“Okay, you go hide and I’ll count to, uhm… twenty, okay?”
“Uh-huh, but no peeking!”
River Road watched the young pegasus colt run off to hide inside a large shrub while the earth pony filly was leaning against one of the trees and counting, one foreleg over her eyes. It was a sunny day, barely a cloud in the sky, but aside from River Road and the two kids nopony else was around. The small park on the outskirts of Canterlot never saw a lot of visitors, even though it was quite nice and the city took good care of it.
The unicorn colt kept watching the filly run around for a minute, giggling happily as she searched for her friend, before he continued his way into the city. The two kids were maybe two years younger than him, but he didn’t have time to play with them. He was supposed to do the shopping at the market, and with the shopping list his mother had given him on the way River felt that he would be lucky if he made it home before sunset.
Despite his concerns, hunting down everything on the list didn’t take quite as long as River had (completely reasonably) estimated, and after little more than an hour he was on his way back through the park. He might have exaggerated the size of the shopping list just a little, and it did admittedly help that most stalls at the market sold several of the things he needed at once. Still, that didn’t help the fact that he was carrying a lot of supplies in his magic. If he did this regularly, he would be accepted into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns for sure, with all the magic stamina he had to be building up from this exercise.
Getting into the Academy probably wouldn’t be much of a problem either way. His family was quite wealthy, and the Academy liked having ponies from rich families as students. River’s sister had been accepted into the academy three years ago – she had told River that all the students there just called it ‘The Academy’ – , and while his sister was without doubt cool and smart River knew that he would be at least ten times better at magic when he was older. Especially if he kept having to carry stuff, like these groceries.
Halfway through the park River noticed the young colt from before running around happily. Apparently he was the one who had to look for his friend now. River looked around absentmindedly, but wasn’t able to spot the earth pony either – wherever she was hiding, it wasn’t one of the obvious hiding places.
He had only made it a few more steps when he heard a strange sound from his right. Hesitantly trotting away from the path into a small grove of trees, he followed it to the edge of a slope. The sound was coming from the ditch, a quiet sobbing. River carefully peeked around the trunk of the oak into the hole and suppressed a gasp; a small, light green earth pony filly lay down there, crying. A thin, purple stripe ran through her light blue mane. It was the same filly that had been playing with the young pegasus colt an hour ago.
River stared down at the little filly in shock, trying to see if she was injured. As far as he could explain it, the filly had been looking for a place to hide and accidentally fallen into the ditch. She didn’t look hurt, as far as he could tell, but she was still sobbing quietly and obviously scared; either way, it didn’t seem like she had noticed him yet.
He looked around for an easy way down the slope, to help the filly, when he noticed the pegasus colt several steps away, inspecting one of the trees. The colt had apparently noticed neither him nor the ditch and was moving away from them. River hesitated for a second as an idea formed in his head. This was the perfect opportunity to test his new spell, and maybe even do some good. Focusing on a spot a few steps to the colt’s right he concentrated on the spell, feeling the magic gather in his horn.
“Huh?” The pegasus colt was trotting over to another suspicious-looking tree when he noticed something in the corner of his vision. He turned his head to see a glowing blue square in the distance to his left, floating between the trees.
“What-?” He had taken only a few steps towards the glowing square when it suddenly disappeared. The colt looked around in confusion, but quickly spotted the square again. It had reappeared between the trees to his left again, floating further away than before.
“Hey, wait! I just- Whoa!” The colt galloped towards the square, but had to stop when he reached the edge of a slope. He looked up, but the strange blue square had vanished again. “What is that thing…?”
A quiet sound reached his ears and caused him to instinctively look down. At the bottom of the slope was a small filly, lying curled up in the ditch.
“Color!” The pegasus stumbled down the slope quickly, not wasting time to look for an easier way. He caught himself right next to the filly and poked her nervously. “Color, what happened?”
“T-Tumble?” The filly looked up at him with red eyes, sniffing a little. “I f-fell down that slope. My leg hurts…” She raised her right foreleg towards her friend.
“Hm… It doesn’t look broken…” The colt, Tumble Ball, carefully took the leg with his own hoof to inspect it. It had a small scrape, but no other damage was visible. “Can you still walk?”
“It hurts really bad.” The filly, Color Scheme, had tears in her eyes. “I wanna go home, Tumble. I wanna see my mommy. I thought you wouldn’t find me an’ that I had to stay down here forever and die and-“ She broke down sobbing.
