Feather Dream awoke to the pitter patter of rain against her window pane. She rubbed her eyes grateful for the dreamless sleep and put her glasses on. She looked out the window at the light rain shower and let out a yawn.
“Today was supposed to be sunny. I guess we now know when the Truth Dream is happening.”
She stretched out her wings and cracked her neck and shoulders. After brushing through her black and white mane and tail, and eating a quick breakfast, Feather Dream left her house and headed for Cloudsdale. On her way the rain increased its speed and severity, soaking the pegasus through.
By the time she arrived at the weather control station Feather Dream spotted two other pegasi that had arrived before she did.
One was a pegasi that had joined her on her first patrol; a turquoise mare with a yellow diamond cutie mark. Orion stood near like a chunk of night sky and waived as Feather Dream flew in.
“Are you two here for the weather service?” she asked.
“Yes we are,” Orion said. The mare, Melody Gem, nodded.
“Do we know who is acting as captain for this event?” Feather Dream looked around trying to find other pony volunteers. The workers would come later during their job hours, which was a worry. They would have to rely on the strength of a less lazy type of pony before they joined. It helped to have a competent captain who was well liked and took charge.
“Well,” Melody said, “I think they appointed you as captain.”
Feather Dream looked at the scarcity of ponies and understood. It was not that she was incompetent; it was entirely that she was not well liked. At least most pegasi seemed to regard her with a wariness that affected her reputation.
Her face remained impassive, “We will need more than this if we are going to correct this storm. It is a big one.”
Melody shrugged, “Others went down to the towns to prepare them by cleaning up branches and to explain the situation to the towns’ people. I think they even, briefly, recruited nonpegasus ponies to help them out.”
So there are others. Feather Dream thought before saying, “Even so, they probably will not be back for a while and I would rather we had more ponies before we left.”
“Wait for me!” A voice called from above. Starlight landed, not so lightly, near them with a flop.
“Hi every pony,” she said with a sheepish grin.
Feather Dream glanced at her with one eyebrow raised. Her best friend responded with a tackle hug. Then the red maned Pegasus trotted over to where Orion stood and floated at attention. Orion tried to keep himself from laughing, but failed.
Standing up and brushing herself off Feather Dream cleared her throat and said, “We still need a few more ponies than this. Like I said before; it is a big storm.”
“Oooo, fun,” Starlight giggled.
“Did any of you three hear about any pony else volunteering for weather service?”
“Thunderlane said he would be helping again,” Melody said, “Also I heard that Solar Flutter, Lightning Flitter and Sparks wanted to participate, but I’m not sure if they were fully commited.”
“Let us hope they do,” Feather Dream said as lighting crashed and thunder rumbled, “We will need them, but we also need to leave soon. We will wait another ten minutes before we go.”
Within the next ten minutes all but Thunderlane had arrived. The team was slightly better prepared. Feather Dream hoped they could keep the storm together before the weather team arrived. She looked outside as the louds got darker and the wind picked up. Without a moment’s hesitation the little group took to the sky.
The process of controlling rouge storms involves flying through the clouds and severing pieces of it to clear some of it out. The rest would be moved a part from the other clouds to produce light scattered rain showers.
With most clouds this is harmless. Small storm clouds are easily dealt with this way, but as a storm gets bigger the more dangerous it becomes.
The lightning alone could seriously injure a pony. Add in the disorientation caused by a loss of navigation and even a trained and prepared pegasus could find themselves in danger.
This was why Starlight always worked on bigger storms. Her cutie mark, three pointed stars, alluded to her ability to always know where she was in the world. If Starlight was blindfolded and dropped off somewhere she had never been before she could find her way home with very little trouble.
Starlight’s love of thunderstorms also contributed to her reason for volunteering. She learned everything she could about them, out of books or through experience. She did not fear the storm; she understood it and showed the respect and caution needed to control it.
“Okay Star,” Feather Dream turned to her friend, “We need you to cut the storm into sevenths then each of us will take a section and- wait is that Thunderlane? What is he doing?”
He was tumbling through the storm clearing out small wisps of the storm cloud without making any actual progress and seemed to be putting himself in danger.
“Orion, can you reach him?” Feather Dream asked.
“I think so.”
“Then would you mind saving our fellow pegasus?”
“On it,” Orion said with a grin.
The night sky pegasus launched himself at the bumbling stallion. As he closed in Orion angled himself and grabbed at Thunderlane pulling him around and bringing them back to the group.
Orion’s special talent was accuracy, he could launch anything, himself, or any pony else at a target and 99 out of 100 times he would hit exactly where he wanted. His interest in physics and geometry helped him analyze all the elements he needed to perfect his shot.
“Change of plans,” Feather Dream said with hardly a glance at Thunderlane, “make it into eighths.
As they controlled the storm, more pegasi showed up. Each was then assigned to a different section to help. By the end of the down pour there had been little damage, excluding a tree that had fallen onto the library after being struck by lightning. At least not pony was hurt.
Feather Dream went to bed late that night exhausted and slept dreamlessly once more.