"You can stay here." A new flutter waved their soft-blue forelimb at what was effectively an apartment. A large one, big enough to house all three of them, but one of many others that filled that tree, which was itself just one of so many others. "Oh, your change." He dug out a pouch, coiling on himself to reach his saddlebags and counting them out with lips and tongue. "Here you are."
Daisy accepted the coins, gold, silver and copper instead of the one platinum they had started with. "How long are we good for?"
"I took a week." The flutter landlord bobbed his head. "Any questions?"
Rose looked away from the bathtub. "Yeah. Is it normal for ponies that visit to be jailed?"
The flutter recoiled at that. "W-what? You're not jailed. You can walk out right there." He pointed to the door. "It locks from the inside, so it'll be very hard to lock you in."
Rose shook her head slowly. "Yeah, no... We were told we can't leave the city. Is that normal or not?"
"The word of the mayor is final." He rubbed behind his head. "The word of the high druid is final... The word of both is... double final?"
Lily poked out from behind Rose. "Pretty sure that means 'No, but it isn't changing.'"
The landlord took a step back, wings starting to buzz as he lifted from the ground. "I'm really sorry. I hope you like it here. Prisma's a nice place, really." He glanced behind himself and back. "Actually, we like ponies, a lot, even... strange ponies like you. Expect other people to stop by and make friendly. Word of advice! Set boundaries." He clapped his forehooves together with a smug look. "I'm already good at boundaries., but not everyone else is, so, keep that in mind. Now, being a master of boundaries, gonna leave now so you can settle in."
The flower mares allowed the flutter to make good his escape, door shutting behind him. With a loud click, the lock deployed. As promised, the lock was right there on the inside, waiting to be turned to unlock it.
Rose looked to her fellows. "Alright, let's... keep it cool."
"There is nothing cool about this." Daisy flopped on the ground. "But I'm keeping it together!" Her hooves weakly pressed at the ground but she remained right where she started. "Our shop..."
Lily was sniffing at a dangling flower. "They really do like flowers."
Rose quirked an ear at Lily, moving to join her in viewing the vine of flowers. "Huh... Well, that's a good sign, right? If they like flowers, they'll like us." She turned a hoof on herself. "We practically are flowers."
Lily bobbed her head. "That's what I'm thinking! Let's turn those frowns around, as Pinkie loves to say."
Daisy sat up suddenly. "Oh no... Is this what Pinkie was talking about?" The other two looked at her. "Were you not listening?" It wasn't that unusual for Pinkie to get filtered out at times. "She talked about a 'magical world' she visited, twice! She..." Daisy fidgeted her hooves against one another. "She said it was super dangerous, but fun. But 'fun', for Pinkie..."
Rose's brows fell. "Could mean anything. It's Pinkie. I remember some of that, but this isn't like that. Everycreature we've met so far likes us, minus the whole 'Don't go anywhere' part."
Elsewhere, others were discussing related things. "Mistress." The bee tossed a book with a flick of his head. "I found it."
"Lovely." The druid brushed the book open with a sweep of a hoof and her eyes began to dance left and right. "I knew they looked... familiar... No, no... Here..." She set a hoof on a page. "Many years ago, in the human lands." She pointed eastwards. "A druid of their world visited ours." She was reading as she spoke. "At first in their guise, but when they learned the ways of this land, their body conformed to it, and they stopped sticking out." She tapped repeatedly. "They had a friend, who never changed, but they were not a druid."
The bee giggled with a joy met by his smile. "So we just need to train them to respect the land?"
The head druid raised a brow at him. "The other had respect. They were a farmer, it is written." That she had been a farmer of rocks had not been noted. "Who lived well outside any city. But they did not know the call of nature. No... If we want them to do as the first, they will need to become druids."
The bee-flutter sank to his haunches. "Mistress, not to... contradict, but becoming a druid is not an overnight thing." He waggled a hoof. "Years for most."
"For most," she echoed with a smirk, nosing through the book. "But they are far from the first visitors of that strange plane. Equestria... Visitors from there seem to gravitate towards a profession with an unnatural speed." She set her hoof down on a new passage. "Especially when it matches their brand, and especially again when it matches what they already did. We have three equestrians with flowers for brands, who delight in flowers. I don't think I even need to finish this thought."
The bee flutter's wings began to buzz with a fresh excitement. "It's always nice to have a pony druid. Ooo, we can have secret druid chats."
"No." The statement was flat and final. "They are not to be instructed in druidic. They will leave this plane in time, likely. Why give them such a precious secret to carry away? They don't need that knowledge to learn the rest."
"As you wish it." The bee-flutter lifted into the air with the soft buzz of bee wings despite being far larger than any bee had right to be. "I'll tell them!"
"You could send a lower ranked member for this task." The head druid/mayor shook her head softly. "Are you curious?"
"Yes." There was no shame or deception there. "May I?"
"You may," gently laughed the head druid. "Teach these outsiders of our ways, so they can join us properly."
He squealed like a happy child, darting off with the receding buzz of his wings.
