OC Slamjam - Round One

by OC Slamjam


Calluna vs. Fillygree - Winner: Fillygree (by Default)

Flowers Forever - by Fillygree's Author

Calluna squinted at the tiny white flower, turning it around in her magic and watching the light glint off its metallic petals. Every wrinkle, every crease of a gardenia’s waxy petals, even drops of dew were rendered perfectly in white gold. “It’s beautiful. It looks almost alive.” She glanced at Fillygree and asked, “Where are the rest of them?”

“Oh,” said Fillygree, pushing a stray lock of blond hair behind one ear, “I only made the one earring. Well, and the one rose for the boutonniere cufflinks.”

Calluna dropped the flower out of her magic, catching it in her lilac hooves as she stammered, “One? J-just one! It took you five days to make one? Thistledown’s wedding is the day after tomorrow and there are three hundred guests. I’m supposed to make a corsage or boutonniere for every guest, and each one is supposed to be graced with a pair of your fake little flowers and—”

“Excuse me? These” —Fillygree thrust a miniature rose up to Calluna’s muzzle, turning her cross-eyed— “will be beautiful long after your silly weeds have turned to dust. Everypony is going to throw the flowers in the trash on their way out the door, but these cufflinks and earrings will be passed down to their…”

Fillygree trailed off, still holding the glittering pink flower on her hoof. Calluna’s green eyes had dropped to the floor along with her flank, and she was crushing a bouquet to her chest. Silence filled the room, broken only by the crinkling of cellophane as Calluna’s halting breaths pushed against the bundle of daisies. She managed to stop the trembling in her lip long enough to say, “Nothing is going to get passed down if everypony has to share half a pair of earrings.”

Fillygree nodded, returning the tiny jewels to their case as quietly as she could. Without looking at the other mare, she spoke, barely above a whisper. “I’ll get them done on time, but if you’re really worried, you could lend a hoof at my shop.”

Calluna shook her head with a bounce of her powder-blue curls and said, “I have… flowery things to do.” She began nibbling on the edge of a daisy.

Without a word, Fillygree dropped the case into her saddlebag and shuffled out the door. Calluna took a deep breath, then held the squished bouquet out for inspection with a frown. She turned to the racks of flowers filling up most of the room and reached out one hoof to caress a gardenia. “Don’t worry, baby, she didn’t mean those things she said.”


Fillygree didn’t look up when she heard the bell above the door chime. Although the sign out front said “closed,” the sound of hoofsteps made their way through the showroom and behind the counter.

“You’re a hard mare to find.”

Fillygree looked up without raising her head. “My name’s on the building.”

Calluna looked back toward the door. “I’ve never been to Canterlot before.”

“So,” Fillygree said, scraping a blob of wax off a white block, “what brings you here?”

“I finished with my flower stuff for now. I can’t make the corsages and boutonnieres until tomorrow, or they’d wilt before the wedding. I thought I’d come help you out.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Calluna held up a white paperboard box in her magic and lifted the lid for Fillygree to see inside. “I brought strawberry shortcake.”

Fillygree sat up, leaning forward until her pale blue muzzle was almost touching the edge of the box. A dozen petite square cakes lay inside, soaked in pink syrup, with a few scraps of cream smeared here and there. There were no strawberries to be seen. Fillygree looked at Calluna and raised an eyebrow.

Calluna blushed. “I, uh, I have a weakness for strawberries.”

“Cake is cake.” Fillygree pulled a sticky cake out of the box and nodded toward a few miniature gardenias, identical to the earring but made of wax. “You can start making models if you’re worried.”

Calluna waited for Fillygree to take a bite, then said, “Do you always make your clients do all the work?”

Fillygree narrowed her eyes and chewed the crumbly cake while Calluna grinned and said, “You can’t yell at me with a mouthful of cake.”

“Ib habdoo aghoo,” Fillygree said with one hoof in the air, spraying crumbs across the workbench. She swallowed, then said, “It’s hard to argue with cake.”

