✘STORY
Walking down through the streets of Manehatten was the young Verilius taking in the sights that had to offer to him when he came to the city for a little visit.

Taking a long and exhausting break did the stallion choose to run away from it all and into a new scene to freshen his spirit. The bustling of scraping towers of buildings, congested and active streets, sidewalks that were usually never empty. It was all quite intriguing how different one side of the country can be.

The excessive clopping of hooves against concrete and pavement was definitely more frequent than back home in Ponyville.

The slightly slim male brought out his phone, the aPhone by Apple if anypony were absolutely curious.

Nose already buried into it, Verilius was using his snout to text while walking, tapping at keyboard letters along his screen to happily type to other ponies on this socialization app.

MH is g8 rn!

He smiled with a big grin as he was just about to take a snapshot of the buildings right as a grunt when his chest bumps into another rang. Sending him stumbling back as a brown mare tumbled to her side with a yelp.

"Ah!" she would hold her head as a grocery bag with produce was spilled a few inches from her. "What the-" she glared over to meet a stallion scrambling to his hooves.

His own features was painted with dresd as he noticed the female recovering from the fall, "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry! Let me help you with that!" he whinced as he trots over and begins picking up rolled apples, the bushel of bananas and grapes that were peaking out of the bag, a box of instant ramen-instant ramen? That sounds good, need to try that sometime.

"Oh, thank you." the mare smiled a little bit, "No problem, I can carry this for you if you'd like! It's the least I can do!" he scrambled for words as he looked into the other's eyes they were both earth pony and that soft brown coat and mane he is adorned with was rather pleasing to look at.

"Alright then, c'mon." she nodded and walked off.

Verilius catches a quick glance at her rear end and with a blush did he follow after her at a trot. His heart already skipping a beat or two.

Oh no, she's cute.

During the long trek to the destination in question was the two talking about various things, namely Manehatten and what it's like, the activites it's potentially known for, the animals like exotic pets, transportation, where did they come from, their jobs-

"Say, what's your name?" the mare turned her head to look back at the spotted earth pony stallion, in all of Earth, was he not expecting that and it cause him to sweat a little, his blushing brighter as he scrunched his snout and avert his gaze.

"V-Verilius and y-you?" he took a quick glance back at the female's eyes.

"Caramel Toffee." she smiled gleefully and faced forward yet again.

Just like the candy shop that you work at…

He felt mesmerized by the name as he kept walking as well, gosh darn it what's with him and easily getting crushes on everyone?

"We're here." he almost tripped over his hoof when Caramel said that.

She opens the door gesturing for Verilius to step inside and he clambered in with her walking in after. "Over on the counter is fine."

Counter?

Verilius paused as he let his eyes get a good look at the interior of the building, it was frilly, pink and white with a bit of brown here and there, booths to the side against the wall, a lot of large windows, candy stands cluttering the space between the bar and the dine-in areas.

"Is this your-"

"My candy shop. It gets rather busy in the afternoon, and being a single hoof, it can get quite hard during rush hour." she would walk behind the bar counter and into the back room with the spotted stallion setting the bag on the counter as directed.

"You work alone…?" he presses a hoof on his chin as he stood there, unsure if he should leave or not, she's still talking right?

"Yeah." she pulls out a bag of ingredients he couldn't really tell as she was already going to work on making… Something.

An hour of staring and mesmerizing later was the silence broke, "I've been looking for a helping hoof." she walked passed him to put an assortment of candy on the center display.

Oh- Is that flirting? That must be flirting! What do I do? What did my Pa tell me?

He looked to his hooves all the while looking around as she noticed her walking past him again, with a flinch did he quickly throw his hoof over her shoulder pulling her in,

"Uh, so…"

He swallowed down his nervousness and put on a confident face he remembers his father uses when flirting with his mother,

"So, you single?"

He had a casual grin on his lips which caused the mare to gasp a little as she was caught off guard. A tiny bit of blush showing up on her cheeks before smiling.

✘CREDIT

A bit of fan art for :iconnikki2142: in order to make the next drawing that I'm working on make sense, flaggle claggle!

Hint, it's a breeding payment!

The cutiemarks are optional but, I made them myself!

Featured: #4291 Verilius and #A316 Caramel Toffee
Base Used: sta.sh/025h9l3mu7mz :iconcindydreamlight: