Wild Weather
-Baltimare-
The sky over the seaport of Baltimare was clear and blue with the exception of one flat misshapen cloud floating high above.
“You ever notice how the port doesn’t look that busy from up here?” said Pipe Fitter, a brown earth pony with a wrench cutie mark, as he hung from a basket under a balloon.
“Keep your eyes on your work,” said a teal pegasus mare wearing a hard hat standing across from him on the cloud. “I’m tired of chasing after falling tools.”
“Well you won’t have to worry about chasing my tools anymore Gentle Showers, or spend nearly as much time pushing clouds from Cloudsdale to Baltimare because We. Are. Done,” Pipe Fitter replied before climbing back into the basket of the yellow balloon. “With a flip of that lever we will no longer be dependent on the weather factory in Cloudsdale for our clouds.”
“You want to count me down?” Gentle Showers said standing next to the long lever sticking out from the fluff.
“No, just push it,” Pipe Fitter said. With that, his partner moved the long lever to on and the magical gears began to turn first with a hiss, then a pop, then a bang the mechanism began to suck water up the long chute from the sea and filtered it before pumping white, fluffy clouds out of a large tuba-shaped structure.
“It’s working!” Gentle Showers clapped her hooves and grinned at Pipe Fitter.
“We are going to be rich, partner,” he said. “Well, we best shut it down now. We don’t want to be giving away free weather.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said then reached for the lever and began to slide it back into the off position.
“Hey, Fitter? Why are there still clouds pumping out of the funnel?” she asked.
“There’s probably just a few left in the system. They’ll work themselves out in a few minutes,” he said, sure he was right.
He wasn’t.
-Ponyville-
Rainbow Dash let her mind wander as she lay back against the soft cloud floating over Ponyville Town Hall. She had already put in a long morning pushing out the rain clouds that gave many of the orchards a good soaking overnight so everypony had a good sunny afternoon. She and the weather team had done an awesome job, even if it had meant getting up early. She was sure her small Ponyville weather teams were at least 20% better than any other cloud pushers in Equestria. They did get more than their share work with unruly storms living that close to the Everfree Forest and its occasional rogue weather. For the life of her she just couldn’t wrap her mind around the concept of clouds that moved by themselves.
She sat up for a moment and stared out toward the horizon making sure that there weren’t any of the aforementioned clouds creeping into her clear sky, before reclining back into hers. She was just about to fall asleep for the second time when her ear began to twitch. It wasn’t from an itch, it was honing in on a sound, a sound that sounded like someone calling her name. It was someone calling her name. She opened her eyes just in time to see a gray pegasus mare with a blond mane crash into her, bouncing them both out of the cloud and sending them tumbling to the ground. When Rainbow Dash came to the gray mare was standing over her, water dripping from her mane.
“Are you okay?” the mare asked.
“What happened?” she asked, only then realizing it was Ditzy ‘Derpy’ Doo, the local and extremely clumsily messenger pony, who ran in to her. She decided to rephrase, “You needed me?”
“Yes,” Derpy said, still out of breath. “I came straight from Cloudsdale,” she breathed, “with an urgent message” she inhaled again, “from the weather service” she breathed again, “there’s an emergency,” she got out before deciding to sit down. She pulled a message out of her saddle bags and handed it to Dash.
Rainbow Dash knew it must be important because it was a bright yellow scroll with big black lines across it and those were only sent for weather emergencies. The cyan pegasus brushed her rainbow colored mane out of her eyes and cracked the seal of the weather service scroll, scanning over the message. Her eyes widened in shock as she tried to process what it said. The moment of thought was then interrupted, when another familiar voice shouted her name.
“Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow!” Twilight Sparkle, national hero, local librarian and PFF, Pony Friend Forever, came to a screeching stop in front of her.
“No, time Twi, I got to go, urgent weather business,” Dash said bolting up into the air only to feel a sharp pain connected to her tail. The pain was directly related to Twilight’s telekinesis, directed through her unicorn horn, grabbing hold of said tail and pulling her back down to earth.
