While drinking tea in her cottage, Fluttershy heard an enormous "WHAM!"
"Oh no!" she said. "That sounded like the biggest bird strike ever!" She rushed outside.
On the ground near one of her windows, a gray pegasus pony lay with a goofy, embarrassed grin on her face.
"Derpy! Are you all right?" Fluttershy leaned in to check her for any obvious signs of concussion. Her pupils were the same size, which was good, but..."Your eyes!"
"What about them?"
"You must have been most dreadfully hurt! Your eyes are both pointing the same way!"
"Oh." Derpy giggled.
As Fluttershy watched, the pegasus' eyes slowly diverged to point in different directions. "Ahh! That feels better!"
Fluttershy said, "I see you're wearing your work uniform. Are you here to deliver mail?"
"I AM here on official business, but not that. I'm here to ask your help in investigating...a suspicious death!"
"Oh. Not again!"
"What do you mean, not again?"
"It's confidential." Fluttershy lifted a forehoof to mime zipping her own lips shut.
"So you have experience. That explains why I was given YOUR name at the station."
"Mm MMM MMMM!" Fluttershy said.
"I just don't know what you're saying!"
Fluttershy mimed unzipping her lips. "Ok. So lay it on me. What's the mission?"
"It's a consulting job. Two hundred bits a day plus expenses. And for the rest...I'd have to show you."
"Please come in while I find my hat and pack...if you can keep from slamming yourself into anything."
"Thank you! I'll try my best."
***
Fluttershy walked down the stairs from her bedroom, wearing a 'Sherlock Pones' style deerstalker hat and a pair of small saddlebags. "I'm ready!" she said.
Derpy waved a wingtip at several photos on Fluttershy's coffee table. "These are from the crime scene."
Fluttershy screamed, "Lysandra!"
"You know her?"
"I see her pretty often, out around Ponyville. She's one of the sweetest pigeons I know! She usually stays away from my bird feeder, because she doesn't want to crowd any of the smaller birds out or make them feel uncomfortable. I can't believe she's dead!"
Fluttershy frowned. "Who put those weird little clothes on her? Was that part of the crime? Was it the same evil criminal who shot her with that arrow?"
"The clothes aren't a crime. They're just her work uniform. It's kind of a secret project, but we've been experimenting with a new class of mail. If you want something very small and light delivered someplace remote and out of the way, we can tie it to a pigeon's leg."
"Wow. How's that been working out?"
"It's...been a challenge to get it working right. It's easy to teach a homing pigeon to 'go home!' when you let it go. But it's harder to arrange two-way traffic. Only a few pigeons can learn to do it. And this was our best delivery pigeon of all. She knew her way to and back from hundreds of places."
"That's amazing!" Fluttershy scowled. "And now she's dead!"
"You know animals better than anypony else, so the bosses were thinking, maybe you can spot a clue that everypony else missed."
"I'll give it a try!" Fluttershy said. "Lead on, Derpy! Let's catch that nasty bird killer!"
***
The sun hung low in the sky while Derpy led Fluttershy towards the Everfree forest.
Derpy said, "It's going to be n-night soon. In the Everfree. I hope you're not...t-too scared."
"Oh, not really. I've been into the Everfree Forest lots of times. I have so many friends there. Most of them animals, of course."
"Of-f-c-course," Derpy said, her teeth chattering. "Th-this isn't scary at all."
"Don't worry, Derpy! I'll protect you. And my Everfree friends will help protect you too."
"Th-th-anks."
Oh no, Fluttershy thought. The eye problem is bad enough. I sure hope Derpy isn't getting a stutter too!
***
In a dark forest glade, Derpy said, "The body should be right ahead." She peered ahead. "That's strange."
"It IS strange. I've never seen an animal like that before."
On a large rock, a naked human woman sat holding an arrow in her hand.
"Who are you?" Derpy asked. "And have you been interfering with the crime scene?" She looked at debris scattered around the woman. "And SOMECREATURE has damaged an official Pigeon Post postal uniform and leg bands. Don't you know that's against the law?"
The woman chuckled. "Sorry about that. I guess my secret's out."
"What secret?" Fluttershy asked.
"I'm not really a pigeon, exactly. I'm a pigeonwere."
