Our Kind of Weather

“Pppbbbh!”

Twilight woke up spluttering. A midnight snore had sucked strands of her mane into her mouth, making her feel like she was choking on an old net. Her dreams had been filled with spiders, and she wanted to slap her hooves at the shadows on the bed, just in case.

“Blegh….”

Well, that was a pleasant night’s sleep ruined. Twilight slid out of bed and noticed the mail next to Spike’s sleeping body. She crouched over his form, brushed her lips over his scaly forehead, and took the mail in her teeth so that the glow of her magic wouldn’t disturb his sleep.

It was still dark out. Twilight stumped down the stairs in the heavy way of those whose legs haven’t quite gotten the signal yet that the body is supposed to be awake. They took her down to the kitchen area, where her head stuck itself in the fridge and rummaged for something to have for breakfast while her horn got busy making the coffee behind her.

She set the mail down on the counter to go through in a bit, but the gold trim from the package on top caught her eye. While the coffee gurgled in the background, she looked at the package with the light of the lavender glow cast from her horn. It was the invitation to the Grand Galloping Gala this fall—well, whatever. She had been going to it as long as she had been managing it, and though she wasn’t managing it this year, Princess Celestia always invited her old students.

Besides, basically everypony important got invited, and there was hardly anypony more important than a Chief Executive Economist of the Daughter bank of Ponyville.

Twilight turned to the window, cup of coffee floating by her head, where the faint yellow on the horizon that signified sunrise still had yet to show.

The Daughter bank….

After the hectic initial days, there wasn’t actually a lot to do at the Daughter bank. The thing ran itself, and what it did was little more than what ponies expected it to. Only in the event of a catastrophe like Nightmare Moon would the Daughters be more than a source of paperwork and a fancy title.

And headaches. There were all those editorials in the papers, all the research coming out of organizations she had never heard of before the Great Succession, publishing papers that wore the skin of science and had none of the heart.

“Who are you?” Spoiled Rich had asked her.

Twilight sipped her cup of coffee. She didn’t subscribe to any of the Flim-Flam-funded journals or their newspapers, but the Daughter bank had a subscription to everything that was relevant to its operations, as defined quite generously by Twilight. She spent a lot of hours in her office there, reading and thinking.

The sky was just barely giving off a golden glow in the distance. If she went out walking now, as she had taken to doing, the trees would be casting long bluish shadows on the snow. Those were quiet, frozen hours, with the trees like snowy statues, the new sun climbing sluggishly, and so few souls awake that it was easy to avoid them. The icy crunch of a single hoofstep that wasn’t her own could shatter the entire illusion.

Though some of those other souls she quite liked. She had spent a morning with Applejack helping her put blankets on the trees. And another morning with Fluttershy feeding her nmeoles[1], or whatever Fluttershy insisted on calling them this week.

[1] Naturally or Magically Existent Organisms, Life-forms, and Entities. Also known as animals.

It would be nice to take a walk.

Deciding she might as well open the mail first, she turned to the package on the counter and tore it open. She scanned the formal letter—no mention of her status as the CEE of a Daughter bank.

Two pieces of rectangular paper with gold trim fell out of the package onto the counter.

And between them was a third, smaller note, in Princess Celestia’s hoofwriting:

Bring a friend! —C

Twilight’s mouth fell open.

She had five friends.

Who was going to get the extra ticket?

Something rapped energetically at the door. Twilight quickly stuffed the tickets and the letter into a cupboard

“Coming!” she called, folding Princess Celestia’s hoofwritten note and tucking it behind one ear.

It was Pinkie Pie, beaming behind a white paper box.

“I won’t be long,” she said, stepping inside at Twilight’s stammered invitation. She wore a bright white scarf with a red line running through, making her look like she was wreathed by peppermint. When her poofy pink mane began to bob up and down as she talked, Twilight got a whiff of the ingredients Pinkie Pie must have recently been baking with and knew why peppermint had come to her mind. “How’s my favorite purple pony doing?”

