Tea and Revelations.
Carrot Top paced in front of her carrot garden, like a Royal Guard captain at an inspection.
“Alright, ladies, listen up!” Carrot said in her best imitation of a drill sergeant.
“You’ve all been growing well.” Carrot furrowed her brows, trying to avoid the tiny, niggling feeling in the back of her mind. She stopped. “But not all of you are going to make the final cut.” She looked up at the parallel rows of young carrots. “Only the biggest and the juiciest will earn the right to be called ‘Carrot Top’s Farm-Fresh Carrots!’”
A wave of anxiety washed through Carrot Top. She did her best to push the feeling back down. “Now, it’s time to separate the Farm Fresh...” she paused for effect, “... from the compost.”
With that, Carrot got to work, trying to drown her worries in her work. To her, the garden was more than just a ten-by-ten plot of tilled land. It was her stress dump; a place where she could take all of her frustrations, all of her worries and bury them six feet under. When she was feeling depressed, a little pruning always gave her tranquility. When she had a bad day, she could rip some weeds by the roots, tear them apart, then savagely stomp them into mulch.
Usually, it worked.Emphasis on Usually
After a while, Carrot put down her basket. “Take five, men.” She brushed an errant strand of carrot-orange mane out of her face and sat down on her front porch, trying to ignore her churning stomach.
Guess I just don’t have it today. She also hadn’t had it the previous day. Or the day before the previous day.She hadn’t really had it ever since that.
Carrot reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a small gold locket engraved with the words “Best Friends Forever”. She opened it, revealing a picture of her standing next to her cream-colored bestie.
“What’s wrong with you, Rosie?”
It had all seemed like a bad dream.
One minute, she and Roseluck had been trotting down main street on their way to the Ponyville Cinema. The next thing she knew, she was laying flat on her stomach, and her friend was buried under a pile of splintered wood that used to be a cart.
For three nerve-wracking days, the pony she had known since fillyhood languished in a coma, caught in a limbo between life and death. Carrot had sat by her friend’s side for hours, praying to the Great Queen of the Universe who she’d all but ignored for years. Many promises had been made; promises to stop swearing, promises start reading her scriptures again, and even a promise to attend chapel every day for the rest of her life. All she asked was her friend’s life.
On the third day, the Queen delivered, and Roseluck woke up. On the same day Carrot went from agnostic to a fervent believer.
A week or more of bedrest and some physical therapy later, Roseluck was out of the hospital and back on her hooves. The doctors had been impressed at how well she’d recovered- Carrot chalked it up to good old Earth Pony resilience and the help of the Queen.
When Rose had tried to return to the old routine, though….
Carrot turned to her garden, her carrots waiting patiently for their culling. She shook her head. She couldn’t do it. Gardening was a task that required both body and mind to work together. One of them was willing, but the other wasn’t.
Carrot put away her garden tools and threw on her saddlebag. When the garden failed, there was always the old standby—taking a walk through town. Getting out there and stretching her legs always helped clear her mind.
And so, Carrot walked through town, trying to shake her unease. The town square was busy, as always. Vendors hawked every fruit under the sun, as well as the various jams, jellies, and preserves that could be made with said fruit. Ponies of all colors and tribes meandered around like a swarm of colorful, furry ants, buying, haggling, and arguing. Colts and fillies ran around, chased by harried parents.
Beautiful day today, Carrot thought. The weather team did a good job. The sky was a gorgeous robin-egg blue, frosted here and there with a few cirrus clouds. A light breeze blew through the town square, carrying with it the scent of wildflowers, grass, and a hint of fresh-baked pastries from Sugarcube corner.
It was beautiful, peaceful, and welcoming. These were the kind of days for going out and hanging out with one's friends. A day for going out for tea or for a stroll in the park.
Against Carrot’s anxiety, it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a teacup.
Are you still in there, Rosie? The Roseluck she knew was a friendly, outgoing mare. Not as outgoing as Pinkie Pie, but still quite the social butterfly. If you needed a hoof with something, Roseluck would be there. If you had a question about flowers, Roseluck would be there.
This stranger was a total shut in. Every time Carrot tried to talk to her friend, the mare would come up with some excuse and tell her to “come back later.” She rarely left the house, and when she did, she’d do her best to avoid eye contact.
Lately, things had been getting strange. Sometimes she’d hear music coming from Roseluck’s house. Strange, discordant music, like if Discord was trying to moonlight as a composer. Other times there’d also been sounds of frantic scribbling, followed by groans of frustration.
