A gray pegasus colt confidently sauntered up to Roseluck at her flower stand. Roseluck recognized him as Rumble, the younger brother of Thunderlane. The latter was a bit of a local hero, being a member of the Wonderbolts reserves as well as one of Ponyville’s representatives to the Equestria games. It was anticipated that Rumble might even have more talent than his older brother, and was certainly destined for greatness.
“This certainly is unusual. How may I help you today, Rumble?” Roseluck queried. The younger colt plunked a significant number of bits on the counter.
“I need a dozen of your finest roses,” he declared, flashing a winning smile that Roseluck was certain would be the bane of many a filly when he got older.
“Is your brother making you run these over to somepony again?” Roseluck asked. “He remembers what happened last Hearts and Hooves Day with Blossomforth and Helia, doesn’t he?”
“No, ma’am,” Rumble shook his head. “He learned his lesson the hard way. Not that it’s my fault. He never told me that they weren’t supposed to know that he was dating both of them at the same time. You’d think he wouldn’t try to pull that sort of stunt with roommates.”
Roseluck just shook her head and pursed her lips. Rumble probably wasn’t old enough to know what his brother had really been hoping to get by dating both mares. She couldn’t blame him, since it had worked for a bit with Flitter and Cloudchaser, but just because Blossomforth and Helia were twins didn’t mean that they were into that sort of thing. Roseluck turned to her lowers and attempted to get her focus back on her work.
“I have some pretty fine yellow roses this week, Rumble. Best batch we’ve grown in many a moon,” she said as she showed off her wares. She wasn’t sure what exactly had made this particular crop turn out so well, but she wasn’t about to knock her good fortune. They even tasted better than usual.
“I’m sure they’re great, but I can’t have yellow roses today. Those are for friendship. I’m in love.”
So that was it. Well, two answers with the same response, anyway. Friendship was probably a good reason for a spectacular yellow rose harvest, as Princess Twilight and her friends had made an epic impact on Ponyville. It had to have seeped into the soil somehow. Rumble was right, though. Friendship roses wouldn’t do for a filly if he was in love. Only one color would suffice, and it was the color of her mane. Roseluck wondered if it would be possible to have Princess Cadance visit Ponyville more often to see if her theory about the yellow roses proved just as true with red ones. She made a point to ask Twilight about it some time. For now, however…
“You’re in luck, Rumble. I do have a few red roses remaining that are worthy of giving to a potential fillyfriend.” She held back a chuckle as Rumble blanched a little at the mention of the word ‘fillyfriend.’
“She’s not really my fillyfriend yet,” Rumble mumbled, with a quick flick of his ear. “I still kind of need to ask her out.”
“All the more reason to make sure that you are well taken care of by the Flower Sisters,” Roseluck insisted. “Red roses aren’t the easiest type to grow, you know, it takes a special kind of hoof.”
Rumble glanced at Roseluck’s cutie mark, and then sheepishly at his own blank flank. “That’s why I came to you, Ms. Roseluck. I knew you were the best in Ponyville.”
“You’re a little charmer, like your big brother,” Roseluck smirked, although she knew it to be true. Roseluck and her sisters were all talented in the art of botany, but nopony in Ponyville grew a rose better than she did. She carefully wrapped up twelve of her best blossoms into a bouquet and sprinkled in some sprigs of baby’s breath as well for character.
“Sis, you’re giving him too much baby’s breath,” Daisy trotted over from the other side of the stall where she had been tending to the sunflowers and other blooms that were not generally associated with the holiday. “I’m gonna need that for the other customers, it is that day of the year, you know.”
“It’s the same amount I give everypony, and you know it. Butt out,” Roseluck said, sticking her tongue out at her sibling. Daisy had had a crush on Thunderlane for a while, but the stallion had never (to her knowledge, anyway) dated an earth pony. Roseluck didn’t think that it was a tribalist thing, since the local gossip had linked him and Rarity once, but Rarity had insisted that what they had gone on hadn’t been a date, so one could never be sure. Still, the rumor gave Daisy hope that maybe Thunderlane would notice her someday.
Roseluck finished tidying up the bouquet for Rumble, and presented it to him as if it were an Equestria Games medal.
“She’s going to be a lucky filly, kid,” Roseluck said, tousling his mane just for the fun of it.
