Hot.

It was searing hot.

“Good lord above, I’m gonna melt,” whined Blue as he was draped across the couch in the middle of the library.

“I might beat you to it,” Spike added in, laying flat on his scaly back on the wooden floor. Groans of agreement came from the nearby Nyx and Twilight who were in similar positions.

Blue took to trying to use his wing as a fan in a desperate attempt for some kind of relief. “Is this normal, Twi? If it is, I might have to move where your brother is; I can’t stand this dan…. Darn heat.”

Twilight huffs a little as she pried herself off the wooden floor, magicing up a spatula to assist as part of her body had gotten stuck from the sweat. “I appreciate you watching your language, but this is far from normal. The weather schedule said they’re prepping for a big summer storm this week, but I didn’t think the heat would be this intense as they prepped for it.”

“Wonderful,” Blue grumbled sarcastically. He watched as Twilight started grabbing her saddle bags, raising a brow. “What’re you doing?”

As she placed the bags on her back and wiped some fresh sweat from her mane, she answered his question, “I’m going to go see Rainbow Dash. This level of heat isn’t safe, especially for the vulnerable. I don’t even feel safe letting Nyx out of the house with how intense the sun would bear down on her black fur. There must be some kind of relief the weather team can do for us and since she’s in charge, I’m gonna go have a word with her.”

Blue sighed softly as he rolled off the couch. “Alright, but I’m coming with. Don’t need mama Twi going all Karen on RD.”

“All what now?” she asked with a raised brow of her own as well as a frown, feeling like she’d just been insulted.

“Earth thing,” he quickly answered, suddenly feeling some energy as he rushed by Twilight. “Let's get going before this gets worse.” While Twilight did purse her lips suspiciously, she forewent any further questions as she followed him to the door.

“Spike, you and Nyx stay inside and try anyway to keep cool, ok? We’ll be back soon.” After getting a tired thumbs up from her assistant, Twilight and Blue left the library and quickly got on the road into Ponyville. “Ugh, it’s even worse out here.”

Blue let out a deep breath as he trotted alongside her. “Oh yeah, this is where the true humidity is. Heat can have all of my hate, from now until the day I die.”

A giggle escaped Twilight’s lips, getting a small grin from the stallion in kind as they continued on. The oppressive warmth and stickiness to the air kept their conversation light, silence reigning between the two ponies. This silence left time for the mind to wander, as well as the eyes, especially Twilight’s as hers fell on her companion. She looked all over his form for a few moments before realizing that she was ogling him, quickly divertiny her gaze before he could notice.

‘Get ahold of yourself, Twilight,’ she internally chastised herself. ‘He’s a stranger, an interdimensional one at that! He’s not even really a pony, just looks like one.’ Despite what she thought, her face turned to a soft frown, not believing those thoughts after rethinking them. ‘No, that’s not fair. He’s been living in my house for nearly 3 months now. Sure there’s things I don’t know, but he doesn’t even know them either. And who cares if he wasn’t originally a pony? He’s one now; isn’t that all that matters?’

These questions continued to play on loop in her brain, glancing back to her companion every so often as she did so. In honesty, she couldn’t find much about him physically to complain about. Despite being a bookworm like herself, he was in relatively good shape, only just a bit chubby, though she could chalk that up to him having little to do outside of flight practice, reading, and the occasional cooking. Sure, that left him fairly average, but… it was a nice average.

Still, her mind kept calling back to that scene she’d seen of him and Nyx. It felt so… natural, seeing those two talking and bonding. She would even say it was rather surprising how well Nyx had taken to their new tenant, going to him willinging whenever Twilight or Spike were too busy to help with her homework. Turned out that while the stallion couldn’t do much with her magic studies, he had quite the penchant for mathematics.

“Who knew?” He had shrugged it off at the time, believing to be a remnant of his memories. Still, it was something she felt admirable that he’d be so willing to help a filly he barely knew.

