Clouds were always so comforting to her. Even if the most she could do was lay on the biggest hill outside Ponyville and watch as they passed lazily overhead.
But, right now, she was high in the sky among them. None of her troubles could bother her up here, they just seemed so inconsequential. How could she be worried when her whole world looked like a snow-globe?
An outstretched hoof gently cleaved through a cloud, sending the two halves slowly spiraling away. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. That airy feel of weak thermals, the soft hints after a rainfall, damp patches in her coat as she grazed the errant cloud here or there.
Beside her, holding her hoof, was just another pony, smiling back at her under a ruffled mane. It was just them, together as they glided through the sky. That would be the one thing that could make this dream event better.
Quiet meowing roused her and she rolled under her thin sheets to come nose-to-nose with bright green eyes.
"Good morning, Mercury." The cat purred and rubbed his tickling whiskers up against the side of her muzzle. "I know, I know, it's time for breakfast."
Strands of blue that weren't stuck pointing in random directions fell over her eyes and she squinted at the soft glow of morning filtering in through her open window. Her mane lit up with a soft gold hue as her magic folded up her sheets at the foot of the bed. Mercury crouched with a twitch of his tail before pouncing on them, her aura dissipating just before he touched down. Quick work was made of untidying her efforts, his paws stretched towards the rafters as he wriggled.
A short sniff and a soft hum was reward enough for his antics. With a perk of his ears, his front legs slowly lowered to his chest and he swiveled to look at her, upside-down. "Having fun?"
He meowed loudly.
Floorboards creaked weakly under her hooves as she pushed herself out of bed and made her way for the door. A passing glance reminded her and she pulled the window closed before releasing the blinds. The door's bolt clicked open after her magic grasped the handle, sending Mercury rolling off the end of the bed with a solid thunk. His trilling warbled in time with his pattering run as he rushed to squeeze through the door and take off down the hallway.
Frost pulled a hair brush from off of her dresser and stuck it in her mane, jutting out alongside her horn. Magic pulled the door shut behind her after she took a few steps towards the kitchen. Mercury came hopping back down the hallway and walked underneath her, weaving between her front legs with a mighty pur.
With just a toss of her mane and a quick flick of magic, she sent the coffee machine into the familiar series of soft clicks as she entered her kitchen. The duo of small red bowls were retrieved from the sink and floated over to rest by the foot of the pantry. As soon as the food bag rustled, Mercury ambled over and sat, examining his growing pile of breakfast with a steely glare and a curl of his tail.
He half-rose, quietly crunching with his tail sticking straight up into the air, as she levitated the bag back on top of the pantry. She stood for a moment to roll her shoulders before springing into a cartwheel across the open space. A few pops and cracks made Frost's eyes twitch and she stopped in a headstand facing the windows. It was another clear day like it almost always was when it wasn't storming. Sure, she loved the clouds, but a clear blue sky always cheered her up. That was one of the reasons she moved here, after all.
Something thumped and she turned to face the pantry. There was Mercury, the flat of his head against the floor with legs sticking out into the air as he laid in that weird position. Frost giggled and kicked her legs while Mercury mirrored her with a wave of his paws.
The crunch she had been waiting for halfway down her back finally made itself known and she lowered herself to stand near the coffee pot with a light sigh. The mug under the spout was barely steaming as she removed it and set it on the table, bringing with it a small jug of vanilla cream. While rummaging in the pantry, she uncapped the creamer with her magic and added a measured amount to her mug in a counterclockwise swirl.
Frost sat at the table with a bowl of Frosted Oats and tucked in to a few heaping spoonfuls. She began tugging at the brush lodged in her mane as she chewed to deal with the daily tribulation of making it not look like a bird's nest. Another brush she had left on the windowsill was brought over in a gold aura to help tame her mane.
She tugged at the snarls and knots with a grimace as she happily munched away. After she finished her bowl, Mercury leaped up onto the table and meowed at her.
"Alright, alright," she relented with a wave of a brush. He quickly flopped onto his side and started purring as the brush ran through his fur.
After an intense brushing session on both of them, the brushes were levitated back to the windowsill and the bowl to the sink. Her nursed coffee was quickly refilled with another counterclockwise swirl of flavoring and she made her way downstairs to the first floor.
As her hoof touched down on the landing, she tipped her coffee cup towards the front door.
'WHAM' "Sorry!"
Frost chuckled softly to herself. "On time, as usual." The mail slot at the front of store rattled open and was quickly followed by the sound of receding wingbeats.
