//------------------------------//
// They've Had Some Really Wild Storms Up There Lately 
// Story: The Skyborne Dance 
// by TacticalRainboom 
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After a few minutes of flying, Cloudchaser found them a vendor booth atop a smoothed-out cloud. A crowd of patrons stretched across the cloud in the vague shape of a line, all waiting for their turn at a tiny counter in front of a huge set of shelves.

Cloudchaser turned to Rarity as they landed. “Do you like flight food? I mean, I guess it’s kinda tough luck if you don’t, but we can try to find something at the main mess.”

“Not to worry—I adore flight food.”

As she said those words, Rarity turned her head from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of other customers leaving with their “flight food.” What she saw was less than informative; the patrons always flew away instead of walking past the line. The few who passed directly overhead appeared to be carrying woven green sacks.

When Cloudchaser and Rarity reached the front of the line, they were greeted by a yellow-green mare with a warm salmon mane and a dazzling smile. “Hey there!” she said sunnily.

“Hey,” Cloudchaser returned with a nod. “What’ve you got?”

The mare gestured behind her at what looked like a cloud-built pantry full of vegetables, along with hundreds of stacked and folded sacks. “Cabbage, mint, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, and sweet basil. The tomatoes are the good stuff. I’ve been snacking on them.”

“Basil for me,” Cloudchaser said. “How ‘bout you, Elusive?”

Rarity scanned the shelves curiously. She had been expecting a food vendor, but it seemed that Cloudchaser had found a produce stand. “Do you have anything cooked?” she asked.

Cloudchaser turned her head. “Thought you said you liked flight food? You wanna see if the mess has roasted corn or something?”

Rarity opened her mouth, then closed it and cleared her throat. “Oh, er… I was just inquiring as to the selection. I’ll have spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, please!”

The sun seemed to glint off of the server’s teeth as she nodded her acknowledgement. “Sure thing!”

As the yellow mare turned toward her cabinets, Rarity opened her coin purse again, dipping her hoof into it and feeling out the various denominations of gems within. When the server returned with two baskets of vegetables, Rarity slid into position in front of her.

“Please, allow me to cover for both of us.”

“Err, what do you mean? Do you need anything else? …Oh!” Her brows lifted in recognition as she noticed Rarity reaching for her purse. “We’re not supposed to accept tips. But thank you!” And she smiled again.

Cloudchaser had already picked her sack up in her teeth, but she put it back down and turned toward Rarity when she heard that. Her eyes fell to the gem-encrusted bag hanging from Rarity’s neck. “Is that a purse? You aren’t gonna need it. Wanna go back so you can leave it with Blues?”

Rarity pulled the drawstrings on her purse and stepped aside so that the high-spirited volunteer behind the counter could move on to the next pegasus in line.

“No, no… I’ll just keep it secure. It survived the Storm Wall, after all!”

In retrospect, of course, had Rarity known about the Storm Wall, there was no way she would have been willing to carry so much money in such a delicate little pouch. Come to think of it, she was surprised that her purchased jewelry had made it out the other side.

Cloudchaser shrugged. “If you don’t mind carrying it, I guess. Anyway, let’s find a spot to eat.”

They climbed to a gently sloping stretch of nimbus, where Cloudchaser promptly dumped her bundle and—to Rarity’s surprise—took a large bite out of it, bag and all. As she landed next to Cloudchaser and set down her own bag, Rarity saw that the green weave was made entirely out of grass.

Cloudchaser chuckled when she saw how intently Rarity was examining the bag. “Never seen one of these before, huh? Just another traditional thing. No waste, no dishes.”

Rarity took an experimental and perhaps excessively dainty bite from the thickest part of her sack, then let out a polite “Mm!” of approval through her full mouth. The sack was tough and a bit stringy, forming a kind of shell around the tender spinach and tangy sun-dried tomatoes. It felt like a waste to eat such good ingredients raw, but Rarity contented herself with savoring the tomatoes, which were just as good as the booth attendant had promised.

“So,” said Cloudchaser, folding her legs into a sitting position, “do you live in Cloudsdale, or did you fly in from somewhere else?”

Rarity took her time chewing and swallowing in order to buy extra time with which to answer. “Canterlot,” she said. “It’s a lovely city.”

“Really? What made you move from the clouds to Canterlot?” said Cloudchaser. “When I went there, it felt like one big convention for snobs.” She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe I just didn’t like being surrounded by Unis.”

Rarity, with a tremendous force of will, contained her offense.

“Well… I…”

“Sorry, I’m sure it’s a really nice city in other ways. But, I mean… okay, have you ever been to Ponyville?”

