//------------------------------// // Cloud Kicker Ruins Everything Forever // Story: The Study of a Winning Pony // by Ponibius //------------------------------// The Study of a Winning Pony Chapter 8: Cloud Kicker Ruins Everything Forever My basement was filthy. Sure, you would expect your basement to be a bit dirty after it exploded, but you really don’t get your head around the idea until you try and clean it up. All the soot, dirt, destroyed lab equipment, furniture, flooring, walls, and chemicals had mixed together to make a multilayered mess that needed to be scraped off one layer at a time. Spike and I had been going at it for hours, ever since we woke up in the morning, and it was just an endless grind. Needless to say, it was a miserable experience. I slowly made my way up the steps from the basement and into the main room of the library. Spike sat lethargically on my back, and his eyes were only halfway open as he swayed slightly. We were both absolutely filthy from all the grime and soot of the basement. I could feel it penetrating my coat and onto my skin. I didn’t even want to look at myself in the mirror. Upon finishing my trek up the stairs, I picked Spike up with my magic and gently placed him by the table. I didn’t want him sliding off my back and falling on the ground, which he seemed to be just about ready to do. He took the opportunity to lean forward and lay the side of his head against the table. I suddenly had a very good idea of why Spike was particularly grumpy yesterday: that basement was just a nightmare.   I rubbed at my eyes to fight back fatigue. “Alright, Spike, we’re just going to take the rest of the day off. We’ve done enough for one day.” Spike shifted his head a bit to better look at me, but didn’t make any other efforts to move. “Uh, finally. Can we never have the lab explode again?” “I’ll consider it,” I said flatly. I slid my forelegs forward and leaned back to stretch out my limbs and back, causing a few audible pops. “At least not for a couple of years. I keep forgetting how much of a hassle cleanup is.” Spike pushed himself up to get his head off the table. “Could you at least find a way to blow things up in a clean way? Like a self-cleaning explosion?” I rubbed my chin as I thought that idea over. I wondered if there was a way to prevent a mess from happening in the first place? I could save so much time from my irregular disasters if I could do that. “Hm, I suppose I could find a way to potentially set up trigger wards to cause some sort of black hole or maelstrom to suck up all the—” Spike slammed his claws down on the table. “Twilight, you’re doing it again.” I raised an eyebrow as I looked down at him. “What?” Spike rolled his eyes at me. “That thing you do where you come up with really bad ideas to solve problems.” Sometimes Spike just didn’t understand when I was trying to develop better ways of doing things. “I’m just trying to come up with a logical solution to prevent an explosion from causing a big mess we have to clean up.” I used my telekinesis to pull down a couple of books that were pertinent to my line of thinking. I wondered if it was possible to set up my lab so that an explosion could be harnessed to supply the energy necessary to reset the room back in time to before it exploded? Would that work, or would it just create an endless paradox of explosions? I needed to do research. Spike rubbed at his face and groaned. “It doesn’t count if you turn the library into a crater.” I started flipping through the pages of a book on time travel theory. It really was an interesting topic. “I’m not going to turn the library into a crater, Spike.” He always got worried when I pushed the limits of arcane knowledge to achieve relatively mundane goals. He looked like he was about to raise another objection when I heard the door to the library open. I craned my head to see Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth enter the library. Ugh, exactly what I needed. As if my day wasn’t long enough as it was. I put on a smile for the two of them. “Nice to see you two.” I turned to Spike. “How about you go ahead and get yourself cleaned up? I’ll take care of this and take a bath once you’re done.” I wanted to get Spike out of here before Cloud Kicker started her antics. Spike slowly picked himself up off the floor and failed at trying to dust himself off. “Uh, sure.” “Just try and not to use the town's supply of hot water again,” I said as he made his way up the stairway. “Everypony was really cranky when you did that last time.” Spike gave me a noncommittal grunt as he walked out of sight. Cloud Kicker gave me a sultry smirk. “So Duchess, how about I get your back when it’s your turn for a bath?” I couldn’t help but rub my face and gave an irritated groan. “I think I can manage to clean myself, Cloud Kicker.” “I’m sure you can, but I bet you would have a whole hay of a lot more fun if you had me around to help with all those hard to reach places.” Blossomforth just rolled her eyes at her friend’s antics, trying her hardest to act distracted as she looked at anything but the two of us.  “Somehow I think I’ll survive without all the fun you can provide,” I remarked sarcastically. “Just saying, if you ever want some special tub fun, I’m game.” She gave me a nice, big wink. I wasn’t particularly in the mood for her games. I had plenty of other more important things I could be doing other then have Cloud Kicker harass me, so I decided to get straight to the point. “What do you want, Cloud Kicker?” Cloud Kicker seemed completely unphased by either my sarcasm or curt manners as she continued to grin at me. “Just wanted to know if you have my potions before I fly off to the Everfree Forest.” “Oh right, those.” I concentrated on my magic for a moment in order to search for the extradimensional pocket plane I had set up for things I didn’t want Spike to get into. Such a thing had become necessary to keep Spike out of his Hearth’s Warming Day presents. Dragons could be a bit grabby. After a moment I grabbed what I wanted, and I floated the potions over to Cloud Kicker, quite happy to be rid of them. “Here you go.” “Thanks Duchess, you’re a pal.” After putting the potions in her saddlebag, Cloud Kicker gave me an appreciative nod of her head. I took a calming breath in order to ignore her nickname for me. “So if that’s all you two need—” Blossomforth cleared her throat. “Um, I was also wanting to check out a book while we’re here.” Right, this was a library. Ponies check books out of those. “Oh, right, feel free to look around. There’s...” I motioned around the library. “Plenty of books to check out.” “Thanks,” she said coolly. Blossomforth walked past me and started perusing the fiction section of the library. I followed after Blossomforth and moved to stand next to her. “Look, Blossomforth, I’m sorry about what happened in the lab.” “Uh-huh,” she said as she continued to look at the bookshelves. Cloud Kicker seemed busy looking at another bookshelf at the moment. Looked like apologizing wasn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped. The cold shoulder she was giving me meant she was probably still mad about me dragging her around my lab, getting possessed by an air spirit, and getting thrown around by an explosion. Oh, and there was the not-kiss we had which had been walked in on by the one pony who would not take my word that it was just CPR for some reason. Okay, she had good reasons to be mad. I moved my body next to the bookshelves to force myself into her line of vision. “I didn’t mean for things to get out of hoof like that. But they did, and I’m sorry for that.” I gave her a strained smile. “Can you forgive me, please?” Blossomforth closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Okay, fine, we’re cool. I know you didn’t do any of that on purpose. How about we just drop it and move on?” My smile became less strained. “Sounds good to me, I’ll find a way to make it up to you.” “That’s okay,” Blossomforth said very quickly. “You don’t need to do anything. Everything’s fine now.” “You could always kiss and make up,” said Cloud Kicker from the other side of the room. How in the world did she hear us!? Blossomforth started blushing and moved her face as close to the shelves as possible. I let out a cough. “Um, was there anything that you were looking for?” “Nothing in particular.” Blossomforth was suddenly very interested in the books on the shelf. “I’m just trying to see what catches my interest.” “I know there’s a couple of books I’m looking at right now I would like to open up and read,” Cloud Kicker offered. I looked over to see her smirk at me and move her eyebrows up and down. I shook my head in irritation at Cloud Kicker’s antics and turned my attention back to Blossomforth. “How about the new Daring Do novel? It just came out this month.” “Ugh.” Blossomforth’s ears flattened on her head. “The series was never the same when the original author died halfway through the twelfth book. It lost me when the new writer had Daring save herself from a megaspell by hiding inside an icebox.” I grimaced internally when I remember that book. “Okay, yeah, the series took a brief nosedive when Equestrian Arts bought the rights to the franchise. I’ll admit, those three books were really bad.” Cloud Kicker trotted up to the two of us, her ears perked in interest. “You mean the ones where Daring Do suddenly became darker and grittier, and Daring herself became an antihero who started killing ponies who got in her way and sold the artifacts she found for personal gain instead of for the benefit of ponykind?” “Yeah, those,” confirmed Blossomforth gloomily. I massaged the side of my head as oh-so-many suppressed memories came to the forefront of my brain. “Uh, I don’t even want to get into the Starfilly and how Daring’s entire quest came down to three arbitrary and constraining choices that resulted in a bad ending for book fifteen no matter which decision she was forced into.” “Stupid BioMare,” Blossomforth agreed bitterly. “That’s not even getting into how the new author decided he didn’t like Daring’s husband. Given he had Daring sell her marriage to Tirek so that she could save her eight thousand year old mummified uncle.” Cloud Kicker applied her hoof to her face. “Yeah, all so he could open the way to some alicorn could instantly hook up with Daring as a romantic interest. An alicorn who seemed to have a suspiciously similar color scheme as the author. It didn’t help that the romantic bits were terribly written, either.” The three of us shuddered in unison. Even