Calluna slid the box onto the workbench, then looked at the other mare. “Why were you so mean to me?”

Without breaking eye contact, Fillygree crammed the entire cake into her mouth at once.

“Yeah. Look, this is my big chance. My opportunity to build my business bigger than some street corner flower cart. I only got this gig because Thistledown is my aunt. She took a big risk hiring me for this wedding. If you screw this up for me, I won't have a business to go back to in Fillydelphia.” She put her hooves together and leaned on the workbench. “So please, pleeeeeeaaaaaase take this seriously.”

Fillygree’s orange eyes wandered across the walls and ceiling while she chewed, before settling on the lilac mare in front of her. She finally swallowed, then licked her lips and sighed. “I never didn’t take this seriously. Why did you get so upset?”

“I literally just told you. Why did you get so upset?”

With a sigh, Fillygree resumed her work, mechanically squishing bits of wax into a depression on a square block, scraping off the excess, and poking a short section of wire through a hole from the back, then dropping the half-a-flower-on-a-stick onto the table. Without looking up, she said, “You insulted my work ethic and my art at the same time.”

“Ah,” Calluna said, stepping up to the workbench. “I thought you had to carve them all instead of… What is it you’re doing?”

“I pour a plaster mold around the wax models, then melt out the wax. I pour the molten metal in the mold. It makes all the earrings at once. Same with the cufflinks.”

Calluna poked at a soft lump of warm wax. “So I freaked out for no reason?”

“Well,” Fillygree said, “pretty much.”

“Wax models, huh?” Calluna lifted a tiny glob of wax in her magic and stuffed it into a depression on one plaster block, then glanced up at Fillygree. Upon receiving a smile, Calluna scraped away the excess wax and turned the block over. “There’s no hole in this one. How do you get the flower out?”

“You stick one of those on it.” Fillygree pointed at the half-flowers that came out of her own block and watched Calluna align one onto the wax in her block. “Just like that. No, jam it on there, so it sticks to the other half.”

Calluna squealed and clopped her hooves, holding up a tiny wax flower. Fillygree rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help the grin that crawled its way across her face. Calluna cleared her throat and began manufacturing gardenia tops. As the pile of flowers grew, she stole a glance at Fillygree and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Still, though. Most ponies don’t react like that. You don’t strike me as a grumpy pony. Something was already bothering you.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fillygree pause. “I think you don’t like weddings.”

“As a matter of fact,” Fillygree said, her hooves cycling through the motions, “I think they’re dumb. For the price of a typical wedding, you could’ve bought a house - something that will last.”

“Nothing lasts forever. If we think anything is permanent, then we’re just fooling ourselves.”

The mares sat in silence a while, adding to the pile of wax gardenias. Fillygree paused, crossing her hooves on the workbench. “Love is forever.”

“I thought you didn’t like weddings?”

“I’m not opposed to them on principle, but I’m not talking about the wedding. You love your family, and you pass that love on to your foals, and they pass it on to theirs. And when you see a necklace that your great-granddad bought your great-grandma, it reminds you of the love they passed down.”

“Wow,” Calluna said, “Who knew you could be sweet?”

Fillygree rolled her eyes, but chuckled anyway as she broke off another blob of wax. She nodded toward the pastry box and said, “Cake me,” with a few chomps of her teeth.

Calluna lifted a cake and held it up for Fillygree to take a bite, but when she opened her mouth, Calluna shoved the entire cake into Fillygree’s face. As Fillygree fell over backwards sputtering, Calluna fell over laughing.

Fillygree sat up with crumbly pink cake across her entire muzzle. “I owe you for that one.”

“Heehee, no, you owe me a few dozen,” Calluna said, pointing to the pile of wax earrings.

“Yeah, but who’s counting?”

“Heh, I guess you’re right, we—”

“No, seriously,” Fillygree said, wiping her face with a fetlock, “who’s counting? We need three hundred of these.”

