//------------------------------// // Chapter Six // Story: Floret // by Crystal Moose //------------------------------// It was infuriating. Ever since she’d wandered off into the forest to go visit Zecora, her family had been on her tail about checking in with them all the time. She could barely get a moment to herself. Worse still, Big Mac had insisted on escorting her to Zecora’s when she did want to visit her zebra friend. The only time she got away from them was during school, and on Thursdays when she met with Miss Cheerilee. “Ah’m not a little filly!” Apple Bloom grumbled, as she shifted about in her school seat. “Ah’ve been goin’ t’ Zecora’s alone all this time, an’ they never had a problem before.” “Well…” Sweetie Belle said, “It is pretty dangerous— remember that lizard-chicken… chicken-lizard?” “Ah know where t’ walk when goin’ t’ Zecora’s, Ah’m pretty sure she keeps th’ way safe,” Apple Bloom argued. “No pony’d go t’ get a remedy if they’re gonna get bit by some crazy monster on th’ way!” “Settle down, my little ponies,” Cheerilee called out in a sing-song voice. “Now, as you all know, Mother’s Day is coming up soon… so as a special activity today, we’re going to make Mother’s Day cards. I have construction paper here, and an assortment of materials to make her day a very special Mother’s Day. Everypony can come forward and get started.” A mixture of groans from the colts and squeals from the fillies erupted from the class. Apple Bloom looked around her, many of her fellow students were already running forward to collect colourful sheets of construction paper, as well as paints, glitters and glues. She waited until she caught Miss Cheerilee’s attention, then nodded towards the reading cushions. Her teacher nodded back; a silent confirmation that she would not be in trouble for sitting this activity out. Apple Bloom pulled a book on herbs out of the shelves, and sat down to read. Flipping through the book, she quickly realised the information within was well below what she had been learning with both Zecora and Twilight. She already knew how to identify the different flowers native to the area, and the potion Zecora taught her to work out if a plant was poisonous was way better than ‘exposing a little bit of it to raw skin on your leg’. That’s jus’ a dumb way t’ get an itchy leg! Bored with the book, she trotted up to Cheerilee’s desk and asked for a piece of paper. Cheerilee happily obliged, and Apple Bloom trotted back to her spot. Taking a pencil in her mouth, she started drawing small diagrams of the different flowers she had remembered seeing on her last visit to the forest. Apple Bloom sketched out a circular flower with thin, stranded petals, and a beehive-like center… she still felt a little awkward after Twilight explained the boy bits and the girl bits of the flower. Coltsfoot— ewww, who would want to drink a colt’s foot? Brewable inta tea, good fer coughing. “Hey, Apple Bloom.” Apple Bloom looked up to see one of her classmates sit down next to her. She didn’t really know Dinky all that well; she had always seemed like a bit of a strange filly. “Mind if I join you?” “Uhh, sure,” Apple Bloom responded, before going back to her drawing. Poison joke. Not good fer anything but pranks— oh, and baritones. “What are you drawing?” Dinky asked in a whisper. “Uhh… flowers…” Apple Bloom replied quietly, before looking down. Ah didn’t think they were that bad! “I can see that,” Dinky giggled. “I was actually wondering why.” “Oh, ummm, it’s for extra-circular work Ah’m doin’ with Miss Zecora.” Dinky giggled even more. “It’s extra-curricular!” “Ah thought that’s what Ah said!” Apple Bloom defended, blushing profusely. “How come yer sittin’ here with me? Doncha got a card t’ work on?” “I’ve already finished my card,” Dinky answered quietly. Apple Bloom nodded, before turning back to her drawings. She got as far as Evening Primrose when a loud laugh interrupted her. “Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, what is so funny?” Miss Cheerilee asked. “Nothing, Miss Cheerilee,” Diamond Tiara answered in her most sickly-sweet voice. “Well, then… get back to making your cards, and please don’t interrupt class again.” Apple Bloom was about to get back to her drawing when Diamond Tiara looked right at her. The pink filly mouthed something about a club to Silver Spoon (Cutie Mark Crusader Lip Readers, yay!) before getting back to her work. She was certain Diamond Tiara had said something mean about her; it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption. It felt like half of her school time was spent getting bullied or teased by Diamond Tiara. Apple Bloom decided to shake it off; the spoilt rich filly could say what she wanted, Apple Bloom didn’t care. She turned back to Dinky, who shared Apple Bloom’s frown. Apple Bloom invited Dinky to join her, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo for lunch. Dinky, in turn, asked if Alula and Berry Pinch could join them as well. Soon, the six fillies were sitting in the shade of one of the trees in the playground, happily chatting as they went about eating their lunch. “I really hope mom likes the card I made her,” Sweetie Belle sighed. “I wonder if Rarity has some more of those blue gems I