Bows in the Backyard

Just an ordinary day for Recurve. He was just chilling in his backyard, shooting arrows at a target taped to his wall. Sometimes doing trickshots, to make it look and feel cooler. Until doing a 360 spin, hit a tree, and almost tore his head off. But at least he hit a bullseye. "Heh. I'll take it..." He could feel as though somepony was going to intrude, though. He could feel their presence. It was... uncomfortable. It's like he hardly gets any solitary nowadays.

Rosie took a hop, skip, and a leap, and landed face-first in somepony's yard.

"Rats," she cried. "I did it again. Really sorr.... YAY!!! NEW CRYSTAL PONY!!!"

She started running towards the new pony, but she tripped and landed on her chest.

"Nice to meet you, sir," she said politely, cowed by the embarrassment of her current situation. "My name's Rosella, but you can call me Rosie. I'm here on business, but today, I'm just having some fun. What about you?"

Recurve chuckled at the pony's embarrassment. And a little bit at her clumsiness. He kept shooting his arrows. "Name's Recurve. Just having some fun here. What are you doing on my property?" Oh goodness, she brought up the Crystal Pony thing. "Yes, I'm sparkly. So what?" He continued shooting, kind of wanting to hit Rosie instead of the target

Rosie rolled her eyes and got back on her feet, blowing off the dirt covering her very crystally skin.

"Well, duh! I loooooove the crystal ponies, silly! After all, I know every, and I mean every, pony in the Empire. Did you ever live there? Ooh, it's so pretty, and sparkly, and, well, I'm just so glad to meet another compadre of awesomeness!!!"

Rosie looked expectantly at Recurve.

"Ooh, do you like archery? I used to love to do that! I accidentally shot and broke a plate in the Palace, though, and I got banned from the sport... Silly filly got in the way, and I had to move at the last moment to try and not hit her..."

Recurve actually payed attention to what she was saying. Rare he did that with anypony, because of lack of interest. "Yes, I did live in the Crystal Empire. But I can never go back... And I had some archery mishaps too..." This was the first time in history Recurve ever opened up. He shook his head and snapped back into his rude self "We're not 'compadres,' alright? I don't know you, nor do I wish to know you." He went back to shooting his arrows, but a tear came to his eye and he missed his shot

Rosie stuck her nose up in the air. If friendliness wouldn't work on this pony, maybe her chrystally charm would.

Cleverly, she kicked off her saddlebag so fast, she wasn't even sure she did it, but her flowers and potions and list of enchantments spilled all over the ground, rolling around. She groaned very convincingly and did her best mare-in-distress impression.

"Oh, no! Those are all my expensive ingredients! What ever shall I do?"

Rosie batted her long eyelashes and started picking up the flowers nearest to her, making sure Recurve could see all of the little gems embedded in each strand of her long, silky mane.

Recurve went back into his original mode, where he hates everything and shows no emotion. He looked over and saw her ingredients fall all over the ground and pleading for help. Normally, he would've just sat and laughed. Then he noticed how hard she was trying to get his attention. As of now, he was actually feeling things other than hatred and anger. He began talking to himself, holding himself back from the crystal mare. "No, love is the enemy. No emotions...Do not help the mare... just stand back and watch... Oh, to hay with it!" Recurve walked over and began helping her pick up her stuff. He thought to himself "What am I doing?!"

Rosie smiled.

"Thank you, Recurve," she said, slipping the last vial into her saddlebag. For some reason, she didn't feel as hyper as she usually was. This was the first time since... well, a thousand years before, since she had felt so mature. She actually felt like an adult mare.

This was one pony she actually didn't feel like cheering up. Did... did he like this solitary life? Sure seemed like it.

"I'm sorry to bother you," she found herself saying. "It was nice meeting you."

The awkward atmosphere was quite strange. This stallion seemed really uncomfortable.

"I'll leave you alone, if you want. Here, I got this-" she pulled out a silver bottle- "from the tea shop. It's supposedly really good for enhancing senses, and you seem like you'd appreciate it more than I would."

Recurve took the silver bottle. It was a nice gesture. He hated those, but here he could make an exception. And she actually understood he enjoyed solitude. But for some reason, he didn't want her to. "Wait... Maybe you can stay a little longer. Talk a bit?" He never felt this way about anypony. Normally he would shoo them off. But now he welcomed them. This was the first time since he was a colt he was ever nice to another pony

Rosie beamed at Recurve.

"Sure," she said. "Do you want to stay here or go somewhere else?"

A bad memory flashed before her eyes. Her coltfriend, a thousand years ago. He had died from the harsh treatment of King Sombra in the years of slavery, and Rosie was heartbroken. She had never truly gotten to know another pony well enough before removing herself and moving to a new city, but there's always time for firsts, right?

Recuvre was actually pleased. And nopony was being hurt. "We could go over to the cafe, if you'd like." Recurve would have never done these things prior to meeting Rosie. He was beginning to smile and his dark clouds of hatred were beginning to fade. Of course, he still had some anger in there, but he was beginning to feel the way he did when he was a colt some 1000 years ago

"Alright, let's go then," she said. She tossed her mane out of her eyes and looked at Recurve, who was getting friendlier by the minute. "You lead the way.

Well, Recurve did know the city quite better than Rosie did. She did say she usually comes here on business. "Alright. Follow me." He led her through the Marketplace and to the local teashop. He figured; why not strike up a conversation? "Since you mainly come here on business, what sort of business do you do?"