Chapter 2: Weather Patterns
Broken Accords
Chapter Two: Weather Patterns
By Somber
Ponyville didn’t have an actual dungeon, but it did have a jail. It consisted of one room in the basement of town hall with a lock, a cot, a stack of old books, and a toilet in the corner. It didn’t see much use; after all, most ponies were good, law abiding people who never caused trouble and generally didn’t make problems for each other. Even when they did, like Twilight Sparkle casting mind control magic on fillies or Rarity turning the roads to gold, they usually weren’t enough of a risk to merit confinement. Only when a pony seriously harmed another by their actions, or would attempt to flee justice, did they dust off the keys and lock a pony up.
For Stormy Skies, it proved surprisingly effective torture.
She curled up on her cot, eyes clenched shut, refusing to look at the walls. She had a history with this room… every time she was thrown in here, it tried to crush her. If she looked at the walls, the admittedly spacious room would slowly seem a lot smaller. Too small to fly. Too small to breathe. Of course guards didn’t like ponies that yelled and screamed to be let out. She’d learned that the hard way, too. Last time she’d sworn to never ever end up back in here again… but here she was. She didn’t even know if she should bother writing her family. No pony in Cloudsdale was going to visit her.
Instead, Stormy kept playing over the events in her mind to keep the thoughts of those stone walls grinding slowly- okay, stop it! Focus! Rosewing had tried to kill her. Not beat up. Not thump upside the head. Kill with a capital k. And a capital ill. And a capital ‘what the heck?!’ following it.
It made no sense. Like lots of weather pegasi, they’d both come from Cloudsdale. They hadn’t been close, but they’d known each other. Eaten relatively regularly together in the cafeteria at Cloudsdale Elementary. Rosewing had been a Wonderbolt groupie, like Rainbow Dash, but never a serious athlete. She had plenty of hornhead and dirtpony jokes. Ones that even got her in trouble a few times. Stormy had been transferred to Ponyville after her first big screw up, and lost touch with Rosewing for a few years. Then Rosewing transferred to Ponyville.
That’s it. Nothing to kill her over.
‘I like you. You don’t ask questions,’ she’d said. Well, Stormy was certainly asking them now, particularly because doing so kept her from speculating on how the walls were actually, magically shrinking around her. Probably personal.
That’d been Class A lightning. Maybe a little low on the oscilation, but still Class A. Class A didn’t just happen outside of the Everfree Forest. Ponies had to make Class A lightning, like when Discord and the Changelings ran amok. Few ponies outside the lightning fans knew that when Equestria had been threatened by those enemies, a few Class A bolts had been manufactured. Heck, they might have had some left around from when Nightmare Moon returned.
One of those bolts had gotten stuck in the cloud. That was major, exiled from Equestria and stuck in a dungeon wherever you were exiled to crime. But why? Stormy would do it just to see lightning like that go off… somewhere safe of course. The Appaloosan desert was a favorite spot for pegasi who just loved the flash and crackle; the lightning community. But killing for it? That was… about as unsettling as being in this cell.
Rosewing couldn’t have stuck the lightning in the cloud from Ponyville. Rainbow Dash was probably the only pony who could fly to Cloudsdale and back before anypony knew. So that meant somepony at the Cloudsdale Weather-works had snuck out a Class A bolt and put it into the cloud for her. Big risk. What was the payoff though?
Stormy Skies’s thought process came to an abrupt halt. Beyond entertainment or trying to drive off an attacking dragon, there was no other use for Class A lightning. None that she was aware of, anyway.
She cracked open her eyes and glanced at the window wondering just how long she’d be down here. The problem was the window was connected to the wall. The wall looked awfully close. Way too close. She clenched her eyes closed, pressing her wings into the wall behind her. How many feet were between them? A dozen? A half dozen? Any second she’d feel the walls contact her hooves, squeezing… squeezing…
The door clanked open and her eyes popped wide, the walls popping back to where they’d been when she’d first been stuck in here. ‘Next time’ they seemed to promise. She stared at the guard pony, a white pegasus stallion, panting hard with her heart thundering in her chest. Sweat beaded her brow. “Are you alright? I thought I heard shouting.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m just ducky,” she panted, trying to hide her near panic attack. “Can I get out now?” In addition to her near panic in the cell, she felt battered and sore from the assault and tumble. Sadly, it was impossible to tell the latter from the former. She’d been bandaged up, given a few stitches and some asprin; she wasn’t even sure she could fly.
“We have some questions,” the guard said, stepped back and letting her out. She wasted no time stepping out into the hall. Together, they trotted back upstairs and to Ponyville’s courtroom. It also doubled as its assembly, meeting room, and reception hall. Stormy balked, looking at him uncertainly. Wasn't he going to question her down the hall in the guard station? “Other ponies have some questions for you,” the guard said evenly. Other ponies? What other po-
Princess Twilight Sparkle sat in the middle of a long table. To her left sat Rainbow Dash, to her right Mayor Mare. On the left edge, a stern yellow pegasus in a blue and gold thunderbolt uniform tapped her hoof against the tabletop while on the right edge sat a purple unicorn stallion in guard armor. It took Stormy a few seconds to place the pegasus with Spitfire, from one of Rainbow Dash’s posters. Stormy’s legs abruptly weakened.