Something brushed against her right side and made her look up again. Tumble had laid down right next to her on the ground. “What are you-?”
“Put your leg over my back. Can you do that?” Tumble said, looking her in the eyes. Color looked back in confusion, but complied, wincing only slightly.
“It’s a trick my big brother showed me,” Tumble continued. He slowly stood back up, extending his left wing under Color to stabilize her. “I’ll help you walk home, that way you don’t have to use the bad leg.”
Color hesitantly took a step forward and Tumble made sure to move with her so she could keep her balance. He helped his friend out of the ditch on the more shallow side and walked her back to the path, where they began to slowly trot towards the houses in the distance.
River Road had watched the scene from behind his tree. He followed after them with his groceries, watching them from the distance to make sure they got home safely. The filly’s family lived close to the park, and it didn’t take them long to get there. River came home with the groceries a bit later than expected, but not so late that his family asked any questions.
~~~~~
“Gangway! Oh Celestia, I’m late!”
River Road galloped down the road in the park, dodging the occasional pony. He was late to class and he absolutely hated to be late! Almost as much as he hated looking for things that would eventually turn out to be just where he should have expected them. Like school books…
He jumped around another pony, realizing too late that he had been just at a bend. He made a sharp turn to get back onto the road, but couldn’t avoid bumping into a tree. He groaned a little from the pain but kept running, paying no attention to the two kids he galloped past, who were playing under the tree.
“Of all the days… Gangway!”
Tumble Ball looked after the older colt who was quickly galloping away. However, he was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a stifled scream from his left. His friend, Color Scheme, was pointing upwards, staring at a branch of the tree with wide eyes.
Tumble followed her gaze and gasped when he saw what his friend was looking at. A small bird was holding onto his nest with his talons, frantically flapping his wings and chirping in panic. The unicorn who had run past them had bumped into the tree, which had shaken the nest loose; Despite the bird’s effort it was slowly tilting over the edge of the branch. Even worse, two of the four eggs in the nest were starting to roll towards the edge and could fall down any moment.
The bird and Color both let out a shriek as both eggs rolled over the edge and fell. Without a second thought Tumble jumped forward, just in time to catch them with his hooves before they hit the ground. Letting out a breath he stood up again, still holding the eggs in his front hooves, and looked up again. The nest had tilted even further and the bird had trouble keeping it on the branch.
The remaining two eggs were tumbling out of the nest and falling straight down towards him.
For a short moment time seemed to slow down. Out of pure instinct, he threw the two eggs he was holding into the air so he could catch the two falling ones. Realizing his mistake, but unable to think of a better solution, he threw the eggs in his hooves upwards again and stumbled a step back to catch the first pair again.
He couldn’t tell why it caught his attention, but Tumble noticed that he had thrown one of the two eggs slightly higher than the other. Before he could think about it, his left hoof automatically moved to throw its egg and catch the falling one in the same motion. Then his right hoof did the same. Within seconds he had a pattern going, throwing an egg with one hoof while catching another egg with the other hoof, always keeping two of them in the air at a time.
“Tumble, I can catch one of them!” Color shouted. From the corner of his eye Tumble noticed her moving towards him, though he was barely able to look at her since he had to concentrate on his throwing and catching. He waited for a good opportunity and then carefully threw one of the eggs her way. The filly quickly placed it on the ground to free her hooves for the next egg. Tumble caught the last two eggs himself and carefully laid them down in front of him. Then he collapsed in the other direction, landing on his back.
“Oh Tumble, you did it! You saved them!” Color rushed over to him, throwing herself into a hug with him. Tumble barely registered it through his exhaustion.
“Tumble, look at this!” the filly gasped. She squirmed away from him and started poking Tumble in the ribs. The colt groaned and lifted his head with the last of his strength. Color was excitedly gesturing at Tumble’s flank.
Emblazoned on the pegasus colt’s flank was the picture of four fragile glass spheres, arranged in the same pattern he had juggled the four eggs only moments ago.
~~~~~
River Road stretched his back once before exiting the small changing room. Technically he didn’t have to work as a waiter, but he actually enjoyed the work and the part-time job brought in some extra money for food and rent until his own little business took off. He didn’t want to rely on his family for money, a character trait he had in common with practically each member of his family – there was, apparently, a reason why his family had made such a fortune in its early years.
