Chapter 5: Summer Storms
Aptitude
MLP:FiM
By: Kestrel
This morning, Blizzard beat his alarm clock to the punch, making sure to deactivate it before it could blast his eardrums early in the morning. He had decided to take the advice Flathoof had given him the day before and wake up a bit earlier to have time for a warm shower and enough time to eat.
Once he looked up from his alarm clock and had shaken off his sleep, it became apparent that Flathoof was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was down at breakfast already? Oh well, shower time!
Following his normal routine, Blizzard went into the shower and cleaned himself thoroughly, enjoying the (actually!) hot water. His mane slicked down as the water ran down his face. He could stay in the shower forever, but his stomach was starting to complain, the noise level rising above the pattering of water droplets against the glass door and his coat.
Rushing water turned to a steady drip and finally ceased while Blizzard Warning stepped out of the shower and dried himself with his towel. He smiled as his mane fell perfectly into its normally messy state, just the way he liked it.
Moving back into the bedroom, Blizzard organized his saddlebags, floating out the textbooks for his unicorn classes out while keeping the text for Interspecies Relations in the bag. Easily ten pounds lighter, it wasn’t such a burden to carry the bag as it had been yesterday. Apparently Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays would be good for exercise.
Blizzard trotted down the stairs into the dining area where Flathoof was chewing on a bowl of oats. Following suit, Blizzard procured his own bowl and joined his roommate at the table. As he was seated, Flathoof formed a look of genuine surprise, something Blizzard never expected from him.
“What are you even doing here?” he asked. Blizzard felt confused, it was time to eat and go to class, why else would he be up? “You don’t have any classes until after lunch…”
Blizzard’s eyes widened. That’s right! All his Tuesday classes were after lunch! He could have slept in. Now that he was up… what to do?
“Oh…” he admitted glumly, staring into his oats and now wishing he hadn’t woken up. Oh well, it wasn’t all bad. Now he could explore campus and see if he could find some cool things to do around here.
“Well, I’ve got to get off to my classes,” Flathoof said with a mouth full of oats.
“Okay, see you at lunch,” Blizzard said as his buddy got up from the table and flew on out. Flathoof’s classes probably had to do with either detective work or stalking, could be either. Yeah… especially since Blizzard never actually remembered telling him about his course schedule.
The colt took another bite of his own bowl of oats while contemplating how to spend his time. There were lots of cool places around campus. There was a riverbed, a forest, spotting good places to stargaze, and the library was also available. Ultimately though, Blizzard decided he really did want that extra sleep. If there was something he liked as much as eating his mom’s cooking, it was sleeping.
The walk to campus was long as usual, and Blizzard briefly wished that he lived a little bit closer to the classrooms for ease of travel. It was too much work to trot the whole way, especially if it was late.
On second thought… now that his secret was out, maybe it was good that he was farther away from campus. Ponies on the way through campus pointed him out to their friends and made a big deal about his presence. If only things were so easy to get used to for one day.
Halfway through the center of campus, a couple of admittedly cute fillies grabbed him and took him away for a picture against his will. He was too busy blushing to fight back, but he didn’t like that kind of attention. Everypony was just being so caught up in fame that he didn’t actually earn, he was just born into it. Sometimes it just felt that his ancestry was more of a burden than a blessing.
All the smiling and waving to practically everypony on campus, including a few of the teachers, Blizzard was finally able to drop the uncomfortable attitude for dealing with his fame once he got to the classroom, at least everypony couldn’t openly ogle about him during class.
Inside class, the group of griffons were sitting and turned their gaze, narrowing their eyes on all the ponies that entered the classroom. Maybe it made sense and they’d feel threatened or want to seem intimidating since they were a minority in the school, but it sure was unnerving. Things couldn’t have actually been so strained between the races like that, and Regal Virtue might have been wrong.
So he sat next to the griffons, immediately causing them to drop their jaws in awe. Soon after though, their hard expressions returned as a griffon with black crest feathers turned to face Blizzard.
“What’s a lame pony doing sitting next to us?” he asked, leaving nothing to the imagination that Blizzard wasn’t quite welcome.
The other griffons laughed after him. The black crested one must have been the leader of their little group. Blizzard decided to stick with the effort for a little while longer. Maybe they were just rough around the edges.
“I-I wanted to sit next to you guys so maybe we could be friends…” Blizzard trailed off. “You know, like how Professor Giubardo was saying…”
“Listen good, pony,” the griffon said, filling the gap in speech from Blizzard. “We don’t like you. Not only are you a sissy pony, but you’re one of those self-righteous unicorns. You all think you’re better just because you have magic”
Self-righteous? That didn’t sit well with Blizzard, as he thought himself to be fairly humble and fair with himself and others. He decided to show the better side of his temper and let it slide.
“Huh?” Blizzard questioned. “Unicorns aren’t better than anypony else because we have magic. You guys can fly! And earth ponies are super strong! Everypony is equal in my eyes.”
The griffon group of students let out a collective groan. Blizzard suddenly regretted saying what he did for fear that it upset them.
“Psh, ‘everypony.’ See, this is what we’re saying,” the griffon responded. “Even when the ponies came to ‘help’ Griffonstone, there wasn’t a unicorn who came along, and the ponies left the griffons to reconstruct on their own! No actual help was given whatsoever!”
Now Blizzard Warning felt a bit hurt. He knew that wasn’t exactly how it happened. The reason no unicorn was sent was because the Princess of Friendship ordered two ponies to go for Griffonstone relief effort, but neither were unicorns. And then they left, but it had been reported that Griffonstone was left in good hooves. So why was he getting so much flak now?
Blizzard backed up and out of his seat, not willing to try and press things any further with the irate griffons. As he retreated, the group snickered and laughed softly, believing Blizzard to be leaving because he was afraid. They weren’t completely wrong.
The young colt retreated up the stairs into higher rows of seats. When he sat down, Regal Virtue moved from where he had been watching to be next to Blizzard. A few of the griffons turned to the front of the class while a pair of more aggressive ones had their talons balled up and were smacking them against their open talon.
Blizzard’s veins ran cold, as if the griffons had just marked him for death for some reason. Regal Virtue made his own threatening motions back to the griffons, showing no fear or hesitation. Part of Blizzard admired that, but was at the same time afraid of such conviction. Why not just try to make friends first? But maybe Virtue already had tried some time ago.
“Dirty griffons,” Regal muttered under his breath. The older colt crossed his hooves over his chest as Professor Giubardo walked in and the class began. As fate would seem to have it, the first lesson was on the Griffon Kingdom, or maybe it was just some bias from the professor.
According to the book and lesson, the griffons were and are a race that valued power above nearly all else, be it military, economic, or social status. That explained why they had a strong fighting force mentioned in the textbook, and why they always seemed greedy in storybooks.
However, unlike ponies, they were united under a single ruler and persisted in cooperation for a very long time without having to put multiple races together in harmony.
“Now, can any one of my students tell me the reasons for the fall of Griffonstone?” Giubardo asked the class. One of the griffon students raised his hand. Giubardo pointed a talon toward him.
“The great Idol of Boreas’ theft by Arimaspi!” he nearly shouted in rage. “It caused the once proud kingdom of old to collapse due to demoralization.”
“Right you are, Gino,” the professor said. He returned to explaining the event, in which a one-eyed monster came into Griffonstone to steal their idol, and the brave fight the king at the time, Guto and his guard put up. Alas, the effort was futile and the idol was lost, and with it the pride that kept the griffons working.
The kingdom fell into disrepair and decline for the next few centuries, and griffons were seldom seen outside of the Griffon Kingdom unless they were part of a roaming mercenary band or delivery service.
Some time later, long after Griffonstone had fell into shambles, a princess of Equestria sent two envoys who started the long progress of resurgence into the kingdom.
“...thanks to the early departure of the envoys, the griffons were left floundering for several years before things truly got back on track,” Professor Giubardo explained. “The ponies were instrumental in the beginning of the restoration movement, but they left before stability was achieved.” Blizzard mused over this information in his head. Could the ponies have messed up? It seemed like such a heroic effort to help a dying kingdom like that. Why weren’t the griffons a bit more grateful? “Thankfully, Gilda the Kingdom Savior eventually came across the lost Idol of Boreas years later and the reconstruction effort hit a boom.”