Cloud Kicker seemed too appalled to make an inappropriate comment about the moment. “Then the FyreFlye spinoff got cancelled after only one book.” Blossomforth sighed and looked down at the floor. “I really liked FyreFlye. It was witty, funny, and had great action in it.” I remembered the book series that was never given a chance also. “Yeah, that was a real shame.” I chuckled. “Didn’t Captain Firefly remind you of Rainbow Dash?” Blossomforth let out a joyous laugh. “Oh Celestia, yes! I kept finding myself imagining Firefly looking like a recolored Dash half the time when I was reading it. Made for a convenient voice to have in my head.” I spotted the sixteenth book of the Daring Doo series and pulled it out for Blossomforth to look at. “The newest author is better,” I stated in defense of my favorite book series, despite three absolutely horrendous books. “She has to deal with a lot of crazy, market-driven requests from the owners of the series, but she manages to make them work for the most part. They aren’t as good as the original, but they’re worth reading, if you ask me.” Blossomforth gave the book an examinary glare. “Hm, I guess I could give it a try.” “Great.” I pulled out Binder, my faithful notebook that kept track of all the books that had been checked out. “If you don’t like it then you can just stop reading future books.” I walked over to the center table in the room and got to work checking the book out. Blossomforth walked over to watch as I finished the checkout process. “Sure, it can’t be worse than the books with the crystal vamponies.” I slammed Binder closed harder then was probably necessary. Binder really didn’t deserve such rough treatment because of terrible literature. “We don’t talk about those books in this library, Blossomforth,” I growled. “When we received our copies, there was a fire out back. Spike and I had marshmallows. Vamponies do not glitter.”   Blossomforth raised an eyebrow. “Oookay, if you say so. But as the librarian, should you not be destroying books?” “It was a community service,” I said bitterly. There were certain things vamponies were and weren’t supposed to do. What that book did ... no, just no. I lifted Blossomforth’s book up and placed it inside her saddlebag. Cloud Kicker walked up to stand uncomfortably close to me. “So, Duchess, I’ve heard that you’ve been interviewing all my friends and friends-with-benefits.” She leaned her head in to be almost touching mine and smirked. “I hope you’re planning on giving me my very own special interview too.” She whispered seductively into my ear. “I was told you were going to very thorough.” I made the point of taking a pair of very large steps away from Cloud Kicker. She’s almost as bad as Pinkie Pie about personal space, only with added aspects to make her even more uncomfortable to be around. “I just wanted to lay some groundwork down before I got around to interviewing you,” I said neutrally. She frowned at me to give me a pouty face. “So when were you planning on giving me your direct attention? I was hoping we were going to spend some quality time together.” I narrowed my eyes at Cloud Kicker. “Yeah, I’m sure you were.” That did bring up the question of when exactly I did plan on interviewing Cloud Kicker directly. Thus far I had been avoiding the matter, if I was going to be honest with myself. Sure, all the side research and interviews were important for my research, but I had barely talked to Cloud Kicker herself about the matter. I had to think over if I was just procrastinating because I wasn’t wild about my research subject. True, there was always more research that could be done. I was even thinking about going to Canterlot to look up some leads that had caught my interest, but ... there was a strong part of me that just wanted to get this over with. Just do the interview, write up the report on what I had found thus far, and turn it in for Princess Luna... I made my decision. “Is your schedule open a couple of days from now? I think we could take care of this interview in an afternoon if you are available.” Cloud Kicker gave me a mischievous grin. “My afternoons are always available for a hot piece of adorkable plot like you.” I massaged my forehead to keep a headache from building up. “Sure, fine, whatever. So, three days from today, in the afternoon. Sound good?” “Anytime, anyplace, anypony,” Cloud Kicker agreed. Before I could think of something to say to that, I heard another pony enter through the front door of the library. I turned to see Derpy shifting through her mailbag. “Hi, Derpy.” Cloud Kicker trotted up to Derpy and gave her a nuzzle. “Nice to see you again.” She stretched her head to get a good look of—what else?