Then she would think of Spike. He and Blue hadn’t spent a lot of time together, but the few times they did, they clearly got along and seemed like they could become good friends in time. She could clearly feel that would be the case, if only time would allow for it.

‘Maybe I’ll give Spike some time off next week. He and Blue might be able to really connect if they had some of that “guy time” they always talk about.”

A tapping on her side brought the princess out of her thoughts, looking over at Blue. “Hm? Is something the matter?”

Blue lifted his hoof and pointed in the distance. “Look.” As she followed where his hoof was pointing, she’d see a large collection of clouds off in the distance that were quickly shifting and being maneuvered. “If I was a betting boy, I’d wager Rainbow has to be over there.”

Twilight couldn’t agree more, nodding her head. “It looks like they’re gathering over Sweet Apple Acres. Let’s get going.” She then took off into a gallop, leaving Blue in the dust for a moment.

“H-hey, wait up!” he called after her, quickly falling behind her steps. As they sped off, Blue couldn’t help but think of his first visit to the Apple farm. It had only been a couple days after he’d first fallen into this world when Applejack had swung by to bring him out to the farm. Sure, she’d let him try one of the fruits at the market, but actually getting to see where they came from was a shock to his brain. Seeing acres upon acres of lucious apple trees stretching for what seemed like miles nearly short circuited his human-pony brain.

He wasn’t sure what he said after seeing them, but whatever it was had to have been incredibly dumb as it made Applejack collapse in a fit of laughter, leaving his cheek flushed in embarrassment. After that little blunder, he’d been introduced to the rest of her family, consisting of a big brother named Big Macintosh (Mac to his friends), a little sister called Apple Bloom (who was quite adorable he had to admit), and their paternal grandmother Granny Smith. He’d found it odd that they were the only ones there, but he’d quickly thought better than to ask as just before he did, he caught Granny shaking her head somberly. He had a feeling he knew then what she meant and only clarified it with Twilight later that day that they were the only ones on that farm now.

Still, it wasn’t a day that ended in somber quiet, but in a happy family meal he’d been invited to join. Blue had found himself devouring nearly every type of treat the apples had made, finding their special apple stew to be the most savory. Though it had nearly led to some… difficulties when he found himself unable to eat any of their world famous apple pie. Thankfully after some explaining, courtesy of Pinkie who had just… suddenly appeared, it was cleared up about his lack of taste for any kind of pie, leaving the pinkest of them to re-establish her promise to find him one before she pronked off that farm just as quickly as she had appeared.

‘I really wanna know how she does that. It looks like a lot of fun.’ he thought to himself as he left his memories, looking ahead as they entered the farm proper. Blue and Twilight came to a screeching stop, just meters before they almost toppled right into Applejack, who looked at them with a single raised brow and wide eyes.

“What in tarnation? The hay are you two doing all the way out here in this gosh-dern heat, huh?” Applejack asked while scratching her head.

Twilight gathered her breath before she could manage to answer. “We were looking for Rainbow. Blue saw the cloud gathering out here so, here we are.”

“You were looking for me?” came Rainbow’s voice behind the pair, causing Twilight to jump, turning to be next to Applejack and frowning at Rainbow who started laughing. “Nice reaction there, Sparkle!” She then looked at Blue before drooping that he hadn’t reacted, the stallion splayed on his barrel on the ground. “Aw man. Well, at least I got one to jump.”

“Too hot. Surprise function disabled,” Blue droned tiredly.

Twilight sighed slightly, knowing to expect this from her friend. “The heat is actually why we’re here, Rainbow Dash. Is there any way Ponyville is going to get some relief soon? If it continues like this, I fear somepony might be seriously hurt. Like Nyx, you know with her fur, she can’t even be outside in this oppressive weather.”

The pegasus mare could only sigh. “I wanna help, Twi, really. But we’re having trouble rounding up the clouds we need to do anything small enough to get a cool down. Everything is going towards the big summer storm later this week. If we hadn’t had such a calm Spring, it wouldn’t be this bad, but we have to make up for it.” She then looked up to the gathered clouds above. “Even these are being troublesome, barely able to hold together long enough for us to get a little rain storm on the farms so nothing gets damaged from the heat.”

