Plucked Big Time
I woke to the first rays of sunlight coming through the window. Warmth filled me instantly, and I couldn't help but remember how it was to be more plant than pony, when the sun came up. A sloshing sound broke my focus, and I finally looked down and realized I hadn't made it from the tub.
"This is less than ideal." Standing up, I felt nearly twice as heavy as I should. A drying spell caused a flood of water to pour from my fur and tail, then another actually got me dry. Stepping free of the tub, my mind started to drift again, back to the first time I had entered Ponyville after the Summer Sun Celebration.
The not-quite-a-little-town-anymore had been cleaning up after a multi-day party, but spirits were high. That had been the first day of me being a joker, and had been when I chose my new name to reflect the changes in me.
A pink earth pony bounced right up to me. She seemed to vibrate from her hooves all the way to the tip of her snout. "A new pony!" Like a shot, she screamed and was suddenly gone.
"That was strange." I blinked at the cloud of pony-shaped smoke as it slowly dissipated. Walking further into town, there was ponies everywhere who were cleaning up the inevitable mess of a party. Without thinking twice, I lit my horn and started helping.
I froze at the change in color of my magic. From the first time I managed to make sparks from my horn, my magical aura had been a soft yellow. The intense blue surprised me, but not in a bad way. The plants I had become part of in The Everfree Forest sprang to mind. It wasn't uncommon for a pony's magic to change color as they got better with it, or with life-changing events, so my magic was just one more proof that the young colt who caught the train to Ponyville was no more.
"That flower is gorgeous!"
"Look at how perfect the petals are, and so intense."
"It's poison joke, you shouldn't touch it…"
I turned my head and blinked at the three mares staring intently at me. Well, two were staring, the other looked a little more worried than infatuated. "Uh, hi! Wait, poison joke?" I fumbled with a hoof in my shock, reached up and plucked the flower I had put in my mane. "Huh…"
"So what did it do to you?" The intensely magenta mare with lime-green mane seemed to step to the side, and continued to walk around me at a good distance.
A second, sporting a more pink fur and dirty gold mane, circled the other way. "Was it those petals around your neck? That isn't very funny…"
"You girls are the worst." The third mare, of yellow fur and raspberry mane/tail, was quick with her teeth, grabbing her compatriots by the tails and pulling both back to her. "My name is Roseluck, you can call me Rose."
Both the other mares suddenly blushed. "Oh! My name is Lily Valley." Lily seemed a little air-headed, but her beautiful smile wiped away any hint of ambivalence I might have had. "You can call me Lily."
I looked to the last of the three, and couldn't help but jump in on the introductions. "My name is,"—the blue flower on my hoof caught my eye, and I smiled wide—"Joker. My name is Joker." I lifted the flower back up and hooked it just behind my ear.
"Well, Joker, my name's Daisy. Just Daisy. Like yours is just Joker." Daisy looked at me with a smile that was both a little ditzy and hungry-looking at the same time. "Are you new in town?"
I knew this was a set up, they seemed to know it was a set up, but the rigid and unbreakable laws of small-talk required me to reply to the completely rhetorical question. "Yup, I got here… just today. Kinda figured I would help with cleaning up, it must have been quite the celebration?"
"The Summer Sun Celebration!" Rose's voice caused me to examine her more. She looked at me in a way that was more evaluating than desirous—something I could appreciate. "It got scary this year, when Nightmare Moon attacked, but then the new mare in town saved the day… literally."
"Her friends helped too." Lily gestured towards The Everfree Forest with a hoof. "Princess Celestia said as much." My attention, however, was drawn to Daisy.
"They will argue like this for hours." Daisy seemed about to step closer and put a foreleg around my withers, but then her eyes flicked to the poison joke tucked behind my ear. "We could leave them to it for… oh, an hour oughta do it. Do you like… flowers?"
