Raven Mystery

Chapter 3

Raven Mystery galloped fast toward the train station, she had to catch up to Pinkie before she hopped onto the train and left. Her dark cobalt blue mane and her raven black was swept back by a passing breeze, but Raven didn’t care.

“All aboard,” the train conductor pony called out to any passengers and a station attendant pony was already watching his pocket watch.

Raven looked ahead. She knew there was still some ground to cover before getting to the station. She didn’t want to give up, so she kept galloping.

“Wee! I get to go back to Ponyville, yippee!” Pinkie bounced onto the train.

Raven saw the station attendant look for other passengers, but he didn’t look in her direction as the train whistle went and the churning of the wheels began. Then, a small plume of steam came out and Raven arrived onto the station, but it was too late.

“I missed my chance,” Raven grimaced to herself as she watched the train gain speed and start to get further away.

“There will be another train at half nine,” the station attendant put a consoling hoof on her shoulder.

“But that’s two hours from now,” Raven whimpered a little as she knew there was little she could do to stop Pinkie from inviting a few strangers she had never met before who lived in Ponyville.

“Sorry, missy, but the train takes about an hour to get to Ponyville and about an hour to get back and in the short time in between, Steamer likes to take a break,” the station attendant informed her with an understanding frown.

Raven sighed and got out from under the consoling hoof and wondered what she would do.

“So, ya’ be back in two hours?” The station attendant asked as Raven started to trot away.

“No,” Raven Mystery said with quiet disappointment, she had missed the chance to intercept Pinkie and make the party an Appaloosa locals only party. The station attendant didn’t hear her and Raven returned to her house.

“Oh, I really don’t know any pony from Ponyville all that well,” Raven sobbed to herself, but felt just a little petty for doing so. She remembered what Braeburn said about Pinkie being the best for arranging parties and inviting only those who were friendly, liked to socialise and enjoy being part of the party scene. It was the part of their enjoyment of being in a party for her she was concerned about. They didn’t know her and she didn’t know them and while socialisation and being friendly might break the ice, what would they do when free to party worried her.

About five minutes later, post arrived through her door and signified it was about eight o’ clock. Raven let another sigh, but then noticed she had done nothing to her humble little abode to be ready for a party. A quiet dining table for one would never do, some of the walls could do with a scrub and the floor did need some light sweeping.

Deciding, there was nothing she could do to stop the party and she still had an hour before work, Raven put her mind on tasks to at least making her place more welcoming. So, she trotted to the closet under the stairs and retrieved a broom, a bucket and a few sponges and fixed her eyes on the dusty areas of the floor and the walls and set to work.

Having magic through her horn sure helped. Raven smiled as it eased her job of cleaning the walls with a wet sponge a bit. She wouldn’t need to scrub each section piece by piece in a slower fashion like an Earth pony would. Though, at that thought, her magic stopped.

“Sorry, Daddy,” Raven mumbled as she remembered her father, Dusty Cobbler had been a proud, hardworking Earth stallion that would gladly do the job with his hooves and still be cheerful about the finish despite he had no magic to help him.

Raven sat and decided to think. Her Dad was dead, but was it right to upset the morals he had taught her that hard work didn’t just involve around magic? Her mother’s influence was magic did have a habit of being useful in situations and speeding some chores and it too required steely concentration and work.

In conflict, she sat for about ten minutes. In the end, she decided though perhaps not through physical assertion of manipulating the sponge through hoof work, magically controlling it still required effort and focus. Therefore, she wasn’t cheating her father’s hardworking morals by using magic and she could continue. Plus, at least she wasn’t a shooting a magical cleaning spell at the walls that leave them all sparkly clean in one powerful spell and was still doing the job, piece by piece.

She began to hum as time passed by and as the spots of dirt, dust and grime disappeared. Plus, to truly show she was her father’s daughter, whenever her magic and mental focus strained a bit, she would stop and use practical work until she could feel the motivation of getting things clean to re-spark her magic again.

“Raven, Raven, are ya’ in there?” called a panicky voice from the door and some nervous pitter-pattering of hooves sounded from outside.

Raven looked toward the door and up from her work and noticed the kitchen clock. She panicked when it was five to nine.

“Ya’ going to make us both late for work,” stressed the voice outside as Raven zoomed to the door.

“All right, all right, I’m coming, just move aside a sec,” Raven called out, waited a second and opened the door.

“Oof, wait until I move out of the way next time,” complained the voice and Raven looked over to see who it was.

Apple Stars scowled, rubbed some desert sand off her light orchid coat and stood up again.

