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 Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 10:08 pm
 All in all it had been a horrible day and Mossflower was exhausted and frustrated by how everything seemed to be going wrong. She’d somehow gotten into a fight with her niece (not that Shrill X rubbing even her family members up the wrong way would surprise anyone), she spent three hours on the phone arguing with management about bulldozing down part of the forest and then the two squirrel kits she’d been caring for had passed away. "They were just too young," she tried to console herself. She sat down at the first bench, closing her eyes to block out the world.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 10:41 pm
For how incredibly different their moods were, Primrose might as well have been on the other side of the planet instead of just down the field. The greens had caught her attention despite all the greenery around, and little hooves popped against the ground as the filly bounded closer to the familiar mare. That excited gait slowed as uncertainty crept up, the closer Primrose became the much easier she could detect that dejected set of the mare’s posture, until the filly was practically tip-toeing through the grass up to her.
“…Mossflower?” The mare looked sad, which made Primrose feel sad and she didn’t even know what was wrong yet.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 10:44 pm
Mossflower slowly opened her eyes, returning to the world from her short interlude with obvious regret. Her expression cleared somewhat when she saw who had approached her and she managed a smile for the pink filly. "Primrose. It’s so good to see you again." She made a conscience effort to straighten from her slump. There was no point in passing over her mood to anyone else. "Are you well?"
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2015 10:55 pm
The filly’s tail wrapped about her side as she sat in front of the mare, her movements a little slow in caution and curiosity. The mare still looked sad, but she wasn’t crying. It was just a little confusing to someone so young still.
“I’m okay, I was going to make flower crowns,” her words drifted in hesitation before bright blue eyes settled with more resolve, “But I’m not very good at it. Do you want to make flower crowns with me?” The grassy field was absolutely packed with tiny little weed-flowers with stems strong enough to braid into a crown.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 12:04 am
It had been a long time since Mossflower had sat down to make flower crowns and it used to be her favourite pastime as a filly. She could easily say no and wallow in her own problems or lets Primrose brighten the last of her day. "Yes, I would love to make flower crowns with you." This time her smile was brighter. "I’ll show you the trick to making them. It’s easy once you get the hang of it."
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 12:59 am
The brighter smile perked Primrose right up in return, ears standing tall and her posture less hunched. She eagerly popped right back onto her hooves, hopeful that she’d somehow made Mossflower happy again, in the way that little phonies could be very optimistic about adult problems that were much more complicated.
“I hope so. I’m really bad at it!” Primrose proudly exclaimed, turning to bound back into the field with all its little weed-flowers.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 1:16 am
Mossflower followed Primrose out into the field, head down and searching for the perfect patch. She found it and sat, brushing a hoof across the flowers. “When you pluck them, make sure you get a lot of stem,” she began to explain. “We’ll grab a few and then I’ll show you have to weave them together.” Already she felt the weight of the day starting to lift. Primrose and her charming innocence was exactly the balm she needed.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2015 1:27 am
“I can do that!” Picking flowers these small was a bit of a challenge for an earth phony, but Primrose had been at it for a while yet that day and slowly got the hang of pinching the stems over with a careful tiny hoof, then pulling to break them off. It was nice to follow a simple task, slowly dropping long-stemmed flowers into a pile one-by-one. Her determined gathering only occasionally paused, eyes seeking out Mossflower and searching for any of that sadness she saw earlier.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 1:22 am
"It will be a bit harder for you," Mossflower admitted, as she used magic to carefully snip the flowers and keep them in a neat pile. "Hooves can be a little bit unwieldy for delicate things but we’ll manage. I didn’t have a very good handle on magic when I started. It just takes practise." Just putting her mind to a task was helping break away from her earlier gloom, even though she knew that later on, in the privacy of her own home, a little cry would still help. "Now that we have a few of then, we lay them out flat next to each other and now we just," she started to work, using mostly just her hooves started to weave the flowers together by the stem, adding a new on in by magic when she needed it.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2015 2:35 am
Little hooves tread carefully around their pile and over Mossflower’s tail so Primrose could sit next to the mare’s side, head craned out to watch each move the mare did. The weaving motion would take a few trials to get the hang of, stems knotting and breaking instead of twining smoothly, but the filly was eager to get her little pile of flowers going and didn’t seem to mind that she wasn’t so good at it at all.
“I think I’m starting to do it right!” And she was, just a bit, not as elegant or measured as Mossflower’s, but a chain was forming that didn’t just fall apart when Primrose lifted it, and that seemed to be more than enough for the filly as far as progress goes.
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 7:12 pm
“That’s the way,” Mossflower encouraged when she looked over to see how Primrose was doing. “Well done.” It was easy, sitting here with the young filly, to imagine a future where she was teaching her own children. Though how she’d find the time for love and kids when she was so busy looking after her forest ‘children’ was a mystery. She continued to weave her own flower crown, occasionally showing Primrose a particular way to entwine the stems. “If you do this with different kinds of flowers and leaves, you can make really beautiful crowns.” She finished her crown, tying the ends together.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 7:18 pm
No, Primrose was not the best flower-crown maker, which is actually a very important skill in phonyland as it would seem, but the filly has potential. Wide blue eyes watch attentively as the mare shows her how to improve her stem-twining technique. Her crown was a little sloppy in places and patchy at spots, but the filly was still utterly delighted with it, and proudly crowned herself with it, head held high despite the fact it was a little too big and slouched a little down her forehead.
"I think yours looks better than mine," Primrose was utterly delighted to point out, though not any less happy with her own work for it, "We did it! Thank you for teaching me!" Ruriska 'Let's blame charm-mania for my delay, yesss'
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 12:02 am
"You’re very welcome," Mossflower said with a soft laugh. Moments later a reflective expression settled on her face as she studied her flower crown. "I want to thank you, Primrose. I wasn’t having a nice day at all and I think you could tell. You have a very generous heart and I already feel a lot better." Her heart felt so much lighter. "You know, I actually like yours a lot better. Would you be willing to trade?"
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 12:17 am
The filly stopped for a moment, face gone a touch slack in the sort of puzzled and concerned expression a foal could get when confronted that adults could be sad, too. The little filly nodded slowly, wide eyes pinched in a way that she was clearly working up to a question that hadn't yet formed. Her hooves lifted, carefully taking the crown off of her own head before pushing up onto her back legs to get it around Mossflower's horn. Her aim was a little off-center, and one edge of the crown was over the mare's ear instead of around it, but done as eagerly and earnest as Primrose did anything else.
"... Why were you sad?" There's the question then, asked hesitantly as the filly settled down in front of Mossflower.
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Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 12:46 am
She dipped her head slightly to make it easier for Primrose to settle the crown on her head. Then once it was there, lifted her chin proudly to show it off. "I had a few bad things happen," Mossflower explained as she put her own flower crown neatly on Primrose’s curls, "and I couldn’t fix any of it. Now even though those things are better yet, you reminded me how to feel happy again."
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