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// 5: The Forgotten Aide 
// Story: The Tempest 
// by stormy 
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Stormdrift did not speak of the incident that day. When he strayed through the market he did not stop to correct the ponies' whispers of praise for his sister, nor did he attend any of the parties or the ceremony held by the mayor on Dash's behalf. It was just a storm, he told himself. Cloudsdale had faced far harsher weather on regular occasion, always fended off effortlessly by its guardian Stormspotters and typically without great recognition. They were beloved and appreciated, but they were not creatures of tall pedestals, fancy vestments and shining trophies.
Perhaps Ponyville had never suffered a storm worth truly celebrating, or perhaps they were desperate for excuses to repeatedly praise the only Wonderbolt who could break the sound barrier. Regardless of the reason, Stormdrift wanted nothing to do with it. Within the passing weeks the trees shifted to autumn, and soon after that winter would weigh snow on the ground and frigidity in the air. Thunderstorms would be a thing of the past, at least until the following spring, and the stallion breathed great relief knowing much pressure would be lifted from his shoulders. Ponyville Stormspotters knew how to handle blizzards, after all.
“Today is the annual Running of the Leaves,” Twilight would say at his door one noontime a number of days later. With her was the blue-eyed, pink eyesore whose name he couldn't quite place, and between them a basket of food floating in a cloud of purple magic. “I know that's something Ponyville has that Cloudsdale doesn't, so I didn't want you to miss it. I even took the liberty of packing a picnic.”
Instincts begged him to reject the idea and stay home. Unsure of words, his eyes hovered over the earth pony, whose excitement seemed barely able to contain itself to constant jitters that further frazzled her wild mane of curls.
“Pinkie agreed to be on her best behavior,” the unicorn added, “right, Pinkie?”
Hopping close in a heartbeat, her blue eyes begged inches from his. “Please say you'll come, Stormdrift, please? It'll be fun! I even promised Twilight I wouldn't ask too many questions, or talk too fast, or--”
“Okay,” the pegasus said, and his stomach growled its agreement.
They walked in silence for some time, though the pegasus found himself quickly forgetting the tension to admire the shifting leaves that danced red and yellow on swirling winds lining their path. Perhaps to fill the quiet, Twilight spoke briefly on the spell she'd taught herself to reattach fallen leaves to their limbs. Pinkie mentioned that Pumpkin Cake had already mastered Twilight's teachings from the previous week, and that Pound showed great potential in flight school, but all conversation thereafter petered into babble once Pinkie expectedly forgot her many promises to behave.
“How many sisters do you have?” she asked, skipping alongside the pegasus with a smile beaming like the sun.
“Three, with Dash.”
“Really? I have two! Oh, oh, what are your other sisters' names? Mine are named Blinkie and Inkie. Get it? Blinkie, Inkie and Pinkie!”
He forced a tiny laugh, but Twilight might caught his ear unconsciously twitching at the high-pitched squeaking Pinkie called her voice.
“Their names are Gloriday and Sunsong,” he said.
Twilight mumbled a warning to the earth pony, but Pinkie didn't seem to hear. “Where are they? Are they still in Cloudsdale? Will you see them, like, ever?”
“Gloriday joined the Air Royal Guard in Canterlot, but—”
“Oh! Have you met Gilda? She's a griffin, you know, and she's thiiis tall!”
“Yes,” he grunted. He wished he hadn't. “She's part of the Cloudsdale Skyforce. I had to work with her a lot.” And it was awful.
Twilight took the opportunity to very loudly clear her throat, and in doing so pacified the onslaught of questions. She did, however, turn to him with one of her own: “Do you get along better with your other sisters?”
“I guess so,” he said, “but Dash and I are the youngest. Since my sisters were older, they were busy most of the time and not home much.”
The silence spanned once again as if coloring invisible walls between them. Maybe I’ve said too much, he worried, dragging his hooves and staring every which way that was not a pony. Had he ruined their outing, before they’d even sat down? He could already hear Rainbow Dash laughing in spite.
In the corner of his eye he noticed Pinkie watching him, and promptly avoided her gaze. In the quiet of his mind, he called himself pathetic and a downer; to the mares around him, he was only curiously troubled.
But Pinkie had more than dealt with “troubled” before -- even Twilight acknowledged that.
“I forgot! I made cupcakes, Stormdrift,” the pink pony burst, scooping into the floating basket and pushing frosting into the stallion’s nostrils seconds later. “This is Mrs. Cake’s seeecret recipe. I promised Twilight I wouldn’t make you eat any until we sat down, but you’ll thank me after, trust me. Come on, open your mouth! Here comes the tra-ain, choo-choo!”
The cupcake -- now smeared across his resisting cheeks -- promptly flew from her hooves and into her mouth thanks to Twilight’s magic. Having momentarily silenced Pinkie, the unicorn pointed at the top of a neighboring hill and directed Stormdrift to see if it would suit their picnic, and for a time he drifted up and away from them.
