Severe Weather Appreciation Week
“And that brings us to next Tuesday,” Thunderlane said. He made a little mark on the cloudstone tablet balanced in his hooves. “Schedule calls for clear, sunny skies with a gentle breeze all day, and light showers at night. Blossomforth, you’ve got the upper-level winds. Cloud Kicker, you’ll be in charge of gathering moisture starting in the afternoon. Try to have enough for sprinkles starting just after sunset. The rest of you support with cloud movement. Questions?”
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Nah.”
“Got it, chief.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. “Whatever.”
“Great.” Thunderlane made another mark on his tablet. “Now then, Wednesday, we’re going to mix things up a little bit. Partly cloudy skies with gentle winds during the day, and…”
Thunderlane normally spoke with a gentle, masculine baritone. Rainbow Dash didn’t mind listening to it most of the time – in fact, it sometimes made her feel warm and light inside, because frankly he was one of the hottest pieces of stallion in Ponyville and all the mares on the Weather Team had their own private fantasies for what they would like to do with him should he ever display even the slightest bit of sexual interest in one of them, not that he ever did for some reason, which was just more evidence in Dash’s mind that he was probably gay because really what straight stallion could spend any time around her and not fall out of his sheath (the answer was no stallion, of course) – but now was not most of the time, now was a staff meeting, literally the cruelest, slave-drivingest invention ever foisted upon the pegasi by heartless unicorn managers.
The Weather Team held short schedule huddles every day, which were tolerable to Rainbow Dash because they were only a few minutes long. She didn’t even land, she just hovered near some cloud while Thunderlane, their team lead, listened to their reports and made last-minute adjustments to the next day’s weather plan.
This was not a short huddle, though. This was the weekly staff meeting. An hour, minimum, of sitting around a bunch of cloud desks in Thunderlane’s office while he went over the entire month’s schedule, as well as any personnel issues, paperwork, budget items, or whatever else it was managers did in their offices while the rest of the team was out pushing clouds. It involved reading, she knew, and writing letters and adding up little numbers in columns on endless scrolls of paper and oh Luna why did she have to be here for this she could be out flying right now the sky was perfect with that squall line hanging right over the Everfree just dripping with unshed rain and pregnant with lightning, just begging for her to come out and dance with it, she could do that while the rest of the team held their meeting and she could be back before they finished and they wouldn’t miss her and—
“Dash. Dash!” Thunderlane’s voice broke into her fantasy. “Yo, Ponyville calling Rainbow Dash, you there?”
Dash jerked upright, kicking little tufts of cloudstuff into the air. The other mares tittered or snorted. Thunderlane just looked peeved.
“Uh, sorry, yeah. What am I doing?”
Thunderlane sighed. “You’re summoning a gentle zephyr from the west, starting at noon. Think you can handle that? Gentle zephyr?”
Ugh. Zephyrs were the worst. The slowest of the winds. Even a breeze was faster. “What? Why can’t we, like, do gusts instead? Ponies love gusts.”
“Ponies do not love gusts,” Thunderlane said. “Gusts mess up manes and blow away napkins at the café patio. Do you want to have to explain why we made ponies chase down their napkins and newspapers?”
“I love chasing stuff!”
“Well, fortunately or unfortunately, most ponies are not you.” Thunderlane made another mark on his tablet. “Anyway, next up is Thursday. Now, we’re going to start a slight warming trend in the morning, and…”
He kept talking, and Rainbow Dash went back to not listening. She could see the clouds over the Everfree, dark and furious and free. They whispered to her, come play with us, Rainbow Dash. Work can wait!
She sighed.
Work sucked.
* * *
Rainbow Dash lay atop a cloud floating above Ponyville. It was a tiny cloud, just barely large enough to support her weight. Her legs and tail dangled off the sides.
She was working, technically. She was getting paid, anyway, which meant she was on the clock, which meant this counted as work. But mostly she just glowered down at the ponies below, the thousands of unappreciative unicorns and earth ponies who didn’t understand just how hard they were making her life.
“Oh Rainbow Dash! This weather is too scary!” an imagined Daisy wailed. “Cloudy skies terrify us!”
“Oh, darling, this rain is just awful!” she heard Rarity shriek. “My mane! My mane! It’s ruined forever!”
“Rainbow Dash! The river is starting to overflow its banks!” the Mayor would cry. “The town is going to wash away if you don’t stop this storm!”
Ugh. Wusses, all of them. Dash rolled over, exposing her belly to the sun’s warm rays, and closed her eyes for a nap. With any luck she would dream of awesomer weather.
She had barely closed her eyes when a quiet fwumph announced the arrival of another pegasus beside her. She squinted and turned to see Flitter standing on the next cloud over, a cross expression on her face.
“You’re supposed to be shepherding clouds,” she said.
Rainbow Dash waved a hoof. “The clouds are fine. Look at them.”
“They’re all over the place! Seven thousand feet, ten thousand feet, everywhere! You’re supposed to keep them level.”
“Level is boring. Besides, does it matter what altitude they’re at?”
Flitter rolled her eyes. “It’s part of the job. The ponies down there are paying us for good weather, Rainbow. We need to put some effort into it.”
“Good weather?” Rainbow Dash sat up. She shook herself, tossing away little scraps of cloud that had stuck to her coat. “More like, boring weather! These ponies wouldn’t know real weather if it woke them up in their beds tomorrow morning.”
“Does it matter? This is the weather ponies want. It gets put in the schedule, and we just make it happen.”
“Ugh, that schedule.” Rainbow made a face. “Why do we even have a schedule, Flitter? It’s always the same. Clear skies, gentle breeze, showers at night. Exchange showers for snow in the winter. Repeat until we all die of old age.”
Flitter shrugged. “We do storms sometimes. And remember that one time we had a blizzard?”
“It was six inches of snow! They even scheduled it for Saturday so the foals wouldn’t miss school!”
“Parents don’t want their foals to miss school,” Flitter said. She’d adopted the same damn, calm, reasonable tone Twilight Sparkle used when lecturing little fillies. “Nopony’s gonna pay for bad weather.”