White they were talking, Blue found himself rolling on his back, looking at the clouds above. He watched as they moved and puffed about, finding it oddly hypnotizing to witness as the cloud just moved about. Though as he kept watching, his eyes couldn’t help but narrow as he swore he could see something.

Ignoring the mares around him, Blue got to his hooves and, despite the heat around him, he took to the air. He flapped his wings until he was up at the cloud level, putting his muzzle right up to the clouds and blinked as he could see something. Reaching to the edge of the cloud, he pulled out what looked like a piece of crystal in his hoof, sparkling softly in the sunlight.

‘What am I looking at exactly?’ he thought to himself before seeing even more in the cloud. He reached inside and grabbed another, looking over the two crystals before putting them together. He expected them to just clink, but instead his eyes widened as the two crystals merged into a single large one. He jumped a little in surprise, dropping the crystal that landed on the cloud before melting before his eyes into a single large drop of water that dropped down to the ground below.

It was then when it dawned on Blue, whispering to himself, “Ice. I can see ice crystals in the clouds.” He looked again, shoving his muzzle into one of the other closest clouds, finding hundreds, maybe even thousands of tiny ice crystals inside. He moved to another, then another, each time only further confirming his suspicions. As he removed his head, he tapped his chin as he tried to understand this conundrum. “But… why I can I see ice crystals? Is this a pegasus thing? Rainbow never mentioned it.”

On a whim, he hit a cloud slightly with his hoof before blinking as he felt something strange. He looked inside the cloud again, his jaw dropping he saw that now there were several larger crystals in the cloud rather than hundreds of smaller ones.Blue pulled his head free, getting an idea as he then stood on the cloud and began bouncing on it slightly. Rainbow had told him and Twilight about how this was one way pegasi could activate a cloud to rain and he had to wonder what would happen with this ice crystals. After bouncing a few times, he looked under the cloud and what he saw nearly made his eyes fall out their sockets.

Snow.

They lasted only seconds, but he knew what he was seeing. Little snowflakes had fallen from the cloud that he’d jumped on. He picked his head up, staring seemingly at nothing as his brain tried to process this. He was able to see ice crystals, put them together to make bigger ones, and jumping on a cloud created snow. Putting a hoof to his chin, Blue began to formulate a plan, looking around at the still moving mass of clouds around him that the weather team were still trying to round up.

‘RD said they were having trouble getting enough of a small storm to cool things off. It’s clearly so hot that any snow I make is going to melt quickly, just like that ice that melted nearly instantly once I wasn’t holding it. Come on, brain, think. How can I use this to help out? Think, think, think!’

As he continued to get frustrated, he kicked the cloud he was on into a nearby one. He blinked as he saw the clouds suddenly start to merge unlike how the weather team had been trying to get them all to. Blue flew up to the merged cloud, seeing the ice crystals inside had all merged into a smaller collection, stabilizing the cloud instantly.

Blue got a smile on his face. “Lightbulb.”

Back on the ground, Twilight was still trying to work with Rainbow Dash. “Is it really so hard right now, Rainbow? I mean, look at all these clouds.”

The pegasus just shook her head. “These are scrap clouds, Twi. Leftovers that weren’t working with the bigger storm we had. Trust me, we’ve been trying to get something out of them, but at the end of the day, they’re literal trash. If we could get some rain out of them, I absolutely would, but it’s just not gonna happen-”

Rainbow found herself suddenly interrupted as a splash of water suddenly hit her muzzle. She blinked a few times, Twilight and Applejack both doing the same. In unison, the mares heads looked up and saw a familiar blue pegasus, pushing and bouncing on clouds, a few large rain drops falling as he did so, but not enough to cause the clouds to disperse, clearly.

“Is that Blue?” Applejack asked the obvious question.

