Down on Her Roseluck
Roseluck hoofed Carrot Top her flower, smiling slightly. “Here you go Carrot Top, have a nice day.” She said, flipping her hair out of her vision slightly.
Carrot Top nodded before turning around and waving a goodbye at Roseluck. “Thanks, you have a good day too!” She said, before heading back towards her own cart in the open market.
Roseluck gave a late wave, her smile dropping slightly with a customer forcing her to put up a happy persona.
“Hey Roseluck!” Came a happy voice to her side, slightly behind her. “What’s up!”
Roseluck jumped, whirling around accidentally knocking some of the flowers off the cart. She calmed down a little bit when she recognized the light raspberry coat. “Oh... Lily, you scared me.” She said, putting a hoof to her chest lightly.
Lily rolled her eyes. “Sorry Roseluck. I said hello to you like three times, but you were zoned out or something. Everything okay?” She asked, concerned.
Roseluck put on a smile. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Lily raised an eyebrow while looking at her yellow coated friend. “I wouldn’t call you staring out into space with that frown on your face fine Rosey.”
Roseluck just waved a hoof in dismissal at Lily before she bent over and started to pick up the flowers she had knocked on the ground.
Lily sighed softly. “Well, if you’re sure Roseluck. Any idea where Daisy is?”
Roseluck nodded, dropping the flowers on the cart before turning back around to face Lily. “She said something about grabbing lunch for us.”
“Lunch? It’s only eleven though.” Lily said, confused.
Roseluck just shrugged, looking back over the streets.
Lily looked at her friend, slightly sad that Roseluck wouldn’t talk to her about what had happened. She opened her mouth to try and gently broach the subject, but was interrupted before she began by a ‘psssst’ coming from behind her.
Lily looked around trying to figure out where the noise had come from. She was about to shrug and turn back to her friend, whenever she heard the same ‘psssst’ noise sound.
Turning around, this time Lily managed to spot a pink hoof waving at her from behind a building. Lily quickly put two and two together and sighed, facepalming for a moment.
“Lily! Come on!” Daisy hissed at her softly.
Lily just rolled her eyes before turning around to Roseluck. “Hey Roseluck? I’ll be right back. I’ve got to take care of a little problem that won’t stop bugging me until I fix it.” She said, loud enough for Daisy to hear her.
“Mhm...” Roseluck said, nodding without taking her eyes off of whatever she was staring at in the distance.
Lily looked at her for a moment before turning around and trotting quickly towards her other friend. Turning the corner she saw her friend sitting down with a strange facial expression on her face.
“Daisy... What is it now?” Lily asked after looking at her friend for a moment or two, waiting for her to say something but not getting a response.
Daisy waved a hoof at her randomly. “Shhh! I’m thinking!”
Lily felt her eyebrow twitch slightly.
After a few more minutes, Daisy finally moved from her position.
“Well Lily, I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here.” Daisy started, before being interrupted by her friend.
“You mean beside the fact that I’m probably going to be dragged into one of your schemes?”
“What? No! I’m just thinking of ways to cheer Roseluck up!” Daisy said, denying what Lily had said.
Lily sighed. “Yeah. I had noticed that she seemed down today. Any clue what happened?”
“Wellllll, I tried to get her to talk to me about it, but she just clammed up and told me nothing was wrong.”
Lily glanced around the building at Roseluck, who had taken to rolling one of the more durable flowers around on the surface of the cart. Back and forth the flower went. Lily couldn’t see her friends face, but she was sure that it held the same frown that Roseluck had whenever she had seen her before.
Suddenly she was yanked back to the cover of the building.
“What are you doing!” Daisy hissed.
“Uh... checking on our friend?” Lily answered sarcastically.
“She could have seen you!”
“And...”
Silence reigned for a moment.
“...Shut up.”
Lily smirked for a moment before her expression sobered up a little. “But still... How are we going to cheer her up?”
Daisy smiled. “That’s simple!”
“It is?”
“Yeah! If we can figure out what happened, we can cheer her up!”
“But she’s already shut us down.”
