Next Tuesday couldn’t come soon enough. It wasn’t just the seven days of waiting, although that didn’t help my mood. It wasn’t even the fact that my need for bits had exceeded even the drive to mate, leaving me to work sixteen hour days — eight at the stall and eight in the greenhouse and making phone calls — for six days in a row to help meet my rather sizable financial obligations.

No, the worst was Lily, who seemed bound and determined to hate me for all time for what I’d done. Even after a couple days, Daisy was rolling her eyes. “I’m half-tempted to make Lily deliver the cart to Canterlot more often,” Daisy had remarked after watching Lily skulking around the greenhouse seemingly under a cloud. “She might finally get over this weird thing she has against other ponies.”

Lily Valley has never liked crowds. She doesn’t like sunshine, rainbows or friendship for that matter either. She came from Hoofington, a mining town turned industrial center that churns out nearly half of Equestria’s steel. It’s not the kind of city you visit because of the friendly atmosphere and fine dining from what Lily has told me, but a crowded, chaotic, and unfriendly place. She came to Ponyville alone and asked Daisy and me for a job to get away from it all.

In retrospect, she could have picked a better place for peace and quiet.

Since she’s been here, she’s shown little interest in anything but working. I even tried to hook her up with a stallion, but she wasn’t into that idea at all. She told me that the very idea of sleeping with a stallion turned her stomach; and in any case, once you required another pony to be in your life, you were subject to whatever problems that pony had. “I just don’t need another pony’s problems Rose,” Lily had told me, “Life is crazy enough in this town already without wondering what the other pony is up to.”

I’m not sure why she thinks another pony might be plotting against her, but I can only imagine how pent-up the poor mare is. I’ve always found that other ponies make things easier and not harder — especially when one is in heat.

At least all this work is for a good cause, I thought to myself, wiping the sweat from my forehead after having served the last customer in line. I would have enough money for the dress, the next date, and Lily’s bedding and it would only require a seventy-two hour work week.

I wasn’t exactly what you’d call an hourly employee, being paid a salary based on profit, but I have the option to do Daisy’s work for her and get extra bits that way. Daisy spends a lot of time out of town doing businesspony stuff and doesn't have a lot of time to spend on housekeeping so she's more than happy to pay extra. Deliveries are also commissioned, and since Lily hates to pull the cart for the risk of being seen by somepony, I could always keep up on my spending with hard work.

Two more days, Rose. Two more days. I’d been so tired the last week, I didn’t even have time to clop. With the line to my stall empty as usual during lunch hour, my eyes began to droop, the warmth of the last summer sun lulling me into my familiar daydream of being chased through the woods.

A heavily accented mare’s voice cut rudely into my fantasy. “Oi, Rose!” Ugh, this job would be great if it wasn’t for the customers!

I looked up to see Golden Harvest, a friend of Daisy’s and Ponyville’s resident carrot aficionado. She had a golden yellow coat — shaggier than what most Equestrian ponies would find normal — with a bright orange mane and tail that gave her an uncanny resemblance to her namesake vegetable. She had once tried to dye her thick, curly mane green after being dumped by her marefriend at the time, but it didn’t go over well. My eyes were drawn to her hooves which were capped by unshorn fetlocks which matched her mane's color.

“Sleeping on the job are yeh?” Golden Harvest asked in mock sternness, her smile giving her away.

“Sorry, it’s just I’ve been working long hours and…” I shook myself out of my daydream fully. “Wait a minute, why aren’t you at the carrot stand in town?”

Golden Harvest waved a hoof at me dismissively. “Oh, Linky can handle herself for a wee moment. I was just on me way home for lunch and thought I’d say hello.”

Golden's eyes darted towards the greenhouse, I caught the faintest hint of a wistful look — or perhaps allergies, who can tell — before she looked back at me. “Work, work, work. Every time I see her, she’s always working. A filly like her should be out enjoying the company of others. Don’t you agree?”

I immediately discarded my allergy hypothesis and a whole new world of ideas had opened to me. Did Golden Harvest know something about my dear roommate that I didn’t? Perhaps a stallion isn’t the solution to Lily’s problems after all. I put on my most professional salespony face I could muster given my exhaustion. “I couldn’t agree more! Why not go to her and say hello? She’ll appreciate the company.”