The coffee cup clinked down next to a framed picture of Frost and her cat sitting on the counter behind the cash register. She reached up a hoof and retrieved the desk key from the back of the picture before opening up the bottom drawer to retrieve the register tray. It stopped halfway into the register. "Oh, come on," she grumbled, but, with a well-placed strike, it slid into its proper place with the loud ring of a bell.
She continued around the store, drawing the blinds, tidying up displays of targets and arrows, and making sure that the bow strings were all hanging off the correct hooks. As she finished, she quickly levitated the few letters she received earlier up the stairs to rest on her table and unlocked the front door.
No sooner had she sat down that the first customer of the day arrived with a chime of the door. "Good morning, Geri," she called out.
The old stallion hobbled in with a smile. "Ah, I hope I'm not too early, there, Rainy."
"No, I just finished opening up. I haven't seen you in a while, what can I do for you?"
He craned his neck and idly scratched his throat. "Well, the grandfoal has been on a kick recently, something about some other ponies helping her find her cutiemark, they had some sort of day camp and everything, and they've gotten it in her head that she'd make a fine bowpony. Far be it from me to tell her what she can and can't do, but Archery?" He bobbed his head back and forth with a grimace. "I just would've liked it if she was interested in a real sport, you know, like Buck Ball."
She smiled and nodded at him with her eyebrows raised.
He sputtered. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that! After all, I've got a mark for Golf." He scratched the back of his neck as he looked anywhere but at the checkout counter.
Frost hummed softly. "I know, Geri. I can recommend a short draw length Recurve Bow with a light draw strength." She steps closer to a smaller display rack with an assortment of colorful and plastic bows.
Geri nodded sagely so she continued. "Just enough so she doesn't hurt herself but still enough to get the arrows downrange. And speaking of arrows, I've got some cheap, hollow, metal arrows with dull bullet tips that would be perfect for turning a small bale of hay into a pincushion." She collected a smaller pink bow off the wall and a half-dozen assorted neon arrows from a stand near the counter.
"Sounds about right, Rainy. Ring me up and I'll be out of your mane."
And she did ring him up, with a smile and a short speech on bow safety for his own benefit and so he could help the younger one stay safe. She even threw in a special return policy in case Geri's grandfoal decided that she really didn't like Archery after all. He passed her the bits in good spirits and took off towards home to get it wrapped for her birthday next week.
After that, a few ponies wandered by every now and then accompanying that pleasant chime. Most of them were either too indecisive to actually buy anything, but a few of them were there to pick up an odd or end here or there to keep up their hobby. She nursed her coffee like she usually did and it lasted a couple hours. Having a pleasant taste on her tongue helped her stay cheery through the morning.
It stayed pretty quiet and Frost decided to take an early lunch. Just a simple oat and chocolate granola bar and a small chunk of the strawberry gelatin from the fridge her mother had made for her the last time she had visited from Canterlot. Now that she thought about it, a glass of milk wouldn't go too badly with the rest of her meal. She quickly went upstairs and retrieved a glass.
She always liked it when she was right.
A grey paw reached up and playfully pawed at her mane, bringing her focus down to Mercury who stood leaning against the counter to stretch upwards towards her. With a snort and a flick of magic, Frost pulled her bow and ornate quiver out from under the front counter. Swirling patterns of crystal-clear sapphires twinkled while a few arrows left the quiver to hover at her side.
A few sharp taps of an arrowhead against the counter sent Mercury running, but he came back just as fast with a fuzzy feathered toy. She reached a hindhoof back to hit a lever, eliciting a few clanks and a low whir of clockwork gears as a display rack across the store sprang to life, slowly swinging away from the wall. It was a gift from Silver Spring for when his daughter had gotten into cahoots with the CMC and somehow left her store with one less wall.
Mercury charged across the room and sat looking up at the cork-lined target area, his tail curled erratically across the floor and his ears twitched to every jingle of his feather toy. The bow and arrow hovered next to Frost as she knocked the arrow, Mercury's toy dangling off the point.
She drew the arrow level with her eye. "Ready, Mercury?" Her muzzle turned up into a sly grin as his butt wiggled.
In an instant, the magic released, burying the arrow with a sharp crack and a jingle. Another arrow quickly replaced it as she pulled the string taut, quickly releasing it as Mercury leaped towards the wall.
Another sharp crack and he balanced for a moment on the shaft of the arrow before twisting around to jump further along the wall. As soon as his back paws left it, another arrow was poking out of the wall within perfect reach for the apex of his jump and he quickly kicked off of that one as well. A final arrow was embedded in the wall and Mercury perched with a twisting motion, looking up to his prize. With one last coiled spring, he ran up the wall and sank his claws into his toy.
