Spike had been partially right. Twilight had meant to leave that afternoon to try and find Discord, and she had intended to make a trek into the forest and see what he had gotten into in her absence (most likely no good). Of course, Twilight meant to do a lot of things lately, but her typical schedule had been thrown quite out of sync. Every day since the discovery of the Cloudsdale crisis Twilight had spent organizing her fellow unicorns, and every night was spent pouring over nearly every book in the library as she tried to seek some sort of more permanent solution. The purple pony had hardly any time for sleep, or to even try to form a normal-looking schedule for that matter.

Her intentions, however, seemed to be misplaced along with her typical sleeping habits. As the day wore on and it became later and later, Twilight felt another pang of guilt every time her eyes landed on the forest, and her mind went straight to the being possibly waiting for her inside.

The day then turned to night, and then it was too late to go. True, she had gone to see him late at night once before, but it wasn’t as if that had been intentional… Plus it had been daylight when she had begun her search. The combination of her persistent conscience and the lack of useful information in the sea of books around her caused Twilight too much frustration to get any really good sleep.

As night began to turn into another day, Twilight began to consider that she might require a trip to the Canterlot Library for more research. It was a much, much bigger sea to peruse there, and if she didn’t hear from the princesses soon, that would be her best shot.

She felt a mixture of gratefulness and annoyance therefore when she felt like she had just begun a satisfying REM cycle, then suddenly the trumpets sounded. The sun had risen, and those trumpets could only mean that some pony important had arrived in Ponyville.

Twilight fumbled out of bed, quickly trying to rub the traces of that insignificant amount of sleep from her eyes and barreling down the stairs and out the library door, mane uncombed, teeth unbrushed.

The small town square wasn’t that far from her tree house home, and since dawn had only just broken, not very many ponies were out and about, with the exception of the nearly twenty unicorns still stationed on the edges of the town… and now the much larger grouping of uniformed members of the Canterlot Royal Guard.

It was a good thing that nearly every pony was still in their homes sleeping because the square was nearly filled with pony soldiers, all standing in formation. It was clear at a glance that neither alicorn princess had accompanied these ponies from the lack of a chariot or some other form of transport.

As if they had been waiting for her – which they might actually have been – the nearly forty stallions (and possibly a few mares in there) stood straighter at attention, making one long space to let some pony through.

Twilight’s sleepy mind was still trying to get its gears working or she may have figured who they might be making way for. If it wasn’t the princesses bringing this faction of the guard along, it had to be some pony else of great importance to Canterlot.

Even in her waking state, her heart leapt to see him. The multi-shaded blue mane and tail stood out as it always did against his white fur, still sporting unshorn fetlocks and a smile that – she was embarrassed to know – had made all the school fillies swoon. Twilight smiled broadly as he reached her, the stallion looking much more official and important than she did at the moment.

“Shiny!” she greeted her big brother best friend forever with a sudden hop, in really the most informal way to have greeted the captain of the royal guard, but Shining Armor didn’t seem to care. In fact he held a hoof out to wrap her in a hug, which she had to pull away from as he attempted to give her an affectionate noogie.

“There you are, Twily,” he said after finally letting her go. “It’s great to see you.”

“Great to see you too,” she echoed. This of course reminded them both about why they were there, for it wasn’t exactly hard to notice. All they really needed for a reminder was to look up.

“I’d ask how things are, but I already know,” Shining Armor said, the warmth slowly seeping out of his voice as the seriousness of the situation found its way in. “Is it true that you still don’t know what’s causing it?”

“Yes, and I’m getting desperate,” Twilight answered. “We can’t keep going like this, Shiny. The pegasi’s attempts at pulling the city back up have been less than fruitless, and our local unicorns are running themselves ragged trying to help.”

“More so than you, you mean?” Shining inquired, and Twilight caught that hint of a tease there.

“Shiny, I have to run myself ragged, I’m allowed to. It’s my duty to help, and who else could organize everything so quickly and be made to run so smoothly?”

“It isn’t as though you’re doing this all alone, Twily,” Shining said. “Your friends are part of the Elements too, surely they can help you.”