Stepping out of the restaurant a young earth pony mare caught his attention. He couldn’t remember ever meeting her, but she seemed familiar for some reason. She was sitting alone at one of the outside tables of the restaurant and talking to one of the waiters.
“…isn’t here yet? He’s a red pegasus with a deep yellow mane. His cutie mark are four glass spheres?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, he hasn’t shown up yet. I’ll let you know when he arrives.”
“Oh…” The mare’s ears drooped down, as did her head. It seemed like she had been waiting for a while. River Road gave her a contemplative look, but shrugged it off and continued on his way home. Familiar or not, he didn’t know this mare and it would only be rude to eavesdrop any more.
He had barely made it two blocks down the street when he saw a young pegasus stallion who perfectly fit the description of the pony the mare was waiting for. He was sitting at the outside table of another restaurant, nervously fiddling with a napkin. River groaned and facehoofed. He knew that restaurant; it was named similar to the restaurant he worked at, and more than a few ponies had almost, or even completely, missed a date because they had mistaken one for the other. The owners were aware of this problem, but neither of them were willing to change the name of their establishment, so the problem persisted.
River gave the stallion another look. He too seemed strangely familiar, just like the mare a few moments ago. He stared at him from across the street for a moment before it finally hit him. It might just have been his imagination, but he remembered a young colt and a filly from a few years ago who had looked exactly like the couple he had seen today. Could it be that they were the same ponies?
Tumble Ball sighed and stood up from the table, leaving a few bits to pay for his glass of water. It didn’t seem to him like she would still show up. Maybe she had gotten cold hooves at the last moment… Celestia knew he almost had.
Leaving the restaurant he turned to make his way home, when something caught his attention. A small blue square was floating in front of a house wall across the street, glowing brightly in the twilight of the late evening. For some reason Tumble felt like it was important.
He looked to both sides, then took a few steps onto the street towards the blue square. It flashed brightly for a short second before it vanished and reappeared several steps down the street. Tumble blinked and looked around in confusion, before taking a few more steps towards the square. It vanished again, appearing further down the street, leading him away from his home.
The pegasus had the strangest sense of déjà vu as he fell into a fast canter to keep up with the square. Every few seconds it would flash, vanish, then reappear a few steps further down the street. Flash, vanish, reappear, flash, vanish, reappear, flash, vanish…
Tumble stopped and looked around. The square was nowhere to be seen. He had no idea what he was supposed to do now. Maybe somepony had just decided to play a prank on him again. Grumbling he turned around to–
“Tumble? Tumble!” The pegasus turned his head towards the voice. Color Scheme was sitting at one of the tables of a restaurant, frantically waving in his direction.
~~~~~
“I still can’t believe they have those two restaurants right next to each other. What do you suppose how many ponies fell for that before us?” Tumble asked, faking a voice of justified indignation. He and Color Scheme were on their way home after their first actual date.
Color giggled, leaning a little closer towards him. “Well, things worked out in the end, right? Speaking of, how did you find the right restaurant, after all? You haven’t told me yet.”
“Oh, uhm… I’m not sure, actually. There was this–“ Tumble stopped when he noticed they had already arrived at Color’s house. “Oh, would you look at that… We’re here already.” He looked away from her, blushing deeply.
“Yeah, looks like it…” Color blushed a little herself as they slowly walked up to the front door of the small house.
“So…” both of them started in unison. They both stopped and looked away, blushing a little deeper.
“Uhm, you first?” Tumble gave her a sheepish smile.
Color returned the smile, though less sheepish than the stallion. “I had a wonderful evening. Thank you very much for that.”
“Oh, uhm, yes. Me too…”
Both ponies looked down for a moment, glancing at each other nervously. Then Tumble suddenly jumped up.
“Yes! A very nice evening! I’ll, uhm, I’ll be going then!” He stumbled a few steps back and quickly turned around, walking away from the mare.
“Oh.” Color looked after him for a second, then quickly turned to her door. She let her head hang as she slowly searched her saddle bags for her keys. “I see…”
Tumble slowly trotted down the small path from the house, head hanging low. Stupid stupid stupid! What am I doing?! I can’t ruin this! She’s just a friend… right? Oh, why did I have to make this so complicated?! It’s just a fluke, I can ignore this, I–
He stopped. Right in front of him floated a glowing blue square, almost as big as the stallion.
“What–?” Tumble just stared at the square with wide eyes. It was doing nothing, only floating in front of him and glowing steadily.
