The Study of a Winning Pony
Chapter 4: The Infuriating Study of a Winning Pony
My quill scratched furiously on the parchment in front of me. With a final stroke I finished up my latest list and I put down the quill. The back of my head throbbed dully as I thought about the previous day, and the endless series of painful and humiliating experiences it had brought me. My study of Cloud Kicker had not gotten off to a promising start: my attempts to covertly watch the mare had resulted in Pinkie nearly blowing out my eardrums when her voice had been amplified to deafening levels by my Eavesdrop spell. Thanks to Pinkie blowing my cover when she had reduced me to a screaming mess on the ground, Cloud Kicker had seen through my Background Pony spell and had taken full advantage of that opportunity to humiliate me by pulling my leg and claiming that I had … done things with her. Things I would never do with her. Thinking about yesterday made me want to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head, and just sleep the day away.
But I wasn’t Princess Celestia’s favored student because I gave up easily. My friends and I had defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord within a year of each other, and I was not going to let the study of Ponyville’s most promiscuous mare be the moment I throw in the towel. Even if she did constantly irritate me to no end. Sure, round one of my studies had not gone my way, but I had still gained some important information about Cloud Kicker. Besides, I was far from the bottom of my bag of research methods and resources. The play had only gotten to the end of act one as far as I was concerned.
I trotted downstairs with my list of today’s goals in hoof. “Spike!” I called out. “Where are you?”
I saw Spike walk out of the kitchen wearing an apron and carrying a soap sud covered dish brush. He narrowed his eyes at me. “What is it Twilight? I’m in the middle of cleaning here.”
“I’m going out to conduct some research. I’ll probably pick up some groceries while I’m out, do we need anything?” I looked outside and saw the foreboding grey clouds the weather pegasi were setting up. It looked like they were going to be on time for the scheduled storm later this evening. I grabbed my bags with my telekinesis, looking inside to make sure my notepad, pencil, bits bag, other minor odds and ends, and no pink ponies were inside.
“Yeah, we could use some salt, and I would like to have some carrots, onions, and beans for soup later.” After giving his verbal grocery list to me Spike crossed his arms in irritation. “Are you gonna be out all day again?”
I pulled my head out of my bag and looked at Spike. “There is a good chance I’ll be out most of the day doing some research. Why, is there a problem? I should still be able to pick up what you need for the soup.”
“Just weird is all,” Spike said as he tapped his brush on his shoulder. “You normally do most of your research here in the library.”
I had thus far avoided disclosing the full breadth of my research to Spike. I was afraid of the types of questions he would inevitably ask. No doubt they would lead to far more awkward questions I did not want to answer at this point. The types of questions that would result in me summoning up a series of very precise charts on pony and dragon physiology I had hidden away in a pocket dimension, and me recalling a very specific, carefully prepared, and innocence-destroying lecture. Spike was only a baby dragon, and there were some topics I did not think he was ready for. I ignored the fact that I had thrown said baby dragon at a god of chaos in a moment of frustration and desperation. I had good reasons for doing that.
“Is there something you wanna talk about, Twilight?” asked Spike. He gave me a worried frown. “You’ve been a bit out of it since Luna visited the other night.”
“What? No, everything’s fine.” I tried to avoid eye contact by putting on my saddlebags. I did not particularly trust my ability to lie to the dragon that I had effectively raised for much of his life. He knew me better than most ponies. It was best for me to keep everything as vague and nondescript as possible.
Spike perked up suddenly. “Hey! How about I join you for going into town? Being cooped up in the library all day is starting to drive me bonkers.”
Images of Cloud Kicker hitting on me while Spike was on my back flashed before my eyes. “No!” My answer had been too quick and panicked to seem natural. Time to recover. “I need you to watch the library while I’m gone. Somepony needs to keep the library open for the public and allow ponies to check out books.”
Spike placed his hands on his hips. “That hasn’t stopped you from closing the library in the past, Twilight.”
Curse my independent schooling of Spike, he was starting to get a good grip on the whole logic thing. I decided to try something else. “Look, what I’m researching isn’t really interesting, and would just bore you. Besides, I’m not going to be shopping around town for very long anyways.”
He frowned and bit his lip. “Are you sure everything is alright? I heard about how you collapsed in the street yesterday, and you were a wreck when you finally got home last night.” He wrung his claws before speaking again. “You can tell me about stuff, you know.”
I hadn’t looked that bad, had I? “It’s just that a new spell which didn’t work as I expected. That’s all. I got a bit of magical backlash, but I’m perfectly fine now.” Entirely true, I had only left out huge pieces of information. “You’re worrying too much.”
“But--”
“Spike,” I put my hoof up to cut him off. “I need you to watch the library while I do my research, and that’s final.” I began to see why my Mom had simply cut arguments with me off at the roots. I was quickly learning that arguing with a child only lead to trouble and headaches. I had always seen myself as an older sister for Spike, but without Princess Celestia or any other adult figures around, I was finding myself more and more in a parental position for Spike. The whole greed-growth incident certainly emphasized the need for me to take responsibility for him. Most children weren't capable of destroying an entire town on a bad day.
Spike frowned slightly and stared at me as I tightened my saddlebags around my waist. I decided to throw an umbrella into one of my bags in case I did get caught in the rain. Better safe than sorry. “You haven’t even told me what this new project of yours is, Twilight. I’m still your number one assistant, right?”
