Another morning came to Ponyville and Brandon found it hard to stay asleep. The bright sun was burning his closed eyes, forcing him to open them. He wished that he rolled to his side first since his eyes stared directly into the sun after her opened them. He quickly shut his eyes and rolled to his sides as he rubbed away the small searing pain. He became aware that he was alone in his bed, the smell of faint roses lingering on his pillows. He still found it cute with the way Rose acted around him as they stayed together.

The flower mare had gone from being infuriated with him to being his lover in the past couple of months. After they got together, she was still very protective of him. He remembered when she confessed to marking him when he was discharged from the library. The concept was still confusing to him, but he was slowly starting to understand what she meant. The flower mare had calmed down some as the days rolled by, but he could still make out her little signals when she wasn’t comfortable with something.

The flower mare had eased up on Redheart and Bon-Bon over the past couple of weeks and was talking with them a little more. The mare would try and get him to join in their conversations so he could offer his input on whatever they may be talking about. He remembered that she was okay with starting a herd with other ponies, but he wasn’t sure if she was okay with a couple that he had in mind. Redheart had been growing pretty close to him and that was only thanks to the many hospital visits that he was getting.

He found it hard to believe that he was getting hurt worse than he was back on Earth. He hardly had any trouble keeping himself safe, but being here was a walking accident waiting to happen. He just put it up to bad luck getting back at him after that black cat crossed his path. Getting bored with his own thoughts now, he pulled his sheets off and rolled out of bed. He hit the floor with a small thud, but it was his regular wake up routine. Rose and Bon-Bon have grown used to him waking up this way and never rushed to help after learning about it.

He continued to lay on the floor for several more seconds before pushing up to his feet. He bent backwards, popping sounds emanating from his every inch of his body. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out his clothes for the day. He was going to meet Rose’s parents today, but it felt kind of off. The mare would always avoid the subject if it ever got brought up and try to find something to distract herself with. One of her distractions nearly cost the human a rib after she kicked him. He couldn’t blame her though since it was king of his fault.

It was usually said that one shouldn’t scare a horse, especially from behind unless you wanted to be kicked. He really didn’t think it applied to the anthro pony, but he was proven wrong. He gave her quite the scare when he gently ran his hands along the sides of her body and that was when she lost it. He didn’t remember what happened much after feeling something make contact with his chest, but he remembers waking up to a teary eyes mare. The poor pony felt terrible about kicking him and was really hard on herself.

After one hospital visit later and a quick food grab from Sugarcube Corner, the flower mare was feeling better. She was glad that she didn’t cause any serious harm to the human and he was glad to see her feel better about herself. He shook his head as he ran a hand over the place that she kicked him. There was no pain and no mark on him, but he could easily remember where it had landed. Chuckling a little to himself, he walked out of the room and headed for the bathroom. His feet slid along the floor until he reached the polished door.

He didn’t even bother knocking as he opened the door. He stepped inside, but stopped as he looked around the room. Steam filled the room and he could hear the water running. He looked around the bathroom as he tried to figure out who was in the bathroom. His attention turned to the shower when he heard the squeaky knobs signal that someone turned off the running water. The curtain was pulled aside as his entire face became red after he saw who else was in the bathroom.

Bon-Bon stepped casually out of the shower, unaware of the human that was still standing by the door, or at least that’s what she had him think. The candy mare was very aware of his presence and decided to tease him a little. Her whole body was bare for his viewing pleasure and she made sure that he could see everything. She accentuated her breasts as she squeezed them together with her hands. Her tail swished from side to side, giving him a glimpse of her intimate area.

She giggled to herself to see the human become slightly flustered. She reached over and grabbed a towel and slowly started to dry off her body. The mare even showed off a little as she lifted one of her legs and dried it off while giving the human a seductive gaze. She noticed how excited he was getting and stopped her teasing for now. The mare grabbed another towel and wrapped it around her body as she used her already damp one to wrap around her mane. She walked past the human with an extra sway in her hip.

She gave him a play whip of her tail before exiting the bathroom and returning to her room. Brandon couldn’t even find the will to move as he tried to process everything that happened. He walked in on Bon-Bon in the shower and didn’t even mind. He remembered every sensual curve on her body and how sexy she looked with her fur wet. He knew that if Rose was around, she would really let him have it for not only walking in on a mare, but also staring. Hoping that Bon-Bon would keep her mouth shut, he quickly took his shower.

After he was finished showering and dressed, he exited the bathroom and walked into the kitchen. He stopped in his tracks as he saw Bon-Bon standing next to the stove, deep in thought at whatever she was cooking. Not wanting a repeat in the bathroom, he turned on his heel to walk out, but was stopped by the mare’s calm voice.

“Would you like anything with your waffles, Brandon?” Bon-Bon asked, never taking her eyes off the food.

