Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto


Like Tears in the Wind

Rose was out near the edge of the Everfree when she found her scale. Many would have found it inadvisable to hang around such a place, in truth. It had never been considered the safest thing to do even before the Behemoth came to Canterlot, but in the months following and with the evident commotion the forest displayed it was less a matter of superstition and more one of common sense. But she knew the chances of something actually attacking her there were slim, and if her cutie mark called then the risk was worth it.
Living in what had used to be a relatively minor town before Princess Twilight's arrival, running a flower shop had been pretty much the only reasonable path in life for her. She didn't mind, in fact she very much liked it, but it wasn't the only thing she was good for. Her affinity for flowers moved past simply growing and selling the few breeds that ponies liked, past the simple confines of her work. She kept up with the newest studies, discoveries and publications concerning botany, and she even had her own private garden where she kept more exotic, less common breeds.
Most of all, she understood flowers. The same way Fluttershy understood animals, or Pinkie understood parties, or Twilight understood magic. It was her special talent, her life's calling. Selling came afterwards, and really, she would have done what she did for free. But the bits were needed, and not unwelcome. But it was precisely because of her talent that she was there. Because most ponies would not have noticed it, but she couldn't ignore it. There was something different about the flowers, there near the edge of town, and it was spreading.
Standing there and looking closely at them, she had no doubts about it. Most, if not all of the usual species found there were undergoing severe changes. Whether mutations or very rapid evolution she couldn't tell, but it was impressive either way. And it wasn't all. She didn't feel she had the knowledge and experience to make a definitive call on it, but a fair portion of the flora she was seeing didn't look like anything she knew of. The geometry, the colours, the size and disposition of leaves and petals, the more she looked at them the more she was convinced she was staring at entirely new sets of species.
Tall stems with blue petals, stubby orange flowers that came up directly from the ground like bushes, grey-green leaves in patterns of seven or nine, thin vines slithering in swirling patterns across the ground ending with tiny pale pink blossoms, and a number of other plants that were like nothing she'd ever heard about. She would have liked to study them more closely, but she knew better than to go smell or taste a plant she wasn't familiar with. Especially one rooted so close to the Everfree. So she was left with sight, and so it happened that she spotted something else there. Certainly colourful, but distinctly not a flower.
So it happened that Rose found her scale. And so it happened that Princess Twilight, just a few days before the news of the other findings reached her, was made aware of the scales' existence and had a chance to study one for herself. Rose had brought it along, later that day, as she'd gone to tell Twilight of her discoveries at the edge of town. It had felt odd, when she'd found it, like the thing was calling for her. And odd leaving it to Twilight, even if it was the right thing to do, almost like she should have kept it as hers. And odd still, when Twilight had given it back to her, like a weight had been lifted off her chest.
She would spend the following months helping the princess study the changes in the flora around the town, and learning quite a bit about the matter simply by virtue of being there. So, almost by accident, Rose became one of the founding members of Princess Twilight's research institution, and perhaps the single most knowledgeable expert in the field of post-arrival botany. While she did not forget about it, that she'd also come in possession of a scale, on that day, became a rather secondary fact in the course of events. That is, of course, until Twilight made her first major breakthrough when researching the scales.