Chapters The Leaving of Cloudsdale
There was a shadow going trough Ponyville, a mysterious pony in a black cloak. The town was just large enough for the stranger to be noticed, if only indirectly trough whispers. The strange pony skulked around the more crowded parts of the town. She seldom spoke, but when she did, she had the voice of a young mare.
All kinds of rumors arose about this visitor, ranging from the mundane, where she simply was a drifter wandering from town to town, righting wrongs and bringing justice, to the outrageous, where she was supposed to be some sort of eldritch creature or avatar of a mysterious ancient being recently awoken from its slumber.
And like all the rumors of Ponyville, they eventually reached the ears of mr and mrs Cake over at Sugarcube Corner. The two ponies hid behind the oven to discuss the stories while Pinkie Pie minded the store.
* * *
“Yeah, if it IS a young filly,” mr. Cake said. “You know the kind of strange things that happen around these parts. Besides, what can we do about it?”
“I know, but why are we whispering like this?” mrs Cake asked.
“I don't want Pinkie to hear, you know how she gets when there's a new pony in town...” Mr Cake said, not noticing the pink storm-cloud that descended from up above.
“THERES A NEW PONY IN TOWN?” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. She was siting on the oven like a gargoyle and looked down on the two rumormongers.
“Pinkie! Shouldn’t you mind the store?” Mrs. Cake asked.
“There's no customers right now. But there will be when I find my new friend, and I invite her here for pastries and pie!” Pinkie skipped around in delight.
“Not everypony is... friendly, y'know?”, Mr. Cake said. “Strangers like that can be troublesome.”
“Stranger?” Pinkie Pie shouted while raising an eyebrow. “She's not a stranger, just a friend I haven’t me yet!”
* * *
“Rarity?” she asked. The mare shook her head.
“ 'kay, I was just wondering.” Pinkie Pie said. “She gets a bit dramatic at times, and the whole mysterious stranger in black cloak is so her thing, but if you're not Rarity, who are you? what's your name? You have a name don’t you?” The mare let her head hang down.
“Yes, I have a name,” she said. “I just don't want to mention it. I'm not looking for trouble, I just want a place to stay. “
“Then you should talk to Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie suggested. “She's kind. She's a bit shy but if she sees you're with me, she'll let you in for sure! I have ONE condition, though.” The mare let out a world-weary sigh.
What is it?”
“That I give you a huge happy welcome cake and I get to sing you a song!” Pinkie Pie shouted. She could almost discern a smile from underneath the heavy black cloak.
“Okay,” The mare underneath said.
* * *
“Well?” she said. “you're not going to keep our guest waiting, are you?” The two Cakes shrugged and soon they had set up a table for the stranger.
The mare sat down, and when she took her cloak off she revealed herself to be a young filly with the look of somepony who has lost all her shine. She looked melancholic, but Pinkie Pie beamed a bright smile towards her.
“You look just as cute as I imagined you!” she said.
“Uhm, thanks...” the pony said, unsure about where this was going.
“Sit down, and I'll make you a nice welcome cake.” Pinkie Pie said, completely ignoring the mares confusion. She disappeared into the bakery and left the strange mare alone with Mr and Mrs. Cake. They shared an awkward moment before any of them dared to speak.
“So, uhm, do you like it here?” mrs Cake asked.
“Its' a nice town.” she replied shortly.
“What are you... doing here?” Mrs Cake said. “I don't mean to be rude, you're welcome here.”
“I'm just looking for a place to stay, but I don't want to tell you more, I hope you understand.”
* * *
The formerly cloaked mare gave the cake a puzzled look, but the Frankencake failed to make sense. She took a bite out of it. The taste was equally nonsensical, but the cake was delicious. This time, there was no heavy black fabric or shadows that could hide the smile that started to grow across the face of the mare.
“This is great!” the mare said. “Thank you! I think I needed that.”
“Wait, I'm not done yet!” Pinkie Pie said. “I promised you a song, remember?”
“I was hoping you had forgotten that part”, she muttered under her breath, cheeks blushing.
“I never forget to sing to my friends!” Pinkie Pie said, and then began:
I see the smile you hide inside your cloak,
Butterflies, can there ever be too many?
* * *
“Is anything wrong?” Fluttershy said when she saw the sudden pained expression on the mares face.
“You didn't tell me she was a pegasus,” the mare whispered to Pinkie Pie.
