//------------------------------//
// Stemming the Tide with Flowers 
// Story: A Magic Turn of Events 
// by Comma Typer 
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Canterlot High’s garden was often overlooked in the days following the magical disaster. From the point of view of someone who cared nothing about plants: “Why see if the flowers were well-watered? I just turned into a magic pony, and I don’t know what to do!”
After the initial panic had ceased, everyone became at least a little concerned over the garden. However, it wasn’t for the reasons one might think: It wasn’t out of fear that some beast or monster gobbled the plants up. It wasn’t out of dread that neglect would kill the garden.
In reality, it’s because it was infested with tons of exotically magical plants that looked so scary and horrifying, no sane pony would ever step hoof in it—and the principals-turned-princesses who were both sane and were willing to step hooves in it had to go to Manehattan and convene with various world leaders. Sadly, just zapping the garden with beams harmed more than it helped, so they left with only a promise.
If the ponies who controlled everything in outer space could not handle a measly garden, it’d take someone obsessed with gardening to the point of craziness to do the job.
Yet, there was not just one, but two: Wallflower Blush and Rose.



Or, perhaps, just one, with Rose being dragged along and making hooftracks in the mud under pouring rain.
“Are you mad?!” she yelled at her green friend.
As they entered the garden, it became clear that it had devolved into a dark forest complete with spooky trees and their pointy branches. Hisses and coos could be heard from too many places, and the whirl of a head was not enough to see the offending creature. Glowing eyes popped into view, creeping Rose out while following an equally creeped out Wallflower, striped sweater still on her though drenched.
“There has to be some way to make the garden safe!” Wallflower said, looking here and there and seeing a few strange specimens: some yellow flowers in a row that had little flames inside their petals in spite of the rain, an herb that reeked of rotten eggs and toothpaste combined which neither pony was willing to sample nor imagine, and the ghastly and hideous cyan grass known as poison joke.
“You think you can make this abomination safe?!” Rose shouted, raising her hoof in both surprise and annoyance as the rain washed her mane wet.
Wallflower rolled her eyes, watching her hoof to avoid tripping on invasive roots. “We’re both Earth ponies. We have the magic to keep this in check...somehow.”
Then, a growl from behind some rustling bushes.
Wallflower and Rose stood still, hooves shaky.
“Run?” Rose suggested in a scared whisper.
“Wait,” and Wallflower placed a hoof over her friend’s face.
Rose lowered the hoof and returned it with a glare. “That thing could eat us!”
“You don’t even know what that thing is!”
Another growl, and the bushes shook violently.
Both ponies clung onto each other, teeth clattering and staring at the bushes.
A figure shot out.
Made of branches, somehow a sentient being with green eyes under leafy eyebrows—
“Timberwolf!” screamed Rose.
The wooden canine lunged into the air, aimed straight for Rose.
Wallflower grabbed her by the mane, threw her out of the way. Then, the green pony was hit by the wolf.
Was kicked in the jaw.
“Ah!”
Rose moaned as she quickly got up from her crater in the ground, saw Wallflower battling the timberwolf, though with a limp and pained hoof.
“Wallflower, no!”
And Rose galloped her way to the enemy and bucked it on the torso, causing it to wince and reflex.
The timberwolf growled at her, baring its wooden teeth as it crept up on its next prey.
“Eep!” as Rose’s eyes darted to and fro, trying to think of something despite the wolf’s bad breath, though she was relieved that Wallflower was safe, so how was she gonna—
Noticed the flaming flowers behind her.
She smirked, grabbed a bunch, then held them in front of the wolf’s face. With a sudden rise in confidence, she yelled, “Come closer to me! Yeah, come closer! I dare you!”
The timberwolf was visibly shaken by the magical plants, though it still showed its sharp teeth.
“Come on!” Rose taunted, waving the flowers around with her hoof. “Come on, doggie! Scared of some pretty flowers? Pathetic!”
The timberwolf lowered its head, growling again.
Then, Rose stretched her hoof, putting the flowers mere inches away from the creature.
