No Abuse Like Snow Abuse!

“Alright miss. The shower’s all fixed up, and I got a whole bunch of leftovers!” Said the repair pony, gesturing to a large tarp wrapped around a series of slightly rusted pipes and pristine fittings which were all leaking the liquid essence of vile. “Not that it’s any of my business, but what happened anyways?”

“I’d rather not talk about it. But thank you for fixing this.” Primrose settled the bill with the repair pony and then showed him out the door. With this ordeal over with, she went over to the door to Snowdrop’s room and knocked on it. “Okay Snowdrop, the shower’s fixed. You can go in now.”

“Alright!” Acknowledged the filly, who opened the door and went about her way towards the shower. She entered into it and felt around with her wing at the contraption to operate it. Oh how difficult it was to manage this astonishingly complicated mechanism, what with its two knobs. Snowdrop, however, managed to figure that nothing was much different than the usual and turned on the same knob as always to turn on the warm water. After about five minutes, Snowdrop felt something was off when she began sneezing and feeling icicles forming on her. Of course, she had a bigger problem to deal with, after she had finished up washing she noticed ended up getting water in her ear. A lot of water.

Snowdrop then went to the kitchen to hurry through her meal, as she only had so much time until school, just like every morning. However, as she was in the midst of her oatmeal, Primrose came up to her and patted her on the head lightly.

Apparently Primrose had some pretty big news. “Snowdrop, I know I help you walk to school most mornings but mommy has to change her work hours for this week, so I have to leave now.”

Snowdrop lifted her face out of her meal and faced her mother in surprise. “What? But what if I get lost again?”

Primrose embraced little Snowdrop with a wing and held her head in the crook of her neck. “That was some time ago, and you’re bigger and smar-” She caught herself before she stretched the truth to her own daughter. “Well bigger now. I have faith that you can make it there on your own. You know the path still, right?”

Snowdrop was starting to form tears in the corners of her eyes, for the feeling of overbearing loneliness was starting to overcome her. “Yes mom.” She managed to stutter out.

“Just take the same way as we always do. If you for sure hear one of your school friends, ask to walk to school with them.”

“Yes mom. I will.” Snowdrop sniffled and fought back her feelings, yet her eyes still watered. Though she was a brave filly and willing to do as her mother instructed, the fear of isolation to be suddenly and unceremoniously separated for even a brief time from her mother was almost too great for her to bear.

Primrose did not wish to shatter this precious moment, to have to share such awful news with her child was terrible enough. She reached out with her wing and managed to grab a hold of something slightly hidden from sight. It was a cane of a rather rigid yet light wood, about half the size of herself though perfect for a child. Her child. Her Snowdrop.

“Snowdrop.” She said. “Here, I got this for you. She said, backing away slightly and placed one end of the cane within Snowdrop’s grasp. “This should help you so you don’t get lost.”

Snowdrop wrapped the end of her wing around the part of the stick she could. Her mother let go of her end and it then fell and tapped the floor lightly, reverberating throughout it’s length and making the little filly nervous until it’s vibrations subsided. “Is this a cane?”

“Yes Snowdrop. This way you’ll be able to tell when you’re on the path and if there’s anything in the way.” Primrose wiped the corner of her eye. The time was drawing near when she would have to go, and she had already lost far too much time. “Please, be safe. I must go now, I’ll see if I can walk you home after school though.”

“Okay mom. Thank you.” Snowdrop quieted down some and remained in the kitchen, listening to the hoofsteps of her mother as they led out the door. The door opened, and there was silence, then she heard her mother bid her a final, unintelligible farewell. Her mother left, the door closed, and then more silence. Snowdrop finished off her meal and cleaned up after herself before heading out of the door and towards school.

Snowdrop followed the same path as she always did, and nothing interrupted her way. This should be expected, because anything that could be in the way would’ve just slipped downwards easily. But that’s to be expected, given that she lives in Cloudsdale where the ground is made up of, contrary to popular belief, clouds. As such, Snowdrop’s new cane didn’t get much use, which stinks because she was waving it around in front of her to try it out just as a child would.

Then Snowdrop, being the cumbersome filly she is, tripped over her own feet and fell onto the rock hard fluffy clouds. She ended up sprawled out and lost her cane in the fall, and searched the ground hurriedly for it again. Her hooves scrambled where she thought she heard it fall, and it was not long before she found something.

It weighed quite a bit, but she was still able to lift it. She carefully examined it and could feel that at one end there was a tubular part much like her cane though at the other was much more like a paddle. Between the ends was a series of odd bits and pieces protruding from the thickest part of this object. On one side she could feel two larger things sticking out, one was angled slightly towards the paddle-end while the other was longer shaped sort of like a quarter moon but with a long flat end instead of a point.

She was sure that this couldn’t be her cane, but that would be silly because most everything just falls through the clouds so she couldn’t have gotten it confused. So she came to the most obvious conclusion in that in her rush to go to school, she didn’t really take a good feel of her cane and it was much more complicated than she thought. So she took it by the stubby, angled handle and continued along her way to school with her brand new AK-47.

Finally Snowdrop arrived at school, where she was greeted by one of her classmates who had gotten out of his seat to talk to her.

“Wow Snowdrop, what is that?” He asked.

Snowdrop recognized the voice belonging to that nice colt who made her the sandwich some time ago. She was only too happy to answer him in return for his kindness. “It’s my new cane. My mom got it for me.”

