Chapter 6: Early Summer
A Gift from Celestia
Chapter 6: Early Summer
Admiral Biscuit
Day thirty of my imprisonment. Conditions are harsh. Food is limited, and the guards are suspicious of the slightest hint of resistance. I will—
“Ditzy? Are you paying attention?” Lightning Bolt looked over at her in concern.
“Uh, yeah. Kind of.”
The weathermare shook her head. “Rainclouds. We’re going to position them on the west end of the Apple’s orchard, buck them to get the rain going, and then let them drift east. We’ll want to corral them at the other end of the field, ‘cause this is a special order.”
Ditzy sighed. What had started out as kind of fun had become—over the course of a month—a job. How could somepony do the same thing, day in and day out, every day for the rest of her life? At least this was a change from wrangling the so-called ‘white fluffies,’ which had been her main chore to date.
“You’ve got to watch the clouds carefully. There might be some with lightning in them, and we don’t want to use those. They could hurt the trees, or burn down the barn.”
“How come they even make them with lightning?” Ditzy looked at her sheepishly. "I left Las Pegasus before we got to advanced cloudwork."
“There’s always a difference in thaumatic energy potential between the sky and the ground. In regions mostly populated by pegasi, the field tends to rise, while the opposite happens in unicorn-dense areas. Only exclusively earth ponie settlements are largely neutral, because of the nature of their hooves.
“If left unattended, the potential would become so unbalanced, lightning would form on its own, and strike from the sky to the ground—or vice-versa—and somepony could get hurt. With small lightning clouds, we can control the strikes and keep them small.”
Ditzy looked at Lightning in surprise. It made sense that she would know that, with her cutie mark and all, but it was the most intelligent thing she’d ever heard Lightning say. Normally, their conversations had been limited to a recap of the hoofball scores, which actors were the most attractive, or bitter tirades against incompetent ponies.
“How do you know which ones have lightning in them? They all look the same.”
“It’ll have a kind of bristly feel, or maybe be clingy on your hooves. If you’re not sure, just set it aside and try a different cloud. I’ll double-check. It’s not something we want to get wrong. The Apples have a lot of influence in this town.
"Now, there's going to be some rough air over the farm." Ditzy's ears perked—she loved updrafts and thermals. She waited patiently for her mentor to tell her were they were, but Lightning just gazed down at the neat rows of apple trees. "Not much, I think. It's pretty early in the day, and the ground's not warm yet. We'll set them up about mid-height and just keep an eye on them." She grabbed a cloud and pushed it into position, carefully shaping the edges with her hooves. "You work north, and I'll work south. Pay attention to your altitude."
Ditzy nodded and grabbed a cloud. She eagerly pulled it loose and shoved it right into Lightning.
“I said north!”
“Oops.” Ditzy clutched the cloud carefully. “I thought that was north.” She'd always had trouble with directions. When she stopped to think about it for a little bit, she got it right, but when she was in the heat of the moment, like as not she'd just turn to her right and assume that was the direction she was meant to go.
“Canterlot’s east.” Lightning let go of her cloud and pointed. “So, that makes that north.”
“Yeah . . . I kinda forgot.” Ditzy’s ears drooped. “I’m sorry.”
“S’okay.” Lighting grabbed her cloud back and neatly stuck it to the first one she’d placed. Ditzy watched how she did it—it had been a long time since she’d practiced back in Las Pegasus, and good rainclouds out there were hard to come by. She stretched the south end of her cloud out and started to pull it into position, only to have the face contract before it was positioned. She tried again, leaving the two closer. They barely stuck, and she had to climb on top and pull the edges together by hoof.
By her third cloud, she was beginning to get frustrated. They weren’t made right, that was obviously the problem. Any moment now, Lightning would start complaining about the low quality of clouds again—Ditzy could recite verbatim some of her more cutting remarks.
But when she went back for the fourth, she looked over and realized that Lightning was nearly a hundred pony-lengths away, sticking clouds together with a practiced efficiency. Ditzy shook her head and grabbed another.
She was rewarded with a slight tingle in her hooves and a funny little flutter in her chest. That was weird. She grabbed it loose from the pile just as Lightning flew over. “Whatcha got?”
“I—is this one a lightning cloud?”
Her mentor poked a hoof in it and quickly withdrew it. “Yup. Powerful one, at that. Set it off to the side. Over there, by the road.”
