Essix sat on a cushion under an overhang in front of the royal library, an open book hovering in his pink magic while a light rain pattered the cobblestone walkways of the outer castle grounds. Despite looking like he was reading the book, he was actually watching the solitary guardsmare across the street as she stood in front of the Royal Archives. This was the very same guard from the previous chapter- one Sunrise Shields. Essix was also waiting for the bus so he could go to work, but that's less important.
As for his visit to the roof mentioned earlier, he had tried to go up there to converse with some random entity called the narrator. You wouldn't know them. Definitely not me. Even if it was me, I time-skipped to the bus stop, so I didn't hear anything he said.
Anyway.
“She’s pretty good-looking, isn’t she?” said a silvery voice from Essix’s left, startling him to the point that the book he was “reading” fell out of his magic. Before it could hit the ground, the book was caught by a green feathered wing with sea-green tips, presumably that of a pegasus.
Essix almost said "Hua wah hah wubah," which would've been funny, but instead he didn't. He took the book out of the wing with his magic, and then looked over to see who had snuck up on him.
Sitting on a dark blue cushion next to him was a tall, speckled green pegasus mare with an orangey-yellowey-orange-yellow mane. She smiled at him and held out a banana to him with her other wing. "Banana?"
Essix was not one to turn up his nose at free food, and while it was a bit odd, he took the banana in his magic and set it on top of his book. "...Thanks?"
"I'm Fruit!" said the pegasus suddenly.
"You're a pegasus." replied Essix, a bit confused.
"Yep!" She replied cheerily.
"Not a fruit." Essix continued.
The pegasus's eyes went wide for a moment before she laughed. "No, silly. That's my name. Fruit Flier."
Essix felt a little embarrased. "O-oh. Nice to meet you."
They sat in silence for a few seconds before Fruit spoke up again. "...And you are?"
"Oh! Sorry! I'm Essix."
"Nice to meet you too, Essix."
They sat for a few seconds before Essix broke the silence. "So..."
Fruit looked over to him. "So, that mare across the street you keep glancing at is really cute, wouldn't you say?"
"U-uhh-" stammered Essix. His stammering was interrupted by Fruit. The pony, not the banana.
"Not as cute as my marefriend, but that's just personal taste, you know? You should go talk to her."
"Excuse me?" Essix stared at the pegasus like she had five heads. Not like she had six heads, though, as that's too many.
"Go, like, say hi. Say that you think she's cute."
"What?"
"Oh and you can give her this banana. It's a good banana." Fruit held out a second banana in her wing.
"Look, I- I don't even know you- or her- and you want me to ask her out? I already got rejected once today."
"Trust me." Fruit replied with a winning smile. "It'll go fiiiiiiiiine." The rain suddenly stopped, and weather pegasi above pushed the clouds off to somewhere else.
"No, no, this is crazy." Essix shook his head.
He was right, though. It was crazy. Crazy enough that it might work, perhaps? Maybe?
Essix looked up. "You really think so?"
"Yeah! I believe in you!" replied Fruit, startling Essix.
"Fine." Essix got up and set his book and fresh banana on the cushion before taking the other banana from Fruit's outstretched wing. "I'll try."
Essix started across the street, determination and a bit of fear in his eyes. He had taken five steps when he was startled by a loud HONK from the bus that he was in the way of. He almost did a backflip, which would've been funny, but instead he flailed and accidentally threw the banana into the air.
"ESSIX GET THE BANANA!" yelled Fruit from where she sat.
Essix dove majestically and caught the banana.
"Potassium." said Fruit.
So anyway, the bus. It wasn’t a bus in the sense that you or I would recognize it as such, as it was little more than a covered cart with a plethora of seats in it, but that’s the term ponies used to refer to such a transportation method. Originally, busses were pulled by a team of up to twelve pegasi depending on the size of the bus and distance it needed to travel. These teams had to be highly skilled in order to not flip the bus while it was in flight. It was accidents where this happened (the flipping) that caused ponies to attach wings and stabilizers to busses, as well as reduce their size a bit. For some time, a moderately sized bus could be pulled by just two pegasi, given that they had a large enough takeoff strip. With recent magical augmentation developments, busses are able to almost hover on their own above the ground, even at full occupancy. The hover crystals that cause this also help to keep the bus oriented towards any force that might cause a passenger to fall out, thus allowing the pegasi pullers to take sharper turns if required. A little fun factoid for you: the initial tests for the hover crystals allowed the entire cart to hover on its own, but the increased power needed to do such a thing also impacted the “keep passengers in the bus” thingamajig so it kinda flung ponies. Really far.
Also! The honk! The honk was from the pegasus pulling this bus. Why they honked, I do not know. All I know is that they honked. Like a bus from our world.
Anyway.
Essix continued across the street, making sure to check both ways this time before crossing. As he got closer, he could see that Sunrise Shields (the guardsmare, if you've forgotten) had been watching him intently. Their eyes met for a moment, and they both looked away. Aww, how cute!
Essix finished his crossing and climbed the stairs up towards the guardsmare. As he approached, he could hear her whistling something off-key, and could see her looking anywhere but at him.
"Uh," he started.
A look of panic crossed Sunrise's face before she caught herself and turned back to guard mode.
Sunrise Shields was (and still is) an earth pony. Imagine Sunset Shimmer, the baconhorse herself. Now imagine Sunset's sister. Simply said, Sunrise Shields is Sunset Shimmer's sole Sister. Sunrise's mane, which was partially hidden under her guard helmet, was a sunrise-yellow with a single sunrise-orange stripe. The back of her mane was braided neatly. Sunrise's coat was a sunrise-orangey-yellow.
