Sometimes I get distracted by the most random of things. That happened on the second day of work in Bridlewood. I was trotting through the forest, looking for a stream to study riparian species. It was a warmer morning than yesterday. Birds were singing and some flowers were in bloom, scenting the air. My ears perked when I heard the distant sound of running water. I trotted towards it, and the forest growth became thicker. I couldn’t see the stream past the crossing branches of this shrubby willow, but I knew it was close. I felt a tugging on my right wing. I looked over and saw that my feathers had caught on a very thorny rose shrub.
“Oh, great,” I mumbled. I stepped closer to the shrub and started detangling myself. While I worked, a bee buzzed past my face. I watched it as it landed on one of the roses. It was a showy, pink rose with a yellow interior. I watched as the bee rubbed past the stamens to get to the nectaries at the base of the flower. It struck me that I was watching pollination in action. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution had led up to this event. This was the ultimate breakthrough in plant evolution. Once insect pollination evolved, plant diversity exploded and supported ever-more diverse and complex animals as well. And it was happening a few centimeters in front of my muzzle.
That flower was perfect, both technically—Rosaceae flowers had all four whorls—and in a more general sense. Its bright pink and yellow colors popped, its fragrance was sweet, and judging by the visiting bee, it was doing its job. The fact that I understood it made it no less impressive. Some ponies thought the more they understood about science, the less they needed God. I couldn’t understand that. Science told me that this flower was merely a reproductive structure evolved to promote outcrossing with the rose plant next to it. It had no sense of aesthetics, for it had no brain, and it had certainly not evolved to please me. Yet here it was, bright as a cutie mark and elegant as Princess Petals. Knowing that evolution had not planned such a beautiful thing, I could only thank God for guiding evolution according to her plan.
The bee moved on to another flower. I had freed my feathers from the thorns, but I was still stuck on the flower. This was why I studied botany. The more I understood God’s creations, the closer I felt to her. I found that the most unassuming of things—a flower, a bee, a stream—were just as magical as pegasus flight or a unicorn’s levitation spell.
These plants had plenty of roses, so I reached forward and bit one off. With my right forehoof, I stuffed it into my thick mane. I finally moved on, watching for other roses to avoid getting caught again. I couldn’t spend all day ruminating. Somepony had spent tedious moons collecting data to figure out flower evolution. I had to do the same if I wanted to
contribute to science.
* * *
After a morning visit to the Crystal Tea Room, I was unusually drowsy. Perhaps that tea had sedative properties? I should have realized that some of these exotic flowers and leaves would have active chemicals. It crossed my mind to take samples back to Zephyr Heights for chemical analysis. But I had other work today. I stretched out my wings to take off for my study site. But my head was spinning. Shaking my head, I folded my wings away and started trotting into the forest. It was a bright, cool day. The sun filtered through the canopy of purple and pink leaves.
Water splashed up from my hoof. I looked downward and saw that I had stepped in a pool. I hadn’t watched where I was going. I shook my head again and lifted my hoof out of the water. It was a clear pool, probably a spring considering it seemed to have no inlet but there was a trickling outlet. As the ripples dissipated, I could see my reflection clearly.
I had a pink beret, which I had bought in the unicorn town at the center of Bridlewood Forest. The beret flopped to one side, and on the other was the yellow and pink rose I had found in the forest. My scarf was also pink, matching my eyes. The pink popped in contrast to my dark color scheme—black mane and tail and a deep red coat. I was thinly built and tall for a pegasus. I flared my wings, showing the long, red feathers, lighter underneath. My wings were long and thin with no slots, an ideal shape for long distance flights.
“You are the most beautiful pony of all, Peace,” I said, smiling slightly. I knelt down to look at my reflection more closely. I had straight, white teeth and a narrow, long, horsey face. My glasses faintly reflected the light of the pool. My mane was thick, messy, and long. I was truly stunning. I had never had much of a romantic life, and I had never had a sexual one. It had never seemed important to me. Maybe I was too smitten with myself to notice anypony else. Was there a word for that? Autosexual, maybe?
My lips touched the cold water. I jerked back and shook my head. What was I doing? There was definitely something in that tea, making me loopy, not just drowsy. I looked around. Nopony had seen me. Well, if the “crystal flower” tea was psychoactive, Alphabittle could have warned me when I chose it! In any case, I couldn’t continue like this. I would end up doing something embarrassing.
I trotted, stumbling a little, back to a clearing I had passed earlier. I spread my wings, scanning the sky for clouds. There was one, not too far. I carefully took off, wobbling. My flight was unsteady—I felt like I was going to pass out—but I made it to the cloud. I flopped on top of it. So soft… I almost couldn’t sleep on a bed anymore since discovering how nice clouds were. I nestled into the cloud, shaping it a little as I curled up and fell asleep.
* * *
It was Saturday, and I was taking a little break in my work. I had brought my trumpet to Bridlewood, and I had it with me in its case. But first, I had a mystery to solve. Which word that I spoke in the restaurant was forbidden? So here I was, trotting along a busy, central street, about to run another experiment. “Hay!” I called out. A few ponies looked at me, but most ignored me. I felt a little self-consciousness, but my curiosity was overriding it.