Twilight winced. Pinkie Pie’s p’s popped like a balloon of bubblegum, and Spike was still sleeping.

“Oh, sorry!” said Pinkie Pie in a whisper that could have shaken the snow from the top of the tallest mountain. “I’m visiting the forest with some cupcakes, and your house is on the way, so I brought one by for you!” She popped open the top of the box, revealing a colorful assortment of, indeed, cup-shaped pastries.

Twilight swallowed her drool. Sugarcube Corner, Ponyville’s local pastry franchise, had been reviled in the Flim-Flam-controlled press two days ago for marketing addictive snacks. She had to admit, there was something—she swallowed again—alluring about the deep red velvet cake and the luscious dark chocolate, something painfully tempting about the generous heaping of peanut butter chips in one and the hypnotic swirls of vanilla frosting in another—

“Uagh,” Twilight’s throat made an involuntary motion. It was that or drown.

“Are you okay?” Pinkie Pie asked. Her bright eyes were completely innocent of any devious plot to bring the world to heel under her sugary dominion.

“I’m fine,” said Twilight. I can stop at any moment. I’m just picking up this lavender-frosted one with the glittering little sugar crystals and the cake that smells like what lemons probably wish they smelled like because Pinkie Pie was so nice to come all this way through the snow and it would be rude not to take one. I don’t need to eat this. It would be weird to lick it in front of her. Stop licking it!

Twilight got her tongue back in her mouth, and only a little frosting came with.

“Isn’t it a little early to be out?” Twilight asked. She set the cupcake down on the counter for later, trying not to look at it.

“It’s a long walk to the Everfree Forest,” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully.

Twilight couldn’t hold back a nervous shudder. “And you really feel safe there?”

“Safe? Um, no? I feel needed.” Pinkie Pie looked solemn for a moment, a very unusual expression on the face of a pony who was usually full of laughter, usually because she was laughing, usually at her own joke.

“Needed?”

“Yeah. You know, I used to live on a rock farm. Did I ever tell you? It was fun! Anyway, it was near the mountains, right? And so griffons would visit! Have you ever met a griffon? You should ask Rainbow Dash about them. Anyway, where was I? Rainbow Dash?”

“Griffons,” Twilight prompted. It wasn’t the first time that Pinkie Pie’s train of thought had been knocked off course by her own stream of consciousness.

“Oh, yeah! Well, it’s so funny! They use money for everything. If you ask, how are you???, they respond, a penny for my thoughts!!!”

Twilight vaguely remembered a report coming out of Nova’s Daughter Bank about a theory of monetary barter. She’d been too busy to read it carefully.

“It was just sort of sad, you know? And the trees feel the same way. They’re hungry, but they don’t know how to eat. That’s just how it feels. I can’t explain it. Just a feeling!”

“Is this your Pinkie Sense?”

Pinkie Pie nodded. Twilight didn’t doubt Pinkie Pie’s sixth sense for the language of the trees. Utterly blind, Pinkie Pie had led her and the rest of their friends through a maze of thorns without a single misstep during their adventure into the Everfree Forest. Twilight would have followed Pinkie Pie anywhere, except perhaps to a slim waistline.

“I’m sure you know what’s best,” Twilight said. “Your cupcakes could fill the void in anything less void-y than Nightmare Moon.”

Pinkie Pie scoffed. “Once I finish my experimental mega-chocolate ‘Black Hole’ cupcake, even Nightmare Moon won’t be able to escape the cake.”

“Oh. How’s that going?”

“It’ll be better once I find it. It keeps absorbing all the light in the room, and I lose track of where it is.”

