Plus 'Murdered By Flitter' Would Probably Require The Fetish Tag
She'd had a vague, uncertain feeling when they'd come back from the fertility clinic, relieving him of his duties as substitute. An undefined sense that there was something she should have told him...
The discussion (such as it was) had moved into the cottage. Fluttershy had returned from the stream and with everypony else heading inside, it was just natural for a police officer to take the opportunity and follow them in.
Snowflake generally needed a minute to clear the door: the cottage's longest-tenured emergency substitute would be immediately recognized by the majority of residents, and many of the animals would move forward to offer greetings. (Angel, with whom the stallion seemed to have some level of truce, tended to hang towards the back.) He would murmur to a few of the younglings, allow kittens to climb him with no more than the usual winces, and was always on the lookout for any new male hares because his own pet had reached the age which suggested finding a good partner. And he still did all of that, because it was expected and a stallion who generally tried to get through life without disturbing too much of it wasn't going to let his anger upset the residents.
Then he moved to an empty patch of floor. Slowly lowered his mass to the ground. Fluttershy followed, carefully brought herself down to the point where she was both on his level and within a portion of his shadow, and then did nearly all of the talking.
Fleur and Miranda watched, with white and dark ears visibly straining to pick up on what was actually being said. (The taller unicorn regularly and surreptitiously checked the police chief, because Miranda trying to listen clearly qualified as eavesdropping and Fleur was just trying to keep current on cottage affairs.) But just about all of the words escaped them. The stallion no longer defaulted to a one-word vocabulary in public, at least some of the time -- but his natural volume in conversations tended to be low. And when it came to the mare... her voice had been getting softer.
A commonality between the two, having each so hard to overhear. One of many.
It was possible to become used to Snowflake, if you'd lived in the settled zone for a while.
(It was possible for certain ponies to get used to a lot of things. The ones who didn't...)
But when it came to the stallion, adjusting to his presence could require a degree of deliberate effort. Strength training was a truly rare pursuit in Equestria, and nopony ever expected a pegasus to attempt it. Add in his looks, the oddness of his wings...
Snowflake, on a particularly bad day (and there were less of those now), would have a rather odd way of standing. Something which bent a little at the knees, while the rest of the body seemed to flex inwards in a sort of traveling cringe. As if he was trying to cut down on the sheer amount of world he occupied. And when it came to commonalities with Fluttershy... that, too, was familiar.
But you couldn't miss him, any more than most ponies managed to overlook the mare's incredible tail. And when it was Snowflake...
Fleur now suspected that a number of shaken new arrivals had finished a first sighting through filing a report with the police station. Something which centered around having seen a stallion who had just been -- standing there. Menacingly.
But once you got used to him... that was when certain segments of the herd started to realize that he typically wouldn't defend himself. Never verbally, and when it came to the physical? If anypony that big made a move, then the natural tendency was to assume he'd been in the wrong. Certain adolescent mares had decided insulting him made up a form of sport, because you could trot all over Snowflake with pointed syllables while allowing hooves to grind in every last piece of punctuation, and nothing would ever happen.
Except... there was a pair of qualifiers on that.
The first was Applejack, who didn't take kindly to anypony speaking poorly of her intended. Kindness was somepony else entirely. Honesty was entirely direct regarding her feelings on the subject, and was willing to keep up the chase for a very long time.
And you could attack Snowflake with words forever. Nothing would draw much of a reaction, because he'd heard it all before. Some suspected that he might absorb a few light kicks without open complaint -- although only the drunkest ever got close to the point of openly testing that theory.
You could go after Snowflake with words, possibly with kicks, and he might not do anything at all.
In the legal lexicon of Equestria, hurting anypony he cared about, within his direct view, probably had a chance to be filed under 'suicide'.
He'd once taken on the biggest earth pony in town. Physically. The victory had been decisive, and the impression it had left on the spectators would never fully fill in.