“And they have been. Rainbow’s been keeping us informed about what’s going on up there, Fluttershy’s been directing all the birds’ flight traffic away from both towns’ airspace, Applejack and Pinkie have been keeping morale up with food at no charge, and of course, Pinkie’s also been trying to keep every pony smiling even through all of this. Then there’s Rarity and I, we’ve been taking shifts along with all the other unicorns to use the one spell I know can provide at least a temporary solution. Though it’s not a very good one.”

Shining listened to her as she went through all that had been happening, and when she was finished evidently decided to breech one of the more obvious questions.

“What about the Elements themselves? Have you tried to use them? Maybe they could fix all this.”

A bit of the impatience Twilight had been having with nearly everything lately seemed to slip out at her brother’s question. “Don’t you think that was our first thought too? That was the first thing we tried, but evidently the Elements just aren’t meant to work that way. From what I can gleam they are made to work on an individual or a whole group of ponies, and even reverse things done to the landscape when an outward force causes a great imbalance… but this is apparently something different.”

His questioning glance seemed to coax her on. “The Elements are meant to restore balance, and for some reason this does not count as something that throws off the balance, because they haven’t been able to be of use. So far it’s only been a combination of the magic provided by the unicorns and the strength by the pegasi that has been able to slow Cloudsdale’s progress.”

Shining nodded sternly, and then he placed a hoof on her shoulder. Twilight didn’t meet his gaze at first, thinking back to the feelings of uselessness they had all felt when they discovered that the Elements – the go-to power source for all things supremely powerfully hard to fix – could not perform the task.

“Hey, don’t worry. We’re here now to help you all. The princesses sent me and enough unicorns and pegasi to fill in for your lot.”

Twilight perked up, “They got my letter?” she asked meekly. It was obvious since they were here that of course they did, but in all honesty Twilight hadn’t been too hopeful that they would respond.

“Of course they did. They send their regrets that they couldn’t aid you themselves, but they thought you might consider me and the rest of the guard here the next best thing,” he gave her a wink that brought her smile back, if only a little smaller.

“Just tell us what to do, and I’ll direct my ponies however you see fit,” Shining said.

Twilight nodded, some newfound hope filling the wind in her sails of determination. “Well, firstly if you could take up for the unicorns and the pegasi that are currently at their posts, and then we can figure out a new schedule that will rotate every pony. That is, if you don’t think your group will get too tired.”

Shining scoffed good naturedly. “Pfft, are you kidding? These guys have trained for far more treacherous conditions, they’ll be fine.”

“Great,” Twilight said. She knew that her brother was doing his duty, and that the princesses had sent him, and that every pony that had been sent was going to be doing their part, but at that moment she felt so grateful to him specifically. It was almost like he was coming to her rescue.

“Thanks, Shiny.”

It wasn’t a permanent solution – and it couldn’t keep Cloudsdale from continuing to slowly fall – but it was certainly going to be a great help and load off of the shoulders of the residents of both towns.

Shining gave the signal to the other members of the guard; he spoke to the unicorn nearest to him. “You heard the mare; we’ve got some dead-tired civilians to take over for. All the pegasi should head up to Cloudsdale with Lieutenant Flyer Fry. The unicorns can set up at the parameter that Twilight’s already arranged.”

One of the pegasi to Shining’s left gave a call for the others to follow, taking off in an orange blur that the other winged ponies could barely keep up with.

Shining Armor turned back to his sister as the winged portion of his group flew off.

“I’m going to need you to show me that spell you’ve all been using to teach it to every pony. We’ve also brought along a few earth ponies, but they weren’t sure what they could do.”

Twilight thought. “They can help the Apples. Applejack and her family have been gathering as much of their crops as they could spare to save in the event of an evacuation, and if any of them are medically trained, we are in need of some help there too. All of this had been such a strain on every pony, so many ponies have been pushing themselves to their limits… exhaustion is practically an epidemic at this point.”

With the rest of the faction heading out to do their part, Shining and the other unicorns crowded around Twilight as she showed them how to perform the magic that was pushing the city of clouds upwards.

