//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Under Re-Construction // Story: The Life and Times of a Tea Pony // by FlutterChai //------------------------------// “Hello! Is anypony home?” I heard a loud tapping at the window of the apartment, stirring me from a peaceful night of sleep. Pushing away the pillow that I was hugging throughout my sleep, I yawned and got up to see what was making the noise outside. Through a groggy stare, I saw a grey pegasus pony with a messy blonde mane at the window, wearing the traditional mailmare’s cap. As soon as I opened the window, the mare dug into her bag for whatever she was delivering. “I brought you a letter!” she announced happily, holding out the envelope as the rest of the mail accidently spilled down the side of the building onto the ponies and street below. “Uh oh.” The mare quickly swooped down, hoping to catch the rest of her deliveries as I looked at the plain postmarked envelope from Ponyville. Could it be a letter from my special somepony? My heart raced at the idea, quickly opening the envelope to read what was inside. “Dear Fluttershy, It has come to our attention that your cottage has been used for excessive partying and loud music in the late hours of the night. These accounts include reckless behavior, loud animal noises and indecent mating practices on the public roads of Ponyville late at night. When we tried to contact the residence, nopony was home. We are forwarding this message from a Pinkamena Diane Pie who was present at the residence the morning after with a lampshade over her head and bits of candy in her mane. Please do note that the conditions of your residence in Ponyville do not allow rambunctious behavior outside of the limits listed into your housing contract. Thank you for your future cooperation. Sincerely, Charming Waltz Canterlot Ambassador for Pony Reactions and Practices. P.S. All of your tea has been confiscated for analysis.” I read the letter out loud, not quite understanding what it had meant other than it wasn’t from anypony I knew, but rather some stuck-up unicorn from Canterlot explaining something that I knew nothing about. Sighing, I shoved the letter into a cabinet of the of the desk and rested my head on the cold, wooden surface. Looking outside to the sunny day in Los Pegasus, the pegasi were flying around in the uptown clouds busy with their day while the other ponies walked on the paved streets below my apartment window. Suddenly, there was a knock on the front door. I sat back up, turning around to look at the door just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Not a moment later, the knocks returned to confirm that there was actually somepony at the door. My mind moved to the thought of who could possibly be at the door since I didn’t know anypony in this city. The knocks continued, becoming louder and harder as I walked over to it. After unlocking the several locks on the door installed by the landlord, I swung the door open to find the one and only cyan pegasus striking a pose with her flowing rainbow mane. “Rainbow Dash?!” I asked aloud, shocked to see the pegasus standing outside the door. “Hey there, Fluttershy!” she replied before walking into the room. Unable to control myself, I had to give a hug to the first pony I’ve seen in weeks that wasn’t yelling for me to make a decision or telling me to get out of the way during construction or something. Rainbow Dash sort of hugged back, having that look on her face that I might have popped her personal space bubble. “Yeah, well, somepony told me that you were down in the dumps up here so I figured I’d fly by and help cheer you up.” she said, walking around the still mostly barren apartment. “This place could use a bit of color, that’s for sure!” “Oh, Rainbow, you didn’t have to do that.” I said softly, closing the door behind me. Rainbow Dash turned around with a short smile on her face. “Hey, I never leave a friend hanging. And LP is totally not that far from Ponyville. With Spring here and everything, the weather is fine on it’s own with the rest of the team so they don’t need my talents to take care of it.” she said, flying over before I got a chance to breath to wrap her wing around me. “Really? Thanks Rainbow Dash!” I smiled at my close friend, really glad that she was here since things were starting to get a little hectic with the shop so close to opening and there was still so much to do. “No problem!” she said, flopping on the messy bed, looking up to the ceiling. “So, what do you want to do, Fluttershy?” “Umm, I don’t know. I haven’t really been anywhere else except for the work site and this apartment to be honest.” I answered, hiding behind my mane in response. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes before jumping up on the bed. “You really need to go out more, Fluttershy!” she ordered, holding her hoof out to point at the open window. “You know how you don’t like to cage your birds because they feel trapped and stuff?” “Oh yes! The redjays really don’t like being cooped up in some cage when I can let them fly around my cottage!” I said happily, thinking of the chirping little birds back at home. “As long as they don’t get lost in the Everfree Forest of course.” “Well then!” Rainbow Dash announced, picking me up as I looked out to the Los Pegasus skyline with the Applewood sign in the background on the mountain range. “You need to be one of those redjays! You need to not be caged but fly free and without borders!” “But, the redjays-” I began, finding a hole in what Rainbow Dash was saying. “Don’t question this Fluttershy! Tonight, you will be a fearless bird! Ready to explore and have an adventure!” she persisted, holding my face in her hooves as she stared me down with the commands. Her cerise eyes seemed to be almost hypnotic with what she was saying and deep down, I felt a small little redjay come out of her nest, ready to see the world. “Okay Rainbow Dash, let’s do it!” The first stop on my new-found sense of adventure was obviously to check on the work site for the café. Rainbow Dash sighed along the way, but she was at least happy to see me out of the apartment and on the busy Los Pegasus streets. The café was being built only a few blocks from a famous pony film theater, known for having many celebrity ponies come through and enjoy the hoity-toity shops while stopping to give an autograph. Even with my short-lived background of being a fashion model would have a young mare at my hooves, wanting me to sign a copy of their fashion magazine. Rainbow Dash held a bit of jealousy as she tried to get somepony to ask her for an autograph, only for her to be relatively unknown outside of Ponyville. “Yeah, well, these fancy-pants west coast ponies wouldn’t know true talent if it whipped her tail on their flanks!” she complained loudly as I giggled at her being ignored by another passing stallion. “Heehee! Don’t worry too much about them, Rainbow Dash.” I said, trying to keep from giggling anymore. Soon we found ourselves in front of the construction site of the café as the worker ponies stopped what they were doing to oggle the rainbow-maned mare. “Yowza! I have never seen such smokin’ hot mare with those colors!” one of the workers said, lifting his construction hat to get a better look. “Sure you have, Harry!” a deep voiced white stallion added on the same level, hammering away at one of the beams. “Remember that mare that Tom brought to your birthday one year?” “That don’t count, Dick!” Harry shot back, holding out his hooves towards Rainbow’s general direction. “Her mane had two colors and it looked like a two-bit color job that my mother could do!” “Don’t you talk about Roxanne like that, you lunk-head!” Tom shouted, throwing a screwdriver at the brown pegasus, only for Harry to catch it in the nick of time. “Say, are you two still together?” Dick asked, using his magic to pull a drill out of his tool kit. The silver pony glare at the white unicorn, “Shut it, Dick.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at attention, following me into the job site as I tried to find the lead construction pony. “This isn’t any better. I wanted to be treated like a hero! Not googly-eyed by a bunch of brainless stallions.” I held my laughter, thinking back to the colts that Rainbow Dash would beat in races back in Flight School who were surprisingly similar to the working ponies. After a bit of weaving through the construction, I found the pony in charge of the work site. “Oh Mis-” I began, flying over to the creme-colored pony as soon as I heard a snap from overhead. Looking up, a pile of bricks began to fall from the snapped rope, ready to crush me like a bug. Rainbow Dash looked over and noticed the danger, quickly flying over to pull me out as the ton of bricks crashed into the ground beside me. “Nice going, ya klutzy pony!” Tom shouted at the brown pegasus, responsible for putting too many bricks on the platform. Harry shot back something obscene, causing the two of them to get in a fight on the rafters above. “Whoa there, wouldn’t want our next Los Pegasus star to get crushed now, would we?” the lead pony said, putting a yellow construction cap on my head like I was a filly. “Thank you miss for saving Chai here.” “Heh, no sweat!” Rainbow Dash replied, looking over to the two ponies. “Wait a second, what did you call Fluttershy?” “Umm, Rainbow, can I talk to you for a moment?” I said, pulling the pegasus aside as the lead pony