In which a Crusade is mounted.
Scootaloo was waiting by the swimming hole on the outskirts of town. A pre-storm chill swept through the tall grass as, overhead, a group of pegasi carefully positioned the ragged grey clouds that were scheduled for the day. A premature drop fell into the pool. In the rippling reflection, Applebloom raced to Scootaloo's vantage, Sweetie Belle at her heels.
"There you guys are; what took ya so long?" called the Pegasus filly. "C'mon, Crusaders! We've got work to do."
Sweetie Belle caught up, panting and sounding confused. "Work? What kind of work?"
"Uh…duh, Sweetie Belle. Crusading?"
"Crusadin'?" Applebloom asked quickly. "Y'mean solvin' cutie mark problems? For who?" Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
Scootaloo looked proud - and sneaky. "I've finally got a lead on one of the ambassadors. Rainbow Dash took me for a fly yesterday, and told me all about the pegasus she's rooming with for the meetings."
Applebloom prompted her friend with an enthusiastic "And?", but Sweetie Belle looked skeptical all the same.
"That pegasus? I dunno, Scoot. I mean, she doesn't seem that interested in anything."
"I thought so too," nodded Scootaloo. "But Rainbow Dash can think of one thing.
"Now, Petri would never do something she liked on her own. We'll have to trick her into it. I need you two to help me set up the trick here. The swimming hole is gonna help us. And so," she added, pointing skyward, "is that storm."
An hour or so later, the patchwork of clouds above had been completed: rain poured down in what was gradually becoming one of the roughest storms of the year. Fluttershy struggled to keep in place, hovering over the pond, and whimpering, "Um, girls? Am I doing this right?"
"You're doin' great, Fluttershy!" called Applebloom from within some shrubbery. She was wearing her big sister's raincoat, which seemed to engulf her like duckling-yellow quicksand. "Jes' remember to look upset and flit about some when Rainbow Dash shows up with Petri."
"I-If you say so," shivered Fluttershy.
As for Rainbow's "impromptu" excursion above the clouds, the Wonderbolt casually pulled off a corkscrew loop that sent her soaring up to the far-off sun. She was keeping a sharp mental log of location, hampered somewhat by the fact that the entire earth was blanketed in grey nimbus. Still, flying, and, better yet, impressing people through flying, was something Rainbow Dash could never get enough of, and she looked sufficiently happy to set Petrichor at ease of suspicion. The ambassador flapped along behind her roommate contentedly.
Rainbow Dash pulled up and listened intently to the brewing storm below. She couldn't safely wait much longer.
"Hey, uh, you hear that?" she called to Petri, pretending Fluttershy was loud enough to be heard over the distant thunder.
Petri's gaze locked on her companion. "Er...no."
"Oh. Well, I do. It sounds like - like Fluttershy." Rainbow stumbled over a jet breeze. "Down there. Um. Just follow me, will ya?"
She dove straight through the clouds, punching a medium-sized hole, through which Petrichor followed.
Fluttershy's performance was certainly satisfactory at this point. She flitted about frantically, a flustered look on her face. Rainbow pulled up beside her, as per the script.
"You okay out here? Heck-uv-a storm today, right?"
"Oohhh, Rainbow Dash - I just can't," sniffled Fluttershy. "I can't believe it. Oh, oh, I - I was - flying along, by the swimming hole, and - and the wind just snatched up Angel's supper bowl and dropped it in! I'll never be able to get it now," she emphasized, almost breaking character as she did so.
Rainbow turned meaningfully to Petrichor, giving her lines with conviction. "Whoa. That's terrible! Hey, Petri - ya think maybe you could dive in and fetch it?"
Ugh. That was weird. Who says "fetch" nowadays? she added mentally.
Petrichor, in her Maudesque way, didn't seem too shaken. "Why don't you do it, Rainbow Dash?"
"What, me? I can't swim," lied Rainbow.
Fluttershy nodded in agreement.
Something glinted - quite visibly - in the water, by the single ray of sunshine Rainbow had let in through the clouds. It seemed to strike Petri's interest. Her ears lifted a quarter of an inch and a momentary sparkle graced her eye. Then, once she had composed herself, she said:
"Oh, all right."
And she dove into the water.
Fluttershy shook the water from her wings. "Are you girls sure about this? I mean, you really think just swimming around down there can get Petrichor's cutie mark?"
Sounding nothing but confident, Scootaloo laughed cockily. "Trust us, Fluttershy. When have the Cutie Mark Crusaders ever been wrong?"
Sweetie Belle raised her hoof. Applebloom gently placed it back on the ground, shaking her head.
The swimming hole was actually a bit deeper than anyone had expected. Its bottom was reachable, if generally uninteresting, so for the most part the citizens of Ponyville preferred to stay above the water, where it was easier to be around friends.
