One Cold Winter's Day

by scuba12

Storm of the Century

Twilight Sparkle awoke in the same manner as she did every morning. Stirring herself awake just as the light from Celestia's sun peeked through her bedroom window. She always was an early riser, though she was not entirely sure as to why. Nonetheless, she sat up and draped her hind legs over the side of the bed, before sliding off onto all four hooves. Just as she did every morning, she groggily walked over to her mirror that hung on the other side of the room, used her magic to levitate a brush, and brushed out the mess that had formed in her mane during the night.

Having given herself the once-over in the mirror and being satisfied with her appearance, she began her trek down the stairs, into the main foyer of the library, and into the kitchen, where a certain purple dragon was already cooking breakfast. She never figured out how Spike managed to wake up before her to start cooking breakfast, but she liked it so much that she never bothered to question it.

"Heya Spike," Twilight quietly called out, still partially asleep.

"Oh, hey Twilight! I got up early today and made your favorite breakfast! Haycakes!" Spike responded, obviously very awake and very excited.

"Aw thanks Spike. It smells delicious!" Twilight's stomach gave out a loud gurgle just as she said that. "Heh, let's eat then?" Twilight added with a smile.

After a hearty breakfast, Twilight used her magic to grab her to-do list for the day that had been sitting on her desk.

Wake up. Check. Brush mane. Check. Eat breakfast. Check. Check on the well-being of Ponyville. Not checked.

As Ponyville's resident princess, she had a duty to look after her humble little town. Every morning she would take a stroll outside to assure that nothing had happened overnight. Ever since the Everfree Forest invaded Ponyville, she kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

"I'll be back in a little while, Spike," Twilight said as she made her way to the front door.

"Ok, Twilight!" Spike responded from the kitchen.

Twilight enveloped the door in her magic and opened it with ease. She was still looking back into the kitchen as she was making her way past the door and out of the house, when suddenly something very hard and very cold stopped her in her tracks. What the hay? Twilight turned to face the object, only to realize it wasn't an object at all.

"Uhh, Spike?"

"What's up Twilight?" Spike called out from the kitchen.

"Do you remember hearing about a snowstorm from the weather team?"

"Huh?" Spike made his way out of the kitchen and into the main foyer of the library, where Twilight stood staring at something. His gaze followed hers to the open doorway, just as his jaw dropped to match Twilight's. Apparently, a rather large storm had hit Ponyville overnight, as the front door was almost completely blocked off by several feet of snow.

Something is wrong here. Twilight thought to herself, knowing that if a storm this large had been scheduled by Ponyville's weather team, the pegasi would have informed the town.

"What do you think could have caused this?" Spike said, still staring at the enormous wall of white.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." Twilight had already began climbing back up the stairs to her bedroom. Knowing she couldn't leave through the front door, she decided to use Rainbow Dash's favorite door. The window. With a quick stretch of her alicorn wings, she was propelled through the open window that was located just above her bed and into the bitter cold that was the outdoors.

The short flight to Rainbow Dash's cloud house proved to be slightly more difficult than the many times before, as Twilight was still getting used to the bitter cold nipping at her fur mid-flight. Just as quickly as it began, the flight was over, as Twilight spotted another one of her best friends, Applejack, standing just below the cloud house looking upward. Twilight redirected herself to join her friend. No doubt Applejack was there for the same reason as her.

"Hey Applejack!" Twilight called out as she was approaching the ground for a landing. Even from a distance, Twilight could tell that the orange earth pony was worried. "What's going on?"

"Oh hey ya there, Twilight. I was hopin' that one of you could tell me that. I jus' woke up this mornin' to check on the fields and saw that they were all covered in snow!"

"Something strange is definitely going on here. Why would the weather team schedule such a powerful storm?"

The two agreed on the last point, and both mares knew exactly who had the answers that they were looking for. If anyone knew what was going on, it would have to be the team's captain.

The two nodded at each other and looked up simultaneously before yelling at the top of their lungs, "Rainbow Daaaaaash!"

Rainbow Dash was never an early riser, a direct contrast to her good friend Twilight Sparkle. She always preferred to sleep the day away as long as she could before having to face the responsibilities that came with being captain of the Ponyville weather team. As much as she loved cloud busting, she would rather find a cloud to curl up on for a nap. A well-deserved nap, but a nap nonetheless.

