A Gift from Celestia
Chapter 2: Winter Wrap-Up
Admiral Biscuit
Ditzy lay her head down on her desk in defeat. She’d given up taking notes ten minutes ago, when her mouth had cramped up. Her final attempt at alertness had failed as Pencils droned on and on and on about the Ponic wars. Even the visual aid had failed to elicit any excitement, and had instead turned the chalkboard into an incomprehensible scrawl of arrows and small triangular formation markings. It was all ancient history, no more exciting than Mother’s endless repetition of the Doo family’s glorious past.
It isn’t fair, she thought for the thousandth time. I should be in Las Pegasus where I belong, not here.
“—which is when Commander Steel Shoes lead the third reserve platoon through the fog bank and—” Got to keep my eyes open. If I close them she’ll know.
SMACK!
Ditzy’s head shot up at the noise. She found herself eye-to-eye with Pencils.
“Perhaps you could recap Commander Steel Shoe’s desperate counterattack, since I seem to be doing such a poor job of it?”
“I—”
“Feel free to use your notes,” Pencils suggested sarcastically, pointing a hoof towards the soggy paper Ditzy had been drooling on. “The whole class would love to know what you think.”
She glanced around at the sea of expectant faces. Some were sympathetic—Cherry Berry was mouthing the answer—while Blue Bonnet had a smug smirk plastered across his muzzle.
“You don’t know, do you?” Ditzy had never noticed how much Pencils’ grin looked like a shark’s. “But you will know. Because you will write me a neat essay on Commander Steel Shoe’s counteroffensive, and it will be five pages long. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Ms. Wright,” Ditzy muttered weakly. Five pages! I was going to hang out with the girls at Sugarcube Corner after class.
“The mayor will have the library open this afternoon. I suggest you hurry over there after school.” She turned and stomped back to the front, continuing where she’d left off. “The city was under siege by naval forces, who were attempting to starve the beleaguered townsponies. . . .”
Ditzy sighed and slumped back in her desk. She looked out the window at the tiresome snow. It was a lot less pleasant when she had to walk through it—this was her first winter in a snowbound village, and the novelty had worn off fairly quickly. No wonder ponies were angry when the pegasi brought more snow.
She shifted in her seat as a sudden flush of warmth spread through her body. She’d been feeling antsy for almost a week. There were two more days of school before Winter Wrap-Up, and she couldn’t wait. It was a chance to spend a day or two with her fellow pegasi. Already Cloudsdale was crowded with extra fillies and colts—the sons and daughters of the pegasus influx that travelled through Equestria every year to help prepare spring, covering one region per day until they finally reached the northern border of Equestria. Ditzy had been practicing cloudbusting over Whitetail Wood. Sometimes, when she was free, Cherry Berry would accompany Ditzy—she liked watching the pegasus work the weather.
Ditzy flicked her forelock out of her eyes. Her mane and tail felt heavy, and she was starting to sweat, despite the cool temperature of the classroom. She wrinkled her nose in distaste and tried to focus her attention back on the blackboard, but her eyes kept being drawn towards the clock. It will all be over soon, she thought.
• • •
When Ditzy woke up, it was so early the light in the sky was more imagination than illumination, but she was as hyper as a filly on Hearth's Warming: it was Winter Wrap-Up day, and that meant a whole day of busting clouds for real, under the eyes of a real weatherpony. Maybe even a Wonderbolt; even they helped out with important weather duties.
She skipped the shower—no point, she'd be in the clouds all day—and eagerly soared into the kitchen on trembling wings. Mother had left a bowl of dry oats out for her, but nopony was there to see if she ate them, so she poured the bowl out the window and refilled it with kale and timothy, dousing the mix with a generous dollop of sweet relish. A quick glance in the cupboard netted her a tin of anchovies, which she dumped on top of her salad: she'd need the energy later. Mother probably wouldn't notice it was gone, as long as she remembered to take the empty can with her.