Daisy snorted. “Somepony’s getting a bargain.” Roseluck rolled her eyes as Rumble beamed at his prize, becoming blissfully ignorant of everything except his new mission.
“Thank you, Ms. Roseluck!” He almost forgot to shout to her as he scampered off.
“Two bits says he eats half of ‘em before he even gets to her house,” Daisy grumbled. Roseluck gave her a light cuff to the back of the head with her hoof and silently grinned.
A green filly sat snoring in her rocking chair. Apple Bloom used to equate the sound to the roar of the ursa minor that had rampaged through town a couple of years prior. Her brother McIntosh would say it sounded more like the roar of timberwolves minus the stinky breath. Applejack said that her breath wasn’t as bad as the timberwolves… it was worse. That usually earned the middle sibling a smack for being cheeky, but it was something the family could laugh about. Of course these days when her own snores had a tendency to startle her awake, she usually didn’t laugh about it as much.
Granny Smith stretched her bones and listened intently with the hope of hearing that some of the pops and creaks had returned. There were a few, but not nearly as many as there used to be. She suspected that the ones she did hear were a result of sleeping in the rocker again instead of her bed. Her grandchildren often scolded her for doing that. She shuffled over to the bathroom, clambered onto the step stool that used to be reserved only for Apple Bloom, and looked into the mirror.
“Fingle fangle,” she cursed. “I’m still young.” She had known what she was going to see from the moment she had awoken, but stubborn as a mule, she still had to see it. Some ponies said that the definition of insanity was repeating the same actions over and over and expecting different results, but she held onto the hope that one day whatever curse she was under would be lifted and she’s wake up to see her old self in the mirror again. Her old self, not somepony who looked younger than her youngest granddaughter.
Twilight Sparkle had been unable to find a cure for her condition. Flim and Flam had practically bamboozled her with their curative tonic. It can make you shorter, taller, or even grow old… yeah right. Nothing drove them out of Ponyville faster than when she and Applejack showed the townsponies what frauds those two really were. Apple Family two, Flim Flam Brothers zero, she chuckled to herself and sighed.
That’s when she heard a tapping sound at the front door. It was faint, almost timid sounding, but there was somepony there. She scurried over to the door and opened it, not sure what to expect.
Granny recognized Rumble, one of Apple Bloom’s school friends, standing in the doorway, looking petrified.
“Well, howdy there, young feller. I reckon y’all are here to see Apple Bloom?” When the gray colt didn’t respond right away, Granny tuned and called up the stairway. “Apple Bloom, one of your coltfriends from school is here to play!”
“Graaaannnny!” came Apple Bloom’s exasperated cry. There was a pregnant pause, as if the filly were considering her options. “Who is it? Featherweight? Pipsqueak? First Base?”
“It’s Rumble, dear,” Granny called. Hearing a shrill squeal from upstairs, she turned to the colt, still standing in the doorway, mouth gaping. “She’ll be right down, hon.”
Something snapped within Rumble, and he finally found his voice. “Thank you kindly, ma’am, but I’m not here to see Apple Bloom, actually.” A quick stutter step allowed him to bring forward the roses he had been hiding behind his back.
Granny let out a laugh at that, which only caused Rumble to turn paler. “Well, bust my buttons, I’m sorry for assuming, young gentlecolt. Applejack’s probably out doin’ her chores, but I’m sure she’ll be by in a bit.” She gave Rumble a deliberate wink. “I know what day it is, sonny. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but AJ might think you’re a bit young for her, ya know.”
Rumble smacked his free hoof into his face. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered.
Apple Bloom slunk down the stairs, her eyes never leaving Rumble the whole time. “Did I hear you right, Rumble? You ain’t here to see me?”
Rumble grated his teeth and looked at the floor. Perhaps a hole to Tartarus would open up and suck him into it so this madness would end. “Well, not exactly. Besides, I know you’re already taken. I helped set you up, remember?”
Apple Bloom’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, that’s why this here is weird. What’s going on?”
“He’s here to see Applejack, dear,” Granny Smith said, winking again at Rumble.
“No!” Rumble shrieked. The sound came out a lot less masculine than he had intended, and he clapped a hoof to his mouth.
“No?” Granny and Apple Bloom both looked at him, confused.
