Twilight and Spike hopped off the chariot and onto the puffy soft Cloudsdale street.
"Thanks for the lift, Dash. It would have taken us forever to get here with a normal chariot." Twilight levitated the harness off her friend.
"Yeah, I know. Thanks for offering to help out with the preparations too. It'll go a lot faster with your magic helping out."
Spike hopped off his seat and landed face first in the cloudy street. Pulling his face up, a patch of clouds covered his face in the shape of a pirate hat and eye patch. Shaking his head, the clouds disappeared and he followed after the two mares. "So what exactly is it we're helping to prepare for anyway?"
"Whenever Buck Norris visits Ponyville, he always stops by Cloudsdale too. He works the ice crusher that makes all our cold weather stuff like snow and hail."
"But wouldn't that mean he has to come here every year?" Spike asked, hopping up to bounce on a small patch of cloud before landing on Rainbow Dash's back.
"Spike's right. we've been in Ponyville for a while now and we've never seen Buck Norris before."
"Nah. You don't get how tough this pony is! Buck Norris comes by only once every 10 years. He gives the crusher one of his roundhouse bucks and the thing spins until the next time he shows up. I'll show it to ya once we're done getting everything squared away."
"Yeah, we got a bit side tracked. You were telling us what we're doing here."
"Oh yeah. Well, we've got a few fast flying ponies, myself included of course, working to get all the pepper out of Cloudsdale. About 40 years ago, Buck Norris was having a sandwich in the cafeteria and someone put too much pepper on it. After he sneezed, it took 3 weeks for everypony to fly it back into place. So we're working to make sure there isn't a repeat performance."
"How's Twilight supposed to help out with that?"
"She isn't. She's gonna help out with tethering Cloudsdale in place, just in case we miss some pepper. You have a spell for making things invisible right?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Of course. That's level 2 magic I could do in my sleep. What do you need me to magic?"
"We're tying Cloudsdale in place with some specially made ropes. There's about 3 dozen of them all over the place, and they kinda cramp our style a bit. So you're gonna make 'em disappear so the place still looks good."
"Alright, where do we start?"
"Well, I've gotta get to my carting job, but I've got you a guide set up."
"Who is it," Spike asked as he slid down a wing Dash extended for him. He managed to get 3 steps before he was suddenly crashed into by a grey blur.
"Give you one guess."
"Sorry, Spike," Derpy said as she sat up and giggled.
"Derpy? You got Derpy to show us around? She'll wreck half of Cloudsdale! Uh, no offense, Depry," Spike apologized quickly.
"None taken," Derpy giggled, climbing to her hooves and helping the small dragon up.
"Hey, Derpy may be a bit accident prone, but she's got a great sense of direction, and she knows where everything is. Guess being the mail mare helps out with that." Dash gave the grey pegasus a rump bump.
"Well, lead the way, Derpy. I've got some magic to whip up."
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, you girls have fun with that. I'm gonna... uh... go help stack the pepper on the carts. Bye!" Spike quickly disappeared, running off down the street. "Phew, that's a relief. I don't wanna be getting flattened by Derpy all day. Hmm, wonder if they've got anything to eat around here."
He set off to see if he could find somewhere to eat. Though he had been to Cloudsdale a few times, he had never eaten here before. H went around a corner and headed for a large building, hoping to ask somepony where he could grab a bite to eat. Once inside, he was surprised to see it was a small library.
Wandering around for a bit, he found the librarian, a young filly with a deep yellow coat and purple mane. Her cutie mark was a book with a feather bookmark. She was barely any taller than Spike, and he was glad to meet someone closer to his height. He walked over to her.
She looked up and smiled at her. "Hi. you looking for a book?"
"Actually I was looking for some lunch, but I don't know where anything is in Cloudsdale."
"Well, sorry little guy, but there's only books here. The nearest place to eat is a few blocks from here."
"Oh, OK. Thanks." Spike turned and was about to head out the door before he stopped and looked back. "Actually, there is a book I'd like to check out. Buck Norris Facts Vol. 2."
"Oh, I know that one. I was just about to read it myself. It's right over here." She lead him over to where a large book lay on a desk. "If you don't mind, we can read it together. I've heard these are actually really funny if you read them with somepony. Oh, and my name's Chapter. What's yours?"
"I'm Spike. I'm actually from Ponyville."
"Spike? The baby dragon that defeated King Sombra?"
Spike blushed and scratched at his head. "Well, yeah, I guess. It really wasn't all me. How do you know about that anyway?"
"I work in a library, Spike. So I know all about the newest history books. You got your own chapter in The Elements of Harmony in Our Time."
"Whoa, that's pretty cool. Does it talk about Twilight and my other friends and how they beat Nightmare Moon and Discord?"
"Yup. Those are chapters 1-12. And the next 10 are about the royal wedding and Queen Chrysalis. But you get chapter 25 all to yourself."
"Sweet."
"Yup. I'll show it to you later if you want. Right now, I wanna read this Buck Norris book. I wasn't old enough to remember the last time he was here, and I was hoping to learn more about him."
"Sounds good to me." Spike hopped onto a chair and settled himself down next to the young pegasus librarian.