On the mountain of Canterlot, hidden from view of the gleaming castle and houses, sits a permanent cloudbank anchored high on the mountainside. This cloudbank, along with some caves carved into the side of the mountain adjacent to it, is a "colony" of pegasi - a version of Cloudsdale in miniature. Most pegasi preferred to live there instead of the buildings of Canterlot, and although officially it was the pegasi "neighborhood" of Canterlot it was usually considered a city unto itself.
Most things related specifically to pegasi life were there, the residents reluctant at best to interact with the unicorn and earth pony residents of the gleaming buildings of Canterlot. Also up there was The Weather Ministry, placed there out of practical necessity. The Weather Ministry was legally a part of the Equestrian governmental apparatus and responsible for all things weather related. In practice, most of the actual duty of creating and controlling the weather was "farmed out" to individual branches of the Ministry in each major settlement of Equestria, and The Weather Ministry itself stocked with the louts of pegasi society. The typical Weather Ministry worker was either an obstructive cog in the governmental machinery or a fat, lazy "weather supervisor" who only cared about whose lives they could make miserable and get away with doing so, as well as how many bits could be extracted in "weather exemption" bribes.
Princess Celestia had tried several times to reform this crooked system in the past, only to encounter furious opposition each time based on the historical responsibility of pegasi being weather creation and control. Eventually, she gave up trying, only the Canterlot Royal Guard able to exert significant disciplinary influence on Weather Ministry "misbehavior". It was commonly believed that Lieutenant Captain Aten's "affirmative action movement" in the Royal Guard was in cahoots with The Weather Ministry, each helping to cover up the other's misbehaviors. The Weather Ministry was already one of the most crooked organizations in Equestria, and now would become involved in "Operation Love Lost"...
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Just like not every Royal Guard was crooked, so was not every Weather Ministry member was crooked. One such good member was a young pegasus mare named Sprinkle Medley, the official "Ministry Liaison to Ponyville". As such, she lived in Ponyville although frequently commuted to both Canterlot and Cloudsdale as part of her job. Born and raised in Ponyville, she was still a low-ranking "grunt" when she managed to befriend another pegasus mare named Rainbow Dash. Although Sprinkle Medley's efforts to recruit Rainbow Dash to join the Weather Ministry only resulted in an unofficial membership, she did learn about the origin of Rainbow's cutie mark in the process. In turn, this information was passed along to Princess Celestia. As this piece of information proved vital to the eventual success of Twilight Sparkle and her new friends in the Everfree Forest, the sun princess rewarded Sprinkle Medley with the important Ponyville liaison job, one of the highest in the Weather Ministry.
It was in the course of performing this job, delivering a report to her boss, Weather Minister Thunderdash, that Sprinkle Medley became caught up unwittingly in the conspiracy...
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"So then, what can I do for you gentlestallions?" Thunderdash was saying when Sprinkle Medley came within earshot of her office. Sprinkle Medley quickly ducked behind the doorframe of the door leading into the office, only taking a peek over the edge.
Inside the Weather Minister's office were two pegasi Royal Guard stallions, both in their armor. Whenever Royal Guards came around, it was always a serious affair, and the big sack of bits one of them had sitting next to him made it doubly serious.
"Cloudbank blocking the moon completely shortly after Luna raises it, lasts through the night." one of the stallions says.
"And who is going to be marked responsible?" Thunderdash casually responds, as if it were a normal business transaction and not blatant manipulation of weather patterns. One of the stallions opens his side pack and pulls out a rolled-up sheet of parchment in response.
Thunderdash unrolls the parchment and one of her eyebrows immediately go up. "Gentlestallions, even I am reluctant to meddle in the affairs of princesses. You had better have a good price behind you!" she cautions.
Sprinkle Medley gasps as she watches - having heard of the spat between Luna and Cadance, she had immediately jumped to the right conclusion. One of the stallions turns to face in her direction, and she quickly ducks behind the doorframe again.
"10,000 down and 10,000 upon deployment." the stallion not looking in Sprinkle Medley's direction says, plinking down the bag of what appear to be bits on Thunderdash's desk. 20,000 bits was a small fortune, so whomever was behind this was obviously dead serious about it.
"... Done. What do I sign?" Thunderdash states.
"The parchment has already been forged to indicate Princess Cadance ordered the cloudbank. All you need to do is sign off on the order, Minister." the stallion speaking previously explains.
There is the scratching of quill on parchment, and Sprinkle Medley immediately realizes there is something more important than her job that needs to be done. She nervously looks around, then starts slowly walking away from the office door. She only gets a few steps before she hears the voice of one of the Guard stallions behind her, and her heart leaps into her throat.
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Sprinkle Medley dares a look behind her to see the two pegasus stallions, glaring fiercely at her under the armor. It was obvious their intent, so she did the only thing she could think of - break for it.
The two stallions took off after her, shouting for her to stop "in the name of the Canterlot Princesses". But Sprinkle Medley knew they weren't doing anything that would be approved of by the princesses - and that both Celestia and Cadance had to be warned of the crooked deal that had just transpired.
