Karyn had risen while it was still dark, despite it being pointless to do so. The weather forecast had called for heavy snow, and she heard the howling of the wind, but she couldn’t tell if it had started yet. Even pressing her nose to the glass of the window was unrevealing until she looked at the streetlight across the way. There in the haze of the glow were small flecks of white. They were moving at an angle closer to horizontal than to vertical, and Karyn frowned.

It didn’t surprise her when Derpy missed their appointed time for meeting and hoped that, if things got too bad, she would turn around and go home. Indeed, it wouldn’t even be necessary to turn back, since she could warp from wherever she was.

Only a few minutes late, she heard the sound of the window being lifted and quickly shut again. Derpy turned visible.

“I shouldn’t have even bothered disguising myself,” she said. “In the first place, no one’s out there, and in the second, it’s so gray that I would blend in anyway.”

“Not with that plaid scarf and striped hat.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right. They were all I had between me and the snow. Is there anywhere I can hang them up?”

Karyn seemed to detect that she spoke particularly quickly, and herself hesitated to see if anything was wrong. “Why don’t you lay them on the heater to dry? Then they’ll be warm for when you have to go later.”

Derpy did so. “You sure they won’t catch on fire?”

“I don’t know what you use for textiles in Equestria, but I certainly doubt they flame up at only a hundred degrees or so. Is everything all right? You seem tense. Well, that’s probably just because you came through the storm.”

“Heh. Yeah, right.”

Karyn went to the heater and spread the scarf out for maximum coverage, then turned back to Derpy. “Come on, what is it?”

“You promise you won’t be mad?”

“It’s something that’s going to make me mad?”

“I’m asking you to promise that you won’t be mad,” said Derpy, “and if you do, and then fulfill that promise, then no, it’s not something that’s going to make you mad. But if you don’t promise, then yes, it might.”

“Or if I do promise, but don’t come through and still get mad.”

“Yes, in that case it would also be something that makes you mad.”

Karyn took a deep breath. “I think I’m willing to take that chance.”

“Well, on the way over here I was having difficulty making it through the storm. The wind was in my face, and while that’s good for lift, it’s bad for going forward. So I…” she mumbled and trailed off.

“What was that?”

“I moved some cloud and lowered how much wind there was on my path here.”

“And your worried I’ll be mad because you changed the weather,” said Karyn.

“Yes. I know that you always tell me not to, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now for you to yell at me for doing what it was that you would tell me not to do.”

“Derpy, I’m not going to yell at you. Listen, you have to understand the reason why I don’t want you to change the weather. If we had pegasi here who could make up for it and knew how to handle weather so that it doesn’t get catastrophic, I would have no problem. But we can’t even predict the weather accurately when there’s not a pegasus interfering. So if you cancel out a rainstorm in August, I don’t know for sure that we won’t have a blizzard in February.

“But since it is February, and since we do have a blizzard, and since you didn’t actually stop the storm but just cut yourself a path, I have nothing to complain about.”

Derpy spread her wings out in relief. “Got it. So if it’s the worst possible weather, I can fix it. Does that mean that I should go out and end the storm now?”

“No. This is bad, but it isn’t the worst possible. If we’re even in the middle of a hurricane or a tornado, I’ll let you do whatever you like. No, I take that back. If it’s a hurricane or tornado, I’d be too scared for you.”

“Aww, that’s sweet. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go up against a hurricane all on my own.”

Karyn took another look outside. “Well, going out for breakfast isn’t going to happen. Let me see what I’ve got in here.”

She had not done extensive shopping, but managed to find eggs and bread, and made egg-in-the-basket for both of them. Derpy had never had it, and pronounced it a top-notch breakfast.

When they checked the time, only a half hour had passed since Derpy had arrived.

“This is what I can’t stand about snowy weather,” said Karyn. “They always seem to coincide with days you don’t have anything else to do. Why couldn’t this be on a Tuesday so one of my classes got canceled?”

“When you’re working, you’ll wish that the storms come on the weekend. That way everypony else has to clear away the snow by their mailboxes, or you’re allowed to skip them over.”

“That applies only if I’m a mail deliverer. But yes, when I’m in IT I’ll probably have to come in all the time, even for storms. At least for a little while, then they’ll let me work from home by remote access.”

Derpy stared. “That sounds nice.”

