Fluttershy's Unexpected Journey

by JesterOfDestiny

Chapter 6 - Fluttershy and the Trolls

The sun has risen and cast its orange light over the forest. Now it was clear, that the leaves were blue. Fluttershy had packed useful goods into two saddlebags, including the talisman. She now felt ready to embark on a journey, even if a bit worried.

“Before you go,” Gabahn took a rolled up piece of paper and gave it to Fluttershy. “You’ll need this map. Here is your destination.” He pointed at the bottom of the map. “And don’t forget to stop in one of those Kin-San villages at the Broken Coast. They’ll be happy to help you.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that.” Said Fluttershy as she put the map inside her bag and stepped outside. She looked back at Gabahn and said.

“Thank you for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Gabahn chuckled. “Oh, don’t thank me. I’m just doing my job.”

Fluttershy walked between the trees, stopping to wave at Gabahn for a last time.

“And don’t worry,” Gabahn shouted at the departing Fluttershy. “the birds will start to make sense after a while!”

She has walked between the blue trees. She watched the birds for a while, to try and make sense of what they’re saying. She noticed, that their body-language is much more prominent and some are even capable of changing colours. Perhaps that has a purpose in communication. Maybe the gibberish makes sense, if you pay attention to the colours.

There wasn’t much time to think about that. The bushes started rattling, something was moving very quickly between them. And whatever it was, its laughter echoed throughout the woods. The bushes rattled erratically around Fluttershy. The rattling has surrounded her, until it suddenly stopped and laughed.

“Should we kill it quickly?” One voice echoed.

“No, it clearly understands common language.” Echoed a second one. “We should just talk to it.” It said and laughed.

“It clearly doesn’t understand common sense, listening to the grotesque one.” A third voice echoed.

“Who are you?” Fluttershy cried out, but the answer she got was a maniacal laughter from all three voices.

“We’re your death!” Said all three voices in unison and just as they finished, three baboon looking creatures jumped out from the bushes, going straight for Fluttershy. She yelped in fear. But as suddenly the creatures jumped out, they stopped and burst into laughter.

“Look at it! It thought we were going to eat it!” Said one of them.

“And we will!” Said a second one.

“Well, yeah. But not right now.” Said the first one again.

“Aw, look at it!” Said the third one. “It looks like it’s about to crack under pressure!”

They started crawling towards Fluttershy. “Yes, just like her bones are about to.” Said one of them.

Fluttershy tried to back away, but the grinning creatures got closer and closer. She then accidentally stepped on a dry twig, which broke apart with a loud crack. The creatures stopped for a moment and burst into laughter. Fluttershy looked at the cracked twig and realized she accidentally made a pun. She thought for a moment and turned to the creatures.

“Wow, that... really cracked you up.” She said, attempting a second pun.

The creatures laughed even harder.

“Maybe we should stick to the original plan.” She said after a bit of thinking.

The creatures thrown themselves on the ground. They couldn’t stop laughing after the third pun. Fluttershy tried to take advantage of the incapacitated trolls and started running away. But the laughter slowly stopped and they got up.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?!” One of them yelled at her.

She turned around and tried to think of a fourth pun. “Uh... well... you know?” She paused and looked at the ground. She spotted a leaf and picked it up. “It’s time... for me to... leaf...”

The baboon-like creatures paused for a moment, processing what she just said and thrown themselves on the ground in laughter. Fluttershy took her chance of escape and bolted off deep into the forest.

“We could stick together,” She shouted back at them, to make sure they will be too busy laughing to follow her. “but I’ve got to branch out a bit more!”

The unstoppable laughter echoed throughout the forest. Fluttershy just galloped until she couldn’t hear them. Finally she was outside the forest and saw a tiny village in a tiny valley. There was a tall clock tower in its middle. She was in great relief to finally see some civilization

Comments

[Karan Dash]

Ok, I've read 6 chapters so far. I think that's as many as I'm going to read for the moment.

First the positive. The story is fun. You really want to know what happens next. Like your other story, it's not deep, but it's enjoyable and it doesn't create any high expectations that aren't met.

Unfortunately, after 5 or 6 chapters, it does become predictable... Fluttershy meets creatures, talks or runs from them, go to next chapter. I hope this changes later on because it started to feel like whatever creature she met was going to be unimportant and gone at the end of the chapter.

Technically, it does need a lot of work. The biggest problem is tense agreement, which appears 2 or 3 times in the very first paragraph. You either tell the story from the perspective of the past or the perspective of the future, but you alternate between both of them and it feels grating. In one moment you say something like "Fluttershy walked in the forest" and then in the next sentence "Fluttershy has never seen this kind of flower." I found these mistakes several times in every chapter and they need to be addressed.

The pronoun problem that you had in the other story appears here as well, although not nearly as often. Still, it needs to be corrected.

Another issue is that the actions scenes aren't well thought out. Towers and trees and objects materialize out of nowhere, characters are in one place one moment, and in another place in the next moment. In the first chapter, for example, an ogre grabs a large book. Where from? from thin air? There were no mention of bookshelves or the characters going or being in a room or anything that would explain where a book could be grabbed from. In fact, it feels like they are in the forest. So, where did the book came from?

Some other spelling/style issues. When a character says something, you add a comma, but it should be a period.

Wrong.

"I'm afraid." Said Fluttershy.

Right

"I'm afraid," said Fluttershy.

Also, some phrases that sound awkward. Like "She had to escape with inches of her life."

Scores,

Technical issues: 4. The tenses not matching really need to be fixed. Even the pronoun problem isn't as bad as in the other story. But seeing one sentence in past and the next one in present makes it hard to enjoy it. Thinks appearing and disappearing also add to the confusion.

Plot: 7. It's interesting at first, but after a few chapters, it becomes predictable and the characters that Fluttershy meet feel like NPCs in an old Japanese RPG. Flutteshy meets character, character either wants to help or kill her, Fluttershy moves on.

Fun: 5. After 6 chapters, I lost the interest in the story. I honestly wanted to cheat and just skip to the last chapter to see how it ended as I felt that the next 6 chapters were going to be just like the first ones but with different monsters and names. Honestly, you could exchange words like orc and goblin and the story would be the same. I might go back to read it if the problems are corrected. Or I might decide to just read the last chapter to see how it ends.