• Published 3rd Dec 2019
  • 611 Views, 51 Comments

Vacation to a Pleasant Country Retreat - Sixes_And_Sevens



Something dreadful has happened; the Flower Ponies' sister, Hyacinth, is coming to stay. Also, the entire town is being overrun by mind-swapping robot crabs, which may at least be enough to make Hyacinth quit complaining about the dirt.

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Communication with One's Sisters, and How to Avoid It

Ponyville, Spring of 8 BAT: The Bouquet Flower Shop was a very well-respected store in Ponyville. The sisters who ran it, Rose, Lily, and Daisy, were very good at what they did; namely, caring for flowering plants. The flowers seemed to respond to their emotions, thriving on their attention. Ditzy always enjoyed picking up and dropping off letters there— the envelopes and packages always carried a pleasing perfume. So it was one morning when the mailmare fluttered into the beautifully verdant shop. “Good morning, Ditzy,” Rose said with a smile.

Rose was considered to be the most stable and down-to-earth of the three sisters— where Lily and Daisy would faint at the drop of a hat (or, more likely, a flowerpot), probably screaming and carrying on all the while, it took a lot more to faze Rose. “Letters?” she prompted.

Ditzy hoofed over a few envelopes and a big brown package. “Ah, the new flowerpots, I suppose. Excellent,” Rose murmured, setting the package aside. “Let me see, bill, bill, junk, bill—” she stiffened as she looked at the last letter on the pile.

Ditzy’s brief romp among the flowers was suddenly cut short by Rose’s scream of abject horror, as she collapsed into a heap. The postmare broke off from sniffing a particularly delightful daisy and hastened over to the mare. She had fainted dead away.


“Rose?” Ditzy asked, waving her wings in the other mare’s face. The florist groaned and blinked her eyes open. “What’s wrong? Is it an audit? Or a really big bill?”

It didn’t look like a bill. The address was hoofwritten in a neatly curving script, and it carried the perfume of— well, some kind of flower.

Rose thrust the letter forwards. “Read it,” she whispered hoarsely.

“I… I’m not allowed to read other ponies’ mail...”

“I need you to read it aloud for me, Ditzy” Rose snapped. “I can’t bring myself to do it.”

Hurriedly, the pegasus opened the envelope and took out the letter. It was printed on a beautiful piece of pink paper, edged with embossed flowers. She peered closely at the tidy script and read,

My dear sisters,

Due to a regrettable incident at one of my recent soirees, my house has been rendered temporarily uninhabitable. As such, Daddy, Civil, & I will be arriving tomorrow to stay at your hovelhouse abode for the next week. Please, for Daddy’s sake, try to clean at least a little bit. You know how he feels about uncleanliness. Just last week he chased a mare (of low cleanliness &, I am sure, lower morals) into the river to tidy her up some, & then jumped in after her to save her, injuring himself quite badly in the process (I neglect to mention where, as it would be most distressing & uncivil to name). Dear, brave Daddy! To think that dreadful milkmare would accuse him of assaulting her. We shall be arriving by the first-class express rail, & I do expect you all to be there to help with luggage, especially that boorish Carrot Top.
Love,
Hyacinth

P.S. I invited Violet to come along, so that we could have a family reunion. Regrettably, however, events forced her to decline. Something about her husband not wearing the pants in the family.

Rose sighed. “I don’t know if I should be pleased that we aren’t having more unexpected houseguests or upset that Violet won’t be there to help keep Hyacinth under control.”

Ditzy looked at the other mare. “Why? What does she do?”

“She—” Rose hesitated. “She cleans. And organizes.”

Ditzy frowned. “That doesn’t sound bad…”

“Well, no,” Rose admitted. “Nothing wrong with a nice, clean home, or an organized dinner party. But the way she does it…” She trailed off, deep in thought.

“The way she does it is, that if anything can go wrong, it had better not. She goes to terrifying lengths to keep everything exactly the way she wants it, and Celestia help you if you go off-script or do anything that isn’t quite the way she wants it.”

“Oh.” Ditzy thought about this. “Isn’t your house always clean, though? I’ve visited you before, and I couldn’t believe how nice it was! And why is she calling Carrot a boor? She’s really, really nice!”

Rose sighed. “The house is clean, and my sister-in-law is a wonderful pony, but they aren’t... classy, I think would be the word. They aren’t classy enough for Hyacinth.”

“Oh. So that’s why you never mentioned having any other sisters?”

“Yes, though my other sister, Violet, did very well for herself. Married a duke. Although, from the letters she sends, she certainly doesn’t seem best pleased with how all that worked out.”

Ditzy looked at the letter once more. “He’s the one that ‘doesn’t wear the pants’?”

“Yes. Though, I think it’s less about that, and more about what he wears instead.”

“Oh?”

“He raids Vi’s closet and alters all her dresses.”

Ditzy gave this due consideration. “...Can’t he buy his own dresses?”

Rose shrugged. “That’s what Vi always asks, but he doesn’t listen. That’s the idle rich for you. No sense.”

Looking at the letter Ditzy held, she sighed. “I suppose there’s no stopping it. There never is, with Hyacinth. We’ll just have to sterilize the house this evening.”

“Um.”

Rose looked up. “What?”

“It’s postmarked yesterday.”

