Potion Panic

by gaitiem

11 A View from Above

“So, Squirt, we have the cloud factory, the cloud observatory, or the cloud fortress. Which do you wanna go to next?”

“That all sounds fun, Rainbow, but could we do something that doesn’t involve clouds?”

“Kid, you’re in Cloudsdale!” Rainbow Dash reminded her. “Literally everything here is made of clouds, made for making clouds, or both!”

“It just kind of reminds me of Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo confessed.

“How?” Rainbow asked.

“Her hair is swirly and pink, like clouds at sunset.”

“Aw! I didn’t know you could come up with stuff that sappy! You should write poems.”

“I’d have to get a new mentor for that,” Scootaloo joked. “Do you know any ponies that write poetry, and not just novels.”

“Uh, I could introduce you to Pinkie’s sister Maud,” Rainbow joked back, “but she’d probably just tell you to write more about rocks.”

“Hehehe. Pinkie’s so weird,” Scootaloo said out loud. Catching herself, she immediately apologized.

“Don’t sweat it, kid. I think she would agree with you. I sure do.” Rainbow tried to remember what they had been talking about and tie it back into the conversation. “You know, this is why I wanted to go check out cloud stuff, so we wouldn’t sit here gossiping like the school fillies we are.”

“Hehe, alright, cool, let’s check out the cloud for-”

Scootaloo was cut off by the sound of hoof-cranked sirens filling the air. Rainbow Dash crouched down to the ground, and Scoots followed her lead. After they did so, pegasi dressed in red were flying overhead, carrying tiny black clouds in spacious, sail-sized slings. After them were a legion of pegasi, all pulling one truly massive black cloud in the same direction as the smaller ones.

“Wow!” Rainbow Dash said as the last of them passed. “That was the pegasi fire brigade!”

“Cloudsdale has a fire brigade?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yeah!” Rainbow said, excited to teach Scoots something. “I know it seems weird for this city, cause everything’s made out clouds that can never catch fire, but, since we have so much water here, you know, clouds, other parts of Equestria depend on the Pegasi Fire Brigade to deal with really big fires, like forest fires that the local fire departments can’t take out in time.”

“Wow!” Scootaloo said, now sharing Rainbow’s enthusiasm. “So they might be going anywhere in Equestria right now?”

“That’s right!” An idea came to Rainbow. “In fact, why don’t I take you to the observatory and we can see ourselves.”

“Wait, the observatory sees fires?”

“Yeah! There’s smaller observatories in all the big cities of Equestira, and they catalog local events, like fires, and send them to the central observatory through lasers!”

“How do the lasers work?”

“Heck if I know. You can ask a technician when we get there.”

“How do the lasers work?” she asked the technician.

“Don’t talk to me. I’m doing my job,” he replied.

Scootaloo was disappointed, and it soured her desire to see whatever fire was going on at the time and how the Pegasi were going to put it out. That, along with the large, noisy crowd, and the fact that they had back-row seats. She leaned over to Rainbow Dash, so she could be heard against the audience around them, and said, “Hey, if you get bored or whatever, we can always go to the cloud fortress.”

An observatory staff worker at the front of the auditorium called out. “We’re getting the first laser ported images from the Sweet Apple Acres Wildfire in now!”

Scootaloo and Rainbow looked at each other at the same moment, stupefied. Rainbow quickly looked back to assess what was happening in the image feed, but Scootaloo was too afraid to look back. With a childlike instinct, she clutched at Rainbow Dash for comfort. Rainbow’s immediate reaction was to struggle out of the light hold, but, realizing her mistake, she immediately took Scootaloo in her lap, holding her in a position so they could both face the screen.

The woman at the front, a scientist by her attire, began to make observations based on the images, most of which were distant, poorly colored, and a bit blurry, but a few of which were highly useable. “It’s not clear from the pattern of the fire whether this was started by nature, or by unnatural interference. Possibly it was a stray stormcloud that gave a little spark to set this off. Possibly, it was some young prankster, in over their head with the consequence of their actions. Possibly, it was started for a practical purpose, and was left to negligence. Let this be a lesson, one we’ve all heard a thousand times, not to play with fire.” Some of the crowd seemed to get a laugh out of this, likely because they were native to Cloudsdale and never had to deal with fire. It made Scootaloo livid.

“Easy there, Tiger,” Rainbow Dash whispered. Scootaloo had unconsciously been gripping Rainbow’s hooves to the point of causing her pain.

“Sorry,” She whispered back, letting go of Rainbow’s hooves altogether.

From then on, the scientist pony made many observations and conclusions about the fire, some of which were difficult for a lay-pony to understand, and most of which were jotted down by journalists, researchers, and students. Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash were left feeling no less secure for their friends, the Apples, or all of Ponyville, as the slow lumbering minutes went by. Finally, after half an hour had passed, a police pony nearly burst down the door. He shouted, “I’m rounding up volunteers! This Ponyville fire isn’t going to go anywhere with the force we have on it! Is there anyone who can help us put this thing out?”

Rainbow Dash nudged Scootaloo, who immediately rose from her place and let Rainbow get out of her seat. “Looks like we’ve got to head home early, Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo said nothing, but silently hoped that her home would not be missing any ponies. Especially not the one pony she had been thinking about all day.

Author's Note:

Only poets love dictionaries. Scootaloo loves Sweetie Belle. Therefore, Scootaloo must be a poet. At least I've never made a "Scootaloo is a chicken" joke.

The chapters following this are going to be longer and heavier in anticipation of the end.