Roses for Hearts and Hooves Day
The sun was just peeking over the horizon, giving the dew covered roofs of Ponyville on this morning a golden shimmer. There was a slight breeze, rustling the leaves of the gardens surrounding the ponies’ cottages. No pony was roaming the streets quite yet, only the earliest of early birds were rising and getting on with their day. One of these ponies was Roseluck, whom trotted out her door, a watering can held gently between her teeth. Her green eyes were still heavy with sleep as she walked to the first batch of flowers. As she began to water the flowers, she took a deep breath of the cool air. A sweet fragrance of flowers from her large garden filled her nostrils along with the distant aroma of freshly made sweets and baked goods from Sugarcube Corner. The faint breeze stirred her red mane and carryed even more smells to her nose. The new scents reminded her of the cards fillies and colts would give each other during their Hearts and Hooves class parties. She smiled as she now remembered that it was the dawn of Hearts and Hooves day. That explained why she had so many orders as of late.
Her ears drooped slightly and a faint smile showed on her face as she realised how ironic it was that everypony got roses on Hearts and hooves day, except the pony who actually grew them. A quiet sigh escaped as she continued to water the flowers. She made her way to the roses behind her cottage and sprinkled them with the remaining water in her watering can. When it ran out, she set it down on the ground and sat on her flanks. She gazed at the beautiful ruby red roses she had grown from seeds. If she really had to have flowers for today, she could just sit there and stare at their beauty for as long as she wanted. Her shoulders slouched as she sighed once again. She wished she had a special somepony to give her some flowers for a change. All her friends had their coltfriends to take them out, but she seemingly was forever single. She never really had the way with stallions, she was too awkward and shy to ever try to talk to them. The last time she tried was at the Hearts and Hooves day dance before she graduated and she ended up tripping over her tongue badly and even worse, over the snack table. She cringed at the memories and shook them away. She sighed and went back to gazing at her roses and silently counted over them one by one.
Thirty-one…
Thirty two…
Thirty-three...
As she counted the end of the bottom row, she saw a lone rose laying on the ground next to the bush. She quickly counted again but all fifty of her personal roses were accounted for. She walked over to the rose and inspected it. It was just a plain red rose that was cleanly cut and had been dethroned nicely. She picked it up gently between her teeth, taking a small whiff of the sweet flower. As she looked back up she saw another rose laying not too far away. She galloped over and picked that one up too. Once again, she saw one around the corner of her house. She picked that one up as well and looked around for more of the beautiful flowers. They were fresh enough to possibly sell to colts and stallions that had forgotten the day and had had to buy their significant other a last second arrangement of flowers. This saved her the trouble of cutting and stripping a new batch of roses. She eagerly followed them, which had now turned into a winding trail down the empty, sleepy streets of Ponyville.
The only sound around was the clopping of Roseluck's hooves trotting over to another flower. The on and off sound of hoofsteps kept going for several moments. Not long after she had started, her mouth was full of the red flowers. Thank Celestia they had no thorns or the roses wouldn’t be the only thing red in her mouth she thought. Roseluck was so focus on keeping them placed in her mouth as she picked more and more up, she hadn’t noticed the change of the clip clop of her hooves against the street were now softened as she now walked on soft grass, still wet with morning dew. The dew soon made the fur on her nose and chin slightly damp, but she took little notice to that as she quickened her hoof steps quickened even more as the space between the roses broadened. She had enough flowers to make several small arrangements for her shop, she could stop now and turn back and begin to put them together and place them on the shelves before she had to open her doors, but she was growing curiouser and curiouser where they all were coming from. Maybe some delievery pony hadn’t locked their carriage good enough and a load of roses slowly fell out as they transported them away. Or maybe some stallion had gone overboard with the flowers and couldn’t carry them all and dropped them as he galloped to where ever he was going. It didn’t quite explain why the trail started at her backyard but that was all she could think of.
It had been quite some time since she started her little adventure and she was growing a little tired of the on and off galloping, especially since she was now heading up some sort of hill. She found it hard to keep up her breath with a mouth full of stems and leafs but she didn’t need to worry about that any longer, for her nose came in contact with a large grouping of flowers. She looked up, her neck silently complaining after having to support her head being so close to the ground for so long. What she saw was something similar to the romantic movies that she would watch if she felt lonely, especially on today, accompanied by a large tub of chocolate chip cookie dough icecream held snuggly in her forehooves.
A red and white checkered quilt was neatly placed down on the ground next to a tree. Candles, a basket containing what she assumed delicious food, a bottle of wine along with fancy glasses, and a heart shaped box all sat on the quilt. Her jaw dropped, the roses she held promptly falling into a heap. She stared at the spread and gaped as her mind tried to wrap around the situation. As the gears turned in her head, some movement caught her eye. She looked over to the tree, where now standing next to it, was a tan stallion with a brunette mane, holding a bouquet of roses in his mouth. He took the flowers into his hooves and greeted her in a charming voice. Her cheeks were quickly becoming warm and a quite adorable shade of pink. All her mind was capable of was an internal squee and thinking that she probably wasn’t going to open up the shop today.