He also rather directly thought of Fluttershy as being his sister, which matched the way she perceived him as a brother. (The bond wasn't one of blood: it was spiritual, and therefore became all the more true.) And Snowflake had been the one to provide Fleur with the tale of Zephyr's first cottage visit, doing so with words which had nearly been bitten in half. Because Fluttershy had trusted him with the story, it had let him learn that somepony had hurt his sister, and...
The stallion on the floor was still speaking quietly. A small wrangle of puppies was investigating his tail, and he ignored it. The kitten who'd chosen to pounce the dock would never suffer a single consequence. But he looked frustrated.
One sibling had just belatedly learned about the presence of another. The response didn't seem to be filed under 'rivalry'.
Fluttershy said something else. Fleur's ears strained forward, reached the point where their bases began to ache. All it got her was "...trust..."
The stallion nodded. Looked away from the single visible blue-green eye, glanced around, and very visibly registered the presence of a police officer before beginning to stand up.
"I won't start anything, Fluttershy," emerged at something close to normal volume. (Fleur's mind immediately pinned a marker flag into 'start'.) "I won't even speak to him if I can avoid it. I just feel like I should have been told."
"...I know," the pegasus mare softly said, and the yellow head dipped. "...I'm sorry."
Something about the red eyes seemed to soften. The wide snout angled down, knees bent...
It was a familiar sort of nuzzle: contact which Fluttershy almost immediately returned. The one meant for family.
"I've got to get home," the stallion decided. "Just keep me updated. On everything. Please."
Fluttershy nodded. Snowflake moved towards the door, and the other two mares automatically stepped aside.
He looked at Fleur --
-- there was a bond of sorts between them. Two could hold down the cottage more efficiently than one (or rather, give the cottage a chance at a double pin), and so he still assisted when Fluttershy was away on missions. And they were both in a relationship with a Bearer. Each was the only other pony who truly understood.
-- he looked at her, and he nodded politely. But she could see the frustration lurking in his eyes, and he didn't seem to look towards Miranda at all.
The stallion left, carefully nudging the door shut behind him. A few hoofsteps echoed, and then those sounds vanished. Flying home.
Thirty seconds reluctantly, awkwardly marked their time on the clock, then thudded to the floor.
"I need to get back into town myself," Miranda finally announced. "But he's not the only one who wants to be kept updated."
The cottage residents managed one nod each. The dark mare moved towards the exit, and the left hind leg limped.
Fleur carefully waited until the last sounds of departure had faded, and then allowed a generous extra allowance because it was Miranda and she wanted to be sure.
Even so, she looked around the sitting room before starting. Her horn ignited, and multiple curtains closed themselves.
"Why didn't you tell him?"
Even the sigh was far too soft.
"...because I told him about Zephyr before." Multiple wing joints loosened. "...maybe... too much. And I know him, Fleur. I knew that if he found out Zephyr was here... he would want to protect me. I didn't want him to get in trouble. So I guess I was sort of hoping that... he just wouldn't see..."
Stopped. Her head dipped for the second time, and the next sigh forfeited half of the remaining decibels.
"...or maybe I was hoping he would do something. When I hadn't. And afraid of it, at the same time. But that's not who he is, not unless Zephyr tried something first. It's being unfair to Snowflake." The coral mane slowly swayed. "...afraid of somepony else's confrontation. That's almost a new one..."
She looked up, with that single visible eye.
"...why didn't you?"
It was Fleur's turn to sigh. "I forgot. I just..."
Or maybe it was more than that.
Maybe she just hadn't wanted to.
Snowflake had originally been the one to tell her about Zephyr. She'd broken that confidence with Miranda, but it had been for an emergency and she knew -- felt he would have understood.
But to have both blood and spiritual siblings in the same settled zone...
It had taken Fleur moons to learn what his talent was: one of the rarest known. Determination -- but only for the physical. He could set a goal, and if it was within the ultimate realm of possibility for a pony's body to somehow achieve it -- then he just might get there.
