The Rose Garden

by TheManof2481

Rating: everyone
Tags: Horror, Romance, Random, Dark
Length: 4512

Roseluck loves roses, and discovers somepony who loves the majestic red flowers almost as much as she does. Perhaps she can show her the rose garden.

Roseluck always loved roses, but she never had anyone to share that love with. She has her two flower friends, who love their flowers as much as Roseluck loves her roses, but no one who loves roses as much as she does. Until one day, someone uses flowers in a way that very much reminds her of herself, reasons that make Roseluck sure that this mare will understand her love of flowers.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-12 22:50:01 UTC

The Rose Garden

April 25th:I always loved roses. I don't know why, it's just a particular like of mine that makes me special, although no more special than all my fellow ponies, who have their own passions. But i always did think that having roses as a passion was a strange thing, even after obtaining my cutie mark! I mean it's just a flower! And why roses? Why was i born with such an affinity to roses? When i was a teenage filly i asked myself this question again and again until i finally reached the ill advised conclusion that it's ultimately a pointless question and it would remain pointless should i ever reach a conclusion. I know today that's not the truth, and that there is a very physical reason for my love of roses, but my dreams as a teenage filly did not change: i loved roses, i wanted to work with roses and i'm glad i work with roses.

Because of this, i always wanted a special somepony who also worked with roses. His or her cutie mark didn't need to be related to roses, and roses didn't have to be his life passion, but it had to be somepony who found them beautiful and understood my love for them. It's why my friendship with Lily Valley and Daisy is so long lasting and strong, they may not understand why i love roses, as they like lilies and daisies, respectively, much better, but they understand why i love roses like they love their lilies and daisies, if that makes any sense.

I bring, this up, dear diary, because today happened something that i thought would never happen again: i met a mare that i think understands me and my love of roses and all things rosy. Her name is Rarity and she's a fashion designer. The fashion designer, who works at the Carousel Boutique, where i bought a dark and somber dress for when Carrot Top was officially reported as missing. When i met her, Rarity was reserved and acted somber, no doubt due to the circumstances. However, that came to an end as Pony ville slowly went back to normal, and i learned what a truly generous mare Rarity was. I went back there again to buy another dress, and i asked, in the friendliest and most casual voice i could muster, for one that had no overtone of loss, a red dress that went perfectly with my mane and my beloved roses. She was quite happy to take me into the boutique's interesting inventory. I embarrassedly admitted that i knew not a single thing about fashion, and i asked her if she had anything that went well with red roses, to which she replied "Oh, darling, i adore roses and their magnificent fragrance!"  and went to work, telling me to wait.

Upon hearing those words, my brain was assaulted by a series of disjointed thoughts, all centering around the white-coated mare. While this was far from the first time where i thought about Rarity in a more than friendly way, it was when i realized just how special she truly was. The river of these new thoughts did not stop flowing until Rarity herself told me with a warm smile that she was done, and that i should step inside the work room to see the finished product.

Without going into excessive detail on why this dress was amazing, i will say that it fit me completely and that it had a blood red rose, on my dress, the only detail i knew i wanted in this new dress. I had simply thought to myself that i would simply use one of my roses on the dress when i got home, but somehow, somehow, she saw ahead without me ever telling her about it. Not that it's a big mystery, my name is Roseluck for a reason, but it was at this point where i realized that Rarity held the same respect for the beautiful flowers as i and that she put as much care and work into her work (so much so that i would take back my claim about it being a ''product'', i would compare to a piece of art) as i put on my own, that i could relate to her due to the way that we worked, proof that our thought processes were so similar that we undoubtedly would be compatible.

I asked for a date this very day, and although she was shocked, she had no objections to this.So today we went to Sugarcube Corner, where i bought the fanciest, most expensive treat for both of us. After this relatively pleasant (i would dare call it good, even) first date, she offered to pay for both our treats! When I asked her out! She told me, in a somewhat arrogant tone of voice that reminded me of a boast,  that it was her pleasure to pay for the meals as the Element Of Generosity.  Had this been any other pony, i would see it as flaunting their status, but with Rarity, whom i know to be legitimately generous, i saw it as her having a real fiery side to her, a fire that's rose red. I loved that arrogance, something i thought i would never love in anypony. We arranged for another date. Not to sound desperate but i can't wait for it! It's been so long since I've been involved this way with another pony.

