One Storm at a Time

by Impossible Numbers

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, White Lightning, Other, Cloudchaser, Slice of Life, Drama
Length: 8032

White Lightning doesn't think like other ponies. Heck, she doesn't even speak; she's happy enough quietly hiding in the background. So when an overambitious boss tries to organize a spectacular storm, she's not exactly well-equipped to deal with it…

White Lightning doesn't think like other ponies. Heck, she doesn't even speak; she's happy enough quietly hiding in the background. So when an overambitious boss tries to organize a spectacular storm, she's not exactly well-equipped to deal with it…

Entry for Writeoff FiM Short Story Round, Event 91. Prompt: All the Time in the World.

Published 2018-08-23 13:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-08-23 13:30:01 UTC

Silence Speaks Louder Than Words

White Lightning watched the lightning and listened to the thunder. Inside her head, that is: she was content enough there.

The pattern of lights conjured tendrils of thought, networks of ideas that glowed against the walls of her mind like shadows in a cave. They didn’t necessarily make sense. Often it was enough that they existed, or a bonus if they did something interesting, but it was a delight-tinged rush of mad – almost indecent – excitement if they did make sense. Rarer lights shone that much brighter.

Outside her bedroom, she knew, the world was very different. Sunny days, breezy days, cloudy days, rainy days: nothing particularly exciting, she’d admit, but then excitement wasn’t the only good emotion. This time of year, the gardeners and the farmers would be especially attentive to the weather schedule. Excitement was a wrench in the well-oiled machine.

At least, anywhere civilized it was.

Inside, far away from anyone who was likely to shout at her and who was likely to bother her, White Lightning grinned and watched the world’s greatest fireworks display, inside her head: all the more magnificent for lighting without light and heating without heat.

“Knock, knock!” Cloudchaser called from outside.

White Lightning sighed, dropped her book, slipped yet another bookmark into place.

Quickly, she forced her face into something less pouty and hurried downstairs. She most certainly couldn’t keep a guest waiting. That would be insanely bad manners.

Before she’d even opened the door fully, she heard Cloudchaser say, rather grimly, “You gotta come see this.”

“Speak up, Miss Lightning!”

White Lightning stared at the floor as though her life depended on it. Certainly her reputation, appearance, dutifulness, loyalty, and good manners depended on it.

Behind the desk, she heard Crafty Crate – current Weather Monitor of Cloudsdale’s Weather Factory – shifting his immense bulk on the chair. Crafty was one of those pegasi who looked less like he’d grown up and more like he’d been built from the ground up. In the confines of the Cloudsdale office, he filled his cubicle like a hippo in a pigpen.

“Hm,” said Crafty; White Lightning’s very bones rumbled. Unpleasantly, she heard his stubble scratching against his hoof. “Thought you said something. Now let’s see…”

The shuffle of paperwork. White Lightning swallowed and hoped she’d caught all her own spelling mistakes.

“All weather targets met… Loss of water and rainbow accounted for… Snowflake quota… Thunder production quota… Blah-blah-blah…”

She wished he didn’t read so slowly. A fuse fizzing towards a barrel of dynamite held fewer terrors for her.

“Well, that seems to be in order,” he said, sounding more like he’d hoped otherwise. “We can’t be seen to be lax in our weather-making duties, can we Miss Lightning?”

White Lightning, without looking up, shook her head as dutifully as she could.

“Speak up, Miss Lightning! What, are you mute?”

Her shaking head rapidly switched to nodding.

“Figures. How d’you communicate with the Weather Team on-duty, then?”

White Lightning resisted the urge to groan. Hoof and wing gestures largely served her well, but she had a premonition that any such move in front of Crafty would be met with even harsher words.

“How did you even get on the Weather Team?” A creak as his hot breath pushed more strongly into her face. “Teams need communication skills, Miss Lightning. Hoof and wing gestures don’t get across like good old-fashioned SHOUTING DO!”

She jumped.

Then she burned all the more with embarrassment as he laughed it off.

“Good thing I stepped in, then,” he said thoughtfully. She even heard him stand up. “The trouble with ponies like you, Miss Lightning, is, good as you are, you don’t sell it. Supposing Cloudsdale’s very Mayor Laurette were to walk in right now? What kind of message would you be sending with that stance?”

Instantly, White Lightning straightened up her limbs. Until now, she hadn’t even noticed that anyone had noticed the slouch.

Humming with satisfaction, Crafty Crate sat down again with a creak. “That’s better. Pegasus ponies deserve respect. They deserve their voice heard. You’re free to go, Miss Lightning. Send Cloudchaser in for me, would ya?”

It was only later, after the wash of relief and the hurrying down the Weather Factory corridors, did White Lightning wonder about that ‘they deserve their voice heard’ comment.

PEGASUS PRIDE AND PASSION PARADE PROJECT: STORM!

Studies show that 75% of all towns which permitted spectacular weather increased their tourism trade by 90.5%!

81% of all pegasus ponies asked indicated that they would like “at least 5% more extreme weather”

Casualties caused by controlled storm conditions: ZERO!

Equestrian Insurance companies “happy to cover the damages”!

Opportunities for Redemption: HIGH!

Opportunities for Promotion due to Skill Displayed: INCREASED!