It wasn’t the most difficult spell, but it required much concentration, and many ponies to all convene as one in order for it to have the desired amount of strength. When the spell was in effect, a pattern of small golden beams of light began to emanate from the horn of the caster. As they flew up towards their target they became invisible to the naked pony eye, but once a steady stream of beams could be seen coming from each horn Twilight figured they had it down.

A dozen of the uniformed ponies left their captain and his sister to relieve the ponies that had been up all night performing the spell, while the rest went off to aid any pony else they could. This left the siblings nearly alone in the square.

“We can have your group take a shift, and during that time I can find a way to make a new schedule for all of this,” Twilight said wearily. Now that the surprise of their arrival had subsided, Twilight was beginning to feel the extreme lack of a good night’s rest she had been suffering from.

Shining smiled again, and spoke with a soft tone of concern… yet with trepidation
“Why don’t you let me take care of the scheduling, Twily?”

Twilight had enough energy to look offended at her older brother. This had evidently been why he had been so careful about making this offer, he knew her enough to try not to make it sound like an insult.

“But Shiny, this is what I can do – the only thing I feel like I can do right now – if I don’t make the schedule, how will we know if it’s the best it can be?”

“Sis, you aren’t the only one who knows how to organize,” Shining said, still trying to be gentle about it. “I want to do this for you. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna sent us to help you. When I say ‘you’ I do mean all of Ponyville and Cloudsdale… but I also mean you specifically, you and the other Elements. Let me do this for you, ok? There has to be a few things in that schedule of yours that have gotten sidelined during all this chaos.”

Twilight gave an involuntary chuckle, mostly to herself. Chaos…right, funny you should mention that, Shiny. True, there were a few other things that Twilight had been putting off, but going to see Discord was a fairly big one.

“Well, there are a few things that could use my attention,” she allowed.

“Like sleep?” he asked knowingly.

Twilight yawned in spite of herself. Sleep? She couldn’t possibly even if Shining Armor was giving her this opportunity to catch up on things. There were more important things than that she was sure.

“No, I couldn’t possibly, it’s barely morning, and I have things to do.”

The stallion shook his head and began to nudge her towards her home. “Nuh-uh, I am putting my hoof down, little sister. Whatever it is can wait until later today when you’ve had at least eight hours of sleep.” His good-natured command made her smile, but she still resisted his directive gesturing.

It took much prodding, coaxing, and a little bribing, but Shining was able to get Twilight back to her library tree home and up the stairs to her bed. He did not let her stop for any research material, no matter how much she assured him that she would need them and could just ‘rest on the bed with them. That’s good enough.’

So, against her will, Twilight lay back down for more sleep. As her mind began to drift off, she tried to get all the problems out of her head, and try not to focus on what she would need to do after this forced napping was over. Her mind brought Discord back to the surface. She knew she needed to speak with him about all of this, even if she didn’t think he was involved. She would also have to apologize for her absence.

Her sleepy mind half-wondered what he was doing. The thought of him adding some more ‘touches’ to his home, or finding new types of funny things to do to the non-speech capable fauna that he could still mess with somehow calmed her. Maybe it was the thought that he was out there now thanks to her. She was glad for him in that regard and that helped her feel a bit more content, and helped her finally let her conscious mind take a breather.

She still hoped he wasn’t too lonely out there.

Shining stood at her bedside for a little while, mostly to make sure she was actually going to sleep. He had left for a moment, but he couldn’t have been gone for more than a minute. When he returned her lights were very much out. He hoped she would be able to get more frequent rest now, with at least a small portion of the stress this situation was causing every pony lifted. Before he departed he could see her smile in her sleep, and he wondered what she might be thinking, or dreaming about. He smiled too, and then left her to her dreams.

This was one of those times when Spike wished that he was the type of dragon that had wings, or… that if he was that type of dragon, that they’d just hurry up and grow in already. A new day had dawned and it still seemed that Twilight had not gone to see Discord, in fact when he woke up it was to find her brother Shining Armor tucking her in for a nap that they both agreed was completely overdue for her.

So Spike took this opportunity to do what he had been thinking about since the draconequus appeared so suddenly the previous day.

It seemed the deeper he got into the Everfree Forest, the harder it became to avoid the ever-growing patches of Poison Joke that he knew would cause problems should his scales make contact with the blossoms.