“Err… yes, once or twice. What about Ponyville?”

Rarity steeled herself for the answer.

“I moved there for a couple years so that I could join their Equestria Games team. Everypony says that it's this great melting pot, but in the end it’s still on the ground and you’re gonna be surrounded by groundbounds." Cloudchaser wrinkled her nose. "I even tried it on with an Earther for a while. Don't ask me why I thought that was a good idea."

Rarity tried her hardest to respond to that. Cloudchaser saved her the trouble by speaking up again.

“Question number two. Mares or stallions for you?”

There was no chance of holding back the reaction this time—Rarity nearly choked on a bite of bag. “What?”

Cloudchaser took a large bite from her bag and swallowed it, as casually as if she were asking Rarity’s opinion about the weather. “I said, ‘mares or stallions?’ You know, for partners.”

Rarity felt herself growing faint from rapidly growing alarm. “Yes, I heard your words, but… I… That is an inappropriate question, and— and—!”

Cloudchaser leaned back from Rarity’s outburst with a raised brow. “Whoa whoa whoa, what do you mean ‘inappropriate?’ Dancing is half the reason we’re here, right?”

“Dancing…? Ah!” Relief struck Rarity with nearly the same impact as the initial shock.

“What did you think I meant?” said Cloudchaser, tilting her head.

“Well!” Said Rarity, tapping her hooves together uneasily, “Well, I can’t say same-sex couples dancing is a commonly seen form in Canterlot. Not that I would be averse to dancing with either gender at this event, of course!”

Cloudchaser snickered. “Like I needed another reason not to live in Canterlot. Don’t worry—I'll make sure you have an awesome time before you go back to snob country.”

“You’re too kind,” said Rarity meekly, before turning her attention back to her bag of salad.

“You even sound like a Uni,” Cloudchaser said with a scoff. “We better get you dancing, or you might actually turn into one. Hurry up ‘n finish eating—I’ve been dying to check out one of the clouds I saw on our way to the ‘racks.”





From afar, their destination looked like a miniature Storm Wall: a monolith of cold grey floating in place amid white clouds and calm air. It was almost comical, until it suddenly erupted with lightning.  At least four lightning flashes lit up the structure’s walls in rapid succession, and the cottage-sized cloud threw forth a sound like a rupture opening in the sky itself. Without anything to echo off of, there was no rumble of thunder--each thunderclap was a single explosive rush. Rarity recoiled in mid-flap, sending her into a clumsy zero-gravity wobble.

“What in Equestria is that?”

Cloudchasere wheeled in the air to double back for Rarity. “That's called a soundstorm.” She licked her lips, then laid a foreleg across Rarity’s shoulders, urging her forward. “Or you could just call it a really awesome party. C’mon!”

Rarity barely managed to keep from cringing, both at Cloudchaser’s touch and at the prospect of joining the “party.” She managed a smile, or at least she parted her lips to show her gritted teeth.

“I once talked to a weather designer about how they make these,” Cloudchaser said as she steered Rarity into a banking left turn. “Instruments, acoustics, lightning. Totally amazing. You’ll see once we’re inside.”

“Yes, of course,” Rarity said. “Inside.”

It had been hard to see from afar, but the cloud was actually tall and cylindrical, with a slice near the bottom cut away to form an entryway and a protruding landing pad. As Cloudchaser brought Rarity closer, the solid storm started to emit a thrumming growl.

“Been waiting all year for this,” Cloudchaser said. “You have no idea.”

“Is this safe?” Rarity said. The arm laid across her back was feeling less comforting by the minute.

Cloudchaser gave Rarity a vaguely annoyed look, then rolled her eyes. “Oh c’mon. These were built by pure-blooded cloudborns, not grounded amateurs.”

She separated from Rarity as the two of them touched down on the landing pad. Rarity realized, as she approached the entrance, that the rumbling coming from the “soundstorm” was more than just noise—it was music, thrumming and dissonant, like a pipe organ accompanied by a brass section and a giant set of tympani.

“Sweet,” muttered Cloudchaser. She took off toward the entrance at a trot, and Rarity followed.

The moment Rarity entered the false-night darkness within the soundstorm’s walls, the music unfolded from a bass hum into a roaring symphony that assaulted the ears from every direction. Above, the air churned with the shadows of a hundred pegasi or more, most of them wearing “ice” like Rarity’s aurora studs and frozen lightning. The tiny colored lights weaved and spiraled like multicolored fireflies, filling the vertical room with chaos.

“Check out the musicians!” Cloudchaser yelled into Rarity’s ear. She pointed down, past the circular walkway, and into the pit below.

