House of the Rising Sunflower

by kudzuhaiku


Cricket

Ponyville: the city of ponies. Not long after landing, Sundance spotted a griffon, and upon seeing said griffon, immediately wondered how that griffon felt about either inhabiting or visiting a city intended for ponies. Equine-centric names were common; Baltimare, Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus; and for the first time in his life, Sundance wondered if this was, perhaps, possibly, maybe a problem. 

At least the Sunfire Barony didn’t have this problem. 

No, the problem they had was that they needed a township name due to regulations. 

Things like postal service and such, and all of the things that would connect them to civilisation couldn’t happen until they had a name—and Sundance was at a total loss for ideas. When he’d suggested Rotten Egglünd—a serious, sincere suggestion—Corduroy threw a pawful of hot, buttered peas at him and told him to go soak his head. Then, she mentioned something about hearing umlauts, which baffled him. 

“Wow, Mister… you smell!” A small blue filly waved her wing at him, not as a hello, but clearly to fend off the stink, and when this failed to have any effect, she turned tail and galloped away with a cry of, “Head for the hills! The Great Stinkening has returned to Ponyville!” 

“I don’t smell anything,” Sundance said in a sullen tone. 

Did he just spend several hours in an office with several ponies who pretended that nothing was wrong? He stood there considering this very thought, and it was then he knew that he’d dealt with consummate professionals. They’d all sat at some distance away from him; in far corners, near the window, each of them sitting as far away as the small office would allow. Not a word was said, not one nose crinkled. 

One thought rose to the top of the others. 

He would never find his future baroness if he smelt like this. 

It was hard being the Lord of Rotten Egglünd.


The cottage was quite interesting, but the mare was far more so. At the moment, she was nursing a panther—a large, scary critter—who had a bad encounter with a porcupine from the looks of things. A young unicorn, a filly, acted as Fluttershy’s assistant, and followed the concerned mare’s careful instructions on what to do. Sundance watched, waited, and dared not interrupt. This was no doubt a wild panther, a ferocious critter, so this was a rare chance to see something ferocious up close. 

One of the quills was coaxed out, and an eyeblink later, a stream of foul yellowish pus oozed from the swollen hole. The panther moaned with pain, but did nothing to harm its caretakers. Armed with pliers, the unicorn filly got ahold of another porcupine quill, and went to work dislodging it from the panther’s muzzle. 

“How many times have I told you to leave the porcupines alone?” Fluttershy’s demeanour was one of intense disappointment and disapproval, and something about her reminded Sundance of his mother. “You must stop doing this. Do you want me to scold you? Are you a naughty kitty?” 

Much to Sundance’s shock and surprise, the panther cringed in shame. 

“If you keep this up, I’ll have no choice but to be cross with you—” 

When these words were said, the panther whimpered. 

“—and I might even raise my voice at you. Is that what you want, Mister Panther? Is it? Do you want that to happen?” She stomped her hoof against the dirt and her ears pitched forwards at an aggressive angle. “Because that’s what is going to happen the next time you come scratching at my door in the middle of the night.” 

The unicorn filly coaxed out another quill; this, along with Fluttershy’s stern words, proved too much for the poor panther, and it collapsed in a quivering heap. As it turned out, the predatory feline was just a big crybaby really, and while it made the most awful sounds (cries that Sundance could not possibly describe, other than the fact that they were heartbreaking) Fluttershy offered very little much-needed comfort for the stricken panther. 

“I don’t care if the porcupines do taunt you,” she said in a stern tone. “There’s no way that you can eat them. You must stop being so foolish. I thought cats were supposed to be smart.” 

At this, the panther reowled, its tail twitched, and then he went still. 

“Tender Mercy, if you would please finish up the job, that would be so very nice of you.” Fluttershy turned to look at Sundance. “I am going to speak to our guest. Thank you so much for your help, Tender Mercy. One day, you’ll be the bestest veterinarian, I just know it.” 