“No, not bad weather, exciting weather!” Rainbow Dash stomped in a small circle on her cloud, her mind spinning with pent-up thoughts. “Everypony calls storms bad weather, but why, Flitter?”
“Uh, because they ruin ponies’ days? They can’t go outside without getting wet?”
“We get wet all the time. We’re wet right now!” It was true – working with clouds, or even just napping on them, meant your coat got soaked with condensation. Nopegasus minded, because really, what pegasus cared about a little water? Cloud homes were made out of water. Pegasus coats were thick and warm, and their feathers sluiced away water like a duck.
“The weather’s not for us, it’s for them.” She pointed down at the ground. “Look, are you going to get to work or not? Thunderlane said these clouds need to be in order before sunset or—”
“Wait.” Rainbow Dash frowned. “Say that again?”
“What? Thunderlane wants these clouds in order by sunset?”
“No, before that.” The disordered thoughts in Rainbow Dash’s mind were starting to fall into some semblance of logic. “About who the weather is for.”
“Uh, it’s for them? You know, the ponies on the ground?”
“Why?”
“Because, uh…” Flitter blinked. “Because… that’s just how it is?”
“That’s not a reason, that’s just precedent!” Precedent – the Word-a-Day calendar Twilight got for her was finally paying off. “That’s just us doing something because we’ve always done it that way. But shouldn’t pegasi get to choose the weather too, sometimes?”
“We, uh.” Flitter looked down over the edge of the cloud at the town below, then turned her gaze west, toward the source of the light breeze they’d spent all day gathering. “We do, Dash. Pegasi like this kind of weather too. It’s nice and… you know, gentle.”
It was Dash’s turn to roll her eyes. “You really mean that, Flits?”
“Well…” She nibbled at her lip. “Sometimes I like the rain.”
Dash blinked. “You do?”
“Well, you know.” Flitter looked away, avoiding Dash’s gaze. “I mean, it’s nice sometimes, right? It’s soothing.”
“I…” Dash paused. She rarely lacked for words, being more of the school of thought that honesty was saying whatever sprang into one’s mind at any given moment. But now this conversation had taken an odd turn – she hadn’t expected Flitter to agree with her – and now she felt her way forward carefully, like every step was on the thinnest of ice. “I… yeah, it’s soothing. What, uh, what else do you like?”
“I… I like thunder too,” Flitter said. Her wings fanned at her side. “The way it shakes your chest and vibrates your bones. I like the long thunder, the thunder that’s one crack after another, like a rockslide rolling downhill. I love listening to that. That’s… that’s not weird, is it?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head. A heady excitement had started to grow in her chest at Flitter’s confession, and something urged her onward, to feel it out, to discover every bit of it. “No, lots of pegasi think that, probably. I love it too. What, uh, what about the wind?”
“I love the wind!” Flitter grinned. She seemed to grow braver at Dash’s questions, and she spread her stance as though bracing for a gust. “I love when it fights me! When it tries to beat me but it can’t, because I’m stronger!”
“And you fight back, right?” Rainbow Dash was breathing hard now. She could feel the tempest against her wings, hear the crackling thunder, taste the ozone left in the lightning’s wake. For a moment she felt alive. “You take the wind and you beat it, and then you make it stronger! You create the storm!”
“A storm that shakes the world,” Flitter said. Her eyes lost their focus, and she stared past the clouds at something only she could see. “A storm that brings darkness at noon. Wind that breaks trees! Lashing rain, Rainbow!”
Rainbow Dash could see it. She could feel it tearing at her feathers, wrenching her wings trying to break her. She’d fought storms like that in the past, and relished the exhilaration of it. Were all pegasi like that?
Did they dream of storms, too?
“Say that again,” she mumbled. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, all her soul straining to hear those words again.
“Lashing rain,” Flitter repeated. Though her eyes were closed, Rainbow could hear Flitter smile. It inflected her words with joy.
Dash opened her eyes. Flitter was staring at her, breathing hard. Her mane had grown unbound at some point, with little tufts of errant hair poking free to waft in the breeze. Her feathers strained at their roots, grasping at the air.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t into mares. But she was into passion, regardless of its sex. Sometimes she wondered if she’d drawn the wrong Element, that she should’ve been the Element of Greatness and Awesomeness and Power, that she was simply too big for the dreams of other ponies. But now she saw that same passion living, burning inside another pony’s breast, and it was pretty fucking hot.
Passion, that’s what it was. Rainbow Dash wanted passion. She realized this with a sudden dawning of comprehension, and for a moment all thought of mares or stallions or even storms washed from her mind. This wasn’t an argument about sunny days or gentle rains – it was an argument about what kind of ponies they were.
Those ponies on the ground? The ones who loved gentle winds and soft showers? They’d forgotten the passion that the weather held. Thunderlane? He’d forgotten the passion of their pegasus birthright. The power to shape the heavens to their will.
They’d all forgotten it. Even she, Rainbow Dash, the greatest pegasus alive, had forgotten it. But now all was clear again.
“Flitter,” she said. “We’re about to do something awesome.”
Flitter shook with energy. She licked her lips as she stared at Dash. Her eyes were filled with hunger. She took a half-step forward. “Y-yeah?”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “We’re going to the library.”
* * *
Rainbow Dash was excited to attend the next Weather Team staff meeting. The office was still dark when she arrived, nearly a half-hour early, and she dropped a stack of books on the table in front of her.
Flitter arrived next. She was humming some tune, and she grinned when she saw Dash. They sat together, vibrating in time with each other, two mares who shared a secret knowledge, a passion, that was about to be fulfilled.
This was what ponies in love felt like, Dash realized as they waited. Except she wasn’t in love with Flitter – okay, maybe there was a bit of lust there, but whatever – she was in love with this new idea. This ambition they had discovered together.
Rainbow Dash was going to bring real weather to Ponyville. The kind of weather everypony wanted, if only they knew it existed. She was the apostle, and this was her promised land.
Thunderlane arrived a few minutes before eight. He froze at the sight of them, blinked rapidly, then smiled.
“Hey girls,” he said. “Sorry, didn’t know you’d be here so early.”
