Lavender by Barbako
It was a bright, sunny Sunday in Ponyville, and the town was as busy as one would expect from such a beautiful day. The energy out and about the town center was twofold, as the most recent scheduled rain had taken place yesterday, which had been a fairly unpopular decision amongst the schoolponies in the area. After all, it was the last day of Spring Break, and starting tomorrow they would have less time to play, and more time to sit in stuffy old schoolhouses until the Summer Sun Celebration. Three young fillies in particular seemed to be trying to cram as much into this one day as possible, although it wasn't the fun and games most of their classmates were up to. As the day went on, the blur of a scooter and wagon drew less and less attention from the townsfolk, who were one by one caught up in the latest antic of the Cutie Mark Crusaders; town-wide cutie mark surveying.
"Just one house left, Crusaders!" Apple Bloom exclaimed, checking off the second-to-last house on the makeshift street map she had drawn up. "Ah can't believe we managed tah cover the whole town before nightfall, bu' we did it!"
"We couldn't have done it without you, Scootaloo," Sweetie Belle praised, clutching the notes she'd taken on the cutie marks of all the ponies of age in town, which got progressively sloppier and shorter as they went. "You can tear across town on this scooter like nopony else!"
"Aw, there's nothing to it, really," the tiny Pegasus insisted. "Besides, now that these are finally growing out more, I can really get my momentum going!" Scootaloo revved up her growing wings, as if to demonstrate before zooming over to their final destination. Indeed, she had gotten even more adept at "scooting" around in the months since the Cutie Mark Crusaders formed, and the other two fillies had subtle signs of growth as well, compared to themselves on the day they became friends. One thing remained the same, however; none of them had earned their cutie marks yet. They were growing ever more impatient, which – to the surprise of many of the adult ponies – made them more methodical in their search for their special talents. Unfortunately, none of their efforts had paid off yet, increasing the frustration of the mares who knew them best, and who knew that the girls' cutie marks were practically under their noses, if they were only to look inside instead of outside, for once.
"Wow, look at all the flowers!" Sweetie Belle gasped in awe at their last stop. It was a cozy little brick house in the corner of Ponyville, covered with purple-flowered vines and surrounded by small flowers of every color on the ground. Scootaloo parked the scooter and wagon at the beginning of the dirt path leading to the door, and the trio took off their helmets and prepared their best door-to-door faces before ringing the doorbell.
"Yes, who is it?" A motherly mare's voice called out, before opening the door. She was a homely middle-aged earth pony with a delicate pink coat, wavy dark red mane and tail, deep green eyes, and a single purple rose bud for a cutie mark. She smiled welcomingly at the girls, and a bit knowingly as well. When she smiled, it gave a glimpse into the beauty she must have held when she was young. "I think I know why you're here," she said before Apple Bloom could introduce the group. "You're the fillies that are going around town asking everypony about their cutie marks, aren't you?"
"Yes ma'am!" Apple Bloom said with a small, excited hop. "If t'aint too much trouble, would you and your family kindly tell us your cutie mark stories?"
"I don't see why not." The mare turned around, looking back at the group. "Come on in for some tea, my husband and I will talk with you while I make supper."
"Tea?" Scootaloo tried to hide an expression of exasperation, glancing at the setting sun. A discreet knee to the leg from Apple Bloom, and the Pegasus put her salespony face back on. "Err, I mean, we wouldn't want to… impose on you at dinnertime. Maybe you can give us the… uh, abridged versions?"
"Oh, don't be so shy," the mare laughed, "My husband and I love having company over for dinner. You can all have some warm hay loaf with your tea, if you'd like…"
"Hay loaf?" Sweetie Belle perked up and smiled brightly, turning to Scootaloo with a pleading look.
"Well, it'd be awful rude to turn down your hospitality…" Apple Bloom also faced Scootaloo, who did all she could not to sigh and roll her eyes.
"Alright, we'll go in and listen… it is the last stop, so I guess there's no use in rushing," she reasoned to herself out loud.
"Well then, where to begin…"
The mare sat the three fillies down at the rather large circular dining table in the main room of the house. Before beginning her own story, the mare introduced herself as Petunia, and her husband Puddle Jumper. The slightly aged earth pony gentlecolt smiled politely, if a bit awkwardly, at the young fillies. His coat was a dull blue, with a tousled gray mane and tail that were starting to go white, but his bright blue eyes belied his age. His cutie mark, fittingly enough, was a puddle with ripples radiating from the middle. Petunia set the tea set and hay loaf down, and began telling her story while stirring a carrot stew on the stove. Sweetie Belle prepared to take down notes on both of the stories, and the other two fillies listened intently, eating and drinking as quietly as possible, so as to hear every word.
Petunia explained that she was born into a family of florist ponies, in a small village a ways off from Ponyville. Much like the house they were in at the moment, their store was a brick building surrounded by flowers, only on a much grander scale, being the center of what could almost be called a flower field, spreading throughout the village and plains behind the house. She had gotten her cutie mark at a very young age, as she grew her first small garden of multicolored roses on her own. To her family's amazement, every last one of the roses came out purple, one of the colors they had the most trouble breeding recently. It turned out that any flower that Petunia paid careful attention to turned out purple, thus her purple rosebud cutie mark appeared. The mare laughed as she recalled having to be very careful not to do anything more than a quick watering of any flowers her family did not want to turn purple; as she grew older, she became aware of the certain touch that she gave to make purple flowers, and could control her talent with ease.
