Fertile Ground

Fertile Ground

By AJ Aficionado

“I’m sooo bored!” Roseluck shouted, her face to the sky with forelimbs outstretched in growing frustration at the futility of waiting for customers that never came.

On a good weekday, the Ponyville Flower Shop would enjoy decent traffic throughout the spring and summer months with major traffic on holidays. But today, for some reason, there was absolutely nothing. Even traffic on the main dirt road — visible from the front yard of the shop where she and her two friends lived — was noticeably diminished.

Roseluck looked out at the main road once, twice, for what might have been the hundredth time in the last hour for her boss, Daisy, to make an appearance to no avail. Roseluck sighed, running a hoof through her sweaty pink and red mane, idly looking around at the colorful flowers stacked up on shelves and benches in clay flower pots and vases.

Her cream-colored coat of hair, normally such a boon when it came to attracting stallion attention, soaked up the heat of the day like a cast-iron skillet on a rangetop. The buzzing sound of tiny wings beating rapidly over her head made the young mare, snap to attention, following the progress of a tiny, flapping dart over to a vase of red roses. There, a juvenile male ruby-throated hummingbird began to drink from one of the dark-red blossoms.

“Lucky you, getting some action out here!” Roseluck said wryly to the little bird, winking at him. “Guess you’re my only customer, little fella…”

She shook her head in disgust, desperate for a change of scene. Turning her attention to the other mare inside the greenhouse on the other side of the yard, the restless mare resolved to abandon her hopeless cause. Bored out of my skull and haven’t bothered Lily yet today, so I may as well help her get everything ready for Daisy’s project. Certainly, be a more productive use of my time than sitting here!

Her decision made, Roseluck climbed down from the wooden stall she sat behind after first securing the bit box containing the day’s miserable sales inside a drawer. Pausing only to stretch her stiff limbs, she trotted the twenty feet to the greenhouse and up a knee-high concrete ramp, opening the clear glass door.

The sweet smell of over a hundred different varieties of flowers greeted her nose. Under normal circumstances, the small glass building was divided into large, dirt-filled containers on tables each holding a different variety of flowers, all laid out in an efficient grid to make watering and transplanting into pots much easier. Today, the center row was gone. The three ladies had pushed back the containers the day before to leave a gap for a single huge, shallow concrete bed that stretched from one end of the room to the other, roughly fifteen feet long and six feet wide.

Lily Valley, the small, pink-coated mare with golden blonde mane frozen into a tight bun by liberal amounts of hairspray looked up at her friend from one side of the dirt-filled bed, her eyebrow ridges furrowed. “Rose, what are you doing? Daisy told you to watch for customers!”

“I give up, Lily. Nopony is giving me any action out there, so you’re my last hope,” the beautiful, yellow mare ran a forehoof through the pink part of her mane, seductively, tracing a suggestive arch around her left ear. “Not even the hummingbirds will have me! Whatever shall I do?” Roseluck licked her lips slowly, gazing at her flustered friends with hooded eyes as Lily’s heart skipped a beat.

“Ugh!” Lily stomped into the dirt as she struggled to regain her composure. Rose would often come and taunt her reclusive roommate with her perfectly color-coordinated body, long neck, and glorious feminine curves. Lily knew better than to take her roommate, a notorious stallion-aficionado seriously, but often found Rose getting under her pink fur all the same. “How long has it been then? A week? A couple days? Please tell me you can go more than a couple days without rutting!” Lily forced herself not to think of the image of a stallion mounting her from behind and...

“Rutting? Whoa, Lily, get your mind out of the gutter!” Roseluck laughed at her friend’s discomfort. Still smiling, she gestured toward the huge flower bed, “I just figured I was more useful here than at the cart selling flowers to nonexistent customers and freeloading hummingbirds. Sooo… do you need help with anything?”

Lily sighed. The sad thing was, she suspected that Rose was utterly ignorant of the true effect she was having with all her teasing. That was how it had always been for Lily in her mind; she was invisible, unimportant — most of all to the mares she’d fallen for. Whether they were not of the fillyfooler persuasion or simply contemptuous of the small, shy mare's awkward advances, none would show her affection. Or worse, they would openly mock her for feeling something as natural as the desire for the company of another mare. It also didn’t help that Roseluck considered all other mares beneath her notice, no match for her looks or skill at seducing stallions.

“No… I’m okay, Rose. I just need a few more bags of humus. Daisy will be able to take care of the rest of the purification with her earth magic.”

Roseluck nodded. “Fair enough. Still, she really ought to let us help with… whatever it is.” The yellow flower pony made a face.

For once, Lily agreed as she shuddered involuntarily. “Anything that comes out of that forest should be set on fire! And we certainly shouldn’t be breeding it!”

“Zecora uses stuff from the forest all the time,” Roseluck replied matter-of-factly. “Who knows, Lily? If we pull this off, we might all become famous around Equestria. Stallions from all across the land will want to know about the ravishing, rose-stamped, red-head and her adorashy lily-stamped friend.” Rose put a foreleg to her chest and posed for a gaggle of imaginary stallions looking on.

