"COLD!" I shouted as the near frozen rain water dripped on my back when I stepped out of the front door. I had just barely made it home last night before the rain started to fall. Of course it would be raining! I only had to fly to Canterlot, it's only an hour and a half flight, what was a minor down pour in 45 degree weather to hurt!
Shaking off the last bits of sarcasm from my mind, I ruffled my feathers and coat and shot out from under the front porch at break-neck-speed! The rain stabbed at my eyes the whole way, refusing to let up it's pursuit to drench me to the core before I could make it to my very first class. Why did the Pegasi have to pick Friday of all days to water the flowers!? There weren't even any flowers left to water! It's cold, their all dead! Take the hint!
I pushed forward through the relentless rain to Canterlot's city center, the whole way sending evil looks to any of the weather ponies I saw along the way. Splashing down hard on the concrete sidewalk, I skittered my hooves right into a trashcan, toppling its contents into the street beside me. With a quick glance around to make sure nopony had saw me crash, I pretended the sky was the most interesting thing in the world and whistled my way away from there.
Wow this place was changing fast! Even with the Castle looming over everything around me, it was nearly all but forgotten due to the new buildings being erected everywhere. Almost every street I trotted down on the way to school, no matter where I landed, had signs posted up in front of muddy lots. The sounds of heavy machinery created a near perfect mix of both white noise and loud clangs as they heaved the earth and slammed steel beams into place.
Passing the gifted school, I rounded the corner towards Canterlot High. Oh what a great location for a school for ponies who were lacking in the horn department. Seriously, why was it that they got to have their own special school hosted by Celestia herself and not us? I mean, what is Luna doing? She could teach us stuff! And why did it have to be BEHIND the awesome school? Why not make it one big building?
Running the last few yards to the front door, I nearly pushed over another student in my haste. I threw myself at the front doors, sending myself flying inside the school. As soon as my hooves hit the slick tile floor they gave way, sending me sliding down the hallway nearly as fast as I had entered. I reached for anything I could grab onto. Water fountains, lockers, door frames, but it was not use. I was sliding head long into a brick and mortar wall.
Just as I had given up all hope on stopping, a janitor appeared from the hall to the right and wandered into my path. Despite our fluffy appearance, a middle aged Pegasus is not the softest thing to ram into, especially when he is trying to wax the floors with a floor buffer. The two of us collided with a massive crash and slammed into the wall together... and were soon under attack from the now un-tethered floor buffer.
"Celestia's sake kid!" He shouted as he tried to wrangle the out of control machine.
"I'm so sorry! I couldn't stop!" I yelled back as he ripped the cord from the wall and bucked the buffer down the hallway.
"What on EARTH do you think you are doing here!? I just waxed that floor, now look at it!" He said pointing towards the disaster area that was once a glistening tile floor that he had just cleaned.
"What am I doing!? Why are you waxing the floor on a rainy day!? I almost broke my neck trying to get to class!" I said in anger and hope that he would take part of the blame and not send me to the office.
"Why in deed! Why are you here on a Saturday!?" He shouted at me. Crap...
"Saturday?" I meeked out.
"Yes, Saturday! You know, the day after Friday! I believe you lot call it "Freedom day", or has the world gone mad?" He bellowed back to me.
"Of course it's Saturday..." I said, blowing a water drop out of my mane. Ms. Gloom had even spent the last half hour of class talking about how the Pegasi were preparing the "Fall Showers" to help wash the leafs from the trees. It had been the whole reason I had gone flying after school. Yet here I am, dripping wet and near frozen solid.
"Did you eat paint chips as a foal? Yes, Saturday! The day I buff the floors and enjoy a work day without kids around!" He said, his eyes falling on me with his final words.
"Sorry." I said smiling sheepishly. "I'll just be..." I started as I slinked my way around his watchful glare.
"Sorry nothing! I might not be a teacher, but even I know you would be a damn fool to spend more than five minutes in that storm. Go and wait in the library and wait for it to pass. You can dry off in there with this." He said, throwing me a towel that both looked and smelled like it had been used to clean toilets with.
"Yes sir..." I said as I draped it over my wings. Just as I did so, the front doors opened and the student I had nearly crashed into trotted into view. Her rain soaked slicker all but covered one eye as she looked at the two of us for a long moment. Before I could so much as wave, she stepped out of view and down another hall.
"Ok, what's she doing here if it is Saturday?" I said as I turned away from him.
"Why don't you mind your business and shove off?" He said as he began trying to untangle the mess of wire the buffer had created.
"Whatever... grouch." I mumbled as I trotted away.
Saturday. I came to school, in the pouring, freezing rain on a for nothing... I also nearly died back there in there, all for nothing. Now I get to go to the library and drip myself dry, all the while thinking about how I just made a complete fool of myself and wasted a perfect morning to sleep in. I could be doing important things! Watching T.V! I stopped in my steps to try to think of other things I could be doing, but at the moment they all seemed to fail me.
