It was about mid-morning when thunder and lightning crackled overhead, making the suddenly normal Ponyville sky overhead darken considerably. Clouds swept in from the Everfree, blanketing the usually peaceful village in nearly instantaneous rain. It quickly sped up as the winds start to howl, the oddly powerful winds picking the rain apart and turning the once peaceful morning into a torrential downpour. The Pegasi in the sky immediately grounded themselves to keep from causing unintentional disturbances to the weather, as even just a few pegasi being airborne could cause it to whip up even faster and stronger with their wing-beats.
“Its too rainy to go outside...but I'm glad its out there instead of in here.” Little Gear states, looking out at the strange mid-summer watery storm happening outside. Everypony stuck outside was quickly rushing in, the streets of Ponyville eerily deserted once everypony was safe. The rain just kept beating down, soaking all the ground and the streets with its wetness. Cats Eye smirks as he watches Little Gear, having had his fill of similarly stormy weather from working in a quarry for most of his life.
“It ain't that bad, kiddo. I've seen plenty of worse storms where I lived.” he states, Little Gear turning to look at him curiously, then slowly ambling away from the window to lie down on the floor to work on her prosthetic design.
“Where did you live before now?”
“Manehatten. The Gem quarry there was my favorite place to be, though the weather was unpredictable at best because of the pegasi who'd work there. They were so lazy, I couldn't believe we'd ever have a sunny day sometimes.” he grumbles, before laughing lightly, “Funny thing is...I have a story about one pegasi. He was a hard worker, oddly enough for the group that's there. Want to hear it?”
“...sure, I guess. There's not much better to do right now other than stories and work on my little project.” Little Gear mumbles, though Cats Eye had an ear perked up carefully so he could hear her. He'd learned that she mumbles a lot, especially while not wanting to chat much. It also happens she'd mumble around the quill she uses too, oftentimes while working on that prosthetic project of hers. He launches straight into the story, reciting it as memory calls up old images from his days of work.
“Well, it all begins about as stormy as this day, actually. Skies darkened so much that you'd swear somepony had broken one of the drill machines into scrap. It wasn't nearly so bad with the rain though, since it had turned to hail. I know that sounds worse, but its easier since it just bounces off the hardhats we wear...along with some of the protective coats we got. Only issue is it melts straight into the stone, some areas getting flooded with the little icy balls of water and melting into a puddle.
“But yeah, there's this pegasus who loves the weather at the time, he's messing around with a few of the clouds despite being warned not to. He's the one hard worker, so nopony dares to give him a reason to slack off. Just so happens that he accidentally blasts out a lightning bolt at a rock formation on the far side of the quarry, settin' it off like dynamite. Now, here's where the funny bit comes. He sees this, and it had totally vaporized the rock, eh? All just turned it to nothin' but rubble and pebbles. So he gets this bright idea to just set it off several more times, blastin' away at random rocks in the place. He didn't aim to hit anypony, but his shots were deadly accurate. Blew away half the quarry in a shower of pebble and rubble so small that all we'd have to do is sift through and see what all gems were in there.
“Thing is, the boss-pony finds out about this a few hours later after seeing the wreckage and noting we're all cleaning it up right quick-like. He stomps over to under where the pegasus was, yelling up at 'im to come down for his tongue-thrashing for being so incompetent at controlling the storm. Problem is, the boss doesn't realize that because of what he did, it weakened the storm so much that the rest of the lazy group of pegasi could clean it up in minutes. So the boss is chewing him out about the storm and the lightning bolts and all the mess it left behind.
“It was hardly an hour later of all this that we'd finished up for the day, so the boss tells him he's fired for the foreseeable future. Made us all right angry, it did. But the real kicker? The pegasus responsible just smirked and gave our boss one last word.
'I'm sorry for doing my job, sir. I'll make sure to be lazy next time instead of cleaning up the skies...'
'Well you better, or I'll fire you.'
'So, that means I still work here, sir?'
'Yeah, now get your lazy plot in gear and go help the other pegasi.'
“That's how the exchange went, as our boss hadn't realized he'd ALREADY fired the pegasus before he'd started his little tirade. Once he realizes that, our group comes in for the check out procedures, mainly to distract him further. We'd distracted him so badly, that he'd forgotten all about what happened for the day, because we hauled in the first mother-lode of gems he's seen all week long.” Cats Eye finishes the tale, Little Gear having stopped working to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. It was appreciable, because to her it represented a lot of the workforce in Manehatten, where all you got from those in power was yelling and anger...usually over little details like protocol and such.
“Well, that's a pretty funny tale. Got any more?” Little Gear asks, wiping away a tear of mirth from laughing so hard. Cats Eye grins as he shakes his head.
“Nah, the rest of my jokes are just puns. Like 'What kind of rock do you use to make a door? Agate.' and 'What do you call a red stalactite? Hematite.' silly things like those...” he jokes, watching as Little Gear just laughs uproariously at the silliness, having rolled onto her back. It takes a few minutes for her to recover, Cats Eye blinking a little as he looks at Little Gear.
“Those are pretty good...is it okay if I pen a few jokes myself?” she asks, getting to her hooves and staring at him. He shrugs, grinning a little.
“Well, sure. Nopony's gonna stop you from trying. Just remember, comedy has to have a beginning, a middle and an end.” he instructs, Little Gear nodding as she carefully heads back to work on her prosthetic.