“Waffles are just fine, thank you,” Brandon replied as he slowly stepped away from the kitchen.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Bon-Bon playfully asked.

“I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m just standing here, waiting for the food to finish,” Brandon said as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

“So you want to continue watching me?” Bon-Bon teased as she turned to the human with a knowing smirk.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brandon said, hoping to feign ignorance.

“I know you enjoyed what you saw. You can have this if you want. You only need to talk to Rose about it,” Bon-Bon said as she turned back to the food.

“Yeah, I can talk to her about it if I want to end up in the hospital,” Brandon said as he took a seat at the table.

“Why do you think you’ll end up in the hospital for?” Bon-Bon asked as she turned off the stove and prepared two plates.

“I know she’s open to expanding our relationship, but I can see the nervous twitches that she gives off when I speak to another mare,” Brandon said as he grabbed a fork and began eating his food.

“How much do you know about Rose?” Bon-Bon asked with a serious expression.

“Not much actually. I probably know the least about my girlfriend compared to my other friends,” Brandon sighed as he slowly lost his appetite at that thought.

“I can assure you that you know as much as your friends since there are things their mares haven’t told them yet. What those things are, I don’t know. What I do know is that we are willing to share our secrets with you, but it takes a lot of support. Earth ponies are the toughest to talk about their feelings since we act like our whole body is a callous,” Bon-Bon stated as she slowed her eating.

“I’ve seen with Applejack what you’re saying. Is there a reason that all of you have to hide things from us?” Brandon asked with genuine concern.

“I can’t speak for everypony, but I can for Rose at least. I’ve been her friend for a long time, longer than Lyra in fact. She’s tough on you not only because she loves you, but she needs to know if you truly plan on staying with her,” Bon-Bon explained as she pushed her plate to the side.

“Is she afraid that I’m going to leave her for some other mare? Does all the times that I’ve spent helping her mean nothing?” Brandon asked, his voice slightly raising in volume.

“Yes to your first question and no to your second question. Do you know what her past relationship was like?” Bon-Bon asked as she raised a brow.

“No,” Brandon answered.

“She met a stallion a while back and the two of them really hit it off. It was kind of that relationship that also led me to moving in with Lyra. He was a fine stallion at first, but as time went by, he became less of a gentlecolt,” Bon-Bon started as she gave a slight frown.

“What did he do?” Brandon asked with a serious voice.

“He started treating Rose like property and would disappear at random times. He would come back a couple days later reeking of sex. Rose didn’t notice as she refused to believe that he would do anything to hurt her. The next part really makes me feel terrible and I wish that I could take it back,” Bon-Bon said as a tear started to form.

“What exactly happened?” Brandon asked as he scooted closer to the mare.

“I called her a dumbass whorse and left her with her coltfriend as I went to find a new place to live. I never meant to insult her that way, but I was just so upset. Not long after I insulted her and left, the stallion came back with a mare. Rose completely broke down after that. She kicked him out and locked herself away in her house,” Bon-Bon said.

“Who is this guy so I can give him a piece of my mind?” Brandon asked as he clenched his fists.

“I would be careful if I were you. He’s a member of the royal guard and is actually one of the elite members,” Bon-Bon warned as she tried to calm the human.

“I don’t give a fuck what he is. I’m not letting him get away with something like that. Who knows how many mares he did this to and has gotten away without getting some form of punishment. Celestia be damned if she thinks that she is going to stop me from pounding his face in,” Brandon said as he breathed heavily.

“Don’t worry about him. You’ve made Rose happy and even though she’s tough on you, you have shown that you’re better than that stallion. She talks about you all the time when we’re alone and has never been happier. I’ve never seen her give so much praise to a stallion after her incident and I’m sure if you just talk to her, she’ll be more than willing to talk,” Bon-Bon said as she tried to calm the human.

“But what about you moving in with Lyra?” Brandon asked as he took a seat, finally calmed down from his anger.

“I found Lyra when she just moved to Ponyville. She was actually the first one that started a conversation with me when she found me crying. I don’t know what it was, but she seemed trustworthy enough that I told her everything that happened. Her reaction was similar to yours, but she was able to compose herself and we continued to talk.”

“I returned back to Rose’s house, completely unaware of everything that happened and gathered my stuff. I left and followed Lyra to a house that she had recently bought. That same house became my candy shop and you can kind of guess where things went from there,” Bon-Bon said as she threw away the uneaten food.

“Have you apologized to Rose for everything that happened?” Brandon asked as he joined the mare in her cleaning.

“I never stop apologizing. She keeps assuring me that everything between us is squared away, but I just can’t help myself. I left my friend when she needed me the most since she didn’t have any family to-” Bon-Bon cut herself off as she looked back at the human.

“What do you didn’t have a family?” Brandon asked with a raised brow.

