Janet was a planet and she was rather informative one when it came to talking about the one Star Nomad she had met personally. It was hard to believe that she used to be a desolate rock with an atmosphere. Now she was vibrant and covered entirely in beautiful vegetation; she was quite capable of being classified as a jungle planet.
Wander was a Star Nomad, one that Janet had a violent crush on because he had appreciated her even when she was just a single flower on a desolate ball of nothing but rock. It was an unfortunate situation for Sylvia his long time traveling companion who was beaten and battered by the strength of a whole planet that was trying to become between the bipedal lizard and her best friend Wander.
Sylvia was a tough creature known as a Zbornak and was a lot more so than a normal one, considering Janet swallowed her whole and she didn’t die by being crushed between two halves of an entire planet. She was violently protective of Wander and Wander wouldn’t stop mentioning her which was one of the things that drove Janet crazy. Then again Wander had good reason to keep mentioning Sylvia considering she survived to punch Janet’s flower avatar in the chin to deliver a one liner about there being no mountain or valley that could stop her.
“Well she’s the companion of a Star Nomad. I heard from a Star Warrior that when you become a close companion to one that you become immortal and will get stuck wandering the universe forever with them seeing infinite amounts of wonder. It’s a bit romanticized huh?” At least Fluttershy thought it was, hearing about Wander and Sylvia they sounded like a nice pair. Even if one of them is incredibly violent, she wasn’t about to disparage violence considering what she recently survived through.
“It is a tad romanticized and not completely proven or otherwise. Zbornaks are really tough creatures and who’s to say they naturally can’t survive having their bodies completely crushed by the full circumference of a planet not to mention being put directly into the center of my very being. Say, are you hungry? I can whip up a mean salad and I’m also really good at making flat cakes. Except for your mutations you did say you were herbivorous right? I’m basically an herbivores paradise!” Despite her avatar being a little red flower, Janet wasn’t particularly scared of Fluttershy’s main source of food. If she were just a flower and not the planet, then maybe she’d actually have something to fear. ”Oh and I need to make a camp for you, you need a vacation after having to deal with all those nasty robots.”
“Um… well… if it’s not too much trouble for you Ms. Janet, it is not too much trouble for you is it? I mean I wouldn’t want to be a bother.” This planet was nice and relaxing and it didn’t want to murder her, Fluttershy would have just as easily rested and just snacked on her maximum tomato since they filled her and Roller up.
“Oh no, it’s no trouble at all! By the way it’s Mrs. as I’m kind of married to my moon, he’s a really good husband. He keeps me all warm and toasty by bouncing light off the sun onto me and he’s my dear Maurice. You’ll see him if you stick around long enough.” After a moment of smiling the flower then quirked her mouth into a questioning look before bringing up a leaf to tap her chin, Janet hadn’t realized it but Fluttershy might not like some of the things she had to offer. “I have to ask before I begin making that salad, but is there anything you can’t eat or digest very well?”
“Well as a winged pony I can eat fish or aquatic creatures… it’s not very nutritional for us except for the high protein though. Any other form of meat would cause any pony to throw up or get dreadfully sick. My friend Applejack once accidentally got the whole town of Ponyville sick that way.” That was a lead up to a batch of better memories for Fluttershy, she sighed in contentment at remembering all the things she had gone through with her friends and the good times they’ve had. “I’m willing to try anything once; I’ve been eating almost nothing but alien foods since I left my planet. So far I’ve found a few things similar to what my home planet has. Why the last planet I set hoof on… Janet do you think you can reproduce any vegetable or fruit if I gave you the seeds for it?”
“Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard. I might be able to reproduce all kinds of plants, but some might not have the exact same taste or properties after growing in my body’s soil. Why do you ask, have anything in particularly you want me to grow for you?” Janet would aim to please, this pony gave off the same kind of general warmth and kindness like Wander did all those years ago. The only difference for Janet was that Fluttershy was a bit shy and more respectful, whereas Wander was happy and hyperactive. They both had unique friends and nothing got more unique then the living wheel that was grinding at some mushrooms with its tire nearby. “I would be happy to try and provide for you. I’ll see what I can do with whatever you give me.”