Blizzard wrote down the information quickly. This was so much different than stories and rumors he had ever heard regarding griffons and ponies. The different perspective was really eye opening for the young colt. Regal Virtue wasn’t writing and rolled his eyes at the notes Blizzard was dutifully taking.
“Seriously?” he asked in a whisper. “You can’t honestly believe that. Maybe they did find that idol of theirs, but it was the ponies who gave them their pride back. The monarchy didn’t screw up making any decisions.”
Meanwhile, the lesson continued. Apparently the reconstruction effort boomed, but the ideals of the old griffons came back to the forefront along with the idol. While the ideals of friendship were still present, they took a backseat to traditional values of gold. Rather than working truly together, the current Griffon Kingdom was ruled by an oligarchy of the wealthiest griffons.
The economy of the griffon kingdom was powerful, but they lacked the social and financial equality that most of Equestria enjoyed.
Relationships with Equestria as of late had been somewhat strained ever since Gilda the Kingdom Savior had lost her power and sway over the griffons in wake of the finding of the Idol of Boreas. The griffon oligarchy generally viewed things in benefit to the griffons alone rather than try to make diplomatic friends. Griffons put themselves above the other inhabitants of the world as the strongest, having come out of certain ruin.
Class ended with the ring of the bell and Blizzard felt full of new insight. However, his new buddy still didn’t seem to appreciate his griffon classmates, though the griffons didn’t seem too thrilled yet either. Hopefully the heated glares would die as the year went on. Things just seemed kind of tense between them. Maybe they had some sort of falling out in the past few years?
As the two colts trotted on out of the room, Regal kept a sharp eye out on the griffons, unsaid threats seeming to cling to the air, making it heavy and suffocating. Blizzard decided that it would be best to save that can of worms for another day.
“So the griffons sure are interesting, aren’t they?” Blizzard tried to make conversation. Regal Virtue just flattened his ears out. Obviously he wasn’t too thrilled with talk of griffons.
“Oookay… how about that buffalo student?” Blizzard tried again. This time Regal snorted, but not with the same sort of anger he had toward the griffons, but he still seemed annoyed, prompting more curiosity from the younger colt.
“I don’t know. The buffalo aren’t quite as bad as griffons, but they’re trying to stop Equestria from expanding,” he said. “Their selfish desires almost prevented the city Appleoosa from existing because they were trying to remove its food source. Since then things have been quiet, but that’s because the buffalo kept to themselves. Now that we have a buffalo student here, I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”
That was kind of strange logic to Blizzard. He was actually kind of interested in the buffalo student, after all, as far as he knew, she was the only one on campus. He had seen a few griffons outside the group in Interspecies Relations, but no buffalo.
“Well, that’s a worry for another time,” Regal said. “I’ve got to get back to my government class before it starts. See ya later!”
Blizzard Warning waved goodbye to the older pony as he trotted onto his next class.
But when he got to the door of the classroom, there was a note on the front of the door around a small group of students standing around and looking confused.
Class canceled today, I’m sick and can’t come to class today. Your assigned reading is page 24-48 on herbs, weeds, and leaves. Complete the assigned identification practices and read up on poultice making with the ingredients therein.
Ms. Imani
Well, that was rather odd. The health teacher was sick… There was something ironic about that, especially given the fact that she had apparently hung the note on the door herself. Bad timing for sure, it was only the second day of school and a teacher had already canceled a class period! Whatever, it worked for Blizzard.
With a spring to his steps, Blizzard went out into the common area and read a comic book he had brought from home about the Power Ponies by the central fountain. He spotted a few colts across the field staring at him. He could pick out a few of the things they were saying. Something about power levels, super magic, and spell casting. Sounded like some real nerds or something, and just like everypony else who made a big deal about him because of Starswirl, Blizzard felt uncomfortable.
If only he could do something to prove he was just a normal pony like everypony else!
Back to reading it was. Blizzard tried his hardest to keep his head in his book as far as possible, to block out the passing ponies who gave him looks ranging from pity, to anger, to swooning.
The next hour would be a long one…
The intermission that the cancelled health class had left not only left Blizzard without a friend in the form of Double Dose to talk to normally, but forced him to spend it in public. The time he waited was spent dodging glances and anticipating his first day in his weather class.