 

Sundance stood perfectly still while Fluttershy studied him. She walked around him in a circle, examining him, and after a full circuit, she spent several long moments reading his face as if it were a book. He said nothing, because she said nothing, but he did look at her, and even maintained eye contact when she initiated it. Her face was beautiful, wise, and somehow untouched by age. She was clearly older, that much was obvious, but try as he might, Sundance could not see age on her face. Her eyes were clear, bright, and somehow comforting. 

“Twilight Velvet said you would come,” she said at last. “Sundance.” 

“I am,” he replied. 

“And I’m Fluttershy.” She raised her head a little higher, broke eye contact, and he felt her eyes upon his neck. “Oh, you poor dear. You’ve been mauled. That’s awful.” 

He felt a light touch of feathers against his throat. 

“Those scars have healed well. Why, they’re barely noticeable at all. You must have an excellent caretaker.” She moved in closer to have a better look at his back. “I can’t believe an owlbear would do this. They’re so shy and reclusive. It must have been desperate… in a bad way. They’re smart, owlbears, and they know that we ponies will respond badly if they hunt us.” 

She brought her head around to look into Sundance’s eye on his left side. “There’s a reason for this, even if we don’t understand what it is yet. The environment must have changed in some way, or the ecosystem has been disrupted. You must try to figure out what happened, so that we ponies and those precious, big, cuddly owlbears can live in peace.” 

He considered her words and didn’t dismiss them outright. Perhaps something was wrong; she might be right. And whatever was wrong might very well put his barony in danger. Perhaps more time in the air was necessary; long patrols over the unknown places in search of owlbears and other megafauna. Maybe if there was a problem, and the root cause was dealt with somehow, the owlbears might leave his barony alone. 

“It’s very nice of you to at least think about it,” Fluttershy said as her attention returned to the scars that ran the length of his back. “Owlbears are vicious brutes, but they’re also quite shy and solitary. This shouldn’t have happened. It’s a sign that something is wrong. At least, I’m pretty sure it is. I suppose an owlbear might have a bad day, but that seems unlikely. I know these creatures. Some of them live in the Everfree. They leave me in peace because I do my best to respect them.” 

“I came to collect an orphan—” 

“No! No! Don’t call him that!” 

Sundance cringed, and feared that he’d blown it. 

The smaller mare was right up in his face now, and he stood perfectly still while she stared up at him. He saw anger, though he suspected that the anger wasn’t directed at him—though it might be. Hard to tell. Her eyes were mesmerising though, and he found that he really did want to look into them, to peer into them and explore their depths. Something tugged on his brain from the inside, and sensation in his limbs dulled. All he wanted to do was gaze into those perfect eyes—

With a blink, the spell was broken, and he tried to recover his senses. 

“He’s napping. I think. He likes to nap in the middle of the day.” 

“Well,” Sundance said, “what’s his name?” 

“Oh.” Fluttershy drew in her wings and held them tight against her body. “Promise me that you won’t laugh. Promise.” 

“Uh, I promise I won’t laugh?” 

“That was distinctly a question,” a voice said from somewhere and nowhere. “You did a lousy job of hiding that question mark. Try again, friend. Or else owlbears will be the least of your worries.” 

Sundance glanced around, he tried to find the source of the voice, but he saw no one. Fluttershy looked up at him, she waited with great patience, and after a second look around, when Sundance found nothing, he returned his attention to her. It was probably for the best to pretend that whatever had just happened didn’t actually happen. 

“How bad could it be? I promise, I won’t laugh.” 

“He’s a burro,” Fluttershy began, “and his caretaker attempted to take that into consideration when he was finally named.” Her face soured. “She didn’t do a very good job. From what I was told, she knew only a few burro-words, and while she had good intentions…” Her words trailed off with a weary sigh. 

“Ponies and their intentions,” the unseen voice said. “Almost as bad as my own.” 

“She wanted to give him a connection to his culture. I can’t fault her for that.” Fluttershy’s face crinkled somewhat as grumpiness marred her timeless countenance. “His name is Tarantula Sombrero.” 