“What do you want?” he whispered. The square didn’t react. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t just… Can I?” Tumble turned his head to look over his shoulder. When he looked back the square had disappeared.
Color Scheme slowly turned the key, unlocking the door. She sighed, stepping into the entrance hall and pulling the key out of the lock. Maybe she had just misread the signs; maybe Tumble didn’t actually like her like that. It had been a stupid thought in the first place. He obviously didn’t–
“Color!”
The mare turned around in surprise. She barely had enough time to realize that Tumble was galloping towards her before the pegasus had reached her.
“Wha– mph.” Whatever Color had wanted to say was cut off as the pegasus kissed her. She felt his forelegs wrap around her awkwardly, his muzzle pressed against hers in that inexperienced way of two young ponies in love.
She couldn’t have cared less as she closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss.
In the shadows down the street a red unicorn with blue mane turned around, trotting away at a relaxed pace. He grinned.
Finally. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
~~~~~
Tumble walked through the park sullenly, staring at the flat wooden box in his hooves. The picnic with Color had been fantastic; the weather pegasi had outdone themselves, the food Color had brought had been delicious, and even the salad he had prepared himself had turned out much better than his usual attempts.
So why couldn’t he do it?
He opened the box, watching the ring inside glimmer in the light of the setting sun. It was pure gold, and small emeralds and rubies were set into it evenly along the whole length of the ring. He had paid a lot of bits for it, and he would have paid a lot more if he had found an even better one.
So why couldn’t he do it? Why couldn’t he ask that one question? Why was he so stupid and scared and afraid that she might…
He sighed. Thinking about it didn’t help. That was his whole problem in the first place. If he started thinking about something, about her, he would lock up and be too afraid to do anything! Like that one evening, after their first date… Whatever had happened on that evening? He wished that he knew.
He tripped.
He hadn’t paid any attention to where he was going. He hadn’t noticed the bridge that lead over the one small stream that coursed through the park. He hadn’t noticed the… whatever it was that made him trip. A crack in the stone maybe, or maybe just his own hooves. He tripped, he fell…
He lost the ring…
The box was still open. Why hadn’t he closed the box?! The second most important thing to him, bought for the one pony who was even more important, rolled across the bridge, towards the railing, through the railing.
And then it was gone… Tumble desperately scrambled to his hooves, but the ring was gone. He ran after it, cried out after it, looked over the railing, almost jumped over the railing.
Gone…
His ears drooped down. He could feel tears well up in his eyes. It couldn’t be gone! Maybe he could still find it, maybe it hadn’t drifted too far downstream, maybe the sun would set later today, just a few minutes, so he could look for that ring, find it!
Why had this happened? Why hadn’t he asked the question? Why had this happened?! Why had he been so afraid, scared again? Scared of whatever could have happened, which couldn’t possibly have been any worse than this?!
Why had this happened…?
It was getting darker. Half the sun was already behind the horizon, the other half would soon follow, and no beam of golden light reflected anywhere in the water. Only the setting sun, and the faint blue glow reflecting from the walls underneath the bridge.
He blinked. There was definitely something going on under the bridge. From his position he couldn’t see anything beside a faint blue glow, though. He slowly spread his wings, climbing over the railing and carefully lowering himself with slow wingbeats, until he was floating just above the stream’s surface. A blue square was lazily floating in the air under the bridge, a golden ring presented on top of it like on a silver platter.
His ring…
Her ring…
He hesitantly floated over to the square, almost expecting it to vanish, to drop the ring back into the water where it should have landed.
The square didn’t vanish.
He carefully extended a hoof, pausing right over the ring for a second before hastily snatching it off the square and tightly clutching it to his chest.
The square vanished.
He stared at where the square had been for a moment. Then he stared at the ring in his hooves, before looking back up at the empty spot in front of him.
He didn’t know if anypony, or anything, could see him right that moment, but he still gave a small nod before flying off.
He had to take care of something.
River watched the pegasus fly off towards the sunset. It was by pure chance that he had noticed the two ponies picnicking in the park. He had decided to watch them for a moment, and had quickly noticed the stallion nervously glancing towards his saddle bags whenever his marefriend was distracted. He couldn’t be sure about the reason for it, though.
At least not until the mare had left and the pegasus took a small box from his saddle bags. River had been able to guess what was inside the box even before the pegasus had opened it. He had also watched him trip and fall, and had just barely been able to catch the ring with his magic before it fell into the water.
