//------------------------------//
// On The Job 
// Story: New World, New Beginning 
// by Speven Dillberg 
//------------------------------//

IMPORTANT NOTE:
My editor got around to it about 15 hours ago. I suggest re-reading this chapter for the changes he made.





Postie groaned and strained under the weight of the saddlebags. “This is heavy,” he said redundantly.
“You’ll get used to it,” Ditzy replied from the counter. 
“I hope so,” the stallion exclaimed as he managed to get airborne. There wasn’t much room for flight in the post office, but he was still happy that he could achieve flight with what felt like twenty bricks weighing him down. “Is this all of the mail?”
“There might be a few late letters, but yeah, that’s most of it.” Ditzy yawned as she reached for her cup of coffee. “You don’t have to get going for another five minutes or so. By now, most of the town knows we have a new mailpony, so it won’t matter too much if you get a few letters mixed up or late.”
“Oh. That’s good.” There was a brief silence as Ditzy took a sup from her cup. “Hey, are there any good restaurants around here?”
Ditzy raised an eyebrow and aligned both eyes so she could look properly at the stallion. “You do know I’m married, right?” she asked playfully.
Postie rolled his eyes. “I’m asking because there’s a filly I want to take out, and I thought that because you live here you would know a good place to go.”
Ditzy put a hoof to her chin and started to think, her blonde mane hanging limply in front of her lazy eye. “Well, there are a few, but the best is probably Stableside.” Ditzy smiled as she chuckled to herself. “Then again, I don’t think Rainbow Dash is the kind of pony who’d want to go to some fancy restaurant.”
“Yeah, that’s probab- wait. How do you know I was talking about Rainbow?”
Ditzy couldn’t help but laugh at the confused stallion. “One of the best things about being the mailpony is that you get to see everything that happens around here. Lemme see...” One of her eyes drifted lazily as she compiled a mental list of the interesting going-ons within Ponyville. “The Cakes are considering hiring Bon Bon, Quill and Sofa is about to go under, Aloe and Lotus the Spa Ponies are having a rather nasty fight and Big Macintosh is trying to work up the resolve to ask Fluttershy out.”
Postie blinked as he took all that in. He didn’t know anything about the first three things the wall-eyed mare had said, but the last one he definitely did. “Wait. Big Macintosh. Red coat, orange mane, barely speaks?”
“Yep.”
“And Fluttershy? Butter yellow, pink mane, scared of her own shadow?”
“Uh huh.”
“And he’s trying to - ?”
“Yep.”
The stallion hovered there, his hooves moving through the air as he tried to pull some incredible mental gymnastics. “One of them barely talks to anypony, the other hides behind her own mane. If that goes anywhere, I will give you a hundred bits.”
Ditzy chuckled. “Maybe you should wait until you get paid before making that kind of promise?” the mailmare asked. Postie kept his mouth shut, silently conceding that she had a point. “Oh, there was one other thing.”
“There was?” Postie asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Yeah. That strange monkey-thing that was living with Twilight Sparkle. It vanished. Nopony else really seems to care, either.” She put her head on her hoof again and went deep into thought. “And then you started living there.”
Postie started to stammer, trying to think of a good lie. “Oh, uh, y’see, there’s a good reason. It’s, uh, um...” He fell silent and decided that giving up would be a good idea.
Ditzy’s eyes narrowed and both pupils focused on him again. “I knew it. I knew it!” she said triumphantly. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Uh, I guess?” the confused stallion asked warily.
“I need you to tell Carrot Top that you are that monkey-thing.”
“Human,” Postie corrected. “And why?”
“She owes me ten bits, that’s why.”
“Okay then,” Postie said as he hovered towards the door. As he reached for the door knob, he paused and turned to the mare. “Why don’t you care that a little over a week ago I wasn’t a pony?”
Dtizy shrugged and pulled her eyes into a brilliant ‘derp’ expression. “Uhh, I dunno?” she asked, doing what Postie could only think of as a ‘rich white girl’ voice. “You live with the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. She’s in regular correspondence with the Princesses. Something had to happen eventually,” she said as she rolled her eyes, one making the full rotation before the other.
“That... makes sense,” Postie admitted. Too much sense, he thought. Looking at the grey pegasus mare, he couldn’t help but feel there was more to her than her rather simple appearance. There was a depth to her that made him worried. “Anyway, I have letters to deliver.”
“Have fun!” Ditzy called out as he disappeared.





His first stop on his route was Sweet Apple Acres.
“Mornin’!”
“Hey, Applejack!”
“First day on the job?”
“Yeah.” Postie stuck his head into his left saddlebag and, somehow, pulled out three letters addressed to Sweet Apple Acres. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Applejack looked at the letters and scowled. “Ah, horseapples,” she muttered. Postie blinked. “Bills,” she said in explanation.
“Ah. Sorry about that.” Postie hovered and scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“Ah, it’s not yer fault. Yer just the messenger. It’d be wrong to blame ya.” She waved him off with a hoof. “Now get goin’. Doncha got letters ta deliver?”
“Right. See ya later.”
“Bye!” Applejack called out as the pegasus flew back to Ponyville.





It was around midday when he got to the library with something for the unicorn who called it home.
“Now I know why my saddlebags were so heavy.”
Twilight levitated the pair of heavy tomes behind her as she gave the mailpony a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I didn’t think they would be a problem.”
“I nearly put my back out for a pair of books about...” Postie leaned over and read the title. “About ‘Ancient Legends and Tales’? Really?”
“I’m researching,” Twilight replied tersely.
“Hey, I’m not judging,” Posite said quickly, throwing his hooves up in a defensive manner.
Much...