“S’okay,” Dash said. “Hey, listen, we wanted to suggest something for next week’s schedule.”
“Oh?” He pulled a cloud tablet out of a drawer in his cloud desk. “Well, the schedule looks pretty open next week, clear skies and sun everyday, and sprinkles at night. Did you want to do some stargazing? Twilight Sparkle would like that, and we can arrange for an afternoon shower to compensate for the farmers—”
“No, something better,” Dash said. “Lots better.”
“Like, super!” Flitter added. “You’ll love this idea!”
“Well, if it’s got you this excited, it must be good!” He waved to the other weather team mares as they arrived. In just a few minutes, Cloud Chaser, Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth had joined them at the table. “So, what’s your plan?”
“Okay, are you ready? Get this.” Rainbow set her forehooves on the table and pushed herself upright. “Storms. All day, every day. All week! We’ll call it ‘Severe Weather Appreciation Week’!”
A pause. Thunderlane stared at the two of them, his eyes darting back and forth. He furrowed his brow, as if he didn’t understand.
Finally, “I don’t understand. Why would we do that?”
“Duh, because storms are awesome!” Rainbow Dash started. “How does that not make sense—”
Flitter cut her off with a gentle hoof on her shoulder. “Let me try, Rainbow. Thunderlane, what’s your favorite kind of weather?”
“Well, uh.” He glanced around at the group, suddenly on the spot. “You know, good weather? Sunny skies all day long?”
Flitter raised an eyebrow. “Really, anything else? Maybe something that has the word ‘thunder’ in its name?”
“Well, you know… I guess I do like thunderstorms. Who doesn’t, right?” A chorus of affirmative murmurs followed from around the table.
“And when was the last time we had a good thunderstorm?” Flitter asked.
A pause again. It lengthened into a silence. The weather team ponies all exchanged a look.
“I, uh, I’m not sure,” Thunderlane said. “I’d have to check the archives.”
“Maybe when Discord was here?” Cloud Chaser said. “There was some weird stuff going on then.”
“That doesn’t count.” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof. “When was the last time we scheduled a thunderstorm? A real one, not some pansy cloud-to-cloud lightning.”
“It must’ve been years ago,” Blossomforth mumbled. “Why has it been that long?”
Thunderlane rallied at that. He sat up straight. “Because ponies in Ponyville don’t want thunderstorms. They want sunny days and gentle showers at night. It’s perfect for hoofball games and picnics and farming. Perfect for our customers.”
“Aha!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Gotcha!”
They froze. They stared at her. Even Flitter seemed taken aback.
“What?” Thunderlane asked.
“Our customers!” Rainbow Dash pulled a small booklet from the stack in front of her and set it in the center of the table. “This is the Ponyville Weather Team charter. Do you know what’s in it?”
“Um, yes? I’m the weather team captain, so—”
“So you know who our customers are?”
“Yeah, the farmers and the shopkeepers and the—”
“And! And!” Rainbow jumped into the air, hovering above the table. “And the pegasi! The pegasi are customers too, Thunderlane! All of us! We have just as much say in the weather as all those other ponies! And right now, I’m asking… no, I’m demanding that we get some interesting weather for once! A storm! A squall! A tornado, even!”
He started at that, and shook his head, as though waking from a dream. “A… a tornado? Dash, you can’t be serious. A tornado is an emergency! It would disrupt the entire town! We’d be cleaning up for days.”
“We clean up after monster attacks all the time,” she said. “And we’d be careful with it. I bet we wouldn’t even lose any roofs.”
“No, this is silly. You’re being silly, Dash.” He waved a hoof toward the huge open window overlooking the town. “Those ponies down there rely on pegasi for good weather. It’s part of the compact – we provide the weather they need, and they grow the food we need. And the unicorns do something too, I guess.”
“Aha! Again!” Rainbow pulled another book from the pile, a thick one this time, and slammed it on the table. “Do you know what this is?”
Thunderlane peered at the cover. “It seems to be a copy of Page Turner’s Treatise on the Compact of Unity Between the—”
“It’s a copy of Page Turner’s Treatise on the Compact of Unity Between the Three Tribes!” Rainbow Dash said. “And do you know what’s inside?”
“Uh.” Thunderlane frowned. “A long essay on the compact?”
“Er, yeah. But more importantly, it has this line!” Rainbow Dash flipped through the book, quickly finding a bookmarked page. This was it! This was the moment! Rainbow could already taste victory. “It says here that when the tribes came together, all ponies agreed that the pegasi would have sole, full discretion over the management of Equestria’s weather, to be used for the good of all ponies!”
“...so?”
“So?” She gawked at him. “This means we get to decide on the weather. Us. Pegasi! Not anypony else!”
“For everypony’s good. What good are thunderstorms?”
“What good are thunderstorms?” Rainbow Dash groaned. “I… Flitter, help me out.”
“Okay. Listen, all of you,” Flitter said. “I know we’re not used to taking Rainbow seriously, but she’s right this time.”
Rainbow frowned. “Hey—”
“I didn’t realize it until yesterday myself,” Flitter continued, unabated. “She… Rainbow showed me the truth. We’re pegasi! Storms are in our blood! They’re in our names! Thunderlane, who’s the greatest pegasus of all time?”
“Uh… Commander Hurricane?”
“Exactly! But have you ever seen a hurricane? Do you even know what one is?”
“It’s… it’s a big storm, right?” Cloud Kicker said. “No, they’re more than that. Hurricanes are cyclones that cover hundreds of miles. They’re monsters.”
“What’s that like?” Blossomforth asked. Her voice was a low mumble, drifting in time with her thoughts. “A storm that covers half the world. To fly in one? To make one? It must be like… like creating a god.”
“Yes!” A grin twisted Rainbow’s face, and she leaned forward over the table. “That was us once! We did that! And now we’re building schedules for the weather, crafting little breezes and zephyrs and sprinkles and showers and everything safe. We’ve taken everything that was once great about us and turned it into a gentle shadow! You want to know what good thunderstorms are, Thunderlane? What they do? I’ll tell you! They make us live! And we can live again!”
