Marked you silly fool! He'd been so focused on how the very act of stretching in front of Rainbow and Agilene might make him look foolish that the idea that he would be doing it wrong hadn't even crossed his mind! As a result Marked felt his cheeks wear a light shade of red as Rainbow corrected him on what he was doing, adjustments being made as they were instructed. Marked, while finding the slip up about wings to be amusing, couldn't pull himself from having resorted to giving Rainbow a perpetual look of unsure embarrassment as every move he made was soon done more slowly and carefully as he watched her for any other signs of him screwing up. Boy did he wish he'd paid more attention in gym...

When Rainbow started to go into more depth about her story Marked was able to stop focusing so much on his, most likely overblown in his own mind, show of P.E. related ignorance and instead go back into doing his stretches more calmly as he listened in. He was glad to hear she was planning on fleshing out the world - him already having mentioned his love of good lore - though her current attention to the main story, while to be expected of course and even encouraged, did make him wish he'd caught her idea further into its development so as to have more yummy fluff to delve into. The core seemed interesting on it's own, Marked picking up the name of the main character as well as some details about some forbidden love, a mysterious appearance of a child, her not fitting in and even what her parents were.

Marked wondered if the event involving the village being overtaken by pegasi guards was going to be the beginning chapters of the story to kick things off or happen further along the line after some more in-depth development of the character and the village itself. Either way, sounds like it would be a rather exciting and interesting way of taking both Rumina and the reader to Cloudsdale to show of the pegasi and how things would be for them had they isolated themselves. The mention of Rumina being capable of some form of magic, beyond the normal pegasus magic all winged ponies were born with he assumed, also raised a curious eyebrow as Marked finished up his stretching and allowed himself another rest on his seat as he half flopped back down with a sigh. Finally! No more need for any further physical strain! At least for a while.

The writer felt confident in guessing who the villain of the story was going to be after the mention of Crystal Pony Seer, and he had more than enough food for thought even before being given the second helping that was heaped on with what Rainbow divulged before excusing herself from the table. Marked needed to be ready to read those notes... His curiosity was beginning to demand it of him. His hoof made its way down to his saddle bags again and started to get to work in removing the heavy books and the wool cloths being carried inside while Rainbow was absent to make space for him to reach his glasses underneath. As he set down the first of his books onto the table in front of him, Marked gave Agilene a friendly smile, not wanting to be rude or force a silence between them with Rainbow gone he tried to keep up some conversation.

"Quite an idea so far, eh?" Marked said as he rummaged through his bag and pulled out his glasses, resting them on his muzzle and fighting the urge to start flipping through the notes on the table without their author present, "I'm liking it so far. Have you ever written anything, Miss Flow? What do you do for a living? And do you live around town? I don't recall ever having seen you around before, though that's not exactly saying much with how shut away I can become." For all he knew Agilene could be a new local hero and Marked probably still had a fairly decent chance of not having seen her before that day. He really did need to go out more and try to socialize better.

Marked listened for Agilene's reply as he tried to decide between leaving his books out on the table where they were currently stacked or slipping them back into his bags to be given to her later after they'd discussed her own story first. Would they even manage to be stuffed back into his bags without tearing something? Marked was kind of wondering how he'd managed it in his rush the first time when looking between his books and the bag beside him was starting to make him feel like he was trying to figure out a geometry puzzle... How does one fit this many large books inside of a container not designed to accommodate without damaging something...

In the end, Marked decided to attempt to stuff the books back into their places... mostly out of being nervous of showing them so soon. He failed to fit them where they were before however since it seemed oddly impossible now, and so only two of the books were packed back away while the third was merely set on top of his bags which were again set down next to him and out of the way by the time the now pancake bearing Rainbow Dash returned.

"Oh, you know, you don't have to..." Marked tried to say as Rainbow declared that she would take care of the full cheque for the food herself, his hoof reaching out and accepting the offered cocoa and right away being pulled back to allow the hot beverage to be held close to his chest where its delicious aroma was free to rise up and into his nostrils, "Really, I know you mentioned it being because I'm here to help with your story, but I wanted to come and was happy just to hang out so there's really no need..." He tried, but his tone wasn't very loud or strong out of his worry that he would offend, it being very possible that Rainbow may not have even heard him at all.

