A False Home

Cloudburst was worried. What could the Princess herself want with him? Perhaps he had done even worse than he thought with the storm, and now Celestia wanted to punish him personally! He looked around, frantically considering what to bring. Well, whatever she had called him for, it was futile to resist. Her guards were powerful, and she would likely send one or two of them to him to capture him if he didn't come. The letter said to come as soon as possible, so he might as well start packing. He brought a little bit of formal attire with him, it would be foolish to appear before Celestia otherwise. Wondering if there was any part of the message that he had missed, he examined the parchment again. On the back part of it, he discovered a small envelope. Inside of the envelope, he discovered a round-trip train ticket to Canterlot. He sighed with relief, thinking that if the princess had wanted to banish him, she would have simply put it as a one-way ticket. Or maybe she just wanted to get the round-trip version, it wasn't like she was short on money or anything. She WAS one of the co-rulers of Equestria after all. He could only hope that she had a non-lethal, non-imprisoned-in-some-place-for-a-thousand-years punishment in store for him.

Shaking off the dark thoughts, he finished packing his saddlebags. The train ticket, upon closer inspection, was not of the usual sort. It had the princess's emblem on the lower right corner, a blazing sun insignia. Examining the actual writing, he found that in place of a set time and date, it said "Seat open on all trains, come at your convenience." He was stunned, this sort of personal, reserved seating ticket was supposedly only given to the most important of officials; even the princess's own student didn't have one, from what he had seen from Twilight Sparkle buying tickets to Canterlot. Wondering why the princess would give such an honor to somepony that had messed up so badly with his last storm, he walked to his kitchen. Cloudburst wasn't the best cook, but the food he made for himself was certainly good enough for him. He prepared himself a few sandwiches, and ate them as he walked out of his home.

He passed many ponies who were out enjoying the late morning sun, with a significantly more stoic expression than usual. Normally he'd be happy to be outside, happy to see his friends. This time, however, he was too preoccupied with wondering what Celestia wanted him for. Thus, he didn't even notice when several of his friends called out to him, waving. They had been preparing a picnic, but Cloudburst was completely oblivious to the calls. He hurried to the train station, and about halfway there realized that this could very well be his last time in ponyville, if whatever punishment the princess had decided to give him either banished him or locked him in the dungeon. He had definitely decided at this point that she had called him for punishment, as he had nothing else at all noteworthy in his life aside from his job. He sighed, looking around. He would miss this place, should he be banished or imprisoned. He had lived here for the greater part of his life, and he had enjoyed it. He had friends here, and they were always good to him. He shook his head, he could only be hopeful that whatever punishment the princess had in mind for him was not going to keep him from returning.

When he had reached the train station, he was surprised to find one of his friends there. The mare's name was Sonic Rain, the same pegasus that had given him the note, and a good friend and(rarely) coworker. She wasn't on active weather duty, she worked as a musician. He walked over to her, wondering why she was at the train station. She was waiting at the train platform, watching the tracks in the distance. He walked over, considering a repeat of the prank he had performed before they had left for the storm. Cloudburst decided against it, she looked like she didn't want to jump into the air and generally make a fool of herself again.

Instead, he walked up to her, and said, "Hi, Sonic. I didn't know you would be here too." She looked startled, even though he had tried to avoid it. She looked back at him, and said "Well, I could say the same for you, Cloudburst. I'm waiting for my cousin, he's visiting Ponyville. He lives in Canterlot, so I'm going to pick him up here." He nodded, but then Sonic said "But why are you here? Is it about that one scroll I was told to give you?" Cloudburst was startled that she had figured out why he was headed to Canterlot so quickly, but he quickly recovered. It didn't take a genius to find the connection between the fact that he'd been given an important-looking scroll and that he was leaving for Canterlot the day after. "Yes, apparently I've been summoned to an official audience, with Princess Celestia herself. I don't know how long I'll be gone, but from what I've heard about palace affairs, it will be a few days until I actually go to the audience. You got any advice? I don't want to make a fool of myself before the princess." He said, hiding his thoughts of punishment and walking towards the edge of the tracks, to see if he could spot the train coming from Canterlot.

After a brief scan of the territory in the capital's direction, he saw the smoke-belching snake rather far off; an hour at best. He went back to the inner area of the platform, this was going to take a while. He and Sonic chatted idly about the message for a little while, then she took a book out of her saddlebag and began reading it. Cloudburst sat down near the wall, brooding over whatever punishment the princess would be giving him.

About an hour and a half later, the train to Canterlot pulled into the station. A few ponies walked out of it, most of them looking like they went to the capital as tourists. One unicorn stallion, however, walked out of the train with a fancy looking hat. He looked around, and seeing Sonic, smiled and walked over to her. Sonic said "Goodbye, Cloudburst. Good luck in Canterlot!" as she turned to walk away with her cousin. Cloudburst then walked over to the conductor, who was helping an elderly mare out of the train car, and asked her "Hello. Do you happen to know when the next train to Canterlot will be leaving?" The conductor finished helping the old mare, then pulled a paper from her saddlebags and checked it. She then replied to him with "The next one to Canterlot leaves in an hour and a half. Doesn't your ticket say that, though?" Cloudburst shook his head, and took out the one he had received with the letter. She examined it extensively, and then asked "Where did you get that? That's supposed to be royalty-only." Cloudburst then said "It came in with a letter from the castle." The mare examined the card again, and then said "Okay, the train will be a while. You won't need to worry about missing it, though, this ticket can take you to and from Canterlot to Ponyville any time you like."

