open Ponyville Weather Team

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy didn't know what to think, after getting the rug pulled out from under her like that. She didn't know if she should feel relieved that it was a prank, or disappointed that she was already the target of pranks. She had hoped to avoid the notice of pranksters for at least a little while longer. Now though, she feared she'd once again be considered an easy mark.

She laughed unconvincingly, "Heh, good one."

She perked up a bit when Rainbow Dash came over, more because the others seemed to not want to try anything when she was near, hopefully she'd be able to use that to her advantage going forward. She'd be quick to head off in the direction of town, repeating the pattern from before by gathering up the clouds for the stronger ones to deal with. Only now she did so with a bit more speed, like she had something to prove.

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"Woah, are you trying to prove something, or what?" Rainbow Dash asked Sandy Fire when she noticed how quickly she was working. "Twilight said we needed to slow down, not speed up, even though I prefer to do everything as fast as possible," she said, mumbling the last part. Even though Rainbow Dash wasn't usually the kind of weather pony that worked on gathering the clouds, she decided to do that so that way she could stay next to Sandy Fire and see what she had to say.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

"Nothing's stopping you from not busting them!" She didn't know why she snapped back at Rainbow like that, and she regretted it. She stopped what she was doing and sighed, "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It's... nothing really. It's just... I feel like I have to prove myself, you know? Like, the ponies here won't respect or accept me unless I can prove that I deserve it. I mean, they never paid me any mind until I helped that unicorn earlier."

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"Prove what?" Rainbow Dash asked, pausing what she was doing to look at Sandy Fire, "This isn't like joining the Wonderbolts, ok? I know because I joined their academy. And the Wonde - weather team already accepts you. Just ask Cloud Kicker over there. Without your help, she wouldn't have been able to clear the sky over there. Also, if you got pranked by Sprinkle Medley, let me know. We can get her back together," Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her front hooves together nefariously.

Given that Sprinkle Medley had a history of pranking, she figured that it she would have pranked the new member as soon as she got the chance. Rainbow Dash was thrilled by the idea of having an excuse to prank Sprinkle Medley back.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy shook her head, "I... I couldn't tell you who. It wouldn't matter anyway, I don't want to get caught up on the loosing side in an unending prank war, not again. I... I just want ponies to accept me for who I am, is that too much to ask!? I... I want to prove that I belong, that... that I can be useful here."

She sat heavily on the cloud she had been about to push over with the others, the las one left in the area, not minding that it was rather cold.

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

Yup, it was definitely Sprinkle Medley. Gosh, what am I supposed to say here? Rainbow Dash thought to herself. Suddenly, it dawned on her.

"Hey, look around. You're on the only tiny cloud left in this whole area. Without you, winter wrap up would have been a mess with tiny clouds scattered everywhere and melted snow in animal's homes," Rainbow Dash said. She decided to leave the cloud that Sandy Fire was sitting on alone and start busting the large ones. Part of her wondered if Sandy Fire sitting on that cloud would cause the snow inside to turn into rain.

 

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy sighed, then looked around at what she had accomplished, "I... I guess that's true. It's just... It's hard sometimes, you know, to tell when you've done enough to earn someone's respect. To prove that you belong." She sighed again, "I guess you'd be the one who'd know if I'd done enough. Thank you. I'll take a little break here, if that's alright, let the other teams catch up, then get back to it."

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"Alright then, I'm heading out," Rainbow Dash said. She joined the rest of the weather team and they continued to break up clouds at breakneck pace. However, if Sandy paid attention, she would have noticed that their methods of busting clouds left small clumps of left over. Busting the small clouds by themselves was inefficient, but none of the weather team seemed to be good at gathering a lot of small clouds into a large clump very quickly. This caused the weather team to leave tons of small stray clouds peppered throughout the sky. 

In addition, it appeared that this sudden warming of Ponyville disrupted the clouds over the Everfree Forest, causing some of the clouds to start drifting over. Those clouds didn't look very present for pegasi either.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

It didn't take too long for Sandy to psych herself back up , especially seeing how the rest were faring without her help, no wonder they usually ran late here. She'd be quick to gather up the strays before turning her attention to the ones coming off the forest, she figured they couldn't be too different from the ones coming off the Dappled Willow Woods that contributed to Dappleshore's name, and as such would head off towards them to try and do the same as she had with the others.

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

The clouds from the Everfree Forest were much harder to work with, often not responding to pegasi magic to magic to manipulate them. In addition, they were very wet and cold, almost unnaturally so, and they looked quite similar to thunderstorm clouds. Rainbow Dash soon noticed and flew over to take a look. The rest of the weather team seemed to have finished clearing the clouds over Ponyville and they were now hovering around, not quite sure what to do with the cloud from the Everfree Forest. "Hey uh, thanks for clearing the stray clouds. Do you know how to deal with clouds from the Everfree Forest?" Rainbow Dash asked. She gestured to the large clump of clouds that was surprisingly dark for some snow clouds and was slowly drifting towards Ponyville.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy shook her head, both to signal her lack of knowledge and to clear her mane of the cold water from the clouds. "These are much heavier than I'm used to, and colder, and wetter. We don't have clouds like these in Dappleshore. What are they doing here anyway?"

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"Woah there," Rainbow Dash said, covering her face from the cold water. She turned to address the rest of the team. "Alright team, these clouds are a group effort. Let's all help Sandy Fire and push this cloud back!" Rainbow Dash rallied. The rest of the weather team lined themselves up and started pushing the cloud together. Everfree clouds couldn't be busted, so the group had to resort to pushing it back to the Everfree Forest, and this involved getting their hooves wet. 

"These Everfree clouds don't react that well to pegasi magic. It's almost as though they to have a mind of their own. Remember to push the same amount or else the cloud would break up and somepony would get soaked!" Cloud Kicker explained to Sandy Fire. "You haven't heard of the Everfree Forest before? Everything in it just isn't natural. The clouds move all on their own!"

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy looked confused, "What do you mean, not natural? The dappled willows back home push the clouds off themselves. Trees want sunlight after all. Do you mean that the tree's here aren't the ones pushing the clouds back?"

The thought of clouds moving on their own, not pushed by the wind or the magic of the trees or the pegasi, was a new concept to Sandy, she didn't know if she liked the idea of clouds being able to move themselves, what if they went where they weren't supposed to?

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"Come on, let's push this thing back!" Rainbow Dash rallied.

"No, nothing pushes them! The clouds move all on their own! It's like they have a mind of their own!" Cloud Kicker exclaimed, facing Sandy Fire. "It's this weird Everfree Forest magic that makes things happen on their own in unpredictable ways. Come on, we can't bust this cloud so we have to push it back before it decides to start dumping snow on ponies."

Just as Sandy Fire said that, the cloud started snowing. However, since the air around them was above freezing, it the snow half melted and slush started accumulating on the ground, resetting the work that the plant team did to clear the ground.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy was nervous, she wanted to come up with some good idea on how to take care of the cloud, prove herself useful once again, but she simply couldn't come up with anything that would be useful. It was simply too new a situation for her to figure out something clever. o she simply followed the directions that the others were giving, pushing with the best of her ability.

She wasn't worried about the slush accumulating on the ground, a torch would make short work of it once the cloud was taken care of.

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

With all the pegasi pushing on the cloud about equally, the cloud slid it's way back over the Everfree Forest. Once the cloud was a significant distance away from Ponyville, the weather team backed off. Rainbow Dash started dusting her hooves off.

"Alright then, now that that's taken care of, we just need to finish clearing the rest of the clouds," she said turning towards Ponyville. What she saw caused her jaw to drop in surprise. The whole sky was completely cleared now.

"Oh wow, that was the fastest we have ever cleared the sky in a winter wrap up, and it was totally awesome!" she exclaimed. "Let's go see how the snow on the ground is being cleared and if the lakes are breaking up properly," she said, gesturing the rest of the team to follow.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Now that Sandy was interested in, Dappleshore didn't have any lakes, they just had a river, and they didn't let that freeze over since it would stop the town's supply of fresh water if it did. So she'd never had to break up ice before. Still, she wasn't about to volunteer her ignorance, and would simply follow along to see where she could help, happy that she had contributed to what sounded like a real accomplishment for Ponyville.

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

The weather team landed by one of the major lakes where Pinkie Pie was breaking up the ice by skating and where Twilight was going through her kilometer-long checklist.

"Oh wow, you mares cleared the sky like lickety split!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, skating over to the crowd as she finished breaking up the ice on the lake.

"Wow, that must be some kind of record. Ahead of schedule by more than three hours..." Twilight mumbled as she glanced in the sky to confirm that it was true. "So the rest of the weather team is a bit behind schedule because of the storm cloud from the Everfree Forest covered the ground with snow and caused some of the cracks in the lakes to freeze over. So, who wants to help clear the snow from the ground and trees and who wants to help break up the ice again?" Twilight asked the group. The group mumbled to themselves and headed off to help the rest of the weather team.

"Hey you! New pony! Do you know how to skate? I promise it's a lot of fun!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, pointing at Sandy Fire.

"Or you could always help clear the snow from the ground and trees," Rainbow Dash added.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy shook her head, "Sorry, I've never ice skated before, I wouldn't be much help with that. As to clearing snow though," she turned towards Twilight, "Is there a unicorn in this town that knows the Safe Fire spell? I may have the name wrong but it's the one that makes fire that doesn't spread, but is still hot. Usually it has a purple flame? That would make clearing the snow super quick if cast on a torch or something."

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

When Sandy Fire mentioned using a spell for Winter Wrap Up, everypony turned to stare at her.

"Well I know it..." Twilight mumbled.

"Uh, I'm not sure if anypony has told you this, but unicorns can't use their spells in Winter Wrap Up. Just look at Twilight, she's holding a feather with her hoof. She never does that if she can use magic. It's tradition," Pinkie Pie explained.

"Do you want to help clear out snow the traditional way then?" Rainbow Dash asked.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy looked mortified, "Oh! I'm... I'm so sorry, I- I didn't mean to-" She sighed, looking down, "No, I didn't know."

Inwardly she thought that was somewhat exclusionary. Why were only the unicorns forbidden from using their magic? Why were the pegasi still allowed to fly then? Still, it wasn't her place to go questioning the longstanding traditions of this town, not if she wanted to fit in.

She was much more subdued when she nodded in response to Dash's question, "I'll see what I can do."

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"Rainbow Dash forgot to tell you that before winter wrap up, huh?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah..." Rainbow Dash admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with her hoof nervously. "Anyways, let's go clear the snow from the trees. I can show you how," Rainbow Dash said as she took off, motioning Sandy Fire to follow.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

"No I... I should have known, I should have asked."

She'd follow Dash's lead, still subdued from the earlier experience. All those judgmental stares? She didn't think she could ever live that down, best if she just kept her head down from that point on.

[Skylight Scintillate 1,851]

@Illiad Easle 

"No it was my mistake. I shouldn't have assumed you knew. I insist," Rainbow Dash said. By then, the other pegasi have moved on. Rainbow Dash flew over to one of the trees. "So to clear the snow, you jump on the trees like this..." Rainbow Dash said, jumping on the tree to shake off the snow onto carts. Then she flew over to the roof of one of the houses. "For the houses, you clear the roofs with a shovel like this," Rainbow Dash said, shoveling the snow off. Rainbow Dash didn't bother to see what Sandy Fire did. She assumed that it would be simple enough. Rainbow Dash alternated between clearing trees and roofs, getting the snow off of them at record pace.

[Illiad Easle 2,973]

@Ocean Wavedream

Sandy wondered why they didn't just use some wind in both cases, the pegasi busting the clouds earlier clearly had the wing strength for it, but didn't want to bring it up in case that was another faux pas against the tradition of the town. Inwardly she smirked, Remembering Twilight's earlier line that wrap-up was always late to be completed, no doubt it was because they were so focused on tradition they failed to account for the fact that the town had grown far beyond what the traditions were capable of handling. Sooner or later they'd need to adapt, or at least be less speciest in what they considered 'correct'

She stopped herself before she could continue on that thought, she'd never be accepted by the town if she were rebelling against its ways. And although she craved efficiency, she craved acceptance more.

She'd follow Dash's instructions, but it would be clear her heart wasn't in it like it had been before. Earlier she had been enjoying the work, but now she just wanted it to be over. And there's not even a bonfire to look forward too.