A significant percentage of amateur wines in competitions exhibit "off-characters". These tend to be due to lack of experience in winemaking, carelessness, taking shortcuts, and to factors beyond the winemaker's control. The presence of such wines reflects the winemaker's inability to recognize problems in his/her wines due to their amount of experience.
----Vintage Glass, Professional Wine Tasting Judge
You can’t be angry on a cloud.
It’s not widely known that clouds react to emotions. The ones not made in weather factories anyway.
These wild clouds can spark, grow larger, or brew into something nasty if left unchecked. Some of the worst storms ever recorded were caused by these rogue, emotive clouds. Pegasi scholars believed that this “emotional temperance” was a leftover from the Chaos Wars. Discord had loved to flaunt his twisted powers over reality. One of his favorite activities was to manipulate weather in strange and dangerous ways, creating unpredictable creations such as gum-drop hail and chocolate rain.
Sugar Grape didn’t know the magical theory or history behind these clouds. But she did know that they were a pain to wrangle after they absorbed, whatever it was that made them – crazy.
She struggled to suppress her feelings as she made a quick loop around Mareheart. The clouds this far out had almost no pegasi manipulation, except for her. Any weather disturbance would be her fault and she could not afford yet another embarrassing mishap. She had enough of those today.
Maybe tomorrow.
Sugar Grape banked toward a small patch of trees on the outskirts of town. She didn’t trust herself to rest in a patch of clouds. Clouds were more comfortable than tree branches, but trees didn’t try to shock you depending on your mood. The white pegasus sighted a decent-looking spot in the fold of a tall pine. Sugar chose a v-shaped fork made by a diverging branch and landed in the space between.
She examined the purple stains on her coat. It just wasn’t fair! The frustrated mare stomped a vexed hoof on the branch.
She did everything she could think of!
What was the deal?
She wasn’t lazy.
She worked hard every day –
Why was world suddenly tilting right?
CRASH!
Sugar blearily looked up at the broken branch where she had previously balanced.
That was it. Nature hated her.
BONKBONKBONK!
A barrage of sharp pine cones rained down on Sugar.
She should have risked a cloud.
Sugar groaned and rose to her hooves. Enough of this. She shook herself and fluffed her wings, removing a considerable amount of brush from her plumage and coat.
Sugar decided she would go for a run instead of fly back to the vineyard. She didn’t want to crash when her head was this cluttered. Sugar Grape set off at a quick trot back toward Mareheart.
She had spent her whole life in Mareheart. Sugar Grape knew everypony in this little town. From the owners of the tiny general store, to the grizzled sheriff, to the regular train conductors that chugged into the Mareheart station.
But it wasn’t her home necessarily. Not yet. Sugar wouldn’t feel at home until-
She waved an affectionate wing at the schoolmaster as she passed by the ramshackle schoolhouse. Sugar had spent many hours there as a filly. She had poured over books about the many aspects of agriculture, not that there were many. Growing things wasn’t something you learned. You knew it. The same way your daddy and his daddy knew. It flowed through your bones, it sang inside you. No need to write it down.
The petite pony who ran the school was tough. Almost as tough as the nails her husband, Mareheart’s blacksmith, crafted. Mrs. Prickly Pear was different. She was a pony who treated Sugar Grape the same as every other filly and colt. And for that, Sugar was grateful. She expected the best effort from all her students and did not lower her standards for the young pegasus. Sugar was grateful for her methods. They allowed her to gain confidence among the earth pony class. Regardless of what her classmates thought of her, Sugar knew she had a place in front of Mrs. Pear’s chalkboard.
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Prickly Pear waved back as the white pegasus trotted by the schoolhouse.
The teacher remembered the filly well. Sugar had always been so eager in the classroom, especially when it came to anything agricultural. She also remembered how the poor thing was teased and mocked. It was hard to be the only pegasus, but it was worse to be the last pony without your mark. Sugar had been teased incessantly for being “useless” and a “waste of wings”. During one particularly condemning recess, she had fled to the safety of the school house.
Prickly Pear had examined the pegasus over her red, horn-rimmed glasses.
“What is it, Miss Grape?” The veteran teacher asked the filly, knowing what she would hear next.
She expected a tirade of angry accusations and tears.
But Sugar Grape didn’t deliver.
“Why was I born, Mrs. Pear?” the filly asked.
The teacher sucked in a breath. That was a little too existential for her taste.
“Excuse me, Sugar Grape?”
“It just doesn’t make sense. I can’t do anything here.” Sugar Grape subconsciously shifted her wings.
