A frigid silence lingered in the evening air, despite the embers dancing in the fireplace. A blue pegasus mare lounged quietly on her ottoman, cradling hot cocoa in her hooves. Everything about her was blue: her cyan fur, her dark seafoam hair, her light blue eyes, and her depressed mood. She eyed the windowpane as snowflakes danced around in the midst of a gentle flurry that would last until midnight.
“Right… I was supposed to help with that today, wasn’t I?” she idly thought to herself, shrugging off the failed responsibility as she sipped some more cocoa. Her tongue graced by the sweetness of an errant marshmallow breaking away from the bundle on the other side of her cup. She set the warm mug upon her mother’s old gramophone, being used more as a grandiose coaster than anything else as of late.
She reached a hoof out to look at the pamphlet the weather manager had given her from the Winter Rollout briefing a week ago. She’d shoved the handout in a less-than-graceful wad somewhere in her Weathermare’s Almanac. Nudging through the pages of alternating snow storms, clouds, and the occasional sunny day, she found the hastily folded paper wedged into a random section.
This Week at a Glance – Let’s make this Winter Rollout the coolest one in history! - RD
Sunday – Thunderlane: Scattered Flurries throughout the day to allow Earth Pony Winter Rollout winterization.
Monday – Rainbow Dash: Heavy Snowstorm to finalize Winter Rollout.
Tuesday – Sprinkle Medley: Partially Cloudy with sun time scheduled from noon until sunset.
Wednesday – Raindrops: Mostly Cloudy. Prepare clouds for gradual snowing. Snowmare Festival on Saturday
Thursday – Flitter: Steady snowfall. Be sure the snow doesn’t freeze over. We can’t have slush!
Friday – Cloud Kicker: Again, steady snowfall. No slush, no fuss!
Saturday – Special Assignments: Sunny with flurries on-call to powder contestant areas. Check-in for specific team duties!
Confirming it was Tuesday on her calendar, Sprinkle sighed to herself seeing she’d shirked her responsibilities as Mare On-Duty. Being even three minutes late would usually send the young mare into a tizzy, but she just had no drive to care about it today. Being one of the newest members of the Ponyville Weather Team made her one of the most expendable, at least in her mind, but none of that mattered with the last line of the page.
Notice: Starting Monday and continuing until Winter Wrap-Up, there will be no scheduled rain storms. Consult your Weathermare’s Almanac for further details. Let it snow and snow and snow!
She huffed with a sneer as she callously tossed the page into the fire. She took her cocoa in hoof again, only to be interrupted by a sudden rap on her front door. She tried to ignore it until it grew louder and accompanied by a familiar raspy voice.
“Sprinkle Medley! I know you’re in there! Get your flank out here, now!”
Medley sighed at hearing the last words she wanted to hear tonight. She’d hoped the weather manager, Rainbow Dash, would’ve been too lazy to care about her absence. After all, she saw the mare constantly sleeping on clouds. That flighty mare always got the job done though at least.
Sprinkle opened the door to see an irritated Rainbow Dash glowering at her. She’d never seen the manager so angry, not that she cared too much.
“Where the hay were you today?” Rainbow flared the moment the two mare’s eyes met. “We were, like, two hours late with the winter flurry today because you left Cloudchaser and Raindrops hanging!”
“Sorry,” she tepidly replied, averting her gaze away from Rainbow’s.
“Sorry? Don’t give that half-hearted apology, Sprinkle,” Dash fumed aloud, punctuating her point with a hoof stomp in the doorway. “I want to know what was so important that you ditched weather duty!”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Rainbow questioned with a hint of indignation in her voice. “ You were too busy doing nothing all day that you skipped out on your teammates? What kind of lame excuse is that?”
“It’s not supposed to be one.”
Dash glared at the mare, snorting in disbelief at the young mare’s insubordination. Rainbow had come to expect this sort of aloof indifference towards trouble from the likes of Thunderlane and Cloudkicker, but least those two feared getting on her bad side. After Medley’s lukewarm reaction, the irate manager wanted nothing more than to unload a scathing tirade on the values of friendship, importance of teamwork, and virtue of loyalty.
That is until something clicked in the moment that caught her angry spiel in her lips before she could unleash the whole of her temper.
Sprinkle Medley was usually such a fantastic weather mare. Despite her rainy day cutie mark, she was always such a mirth-filled girl, bringing her joy for weather manipulation to work every day. From her interview, this was what Medley lived and breathed. This was not the same mare answering the door today. Something was clearly wrong.
“Uh…” Rainbow trailed dumbly while trying to reign her frustration. “Can I come in, Sprinkles?” she asked using the mare’s nickname. She softened her features hoping to diffuse the tension she’d built up. Medley hesitated, saying nothing. For a moment, the two stood there, letting the warm air out of the house as flakes bobbed about them. Finally, stepping aside and motioning with her wing, Medley beckoned her boss to enter.
Rainbow plopped herself down near the fire, shaking herself to get the last few remnants of the flurry out of her fur. She peeked out of the corner of her eye at Sprinkle Medley who was staring listlessly at the window with a cup of cocoa in her hooves. The somber mare stewed with a sea of unstable emotions scrawled across every inch of her coat.
“So, what’s eating ya, Sprinkles?” Rainbow asked while still facing the fire. She slowly dried her prismatic mane, hoping to buy herself some time to think after breaking the awkward silence unprepared. She drew out the process as long as possible, not wanting to resort to stalling by sipping the cocoa Sprinkles had given her just yet.
Medley bit her lip a bit while mulling over how she would respond. By the time she had found a smattering of words to say, Rainbow had finished her mane maintenance and taken a seat across from Medley, but still close to the hearth’s warmth.
“It’s just a stupid thing, really.”
“It’s not stupid if one of my best weathermares is upset about it,” Rainbow remarked confidently, silently thanking Rarity for the borrowed line. She rewarded her witty leadership prowess with a sip of delicious cocoa. “Now tell me, what’s got ya down today?”
Medley hesitantly replied after a brief pause, licking her lips to gather the words on the tip of her tongue. “Remember our team meeting last week?”
“The Winter Rollout briefing? Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, it’s about that.”
Rainbow waited for Sprinkle to continue with her story, but Sprinkle’s confidence waned as she considered the problem. To her, it was selfish and dumb and she just didn’t want to talk about it.
Rainbow flopped her ears down as another silence crept into the room, letting her worrisome imagination run wild. “Was it something I did?”
Medley blinked, not expecting that response at all and unsure how to respond. Having only ever seen her manager bursting with confidence, even annoyingly haughty at times, the last thing she ever expected to see in her was insecure nervousness.
“Oh no, that’s it, isn’t it?” Rainbow said with an audible gulp. “I totally said something stupid to you, and now you’re freaking out about it and I’m just making it worse by coming over here and—”
“No, no, no! it wasn’t you,” Sprinkle finally interrupted after catching herself gawking at Dash.
“Oh, thank Celestia,” Rainbow sighed in relief. “ Wait, then was it the assignment?”
“The assignment?”
“I know you’re new and all, but I just wanted to give you the chance to lead some wintertime weather management, you know. Since you’re kinda a descendant of Snowdrop and all, I—” Rainbow paused as Sprinkle heaved an exasperated sigh.
“—thought it’d be kinda… right down your… alley?” Rainbow finished, quickly bringing the mug to her muzzle to stifle any further ramblings after tripping on a landmine.
“You and every other pony," Medley complained as she fell onto her back, letting her eyes fall upon the wooden ceiling. "My mother wears the moniker proudly while she and dad always help craft snowflake templates for Winter Rollout in Cloudsdale. I’ve done it a couple times myself while in weather school, including one time when a certain show-off unicorn with butterfly wings came in and blew away all of our hard work,” Medley added while critically eying Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash looked away, suddenly finding the floor molding rather fascinating.
