The Friendship Archives

The growing fire popped and crackled happily in the fireplace. The only non-wooden piece of the library, the brick hearth built into one wall was deep and small to minimise the chance of any books coming to harm in its flames. Nevertheless it still projected a strong wedge of reddish glow into the darkness, and its heat easily pushed back the chill night air. The temperature did not much bother the charcoal-grey pegasus stallion lying before it, rubbing a towel through his mane, but the fire was very good at helping to get rid of the water saturating what felt like his whole body.

Thunderlane settled down into the well-worn cushion beneath him, closing his eyes as his forehooves pulled the towel forward onto his face. His unusual fan-like mane popped out from under the towel as if freshly styled, white and ice blue stripes sticking straight up between his ears and down his neck. Finally feeling a little more like a pony and less like a used sponge, he simply dropped his forelegs out in front of him and let out a satisfied little breath. He was content resting his eyes beneath the towel for the moment.

Twilight Sparkle emerged from the kitchen, two steaming mugs held aloft in her magical grip, and took in the sight of the prone, sodden pegasus in front of her with a quiet giggle. It was only barely audible over the sound of the rain thundering on the windows and walls, but still elicited a confused grunt from beneath the towel.

"I think I'm starting to see why Rainbow Dash thinks it's hilarious when I get soaked," Twilight said, grinning. Then her muzzle wrinkled in confusion as she eyed the stallion's hair. "What on Equestria do you put in your mane? It's as drenched as the rest of you, but it looks like there isn't even a hair out of place!" The purple alicorn moved forward into the firelight, plopping herself down on another cushion in front of the fire. One of the mugs drifted over to land in front of her guest as she took a quick sip from the other. "Not meaning to pry, but I think Rarity would kill me if I didn't at least ask how you pulled that one off."

The towel was pulled down a little, uncovering a yellow eye. "Lightning," came the muffled response from the pegasus' towel-covered mouth. The piece of cloth was pulled the rest of the way free as Thunderlane spied the mug on the floor. "Oh, awesome, thanks Princess," he said, wrapping his hooves around the mug and pulling it closer.

"Please, just... call me Twilight," Twilight replied nervously, her violet eyes shifting down briefly. She still wasn't used to that title. Maybe she never would be, it always seemed so strange when ponies said it to her. It wasn't like when anypony was speaking to Celestia or Luna, or even Cadance. It sounded... 'unfriendly' was probably too strong a word. Distant, maybe?

Thunderlane glanced across from his mug, then gave the best attempt he could at a shrug from a prone position. "Okay. Thanks Twilight."

Then part of Twilight's brain ran his answer to the question she'd asked by the rest of her a few more times. "Wait a second, lightning?" Twilight turned her head to look at the stallion, brow furrowed. "That... doesn't make any sense."

She knew that pegasi had some innate ability to manipulate electricity, but using it for mane styling? Twilight couldn't imagine how that would even work, let alone how you'd end up with anything besides a ball of static-charged fluff on your head. Her studies at CSGU had mostly revolved around unicorn magic, and she hadn't really known any pegasi until she came to Ponyville either. Except Cadance, but she didn't count.

Then after another moment, Twilight realised that she actually knew next to nothing about Thunderlane as a pony, never mind how he got his blue-striped white mane to stick up in a fan the way it did.

Well, she thought, I got to know Applejack and Rarity a lot better on a night not too different from this one. After a little more consideration, she added, Hopefully this one will end with less tree in my bedroom.

Thunderlane rubbed a dark grey hoof against the back of his neck, grinning awkwardly. "Heh, yeah, it's um... well it's a long story. It's sort of a bonus extra from my special talent," the stallion offered. Both ponies almost reflexively glanced back between them at their cutie marks. Twilight's fuchsia starburst almost blended into her purple coat in the firelight, with only the outlining smaller white stars standing out. Thunderlane's coat, however, was tinged almost black by the light. His white cloud and bright yellow lightning bolt mark was clearly visible.

