Esther
Better Homes and Gardens
Admiral Biscuit
Wysteria was first out of the truck. She had a trustworthy face and a knack for talking to humans, as long as she didn't freak out about the state of their yard.
Jon followed—he was their driver, and he also got to talking money when it came to that. Ponies were good at lots of things; contracts wasn't one of those things. When they saw a yard in need, they wanted to fix it, regardless of any profit to be made.
Ponies weren't used to doorbells, so Wysteria knocked. On the frame of the door; her shoes didn't mix well with screen doors.
Jon was still coming up the walk when the door opened. It was an older woman, maybe in her seventies, and she saw him first, before looking down and noticing the pony on her doorstep.
She crouched down, reaching a hand uncertainly for Wysteria's mane. That was okay; none of the ponies minded being petted.
“Good afternoon, madam,” Wysteria said, causing the woman to jerk back. “We're here on behalf of your lawn.”
“My . . . my lawn?”
“That's right. We can fix it.”
“Fix it?” Confusion crossed the old woman's face. “How do you mean?”
“We tend yards and gardens, ma'am,” Jon said. “A&W Lawn Service.”
“I already have a mowing company.”
“Oh, you'll find we're far more than that.” He tilted his head towards the beds surrounding her porch. “We take care of all your landscaping needs.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Are you a salesman?”
Jon nodded. An honest answer was the best one. “For the best yard service in town. I can show you our brochure.”
“Are those Apollo Lilies?” Wisteria pointed a hoof out in the garden.
The old woman nodded. “Planted them back when I could get around better. They're still doing well.”
“They're beautiful,” Wysteria said. “And if you don't mind me being forward, we can help you bring your flower garden back to what it should be.”
They didn't really have an established sales pitch. It worked better that way. Jon took his cues from Wysteria, not so much from what she said but from her body language, and by the way her ears were focused and her tail was loose, she'd found a fellow gardener.
There was no need for the brochure, so he slipped it back in his pocket and faded back on the porch while the mare and the old woman got to know each other.
As soon as the two moved into the yard, he was sure there'd be a sale.
By the time she invited them in for lemonade, it was only a matter of finalizing the details. Unfortunately, this was where he had to be a bit firm.
•••
“Fifty dollars a week.”
Wysteria shrugged. “She hasn't got a lot of money.”
“How long is it going to take to get everything in shape?”
“Not more than a day,” Sweetberry said from the back seat. “From what I can see from here.”
Jon shook his head. “Do I have to tell you ponies how money works again?”
“Listen here, mister.” Wysteria bopped him in the nose with her hoof. “It's not about money.”
“It is about money. You gotta pay for food and your house and gardening tools and gas for the truck and insurance and—“
“After the first week, it won't take too much. Twice a week, not more than an hour each time, 'cause she's already got somebody to do her lawn.”
“—you gotta factor in that we can't work in the fall or the winter.”
Wysteria leaned against the door in the truck. “She signed the contract, and those are eaglely binding.”
“Legally.” Jon sighed. “Yeah, they are.” The problem with ponies was that they'd undersell every job. It had seemed like a good idea to expand business by hiring a crew of ponies for landscaping; rich people would pay through the nose for the honor of having pony groundskeepers, and the higher he set the price, the more they'd want them. He had a lock on the earth pony market, at least for now, and he could make enough to retire by forty if only he could get them to see how much money they could make working five easy days at mansions.
After their first mansion, they'd rebelled. For a week, the idea of an unlimited flower budget had been too much to pass up on, until the flowers had to be selected for exclusivity and color and size; the final straw had been a fancy garden party which had nothing to do with the garden whatsoever, and everything to do about the fact that the Arnaults had ponies and nobody else in their neighborhood did.
Wysteria had put her hoof down, and that was the end of the dream of quick riches for Jon.
Not that he could complain too much. The Arnaults were difficult to work with, and frequently made special requests which he still felt obligated to honor. At least he'd been smart enough to include in the contract extra fees for work done outside normal contracted hours.
And, if he were being completely honest, a larger quantity of smaller contracts added up to the same number as a small quantity of big contracts, and realistically was a more steady income. But they were still undercharging.
“It's not about the money,” Tiddlywink said. “That's a lesson you have to learn.”
He crossed his arms. “No, I don't.”
“Yes, you do.” Wysteria bopped him in the nose. “Now it's lunchtime.”
