Rainbow and Lero’s daily routine didn’t actually change all that much. They’d already been spending most of their free time together during the day; the only change really was that they were spending most of their nights together now, too.

Well, that, and Rainbow now had a new pillow for her afternoon naps. She was presently drowsing with her head on Lero’s chest as he lay on his couch. For his part, he was reading a book and idly stroking the wing she had laid across his stomach. It felt almost like he was preening her feathers, and it was amazingly relaxing. Rainbow reflected idly that she was glad that some of the wilder speculations about the human hadn’t been right; she knew there were some ponies who adamantly insisted that touching his hands at all was sufficient to arouse him. That was so completely not true, as she’d discovered, though it was possible to excite him further when he was already turned on by nibbling on his fingers and things like that. She wasn’t doing anything like that right now though, instead just lying there listening to him breathe, in a state of consciousness somewhere between asleep and awake, when she felt a slight tug on her wing and an itch that had been bothering her for nearly a week was suddenly gone.

Rainbow blinked sleepily. “Oh, man, finally.” She yawned, glancing at the large cyan feather Lero was holding bemusedly in his free hand. “I was starting to wonder if that one was ever going to drop loose.” She stretched her wing, enjoying the itch-free sensation. She’d been about to shed that feather for days now, with the feeling of the new feather growing under the old one driving her nuts. It felt so good to have it finally drop free.

“Um, do you want this?” Lero held the large flight feather up where she could take it from his hand. Rainbow stretched her neck out, planning to take the feather and tuck it into her wing so she wouldn’t forget it when she went home, but she paused midmotion.

Pegasus feathers were special. Not the smaller, downy feathers that made up most of the wings, those were just like any bird’s feathers. The big flight feathers, though, the primaries… they were different. Even after being shed, they had a bit of magic in them. They were incredibly light, for one thing, even for feathers, weighing a fraction of what a bird’s feather of similar size would. They were also extremely tough, resistant to damage, and didn’t decay. Ever. Rainbow remembered an archaeological discovery Twilight had been talking about a few months before, a group of pegasi who’d died in a cave and been entombed for what was later determined to be almost three millennia. There’d been nothing left but old powdery bones… and small piles of feathers, still in such perfect shape that the archaeologists could determine exactly how old each pegasus had been when they’d died.

Most pegasi kept their primaries as they shed them, starting with their first adult feathers since juvenile feathers didn’t have the imperishable quality that adult primaries posessed. Some attached mystical significance to the shed feathers, thinking of them as tiny pieces of their own souls, keeping the cast-off feathers safe so they could be burned at their owner’s funeral. Others didn’t go in for such metaphysics, keeping the feathers simply because it was traditional to do so. Rainbow was part of the latter group; for her, it was just a tradition, though it was an important one, and one of the few traditions she followed. She had a small, decorated box in her bedroom at home that held every primary she’d ever lost, with the exception of two that had dropped free in storms and had been blown off to parts unknown. That box had actually been the only thing she’d taken when she’d left Cloudsdale and her father’s home, and she’d been quite diligent in keeping her lost feathers in it. It was getting rather full, actually, and she’d need to get a new one before long.

What made her hesitate before taking this feather was an old pegasus custom she’d come across recently. Since Twilight had gotten her interested in reading, Rainbow had gravitated towards adventure stories, especially heroic tales from before the Classical Age and the unification of Equestria. Noble knights battling black hearted warlords, rescuing their kidnapped stallions from the evildoers’ dungeon, that kind of thing. As many of those stories were quite old, they often made mention of traditions that had fallen by the wayside over time. Before the earth pony tradition of gifting a flower as an expression of interest had spread, pegasus mares had often given a stallion one of their cast-off primaries. It was much more formal and serious than the flower was, and betokened a more… long-term interest.

Of course, the really old versions of that custom had been more than a bit disturbing, as she’d been rather unsettled to learn. In ancient days, the city-state days, that had actually been a way to indicate who shared ownership of a particular stallion, and the feathers were often attached permanently rather than worn. That version of the custom was long, long dead, thankfully, and the stories she liked to read painted the custom as being somewhat unusual and terribly romantic.

It was with that in mind that she looked back and forth between the feather and the human’s eyes. She bit her lip, and said, “Actually… y-you can keep it, if you want.” He cocked his head, and she added, “It’s… kinda like the flower,” Rainbow jerked her head to indicate the light blue blossom sitting in a bottle on a nearby table, “but a little more, y’know, serious. It’s kinda… giving you a piece of me.” She shrugged, a little uncomfortably, unable to think of a better way to describe it. “Pretty much nopony actually does it anymore, but I read about it and liked the idea. I’m not trying to push you, or anything…”

The human was holding the large feather carefully, examining it. “I think that’s a rather beautiful custom, actually, Rainbow.” She couldn’t stop the delighted smile spreading across her face as he asked, “Do I need to do anything to preserve it? I’d hate to damage it; it’s beautiful…”

The pegasus shook her head, still smiling. “Nope. No reason to worry. They’re really hard to damage, and they last forever; it’ll last longer than I will, actually. You really want to keep it?”

Lero nodded firmly. “Absolutely, if you want me to have it.”

Her heart was thudding in her ears as she answered, “Yeah, I’d like that. A lot, actually.”

“Well, then,” He set the feather on his chest, and his nimble fingers quickly separated out a lock of his shoulder-length mane. She watched, fascinated, as he swiftly twisted the little lock into a tight braid that fell just in front of his ear. Tying the braid off, he picked the feather back up, tucked the quill into the tightly-braided strand, and flashed her a grin. “How do I look? Is this okay?”

Momentarily speechless at his willingness to actually wear it instead of tucking it away somewhere, she leaned in and kissed him, the feeling of his soft lips against hers making her heart pound harder. He returned the kiss avidly, reaching up with one hand to trace the edge of her ear with his soft, gentle fingers.

Breaking the kiss, Rainbow answered somewhat breathlessly, “Yeah, yeah it’s more than okay. And I think you look really good.” She bit her lip. “Only… we’re still trying to keep this kinda quiet, right? This,” she reached up a forehoof to stroke the feather and his face at the same time, “is gonna be, uh, really noticeable.”

“I thought of that!” He grinned. “How about this; I’ll wear your feather here at home, but the rest of the time I’ll keep this,” he tapped the twist of hair that held the feather, “braided just like this. That way, even when I’m not actually wearing it, it’ll always have a place with me. What do you think?”

“I… I think…” She hugged him fiercely, knowing she was probably hugging a bit too hard, but needing a way to convey the strength of her feelings. “I think I may be the luckiest mare ever. You know how much I love you, right?”

“I know,” he said, kissing the top of her head, “And don’t forget that I love you, too.”