Forest For The Trees

by Kartac

Chapter 4: Name

Chapter 4: A Name

Rainbow Dash let out a really long yawn before turning to Fluttershy walking alongside her. She brushed a couple of her frizzy loose hairs out of her face, spitting out one that got stuck in her mouth during the yawn.

"Explain it to me again." She said giving a loose wave towards the sky. "Why it is I'm walking you to work, on the only day this week I have completely off, when I could be sleeping in?"

Fluttershy gave a brief smile while enjoying the mildly chilly but sunny Saturday morning she'd forced on Rainbow. Instead of giving an actual answer she just put on a mischievous smile and pointed ahead of them. Rainbow looked at the three young girls walking ahead and lowered her head, pulling the hood of her sweater up over her head.

"Because I don't want to babysit... riiiiiight." Rainbow dragged out her last word as she spoke her through another yawn. Fluttershy let out a small giggle at Rainbow's frustration, she had a special connection with her friend but for the life of her couldn't understand how a woman who loves the sunrise could hate the morning so much.

Just enough distance ahead to make a conversation difficult to hear the three young girls were discussing exactly what the goal of their particular engagement was. Walking between the others was the girl with messy purple-ish brown hair wearing just a layered t-shirt and tight jeans despite the fact that days were getting colder. Her two friends were staring at her with obvious skepticism.

"Did it really say they're payin' for pictures?" Applebloom questioned. Scootaloo flashed her a reassuring smile and showed her the digital camera in her pocket, one she swiped from her parents.

"Saw it in that paper this mornin' A.B. I'm telling you, we sell a couple pictures and we'll be able to buy whatever we want for our clubhouse." Scootaloo spoke with a decisive confidence, deep down she knew that Applebloom was the closest thing the three of them had to a leader but the farmgirl would never hear it from her.

The third girl piped up with her melodious voice, muffled by the heavy and sparkly scarf she had been forced to wear. Her originally skeptical face had been replaced by one of confusion.

"Waith, I thaw we were pwayin' 'tective?" She spoke with difficulty through her scarf. Noticing that both of her friends were now looking at her like she were speaking some foreign language she gave in and took off the scarf hanging it over her shoulders.

"I thought we were playing detective?" She spoke the second time in her beautiful sing-song voice. Applebloom opened her mouth to agree, realising that originally Scootaloo had said they were solving a mystery. The skater punk spoke first however holding up a finger for a rushed shush.

"Well whatever, it doesn't matter. We just need to get pictures of that swordsman guy that helped Fluttershy. Now shhh, or they'll hear."

Applebloom immediately began to reject but as quick as the first sounds came out of her mouth it was quickly covered by Scootaloo's hand.

"I said shush."

It had been a few hours now since Rainbow Dash had ditched her and the crusaders at the animal shelter with Fluttershy and Scootaloo was soooooooo bored. She watched from an uncomfortable waiting room chair that she'd dragged into the back while her friends helped Fluttershy redress the bandages of several hurt animals. It wasn't that she didn't want to help Shy, but honestly, you don't need four people to do what they were doing.

Scootaloo had thought a few times about saying something, or complaining but she'd seen Fluttershy's discipline before and it made her hair stand on end. More than her frizzy hair usually did anyway. She fiddled with the camera in her pocket disappointed, she'd gone through all the trouble to sneak it out of the house and in an hour Rainbow would be coming to pick them up and she'd have nothing to show for it.

She let out an exasperated sigh and walked out into the waiting room to stare out the window to look for Dash. She didn't really want to be a bother to her on her day off either but at least Scootaloo could rope Dash into telling her a sports story from high school or ask her about the team's routine for the Winter Moon Celebration and enjoy listening to how awesome she had been, or was, or is. Fluttershy wasn't nearly as cool because when animals were around she was way too focused to have fun.

Scootaloo noticed him immediately when she looked out the window, he was sitting on the fence wearing a red t-shirt and some kind of vest. The detail she couldn't miss if she tried was a long object slung over his back. It took her one second to notice it, then another second to realise what he was.

"Jackpot..." She whispered to herself before pulling out her camera and taking a few quick pictures.

She raised her voice up a little bit. "Uh... Fluttershy, there's this dude and he's just chilling outside."

She heard some quick shuffles and was quickly found herself flanked by her partners in crime as they stood on their knees to best stare out the window. Scootaloo quickly turned and joined them instead of continuing to look over her shoulder. About twenty seconds later or so Scootaloo felt a gentle hand on that shoulder as Fluttershy leaned over her to get a look out the window. Scootaloo could've sworn that above her head Fluttershy had given a surprised squeak and was even more stunned when she tossed on her sweater and bolted out the door.

Scootaloo immediately pulled out her camera and began steadying it.

He had been sitting on the fence outside the animal shelter for the better part of thirty minutes, what was originally going to be a brief walk through the outskirts of town had turned into a not so peaceful meditation session at his current location. He'd closed his eyes and was attempting to become one with his surroundings but whenever he closed himself from the world he heard her voice in his head.

In fact now he could have sworn he could hear soft, rapid, footsteps coming towards him, had he fallen asleep? He couldn't possibly be dreaming about a woman he knew barely anything about...

"Um... hi." Came a soft voice from behind him, his eyes fluttered open and he realised suddenly that he hadn't closed himself off from the world at all and that he had in fact heard footsteps because he knew she was now right behind him. He spent a second collecting himself and calming his voice so he could respond to her properly.

"Hello Miss Shy, glad to hear you well." He spoke in his usual low and flat tone, although he could tell he was softening to her quite quickly as his youthful undertones were definitely there.