Lily raised a hoof to her mouth and made a gagging sound.

“You’re going to make me have to rut all of them myself, aren’t you? Well… if you insist, Lily. You’re making me the greediest mare in all of Equestria by doing so; but if it spares you the nightmare of talking to somepony else, I’ll happily do it for you.” Roseluck gave an equine curtsy to her friend.

“Of all the ponies to move in with…” Lily suddenly didn’t want to know if she wanted to laugh or cry.

“Come on, you know you love me, filly four-shoes!”

Lily turned her face towards the window to hide her teary eyes and furiously blushing face from Rose. For to hear it spoken so truthfully, even in jest, was simply too much for the shy mare to take.

For once, Rose seemed to pick up on her roommate’s distress. “You okay, Lily?” she asked in real concern. While it was fun to tease her fellow flower pony and see how far she could push things, Lily was difficult to gauge in even the most ideal situations. Push her too far, Daisy had warned her more than once, and her fragile psyche would buckle. I just don’t get her. If she would only tell me why she acts like this about sex…

The clopping of hooves outside heralded the long-awaited return of Daisy, pulling the old wooden company wagon carrying a load covered with a length of green tarp. Without thinking, Roseluck turned her attention towards the door and opened it for her third roommate, manager, and landlord — an exotic-looking, purple-coated, earth pony mare with a vibrant green mane and tail.

“Thanks, Rose," the mare thanked her co-worker as she crossed the threshold before turning to address her properly, a mischievous smile across her face. Pursing her lips as if in thought, her expression turned suspicious. "Say... why aren’t you at the flower stand where you’re supposed to be?” Daisy asked testily, her eyes stern.

“I told you, Rose!” Lily chimed in, like Rose, having missed Daisy’s half-smile she'd poorly managed to disguise.

After shooting a disgusted look at Lily for siding with authority, Roseluck turned to face her boss, a forehoof raised defensively. “Hey, come on, you two! Who am I supposed to be waiting for? I haven’t seen a customer in hours.”

Daisy’s eyeridges disappeared into her curly, lime-green forelock. “Oh, I see how this works. So… you’re telling me the reason you aren’t doing your job is that… you don’t have a job to do?”

Rose blinked. “Daisy, I’m just sayin’...”

Daisy cut her off with a wave of her hoof, now fully absorbed into her role as taskmaster. “You’re saying that me paying you to watch the stand isn’t motivation enough to do your job? Perhaps you’d like some time off to do your own thing?”

“Daisy, come on!” Roseluck pleaded as she suddenly worried she was on very thin ice, her voice rising an octave, approaching shrill.

Lily bowed her head and ears, looking guilty — as much as Rose got under her fur sometimes, she still didn’t want her punished for offering to lend a helping hoof. “Daisy, she was just trying to help me.”

“But of course she was, sweetie!” Daisy said heartily, her smile replacing her stern expression, betraying a tease of her own. “And since I need to concentrate on our newest plant, you’ll both be getting the rest of the day off with pay once I get my little friend set up inside the flower bed.” She nodded back at the covered cart behind her.

Lily gave a sigh of relief as Roseluck facehoofed, cursing herself silently for taking the boss mare seriously. “Your little friend?” Roseluck asked.

“Perhaps I should say ‘my super-important project assigned to me by The Royal Society of Canterlot Botanists’, but that does sound rather pretentious,” Daisy replied with a smile before unhooking her yoke and stretching her aching back with a relieved sigh.

“Come off it! Why are you sending us away? If it’s such an important project, we should be helping you out!” Roseluck stomped a hoof angrily.

“I’d say yes, but... “ Daisy shook her head before pulling the tarp off the cart to reveal a large pot containing a green-gray, hair-covered, plant covered with dozens of long tendrils; its appendages waving slightly as if it were alive and searching its immediate surroundings for something.

Lily shrieked immediately, Roseluck catching her as she went dizzy from fright and nearly fainted. “What in the name of Cerberus' little brother is that Tartarian monstrosity!?” the latter asked for both of them.

“Hey, you wanted to help!” Daisy replied heatedly, her face flushing at the thought of where her friend’s imagination must be going. “If you must know, this is an Everfree Tentaculous: a thermogenic plant species that lives off of the chaotic and corrupted energies of the Everfree. Unlike most thermogenic plants, this one requires corrupted energies to pollinate instead of insects, using its warm blood as a means of survival in an unstable climate. A fully-grown tentaculous can burrow up to one-hundred feet away to find its next source of magic and when it does, it latches onto it and sucks its magical energies dry!” Daisy grinned indecently. “And when it’s done with those energies, it re-releases them back into the forest in the form of its seedlings, which then spread those energies around to ensure its own future food supply, corrupting everything they come into contact with.

“I think I’m going to be sick…” Lily finally found her voice; even Rose looked appalled at the revelation.

