wouldn't bother to comment on it, but I think this one actually does deserve an explanation.
Frankly, my first impression after reading this story was - and I mean this in the most respectful way possible - that it had to have been written ironically, as if you made a pointlessly melodramatic dark-sad fic on purpose just to see if anyone would take it seriously. Maybe I'm just very jaded, by even by the standards of dark-sad pony fanfics this just seems... cheap. Shallow. There's nothing particularly clever or inspired about it, there's no twist or poignant theme, and if there was some kind of incredibly subtle subtext I must have missed it completely. It seems to be just Fluttershy killing children, because magical butterflies tells her to.
And that's supposed to make me sad, I guess? And yet, it didn't make me feel anything particular, except mildly offended by how very flagrant it is. And all that aside, the premise doesn't even make sense, because no sane person would ever go along with something like that. Certainly not someone as meek and emotionally fragile as Fluttershy. Not without a very good personal reason, anyway. Heck, there's your story: Explaining why in the world Fluttershy would ever even consider doing this voluntarily.
So, yeah. Sorry if this seems harsh but I really didn't like this story, on a fundamentally conceptual level.
But hey, I do seem to be a minority here - lots of people apparently love this fic somehow, so what do I know? *shrug*
3295745 that and this story so far isnt very dark...she killed a kid. whoop de do.
3295766
Well, I dunno, murdering children is pretty dark.
Also, apparently she kills at least one every single night. (Which really seems kinda excessive to me.)
3295745
It's a darker take on the element of kindness.
She's being kind by putting those who are suffering out of their misery.
imo anyways :v
3295745
and it's also implied at the end that the 'green butterflies' are the souls of the ponies she's 'moved on'.
Put a comma between forest and knowing.
Beyond that, mercy and kindness are very intertwined in nature. Doubtless that Fluttershy does this since she would have more regret letting the foal suffer than killing them herself.
I like the thought.
I want to achieve this level of sadness in my stories.
Tell me what I must do!
3295923
Hm, very well, I concede that it has a theme of sorts. I still don't approve of the execution, though.
...Pun not intended.
3295927
Oh, I totally got that part. If anything, I thought it could have been more subtle.
3295745 I respect you, a person who actually gave a reason for down voting. You weren't particularly mean about it or anything, you gave an educated response and people like you should be appreciated.
Why don't sad fics ever make me sad? Oh yeah, because I never get emotionally attached to the characters. Especially with short fics like this. However, I did get kinda scared when I realized that the butterflies wanted Fluttershy to kill a pony, but now that I know the butterflies are the dead pony's soul I feel a lot better about the whole thing.
3295792
Actually, I found it strange that it was implied to be _exactly_ one pony each night (or close to it), if she's the Grim Reaper for children and infants. You'd statistically expect bursts (long dry spells and clusters of many per night, even without anything like disaster or disease influencing the death rate).
In developed nations, the infant-plus-child mortality rate is around 10% (mostly infants born early or with any of a number of disorders; children much less often). At one per night, Fluttershy's infant mortality quota corresponds to 3600-ish births per year. In developed nations, you have about 10-20 births per 1000 people per year, so this birth rate would correspond to a population of 1.8-3.6 million.
If Equestria is medieval or pre-industrial (as with early S1), and the size of the British Isles, that might be about right. If Equestria is the size of the US (as one of the Hasbro posters implies), and if it's using the earth-pony-magic equivalent of modern farming to support a large urban population, then either she'd be dealing with a hundred times as many children per night, or she's just the Grim Reaper franchise-holder for the Greater Ponyville/Whitetail/Everfree Area
.
You get similar logistics issues if you take the Aquilinas approach to theology and assume Celestia brings every newborn into the world and Luna or Nightmare escorts them out. Deities are allowed to do that on a different clock, of course.
On a more serious note, I'm not voting this up _or_ down, as it's an interesting premise but I felt the execution could have been better. I will, however, do a pen-and-ink proofread if DVAN56 wants, as there are still a significant number of minor grammar errors and places where different word choice might help. If you feel that's worth the bother, send me a street address to mail it back to by private message, and I'll add it to the queue.
(Popo, of course, got voted up, because even if it wasn't perfect it made me laugh.)
3295745 I'm sorry it didn't match your tastes
. BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE FEED BACK! I actually look forward to feedback like your(good or bad), help me learn to write a little better so thank you again for your input.
3295473 Wake up to see my friends telling me the story was featured they even sent me screen shots. when i checked myself it was already knocked out. I slept through my feature
3297319 Thank you for the thoughts, a little intriguing but it also made my head hurt a little too
.
got to say, i really like the way you wrote this story of yours. now, on to the "heavy" stuff. i didn't like it much. the premise is straightforward, which i like about it, but it just doesn't seem to fit. i understand that mercy and kindness are connected, in a sense, but it isn't shown why fluttershy is doing what she is doing. it just doesn't make much sense to me that a character as fragile as her would be able to do something like this every single night, according to the story. don't get me wrong, i know what i should have felt, and felt it, but the feelings didn't last long and weren't as strong as i think you might have meant for them to be. just thought i should share my two cents with you.
3295792 uh i dont think its every night.. i think its just when kids CAN NOT be healed so she puts them out of their pain :l i dont know...thats just how i think. :P
I feel so sorry for Fluttershy
3297447
Glad you're not mad at me - the reason I don't speak my mind very often is because I'm bad with confrontations and always worry I'll go too far.
Anyway, it's not like I'm against the concept; I just think this sort of thing needs to be done with a lot of finesse and consideration, and preferably not as thousand word one-shots without any backstory. This type of "drive-by tragedies", that seem to be grim and dark just for the sake of grimdark, always annoy me. (Especially since when you get older and less emotional, they start to come across as really narmy.)
3295745 i think the point is, she is the element of kindness, showing kindness to everyone. If you have someone who is ill or insane, etc and never going to get better and only get worse is it kinder to leave them alive, suffering or due the necessay kindness of ending their torture.
I think it shows that even kindness can be taken to an extreme, so "killing with kindness" in a literal sense.
3304828
As I said before, I sorta got that, in retrospect. I just don't think it was given adequate consideration and the story is too short to actually adress the theme - it feels more like an afterthought.
3295208 Time was frozen
4043078
I know that, I mean wouldn't people notice that the foals had their necks broken afterword?
A surprising number of people physically deal with the body in it's preparation for burial, I'm sure that at least one person would have seen that the head wasn't moving right with the rest of the body or that the body was displaying signs of an injury not listed to the body.
4043091 Maybe they thought the foal hanged himself, or a murder snapped his neck
4043098
........then there would be a nationwide scare as terminally ill foals were murdered without a single bit of evidence as to how.
That's my problem as frankly as far as I can remember the story implies that Fluttershy has been doing for a while and that nobody was noticing a thing.
As for the foals hanging themselves thing, that would Fluttershy would have to string them up afterwords and I really doubt she would be able to go through that.
4043157 I think she snaps the souls neck and she represents the Grim Reaper.