Letting it feel the flowers’ warmth.
The timeberwolf cried out, whimpered, and ran away with a slinked tail.
Rose smiled, smugly putting the flowers on her mane. “Hah! Don’t you come back!”
Caught the smell of smoke.
Rose whirled around to see her mane.
As it was being burned by the flowers.
“Aaaahhh!”
Rose galloped around, forgetting to stop, drop, and roll properly. Instead, she stopped just to trip over Wallflower’s listless body, dropped to the muddy ground with a thud!, and rolled to a halt at a tree’s trunk.
That was all she remembered before she fainted.



At first, she saw nothing but felt something soft on her back.
Probably lying down. Probably on a bed.
A pungent smell wafted into her nose.
She recoiled. “Ugh! What’s that?!”
“The cure for your poison joke,” was Wallflower’s casual reply.
“Oh. OK.”
Then, Rose’s eyes opened, realizing what her friend just said.
“What?!”
She instinctively grabbed the first thing beside her which was a mirror. She brought it up to her face.
Her mane was gone, replaced with wilted stalks and stems.
“Aieee!”
A hoof steadied her on the head.
“Rose! Focus on me!”
She dropped the mirror to the bed, then focused on Wallflower’s face, her vision clearing up and even seeing the latter’s freckles.
Realized she wasn’t inside the garden at all. Rose trembled on her pillow. “Wh-Where are we?!”
“Had to improvise. I tried Zecora’s mixtures but it turns out they don’t work here.”
“Z-Zecora?!” Rose stammered, irises shrinking. “D-Did I drink a magic potion?!”
“Didn’t work,” repeated Wallflower with a slight shake of her head. She then gestured a hoof to the rest of the room. “I had to make my own.”
Rose sat up on bed, then saw, inside the patient’s room, a cauldron of bubbling green goop under shelves not of medicine but of unknown magical plants and borrowed magical extracts from Equestria.
“Wallflower, what’re you doing?!” Rose yelled, raising a shivering hoof at her. “You’re just like a witch!”
Wallflower tapped her hoof impatiently and glared at Rose. “I’d rather be called a ‘magical herbalist.’”
The distinction between “witch” and “magical herbalist” didn’t matter to Rose. To her, the only thing lacking was ominous music and a black robe around Wallflower. Oh, and let’s not forget the pointy hat.
Consumed by this daunting image in her mind, Rose was reduced to blubbering. “N-No! I w-won’t be turned into a monster!”
Wallflower raised a brow. “Why would I do that to a friend like you?”
“There’s too much evidence!” Rose screamed, sweeping the whole room with an accusing hoof.
Wallflower wasn’t impressed by the prosecution, though. “How else am I gonna help you?”
“Ask the principals?!” she answered with flailing forehooves.
Wallflower sighed. “They’re still busy with international talks.” Then, she glanced at the cauldron. “Wait right here.”
She trotted to the big pot, grabbed a ladle, scooped some of the goop into a bowl, and tasted a bit of it. The end result was a smile. “That should do the trick!”
As for Rose, the end result was a pinch on the snout. “Eww! You’re gonna feed me sewage?”
Wallflower groaned. “If I wanted to poison you, maybe.”
Rose coughed, the smell still overwhelming her senses. “What’d you put in there?!”
“Twilight said it’s an herb called ‘Pourrifraise’,” replied Wallflower. “It’s the plant that smelled so bad back in the garden.”
Upon remembering that from their ill-fated excursion, Rose almost puked, her cheeks bulging and turning green.
“B-But it’ll be good for you!” Wallflower insisted, holding the bowl with one hoof while managing to walk back to the bed with the other three. She almost stumbled, spilling a few drops onto the floor, but she made it to the other side.
Rose moaned, captured by what could go wrong. “Wh-What if it backfires? What if I start turning into a plant? Or a tree?!”
Wallflower placed the bowl on the bedside desk, the stink making Rose cover her snout with both forehooves. “Don’t worry.” She then bit a branch that was stuck on her wet sweater and took it out. “I tried it and it worked just fine!”
