It was the next day, just about four hours past noon, and the sun was still fairly high in the sky, giving plenty of light to the town of Ponyville. A slightly cloudy day, and fairly windy, but sunny none the less. There was a fresh feeling about the way the wind blew through the town and the buildings. Most of the town was made up of residents, cottages clustered in small neighborhoods all over town, most of which were made up of woven straw roofs and timber framing. Other buildings had more attention to detail, such as the towering building in Ponyville Square that was Town Hall that stood out above the rest of the town, or Sugar Cube Corner, the Ponyville bakery, which was decorated like a giant ginger bread house.
The wind had taken a good deal of the weather somewhat southeast of Ponyville, but it wasn’t enough if the townsfolk wanted to see the sun rise on the morning of the Summer Sun Celebration. It was the job of the weather patrol to take care of that; clearing the skies of all the weather when needed, and putting together storms when they were called for. Of course, this would mean that all ponies in the weather patrol team were to be pegasi. Not only was it for their wings, but also for that tiny bit of special magic they possessed that allowed for them to interact with the clouds on a much more physical level than unicorn or earth ponies could. There really was no substitute for a pegasus when it called for a job working with weather, especially in a place like Ponyville, where absolutely everything was run by its inhabitants.
Through that though, Ponyville could flawlessly operate on an “everything perfect” basis. No one seemed to complain about it, there was always work to do and always the perfect one for the job. Even the mayor of Ponyville had been in office as long as anyone can remember. It was common of ponies to operate like that though; you find your special talent and you stick with it for the rest of your life; no matter how young or how old one may be.
In the town of Ponyville, many ponies ran their own businesses that way. There are the Cakes who run Sugar Cube Corner. There was a clothing type store on the edge of town, called the Carousel Boutique, run by a pony named Rarity, the fashionista of Ponyville. There’s a small school building where the teacher, Cheerilee, worked with the foals of Ponyville. Of course, there’s Twilight who ran the library. There’s even a farm outside of town; an apple orchard called Sweet Apple Acres which is run by the Apple family. Beyond that, there were many grocers, jewelers, gardeners, and so many more talented ponies doing what they loved to do. Even the weather patrol of Ponyville was made up of talented fliers who loved to fly…
Soaring back over the town and punching her way through several clouds along the way, Rainbow Dash cleared the skies of all weather, leaving the once cloudy afternoon sky a blank blue canvas for the town to be able to enjoy the festival. After streaking through the sky a few times and pushing the clouds out of the airspace of the village, Dash made a bee line back towards the library, where there was a stop watch hanging on the balcony post, ticking away.
Not wasting even an extra second, she grabbed the clock and pounded the top of it, stopping its hands dead where they set. She studied it intently, letting a grin slowly crawling over her face as she hovered in place.
“Yes!” she shouted, twirling up into the air in an excited fashion.
“New record! Yes!” she said, locking her gaze back on the stop watch.
“No wonder they made me captain of the weather patrol! Man… I’d like to see the look on that jerk’s face!” said Dash, lifting her gaze to the sky in a day dream. “Flying fast in a straight line is one thing! But I’d love to see him try and clear the sky at that speed. He’d lose control so fast…” said Rainbow.
She took a moment to take in her work, sighing at what a beautiful sight she laid her eyes on. “Clean as it can get.”
Something soft nudged Rainbow in the back. She turned around to find a stray tuft of cloud, floating back over from the west side of town.
“Oh.” said Rainbow, giggling a bit.
She looked around her, checking all of the ponies running about back towards town. She definitely didn’t envy them for their jobs, and didn’t feel that she could “offer any more help” as far as anything else went. So with a shrug, Rainbow reached for the sky and stretched out straight, groaning some as she exhaled and fell back onto the cloud, landing all sprawled out. She flipped over and let her hooves dangle over the side, relaxing as the soft breeze gently rocked the cloud. Slowly, she shut her eyes to try and get a nap in before the meeting this afternoon.
Before she could drift off to sleep, she heard the flapping of wings pass by her. She looked to where she thought she heard the sound. There wasn’t anyone there. She looked over to the other way and didn’t see anyone. It might have just been somepony flying over her real quick, and was out of sight quickly; no big deal. She rest her head back down on the cloud and started to shut her eyes, until she caught sight of a pony gliding towards the front door of the library; an orange pony with white hair. Rainbow’s head popped off of the cloud, eyes locking on the familiar sight of a brighter orange coated stallion.
“No way…” said Rainbow Dash to herself.
He even had a few bags slung over his shoulders, all of them seemingly stuffed full of things.
“This can’t be good…” thought Rainbow.