“Oh... I have a letter?”
“The envelope has your name on it, so unless there is another pony called Fluttershy flying around here somewhere...” Postie and Fluttershy stood outside her little cottage, him looking at her as she grasped the envelope while still hiding behind her mane.
“No... I’m the only pony with that name,” the timid pegasus replied, completely missing the point. Postie rolled his eyes as he passed her the letter. “I wonder who it’s from,” Fluttershy said quietly. “I don’t usually get mail.”
“If you open it, you’ll see who sent it,” the mailpony said, pointing out the painfully obvious.
“Oh. Right.” Fluttershy delicately ripped off the top of the envelope and pulled out the letter as though it might explode. Postie decided that then would be a good time to continue on his rounds. Because of his departure, he failed to see the mix of joy and confusion written on the mare’s face as he flew off.





“Oh, thank you so much!”
“I’m just doing my job,” Postie replied bashfully, blushing slightly. The bright blue earth pony with the pink mane in front of him was quite pretty, he would freely admit, and the way she batted her eyelids was more than a bit distracting. He also found her accent, whatever it happened to be (the pony equivalent of French, maybe?) quite alluring. 
“Are you sure you can’t stay?”
“I’d love too, but the other ponies need their mail.” And I don’t want to know what Rainbow would do to me if she caught me here. He turned around to leave but found the door closed.
“Lotus!” another voice, similar yet subtly different to the mare behind him, called out. They both turned to see a mare whose mane and tail’s colours were the inverse of Lotus’. She also looked remarkably similar, “Please don’t tell me you are doing what I think you’re doing,” she asked, the disappointment clear for all to hear.
“Why does it concern you, Aloe?” Lotus asked, her voice making it clear that she wanted nothing to with this other one.
There were a number of thoughts going through Postie’s mind. Among them was Oh sweet Celestia they must be sisters and This feels like a bad porno. The most prevalent thought was I need to get out of here before Rainbow kills me.
“Because the last stallion you seduced tried to grab me.” Aloe was glowering at her sister, but Postie didn’t notice this; he was too focused on keeping his wings from popping up involuntarily.
“He said he was sorry!” Lotus replied, her voice filled with anger. “Why can’t you just accept that and move on?”
Postie didn’t hear any more as he had taken the fact that both sisters were looking the other way to make good his escape, the door slamming shut by the time he was halfway across Ponyville.





“I think I know why the Spa Ponies are fighting,” Postie said when he returned to the post office that afternoon.
“Hmn?” Ditzy asked as she looked up from the paperwork she was filling out, pen still in her mouth.
“Something to do with -”
“Abuh-buh-buh-buh!” Ditzy exclaimed, spitting the pen out so hard that it bounced and struck the ceiling. From there it sailed down and stung Postie in the flank, making him yelp in shock.
“Ow!”
“Sorry,” Ditzy replied apologetically. “Didn’t mean to do that.”
“That’s okay,” the stallion said as he rubbed where the small missile had struck. “Why did you spit the pen out, anyway?”
“I only told you those things this morning because more than half the town knows about all of that,” Ditzy explained. “Almost everypony knows that Aloe and Lotus are at each other’s throats, it’s having a serious affect on their business. What nopony knows is why.”
“But I know,” Postie pointed out, a little confused at the turn of events.
“And unless they say you can tell anypony else, it has to stay that way,” the blonde mare replied seriously. “Understand?”
“But why?” the stallion asked. “Telling somepony about this might go a long way to making things better.”
“It might, but you’d be breaking their trust. And as a mailpony, that’s twice as bad.”
“It is?” Postie asked, nonplussed.
Ditzy stared at him for a moment before comprehension dawned. “Right, you don’t know the history of Equestria.”
“I know about Nightmare Moon and Discord.”
“Yes, but there was a lot before that.” Ditzy took a deep breath before she went into her explanation. “Thousands of years ago, the three kinds of ponies were at war. Kind of. Mailponies, back then, were even more important than we are now.”
“Because they carried information about troop movements and supply lines?”
Ditzy raised an eyebrow at his interruption. “That’s a good guess.”
Postie shrugged. “You would not believe some of the stuff humans have done. So, that trust from all those years ago is still around?”
“A lot of ponies don’t remember the exact reason, but yeah. A mailpony is expected to deliver the message without revealing to anypony else what it says, and to do so without looking at it themselves.” Ditzy flew over the desk and retrieved the pen. “That’s why you can’t say a thing about Aloe and Lotus unless they ask you to. A mailpony who can’t be trusted doesn’t last long.”
Postie took all that in as he replaced the saddlebags. It all made sense. The same thing could be said of messengers on Earth. He was still a little disturbed that a race that seemed to practically worship the idea of love and tolerance were once capable of warfare, but Ditzy had said that it was thousands of years ago. 
“You can go if you want,” Ditzy said, snapping him out of his reverie. “Any letters we get after four get put with tomorrow’s stuff, and it’s four thirty.”
“No, I should help,” Postie said, landing behind the counter.
“I’m your boss. I’m telling you to leave,” she said seriously before letting a smile through. “While you were out there, I was able to catch up on two weeks of paperwork. You’ve been a big enough help already. Besides, I think Rainbow wouldn’t mind spending a bit of time with you,” she said slyly, nudging him the in the rubs with a wing.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go,” Postie said, relenting. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“I better see you tomorrow. Remember what I said about being trustworthy.”





Author's Notes
Okay, definitely nearing the end now.
The reason behind Post Haste's colouration is that I chose it to partly resemble the United States Postal Service uniform. They're a damn sight more reliable than Australia Post, I've heard.
Oh, and if anyone wanted a picture of Post Haste, and even if you didn't, here's one someone drew because I asked nicely.