Derpy gasped. "But pigeonweres are just a crazy story that can't possibly be real, like batponies!"
Fluttershy blushed slightly.
"I'll prove it!" the mostly-hairless ape said. "Test me!"
"What do you mean, test you?"
"As the Postal Service's very best Pigeon Class carrier, I know more than three hundred routes, both directions. Test me on any of them! You can test me orally, or you can even put a blindfold on me, put me on your back, and ask me for directions as you fly the route!"
Derpy asked, "How do you know where to turn when you're carrying a package from Canterlot, and you want to fly to Trottingham instead of Ghastly Gulch?"
"Ha! Trick question! We don't deliver Pigeon Class to Trottingham. And we don't deliver TO Ghastly Gulch, either. The closest destination is Horrible Butte, so you'd want to follow Disgusting Creek."
Many questions and answers later, Derpy sighed. "Well, I'm satisfied. I guess this weird creature really is PC double oh one. And the superstitious villagers with their torches were right."
"This is amazing!" Fluttershy said. "I've never met a mythical creature before...or at least not since last Thursday." She walked up to the creature and offered a hoofbump.
The creature made a fist and gently bumped Fluttershy's hoof. "You know me as Lysandra, but my real name is Lysandra Salandra Gitchigoomi."
"What an unusual name!" Fluttershy said. "Are you part salamander, too?"
"No, just a coincidence. But shouldn't you be asking me why I'm still alive?"
"That's easy!" Derpy said. "According to the legends, birdweres have amazing regenerative powers. Everypony knows that!"
"That's...yes, close enough. When the sun set and the moon rose, and I changed from a bird into a human, my body turned into a disgusting ooze that flowed into a human shape. The ooze didn't want to reform around the arrow, so I woke up a few, uh, hooves away from where my bird body had been, but alive instead of dead. You would not believe how much trouble I have keeping earrings."
"I would!" Derpy said. "In my home village, some of the more superstitious villagers used to pierce their foals' ears to prove they weren't ponyweres! But I always thought they were being silly."
Salandra shook her head. "Cruel prejudices like that are why my kind has always had to live in the shadows. I was so happy when I found this opportunity to get a job as a...nonpony person. In my bird form."
Derpy said, "But I heard this job pays literally pigeon feed?"
"Base salary, sure. But with performance bonuses and overtime, it's not so bad. If I can figure out how to get the bank to accept the paperwork, and if I can get a raise next year, I'll be making enough to get a mortgage on a birdhouse, maybe."
"Hmmph," Fluttershy said. "A mortgaged birdhouse? Juggling the finances to feed and care for thousands of animals has taught me a lot about the value of money. Salandra, I think you're underpaid."
Derpy said, "But she can only carry a tiny amount of mail at any one time."
Salandra said, "Would either of YOU be willing to deliver mail into the scariest parts of the Everfree Forest? To Horrible Butte? Into Tartarus Caverns? Because as a skilled Pigeon Class carrier, I have to fly into all those places, drop off letters and small packages, and bring mail back. I even have to do pop-up retail, because nocreature sells stamps in those places except for me. If I was a pony, I'd be getting so much hazard pay I'd be richer than Filthy!"
"Well...um," Derpy said. "But you're NOT a pony, so you don't get paid enough to single-footedly bankrupt the Postal Service. Fortunately."
Fluttershy asked, "How do the other postal carriers...the pony ones, I mean, feel about Pigeon Class carriers?"
Derpy's ears drooped. "Some pegasus carriers say Pigeon Class is just a scheme to replace us with animals that will work for pigeon feed. So some carriers see the pigeons as a threat to our jobs."
"I see."
"But pigeons have their place. Even with their weight limits, pigeon couriers sometimes carry important messages, or tiny but valuable items. Did you ever read the Daring Do book where Daring is being hunted by Caballeron because he wants to steal a magic pendant from her, but she rescues it by using a homing pigeon to send the relic to the Royal Warehouse of Dangerous and Neglected Artifacts?"
Salandra shook her head. "Archaeologists are some of the hardest postal customers to...I mean, Daring Do is just a story!"
Fluttershy smiled slyly at Salandra, but said nothing.
"My point was, sometimes a pony might want to shoot a Pigeon Class carrier down just to get at specially valuable mail," Derpy explained.