Twilight decided not to ask any more questions about Pinkie Pie’s investigations into the mysteries of marshmallow and the cryptic secrets of confectionery. The dark unknown of the dolce was best left to experts. After all, the uninitiated or the weak-willed risked coming out of their experiments unrecognizable—mostly owing to massive weight gain and a rather embarrassing smear of chocolate around the lips. (The initial temptation and the inevitable self-destruction were just two of the ways in which baking and summoning eldritch horrors were very much alike, in Twilight’s opinion.)

“Speaking of Nightmare Moon, I did want to ask you about something,” Pinkie Pie said. She actually looked a little uncomfortable. Twilight hadn’t known that Pinkie Pie could be uncomfortable. Pinkie Pie bounced across the quicksand of interpersonal norms and rammed her way through the barriers of social awkwardness with all the awareness of a rhinoceros trampling through a spider web. What could possibly be bothering her?

“I know it’s a difficult subject,” Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight’s mind raced.

Lemon Hearts?

“No, it’s okay!” Twilight said. “I’m trying to—you can ask me about—”

“Since they’re your sisters,” said Pinkie Pie unhappily. “Or whatever. I mean, I know you’re not related to them.”

Lemon Hearts had never been a Sister. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw in the paper yesterday about a piece of research—”

“Oh.”

“—from one of the Daughter banks—”

“What?”

“—about the anticompetitive effect of Sugarcube Corners spreading to other cities—”

“Huh?”

“They said that too many stores from out of town would depress the, um, private creation of public goods, because, like, we’d be less invested in them? It was from the Manehattan bank,” Pinkie Pie added.

Twilight constructed what was probably Twinkleshine’s argument in her mind. “That’s dumb,” she said firmly after a minute of thought. “They’re using this to block your expansion?”

“Probably? I’m worried they might. I was trying to buy a piece of property in Manehattan. Just a small corner!”

Pinkie Pie looked so miserable and helpless that her mane was starting to droop. Twilight forced herself to smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll write to Twinkleshine and get this cleared up.” And find out why she’s going after one of mine.

Pinkie Pie’s prodigiously permed hair sprang back into place. “Thanks!” she beamed.

She gave Twilight a hug before leaving. That close, Twilight got strong impressions of vanilla and peanut butter from her hair in addition to peppermint.

The door closed. Twilight let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she was holding in. She grabbed the cupcake from where she had set it down and sat heavily on a stool, floating the two golden tickets out in front of her eyes.

Was Pinkie Pie the one she should invite?

Consumed by thought, Twilight didn’t even notice as she took the first bite of lemon and lavender cake.

The sun lighting the snow like the golden edge of a toasting marshmallow, Twilight waddled through the snow to Rarity’s house, bundled in winter clothes. They hadn’t seen each other since the New Year, thanks to the piles of snow everywhere, and had made plans for an early tea.

“Now that school has started again, I finally have some time to myself,” Rarity said. She was draped across a glitzy purple sofa, wearing a fuzzy white bathrobe and stroking her cat, Opalescence, while next to her, her teacup floated in a magical blue glow. “Keeping Sweetie Belle entertained all day was not good for my productivity.” She sipped her tea. “Mm. Applejack came by earlier to cart her off with the other schoolfillies. An actual cart, mind you. Bless that pony. I can’t deal with this much snow, Twilight. I just can’t.”

Rarity was the most obvious choice for the extra ticket. She was elegant and fancy. She liked wearing dresses and talking to rich ponies.

“It’s all because of Nightmare Moon,” Twilight said. “This was originally going to be a mild winter. I did my best, but Ponyville had to take its fair share of the excess snow like everyplace else.”

Opalescence made a grumpy noise. Rarity shushed her and stroked her from head to tail. “Oh, I don’t doubt that this was the best plan. Canterlot knows what’s best!” She giggled nervously and took a sip of tea. “It just makes traveling such a chore. I don’t expect I’ll see Fluttershy until the spring if she doesn’t come up to visit. Ah! You’re one of the Canterlot eggheads who makes these decisions, or you were. I really shouldn’t complain to you.”