Precedence:

• Wonderbolts Tornado Season
• Mustangia Regiment Monsoon Madness
• Crystal Empire Blizzard Blessings
• Manehattan Extreme Storms Yearly Championships
• Canterlot Citadel Cumulonimbus Cultural Occasion!

Feel tired at work? Stuck doing the same fair weather unfairly? Wanna let ‘er rip?

BRING BACK THE PONYVILLE PEGASUS PARADE! LET STORMS FLY!

White Lightning stopped reading the poster – reluctantly, for she was halfway through wondering what studies they meant in the first sentence – and turned instead to the crowd gathered outside the Weather Factory. This was about as much as she could notice before the sheer noise reduced her thoughts to mush. Cloudchaser hovered next to her, mimicking several others in the crowd craning to look over heads.

From here, it wasn’t hard to make out Crafty Crate in the middle. He was standing on an improvised podium; his bulk alone would have made him stick out like a cabbage in a bowl of potatoes.

“It’s true!” he shouted over their heads. “Oh, words can’t describe how happy I was when I found out! I was stunned, as stunned as you are right now, friend!”

“He’s been at it for hours,” said Cloudchaser in an undertone; dutifully, White Lightning turned an ear towards her and leaned closer.

“Of course, I could list the benefits to you all day if I wanted!” boomed Crafty while the murmuring subsided all around him. “The tourism boom, the healthy circulation of the DIY industry, the galvanization of the economy, and so on. But come now, ponies! Is that what you, the pony in the street, really cares about? The bottom line for the mayor? I don’t think so!”

White Lightning bit her lip and looked around, hoping no one was watching her. They usually weren’t in any case, but if she could just tiptoe back and fly away before anyone noticed her…

And yet.

She noticed the faces in the crowd. Many were wide-eyed. Some were almost drooling. A few were carefully blank or pouting thoughtfully, but only one or two frowned or shook their heads, and they swiftly stopped when neighbours rounded on them or shushed them. Next to her, even Cloudchaser had one eyebrow raised, poised to deliver a verdict.

Perhaps it couldn’t hurt to hear him out? White Lightning cocked an ear towards him.

“No, I say! No! This, this is ultimately about all of you fine working ponies! You push a little cloud to the left, a little cloud to the right, scatter showers there; is that all we’re allowed to do? Earth ponies get to grow the biggest fruits and vegetables they can! Unicorns get to use magic to improve technology! Outside the Wonderbolts, why are we stuck ferrying itty-bitty clouds back and forth? Well, I say why can’t we do what we want to do? What it’s our right to do? What it’s only fair we be allowed to do? And as for the benefits, well, there are so many!”

Several pegasi nodded in agreement. By now, the rest of the crowd were so quiet that Crafty’s voice echoed cleanly over their heads.

White Lightning glanced back at the poster. She chewed her lip a few times. She listened to the speech a little longer before she realized Crafty was just recycling the main points over and over, yet everyone seemed mesmerized.

She was already flying away before she realized no one else had done so. Haste and embarrassment sped her onwards.

White Lightning lay on the bed in her room, tapping her teeth with the tip of a hoof. Staring down at a piece of paper. Waiting for inspiration to strike.

Eventually, she picked up the pen and wrote, very carefully:

“Weather Factory Storm Production.”

Then she sat and stared at it.

After a while, she added, “Pros.” Immediately, she gave it company: “Cons.”

To anyone outside, she knew, it looked like she’d frozen with complete indecision. Yet on the inside, the familiar sparks of ideas clashed and exploded against each other. Images of the visual spectacle of storms… Production costs and rain expenses… The hypnotic crackle of lightning in its jagged complexity, totally blowing the mere mind away and leaving all senses struck… Actual utility of the excess water to farms and gardens…

After a while, she breathed in. Then she breathed out. Like trained animals, the ideas stopped fighting each other and merely jostled for space.

Only when a few settled down entirely did she put pen to paper. About six ideas total before she stopped and waited again for the lesser ideas to come forward.

And then there was a knock at the door. White Lightning’s ideas panicked and fought again. Angrily throwing down her pen, she went to answer it.

“Where have you been!?” said Cloudchaser at once. “You missed the best bit. Here, can I come in? Thanks. I was just going to… Oh, sorry, are you busy?”

Her gaze caught the omnipresent piles of books and clothes strewn about. White Lightning suddenly wished she’d thought to put them away.

“Pretty heavy stuff, huh? A commissioned storm! And not one of those pansy showers whenever we lose track, I mean the proper stuff. Fire and brimstone in the sky! Lights all over the place! Think of the size of the cloud you’d have to build. And then there’s the thunder. Ooh, I’d love to hear a bad boy in full fury!”

White Lightning pretended to listen while she nodded and returned to her list. Somehow, she doubted the ideas would come to her so long as she had an intruder in her room, but –

Shamefully, she grimaced until that particular thought sidled away embarrassed. Not an “intruder”. A “friend”.

Smiling now, White Lightning looked up and nodded along to the speech. Emphasis was on clouds at this point; Cloudchaser had a particular niche in the Weather Team.

To White’s shock, she found her fellow pegasus inches from her face. Flapping, she backed off. Yet Cloudchaser seemed totally unabashed.

“You should totally sign up for it,” said Cloudchaser. “Oh yeah! The lightning trick! You could do the lightning trick! You know the one I’m talking about. Right there, right where everyone can see it, and not stuck in this little cave.”

White Lightning bared her teeth for a moment. And to think: she’d just refrained from calling Cloudchaser an “intruder”!

