Once Bitten, Twice Shy

A whole month had elapsed since Applejack had immigrated to Manehattan, and Big Macintosh (he had already earned the “Big” part of his name from being the biggest colt in his class at school) was trudging sadly through Sweet Apple Acres, trying to clear his head for the umpteenth time. The orange-coated little filly had meant a great deal to him for as long as they had known each other, so to say he was missing his little sister would be putting it mildly; every day without her had felt like a whole millennium to the red Earth colt, and not even the presence of his parents or his grandmother could soothe his loneliness.

He drifted aimlessly in and out of the countless apple trees, only stopping once or twice to glance over the horizon in what he thought was the direction of Manehattan. He didn't seem to know where he was going, but neither did he care – all he could think about was how much he yearned for Applejack to come home again. Her decision to leave Ponyville had left him and their parents heartbroken, but he had been trying hard not to show it to anypony; after all, he had just entered his teenage years a few months previously, and teenagers never let themselves act so emotional......did they?

But such was his distraction as he wandered through the orchard that he didn't notice that the trees around him were starting to thin out, or that there weren't any apples on them either. Only when he stopped to stare into space for the twelfth time did he finally realise that he wasn't actually in the orchard any longer – he had strayed far beyond its boundaries and ended up in the middle of a wide open meadow.

“Must have gone a bit too far,” he thought, and turned to head in the opposite direction. But to his dismay, the umpteen groves of apple trees that should have been behind him were nowhere to be seen, and there was nothing else around that had the remotest chance of leading him home.

For one of the few times in his life, Big Macintosh began to grow nervous. He didn't know where he was exactly, but he knew for certain that he had never been in this particular field before. Once again, he anxiously scanned the area for signposts, cottages, huts or anything else that he might be able to recognise. But once again, his search proved in vain – he was well and truly lost.

“Okay, Mac, don't panic,” he muttered to himself in a jittery tone. “Just keep lookin' – yo' sure ta find yo' way outta this place soon enough.” He paused, trembling slightly. “Ah certainly hope so, anyway,” he added uneasily.

But before he could even begin to look for one, there was an almighty bang that seemed to come at him from all directions. In that very instant, he forgot to be as brave and stolid as he felt he should have been at his age; instead, he leaped into a nearby bush with a terrified yelp and flung his forelegs over his head, fearing that the world might be coming to a sudden end. Even when the rumbling sound that followed had died down, he didn't dare move a muscle until he heard a gentle rustling sound.

“It's okay, little ones. You can come out now.”

Big Macintosh blinked. He could have sworn he'd heard a soft, delicate but nonetheless gentle voice from somewhere behind him. He looked curiously over his shoulder to see a lanky-limbed, canary-yellow Pegasus filly of nine years old standing just outside, poking her head in between the branches to reassure some skittish mice that were hiding away from whatever had just made that noise. At that very same moment, the filly noticed him cowering beneath the bush and stared at him in surprise.

“Uh......hi,” said Big Macintosh timidly.

“H-hullo,” said the filly in an equally withdrawn tone.

There was a long silence as the two young ponies nervously looked each other over, unsure of what to say or do next.

“Um...are you okay, mister?” ventured the filly cautiously.

Big Macintosh rested a hoof against the back of his neck, visibly embarrassed. “Sort'a,” he mumbled awkwardly. “Ah guess Ah just let mah fears get the better o' me.”

“Fears?!” The filly suddenly looked rather ashamed of herself. “Oh, I'm so, so, so, so sorry! I didn't mean to frighten...”

“What? Nah, it's okay, miss,” interrupted Big Macintosh promptly. “It was just some explosion, that was all.”

The filly stared again. “It was?” she asked, quickly starting to calm down.

“Eeyup,” affirmed the red-coated teenager ruefully.

“Oh – thank goodness,” sighed the relieved filly. “For a moment I thought I'd scared you.”

Big Macintosh gingerly crawled out from beneath the bush with a wry smile. Now that he was in the open, he could see the filly's features a lot more clearly; her soft, bluish eyes radiated a gentle if somewhat shy aura of compassion, her Cutie Mark of three butterflies stood proud on each flank, and her long, wavy pink mane hung gently over her face in a manner that he could only describe as cute. “Not yo' fault, miss,” he assured her. “Don't normally get this skittish – Ah guess it's 'cause Ah'm so far from home.”

