Home is Where Your Heart Is

Preparations for the scheduled storm were underway in Ponyville as everypony scrambled to prepare their homes for the impending rain. Pegasi of every color flew across the sky preparing the storm as ponies scrambled around on the ground preparing the town for the heavy rains that were soon to come.

A bright blue pony flew around the sky overseeing the preparations for the storm. Ponyville was in desperate need of rain this season as most of the scheduled showers had been cancelled as there had not been enough pegasi to help out. Dozens of the pegasi in town had gotten sick while even more had injuries from attempting to send water to Cloudsdale earlier in the season without having sufficient wingpower.

"Rainbowdash!" came a voice that Rainbowdash knew all too well. Looking over she saw Derpy Hooves clumsily fly towards her. Rolling her eyes, Rainbowdash flew over to the ditzy pony.

"What is it Derpy?" Rainbowdash demanded. "Shouldn't you be helping with the storm?"

The pale pony simply scratched the back of her head with her hoof and said, "I was but..some of the clouds got away." With that she pointed at a few small clouds that were floating away from them.

Looking at the clouds Rainbowdash noticed a cloud that seemed darker and larger than the others that Derpy had lost. Sighing she turned back to Derpy "Okay, you get all of the small ones and I'll get that big, dark one." Without waiting for a response she turned and flew towards the mass of clouds.

"But I didn't lose any big clouds..." Derpy said thinking out loud. "Oh well!" She laughed and flew towards the small clouds in a line that could be called anything but straight.

When Rainbowdash reached the cloud she immediately grabbed it and started dragging it towards the massive storm cloud. After a few seconds she heard a deep rumble and looked up at the clouds. "There shouldn't be any thunder yet..." She muttered to herself. After a few moments the sound came again and she relized it was coming from behind her. Quickly turning around she found the source of the noise to be a light gray pony sleeping on the cloud.

Surprise was the first thing that registered in Rainbowdash's mind which was very quickly followed by anger. The storm was scheduled to start any minute and this pony was sleeping! Rainbowdash, not so gently, shook the cloud causing the pony to quickly jerk into consciousness.

"What the hay...?" He muttered to no one in particular before turning around only to have his gaze returned by a pair of angry red eyes.

"Let's go you lazy pony! We have work to do!" She yelled at the pony. "You don't get to sleep while the rest of us work!"

"What are you talking about?" The pony yawned completely indifferent to the pony yelling at him.

"What am I talking about? The storm! Remember?" Rainbowdash stopped talking for a moment and looked at him carefully. "I don't recognize you...who are you exactly?"

"You're going to wake me up, yell at me then ask me who i am? Crazy country ponies..." He muttered. "Now.." He yawned looking at her again. "What do you want?"

"Nothing..I thought you were one of the pegasi who were supposed to be helping with the storm." She sighed looking back at the storm. "We're already behind schedule and it's just really stressful."

"Need some help?" He asked and silently prayed that she would say no.

"Yes!" She immediately answered. "We need all of the help we can get."

'Why did I have to offer...' He thought silently cursing himself. "Ok. In that case get all of your friends away from the clouds."

"Why?" She asked simply.

"Just do it." He answered with an edge of annoyance creeping into his voice.

After a moment she simply shrugged and set about collecting up all of the pegasi that were working on the storm. While she did that the pony opened up his satchel and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book with a sun and a moon printed on the cover. Using magic he quickly flipped through the pages stopping on a page with a spell for creating mass amounts of clouds. He quickly read over the spell and then slipped the book back into his bag when the strange rainbow-maned pegasi returned.

"There, that's everyone." She said simply.

"Good. Then let's get started." The pony closed his eyes as his forehead began to glow a soft black color.

Rainbowdash was confused for a moment until she noticed the horn sticking out of his head. She hadn't noticed it before as it was half hidden underneath his dark gray mane with the horn being only a few shades lighter.

The soft glow quickly turned to a deep black color that seemed to sap color from everything around it. Quickly the light vanished completely and the gray pony opened his eyes. "Done." He said simply and yawned.

Rainbowdash was confused. "But you didn't do any-" She was cut off by the heavy roar of thunder. Turning around she saw the clouds swelling and covering the sky in complete darkness. She stood dumbfounded as the rest of the pegasi cheered.

