Always Greener
Adaptation is a must have for any species who wish to break their place on the food chain and rise to sapiency, surpassing their creator and earning the ultimate reward; the ability to have anxiety. The world spins faster than we know, and in a world of constant, neverending change, eventually one of those changes is going to shake and rattle the status quo. War, breakthroughs, prosperity, the Second Impact- all of these could happen at any moment, and if you don't have the ability to grab your portable music players and get used to it, you never deserved to reach this point as a species in the first place. Such is the way of the world.
Which is why, without any clue of what that opener was all about or even it's existence, Trixie Lulamoon patiently sits in a chair outside Counselor Starlight Glimmer's office, patiently kicking her legs and admiring the variety of flowers and vines growing along the walls and floor of the waiting room. Instrumental music played from a speaker hidden in foliage, not really helping the surreal energy that seemed to resonate throughout the empty room.
The door creaked open, and a green figure in a black suit leaned out, barely coming up to Trixie's neck in size.
"Counselor Starlight will see you now!"
"Thank you, Phyllis." Trixie stood up from her seat, stretching her legs and patting Phyllis on the head as she passed her by.
Starlight's room largely hadn't changed furniture-wise in the past decade since she had been given the job; not surprising, given she hardly spent any time in it anymore. Trixie wasn't even sure if school was still taught here anymore. She certainly hadn't thought about this building in years. Did she still technically work here?
Regardless, the room was absolutely covered in flora, even more so than the rest of Equestria. Flowers, vines, lily pads, vegetables, stalks, tendrils littered the room in spades, requiring Trixie to wade through it to reach the chair in front of Starlight's desk, even as Phyllis effortlessly glided through it.
Trixie finally reached her chair, shaking water and mud off her hindlegs before pulling into a seat, making sure all her limbs were on it. She cleared her throat, turning to Phyllis, still smiling at the doorway.
"You can... I'd prefer to talk alone, Phyllis."
"Of course! You two have fun!"
Phyllis somehow smiled even wider before happily leaving, humming with the music outside. Trixie turned to Starlight, looking her over carefully. She looked fine. Even Trixie wasn't really sure what she had been expecting to see. Starlight beamed back at her.
"She's great, isn't she Trixie? She's grown so much, I remember when she had barely a neural pathway to her name. Now I think she's the only plant in Equestria with her own, unique sapiency!"
"It's pretty cool."
"But enough about her. How have you been? I haven't seen you in ages!"
Trixie nervously fiddled with the back of her chair. "I've been fine. Just... living."
"Yeah, that's a gift, isn't it? I don't think I've ever appreciated living more than I do now. Did you notice I regrew my hair?"
"I did. I'm happy for you, really I am."
Starlight was on a hospital bed. A small house plant sat next to her, moving slightly, rhythmically- breathing in and out. Despite being hooked into a machine, Starlight was still active, holding a daisy in a cup of water. Her horn was lit, and she was intensely focused on the cup, grimacing. She continued to concentrate as she lifted a leg, neatly cut halfway down. Finally, the flower wilted in the cup, and she quickly sealed her cut magically, looking it over before laying back down and pulling the covers over herself, falling asleep.
"Feels like we haven't talked in forever! You've seen me, of course, everyone has, and I've seen you, but you know I can't talk through those."
As she spoke, a daisy suddenly sprouted from a patch of cleanly cut grass on her desk, a far cry from the wild jungle everywhere else in the room. Starlight watched it for a second before gasping happily, stretching a foreleg out to it. The daisy began wrapping around it, growing up her leg, and she crossed them on the surface of the desk.
"Our biosynthetic bee hives have finally found a flawless routine of pollination! Flora is going to quintiple reproduction rates, and- hold on, a second, something's going on. Excuse me, I'll be right back." With that last assurance, her eyes rolled into her head and her body fell limp.
Starlight was in a small garden. Aside from missing her mane and large patches of hair, she was perfectly healthy. She hummed softly to herself as she planted seeds in the soil, levitating a water can over each one. Within seconds, a small mushroom head sprouted. Gently lifting the edge, Starlight smiled warmly at a small replica of herself, sleeping under it and gently breathing.
"Sorry. Someone was setting brush fires for some reason, I had to deal with him. Some people still don't really like us, I'm not sure why."
"No clue."
Starlight pursed her lips, sheepishly looking down at a nice rose growing out of the floor besides her. Trixie cocked her head at her friend's sudden apprehension.
"You know, you could still... be part of this. We've always got room for you."
"I think I'm good. I prefer... this."
"I'll even let you keep your body! You're my friend, Trixie, I'd hate to leave you behind in forty years or so."
Starlight stood over a bed pulled into her office from the student dorms. A large stack of letters addressed to her sat atop her desk, and she pushed them all into the trash upon catching her eye. Levitating a syringe into the air, she softly injected it into the orange-furred neck of the corpse lying on the bed, lovingly stroking it's hair and sitting next to it, waiting to see what would happen.
"Sunburst misses you, Trix. We'd all appreciate it. The more people in here, the better."
"How many do you have?"
"About 5,000 now. At the beginning, I talked to a lot of mentally ill people, offering them a way to do good, but in recent years, more people have been offering themselves. It makes me happy that so many believe in my plan."
"Which is?"
Starlight giggle, brushing her hair back. "Well, the funny part is it's almost done now. We've made an artificial species of bees that will last for thousands of years, Equus's CO2 levels are almost completely stable, the Everfree Forest is totally pacified, and we've take down almost every threat as soon as it arises- slash and burners, chemical factories, anyone who fights against us, really. Come to think of it, my only plan now is to run this bioprogram for, say, 4.5 billion more years and then..." She paused, gesturing vaguely with a hoof. "Grey Goo everything and go to sleep."
Flora was growing, growing, covering the lands far and wide- town streets were green, roofs were covered in every type of flower, hundreds of Starlight mushrooms sat in every acre of land, stretching out, flowing across the globe. Starlight could see everything now through the eyes and ears of her drones, fed information through plants for miles around. Her brain cells were constantly dying and being replenished now, as well as the brain cells of thousands of other consciousnesses scattered across the floral neural system, overseeing life, growing and learning. She could see everything, and it was beautiful.
"Last chance, Trixie. I really want to do this with you. Let's make something great- together."
Starlight stretched her foreleg out to her. Trixie looked down to the floor, noticing for the first time a large venus flytrap curled around her chair legs, head laid under the desk. She watched it slowly chew, making quiet fleshy tears and the occasional crunch as it ate. She looked back to Starlight, still happily grinning.
"No thank you."
Starlight's lips fell, and her head sunk to the dirt overflowing the top of her desk. She sighed, but eventually brought her head up, smiling back at her friend.
"Alright then. You take care of yourself, now. I don't want to find out you died prematurely in some stupid Trixie way."
"Of course."
She scooted off the chair and began wading through the murk below, floating her thoughts behind her like a cloud as she left. Phyllis was still outside, happy as ever, cheerfully waving goodbye as Trixie passed her.
"You look great today, Ms. Lulamoon! Enjoy the rest of your day!"
Trixie smiled back genuinely, turning back around and trotting back through the abandoned halls, out the double glass doors. It was a beautiful day as always, flowers and vines flowing over the earth, curling, entwining, interweaving, stretching far over the horizon, sneaking and squeezing through eroded holes in the concrete walls behind her, all leading to a single nexus point within the school building's counselor office.