The Factory's Remnants

That evening, Thundercloud, Sunny Blaze, and Vapor Puff sat together at the table. “Here’s the terms for you staying here,” Vapor Puff explained. “One: keep the job and pay your share of utilities. And clean up after yourself, though I wouldn’t think I’d have to tell you that. You don’t have your own food right now, so you can have some of ours. But you better start buying your own.”

Thundercloud nodded.

Sunny Blaze continued, “Two: start therapy. The real kind. I can’t do everything you need. And I’m not a masseuse.

“Three,” Vapor Puff said, “You have to eventually meet with our little group again, even if it’s just once. To show them you are who you say you are.”

Sunny Blaze finished, “Four: no drinking, none at all, of any kind. It’s not because we don’t trust you, or that I have anything against it, but because I don’t want that around the baby. Once you move out, then I don’t care what you do.”

Thundercloud nodded. “Deal.”

Sunny stood and approached a drawer next to the sink. He picked up something with his teeth that Thundercloud couldn’t see. When Sunny turned around, he could see that it was a business card. Sunny dropped it on the table. “She’s a psychotherapist. I didn’t work with her, but Vapor and others from our group who did.”

Vapor Puff nodded in agreement. “I’d be terrified of having this baby if it weren’t for her.”

Thundercloud stared at the card. “I can’t afford this. Maybe if I was still making Factory money, but not…”

Sunny Blaze interrupted him. “I already told her who you are. She’s not afraid of anypony. She’ll work with you.”

“I don’t even know when I’ll have the time. The market’s open six days a week.”

Vapor Puff leaned forward. “Then I guess you’ll have to get to her office early.” She left the table and went into the bedroom.

Once she was gone and the door closed, Sunny Blaze went to a cabinet and pulled out a box. He dropped it on the table and opened a set of leaves, revealing a chessboard. “I want you to try and teach me again.” He set up the board and they began playing.

Thundercloud woke up the next morning before She had risen the sun. He gathered his bags, put on his cloak, and took up Vapor Puff on her offer of sharing food by taking one granola bar from the pantry. He gently opened the front door and pulled it closed behind him, ensuring the snapping of the latch was as quiet as possible.

Thundercloud couldn’t help but notice how quiet Cloudsdale was quiet before sunrise. He remembered from his early days in the weather factory that Canterlot required most weather changes to occur during the day. Far off in the distance, as he flew high over the city, he could see the Weather Factory, and the part that remained unchanged, and remembered that all of the secret operations happened at night, and why. He glared at the area where he knew the factory stood. “You can’t ever have me,” he muttered to himself.

Thundercloud reached the address on the card just as the sun was rising above the mountains in the distance. Before he could even knock, the door opened, surprising him.

An older mare with a golden mane and brown coat stood in the doorway. She wore a sweater vest and a necklace. “Thundercloud, I take It?” she asked.

“Uh, how did you know that?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know who told me. Or can I call you Mister Dark?” I’m Dr. Brightwing. But don’t call me Doctor.

Thundercloud felt queasy and he his sight darkened into tunnel vision. He started to sway.

“Whoa hey,” the mare said as she reached out a hoof to stabilize him. “Not a great start. Get in here.” She turned around and Thundercloud followed, closing the door behind him.

She led him past an empty reception desk to a room in the back with two lounge chairs, a water fountain, a small oil lamp, a clock that revealed the time was nearing 7 AM, and a small window at head height that looked over the ground far below.

“I’m here early just for you. My receptionist usually opens and has everything ready, but Vapor and Sunny let me know of your schedule, so I took it upon myself to get everything ready for you. So, you better be a good client and receptive patient. I’ve never met a former, ah Worker, before. Let alone worked with one.”

“This is a lot to take in all at once,” Thundercloud growled from under his hood.

Brightwing stamped her hoof in front of him. “Okay, first of all, cut this act.” She swept a hoof toward his head and yanked the hood from it. “I’m not sympathetic to it at all. I don’t know if you think this is how it works.” She gestured for him to sit on one of the lounges.

“And second, don’t expect me to accept any sob stories. This is actual treatment, not a cry-session, though I can’t help it if tears are shed at some point. Understand?”

Thundercloud jumped onto one of the lounges and sat on all fours. Brightwing did the same onto the other lounge.

“Okay, we start with you telling me your life story.”