—Derpy’s plot. “Very nice.” Derpy giggled and proceeded to give Cloud Kicker a kiss. Which Cloud Kicker quickly reciprocated and started to make a bit deeper then may have been technically decent in public. Some ponies. Blossomforth frowned as Derpy and Cloud Kicker greeted and looked away when they kissed. I guess even she got tired of Cloud Kicker’s antics, even if she was Cloud Kicker’s completely platonic best friend. Done with her public display of affection, Derpy went back to looking through her mailbag. “Hello everypony! I’ve got your mail, Twilight.” She pulled a small stack of envelopes out of the bag and offered them to me. I took them from her with my magic. “Thanks.” Derpy gave me a sheepish grin. “Oh, and I wanted to thank you again for helping Dinky and Sparkler with their magic. It really means a lot to me.” “Don’t worry about it,” I said as I placed my mail on a shelf where we kept the mail until I had time to go through it. “I’m happy to help. Thanks for letting me interview you having me over for dinner.” Cloud Kicker gave me a grin not unlike that of a cat who just caught the mouse stealing the cheese. “So, I take it you ate Derpy’s muffins?” “Yeah, I had a couple while I was over at her place.” Cloud Kicker snorted and suppressed a laugh. I frowned irritably. What game was she playing now? “What, they’re delicious.” She struggled to contain her laughter. “I bet you’d like to eat them all night, wouldn’t you?” I took a moment to consider my answer to make sure it couldn’t be misconstrued. “I wouldn't see anything wrong with eating muffins all night while doing an all-night cram session.” Like a dam bursting, Cloud Kicker lost her battle to keep back her tide of laughter and dropped to the floor laughing uproariously. Blossomforth rolled her eyes at her friend while Derpy covered her mouth with a hoof to suppress a giggle. My ears fell flat on my head. “Okay, there is something I’m missing here, isn’t there?” Cloud Kicker managed to stop her laughing long enough to reply to me. “Think about it Duchess! Muffins!” I put my genius level intellect to the task of trying to decipher what Cloud Kicker was getting at. Once I remembered that this was Cloud Kicker we were talking about, the pieces of the puzzle fell together quite easily. “Oh. Oh! Oh I hate you so much right now!” Cloud Kicker’s laughter only intensified. Derpy turned away from me to cover up her own mirth, and even Blossomforth was starting to get in on the act. I groaned with frustration. “Are you determined to make everything sound perverse?” Cloud Kicker was trying hard to draw in a full breath through her laughter. “Of course not.” My ears flattened on the top of my head. “Sure, laugh it up. Just laugh away at ruining baked goods for me.” Cloud Kicker finally managed to get her laughter under control and rolled onto her stomach. “Oh, come on Duchess, baked goods are inherently sexual. Especially pastries--just look at donuts. Or eclairs—that long shaft, and the tasty cream filling...” This wasn’t the type of thing I wanted to be listening to. I liked my food nice and phallic imagery free. I covered my ears with my hooves. “Not listening, lalalala!” Blossomforth covered her mouth and suddenly looked ill. “Okay, that probably just ruined eclairs forever for me.” Derpy shrugged her shoulders. “Meh, once you realize just about everything can be innuendo, it doesn’t really bother you anymore.” Cloud Kicker raised herself to her hooves and dusted herself off. “Aw, you two are no fun. Need me to give you a couple of secs to feel better?” I lowered my hooves from my ears. “I would like you to stop ruining food groups for me.” “Aw, you just need to learn how to have fun with life,” Cloud Kicker said with amusement. “I think I could live without your brand of fun,” I said flatly. Cloud Kicker tisked at me. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. I could give you a lesson during our interview, a sexy lesson.” “As much fun as it would be to look at your syllabus and study your readings, I think I will have to turn you down,” I said snarkily. Cloud Kicker waved her hoof at me. “Nah, none of that type of stuff in Sexy 101. I prefer a hooves-on approach in my classes.” I put trusty old Binder back into his assigned spot. “How about we just stick to a normal, straight-forward interview?” Cloud Kicker gave a derisive snort. “Doesn’t sound as interesting as my idea.” I shook my head out of irritation. “I think you’ll live; thus far, nopony has been recorded to have died of boredom.” “But why take the chance?” Cloud Kicker asked with a grin. “Because I’m a mad and crazy risk-taker,” I shot back. “My life is just filled with crazy.” “Did I hear somepony talkin’ about baked goods?” said Pinkie as she hopped her way into the library. She was carrying one of the Sugarcube’s carry out boxes on her back. “Because I’ve got a super-special delivery for all of my super-special friends!” She bucked her hips and sent the box flying to land on the library’s central table. I looked at Cloud Kicker and motioned at Pinkie with my head. “Case in point: my friend Pinkie Pie.” Pinkie Pie quickly pulled out a half dozen books from a shelf and started juggling them, much to my annoyance. “I love making everypony’s lives interesting!” “And you’re very good at that Pinkie,” I admitted. I grabbed each book out of the air, and put them back on their places on the shelf. I could have told Pinkie to not juggle the library’s books, but it would either go right over her head or possibly hurt her feelings. One had to make for certain allowances when one was Pinkie’s friend. Like how I wasn’t going to think about how Pinkie had known we were talking about baked goods. Trying ... really hard ... to not think about it ... and give myself an aneurysm. Blossomforth looked inside of the pastry box, turned a little green, and took a few steps away from