//------------------------------//
// 2. Rebuilding 
// Story: How Cloudsdale Came to Be 
// by The Accursed One 
//------------------------------//


How Cloudsdale Came to Be


Chapter 2: Rebuilding


By The Accursed One




        The Pegasus stronghold of Wingstead was in ruins. Bodies littered the ground, and the metallic smell of blood combined with the stench of corpses. The pegasi who had built their homes, their entire lives, in the ruined city were devastated. Their grief was not only directed towards the way of life that had been lost, but the lives that had been lost as well. Though the pegasus families did not lose as many as the unicorns and Earth ponies, the loss was still a hard hit on the general mood. 

        “So, what’s the vote?” Commander Hurricane of the Pegasus Empire asked her subjects.

        The general response to her question of whether or not to move was to, at least temporarily, move to the skies. There would be a small village on the ground away from Wingstead while the city in and of the clouds was created. After a swift response from their ruler, all of the ponies took flight in search of a good area to build their new homes. 

        A few hours later, everypony was exhausted and decided to take a rest before starting construction. The mares and children who could fly went to the ground to get food for everypony while the others stayed in the clouds, building the foundation for what would become Cloudsdale. 
        
        Laying down the groundwork for all of the many buildings in the floating city, workers gathered clouds from the surrounding area for materials. Construction was not always that easy, though: clouds were still relatively unpredictable and couldn’t be made on demand. There was a lot of waiting involved in the building of the city just because of the nature of the material. Luckily, though, once touched by the hooves of a pegasus, a cloud would no longer be subject to wild magic. 

        Days passed. Weeks seemed longer and longer with each passing day, yet the pegasi still worked diligently on their new homes. Houses were built first, then lower priority buildings such as schools were built as families moved in. Over the span of six months, Cloudsdale had all of its houses, a public education system, stores, and various entertainment centers built.

        Commander Hurricane was wondering what to call the new stronghold of the pegasus empire. She decided it would be best to ask the citizens what they thought, and she received many strange replies: ‘Wingstead 2: The Second One!’, ‘Flightland’, ‘Haha, unicorns suck! City’, and ‘Whitebank’, to name a few. She also got some sane replies, like ‘Storm Capital of the World’, ‘Cloudsdale’, and ‘Land of Many Clouds’.

        ‘I figure I’ll go with Cloudsdale. It seems like the best name for this land anyways,’ Hurricane thought to herself before announcing the official name of their new home, Cloudsdale.

        Now that the city was almost complete, a meeting was held in the war room, made of storm clouds, of the capitol building to determine the best plan for revenge.

        “I say we go in hard and fast, killing them all before they have a chance to retaliate. In fact, why not rush them while they’re sleeping?” one general suggested.

        “No, that would never work. Why not send out ponies, hidden in clouds, to create a massive storm cell to destroy the other races’ cities with tornadoes, floods, and lightning?” another replied.

“Wait, wait, wait… Why can’t there just be peace between the three races? We’ve coexisted for so long, so why not try to coexist again? United we stand, divided we fall,” the only peace-loving pegasus in Cloudsdale, Private Pansy, mumbled.

“What was that, Private? I couldn’t hear you,” the Commander asked her second in command.

“Well, I said that we could all... um… live together in harmony? We could for so long, until the others attacked us, so why not now?” she repeated, louder this time.

Everypony in the room stared at Pansy like she was infected with the plague, then she got rushed by a mob of war-loving ponies that had the intent of forcibly removing the yellow pegasus from the war room. She was literally thrown through a wall, which repaired itself almost immediately after, but luckily she could fly well enough to escape meeting with a terrible fate. 

Back in the war room, the pegasi had reached a decision. “So, it’s agreed on that we use clouds, under cover of darkness, to build a giant storm to take out the combined armies of the unicorns and Earth ponies?” Commander Hurricane asked all the leaders at the meeting. The response was a resounding “Aye!”