//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Windcatcher 
// by Makitk 
//------------------------------//

	Bright Spark was already rummaging around in his kitchen, which resembled more of a warzone after the explosion, pushing aside the rubble with his magic while retrieving a pair of frying pans, eggs, milk, and assorted other ingredients to make pancakes with.
I also saw some items fly by which I would have never thought would be included in pancake batter, but here he was mixing it all together in a bowl on the sink, amidst broken flower pots and with assorted objects half-embedded in the walls, ceiling, and pretty much any other surface. They must've been laying around the house before the explosion, the shockwave having propelled them forwards as projectiles as dangerous as any bullet fired from a gun back on Earth.
The place was a mess and, in the center of it, there was a broken table laying on the floor. The four legs were holding up the remainder of it as if they were trying to form two pyramids, but the entire midsection of the table had been blown downwards through the floor, leaving an oddly shaped hole in its place.
I carefully walked up to it, trying to look down in it to see if anything of the table had remained, but the cellar was too dark to see anything.
"A success, huh?", I muttered, and the large stallion tilted his left ear towards me.
"Oh yes! A great success!", he exclaimed with a proud undertone to his words. "Just imagine what we could do if we could harness the combined energy of every unicorn in Equestria! We could donate our magic to an energy committee who would then distribute it across all of Equestria, bringing power and wealth to even the farthest reaches of the world!"
I blinked and tried to make sure I got that right. "You're trying to make a battery?"
"Battery," he tasted the word, then shook his head. "I'm already making pancake batter. No, I'm inventing a revolutionary new concept that will allow even non-magical ponies to use magic in their day-to-day lives. Just imagine a sphere that you can hold to move objects at will! To levitate objects around, like so!", he demonstrated by making the ingredients he was working with float around his head.
I reached up to rub a hoof at my head. "Never mind."
"If only I can make it more stable," Bright Spark mused to himself, slapping a blob of batter into one of the frying pans. "Right now it only stays stable for ten seconds at most, and you can see what happens after that."

I watched as his tail drooped lower at the realization that his 'product' still had flaws in it, and moved over to gently pat his back with my good wing. "You'll get it right some day soon, I'm sure of it," I offered to the larger pony.
He grinned my way and nodded quickly. "Yes! That's the inventor's spirit! I'll get it right one day. And then the princess will invite me to live in Canterlot! Just you wait!"
I just nodded at his eagerness, and shook some leftover glass from my wing before folding it back up. "You may first want to get yourself a new table.. and windows," I chuckled. "But that's not why we're here."
"We?", Bright Spark blinked, looking around us before reaching up to put his hooves on the kitchen sink and stare out of the broken window in front of him. "I don't see anypony else with you?"
I blushed and Windcatcher poked my side with a hoof. "Nice going."
"I mean.. er.. the royal we!", I quickly corrected myself. "You know, you, me, everypone. We're not here in this world to get new tables and windows. We're here to.. er.. innovate!"
The stallion turned back to me with a look of confusion on his face, but then nodded at my last sentence. "Yes, innovate. That's a good word for it. Innovate."
"Yeah. It's no use focusing on the broken tables," I continued eagerly, glad my ruse worked. "You can't make pancakes without breaking some eggs, can you?"
"Now you're talking!", the white pony grinned, hooking his forehoof around my neck again and pulling me close. "I always knew you had a brain, little Windcatcher. From the first day Triple brought you home from school, I said to my wife; Now there's a pegasus with a brain on her."
"He did?", Windcatcher wondered in confusion. "I've never heard him say that before."
"Er.. so," I started, trying to get out from the tight embrace, "talking about Triple Lightning.. You wouldn't know where I can find her, would you?"
Bright Spark let go of me at my squirming, and shrugged idly at my question. "I don't know, dear. She's been up and about before dawn and returns only after nightfall. Something's been bothering her, I can tell, but she's not talked to me about it. I don't know if she told her mom, but Blue Thunder hasn't told me if she did."