"Back to other things." Running a city and a druid circle brought many things to her hooves in need of her attention. "Enough distraction for one day."
Rose led the other two along the grand branch they were on. "Huh..." The entire city was a network of tree structures, festooned with colors, both natural and seemingly installed for the pleasure of the colors. "There has to be a place to eat somewhere around here."
"Did you say food?" A small butterfly-flutter poked up, hovering there off the platform. "We have that. Lot of that. You want food?"
Daisy examined the new butterfly. Her wings were large and colored in wild stripes coming out of what looked like eyes in the center. "Hello?"
"Hi!" eagerly replied the butterfly, waving at the flower mares. "You said food, right? We have all kinds of food. My favorite... Oh." She inclined her head suddenly. "Have you ever tried pollen?"
All three of the mares inclined their head in a different direction. "Pollen?" asked Lily. "The stuff flowers make, to make more flowers?"
"That's the stuff!" eagerly sang the butterfly. "It has sugar and other good stuff." She did a twirl in the air suddenly. "Everything you need to fly right! And you can make it all kinds of ways. Oh, we have bee hives."
Daisy leaned forward with a suspicious squint. "Aren't some of you bees? Do you have... you-hives?"
This was apparently very funny to the Butterfly, giggling so hard she began to hiccup. "You-hives! That's great. No, silly. Bee bees! Little bees!" She held up her hooves really close together. "Now, uh... Don't tell them..." She fluttered in closer. "Some of the bee-flutters actually like making honey themselves. You can tell though." She bobbed her head. "If the honey's all rainbow, that came from a flutter."
Lily stuck out her tongue a little, looking mildly appalled. "Not sure I want to eat what came out of somecreature."
"Don't be like that." The butterfly was waving away the disgust. "Flutter honey's pretty good if you can get past that part. Anyway! Like I said, easy to spot, so don't, or do." She burst into a new fit of light giggles. "You look funny, by the way."
Rose smirked softly. "So we've been informed. I will note you look pretty strange from where we're standing."
The butterfly-flutter landed lightly next to Rose and began looking around. "Huh, you're right. Things do look different from this angle."
Rose shoved the butterfly, who laughed and fluttered away, not at all upset for the push. "Seriously, you're..." Rose struggled for the word.
"Colorful?" suggested Daisy.
The butterfly beamed grandly. "Thank you. I like your colors too, but you have less of them. They're nice colors though."
"That's a power play," added a new male voice, a dragonfly of a flutter rising into view. "Your brands, matching. You three must be really close."
That got all three mares to color. Lily moved between the new dragonfly flutter and her friends. "It was the other way around, actually."
The dragonfly inclined his head with the sharp precision of an insect. "Do tell."
Rose looked between the dragonfly and the butterfly. "Don't you have things to do?"
The butterfly shook her head. "I was going to show you where to get some food."
"Food? Good idea." The dragonfly nodded in agreement to the idea. "But finish the story please."
Lily pointed at the other two of her compatriots. "When we were fillies, we each found our love for flowers on our own, but then we were three ponies with matching marks and we found each other and it just kinda worked out."
Rose nodded quickly. "And we've been friends since then." She threw an arm over a mare on either side. "And right now, we're all hungry." The other two nodded along with her, united in the desire for something to chew.
The butterfly thrust out a hoof as she swooped in. "Then follow me! We're gonna fill those bellies with tasty treats!"
"Are they vegetarians?" The dragonfly came in close at the butterfly's side. "I hear a lot of ponies are. They are ponies, right?"
"I think so?" The butterfly looked over her shoulder. "Are you vegetarians or not?"
Rose pointed at herself. "Pescatarian, vegeterian, vegan." She directed at Daisy as the vegetarian and Lily as the vegan. "Gonna guess there's no fish around. Fish don't fly."
Lily burst into giggles. "Flying fish would be so odd. How do you eat them though? They look at you with such cute eyes. I don't want to hurt them."
Rose rolled her eyes at that. "But you'll end a pretty flower without even thinking about it? At least Daisy is honest about her diet."
"Fish gives me gas." Daisy blushed furiously at her admission. "Tasty, but not worth that price."
Rose had an ear on Lily. "Besides, how does 'don't hurt the cute fish' make you not enjoy milk or honey either? We don't even hurt anything getting those!"
Daisy thumped sideways into Lily. "Could do the vegetarian thing. We don't eat fish either, but a nice cake, mmm."
Though the three had almost forgotten the flutters they were following, this did not seem to bother either of them, listening to the conversation going on behind them.
"No! They all... came from inside things..." Lily shuddered with undisguised revulsion. "There is nothing inside me that you should want to eat or drink, and that goes for all the other animals out there, thanks."
Rose's eyes closed halfway in a sultry look. "I don't remember you complaining before."
Lily colored vividly. "Rose!"
Daisy howled with laughter, bringing things to a stop as she flopped over to get it all out.
The butterfly giggled, but it was a brief thing. "Here we are. We have all kinds of food at our markets, and this is one of the larger ones. " She pointed eagerly. "Veggies, honey, and yes, pretty sure you could find some fish."