When it came to pegasus magic, Snowflake was weak. By contrast, Zephyr had visible power, and for even a legacy hire to get placed directly onto a weather team probably implied at least basic competence here and there. (Fleur wasn't quite ready to sign off on that.) For raw strength of techniques, the larger stallion was decidedly overmatched.
Except that...
...his techniques were weak. The talent was strong.
...the ultimate physical limits of the pony form...
How much wind could an angry stallion push through?
How many hoof-sized hailstones might simply be ignored?
How many lightning strikes could somepony theoretically survive?
What did it take to make a furious Snowflake stop?
On one level, it was a rather interesting sort of question. For the pony on the receiving end, the query had the potential to be final.
Maybe I didn't tell him because some part of me was hoping he'd just see Zephyr. And then the problem would just solve itself.
But Snowflake had promised not to start anything.
(There still seemed to be a marker flag on 'start'.)
"I just didn't think about it," Fleur reluctantly finished. "I'd like to know why Applejack didn't tell him. You'd think it would have come up..."
Fluttershy almost smiled.
"...maybe. I'm not really sure what they talk about when we aren't there..." Which was when certain kittens began to mewl. "...yes, I know, it's just about that time..." Her wings refolded, and she began to move towards the pantry. "Fleur? How did the session with Dr. Lorem go?"
The unicorn carefully examined all of her conversational options.
"It went."
She woke up within the nest, in the dark. Automatically sought out the clock, and then irritably told it to stop lying.
Fleur shifted her body against Fluttershy's, held her sleeping love a little closer. Shut her eyes again, and waited.
She kept waiting.
...ordering her body to be more tired didn't seem to be accomplishing anything.
At least I didn't wake up from a dream.
Fleur closed her eyes again. Wriggled, mostly in irritation --
-- check the clock --
She did. Her horn automatically ignited.
-- don't need to get a new clock right now...
...might as well do... something.
Her mind tried to focus on possibilities, and naturally landed on the most odious one.
Finish the report to Celestia. Words which would be seen by the Solar alicorn didn't necessarily need any exposure to actual Sun.
It took some effort to extricate herself from the nest, and the hardest part was sliding two of her legs out from under a sleeping pegasus. Doing so in a way which meant Fluttershy kept sleeping was especially tricky -- but there were many skills which came from escort training, and every licensed pony benefited from being able to readily reach a door.
Fleur went into the bathroom, then checked her features for signs of illness. Nothing. So it was probably just normal insomnia. Perfectly normal, stress-based, potentially-several-nights-in-a-row insomnia.
The calendar was still next to the mirror. The Square loomed. It was beginning to acquire gravity.
Zephyr has to be dealt with before that. It could complicate everything. And if Gilda shows up...
Except that Gilda had no specific reason to appear on that tentative date. Zephyr, however...
He doesn't know.
Fleur had to keep it that way.
Out of the bathroom, through the silent bedroom, then into the hallway -- and naturally, any sounds of movement were going to alert the cottage's nocturnals. She emerged to find multiple cats, one gecko, a pair of pygmy hedgehogs, several bats -- and Angel, because the majority of lapines were most active under Moon. Angel tended to be awake for an unusual number of daylight hours, trying to keep pace with his mistress -- but he also took multiple naps. And long after Sun was lowered, with Fluttershy finally in bed... the rabbit effectively went on night watch.
He looked up at Fleur. The right hind leg twitched, with the oversized paw ready to thump alarm. The unicorn shook her head, and the limb steadied.
The rest of the animals were regarding Fleur with a rather different intent. Multiple cats began to rub against her legs --
"I know when you were fed," Fleur softly told them. "So I'm not falling for it."
They followed her into the sitting room anyway. Hoping for a snacking pony to drop food generally led to dietary disappointment, and Fleur's tendency to soak vegetable in meat juices didn't change the fact that there was a vegetable at the core. But there was still a chance for her to go into the pantry, and the most enterprising were probably entertaining hopes that this time, one of them would manage to get past her corona.
