Understanding why a Pegasus would want to join the Wounder Bolts is not difficult, some for fortune and fame, some for loves of country and flying or even to join other would-be Wounder Bolts. Understanding why some lucky Pegasus would refuse this dreamy career would require an explanation, a long and thorough one. And even then, finding ponies who agree with their choice is a Rarity.
The ponies that is not the Fashionista. But moving on.
Many, many, many years ago in the tiny town of VallyVille or maybe one of the outlying fields a heavily pregnant mare was on her way to the Cloudsdale hospital when her chariot overturned and left the expectant mother lying on the stony ground when her time finally came. It was neither quick nor clean as ponies often hoped it would be but things like this rarely are. Her husband who was initially thrown out of the carriage crawled back in to be with her even as the first few droplets started to fall sending the rider and nurse of the ambulance running.
Seconds or minutes later he, and everypony living in VallyVille would record in their minds or dairies the day of the second day of October as the day it rained, and the moment Lightning Dust was brought into the world. A very special day indeed.
Rain was a rare occurrence in VallyVille, the tiny town was built almost entirely of Stone and hidden from sight in the side of a mountain that once was an active volcano many hundreds of years ago. The settlers had long since cared about the volcano’s past though, and rather fixated on the rich soil and precious stones that lay around and beneath the extinguished giant.
Being a mining or agricultural town, depending on whichever business could haul the greatest profit from the earth during that particular year, VallyVille was a distant and friendly place to live albeit slightly dull most of the year. Despite the rich profits from minerals or fruit very few buisnesses that were not locally founded operated there, the largest of all being the weather controllers. Despite having a large farm fields that needed watering, which for equestrian farmers usually meant organising rainstorms, the residents relied on underground reserves that lay beneath the soil accepting service from the pegasi as an acceptable loss.
While the giant mountain would never spew fire again from its mouth, the sheer size of the dead volcano shaded the town from weather for most of the year in with its size as caused howling winds that blew near its peak scattered even the slightest drop of moisture from a cloud over miles of land away from VallyVille.
All attempts made by the pegasi to stabilize this region were met with failure after failure until tired of losing storm clouds they retreated entirely from the place, leaving only a small monitoring station behind. To the three, now four Pegasus ponies who lived there this was a stagnant and demanding job that carried the usual flying duties of a whether patroller, and none of the action or long sleep times.
Request transfers were usually ignored in their early years, and before they found themselves engaged both of Lightning’s parents saw the small building as an eternal “I’m watching you” gesture to an old rival rather than a necessary building. It would be many months before the younger versions of her parents discovered two interesting facts about the weather in VallyVille.
The VallyVillians loved their mountain. It was their home and their source of food, materials and even inspiration as they saw the peaks stand up in the night day or the moments in between. It drove them to capture its beauty in canvasses or sculptures with clays made formed in its internal rivers. And adopt its rugged nature whenever they saw the scars of time under the grassy foliage as they toiled away in the fields or beneath them in the mines. They adored their iconic monument to the point where even the two heads of industry or anypony working for them would rather throw up their hooves and concede victory to the other forever than harm their mountain.
That was easy enough to grasp though by simply talking to some of the ponies there or reading the conservation laws that existed for all to see in the town library. What the weather monitors learned one day was that despite their appreciation for the wellbeing of their mountain the ponies there would have liked to change one thing about it.
Near the top there was a narrow and hollow passage that caught the wind blowing over the peak and gave rise to occasional sparkling dust storms as sand from Saddle Arabia gathered. It was also coincidentally the first phenomenon the weather team eagerly wrote down for future observation.
The second fact they learned about the town and the mountain was that despite the poor conditions and terrible wind there was sometimes enough energy in the sky for clouds to gather and hold enough water for a rainstorm. What they learned from this was that the town collectively despised and feared the rain with a passion. And on the occasion it rained in VallyVille. It poured.
Mine shafts would flood. Houses would lose their supports. Ponies could be swept away never to be found again. These were the greatest and usually only fears the VallyVille ponies had, so deeply so that even the droplets on Lighting’s birthday sent the ponies around them running home to secure their doors.