Rarity was also the most obvious choice not to give the extra ticket to. She had such an inferiority complex when it came to the rich and the elite. If there was anypony for whom Twilight could see the Grand Galloping Gala being an utter disaster, it was Rarity. She was the most vulnerable, the most exposed.

“All I ever did was help Princess Celestia with her workload,” Twilight said. She was buried in Rarity’s armchair. Experience had taught her that it would be a struggle to get up. “This is good tea,” she said to change the subject.

“Three times the regular caffeine,” said Rarity, staring off vaguely.

Twilight calmly put the cup back down on its diamond-pattern saucer. She might not have the opportunity to do things calmly in a short while. “Why?”

“Twilight, the dressmaker’s life is one of creative fits of passion,” Rarity said. “At any moment I might be struck by an idea for an entirely different concept of dress. I must be open to the possibilities. And I certainly don’t steal anypony else’s ideas,” she added gloomily. She was still staring away as if there was something incredibly distracting about the air to her left.

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked. “Did somepony accuse you of stealing their idea?”

“Accuse?” Rarity laughed like the high chime of a bell rung by a furious hunchback. “Oh, no, dear Twilight, I have not been accused of anything. An accusation requires evidence, or at least courage! I have been insinuated against. Vile rumors—grotesque misapprehensions—but there is nothing for me to say, because what has been said? A linkage of phrases, a certain pattern to certain statements that give rise in the mind to ideas that cannot be reduced to any mere accusation. Twilight, I am dealing with the media.”

“Tell me what’s happening, and maybe I can help.”

“Ha!” Rarity’s cat gave a vicious howl at being rubbed the wrong way. Rarity didn’t seem to notice, just stroking the cat insistently over the noise. “How can you help me, Twilight? Nothing has been done to me! No wrong, no insult—I would sooner ask you to fight fog. Brilliant though you are, even you cannot refute the ghosts of arguments.”

“Rarity, you’re being dramatic.”

“I should hope so! It’s one of my better qualities. A dress that doesn’t tell a story is a sad affair.”

“Rarity. Please. A little more information?”

Rarity finished her cup of tea. When she lowered the cup, she wore a bitter expression that twisted further as she spoke. “Some—pony—named Gamma Glisten—I shan’t say accused me, or no doubt I’d be sued for libel—indicated, perhaps, the possibility of the notion that I might have directly plagiarized Suri Polomare’s latest collection. This is, to put it mildly, like saying that I style my hair after yours, Twilight, no offense.”

“None taken,” said Twilight. It was no secret that she put about as much work into her hair as Pinkie Pie did into eating a balanced diet.

“If anything, Suri Polomare is copying me,” mused Rarity. “I don’t know what to do, Twilight. These things are taken very seriously in the world of fashion. The only reason we stopped cutting the right forelegs off thieves is because society got soft.”

“Um—”

“It would make more sense to pluck an eye out. For a thief of visual beauty. Don’t you think?”

“As a public figure, I cannot affirm the reasonableness of plucking out eyes as a form of justice,” Twilight said. “But just between you and me, it does make more sense.”

“Great. I’ll lure her here, and you’ll be waiting behind the door with the ice cream scoop—”

“I didn’t say to do it,” Twilight said. “Did you say Gamma Glisten is the one spreading this rumor?”

“She used me, in a manner so oblique you could have slipped very far and very quickly down the slope she drew, to discuss aspects of modern copyright issues, or something to that effect,” Rarity said. “I found out only after tracing some very odd news stories to their source.”

My Gamma Glisten? Twilight wondered. But why?

There’s too much to read. I haven’t been paying enough attention to things.

I’ve been selfish. I’ve been paying too much attention to my thing. When it only exists to aid theirs.

“It must be a misunderstanding,” Twilight said. “I’ll sort it out.”

“You’re a dear, Twilight. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Sweetie Belle is unreliable with an ice cream scoop.”