“Oh! Hahaha…”

Both mares laughed as Calluna began separating the earrings into sets of ten.


“Thanks for helping me with the flowers,” Calluna said as she trotted alongside the cart.

Fillygree smiled and shifted the cart’s harness on her midsection. “It’s the least I could do after keeping you up all night doing my job.”

“It wasn’t exactly my idea of a girl’s night, but it was fun in its own kind of way.”

“Heh. You just liked playing with all the cute little flowers.”

Calluna looked back at the cart, full of flower arrangements and boxes upon boxes of corsages and boutonierres. “They’re not exactly my kind of flowers, but I understand why you like them.”

“What I don’t understand is why you do what you do,” Fillygree said, panting as she looked at the wedding chapel up ahead. “I mean, you put a lot of work into something that’s going to be gone in a few days. How does that not bother you?”

Calluna pulled a pink rose from the cart, then turned to Fillygree with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. “A flower is like a moment of happiness. It can’t last forever.” Her magic glowed brighter as the rose lost its color, shriveling to a sad brown state.

She held the flower in front of Fillygree and said, “You can try to make it last forever, but…” She stopped and took a couple steps backward, then plucked a yellow daisy that had sprouted from a crack in the road. “You’ll miss the next one.”

Fillygree smiled and blushed while Calluna slid the flower behind her ear. “Thanks.”

A few moments later, Calluna watched Fillygree wrinkle her brow as she pulled the cart up next to some caterers carrying tables into a gazebo. As Fillygree waited for Calluna to unhook her from the harness, she turned around and said, “Can you handle the rest by yourself?”

“Oh, sure. The wedding’s still a couple hours away.”

“Good, good.” Fillygree stared at the flowers for a moment, then swept her eyes across the festive scene, avoiding Calluna’s eyes. “I’ve got something to do. I’ll see you after the wedding?”

“Sure. Thanks for the help.” Calluna watched Fillygree wander off before turning back to her cart and pulling out a giant vase.


“I thought I’d find you here,” Fillygree said.

“Hmmm?” Calluna turned around and smiled around the strawberry stem sticking out of her mouth.

Fillygree sat on the bench next to her, watching distant partygoers shake their flanks in unison as others laughed and ate cake. Calluna held up a silver platter with a few chocolate-covered strawberries remaining on white paper doilies. “Strawberry?”

“Sure!” Fillygree grabbed one of the confections, then paused and patted her tummy. “This is a moment of happiness that will become all-too-permanent.”

Calluna rolled her eyes, but snuck a glance at her own belly.

“Soooooo,” Fillygree said, rolling the strawberry around on her hooves, “I was thinking about what you said, about how a single happy moment is like a flower.”

“Yeah?”

“What is life, if not a process of moving from one moment to the next?”

“Mmmhmm,” Calluna said, then spit a stem into the grass and swallowed. “You could even say that we’re permanently a part of this process.”

Fillygree chuckled. “I suppose so. I know we got off on the wrong hoof, but I really enjoyed getting to know you.” She reached into her mane, digging through her sloppy bun until she pulled something out. “I made this for you.”

Calluna picked up the tiny sparkling item in her magic, then dropped it in her hooves. It was a brilliant yellow flower, with five oblong petals that glistened even in the shade. “Is this… This kind of looks like a strawberry flower, but those are white.”

“It’s a wild strawberry. They grow like weeds in my tiny little lawn. I had to invent my own special gold alloy to get that color of yellow.” Fillygree picked it up from Calluna’s hooves, and tucked it behind the unicorn’s ear. “I wanted this to remind you that that, even though we only spent a few moments together, I’ll remember you forever.”

“Awwwwww,” Calluna said with a blush, “That’s so sweet.” She wrapped Fillygree in a hug. “And this is to remind you to keep your eyes open for that next happy moment.”

Both mares giggled before turning back to watch the wedding. As Fillygree took a bite of strawberry, Calluna leaned over and said, “You are going to write me, though, right?”