Great, now I was starting to feel guilty. I reached into my saddlebag with my telekinesis. “Look, I’m sorry, but this isn’t the type of project I really want to involve you in, and things are probably going to be busy for at least a few days while I work on this project.” I pulled out a handful of bits and floated them over to Spike. “How about later today you close the library for an hour, and go out and get something to eat and enjoy yourself for a bit?”
“Um, ok,” he said reluctantly as he took the bits. “If that’s what you really want.”
That at least seemed to placate him. “I may be gone all day. So don’t worry about waiting on me for dinner.” I gave him a warning glare. “I don’t want you trying to stay up all night again. You are still a baby dragon and need your sleep.” I walked over to him and nuzzled him. “Now give me a hug before I go.”
Spike crossed his arms over his chest, and rolled his eyes. “Ugh, do I have to?”
I sighed. I don’t get why he has such a problem with hugging me sometimes. “Spike, I might not get to see you for the rest of the day. Just give me one hug to say goodbye, please?”
His arms dropped as his resistance collapsed. “Yeah, alright.” Spike hesitated for a moment before giving me a hug around the neck.
I squeezed him back. “Right, I’m off then,” I said. Spike broke the hug and looked up at me. “Make sure no one leaves the library without actually checking-“
“I know how to run the library,” Spike cut me off with a huff. “I’ve spent enough time in libraries to know how to run one, thanks to you.”
“I’ve only taken you to a few, Spike,” I objected.
Spike started counting off digits on his claw. “The Canterlot Royal Library, the Celestia School for Gifted Unicorns Library, the Fillydelphia Library, the Stalliongrad Library, the Cloudsdale Library, the...”
So he was right. That was quite the list of libraries he was reading off. There was also the fact that I had taken him on my summer vacation tour of Equestria’s largest, most important, and historical museums … It had been educational and good for him, really.
“...the Mistvale Repository, the other Fillydelphia Library that isn’t as good, the-”
“I get it Spike, you’ve been to a lot of libraries because of me.” I giggled at him. So I guess he had a point, and I had dragged Spike to a number of libraries across Equestria to find rare and unique books, documents, and resources that could only be found in one location. So much to read, so little time. “At least you got that much out of being with me.”
Spike rolled his eyes at me. “That and learning how to create a bookfort I can sleep in.”
I rolled my eyes at Spike. “It’s not like a library is the worst place I could take you. And its not like I didn’t suggest plenty of books for you to read while I did my research.” Plus it was kind of annoying when he just took the books I was using for my research, and used them to create a place for him to sleep in.
Spike rolled his eyes right back at me. “Yeah, go figure, your solution to a problem is to read a book.”
I shook my head back and forth in annoyance. “Take care, Spike.” I pulled out my list out of my saddlebag as I left the library. Time for some research.
***
I made for the first item on my list. I opened the door to Rainbow Dash’s office at the town hall, the one specifically designated for the Weather Service in Ponyville. The Weather Service in Ponyville was sufficiently small enough to make it so that it only needed one office for the town’s weather manager, Rainbow Dash.
Looking around, it was obvious that Rainbow Dash was not an organized pony, not at all. Papers lay in disorganized piles on Dash’s desk, buried a table sitting against the wall, and covered a distressing proportion of the floor. Plaques and pictures were shoved into a shelf that had been nailed to a wall. It looked as though a storm had passed through, and given Rainbow Dash’s behavior to go everywhere while flying, that effectively might have happened.
I looked to see Rainbow Dash maneuvering a pencil over a piece of paperwork with her mouth, and placed the form into a bin where a handful of other papers lay. “If yo’ ‘ave a ‘eather requu’st, yo’ ‘an leave it in mai ern’box by the ‘oor,” she said as the pencil muffled her words. She did not even bother to look up at me. She finished with one form and then began to shift through the literal pile of papers sitting on one side of her desk before she seemed to decide one was worthy of her time and energy, and began to work furiously on it.
“Hi Rainbow Dash,” I said cheerfully.
Dash’s ears perked up, and she looked towards me. She spat her pencil onto her desk and leaned back in her chair. “Oh, hi Twilight.”
I walked up to her desk to face her. “Would you mind if I took some of your time to ask a few questions?” I pulled out a tablet and a pencil to write with from my saddlebag.
“I’d love to talk. Trust me, anything is better than having to deal with this.” She pointed at her uncultivated pile of papers. “But I have to get through all of this paperwork, or somepony isn’t going to get their rain when they need it, and I don’t want to have to explain to some farmer why their crops are dying.”
I was worried this might be a problem. Nailing Dash down on any day could be a hassle. During the day she was most likely going to be working. Even after she was done with her job, it would then be very difficult to find her considering she could be anywhere across town training or spending time doing … whatever it is she did with Pinkie these days. I think the only reason she even had a home was to have a place to keep her stuff, and maybe eat at. Granted, those aren’t bad reasons to own a home, but it made it difficult to find the flighty pegasus--especially when you were restricted to the ground like I was.
I glanced around and quickly surmised a solution that might make us both happy. “What if I helped you organize your paperwork here? I can make it a lot easier for you to find everything and allow you to finish a lot quicker. While I’m doing that, I can ask the questions I wanted to. I get to conduct my interview, and you save a bunch of time.”
