Sunlight.
It was time to get moving. The sunlight was cutting through cirrus ceiling clouds, billowing feather plumes of condensation rising up in the sky.
The cumulus Dash had been sleeping on needed clearing, just like the dozens of others floating over Ponyville. Rain wasn't on the schedule today. Even days when the rain was scheduled, it had to be sorted. Arranged. There was an order to all of it, an art and a science involved in the arrangement, and Dash was the weather mare to beat.
With a leap off the cloud to get airborne, Dash was in motion. The leap was originally a dramatic flourish, but then Dash had realized if she flapped at the same time as the leap it overcame her inertia, and getting flying took a little less out of her.
Dash swooped left, then right. The map in her head slowly developed, each cloud placed in the location it had found randomly overnight.
Dash kept mapping, and mused to herself. It really was all about energy. Saving a little bit on her takeoff meant she could eke out just a little more from her flight, and once she learned to compensate less on a standard landing and let her knees catch the shock, even landings became a little less of a burden on her wings and magic.
Dash had the whole cloud layout in her head. Fairly typical, possible new warm front coming in from the south-southeast (have to add that to her daily report later), but mostly cumulus, as was typical. The weather from the Everfree was unpredictable, but it was still weather -- cumulus clouds made up most cloud structures, so more clouds still meant mostly cumulus on typical days.
Atypical days were bonkers exciting. Half a year back, Dash had found a day of nothing but cirrus clouds, the sky looking quite like an inside-out pillow, all feathers. Cirrus clouds were easy enough to work, in small numbers. They were the lightest kind of clouds, but at the same time they were high and cold.
High and cold was Dash's bread and butter.
She swooped straight up, forcing her gaze to ignore the sun and keep straight up. With a hard tilt of her wings she broke her upward momentum, and flapped hard before she could lose altitude.
The result for somepony on the ground was spectacular, she'd found later. It looked almost like she hung in midair at the corner of a ninety-degree angle of flight, leaving rainbow trails behind.
Even if she didn't know anyone was watching, there was no reason to go easy. She'd show them all what she was made of. She could clear weather and make it look more awesome than the average stunt flier, and it kept her sharp, so why not?
Dash let the memory go as she caught four cirrus in a cluster in front of her forehooves. This was a trick she'd developed herself when she'd started. Protocol for cirrus clouds was to move them slowly to prevent any potential tearing.
The trick for doing them quickly was the same as the magic pony's trick for pulling a tablecloth out from under plates and glasses. If she moved quick and kept even pressure, she could move them before they had a chance to fall apart.
The kicker was that she needed to know exactly where she was going before she started. Catching multiple cirrus clouds in one stable, high-acceleration flight path was hard enough, but you also had to deposit them in the vicinity of their final location.
In this case, that was Sweet Apple Acres. The sun over the past few days had been warmer than expected, and a request for cold rain had come last night.
There was no reason Dash would start with AJ's request, of course, but it made sense. She'd start top down today. Some days she did the largest number of clouds first, sometimes the smallest, sometimes bottom up, sometimes top down. No big deal.
Dash let the cluster of cirrus clouds stop. The closest one was nearly in the right spot, so she took slow, swooping pushes to settle the other three where they needed to go. In winter, this would have made snow, no question. Now, though, it was just going to be high, cool rain. Exactly what the orchards would need.
Dash paused midair, hovering, looking at the first one. Not quite in the right spot. She took a slow push to nudge it a little north.
Exactly right.
Dash swooped up and angled to curve back towards the primary cumulus cluster over town. She took the opportunity to clear Fluttershy's sky, making sure she'd only get a few gentle showers in the evening. Fluttershy had expressed a preference about gentle evening rains, and the location of her cottage actually made accommodating the request good sense anyway. A small, thin, low-hanging cumulus would either keep the sun from heating up the cottage too much, or accumulate any stray wild warm drafts from the Everfree and prevent them from rearranging her work.
If anything, Dash had it down to a science.
Each cumulus needed at least a decent kick to get it placed, and Dash had found an analogy in the game of pool Gilda showed her once. The right amount of force sent the clouds into the right position or nearly so, and if she judged it just right, she didn't have to push each cloud into place. She just kicked them all starting from the outer edges, then moved to the strays and nearly-so clouds and nudged them into position.
Muscles protested. An itching nagging voice tugged at the back of her brain. You could do this in two batches.
No. No reason to stop in the middle. Push through.
Her wings and magic had never failed her, and they wouldn't start today, not with the sun bright and the clouds obedient.
Dash pushed herself off the clouds that needed the longest transit, trying to let momentum do more of the work. By the last kick, she was feeling thick burn in her muscles, spreading into her back, slowly, but that was okay. She could get it done, just so.
The ache in her legs became a fresh burn as she launched off that cloud's side and let herself flap into a high slow rise. A quick survey of where the cumulus clouds had ended up would tell her how much more work she had to do before she'd earned herself a nap.
Small clusters over flower gardens, the gazebos and market square were clear, and the park had a thin layer for midmorning to keep it insulated from the sun. Perfect.
Wait, no.
Not perfect. Not quite. The cloud over the pond was a stray, and judging by the clusters, it was meant for the half a dozen or so cumulus clouds that were going to water Golden Harvest's vegetable crop to the east-northeast.
One stray wouldn't mean disaster. The accuracy requirements for weather patrols in general were eighty percent.
One stray would mean a dip in stats, though. Ponyville held the distinction of having a ninety-seven percent accuracy the past ten years straight.
Dash wasn't about doing something one-winged, ever.
She took a swoop to catch the stray. The pond had enough fresh rain in the past week, but Goldie's carrots and broccoli were probably affected by the drought too. More rain wouldn't necessarily be the perfect solution, but it was what the pony in question asked for.
Dash slammed the cloud into the side of the cluster, and the practiced effort delivered enough force to get it to attach along the edge, but not enough effort to dislodge other clouds.
Done.
Dash took in a long, long breath, then let it out. The pain in her muscles was bordering on actual signs of injury at this point, and if she were going to push herself more, she'd know it was a mistake.
Dash didn't make mistakes. Not about flying, not about the weather.
Dash yawned. Bored. She'd handled all her clouds and now she'd just about earned herself a nap, she figured. Fifteen seconds flat was practically an easy clearing, but there were a lot of clouds this morning.
With the gentle flight of a beginner to grant her body some mercy, Dash wheeled around and aimed at Sweet Apple Acres.
There was a tree whispering to her of sleep, and the clouds she'd placed there would block out the sunlight.
Author's Note
Barely edited flash fiction. I really, desperately just wanted to publish something and Dash has been on my mind a lot lately.
