Our Time to Fly

by Shokinaw

Chapter 13, Clearing the Skies Part: 3

She was just a little filly when they first laid the foundation, still learning her words and pestering her parents with hundreds of questions they could only barely understand enough to answer. She was on her father’s shoulders looking over a crowd of ponies who had come from miles around. Pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies arrived by the herd to watch a still young Stinking Rich and Macoun Apple lay down the cornerstone. There was a large cheer followed by happy applause as an inscription on the block was read out loud, and the air was filled with a spirit of celebration.

She still she remembered pointing at the large stone and asking: “what’s that?”

“That is going to be the town hall someday,” her mother answered with a bright smile.

At the time she was still too young to even know what that meant, but the answer did quiet her questions for a few moments as she thought about it. The stone struck a chord with her somehow. It felt right; like it would become fiercely important to her.

She hadn’t understood it at the time, but the feeling stuck with her throughout her years. Many hours were spent contemplating the meaning. The truth was they were laying down more than just a foundation for a building that day.

Much more.

It was a symbol of families from all over the area showing a commitment to each other; a community of friends uniting and becoming something greater. It was the christening of a town; the town of Ponyville. The official title of township had arrived a few months earlier from Canterlot, but the laying of the stone was the the moment it first felt real to the residents.

The Rich family provided the funds and the Apple family was to provide the workers, but it was the community coming together that had made that moment special. It was a moment the young filly would never forget.

The circular building looked so strong back then; sturdy and impressive at four stories high before coming to a tower’s point at its top. It was surrounded with two levels of balconies that encircled the outside. As she grew she and all her friends would run in around the highest balcony and stare over the railings. It felt as though they were on top of the world! None of the surrounding buildings even came to half its height and it seemed as though they could see forever over the hills in the distance and into the horizon. Below, the earth ponies and unicorns would be going about their daily chores, above pegasi were clearing the skies. Ponies from all walks of life made up their flourishing town.

Long after her friends had gotten bored with the new building, she would still climb the winding stairways to stare over that railing. From these balconies she could see everything that was Ponyville; everything she truly cherished about her home. The day her cutie mark appeared was the day she made an unspoken promise to herself to make this little community prosper as much as she could.

Tirelessly she found herself slaving away in the Town Hall, and the building became more of a home to her than anywhere else. Her own house was often layered with dust and seldom seen visitors, but her office was polished to a shine and entertained ponies almost constantly.

She was Mayor Mare, and she had become the Mayor of Ponyville through exhaustive work and concern for the well-being of her neighbours and friends. Her elections went uncontested for the last ten years running. Though it was never her intention, she had become a permanent fixture there; as much a part of the town hall as the cornerstone she’d seen laid down so very long ago.

Improving Ponyville had always been her goal, and juggling the different business claims, property disputes, and expanding the town’s constantly growing borders and industrial pursuits were her tools for doing so. It was no easy task. Businesses demanded the town invest more into the railroad for greater capability to export produce. Disasters of every sort harassed Ponyville, and it was standard procedure to help those in need before repairs could be made on public property. In spite of that, roads still needed to be made, borders needed to be pushed further back, and infrastructure needed to be built up before any new citizens or businesses could be moved in.

All of this needed to be accomplished without increasing taxes to support the effort. Frankly it was an impossible balance to achieve, but she had managed to impress the local merchants and residents enough with her bookkeeping talents that they refused to see anypony take her place.

Due to constant juggle of priority finances, the old town hall had suffered over the years. The whole building had been long overdue for the maintenance they had begun during the Spring. Mayor Mare could have blamed the lacking bits and budget cuts, or the primary concern of helping out residents in trouble, but she admitted to herself it wasn’t the only reason. The truth was that she had grown far too attached to the old building. The first words out of the mouth of every contractor she’d asked about the project of repairing the town hall was ‘not to bother’ followed by ‘we should tear it down and build another.’

Thoughts of seeing her home broken into piles of wood to be replaced by some strange, new structure that would completely unfamiliar to her flooded her mind. It hurt a lot more than it should have. Ponyville did not have the bits to spare for personal feelings to be involved. Even so, Mayor Mare repeatedly pushed back the project, waiting for somepony to come along with a real solution that would leave her heart at peace.

This spring the answer had come from the least expected place. A young mare just out of her filly years was seeking a job in the architecture and carpentry trade. Her apprenticeship was finally at an end, and as her final project to prove her knowledge of her trade, she had done a fantasy design for town hall.

It wasn’t a new idea.

The shabby shape of the town hall was a well-known joke to every carpenter and architect in the area, and two out of three aspiring carpenters used it for such fantasy projects. Each design found their way to Mayor Mare’s desk while hopeful eyes wondered if their ideas would be allowed.

She’d smile politely, tell them, often truthfully, there just weren’t any bits left to spare, and then send them on with a recommendation. Seeing the young ponies taking interest in supporting their community was inspiring after all, and it hurt to tell them ‘no’ over and over again. Their designs were often quite wonderful, impressive, and some were just plain fantastic, but when she pictured working in the halls of these buildings something inside her protested with all its strength. Each picture and design broke her heart ever so slightly, then her eyes would begin to tear up until it felt like she was about to lose something incredibly precious and rare.

Then one morning there was a new design placed neatly on her desk when she had stepped into her office. At first, she didn’t even realize it was a new design. She’d thought somepony had made a new copy of the old ones and figured she was supposed to file them. It was only when misfortune spilled her coffee over the folder and forced her to take the pictures out to dry each one separately, that she took notice.

The shape of the building hadn’t changed, but the building materials were very different. The new one called for different kinds of lumber and stone the founders never had access to when they first built the hall. However, with the railroad at their convenience, Ponyville could ship supplies in from anywhere in Equestria. The new design called for twice as many support beams around the base, and much of it wasn’t what one would consider ‘fancy’. Unlike many of the other designs no specially made sculptures or carvings were anywhere in the plans.

The improvements were all ‘function over fashion’ as workponies would say on occasion. On the higher floors the building would start being made of lighter, more flexible types of wood that would allow it to bend with the wind instead of trying to stand against it. The base foundation suggested stone and lumber of strong and sturdy framework. The work would be both extensive and intrusive, but when completed, the changes would be quite minimal to anypony that was just walking through. Most wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference outside of the extra pillar or support beam here and there.

Actually, Mayor Mare wasn’t even sure she’d call it a new design so much as it was just heavily renovated.

She fell in love with it immediately.

She raced out of her office and demanded her secretary to fetch the young architect as fast as she could. Within the hour the young mare responsible stood before her. She was almost as perfect as her designs. The Apple family’s youngest taking up where her grandfather left off? It was like Ponyville itself walked up, knocked on her office door, and said, “I believe you were waiting for this.”

The renovations hadn’t been fully completed when an angry Apple Bloom had marched into her office and told her she was headed out West to Appleoosa. It was hard thing to hear. No matter how much Mayor Mare had pleaded, Apple bloom was determined to leave. But she hadn’t left them high and dry. The designs, the supplies, the plans, they were all left behind for the next pony to head the project. Things went a bit slower after that, but the mainstay was completed without its lead designer, but her abrupt departure left Mayor Mare wondering if she had chosen the wrong pony for the job after all.

Now that she found herself on the uppermost balcony of the town hall looking at a very different Ponyville from her youth, any questions she had about choosing the right pony were completely dismissed. Waves of green flame rose high along the rooftops. Timberwolves were below, slamming against the large, strong hall doors. Brave earth ponies were out on the balcony with her, raining down building supplies, tools, and anything else they could find, all used as ammunition to kick and throw at the wolves at their gate.

Soaring above her, daring packs of weather ponies, still tired from their failure to clear the wild storm overhead, continued their hopeless attempts at weather control. Others had broken off to make risky supply runs for food, water, and first aid kits. Behind the newly rebuilt, sturdy walls of the town hall and barricaded door, the residents huddled in fear. Colts and fillies were crying. Their parents hovered over them protectively. ‘Everything is safe now’ and ‘The walls will hold’ were commonly whispered words of comfort.

And so far the words remained true. Against all odds, the walls were holding, and the door hadn’t budged no matter how the timberwolves smashed themselves against it. But now the sinister, wooden monsters were leaning against the building, letting their fiery hides take root along the walls. It wasn’t very effective. The heavy rains kept everything soaked, and worked against the wolves’ attempt to burn them out. But there was something unnatural about the green flames they bore; more than just the colour. It was hot enough to take hold in spite of the slick surfaces. It was only a matter of time before their plan would come to fruition if nothing was done.

Unfortunately Mayor Mare wasn’t the only pony to notice. Inside, heated arguments were breaking out. It had started among the pegasi, specifically the weather ponies. Currently the majority of their number were spread thin between making supply runs, making rescue missions for the residents not yet accounted for, and continuing efforts to control the storm. However, with the timberwolves’ new strategy it became very clear that they would have to put some on defense patrols around the building as well. Still others felt the trouble stemmed from the wild storm and that their efforts should be concentrated on clearing the skies.

As they argued, more than just weather team began to voice their opinions. The parents of the colts and fillies that struggled to get their families into safety backed the pegasi who wanted to focus on defense and supplies. Those that still had family outside the hall argued that more needed to be assigned to search and rescue efforts.

Mayor Mare had escaped to the balcony to think, but none of this was the kind of thing she was elected for! She was a glorified paper pusher! Ask her about economics, business, law, or bureaucracy, and she’d have an answer. What Ponyville needed now was not a mayor, it was a general! Still, she was the only leader they had, and it was her they were going to look to for the ultimate decision.

The town hall needed to be protected, but they couldn’t abandon those still caught outside either. And what use was defending the town hall if the rest of Ponyville burned down around them? If the storm was the cause of all this, clearing the skies could save everypony, but there was also no evidence that getting rid of the storm would do any such thing. Furthermore, those heavy rainclouds were their best defense against the fires breaking out all over town.

She stared over the balcony looking in vain for some kind of sign, some kind of answer she could give her citizens that would solve all this. The only thing that answered her silent plea was a terrifying chain of lightning and thunder that rolled across the sky.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a silhouette on the far side of the balcony; a pale yellow pegasi just sitting there and staring up into the storm clouds, her long pink mane and tail, soaked, splayed out, and sticking to her skin, draped over the wood. Her wings were tucked closed to her back, and she shivered in the cold. It was the last pony Mayor Mare would ever expect to see outside in the middle of all of this thunder and lightning.

“Fluttershy?” she asked walking over to her. “What in the heavens are you doing out here? I thought you were helping to oversee the animals and injured ponies.”

“Oh, uh,” Fluttershy stuttered quietly, looking away, unable to meet Mayor Mare’s eyes. “I-I was, b-b-but with all the ponies arguing-” She trailed off, but she didn’t need to say another word. Mayor Mare understood. She too had chosen the fury of the storm over the flaring tempers of family against family. The question had clammed up the shy mare, though, and she desperately needed a pony that wasn’t going to shout in her ear. Maybe a change of topic was in order.

“How are the animals, dear? Are they doing okay?” Fluttershy had been the first pony into the town hall, and many of the necessities for all the ponies coming had already been piled inside thanks to the efforts of her and her woodland friends. The variety of animals shared shelter with Ponyville citizens, much to most of their dismay. Space was already limited but as Fluttershy’s variety of friends included a rather large bear, the animals were given a wide girth on the second floor.

Fluttershy met her gaze again, this time without the sense of fear. It was a much easier subject for her, one she was familiar with, one she was able to handle. “They’re scared, like everypony,” she answered quietly, before turning to look at a nearby flash of lightning. “But they’ll be okay.”

Mayor Mare followed her gaze and caught sight of the flashes of frightening bolts that lit up the sky. “And you? I thought you were scared of thunderstorms.”

“Oh, I am,” Fluttershy quickly agreed. “But they’re also kind of beautiful, aren’t they? I’ve never actually seen one before. The thunder always made me too afraid to look, but I didn’t have a choice tonight. I’m kind of glad.” Another flash came and Fluttershy’s eyes flew towards its direction, hoping to catch sight of it. She wasn’t disappointed. The heavens were putting on a show tonight, and the normally terrified pegasus didn’t want to miss a moment of it. “Is this what they’re all like?”

The awe in her voice made the Mayor smile. “Not at all. Most are much calmer than this.”

Fluttershy nodded, only half listening to the answer, absorbed by the incredible light show in front of her. Mayor Mare shook her head, utterly baffled at the sight. The cowardly pegasus, transfixed by one of the most frightening storms that had ever come out of the Everfree. Of all the ponies in town, this was the one that found their calm in the storm? It was a calm the Mayor wanted to share in right now, if only just for a few moments before getting back into the hall to negotiate between ponies.

“They’ll come, you know.”

Fluttershy’s quiet words startled her more than the loud thunder that followed. “I-I’m sorry?”

“My friends. Th-they’re all on their way. Sometimes, it takes them awhile, a-and I get scared, but they’ll come through. They always do.”

At once Mayor Mare understood. It wasn’t just the loud voices of protective families and worried friends that sent this shy, frightened pony out into the storm. Fluttershy was showing her courage the best way she knew how in this situation. She had come outside to look for her friends, waiting for the chance to take her place among the Elements of Harmony and quell the storm and these timberwolves brought with them.

How could Mayor Mare have forgotten? Ponyville had a secret weapon against these kinds of situations. At last she had found the answer she was searching for. She still had no idea about what to do in regards to the pegasi being spread so thin, but it wasn’t her job to know that. It was her job to find some way to keep the peace until cooler minds found a real answer. Mayor Mare did not need to solve the problem. She just needed to keep ponies from panicking until a more qualified pony showed up. And there were more qualified ponies on their way. However, when the right pony for the job showed up, they’d need all resources available. She just needed to delay things a bit.

Maybe siege tactics were not Mayor Mare’s strong point, but delay tactics? Delay tactics were exactly the kind of thing a glorified paper pusher knew how to do. And if delay tactics could save her town and this hall, then by golly, nopony was going anywhere without filling out the proper forms first!

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The rain was coming down in sheets. Fur and feather alike were so soaked that sometimes Scootaloo wasn’t sure if she was swimming or flying. The wind buffeted against her body leaving a constant, frigid chill through her every limb and appendage. Her wings ached with the strain it took to not be carried away on the gale. She kept a hoof against her forehead in attempt to keep the water from her eyes. Her ears were flooded with water, but still she kept them tensed and alert trying to listen over the storm.