“Well if you don’t truly mind then, could wait for me while I go get them out.” Fluttershy had limited medical supplies, some of which doubled as a good nutritional food source. If she was going too far from the ship she’d take a bit of maximum tomato with her, if not then she just bring her glass knife, water and saddlebags. She feared the need of having to use the laser rifle again, especially against targets that weren’t just hunks of mobile metal. She wasn’t going to get it out of storage unless the situation was extremely dire.
As Fluttershy left to go get a Popstar native tomato and apple, Roller curiously rolled up to the flower and revved at it. He had seen Fluttershy talking to it and was curious; he was worried that it might have been something as dangerous as some of the trees from his world. He was wrong as Janet was nothing but pleasant to him and made a thick sturdy ramp out of vines for him to launch off of and this ramp would also double as a tent for Fluttershy later that night. The nighttime was only a few hours away.
Fluttershy arrived to see Roller sitting next to the river and Janet’s little red flower avatar was just idly looking in her direction with an expectant smile on her face. Fluttershy pulled out one of the two tomatoes she had left along with a giant apple she had picked up from the previous planet she was on for little more than two days. She pushed the apple forward first; she had little idea what the incredibly powerful tomato would do to a living planet and would rather see if it were possible to go with a tree that grew giant apples first.
“What’s this called?” The flower hefted the apple into the air with more strength than one would think it had, slowly her bulb grew to expand around it before crunching the apple and swallowing it. The chunks of apple could be seen visibly moving down its stem into the ground. “Tastes sweet and it’s delicious.”
“It’s an apple; it’s like one of the ones native to my own world, only these were much bigger.” After a moment Fluttershy watched as a tree formed out of the ground next to the flower and several apples appeared on it. She looked on in wonderment at how Janet grew a tree so fast.
“That wasn’t so hard, it’s a nice plant and my babies will be able to eat and digest these fruits. Well at least that gives me some idea of what you can handle.” A branch from the tree came down and immediately grew an apple, one which was swiftly plucked by the leaves of Janet’s avatar and held out to Fluttershy who took it. After a moment Fluttershy sunk a fang into it and started to drain the nutrients out of it, it was recreated pretty well with a mild sour flavor adding in a nice twist to the cloying sweetness that was the taste of a fresh apple. “How’s it taste, good huh? What’s the other one... oh is it one of those healing plants you told me about?”
“Yes, it does taste good if a bit sour and yes that is a maximum tomato. It’s one of the few medical supplies that I have left that also doubles as food. I wish it could do more than just fix my physical injuries, like make the feathers on my right wing grow back quicker along with my mane or even get rid of my mutations entirely instead of just curing one of the symptoms.” Fluttershy was only slightly reluctant to give up one of the magical plants that healed any kind of injury and filled whoever ate one with energy. Even if it couldn’t give off the same effects, it still would have been nice to have a few more tomatoes even if it wasn’t a super powered version that cured her cravings. Despite not having cravings for apples since Popstar, she was still thoroughly addicted to them. “Here you go… um do you taste it when you consume it.”
“I sure do, that apple from a foreign planet was thankfully not of a virulent species of vegetation. I will not tolerate foreign plants trying to take over my body, but if I can incorporate a plant into myself I can grow more as long as I can continue propagating the seeds to do so.” The flower picked up the tomato and then swallowed it whole much like the apple after a moment the flower turned its head to Fluttershy with a flat look on its eyeless face. After a moment Janet spoke in very serious tone. “I promise you will never want for food whenever you visit me for the rest of your life, even if you were to become immortal. I’ll also even let this favor stand for any ‘true’ friend of yours that may visit me, trust me I’ll know if they were a true friend of yours as I’m kind of psychic. I can tell you this right now, you have no idea what you’ve just done for me and I can’t even begin to repay you back enough for it. I may not be able to help you find your home personally, but you’re always going to be welcome here. I will even get my children to give you some supplies, whatever you need that will help you I will make sure they get it just for you.”