In the time it took you to read that, absolutely nothing happened. Essix and Sunrise stood across from each other awkwardly avoiding eye contact and not saying anything. Across the street, Fruit Flier facehoofed.
"So!" they both said at the same time. "Oh! Sorry!" they both continued to say at the exact same time. There was a moment of silence as each waited for the other to speak before they both spoke up again "You go first! Sorry!" There was another silence and then, again at the same time "Really, you go first!"
The curse was broken when Essix was beaned (or perhaps banana'd) in the back of his head with a banana, which had been thrown by Fruit Flier who was still across the street. "Ow!" said Essix, not at the same time as Sunrise because Sunrise did not say ow because she had not been banana'd in the back of the head by Fruit Flier who was still across the street.
"Oh! Are you alright, Essix?" asked Sunrise. "Was that a... banana?"
"Yeah, sorry." replied Essix, rubbing the back of his head. "It did desync us though!"
"Yeah. I guess that's good. So, uh..." Sunrise's eyes suddenly found the ground very interesting. "Uh, why'd you come over here?"
"Well, uhh, I, uhh, so, uhh, well, you see, erm, Stars, uh, so..." Essix stammered and looked up to the sky as if looking for help.
The next thing Essix said was I think you're cute.
"Uh, I think you're cute!" said Essix with a tad too much enthusiasm. He continued to look up into the sky, not wanting to see Sunrise's reaction.
"Uh," started Sunrise. "Your sword. It's cutting into the concrete."
"Oh!" Essix looked down and he was indeed leaning on his sword again and it was indeed slowly cutting into the concrete beneath. "Sorry. Bad habit." He sheathed the cursed sword and glanced at Sunrise quickly before returning his gaze to the sky. She had been blushing, and it was very cute.
"You think I'm cute?" asked Sunrise, her voice wavering a little.
Essix put his sunglasses on with his magic before looking at the guardsmare again. He felt so much more comfortable with them on. "Yeah. You're pretty cute. Do you want to date?" Mentally, Essix Darryl Gertine Yonniccan was beating himself up. He thought he sounded stupid, and to some that may have been the case. "You're not helping." he grumbled to himself, too quiet for Sunrise to hear.
"I-uh, well!" said Sunrise, pulling Essix's attention away from his mental beatup. "I... I honestly want to say yes, but maybe we should just hang out first. Become friends! Yes! That!"
"Oh, uh, okay. Yeah, that sounds cool." Despite the dating denial, Essix felt a little excited at the prospect of hanging out with another pony his age. He did his best to hide his growing excitement but it squidged its way out as a slight fluttering of his folded wings. "Oh, uh, here." Essix held out the banana in his magic. "For you."
Sunrise took the banana in her hoof. "Thanks. I like bananas."
Across the street, Fruit Flier whispered to herself "Potassium." Nopony heard her.
Essix settled his wings. "So, uh, when do you want to hang out?"
"Are you free tonight?" Sunrise moved her hoof as if pushing hair out of her eyes, but there was no hair to push, so it was more of a face wipe without really wiping anything.
"Yeah, uh," Essix took a moment to think. He had his job, but that probably wouldn't take too much time, so he should be fine. He wasn't visiting his mother until tomorrow, the chess match with Spades was on Thursday, and he met his weekly demon fight quota already, so everything should work out fine. "Yeah. That'd work. Wanna meet back here then?"
"That'd be perfect, actually." Sunrise tipped her head in thought. "I get off at seven, so we can meet a bit after that?"
"Yeah. Yeah that'd work." Essix nodded. He continued nodding. Essix should stop nodding. Essix stopped nodding suddenly.
Across the street, a bus pulled up. Essix looked over and saw that the bus was his bus. Well, not a bus he owned- really just the bus he needed to take to get to his job.
"Uh, that's my bus." He flashed a quick smile before turning and starting down the stairs. When he was almost at the bottom, he turned and shouted up at Sunrise "I'll see you later!" He continued walking backwards as he did so and almost fell off of the curb, which would've been funny, but I said "almost" because he did not fall off of the curb and thus there was no funny.
"See you later Essix!" Sunrise Shields shouted back while she waved. She watched Essix get to the other side, hoofbump the green pegasus at the bus stop, and get on the bus. Her brown eyes, which I forgot to mention were brown until now, tracked the bus as the bus pegasus pulled it up into the sky. She breathed a massive sigh of relief before doing a little dance on the spot.
"I can't believe Essix wants to hang out with me!" Sunrise said to herself. "I'll have to tell the others at our meeting tomorrow!" She stopped dancing to think. "But I could also not tell them and keep him all to myself! What to do?"
My dear reader, you may have realized by now that Sunrise is indeed part of the small-but-dedicated Essix Darryl Gertine Yonniccan Fan Club. By some miracle, Essix was completely unaware of its existence, which is why I've never mentioned it when he was around. I don't need him to have an even bigger ego, after all.
There was a sudden flash from the alley next to the royal archives, and out from the alley walked a light purple alicorn. Not Twilight Sparkle. I would never be so lucky. No, it was Starlight Glimmer, from the future. And that, dear reader, is where we leave Starlight and Sunrise so we can follow Essix at his job in the next chapter, and most definitely not because Starlight is looking for me.