!Whats wrong with being a pegasus?” Pinkie Pie asked.
“Nothing, nothing whatsoever”
“Did I do anything wrong?” Fluttershy asked with a note of concern. The stranger remained silent, until Pinkie Pie nudged her.
“Talk to her, you silly!” she demanded.
“I'm sorry,” the cloaked mare said. “I've been walking for a long time, and I need a place to stay. I don't know for how long, but I'll try to be out as soon as I can.”
“Oh, is it only that?” Fluttershy asked. “Phew, I thought something really bad had happened, of course you can stay!”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Fluttershy said. “I can't just let you sleep out in the cold now can I?” The mare was taken aback by this display of compassion.
“I won't be any trouble!” she said. “I could... I don't know, stay in the chicken coop or something.”
“You can't stay there,” Fluttershy said. “You might startle the chickens!” she struggled to retain her diplomacy. “uhm... I'm afraid my sofa isn't all that comfortable, but I guess it will have to do.”
* * *
“Good morning!” Fluttershy said from the kitchen.“I have breakfast in here if you want it.”
The mare went into the kitchen, but let the blanket trail behind her like a cape. The breakfast was simple, but delicious. Fluttershy used much better ingredients than most ponies, and it could make even the simplest dish enjoyable. The mare didn't exactly feel like talking, and Fluttershy was polite enough not to force her into a discussion. They ate the breakfast in silence, and once both was finished, the mare got up.
“Thanks for the breakfast and the sleep,” she said. “but I think I should go. “
“Wait!” Fluttershy said, having finally gathered courage. “There's something bothering you, is there? You don't have to tell me, but it might make you feel better, and who knows, maybe we can help?”
The mare sighed and let the blanket drop. Underneath was a pair of something that once was wings, but had been reduced to a blackened mess of scar tissue, like skin growing over broken twigs. Fluttershy could almost be seen crying as her sense of compassion bubbled up.
“Oh my!” she said.
“I guess I should explain. My name is Rainbowshine. I used to work at the Cloudsdale Weather Factory, until my luck ran out. We were supposed to make a tornado to deliver the rainwater, but... Well, do you know about the theory that the flap of a butterfly's wing can cause huge storms somewhere else?”
“yes?”
“Well, that's pretty much what happened, they said. We was just about to break the record. Then somepony flapped their wings the wrong way. Maybe they just flew in the wrong direction, or the wrong angle or whatever, but it dissolved the whole hurricane. Ponies were flying everywhere. most of them turned out alright, but most of them wasn't launched straight towards the giant fan set up to measure our wingpower...”
“Poor dear!” Fltutershy exclaimed. Hearing the story made her own wings ache.
“I guess I should count myself lucky I wasn’t beheaded,” Rainbowshine said. “But the recovery was long and painful, and it cost me my job at the factory.”
“oh, you needed to fly to do your job?” Fluttershy asked.
“Not really.” Rainbowshine said, and she wa barely able to meet the pegasus's concerned gaze. “It was my fault really, I got afraid. I was afraid that people would look down on me, and to be honest, I kinda developed this irrational fear of heights for a while,” she confessed.
“I didn't dare to go out of my apartment. Eventually, my boss just lost his patience with me, I guess. I lived on my friends charity for a while, but eventually that ran out too. So I had to leave Coudsdale, it's not a city you want to be wingless and homeless in, and I started looking for a new place to try my luck.”
“Then you came to the right place,” Fluttershy said. “Applejack always need somepony to help out over at the farm ,and I need help with my animals. A melancholy smile appeared on Rainbowshine's face.
“I'm a charity case again, huh?” she said.
* * *
“It's still a bit raw,” Rainbowshine said. But she looked at the cart with determination in her eyes. “But I think I can handle it,” she said.
“If you say so ,sugar,” Applejack said. She fastened the cart to Rainbowshine's back, for a while she just stood there with the cart fastened to her back, looking confused.
“So, what am I supposed to do?” Rainbowsine asked.
“You just stand by that tree over there,” Applejack said and pointed at a particularly large, elderly apple-tree. “Then I will kick the trunk and let the apples fall down into the cart. Then you take the apples to Big Mac over there.” She pointed at Big Macintosh, who waved back at them. “And he will put the apples in our silo, easy-peasy!”