“Up! Push up, push up, push up!” She could only barely make out her Captain’s words, but she followed the command instantly. Angling herself upwards, she pushed against gravity, wings up, wings down, wings up, wings down. As she did, the winds suddenly died down, and she soared upwards through the next layer of dark gray clouds that obscured her vision on all sides. It was just a small gap between the between gales. Her Captain would cry out her commands every time a gap was coming and the team would push higher and higher in an effort to get above the clouds.

It was a slow process. The gaps seldom lasted long, and if they angled too soon or leveled out too late, she would be trapped on the gale and sent spiraling back; losing all the distance she hoped to gain.

Her teeth were chattering, and her whole body shook with the cold. Her reserves of strength were ebbing away. Rainbow Dash had assured them on the way up, that once above the storm they would be able to catch their breath. Getting above the storm, however, was no simple task. It was a slow, five mile climb to get to the clouds and another mile or two to get through them! It felt like an eternity. Now that they had managed to make it to cloud level, it was that much worse. Visibility had gone from little to zero. The only thing she had to rely on was her Captain’s barely heard words in a windstorm.

Scootaloo was only just managing to keep pace, but she had it easy compared to Spike. The poor dragon, couldn’t’ match the agility or reaction time of his smaller pegasi team members, and he was still quite a ways below them. He could never flatten out in time, and the winds caught his sizeable girth much easier. Whenever she caught a glimpse of him, it was like watching a kite in a tornado.

It pained her that she couldn’t go back to help. Everything she had been taught told her not to leave a teammate behind, but it was all she could do to keep herself upright. How was she supposed to help anypony else if she couldn’t even make it on her own? Apparently her Captain had similar thoughts in mind because Rainbow Dash was still higher than her, though that might have just been a trick of the wind. Scootaloo only had the sound of her Captain’s voice to determine where she was, and it was more than a little unreliable.

Suddenly the gales picked back up! Warning from her Captain had not come! She must have fallen out of earshot! Scootaloo’s world spun into a dizzying blur. Her stomach turned with her as the food they had been eating at Aqua Shallow’s cavern threatened to come back up.

“Horsefeathers!” she cursed as she tilted her wings and wiggled her tail this way and that in attempt to level off. Every second she spent trying to recover her bearings meant another fifteen minutes off course! They couldn’t afford this! Who knew what trouble Snails was in! Or Twilight Sparkle for that matter! She wrestled with the winds and gravity to regain her stride.

“Captain!” she frantically screamed, hoping she could catch Rainbow Dash’s attention before they were too far separated. “Captain! Captain, where are you?!”

Minutes passed by and no answer came back.

Growing more frantic with every second, Scootaloo called out for her Captain and for Spike again and again in vain hopes of hearing her own name called back. Fear made her forget the pain and the cold, and forced her forward, pushing into the gale with all her strength. She had to catch up! She just had to!

This couldn’t be happening! Not this! Anything but this! Not lost and alone in a storm! Scootaloo stared up into the rolling black and gray storm clouds that surrounded her. If she could just break out of this cloud cover, everything would be fine! She would be able to find Rainbow Dash and Spike when they managed to find their way up. She couldn’t wait for the gaps in the gales, though. Without Rainbow Dash to guide her, there was no way to tell when they were coming.

The only reason Rainbow Dash knew was due to her extensive time spent as a weather pony. Scootaloo had to take the chance, and fight her way up! With nervous hesitation she waited for any hint of the winds dying down. Until then she flew, just a speck of orange against a sea of black and grays. Several flashes of lightning split the sky, throwing terrifying shadows and stark light across the clouds. Thunder followed, and she felt the force of it rattle her bones. She clenched her teeth and fought to regain her balance. Finally the wind showed signs of dying down a little.

There was no time to hesitate. Scootaloo lurched upwards, but it was too soon.

“No!” she cried out as the wind took her once more, sending her spinning off. Tears mixed with rain as she spun out of control.

That was it. That was the end. There was no way she could catch up now. She closed her eyes and let the wind take her. There was no way to determine what direction she was headed or where she had been. It twisted, turned and weaved, throwing Scootaloo into the air before catching her again by the wings. Another bolt of lightning ripped through the sky, and another roll of thunder rumbled by.

How? How had it all come back to this? Flying through storms was shaping up to be the bane of her existence. It all reminded her so much of her struggles with her sky call. How many times had it shaken her right out of the air and sent her crashing to the ground? She could almost hear Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon taunting her all over again until she wasn’t sure if her ears were left ringing from her memories or the thunder crashing inside her skull.

The storm inside her head used to stop her from getting even a full meter into the air for more than a minute. She had been a flightless pegasus, destined to remain grounded, left behind, and rejected while others soared into the blue skies.

Scootaloo was supposed to be flying to Snails’ rescue, and now? Now her team would have to come back to rescue her. Time they should have been spending getting to the Golden Oaks Library.

It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t right! She fought so hard to get off the ground! She was fully trained at a professional level for landing, turning, stunts, and everything to do with flying! Her team had won the preliminary flight competition! They had become the team to beat! She’d come so far, and now? Now she was she was just floundering in a storm one more time. Was this where it all lead to? Did she overcome the storms in her head just to lose to a real one?

No.

Not yet.

Scootaloo wheeled herself around, picking herself off the gale and began searching for a way to begin her ascent anew. If she was going to go down, it was going to be because she ran out of fight, not because she gave up. She conquered one storm, she could conquer another. Sure this one had gales, lightning, and storm clouds, but they both had the same thunder. They both had the same howling winds in her ears. Maybe she could apply the same idea here. Sweetie Bell’s words came back to her.

What does it sound like? The scene replayed in her mind. The three friends gathered in Sugarcube Corner, Scootaloo making whooshing noises as Sweetie Bell hummed along, and ponies snickered in the background.

No. Forget them. They weren’t important. Concentrate on Sweetie Belle’s song; the rhythm. Did this storm have one too?

‘The rhythm of the wind flowing around you, the feeling deep in your heart that guides your movements all to the beat of your wings,’ Fluttershy’s answer pony answered. The memory was growing clearer to Scootaloo now. It was what she was told the day Sweetie Belle took her over to visit the shy pegasus. It was the day they solved the riddle of her sky call. It was the day she learned to fly.

‘Birds, bunnies, squirrels, trees, the seasons, water, fire, wind. Each has their own way, a pattern they follow. All of nature sings in rhythms as old as the world,’ the memory continued.

The song in the storm, that was what she had to find! Rainbow Dash knew it instinctively, just like she figured out Scootaloo’s wing rhythm. Her Captain was so talented and experienced she could just follow along without even thinking about it. Scootaloo had no such talent and far less experience. She had to figure out the pattern by feeling out the storm and looking for signs of repetition, like Sweetie Belle had done for her.

Gathering her courage, Scootaloo took a deep breath and spread her wings out as wide as she could. The wind took her immediately, sending her sailing through the sky on an indiscernible destination once more. Already lost, Scootaloo had nothing left to lose. The only directions she needed to know were up and down. Thoughts of where she was or where she wanted to go were pushed from her mind. All of her concentration centered on feeling out the wind beneath her wings, and pulling at her tail. It took some getting used to. She tilted her wings this way and that, swished her tail around in the heavy winds that tugged away at her soaked feathers.

Closing her eyes, focusing all her thoughts on her wings, the words of her Captain came back to her.

You got this. You got this. You got this.

Scootaloo rang off her personal wing rhythm in her mind. The ever-present sky call had turned to static, turned into steady wing beats except when the crescendo hit where she’d have to rattle off a flurry of wing beats at once to compensate.

This time she couldn’t afford to flap her wings, though. Gliding was not her strong point, but it was what Scootaloo would have to do in order to for her to figure out the storm’s pattern. The only control she would have to be through the tiniest wing adjustments.

Several times the wind threw her for a loop, and no amount of adjustment stopped the gales from tossing her wherever they wanted when the wind funnels came. Her frustration grew every time she was tossed, and a sense of panic tugged at the back of her mind. Her tail was the only thing she could count on to keep her steady.

She tried to think back to the week of training they just put behind them. It was nothing but swimming with a heavy focus on tail and wing control. It might have given them the edge they needed for the up and coming competition, but now, in the face of this storm it was proving painfully inadequate preparation.

“Come on girl, keep it together back there!” Scootaloo chanced a glare back at her own soggy tail. Shouting at one’s own tail didn’t seem all that sane of a thing to do, but it did make her feel a bit better for reasons beyond her. Brimming with a renewed sense of determination, she forced herself back on her belly and tried again.

Her sense of time were lost in the torrential abyss that surrounded her, but eventually, she managed to stay upright while being tossed around at the storm’s mercy. And as she steadied, subtle little familiarities made themselves known.

The wind’s movement was starting to remind her of the waves in Aqua’s river. Like how the wind would ebb before the big gusts came; giving her a head’s up to brace herself. Other details caught her notice as well. The shape of the clouds around her gave her a hint of the wind direction as a whole, and the angle of cold rain hitting her face told her the direction the wind currents were headed. If she watched carefully, when a flash of lightning lit up the sky, she could even see the spiral of wind funnels carrying the thousands of raindrops along.

One of the cloud formations caught her eye in one of those that momentary glimpse of light. It had a strange edge to its cloud that the others didn’t have. Several more flashes of lightning chained together gave long enough chance to see the tunnel of rain shooting up towards it the strange cloud.

In that split second, an idea struck, as vivid as the lightning around her. She had to be quick, though. There was no time to wait for a second look. Whatever had caused the wind funnel might not last!

With the next ebb in wind flow, Scootaloo threw herself against the storm! Her wings were a blur of motion as she rocketed through the rainstorm. The wind rose and fell like giant waves, but like waves, if she was quick enough, she could slip off to the side where it was in the middle of another dip in its strength. She was flying in large, serpentine motions avoiding the most powerful parts of the gales. For the first time since they took off from Aqua’s cave, it felt like she was making progress.

The new confidence brought with it an extra burst of energy and she found herself hitting her target. Spreading her wings wide, she was caught in a strangely warm updraft that sent a pleasant heat throughout her cold, wet fur, and sent her spiraling up and up until she was thrown head first, eyes closed past the highest of the clouds. Suddenly she found herself in another world, transformed from rolling black and gray clouds, to ones of deep blues, contrasted by a stark white light beaming down from a gigantic crescent moon surrounded by a million stars, brightening the sky so she could see for miles all around.

“Thank Luna,” Scootaloo whispered to herself as she allowed herself to arc and fall belly up through the open sky only to land softly on the surface of the dark clouds and just lay there for minutes. As she rested, she relived the ordeal in her mind. The winds were still incredibly strong up here, and they continued to howl, sounding almost like a pained wail. If there was a song to find in this storm, it was one of fear and confinement. Confined might actually have been the perfect description of the storm. Most would continue along their path, following wherever the wind would take them, but this time the wind twisted and circled around and around, as if stuck in a giant crashing loop.

It almost felt like a tornado could spring up at any time, and that very well could be what the wind funnels were all about, but she didn’t know much about tornados. Rainbow Dash would know. Scootaloo made a mental note to ask next time she seen her-

“Captain!” She jolted upright and sprung to her hooves. Rainbow Dash and Spike! Were they still down there? Had they already left? She didn’t have time for a nap! Still, her wings were strained beyond tired. They needed a break.

“Well, you still have two working pairs of legs,” she reminded herself out loud while looking at the storm that went on for miles in the distance, “and there’s no shortage of clouds to walk on.”

There was no way to tell which way her team had gone. Spike once told her that pegasi learned how to navigate by the stars. Scootaloo had laughed at the time. What was the point of learning how to navigate by the stars when you could see the land stretch on for forever? Pegasi weren’t supposed to fly long distances through storms, so unless you were flying over an ocean, it seemed like a useless thing to know. There were no oceans anywhere near Ponyville. It wasn’t anything she needed to know. She was eating those words now. If he were in her place, Spike would probably know exactly how to get back home from here.

Had he made it up above the clouds somehow? Was Rainbow Dash with him? Were they looking for her, or did they decide to go on ahead? Dozens of questions ran through her head leaving her as frazzled in mind as she was body. Trying to shout to them wouldn’t do any good. The storm was so loud she would lose her voice before anypony heard anypony a word.

A strange light caught the corner of her eye as she slowly walked on and tried to decide what to do next. Turning to look, a wide smile spread across Scootaloo’s face.

A fountain of green flame erupted from beneath the surface of a large storm cloud for a few seconds before dying out.

“Spike!” she yelled as her wings gained new life. The unmistakable dragon flame sent her excitedly into the air, and she streaked over the clouds looking for the source of the fire. It came in the form of a familiar warm updraft at a freshly created cloud edge that allowed her to peak down at the storm below, not that there was much to see but dark trees. Her eyes widened with a startling realization. The wind funnel she found was one of the thermal updrafts left over from one of his signals! No wonder the cloud looked so strange!

“Spiiiike! Caaaaptaaaain!” she shouted into the darkness below. There was no reply. She may have found Spike, but he still would not know where ‘she’ was! She would have to find some way to signal back to him, but how?

It had to be something from the air show, like making a tunnel through the fire! But she needed her board to do that. Without it, she’d just end up burning herself. But they had left her board back at Aqua’s. It was too awkward to risk taking out in this weather. She’d need a replacement.

She landed on one of the clouds and scratched her head as she thought about it. There had to be something she could use. A branch? No, she’d have to fly all the way down to the Everfree to get one. Tapping her chin and thinking about anything she could use, her mind turned to the clouds she was sitting on. She poked and prodded the dark gray fluff and found it resistant to her efforts.

The heat Spike’s fire breath could evaporate entire cloud formations with ease, but here dragon flame only managed to disperse parts of the cloud that were in direct contact with it. And these wild clouds were so tough the weather ponies in Ponyville had been unable to clear them for weeks!

Scootaloo didn’t have to clear a sky, though. All she needed to do was reshape and move them around a little. She began gathered up a pile of the cloud, and tried to shape it into something that vaguely resembled the board Apple Bloom had put together for her.

By the next time Spike’s signal broke the cloud surface she would be ready. Hovering with a skyboard-shaped storm cloud in in hoof, Scootaloo scanned back and forth until a pillar of fire blazed into the sky. The instant it appeared she dived towards it, hurtling into her trademark tailspin right down the middle of the flame. Her makeshift board shifted into the talespin with her, splitting the gout of fire into a ring that she was sure the dragon would notice. The storm cloud board was dispersing quickly. Scootaloo narrowed her eyes.

It didn’t have to hold out for long, just long enough.

She had no intention of going into her full blown ‘comet’ stunt all the way to the ground.