“Hey, Twilight we got a weather emergency in...” she started.
“Baltimare, I know, Princess Celestia just informed me,” she said, as the personal student of the princess of Equestria and her go-to mare for national emergencies of course she’d been informed, Dash rationalized.
“We’ve been told to take care of this,” Twilight said releasing Dash’s tail and letting her drop to the ground.
“Hey, I know we make an awesome team, but this is a weather problem. I’m sure the weather team can take care of it,” Dash said. “I’ll round up my guys like Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth and fly on out there and kick that rogue storm right out of existence.”
“The thing is, you can’t,” Twilight said.
“Why not? Besides, that’s what the weather service said to do,” Dash replied. “I have my orders.”
“Your orders are old,” Twilight said.
“I just got them!” Dash exclaimed. “Derpy just got here.”
“Well, she’s not as fast as Spike,” Twilight said.
“Hey, I’m faster than a baby dragon,” Derpy said defending herself. “I do this for a living.”
“You may be fast,” Twilight said in a calming voice. “I meant magic, the ability for Spike to send and receive messages instantly from the princess. “
“Oh, okay,” Derpy said.
“That’s fine,” Twilight said.
“Well I should probably get to the rest of my rounds,” Derpy said and trotted off.
“Well, then what did the princess say?” Dash said.
“She said that we can’t fly in. The storm over Baltimare is too big,” she said.
“Well I am the best flyer in Equestria,” Dash said.
“No, she sent the Wonderbolts and they got tossed around bad. Soarin is in the hospital with a broken wing,” she said in hopes that the idea the storm was so bad that Dash’s idols being tossed around would keep her hooves on the ground until a different approach could be made. “I told the others to meet us at the library so we can come up with a plan.”
***
The other girls were waiting around the big table on the main floor of the library as Twilight magicked a map off the shelf and unrolled it in front of them. The map showed the coastline of Equestria and the city of Baltimare sitting on the Chesapony Bay.
“So, Twi’lite how are we going to g’t som’weres the Wond’rbolts couldn’t g’t too,” said Applejack, the yellow earth pony with the blonde mane.
“The roads to Baltimare are cut off too, as well as the trains,” Twilight informed them.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how are we supposed to get there?” Fluttershy, a butter yellow pegesus, meekly questioned.
“Couldn’t we just teleport?” Rarity asked.
“Yeah, and we could go like ‘poof’ and then ‘poof’ again,” Pinkie Pie, the obviously pink earth pony said, appearing and disappearing with each poof. Twilight shook her head no.
“Well I do hope you don’t expect us to walk there?” quipped Rarity, the fashionista and dress-making unicorn. “I don’t think I could handle that mud.”
“The only way to get from here to there is by water,” Twilight said.
“That would take weeks, to sail there from Vanhoover,” Rainbow chimed in, “Baltimare doesn’t have that kind of time.”
“We won’t be sailing,” Twilight said. “We’ll be taking the river.”
“What?” Pinkie exclaimed.
* * *
The mane six stood at the shop just outside of Ponyville. The structure wasn’t impressive; it was a clapboard ranch house sitting on short stilts a few hundred feet away from the Small Ponytomac River. A stack of yellow rubber rafts leaned up against each other along the side of the house.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, darling?” Rarity said poking the boat with her hoof and feeling the give in the air-filled chamber.
“Of course it’s a good idea,” said an unfamiliar voice. “It’s always a good idea to go raftin’.”
“Girls, this is River Ann Trails. She’s going to be our guide down the Ponytomac,” Twilight said.
“But, Twilight, there’s a reason we don’t go up and down the Ponytomac to Baltimore and back,” Apple Jack said. “The river is too dangerous.”
“Hey, the first time me and my brother Tales Trails made that trip I got my cutie mark,” the other ponies turned to the slender mare with a yellowish gold coat and a firey red mane split into two pigtails who turned her flank to show the mark of a red map arrow crossed with a paddle.