Rose frowned. “...So?”

“Well, if she wrote that she was going to arrive tomorrow…”

The earth pony’s face froze. “Oh, BUCK ME SIDEWAYS!” she screeched, leaping to her hooves and breaking for the door, leaving a startled Ditzy Doo and a few overturned flowerpots in her wake.

A few moments later, a startled red face poked through the doorway. Ditzy looked at Mac. “It wasn’t my fault this time, I swear,” she said, holding up her right hoof. “Come help me tidy this up, or Rose won’t be the only one of the Flowershop Crowd having a conniption fit…”

Mac mosied into the store, carefully avoiding the shards of terracotta and spilled soil. Sighing slightly, but chuckling beneath, the farmer grabbed a broom from the wall, surveying the scene.“What’s th’ trouble?”

“Unexpected family visit,” Ditzy sighed. “I suppose you’ve got a lot of experience with that?”

Mac chuckled. “Aw, well. Most o’ us Apples stick purty close ta th’ farms. ‘Course, there’s a couple exceptions. Th’ Manehattan Oranges, f’r instance, or… well… Orchard Blossom.”

Ditzy looked at him in mild surprise. “I thought Orchard Blossom was just you in a wig and a dress.”

“Nope. Second cousin twice removed. Dressed up as her ‘cause she’s ‘bout th’ only mare in th’ family bigger’n me.”

Ditzy goggled. “Really? Bigger than you? I thought only Snowflake was that size! Well, and the Princesses, of course.”

Mac shook his head. “Oh, ol’ Blossom’s got a good few inches on me. Mound o’ muscle, tough as ya like, but she still goes ‘round in that frou-frou dress o’ hers. Gentle as a summer breeze, but stronger’n rock.”

Ditzy smiled. “Well, I hope I can meet her someday. You know, Mac, you’re a lot more talkative than usual today.”

Mac shrugged. “Most ponies don’t try’n hold up a conversation. ‘Sides, when you live in th’ same house as mah sisters an’ granny, you learn t’ keep a low profile.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” the pegasus consoled.

Mac rolled his eyes. “Eeyup.” Suddenly, his brow creased and his freckled cheeks turned down in a thoughtful frown. “Hey, what’s this doohickey here?”

“Hm?” Ditzy glanced over her shoulder.

Mac gestured at a strange, crablike metal sculpture on the counter. “Ah ain’t never seen nothin’ like this afore, certainly not in here.”

Ditzy fluttered over to examine the object. “Huh. You know, I’m almost positive that wasn’t here when I came in…”

Mac coughed. “Uh, well, not t’ offend. But, uh, yer eyes…”

Ditzy let out a faint snort. “I’ve got lousy depth perception, but I can see shapes just fine. And I definitely didn’t see this.”

The large red earth pony stared at the metal crab for a long moment. Gingerly, ever so gingerly, a yellow hoof reached out toward it. “Don’t,” Ditzy warned. Mac drew back.

“What d’ya reckon it is?”

“I don’t know,” the pegasus admitted. “The Doctor would, I bet… but he’s in Canterlot today.”

Mac frowned. “Why’s that?”

“Tea with the princesses, I think. Or something like that. Matter of national urgency, he said.”


Meanwhile, in Canterlot: “So then,” the Doctor continued, leaning in dramatically, “Donna starts shouting at the monster.”

Celestia’s jaw dropped open in a wide, gaping grin. “No,” she said, shaking her head. Luna merely settled for rolling away from the central cushion, cackling like a madmare.

The final guest at the storytelling session merely cracked a slim smile. “And zen?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “it was just so unused to confrontation, it actually stopped out of sheer surprise to listen to her lecture. It was a good one, too, one of her best. Would’ve recovered itself in a couple more seconds, but she gave me enough time to get out of the airlock.”

“This ‘Donna’ sounds like a rare mare indeed,” Luna gasped, recovering herself from her giggle fit enough to sit upright once more. “I wish we could have met her.”

The Doctor’s brow darkened. “So do I,” he murmured.

The other guest coughed loudly, before the situation could turn for the worse. “Well, Doctor, zat was a story most interesting. It is my opinion, however, that we really must get down to the affair at hoof.

The Doctor blinked, then broke into a smile. “Yes, of course. Tell us, Commander, what is new in the old Gaean Unified Investigation, Defense, and Espionage Agency, hm? Must’ve gone rather downhill since I left…”

Celestia smirked slightly. “About that, Doctor… you know, when you returned to your universe, you never actually resigned your post…”

The Doctor stared at Celestia. Then, he glanced at the other two. “Oh, no.”

Luna smiled. “Ohhh, yes.”


Back in Ponyville: Mac regarded the object. “It ain’t moved yet.”

Ditzy puffed out her cheeks. “We really shouldn’t.”

Mac scowled at the metal crab. “Yeah. Yer right,” he sighed, shoulders slumping. Ditzy relaxed. “Dunno what came over me,” the farmer said, shaking his head and turning around. The counter shook as apple-marked flank met glass and rock.

The two spun around to look at the crab in horror. It didn’t move. Ditzy let out a sigh. “Maybe it was here all along after all,” she conceded.

Then, the crab’s eyes, glowing bright red, shot open. “Aaaand hello to you, too, Murphy,” the pegasus sighed.