//------------------------------// // Scaredy-Pants // Story: Lure of the Flower // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// Despite herself – despite the fact, for a start, that not once had she felt the least bit heroic in the last however-long-it-was – Lily laughed so triumphantly she almost cackled. “I found you!” she said. “Thank goodness I found you!” “What are you doing here, Lily?” said Daisy curtly. Lily hesitated. By this point, she was already mentally awarding herself a medal, a bouquet, and a round of applause. Curt questions didn’t feature in that fantasy. “I came to rescue you,” she said. “Didn’t I?” Daisy frowned. “Rescue?” “You’ve been asleep for days. Something dreadful must have happened.” They both took in the surrounding grass of the lump-of-an-island, the algae-thick ooze sitting quietly below, and the omnipresent dark mist which, in spite of being black and lurking, wasn’t technically doing anything rescue-worthy. “Didn’t it?” Lily added hopefully. Daisy turned and ambled over to the far side of the island, a distance of about five yards. If she was stranded, she wasn’t exactly leaping and galloping with panic over it. “No,” she whispered, and she sat down with her back to Lily. “No what?” “Trust me, I’m grateful, and it’s nice of you… I think… but… I didn’t ask you to come in. How did you get here anyway? You could still be part of the dream, whatever you say, but I’m curious.” Lily’s mind struggled up till the last part, which at least her brain had a chance of answering. “Er, Doc made some kind of machine.” “And you trusted him?” “No.” No hesitation there. “I thought you’d asked Luna for help, or something.” “Yes, well,” muttered Lily, “according to Rose, we’re not important enough.” “Uh huh. And even though it was Doc telling you to do it, you still went ahead and did it?” “Doc didn’t tell me to do it. I came up with the idea on my own. All he did was supply the means.” Lily hated seeing the back of her friend, so she ambled over. “Come on, Daisy, this isn’t funny anymore. I hate it here. Let’s go home and forget all about this.” “Fine.” Daisy shifted so her back was still prominent. “You go home then. I’m staying.” “I don’t know how to go home!” Surprise opening her eyes and mouth, Daisy’s head spun round to catch her. “You don’t?” “No! Doc made it sound so easy right up until I actually did it! He just asked me to find you and bring you back. I thought it was going to be like one of those games where it’s over as soon as you’ve won.” Daisy looked as though she’d been struck. Then she recovered, hardened like cooling volcanic basalt, and whirled her head back round so fast that her curls swiped at Lily’s snout. “‘As soon as you’ve won’,” she grumbled. “Listen, Lily: I like it here. No obligations. No distractions. No fake cheer or encouragement. Just me, my mind, and whatever drifts by.” Sitting in a swamp, Lily thought, screwing up her face. “I’m not a prize for you to boast about.” Lily spluttered. “I never said you were!” “Really? When you were in such a hurry to come here and rescue me, did you once think to ask what I might want? I notice you still haven’t asked, by the way.” “You were asleep for days.” Lily’s mind tangled and became gnarled trying to keep up. Shame insisted she hadn’t once thought about what Daisy might want, but then when had Daisy ever wanted a lie-in of this magnitude? Daisy’s ear swivelled, listening for a response. “So…” said Lily, hoping to make some sense if she pressed on, “how long are you gonna stay here?” “As long as it takes.” “As long as what takes?” Furiously, Daisy rounded on her. “What do you think? Is there anything good going on at the moment?” “Huh?” Daisy’s scowl, wielded in the manner of a pair of garden shears, smoothed down to a ploughshare. “You don’t think there’s anything… wrong with us?” Understanding dawned. Grinning with relief, Lily said, “Oh, you shouldn’t pay any attention to that, Daisy. It’s just ponies not thinking things through. If we weren’t careful, after all –” “Not that. I meant,” said Daisy, and she paused to cough, “the other thing.” “What? The business?” “Yes. The business.” Daisy swallowed. “Who are we, Lily?” “Oh no,” groaned Lily, “don’t tell me you’ve got memory loss too!” “What!? No! Of course not!” Irritably, Daisy waved her forelimb to bat the words away. “What I’m saying is…” Without a sound, without any kind of lifelike signal, the darkness and the swamp loomed around them as though closing in on her struggling lips. “…supposing we weren’t there anymore?” “Weren’t where?” said Lily, fascinated despite the frantic shivers coming up from her spine. “Well, there was a florist’s before us, with other ponies taking care of it. There’ll be another florist’s after us, again with different ponies. There are florists’ all over Equestria, and some of them must be better than ours. Goodness knows how many Ponyville ponies alone know enough about flowers to give us a run for our money.” Usually never quick on the uptake, Lily jumped from lead-in to conclusion. “Oh, Daisy,” she rushed to say, “we’re not that badly off. This is just a temporary slump. We’ll be back in business soon enough.” “Really? Because there’s some universal law that’ll put us there and keep us there? Or because you want us to be there?” “Huh?” Daisy stood up so fast she almost levitated herself, stiff-legged, leaning forwards. “There’s no safety net! If we fail, we fail! Don’t you get it? And I’m the one running the place. I’m responsible if things go up or down, or stop altogether.” “Er…” Lily didn’t dare sigh with relief. She’d been tripping over in her efforts to keep up, but now she’d gripped the answer, it seemed an extremely bad idea to let go of it too soon. “Daisy, it’s not like that –” “How do you know?” In the empty swamp, the words belly-flopped onto her ear. Daisy was close enough to breathe on her face. Tiptoeing carefully, Lily put a couple of yards between them and licked her lips. “Let’s just go home now, please? We’re worried about you.” She thought,“Worried?” I’m scared stiff, for a start. Those eyes! To her relief and surprise, she saw Daisy deflate where she stood. The wind had definitely gone out of her, at least. “Oh, all right,” said Daisy. “I suppose I wasn’t really getting anywhere, anyway.” “You can’t go back looking like that,” said Lily. “What would Rose think if she saw you with that sour face?” “She can think what she likes,” said Daisy to her feet. “Maybe I’ll think clearer once I’m out of here. Which way’s the exit?” Both of them looked around. Black mist. Green swamp. Grass lump. “I have no idea,” said Lily. Daisy shrugged. “Well, I guess we better look for one. Which way did you come from?” “Same answer.” “What?” “I have no idea.” Growling, Daisy spun round and ambled towards a random patch of swamp. “We’d better start looking, then.” “In fact, I kinda like it on this island. Nothing’s happening to us here.” “So now you see it my way?” Daisy grunted. “Come on, Scaredy-Pants. At least the walk might be interesting.” Lily bristled. The words “Scaredy-Pants” had snuck around her ears a lot lately. Usually when their backs were turned. And although she’d gladly own up to treating snapped stems more histrionically than she’d treat, say, murder, something about being labelled for it struck at her very heart. After all, she did other things. She wrote poetry, though in the interests of health and safety not where anyone was likely to find it. She’d once dreamed of going to university, except that’d mean not failing school first. She never forgot anyone’s birthday, even if she never actually did anything for them. She genuinely liked dusting and polishing at home; it gave her some structure to her weekends. And dozens and dozens of other things, other varieties of flower and shrub and tree within the garden of her personality. So what did everyone do? Go straight to the withered little weed marked “Coward”. Or “Yellow-Belly”. Or “Scaredy-Pants”. Teeth sinking into her lower lip, Lily followed the splashes, aiming daggers at her friend’s back.