A soft purple glow kept her from collapsing. Appearing before a Princess, the Mayor, her boss, the head of the Wonderbolts, and… whoever the purple guy was… well… all she needed was for Princess Celestia to fly in and that would be that! The magical field lifted her up, and Twilight’s horn flashed and conjured a comfy, simple purple chair for her to sit on. “Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long, Stormy Skies. Things have been a little bit crazy,” Twilight Sparkle said as she sorted through her papers.
“S’allright,” Stormy muttered.
Twilight gave her an encouraging smile; the only pony at the table who did. “Now, I read the statement you gave when you arrived here in town hall. According to you, Rosewing attacked you when your partner found a bolt of Class B light-“
“It was class A,” Stormy corrected, absently. Then it registered who she was correcting, and she swallowed hard.
Spitfire furrowed her brows. “From the damage, we surmised it was at most low grade Class B lightning bolt.”
What hack did they have analyzing the damage? “Sorry, but it was Class A,” Stormy said firmly. There were frowns, and several ponies wrote down notes. “I know lightning, ma’am. It was approximately one point one gigasparks, and the oscillation was all wonky, but it was class A.” More scribbling notes.
“Yes, you’ve had a very colorful history with lightning,” Mare Mayor said coolly as she regarded a scroll. “I believe it was your ‘lightning collection’ that destroyed town hall last year.”
“I didn’t know Ditzy was going to drop it!” Stormy Skies said heatedly, her face flushing. “That was nothing more than a collection of Class D lightning. If it hadn’t gone off all at once, the town hall lightning rod would have handled it.”
“Before that, you were supposed to be overseeing the lightning during a storm and things got so tornadoed that a tree ended up in Twilight’s bedroom,” Rainbow Dash said sharply. “You were only supposed to kick the clouds enough to let out a little lightning, not blow the tops off trees, Stormy!”
“Well… so I got a little excited! We never get cleared for lightning storms in Ponyville,” Stormy said, a familiar refrain. “And that tree had help getting into the library.”
Rainbow Dash started to retort when Twilight said brightly, “True. If Applejack had just left it alone, it probably would have been fine. She really doesn’t know her strength sometimes.” She glanced at the baffled Rainbow. “I told you we had a sleep over during the storm, remember?”
“You didn’t… I… ugh… fine. Okay, but still. You have to admit she has a pretty long term habit with lightning,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Indeed.” Spitfire nodded and lifted some papers with her wings. “It was lightning infractions that got you transferred out of Cloudsdale in the first place.” She read off the list, “Multiple inappropriate uses of lightning. Improper static disposal. Improper safety and transportation of lightning in the weather factory.”
“So what we want to know is was this just another ‘lightning collection’ that went off with tragic results?” Mayor Mare asked gravely, pressing her hooves on the table as she regarded Stormy Skies coolly. “While an accident will have consequences, they won’t be as dire if you admit them now.”
So that was it. “No!” Stormy said as she looked from one pony to the next. “This wasn’t another collection blowing up! It was Class A lightning.”
“We’ve run inventory and there was no Class A lightning missing,” Spitfire said flatly, taking some of the wind from under Stormy’s wings.
“But… what was Rosewing doing there? You sent her home sick!” Stormy asked Rainbow Dash.
The pegasus furrowed her brows in thought. “Well, I don’t know. Rose always liked doing a good job. I guess she didn’t want to let down the team just because she was sick.”
This was rapidly turning into a nightmare. If she were one of the Princess’s friends, no doubt they’d take her at her word. But she wasn’t… “But… it was… ask Misty Morning!” Stormy Skies pleaded. “She saw it.”
“We have,” Twilight Sparkle said as she lifted a different paper. “Unfortunately, she couldn’t identify the lightning. Only that it was ‘big’. She couldn’t tell if it was one big bolt or several small ones. And while she heard a scuffle, she was too distracted to recall particulars.” Twilight frowned and folded her hooves on the desk before her. “Do you still collect lightning, Stormy?”
Stormy opened and closed her mouth. She could lie, but a quick search of her home would show it. “Y…yes…” she said, feeling sick.
“Even when after the town hall incident you were forbidden from doing so?” Mayor Mare asked, just as gravely.
Unngh! “Yes, but it’s just static and small bits! Just enough to play with!” Nothing that would hurt a pony. But as soon as the word play left her mouth, she knew she’d doomed herself. Only the unicorn kept smiling, as he had been the entire time. “It’s not… you… she was going to kill me! How else do you explain how banged up we were?”
“Lightning collections blowing up in a young mare’s face have that effect,” Mayor Mare said acidly.
Princess Twilight considered Stormy Skies with a sympathetic frown. “I’m sorry, Stormy Skies, but unless you have some actual evidence in favor of your claim that Rosewing attacked you, we really have to consider the most plausible scenario. What’s more likely, that somepony in Cloudsdale smuggled an extremely dangerous form of lightning from the city, even when Cloudsdale’s inventory says none is missing, and that Rosewing attacked you when you discovered it, or that a mare who’s gotten in trouble with lightning in the past had another illegal collection, that blew up and killed a coworker?”