“Okay,” rainbowshine said and followed the instructions. Applejack kicked the tree-trunk and the apples fell everywhere except down into the cart.
“Maybe you shouldn't stand this close to the trunk...” Applejack informed.
“I... OUCH... got that...” Rainbowshine said as a stray apple fell down onto her head.
* * *
Her background in the factory served her well and she proved herself to be both a hard and a focused worker. During these hours of manual labour, the ground felt a little less opresive as usual, and once they got their rhythm going, it almost felt like she was back into the air flying again.
At the end of the day, she could trace every single bit she earned back to a bruise or an ache in her body. The thought of doing the same thing all over again tomorrow filled her with trepidation. But part of her was looking forward to it. The Apple family had given her a small room to stay in, not as a charity case or a visitor but as a temporary worker, and it felt good.
* * *
Applejack had to laugh when one day she found Rainbowshine chilling under a tree chewing on a straw like any member of the Apple-family.
“What is it?” Rainbowshine asked when sh heard the mare laughing.
“Oh, nothing” Applejack said. “We don’t really have anything going on at the farm right now, why don't you take the day off? Go into town, have some fun. Celestia knows, you've deserved it.”
A day off? Sounds nice. Rainbowshine thought about the things she could do and the ponies she could see... and she came to a realization.
Crap , I forgot to make any FRIENDS in this town she thought to herself
* * *
Today, she was looking at these derelicts with different eyes, however, with no work to occupy her mind, and she was feeling contemplative. How weird to live in something made out of wood and bricks instead of soft, everlasting cloud , she thought. In Cloudsdale, the past was all around you, standing proud and eternal like the sky itself. This was a very different world, a world that aged and changed with you.
She made a mental note to discuss this with Granny Smith, she was by far the oldest mare in Ponyville and ought to have some interesting insight on the matter.
* * *
“Hi!” Pinkie said cheerfully. “How's our newliest Ponyville citizen fitting in?”
“I'm doing fine,” Rainbowshine lied. “But to be honest I do kinda miss the big city. I used to love going to nightclubs, there's some really good ones in Cloudsdale. But here, if I wanna dance, the best I can hope for is a hoedown down at the barn at Apple Acres.”
“What's wrong with that?” Pinkie Pie said.
“You've never been to a club, have you?” Rainbowshine asked condescendingly.
“I tried once,” Pinkie Pie said, oblivious to the tone. “But they wouldn't let me in.” Rainbowshine changed the topic.
“Say,” she said. “what do you do when you get bored around here?” A dangerous spark ignited in Pinkies eyes.
“Well...” she began.
* * *
When Rainbowshine returned to Apple Acres, she felt as if there was a war going on inside her belly.
“What's the matter,sugar?” Applejack asked, noticing the pained expression on the temp-workers face.
“I don't feel so good,” Rainbowshine said. “Pinkie Pie challenged me to a cupcake-eating contest...”
“I should probably have warned you about that,” Applejack said. “Pinkie's appetite for sweets is out of this world.”
“So I noticed,” Rainbowshine said.
* * *
“What are you doing?” applejack asked her.
“I'm just writing a letter,” Rainbowshine said.
“ to who ,Celestia? “
“What? No! What interest could the ruler of Equestria possible have of the petty daily struggles of some random pony of the street?”
“You haven't met Twilight yet, have you?” Applejack said with a sly smile.
“No, Rainbowsgine replied, who's Twilight?”
“A friend of mine”, Applejack said. “You should talk to her sometimes, she's a nice filly and really smart.”
Rainbowshine put her signature on the parchment and rolled it up.
“Allright, who do I talk to if I want a letter sent around here?”
“Talk to Derpy tomorrow,” Applejack said. “an' go to bed, it's gonna be a long day tomorrow.”
* * *
The next morning, Derpy got the letter and she diligently flew towards Cloudsdale, but as soon as she rounded the first cloud, she checked the senders name against a list. She found the name of the sender, 'Rainbowshine' right next to a similar name, 'Rainbowheart', that had been struck over by a thick red marker. Noticing this, she quickly changed her flight route.
The Leaving of Cloudsdale
The headquarters of the Butterfly Brigade looked like an abandoned building from the outside, or what posed for an abandoned building in Cloudsdale. Since buildings in cloudsdale don't deteriorate the way ground-level buildings would, there was little need to tear down old buildings. The ones that couldn't be re-purposed would just be left half-buried in newer buildings, an empty but still habitable void in the infrastructure.