Soon enough I came to the iron clad doors of the library. I pushed my shoulder into it and slowly let myself in, not wanting to put any effort into the act. This was worse than detention! At least there I was was out of class, here I was trapped from enjoying my weekend! What had gone so wrong in my life that I completely forgot what day it was.
I trotted to the table nearest the window and proceed to sulk, laying just my head on the hardwood counter top and stared out the window. I felt my stomach join me in my protest with a deep growl that reminded me of another awful fact. Being here on the weekend not only meant that I was wasting my day away, but it also meant that I had no chance at breakfast either. With a huff, I blew some stray papers off the table and sighed.
"I wish I had some macaroni and cheese..."
I let the gross towel fall to the floor and closed my eyes. It wasn't a bed, but this will do well enough. I curled my hooves over my eyes in a futile effort to block out the florescent lights and tried to get some rest. Despite the shivering, I found myself drifting in and out of dreams as it tried to wait out the weather to go back home.
I have no clue how long I was out. An hour? Two maybe? But I do remember coming too and not being cold anymore. It was also a lot darker now. Great! It's night isn't it! I slept the entire day away, AT SCHOOL! The sudden worry I had wasted the day was met with a shiver. With that shiver came the scratching of something at my hide. Was something on top of me? It felt like a blanket. If that janitor came in here and put that pee soaked rag on my head while I was sleeping so help me...
With a cautious sniff, I waited for the smell of a buck's room to hit my nose, but what I was worst worried about was replaced with... Lavender? Sniffing again confirmed my suspicions and laid my worst fears to rest, but now I had to figure out why I was smelling lavender. It was sweet smelling too, almost like a sugar coated flower in the springtime, but with a hint of something else. Something I could not quite place.
My darkness was broken by the sudden appearance of a hoof lifting whatever it was covering my face, letting the light into my darkened hiding place. The world was fuzzy at first, but soon came into focus as the pony who had covered me up came into view. Was that? Was it the mare from the night before? In my sleepy state I was having a hard time telling if it was her or not. She leaned in close to look under the cloak and sure enough, the bright blue eyes were confirmation enough. I picked my head up from the table and looked around the room slowly. Just as I did, I felt the jacket she had placed over me being pulled away.
"H...Hi." I stammered out. This was embarrassing! She must have found me here and been laughing the whole... oh, right... "Sorry, I forgot."
She smiled back at me and proceeded to work her pencil to write on a stray piece of paper. After she had finished, she used a wing to slide it in front of me.
"Hi! You fell asleep. You were shivering so I covered you up, I hope you don't mind." She wrote.
"Thank you. But what are you doing here?" I asked, sliding the paper back to her. She rolled her eyes, trotted to my side, pulled up a chair and began to write again.
"What are YOU doing here?"
"Ok, fair point... I thought today was Friday and now I am here."
"But why were you sleeping here?"
"I fell asleep... Tends to happen when you are board... You still didn't answer my question." I said, raising an eyebrow.
"I come here to study, and to be alone." Oh good. Now I'm disturbing her. I can't blame her, I have been told numerous times by my father that I have a bad habit of snoring.
"Sorry... I'll go. I didn't know." I said now feeling more out of place than a round peg in a square hole. As I got up to leave, I felt her hoofs grab my waist and push me back in my seat. Always so insistent! We had only just met and she was already getting grabby. I looked back to her thinking I was about to be lectured for disturbing her a second time, but all I saw was the face of a pony that looked almost lost for words. Ok, that was a horrible thought. Lets go with... she looked scared that I was about to leave her there alone. Much better. "You want me to stay?"
She nodded her head but never broke that sad expression that was otherwise ruining her cute smile that I remembered.
"You can stay. You are almost as quiet as me." She wrote, drawing a little smiling pony to end her sentence. Cute. Why do mares always... never mind. I looked out of the window and out into the still pouring rain... What were the Pegasi doing!? Beating the leafs into submission!?
"I think I would like to stay." I said still staring out the window. "What's your name?" I asked as I tried to tame my now out of control mane. I looked like a drowned rat that had been dried by way of electroshock after my dosing off. Laughing at me, she began to write once more.
"I would like that too. My name is Whistle Wind."
"Whistle Wind?" I asked in disbelief that her parents would name their child that could not speak something like that. But before I could finish my thought, she held true to her name and began whistling a soft noise I had heard before. It was the same one my mother would do to bring the cardinals in to feed when she would put out seed for them. It sounded just like her, if I closed my eyes, I could almost put myself back into that place in my life when she was still here.
She would always put out seed for them, every morning. Her calling them would ring through the house in soft tones that signaled the beginning of another day and that breakfast would be ready soon. It was something that I had come to miss that I had often overlooked when she was around. Something that I would still wake up listening for to this day in fact.