“Please!” I shouted. I looked down. This would have been less embarrassing in Zephyr Heights, where everypony was talking on their phones and such. But I needed to figure this out. I knew it wasn’t “burger;” it was on the sign of the restaurant. “Cheese!” No response, other than increasing confusion. “Mayonnaise!”
“Bing bong bing!” a pony behind me said. I smiled. That was it! Since just about everypony had heard me, they were all doing that weird ritual dance. It was actually kind of funny to watch. But I still felt ashamed. To them, I had just shouted a forbidden word and cursed them with jinxies.
“I’m sorry!” I shouted over the bings and bongs. I flared my wings and took off, puffing as I climbed and flew away. Having achieved that, I turned away from the town deeper into the forest. I had picked a clearing where I would practice my trumpet. The hotel didn’t have any sound-proof practice rooms, which I felt should be as basic a commodity as running water or electricity. Then again, the hotel didn’t have electricity either.
As I flew, my mind was still lingering on the forbidden word. Mayonnaise? Why in Equestria? My curiosity was further piqued. There had to be a story behind that, right? I would have to do some more research. I glided down into the clearing. It was far enough from the town that nopony should hear me practicing. There were other houses and villages scattered throughout the forest, but none were close to here.
I set down my trumpet and opened the case. I played in a jazz band in Zephyr Heights. I had taken a hiatus for this research trip, which honestly I wasn’t sure how long would last. But I would not let my lips get weak in the meantime. The lip muscles needed for trumpet playing were just like any other muscle; one could spend six months building them up through daily exercise, only to lose all strength after two weeks of inactivity.
I set up my music in the branches of… some shrub or another. I wasn’t really sure what this one was. Most of the plants here were just new species, but maybe there were a few new genera as well. It wasn’t a great music stand, but I hadn’t wanted to pack a real stand, even a wire one. I warmed up with some scales and started practicing the jazz standards I had brought.
I checked my pocket watch to get half an hour of practice. I would get another half-hour in at the end of the day. 24 minutes in, I was playing a funky jazz fusion piece by Pipp Petals; her pop tunes were best-known, but she actually had some good music on the side. I finished the piece, and there was a moment of quiet as I switched out my music to look at a different song.
“That was groovy!” a voice behind me said.
I jumped, turning around and yelping. The unicorn yelped in response. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I said. It was a pink mare with a long, thick, blue mane.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to be sneaky—I’m only medium sneaky anyway. I thought you heard me approaching, but I guess you mostly just heard your trumpet.”
“Yeah…” I said.
The unicorn looked at me, beaming. “I want to be your friend,” she said. “My name’s Izzy.”
“Uh, my name is Peace,” I said. This is weird, I thought uncomfortably.
“I love that flower in your mane,” Izzy said. “It really complements your luminescence.”
“My what now?”
“Where did you get it?”
“The… rose?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“They’re growing by the stream.”
Izzy’s eyes widened. “Could you show me?” she said. “I’m making some friendship flower crowns, and roses like that would really complete them.”
“Well, I…” I only had six minutes of practice left. Why not? “Alright. Follow me.”
“Yay!” Izzy said. I headed towards the river. Izzy started trotting alongside me, humming a little tune.
This pony is … odd, I thought. I wonder if she would be willing to answer… “I’ve heard that there are forbidden words in Bridlewood,” I said. “I accidentally said one in a restaurant, and I’m trying to figure out if there are any others I should avoid.”
“Oh, yeah,” Izzy said. “Forbidden words supposedly bring bad luck, so unicorns do rituals to ward off the jinxies when somepony says a forbidden word. ‘Magic’ used to be one, but we’ve kind of stopped counting it since everypony has magic now. Most unicorns are still doing the rituals when they hear ‘wing’ or ‘feather,’ but Sunny—oh, she’s an earth pony friend of mine—says that it would be offensive to pegasi to consider those words bad luck.”
“Yeah, that… is a little offensive,” I said. But it did give some insight into where these words came from. If magic was one, perhaps these rituals had come up as a superstition after the unicorns had lost their magic without knowing the cause? They might have blamed it on the pegasi, leading to the words wing and feather being banned. But that didn’t answer my real question…
“The only other forbidden word I know is ‘mayonnaise,’” Izzy said.
“Yeah, that’s the one I used!” I said. I was surprised to see Izzy saying all these words when the unicorn in the restaurant was unwilling to repeat them. “How in Equestria did that get forbidden?”
“Well, it’s kind of…” She stuttered a little. “The funny thing… I don’t know, actually. You should ask Woody Dust! She knows everything. She’s always in the library, so I’m sure you could find her there.”
We were getting close to the river, now. “There they are,” I said, pointing. “Do you see the roses, next to the willow?”
“Oh, yes,” Izzy said. “They’re lovely.”
“Great,” I said. “Thanks for the information. I’m going to get back to work.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Nice meeting you. How long are you going to be in Bridlewood?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Probably at least a moon.”
“Then I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again,” Izzy said. “Thanks for your help.” She started using her magic to move branches out of the way as she walked towards the roses. I turned to head farther upstream, where I would collect more data.
She seemed nice, I thought. Very eager, but nice.