1
“You what!?” Rainbow Dash nearly shrieked, glaring at the two newest members of her Weather Team who were hovering in the air directly in front of her, their heads held down in shame.
“We thought we were helping!” one of them finally said, trying to bring his gaze up to meet his captain. “We just saw a huge buildup of clouds and got rid of it, that’s all!”
“That’s all,” Dash repeated, her voice glacially calm before the inevitable explosion. “That’s all!? I had those clouds specially made for tomorrow! They are the absolute best snow clouds that Cloudsdale could make! I was storing them over here and out of the way until midnight, until two certain rookies decided, without talking to me, to take matters into their own hooves!”
“We’re sorry, Captain Dash,” the other said, keeping his head hung low. “We’ll head to Cloudsdale right away and--”
“NO!” The pair recoiled at the vicious snap, fluttering back and away from their usually calm-and-cool captain. “Okay, geez, I’m sorry I snapped. Look, I get you wanna fix it, but to put it bluntly, you’re just not fast enough. By the time you get there, have them re-make the clouds, and get back, it’ll be too late.” Even if I do it, it might be too late. Where’s Twilight when you need her…
As if on cue, the voice she wanted to hear appeared behind her. “Is everything okay, Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah, sure, no problem. I got it all under control.” Rainbow Dash waved a dismissive hoof at Twilight for added emphasis while keeping her eyes on her rookies. “You two go away now. You’re not… you’re not let go or anything. You just get today and tomorrow off, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am…”
“Yes, Captain Dash.”
“Good, now scram.” With them two gone, she turned to face Twilight, jumping in place just a bit as she saw her friend. Clearly, she was still not used to seeing Twilight in the air yet. She took a deep breath, cringing internally as she figured out just how to put it.
She could just fake it, of course. Pretend like everything was still fine, send Twilight on her merry way, and then fix the mess those two had accidentally caused. But there was just no way she could do it in time. After a minute of her thoughts racing in a whirlwind, she gulped, as if visibly swallowing her pride. “No, Twi, everything is totally not okay. I had this huge super awesome weather pattern planned for tonight, and those two birdbrains kicked all my clouds away that I put here.”
“Can’t you just make more?” Twilight asked, cocking her head with a frown in her usual, I-don’t-see-the-problem expression. “I’ve seen you whip up clouds in no time.”
“I could, sure, but even I admit they wouldn’t be as good as the Cloudsdale ones.” Rainbow Dash rubbed at her temples, snorting out her exasperation. “I won’t let Ponyville settle for just any old snowfall, which means I have to haul tail to Cloudsdale. That wouldn’t even be a problem, but…”
“But Cloudsdale is at its apogee from Ponyville?”
“Yeah, sure, that.” Dash hadn’t heard that particular word before, but she picked up on the gist of it easily enough. “I, uhm, I miiiiight need your help here, Twi.”
“Of course!”
“Well… by the time I get there and have them make all the clouds, it’ll be night and I won’t be able to pull them all by myself in time to start the snowfall. So I was wondering… uhm… can I use your teleport magic?”
Twilight blinked. “That’s all? Why didn’t you just ask in the first place! I’d be glad to help. When do you need me?”
“Hrm…” Dash tapped at her chin, trying to do the figures in her head. “Let’s make it about eleven.”
“Eleven!?” Twilight gave the pegasus a look of complete disbelief. “It’ll take fourteen hours to make them!?”
“No no no!” Dash assured her, waving her hooves for added emphasis. “It’ll only take a couple hours, but there are still clouds being made for other towns, probably even for Canterlot itself. My order is gonna come dead last.”
“Can’t you just have them bump you up the list?” Spike asked, finally getting a chance to add his own thoughts into the conversation. “I mean, you are Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty and close friend of Princess Twilight Sparkle! They’d have to listen to you.”
“Spike, that’d be a very rude thing to do,” Twilight said pointedly.
“Wouldn’t work, anyways,” Dash added, “Cloudsdale is on a strict timeline. I’ll just have to wait it out. Anyways, thanks for the help, Twi. See you tonight!” And with that, Rainbow Dash bolted off into the sky and straight for Cloudsdale.
2
During the first hour of her flight, Rainbow Dash vented into an empty grey sky, sometimes grumbling under her breath and, at other times, yelling her blue head off about the two newbies and their potentially disastrous mistake.
On the second hour, she simply sped through the air, letting her mind wander away while the rushing winds split her rainbow mane down the center. On occasion, she’d break the monotony of the trip by performing some random aerial stunt, though she held herself from going for the Sonic Rainboom itself - she was in no particular mood to sustain or even attempt it.