“And what did you have?!” Rose yelled, having just noticed the odd branch.
True to her name, Wallflower blushed, cheeks flushing red. “I also had my mane replaced with plants.”
Rose blinked. Then, after mustering up some much-needed breath, she said, “Well, why would I not believe you now?”
Wallflower sighed. “Finally! So, you’re ready for a batch?”
Rose nodded, though still covering her snout. “Anything to get rid of my horrible ‘mane’!”
With that, Wallflower brought the bowl up to Rose’s lips, letting her friend gulp the delicious curing potion down her throat.
She looked at Rose’s mane as the red hair grew back up, throwing off the stalks and stems in their place.
Wallflower grabbed the mirror and put it up to her friend’s face for her to see that the potion worked. “How do you look?”
Rose looked at herself, seeing her normal red mane. She bobbed her hair with a hoof. “Aww!” Turning to Wallflower to wrap her in a hug, “Thank you so much!”
Wallflower blushed again, still staying true to her name as she reciprocated with a hug of her own.



“...and that’s how she saved me from both a timberwolf and a really bad mane day!” Rose said to finish her story to Sunset Shimmer.
They were trotting down the street with Wallflower, avoiding lots of repair work on cracked roads and broken storefronts, plenty of construction workers on the scene as they attempted to fix with hooves instead of hands—machinery was hard to operate without fingers, after all.
On the now dry roads was an eerie lack of cars or anything else that had wheels. There was a sleek sports car with a spoiler on its rear, but it moved around awkwardly. Considering that it had a pony behind the wheel, it was reasonable.
It did move around slowly, too. That meant the driver had safety in mind, not wanting to run over a poor, innocent pony.
Then again, when you had lost your hands and feet in exchange for hooves some days before, safety would be in your mind all the time.
Getting off from that sports car tangent:
Those three mares passed by other ponies on the sidewalk, with the occasional wave for familiar faces. “Hi!”’s and “Hello!”’s were in order, a few polite questions asked before they went on with their business. With almost every other passer-by, Sunset gazed upon them with a pitiful look.
“What’s wrong?” Wallflower asked, having noticed that distressed expression.
Sunset lifted her head up and faked a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing! Don’t mind me!”
Rose frowned, not buying the smoke screen. “I think it is something.” Putting on a welcoming smile, “You can share your troubles with us, Sunset.”
The worried unicorn kept up the facade. “It’s not much, really.” Then, looking at Wallflower to deflect suspicion, “Come to think of it, I didn’t know you had a knack for potions!”
Going thrice, Wallflower blushed, shying a little away. “I-I didn’t know, too, until I had to figure out how to whip up a cure. After skimming the first chapter on The Book for Panaceas and Not Placebos, it just...clicked.”
Sunset chuckled, ignoring Rose’s drooping ears. “At least it’s getting easier for you to learn magic.” She rubbed her chin in thought, then said, “What about you start practicing potion-making? I mean, you’re good at gardening, and if it turns out that you’re also good at magic gardening, you could set up a business for it! Call it, Wallflower’s Shop of Cure-’em-all’s! or something like that.”
For the fourth time today, Wallflower blushed, flattered by the suggested name. “You don’t have to do that!”
“I insist!” Sunset, well, insisted. “Unless you have a better name,” then ended with a nervous chuckle and an anxious look up at the clear sky.
Rose detected the signs of a troubled pony, then nudged her on the shoulder. “Sunset, you don’t have to hide from us. What is it?”
Sunset still smiled for a few more seconds.
It crumbled into a sulking frown.
They stopped by the intersection, waiting for cars to cross the road.
Except, of course, there were no cars.
The pedestrian light was red, though. Being a pony was already a big problem. They did not want to compound that with being law-breakers.
Sunset sighed as they stood there, avoiding non-existent automobiles. She stared at the two ponies by her side. “When I look at you, all of you, I see lives changed forever. I’m sure none of you asked to gain magical powers or become ponies.”
