Bright Star checked his watch and promptly remembered upon doing so that he’d forgotten to wear his watch tonight. It was the third time in several minutes he remembered, and once again he sighed loudly to himself and looked instead towards the antique wooden clock in the room he was waiting in. The hands said 6:35. He checked his watch to make sure the time it showed was right, and rolled his eyes when again he found his fetlock bare.
He was wearing a nice suit, pressed to the best of its ability to be pressed, which left it looking more or less composed. His hair was done back in the best fashion it too could manage, which meant a stray lock straggling here or there. He’d polished his glasses before he left for the night, but already they felt smudged and hazy. He removed them with a dim flicker of his horn and polished them on his undershirt.
“I’m sorry again about the delay. I was just in the middle of getting ready when you arrived.” Keening Iris’ voice came from the hallway past the living room, winding around the corner of what Bright Star presumed must be her bedroom, until it reached his ears with the soft, ladylike lilt he’d held in his ear since first hearing it at the coffee shop two weeks ago. A great deal could happen in two weeks, including an even then unbelievable agreement for the object of his one-time poetic scribblings to join him for dinner. He checked his watch—clock—again. 6:38.
“It’s alright,” he called back down the hallway. “There’s no need to hurry. The reservations are for seven, in any case.” Bright Star let his eyes drift across the room as he spoke. Anything to take his attention away from the ticking hands he knew would only move faster when he was focusing on them. He found the room in a relative sparseness of decoration—aside from the obviously antiquated clock, a miniature grandfather, he guessed, there was only a neatly-kept fireplace nearby and a single picture hanging on the wall. A brightly-coloured scenic painting, looking down from what appeared to be a tall mountain towards the cities below. He was sure he could make out Canterlot, it’s stately towers looming over the rest of the valley... and then there, lower, must be where he was now.
There also appeared to be a shelf. How had he missed it the first time when he...
His eyes stopped on the shelf’s centerpiece. A glass case, housing a small, red pillow with gold lace; atop it, a single, shining blade sat, unsheathed and glimmering in the light from the living room lamp.
His eyes were still locked on it when Iris stepped out from her bedroom, adjusting an earring as she walked; white flowers, with blue centers, spinning like a sapphire pearl. A cream coloured dress, to match her coat.
“Really, I apologize again. Hopefully I haven’t taken so long that our reservations will be...” Iris trailed off as she met Bright Star in the center of the room. Though her voice came from one side, Bright Star’s eyes were still dead-set on the simple but ornate blade on display on the living room’s single, lone shelf.
“Oh,” Iris said. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“Is it—”
“It’s a blade, yes. Really, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t even have it out, but Father always... please, don’t think me too strange. It’s a family heirloom, of sorts, I promise I’m not the sort of pony who collects knives or swords or anything like that...”
Iris held a worried expression, staring on at Bright Star. But he stared on at the sword, and still staring, walked closer, his face unmoving, as though in a trance. Iris bit her lip and moved her hooves antsily on the floor.
“It’s quite strange, isn’t it? It’s no wonder I’ve not had anypony over in so long.”
Bright Star held a hoof up to the case, just far enough away that he could feel the faint presence of the glass. Not quite touching. He stared deeply at the blade, drinking in the sight of its simple curve, not overdone or inelegant, but just enough to give the suggestion of something designed to cut, or to hew, rather than to slice. A slightly foreign, deadly curve. It’s handle was plain, looking to be the same type of silver... but a single white gem was set at the base of the hold. And there was some sort of design that ran along it as well. A script he couldn’t make out.
“Please,” Iris said, suddenly at Bright Star’s side, her voice almost in her ear. “You can come up with all manner of oddities to call me later, but I would very much still like to go to dinner with you... if you’ll have me.” She held out her hoof and bobbed her head softly, blushing ever so slightly.
Bright Star turned to her, his eyes wide.
“It’s wonderful,” he said. Iris blushed brighter.
“You don’t mean that. It’s a queer thing, especially for a lady to have in the middle of her living room.”
“It’s yours, then? A family heirloom, you said?”
Iris nodded.
“It is. My father... was a bladesmith, or an all sorts of smith, I suppose. He made it for me when I left home. I promised him I would keep it by me always.”
Bright Star turned back to the blade’s case, casting his eyes over it for several seconds before returning his attention to Iris’ demure blush.
“The white jewel in the center,” Bright Star said. He let the sentence linger, as though he didn’t intend to finish it. Iris coughed and picked up the question.
“My name, as you might have guessed, is rather irregular for a reason. Iris is simple enough, that well-to-do but quite boring white flower that grows on the hillsides... but keening, of course, means to sharpen something. To make it keener, bolder, brighter. My family’s naming tradition has always been a bit... antiquated.”