Mercury hung there, greedily trying to disembowel the feathered toy with his hindlegs. Frost lowered her bow to stash it back under the counter. The manic jingling of the bell didn't cease as she made her way around the displays, carrying her quiver along in her magic, to stand below Mercury, looking up at him.
His head swiveled to look at her and he meowed with another kick at the toy.
She grinned, encasing all the arrows embedded in the target wall with magic before pulling them out. Mercury held fast as the arrow his toy was attached to hovered closer to the ground and he was unceremoniously plopped in a heap on the floor. He barely noticed, he was far too busy showing a feather a piece of his mind.
The arrows were stowed back in their decorative quiver and placed back alongside the bow with another quick kick to close the target wall. A quick jog upstairs and back to put away her dishes and she was ready to play the waiting game for customers again.
When she was back in view, Mercury paraded around the store with his toy dangling from his mouth. He stopped every now and then to trill at the ceiling or bat at the toy. A few victory laps later and he was curled up in a small fluffy bed off to the side of the entrance that was perfectly positioned to catch the sun under a window.
Of course, she didn't always just have her little Archery shop: "Raining Arrows". Nopony in Ponyville batted an eye at the name, but that didn't stop the rare occurrence of a tourist wandering in to have a giggle about it, though. She shrugged a little, the pun seemed like a good idea at the time, and she made a conscious choice not to flaunt her time in the Competitive Archery circuit in any advertising.
That was then, this was now.
But she wanted to be somepony, it's been her dream since grade school. Somepony who'd save the day without breaking a sweat, be lauded by the crowd at their triumphant return, have the stallions tongue-tied with envy and mares swooning at her hooves. She could be who they cheered for, who needed six heroines when one could do just fine?
She could picture it: that sleeping dragon that was going to inadvertently bring ruin to Equestria because of its snoring. She'd march right up to its cave, covered in the highest quality armor Canterlot's smiths could provide, commissioned by the Princesses themselves just for her. It would be a bright cobalt plate trimmed with gold and the hipguards emblazoned with perfectly cut sapphires to mirror her cutie mark. And she couldn't forget the wrought iron horn spiral inlaid with rune-etched, crystal-clear quartz that perfectly reflected her magic with a golden haze like a halo.
She would cut such a striking figure, if she did say so herself.
With a powerful stride, she entered the dragon's lair, her trusty bow held aloft in her aura while her quiver was filled to bursting over her withers. Snores reverberated around her, but she just continued, fear unknown behind a confident grin.
Suddenly, the snoring stopped, and the dragon rose from its slumber, towering over her like the spires of Canterlot itself.
She sneered up at him with a steely glare. "I've come to formally request that you vacate the premises posthaste and forfeit any and all possessions currently on the premises!"
The dragon blinked a few times.
"That means 'leave before I make you! And I'm taking all your stuff!'"
It roared down at her.
She roared back.
Frost took off in a Sprint as the dragon leaned down to swipe at her. She kept running, pulling debris from the rock face to act as a barrier between her and those razor claws. Stone chunks rained down on her and pinged off her armor, but she kept pulling more debris into her telekinetic field as her hooves hammered the cold floor.
A deft roll under his swinging tail brought her into his blind spot and she didn't waste a breath to take advantage of it. Her bow swung around, taut with a steel-tipped arrow, aimed at the dragon's snout before she loosed it.
It swung its head towards Frost with flames licking across his snout to cast eerie shadows around them. Just as it opened its mouth to breathe at her the arrow tore across his face, ripping scales free as he jerked away. Fire streaked the roof of the cavern with soot and stalactites turned to slag under the searing heat.
Frost smirked, that was far too easy.
She charged from her cover, raining arrows up at the thrashing behemoth. They pierced his wings and ripped the scales from his flesh as he wrought havoc upon his home. His sizable fortune was tossed about with reckless abandon and stone fell from above while he splintered the walls and rocky formations into sprays of dust and debris.
Frost effortlessly flickered barriers to divert the maelstrom around her as she continued her assault. Her ears were splayed back to offer what little protection they could against the deafening roars and cries as each arrow hit its mark. With quick spin, she pierced its chest between the slicing talons and it screamed with a chime.
Wait. Dragons don't chime.
A mare's laughter echoed through the store and shook Frost Rain from her daydream. "Now, Vitae, I agreed to let you come in here if you behaved."
"I am behaving," she called back to the grey stallion at the door. "I'm just not behaving well."
He and Frost both chuckled. "I guess that is what you agreed to, isn't it? Afternoon, Frosty," he greeted with a wave as he neared the counter.
"Afternoon, Basalt. Who's the smart one?"
He waved dismissively. "Ah, don't mind her, Vitae's just a really free spirit."