“But you don’t have much to worry about, right?” Rose asked. “You were born a pony, so it’s not like you had to adjust a lot.”
Sunset glanced away, focusing on the road before them. “That’s the thing.”
The light turned green.
The mares crossed the street, looking left and right out of habit. They reached the other side and continued their trot.
“I’m the one who came to your world. I was the one who had to adjust. Walking on two legs, holding things with hands, surviving in a world without magic...trying to blend into a society that’s new but wasn’t at the same time.”
A pause, slowing down a bit to make sure they were within earshot.
“Even after the Fall Formal, I still had a lot of things to learn. And then, just when I was getting comfortable with staying here for a very long time...” and looked down on her familiar hooves, “this happens.”
A heavy sigh escaped her mouth, betraying remorse.
“I know it’s not my fault nor was it anyone else’s, but seeing these new ponies going through the same process I did, it makes me feel more than just sad...even guilty at times. And it’s not just you and the rest of our friends in Canterlot. It’s everyone.” Stopped to catch a breath. “I have to see a whole world adjust to what I’m used to, and it feels like I’m getting away with it ‘cause I know it all—been there, done that for most of my life.”
Ended it with another sigh, avoiding their deep looks.
Rose tilted her head. “But you’re helping with the pony tutorials you posted online. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”
Sunset frowned, still not wishing to see the disaster’s victims. “Maybe in the long run, but now...if only there was a button you could just press and everything would go back to normal.”
“The problem is, there is no button, right?” said Rose.
“Exactly.”
Sunset’s ears drooped.
There was no button to reset everything. No magical stone or amulet to restore the world to what it was before. Not even a temporary solution would work—a fanciful thought about Discord came to mind, but it was tossed away, knowing that he’d be using magic to try to get rid of magic. Surely, nothing good could come out of that.
Then, two hooves wrapped around her neck.
She looked at them, seeing Wallflower and Rose hugging her.
She hugged them back.
As they embraced each other in the middle of the sidewalk, garnering looks from passers-by and the pony still trying to drive his sports car.



The next day, Rose decided to go to Wallflower’s house first thing in the morning.
She stood by the door and knocked on it with her rather flat hoof, as if hooves could be pointy.
“Who’s there?!” shouted Wallflower from inside.
“It’s me!” Rose shouted back.
“Oh! Come in! I wanted to try out an enchanted lock so it’ll only open if you’re on my list.”
“...what?”
But Rose tried anyway. She grabbed the door handle, heard a snap! from inside, and tried to push the door.
It swung open.
When she entered, she was surprised with mouth open at the humble abode’s new horticultural additions. Bizarre plants flourished on a variety of pots scattered from living room to bedroom. Flowers of strange color combinations and shapes took up space—here was a flower in purple and white stripes, emitting a smoketrail of perfume and filling the house with a sumptuous fragrance of foreign wood. Over there, some weird root crops were thriving, namely of exotic spices including one where leafy bags of actually powdered spice hung from its dangling petioles. Last but not the least were the little bonsai-like trees growing normal-sized fruit. Regular apples hanging from a tiny tree? Yes, that’s what’s happening, and the apples weren’t pulling the branches down; other than their bigness, they fit in with their trees.
Coupled with the vines sprawling on the walls, the house had become a botanist’s dream beyond one’s imagination.
Rose then found Wallflower watering a pot of flowers, specifically the ones with little flames on their petals. “W-Wallflower?”
The gardener smiled, putting the watering can out of her mouth and onto the side. She closed her eyes, cheerful. “Hi, Rose!”
Rose’s eye twitched, still unable to take in all the plants at once. “D-Did the garden infest your house?”
What she got was a playful chuckle and, once again, her trademark blush. “I thought about Sunset’s ‘magical gardening’. Since I, well, like gardening a lot, and since magical gardening’s a thing now, I guess I should make something out of it.”
Rose took a step back, still scared that a plant might suck the life out of her.
Wallflower trotted over and gave her an assuring pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry! I didn’t get anything dangerous. Just the usual.”
Rose gulped, wondering how cruel the “usual” magical plant could be to her.