Turning back to the pony, Rainbowdash found him asleep again. She laughed for a moment before turning around and shouted to the other pegasi, "Good job everypony! Go home and stay out of the air for the rest of the day."

Still cheering the pegasi all dashed off towards their homes except for Derpy Hooves. "What happened?" She asked in a manner that told Rainbowdash that she had zoned out.

"Nothing Derpy. Just go home." Rainbowdash answered. With that Derpy turned and flew towards her home. Normally Rainbowdash would help Derpy get home as she would get lost on her way home even though Rainbowdash could see Derpy's house from here and, sure enough, Derpy was flying in the exact opposite direction. Sighing she turned back towards the sleeping pony on the cloud.

"Hey wake up!" She said shaking the cloud gently (or at least less violently than she had the first time). "You can't sleep here in a storm!" She yelled into his ear.

He didn't move at all and simply kept on snoring. Rainbowdash was about to yell some more when a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky immediately followed by the crash of thunder. "On second thought..." Rainbowdash muttered and began pushing the pony's cloud away. "Let's get out of here."

After a few moments of pushing the cloud the sky opened up and rain started coming down in sheets. Rainbowdash was instantly soaked and shortly after the rain started, the winds started to pick up.

Rainbowdash was the best flyer in Ponyville but trying to fly straight and push a cloud while being buffeted by rain and wind was a near impossible task but Rainbowdash refused to be beat by a little rain and some puffs of wind!

That is until a particularly powerful gust of wind flipped the cloud over and sent the pony hurtling towards the ground. Quickly looking down Rainbowdash only saw him for a moment before he vanished into the colorless rain, his light gray coat matching the color of the rain almost perfectly, much to her dismay. Quickly dropping into a nose dive she tried to spot him through the pouring rain but to no avail. She knew she wouldn't be able find him in this weather. Sighing she landed on the ground and quickly ran in the direction of her house, silently swearing that she would find him when the rain passed.

A young pony sat up quickly in her bed as a bolt of lightning streaked by her window. She screamed as her house shook with the quaking of the thunder. Shivering under her covers Fluttershy waited for more thunder to come but instead the only noise she heard was the sound of rain pounding on her tree home.

After a few moments she relaxed and she could feel her heartbeat slowing down. Closing her eyes slowly, Fluttershy felt her mind drifting back to sleep. Her eyes were only closed for a moment before a crash came from downstairs. All of her hair stood on end for a moment while she listened for more but no other sound came.

Swallowing her fear Fluttershy climbed out of bed and grabbed the candle holder off her table. Quickly she lit the candle in the holder and pick up the handle with her teeth. She walked out of her room and hesitantly descended the stairs.

Looking into the living room Fluttershy didn't see anything at first that seemed out of the ordinary. Taking a few steps forward she still didn't see anything until she stepped onto something wet. Looking down she saw that it was simply water and looking up Fluttershy saw a rather large hole in her ceiling and could see that something had crashed not only into her living room but had crashed straight through the second floor as well.

Looking around again Fluttershy saw a dark lump in the middle of her floor. Swallowing past the lump in her throat she started walking towards the lump and stopped short when the small light from her candle illuminated a dark liquid on the floor. Looking closer at it she quickly noticed that it was a deep crimson color. The sharp smell of iron hit her nose and Fluttershy went cold as she relized she was standing outside of a puddle of blood.

A low groan pulled her back to reality as the lump shifted slightly. Quickly Fluttershy rushed forward and illuminated the lump with her candle. Fluttershy found herself standing over a light gray pony. Even with the little amount of light that Fluttershy had she could see dozens of scratches scattered across the crumbled form of the pony and saw a mixture of blood and water slide off him. A single gray pegasus wing sat folded against his side while the other one she saw was bent at a horrible angle.

Looking out her window Fluttershy knew that she wouldn't be able to get him to a hospital so instead she grabbed one of his legs and began to carefully drag him into her kitchen where her first aid kit was located along with more candles. Hoisting him onto the table, she was surprised at how little he weighed.

She grabbed her first aid kit, lit the rest of the candles and looked down at the injuried pony for only a moment before she started about patching up the pony. As the storm raged outside Fluttershy only hoped that she could do enough to keep this pony from bleeding out.