//------------------------------// // One Thousand Flowers // Story: I'm Afraid of Changeling (and other short stories) // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// “Go talk to her,” the tall grass whispered. “What? No. You go talk to her,” I said back, keeping my voice low. The dogwood shrub concealing me shook in the wind and filled the air with the faintly floral scent of its early spring blossoms. “You’re older!” That was true. I wasn’t older by much – just a few minutes – but I barely went a day without using the fact to claim some primacy over my younger brother. Whether it was a better toy or a new saddle or the top bunk on the bed, age had its privileges. And, occasionally, drawbacks. I glanced through the waving stalks of grass at our target. “Come on, just go! Go go go!” Vermillion whispered. Fine. Fine. I took a breath and struck out from the foliage hiding us. If the tall pegasus at the edge of our family’s fields saw me approach, she didn’t show it. She kept staring at the ground beneath her hooves, digging at the loose soil with the clumsy motions of a pony not used to farm labor. I snorted in disdain as I drew closer. “Excuse me, miss?” She didn’t look up. Whatever was in the ground must’ve been fascinating. Her mane, a dark speckled indigo, concealed her face, and the rest of her body was just a shade or two darker. She was unusually tall for a pegasus, and I realized as my shadow touched her hooves just how high she would tower over me, if she stood upright. The thought held me back for a moment. But this was our land. I frowned again and plowed forward. “Miss? I know you don’t mean any harm, but this farm here is private property, and I need you to—” My words died in my throat as she looked up. She looked up, and her eyes met mine, and her mane drifted like a cloud in an unfelt breeze, and her horn rose like a wicked thorn from her brow, and my words died in my throat as she looked up. We stared at each other for a while. Or, rather, she stared at me, while I stood still in shock. My heart climbed higher and higher in my chest, setting my whole body vibrating as it thump thump thumped like I had just run the longest race of my life. Monster, my mind whispered. “Princess.” My lips made the shape of the word, but no sound emerged. She held my gaze with hers, held it with her eyes like I might hold an egg, ready to smash it against the rim of a bowl and empty it, and when she was done she looked back down at her hooves and the small holes she was digging there. Eventually my breath returned. My lungs reinflated, and I remembered how to speak. “Princess... my apologies... ah... can I help you?” Minutes passed before she answered. She dug more holes, seemingly at random, inspecting them this way and that. Finally, she dug the hole she’d been looking for. She gave it a small, satisfied nod, and then dropped a tiny seed into it from her mouth. With a sweep of her hoof, she toppled the mound of dirt back into its home. She dug a thousand more holes, and planted a thousand more seeds, before she finally answered. “No.” * * * The next day she was still there. None of the other ponies wanted to talk to her. I didn’t blame them. Hell, I didn’t want to talk to her. But she was on my parents’ land, and planting her crops on my parents’ land, and in the Riverlands you just didn’t let other ponies plant their crops on your parents’ land. At least not without asking your parents. So I went to talk to her again. “Good morning, Princess,” I said from a safe distance away. I nearly had to yell. No answer. She stared down at the thousand tiny mounds at her hooves. I trotted closer and tried again. “Good morning, Princess!” A flicker of motion. Her ear twitched toward me. I licked my lips and moved forward. “Good morning.” I no longer had to yell; she was right there in front of me. Her ears swivelled forward, and after a moment her head rose. “You again,” she said. Her voice wasn’t what I expected; it wasn’t deep or terrible or haunting or icy or breathy or seductive. It was just a pony’s voice, a little tired, a little worn around the edges. ‘Yeah, uh, hi... hello. You, uh, you trying to grow something, there?” She nodded slowly. The tip of her horn traced a perfect vertical arc through the air. I waited for more. Nothing came. She wasn’t very talkative, it seemed. “Mind if I ask what?” Her eyes flicked down to the tiny mounds, then back up. Perhaps she wanted me to guess. “Apples?” No response. “Oranges, then. Cherries?” Nothing. “Flowers?” Silence. Alright, then. This was my parents’ land. If I wanted to dig something up, I could, and nopony could stop me. I kept repeating that in my head as my hoof edged toward one of the little mounds. If she didn’t want to answer, I could find out myself. “I’m not sure.” Her words caught me offguard. I stood on three legs, the fourth extended toward the little mound. “You’re... you’re not sure?” She shook her head. “But...” I frowned. “Where did you get them?” “A gift.” “From who?” No answer. We both stared at the little mounds of dirt. Finally, she asked a question. “How long will they take to grow, do you think?” How long did gifts take to grow? “I’m not sure. A while, I think.” “Very well. I’ll wait.” * * * And she waited. Not like a statue. She moved – her mane flowed in the unfelt breeze. Her chest rose and fell with each breath. Her feathers fluttered in the wind. Her shadow spun round her form. Her eyes shifted from hole to hole to hole, all one thousand, as she waited. And finally, weeks later, the first tiny shoots of green sprung from the dirt. * * * “Can I get you anything, princess?” No answer. She was too busy staring at her plants. “Can I get you anything?” I repeated without her title. She shook her head. “They’re growing faster. They love the sun. They drink her light.” I glanced up and squinted my eyes against the sun’s glare. “I suppose they are. What do you plan to do with them?” “It depends what they are.” I could have told her what they were, of course. Even as shoots they were distinctive. Any farm pony would recognize them. But she wasn’t a farm pony, and she didn’t want me to ruin the surprise. There was a spark near one of the buds. My eyes flicked toward it just in time to see a speck of ash drift away. “Bug,” she said. And that was enough for one day. * * * There was a dead rabbit at her feet the next morning. Its head was twisted completely around. Its eyes, tiny black beads on white fur, stared out uncomprehendingly at the quickly growing forest around it. “It tried to eat one,” she said. * * * “Did you know?” she asked. She didn’t look upset. But then, she never looked upset, even when she was killing the birds and rabbits and bugs and other pests that tried to eat her plants. “I did.” I felt safe. Hell, I wasn’t going to try and eat them. Time passed. Our shadows drifted around us as we stared at her garden. “I think this is one of her jokes,” she said. She frowned at the flowers, like they had somehow wronged her. “Or maybe its an apology? She does that too, sometimes.” “She?” “My sister.” Ah. I squinted up at the sun again. “Well, what are you going to do?” She thought for a while. Uncaring, unthinking, a bird landed on one of the flowers and began to peck away at it. She let it live. “I guess I’ll go home,” she finally said. “I think she’d like that.” The princess, if that’s what she was, nodded. “Yes, yes. That’s what I’ll do. And you may keep these, as payment for the use of your land.” “It was nothing. It was my pleasure.” “Take them anyway.” She stood, for the first time in weeks, and stretched her wings. They were like sails, longer and wider than any pegasus I’d ever seen. She flapped once and was gone, already a speck in the sky. The field of one thousand sunflowers swayed in her breeze.