Butterflies

Author's Note: The chapter name is purely ironic.

Marcus woke up to the crunching of leaves and twigs that littered the forest floor. "I say, who is there? Some kind of beast, possibly a bear?"

He perked up at the sound of his favorite zebra.... Well, the only zebra he knew. He decides to play dumb, lest he scare the living hell out of these poor ponies. He lifted his head to see a striped muzzle staring him in the face. She backed up quickly, her eyes filling with shock and intrigue.

"What is this creature before my eyes, your presence here is quite a surprise."

"I'm... what they call a human... I come from a place called Earth... but more importantly, where am I now?"

"You are in the Equestrian nation. You must be from a very distant location."

"Well then. That's interesting to know. May I ask you a question, miss.....?" he trailed off, even though he already knew the answer.

"Zecora is my name, perhaps you could tell me the same?" She smiled a little, her intrigue growing more as she talked to the strange creature before her.

"They call me Marcus back where I'm from. So, my question is: Why has everything you said rhymed?"

Zecora opened her mouth as if to speak, but was interrupted by a more high pitched voice. It sounded extremely familiar.

"Zecora! Ah found this here 'shroom growin' in tha barn back home an' Ah was a-wonderin' if'n ya might want it."

The little yellow filly saw Marcus and her face turned to one of pure shock. She let out a shriek and turned around and ran.

"Crap!" Marcus went to chase after little Applebloom but stopped and did a slight bow to Zecora. "Sorry Zecora, gotta go and try to clear things up, I'll be back and chat with ya again sometime."

Zecora returned the gesture. "I trust you to take care, and be sure not to hurt the little mare."

"Will do!" He ran after her and used her bright red bow to keep track of her. After all, there aren't many bright red things in this forest.

He continued to chase the filly, quickly running out of breath and stopping at the edge of the forest as his eyes adjusted to the sudden rush of light.

"Ah... crap...." He quickly recovered, though and continued the chase. "Hey, wait!"

She kept running, following a road into town. Marcus continued to follow. He had lost track of his surroundings and didn't noticed the hooves buck his side until after the fact.

Marcus tumbled sideways, crashing into a flower cart on the side of the road. He groaned and sat up, flowers and bits of wood still covering him a bit. The ponies in the market stared for about two seconds then started to scream and run.

“What tha hay do ya think yer doin’ ta mah sister?!” The orange earth pony was glaring at Marcus as he was crawling out of the rubble of the destroyed cart. She was standing there, her stance was wide, preparing to charge if need be.

Marcus didn’t hear a word she said as he stood and brushed the flowers and soil out of his hair.

The pony opposite him began to scrape her hoof on the ground, kicking up a little dust. “I asked who ya are, an’ what ya were doing ta mah sister!”

“Oh shit... Uh, I know this looks bad, but I was trying to apologize to her. She saw me in the.... Everfree Forest and kinda freaked out. I was there talking to Zecora and well, she just waltzed up and didn’t give anyone a chance to talk...”

She then turned to the little filly behind her and had a disappointed look on her face. “Ah thought Ah told ya, Applebloom. Ya’ll don’t need ta be goin’ near tha forest.”

“Sorry, sis....”

“So! Now that that’s out of the way, I think some introductions are in order. I’m Marcus, nice to meet you.” Marcus started to reach out for a handshake but thought against it and settled for what he hoped looked like a friendly wave.

“Ah’m Applejack and this here’s mah lil’ sister, Applebloom. Sure is mighty nice meetin’ ya, Marcus, but uhhh.... No offense, but... Just what tha hay ARE ya?”

He sighed and hung his head a bit. “Guess I’m gonna be hearing that question a lot for the next few days.... Hopefully I won’t die again before that happens.”

“Ah beg yer pardon?! Yer dead?!” Applejack reared up and backed Applebloom closer to the cart, both of them had a fearful expression across their faces.

“No! Nononono, I’m not dead, I’m just.... out of it right now. Sorry.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes at him and turned her head a little. “If’n ya’ll say so... Anywho, why dontcha tell me what ya’ll are, exactly?”

“Well, I’m a human... I know you’ve never heard of me, nobody has.”

“Nobody? Ya mean ‘nopony,’ right?”

“Yeah, that.”

Applejack smiled at his little blunder and turned back to Applebloom. “Now, Applebloom, Ah want ya’ll ta go back home ‘n’ tell Big Macintosh that Ah’ll be gettin’ home a lil’ late cuz o’ tha lil’ accident we had over yonder.”

“Alright sis... jus’ make sure ya stay safe....”

“Ah will, dontcha worry yer li’l head about that none. Ah can handle mahself jus’ fine.”

“Alright, sis, seeya at home!” Applebloom then nuzzled her big sisters neck and ran back down the road towards the farm.

Applejack smiled and watched her sister go home then turned around to face Marcus. “Alrighty, let’s git ta work.”

“I’m sorry?” Marcus looked at the orange pony for a few seconds.

“Yup. What? Ya’ll thought Ah was gonna let ya get away with not cleanin’ this mess up? Nice try.”

“Well, it was kinda your fault that I broke it...”

“Well, it was you who were chasin’ mah sister like some kind o’ madpony!”

“Well, I wouldn’t have been chasing her if she had let somepony speak!”

“Why tha buck are ya even here?! Why didn’t ya stay where ya’ll came from?!”

“.....Because I didn’t have a choice....” At that, Marcus spun on the ball of his foot and walked down the road out of Ponyville. Applejack stood there and wondered what he was talking about. She let out a sigh and started to clean up the wreckage the two of them had caused only a few moments ago.

Marcus stopped when he felt he was far enough away from Ponyville. He looked around at the scenery. Green pastures and rolling hills filled the space between his spot on a hill and the mountains off in the distance. He sighed and stretched, lifting his arms high above his head and pulling them back. He cringed at the intense pain in his side.

“Damn... she sure can kick...”

“Oh, um... You aren’t hurt... are you?”

“Huh?” Marcus turned, holding his side with his hand and his jaw nearly hit the ground. Before him stood his favorite pony of all: Fluttershy. He could barely fight the urge to hug the yellow mare. “Oh uh... maybe a little...”

“Well, um... If you want, I can bring you back to my cottage and... see if I can help... If... If you want to that is...”

Marcus nearly fainted. The mare of his dreams was asking him to go home with her. Even though it was under different circumstances than he wished, she’s still inviting him over!

“Thanks... If it’s not any trouble to you, that is.”

“Oh, no trouble... I like helping animals.... What... kind of animal are you.... if... you don’t mind me asking...”

“I’m not really an animal... well... technically I am.... What with humans being mammals and all....”

“Oh... that’s... interesting... Can... you tell me a little more...? A-about yourself, I mean.... If... it’s alright with you, that is...” Fluttershy began to scrape at the ground, more out of nervousness than anger, like Applejack had.

“Yeah, while you’re fixing me up. My feet are starting to hurt....”

“Oh! You poor thing... Come on, let’s go back to my cottage so you can lie down...”

“Alright.... Hey, we never introduced ourselves. I’m Marcus, nice to meet you.” He walked up to her and gave a slight bow.

“I’m Fluttershy.... N-nice to meet you, Marcus....” She smiled softly up at him, blushing a little as she did so.

Marcus nearly fainted again.

Author's notes: Special thanks on this chapter to inoeitall for being my official english-to-Zecora translator. Read his stuff. Also, more thanks to inoeitall and Gyrofest96 for being my prereaders, they edited a lot and contributed a lot to this chapter. I love them both (no homo).