“You...you mean you're not from around here?”

“Well...yes an' no. Ah was out a walk round the orchard where Ah live, an' next thing Ah knew, Ah found mahself in this pasture out in the middle o' nowhere,” explained Big Macintosh. “You wouldn't happen ta know where we are, would ya?”

The filly rubbed one hoof against her opposite foreleg. “Um...no,” she admitted. “I've never even been here before.”

Big Macintosh was taken aback. “Ain't ya?”

“No; I actually come from Cloudsdale,” explained the filly simply.

From Cloudsdale, was she? Well that would explain a lot, thought Big Macintosh. Any further train of thought was cut off, however, as a little squirrel scampered over to the yellow filly and chirped inquisitively.

“What's that?” asked the filly, stooping down to the squirrel's level to listen more closely. The squirrel chirped again and pointed at Big Macintosh, whereupon she straightened up again with a smile. “Oh, I think he just got lost. Is that right, mister?”

“Eeyup,” affirmed the red-coated colt with a nod. “By the way, name's Big Macintosh.”

In response, the squirrel's ears pricked up and he pointed to the left of the two ponies, chirping in an excited tone.

“It's that way, is it?” said the filly uncertainly. “How do you know?”

The only reply they got was another chirp.

“Well......okay then,” conceded the filly. “We'll take your word for it, anyway. I hope you're right.”

The squirrel simply smiled knowingly as the two ponies started walking in the direction in which he had pointed.

As it turned out, the squirrel was indeed right; before long, Big Macintosh and the unnamed filly found themselves among the groves of apple trees with which the former was so familiar. The teenaged Earth colt was most relieved to be back on his home turf, but also amazed at how they had managed to find their way back just by listening to a normally bothersome little critter from beyond the outskirts of Ponyville.

“Wow,” he remarked. “Ah guess that li'l critter was talkin' sense after all. How did ya know what he was sayin'?”

The filly smiled softly. “Just a knack, I guess,” she observed. “I'd never had any real experience with animals other than...well, ponies before; it must have come naturally to me.”

“That's quite the talent ya have there,” admired Big Macintosh. “Ah wish Ah was as good with animals as y'all are; if Ah was, them apple harvests would be a heck of a lot easier.” Secretly, he couldn't help marvelling at how talkative he had become since meeting with this filly. Whenever he was with anypony outside of his family normally remained fairly quiet apart from the odd “Eeyup” or “Nope”, but here he was engaging in some hearty conversation – and she wasn't even from his family. He had to admit that it was proving to be an interesting experience talking with... “Oh, er...by the way, Ah never did catch yo' name,” he added, quickly remembering that the filly hadn't even told him.

The filly looked away uneasily, murmuring something so indistinct that Big Macintosh only just managed to decipher what she said.

“Fluttershy, huh?” he mused. “That's interestin'.”

“Um...I guess so,” muttered the filly awkwardly.

“No, really, Ah mean it,” insisted Big Macintosh. “Yo' name actually sounds......kinda cute. Ah quite la'k it.”

The filly blushed mildly. “Why...that's really nice of you to say,” she replied with a flattered smile.

Just then, they heard a voice calling out Big Macintosh's name, and an elderly green mare with an apple pie for a Cutie Mark could be seen in the distance.

“Over here, Granny Smith!” called Big Macintosh, waving a foreleg in a bid to catch the mare's attention.

“Big Mac! Aw, thank Celestia yo' safe!” Granny Smith came trotting over with a look of grateful relief on her face. “Where in Equestria have y'all been? Yo' Ma an' Pa an' me were so worried about y'all,” she said as she nuzzled against her grandson.

Big Macintosh pawed at the ground, embarrassed. “Yeah, sorry, Granny,” he apologised meekly. “Ah was tryin' ta take mah mind off of Applejack, an Ah must've gotten mahself lost.”

“Never mind, child,” soothed his grandmother. “At least yo' back safe an' sound.” She then turned her attention to Fluttershy, who backed nervously away. “An' who's this li'l Pegasus?”

“That there's Fluttershy. She helped me find mah way home,” explained Big Macintosh.

Fluttershy turned her head away in a vain attempt to hide another blush. “Oh...it was nothing really,” she replied shyly.