“Okay, okay, but that wasn’t exactly my fault, Sprinkles,” Rainbow quickly replied, garnering a brief chuckle from Medley. “Anyways, yeah. I thought you’d like whirling together a few flurries of snowflakes to ease you into a winter lead role. So what’s the problem? I mean, it’s not like you hate the snow,” she rasped while rolling her eyes and snickering at the very notion.
Sprinkle Medley said nothing as she once again fished for some magical line to express her frustrations. She came up empty, once again resorting to nursing her quickly draining cocoa mug to help muster an appropriate answer.
“Right? You don’t really hate… but you’re part of the Snowflake family. You couldn’t!”
“Hate is not the right word, Ms. Dash,” Sprinkle dejectedly corrected.
“Dude, I’m like three years older than you at best. Just call me Rainbow or Dash or Rainbow Dash.”
“Sorry, Rainbow Dash. As I was saying, it’s not hatred as much as it is,” she stopped as she rooted around for the right word, “resentment, I guess?”
Both waited for the other to say something as the word settled in the air. Clearly wanting some clarification, Rainbow motioned for Sprinkle to go on as she settled into her seat. Sprinkle sighed, only just realizing how often she was sighing tonight. She cleared her throat, suppressing the urge to dive further into the safe silence of her cocoa.
“Last week at the meeting, when you announced Cloudsdale was planning prolonged polar vortices this year, everypony was so excited. ‘Snow for weeks at a time, the entire winter long without a single drop of dreary rain to be seen’ and stuff like that.”
“So… you want it to rain instead?”
“Yes—well no I mean. It’s… it’s not…” Sprinkle stammered as she finally gritted her teeth to stop her rambling. “Look, it’s not about the snow. I like building snowmares and snowball fights as much as the next pony, but everypony was just so… happy about it!”
The response garnered a quizzical head cock of confusion from Rainbow. “What’s wrong with ponies being happy?”
“Nothing! I’m not against happiness and harmony or anything,” Medley refuted, waving her forelegs in front of her as if she were dispelling the very notion with her hooves. She settled back to scrounge up the right words again. “They were just a little too happy about the announcement.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not exactly thrilled about constant snow either. Stunt practice is way harder during winter with powdery stuff getting in your wings,” Rainbow offered, still not following the other mare’s thought process.
“No, it’s not that either,” Sprinkle dismissed as she gripped her mug and rolling it around in her hooves back and forth. “It’s like… when they all left caroling, right? Singing Let it Snow and Warm Hearths while looking forward to sleigh rides and ice skating all winter long? They were all so excited about all the snow without…” she trailed glancing down at her flank.
“Without any rain to get in the way?” Rainbow finished for her as the gears in her head started to turn.
“Yeah. Without any rain to dampen the spirit. You know, to ruin the winter wonderland,” she somberly stated as she curled up a bit more on the ottoman, her muzzle nearly touching her raincloud cutie mark as if she was tending a wound.
“Everypony always thinks rain is so dreadful and dreary. ‘Raining on my parade,’ ‘it was a dark and stormy night,’ and folks always run and hide when a storm comes and ruins any plans they had for the day. Nopony likes the rain. It’s mundane, bothersome, and only seen as a means to an end with farmers. Snow, on the other hoof, gets a free pass because it reminds folks of the holiday cheer! No pony seems to mind all the annoying things that happen when it snows.
“It sticks to the ground and clumps together, forcing ponies to shovel it. If it isn’t properly maintained, it turns into slick slush and ice, causing ponies to slip and fall. Ponies can get trapped in it when it gets out of control. Don’t even start on hypothermia or frostbite. There are so many things rain is so much better about, but rain always gets complained about! There’s no Spring Clean-Up after the New Moon Showers come through. It’s just stupid, boring weather to everypony!”
Rainbow remained silent as Sprinkle continued laying her thoughts out before her. A soft, lofty smile slowly formed on her face as her thoughts dripped into her favorite weather.
“I love the rain. I loved it even before I knew weather crafting was my special talent. I played around in it all the time when I was a filly, splashing in puddles, catching rain drops in my mouth, looking for rainbows scattering light after a summer shower. I even enjoy the humidity after a huge downpour. Where some complain about it being muggy, I still love savoring the refreshing air that feels soaked to its core.”
“And,” she added while closing her eyes to revel in her thoughts, “when the conditions are just right and I’m here alone in my house reading or just relaxing, nothing makes me feel more at home than the gentle pitter-patter of rain against my window. It’s like a medley of melodies just for me.”
Rainbow remained silent, as she had no idea how to go about this. She desperately wanted to say something to make everything alright, but nothing really came to mind. She thought about countering that she actually preferred sunny days. Not many ponies made the connection, but the rainbolt on her flank actually symbolized her darting into a cloud to break it apart. On top of that, a lot of ponies preferred warm, sunny weather too.
“I know the others don’t hate rain or anything,” Medley affirmed as she wrestled with her feelings, “but with how much they were looking forward to a rainless Winter Rollout this year, it felt like they might as well.”
The frigid silence descended once again on the room like an avalanche, sucking up even the warmth of the fire. Rainbow began to pull her cup towards her muzzle to ease the awkward discomfort by staring down the melting marshmallows in her warm mug.
Medley’s eyes wandered over at her boss. Rainbow was at a total loss for words. Medley couldn’t blame her. There wasn’t really anything to say about her selfish little dilemma.
“See? Stupid problem,” she resigned with a mutter just above a whisper. Medley sunk lower into the depths of her seat, letting her ears flop.
“No…” Rainbow replied softly, breaking her gaze from her drink.
“What?” Medley asked, perking her head up. Her ears quickly fell back again for an entirely different reason, seeing her boss’s surprisingly hot glare.
“No! Stop saying that!” Rainbow shouted in reply, catching Medley off guard. “Stop saying something that bothers you is nothing. It’s not a stupid problem!”
“B-but nopony likes a rainy day.”
“Well you do, right? Are you nopony?”
Medley didn’t answer, nor did Rainbow Dash give her any time to give one. Rainbow slammed her mug down, splashing some cocoa and a marshmallow onto her own hooves. “Exactly!”
“Look,” Rainbow started, waving the errant marshmallow off of her hooves, “I don’t think rain is the best thing ever, or even snow for that matter, but I do know how hard it is to make even a decent rain storm. There are so many subtle things that no pony pays attention to, like the drizzle rate and wind direction, not to mention the numbers behind adjusting for ambient temperature and precipitation estimates. You do though!
“Just because I don’t sweat the small stuff doesn’t mean the little things you put into your clouds go unnoticed. You work so hard when it comes to rain clouds, way more than anypony else when it comes to getting that annoying stuff just right. Even Raindrops skips over the tiny details most of the time. Snow is so much easier to handle since we don’t have any plant life to worry about when we start snowing around here. The earth ponies pretty much have everything settled down with the Running of the Leaves and the Lunar Harvest Festival.”
Sprinkles blinked a few times with her mouth slightly agape. Nopony on the team ever mentioned her rain cloud calibrations. Even though she had figured out Thunderlane had pranked her when he claimed that the “newbies always get rainfall duty”, she still diligently did the duty as nopony else seemed to even care about it. To be honest, Dash was the last pony she ever thought would notice her work was Rainbow Dash considering her rather laissez-faire approach to weather team management.
Another bout of silence fell upon the room, causing Rainbow Dash’s eyebrow to twitch. She hated uncomfortable silence when she was trying to improve morale. Sure, this was more of a new development; she hadn’t had to coach anypony on her weather team before excluding Fluttershy, but she decided she hated it all the same.
“All I’m trying to say is you shouldn’t let it bother you. Err… I mean not in the way that I think it’s dumb that it’s bothering you. I’d be angry too if nopony else cared about the Wonderbolts or something but...” She trailed as she ground her teeth, taking to the air, and dramatically flailing her forelegs skyward. “Gah! Why is this so hard? I’m so bad at this!” Rainbow grumbled loudly before crossing her forelegs with an apologetic huff. “Sorry, Pinkie Pie is way better at this whole ‘cheering up a friend’ thing than I am.”
It wasn’t on the forefront of her mind, but it dawned on Sprinkle Medley that Dash was trying to console her, as a friend no less. The two had never really talked much outside of work meetings and she had never considered her boss to be a friend, but she was right. Dwelling on things out of their hooves wasn’t going to change anything, and simply seeing Rainbow earnestly wanting to somehow make everything right as rain helped Sprinkle start to feel just a little better.
‘Right as rain, that’s a positive one isn’t it?’ She snickered to herself before sipping at her mug, only to notice her cocoa had already run dry. She looked up to see Rainbow still mumbling frantically to herself, letting her loyal streak get the better of her in not wanting to let anypony down.
“Rainbow?” Sprinkle asked with her usual mirth, catching Rainbow mid-stammer. Rainbow whipped around to see Medley beaming with a smile she was used to seeing from the young mare. “Would you like another cup of cocoa?”
Rainbow smiled in kind with a wash of relief loosening her entire body. “That’d be awesome!” Rainbow enthusiastically shouted emphasizing her excitement with a quick aerial somersault before she remembered her reason for coming in the first place. “B-but don’t think for a second that a little hot chocolate is going to get you off the hook for skipping today.”
“I know, but it couldn’t hurt,” Sprinkle remarked happily as she trotted to the kitchen.
“I never said it would,” Rainbow replied with a toothy grin on her face as she hovered behind.
Medley rinsed her kettle of any leftover chocolatey residue of her cocoa mix caked on the side. She and Rainbow Dash had spent the last three hours draining her supply of cocoa powder and marshmallows while enjoying each other’s company. Before leaving, Rainbow had punished her with late-night cloud clearing duty along the Everfree Forest border for the next two nights. It was going to be more of an annoying job than dangerous one, and it was a good slap on the forelock for her managerial no-show that she agreed was fair.
Sprinkle looked out the window as she wiped the sides of the kettle, seeing a few flakes gently press themselves against the window before quickly melting into tiny droplets. She wouldn’t have any rainy days to look forward to for a few months which still bothered her, but the news didn’t bother her as much as it did earlier when she was alone. It made all the difference knowing her troubles weren’t stupid to her boss, or rather, her new friend.
Sprinkle Medley retreated back to her ottoman, reaching over to the old gramophone with a record Dash had quickly checked out from Golden Oaks Library while Sprinkle Medley was making their second batch of cocoa. She carefully lowered the needle to the vinyl disc labeled The Sounds of Nature.
She shut her eyes and smiled as the familiar pitter-patter of raindrops filled the air.
Author's Note
This story is dedicated to the ever important "Audience of One". The one whose life may be made better with a momentary escape from reality. Whoever that one happens to be, I hope you enjoy this story. I will do my best to tell it. - Lord Regulus
If you find any GSP errors (Grammar, Spelling, or Punctuation), please let me know through a private message rather than leaving it in the comment section. I like the comment sections to be about the content itself rather than a lack of polishing, which I do try to keep mistakes to a minimum, and nitpickers like you always keep it nice and clean for future readers. Let's make this a better read for everyone!
This is my entry for Contest #3 of the group Characters That Need More Stories.
In fact, since you're already reading this far down, why not go ahead and show your support as the group deserves a lot more love for what it does. I would've never known about Sprinkle Medley and so many other background ponies I've only recently found out about if not for Manaphy's interest in them. I've even discovered one of my new favorite fics, Of Lilies and Chestnuts, through the group. So pop on by and see what other stories about less popular characters you can uncover for yourself!
