These Maroon Feathers

After I made sure that nothing and or noone was being set on fire I excused myself and headed on out of the library to find a suitable place to repeatedly crash without hurting myself trying to fly and also out of sight so I wouldn't have to deal with questions such as why a fully grown stallion (who happens to look like a mare) can't fly properly.

I decided on taking a walk through town and get to know the general landmarks so I could get around without getting lost before moving on to the flying and crashing part of this day.

Half way through the town I came upon a small restaurant; there was nothing odd about it and the only reason for me noticing it was because of what seemed like an 'upper class' white stallion with a blonde mane that was loudly screaming at the waitress how worthless she was; not knowing how to make a proper sandwich saying that the bread was not soft enough and there was not nearly enough salad.

Now there's only one thing I hate more than pompous assholes; pompous assholes that make a scene when it's unnecessary to do so (Oh and onions and fermented fish). It was time to channel my inner badger of Russian heritage. I sneaked up behind him and said “Ah' don't approve of yer conduct!” I proceeded to deck him in the face as he turned around knocking him out instantly “Gimme' yo' sandwich son!” and with that said I took his sandwich and ate it slowly as I picked a few coins out of his pocket to give to the waitress as payment.

Though paying proved to be a bit tricky as the waitress and everyone else was quite stunned by my awesome behavior, so I just put the coins on her head and went along my way to find a good spot for crashing and hopefully some flying as I was tired of mapping the town for now. After a bit of searching around I remembered the clearing in the woods and since I hadn't found anything better, that would have to do.

I reached the clearing after what seemed like half an hour and proceeded to tackle my first issue with flying; moving my wings. One would be surprised how hard it is to move an extra pair of limbs, it's like having four arms but one pair does not like you being in charge at the moment and likes to do whatever the fuck you don't want it to do just to piss you off. Now I'm not one to anger easily or at all for that matter, but when something keeps slapping me in the face multiple times it gets old quickly, and it didn't take long before I was running around screaming profanities while being slapped repeatedly in the face by my asshole wings.

“Wings? What are you doing? Wings? Stahp!” I exclaimed trying to reason with them only succeeding in making them slap more and harder. “Make it staaaahp!” I screamed desperately needing assistance as I ran around disoriented by all the slapping. I noticed that my screams of pure agony had attracted help as I ran headfirst into Rainbow Dash knocking both of us flat on our backs.

As I got my bearings back together I noticed a severe lack of wings in my face and a dazed looking Dash.

“My hero!” I exclaimed tackle-hugging the now somewhat confused pony “You saved me from the most evil slappy feathery appendages on my back!”

“The what now?” she asked probably questioning my sanity “What were you doing anyway?”

“Promise not to laugh?” I asked as I let go of Dash, preparing to guilt-trip or any other convenient way to get her into helping me reach the skies.

“Sure, what is it?” she pressed, seemingly eager to get at my supposed secrets.

“I can't fly” I squeaked out trying to make my faked embarrassment as genuine as possible.

“I don't think running around slapping yourself is going to help you to fly” she deadpanned. Fake embarrassment exchanged with a hundred and ten percent genuine one.

“Who knows? Maybe if I do it for another ten minutes a floating text will appear that says 'Flying skill increased to 10' or something” I said thinking back to all those hours spent on Skyrim.

“Yeaahhh...no I don't think so” she said “As much as I would like to see you run around slapping yourself I am just going to spare you the headache and teach you, since I am the best flier around you should be soaring in the skies in no time!” She struck a heroic pose looking rather proud of herself.

While glad that my plan worked out, I got the feeling that if I didn't help get her ego down right now she would explode, and if she exploded I would have to find a new snuggle-buddy and I didn't feel like getting a new one since my current one was the most huggable creature I've ever seen; that calming sky-blue colored soft coat and those adorable large magneta eyes... I think I got a bit sidetracked. Right, getting ego down before detonation of snuggle-buddy. (No, that was not me trying to cover up the fact that I like snuggling. Not at all.)

I swiftly tripped her and caught her in my forelegs, she looked startled as I leaned down over her. As I activated the bedroom-eyes I said in a seductive voice “Well then... I guess I owe you a thank you kiss both for saving me and for the promised lessons.” Just as our lips were about to meet I heard someone gasping behind us, reminding me that this may have gone overboard a bit.

“Oh...ohhh my” I heard someone squeak out.

“Why is it that every time I see you two together it is in a compromising position?” I registered this voice as the one Twilight was in possession of.

“Oh you're just jealous” I joked as I let an extremely embarrassed Dash go. I turned around to face the newcomers which included Twilight and four new ponies and immediately engaged my people reading skills.

One pegasus with butter-yellow coat and a long pink mane that she were hiding her teal eyes behind while blushing and looking guilty but she was obviously interested in what Dash and I were doing. Obvious closet-pervert right there.

Then there was an marshmallow-white unicorn with a styled purple mane and blue eyes sitting next to the butter-yellow closet-perv looking equally interested but not blushing at all. Oh lookie, I guess on hopeless romantic with this one.

Next were an orange pony with a blond mane tied up in a pony-tail and what seemed to be a stetson on her head. She looked a lot more muscular than the rest of this group and her freckled face was currently occupied with a slight blush and her emerald-green eyes were trying to find something other than Dash and me to look at. Labeled as the hard worker and not so much love-life type of pony.

