It was too quiet.
Fluttershy didn’t like loud noises, either, but the still silence of the abandoned weather factory was almost too much for her to bear. Unhelpful as well were the monolithic cranes and long rows of dagger-toothed saws used for crushing ice into hail. A draft spilled into the room through the interstices of wooden slabs hammered to the windows.
Creak.
Fluttershy shrieked. “S—Spitfire?”
There was a laugh as the younger filly stepped back out of the shadows, dragging a hammer with her mouth. “Yerf oh impy, Futterfy!” Dropping the hammer onto the floor, she repeated herself. “You’re so wimpy, Fluttershy!” She turned her attention back to the hammer. “I think they used these to make Nimbus clouds…
“Spitfire, we really shouldn’t be in here!” Fluttershy stumbled forward to her sister, throwing her hooves over the other filly’s shoulders. “Rainbow Dash is always saying that this thing could go any second!”
Spitfire groaned, pushing Fluttershy away. “Ugh, you never want to let me have any fun! Come on, we haven’t even gotten to any of the good stuff yet! I think there might still be an active windmill!”
“Wait!” Fluttershy called, jumping at her own echo as Spitfire trotted off through a tall, narrow doorway. She followed her, peering around the doorway tentatively. Spitfire was sitting at the base of a massive spire, eyes wide with excitement.
“Hey, Fluttershy, betcha I can fly to the veeeeeery top!”
“No,” Fluttershy called, holding up a hoof as Spitfire flapped her little wings, hovering about a meter in the air before slowly ascending.
Fluttershy crept into the room, looking up at the monolith. She realized that it wasn’t just any monolith; it was an out-of-commission windmill, one of the six-hundred ones that had once powered the winds above central Equestria. They weren’t supposed to still be active, and Fluttershy hoped with all her heart that this one wasn’t.
“That’s quite high enough, I think!” Fluttershy called to Spitfire. Her heart was pounding; Spitfire grew smaller and smaller as she rose higher and higher. She swallowed nervously, praying to Celestia that everything would go okay.
“S’not high enough till I reach the top!” Spitfire’s voice was tiny. She was almost to the center of the windmill’s fan. She laughed, tapping a hoof against the metal cog at the center of the fan.
Suddenly, Fluttershy heard a faint humming sound that grew louder as Spitfire flew higher.
“Spitfire? I—I think you should come down now!”
The filly didn’t hear her. Fluttershy blinked; she could’ve sworn she saw….
“Hey, Fluttershy, I made it! And the…the fan, it’s…moving?”
“Spitfire!” She screamed as the windmill groaned into power faster than Fluttershy would’ve believed it could. Her sister shrieked and Fluttershy suddenly saw a gyrating flash of orange; she was holding onto the fan!
“I—I’m coming, Spitfire!” Fluttershy’s voice shook. Spitfire was the tough one; she was always practicing flying and doing crazy stunts with the other fillies. But Fluttershy couldn’t stand her sister’s screams. Without hesitation she strained her wings for all they were worth; to her shock she began to rise faster than Spitfire had—or maybe it only seemed that way.
She was at the fan in seconds, watching in horror as her sister was thrown about again and again.
“I’ve got you, Spitfire!” she exclaimed; closing her eyes, she shot through the fan. She opened her eyes to see Spitfire looking up at her, wonder in her eyes. It suddenly struck her how far away the ground was. “Oh my goodness!” she shrieked, tumbling out of the sky before finally managing to land on a mass of unused cumulus clouds.
Spitfire pushed her head out of the clouds first, eyes alighted with excitement. “That was amazing!” she cried, jumping out of the white softness. “I was all vroooom!” She spun in circles. “And then you were all—WHOOOSH!”
Fluttershy stepped out of the cloud, shivering, before angling her ear skyward and holding up a hoof. “Quiet,” she whispered.
“But it was so cool!” Spitfire gasped, bouncing up and down. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life! You could be a Wonderbolt!”
“Quiet,” Fluttershy urged.
“But—“
“Please!” Spitfire fell silent, unused to her sister’s urgency. The moment she did, she realized what Fluttershy did moments before.
The entire building—maybe even the entire cloud—was groaning. The walls creaked and, as the sister’s looked on in silence, shifted from side to side.
Suddenly, a pillar along the far wall rocked side to side, and then collapsed, causing both fillies to jump in terror.
“The d—where’s the door?” Spitfire shrieked. Fluttershy froze, realizing their only escape was hidden beyond the collapsed pillar. “Fluttershy?”