The storm, however, had other plans. As she tried to pull out of the dive, a blast of wind plowed into her, and Scootaloo found herself being tossed around like a rag doll all over again. She was just in the middle of trying to right herself when something large and furry crashed into her. A sound like thunder passed behind it, and she was trapped in its tailwind. The blast of force sent her on a ricochet path right back towards the surface of the clouds! It wasn’t until Scootaloo managed to build enough courage to open her eyes and see the trailing rainbow that she understood what had happened.

Finally the tail wind slowed and, with a small bump, Scootaloo fell against Rainbow Dash who caught her by her shoulders.

“Gutsy moves, Squirt,” Dash said with a large, congratulatory grin. “You did good.”

“Captain!” Scootaloo turned quickly and pounced onto the older pony hugging her tightly. “I thought I lost you!”

“You did,” Dash laughed. “You beat us up here! You must have handled that storm like a champ! I gotta say that was some pretty impressive stuff, Scoot. You know, for a rookie.”

“Thanks, you could say I had some really great teachers.” Scootaloo smiled, releasing her Captain from the hug as a question came to mind. “But if you can get up here like that at any time, why did you wait?”

“And leave you two behind? No way! I was trying to lead us to the eye of the storm before getting above the clouds. And I still have to. There’s no way Spike’s going to get all the way up here in that kind of wind. Turns out dragons and bad weather do not mix; at least not while flying anyway. The storm will be a lot calmer in the eye. He should be able to climb above the clouds there.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Scootaloo still wanted to contribute to the team effort. Before there had been no chance to help, but now that she was up here already, there might be a way.

“Yeah, actually.” Dash nodded thoughtfully rubbing her chin. “Find the eye for us and lead us to it on the most direct path you can find. Just don’t come back down into the storm to do it. You make a trail through the storm clouds, and I’ll pick up on it right away. I’ll get Spike to keep sending up signal flares to let you know we’re still on your trail.”

“Got it!” With a quick salute Scootaloo was off high into the sky looking for the middle of the big swirling storm clouds, and Rainbow Dash dived back down to help guide the little lost dragon.

Before she could find what her Captain was talking about, Scootaloo had flown high enough that the air had grown frigidly cold and incredibly thin, even for pegasi who were made for this kind of thing. Every pegasi was warned about going too high when they were young. There was a very large risk of losing consciousness and Scootaloo was beginning to worry she was stretching her limits. Still, it was no safer for Rainbow Dash and Spike down in the middle of the strange, wild storm. If this could knock some time off their trip through the wind and lightning, then it would be worth it.

The storm stretched astoundingly far, and it was more than a little stunning to see the whole shape of it at once. To cover the entirety of the Everfree forest and all of its surroundings, it had to be six hundred miles or more! There couldn’t have been a storm in the history of Equestria so large! At least nowhere a pegasi could be found. The thought left Scootaloo uneasy.

“No time to think about it now,” she told herself, directing her gaze to the one part of the sky where there was no cloud cover. The eye of the storm stuck out like a gigantic black spot on a sea of moonlit grays and blues. That’s where her Captain wanted to get Spike, and that’s where Scootaloo was going to guide them.

With a large swooping flight path, she followed the towers of flame that would part the clouds every few minutes to find out where they were, and then she sped on ahead of them towards the one clear part of the skies. With a straight line as a guide, it only took another twenty minutes of flight before Scootaloo caught her first glimpse of her big purple teammate in well over an hour. When Rainbow Dash and Spike came into view, a sense of relief flooded her and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. As they ascended above the clouds, a thousand water droplets poured off Dash’s matted fur, and water simply cascaded from Spike’s scales. They were so drenched it almost looked like they were flying out of the river. Their Captain was encouragingly cheerful about the whole ordeal, but Scootaloo could tell Spike hadn’t come out with near as much confidence.

Rainbow Dash landed on a cloud and shook the water out of her fur with a practiced ease that made Scootaloo jealous. Spike remained in the air, circling around the two pegasi, shivering from the cold, water sliding down his outstretched wings. Though he was still gliding with ease his face looked worn and tired, creased with worry. It occurred to her that without Twilight’s spell to walk on clouds like a pegasus, he wouldn’t be able to rest his wings until they got back home.

“Spike, are you okay? You want to let us take lead so you can ride on our lift?” she asked already moving out in front of him to give him what small help her small wings offer.

“I’ll…,” he panted, “…be fine.” With a large flap of his wings he began a slow wheel around to a different direction, and began to push onwards. He continued to pant as he answered her unasked question. “No time... to wait… for me… Gotta… keep… pushing.”

Rainbow Dash took on a momentary grim expression as she watched Spike go. With another shake of her fur, she jumped right back into lead position, but gestured for Scootaloo to come over and whispered, “We caught sight of some disturbing things going on in the forest. At first we thought it was on fire, but I went in for a closer look. There’s a huge pack of timberwolves climbing all over the place down there, and they’re all headed in one direction.”

“Ponyville.” Scootaloo swallowed hard as she answered her own unspoken question.

Rainbow Dash nodded with a look filled with meaning. “Spike’s right. We can’t afford wait for him. This is bigger than us; bigger than the whole town.”

“We can’t just leave him behind! We’re a team, and a team has to stick together!”

“Close, but not quite, Squirt. A team has to ‘work’ together, not stick together.” Dash corrected in that ‘Captain’s orders’-voice she often took to while teaching. “A good team is only at its strongest when each player is playing their part. Sometimes that means somepony has to play defense while the rest push forward on offense, you get me?”

“I-I think so?” Scootaloo frowned. They weren’t talking the same sort of sport anymore. Did they just switch to hockey and basketball metaphors?

“Well Scoot,” Dash wrapped a foreleg around her shoulders before continuing, “getting Spike to Ponyville? That’s our goal, that’s our offense. But we need somepony to go on ahead of us and start getting things into place. We need them on defense, in case our play goes awry. I’m putting you on D.”

“Okay, now you lost me. What is it exactly do you want me to do?”

Rainbow Dash gave her a wide smile and her gaze upward towards the night sky. “Same as always, Scoot. I want you to reach for the sky.”

********************************************************************

The continuous, shrill whistle rang loud in his ears like listening to... to… some … loud… thing, ringing in his ears. Trying to think was difficult. His thoughts felt heavy, dull, and incomplete. The only thing he wanted to do right now was relax and let himself sink fully into this warmth rolling across his body and fall into peaceful sleep, but no matter how he twisted and turned, the whistle wouldn’t let him rest. He had no idea where this horrible whistle was coming from either. Slowly swirling fluffy, pink clouds stretched as far as he could see, and not one of them gave any sign of whistling. He’d tried walk away from it several times now, and even stuffed some clouds deep into his ears! But nothing worked to stop that stupid whistle!

Frustrated and angry, he pushed himself up onto his hooves. Moving seemed to quiet the screeching, high-pitched annoyance that seemed to vibrate through his whole body. Keeping his mind occupied helped him to ignore it as well. Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot to occupy his mind with. So he slowly walked along the circling clouds, choosing to follow them wherever they lead for lack of better ideas.

It seemed to be working, and his lethargic limbs felt more under control, and he began to move a little faster. Just a little though. There was no need to hurry, after all. It wasn’t like there was anything important to do. Ever since he sent that scroll off to-. He paused in his meanderings trying unsuccessfully to complete the thought. He could not recall who he sent the scroll to. Well, it didn’t matter. The nagging thoughts about it had all disappeared along with the scroll. No thoughts at all seemed to matter here.

For the first time ever, his mind had gone quiet, relaxed, fully at peace with everything around him. The sensation was wonderful, but made him feel groggy at the same time. Thoughts only came one at a time now, instead of dozens all at once. Less of his mind was needed for the slow train of them chugging their way through his head. It felt wonderful; wonderful except for the whistle.

As he followed the flowing path of clouds, he suddenly tripped over something very solid. Upon crashing into the pink fluff at his hooves, the looming wish to curl up and sleep took him again, but the whistle roared back to life, louder than ever. Jumping back to his feet, he quelled the sound with a rare wandering thought. What had he tripped over? There had been many things he’d tripped over in his life, but it was unlikely that even he could find a way to trip over a cloud.

With a cautious hoof he poked and prodded the clouds, feeling around until he tapped the strangely solid thing he’d accidentally found. Quickly scooping the clouds out of the way, a strange, pale purple shell became visible. More clouds covered it quickly, however, no matter how much he waved his hooves trying to keep them away.

That was pretty rude of the clouds all in all. How was he supposed to figure out what it was if they kept getting in the way? Not with his eyes, that’s for sure. There were other ways though, other senses he could use. Tasting it didn’t seem too appealing. He decided against that. How about hearing? He pushed his head into the cloud and listened quietly, but the whistle came back. Nothing smelled like anything in this place, either, so that was no good. He’d have to feel it out.

Running his hoof along the strange shell, he traced his way down the spiraling, hard curves. There was something familiar about it, and the answer sat just outside his grasp. It was quite a bit larger than it seemed as well. The clouds were surprisingly deep! The further he reached down, the more there was to this shell, and the thicker the clouds were.

He wanted to get to the bottom of this little mystery, quite literally. It was the first new thing he’d found in this place, and suddenly it seemed like it’d be a waste to go to sleep without figuring out what it was first. Pushing himself downwards head first into the fluff, he reached further and further into the cloud, until he was shimmying down the mysterious thing he’d found. But then, maybe he wasn’t shimmying down at all. Things like up and down had no hold over this place. Up was wherever your head pointed, so maybe it was just as likely that he was climbing up now, and not shimmying down at all.

Turns out the strange purple object was far, far larger than him, and the bottom was quite far away too. He found the bottom clouds before the bottom of the strange, twisting, shell-like thing. Poking his head out of the pink fluff, much the place around him became clear, and yet, very, very confusing all at once.

The first thing he noticed, was that it wasn’t a shell at all, rather it was the tip of a gigantic unicorn horn, as large to him, as a spire that towered up into the clouds. He knew this because of the unicorn that was attached to it below. The second thing he noticed was that it was also this same unicorn that was making all these large, comfortable clouds, for they were spiraling around her horn, like some fantastic magic spell being cast.

But was she really huge, or was he just really small? Why were they two very different sizes at all if they were both unicorns? Why did she seem familiar to him? Who was she? What was she doing? Why was she doing it?

So many questions surged forward in his mind, coming on like a tidal wave over what was once a serene, quiet, and peaceful ocean. The whistle was completely drowned out as the floodgates opened, and waves of curiosity came back in full force. With an excited cry, he slid down the horn the rest of the way, before laughing as he landed softly on his rump in a puff of the unicorn’s mane. She didn’t seem to notice his landing at all. Instead the familiar unicorn was focused on some form of repetitive chant in the loudest, slowest whisper he had ever heard.

Her voice reverberated along her skull, and he felt her words vibrate through his hooves, up through his knees, and echoing around his head.

“MAKE THEM SAFE! MAKE THEM SAFE! MAKE THEM SAFE!” Her voice was filled with worry and strain, and it made him sympathize with this strange giant. What was it she was trying to ‘make safe’? It was obviously something very important to her. Then again, what was she trying to protect it from? Dangers, worries, troubles, those kinds of things just didn’t exist in this place. They all slipped away, drowned in the comforting warmth he felt coiling around him all over again.

His eyelids began to droop as he thought of that wonderful heat, and he yawned tiredly. It had been a pretty good journey. Surely the answers to his questions could wait for a nap.

‘WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET’

His eyes snapped open as that blasted whistle came back. Maybe the large unicorn was trying to protect her ears from that horrible sound. That would be an undertaking he could get behind. He’d have to ask her, though, and she seemed like she was pretty busy. Of course, if it made the whistle stop, it might be worth the interruption. She’d probably understand.

With the decision decided, he pulled up one of her bangs and began to rappel down her forehead. The length of hair didn’t quite reach all the way down to her muzzle though, so he just let himself drop the rest of the way. Once more he found himself landing awkwardly, but softly, on his stomach, legs splayed out beneath him. Slowly raising his head, he looked up at the giant’s eyes, but they were clenched shut in concentration. The sound of her whisper was much louder down here, and his whole body shook with the noise.

“Uh, hello?” he tried uncertainly. She gave no sign of noticing that a pony had fallen onto her muzzle at all, let alone hear his greeting.

“Hello!” He tried again, this time shouting the greeting in hope that he could get her attention. It was to no avail. Her booming whispers drowned out his loudest shout easily. There seemed little he could do to break her out of her chant.

“Hi there!” a cheerful, high-pitched voice from behind gave him such a start he jumped a foot in the air before wheeling around to face the new arrival. Before him hovered a tiny, giggling filly, still new to her cutie mark, bearing all the same colour patterns of the gigantic pony on which he now stood. He regarded her with bewilderment, looking from the giant, to her, and back again.

“Huh?” he asked, utterly confused about what it was he was witnessing. How could a pony be giant and a tiny, young filly at the same time?

“Hi!” she repeated excitedly, hopping up and down, or at least, she looked like she was hopping. Was it still considered hopping when the hopper was floating in the air? “I’ve never seen you around here before! That means yoooouu are new!” As she dragged out the word, the little filly spun vertically around until she was upside down, her muzzle an inch away from his.

He wasn’t sure that was right. Obviously she was a lot younger than he was which would technically make her the newest pony. But then again, maybe things worked a little backwards in this place. She hung there, staring at him, and it finally occurred to him that she might be waiting for some kind of response.

“Hello,” he tried again, figuring he might get a bit more of a response from the tiny, active version of the larger purple pony. “Who are you?”

“You know, it’s more polite if you introduce yourself before asking somepony else’s name,” she giggled lightheartedly. There was something in her playful tone he just couldn’t place.

Well anyway, he wouldn’t want to be impolite. His mouth moved on its own, ready to tell her his name, but no words came out. He paused, and looked up as he thought carefully about the question, but no matter how much he picked his mind, no answer came. The answer felt slow, and out of reach, like everything in his head was a befuddled mess. He had no idea who he was! Panic started to take hold, when he failed to recall his name.

“I don’t think I know!” he said in a worried whisper. A pony should know who they were! Of that much he was certain, cloudy mind or not! Shrill whistles came as second priority to that, no matter how annoying they were! “I can’t remember! I think I lost my memory!”

“Well that doesn’t sound good.” As the filly’s spirit sunk so did her body until she was gently lying on the ground. Then her ears quickly perked up, and he could practically see the idea forming behind her bright, curious eyes. “Hey, maybe I can help you find it!”

“Can you?” He asked, only allowing himself a tiny hope. She was just a little filly, and he was a grown pony. What could she do that he couldn’t? Well, probably remember her name. Maybe that did make her the right pony for the job. “Do you really think you can?”