Swallowing the lump of cupcake, Pinkie grinned crumb- and frosting-flossed teeth. “I was dying for one of those. Thanks, Twi--”
“Pinkie,” the purple mare hissed, “we’re trying to help Stormdrift, not just feed him. You promised!”
“Sorry, Twilight. He just looked so sad for a second there, I thought it would cheer him up.”
For most, Twilight supposed, it would have. Ponyville was such a happy place, she’d thought he might have bounced back from these issues after being surrounded by such positive energy for a couple weeks, but had judged little improvement in him. Did he even want to be happy? Did he know how?
“Remember,” the unicorn whispered to Pinkie as Stormdrift returned to them, “the point of  today is to get his mind off his problems and see if we can get him talking about himself while we’re at it. Try not to be forceful, okay?”
The earth pony nodded, but Twilight did not yet dismiss her own reservations: Pinkie was not the brightest pony she had met, but if the mare truly wanted to help spread happiness and smiles to everyone she met, then observing how it could be done without parties and balloons would be a lesson for her indeed.
For a moment -- just a moment -- the unicorn allowed her chest to swell with pride and her chin to tip up haughtily. She was such a smart pony.
“That hill looks okay, I think,” Stormdrift shrugged as he hovered beside them. “It’s overlooking a road with flags.”
Twilight grinned. “Perfect.”

When they had settled at the top of the hill and pulled out the tea and daisy sandwiches, Stormdrift found some of his anxiety seeping away. True, he did not laugh as heartily as they, nor did he contribute to their smalltalk or help cheer on the ponies racing by for the Running of the Leaves, but for once he maintained a level of eye contact and could sit without poising himself to run with the onslaught of a panic attack. And dear Celestia, was it more comfortable.
Naturally, the feeling wouldn’t last. Not for this sorry pegasus.
“So, Stormdrift,” Twilight would say over her sandwich, “what made you join the Stormspotters?”
His stomach sank. “I didn’t make it into the Wonderbolt Academy.”
“That’s awesome!” Pinkie squealed.
Mortified, Stormdrift and Twilight alike turned her way, but the pony’s beaming smile did not yet falter. “What? It is! If Stormy had gotten to be a Wonderbolt, then he wouldn’t have become a Stormspotter in Cloudsdale, and then wouldn’t have moved here, and then he wouldn’t have been here to stop the big ol’ thunderstorm from tearing up Ponyville! See? It’s awesome!”
For a long moment he stared at her with great, unblinking eyes. “You were there during the storm?”
“Of course I was, silly,” she winked. “I’m hangin’ out with Rainbow Dash, right, and then my Pinkie Sense starts going crazy, so we go outside and there’s this super big storm coming in. I wanted to help too, but I don’t have wings so I just watched.”
“Rainbow never mentioned having help,” Twilight said, laying suspicious eyes on Stormdrift. “She said she did it by herself. Some ponies around town had mentioned they thought they saw someone else... that was you?”
He didn’t answer her. In fact, he hadn’t heard a thing; on the road below Scootaloo trotted past, grinning as she chatted with her red-maned friend. His ears perked, green eyes following the shine of the sun on her flowing mane and tail, the spark in her eyes, the way the breeze fluttered between the feathers of her wings folded on her back. Her Runner number marked her flank, but she was in no rush. He wished she’d run, try to win. He liked to think she still could, even so far back in the race.
Twilight called his name and repeated herself. “She did most of the work,” he lied. “I just told her where to go and set it up for her to take over.”
“Stormdrift, this is a big deal,” the unicorn persisted, her gaze digging into him. “Stormspotter teams have a lot of members for a reason, but you managed to sweep some serious clouds away with only two ponies. It’s even more incredible you weren’t hurt!”
Though the aches in his leg and neck had not yet quite subsided, he nodded. Briefly Stormdrift glanced at the road again, and when there was no orange pegasus in sight, he turned back. “The town is lucky Dash was there,” he mumbled. I couldn’t do it alone.
“Sooo,” Pinkie drawled, batting her oblivious baby blues, “why didn’t Dashie say something? Maybe she forgot.”
“She didn’t forget, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “I thought this phase of hers would be over when we all dressed up as Mare Do-Well, but I guess we didn’t beat it. I’ll have a talk with her, Storm. Don’t worry.”
He worried. “No, don’t. It’ll make things worse.”
She furrowed her brows, but when she straightened up and pondered it, she nodded. “You’re right. You should talk to her.”
Stormdrift argued the subject up until the very end, when the sun started for the mountains and the autumn cold set in. As they departed, Twilight reminded him that she believed there were many things being left unsaid between he and his sister -- things that were affecting their relationship as siblings, and attacking his confidence to make something of himself here in this new town. “If you don’t try to settle that with Rainbow,” she'd said, “you’ll end up miserable for as long as you live here, and I, for one, would like to see you stay.”
As she strolled away with Pinkie in tow, the pegasus turned his eyes to the evening sky, now budding with lights unveiled by the night. Twilight was right: Something had to be done. He had been comfortable with them -- with friends -- and he had liked it. Perhaps he already missed it.