“Oh, just that?” Thundercloud sneered.

“Don’t get smart with me. This is how we have to draw out everything else.”

Thundercloud started with his childhood and how he’d finished the race ahead of almost everypony else, but with his friends. He told how he excelled in high school and was accepted into the weather factory right away, and then his acceptance into the Rainbow Factory and how those years were a blur.

“The day of the mob was the most terrifying day of my life. I thought they were going to start feeding every one of us into it. If they did, then deep down, we knew we all deserved it.”

He laid out the repetition of the years after that until Sunny visited him.

“And that’s where I am now.”

Thundercloud watched the change in her body language. Brightwing shifted her front legs, and her breathing was shallow. She lifted from the lounge with a few beats of her wings, settled next to a table, and lit incense in a bowl. A lavender scent drifted through the air. She alighted back on the lounge and settled on all four legs again. “That’s certainly something. I’m not sure even I was prepared for that.”

“What, you’ve never spoken with somepony who’s killed before?”

“I have, in fact. No details; doctor – patient confidentiality, of course. But the scale…”

“I know,” Thundercloud replied. “I can’t get through a day without hearing the sounds, seeing the colors. The sound of a foal crying is, it’s just terrifying. What I did. I can’t,” he placed his hooves over his head and closed his eyes. There was no darkness, just Spectra.

“First of all, you’re not here for me to punish you for your… deeds. I knew what I was getting into.”

“I deserve punishment. I’m a monster.”

“Maybe you deserve punishment. That’s a judgment up to other ponies. But you’re not a monster. That’s somepony else’s problem.”

He removed his legs from his head and opened his eyes. “No.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“The deeds make the pony.”

“Perhaps. But you never would have done it outside of the Factory, would you?”

“I never did before I was there. I just enjoyed making the weather and being with my friends.”

“Then you’re not a monster, are you? You did what you had to?”

Thundercloud sat up and slammed his front hoof into the lounge, shaking the whole room. “I didn’t have to!” he shouted. “Just following orders. I know the excuse.”

Brightwing lifted from the lounge and hovered in the air on her wings over him, glaring, causing him to cower and flatten his ears. “Do you really believe you’re the only pony who’s ever done something they were forced into doing? Even killing, or murder? The first one I’ve talked to even?” She settled back on her lounge. “We’re frail creatures, prone to suggestion when pressured. You believed it the right thing at the time.”

Thundercloud lay down again. “You’re trying to justify what I did?”

“No, I’m explaining it.”

“I thought I was here to get better.”

“Get better from what? The psychological damage? It doesn’t work like that.” Brightwing left the lounge and lit more incense in the bowl. This time lavender was added to the other scents. “I guess it wasn’t strong enough.” She returned to the lounge again. “Look, you tell yourself you’re a monster, that you can’t ever make up for your deeds, and blah, blah. That’s all an excuse to wallow in self-pity. And what did I tell you when you got here?”

Thundercloud didn’t answer. He stiffened in his seat.

“That’s what I thought,” she retorted. You know that none of what you tell yourself is true. Maybe you’ll receive some kind of punishment from Cloudsdale, but you won’t here. Now relax.” She inhaled, some of the incense smoke entering her nose.

Thundercloud did the same, expecting a burning sensation, but it was instead a silky and gentle feeling. He closed his eyes.

He heard Brightwing release her breath in a slow and steady manner. He did the same.

She repeated the exercise, and Thundercloud copied her. “You’ve done some of this before, haven’t you?”

Thundercloud took another breath. “Yeah,”

“Good, good. Just keep going.”

Thundercloud kept his breathing measured and repeated the exercise while keeping his eyes closed. Every time Brightwing exhaled, he did the same. It became automatic, to the point that he fell into a trance. He felt separated from his own body, as though somepony else were doing his breathing for him. “I’m dreaming,” he thought. He sensed as though he could leave his body and peer over himself and Brightwing. He heard the ticking clock on the wall, the crackling of the incense, the trickling water fountain, and the light breeze by the window. He felt the air currents drift around him, his own heartbeat, and even the wrangling of his gut as it digested the granola bar. Without opening his eyes, he knew everything happening in the room.

Her voice jolted him back to reality and his eyes shot open. “What did you feel?”

“It’s like I left my body. I could sense the whole room.”