Tight-lipped, she shook her head. Anyway, the whole point was to do tricks “in this little cave”. This was her world. Cloudchaser was only here due to special permission, and even then, there was only so much liberty the friendship license could grant.

“Aw, come on,” said Cloudchaser in a wheedling voice that was nails-on-a-chalkboard to White’s ears. “Don’t be shy. I’ve seen you do stuff even Thunderlane couldn’t pull off.”

White Lightning narrowed her eyes. “Shyness” was exactly what it wasn’t. Why did everyone assume “shyness”? It wasn’t like she was afraid.

“Well, what then? What’s the problem?”

Yet another assumption: that there was a problem. She peered out the window, to the fields of cloud cabbage and onward to the silhouette of mountains and the blazing blue skies. In a way, she was lucky to have such a view. Sheer emptiness. No stimulation. No strains on her eyes. Just untouched peace, for miles and miles.

Whereas if the window pointed the other way, she would have seen Cloudsdale, in all its messy, crowded, noisy, overheated non-glory. The mere thought made her shudder, and she almost gasped from the imaginary claustrophobia. Merely imagining it…

Her gaze drifted down to the “Pros” and “Cons” list. Perhaps she should at least let her friend know what was going on.

So she reached forwards and held it up and out, hopeful.

After Cloudchaser blinked at the words for a little too long, she suddenly said, “Farms? What’s farms got to do with storms?”

Sighing, White Lightning reached across and, by luck, found on her bedside table a glass half-full – or half-empty; she hadn’t seen the point of deciding either-or – to shake before Cloudchaser.

“Oh, you mean the runoff.” Cloudchaser shrugged. “I dunno. I just signed it. Someone’ll take care of it, right? It’s not like they’d overlook stuff like that.”

If White Lightning could have hummed doubtfully, she would have. Instead, she twisted her face in a somewhat abstract attempt to convey said doubtful humming.

Cloudchaser chuckled and flicked a lock of stray mane off her own face. “Look, if you’re that worried, why don’t you sign up and tell them about stuff like this? And while you’re at it, why not offer your services for the lightning team, eh? Eh?”

White Lightning weathered the elbow-nudging, because that was just Cloudchaser’s way. No obvious objections came to mind, at least none that she could articulate.

After all, surely no one could just commission a storm like that, willy-nilly? “Let ‘er rip” was not the motto of the Cloudsdale Weather Team. And she still wasn’t sure about the claims on that poster.

Instead, she shrugged.

“Neat!” Cloudchaser then tugged at White’s forelimb, making her wince in protest. “Come on. You really should be out here watching all this. I’ve never seen Cloudsdale so lively before!”

Yes, it was lively. That was entirely what brought White Lightning out in a sweat.

As soon as she was aware of dozens of eyes about, dozens of other minds nearby, her own seemed to shut down entirely. She didn’t want to move; since she had to move behind Cloudchaser to weave in-and-out of the crowds, she instead decided she didn’t want to move any more than she had to. And her gaze remained firmly downwards.

From up ahead came the bellow of Crafty Crate. The much calmer tones of his fellow disputant suggested quite plainly why he was bellowing.

“But we got the majority vote!” Paper flapped; Crafty was presumably waving a petition at someone’s face. White Lightning boiled in her stomach, happy her expression was already tight from all the jostling.

Mayor Laurette answered calmly, in a voice that carried enough command to compensate for its strangely soft tone. It was the sort of impregnable velvet that White Lightning wished she possessed.

“I agree an official petition with over one thousand signatures is entitled to an official response. That is the law. The point of contention, I fear, are the non-legal requests made within the document.”

“Don’t tell me a democratically elected mayor is shunning the voice of the many!?”

“Ahem.” Another rustle of paper indicated the transfer of petition from hoof to hoof. “The document in question demands, if I’m not mistaken, a tempest with windspeeds of Beaufort 10 or higher. The Cloudsdale Health and Safety Testing Act requires any such storm’s complete elemental components to be tested at the Factory Test Site, supervised by no less than three legal, governmental, and administrative representatives. Among other provisos.”

“That’ll take weeks!”

“Yes. Taking time to perfect the craft is entirely the point, Mister Crate. Even if you would rather, er, ‘let ‘er rip’ today, the law absolutely forbids any such action.”

Despite herself, White Lightning giggled under her hoof. She’d hated being called “Miss Lightning”.

After a dangerous pause, she heard Crafty say, “Fine.”

He even shuffled as though about to leave.

“BUT!” he said, so loudly that White Lightning almost swallowed her tongue. “Consider this! A well-publicised storm saved the tourism industry for Fillydelphia and Pigpen-Sylvania! Ponies love the spectacle! The raw terror of nature! The godlike power! This summer is absolutely the best time to be racking up the tourist points! You put this off and you’d be cutting off your mane to spite your head!”

“I appreciate your passion, Mister Crate. Thank you for your request.”

She heard him stamp away, muttering to himself, and hoped like heck he hadn’t noticed her giggling earlier.

Then she grimaced in horror as Cloudchaser seized her forelimb and dragged her closer.

“Excuse me, Mayor Laurette? Ma’am, sir, thingy? Um…”

White Lightning hit her own face with a hoof. Ma’am, sir, thingy. Cloudchaser was a lot of things, but a master of etiquette was not one of them.