“We could do it, couldn’t we?” Cloud Kicker said. She stood and walked to the window. “We could build a low-pressure front, using the energy over the Everfree. I bet we could have a squall line in place by tomorrow morning.”
“It’s a hot day tomorrow,” Blossomforth said. “We could trap that energy, add moisture to the air. The afternoon sun would heat the ground and cause tremendous atmospheric instability. If we bring in a wave of cold air overtop it…”
“It would build its own cell! It would… can we do that?” Cloud Chaser asked.
Thunderlane shook his head. “No. This… this is a fantasy. We’re entrusted with Ponyville’s weather and we’re required to give them what they want.”
Ah, and there it was. The final piece of her trap. A well of euphoria built in Rainbow Dash’s chest, spilling out of her as a high, ringing laugh. All the ponies turned to her, startled.
“Yes!” she cried. “You’re right, Thunderlane, we have to give them what they want! But do you know the last time anypony in Ponyville actually put in a formal request for weather?”
Thunderlane shifted. He glanced over at his desk, and the calendar hanging on the wall above it. “It’s, uh… a few months, I guess? The weather’s always the same, so ponies don’t usually put in, like, formal requests.”
“I know,” Rainbow Dash said. She pulled out a simple sheet of paper, a standard Ponyville Weather Atmospherics Request form, already filled out with her signature for next week. “Which is why I did. And as we’ve established, pegasi are allowed to request weather, just like anypony else.”
He snagged the form with his hoof and pulled it closer. The other mares, all except Rainbow and Flitter, crowded around him, reading over his shoulder. They ooh’d and ahh’d.
“This…” He swallowed. “This is insane, Rainbow.”
Blossomforth shook her head. “No, it’s great!”
Cloud Kicker: “This… this is sweet.”
Cloud Chaser: “Oh, we’re gonna get in so much trouble for this. I can’t wait.”
Flitter smiled. She nudged Rainbow Dash’s shoulder with her hoof, then leaned down to whisper in her ear. “This is gonna be so awesome.”
Awesome. Yeah. Damn, it was.
* * *
They called it, as Rainbow insisted, “Severe Weather Appreciation Week.” It seemed like a pretty easy concept to Rainbow Dash: you have severe weather, and you appreciate it. She wasn’t sure how much simpler she could make it.
“I don’t get it,” Rarity said. “Are you preventing the severe weather? Are we supposed to appreciate you for that?”
“No, no.” Rainbow closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Twilight, can you help me out?”
“I’m not sure I understand it either, Rainbow.” Twilight Sparkle set down the informational flyer Rainbow Dash had spent all morning distributing around town. They were at one of Ponyville’s outdoor cafés, enjoying a brief lunch together. The entire weather team had taken the day off before starting their preparations tomorrow. “Are you actually causing all these storms? We’re going to experience them? Here, in town?”
“Yes! Thank you.” Rainbow turned to Rarity. “See? She gets it.”
“Those were questions, darling.” Rarity took another sip from her latte. “Twilight’s as in the dark as I am. Befuddled, if you will.”
“I’m not befuddled,” Twilight said. “I just don’t understand the point of this. We have a weather team to prevent this kind of weather, not cause it.”
“Okay, see? That’s wrong. That’s where you go wrong.” Rainbow Dash set a copy of her flyer on the table and pointed at one of the many paragraphs on the bottom half below the schedule. “See this? This is a line from the Compact of Unity Between—”
“Yes, yes, I see it. I’ve read it,” Rarity said. “But wasn’t the whole point of the Compact that the pegasi give us good weather?”
“Uh huh. And who decides what’s ‘good’ weather?”
“Well, um.” Rarity coughed into her hoof. “Earth ponies? And unicorns?”
“See? See?” Rainbow turned to Twilight. “That’s what I’m talking about. You ground ponies only think one type of weather is good, but that’s like saying only one kind of food is good, or only one kind of music is good. Severe Weather Appreciation Week is about helping ponies understand and appreciate all kinds of weather.”
“Okay, first off, ground ponies? That’s tribalist,” Twilight said. “And second, there’s a tornado on the schedule for Friday, Rainbow. A tornado.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a tornado,” Rarity said. “Except that one that Lightning Dust created. I hope you’ll forgive me for not wanting a repeat of that little escapade.”
“Relax. We know how to handle tornadoes, okay? We use them all the time to lift water up to Cloudsdale. We’ll keep a tight rein on this one, make sure it doesn’t, like, pick up any houses or anything.”
Twilight shook her head and looked back at the flyer. “What about… Hailstorm? Really?”
Rarity peered at her own flyer. “Isn’t hail made of ice? Can you even do that in the summer?”
“Yeah, it’s easy,” Dash said. “So, hail forms when you have extremely turbulent atmospheric conditions, usually caused by a thunderstorm, with strong updrafts and a lowered zone of freezing air. Ice pellets form as the warm air rises into the cold air and they begin to fall out of the storm, but if the updrafts are strong enough they keep tossing the hailstones back up into the atmosphere where they refreeze and stick together, until eventually they get heavy enough that okay I see you aren’t paying attention anymore so I’m just gonna cut to the chase and say that yes, hail does happen in the summer, it only happens in the summer, and it’s gonna be awesome when you see it next week.”
“Uh huh,” Rarity said. “So you’re starting with fog tomorrow morning? That’s nice. The town looks pretty in the fog, I think.”
“This is a bad idea, Rainbow,” Twilight said. “You’re doing a thunderstorm Tuesday afternoon? There will be ponies trying to picnic in the park on Tuesday.”
“Yeah, they can still do that.”
“In a thunderstorm?”
“Yeah, we’ll make sure the lightning only hits trees or tall buildings. They’ll be safe.”
“Their food will get wet,” Twilight said.
“Your food is wet right now.”
“This is soup, Dash.”
“Everything turns into soup if you add enough rain,” Dash said. “Look, you’re getting way too excited about this. In a bad way, I mean. You should be excited in a good way! Like Flitter! She’s super pumped up about this whole thing. The entire team is.”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Flitter lately,” Rarity observed. “Anything you want to share with us?”
