revenance_rpg | Horns to the left of me, wings to the right.

Who: The pony princesses and those who would accept their training.
What: The training offered by the pony princesses to those who would accept it.
Where: Ponyville, the Town Square.
When: A couple of days after their welcoming message.
Warnings: Possible comedic violence and mild language. Possibly some pegasus just won't know what went wrong.

Ponyville Town Square, the right side as you face town hall:

Above this half of the town square, a couple dozen clouds floated peacefully in the sky. They ranged the gamut from a friendly, puffy white to an angry, solemn grey that threatened but didn't deliver thunder and rain in awesome amounts. Somepony had clearly cordoned off the ground below with acquired fences, benches, and other makeshift barricades to keep innocent ~~Rarities~~ ponies from wandering into the training field and getting soaked, hailed on, lightning-bolted, blown away, or generally harassed by wind.

Princess Luna awaited those pegasi who have come for lessons in weather control.

Ponyville Town Square, the left side as you face town hall:

Dozens of random objects festooned the area around here, lined up in order of weight -- from feathers, pebbles, and quill pens to a heavy statue and a bathtub. Princess Celestia waited at the front of this 'line', such as it was, for those unicorns who signed on for her basic training program. Though she hoped that at least some will prove adept pupils at telekinesis and might be able to move on to other lessons, she has provided nothing else yet; after all, to best challenge a unicorn, you must find spells that lie within their talents.

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"Indeed! Excellently done!" Luna praised Sora. He picked up on magic fairly quickly, it seemed; hopefully he would be able to imitate other works just as well. "And that is how we dispose of clouds," she continued, this time gesturing to York's little experiment. "Rain clouds are more difficult to dissipate, and wild storms from the forest or the coast tend to require at least a full weather team to combat."

"Oh!" Another teacher might have expressed less delight over Edge's potentially-dangerous lightning cloud. Luna was not one of those teachers. "Here, 'tis far better to control the lightning. Just place your hoof atop it and draw some of the magic out again, like so." She touched the cloud lightly, stopping the rain and lightning.

And then promptly started the rain and lightning again before she took her hoof away. Learning by doing!

"Thanks." Sora did pick up magic surprisingly easily, sometimes with small mishaps and sometimes not. He was happy to have gotten it right, if the grin was any indication. He made a note of how to dispose of a cloud when Luna pointed out York's experiment.

And then Edge made a little storm cloud. Sora watched curiously as Luna used it to add to the lesson. That was nice to know.

York held his hooves up again to make a storm cloud. The little flashes of lightning looked like they should hurt, but apparently not in this format. Or maybe it was just that he was in charge of them. He thought it had to be nice to be able to make a windy backdrop for yourself whenever you wanted, but shrugged and tried to get the lightning free. It seemed kind of stuck.

"Huh."

Edge busied himself prodding the top of his cloud, basically trying to think of it as a combination between a weird switch and a magic gesture. Perhaps more strangely, this worked. He quickly became able to jar free a lightning bolt from the cloud at will.

"Ha! Now that's weather control!"

"Do not fear," Luna explained, seeing that all her students were quite interested in storm clouds - as they OUGHT to be. "Pegasi are naturally resistant to lightning. Not immune, however; I would not recommend thee to fly into any storms just yet."

"And, of course, you must learn to do all of this whilst flying. 'Tis very little sense in a pony making all their weather whilst seated on a cloud."

Resistance to lightning was a good thing.

"I'm pretty sure we don't plan on flying through any storms any time soon," Sora replied. But, he was definitely interested. Perhaps he was a little curious as to what it was like to be in the middle of a storm cloud, but he doubted he'd hear the end of it if he tried to mess around with storms before he knew better what he was doing.

"No sense taking a chance of getting fried just because you're curious," York agreed. He wasn't sure how that would work with Delta, either. Just because he seemed to be some kind of ghost dragon here didn't mean that he wasn't necessarily also an AI still. He tried waving his hoof around like Edge had and some of the lightning came free.

"And there we go."

"Does this take anything out of us, long-term?" Edge mused as he flicked lightning out of his cloud. "Does there come a point where we have to rest, or past which this isn't safe any more?"

"Work as simple as THIS should not tire you unduly," Luna answered, "though larger lightning clouds may be draining. None of you have weather-related marks, so that is only natural."

Well, they seemed to be doing well enough with these tasks. Soon, they would likely start getting bored...the princess stood, opening her wings. "Now, would any of thee care to try whilst hovering?"

"The mark matters?" No, it had not occurred to Sora that the mark on a pony's flank had something to do with their abilities.

He wasn't getting bored, per se, but he did wonder when they were going to get to doing these things on the fly. "Uh, sure, I'll try it."

York got rid of the cloud he'd been working on and unfolded his wings. "Sounds like this'll be fun." Sora had already asked about the marks, so hopefully they'd get an answer about that soon.

Edge didn't wait for permission. Seizing his cloud in his hooves, he flapped his wings to lift off into the air. All the private practice he'd been doing was paying off big-time; he was wobbly, but very definitely stationary, in midair.

Once he got up there, he began coaxing lightning out of his cloud. His shifting concentration was plain to see, as his body drifted off course or the lightning failed depending on which he was emphasizing, as he tried to find the balance between them.

"Excellent!" Luna flapped up after Edge to hover near him, looking down to make sure that the others were going to make it up alright. "Come along then - if you ever intend to use lightning to strike at thy foes, this is simply the first step!"

Sora followed the other up. He wasn't doing too bad with hovering in place, though he drifted down a little when trying to manipulate a cloud at the same time. At least he noticed when he was drifting and corrected his position.

"I guess this takes a bit of practice, huh?" Which was to be expected and maybe it was a good thing in its own way.

York found himself wishing that D could help manage this, but it was like any starting combat practice, bringing your skills together so you could work on the move. he called up a stormcloud again, managing to hover along with it. "So we can send the lightning where we want it to go too?"

Of course, with Luna watching him, he had to show off a little. Abandoning subtlety, he turned to kick the cloud with a hind leg, hard. The ensuing bolt of lightning that flashed downwards let out a crack of thunder strong enough to rattle teeth.

Grinning, Edge turned back to the cloud with a flip of his cape behind him. Striking foes with lightning was something he had experience with, after all.

Horns to the left of me, wings to the right.

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