"You know," Twilight said, ears lowering a little in embarrassment, "I've just realised that I don't really know anything about you, Thunderlane. We've lived in the same town for a pretty long time now, and you work for Rainbow, but I don't think I've ever actually stopped to talk to you. What with the whole Princess of Friendship thing I should probably make an effort to change that." She nodded towards the dark, rain-slicked window. "We might be here for a while, so if you don't mind telling the story... I think I'd like to hear it."

Thunderlane pulled his head back a little, and his ears briefly pinned back against his skull. "I, uh..." he began, haltingly.

Twilight's face fell. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable at all-"

The grey stallion closed his eyes briefly, then interrupted "No, it's not anything like that." He huffed out a short laugh before continuing. "I've kinda known I'd end up doing this with you for a while, so I've thought about what it's going to involve. Once we get going we're probably gonna be up all night."

After a moment of silently contemplating the strange look Twilight was giving him, Thunderlane jerked upright and flushed crimson. "Oh, wow, that sounds so wrong when I- hold on." He settled back down onto the cushion, hooves over his eyes, and let out an exasperated sigh before starting over. "I knew I'd end up in a proper conversation with you eventually, and you'd end up asking about my mane or just go straight on to my cutie mark or what I do on the weather team," he said, shuffling his hooves back beneath himself. "I saw what you and Pinkie Pie got up to when you tried figuring out how she works, and you'll probably end up just as, well, that about some of the stuff I do. Which means this is going to turn into my life story rather than just a couple of minutes about my cutie mark."

Twilight still had one eyebrow raised questioningly. "Ooookay."

Thunderlane turned his head forward, looking into the fire. "I guess it kinda starts with my name," he began. "Thunderlane." One eye flickered from the fire, to Twilight, and back again. "Sounds like a great name for a weatherpony, right?"

The question was obviously rhetorical, but the slightly mocking way he asked it suggested to Twilight that things weren't quite that simple.

"Both my parents were in the weather business in Cloudsdale," Thunderlane went on, "and I guess that was a hope they held for my future. A steady, respectable job that 'contributes positively towards the harmony of our society' and all that. As a foal, I shared that dream. I would grow up and do my part, joining a long line of family members who had spent their working lives pushing clouds, making Equestria a better place to live.

"My Mom, Silver Lining, was a Cloud Founder on the Cloudsdale weather team. I get most of my colours from her, but I'm swapped the other way round - white on grey instead of grey on white. Mom's a practical pony; if there was a problem, she jumped in and started to fix it. No procrastination or dithering over what might go wrong, but not a whole lot of planning either. I used to beg ponyback rides off her and then demand she 'do weather', which got us into trouble with Dad a few times. Not that he could ever stay mad at us for more than a couple of seconds."

The stallion's small smile broadened a little as he reminisced. His childhood hadn't been perfect, but his parents had always been there.

"This one time Mom smuggled a spare bit of rainbow home and put it up on my wall. She watched while I poked and prodded it, and then after a few minutes left me alone with it. Probably intentionally in hindsight, she did make it suspiciously clear that I wasn't supposed to try and eat it. Of course, I ate some as soon as she was out of the room," Thunderlane grinned. "Everypony does it at some point, so I guess this was my Mom's way of doing something a bit special for me and getting it out of my system at the same time."

Twilight frowned. "Isn't that a little, you know, dangerous?"

"Not really," the pegasus replied, shaking his head slowly. "Some ponies' reactions to the different colours can be a bit weird but it's never anything dangerous."

"Pinkie Pie changed colours several times and spat fire when she tried it," Twilight said. "Doesn't sound like the kind of thing-"

"Wait, hold up," Thunderlane interrupted eagerly, suddenly full of energy. "Pinkie spits fire? I have got to see that some time. Which colour makes her do it?"

"I'm... not sure. She sort of stuck her tongue in a pool in the Cloudsdale weather factory."

The grey weatherpony just avoided choking on his drink, then started to laugh. "She did what? No wonder she had a strong reaction, she probably got all seven at once. And the stuff in the factory isn't exactly weak either. Now I really need to get her to try some again." He paused briefly. "Actually, now that I think about it that's kind of odd. All of the parties she's thrown, especially for Dash, and... huh. Maybe she really didn't enjoy that sample from the factory."