The clouds overhead started to pack together and darken. That was weird. The daily weather schedules around campus didn’t predict a storm for another few days. In light of the possibility of rain, Blizzard opted to move to his next class a few minutes early.
But sadly, the rain started to pour down. Poor Blizzard got soaked running to class, but at least his books were all safe inside his saddlebags. Blizzard’s mane, now heavy with water, slicked down over his eyes, blocking his vision somewhat. Once he got into the building, he was greeted by a familiar giggle.
“You look like a disaster!” Merry Weather guffawed, clapping a hoof to her snout as a snort escaped her. Blizzard gave her a defiant look and cracked an evil grin.
“Oh Merry…” he began, inching closer to her. “I just wanna give you a biiiig hug!” He lunged and squeezed Merry Weather, showering her and a few other ponies with excess water as he shook himself. Merry started smacking him playfully while turning her face away.
“Ewww!” she shouted. “Get off of me! That’s so gross, Blizzard!” She was laughing though, so Blizzard wasn’t too worried. However, a few of the other affected, and now wet, ponies threw unamused expressions at him. Blizzard let Merry Weather go, dropping her back onto her hooves.
“Aww, somepony does love me!” she fake swooned, fluttering her eyelashes. Despite his usual weakness to somepony making fun of him in a romantic sense, he was used to it and ready for Merry’s joking.
“You wish,” Blizzard fired back good-naturedly. He was given a bop to the nose in response, making Blizzard rub out the sudden twinge of pain with his hoof, dropping his smile.
“Hmph,” Merry said, turning around and batting him with a wing in the head. “You’d be lucky to have me if I ever let you.” She turned around and stuck her tongue out at him and pulled an eyelid down to complete the effect.
Ponies in the area laughed. It was pretty clear that Merry would be the winner of this one, and Blizzard didn’t feel like digging a hole any deeper. He’d just take it how it was. It was time for class anyway, so he could spare the remainder of his pride and listen in on the class that was supposed to teach him his place in Equestria.
Inside the classroom was a lot different from any of the others in the Starswirl Building. It wasn’t rustic and full of ancient desks like the rest, it was a new atrium built onto the top floor of the building, a dome structure perfect for viewing the sky. That is, it would be if the sky wasn’t blocked by the cloud cover.
The ceiling stretched up high and a pegasus mare dropped from above. She was sporting flashy Wonderbolts goggles, though Blizzard had never seen her on any of the posters. Maybe she was a fan. Either way, Blizzard was pretty jealous of those goggles. Just because he was a unicorn didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy watching the Wonderbolts perform.
“Good morning class! Welcome to Specialized Weather!” she exclaimed, as if she were trying to drown out the storm above, which she may have been flying in not too long ago. Yet her smile beamed brightly like a light piercing the clouds, despite only being able to teach a hoofful of students. Being a specialized class though, that was to be expected.
Looking around the room, Blizzard was sort of confused as to the purpose of the class. If it was a weather class like she said, then why was he, and a lot of other non-pegasi, here? He was a unicorn, so he could move clouds with great effort and focus with his magic, but it would be taxing and shaky, even with his talent for natural forces.
“I’m seeing some of your faces, and while priceless, are not really necessary,” she explained. “This course will provide tailored curriculum to each student. As a specialized class, extensive research into your talent areas and an overview of your race has determined what you shall be doing in this class. So don’t worry, all you earth ponies in class don’t have to worry about cloud busting.”
A few sighs of relief filled the classroom along with good natured laughs. The pegasus mare winked and flashed a huge grin. It was clear she loved her job.
“My name is Mrs. High Wire, and I’ll be your teacher for this year.” This pegasus was quite pretty, and young for a teacher here. Her body was a bright, yet unoffensive red, and her mane reminded Blizzard of lemonade, both regular and pink. Her cutie mark was an image of a power line.
Merry Weather was squishing her cheeks in at the sight of her. She too had noticed the Wonderbolt goggles, and was in complete admiration mode. Hopefully she’d be able to still pay attention. Blizzard waved a hoof in front of her to make sure she was still with the class, and was rewarded with a swift jab to the ribs.