Dash tapped a hoof on her desk while she thought about my offer. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want you to mess things up and make it impossible for me to find anything.”
I raised a hoof to show where a couple of papers had stuck to it when I crossed the room and pointed at the disorganized pile of papers that lay about the room. “Because it is easy to find anything in that mess? Really Dash, I organized Ponyville’s Winter Wrap Up into getting the job done on schedule for the first time in over a decade. I deal with paperwork on a daily basis. You think I could make your office worse than it already is?”
Rainbow Dash let out an annoyed growl. “Alright alright, I’ll answer your questions if you help me organize this mess.” She leaned further back into her chair and wrapped her hooves around the back of her head. “Might as well put that egghead of yours to good use.”
I choose to ignore the insult in favor of concentrating on why I had come to Dash’s office in the first place. “Excellent, I just needed to ask a few questions about Cloud Kicker.”
Dash arched an eyebrows in confusion. “And why the hay do you want to know about Cloud Kicker?” Dash leaned forward in her chair and she slammed a pair of hooves on her desk. “She hasn’t been bothering you has she? Because if she has then I c-“
“Nonono, nothing like that,” I immediately interrupted. Even if I was less than thrilled by Cloud Kicker’s behavior, the last thing I needed to do was to set Dash on her. Though the idea of seeing her sweat for once did strike me as a little funny. Funny, but impractical for the purposes of the report I needed to write. “I recently received a request from the Royal Canterlot University to assist with a sociological study. The short of it is that they chose Cloud Kicker as one of the ponies they’re studying, and I’m in the middle of interviewing ponies she regularly interacts with. Hence, why I am here.”
“Waitwaitwait!” Dash jumped out of her chair to hover in the room, sending papers flying to the floor. “You want to study Cloud Kicker?”
“Yeah, I was as confused by the idea as you are,” I said. I began to pick various papers together, and as I started to scan the sheets to begin to create a mental list of possible ways to organize the paperwork. “But the pony running the study insisted that Cloud Kicker was a prime candidate for this project due to her…um, unique lifestyle.”
Rainbow Dash crossed her legs over her chest as she narrowed her eyes at me. “So you’re telling me these eggheads want to learn about Cloud Kicker because she bangs a bunch of ponies.”
Once again Dash, you manage to find the most delicate way to put things. I could not help but sigh loudly. “Essentially, yes. Or at least, that is what was implied to me.” I saw several themes to the paperwork in front of me and began sorting them out into piles based on those themes.
Dash landed on the ground and watched as I began to organize her papers for her. “You realize how weird that is, right?”
“Sometimes academics like to study things that are different,” I said as analytically as I could. “It’s not like she’s the only pony in Equestria of her type. This is supposed to be a cross examination of Equestrian society, and Cloud Kicker is…” My thoughts trailed off as I tried to put this in the most academic why I could. “That is to say, her role is unique and notable within Equestria society, and there is a need to record it for future study.”
Dash rolled her eyes at me. “Yeah, you eggheads need to get out and get banged more if this is your kink.”
My jaw dropped at the suggestion. “N-no, I - no -th-that’s not. No, its - s-science. Intercourse has nothing to... I mean...” It seemed my tongue and brain had decided to have a nasty breakup with one another.
Dash smiled at my discomfort while I tried to reconcile the differences keeping my tongue and brain from working as a team. “Besides, shouldn’t you eggheads all be out exploring ruins somewhere, or mixing chemicals and herbs and stuff anyways instead of doing something weird like this?”
I shook my head in irritation. “T-that’s all archeology, chemistry, and alchemy, not sociology-“
“Gesundheit.”
Sometimes I really wondered if Dash was either dumb, ignorant, oblivious, or just messing with me at times. “You’re just going to have to trust me that this is actually important. Now are you going to allow me to ask my questions, or are we just going to banter back and forth until your office is closed? I figure your office hours don’t last all day?”
“I have official office hours?” she said with confusion. She walked to her doorway and looked around to examine the walls. “I thought I told them to take that stupid plaque off the wall. I don’t need to be held down in an office while there’s perfectly good cloud pushing to be done.”
It was time to get this back on track. The study to determine Dash’s mental capabilities and motives were just going to have to be shelved for another day. “So, Dash: Cloud Kicker, when did you first meet her?” I kept organizing through Dash’s paperwork as promised, of course. Though looking at the dates of the paperwork, the disrepair the whole pile was under, and the types of things that were all mixed together, I was beginning to have serious worries about how Dash even managed to keep the Weather Service in Ponyville together.
Seemingly content that there was no plaque, and thus that there were no office hours being advertised, she pulled her head back into the office and turns towards me. “Oh, we’ve been friends since Flight Camp.” She stood up on her rear legs and started to make jabs with her forehooves. “We beat up all the bullies there--you wouldn’t believe the number of jerks who tried to hurt ponies like Fluttershy.” She gave a final series of jabs with an uppercut to finish it off. “We bucked all of them to the curb.”
I began the process of laying down the papers into neat piles on Rainbow’s desk. “So how would you describe your relationship now?”
“It’s pretty cool,” Dash answered. She walked back to her chair, and plopped herself back down in it. “She came to Ponyville to be a weather pony after graduating from college, and we’ve been hanging out every now and again since then.”
My head perked up when I heard Dash’s answer, and I turned away from scanning the papers. “Wait a minute, you said that Cloud Kicker graduated from college?”