Surprised, Mayor Laurette said, “How may I help you, uh…?”

“Cloudchaser, ma’am Mayor, ma’am. Uh… My friend didn’t get to sign the petition. Could she do that now?”

“Oh, I see. Whyever not?” A rustle of paper, and White Lightning remembered herself in time. This was the Mayor of Cloudsdale, right in front of her!

Hastily, she bobbed a somewhat clumsy curtsey. Surely manners ought to be observed when talking to such a senior pony of government?

To her shock, she felt the pen hit her hoof and Cloudchaser yank her towards the paper – papers, obviously, there being a thousand signatures – being held up. Instinctively, she dug her hooves into the cloud, sinking slightly.

White Lightning dithered and stared down and resolutely tried not to think too hastily, all while harbouring the horrible suspicion that she was going to end up doing it anyway. Still, she resisted.

“White, this is exactly the sort of show you should be giving. This is why you’re not getting more work than you deserve. More money than you deserve. Stick your neck out! Sign the petition!”

Warning bells rang in White Lightning’s mind. She felt too much push behind her, however much she dug her hooves in, yet no objections came to the rescue.

“Come on, White. What have you got to lose? If you change your mind, you can always opt out later. And Mayor Laurette’s keeping an eye on things. What could go wrong?”

Eventually, after a lot of time that passed for pseudo-thinking, she signed it. She could always opt out later. And Mayor Laurette was keeping an eye on things.

She tried not to think about what could go wrong. Sometimes, she seemed a little too pessimistic compared to the other ponies. Perhaps that was why she’d spent too much of her life in the background?

Finally, the test day came.

“Uh huh,” said Mayor Laurette, neither elated nor disappointed. “And your specialty is…?”

Wincing apologetically, White Lightning stood sideways and poked her cutie mark: a thundercloud, with a single bolt of lightning. Pointing a superior to her rump must be bad manners, but she’d forgotten to write a sign she could hold up, so had to improvise.

“I… see…” said Mayor Laurette. Even in the confines of the testing chamber, her soft voice echoed like metal. “Would you care to demonstrate?”

A nod. A careful breath. A rearing up to balance on her back hooves.

White Lightning hadn’t done this in years. Still, she’d spent all last night studying the theory. If only there hadn’t been a dozen or so ponies behind the safety barrier of inch-thick, reinforced ice, all watching her every move.

She swallowed, but then beckoned to Cloudchaser off to the side.

Cloudchaser nodded. Her goggles came down. Slowly, she eased the thundercloud into position, flapping as carefully as she could, as though nitro-glycerine sloshed inside.

All eyes watched. White Lightning pretended to ignore them. This was just her and the cloud, now. Nothing else mattered here.

She stretched a forelimb out to the side as though reaching for Cloudchaser.

Who bucked.

The lightning bolt slashed through the air with arrow precision, right into White Lightning’s expectant hoof. Into her forelimb, along her skin – everything crackled, she smelled sizzling tin for a moment – and then out when she whipped her other limb up to the ceiling.

Ice exploded overhead. Sheer whiteness engulfed the world around her.

Then mist.

Then nothing. The watching eyes penetrated the mist and her reddening, sweating face…

Behind the glass, Mayor Laurette ticked an item off her list. “Thank you, White Lightning. That will do.”

Only then did White Lightning beam, stare a little too long, and then fall over backwards with a grateful thump.

“Nicely done, White!” said Cloudchaser in the locker room.

Yet again, White Lightning received a pat on the back that sent her stumbling forwards. Her stomach was sending odd messages as it was, and now her skin felt like sandpaper turned inside-out. She winced with each chafe and complaint.

“Wow, just think of the pure poetry of this thing! Lightning storms strikin’ your rooftops! Thunder growlin’, rain crashin’, mysterious mists and sinister stratus! Hoo yeah!”

White Lightning let the talk wash over her. She was happy that her friend was happy. She really was. It was just this ringing in her hears… ears…

That had been an education. She’d never felt so alive. The moment she’d realized it wasn’t about to pass through her heart, and yet: how her heart had skipped a beat, how it had almost stopped and stared as though in awe and wonderment.

Her attempted step swept under her. White Lightning smiled a little uncertainly at the ground coming up to hug her –

Strong hooves grabbed her and raised her up at once. They didn’t let go.

“Whoa! White! Are you okay?”

What an odd question. White beamed up at her and nodded once, or at least threw her head back and forth keenly for this nice mare helping her.

“You sure? I’ve never seen you do that before!”

Concern radiated off the nice mare. White Lightning upped her beaming smile to a toothy grin.

Cloudchaser nearly dropped her in panic; White even felt the jolt.

“Look, White, it’s nice you’re enjoying it now, but don’t overdo it, ‘kay?” Although Cloudchaser laughed, it was clearly the hollow “we’re-all-okay-with-this-so-we-don’t-need-to-do-anything-about-it-isn’t-that-nice” sort of laugh that White was all too familiar with.

She tried to return it, but merely opened her mouth as though to take a happy bite out of –

“And please stop smiling,” groaned Cloudchaser.

Now only one more test was needed: a full storm.

The individual components had been met with a tick each from Mayor Laurette. The twin lawyers Prim and Proper joined her behind the reinforced ice, as well as a trio of grey administrators who were apparently incapable of ever being surprised, judging from their reserved faces.

