//------------------------------// // 7. It's all Dash fault // Story: Stallions of Harmony - Longest Night // by Jetto //------------------------------// Without the knowledge of Ponyville topography, it would seem like finding weather management headquarters would be difficult. More difficult due to the fact, that all of its members on duty would be scattered around the sky. In reality, all Prince Blueblood did, was find a small cafe around one lone cloud and enjoy a cup of tea while waiting for some pegasus to fly by. Enjoy being a very loosely used word, as this place hardly knew what a tea was, not to mention how to brew it properly. Instead, all Prince could count on was a tea bag inside a cup of boiling water with spoon of sugar and a single lemon slice. He dared not to risk ordering milk tea, all too aware of what could happen to his stomach if they messed up something as simple as an afternoon drink. He also refused to take buy snacks, still digesting all the apples and oranges from before. A simple sight of apple pie behind the counter made his heart ache, worried that it'd be served by hellish blank filly with large puppy eyes. Shining Armor did not join him at the table for two reasons. One, he was not invited, and out of all tables outdoors, Prince chose the only one that had a single seat next to it. Two, most importantly, Shining Armor was scared. Really, really scared. Ever since Prince Blueblood recovered from his... ailment, he was even more unpleasant than before. He spoke even less, asking simple questions, interrupting every time he got an answer longer then 2 seconds and never once looking him in the eye. And worst of all was the cold tone. Anypony not speaking equestrian could listen to him and hear an order of his execution, even if he asked for the weather. Shining Armor could swear it was mostly due to meeting with the unicorn mare from town hall, what's her name, but he dared not to come closer then three meters, not to mention asking about it. Neither of them mentioned anything about the past hour, so he probably had no recollection of what happened while he was "reversed". Or was he just being silent about it? All his bodyguard knew, was that the less they talk, the less were his chances of being sent to guard royal toilets for eternity. He didn't know if Prince had such power or influence and he didn't need to find out. He was content with just standing nearby and scouting for any weather pegasus flying by. By the time Prince was halfway through his cup, a lone pegasus mare flew around and started inspecting their cloud. Shining Armor waved towards the mare and she landed right next to him. For a moment, Shining Armor stood there speechless looking at her. The posture, the face, eyes, the single streak in her long, straight hair... if she wasn't a white coated pegasi, if her hair wasn't pink with green streak, he could swear he saw Twilight. Or at least, how she would look like if she was of a different color. And race. And if she had freckles. The mare blushed a bit after being stared at too much. "I'm flattered, but taken. Sorry." announced the mare, giggling. Shining Armor shook his head and blushed as well. "N-no, I didn't mean that!" "Oh?" the mare raised an eyebrow, smiling slyly and walking toward him "Not cute enough for you, stranger?" "N-no, I-I mean you're... c-cute and all, but..." Shining stuttered and steamed from embarrassment, while the mare barely stopped herself from bursting with laughter, clearly enjoying the teasing. Prince looked at the scene and rolled his eyes, but did not leave his place. "Y-you just look like somepony I know, that's all!" exclaimed quickly Shining Armor "Oh, okay..." said the mare. After a short pause, she added "Must be somepony dear to you, I presume?" "Y-yes. My little sister," answered happily. And then he realized how it sounded. "I-I mean, I didn't mean that I would..." "Ok, now it's getting creepy," interrupted the mare, still fighting an urge to laugh out loud "How about we just forget about it? I have work to do." Just as she was about to fly away, Shining Armor coughed and finally said it. "Actually, we're looking for a pony called Rainbow Dash." "Rainbow Dash?" the mare stopped on her tracks and stared deeply at the unicorn, then smiled "Well, good luck with that. It's hard enough to keep track of her on normal days. With Wonderbolts around, she's gone rogue completely. My advice, find Wonderbolts and look around the bushes and other hiding places." "And my advice to you, miss..." announced Prince Blueblood, as he took of from his seat and walked toward the pegasus mare "... is to find her and bring her here, right now." The smile on mares face instantly faded. She walked towards Blueblood and poked her hoof at his chest, looking deep into his eyes with contempt. "And my advice to you, bucko..." she started "...is learn some manners before you start talking. I take no orders from likes of you." "Rich words, coming from a low class community worker." She rolled her eyes and snorted "Really? That's all you got? I have better things to do then bicker with some stuck up snob." She was about to walk away, but she saw Shining Armor, sweating