He turned his head away from the pegasus in the distance and began walking towards his own home. He wouldn’t be able to see whatever might still happen today, he couldn’t keep up with a pegasus, after all.
Still, he hoped that he had been able to help the couple one last time.
Color Scheme was just unlocking the door to her house when she heard somepony behind her call her name. Turning around she saw Tumble galloping the last steps towards her, visibly out of breath.
“Tumble? What–?”
The pegasus raised a hoof to cut her off. “Please,” he managed to say between gasps, “not now… just listen… please.”
She waited patiently while he calmed down, wondering what could have happened in the few minutes since she had last seen him. After another short moment he seemed prepared to speak.
“Color, I…” He hesitated. “I’ve known you for a long time, since we were both foals. We’ve been friends for many years, and for a while now you’ve been more than that…” A small, nervous smile formed on his face and he looked down.
“You’ve always been a very special somepony, and for a year now you’ve been my very special somepony. I don’t know what I did and how I deserve somepony like you in my life, but all of that is not really important when I’m with you, you know? There’s only one thing I really want to know…” He slowly unfolded his left wing, slipping a flat wooden box from the wing to his hooves and opening it a crack to look at its content. Then he turned the box around and sat down, holding it up to her.
“Color Scheme, would you want us to be even more than that?”
~~~~~
Tumble Ball had almost made it through the small park on his way home when he heard the noise. There wasn’t a lot of crime in Canterlot, but the sun had already set and ponies told stories…
He carefully hid behind a tree and peeked around the trunk.
“Come on, Clean Cut, stop playing with him! Show the newbie some of your specials!”
A small group of ponies was standing at the edge of the clearing, watching two pegasi in the middle trying to pin each other to the ground. The Krav Pega dojo in Canterlot had a visitor from Manehattan, and the dojo’s prodigy, Clean Cut, had challenged him to a fight. The whole fight was good-natured, of course. There was no kicking, bucking or biting and neither of the pegasi was allowed to lift more than one pony-length from the ground. Instead both combatants tried to get a good grip on each other and pin them down non-violently (or as close to it as they could get, at least). The whole fight was illuminated by five large magic squares floating above the fight, glowing brightly in a blue light.
River turned his head away from the fight and looked towards one side of the clearing, making sure to keep his spell going. He thought he had heard a gasp from the direction of the road, but he couldn’t make out a single thing in the darkness outside the clearing.
Loud cheers drew his attention back to the fight. The dark green pegasus with the black mane had somehow managed to throw the other pony on his back, and quickly jumped on top of his opponent. Two feathers of each of the other pegasus’ wings were pinned down by the first pegasus’ hind hooves, while their forelegs were interlocked, immobilizing both of them.
“Oh yeah, Clean Cut wins again!” River cheered. Then he turned to the pony next to him, a butter yellow pegasus mare with light green streaks in the center of her brown mane and two feathers stuck behind each ear. “I think that means somepony owes me ten bits. Pay up, Moxie!”
“That’s what I get for betting on the new guy…” Moxie grumbled.
River just laughed and nudged her playfully. “Hey, I bet you 4:1, I think that’s fair enough.”
~~~~~
River looked through the small collection of mail he had gotten that morning. “Mail, junk, bill, mail, bill… huh, what’s this?” The last envelope looked like it was mail from a private sender, but he couldn’t remember ever hearing the name, or address, it came from. It was addressed to him, though. He carefully opened the envelope and opened the card that had been inside, ignoring the other piece of paper that fell to the floor.
Dear Mr. River Road
You are cordially invited to the wedding of Tumble Ball and Color Scheme
On the 18th of May
Chapel of the Rising Sun
Mane Street 108, Canterlot
Starting at…
River set the card down. He didn’t know those two ponies, at least as far as he knew. His memory might not have been the best when it came to names and faces, but he didn’t remember their names, at all.
He looked down at the piece of paper on the floor. It was a photo, presumably of the soon-to-be bride and groom. He recognized them… he had just never heard their actual names.
He carefully picked up the photo. The only question remaining was why, and how, they had invited him. As far as he knew, neither of them had ever noticed him, on the two or three occasions he had seen them. He turned the photo around. A short note was written on the backside.
Dear Mr. River Road
I saw you using an interesting spell a while ago, and it reminded me of something.
Maybe I’m just imagining things, or maybe I’m mistaking you for somepony else… But if I have found the right pony, then I believe you’ll know what I am talking about.
If that is the case, please let me say just one thing…
Thank you