She went up to the little reception desk, arranged her body on the bench, activated the little lamp, recovered her draft from the locked drawer and got a fresh quill. Angel leapt up to the desktop, picked a corner and watched the glowing feather move across the paper.
Fleur wrote up the report. She made sure to place special emphasis on the role of the one stalling officer, placing multiple hints about wanting him fired. Then she looked at the nearest clock, gave up on hints entirely, and directly called for it across the course of six blazing sentences while giving the concept its own cheering section in the margins.
Fired...
She didn't want to think about the things she was putting into the report. It didn't take a psychiatry degree to recognize when her brain was trying to distract itself.
What Miranda was saying...
It was also three in the morning, with the cottage as quiet as it ever allowed itself to become. And there was so much to think about.
The police chief had said a lot, and -- Fleur wasn't sure that Miranda had ever noticed the moment when the core topic had switched. Because it had started when the Protoceran had mentioned that Rainbow wanted Zephyr fired, and that had led into the dark mare talking about the reasons for ponies wanting two of the Bearers to be treated the same way.
It had started with firings. And then it had transitioned, so smoothly as to prevent the speaker from noticing the moment when the page had turned. But Fleur had spotted the change.
Causes for desiring Rainbow and Twilight to be fired.
The reasons why some residents of the settled zone wanted the Bearers gone.
Angel was staring at the quill. Fleur paused, noted the tiny spikes of light in the surrounding corona, and carefully set it down.
The town protects them...
That had been Fleur's experience, especially in those first weeks of her Ponyville durance: just trying to get somepony to tell her who they all were had been a challenge, and hoping to be guided to their homes was a lost cause. The town protected its Bearers. Especially Fluttershy, falsely seen as the youngest -- for the mares, that was actually Rainbow, by all of three moons -- and weakest.
The town protected its Bearers. But not everypony in the settled zone could be considered as part of the town.
It was possible to start with Thistle Burr, because any list of malcontents, contrarians, and World's Most Pointlessly Angry Ponies almost had to start with Thistle Burr. He could find a reason to hate every Bearer, wasn't exactly fond of the Princesses, and when it came to Harmony, he lacked Fleur's excuse. Thistle Burr had been born inside Equestria's borders, had apparently never ventured outside, and the base of his education had come from the native school system. Therefore, he had been fully educated in what the pony virtues were and how they were supposed to work together.
It made not believing in any of them into a choice. However, personally having never demonstrated a single positive virtue aspect required continuing dedication. Thistle couldn't afford to slip up and be kind by accident. His continual honesty about how he felt was probably trotting along the line already.
Except that... Thistle Burr was very much part of the town. The part which existed to tell the town how stupid it was.
Fleur was fully aware that he hated every last Bearer, and the fact that she was in a relationship with one of them had allowed him to smoothly slot her in. But he also very much felt that they were his to hate. Having anypony else loathe a Bearer directly in front of him meant they were pushing into his territory, and to have all of them permanently leave just might have the exiled group encounter a Thistle in the road, all spiky aggravation and demanding to know how they could just depart and leave him with nopony to despise.
There were those who foolishly claimed that hate was love with its back turned: in the case of Thistle, it was also wearing blinders and had jammed a rod up the spine to prevent easy spinning. Anypony who had to suffer through three minutes of discussion with him could usually make an accurate guess as to where it had been inserted.
Thistle wanted Rainbow fired. (In turn, she wanted the area around his house designated as a lightning strike zone, and had been caught trying to redraw the map several times.) But Fleur didn't feel he wanted her gone. How could you lord a victory over somepony who wasn't there?
Think about those who might want the Bearers gone, and...
The easily scared. Because there's so much to be afraid of. Even Fluttershy thinks the Trio only stick it out because they're addicted to the rush of fear. Plus staying near the heart of the so-called conspiracy's actions will allow them to crack it. Somehow.