As he did a kind of hopping jig to keep from walking on them, he wondered how Twilight managed to come and visit Discord with this mine field of crazy plant life all around. He supposed she might have found another route after traveling back and forth so much, or maybe she had had the good sense to wear some sort of boots to protect her vulnerable pony hide. Or – and this was a distinct possibility in Spike’s opinion – Discord had merely increased the amount of Poison Joke plants just for his arrival.

He sure hoped that since he had gone through this trouble that the spirit of chaos would actually be in this location. It would be just his luck that Discord would - after going through that endeavor in the library - that he’d go off somewhere farther away to lick his wounds.

Spike had a hunch though that he wouldn’t be far. It was a sneaking suspicion – and it weirded him out a little to think about it – but Discord’s appearance in front of him the other day – ending with a grand total of three tries, each one more painful to watch than the last – had given Spike something new to wonder about him. He wasn’t sure how much to believe, or if he even wanted to believe it… but as he continued to dance through the undergrowth and carefully avoid the strange blue flowers it continued to bug him… it was the why that was so bothersome.

The small purple dragon finally found a clearing in the depths of the forest where there was not a sign of the blue poison joke plant, and he rested his tired feet with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t much longer until he found the spirit of chaos himself.

Spike had never actually talked to Discord directly, so he wasn’t entirely sure how this would play out, but he did have a good amount of hearsay from Twilight and the others to assume that dealing with Discord would probably not be very straight-forward.

The castle was dark inside, and Spike strained his ears to possibly hear any pony approaching. He still nearly jumped when Discord finally made his presence known, leaning on a column on the far end of a giant room, a torch suddenly ablaze behind him.

“Well well, look who finally decided to pay me a visit. You know you cou-“ Discord seemed to be perfectly at ease as Spike approached, the very picture of cool and collected as he seemed to know exactly who he was talking to without so much as a glance. When the presumptuous creature finally did open his eyes to see not a pony but a dragon before him, his words were cut off and the confident smirk vanished.

Spike seemed to have caught him by surprise, which Discord was quickly attempting to adjust to, though he could tell he’d thrown the draconequus off his usual game.

“Oh, so she sent you. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, but I have heard much about you Mister Number-One Assistant,” he adapted almost seamlessly, but Spike thought he had caught Discord in something that he could not take back, and with that any fear that had bubbled up inside of him at seeing Discord faded away.

“Not who you were expecting, huh? And no, she didn’t send me. I came on my own.”

The dragon‘s lack of fear did not seem to affect him. Discord remained where he was, barely acknowledging Spike in posture. In voice however, it was clear that he was indeed not the creature Discord wanted to see.

“So has she finally grown tired of all our fun and shuffled the burden of entertaining and keeping tabs on me to you?”

“You know that’s not like her,” Spike answered.
“You’ve been spending enough time with Twilight to know that that’s something she would never do. She wouldn’t just stop her duties without warning.”

He saw Discord roll his eyes at the mention of ‘duties’.

“…and she wouldn’t just give up on some pony she considered a friend either, no matter how much trouble every pony else finds him,” he added. “I’m sure she feels really guilty about missing her appointments with you. She’s not going crazy like it’s a deadline for the princess or anything, but I’m sure she feels terrible.”

“Well, if she feels so terrible, then why hasn’t she shown up yet? It’s been at least two weeks,” he complained.

“Maybe because the whole of Twilight’s world doesn't revolve around you and neither does the rest of the world. There’s kinda been a minor crisis lately in our town if you haven’t noticed.”

“Of course I haven’t,” Discord answered impatiently.

“Of course you haven’t,” Spike repeated, not sure why he should be surprised.

“Look, you can play the offensive all you want, but I don’t think this is completely about you being offended by her absence.”

“What are you getting at?” Discord asked, but in a way that only barely hinted at an interest.

“You’re acting like she offended you by being gone so long, leaving you bored. I’m just saying that I don’t buy that as the whole reason for you to be so annoyed with her. If you were just bored you could have found something else to do around here.”

Discord glanced back at him, for once not fiddling with his claws, but looking at him with some interest.

“I know you get bored pretty fast, but I also hear that you get lonely.”