“Sure, I’ve lost things lots of times.” She dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hoof, before pulling out a scroll and a quill from seemingly nowhere. “It happened so much, that I put together a checklist for how to find lost things! We just have to follow these steps, and you’ll find your memory in no time.”

“You made a checklist for it?” The idea left him a little disconcerted. He didn’t remember much, but something told him that he wasn’t the greatest fan of following checklists. That same something told him checklists most often involved a whole lot of work.

“Uh-huh! I make checklists for everything that I have trouble with! Complicated things become much easier with a checklist, and losing things can be a very complicated matter, especially if they’re something as important as memories!” The filly sounded very sure of herself, and he did have a memory to find. It was worth looking into. Who knows? Maybe she had a checklist for stopping disturbing whistles too.

“Okay,” he agreed with a nod. “What’s the first step?”

“Let’s see.” Looking down at her scroll she pointed to the first line. “It says here that the first thing you should do is: Ask yourself what you were doing when you last had the lost item.”

“But I don’t remember when I last had my memory. I woke up without it.” He frowned. Maybe finding memories was a bit too much for a step-by-step guide.

“Then the last thing you were doing was sleeping, silly.” The quill made a large checkmark on the list. “See? It’s easy!”

He nodded. That actually was pretty easy. “Alright, what’s next?”

“Step number two,” she read out loud, “Go back to where you last had the last item. So, where did you wake up?”

“Way up there,” he said, pointing up to the spiral of clouds slowly moving around the giant’s horn.

“Great!” She smiled without a care, and in a wink of light he found himself back above the clouds, hovering behind her as she floated along. She made another checkmark on the scroll. “Two down already! We’re making great progress. Time for step three.”

“Are you sure this is working?” he asked, as he floated into an accidental cartwheel that he didn’t know how to stop. The filly was looking quite pleased with herself, but he hadn’t remembered anything new. His doubts about this whole checklist thing were beginning to dig in a little deeper. However, he did wonder how she had teleported them all the way up here like that. Was there a checklist he could use to teleport? Because that would be awesome. Maybe even more awesome than finding lost memories!

“Of course it is! I just said we’re on step three, didn’t I? This has been going much faster with you than it was with her.” She rolled her eyes in frustration as she pointed towards the much larger ‘her’ would be far beneath the clouds. “At least you know what you’ve lost. She’s lost her whole ‘self’, and doesn’t even know it. It’s going to take forever before she even starts step one at this rate. You’ll never be able to find anything if you don’t even know that you’re missing it first. I’ve been trying to help her out for hours, but nothing I say gets through.”

That was a problem if he ever heard one, but it didn’t surprise him at all. The giant unicorn hadn’t heard him when he tried to talk to her too. She was just so big, and they were both so very small. The filly at his side had lost her smile and instead had her forelegs folded across her chest and floated along, scowling at the clouds below. He felt a little bad for her. She was such a tiny pony, and here she was, all by herself, trying to solve the problems for everypony she came across; problems that seemed much too large for her. It was admirable, and somehow very familiar. He wanted to help her, but he didn’t know what he could do. Instead he reached out to put a comforting hoof on her shoulder.

The attempted kind gesture turned out to be a mistake as he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of floating yet. He was sent spinning downwards, crashing into the clouds below, throwing a puff of pink into the sky around them, scattering it everywhere.

When the pink fog cleared his lanky limbs were tangled together and his head was stuck in the clouds. It took a few moments to untie himself, get up on four hooves again. With a mighty heave, he jerked his head free with a loud ‘POP’, falling back onto his rump. A thick, puffy beard of pink fluff was left stuck to his nose and chin presenting a figure that sent the little filly into a fit of laughter. She floated down to him, and pulled a cloth from wherever she had conjured the checklist and quill, and wiped his face clean. The act left him feeling a little perturbed, as it struck him as something his mother would do, rather than a filly.

“You’re funny,” she said between giggles, “I like you.”

At least she was smiling now. It was an infectious smile at that as he couldn’t seem to stop the corners of his own lips curving up to match hers.

“You know, you remind me of someone I know,” She said as she stuffed the cloth back to wherever she had taken it from. “He can be a little clumsy too, and he was always very curious about things. I used to take care of him a lot, but he’s all grown up now. It feels good to take care of somepony again.”

It didn’t feel like the right time to tell her he was all grown up too, even if it was kind of rude of her to assume he wasn’t. She had just started smiling again, and he didn’t want to change that. Instead it would probably be better to focus on the task.

“Dah, you said we were on step three?”

“Oh! Right!” As if suddenly catching herself, the filly cleared her throat in attempt to hide her fluster. He wasn’t sure how clearing your throat could possibly hide being flustered, but everypony seemed to try it anyway. “Ahem. Yes, step three. Remember everything you last did with the lost item.”

“But without my memory, how am I supposed to remember anything at all?”

“That would be difficult,” she admitted with a smile, “but when you first realized you lost it you said you didn’t remember much. That suggests that you do remember some things. What’s the last thing you do remember?”

He furrowed his brow as he tried to think as hard as he could, but only silly images came back to him; images of things that just didn’t make sense. “Uh, maybe I don’t remember anything after all. I think it was just a dream.”

“Dreams and memories aren’t always as different as you might think. Please, tell me about the dream.” Suddenly a couch-shaped cloud formed beneath him and he found himself lying on it. The filly was sitting back in a chair far too large for her. A note pad hung before her and a quill scratched away at the pages.

“Well, I just finished writing a very important scroll when-“

“And what was so very important about this very important scroll?” she quickly interrupted his train of thought.

He paused to give her an irritated look, but decided to answer anyway. After all, she was trying to help him here. Thinking back to the scroll, he scrunched up his face in thought while trying to picture what was on it. “Something about a tree on fire? An’ I think somepony was in trouble.”

“Very good.” She nodded and the quill went that much faster. “Please continue, and try to give me all the details.”

“Dah, okay.” With a slow nod, he began to speak his thoughts out loud, trying to remember everything about them. “So I sent a purple dragon the scroll. I don’t know what a dragon would want with a scroll, but it felt like it was something very important that I had to do.”

“You sent a dragon a scroll! All on your own?” The filly was hanging on his every word, but he could do without her sudden avid interest. He was trying to think, and for the first time his recollection seemed to be improving! His memory seemed within reach if he could just keep going without being interrupted so much.

“I did,” he answered quite proud of himself, though uncertain why. “It was Mr. Lama’s idea. He said I needed to find somepony to help with the trouble.”

“Mr. Llama?” All sense of knowing something he didn’t fell away from the filly’s face and she gave him a confused look. “There was a llama there?”

“Yeah, he was flying around my head a lot and buzzing in my ear.”

Her jaw dropped and made silent up and down movements, as if she was trying to ask a question she could not put into words. Glad that she finally stopped asking questions for a while, he continued on, hoping to finish talking about his dream before she could fully recover to interrupt him again.

“I talked with Mr. Lama, got a scroll, stood beside this wooden podium, and uh, then I began to cast the spell. I never tried this spell before, though. I may have done something wrong, because my horn got super-hot, everything gets cloudy after that. I remember lots of blue, and I was having trouble even remembering my name…” He paused, this time interrupting himself as it came back to him. “My name! My name was Snails! Is Snails, I mean! My name is Snails!” He hopped off the couch and pulled the still stunned little pony into a hug. “You did it! You helped me find my memory!”

He pulled back to treat her to giant smile. She tilted her head to the side, and finally found her voice “L-Llama? And it flew around your head? And buzzed?”

“And told me to send for help! Yup!” He nodded his head excitedly. Once his name had come back to him, so did everything else all at once! “And you, you’re Twilight Sparkle!” He paused, setting her down on the cloud before putting his hoof up to his forehead and moved it straight through the air above her to compare their heights. “I, uh, I thought you were taller, eh?”

“I am taller,” she said with a hmph, and pointed towards the giant pony. “She’s me too, but something happened, and now I’m all that’s left to move around.”

With a glance down where her hoof was pointing, he frowned, “I don’t think you were that tall.”

“That’s because this is a very special place. It’s where all the magical energy gathers inside your head while you’re pushing it out through your horn. This is where spells are born,” she explained in her very patient teacher’s tone that was very familiar to him. It was the one she took on whenever she was giving him magic lessons. “I got stuck here while trying to use the magic amplification circle I made. Everything in here is just a representation of the spell being cast. I’m so big, because of how much magic power I’m holding right now. And this ‘me’ is so small because I represent how little control over it I have right now.”

Snails wasn’t sure if he understood most of that, it seemed pretty complicated. That meant it was probably right. But there was one thing that seemed very off about it. “Dah, I cast spells all the time, but I never seen nothing like this.”

“That’s because this part of the spell normally happens so fast most unicorns don’t even know it does happen. This is the step right after you visualize your surroundings and begin to push your magic through your horn to affect reality.” Twilight breathed a heavy sigh as she considered her predicament. “It must have something to do with the amplification circle. I’ve never used one before, and didn’t know it would be this powerful. I had things under control until…”

As her sentence trailed off, Twilight looked away from him, and a fuzzy blur of memory came back; the memory of her coming to his rescue, stopping the giant bookshelf from crushing him flat. There was no need to finish her sentence. Snails got the message. When she was rescuing him she lost control over her spell. It was his fault she was stuck like this. This time he not only messed things up for him, he messed things up for all of Ponyville with him.

His frustrated stomp was met with an unsatisfyingly cute squeak of smooshed cloud. He gave a heavy sigh. How was he supposed to be a very important pony? Or do anything to help Twilight Sparkle? It took a dragon to be her assistant before! Snails couldn’t even stomp his hoof right.

“Dah, I’m sorry Twilight. I wanted to help, but I only ended up screwin’ you up too. I’m not much of an assistant.”

The tiny Twilight Sparkle frowned up at him then stared down at her checklist still in her hoof. “We need to finish step three.”

“What? But I already got my memory back.”

“Well, apparently you didn’t get all of it back. Nothing’s wrong with my memory, and I remember a brave, young stallion jumping out into a storm to stop my home from being knocked over. That would have made me lose control of my spell pretty quick too. You’re the only reason I even managed to protect as much as the library before getting stuck.”

“I am?”

“You are,” she confirmed with a smile. “And do you remember how you did it? That was a pretty powerful spell you cast. Time magic is not an easy magic to control. My own dabbles with it have been, well, let’s just say less than useful. When I take that into consideration, it doesn’t surprise me at all that it took this long for your natural magic to come into its own. All the practice you’ve been having lately must have spurred it on. A spell that slows down time might be just what we need to turn this situation around!”

“You, uh, you really think so?” Snails searched her expression for some sign of a ploy. He was often told he could be fairly gullible. Twilight Sparkle didn’t seem like the type of pony to trick others, but the really tricky ponies seldom do.

“If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t have kept you on as my assistant. You risked bodily harm to try to help me cast this spell. You even managed to successfully cast a spell you’ve never tried before on your first attempt! That makes you as dependable a pony as I could have asked for. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve more than earned your spot in my library, Snails. I’ll be happy to report as much to Princess Celestia too.”

Her beaming smile didn’t look fake in any way. His chest swelled with pride, while his mouth failed to find the right words to express it. Instead he pulled her into another tight hug, and repeatedly whispered, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Congratulations, my no-longer-under-probation assistant,” she whispered back, and he had to dry his eyes by the time he set her back down.

“Now then,” she said collecting herself and picking up the checklist again. “Step three.” remember everything you last did with the lost item.”

His proud expression faltered slightly. “But, uh, Boss, I already remembered, remember?”

“Snails, it’s very important that you follow the checklists I make: To. The. Letter. No skipping steps and no cutting corners. Most of the time it might not matter, but every now and then, even if you don’t understand how or why the step is there, it might make all the difference between failure and success, understand? Each step has a chance of teaching you something new that you might need to know. If we’re going to be working together, you have to promise me that you’ll always follow all the steps, no matter what, okay?”

He nodded, not wanting to disappoint her so soon. Following steps could be annoying, but it was something even he could do.

“Now, please, in greater detail, tell me what you did to cast that sending spell.” He was about to begin again when she quickly added, “skipping the part about the llama.”

Well now, that sounded like cutting corners to him, but questioning his boss’ methods didn’t seem like a good idea at this particular juncture. Better to just follow orders.

“Alright,” he replied with a small nod. Staring up, he thought about all the little details of everything he did to cast the spell. “Dah, first I went an’ took a scroll from the pile. Then I placed it on the podium. Uh, next I grabbed a quill an’ a bottle of ink, then I put that on the podium too. Then I wrote a letter addressed to Spike asking him to come help. Then I tried to copy the spell you always use to send letters, but the spell felt funny. It burned my horn, and thinking got hard, but holding the magic got real easy. Sending the letter was, like, super simple, eh? But it was tough to remember why I wanted to. I sent it anyway though, but after that I just got so sleepy. After that I woke up here with a whistle going off in my ear.”

“Very good!” Twilight Sparkle applauded. “That tells me everything I need to know about how you got here!”

“It does?”

“Absolutely! You see, I was using the podium as part of the magic amplification circle. When you used it with tried the sending spell you would have accidentally linked up with it! Your horn would have acted like an antennae, soaking up all that extra magical energy. Of course, since you’re not used to the heavy amounts of magical energy, your mind couldn’t create a big enough load where all that extra energy could be used up. Since that energy had nowhere else to go, it was stored in your horn and mind, trapping you here. Since we’re both using the circle, your link with it must have tapped into my spell, creating a link between you and me as well. That’s why you’re here. I’m not sure what the whistle is about though. It could just be something that happened when your body slumped over after you lost yourself in the magic.”

The tiny Twilight was smiling confidently, like she should be receiving some form of praise for working it all out. He gave her a slow congratulatory clap, but had no idea what she just said. Apparently his confusion was clear on his face because Twilight gave light giggle and simplified it for him.

“It was too much power all at once, Snails. You couldn’t control it so it all got stuck right up here.” She floated upwards and tapped the base of his horn with her hoof. “It linked your mind with the circle. So all you need to do now is use up all that extra magical energy and you’ll get out of here.”

“That’s it? I, uh, just need to use it all up?” That sounded way easier than he thought it was going to be.

“That’s right! And I know just the spell you should use. A high-powered time slowing spell might give enough time to figure out how you’re going to save Ponyville!” Twilight winked.

He was nodding in agreement before he realized what he was agreeing yes to, then his eyes went wide, his jaw dropped, and he shook his head quickly. “Wait, I can’t do that! I barely even stopped a tree branch or sent a letter!”

