//------------------------------// // Grounded // Story: A Series Of Egotistical Events // by Estee //------------------------------// This mare wasn't that old. She was somewhere up there, well ahead of Rainbow in the race to finish the years, but it was hard to gauge the lead. She had a fairly young face, but a really old mane and tail: two things which added to the dignity granted by cravat and glasses. Rainbow supposed it happened that way sometimes and distantly wondered if the early color change was more common to earth ponies, mostly because it was something else to think about. The office was wood, and darker than the ones in the fire department and police station had been. "I read the transcripts of your interviews," the mayor stated. Her voice was in a neutral state: no detectable charge in any direction, positive or negative. It could wind up going anywhere. Rainbow didn't say anything. "Everypony feels you were telling the truth," the mayor added. "The complete truth. Perhaps because you felt you had nothing left to lose through doing so." There seemed to be no words left. "I would like to ask you a few questions," the older mare said. She waited. "Ponies began to move towards your home when the rumble grew that deep," the official went on. "It's instinct. Possible fire: many ponies will close in, see what they can do to help. And when you came out, believing your entire home was about to evaporate -- you didn't go back inside. You didn't try to save a single possession. You simply screamed at everypony to get clear, trying to keep them safe. Declaring your intent to stay in the area of what you believed would be plummeting debris so that you could keep it from bouncing into anypony else. Why?" "...I don't know." She was mostly looking at the floor. Wood. Cold. Hard. Unforgiving. Silence. "Very well," the mayor continued. "I'll accept that. Second question: did you know Passing Shower wants you fired over this?" "No." Although it was easy enough to guess. "Third. Mrs. Cruelneigh. I received a copy of your inspection report, in which she labeled the vast majority of your efforts as -- and I want to quote this exactly -- 'adequate'. Did she say anything to you?" "She told me I needed the fire stuff --" "-- about your house. The creation of it." The next words burned her. "She said just that. It was adequate." A long pause. "And my fountains were ostentatious." "I see." Toneless. "What..." She might as well ask. It wasn't as if she had all that much more time in which to do so. "...what does 'ostentatious' mean?" "Gaudy," came the answer. "Loud, but in the visual sense. Designed to attract attention without any regard as to what that attention might be." "...oh." Nowhere near cool at all, let alone radical or awesome. But she still liked them... "And lastly," the mayor concluded, "you are currently hovering. Not very high. A hoof-height or two. But rather than stand on my floor and face me directly, you are hovering. Why?" And truth was all that remained. "My hooves hurt." "You were injured during the incident? More than the splinter which the medics treated?" "No. I..." She didn't think she'd ever felt so tired, and she'd passed out on the floor from magical overexertion a night/lifetime ago -- -- no. There had been one day which had been worse than this, as a younger self waited outside the offices at the flight camp. Waiting to hear whether the counselors had decided she'd been the one to nearly kill somepony. The same soul-dragging weight of dread and self-loathing, only with the mass of a near-corpse at the other end. I never saw her again. I didn't think I'd ever see her again for the rest of my life, that the last pony she'd ever want to see was me, and she lives here. Maybe that means it's a good thing I won't. Her name was... "-- Miss Dash?" And then, just a little more softly, "Rainbow?" It was as if somepony else was speaking, her words reaching her ears from unimaginable distance. "...I... was born in Cloudsdale. I lived there my whole life, except for vacations. I had this one friend... I'd spend summers with her, with her family, far away. But even then, there were clouds. It was almost always clouds. And now there's ground, there's ground all the time, and... my hooves hurt. Hooves aren't supposed to hurt..." She heard the tiny sigh. She couldn't make herself look at the source. "You're not the first," the mayor quietly said. "You won't be the last pegasus who comes down and has to -- adjust. I can't say I see it all the time: most of the pegasi who live here have done so for a while. A few who move in have spent significant time at lower altitude before joining this settled zone. But every so often, we get a truly new arrival who finds there's more to Equestria than sky and vapor. That there are trees and rocks and two whole other races of ponies, just waiting to be discovered. It's something of a shock, I imagine. Learning that the most foreign country imaginable rests directly below your hooves." "How..." She barely got the words out. "How do ponies adjust?" "They live among us," the mayor told her. "They talk to us. They make friends with us. And some of them hover for a while, because their hooves hurt." Silence filled the office, added its weight to everything pressing against Rainbow's fur. "I -- said the wrong thing to an earth pony yesterday." "Did you." Neutral again. "It was stupid." Without any real question in the mature voice, "Was it?" "And then I destroyed my house..." "The floor in one section, yes," the mayor passively agreed. "The rest is currently maintaining, although I have some of the local pegasi trying to assist with that. With the key word being trying, because until they joined forces into a true team effort, they were having quite a bit of difficulty in getting past your molding. Officer Swoops said it was like trying to break into a bank vault, and I'm slightly concerned about her choice of comparison." "What..." She swallowed. "What happens now?" "Now?" More papers shuffled. "You go to Barnyard Bargains, where Mr. Rich has agreed to let you have a proper fire system on credit. Please pay him promptly when your first pay voucher is cashed. After that, you could begin to work on repairing your home, but all of the questioning has brought us under Moon and I would prefer for you to wait until Sun has been raised again and your work shift is concluded. By the same token, I'd rather you didn't try to sleep there tonight. Thunderlane has offered his couch, but if you're uncomfortable with spending a night near a stallion you've barely met, my