“Pfft,” Discord made a sound of dismissal. “Where did you hear that?”

“From Twilight,” Spike answered. That got Discord’s full attention, and since he had it Spike decided to tack on to his sentence. “I’m thinking that ’s why you tried to zap in to the library.”

Discord’s blank stare made Spike’s smile broaden, so he might have been right after all.

“Yeah, I saw you; all three times you tried it. That looked like it must have hurt.”

Discord gave a small shudder at the memory. “You have no idea,” he replied automatically, but then catching himself he added quickly. “Wait, you saw me?”

This time Spike grew a smirk that would have mirrored the draconequus’s own quite well were he still sporting one. “Yeah, I did. Don’t worry; I was the only one around if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Is that why you came?”

“Yeah, I wanted to know why you would do that,” that was his main purpose for being there, but Spike wasn’t sure he wanted to voice the slight suspicions he had been formulating on throughout his forest trip.

“I mean, the first thing I could come up with was that you might have - I dunno - missed Twilight or something.”

The look Discord gave him then clearly told him to skip that particular hypothesis. It didn’t do much to curb his suspicions, but he let it slide for now.

“Ok…but you should know that she cares about you. Why else would she be so adamant about helping you out like this?”

“You mentioned it already, it’s her duty.”

“More like her loyalty…and generosity, and kindness,” Spike began to tick off the various elements with his claws, but Discord tried to cut him off with another roll of his eyes, but to no avail.

“That’s what she does, and that’s what most ponies do. They’re always trying to find ways to keep harmony.”

“You mean keep order,” Discord said. “They so often tend to say ‘harmony’ when they mean the other thing, that which is my opposite. What do you know about the nature of ponies, anyway?”

Spike took offense to that. “I live with them every day, I know a whole lot more than you with your however-long-it’s-been of you watching and messing with them.”

“Lovely to meet yet another creature who thinks he knows everything,” Discord now sounded like he was humoring the young dragon, although Spike thought that was sort of funny considering what he‘d heard of his friends‘ past dealings with the spirit of Chaos.

“Are you sure Twilight didn’t send you, this is sounding an awful lot like one of her little speeches.”

“Then why don’t you listen to her?” Spike asked, thought not really expecting an answer. “You’re supposed to be learning from her about what really makes ponies so great - because they are - Look, I may not know much but I know about ponies. If you wanna be around them so bad you’d probably have to look at things more from their perspective.”

“Who's to say I do?”

“I think you do, or… did,” Spike said. “When you tried to visit Twilight. You at least wanna be around her, and that’s a start.” In a way this was for the unicorn’s benefit, but Spike couldn’t help but feel a bit more for this being after seeing that display in the library.

“Uh huh, So why does it matter to you what my motives might have been for experimenting with the restriction spell that was placed on me?” he asked in a way that implied that had been his goal all along.

“Because, well…I guess I sorta agree with Twilight. I guess I’m starting to anyway. If you knew more about them - maybe cared about them a little - I don’t think they’d be as against you.”

“I’ll… bear that in mind,” Discord said slowly. He seemed to find Spike and his words a combination of amusing and well below his usual notice. Spike did take note that he was being fairly quick to brush off his comments as something unimportant. Well, what did he know, right? He was just a baby dragon; it wasn’t like he paid attention or could recognize things anyway.

“Well, thanks for stopping by with that little pearl of wisdom. If you could just send Twilight along soon that would be lovely.”

“Actually, she might be on her way soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s on her way right now,” the dragon said. It was true that – once she realized how long it’d been – Spike knew that she’d make visiting him a priority. He couldn’t say for certain it would be today, but it was most likely soon.

Even though he felt what he had to say was important, Spike acknowledged that Discord was not going to take him seriously, not in the mood he was in right now. Maybe that was his fault for springing this on him, but he didn’t really see the big deal.

“It’s cool that you wanted to check on her, but next time you know… don’t pick a way of doing it that’ll cause you to twitch and flail all over the floor. Twilight would flip if she knew, not that I’ll tell her.”