like mad pony, gesticulating a lot. He formed an x with his front hooves. Shook his head and gestured the 'head-slice'. Finally clapped his hooves together for a prayer. She understood none of it and looked at him quizzically. Prince, on the other hoof, yawned and coughed toward Shining Armor. "Take note," said calmly Prince, as Shining Armor reluctantly took his pen and prepared for the worst. Prince started "Due to the following circumstances: unacceptable behavior of weather management staff, missing main manager and inability to keep sky clean from clouds according to schedule, I, Prince Blueblood, Royal Inspector..." At the sound of it, the white mare covered in sweat, her eyes widened and looked toward Shining Armor, seeking confirmation. He nodded, assuring her that she's pretty much screwed. She dashed to Blueblood and smiled innocently. "Oh, I'm so, so sorry, I thought you were some creepy stalker, you know. Ponies keep saying weird things, with all this stress and all, hehe..." she laughed nervously, now sweating like crazy "I p-probably should've stayed home, I'm not feeling well, I'm unbearable when I'm sick, achoo." Prince looked at her, showing absolutely no reaction. She smiled brightly. Shining Armor gulped. "What's your name?" he asked coldly "B-Blossomforth, Mr inspector," she perked up "But my friends call me Blossom." "Take note: on further notice, I recommend detailed inspection of Ponyville bramch of weather management, due to inappropriate behavior of an employee Blosso-..." he was interrupted by a pegasus mare bowing to his knees, pleading. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I called you a snob, PLEASE PLEASE DON'T CANCEL THE CELEBRATION! I'LL DO ANYTHING, JUST PLEASE!" Two times. That's how many times somepony fell on their knees and begged him for forgiveness this day. It felt awkward both times, this time however he didn't feel much remorse for the mare who dared to insult him just because her boss was being tardy. At least that useless tag-along bodyguard had conscience, not self-interest, in his mind when he apologized. "Rainbow Dash. Right now." "Yes sir!" she quickly stood up and saluted "I'll bring her right away!" And she quickly took of, leaving dust after her. They watched for moment as a small white blur flew from cloud to cloud, until she disappeared from their view. Prince shrugged and took his seat again. He looked distastefully at the cold remaining of his tea, while Shining Armor stared at him "Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking," said Blueblood, probably towards Shining Armor, even though he didn't take his eyes away from teacup "and I don't care. Ponies like her only care about anything if their neck is on the line. She should be grateful I stopped at an empty threat. I know a lot of ponies with less patience." Shining Armor wanted to say a lot of things. Like the fact that Prince started it by being rude himself. Or that he made her cry and plead in the center of Ponyville. That all he did until now was drink tea while he was on the lookout. That he never smiles, unless drugged with zebra potions. How Yinyang panacea confirmed just how bad he was. Or that he treats him like a slave. Or many, many other things. "So you're not worse then others, big deal!" Shining Armor muttered under his nose. "Bigger than you think." answered Blueblood, as he pushed his cold tea away. Shining Armor's eyes widened at the answer, as he just realized that he actually said it out loud. Thankfully, it seemed like Prince wasn't going to delve deeper into it, so he too decided to drop it. They waited for about ten minutes. Prince was sitting and scanning through the menu out of sheer boredom while Shining Armor looked for return of Blossomforth and her manager. Prince was on the verge of giving up and walking away, when Shining Armor caught his attention and pointed at two figures descending from the sky. One was a familiar white mare they met before. Along with her was a tall, black coated pegasus with a very distinct white/teal mohawk, with a gray, thundering cloud as a cutie mark. They both landed next to Prince, who threw the menu away and got up from his seat. "Took you long enough, Miss Blossomforth. But if I recall correctly, Rainbow Dash was supposed to be a mare, comprised of more, let me say, live colors." The stallion ignored the remark and walked toward him, wearing a very serious face. He coughed and introduced himself. "Rainbow Dash is out of commission today, so I'm replacing her as her second in command. My name is Thunderlane." "Out of commission, you say?" asked Blueblood "If I recall correctly, when asked, miss Blossomforth said she was, how did it go? 