Puddle Jumper looked a bit embarrassed as he was urged to tell his story by his wife, but soon found himself also smiling at fond memories. There wasn't nearly as much to his history and cutie mark story as there was to Petunia's, and so it took much less time to tell. He was well into the age where a pony gets their cutie mark, though not late enough to be cause for concern. It was a particularly rainy autumn day in Ponyville, and he had grown bored of indoor activities that afternoon. While his mother wasn't looking, he snuck out of the house against her warnings of catching a cold, played around town until the street lights turned on, and he returned home to his worried parents. His mother prepared for the worst that night and the next morning, but three days went by, and Puddle Jumper was as healthy as he has ever been. Almost as soon as his mother let a sigh of relief, the colt's flank tingled, and a puddle appeared, signifying his ability to play and work in rain and not get sick. He mentioned that it was especially helpful, since Petunia couldn't seem to even look out the window at rain before falling ill, and was almost afraid to leave her bedroom yesterday. This caused her to lose her gentle composure for the first time since the fillies arrived, causing them to giggle cheerfully with the gentlecolt.
"See, guys? You can get your cutie mark by getting into trouble sometimes!" Scootaloo grinned mischievously at her friends, unusually satisfied with this cutie mark story. As Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle glanced nervously at each other at this conclusion, Scootaloo turned back to Petunia, who was almost done cooking dinner. "So, does anypony else live here, or is it just the two of ya?"
Petunia and Puddle Jumper glanced at each other, then the door to the loft, at the top of a staircase mostly concealed by flower pots.
"Well," the gentlecolt clear his throat nervously, "we do have a daughter, but she's not much for company, and-"
"And I'm sure it would do her well to socialize with someone other than her dull old parents for a change. Why don't you go introduce yourselves and invite her down for dinner?"
Petunia scarcely finished her suggestion when the fillies tore up the staircase and knocked on the door enthusiastically. Puddle Jumper wore a panicky expression in the absence of the girls and mouthed to his wife, What are you thinking? In response, he only received one of her knowing, calmly confident smiles. He sighed and fiddled his hooves, looking down at the table. There was no arguing with his wife; he may have possessed the stronger physical fortitude, but when it came to a battle of wills, the mare always won out, and she knew it.
"Excuse me, miss?" Apple Bloom called to the pony on the other side of the door. "Your mother's almost finished makin' dinner, and we'd like for you to come down an' talk to us!"
No answer. Sweetie Belle looked worriedly down at Petunia, who only gave her a look she was familiar with from her sister, Rarity. Give it time.
"Hey, uh, miss?" Scootaloo picked up after a pause. "We're not trying to sell you anything, so will you come join us and your folks for dinner?" Apple Bloom shot her a look. "… please?"
A quiet, tense moment passed by before the sound of hooves on wood approached the door, which slowly creaked open to reveal the front half of a female pony. It was hard to place her age; she didn't look to be a full-grown mare, but there was something in her face that said she was no longer a filly. She looked to be the age where a pony was neither filly nor mare, and often doesn't even know what to call herself. She had a grayish-purple coat, dark purple hair that had her mother's waves and her father's slightly messiness, and somewhat dull brown eyes behind round black-framed glasses. She was fairly pretty, as her mother must have been, but hadn't seemed to grow into herself yet. She eyed the ground at first, before her view moved to the fillies' eyelines, though she caught a glance at their bare flanks. "H-hello," she finally spoke. Her voice was quiet and wavering, almost reminding the trio of Fluttershy. This was a different kind of quietness, though, and seemed to come from a combination of physical and mental instability instead of simple shyness. "I, uh… you can tell my mom to bring my dinner up to my room. I'm… not feeling well tonight."
The girls were visibly disappointed, no longer trying to keep their door-to-door poker faces. "Why won'cha come down and talk with us? It might make you feel better!" Apple Bloom encouraged.
"We're friendly, promise!" Sweetie Belle pleaded simply, her genuine expression causing the purple pony to feel a pang of guilt.
"Your mom said it'd be good for you to come out of that room for a change!" The whole of Equestria seemed to go quiet after Scootaloo took her turn, Apple Bloom glaring at her and Sweetie Belle putting her front hooves to her mouth in shock. "What? They basically said that, right?" The winged filly, letting her true self come out moreso than the other two, turned back to the now-cowering pony. The hurt on her face broke through Scootaloo's usual tough front, bringing out a wince and a stuttering, mumbled, "I'm sorry."
"Lavender?" Petunia called from downstairs, seemingly oblivious to the chatter upstairs. "Please, dear, do come down for dinner. It's been so long since you've seen new faces at the table."
The fillies looked up at Lavender, who was clearly fighting back tears and shaking. She squeezed her glimmering eyes shut and moved to close the door, when Sweetie Belle gently kept it open with a hoof. She didn't meet any resistance.
"I know how scary it can be to meet new people," the small unicorn began softly. "And I know how much you want to just hide away and pretend that big crowd of faces you don't know doesn't exist. But you have to come out of your shell sometimes, or else you're gonna miss out on a lot!"
Sweetie Belle's uncharacteristic moment of small wisdom seemed to strike a chord with the pony behind the door. Lavender choked back a sob and began to open the door slowly again. The Crusaders began to perk up with hope, and Apple Bloom took the initiative and pushed the door open, trotting inside.
"Ah'm so happy ya came 'round! Now, see, there t'aint nothing to… be scared… of…" She slowly came to a halt as Lavender came into full view, though still partially obscured by the door to Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo.
"What's wrong, Apple Bloom? See a ghost in that dusty old attic?" Scootaloo joked before following, and stopping in her tracks upon noticing the same thing. Sweetie Belle had followed quietly behind, and all three pairs of eyes were on Lavender, now cowering on all bent fours on the floor, whimpering with her eyes squeezed shut, tears flowing freely.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders were looking at something they had never heard of; a nearly, if not completely, full-grown pony, with an unmistakably blank flank.