“That’s what I said, yeah.”
I tilted my head in confusion. “From where? I didn’t know this about her.”
Dash tapped on her desk with a hoof for a moment before answering. “West Hoof.” For a pony who liked the sound of her own voice, she was being awfully terse.
“West Hoof?” I parroted. That certainly surprised me. Cloud Kicker did not strike me as the type to live a life of structure and discipline like Equestria’s premier military academy demanded. Everything my brother had said about West Hoof and what I had read confirmed it was not an easy school to graduate from. “You’re telling me Cloud Kicker graduated from possibly the strictest and most disciplined school in Equestria? I went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and there are some aspects of West Hoof that make it seem like a cakewalk.”
“She’s smarter than a lot of ponies give her credit for,” Dash said with a shrug. “I wouldn't promote a pony to assistant manager if I thought they were dumb. I have to do enough around here without having to do my assistant manager’s job too.”
The whole thing was still odd to me. Why would she go to a school like West Hoof? Then a piece of information clicked in my head. That’s the problem with knowing as much as I do, you have to sift through a lot of information sometimes to get what you want at a particular moment. “So she’s a member of the old Kicker clan?”
She smiled as she nodded her head. “Yea, she’s part of that whole family of Royal Guard brats. They’re too uptight for my tastes, but Cloud Kicker’s cool in my book."
I frowned in concentration at Rainbow Dash. “You said that she came to Ponyville to be in the weather service right after she graduated right? As in there being no significant period of time in-between those two event?”
Dash frowned at me, and tapped her hoof on her desk a few more times before answering. “Yeah, that’s what I said. So?”
I got to my point. “Why did she go into a civilian job after four years of difficult military study? When she comes from one of Equestria’s biggest military clans, on top of that? No offense intended to your occupation, but it seems like she would’ve gone through a lot of work to just become a weather worker.”
Rainbow Dash leaned back in her chair and crossed her forelegs in front of her chest. She stared at me for a minute before speaking. “It’s not my place to say.”
My brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean? You must have talked with her about why she decided to join the weather service with you at some point over the years. You said you were friends even.”
Rainbow’s ears twitched in irritation.“Yeah, and I said it’s not my place to talk about it.”
Fine, so I supposed I was just going to have to interview Cloud Kicker about that directly. At least it was something interesting to note for my report.
I was beginning to get a rhythm going with Dash’s paperwork as I started to become familiar with the various types of forms, weather requests, and memos. One piece of paper after another zipped by my glance, and then floated to one of the predetermined piles. I decided to move onto my next question. “So how does she do at her job as an assistant weather manager?”
Dash grinned at the new topic. “She does a rad job helping me manage the other weather pegasi. Her special talent is cloud manipulation, so she’s a natural at cloud pushing herself. She and Blossomforth were a big help on Hearts and Hooves Day. Ugh, things were just going to Tartarus when somepony broke the rainbow for the holiday... But they pulled through for me, so I promoted them to be assistant managers. The two of them have done a pretty cool job since then.”
I decided it would be best for me not to mention that it had been the Cutie Mark Crusaders who had drained the Hearts and Hooves Day rainbow of its color for an alchemical ingredient. I thought the Crusaders were going to learn about the holiday when I had loaned them that book. How was I supposed to know they intended to use it to brew up a love potion? On top of that, there were at least a half dozen varieties of love potions in that book, and they just had to pick out the one that was a poison. I mean really, don’t ponies read directions or warnings anymore? Big Macintosh, Cheerilee, and Rarity had a bit of a word with me after that whole incident…
“So you haven’t had issues with her during work?” I asked.
“Nuh-uh.” Dash started to look over the organized piles of paper I had placed on her desk. “She makes my job a bit easier each day, so I’m happy that I promoted her. She and Blossomforth are even doing most of the work setting up the thunderstorm for later today. It’s saving me a ton of time so that I can catch up with,” she looked at her desk in disgust, “paperwork.”
I chewed the inside of my mouth as I considered how to organize the papers that were already out of date, of which there were a disturbing number, and moved to the next question on my list without thinking about it. “Have you had intercourse with Cloud Kicker?”
Rainbow Dash’s forelegs flailed as she lost her balance in her chair and fell back onto the floor. She scrambled back to her hooves, and looked at me with a scowl. “Banged Cloud Kicker? Ew, no.” She rubbed the back of her head in pain. “Are you seriously asking a bunch of ponies that?”
I groaned in irritation and tried to keep working away at the papers. “Pretty much. At least from what the Pri-professors told me about the project, Cloud Kicker’s … social activities are a big part of why they want me to study her.” I looked up at Dash and frowned. “Sorry about launching into that question. I really didn’t think about the ordering of these questions when I put this list together.”
“Ya think?” She roughly put her chair back into a standing position and sat back down into it. One of her ears flicked in irritation. “Just try and give me a bit more warning before you go into something weird like that.”
I frowned and suppressed a groan. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I finished organizing all the papers on the desk, and I then proceeded to lift all the papers off the floor. I was becoming annoyed with the constant crunching noise of hoof on paper every time I stepped. Really, I could not understand ponies that just left a bunch of stuff messily thrown about the floor. I suppressed my memories of college dorm rooms whose floors were nothing more than a myth dating back to the days of the beginning of the semester.
Dash looked at the piles of paper with disinterest. She bit her bottom lip before speaking again. “Hey Twi?”