She smiled. “That’s meditation.”

Thundercloud’s jaw hung open. “That’s how he did it,” he whispered.

“Who did what?”

“Sunny. He told me how he meditated. I didn’t believe him.”

“And what was it like?”

He sniffed back a tear. “He helped me a few times to get the, the images out of my head. But I could never get it right. I got it right this time.”

Brightwing leapt from her lounge and approached a small cabinet. Shew opened a drawer and pulled a few scraps of paper from it with her wing. She dropped them on Thundercloud’s lounge in front of his muzzle. “Coupons, for incense. I’m not associated with them, I promise. I just think they have the best stuff in town.”

He crawled from the lounge and shuffled the coupons into a bag he’d left on the floor. He looked over at the clock and was surprised to see the time was past 9 AM. “It went by so fast!”

“It always does when it goes well.” Brightwing walked past him, opened the door, and walked out. He followed her past the receptionist desk that was now staffed by an old stallion, who was wearing glasses and reading a book. He looked up from the book, grunted a “good morning” and returned his eyes to the pages.

Brightwing and Thundercloud stood at the doorway, which she opened. “I expect to see you here tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’ll decide when you can stop visiting.”

“Um, okay. That’s not…”

“I’m not letting you give up. Sunny knows to you goad into coming anyway.”

“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hopped out the door, spread his wings, and shot away.

Thundercloud, Vapor Puff, and Sunny Blaze sat circling the kitchen table.

“It’s been a month since our agreement,” Vapor Puff said. “What now?”

Thundercloud faced them. “I’ve got enough money. I can move into a flat here in Cloudsdale. I’ll look during what free time I have. All I need is a day to get what I left in my cottage. It’s not much. I’ll work that time out with Lightning Blitz. Deal?”

“Yes,” Vapor Puff said. “Except for the flat. I know somepony who has one open, and it’s a decent place. I just heard yesterday. Not quite this,” she lifted a hoof and waved it around, “but not that cottage on the ground.”

“I’ll show it to you later today,” Sunny Blaze offered.

“Thanks. Thanks for everything,” Thundercloud felt weak in his chest.

Sunny Blaze wrapped him in a hug. “No, thank you for everything.”

Sunny Blaze did as he offered and took him to the flat. It was a short flight away, and lower in the city, but still in a good spot. They landed at the threshold. Sunny Blaze knocked. The door opened, revealing a mare wearing a suitcoat and tie. “Hi, Vapey!” she squealed. They hugged. “Is this the guy?”

“Yeah. Thundercloud, this is my sister, Star Kicker.”

“Just call me Starry. Let me show you around.” She beckoned them in and shut the door. “It’s a studio, so it’s small, but has everything you need.”

Thundercloud walked around. The one room functioned as everything except for the bathroom. He found the one door that it must be and peeked in, showing a small shower stall, sink, and toilet.

He returned to Starry. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Heating and cooling? Water?”

“This is Cloudsdale. That’s all taken care of.”

“Of course. It’s perfect. Can I move in today?”

“I have everything written up already!”

Later in the day, he gathered what he had in Sunny Blaze’s apartment and moved it over. Then he headed toward the ground. He dropped through the clouds, bursting each one with the deftness he’d learned as a weather pony. He laughed as he punched a hole through every cloud on his way to the ground. After breaking the final layer, the dull green of the ground revealed itself. He spread his wings and circled until he settled on the soft turf.

Thundercloud stood at the threshold of his old cottage in the Everfree. Next to the door were two bags of bits, the last of his pay.

He looked in. Nothing looked different. The unkempt cot, the oven, the pictures on the wall, and the small pile of wood were as he’d left them. “Feels like years,” he grumbled. He bundled his bedstuffs into his saddlebags, threw the wood out the back door, slung the empty lantern over his back, and pulled the “Last Day” picture from the wall. He grabbed a pencil with his teeth and wrote on a scrap of paper: “You already know where I am, RF, and I don’t care. FU, PC. Goodbye.” He spat out the pencil and exited the cottage but stopped. “Almost forgot.” He returned to the cottage and went to a specific drawer, grabbed his folded chessboard, and tossed it into his bag. “That should do it.” He grabbed the two bags of bits, threw them into a saddlebag, and jumped into the sky.