“I… I…” Stormy’s mouth worked. “But it’s true! Use some of that horn head magic on me and make me tell the truth! It’s true.” If she hadn’t been so desperate, she’d never have used the derogatory term to the Princess!
“Truth magic wouldn’t expose the truth, just what you believe is true,” Princess Twilight said calmly. “And I think it’s pretty clear you believe just that.”
Stormy Skies swallowed hard, now contemplating a terrifying future. “Am I going to jail?”
The five shared a look that made Stormy’s heart stop. Then Princess Twilight smiled at her. “No. Misty Morning did confirm there was a fight. Without knowing the details, we’ll have to assume it was as you say, in self-defense. The damage to Applejack’s barn will have to be paid for through community service, though. And you’re off the weather team.”
“I… but…” Stormy just stared at the five. Even Rainbow Dash looked a little sympathetic. “What am I going to do?” she asked in a tiny, pitiful voice.
“Ditzy often needs help carrying mail. There’s always ponies needing courier services. Just nothing involving lightning,” Rainbow Dash said with a small smile. “It’s not the end of the world, Stormy.”
Yeah. I bet she’d say that if she was banned from racing for something she didn’t do, she thought sarcastically. “Now, we need to discuss contacting Rosewing’s family and other-“ Twilight Sparkle began.
“She didn’t have any,” Stormy Skies cut her off. Reckless and rude, but Stormy didn’t care. Throw her back into the jail cell. “Her mom and dad are both dead. Feather flu. She was an only child.”
“Well… we’ll see if we can find any relatives,” Twilight Sparkle amended. “If you’ll excuse us.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” For nothing. She trotted from the court room. A parting glance over her shoulder saw Princess Twilight talking to Mayor Mare and Rainbow Dash in close discussion with Spitfire. On the end, the purple unicorn that had stayed silent during the whole proceedings stared into her eyes. The pegasus guard closed the door behind her, but till the last second, he was still smiling.
Stormy managed to trot out of Ponyville town hall without falling over or being sick. She’d been fired, and cut off from the only convenient source of lightning, and just escaped getting tossed in jail for good. But as soon as she emerged from Ponyville town hall, it was hard for her to focus on any of that. What was she supposed to do now? Stay in Ponyville delivering packages and listening to the mutters of how she’d gotten Rosewing killed due to her lightning 'habit'? Go somewhere else unknown? Leave Equestria? Neither of those were very appealing; she liked Ponyville. Crawl back home? Her parents would love that! No doubt they had a few years' worth of ‘I told you so’s and ‘if you’d just listened to your mother’s saved up.
She glanced in the direction of Sugarcube Corner, and spotted at least a half dozen ponies staring her way and whispering to each other. Already the rumors were flying.
With nowhere else to go, no appetite, no direction, no job, a body that felt as if it’d been hailed on, and little hope, she headed home. Her wings ached so badly she couldn’t even fly; she simply limped along like a wounded bird.
Stormy, like lots of poorer pegasi in Ponyville, lived in an attic apartment. Hers rested above the Quills and Sofa shop. Two sets of large windows on opposite sides of the house let in a nice breeze and cut down on the sensation that the walls were closing in. She’d love to have her own cloud house, but at this point she’d be lucky to get her own cloud without ending up in jail for collecting static. Her last supply filled half a large pickle jar next to her bed, tiny little flickering crystals like glowing sand.
She flopped down on her bed, just a mattress on the floor really, amid her few belongings. Like most pegasi she knew, she wasn’t big on stuff. Stuff slowed you down and increased your drag. She had her lightning, a dozen or so magazines put out by the lightning fan community, and her instrument. Aside from a few dishes in the sink, that was about it for stuff. Stormy flopped on her back, staring up at the angled roof. She’d painted forking lightning running from the peak down to the walls, in imitation of her cutie mark.
“What am I going to do now?” she asked nopony in particular, staring at the jagged lines. She took a deep breath, trying to keep everything steady in her. The attack. The trauma. The cell. Losing her job… it was all starting to catch up to her. Was the air getting thick in here? Getting kind of hard to breathe. The loft felt a little too cozy, but going outside would mean seeing people…
“Am I intruding?” a quiet voice asked from the window. The sight of Misty Morning, the pale pegasus with a bandage about her head and left forehoof, helped snap her out of her looming freak out. She wasn’t going to cry in front of somepony she just met.
Let Misty Morning stay and feel resentful or send her away and let the feelings creep up on her? Decisions, decisions. “No. It’s fine,” Stormy said with a sigh. The white mare stepped in, her pale jade eyes taking in the sight of the lightning bolts on the ceiling with a small smile.
“It’s a nice place. Did you just move in?” Misty asked in that polite, small talk tone that made Stormy sigh.
“No. I’ve actually been here a while now.” She had a mattress to sleep on and a kitchenette to eat in. What else did she need? “How are you doing?” She might as well play out the small talk while she could.
