//------------------------------//
// Are Falling On My Head 
// Story: Raindrops 
// by Intet22 
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“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.” ― Vivian Greene



Rain… It was something that Twilight Sparkle loved ever since she was a filly. From the day she was born, the seemingly simple weather condition would draw her gaze whenever it graced her with it’s presence. In her early foalhood years, the weather condition would draw her with the elegant sounds of raindrops colliding with the roof and windows of her old home. The pitter patter sounds of the rain would echo calmly across the house’s interior, filling it with a peaceful noise that would often lull the young filly to sleep quicker than any song that her parents could ever hope to sing. 

After Twilight had grown out of those beginning years of her life, the rain found another way to draw her attention. It reached out and called to her with an alluring request to come out and play in its torrential domain. Just like any other filly that had just surpassed their baby years, Twilight would accept the call of the weather and frantically ran outside to jump in all of the puddles that the rain offered to her. For countless hours, the lavender filly would play outside in the water, smiling without a single care in the world and having the time of her life. To her, nothing was better than the rain, and she’d enjoy every single second that she possibly could when it was around. However, even though she’d always wish for the weather to stay longer than it did, the rain would never be able to stay forever. 

Once the rainstorm was finished, the dark clouds would depart and Twilight would be forced to retreat back to her home, her head hung low in sadness that her close friend had left her alone once again. But even though her mood was sullen with sorrow, it was always quickly remedied by the sight of her parents sitting and patiently waiting with a fresh mug of hot chocolate and a warm towel for her to remove the water that tightly clung to her fur. After drying herself, Twilight would often retreat to the living room of her family’s small wooden home, where she would cuddle up with her family members beside a nice warm fire. Once everypony was present in the humbly sized room, the happy family would all sit and discuss the small things that each of them found enjoyable. For her parents, it was the stars that covered the night skies and the bountiful book collection that her father had amassed over the years. For her beloved brother, Shining Armor, it was the sense of pride and appreciation that he felt for all of the soldiers that agreed to give their lives to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. And for the young Twilight sparkle, it was the memorable experience that she just had in the rain’s damp domain.

But, those times of simple childhood enjoyment quickly passed and Twilight found herself becoming less and less interested in the allure that the rain had on her. The weather was no longer like a siren’s call to her ears. Instead of going out to play like she would when she was young, the violet mare would stay indoors with the new literary love of her life. For hours she would lay on the family couch, with some new book levitated perfectly in her magical aura while the storm bellowed outside. Page after page she’d continue to read and while she did so, the rain would continuously beg for Twilight to come out and enjoy it’s gift like the many times that she had before. Unfortunately for the rain, those calls always fell on deaf ears, never to be answered no matter how hard it pleaded towards its old friend.

This however all changed one fateful day, when Twilight stumbled upon one surprisingly interesting book during one of her many all night reading sessions. It was a fairly simple book, nothing too special by any means of the word. It didn’t have the page count that the countless number of books that towered throughout the unicorn’s small bedroom, nor did it have the name of some famous author sprawled across it’s bright yellow cover. What it did have was a title. A simple title that read in thick black bold letters, The Science Behind Weather Around Us. With a quick shrug of her shoulders, Twilight reached out to grab the book from the bountiful stack of paperbacks that towered beside her. Once the small novel was hovering patiently in front of her muzzle, Twilight pushed outward with a quick telekinetic push of her magic and dove into the book’s paper domain. 

Instantly, Twilight found that her love for the rain was rekindled once again. The playful nature of her filly years that had laid dormant in her for so long roared back to life with a spark that stretched along her entire body. Page by page, the spark continued to increase in size, and Twilight found herself becoming lost in the information that simple book imparted to its reader. The previously unknown degree of science and knowledge that was applied whenever the skies released their water upon the ground below, drew the mare in, like a moth to a flame, and within a couple of short hours, the small book on weather was finished. Twilight however found that the small amount of information was simply not enough to satisfy her need to learn about the simple thing that had effortlessly drawn her attention for almost her entire foalhood life. So in order to satisfy the need that clawed at her mind, the mare delved into whatever academic knowledge that she could access. Books upon countless books in weather theory and application, revealed the staggering amount of scientific knowledge that was applied whenever the skies released the water upon the ground below. 

With the vast amount of novels and academic textbooks defeated by her need for knowledge, Twilight was amazed to find out that her previous belief of traditional pegasi magic being the only factor in creating rainstorms was not entirely correct. While pegasi magic did have a central point in jumpstarting both cloud and storm creation, it was not the only thing that they had to provide in order to build the perfect storm. In addition, the pegasi also had to apply the knowledge of thermal currents and weather manipulation that was given to them in the long training periods that all weather ponies had to go through during their years of schooling. For four hard years, they were taught on the subject and only after they had finished all of their studies, were they allowed to apply their knowledge to the skies above.

Jealous of pegasi’s ability and knowledge to summon her old friend as they pleased, Twilight set out to do something that was deemed to be impossible by other unicorns at the time. She, like many others before her, wanted to devise a way to control the weather just like the pegasi did. So over the course of many long nights, Twilight researched and developed countless theories designed to control the skies above. One of the theories that the unicorn tried at the time involved developing a complex machine that would directly influence the ambient magical currents in the air in order to shape the clouds and provide the jumpstart that usually came from her winged brethren. While the idea was fundamentally sound in nature, the application of it turned out to be catastrophic. A year’s worth of research and mechanical construction were instantly flushed down the drain when she flicked the machine on and nothing happened after several painstaking hours passed.

Not fully deterred by her machine’s result, Twilight continued to research and apply her vast amounts of derived experiments. Unfortunately, during her attempts at trying to overcome the impossible task, Twilight quickly realized that there was a fundamental problem that she may not ever overcome. Unicorn magic or any other kind of magic for that matter, simply didn’t have the necessary magical resonance that the inherent magic found within all pegasi did. The magical frequency needed to match the weather system’s in order to start the necessary chain of events, and Twilight knew from her studies that changing the frequency of the magic around her would almost be impossible. Knowing full well that the solution was out of her grasp, Twilight admitted defeat after two years of exhaustive study.

This defeat however did not change how she felt about the rain. If anything, the research into the subject made her love for it stronger than ever. Before her time behind the books, the unicorn would simply be happy listening to the peaceful sounds of the rain in the dry comfort of her living room. The pitter patter sounds were still like a siren’s call to her ears. Every time the sounds whispered their soft chorus in her ears Twilight would sit perfectly still, smiling happily with a warm cup of coffee until the storm ran it’s course. The research into her old friend however changed this simple behaviour, replacing it with the old way she acted towards the rain when she was a young filly. Now when the rain beckoned her, Twilight would heed her persistent inner child’s wishes to run out in the storm to play in the torrent of water. 

Sure she may have looked completely idiotic to the miscellaneous ponies that saw her giggling like a young school filly as she jumped from puddle to puddle, but she didn’t care what they thought. To her, their was simply nothing better than the zenful feeling the rain provided during it’s short life span. The smell of the fresh rainwater would combine with the aroma of the crisp air, filling her with a childish sense of euphoria that would surge throughout her body. All of her muscles would quickly relax and she’d often find herself letting go of all of the negative emotions that had hidden themselves in the deep recesses of her mind. Breath by breath, second by second, jump by playful jump, the sense would continue to work it’s way through her until she was relaxed in every sense of the word. No negative thoughts filled her head and no pain was present in her body. 

It was only her and the rain, and that was all that mattered.