husband and I have guest quarters in the attic. I understand from reading the transcripts that you can't possibly afford a hotel right now, so please consider at least one of those offers. Now, when it comes to your food situation --" The shock was something more than electric. "-- what?" "'What' to which part?" Marigold Mare politely asked. "You -- you said Passing Shower wanted to fire me!" "No, Miss Dash," the mayor corrected. "I said he wanted you fired, because he has no actual power to do so. The Weather Bureau can take direct control of each settled zone's teams, hires new employees and suggests assignments. But ultimately, those teams work for their settled zones. Some of the discretion for firing somepony rests with the Sphere -- but the majority lies with the mayoralty. And I see no reason to fire you for something you did in your own home, while off the clock, where Passing Shower has no authority at all. Now --" a short pause "-- this is not something he's particularly happy about. Rather the opposite. He is, quite frankly, probably going to make the effort of his recent life to turn yours miserable, which would be more work than he's put in on anything for some time. But when it comes to firing you, I review all of his requests, and I will speak to you regarding any accusations he might make. Do you understand?" And the words had left her again. "If there is something in your eyes which is making you blink so much," the mayor offered, "the restroom is out the door and down the hall to your left --" "-- I understand." She didn't believe it. She was waiting to wake up in the hospital with a severe concussion from all the furniture which had fallen on her head. "Good. Please also understand that there are no criminal charges. You were the only pony hurt, and not badly. I do hope you've come to understand why some books tend to be -- injured, and are thus better left unread." She sighed. "I've been tempted to remove most of that shelf's contents from the library, but there are ways in which censorship is worse. And should something else occur, Mr. Rich is the sort of pony one can approach with a second reasonable request. I hope you'll keep that in mind. So. Take a moment to consider your night's lodgings. Sleep on any changes you might wish to make during the rebuild, which will be inspected after its conclusion. And..." Another pause, and it was a long one. "...Miss Dash -- are you aware of why you were assigned to Ponyville?" "No." The nightscape was going to start breaking up any second now. "Passing Shower," the mayor said, "has gone beyond the point when he should have become Past. He is beyond the age when most ponies retire, far beyond -- but that great seniority has allowed him to build armor made from connections, which he also uses as weapons at least twice per week. He cannot force me to fire you. But at the same time, I would have some difficulty in firing him. Despite his being so set in his ways and lax in duty, inflexible to the point where he might serve as our last true bulwark against a storm. He is exactly the wrong weather coordinator for Ponyville, and he cannot be casually discarded. But some of his connections have moved out of the Bureau, with others passing into the shadowlands. He has less and less to call on with each passing moon, and in time..." There was a small shrug. "When a rather frustrated member of the team who'd been lectured for improperly trying to divert a wild storm outside regulations simply quit on him, I sent a letter directly to the Bureau," the older mare told her. "I asked for youth and inner fire and a pony who would do whatever was necessary to make things work. And Stratus -- sent me you. Why is that, do you think?" Rainbow, still waiting for that first stinging blow from daylight, had no answer. "Do you know," the mayor asked, "how many ponies who work from that Tartarus-freed book actually manage to create something which even partially functions?" "...no." "Nor do I," the mare declared, and a thin smile played about her lips. "I imagine it's around the same number for which Mrs. Cruelneigh grants a ranking of 'adequate'. Step outside my office, Miss Dash: I need to put some of these papers away, and then if you're coming with me, I'll wait until you're finished at the store, then lead you to my home. I recognize that you're still learning the town. But I recommend memorizing the path to Town Hall, and through the building to this room. Because I expect that even beyond those occasions during which you report any attempted abuses of Passing's position to me, you'll be using it more than a few times. And should you be bound for Thunderlane's, good evening to you." The attic had been nice. Nothing fancy, but... nice. Passing Shower had been furious, and he'd expressed that fury by putting her on a two-pony team with Thunderlane (who'd also offended him -- somehow) and sending them both out over the wild zone, spending hours checking for encroaching storms. It gave them time to talk, and she learned that he had a brother, while her nose told her he spent far too much on mane care products. She also learned that the entire team had spotted her injuries and naturally assumed apples had been involved, then tried to change the subject. After that, they separated: he had something planned in Canterlot and Rainbow was heading into town, where she -- wanted to spend a little time on the ground before she started repairing her home. She needed to learn something about what she was flying over, after all. About the ponies who hadn't sent her back. And if her hooves were going to stop being sore, then they probably needed a lot more experience with the dumb cobblestones, which meant they were going to see some non-cloud walking until they got that experience and quit complaining about everything. So there. She came in on a west-to-east approach, and so spotted the incredibly full tail as its owner moved up the initial arc of the bridge, just barely keeping the long fall off the rock. Then she saw coral-pink mane, soft yellow fur, and swallowed hard. She's trotting. I can get ahead of her before she ever sees me -- The same settled zone. For however long we're both here. And then she was in front of the shapely form. Rainbow hovered just over the bridge's apex, directly above the keystone, and forced every word. "I... I don't know if you remember me..." The yellow head tilted up. Just enough mane fell to the side for the exposure of a single eye. They looked at each other for a while, caught by a frozen moment in the heart of summer. "...yes."