Twilight laughed. She waited for Rarity to do the same.

“You were joking, right?”

“About what?” Rarity put Opalescence, who was fussing, on the floor. “Twilight?”

“Yes?”

“Sweetie Belle said that Diamond Tiara has been saying things about you.”

“Oh. Yeah. I know.”

“If you need any help….”

“I talked to her mother. It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but I’m handling it.”

“Ah.” Rarity frowned slightly. “I was eager to befriend the Rich family when they moved here. They are Canterlot elite, you know, even if they live out here. I can’t say that I failed to ingratiate myself with them, nor can I say that I succeeded. Spoiled Rich is a very complex mare.”

“I don’t think so.”

Rarity looked surprised.

“I’ve read what she’s read,” Twilight said, “and I have the measure of her intelligence. I’m not impressed.”

“Don’t underestimate Ponyville ponies just because they don’t have your education.”

“I’ve learned not to. But she isn’t a Ponyville pony. She’s from Canterlot.”

Twilight slogged her way up to Applejack’s house. Partly she did this because slogging through the snow made her very hungry, and Applejack usually made enough food for one meal to kill a whole family of bears.

Applejack brought Twilight into her office, looking a bit strange with glasses on her face.

“Winter’s the season for budgets, accounts, new orders, applications,” she explained. “Have a seat. Walk must’ve been hard in all that snow. Care for a snack?”

“Ye—”

“Stay put.”

Applejack disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back, she was carrying a platter of apple turnovers.

“I’ll have a few,” Twilight said. They smelled like cinnamon and baked sugar. The apple smell was everywhere in Applejack’s house, but it was especially potent coming from the steaming-hot pastries.

“You’ll have ten,” said Applejack from experience. She set down a hot mug of apple cider by Twilight as well and sat behind the desk.

For a couple of minutes, Twilight worked steadily to transform the apple turnovers into crumbs and the apple cider into less apple cider. Applejack watched with a faint smile.

“Good?”

“Good,” Twilight agreed. She sat back and rested her forelegs on her mysteriously bulging stomach.

Applejack’s pencil looked like termites had gotten to it, it was so badly chewed. She tapped it rhythmically on the table. “You know you don’t need an excuse to come up and have a meal here.”

Twilight was all too familiar with how little reason Applejack needed to feed somepony.

“But you always do have a reason,” Applejack said. “What can I do you for, Twilight?”

Applejack would know how to use the Grand Galloping Gala to forge business connections. But I don’t know if she’d feel comfortable at a fancy party full of stuffy upper crust types. I mean, she is an expert on both stuffings and crusts, but not this kind.

“Um, how’s the Cerberus doing?”

“Sitting pretty in the barn you and the fillies fixed up,” Applejack said. “The snow doesn’t seem to bother her. She’s got a lot of blubber.”

Applejack spoke about having a giant three-headed helldog for a business partner like it was an everyday thing. Ever since coming back from their victory over Nightmare Moon, it had been.

Applejack took off her glasses. “But you didn’t come here to talk about the Cerberus.”

“No…something weird is going on. Rarity and Pinkie Pie’s businesses are both being attacked by some of my Sis...some of the other CEEs of the Daughter banks. I wanted to check on you.”

“Fluttershy doesn’t have to worry about that, and Rainbow Dash can weather criticism like the sky can weather a storm,” Applejack mused.

Twilight noticed that Applejack was avoiding the question. “What about you?”

“There’s always maneuvering among the members of the VEG[2],” Applejack said. “Fruit mares can fight like two dogs over the last apple core.”

[2]The Voices of Equestrian Growers, a professional fruit-grower association. Having been granted monopolies over their respective fruits, the growers had created their association to organize meetings both to discuss strategies to deal with shared problems, like an unexpected excess of snow, and to ensure that their monopolies hadn’t resulted in price fixing and uncompetitive behaviors. It was very important to meet regularly to discuss prices. That way they could be very sure they weren’t fixing them.

