There once was a bittersweet mare
And they called her Lemon Hearts
There once was a bittersweet mare and they called her Lemon Hearts. She was growing in my garden and I pulled her out by her mane, like a weed.
“Ow,” she said, bitterly. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I drew my hoof back sharply, letting her fall into the dirt face-first. “What the fuck are you doing? This is my garden.”
She spat out a mouthful of soil. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m growing.”
“Ponies don’t grow in dirt, idiot,” I snarled at her. “Only flowers do that, and you’ve messed mine up. Look at my peonies.”
“Get out of my face, Roseluck. I’m busy.”
I stamped my hoof. “Get out of my garden right now, Lemon Hearts. Or I’m calling Mayor Mare.”
Lemon Hearts rolled her eyes, but got to her hooves. “And what’s she gonna do?”
It was a good question, but Ponyville didn’t exactly have cops. Just the Princess and her crew of trigger-happy rainbow blasters, and I didn’t really feel like unleashing harmony lasers on Lemon Hearts was a punishment that fit the crime. But to show weakness now would be my undoing, so I deepened my voice to a growl. “She’ll help me buck your ass down the street. Get going.”
Lemon Hearts muttered darkly, but obeyed.
I slammed my garden gate behind her. “And stay out!”
She clip-clopped away down the lane, fresh clumps of soil falling from her coat as she went. I turned back to survey the wreckage of my peony flowerbed, now a mess of churned-up soil with a Lemon-Hearts-sized hole at the centre.
I sighed and went in search of my trowel. Only two days till market, and the stall was going to be a lot barer than usual this week.
Unfortunately for florists everywhere, weeds tend to grow back again. And like a weed, so did Lemon Hearts. Repeatedly.
Peering through the sheeting rain, droplets clinging to my eyelashes, I glowered down at a familiar yellow horn. A few sodden green curls were the only other thing visible above the soil, like weird-ass leaves at the base of a weird-ass carrot. Growing, this time, in the middle of my rose garden. And my beautiful white Celestias, their roots torn up and exposed in order to make way for this ridiculous and unwanted crop.
With calm deliberation, I drew my hoof back and delivered a savage kick right to the horn.
From beneath the soil there came a strangled noise. “Ow!”
“Lemon Hearts! Get out of my garden!” I bellowed, fighting to be heard over the noise of the rain.
A head emerged. “You kick like a donkey.”
“You’ve ruined my roses.”
“You want me to apologise?” Never had a head sprouting from the bare earth looked less repentant.
“I want you to go away and stop fucking up my flowers, you crazy bitch!”
She sighed heavily. The rain flowed over her fur like a waterfall. “Just give me a few hours, Roseluck.”
“This is the sixth time this week.” I gestured furiously, the expansive motion taking in the carnage of my beautiful garden — the peonies, the lilies, the azaleas, three different beds of tulips, and now my beautiful roses.
“Just let me have some growth time and I won’t have to come back so often.”
“You’re going to bankrupt me!”
Lemon Hearts took a deep breath. As though she was endeavouring to be reasonable. “Look, Roseluck, you’ve got the best soil in town. I need this. I’m growing.”
“Growing a brain tumour, maybe.” I was inches away from snapping, I could feel it. I knew exactly where in the shed my secateurs were. Just one little snip and this weed would be deadheaded and I’d be the one getting rainbow blasted by Princess Twilight. “Enough of this bullshit, Lemon Hearts.”
She started to protest, but I leaned down and grabbed a mouthful of sea-green hair. Planting my hooves, I heaved. She was resisting, but unicorns are flimsy little things, and though my hooves slipped in the mud, I flicked my head and Lemon Hearts came sailing out to land with a splat. Her coat was plastered almost black with soil, the deluge of rain swamping her lending her a strange runny appearance. Like some sort of monster: a really gross livelihood-wrecking monster.
“If I catch you here again I’m going to sic Lily and Daisy on you.” No need to mention that of the three of us, I was the only one with a temper. Daisy freaked out on a customer a couple of times and got herself a reputation.
With a huff, Lemon Hearts got to her feet. Shot me a sour look. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“There.” I pulled in a lungful of fresh, clean spring air. Letting the sweet scent of new-mown grass fill my mouth. It was done. My garden was finally cured: the beds in neat array, the flowers blossoming again. A heavy rainfall, unrelenting sunshine, and no time off for me meant that the chaos was undone. And best of all, no sign of Lemon Hearts for two entire weeks.
I slowly rotated in place, taking in the riot of colours, the daffodils and snowdrops, the carnations in full bloom. One flowerbed after the next. Lilies, chrysanthemums, tulips, irises — wait.
My heart dropped. Where eighty white irises should have peacefully nodded their heads in synchrony, there was only a single head. And it was my least favourite shade of yellow.
“Lemon Hearts!”
She yelped, and clods of soil flew as she tried to burrow deeper. A murdered iris flew past my head as I thundered towards her.
“Get out of my garden!”
“No!” she squealed, clawing at the dirt as I dragged her back by the tail. “Let me go back to my hole! I dug it! It’s mine!”
“It’s my fucking hole, in my fucking garden, full of my fucking flowers!” I spat out her tail and thudded my hooves into the earth either side of her body with such force that tremors rippled out around us. “You are ruining my life!”
She looked up at me and actually smiled. A nasty little smile with a bitter edge. “Funny, I was about to say you were ruining mine.”
Flanks heaving, I tried to collect myself. I’d thought it was all over. I thought her mental break was over. Idiot. I should have had Twilight’s friendship cannons trained on my garden twenty-four-seven. “Lemon Hearts, I think you should come talk to Redheart with me. I think you may actually need…some sort of help.”
