"Alright, let's get this low pressure going!" Rainbow Dash said with a fierce grin. She dug her hooves in the late autumn grass, her wings sputtering and revving, getting into gear; soon, she was gone— up into the sky, shooting through the troposphere, scouting for clouds, leaving behind smoke and octane traces.
"Why do you have to use those old terms?" Flitter asked, rolling her eyes. "Everypony knows that low pressure and high pressures only work over the Everfree and the outskirts of Equestria after we pegasi were given weather control in the olden times."
"Blame it on Twilight," Rainbow Dash called down to her, her mind lost in the cloudy skies with her body. "Egghead's got me reading all sorts of history since Daring Do turned out to be real and all that; I wanted to know more, dammit!"
"Well, I don't really care," Flitter said, rolling her large eyes, looking as though they were made of glass. "Let's just get to work."
Rainbow Dash stopped in her tracks, floating upside down in midair so that the sky looked like an empty blue chasm that extended below her. Falling down on her back, she plummeted towards Flitter, whose eyes opened in horror, the glass shattering. They were now eyes of terrified electricity, and she braced herself for impact.
Which never came.
Rainbow Dash flipped over at the very last moment, her wings shooting out so that she coasted to a perfect landing, right at Flitter. Rainbow's snout was smashed into Flitter's, but not in a kissy-kiss way; this was smashed face of complete anger and frustration.
Flitter squeaked in terror.
"You don't really care?" Rainbow Dash yelled. "How can you not care? We're delivering the first snow, Flitter!"
"I just—"
"You didn't just do anything!" Rainbow Dash roared. "You're not just doing anything except helping move the clouds into place so that this snow gets done just perfectly! Understand?"
Flitter gulped, nodded, and took off as fast as she could, shooting towards the cloud-line. Rainbow Dash smirked, and shot on up after her. Soon her whole weather group was up in the clouds, getting ready to make it snow.
Rainbow Dash was pushing some small pieces of fluff clouds together to make a larger one when a shadow descended on her. Looking over at the pony now on the cloud, she saw it to be none other than the colt himself, Thunderlane; he was the only stallion on the weather team today, and one of the few ever present. He was, put bluntly, annoying.
"So, Dash," Thunderlane said, giving her a sleazy smile. "You doing anything tonight?"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Wow, abandoning all subtlety now?"
Thunderlane shrugged. "What's the use? You shoot me down all the time anyway."
"Ever wonder why?" Dash added a bit more fluff to the cloud she was presently working on.
"Actually, yeah," Thunderlane said. "I give you little presents, I'm not a jerk about asking you about it, and I do my job... what's the deal?"
Rainbow Dash sighed, and kicked the cloud that Thunderlane was resting on. The stallion screamed a not-particularly-manly scream, and smashed into the larger cloud that the rest of the weather team was making. Rainbow Dash floated over to him, and as he pulled himself out of the cloudy mess, he was given the answer he so-long awaited.
"It's because you're a creep, Thunderlane. This mare's not interested, and you're still asking me all the time! The answer is no, and that's final!"
Thunderlane pulled himself out of the cloud, and scurried away from the wrath of Rainbow Dash, settling next to Cloudchaser. "Jeez, what's her problem today?"
Cloudchaser looked at Thunderlane as if he had just asked her who ruled Equestria. "It's first snow! You've worked here for three years, you should know how she gets on first snow."
Thunderlane chuckled nervously, taking shifty glances all about. "We-ell, I was sick last year, and the year before..."
"You mean you cut work so you could be the first in the snow!" Flitter, who was nearby, called out.
Cloudchaser turned to Thunderlane, a scowl on her normally docile face. "Hey! I had to work double shift the past two years because of that! And you wonder why Rainbow Dash thinks you're a creep..."
"Hey, that's neither here nor there!" Thunderlane said quickly. "You were telling me about the first snow thing."
"Well," Cloudchaser said. "Nothing much more to say; she's super passionate about the first snow. Nopony knows why, she just is. After you're here for a couple years, you get used to it."
"Hehe," Thunderlane said, looking over at Flitter. "Looks like Flitter forgot that little rule..."
Flitter shot him a nasty look, to which Thunderlane stuck his tongue out at. "Oh, you two are such foals," Cloudchaser sighed, exasperated. "Try not to kill each other for the rest of the day, will you? Rainbow doesn't need another reason to yell at us..."
"Alright!" shouted Rainbow Dash. "Everypony, assume positions at the top of the cloud! This year's gonna be the best one yet!"
All of the pegasi did so, and Rainbow Dash hovered over all of them. She lifted a left forehoof, and was wearing the smile that everypony knew all too well.
"On three!" she shouted, lifting her hoof ever-so-slightly higher.
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
All of the pegasi stomped down on the cloud as Dash's voice resonated over them. Rainbow Dash herself dove down upon the saying of "three", and struck the cloud so hard she flew right through it. Thunderlane's eyes widened as he watched the Dashie-shaped hole slowly close up. He walked slowly over to it, but stopped as he felt the air grow cold.
"Come on," Cloudchaser said, gesturing to him. "Let's enjoy the snow."
When the other ponies flew around the giant cloud, and landed on the ground below, they saw the fruits of their labors; brilliant batches of snow were wafting down towards the earth, blanketing the whole place in white. The air chilled, and the cloud above grew and grew, turning into something much larger that would eventually encompass all of Ponyville's skies.
There was one pony, though, who sat in the middle of the field, letting herself be blanketed in the snow all the same as the ground. That pony was, of course, Rainbow Dash.
She sat there, eyes closed, nose pointed up towards the grey clouds and falling snow. Her posture was peaceful, and her smile serene. The flakes danced all about her, and she seemed to be completely still, something not often observed in this action pony who even often kicked and flapped her wings in her sleep.
The rest of the weather team watched in silent fascination, as they did every year, as their leader sat in the field, slowly freezing to the ground, almost just a simple mound of snow on the ground as any stump or large rock would be.
The winds whipped around them all, and they slowly started to grow closer and closer to another for warmth. Just before they all were about to converge into one giant dog-pile, they saw the snow-covered pony move.
At first it was a small shudder, and then it was a great shake. Then, with one giant flash of color and snow, Rainbow Dash shot out of her snow state, and right through the cloud once again. The others watched, holding their breath, for just a moment, and there she was again— shooting back down through the cloud, blazing towards them with a prism of color following her.
She crashed into a snow embankment right to the rest of the ponies, showing them in the cold. They all yelped, and started moving around, shaking the snow from their bodies, while Rainbow Dash just laughed and laughed and laughed.
"That. Was. AWESOME!" she shouted. "We really outdid ourselves this year!"
Thunderlane shook a bit of snow from the top of his head, and walked over to Rainbow Dash. "Hey, um, can I ask you something?"
Rainbow Dash's smile started to fade as she turned to look at Thunderlane. "Look, I'm never going to go out with—"
"No, not that," Thunderlane said. "I've gotta ask... why do you do all this 'first snow' stuff? Why are you always so riled up about it?"
Rainbow Dash looked at Thunderlane, then burst out laughing. "Dang, Thunderlane, you really ask the dumbest stuff sometimes."
And with that, she walked away, leaving a very confused and cold Thunderlane sitting on the snow.