Luka was a very impatient filly. This is nothing unusual when it comes to foals, of course, but this would sound odd for those who knows her nowadays. She always had five things she wanted to do at once, and you could generally find her by following the trail of dolls, bricks, half-finished hoofpaintings and assorted mayhem. She'd complain that dinner took too much time to make, then complain that she had to sit by the table for too long and generally be a mouthful in the very normal way most foals that age are.
One day, when her parents where out celebrating their anniversary, they hired a babysitter; an old mare from a nearby farm that eagerly came over when hearing that her childrearing expertise was needed. As the two ponies waved goodbye to her daughter, the sound of a foghorn was heard. The Cloud storage facility of Cloudsdale had sprung a leak and at current capacity, it'd be at least an hour before they'd be able to clear out all the clouds.
At first, the fog stood literary as thick as pea-soup, but the wind worked to slowly compress the wayward cloud material into a semi-solid form, resembling snow in all but heat. The massive cloud-mass reached up to the rooftops, trapping both Granny Smith and Luka inside. As usual, this made the young filly restless and she kept nagging Granny with endless questions:
“Granny, why are your hair white? Was it always white like that?”
“How old are you, are you older than Celestia?”
“Where do we go when we die, Granny? My mum told me that Celestia sends bad fillies to tartarus to sleep along the monsters? Can you tell her to send me there anyway? I like monsters!”
“Uhm... Ah'm sorry dearie, but ah gotta go make dinner,” Granny Smith replied and retreated into the safety of the kitchen.
Luka was mostly used to her mothers cooking, which consisted of regional variations on fashionable Canterlotian recipes, but she responded well to Granny Smiths simple, rustic dishes. The old mare couldn't help but crack a smile at the irony of this scene: a table that wouldn't be out of place in a fine restaurant, set with silverware and plates from the far east. And at the centre of it sat a simple farmhouse Casserole that was being devoured with great appetite.
After dinner, Luka began her usual whine:
"But I'm done eating, I want to go play!"
"In a minute young filly, I ain't done eatin' yet!" Granny Smith said, inexpertly poking around with the strange unfamiliar utensils laid out in front of her.
Her shaking emptied most of her fork before it reached her mouth, but her stubbornness prevented her from eating the regular earth pony way.
Luka groaned at this. "Can't you even handle a fork properly?" she lectured. "You hold it like this, between your fetlock and your horse-shoe and..."
Granny Smith slammed a hoof down onto the table. "Young miss, ah have ya know that ah was a worldly lady before you where knee-high to an apple! Mah family discovered Ponyville, ah fought in the griffon war! On th' griffins side, mind ya, but still... Ah THINK ah can handle a fork, thank ye very much.” She tried to pick up the fork again, but it slipped down back onto her plate, causing Luka to emit another groan.
Spacemare Luka studied the control panel in front of her; technology made out of the finest cardboard. Her rocket ship was parked on the launching platform, which looked surprisingly like a bed. After a few jumps, she deemed herself to be high enough into the stratosphere to escape the planets gravity. She rushed past the galaxy of stuffed animals, down the treacherous asteroid belt represented by a flight of stair, and she ran across the living room... nebula?
"Can ya take it a little easy young filly?" Or else ye might break somethin'!" Gr'nny Zm'th, the green space alien ordered from the monitor, but the brave space captain ignored its commands.
"We don't negotiate with freeplebroxians!" Luka announced. “Pew, pew, pew!”
"What did ya call me?" Granny Smith said. "Language, miss!"
She began to speed away in her cruiser, but a slight miscalculation of her flightpath launched her into a delicate porcelain vase. Time seemed to freeze for just a second before the vase shattered with a sound that made Granny Smith cringe.
"That's it young miss, its time for ya to take it easy, how 'bout we play a nice boardgame?"
When Lukas parents came home, they found the kitchen in disorder. Just about every boardgame they owned had their pieces spread out across the table and floor.
The Cumulus and Pegasus from Battlecloud laid mixed with a Goldbergian device made partially out of pieces from Mousetrap and partially out of the hexagons from Settlers of Ponyville.An the hat and frog from Monopondy was halfway trough an epic adventure in the land of the Clued-in mansion.
Granny Smith had fallen asleep and her grayish mane was used as the mysterious desert planed of Arrakas. Once woken up, the old mare had refused to be paid for her time, as long as she were never asked to foalsit again.
At breakfast he next day, Luka couldn't help but be fascinated by the large flower that her mother had put on the dinner table in her second-favorite vase. It didn't look like any flower she had seen before. In her mind, most flowers were like little suns, a small disk crowned by pedals in some pastel colour. But the flower in front of her was different: The petals concealed the centre shyly and bowed outwards, showing their deep blood-red colour. Along with the thorny stem, the plant gave out a sense of danger as well as beauty.
"Mum, what kind of flower is this?" she asked.
"Oh it's a rose, dear."
"I like it Can we grow one in the garden?" Her mother smiled at her.
"Sure, but it will take time."