Either way, he was quick to take a sip of the hot cocoa he was holding that was currently seducing him with its scent, his first sip being carefully made to avoid being burned while maximizing taste as it was washed over his taste buds. His mouth was flooded with chocolate euphoria as he gave a small hum of approval over the flavor, the sip causing a wave of wonderful warmth to spread out from deep in his chest and down in his belly as it was swallowed, something his chilled body was in serious need of as the rising of his core temperature brought a smile to his face. He glanced out the window to check on the rain, him wishing that he had himself a sweater or a hoodie -Well, a dry one at least - to make this even better as he snuggled a bit into his seat and refrained from taking any of the pancakes for himself yet and just wished to enjoy his cocoa for the time being.

Marked didn't have the energy needed to physically do anything more than just brighten his cheeks with a slight shade of embarrassment over Rainbow's jokes over both his condition and the weight of his saddle bags. His jacket was almost entirely off by this point though, thankfully, his saddle bags and their girth then in plain view for everypony to see.

"Er... Heh. You know. Stuff. This and that. Things, what-have-you and the sort," he didn't want to go about making himself look like too much of a goof by explaining how he ended up carrying so much with him to the cafe, so instead he settled on being enough of a goof as to give a pretty unhelpful and silly answer. Awesome. Eh, he'd get over it, just like how his jacket was getting over the rest of him as he gave it one final slightly awkward and clearly tired tug to remove it from his body entirely and toss it to the side where it would be out of the way. Yup. This hoodie sure was uncomfortable. And wet. And cold. He gave Rainbow a nod when she explained her plan for starting their meeting with her idea being brought up from scratch as his hooves moved to the strap of his saddle bags to loosen them.

"Sure, that should work. Actually, if you've got a few things that are ready to be looked at right away, I would gladly-" one of his hooves, which had detoured from the buckle of his bags and headed for the bag itself, was stopped short as it tried to open his bag up and reach inside, it only softly thudding against the spine of one of the books he'd brought along. This would certainly make reaching his reading glasses difficult seeing how they were now, he assumed and hoped, beneath the books threatening to tear out of his bag and fall out at any moment.

"Uh... Gladly listen to anything you can sum up before tossing me into the heavy stuff." Lame finish, Marked wanted to see if she had any notes he could get right to work on checking out, but without his glasses all he'd be able to do was stare at a page and pretend to understand. Unless he wanted to hold the paper only a mere inch or so away from his face and completely abandon his new quest to achieve some semblance of "cool". Can you look cool doing that? Was it worth the risk? Marked was really excited to see what Rainbow had in mind for her book, so maybe he could risk it...? Or wait like an adult until he had his glasses. OR risk it because its going to be a book written by one of the element bearers and he was super duper-

Forcing himself to take a breath and shake away his distracting thoughts as Rainbow returned her attention to Agilene, Marked returning his hooves to their job of attempting to remove these heavy weights strapped to his body. He couldn't help but wonder about that mention of Rainbow Dash being on coffee... That must have been a stressful day for everypony in Ponyville if Marked had to guess about the already fast pony being dosed with caffeine

"Yeah, it wouldn't be any problem if you wanted to hang out with us be it as a friendly meeting or just until the rain passes," he added to Rainbow's assurance that Agilene would not in fact distract or be unwelcome, "former would be nice and the later would arrive sooner with good company after all. Also, oh my gosh does some hot cocoa sound good right now!" Marked's attention would shift between the two mares should Agilene decide to stay, his work on his buckles getting him somewhere as his saddle bags finally fell off of him, causing his weight to shift so drastically that he swayed and nearly fell over in his seat, a quick hoof rescuing him from a clumsy tumble as he righted himself and tried to play it off as if nothing had happened. "Snuggling up in my seat and watching the rain outside as I sip some hot cocoa with marshmallows and have myself a slice of pie with a big ol' dollop of whipped cream on top... If my hoodie wasn't so wet right now I would feel so cozy just thinking about that..." He gave a slight shiver as he remembered how chilled he'd actually become during his sprint through the rain and wind, the darn hoodie responsible for harshing his mood being his next target for being pulled off of his body.

"I haven't had a chance to do something like that in forever. Those kind of nice evenings always do me wonders for creativity. Maybe it will help you with yours too, Rainbow? Or has it been helping already?"

"... Uhhhhmmmm..." Marked, having gone home to prepare for his meeting with Rainbow Dash at the cafe, once again found himself humming indecisively as his eyes hopped from the cover of one of his books to the other. WOW, was this turning out to be more difficult than he'd ever imagined it would be. After resharpening his pencils and making sure his saddle bags were restocked with a fresh notebook or two to use for jotting down ideas that could then be used to assist the mare, he'd started the impossibly difficult task of deciding which of his books to take with him for Rainbow to borrow. He had made no progress yet and it was starting to stress him out as he could feel time ticking away like a chisel chipping away at his nerves.