“Sore. But I could have been worse. Much worse,” Misty Morning said as she trotted over next to her mattress and sit down. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
Stormy suppressed an urge to mutter about good deeds and managed to choke it down. “No problem,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hoof before sitting up. “So what did you tell them?” she tried to keep the accusation out of her voice.
Misty flushed, her gaze darting about the room as she ran a hoof through her long mane. “The truth. That there was lightning in the cloud. That you and that other pony were fighting. I…” she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I didn’t expect the Princess to be there.”
“Well, this is Ponyville. If it’d been Rainbow Dash who’d nearly be fried, she and her friends would probably be turning Ponyville upside down.” Stormy huffed. “I wish I knew who the purple unicorn was. Creepy guy didn’t say a single word. Just smiled like he knew I was guilty.”
“You didn’t know?” Misty sounded surprised. “That’s Captain Darkstar, the new head of the royal guard of Canterlot.”
“Darkstar?” She sat up and regarded the other mare, checking if she was serious. “How does a pony named Darkstar end up Captain of the royal guard? For that matter, who names their foal ‘Darkstar’?” Might as well name him Captain Suspicious Evilguy.
“You’re not the only one who’s said so,” Misty said with a little smile. “He had seniority when Shining Armor left to the Crystal Empire. There were lots of ponies who expected Celestia to pick somepony else, like Captain Sunbeam. I heard she was furious when she didn’t get the promotion.”
Clearly Misty paid attention to a whole different gossip circle than Stormy did. Misty folded her pale ears back in embarrassment. “Anyway, when I met with them... well... I was really intimidated.”
Stormy sighed. “It’s not your fault. I’ve got a bad rap with lightning.” She gestured a hoof over at the jar next to her bed with a little smile.
“You really like the stuff, don’t you?” Misty said as she regarded the little jar with a speculative little smile.
Stormy grinned and rocked forward, sitting up. “Yeah. Lightning’s awesome! I’ve thought so ever since I was a kid. Nothing and then ‘bzaaap’! More energy than you ever imagined streaking through the sky. I know most ponies are scared of storms, but to me, they were some of the most awesome sights ever! Made me want to be a lightning specialist.”
“Lightning specialist?” Misty blinked a moment. “Oh, you mean one of those cr- er… eccentric ponies that handles lightning?”
“Sure. Collection, transportation, disposal, and proper use,” she said with a grin as she took the jar and carefully unscrewed the lid and fished out a tiny crystal of static, holding it on the tip of her wing. Ironic, given one job of a lightning specialist was to confiscate lightning collections when they got too large. “Watch this,” she said, making Misty take several steps back. Stormy flicked it into the air, watching it fall, and then punched an hoof at the yellow gem. It shattered instantly, and a tiny lightning bolt cracked out sideways through the air.
Misty yelped and jumped back. “Pretty cool, huh?” Stormy began, then blinked and grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. “Um… it’s cooler if you haven’t almost been cooked by Class A lightning.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Misty said with a shiver. “I’m sorry Stormy, but I just can’t see the appeal. How does lightning like that even exist, if it’s so dangerous?”
Stormy rolled on her stomach, licking some of the crackling residue and enjoying the sharp acrid taste... and getting a funny look from her guest. “Well, believe it or not, it’s not the worst kind out there. Wild weather can make Class A naturally. It’s part of why the Everfree is so dangerous. But essentially you take the electromagical charge and you make it oscillate in the crystalline matrix. Class D only has one wave. Class C two or three. Class B a half dozen. But Class A has a dozen or more. Soon as that oscillation’s disturbed, bang! All the energy gets released.”
Then she became aware of Misty’s faintly bemused expression and flushed. “Sorry,” she giggled. “You sort of loss me at ‘electromagical’.”
“Yeah. I get the same way when hornheads talk about their spells,” she said with a shake of her head, making Misty’s smile fade. “The point is that Class A has a whole lot more waves packed inside it. The more waves, the more likely it’ll explode.”
“Your interest in this is a little... unsettling,” Misty said with a awkward smile. “All I knew about lightning was ‘flash’ and ‘boom’. You get so technical about it.”
The charcoal gray pegasus sighed, her yellow mane frizzing a little from the static residue on her hoof. “Well. It guess I can see how it’s weird to other ponies. It’s just something I love. And it’s pretty useful stuff too!” She carefully extracted another crystal and reached for her instrument.
“What is that?” she asked with a little more curiosity. “Some kind of guitar?”
“Yeah. A guitar that runs on awesome!” She untwisted a little lid on the top and popped the lightning in. “There’s a unicorn in Manehattan that’s making these,” Stormy said enthusiastically as she flipped a few switches and knobs. Then she gave the metal strings a strum with her hoof, and from the speaker set in the body emitted an unholy racket. Stormy screwed up her face as she abused the strings as fast as she could, filling the small apartment with electric squeals and pops.
Misty’s eyes popped wide and she covered her ears with her forelegs as Stormy banged away for several seconds. Then the instrument let out a crackle and an electric jolt slammed through the charcoal mare, flooring her. “Oh yeah,” she groaned at the tingle. The guitar let out a puff of smoke as Stormy lay there. “It’s a work in progress,” she croaked.