And then there was pink. SO. MUCH. PINK. Pink coat, slightly darker pink fluffmonster of a mane, cyan eyes and what seemed like duct-tape over her mouth, not that it seemed to bother her at all, actually she seemed really happy, maybe even too happy; if happiness was to be measured in energy output this was the size of a nuclear reactor within a bigger nuclear reactor that produced nuclear reactors of pure happiness (Yo dawg, I heard you like nuclear reactors...). Other than all of the happiness this creature gave off she was completely un-readable so I labeled her as scary. My jimmies were severely rustled.

They had also brought what seemed like a green and purple bipedal lizard with  to carry what looked like four picnic-baskets containing about 20 kilos of different foods and pastries. His green eyes were pleading for a rest. His suffering gave me a funny feeling, like a warm fuzzy sensation in my chest. This rustled my jimmies even further but having other things to focus on made thinking about it impossible for now.

“Anyways, everypony this is Swift Gleam, Swift Gleam this is Pinkie Pie” she gestured towards the pink happy-factory who was almost vibrating with happy now.”We had to tape her mouth shut because she wouldn't stop talking after I mentioned you and it made talking to anypony else impossible”

“This is Applejack” she continued and gestured towards the one wearing the stetson who crossed her legs and aimed a polite nod towards me.

“Then we have Rarity” another gesture towards the marshmallow-white unicorn who put on an almost beaming smile and fluttered her eye-lashes.

“And then we have Fluttershy” Now gesturing towards the butter-yellow closet-perv who was currently hiding behind her mane as she squeaked pitifully in response to her name being mentioned.

“And last but not least we have Spike, my number one assistant!” Twilight completed her speech by gesturing towards the over-loaded lizard who simply gave a tired grunt in response and started unpacking everything.

“Twilight told us about this clearing and how it would be a perfect picnic-spot and she also wanted to introduce you to the rest of our friends, so we have been looking for you since a while after you simply disappeared from the library” Dash spoke up finally having recovered from her close encounter with my unmatched charm.

“We would have gotten here earlier darling if we didn't get hold up by some guards asking if we knew anything about a pony who had apparently knocked prince Blueblood unconscious. Personally I want to thank whoever did it” Rarity added and I immediately put two and two together.

“Well you're welcome then I guess” I said. Wow haven't been here more than a day and I've already assaulted royalty.

Before I knew it there was gasps and shocked looks directed at me.

“What?” I asked “In my defense; he was verbally assaulting a poor waitress for simply doing her job”

“So you... started a fight?” Twilight asked trying to understand my reasoning.

“No, I did not start a fight. I simply punched him in the face and ate his sandwich while he was unconscious, and it was one good sandwich I'll tell you. I don't get what his problem was” I explained in an nonchalant tone. Everypony calmed down and began to eat, well except Fluttershy who was hiding behind Rarity, Pinkie who had trouble with getting the tape off to get at the cupcake with pink frosting she picked out for herself and  Twilight who apparently likes to fuss over small stuff.

“Nevermind his problems! What about yours?!” Twilight exclaimed in a panicked tone while her right eye started to twitch.

“What problems?” I asked while trying to munch on a chocolate and vanilla muffin I had nicked out of a nearby basket, eating was hard with hooves.

“Well since Blueblood is the prince... well the prince of whining anyways, I'd suspect he has already gotten half of Canterlot's royal guard here looking for you already” The panic in Twilight's voice was increasing after each word.

“Twilight calm down, I'll deal with whatever consequences when they come up. Right now however there is a perfectly nice and calm picnic to be had, and I swear if you can't lay off; Pinkie's tape will find a new owner” I threatened as I began to help Pinkie get rid of said tape.

The idea of a calm and nice picnic abruptly left along with the tape as it came off Pinkie's mouth. There was a large intake of air before a shitstorm of words hit the area I currently resided in.

“ThankyouforgettingthattapeoffIreallywantedtoeatthiscupcakebutnotofcoursebeforeaskingyouifyoulikepartiesbecouseireallylikepartiesandifyoudidn'tlikepartiesthanthatwouldbeoddbecousewhodoesn'tlikeparties...” I tuned out the rest by thinking of what Vaas would do; I came to the conclusion that Vaas wouldn't have gotten himself in a situation like this because he would probably have shot/stabbed/enslaved any pastel-colored equine that was brave or stupid enough to get within an area of 5 kilometers from him(Watch out for Vaas, he'll enslave your ass). Gotta find a new role-model, this one wasn't helpful at all.

That was when I had the most brilliant idea ever. I shook my head and got a read on my surroundings again, it seemed as Pinkie just finished imitating a verbal machine-gun and was now looking at me expectantly, to which I held up a hoof and said “Before I try to decipher whatever it was you said, I'd like to know if anypony brought any forks?”

“Of course darling, I even brought a few extra in case any got dirty or dropped on the way here” Rarity answered.

“Good, second question; does anypony have any rubber bands?”

“Yes, I keep rubber bands all over Equestria in case of rubber band emergency!” The overly pink one answered, and zoomed off, but quickly came back and dropped a bunch of the requested item in front of me.

“Ok, here's what needs to be done; I want one of you to fasten forks on my wings using the rubber bands, try to stick as many as possible on there please.”

“Where exactly is this going?” Twilight inquired with a confused look plastered on her face.

“I'mma practice flying and solve the problem of my stomach desperately screaming for food of any kind” I beamed with pride over my genius.

I'll just skip ahead and tell you that getting stabbed with multiple forks over and over again even when said forks are loaded with food hurts like hell and the food just makes it messy. I need a bath.