“Well, you’re going to have to. It’s my job to save Ponyville, and it’s your job to assist me, so it’s time to start assisting!” She pointed at his chest to emphasize her point. “The library has all the tools you need, Snails. You may not have enough power on your own, but the circle will help you there. If you combine it with a spell you’re familiar with, just like you did to send the letter, you’ll be able to come up with something!”

“But didn’t I just get trapped in the circle? What if it happens again?”

“Then I’ll be here to guide you back out again, won’t I? You can do it, Snails. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. You just need to believe in yourself.” She gave him a confident pat on his back.

He wished he could be as certain about it as Twilight sounded. Sending the letter had cost him his memory, even if only for a short while, and it was just starting to occur to him how very badly dangerous magic gone wrong could end up. But then again, in spite of what happened to him, the letter did get sent. Because of him, Rainbow Dash and the others were probably on their way. If he hadn’t done anything, the whole town could be destroyed before Rainbow Dash even knew about it! So what if he ended up confused? Being confused was pretty normal for him anyway. If that’s all it took to save Ponyville then wouldn’t it be worth it? If there was anything he had learned tonight, it was that in order to fix anything, you couldn’t be too afraid to give things a try. Snails looked over to Twilight and gave her a slow, uncertain nod.

“I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “Uh, I mean, I’ll try.”

“You’ll do fine, Snails. I know you will. Now, let’s see about giving you a plan to work with.”

********************************************************************

“Push!” she shouted as she pressed down on the strongest looking piece of lumber she could find. She stared down at her hooves where a once picture perfect pedicure was now riddled with soot, splinters, scrapes and cuts. Smoke stung her eyes and they watered as she pushed down on the wood with all of her might, bringing all of the weight allowed to bear on the heavy plank. She cursed her self-restraint. If only she’d eaten more apple fritters!

If she were as fat as Apple Bloom this probably wouldn’t even be a problem!

The thought brought rueful smile to Diamond Tiara’s tear-stained cheeks. Her shoulders shook with the strain, when at long last, something finally gave way. A resounding snap of wood and the support beam that had her unconscious father pinned finally rolled off to the side. She ran over to hug him tightly, weeping into his shoulder. His breathing felt long and ragged to her. She didn’t know what to do. She had no first aid training. His left hind leg was twisted to an awkward ankle, one jagged claw, snapped at the top from its corresponding paw, was still buried deep into his injured leg. The pool of blood soaking into her father’s fur seemed to stem from there.

Tiara remembered a torn tablecloth from earlier when she was looking for the piece of lumber to use as leverage. She rushed over to grab it, and about ten minutes later had it tightly knotted around the leg. After that she pulled her father away from the pile of debris that had once been their ballroom. The fire was becoming a threat again. The lacquered floors had lit up quickly, but slowed down once it reached the soaked pile of wood that was once a timberwolf bearing down on her father.

If only he was awake so he could tell her what to do! At the same time she was glad he wasn’t. The pain in his leg must have been excruciating. His last words were to leave him there and go for the town hall. She couldn’t do that. She’d never be able to abandon him, not for anything. He was her hero. He was able to turn a hoofful of bits into a wise investment, a wise investment into a fortune, and a fortune into anything at all. ‘You just needed the right options and opportunities and you could do anything at all.’ It was one of his favourite sayings. He usually followed it with ‘a smart pony doesn’t wait for opportunities, they make them’. But now he lay at her hooves, struggling just to breathe right.

Looking around the room, Diamond Tiara took stock of the options she had now. The fire was blocking off all the entrances, including the wall that had come down. The staircase was nothing but a pile of debris. Yelling would be of no help over the roar of the flames. Nopony would be able to hear her. Fortunately, that meant it was unlikely that any more of those beasts would be invading what was left of her home either.

For the moment, getting her father to a safe place to rest was her top priority. But, much to her disappointment, Diamond Tiara had never grown to be one of those tall, slender ponies that you could find modeling for fashion designs. She was short of stature and small of frame. Even Silver Spoon stood a head taller than her. Moving her father out of harm’s way without some kind of assistance was going to be impossible.

Wait, the dining carts! She scrambled towards the hallway leading to the dining room. The damage to the hall was extensive. When the support beams in the ballroom gave way, most of the second story collapsed with it. Half of the lower floor had been buried, and transformed the hallway into a tunnel of loose wood and timber. Blasts of wind were funneled down the mansion’s new tunnel system, throwing anything not securely fastened to the floor flying against the other end of the hall, including one unsuspecting Diamond Tiara once she unknowingly stepped into its path. The unexpected push caught her completely off guard. She screamed as she was thrown off her hooves and was sent crashing against the wall. With a loud bang, she landed awkwardly against her right side with a sharp cry. Pain tore the the breath from her lungs.

The pain ran up and down her side. Getting back to her hooves was a struggle that took minutes she didn’t have to give. Gritting her teeth, she rolled back to her hooves. She used the wall to brace herself with one leg, using the hallway frames as shelter from the main force of the wind. It was slow-going, a step by step process, but eventually she found her way to the dining room.

It was in no better condition than the hall outside, but it had one saving grace. The support beams were still standing strong. What had already fallen looked to be the extent of what was going to fall. There was even an opening to the night sky overhead. Plenty of tablecloths for its exaggeratedly long tables could be used for extra bandages. The scent of smoke hadn’t reached this room yet. Maybe the fire was having trouble burning its way through to here. If she could just manage to get her father through that hallway, it might be their best chance at surviving this.

Diamond Tiara rushed to gather things as quickly as her stinging side would let her. The tablecloth, once it was knotted up into a makeshift rope, was tied on to a beam close to the dining room’s entrance. With dining cart in hoof, she slowly moved down the hallway, holding on to the cloth rope. There was no way to tell how much time had passed. More than she felt was allowable, of that much she was certain. Smoke was billowing into the hallway now, but it was being pushed outside through small holes in the collapsed parts of the hall.

The effort of holding the improvised cloth rope between her teeth and the cart with her tail, while trying to balance herself against the wind gave her doubts about her whole idea. Her legs had lost feeling and were about as stable as wet noodles long before she reached the entrance to the ballroom. Her side screamed with pain like it was splitting open, though there was sign of injury from just looking at it. She imagined trying to get back to the dining hall with the wind at her front, and her father’s weight added to the cart. Fresh tears were rolling down her sweat covered cheeks.

It was the smoke in her eyes, of course.

Gritting her teeth around the table cloth, she took the last few steps to enter the ballroom. Everything was alight with green fire now, and black smoke swelled out of the missing wall. She could only just make out the beige fur of her father’s back behind the fire. He was where she had left him, like a castaway on an island of wet wood surrounded by a sea of flame.

She had no time to think. No time to come up with a better plan. No time to contemplate the pain, or the risk. Tiara gave the dining cart a tremendous push, and leapt out on top of it, rolling through the blaze. The silver cart was already getting hot to the touch before it crashed into the jumble of broken wood. Tiara crashed with it, flying face first into the mass of unmoving timberwolf. Her eyes were stinging from more than just smoke now. She could feel swelling already forming on one side of her face.

There was still no time to think about it. With well of hidden strength she didn’t know she had, she pulled herself back to her feet, and made her way over to where her father lay. His body was so hot to the touch it frightened her. Was she already too late? No. His chest still moved up and down. She reached her legs around him, gathering him into a tight hug.

“Don’t worry, Daddy, I’m here. Don’t worry.” The words tumbled out of her mouth beyond her control, and she dried her eyes on what remained of his dirty suit coat. Part of her just wanted to lay down there with him. She was so tired. Her limbs were so sore. The task ahead was so daunting.

“Ti-Tiara?” The reply shocked her back into reality.

“Daddy? Daddy you’re awake?” The tears renewed themselves all over again, and she made no excuse for them this time.

“Diamond, y-you need to go.” Filthy Rich clenched his eyes shut, gritting his teeth as he struggled to reach a sitting position. The pain was clear on his face until it was replaced by surprise when he felt his daughter slide under him. Her legs were trembling with the weight as she hefted Rich up onto her back, and took a shaky first step.

“I know,” she huffed through clenched teeth of her own, her eyes staring at the silver dining cart ahead of her. “We both do.”

For whatever reason, her father didn’t argue. She was grateful. There was already too much in her way without her father’s protests adding to them. Instead he opted for pulling himself up onto her to better position himself. It was a slow trek to the cart. Her father’s weight was all she could think about, and the broken, wobbling timber and jagged pieces of chandelier made each step a treacherous one. More than once she collapsed, stepping on a sharp piece of crystal, or an untrustworthy piece of wood. She didn’t know what hurt worst. The new cuts and bruises from each fall or her father’s uncontrollable, agonized groans.

The burning steam from the wet wood spurred her on. It would not be wet for long. They were both gasping by the time they reached the cart. It was searing hot to the touch. Filthy Rich peeled off his shirt suit and laid it out under him before getting up on it himself. It was Tiara’s turn to get on her father’s back. She relished the momentary respite. Her side, her legs, the swelling over her right eye, her whole body was screaming at her from the strain of getting this far. Her father grabbed a loose piece of wood, and used it to push against the floor, rowing the dining cart through the waist high flames.

Being light in frame was disadvantageous for Diamond Tiara, but to the full, strong legs of an adult stallion like Filthy Rich, it was blessing. He often joked that his briefcase weighed as much more often than not. The flames licked at his hooves as he thrust the cart forward, but the blistering heat was nothing compared to the burning in his thigh from where the beast left its buried claw.

The dining cart was scalding hot by the time they reached the hallway entrance. Tiara jumped off, and Rich shifted into a more comfortable position, trying to get as much of him onto his ruined shirt as possible without touching the silver edges. He watched his daughter tie one of what was once their family’s custom-made tablecloth end to his cart, and warn him about the upcoming wind tunnel. He nodded his understanding. The pains running up and down his leg paled to the pride swelling in his chest. Diamond Tiara was covered in bruises, her eye was swollen shut, and she was favouring her right side. Soot and blood marred her hooves and matted her fur, and her previously flawlessly styled mane now hung low and tangled. But the determination, strength, ingenuity, and courage she was displaying shone brighter than she ever had before.

He had heard once that your largest priority as a parent was to prepare your child for the life ahead of them. It was always one of his greatest fears that his pampering had spoiled her for going out into the world. Watching Diamond Tiara right then dispelled all doubts. He didn’t say anything. No words could convey what he wanted to say. Instead, when she stood up from securing the cloth to the cart, he pulled her into a hug, and kissed the top of her head like he used to do when she was filly.

Tiara allowed it only for a moment before shrugging away, mistaking the hug’s meaning. “We’re not done. Don’t worry, Dad. Just up the hallway, into the dining room. We can stay there for at least while.”

Rich just smiled in response. There was something hidden behind the smile. Tiara was good at picking up things like that, but she couldn’t say what. It didn’t matter. The worst of it was over. With her father awake, he could do most of the pulling up himself. She would only have to help him. The task wasn’t so daunting now that she wasn’t alone. They would make it to the dining room, slowly maybe, but they would make it. Then, it was just a matter of sending out some sign of needing help. With renewed confidence in her plan, she passed her father the makeshift rope and pushed him out into the hall. A blast of the storm’s wind slammed into them both at full force. They held their ground, and with a giant heave forward from Filthy Rich, the two began to fight their way towards the temporary shelter the end of the hallway offered.

********************************************************************

“Ladies and gentlecolts, May I have your attention please?” Shining Time called out over a large crowd of ponies who were busily arguing over seats and baggage space between complaints about the weather and train service. A few ponies near the front of the train car turned her way, but most were too absorbed in their squabbles to pay her any mind.

“Please everypony, just calm down!” she pleaded loudly once more while making her way down the aisle towards a particularly noisy pair whose argument over seating had fallen into petty insults. One of the more offended of the noble ponies, the daughter of a lord if Shining Time recalled correctly, was vehemently trying to force her bag into a compartment above a belligerent, old grump of stallion who was stubbornly defending his own bags from hers.

“If Ah toldja once, Ah toldja twice, it don’t fit up there lady! Ain’t no more room!” The elderly stallion rose up on his shaky hind legs and spread his forelegs as wide as he could in attempt to guard what empty space there was. “Yer gonna squish mah family’s feed if’n yah keep goin’ like yah are, yah foppy haired, sparkles fer brains unicorn!”

“Sir! There really is no need to be insulting, I`m sure I can work something out here,” Shining Time responded quickly as she raced over towards the dispute, hoping to calm it before it escalated any further.

“Why you stingy cretin! There would be plenty enough room with a bit of effort!” The unicorn responded shortly, ignored Shining Time, while trying to dodge around the wiry fellow with a series of feints. “My best pairs of shoes are in this bag, I cannot keep them on the floor to be trampled on by an unwary hoof!”

Shining stepped between the two, hoping to force them to acknowledge her. “M’am, I’m certain I can find a place for your shoes if-”

“What are yah, nuts?” The stallion cut Shining Time off, shouting right over her. “Shoes is supposed tah be on the floor! That’s where shoes belong, yah tart!”

“Really, if you’d both just listen-” Again Shining Time tried to interrupt the mounting argument, and again she was ignored, except this time she was also pushed out of the way of the well-to-do pony as she took a step towards the farmer.

“Tart!” she repeated aghast. “Well, I never! You’ve got some nerve talking to me that way you dirty, good-for-nothing, old coot! Do you even know who I am?”

“Sure Ah do, yer a pain in the neck posh pony that wouldn’t know a hard day’s work from a seat cushion!” The cranky stallion smiled widely, glad to have struck a nerve.

“Like you are unable to tell a drawn bath from a pile of fertilizer I suppose?” The lady unicorn’s response earned a few hidden chuckles from the seats around, and the stallion’s cheeks went red with a mix of anger and embarrassment. Emboldened by the quiet snickers, the unicorn pressed on. “Couldn’t you have washed up before getting on a crowded train? Even if you have no concern for your own personal hygiene, the least you could do is not assault the rest of us with it!”

“Oh my! Lady Rubis Courronne, such talk does not suit you!” A voice cut through the laughter that had burst out of the crowd listening to the two argue. All eyes turned to see the famous fashion designer stepping through the door to the train car. The marshmallow-white unicorn walked down the aisle, her long, lavish purple curls bouncing along with her. Her eyes were mostly closed as she admonished her apparent acquaintance. “I understand that we are all a little high strung at the moment, but that’s no excuse for such behaviour.”

“Oh Rarity! Goodness!” It was surprising how fast the lady’s sharp tone transformed into one as smooth as silk. “What ever must you think of me? A savage beast, no doubt!”