“That’s not my place to say. I didn’t even mean to bring that up. Just do me a favor and don’t bring up anything about her family,” Bon-Bon pleaded through teary eyes.

“I will, but wouldn’t it be better if I talked to her about it. I know nothing about her and I would like to know more about her. I’ll be there to support her if she needs it, but I’m tired of being in the dark about her life,” Brandon said as he started cleaning his plate.

“I’ll let her talk about that, but I will give you some information about her family. She only sees two ponies as her family and their names are Daisy and Lily. She calls them friends, but they treat each other like a close family would. They also know about Rose’s family situation along with her breakup, so they will probably help in talking about her family.”

“They should actually be coming by here soon. It’s about time for their visit and I know Rose wouldn’t miss their arrival,” Bon-Bon said.

Not long after the candy mare said that, laughter could be heard outside the house. The two quickly finished up cleaning the dishes before the cream mare left for her workplace. The human waved goodbye to her as he sat in the living room. He could still hear laughter outside and took this time to think about how he would approach the subject of Rose’s family. He could slowly try to coax it out of her, but that would take too long and give her too many chances to avoid the conversation.

The only way he saw it to work out was taking Bon-Bon’s advice. He sighed heavily as he kind of wished to avoid taking this approach immensely. It was true that his girlfriend could be stubborn like Applejack when given the chance, but this was really going to put them through a difficult path. He heard the door creak as it slowly opened and looked over to see Rose and two other mares flanking her.

The mare on the left had a pale magenta coat and her eyes were a moderate spring green. Her mane and tail was a pale lime green and on her hand was two daisy flowers where one overlapped the other one. The mare on the right had a pale raspberry coat and her eyes were a pale gold. Her mane and tail were a light amber with pale amber highlights and on her hand was three lily flowers.

“Who are they?” Brandon asked.

“These are my friends. Brandon, this is Daisy and Lily. Lily and Daisy, this is Brandon,” Rose introduced.

The human waved to the two mares who happily waved back at him. Assuming these were the mare’s Bon-Bon was talking about, he mentally prepared himself for this conversation. He really wanted to avoid it, but he wanted to show her that he was really there for her. If everything that Bon-Bon said was true and she only wanted to make sure that he truly cared for her, then she would understand why he was doing this. Taking one final breath, he looked back at the flower mare before speaking up.

“Rose, can you join me for a bit, I would like to talk about something?” Brandon asked.

“Sure. What do you want to talk about?” Rose asked as she sat down next to him, her friends sitting in the other chairs. It was now or never for the human and he got straight to the point.

“I want to talk about your family,” Brandon said.

Silence immediately filled the room and he could see his mare’s eyes widen as she processed what he said. He could feel her body tense and shiver as she looked up at him. He looked over at the other two mares to see that they were staring at him with expressions of shock. He could still feel the flower mare shaking next to him and looked back to see she was pale. He could see that she was trying to be strong, but the slow forming tears betrayed that strength. He pulled the mare close as he gently stroked her back.

“Why… why do you want… want to know that?” Rose asked through shaky breaths.

“Bon-Bon told me about your past a little and I want to know. You and I never really sit down and talk with each other about anything in the past,” Brandon said as he gently stroked her mane and back.

“What exactly did Bon-Bon tell you?” Rose asked as she pulled back to look at him.

“She told me the reason why you were being so tough on me and how your past relationship ended. I may not have that guy’s name yet, but if I have to, I will beat through every guard to teach him a lesson. She also accidentally let it slip about something on your family. The only thing that she told me was that you saw these two as your family,” Brandon said as he gestured to the two other mares.

“That’s because we’re the only family that she knows,” Daisy finally said.

“What do you mean?” Brandon asked.

“Rose doesn’t know who her parents are. In fact neither of us really know who our parents are,” Lily spoke up.

“So who took care of you?” Brandon asked as he pulled his still trembling mare close to him.

“We were all raised at the local orphanage here in Ponyville,” Rose answered as she gripped the human tightly.

“So neither of you really know who your parents are and were abandoned at some orphanage,” Brandon said to make sure he hear correctly.

“That is correct. We all looked out for each other as we grew up together. Rose was actually that first to get her cutie mark though,” Daisy said as she gave a slight smile.

“Yeah, the orphanage had this plant room, but it was full of dying plants. The head master told us to clean out the room, but Rose actually did something else. She took all the dying plants and started to plant them outback. We would go back there every day to water and talk to them. The head master found out about the backyard garden and ripped every plant out of the ground,” Lily started as she gave a slight smile.

“After giving us our punishment for disobeying her, Rose finally had enough. She packed her bag with the little amount of things she owned and left. Daisy and I had no idea where she went and every night we would go out looking for her. Turns out she found this building completely abandoned. There were various seeds in the building and she decided to make this her new greenhouse. She stayed here through cold winter nights and worked during the blistering heat to get her greenhouse working,” Lily said as she smiled over at Rose.