Others are what Miranda said. The ones who just moved here. They thought they were going to be the audience, and now they're part of the play.
Some have suffered losses. Nopony who was in Ponyville died when Tirek came -- but we have commuters. There were residents in the capital on that day. (Her eyes briefly closed.) Some of their pets are still here, and... too many of them know. They just know when their pony is gone, and Fluttershy doesn't want to let them leave until they're ready to accept that they could have another companion. One day.
So many animals understood pony sorrow. Clustered close to their companion, tried to keep the enemy at bay.
So many mourned.
Others... have lost homes. Mr. Rich could afford to rebuild, and just about anypony can get disaster relief -- but they don't want to stay in a place where it could happen again.
On my first day here, I found out that parasprites ate the bank ledgers. Turned out that was because of Twilight. The manager didn't leave. He just started carving all of the new records in stone. And banned her from the bank. Forever. But with some of the other businesses...
The herd subdivides. Ponies see themselves as being part of the settled zone. Of Ponyville. But Tirek was the wake-up call. Because the Bearers didn't stop him. That was Discord, and he's still recovering. Trying to get back what it cost him, and...
...maybe he'll never fully recover. Never come all the way back.
And now ponies know there could be more situations where Harmony isn't enough.
They don't want to be part of this any more. They're afraid, and --
-- they have a reason to be.
You couldn't count on the virtues to save everypony. Chaos had been weakened. And the settled zone was still the place where so much happened...
Then again, they're just as subject to starting it.
And by 'they', Fleur didn't just mean the Bearers. She meant Ponyville. The entire settled zone, and every last sapient in it.
'Everypony in this town is crazy': an oft-repeated thought of her early durance. Well, how was that a lie? In her experience, everypony in Equestria possessed the same capacity for going temporarily mad. For some, that was the insanity which occasionally got labeled as 'heroism'. Others just fell to herd mentality and got caught up in what everypony else was thinking. Move and panic as one. Or fall apart as individuals: ponies were good at that. In potentia, they were all equally as bad.
And when it came to the actual Bearers...
What was the saying? There was no disaster so great that a Bearer couldn't start it?
(What the bloody buck was a 'mirror pool'?)
She'd been in Ponyville for more than a year. Fleur had seen the chaos, and not just the kind which was currently stuck with drinking milk-weakened tea. She'd been on the periphery of several events, closer to the center of others and no matter what anypony said, on those carefully-selected three occasions, it had absolutely not been her fault. She had just been trying to stop it. Serving as a one-mare intercept factor, and it was just that none of her attempts had worked. At least she'd been trying!
...which had at least allowed her to fully understand Rainbow's deep hatred of being roped into any post-event cleanup duties. (Although to be fair, it usually was Rainbow's fault.)
How did the town feel about its Bearers? It generally protected them. That was the decision of the herd. But the herd also became tired. Frightened. It suffered losses, and... it split. Portions of the herd didn't want to be part of the town any more. Or they simply decided that it would be so much easier if the Bearers were gone.
What would it take for all of Ponyville to turn on them?
Fleur thought about it.
Her horn ignited. A flare of light took up the quill again.
She had considered Miranda's words because that was less painful than the things she'd been writing down.
And of those two options, the report was now the easier.
For some ponies, the biggest surprise associated with Rainbow's office was in learning that she had one.
It was possible to manage the town's climate from home, although that would have required molding an addition somewhere near the back. But the Weather Bureau expected every town coordinator to be accessible by those they served. The Bureau also realized that any group of pegasi was almost instinctively going to head up, and so understood when the local headquarters wound up being constructed from vapor -- but the mailbox had to stay at ground level.
After Rainbow had taken over, she'd examined the much-hated place: that which had served as the stage for the oft-repeated play titled I Am Going To Get Rid Of You -- two performers, one script, pretty much no line variations, and she was also expected to serve as the audience -- and decided to make a few changes. The first part of that had been the systematic, wall-by-wall replacement of every bit of vapor which Passing Shower had ever touched: this had quickly been followed by the desk, bench, and most of the cabinets.
