Pegasus live and sleep in the sky. Anything other than that was considered unusual.
However, a gray Pegasus mare with blond hair and crossed eyes called a petite, two story inn within Ponyville her home. Yet, it wasn’t the choice of this pony named Derpy to live on the ground. In fact, she did have a humble cloud abode in the sky, at least, until the day she forgot to anchor it and the forecasted wind carried it all the way to one of the entryways of the Cloudiseum where it got lodged in. A Pegasus maintenance crew had to take the home apart but it would take a week to re-assemble, forcing the blonde mare to live somewhere else. No pony wanted to take her in, the reasons ranging from not enough room to claiming they had the Cutie Pox, even when their flanks clearly showed otherwise.
Derpy’s temporary residence had little furnishings other than the cloud mattress she slept on, an icebox to the left and a nightstand with a red alarm clock set to go off at 9am. When it rang, the grey mare swiped at it, aiming for the snooze but instead, silenced it by having it fall off the nightstand and onto the floor with an unpleasant crack.
“Oops! Broke it.”
She got up and looked at the gift from Celestia beaming its glow towards the center of town down the hill from her. Unfortunately, Derpy didn’t expect the sun to be that far up at this time of day.
“Uh oh. I’m late!”
The gray mare rushed to grab a saddlebag out of the closet and came back to the nightstand to open the drawer. She took out and dumped into the bag a book labeled Weather Control – An Introduction and a list of groceries before aiming for the window. Instead, Derpy ate the yellow wall and after shaking off the bits of wood, made a less embarrassing exit to the outside world.
Up above the skies at Whitetail Woods, dark clouds stood packed in neat rows. Rainbow Dash paced around them, venting her frustrations.
“I can’t believe this!” The cyan mare put her hooves up. “I told her a million times that the sunrise was going to be an hour earlier today! The one time I tell her she’s going to do something other than a really easy job and this happens to me! Just my luck too that I have to let her do this because–”
Derpy suddenly appeared in front of Rainbow.
“Ahh!” The cyan mare forced her mouth to curl up. “Hey, Derpy. Um, I was…expecting you to be here earlier.”
“My bad, Rainbow Dash. You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“No, it’s…fine.”
“Are you sure? It sounded like you were mad.”
Rainbow muttered “I wasn’t being mad.”
“But you always yell at the skies when I do something bad.”
“Well, you heard wrong, ok?”
“But Nurse Redheart told me last week I can hear just fine.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
The blond Pegasus wriggled her eyelid. “And your eye does that funny thing too.”
“Der–pyyy?”
“And you say my name just like that.”
“I’m…not…MAD!”
The gray mare slinked back and put her head down.
Rainbow sighed and put a hoof on Derpy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if I yelled at you. Let’s just drop the whole thing. I’m sure you want to jump into today’s job, right?”
Derpy gave a joyous nod.
“That’s the spirit! Ok, let’s get this started! Just to refresh your memory, we’re supposed to set these babies up all across the forest. You have to be careful with these because they hold a lot of water but we only want a drizzle. Now, you read that book from the Library, right?”
“Sure did, Rainbow Dash.”
“Good. Then you should know the technique on how to set these up, then. How about you show me, just in case?”
The grey mare hopped onto one of the clouds and with glee, jumped up and down. A rush of water descended to the ground below, drenching some pony’s picnic.
Rainbow slammed both her hooves on her face. “Ughhhhhh! That was all wrong! I thought you said you read the book!”
“I did but it didn’t have any pictures.”
The cyan Pegasus rolled her eyes. “I should have known. Well, can’t blame you.” She then landed on top of a cloud. “Just watch what I do, all right?”
Derpy gave a salute. “You got it.”
With a deep breath, the cyan mare did a slow, standing march and the puff of black released a few drips. “Nice and slow. Just enough to get it going. Now you try.”
The blonde Pegasus dashed over to another cloud and her eager hooves made the cloud tremble, spitting water like a sprinkler.
“Ugh! That’s too fast and uneven.”
Derpy’s stomping slowed to a crawl.
“Ok, now, pick it up just a little bit…and…you’re there!”
The blonde mare looked down and spotted a successful drizzle. “Yay! I did it!” Derpy did a celebratory dance when suddenly, flashes of light shot from the cloud.
“No, wait! You’re going to—”
Lightning struck another cloud and began setting the others off. Rainbow rushed to the black puffs and stomped on each of them, hoping to stop the chain reaction. Derpy made a move towards her.
“No!” Rainbow waved her hooves. “Just…stay there! I got this!”
The cyan mare then blazed through the sky, spreading the puffs of black apart and attacking the problem ones. With her speed, the ribbons of light quickly shrank in number until she reached the last trouble cloud and slammed her hoof in from above. Its energy fed right into the cyan Pegasus, sending her into convulsions. Derpy rushed over and grabbed Rainbow to pull her out but instead, joined her in the spasm dance. Finally, the cloud ran out of juice and both collapsed in a smoky heap.
Rainbow moaned and rubbed her forehead when she heard the snorting mirth of Derpy from aside. She turned her head and saw her grey hoof pointing above her head.
“Your mane’s funny!”
The cyan mare reached up and realized she could be mistaken for a peacock. Her sights narrowed on the grey blonde in front of her.
“And your eye’s doing the funny thing again!”
“Der–pyyy?” Rainbow snarled.
The gray mare stopped her laughter and gave a shy smile. “You’re not mad at me again, are you?”
Rainbow grinded her teeth but said nothing, opting for thoughts instead. “It’s just for today. It’s just for today. It’s just for today. It’s…”