“Bye Lily!” Cherry called as Lily flew off to her part time job.
Still in flight, Lily looked back and waved good-bye to her best friend until Cherry trotted back inside. Suddenly, Lily felt herself crash into another pegasus. She was flying so fast, that the impact knocked her back onto a cloud. Thank Celestia there was a cloud under me, she thought. As she gathered her senses, she looked up to see what or who she had smashed into. At first all she could see was a blurry light and dark blue figure. But as soon as her vision cleared, she immediately recognized who it was. Sorin!!
“Oh my word! I am so sorry! I wasn’t paying attention, and I was in a hurry, and I-”
“It’s fine.” He said, stopping Lily from rambling, and then smiled at her.
Ahh! Why am I so stupid! She wanted to scream it so loud, that all of Cloudsdale would hear her. Then realized, other than experiencing the most awkward moment in her life, she was missing something.
Lily gasped, “My saddlebags!” she looked over the edge of the cloud, and saw nothing but the dark trees and grass of the forest below. “No! They must have fallen off the cloud and into the Everfree Forest!” She looked at Sorin, then looked down at the forest, and back up again. “Again I’m so sorry, and I don’t want to bother you.” She was about to soar down into the forest, until she heard him respond.
“Well, I have nowhere to be and you don’t bother me at all. So I am going to help you, and you are going to except. Okay?”
Sorin looked at her so deeply, with such love, such kindness, that she never wanted to turn her gaze away ever. He is so... kind, she thought. Lily had seen him a few times from her apartment, flying in the sky with the rest of the Wonderbolts team. She never really was a huge fan of flying sports, but one day she decided to come to a show. The whole time she was only interested in the stallion with the dark blue mane and emerald green eyes.
Lily never thought he would be so... nice, and friendly. Self-consciousness rushed over in an instant when she remembered the black marks that covered her white legs, ears, wings and eyes. She had almost forgotten about them, and how much pain she suffered as a filly from ponies who thought she was strange. She hated how different she was from other normal ponies. The marks weren’t birthmarks, she drew them on with a permanent marker when she was going through a deep depression. When she was done, she instantly regretted it and tried to wash them off, but they wouldn’t even fade. He won’t ever like me...
“But, it will only take me a minute,” Lily argued.
“Then it won’t hurt for me to come with you.”
Without giving Lily another moment to respond, he was already flying down toward the earth. She rolled her eyes, and flew after him. She could feel the wind ruffling her colorful feathers, and her pink mane flowing with it.
Sorin was already on the ground. He looked up at her, and waited until she landed softly next to him.
He glanced at Lily, “So what do they look like?”
“They are light blue, with my cutie mark on the straps.”
“Okay, so we should probably spit up.” He looked at her, “Be careful.”
“I will,” her voice then turned to a whisper, “you have no idea.”
She turned and walked deeper into the forest. Lily looked from left to right searching for something that could be used as a weapon, just in case if any dangerous creature decided to attack her. At last she found a tree branch that had splinters sticking out at the end, and it would be the perfect defense against anything that threatened Lily.
In the distance she could see her light blue saddlebags, but it was its location that was the problem. There they sat, in a dark, creepy, shadowy, cave.
She growled, “Why does it always have to be a cave.”
Lily took a step forward, but before she got any closer, something growled and she knew exactly what it was. A Manticore! It stalked out of the shadows and into the light.
“Oh great,” she sighed, readying her weapon.
The beast glowered at her snarling and scoring the ground with its claws. Lily extended her wings and snarled right back at it.
“Come at me! I dare you,” she challenged.
At that moment the Manticore let out a roar, and charged toward her, but Lily was ready. She ducked, slid under it and used the sharp end of her weapon to slash at the Manticore’s legs. It let out a cry of pain, turned around and clawed at her. Her back stung as she felt the claws dig into her back. But before the Manticore could do anymore damage, she flew up into the sky. When she was far above the monster, she plummeted toward it, and plunged the stick deep into its chest. The Manticore let out one last cry, but it turned to a whisper as its eyes clouded, blood dripped from its jaw, and its body went limp.
“Wow.”
Lily jumped as she heard a voice behind her.
“Oh, good. It’s just you,” she sighed with relief.
Her hooves felt abnormally warm, so she looked down. They were covered in blood.
“Um, did you see all of that?” she asked him.
“I did. You were amazing.”
“What?”
“Where did you learn all of that?”
“Do you really want to know?” she asked, and walked over to her saddlebags.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” As she put her saddlebags on, she sighed and continued. “At day time I work at Cloudsdale Animation Studios, but my night time job is...”
“Is??”
“I’m a dawn guard.”
“Guard? As in royalty guarding guards?”
Lily sighed, “Yes.”
“That must be really cool, being around the princesses and all that.”
“Well, more like princess. I usually only see Princess Luna. Well we’d better get back up there. I don’t want to see what else likes violence.”
“Yeah. Wanna race?”
“Race?! Against a Wonderbolt? Yeah, right!”
“Oh come on! It’s not like you can’t get one foot off the ground! I saw you back there, remember?”
“Ugh, fine!”
“Okay, you say whe-”
“Go!” and without giving him time to warm up, she dashed off into the sky. From what she saw, she was ahead. But when she looked down again, Sorin was right on her tail. He was almost in front of her, but not for long. Lily flapped her wings as hard as she could, and in the near distance she could see the cloud she fell on. She was almost there. Almost there! She flew through the sky and slowed down so she could land safely on top of the cloud. It was close but she had won. They sat on the cloud next to each other, then Sorin looked up at her and smiled.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for what? Crashing into you?”
He laughed, “Yes.”
“But why? I could have killed you.”
“Because if you didn’t, then I would have gone my whole life without ever meeting you.”
She was speechless. She didn’t know what to say, or think, or do. He... he likes me? But how?
“B-but how could you like me? I’m so different, and abnormal.”
“It’s because you’re different. That’s why.”
Lily was so shocked, she forgot she was almost late for work.
“Um.. I have to go to work. I’m going to be late.”
“Okay. I hope to see you soon. And I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Oh yeah! Uh, it’s Lily. My name is Lily.”
“Well, goodbye Lily.”
“Goodbye.”
All she could think about while she was flying to work, was what he said. She smiled. He likes me...