(There was supposedly some piece of griffon philosophy about The Cloud Of Hippolytus, which asked whether you could swap out every part of a molded structure with new vapor and still consider it to be the original. Rainbow's solution to the question came from not thinking about the answer. It was still the weather coordinator's office, and it wasn't Passing's. That was what mattered.)
(She'd been thinking about griffons a lot.)
(Over and over.)
Her crowning touch had been swapping out the waste basket for a hollow cylinder with no bottom and designating that as the complaint drawer, allowing anything written against her to be properly filed on the ground. Her genius had been personally celebrated for all of two days before somepony had filed a complaint about that, and done so at Town Hall where she couldn't reach it.
She'd managed to make her matching disposal plan for actual garbage hang on for another week. It was just gonna be collected at ground level anyway, right?
Ponies had complained (with no sense of irony) about those changes. Nopony had said anything about her lowering the office. Passing had kept it at an altitude where just being in there for too long seemed to risk Manière's Disease, and having the resulting vertigo send her tumbling to the ground would have still been better than going through Act One And Only again. Rainbow had brought the entire structure down to where it was effectively hovering just above the soil. All ponies needed to do in order to see her was trot up the ramp and then stand outside the door.
Then it had turned out that ponies didn't like standing outside the door. Several residents decided to register their complaints through standing just under her office and then high-jumping. Over and over. She didn't understand why. They could have just yelled up from ground level. The cloud wasn't soundproof, and having the head of a speaker bobbing in and out of her floor didn't do much for the pacing of the actual stupid speech. Plus anypony making the leap for the first time was guessing at where her desk actually was, and the one who'd gotten her head stuck in the cylinder clearly had no second complaint coming whatsoever.
She'd eventually gone to some trouble (and considerable expense, which she couldn't afford for her own residence) to install a wooden floor. She hated the feel of it beneath her hooves, longed for the gentle cushioning of vapor, and usually flew in and out in order to spare herself some part of the experience -- but now ponies stood on that. And anypony who tried to jump up into her workspace and got their skull bashed for their trouble just as clearly had it coming.
A number of ponies would have been shocked to learn that Rainbow had an office. Finding out that she was within it shortly after dawn had the theoretical chance to fill hospital beds.
She was at her desk. Her own early duties had been finished, because... she'd been awake for hours. It had been something to do. And now she was just waiting for the rest of the team to report in.
Rainbow had already dispatched a bird to the cottage: one carrying a note which told Fleur that no, she hadn't asked Spike to send a scroll off to Gilda. Not yet. She'd been thinking about the possible words, over and over. A number had been written down. Then they'd been stomped on, chewed, soaked, and the worst had been blasted with lightning for not being good enough.
...she wished she was better with words.
She wasn't sleeping very well. She kept thinking about Gilda. Dreaming about her, and the dreams made her not want to sleep at all.
Her friend was in pain, was sick, and she couldn't...
...she was...
Is it my fault?
It almost had to be, no matter what Fleur said.
There must have been something she could have done. As opposed to what she already had.
It was quiet in the office. The place was currently rather dimly lit, because she'd molded the windows shut. She didn't feel like looking outside.
Gilda might fly by. And Rainbow would miss seeing it.
Maybe she needed to open the windows again. Make the griffon visible. And raise the entire office, to the altitude where griffons most commonly flew.
She needed to fix this. To heal her friend.
She didn't know how.
She didn't have the words...
What little illumination did exist was absorbed by the paper on the walls. Maps of Ponyville, in all sorts of scales. Reminders of special instructions. A copy of the national schedule. Charts which showed where every member of the team was supposed to be working, and what their current assignment was.
Zephyr's name had been scribbled onto that last. The letters were jagged.
The way he looks at me...
Rainbow seldom minded when ponies chose to appreciate her. She was, after all, worth it. As far as she was concerned, she had the best ass in town, and she could say that because minimalism was totally a thing and Applejack could just shut up any moon now. Seriously, compare her to Applejack and watch the farmer lose, because that was quality versus firm, muscular, well-cushioned quantity. Rainbow didn't need that cushioning. How often did a pegasus crash on their butt? Based on Rainbow's personal experience, no more than three percent of the time. So there.
She usually didn't mind being looked at. But there was something about the way Zephyr did it which suggested he didn't know when to stop. Or why.
Rainbow had eventually recognized that she'd been placed in Ponyville as a long-term plan: Stratus trying to replace Passing Shower, or at least displace him to a settled zone which didn't have the Everfree to account for. The mayor had spotted that early, and the older mare had known Passing was the wrong coordinator for Ponyville. It had helped Rainbow stay employed through every fit of anger from her Bureau-cratic superior, and eventually...
...it was hard enough just to think about Gilda. She didn't want to think about that day...
...she'd been Stratus' plan for getting rid of Passing. And now it felt like Zephyr was somepony's plan for dumping her.
It had to be a choice between the Bureau or the Wonderbolts, because neither would let it be both any more. She hadn't made a decision. The Bureau was forcing --
-- I'm not ready.
She didn't like Zephyr. Part of that was what Fleur had said about him, some was seeing what he'd done on his other jobs, and most of the rest was the looks.
But it didn't mean he wasn't capable.
Possibly better than capable, because look at who his parents were! Any IST member was ranked among the Bureau's heroes. Somepony on the IST could usually get a free drink just about anywhere in the world, because they'd helped to protect most of it. The Bureau kept the team happy, and that meant Fluttershy's parents had influence. Hiring Zephyr...
Maybe he's good.
I don't like him. It doesn't mean he isn't good. Even after what I saw at the other job sites. Maybe weather is his mark talent.
...can't figure out how the feather relates...
Thinking about feathers put her back on Gilda. She started and destroyed three drafts. Rainbow intended --desperately hoped -- to speak with her friend snout-to-beak, but... working out what some of the words might be in advance might help. Or, as things were currently going, not.
She put the surviving papers away. Looked at the assignment chart again.
If Zephyr is somepony's plan... if he's got the same kind of protection I had... then he'd have to screw up big to get fired.
Too big.
But maybe he's good.
(Maybe she would choose the Wonderbolts.)
(But that would mean --)
She didn't know what Zephyr could truly do.
Rainbow thought.
I could put Flitter on him.
...and if he starts looking at her that way, she might kill him.
Or she might kill him anyway. Because it's Flitter.
Rainbow tried to find the downside.
I'd have to explain it. Plus Fluttershy's parents would be upset.
Think of somepony else.
Members of the weather team occasionally checked in at the office when they were done with a given assignment, mostly to see if there had been any changes and grab a snack. Or they came in to find out if there was any chance of going home early.
Thunderlane usually didn't ask for that last, not unless his brother was involved. He had a way of putting himself into the job. It usually left him on the sweaty side, even in winter. Rainbow wasn't entirely sure how his mane stayed up through that much moisture, and was about to give him a chance to compare modus operandi.
(She'd been thinking in Griffonant lately. Here and there.)
"Heya, Boss," the stallion genially began as he came through the door: the hooves sounded strange on wood. "Finished the northeast tweak a little early. Is there anything you wanted me to --"
"I'm putting you with the new colt," Rainbow immediately told him. "Starting tomorrow. Tell me what he does, and how."
Triple gradations of yellow stared at her.
"You remember," Thunderlane slowly began, "when Passing paired me with you. As your groom master."
"Supervisor and designated tattletale," Rainbow nodded. "You were never really good at that last part, because you found out I could do the work and wanted me to stick around. But you can tell when somepony can't do it. And Zephyr just got shoved into our starting gate. We don't know." She paused, forced her tail to remain still. "It'll look too weird if I stick with him. But you've been paired with rookies before. Can you get me a report? The one the Bureau didn't nose over?"
He thought about it.
The silver-blue mane bobbed through the nod.
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Huh, Rainbow made a good managerial decision. How about that.
Rainbow seems a lot more mature here, even if she doesn't like Zephyr, she's making sure he's incompetent before going the route of firing him. Since she didnt get that courtesy, I guess she feels like she has to give him that at least?
I like this world-building through character/occupation building.
Real world development.
While staying in character.
Makes for a great story and ‘verse.
Plus, IMO, Ponyville = hardship post.
1) It's an earth pony town, lacking in MANY amenities pegasi are used to (A Series of Egotistical Events)
2) Everything from the Everfree from wild weather to wild critters.
3) Discord lives there
4 general craziness from the Mane 6
Plus, it's Civil Service so no extra pay.
In short, to a large extent they have to make do with what/who they can get
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Loyalty and a strong ability to do the work go pretty far toward building a decent boss.
Guess rainbow wants to give zephyr a fair chance because she realized she basically doing the same thing the last boss was trying to do to her, fire her because of bias, it good of rainbow to be better then her predecessor even with her dislike of zephyr
Zephyr will still fuck it up, it zephyr after all
It really throw a wrench into things if zephyr was ironically a natural at the job, giving rainbow no excuse to fire him
Everybody has a management style. Rainbow doesn’t want to be bothered so her style is moderating into “do it right and fast the first time so you don’t have to deal with it again and that gives more flying time”
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I'm pretty sure Zephyr has the potential to be a fully capable, even really good, weatherpony. He's got the wingpower for it, certainly. If he screws up, I believe it will be because of his personality, and not of competence or ability.
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yeah zephyr is his own worse enemy
Hmm, so not even Rainbow can deduce what Zephyrs' talent is.
Intersting, and possible troubling.
Poor Fleur. Not sleeping can cause a whole lot of issues. And the entire 'fire them' subplot is a bit harsh, and understandable.
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I love competent Rainbow. It's refreshing.
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I think that's actually disturbingly possible. Weather manipulation seems to be one of the few things that Zephyr is actually competent at. Indeed, two out of the three firings we've seen have been because Zephyr tried to use weather manipulation techniques to do other jobs (using wind to place roof shingles, and using hail to drive in nails).
Have I missed something? I know I haven’t read all of Estees material but what did Discord do when Tirek came through? I’m assuming Estees AU departed early enough that Discord probably didn’t do the turncoat thing.
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I think it was covered here:
Daily Equestria Life With Monster Girl (Narcissistic)
tl;dr version
Tirek absorbs magic.
Discord is MADE OF magic.
Tirek ate Discord.
Discord messed up Tirek from inside of him, while nearly dying in the process.
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Ahh that explains it. Thats the one i can’t bring myself to read because its too sad and bleak.
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Ooh, remember Gentle Arrival? Maybe it could turn out like that.
Love this. It's like that misquote of Shakespeare where everybody thinks it means blood is thicker than water but really it's the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
What a great section this whole thing was. What would it take for the Bearers to be rejected and banished from Ponyville? It's a dark thought.
I enjoyed the Rainbow section for her maturity and surprisingly fair decision-making. It's wonderful that she still wants to save Gilda despite all their painful history. Wouldn't expect anything less from Loyalty though.
Very well done stuff. Thank you Estee. Looking forward to the next installment, whenever that may be.
Now I want Flitter to get her own scene dealing with Zephyr.
Like some kind of maniac!
Jokes aside, this whole chapter made my stomach twist. Between Fluttershy getting ground down by her brother's presence, the town's divided opinions on the Bearers, and Dash lamenting GIlda, there's an air of regret and dread over the whole installment. I almost want things to get worse, if only so it'll release some of this horrendous tension.
... Please note that that wasn't a request. Or a suggestion. And I apologize in advance to future readers.
👍
Thanks for writing!