The Sky Looks Lovely Tonight
Grey clouds float across the starlit sky, passively drifting on the last of the cool Autumn winds. Over Ponyville they make their way, and on to the mountains peering over the horizon. Among these clouds, a small, grey filly rests with her head sunken low. A simple mistake she'd made. Just carry the cake from the counter to the table. How could anypony mess up something so simple?
I could, thought Cloudy Skies, peering over the edge of her cloud at the town below. Sugarcube Corner displayed its back to her, and she lowered her head further. The moon continued indifferently on its path. What Cloudy would give for it to stop, to just stay where it was and prevent the sun from ever coming up again, so that tomorrow morning would never come! After that thought fully sank in, she quickly shook it from her mind. Geez, she internalized. I better stop before I turn into Nightmare Moon! She giggled lightly to herself, then studied the ground beneath her in introspection.
Her mother and father will be furious with her, she knew. Candy will break down sobbing and Sugar will literally go insane. All day, Sugar Rush had deprived herself of sweets, just so she could refine her palette before digging into what was to be the Humongo-Double-Decker-Supreme-Chocolate-Fudge-Extreme. Dad kept sneaking bits of candy corn into her meals to stop her from going completely mental. By tomorrow, there will be no stopping her wrath. But mom and dad don't deserve that wrath. She does!
Cloudy lifted her heavy hooves up to her face and stared at the icing covering them as if they were cuffs on a guilty criminal. This wasn't her first offense. She'd tried helping Icy Storm move the snow clouds in for Winter, but in her usual bout of klutziness grabbed a lightning cloud instead. Icy took the blame for her, as cool as always. But then she had to go and get caught up in a random tailwind. She crashed through Fluttershy's roof, a heinous act for which she apologized profusely. Both Fluttershy and Anthea forgave her, as everypony always does when she ruins things, but Cloudy knew their well-intended words masked sadness and disappointment. Sadness and disappointment; even when she tries to cheer somepony up, all she leaves them feeling is sadness and disappointment. Cloudy rolled over and stared off into the limitless void above.
I'm sorry for staring at you, stars, she apologized, tears welling in her eyes. I'm sorry--But, I just need to see something--something beyond my reach, something I can't knock over, or break, or ruin...
She covered her eyes and the tears streamed out alongside muffled, quiet sobs. The wind kicked in, and Cloudy could feel herself being pushed toward the Everfree Forest. Cloudy didn't care. The Everfree would be perfect for her, she reckoned. No less than she deserved.
"Hey!" sounded a voice overhead. Cloudy lowered her arm slightly and opened her eyes. Overhead, she noticed a large, green mass slowly flying down to her.
"H-Hey Turquoise!" returned Cloudy, wiping the tears from her eyes. Turquoise Blitz stopped in front of her cloud and brought it to a halt with a few flaps of his massive wings.
"Are you alright? You were heading straight for the Everfree," he said, hovering in place.
"I-I'm okay," lied Cloudy, attempting to compose herself. "Thank you for telling me. I'll try to be more careful, if I can." Glancing about, Cloudy quickly searched for a change of topic. "S-So, where you flying to?"
"Back home," he stated. "Annie invited me over to Fluttershy's an hour ago to help fix her roof, so I'm just heading back now. Your house is along the way, right? I can escort you there, if you'd like."
"T-Thank you, but... I think I'm gonna stay here for now. I'll go back a little later, I will."
A protracted smile forced itself across her face, and she presented it to Turquoise. Turquoise smiled back. "In that case," he said, flying to her cloud and descending down beside her. "I think I'll join you."
This took Cloudy off guard, not for the action itself, but rather that he didn't immediately sink through and fall to the ground. The only ponies capable of walking on clouds were pegasi. Dragons have wings like them, true enough, but they've never been known to interact with or control weather. Unless Anthea cast a cloud-walking spell on him, which would make sense given the arrival of Winter--
"Cloudy," Turquoise interjected through her train of thought. Cloudy shook herself back out of her mind.
"Yes?" Cloudy timidly asked.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Well," Cloudy began, rubbing the bottom of her chin. "Technically you already asked me a question by asking if you could, so at this point my permission is pretty much--" She slapped herself across both cheeks. "I mean--Yes! Of course you can!"
"Thanks," he said, and lowered his head to rest on the puffy grey mass. He fixated his gaze on the Everfree Forest, focusing on Fluttershy's house at the very edge. "The truth is, I left Fluttershy's about six hours ago. The roof didn't take long to fix; I carried the plywood, hit a few nails, swept the debris. But, in the midst of sweeping, I realized I had no real talent for any of those activities, which reminded of my lack of talents in general. After I finished, I skipped the usual tea and went for walk. And I kept walking. And walking. And walking." He heaved a hefty sigh, then looked up to the stars. "Claire seemed to know instinctively what her talent was ever since she was a filly. Jewelry always appealed to her. And helping her always appealed to me, same with helping anypony. But, I can't seem to figure out where my own talents lay. I've spent the past three years trying to figure it out, but I'm no closer than when I started. So, I suppose what I want to ask is--Do you think I'll ever figure out what my talent is?"
"Erm, well," Cloudy started, searching for the right advice to give him that patented, Pinkie smile. "I... I suppose public speaking probably isn't your talent, considering the amount of time it took you to ask your question."
Turquoise faceplanted into the cloud. "I mean--!" Cloudy tried to continue. "Y-You can cross that one off your list! Narrowing your options, right? We're one step closer to figuring out your talent! There's no stopping us now!" Cloudy held her grin out for Turquoise, but his head remained buried in the grey puff. Slowly, she felt her smile dissolve into her previous frown. Her eyes started watering as well, despite her best efforts to keep them dry. "Sorry," she said, stifling a sniffle with her hoof. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I always ruin everything..."
She felt her tears stream as she squeaked out the last syllables. As the tears flowed, she found a wing suddenly draped over her. "No," said Turquoise, having lifted his head. "You're right. Narrowing my options; I hadn't thought to think of it that way. You know, you're pretty clever, Cloudy." She looked up at him, blinking away the rest of the tears. Her wet cheeks blushed light pink, and she let out a little giggle. "Thanks!" she exclaimed with a genuine, Pinkie smile. After she wiped her face dry, she shifted her head back down.
"I have to tell you something too," she began, rubbing her hoof along the grey fluff. "The reason why I'm out here. It's--well, I..." Cloudy closed her eyes a moment, taking a deep breath before reopening them. "For Candy's birthday tomorrow, we decided to bake her a homemade cake. Sugar Rush was supposed to finish it by writing 'Happy Birthday' in blue icing, but she forgot to dot the 'i', so I... I climbed downstairs while everypony was asleep and tried to fix it. I carried it from the table, to the kitchen, dotted the 'i', and was on my way to bringing it back when--I tripped over my own hoof... and dropped it."
Turquoise nodded to himself. "So... How long did this cake take to make?"
"Hm..." mused Cloudy, thinking back. "A normal cake usually takes about forty minutes to finish, but we all wanted to make something special for Candy. So, we decided to bake her a Humongo-Double-Decker-Supreme-Chocolate-Fudge-Extreme, which usually takes about four hours."
After checking the position of the moon, he turned back down to Cloudy. "And you know the recipe?" he asked. Cloudy's eyes went wide. "Y-Yeah. I have it memorized from earlier."
"Okay then," said Turquoise, rising to a stand and extending his wings. "Let's bake a cake!"
"Really!?" cried Cloudy, hopping to her hooves.
"Yeah! I think I have enough experience from helping out Del and Pinkie; not really enough to be considered talented, but if it's an assistant you need, then I'm here for you!"
To this, Cloudy leaped onto Turquoise's neck and embraced him in a tiny hug. "Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!" she repeated like an overly-appreciative broken record. Her eyes suddenly widened again. "Wait!" she shouted, letting go and falling back to the cloud. "We can't bake an entire cake in Sugarcube Corner right now. With all the pans banging around, we'd wake everyone up before we could finish the first layer!"
"I've got it covered," replied Turquoise. "Claire left me an extra key for her shop. You bring the ingredients, and I'll set everything up in there. Don't worry about needing a spark or lighter either, you're cooking with dragon-power now!" After inhaling a short breath, he let out a magnificent bellow of green flames. Cloudy stared at them in wonder, feeling the heat melt away her anxiety. When he'd finished, he shifted his face back to Cloudy, a comforting smile beaming at her. Cloudy smiled as well, a glint now in her eyes. Enthusiasm coursed through her. She knew, she just knew, this was going to be the best cake ever.
Author's Note
I like to think Cloudy's talent is constructive criticism and Turquoise's is being an assistant, sort of like his dad.
Also, I'm experimenting with tenses a little bit. I wrote the first paragraph in the present tense to really pull readers into the moment and kept the rest a bit more conventional. Let me know what you think!
