The Whole Love Story
Fashionable spindly leaves a meter long in places. A silky wend oft turns heads, but the admirers are gone. The young plant waits.
Across the room, smooth on top but eroded and unexpectedly craggy underneath, the older stone shifts.
A friendship problem called the stone's mother, Maud. Her work takes her across Equestria's earth.
She travels without him, but she is not alone; she moves with an ally, the mother of the plant.
The older stone should have accompanied his mother. He always does. She takes him everywhere.
The younger plant never goes. Her mother doesn't take Phyllis anywhere.
The problem is among the dragons. Mother warned it will be deadly for stones like Boulder--a land of Lava.
Phyllis merely hopes she'll get her meals: sunlight and water.
Boulder yearns for his mother. She may live. She may die. Either way, he belongs by her side.
Phyllis longs to grow tall from watering and yearns to shade her mother when that pony returns. Until then, though, she will thrive on her own.
Maud didn't trust Starlight Glimmer's magic to protect.
Starlight should be able to protect a pony from lava, but Boulder wasn't a pony--the magic could fail.
The spells had not been tested on sentient stone.
The spell could not be proven without putting him under threat. A non-sentient stone could be tested but it wouldn't answer the question. The only one who could be risked was him alone.
Maud would not sanction that experiment.
So Starlight merely employed a plan that was tried-and-true.
Starlight thought about Maud, her traveling partner, but no other.
Maud didn't want to be a bother, she told herself.
Full of awareness, she knew her soul churned with disturbance. Her husband had died.
And so, even moreso than in normal circumstances, she knew she needed Boulder by her side, alive.
But, she cried--she couldn't risk him.
So his pleas failed to win an opportunity to be with her.
She, deep inside, must have wanted to die.
He feared this. But he couldn't chase after to help her. He couldn't fly.
He waited and glared across the room at his fellow inmate.
Phyllis waved a slender limb at her mate.
Boulder shifted uneasily.
Phyllis flirted easily.
The rock-and-plant sitter arrived.
Boulder and Phyllis were, of course, still there.
She fluttered in, wings flared out and knocked everything over on Headmare Starlight Glimmer's desk.
Ink from a well spilled into Phyllis' pot. Phyllis shrieked and bent to her left and struggled, reaching farther into the air.
The clumsy pegasus sucked a horrified breath in.
"I've done something terrible again!" She shouted out.
She twisted this way and that to glimpse something to absorb the ink. She found it.
Boulder joined Phyllis in her pot, being rubbed all over her soil, absorbing ink into him.
"I guess that's got it."
The pegasus picked Boulder up again, then noticed his inky discoloration and banged him against her blond mane and head-hit, hit, hit.
"Maud won't like you stained!"
Boulder sighed. His mother wouldn't be coming back, whether or not this derpy pegasus knocked herself out, brained.
The pegasus washed him off.
She rubbed a towel all over him, faster and faster with heated friction, off and on.
Craggy parts fell off his side.
He felt violated. Only his mother should buff his surface.
He had gotten craggier in the moons since his mother had been left alone.
She hadn't polished him as much as before--and he mourned too for her sadness, shedding fragments. They mostly sat, silent, bonding together.
Blushing now though, due to the inappropriate rubbing, he found himself returned to Phyllis' pot.
Phyllis leaned closer to him. "My hero," she beamed.... He had absorbed quite a lot of the otherwise toxic ink. "So strong, absorbent, and hot."
"It was just something I could do."
"How about I do something special for you?"
It took quite a while, but she shifted to wrap around and pull him up, on his side.
Boulder huffed, shocked and thrilled, handled with care: fully alert and alive.
They shared a time with bodies quite sober.
Another day, that derpy pegasus spilled some wine.
On that, they sipped. Tipsy, they tumbled closer together.
They couldn't imagine ever being apart.
Talked about their mothers. They could do that forever.
Time passed tick-tick-tick. It was the beginning.
They were sad a bit when they were parted and their meeting reached its ending.
But Maud was alive.
And Starlight Glimmer was not dead.
Mothers return to their lives.
Children refuse to live apart; their love should not die.
It is not enough to see each other but a wee bit.
Maud can sense Boulder's whispers, and he encourages her with a smile. They, accompanied, see each other much more.
They talk. Maud smiles more as the mothers chat.
Maud carries Boulder and Phyllis some liquor, pouring the jeroboam quite freely. They tangle.
Starlight watches with saucer-wide eyes.
Maud gently averts them and gingerly leads her away, guiding her thighs.
Years pass.
Time lives; ponies die.
And all these notable creatures rest in an old ponies' home now.
Boulder and Phyllis join together in the place that for their mothers portends the end.
They rest within a pot, angled on a pedestal where they can be seen.
Even though the ponies' eyes are often clouded or tired or shut.
Phyllis and Boulder still feel quite keen for each other as they hug.
In private (more or less due to their mothers' dulled senses), they love.
For their mothers... there are many good days.
But there are some very bad nights.
There are smiles.
And there are fights.
The inmates share memories.
But then one forgets.
Boulder whispers what memories he can.
Phyllis shrieks out as much oxygen as she is able.
It helps.