Ponyville was known for strangeness, but this was something else.
As Carrot trotted through Ponyville’s residential district, she looked over the front yards of her fellow Ponyvillians, scrutinizing them with the eye of a jaded lawn connoisseur. One could tell a lot about a pony by the condition of their yard. The shaggy condition of the Mash family’s yard told her that their son, Button, had just bought a new game. The half-trimmed, half-wild condition of Octavia and Vinyl’s house told her that Vinyl was slacking off on her share of the lawn care duties...again. And Rose’s yard...
Carrot stopped and examined her best friend’s lawn.
“By Celestia’s wings...” Carrot swore. Roseluck’s yard used to be the envy of Ponyville. Now, she barely recognized it. The religiously-mowed lawn, which was always kept at exactly two inches tall, had become a jungle of seeding grass and weeds. The flower beds, which Princess Celestia herself had admired, were masses of dusty brown flowers, choked by weeds and gnawed by slugs.
What really unnerved Carrot were her friend’s rose bushes. The artfully trimmed bushes were Rose’ s pride and joy. Just a single aphid on them was enough to send Rose into a panic. Now they resembled thorny, tentacled monsters, with brown, wilted flowers for heads.
Something was wrong with her friend. Something serious.
Carrot furrowed her brows. Carrot walked down the stone walkway to Roseluck’s door, brushing aside weeds.
A little voice popped up in Carrot’s mind.You know, they say that insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Well, then call me stark raving mad Carrot retorted, raising a hoof to the faded oak door.
“Rosie?” Carrot Top rapped on her friend’s door. Nothing.
“Rosie?” She rapped again. “Roseluck, I know you’re in there!”
Carrot heard a muffled clicking somewhere inside the house.
“I’m, uh... kinda busy right now,” said a muffled voice within the house. More hoofsteps. “Can you-you come back again some other time?”
Carrot rolled her eyes. “You’ve been saying that for weeks, Rosie!” Carrot shouted. “Enough with ‘some other time’, Rose.This is some other time!”
More silence, followed by something rustling. “Uh, I’d love to, Carrot but… I’m… feeling really, really, sick right now,” she said, followed by an unconvincing coughing fit. “It’s pretty bad. Yep, really really bad! You wouldn’t want to catch it.”
Carrot facehoofed, cursing her friend’s Earth Pony stubbornness.
“All right, here’s how it’s going to go,” Carrot said, determination etched onto her face. She was going to see Roseluck if it killed her. “I am going to plant my flank on your porch and it is not moving until you open that door! Comprende?”
No response. Without another word, Carrot planted her yellow ochre flank on the porch, flinching at the feel of the cold cement.
“Dammit, Rosie,” she muttered. She grabbed one of the old newspapers by the door and started reading. Sometimes she wondered if that mare was actually a mule in disguise.
As she sat, Carrot’s mind chewed over Rosie’s condition like a dog on an old bone.
The doctors claimed it was trauma. A sort of mental scar, caused by Rose’s intimate encounter with death. Putting her back together would be like fixing a cracked plate. Her friend wouldn’t be completely healed, but with plenty of love and support from her friends, she’d recover.
Well, Carrot and her friends had tried to help. For the next few weeks after Roseluck was released from the hospital, Carrot and the rest of her friends had done their best to make the Earth Pony feel at home. Pinkie Pie had thrown Rosie a “Get Better Soon” party, even going so far as to bake a rose-flavored cake. Daisy and Lily had made her a beautiful bouquet with some of their prize flowers. Carrot had helped out Roseluck in her garden, trying to keep the place from turning into a jungle.
It backfired. Instead of coming out of her shell, every attempt to cheer Roseluck up just seemed to drive her further into her strange funk. Over time, everypony just decided to leave her alone and let her sort it out herself.
It seemed that, for once, friendship wasn’t the answer.
Time passed. The sun lazily crawled across the sky, taking its sweet time as always. Carrot put down the newspaper and rubbed her aching flank. It was getting late. She really needed to check on her carrots….
No! Carrot furrowed her brows. She’d let her friend languish for far too long. She’d sit here ‘til Hearths Warming if she had to!
Finally, she heard hoofsteps, getting progressively louder. The crystal doorknob rattled in its socket, and the door slowly creaked open.
Carrot’s jaw dropped like a rock attached to a lead weight. “Rosie?”
“Hi, Carrot!” Roseluck said.