it. “Nice! Thanks, Pinkie.” Derpy helped herself to the offered pastries and pulled out a muffin for herself. I was never going to be able to look at muffins innocently again thanks to Cloud Kicker. Pinkie reached into the box. “Hey, Twilight—want an eclair?” She pulled out one of the pastries and stuck it uncomfortably close to my face. “No! I mean, um, I’m good, Pinkie.” I slowly pushed Pinkie’s leg and the cream filled pastry from my face. Cloud Kicker was having a grand old time suppressing more laughter. She deftly grabbed the eclair from Pinkie, taking far more time than was necessary to hold it with Pinkie. “Hey Pinkie … wanna share?” Whether through divine benevolence, density approaching that of lead, or simply Pinkie being herself, I was spared the indignity of watching them double-team a pastry. (Gah!) “No thanks!” she chirruped, grabbing another eclair from the box. “There’s plenty for everypony today!” “There’s a rare moment,’ Cloud Kicker mused. She took a moment to look at me and gave me a smolderingly seductive smile, then she slowly wrapped her lips around the eclair and slid it into her mouth. She then slowly removed the phallic pastry and teasingly flicked her tongue over the tip of it. After doing that enough time to ensure that the image would have a place in my nightmares, she slid the eclair back between her lips before she took a nice, slow bite. She moaned in pleasure and licked the white cream off of her lips. “Oh, these are sooo good. They’re the biggest I’ve had in months.” Despite how horrifying the spectacle was, for some reason I couldn't bring myself to look away from it. It was like watching a train crash, except in this case the train was my innocence and the rock it was crashing into was Cloud Kicker. And the worst part was, she knew exactly what she was doing. I could tell from the satisfied little smirk on her face. She even had the audacity to wink at me as she continued blatantly fellating the pastry. It was terrible, it was obscene, it was ... making me really, really uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure I was blushing. I could see that Blossomforth was blushing furiously as she was trying very hard to not look at the perverse spectacle but couldn’t help but look at her friend out of the corner of her eye. I should at least stop giving her the satisfaction of making me watch her shameless display. Yes, that's what I would do. I'm going to stop watching. Now. ... Damn you, Cloud Kicker. Pinkie gave a disappointed frown, completely oblivious to my discomfort but thankfully providing something to finally take my attention away from the horror show unfolding before me. “Aw, but you love eclairs, Twilight. I brought some especially for you.” Oh great, guilt. Exactly what I needed now that I had completely stopped watching Cloud Kicker enjoy her eclair more than any pony had a right to enjoy a pastry. “Sorry, it’s just...” Eclairs look horribly phallic to me now. “I’m on a diet now.” A Freudian-pastry free diet, it would seem. At this rate, I was at risk of rejecting even water. I’m sure Cloud Kicker could find a way to make it happen. “They have a lot of calories and all that.” “Hey, did somepony say something about eclairs?” I saw Spike descending the stairs. It seemed that he had gotten himself cleaned up considering his scales were back to their natural color, instead of near-black from all the soot. I never felt so much horror as Spike walked up and reached into a box of pastries. “Spike! No!” I reached out a hoof for to plead for him to stop. Spike scrunched up his eyebrows.“What?” He pulled out one of the dreaded eclairs. Was the universe just conspiring against me? “It’s just—I, um...” I drew a blank on what to say to Spike. ‘Spike, put that down because it looks like a penis,’ was not going to cut it.  “It’s just an eclair, Twilight, sheesh.” Spike took a bite out of his pastry, causing the overstuffed snack to explode all over his face. He licked the cream from his lips. I was too horrified to look away. I expected Cloud Kicker to be rolling around and laughing at me, but she was just calmly reaching into the box again to pull out another eclair. She was probably laughing on the inside. Derpy watched as Cloud Kicker took a bite out of her eclair and her wings pomfed out. “I think it’s time for my lunch break.” Pinkie hopped over to the pastry box and started to spin it on her hoof in front of Derpy. “Oh good, I’ve got all kinds of yummy—” “Thank you Pinkie,” Derpy said in a strained voice. “But I’d rather eat at home.” She looked at Cloud Kicker and spoke firmly. “You’re coming—right Cloud Kicker?” Cloud Kicker’s ears perked when Derpy spoke to her. “Um, actually I already had my lunch break, so...” Derpy quickly trotted over to Cloud Kicker and started pushing her towards the library entrance. “You're hungry again! Now come with me!” Blossomforth glared at the two of them through the corner of her eye. Cloud Kicker nearly stumbled as she was pushed along. “Well, if you insist...” As soon as the two of them exited the library they took flight. Probably towards Derpy’s house, to do ... things. Cloud Kicker still had an eclair in her hooves when the two of them left. ... Sometimes I wish my brain didn't have the capacity to produce mental images. “Everything