“Yup,” Twilight answered, mimicking her friend’s older brother as she could just stare.

“How is he doing that?” Rainbow rubbed the side of her head. “We’ve been trying for hours to get those clouds to merge. But he’s just pushed them together like it’s nothing. He’s not a secret genius is he?”

“If he is, he’s one of the weirdest ones,” Applejack commented, catching a small frown from Twilight. “No offense, Twi, but we know Blue ain’t quite right. Taking being put in a new body so easily but finding out about the princesses is where he shakes the town with a scream? Boy ain’t quite right in the head”

“Well, he may not be… normal, but he’s a good pony,” Twilight tried to defend. Even she had to admit that Blue had some odd mannerisms, but he really did seem to have a good heart. And watching the stallion merge those clouds together just to help out was definitely causing her heart to beat just a little faster.

After only a few minutes moving about, the gathering of clouds had been collected into a single large mass that stretched out over Sweet Apple Acres. Rainbow couldn’t help but let out a soft whistle. “So he can be fast when he wants to.”

Then a smirk crossed her face.

“Time to get to work!” She zipped right up to the cloud formation, leaving a rainbow trail behind her as she joined Blue on the clouds. “Nice work, Bluey!” She praised, slapping him on the back.

“Guh!” He yelped in surprise, having been lost in his own head moving the clouds. “Oh, Rainbow! I, uh, I can explain…”

“I’m not sure you can, but whatever. You managed to get these clouds into a single system. Let us take it from here.”

“Oh, well, if you’re sure,” he rubbed his neck slightly before looking to his side. “Hey, I know it’s kind of odd, but can I keep this one?”

Rainbow raised a brow before shrugging. “Eh, sure, why not. You did us a big favor getting this set up, but I’m gonna wanna know how later.”

“Sounds like a deal to me,” he smiled before taking the cloud and heading back down to the ground, being met by Twilight and Applejack. “Hey girls. Miss me?”

Both rolled their eyes. “Not a bad job for your first time, Blue,” Applejack praised slightly. “Looks Ponyville might just get the relief she needs.” She turned her head up, watching as the weather team started bounding the clouds and after a few moments, the rain started to fall in earnest. Soon enough, a perfect rainfall began to drench the farmlands as well as the three ponies below before the storm started pushing back towards Ponyville, already a coolness settling in around them as they sighed and took it in.

“Oh that’s so much better,” Twilight sighed.

“Definitely refreshing,” Blue agreed.

“Well, I better get back to my chores before I’m completely rained out,” Applejack said with a tip of her hat before she started walking off towards the barn. “Y’all stay safe and come back now, ya hear?”

“We hear ya, cowgirl,” Blue joked as he and Twilight chuckled and started making their way back to the treebrary, not minding the soaking rain in the slightest as it cooled them off from what would certainly be marked as the hottest day of the year.

Twilight couldn’t help but ask as they walked though, “What’s with the extra cloud? Gonna make a new bed in the basement? You just needed to ask if the mattress wasn’t quite what you need.”

He shook his head with a smile. “No it’s not for that. I wanna try something, but I need to get this back to the house first.”

Twilight couldn’t help but find herself curious, pursing her lips and raising a brow. “Well alright then. And on the way, you can explain to me what a ‘Karen’ is?”

Blue swallowed hard. “Crap…”

The road back to their home was certainly much more energetic than how they left, Blue getting an earful for comparing Twilight to the human equivalent of a “Market Mare” had left him desperately racing ahead of her with the cloud. Thankfully by the time they’d arrived at Golden Oaks, the cooling rain had soothed her hurt feelings, as well as a promise from the stallion to never call her that again. The pair walked inside, using the front entrance to shake their coats out of the rainwater before going inside fully, finding Nyx and Spike just where they left them.

“How’re you feeling, sweetie?” Twilight asked motherly as she moved over to her daughter, gently rubbing her wing on the filly’s back.

