When things grow, they are said to flower. A thought flowers into an idea. A moment of bravery flowers into a courageous act. A moment of heated, steamy passion flowers into new life. A seed is planted, something grows, and then it flowers. Such is life, and such was the life of Tarnished Teapot, a unicorn with a cutie mark that was a poison joke flower. Tarnished Teapot had grown. He had flowered.

Venenum Iocus. Poison joke. A flower feared for what it can do, and what it did was cause unbridled chaos. It also brought stability in the face of chaos by absorbing dangerous magic. It was, in its most basic form, an agent of harmony, a force of nature that helped to bring balance. But ponies did not understand it, and fearing what they did not understand, they have long waged war upon it.

Tarnished Teapot, blessed with strange magic that mimicked poison joke, or, as some might say, cursed, found himself in the same predicament as Venenum Iocus. Ponies feared what they did not understand, and ponies feared Tarnished Teapot, whose strange magic caused poison joke to begin sprouting in areas with high concentrations of unstable, chaotic magic, for Tarnished Teapot was an unwitting agent of nature, a champion of balance.

In places blessed with normalcy, Tarnished Teapot’s magic caused trouble; everything ranging from minor mischief to an outright hullabaloo. Fortunately, Tarnished Teapot had discovered the means to hold his unpredictable talent back, and no longer plagued ponies who rather liked normalcy along with everything that came with it. This control came from the regular drinking of a tea brewed from poison joke, which was a useful coincidence, seeing as how Tarnished Teapot could cause spontaneous growth of poison joke.

Fortunately, Tarnished Teapot was graced with the most incredible luck, having found himself a pony that was utterly immune to poison joke. This pony would become his best friend, his steadfast adventuring companion, and his wife…

Eyes narrowed, Tarnished Teapot stared down at the blue petals of the poison joke flower growing up out of the dusty, parched earth of the rock farm. His talent was growing; expanding, getting stronger. He had caused this plant to appear through focus, concentration, and an act of willpower. He lifted his head and looked at Maud Pie, watching, waiting, wondering… and hoping. He watched as Maud came forward, lowered her head, spat out a seed soaked with her own saliva, and it fell down into the ground, into a small hole that had been scratched out near the poison joke flower.

Tarnish had an idea, a very simple idea, and had planned a very simple science experiment. Get things to grow on the rock farm. The land was almost dead here, caused by unstable magic due to a ley line intersection. He had planted several poison joke plants and now Maud, the dutiful earth pony that she was, was trying her hoof at gardening.

Nearby, Marble and Limestone were also planting seeds around poison joke plants, and having preemptively taken the antidote, walked among the brilliant blue plants without fear. The plant selected for the experiment was cabbage, a wholesome, nutritious, and hearty plant.

Having spat out a seed, Maud scooped the dirt back into the hole with her hoof, then pressed down, packing the dirt into place as Tarnish stood watching. Hearing a loud bell, Tarnished Teapot lifted his head, as did Maud, Limestone, and Marble.

“Visitors… and potential trouble,” Limestone said, her words little more than a grumble.

“Why can’t they just leave us alone?” Marble asked.

Just as Tarnish was about to say something curt, Maud Pie placed her dirty hoof over his lips, applied gentle pressure, and silenced him. Chortling, Limestone trotted off to get a better look at their visitors as Maud pulled her hoof away and Tarnish tried spitting out dirt.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Tarnished Teapot said, feeling more than a little self conscious about the dirt on his muzzle. “How are you? You look well.”

Gesturing with her hoof, Twilight pointed over at an orange earth pony unhitching herself from a small two wheeled cart. “Applejack and I brought you your film. It has been developed professionally and a group of specialists went over it to smooth it out a bit. There was a lot of shaking. I wanted to thank you for consenting to allow this to be shown… ponies need to know about what happened and how the environment affects them.”

“There’s also a projector in the cart,” Applejack said as she sauntered over to stand beside Twilight. “It’s heavy. Hauling it from the train station was a chore.”