That was the outside, the inside was a different story. Inside, the headquarters were far from a void, more like a clutter. At the far end of the room there was a podium decorated with an emblem containing five stylized butterflies. In front of the podium was five loosely aligned rows of seats. The chairs had once been standard-issue folding chairs, but every one of them had been customized in various ways.
The entire room had a similarly patchy aesthetic. The walls alone was a trippy sight, layers upon layers of splattered paint on top of the white cloudy walls.
Apart from a few ponies making preparations, the room was empty. But you could hear the echoes of dialogue from the arriving ponies in the hall:
...” seriously, could you go out with a guy who can't even be able to distinguish between a Cirrostratus and a Stratocumulus cloud? Talk about a Groundhog...”
“...It's just that I I don't always feel like myself, y'know, like there' somepony in my skull seeing things happen but only being able to shout suggestions...”
“...I like dynamites as a symbol, they are only dangerous because they expand, like thoughts expand...”
* * *
It took an embarrassingly long time for the ponies to find their respective place, and when they did, it took an even longer time for the commotion to die down. It wasn't until a tall pony with a buzz-cut stepped up on stage and stomped on the podium five times that, finally, the sound of whispered arguments stopped.
“You may now say your oats,” he demanded. Everypony had their own motto they spoke into a quick burst of mumbling. Afterwards there was a moment of solemn silent before the Pegasus at the podium began to speak again. After a few polite greetings he launched into a long-winded lecture:
“The principle of Discord is that of apparent disorder...” He coughed briefly. “APPARENT disorder,” he clarified, “for you see, disorder is just as much of an illusion as Order.
“Chaos runs much deeper than both order and disorder, for it goes beyond what we can perceive. Just as our goals is only the goals of apparent anarchy, merely a transition back to chaos, beyond the illusions of Celestian order or of Anti-Celestian disorder...”
He continued until most everyponys' thoughts started to trail of, and he himself had forgotten what he was talking about.
“... and archeological evidence has shown that flax is the first plant domesticated by earth ponies, it is as much of an ally of us as we are an ally of it, wait.. I had a point somewhere... ANYWAY all rise and put your hooves together for Supreme individual Commander Lacuna!”
* * *
The commander appeared on stage, wearing his ceremonial uniform with dignity. Said uniform purple and looked like somebody had begun to make a standard-issue military cape, but couldn’t choose between the earth pony and the wonderbolt style and decided to make it both at once.
Lacuna tapped the microphone five times.
“Yes,” the front rows replied.
I can't hear you!”
“YES, It is on!” the crowd erupted.
“Too bad,” Lacuna said. “I hate microphones!!.
He turned the microphone off and raised his voice so that he could be heard across the room.
“As we all know,” he shouted bombastically “,our plans are drawing to a close, what we have worked in five years is drawing to an end. But because of a careless error, our plans risk being delayed!”, he gazed across the room as some of the more involved ponies gasped at this.
“ My soldiers, he continued. “We are running out of time, we CANNOT wait another year. I beg you all to do your best. Chaos will determine the fate of our noble brigade, just as it will determine the fate of any of you.“
The crowd cheered, first a few oooh's and yeah's, but then more ponies started clapping. Somepony in the front row started to chant “Gobble gobble gobble!” and a few others joined in, including the commander. Ampersand entered the stage and discreetly called for Lacunas attention.
“Uhm, Greyface...” he began, but the mere mention of that name made the commander roar in protest.
“my name is NOT Greyface!” he said. “In official capacity you will call me Supreme individual Commander Lacuna, you understand?”
“Yes, Lacuna... “ Ampersand began dejectedly. “Supreme individual Commander Lacuna.”
“Now, what did you want to tell me, Assistant individual Ampersand?” Lacuna said impatiently.
“There's been a letter sent from somepony on the monitor list.”
“So what?”Lacuna said, giving him the hoof. “Have the monitoring team look at it, it's not MY job.”
But Grey...” Ampersand began to plead, but corrected himself. Supreme individual Commander Lacuna, it's from HER... “
Lacunas eyes got wide and his hair somehow grew to twice its size. The crowd suddenly fell silent and just watched the display.
“HER?” he shouted. “Send in the solider, send the assasains, send the poisonous cookies, send EVERYPONY!”