“Think nothing of it, dear.” Rarity opened her eyes fully, and graced the train cart with a wonderful smile. Lady Courronne had been one of the best patrons at her Carousel Boutique, and a very good friend to know when expanding her business to Canterlot. Rubis, much like her husband, Filthy Rich, was well-known for their ardent support of Ponyville’s entrepreneurs. They both had a charitable nature a mile long if you knew what to say. “Trying times have a tendency to bring out the worst in any pony, after all. And certainly a single offhoof remark is quickly forgotten when compared to the generousity you’ve shown me over the years, Lady Courronne. However, it is in times such as these when it is most important we hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

“Yes, yes, of course you’re right, darling. I don’t know what came over me.” Lady Courrone’s shoe bag chose that moment to slip from her shoulder before hitting floor between them both, and a look of horror came over them both as Lady Courronne quickly snatched her bag and inspected its contents. She was nearly in tears as she stared at a long scratch down the side. “M-my shoes…”

“Oh Rubis,” Rarity started comfortingly, leaning over to inspect the damage, before she was shocked to hear a delighted sounding laugh off to her side. She turned to face the old farmer who leaned back in his seat with a big grin. “Serves yah right, yah twit.”

Sobs wracked Lady Courronne as she fell to her knees, cradling the shoes like a precious treasure, and his grin disappeared. He suddenly felt a lot more uncomfortable with the scene playing out. By the time Rarity turned to glare at him, he was already beginning to feel pretty lousy.

“Mr. Codger, I presume.” She stated scornfully.

“You, uh, y’all know me?” he asked, more than a little surprised.

“I do, in fact, though by reputation alone. You’re the elder of the Hayseed family. My dearest friend, Applejack, was quite descriptive of you and yours. She would often tell us how the Hayseeds ran the most hospitable family farm this side of the mountains. I can see clearly such a reputation was not come by honestly. She’ll be most disappointed to hear of lack of empathy for the concerns of other ponies.”

Codger seemed to shrink several sizes in his seat. “Guess I was being a big ol’ louse ‘bout this. I didn’t figure a couple a shoes would mean that much to a pony, a’right? Look, there still ain’t no room up with all the luggage, and left up there, they’d just be banged around a bunch at least half as much as the floor just did to ‘em. Tell yah what, I didn’t bring no carry on. How about I just keep the bag here in my lap for the rest of the trip?”

“But they’re already ruined!” came the sobbing reply, the last word emphasized with a lengthy whine. Rarity leaned in to look at the scratch, and with a quick flash of magic, the scratch quickly mended itself. Lady Courronne looked on with awe before jumping up to pull Rarity into a hug. “I can’t believe you did that! It looks like new!”

“Just a little combination mending and glamour spell, darling, a trick a unicorn learns quickly in the fashion trade. It will only hold for a day or two however. Bring them by the boutique, and I’ll see that they come back as new.” Rarity smiled, hugging her back. “Now, would you like to take him up on his offer? I’d put them with my things, but I worry that they wouldn’t fare much better there. Let him make up for his oafish behaviour?”

“I-I suppose.” With a glance at her bag then another to Codger’s outstretched hoof she passed it over to him with obvious hesitation. Her worries went unfounded as he nestled it securely onto his lap, leaving a protective hoof over it.

“Ladies and gentlecolts!” Shining Time started again, as she lead the distraught unicorn back to her seat. This time her call caught everypony’s attention. “As I was saying, we have a very special guest joining us on our trip this evening. Ponyville’s own, Lady Rarity! One of the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony and hero of Equestria! Now, as I’m sure you are all aware, the storm outside has made travel more dangerous than we’re used to, and it has everypony on edge. However, this famous heroine has volunteered her services tonight to help keep everypony safe.”

“Lame!” called out one of the teenagers, wearing a hat that seemed meant for a colt half his age, earning looks of disapproval from the other passengers. “The railroad calls on the famous Elements of Harmony and ends up with the fashion diva? Did they lose a bet?”

Rarity’s smile stretched a little too wide and thin to be sincere, and her eyebrow twitched at the colt’s doubt in her ability to be of use. Certainly, she might have had some doubts of her own on what she could do to help, but one didn’t have to be so open about her inadequacies. She was about to address the rude colt when a nearby older pony, his mother Rarity assumed, snatched the teen by his ear.

“Don’t talk about her like that! Even if she doesn’t have fantastic abilities like the other Element Bearers, she stood with them against every evil force Equestria had to face. That took real courage. And if she wasn’t there, the Elements of Harmony wouldn’t have worked! If not for her Equestria might not even exist!”

“Okay, okay!” he muttered, jerking his ear from the older pony’s grasp, "but are any of the others on their way at least?” He directed the question to Rarity and Shining Time.

Rarity should have been insulted, but she was too busy empathizing with his thoughts given the situation. If something did happen, her presence wasn’t going to be anywhere near as comforting as that of a pegasus that was an expert in weather control or one that could twist favours from the strongest animals. Nor could she keep them feeling as secure as the presence of a super strong or strangely perceptive earth pony. And as far as unicorns went it would be a sham to have her stand on the same stage as Twilight Sparkle.

"No," Rarity answered sounding far more confident than she felt. "And I shouldn't think they'll need to. The engineer is a perfectly capable sort, and quite proficient at his job. As a safety measure he has gathered us all together where our lovely attendant, Shining Time, can keep an eye on everyone just in case. It's nothing to get upset about."

The young stallion grew quiet as he contemplated this, apparently satisfied. There were small murmurs of agreement among the passengers, and Rarity let out a hidden sign in relief. Even if she didn't have the supernatural gifts her friends did, she could at least count on her mercantile skills, specifically the ones that allowed her to read enough about a pony to tell them what they needed to hear.

"But what if something does happen?" a tiny, worried unicorn, still in her filly years, asked. Rarity would have considered her absolutely adorable if she had only asked anything else about anything else. Walking over to the tiny filly, Rarity crouched low, hesitating only slightly, she would proudly add, to kneel on the filthy train floor.

"What is your name, Dear?"

"Glimmer Drop," the filly answered shyly, pushing back in her seat away from the beautiful stranger, trying to keep her mother between them. She was told bedtime stories about the Elements of Harmony, like every foal in Equestria, and she heard the train pony say this was one of them, but she didn't look much like the pictures in her book. The colours were right but the shape and the descriptions seemed off.

"I don't think it's her," she whispered conspiratorially to her mother.

"Of course it is, Glimmer," her mother admonished giving Rarity an apologetic look, "She's the one that makes the pretty dresses, remember? You always said you liked that one."

The filly's face scrunched up so much the word skeptical was practically written in the wrinkles on her forehead. Rarity laughed brightly, shaking her head.

"That is quite alright. Tell me, Glimmer Drops, what do the Elements of Harmony look like?"

Somewhat encouraged by the stranger's curiousity, and driven to correct her mother on what 'Rarity' actually looked like, the young foal immediately began rummaging through her bag until she pulled out her book, holding up her indisputable proof, while pointing to the six ponies on the cover.

Rarity put a hoof over her mouth to hide the giggling that threatened to tumble out. It would likely be taken as a terrible insult to the little filly. The ponies around them, including her mother, disagreed and laughed openly.

But she could see why she was having trouble recognizing her as the pony in her stories. The book held aloft depicted her and her friends as simplistic cartoon characters with triangles for legs, strange shapes for their hair, and coloured dots for eyes. The picture was of her friends and herself along with Princess Cadence and Shining Armour standing in a circle around the famous Crystal Heart.

Her mother was smiling and silently mouthed an apology, but Rarity paid it little attention. A different question plagued her.

“Can I see this book for a moment, Glimmer Drops?”

The tiny filly nodded her head, and they shared the book with each other while Rarity flipped through the pages. There was something very important missing from all the pictures; from the whole story in fact! There were many major inaccuracies all throughout the book, but first and foremost, there was absolutely no mention of a dragon. Stunned, Rarity shook her head slowly. Something was very wrong about this. She looked up to the foal’s mother and asked, “Do you have any other books about us?”

The strange question caught her mother by surprise, but she nodded anyway. They had brought most of their filly’s favourite books with them for the long train trip in order to keep her entertained. Rarity skimmed through each one, looking for some sign of Spike. Nothing. There was not even a single comment about him anywhere. As she looked she uncovered more and more falsehoods and exaggerations. She turned to Shining Time, calling her over and pointing to the pictures in the book. “Shiny, darling,” Rarity kept her voice in check, keeping her agitation from dripping into her words, “Just how popular are these books?”

“Hm?” Shining Time looked over Rarity’s shoulder, “Oh! Yes! The ‘Elements of Harmony’ series is everywhere! Foals everywhere are growing up on these. Later on they can get into the more detailed ‘Friendship is Magic’ volumes. I’ve read all of those twice.”

“Oh, good,” Rarity let out a relieved sigh. “They must have left out Spike because they didn’t want foals involving themselves in the lives of dragons. That makes sense. They are normally very dangerous creatures.”

“Uh,” Shining Time stared at Rarity blankly, “who’s Spike?”

“You remember, darling, Twilight’s assistant?” Rarity prodded, less relieved than a moment ago.

“You mean her owl?” Glimmer Drops piped up, turning to a page with Owlowiscious sitting on her back.

“No!” Rarity said a bit more sharply than she meant. Her voice quickly slipped back into softer tones, “I mean, yes Owlowiscious has certainly helped her out around the library, but I mean her number one assistant, Spike. Spike the Dragon.”

Most of the train car was staring at Rarity now, whispering. Shining Time looked around nervously. “Twilight has a dragon for an assistant?”

“Yes! Yes of course she does! Our dear Spikey~wikey has been at Twilight Sparkle’s side for nearly every adventure she’s had. Come dear, you said you’ve read the detailed version. Surely it mentions him somewhere.”

Shining Time shook her head.

“But-but…” Rarity tried to think. There had to be something that told of Spike’s contributions. “Wait, what about Twilight’s journals? I know she had them published. Spike would most certainly be mentioned in them!”

“Oh… uh, yeah. H-he might be.” Shiny bit her lip and took a step back, and didn’t meet Rarity’s eyes.

“You never read them,” Rarity stated flatly. One of their most ardent fans, and she had never even read Twilight’s published works.

“They’re all written like science books!” Shiny whined. “The first forty pages are glossary, and has as much emotion written in it as a text book. Everyone loved the new versions because they were… well… readable.”

Rarity took in a very deep, disappointed breath. Writing a book in such a way that you couldn’t see the story through the footnotes of facts was exactly the kind of thing Twilight would do. In truth, it’s probably how Twilight had always wanted to read a book. Writing was an art form, however, and like any other work of art, it had to be tailored for its audience, not for its creator. Art had never been Twilight’s forté.

She turned back to the tiny filly, smiling. “Would you mind so terribly if I borrowed some of your books for a little while?”

Glimmer Drops shook her head and passed her the first couple.

“Oh, thank you. You are such a dear.” Taking the small portion of children’s books she trotted back to the front of the train car.

“Ladies and gentlecolts!” Rarity turned to address her captive audience. “It has been requested of me to entertain you with a true telling of a few of the many tales of our adventures. It will be an honest account to the best of my knowledge. Our fellow patron, the lovely Glimmer Drops-” Rarity gestured to the filly who, once encouraged by her mother, smiled and waved at everypony.

“-has generously provided a few of her books to help start us off,” Rarity continued. “Allow me to forewarn you, there are a few discrepancies. I’ll try to correct them as we go.”

The crowd met her introduction with more applause than Rarity thought they would. Watching someone sit in front of everypony and reading children’s books wasn’t what she would have considered entertainment. It seemed to please them all the same, however, and if doing so was taking their mind off the perils of the storm outside, then why not? The unicorn opened the book, which began with a picture of Twilight Sparkle at Princess Celestia’s side discussing an intricate plan on how they would face the return of Nightmare Moon.

Rarity sighed, put on her reading glasses and took a seat. “I suggest everypony get comfortable. I fear the discrepancies may end up a tad longer than the books themselves.”

Her exaggerated grimace earned her a few chuckles from her fellow passengers. By the time she reached the fourth page, it was twenty minutes later, and they were clutching their sides in laughter.

********************************************************************

Granny Smith was sitting in her favourite rocking chair on the front deck of the Apple family homestead. Sheltered from the wind and the rain by the overhang above, she stared crossly out into the dark fields waiting for her grandchildren to return. Her gray mane was bundled up tight and tucked under her sturdiest cooking pot, which she wore proudly in place of a helmet. A trusty frying pan leaned against the wall to her side.

Angry howls rose above the wind in the direction the young ones had gone. Granny narrowed her gaze. She recognized those howls. They were a sound that plagued her since her first trip into the forbidden woodland when she’d first found the zap apple trees. They would haunt her dreams sometimes, still chasing her as they had done when she was still a filly. She dared the woods only a few times after that, stealing into them for more zap apples and their seeds. The last time the wooden wolves had nearly gotten her. One had gotten a hold of her ankle in its jaws, just as she had made it to the edge of the wood. Her parents had come running to her rescue at the time, scaring the beast away with hoe and shovel. She could still feel those jagged teeth whenever they howled. She never again tried those cursed paths, instead concentrating on making do with what zap apple trees they had, carefully nurturing them and planting more each year.

Rocking slowly back and forth, she looked into the night and waited for any sign of her grandkids. They were smart, brave, and strong, each trait proven time and time again. No storm, however wild, would get the better of those two. But she couldn’t wait inside, not while they toiled away at whatever had caught the boy’s interest. The worrying would end her. Facing the storm like this didn’t seem like much, but it had at least made her feel like she was doing something, and that settled her nerves somewhat. Facing storms was how the Apple Family always handled things after all.

Sweet Apple Acres had stood the test of time, defying the odds against all oncoming trials, of which there were many, too many. So many, in fact, that she had become suspicious as years rolled on. Ponyville’s constant troubles were well-known throughout the lands. It was a new town, as far as towns went. Not a full four generations had passed since its christening, and in that time they had been the middle of disaster after disaster. Horrible events originated here, from cataclysmic to near-apocalyptic. But sometimes the events were squarely directed at the little town, almost like some unseen force was pulling strings in attempt to eradicate them all.

Most set the blame at the hooves of the Elements of Harmony. Power attracts power as they say, and there was certainly some truth in that. But Granny Smith had lived in Ponyville before there was a Ponyville to live in, and troubles of this nature were not anything new. The hassles that her granddaughter and her friends faced may have been grander in scale, but the harassment had begun long before Twilight Sparkle ever darkened the doormat of the Golden Oaks Library. Troubles seemed to come with the territory: Delayed Winter Wrap-Ups, rampaging stampedes, plagues of vermin, and the occasional monster or witch were always causing trouble.