"Ok, so, maybe I could ask Blue Thunder?", I tried, but heard Windcatcher make a sound as if I had just made a big mistake.
Bright Spark's face darkened a little and he turned away from me with a shrug, turning his full attention on the pancakes he was making. "Sure you can. She's out back, as always."
I felt like I had been scolded by both Windcatcher and Triple Lightning's father both, even if the first hadn't said anything and the other had simply agreed with my statement. The feeling that something wasn't quite right fell over me, and I slowly turned for the back door and made my way towards it while evading the shards stuck in the floor.
"What did I do wrong?", I asked of Windcatcher, but she didn't answer. "No, seriously: What did I do wrong?"
She did not reply, and I made it to the door in silence. "You're acting like this is the worst mistake I could have made," I muttered, putting my hoof against the door and gently pushing it open. "I'm just going to ask her a question. Nothing more."
"Don't expect a reply," Windcatcher finally spoke, and as the door opened fully, I finally realized why.
The back yard was, apart from the few glass shards that littered it now, a very well-kempt place. Flowers were growing everywhere, and butterflies and other insects were buzzing about even as the rain was getting worse. The few corpses of butterflies and a single bird which had been hit by the glass or the wave of energy could not mar the beauty of the place.
The one thing that stood out as a dark thorn in amidst the fields of roses and other flowers was a large stone slab, with a headstone behind it, the rain pelleting down on the stones to make them shine in what little light passed through the cloud cover overhead.
I carefully, respectfully, approached it to read; "Here lies Blue Thunder. May Celestia forever watch your path."
"Oh," I breathed out with a lump in my throat, feeling my tears well up. "I didn't know."
"She died when Triple was just a young filly," Windcatcher explained, "Bright has been maintaining her grave until passing that task on to Triple a few years ago."
"No foal should have to go through this," I sniffled. "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't your fault mom left us," I heard say behind me, and the warm body of a unicorn still cooling down from having ran home moved up to my right side. "She died in a rockslide together with a pegasus who had been doing a timed lap in one of the valleys."
She paused a moment and I heard her swallow before she continued, her voice shaking a little, "There were too many boulders for her to keep away with her magic. The rescue team was only moments away when she got overwhelmed. They couldn't get to her in time to save her life."
"They wouldn't even have found the pegasus' body if it wasn't for my mom," she continued after another pause. "The second rockslide would have buried them. If mom hadn't been there to keep the boulders at bay there would be nothing but a large pile of rubble with no hope to locate anypony buried underneath."
I turned my head sideways to look up at a blue-coated unicorn with bright red eyes and a yellow spiked mane, steam rising from her back as the rain evaporated from her body heat.
"I think mom proved that you should always try to help somepony else. Even if it costs you your life," the unicorn spoke, turning her head to face me with a small smile. "I'm glad to see you two got out of the hospital in one piece."
"Did she just," Windcatcher started, and I took a shocked step back away from Triple Lightning.
"Did you just say two?", I asked, and the Unicorn's smile widened.
"Oh, come now," she chuckled, "You came here by my magic. I knew something was wrong when I felt the change in energy upon your return." Her horn started to glow and I felt my left wing getting pulled at. I winced as it opened up and I looked back to see some minor shards of glass getting pulled from it.
"Tsk. Only just healed and dad needs to go and ruin your wings already," Triple sighed, taking a step towards me. "Don't worry, Windcatcher. You're still my friend. I'm not going to abandon you just because there's two of you now."
"But," I started, but Triple put a hoof up against my lips.
"She didn't tell you how close we were, did she?", the unicorn spoke enigmatically, leaning her face closer to mine while her magic allowed my wing to fold back to my side. "She never told you we were lovers?"
"T... that's a lie!", Windcatcher erupted, and I could feel her blush as mine crept to my cheeks.
"S... she says that's a lie," I stammered, and the pony in front of me pulled back with a laugh.
"Aww.. you could have played along, Windcatcher," she giggled. "You know full well Unci would never let me look at another girl."

"Unci?", I asked, and got a reply from both in- and outside of my head.
"Cirrus Uncinus."
"Cirrus whatnow?", I blinked, feeling totally lost.
Triple sighed and motioned towards the house. "Let's get up to my room and I'll tell you all about her, and about this world."
I followed behind Triple as she led us back into the house, spotting her cutiemark as three lightning bolts side-by-side.
We passed by Bright Spark in the kitchen, who had left the pancakes for what they were and was instead pulling the oven apart with his magic.
"Everything ok, dad?", Triple Lightning wondered, and her dad responded by mumbling something about the fire not working and how he could not cook without it. We left him as we turned to the right onto the staircase leading to the first floor, and I found I had to catch my breath when we got to the landing.
"So.. many.. steps," I wheezed, to the chuckling of the unicorn beside me.
"Spending a few weeks in hospital will do that to you," she offered with a smile and a gentle pat of her left forehoof to my right shoulder. "We'll get you back to running and flying with the best of them soon enough." She nudged her head over to the next flight of stairs and trotted off towards it. "Just one more floor and we'll be safe from my dad's experiments."
I walked up behind her, looked up the stairs, and groaned. "Can't we just sit here and talk?", I suggested, but Triple wanted to hear nothing of it and walked up behind me to nudge me onward.
I clambered up to the next floor with some difficulty, and fell down panting heavily once I finally made it into Triple's room, the unicorn moving to close the trapdoor over the staircase behind us. She then cantered over to a panel in the wall, used her magic to open it up, and pulled a pair of bottles from behind it.
"Cider!", Windcatcher exclaimed at the sight, and I winced lightly at how loud her voice sounded.
"Cider?", I repeated, a lot less enthusiastic, and Triple turned to grin down at me.
"Cider," she nodded, opening both bottles and moving one to set it on the ground in front of me.
If I wasn't sure about it yet, the smell drifting from the open bottle clearly indicated it was filled with cider. Of the apple kind."

You put your pencil down and stand up on your four hooves, shaking your head a bit to loosen the muscles in your neck. It only takes a few steps to get to the cabinet, and you put your mouth around the door handle to pull it open.
A stack of papers rests on the top shelf, with a number of extra pencils beside it, but you lean down to the lowermost shelf, taking the wool scarf resting on it between your teeth and dragging it out onto the floor.
It is not the scarf itself that is important to you, but what it hid from sight. You reach a hoof down further into the cabinet and nudge the bottle of cider out of its hiding place.
You carefully take it between your teeth, walk back towards your writing desk without closing the cabinet behind you, and set it upright behind the paper you're writing on.
"What do you think? Shall we open it tonight?", you ask of Windcatcher, but her enthusiasm had already been rising from the moment she understood what you were doing and her excited reply only serves as icing on the cake.
"Yes! YES! Yes please!", she exclaims, and you nod at her.
"Let's find Triple after we finish this part," you decide. "It would be good to share a drink between us again."