The curly-maned earth pony’s head and ears drooped slightly, her face crestfallen before adjusting to a more cheerful expression. “I cannae ask a hard-working mare to stop being productive on my account. Just tell her I said ‘hello’ fer me if yeh don’t mind.”

Ugh. When will mares learn you have to get a leg in the door before you can do business? I chastised her in my head while smiling and nodding politely. “Of course!”

“Goldie!” Daisy trotted out of the house and hugged the carrot farmer. “What brings you all the way out here?”

Golden Harvest’s eyes went shifty for a moment. I supposed she wasn’t quite ready to have to answer the same question twice.

“Just thought I’d stop by and say hello. Yeh know, just bein’ neighborly,” Golden Harvest replied somewhat defensively. “I was going to have a bite to eat back at my place while Linky tended the stand.”

“Oh of course. Well, why not stay with us for lunch, Goldie? Rose, you look like you could use a break yourself.” Daisy patted me on the back.

The sound of hoof clops coming towards us fast caught our groups attention and we turned to face the source of the disturbance.

“The unicorns are coming! The unicorns are coming! Grab yer slingshots gals, we’re going to war!” The crazed mare I recognized immediately as Linky proclaimed, in similarly accented Equestrian to that of Golden Harvest with a matching shaggy coat and unshorn fetlocks.

The Maya-blue coated mare’s tangled periwinkle mane was even wilder than usual, as she appeared to have run half the length of Ponyville toting a saddlebag laden with water balloons; a slingshot much like the one I owned strapped to her right foreleg.

Golden Harvest rolled her eyes. “Yeh couldn’t resist, could yeh? All I asked you to do was watch the bleedin’ cart for an hour, and yeh’ve restarted our feud!”

“Feud? This is destiny!” Linky gave a haughty laugh and shrugged off her saddlebag before selecting an overfilled bright-red balloon. “The greatest happiness is to scatter yer enemy, to drive her before yeh, to see her cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love her shrouded in tears, and to take her stallions for sex and war mounts!” Her fandango eyes shimmered with a dreadful malice that spoke of a far different time and place. “To battle, my beloved sisters!”

It’s a look I’ve seen many a time from her, and when I have, I’ve done what’s asked of me.

“Linky… we’re defending a flower shop!” Daisy shrieked. “Tell them we can fight later!”

I admired Daisy’s logical and clear-headed approach but knew it was no good. “I’ll go get the slingshots, Ma’am!” I gave her a stiff salute and ran inside in the house leaving the other three to argue the details.

When I came back, six unicorn mares were already lined up just outside the front yard; three of them bore peeved expressions and evidence of recently being struck with well-placed water balloon shots. Linky had taken it upon herself to restart our conflict with Ponyville’s unicorns after our snowball fight with them last winter.

“Hiiiiii Linkyyyyy!” shouted one of them — a white-coated unicorn with a long pink mane and tail who was jumping up and down on all fours.

“Hey, Twinkleshine!” Linky reared up on both legs and waved back at her, all pretense of their relationship cast aside; I watched Golden Harvest giggle into her hoof.

“Linky, your wanton act of aggression against the Platinum Order has not gone unnoticed. Surrender your water balloons, or be soaked,” their pink-coated leader, Sparkler, pronounced coolly from beneath her violet and lavender striped mane. To punctuate her threat she drew a water balloon out of her own saddlebag with magic. The disciplined unicorn team would allow themselves a condescending smirk before pummeling us into oblivion.

“Perleh.”

Everyone turned to face Daisy who had uttered the nonsensical word.

“Perlalaylayloo!” Daisy slurred, again failing to speak properly.

Sparkler buried her face in both hooves, dropping her watery missile and soaking her hooves.

Undeterred, Daisy continued her fruitless search for the right word, moving “Pine. Parsnip. Parsley. Pard'ner…”

“Parley?” Lily suggested helpfully, surprising us all, having left the greenhouse and joined us while we were watching Daisy continue to make a foal of herself.

“No parley. We fight!” Linky shouted, taking aim with her slingshot at their leader.