“Thank you, Applejack.” Maud, now standing beside Tarnish, gave a sleepy looking stare to her visitors, her half opened eyes focused upon them. “Pinkie Pie is around here somewhere, but I don’t know where, so look out.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Twilight Sparkle’s eyes narrowed and she looked around, hoping to spot something pink before it was too late. After a cursory glance around her, she returned her attention to Tarnish and Maud. “Tree Hugger will be contacting you shortly. Tomorrow, we need to go to the train station. The surprise should be here if everything goes according to plan.” Twilight took a deep breath to fill her lungs before she continued, “Both of you are very brave to pick up right where you left off after everything that has happened. With fall approaching, I know the two of you are in a hurry to go and visit the Scariest Cave in Equestria. There is much we need to discuss before you go.”

“I know I’m curious as to what you have planned,” Tarnish said.

“Oh, while I am here, there is one other issue which we need to discuss. The Royal Academy of Science would like for the two of you to name the new volcano, seeing as how the both of you were there when it erupted.” Twilight gave both Maud and Tarnish a sheepish smile. “This is quite an honour, getting to name a volcano. I know it doesn’t make up for what you’ve lost, but…” Twilight’s words trailed off and she let out a nervous laugh.

“Name a volcano?” Maud blinked. “It’s a volcano. Why does it need a name?”

Twilight shifted from her right hooves to her left hooves, all while smiling. “Well, ponies tend to name things. Mountains get names. Lakes get names. Rivers get names—”

“I get that, but it just seems silly.” Maud turned and looked at Tarnish. “I’ll just give it a very practical scientific name… you name it.”

A wicked, terrible, no good grin spread over Tarnished Teapot’s face. “I have just the thing… a perfect name. I’ll call it Mount Maud—”

Maud inhaled, blinked, and her ears pivoted forwards. “The things you say.”

The Pie family kitchen was crowded, several ponies were gathered around the table, talking, a couple of pies had been set out, some rock hard fudge, and a pitcher of iced tea. Tarnish and Maud sat beside one another, Maud quiet and looking disinterested, but then again, she always looked disinterested. Tarnish’s mother, Pinny Lane, also sat beside Tarnish, her face wrinkled with motherly concern and worry.

Pinkie Pie sat at the head of the table, noshing on her mother’s rock hard fudge, oblivious to the fact that it was, indeed, rock hard. She bounced in her chair, struggling to keep her promise to behave herself as important issues were discussed. She had not Pinkie Promised, however.

Twilight sat opposite of Tarnished Teapot, eating a slice of pie, and sipping from a tall glass of iced tea. She leaned against the table, savouring every bite, glad to have a chance to eat, rest, and have a nice time.

Beside Twilight, Applejack chowed down upon her third slice of pie, her muzzle sticky, her hat sitting on the corner of the table beside her. She chewed with great enthusiasm, smacking her lips, and licking bits of pie out from between her lips, cheeks, and gums.

“You realise this isn’t a very good experiment, right?” Tarnish asked in a soft voice.

“Of course I do,” Twilight replied. She rubbed her muzzle with her foreleg and then continued. “We’ve already seen what burning away the poison joke around the Crack of Doom did. We want you to go to the Scariest Cave in Equestria and make poison joke grow. I know the science is shaky at best, but we’re trying to prevent a disaster from happening. Think of this more as a first step. We can do controlled experiments later.”

“So we go to the Scariest Cave in Equestria, Maud gets to study the rocks and I get to plant poison joke. I also get to study the local plants.” Tarnish turned his head and looked at Maud.

“We don’t even have a wagon.” Maud’s dull sounding monotone almost sounded like a conversation killer. “All of this is a moot point.”

“Don’t worry about the wagon right now, this is just the planning stage.” Twilight leaned forwards and looked at both Maud and Tarnish. “Look, the poison joke has already been cleared away from around the Scariest Cave in Equestria. I am of the opinion that it is a potential ticking time bomb. Others disagree… but after all I’ve seen and all of my study about cutie marks, I am inclined to believe that Tarnish is correct in his assumptions. We may not have much time. I have no idea how the land around the Scariest Cave in Equestria might react. We might get another volcano… or a massive horde of monsters might come spilling out of that cave. I’d rather not find out, which is why I am sending you, which is a very controversial move on my part.”