'Gone rogue' and 'hiding in bushes near Wonderbolts'." Thunderlane raised his eyebrow and looked suspiciously at Blossom, who in turn blushed nervously and averted her eyes. He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know how that sounds," started annoyed Thunderlane "which is why I'm here to assure you that our job will be finished in time, with or without her involvement." "Is that so?" replied Blueblood, looking over cloudy skies over him. He pointed his hoof up "Because from where I stand, there is plenty of work to do and inspection has already started. I'd say the time is up and explanations are in order." The two stallions looked each other deep into eyes, neither blinking, just standing there silently, while their respective assistants watched them nervously and gulped in complete unison. Neither Prince nor Thunderlane seemed any bit intimidated by each other, but in reality Thunderlane was only keeping the facade for as long as he could, before he could come up with a good explanation. "Well?" asked Prince "Forgetting about the matter of competence of you manager, what do you have to say for you team's performance?" "We..."Thunderlane hesitated "...we are currently heavily understaffed, due to two of our members falling to Feather Flu, which leaves only three of us to prepare an entire town. But we will finish it long before Princess arrives.” Prince looked suspiciously at Thunderlane. He looked for that glint in his eyes, shifty eyes, that single bead of sweat indicating he was lying in his face. There was none. Small towns like Ponyville barely ever had a hooffull of staff on their branch of weather department. Usually the nearest big city supplied them with any qualified pegasi required. Ponyville itself is barely big enough to have its own branch. But even than, these branches were very small, ranging from three to ten ponies at most, responsible only for routine rain and keeping the wild clouds from nearby “wild place” (in this case- Everfree) out of the town limits. Keeping that in mind, Prince Blueblood had no real reason to believe that Ponyville branch only had five members and two of them could fall sick on the same day. He was never in danger of getting Feather Fly himself, but Prince knew it was too serious to let them roam freely in skies. “Alright then, assuming you're telling the truth about the sickness...” continued annoyed Prince “...considering your lack of active members, the questions should be: why haven't you contacted other branches with requests for help, and why is your manager running around celebrities instead of doing her job and making her SECOND in command do her duties?” Thunderlane visibly shuddered at the sound of the highly accented word, but kept his nerves in check “Well, to answer your first question, our other members called in sick just this morning right before the shift began, so we had no time to send a call to Canterlot. And even if we had, there was no guarantee they would arrive in time.” “So you didn't even bother? Good, continue.” Thunderlane gulped “Rainbow Dash decided... that we should deal with the problem by ourselves and take double shifts.” “And I thought Canterlot nobles are arrogant.” Blueblood snorted. Thunderlane finally lost his cool and made a step forward. “Well, maybe we would've made more progress if we didn't waste time on explaining why we don't work.” announced Thunderlane, only after the fact realizing he should have kept his mouth shut. Prince did not ignore that. “Watch your tone, peasant. You're already stepping on thin ice here, don't push your luck!” he looked around the sky once again “We're wasting a lot of time and I still haven't seen a rainbow blur cleaning the sky.” “Rainbow Dash...” started Thunderlane. He took a deep breath and said with confidence “Rainbow Dash might be a little bit eccentric, but she's a great weather pony. Once she gets back to work, I assure you the sky will be clean in ten seconds.” “Ten seconds?” Prince looked at the overly serious Thunderlane “No more. Ten seconds, flat!” Whatever Prince Blueblood had to say after that was lost, as he burst out with laughter. Thunderlane did not react at all and waited patiently for Prince to stop. Shining Armor and Blossomforth kept being nervous. Finally, Prince stopped and took a breather, before backing to his old cynical tone. “Hilarious, really. But I'm not here to laugh, 'Mister Second in Command'. I'm supposed to rely the information to Princess, saying that everything is fine and Celebration will be held in proper conditions.” “And it will be. I give my word for it.” “Yes, except I don't value it as much as you think.” Thunderlane had words he wanted to say. The exact line he had in his mind right now was “maybe you will, when I buck you so hard, your bowels will loose up just enough, to make that giant pole sticking out of your plot slide out along with your royal crap”. Thunderlane had to resort to his last line of defense. He really wished it wouldn't come to this, but stakes were too high. “Would you like to bet on that, Mr Inspector?” Blueblood raised his eyebrow “Excuse me?” “A simple bet. I say the skies will be crystal clear in less then an hour from now on.” Prince Blueblood smiled “Hour, you say?” he looked at the clouds. A similar conditions usually took an hour to clean up in Canterlot, which had an infinitely more horsepower in their department, even if Ponyville wasn't two members short. Three, counting one that gone rogue. “Impossible.” “So, do you accept?” “That depends on the wages. What do you propose?” “If you win and in one hour there will be even a single cloud in the skies...” he smiled and looked at Blossomforth, who