In which Crimson Lance is particularly frustrating.
The cheering was electrifying. A lightning bolt may as well have hit the swimming hole, for the way it affected Petrichor. She positively sparkled with pride and excitement - as if it were a completely different pony who burst from the water, landed like a feather on the bank.
She stared wide-eyed at the pegasi, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy clapping their hooves to the dirt, while that white unicorn with the velvet raincoat and bejeweled umbrella cheered from underneath a tree some distance away. Dwindling raindrops tap-tapped into the bowl as she proudly presented it to Fluttershy.
A small, white bunny with an annoyed look on his face emerged quite suddenly from Fluttershy's mane, and snatched the bowl away, hopping off in the direction of his owner's cottage.
"AWESOME, Petrichor! Congratulations!" shrieked three voices in unison - the voices of three young fillies who leapt excitedly from the shrubbery. Petrichor stepped backward in surprise.
"Oh, i-it was nothing," she said once she had composed herself, fanning her drenched wingspan.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders galloped around in a celebratory circle. "We did it! I knew we could!" sang out Applebloom.
"I told you guys!" Scootaloo yelled.
There was a clicking of keratin as the fillies clapped their hooves together in a symbol of triumph.
All eyes returned gradually to Petrichor, who shook her head and body like a wolf, sending sprays of water and gemstones flying every which way. She blinked back at them. "Um…what are you all staring at?"
"Your cutie mark, of course," Rainbow Dash laughed, walking toward her friend and putting one wing across her shoulders.
Petrichor didn't really know where to look for a "cutie mark", whatever it was. Awkwardly, and with a burning awareness of her own ignorance, she inspected her forelegs and then her wings. Dark blue locks of newly-freed mane fell into her eyes. A couple steps back and an uncomfortable twist suddenly revealed to her a spot of color on her flank, completely unexpected. Petrichor gave a little shriek and flapped into the air.
"Oh, why, it's beautiful, darling," Rarity positively purred, kicking back the fabric of her raincoat. The diamonds on her own flank were at least a little reassuring that the whole matter wasn't entirely strange. Not, at least, to Ponyville.
The mark was rather pretty, Petrichor thought. Actually, all told, she was rather pleased. Her flank was emblazoned with a largish ocean wave frothing with white foam, with a handful of gold coins scattered above and below.
"What is it? What does it mean?" whispered the pegasus.
"Means you just found your calling, Petri," said Rainbow Dash. "You don't belong in the air after all - you belong in the water! Which is awesome," she added encouragingly. "Sunken treasure! Swimming!"
"Swimming," repeated Petri, who seemed to be getting more excited by the second.
"Why, with practice, you could be a champion swimmer!" Applebloom was still running in circles.
The clouds bore growing cracks through which the sunlight eagerly streamed, lighting up patches of earth along with wide fresh puddles. The rain had fallen back into a gentle, pale drizzle. A delicious smell hung heavy in the air - the smell of the first rainstorm of the summer.
The town square was empty of all but those ponies whose job it was to clean up after the storm - flower-shop owners picking up tilted-over window boxes, and the like. The pegasi hovered carefully over the waterlogged streets, pastel hooves just missing their slick surfaces. It was well past midday now, and the sun had been moved accordingly.
Something happy and very, very pink was bouncing its way across the square, sending up sheets of rainwater in its excitement - excessively cheerful, as expected, although Petrichor found herself feeling especially cheerful as well. Behind Pinkie, Berry Buzz was trying to keep time and keep up, her worked and weathered body objecting to each bounce her joyful spirit was able to draw from it.
"Congrats, congrats, CONGRATS!" shrieked Pinkie, a wide swath of road still separating her from her triumphant friends. Petrichor, who could sprint faster on hoof than by wing, touched down on the flooded path and galloped across, two braids and a side of loose, wavy hair flying behind her.
"You knew already?" cried Petri, circling the two earth ponies.
Pinkie grinned and flicked her tail inscrutably. "I've-I mean, we've got to start planning your cute-ceañera right away! I mean, I've been planning all of your cute-ceañeras since you showed up, but of course we didn't know what you'd get!"
"What is she talking about?" Petrichor wondered, to no one in particular.
"Oh," piped up Berry Buzz, "a cute-ceañera is a great big party that ponies around here throw when somepony gets her cutie mark! Pinkie Pie told me all about it. It's just great! Oh, I'm just so happy for you, Petri-Petrichor." She stumbled over the nickname she'd already accepted in her mind. Petrichor smiled, knowingly, and then, suddenly exploding with joy, leapt at her old-neighbor-new-friend to tackle her with a massive hug.
"I - I - I GOT A-" it took a split second to remember its name- "A CUTIE MARK!"
"Uh - yeah!" squealed Berry. After a moment of awkward fear, she happily accepted the hug from her idol.
"It's so pretty! And all mine!"