"It seems like we have a lot of possible suspects here," Fluttershy said. "A lot of investigating to be done."
"That's true," Derpy said. "But you're going to have to do it off the clock."
"What?" Fluttershy asked.
"But they tried to kill me!" Salandra cried out. "And they almost succeeded!"
"You have a good point," Derpy said. "But you're not dead. The Postal Service hires outside investigators for only the most severe crimes. KILLING a postal delivery specialist doing her job qualifies. TRYING to kill a bird doesn't. It's unfair, but that's how it is."
"I hate you," Salandra said.
Derpy shrugged. "I'm sorry. The law just doesn't protect you all that much." She twitched one shoulder. "Come on, Fluttershy. The job's over. Let's get out of here." Derpy turned and started trotting back out of the forest. "I want to get out of here RIGHT NOW!"
As Derpy ran out of hearing range, Salandra said, "I've always wanted a chance to really talk to you, not just coo at you pigeon-style like I usually do. But not like this."
Fluttershy blinked her beautiful blue eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I never wanted it to be because somecreature was trying to kill me!"
"Yes, that makes sense." Fluttershy blinked again. "But why DID you want to talk to me?"
"Because...you're so beautiful." Salandra shook her head. "It's not just that. You're so sweet and kind. You care about everycreature. Ponies and nonponies alike. And you're so smart. Nopony else knows as much about all the different kinds of creatures and how to be good to them as you do."
"Thank you." Fluttershy blushed again. "I guess I don't really know you very well. But so far, I think I like you too. You seem very brave."
Salandra smiled. "I...it's all part of the job, Mare'm. But if somecreature brave is what you're looking for...I guess Rainbow Dash is pretty brave. I don't think I can possibly measure up to ponies like her."
"Well...this is kind of embarrassing. But."
Salandra drew closer, and whispered, "But what?"
"I have a...rule. Half the ponies in town seem to have a crush on me. I couldn't possibly pick one and upset all of the others. Have you seen how jealous some ponies can get? And I think ponies are...boring. So I don't date ponies."
"Huh."
"But I don't love animals in 'that way,' either. There's something...missing, you know? And so many thousands of animals love me, I might encounter the same jealousy problem as I would with ponies."
"I...see?"
Fluttershy leaned in until their noses almost touched. "I think if I had a special somepony, I mean special somecreature, I would want her to be...somewhere in between. Not just a pony, and not just an animal either."
Salandra inhaled Fluttershy's scent. It was wonderful. It reminded her of the hours she'd spent sneaking into and back out of pet stores, ever since she was a little girl/bird. "Wow. If I'm not being too forward...what am I, Fluttershy? I mean, how do you see me?"
"I see you as an amazing creature, Salandra. But first things first."
"What do you mean?"
"Somecreature tried to kill you. We need to do something about that. We need to make it illegal to kill you. I mean, VERY illegal, even when you aren't at work. And you could really use a good disguise."
"I'm confused. Do you mean we should petition the princesses?"
"In a way. Listen to my idea..."
***
In the middle of the night, Twilight heard banging on her castle's front door. Because a growing dragon needs his sleep, she went down to answer the door herself.
"Hello," she said. "You look like...an Equestria Girl? How did you get here without turning into a pony? And why are you carrying a tiny Postal Service uniform?"
"Please let me hide in your castle. Somecreature is trying to kill me. You can ask Fluttershy about it if you don't believe me."
Twilight magically levitated the visitor inside, and closed the door. "What's going on?"
The creature sighed. "I don't know if you can help me...but I'm hoping you can. Fluttershy said there's a spell to turn an orange into a frog."
Twilight laughed. "I don't recommend it."
"I guess this might be even harder. Can you turn a pigeon into...some kind of creature that's protected by laws against murder? Like a pegasus?"
Twilight said, "Even if I could do that, what kind of pegasus would it be, if it had lived its entire life as a pigeon? Pegasi need to know how to talk, and so many other things that pigeons don't know."
"A few pigeons might. There's a legend...but you probably wouldn't believe me. Somecreature would have to SHOW you."
"Show me how?"
"Just...watch me a few hours from now, when the moon sets and the sun rises. I promise you, you'll learn something interesting."
