Step 3
Flash led me to the Royal Palace, but before going inside he took me to a large compound just inside the castle grounds. Unlike the majesty of the palace, this building was squat and bore the blue star of the Royal Guard.
Following Flash inside the front door, I looked around the main entrance and saw a dozen ponies suddenly go stiff at the sight of Hazel on my back. For her part, Hazel was keeping relatively quiet, almost as if she understood the gravity of the situation.
Stopping, Flash looked around all the alert faces. "Stand down. I am escorting Apple Bloom—"
"Just Bloom." I tried to look as sheepish as I could, which was helped by the fact I felt sheepish.
Flash raised an eyebrow. "I am escorting Bloom and her pet to see the Captain." He gestured to a hallway with a wing. "Follow me, Bloom."
I kept close to Flash, walking down a short hallway before following him into an office. As I stepped out from behind him, I froze. "P-P-Princess Cadance?" I stared in shock, and in the silent moment when my brain didn't want to function, my memory supplied that he had referred to the Captain as a "she" earlier.
"Captain Princess Cadance." Flash, I could tell, was doing a good job of not laughing at his joke. On the other hoof, Cadance glared at him. "Or Princess Captain Cadance? I can never remember the right way to—"
"Flash Sentry, shut your snout before I bust you to Private." Cadance looked right at me. "Now. Why is one of my bridesmaids being escorted in here like a criminal?"
I saw Cadance's eyes flick to Flash, but I jumped in first. Turning sideways, I revealed Hazel. "I was coming from my new teacher's farm, and one of his chickens followed me."
Princess Cadance raised one eyebrow suspiciously. "That's a cockatrice, Apple Bloom. There are slightly different laws involved for them, as opposed to a chicken."
"Just Bloom, Your Highness, and I know that now, but Hazel is really a chicken that turned into a cockatrice. She wouldn't hurt a fly!" I puffed out my chest to defend Hazel's fowl honor, but realized an error in my words. "Well, she would hurt a snail. She really loves to eat 'em."
"Flash. Remind me again how long I have to go?" Cadance lifted a wing up to rub her forehead.
Snapping a sharp salute, Flash grinned about as wide as any stallion I had ever seen. "Your Highness, you have seven months and two weeks remaining of your duty." There was a joke I wasn't getting, and I still didn't know why the Princess was Captain of the Royal Guard.
"Are you going to get on with the story? Does it really matter why a princess was Captain of the Royal Guard?" I reached out to the tickle vine and offered it my hoof. Giggles bubbled up almost immediately, and I was reminded of my trip to collect the plant.
"It's important to the story!" Apple Bloom glared at me. "An' if you don't let me finish I ain't never gonna tell ya!"
I blinked at my apprentice. "You wouldn't!"
Apple Bloom glared at me. "Jus' try me!" At the same time we narrowed our eyes, glaring at each other. Unfortunately for me the tickle vine found my hoof again, and I broke the stare-off in a fit of giggles.
"Ah win!" Apple Bloom tilted her head up, and pointed at the ground. "Now you lay down an' listen."
"Just tell me why, first. Then you can move on to the story." Nonetheless, I did as instructed. Life was a game, and it would be unsporting of me to break the rules enacted by a staring contest.
"Shining Armor complained about how much easier it seemed, just taking care of running the Crystal Empire, and Cadance told him that if it was so easy, he could do it. For a year."
I blinked at the synopsis Apple Bloom gave. "So they swapped jobs? A princess and the Royal Guard Captain?" She nodded to me, and even without the vines both of us started to giggle.
Princess Cadance wouldn't let me take Hazel into the castle, but she did make sure there was a pen to put the hen in, and even promised to find her some food. Hazel, for her part, was not happy about being left alone—but I managed to persuade her to un-petrify Flash.
With the letter opening the doors to the castle, I trotted through the front gates with Flash beside me. "So, what's it like getting petrified?"
"It was strange." Flash Sentry looked more introspective than upset. "Startling to feel happening, but when it finished it was relaxing. I imagine it would be a lot worse if you weren't at least partly expecting it."
"You did poke her tail. I am not an expert on either chickens or cockatrice, but I don't like anypony poking my tail. You deserved it." I ignored his sputtering, and looked around the huge garden the inner courtyard opened to. It was amazing, and it stole my heart.