"It's awesome, P-Petri!" Berry agreed, watching in some amusement as the Pegasus twisted one way and then another to view her new mark from every available angle.
"Oh - and, Petri," she said again, finding no repercussions for using that name, "this is double wonderful, isn't it? With that mark, why, you're going to be a General once we get back home!"
Petrichor's movements slowed rapidly to a frightened motionlessness. "A…General?"
Even prouder than before, Berry trotted happily around the pegasus. "Only the very best workers get those marks! Oh, you'll be put in charge of a weather squadron right away - right under Sun Chaser himself! What's your specialty, huh? Something to do with that storm?"
She paused. Petrichor didn't look happy anymore. She looked…guilty. The same look Berry Buzz remembered seeing a glimpse of, on the face of that…poor young unicorn…before remembering that she didn't exist.
"What's wrong?"
"Er…look closer, Berry," whimpered Petri. "It's not for weather."
Now that she'd finally stopped moving, the wave, blending into her fur, was apparent, along with the coins shining around it. "It's for swimming, Berry. Swimming - buried treasure - all - that."
She waited for the look of dismay, but Berry only registered confusion. She backed away slightly. "But…we don't have a swimming division…what is it good for?…who would even join? Everyone is already taken!…"
Of course she wouldn't understand. Berry didn't know Crimson Lance the way she, Petrichor, did.
But, never having been a great liar herself, she admitted the facts dutifully. "It's not…good for anything. Not in Pomphay, anyway. And it's not supposed to make me a General…it's just…me."
"WELL THEN, you won't be needing to worry about it, will you?" said a voice behind them, far more powerful than seemed appropriate, and with a hint of displeasure in its timbre.
Petrichor turned, humbly quivering beneath Crimson Lance's gaze. Her friends looked on in concern.
"May I speak to you, Petrichor?" the governor requested with sinister politeness. "Alone…over there."
In retrospect, it didn't sound like so much of a request after all.
"Now then, Petrichor," said Crimson Lance, using what the pegasus listlessly recognized as her gentlest, most soothing tone of voice: "Now then, Petrichor, please explain to me the meaning of this…mark."
Petrichor looked blankly behind her, having re-affected her taciturn unemotionality as quickly and evenly as turning off a light. It had taken only a few minutes at a brisk trot to escape Ponyville limits, but the governor had refused to speak until they were well off in the distance; standing, as a matter of fact, in the very mouth of the Everfree Forest. Dully, Petrichor wondered which of so many reasons might have caused Crimson Lance to choose that spot. Perhaps they were in shadow here, which would allow their clearly rather planned-out conversation to occur in privacy. Possibly it was that they stood on the path that led back to Pomphay, as if Petrichor were being threatened with being sent home from the party early.
Maybe it was just the Everfree Forest itself, which scared everyone in Pomphay, not excluding Petri. It didn't occur to her that Crimson Lance might be afraid of the Forest too.
"Well, Cloud-Beater?" prompted Crimson. That was a position title which she sometimes used as a term of endearment, usually while preparing to take somepony down a few pegs. "Explain, please."
The pegasus opened her mouth, but it was a long time before she said anything. Finally, her voice came, soft and unsure, with no guarantee of safety: "I…I got my cutie mark."
Crimson Lance said nothing in reply. Petrichor added, "Like you."
The governor whirled on her, plates of armor gleaming, glinting in the red light of her glowing horn - then the moment passed, and she was calm; but clearly finished with her understanding persona.
"Me? I have had my cutie mark for years. I earned it for fending off the dragon invasion that first brought down our castle. My father was nearly crushed! I saved his sorry life. My cutie mark," (she paused briefly to choke back some unwanted emotion,) "is a mark of excellence in battle, of pony lives saved and dragons extinguished. And you dare to trot about with a useless talent like swimming emblazoned on that lazy, blue flank!"
She took a single iron step, and Petrichor shrank like an Everfree flower.
"If you think for one instant that Pomphay will let you just drop your weather duties, and go off cavorting in the water to your heart's content-"
"N-No, no, Governor…"
"There is barely water in Pomphay - never mind sunken treasure!" Crimson Lance continued over the citizen. "Do you want to return to all your friends with a mark like that? Why…they'll laugh at you, Petrichor."
The pegasus looked up. Evidently, she had not yet followed this line of thinking. Would they laugh? She couldn't know. She didn't know anyone very well, despite many moons spent working side by side. Laugh at a talent as useless as cake-baking, clothes-making, party planning? Or laugh at a pony who thought she'd be special just because of a mark on her flank?
"Yes, Governor, Ma'am," whispered Petrichor. "You are correct."
"I know I am," Crimson Lance replied, her tone now halfway between indifference and false-sounding comfort.
"What are we...what are you going to do, Governor?"
The governor lifted her head and looked out over Ponyville with her cold crimson eyes. Twilight's castle stood there glittering in the distance.
"We're going to fix it," she said simply.
And after that, what else was there to say?