“Um, what I mean to say is…” Rumble pawed the floor, and screwed his eyes shut. After a few deep breaths and what seemed to be an eternity, he stood up straight and tall, opened his eyes again, and proclaimed “It’s Hearts and Hooves Day, Granny Smith. Will you be my special somepony?”
The silence that followed was interrupted only by the sound of cicadas chirping from a tree outside the window. Granny Smith shot a quick glance at Apple Bloom, who was staring at Rumble slack jawed. The green mare raised her hoof and gently closed her granddaughter’s gaping mouth.
“Well,” she said. It was not a confirmation, nor was it a denial. It was something to say when she did not really know what else to say, and it certainly said something. She liked something. Something was her favorite.
“I…” Apple Bloom added. She looked at Rumble, then at Granny Smith. She blinked.
Rumble smiled uncomfortably.
“Well,” Granny repeated, nodding. Nodding was good, too. Although she wondered if she should be nodding at this particular time.
“I…” Apple Bloom started again. She looked at Rumble again, and her eye twitched. “I’m sorry, Rumble I can’t… I have to… apples.” With speed that would have made Rainbow Dash proud, Apple Bloom galloped out of the house.
“Well,” Granny Smith said for the third time. Her ear fluttered, and she picked up what sounded like Apple Bloom calling hysterically for Applejack outside.
“I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen next,” Rumble said. “Was that a ‘yes?’”
“You want me to be your… special somepony.” The way Granny’s voice failed to rise at the end indicated that she was not asking a question.
“Yeah,” Rumble smiled. “I even got you flowers and everything. That’s what a gentlecolt is supposed to do, right?”
“In… normal circumstances, absolutely,” Granny Smith nodded. She appeared dazed, but the shock of Rumble’s revelation was beginning to wear off, to be replaced by what could only be described as curiosity. “Of course, it isn’t every day that a school aged colt asks a supercentenarian to be his special somepony.”
“Normal circumstances… are you saying that the rules are different for you? Or is it me?” Rumble’s lip quivered a bit. Granny looked at him and mustered all of the patience that two hundred plus years gives to a pony and took a few calming breaths.
“Yes, there are different rules for me, but we can talk about that in a little bit. First of all, I have to ask… why me?”
Rumble flushed. “I just think you’re awesome, Granny Smith. You know everything there is to know about Ponyville, because you’ve lived through it all. You’re a successful businessmare, and have one of the coolest families in Equestria, and you make great jam and pies.” He hesitated for a moment before adding “Plus I think you’re cute.”
It’s got to be the twin pigtails, Granny thought wistfully.
“You were right before when you said that Applejack was too old for me,” Rumble continued. “But you’re not now. You’re, like, practically my age again, aren’t you?”
The thought pierced Granny’s heart like a knife through Zap Apple jam. She knew that she was going to have to be careful with this one. “In body, maybe. My soul is still the same age it was before I got magicked back into… this.” She waved her hoof at her filly self.
“But why does it matter?” Rumble asked, pouting.
“Rumble, dearie, let me ask you… would you still have this crush on me--”
“Not a crush.” Rumble interrupted, his pout becoming even more pronounced.
“--if I still was a white maned elderly mare?” Granny continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
Rumble considered the idea. “Of course,” he said almost immediately. “You were beautiful when you were speaking in front of our class at school. Plus everypony knows that it’s not just what you look like on the outside that makes you attractive.”
He’s going to be a stubborn one, isn’t he? Granny thought. She could feel his conviction eroding a bit, however. “You know that there’s always a chance that whatever spell was cast on me could end tomorrow and I could go back to being the old green mare that I used to be.”
“So what? I’d be fine with that,” Rumble insisted.
“I’m not so sure you would be,” Granny shook her head. “Thinking about it another way, our lifestyles are very different. You want to be a Wonderbolt, don’t you?”
“More than anything. My brother’s a reserve, but I’m going to be a full fledged member some day.” Rumble puffed his chest out proudly. “I’ve already got plans for Flight Camp this summer.”
“A very noble goal, indeed, “ Granny agreed. “You love to fly. I bet you and your brother have a really spectacular cloud house above Ponyville, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to come back with me and…” Rumble stopped short, noticing Granny Smith shrugging her wingless shoulders.