“It is. But for right now, we’re trapped inside, ready to go stir-crazy. Wait a minute, what am I thinking? We can certainly get out; we’ve got a spell to leave the entire universe! Come on, let’s go back to Equestria. Even if it’s cold there, at least there isn’t this much show.”

“Well, technically you’re right.”

Karyn had already stood up to go for her coat and hat, but pulled up at Derpy’s words. “What do you mean?”

“We actually had a lot more snow in Equestria. This wasn’t all Earth snow that I got on my scarf. Well, maybe it was if all the Equestrian snow fell off and got replaced with Earth snow, but I have no way to check that.”

“That’s not the point. It snowed there?”

“Yes it did,” said Derpy. “And there’s nothing I can do about that. Once the snow’s on the ground, it’s not weather anymore, and there’s nothing that pegasi can do about it. A unicorn might melt it, but I can’t. Also, the weather team wouldn’t like it if somepony did.”

“I guess that makes sense, though I wonder exactly where the line is between what weather is and what it isn’t. Do ponies even salt the roads? I wouldn’t think you would.”

Derpy stared at her like she was crazy. Karyn decided she’d better explain.

“All right, salt lowers the melting point of water, so if you put it on the roads, the snow will melt even if it’s cold.”

“Of course salt lowers the melting point of water, but we’re talking about snow. If you mixed in the salt with the water while it was being made into snow, you might have something, but not when it’s just on top of the salt.”

Now it was Karyn’s turn to give Derpy the confused look. “That actually makes a lot of sense, but our people still do it, so it might be one of those things in physics or chemistry that I just don’t understand.”

“It would be nice, though, to have the roads salted after snow. We could have salt-flavored snowcones when it was all done.”

“I don’t think those sound tasty, but I don’t eat grass either, so we have different tastes.”

Derpy nodded. “Well, if we can’t go out, what are we going to do?”

“Nothing to do except hang around the house and watch movies.”

Neither of them had any better ideas, so Karyn fired up her computer and found something they could watch together from the Internet. She took a long time about getting the speakers positioned correctly, so that it felt like being in a movie theater.

It seemed to work, because the sound was better than when she usually watched videos. Even Derpy noted it, and her ears were better to begin with.

“Oh, I know why,” said Karyn. “It’s the snow. Normally we get all the traffic from outside, but the snow is muffling that. Even the wind, you can see it’s bad, but you can’t tell because of the snow.”

“I never noticed that. Thinking back, yeah, it’s always been quiet when there’s snow, but I always figured it was because of there being so few ponies out.”

“That might be another factor. I mean, it would be about people here, not ponies, but there is less reason for them to be on the road. But I’m pretty sure there is some noise cancelling effect that comes from snow. I don’t know much about that either. Physics, chemistry, and sound; when it comes to snow, I’ve got a lot to learn.”

They kept going with the movies, wasting the day away. “I don’t like doing this either,” said Karyn, “but on the other hand, it’s nice to take a day just to veg out and recharge, you know?”

“I know, but you have to make sure it doesn’t become a habit. I’ve sometimes lost whole weeks like that.”

“It’s true. Say, do you hear the quiet of the snow?”

Derpy turned her ears to the outside. “Yeah, but we talked about that.”

“No, it’s more. Like, now it’s dead quiet. And was it this bright before?” She went to the window and opened the curtains. “Oh, the storm ended! There’s another weird thing about snow storms: they always end with the sun. You never see it snow for three days straight. Thank goodness.”

Derpy hovered near the window, then backed off and covered her eyes with her hoof. “It’s so bright out there!”

“Now, this one I do know. When the snow is on the ground, everything gets brighter. It’s called the albedo. The interesting thing is that that’s what causes ice ages. The Earth gets so bright that it reflects sunlight outwards, and less of it reaches Earth to keep it warm. So you get more ice and even more. It’s a vicious circle.”

“Ooh.” Derpy shook her head, and Karyn understood what she meant. It was a harsh world, harsher than Equestria, even if they had some things better like cars and computers.

They waited until their eyes had adjusted from the dim light of the computer screen to face the snow.

“Well,” said Karyn, “I guess we’d better get out there.”

“Yeah. There’s a lot of fun to be had.”

“Ha! Fun, she says.”

Derpy cocked her head inquisitively. “It’s not fun to play in the snow?”

“It is fun to play in the snow, but that’s not what we’re going to do. We have to shovel out the driveway and get the car where we could get it out.”