Thundercloud sat alone in his new flat with the windows darkened. He tried the same techniques that Brightwing and Sunny Blaze had shown him, only now this was his first time alone. He listened to the shifting winds, the clattering of the shutters, and the whistle of water as it moved through the clouds. Images and faces crept into his mind, but he didn’t back away. The sounds returned. The screaming, grinding, screeching, and whirring returned. This time it all felt separate from himself. “It’s still me doing it. It’s still me.”

He remembered the weight in his hooves. The squirming as they tried to escape. The tears they shed as they pleaded with him. The screaming in terror. And the final buzzing noise that ended it all. “I wish I could save all of you,” he wept. Still, he continued with the meditation, which was more difficult without incense, but he kept going. The real sounds overwhelmed those in his mind, and the screaming and buzzing faded away. Eventually he fell asleep, to dream the endless nightmares that became more disconnected from him every day.

“You’ve gotten so much better at this!” exclaimed Brightwing. They sat across from each other in the small therapy room. Both had their eyes closed, and Thundercloud felt the now-familiar experience of leaving his body and seeing everything. With every session, Brightwing introduced new items, and he had to notice them, or else they’d move back a session. By this point he’d heard birds flying by outside, the passing of the rare air carriage, the distant rumble of thunder, and once the faint trumpeting the faraway Canterlot. Today it was the simple sound of sand falling through an hourglass. The steady and quiet rush of the particles barely registered over the ticking clock.

“How’s your sleep been?”

“So much better.”

“Nightmares?”

“They still happen. What do I do about that?”

“They don’t end. You just have to disconnect yourself from them.”

“Sunny’s told me that.”

“I didn’t treat him, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was told to confront his nightmare.”

“He told me he’s done that. I’m his nightmare. But they’re all mine. All of them.”

“You remember every face?”

“I think I do. I at least hope I do.”

“Hope?”

“My memory of them is all that remains.”

“Surely their families kept something.”

“Not until the very end. The Glorious Collective ended pretty abruptly.”

“So, anyway. The nightmare. How do you plan to confront it?”

“Nightmares. Each one is different because they were all different.”

“Nightmares. The question still stands.”

“One at a time.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know yet.”

The hourglass stopped. “Open your eyes,” commanded Brightwing.

He did. The room looked the same.

“I honestly don’t know what you mean by one at a time.”

“For every single one of them I shoved in, I don’t even know.”

“Draw them.”

Thundercloud looked at her, puzzled.

“Draw them as you remember them.”

“With their faces contorted in fear, hatred, and pleading for their lives?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because the images won’t be in your head anymore.”

“I guess I’ll think about it.”

“How was today?”

“I feel more confident in doing it on my own. I tried last night, but now I’ll finally get a chance to use those coupons.”

She rolled her eyes “Really? You haven’t used them yet?”

“No, sorry.”

“I thought you’d use them… Never mind. You should go, else you’re late for work.” She pointed to the clock, which read 9:10 AM.

He trotted out the door, spread his wings, and flew away.

Thundercloud landed in the marketplace, which was mostly empty at this time. Only the ponies who had larger businesses were preparing for the day. He found Lightning Blitz’s and Blazer’s stall. The rolling door was closed. He walked around the side and looked around the back and could see the storage area was closed as well. “Anypony here?” He didn’t hear an answer.

He returned to the front, opened the bag, and pulled out a coupon for the incense. The address showed that it wasn’t too far away. He looked up and down the cloud-formed street to find the stall but didn’t see it. Only a few other ponies milled about, including one in a cloak similar to his own, who stood still and appeared to be facing him. “Weird,” he remarked, but thought no more of it.

He decided after the early morning rush he’d ask Lightning Blitz if he could leave and buy some. He went around the back, lay down, and dozed off.

A hoof nudged Thundercloud’s side. He awoke, stretched, and stood. The hoof belonged to Blazer, whose mom was by his side. “Early morning, or late night?” she asked, squinting.

“Early morning. I got up early to stretch the ol’ wings and came here. I guess I fell asleep.” He never told her of his therapy sessions but also had never fallen asleep after leaving one.

Lightning Blitz continued looking skeptical.

“I promise. I didn’t sleep great last night.”

“Okay, well, we’ve got to get going. We have twenty minutes to open.”

She turned around and threw open the door to the storage unit. He entered and started stacking hay inside the stall.