“I’d have a bit of a hard time walking on clouds, if you know what I mean,” she said softly.
“But… but… you could get thunderforged horseshoes or have Princess Twilight cast a cloud walking spell on you, or use a balloon, or…” Rumble’s eyes were tearing up.
“I could, yes. Maybe every day of my life, if I knew in my heart that we were meant to be together,” Granny looked away.
“I could move to the ground for you?” Rumble squeaked out.
“I couldn’t stand in the way of your dreams, dearie.”
Rumble snuffled.
“There, there. It’s all right,” Granny said, quickly snagging a tissue from its hiding place inside her kerchief. “The years have taught me that love is never a simple thing. Why don’t I put on some tea and we can talk a little more over some cookies?”
“Okay,” Rumble said glumly. He sat down on the couch, looking like he was trying his hardest to hold back any pride that might trickle out.
Granny trotted to the kitchen and scanned the room for the cookie jar. Of course it would have to be perched on top of the ice box where her tiny filly legs weren’t tall enough to reach it anymore. Hay, they wouldn’t have been able to reach it very easily when she was still old. She scampered back to the bathroom, snagged the stool with her teeth, and raced back to the kitchen. At least speed was something she had in abundance now. Clambering atop the ice box, she claimed her prize, and chuckled at the memories of all of the times she had been caught in her youth doing this very act, as well as the number of the times she caught her children and grandchildren stealing cookies from this very jar.
“These… are my cookies, and I’m gonna eat ‘em,” she softly declared between breaths on the climb back down. She then set about finding the teapot and setting it on the stove to boil, and hurried back to make sure her suitor was still sitting comfortably. Or at least as comfortably as he could be considering the circumstances.
“So I guess you think I was being silly, huh?” Rumble asked her as she entered the living room again.
“Love makes a colt do many things, but it is not my place to call them silly,” Granny replied. “My husband, rest his soul, did far sillier things than show up at my door with a bouquet of beautiful flowers. May I?” She held out her hoof.
“Sure,” Rumble shrugged, hoofing her the one with the longest stem. Granny took a bite. and chewed thoughtfully. “A very good batch this year. I remember when Roseluck got her cutie mark. Stallions used to have to make special orders to Canterlot to get roses for Hearts and Hooves Day until she discovered her talent. Try one.”
Rumble did, albeit reluctantly, but his eyes cleared up a bit after a few chews. “They are good,” he admitted with his mouth full.
“I think,” Granny continued, “that there might be somepony even more special than me that you might want to share those with. Someone who may be closer to your age, and shares a lot of the same interests. What about Cloudy?”
“Cotton Cloudy?” Rumble looked at Granny like she had just grown a snake tail and a goat’s head. Then his eyes softened. “Actually, she is kinda nice. I think she wants to be a Wonderbolt too, or at least a weather pony. She’s already got a cutie mark for it, but she’s got other talents too. She plays the accordion with a bunch of adults and gets paid for it, so that means she’s really good at it.”
Granny nodded. Apple Strudel was the flugel horn player in the group and was always talking about the talents of young Cloudy whenever he was in town.
“Wouldn’t it be weird, though?” Rumble asked. “She’s kind of my friend.”
“Sometimes that’s the best way,” Granny said, her eyes drifting over to a picture on the wall featuring her wearing a white veil and a young stallion in a tuxedo.
“Was that what it was like for you?” Rumble indicated the wedding photograph.
“Definitely,” Granny said, her mind drifting back to that special day, Apple Rose by her side as her mare of honor, Stinkin’ Rich sharing a flask of hard cider with her husband-to-be before the ceremony to calm his jittery nerves. The hooffasting ceremony where they “tied the knot.”
“I guess it wouldn’t be as weird as dating somepony who’s already been married and has foals,” Rumble decides.
“And grandfoals,” Granny added. “You’d be Apple Bloom’s Step-Grandpappy.”
“Hokey smokes, that would be weird,” Rumble laughed. “I guess I really wasn’t thinking, was I?”
“You’re a colt,” Granny Smith dismissed the idea. “The stories I could tell you… so,” she quickly changed the subject back to a certain white coated filly. “When do you think you’re going to see your real special somepony?”
The teapot whistled, interrupting Rumble before he could respond.