White watched while also being watched. She noticed Crafty seemed a little more jittery in the presence of so many suits. Whatever he was saying to them, for once he’d restrained his voice enough to make it hard to hear even through the ice.

Lightning bolts crackled and struck the glass; White hastily jumped forth and held her breath against the zapping streams shooting up and down her insides. Winds whipped her face while the wind pegasi flapped harder and harder. Spiralling streaks showed where the twister squad took up stations. Rain hammered and rapped against manes and legs.

In the gymnasium-sized confines of the testing zone, they were barely scratching the sides. Yet a sample was evidently enough. Meters and pressure gauges beeped and flashed inside the control room, itself behind the ice. Engineers in hard hats nodded towards the panel, and beside them Mayor Laurette tapped a microphone.

“Cease testing,” crackled her voice in-between two lightning blasts.

White Lightning nodded and waved to catch the others’ attention. One by one, ponies stopped flapping or kicking or spinning or diving or whirring round and round. One by one, they hit the floor, some even on their hooves.

The panting and the sweating came first, White observed. Only then did the whooping and cheering start, the silence broken first by Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane, then by more and more pegasi. Soon it was impossible to hear Mayor Laurette over the loudspeakers.

“All necessary requirements appear to have been met. Your request for a Storm-class Meteorological Entity may proceed to the next stage of processing.”

“How long’s that take?” said Crafty’s booming voice, butting in.

“Well, we’d need land clearance, permission to use said land, safety announcements and protocols implemented… At a rough guess, eight days minimum.”

The whoops and cheers – to some relief from White Lightning – stopped abruptly. To her annoyance, a few boos broke out.

Smirking behind the glass, Crafty reached down and pressed the button for the speakers. “You hear this, ponies? Obstruction! After all the sweat and blood we’ve put in!”

“Mister Crate,” said Mayor Laurette with barely restrained annoyance. “I am sure you’re aware the extra time also grants us enough time to raise public awareness of this event. I am, as you yourself have indicated, ‘interested in the bottom line’.”

As far as White was concerned, Mayor Laurette won a medal with that small smirk.

Either it didn’t bother Crafty, though, or he completely failed to notice. Indignantly, he added, “As for the location, ain’t it obvious? Ponyville!”

“Excuse me?” said Mayor Laurette. Around them, the other ponies raised their heads higher with sudden legal and administrative interest.

“Come on!” said Crafty, laughter rumbling through his voice. “Think of the good we’d be doing for our neighbours down below! Raw spectacle for everyone, be they unicorn, earth pony, or pegasus! Their mayor would be grateful for any brave new attractions and social thingammies we’d throw their way! Plus, their insurance is adapted to regular monster attacks and magical accidents! What’s the point of having a pegasus pony parade if no one’s going to see it?”

But this time, he was met with uncertain murmurs from the other pegasi. White Lightning glanced across at Cloudchaser, who shrugged back.

Behind the ice, stiff stares tried to wilt Crafty, with about the same effect as a matchstick against a seaweed forest.

“I don’t know what you considered proper in the city, Mister Crate,” said Mayor Laurette in clipped tones, “but here in Cloudsdale we don’t condone that sort of risky behaviour.”

“But the damage would be easy to repair. Don’t tell me you’ve got cold hooves all of a –”

“The committee and I shall get back to you on the matter of the storm’s location, Mister Crate.” Chairs scraped over the loudspeakers. “After due consideration. That, I believe, should suffice for our current purposes. Good day to you.”

While Crafty trembled – either in rage or fear – White Lightning watched them all with narrowed eyes.

She was still narrow-eyed when she strode through Ponyville’s streets an hour later, under the fires of the setting sun. Every now and again she heard Cloudchaser’s frantic panting and flapping behind her.

“What makes you think he’s up to anything?” Cloudchaser paused to pant and catch up some more. “Come on, White. What’s in Ponyville that he’d find so offensive?”

As they passed a lane, White glanced meaningfully up it, towards the hustle and bustle of the main market. Cloudchaser scoffed before they moved on.

“So what? He had a stall there or something? Someone complained about his cherries? White, he’s not going to send a storm at a whole town just because he ran a stall there once. He’s not insane.” A pause, then she added, “Not that way, at any rate.”

Frowning, tight-lipped, White Lightning spun around so fast that Cloudchaser flapped manically trying not to bump into her. White rummaged in her satchel to hold up some sheets.

After a while, she eased up and plucked out a pen, grinning apologetically around it.

“You’re going to ask the locals? How the heck do you intend to phrase that question?”

White looked around and cracked her hooves like a pianist. Sighing, Cloudchaser followed her about the square.

Most of the rest of the evening consisted of this:

“A storm in Ponyville?” moaned Berry Punch, who paused to peer back at her own cottage; a few neglected tiles fell off the roof with a crack. “Are they nuts? I can barely pay the insurance as it is! My drinks business is hitting a slump! Did you know they rolled out a new line of juices at Barnyard Bargains? How can I compete if I’m paying more to save a dilapidated house?”

“A storm in Ponyville!?” squeaked Roseluck. Behind her, Lily and Daisy turned white, their plant pots slipping in their grips. “What, like… actual lightning strikes? G-G-G-Gales that can blow you off the g-g-g-ground? Enough r-r-r-rain to f-f-flood us? Wh-Wh-What if it goes wrong? I don’t want to die! I didn’t opt for this! Can I opt out? Please? Tell them I opt out!”