The wife turned mother and husband turned father could hardly notice this though storms were never something that they had witnessed in VallyVille before. It was not until the carriage was swept away did worry start to set in. This is not a sad story though, and solid wood floats extremely well and the craftwork to ensure safety to the occupants held true as the only injury suffered was an injured leg.
The damage had done little to harm the rest of her, Lightning’s mother always knew this leg was weaker than her others as was her mother’s and so on down the entire female line of her family from one generation to the next. It never really impeded her life so long as she never put too much weight on it. Her daughter ‘little’ Lighting Dust then though cared very much.
While still a Pegasus by tribe and one of the few in VallyVille who had the little to fear from rising water she was still born and raised a resident of VallyVille and learned of the dangers of flooding early on. Whenever a flash flood struck the damage would rarely come to any hardened structures or prepared ponies. It killed the weak, unaware or unlucky ponies that were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Usually this meant in their houses.
The older small stone buildings that made the majority of VallyVille where remarkable sights for ponies used to seeing wood or bricks and plaster as building materials and sadly were notorious water basins and rightful fuel for the emerging flood fears. Having no windows large enough to fit a pony through and no emergency accesses to the roof like her school did Lighting’s first race started as a precaution. Rushing out of the house and into the air until her tiny wings burned with exhaustion and the timer read somewhere in the tens of seconds rather than minutes, a rigorous regime she insisted on after a particularly frightening lesson about swimming safety for all Pegasus students.
The second precaution was lost under an avalanche of hundreds of questions other foals in Vallyville would be asking their ‘prepared’ parents. A Pegasus fearing a storm was something new to family though. Suffice to say they both ignored her, something neither she nor the small group of friends she had could understand until somepony said something relating to pegasi and thunderstorms. Then words were said which many of them did not understand, phrases that held hurt for her flew after Lightning as she took off from the ground and chased her home.
Scared and hurt she hid under her sheets barely noticing the sound of rain droplets pattering against her window. Her fears of rain disappeared that day to be replaced with contempt and longing. Not for a mark on her flank as many other fillies her age did but rather to be wingless, or 'normal' as she put it.
For a long time this was her reality. Segregated from the other foals because of fear from being caught in the rain or crossfire of hateful words that awaited anypony who supported her. Years later though that changed.
In a faraway field Colts and fillies gathered around the starting line grumbling and whispering to each other while the lone teacher set up the finish line oblivious to the sky above. Standing away from every pony she could ignore the remarks about her ‘cheating’ with her wings or whatever cruel comment was being whispered about her but just close enough to the fillies and colt who used to be her friends to not associate herself with them, but still catch the odd apologetic glimpse.
She heard her coach shout to the students to prepare themselves. She cracked her neck and tucked her wings in closer, if nothing else she could at least get far enough away from her competition and tormentors to get some respite at the end of the track.
And then somepony saw the clouds over the town. She barely heard them yell it though, she could see them well enough. Gunmetal grey clouds descending down from the peak of the mountain like the smoke from a dragon’s breath waiting to smother the town. Panic threatened to set in. Her muscles clenched refusing to move. Her thoughts slowed to a single image of water flooding through her doors and her mother futilely hobbling away. She could not stay here. She could not let that happen she had to Go!
She bolted away from the starting line, wings still tucked against her body and air whistling past her folded down ears. Pain shot through her leg with every step as adrenaline coursed through her to meet the flaring nerves and muscles powering across the ground.
What felt like hours later a white tape obscured her vision remaining her of something important. Her wings flared and with a leap she took to the air knocking a few stray feathers lose as she tore toward the town. She had never flown this fast in her life before, her pulse pounded in her ears and her vision blurred from effort. Every time she thought about landing or resting thunder would crack like a whip pushing her onwards.