“Maybe after our tea and cookies, hm?” Granny snickered. She hurried to the kitchen and returned with a tray of cookies and two cups of tea.
“Remember the day after Cloudy fell into poison joke and you ate her tail?” Granny asked him.
“It turned into cotton candy. She was delicious,” Rumble said defensively. “Besides, Archer and Pip ate some of it, too. And it grew back eventually.”
“That was a fun day,” Granny agreed. “That’s the sort of memories that you need to use to build a relationship with.”
“So you’re saying I should go find some poison joke?” Rumble asked.
“Not exactly… it ain’t really funny for the pony that the joke is on,” Granny shuddered. “Ask Mac or Applejack, they’d tell you the same thing.”
“Did you ever catch it?” Rumble inquired. Granny snorted.
“You bet your boots I did. It weren’t pretty, neither. You ever hear of Sandy Crawfish?”
“The ubermodel?” Rumble pondered. “Thunderlane has some old posters of her in his bedroom.”
“Well, let’s just say that it made me even uglier than her.” Granny set her jaw.
“But she’s a model. She’s gorgeo--”
“Uglier!” Granny Smith snapped, ending the discussion and leaving Rumble confused. He chewed on his cookie in relative silence for a bit, while she sipped her tea, occasionally dunking a cookie of his own in the drink.
“I know it won’t be me,” Rumble finally said, “but do you think you’ll ever find a special somepony again, Granny Smith?”
Granny considered the idea. Not too long ago she had asked Iggy and Big Mama Q about the possibility of obtaining a Pairing Stone, but she hadn’t been serious about it. Still…
“I suppose I’m open to the possibility,” she said. “I’d probably have to be a little more comfortable in my own skin before then, though. There’s a lot of days where this just don’t feel natural. Mostly because it ain’t.”
“If I was older, would it be different?” Granny looked at the hopeful colt with a wan smile. He certainly was persistent.
“Possibly. I wouldn’t want to crush your dreams, and Celestia knows where I’m gonna be in another one hundred moons or so after you’ve gone off and broken every Wonderbolts record there is, but if there’s one thing I have learned over the years it’s… well like the song says, the trouble with ‘never’ is ‘never’ never works. Never thought I’d have to bury my husband and then our child before I went myself, so I never thought about what I’d do if somepony ever knocked on my door with a dozen roses…”
“Do you mean nopony’s tried asking you out since… um…” Rumble’s face contorted as he tried to figure out a polite way to say ‘your husband died’ without bringing back the pain of his loss.
“Oh, there have been a couple who have asked in their own way” Granny assured him, taking another sip of tea, “but none quite so boldly as yerself.”
“Who were they?” Rumble eagerly asked, his face beaming with curiosity. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling, that is… I like to know who my competition is.”
Granny smiled. “Well, there’s Mr. Waddle. Don’t let that bow tie fool you for a second, he’s sly like a fox, that one.”
“I’ve talked to him a couple of times. He’s really nice,” Rumble said with a nod.
“As for the other pony, believe it or not, I was actually approached one Hearts and Hooves Day by Foggy Fleece,” Granny continued. Rumble looked confused, and when he didn’t respond further, Granny added “Cloudy’s grandmother.”
Rumble’s eyes went wide. “You mean Nana?” Granny grinned and shrugged. Foggy was better known in Ponyville as Nana Knits in part because of her cutie mark.
“It’s one of the reasons I brought up living in the clouds,” Granny said. “There was a storm that year… the Big One that a lot of Ponyville residents never recovered from.” She glanced quickly at another nearby picture, this one being a family portrait where Rumble could see a baby Apple Bloom cradled in the arms of a mare who could only have been her mother, a strapping stallion who was the spitting image of Big Mac, except that Mac was probably Rumble’s age in the photo, and a young Applejack as well.
“Cloudy’s parents didn’t make it out of that blizzard either,” Granny said, “so Nana never retired the way she had planned. We got together that Hearts and Hooves Day, but both of us realized that with the recent tragedy, it wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t leave the Weather Factory, and I couldn’t leave Sweet Apple Acres, certainly not with young’uns to take care of.”
“Wow…” was all Rumble could say.