Ditzy flew it off to the side, and set it more-or-less where Lightning had suggested. The weathermare was looking up and down the road, concentrating on something. Ditzy followed her eyes, but didn’t see anything of interest. “Okay, it’s over here. What keeps it from drifting?”
“Nothing,” Lightning informed her with a sly look. “Just . . . that's why you've got to mark it, you know. So it doesn’t get mixed in by mistake.”
“I’ll just mush in the top,” Ditzy said cheerfully. She flapped up a few dozen lengths, gauged the distance, and dropped like a stone onto its curvey top. The cloud flattened under her impact, sending a few small bits scattering off. “Is that a good—”
Ka-BOOM!
It felt like nails had been driven into all four of her frogs simultaneously, and her wings painfully snapped to their full extension. She could smell something burning, and blinked spots out of her eyes, noticing that the very tips of her primaries were scorched, with thin tendrils of smoke rising from them.
Lightning was doubled over on top of a nearby raincloud, clutching her sides. For a moment, Ditzy thought she was hurt, but quickly realized she was laughing. She pulled her wings back in then lifted her hooves up one at a time and shook them off. It didn’t make the pain go away completely, but it helped.
“Oh, Celestia, that was priceless.” Lightning wiped a tear off her cheek. “The look on your face when the lightning went off. It was like, perfect. Oh, I wish I’d had a camera. Then both of your eyes rolled in opposite directions . . . how do you do that?”
“Funny.” Ditzy flew over and grabbed another cloud. “I could have been hurt.”
“Pfft. That was just a tiny little guy. Nothing but a tingle.” Lightning picked up a fresh cloud and started flying it back towards her end. “Anyway, now you know what they feel like. And you’ll remember.”
I’ll remember all right. Ditzy stuck another cloud on the row. I’ll get you back, Lightning. She stuck another cloud on. Maybe I’ll put hot peppers in your lunch some day. Her hooves still felt kind of funny, and her wings were sore, like they’d just cramped up.
By the time they’d finished placing the rainclouds, though, all thoughts of revenge had flown from Ditzy’s mind. They'd been at it continuously since the weather briefing, and her stomach was demanding sustenance, but still they worked. The pair was bouncing from cloud to cloud, getting the rain going. Once again, Lightning made it look easy, while Ditzy was struggling with each one. As much as she wanted to place the blame at her mentor’s hooves, Ditzy had chosen each one of the clouds herself, and it was unlikely that Lightning had somehow had the opportunity to sabotage them. It’s just inexperience, she thought. The older mare made it look embarrassingly easy.
“Shouldn't take more than two bounces.”
Ditzy jumped in surprise.
“Sorry. Shouldn't take more than two bounces to get the rain going.”
“Tell that to this stupid cloud.” Ditzy hopped up and down fruitlessly. “It doesn’t want to work.”
“Mmm hmm. You’re not doing it right.”
Not doing it right my pinions. “It’s just not cooperating. I'll get it eventually.”
“Yeah, they’ll do that. Move aside for a sec.” Lightning took Ditzy’s place. “Watch my hooves. I’m going to drop and stomp when I hit. It’s kind of like . . . like a counterforce.”
Ditzy watched intently. Lightning had her legs slightly bent, and as soon as they touched the top of the cloud, she straightened them hard, snapping down into the top of the cloud for a moment before it buoyed her back upwards, launching her up into the air again. Rain started pouring out of the cloud instantly.
“So, it’s like when you jump off the ground before taking flight?”
“Kinda.” Lightning moved on the to next cloud and effortlessly got it flowing. “You’ve got to do it right when you hit. It’s kind of like you’re catching the cloud by surprise.”
“That’s dumb. Shouldn’t one good kick trigger them?”
“Nah. If it did, they’d leak in shipping, and we’d get empty clouds.”
"But the rainclouds in the Las Pegasus lab—"
Lighting rolled her eyes. “Oh, Las Pegasus clouds. All they did there was take them from the student weather factory to the lab. They wouldn’t have time to leak out.”
Ditzy turned on her. “Is there something wrong with having an education at the best pegasus school in Equestria?”
“No . . . I—" Lightning dropped down on her cloud and rubbed a hoof through her mane. "Look, Dtiz, I can be . . . prickly. It’s just that nopony seems to care about these little towns. We get crap for clouds, and we’ve got a second-rate weathermare in charge. But look down there, and tell me what you see.”
“Corn? Apple trees?”
“Yeah. Corn and apple trees. Over there’s carrots, tomatoes on the other end of town, cherry orchards, and everypony’s got their own little garden, too. Who gets the good clouds? The stupid unicorns in Canterlot and Manehattan. You know what they grow there?”
“Um. . . . “ Ditzy scratched her head. Pencils had covered Equestrian agriculture in school; there had been all sorts of little maps and lists and stuff like that. She’d had to write a report on barley, of all things. That didn’t grow in Canterlot, she was sure. But there were all sorts of fancy gardens around the palace, she’d been told, probably like the vegetable and flower gardens around every house in Ponyville.
“Nothing but bureaucrats and nobles; that’s their crop. You’d think that the ponies who grew the food would get decent weather, but nope! Blueblood’s fancy tea-parties are more important. Sometimes I wonder if the nobles really have our best interests at heart?” She spit at a cloud, missed, and watched it disappear among the raindrops. “Ah well, what can you do? G’wan, why don’t you take a break. Get something to eat. I’ll keep an eye on these clouds.”
Ditzy nodded eagerly, and flew back in the direction of Ponyville. She kept an eye out for ponies she knew, giving an occasional wave as she passed over a friend. They usually didn't see her—most ground ponies didn't spend a lot of time looking up.
She dropped sharply when she got over the market, alighting in front of her favorite stall.
"You're later'n usual," the stallion commented.
"I know, I know." Ditzy reached into her small purse and pulled a quarter-bit out. "We had an important rain order." She tapped a hoof impatiently as the stallion reached into his cask with tongs, and pulled out a glistening pickle. He deftly wrapped it in a small square of waxed paper and passed it over to her.
"Thanks!" She turned tail and leaped into the sky, heading for her favorite lunch spot. Once she was clear of the market, she banked into a slow left turn, angling for a hilly park on the west side of Ponyville. She'd spotted it on her third day at work, and had eaten her lunch there ever since. It was a pretty nice place, with a good view from some of the benches. Her favorite was under a spreading chestnut tree, which gave her good shade, a commanding view, and was close enough to the center of the park that she usually got serenaded by the buskers—but was far enough away from everypony else she was rarely besieged by playful fillies.
As she dug into her bag for a sandwich, she waved a hoof at Mr. Apple, who was towing a wagon through town. He sometimes gave her a free apple. “We’ve put some rain out at your place,” she shouted.
“Trees’ve been needin’ it,” he boomed back. “Got some nice Red Galas comin’ in tomorrow; why don’t ya come by the stand when you’re offa work? You an’ Lightning?”
“Thanks!” She watched him thoughtfully as he continued through town. Her mother always looked down her muzzle at earth ponies, but they weren’t bad when you got used to them. Their coats were always kind of mucky, though.
She tore into her sandwich and devoured it in moments. She’d been eating more than usual lately, probably because of all the weather work she’d been doing. It seemed easy enough in class, but ten hours of it a day was starting to wear her down. Last weekend, she’d slept in so late she missed lunch. She was still hungry, so she walked over to a patch of flowers. Looking to make sure nopony was watching, she stuck her head down and bit the heads off half the patch.
• • •
“How was work today?”
“Meh.” Ditzy reached across the table and grabbed a bowl of pickle relish. “It went okay. I got to work with rainclouds.”
“Your maternal grandmare was a raincloud specialist. She started off in a factory, you know. She figured out how to improve the water intakes on the inlet end of the factory. Before that—”
The pegasi had to take the clouds all the way down to the reservoir to fill them, Ditzy mouthed. “I know, Mom. She met Grandpa Do there.”
“And she swept him off his hooves.” Unconcerned with the interruption, she continued. “The two of them went on to work out a new shape of raincloud, which had a fifteen-percent greater water capacity, while still being easy to manufacture using existing equipment. It—are you going to have any salad with your relish?”
“What?” Ditzy muttered around the serving spoon. “I really like relish.”
“You didn’t used to. You used to scrape it off your plate, or give it to your father. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“All t'work she’s doing. Allus flyin'—big change from sittin' in school all day, tha knows.”