Discord though, seemed to have had enough of the young dragon and, before he could say any more, Spike saw a flash of light before his eyes. Once it had cleared, he found him no longer standing before the draconequus. He was back at the edge of the forest, most likely exactly where the border lay keeping him out of Ponyville.

Spike got the not-so-subtle hint. Some pony wasn’t ready to talk about that stuff. Looking back, Spike didn’t think he would really want to be the one to listen if Discord had anyway… but he still felt as though he did the right thing. He may not be very intimidating, but Spike thought he had managed to say something to possibly get that weird mind of Discord’s to understand. That was a big maybe though.

That rest was helpful, even if Twilight still figured it wasn't very practical. Thanks to Shiny she had slept half the day away. Sure, she felt more rested, but she knew that it would probably take more than one long nap to fully catch up on the sleep she had missed. Twilight could sleep all she wanted after she found something to fix everything.

Things were a bit better in town when she exited her home. As ‘better’ as they could be anyway. Everything seemed to be running more smoothly with the Guard there. Even things that had really no relevance to the protection of the respective towns – like the market – were running with accuracy and efficiency. It appeared that every pony was on their best behavior for these important Canterlot visitors.

The enormously encroaching city of clouds still loomed above, and for a moment the slight cheeriness Twilight had felt at getting some good rest was interrupted. It must have dropped some more while she was sleeping. Perhaps that was during the last shift change when the guard arrived. The purple pony hoped that the lost distance could be made up somehow or at least that the guard could manage to keep the city at that distance for a while.

She would need to find her brother again to ‘thank’ him in any case. She was only really half annoyed that he would make her get some sleep. That was the elder brotherly thing to do, but the weight of what was at stake loomed overhead as clearly in Twilight’s mind as Cloudsdale.

Checking in with her friends would have to be made a priority as well, and with the guard here she might not have to inspect the unicorns around the parameter if she didn’t want to…but she still sort of did.

She could probably do with some more research, though it was looking like that trip to the Canterlot Library was more necessary than she originally thought. It might also be more doable now. Although that would mean more days spent away from home.

Making her way south through the town, Twilight headed down the dirt road and out of the town proper, towards the cottage that lay nestled close to the edge of the forest.

She wasn’t sure her friend would be home, but if Fluttershy was not already seeing to her aviary air traffic controlling, than the pegasus would be seeing to the needs of all of the little fuzzy animals that lived with her in the tiny house.

As Twilight approached the tiny thatched roof structure, she thought she could hear the melodious tones of her friend’s warbling soprano voice. Fluttershy was most definitely inside. She knocked on the door but was not greeted with an answer.

Twilight hoped she wasn't intruding as she pushed the door open and entered the small entryway. The various chipmunks, squirrels, bunnies, birds, badgers, ducks, geese, mice, voles, and other fauna all crowded around a massive mountain of bowls, all being filled with the animals favorite treats by the butter yellow mare fluttering above them, humming a sweet tune as she went about her daily chore.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight called, though not too loudly. She knew how Fluttershy was about being startled. This interrupted the pony’s singing, she turned and smiled warmly at her friend, though halting from pouring the bird seed as the animals protested at having to wait.

“Oh, hello Twilight,” she said as she landed, coming back to her task from the ground. “I didn’t hear you come in, I’m sorry. I’m running a tiny bit late today, and I almost forgot to come home to feed all of my animal friends, but I promise I’ll get right back up to Cloudsdale as soon as I can.”

Twilight had to smile at her friend’s meek apology. “It’s alright Fluttershy; I’m running a bit behind schedule too. Don’t worry about it. You just finish up here and return to the sky when you can, ok?”

“I did get Ditzy Doo to cover for me,” she said. “I don’t want you to think that I left my post without a substitute.”

“That was very responsible,” Twilight answered, hoping that this praise would ease the pegasus’ worries. Thinking that she might be able to spare some time for her pink maned friend, Twilight asked, “I don’t suppose you could use any help?”

“Oh my, that would be nice. Thank you, Twilight,” Fluttershy said.

Twilight then grabbed another bag of bird seed and aided the other pony in continuing to feed the growing mass of various fauna.

The more the time went on however, and the more scoops of seed she poured, Twilight couldn’t help feeling that she was stalling from certain other things she needed to do.