Flash got control of himself. "First time seeing the garden?"
"No. But it's the first time Ah got to see it without distraction." When last I had been in the Canterlot Palace Gardens, Discord's statue had been here. "It feels more—more relaxed now. I wonder if Discord was havin' some kinda effect on the place?"
"That's something we always suspected. It was why some plants just wouldn't bloom here, no matter what we did." The new voice startled me, and I spun to the side to see a pegasus with the dirtiest feathers ever. "Head groundsmare Ferny Growth." She held out a hoof.
"Well, this is as far as I needed to bring you. Have fun!" Flash Sentry shot into the air, flapping his wings for all he was worth. I stared after him before realizing I was being disrespectful to Ferny.
"Sorry, ma'am. I'm App—" I cut short, and cleared my throat. "Just Bloom. Zecora sent me here, said I should give you this." Reaching into my saddle bags, I pulled the letter out and passed it over.
"Zecora sent you? Well that's a nice surprise. Are you a student of hers?" Ferny took delivery of the letter and unfolded it. I watched her lips quirk upwards as she read, and despite my careful handling of the letter, she used her dirty wings.
"I was. It didn't work out with her. She said I needed to be a zebra to really master what she could teach." There was still a little pain when I thought about it. Even if I had a cutie mark for herbalism, it wouldn't have been enough. "I am apprenticed to a friend of hers: Joker."
I watched as Ferny Growth lowered the letter and stared at me. "You are apprenticed to Joker?" She took a step back and narrowed her eyes.
"Y-Yeah. What's the matter?" I was actually worried; she seemed shocked and a little scared.
"Just so's you know. If you try any pranks, I'm not going to help you until he comes and apologizes himself." Ferny's eyes were hard. "Anypony who spends more than five minutes with that stallion ends up with their sense of humor twisted all sorts of crazy ways." Her lips started to pull back up.
"So she remembers me." I grinned wide, remembering Ferny Growth.
Apple Bloom glared at me. "She told me some of the things you did, and what she did when with you. They had to actually throw that bath tub out, you realize?"
"They did? Wait a second…" I tapped my chin in thought, bringing back the prank in question. "Was that the time I filled the pipes with black mane dye, or when we replaced all the shampoo in the Royal Guard bathrooms with itching grease?" When Apple Bloom's eyes widened, and she shook her head, I was puzzled. "Well, it's all behind us now. What happened next?"
"I have this plant." Ferny Growth smiled at me. There was something in the smile, something that worried me. "And you can have one of the younger specimens, as well as a few jars of berry conserve."
"There's a but here, ain't there?" It was so obvious I couldn't help but ask. "You want me to do something to get back at Joker? Ah'm not going to do anything nast—"
"What? Of course, it won't be nasty. But you have to listen closely. I will prepare a powder that you need to slip into his food. He absolutely won't notice it at first, and don't worry, it won't hurt him." Ferny grinned widely at me.
"You poisoned me?!" I jumped to my hooves and reached for a small bucket of water. Knowing how well diluting poisons could work, I drank down every drop of it, then rounded back on Apple Bloom. "What did she have you put in my food?"
Apple Bloom looked entirely too smug. "Essence of Pink Lace flower. She boiled it until it was sludge, and then—"
I cut in, knowing how to prepare the particular substance. "You're going to turn me pink?"
"Let me finish!" Shouting loud enough to shock me to silence, I stared at Apple Bloom. "Now, as I was going to say, she wanted me to put it in your food, but I told her there was a better prank. Having you eat the powder unawares was less funny than, say, having you drink it. In particular: having you drink it, hoping the water it is in will dilute what you thought was already inside you."
I stared at her. "You came up with that on your own?" She nodded. Looking down, I could see the tips of my forehooves already turning pink. "I should have known. It acts a too fast for it to have been in my meal."
A flash startled me, bright light causing me to shrink back a little. "And Ah need to get some photos. Ferny Growth was particular about that." Another flash had me advancing on my apprentice.
"Give me that camera!" I made a lunge for the device, but Apple Bloom jumped backwards with it. When I dove to try to grab it, the light bulb on it flashed again. "Stop taking photos!" I was stretched out on the ground, and watched as the fur on my legs slowly turned a bright pink. "Ugh… You are the worst apprentice ever!"