alright, Twilight?” Pinkie asked as I stared at the doorway. “You look like you swallowed a bug? Did you swallow a bug? I know how nasty that can be. When I’m running really super fast sometimes I make the mistake of opening my mouth and a bug will fly right in, and I’ll be all, ew, icky, and have to stop and cough and stuff. Because that isn’t really fun to have happen to you, and—” “I-I just need to get cleaned up. I’ve just had a long morning is all.” I looked away as Spike took another bite out of his eclair. “Just a nice, long shower to try and forget a few things.” I could already tell that my research with Cloud Kicker was going to leave some scars. *** I was quite happy to get away from Cloud Kicker and her antics. I didn’t know when I would be able to go to Sugarcube Corner again without it making me uncomfortable and ill thanks to the perverse pegasus. At least Spike’s innocence had been preserved, if only because of his ignorance. Luckily, Cloud Kicker hadn’t taken the opportunity to embarrass me in front of Spike. Perhaps she had just run out of material to hit me with by that point? Small favors, I suppose. After getting myself cleaned up I had decided to attempt an interview that had been particularly tricky to get. I’d been looking forward to interviewing Cloud Kicker’s mother, Nimbus Gust for a while now. A career Guardpony, former noble, and married to the patriarch of the Kicker clan--what wasn’t interesting about her? I checked my notes on my interviewee for the third time to make sure I remembered everything I needed to know. Like the fact she had given up her noble title in order to become a Kicker. Something that Kicker’s were very insistent upon because of the tradition set by Shadow Kicker, who had turned down becoming a noble nine hundred years ago. On reflection, it wasn’t very surprising that Nimbus probably hadn’t had much trouble giving up her title of nobility. House Cumulus was not a rich family on a per family member basis as such things went in Equestria. While they had received a generous grant of land from the crown due to their loyalty, they had committed the classic blunder that had impoverished more than one noble family: they had a lot of kids. There were reasons why the “heir and a spare” policy had been the standard among most unicorn noble families for millenium, including mine. You had a principal heir for your estates, and a spare in case something happened to the principal heir and serve as fodder for a marriage alliance. But House Cumulus had been a large family from the start, and had only gotten bigger. Thus their holdings had been divided and divided again to the point none of its members tended to inherit much, if anything. So at the end of the day, Nimbus probably hadn’t given up much other than a title when she married into the Kicker clan. I looked up at the cloud-home where my would-be interview subject lived. It was a relatively plain, two-story affair. Some pegasi liked to spend almost inordinate amounts of their paychecks on their homes like Rainbow Dash, but many pegasi were happy spending their hard earned bits on other things than rainbow fountains, enchanted lawn ornaments, or other external decorations. A quick cloud-walking spell and a teleport later, and I was standing by the front door of the home. I rang the doorbell to the cloud-home. Well, it’s more of a small thundercloud intended to create a rumbling sound to notify the residence that someone was at the door rather than an actual doorbell, but the result is effectively the same. After waiting for a little bit, a filly with a vanilla coat and light purple mane opened the door. She looked up at me and cocked her head. “Hello?” I addressed the filly confidently and with gentle authority. “Hello. My name is Twilight Sparkle, I’m here on the part of the Royal Canterlot University. What’s your name?” I already had a good idea what her name was, but it pays to have good manners for introductions. At least that’s what the books on social interactions had told me. The filly rubbed at one of her eyes and let out a tired little moan. “My name’s Alula Kicker. Mom says she don’t want anything you’re selling.” This was getting off to a promising start. “No-no, I’m not here to sell anything, I was just wanting to talk to your mom. Is she here?” I gave Alula my best friendly smile. I really hoped to be able to interview Cloud Kicker’s mother. From what I had been able to find out, her father was out in Canterlot, and would be more difficult to get into contact with. I needed to interview at least one of her parents if I was going to make a complete report. Alula gave me a long look before turning her head to the inside of her home. “Mom! Somepony wants to see you! She says she ain’t sellin’ anything!” The front door opened wider and a mare well into her middle ages stepped into the opening. Her coat was a light yellow, almost cream color, and she had a close cropped brown mane typical of a Guard pony. She was very trim and carried commanding presence about her. She looked down at her daughter and frowned at her. “Little Wing, you should be resting.” “But Mom, I—,” Alula protest was cut short when Nimbus picked her up by the scruff of the neck and walked her over to a couch made out of clouds and gently