“Yeah Dash,” I said.
Her wings ruffled a bit as she fidgeted in her chair. “Were you planning on interviewing other ponies for this thing you’re doing?”
“Of course,” I said without turning away from the piles of papers I was quickly eroding. “I figured interviewing some of her close family, friends, and associates would be a good start before I interviewed Cloud Kicker herself.”
“Who were you planning on interviewing?”
“Oh,” I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “Her parents if I can find them, you, Fluttershy, her friend Blossomforth, Derpy, and a few others. It depends on who I turn up, and who looks like they could contribute to my study.”
“Ah ... yeah.” Dash rubbed the back of her head uncomfortably. “Hey, could you just not interview Fluttershy about Cloud Kicker?”
I was momentarily confused by Dash’s request. I turned to her and stopped going through the stacks of paper. “Why do you want me to do that, Dash?” I tried to process Dash’s unusual request. “Has Cloud Kicker embarrassed her at some point? I can see her being a bit much for a pony as shy as Fluttershy.” Honestly, the mare was a bit much for me, and I liked to think I had thick skin. I did not want to think what Cloud Kicker could do to a shrinking violet like Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash pursed her lips for a moment before answering. “It’s just--look, Flight Camp is a sensitive subject for Fluttershy. We were all there when Flight Camp was not a cool place, and she had a really rough time with it. More than most ponies.”
I frowned slightly at Dash as I considered what she said. “I could just avoid the topic of Flight Camp, and just ask about Clo-“
“No!” Dash resolutely leapt over her desk and landed right in front of me. I looked at the papers that had been blown to the floor with chagrin. It would have been nice if Dash could at least have waited until I left the room before destroying my work. “Please, Twilight, don’t interview Fluttershy about Cloud Kicker. It will just dig up bad memories for her. Trust me.”
I walked around Dash to get into a better position to look at and organize the papers Dash had knocked over. “I’m not going to try and hurt Fluttershy’s feelings. You should know that. If I start to make her uncomfortable I will-“
“No, you don’t understand!” Dash snapped, violently enough to make me flinch away from her. She let out a groan and slowly ran a hoof over her face. “Look, Flight Camp was horrible. The counselors weren’t doing jack for their jobs there. You couldn’t find a counselor if it wasn’t time for a class. Bullies were a huge problem, and Fluttershy got it really bad there. Everypony was getting into fights all the time--like when me and Cloud Kicker beat up those bullies who were mean to Fluttershy and Derpy. Kids were doing things kids should just not do with one another...” Her eyes broke contact for a moment as she looked down and to the side as though remembering something. Dash’s voice barely rose to that above a whisper. “And they got really hurt as a result. It was awful there.”
I put all the papers I had been levitating to the side in order to concentrate on Dash. She seemed to be acting really defensive and concerned about this issue, and I thought it was best for me to give her my full attention. “I could just not ask about anything relating to Flight Camp. I only need to know about her relationship with Cloud Kicker, not specifically about Flight Camp.”
Dash growled in irritation before taking a calming breath. “Twilight,” she put a hoof on each of my shoulders and looked me with a pleadingly, “I am asking you, friend to friend, for the sake of another friend: just drop it. Please. I wish I could tell you more--but I can’t. Just trust me on this, okay?”
Dash’s shoulders slumped and she was biting her lower lip. This must have meant a lot to her if she was pushing this hard over it. I wanted to do a thorough job of my report, of course. But by the way Rainbow was looking at me, I might have to change up my approach a bit where Fluttershy was concerned. I really did not want to hurt Fluttershy’s feelings after all. I knew how awful being bullied as a child could be from firsthand experience, and if her Flight Camp experience was as bad as she seemed to be suggesting... “Yeah, alright Dash. I won’t interview Fluttershy about Cloud Kicker if you really think that is for the best.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks Twilight. That means a lot to me.” She took her hooves off my shoulders and smirked at me. “So what else do you have to ask?”
Even if I was going to have to prematurely cross Fluttershy off my list of interviewees, at least for the moment, I still had a few other odd and end questions for Dash. I nodded to her and went back to organizing the Weather Service papers, and I asked her a few more questions about Cloud Kicker. I managed to finish up both tasks at about the same time.
I looked over Dash’s desk and double checked my work with a satisfied nod. “And there we go, all organized. Now if you stick to my organizational scheme, you shouldn’t have trouble finding anything anymore.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She dismissively waved me off, and leaned back into her chair. After a moment her ears suddenly perked up, and she grinned at me. “Oh, that reminds me!” She leapt over the desk with a couple flaps of her wings, and blew many of the papers I had just finished organizing all over her desk and onto the floor.
I looked at the destruction of the past hour’s work and gave Dash a disapproving glare. There went my efforts to make Dash’s life a little less cluttered and disorganized. Dash looked to see what she did, and gave a weak chuckle. “Oh, sorry, but anyways...” Sure Dash, just switch topics away from the damage you just caused to my efforts to make you life better. “Do you know what an anemometer is?”
I raised my eyebrow in interest. “Of course, it’s an instrument that measures the force and direction of the wind. It’s also commonly used to measure a pegasus’s wing power. Why?”
“Yeah, that.” Dash nodded in excitement. “Do you know how to work one?”
