Lost in Everfree

by Nekobladen

Part 2 1/2: Flutters perspective

Fluttershy stood engaged in the one sided conversation with the rare animal, a sense of bravery overtook her shy nature in this moment of discovery. Once her mind fell silent her body let out the breath it had been holding.

The being before her stood unmoved, it’s stance seemingly indifferent to her words. The yellow pegasus lowered her head allowing the pink mane atop to hide her features, had she angered the beast, or was it simply shying its self away from her? A small smile curved her lips at this idea.

It was not often the timid mare came across others like herself, nervous of confrontation and avoiding the public eye.

Any thought of danger faded from her mind as she gazed at him with new insight. While lost in her delusions the human’s hand lowered to its side in pain; even lost sanity would not deter hunger’s presence for long. The sound of an empty belly was universal and understood quickly by the kind pegasus, food was always good for drawing friends together and she wanted its friendship badly.

Fluttershy might have felt embarrassed if any other pony saw her nose in the grass sniffing, but it was nothing the kind mare gave a second thought to when surviving. She could recall many nights when the food supplies ran low for her animal friends and she had to improvise a meal, living close to the forest gave ample opportunity to find new and safe greenery.

Now she had a knack for finding goodies hidden in unlikely or foreign environments.

The yellow mare returned with a bouquet of different flowers hugged in the folds of her wings, resting near the hungry brute she aligned the edibles into a pattern of size and colors. The golden colored pony’s heart swelled with the hope he could enjoy a meal of flora instead of fauna, for she never felt well when they preferred the ladder.

With the meal of fresh picked forest flowers between them, Fluttershy waited patiently for a response. The first flower he lifted had long thin yellow leaves the same color as her coat, with bright orange floret tips. The mares eyes watched the yummy delicacy sway in front of its maw, he was taking in its scent before challenging the flavor. Another low rumble and her reassuring nod was enough for him to nearly inhale the thing down, suddenly it lurched forward trapping her in its embrace.

Shock and fear washed over her within seconds, the winged pony’s instincts were to buck the attacker or flee from harm but his strength would allow neither.

After squeaking an inaudible request to be set free she relaxed in his arms, no longer fearing harm but wondering how long this embarrassing embrace would last for. A warm breeze blew through their shared field; finally reaching the limit of tolerance she hugged in return hoping it was the key to her release.

The large being tenderly set her down where she had sat, it was apparent her good willed gesture had worked better then she thought. He was already lifting the next treat when the realization of what it was caused her to extent a hoof hindering its ascent. She told of its special traits, how only the pedals were edible and consuming anything else would cause sickness.

The creature listened with a perplexed expression stuck on its face, noticing this she decided showing him would be the most useful option. Pressing a hoof down on the stem of the carnation, Fluttershy nibbled on the light red pedal showing the proper way of its consumption.

Time went by without notice as they traded facial expressions and body language to convey what could not be said, with the meal finished and happy smiles genuinely worn on each face the shy mare remember why she had ventured into Everfree in the first place.

The image of bright red berries flashed in her mind, they had been growing somewhere along the path she had traversed in getting here. Rising to all four hooves her wings stretched out in reflex from being still for so long, the pegasus pony looked back past the serene surrounding into the dark road she would have to cross once more.

Softly she felt the creatures hand rest atop her head before tussling her mane. Though the gesture was kind in intent, she could only look up at him with worried eyes.

They walked together until the darker part of the forest lay in their path, it would be a monumental task to persuade her new friend to accompany her out. Fluttershy tried to coax him forward but his stern expression would not be swayed easily, sitting down she began to ponder the situation. Bladen meanwhile looked at path with unease, for he was sure he’d seen it before.

Comments

[Meta Knight]

great

[Exemter]

Really good I'm looking forward to more!

[FrontSevens]

This story is dang old, but I’ll review it because you asked nicely. ;P Also, I hope you don’t mind criticism, ‘cause here comes a buttload. Please don’t be offended. :)

First off, grammar. There were multiple instances of run-on sentences, or two or more standalone sentences that were only joined by a comma. For instance, here’s a run-on sentence with three standalone sentences joined by only commas:

The white rabbit stood upright and nodded vigorously before brandishing a salute, she nodded once and smiled as she trotted out the door, angel bounced to the door frame and waved a goodbye.

Sometimes the solution (like in this case and most cases in your fic) is to change the commas to periods. Sometimes it’s to put in a conjunction ("and", "but", "so", "or", etc.) with the comma, like so:
I ate a bagel, and it was good.
Those are two standalone sentences (underlined) joined by a comma and a conjunction ("and"). It’s one solution if you have two sentences that are related, but again, for most of the run-on sentences in your fic, changing the commas to periods is what I would do.