Cloudchaser was pointing at two pegasi who filled the entire pit with a high-speed dance. They bounced off of the floor as if it were a trampoline, swirled around the pit’s perimeter, and even converged in the center like airborne figure skaters before throwing each other outward again. It was mesmerizing, and dizzying, and it was all in perfect sync with the music. At first, Rarity wondered why Cloudchaser had called them “musicians,” and then she saw the hundreds of open pipes lining the pit’s walls.

When the musical acrobats flew past the smallest arrays of pipes, the air sang with a piccolo trill. When they struck the floor with their hooves, the walls shivered with an airy thump. The pegasi in the pit weren’t dancing to the music, no—their dance was the music. When they somersaulted and rolled, tumbling over and past each other with rapid beats against the floor, the soundstorm surged with their fervor. When they spread their wings to glide in smooth, synchronized arcs, they flooded the cloud with sonorous joy.

They met in the center, rose together to the level of the walkway, flipped, dove—

They landed as one, and a bolt of lightning slashed across the ceiling with a sound like cymbals smashing against a rough brick wall. A cheer sounded from the swirling dancers above.

Rarity leaned closer to Cloudchaser and raised her voice to be heard. “Is… this the type of ‘dance’ that you were alluding to earlier?”

“Ha!” Cloudchaser replied with a huge grin.

“Was that funny?” Rarity said timidly. The music swallowed her words.

“Don’t worry, it won’t get THAT rowdy. Guess you never know, though—depends on who’s up there—c’mon, let’s fly!” 

With that, Cloudchaser spread her wings and pumped them in a single flap, sending her up and over Rarity’s head in a twisting somersault.

Rarity openly gasped in surprise as Cloudchaser seized her behind the forelegs and forcibly lifted her. It was the same grip that had been used to pull her out of the Storm Wall, but this time Cloudchaser was plunging Rarity into the roiling heart of the storm instead of rescuing her from it.

Cloudchaser pumped her wings in full strokes, towing Rarity through air that was thick with fluttering wings and bone-rattling soundwaves. She released Rarity and set her hovering in place once they reached the bottom edge of the crowd and were surrounded by other dancers.

One of the dancers peeled away from the crowd with a loud “Hey!” and bodychecked Cloudchaser.

“Cloudhumper! You’re late!”

Cloudchaser wobbled, then recovered, and shoved back.

“Lightning Dust! You’re…” Cloudchaser leaned back to peer at Lightning Dust’s face. She rolled her eyes at whatever it was that she saw. “… You’re totally blustered. How’re we gonna dance tonight when you can’t even fly straight?"

Lightning Dust drew closer to Cloudchaser, until she was close enough to extend a hoof and run it up the side of Cloudchaser’s neck. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

Even with the darkness obscuring Lightning Dust’s face, the intimacy of the something was clear enough. Rarity cleared her throat and drifted closer. “Terribly sorry, I would hate to monopolize your partner’s attention... I’ll leave you two to your dance?”

Lightning Dust let out a snort so long and loud that it sounded for a moment like she might be choking. She pivoted to float side by side with Cloudchaser, and laced one hoof across her back. “Who’s the funny one? Hurry up and introduce me!”

Rarity felt herself subconsciously shrinking away from Lightning Dust. “Was… that… funny?”

Cloudchaser stuck out her tongue. “We just got here! If you want her, you’re gonna have to catch her first!” 

Rarity managed a frightened “What?”

“Whatever—have fun!” yelled Lightning Dust. She planted a firm kiss on Cloudchaser’s cheek, then flapped her way back into the crowd.

This time, Rarity raised her voice. “What do you mean ‘catch’ me? I’ve never—“

Rarity ended her sentence with a startled “eep!” as Cloudchaser clamped her shoulders and forcibly spun her in a full circle. Then, while Rarity was still dizzy, Cloudchaser curled a hoof around the back of her head and kissed her full on the mouth. 

Not a chaste kiss, either—it was a hot, demanding attack with lips and tongue that channeled the fury of the soundstorm, and it still wasn’t over by the time Rarity recovered from being disoriented and became properly shocked. Meanwhile, the music swelled to a howling, frantic climax—a climax and then a fade-out—a breathless moment of intense hush—

Out of the corner of her eye, Rarity saw the two musicians ascending through the center of the column: the eye of the soundstorm. Some of the pegasi cheered and whistled as the pair reached their apex, flipped their rear hooves toward the ceiling, and plummeted, spiraling together in a perfect helix.

Cloudchaser broke the kiss, and winked. Then, with a powerful heave, she hurled Rarity into the winged swarm above.

The musicians slammed into the pit with meteoric force, and the world exploded.