“Hey, Stormdrift,” the pink pony said, reappearing briefly at his side, “you were really crazy-cool-amazing during that storm. Really! Here, I saved you a cupcake. Don’t tell Twilight, okay? Bye-bye!”
And as she hopped away humming, he smiled -- neither forced, nor brief.

He would search for Rainbow Dash that very night, the clouds and evening breeze cradling his every movement and every beat of his dark wings. Though he searched for her, visiting her regular spots, the stallion’s mind wavered between thoughts of how silly his cropped, short mane would look in the wind compared to the way Scootaloo’s had seemed to float -- and forcibly returning his focus to reciting the speech he had mentally prepared for his elder sister and her almost tangible pride.
Unlike Cloudsdale, Ponyville always seemed to settle into nighttime like a filly into her bedcovers; at dusk, the shutters would close, the merchants would gather their carts from the market and the children would say their goodbyes and go home. All was still, a picture of serenity, until the sun would rise again and the little town would bustle with business as usual. He liked the predictability of it all: Flying around town was much easier when he could be called down by Twilight with some new psychoanalysis of his person, or Rarity requesting a male model, or Golden Harvest wanting a taste-tester, or one of the Stormspotters asking how the weather looked.
Strange, he thought. How was it so many knew of and wanted so much out of him? He barely even left the house.
Stormdrift found Dash in the last place he looked: the other end of town from his home. As she picked up from the ground, she saw him -- and his wings ached by the time he managed to catch up with her. “Rainbow,” he called with his tiny voice, “can we talk?”
“I dunno, Storm,” she said, eyes rapidly searching, “I, uhh, I got stuff to do.”
“It’s important.”
The blue pegasus sighed, submitting, and set hooves back on the ground in the center of town. Scowling and impatient, she stared him down with daggers for eyes. “Is this about that tempest? You’ve got to stop obsessing about things.”
Nervously shushing her, the stallion glanced from closed shutter to closed shutter, and breathed relief only when no ponies came forth. “Can’t we talk somewhere private?”
“Just spit it out,” she said, stomping a hoof.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he took a deep, shaking breath. How did he start the speech? Was it something about their mother? Gloriday? “I-I want you to stop, umm, t-treating me this way.” No, that’s not how it’s supposed to start...
Dash tipped her nose, her head held high above him. “I treat you like I treat any other pony.”
“No,” he said, “I-I mean yes, but-- Dash, you told everyone you stopped the storm by yourself! We stopped it together! You followed my tactics!”
“I was doing you a favor! You get uncomfortable with crowds and celebration. I took it off your back.”
“No, you... Don’t lie to me. That’s not the reason, a-and you know it.” His heart pounded. Ordinarily he might have -- no, would have -- started running away already, but... but he’d been called amazing today. Well, “crazy-cool-amazing” to be exact, and in his mind Pinkie was still grinning and saying such praise over and over again. Even if she was a little nutty, Stormdrift had impressed someone -- and just that was enough to settle some of his lesser anxieties.
“Stormdrift, I’ve got a reputation here,” she said, blowing multicolor locks from her eyes. “I became a Wonderbolt because Spitfire had heard of all the stuff I do around here. I had to get special permission to stay around here, since most of the Wonderbolts have to stay in Cloudsdale. If I start slackin’ off, they could drag me up there for good, or even boot me from the team. I’ve told you that.”
His ears flipped back, and he spoke not in shame but retaliation: “Your status is more important to you than me?”
“Don’t be stupid. You know it’s not like that.”
“I’m not sure I’m the one being stupid here,” the stallion boomed, though only at first; by the words’ end, his sister’s stare had sharpened nothing short of intense, and Stormdrift quickly withered back into his usual self beneath it. Tucking his wings away and lowering his head, any remaining confidence melted to a puddle beneath his hooves -- but when he looked, it was only his shadow.
His shadow... how he wished he could sink into it and disappear...
“The Wonderbolt Airshow is tomorrow,” Rainbow said, a bristling in her tone but forced patience dancing about frustrated features. “I don’t care if you go or not, just don’t mess this up for me. Got it? Don’t mope around in the corner or whine because you’re not getting attention, and don’t tell anyone we’re related. Got it?”
When his jaw dropped and no sound came forth, she scoffed and spread her wings, taking for the sky. “On second thought, maybe you should just stay home.”

He did not fly home, and the long walk did nothing for his thoughts. From the edge of town Stormdrift saw the lantern outside his door already lit; under it was a grinning Pinkie Pie, unspeaking even as he drew close. No, for once she said not a word -- perhaps she wished him to speak of how the talk had went -- but he exchanged nothing. They shared a long glance at the door, and her beaming smile began to fade.
The stallion closed the door behind him. For a long while she waited there, quiet and hopeful, before releasing to the sky the blue and pink balloons she’d hidden around the corner, blowing out the lantern, and going home.