“See girls? Perfectly safe,” she Twilight said.
“Oh, I didn’t say it was safe,” River corrected. “It’s pretty dangerous, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
* * *
The seven ponies floated down the glassy waters of the Small Ponytomac River with their guide steering from the back as they paddled and chatted.
“I don’t know what you were so worried about AJ,” Pinkie said as she paddled.
“Yes, this would be quite pleasant if we weren’t on a mission to save Equestria,” Rarity said. “Honestly I don’t know why this river has such a bad reputation.”
“Twi’ lite, I’ve lived in Ponyville my whole life and I didn’t know that ponies went down the Ponytomac. You’ve only lived here a couple of years, how’d ya kno’?” Applejack asked.
“Coffee,” River said.
“Ah, no thanks dear,” Rarity said.
“Bella Notte,” Twilight said.
“Gesundheit,” Pinkie offered.
“No, Pinkie, Bella Notte is a mare in the astronomy club,” Twilight explained.
“What kind of name is that? I’ve never heard of one like that before?” Fluttershy timidly asked.
“I think its Istalian dear,” Rarity explained. “She’s a member of the Ponyville business league.”
“Soooo, as I was saying Bella Notte suggested doing it a couple of weeks ago,” Twilight continued.
“Hold on a moment,” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “So you’re telling me an egghead astronomy buff knew about this possibly dangerous rafting and I, Rainbow “Danger” Dash, didn’t?”
“Well, it’s because of my brother,” River said.
“I thought you said it was because of Bella Notte?” Pinkie said, confused, turning to Twilight.
“Well, my brother Tales Trails, is a writer, he takes trips and writes about them. That’s why you didn’t meet him. He’s always off traveling somewhere. He is also kind of sweet on Bella Notte,” she explained.
“And she’d say yes if he asked her out,” Twilight interjected.
“So that brings us back to coffee,” River said.
“Aye, still don’ git it,” Applejack said shaking her head.
“I think I understand,” Rarity interjected. “Bella Notte is the number one supplier of coffee in Ponyville.”
“I thought you said she was an Astronomer?” Rainbow interrupted.
“No, dear, she sells coffee, not that I don’t understand how anyone can drink that stuff, but I digress. Who do you think needs to stay up late and drink coffee,” Rarity said.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Pinkie said raising her hoof. “Astronomers!”
“Yes, very good, Pinkie. And who do you think her number one customer is?” Rarity asked.
“The biggest egghead of them all, our Twilight,” Rainbow Dash answered.
“Oh, so Twilight knows Bella Notte and she knows River’s brother,” Fluttershy figured out.
“Well that makes sense,” Applejack concluded.
“But, I still don’t understand why this trip is considered so dangerous? This float has been quite pleasant,” Rarity changed the subject.
“Oh, that because this is the Little Ponytomac,” River said, a grin beginning to cross her face. “You hear that rumbling? That’s the Ponytomac.”
The six collectively held their breaths as they saw the frothing, churning river. “You don’t think that’s just an upset sea monster, do you?” Fluttershy said, her voice quaking remembering how they calmed the serpent with a gift, and he even helped them cross the river.
“Nope, just the first in a buffet of bad ass white water,” River said digging her paddle into the water. “Now just remember, paddle when I say, stop when I say.”
The speed of the boat quickened and as the rubber began to flex with the ripples in the water.
“Wooooo, wooooo, woooo!” Pinkie smiled.
The water began to get rougher and rougher as they navigated the tiny boat down the rapids. It seemed at times they were simply at the mercy of the current. But River was calm as shouted orders to her inexperienced crew. Suddenly a large wave slammed into the side of the boat swamping the crew, and sending Fluttershy into the water.