She had a hunch what it might be that she was trying to avoid. But then, why was she avoiding it? Discord may be a hassle at times, but he wasn’t all bad. There were times when their visits could be quite entertaining, actually, almost fun.

Was it the actual duty that she was avoiding, or Discord himself? Twilight supposed she just didn’t want to feel like she was letting him down. What could he learn from that?

It was weighing heavier on her mind as the day wore on and the longer she put it off. Twilight also wanted to put Pinkie’s idea into practice and ask Discord about any of this, and possibly for help if he could.

She placed the bag of seed back down and it was immediately engulfed by animals. Fluttershy swooped in to try and save the bag, for she knew their eyes were always bigger than their stomachs and would empty it while leaving nothing for the next day.

As the last of the creatures finished eating and all lay about resting their full bellies, Twilight and Fluttershy were about to set back off to their respective tasks. The unicorn would need to make up for this stalling; she had lost even more time than when she had had her nap.

They did not know that – coming in from above – some pony else was flying in to join them, and possibly to hurry some pony else up.

“Oh, come on, Fluttershy!’ Rainbow Dash called down to the yellow pegasus as she reached them. “I know you have to take that break to feed your pets, but Ditzy Doo has been letting about half the birds by. We’ve come close to getting knocked over like a dozen times.”

“I’m sorry Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy quietly said as she lifted her own wings and took flight to join her friend in the sky, though much more slowly than Rainbow. “And um, it’s not Ditzy’s fault, she has that eye problem…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know, but that’s beside the point. We’ve gotta get you back up to help us or we’ll have a major traffic jam up there.” The blue pony finally took notice of Twilight where she had been standing next to the place Fluttershy had taken off.

“Oh hey Twi. I haven’t seen you around today. Your brother told us you were taking a breather so I didn’t really expect you.”

“I couldn’t really keep myself away for long,” she answered. “I don’t feel like I’m helping if I’m not out doing things.”

“I hear ya there,” Dash agreed. “Sometimes it feels like we’re the only thing standing between my old town and my new town having the most destructive hug ever.”

Twilight didn’t want to mention that they most likely were. She wanted to be optimistic.

“How’s the weather team doing?” she asked instead.

Rainbow frowned and crossed her forearms at the question. “They’re… hanging in there. Most of us are trying to stay out of the factory right now. Only the senior staff and any pony that absolutely has to be in the building are there.”

She lowered herself down to Twilight’s face and cupped her hoof over Twilight’s ear. “I don’t wanna tell Fluttershy about this, or really most ponies. Cause I know she’ll flip out and I don’t want to worry her,” she whispered. “But I think you should know. The truth is… if we don’t get Cloudsdale back where it was soon we could have a much bigger problem than we realized.”

Twilight’s eyes widened in realization as she caught on, no longer following Fluttershy’s progress into the air and back to her post.

“You’re right,” she whispered back. “The factory, it’s essential to the weather production for all of Equestria… if the town is evacuated, what will become of the weather?”

Rainbow gave a pained look back upwards as she backed up a bit, her wings beating slowly now. “I don’t know. I mean most of us will still be able to keep things moving meteorologically speaking, but that factory is our main hub. It would make things a lot harder for us.”

Twilight should have seen it sooner, but the more immediate problems concerning their very huge town-sized problem had taken all of the focus away from things that might be affected down the line. She tried to pretend though that this was not yet another thing to add to her ever-growing list of things to be stressed about.

“That’s all the more reason for us to keep trying,” the purple pony said with an assuredness that she did not feel, but hoped shone through anyway. If she sounded confident, than Twilight hoped that might aid her friend in keeping up her own confidence.

Rainbow stayed close for a moment, hovering close to her friend before evidently rallying herself enough to give Twilight a nod of solidarity. If her words had not actually convinced the pegasus, at least Rainbow was just as willing to pretend they had worked as she was.

With this new piece of information, Twilight was wondering now just what other unforeseen disasters might be waiting in the wings to break off and multiply from this one crisis.

Yet again having to put off Discord, she decided to make a check on the parameter anyway, and then go and look in on Applejack. She didn’t want any more surprises.

`-`-`-`-`-`-`-`