Neither pony spoke as Iris finished. A small silence settled into the room. Occasionally, Bright Star’s eyes flitted back to the sword once or twice. Eventually, Iris cleared her throat and extended her hoof again.
“Shall we? I promise I shall tell you all about my family’s strange history over the course of the night, if we’re still to have one.”
Bright Star’s spectacles shone as bright as the blade’s silver as he took Iris’s hoof. Iris stared into his eyes, but found her gaze blocked by the mercurial shimmer, until, after a few seconds, it vanished, parting the moon-refraction to allow swirling blue to come forth.
“Would that beauty were, as warfare, more a simple art... a blade of brilliant luster to lay down and at last to pierce the heart... would that such a sharpened thing be given purpose in each pony to start... to then at last take up arms and call to attention, leaving scars upon the earth, not for blood, but for the seeking out of perfection’s mark...”
Bright Star blinked as his lips finished moving. The luster from his glasses dulled, and his posture seemed to shirk, shrinking him in towards himself.
“Er,” he said. “Sorry. I don’t suppose there’s sense dawdling further when we’re already running behind—”
His words left him as too almost did his air as Iris stepped into him, pressing her chest suddenly against his. Her nose almost to his nose, her breath in air with his, and her eyes softening, looking into his oceans of blue.
“You be careful with words like that, or you’ll fast convince me we’ve no need for the evening but to come straight back here.”
Bright Star’s face seemed to still. His breath caught in his throat. He felt the soft scent of flowers upon the air, lingering on Iris’ lips.
He stood frozen as Iris pulled away, hoof still on his, tugging his foreleg towards the door. The clock read 6:49.
“Come on. It’s not too far away. I bet we can still make it.”
With a last swallow, Bright Star nodded, and allowed himself to be moved, leaving the room with its ornate clock and silver blade, ticking and shimmering as the seconds war on, and he and his date raced towards the rest of their evening.
The night was a deep darkness when they returned. Though the stars and moon overhead struggled to light the ground, it seemed shielded by an unknowable force, keeping even the lamplight in passing away in a midnight shroud.
A small giggle came from the doorstep of Iris’ house. She was its source, leaning against her firm wooden door, her hooves on either side of the somewhat smartly pressed-suit on her date’s chest, pulling him so close, again he could smell the flowers on her breath.
“I had a lovely evening,” she said, her voice louder than the hour warranted, and unwhispered in spite of the narrowing of her eyes.
Bright Star, though blushing, beamed. He allowed himself to lean forward, his forehead pressing against his date’s, then leaning back again.
“I did too. You really are... I’m sorry. It seems like I’ve spent the night tripping over myself in calling you lovely. In fact, it seems I’ve been doing it since we first met...”
Iris giggled again and shoved at Bright Star’s chest with a hoof, which he grinned at, bringing himself back to press against her once more.
“Since before we’ve met, really. You know, a lady might take offense to a would-be suitor praising her endlessly for her looks. Haven’t you anything to say about my laugh, my wit, my personality?” Iris ended with another giggle, and Bright Star’s eyes glowed underneath the night’s darkness as he smiled back at her.
“I think you’d believe me when I say there’s a great deal I like about you... but I suppose I can give it a shot.” Bright Star cleared his throat, and held his posture steady, almost as stiff as a statue where before he had been limber.
“Her impish... er, no wait... her elegant... um, elegant glimmer of... state and personate... is... is...”
Iris shoved again, and Bright Star blinked, this time caught lightly by the ineffectual blow to the chest.
“I don’t think personate is a word in that sort of sense,” she said, grinning.
Instead of meeting her grin, Bright Star’s face seemed to fall.
“Er. You may be right... here, how about—”
His words faltered as the two hooves on his suit pulled him closer, close enough that his snout was touching the scent of lilacs in front of him.
“You needn’t always be so reverent, you know. Sometimes there’s a great deal you can say without words.”
There was no response to collect. Iris met his lips. They kissed. No soft or sweetness but a sudden hunger, her lips parting and his to follow. They kissed, shielded in the darkness of the sky overhead, serenading the shroud around them in the soft sounds of their closeness. The subtle murmur of their breathing.
The kissing stopped. Iris held Bright Star at hoof’s length, her eyes wild with mischief. Bright Star’s seemed lost, and his posture addled as he attempted to collect himself. Iris granted him a few seconds before nuzzling her snout against his, which he returned half-heartedly, still absent from the plane of the living.
“I’d wager a fair sum of bits you’d greatly like to be invited back inside,” she said, swaying forward and back against Bright Star’s body.
“Well... that is, I mean... I certainly wouldn’t... if you’d be so kind, I mean, I’d...”
“Shhh. You’re well aware after spending the night in my company that I do aim to be a lady of sorts, aren’t you?”
Bright Star nodded.
“Then you must also know a proper lady isn’t the type to invite a stallion into her house for the night of their first date.”
Bright Star’s face churned through expressions, hiding whatever his true reaction might have been in a slew of disguises and counterpoints.
“But,” Iris said, dragging a hoof across Bright Star’s chest, “I could be persuaded to invite you in for a cup of tea or two, provided you promise to leave in a proper fashion afterwards.”
Bright Star swallowed loudly.
“Tea?” he said.
Iris nodded, smiling.
“Well... sure, yes. I would love some tea.”
“Let’s go ahead then, shall we?” Iris turned at once and worked her key in the door’s lock, opening it and stepping inside without a moment’s hesitation. Bright Star seemed to take a minute to collect himself, but followed shortly thereafter, shutting the door behind him loudly, with a wince.
Iris was already putting the kettle on as he walked into the kitchen.
“Do have a seat. Tea should be ready in several minutes, if that. I have a lovely blend that’s just perfect for night-time.”
Bright Star nodded and surveyed the kitchen. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he sat, and fidgeted in his chair as Iris pulled cups and saucers out of their respective shelves. Neither pony spoke as the kettle began to boil, and Iris poured it smartly into the two cups, the clear, steaming water turning a soft orange as it contacted the tea-holders. Small leaves compressed in metal containers. She smiled as she brought both cups and saucers over to the table.
“It’s something with a bit of citrus flavour in it. Not too strong, but enough to give it a bit of flare. Very good when you’re not quite ready to go to sleep.”
“It smells good.” Bright Star took his saucer graciously and nodded in gesture of politeness.
“Doesn’t it?”
Both sat, holding their saucers, waiting for the tea to cool. The clock in the living room ticked onwards, its hands invisible in the low light.
“So,” Iris said, removing the tea-holder from the cup. “It occurs to me we spent the whole of dinner and then some talking about me.”
“I’m sorry.” Bright Star raised his cup, and held it just to his lips before deciding it was too hot and lowering it back to the table.
“It’s fine,” Iris said, doing the same, but taking a small sip of hers before putting it back. “But as that’s the case, and I’ve no interest to spend the next few weeks at chances of soliciting your company speaking solely of myself... tell me something about yourself.”
Bright Star tried another sip of his tea and found it cool enough for his liking this time. He held the sip in his mouth a moment before swallowing, and lowered the cup with a sort of surprised contentment on his face.
“Um... well, what about me would you like to know?”
“A great deal. But, for now, let’s start with the simpler bits. Something I’m dying to know, first off: what is it you do?” Iris leaned forward, resting her hooves on the table in a very unladylike fashion. “Surely you must be a poet or a writer somewhere, possibly on leave from Canterlot. Doing decrees and pronouncements and odes and adorations for the Princess, yes?” Iris’s eyes lit up as she stared across the table, her smile wide.
Bright Star shifted in his seat and looked towards the window. Black curtains hung over it to keep the night out.
“Well?” Iris asked. “Did I get it?”
“Not... er, not quite.”
“Well then?” Iris took another sip of her tea, lowering her cup back to its saucer with a soft clink.
“I’m, er... well... I’m studying medicine at the moment, actually.”
Iris’ grin dipped at one corner.
“Really? You don’t strike me as the medical type.”
“I’m not sure I am.” Bright Star put his hoof next to his cup, but didn’t raise it. “The, uh... poetry, I guess you’d call it... that’s something I’m just trying my hoof at on the side. Not really anything worth bothering over.”
“I quite disagree. You’ve got a wonderful talent for poetry, though I have to confess my opinion might not be the most objective. There is a certain wonder the way your words come together.” Iris’ eyes glowed earnestly as she looked towards Bright Star, who turned his gaze in another direction for a few seconds.
“It’s nothing special,” Bright Star said, his eyes affixed intently on his tea-cup. He picked it up and swirled the bright-orange liquid around in a circle, creating a tiny vortex at it’s center.
“You don’t really believe that, do you? I might not remember all my Old Equestrian verse, but yours is a lovely comparison in memory.”
Bright Star blushed faintly, but refused to look up from his tea. He held his eyes there until he felt something under his chin, pulling his face up to meet Iris, her hoof held forward, frowning sternly at him.
“Come now. If anything, consider this an instruction: a lady does not avow herself to a stallion who is so down on himself. What makes you think your poetry is anything less than beautiful?”
“You’ve not heard much of it,” Bright Star said, pulling his chin away from Iris’s hoof. “The bits I’ve... I’ve given to you were... more inspired than most of my attempts.”
Iris grinned. “I inspire you, do I?”
“You could say that.” Bright Star hid in a drink of his tea for a moment. “Even still... there’s not much call for poetry these days. Certainly when a career in medicine is much more promising.”
“You sound as about enthusiastic for it as a vendor slogging his way to another arduous day at market.” Iris sipped and paused for a moment, her cup held aloft. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m going to guess that becoming a doctor wasn’t a choice made solely for yourself.”
Bright Star nodded. “My parents... they’re very keen to have me do something respectable. As far as work goes, there’s not much more respectable than medicine. I can’t even imagine if I told them I was thinking about pursuing writing, when I’ve never even been published.”
“Everyone starts somewhere. Have you thought about working on something on the side, sending away to a publication or two to gauge interest?”
Bright Star shook his head and pushed his saucer forward, his cup half-full. “No. Like I said before... I don’t think I’ve ever written anything worth reading. Though I’m flattered that you think otherwise.”
“Would you let me read some of your other writings?”
Bright Star looked up from the table. Iris’s eyes glowed at him from across the table, as bright as the struggling light keeping the kitchen visible.
“I... maybe. I’d have to find something that wasn’t awful.”
“Well, when you’re certain you have, please share it with me. I’d be nothing less than delighted.”
A small spot of steam wafted up from Bright Star’s abandoned cup, apparently still hot enough to indicate its temperature. Iris eyed it as she drained the last of her tea.
“I’d offer you another cup,” she said, standing, “but I see you still haven’t finished your first. I also imagine that if I were to let you, you might stay here all night, regardless of where or when you end up sleeping.”
Bright Star bit his lip to hide an embarrassed grin, but nodded lightly, and stood as Iris had done a moment ago.
“You’re right. I’ve... well, to be frank, I’ve been smitten with you since the first moment I saw you.”
Again, the air was scarcely displayed when he felt her next to him, as though she’d moved in the moments between breath. Iris looked up the small difference between them, and Bright Star down to her. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth.
“I know,” she said.
They stood for a moment, air alight with electricity between them. Standing, silent, save the soft ticking of the clock in the next room over.
As the moment threatened to expire, Bright Star leaned forward, and Iris welcomed his kiss with its return. The soft sound of their lips joined the subtle ticking, and almost imperceptibly, the shuffle of their dress and suit against each other as their bodies shifted, ever-so-slightly, against while they kissed.
Iris gave pause with her hoof on Bright Star’s shoulder, and he pulled away.
“For all you might say about yourself otherwise, I believe I’m quite taken with you, Mr. Bright Star.”
Bright Star’s cerulean shone like fire in a sea of crimson. His lips stammered over the start of a sentence as he blushed. Iris ran her hoof along the side of his face, and felt the tensing of his muscles as he swallowed.
“I’m... that’s...”
“No need to reply. You’ve said more than enough on me tonight.” Iris withdrew suddenly, moving in the way she moved, somewhere one moment, elsewhere the next. Bright Star closed his eyes and moved his head from side to side, shaking the thoughts that had collected in his head.
“I would love to hear more about you though, even if it’s only a lament on the mundanity of medical study.”
“I’ll... I’ll try to come up with something to... when will I see you next, that is? If you’d like to, I mean, if you feel like you’d—”
Hushed, a hoof to his lips. Iris smiled.
“Does a week from today sound acceptable? Provided you can bear the waiting...”
Bright Star nodded rapidly.
“Yes. Yes, a week is fine.”
“Very well then.” Iris ran a hoof over Bright Star’s chest at forelegs reach, then took to his side and began to guide him towards the door. He followed almost in a stupor until the wooden frame was parted, and his hooves met the cold night air, blanketed in darkness.
“You’re free to pine as much as you like, of course,” Iris said with a smirk. Bright Star gawked at her perpetually as she showed him outside. “It shall be a pleasure to see you in a week. Until then?”
Bright Star nodded, but held a hoof up to stop the closing of the door before it came. Iris tilted her head at him, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, until then, although... not that it will be, but what if... what if a week seems, as it goes on, too long?”
For the first time of the night, a beam of the moon crested through the clouds and fog, lighting the ground, and too the cream-coloured dress and ivory smile as Iris grinned.
“Well, if that should be the case... I suppose you might write me a poem about it to share when the wait is over.”
And with no further a nod, Iris, still grinning, stepped inside and shut the door.
She counted a full twenty seconds until she heard the hoofsteps outside her door begin to move away, and only then allowed herself the swooning sigh she had been holding in all night, sliding down against the door until she crumpled onto the floor, beaming brighter than all of the sun.