* * *
It was a dark, but frightfully clear night as Rainbowshine passed by Twilight's home at the library. She was only out for a nighlty stroll to clear her mind, but she noticed that the light was on inside.
Some company on this lonely night sounded good, so she knocked on the door and was let inside by Spike, who looked just about ready to fall asleep where he stood. She found Twilight at the telescope, looking up towards the stars. The studious mare didn't seem to notice her presence and Rainbowshine hesitated a moment to start up a conversation.
“I'm sorry,” Rainbowshine said finally. “Are you busy?”
“A bit” Twilight said and made a note on a parchment while she was working.
“should I come back?” Rainbowshine asked.
Rainbowshine didn't answer. The sky just seemed blank and barren to her, from Cloudsdale you had a much better view of the stars. The funny thing was, when she lived there, she had never really cared for it, astronomy wasn't her thing. It wasn't until now she had even thought to miss it, but homesickness cut trough her like a knife, and even a bare sky was better than no sky.
“If you want to”, she said nonchalantly. “I can stay and watch the meteors with you.”
“sure, it'll be fun, there's just so much to learn about the stars.”
They are tiny dots of light, the northern star is useful for navigation, what more do you need to know? Rainbowshine asked, but sat down besides Twilgiht anway.
The meteor shower wasn’t until a few hours, and the two ponies passed the time by looking at various planets and constellations. Twilight did her best trying to lecture Rainbowshinw on astronomy, but her disinterest was apparent, She did appreciate Twilights enthusiasm though, and it was enough to turn what would otherwise be a boring lecture into a nice quiet evening.
* * *
“How are you adjusting?” Twilight asked eventually. “I haven’t actually had a chance to talk to you since you arrived. But I've heard of you from Applejack. She says you're a really hard worker.”
“I do my best to earn a living,” she said modestly. “Besides,I 'm used to work in a factory, back at Cloudsdale, I'm just glad I dont have to do th same exact thing day in and day out.” The mention of her previous life made a spark of sympathy appear in Twilights eye.
“Yes, I heard about that part as well”, she said. “How are you holding up?”
“Surprisingly well,” she said. “They do still hurt sometimes, like if I'm under stress.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Twilight said. Rainbowshine shifted a bit, she was a different pony now than she had been when she just arrived in Ponyville, and a very different pony from when she used to work in Cloudsdale. But now, for the first time in a long time, she felt parts of her old personality return, a part of her who still could rely on friends. She sighed.
“I may not have been completely honest with you all,” she said. “I mean, the thing with the hurricande DID happen, but I don't think it was an accident.” That caught Twilight's attention and she listened intently as Rainbowshine told her story.
The Leaving of Cloudsdale
Have you ever been at the weather factory? Oh, you have? Maybe you’ve seen me around, I'm working on the snowflake floor. It's difficult work, lemme tell you. First of all, the room has to be cool in order to make them, and second, no snowflake can ever be the same, otherwise.... nah, you REALLY don't wanna to know.
There's a limit to how random a machine make them. If you want true randomness, you need the pony element, and the management sometimes hire some pretty weird pegasuses just to work the randomizer. That wasn't my job, goodness knows I'm normal... uhm, I used to be at least.
The mare they hired for the job was a filly called Rainbowheart, she always spoke a little too loud and she had no concept of personal space, she was kinda annoying. I kept getting mistaken for her, and the “double rainbow”-jokes got annoying quick, lemme tell you.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I received what I thought was just a standard memo to all employees, something telling us that our hours are getting longer and our pay is getting slashed. Again.
That's why I didn't really notice that it was addressed to Rainbowheart, not me. I thought everypony had gotten one and figured I'd tell her if it was something important. But instead what I got was a bunch of maps and plans written in some kind of code. They looked awfully important for something you'd just hand over to an employee. So I kept them safe, truth be told, because I thought maybe I could use it to bribe my boss.
I'd probably never had done it, I wouldn’t have the guts, but that's why I kept it stashed away without telling anypony.
A few weeks later, I was vitisted by a pair of ponies wearing.... buisness suits I guess, but they were worn by somepony who seemed to have only heard of buisness suits through second-hand description.
“We need to look trough your apartment” one of them said to me. “Goverment order.”
“What government?” I asked, being rather skeptical at this point. “Is it an order from Celestia?”
“OH, yes, it's an order from Celestia”
“Do you have any official paper or something?