Blizzard shrugged it off and got his notes out. What was especially good about this class was that it didn’t have a textbook. Mrs. Wire flew up to one of the higher mounted chalkboards and wrote a large diagram, stretching to the lower chalkboards. At least it would be easy to read!
“Alright everypony, while some of you might be under the impression that weather is something that only weather workers and pegasi need to know, you’d be wrong,” she declared. “Weather is important to understand for other professions, like if you’re going to be a weather reporter, farmer, or architect, just to name a few.”
“Now, the first, and easiest natural element of weather is rain,” she explained. “Duh. It’s kind of vitally important to everything. Food grows with it, it’s good for drinking, ponies generally like to be clean with baths. Water is where all this stems from, and it is of utmost importance to understand the details of water and how to handle and deal with it.”
This part of the lesson was fairly basic, water got evaporated into the air for pegasi to collect or had to be sucked up by pegasus generated tornado, clouds were created in the weather factory, and later on, they’d be timed to rain down on the world below. Runoff would collect and the rivers would carry the water back to the ocean, like veins to a heart.
While this had more to do with the pegasi, Mrs. High Wire provided a few examples of how it could be useful to others, such as explaining how to manipulate the running water to form a water reservoir or how to distinguish flash flood danger areas from safe ones for the purpose of building homes.
This all seemed basic, but to be quite honest, Blizzard had never really thought about rain other than the fact it was wet and made it hard to see in front of him when his mane got wet. It wasn’t hot like shower water either, it was cold and could make him shiver.
And yet, despite all the helpful information, nothing seemed like it would help Blizzard out. Maybe in other parts of the class.
“So everypony,” Mrs. High Wire began. “This is going to be a special class, because we get to take some small field trips!” Cheers erupted from the group of ponies. Field trips hardly ever happened back home. Even when Blizzard had a tutor for magic kindergarden. “I’m sure you noticed the sudden, unscheduled storm?” Blizzard’s eyes narrowed as things started to line up and make sense. So his brief misery was caused directly by this mare…
Oh well, at least it had been an opportunity to joke around with Merry Weather. It was really cool that he had a friend in each of his classes. Although he did feel a pang of sadness that he didn’t have any classes with Flathoof, but he was roommates with the colt, so that kind of balanced out.
“Form a line and grab an umbrella and boots, it’s going to be wet out there!” High Wire said. The eight ponies formed a line and began to receive umbrellas, all except the more excited ponies, being Merry Weather and an earth pony. They decided to forgo having an umbrella.
The motley band of ponies ventured into the storm and trekked out to an open field. Blizzard was really glad for the provided boots. Mud was caked on the soles of his rainboots and mud was hard to get out of his bright white coat. He vigorously hoped that Merry wouldn’t try to get him back for his shenanigans earlier.
Class resumed once they reached a good spot where everypony could see. High Wire flew up to a low hanging cloud and brought it down without setting off its rain or lightning. The students gathered around in a semicircle, surrounding the teacher.
“Alright ponies,” she said. “Clouds are pretty great. They can be used for so many things too! Of course their primary use is to provide water to the earth, but they can be used as home building materials, like cloud houses in Cloudsdale. Additionally, they also create a good source of renewable electricity since they can contain lightning.”
She took the cloud and zoomed away from the students to a respectable distance and shouted back at them.
“This stormcloud has three charges of lightning! The pegasus controlling the clouds sets off the first one while the remaining bolts of lightning strike on their own accord!”
The teacher stomped down on the cloud, causing it to let loose a blinding flash, scorching the earth beneath it. She kicked the cloud back the other way, sending it away from campus so nopony would get hurt. A few of the students put their hooves together for the performance as she returned.
“Okay class, now I want everypony go out and catalogue clouds. Make sure to keep in mind proper storm safety. This isn’t a dangerous storm by any means, but you could get hurt if you make bad decisions.”
Each pony gave some sort of response in the affirmative, and Blizzard left to go start writing down cloud types. He lost Merry when she zipped off to find a higher viewpoint. Low ground was safer during thunderstorms, but Blizzard was sure she could handle herself.
Lightning flashed and arced in the sky, leaving impressions on Blizzard’s sight. Rather than rubbing the images out of his head, he smiled, relishing the fantastic power of nature. He only had one cloud left to catalogue, but it was a nimbus cloud, and he had been staying away from those. The couldn’t be set off except by a pegasus, but he was still cautious. He made his way up a hill to get a better view, making sure to keep an eye out for any rogue clouds.