“Wait, Linky!” Golden Harvest cried out to no avail.

The sling-launched missile caught Sparkler right in the chest, and the unicorns loosed a barrage on us — Golden Harvest taking the worst as she shielded Lily from the fight. Quite the chivalrous mare that one is! We fired at each other until we were all soaked to the skin. To my surprise, even Lily got into the act, paying back the carrot farmer’s kindness by blasting the enemy with the garden hose with lethal accuracy. Deciding they were receiving far more abuse than they were dishing out, Sparkler sent up a blue flare, signaling a retreat.

“We’ll be back Linky!” Sparkler taunted from a safe distance. “At a time and place of our choosing that doesn’t have a garden hose!” Sparkler and her team turned tail and ran back toward the center of town.

Linky leaped atop the flower stall and shook her right hoof at the retreating unicorns. “Let this be remembered as the day the unicorns almost defeated the Overmare, Linky, and her army of —” A stream of hose water to the back of the head cut her victory speech short. She turned and faced Lily, who was still holding the hose in her teeth. “Oi! What didja do that for!?”

“For getting us all attacked and ruining our flower displays. Now shoo!” Lily dismissed her with a flick of her hoof.

“Aye, get back to the stall and mind the carrots already!” Golden Harvest added. “And don’t start any more battles with the neighbors!”

Linky jumped down from the stall and nodded appreciatively at Lily. “Ye’ve got some nerve! You’ll make a fine addition to my army, little flower filly. Farewell!” She launched herself at top speed back into town along the same road the unicorns had taken, leaping over a cart at the intersection pulled by a stunned-looking dark-haired, mustachioed human man that read, Three Guys Who Paint across the side.

Judging by his expression he must have been new to town. I hope he has the opportunity one day of really experiencing the out of the ordinary for Ponyville...

“Sorry about Linky: she’s a bit touched in the head, but she means well. I’m…” Golden Harvest trailed off flustered as she looked at Lily, I suspect having forgotten her own name.

“Golden Harvest,” Lily finished for her, smiling. I’ve seen you around. Thanks for helping me back there, it was — ” Lily stopped to brush her sopping mane out of her face, “ — quite heroic actually.”

“Hey Daisy, I think I’ll finish up what Lily's got going on in the greenhouse,” I whispered to Daisy.

She smiled knowingly and made a gesture with her hoof to tell me I was to pick up the phone in the greenhouse if it rang; Daisy took my place behind the counter.

The two of them talked for hours while I toiled away in the greenhouse; seeing the two of them talking, the way they just seemed to hit it off, made me feel good. Maybe there really is somepony for everypony.

When Lily realized just how long she’d been talking she said farewell to her new friend and ran back to the greenhouse. I gestured towards the completed arrangements and gave her one I’d made especially for her: a lovely assortment of lilies in white, pink and purple.

She started to say something, tears in her eyes when she dove at me and nearly hugged the life out of me.

We never did apologize, we didn’t have to, and we never spoke of the Great Disaster™ again.

*****

Aside from the work not getting any easier, the remaining time between work and my own special brand of play was much less stressful and went a lot faster. Daisy had no problem with giving me taking a few more days off, and the money I made that week would cover the damage and then some. Not surprisingly, when word got out about the water balloon fight, we started to get more visits from human men hopeful that another battle would break out any moment. I had to ask Daisy what the big attraction was, and she explained that men — and quite a few mares of the filly-fooler persuasion — found the sight of wet females alluring.

“I’m thinking we need to start staging more of these get-togethers with the unicorns. Just think of the business we’ll generate and all we have to do is have fun and get wet!” Daisy had told me.

I really don’t get the appeal of being covered in wet fur, but I always appreciate the chance to have my beauty recognized; naturally, I agreed to her plan. I took it as granted that Linky would be on board and wondered if wet-maned Twinkleshine might give her added incentive...

“All aboard!” the conductor of the Friendship Express called out.

I filed on with the rest of the ponies and into the horrors of public transportation.