“We have to do that? Why?”

Karyn opened the closet and pulled out a shovel. Then she found a coat heavier than her usual. Attached by clips were a hat and a pair of gloves.

“We don’t have to per se. We could sit around and wait for Gayle to, since it’s her responsibility. But growing up when we had snow my folks drilled into me that it’s everyone’s responsibility to pitch in. So I do.”

Derpy took her own effects from the heater, where they had grown quite warm, and she got to enjoy the feeling as she put them on. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I’ll do what I can.”

“Just being there for me will help. If the snow were falling more steadily, I would have gone out a couple of times and cleared the path while it was still falling. That makes it easier in the end. But with the blizzard blowing, it would have just dumped more snow right on what I cleared. Case in point.”

She opened up the door to reveal that the snow had come up three feet and made a wall against the door, which hung there, thankfully not falling over.

“Should I try to blow it the other way?” asked Derpy.

“No. This part we have to do delicately.” Using only the edge of the shovel, she flicked away snow until there was a place to stand. “Hang back until you have enough room to come out. I’m trying not to get snow on the carpet.” She worked carefully, checking the wind before each toss, then checked her pocket for her keys and shut the door.

“It’s a good thing the snow doesn’t blow the door wide open. I’ve had that happen a couple of times.”

“It should be a good strong door, not susceptible to that.”

Karyn worked her way down the path, clearing off the asphalt and occasionally a strip of grass where she couldn’t see the edge. Once they reached the driveway, she dug more haphazardly, tossing onto the grass until she reached her car. Then she stopped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Derpy, now invisible.

“My ice scraper is in the car itself. I didn’t think to take it out yesterday.”

“This isn’t ice, though. It’s snow.”

“The scraper has a brush on it that would be perfect for getting all the snow off the car.” Karyn huffed. “I guess I just have to push it aside with my gloves.”

“Hang on. I might have a spell that can do short-range teleportation of small objects.”

“Yeah? That could be really useful. But wait, you’re sure that it actually teleports them and doesn’t just haul them in? It’s not going to send the ice scraper through my window, is it?”

Derpy hesitated, then said, “No, I’m sure it works by pure magic. Almost entirely sure.”

“Well, there’s an old line we haven’t heard in a while.” Karyn tensed herself, but indeed there was a flash of light and the scraper popped into existence beside them. Neither the car nor the snow coating it was disturbed.

“Now you can clear off the car,” said Derpy.

“Not quite yet. I want to dig a path all the way around, taking care of the driveway as I go.”

“Can I help at all?”

Karyn leaned on the shovel. It was tiring work, and the gloves made her hands uncomfortable. From what she could tell, no one was around, but perhaps that was the noise-muffling of the snow again. Still, she decided to risk it.

“Only behind the car where it’s shielded from the road. If the plow comes by, I don’t want the driver swerving from shock.”

“Yay!” Karyn watched the shovel lift itself up and float toward the back. After the first pass, Karyn realized that Derpy had an advantage and a disadvantage. She couldn’t get leverage to actually flip over a pile that had accumulated on the shovel, but she could use it as a plow to push the snow forward long after it got too heavy for Karyn. Derpy’s wings would give her the added strength to go forward. It couldn’t clear the driveway, but it could do most of it.

They heard a “Squee!” from behind, and both of them looked to the window to see Gayle watching out and waving, a grin covering her face. Karyn laughed internally as she saw it from her perspective: another magic spell.

“All right, Derpy, I’ll do the rest. Let me take care of the car.”

She brushed the first stroke of the snow, and it came off easily with almost no pressure, collapsing into a pile of powder on the newly-shoveled ground. When she felt how easy it moved, Karyn switched from repeated strokes to a wild up-and-down motion, knocking all the snow off the side windows in a few seconds.

“That seems easy,” said Derpy. “It’s really powdery, not too sticky.”

“That, and there’s no ice underneath. That’s what’s really helpful.”

A few more passes with the brush and the car’s windows were clear, but there was still enough snow under the tires that it would have a hard time getting traction. Karyn opened the door.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get snow inside, and the car can’t get out on the road.”

“I know, but I want to just drive it out of the snow it’s in, then we’ll worry about the road later.” She started the car and put it in reverse, but was only able to move it a foot. She rocked it back and forth a few times.

“Hang on, let me clear out some by the wheels.”

“All right, but don’t get seen.”