"I don't think she did, no," Twilight said matter-of-factly. "She ran off afterwards, and when she finally came back she described the experience as 'not fun'. For Pinkie that's about as bad as something gets. What's that got to do with her parties though?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It explains why she's never got ponies doing Sonic Rainbooms, even on Dash's birthday," Thunderlane replied.

"I think I'm missing a piece of information here," Twilight said, confusion evident on her face.

"What, you don't know? Oh, right. I guess you probably haven't been to many Cloudsdale parties." Thunderlane gave a short tilt of his head, indicating Twilight's wings. "Sorry, the wings are kinda throwing me off here. Not that that's a bad thing," he added hurriedly, "I mean, you just..." Thunderlane covered his head with his hooves again before blurting out an exasperated enquiry. "How do I say you didn't grow up as a pegasus without implying you're not a real pegasus or that there's something wrong with you? And without looking like I'm hitting on you or making this even more hugely awkward?"

"Uh... I, um, think you just did. Mostly," Twilight said hesitantly, giving the pegasus an odd look. "You sort of messed up the 'not making this hugely awkward' part, though. Let's just forget that part and you can go back to explaining what exactly you meant by a Sonic Rainboom in that context."

Sitting back up slowly, Thunderlane let out a short sigh. "Sorry. I'm not good at, you know, brain-to-mouth stuff. Anyway, even before Rainbow proved the whole thing wasn't actually an old mare's tale, the Sonic Rainboom was still legendary. There's a party game named for it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's gotten more popular than ever since Rainbow aced that BYF competition with a real one."

"So I guess it involves rainbows?" Twilight prompted.

"Yeah, but not the industrial strength stuff from the factory. And not all mixed together either. You all get seven shots of diluted rainbow - the stuff they ship out to the weather teams - one of each colour. Then everypony starts drinking, in order through the colours. You build a little pyramid with the first six glasses as you finish them, then put the violet one upside-down on your muzzle. First one to do that and yell 'boom' wins. It's usually pretty fun, different ponies have some awesome reactions to the different colours. Pinkie would probably love it, actually."

"Well you could try talking to her about it," Twilight hedged, "but I can tell you now she'll be pretty hard to budge on the subject of things she's judged 'not fun' happening at her parties."

"I could try showing her I guess. Which actually kinda gets back to where I was in the story, when I gulped down the rainbow Mom left in my room. That's when I found out I have a pretty strong reaction to indigo. It makes me burp up a cloud of a sort of rainbow-mist-stuff. Well, it does if I only have a bit of it - that first time I had all seven at once, and it gave me pretty nasty stomach cramps. I kinda-sorta projectile vomited rainbow all over the hall halfway to the bathroom. We tried to clean it up, but apparently whatever came back out of me after that wasn't quite normal rainbow any more. The stuff just soaked right into the clouds and wouldn't come out. Eventually Mom had to break the bits of wall and floor off and take them in to the rainbow plant for disposal. Dad pitched a fit when he came home and found pieces of the hallway missing, and we were both in the bird house for a while."

"If it makes you throw up everywhere, how in the hay is that a party game?" Twilight protested.

"It's only rainbow that comes out, it's not like properly being sick. And one shot just makes be burp out a little cloud of rainbow, I only heave a load of it if I drink a bunch of all seven at once. Besides, you should see some of the things that happen to other ponies. It's a blast." Thunderlane glanced up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Literally if 'Drops is there. She really doesn't react well to orange."

Based on her expression, this information did little to reassure Twilight. "It sounds worse than it is," Thunderlane finished, grinning sheepishly. After a moment he mumbled "And green is tasty."

The two ponies lay in the warm firelight for a little while, before Twilight's curiosity got the better of her.

"So, you were saying about your parents?"

Thunderlane started in surprise as she spoke. "Oh, right. Sorry. Where was I... Dad, I guess. Cold Front - my Dad - has a desk job in the weather factory. He's all ice blue, three different shades. Snowflake cutie mark. That's where I got these from," he said, prodding one of the thin streaks in his mane with a hoof. Twilight watched with interest as the whole thing moved almost like a solid block at his touch, tilting slightly to the side before straightening again.