Petrichor wasn't quite sure if she had any friends. She had begun to think of Rainbow Dash as one, but perhaps that was irrational. She'd be leaving Ponyville soon, anyway, so perhaps it would be best not to get attached to whatever friendships she happened to make. Crimson Lance would have applauded such thinking, of course, but Petrichor, when she thought about it, found herself reluctant.
She thought about it for the few seconds she'd kept her eyes closed under the water; then, she seemed to remember the fact that she was searching for something. The fresh, clean water barely stung as she looked through its crystalline clarity - she was upside down, the silver clouds invisible beneath the surface, the golden ray of sunlight from Rainbow's entry point beaming through the water, shimmering, sparkling.
Petrichor gasped. This was a bit of a problem, as she was underwater. Bubbles of air streamed upwards to the surface and Petri raced beside them, flapping her wings with all her strength, until the power she was using to reach the air catapulted her out of the water with a prismic splash.
Her eyes were wider than ever before and she took in her surroundings in an instant, the pegasi cheering her on at the edge of the pond, the heaviness of the storm and lush green of the wet grass, and then she found herself underwater again. She had luckily remembered to take a breath.
Now she swam downward. Had she ever reached the bottom of a pond before? Water in Pomphay was precious and strictly for cooling off, a rapid skim after a sixteen-hour shift fighting the baking sun and the cruel black storm clouds. The deeper she got, the farther away it all seemed. She found that her years of fighting Everfree backwash had strengthened her wings so that one stroke sent her gliding effortlessly through the depths. The storms fell away into more water - the rocks below shimmered with an otherworldly light, like gold film, like a thousand pounds of glitter.
She slowed to a halt, suspended in place. One of her braids had come loose, and the hair, kinked from so many years spent in tightly woven ropes, floated dreamily in the water. That gleam - was that the missing bowl? Petrichor willed herself forward. Her hooves sensed the tiny movements of fish, swimming contentedly apart from the harsh world above.
The gleam grew closer and closer, until finally it was clear. It came not from Petrichor's prize but from a monstrous gemstone, blue, and dangerously brilliant.
("I'm sure I'm afraid to ask," said Rarity, trotting to the edge of the swimming hole and brandishing an umbrella against the rain, "but did you girls dump all those nice gems I gave you into the pond?"
"Yes," Scootaloo said. "Thanks, by the way. Now just be quiet and wait. This'll work - I just know it.")
For one brief, thrilling moment, Petrichor stared at the treasure she'd found. It lay there sparkling on the sandy, jagged rock; it was the biggest, most perfect sapphire the pegasus had ever seen. For a pony who didn't talk much, she had a very quick mind, and it was the work of a moment to tuck the gem into her mane and dash onward.
Another gleam up ahead - another gem - gleam after gleam she found, her excitement building, until her braids were loaded with jewels and still she had farther to go. Her wings propelled her downward until her hoof touched the very bottom, sending up a small cloud of sand disturbed by the movement it hadn't seen in years. There, some little distance away, faintly but surely illuminated by the single ray of sunlight, lay a yellow bowl banded in geometric patterns.
Petrichor reached out for her prize. The prize no one else could reach! Oh, but that was something new - something only Petrichor could do, had done, all alone!
For such a long time, Petrichor was A Pegasus, and very little, if anything, more. Not that there was anyone to blame for the complete absence of recognition, nothing but Mount Ruin's eruption and Everfree's relentless, neverending push to conquer Pomphay. That was what pegasi did, fight the weather. Had they always? Petrichor was as old as Crimson Lance - she had been young but alive before the lava and ash - she remembered now! - remembered the carefree thoughts of a tiny blue pegasus filly, not bound by her wings to the sky, but with a million paths before her to discover one by one; and the low fences about the village, and the trees lush with fruit, and the clear blue sky - and the water!
Different!
Hers!
Victorious as the thief who escaped the dragon's hoard weighed down with treasures, she streaked through the water serpent-fast, the bowl clutched against her chest so it couldn't be lost again. By now the rain, grown manic in the few minutes that Petri's powerful lungs could keep her under the water, beat down on the surface of the pond with a terrible malice, while the Cloudsdale planners who had designed it flapped their wings lazily above it all, blissfully unaware that they were storming atop one of their own.
The water splashed up onto the sand. Petrichor rose like a naiad, and glittering with gems like a star, smiling a smile bigger than anyone thought possible. The Crusaders peeked out from under their bush.
"I've DONE it!" cried Petrichor, lofting the bowl into the air for all to see, and to be filled with angry rainwater.
But no one was looking at her sunken treasure. They were looking at her other prize, the one now shining proudly from her no-longer blank blue flank.