Another scan of the three books currently laid out on the desk before him, starting with the horror story to his left, the art on the cover - it being one of the few of his books to have the chance to get such a bonus - being of the entrance to a large and foreboding temple meant give a spooky impression as it peered menacingly out from the surrounding jungle thicket. Rainbow had mentioned being a sucker for scary stuff, right? This would be a good choice for bringing along then, wouldn't it? Personally Marked felt that it wasn't really a bad book on it's own, just felt risky since it was outside of his usual genre of choice. Or, well, not entirely free of it he supposed as the setting itself was pretty adventurey with the main protagonist being a treasure hunter of sorts looking for some goodies. Marked went through a number of facial expressions as he ran the idea through his head, it ranging quite vastly from hopeful to worried to confident to wanting to just bash his head against the desk.

Refraining from bruising his forehead darker, Marked gave a less worried but also less interested shift of his attention tot he book in the middle, it being one of his normal adventure focused novels that he, of course, was proud of was not as excited over. It wasn't a bad story, he'd have never tried to get it published if he didn't think it wouldn't be enjoyable to read, but he just felt that it was far too within his comfort zone as a writer. Another adventure story, one he was sure Rainbow would enjoy based on her opinion of his other book, but... He didn't know how to describe it. It was too safe of a choice? Meh... He wanted to impress her with something cool and new, not just go with a possibly sure thing that could still very well not go over all that well.

One sigh later and he was inspecting the third and final book in the line up, his sci-fi novel about gadgets and junk. Blegh.

He gave a shake of his head, releasing himself from the sudden grasp of his own self doubt and pity and giving the book another more serious look. Certainly would have plenty of action for her, the main character making it his job to get into the business of eeeeeverypony who was important and rich enough to earn his interest and afford his services, and the technobabble sprinkled through out wasn't so heavy as to come off as dumb. And all of the toys! Oh, Marked had had quite a bit of fun in imagining up the many devices and machines through out the entire story! Fancy space fairing airships, stealth suits, advanced displays, instant bakeries. watches that could do pretty much anything if you programmed them right... The book would most definitely keep things fresh with every turning of its pages at the very least.

"Auuugh! Come on Marked!" he commanded himself with an exasperated moan, bonking the side of his head with his hoof, "Just pick one! You've been at this forever now! You've only got..." a glance back at the clock he kept around for the occasions when he actually had an appointment to keep or a place to be to shake up his normally open schedule, "... Fifteen minutes to get this done an- fifteen minutes!?" a double take so hard that he risked snapping his own neck. Only fifteen minutes left until four!? This wasn't good! Not at all! His house was located much more further out on the outskirts of town than most others, so fifteen minutes left to get to the cafe basically meant he was late already! How could he have possibly got so focused on choosing a book so as to lose over an hour of time? Maybe even more??

"No no no no no no no!" Marked began to repeat over and over, hurrying to buckle his saddlebags back onto his body and give a very rushed double check of its contents then just deciding to stuff all three of the thick books into either bag to sort out later. He didn't have anymore time to be indecisive about it, he just had to go! And go he did, right out the door with his mind set on dashing off to the cafe as if his life depended on it.

Then he splashed into a large puddle, causing him to gasp in surprised as he was hit with water. His surprise only doubled when he heard a clash of thunder and realized that it was, in fact, raining, causing his brain to screech slightly as it took in this new information. Something about it was bad... and Marked couldn't quite place i-

"The books!" His hooves flew over his saddle bags in a desperate attempt to protect their contents from nature, his desire to keep his promised books in as pristine a condition as ponyly possible fueling a rush of thought. He needed to go back to get something to protect the books from the rain, but he was already going to be who knows how late to their meeting! What if his spending a minute to get a better coat would be the minute where Rainbow would get tired of waiting for him and split? Was it worth it? But! But! What if his books got ruined on the way? What would Rainbow think of a completely soaked and illegible book being hoofed off with an awkward smile? Marked felt a bit of panic come on as his head kept looking back and forth between his front door and the path leading back to town, his hoodie becoming rapidly soaked as it was useless in protecting him from the falling water.