"You know how that story goes; the shut-in stallion meets the hardworking weathermare, she sweeps him off his hooves and builds him a cloud house, then marriage, foals... Don't think they counted on Rumble and me being so much of a hoofful, but what parents do? Mom always brought out the best in him, even if she and I together drove him to distraction more times than either of us could count.

"I think Dad wanted his little colt to get a nice safe desk job like designing snowflakes or something, but as a foal I was always more interested in what Mom did out in the sky. I wanted to be out there, putting hoof to cloud, not sat behind a desk while the mares had all the fun. Mom had to spend quite a few afternoons repairing or remodelling bits of the house when I decided I was going to do 'weather work' and moulded a shelf into a raincloud or bucked a hole in the wall. I even made part of a giant-size BattleClouds set out of the living room floor once, which got me cooped up in my room for a week. Not so much for the sculpting part, more for the way I made huge holes in the floor when I still couldn't fly properly. At the time I thought that was the only thing in my way, that once I could fly I'd get everything I'd dreamed of. Although I guess it turned out okay in the end. Was almost right, in a way." The stallion's voice tailed off for a moment, heavy with nostalgia and a little sadness.

"But those were a foal's dreams, and they didn't last," Thunderlane continued. "By the time I got into school, I hated my name. It was a constant reminder, a cruel joke. It followed me wherever I went, always needling me that I was something less than everypony else. That I'd been set up to fail, right from the start."

There was a brief silence while the grey pegasus collected himself. Twilight wanted to push him to continue, but held herself back. This obviously wasn't his favourite part of his life.

"The doctor figured it out pretty quick in the preschool health check. It was my first day on the ground, which probably explains why it took me a while to start liking it down here now that I think about it. All the shared tests went fine, but a little after we moved onto the pegasus-specific ones even I could tell something wasn't going right. I remember I was pretty proud of the 0.8 I'd gotten on the wingpower machine. I made a little cloud with a bottle of water the doctor evaporated, all the usual stuff. Then we got to the lightning generator. I didn't know what was wrong at the time, of course, but both my Mom and the doctor started acting weird. I spent a long time following a bunch of increasingly repetitive instructions, waving a hoof or wingtip near the big ball on top of the generator alongside little blocks of material the doctor pulled out of a box. It kept shocking me, and my mane and coat were sticking out all over the place by the time the doctor turned the machine off. He asked me if he could take a look at me with his magic, and then I had to hold still for what felt like forever while he did whatever it is unicorn doctors do when they're doing a deep medical scan. After that, he took Mom outside for a little while, leaving me playing with the piece of cloud I made. When they came back in I thought Mom looked... worn out. Looking back on it now, it's obvious she'd been crying. I asked her if she needed a nap," Thunderlane said with a humourless chuckle.

"She just gathered me up and held me, while the doctor slowly shattered my dreams. He explained as much as a foal would understand about the way pegasus magic is meant to act around electricity - and that rather than pushing away electricity as it should, my magic was attracting it. He explained how I'd have to be careful around storms and other electrical sources the rest of my life. Then, I asked what was probably the last question anypony in the room wanted to answer.

'I can still be a weatherpony like Mom and Dad, right?'

"They told me I couldn't. I cried. I still don't know how my mother managed to hold it together. I don't think I could have. Her little colt staring up at her, asking, pleading for her to change something that she couldn't, to make everything all right. I was still too young to understand that my Mom wasn't all-powerful, but... she wouldn't lie to me." Thunderlane sniffed, blinked quickly several times, and quickly pushed onward. "Mom took me home, and broke the news to Dad. They spent the rest of the day trying to convince me that my life wasn't over, and that they weren't going to hate me for not being able to do what they did. Dad postponed any real discussion of what we'd do about everything until morning. I fell asleep curled up against him, wishing as hard as I could that I would wake up the next day and everything would be normal again."

Twilight sat in the silence that followed, unsure how to respond. Tentatively she said "Well, you ended up on the Ponyville weather team, so... I guess you figured something out? I think I remember reading something about treatments for magical maladies like that a few years ago..."