“I think another part of it was that I’m not sure if I’m into mares or not, but it would have been nice to maybe see… fate has a funny way of playin’ with ya when yer not watchin’ yer back.” Granny finished. The clock on the wall cuckooed, and both of them craned their necks to see what time it was.
“I supposed I should get these to Cloudy,” Rumble said, shuffling his hooves. Granny inferred this to mean that he was not fully convinced of this course of action.
“You’ll be fine, dearie,” she told him. “The worst thing she could do is not like you in that way, and you’ll still get to be friends with a pretty swell filly, right?”
“Yeah,” Rumble raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Swell. Thanks for the tea and cookies, Granny Smith, I’ll… let you know how it goes.” Closing the door behind him, Granny watched the gray pegasus take off into the air with his ten remaining roses. She walked over to her rocking chair, and sat back down with a great sigh (and still absent the sound of creaking bones). She glanced back to her wedding photograph and grinned slyly.
“Ya see, hon? I still got it. Not bad fer a supercentenarian…”
Cotton Cloudy practiced her accordion on a small tuft of cloud on the outskirts of Ponyville. She practiced it there, because accordions don’t really have a ‘quiet’ setting, which was part of the reason for choosing it as her special instrument in the first place. The fact that her Nana wasn’t fond of polka music also factored into the equation immensely. Even the ponies who enjoyed polka often were not in the mood to listen to a pony practicing the songs, as wrong notes would often creep in on the tunes she hadn’t played often enough, accidentally turning the Trotsylvania Polka into something sounding more like Thrash Metail.
Her concentration was broken by the sight of something red on gray slowly approaching on the horizon. Cloudy squinted, and she was able to make out her friend Rumble, his tiny wings buzzing with fervor the closer he got, a splotch of red coming from a parcel carried in his mouth that was rustling a bit against the wind. Rumble zipped closer, but not finding enough room on her little cloud to join her, decided to hover nearby.
“Huy Cwdhy, bwfghht yew fwrrers,” Rumble informed her through clenched teeth. Since Cloudy’s dazed expression indicated that she might not have understood a word he was saying with the bouquet in his mouth, he promptly spit the roses into his empty front hooves with a loud ‘patooie’ and repeated his greeting. “Um… hey, Cloudy. I… um… these are for you.”
Cloudy made no motion to accept or reject the proffered bouquet. She did look adorable with her mouth gaping open like that, now that he thought about it.
“Um… will you be my special somepony?” He grinned, hoping that his smile looked genuine instead of like a serial killer.
Cloudy looked around, scanning for other clouds where Featherweight, Shady Daze, and the Foal Free Press might be hiding out to snap candids of her. Seeing nopony, and deciding that anypony who was going to photograph her would have done it while she was practicing anyway, she finally responded.
“Rumble, you’re like, the most popular colt in our class. Diamond Tiara’s had a crush on you forever. Hay, I think Featherweight’s had a crush on you forever.”
“What’s that got to do with Hearts and Hooves Day?” Rumble asked, cocking his head.
“Nothing… everything. I guess what I mean to say is… why me?”
“I dunno, maybe because we’ve been friends for a long time, and I was given some good advice by somepony who knows about this love stuff. If you can’t be friends first and then see where it goes, what are you supposed to do? Besides, you’ve always been nice to me, and you’ve got interesting taste in music, and you taste good, and--”
Rumble was interrupted by the feel of Cotton Cloudy giving him his first kiss ever. Well, by a girl who wasn’t mom or grandma, anyway. It was… nice.
“So, do you want to go somewhere where maybe both of us could sit down? Not that this isn’t a great spot and all, but my wings are getting a little tired,” he said, blushing a bit.
“Sure thing,” Cloudy said, packing her accordion into her saddlebags, scooping up the roses, and taking flight next to him. “Where do you want to go?”
“How about Sugar Cube Corner?” Rumble suggested. “I know Pinkie Pie’s going to have a field day with this anyway, so it’s best to just let her do her thing, right?” Cotton Cloudy laughed. Rumble wondered why he’d never noticed the musical qualities of it before. Maybe that’s what love really was about.
The two pegasi flew off in the direction of Ponyville’s premiere bakery, fetlocks linked, possibilities limitless.
“Rumble?”
“Yeah?”
“Just curious, but why are there only ten roses here?”
~Fin~