“I slept here during the cold winter nights and worked during the blistering summer mornings. It was a tough start at first as I had to completely start from scratch. I had no idea what I was doing, but something felt right about what I was doing. Weeks later from all my hard work, I grew my first sapling. I was so excited that I checked on the other plants. Every pot had a sapling that was beginning to sprout and I was so happy,” Rose said as she calmed herself.

“It wasn’t easy getting them to grow at first, but I continued with everything that I could. Days continued to roll by and I watched as each plant grew. Summer finally came around and all the plants were in full bloom. Not wanting to let the plants to go to waste, I decided to start selling them. At first ponies didn’t want to buy from a little filly, but then I finally got my first customer.”

“I’m not sure who they were, but they spoke to me in such a caring tone. She paid for a bouquet of roses and that really threw me off guard. I didn’t even know what a bouquet of roses looked like, but she was kind of enough to explain it to me. After she told me everything that I needed to know, I ran to the roses I grew and picked thirteen of them. I know it’s an unlucky number, but that’s the number I wanted.”

“I brought the roses back and started to snip the thorns off so the mare wouldn’t cut herself on them. Once I finished cutting them up, I wrapped them up and gave them to her. She smiled down at me as she pointed at my hand and I couldn’t believe what I saw. I looked at the rose on my hand in utter disbelief, but it was there to stay. After that, I went about growing and selling flowers.”

“My two friends found me at the shop after a while and saw what I was doing. They joined along in my work and they discovered their cutie marks as well. We never went back to the orphanage as we made this our new place to live. We saved up our money and started renovating the place and turned it into the respectable business it is now,” Rose said as she slowly started to smile.

“Where do your friends work then if this was your entire home?” Brandon asked as she smiled at his mare.

“They moved to Manehattan to spread my business. We keep in touch through letters and texts, but sometimes we get really busy. This place wouldn’t be anything without their help,” Rose said as she smiled at her two friends.

“Rose, this place got its start because of you. Why else do you think your name is on the storefront?” Lily playfully joked.

“True, but you’re just as much a part of the store as am I. I guess that also includes Brandon now since he has helped me so much,” Rose said as she gave the human a huge smile.

“Please, I don’t deserve that much credit since I haven’t really been here that long,” Brandon said as he messed up her mane.

“Just because you’ve been here for a few months doesn’t mean that you aren’t important. Your friends are a part of this family as well after offering their own help when they can,” Rose said as she playfully punched his arm.

The four of them started to laugh as they continued on with their conversations. The human looked out to see that the sun was still out and a look at the clock showed that it was close to dinner time. He excused himself so he could go cook them all dinner. He left the room as the three mares went back to chatting with each other. The human heard slight footsteps behind him and looked back to see Daisy. The mare was shuffling a little as she looked between the human and the floor.

“What’s up?” Brandon asked as he started preparing to cook.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” Daisy said.

“Thanks for what?” Brandon asked as he turned towards the mare.

“For everything that you’ve done with Rose. I can see why she speaks so highly of you and it’s nice to see her smile. You’ve done things that we couldn’t and it means so much to us that you’ve made her happy. Please stay by her side until the end,” Daisy said as she looked at the human with a hopeful expression.

“It will be a cold day in Hell before I leave her side. I am serious though about beating that stallion into the ground though. My friends will even back me up if I need them to,” Brandon said as he gave her a serious expression.

“I wish you the best of luck then. I hear he’s an elite member of the day guard,” Daisy said.

“Bon-Bon said that same thing and I don’t care. If I have to get my ass kicked a few times to teach him a lesson, then I will. He is not getting away with hurting Rose like that and he doesn’t deserve where he works,” Brandon said.

Daisy gave him a small smile before giving a nod and leaving. The human went back to cooking their meal. It wasn’t anything special, but everyone enjoyed it. They all decided to call it an early night and head for bed. Rose offered Lily and Daisy the guest bedroom that wasn’t being used. The flower mare asked him to make the bed while they got clean. He gave her a nod as he went to the linen closet and grabbed a few sheets.

Brandon helped set up the guest bedroom and made sure that everything was clean. With fresh sheets on the beds, he wiped his hands on his pants as he joined Rose in their bed. He saw the flower mare sleeping peacefully in her bed. He moved closer to see a content smile on her face as she mumbled a little in her sleep. He moved closer to hear the mare giving small thanks for everything he had done. Smiling a little at the mare, he gently stroked her mane as he joined her in the bed. She was quick to wrap her arms around him as she nuzzled deeply into his chest.

The human continued to stroke her mane gently as he stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe that such a happy looking world had so much sadness hidden inside. Sure there was probably the occasional person that was doing well, but to see any person, especially his girlfriend filled with such sadness really tore at him. He gave her a kiss on her forehead as he pulled her close and refused to ever leave her side.