The butter yellow pegesus tried to fly, but her wings were soaked. She was easily panicked on a good day, but now she was so scared panicking didn’t seem to be quite enough. She flailed with her hooves hearing the others call her name. She felt a tug at her mane as it was surrounded by a purple aura, she calmed down for a moment as she let Twilight’s magic begin to lift her, then SPLASH! She was back in the water, no longer in range of the magician’s magic. So it was back to panicking again.
“Fluttershy!” Twilight yelled as the yellow pegsus began to float away from the raft. She was caught up in the current of a churning whirlpool. “We have to go back! Back paddle!” she ordered and the other girls began to stroke.
“No! Keep going forward,” River called. “We can’t paddle back upstream.”
“What?” Twilight said. “But Fluttershy!”
“We’ll get her. But not that way,” she said in a commanding tone. “Forward paddle.”
The red-maned mare slid her hooves under the webbing crisscrossing the open spaces of the raft, then jammed the paddle, now clutched in her teeth, into a crag in a rock pivoting the boat and slingshotting the raft across the churning current to the upriver swirl of an eddy. The momentum and paddling took them to the whirlpool where the pink-haired pegasus was flailing, trying to keep her head above water.
River leaned out of the boat, the current now taking them along the edge of the watery hole. With her paddle still in her teeth, she used her hooves and plucked the pony out of the river and tossed her in to the bottom of the boat like a fish off the line. Fluttershy coughed and gagged on the water in her mouth but seemed no worse for wear.
The other girls gave a sigh of relief and as much as they may have wanted to stop at that moment for a group hug, River’s steely look of determination kept them paddling.
The water continued to churn and splash and fill the boat, leaving Fluttershy sitting in the middle, too scared to sit on the edge and paddle. She was scooping the water out as fast as it was coming in. A look of concern and dread filled everyone’s eyes (with the exception of Pinkie) as the river disappeared up ahead. River said very little as the deafening sound engulfed them. She angled the boat. The crew looked back at her, her eyes filled with concentration until she yelled at the top of her lungs “PADDLE!!!! PADDLE, SWEET CELESTIA PADDLE!!!!!”
The raft then disappeared into the mist and over the horizon of the waterfall.
The Ponytomac began to widen and slow, which was a relief for several of the waterlogged mares now lying in the bottom of the deluged raft. “I can’t believe we survived,” Twilight said.
“You just need how to read the river. You just need to find a way to go with the flow,” River said with a calm but ridiculously big grin on her muzzle.
The sunny reprieve was short lived as the skies began to cloud over.
“Oh, man. Now it’s going to start raining,” Rainbow whined as the first few drops began to fall.
“You’re worried about the rain? THE RAIN?” Rarity said sounding exasperated, wringing the water from her now limp mane.
“It’s a cloud pusher thing,” Rainbow justified.
“Wasn’t that fun?” River said, trying to encourage her crew.
“That was AMAZING!!!” Pinkie said, her mane somehow absolutely dry and still bouncy. “We should take the fillies.”
“Oh yes, that would be a good idea,” Applejack said with sarcasm, knowing what a disaster her little sister and her friends could make in a peaceful meadow, much less a raging river.
“I can just hear it now, CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS RAFT GUIDES YAY!!!!” Rarity mocked the cheer they would give, inevitably followed by a small apocalypse.
Twilight looked back at River, her voice finally giving sound to one of her questions.
“Why didn’t you go back for Fluttershy? How did you know not to go back for Fluttershy?” Twilight asked rubbing the soaked yellow pegsus to warm her up.
“The current was too strong for us to paddle against. We would have never made it or we would have but had so little momentum we’d have gotten sucked in to the whirlpool too. So I looked ahead and saw the eddy,” she said as she made a correcting stroke. “What makes you a good raft guide isn’t your strength or how brave you are, it’s being able to not only read the water right in front of you but the water far in front of you and understand how each rock and each drop interact with another. The river is too strong to beat in to submission, you have to use her natural states to carry you where you want. ”
“Huh?” Twilight said.
River thought for a moment on how to rephrase, “Do you read books?” she asked.