May 1st: Rare, as i now affectionately call her (as truly amazing things are rare), visited my house today and immediately fell in love with it's quaint decorations. "I do so love how you mixed a rustic interior decorating style with your flowers, darling.", she said. It appeared to me that she was honest in that claim, that she really did love it, and that's a weight off my chest because i was kinda nervous about what the fashionista would think of my place. She remarked what decorative wonders (nothing but roses of several colors) could do, and complimented my supposed talent in decorating, which made me blush a red redder than my mane or any of my roses. However, when we got to my bedroom, she was visibly sensitive to the lack of any adornments in my room. ''Lilies?'', I asked trying to simultaneously distract her from the lack of any decorating and furnishing and changing things up a bit, show her that i  have more than one trick up my sleeve. A faint smile creeped upon her face, and luckily it was not a forced or awkward smile. Thinking i could get away with it, I put the said lilies in her mane, an act which seemed to please her.

Rare wandered around the house for a while, and i watched her the same way one watches some sort of exotic creature, and then, suddenly and without warning, i realized i had overlooked something. She looked at my new project briefly, clearly grossed out. I had gotten so used to it that I simply never even considered how Rare might react to it. It was not my intention to show her something like this so early in our relationship.

She looked at it closer, and only stopped doing when she, suddenly and without warning, jumped at the air in terror and let out an incredibly loud, bloodcurdling scream.

"What.IS.THAT.THING!?" She asked, in an extremely melodramatic fashion. I was nervous as to what she might think of my simple abode before but now i was very close to freaking out, so i tried to explain, in the best of my abilities, what ''that thing'' was.

"It's just a project I've been working on. I'm not just a floweriest, i'm a botanist too. I thought you knew that, Rare." After calming down, she examined it even more closely than before. "Don't touch it" i warned her, yet she ignored me, and very soon after my warning she screamed a little "Ow", although it was more of surprise than of pain, as my project had bitten her. She directed her gaze at the space between the petals of the rose-like being, examining my project as if it was just as chic, unique and magnifique as any of her own creations. "It has tiny teeth between the rose lips" she observed. I too always called the the shapes that rose petals formed ''rose lips'', just one example of the many ways we think a like, the many ways we're compatible.

I was actually thinking that, by now, my project had grown on Rare, but as she stopped the examination, she expressed, clearly disgusted: "Honestly, darling, you'd have better luck passing it off as an animal than an actual plant." She continued this train of thought, giving me a laundry list of problems with the project "It's petals look more like fur than leaves, it writhes and looks like it's about to crawl away." I felt like crawling away hearing those words. "It looks so... fleshy" she squirmed as the final and most important item of the list came out of her mouth, which itself looked like was about to expel her previous meal.

I will admit i got defensive at this point, so i asked her if it wasn't possible for plants to look fleshy, and asked her why she was s disgusted with the sight when both of us, her cat and everypony else was too, made of flesh. Fortunately, Rare, knowing me like she does, calmly and dignifiedly deescalated the situation, and after i calmed down we simply went to get some drinks. I put on some music. I wanted to impress her so i got some baroque records.