Cloudburst was glad he had been given a train ticket, he wouldn't have been able to fly to Canterlot even if he wanted to risk injuring his wings further. He sat down again, this time considering what could have caused the cloud to unexpectedly explode in the way it did. It hadn't reacted to compression in a way that any other cloud had before, and this could be cause for worry. Perhaps it just had such a chaotic interior that it couldn't withstand the pressure it was being subjected to. Maybe. He would have to research it while he was waiting for his official summons. Or maybe he should be writing his will? Of course, then it would be useless if he was banished. He was planning on taking a nap on the train ride, he was still quite tired from the lightning strike he had been hit by. Cloudburst sat down on the platform, thinking about what he would do with his possessions, should he be sentenced to death.

Cloudburst had been sitting on the platform for seemingly only a few minutes, when he looked around to see a few more ponies than were there before. He checked the clock on the wall, and was surprised to find that more than an hour had passed, and the train would be boarding soon. He looked around to see if he could identify the ponies around him. Most were Ponyville residents, who looked like they were going off to tour the capital. All but one, in fact, he recognized. The unknown pony was a light orange unicorn mare, with the strangest shade of purple for her mane. Her cutie mark was a rock of some sort with a stick going through it. Cloudburst hadn't the faintest idea as to what that meant, but he was unable to ponder what it was due to the loud voice that cried out "The train is ready for boarding. we will be leaving in twelve minutes." Cloudburst, glad that he would be sitting on a more comfortable seat soon, walked into the now-open train. He immediately headed to a seat, and sat in it. He snuggled himself into a comfortable position, and pulled his earmuffs from his saddlebags. he put them onto his head, instantly blocking out most of the sound. Content with his position, he drifted off to sleep...

...Only to be woken again a few minutes later by the conductor, who was checking tickets. The conductor was a different pony, this time a unicorn stallion, and he took out his ticket as he passed. The conductor checked his ticket, then levitated a pair of hole-punchers onto it. When the ticket was marked, he moved on without another glance at the royal-class ticket. Cloudburst decided that he must have been told of the ticket by the conductor that came before him. Hoping to go back to sleep, he replaced his earmuffs and returned to his comfortable position. Within a few minutes, he was asleep again.

A few hours later, when the train was about twenty minutes from Canterlot, he was woken again by a bright flash. He opened his eyes again, to see the unknown unicorn mare from the platform walking quickly towards him. He removed his earmuffs, and extricated himself from the chair he was in. When the mare reached him, she said, "Cloudburst, correct? I need to speak with you." Cloudburst nodded, removing the last traces of sleep from his mind. "Sure, what is it you need?" He said, wondering what the mare wanted. "There is a rather severe issue with something deep within-" She was suddenly cut off by a loud crack, and she immediately flew backwards. She hit the wall, instantly vanishing from sight. It didn't have the bright flash that usually accompanies teleportation, it instead seemed as if she simply vanished from the car without fade nor flash. Cloudburst watched, dumbstruck, as several other passengers jumped out of their seats in fright. The conductor walked into the room, to check on what the cracking noise was. Seeing nothing out of place aside from a few frightened riders, he grunted and left the car. After a few minutes of silence, they started talking to each other, discussing what had happened to the mare. Some of them had some rather wild theories, ranging from an invisibility spell to her being a projection. Cloudburst himself didn't know what to believe.

A few minutes of discussion later, the conductor walked into the room and requested "We'll be pulling into the Canterlot station now, please sit down. We don't want any of you falling over from the deceleration." The passengers who were out of their seats complied, and then stopped discussing the vanished mare as they began to ready themselves to leave the train. A minute or two later, the train decelerated into Canterlot. When it had stopped completely, the conductor opened the doors and alerted the sleeping passengers that they had arrived. Cloudburst was still wondering how the strange pony from the train had vanished so rapidly, without a flash. Perhaps there was some sort of new spell for unicorns that teleports without a flash? That must have been it.

Cloudburst left the train, still pondering what aside from a spell might have made the unicorn vanish. It was a good distraction from the gloomy thoughts he had been having at the Ponyville station. However, now that he was in Canterlot, he wasn't sure where he was supposed to go. The letter had said that he should see the princess immediately, so he decided to go to the castle. He stopped by a small stall at the end of the train station, and saw that they were selling tourist maps of the city there. He paid for one, as he would be unable to simply fly to the castle. He then proceeded to walk through the streets of the capital, sometimes taking out the map to check whenever he found a landmark. Eventually, he found his way to the castle. Standing before the huge structure would have been breathtaking.

Cloudburst, however, did not notice this. He was too busy walking up to the guard at the side of the door. When he reached the stallion, he opened the conversation with "Hello, I've been given a summons from Celestia. It's..." He pulled the letter from his saddlebags, saying around it "Huphere" As he gave the letter to the guard. The guard then read it, and then nodded and allowed for Cloudburst to pass. He then walked into the castle, dreading his upcoming audience with Celestia.