“Twilight, all of this makes the assumption that I can stop what might happen. What if the damage is done and there is another disaster?” Tarnish’s blue eyes glittered. He looked Twilight in the eye, his face solemn and a little bit afraid. “And if there is another disaster, and it happens while I am in the general vicinity, what if I get blamed for this as well?”

“You are not to blame for the volcano, no matter what anypony else says.” Twilight’s words were confident and full of self assurance. She tapped upon the edge of the table with her hoof, causing her nearby plate to clink and her spoon to clatter. “Your magic can cause a lot of problems, but I refuse to believe that you caused the volcano to erupt. The ponies insisting that you caused it are just fearmongering.”

“And what about those loonies in the paper demanding that poor Tarnish be brought in for study?” Pinkie Pie shook her head, her blue eyes now sad and worried. “I don’t like how that sounds, Twilight, not at all. That sounds mean.”

“We don’t just drag ponies off in the night to study them.” Twilight turned to look at Pinkie and tried to reassure her friend. “That’s just talk, bluster, it is to make it appear that these ponies are doing something to fix the problem without actually fixing the problem. Nopony is going to come and take Tarnish away for study.”

“Twilight, I trust you, but I don’t trust others. My Pinkie sense keeps going off. There are ponies snooping around the rock farm and we keep having to shoo them away. I don’t like what’s going on… it’s getting scary.”

“I’m sorry, Pinkie,” Twilight said, apologising her to friend.

“You have that magic sword, turn it loose on those creeps. Don’t hurt ‘em, just give ‘em a good scare.” Applejack licked her lips, cleaning away the crumbs, and looked around the table, meeting each eye in turn. “Or, just plant a perimeter patch of poison joke around the farm. That’ll keep ponies away.”

“It would also keep away our friends and Marble would be heartbroken if Sonneur could no longer come over to visit.” Maud shook her head, a rare display of reaction. “No, no, that won’t work at all.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to do anything to further antagonise ponies and what they might think about me. If I start using poison joke as biological warfare, I’d just be hurting myself in the long run. I need to keep my head on this. I can’t be seen as being dangerous or unpredictable. That means not scaring ponies with Flamingo.”

“Well… shucks. There has to be something you can do,” Applejack said in an exasperated voice. “This whole situation, why, it just ain’t fair.”

Sitting in near silence, Tarnished Teapot watched the moving images flashing upon the wall. The projector made a soft clatter as it played the film. As Tarnish watched, he could almost smell what he was seeing. His body twitched and convulsed as he remembered.

The image on the wall showed a rising column of fire, a mushroom shaped cloud, and burning fireballs shooting out in all directions. Thunder flashed and crackled in the cloud over the volcano. A pyroclastic cloud spilled forth, along with lava from the newborn volcano.

Tarnish had filmed it all from Maud’s back as she ran as fast as she could, trying to save both of them. Maud, sitting beside Tarnish, watched the display, her face stony, impassive, unreadable. Igneous and Cloudy both had tears streaming down their cheeks as they clung to one another, their mouths open in little round ‘o’s of horror, their ears twitching with fear and emotion. Pinkie Pie had a big wooden bowl of popcorn in front of her, but she wasn’t eating it. She sat with her ears splayed out sideways, her mane drooping more and more as she watched the unfolding horror show taking place on the screen.

Pinny Lane, unable to help herself, grabbed ahold of Tarnished Teapot and clung to him, her whole body trembling. When the volcano belched forth a particularly large explosion, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her face into Tarnish’s neck, unable to keep looking.

Marble and Limestone sat with one another and Limestone had one foreleg draped over her sister’s withers. Both were wide eyed, almost unblinking, watching as the volcano spewed fire, ash, and death.

Twilight Sparkle and Applejack sat together, Twilight watching with a mix of scientific curiousity and dread, while Applejack watched with slack jawed awe.

Needing a breath of fresh air, Tarnished Teapot shook himself free of his mother’s terrified embrace, apologised with a mumbled whisper, and then hurried from the room, unable to keep watching the film.

Author's Notes:

We begin again...