Carrot could hardly keep her mouth closed. This was Roseluck?The Roseluck she knew was almost as fussy about her looks as Rarity.The mare standing in front of her was a wreck. Her friend’s shiny cream-colored coat was dull and patchy, stained with paint, chalk dust, and other, less identifiable materials. Her wine-red mane was a tangled, greasy mass. And her smell. Carrot wrinkled her nose. Dear Celestia, when was the last time she’d bathed?
But the cherry on this disturbing sundae had to be Roseluck’s face. The formerly friendly, welcoming face was hollow and sunken, dominated by a smile typically reserved for the mentally unstable. Her eyes were bloodshot and sunken, twitching around in their sockets like scared animals.
This was the face of a mare who had stared into the abyss, only for it to stare back.
“So good to see you!” Roseluck said in a voice so cheerful it became almost creepy. “Sorry if I’ve been a little busy lately. So much to do, so little time.” She giggled nervously, then waved Carrot in. “Come in! I just brewed a big ol’ pot of rosehip tea. Delicious, nutritious rosehip tea.” She smacked her lips. “Only the best for my friend.”
“Uh, sure?” Carrot gulped. It felt like a Colt Scout was practicing his knot tying skills with her guts. She slowly trotted past the threshold and into her friend’s house.
“Dear Queen.” Carrot stepped over an empty soup can, breaking her promise not to take Her name in vain. The floor was littered with garbage: empty cans of all sorts, candy wrappers, soda bottles and rotting, half-eaten fruit. Little columns of ants marched across the floor, carrying away their stinking plunder, while swarms of bottle-green flies put on a private little airshow.
As they walked through the mess, Carrot looked around the house. What have you been up to, Rosie? Stacks of books lined the walls: how-to books, history, magic. Sheets of complex equations were pinned to the wall, written in what was definitely Rose’s hoofwriting. Right by her friend’s rose-patterned sofa was a canvas painted with a strange, abstract pattern, accompanied by a violin, a saxophone, and a drumset, all of which showed signs of recent use.
Roseluck and Carrot walked through the mess and into a kitchen that could be classified as a level one biohazard. “Sit down, sit down! Take a load off!”
Carrot slowly drew a stool and sat down, brushing off pages of sheet music and charcoal sketches. Roseluck set some teacups on the table, and poured Carrot a cup of steaming hot tea. Carrot caught a glimpse of her friend’s cutie mark. There was something off about it. Call it her imagination, but it looked…lifeless, flat. Like it had been drawn on with marker pens.
“C’mon, drink, drink! It’s not going to get any hotter!”
Carrot lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip of the dark red tea. She swished it around in her mouth, and slowly swallowed it, savoring the taste. Dysfunctional or not, Roseluck still knew how to make a damn good cup of tea.
All right, Carrot. Baby steps. The doctors had said that they had to be careful with Rose. She couldn’t push this too hard. Roseluck was fragile enough as it was.
“So, Carrot, how’ve you been?” Roseluck said. Carrot suppressed a shiver. “Working hard?”
Carrot forced a smile. “More like hardly working.”
At that, Roseluck burst into laughter, as if the weak, overused quip had been the funniest joke in the history of comedy. She thumped a hoof against the table, laughing hysterically.
“Rosie,” Carrot said. Ease into it. “Are you feeling all right?”
Roseluck calmed herself down.“Yep! Feeling fine! I’ve been a little down but now I’m A-okay! Right as rain! Peachy keen!”
Oh, forget it! “Rosie, face it. You need help.”
Rose’s composure changed in a heartbeat. “No, I don’t!” She stood up in her seat. “I’m fine. Great. Superb. Never better!” she said in a voice that indicated that she was anything but.
“Rose, listen,” Carrot held out her forelegs. “I know a therapist in downtown Ponyville. Really helped me out when my mom died. Here, let me-”
“NO!” Rose reared up on her hind legs and slammed a hoof on the table. “I don’t need a therapist! I don’t need some shrink asking me about my fillyhood! I don’t need them shoving pills down my throat. I said it once, and I’ll say it again. I. Am. Fine!”
Carrot just crossed her forelegs and frowned. She slowly shook her head in a way that screamed “unconvinced.”
Her friend’s facade cracked like cheap porcelain. The earth pony buried her head in her forelegs, sobbing softly. Carrot slowly approached her friend. “It’s all right, Rosie. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Roseluck chuckled softly. “I knew you’d say that. You can’t help but say it. It’s your role in life. Your niche in the universe.”
Another chuckle. “And you’re right. Everything is going to be all right. It’ll be all right for Ponyville. It’ll be all right for Equestria. It’ll be all right for everypony and everything in the universe.” She paused. “Except me.”
