Wilting Rose

by Twinkletail

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Roseluck
Length: 1662

Roseluck is depressed following a move to Manehattan.

Roseluck has left Ponyville and moved to Manehattan, having followed a lucrative job opportunity. Despite the new source of steady income, she's still feeling down about the change.

Written for both One-Shotober and the Roseluck Fans group's contest.

Published 2013-10-29 19:40:08 UTC
Last updated 2013-10-29 19:40:08 UTC

Chapter 1

Roseluck should have been the happiest pony in the world, at least from an outsider's standpoint.

She was a pony who the citizens of Ponyville knew relatively well as the cheery proprietor of the rose stand in the marketplace. She was never super-talkative and she didn't do much to make herself stand out, but every customer at her booth was given a smile and treated as though they were the most important pony in the world. Sure, she could be a little flighty sometimes, and she and her friends were prone to going into a panic over the smallest things, but she was a nice, reliable pony who took pride in her job, and she was much appreciated by the townsfolk for it.

This made Roseluck's decision to move to Manehattan a disappointing one for Ponyville. Those closest to her weren't terribly surprised by the decision. She had been saying for a long time that while she loved her job in Ponyville, it wasn't exactly paying the bills as well as she'd have liked. She didn't exactly come from a well-to-do family, and so much of her income went to helping them that she rarely had money left for anything other than the most basic of necessities. She rarely spoke to anypony about this, though. Her customers didn't need to know all that. If they did, they might have paid her more than she charged for her services, and she didn't like taking charilty.

The only ponies who knew about her family situation were her two best friends, Daisy and Lily Blossom. The three had been practically inseparable ever since they were fillies, and outside of Roseluck's time spent working at her stand, they were rarely seen apart. The town knew them best as "those three flower ponies who overreacted about things," but for the most part, it was said in an endearing tone. Daisy and Lily were the only ponies who knew about the issues with Roseluck's family, and as such, they weren't terribly shocked when she let them know that she was considering a move to Manehattan. Sad, yes. Shocked, no.

When Roseluck was offered a position with the biggest flower distributor in Equestria, she didn't want to take it at first. Sure, it was great money, but she had lived her entire life in Ponyville, and didn't consider herself much of a big city pony. To move to Manehattan for this job would mean leaving behind everything she loved. Sure, it wasn't terribly far, and she could easily come visit on the weekends and holidays, but it just wouldn't be the same. The pony who offered her the job, though, was very persuasive, and insistent that her natural charisma would make her the perfect pony to head their marketing department. Such a position, of course, would come with quite a large salary, and Roseluck wasn't quite sure she was in the position to turn such an offer down.

It took a very long talk with her best friends to convince her to take the job. There was a lot of discussing, a lot of crying, and a lot of hugging, with one or two shouts of "the horror!" thrown in there for good measure. As little as the two wanted to see Roseluck go, Daisy and Lily finally agreed that it would be for the best if she accepted the position.

Roseluck really should have been happy about this move, but she just couldn't bring herself to be. She'd managed to find herself a nice, inexpensive apartment that would be satisfactory until her new job allowed her to afford something nicer. But it wasn't home. It was someplace to live, but for her, it wasn't home. It didn't help matters that the movers hadn't been able to get her furniture to the apartment just yet. Even if it wasn't just a big, blank room at the moment, it wouldn't have been home to her. "Home," at its most basic definition, was a place where one felt at home. This was not that kind of place.

Roseluck wasn't even sad. That was the odd thing. She'd been sad when she left Ponyville yesterday. She'd been sad when she arrived in her new apartment. Now, though, even the feeling of sadness had vanished. If somepony had asked her how she felt at that moment, she wouldn't have known what to tell them. There was a distinct lack of anything where her feelings had been before as she lie on the floor, right where she'd slept last night. Nothing could even motivate her to get up. Her job didn't start until the next day. The movers wouldn't be here until noon, a solid three hours from now. Even the weather wasn't helping, as apparently somepony had decided that today was a nice day for rain.

Roseluck laid there like a lump, not particularly feeling like doing much more. She glanced at the floor a few inches in front of her face, where her favorite picture of herself with Daisy and Lily rested. She'd carried it with her, rather than leave it with her furniture, and had spent a good portion of time last night just staring at it and being sad. In retrospect, it was silly. It wasn't like they were gone. In fact, before she left, she'd made plans to come back to Ponyville and see them next weekend. But that was a whole five days away, way too far for her wishes. She wanted to see them now. She wanted to go back home to Ponyville, where everything and everypony she cared about was. Instead, she was stuck in this blank room that was meant to be her new home, and she couldn't stand it.

Roseluck rolled onto her other side. It was the most excitement she'd had in hours. Her left legs flopped onto the ground first, and her right legs flopped onto them. She stayed in that position for a while, just staring at the picture in front of them. If Daisy and Lily were here, they'd definitely be doing something fun by this point. Those two were good at finding fun things to do, even in situations like this when there was nothing around to entertain themselves with. Roseluck still remembered the time when the three of them were young and had gotten trapped in the library after hours. Once they'd managed to convince themselves that the library was not, in fact, haunted by the spirits of ancient monsters, they'd ended up entertaining each other just by playing little pretend games. They didn't need the books, or the tables, or anything in the library to keep themselves entertained. They managed it together, because all they needed was each other.

None of that would be happening here for Roseluck. The room was much smaller and emptier than the library had been, and even if it weren't, her level of motivation was through the floor. She couldn't even get herself to stand up, let alone use her imagination to occupy herself. She felt like one of the roses she used to sell, except instead of looking and feeling pretty, she had been cut off from her stem and was now slowly wilting away on the ground. Perhaps it was a bit melodramatic, but that was the kind of mindset she was in. She was the rose blossom that had been cut away (or had cut itself away, she supposed) from the stem that held her up and the roots that she had grown from, and without them, she found herself here, wilting.

Roseluck rolled her eyes as she heard something hit her window. It didn't look like a particularly windy day, but of course, something had managed to blow up and smack against her window. With her luck, she half-expected the window to just shatter from the impact. It would have been a fitting continuation of how miserably her short time here had gone so far. She ignored it and went back to staring at the only thing in the room other than herself.

Her ears then perked up as she heard something else hit the window. The depressed pony just shook her head. The description of the apartment had said nothing about it being in a prime location for flying debris to hit the window. Or maybe it did, and she didn't read closely enough. That was probably the case.

A third hit against her window was more than Roseluck could take. She summoned a bit of motivation from the ordeal and managed to pull herself to her hooves for the first time since she'd laid down to sleep last night. She looked out the window, but the trees didn't seem to be swaying at all, so the idea of wind blowing things into it was right out. The mare figured that some local children were messing around and throwing things at windows. She frowned and opened the window, looking down to give them a piece of her mind.

Roseluck bit her lip as she took in the sight. There were Daisy and Lily, manes dripping wet, standing outside her window. Between them was a large rectangular flower bed, which they'd clearly carried all the way here from Ponyville. The flowers in the bed were arranged in such a way that they formed a picture of Roseluck, Daisy, and Lily's heads, along with the word "BFFS 4EVER" under them.

"We wanted to give you this before you left yesterday!" Daisy called up.

"But we kinda took too long to finish it!" Lily finished.

Roseluck didn't say a word for a few moments. She felt her eyes water as she stared down at her friends.

"Can we come in?" Daisy asked. "It's raining."

Roseluck sniffled, smiling her first smile since arriving here, and nodded. This place still wasn't home quite yet, but it would at least feel kind of like one for a little bit now.