I remember the first time I brought a fish sandwich to school, she thought, grinning at the memory. Of all the ponies who had been shocked or appalled by it, Rarity—a stuck-up white unicorn who she never talked to—had come to her defense. Who would have imagined that her father liked fishing, or that she occasionally tried her hoof at it? Ditzy had even been given an open invitation to one of Magnum’s fish fry picnics later in the summer.
Ditzy bolted down her breakfast, rinsed out her bowl, and grabbed the empty can off the counter before eagerly trotting to the front door. She paused at the threshold just long enough to take a deep breath of the pre-dawn air, and then she took flight, swooping down towards Ponyville.
Already, ponies were beginning to fill the streets. She'd heard from her classmates that Ponyville never managed to wrap up winter in time, which was a real burr in the mayor's tail. The townsponies got up early, Cherry had told her, in the hopes of getting a good start on it. She hadn’t believed it, but the evidence was hard to ignore: plows were out in the streets, and Mr. Breezy was up on a ladder, pushing snow off his roof into a waiting cart.
She glided over Sweet Apple Acres, waving at Mr. Apple. He was helping McIntosh into a plow harness, while Applejack held a lantern in her mouth. McIntosh waved back, sending a rush of adrenaline through Ditzy. She flagged her tail and circled the barn before flapping her wings and gaining altitude as she passed over the rows of apple trees. As she passed them a second time, she glanced down: McIntosh was gaping at her, but Mr. Apple hadn’t noticed—he was too busy adjusting the lazy strap. Three months ago, I wouldn’t have known what that was called.
Ditzy pushed him out of her mind. She'd ascended into the base of the clouds, and it was time to focus on flying. The last thing I want is to bump into another pegasus in the clouds and get pulled from weather duty because of an injury. She slowed down and flicked her ears back and forth, listening to the whispers of air in the clouds. She should have flown through one of the many holes punched in the cloud cover, but that would have slowed her down.
She made it through unscathed, and burst through the cloudtop into a different world: the stars were shimmering overhead in the crisp air, and the moon was casting its soft glow over the fluffy sea under her belly. She let out a triumphant yell and did a quick roll, before leveling off again.
A half hour later, she finally made it to Cloudsdale, and immediately trotted to the weather office, flexing her wings as she went. The weather maps and team assignments had been posted on the front wall of the office, and she wanted to make sure that she got to her assigned sector in time.
The weather office was vacant. She scanned down the rolls, looking for her cutie mark, finally locating it midway down the lists for the Everfree border. Not her first choice of assignments, but it was cloud duty. Some pegasi got stuck rounding up birds or cleaning rooftops, and she wanted nothing to do with that. Eagerly, she pushed open the door and made her way to the bins of vests.
Five minutes later, she was back in the air, setting a course for the Everfree boundary. Cloudtops had already been marked with temporary pennants, so it didn’t take her too long to find her assigned spot. Nopony else was there yet, of course, so she settled down on a cloud to wait.
• • •
“All right, everypony. Listen up.”
Ditzy turned forward, ears focused on the lead weathermare. It wasn’t her mother, which was good. Sometimes that happened—a filly would get assigned with her mother. Last spring, she’d heard Blossomforth’s tale of woe, and had prayed the same fate would never befall her.
“My name’s Parasol, and I’m going to be your team leader. Is this everypony’s first time cloudbusting?”
“Yeah!” Ditzy looked around herself in dismay, suddenly realizing that all the other pegasi were several years younger than she was. How had she gotten stuck in a beginner’s class?
Because I couldn’t take the cloudbusting class with everypony else in Las Pegasus, that’s why. And the sign-up sheets for the extra spots on the good teams were filled out yesterday morning, when I was in school.
“Sorry I’m late!” With a soft poomf, a yellow pegasus dropped to the cloud next to Ditzy. “Hey Ditz!”
“Raindrops?” Ditzy jumped to her hooves and tackled Raindrops in a bear hug.
“Yeah. Betcha missed me, huh? It took some asking around to find out what team you were gonna be on.” She snickered. “I was lurking around the weather office all day.”
Ditzy smiled. It was going to be an all right day after all.