“As to what I was saying about you not being able to help, my job is to wean it off of its corrupt magic for the purposes of breeding a species that can survive outside that nasty forest. To do this, earth pony magic is necessary. The thing is, by the nature of the tentaculus, only one earth pony can do the job for the tentaculous to be able to fertilize its seeds and bare uncorrupted spawn.” Daisy’s ears drooped. “Tentaculae have evolved to resist the very salvation I offer by rejecting more than one source of energy at a time — even when it’s hungry — until it has completely drained the first. This greatly reduces its chances of being tricked into eating harmonious magic, like ours, and die before it can spread its seeds. Sadly, the specimen here will not live for much longer outside of its defiled habitat, so I’ll have to act fast if there’s any hope for its offspring to survive.”

Roseluck listened, her mouth open in shock. Leaning a shivering and still unsteady Lily up against a convenient table, she spoke up, “Why!? Why do we want that thing creeping around outside the forest? Isn’t it bad enough that thing exists at all? If that thing starts growing wild all over Ponyville, I will never sleep again!”

Daisy looked at her friend with a pitying expression. “Rose, it may not be attractive to you —” Daisy gave the plant an objective look “— or anyone else really, but it is a living creature: A magical being that must be studied and understood, not cast off as useless. Are we not magical creatures ourselves?”

“Ugh, you might be the first earth pony to take the ground too seriously!” Roseluck grumbled, sarcastically. “But honestly, why do we need to domesticate this thing and risk it destroying Ponyville? Hasn't this poor village suffered enough?”

Daisy gave the rose-themed mare an exasperated sigh and gestured to the forest beyond the edge of town. “Do you not understand that every living thing in that forest is magical or influenced by magic? The corrupted tentaculae propagate the dark magic of the forest by absorbing and then enhancing and re-spreading the corrupted magic it feeds on. But what if we changed its food source to good magic? If we can teach it to feed on that, it would then enhance and spread that magic around! Instead of corrupting its surroundings, it would cleanse them instead! Given enough time and enough purified tentaculae, we could reverse the process of Everfree corruption! Given everything we’ve been through in the past year involving that monster's nest of a forest, wouldn’t you try anything at this point?” Daisy glowered at her friend, daring her to answer with anything other than ‘yes’.

Rose’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I get it. Just so long as it doesn’t destroy our village to save it,” she muttered skeptically.

Daisy snorted irritably, twitching her tail as if to rid herself of a nettlesome fly. “Look, just make tracks out of here, and take Lily with you. I’m going to be taking up the entire greenhouse for a while. Oh, and you may as well close up shop; ponies are staying indoors today, anyway. Most of the shops in town were shut down too; Celestia knows why. Too hot a day to be spent standing in a line, I suppose.” she shrugged, none of the three immediately noticing the pink clouds that were starting to gather overhead.

Not too hot for me to be standing outside suffering in it though, Roseluck groused internally. I should have gotten the entire day off and already picked up a stallion by now. Roseluck cringed hard as a tentacle lazily waved past her nose. "You're sure you don’t want any help with this at all?”

Daisy’s expression softened. Rose could be at a bit dense at times, but she always meant well. “You ladies have worked hard for me and deserve a break. Don’t worry about me, just go enjoy yourself. But Rose? Try not to overdo it, okay? Take frequent breaks to eat, drink, and breathe oxygen. And don't let the stallions raid my fridge and eat all our food. You got all that?” she added with a suggestive grin.

Roseluck’s expression brightened. “Yes, ma’am!” The grinning mare gave her boss a mock salute and placed her other forehoof on her terrified friend's shoulder. “Let's go get tucked, sister!”

Lily remained unresponsive until Roseluck gently nuzzled her on the cheek causing the suddenly very aroused mare to snap to attention. “Come on, Lily, it’s a day off work! Do you want to stay here with the hideous plant monster or join me and go find out where everypony in town is hiding?” When she got nothing but a stunned look from Lily by way of reply she sighed, “Come on, let’s go get a drink. If we do, there’s even a good chance you’ll actually get seen by somepony!”

Lily absent-mindedly touched the spot Rose had nuzzled in a daze. In a moment of horror, she took in a whiff of her arousal, a unique floral scent.

Looking up, Daisy gave her a wink and mischievous grin. “You lucky mare! With Rose at your side, you’re sure to attract interest! So go on, Lily, get out and have fun for a change.”

Getting no sympathy and her face aflame, Lily followed Roseluck out the door, wanting only to go hide in her room for the next week.

Daisy shook her head and smiled as they departed, Rose all but pushing Lily along. Those two are so cute together! I still can’t believe she hasn’t figured out that Lily has a crush on her yet. Can she not even imagine there’s sex without stallions involved? Daisy sighed, already knowing the answer. If I didn’t go picking up after them like their mother all day, I’d teach both of them a thing or two about loving another mare. After reviving them with smelling salts, that is!

Before she could return to her work, however, she caught a glimpse of a pink cloud floating lazily in the sky over the trees that separated her property from the road. Pink clouds? And just what are the pegasi playing at today? She stared for a moment more before shaking her head, deciding the weather was not her department and therefore none of her concern. Unwilling to leave the safety of her property to the stallion-obsessed mare and her reclusive sidekick, Daisy wheeled the flower stand into the greenhouse and then locked the door behind her.