told the workers to take a break. “What’s this Chai business? You ditch your name or something?” she asked in rapid-fire succession. I took a deep breath, looking for the right words to explain this. “No, it’s just... Remember what you were saying about the redjay and wanting to her spread her wings and everything?” Rainbow Dash nodded, looking back to the group of ponies in the construction caps. “Well, when I’m Flutterchai, I feel more like that bird than when I’m boring ol’ Fluttershy.” I explained, knowing how crazy this must sound to one of my best friends. “Oh, so like... calling yourself Daring Do whenever you’re flying through the Everfree Forest in a race with your pet?” Rainbow Dash asked, trying to think of an acceptable example. “Yeah, something like that.” I giggled, walking her and I back to the group. “Yo Chai! I didn’t know you had such a gorgeous mare for a friend!” Harry said, fanning his wings in a display for the cyan pegasus. Rainbow rolled her eyes at the performance, whipping her tail behind her in boredom. “Maybe if you spent more time paying attention to how many bricks you put on something instead of fantasizing about every mare that walks by.” Tom said sharply, being on the receiving end of the pegasus’ tongue sticking out of his mouth. “Don’t you talk to me about numbers and such! There’s a reason I dropped out of Flight School!” he shot back, ready to get into another fight. Dick held out his hooves between the two ponies, keeping them apart from each other. “The ponies we work with, right Chai? Oh, where are my manners. Cindy Starling, of Cindy’s Construction Company.” the lead pony said, taking off her construction cap to show off her long flowing red mane, much to the whistles of the crew. “Rainbow Dash,” she introduced herself, “Totally awesome pegasus.” “I’ll hoofbump to that!” Harry continued, holding out his hoof in front of him only for nopony to take him up on the offer. “So, how are things going, Cindy?” I asked as the rest of the ponies focused their attention on Rainbow Dash. “Back to work, boys!” Cindy ordered over my head, much to the frustration of the worker ponies. “If we keep up this schedule, it should only be a week or two more before the shop is ready for business. I apologize if my associates have been a little rough on you during my absence.” “Oh no, they weren’t that bad.” I tried to block out the images of being pushed and yelled at when the site was first being set up. Even the group of worker ponies were being moody to me as the owner of the shop being built. “It’s just, we’re absolutely thrilled that you would choose to build this café in downtown Los Pegasus. With your connections to the famous entrepreneur Vinyl Scratch, we are very confident that this shop will be a success. You will be looking over the staff here when the shop is finished, right?” “Well,” I began, stuttering on my words that I would be moving back to Ponyville soon after the shop was done and ready. “I will be sure to have the shop in great hooves after it’s built.” “Excellent!” Cindy exclaimed, putting her construction cap back on her head. “Don’t be afraid to come by! I promise that you won’t almost get crushed again.” “Will do, Miss Starling!” I said, walking on out as Rainbow Dash sighed heavily at the front of the shop, ready to get as far away from here as possible. It seems the worker ponies were more or less pretending to work while still watching the rainbow-maned mare from their perch on the construction site. “I thought I told you boys to get moving! Come on, we only have three days to have this place ready for staff and furnishing!” Cindy shouted, catching the attention of the worker ponies as they actually started to work on building the shop. “Finally!” Rainbow Dash said aloud, starting a brisk walk on the street away from the construction site. “I thought we would never get out of there.” “I thought you wanted attention, Rainbow Dash?” I giggled, having a skip in my step at the thought of the shop being open in only a few days. I couldn’t wait to train the ponies on the staff to make the tea and other drinks just right for everypony. “Yeah, but not that kind of attention.” She commented, looking out to the street as a group of mares chased down a famous stallion relentlessly. I couldn’t help but to giggle again at the comment. “Alright, well, we’ve seen your shop, now it’s my turn to take you someplace!” I felt my heart hit the bottom of my stomach at the thought of being under Rainbow Dash’s mercy when it came to going out for a night on the town. As the sun slowly set behind the Applewood sign in the background, Rainbow Dash took my hoof and led me on the way to the nightlife of the pegasi in the clouds above the streets.