“Yeah, she’s awesome. More awesome than you two, no offense.”
“None taken,” Twilight said.
“Anything… else about her?” Rarity asked.
“Hm.” Rainbow Dash frowned. She cast her thoughts back to Flitter for a moment, envisioning that demure smile, the storm gray color of her coat, the electric glow of her mane. The way she breathed harder and faster when they talked about the weather, about how in the past few days they’d bonded over their suddenly discovered shared love for storms of all types. She remembered the spark in Flitter’s eye when she described fighting the wind, and how the muscles in her chest and shoulders strained beneath her coat as they flew together and she twisted in the air, telling Rainbow Dash how she couldn’t wait to bring these storms into the world. She recalled her own heart beating faster, pounding, racing in her chest as she sat beside Flitter and shared her dreams and the euphoric, exhilarating realization that finally, somepony got her. She remembered flying home at night, drunk with giddy joy, the mare’s scent clogging her nostrils. She remembered a dream, a crazy dream, an insane dream, of bathing in a pool filled with Flitter, swimming in a liquid that was somehow also a pegasus until every feather and hair and pore was soaked with the essence of her. She drowned in Flitter and loved it.
Rainbow shook her head. “Nah, not really.”
Rarity pouted. “Fine. Well, I suppose I’ll be staying indoors next week. I’ll catch up on some orders for the boutique, at least.”
“You’re gonna miss out,” Rainbow said. “At least check out the tornado.”
“This still seems like a bad idea,” Twilight said. “I could cancel it, you know? Invoke my authority as a princess.”
A cold shock embraced Rainbow Dash at those words. Could she? Would she? Her coat broke out with in a sudden sweat. She took a slow breath and focused on calm, soothing words.
“All the pegasi are excited about this,” she said. “We’re the experts on weather. And the Compact gives us complete discretion over the weather. Not even Princess Celestia can go against the Compact.”
Twilight sighed. “You’re determined to do this, then?”
Rainbow nodded. “The whole team is. And most of the town’s pegasi want to help.”
“Really, darling, it doesn’t sound so bad,” Rarity said. “So we’ll miss out on a week of good weather. Maybe, in the end, that’s what we’ll learn to appreciate?”
“Yeah, what she said.”
“Fine, fine.” Twilight pushed the flyer back to Rainbow. “Don’t make me regret this, though.”
Rainbow grinned. The weight lifted from her shoulders, and suddenly the day was as light and warm and beautiful as before.
“Don’t worry, princess. Everypony’s gonna love this week.”
* * *
Rainbow Dash wasn’t lazy. She was, point in fact, the hardest working pony she knew.
Other ponies might have objected to this characterization. They might have (and frequently did) call out her long naps, or the frequency with which she was late to work, or her occasional tendency to blow off work altogether in pursuit of some other goal (usually naps). Rainbow Dash tried not to act offended when this happened.
It was all wrong, of course. Rainbow Dash was maniacally focused on her job – she just didn’t always agree with everypony else as to what her job was.
Rainbow’s job was flying. Rainbow’s job was getting into the Wonderbolts. Rainbow’s job was going on adventures with her friends and saving the world from various assorted evil villains. The weather team? Pushing clouds around? That was just a sideline. Of course she didn’t put as much effort into it as, like, saving her friends’ lives when they ended up plummeting to their dooms for the umpteenth time.
Other ponies just had poor priorities.
When Rainbow Dash had a passion, she poured her entire being into it. She didn’t pursue goals – she was seized by them, throttled by them, her very soul held hostage by the desire to do something awesome.
And Severe Weather Appreciation Week was the awesomest thing she’d done in… well, maybe ever. She paused atop a cloud near the town border and considered that thought. She turned it over in her mind, examining it from all angles. Had she ever been so beautifully obsessed as this?
There was the Wonderbolts, of course. Everypony who knew Rainbow Dash knew how much she loved the ‘Bolts. They knew it was her life goal to make the team, to someday lead them in glorious flight. She had slaved away for countless hours, practicing her routines in the air over Ponyville until every part of her body, even her feathers, ached. She could never have thought something else might consume her thoughts so much as the ‘Bolts.
But here she was. She, who frequently dozed until noon, hadn’t slept more than an hour in the past three nights. Every waking moment had been spent with Flitter or the other mares, planning and scheming and gathering clouds and whipping up moisture and corralling the winds, all in preparation for this. She gobbled down her meals in seconds, all in order to get back to work faster. The team held meetings on the wing, never stopping, never ceasing their work. Even Thunderlane, the skeptical one, slowly came over to her side. It was when they planned the thunderstorm that he changed, as the realization that he was finally building a storm of his own namesake, a storm that would rattle houses and flood the streets and shake the trees, finally dawned. Rainbow Dash saw it in his eyes, when they finally opened to her grand vision.
And, of course, there was Flitter. More than any of the other mares, she was always by Rainbow’s side. Helping her wrestle an ornery cloud into line, or bottling the lightning they would later unleash over Ponyville. Whenever she was tired, she looked at Flitter, and a new vitality filled her wings. Whenever Flitter sagged in flight, Rainbow was there to lift her up. Together they found the strength to plan, craft and set into motion more severe weather than Ponyville saw in a normal decade, all in just a few days.
It was awesome. Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The world tasted of ice and lightning.
She felt the cloud shift beside her, and she heard Flitter’s voice. “I think we’re about done, boss. Not much else we can do now but wait.”
Why was she so consumed by this, Rainbow wondered? She knew what the others thought of her – lazy, careless and dim. And if she were being honest with herself, she’d never done much to prove them wrong. The only thing that ever really mattered to her was the Wonderbolts – the weather, her actual job, was a distant eighth or ninth place in the list of things she cared much about.
But now, here she was, three days into a workaholic binge. Why had it seized her so suddenly? What was its source?
“Anything else you need?” Flitter asked. She sounded pensive, as though worried by something.
“Nah, we’re good,” Dash said. Her voice was rougher than usual. “You did great this week. We all did. Go get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn.”