The walls strobed white with a chain-firing barrage of forked lightning, and a blasting chorus of thunder shattered the air. The winged storm rode the thunder-roar’s shockwave to even greater heights as the music surged back to full force, and the throng let forth a unified cry of passion.

Rarity slowed to a floating halt, only to feel somepony brush past her from behind. A hoof slid unapologetically across her haunch, flank, and back, followed by a shiver-inducing rush of feather-tips against fur. When Rarity turned to confront the culprit, somepony buzzed past to bump flanks with her, and then a dancer with a jewel-studded mane whipped past her face, hooked her by the foreleg, and turned her in an aerial do-si-do. By the time Rarity regained her bearings, all three ponies had disappeared into the surrounding flock.

The next time Rarity bumped into somepony, they pressed closer instead of backing away, and Rarity felt fur and body heat against her upright back. The walls flashed white again, and there was a stallion with wild eyes and a tangled mane so close in front of Rarity that she could feel his hot breath against her nose. He twisted into a diving position and slid the entire side of his damp-warm body from shoulder to haunch across Rarity’s chest, sandwiching her between himself and the pony obstruction behind her. He flicked his tail across her face as he dove past, and then he was gone.

Rarity moved forward, away from her inadvertent dance partner, extending her forehooves into the light-studded darkness to avoid another accidental collision—she found some space, and started to float downward, toward the walkway—

—A winged projectile cannonballed toward Rarity, seized her by the outstretched hooves, and swung her like a trapeze artist to slingshot her back into the frenzy. Rarity soared helplessly, turning a slow head-over-heels somersault until somepony intercepted her with a banking swoop. 

“W-Wait!” Rarity stammered, nowhere near loudly enough to be heard. She felt the side of her new partner’s head nuzzling against her own, so she tried again: “Wait, stop!”

“You okay, honey?” Rarity’s new partner said. A mare, as it turned out.

“The ground!” Rarity yelled back. “I want to go back down!”

The stranger laughed in Rarity’s ear. “If you insist!”

“Aaaaaaah!” cried Rarity as she was wrenched upward, then backward, then upside down in a gut-churning vertical U-turn. “Waaaaha-ha-ha-haaagh!” she added as she plummeted face-first through a maze of glittering lights and fluttering wings. A peal of thunder punctuated her descent, and the flash of lightning captured a freeze-frame of the mayhem that she was whistling past on her way down…

The stranger pulled Rarity to a halt with a powerful grip, then deposited her neatly onto all fours.

Rarity took her first deep breath since Cloudchaser had thrown her to the birds. Her legs were trembling, but at least her hooves were resting on a solid surface.

“You done for the night?” the stranger yelled as she touched down next to Rarity. The soundstorm was turning from dark to pitch-dark—what little sunlight pierced the dense cloud was starting to fade. Rarity could hardly even see her savior’s face.

“Yes,” Rarity gasped. “Yes, I think I should be off for the night.”

“Want some company?” the stranger said.

For the umpteenth time that day, Rarity snapped her head back in offended disbelief. “EXCUSE me?”

The pegasus mare raised her voice to a shout. “I asked if you feel like some company back in the ‘racks!”

Rarity glanced urgently in both directions—to her relief, there was nopony on the walkway who might have heard.

“No, I do not! I am not that kind of mare!”

The stranger straightened visibly. “Sorry! I saw you with Cloudchaser, thought you’d be into mares!”

“That,” Rarity seethed, “is a highly invasive question, and my intimate preferences are none of your—“

There was nopony there. Rarity pivoted and cantered toward the exit. She was angry. Angry was good. The angrier she got, the less she had to think about being buffeted by the fury of the soundstorm.





At first glance, the barracks were nearly unrecognizable as the building where Rarity had enjoyed an emergency brush-up earlier that evening. It was crowded, for one thing—Rarity had to weave through groups of standing or floating pegasi just to make it past the entrance. It was also dark. Before, the lobby had been lit by the sunlight filtering in through its thin white walls. Now it glowed with a warm but shadowy yellow light, courtesy of a set of ‘lanterns’ that looked like giant versions of Rarity’s frozen lightning.

Rarity nearly decided to walk back out to the landing pad and resume her search for a place to sleep. Cloudchaser and Blues had implied the existence of multiple ‘racks; perhaps Rarity had taken a wrong turn somewhere on her way back and found her way to an identical-looking set of sleeping quarters—it had been very dark, after all, and following a trail of flickering lanterns had been anything but easy with the way nothing was arranged in a sensible pattern.

“The 'elusive' mystery mare returns! Did Cloudchaser show you a good time?”

