The main receiving hall at Cloudsdale is built like a cathedral. That's not a bad description. The room itself could fit a couple of polo fields in it, with space enough for cheerleaders, a hayburger stand, and a dunk tank besides. Fluted cloud columns two rows thick lined the gaily painted walls, which were in turn festooned with safety notices, work bulletins, and motivational posters. Ponies rushed to and fro, sorting mail. Long tables lined with ponies sorted through letters and bundled them up for easier transport. Packages constantly arrive from the four corners of Equestria, and almost immediately got routed back out again. Here and there, a record players played upbeat tunes which were almost drowned out by the quiet murmur of conversation, work banter, and instructions passed from supervisor to subordinate.
It was a cathedral. A temple to order, logistics and speedy deliveries. On a normal day, you couldn't cross from one side to the other without being jostled, bumped or otherwise accosted by the general hustle and bustle.
Of course, today wasn't exactly a normal day.
Today, everypony was clustered over by the landing area as a trio of ponies worked with gauze and bandages. A low murmur of sound and tension radiated through the sorting room as I shouldered my way through the crowd.
This may come as a shock to you, but ponies are pretty resilient. Yeah, we might like the song and dance routines, fluffy clouds, and all that jazz, but I've seen ponies shrug off long falls, intense collisions, and even the occasional piano to the head and bounce back pretty well.
Stormy Gale would be lucky to fly again.
The dark grey filly's coat was singed and blistered. She lay on her left side, her right wing stretched out alongside, her feathers blackened and falling out as she labored to breathe. A pair of medic pegasi were laboring to spread salves on her burnt hide and poultices to her wings, but I could see the latent terror in her eyes as they swiveled from pony to pony in the crowd.
On my left, Paper Pusher shouldered his way through the crowd next to me. In an instant, his eyes took in Stormy's injuries, the medic's efforts, and the crowd surrounding them. He took a deep breath. "Allright", He said quetly, and instantly the murmuring crowd fell silent. "Seems here we have an injured pony, and some others trying to patch her up. Let's let them be about their business." And with that, the crowd started to disperse. Not all at once, but in ones and twos, ponies broke away, either back to their jobs or to retire to the break room and sow seeds of gossip. After a few minutes, it was just me, Paper Pusher, and Stormy Gale and the two medics working on her.
Paper Pusher turned to look at me, his watery eyes searching my features. "Well...looks like it wasn't just you who got attacked by dragons, was it?" By his tone, it wasn't a question.
I nodded. I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Paper Pusher looked back to Stormy Gale as the medics were loading her onto a stretcher. If anything, his expression had grown more world weary as he did. "Do me a favor, Snaproll, and follow her to the hospital. And when she's up to it, I want you to get her full story for what happened. We can't have mail ponies getting charbroiled in the line of duty." With that, he turned and walked back to his office.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hours later, I left the hospital, back to my apartment. Stormy Gale was safely ensconced in the burn ward at Cloudsdale General, and she was far and away the worst off there. After a few hours, she was coherent enough to tell me her story.
She'd been flying back on the last leg from the Trottingham run when she'd been ambushed by a horde of dragons. There had been five of them, in her case. They were adolescents, by her estimation, but two had gotten the drop on her while she had dodged the first three. One thing that seemed worrying to her was that one of the dragons had made off with her mail satchel. I told her that it was more important that she'd escaped with her life.
As I made my way back to the Post Office, I started to sort my thoughts out, and wonder why these things were starting to happen. Who would try and knock out mail ponies? And WHY?
I decided to report as soon as I could to Paper Pusher. Might as well let the higher ups sort out this stuff. Why the hay would I want to involve any of those decisions?
I spent a few minutes passing my information on to Paper Pusher, punched my clock and left. I chose to take my time and walk the fluffy cumulus streets of Cloudsdale, my thoughts troubled. If I had been a hair slower, or I hadn't seen the dragons when they first ambushed me, that could just as easily have been me on the floor of the sorting room rather than Stormy.
My apartment isn't much to write home about. It's up on the 4th floor of a downtown high rise. I took flight and alighted on the balcony a short while later, and passed into my living room. A pair of beat up sofas dominate one corner. My roomate and I decorated (and we're stretching the term here) the walls by hanging vintage Wyld Stallynz posters and more recent ones of his band, Megasus (They do this awesome stage show where their drummer conjures up a micro thunderstorm that powers these guitars and stuff. But that's a story for another day). The floor had a couple of second-hoof rugs, over which were scattered the average detritus of a pair of bachelor colts. In the kitchen, there was a note on the fridge door.
Snap-
Got a last minute gig at the Laughing Lightning. Don't wait up.
-Aces
I grunted and opened the fridge, pulled out a chiled Cores Light and sat down on the sofa, relaxing as much as my troubled mind would allow.
After a few sips, my eyes fell upon a yesterday's issue of the Cloudsdale Gazette and, in particular, a garish full page ad that lay open on the floor. I didn't lose my mind completely, so I set my beer down first before I dropped it out of shock, but I picked up the paper and read the ad.
It reminded me of old carnival posters, all bright painted stripes and colors, fancy filligreed writing. A pair of red haired, straw hatted unicorn ponies stood on either side of a stylized dragon, below which read the caption:
Post not reach your paramour in time?
The Royal Mail's no longer as fine
But never fear!
We've the solution here
Contact Flim & Flam's Dragon-Gram posthaste!