“Stormy, I don’t know what that’s supposed to sound like, but that’s the most awful din I’ve ever heard. Where did you learn to play?” she asked with a frown, scrubbing at an ear with her hoof.
“Learn to play?” Stormy asked with a frown. “You just strum the strings as loud and fast as you can. What’s to learn?”
Misty gaped at her, sputtering a few words. Finally she groaned and took the guitar. “Load it up again,” she said as she turned the lid towards Stormy. As Stormy refilled the device with another small load, the white pegasus muttered, “If I get electrocuted for the second time today, Mother will never let me hear the end of it.” When the guitar was loaded, she gestured to the knobs. “This one is for volume, yes?” she asked, pointing at it. When Stormy nodded, Misty glared at it. “Why does it go to eleven?”
Stormy snorted. “Well duh. Eleven is louder than ten.” She must not listen to much music.
“But you… I… ugh… nevermind!” she huffed and turned the knob down to three and cradled the instrument correctly. She took a deep breath and began to play the Equestrian anthem.
“Woah. That’s… like… woah!” Stormy stared as the speaker let out music for the first time. “How’d you do that? That was awesome!”
“That?” She cocked her brow at Stormy with a crooked little smile. “You must not listen to much music.” With a crackle, the instrument fell silent again and she set it aside. “So what are you going to do?”
Stormy sighed and flopped back on the mattress; back to the topic she didn’t want to think about. “I dunno. Be a package carrier. Might be able to get a little lightning for my hobbies between deliveries.” But she’d never, ever handle the big stuff. She scowled as she glared up at the lightning bolts. “What I really want to find out is why Rosewing did what she did! I didn’t do anything wrong, for once. She knew that there was that lightning in the cloud!”
Misty Morning bowed her head a little in thought, chewing her lower lip. “Where did she live?”
Stormy blinked at her. “Huh?”
“Where did Rosewing live? In Ponyville, I mean,” she amended, glancing at me and then averting her eyes quickly. “I was just thinking that maybe we could see if we can get in and find something that explains what she was doing?”
Stormy Skies groaned, covering her face. “Oh, that is a bad idea, Misty. A really bad idea. They think I killed a pony accidentally. If I go breaking the law and trespassing and stuff, they won’t hesitate to throw me in the jail for good.”
Misty chewed her lip. “Yeah, but… I have a clean record. If I got caught, they might go easy on me?” she suggested hesitantly. Stormy could see the thunderheads on the horizon from here; it wouldn’t take much for the both of them to land in some very rough air.
“I don’t know. That’s…” she sighed, regarding the white pegasus, her face half covered by mane. “Why?”
“You saved my life, at the cost of something you loved. I owe you for that. I don’t know what Rosewing would have done if you’d run for help. Maybe set off the bolt, eliminate one witness, and lie that it was your lightning?” Stormy didn’t know either. She’d like to say nothing, but she really didn’t know.
Stormy stared at her for a minute, till the pale pegasus fidgeted in place. “Okay,” she finally said. “I don’t like it, but I don’t have any other ideas.” As bad as the trouble might be, giving up and moving on felt worse. If she suffered for it, so be it. She’d screwed up her life already. She just didn’t want to bring down another pony for helping her.
Rosewing lived over on Cloudy lane, a row of perhaps two dozen small white homes that floated in two rows over a green field. A road ran through the middle, with mail boxes and small bells at regular intervals for the earthbound to signal the occupants within. Stormy could have afforded a room here on her meager salary, but- ah, obligations. Rather than approach the cloud bank of homes directly, they circled around over Whitetail Woods and approached from out of town. Fortunately, Rosewing’s cloud was towards the end of the row. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash’s virtual cloud palace was right next door. Really, how did she afford to live in a place like that all on her own? Being weather manager couldn’t pay that well!
The pair of them glided in at as low an angle as they possibly could. Stormy hadn’t been here often, but she knew there was a landing and balcony on the back. Together, they swooped around and out of sight. Stormy tried the sliding door in the back, the sheet of specially treated cloud transparent and hard as glass.
It slid open. That didn’t surprise Stormy; plenty of ponies in town didn’t lock their doors. It was just that kind of place. Kinda unusual for Rosewing, given the mare valued her privacy. Stormy pushed the door open slowly and pushed through the drapes.
For the second time today, she realized something was very wrong. The house was a mess. The cushions to the sofa had been slashed, fluffy cloud stuffing drifting in the dim air. Books and magazines had been thrown all across the room. Rosewing didn’t live like this. No pony did. Yet this couldn’t be a robbery. Two golden, garnet studded candlesticks lay undisturbed on the mantle. “We should go. We should definitely go,” she whispered, mouth dry. If anypony tied this to Stormy after Rosewing died...
Then from down the hall came a muffled crash and the pair froze. Stormy's eyes popped wide as she stared into Misty’s. If something was going on... if they left and got help, by the time they got back then who knew if they’d still be here? Each of them gripped a heavy candlestick in their mouths and prowled slowly down the hallway. Rosewing lived alone, with one of two bedrooms converted into an office. The crash had come from there.
