//------------------------------// // Fair Weather Friends // Story: We're Gonna Get There Soon // by Cranberry Muffin //------------------------------// Though he was a hard worker, Thunderlane also enjoyed having time to simply relax and do nothing. He wouldn’t call himself lazy like Rainbow Dash had, but who was he to turn down the chance to, well, laze about? In some aspects, he wasn’t all that dissimilar from Rainbow Dash herself. Though he was nowhere near as much a show off as she was and he preferred to remain under the radar rather than in the spotlight, they were both strong flyers and excelled in their line of work. They both also enjoyed napping, whether on a cloud or in a bed or somewhere splayed in the sun. Rainbow Dash was awesome at what she did, but much like Thunderlane, she preferred loafing about -usually in an apple tree, in her case- over doing any kind of work. He knew this, and suspected that she did as well. But the captain of the weather team had always been hard on him, right from the get-go. Thunderlane couldn’t figure out why, but he was the only pony Rainbow complained about being lazy –though she had tons of other complaints about the other pegasi under her command- and the only one who got flack for slacking off, despite the fact that he didn’t do so often when he was on the clock. Maybe he just reminded Rainbow of the parts of herself she secretly didn’t like? He didn’t know and he wasn’t about to ask her to find out. In any case, though, he had been incredibly surprised that Rainbow Dash had given him the week off as well as Derpy. It wasn’t like he needed it or even deserved it. Sure, he’d worked hard on Friday’s storm, but so had a lot of other ponies and none of them were enjoying a week full of free time. Some small part of him suspected that his week off had more to do with Derpy than himself; Rainbow Dash -not usually the living body of empathy- seemed to be attempting some semblance of friendship or perhaps even mentorship with the grey mare. It had begun with the maple candy way back in the winter, and since then, it seemed that Rainbow Dash was paying more attention and noticing things that Derpy was good at. It had surprised Derpy –but not Thunderlane- when Rainbow started giving her better assignments, ones that played up her strengths rather than just kept her out of everypony’s hair. The stallion was well aware of their boss’ desire to mold them into the best Weather Team in all of Equestria, so it made sense that she would be shrewd in her decisions about work detail. Rainbow Dash was no idiot; she could easily see which tasks the other weather ponies excelled at and which they should not even attempt to perform. He didn’t think Rainbow Dash had given them the time off as an overture of friendship towards Derpy though, but rather because she wanted them both on their A game and if Derpy was still hurt –mentally or physically- she would be more likely to cause a disaster and Thunderlane himself would be driven to distraction worrying about her. It was more than probable that they were granted the week off simply due to Rainbow’s selfish desire for her team to never screw up –and so she could punish the twins with extra work- rather than out of sympathy for either of them. In any case, Thunderlane wasn’t about to question her generosity –opportunities like this were few and far between- and that was how he found himself trotting aimlessly through town at the very same time Derpy was speaking to the schoolponies. He really had no plans, other than just hanging out. Maybe he could find Blue Skies or Blossomforth or somepony else who had nothing to do at the moment – The weather team was one of few professions in Ponyville that required a second shift and some of his friends had been pulled for it recently, leaving them free during the day. Thunderlane himself hadn’t been assigned second shift at all yet –he kind of half-suspected it was Rainbow Dash’s way of being nice to him so he could spend time with Derpy; her already less-than-stellar eyesight was sometimes worse in the evening hours and she caused even more disasters at night than during the day and was thusly never to be scheduled for second shift- and a couple of his buddies had been busy when he was free the past few weeks. Now that he had this unanticipated free time, it would be the perfect time to catch up with them. “Hey Thunder!” …He hadn’t been expecting to run into Flitter and Cloudchaser. He hadn’t seen them since sometime the previous week, since he hadn’t gone to the team meeting Sunday night. Derpy had been wiped out after her ordeal in the pond and Thunderlane had stayed home to cuddle with her, keeping her warm and cozy while she napped. She had continued to insist she was fine, but when he’d tucked her into bed and nestled at her side, she hadn’t protested too much. Instead, she’d leaned into him, tucking her head beneath his chin and nuzzling close. He had fussed over her until she fell asleep and though he could have slipped away while she slept to attended the meeting, she was just so cuddly and her bed so soft and comfortable… Besides, it had been the kind of day that left Thunderlane wanting nothing more than to hold Derpy and make sure she was indeed safe and sound. There’d been no point in going to the meeting anyway -- His schedule for the week would have been a big blank and therefore a waste of paper. He knew Rainbow Dash was nothing but serious about giving the twins extra work to do; she had been royally pissed off about their behavior. Flitter and Cloudchaser were bound to spend the week shoving around rainclouds and doing the kind of grunt work usually saved special for Thunderlane to keep him from laziness. And now, considering the fact that he’d kind of being avoiding them for the past two days and they were bearing his brunt of the workload, he’d expected them to be annoyed with him. They were smiling. That…didn’t bode well. “Where have you been?” Flitter winged her way over to him, tossing her mane back out of her face and landing abruptly in front of him. She looked him up and down, gaze critical, and tapped a hoof expectantly on the ground. “You didn’t show up at the meeting the other