I felt a hoof on mine and looked down. I must have dazed out in thought because she was trying to get my attention.
"Oh, sorry." I said, snapping myself back to reality.
"Are you ok? You look sad? Did I upset you?"
"No, no! Just... it brings back memories is all."
"Bad memories?" She wrote with a look of worry across her face.
"I wish... You don't miss bad memories. My name is Caskade. Nice to have met you."
We must have spent hours waiting on the rain to stop, all the while her passing me notes and me asking questions while answering her's. Despite the verbal barrier, I found myself lost in conversation with her. I explained to her why I had gotten so lost in thought when she produced the same tone as my mother and how me and my father came to find ourselves in ponyville. Despite my trying to convince her that everything was fine now, she kept insisting that she would never make that noise around me again.
When she finally got the point, I learned that she was an only child just like me and that her parents where both employees at the weather factory. Even though Cloudsdale had a fine school system, they had insisted on her going to Canterlot for high school. Apparently this place was the only one in the area that specialized in cases like hers. Even though it was a long flight and the cost of going here was high, they still wanted better for their only daughter.
Despite my asking, she did not want to talk about her condition. As much as I wanted to know more about it, I thought it better to not pry too far into her personal life with things going so well between us. Even if it was driving me nuts not knowing. But then again, this was as close to anypony as I had been in as long as I could remember and if she had boundaries then I should at least try and respect them.
After when felt like no time at all, the rain finally stopped and before us lay a literal mountain of papers that we had created together. To say it was a life's story worth was far too accurate. Even after the Pegasi had pushed the clouds away and the sun had dried the streets, we had continued chatting. It wasn't until she looked at the clock that things finally came to an end.
"I have to be going. My parents only work half a day today and want to see me." She began packing her things away and cleaning the piles of papers from the table into a neat little stack.
"Oh, I can get those for you. I can toss them on my way out." I said as I reached out for them, but my hoof was slapped in doing so. "Ow! Why!?" I shouted as I cradled my sore hoof.
"You don't throw away memories, you never know which ones are going to matter." She wrote on the last page before showing it to me and tucking them away in he bag.
"Speaking of memories, will we get a chance to do this again?" I asked as the two off us trotted out the door. i looked to her for conformation and sure enough, it was met with a nod.
As we stepped out into the cool fall air, it dawned on me that this was the perfect time to return her homework she had dropped. I began to digging in my bags for the assignment and quickly produced it in my teeth for her to take. I tapped her shoulder and tried to say 'You dropped this last night' but the results were lest than poetic.
"Um... ou droft iss ras ni" I mouthed with a grin. She snorted and covered her mouth in shock as if she had just cursed. "Wha..." I replied. Again, another snort but this time she was scrunching her nose up trying to laugh, but no sounds came out. I wanted to feel bad for her, but she was making hard to with how cute and aggravating she was being. "Jus tay da ting, preash!" Great, now she's hugging the railing and trying not to fall over.
In frustration I started to put it back in my bag but was stopped by a wing that guided my face back to her now tears-of-laughter soaked face as she pressed a cheek next to mine and bit down beside me. My brain short circuited. This was basically kissing! Why was she doing that!? I let go of the paper and stood shaking in my hooves as she pulled it away from me. But I just met her, why would she feel comfortable doing something like that!?
Before I could gather my thoughts enough to say anything, I felt a pair of warm lips on the very same cheek and proceeded to melt into the ground. I fell back to my haunches and sat slack-jawed, lost in the moment of what just happened. If I was flabbergasted before, I was now effectively comatose.
With a tearing sound and a gust of wind, she rose into the sky and began flying away from me, leaving only a piece of paper in her wake. I watched it drift down in front of me before landing in my out stretched wing for me to see. I unfolded the parchment to read what she had left for me to find.
"I had fun! Hope I see you in the clouds later."
I folded up the paper and started to throw it away, but was stopped by what she had said in the library. "You don't throw away memories, you never know which ones are going to matter." Maybe it was all the new feelings I was starting to feel or maybe it was just wanting to do right by her. But I carefully folded up the note and placed it in my saddle bags and made sure to do the clasp.
I took to the skies and pointed myself away from the school. So much had happened today. What started out as a bad day had turned into one that I know I am going to remember for a long time. As I flew closer and closer home, I found myself mentally kicking my own flank over not asking to fly her home. It wasn't THAT far, only two hours one way, I could have done that. Even still, I was going to see her again tonight... if I could find her that was.
With that very thought, my brain refused to let me stop thinking about her for even a moment. Before I knew it, I had already flew past my house and off towards the Everfree Forest. She wouldn't take that long to show up, right? I could wait. I'm good at waiting.
Art work by the very talented: MidnightPremier
Whistles
Caskade Harmony