A tiny alarm bell rang in my head. For just a moment the voice of common sense spoke to me crystal clear: "She is a mare, you are a stallion." Opening my mouth, however, spurred another voice inside my head to take control of my vocal equipment. "Not as much as they like me." It was cheesy, but suddenly I couldn't help but live up to my new name. "Was there a flower in particular you wanted to show me?"
The mare's giggle was more than enough to have my full attention, and I found my hooves pounding the ground, carrying me after Daisy. She wove between houses, and it wasn't until I almost ran into her that I realized the house we had walked behind must have been hers.
A huge greenhouse—almost as tall as her actual house, and about twice as long—dominated the mare's back yard, and I stood in awe of it. My cutie mark, and my destiny, seemed to burn to see inside. "Wow…"
"You should see inside." Leaving me to gawk a moment longer, Daisy trotted to a door into the glass sanctuary for all things sprouty and leafy.
I shook my head and trotted after her. "I would love to!" But something had changed about Daisy. She stood in the doorway looking back at me. "What?"
"The cost of entry… is the seeds from that flower." She pointed at the flower behind my ear. "I don't know how, but you seem to be immune to it, and I would really love to grow some…"
A major fact finally snapped into shape: she hadn't been staring at me, she had been staring at the poison joke flower. "Sure, but I think these flowers are male… the ones that grow on the plant, that is." I had no idea how I knew that, but it just seemed right. A shifting pressure deep in my belly had me go cross-eyed, however.
"Is something wrong?" Daisy guided me inside the greenhouse, and ushered me to a chair. The spot looked like it had been carefully chosen so that whoever was seated there could see the whole garden.
Sitting felt right, but there was some measure of restlessness about me. I stood up from the seat, and following my intuition, I moved onto a freshly tilled flower bed.
"What are you doing? I just…" Daisy trailed off as I sat down in the soft, loamy soil.
A rolling sensation poured through me, and I screwed my eyes shut as pressure built inside me. A good, hard shove down relieved the strain, and left me feeling very peculiar. "I… I am not sure what just happened…"
"Let me look." I was shoved aside by an excited Daisy, and while she looked at the ground where I had sat, another build up of pressure began.
Tensing, I pushed again, and once more the pressure went down. "What is going on? I keep feeling like I am going to…" I strained and the feeling happened all over again. "There! It happened again!"
"It's a seed!" At Daisy's voice, I turned around. "Look, Joker. I don't know what you are doing, but your belly is getting smaller too…"
"The heck… I am laying seeds!" I wanted to run, to get away, but I had the oddest feeling inside. I had to do this. I had to lay all the seeds somewhere nice, somewhere they would be taken care of. The warm greenhouse was probably the best place within miles, so there I stayed. Every time I laid one, I had the urge to move, to find another spot.
"Why are you laying seeds?" Daisy walked around the flower bed and looked me in the eyes. "And what plant are they from?"
Rolling both eyes up and into the same direction—the flower on top of my head—I gave the mare a droll look. "I will give you three guesses. This is crazy! Did you know poison joke did… did this?" I gestured at the soil behind me, disturbed only by my hooves and plot, and the seeds that lay within its embrace.
A sudden loss of the repeating pressure caught me off guard. I stood up carefully, and turned. There was no more urge to sit on the ground. All told, nearly a dozen seeds lay in the soil, plus the one Daisy was holding.
Daisy seemed excited. "Poison joke seeds? This is… this is amazing! Where did you get them?" She did a cute dance in place. "How did you get them?"
I opened my mouth, and was about to tell Daisy everything, when a sudden urge made me close my snout again. It wasn't the strange need to lay seeds this time, but my destiny calling. "That would be telling. But… next year, how much would you pay for more seeds?"
The door of the greenhouse swung open, and a struggle broke out between Rose and Lily over who would be first to storm in. "What are you two doing?! Leave our sister alone you…" Both mares trailed off their shouts at the same time.