“A storm in Ponyville, huh,” muttered Cranky Doodle Donkey while Matilda beside him shook her head. “And what about us who don’t want all that crashing noise over our heads? Oh, but I guess the loudmouths get the best votes, so figures. Who cares about a couple of old donkeys, right?”

“A storm in Ponyville!” Mrs Cake laughed nervously, over the crying of the twins and the frantic shushing noises of Mr Cake behind the counter of their bakery. “I’m sorry. I just don’t see the appeal. It’s noise and mess, isn’t it? And our poor dears wouldn’t like it one bit. I know my husband gets jumpy enough over cake orders.”

After the last door shut and Cloudchaser finished the muffins she’d bought, she turned to White and said, “So what now? It’s not much of an opinion poll, and we’ve learned squat about Crafty’s motives. You’re being paranoid.”

White, traipsing behind, shook her satchel and sighed. It didn’t matter. She’d keep going again tomorrow. Perhaps by then she’d have a much better plan to replace it with?

She bumped into someone. Automatically, she crouched by way of apology.

And met Crafty’s glare coming the other way.

“So,” he rumbled, and for a moment White felt what it would be like to meet a thundercloud that could speak.

She forced herself to stare at the ground. Even if she could speak, she wouldn’t dare. Not when the very air trembled with the typhoon of rage he kept in check.

“Sneaking behind my back, huh?” he continued. “You wanna know what I’m up to, huh? Too wimpy to ask me, huh? Well, here’s lesson number one: whatever I’m doing, at least it’s something. What are you doing, deadbeat?”

She bit her lip.

“I’ve got the stuff. I’ve got drive and life and all that. You learn fast in the cities, not in Hicksville here. You want some advice, mute? Speak first and speak loudest.”

Then White sniffed. Anger boiled the air all around him, yet there, under the sizzling and the spitting, she sensed something else.

“At least I’m not a doormat in the background.”

She gritted her teeth but still didn’t dare look up. Instead, she sniffed again.

Presumably mistaking this for crying, Crafty added, “Hey, I’m not being mean. It’s just the facts of life. You wanna amount to anything, this is good stuff to know.”

But this time, she’d caught his scent. She’d caught the tang. Mixed in with the fury and affront was the smell of shrivelled, rotting desperation. Clinging on.

“HEY!”

She heard Cloudchaser’s shout, and then sensed Crafty’s presence move away. When she finally looked up, she’d given him enough time to fly away and Cloudchaser enough time to skid to a halt before her.

“Sorry, I wasn’t looking behind,” said Cloudchaser quickly. “Did he do anything?”

White shook her head, suppressing the urge to look down. It was amazing how well a mute could lie.

As they walked away, she thought, Desperation?

What is he planning? Sabotage? Anyone who thinks like that might be capable of anything. And “anything” means “anything”.

On the first day, White Lightning tried to see Mayor Laurette to discuss her concerns, or at least to write them down and hold them up while making persuasive “serious” faces. It didn’t help that she kept suppressing the urge to curtsey.

“I appreciate your concerns, White Lightning, but the decisions affecting the storm are no longer Mister Crate’s concern. I’ve already placed Star Hunter in charge of the Weather Team.”

A short while later, it transpired that Star Hunter had “mysteriously” taken leave due to a “family matter”, though no one was clear what that was. Crafty seemed unusually jubilant that day, though.

On the second day, White Lightning tried to tell her fellow weather ponies, such as Cloudchaser. She didn’t hold out much hope considering the locker room’s usual chatter involved a lot of sentences on the lines of “This storm is gonna be awesome!” or “Oh man, that time when we whipped up the winds in the testing chamber? That was so rad!”

“Crafty’s been giving out ‘gifts’,” whispered Cloudchaser as the others filed out for weather duty. “And he keeps making speeches about ‘living as full pegasi’. I don’t think you’ll have much luck swaying the crowd. He just… talks big. Bigger than you. Sorry, White. I don’t know.”

On the third day, White sat alone on the edge of the cloud fields, overlooking Ponyville.

From up here, it seemed so small, so obvious a target. She didn’t know what to do.

So she breathed in. She breathed out. She let her mind’s storm thin and clear itself to gentle rain. She listened to the patter. So far, nothing.

On the fourth day, she went to the same spot, but gave it up when she heard Crafty’s big speeches from the town square. From up here, it sounded like he was just generically promoting the storm as though it would happen someplace else.

She didn’t understand it yet. If he was going along with the plan – which she was sure he wasn’t really – why the anger? Why the need to focus on Ponyville? Why the desperation?

On the fifth day, she asked around Ponyville again, this time without papers and just trying to remember what others told her while Cloudchaser dutifully translated for her. It took most of the day, but what they pieced together was that Crafty had apparently been involved in a few jobs: delivery service, construction work, the cherry stand in the marketplace… None had lasted long.

“Revenge?” said Cloudchaser at once. “That seems obvious.”

But White shook her head sternly.

“What do you mean, ‘not yet’? What more do you need?”

On the sixth day, she went to find out. This time, she found Thunderlane and, again with Cloudchaser’s help (“Don’t ask me, I’m just translating!”), poked the topic.

“I can tell you lots of stuff about storms,” he said, shrugging. “It’s the middle where everything has to hang together. If that goes unstable, one thing spirals into another and the whole thing comes crashing down. The principle’s the same as the hurricane on Hurricane Day. Remember?”