Carefully they got to the door, and Stormy pushed it open far enough with a wing that she could see inside. A huge brown pegasus stallion was flipping carefully through files in a file cabinet and tossing a few of them into a large brown suitcase. She didn’t recognize the beefy guy. Suddenly, her candlestick seemed a whole lot less suitable as a weapon. Whatever those papers were, they had to be important.
Then the stallion kicked the drawer to the file cabinet closed. “Damn idiot should have hid these bet-” he froze as he turned and saw the two bandaged mares standing in the doorway. “Aw piss...”
Sanity would be running away and telling the guard what was happening here. Instead, she charged a stallion that was nearly twice her size, screaming around the candlestick. The stallion raised his forelegs and twisted, taking the blow on the shoulder and reaching out with his mouth to bite her wing, hard. The delicate bones let out an ominous crackle as he yanked his head around and pulled her off her hooves.
She slammed into the wall and two brown hooves pressed hard on her throat. Stormy struggled and coughed, her hooves kicking out as one wing flailed impotently and promised a trip to Ponyville Hospital if she escaped the morgue. Worse of all was the look in his eyes. He wasn’t angry or pissed. He looked... bored. Then the edges of her vision started to go black.
Then a gold candlestick came down right atop his head with a solid crunch that made him cry out and lash with his hoof. Misty was hit and went tumbling across to room to land on the other side. “Damn it. This was supposed to be an easy fifteen minutes. Why couldn’t you have shown up five minutes from now?”
Stormy would have loved to quip back, but she concentrated on breathing and getting to her hooves. The blow that Misty had landed had cut over his left eye socket and was bleeding pretty well into his eye. Stormy snatched up the candlestick and he gave a little smirk, sighed, and moved in slowly and carefully.
The charcoal mare threw the candlestick with all her might. It soared straight and true... right through the window, shattering it like a crack of thunder. Then Stormy drew in a long breath and screamed as loud as she possibly could.
Cloudy Lane wasn’t the busiest part of Ponyville, but screams were going to gather eyeballs. Especially when Misty let out a scream of her own that put Stormy’s to shame. The brown stallion’s eyes popped wide as he looked from one to the other, slammed the suitcase closed, and snatched it up in his jaws. With an angry glare at the pair of them, he turned and galloped back down the hallway. Stormy heard the sound of the sliding door slamming.
Misty trotted up to her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, her throat now extra raw. Then she tried to move her wing. Something in there was definitely fractured. “Okay... I’m alive. But we got to get out of here. He might change his mind, come back, and finish the job.” Brown pegasus... dark brown mane... brown eyes.... she hadn’t spotted his cutie mark. Even if the guards did believe them, could they catch him?
She staggered back into the hall and then paused. The door to her bedroom was just past the office. The stallion had said he’d wanted five more minutes. Maybe there was something, anything useful in there? Stormy trotted quickly into the room which was decorated far more thoroughly and tastefully than Stormy’s studio. “See if you can find something... anything... anything that’s just...” just what? What were they looking for? “Something out of place.”
Misty nodded and got to work on the dressers. Stormy checked under the mattress. Nothing. The closet was way too packed with clothes to be searched quickly, short of just tossing everything on the floor. Stormy let out a small sob as the attack caught up with her. First Rosewing, now this stranger. Something was going on; something much bigger than a failure of a lightning specialist should be involved in.
Then Stormy’s eye lingered on a small black and white photograph framed beside the bed. Funny, Stormy hadn’t recalled any pictures at all on her visits. But then, she’d never been to her bedroom. Stormy scooped up the hoof sized from and popped open the frame's back, extracting the grainy picture of six ponies arranged roughly pyramidal while grinning like idiots for the camera. There, on the lower left corner, was Rosewing; the mare at least three or four years younger. On the right of the middle two was a stallion who looked eerily familiar to the one that attacked her.
But that wasn’t what locked her gaze. Her eyes barely registered the light coated stallion in the middle of the bottom three nor the coolly smirking mare at the apex. Nor the nigglingly familiar elderly stallion adjusting his glasses for the photograph. No. All her attention was saved for the dark mare in the lower right corner. She had a short, wild manecut and though the picture was black and white, she knew her mane was a strident yellow.
Because that was how Stormy had worn her mane three or four years ago.
“It’s me,” Stormy murmured. “Misty, it’s me.”
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I don't think this is gonna be as simple as "the changelings did it".
"Twilight Sparkle casting mind control magic on fillies or Rarity turning the roads to gold, they usually weren’t enough of a risk to merit confinement"
Also, how exactly, in those two examples, would the ordinary police have been able to take the perpetrators into custody?
"“Truth magic wouldn’t expose the truth, just what you believe is true,” Princess Twilight said calmly. “And I think it’s pretty clear you believe just that.”"
O… kay. Um. What? Stormy fully believing her story is only compatible with Stormy being responsible for the lightning being there if Stormy is insane or under the effects of memory magic, in which case further action is obviously called for. That doesn't seem to be happening, so… What? I suppose that they could be planning to carry on an investigation in secret… that doesn't explain why they expected Stormy to not notice the oddity, but she apparently indeed hasn't…
What on Equus is going on here?