can borrow. Mom would like it more if it was really colourful.” “Eh, the only card my mother cares about is a mint condition Black Lotus card, but that’s like a million bits!” Everypony looked at Scootaloo, who coughed nervously under their questioning gaze. “My mommy loved my card,” Dinky added. “But Mother’s day is next week,” Scootaloo responded. “Mom is going to be out of town next week,” Dinky answered the unspoken question. “So Auntie Carrot helped me make a card for her early.” “I think my mom is going to like mine,” Alula added. “It’s blue, like the sky, and has lots of paper clouds!” “I still think you should have added rainbows,” Berry Pinch said. “Rainbows are cool.” “Yeah!” Scootaloo shouted. “Rainbow is cool!” “She means rainbows as in the colours, dummy,” Apple Bloom corrected Scootaloo. “Not the pony!” “Actually, I think she means rainbows as in the light refracted through water,” Dinky corrected. “Rainbow isn’t actually a colour.” Berry Pinch shook her head. “Dinky, you’re making rainbows a lot less cool.” Scootaloo mumbled something about how rainbows couldn’t be less cool. “Apple Bloom, are— are you going to…” Sweetie Belle started. Though the glare Scootaloo had given the unicorn quickly fell from her face, she had failed in hiding it from Apple Bloom. “Sorry… nevermind…” Sweetie Belle said. “Naww, Ah’m not, Sweetie Belle.” Apple Bloom shook her head. “Why not?” Berry Pinch asked. Apple Bloom noticed Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo wince… along with Dinky, curiously enough. She breathed deeply, trying to keep herself calm. She knew in her heart that Berry Pinch didn’t mean anything by it. An obnoxious voice rang out, dispelling the awkwardness that had descended upon the group. “Can you believe Miss Cheerilee made us make those dumb cards?” “I know, Di, I mean, who doesn’t like, buy their mother a card?” Silver Spoon tittered. “We pay ponies so we don’t have to make things like that.” “Daddy ordered my card from Canterlot,” Diamond Tiara said, “and he got me a nice bottle of perfume to give to mommy, too.” “My daddy got a me a matching silk scarf to give to my mom.” Silver Spoon giggled. “We’ll look so fashionable!” “Oh look, the Cutie Mark Goof-saders have gotten a few more members, Silv.” Apple Bloom groaned. Was it too much to hope that those two would just pass them by? “What are you hanging around with these blank-flanks for?” Silver Spoon directed her question to Alula, the only filly seated under the tree with her cutie mark. “She can sit here whether she has her cutie mark or not!” Scootaloo growled. “The question is… why would she want to?” Diamond Tiara asked. “Why would somepony want to sit with you lame-os?” “Go away, Diamond,” Berry Pinch grumbled. “Oh, you know, Silvey… I think I got it!” Diamond Tiara mockingly gasped. “They aren’t with the Cutie Mark Goof-saders, they’re making another lame club.” “What‽” The six seated fillies glared at the evil pair. “Oh, you’re probably right, Di!” Silver Spoon tittered. Apple Bloom hated that titter. “I bet it’s the ‘Mistakes’ club…” Diamond Tiara chuckled darkly. “What are you—” “Well, let’s see…” Diamond Tiara rubbed her chin. “There’s the drunken mistake…” she said, pointing her hoof at the scowling Berry Pinch. There’s the retard’s mistake…” she added, pointing at Dinky. “My mom is not a—” “Oh, look at me…” Silver Spoon crossed her eyes and staggered about. “I’m so dumb I can’t even fly straight.” Diamond Tiara giggled as Silver Spoon ‘bumped’ into her. “Watch where you’re going, don’t want to crash into anything important again.” Dinky sat seething, gritting her teeth and glaring at the pink menace. Berry Pinch scooted closer and put a hoof on the filly’s shoulder. Apple Bloom had had enough. She stood and stepped towards the filly, closely followed by Alula and Scootaloo. “Okay, DT, you need t’ get lost… now!” “And here we have the last member of the group,” Diamond Tiara chuckled, pressing her face into Apple Bloom’s. “…The ‘Sister’s’ Mistake… that makes three!” “W-What did y’ say?” Apple Bloom asked as she stepped back in shock. “Hey Silvey, what’s worse than being a blank flank?” Diamond Tiara turned to ask her friend. “I couldn’t imagine anything worse than being a blank flank, Di,” the silver filly giggled. Diamond Tiara turned back to Apple Bloom, a sneer across her face. “Being an unwanted blank flank.” Nopony could react fast enough. Before Alula or Scootaloo could respond, Apple Bloom had pinned Diamond Tiara to the ground. Apple Bloom raised her right hoof, and brought it down hard across the spoilt brat’s face. She barely registered Scootaloo’s scream of stop as she raised her left and brought that down hard as well. She ignored the two pegasi trying to stop her, to pull her off Diamond Tiara, but Apple Bloom only had eyes for one pony, and she brought her right hoof down on that pony’s face again. A sickening crunch under her hoof did not stop her. The gush of red streaming from the pink menace’s muzzle did not stop her. The screaming around her did not stop her. The only thing that was finally able to stop her was the sharp feeling of teeth pinched across the back of her neck, just below the base of her mane, as she was lifted bodily off of Diamond Tiara.