By the time she managed to get to Cloudsdale around the third hour, Rainbow Dash was ready to spit fire. “Ugh, finally,” she mumbled to herself, relieved to finally let her wings rest. She could see the stack of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory, from which their special Hearth’s Warming snow clouds seemed to be churned out at an insanely high rate.
Despite how close it looked, however, it still took Rainbow Dash the better part of half an hour just to reach the factory proper. Thankfully, the reception office seemed to be clear, with each respective town’s Weather Captains roaming around Cloudsdale, just killing time. As for herself, Rainbow Dash knew exactly how she was going to spend her own time when she was done here.
The receptionist looked up as Rainbow Dash walked into the small office space, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. “May I help you, Miss Dash?” she asked, her tone a mix of professional and wonder. “Was there anything wrong with Ponyville’s particular order?”
“Well, actually… eheheh…” Come on Dashie, don’t back out now! “Y’see, that is to say--”
“Oh, I see.” The mare behind the desk giggled with amusement. “Let me guess, they were all kicked away?”
“Well, yeah! How did you know I was here for that?”
“Oh, please. I see it every year. There’s always two or three captains who come back because their supply of our special snow clouds mysteriously vanished. Mostly because of the young bucks and miscommunication. Ponyville, right?”
“Huh? Yeah.” Rainbow Dash shook her head, hardly believing the whole thing. She could see herself as the laughing stock of the Weather Captains, losing an entire shipment of clouds from a pair of young go-getters. But for it to be a relatively common occurrence throughout Equestria… it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of her back.
“Request filed and… processed!” The receptionist shot Rainbow Dash a cheery smile. “Of course, yours will be the very last ticket, so get comfy up here. Unless you plan to fly back home…?”
“Nah, I’ll be staying in town,” Dash said, turning and heading for the door. “Oh and I won’t need a hauling net this time.”
“No hauling net?” The mare blinked - in all of the years she’s had to resubmit orders, she’d never heard that one before. “But… Ponyville’s one hay of a trip. How else are you planning to move that many clouds all at once?”
Rainbow Dash waved a hoof at the mare. “Don’t sweat it, I got that covered,” she said, and left.
3
Rainbow Dash slinked out of the office, dragging her feet across the fluffy “ground”. Now that she had gotten the hard part completely out of the way, she let her body finally slump with the weariness it felt. This whole week had wreaked havoc on her body, and, more importantly, her delicate napping schedule which she tried so hard to maintain every day. Now, however, she had a whole day with nothing to do.
Which meant only one thing. It was nap time.
She headed to the nearest hotel, excited at the prospect of a nice, warm bed.
* * *
A soft pop! echoed in the room, accompanied by a quick flash of purple light. “Psst, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight Sparkle said, reaching over the bed and nuding a snoring lump on the bed. “Rainbow Dash, wake up!”
“Huh, wussat?” The mass flailed about as Rainbow Dash tried to untangle herself from the blanket. After a minute, her head popped out from under the covers. “What’re you doing here already, Twi? I said to come here at eleven.” The last syllable stretched out into a yawn, with Dash stretching out her forelegs and wings.
“It is eleven, Rainbow Dash.” Twilight let out an amused chuckle as the other woke up fully. “Are the clouds ready yet?”
“Clouds?” Dash blinked, a look of perplexion upon her face. And then, out of nowhere, it hit her. “Omigosh! The Ponyville clouds! I totally forgot! Are they done yet!?”
Twilight rolled her eyes and gave her head a small shake. “I’m asking you that!”
“Oh, right, eheheh… Well, they’ll be at the Weather Factory. C’mon, let’s go.”
* * *
“Wow, uh, think you can handle it, Twi?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking at her friend with a worried frown adorning her face. Twilight had been so sure in herself this morning, but now… the look on her face told a different story.
“Now that you mention it, I don’t know…” Twilight admitted, standing on the centermost cloud of their batch. “I’ve never tried anything like this before. Teleporting myself or a couple of ponies near enough to me is easy. As long as they're touching me, they can travel with me. I've also just recently learned how to do it across vast distances - from Ponyville to here is the farthest I've ever gone with teleportion."
"So basically... you can't do it," Rainbow Dash said, her tone one of defeat. She drooped her head and snorted out a sigh.
"I didn't say that!" Twilight protested, setting herself firmly on the cloud and closing her eyes. "I said I don't know if I can do it. I’ll just have to give it a shot!”
A warm pulsing sensation slid up her horn as she concentrated, imagining herself, Rainbow Dash and their blanket of clouds and then imagining them above Ponyville. One thing she had not anticipated, however, was the lack of any particular landmark to focus on. If she thought about any of the buildings, they'd all appear at ground level. She could hear Rainbow Dash's voice from a million miles away, asking if she was alright. She was vaguely aware of her own trembling body; the wings she was still getting used to were shot straight back, rigid as stone. It shouldn't be this hard! she yelled to herself, hearing her own voice as though it were underwater.
