> Pick a feather > by Windigo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Strike One > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "All you had to do was take the box, and drop it off at the cloudhouse, what's so hard about that?" Crafty Crate raged at the red-haired stallion. "I know, sir but the rain-" he tried to reply, but was instantly interrupted by Crafty. "You know the motto, right?" he scoffed. "No matter what, rain, tornado, sleet, snow we'll get up and GO." The mailstallion glared at him sternly when Crafty turned around to pick up a box. "Here, you will be on shift twenty minutes longer, meaning the mailmares will have less time, and you more, and I want you to get this to the same home, as soon as possible." "Yes sir." He set off into the skies and drifted down to ponyville. He thought about another mailstallion taking his place and his cutie mark would just be a fraud. 'A letter, on my flank, what would that mean if I got fired?' he thought to himself. He landed at a cloud home right above ponyville. A blue pony with a rainbow mane came out to take the box and thanked him for the order of Daring Do books. He dashed back to the mailcloud, and grabbed more boxes and flashed to all kinds of homes, cloudhouses, warehouses, farms. He whiped his forehead, as he heard a call from below. "Hey, Special!" "Special Delivery, it's me, Note!" a blue stallion yelled from the ground. He flew down to the stallion. "Oh, what's up?" Special Delivery asked. "I saw you dashing 'cross the sky a few minutes ago, nice work!" he encouraged his friend. "I'm only working way harder than usual because I'm gonna get fired if I don't." he clopped his hooves on the pavement. "Fired...?" he looked at Special Delivery. "You wouldn't be fired, you're one of the best, right?" "Apparently not, Crafty is already looking into a new mailstallion, maybe Thunderlane will get the job." "Well, that's depressing, I'll see ya' later, Specs." Noteworthy ended the conversation, and trotted away. Special Delivery walked through the crowd surrounding the Town Hall's events. He spent two hours walking around town, wondering what he would do without his job. Maybe he could join the ground earth ponies? But no, he wouldn't be accepted because he had already been fired from one mail job, but then he bumped into a sign and hit himself on the forehead giving him an agonizing migraine. He flew to his cloudhouse and shut the door to lay in his one-bed room. He prayed to Celestia he wouldn't lose his job, because his life was boring, but homeless, educationless, and boring? He wouldn't want to live that life. He decided to just try to keep his job. He realized that it was the only thing that would keep his life moving, but if he lost his job he wanted to become a writer. On this day it was stormy, lightning, rain, and he still had to work as hard as he could. He flew up to the mailcloud and grabbed bags and stuffed them full of mail, dashed across each house, with the right mail, right box, and back. When he was finally done, the worst thing that could happen, did happen. His right wing was struck by a lightning bolt, and he fell to the ground, if he didn't land on a hay-roofed home, he probably would've died. He rolled off of the roof and onto the ground, which caused a loud bump, almost gunshot like. The beautiful mare, the owner of the home came out to see what happened, and she saw Special lying on the muddy gravel. The mailstallion woke up to the mare, and three nurses surrounding him. "He's awake, Miss Redheart." the mare called. Everything was blurry from the fall, and he was still focusing in, and finally saw the mares appearance. "Hello" he sat up, only his wing and his left back leg were injured. "Hi." the mare waved. The nurse rushed in. "Thanks for caring for this stallion, you are welcome to stay or leave." the nurse told her. The stallion was questioned by the nurse, he told her everything and the mare listened closely. The nurse walked out of the room and let the stallion stay until he was able to leave the hospital. He was sure of it, he knew it, he would lose his job when he got out of this hospital. The mare walked up to Special. "So I hear that your name is Special Delivery?" she asked him. "Yes, it is, yours?" he replied to keep the dialog going. "My name is Amethyst Star." she smiled. "You're a mailpony, I noticed, must be a fun job, hm?" "It's fun, and also hard work." he chuckled. He looked into the mares eyes, and she looked into his, they smiled and felt a new feeling, a bond from only four sentences of dialog. The nurse walked in, and smiled, she placed a plate of food on the table next to his bed and closed the door quietly, the mare was out of her trance and looked at her watch and blushed. "I have to go, it's getting late." she announced. "I'll come back later to visit, er, Special." she smiled and walked out. "Bye." he whispered to himself and looked at his wing. He definitely knew he felt love for this certain mare, he knows she probably didn't feel for him, so he would only visit to just thank her. By the time he could get out and use his wheel chair, he wanted to not worry about how his life would turn out anymore, he knew that he just had to do the right thing all his life for destiny to just take its place. He thought about her purple eyes staring deep into his green eyes. He wanted to see her again already, he finally understood life was just more than work. It was about bonds too. He looked at the clock the rest of the day, and next to him was the blue pony with the rainbow mane opening and closing the curtains rapidly, he rolled his eyes and looked at the clock. He fell to sleep. The town was all grey, his wing wasn't broken, and he was in the mailcloud, he turned into Crafty, and saw himself firing himself. He saw himself flying down to Amethyst Star's home, and she opened it, then slammed it, he followed himself in the grey, almost black looking town, and they flew to his house. He watched himself mope on the bed, and get up, walk to the front of his cloud home, close his wings and jump. When he saw himself get to the first inch of the ground, he woke up with a pounding headache. "Aah!" he shouted. The nurse walked in to see what the problem was. "Are you okay, Special?" "Just a dream." he told her. "Well, your wheel chair is ready." she told him. Special Delivery rode his cast towards Amethyst Star's