The way she figured it, the cursed wood was to blame. The Everfree Forest was always a place of danger. In spite of Princess Celestia’s blessing to go ahead with the farm, Granny Smith was certain that there was something more to it than that. How many farms needed a Princess’ blessing to go about being a farm after all? The Princess had selected the place, sent her prized pupil to protect it, and specifically allowed the most powerful force known to ponykind, the Elements of Harmony, to reside in the small farm town when Canterlot, the capital city, was the more probable place for an invasion of Equestria.

A fact proven when the changelings attacked and the Elements Bearers just happened to be around to help drive them off; just like they coincidentally happened to be in The Crystal Kingdom when Sombra attacked. Somehow, the Element Bearers always just happened to find themselves wherever they are needed most. It was not a fact lost on Granny Smith, and she suspected Princess Celestia’s hoof in it somehow. She was thankful that the Princess’ never asked Applejack to leave home, but the why of it always bothered her. If the Element Bearers were always where they were needed most, then why leave them in Ponyville?

The obvious answer was because Ponyville was where they were needed the most. The Everfree Forest and its wild magic were that much of a concern. By the constant building of homes and expanding the town, Ponyville residents kept the mysterious forest from spreading, and they did it happily without thought or fear, but not without consequence. This wild storm seemed like one more of those consequences, but Granny Smith didn’t fear it. They had stood up to worse. What she feared was her grandkids lost in the woods at night with timberwolves about.

She had never heard of them coming this close to town before, though. Timeberwolves seldom strayed from the Everfree. As long as Applejack and Big Macintosh stayed away from the haunted wood they would be alright.

Another angry howl sounded out into the night. The noise made left her shuddering. The wind must have carried it far, because it sounded far too close. Then another howl joined it, and another, then another, until a chorus of timberwolves rang out. She was too familiar with those howls. She’d spent long nights listening to the timberwolves calling out to the moon. But there was no moon out tonight. Something felt very wrong. Granny narrowed her eyes, stopping her rocking for a moment to listen.

A thunderous clashing of wood against wood rocked the world, sending Granny Smith tumbling out of her chair.

“What in tarnation?” She shook her head and looked up towards the sound. She quickly grabbed the frying pan in her false teeth, and ran towards the sound at a full gallop. That was the direction the kids had gone!

Winona met her halfway. The little collie was barking like mad trying to get her attention. She had no idea what had gotten into the dog, and there was no time to find out. Instead, she pressed on, looking for her grandchildren until her dog leapt up and grabbed hold of the neckerchief around her neck, trying to pull her back towards the house.

“Winona, stop that!” Granny scolded, shrugging out of the neckerchief. “Sit Winona, sit!”

Winona whimpered, dropping down on her rump instantly at the command.

“What has gotten into you girl?” she asked, walking over to pat the loyal dog’s head. More howls filled the air, some whimpers mixed in. They sounded close; much closer than the Everfree. It sent shudders down her spine. Her shoulders trembled slightly in fear, but she steeled her resolve. Big Macintosh and Applejack could still be down there in need of help.

“Go on. Git,” she shoed her away dismissively. There was no time to worry about the collie’s strange behaviour, and she worried that Winona might give her away. Those howls had given her pause. She learned long ago that a pony wasn’t supposed to run around timberwolves. They would chase you like a wild dog. Better to be quiet and go unnoticed.

Winona tried several times to follow after, but Granny Smith scolded her each time until finally the dog left, Granny’s neckerchief in tow. She frowned at that. That was her favourite neckerchief. But more worrisome problems were afoot, like being in a wide, open field with timberwolves about. It would have to be let go for now.

It was with some relief when she reached bushes she could hide in. Hopping into one nearby, she carefully, quietly uprooted it and snuck along inside of it, using it as camouflage. She peeked out behind the leaves, her face completely obscured by the bush. Her feet were well-hidden until she moved the bush and she had to tip-toe along, careful not to be seen or heard. Granny zig-zagged through the woods, picking out spots beside trees and other bushes where she could sit and rest, looking for her grandkids, timberwolves, or whatever had caused that crash of wood.

Signs of the wooden beasts were everywhere and kept her cautious and slow-moving in her travelling hiding spot. It spooked her. There must have been so many. Usually they were rather solitary creatures, rarely would they travel in packs. But this, this was more than just any old pack! Dozens must have been through here!

Their trails lead her further and further into the trees, and she was growing more pensive with every step. This was ‘her’ grove. It was the grove of trees that her parents had set aside for specifically for her. Each one was specifically selected by her, carefully cared for, and nurtured into full fruit bearing trees. It was a special place where she spent much of her youth toiling away, playing, or picnicking between each row of trees. Knowing those monsters were running rampant through them left a chill in her blood.

At last she found the source of the crash she had heard. A gasp caught in her throat as she surveyed the carnage. An avalanche of trees had been sent sprawling down the hill, breaking to pieces anything in its path. Fire, green like that of the librarian’s assistant, dotted the destroyed woodland here and there. Her precious garden of trees left in rubble around her.

At one time these old trees had been saplings in her hooves. Now, they were lying at her hooves, shattered and broken. Concern for timberwolves was forgotten, replaced by that of her old friends. This was where she had grown up. She had provided for them, and they, in turn, provided for her. They emanated a sense of peace, quiet, and stillness, and she had loved them for it. When she was happy she would frolic among their pathways. When she was sad she would come here seeking solace under their branches. She fell in love beside the oak to her right. Her kids played among the branches of those birch trees to her left. She’d caught her daughter kissing behind that bunch of apple trees she just passed. She had saved her family’s farm with the zap apples from the trees before her. They were as much a part of her life as her children and their children.

Granny Smith came to the branch of one of her fallen zap apple trees and broke down. Sobs wracked her as she kneeled down, caressing the broken branch of one of her treasured friends. Rain pelted against her through the leaves.

It did not register.

The winds whipped her mane until its tight bundle was set loose, falling over her shoulders.

She didn’t notice.

Branches slowly began to piece themselves together into paws and legs, taking form.

She did not see.

********************************************************************

“Waiver? I don’t need no stinkin’ waiver!” Her head pounded from inside out as the hundredth pegasus tonight flew into a loud rage. That was an exaggeration of course. If it really had been the hundredth pegasus Mayor Mare wouldn’t have had to set this up the first place. Really, they only had about thirty or so that were capable of flight in heavy storm winds.

“Actually, yes, you very much do,” she responded mechanically and professionally, making every effort to keep the drudging monotone from showing in her voice.

“According to the regulations of the Weather Pony Workforce Safety Act, it is necessary administration for all pegasi working in circumstances outside of ordinary weather service regulations, as defined by the Official Weather Regulatory Services Bureau, to sign a waiver in event of wild weather handling, search and rescue efforts, or flying while under hazardous flight conditions. I think you’ll find that our current situation meets all three of these restrictions. Now, you’ll have to fill out the reasons why you are volunteering for this service here, here, and here.” She pointed to several long blanks along a pile of forms before adding, “You’ll also have to sign your name on the top and bottom of each form. Please remember that the pages are two-sided.”

“This is ridiculous! There is an emergency outside!” The normally happy pony continued to rant as she took the provided pen in her teeth and began to begrudgingly fill out the pile of documents.

“Which is exactly why such measures have been put into place,” Mayor Mare replied smoothly while walking over to the boarded up window to peek at the storm through an opening in the boards, half hoping that there was sign of a break. There was no such luck of course. This was the last pegasus from the ‘Storm breaker’ team. After her, the team would be sent out. She had provided all the time she could, but there was still no sign of the Elements of Harmony coming to their rescue.

Fluttershy was the only one of the six Element Bearers that could be accounted for, and she continued to sit atop the topmost balcony overlooking the town whenever an emergency didn’t call her inside. All attempts that had been made to contact Twilight Sparkle had ended in failure. Something was preventing them from entering the library. Somehow the beasts had managed to cut them off from their best source of protection early.

Scattered reports of Pinkie Pie being spotted around the Golden Oaks Library had come in from the rescue ponies, but pinning the chaotic pony down was impossible. Sweet Apple Acres was too far outside of town to send one of their few able pegasi out to look. Rarity lived in Canterlot now. There had been no word whatsoever on Twilight Sparkle and her whereabouts, and the library had been magically sealed off from the rest of Ponyville. Mayor Mare could only hope that their best and brightest was attempting some form of great magic to help. Aside from Twilight, their best hopes would lay in the efforts of Rainbow Dash who was out flight training who knew where.

Once again Mayor Mare’s decision to suspend her Weather Team Captain had come back to haunt her. She’d regretted it within two weeks after an angry Twilight Sparkle showed up at her door ranting about an impromptu thunderstorm. At the time, Mayor Mare had seen a lot of sense in Twilight’s argument. It didn’t hurt that Twilight’s words carried the weight of Princess Celestia behind them. The old regulations put in place for that sort of negligence were very clear about the consequence. Suspension from weather duties for a single season was the official precedence to follow. However, nopony had ever thought to train any form of replacement Captain for the weather team leaving them leaderless for three months.

Rainbow Dash was the undisputed, best flier in Ponyville, and had kept a tight flight crew. Because of that, her role as leader had never been challenged. Without her reign of supremacy to keep them in check, plenty of pegasi had stepped up hoping to take on the position and maybe even earn a promotion out of the deal, but that was the whole problem.

There was no undisputed ‘second best’ flier, instead there were three good choices, and each had their own ideas on how a weather team should be run. Next thing she knew there were three teams of weather ponies each doing their own thing across town, and the whole weather situation was a mess. Now instead of a single weather complaint from a single unicorn that held some prestige, Mayor Mare had complaints coming in about the weather schedule from all over town.

It was almost over when the unthinkable thing happened, or at least the ‘other’ unthinkable thing happened. The current unthinkable thing that was going on outside was far more unthinkable. In any case, she had been counting down the days until their Weather team Captain would be coming back to take her rightful position. That was when she received Rainbow Dash’s letter of resignation. Her heart sunk in her chest as she read the letter. The suspension had given Rainbow Dash a taste of what coaching her own team was like, and it had apparently tasted very good indeed. A few months reprieve was all it took for Ponyville’s best weather pony to move on to better things. Mayor Mare was happy for her, but it pained her to see the state of things once after her departure.

Maybe with a concerted effort the weather team could have driven off this storm while it was first rolling in, but that chance had been lost due to indecision and in-fighting. Now the whole town was paying the price.

“Whew! Finally!” came an elated cry from behind her as the pegasus slammed the pen down on the table in triumph.

Mayor Mare quickly straightened her expression from a somber one to her professional public face, before turning around to double check the pegasus’ pen work. After a long moment, she nodded and set the forms down on the desk. “Yes, this will do nicely,” she said, pressing a stamp down on the paper to make the paper’s declaration official.

The pony was so happy to be finished and so excited to be out on her way that it broke Mayor Mare’s heart to do what came next. She reached into a drawer and pulling out copies of the forms the pony had just filled out. “Hold on, you’ll still have to fill out a personal copy as well.”

Her wings drooped, as the pegasus turned back to regard her with unabashed horror. “P-p-personal copy?”

“Yes.” The Mayor straightened her glasses. “As well as another copy for our files here at the local weather office.”

“Another two?” Her jaw nearly hit the floor. “You have got to be kidding me!”

“This is hardly the time for jokes, Miss Sunshower,” Mayor Mare told the poor dear.

Her shoulders slumped and the pegasus slowly made her way back over to the desk. Her lips quivered as she stretched out her neck to take the pen back between her teeth. Just then she looked up at the mayor with a look of desperate pleading. “What if I don’t want a personal copy? Can I at least skip that one?”

“We do have a system in place that allows the Mayor’s Office to keep track of your all your personal files, but in doing so they would become publicly available, and you would need to sign these information release forms.” Mayor Mare was already digging through one of her filing cabinets for a stack of forms twice as high as the waiver forms already on the desk.

“No! No, that’s alright! I’ll just make two-” the traumatized pegasus swallowed as she said it, “two more copies.”

“Are you sure? A little extra paperwork now could save yourself piles of it next tax seas-” her words caught in her throat as an unexpected whimper came from the other side of her boarded up window.

“What was that?” asked the pegasus, staring curiously at the boards. Mayor Mare gave her a hushing gesture before taking another peek between the boards. A timberwolf was dashing away from the building, and there was an eerie flash of emerald light in the clouds. That was no bolt of lightning. That was something new.

“Something’s happening,” she whispered half to the pegasus and half to herself. Her heart jumped in her chest, and her voice grew more urgent as she guessed at what it might be, hoping against hope. “To the balcony! Hurry!”

The pegasus at her desk needed little encouragement to spit out the pen and race after Mayor Mare as she ran. Ears perked up, and all eyes followed the mayor’s sprint up the winding stairway. Pegasi scattered into the air, following her as they flew, wondering what had changed. She bolted out into the down pouring rain without a moment’s hesitation, her destination: the lone, drenched, pale yellow pegasus who was excitedly stepping up on the railing. She skidded to a stop beside her, a herd of pegasi at her back, along with a growing crowd of curious earth ponies and unicorns.

“Is it them? Fluttershy, is it them?” Mayor Mare panted, gasping for breath. She was no longer the young mare she once was. Running up four stories of stairs took its toll.

Fluttershy had no time to answer when a gout of green flame fell down from the clouds. Ponies around her started shrieking, as they watched the fireball plummet towards Ponyville. Fortunately the possibly disastrous flame dispersed long before it hit the ground, but the wave of heat that came after it was immense. The flame was so bright against the blackness covering the town that Mayor Mare had to turn away and shield her eyes. When she looked back she thought her heart would leap from her chest. The flame had torn through the clouds, and for the first time in weeks the grounded residents of Ponyville caught sight of the heavens above. It was strange how much she had missed the twinkling stars beside the moon’s glow. It was something she had always just taken for granted, and now? Now with the moon beams shining down over their town hall, it was like a blessing come down from the Alicorn Princesses on high.

Down below them the timberwolves had retreated from the area. It seemed that she wasn’t the only one to take this as a sign of turning tides. Whatever was up there, they feared it.

“It’s them!” Fluttershy squeaked out excitedly, pointing up towards the clouds, and a cheer rose around her. Three figures circled their way down, their features shadowed by the moonlight at their back, but they were unmistakable none the less. The silhouette of two pegasi drifted downwards in the light, and a small dragon behind them. Captain Dash and The Skyblazer Crusaders had finally arrived.

The flight team came to rest on the balcony. Rainbow Dash was immediately assaulted with a leaping hug from Fluttershy. Spike was the last to touch down, and landed far more heavily than the others. The worried glance Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash shared did not go unnoticed by Mayor Mare. She wagered that there was as much sweat as there was rain dripping from his scales, and his breath came in long, struggling gasps. His teammates were standing upright, but the dragon had to quickly lie down on his stomach. His limbs had struggled to support his weight for even a few seconds.