This particular morning, Rainbow Dash was feeling especially lazy. It was her day off, after all. She hadn't planned anything to keep her busy until much later in the day, when she was planning on meeting Pinkie Pie at Sugarcube Corner to taste a new recipe that she was working on. So she decided to spend her morning snuggling her pillow as tightly as she could, trying to keep warm.

Rainbow could hear many noises originating from outside, the wind being the most prominent. The wind was always the most prominent, given the fact that her house was parked high above the town. She pulled the pillow up closer to her face and covered her ears so as to drown out the noise that was keeping her awake.

That was, of course, until the faintest of shouts reached the ears of the barely-awakened pony.

Who in Celestia would be calling my name this early? And more importantly, why? Rainbow thought to herself. At this point she was rather irritated at having been kept awake on her day off.

Annoyed by the sound of her own name, she crawled out of bed with her eyes only half-opened, and made her way over to her window to see who was calling up at her from below her house. She opened the window with a quick push and called out, "What do y--" The last words catching in her throat as her eyes shot open at the sight of nothing. Nothing, that was, but white. The rooftops? White. The grass? White. The dirt? White. But it wasn't the color that shocked her the most. It was the sheer quantity. The snow appeared to be very deep, topping off at about half way up the flag poles that were strung up in the middle of town.

Quickly awoken by the sight of the unscheduled amount of snow, Rainbow darted out the window to find out what exactly was going on. She glided slowly down towards the ground, being sure to take a good look at the situation around her. She had scheduled a light overnight snowfall, but the amount that was currently surrounding her was anything but light. She landed gracefully in front of her friends, who both wore looks of confusion on their faces.

"Uh, hey guys. What's up?" Rainbow started, knowing very well the reason for their presence.

"Uh, Rainbow, what's up with all this snow? I couldn't even use my front door this morning!" Twilight responded.

"I don't know. I told the guys to make a light snowfall, but..."

Just as she trailed off in thought, she noticed a figure that was walking towards them out of the corner of her eye. As the figure drew closer, she was able to see that it was a pony. A grayish stallion with a black mane and dark glasses, to be exact. At the sight of him, she suddenly shot up to attention and brought her right hoof to her forehead in salute to her superior officer, Thunder Clap. He was a fairly simple looking stallion. Most of the male officers from Cloudsdale looked the same: Medium build, clean-kept, and a very commanding presence.

"At ease, Captain Dash." Thunder Clap said as he approached the cyan pegasus. He then took a quick glance over at the two other mares that were with Rainbow, and noticing the presence of Princess Twilight Sparkle, he offered her a respectful bow of his head.

"Do you bring news, commander?" Twilight questioned, acknowledging the gray pegasus.

"I do. It appears that a storm made by the Trottingham weather team got a little out of hand. It seems to have combined with the storm that Ponyville's weather team made, and created, well," he raised his right hoof and swung it from left to right. "this."

Rainbow Dash stood fairly still as her superior was talking. She seemed to be focusing more intently on his words than any of her friends had seen before. She appeared to be waiting for an order.

Before any of the mares could speak up, he continued. "Captain Dash, it appears that your assistance will be necessary. You and your team have been assigned to clear up this snow. Restore it to the levels that you had planned. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Rainbow Dash said as she quickly snapped to attention and raised her right hoof to her forehead once again. With that, she flared her wings and took off, leaving only a translucent rainbow trail in her wake.

Author's Note:

Yay! I've had this thought in my head for like a month now. I'm glad I could finally get it down in writing. This is my first story, so please, any constructive criticism is welcome.

The romance is coming up in the next chapter, so don't fret.

Comments

[John H]

[Twidashforever]

Well written, nice setup, and Twidash incoming.

Have a like and a thumbs up from me!

[Vectored Thrust]

Good start, I can't find any flaws, but the meat and potatoes is going to be the shipping, and I really can't say on that since it hasn't begun yet

Here's some encouragement and I look forward to the upcoming shipping to give better feedback :3

[scuba12]

5525476
Oh, don't worry. It is coming

If anyone were to take advice from me, this is what I would wish it to be.
That it matters not what others may say. What matters most is your passion, day by day.
-Scuba12

[Lunatone]

5525476

I spent an hour or two looking it over. It paid off.