A grey pegasus mare stood in the spa doorway. From under her pale-yellow mane, her amber eyes looked at Anon. Or, at least, one of them did. The other one was looking at... the magazine rack, maybe? The official emblem on her saddlebags told Anon that she was carrying-

"Mail!" she announced. She flapped her wings to loft over to where Anon was standing at the front desk. Her flight path took a wild twist and turn sending her sprawling onto the floor as she slid to a halt at the base of the front counter.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?" Anon asked, helping the pony to her hooves.

"I'm okay. I'm just overdue for a preening," she said. Her... more-behaved eye looked behind Anon. "Is Lotus here?"

"Oh, are you her next appointment...?" Anon flipped through Lotus's appointment book, "Mrs. Hooves?"

"Miss." she corrected. "But you can just call me Derpy. Everypony does."

"Your name is Derpy?" Anon asked. "What, did your father not like you?"

"I don't know. But my mother loves me!" she said, her endlessly-positive demeanor just as bubbly as her cutie mark. "You're Anon, right? The human?"

"Last time I checked."

"Fluttershy told me about you. You look exactly like what she described," she said.

"Um... thank you? I think?" Anon said. Derpy stood there for a minute, looking at him. And the clock. Lotus was usually quite punctual. It was unlike her to be running behind. "Oh, right, Lotus! She's running behind. She's uh, dealing with a... hoof-polish emergency."

"Oh." Derpy didn't frown, but her smile vanished. "Well, I don't have time to wait around." She gave her mail bag an emphatic shake. "Neither rain nor snow nor... crooked feathers, I guess." She turned to leave.

"Wait, a sec,"

"I can't wait," Derpy said. "I have all this mail to deliver today, and if I can't fly, it's going to take a lot longer."

"I could do it," Anon said. "I mean, I've never done it before, but I understand the process. And it certainly can't make your wings any worse." She seemed unsure. "It would be worth not having to get around on hoof, right?" he asked.

Derpy shuffled her hooves, visibly nervous around the human for the first time.

"But you're a stallion human, right?" she asked.

"You mean a male? Yes. Is that an issue?" he asked.

"I- well, I don't know. You're not a pony so... I guess not," she decided.

Anon wrote Derpy's name into his leger and led her into his spa suite. She shuffled off her mail bag and climbed up onto the bench, facing longwise with her back to him and she splayed out her wings.

He sat down next to her on the bench, straddling it with his legs and facing her. "So why don't you preen yourself?" Anon asked. "Fluttershy does it by herself."

"It's hard for me to see things that up close," she said. "I don't have very good depth perception."

"Oh. Right, right." Anon placed his palm against her back, between her scapula, establishing the contact as so not to startle her. Fluttershy had explained preening to Anon. She would regularly take time to check over her wings for old or damaged feathers and pull them out to make room for a new one to replace it. But it was something she always did herself.

He ran his hand up along the leading edge of her left wing. Her wing still twitched a bit at first. He felt along for any feathers that were damaged or misaligned. There were quite a few.

"Alright, so I'm just going to... pluck these out, alright?"

"Mhmm," Derpy said, acknowledging his words and bracing herself somewhat. He plucked the first feather that very obviously needed to be removed. "Ah!" Derpy said, in a sort of half-yelp, half-sigh.

"I'm sorry!" Anon apologized. "Did that hurt?"

"No- well, yes, but... Wow this really is your first time, huh?" Derpy asked.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"No, it's okay," Derpy said. "It does hurt a little, but that's normal. It really does feel better once it's out though. Like a bad tooth."

"I guess that makes sense," he agreed.

"The first one always gets me though," she said. "You can keep going."

"Okay."

"So I get to be your first?" Derpy asked. "That makes this kind of special, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" he asked.

Derpy turned her head a bit to try to look at the human sitting behind her. "N- no. Never mind." She sounded both disappointed and relieved.

Anon continued working. Plucking the next feather made Derpy hum a stifled noise. After that one she was able to keep herself quiet. The silence was a bit awkward.

Anon tried to break the tension. "So what do you like to do when you're not delivering mail?"

"Oh, my daughter takes up all my free time," Derpy said.

"Ah, yes. Being a parent is a full-time job isn't it?" he asked.

"It sure is," Derpy agreed.

"Does her father usually help with this?" Anon asked.