“Hmm. Could be.” Her mother fixed her with a glare. “She’s a young mare now, I guess tastes change. You know, I ought to tell you about growing up. Your body’s changing, and soon enough you’ll—”
“Mom! Not at dinner, please. We covered all this stuff in school.”
Ditzy glanced nervously around the classroom, where all her classmates were looking at the chalkboard with interest and unease. The drawings were nothing they hadn't seen before, but to have a teacher explain it somehow made it both official and awkward. Most of the mares rapidly adapted a feigned familiarity, while the colts shifted around in their seats, hoping to not be the first to show an obvious interest.
For once, she had an unfair advantage, since she could blame any glances or stares on the vagaries of her eyes; nopony could challenge that. And the first part of the class was such a waste of time, as the teacher gave the proper names for anatomical features that were plain to anypony with eyes. The second half of the class was more technical, as the teacher began describing in detail just how the sex act worked, to barely-concealed whispers and snickers.
When he wasn't looking, Raindrops made lewd motions with her hooves, adopting an attentive look any time she saw his ears turn back.
Ditzy mostly ignored her friend and doodled in her notebook instead, occasionally casting sidelong glances over at the gangly colt who sat next to her. It was difficult to imagine how such a clinical description could be in any way arousing, especially when compared to the magazines some of the older mares had passed around in the locker room—yet the colt next to her didn't seem to think so. His desk was poor cover, and she found herself wondering how he'd react if she just presented to him then and there. And then it occurred to her that her parents had done the very same thing the teacher was describing to make her, which was a disturbing thought that quickly shut down her nascent libido.
Ditzy’s face reddened. “All the . . . stuff, and junk.”
“Well, I certainly hope your teacher used a more technical vocabulary than ‘stuff and junk.’
“She did.” Ditzy pushed her plate away. “I think I lost my appetite.”
“Eat the rest of your dinner!” Her mother pushed the plate back. “I slaved over it. There are starving zebras that would love to eat what you’re getting.”
Why don’t you give it to them, then? She poked at the limp asparagus on her plate, finally picking one up and gamely chewing on it. “I hate asparagus. It makes my pee stink.”
“That’s the price you pay for a healthy body,” her mother said flatly.
• • •
Ditzy stood in the shower, letting the water clean the mess off the floor. She’d been sick again, for the fourth day in a row. It was weird; she hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and she felt all right for the rest of the day. Maybe a little tired, but that was all.
Is it altitude sickness? She’d heard of it, but it wasn’t the kind of thing a pegasus normally got. Still, she’d spent a lot of time on the ground through the winter. Maybe it took a while before it caught up to a pony. She stretched out her wings and let the water drum off them, wondering if that would settle the nausea. Maybe I should see if we have any ginger root in the house.
She kicked the cloud to stop the flow and stepped out of the shower. She shook herself off, flapping her wings a couple times for good measure, before flipping a towel over her back. Yawning, she looked into the mirror at her disheveled mane. I should really run a brush through that.
As she slipped the brush on her hoof, her stomach grumbled again, and then clenched. She leaned over the sink until the waves of nausea passed, thankful that nothing had come up this time.
Five minutes later, she was at the breakfast table, pouring a bowl of oats out. She dumped a little water in them and idly stirred it with a spoon
“Is tha feelin' okay, lass?”
“Yes, Papa.” Ditzy began eating her breakfast.
“Didn't sound like it t'me,” he replied, setting down his coffee and tilting his head upward.
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
The two of them ate in silence. Ditzy tried to ignore her father, who was watching her with a thoughtful expression. She concentrated on eating each spoonful in a nice, normal manner. Just two normal ponies having a normal breakfast together.
“Tha looks a little . . . different.”
“It’s just all the weather work,” she said quickly. “That's all. It’s stressful, you know.”
“Is tha gettin' enough sleep?”
“Yes, Papa.” Ditzy took her bowl to the sink and rinsed it out. “I’ve got to go. Lightning said something about a special order today, ‘cause they’re gearing up for the Summer Sun Celebration. I think we’re gonna work in the warehouse today. Maybe all day. I don’t want to be late.”
“Uh-huh.” He pulled out his coin purse and slid a bit across the table. “Take care of thissen out there, lass.”
“I will! I’m—I might be a little late getting home. I wanna write a letter to Raindrops after work.” She walked over to his desk and started opening drawers. “Where’s the stamps?”
“With t'envelopes., where they've allus been.”
“Ok, thanks.” She stuffed everything in her bag. “Gotta run!”
• • •
Dear Raindrops:
Hey, it’s almost time for the Summer Sun Celebration! Are they giving you time off from camp to go? We’re going. Mom got us tickets on the train. I don’t know why we aren’t just flying, but I’ve never been on the train before, so that’s kind of cool. Although I don't know if Mom will like it, cause there will be lots of earth ponies and unicorns on the train I bet and she doesn’t get along with them too well.
So remember my mentor? Turns out she’s kind of a—well, you know—but she’s teaching me lots of stuff that we never covered in class. It’s funny how they do weather around here, but it’s all for the farmers. Some of them actually have rain gauges on their property, and they complain if we don’t drop enough water. I guess that makes sense. I’ve met a couple of really cool ponies in town, too. There’s a nice mare that runs a pastry shop. She’s got a kind of funny accent, it sounds like she comes from up north somewhere. Like Vanhoover, or something. She’s got her eyes on this gangly stallion, can you imagine? It’s pretty funny. And I found a pony in town who sells pickles! We never had those in Las Pegasus. They’re really good. I’ve been buying one for lunch every day, from what little I make on weather patrol.
Mother’s pretty much the same as always, but Papa’s been a little off, I think. Maybe he’s going stir-crazy. Maybe he’s allergic to the smell of crops. Speaking of which, I’ve been feeling a little sick in the mornings. I don’t know what’s up with that. Maybe it’s altitude sickness, or it could be because of all the earth ponies, messing up the field. There’s weird currents here; the forest around the town is a wild zone. Not even clouds work right over it, can you imagine?
Well, I’ve got to get back to work. If you’re in Canterlot for the Summer Sun Celebration, look for me. I can’t wait to catch up with you.
—Ditzy D.
Oh—I need to get back to long-distance flying. I think I’m getting fat. You’d think that working in the clouds all day would keep me skinny, but I kid you not, I think my tummy’s bigger.
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And life goes on for Derpy, although to a far greater extent than she currently realises.
I just got the meaning of the title.
Ah yes. Under a spreading chestnut tree, the village Ditzy snacks.
Uh oh. This is not going to go well
And this is why we will never have a one-night-stand.
Seriously though, they taught the act but not the consequence? There's going to be not fun times ahead when the family finds out....
Keep going! ;)
4907436
Yes, that's exactly right.
4907506
4907965
I'm so glad somebody got the reference.
4908110
It never does, does it?
4908601
I would imagine that they did cover sex = the pitter patter of tiny hooves, but--for reasons which will be explained later in the story, and in various blog entries--the education was less complete than it ought to have been.
4909621 yeah it's obvious here in America that little thought was placed in sex education, what with teen pregnancy on the rise and all that. I can easily see distraction as a source of forgetfulness.
4909726
Actually, it's been on a continuous decline since '91.
Nevertheless, we could do better, and we ought to be teaching adolescents all the facts, rather than skipping some parts (like they did in my school) out of a fear it would encourage kids to have sex.
4909972 Or maybe general intelligence is on a decline and most teenagers are just really stupid when it comes to good judgement calls. BUT HEY, NO WAY KIDS IN SCHOOL CAN BE STUPID, AMIRITE?
Who's G'wan?
________________
Anywho's. Was that her first heat? If so, it's kinda sad that her parents didn't give her the Estrus talk before, and that she ignored what they taught in school. And I heard Estrus was bad for horses [not health wise, but it makes them sex hungry]. Which makes it even worse that Ditzy stumbled into this the way she did.
6398148 Go on.
yeah, this is pretty annoying, California deals with stuff like this with droughts. Southern California is so wasteful, they would have no restrictions. LA had a massive pipe break and it took hours (and millions of gallons of water) for it to be shut off. On the other hand, farmers in northern california were dealing with water rationing and the irrigation water where i grew up would literally just get shut off (all the houses were on wells for drinking water). you'd go to turn on the hose and nothing would come out.
8380059
Agreed--there are places in the country--and California is one of them--where watering your lawn ought to be illegal. Plant native plants that don't need so much water to survive.
Of course, another part of the problem is that it isn't easy to move the water where it's needed. If the infrastructure isn't in place, there's no easy way to move lots of water. Maybe y'all should start to tow icebergs down from Alaska.