“Right!” Flitter saluted, then paused. Haltingly, she reached out with the tip of her wing, and just touched it to Dash’s shoulder. Whatever possessed her to do such a thing fled as quickly as it came, and Flitter leaped from the cloud, vanishing into the summer haze below.
Rainbow Dash sat on her cloud, thinking. Eventually the sun set, and night swallowed her whole.
* * *
Severe Weather Appreciation Week started with fog. It rolled in slowly from the forest. It crept through the sleeping streets, wrapping around the homes and climbing the walls like ivy. Birds and insects, normally so loud in the morning, grew quiet, then still. Colors drained away from the world, drunk up by the mists, and then shapes and forms as well, until everything became vague suggestions and hints. The fog came in and stole Ponyville away.
Fog didn’t take much effort to get going. It was easy, dramatic, and not very frightening. Perfect, in other words, for the first morning of the first day.
When the team had first announced Severe Weather Appreciation Week, Rainbow Dash had worried about the reaction from the town. Most ponies, after all, expected nothing from the weather team but sunny days and gentle evening rains. How would they react to something new, no matter how exciting it might be?
But aside from a few stubborn holdouts like Twilight Sparkle, the town quickly fell in line with the idea. Ponies, as a general rule, were respectful of authority, and the weather team was the authority on weather. Ponies also loved to celebrate things, and it didn’t take much work on Rainbow’s part to convince the town that Severe Weather Appreciation Week was a type of celebration. That alone got ponies talking in excited whispers about food and decoration and spending time with friends and family. When the fog rolled in that morning, it was greeted with cautious enthusiasm.
Ponies ventured outside into the mist as though entering a new world. They took slow steps from their doors. Foals raced out ahead of their parents, froze, then ran back to hide between their legs. When the fog didn’t bite, they wandered back out, and soon the streets of Ponyville were filled with shouts and laughter, all hidden away.
The fog developed into a gloom, a pall that sat atop the town. Clouds descended until they brushed the tops of ponies’ homes. Twilight Sparkle’s crystal castle, normally so bright in the sun, darkened as though scorched by fire. The amethyst walls turned black and chill, and their high points vanished in the clouds.
In the afternoon, downbursts exploded across town. Sudden, short, sharp showers of rain that soaked everything and everypony beneath them. Foals chased after them, laughing. Adults fled from them, shrieking.
All the while, Rainbow Dash flew above the town, nudging clouds or currents into their correct positions. The other weather team ponies orbited further out, collecting pockets of warm or cold air for later distribution. But Flitter never left her side, even when there was no work for her to do. They paused for lunch atop the town hall’s steeple, perching above the eaves, munching on apples stolen from the Acres. Their wings brushed together as they breathed.
Flitter bit through the core of her last apple, chewing it noisily. She spat a few seeds onto the cobblestones below.
“Going good so far, boss,” she said.
Rainbow Dash nodded. The motion hurt – her wings and back and neck were a solid lump of ache, the muscles worn to exhaustion by days of ceaseless flying. Even breathing was difficult.
She loved it.
“Thunderstorms are set for tomorrow,” Flitter continued. She peered up at the clouds, which were only a few feet above their heads. “Plenty of extra energy. Should be some great lightning.”
“Yeah.”
Flitter turned her head. “You okay? I thought you’d be more excited.”
“I am. Just tired. Lotta work, you know?”
“Yeah.”
They lapsed into a companionable silence, and Rainbow Dash returned to the puzzle that had twisted her thoughts for so many days. Why did she care so much about this week? Why did she spend every waking hour, and many of the hours she should have been sleeping, preparing weather of all things? Not even the Wonderbolts training had driven her so.
“Hey, Flitter?”
“Hm?” Flitter looked back at Dash. Her breath smelled faintly of apples. “What’s up?”
“You ever want to be a Wonderbolt?”
“Hmm…. Nah.”
“Why not?”
“Eh.” Flitter shrugged. “They just, you know… they’re cool ponies and all, but... “
“But?”
“They’re not the kind of pony I want to be. It’s always about them. How famous they are, how, uh, how awesome they are.”
Rainbow snorted. “What’s wrong with being awesome?”
Flitter nudged her. “Nothing. But, like, their whole thing is how awesome they are. Even their shows. Like, do you think they’d do all that if nopony showed up to watch? Just fly around because they love it?”
Rainbow Dash thought back to her times with the ‘Bolts. The stadiums, the crowds, the adulation of the fans. The rush of performing in front of thousands, all chanting her name.
Huh.
In time Flitter excused herself to run some errand or other. She brushed her wing against Rainbow’s, then jumped off the roof. She arced through the air, seeking out one of the fierce downpours soaking the town, and Rainbow Dash lost sight of her in the rain.
* * *
The thunderstorm the next day was luminous.
It struck as the sun set. All day the overcast skies had slowly descended. The air pressure fell in time with them, creating a sense of ominous anticipation in the ponies below. They could feel the skies building toward something, drawing closer with each hour to some inexorable explosion.
The sun descended, and twilight washed over the land in seconds. The world plunged into darkness as thick black clouds swept in from the horizons. And just as night settled onto the town, the first bolt of lightning split the darkness. It blinded all who saw it, and the thunder that followed seconds later shattered their hearing. Windows vibrated in their panes. It knocked leaves loose from their branches. Birds, roosting in the trees, burst into the air in a panic.
Foals cried. Adults jumped and raced inside. The first fat drops of rain landed like rocks on their roofs, filling homes with a constant, endless din. It lasted for hours.
And all the while, the town’s pegasi cavorted in the skies. They laughed, filled with a joy most of them hadn’t felt in years. They danced with the rain and with each other and with the lightning. Fierce gusts battered them, threatening to slam them into the earth, and they fought back. Faint blue wisps of St. Elmo’s fire rose from the tips of their wings.
The weather team took turns powering the storm. For days they had filled clouds with rain and stored them above the White Tail Woods, and now they shuttled them to the storm.
Rainbow Dash pushed a particularly large, sodden cloud into place, and gave it a good kick. It rumbled with thunder, and soon it began to bleed its rain into the squall. She hovered beside it, watching, ready to shepherd it into place if it drifted away.
