Being an up-and-coming business pony's not easy—Carob knew that when he opened his plant nursery in his hometown of Ponyville. But since the local librarian became a princess, he's found it much more difficult to focus on, well, on just about anything other than her...

Inspired by the 4th and 5th prompts in Obselescence's Most Dangerous Game contest—"Second Person Perspective" and "An OC and a major canon character (such as one of the Mane Six) fall in love with each other"—the original version of this story ended up in 10th place out of 66 entries. The cover image was commissioned from DarkerSounds.