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Class Presentation2,649 words
Honey Dipper2,844 words
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Night Soil Girl2,571 words
Second Thoughts2,348 words
Gardening with Rose2,092 words
Evening2,416 words
Inner Hippie2,513 words

Inner Hippie

Gardening with Rose
Admiral Biscuit

Rose was snuggled up against my chest.

For a moment, I struggled to remember where I was. It was her bed, in her house. A familiar location, a familiar bed.

This time I knew where my clothes were: downstairs, right where I’d left them yesterday.

The old, familiar warning signals came up in my mind and I pushed them away. They didn’t matter any more; I wasn’t on Earth, and Earth rules didn’t apply.

I put my hand on her mane, traced along the edge of her hair, down to where her neck touched her back, and rested it there. I could have gone back up, scratched her ears, but that might wake her, and it was still early.

Surely something had awoken me, but I didn’t know what it had been, not until I heard the distinctive sound of a toilet flushing and the clatter of hooves on the wooden floors.

That was Lily. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.

Would she go back to bed, or was she the first up in the morning?

I didn’t want to abandon Rose, even though I was awake and not likely to fall asleep again.

Of the three of them, was Lily the early riser? What would she do if I followed her? Panic and flee into the flowerbeds or onto the street? Or would it be a moment of sisterly solidarity, the early risers versus the lazy?

I could get up. Go downstairs. Pee. Make coffee.

Or I could stay right where I was, my hand rested lightly on Rose’s back, just teasing her neck.

That was easier, and that wouldn’t mess up Lily’s morning routine. Maybe she liked the solitude, the moment to herself before her housemates joined her. A bit of time to herself, a chance to find the perfect flower for her hair.

It was something I shouldn’t interrupt, but it was something I felt like I had to. One more barrier to break, one step closer to fitting in, to being accepted. So I reluctantly pushed the covers off and disentangled myself from Rose.

I really did have to pee, anyway.

•••

Going downstairs without a robe felt wrong, but also freeing.

I didn’t see Lily on my way to the bathroom, and I briefly considered the advantages of going back upstairs and back to sleep, but I didn’t. I went into the kitchen. Lily had a hoof up on the counter, and she snapped her head around as she heard me enter.

Ponies couldn’t fluff themselves up like cats, but if they could, Lily would have. I knew that for a fact.

I couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for her. I was the interloper, I was the one who was messing up her routine. It was early in the morning, and not what she was expecting or desiring. Maybe it was Rose who normally came down next, or Daisy, bleary-eyed from sleep. It wasn’t me.

She hadn’t combed her mane, and she didn’t have a flower behind her ear yet. Not that I was fully groomed, either; I probably had bedhead, but I didn’t really care about that.

“Good morning, Lily.”

“You scared me,” she said. Quietly, so she wouldn’t wake up the rest of the house. “Your—you walk too quietly.”

“Should I get a bell? Like a cat? So you can hear me coming?”

“Maybe.” She frowned. “I’ve started coffee. I—if you want some, there’s enough. You could have a cup.”

“Thank you.” I sat down at the table, and that seemed to comfort her. Now I wasn’t towering over her any more. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“No.” She picked up a heavy frying pan and set it on the counter with a clatter.

“Your hooves are plenty strong,” I advised her. “You don’t need the pan.”

She had the courtesy to lower her ears slightly before perking them back up. “I was going to make breakfast, that’s why I got out the pan. Pancakes, that’s a good breakfast.”

“I can fry them up, as long as you mix the batter. I’m not really good at that. They wind up with too much flour or not enough.”

“Fine.” She got out a mixing bowl and set it on the counter. “But stay at the table until I’ve got the batter mixed, okay?”

•••

She went off to groom herself while I started making pancakes. It didn’t take too long before I’d lost myself in the process, and I’d expected to be all done before she came back, but I wasn’t. I turned, and she was standing alone in the kitchen doorway, watching me.