“That’s pretty cool. Can I look at it?”

She graciously held out the wide paddle end of the thing and allowed the colt to grab ahold of it with his own wing. “Go ahead, but be careful with it, please?”

He held it with surprising dexterity by the heftiest part of it. Marveling at its fine architecture and precise markings, he could see somepony clearly had spent much time to craft such an astoundingly complicated contraption. “Are you sure this is a cane? It looks really weird.”

“I thought so too. But I guess it’s special.”

Her classmate switched the item around and looked down the tube of it, seeing that it was very clearly hollow with a series of ridges extending inside its pipe-like interior. “It’s empty inside and really scratched up.” He then gave the gun back to Snowdrop.

“Yeah.” Snowdrop said, embarrassed at the earlier ordeal. One day with something new and she already screwed it up. Who knew clouds were so hard?

“What’s that little lever do?”

“Huh?” Snowdrop was snapped out of her shame for a moment. “What lever?”

The colt guided a pinion of one of her wings towards the little trigger inside a ring that was connected to the most cumbersome part of the alleged ‘cane.’ She couldn’t get that much of a grip on it though so she pointed the thin end towards the ceiling and carefully felt around it. Now she could feel that there certainly was a small lever, and it was curved against the ring and fit easily at the end of her wing. She tried to press it, just a little to test it, but it didn’t budge much so she gave up on the idea before she broke her cane any more than she already may have.

Just then the door to the class opened and in walked Ms. Windith. “Alright children, please go to your seats. Snowdrop, what is that you have?”

Snowdrop became startled and jerked her wing in surprise, as though she knew what she had done was wrong. This was a little nuts because clearly bringing a cane to school wasn’t anything bad, so she didn’t need to worry about that. What she did need to worry about was that her cane was screaming loudly with a voice the sound of thunder making a sound closest to “Brrrat.” It shook violently as though it were a savage beast trying to escape from her hold on it, but her wing got stuck so she couldn’t even let it go. Through the chaos that rang out she could feel splinters raining on her and a huge breeze coming through the top of the building, like a hole had been punched through the ceiling.

And then it all ceased with one last, resounding ‘clack.’ The gun fell to the floor and Snowdrop managed to slip her wing from the ring and trigger. The point that was stuck stung and she nuzzled it in an attempt to ease the pain. “Is everypony okay?”

All of the students got up from under their desks and looked around cautiously, every one of them shaking out of vibrant terror. The teacher was cowering on the floor uncovered her face and looked around and saw that despite a bunch of holes throughout the room and a new skylight installed, everypony was indeed okay.

“Yes Snowdrop.” Said Ms. Windith. “I believe we are alright. But the bigger question is what do you think you’re doing bringing that thing to class?” Her voice rose as she posed her own question. It was clear that Snowdrop was going to get a scolding, again.

“I’m sorry Ms. Windith, my mom got me a new cane.” Snowdrop wanted to continue to try and defend herself, but Ms. Windith interjected.

“Snowdrop, it’s clear that that thing you have is clearly not a cane. Now go take a seat and we will speak on this later. I’m sure with all that racket somepony called a guard.”

Snowdrop went over to her usual spot and laid her head flat on the table. It’s one thing to be chastised by the teacher, but in front of the whole class? Now that’s just mean. And no sooner was it that she sat down when a guard in full armor knocked on the door to the schoolhouse, which was knocked clean off it’s hinges and fell to the floor.

The guard was stunned by the shape of the classroom. It looked as though a tornado has just passed through! But, being a loyal subject to Celestia, he was obligated to get to the bottom of what really happened. Even if it turns out a tornado really did pass through, as is relatively common in Cloudsdale.

“Alright.” He said. He cleared his throat and then gestured to Ms. Windith. “Would you care to tell me what happened here?”

Ms. Windith pointed a hoof at the rifle laying on the ground. “One of my students brought that thing into the classroom. Next thing I know it started making this loud cracking noise and everypony went on the ground. Then, suddenly, it just stopped and when I looked around I saw the whole classroom was ruined by this.”

“I see.”

“Please sir.” Plead Ms. Windith. “I know you might be forced to hold the filly accountable for this, but I’m sure she meant no harm. Plus nopony was hurt, we’re all fine for better or worse.”

“Oh, that’s of no concern to me.”

“Oh good!” Ms. Windith smiled.

“Yes ma’m. No law exists to really handle this sort of matter, so we wouldn’t know what to do with it anyways.”

Ms. Windith’s faith in the Equestrian legal system was utterly obliterated like much of the classroom that day.

“Well I’ll get going, looks like you have some cleaning up to do.” And the guard just got out of there.

In the remainder of this classroom, there were a number of fillies and colts and one, very jaded teacher. All of them had a close brush with death that day, and none knew what they could do next. Ms. Windith went behind her desk, sat on her haunches, and just stared at the back of the class. The children recovered much more quickly, however they refused to speak in this air of awkwardness. And so an hour had passed before the teacher finally said. “Alright, you all can go for recess. I’m just going to stay behind.”

The children hurried outside to play as though nothing had changed, yet Snowdrop was the last to leave. And being the last to leave the room, she could swear she had smelled the scent of paint thinner and rotten vegetables emanating from Ms. Windith’s desk.

Oh well, recess!