No matter how badly he wished he could, Marked had to go back and sacrifice those few extra moments to redress himself more appropriately for the sake of his books. Hoping to Celestia that Rainbow wouldn't get bored waiting for him, or even worse start thinking he'd decided not to show up at all and just leave her there, Marked bolted back into his home, first trying to pull off his hoodie right away but then realizing he'd buckled his saddle bags over it and only managing to tug himself to the floor in a face plant. Grumbling as he picked himself and rubbing at the small bruise he knew he'd be sporting later that day, he just said "To Hay with it" and left the hoodie where it was as he was not willing to slow himself down further with taking off his bags just to put them right back on, the writer instead trotting to his closet to retrieve three items: a better jacket - obviously - and two pieces of thick wool cloth that was normally used to wrap his books up in during this exact type of weather for protection from water.

Normally he would wrap each individual book up with their own piece of cloth, but with how stuffed full his bags already were this would be impossible as his alternative, just shoving the two pieces into the bags with the hopes of squeezing them both onto the outer sides while covering them at the top,  already caused his bags to look near to bursting, Marked experiencing a fair amount of difficulty in forcing them to close once more as he hoped beyond hope that they wouldn't explode on the way into town. Speaking of looking bulky, Marked's decision to keep his hoodie on was now causing his new jacket to look a bit off in size. It was small, but noticeable as his hoodie's hood, for example, caused a silly poof of his jacket around his neck, something he had no time to care about as, once ready for the rain, he sprinted back outside, his tail slamming his door shut behind him as he fully galloped down the path.

Marked was not a fast pony, but that day he may as well have been a professional sprinter as he hit the ground with everything he could muster, the effort helping in staving off the growing chill he was getting from the soaked hoodie being hugged against his body keeping him wet beneath his jacket. It also wasn't all that comfortable to run with a hoodie pressed tightly against his body with the straps of a couple of very overstuffed saddle bags weighing it down... but here he was...

There was no way he had made it in time. Marked knew that he had to be to late to catch Rainbow even after the cafe came into view, the stallion readying himself for another round of kicking himself as he neared the door and threw it open, it making less of a commotion than an earlier slam but still earning a few surprised looks as other ponies in the cafe took note of the shivery stallion at the door who seemed to be tasting air for the first time if his gasping was any sign and apparently carried everything he owned in his saddle bags.

"Uh... Sorry." Marked apologized in between gasps and with a forced smile before immediately looking around for the distinct multi-colored mane of the mare he'd come to meet. No... no... no... Ah! There! There are no words to properly describe Marked's relief in finding Rainbow still present in the cafe even after who knows how long she may have been waiting for him, but... She seemed to be with another mare? Oh... Wait, why oh? Marked felt like maybe he'd taken too long anyway and his meeting with Rainbow may have been converted into something else, which... seemed pretty silly of him to think really. He didn't know how late he was, but surely he wasn't so insanely late as to have caused Rainbow to go find a friend of hers to have meet her there? Blah! You're being paranoid again, Marked! Just remember what Rainbow said. Be cool. Like her.

Taking another breath to try and stop his heart from threatening to explode, Marked took an exhausted trot over to Rainbow's table, him standing on trembly legs from his sprint, dripping a little bit with rain water, struggling not to topple over from the weight in his bags and having his jacket look bulky in random spots from his hoodie under it as he tried to put on a smile and look cool.

He did not look cool.

"H-hi, Rainbow! Sorry I'm late. I.. er... got tied up..." he tried to explain before deciding it best to leave his embarrassing story up to the imagination for now. Wanting to be polite, Marked turned to the new mare and offered a shaky tip of a hat he only now realized he'd forgotten to take. Hm. So that's why his head and mane were so covered in water. He'd been wondering how that had happened... "Hey there. My name's Marked. How's it going?"

'Uuuuhwhayuegh?' was the only hing that played through Marked's mind as he listened to Rainbow claim to be busy for the day with work. First she says she was free almost all day every day and then she turns around to say shes busy with clouds? A mere glance upwards made it obvious that there was very little to no need for any patches or repairs with how heavy and thick the cloud layer already was, but Marked guessed he wasn't exactly an expert? He wasn't a pegasus, and Rainbow was on the weather team so... He felt his smile dip a little, feeling disappointed even if he should have also basked in that sliver of relief washing over him over not yet needing to risk disappointing and then receiving criticism over another one of his books from a pony he respected. When Rainbow gave her own look towards the sky and flipped her mind, however, Marked put on a kinda desperate and confused smile. He didn't get it. Was she just having second thoughts now?

Ooooh! She was just messing with him. Silly Marked. He kicked himself mentally for letting his nervousness feed into paranoia and probably make himself look like a stick in the mud. He gave a relieved sigh along with a small and veeeeery slightly forced chuckle to show that he'd finally allowed his brain to click with the teasing and then tried to relax. His success in doing this was less than impressive.