…Hm. Well, if they thought Stormy was insane, she obviously wouldn't have been let go. So they probably think that there's a spellcaster with memory magic involved. This spellcaster either modified Stormy's memories by her request, in which case they're both in a lot of trouble, or against her will, in which case she gets let off and the spellcaster is in a lot of trouble. But they don't mention this. Hm. Lack of evidence. And either she's a victim who might be visited again or a conspirator who'll probably meet with her compatriot. Valuable to watch. Now, why would they think that she'd not notice the oddity of the way she was let go? …If she's a criminal, she'll just take the excuse, pretend not to notices, and run. If she's a victim… she'll be in an agitated state of mind, eager to leave, and possibly operating under a suggestion to report. A bit flimsy, but they're gathering data on a serious issue. Okay, so, presumed motive, and the reason why they claim (assuming that Stormy's right) that the lightning wasn't what it was. Hm. If Stormy's a victim, someone could be trying to get her in trouble. If she's a criminal… Ahhh. That's why they claimed it was less than it was. They wanted to see how she'd react. So, she gets let loose with only a minor punishment (since no punishment would be suspicious) and gets kicked off the weather team so that she has fewer ties and less stability. And then they watch to see what happens…
Okay, I think this works. On with the story!
"Might as well name him Captain Suspicious Evilguy."
:D
…Well, the plot certainly thickened even more there! And the protagonist prosecuting ponies' ploy seems to already be paying off quite a bit.
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Yeah.
You're thinking too deeply about this. In real life, people's memories often alter so that they don't have to live with guilt. If you accidentally killed someone in a chaotic situation, you might instead remember the event as self-defense, or someone else being at fault. That's all I think Twilight's implying.
We're still in the early stages, so I don't have much to say about the story yet, but it's interesting so far! Continue...
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If that was the case, wouldn't they have sent her to therapy? Otherwise, they'd have a mare who collected Class B lightning, took it into the field, accidentally killed a coworker with it, and then so thoroughly deluded herself that even truth magic would show her as believing the story; she'd therefore learn nothing from it, and from her perspective she'd be being punished without cause. Additionally, she'd have less trust in her own memory. In other words, they'd either be punishing an innocent or pushing a dangerous mare a bit further towards mental instability. That does not seem to me to be a course that they'd likely take. The only way I can see their actions making sense is still the investigation being quietly ongoing and Stormy being a pony of interest.
I'd like to thank Icy Shake for helping me edit this. He caught a lot of really embarrassing
errors.
No-one talked to Rosewing as though she was at risk of death. It sounds like a cover for something, Rosewing's family "disappeared" and Rosewing was making a final appearance at work before she herself "died of feather flu" and joined them.
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...Hm. Now that seems an interesting point, yes...
I really like Stormy, even if she keeps ending up in awkward situations due to her hobby. Her enjoyment of lightning banging and collecting and whatnot reminds me of my own enjoyment of balloon banging and collecting and whatnot. And ultimately, I kinda want to give her a big hug.
Though if she lets her tongue get ahead of her mind too often, that's probably gonna get her into some real trouble.
Just thought I should let you know.
As for the chapter, It was great. I wish she would have said "I bet she’d say that if she was banned from racing for something she didn’t do" out loud instead of thinking it. That really would have impacted Rainbow.
I also noticed how flawlessly you are able to blend stream of consciousness with a third person narrative. It is an extremely impressive feat that you seem to have mastered. It works very well, and it is exemplary of how good of a writer you are.
As for the character of Stormy. She is extremely believable and relatable after only two chapters. Despite being unable to see her physiognomies, her colloquialisms paint a vivid picture. She clearly has defined quirks, morals, skills, and inadequacies. I totally understand her interest in lightning. I think that electricity is an awe inspiring phenomenon.
Keep on writing because you are great at it. If you ever move away from fanfiction and become a professional author, I will most definitely be buying you books.
Eerily similar, perhaps?
Is the name of this chapter "Weather Patterns" or "Weather Cycles"? It's got one name in fimfic and the other in the actual document...
I love this claustrophobia narrative.
“ What’s more likely, that somepony in Cloudsdale smuggled an extremely dangerous form of lightning from the city, even when Cloudsdale’s inventory says none is missing, and that Rosewing attacked you when you discovered it, or that a mare who’s gotten in trouble with lightning in the past had another illegal collection, that blew up and killed a coworker?”“
Neither, really. I fail to see a plausible narrative as to how she smuggled enough class D lightning out there to have that great of an effect, let alone why she would. If they are so sure it was a mess of class D the question should be where THAT came from. If they are so sure they were Stormy's, why is Stormy so certain they absolutely were not? Some kind of memory spell?
But no, case closed.
This is a very high order of idiotic. Not that I'd expect Stormy to recognize the BS. She's barely survived a lightning explosion with injuries that, apparently, are being left entirely untreated (honestly, other than the burns, she's not even being treated for a concussion and she was struggling not to pass out after her fall), then was subjected unmercifully to a claustrophobia-inducing jail cell (the adrenalin of which is likely suppressing the expression of her injuries), and is now in front of a flipping tribunal.
If these are supposed to be the good guys, they flipping suck at it.