“Well... We’ll have to figure it out on our own.” Daisy said, sitting back down and assuming her thinking position. Lily felt her eyebrow twitch again as she stared at Daisy.
“Can’t we just try and cheer her up? Why do we need to try and figure out what happened?”
Daisy shook her head. “No.”
“...”
Daisy sighed. “Fine. Do you have an idea?”
Lily almost shrugged, before stopping herself. Grinning, she nodded.
“I might have an idea. Knowing Roseluck, she won’t be easy to cheer up. You know how she gets.”
Daisy nodded silently.
“So... we need to do something big to cheer her up, right?”
Daisy nodded again.
“I thought that maybe one of us could distract her why the other goes and get’s... I don’t know... her favourite cake from Sugarcube Corner?”
Daisy thought about it. “That could work. Maybe the one that stays with her could try to fish the truth out of her?”
Lily nodded. “That would be a good plan.”
Daisy thought for a moment. “Well, I guess that leaves deciding who goes for the cake, and who stays?”
Lily nodded.
Daisy smiled. “ONE TWO THREE NOT IT!”
Lily jumped a little at the sudden outburst from her friend. And then, as her mind computed what Daisy had shouted she frowned. “Hey! No fair!” She complained.
Daisy smiled. “Nope! Get out there! I’ll be by with carrot cake as soon as I can!”
Lily watched the pink pony run down the street before sighing.
“Some day I’m going to snap on that pony. I swear...” She whispered under her breath before putting on a smile herself and heading back towards the cart that she helped run.
“Hey Roseluck!” She said happily as she finally got there.
She watched Roseluck jump a little before looking at Lily, an obviously fake smile on her face.
“Oh... Hey Lily. Didn’t I just hear Daisy?” Roseluck asked.
Lily nodded. “Yeah. She said that she had one more errand to run before she’d show up.”
Roseluck sighed. “That pony... she’s always skirting work, isn’t she?”
Lily laughed slightly. “Yeah, but that’s part of her... er... whimsical charm.”
Roseluck snorted before falling back into the silence that Lily had almost come to expect.
“So...” She started, unsure of how to continue. “How has your day been?”
Daisy ran into Ponyville’s most premiere confectionaries, Sugarcube Corner. “Pinkie! I’ve got an emergency!”
Pinkie suddenly appeared from nowhere, gasping. “An emergency! Where’s the fire!!”
Daisy jumped. “Pinkie, not that type of emergency, but it’s still important!”
Pinkie grabbed Daisy by the shoulder. “What is it!” She yelled, shaking her.
“My friend is sad-” Daisy started, to be interrupted by a gasp.
“A sad pony! Pinkie is on the case!” She yelled, getting ready to run.
“Whoa! Whoa! Pinkie! We’ve got this covered. I just need a cake.” Daisy said, grabbing onto Pinkie.
“A cake?” Pinkie asked dubiously, a doubtful look in her eyes.
“Yes. A carrot cake.”
Pinkie looked doubtful still, but nodded. “I can do a cake! Cake is a good thing!”
Daisy nodded. “So.. If I could grab one, that would be great.”
Pinkie nodded, zooming behind the counter and searching the shelves, before coming back around.
“I’ve got good news and bad news.We’re out of carrot cake-”
Daisy sighed at this.
“-but we have plenty of carrot mix. I can make some carrot cake real quick! Thirty minutes tops!”
“But...”
“No buts! You wait here, and I’ll get started on it right now!” Pinkie said, disappearing into the kitchen.
Daisy stared at the closed door, before sighing and taking a sit to wait.
She hoped that everything was going okay back at the flower cart.
Roseluck sighed before turning to Lily. “I told you before, nothing it wrong.”
Lily shook her head. “Rosey, I haven’t seen you in a funk this deep since that one colt said no to you in grade school. What happened?”
Roseluck just shook her head. “Nothing. Happened.”
The silence between the two was deafening for a couple of minutes.
Lily sighed. “Rosey. What. happened.” She said, moving closer to her friend.
Roseluck sighed. “You aren’t going to go away until I tell you, are you.”
