Mitternacht

There was only white around her as Twilight looked around, but it wasn't emptyness that she was seeing. Instead there were four walls, a ceiling and a closed door, all of which were made out of clouds. She opened the door and entered an equally white corridor that turned to the left at the opposite end. She started to walk down the hallway, and stopped before the corner as she heard two voices speaking to each other behind it. She tried to listen, but couldn't make out what they were saying, so she tried to get closer. As she did so, the talking stopped and she heard two sets of hoofsteps going in opposite directions, one leaving while the other was coming closer to her. She tried to turn around to go back, but instead stumbled on her hooves and landed face first in front of the pegasus who was coming around the corner.

"And you are?" He asked, stopping before he accidentaly stepped on her.

"Twilight Sparkle" Twilight answered, trying to act like nothing had happened after getting up as fast as she could.

"Eagleheart, pleased to meet you." Answered the pegasus, visibly surprised by having an alicorn in front of him.

Twilight looked at him. He was a tall, blonde maned pegasus, his coat a light shade of gray, his mane tied behind his neck. His eyes were bright red, and his cutie mark was a pair of wings spread above a black storm cloud.

"So, Twilight, what brings you here?" He asked her, still clearly uncomfortable with having to talk to a princess.

"Nothing in particular." Twilight answered, hiding her entertainment at the sight. "I was just passing by and decided to stop for a visit."

"Well then, would you like me to give you a tour of the factory?"

"Yes."

"Follow me then." He said as he headed down the corridor Twilight had come from.

Twilight started to follow him, but after a short while she realized the hallway looked vastly differnt from how she remembered it. It was far longer and had a lef turn she could swear wasn't there before. After another turn to the left they reached a section of the hallway in which the wall on the right side had squared holes that allowed to see behind it.

"That" Eagleheart said while pointing to the room behind the wall with one of his wings "Is the room in which the production process begins. Water vapor from the surface is gathered by a series of fans below the facility and is then carried to the condensator in there, from where the basic cloud material is then sent to the rest of the factory."

Twilight looked inside the room. There was a large cubical object occupying most of it whit what looked like a pipe attached to its side, connecting the device to the opposite wall. Both of those were made of clouds.

"So wait, you make clouds in here?"

"Well, yeah. Didn't you notice the giant 'Cloud Factory' above the entrance?"

"But why?" Asked Twilight, a look of confusion in her eyes.

"What do you mean why? It's not like clouds are going to make themselves, and we need them."

"But isn't this place made out of clouds too?"

"Yes. Your point being?"

"Then where did the clouds used to make this place come from?"

"I don't know. This place was already here when I started to work in it. And I don't see any point in wondering such a thing. They were probably made by some other factory." And with that he moved on, leaving a confused and slightly irritated Twilight behind.

He stopped near a valve from which a large pipe split into two smaller ones. "This is where the main separation between cloud materials happens. Part is sent to become natural clouds and to then be released outside, the other is turned into construction material. The amount that goes into one or the other depends on what the current requests are. If there's a storm planned the majority goes to the lower levels, if there's the need to expand or repair parts of the city then we direct most of it towards the upper levels." He explained before proceding down the corridor.

Twilight kept following him in silence, and after a short while they reached a set of stairs that connected their floor with both the ones below and the ones above. They started descending it and stopped at the first opening they encountered.

"On this floor the clouds you see outside are made. We have a room dedicated to each tipe of cloud. On the left side you can see the pipes that transport thunder to the storm cloud section, while on the right the ones carrying the refrigerator used in the production of winter clouds. Unfortunately entering those rooms require a special authorization which I dont have, so we'll have to skip over them." He explained before moving further down the staircase.

They eventually reached the end of it and reached a door. After opening the door Eagleheart led Twilight on a bridge hanging from the bottom of the facility, with an identical door on the other side. All around them were a series of giant horizontal fans, also made of clouds, which were sucking air inside the building. The temperature was lower, and Twilight felt shivers running down her as Eagleheart explained how this were the fans he had been talking about earlier.

They reached the other side of the bridge and re-entered in the factory, then started to ascend a staircase identical to the one they had used on the other side. They passed by the entrances of both florrs they had already seen, and Twilight noticed a series of other pegasi walking through the hallways, some of them turning their heads towards her as they noticed haer presence. They arrived at the entrance of a third floor and Eagleheart spoke once again.

"And this is where clouds are converted into building materials. I work in the quality control departement, my job is to test the clods they produce to see if they can handle strong enough winds. Would you like me to show around or do you have to go?"

"I don't want to sound rude to you, but I would like to go now."

"No problem. Follow me this way then." He said as he started to once again walk up the staircase.

They found a door on this end of the stairs too, and went through it to exit atop the roof the factory. From there, Twilight could see a series of cloud buildings in the distance, and below them wereclouds as far as she could see.

"That is the city." Spoke Eagleheart while looking in the same direction. "Most of it was built with the clouds we made here." An evident trace of pride was in his voice as he said so.

"What's that?" Asked Twilight noticing a building separeted from the rest.

"That is the Rainbow Factory, but nobody talks about it so I can't tell you much. And over there" He said while turning around." Is nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?" Asked Twilight as she turned around to see an empty portion of sky.

"I mean there's litteraly nothing there. As far as I know at least, I haven't actually been there. or anywhere outside the city for that matter, I can't just give up my job here."

"But how can you be so sure of it if you haven't?"

"They say if you never leave you belive what you see, or something like that. Anyway, I guess this is goodbye, right?"

"Guess so. Well, it has been a pleasure meeting you." Twilight said as she started to hover in the air.

"Oh, the pleasure was mine." Eagleheart answered, and then waved his wing at her as she started to fly towards the empty sky.

Twilight kept flying forward until she could no longer see the factory behind her, then she looked at the white layer of clouds below her, stopped and then dived straight through it.