Raindrops' Wrap Up

by Arkensaw Pinkerton

Chapter 1

You finish brushing your hair and pull on your blue weather vest with a smile. The sun hasn't quite risen yet, but that's no reason to lie about- today's Winter Wrap Up, your favourite day of the year. The work is hard, sure, but the rewards are correspondingly large. There isn't a feeling as satisfying as clearing the last roof in the town or finally tidying the grey skies completely away, unless it's the quieter thrill of leading the birds back home. Whatever job you're going to get this year, you figure you'd better get a little bit of work done around your own home before the big meeting in the town square. Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn who lives over at the library, tends to make Winter Wrap Up a breeze these days; but some habits die hard and you like knowing winter's squared away in your own little corner of Ponyville. You grab a shovel in your mouth and set out to start clearing the driveway, garden and roof.

You like this sort of physical labour- the hard graft that needs to be put in to achieve anything of substance. With a name like "Raindrops" you were probably always going to end up on the weather patrol, but you still find it satisfying work, even if your boss is a bit weird. You lose yourself in the work, getting warm with the exercise, and after almost an hour you're happy to take a step back into the road and admire your hoofwork. Just one thing left- you should sweep off your front steps and the little path down to the road. You should probably do it pretty quickly as well; that rising glow on the horizon means the sun's almost up, and ponies will already be gathering in the town square.

You start clearing the steps easily enough, but on the left-hand side of the bottom step there's a lump under the snow. It only takes a couple of seconds of digging to uncover a book. Book doesn't really do it justice- this thing is pretty big! It'll barely fit in one of your saddlebags. It's got a weird, pale glow around it that disappears when you touch it with your hooves, and you figure that's what was keeping the wet snow out of it. It's ornate, with a reinforced metal spine, and the elaborate calligraphy on the cover says "Amniomorphics". You think. It really is elaborate writing and you're pretty sure that's not a word. Whatever it is, it's a heavy book that belongs to somepony else, and you need to get to the town square.

To leave the book on your kitchen table and head to the town square, Click here for Chapter 2.
To put the book in a saddlebag and take it to the town square, Click here for Chapter 3.
To take the book to the library instead and risk being a little late for the meeting, Click here for Chapter 4.

Requests closed for this chapter!

By request, and creation, of the rather marvellous shutaro: a map of the story so far!