“ “Her mom and dad are both dead. Feather flu. She was an only child.”“
Holy crap, Feather flue is a potentially deadly disease and no one seemed to mind Rosewing not only being around the rest of the weather fliers, but not going to the hospital for it?
There is something wrong with these ponies.
“ Stormy managed to trot out of Ponyville town hall without falling over or being sick.”
...yeah, I’m still surprised this never caught up with her.
“ and her instrument”
It's kinda awkward how long it took for this question to be answered.
“ “Darkstar?” She sat up and regarded the other mare, checking if she was serious. “How does a pony named Darkstar end up Captain of the royal guard? For that matter, who names their foal ‘Darkstar’?” Might as well name him Captain Suspicious Evilguy.
“You’re not the only one who’s said so,” Misty said with a little smile. ”
Yeah. Honestly, I read that entire bit in Rainbow Dash's voice.
Stormy really is a lot like her... just a bit less of a jerk.
“ Stormy rolled on her stomach, licking some of the crackling residue and enjoying the sharp acrid taste... and getting a funny look from her guest. ”
Wow, lightning-eating!
I really hope that becomes a thing. I can imagine a pegasus pony putting on a circus show, spinning and throwing double-ended lightning rods, each end ablaze with St. Elmo's fire, culminating with pouring a hoofful of tiny crystals like sand into her mouth before spewing across one end of the rod a wide arc of lighting straight up into the air...
“ When Stormy nodded, Misty glared at it. “Why does it go to eleven?”
Stormy snorted. “Well duh. Eleven is louder than ten."“
Nice reference.
“ She took a deep breath and began to play the Equestrian anthem.”
Wow, Stormy abuses that guitar that much and it's still in tune? Talk about quality...
“ “Yeah, but… I have a clean record. If I got caught, they might go easy on me?” “
Yeah, I've just been waiting to see who/what this mare is since "I'm just a weatherpony".
"She’d like to say nothing, but she really didn’t know."
Should "nothing" be "something"?
" Cloudy lane"
Should "lane" be capitalized, too?
“the two bandaged mares”
I guess I should have just assumed this entire time that Stormy was treated for her injuries right after getting to jail.
““It’s me,” Stormy murmured. “Misty, it’s me.”“
...it looks more like your entire class from that year.
Why is this so significant? Has she never seen a picture of herself before?
Enjoying the story so far. This story definitely seems less epic than PH. No "scenery porn", ‘though some hints of your dramatic flourishes still linger. The "waterfall of hair" from the first chapter. The vivid description of the corpse in the second. I feel like those are more commonplace in PH, but that might just be because the chapters in PH are longer so there are more instances in them.
It's obviously also all less dark and violent. I wonder how often ponies die in such violent ways around Ponyville? I wonder how the incident will be spun.
If you don't mind me saying so, I'm worried you're going to have ponies angry at Stormy, throwing rocks and stuff, if you go with your usual style. Ponies always responded to Blackjack with anger. I feel like vanilla Ponyville would be more likely to just shun her. This is a sad state of affairs and violence is not the go-to solution in a town where almost no one ever ends up in jail.
Anyway, I'm hoping Stormy's voice gets a little more developed. She's supposed to be more like Rainbow Dash, right? Aggressive, assertive, takes charge. She's currently being far more reactionary, in my opinion. She's letting Misty dictate what happens. She didn't respond to this injustice with anger, but defeat. Reminds me of Blackjack, which RD is not.
In any case, this is an enjoyable new story. It doesn't have as strong of an immediate hook as I've gotten used to from the stories I usually pick up nowadays but I am looking forward to more once I find time for it.
...but one last thing: Who the frick is Misty? She's "just a weather pony" claiming no specialization, doesn't know anything about lightning (or, likely, weather in general), doesn't know how to move clouds, doesn't know how to cut clouds... really! Sure, maybe she's just shy, but she wanged that stallion in the head really good for someone so skittish. I don't know how she could have managed it, but I just have this feeling she intended to get assigned to those stormclouds and was being so gentle because she didn't know which might contain the lightning.
...by which I mean, either she didn't honestly thing ANY of them could contain it, but she was being gentle with all of them in order to remain consistent and less questionable, or she knew exactly which one contained the lightning, intended to open it, and (again) was being delicate in order to be consistent.
There's something seriously off about her...
I now have this barmy image in my mind of a Burning Manesque lightning fetishists...
You have, presumably, the Equestrian equivalent of a suitcase-nuke. I am certain a group of sufficiently clever beings could find all sorts of deviously fiendish uses for a weapon of that size and power...
I love the idea of weather pegasi being able to crystallise electricity for storage, transportation, and collection.
If it is static electricity Stormy's after, she should purchase some silk (or better yet nylon) socks from Rarity and then have a go at Quills' upholstery. Plenty of static!
That sure succinctly describes many genres of music with some permutation of "heavy" in their name.
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I certainly agree. Misty seems to be as kosher as a ham sandwich with a side order of pork scratchings with chocolate-covered bacon for afters.
Sometimes bad things happen.
It says the chapter name is "Weather Patterns", but the chapter name in the storry says "Weather Cycles".
Just wondering why?