Her eyebrows lowered. “I’m not crazy.”
Wasn’t that exactly what the crazy ponies in plays always said? “Of course you’re not. But we can’t keep doing this, can we?” Because I’m going to kill you if I find you in one more flowerbed.
She just shrugged. “This is where the good soil is. What am I supposed to do?”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then to twenty. Then, when I was still angry, to fifty-five. When I opened them again, Lemon Hearts was halfway back into her hole. “What if…” I said, very slowly, trying my hardest not to punch her, “What if I clear a flowerbed for you? If I let you sit in my soil as long as you want?”
She brightened. “That would be great!”
“And you’d stop digging up my plants?”
“Of course,” she said, as though it was a solution so blindingly obvious that she was amazed I hadn’t proposed it months ago.
“Great.” Why, I wondered, was my life like this? Why couldn’t I have done what my mother wanted and become an accountant?
Lemon Hearts was already looking longingly back at the hole. “How about this one? It’s already dug and everything.”
“No.” I needed all the iris bulbs I could salvage. And this concession would be delivered on my terms, not hers. “You can use the transvaal daisy patch. I’m harvesting the last ones tomorrow and then they’re out of season.”
“What about the rest of today?”
Celestia above, I hoped she finished her ‘growing’ soon. “How about you just go home and come back tomorrow?”
A pout. “Fine. But I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
“I bet you will.”
“See that brown spot over here?” Lemon Hearts’ voice was distant, coming from behind, but the pink glow of her magic was right in front of me, tilting a morning glory rose slightly to display the blight on the lower petals.
“Huh.” I leant up to snip the diseased flower off. “How could you see that from all the way over there?”
When I turned to look at her, Lemon Hearts was grinning in her hole, the soil up to her chin. “I’ve got a feeling for this sort of thing.”
“Kinda creepy when a unicorn has plantspeak.”
“I don’t. But my dad’s an earth pony, and I’ve got the vibe.”
“And the whole growing thing?”
“Oh, that’s more from my mum’s side,” Lemon Hearts grinned. Once she had what she wanted — a great big hole in one of my flowerbeds and unfettered access to my soil — she was less bittersweet and more sweet.
“And your mum is…a unicorn?”
“Something like that.” She was almost pretty when she smiled. No citrus left, just sugar.
The earth shook.
My eyes snapped open. “What the—?”
Another quake, strong enough to set everything in my bedroom rattling like dollhouse furniture. Ejected from my bed, I landed hard enough to bruise and staggered to my feet. One surge after another shook the floorboards, plates smashing and the timbers of my house moaning like living things. Glass shattered, and even as I raised a hoof to shield my face from the splinters the first thought that popped into my head was Lemon Hearts.
I left her in her usual nighttime state, tucked up to the horn in soft loamy soil. And if the earth was moving, and she was in the earth — the acidic taste of fear filled my mouth, bitter as a lemon.
“Lemon Hearts!”
Fighting against the ripples of the ground, I dragged myself to the door and bucked it open. I stared out into the pale dawn, at the vast hole that had consumed my garden, the street, everything—
And then beyond it, the titan that rose for miles into the sky, gigantic green curls falling down her neck like the carven ruins of some ancient civilisation.
With the creak of gigantic bones, she turned her head to look down at me, insect-tiny amidst the wreckage of my home.
For a long moment we stared at each other. Vast pink irises bigger than the moon, the glacier-slow creep of mammoth eyelids as she blinked. And then, finally, she spoke, in a voice that shook the world. “…DONE…GROWING…”
And then she turned away, fixing those huge eyes on Ponyville.
Far in the distance, I could see lights flickering over the castle. Princess Twilight and her legion of friendship forming up. Fuck. What else would they do when a giant pony appears out of nowhere to menace the town? But somehow, even after everything, I didn’t want Lemon Hearts on the receiving end of the lightshow.
“Lemon Hearts!” I howled, galloping after her, dodging the crater-sized hoofprints. “Lemon Hearts, watch out!”
She glanced down at me, a tiny smile playing at the edges of the behemoth mouth. That sour little edge back in full force. The tangy promise of an acidic secret that nopony else knows.
Author's Note
There once was a bittersweet mare and they called her, "Lemon Hearts"
She was growing in my garden and I pulled her out by her mane like a weed
And like weeds do she only came and grew back again
So, I figured this time I might as well let her be
Lemon Hearts and me started to get along together
I helped her plant her seeds
And we'd mow the lawn in bad weather
It's actually pretty easy being nice to a bitter mare like her
So, I got myself a citrus friend
But soon her bittersweet started to rub off on me
You'd think smelling like lemon zest would be pretty neat
I found out that Princess T’s friends are more of the savory type
And they weren't too keen on compromising with a nice lemon pie
So Lemon Hearts and me, we just gotta get along together
I helped her plant her seeds
And we'll mow the lawn in bad weather
It's actually pretty easy being nice to a bitter mare like her
So, I got myself a giant fucking citrus friend
But what if I run out of fertilizer?
What if the clouds run out of rain?
What if Lemon Hearts won't grow no longer?
What if she gets lasered all the same?
Oh well
Ponies forget to grow themselves
Flowers get torn up from their roots
It happens all the time, it happens all the time
Lemon Hearts and I, we're gonna live forever
Like Pinkie and Fluttershy, we'll get around wherever
Lemon Hearts and I, we're gonna live forever
Like Pinkie and Fluttershy, we'll get around wherever
It's actually pretty easy being nice to a bitter mare like her
'Cause we're the bitterest girls in town
Yeah, we're the bitterest girls around
And I got myself a citrus friend