placed her onto it. “Now rest.” Nimbus made sure Alula was placed comfortably on the couch. “I want you to concentrate on getting better.” Alula failed to suppressed a yawn and placed her head down on the couch. “Okay...” Nimbus walked back over to the door and addressed me neutrally. “Yes? How can I help you?” “Hi, I’m Twilight Sparkle, I was hoping to be able to interview you about a couple things.” I gave Nimbus the smile I gave Alula earlier. Nimbus gave me a stoic look that didn’t give away anything about what she was thinking. “And what exactly do you want to interview me about?” I recalled the sales pitch I had spent a couple hours thinking over, writing, and committing to memory. “Oh, I’m helping the Royal Canterlot University conduct a sociology project examining individual ponies across Equestria. Cloud Kicker was chosen as one of the subjects of this study, and I’m interviewing ponies close to her as part of my research.” Nimbus continued to stand there as still as a statue, probably a reflex from working in the Guard. They kind of were expected to stand at attention, and perfectly still for long period of time depending on the post they were assigned to. Alula was looking back and forth between the two of us and let out a long yawn. “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested,” Nimbus stated simply.   She started to close the door but I inserted my hoof in the doorway to keep it from closing. “Please, this is really important to me,” I pleaded. “ I’ve really been looking forward to conducting this interview. I’ll only need a little bit of your time, and then I’m out of your mane.” Nimbus opened the door back up and stepped back enough to allow me inside. “Very well, if you promise to make this quick. I have to make dinner for Alula, so I don’t have all evening.” I gave her an appreciative nod. “Thank you, this means a lot to me.” I stepped through the threshold and into the living room of the home. Alula continued to lie on the couch and let out a low groan. Nimbus sat down next to a set of Guard armor. It was spread out on a rug, one that no doubt had been enchanted to sit on clouds. Nimbus picked up her left shoulder guard and started to examine it closely. “So what is it you wanted to ask me about my daughter?” I levitated my pencil and notebook out and flipped to the questions I had planned for Cloud Kicker’s mother. “First I would like to ask a couple questions about you, if you don’t mind.” Nimbus started to rub at her shoulder guard, probably trying to remove some spot or blemish on it. “Go ahead, then.” I decided to start off something basic to get the interview going. “Where did you meet your husband, Tornado Kicker?” She kept concentrating on cleaning her armor as she answered me. “We met at West Hoof and started dating while we were both going to school, then got married soon after graduating. And to get what’s probably your next question, we had Cloud Kicker soon after we had settled into our first assignments.” Short, concise, and to the point. I guess I should have expected as much from a member of the Kicker family. Even if she hadn’t been born into it. “Um, just to be clear, you used to be a member of House Cumulus, correct?” “Right,” she stated simply. I recalled lessons I had about the noble families of Equestria. “House Cumulus was formed during the Lunar Rebellion didn’t they?” “That’s correct.” Nimbus rotated her armor in her hooves. “My old house was made up of the pegasi who remained loyal to Princess Celestia but didn’t want to be assimilated into the Kicker clan.” I clapped my forehooves together, happy that I had finally gotten a full sentence out of Cloud Kicker’s mother. “And as a reward to their loyalty to Princess Celestia, the Cumulus were granted peerage status, and your family became a noble house.” “Mm-hmm,” she said with bored detachment. I suppose I had gotten my hopes up over getting her to open up. I resisted the temptation to chew my pencil. “If memory serves, being adopted or marrying into the Kicker clan requires you to give up any titles of nobility a pony may have. Was this the case with yourself?” “Yes,” she said without elaborating once again. I guessed I was going to be careful how I worded my questions in order to get her to open up. “Was that a difficult decision for you?” I asked. “No.” I don’t think she had bothered to look up from her armor since the interview had started. I forced my thoughts back onto the rails and onto deciding on my next question would be. After scribbling down a couple of notes, I asked my next question. “So what was it like raising Cloud Kicker?” Let’s see her be terse with an open ended question like that one... Nimbus picked up her breastplate and started examining the straps that helped hold the armor in place. “Presumably much the same and raising any child.” I resisted the urge to start pulling on my mane out of frustration. Before I could come up with a follow-up question, my ears perked when Alula moaned a little and rolled over to face the back of the cloud-couch. Nimbus walked over to her daughter. “Is she alright?” I asked. Alula was far from being the stereotypical energetic young filly like, at least compared to the energy levels I was used to from the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The handful of times I had helped foalsit one or more of the fillies had run me ragged. Spike had not enjoyed their attempts at being Cutie Mark Crusaders Dragon Slayers. Nimbus placed a hoof on Alula’s forehead. She walked behind the couch and pulled out a long and thin patch of clouds that she then placed over her daughter like a blanket. “She's been coming down with something—that's why I have her home with me today.” I didn’t miss the protective edge in her voice. Oops.  