Run-on sentences were the biggest thing. There were other grammar errors and typos, but I can’t go through them all. Capitalization, “its” and “it’s”, “then” and “than”, “their” and “there”, commas (both needed and unnecessary), hyphen usage, and semicolon usage would be good things to look up.

Let’s get to the actual story. First thing: this is a self-insert. It’s sort of obvious from the way you name your main character “Bladen” (your username is NekoBladen) and you give the other characters more common names. I’ll just warn you that self-inserts are a turnoff for some readers.

Another thing is that this story does have some cliches, even though this is a relatively old fanfic and cliches weren’t really around at that time, but still: A human arrives in Equestria in the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy is the one who finds him there, the human’s stomach growls, which is how Fluttershy knows he’s hungry. Cliches don’t make a story inherently bad. It’s just that they’re so common, a reader today will look at this story and say, “Meh, I’ve seen this before,” and move on.

The part with Fluttershy was alright. You’ve got good descriptive language, at least. The problem was that there was a lot of narration: too much narration for my taste. Have her say more things to herself or think to herself more.
And, I don’t think thoughts should go in parentheses. A good convention is to put thoughts in italics (Example: Oh, I wish it would make up its mind, Fluttershy thought.). Then, when you make that distinction, readers will interpret any full sentences in italics as thoughts. If you want, you can put thoughts in quotation marks, but you’ll have to distinguish every time that they’re thoughts and not something said out loud (Example: “Oh, I wish it would make up its mind,” Fluttershy thought.). I recommend italics.

The perspective shift was a little… jarring. In the first chapter, at the end of and still within Fluttershy’s perspective, you have a paragraph where you say everything from Bladen’s perspective: things that we’ll already learn in the next section. It’s unnecessary and confusing, because we’ve shifted perspectives before we hit that page break (the horizontal rule). Up until that page break, just stick with Fluttershy’s point of view.

When we get to the second half of the first chapter, Bladen talks about how he’s gotten a job at a grocery store and the people he met there and so on and so on… and I got bored. There’s a saying, and I forgot where I heard it, but it goes “Start as close to the end as possible.” Unless I need to know every single thing that you described before he gets lost in the woods, don’t put it in there. That work drama and working in the grocery store and everything was extra stuff that felt unnecessary to the story. What I would do is begin Bladen’s backstory at the campfire, and while he’s interacting with the people there, briefly show their relationship to Bladen by making Alice grumpy and Jason friendly and throw in whatever else the reader needs to know before continuing. That “trims the fat” in a way, making your story more purposeful and making the most use of your readers’ time.

Some of the things Bladen says are just… weird.

if there's anything I love more then nothing its fresh baked goods...mmm random assortment of baked goods...

…really? I do not know a single person whose favourite food is “random assortment of baked goods”. Just pick one, like donuts or muffins or something. Also, “nothing” is a weird thing to like. Perhaps “doing nothing”?

I have allergies and kinda have a social complex as in shyness.

This was an odd place to mention he has “allergies”. Also, if he has allergies, why did he go on the camping trip? And when he did go on the camping trip, why didn’t his allergies bother him? And also, you can just say that he’s shy. You don’t have to say that he has a “social complex” – it’s just shyness, which is a fairly common personality trait.

After my love departed the conversation I walked over and asked if they had room for one more.

He calls a girl his “love”, who should really just be his “crush”. Otherwise, it sounds weird that he’s proclaiming true love for a girl he hasn’t ever really talked to. Also, when you introduced her, you didn’t introduce her name at the same time, and I had to figure out myself that the girl he really likes and Abby are the same person.

The higher ups were all friends of my family if you recall

No, I don’t recall. It was said that he got a job from a few phone calls ("Anyway, a few phone calls later and I'm employed bagging grocery's"), but not necessarily his family’s connections. If that was the case, you’d have to make that clear. Also, a good rule of thumb: don’t use “you” in narration, even first person narration.

My idle thoughts slapped a grin so big on my face I had to go run around in the woods to keep anyone from seeing.

That’s… strange. A more reasonable thing would be hiding it with your hand or something, but he actually runs around to hide a smile? Bladen is… strange.

The part where he gets lost in the forest just… didn’t feel believable. There was a point where he was listening to music and he danced and he cried… and I don’t know why. Did he go insane? Because if he did, you’d need to write more words detailing the three days he spends in the woods, because at the moment they’re covered by only two paragraphs. Going insane is a process, and just telling us that he’s insane isn’t enough; you need to show it. Otherwise, the dancing and crying seems really overdramatic.

Overall, it’s a so-so story that I had a difficult time believing. The grammar issues were noticeable enough that they became distracting. The premise is something I’ve seen before. However, your descriptive language is good and the nonverbal communication between Bladen and Fluttershy is interesting. I'd give it a 4/10.