The crowd didn’t seem to notice. They were still cheering, and circling the team. It was the first ray of hope they’d seen since taking shelter in the town hall. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were quickly discussing Ponyville’s situation and the whereabouts of their missing friends. Scootaloo and Spike were being barraged with questions about where they’ve been, what they’ve seen, if they could clear the whole sky with fire, and a thousand different inquiries about things they couldn’t possibly know. Scootaloo was trying to answer them all in order to give the dragon the respite he needed before he would inevitably be asked to take to the skies again.

“Everypony settle down!” Mayor Mare shouted out, her sharp tone winning her an easy path to walk out and stand in front of the weather team. “We’ll answer all your questions as soon as we can, but we must focus on priorities for now.”

The crowd went from shouting loud questions at the stunt team to murmuring questions to each other. Fortunately being Mayor still offered Mayor Mare some authority even among the very worried faces among the gathered crowd before her. She turned to her back to them, looking to Rainbow Dash who had finished catching up with Fluttershy. “Rainbow Dash, considering the circumstances, could I convince you to accept a temporary reinstatement as the Captain of the Ponyville Weather Team?”

“Of course you can,” Dash smirked. “Like there’s any way I’d leave Ponyville stranded when it’s in trouble.”

“Thank you.” Mayor Mare let out a shaky breath. It was the first time she’d talked face to face with Rainbow Dash since the incident. She didn’t know if there would be a grudge to overcome. “I’ve done what I could. Everypony’s main concerns come down to four priorities. Collecting supplies into the town hall, search and rescue efforts for those still left outside, organizing some form of offensive against the timberwolves, and clearing the sky. But there just aren’t enough capable fliers to manage it all at once.”

Rainbow Dash put a hoof on her chin as she considered the situation. It wasn’t something Mayor Mare had ever seen the pegasus do. She was sure whatever idea came from the Rainbow Dash she knew would be one of brash action. At this point brash action might be just what was needed, but somehow, seeing Rainbow Dash take her time to think things through made her feel a lot better about handing the situation over.

“How soon can we get the team back here?” Dash asked, seeming like she had come to a decision.

“They’re already here. Most are downstairs either recovering or filing paperwork.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at the Mayor who silently praised herself for keeping to her professional appearance and not responding with the sly smile she very much wanted to. “I’ve taken the liberty of filing yours already. Everything is in order for you to take command and do whatever you need to do.”

“Alright then,” Dash said with a confident smirk. “Get everypony together. It’s time for Ponyville to push back!”

Author's Note:

Aaaaaaand I'm back. For awhile. A little while. I can't believe it's been so long. Apologies for the wait folks, but life is nothing if not unpredictable. Work wins over hobbies, and it has had me running over the last year like no one would believe.

Also, apologies for another cliffhanger! I wanted to finish it on this chapter, I really did, but 75 pages in, I still had so much to go. If I kept going this might've ended up a 150 page chapter. >.>

I have no time frame in mind for the next chapter at all. I can't promise I won't be deployed again. That is beyond my ability. What I can promise is that I will continue to meet the standards I've set so far. If you see any corrections I need to make, let me know. Much of this chapter has been written with months of delay between segments, so if anything seems disjointed, again, let me know.

Have patience with me! Please?

Comments

[Grif_Bladefeather]

still don't know who deserves this rather obvious dose of karma more, mayor mare or twilight. did the mayor actualy bothering checking with celestia if twilights complaint should be given so much merit (celestia who is herself a prankster).

I seriously hope the subject gets breached after this crisis because honestly.... mayor mare may not be making her next term otherwise.

[Shokinaw]

6018831
That cliff will keep you hanging a LOT of nights apparently. Two months of nights, and not yet to slow down.
You people that can read through all of this in a day, I am envious of you. It takes me three or four hours just to get through one of my own chapters!

6216341
A fair question, but I don't think anyone can really pin the blame on Mayor Mare for not being ready for a timberwolf invasion. At worst, it should have resulted in season of cloudy days. I think the Everfree Forest deciding to attack Ponyville is a fair bit beyond her scope of duties.
And I, personally, empathize with Twilight. All she did was complain about an unauthorized thunderstorm.
I get angry when the neighbours bang against my walls while I'm studying. I can't imagine what it would be like if someone purposefully started a freaking thunderstorm directly over my apartment.

[Grif_Bladefeather]

6216534 yes but it was still an overreaction to a prank. considering twilight has done something deserving of worse punishment and received amazing forgiveness her freaking over a prank is hypocracy.

[Hestia]

Another amazing chapter well worth the wait. Keep it up!

[TDR]

“Stop! I know what you meant!” Spike pinched her muzzle closed between his thumb and index finger. The scribe in him couldn’t let this slaughter of language continue. “J-ju-just stop. Stop pretending you know how to talk. Speech is obviously not a skill you are especially proficient in. Let’s both pretend you said the witty thing that you almost said, and forget what you actually said.”

This .. this is awesome.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Yeah.... Rairty's going to be going on a Warpath when Rarity gets free and sets herself on the publishers for not including Spike the Dragon.

Still... sooooo glad to see this! And... deployed? As in, armed forces?

[Shokinaw]

6216874
Can do! Thanks for sticking around!

6218577
I loved writing that part so much. I don't even-
Sometimes, when I go back to different scenes of the story I wonder if someone knocked me out and wrote a section, because it seems far beyond my negligible 'first fic writer' capabilities.

6222184
Right? Well, maybe she'll commission a story of her own.
Fortunately the show has since given Spike credit for his assistance. At the time of this story's writing, his part was ignored outside of Celestia's secret windows.

And yes. I'm a technician for the Canadian Armed Forces. Which is why work can cause some serious delays between chapters.

[TDR]

6222469 I know that feeling. My first fic started as a one shot and it went crazy from there. I don't even know where some of it comes from.

[Seether00]

Kinda was hoping for more forward movement but vas a setup chapter it is good. Bit too long to be easily readable.

[RadicalDishonesty]

Oohoo here we go!

Great chapter... except the last bit with no other pegasus but Rainbow Dash being trusted to lead any squad to save the town, with anyone else being prevented from even attempting to make the effort, irks me slightly. It feels like it's this sorta... enforced-heroism, where only proven heroes are trusted to be heroes, and the others are reminded to stand behind the heroes, because they're not them. It crops up from time to time with RD or Twilight, and a bit more rarely with the others.

And... hm. The book writers censored any mention of Spike... but somehow did not censor any mention of Owlouicious.

[Ignaltus]

WOW This is one great work. You must be very tired, bro. Good job

[Biker_Dash]

6242636 you just described my own thoughts on fimfics and the show itself perfectly. Especially the part about canon. Canon has importance, but canon also has its own failures, which further opens things for the writer to take charge of for the sake of the story.

[Shokinaw]

6242636
6242656

I agree with both of you completely. As long as the story makes sense within its own context, everything should be good to go.

I do, however, place a fair amount of significance on canon, because frankly, I've used and abused canon to my own purposes. While I have attempted to describe the characters well and keep to their personalities, the truth is I have skimped on doing so as much as a 300,000 word story would have normally. The reason I skimped is because everyone knows the characters already, and going into great detail about them would be like putting together a movie about Superman and spending the better part of an hour redundantly describing an origin story everyone already knows. *coughs*

But since I used the canon to this end, I think it's pretty important to note where I had to completely divert away from it. In this case, it was about mid-way through season 3. I still make call outs and references to episodes after that, but they're more homage to the source than actual inclusion into the story at large. After all, the last thing I need is commenters and down votes streaming in because I left the chains of canon behind and didn't tell anyone.

Consider the note as more of a display of my sensitivity. I'm probably putting way too much effort thinking about up and down votes. But I can't help but stare at those 6 thumbs down and wonder where it went wrong, what to change, and how I could improve.

[Path_of_cloud]

And all the pieces begin to gather. Looks like it's time to fly

I always love how well you do the introspection for all the different characters. It adds those lairs and depth I've come to expect from you and really adore. Fluttershy siting there watching the storm is particularly awesome as far as the chapter goes. Love'd Rarity reaction to the the books and the lack of Spike... and the filly was adorable! Got give Mayor Mare some props, stalling like a true politician! I'm also really really curious whats going to happend with DT and Filthy. Ugh, so much awesomeness!

[Biker_Dash]

so if anything seems disjointed, again, let me know.

It looks excellent to my eyes. Yes, the delay between chapters is a bit long, but it is better to have a much higher quality chapter than have a chapter the feels rushed.

I do hope that Diamond and her father will be ok. We're seeing a side of her that rarely ever gets shown to us, the readers.

[Shokinaw]

6263374
Indeed! But travel back to season 2.5 and realize the only two peoples we knew about were buffalo and dragons, neither of which made up a country.
The idea of Equestria even having a border was a new concept I made up for this fic when that was written. Which is why I'm happy to make author notes of why my fic doesn't work with later seasons.

[Shokinaw]

6246459
Fluttershy has had a small part to play in the overall story, but they've been important parts! I liked the whole contrast from the first chapter to this last, where she's hiding from the thunder but now sits with lightning. It's a fun poke in that more than just the characters whom I've concentrated on have grown.
Mayor Mare has got dealt the short end of the stick, but heck if she isn't picking it up and beating ponies into place with it! Doing the best you can with what you know, I can totally get behind that.
Glimmer Drops. That name was surprisingly difficult to come up with! There was a hidden known character in that scene though, did you recognize him?
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/90/04/49/9004496b359a66131037fcde3627cc38.jpg

[Biker_Dash]

6271398 Long distance relationships work! lol

6271488 Actually, that sounds like it would be epic! DO EET!

[Shokinaw]

6228623
Yeah, the chapter ran on far too long. Alas, the pieces are in place, as PoC mentions. Everything is set up, so next chapter, the only place to go is forwards!

6229308
Yeah, Same. You're lucky if they even do finish. This one will definitely be completed, but don't expect a new chapter out any time soon. Apologies for the delays

6229851
In my defense, I did say three ponies 'tried' to step up to the plate to take Dash's place. They just stalemated each other. It's not something that's uncommon in a power vacuum. And that situation would, of course, pop up more for Twilight and Dash. They're both leaders. None of the other mane 6 are. People get disorganized surprisingly quickly, hence the 'cut off the head of the serpent' tactic in warfare.

And well, writers have decent reason to not want to include 'friendly' dragons in inspiring storybooks for kids. Owls aren't as likely to roast you.

6232539
I am unbelievably tired. Thank you for caring.

Thanks for writing in folks!
Hope you continue to enjoy!

[Alondro]

6271398 Then one night after Spike has grown a bit more, he has a dream about savoring a most delicious white diamond... and awakens to find Rarity missing.

Hee hee, couldn't resist.

[Alondro]

6271527 Well, in my defense, we're also talking about a land ruled for a thousand years by Celestia. And she doesn't strike me as the type of person to permit indentured servitude.

Blueblood would... but nopony likes him anyway.

[RadicalDishonesty]

6271569
Yeah, that's true. Hard to suss it out when more than one person wants to be in charge and none of them actually got to be in charge, and it doesn't do those potential leaders any favors unless they're the kind that can seize power on their own, so they spend most of their time on power games rather than getting the job done...

Upon reconsideration, it's a pretty likely scenario. Still happy to see this story continuing.

[Shokinaw]

6271627
Would he? The only thing I know about blue blood is he doesn't go for the whole 'put my jacket in mud for you' scene a prince charming is supposed to be about. Unless they changed that about him in the new season, I would hope that he wouldn't go that far either.

[Alondro]

6271987 Nah, Blueblood's super-duper evil! He's like... pony Pinochet or something!

*Alondro enjoys Blueblood hate... though he knows BB is just a foppish twit who'd probably faint at the sight of blood.*

[River Road]

I think I should say just how amazing I think this story is. It's one of the few stories that I delved into on nothing more than the cover art, and found that it actually lived up to that art.
It is also the only story I know that first reinforced my completely justified hatred for Diamond Tiara and then pulled a complete 180 to make me like her, all while barely changing her personality. You begrudgingly have my utmost grumbling respect for that.

(Also, I noticed that you tend to write "apart" instead of "a part", especially in the earlier chapters. Might want to keep an eye open for that.)

[Shokinaw]

6300777
Jenner Darkclaw on deviantart made that cover pic, and I agree it is phenomenal! I commissioned it from him to go with the story. (Figured if you're going to write a three hundred thousand word story, might as well be willing to put some money behind it.)
I was not disappointed by the result in the slightest.

All I really did with Diamond Tiara is give her something to be passionate about. The show had already done the rest for me. Loving her father, and her father's devotion to Ponyville gives her that chance at redemption. If the show gave her that one simple relate-able goal, I bet you that DT would soar to the top of people's favourite background characters.

Ah yes, the first chapters did not receive Frazzled Pony's loving, tender care. Thanks for letting me know. i'll go back and search them out!

[Voyna]

Is this Rainbow Dash x Scootaloo?

[Shokinaw]

6310419
Scoots and Dash play a very large part in the story (2 of the 3 main characters) , but it's a teacher (idol) /student relationship similar to that of the show. Think more along the terms of a sports drama.

[Shokinaw]

6319825
Totally intentional! I loves me some Disney.

[Kichi]

Is this going to continue before the birthday of the last chapter?

[Shokinaw]

6712955
I make no promises. >.>
As it is the final chapter before the epilogue, it is taking a LOT of extra work, and I'm putting my all into it.

[StarLoverRainDestroyer]

6713451 need next chapter cliffhangers suck

[Tehsandmaster]

just re re re read this. as always it makes my heart soar. finding themselves. fighting for their homes and dreams. simply stunning. truly a shock and awe offensive. i really do hope you're doing well, and maybe oneday you'll return to ponyland and give this story the ending it deserves. until then, be well!

[The Sandwich Guardian]

Is is there a reason the story is on hiatus

[Path_of_cloud]

9733358
Unfortunately, my old friend has not been on in some time, since 2017, and I fear this will never be finished. I... wish I knew more.

[The Sandwich Guardian]

I'm quite sad this story will not be finished.

[The Sandwich Guardian]

I wish this would continue. Sadly the story seems to have been abandoned. Like so many others stories.

[SuperUltimateBrony]

10723202

Yeah, it's long abandoned. :(

[The Sandwich Guardian]

11820553
Lol not you replying to a comment from 2021

[SuperUltimateBrony]

11822880
Lol I wasn't aware you controlled who people can reply to.