He continued to stare ahead while sitting right in front of her, something that Fluttershy would admit made her quite happy. He couldn't see how red her cheeks went when he called her 'Miss Shy' and it gave her a chance to look him over now that he wasn't wearing his cloak. His slender build barely hidden from her except under a thin tee and a padded vest. She made a mental not to ask him about the vest if there was time before he disappeared again.

Something she was afraid would happen right after the next words were rudely and unceremoniously blurted out of her mouth. "So why are you sitting on my fence?"

She immediately buried her face in her hands worried he would just up and walk away. Instead after several painful seconds of waiting she felt a rough hand with a gentle touch pull one of her hands down and she found herself staring at him eye-to-eye, the brown of his eyes spotted with little bits of green that reminded her of the forest.

He felt a jolt surge through him as she stared him in the eyes, his mind shouted at him to tell her the truth, to tell her that deep down he wanted to know more about the young woman he'd saved than just her name but that went against any sage advice he'd ever been taught. So he came up with a lie, luckily a good one.

"I owe you a name." He said, his own joyful, low, voice cracking through his usual flat facade.

Fluttershy pulled her hand away from his quickly, using her now free hands to cover up her vividly red blush, made even redder by the crisp air around them. She didn't know why but in her mind it reminded her of stories her father told her as a child of the knight that saved the fair maiden from a bloodthirsty dragon.

I mean sure, she was hardly a maiden, and a couple of teenage vandalists probably aren't a suitable replacement for a dragon but he was going to tell her his name, and at that moment she didn't want anything else. Of course for her thinking of those silly fantasies reminded her of what token the fair maiden usually granted a knight like him and her blush intensified.

"My name is Falchion. Like the blade." He told her calmly, and if she didn't know any better she'd have sworn he cracked a smile while doing so.

Fluttershy desperately scrambled for another topic of conversation, she tried to say several things but her hoarse whispers were just not strong enough to really form a sentence. She tried to distract herself from him, which was getting incredibly hard with his eyes bearing down on her.

"So, li-like the sword you have?" She said quietly pointing to the sheath he was wearing.

Falchion smiled and shook his head before wheeling ninety degrees so he was facing away from her.

"No Miss Shy, this is certainly not a Falchion. This..." His voice regained it's flat and serious tone before he unsheathed the sword in one quick pull holding it out in front him. His smile widened as he heard the sounds of the sword coming out and enjoyed watching the moderately long, curved blade shimmer in the sun.

"... is a kitana."

Fluttershy looked back at him very confused. It seemed odd to her that he would be named after a sword, and would carry a sword. Then have it not be the sword he was named after.

Then he spoke with an odd sense of finality. "It was my mother's."

Fluttershy found her voice once more as concern spurned her to speak. "Is she... gone?"

He turned back to her, holding his sword aside, and found her staring up at him, something which was doing nothing to make him feel any better even if it was making him tingle uncomfortably.

"I suppose the better way to put it is that, I'm gone." That low, calm finality hung uncomfortably in the air. "She taught me to be good to people and help whomever I can, be noble. Now I live in the woods and avoid everyone." He let out a mildly sarcastic chuckle.

Fluttershy let out a distant sigh while the first small, cold pellets fell on her. She looked up at the sky now letting loose with ice. It gave her an idea.

"Falchion?" She spoke in a questioning voice, if she didn't already have it one might say she was trying to get his attention. She noticed that at the sound of her voice he seemed to tense up.

She smiled at him cheerfully making sure to keep his attention by catching his eyes. Much like he had earlier, she grabbed hold of his wrist and leaned up to whisper to him.

"You wouldn't dare leave a woman with children alone in this weather, would you sir?" She whispered to him with more than a hint of flirtatious intent. The word sir slipping out from her fantasy.

It was the stoic Falchion's turn to flush.

"No Miss Shy, please gather your things, I will accompany you home."

Inside, Scootaloo was still shamelessly snapping away through the window.

"Man, with all these great pictures we'll totally be able to fix up the clubhouse AND solve a mystery." She spoke quietly while her mischievous grin spread from ear to ear.

"Uh Scoot, not in wantin' to ruin yer fun'n'all but I'm puttin' mah foot down. Ya ain't sellin' the pictures." Applebloom spoke with friendly country twang but in a trick she was rapidly stealing from her big brother, there was a calm sense of maturity and finality coming out of the young girl.

Scootaloo turned to face her so quickly it would've given less extreme people whiplash. "Why is that Applebloom?" Scootaloo said, her eyes going wide as she put on the innocent face that she used to make her parents constantly replace her trick destroyed scooters and skateboards.

Applebloom just looked at her friend and sighed as the still oblivious Sweetie Belle was still watching Fluttershy and the swordsman from the window. She knew better than to underestimate Scootaloo, people often accused her friend of being reckless but Applebloom knew that was just a cover so she could get away with things.

"Alright... but no pictures that have Fluttershy in them, we clear?"

"... Crystal." Scootaloo replied with fingers crossed behind her back.

---

Author's Note: I've been trying to get across that part of Fluttershy's infatuation is hero worship and that Falchion's infatuation is more based in knowing so little about Fluttershy. Truthfully I have no idea how I'm doing so if anyone wants to throw me a compliment or some advice, I'll definitely take it.

A/N(2): A person commented on this chapter mentioning that he felt that Falchion's infatuation seemed more based on his own self-absorbtion and lonliness than his desire to know more about Fluttershy. While I certainly didn't intend it to come off that way when I wrote this chapter I think I like it that way a little more than what I was going for. So, not what I intended, secretly awesome that it turned out that way. Thank You!

Comments

[VerdantSentinel]

Isnt it Katana Not Kitana?