Rainbow saw a light gray coat and cyan mane below, darting in and out of sight. Flitter spun freely in the rain, laughing, not caring who saw. She dived into a cloud and burst out from the other side, trailing bits of sodden gray fluff. The lightning illuminated her smile.
Flitter noticed her watching. Her wings flapped, and in seconds she was hovering at Rainbow’s side. She panted for breath, absolutely soaked. Every line of her body stood out in sharp relief beneath her coat.
“Rainbow!” she shouted to be heard over the wind. “This is awesome!”
Rainbow grinned. “Having fun?”
“It’s incredible!” She flipped in a quick loop. “Do you want to play? I’ll push the clouds for a bit.”
“Uh.” Rainbow Dash glanced around. All below her the sky was filled with darkness, and in the flashes of lightning she saw dozens of colorful sparks flying to and fro. The town’s pegasi flew with unchecked joy like she had never seen.
“I’m fine,” she said. “You go back to playing.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, go!”
“Alright!” Flitter flipped over, twisting in a graceful loop that stretched her body and limbs out to their utmost, and then she fell back into the storm and the dancing ponies in the sky.
* * *
The town the next morning had the look of a stunned survivor.
Debris from the forest littered the streets. Branches, leaves, entire trees. Ponies ventured out cautiously, stepping between the deep puddles and around the new obstacles. They mumbled quietly amongst themselves, exchanging stories about the previous night.
Rainbow Dash didn’t see any other pegasi from her seat at the café. All still asleep, probably. She sipped at her hot cocoa and waved to Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight waved back. She walked over, righted the tipped-over chair across the table from Dash, and took a seat.
“So,” she said.
“Hm?”
“Your storm kept me up last night.”
Rainbow grinned. “Yeah?”
“Yes. It kept a lot of ponies up, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow stretched. Her body wasn’t as sore as the first day, but it still ached. “I know. Me too.”
“Do you know how many ponies have complained to me so far this morning?”
“I dunno. Two?”
“Eleven. And that was just walking here from my castle.”
“Ponies complain too much.”
Twilight sighed. “You’ve had your fun, Dash. Do you really need the rest of this week? Hailstorms? A tornado?”
“Duh. We’re saving the best for last.”
“Rainbow, ponies don’t want a tornado—”
“No, listen,” Rainbow cut her off. “You keep saying that. Rarity said it, and Thunderlane said it too. Ponies don’t want these things. But what you mean is some ponies don’t want them. But what about the ones who do?”
“Pegasi?”
“Yeah.” Some of the tension faded from Rainbow’s shoulders, and she smiled. “You should’ve seen them last night, Twilight. All of us flying in the storm… I don’t think I’ve ever seen everypony so happy.”
“And what about the rest of us?”
“Eh.” Rainbow sipped her coffee. “Earth ponies and unicorns somehow survived with wild weather all those years before the compact. Have you gotten so soft you can’t stand a week without sunny weather?”
Twilight frowned. “Soft? I’m not soft.”
“You say that.” Rainbow reached out with her wingtip to prod Twilight’s stomach. “But the truth is that all these storms? This would be, like, a normal week if pegasi weren’t around to give everypony clear skies.”
Twilight swatted her feathers away. “You know, this isn’t very friendly. You’re asking the entire town to suffer just so you can romp around the sky for a—”
“Okay, enough.” Rainbow bolted upright, her forehooves crashing onto the table to hold her steady. “You have no idea what it’s like for pegasi. We were born for the wild skies, but we spend our lives taming them for the comfort and convenience of ponies who don’t spend a minute each day looking higher than the doorway lintel so they don’t crack their heads on it. My whole life, Twilight, all of our lives, we’ve known how awesome and incredible storms are but we’ve never been able to share that with anypony else, because Luna forbid you say the word ‘thunder’ around an earth pony or they might just start freaking out right there about their poor crops or their cows or their Celestia-damned dog that runs around barking at loud noises. And don’t think unicorns get off either! You know I love Rarity but Twilight if I hear her bitch about the wind ruining her mane one more time I swear to you I will find some way to shove a thundercloud up her ass. All we want, the only thing all the pegasi in Ponyville want, is one week to do what we love and share it, and yes that may be a little inconvenient for everypony and we may get mud everywhere and get a few ponies wet, but guess what, Twilight, they’ll all live!”
Twilight stared at her, mouth open just a fraction. Rainbow realized she was panting, almost out of breath. She swallowed, sat back down, and took a sip from her hot cocoa.
“So, yeah,” she continued. “That’s why we’re doing it.”
“Well.” Twilight cleared her throat. “It sounds like these storms mean a lot to you. More than I realized. Also, really? Up Rarity’s ass?”
Dash coughed. “Uh, yeah, don’t tell her I said that. But yes, these storms mean a lot to us. Like, imagine if somepony came up to you and said you had to close your library, because Ponyville didn’t need a library anymore. How would that make you feel?”
“Obviously I would feel pity for such a sad and deluded soul.”
“Okay, but what if you weren’t a princess? What if somepony really could make you close down your library, and you had to go along because it’s what everypony else wanted?”
“That’s not the same thing,” Twilight said. “I’m allowed to operate a library if I want. Anypony can! Heck, you could open a library in your cloud house tomorrow if you—”
“But what if I couldn’t?” Dash leaned forward over the table. “What if some stupid law said I wasn’t allowed to? What if two-thirds of the town simply decided they didn’t like books, so having a town library is an unacceptable imposition on them? What would you do? Set your books on fire for them?”
Twilight’s head rocked back as if slapped. Her eyes widened, showing the bright white sclera all around her lavender irises. She held that look for a moment, blinked, then settled back down, her wings retreating to rest at her sides.
“No, I wouldn’t. I’d leave and take them with me,” she said. “But it’s still not the same thing. You’re asking me to compare apples with oranges.”
Dash shrugged. “It’s the closest thing I can come up with. You got a better comparison?”
“Why not flying? You’ve always cared about flying, not the weather. For Celestia’s sake, Dash, you sleep through half your shifts on the Weather Team.”
