The Mephit's Tales

Autumn was a hard time to be a working pegasus in Horseshoe Corners. While summer mostly called for clear days with just enough rain to keep crops growing well, in autumn things were more complicated. First, the pegasi needed to stir up a lot more wind to keep things properly cool. Rain was just as important – letting crops dry out just before harvest-time would be disastrous. But rain at the wrong time would be bad, too; the fields couldn’t be too wet for the farmers to harvest them. So all the pegasi were worked to the wingbones to move clouds into place when it was time for rain, make sure they rained properly, and then shoo them off over the surrounding hills when enough had fallen on the fields.

And somepony needed to be sure all of it was happening at the right times – and in Horseshoe Corners, somepony meant Stormchaser.

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Most of the Academy hopefuls had come a long way. Stormchaser was glad to see it; it was always nice to see people doing well.

Not everypony agreed with that assessment, of course; but for all Comet Trail griped about the others catching up with them, Stormy knew the paler pegasus wasn’t serious about it. For one thing, despite the progress the others had made, Stormy and Comet were still well ahead of the rest in all trials; and the subtler thing, the thing Stormy wouldn’t have spotted before coming to know him, was that even if the others did catch up, Comet Trail loved a challenge. Oh, sure, he liked to win – but part of his frustration with the pace of things here was that a victory with no real competition was no real victory at all.

Not the way Stormy usually liked to look at the world, but he could at least see some merit to it, now – just like the more-driven Comet Trail had come to learn that winning wasn’t everything, so long as you gave it your best.

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Stormchaser glowered at the bulletin board, tail flicking anxiously behind him. Lead pony. It was a vote of confidence, sure, and he wasn’t going to dismiss that out of hand – but when he’d come to grips with the stiff competition he’d face at the Academy, it had actually sounded somehow restful that he might not have more eyes on him than would be on anypony else.

And now, this: lead pony.

It wasn’t too much of a surprise that he’d be working with Comet Trail – he and the Las Pegasus stallion had been neck-and-neck in everything they’d done at the Academy so far, both at the top of the class in everything but raw speed and not far behind on that, both of them agility fliers. But on reflection, it seemed a little bit weird. Why pair him with someone who was already pretty much a match for him? Why not have him mentor a pony who was struggling to keep up, and put Comet Trail in a similar spot with another such pony?

At least if he’d been put in that kind of spot, sure, he’d still have been saddled with the extra responsibility, but he probably wouldn’t have been scrutinized quite so closely as he would be now that his team was the two best candidates here.

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It was the biggest thing this side of the Summer Sun Celebration. The ribbons were hung, the streamers were flying, and dozens of merchants had set up stalls or sales-wagons in the main square of Horseshoe Corners.

With this much bustle happening and traders from the nearby towns and beyond setting up shop where the trade roads crossed, Rough Rider had been a bit shocked, in the way of foals, when he’d learned that the oddly-named First Harvest Fair was just a local thing, not something celebrated across Equestria. Even more than the holidays that were in fact that widespread, this was the day everypony looked forward to. No Summer Sun formalities or Heart’s Warming pageantry or Nightmare Night offerings – instead there were games, foods from near and far, and wonders from all across Equestria to see as their little town turned into one big market for a day.

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