“Hold on, I’m thinking!” Fluttershy put a hoof over Spitfire’s shoulder; she looked around the room, searching in desperation for some way to escape. There were no windows in here, except for a few high ones that had been boarded up years ago; even if they could fly to them, they couldn’t get through them. The fan groaned, and Fluttershy had the sinking feeling it was going to be the next thing to fall.
“I’m sorry, big sister,” Spitfire cried, burying her face in Fluttershy’s neck.
“We’re gonna be okay, Spitfire,” Fluttershy breathed, her voice tiny and uncertain. Why hadn’t she stopped her sister in the first place? She knew that all too well; if she had said no, Spitfire would’ve found a way in herself. Her sister shouldn’t go alone. As terrified as she was, she was more afraid of her sister being alone.
She watched the fan begin to wobble; quickly she tugged at Spitfire’s mane and pulled her from the windmill. Sure enough, down came the fan, still spinning as it crashed. The blades bent back, and it skidded across the floor, sparks flying in all directions. Suddenly, however, there was another crash that filled the air.
Ice shards filled the air and starlight spilled into the room as three Pegasus ponies soared into the room, dressed in blue-and-gold suits and wearing thick goggles over their eyes.
“It’s the Wonderbolts!” Spitfire exclaimed in amazement. “You were right, Fluttershy, everything is going to be okay!”
The lead Wonderbolt, a stallion with a deep green mane and white body, pointed a hoof towards them. The trio shot to the floor, the two others, an orange mare with a blue mane and a gray stallion with a brown mane, gathered up Fluttershy and Spitfire.
“My name’s Sunny Wing,” the mare told Fluttershy. “These are Pine Fresh and Castellon. Come on, we’ll get you out of here.”
Fluttershy curled up in the mare’s arms as they took flight, keeping her eyes fixed on Spitfire. The little filly was enjoying herself, and Fluttershy felt a bit more comfortable because of that. They escaped the collapsing cloud, and Fluttershy saw other Wonderbolts pushing the building, keeping it upright as they carried it towards the horizon.
“They’re taking it to the sea,” Sunny Wing explained, seeing Fluttershy’s curiosity. “They’ll turn the ice and snow into water, and arrange with the seaponies a place they can discard the old machinery. They should’ve done this a long time ago, before little fillies could get their hooves inside.”
Fluttershy felt her face grow red with embarrassment. She and Spitfire were sure to get in trouble now, if all of the Wonderbolts had to be called in. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she knew it wasn’t good.
They approached Cloudsdale. Thankfully there wasn’t a large crowd, but size didn’t really matter. Two figures stood there; one a white mare with a long, yellow mane, and the other a tall, stately figure with a shimmering mane that made Fluttershy tremble. It was Princess Celestia.
“Girls!” The shorter mare rushed up to them as they landed. Spitfire rushed to her mother, while Fluttershy stepped forward glumly, her head low in shame. She nuzzled her mother’s neck, feeling guilt fill her with every breath.
“Everything clear, Pine Fresh?” Princess Celestia asked the lead Wonderbolt.
He bowed. “They are underway as we speak. We should return to help them, your highness.”
“Of course.” The three Wonderbolts soared off, and the princess turned to the family. Spitfire and Fluttershy’s mother looked up at once, bowing her head low.
“This will never happen again, your majesty, I promise you.”
“It’s no trouble, Mayor Shimmer,” the princess assured her. “Although…I must ask. Which little filly’s idea was it to go playing in an abandoned weather factory?”
As Spitfire looked up at the princess, Fluttershy didn’t hesitate.
“Mine,” she lied, averting her eyes. Shimmer gasped as she went on. “I…I thought it would be fun. Nopony thinks that I can be brave…so I thought I’d do that to prove I could be brave.”
“Fluttershy!” Shimmer exclaimed. “You’ve never…”
“What are you doing?” Spitfire mouthed to her sister.
Princess Celestia looked down at the filly in bemusement; for some reason, Fluttershy doubted that she believed her.
“Very well, then,” the princess said slowly, a gentle smile in her eyes. “As long as you can promise me nothing like this will ever happen again, my little filly, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get off with just a warning, this time.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened in amazement. “Oh, I promise!” she exclaimed. “I very much promise!”
“Very well, then.” Fluttershy could’ve sworn Celestia was laughing gently behind her words. “Well, I have some very important business to attend to—the sun is about to rise soon—but I’m very happy to have met you, Miss…?”
“F—Fluttershy,” she answered.
“Fluttershy,” the princess repeated with a smile before turning, and with a sweep of her wings she was soaring into the horizon.