"What are you doing?" Rose looked between me and Daisy, then down to the seed Daisy was holding. "And what's that?"
I reached out and took hold of my destiny. "That is yours, but the rest are mine." I traced back my drag marks in the soil and plucked up the seeds I had laid myself. Feeling roguish, I strode up to Daisy and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "I'll drop by when I can, we can swap seeds."
All three mares seemed stunned to silence. Taking the advantage, I strode up and stole a kiss on Rose and Lily's cheeks too. "Until next time!" Trotting out the open door, I heard three nervous giggles come from the greenhouse behind me.
I was just done brushing out my mane when I heard the front door bell tinkle. Blinking in surprise—and to clear the afterimages of my past—I trotted out to meet my latest customer and visitor. No sooner did I enter the storefront of my house than I beamed brightly. "Zecora! It's wonderful to see you!"
"Joker my friend it is good to see, and a new friend I have brought with glee." Zecora gestured behind her, where a young yellow-coated and red-maned filly stepped out.
The filly's eyes were wide with excitement, and she strode right up to me and lifted a hoof up. "Hi there. I'm Apple Bloom!"
"My name's Joker, as I am sure Zecora would have told you. Would you both like some tea? I have the most wonderful rose hips you have ever tasted." For Zecora, for a friend of Zecora's, my home was open. I led the two through to my kitchen. "Have a seat while I make something warm to drink."
"My visit is both to my friend, and to follower of horticulture trend." Zecora wore that smug smile I always caught her using when she made particularly complicated rhymes. "Your skills are most momentous, and to you Apple Bloom will apprentice."
I stopped in my tracks, but I didn't look at Zecora. I studied Apple Bloom even as she looked at me. No words came to mind for the filly, so I turned back to make the tea. "You need to test her first. I can't take on an apprentice who isn't a joker."
Curiosity was a powerful thing, and it was something that I still let possess me from time to time. Right then, however, it was Apple bloom who I could almost sense trembling with questions.
Apple Bloom couldn't keep the big one back. "What's a joker?"
"Catch." I reached up to the drying rack with my blue magic, and plucked out a half-dry duller blue flower. A toss and it winged its way to Apple Bloom. "Smell it. Explain the scent."
Carefully, she grabbed it out of the air with a hoof. I looked to Zecora with a raised eyebrow, but the zebrican just shook her head, not giving anything away. Looking back to the filly, I watched her close her eyes and press her little snout to the dry flower carefully.
I approved of her closing her eyes. With some magic I started the kettle boiling on the stove, and thankfully didn't have too long to wait. Apple Bloom's eyes opened and she looked right at me. That she had spent more than an instant to put her thoughts together was promising.
"It smells sweet, but there is somethin' more. Mint! It smells of mint!"
"And what does it taste like? Wait!" I held up a hoof and gestured to the flower. "Tell me what you think poison joke should taste like?" I had the satisfaction of seeing the filly gasp and start to throw the flower. Just when I thought her hoof would loose it across the room, she hesitated.
"Zecora told me dried herbs can be expensive…" Apple Bloom trailed off her thought and looked down at the dried flower in her hooves. "And that it was very potent like that. What is going to happen to me?" She walked over and carefully passed the expensive bloom to me.
"Don't you think it is exciting to find out? Everypony has their own… joke. For a prideful unicorn it might be a droopy horn, or a pegasus with a huge ego it might make one of their wings huge." I prepared the teapot. "But for some… for some ponies touching and breathing in the pollen of poison joke has no effect at all."
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Argh! I keep thinking this story is going to go mature on me!
Also, is Apple Bloom going to turn into a plant too?
Question for Joker, what gender are you?
8391865
I think Joker was male but the Poison Joke turned him into a female.
8392434
And yet it says in the triggers hermaphrodite.
8392472
Then I don't know what Joker is for gender!
8392485
That's why I asked Joker themself.
8392522
K then!
Hmmm...