"You can't keep a good pony down, fight the powah" the rambunctious mare called from behind a stack of paper targets. A zombie target was held upside-down in her purple magic as she quizzically examined it.
Frost looked questioningly sideways at Basalt, but her brown eyes couldn't read his teal ones. He rolled his eyes with a soft chuckle before he answered. "Keep your chill, Frosty, she's only visiting on her way through."
The chartreuse and navy blue blur of a mare flopped bodily against the counter. "Hold your bits," she gasps, "you're Frost Rain? THE Frost Rain? Frost Rain, that my brother here just happens to know?" The shrill squeal of her voice sent both of the other ponies' ears back against their scalp. Mercury bolted out of his bed and clambered up the stairs seeking refuge.
"Um, the one and only?" Frost looked between the two, the mare's widened purple eyes were entirely too close for her liking. "Hi, can I help you?"
Vitae squealed again as she rapidly clapped her hooves alongside Basalt's groan and a rough rub of his face. She quickly recovered with a sparkle in her eye. "Of course you can! Can I have your autograph?"
"Uh..."
"Here!" She pulled a small notepad and a pencil out of a saddlebag and thrust them across the counter. "You can write it out to Vitae, that's 'V I T A E', oh, if it's not too much trouble, but I would really like that!"
With a cocked eyebrow, Frost quickly scribbled "To Vitae, it was lovely to meet you" and did a big curly signature at the bottom. It took a sizable effort not to write a question mark in there. She went to hoof it back, but it was ripped out of her grasp by a purple haze and rocketed after Vitae, who was already halfway out the door.
"Thank you~!" The door chimed erratically as it slammed shut, her jubilant call pinning the ponies' ears back again.
Frost couldn't help but just stand there and blink a few times. Basalt popped into the corner of her vision with a stack of paper targets that must have been scattered in that lively mare's wake.
Her ear twitched and her muzzle scrunched. "You have a sister?"
"Yeah, but we don't see each other much. Sorry I didn't mention her before, I didn't think it was important." Basalt cleared his throat. "I better go after her before she finds Sugarcube Corner. I'll tell you the rest over tea some time?"
Chimes sounded around the store as Basalt quickly made his escape without waiting for an answer.
Frost grimaced. "Vitae and Flare sure would get along like a house on fire..."
After a quick glance up at the clock to see that it was almost time for dinner, she headed back upstairs. Random sandwiches of what she had left over in the fridge were good enough for dinner.
She hummed while she washed the dishes after dinner. There were never much to do seeing as how it was just her and the cat. And she knew she couldn't go to bed without an empty sink, so it was better to just do it now that she wouldn't be making any more.
Ponies rarely came by during the evening hours so Frost simply made her rounds around the store as she reorganized items or neatened stacks. Then she'd closed and locked the display cabinets before she put the register's tray back in the locked drawer and the key in its hiding place. Mercury had found his way back downstairs at this point and laid on the counter watching her clean up the store.
Once she felt she had completed her rounds, she headed up the stairs, but a third of way up, her cat raced past to sit and wait at the top. Frost just grinned at him as she swept past and Mercury jumped to paw at her with a trill before he followed her back to the kitchen. Letters from that morning still sat on the table and were quickly sorted into bills, spam, and personal notes.
“Hey, Mercury,” his ears twitched, “we got a letter from mom.” It was torn open with practiced ease and quickly read. Her mother was doing fine, like she always was, she usually just wrote to Frost about what old friends she saw at the store or who she had over for tea every now and then. Frost placed the letter on the fridge with a magnet.
She reached and scratched Mercury's head. “We'll have plenty to write to her about after we meet Vitae, won't we?” He looked at her with a start and charged out of the room.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly.”
Bills for the shop were never outrageous, it was relatively small and the overhead was almost nonexistent. Ponyville was very small business friendly after all. Unsolicited mail didn't even get a second glance as she dropped it from her magic into the recycling bin by the trash.
One of the hairbrushes from the windowsill lazily lagged along behind Frost in her golden hue as she headed off to her room. As soon as she opened the door, Mercury came cantering out from wherever he had been hiding and slipped through the door before she closed it with a click of the lock. Blinds were drawn back, the window was propped open, and the hairbrush worked its way through her mane a few times as she pulled the covers over her bed.
Again, her cat soared through the air and pinned down sheets by yanking them out of her magic. With a soft hum, she quickly snagged him in a corner of the sheet and swaddled him up against his trilling. He just laid there purring while she got herself tucked in as well. The hairbrush was set aside on her dresser as she shook her mane a little.
“Good night, Mercury.” Another trill answered her and she gazed out her window at the moon before closing her eyes and fading off to sleep.