From the outer fields to the heart of town she flew. Her image distracting the many ponies already looking at the sky for storm clouds as a cyan blur tore through the grey and black. The legend was not completely solidified though until she was eventually struck by a bolt of lightning. Having never even seen one before the experience was exhilarating. More so for the observing ponies as the cyan bolt gained a yellow trail burning through the semi-solid clouds and cutting them in two as she passed.
From the ground it looked like she was unzipping the sky. From her point of view she could only see the mountain observatory where her parents would be working. And thankfully for her sake and the legend which could have ended right there if she tried to land, were it not for her mother who had been on the roof doing watching the storm and ready to catch her.
With many tears, and an overabundance of rainwater in Lighting Dust’s eyes the small family stayed under broken eye of the storm as the clouds slowly moved away from the heart of the city and the small mountain building.
A turning point for the entire family that day and indeed the entire town as ponies came to her in droves the next morning never asking how she got the bright mark on her flank but rather if she was scared of the weather she beat back single hoofly. Later that month VallyVille started its first weather pony training program. And coincidentally the school racing team was reorganized overnight.
Small fortunes were won every time she chased away a grey cloud and in their absence shooting through the mines or fields doing message runs or in the worst cases rescues fed her pocket and the praise fed her ego.
As the saying goes though about futures written in stone though, Lighting Dust’s was never as cemented as anypony could thought. Going at Lightning fast speeds was her forte, but not her goal in life. Flying was something she did for fun or truthfully nine out of ten times for the challenge of it when there were still ponies faster than her left in school. Eventually their years caught up with them, they left. And the races stopped.
There was no green blur around in the skies, or messenger Pegasus in the workplace, or local hero looking out for everypony safety, just an unamused Pegasus going from point A to B arriving whenever she felt like it.
When there was danger she went back to being local hero Lightning! But only for a short while before going back to being Dust once the drive disappeared. The clear sunny days were strangely grey to her devoid of any challenge or meaning. A month into her emotional rut though when she was sitting around on her roof sleeping a raindrop hit her nose. Then another. And another.
Until finally realizing she was a heavier sleeper than they both imagined a bucket of water and ice was dumped on her head. But what might have been a tragic accident about two ponies who disappeared one day without a trace was cut short when during her ‘preparation to voice her disapproval’ she noticed the clouds behind her two friends.
Bright green clouds were in the sky and hail rather than water falling from the sky. VallyVille had never in its existence seen a weather like this before and dubbed it the impossible storm. A dispatch from Cloudsdale was coming along with emergency help from some recently turned search and rescue unit that performed stunts occasionally, ponies were advised to stay indoors by the professional weather wranglers confirming fault on their behalf after cloud machines spewed an abnormal amount of charged clouds in the air.
Impossible was not a word in her vocabulary though, she had done the impossible before and survived. And after a brief hug Lightning took off into the sky. She raced toward the cloud full of vim and vigour thinking of diving into the heart of the super cell and quelling it before- she got hit by a large chuck of ice and fell back to earth.
Dusting herself off, she took off again this time going over the layer of clouds avoiding the rain. On top of the beast of the storm she could- fall through the whole mass get fog in both of her goggles and collide with another old foe of hers, a tree.
Her third attempt got her struck with lighting. Multiple times. And Ended in a small crater and staring at the undaunted pack of black and green clouds above her. The miasma above continued to pelt down ice and water, occasionally growing wicked eyes and toothy grins as lighting cracked above. Anypony who knows Lightning Dust would find it strange that rather than rise again to a taunting opponent she tucked her tail between her legs and limped away.
If anypony else had run into her that day it they probably would not have been able to tell who it was. I guess it was luck then it happened to be me. Even with the rain and the coat colours, and even with my eye almost no pony walked in the rain or remembered that look. Sad, broken there are a number of names for it besides crying because tears usually made it worse. Besides Lightning Dust never cries, there was just water on her face.
We never were really close, when she was at her best I never saw much of her due to her new friends and at her worst she never came close to me in case some of her bullies noticed me. Not the nicest thing somepony ever did for me but a something I could respect enough to tell her a secret. Something I wanted to get off my chest for a while when I saw her struggling all those months ago.