The pegasus grunted. "Sort of, yeah. Not treatment, though. My parents didn't tell me why until later - according to the doctor there didn't seem to be anything wrong with me that they could try and fix. I'm not exactly a magic expert, so I've never really understood this part." Thunderlane began gesturing awkwardly with his hooves as he tried to explain. "They told me it was like a musical chord - normally when there's something wrong there's a discordant note, or something missing, but for me it was just a different chord. Nothing out of place or not in tune with the rest, just not... normal." Thunderlane gave up his wild gesticulating and sighed in frustration. "This isn't helping is it."

"I know I'm not wearing my big crown thingy right now, but you do realise who you're talking to, right?" Twilight commented, amused. "I think I get it. Or, at least, I understand the principle of what they were trying to tell you. I'd probably have to take a look myself to get a real grip on it."

Thunderlane grinned briefly, embarrassed. "Oh, right. Magic. Sorta your thing." The pegasus rubbed his hooves together for a moment. "Do you want to, you know, examine me or whatever? I guess it's a bit different now I've got my cutie mark and all, but the doctors I've seen since all seemed to think it was pretty interesting, so..."

Twilight paused. Did she want to perform a complex medical surveying spell on the spur of the moment with no practice or preparation, and then use it to unravel the deepest magical secrets of a pony who had already admitted he was a genuine scientific curiosity?

Do bears poop behind Fluttershy's house? Of course she did. Bits of her brain were yelling at the rest to hurry up and get him into the magical analyser in the basement already. There were all kinds of sciency things-

Twilight smacked herself mentally. "Sciency things"? Did I seriously just think that? Get a hold of yourself. The alicorn took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then pushed it out. Okay, getting a little over-enthusiastic here. I can do this. Curious and encouraging, not desperate.

"If you don't mind I'd like to take a look, yes," she said, concentrating extremely hard on stopping her ear twitching in excitement, "But it can wait." Twilight clambered to her hooves, the now-empty mugs lifting into the air as she rose. "I'm going to go grab my notebook though if you don't mind - if I'm going to look into this then I might as well start taking notes now. Fancy another drink while I'm up?"

"Yes please. And yeah, I don't mind," Thunderlane said to Twilight's retreating back as she headed for the kitchen.

Feeling a little restless cooped up inside, and still a little damp, Thunderlane stood and began to wander around the library. He couldn't properly shake himself off or flap his wings without getting water all over the books around the room, and there wasn't going to be enough time to properly take care of his wings before Twilight got back, so he settled for holding them spread wide as he walked.

Outside of the thick wedge of light coming from the deep hearth, much of the room was in shadow. The only other light came from a candle on the well-worn reading table, illuminating a small stack of books and some scattered notes. Presumably Twilight had been working on something when he arrived - part of the reason he had decided to knock on the door in the first place had been the faint light shining through the window, telling him that somepony inside was still awake. Lacking any other obvious targets, Thunderlane moved over for a closer look.

As it turned out, getting closer didn't make the notes any more intelligible. There were a lot of diagrams accompanied by small clumps of apparently random letters. Thunderlane decided it was probably some sort of shorthand, but he couldn't rule out a foreign language. Hay, it might even be mathematics, he thought, I'm pretty sure you move on to letters after you get done with numbers.

As he began to turn away from the small reading table, Thunderlane just managed to check himself before inadvertently sweeping his damp, outstretched wing across the pages. A brief flash of embarrassment and nervous relief washed over him as he tried again, taking a couple of careful steps backwards before turning this time. Princess Twilight definitely wouldn't appreciate having all her notes on whatever-it-was ruined.

Then the charcoal pegasus almost moulted on the spot when something on the edge of the light, up near the ceiling, moved. Thunderlane stumbled backward, hind legs tangling together, and sat down hard on the floor. His throat clenched tight in fear as he hyperventilated, trying to draw a proper breath.

The dark shape shifted again. Two eyes slowly rotated into view, glittering yellow in the candlelight, and it let out a confused-sounding "Hoo?"

Thunderlane's breath left him in a rush as he sagged in relief, wings dropping wetly to the floor. "Oh, it's just an owl." After a few more calming breaths, another thought occurred to him. "Why is there an owl in the library?"