“Why, what happened when you ate the maximum tomato? Can you make more of them?” Fluttershy wondered what happened to Janet to make her act like that. It was like a switched was flipped and everything around Fluttershy just became more alive and vibrant. She was interested in Janet’s children, but she didn’t know whether or not if she should really ask about them. Mothers often went on long tangents about how wonderful their foals were and Fluttershy didn’t want to be stuck here for the rest of eternity.
“No, I can’t exactly recreate the entirety of that bit of vegetation sadly. It’s far more complex than anything even I should be feasibly capable of. That thing packs quite a wallop though, even for my body being as big as it is. I can however recreate the flavor with the ability double the natural regeneration rate of any biological organism that consumes one of my versions of it; we’ll need to test that on something. Even then that’s not even a single hundredth of what the one you gave me did. I would know, it just did it to me and even I’m still confused about how it managed so much for so little!”After a moment the flower seemed to inhale slightly and calmed down. “I could replicate a few other little useful effects into some of the technology that my babies make... I’ll get right on that when you finally go to meet them. Oh my goodness, I haven’t even told you the name of their species or anything really about what they are like. I’m definitely getting you free spa passes, you deserve it! I’m afraid I can’t thank you nearly enough for putting all the pep back into me, but thank you so much Fluttershy! If I could, I’d exit my own orbital spin around the sun to go looking for your home planet myself. I won’t because I have prior responsibilities and obligations to those I gave life to that live on me.”
“Um… okay… you’re welcome… you don’t really have to do so much for me.” Fluttershy was unsure of what exactly she had done for Janet, but it was obviously something really big and beyond her scope of imagining.
“Stop being modest, like that little cutie Wander you’re my hero! Definitely top five on my list of people I’ll never ever forget!” The flower was clutching its leaves together and the head was smiling with a great sense of joy. “Now, how about that salad, I’m pretty sure all this talk of food is making you two hungry.”
Roller revved in agreement, he liked this plant thing. After Fluttershy nods, a stone bowl formed from the ground and a bunch of vegetation grew out of the ground around it and fell in it. Janet’s flower avatar formed a knife a fork and started tossing salad while some vines were gathering more ingredients.
“What do you like for a salad dressing, something oily or something creamy?” It was a nice meal for the two visitors to Janet’s body, Fluttershy had creamy and Roller took an excessively oily salad dressing. The planet knew a thing or two about cooking for a vegetarian; she gave birth to an entire race of them after all.
Later that night as Fluttershy went to sleep and refused to call out for Luna, she wanted to let her friends get some rest and to stop worrying so much about her. However she was having those nightmares again of being chased by two legs attached to a giant torso that led to a large mouth that would chew up her body and turn it into cold heartless machines. Machines with her spirit trapped inside one of them unable to stop them from consuming everything she loved and cared for.
The rather pervasive nightmare of ‘The Mouth’ was soon broken. Not by Luna as Fluttershy would immediately presume, but by a third party making the princess of the night and protector of sleeping ponies quirk an eye when she came in upon the sight of Fluttershy’s nightmare being ripped to shreds by plants which were protectively wrapping around the shy little pony protecting her from the scary monster that was very much a real thing. In fact she was getting a belly rub from the plant and it was making her dream self made her giggle vibrantly and act something like a little foal.
“Who are you to wander into the sanctity of my subject slumber and why are we not in Fluttershy’s dream meadow?” After a pause Luna considered the situation, she then smiled. “I sensed she was having another nightmare of her times aboard that dreaded place and I come to find that the problem already dealt with. I would like to thank the current savior of this well beleaguered mind.”
“I’m Janet and you’re standing on me. I’m a planet and Fluttershy has done me an act of kindness I’ll never be able to repay. She breathed energy back into me, of which I’m currently trying to share with my husband hanging above the both of us at the moment.” After Janet spoke, Luna looked down at the ground and saw the red flower sitting there. Then Luna looked to the sky and saw a moon that wasn’t anything like her own moon, it had what looked to be an adorable mustache painted on its blushing surface. “That’s Maurice, he’s my moon.”
“He is a charming looking… stallion… is he single by any chance?” Far be it for Luna to ask if a handsome sentient moon was single.