“Hey, no, that’s not true. That’s, uh…” Uh. Dash looked down at the table. She certainly hadn’t slept through any shifts in the past week, but before that her memories of perfect attendance grew a little hazy. She always tried to make her shifts on time, of course, what pegasus didn’t?
Twilight waited, and when no further answer seemed forthcoming, she leaned back in her seat. The set of her shoulders relaxed, and she tapped at the menu on the table with a hoof, as if pondering whether or not to order a drink.
“I just don’t get it, Rainbow,” she said. “Where did all this come from? Why suddenly care about the weather, of all things?”
“Eh, you know…” She made a motion with her hoof. That same question again. Why did she pour so much of herself into this week? Why did she work herself to exhaustion, for the weather of all things? Where had this passion come from?
An image from the previous night flashed into her mind. Darkness, light by lightning, revealing dozens of pegasi dancing in the storm. Alive as they had never been before. She blinked, and the image vanished, and the bright morning Ponyville café returned.
“You know, I’m still figuring that out,” she said. “But I’ve got a few ideas.”
* * *
The rest of the week went well, except for the tornado.
The tornado was spectacular.
It arrived over the town like a runaway train. A hundred pegasi swirled within, driving the twister forward. The ground shook beneath them. Shrieking winds tore away shingles, shattered trees and plastered homes with debris.
Inside the tornado, the town’s pegasi fed each other with their power. They reached speeds unimaginable by most of them who were not named Rainbow Dash, and for few moments they all knew what it was like to be a Wonderbolt.
It was over in minutes. The funnel passed over the town, leaving it battered and waterlogged. Ponies emerged from their basements to assess the damage and found it generally to be light. Rarity, who had forgotten to remove the pennants from atop the Carousel Boutique, cursed under her breath and went hunting for them. Twilight Sparkle spent the day scraping mud from the highest crystal panes of her castle.
As evening fell, the pegasi returned to town. They were a mess – manes ruined, feathers all afluff, coated in grime. The dryest one was like a wet sponge. They were exhausted. And still they helped the rest of the town clean up their mess, because this was Ponyville, and they were all neighbors here.
Night found Rainbow Dash and Flitter perched atop the town hall again. They were the weariest two of the town’s pegasi, and they looked it. Dash could barely keep her eyes open. Every muscle ached, but her shoulders and wings screamed with each little movement. She swore she could hear the rain sizzling as it ran down the vanes of her feathers to touch the overheated skin.
She took a deep breath. Her chest and back protested, and at the peak of inhalation a sharp pain bisected her, like a lance driven straight through her heart. She held the breath, savoring the pain, waiting for it to dull and fade. Finally, when it seemed to be gone, she let her breath out, and the pain vanished for real, and in its place was an empty relief that felt like taking a piss when your bladder was full to bursting. It was better than sex.
Breath in, hurt. Exhale, relief. She did it over and over again until the moon cleared the horizon and brought a new silver light to the town.
Flitter shifted beside her. Was she as much a worn down wreck as Dash felt? Probably not – nopony worked as hard as Dash, and the obvious corollary was that nopony was as sore afterward as Dash. But she still looked pretty beat up, Dash had to give her that.
“So.” Flitter let out a breath. “That was pretty fun.”
“Yeah.”
“Not bad work. You did good.”
Rainbow smiled. “Thanks. Hey, you too.”
They lapsed into a companionable silence again, each nursing their aches. Flitter seemed to be favoring her right wing, supporting its weight with her shoulder. Sign of a sprain, or maybe just overuse.
Below them, the streets had nearly emptied for the evening. Wet cobblestones reflected the moonlit clouds. Dash could feel the moisture rising from them, reaching a new equilibrium with the cooling air.
“I gotta admit, I never really expected something like this from you,” Flitter said. She too seemed to be staring at the stones. “It took a lot of hard work.”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Implying?”
“Well, you’re not lazy.” Flitter paused. “To my surprise.”
“Heh. Thanks.” Passion, that was the word Dash kept coming back to. What birthed it? What drove it? She glanced at Flitter, then back at the town.
The Wonderbolts would never have done something like this, she was pretty sure. The Wonderbolts had precisely one metric for success: how big was the crowd. Everything else, the flying, the stunts, even their incredible, sexy physiques, were in service to that single goal. There must have been, she figured, some better reason for the Wonderbolt’s existence; at some hazy point in their history there must have had a purpose. But whatever noble cause drove them now was gone, remembered only in vague slogans about sacrifice and service to Equestria.
“You were right, you know.”
“Huh?” Flitter glanced at her. “About what?”
“Nothing, nevermind.” Dash stood and stretched. “Wanna get some food? My treat.”
Flitter grinned. “Sure. Then what?”
Dash glanced at her. “Then what, what?”
Flitter just shrugged, suddenly aloof. “Nothing.”
“Uh huh.” Dash squinted at her. A storm’s worth of water still soaked Flitter’s coat, outlining her muscles with reflections and shadows. The major groups – shoulders, wing joints and all along her back – trembled with fatigue. They would be hard as oak to the touch, Dash knew, and burn the next morning.
Flitter caught her staring. She raised an eyebrow.
In for a bit, in for a bundle. Rainbow swallowed the lump in her throat. “I dunno, maybe get some coffee or something?”
“Coffee? That’s Rainbow Dash’s idea of a good time?”
“Hey—” Dash almost took the bait, but at the last second she saw the smile teasing at Flitter’s lips. She took a breath, exhaled, and continued. “What’d you wanna do?”
“There’s that new bar out by Sugarcube. I bet a pair of weather team members could score some free drinks tonight.”
Rainbow frowned. “You shouldn’t drink after a hard workout, it can delay muscle recovery and—”
“Yeah, okay mom. You got some milk for me, too?”
Ooh. Rainbow narrowed her eyes. The smirk grew on Flitter’s face.
Finally, “You’re lucky I like you or we’d be fighting right now.”
“Uh huh.” Flitter stretched, wincing as her wings extended to their full span. “Dinner first.”
She jumped from the roof. Rainbow stared after her for a moment. Finally, she sighed, shook her head, and flew to catch up.