"I can wait,” Luka announced. “Is it gonna take a day?" Her mother couldn't help but laugh heartily as she embraced her daughter.
Luka took any excuse she could find to play in the garden just to see if her roses would grow, but always found her staring at a moist patch of dirt. After a week, her enthusiasm had subdued enough for her to start noticing the changes in her family.
Lately, her father had been around less and less, and one day, he simply disappeared along with his belongings. Luka didn't pay much attention to that, she liked her mother more anyway, but the roses was starting to bother her.
She had tried her patience to the limit, but the flowers stubbornly refused to grow. On top of that, the rose on the dinner table was starting to dry up, and she was really starting to crave something that could replace it. One day she approached her mother about it.
"Mum, the roses won't grow, did we do anything wrong?"
"Growing roses from seeds is hard, my dear. Sometimes the seeds just won't grow and it's not because anypony did anything wrong, it just happens. We each get one chance," she added with her face a little darker than before. "And some choose not to take it."
"'kay" Luka said and went back indoors to play with her dolls.
"Luka, dear, come out to the garden!"
By this point, Luka had abandoned all thoughts of being a gardener and focused her full attention on her one true passion in life: Being a ninja-cowboy-princess. But as she heard her mothers yell, the thoughts or roses returned to her and she rushed out, expecting to see the kind of elegant blood red flower she remembered from a month back.
Her mother beamed with pride as she showed her one solitary bud, barely a hoof-width tall and with only a faint pink brim to remind her of the majestic red she was expecting.
"Is THAT a rose?" she said sceptically. "But it doesn't look anything like what I saw."
"It will, dear, don't worry." Like I said, gardening requires patience, but you managed really well. Give it a little more time and I promise it will look pretty for you."
Once again, she began visiting the garden every day and saw her rose grow from an insecure bud into something that defied her expectations. She had believed that roses came the way she had first seen them: a long thorny stem adorned with a red crown. But her rose looked more like a twig with three beautiful flowers on it. She was about to pick it and put it in a vase, but her mother stopped her.
“If you let it grow, it could turn into an entire bush with lots of roses on it,” she told her, making the young fillys face shine up.
“Really?!”
“Yes, but that'll take years, I'm afraid.”
One day when Luka got ready for school, she found her mother looking at her oddly. First her mum's eyes grew wide and moist, making the filly afraid she'd start crying again. But instead she muttered "Of course!" and started laughing.
"What's wrong mum?" Luka asked before she were swept up in her mothers embrace.
"Nothing is wrong dear, it's all as it should be. You're just growing up, that's all. Say, how would you like to be called Roseluck from now on?"
Luka didn't really understand why her mother suddenly decided to change her name, but it sounded really nice.
"Sure!” Roseluck said as she untangled from her mothers embrace.
"Oh, and one last thing,” her mum said with a puckish grin. “You might want to look at your flank in the mirror before going to school.
I waffled a bit regarding if I was gonna use the kanji that means "related to the earth" or the one that specifically means "ground" but I chose the latter.
Fair warning, since I got the draft for all five chapters, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Void (no, not I'm going for the japanese elements, not the ones from Captain Planet...) I know where the story will go. It is a coming-of-age story, and as such it will involve, well... coming of age, growing up.
I'm not gonna go all darkfic on you, (probably) but if you liked the Calvin and Hobbes-esque feel of this chapter but isn't interested in that ,you might wanna quit after the first two chapters and skip the ones about her abdolescence and marehood. Just sayin', it's totally chill, read it however you like.
Hmm... interesting... might read later. You have my attention..
This was interesting. It's still not very clear what the story is going to be about (unless it's just about Rose's life). But so far, great stuff.
Minor grammar mistakes, noticeable but not grating. Believable characterizations. I think I will stick around for the next chapter and see whats up.
Five Rings... I'm actually writing a crossover with Legend of the Five Rings. I'll read this after college, let's see what you have.
I liked how you used the "ponies can change names once they get their cutie mark". Subtle.
Again, Owlor, I love these slice of life stories of yours.
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I'm doing these in between working on Sky Matron, and as such, they become my outlet for my slice-of-lifey urges while I focuses whatever adventure-writing chops I can muster on that one.
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All editors and proofreaders I know are busy working on "Sky Matron", and I'm not the best self-editor in the universe. I'mma try to clean up the errors later.
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Just be aware that it has nothing to do with that world whatsoever. The title is an allusion to the book of five rings by Miyamoto Musashi. The thought process that led to this title is pretty long and dull, but basically it refers to the five elements each chapter is named after. I'm sad to report that this story has very little of Rose being a badass samurai.
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It was a welcome oppertunity to not have to worry about how contrived it sounded that someone named Rose just happened to become interested in growing roses. I like that detail because its something that makes sense in their universe. Cutie marks is a pretty interesting wordbuilding idea that I unfortunently never get to use much since its more suitable to a visual medium. NEVER in my years of writing sci fi or fantasy would the thought "What if there was a species that get a symbol of their primary talents spotaneously tattoed on their ass? How would their society look like?" entered into my mind.