Lily had combed her mane and tail and I assume her coat as well, but she still didn’t have her flower in. I guess she hadn’t wanted to go outside and pick one yet. Maybe she liked to wait until she knew what kind of day it was going to be before she made her selection.

When she saw that I’d noticed her, she scurried off and I heard the back door shut. It wasn’t very long before I saw her in the backyard, wandering down her row of lilies, and looking through the window at me. I don’t know if she knew I could see her.

I thought about sticking my tongue out at her, but I didn’t. I focused back on the pancakes.

•••

I had to finish the coffee, too—Lily had completely forgotten about it.

I expected that she was going to stay outside until either Rose or Daisy came downstairs, but she didn’t. She came back in, now with a lily tucked in her mane, and glanced over at the kitchen table where I’d set two cups of coffee, well apart. Their mugs didn’t have their names on them, at least not as far as I could tell, so I’d just picked two at random.

“I could have made the coffee,” she said. “I was going to.”

“You’re welcome.”

She started flicking her tail back and forth. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Of course you aren’t. Why would you be?”

That confused her. It wasn’t what she was expecting me to say, although I wasn’t sure what she was expecting me to say. “I’m just a boring girl trying to get along in a town full of ponies. Do you want a pancake?”

“Yes. Please.”

I knew where the plates were, and I knew where the butter was. “Do you have any maple syrup?”

Lily nodded. “It’s in that cupboard.”

“Back in Canada, our money smells like maple syrup.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, back before we knew how to make coins, we traded maple syrup for stuff instead.” I reached up into the cupboard and grabbed the bottle. “Something this size, it’d be worth a couple bushels of wheat, maybe a peck of apples. Of course, the value varied. Some years weren’t good for syrup, and some years weren’t good for apples.”

“And you can’t keep it forever,” Lily said. “It keeps for a long time but not forever.”

“Exactly. But for most people, that wasn’t a problem. Because while you had some you kept aside for bartering, you’d eat the rest. On pancakes and stuff.” At the duty-free store, they sold bottles of maple-flavored whiskey in a maple-leaf shaped bottle. One of my friends from Seattle had brought a bottle when he visited. “You can even make whiskey out of it.” It was terrible whiskey and an ugly bottle, and I was certain that it was an American who had come up with the idea.

“Eww. I don’t like whiskey. It burns and makes me silly.” Lily stuck out her tongue. “Some ponies say that before unification, all our coins had different grains printed on them. They were copper, 'cause the unicorns hoarded all the gold. We didn’t mind because there wasn’t much you could do with gold. You couldn’t eat it and you couldn’t build things out of it.”

Upstairs, I could hear hoofsteps, and I knew it was Rose.

Lily and I still had lots that we should discuss, and very little time, at least if we wanted to do it all right away. I kind of did, I wanted to get it over and done with, so that we could move our relationship forward. So it would cut down on awkward times together or her attempting to avoid me.

Or we could just eat pancakes. That was easier. She might be resentful if I broached the subject, anyway. “Do you think I should set plates for Rose and Daisy?”

She nodded. “They’ll be down before too long. Rose will want two, and Daisy will want three.”

“Even though she’s so skinny?”

Lily flicked her ears up, and then nodded. “Cause she hasn’t got as much endurance for physical work.”

As I got the plates, I didn’t tell her that cutting flowers wasn’t exactly an endurance job, at least not by my book. Not like chopping wood or shoveling manure or working in the mill moving around sacks of flour. Maybe they’d thrive at it if they tried, but I’d never seen Lily break a sweat.

Or maybe their marks put a limit on what they could do, too. Forever trapped them into a career. Could it be that she was jealous I had a freedom she did not?

Rose had taken time to brush herself before coming to the breakfast table. Daisy, who appeared a few minutes later, hadn’t. Her mane and tail were normally a bit messy, but that was nothing compared to how she looked after just waking up.

“Sam made the pancakes,” Lily announced. “Um, and the coffee.”

