The Drop of A Feather

by RAVENous

Chapter Four - A Taste of The Norm

I was walking towards Canterlot with Raven. The plan was to find out as much as we could about Blade Point. Raven said he would have contacts who could give us some dirt on this fellow. This stake out, or what ever you would call it, was going to take a few days according to Raven.

It wasn’t hard to convince my dad to let me go. In fact it made me tear up when he said yes so easily. He hadn’t contemplated or even asked why. Tears rolled down my cheeks when I left towards my room to pack for the trip. I always wished that he cared about me. I knew he was in debt to the government for fines caused from crimes in his past, but I wished that he would have been a dad. I always had Rainbow Dash as a mother figure, but her affection was limited.

Raven and I walked into a dusty Inn on the outer rim of the city. Most of the buildings here were made out of wood. It wasn’t necessarily a poor looking community. It seemed like merchants and travelers occupied this section of Canterlot. Mostly just stands that sold various goods.

The inn was no different from any other building it seemed. It was made only of wood. It was decorated with banners that hung from the walls. A female bartender pony stood behind the bar.

“Hi, welcome to the Silver Tankard. Would you like something to eat or are you looking for a room?” She had a very relaxed voice. Off of that I could tell that she seemed to enjoy doing her job.

“Yes, we want the best room you have!” Raven was always so confident.

“That’ll be forty bits.” She waited to be paid before she said, “Your room is upstairs. The door on the left that is separate of the others.”

We walked up the old stairs. They didn’t seem too well maintained and I was a bit frightened that they would break to be honest. We survived the stairs and opened the door to our room. A small, two pony bed occupied the center of the room with one dresser beside it. The bathroom was small and held a sink and mirror with a standing bathtub slash shower across it.

I plopped down on the bed where Raven was already occupied. He looked at me and said, “Well we should probably get to work, but to be honest, I’m feeling extremely lazy. Why don’t we just take today off? We can get to work looking for Blade tomorrow. Besides it’s friday. He’s just going to be working anyway. Let’s just be normal ponies today. For once in our lives. After we meet up with my old friend of course.”

He looked at me with a smile on his face and a shine in his eyes caused by the dusty beam of light that poor from the window above the bed. The sun brushed across the flames that lined his head. It made me flutter. We had such a weird romance, but I didn’t really mind that.

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” I leaned forward and gave him a kiss. I expecting one of us to get up and prepare to leave, but we just laid there. I didn’t want to leave that badly to be honest. We both knew that we should be going to meet Raven’s friend, but still we only laid and drifted into eachothers’ eyes.

It must of been thirty minutes that passes when Raven finally stood up. “Well, I guess we really should go meet Rory. She tends to get restless. Besides I’m getting pretty hungry.” He stretched out his legs and back while letting out a soundless yawn. He was an extremely slender pony, but you could definitely notice his fine toned muscles.

“Works for me. I could use some grub.”

We left the Inn and headed deeper inside Canterlot. I didn’t like being around all of these fancy ponies. I hadn’t been to Canterlot in a very long time, but it didn’t seem like it had changed much at all. Snooty unicorns walked by with their snouts in the air. They fancied themselves important. The world would be better without ponies like them. I realized shortly after the irony that was in that sentence. I’m a thief and I’ll probably never steal as much money as they’ve stolen. The law is weird like that though.

We walked inside a lavish restaurant. It was wasn’t hard to pick Raven’s old friend from the crowd. She was sitting at a table in the very back corner. It seemed to be semi far away from the other tables. I assumed so that no one could overhear our conversation. The tan earth pony that sat there was large. She had a very muscular build. It was apparent that should could handle herself in a fight.

“You always choose the creeper corner don’t you Rory?” She looked up and smiled.

She spoke in a very rough and gruff voice. “It’s been too long kid. It’s good to see that you aren’t dead yet. You even got yourself a girl! That’s dangerous stuff there Raven. For you and her. Just make sure to be careful.”

I wasn’t completely sure what she meant by what she said, but I brushed it off. Raven was quick to respond, “I’m not sure how you manage not to fall on a knife out here. I’m sure there are a few people who aren’t too keen on you, but then again, you are a beast.”

“That I am Raven. Now about this Blade guy. He seems like a straight shooter at first, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that no pony is a straight shooter. We all have our vices and he’s no exception. Now after a long practice of sword fighting or after studying for hours this pony likes to relax, but he doesn’t relax in a way that the princess would approve of. No, he like to smoke moon dust. I honestly don’t understand why it’s not legal. I mean it doesn’t hurt anypony and it’s not like you can overdose, but that’s beside the point. If you follow him around a bit you might be able to catch him buying some, or you could take the more direct approach and sneak into his room in the castle. I’m sure you’d be able to find his drugs somewhere there. Whichever way you want to go. Doesn’t matter to me.”

“It’d probably be easier and safer to just follow him. I wouldn’t think breaking into the castle would be easy.” The two sat and chatted after that. They talked mostly of old friends who had died or of past mistakes that made funny stories to tell. Raven never mentioned the ring though. I guess he didn’t want many ponies to know about it.

“Well, Thanks for the info Rory. It was awesome to see you again! We have to go though. I was planning on showing Scootaloo around Canterlot a bit.” He stood up out of the chair and I mimicked his movement.