“Yo' too modest, li'l Fluttershy,” smiled Granny Smith kindly. “If it weren't fo' y'all, Big Mac's parents an' Ah might have been up half the night tryin' ta find him. We sure are lucky y'all were around.”

“Well...if you say so,” murmured Fluttershy.

“Where are you from, anyway? Ah don' remember seein' y'all 'round these parts.”

Fluttershy paused for another few moments. “Um...Cloudsdale. I ended up down here after being knocked off a cloud during a race.”

Granny Smith's eyes widened as she realised that this little Pegasus filly must have been as lost and afraid as her grandson. “Aw, you poor little thing,” she said softly. “No wonder ya look so shaky then.”

The only response she elicited from the canary-yellow filly was a timid whimper. The elderly mare's heart went out to the lost soul standing in front of her, and she wrapped a gentle, reassuring hoof around her shoulders, while Fluttershy gingerly returned the gesture.

“It's okay, sugarcube,” she soothed. “We'll take care o' y'all – at least until yo' parents come fo' ya. Come have a bite to eat; ya must be starvin'.”

Only then did the soft smile return to Fluttershy's face. “Thank you, Mrs Smith,” she whispered. “You're so kind.”

Big Macintosh nodded softly in agreement as Granny Smith led them back to the farmhouse.

Half an hour later, the two younger ponies were sat in the living room together while Granny Smith prepared some supper for them. What with Big Macintosh getting lost, his parents had ended up with a rather worrying backlog they had been searching for him for so long, so they had insisted on working late to make up for it; but they made sure to introduce themselves to Fluttershy and welcome her to their home before they headed out to the orchard again.

As they sat and waited for their food, Fluttershy gazed around the room in wonder. She was used to ponies building their homes out of nothing but cloud, and unless it was closely packed, it tended to disintegrate with ease if subjected to heavy impact of any kind. But this house clearly didn't have so much as one little tuft of cloud in its structure; instead, it was built to an austere yet sturdy half-timbered design, with apples carved into the wooden beams that supported the ceiling and the upstairs floor.

“Y'all okay, Miss Fluttershy?” ventured Big Macintosh after a while.

“Oh...I'm fine, Big Macintosh,” answered Fluttershy, snapping out of her reverie. “This place is just so different from home. I never realised just how good you are at making houses out of wood and...whatever that stuff is.”

Big Macintosh smiled modestly. “Well, it ain't much really – but it's home,” he observed.

Fluttershy was just about to reply when they heard Granny Smith calling out to them; “Food's ready, young 'uns!” Immediately, the two young ponies trotted into the dining room to find a bowl of salad laid out on the table for each of them. Big Macintosh pulled up a chair and sat down to eat without a moment's hesitation; but Fluttershy looked rather uncertain.

“What is that stuff?” she asked, eyeing the contents of her own bowl in confusion.

Granny Smith gave the shy Pegasus filly an odd look. “Ain't ya never had clover an' wild mustard salad before?”

“Oh, is that what it is? Well......no; my mama can never afford anything as......fancy as this,” admitted Fluttershy meekly. “Usually it's just simple stuff like hay or oats.

Big Macintosh was taken aback. He could understand such foods as olives or cranberries being all fancy and expensive, but clover and wild mustard salad was fairly common by comparison. Fluttershy's parents must have been really badly off if they had been unable to afford such a meal.

“Simple?” scoffed Granny Smith in amusement, though with a twinge of sympathy. “That kinda dish couldn't be any fancier if we'd added a dash o' tarragon vinegar! 'Sides, ya won't know if ya la'k it till you've tried it,” she added encouragingly.

“Oh...well, okay then.” So Fluttershy took her own seat next to Big Macintosh and took a cautious experimental bite of the salad. “Oh my goodness!” she gasped. “It tastes so...lovely.”

Granny Smith smiled broadly. “Ah thought you'd la'k it. This one's of mah own special recipe,” she explained proudly.

“You're a really good cook, Mrs Smith.” Fluttershy was most impressed.

“Aw, shucks – don't go on, li'l Fluttershy!” chuckled Granny Smith heartily. “Yo' gonna embarrass me if y'all carry on la'k that.”

Fluttershy smiled sheepishly in reply before returning to her meal.