Withania slowly opened her eyes to the sunshine bearing down on her. She was surrounded in the pure white petals of the Tegmen flower’s second stage, the nectar having drained away into the stem. Her body lay haphazardly around the centre, and she had a trickle of golden drool down the side of her cheek. The position of the sun told her it was nearly midday.

“What!” she wheezed aloud, propping herself up, “I was out for an entire day! Ooof...”

She quickly fell flat against the flower again, the Tegmen wobbling slightly. She felt exhausted, nothing like the refreshed spring daisy that popped out of the flower the previous two times. Looking down at her body, she saw beautiful pale green petals mixed into her fern-green coat, the Tegmen’s gift to her. “Maybe we just got a bit rough last night, huh girl?” she said with a smile.

She stood up and felt a tug at her nethers. Assessing herself and saw a green tendril, a vine-like stamen connecting from the neck of the flower to somewhere inside her passage. She glanced around herself in embarrassment, but there were no points in Ponyville that could overlook this part of her garden. She’d made sure of that when she planted the Tegmen.

Knowing that the petals on her coat were superficial and came out at the slightest pull, she gingerly tugged on the vine. She felt it snag deep inside herself, all the way in her womb, but like the petals it broke off and wincing slightly she pulled it out, her knees wobbling. Despite the rush and pleasure of the night before, a look of concern clouded Withania’s face. It felt different. It felt like she’d gotten carried away and been careless, and a nervous uncertainty made her hesitant. At least she hadn’t been consumed by the plant, and was here to tell the tale - although after what had happened last night she might have to do some serious research into what else the Tegmen was capable of. If it still had hidden abilities she hadn’t seen yet then using it had been a grave risk that she’d taken no measures against.

Sitting at the edge of the flower, she jumped down onto the hard flagstones around the garden plots and shook herself. Her stomach felt like she’d drunk a gallon of cider, her muscles ached, and although nothing felt wrong in her abdomen, the sensation of the vine detaching inside her lingered in her mind. She made her way indoors and put the kettle on. A nice tea would settle her mind, followed by a morning of pottering around the garden. Stick to what she knew best.

While the tea brewed she brushed her mane, the thin green tendrils that were mixed into her hair coming out in the brush. She would’ve liked to keep them for a day or two as she had the last time, but for now she wanted normality. Her fur coat petals could stay at least, the nectar had done its wonderful job of conditioning her fur better than the finest shampoos from the spa could, and the petals generally came out of their own accord within a day or so anyway.

And then she dropped her brush and ran for the toilet.

Her stomach convulsed and she retched as a wave of nectar mixed with stomach acid flowed into the bowl, and moment later it was all over. Sitting back she spat and swallowed a few times to clear her mouth, wrinkling her nose at the burning taste of bile.

Well… I did drink a lot of nectar, she thought, Maybe my body is just trying to clear itself…

She felt better for throwing up, as the way things often went, and carried her tea outside to tend to the garden. The watering was overdue after her impromptu lay-in, and the nursery desperately needing tidying with all her saplings falling off of their support canes. She also needed to trim the roses - she had cultivated a unique colour that she knew the flower shop in town would simply love.

It felt good under the sunshine. Every now and then she caught sight of her reflection in the panes of the greenhouses and saw her stocky earth pony body looking the same as always, the nightshade cutie mark on her flanks and her slightly wild terracotta mane. However, she found herself in constant need of drink, even going so far as to swallow mouthfuls of water from the garden hose to save having to walk back inside her house yet again.

And then she dropped the hose pipe and ran for the compost heap in the corner.

With one hoof against the fence and her forehead resting on the fetlock she let her body do… whatever it felt like it needed to. But she brought up only nectar, thinned slightly with water, but golden, and sweet smelling. There was no bile. Her mouth was sticky with the Tegmen’s fluids, however the acrid taste of bile that normally accompanied this unpleasant exercise was completely absent. There was no way she hadn’t purged all of the nectar earlier in the day - she couldn’t possibly have that much left in her that she hadn’t simply digested. Yet there was no stomach acid to be digesting it.