Derpy had to push hard to move the snow packed by Karyn’s tires, but she got to where only another foot or so remained.

“Try it now.”

One more push. Karyn pressed the gas pedal hard and the engine whined, but it rolled over the snow onto the cleared part of the driveway.

“Woo-hoo! I always like it when I can use the power of the engine rather than the power of my arms.”

“Cool.” What now?”

Karyn looked around. “Well, until the plow comes through for the street, we’re not going anywhere, so I might as well take care of Gayle’s car while I’m out here.”

“That’ll be a good deed.”

“I have selfish reasons. Knocking all the snow off when it’s this loose is just fun.”

She attacked the other car with her brush, and during that they heard the sound of the plow making its way down the road. They stood and watched as it shoved aside the snow and left sand in its wake. It couldn’t make it all the way to the ground, so the road stayed white, but at least the snow was no longer so deep as to make it impossible to drive.

Right as he passed the house where Karyn’s apartment was, though, he turned in to catch some of the driveway. It gave them more of the road, but left huge boulders of ice and snow along the edge behind Karyn’s car. She opened her mouth as if to swear, but caught herself.

“This is the worst part of the shoveling. Getting rid of all that just to get out.”

“Anything else I can do to help?” asked Derpy.

“No, I just have to shovel each one individually. If you tried to pick them up with your hooves they’d probably come apart.”

With her anger fueling her, Karyn tossed the snow-boulders back into the street where the plow would get them on its next pass. She doffed her gloves and hat.

“Hey, you forgot to do the top of your car.”

Derpy went back for the brush, but Karyn held her up.

“Actually…OK, this might be a little weird of me, but I like to drive and blow it off that way. See, when I was young there was this video game where you had to drive a car and bad guys would come up from behind. Sometimes you’d have gadgets on your car like a smoke screen that would knock the bad guys’ cars off the road. When there’s snow on the roof I like to pretend I’m playing that game for real.”

“But you don’t really drop the snow on people’s cars, do you?”

“No. Although if they’re that close to me, they deserve to get snowed on.”

She got in the car, and Derpy joined her in the passenger seat. It took another small push to get over the snow the plow had built up, but then they were on the road.

“No one’s behind you, Karyn. If you want to go fast, now’s the time.”

“I don’t want to do it too fast and risk spinning out. It would be a shame to get hurt or damage the car just for a little fun. Here we go, now.”

She accelerated slowly, but it was still enough to shake the powder off the roof, and it blazed behind them in a suffusion of white.

Derpy had turned around in her seat. “Well, I guess that’s one way for a human to make a cloud. It didn’t last too long, but it was there.”

“Aww, that’s sweet. Like I’m a little bit pegasus. Come on, we’ll go down to the end of the block and then turn around.”

The end of the block was a cul-de-sac where one of the lots was used for a sump. Since no one lived there, the plow had piled all its payload into an eight-foot mountain. They turned around and went back to the apartment. Finally able to take off her coat, Karyn shook the snow out of her hair.

“I’m glad they’re able to clear the snow,” she said, “but I wish they didn’t have to put it all in one place. Now it’ll take that much longer for it to melt in the spring.”

Before Derpy could say anything there was a knock at the door. Karyn motioned her to hide once more, and then pulled it open. Gayle was standing there.

“I just wanted to say thanks for taking care of my car. I made some hot chocolate, and brought you a mug.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Karyn turned back, but then thought of something. “I hate to do this, but would it be too much trouble to ask for two?”

Gayle was confused, but brought the second mug a minute later.

Author's Notes:

Have you picked up yet that chapters with a zero at the end are the important ones? What do you think's going to happen next week? Let's take a peek!

“Derpy, please bring Karyn with you back to Equestria today.”

She flipped it around to see if there was any more written on the back, but all she saw was the quality of the paper once more.

“I don’t get it. That’s it? Are you sure it’s not a prank?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I believe that I can use an inter-horn communication spell to give her a magical poke now and then.”

Karyn stopped walking. “I’ve never heard of that magic. Did Twilight invent it?”

“Perhaps. Somepony told it to me, I don’t remember who.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"A while back I had a dream about you being captured by humans. It was really messed up and scary, and Princess Luna came to me and talked to me about fears and such.”

“You’re lucky! I’ve never met Princess Luna.”

“Yes, you have. We met her together.”

How will that storyline be paid off? Come back and find out!