Sundance blinked, but his face did not betray him. 

“What did Twilight Velvet tell you?” asked Fluttershy. 

“That he was abused. Neglected.” Sundance felt his throat grow tight as anger manifested like a burning brand within his breast. “Mrs. Oddbody said it wasn’t physical abuse, just neglect.” 

Fluttershy’s eyes grew pained, distant. “She was not a cruel caretaker… not like some. No… she just… well, she just didn’t know how to deal with the burro. That’s the problem. She saw him as a burro, not as a foal. During the trial, she said that she just didn’t know how to reach out to him, or what to do with him. She—” The frustrated sunny yellow pegasus chomped down on her lip and went silent. 

Without knowing why, Sundance suddenly felt guilty. 

“It’s a shame, what happened. She fed him, cared for him, but she didn’t reach out to him. Didn’t speak to him much. He wasn’t supervised or watched over like the others in her care. Now, he has trust issues. He’s quiet, and not in a good way. I’ve never heard him laugh… or even cry for that matter. He didn’t even respond when I tried to tickle him. Poor little guy, he just pulled away and whimpered. Doesn’t like to be touched. I’ve done my best to restore his trust, and I tell him every single day that there are good ponies.” 

“Well, fu—” 

Fluttershy blinked, and Sundance’s danger sense told him that he was in mortal peril. 

“—dge.” 

She blinked again, and her stern gaze turned suspicious. 

“I have strong feelings,” he said to her with the hopes of explaining his behaviour. 

“I once said that I was”—her voice turned into a quiet, subdued squeak—“peeved. In public no less. Rainbow Dash heard me and everything. It’s alright if you’re angry. Perhaps you want to talk about it?” 

Before he could even think of what he was saying, he blurted out, “My best friend is a diamond dog, and I almost ruined the most perfect, most wonderful friendship because I almost acted on the awful things my mother taught me growing up and I—” He covered his mouth with his wing to cut off the flow before the really awful things were said. 

“Oh, you poor dear.” She looked up at him with sincere hurt in her eyes. “That makes my heart ache… oh, it must be so hard for you. It’s fine to cry, if you need to. You can cry it out and then we can talk about it.” 

“No, I’m fine,” he said while he pulled his wing away from his mouth—though he did feel a curious need to cry about it. But that need was dealt with and cast aside. A single sniffle did escape, and when it did, he saw Fluttershy’s eyes widen with concern. “I’m fine, really. But I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I was a bigot. I didn’t mean to be… I didn’t try to be. It’s not like I went out of my way to make the lives of other creatures miserable. My mother taught me things, and I believed them, and movies, and books, and stuff like that kind of influenced my thoughts. I had a head full of garbage, and I recently had to clean it all out. But I’m fine, really.” 

“You don’t sound fine.” 

“I am.” He ignored the hot sting in the corners of his eyes. 

“Holding it all in doesn’t help.” 

“Yes it does,” he replied while he resisted the urge to sniffle. 

“It’s hard to make difficult friends,” Fluttershy said to Sunance as she sat down in the grass and then pulled him down beside her. “Once, a long time ago, I decided to put Twilight’s ideas about friendship into practice.” She settled on the grass, got comfortable, slipped a wing around Sundance’s back, and scooted closer to him. 

“There was a creature that had no friends… only enemies. Ponies thought it was horrible… ugly… twisted and distorted by evil. Many judged him on how he looked… because he didn’t look like the rest of us. I made a decision to try and be his friend, and let me tell you, this caused me some strain in my other friendships… my other relationships. They were quick to judge, and given this creature’s past, it is hard to blame them.” 

From somewhere and nowhere, there came a faint, muffled sniffle. 

“In becoming friends with this twisted creature that didn’t look like us, I had to deal with the bigotry of my friends. And myself, too. I can’t leave that part out. I had to look into my own heart, and let me tell you, Sundance, I didn’t like what I saw there. I had to go against everything I was raised to believe, I had to deal with what my friends thought, and everypony else around me. 