I scratched my cranium. This was an odd subject to suddenly get into. I drew up my knowledge on meteorology and weather engineering. “Not specifically, but I think I could easily learn how to use one by going over a couple of books about weather engineering at the library, and any technical manuals you might have here. From what I have heard, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Not half as bad as my meteorological spacial surveyor.”
“Awesome!” She pumped a hoof in the air. “Look, I need to ask you a big favor.”
My ears perked in interest. “Sure, what is it Dash? You know I’ll help if I can.”
“Great.” She looked back and forth around the room, and then flew in closer to speak more quietly. “You see, I’m trying to get Ponyville a turn at Tornado Duty.”
I thought that over for a second. “Alright, but I don’t see what the problem is.” I did some quick math on how many pegasi were in Ponyville, and the wingpower of your average pegasus. “You’ll have to call in a lot of the Ponyville pegasi for weather duty, but you shouldn’t have that much trouble getting eight hundred wingpower to pull a tornado off.”
“That’s the thing,” Dash said eagerly. “I don’t just want to pull off a water tornado, I want to break the record! I want us to break Fillydelphia’s record of nine hundred wingpower. I think it would be totally awesome if we could get all the way up to a thousand!”
I tapped a hoof against the side of my head as I redid my math to see if it was even possible, and my brain came back with an answer. “I don’t know Dash, that is asking a lot of the pegasi of Ponyville. There just aren’t enough pegasi in town to confidently pull that off.” That was not even getting into the fact that is was unnecessary. All you needed was eight hundred wingpower to create the water tornado. It would be overkill to do so much more than the minimum needed to do this. The only reason a small town like Ponyville stood a chance of breaking the old record was because no one bothered to set a record for a relatively mundane piece of weather duty.
I decided to go to a chalkboard Dash had in her office and wrote out the the projected estimates for Tornado Day. Dash watched intently as I started doing the math. Typically, you pulled the standard number of pegasi together for the job, put in the effort and then sent the tornado Cloudsdale’s way so they would have the moisture need to make more clouds. Simple as that. I looked at my final estimate. “It does seem at least theoretically possible, if extremely difficult”
Dash flew up and looked at the finished product of my calculations. “So you’re saying it can be done.” Dash tapped the final number and gave an expectant grin.
I double-checked my math. I went with how many pegasi were normally available for Winter Wrap Up, and then got the average wingpower we would need for each pegasus to go over a thousand wingpower. My lips frowned when I got my answer. “It’s possible, but Dash, that would require all the pegasi in Ponyville to stand a chance of getting the raw numbers you need for something like that.”
Dash nodded her head as I explained why this was implausible. “Doesn’t sound like a problem to me. I have the legal right to conscript every pegasi in Ponyville for the job, don’t worry about it.”
I breathed to relax myself. I was just going to have to explain this step by step to my friend then. “Even then, you need to get an average of ten wingpower to reach the record. Do you know what the average for wingpower for a pegasus is? Eight point six. Way below what you need.” I hated to pop Dash’s bubble given how she seemed really seemed into this idea of breaking the old record, but somepony needed to be a voice of reason in this crazy town. But what Dash did was take my reason, and took it as an excuse to ramp up the crazy.
“My thoughts exactly!” she said with a confident grin. “I’m going to call up every pegasi in town for a solid week of weather duty, and we are going to train and train hard!” She added emphasis by slamming one hoof against another. “That’s why I want you to get an anemometer and run it for me. My cloud pushers are the only other ponies who would know how to run a doohickey like that, but they’re also my strongest fliers. So I need them for the tornado. I’m gonna need all the pegasi I can get.”
I hoped Dash’s bosses would be alright with her adding nearly a hundred pegasi to the weather service payroll for a solid week just to train them to break a record. Did her bosses even know that she was going with this hare-brained scheme, or did she just fail to tell them what she was up to when she filed the wage and conscription requests from her management in Cloudsdale? Assuming she had even gone through the effort of filing the paperwork yet. Given what I just saw in her office, I was surprised Ponyville got enough clouds every week to even have weather. No wonder Ponyville always seemed to have nothing but bright, almost cloudless days most of the time.
I shook my head in irritation. “Dash, this has ‘bad idea’ written all over it. It’s not necessary, and is just going to be a big headache to pull off.”
Dash did not even acknowledge my protest. “But you’re saying it can be done?”
I needed to bring some basic organizational logic to this conversation. “Yes, but you need to understand: nothing, and I mean nothing can go wrong if you want to break the record. No injuries, no sickness, and nopony skipping on weather service. There is virtually no room for error here to reach one thousand wingpower.”
“Yeah, which will make it cooler when we finally do it.” Dash clapped her hooves together in anticipation. “Nopony will see this coming. It’ll be so awesome. Besides, you told me all I needed to hear, that it can be done. I’m so pumped for this.”
I sighed and rubbed my face. I had a feeling there was no way I was going to convince Dash to not go through with this idea. Celestia had warned me when I was younger about coming up with plans that either required everything to go perfectly or required perfect efficiency, and this plan to break the old record smacked against both of those warnings. The good news was that Ponyville only had to get eight hundred wingpower to pull the tornado off, and we would have plenty of margin of error for that. So even if Dash’s plan met a snag or two she should not get into trouble as long as Cloudsdale got its water.
Deciding I was not signing up for an epic failure waiting to happen, I smiled at Dash and offered a hoof to her. “Alright, I have my reservations about this, but you’ve got yourself a volunteer weather technical engineer for Tornado Day.”
