Blue Feather
The Blue Feather were the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids's backup mobile task-force, much less well-trained and efficient than the Scarlet Wings.
Nature
The Blue Feather's chief operative was Acquaintanceship-982 and the team also included Pessimist-242, Ally-1243, Dandy-432 and Larrikin-1029. (PROSE: Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery) The Blue Feather were cited in Cupid Fact File #001 as an example of incompetence within the Crew. (PROSE: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids) As leader of the Blue Feather, Acquaintanceship technically had a seat on the Cupid Parliament, although he was rarely listened to. (PROSE: Magic Trick)
History
The Blue Feather were originally housed in a derelict warehouse located on the opposite side of the Mainland Cloud. Much to their annoyance, unlike the Scarlet Wings, they were rarely given missions of any importance, and indeed, it could be months in-between the missions they did get, disappointing as they were. For example, they once went months without any assignments at all after “the Great Grape Jelly Stain Catastrophe”, their grandiloquent name for the occasion upon which Marmalade-624 spilled grape jelly on his tablecloth and hired the Blue Feather to wash it off. (PROSE: Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery)
On April 29th, 2019, (PROSE: The Faction of the Fooling Fish) they were hired by Philatel-426 for an unusually significant operation: locating a bag of mail that had gone missing from the Cupid Post Office. They unsuccessfully interviewed a number of “suspects” — otherwise known as people who happened to be glimpsed at some level of proximity to the Post Office on the day of the crime — but at the last minute, Acquaintanceship realised the truth and actually solved the mystery: Philatel had himself stolen the mailbag, which contained blueprints meant to be transmitted from the Department of Architecture to the Department of Construction so that the latter could begin work on a new giant warehouse. The construction would have involved the destruction of the Post Office's west wing, which was officially vacant, but which Philatel secretly used to store his stamp collection. Rather than turn him in to the Department of Discipline, the Blue Feather blackmailed him into letting them use the selfsame west wing as a new HQ, while convincing the Department of Construction to build their new warehouse on their old site instead.
Just as they were getting settled in, Colonel-028 rushed into their new office with a new mystery to investigate: the theft of a pie from his windowsill. (PROSE: Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery) Having badgered badgered the Cupid Parliament into authorising an official investigation, he set the Blue Feather on the task. Following a trail of pie-crumbs, the Blue Feather found a Rift leading to the Faction of the Fooling Fish's headquarters in the Prime Universe, where they briefly confronted the Faction for the first time. After fleeing back through the Rift, they got the Department of Rifts to close it. After the Rifts reopened and had to be closed a second time after a second Fooling Fish incursion, the Blue Feather were assigned to guarding the location of the Rift, in case it opened again. (PROSE: The Faction of the Fooling Fish)
Some time later, Acquaintanceship excitedly gathered the Blue Feather to tell them about their new mission (locating Investigation-464's misplaced coat). When the Cupid claiming to be Pessimist expressed enthusiasm at the prospect, Acquaintanceship finally realised that it was not Pessimist-242 but a cheap duplicate, and that the real article had gone missing — much to the weariness of Dandy, who had noticed much earlier but failed to convince the others of this fact. With the help of Pessimist's Fog Ship, they realised that he had been taken prisoner by the Drove of the Database-Compiling Dromedaries on the Prime Earth. The Ship took them there, with Larrikin egging it on to go as fast as it could. Although the Ship briefly disappeared and stranded them in the Prime Universe, having been commandeered by Dromedary Head Assistant Researcher Darius, it returned almost immediately, having taken care of Darius with the help of Lord Thymon. The Blue Feather returned to the Homeworld and set forth in search of the missing coat, joined on a permanent basis by Pseudo-Pessimist. (PROSE: Pessimist and the Dromedaries)