“There are other houses in the neighborhood,” he protested. “We could get more sales in before—”
“We will, but not yet. You said it yourself, this house is going to be too much work, and look at all the houses around it. None of them are any better. They're all full of weeds.”
“Fine.” He shifted the truck in drive. “But I get to pick where we go this time.”
Jon stopped in front of the old woman's house, and his three pony passengers disembarked from the pickup truck. Rather than go to the front door, they went around the side of the house—he stopped paying attention to them once they disappeared in the backyard. He got out his phone and started checking his emails.
The old woman was in the backyard, kneeling on a foam mat. Several small piles of weeds trailed out to her left.
“I thought I'd clean up a bit before you . . . girls arrived.”
Wysteria nodded. “Esther, these are my friends Sweetberry and Tiddlywink.”
“I'm pleased to meet you.” She set her gardening shears down and started to rise, but Wysteria shook her head.
“It's okay.” She glanced around the garden. “It's looking better already.”
“Thank you.” Esther sat back on her heels as the ponies surrounded her. “I . . . I've never had to pay for a gardener before. I used to take such pride in my garden, but it's hard now, I can't keep up on it like I used to.” She sighed. “I still get Better Homes and Gardens, and—you aren't going to replace this, are you?”
“No, ma'am. We wouldn't think of making any changes. Not unless you want them.”
Sweetberry nodded. “We're just going to help you restore your garden to its former glory.”
“Tell us about it.”
“Oh.” Esther looked at the beds around her. “Where shall I begin?”
“Wherever you want.”
•••
By sundown, no weeds had been pulled. The few that Esther had removed before the ponies arrived still lay on the lawn where she'd left them, while the rest remained in the flowerbeds.
The ponies had shared several glasses of lemonade and a plate of homemade cookies, and then they'd gone back to the truck, hooves still clean.
Jon was right where they'd left him, slouched down in the driver's seat. “How'd it go?”
Wysteria shrugged. “We made good progress today.”
“It's only gonna be a couple of hours next week,” Sweetberry added. “Just like I thought.”
“I didn't see you come out front.”
“There wasn't any need.”
“Really.” Jon could see the weeds from where he sat.
What he couldn't see was Esther. And it wouldn't matter if he had; he wouldn't have understood.
“Really.” Tiddlywink grabbed her seatbelt with her teeth and dragged it across her chest, pushing it into the buckle. “They're practically taken care of.”
I don't believe you, Jon thought. I don't believe you did anything at all. He couldn't say that out loud, not without risking the loss of his entire crew, and with it the loss of the Arnaults. There, he'd seen them working plenty hard; there he'd seen the dirt and sweat in their coats at the end of the day. Here, they were clean and dry.
Still, fifty dollars was fifty dollars. Maybe they'd spent the entire day weeding the back gardens, maybe they'd cleaned up before getting into the truck. As long as Esther didn't call complaining about them, he'd be satisfied.
•••
By the time they got back to the shop, Sweetberry was sound asleep in the back seat. Tiddlywink shook her awake, and despite his offer to take them directly home, they walked to the bus stop at the end of the block.
He closed up his shop, which was easy enough. A few morning jobs had required the use of his riding lawn mower—at some homes, he mowed while they worked the landscaping—and it only took a few minutes to refill the tank and grease everything, and then he locked the doors and drove home, waving to the ponies as he passed the bus stop.
•••
Much to Jon's surprise, the front garden at Esther's house was weed-free when he arrived. The three ponies piled out of the truck and headed out back, while he pulled out his cell phone to catch up on emails.
Wysteria led them around back. Esther was working around her lavender, carefully trimming the stems of the bush when they arrived.
“It's already looking better,” Wysteria said.
“Thank you.” Esther stood up and brushed some dirt off her knees. “Would you like some lemonade?”
“Not just yet.” Sweetberry replied. “We've got work to do first. You've done so much already, and it wouldn't be fair for us to not help you.”
“You said you planted this rosebush in 1965?”
“Not that one,” Esther said. “The first one died, oh, I think it was about 1972. That was a bad year for bugs, and I did what I could, but it wasn't enough. I planted this in its place the next year.”
“That's right, and you used its flowers for your daughter's wedding.”
“I did.”
Wysteria moved around the plant, carefully nosing at the stems, while Tiddlywink began to nip off the few weeds which remained around it.