Blues had his rear hooves propped up on the counter and his forehooves laid over the arms of a mare whom he was using as a backrest. She hugged him tighter around the neck as she curled her wings to cover his eyes with a set of thoroughly ruffled feathers.

“Hey! I wanted you to myself!” she said with a tinkling giggle. “Go to the lounge if you want to flock!”

Rarity took the opportunity to slip behind a group of four stallions as they bustled in through the door. They made an even more perfect screen than she was expecting—they were so loud that the crowd parted for them as they went, though they still carelessly bumped a few of the partiers on their way through. Their drunken-sounding shouts and laughter easily pierced the rest of the noise and activity filling the lobby, and they hardly even bothered to land before heading for the hallway and taking a right.

By the time Rarity’s cover dispersed, Blues seemed to have lost interest in locating his “elusive” mare in the crowd. In fact, it was hard to see him behind his companion’s body as she sat on the counter and reached down to him with her wings as well as her arms.

“Y’all kin jus’ set me down now!” said a voice in a thick country twang. “What, y’think ah cain’t even walk straight just ‘cause I cain’t fly so good?”

Rarity pivoted her head toward the entrance. At first it looked like it was Cloudchaser supporting Applejack with the now familiar rescue-carry grip, but as a gap opened in the crowd, Rarity saw that the only resemblance was in the colors. Applejack’s “helper” wore a broad bow, and had a softly flowing mane that was pale seafoam instead of Cloudchaser’s almost-white.

Applejack freed herself from the pegasus carrying her with an indignant shooing motion, but as soon as she was left to stand on her own legs, she staggered to the side and nearly collapsed.

“AJ!” Rarity shouted, waving both forelegs in the air. “Here I am!”

The Cloudchaser-colored mare shot Rarity a smile and a lazy sort of salute, then headed for the exit. Applejack waved and started to make her way over.

“Rarity!” Applejack half-shouted.

“Shh!” Rarity bit her lower lip as she shot a look around the room, hoping desperately that the buzz of the crowd had been loud enough to cover Applejack. “My name is Elusive! Honestly, what happened to you while we were separated? You look positively frightful!”

It wasn’t an exaggeration: Applejack’s hat had been pulled hard onto her head at a crooked angle, her forced-wide eyes were fidgeting in their sockets, and only half of her mane was still being held by the band that she used to tie it back; the other half was hanging raggedly across her face and shoulders. Additionally, it looked like somepony had added an extra patch of rainbow dye to her hair by accidentally spilling a vial of the stuff onto her head. 

She licked her lips repeatedly as her eyes jittered their way up and down Rarity’s body. “Y’all ain’t lookin’ so purty yerself.” Her accent was twice as thick as usual.

Rarity winced. Somehow, the issue of what had happened to her mane while she was being thrown around like a pinball had slipped her mind. “Well, no need to worry about the stresses of this little excursion any longer. As promised, we’re going home in the morning.”

At that, Applejack’s already wild eyes hardened, and she shook her head as if trying to scare away a fly. “Nothin’ doin’, Rarity. We ain’t leavin’ this here party till ah get some answers.” 

“It’s Elusive!” Rarity hissed. “And—” She blinked as the second part of Applejack’s statement finished processing. “Pardon, dear, what did you say about… answers?”

Applejack grimaced. "Ah said we’re stayin’. Y’all were right 'bout spyin' on this dancin’ business. This here’s plain an’ simple th’ right thing ta do.”

“But... what in the world changed your mind?”

Applejack licked her lips, then suddenly twitched—a tight little spasm in her neck and front knee. “Uh… how ‘bout y’all tell me 'bout yer day with that Cloudchaser gal first?”

Rarity shook her head. “No, no. You first.”

“Dunno if yall'd even believe if ah told ya.” She cleared her throat with a loud hacking cough, then twitched again, so hard that she accidentally shoulder-checked a passing stallion. “Don’t even rightly know where ta start.”

“Try me,” Rarity said. “I insist.”

Applejack took a slow, deep breath, and this time she managed not to let it be interrupted by a spasm. “Don't say I never warned ya. We better get one o’ them private rooms fer this.”

They headed for the hallway and turned left, into a wing of the barracks with open doorways placed seemingly at random on either side of the hall. Some of the walls moaned lewdly as the two walked past. Applejack didn’t seem to notice as she placed a hoof on Rarity’s back and pulled her into an open room. As soon as they were through the doorway, she reared up and--to Rarity’s amazement--pulled the wall shut as if it were a curtain.

Rarity's jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”

Applejack rolled her eyes as she turned away from what was now a solid wall. “Used mah hooves. Now jus’ siddown on that there bed. This is gonna get a mite bit complicated.”