“Sounds like fun. You two have a good time! Catch you later Raven. You too Scootaloo.”

“So are you ready for a good time?” Raven said as we walked out of the restaurant. “This is my home town. I know all the cool places. One thing I love about this place is that the rooftops are placed so close together. It’s fun to run across. Of course you’re a pegasus so you can just fly, but I still think it’s cool. There is this one place that’s really easy to get to yet nopony knows about it. I’ll show you it later. Right now we should go do something fun! How about we go to a play? I think there is one on soon.” It wasn’t long after noon. Raven had a smile on his face and mine held the same expression.

We walked into the playhouse, which I hadn’t been to since I was just a little filly. It was one of the few times I enjoyed learning about something. The play that was on that day was on today was an old romance tragedy that was extremely cliche. A play that everypony knew, but they didn’t really know. They knew the basic plot, but didn’t know the actual story. Of course Raven knew everything about the play and the author of it.

“I honestly don’t like the this play, but they way it’s written is just so amazing. It’s hard as hell to write in sonnets, believe me, but writing a whole play with poems is just amazing. I’d probably forget to end with couplets when the character left.” He talked like I knew what he was saying.

I just laughed, “I have no idea what you are saying, Raven. You’re so cute!” His cheeks turned a delightful shade of red. It made me smile wider.

The play started with two servants with swords and bucklers who soon after get into a fight with another servant. One person broke up the fight, but was soon challenged to a fight and those two began to fight. I wasn’t paying much attention to the play. It was a lot of fighting right in the beginning. Although it seemed to lighten up. I smiled when I felt Raven’s hoof fall atop mine. I could hear the pitter patter of rain from the roof of the playhouse.

The play lasted a few hours. The rain lasted just as long. It stopped shortly before the play ended. I wasn’t really that entertained by the play, but I still had a great time just being there with Raven. It felt like a normal teenage date. It was nice to feel normal for once.

Pegasi were clearing the clouds when we left. There were pools of water in random spots across the brick streets. A light mist still hung in the air. I loved the smell that was produced after the rain.

“Well, since the sun has almost made its trip into the mountains we should go get some ice cream before the shops close!” I guess what Raven wanted to show me didn’t need the light of day. I was perfectly okay with eating some ice cream.

“I know this one place. It has the best ice cream in the whole damn world. It’s called Cream and Custard’s. It’s so good, baby. You’re going to love it.” My smile grew wide when he called me baby. I am definitely okay with that.

I had to admit it was some good ice cream. Raven wasn’t far off at all. I sat and waited as he finished his ice cream. He ate very slowly. Always examining the bite he was about to take. I was still very curious about what he wanted to show me. It was already dark outside. “So when are you going to show me that spot you were talking about? You have me all curious!”

He looked up from the ice cream on his spoon. “Oh yeah! Let’s go, I’ll show you right now!” I was surprised when he dumped the rest of his ice cream into the trash can and walked outside. I laughed and flew up behind him.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah I know.” He too laughed. “Come on it’s just up here!” We ran towards a water tower that stood over the city. It was taller than most other things in the the city and was located on top of a hill.

“Fly up there and wait for me, but don’t look at the view! Not yet!” I flew up to the top of the tower and sat where a catwalk was located. Raven reached the tip of the ladder and walked over to be. He sat facing the city and said, “Ok, you can turn around now.”

I didn’t expect what I beheld. The lights my eyes viewed. My muscles tightened for a moment and then relaxed. The lights reflected off of all the water pools that laden the streets and rooftops. The different colored apparitions flashing and changing made me feel so small, but at the same it made me feel important to this world somehow. I knew that I was at least important to somepony. I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“When I was little I used to come up here on nights when my mom and dad were getting violent. I sat up here and wished for a better life. Not long ago, shortly before I moved to Ponyville, I sat up here, like I usually do, and felt the urge to jump.” My heart skipped a beat. “I didn’t feel like living. I hated my life so badly that I wanted to end it. I almost did too, but something kept me from it. I thought that I should let it play out a little bit longer to see what happens next. Then I moved to Ponyville and met you. Now I’m up here again and the urge to jump, it’s gone.” He looked at me with tears in his eyes and kissed me.

Both of our cheeks were wet, when he pulled away and looked back at the view. He let out a laugh and said, “Fuck me.” A smile betrayed his happiness.

I knew I didn’t have any reason to be concerned but I still asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, I think I’m in love with you, Scoots.” My heart let out an explosion of emotions. My belly was full butterflies and my chest felt light as a feather. For a moment I had forgotten that we were both thieves tracking down a guy to help us with an item we stole. In all actuality I forgot about everything.

“I love you too, Raven. I’m so happy I came here with you.” Tears still streamed down my cheeks. I wrapped my hooves around his arm and held him close.

“I’m extremely happy that you did too.” He wrapped his hooves around me in a hug. “We should probably get back to the hotel. We have a long day ahead of us and need our rest.”

“Yeah you’re probably right.” But still we remained on the tower. He with his hoof around me and me with my head on his shoulder, watching the world move.

Comments

[-Brutus]

So cute heh, let's see what happens next!

[mccullou29]

Damn it Raven! Rule #1: Dont get involved with other ponies.

Oh who am i kidding. Im forever alone and this just reminds me of that.

Good chapter anyway