On the seventh day, White started avoiding places at work wherever Crafty showed up; she even asked Cloudchaser to hand in reports for her. She suspected he’d figured out what her game was by now; she dreaded what it might do to her own composure. That rain in her head needed time to settle. It still hadn’t.

On the eighth day, the location was announced: a few nearby fields, chiefly the abandoned south field of the apple farm, away from the town. Extra personnel would guard the perimeter in case of breaches. Mayor Laurette and Mayor Mare of Ponyville allowed Crafty to spread flyers across town, advertising the event.

On the ninth day, White breathed deeply. Sitting alone in her room. Taking all the time she needed. The rain in her mind had stopped, but now it was just dark cloud. Nothing came to mind.

Maybe she was thinking about this all wrong? Crafty was many things, but was he really a saboteur? Was she being unfair? After all, who’d insist that they move a storm to a town? Why would they do it? All the risks for destruction: What would it prove?

Catharsis? Desperate for destruction? Lashing out? Maybe it was revenge, like Cloudchaser said, but then why drag a storm into this? Why go to such spectacular lengths? It was more usual to lash out on the spot, without thinking. And what would a storm prove?

How could this be both a desperate impulse and a plan?

So she tried thinking from another angle. What about his future chances? Didn’t he foresee what would happen if he ever did get it to Ponyville, against all official advice? Why would he discount the future so steeply?

She ate well that night, trying to fuel her working brain. She craved chocolates, something sweet, but she’d deliberately refrained from accepting any of the “gifts” Crafty was handing out. She had no intention of breaking her diet, much less of accepting anything from him or his followers.

Her book had taught her discipline.

On the tenth day, she got Cloudchaser over.

Bucking lightning clouds.

White Lightning caught the bolts in quick succession and threw them across the cloud fields. Each bank of cloud disintegrated instantly.

Despite Cloudchaser’s protests, she insisted on shooting over and over. Even as her skin crackled more and more each time, and even as spasms crossed her face, she aimed over and over.

“You’re nuts,” said Cloudchaser. “What’s this for? You’re gonna fry yourself?”

White merely signalled for another bolt.

On the eleventh day, a crowd gathered along the fences for the south field. Crafty was up-front, taking photographs and talking over Mayor Laurette while she was being interviewed by reporters.

On the twelfth day, the extra personnel meant to guard the perimeter didn’t show up.

The crowds murmured amongst themselves.

Mayor Laurette glanced across at Crafty, who examined the sky in apparent innocence. But then she looked at the crowd. The hungry, large, all-too-excitable crowd.

She looked up at the pegasi floating in position. White Lightning gulped as a thousand eyes crackled worse than lightning over her skin.

Decision…?

Mayor Laurette turned to the crowd and shook her head. Unfortunately, Crafty chose that exact moment to shout, “GO!” He gave the hoof signal.

Wind ponies slashed the air around her. Rain ponies thumped their piled loads, soaking the air with drizzle. Lightning ponies kicked clouds; she jinked out of the way of a rogue bolt. Crowds ooh-aahed before the turbulence drowned them out.

White strayed out of range. She watched as a funnel of pegasi rose up in the middle, and the winds began to swirl, and the world turned greyer and greyer, and the lightning cut through everything, but around the margins; Crafty had insisted on keeping the centre clear, and with good reason.

White flapped further out of range. There was the swirling vortex, the hurricane, building up around the clouds. Too many pegasi were in it, not seeing the whole thing. Soon, the orchard was smothered.

Amid all the chaotic concentration and flapping and raining, it would only take a nudge.

White saw Crafty rising. Saw him flap once. Dived towards the air-blast –

Too late. It struck.

A pegasus on the outer rim flapped harder to compensate. Ripples spread through the entire storm. More and more, the funnel leaned away from Crafty, and White stopped and watched in horror as the storm sent the crowd of ponies screaming in terror away from it, and sent the whole thing scything down the slope, faster towards the edge of the gardens and footpaths, faster towards cottages and streets, faster towards Ponyville.

And not a soul inside knew about it. They were too busy with their own little jobs.

White saw all. She shot ahead of the storm, feeling its tempting tug, feeling its howling insistence echoing through her. She judged distance and timing before sweeping round and stopping. She took a deep breath.

One pegasus against a juggernaut storm.

Her eyes focused through the mist and swirling colours. Onto the funnel in the heart. She stretched her limbs up. Someone on the ground shouted behind her. Already she heard windows crashing below.

A lightning bolt leapt out of the vanguard –

As did another.

Both struck her hoof at once. Sheer heat and pain bit her skin like swarms of killer bees, but she gritted her teeth and forced her other limb up, and she aimed, and a thousand practice sessions came back to her.

The bolts combined, shot through the clouds, shot through the funnels, scattered alarmed pegasi nearby, stabbed at the very heart of the storm.

Exploded with sparks.

It wasn’t enough to finish it, but it woke up a few pegasi. She watched through raw, red, weeping eyes while her skin crinkled like burnt paper. Shapes shifted. Flapping slowed. Coloured streaks resolved into pegasi. The winds slowed. The lightning stopped. The rain faded away.

Greyness retreated. After a few counter-flaps, the pegasi left nothing but mist, and even that brightened and lightened up under the returning sunlight. And silence.