She took more photos, getting the last when even my horn turned pink. "Are you at least going to finish the story?"
Apple Bloom laughed, put the camera back in her saddlebags, and sat back down. "Well Ah can now. An' don't worry, I cut the mixture down to half strength, it will wear off before morning."
I embellished on Ferny's original plans, as you know, and when she heard how I was going to prank you, she offered me two bushes, and four big jars of jam. I had to head back to the Guard headquarters, and what I found inside surprised me.
"Oh good, you're back." Princess Cadance was defending the doorway to the cells—where I had left Hazel. "Would you mind asking your chicken to please turn the idiots back?" Her tone implied she was angry, but I could tell it wasn't aimed at me.
"S-Sure. What happened?" I walked up, and she let me slip past.
Giving a long-suffering sigh, Cadance followed me in. "It seems somepony spread a rumor among the newest recruits, that we had a secret mission to guard one of Princess Celestia's cakes, and that it was stored inside the cells."
I looked inside, and found Hazel clucking in the middle of the cell, with a bevy of stony Royal Guard around it. "Didn't any of them think it was a prank?!"
"Apparently not. When I find out who spread the false rumor…" Cadance trailed off, leaving a sense of ominous vengeance hanging thickly.
"Hazel." I clucked my tongue in my mouth, and the hen raced over to the side of the cage. "Sorry I took so long, Hazel. Would you mind turning them back to normal?" I gestured to the statue garden with a hoof.
Cadance opened the cell door and let Hazel out. Leaping to my back, and coiling her tail around my midsection tightly, I heard a few relieved clucks a moment before the room erupted in shouting.
"Thank you, Hazel." I reached around with a hoof to tickle Hazel's wattles.
One of the guards managed to recover enough of his senses to spot Cadance. "Captain! Somepony put a c—"
"Fifty laps of the practice field, now!" Cadance's yell was enough to upset Hazel again, but more attention from my hoof was enough to keep her from anymore stonings.
"Okay, okay…" I reached a bright pink hoof up to my chin and tapped it. "You can have a C plus."
"You are grading me on this?!" Apple Bloom's yell caused me to fold my ears back, and wish I were a plant again. "I did what you told me, I should get an A!"
"So? Do better next time." I grinned at Apple Bloom. "I expect great things from my apprentice."
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See? Everything turned out fine! There was even a healthy amount of chaos to boot!
To Bloom: does it start to get tedious after a while?
Keep going! ;)
8498375 Heh, no more questions; the story is marked complete.
8498473
SEQUAL
8498473
Oh! You know what, FimFiction doesn't show that for some reason when viewing the chapter first, totally didn't realise. :)
8498473
SEQUEL x2
this is a delightful story to read
You can add my vote for a sequel, please??
ACK! IT’S ALREADY OVER?! I love this story!
I’m also voting for a sequel! 
8627774 At the moment there is no plan to make a sequel, but ideas are fickle, and if one grabs me it might take off.
8627785
Okie dokie lokie!
8629079 And just like that I get an idea for a story in the same 'verse, although it might have some clop in it.
8629106
I think I’ll just wait and see what you end up with before I decide on reading it or not. It’s kind of funny that you got an idea so quickly though.
8630787 A good friend (and commissioner of a lot of my writing) put forward an idea that will, eventually, lead to a major story setting. Basically, this story (and a few others) will serve as prequels. Don't want to give too much away though!
8630789
Oooh, I like it! I’ll be looking forward to it!
Wow, this is really good! Keep it up, man!
8677151 Thanks!
8677765
Gonna be a sequel?
8782415 More to the point this (and others) will be a prequel to a story.
It is in the planning stages.
Absolutely loved this story.
It had a very funny upbeat feel to it from start to finish and made me laugh more than once.
Awesome work, hope there is a sequel!
it's been a while since a story truly grabbed me as well as this did. Saddens me that you aren't going to further its writing by the looks of it. I've always wanted a herbalist/chemist/alchemist story, I just couldn't find one in the format I wanted. Or for official stories I can have paper book copies of, at all.
9530576
Then again, I am a very unique person, I don't believe my style is quite common among most folks.