Twilight Sparkle gasped, her eyes flying open and her body collapsing onto the cloud. "Twilight!" Rainbow Dash rushed to her friend, grabbing her and gently laying her on her side. "Oh gosh, are you okay!? You know what, forget it. Ponyville will just have to deal.”
“It’s okay, Dash,” Twilight said as she stood up. “Really, I’m fine. It was just a mental shock, that’s all. But...” She swatted at the cloud, frowning. “I can’t do it. There’s just too many clouds here for me to move. Actually, it’s not even the teleporting that’s the problem.”
“It’s not?” Rainbow Dash blinked, trying to make sense of everything. “Uhm, you proooobably want to explain it to, y’know, a non-unicorn? I thought teleporting was one of the hardest spells you guys could do!”
“Oh, it is,” Twilight said almost casually. “But there are two steps involved. The first step is to make a bubble around whatever it is you’re moving. Like how I use my magic to levitate things? It’s the same thing, but this time you’re making an object disappear and reappear instantaneously. But it has to be in that bubble. In simple terms, I can’t teleport all of the clouds because I can’t create a bubble large enough to hold them all.”
“Oh… But what about just now!? When you totally freaked out and got hurt?”
“I’ve told you already, I’m not hurt. Hrm, how to put it… have you ever had a balloon popped in your face?”
“You mean when Pinkie Pie decides to be obnoxious? Yeah.”
“That’s exactly what happened.” Twilight sat down, blowing out a short sigh. Rainbow Dash could see her breathing harder than usual. “But… now what do we do?”
“Like I said, Ponyville will just deal with it. We can shake these clouds now and give Cloudsdale one hay of a snowfall - they almost never get to see one anyways.”
“You’re gonna let it go, just like that?”
“Hauling them would take forever, y’know? Besides, they’re just clouds, Twi. Hearth’s Warming isn’t about the weather, it’s about me getting that awesome new Daring Do book where she finally goes up into Ahuizotl’s personal lair-- I mean it’s about friends and family, eheheh.” Dash offered a small chuckle that had not even a hint of amusement to Twilight’s ears. “Not to mention Applejack’s awesome Peppermint Hot Apple Cider! Right?”
There was more to it than that, Twilight knew. She could hear the disappointment in Rainbow Dash’s voice, even if her words said otherwise. But she knew better than to push the issue. “Right, Rainbow. Well then, what do you say we give Cloudsdale a snowfall!”
4
The six of them sat around the main room of Twilight’s library, each of them enjoying a mug of Sweet Apple Acres’ festive Hot Apple Cider and sharing the stories of their last-minute Hearth’s Warming Day preparations.
“Well don’t let it getcha down, RD,” Applejack said cheerily, finishing her mug in one final gulp.
“For once, I agree with Applejack,” Rarity added, taking dainty sips of her own. “Besides… mm, you’re not the only one who was unable to fulfill their Hearth’s Warming Eve obligations…”
“Whaddya mean?” Dash asked, her eyebrow raised with curiosity and suspicion.
“Well, as diligently as I worked the whole month, and even with Sweetie Belle’s help of course, I was still unable to make festive clothes for every single pony in Ponyville. On time, at least. By the day after tomorrow, all shall be wearing my glorious seasonal sweaters!”
“And one of my poor birds got a sore throat and couldn’t sing in the choir,” Fluttershy said, putting forth her own lack of a true contribution to the town’s midnight festival. “Everypony still had a good time when the tree was lit.”
“Yeah… I guess you’re right.” Rainbow Dash finished her own cider and set the empty mug on the table. “What about you, Pinkie? Did you at least get to finish whatever it was you were doing? Pinkie Pie? Helllooooo?” But the pink mare merely stared out the window, the beginnings of a huge smile creeping on her face. The others turned to look… to see a heavy snowfall just outside.
“What the…?”
“Is it…?”
“Nah,” Dash said immediately, shaking her head in amused disbelief. “It’s not Cloudsdale snow. But wow, how’d my team pull it off? It must’ve taken them literally all day.”
“Well, it looks quite good to me,” Rarity said, staring out at a darkened Ponyville and watching as the snow began to blanket the ground.
“Darn right,” Applejack agreed. “It ain’t gotta be that super-fancy Cloudsdale stuff for all the fillies and colts to have fun in it, anyways.”
“I agree,” Twilight said, moving away from the window and into her kitchen area. “Now then, who wants one more round of Peppermint Hot Apple Cider before we actually sleep at this slumber party?”