She trotted back into the greenhouse and stood in front of the free-standing mirror she used to angle light at certain plants, leaning in close with her mouth open. Her tongue and gums were pale, almost white, and the back of her throat was the same. She chewed her tongue experimentally. It felt normal, but opening her mouth again she saw not strings of saliva stretching out, but more nectar. She almost couldn’t taste it because her entire mouth and throat were coated - her taste buds had acclimatised.

“What’s happening to me?” she whispered, looking into her tawny irises and seeing the same lack of pink around the edges of her eyelids, where the tear ducts sat in the corners.

She sat down and closed her eyes, doing her very best to remain calm. She wasn’t in pain and so far, apart from throwing up a couple of times, there seemed to be no other ill effects ailing her. Perhaps the sickness was just a reaction, something that would pass. Maybe all of this was temporary - after all the petals and hair vines that grew on her body after a session in the Tegmen were temporary. And she had gotten fairly serious last night. The memory of the stamen coming out of her mouth flashed through her mind. It had been inside almost every part of her body.

She breathed in slowly and calmly, puffing out her chest and holding the position. And holding. And still holding. She opened one eye, not feeling the slightest discomfort at her lack of breathing. Trying something else, she exhaled as far as she could manage, her posture shrinking down again. The same thing happened, there was no involuntary inhalation, no gasp, no burning of the lungs. Her diaphragm was just... off. She could move it, but it didn’t move of its own accord. She had probably been breathing all day out of habit, but right now she felt no need to draw a breath.

Or had she? How often did she actively think about breathing? Had she gasped for breath after she’d been sick in the bathroom? Or over the compost heap? Her mind started racing, trying to remember details she wasn’t used to thinking about.

Am I dead? she suddenly thought morbidly. She held a hoof up to her neck and fumbled around for her jugular. A pulse, strong and steady - albeit a little fast - was there. She thought about sighing with relief, and then didn’t.

What else hadn’t she done all day without realising it? She slept until nearly noon. She’d drunk water. She’d eaten lunch.

Wait, no I didn’t… I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning…

Nearly thirty-six hours without food, she should’ve felt something. The Tegmen’s nectar would have sustained her overnight, but half a day of gardening normally worked up an appetite in the earth pony. She didn’t feel hungry. If anything she’d felt stronger as the day went on, outside in the garden and the greenhouses, sun on her back…

She looked up at the glass roof overhead, the late afternoon rays refracting through the panes. Without saying anything she walked over to her desk and pulled a lumpy old microscope forward from the back corner. Taking a glass slide from a container on the side she walked out to the Tegmen flower and rubbed it vigorously against one of the huge leaves around the stalk. Next she returned to the desk and repeated the process on her left foreleg.

Placing the two slides under the microscope she peered through the viewfinder, adjusting the zoom and focus until she could make out the cells floating on the surface of the glass. The Tegmen slide looked like, well a Tegmen sample. She’d seen many of them while growing the Magnus specimen. She moved her own sample under the viewer and saw a denser packing of cells - but as she squinted, zooming in as far as her second-hand equipment could manage, the resemblance between the cells she’d taken from her own skin and the Tegmen leaves were unmistakable. She looked up and the sun again.

Am I photosynthesising?

Well there was one way to put it to the test, she slid off of her stool and trotted back into the house again. She opened the door to the kitchen pantry and shut herself inside with the light off. On any other day she would have felt incredibly foolish, sitting in the dark surrounded by bags of oats and her homemade tins of tomatoes and other winter supplies - but something about her was wrong and she needed to know the truth.

Perhaps it was the sudden switch from being active to sitting still, but she felt her energy waning. It wasn’t tiredness - at least not yet - but the drive she’d felt while gardening faded to a similar state to how she’d woken up, a little tired and groggy after a long night. She sat there with her mind churning away for ten minutes before she grew bored and walked outside again.

Immediately as the sun hit her face and back she felt a response in herself, her muscles bracing themselves for use as if she’d just stretched. She suddenly felt like she could keep working for hours and for as long as the sun warmed her she wouldn’t run out of energy.

“Well... I guess there’s plenty I can get done,” she said to the plants, “May as well take advantage of this...”

Author's Note

Stay tuned for more, y’all, this one ain’t a one-shot!