Dash shook my hoof vigorously. “Awesome, welcome to the team. Well, as a volunteer anyways. Can’t really join the weather service unless you have these babies.” She gave a flap of her wings to show me what she was talking about. She smirked at me. “Not that having you around isn’t going to be a huge help. This means a ton to me Twilight, thanks.”
“Of course Dash.” I patted her on the shoulder. “What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t help you out with something that was as important as this to you?”
Dash pumped a hoof into the air. “Trust me, this will be totally radical. Nopony is going to see a town as small as Ponyville pulling this off. You totally won’t regret helping me with this.”
I certainly hoped not. I had enough stress in my life as is.
***
With my interview with Rainbow Dash complete, I exited the Ponyville City Hall. I had taken longer than I originally expected, but I had made sure to schedule plenty of extra time to absorb such irregularities. Looking up, I saw that the coming storm was still a couple hours away. So there was not any reason to run home quite yet.
“Hey, if it isn’t Duchess.” My ear twitched in irritation. I looked up to see Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth fly down and land near me. Cloud Kicker was smiling while Blossomforth seemed mildly irritated.
I scowled at Cloud Kicker. “I thought I asked you to stop calling me that.”
“Oh, but it fits you so well.” Cloud Kicker sauntered up next to me. “You’ll always be noble to me.”
Blossomforth trotted up to stand by Cloud Kicker. “We need to get going, Cloud Kicker. We need to get these forms to Rainbow and tell her everything is good for the rainstorm later today.”
Cloud Kicker grinned at Blossomforth. “Don’t be all business, Blossom. We made good time getting all the clouds into position. All we need to do now is buck it, and the whole thing will go off without a hitch. We have plenty of time to say hello to a friend.” Blossom looked away from Cloud Kicker and gave an irritated groan.
I took a few steps away from Cloud Kicker and turned to face her directly. “We are not friends, Cloud Kicker. I’m just doing a bit of research on you for my report.”
Cloud Kicker’s ears drooped, and she put on a false pout. “How could you be so mean to me Twilight? All I wanted was for us to be friends.” She winked at me. “Or better yet, more than friends. Well, you know, a special kinda friends that comes with certain ... benefits.”
I groaned in irritation. “Really Cloud Kicker? You are always doing this. You are always hitting on me, always. Why are you doing this?”
She grinned that stupid grin that was really starting to annoy me. “Because, I’m hoping to get some extra study sessions in the library with a hot librarian one of these days.”
I rubbed the side of my head to relieve the growing pain in my cranium. “But that’s the thing, I know you aren’t serious about your … advances. Both you and Dash told me that you’re not serious when you do this with me due to some rule you have. It doesn’t make sense for you to keep doing this.”
“Of course it does.” She trotted up next to me again. “It’s funny.” She leaned in to whisper into my ear. “And you're really cute when your cheeks blush.”
I turned and backed away from her a couple steps. I was also considering declaring treason against my slowly heating cheeks. “You have to know I’ll never say yes to you. So there isn’t any point to it. It’s not like you can--Uh … That we will ever spend time together … Like that.”
She turned and slowly walked up to besides me. “Just because I can’t have a piece of art in a museum doesn’t mean I can’t admire how beautiful it is.” She turned her head and … Oh, Celestia burn her, she wasn’t even pretending she wasn’t looking right at my plot! “Yep, that’s a view I could always enjoy.”
I turned so that it would be difficult for her to see anything but my face. “You are infuriating.”
“And you're sexy when you’re mad,” Cloud Kicker answered right back.
“Cloud Kicker, can we report to Dash already?” Blossomforth interjected. By the way she was looking at the ground, I had to guess she was as sick of Cloud Kickers antics as I was. “I’d like to get that done so I can start my break and get something to eat.”
Cloud Kicker turned to face Blossom. Of course she had to turn at an angle that left her rear directly facing me. Not that I actually looked at it or anything. It would have been indecent to be caught looking. “Oh fine Blossom, happy fun time is over. Let’s report in to the boss.” Cloud Kicker turned her head to look at me. “Until next time, Duchess.”
The two of them started walking away when I remembered something. “Wait, Blossomforth.”
Blossomforth stopped walking and turned to look at me. “What is it?”
Alright, how to ask this without it sounding terribly awkward, and providing Cloud Kicker with more ammunition to tease me. Not that she needed any help. “Would you mind if I interviewed you for my studies? We could do it right now, if you aren’t terribly busy. You said you were going to have a break when you finished reporting in to Dash.”
Blossomforth tilted her head in confusion. “I don’t know about that. I’m working a split shift today due to the storm, and I only have a few hours to get some rest in. It’s going to be a long day as is.”
“We can just talk over lunch.” I went through my mental bag of tricks to find a way to get her to agree. “I’ll even pay for your meal--wherever you want to eat, my treat.” As Celestia had told me, it is rare when a pony will turn down a free meal. Even if you want something from them and they know it. “It won’t even take that long. I have a couple other things I would like to do before the storm hits anyway.”
Blossomforth chewed on her lips for a couple of seconds when Cloud Kicker poked her in the ribs. “Go ahead Blossom, accept, she’s asking you out on a date.”
“I am not!” And that did not sound defensive on my part at all. Blossomforth blushed and she turned her head away from me. I stomped a hoof. “It’s just for the report I’m working on--nothing more.”