Carrot raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Give me a minute.” Roseluck poured herself some tea, took a long sip, then sighed. ”You remember what happened to me after the accident?”
“Of course!. I never left your side!”
Rose smiled. “I know. I saw you.”
Carrot tilted her head. “What?”
“It’s a long story.” Roseluck said. “But since we’re really not going anywhere, I might as well tell you.”
Roseluck took another deep draught of tea, then took a deep, deep breath. “The crash itself was kind of a blur. I remembered feeling something slam into me. I saw stars dance before my eyes, then a ton of paint. Like I’d been hit by a red hot sledgehammer.”
Rose took another sip. ” Next thing I knew, I was floating above the Ponyville market. I had to watch the rescue team pull my body from the wreckage. Had to watch them rush me to the hospital.” She shuddered. “It was like being forced to sit through some horrible movie.”
“What happened next?”
“I saw them wheel my body to the operating room. Saw them set broken bones, and sew me up as best they could. Saw them pump my body full of hoses and tubes.”
“And then…?”
“I’m not really sure.” Rose took another sip of tea. “Something grabbed me and I shot the ceiling like an arrow. I watched Ponyville shrink as I punched through the clouds. Soon, all of Equestria shrank I could see all of Equestria, could see the curvature of the world.
“Something grabbed me again, and I took off like a cannonball. The Moon zipped by me, followed by the planets.. The stars all blurred together into a big glowing smear. I kept going and going….”
Carrot did what she could to keep the irritation out of her voice. Roses’ lengthy pauses were starting to grate on her nerves. “And…?”
Rose smiled. “I saw the universe.
“It was beautiful. I could see everything. Planets circling alien stars, huge clouds like blotches of paint, huge masses of stars spinning around like cosmic tops. Good Queen above, there’s no way I can make it sound as beautiful as it was.” Rose said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“As my… ‘soul’, I guess, floated there, I started seeing strings.
Carrot raised an eyebrow. “Strings?”
“That’s what they looked like, thin silvery strings crisscrossing the universe like some huge spiderweb. Everything had them, large and small, good and evil, dead and alive. All scooting along. Following their own little string.
“What did these strings do?” Carrot asked.
“Everything. They told stars when they should shine. They determined whether a soldier lived or died. They told rotting corpses how they should decay. They even directed those little bitty dust motes you see floating in a sunbeam, showing them which way they should drift. Everything that ever is, or was was under their control.
“There was only one exception.” Rose looked up. Carrot had a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Can you guess who it was?”
“Discord?” If anything was uncontrolled, it was him.
Rose shook her head. “No.” She chuckled softly. “No no no no no...”
“You mean--?”
“That’s right. When I looked at my body, I didn’t see a string. Just an empty gap: a break in the web.”
Roseluck leaned forward. “Do you know what this means?”
Carrot opened her mouth to speak, only for Rose to cut her off.
“Carrot, I’m the only thing in the universe that has free will.”
Something swelled within Carrot. A feeling of something building up in her body. Something that desperately wanted to be free.
No. She fought to keep the feeling down. Now was not the time for this.
The feeling broke through her internal filters, and Carrot Top burst into laughter.
Carrot fought to keep the giddy beast within her tamed. “Sorry...Rosie, I-AHAHAHAHA!” She couldn’t help it. It was just so absurd. Her friend, a humble florist from an equally humble town, had just claimed to be the only pony in existence with free will. It was like saying that sun was made of marshmallow fluff or that the moon was only the size of a bit.
After a while, Carrot managed to contain the mirthful fires within her.
“Sorry, Rosie,” Carrot said, wiping a tear from her eye. It’s—”
“Just so ridiculous?” Roseluck sighed. “I know. That’s one reason I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Carrot regained her composure. “Rosie, seriously. Everypony has free will,” said Carrot. “ After all, didn’t I choose to come here? Didn’t Celestia choose to raise the sun?”
“No. You only think you have free will. You came here because your string guided you here. The Princess raises the sun because her string makes her. It’s all a clever little illusion.”
Roseluck stood up and started pacing in a circle, gesturing with her forelegs. “You think that you’re making your own decisions, that you’re the master of your own fate, when really, they were all made the moment you were born. You’re like a little train, chuffing along your tracks into eternity going choo-choo!”
“We live in a universe of puppets, Carrot.” Rose took another sip of tea. “... And something cut my strings.”