“And during a moment of loneliness, when everything felt impossible, when it felt like my friends were distant, that moment of loneliness gave me some insight into my new friend, and I had an idea of how he must of felt. It was awful. No, it was worse than awful. It hurt me. All my friends told me I was wrong, and I was depressed, and downhearted, and everything felt so impossible, and all I could think of was that my new friend had it so much worse.”

The sniffles turned to blubbering, and Fluttershy paused to look around. 

“Discord, this is serious. Stop that.” 

“No, I’m sad. Everything you’ve just said is so touching.” 

“Discord… don’t do this. Not right now. I’m trying to heal another creature.” 

The sniffling ceased with sudden abruptness and Sundance joined Fluttershy in looking about. He saw nothing, no source, no cause—but he did see a somewhat annoyed Fluttershy sitting right beside him. Tender Mercy was still pulling quills out of a mewling panther, and chickens pecked at bugs in the grass. 

“I really am sad, you know,” the disembodied voice said. “Hearing you say all that. I only misbehaved because I didn’t know what else to do.” 

“I know,” Fluttershy said with great forbearance. “Where are you?” 

“Over here,” the voice replied. “Right now, I’m a cricket.” 

“Discord, why are you a cricket?” 

“Well,” Discord began in a creaky voice that was indeed sad, “Twilight Sparkle stole yet another book from some other dimension, and this book was about a sociopathic, kleptomaniac puppet that wanted to be real. He had a cricket assigned to be his conscience. And after reading the book to a group of foals during story hour, I decided that I would be a cricket, so I too, could be somepony’s conscience, but no one has assigned me a sociopathic, kleptomaniac puppet pony to look after.”

“Discord…” Fluttershy rubbed her temple with the joint of her wing. 

“You were friends with me when nopony else would be,” Discord said, his voice even more strained now than ever. “Once I had one friend, I decided that I wanted others. I made a lot of mistakes, sure, and I might not be the very bestest friend, but I do try really hard. Everything you taught me, I used it to make my own friends, and now, I am almost socially well-adjusted. Just ask my friend!” 

There was a muted snap from somewhere… 

A startled Sumac Apple appeared, and he stood there, confused and blinking. He wore an apron of black rubber, and his mane was covered in a kerchief. A scalpel hovered in the air beside him, along with a notebook, a pen, and some kind of weird metal object that Sundance couldn’t identify. It looked like something used for torture though, and the sight of it made him shiver. 

“Nice apron, Sumac,” Discord said. “Cooking something?” 

“I was preparing a corpse for viewing,” Sumac replied while he squinted with annoyance. 

“Are we friends, Sumac?” asked Discord. 

Twirling his scalpel, Sumac replied, “At the moment—” 

“Say no more!” 

There was a second snap, and then Sumac vanished just as suddenly as he appeared. 

“Discord, what have I told you about abducting your friends?” 

“How are my random abductions any different than Pinkie Pie’s surprise parties?” he asked in return. 

In response, Fluttershy sighed, rubbed her temple a bit more, and then shook her head. “Difficult friends are the best friends you can have,” the exasperated yellow pegasus with flared nostrils said. “They teach you so much about yourself. Every creature needs a friend. We can choose easy friendships, but hard friendships are so much more rewarding. Even when it doesn’t feel like they are.” 

The willowy flustered mare drew in a deep breath, gave Sundance a reassuring squeeze, and then raised her head to look up at him. “Tarantula will be a difficult friend, but I think you have what it takes. Be patient. Be gentle. Be calm. I’ve done most of the hard work, and now, he needs to learn that he can trust others. That’s going to be tough for him, and I’m worried about him. I’ve done all I can though, and now the rest is up to you.” 

At a loss for words, Sundance didn’t know what to say. 

“I’m going to go and check on him, if you don’t mind.” Fluttershy stood up, brushed herself off with her wings, and swished her tail to be rid of any stray bits of grass. “Maybe chat with Discord for a while. I’ll be back soon.” 

With that, Fluttershy left, and Sundance was all alone with an all-powerful cricket…