Cloud Kicker leaned in to whisper more than loudly enough for me to hear what she was saying. “She’s just embarrassed, Blossom. Give her time, she’ll open up to you. Don’t let this opportunity get away from you- she’s Grade A banging material right there.”
Blossom gave a soft squeak as she leaned away from Cloud Kicker. “I-I don’t know, it’s just-”
“Come on Blossom, it’s obvious that she has a crush on you. She spent all that time following you around yesterday because she was too embarrassed to come out and say she wants to bang you. You can’t turn her down now.”
I groaned in frustration. “This is not a date! This is nothing but academic in purpose.”
“She seems awfully defensive when she says that, don’t you think?” Cloud Kicker said suggestively. “Besides, what else was she going to do if not ‘interview’ you?”
“I was going to visit Zecora!” I was desperate to find anything to derail Cloud Kicker and her wild suggestions that I had anything but academic intentions towards Blossomforth. “I was going to pick up some tea mixtures she was preparing for me.”
“Oh good.” Cloud Kicker perked up in interest. “Could you pick up a few potions I ordered from her while you’re there?”
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion at Cloud Kicker. It was not exactly a stretch of the imagination to say that she was up to something by this point. “And what type of potions do you need from Zecora?”
She smiled at me like a cat who just had a mouse fall into her paws. “Oh, my contraceptives of course. Zecora’s are the best if you ask me--none of the cramping like that second rate stuff from Canterlot.”
I groaned and facehoofed. Of course, what else would she want me to pick up from Zecora’s? I swear, it was like she was trying to set some sort of record for making me groan … And that last thought sounded a lot more dirty than I had meant it to. Stupid Cloud Kicker was already starting to be a bad influence on me.
“And why exactly should I pick up your ... potions?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t be like that Twilight.” She put on that false pouty face again. “You wouldn’t want me to get knocked up because I didn’t have enough protection, would you? I wouldn’t be able to provide my valuable service to the community as the third pony for everypony’s threesomes. Imagine all those couples who would have to go without their favorite nymphomaniac to add some spice their their relationships.”
I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her. “I am not here to enable your lifestyle, Cloud Kicker.”
“Hey, don’t knock it until you try it.” Cloud Kicker expanded her wings. “Besides, you wouldn’t want me to wear these out further after a hot day on the job. And in a storm nonetheless, not when you’re already heading out to Zecora’s hut. Besides, it’s just more efficient for just one of us to go out there. You like efficiency don’t you, Duchess?”
She just had to use the E word with me, didn’t she? I was beginning to get a bit concerned that she was already getting a good idea of how to push my buttons. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Fine, I’ll pick up your potions. Just to be nice, and because we are going to have to work together for awhile.”
Before I could say or do anything, she lept and wrapped her legs around my neck in a hug. My personal space had now been officially violated. I would normally consider this a friendly hug, but this is Cloud Kicker we were talking about. “Thanks Twilight, you’re a pal. Think of it as a favor.” I tried to break the hug, but she had a surprisingly strong grip on me. Her hot breath tickled my ear as she added, “Maybe I can give you a backrub later to thank you? Trust me, give me a few minutes and you'll be melting like butter under my hooves.”
“No!” I finally managed to squirm out of her grasp and backed away a few steps. Blossomforth was glaring at the both of us now. Why was she giving me that type of look also? Cloud Kicker was the one getting all touchy-feely with me against my wishes. “No backrubs!” Cloud Kicker looked like she was about to say something else when I cut her off. “No anything!”
Cloud Kicker shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “If that’s the answer you want to give right now, that’s your choice.” She gave me a sultry smile. “But remember, my offer is always there if you change your mind.”
“I won’t,” I said firmly.
Cloud Kicker walked up next to Blossomforth, who was giving her a narrowed eyed stare. “In any event, you two need to get going on your date.”
“I-I d-didn’t say I wanted to go,” protested Blossomforth.
“And I said it wasn’t a date!” I was vainly hoping that by protesting enough she would stop her antics. It was a hope beyond all hope.
“Besides, we have to talk with Dash and-,” Blossomforth’s protests were cut off when Cloud Kicker proceeded to slap Blossomforth on the rump to knock her closer to me, resulting in Blossomforth giving a small squeal and blushing terribly.
Cloud Kicker smiled mischievously at the two of us. “Get along you two lovebirds. Don’t worry Blossom, I’ll tell the boss that I sent you on your way to get some rest before the night half of your shift. She naps so often that she won’t have any room to complain.” She leaned in to talk quietly to Blossomforth. “Though I don’t expect you to be resting the entire time.” She gave a knowing wink. “Have fun.”
Before Blossomforth could stutter an objection, Cloud Kicker had trotted her way into the City Hall, leaving the two of us along the in the town square.
After standing there in awkward silence for a few moments I decided to try and say something. “So … Free lunch?”
Blossomforth ears perked and she turned to face me. “You said any restaurant of my choice?”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”
She tapped her chin and then smiled widely. “You know, there is this restaurant that serves really nice salads that I like, but can’t always go to.”
I was not liking how that smile was curving. It was a smile that suggested that my interview was going to cost me a pretty bit. Probably a dozen. At least I got my interview. That’s …. something right?
Maybe this study of Cloud Kicker was not going to be as easy as I originally expected.