The Blue Feather's assignment to watch the Rift endured, although, as it had gone dormant for a while, they only watched it when they had nothing else to do. On one such day, Pessimist, Larrikin-1029 and Dandy-432 were meant to watch the Rift, but Pessimist elected to lie on the ground motionless next to his Fog Ship, instead. As it should happen, it was on this day that the Rift opened again — allowing through not the prank-loving Fish, but a benign old man who was trying to find his way back to his home universe. The two Cupids were surprised to hear that he'd recently met Tracker-764, a legendary Cupid who hadn't been seen in the Homeworld in years. They agreed to help him, only too happy to have a good excuse to leave their post, and the three departed aboard Pessimist's Fog Ship, intent on taking the old man to the Prime Universe and a selection of Prime-adjacent ones to attempt to narrow down his world of origin. Pessimist only resisted very weakly to this borrowing, and remained on the ground.(PROSE: The Mad Cupid of the Euclidean Plane)
When the Copper-Colored Council of Elders put the Cupid Suggestion Box in place, Acquaintanceship used it to leave a note suggesting that the Blue Feather be upgraded to replace the Scarlet Wings as the Crew's primary topics. When the Council rejected the proposal, pointing out the Blue Feather's less-than-impressive track record, Acquaintanceship tried to prop up its reputation by leaving an “anonymous” note praising the group, but the Council immediately saw through the charade and banned Acquaintanceship from using the Suggestion Box again. (PROSE: The Cupid Suggestion Box)
Issue 1034 of The Cupid Courier ran a small classified ad advertising the possibility of joining the Blue Feather to Cupids who wanted “more excitement” in their lives. A footnote in small print acknowledged that being in the Blue Feather wasn't “that exciting”, but maintained that it was “worth a try”. (PROSE: Conspiracy-1263 Publicly Accuses the Gang of the Green Gorillas)
Pessimist-242 was on vacation from the Blue Feather when he met the faceless magician. For his part, Acquaintanceship-982 was attending a session in the Cupid Parliament. For the first time, one of his suggestions was officially passed when he motioned that everyone run for it when the Cupid Parliament building was overrun by the magic rabbits. (PROSE: Magic Trick)
On Halloween 2019, Dandy suggested that the group engage in a costume contest. Dandy dressed as Salvador Dalí, about whom he'd heard from an art museum curator he'd once romanticised. However, he came to regret his suggestion as the others' contributions to the contest were severely lacking at best (as typified by Ally's ghost costume, a mere sheet in which he'd even forgotten to cut eye-holes, and by Acquaintanceship dressing up as “himself as a Scarlet Wings operative”), and nonexistent at worst (with Pessimist refusing to participate). Dandy was particularly aggravated by Larrikin-1029's oblivious assertion that his “space robot costume” (a cardboard box with a face scribbled on it) was the clear winner. (PROSE: The Ghosts and the Machine)
In December 2019, when Celebration-665 organised the Festival of Giving, Dandy attempted to form the Blue Feather into a caroling quartet. However, he could not find Larrikin-1029, (PROSE: The Frost King's Treasure) who was spreading Christmas cheer in the Euclidean Plane in his own mischievous way, (COMIC: Geometrons' Holiday) and Pessimist proved less than enthused by the suggestion, immediately foisting his sheet music onto a guileless Pseudo-Pessimist before attempting to sneak out. Before Dandy could try and find Acquaintanceship-982, he was side-tracked by receiving an invitation to the Frost King's Realm sent by a mysterious figure, and ended up dragging Pessimist off to Manik. After various shenanigans, they did wind up finding the promised “treasure of the Frost King”, with Dandy extracting from it “a finely-woven outfit clearly meant for royalty” but also a pair of golden ear-muffs which he gifted to Pessimist so that he could use them to “block out the sound of other people's voices”. (PROSE: The Frost King's Treasure) Dandy also organised a proper Christmas party on the day itself, attended by all the Blue Feather operatives, and to which he also invited an initially-reluctant Philatel. (PROSE: A Copper-Colored Christmas Carol)