“Don't you mean the last bone?”

“No. But nothing has come out against me recently. I’m probably safe for a while.”

“Safe?”

Applejack nodded.

“What could happen?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see something in the papers about me eventually,” Applejack said. “Courtesy of my lovely aunts. They’ve bought into all this conspiracy talk, how Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia plotted the Great Succession together and, then...actually, I’m not sure what’s supposed to have happened next. Did we pay you to come play the farce out in Ponyville to boost our industries?”

“I thought I paid you all to keep your mouths shut.”

“Could be both. It’s a bunch of flim-flam, but my aunts would rather rake through the mud for one dirty lie than plant an honest seed in the dirt. And, well—that’s all I’m ready to say.”

Twilight cocked her head to one side. “What’s going on? Or not going on?”

“It took courage and honesty to share what you shared about Lemon Hearts at the New Year celebration,” Applejack said. “It’s rude of me not to reciprocate, but I won’t. Not the right time. Sorry.”

Applejack has a story that compares to what I did to Lemon Hearts?

“All right,” said Twilight. “Well...it’s good to know that none of my Sis—none of the other CEEs are making trouble for you. Let me know if they ever do.”

“Thanks, sugarcube,” said Applejack. “Let me pack up a pie for you to take on your way. Actually, make it two. I’ve only got apple—do you like apples?”

The pond wasn’t magical, and neither were the lily pads drifting on it, nor were the frogs that laid their eggs there. But there is always something a bit magical about a pond full of lilies, especially when the pink and white flowers are in bloom. This was a real pond, with real lilies, and so it faintly seemed to breathe with magic.

The surface of the pond occasionally rippled as a frog dived into the water to pick worms out of the muddy banks. But it was mostly very clean and very still. The frogs had been here a long time, living and eating and loving and dying. The lily pads had been here longer.

Something great crashed into the pool. Water slopped up the banks; lily pads rode the waves to the edges of the pond. Frogs jumped out of the way as the thing pulled itself upright, or as upright as a thing like it could be. Standing up, it looked like a tree cut by a sadistic woodsman with an avant-garde approach.

Dead leaves and crumbled bark, the crushed remains of termites and other things all dribbled down from the thing into the pond.

“Six of them,” the thing said, its voice like wood shattering. “I need to see—I want to know how—”

After making sure Spike was up and had breakfast, Twilight went to her Daughter bank to do some reading in her office. She found the research that had been used to go after Pinkie Pie and Rarity.

Was it deliberate? Were two of her Sisters trying to start a fight? Or was it just coincidence, were the exceptionally successful businessmares of Ponyville starting to attract the kind of negative attention that the rich incumbents always showed to upstart new entrants?

By the time she had drafted and sent off a letter each to Twinkleshine and Gamma Glisten pushing back on their research, it was dark outside.

Which didn’t mean it had been more than a few hours. The Sun was still a babe, and it needed lots of sleep. Light was especially scarce this winter.

As she walked toward her treehouse home, she remembered the extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala.

Rarity was the best candidate, and the worst. Applejack might turn a profit, but she would have no pony to talk to. Pinkie Pie would have fun, which was good but also scary. Fluttershy was too shy to want to go but also seemed like the safest choice. Rainbow Dash would be the most vocal about wanting to go. She would also definitely break something valuable.

Choices, choices….

Twilight opened the door, sat down at the table, and without even noticing what she was doing, got out a pen and paper and began to draw up a model.

Pinkie Pie was carrying a basket of goodies into the dark and scary forest, and she wasn’t worried at all.

For one, she didn’t have a grandmother, or even a mother or father. They were dead. So there wasn’t anything to worry about re., e.g., talking wolves and big sharp teeth.

For twosies, she was friends with the forest. And friendship, Pinkie Pie was certain, could protect you from anything. Even the dark and scary creatures you were friends with.

Threesy-peasy, she just didn’t worry. Pinkie Pie had a theory that friends were like a puzzle: you put a new piece where there wasn’t one already, to fill a space that none of the others fit exactly. She was good at not worrying.

”You can’t bake a hot pie on cold rocks. Gotta let it warm up in the sunlight first….”

She remembered sitting on the porch with Maud, watching the rocks graze in the valley. The rocks fed on sunlight and warmed up the lizards and snakes that sat on them so they could get moving, which got the birds out to hunt, who made enough noise that even the grandmas and grandpas woke up. The sun was the engine of life, driving everything forward, and the rocks were there to take what it had to give through rain and snow and shadow. Maud had never worried...you could budge a boulder before you could budge Maud.

Pinkie Pie beamed at the memory of Maud. She started singing as she skipped into the forest.

“Oh, I’ve got cupcakes, lots of cupcakes,
I baked them for my friends!
And you’ve got a tummy, a big ol’ tummy,
I’ll fill it as best I can!”

She swung the box of cupcakes as she skipped. Each swing sent the smell of vanilla and peanut butter, lemon and strawberry, into the cold and sinister air.

Vines rustled through dead leaves trapped underneath the snow as they followed her.

“What are we going to play today?” she chirped. “Let me guess, you’re going to make a maze, and I’m going to have to solve it!” That was the game the dark thorny vines always liked to play. It was how they had met, though it wasn’t exactly a meet-cute. “Mother, Father, these are the viney thorn-things that tried to kill me and my friends, we’ve been having cupcakes together for a few months….”

The thorns slipped around her and rushed ahead, bumping her and knocking her off-balance. “Hey!” Pinkie Pie said, frowning at them. “You nearly made me spill the cupcakes.”

The vines thrashed and whipped and disappeared into the gloom. Pinkie Pie shrugged and skipped ahead, trusting in Pinkie Sense to guide her. But something felt off. The vines were taking a different path through the forest, one she hadn’t been on before. They seemed upset about something.

They emerged into a clearing, some sunlight coming in through the trees. Pinkie Pie squinted and smiled. “Hi! What are—”

A vine slithered behind her leg and cut into her with a thorn. Pinkie Pie yelped in pain and twisted around, swinging the box of cupcakes defensively. But the vines rose and shouted a message in the flutelike, piping language of the plants, and while she couldn’t understand it, she received the full blast of their emotions:

SADNESS

HORROR

RUN

A long branch whipped out and curled around the vines, tugging them back.

“Let them go!” Pinkie Pie shouted. She stepped forward and moaned, suddenly ill. Shivering with nausea, she couldn’t force herself to move away.

A black walnut tree emerged into the clearing, one branch squeezing the vines like an angry parent gripping an errant child. Sweating and feverish, Pinkie Pie began to sink to her knees as it got closer.

Pinkie Pie blinked through dizzy eyes at it. “They’re my friends,” she groaned, then doubled over in the snow.

It came to a stop in front of her and made a noise like a bassoon. She picked up two sentiments:

Triumph.

Fear.

The plants and vegetation native to Ponyville and the surrounding area contain many examples of natural beauty, quite a few of which are toxic to ponies. To make sure that fillies and colts don’t tread where they shouldn’t and think twice before sticking something in their mouths, Miss Cheerilee, the local schoolteacher, teaches them an old, old nursery-rhyme, which speeds up the longer it goes and is best enjoyed with hoof-clapping and a sing-song tone.

Most of it, anyway. It goes like this:

The leaves of the red maple,
Are beautiful and deadly.
The flowers of the fiddleneck
Are safe, but not the seeds.
Farmers hate pigweed,
Which isn’t named for pigs.
The golden chain will bind you
Feverish to your bed.
The buttercup is not
As delicious as it sounds.
Flowers smell of candy,
To tell you not to touch.
Don’t eat the fruit of the black walnut tree,
No, not the fruit of the black walnut tree.