"Four sounds great!" Marked replied, maybe a little too eagerly as he caught himself and cleared his throat and tried to chill, "Uh, well, I'll definitely be free by then I mean. Heh... And, pfft, you probably won't really need my help all that much..." He wanted to dispute the idea of Rainbow paying for his meal as he felt it would be plenty fair to just split the bill since he'd be helping her and she'd most likely feed his own creativity through her personality, but he was unsure if he would seem rude to refuse the generous offer. Maybe it would be best to offer once that bridge was near being crossed? Or would that be worse?

And what would he bring? He'd promised to bring one of his books for Rainbow to check out, but which one should he risk possibly having her hate? Which one was the "best" for her and would suit her tastes well enough for her to enjoy? Agh! Why was this so hard to figure out! The writer wanted to bump his head with his hoof in some vain attempt to joggle his brain into not being so jittery and worried. She'd expressed interest in his horror and science fiction stories earlier. Should he just bring both? Or would that seem like too much? Maybe he should just go with a safer bet and let her read one of his adventure novels that resided safely within his comfort zone...

Marked would have groaned had he not been in front of Rainbow. So much for calming down and relaxing before the meeting...

"So I'll see you there then?" Marked went on, feeling reluctant to leave as he was worried this would turn out to be a dream that he would wake up from should he stray too far away, "Okay. Um..." he started to trot backwards. Smooth exit. Well done Marked. It was made even smoother when he accidentally bumped into another pony and nearly dropped his glasses, muttering a few apologies as he fumbled to keep his delicate possession from falling to the street below. He gave Rainbow another grin in some silly attempt to recover from the small and embarrassing collision, the other pony merely rolling her eyes and continuing on with her day as the writer went back to trotting backwards after having apparently failed to learn his lesson the first time. "I'll see you at the cafe!"

"Uh... You... Got it...?" Hippalectryon and tin foil? Marked hadn't ever heard that relation before... Maybe they were different over wherever this stallion was from? Or maybe it was just a really really obscure bit of knowledge regarding the rooster horse hybrids that even Marked, with all of his research, hadn't picked up on yet? Honestly, from what he'd gathered, hippalectryons weren't all that common around these parts, and from what he'd heard they could be... silly. He'd just let them have the tin foil if this odd bit of trivia was actually true. Then again, he had guards to call on should an angry example of one show up, so that only rounded back to the original subject of their debate for Marked. They both had expressed their opinions though, so Twine was happy to let it drop, confidence in the guard remaining strong.

Anyway, it seemed there was a thief of some kind loose, something Marked wasn't qualified to deal with even I'm good days if it ever went beyond written words on paper, so he simply sat down and watched the other ponies discuss the situation, his eyes eventually finding their way over towards Pepper where he almost winced over how easily she was eating a sample f her own fiery product.

"Ha!" Marked couldn't help but actually laugh after the next thing the pony with the cape said in regards to the princesses, the writer now starting to find this rather amusing actually, "heheh... You spend a lot of time in a basement playing with tin foil, don't you? First the guards are evil and stupid, and now your saying our leaders are bad dictators? Cause, you know, mares who preach love and friendship, encourage cooperation, learning and art, and are sometimes even willing to go so far as to visit a small town like ours and play nightmare night games with little colts and fillies are just the embodiment of evil. Princess Luna even helps ponies with their nightmares! And Celestia has her own school that she uses her personal time to teache magic at! You know that had they not shown up we'd still be dealing with Discord ruling over us? Heck, if it wasn't for Celestia having faith that he can change and being willing to give him a second chance that guy would still be an evil jerk. What bad dictator would risk releasing one of their greatest possible enemies ever just so he can have a chance to find friendship and be accepted among everypony else? As for the attacks, you do know this town here borders the Everfree Forest, right? I wouldn't blame a princess or group of guards for having trouble keeping that place contained one hundred percent of the time."

So, to sum everything up, a pony who dressed like a super hero believed that the ponies meant to protect him were not only incompetent but also evil and that the authority figures leading their country are automatically bad because the world isn't perfect under their rule. Marked was fairly certain that there was some kind of psychological condition that could be linked to this...

Marked gave nods to each of the ponies in turn as they introduced themselves. With his question going unanswered however, he was only left with the option of listening closely and trying to piece together who these ponies were looking for and why simply out of their conversation. Because of this, Marked remained quiet for the time being, eyes shifting from pony to pony as they spoke.