But their fate still hurts.
Ponies who control comfort at the end don't understand.
Even though there's things written down and intended and prepared and made ready and there should have been other ponies beside to guide, matters go awry and the ponies who slip away outlive many. The few who remain are entwined by bureaucracy. Princess Twilight and Chancellor Spike govern and they're present for brief moments but they're not fully there. The ponies who control comfort at the end don't follow every minuscule eccentric precept of the will.
The ponies must have been crazy.
Or the will drafter was lazy.
Phyllis, by act of luck or fate, finds herself situated atop the grave.
But she watches Boulder be buried beneath the earth.
It could have been worse.
There's yearning.
There's burning.
Water moves.
And earth shifts.
Closer ever to her beloved approaches Phyllis.
Roots dig deep, encircle Boulder.
Hugging now.
Hugging forever?
Happy Valentine's Day! (...albeit a bit late).
Possibly of Relevant Interest:
Another Boulder-Related Tale:
Here's what happened to Mudbriar:
An Index of my Stories by Season is Here.
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I can't believe you made me feel emotions for a rock and a plant
I also can't believe there are tags for Boulder and Phyllis
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Boulder, at least, is genuinely implied to be intelligent. There's basically no limit to what he can do provided we don't see him do it.
Goodness, I didn't know Phyllis was a thing (plant) until now. Is there a word for something that is as beautiful as it is silly? Because "Phyllis flirted easily," and "They shared a time with bodies quite sober," quite killed me. I enjoy the short and contextually weird, but meaningful sentences.
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Thank you!
ooh, the mix of distant/scientific and sensual/poetic is, well, poetic! a great start
agh, that of course a place dangerous for Boulder is even more dangerous for Maud, but that's not her concern here. my heart. Boulder's mother, indeed.
continuity with Mudbriar's Funeral! that does make me want to go re-read it
oof, coming straight off the ending of Mudbriar's Funeral, then. i get the sinking feeling that i know where this is going
aww. unlike Boulder, Phyllis does not accompany her mother in her adventures, and thus must have a more sheltered outlook. so understandable that she would not be burdened with worry, unlike poor Boulder
oof, that it's understandable why Derpy would treat Boulder and Phyllis as inanimate objects does not make it any less heartbreaking to watch
this seems to imply Boulder is physically alive and growing, which is fascinating
auaugh
i do not know how sexy dialogue between a sapient plant and rock should go, so this seems perfectly fine to me
aww! that is a very fun mental image
oof, that's a relief!
aww! i just love how Maud is not at all fazed by Boulder and Phyllis's love, and Starlight is understandably more so.
now this is how you do the passage of years. poetic and direct.
augh, tears in my own eyes here. just, augh. the inevitable passage of time. you know?
augh, Boulder and Phyllis in the position of children watching their parents lose themselves in their old age is what i got from this. and you say in just a few short sentences what it takes other stories entire scenes to say.
and again, you capture this facet of life, this everyday tragedy, so well in just this one sentence! it just blooms and unpackages itself in my mind, implying the entire paragraph after it and more with its nine words.
indeed, it could have.
just beautiful. just the way that the previous section ended in a way that felt like a complete statement; a full stop. a logical end to an unlikely romance that was just so circumstantial, for the pair's lack of agency in this world! always only clinging to life on that narrow strand of probability of the actions of the sapient, mobile creatures around them bringing them together. of having a mother that is so different from other ponies, so strange and special, that she is able to see the pair for what they are. ending it with "It could have been worse" would have been a perfect bittersweet ending to all this. to be close to their beloved mothers, and close to each other, but not enough to touch. it's the kind of ending i would write, wanting myself and the reader to find solace in what we can in the face of the inevitable tragedies of existence.
but then, hope inches forward.
this is everything i could have ever hoped for in a Crackshipping Contest. thank you so much for it.
Ooooh, very nice. Lovely melancholic vibes. Taking an absurd concept and treating it with absolute sincerity is one of my favourite tropes, and this is up there with the best of them.
I just saw Everything Everywhere All at Once yesterday, and there are scenes involving rocks in that that have a similar feeling. I don't know what it is about placing emotional reality onto inanimate objects it is that works so well, but it really connects. Something about the simplicity of emotion it affords, maybe? Or the way it shines a light on the complete absurdity of some of these feelings, while at the same time reminding us of their meaningfulness, despite or even because of it?
The final image is just so delightful, too. So many ideas of growth/generation/time/love/connection contained within it, wonderful. Boulder/Phyllis OTP.
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Thank you!
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Yes! And (you already know this and it is in the author's notes, but--) for those who are interested and to whom it is news, here is an index of my stories that have continuity among themselves and, essentially, to the show as well, sorted by accompanying show season: Index.
I have been wondering whether to create another blog post listing the characters involved in each story as well, since although these stories have 'continuity' the characters are often different, so the continuity is in the background and subtly tied to emotional/character growth/changes. (e.g. there is a slow burn character arc for Trixie among the stories and (as you picked up on) Maud has relationship changes). As more stories are added, the continuity will have increasing amounts of interplay!
Thank you again for the detailed, thoughtful comments!
oh i loved this!!