Well, horror might not be a very gracious way to put it. The elderly unicorn couple I shared a booth with were quiet enough, but outside of our booth, the car was filled with the sounds of Discord’s second-coming. Foals ran screaming up and down the corridor while ponies and humans sang songs of Equestrian and Earth origin — the latter songs being sung in multiple languages. It was an experience, to say the least.

Most of the passengers disembarked at Canterlot including the elderly unicorns leaving me with the booth all to myself. When we started back up, the train moved north by northeast past small towns and blue-green moors and the distant peak of Foal Mountain that separated Canterlot from the major cities of Manehatten and Fillydelphia; I wasn’t going out that far thankfully, instead following the tracks southeast and into the darkest and spookiest and all forests outside the Everfree: Shady Forest.

We ponies prefer obvious names for things to save time.

The sun had been high in the sky on a bright clear day, but as soon as I moved past the tree line we were all cast into twilight. I had reached the forest of my dreams, and even now my hunter was coming for me again. I began to feel all seven days of my abstinence and immediately regretted my decision to start with a date. I needed it badly, but I reminded myself who was in charge of the situation. No, I was going to earn it this time. I gathered my belonging from the compartment over my head and disembarked onto the dark, chilly platform.

Exiting the train and stepping out onto the cobblestone road, I was struck by the chill in the air. It had dropped nearly fifteen degrees from outside the forest! I looked up into the darkened sky and into the sun, muted as if eclipsed by the moon. The houses were all carved from trees and lit with a soft, magical glow. Outside of several businesses with a more modern aesthetic that nonetheless did their best to fit in, it was primitive living for the natives of Hollow Shades. The air was filled with fireflies, even the street lamps used them to light the path along the narrow streets through town. Red, black and blue seem to be the order of the day, I thought to myself taking in the scene. It must look like Nightmare Night every day of the week.

It didn’t take me long to find the Amaris Inn as it was easily the largest building in town, and one of the only buildings that utilized stone in its construction. I suppose I could have just looked at the map, but where would be the fun in that? I gave the blue and white uniformed mare at the front desk my name and received a key for room twenty-three in return.

The room was small but cozy. The walls were painted in a dark blue with a door off to one side I took to be the bathroom and three closets. Another door led to a balcony from which the weak sunlight was filtering into the room. Firefly lamps did most of the work of lighting the room and matched the atmosphere of the rest of the village perfectly. I chose the closet nearest to me and loaded it up.

The soft lighting of the room combined with my seventy-two hour work week made me feel sleepy and the cozy bed topped by crescent moon patterned sheets beckoned me forth like a siren’s song. I set the alarm clock and took a nap.

I awoke at what counts for nighttime around these parts — somewhat darker than the day — and after a quick shower, I put on my dress with the help of a convenient full body mirror. I’ll admit, dress up is really not my thing. I’ve never needed to wear clothing to make myself hotter because I’m basically the hottest mare in Ponyville already. Okay, that’s not necessarily a unanimous opinion, but close enough. According to Lyra though, men find us more attractive with clothes than without them; this despite the fact that they find their own women more attractive without clothes, and yet they force everyone to wear clothes…

Humans are strange, just incomprehensibly bizarre. So, I’d play along.

The dress was emerald green with a white, garnet studded trim, with no collar; I may not dress up often, but I know not to cover up the finest length of neck in all of Equestria! The front legs ran all the way down to the top of my hooves. Tied to my back was a matching garnet-studded cloth saddle perfect for tempting my predatory companion. The skirt was low-cut but clung tightly enough to my rump to reveal the panties below and offering a challenge for him to overcome. I left my mane un-styled; you can’t improve on perfection.

I heard a knock at the door. He was several minutes early this time. He couldn’t wait to pierce me, to hear me beg for more!

That’s enough! I put my hoof down, literally. I couldn’t help but imagine what Stuntman must be thinking behind the door. I am here to go this talk to this nice man, not to let him rut my brains out… yet. Throwing all perverse thoughts into the closet within my mind and slamming the door shut, I opened the door, wearing my most charming smile.

“We meet again, little pony.” The insatiable blond-haired beast had returned, his gray eyes gleaming.

Let's do this, handsome!

Author's Note

Linky is best Maregolian.

Updated 7/13/2015.

Grammarly check on 5/22/2018.