“Sorry,” Raven apologised, but she knew they both had very little time as she galloped to work.

Four minutes later, Raven hurried through the employee entrance just in time as the clock ticked the last minute before nine and made it nine o’ clock.

“Yeah, ya’ barely made it, Raven,” called out the enthusiastic voice of Apple Honey, who also exchanged a welcoming smile.

“Thanks,” Raven smiled and panted in relief as she slowly trotted to behind the counter.

“Ya’ late though, cos,” Raven heard Apple Honey say in an unhappy tone to Apple Stars.

Raven decided to avoid the conflict of being badgered to defend a late arriving colleague and tend to the customers as she flicked the closed sign around, so the customers could see the flower shop was now open.

“Look, I know we Apples have a rep for being awake early and always before or on time,” Apple Stars argued with Apple Honey in the back connecting corridor as Raven trotted to behind the counter.

Raven decided any customer wouldn’t want to hear two arguing mares and shut the door on them and looked toward the front door. However, half an hour went by and then three quarters and then a tumbleweed blew past the store. Raven was about to let out a reluctant sigh of boredom when the door behind her opened.

“So, any customers?” asked Apple Honey as she emerged to assist.

“No,” Raven put it bluntly as the tumbleweed rolled out of sight.

“Just as well, y’all, me and Stars had a proper country mare throw-down out the back, I guess you were wise to close the door on us just in case we did get a customer though,” Apple Honey cracked a smile.

Raven exchanged a quick look and huffed in shock that Apple Honey’s normally well-groomed, neat, and tidy pale gold mane had signs it had been through a scuffle.

“Apple Stars got so mad, she’s galloped off to join Braeburn and Golden Harvest in Buffalo Orchards and she might yet prove to be the smart one,” Apple Honey explained with a smidgen of humbleness and didn’t seem to mind her mane being a bit of a mess.

Raven slowly nodded in agreement and thought Apple Honey was right as there had been no customers for the flower shop so far.

“I’m sticking with ya’ and the shop though,” Apple Honey declared with a grin.

“I guess, I could rearrange some of the flower baskets,” Raven commented and noticed the displaying strategy at the shop window looked a little disorganised.

“Fine, it won’t take ya’ more than ten minutes, I’ll stand watch at the counter,” Apple Honey volunteered.

Raven nodded and spent a little time rearranging the flower baskets for tidiness and decided to water them too and went and fetched a water can and came back.

“Still eerily quiet,” Apple Honey chuckled as Raven passed her by with the water can and watered the dazzling purple and blue lilies, the dandelion and the sunflowers. Their Appaloosa shop sold cactuses too, but they wouldn’t need watering for ages.

Still, time ticked on by in eerie silence mostly as there was no customer activity all morning and Raven flicked the sign closed again with a heavy sigh.

After lunch, there was no difference until around half three when Apple Stars returned with a prideful grin on her face with a couple of pants of exhaustion too.

“The Buffalo Orchard harvested more than half of its supplies today and I made a ‘big’ contribution,” Apple Stars bragged and lit up her unicorn horn to show some happiness while she smiled.

“Ya’ know that such a ‘big’ harvest means ya’ not likely to be needed there tomorrow,” Apple Honey chuckled.

“Yeah, but there was a lot of ponies involved working the trees and collecting the apples, I suspect you two hardly had any passing customers,” Apple Stars chided with a playful smile.

Raven could see despite the chide, both mares were smiling and it didn’t look like a fight was going to break out again.

“Well, in honesty, I did explain to Braeburn, I would come here and help you two close up shop, so I could have a little more relaxing feeling on my hooves and not buck trees and collect apples ‘all day’” Apple Stars said and turned her attention to the display and end of the day tasks.

Raven sighed and decided to collect a broom from the supplies closet and give the floor a light sweep as her last job of the day.

“Oh, wait Raven, I…” Apple Stars began and Raven looked back and saw she was flashing a pink party invitation envelope and then Apple Honey flashed one too.

“I mean we…” Apple Stars stammered.

“Never got the chance to thank you for the invites,” they decided to say both together and flashed grateful grins.

Then, a thought raced through Raven’s mind, her chores for making what preparations she could had been interrupted by Apple Stars and a rush to work as she danced her feet up and down.

“Forgot something?” asked Apple Stars with a cheeky grin.

“Yes, I got to rush on home and complete the preparations,” Raven said in a panicky voice, dropped the broom, forgot there was still about twenty minutes before four, rushed out through the corridor and out the employee’s exit.

“And here I was feeling certain, she would say sorry for bungling me off her porch,” Apple Stars frowned.