“Uhm, we must've forgotten about it, can we come back?”
“Please do,” I said after them. “'cus next time I wont wait this long until I call the guards.”
I hope I don't sound silly, I don't want you to think I am some sort of conspiracy theorist. Even after what happened next, I still think that was probably just a prank or something.
Anyway, I guess I told you guys already about the accident? Now when I got back from the hospital, with help from too of my friends. My apartment had been ransacked. My collection porcelain pegasuses had been smashed, my Weather Report magazines had been ripped apart and most of my furniture systematically taken apart.
I'm not kidding, I found the pieces of the furniture lying in neat rows, ready to be put back together again ,even as the rest of the apartment was trashed. Luckily, if that's the word, they left the mirror intact, and that's where I hid the paper. I still can’t make heads or tails out of this, was I visited by superstitious burglars? With OCD and rage issues? It just doesn't make sense.
* * *
“Wow, that's quite a story,” Twilight said. “I'm not sure what I should believe.
Rainbowshine reached into her saddle back and took out a stack of papers held together by a half-rusted paperclip.
“I don't know if this will help,” she said. But here are the papers. I'm still a bit paranoid about leaving them at home...”
She paused for a second when she realized what word she had used.
“Look at me,” she said. “I'm starting to think of Sweet Apple acres as my home now.”
Twilight took the stack of papers and studied them.
“Well, this seem to be a radio frequency of some sorts... “ she said, then her eyes were drawn towards the symbol in the upper left corner, a sigil with five butterflies.
“Oh, and there's a symbol here, it's...” Her pupils shrank to the size of pinheads and her demeanor changed for a brief second, just long enough for Rainbowshine to notice.
“Is there anything wrong?” she asked. “Do you recognize it? The symbol, I mean.”
“No, nothing is wrong, absolutely nothing,” Twilight said. “Say, isn't it getting late?”
“Uhm, yes,” Rainbowshine said. “Isn't that kind of the point?”
“Why don't you go home, get some sleep, and I'll get back to you tomorrow, alright?” Twilight said, her demeanor seemingly back to normal, but Rainbowshine could detect something slightly off.
“But the meteor shower?” Rainbowshine asked.
“Oh, don't worry about that,” Twilight said and shooed her towards the door.
* * *
Twilight closed the door and slumped down on the floor. Panic was rising inside of her, and she didn't want Rainbowshine to see it. Of course she recognized the symbol, anypony familiar with obscure Equstrian history should. It was the Covenant of Eris, the sigil of the five butterflies. Back in the dark times when Discord ruled, it was used by the “Butterfly Brigade”, a cult of loyal followers that acted as his own personal intelligence agency.
They were known to be brutally effective in their methods, her books had only dared to illustrate them in the most crude and schematic manner, with drawings resembling the brutal depiction of sacrifice found in ancient temples.
This appeared to be the real deal too. Not like those goofballs who does harmless pranks whenever there's a major event in Cloudsdale, or like any number of secret societies claiming to originate from the Discordian Butterfly Brigade, or even pre-date it.
Somehow, Rainbowshine had managed to get tangled up with one of the nastiest and most brutal agent of chaos still surving in Equestria. And just by looking at these papers, she had gotten involved as well. Her panic was reaching its zenit.
“Oh bother, I think I'm gonna scream,” she said to herself.
The Leaving of Cloudsdale
"Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized. " -- Ly Tin Wheedle
Rainbowshine was a factory pony. She lived her life as a small cog in the large clinical machine that was Cloudsdale's Weather Factory. Every day at nine, she arrived at her station in the Snowflake room where she hoof-carved snowflakes for ten hours. There was no creativity or personal expression involved, just an endless struggle to never repeat patterns.
Twice during the day, a cart would arrive with tea, coffee or hot chocolate and a chocolate chip cookie. Rainbowshine would usually have coffee, with a dash of hot chocolate to give it flavor and to mask the dull aftertaste of the processed coffee. She couldn't complain about the cookie tough. It could cheer you up on even the most monotonous days at the factory.
Lunch was served in a large hall with windows that reached from the floor to the ceiling. It was always some variety of vegetable stew with a cube of gelatin as desert. The factory had its cliques and Rainbowshine's group was mostly made up of chatty young mares who spent lunchtime talking about the latest flying competition, little anecdotes from their part of the factory. Sometimes even about what they did during that tiny sliver of time where they wasn't at work or resting after a hard day at work.