stared at him with a very much scared expression. He turned back to Prince “All five of us Ponyville weather ponies will become your servants for an entire week. No charge, starting day after Celebration finishes.” Blueblood opened his mouth, but failed to think of a cynical remark. Or any remark at all, for that matter. Either Thunderlane was the craziest pony he ever met, or the greatest liar ever. “THUNDERLANE!” shouted panicked Blossomforth “Are you CRAZY!? I never agreed to that!” Shining Armor was equally shocked, but also couldn't say a single word. Like his boss, he couldn't see a single sigh of Thunderlane lying about anything. He was apparently very confident about his bold choice of words. “And, what if I lose?” finally asked Prince Thunderlane smiled “Then we will forget about everything and enjoy the celebration like originally intended. You have nothing to lose, Mister Inspector.” Blueblood thought for a moment. He had no shortage of servants in his quarters and money was never a problem to begin with. But still, it would be amusing to have five more pegasi on his every whim. And as Thunderlane said, he had nothing to lose. “Fine then, let it be so. But I have to warn you, I'm a stallion of my word.” “So am I.” And so they wrote the deal on a scroll, signed and finalized with Blueblood clan seal. Blueblood took the deal with him. “Well then, Mister Thunderlane, I will see you in one hour to take what is rightfully mine. Don't be a fool to try and escape the town.” “The thought never crossed my mind.” And with that, they parted their ways, Prince walking towards the outskirts of Ponyville. Shining Armor followed him, but stopped a few steps in and looked behind him at the pair of pegasi. He really wished he could help them right now, but even he realized that cleaning the sky with three pegasi in one hour was a futile effort. Maybe if they asked Wonderbolts to help, they could stand a chance? They were conveniently in Ponyville right now, so maybe it was worth a shot? Chances were slim, but better then slaving under Prince Blueblood. He thought he should share that idea with Thunderlane and Blossomforth, so he ditched Prince for a moment and dashed toward the pegasi pair. “That has to be your stupidest idea ever!” said Blossomforth “Why in all hell did you bet everypony?” “Because 'somepony' had the bright idea and provoked a friggin noble on inspection!” replied Thunderlane “I had to think fast!” “Fast, but not stupid, you moron!” she shouted back “You and me are bad enough, but why did you mix in Cloud and Rainy, of all ponies? And Dash? Do you really think SHE will go for it?” “Oh heck no, knowing Dash she'll blow up his mansion if she finds out. But that won't happen, because the skies will be clear!” “And how are WE going to do that?” “Not we. Dash.” “Thundy, I know you and Dash go way back, but...” “She is a braggart, she's annoying and brash, but damnit, if anypony can do it, it's her! Trust me, babe.” he put his hoof on her shoulder “Believe in me, believing in her.” Blossomforth snorted and calmed down a bit “Ok. Fine. Leave it all to Dash..” They stopped their chatter when they noticed Shining Armor approaching. “What do you want?” asked Blossomforth, very bitterly. “I-Im sorry about what just happened...” started Shining Armor, scratching back of his head “... but maybe, if you could ask Wonderbolts, then...” Thunderlane raised a hoof “Stop now!” Thunderlane interrupted “If you want to help, then don't bother. This is our problem.” “B-but...” “No buts. I appreciate the thought, but we dug ourselves into this, and by Celestia's plot, we will get out by ourselves.” They looked each other in eyes. Thunderlane seemed like such a confident pony before, but right now, not so much. This was like looking into a mirror- both had a rough start, made a stupid decision that seemed like a good one and now have to live with it. At least Thunderlane had Twi-... Blossomforth (I can't be the only one who sees it, right?) with him. “You sure you can handle it?” asked Shining Armor “One hour isn't a lot. Even if you find Rainbow Dash, will it even make a difference?” Thunderlane snorted and put his hoof on Shining's shoulder. “Ten seconds, flat.” repeated Thunderlane “You don't have to believe me, but you'll see.” he laughed. Shining Armor looked at Blossomforth, but she just shrugged. “Well, that was a rough start. How about we start over? What's your name?” “Shining Armor. Nice to meet you,” he extended his hoof toward the black pegasus. And so did Thunderlane ”Sorry for my boss.” “I can relate. Leaders can be pain in flanks.” admitted Thunderlane “Tell me about it...” muttered Blossomforth, eyeing Thunderlane. Her comment was swiftly ignored. “Well, we gotta go. I hope our next meeting won't end up with slavery.” “That's not legal anymore.” “So they say.” They both laughed and parted ways, Shining turning toward Prince Blueblood, while both pegasi launched into the air. “By the way...” added Thunderlane “...if you happen to find a rainbow maned blue mare, tell her two things. One: clean skies, right now!” “Ok. And the second?” “Avoid me.” “Why?” “Because I'll kill her in cold blood if I ever see her again.”