When I said the mountain means a lot to the ponies in my home town I meant it. While she could fly away I hid from my tormentors away in the mountain. Even with my foggy memory neither of us could forget how muddy the hidden path up to the summit was or how the rain and hail cascaded around the trees and rock. And while I love the rain its not because of its wetness or noise but rather the blindness it offers.
My secret spot was at the peak of the mountain just overlooking the rounded hollow peak. No ponies but I and maybe my departed dad went up there and to have somepony else there was a pleasant new sensation since downfall was quickly losing its appeal after half of an hour of walking.
I can’t remember exactly what I said to her next but it must have been something great. Greatly stupid or smart though I don’t know but she decided to walk down the small pond that was forming, and considering she couldn’t swim I went after her. At first she walked, then cantered, then suddenly I we were both running around a pond in the rain like madponies.
At first I didn’t know if it was her chasing me or me chasing her, or why we were even running but I remember the first crack. Ignored it thinking it was another stone I broke, something that happened a lot around town hence most of the rumours and why I rarely fly anymore. Then the sound became more frequent, enough that each step I took would have had to been breaking rock. Confused I leapt into the air trying to assess the damage behind me went I felt heard Lighting dust pass me. Heard being it was her left leg that was cracking with each step as she ran. And that is when I started chasing her.
Even on the ground she was faster than I was in the air, and when she started using her wings and legs she became a green blur as she passed me again and again. The ring she was running started to get wider and wider as she slowly inched toward the edge of the mountain getting somehow faster with each lap. At first I was worried as the cracking was almost a continuous stream of clicks. But a few minutes later was captivated at the sight up from up high.
Still on the ground Lightning Dust was a green ring running on the vertical edges of my round mountain peak, every sound she made lost in the wind that was picking up behind her and circling faster with each pass. What shocked me most though was what was happening to the small pool of water.
A few leaves danced in the wind circling each other in the air as the wind and rain were drawn toward them pushing them into the air or into the weathered ground. When stones began to join the fray I then realised something I had only read about was forming. The tiny whirlpool rose into the sky pulling everything except its maker and me into its wake. Charged with Pegasus magic and made with such sheer determination and anger I almost felt sorry for the once cruel looking storm as clouds were pulled away from the sky into the column of twisting air.
As the storm was pulled away from the town I noticed the hurricane slowly leave the ground. Lightning cracked around the mare trapped inside, the burden of a storm resting on a sole pony slowly being lifted up and away and fighting for control across every inch of air it rose. Then suddenly it stopped.
A yellow streak blasted through the top of the whirling mass carrying the wind and all the clouds with it scattering the mass across faraway lands. Amidst the catastrophe I could not see Lightning Dust though. Following the direction of the yellow trailed bolt I saw a pony falling though out of the corner of my bad eye. And by some miracle I managed to catch her.
And although every pony in town saw the hurricane and congratulated the pony that pulled it off I managed to get the recognition I needed. A new friend. And for a few months that was good enough for me, until her letter of acceptance came through.
I remember that vividly enough. One of the fliers from that came from Cloudsdale was apparently this big shot leader in the Wounder Bolts. And the look on her face when she realised someone important had seen her trick was priceless, I bet it would have been better if she was awake when I caught her. Still it was nice to see my good, maybe best, friend get where she wanted to go.
What I saw return was crushing.
Days before she was scheduled to return from her training she appeared at my doorstep and apologised to me for betraying my trust and breaking her word. She was trying to cement her chance at another record and in her rush lost control over a whirlwind. I suppose it is one of those moments that hurt the most. The Whirlwind made her what she is, even if nopony out of town even heard of it. It would have crushed her. But I am still hopeful.
She was only in town for a full hour and visited only me for some reason. And call me a superstitious pony but so far every time in her life on the eve of a decision that will change her there has been rain. Maybe tears, this time I was not listening most of the day but when she left I saw a grey sky above.
So maybe she will be alright, I just wish I could meet the pony that helped her through this or better yet follow her, but I have work to do here, possessions to move a letters to deliver.