"Owloysius lives here. He helps out when Spike is asleep." Twilight supplied from the kitchen doorway, causing Thunderlane to flinch in surprise once more before he realised he's spoken the words out loud. Oh. Did the in-my-head-out-loud thing again.

Thunderlane looked over his shoulder at Twilight for a moment, then glanced between her and the owl before cautiously addressing the animal. "Umm... hi?"

"Hoo."

"Don't talk much, do you?"

"Hoo." The owl somehow managed to heap more condescending sarcasm into that simple sound than most ponies could fit in a sentence.

"Okay then. You, um, keep doing... whatever it is you do. I'm gonna go over here now."

The shadows shifted again as the owl's large reflective eyes rotated back out of view. Thunderlane gave a brief involuntary shudder. That head spinning thing is creepy. Turning back towards Twilight, he queried "So are you going to write my life story or something?"

"Would you like me to?" the alicorn asked. "I was just going to take notes on your magical abilities, but there's always room to expand the project scope in the early stages."

A loud bang interrupted Thunderlane's reply as one of the library's front windows was slammed open. A soaking wet, powder-blue pegasus followed a straight path from the window to the library floor, ending up on her belly with all four legs splayed out awkwardly. Her mane and tail were almost garishly coloured, each split into wide strips of the colours of the rainbow. A black scorch mark stood out amongst the bright bands at the tip of the pony's tail, a faint wisp of smoke still rising from it. The bedraggled pegasus looked up through the multi-coloured stripes of her rain-slicked mane, spotting Twilight.

"Oh, good, you're awake," Rainbow Dash began, scrambling upright. Her hooves slipped a little in the slowly expanding puddle created by her dripping coat, which Twilight was going to considerable mental effort to ignore. It was going to leave a horrible stain in the wood if she didn't clean it up quickly.

"Hello Rainbow Dash!" Twilight replied, voice dripping with insincere sweetness. "Nice of you to drop by, I haven't spoken to you in a while. I'm not sure if I've told you several dozen times before or not, but the library has a perfectly usable door right over there," Twilight said, thrusting a hoof towards the object in question.

Rainbow Dash either chose to ignore the sarcasm or simply didn't notice it. "Twi, I don't have time for doors right now." She paused, raising a hoof to her muzzle thoughtfully. "Or ever, really. Anyway, that's not important, we've got a weather emergency. Thunderlane's disappeared and there's another front coming out of the Everfree. Can you find him with a spell or something? Preferably before somepony's house eats a lightning bolt and, like, sets on fire and stuff."

It seemed to Twilight that, for once, Rainbow Dash actually did have a reason for bursting in through her window unannounced. "No need, I already know where he is," she replied, pointing past Rainbow's shoulder. "He's been here for the last half hour or so."

"WHAT?!"

Rainbow Dash span around, magenta eyes narrowing as she spotted the nervously grinning - and suspiciously dry - stallion. Thunderlane sat back on his haunches, rubbing one foreleg against the other as he tried to suppress a half-hearted chuckle.

"Oh, you are in so much freaking trouble mister," Rainbow ground out through a clenched jaw.

"But I-"

"Every pony I can spare," Rainbow Dash cut in loudly, overwhelming Thunderlane's protest, "is searching the entire town for you while the rest try to hold the storm off without getting themselves killed, and I find you lazing about in the library?" Dash flicked her tail out to one side, displaying the still-smoking scorch mark marring the tip of her multicoloured hair. "Look at that! I'm lucky the whole thing isn't on fire, and if I wasn't so awesome that bolt would have fried me. Get your sorry flank back outside before somepony gets hurt!"

Thunderlane threw a salute and barked out a rapid-fire "Y-yes ma'am, sorry ma'am, won't happen again ma'am!" before turning and bolting towards the window.

"Wow," Twilight said, eyeing Rainbow Dash, "you've got him well-trained."

Rainbow Dash's eyes tracked Thunderlane as he leap back out into the storm. "Nah," she said absently, "Meteors did that." She turned back to Twilight, expression softening. "I know I do a little drill instructor thing sometimes, but I run a weather team, not a Guard squad. You know I don't ride my girls that hard, Twi. Thunderlane's lazy when he thinks he can get away with it, but he's also been trained by the best. Wouldn't do that to anypony else on the team, but he's sorta been conditioned to expect it. Plus I know the guy. He knows I'm just motivating him, not trying to make him feel bad."