However, shortly after i put on the music, the expert composition of the music was undermined by a distinctly unmusical cluster of random notes: the sound of a Royal Guard pony about to interrogate me again because of the Carrot Top case, which remains unsolved. Fortunately, i was able to keep my composure well enough to not let him into my house and answer all of his questions at my door. Then he asked me all of the same questions again. I explained to him that Carrot Top was just somepony who I was friendly with on the basis that we both grow plants. It appears to some of my friends that they believe me and Carrot Top were romantically involved somehow. "Mareish gossip," i told the guard, and i added "Don't you have a wife who gossips about her coworkers or something like that?" As soon as i said that, i felt the air become so oppressively awkward that if it were physically possible i would seriously cringe up into a raisin and disappear. That said, i knew for a fact that Carrot Top knew how to keep certain secrets, even if she could not be trusted with others, so i wasn't that nervous. I told the guard that i had no idea where she could have disappeared to, like I've told him so many times before. However, this time, i subtly implied that i would not be surprised if Carrot Top had been inspired to impulsively relocate to some remote place without telling anypony by an intense psychotic episode. I myself had despaired that within Top's farmer, plant-interested borders laid a disappointing, foalish dreamland of bright orange carrots and happy ponies eating the said carrots, a dreamland completely incapable of understanding why me and my friends loved our flowers so much. But i didn't tell the detective that. Anyhow, it was well known that Carrot Top had started dating somepony a week before her sudden disappearance (proof of her lack of loyalty, somepony like that could anger the wrong pony easily), so why even bother with me, i asked the guard.

It turned out the reason he was bothering me again was because he was informed of my belonging to some small sinister organization.

I replied to him that there was nothing the least bit sinister about botany and  sharing one's love with flower's with one's friends.

Not only that, I told him that i was an artist, and that artists are well known to have tendencies towards such things. I thought that after i explaining it to him that way, he would understand. He did understand, in fact he understood far too well, seemingly overly eager to dismiss me as a person of interest, no doubting merely acting that way so he could lull me into a sense of false security where i would admit my supposed crime. I didn't fall for it for a minute.

"Was that about the disappearance of Carrot Top?" Rare asked me, a little shaky. Ponyville is a small place, and even if the town has gone to normal, the memory of Top's disappearance is still very much fresh in our minds. "Mm-hm" i replied to her. I got silent and started brooding for a while, hoping that she understood my behavior was due to bad memories brought up by the interrogations and empathy for the missing farmer than the less than ideal date we had. "I have to go, darling." she said, and she did. I don't blame her, there was no way that we could salvage this date, not even somepony as perfect as her (i doubt even the princesses could save this date!). Regardless, i was still sad and angered to see her go, so i got rather drunk, and i took the time that should have been spent on a beautiful date with a beautiful mare re-reading a story about some friends who form a club, which soon morphs into a cult. Sinister indeed!

Oct 5th:Rare came today to my small, humble flower shop, so we could eat lunch together. I brought her to my inspiration corner, not unlike her own, so i could show her my new project. "Oh darling, that's divine. Very experimental, very artistique", she admired when i showed her a drawing of an impossibly beautiful mare with roses in her freshly washed hair. Her calling it divine, whether she meant it literally or if it was just the adjective she normally used to describe things she likes, almost ruined my day right there and then. That said, I did not lose my composure and i simply asked her to look closely at the flowers in the mythically beautiful mare's hair. It was barely noticeable that the flower stems of the flowers were not drawn, and not growing out of, but in fact growing into the mare's skull, like a thorny vine-shaped tumor. Rare did not seem to appreciate my level of dedication to my extra-dimensional attention to detail, however. And i thought we were making such good progress along the "sinister" path (Darned royal guard and their investigations!) Maybe I should wait until the end of our trip before showing her any of my more complex paintings that i have hidden in my house. She needs to be prepared, i don't want to scare or shock her or anything. At the very least our next month's vacation is prepared, Rare finally got somepony to take care of her cat. According to her, it only took this long because despite her best friend taking care of animals frequently, she couldn't house her cat for just a while because of the feline's less-than-friendly attitude.

Nov 1st: Goodbye, dear diary. I'll be back soon.

Nov 17th: After not writing about the subject for so long, i will now write about a chapter from our  vacation to Canterlot, a moment i believe to be something of a macrocosm for our whole relationship. Perhaps, perhaps there is some vague point that was made here, a point that i completely failed to get. If there was a point, I am still firmly in the dark about it. I've been here before with Carrot Top and i hoped that my escapist interlude with Rare on Canterlot would be definitive and not filled with vagueness. That said, i do believe that this moment in our vacation deserves to be remembered and recorded in the pages of this diary.