night and you haven’t been at work in, like, three days.” Behind her, Cloudchaser came trotting over, a little more sedate and munching on an apple. “Rainbow Dash is giving us your crummy assignments and won’t tell us why you haven’t been working. And believe me, we’ve asked.” “Are you sick?” “You don’t look sick!” Thunderlane took a step back, glancing back and forth between the two of them. It wasn’t lost on him that neither of them bothered to ask after Derpy; he’d expected as much, despite the fact that they must have known that he knew they were there when she crashed. Rainbow Dash –as much as he was loathe to admit it- was right. It didn’t really matter if they didn’t like her; he did and they should have at least pretended to care. “I don’t believe the two of you.” He said slowly, golden gaze sliding from one to the other. He suddenly felt incredibly angry; angry about things beyond just the crash. For the past three years or so, the two of them had been rude to Derpy, teasing her as if adding ‘just kidding’ somehow made it okay, ignoring her, and whispering about her behind her back. She had taken it all in stride, likely putting up with their idiocy for him, since they were his friends. She was too good for them. She was too good for him. And he was determined to make it up to her. “You really don’t know where I might’ve been the past few days?” He snorted, giving the twins an incredulous look. Why was he friends with them? Suddenly, he just couldn’t be sure. With the way they were behaving, they were not exactly shining examples of the magic of friendship. “Really?” Cloudchaser blinked, returning his stare with an odd look of her own, brow quirked upwards. “How are we supposed to know where you’ve been when Rainbow Dash won’t tell us?” She questioned, sending her apple core sailing neatly into a nearby trash bin with a toss of her head, “We’re not mind readers.” “Un-bucking-believable.” Ears flattened back, Thunderlane turned, ready to just storm off. If they were really that thick, was it worth it wasting time on them? “Thunderlane!” And there was Flitter, suddenly in front of him, her mouth turned downwards in a scowl, eyes narrowed, “What the hay is your problem? We’ve been doing all your work; the least you could do is tell us why!” With Flitter suddenly up in his face, he reared back, flaring his wings as a warning that she was entirely too close to him. “You want to know what my problem is?” They had probably never heard him as angry as this before – When had he ever had reason to be so angry with them? Never. For most of his life, they had been his best friends and he had never before seen this darker side of them, not until they had laughed at Fluttershy’s slow flying during tornado training. And that, apparently, had only been a glimpse of their cruelness, as he was now learning. “My problem is that two of my supposedly best friends decided it would be cool to laugh when my special somepony crashed into the pond instead of helping her!” Flitter backed up, eyes wide, her own ears flat against her skull. “It’s not like she was seriously hurt.” She muttered in a weak attempt at self-defense, though she had the grace to look at least minutely embarrassed, glancing away and pawing lightly at the ground. “She could have been!” He snapped. He had barely heard what she said for the blood rushing in his ears -He could feel his face getting hot with anger- and at first thought he had misheard her. But no, there was Cloudchaser, nodding her agreement, which only served to increase his annoyance. How could they possibly be so apathetic towards another pony’s near demise? “She could have drowned!” “Relax, Thunderlane,” Cloudchaser piped up, “everything turned out okay and you get a week off. There’s no need to bite our heads off over it.” She said it so bluntly, so nonchalantly, that all he could do was stare at her, unable to speak. There were no words to say to that; nothing was making its way from his brain to his mouth. He had known for some time that the twins weren’t particularly fond of Derpy, but had never imagined it was this bad, bad enough that they would treat her accident like nothing more than a mere trip and fall. “Everything is not ‘okay’.” The words finally came out on a whisper. Thunderlane suppressed his natural instinct to shrink away from conflict, forcing himself to do this to make things right for Derpy. It wasn’t fair to her in the slightest that other ponies treated her the miserable way they did. “Do you think it’s okay for Derpy, knowing that you would have left her there to flounder on her own? And she was still worried I would be mad at you if I knew! And guess what! I am mad. I’m mad that you two made her feel like she didn’t matter and I’m mad at myself for not putting a stop to it sooner. You’ve been rotten to her the whole time you’ve known her and it’s not okay at all.” His voice was rising with each word, fueled by anger, “And you know? I love her. She’s not going away, so you two either gotta get used to that or find a new friend.” For once, they had nothing to say. The twins just stared at him, speechless for possibly the first time in their lives. Flitter’s mouth had dropped open and she stood there, woodenly. Cloudchaser was wide-eyed, her jaw working as if she were trying to say something, though not a sound emerged from her throat. Thunderlane just looked back at them coolly, waiting. In the next moment, they looked at one another, holding some deep conversation without saying a word, twin sets of purple eyes locked together. The shock and betrayal was clear on their faces; it was almost as if they couldn’t believe he would ditch them for Derpy. But then, maybe they couldn’t believe it. They didn’t know her the way Thunderlane did; they didn’t even bother to try knowing her. They had been happy enough to live with their preconceived and incorrect notions about her, listening rather to gossip and lies than Derpy’s own words. So how could they possibly understand why she was worth so much more than what they gave her? When they continued to stare at him without uttering a single word to change his mind, Thunderlane turned tail and simply walked away. Their silence said enough.