home, he watched the rainbow maned pony dash through the sky leaving a rainbow trail behind her. He stopped at her door and ringed the bell above it. "Anyone here?" The mare walked out of her home. "Oh, you're out of the hospital?" "Yup, I'll heal my leg and have to return in three days, my wing could be permanent though." he said. "Wait, don't you have a cloud home up there?" she asked the poor stallion. "Yeah, that's why I need somewhere to stay, I'll look for a rental later." he looked up at the mailcloud's distant shadow in the sky by the blinding rays of sunlight. "Are you sure?" she asked him. "Yes, I am." he tried to reassure her, he obviously didn't understand she was giving him an offer. "I'll let you stay here, if you need." she finally told him. "Oh?" he noticed what she was trying to do. He stared at her and looked back at his cloud. "Sure, I will, thanks." She invited him in, and he sat on his wheelchair and looked at the paintings surrounding the room. > Strike Two > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, what do you usually do?" he asked her. "Oh, well I'm a writer, and I'm kind of good at magic." she smiled. "I can show you some!" she laughed, and levitated a lamp, three pictures, the refrigerator, and herself, and replaced their spots, and then switched them back. "Wow!" he gasped. "Yeah, well just good enough." she giggled. "What do you do instead of mailing?" she asked him. He listened closely to her question, and sighed. "Nothing, really. It turned into my life when I joined the business." "Awh, I bet you have lots of money." she told him. "I.." he never payed attention to how much money he had, he probably had about ten thousand bits in his cloud drawer at home. He was glad he locked the door. "I probably do." he told her. "Do you have any bedrooms?" he asked her. "Only one." she told him. They both automatically blushed and looked away. "I have an inflatable..." she reassured him he would get somewhere to rest. "Okay, thanks." They both looked outside at the sunset, and blushed. The sunset looked like a sparkling orange, blue and purple heart rushing through the sky and down. The clouds began to swirl and wrap around the moon that was now falling to the place where the sparkling heart was. The sunset was over. "So you say you're a writer?" he asked. "What do you write about?" he continued questioning. "Oh, well just normal life, adventures, times, where I'd like to be." she answered kindly. "I'm getting kind of tired." he told her. "Should I sleep in this living room, or..?" "The inflatable can be in the front of my bed." she replied, with a long yawn afterwards. They both went into the room, and she turned on the inflatable, and he laid on it. The night was getting longer, but neither of them could sleep. He looked up out of the window. He thought of how he never thought about love before two days ago. "Can you sleep?" she asked him. "No, I really can't." he replied. He got up and crawled to the right side of her bed and put his shoulders on the bed and stared at her. She blushed. "Thanks for taking me in for these three days." he kindly thanked her. "Your welcome." she looked down at him. "Hey, if that inflatable is uncomfortable... you can er, get in this bed." she offered. "Sure." he got in the bed, and looked at her. They stared at each other, and smiled. "Amethy-" he was going to speak but he was interrupted by her. "Special, I really like you, and... would you like to go out to dinner sometime...?" she asked him. "I was going to ask you that, and yes!" he exclaimed, and hugged the mare. It was the middle of the night, and they began to kiss, Special licked her tongue and she blushed, she pushed him away and they were only awake having fun the rest of the night. In the morning they were both in awkward positions. "Guah!" Special awoke with his arm around Amethyst's lower torso, mouth in crotch area, he rolled over and fell off the bed, which awoke Amethyst. "Ouh!" he grunted. "Wh-what happened?" Amethyst Star looked down at him. Special looked at the box of condoms on the desk by the bed. "Nehhh?" he was confused, but he did remember last night. They went out for a walk together, as it was a clear, sunny day, and they didn't forget the awkward moment of the earlier morning. They looked at the houses, they looked nice, they both knew that they wanted to share their lives together, but neither of them had the courage to say it, They grabbed snacks from the Hay Barrel, and had a picnic. They have only known each other for two days but they are already in love. When their date is over they bump into Noteworthy. "Special?" he looked at the mare. "You're with Sparks now?" he asked him. "Sparks?" Special didn't know what he was talking about. "Me and Noteworthy were buddies in school." she told Special. "Oh. Yes, I'm with Amethyst now..." he reassured Noteworthy. "You're marri-" Noteworthy was going to ask if they were married, but Special knew what he was going to ask. "No, we're just dating." he explained. "Oh, best wishes that you do get married!" As they walked around the town they saw all the ponies they rarely talked to. They sat down at a romantic spot, the peak of Ponyville Hills, they watched the moon rise, a sparkly sunset before it. They were happy. In just one day, they could actually get together. Maybe Special would propose, she thought. He was planning to. He really does love her. He wants to. They woke up to a nice morning, and they went to use the blimp to fly to his home. His leg was better after they went to the hospital to treat the injury. His wing was still healing. When they were in the blimp ride, they didn't know it was going to be as romantic as it was. They snuggled the whole time going up the blimp, and they finally stopped at the home. > Strike Three, You're in! > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- When the blimp landed, they took the furniture, money, and everyday household objects to Amethyst's home. The cloudhouse was empty, and it was sold for 500. When he figured out that he was not fired for his injury, just on hold, Thunderlane did take his place, only temporarily. When Amethyst and Special got home, Special had a 'gift' for her. When she looked at him, he got on his backlegs, opened a small box with a feather of his wing, and he asked, "Amethyst Star, will you marry me?" he asked the purple mare. "Yes!" she replied gladly.