“He’s taken by me I’m afraid, we’ve been gravitating around each other for years. I and my dear Maurice would never dare part since our love is just that strong, aside from the fact that such a thing happening would destroy a few solar systems and we’re both rather reasonable and responsible adults.” After a moment Janet started giggling vibrantly into her two leaves, Maurice the moon blushed even more.
“Yes, for she is my lady and I am her gentle planet. We are forever bound by our orbits; I would never leave such a lovely vision of beauty of which none can ever compare in my sight. She is my world and everything that she is, I will revolve around until my very end.” Maurice stated before he just continued to silently stare at Janet, he thought her beauty was only getting better with age. They were both getting pretty weak after providing all they could for the race Janet gave birth to and they were quite proud parents, especially after the race had discovered space travel in such a unique manner. If Janet had continued to fade out of sapience like most sentient planets tended to do, he too would swiftly follow her into the abyss without question as close to if not at the same time that Janet went.
“A pity then, quite the classy moon you have there.” Luna was not saddened that she didn’t get the chance to date a male planetoid, there were likely other planets like him out there for her and likely just as romantic. Her moon personally didn’t have nearly this much personality when she became imprisoned on it, after a moment she shook her head violently at the silly notion of dating something so huge and started laughing. Then she idly thought about buying enough paint to get a mustache on her own moon.
“Oh I know, he’s a real charmer. You poor lost subject really needs a vacation from all the bad things that have been happening to her and I aim to please on that end. Hope you don’t mind if she doesn’t want to leave for a while if we start pampering her too much.” All Janet could receive from Luna after that was a bright smile. It seemed as if Pinkie wasn’t the only one that can make friends with a planet!
Fluttershy was just cuddling a pillow made from a soft apple scented plant in her sleep that Janet had made for the little pony, her good night’s rest assured away from all the nightmares she’s been having about metal monsters and becoming one. She smiled in her sleep as the tent of vines Janet held strongly over her and Roller’s forms kept any minor pests from messing with such an adorable sight.
-
Yawning, the pony stretched out her hooves and flicked her tail about as she was in the throes of waking up on an alien planet. She hadn’t had slept so well since Popstar, admittedly Roller’s home planet was the best place to sleep even if having nothing but good dreams would eventually have largely detrimental side effects over time. Mr. Wheel, feeling Fluttershy shift against him, slowly opened his two eyes and started slowly puttering about as he warmed up his body.
A flower popped up from out of the ground in front of Fluttershy holding a platter of flat cakes, they looked an awful lot like pancakes and she was pouring some sap from one of her two cupped leaves onto them along with some jam from the other for added flavor. After thanking Janet for breakfast Fluttershy decided to go for a dip in the nearby slow flowing stream and Roller rolled off looking for excitement.
“Uh… Fluttershy, I hate to disturb you’re relaxing day and all. I know you really needed this time to wind down from all your troubles… goodness knows I would handle it myself, but something rather dire has come up.” The flower stopped and bit her lower petals pensively, with Fluttershy looking at her in curiosity.
“What is it Janet? What’s wrong?” Fluttershy swam to the edge of the stream, pulled herself out and shook her coat and wings free of water. She was concerned if a whole planet like Janet couldn’t do something.
“You’re about to find out because she’ll be floating down the river in the next few minutes. She’s… about half drowned at this point, barely alive and definitely injured. She’s from the local law enforcement in this part of the universe and she’s been on me a few times before with her three friends. One time was mostly as tourists and a few other times on official business while saving my babies from a complete nutcase before they figured out how to defend themselves, I had some trouble helping out with that one.” After a moment Janet’s flower frowned while visibly wilting. “Only I’m not seeing any of her friends anywhere on me or in the space around my body, so that means that something has gone quite horribly wrong given the condition her spacesuit is in. I don’t know what could have caused her to end up in such a state or how she got here. I want you to get her out of the water for me and I’ll do what I can from there to aid her. I know you’ve had your bad days traveling the universe, but she looks to be having an even worse one currently.”
Fluttershy gained a slightly determined look and turned back to the river and went back to swimming while being on the lookout for the body that Janet told her about. She was likely about to get involved in something she probably shouldn’t have in the first place, but her heart wouldn’t let her look away when someone was in need.