“We’re following the lead team on the Everfree border.” Parasol continued. “They’ll clear a path, and we have to wrangle loose clouds behind them. We’re just going to push them across the clear line, got it? That’s all.” She pointed a hoof towards a path of open sky that cut through the thick clouds like a river before looking back towards her map.
“Now I want everypony to—” She looked back up at the vacant cloud, then the receding tails of over-eager fillies and colts. “Aw, nuts.”
• • •
To nopony's surprise, the first half of the day was utter chaos. Even with Parasol's increasingly frantic shouts, fillies shoved clouds wherever they thought they ought to go, with no regard to the master plan. Ditzy and Raindrops, as the oldest mares on the team, quickly found themselves promoted to Parasol's unofficial assistants and stuck pegasus wranglers. Although she wouldn’t admit it, it was a relief. Ditzy could only imagine the looks Raindrops would have given her if she’d screwed up busting clouds, but anypony her age could move them singlehoofedly.
They were pulling a colt out of a cloudpile when a pair of stallions wearing auxiliary guard vests came by with a food wagon. Parasol flew around like a mother duck, rounding up her charges, while the older stallion passed out baskets of food. The younger ponies quickly scarfed down their lunches before returning to the sky in a ragged formation and began randomly pushing around clouds again.
Meanwhile, Ditzy and Raindrops kept up a more controlled pace. “I made distance champion this year,” Raindrops said quietly. She scanned the sky, where the fillies and colts had finally figured out enough teamwork to not get stuck anymore.
“I’m not surprised.” Ditzy stopped pushing her cloud. “Honestly, I spent so much time doing extra homework in the library, it’s a wonder I can still fly.” She stuck her tongue out. “Still . . . I can tell you anything you wanted to know about the second offensive in the Ponic Wars or the history of the Isle of White.”
“Who cares about all that? Aren’t you going to work weather?”
“Probably.” Ditzy sighed. “Of course, my mother wants me to apply to the Guard.” She rolled her eyes. “As if. They’d wash me out of basic, just ‘cause of my eyes.”
“Yeah.” Raindrops looked at her glumly. “My mom’s pushing me to get into the Wonderbolts. She’s filled out the application for the Academy every year, but the waiting list’s, like, a mile long. My fur will be gray before I—”
“Doctor Philly says a gray coat is a sign of maturity and sophistication,” Ditzy interrupted, sticking her muzzle in the air. The two mares exchanged a glance and burst out laughing.
“Looks like our quadrant’s finally clear,” Ditzy remarked.
“Might as well take a break while Parasol rounds up the stragglers.” Raindrops pulled a clump of cloud loose and dragged it over the clear area. She beat the top flat and dropped onto it with a sigh; Ditzy joined her a second later.
“You know, I’ve learned a lot from watching all those earth ponies,” Ditzy mused. “I’m still mad that we had to move out here, though.”
“Ah, they’re nothing special. You’ll forget all about ‘em if you go to summer flight camp.”
Ditzy rolled her eyes. “They’re pretty strong. I got beat in a fight by a colt my first day in school.”
“You? No way.”
“Yeah.” She scuffed a hoof across the cloud. “He bit my wing.”
“Ooh! When’s the wedding?”
Ditzy punched Raindrops in the withers. “Shut up. It wasn’t like that at all. I had him pinned, and he bit my wing and pulled. Hurt like Tartarus.” She giggled. “We still don’t get along. He’s a jerk.”
“Is that him?” Raindrops pointed at a big red pony tugging a snowplow across a field.
“That? No, that’s McIntosh. His little sister goes to school with me. She talks funny.” Ditzy looked around the fields, failing to find her nemesis. Instead, her eyes were drawn to a steel-blue unicorn stallion gamely tugging a wagonload of snow towards the weather reservoir. “Huh. That’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Yeah. A unicorn actually getting his hooves dirty doing work?” Raindrops snorted. “Is he in your class, too?”
“I’ve never seen him before.” Ditzy’s eyes stayed locked on the stallion as he struggled up a slippery hill.
“Is there anypony cool in your class?”
“Nah. Not really. I’ve only made one close friend there. She’s kind of weird. She wants to fly.” Ditzy chuckled. “She wants to know, like, everything about flight camp. She has this idea to build a balloon that can carry her.”
“Sounds like she’s crazy.”
“I dunno.” Why can’t I stop looking at that unicorn? “I went over to her house, and she had all these drawings . . . I’m not sure how some of them find time to do anything. Her parents gave her a small homestead last year, and she’s already planted a cherry orchard and built a small house. It’s pretty simple—just a one-room cabin, really. She’s got a shed out back, and she had a couple of baskets for her balloon she’d weaved over the winter. She works part-time in town pulling a garbage wagon to pay for all the fabric she needs for her balloon.” Ditzy grinned. “You’d be amazed how handy earth ponies are with their hooves.”
Raindrops shook her head. “Sounds like you’ve been spending too much time with mudponies. I know just the cure. We're staying at the cadet’s dorm by the weather factory, 'cause we don't have to move north until tomorrow morning. Do you think your mom will let you stay over?”
“She’d be glad of it.” Ditzy forced herself to look at Raindrops. “My mom says I shouldn’t spend so much time grounded, anyway. Keeps muttering that she’s going to have to buy me horseshoes at this rate. I mean, it’s not like I wanted to go to school in Ponyville. I just don’t have much of a choice. Cloudsdale’s curriculum isn’t up to Ponyville educational standards." She emphasized her displeasure by making air quotes with her hooves.
Raindrops waved a hoof dismissively. “Who cares? You’ll be out this summer. Besides, it’ll probably look good when you apply for weather patrol if you have a diploma. Maybe you can get a supervisor’s job.”
“Not with no practical experience, besides this," Ditzy moaned. “Heck, I’ll be lucky to get a beginner’s job in the weather factory—you’ve got hooves-on weather experience, I’ve got essays on the Ponic War.”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. Three-time distance champ counts for a lot, you know.”
“It’d be four if my mom hadn’t taken this stupid job in Ponyville. I coulda got a patron at the weather factory if I’d stayed in Las Pegasus, but who the hay’s gonna be looking out here in Ponyville?”
"Yeah." Raindrops fell silent and looked off into the distance where Parasol was breaking up a fight.
Ditzy grinned. “Race ya to Cloudsdale when we’re done.”
Raindrops clapped her hooves together. “Oh, you’re on.”
• • •
“You smell funny,” Raindrops opined as the pair walked through the crowded dormitory.
“It’s the soap they make in Ponyville." Ditzy bent her head back and sniffed her sweat-soaked barrel. “Mostly just the lye stuff. It works pretty well, but it burns like Tartarus if you get it in your eyes or under your tail. I keep telling Mother to just buy some other kind, but she hates to spend a minute longer with the salesponies in the marketplace than she has to. I think she’s afraid that their un-pegasusness will rub off on her or something. We went a week without any alfalfa, and you know why? Because she got in a fight with the salesmare.”
“Because it wasn't good enough for her?”
“No.” Ditzy chuckled and began speaking in a whining falsetto. " This alfalfa isn't cloudy enough. It has dirt on it." She rolled her eyes. “I mean, I could see her saying that. I wouldn’t have known what she did, but her daughter’s in my class. I guess Mother would just grab the first bale she saw and pass over her bits without a word. Finally, the salespony got so insulted that Mom wouldn’t even look over her bales before choosing one that she asked her if she even knew how to shop.”
“Huh? I don't get it—what's wrong with just picking the bale that you like and buying it?”
“Oh.” Ditzy scrunched up her muzzle. “It's not the way that earth ponies do business. You've gotta barter for something . . . the salespony names a price, you make a lower offer, and so on—you can't just take the first offer, it isn't polite.”
“That's weird. How the hay does anypony have time to buy anything with all that going on?”
“It doesn't take too long,” Ditzy said defensively. “An' it's only the rule at the market. Stores work like normal. I thought it was strange, but the farmers want ponies to take the time to appreciate what they grew, you know? Golden Harvest taught me that when I spent an afternoon with her at her mom’s stall.”
“Golden Harvest?” Raindrops giggled. “Mudponies have the weirdest names. What does she grow, wheat?”
“Carrots. Did you know that carrots can be kept in the ground during the winter if they're kept warm by compost?”
Raindrops stuck out her tongue as she walked through the archway into the dorm. “You're starting to sound like a farmer yourself.”
“Everypony oughta know this stuff! Don't you care where your food comes from?”
“I let Mom and Dad worry about that.” Raindrops turned down a side hallway and stuck out a wing, gently brushing it against the cloud material. “Speaking of your mom and food. . . .”
“It was Papa who finally talked the salespony down. Mom doesn’t know about that, and she’d pluck him if she found out.”
“Your mom’s a little strong-willed.” Raindrops reached a hoof towards the shower room door.
“Yeah, like a buffalo.”
The showers were just like Ditzy had remembered them. There wasn’t anything like it in Ponyville. There was a spa, which had massage rooms and a giant soaking tub—she'd even heard that it had mudbaths, but who the hay would want to take a bath in mud? Here, a vast room big enough for a hundred ponies was filled with the vapors from warm, sun-heated water running through a clever system of channels, where it filled stationary rainclouds. A quick kick made the rain fall, and as long as they were kept under the spouts, they would keep flowing until the reservoir emptied.
The room was filled with a gaggle of pegasi, happily relaxing after a long day’s work. Conversations began with a recap of the day’s weather duty, and quickly turned to the more interesting subjects of hoofball and stallions—the latter subject causing some discomfort for the few stallions who were huddling under their own clouds, trying to ignore the mares.
"Who's that?" Ditzy whispered, pointing to a dark-coated stallion with a mohawked mane.
"Huh?" Raindrops turned from the alcove in the wall where shampoos and conditioners were kept, a bottle clamped in her teeth. "Oh, if's jift Funderlane." She tilted her head towards a vacant cloud. Ditzy snagged her own bottle of shampoo and followed her.
While Raindrops got the cloud going, Ditzy set the shampoo on the floor, nesting it in a lump of cloud. "I've never seen him before. He's cute." She started swishing her tail back and forth, like a cat about to pounce.
"Total hottie," Raindrops confirmed. "Out of my league." She sighed dramatically. "Still worth looking at. Rumor has it that Cloudchaser and Flitter are all exclusive with him."
Ditzy stuck her head under the cloud, humming happily as the warm water sluiced across her coat. "Well, I wouldn't kick him off a cloud for eating crackers." She looked up as a blast of cold air washed through the room from the open door. Blaze—one of Ditzy's former classmates—came into the room, with a vaguely familiar light-blue stallion trailing behind her.
“Is that Soarin?”
“Blaze’s got him wrapped around her hoof,” Raindrops muttered, soaping her mane.
“What does she see in him, anyway?”
“A ticket to the Wonderbolts. He was at the Academy last year and smashed all their records. He’s already in officer’s training.”
“Soarin? No way.”
“Yeah.” Raindrops let out a happy sigh as the warm water washed the lather out of her mane. “The galoot’s got the grace of a hummingbird. You’d never have guessed it. I suppose it runs in the family—his dad’s a flight leader in the Guard, and his mom’s a retired Wonderbolt.”
“Huh.” Ditzy looked at him thoughtfully. “I almost feel bad for making fun of him at flight camp last year.” She shook her mane out of her eyes. “But really, he started flagging halfway through the course.”
“Everypony knows stallions haven’t got any endurance. Like, thirty seconds—maybe a minute—and bam! They’re done.”
“I dunno. Some of them in Ponyville—”
Raindrops laughed. “Well, you’d be the one to know.”
Ditzy’s cheeks turned bright pink. “No, I mean plowing!" She put a hoof to her head as she realized what she'd just said. “That really didn’t sound any better, did it?”
“No, not at all.” Raindrops kicked the cloud off and shook out her mane. “Come on. We don’t want to miss dinner. After that, it’s mare’s night in the dorm. Just—whatever you do, if Cloud Kicker asks you to play Truth or Dare, for Celestia’s sake, say no.”
“Why?”
“Ditz, just trust me on this.”