Canterlot looked absolutely magnificent (or magnifique, if you will) at midnight. We we're both gazing at the beautiful capital city from our hotel veranda. Rare was tipsy from drinking several alcoholic beverages during the day and i was in a condition similar to hers. Several extremely quiet moments of us observing the city passed, with the only sounds being Rare occasional satisfied sighs. I listened to the sound of rust-gray roses growing around me, despite the fact that there we're no roses of any kind in the room. The time was right for the deed, i thought, so i placed my dress, the very dress she made for me, on her right shoulder, but a question slipped between my lips. "Can you make beautiful dresses out of nothing but roses?"

"Can you?" I hypnotically repeated. "I can" said Rare.

"But can we find them in their moment of blossom in the moonlight?" "We can, We can" she chanted drunkenly. Indeed we could.

Suddenly the harsh leaves of the rust were brushing, or better yet, scrapping against our coats. Rare paused to pick up a smell one of the rust roses. She held it close to her nose and inhaled the aroma as if it were any other rose. This pleases me greatly, it means that she is very close to being prepared to being exposed to it. So much flora that is unknown to everypony but us flower ponies, that we take inspiration from constantly, and are told that our plants (in reality just flora from it, standardized to accommodate the dumb masses who could not hope to truly understand these worlds) are original and interesting, in a world where nothing can ever be original or interesting in any way.

I I encouraged her to press on across the flower-bedded earth. We continued pushing into the dream garden, faster and faster and faster. The smells and sounds were overwhelming. It was much faster and easier than i thought. At some point, with almost no effort at all, i successfully managed to fully depart both of us from the geography of this world.

"Rare, Rare," I shouted, "We're finally here. I've never shown this anypony, and it's been such a torture keeping it away from you!" I told her, almost crying with joy. Finally, i could show it to Rare. "Look at this world, dear Rarity! It's hypnotic and beautiful. For so long, I've longed  to share this beauty, the very cause of my cutie mark, of what makes me special with my special somepony who can truly understand. I know you aren't as much into flowers as I am, dear, but i do know we look at our passions as art, and that you look at your dresses the exact same way i look at my roses, sometimes even incorporating the flowers in your work, so i know you understand this, Rare, that you can see this for it's true, otherworldly beauty. Since the very beginning of our relationship I have yearned to show you this resplendent world in it's full bloom and have you witness it with strange delight" I laid it all out for her, it's been torture keeping it inside this long. Oh, the joy of brining your special somepony to this dark floral paradise. After I let it out of my system, i finally looked back at her, and she simply asked, gazing at the sky "What's wrong with the stars, the... sky?" She was trembling.

Eating breakfast next morning I subtly probed her for judgments and impressions on our night before. This turned out to be in vain, however, as she was badly hung over from the drinking and remembered only disjointed bits and pieces of what she experienced last night. Oh well, at least she didn't go into hysterics like my old friend Carrot Top.

Since we returned to Ponyville I've been working on a new painting. Although I've painted pictures like this many times before, this one is supposed to be able to stimulate Rare's memory and hopefully induce a full recollection of not only that certain night in our vacation but also of all the messages I have tried communicating to her through subtle implications. I know she'll understand.

Dec 1:By The Moon! Fashion, dresses and being the center of attention of a bunch of sycophantic dilettantes is what Rare's heart truly desires. She conforms to the normal standard of beauty far too much . I can see that now. I showed her my finally finished painting, thinking that she might even be excited to see it. But I think she was just waiting for me to embarrass myself so she could laugh at me. In fact, I think this whole relationship has been nothing more than a long-winded practical joke at my expense, and it wouldn't surprise me if Rare has been laughing at me behind my back this whole time. But I digress. She was sitting down on her couch when i showed her my painting, she was bitting her lower lip nervously, and after a brief moment of examining my work from afar she reacted as if there had been a startling noise. Now, I'm well aware that this painting is not a masterpiece by any means, I have a rose cutie mark, because that's where my talents lie, with roses, not painting (I wish Rare was more sensitive to this), but I was hoping she understood that this little exhibition had an extra-aesthetic purpose, a purpose that lied beyond the actual quality of the painting. I searched her eyes with my own for the tiniest bit of either insight or at least empathic understanding, but nothing. "Well?" I asked, as a last ditch effort. However, her gaze told me everything I needed to know, and reminded me of another mare I used to know. She gave me a second look, and then looked at the picture with visible scrutiny.

What's in the picture, you ask? The interior of a house, very much like my own - basic and rustic (that word brings nothing but memories!), with a window in the very center of the wall facing to the rose garden, as if to direct the viewer's sight telescopically towards it. Beyond the window is a vista unlike anything in either Equestria, or in fact, this very world. Outside is a gorgeous kingdom of roses of all shapes and colors, a realm of crooked, creaking rainbows and twisted, twirling auroras. Radiant colors are calmed by the glass, so that their eldritch intensity does not threaten the very foundations of the world around them. Some stars, who owe nothing to the night of Princess Luna, blossom like roses in the darkness.  And upon the window's surface, inside the house, is a lonely mare with a light red mane and raspberry streaks, gazing into this otherworldly paradise of dream-like flora.

"Well... it's very good," she stated. "Very realistic."

Not in the slightest, you rare Rarity. It's not realistic in any way, shape or form.

Some painfully awkward silent moments later Rare told me she had some prior one of her girlfriends. They way she said it really rubbed me the wrong way. Girlfriends. A girlfriend of hers that does girly thing girls do when they're with their girlfriends. That said, i kept my composure and said i understood. I don't consider myself obnoxiously clingy or jealous or anything like that, but i was still distressed to see her go and i think i know why. It was something i could see in her every move, twitch and expression, something that I've seen before, and it gave away her suspicions about me and my private life. Of course, she already knew about me and the other flower ponies, as I've gone as far as to paraphrase and abridge our discussion in our meetings, obscuring their true esoteric meaning gradually more transparently, so i could prepare her one day for the naked truth about us flower ponies. And now i fear she might relay this information to the wrong ponies, like say, that royal guard investigator.

Dec 3rd: Tonight we held an emergency meeting, like we always do in times of panic (some ponies like to say we overreact, but i like to think that they're underprepared in times of crisis). Daisy and Lily feel like there is a problem, maybe because there is a problem. Ever since i met that white-coated love of mine i could feel their growing uneasiness, which is fine, it's under their rights to overreact. However, they have been proven correct, due to my romantic lack of judgment.

They expressed their fears about an outsider, a non-flower pony, knowing so much. Rare is a stranger now, and they wondered in horror what her gossipy self might disclose to her friends, who, for all intents and purposes, are national heroes. Our marvelously aligned chakra is now threatened with exposure. All the unassuming calm that we need for our lives making and selling flowers would be lost, and it would go straight to hands of ponies who can not properly appreciate it.

This is not the first time this happens, and i'm not the only one to have committed this sort of mistake. We three have no secrets from each other. They know everything about me and i know everything about them. They knew of every single step taken in the progress of my relationship with Rarity. Lily even predicted this outcome. I thought they were wrong and that serious progress was being made with Rarity, but now i must admit Lily was correct. "Do you want to see this group go trough?" they asked in so many different ways, only changing the words and never the question. Eventually, I consented to their demands, and they sent me back to house where I took emotional comfort and company in my roses (if only i could make a mate out of a rose!).

I'm never getting involved with anypony else the way I did with Rarity ever again, even if I said the same thing after the whole Carrot Top debacle. I look at my project for a long while, the one that scared Rarity so much, and i saw how it's fleshy protrusions and furry appendages were fleshier and furrier, and how it's writhing had grown far more intense. One day, there truly will be a pony made of roses.

Dec 4th: Because of you, the door closes

And you'll remain inside a garden of crooked, creaking roses

A beautiful garden, understood by few

Don't worry about your sister, we'll take care of her too

We'll find a cozy place for your cat to snuggle and play

Away from the rose garden, they'll have a cozy place to stay

Something covers you, inside this rosy, thorny paradise

Rose lips laugh, eat and finally arise.

Dec 5th: Roses.