On the top of the hill sat Merry Weather on a tree. She was busy cataloguing her own clouds, and apparently not having as much luck drawing them as he was. She was constantly erasing what she had and scribbling out strange shapes.
Suddenly, Blizzard felt a vague sense of dread in the back of his mind. Lightning coursed through his mind, striking at his nerves. Something bad was going to happen… He could see it somehow. There was a rogue cloud, and it was heading toward Merry! She wasn’t going to see it in time and it would strike her tree! He had to help!
“Merry Weather!” he called out. She stopped to look at Blizzard, not turning to see a darkened cloud making a beeline toward her. Blizzard was about to open his mouth but lit up his horn instead. The cloud crackled with energy and light began to pour from it.
“Watch out!” he yelled as he fired off a pressurized gust of wind from his horn into the cloud, pushing it far away. As the cloud soared across the sky, Merry finally caught a glimpse of the retreating black fluffiness and realized the peril she was in.
But the worst had yet to pass. Merry’s pupils shrank as the clouds that the blast of air hit suddenly became nastier. Mrs. High Wire came flying to check up on her students and she witnessed the disturbance as well.
“Funnel cloud!” she yelled. “Everypony, get to the ground away from trees and find shelter now! I’ll take care of this!”
Blizzard Warning and Merry Weather followed the orders with no hesitation, running off for shelter. Mrs. High Wire joined with the weather team that had come out from Baltimare and they flew off, creating their own counterspin to the collecting clouds.
The colts and fillies gathered together huddled in fear, but also in awe as their teacher bravely fought the onslaught of frightening natural fury. Windy blasts of rain blew in each of the pegasi’s faces as they flew faster and faster to prevent the funnel cloud from touching down. Now those Wonderbolt goggles would sure be useful.
Lightning struck one of the weather workers and he tumbled out of the formation, with one of his colleagues breaking rank to collect his fallen friend. Thankfully, his rubberized utility uniform protected him from electrocution, but the impact had knocked him out. The remaining eight ponies in the weather team and High Wire continued to spin their own counter tornado, finally seeing some results as the funnel cloud began to slow.
Unable to completely stop the forming cloud, the funnel touched down into a lesser cyclone that ripped up the field below. It would no longer do any severe damage to anything but a garden out in the middle of nowhere. As High Wire flew off to check in with her class, the weather team kept a sharp lookout at the spinning cyclone as a few flew to check in on their downed coworker.
Blizzard felt terrible. This had happened all because of him… but at the same time, he didn’t feel any regret. For the first time in his life, he had done something halfway decent with his talent. He had seen… something, and acted on his instincts, pushing that stormcloud away from his friend. Merry Weather looked at him in mixed emotions of worry and wonder. He looked like he had seen a ghost. There was something awfully impressive about what he did though. If it wasn’t for him, she could have been hurt badly, she didn’t have one of those rubber suits.
“Is everypony okay?” asked the drenched and windswept pegasus mare as she touched down. She took a head count and heaved a sigh of relief as she counted the full eight students were present. They were all shaken and frightened, but their fear gave way to elation as they started to cheer their teacher and hero. For a first day of class, it sure left a huge impression!
Mrs. High Wire shook her head out and wiped some of the water out of her mane. Dissipating a funnel cloud wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and she was exhausted. Her panting breaths and the sweat mixed in with the water from the rain was fairly obvious to the rest of the ponies.
“Don’t worry everypony, everything’s alright. The weather ponies and I are safe, nothing bad happened in the end. But I’m too tired to go on for today, so I’m going to cut class short today… Dismissed…” she said, heaving breaths at every pause. As each young pony passed her, they gave her encouraging pats on the back or smiles, except for Blizzard, who was too preoccupied with what he had done and what went on.
There was no doubt in his mind that he had caused that funnel cloud with his special ‘talent,’ and he was extremely thankful for the heroic and quick actions of the weather team and his teacher. But… what was that vision? Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Was it another manifestation of his cutie mark, telling his destiny as a harbinger of disaster? No, it couldn’t be… he hoped...