Wallflower frowned. “Anything?”
Rose shivered, unable to quickly accept that Wallflower had truly become a magical herbalist, that her home had become a hut for Equestrian plants. “Are you out of your mind?!”
With a blink, Wallflower replied, “No?”
Rose smacked her own face with a hoof. “You just jumped in and bought all this stuff from Equestria, did you?”
Wallflower shook her head. “The only things I bought were these helpful books.” She then gestured to the literature on the desk, containing interesting titles such as Don’t Leaf Me Alone: Leaves and Herbs Guide 100 + 1, Don’t Look Directly at the Sun! (Unless You’re a Sunflower), and Pine Coning for More: How to Impress Your Romantic Interest with a Love-inducing Cypress.
“So, everything else is local?” Rose asked.
“You could say that.”
Then, Rose saw a green bubble float from behind a counter in the kitchen before it popped. Raising a shaky hoof to point at empty space now, “Uh, is that—“
“The cauldron?” Wallflower asked, looking at that empty space, too. “Decided to buy that also. Zecora’s got a spare pot.”
Rose placed a hoof on her head, staring at her friend in utter disbelief. “You’ve gone from gardener to sorcerer in one week!”
Wallflower glowered at her. “We’ve gone from humans to ponies in one minute.”
Rose rolled her tongue inside her cheeks. “Yeah. Right. Hah.”
She stood there, watching Wallflower trot over to the hidden cauldron to check up on the potion’s progress. Then, Rose raised her hoof and asked, “What’s gonna happen to the gardening club now that you’re a sorcerer or whatever?”
Wallflower stopped and whirled around one-eighty. “I won’t dissolve it. Just because gardening’s a lot different now doesn’t mean we’ll abandon the club.” Then, an idea striking her in the head, eyes growing wide, “What about I show you how it all works?”
Rose looked around, seeing the strange plants including the flowers with flames. With a mumble of a groan, “Let’s make this quick.”



That simple move turned Rose into Wallflower’s semi-apprentice. She started by delivering this or that specimen and stirring the pot for a certain amount of minutes. After getting the hang of that, she leveled up to the finer points of the art, handling test tubes and precise amounts of mixtures. Once that was accomplished, she not only read the books, she devoured them, opening her eyes to the world of magical botany.
By the time Rose and Wallflower’s Shop of Cure-’em-all’s! was on the brink of opening almost two months later, the once humble abode had ponies packed and talking at the sidewalk, all beholding a green and red ribbon in front of Wallflower’s door.
Because it was evening, it was Principal Luna who was levitating a pair of scissors beside the ribbon, waiting for the two shop owners to come out.
There were many ponies to recognize at this momentous occasion. Aside from the Princess of the Night herself, there was Sunset Shimmer who decided to be a little wacky and wore some shades despite the darkness. The two Twilight Sparkles were there, both of them giddy though Sci-Twi more so—a classmate of hers not only survived the change practically unfazed, but she’s made a worthy establishment out of it. The icing on the cakepie, however, was Zecora herself making an appearance, pleased to witness a like-minded pony about to set up a place like hers back in the Everfree Forest.
Of course, if a store advertised cures, there should be sick ponies out in the crowd. Yes, there were sick ponies out in the crowd, especially those down with the cold.
All the mumbling stopped when the door opened.
Wallflower Blush and Rose stood there, wearing genuine smiles for everypony.
The former chuckled and blushed, tearing up at the many ponies there who would not just give her a good time but would take part in something that she had a devotion to for a long, long time.
Tonight, she was far from being forgotten. She would be remembered for helping so many ponies—and why stop there? What about helping griffons, zebras, yaks, and more?
Even with all the sentiment in her mind, Wallflower rolled her eyes, still smiling. “Eh, I’m not good with public speech. Luna?”
Luna chuckled. “We thank thee for making it easy for us.”
She cut the ribbon.
A surge of ponies rushed in while Zecora stayed behind for a minute, observing the heartwarming opening from the sidewalk.
Then, she trotted inside.