Lily smiled slightly. “Nope. I’m here all week.”
Roseluck smiled slightly herself, before the frown returned. She sighed.
“Well... you know how yesterday I had to watch the CMCs?” She asked
Lily nodded. “Yeah. Of course I remember, you were gone all day just watching those fillies.”
“Yeah... Let’s just say that didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.”
Lily nodded, her mind finally clicking into what had happened. “CMC disaster?” She asked.
Roseluck just nodded sadly.
Lily just sided up to her friend and hugged her. “Come on, it can’t really be that bad, right?”
Roseluck shook her head. “It can be that bad. They blew up a house Lily. A house!”
Lily managed to stifle a laugh. “A whole house? How’d they manage to do that?”
Roseluck shrugged. “They said they wanted to go for a cooking cutie mark. I forgot what they said they were cooking. All I know is that they came running out the kitchen screaming their heads off for me to run. And then the kitchen exploded.”
“It... exploded.” Lily said slowly.
Roseluck nodded. “Yeah...”
Lily shrugged, dropping the hug. “It’s the CMC’s. I’m surprised the town is still standing right now with them living in it, and I’m not even joking about that.”
“That’s not the point Lily. I should’ve been in the kitchen. One of them could’ve gotten hurt!” Roseluck said, her frown sadder than before.
Lily shook her head. “They day one of those fillies gets hurt is the day Celestia doesn’t raise the sun. They’re like... indestructible.” She said, poking Roseluck in the side playfully.
That got a small giggle out of her sad friend, before the frown returned.
“That’s not all the happened. I then proceeded to lose the fillies afterwards, and had to spend the rest of the day tracking them down.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Well, you did draw the short straw. Besides, do you really think that they would’ve done anything different with anyone else?”
Roseluck shook her head. “I... guess you have a point.”
Lily shook her head. “I know I have a point. You’re beating yourself up over nothing Rosey. Stop it.” She said, empathizing her point with another poke into Roseluck’s side, eliciting another giggle from the yellow mare.
“Lily... Thanks.”
“For what?”
“I still feel bad about letting the fillies blow up the kitchen, but... I feel less bad? I guess?”
Lily shrugged. “Eh. What are friends for? Besides. It’s not like you went and actually went out of your way to help them blow up the kitchen, or this is the first thing they blew up this month.”
Lily laughed. “Oh Celestia, I can’t believe I haven’t told you that story yet. Let me tell you about the time I watched the CMC’s.”
Daisy hurried through the streets, a carrot cake covered in frosting balanced precariously on her back.
She expected to get back to the flower cart with Lily and Roseluck at a silent standoff, but the scene that awaited her surprised her.
Lily was smiling, and... Roseluck was laughing!
Smiling a puzzled smile, she went up the stand, bouncing the cake from her back onto the table surface.
“So, I’ve apparently missed something.”
Roseluck nodded. “Yeah. Lily was telling me about the time you and her managed to inadvertently help them catapult a cat all the way across Ponyville.” She said, laughing.
Daisy glared at Lily, mouthing ‘We will have words.’ before turning back to Roseluck with a smile. “I guess everything is okay now?”
Roseluck nodded. “Yeah. I was kicking myself in the flank over something stupid. But that was this morning. We still have half a day to make customers that I won’t scare off with my scary face.”
Lily laughed. “It wasn’t that sc-... Wait, okay. Yes it was.” She said, managing to keep a straight face until Roseluck looked at her with a look of disdain.
“So, what’s this?” Roseluck asked, nodding to the cake.
Daisy smiled. “Carrot cake! You’re favourite!”
Roseluck smiled.
“Thanks girls. It’s nice to know that you’re always here. Even when I’m making my...” She pauses. “My scary face.” She said, pulling a silly face at Lily and Daisy.
Lily and Daisy laughed.
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up and eat your cake. I had to go through a lot to get it.”
Lily scoffed. “You had to go to Sugarcube corner. What’s the big deal?”
Daisy sighed. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders were trying to get their customer service cutie mark."