“Sweaty and tired,” Nyx moaned. The rain had been going for a while now, but clearly not enough to soothe the inside just yet.

“It’ll get better soon, ok? The rain should cool things off for a bit.”

Spike grumbled on the floor, having moved to where he was face first on the wood.

“Can we get a repeat on that?” Blue jokingly asked.

The dragon replied by grabbing himself by the head and peeling it off the floor boards. “Not fast enough.”

Blue couldn’t help but chuckle at the scenario as he moved the cloud he brought back above the family he’d been staying with. “Well, let’s see if we can’t speed things up, huh?”

Twilight instantly fumed. “Hey, you can’t go having a rain cloud in here! You’ll ruin all my books! If I knew this is what you were planning, I never would have agreed to it!”

He quickly waved his wings defensively. “Woah woah, Twi, that’s not my plan at all. But shouldn’t work, you have full permission to harm me. But really, I have an idea that just might help them. Trust me, ok? Please?”

The alicorn pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him some before just as quickly she sighed in defeat. “Very well. I have no reason not to trust you, so if you think you have something to help my brother and daughter, go ahead.”

With a hoof pump, Blue quickly got on the cloud. “Alright, now if this works the way I think it will…” he trailed off as he focused on the cloud before he began jumping on it. Twilight braced herself for a torrent of rain to drop out like she was used to, however her eyes began to wide as what she saw start falling from the cloud was something else entirely.

“Snow‽” she shouted, catching the attention of Nyx and Spike fully, their own eyes widening as the snowflakes fell on them. Blue happily kept bouncing on the cloud as more and more flakes fell, quickly forming a light dusting on the library floor and on Nyx and Spike who had big smiles on their faces as they pried themselves up off the floor and began running under the cloud.

“This is totally awesome!” the dragon cheered, catching a few flakes on his tongue. “It’s actual snow! In July!”

“This is so amazing! Thank you, Blue! It’s just what we needed!” Nyx giggled as she laid in the fresh snow and began wiggling her body and limbs. “Spike! Come make snow angels with me!”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile as the dragon quickly joined in, her smile turning to Blue who had just hoped down from the cloud. “That was very nice of you, Blue. But, how did you do it? Snowflakes are usually made up in Cloudsdale and applied to clouds.”

With a shrug, Blue began to explain as best he could. “I can’t truly say, I just… could see the ice crystals within the clouds and when I did the whole weather pegasus thing, I got snow instead of rain. I don’t get the why myself, but this,” he looked over to where Nyx and Spike were playing, already building an igloo. “If whatever this of mine can do that? Then I’ll do it gladly.” A sudden flash from behind them caused the two ponies to look back. Nothing seemed to be there until Twilight gasped, pointing at Blue’s behind. Upon looking, he could only stare in shock where once had been blue fur was now the symbol of a white cloud with snow flakes falling from it.

He’d gotten a cutie mark.

HIS cutie mark.

Blue could only stare dumbly at the image before looking at Twilight who seemed ecstatic.

“You got your cutie mark! That’s amazing, Blue!” She gave him a quick embrace and before either of them knew what had happened, she kissed him directly on the cheek.

For both ponies, the world suddenly stopped after Twilight pulled her lips back. Two shocks in row had left Blue standing there speechless. Twilight, however, suddenly turned red in the face before letting him go and rushing off to the kitchen.

“Gottamakedinner!” she shouted quickly before disappearing.

Blue put a hoof up to his cheek where he’d been kissed, looking over at Nyx and Spike who had just missed everything while playing in the snow. As he pulled the hoof back and looked at it, hjs gaze then trailed back to the kitchen, his mind reeling from everything before swallowing hard.

‘D-Do I have a crush?’ Was all he could think as he settled down on the couch, listening to the two younger ones playing while his mind continued reeling.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I've just gotten a new job and left my old one so I've been trying to get a few things settled. While it won't be often as I'd like, I am trying to at least get a new chapter out a month. So I'll see y'all in August!