"Her father... isn't around," she said.

"Oh." Anon didn't know if that meant her father was dead, or simply out of the picture. But he knew that neither case was any of his business. He focused on what he was doing with her wing, giving a few suspicious feathers a light tug to check if they were ready. "That must be... challenging."

"Sometimes..." Derpy said. "But I get by with a little help from my friends. It's not like I'm alone."

"That's good to hear. Everybody needs somebody sometimes."

"Yeah..." she sighed.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"No, it's just that... there is somepony I've been seeing."

"Oh? A special somepony?"

"No. Not yet. I'd like him to be. But..."

"But what?" he asked.

"I don't think he really sees me that way," she explained. "We're good friends. But I don't think he'll ever see me as more than just a companion. My mom would have loved to hear that I married a doctor, but I don't think he'll ever want to settle down."

"A doctor, huh?" Anon asked. "What kind?"

"He's... actually I don't know," she said, as though realizing it for the first time.

"I don't suppose he's the one that lives in the mobile home is he?"

Derpy laughed out loud. "I don't think I've ever heard anypony describe it that way! But yes, that's him. How do you know the doctor?"

"Oh, I don't, really," Anon said. "I've just heard about him. A little."

"He's nice," Derpy said. "But I need someone more stable."

"Phrasing."

"What?"

"Horse puns. Never mind." Anon had to really reach out to get the last few feathers at the tip of her wing. Derpy noticed this and backed up a bit closer to help him reach before he switched over to do the primary feathers on her other wing. She backed up a little closer. He didn't need to be as close, so he backed away a little, putting his back to the wall behind him.

With each pluck of feather, Derpy shifted on the bench just a tiny amount. It went unnoticed at first, until the dock of her tail bumped against his belt buckle. The sudden contact made her tail swish from one side of the bench to the other, smacking the underside of Anon's chin as it went. He looked down. The volume of her tail still covered her butt and now his lap.

"You're a little close," he said.

"It's okay," she said. Though it wasn't really her he was concerned about. He started to work as quickly as he could.

"Alright. All done!" he announced.

"You have to get the secondary feathers too," she said. She leaned forward and angled her wings to show him her feathers on the underside of her wing. She laid her head on her forehooves against the bench and waited.

It would just be more of the same work. Anon had become quite good at it, and worked as efficiently as he could. A few more errant feathers plucked and she had pushed herself back against his pants. He did not realize just how warm ponies were. Or rather, just how warm she was in a very localized, specific place. And the fact that she was pressing it against a very specific part of him.

"Almost done, almost done," he repeated out loud, mostly for himself, as he moved over to the other wing. She had practically pushed herself up onto his lap. Her hind legs were flexing from side to side like she was waiting for the little filly's room.

Lotus opened the door suddenly, "Anon, I'm so sorry I didn't realize I had scheduled a pree-" she gasped and covered her mouth, turning even pinker than her sister. "Oh my goodness!"

Derpy jumped off the bench and stumbled across the floor, looking just as flushed as Lotus. A string of words came rushing out of her mouth. "Thank-you-very-much-for-the-preening-Anon-I-feel-much-better-now-I-need-to-go-deliver-the-mail!" Derpy grabbed her mail bag and ran for the door, colliding with Roseluck. Roseluck, whose fur was now clean of hoof polish, looked at Derpy. For a moment, their eyes met, and everything else around them didn't matter.

"Derpy," Rose addressed.

"Rose," Derpy greeted. Neither were particularly cordial. Derpy continued toward the door, stopped at the last second, and ran back. She tossed a bag at Anon, "Keep the change!" she said before flying away. Anon wasn't sure exactly what had just happened. But Derpy's wings were clearly working better, and he got paid.

"Um... awkward turtle..." Anon said, making a goofy hand gesture to break the tension.

Roseluck blinked and looked at him. "Right, Anon," she said, grabbing her bag. "I just wanted to tell you that it was... it wasn't your fault that my hoof polish got... in my fur," she said. She moved away from Lotus to speak more quietly. "And your... mane massage was-" she trembled. "It was really good. I'll have to come back again some time. Just... without the polish." Rose gave him his rated pay and then left.

Anon felt a gentle breeze as the door opened. It gave him a slight chill. He realized that a particular spot that had been quite warm a couple minutes earlier was now cool, and damp.

Author's Note

316239