My Rustled Jimmies

Time had frozen. All sound had died. The gaily-dressed ponies in the ballroom were but gloomy shadows that haunted her peripheral vision. The lights dimmed, or they might as well have; just as time might as well be frozen and sound might as well be dead, and all other ponies might as well have been mere shadows, for surely nothing else could ever compare in her eyes to the brightness and magnetism of her one true love: Prince Blueblood.

His perfect, sparkling eyes held onto hers for some time, or so it had seemed to Rarity; she couldn’t help but meet his intimate gaze with her own, though hers had no such control as the prince’s, and readily communicated a painful desire to him.

And then, it was over.

Those perfect eyes wandered elsewhere, and the perfect stallion wandered out of the ballroom. All senses rushed back into her head so fast that it winded her; the gentlecolts and mares came back to life, the gentle baroque music caressed the air again, and the lights brightened. But it was no relief to Rarity to have the old world back; she wanted the dark and the silence if it meant that she could meet Prince Blueblood’s eyes again. She set off to find him.

“Hurry, Rarity,” she whispered to herself, constantly slowing and speeding her pace as she approached the garden entrance. “ Oh, but not too fast. But don’t want to lose him… WAIT! Have to play it cool. Oh, but don’t be cold! I can’t lose him, I can’t! He’s everything I imagined!”

Rarity passed through the entrance and stopped, seeing her prince strolling alongside the rosebushes, making the immaculate flowers seem like weeds before him. She sighed and prepared herself for the approach.

“ He’s even better than I imagined!”

Just then, a familiar pink pony jumped out of a bush to Rarity’s right. Pinkie Pie wrapped her hooves behind Rarity’s neck and pushed the white Unicorn’s face close to her own.

“ Rarity! We have a problem!” Pinkie whispered point-blank into Rarity’s face, only to be forcefully pushed away.

“ No, Pinkie. YOU have a problem with respecting personal space.”

Ignoring Rarity’s reply, Pinkie moved on, “ My hoof started burning when I was trying to PARTY!”

Rarity looked back over to Prince Blueblood, who still roamed near the roses, and sighed in resignation.

“ Alright then, Pinkie, what does it mean when your hoof burns?”

The pink Earth pony scratched her head, and then shrugged.

“ I dunno; it’s never happened before!”

Rarity dodged around Pinkie and started towards Prince Blue blood again, talking over her shoulder.

“ Well remember to tell me all about it on the ride home, darling. I’ve a Prince to court!”

Pinkie stamped her hoof down and grumbled,

“ Rarity, this is SERIOUS! What if it’s bad, like, explosion bad! Or MONSTER bad! Or- or-“

Just then, a little yellow Meadowlark whirled in the air past Pinkie’s face; she followed the tiny bird with her cerulean eyes as it danced around bushes and flowers with its buzzing, nimble wings. She zeroed her eyes in on the bird, a great smile across her face.

“ That looks like one of those singy-birds that Fluttershy always talks about! Maybe it’ll lead me right to her, and just maybe she’ll LISTEN!”

Pinkie Pie stalked the energetic bird as it wandered around the garden, finally passing over a wall of tall shrubbery into the royal garden maze. Pinkie leaped, trying to clear the barricade, but instead caught her dress in the branches and hung like a piñata. Onlookers in the garden scoffed at her as she wriggled out of her specially made dress and crashed back down in a heap onto the grass. Pinkie shook her head and rose up on her haunches, looking back at the crowd that had gathered to watch her disgrace herself and her beautiful dress.

“ What?” she asked, and the bystanders began to clear out of the garden. One of the mares tossed her head up as she strode past the dress-less Pinkie,

“ Young lady, that is not the way to act at her majesty’s palace!” she said haughtily while leaving. Pinkie put her hooves up,

“ Well nopony told me it was an ACTING PARTY! Or I would’ve brought all my PROPS!”

*****************************************************************************************

The bird’s song played on, and Fluttershy continued to add to it. She’d followed the song into a large maze of rosebushes with several paths leading off to her left and right. The yellow Pegasus came to a stop at an intersection and listened; after a moment, the bird’s song came to her again, and she bolted down the path where it most likely came from. Fluttershy thought over the song in her head, guessing at the type of bird that may have produced such an angelic sound, and came to the conclusion that it was a meadowlark: one of her favorites – though, she could never be so thoughtless as to declare one bird to be her absolute favorite of all birds, since she thought all birds were just so nice. The meadowlark’s song sounded again, much closer this time. She galloped at full speed, coming to a turn in the maze.

“ My little meadowlark is right around this bend!” she said excitedly to herself, but then she came to an abrupt stop; in front of her was a large golden arch gateway into a fenced-in area of the garden. Above the gate, a sign was hung.

PRINCESS CELESTIA’S PERSONAL GARDEN OF RARE AND EXOTIC CREATURES
DO NOT ENTER

Fluttershy peered through the thin bars of the fence into pitch black; she strained her eyes trying to catch a glimpse of something beyond the shroud of night, but it was to no avail. Close by, the meadowlark sang again. She put out a hoof to push the gate, but stopped short and held herself back.

“ Oh no, I couldn’t break the rules at the princess’ own garden!” she reasoned with herself, hesitating at the gate. But then, a strange scent came to her nose from deep inside – a sweet, almost chocolaty scent that tingled Fluttershy in a way she’d never before experienced. She sniffed the open air and pondered what the source could possibly be.

" What is that? I don't think I've ever smelled anything so chocolaty in nature before.

It was a strange sensation, but not at all unwelcome; feeling a heavy urge to discover the origin inside the garden, she crept up close to the gate and put out a hoof to push it open. The meadowlark’s song came to her once more, but she was too far already and blew off the song in her mind,

“ I’ve seen meadowlarks before, and I’m sure that I can still catch up with it if I just take a little peak inside….”

She tapped the gate with a hoof and it came slightly ajar; she craned her head into the opening and inside the deep, dark, forbidden garden. The blackness and overall mysteriousness of the garden beyond the gate made her shiver.

“ Ooh, m-maybe I’ll just go find that mm-meadowlark after all-AAH!””

Just then, several flowers in the dark bloomed, revealing bulbous heads that let off a pale blue light. Fluttershy jolted back and landed on her haunches, holding her face in her hooves. When she uncovered her eyes, the light was gone and the flowers were swallowed back up in the dark. Cautiously, the Pegasus stepped back up to the gate. She peeked head just past the fence, and again, the bulbous flowers lit up around her. But this time she held her ground, albeit while flinching and biting her lip. The flowers seemed harmless enough to her, and their bioluminescence was indeed a welcome sight in the dark; it was enough to coax the timid mare to take a step forward, entering the garden.

She jumped back with a gasp as several hundred other flowers suddenly bloomed up ahead, before dimming again. Fluttershy watched the silhouettes of petals slowly fold back over the lights; she gathered herself, took a deep breath and walked. Somewhere, a bird sang, but it meant nothing now; this garden may hold wonders that she’d never before seen – new critters, perhaps! She sighed,

“ Okay, Fluttershy. Just take a quick look around and be gone before anypony notices….”