White Lightning landed on her side, but the shocks still ringing through her meant she felt nothing.

Felt nothing. Saw nothing. Was troubled by nothing.

Now…?

She sat on the edge of the cloud field, eyes closed…

…surrounded by nothing.

No sounds.

No sights.

No distractions. Just her, exposed to no one but herself.

It was now two weeks since that day. No one had known where the rogue lightning bolt had come from. All anyone remembered was waking up to find the whole lot bearing down on Ponyville. They’d been so busy with the storm that White’s smoking body hadn’t been found until much later, and they’d simply assumed she’d gotten caught while managing the storm.

She’d spent two weeks in hospital, waiting patiently for release and enjoying her own time to herself there. Oh, she’d received visitors, but for the most part she was background to the general drama.

“Crafty’s out of a job again!” Cloudchaser had said excitedly on one of her visits. “Mayor Laurette officially banned any and all future storms of that size! I can’t lie; I’ll miss the fun bits, at least up until Ponyville came the heck out of nowhere, but hey, all’s well that ends well, right?”

All’s well that ends well?

White sniffed the air. She smelled the desperation before she heard the thump of hooves behind her.

Only when the hoofsteps subsided did she turn around to face Crafty.

He towered over her. He was bulging with fat pretending to be muscles and muscles giving in to the fat, behind a beard that had finally escaped his management. He looked like a bellow in pony form.

Before she could stop her own expression, his eyes narrowed at it.

“I don’t need your pity,” he growled. “I just wanted to tell you… I wanted to say… I…”

Her wings drooped. She leaned forwards, ears cocked. Her expression came back.

Several seconds passed in silence.

Then he sighed and sat down on the edge of the cloud, some feet away from her.

“Oh, what’s the use?” he said. “I was gonna bawl you out, but so what if I did?” Hastily he added, “This doesn’t prove anything, you know! I’m not gonna be beaten, not in this dead countryside!”

Does that mean you were beaten in the city? By bigger and louder ponies? And then you came here and wanted to be a big pony in a little town?

“I’ll get another job! I always bounce back! I don’t need your pity, or your help!”

Why do you keep losing them? Do you try to build storms everywhere you go?

“I bet it would have worked fine if you hadn’t butted in.” He hummed, either through doubt or disdain; it was hard to judge. “I saw you do that. Everyone else thought the lightning bolt was random, but I saw you throw it. Why did you stop me?”

…you really don’t know?

So she gestured to the countryside. To the vast fields of hard work. To the buildings of comfort and peace. To the streets and the grass and the sunshine of quiet life drifting through the background: ignored, little from up here, and unimpressive, but always there where it was needed.

She grinned like a loon, expectant.

He shrugged. “It just looks dead to me.”

White pouted irritably and turned away.

After a while, he said, chummily at first, “You must be confused. So it was a little risky. That’s what made it so worth it! I was gonna give them something they’d never had before and wake them out of their miserable lives. So what if I got fired? I can get more jobs! But you had to get all storms cancelled. Do you know how much it’s worth, being the first to create something like that? They’d forget the disaster and remember my glorious name. But you health-and-safety fools done ruined it all!”

White grimaced up at him. You think I’m the one confused!?

Then she caught his eye.

Desperation wriggled inside of it. Behind the bluster and the bravado and the booming voice, she realized, was the heart of the storm. Desperate not to go out. After all, what was a storm without bluster and bravado and the booming? Storms got attention. Storms looked like life next to dead quietude.

She wondered what kind of mind would believe that. As though nothing but storms mattered. How could such a mind manage in hundreds of days without anything like a storm? It’d be like suffering a whole year just to live for a day.

Hastily, she wiped the tears forming in her eyes and looked away.

“I’m ruined,” he moaned.

Silence filled the gap. Closing her eyes, she breathed in heavily and then breathed out softly.

From afar came the scents of meadow flowers, and as they reached into her muzzle, they tingled and tickled. The smile bloomed instantly.

“I don’t get ponies like you. What’s so great about all this?”

Out of the dark clouds left in her mind, White saw the sunlight poke through.

She rose up and shot back, ignoring his question, rushing into her home, grabbing the book, discarding its bookmark, and rushing back out to land next to him, slightly closer. So close she could reach across and touch him.

Holding her smile in check with an apologetic skew of her face, she held up the book. Surprise caught on his face. He squinted at the cover.

“Extroverts and Introverts: A Field Guide,” he read aloud. His glare met her face. “What are you trying to say? What’s your game?”

Quickly, she slumped and turned her head away. A slight hopeful glance met him sidelong, but she wasn’t sure he’d get the message.

“Why didn’t you tell everyone you stopped the storm?” he said slowly, as though uncertain of his own question. “I saw you done it.”

She glanced down at her hooves.

“What have you got to be ashamed of? You’d be a hero. Everyone would remember your name.”

Her lips twisted up all by themselves. She shook her head.

“Huh. Weird.”

Her shoulder shook, suppressing a chuckle her voice could never give. To her surprise, she felt the book pulled out of her grip.

“Hm… Maybe I do need to stop and think. But this proves nothing! I’m just figuring things out, all right?”

Smiling, she shrugged at him. His look was dubious, but he tucked the book under his pit.

A flurry of flapping: he became a vanishing dot.

She went back to meditating. After all, he didn’t need to learn everything overnight. There was all the time in the world.