I nodded slowly. “Oh, okay.” That seemed reasonable enough. She had already raised one daughter to adulthood, so she would likely be the one to know about these types of things. Nimbus placed a small cloud under her daughter’s head to make her more comfortable. “Are you feeling alright, Little Wing?” Alula rubbed her head on her cloud-pillow. “Nuh-uh. ‘M hungry, an’ I’m tired.” Nimbus gave her daughter a gentle nuzzle. “I’ll get you some soup.” She nodded to me and excused herself without a word. I watched her trot into her kitchen and kick a small, dark cloud built into the counter; the muted clap of thunder echoed as she pulled a small bowl out of her ice-cloud and worked it across the lightning bolts, the thunderforged steel quickly absorbing the heat. After a moment, the liquid in the bowl was steaming and giving off a delicious scent of rosemary and salt, mingled with mixed vegetables. Nimbus removed it, kicked the thunderhead again, and brought the meal to her daughter. She draped her wing over Alula and worked to tie a small spoon to her hoof with a foreleg-brace commonly used by nonmagical ponies. I cleared my throat, and with a nod from her used my magic to secure the instrument in place for her. She picked up where we left off as though nothing had happened, feeding Alula her meal a few mouthfuls at a time. “Now then: you were saying?” It was heartwarming to see Nimbus take care of her daughter. While she was a bit cold and distant to me, I could tell from how she treated her daughter that she had a heart under that gruff exterior. Alula was in good hooves with her mom. “So what was Cloud Kicker like as a child?” I asked, trying to get the interview back on track. Nimbus ran a hoof through Alula’s mane to fix it a bit up before giving her another spoonful of soup. “Pretty much the same as every other child her age.” These questions were not getting me any really useful information. For past research projects where I had interviewed ponies, parents had usually been more than happy to talk about raising their foal. Maybe that was just the traditional Kicker stoicism kicking in. Or maybe she was just irritated that I was taking time away from her sick daughter? That would explain why I was beginning to worry I was going to be frozen to death by her sunny disposition. It also didn’t help that there were questions that I didn’t particularly want to bring up with Cloud Kicker’s mother, much less when her younger sister was right there in the same room. I had a feeling asking Nimbus ‘so how do you feel about your daughter failing to join the Guard,’ or ‘what are your opinions on Cloud Kicker becoming the most promiscuous pony in Ponyville’ were not going to ingratiate me with the mare. I decided to go with something a bit more vague and safer. “So how would you describe your current relationship with Cloud Kicker?” I gave her a hopeful smile. Nimbus carefully lifted a couple of crackers for her daughter to chew on. "She's my daughter. I love her, but she can very difficult at times." I could agree with her on Cloud Kicker being frustrating. I tried not to think of the phallic pastries, so very hard. I swear, if Cloud Kicker somehow managed to ruin books for me ... I could just imagine her opening up one of my books and pulling out a bookmark, then smirking at me as she slowly slid that bookmark in and out between its soft, yielding pages— Aaargh! Now she's got me doing it to myself! It's like she's determined to ruin everything forever! I suppressed a frustrated groan. I was getting nowhere with this interview if I was going to be honest with myself. Between everything I couldn’t ask and Nimbus’ blunt and concise answer, I wasn’t getting much useful information for my research. I closed my notebook and put its and my pencil back in my saddlebag. “Thank you for your time,” I said pleasantly. “I think I should get going. I really appreciate you allowing me to interview you.” She looked up at me and nodded. “You’re welcome. Do you need help leaving, or are you fine showing yourself out?” I stood up from the cushion and stretched my legs to get the feeling back in them. “I think I’ve got it handled. I hope Alula gets better soon.” “She’ll be fine, I’m here to take care of her.” Nimbus leaned down and gave Alula a kiss on the forehead. Alula had closed her eyes, and by the look of it she had fallen asleep. I guessed now that the first need was taken care of, she was working on the second. “Have a nice day.” I gave Nimbus a polite nod and excused myself from her home. Well, that was it. I had done just about every interview I cared to do, done the research, made the preparations, and set a date. It seemed that the next step of my research was going to be ... interviewing Cloud Kicker. Ugh, there was no way this way going to turn out well.