The polychromatic pegasus let out an exhausted breath and sagged a little. "Sorry about letting the rain into the library, I know it's not great for the books and stuff," she said, briefly taking to the air herself to push the window closed. "It was kind of an emergency though."

"I think I gathered that, yeah," Twilight replied. "Do you need some help? I could have a look through some of the thaumometeorology books, there has to be something in one of them that can help."

Rainbow wrinkled her muzzle in disdain at the mention of unicorn weather manipulation magic. "No offence Twi, but I think we've got it covered. Besides, it wouldn't do anything to a wild storm anyway. Unicorn magic doesn't work on them at all; even pegasi have trouble messing about with wild weather. Hence the tail." She added, waving the scorched appendage again.

"So it's a wild storm?"

"Yeah, which is why it's completely unscheduled and we're busting our flanks trying to stop it wrecking the town."

"And there's lightning," Twilight continued slowly, in a tone generally reserved for addressing the terminally slow.

"Yes," Rainbow said, rolling her eyes, "it's like I didn't just finish telling you that."

"But you sent Thunderlane out there to deal with it," Twilight said anxiously. "He just told me about his condition, he's going to get hurt!"

"Huh?" Rainbow pulled her head back a little in confusion. "He'll be fine. This stuff is his job, why do you think I was so mad at him for disappearing on us after we broke the first front up? If he'd hung around to help with the clouds like he was supposed to, we wouldn't have had to turn the town upside down to find his stupid grey butt when the second one showed up."

"But he attracts lightning and he's flying into a wild lightning storm!" Twilight protested.

"Yeah," Rainbow said, mirroring Twilight's earlier explaining-the-obvious tone, "and he's also completely shockproof. Even works on wild bolts. That part is kinda important for a Stormbreaker."

Twilight deflated. "Oh. He, uh, didn't get to that part."

"Are you, like, studying him or something?" Rainbow asked, her head cocked to one side as she eyed Twilight curiously.

Twilight's gaze drifted off a little as she thought about her reply. "Maybe. I'd like to. He's certainly very... interesting."

Rainbow reared up, supported by her wings, and held her forehooves out in front of her. "Whoa girl, okay, don't need to hear-"

"Nonono, not like that." Twilight interrupted, flushing with embarrassment. "I just want to get him into the basement and-"

Rainbow stuck her hooves over her ears and took off, flying for the door. "NOPE. CAN'T HEAR YOU. NOT LISTENING. OR THINKING ABOUT WHAT MIGHT BE IN YOUR BASEMENT." The pegasus grabbed the handle in her mouth and pulled the door open, all while hovering with her hooves still over her ears. The resurgent storm almost drowned out Rainbow Dash's shouted goodbye as she disappeared into the dark and rain.

Twilight let out an exasperated groan and covered her face with a hoof briefly, then hurried to close the door before any more windblown rain and soggy leaves got inside the library. The door was set a little back into the trunk of the tree, keeping the worst of the elements out, but this was no summer rain shower. Glancing outside as she put a hoof on the back of the door, Twilight paused to marvel at the scene on the horizon. Regularly scheduled thunderstorms were one thing, but this was a whole other bale of hay. There was something both terrifying and dangerously seductive about wild storms. The wind threw her mane back behind her neck, and a fine mist of wind-driven water started to soak her coat as she watched.

Through the dark and rain it was difficult to make out much detail, but the huge grey clouds roiling in the sky on the edge of the forest were clearly visible over the roofs of the intervening houses. A few lights were still showing through window shutters, or faintly glowing through closed curtains, as ponies huddled in the warmth of their homes. Every so often a pegasus would become visible as they flew low over a rooftop, but most of the time they were lost against the deep grey wall in the sky.