Roseluck turned to face her friend. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Before Carrot could think of a response, Rose cut her off again.“It’s all right. You don’t need to answer.” She sighed and sat back down. “To tell the truth, I want to be crazy. I want them to strap me in a straight jacket and throw me in a padded cell with Screwball and that one guy who thinks he’s an alicorn prince.
“Because if I’m not...” Roseluck’s voice trailed off.
Something occurred to Carrot Top. “Rosie, if what you’re saying is true-?”
“—Couldn’t this be a good thing?” Roseluck chuckled. “Being the only being with free will? Knew you’d say that. In fact, I saw this entire conversation before it even started. That’s a thing about having free will. When you have it, you start to see what’s going to happen before it happens.”
Rose smirked. “By the way, that vase you’re going to knock over in ten minutes? Don’t worry about it. It was cheap.”
Rose sipped the last of her tea.
“To answer your question, yes it is a bad thing. Sure, I can do whatever I want. Sure, the universe isn’t pulling me around anymore. But is that really a good thing?”
Before Carrot could respond, Roseluck cut her off again.
“You don’t know how having free will could be a good thing? I’ll tell you why; because it isn’t the norm! It’s the stranger in the crowd, the violet in a bed of roses. I’m not supposed to have it. Nothing in the universe is supposed to have it!
“Look at this!” Roseluck waved a hoof towards her junked living room. “You see that? You saw my living room? That’s free will!”
Roseluck slumped. “Thanks to free will, I’m just not… me any more. My old hobbies, my old interests bore me. My friends feel like strangers. All of my memories seem to belong to somepony else!”
Rose finished the last of her tea. “I’ve been trying everything. Math, art, cooking, sketching, whatever. I do really well at them at first, but then I just lose interest.” Roseluck slumped back on her stool. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m a freak.”
Rose’s already fragile composure completely broke down. “I’m just a florist. My biggest accomplishment was having Princess Celestia compliment my garden! Why am I the exception to the rule?”What am I supposed to do with something that isn’t supposed to exist?”
With that, Rose completely broke down. She buried her head in her forelegs, sniffling like a foal who had just lost their teddy bear.Carrot trotted up to her inconsolable friend and gently rubbed her ears. It was a little trick her mother had taught her a long time ago.
Roseluck's emotional storm slowly died down. Her sniffles slowly subsided, like a storm losing its strength.
“Better?”
“Loads.” Roseluck wiped some tears from her face. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
Carrot smiled. ““Rosie, I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“Liar.”
“Rose, if I was lying, I would have said that you’re just fine. I don’t think that you’re crazy. I think you’re sick,” Carrot Top fished a business card. “And this therapist can help you get better.” Carrot put on her best pouty face. “Please, Rosie, for me?”
Roseluck took a deep,shuddering sigh. “Fine.” She swiped the card from Carrot’s hoof. “Won’t really change anything, but if it’ll make you feel better.”
“It’d make me feel a lot better.” Carrot smiled. “And you know what else would make me feel better? You taking a long, hot bath while I try to clean this place up a little.”
Roseluck sniffed herself and grimaced. “Yeah, I guess I could use a dip in the tub.” She sauntered up the stairs. “Thanks, Carrot.”
“Hey, what are friends for?”
With that, Roseluck clomped her way upstairs and into her bathroom. Once she heard the sound of running water, Carrot grabbed a broom and started sweeping garbage into a heap.
It was true what her dad said. Sometimes kindness wasn’t enough. Sometimes you just needed to give a pony a little kick in the hindquarters to snap them out of it..
All right, what to do after this? Carrot thought as she cleaned up the disaster area that was Roseluck’s living room. Maybe I should spend the night. She could probably use the company. I wonder if—Whoah!”
Carrot’s train of thought was derailed by an empty soup can under her hoof. She slipped backwards and slammed into an end table, knocking over the blue vase in its care. Carrot winced as the glazed earthenware vessel shattered on the hardwood floor.
For a minute, Carrot just laid there, completely frozen. Something twitched inside her head. For a second, she had the feeling of a pony leaning over the edge of a cliff, as if she was on the verge of realizing something horrible.
Carrot blinked. What was I thinking about again?
“Hey, Roseluck!”
Carrot heard splashing in the bathroom. “Yeah?”
“Later today, wanna go out for ice cream? I hear Fudge Ripple’s got a new flavor: daisy.”
“Sure. Need to get out of the house?”
Carrot smiled. Yes, ice cream. That’s what she was thinking about. She wanted to take Roseluck out for ice cream.
Just like a good friend should.