“You helped,” I said. “I can’t make proper pancake batter. And you got the stove going and the coffee started.” I glanced around at the three of them. “Do you take turns with breakfast, too?”

“Sometimes, it depends. I—it’s not important.” Lily dropped her head slightly. “I should have been more of a help, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I didn’t know what she was getting worked up about. Lily had issues. “Do you need my help in the garden again today?”

“If you want to,” Rose said. “It’s not a market day, so we don’t have to pick anything.”

“Usually we work in the morning in the flowerbeds, and then do errands,” Daisy said. “Shop at Barnyard Bargains if there’s anything that we need, go to the spa even though it’s crowded sometimes. Or just relax if it’s a rainy day.”

“Is it going to rain today?”

“No, that’s scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

“Are you good at weeding?”

“Not really.” It was better to get the truth out. “I’m not all that good at figuring out plants, honestly. I could—I’ll wash the breakfast dishes and when I’m done I guess I can help out however you want.”

•••

It was almost easy to go outside this time. Aside from Lily’s bipolar bitchiness, there was nothing in the backyard to fear, no reason to hesitate. Back to the familiar sight of the rows of flowers stretching out, and intermingled smell of them.

We started out on opposite ends of the garden. I assumed that Lily was still trying to keep away from me, although that might have been how they usually worked. I didn’t want to bring it up—Lily and I had had our moment in the kitchen, and now wasn’t the time to spoil it.

I worked with Rose, and I could tell that we weren’t working as fast as Lily and Daisy. I was probably slowing Rose down, honestly, so I decided to go back to doing something I knew well: I started to gather up the weeds she’d been uprooting, dumping them into an empty flower bucket.

Once I got caught up with that, I started filling the watering cans. A simple task, but one that would be hard to mess up.

Lily and Daisy noticed, and I saw the two of them whispering to each other. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by ear movement, it could have been an argument. Maybe I wasn’t pulling my weight in the garden, but then I’d never promised to. Besides, I was working for free—that ought to count for something.

And maybe it did. After the third time I’d filled Rose’s watering can, I noticed that Daisy had set hers at the end of her row, so I carried it to the faucet and then back over to her.

“Do you need yours filled, too?”

Lily flicked her ears back and then forwards again, and she nodded.

The rows weren’t really wide enough to pass, and I didn’t want to reach over her, so I waited until she’d side-stepped away and picked it up.

When I returned it, I went the long way around, and I brought a fresh bucket in my other hand, since they’d filled the one they had almost to the top. It wasn’t only weeds that they were taking off the plants, but occasional sick leaves and buds as well.

I kept cycling back and forth, emptying buckets on their compost pile and filling their watering cans. Once when I was emptying out a bucket I saw Apple Cider towing a wagon and waved at her. She waved back and it was only after she’d passed that I remembered I was still nude. In fact, it had been more than a full day since I’d last worn clothes.

For a moment, I stepped back, away from the fence, back to the safety of the garden, and then realized I was being silly. The ponies didn’t care, and neither should I, so I went back to the fence and looked up and down the street. Amusingly, being closer to it actually covered me more, since it was about belly-high.

•••

We finished up with the weeding and watering and feeding and pruning by lunchtime. Rose and I put away all the gardening implements, and I considered asking her about Lily’s tail lash, but decided not to. That could be a moment that was just between us, for better or worse; something I could just let ride until I got a better idea if my relationship with Lily was improving or not. Maybe I could ask Tenderheart about it later.

Daisy made a simple lunch: flower sandwiches for them, and just bread and butter for me. And then we were gathering around the front door. It was time for their shopping, and for their trip to the spa, and at least two of them would be happy to have me along.

I looked back in the kitchen, where I could just see my shorts and panties at the edge of the counter, right where I’d left them yesterday.

It wasn’t the same as going out at night.

But it wasn’t not the same, either, so after one last look at my clothes, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t really need them, and followed Rose out the front door.

Author's Note:

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