She rounds a corner, sprints to the nearest office door and begins trying to yank it open. The effort was no use - Weather Ministry office doors were almost always locked unless its occupant was working with a client. The pegasus mare takes off down the hallway again, sweat beginning to trickle down her face, as she hears the stallions approaching.
BANG! Not watching where she was going, Sprinkle Medley runs headlong into a cleaning cart pushed by a young pegasus stallion. The cart overturns, spilling its contents everywhere. Sprinkle Medley takes off yet again around another corner, and the chasing stallions comes across the mess asking which way the mare went. The disoriented young stallion points to around the corner, and the two Guards take off again, leaving him to clean the mess alone.
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Meanwhile, Sprinkle Medley ducks into the mare's bathroom - a place that would've looked very familiar to a human except for flushing and sink handles being positioned lower than in human bathrooms.
"Check the bathrooms!" one of the stallions is heard outside as Sprinkle Medley tries to hide in the last toilet stall in the row, panting and gasping for air. If they found her here, there would be no escape - ceiling hatches that could be pushed open in an emergency had not been installed as the building was "exempt from such things", and the bathrooms had no windows leading outside.
"Surely two stallions won't come into a mare's bathroom looking for me!" Sprinkle Medley thinks... just in time to hear the door to the bathroom open with a booming slam!
The mare tenses up as she hears the hoofsteps echo in the room. Then a few seconds later, BANG! A stall door had been kicked open. Then comes another bang. And then another!
Sprinkle Medley tensed up as she realized the stallion in the bathroom with her was coming closer and closer with each door banging. Finally, the stallion inevitably banged open the door to the stall she was hiding, grinning like a hunter having just found his prey. Sprinkle Medley tries to scramble up the wall, but it's too little too late as the stallion rears up and literally pulls her down to the stall's floor. As she falls, Sprinkle Medley hits her head on the toilet, and the room swirls about her as she is dragged out of the bathroom stall.
"Got her!" the dragging stallion says triumphantly as he exits the bathroom, towing a disoriented Sprinkle Medley by one of her hind legs.
"Good, we'll use the cloth. That'll keep her out for a while." the other stallion says as he meets up again with his partner. His sidebag opens, and a cloth soaked in some kind of fluid is held up in front of Sprinkle Medley's snout. In quick order Sprinkle Medley's world goes black, and the two stallions carry her away from the bathroom as a hostage...
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"She's coming to now." were the next words Sprinkle Medley heard. She found herself inside a maintenance closet, gagged and tied to a chair, able to do little more than bump the chair around. Facing her, their faces in deep shadow as a result of the single light source coming from behind them, were the two Guard stallions as well as Minister Thunderdash! Not surprising for a pony put in such a predicament, she fights against her bonds and shouts in muffled protests, the chair bouncing and shaking from the effort.
"Now now Sprinkle Medley, you've made much too much fuss already about this." Thunderdash scolds. "20,000 bits is a significant fraction of our yearly budget, and I am not about to let you screw the Ministry out of that kind of money."
Sprinkle Medley's muffled response is accompanied by a murderous look. She realized that, just like so many of her comrades in the past, she was getting screwed over for money, her professionalism ignored and drowned out by the jingle of bits.
"The stallions and I can't afford to have you go telling the princess on us, so I need you to stay here until further notice. That's an order, Sprinkle Medley." Thunderdash sternly states.
Sprinkle Medley's eyes go wide, then screw shut as she tries to fight back tears. If she escaped being bound and gagged alive, it would only be with her public reputation and career in shambles - the Weather Ministry's machinations would ensure she was a pariah the whole rest of her life, the same fate suffered by some of her friends before.
"Please doing business with you, gentlestallions. Lock the door behind you. I'll post an 'Out of Order' sign to keep the nosy from investigating." Thunderdash says to the guard stallions.
"Very good, ma'am. Agent Snake will be most pleased by your cooperation. Remain on standby for further orders." one of the pegasus stallions replies.
"Yes, sir." Thunderdash says with a salute.
The stallions and Minister Thunderdash turn and walk out of the maintenance room, Thunderdash locking the door behind them. The last thing Sprinkle Medley sees before she is left in darkness is the knife-like stares of those that have tied her up in that room. In the darkness, she can do nothing but weep helplessly and hold out dim hope for a rescue before its too late...
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MEANWHILE, IN A CANTERLOT CASTLE MEETING...
"Your Highness, surely you're not going to do nothing, are you?"
"Captain, what can I do? Even if I tell her about where I came from, Aunt Luna won't believe a word I say! There's rumors out there that are just as believable as the truth, maybe even more so! She's sure to have heard of those rumors by now."
"Then have your Aunt..."
"Aunt Luna won't believe Aunt Celly either! Aunt Celly has already said she won't do anything until tempers cool down a bit."
"And what if they don't, Your Highness? What then?"
"...Did Aunt Celly tell you what she did with the Elements of Harmony?"
"...Yes, but where exactly are you going with this question?"
"Let's just say, Captain, we may need them and their bearers again in this situation."
"I'd prefer not to think that, Your Highness."
"Me and you both, Captain. Me and you both."