“Does she read books? She’s got to be the biggest egghead in Equestria. She lives in a library for Luna’s sake,” Rainbow Dash interjected.
“Well, you probably read them a sentence at a time, right?” River said.
“Well, yes,” she said.
“Well imagine when you get to a sentence in a paragraph that doesn’t make sense,” she said.
“Okay,” Twilight responded.
“Well, what do you do?”
“I keep reading, and see if the other sentences explain it to me,” Twilight explained, having done so most of her life dealing with complex spell books.
“I read the river like you read a book. The individual rapids are sentences. When you read only one you can read it out of context and it doesn’t make sense, only when you read the whole paragraph can you understand what the river is telling you and how to make it work for you,” River said looking for a spark of understanding.
“I think I get it,” Twilight said.
“How long till we’re in Baltimare?” Applejack interrupted.
“Oh, not long now,” the guide pony answered.
* * *
The rain began to pour down in sheets as they continued to paddle to the harbor. The streets of the city looked like canals as they approached the menacing funnel cloud standing in the middle of the port.
“Who’s that?” Rainbow yelled over the sound of the wind and rain as she pointed to two ponies standing on a spit of land waving their hooves wildly.
“Over here!” they called.
The raft slid along the embankment and Applejack hopped out and held it in place with a mooring line. The others hopped out as River changed from paddling to bailing scooping up gallons of water from the bottom of the boat and dumping it overboard.
“Are you the rescue party?” the brown earth pony said standing next to a badly hurt pegasus. Fluttershy wasted no time rushing over to examine her.
“Well, yes and no,” Twilight said.
“What does that mean?” the earth pony questioned.
“Well…” Rarity began.
“Pipe Fitter,” he introduced.
“Well, mister Pipe Fitter we are here not to rescue you, but all of Baltimare,” Rarity explained.
“What happened?” Twilight asked looking at the waterspout churning in the harbor.
“We were creating a mechanical tornado to take the water from the sea so we wouldn’t have to rely on Cloudsdale,” he said. “I was the chief engineer on the project, we had just done a test run and took a break, the next thing we know the tornado wouldn’t shut off.”
“I tried to get up there and jam the gears but the wind was too great,” Gentle Showers said, wincing in pain as Fluttershy tried to bandage the battered pony.
“You tell us what to do and we’ll get up there,” Rainbow said full of confidence.
* * * *
“Are you sure?” River said as they paddled towards the spinning water spout.
“It’s like you said, we just need to read the whole story to get it to work for us,” Twilight said with a semi-confident smile.
“Evr’ body strapped in?” Apple Jack said as she looped her hoof around some webbing in the boat.
The crew paddled. The rubber boat’s movement became faster and faster until the paddling didn’t matter anymore. With a collective scream they were sucked into the tornado. The seven mares spun round and round climbing higher and higher to the cloud. The boat settled into a long tunnel, the wind disappearing as they rushed along the inside of the pipe.
“Hey guys? What’s that sound?” Pinkie said, noting the sound of a mechanical clunk, clunk, clunk echoing down the chamber.
The eyes of the entire crew widened as they saw the large gears moving the water to the cloud machine threatening to grind them up into pieces. Twilight concentrated, her lavender aura surrounding the paddles and wresting them from the hooves of her friends and shooting them forward. With a bang and a clang and a clunk the mechanism stopped just inches from the rubber raft, the paddles clogging up the gears. The water spout crashed back down into the harbor and the water-soaked seven exhaled a sigh of relief.
* * * *
Dear Princess Celestia,
The people of Baltimare are soggy but well on their way to drying out. They would love if you could bring the sun a little closer to them for the next couple of days. The engineer decided to scrap plans for the cloud maker until he could work out the kinks.
I think we learned a lot on this adventure. My new friend River taught me that if you let the currents take you instead of struggling against them you can often accomplish the same goals. Sometimes it’s better to just “go with the flow.”
Your Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle