//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Stormy Nights 2: In the Clouds // by Void Chicken //------------------------------// The rainwater ran down Stormy’s back and streamed off of her tail as it flapped in the wind. The wind beat against the pegasus, but two dark purple wings beat back. The deluge of water soaked Stormy to her skin, and she loved every second of it. Stormy could feel the ebb and flow of the electric power just above her in the black clouds. She flew up, and banked a turn, letting her wingtip skim the clouds’ surface. As she dove, a bolt flashed down behind her, arching to some house’s lightning rod. This is incredible! Stormy thought. This is almost as powerful as that storm back home! ...I think. Having my wings nearly ripped off kind of limited my flying then. Stormy locked her wings, letting the storm blow her across town, then pushed herself back towards the center. But this storm is mine. I made this. She flapped her wings, driving her body back up to the cloud layer to let loose another lightning strike. How could I have not known that this is what I’m capable of? Stormy flew for several more minutes before she heard a vaguely familiar voice. “Excuse me! Ma’am? You, in the air!” Stormy flew down and hovered in front of the yellow earth pony, who was standing in the doorway of the largest building in town. “Me?” “Yes, may I ask you to get me Miss Silver Lining?” “Silver... oh, you mean Wobbler?” “Quite. Miss Lining and I have something to... discuss.” She spoke the last word through gritted teeth. “Sure, I’ll go get her. Be right back.” Stormy flew out to the edge of the storm and over the clouds. --- “Maybe the mayor was sunbathing.” Wobbler giggled. “She sounded pretty upset.” The two pegasi flew down to the outskirts of town, where the rain was only a gentle drizzle. Wobbler carefully hovered above the ground, then lurched forwards and landed face first in a mud puddle. She jumped up onto her hooves with a smile under her new mud mask. Wobbler trotted through town as Stormy hovered alongside. It was a very strange sight to see Wobbler moving in a straight line for once, even if it was on foot. “Wow,” Wobbler said, “you can really fly in this stuff?” The two were nearing the center of the storm, situated around city hall. Stormy looked down at her. “You can’t?” “Heck no! I didn’t know of anypony who could before you! You rainponies are really something else!” The pair reached the front door of city hall. “You should come along, too,” Wobbler said, knocking on the door. “This is your storm after all.” The door opened. “Good morning Mayor Honey!” Wobbler said with a big smile, rain pouring down her sides. “You wanted to see me?” Mayor Honey cleared her throat. “Yes, do come in.” Inside, the mayor began talking. “I couldn’t help but notice a rather sudden shift in the weather patterns this morning. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, Miss Silver Lining?” “Oh yes! My rainmare Starry Isles here got this whole thing going!” Wobbler said. “She’s great I tell you!” She put a foreleg around Stormy’s neck. “It ran a little late, but Starry pulled through!” The mayor glared at Stormy. “So it was your idea to ruin the first annual Whinnypeg Flower Festival?” Stormy shifted backwards. “Flower Festival?” Mayor Honey looked up. “The Whinnypeg Flower Festival is our town’s unique holiday. Every year, the ponies cultivate the most beautiful, most impressive, or simply the most bizarre flowers they can grow. The streets are lined with flowers of all varieties and their petals cover the streets, filling the town with the sweetest smells. It will attract ponies from across Equestria, giving our local businesses valuable tourism revenue.” Mayor Honey looked directly at Stormy again. “Or it would, except our first Flower Festival has just been rained out!” A lightning bolt outside accentuated her point. Stormy stuttered. “I... I, uh... I didn’t...” Wobbler cut in. “Hey, don’t go yelling at my rainpony! She put the storm together just like I told her to!” Mayor Honey looked over at Wobbler. “I should have known you were behind this, Silver Lining. If I recall correctly, I informed you of the Flower Festival’s date four months in advance.” “You did?” “I clearly remember you smiling and acknowledging it before flying away.” “Maybe that was before I started writing that stuff down. Anyways, you could have just told me to move the storm.” “Perhaps I would have, if you had informed me that you were planning one.” “I do tell you! I send you the forecasts two weeks before they happen.” Wobbler pointed at a sheet of paper on the mayor’s desk. “See, there it is.” The three ponies looked at the report. Indeed, it was a very detailed forecast. It laid out exact wind speeds and directions at the various times of day, visibility, cloud types, opacity and coverage, high and low temperatures, barometric pressures, exact amounts of precipitation, even the dew point. On today’s line was the little ‘SVA’ acronym indicating a severe thunderstorm, although the start time was two hours off. “You mean this pile of numbers? I’m not a weatherpony; I can’t read this.” “Well it does say that there’s a storm today. You never told me you couldn’t read it. But we can finish the storm up early and have the rest of it next weekend!” Wobbler smiled as lightning flashed outside. “It’s too late now. Might as well just let it pour at this point.” “Will do! Come on, Starry, we got a volleyball game going on top of the cloud layer!” Wobbler began to trot out. Stormy hesitantly followed. The mayor opened her mouth to say something, then simply heaved a sigh and turned away. Outside, Stormy stepped in a shallow puddle. Looking down, she saw that it was filled with petals. There were planters lining the streets, their flowers now drooping in the unrelenting rain. A large banner dangled into the thoroughfare, hanging by one end. A lightning flash briefly illuminated it, but its text was illegible from its colors running. Stormy looked at the sky. This is my storm, she thought. I made this. This is what I’m capable of. --- Hey Stormy! I waited a few days after I got your letter so I think that storm of yours should be going by the time you get this. You’re one lucky pony, able to make all the rain you want while I have to work the irrigation pipes to water my plants. Hope you’re nice and cool in all that rain. I’ve had to sit in a hot classroom all day learning what I already know about crop rotation. Boring! Say hi to your friends for me! -Strawberry --- Several beams of sunlight shone into Whinnypeg. The storm had exhausted its power and several diligent weather ponies were exercising their talents to bring the sunshine in. The rainpony laid on one of the remaining clouds, looking down over the edge. Many of the earth ponies and unicorns below were cleaning up the remains of the failed Flower Festival. “Whatcha looking at, Starry?” “Stormy. Just all the ponies down there, cleaning up my mess. Mind if I head down and help?” “I don’t see why, but sure thing! Ooh, and give the mayor this week’s weather on the way.” Wobbler passed a sheet of paper to Stormy. “Thanks.” Stormy took the page and flew down. Below, the mayor was busy giving a unicorn a pushbroom to telekinetically pick wet petals off of when Stormy landed. “Good morning, Miss Starry Isles. What brings an illustrious weatherpony like yourself down to our humble town?” “That’s Stormy Nights, miss mayor.” “But Silver Lining said...” the mayor paused, then gave a frustrated grunt. “Um, yeah. I uh, brought the forecast for you.” “Oh just place it on the pile,” the mayor said, pointing at a pile of wet leaves, “with the rest of the trash. I don’t know why she bothers sending reports I can’t understand.” Stormy unfolded the page and began to read. “Well, looks like the storm clouds will be cleared out by late tonight, and it will warm up a little over the week, with light clouds for a few days. And some scattered showers next Thursday.” The mayor’s face softened. “Thank you. It’s refreshing to meet a pony who can explain these things for a change. Although... rain next Thursday? Miss Lining scheduled rain for the Princess’s visit?” Stormy started. “Princess Celestia is coming here?” “Yes, she likes to check up on new towns like ours... at least that disaster of a storm that you made isn’t going to happen then.” Stormy winced. “Um, I’m really sorry about the storm. Is there anything I can do to help clean up?” “A weatherpony wants to help down here? Of course, we could use a pegasus to move some of the debris that we’ve gathered to the bonfire.” “There’s going to be a bonfire?” “Yes, at the end of the Flower Festival we were going to make a bonfire out of the old flowers. The scent would waft through the town for days afterwards... weather permitting. I asked the townsponies and they decided to have the fire despite the festival’s cancellation.” Stormy grabbed a net and began hovering. “All right, what do I do?” --- The sun set on an exhausted pegasus returning to her home, a black mass of hollowed out clouds that flickered every so often. Another pegasus was waiting for her there. “There you are, Starry! What’ve you been doing all day?” “Stormy. I was making things right. Speaking of, did you know that Princess Celestia is going to be visiting next Thursday?” “Yup!” “And you planned on a quarter inch of precipitation then?” “Yup!” “Isn’t it a little inappropriate to rain on the Princess?” “Why? I’m sure it rains in Canterlot too.” “Um...” Stormy pondered. “Maybe Princess Celestia goes on trips to get out of Canterlot’s rain? I’m sure she would appreciate some sunny weather out here.” “Huh. Never thought of that. Sure, I can move the shower to Saturday. I hope the mayor won’t mind the change of forecast.” “I don’t think she will. One more thing, on Wednesday can we please have a wind of three knots out of bearing 085 for two days? Call it a personal favor.” “Hm, I don’t see why. But I don’t see why not either, since I’m already changing my forecasts!” “Thanks a lot. The ponies below are really going to appreciate it when I tell them tomorrow.” Wobbler tilted her head. “You’re going down there again? I mean I won’t need you until next Thursday... I mean Saturday.” She giggled. “Just don’t break a wing or anything; I can’t have my rainpony out of action.” Stormy smiled and stuck out her left wing. “Been there, done that.” “Ha ha, really? What happened?” “I woke up one day in a hospital bed with a broken wing and a skull fracture. Day it happened is a total blank. But I was a pretty clumsy filly back then.” “Broke mine too, believe it or not! I was in the living room playing with my toys when the funniest thing happened.” Wobbler grinned. “The ceiling just fell down on me! Me under this big old pile of wood! Wing got smashed into lots of itty-bitty pieces! Hehe it hurt a whole lot. Mom and Dad dug me out and Mom flew me to the hospital. Silly doctors said I’d never be able to fly, but I sure showed them, didn’t I?” Wobbler opened her wings. Stormy realized that she had never gotten a good look at them before. There was a break in the line of the primary feathers on her right wing, only two of her secondary feathers sat right, and her right wing was slightly smaller than her left. It even curved differently. “I... I had no idea...” Stormy said. “I’m so sorry.” Wobbler just grinned back. “Hehehe, I don’t mind. It only hurts some of the time nowadays.” She took off, and began swaying in the air as she always had. “I’ll make sure to change the forecast like you said, Stormy. Good night and be safe down there!” Stormy watched Wobbler corkscrew away. “Yeah... good night.”