Twilight flinched, half-closing her eyes against the light as a stroke of lightning briefly lit the night. Sharp, deep black shadows leapt into existence for a moment as the rooftops were bathed in bright white light. The airborne forms of the weather team were momentarily clearly visible, a photograph-like snapshot of backlit silhouettes against the flash in the sky. A fraction of a second later a ripping blast of thunder broke the air, loud enough to make Twilight flinch back further behind the door and cover her ears. Quickly recovering herself, she moved to close the door.

Another flash, hot on the heels of the first, drew Twilight's gaze back to the scene outside as she nosed the door shut. Her ears fell flat as she hunched her shoulders in anticipation of the thunder, but she barely registered the noise this time. She was too busy staring frozen at a spot in the sky, now lost in the dark between lightning flashes, where she had clearly seen the bolt arcing down to end at a winged figure in the air.

Anxiety took root in Twilight's chest. Hearing it from Rainbow was one thing, but actually seeing it happen was another. Thunderlane taking a wild lightning strike in mid-air. Twilight had to believe it was him, and not anypony else on the weather team - because anypony who wasn't lightning-proof would be dead. Even then, if they were somehow wrong about him being immune to harm from it... She might have just watched somepony die.

It's his job, he does it all the time, Twilight told herself, It must be safe, or he wouldn't do it. I'm just not used to seeing it, that's all. She still couldn't quite push away the mental image of a pegasus plunging towards the ground, scorched and trailing ruined feathers. The phantom pony kept changing colours in her head, cycling through all of the pegasi in town.

Just as thoughts of going out to try and help started to form in Twilight's mind, the sky flashed for a third time. Again, an airborne figure was clearly visible at the root of the bolt, shoving their forehooves against part of the cloud bank. This time, however, the darkness did not steal away Twilight's vision entirely - the distant figure had begun to glow faintly, highlighting the clouds around them with a dim yellow light and making them easy to spot amongst the dark, shifting cloudscape. Twilight was momentarily frustrated that she wasn't close enough to see anything in detail, until she remembered there were several telescopes upstairs that she could be using. The young alicorn slammed the door shut against the wind as the sound of thunder washed across the library again, and bolted for the stairs. There were observations to be recorded, and she was already missing valuable data points.

Twilight burst through the doors onto her observation balcony, quill and parchment roll flying after her encased in a purple aura. She used some very un-princess-like language when the sheeting rain immediately ruined the writing materials, before throwing them back inside in annoyance. Concentrating briefly, she pulled together one of her brother's shield spells and threw up a small bubble around the balcony. It would tint everything a bit pink, and the water running over it would distort the image, but at least it would be dry.

Twilight glanced around at the bubble, and was briefly glad that Shining Armor wasn't actually here. She was fairly sure her BBBFF would kill her if he saw the arcane butchery she'd inflicted on his signature spell in her haste. The waterproof cover over one of the smaller telescopes jumped up, enclosed in a purple glow, and followed a grumbling Twilight back inside as she went to replace her note-taking materials.

There was just so much to do. Background reading, research, observations, and of course she'd need a lot of interview time with Thunderlane before this was over. Maybe a book would be a better idea than a research paper. It seemed a little clinical and weird to try and get to know a pony and then produce a piece of academic literature as a result.

After a few moments of frantic scrambling for something to write on, Twilight decided that what she really needed to do was calm down and organise herself a bit. Coming to a halt, she closed her eyes and drew in a breath as she pulled a forehoof towards her chest. Pushing the hoof slowly straight out in front of her, she released the breath while counting to ten in her head. After repeating the exercise a few times, she made a quick mental list - in the process realising that she'd even managed to forget ink in her initial rush to the balcony.

After grabbing an ink bottle and replacement quill from her writing desk downstairs, Twilight fetched a fresh lab book from her bedroom to record her observations properly. She carried the gathered objects out to the now slightly drier balcony and flipped the book open as she pulled the telescope over. She smiled briefly at the inside of the front cover, which bore the crest of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Twilight still ordered the books regularly to keep her supply stocked up, having grown attached to the small green volumes in her youth. Beneath the school crest each lab book bore a randomly selected quote from a graduate or staff member, and this one seemed wonderfully appropriate. It read:

'The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.'

Twilight put her eye to the telescope to watch somepony screw around, and started to write things down.

*22/09/2609: Initial observations of subject Thunderlane...*