“Why that’s ridiculous, Sugar! You are a wonderful little filly with lots of potential,” Pear chided gently, eyes straying to the empty place on Sugar’s flank.
“But I don’t,” the filly persisted. “Everypony knows that I can’t do anything here. Nothing that matters.” She rubbed a hoof across the worn floorboards. “So why was I born?”
Pear removed her glasses and set them carefully on her desk.
“This is about your mark isn’t it, Sugar?” The filly bobbed her head. “And why you have wings, in a town of us earth ponies?” She nodded again. Pear rose from her chair and walked toward the filly.
“You don’t know this, but I was born in Manehattan. My family runs a successful shipping industry, bringing produce from places like Mareheart all the way to Canterlot. The Pears are in the upper echelon of business tycoons, which means they are very important ponies in the city. I grew up in the midst of fancy parties and fancier ponies. But there was just one problem in this luxurious paradise. I was the only earth pony in an entire family of unicorns. My parents loved me dearly, but an earth pony child was taboo in their circles. I was the awkward, useless child. I never fit in the hustle and bustle of the magic world. I felt lost, stuck in a world I couldn’t make heads or tails of.” Pear smiled warmly at the wide-eyed pegasus.
“You too?” Sugar asked in amazement. “I thought-“
“You thought wrong, Sugar,” the teacher interrupted smoothly. “Trust me, you are not the first pony who has had to deal with the confusion and hurt that comes from being born different.” She stood and walked back to her desk. Pear rummaged through a cluttered drawer then handed a photograph to Sugar.
“This was taken the after I got my mark.” Sugar stared curiously at a jubilant young mare with a cluster of cacti and blooming flower cutie mark. “I got my mark while visiting a teacher friend of mine. She had just discovered her talent for teaching when she suddenly became ill. She asked me to watch her class for the day. I knew nothing about teaching, but I felt compelled to give it a go.”
Sugar giggled. “I just can’t imagine you not knowing how to teach, Mrs. Pear.”
Pear laughed with her. “It was quite a long day, to tell you the truth. I ran the class the only way I knew how, similar to my father’s way of running his massive shipping houses. Decisively, fairly, efficiently, and with no time for nonsense. I was exhausted when the final bell rang, though I was pleased with my efforts. We covered a large amount of material and the class seemed to absorb it. It wasn’t until I returned to my friend’s house that I discovered my mark. After discussing the day’s events with my friend, we appreciated its significance.”
Pear glanced at the filly and then continued.
“My mark is odd for a teacher. A cactus for teaching? Cacti are not the friendliest or welcoming of plants. However, the cactus reflected my teaching style. I accomplished what needed to be done – no silliness or tomfoolery to be had. I sustain a prickly nature in my class in order for my students to focus on the material. And you see that flower, yes? A cactus’s flower, and resulting fruit, grows due to the protection of the cactus’s many sharp spines. This was proof that my way of teaching bore fruit as well. And here you are, Miss Grape.” Pear grinned and teasingly poked the filly’s nose.
Sugar Grape laughed and rubbed her nose. “But Mrs. Pear, what does this have to do with me?”
The experienced teacher went to work. “If I had decided not to try my best for my friend’s class, what would have happened?”
Sugar blinked. “You wouldn’t have gotten your mark.”
“That’s right, dear. I would not have. When you are unique like we are, you have to be ready for anything. Never stop trying new things. If I had stayed in Manehattan, stuck with what was around me, what was safe? I wouldn’t be here today talking to you, Sugar Grape.”
The filly frowned. “I’m not leaving Mareheart.”
Pear considered this. “I’m not saying you’ll have to, Sugar. That was just what happened with me. You might discover your special talent here after all.” The mare shrugged nonchalantly. “As you get older, it will fall into place. You just can’t give up.”
Sugar Grape considered this, looking down at her hooves.
The tough mare fully broke her composure and nuzzled the filly. “Sweetheart, I don’t have all the answers. We don’t know why you were placed among us. However, I do know it’s going to be okay.”
The bell rang, signaling the end of recess. The two unique ponies quickly stood and glanced at the door.
“Thank you, Mrs. Pear.” A determined smile now shone on Sugar’s face.
As the rest of the class tumbled through the door, the teacher resumed her crisp demeanor
“You are most welcome, Miss Grape.” She walked to the front of the room as little bodies wriggled themselves back into their seats. Prickly Pear discreetly winked at the young pegasus before smartly rapping the blackboard. “Now who remembers the…”