Next to her, a young mare called Medley would sit, regular as clockwork. Rainbowshine was grateful whenever the other mares at the table could keep the conversation going, because whenever there was a lull in the conversation, she had to fight the urge to invite Medley home to her apartment for tea or something. She didn't trust her own tongue, would the words come off as a bit too insistent? Every day she gathered courage, and every day, her courage failed her.
After lunch, the second verse was the same as the first until around five when a loud whistle signaled the end of another day. Rainbowshine went home alone to her apartment. She made herself a simple meal out of carrots and potatoes, garnished with a flower. Then she picked up a Con Mane book and spent the evening surrounded by tuxedos, martinis and intrigue.
One day, her routine was interrupted by a grey mare that caused untold amount of chaos. There was clear signs up about not flying too high, but either the mare didn’t read them or she simply had no control over her flight pattern.
The first thing she did was to fly straight up into the largest and most elaborate snowflake, which promptly broke apart with the same heartbreaking sound as shattered glass. She circled down and caused winds that made half a days worth of work dance around the room. Then the grey mare went up to Rainbowshine once she finally managed to gather her snowflakes and tools again.
“I got a letter for you,” she said.
“That's nice,” Rainbowshine said, not in the mood to handle the clumsy mare. She tried to avoid her crosseyed gaze but... was the mare winking at her?
* * *
The elderly unicorn nearly fell through the cloud as the door of the sanctuary burst open. A grey mare flew in, flailing her hoofs.
“Mr. Ampersand, Mr. Ampersand? I delivered the letter like you asked me to,” she said.
“Good,” the blue uncorn replied. “Now, once Rainbowheart reads it, we have exactly five weeks until...”
“Uhm, did you say RainbowHEART, I thought you said RainbowSHINE.” Ampersands eye became a bit wider.
“Oh for goodenss sake Derpy, don't tell me you...” Derpy looked sheepish and scratched the back of her head.
* * *
It was getting late. Ampersand felt the cloud-walking spell fading. He sighed and went up to the spell-book he had spread out on the desk. The horn sputtered and the magic emerged with the sound of a sickly cough. need to get back to my own place soon, or I'll fall straight trough the cloud! he thought.
After a lot of planning, he managed to find a way to let Rainbowheart know about the plan without using Derpy as a courier. A few dates had to be rescheduled and informing everypony would be a pain in the flank. But he had at least done enough work so that maybe the commander would be less inclined to panic by the news of the wayward letter. He had planned to inform his leader of it... tomorrow.
“AMPERSAND!” It was almost as if you could summon the commander just by thinking about him. The unicorn put his pen down and looked out of his office. The commander was standing before him wearing a purple pajamas and bunny slippers. He was an earth pony, but under the effect of the same spell as Ampersand.
“Yes Greyface?” the old unicorn replied. The commander shot him a piercing stare.
“Don't use that name!” he cautioned.
“Yes, sir...” Ampersand replied wearily.
“My name isn't 'sir'.” the commander said. “It is 'Lacuna', and I don't have to remind you of my full title. Anyway, I have decided that it is better for our operations to abandon our secondary base in the Everfree forest and focus only on Cloudsdale. Hence why I am in my night-wear right now.”
“But Grey... I mean Lacuna, If I have to go any longer concentrating on TWO cloud-walk spells, I'll pass out for sure and we’ll be ground-pancakes!”. Lacuna responded with a smug smile.
“I believe I have found the perfect solution to that. Hammocks!” The thought of having only a piece of fabric between him an a several mile long fall did not appeal to the unicorn.
“Can I refuse?” He asked.
“No,” Lacuna said. “Think of the mission. Now, why are you up this late in the first place? I was sure I'd have to tell you this tomorrow.”
“Were you planning on letting the cloud-walk spell fade and hope I found you the next morning?” Ampersand asked.
“Yes,” Lacuna replied. “But you usually come to my office first thing in the morning anyway, it wouldn't have been a problem. So, what are you doing working overtime?” The unicorn shuddered, but couldn't avoid the quesition.
“Well... Derpy accidentally delivered a message to the wrong pony, and I've been working on how to make up for it given the time schedule...” Just as he was afraid of, panic was bubbling up in Lacunas eyes.
“She WHAT?!” he yelled.