“I gave her a cutting, too; I planted that at their house.” Esther smiled. “I wonder if it's still there? They moved away in 1997—or was it 1998? Her husband accepted a transfer to California. They've got a beautiful house there, I helped them plant their yard. That was before Earl had his stroke, you know.”
She knelt down beside the ponies, reaching into the garden herself. “He was from the south, and he always wanted a magnolia tree, but of course you can't grow one here, not a proper one. The blossoms just can't survive the frost. Magnolia trees and Spanish moss and honeysuckle . . . oh, I can picture it in my mind. We'd planned to go south when we'd retired, but then Michelle had her baby and we wanted to stay close. I remember one year when he was just a toddler, he got in the vegetable garden—you know how children can be—and we caught him eating a leaf off the rhubarb. Well, he turned out okay, I don't think he ate all that much anyway.” Esther pointed to the far side of the yard, near the garage. “Maybe you can still see the edges of the garden. Next year, I should plant it again—I don't suppose you'd be willing to help?”
“Of course we would,” Wysteria said. “I think that falls squarely in the terms of our contract, even if Jon doesn't think so.”
“Trees, too,” Sweetberry added. “We'll help you with those if you want. There's not enough room here for a proper orchard, but a few more trees would really look nice.”
“They would, wouldn't they?” Esther frowned. “Oh, but I don't know if it's worth the effort. I'm getting on in years.”
“That's no reason not to,” Sweetberry said. “When you think about it, most trees are gonna outlive you anyway.”
“I suppose you're right. Over there, when I was younger, I used to sit out in the backyard and read. It was always peaceful. It was like being in the forest, almost.”
“Let's think about that,” Wysteria offered. “For the springtime. It won't be too much extra to manage, really. They'll need a lot of watering at first until the roots take, but after that they'll hardly require any effort at all.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe a little vegetable garden, too. We can put that in, right back by the garage. Herbs around the edges, if you want.”
“It's been a few years,” Esther confessed, “but I still get the Burpee catalog every spring.”
Wysteria nodded. “Think about that. It'll be a bit more work, but you can do it with just a little bit of help.”
“I can.” She crouched down and rubbed Wysteria's mane. “You ponies are making me feel young again. Now, come up to the house and have some lemonade before you go.”
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Perspectives world apart, as it were.
Now that is the true magic of friendship!
If only I had a Fluttershy to tell the goddamn moles to keep to the back corner of the back yard so they stop killing strips of grass from underneath with their tunnel ridges. I hate having to poison them. Spawning season is about to start for the little bastards.
“I thought I'd clean up a bit before you . . . girls arrived.”
Yes, it works that way with maid services too. You would not believe the number of women who contract for a maid service, then clean the house every week before the maid arrives.
This is so goshdarn wholesome.
You know Tiddlywink is a Breezie, right?
9813050
I don't think there's anything to say two ponies can't share the same name.
This is good, in all meanings of good.
Oh i see, this cunning ponies come from the school of flin and flan and are tricking this manipulable old lady into doing the job for them while she pays them, and that fool of Joe tought he knew how to do bussineses!
:P
Fluttershy 0.2_beta.
Why are so many stories using older pony generations as thumbnails? Is this a monthly writing challenge or something?
BTW, daaawww. This is so heartwarming.
Lovely as ever.
I like it when people flesh out the G3 characters. I once had an idea for a G3 rewrite partially based on Mr. Enter’s criticisms and crack theories. This does raise a question, though: apparently, they said that they’ll allow G5 fanfics on this site when the time comes. By that reasoning, should fanfics that are just about past generations be allowed, too?
9813666
YES~!!!!!!!!!!!!
Superb. Just what I needed while lying on the sofa, being ill. Already feeling a little better... can they come round to me next and help me with my garden?
The moment I saw the thumbnail, I immediately wondered: What’s going to happen to this site when FiM and its spinoffs come to an end for good, and the next thing comes up? Will it fade, or will it shift to Gen five fics? That doesn’t seem right to disclude all the rest, as My Little Pony and Friends wasn’t a bad series. In fact, it’s easily the best. Will the strict regulations loosen up, or will users see fit to abandon this site?
9812880
Yes, indeed.
9812891
It is! Maybe some day Jon will figure that out.
9812912
That’s one nice thing about having a more wild lawn--if I have moles, I don’t care. Might be a good snack for the foxes, who knows.
9812915
I would believe that, actually. Pride can be a powerful motivator.
And don’t think that Wysteria didn’t know exactly what would happen with Esther’s flower garden.
9812975
Thank you!
9813050
Clearly I didn’t.
After I settled on Wysteria as a main character, I picked another picture on Derpibooru that had a bunch of ponies--and, it turns out, Breezies--in it, and used the names in the tags. I did click the link to see which pony Sweetberry was, but I forgot for Tiddlywink.
Still, 9813085 does raise a good point; there can be more than one pony with the same name.
9813205
Thank you!
9813373
They’re not?
9813395
I’ll be perfectly honest, if somebody could sucker me into doing a few things that would improve my life for only $50 a week, I’d consider it money well spent.
9813479
Who, Wysteria?
9813536
If it is, it’s not one that I know of. I just thought it was a good picture, and I do like to use some older gen ponies in my fics every now and then. My longest fic features an obscure pony from G3, Silver Glow.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2017/3/31/1400693.jpeg
Thank you!
9813590
Corrections made; thank you!
9813617
Thank you!
9813666
While I don’t usually do it with G3, since I hardly know the series, I often do it with obscure G4 ponies.
I’ll admit, I have no idea who that is, but I can tell you I’ve had some success with a few humorous fics using bizarre headcanon (such as the idea that the ponies are brightly colored because they’re highly toxic).
I don’t know of anyone who’s had a fic rejected that features a prior gen of pony, honestly.
9813955
Wouldn’t that be nice? I know I’d be happy to have ponies come ‘round and help with mine.
9814173
Hopefully he will learn that Friendship will cuddle you on a cold and lonely night.
9814128
I suppose to some extent it’ll depend on what G5 brings. I think the site in general is already past its big growth phase (although I wouldn’t be upset to be proved wrong); I think that just like with the site currently, there’ll be some people happily writing new characters and new things, whereas there will be others writing the same old thing that they always have.
Heck, I haven’t published a single fic with a kirin yet, despite the fact that they’re adorable.
I honestly don’t know if they have any regulations about using older gen ponies in stories. Heck, my longest story stars an obscure G3 pony, and nobody’s ever complained about that.
9814214
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/6/28/24304.png
vitamin-ha.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Bald-Eagle-Memes23-1.jpg
9814217
I guess I should be more specific. It’s common knowledge this site is never going to go away, but what’s going to happen when the series it’s based around ends for good? In hiatus crossovers tend to happen, but they are finite. The well is not infinite. I legit wonder if large numbers of users will fold up and the entries will decrease. It seems the only natural conclusion unless a sudden influx of previous generation fascination crops up suddenly as FiM did.
9814224
The Dawww level is over 9000!
9813666
You could always ask Knighty that question. AFAIK, he has the final say.
I’ve seen some excellent G1 crossovers (mostly featuring Megan) but nothing without at least some G4
9814195
I mean, there's nothing in the story that directly states that all the ponies are earth ponies, and practically the whole of The Princess Promenade is about flowers, and there's even a song with the line:
Breezies know
The way to make daisies grow
...but it did seem worth pointing out.
9812912
9814174
Guys, there's actually a way around directly poisoning the moles next year.
The reason that they're digging in the yard is likely because they're finding grubs. There's a granular pesticide available specifically for lawns. As far as I know, the dogs will be just fine (and the foxes, for that matter). Apply it early in spring: what that does is prevent the eggs from hatching.
9814405
I already use broad spectrum insecticide granules rather regularly. I don't remember if they target grubs or not, though.
If you want a low maintenance garden, get a wildflower meadow where possible? Cut it once a year?
That's honestly kind of creepy, in a cute way.
I have a deep weakness for seeing struggling little old ladies get the help they need. Brilliant work. There really are some things money can't buy, regardless of contracts.
9814199
Heh yes. I just recalled how one gen is built on the others (kinda like there is an actual bloodline^^)
9814225
That's a new one XD
Very nice. Loved the dynamic between ponies and Jon the salesman.
This story is sweet. It just makes me happy and bubbly inside
9815392 I have a wager going with the General Sherman Tree...
I think I'm going to win.
Watch out, Methuselah Tree! I'm gaining on ya!
9814225
