Percepitation Preperation
IC date: Spring 81
OOC date: June 10, 2013
Location: Sky Fountain
PCs: Jellybean Windrose Skyshear Typhoon-Wave Stormdancer
NPCs: N/A
GM: N/A

In Horseshoe Harbor, destruction of civic property is a time-honored tradition that is taken seriously. Or at least, this is the only possible explanation for the utterly wrecked weather shed and the boat now sticking out of it. Jellybean eyes the damage and then looks back to his team. He's in full Serious Leader Mode. He has his clipboard and his reading glasses and everything. "This isn't good. Final Rains are supposed to start in a few days and now we don't have any weather-making equipment. I've put in a rush order to Cloudsdale with the mayor, and so hopefully we'll have something before it's too late, but in the meantime we're going to need to prepare for the worst." He fiddles with his glasses. "I'm afraid we're going to have to go out to the sea for some cloud-corralling."

It isn't unusual for the weather classes back in Cloudsdale to now and again run pranks on the weather factory. Heck, it was practically a time-honored tradition. But bust the weather machines? That's a good way to get expelled, fast. Those things are expensive and complex as hay! And the alternatives… Are never very fun. Well, sometimes. "Cloud coralling?" Skyshear leans forward in the line of weather ponies assembled. Irritation over the entire ordeal turns to interest, her eyes widening slightly. "Hah! I thought we'd have to do this by hoof!" She starts to grin a bit, "Cloud coralling at least sort of sounds like it might be interesting."

Stormdancer beams over at Boss Jelly and the rest of the team, fluttering her wings. First her (current) arch-nemesi get their comeuppance via flying tavern-ship, which is incredibly awesome in so many ways that could only have been made better if it had been from something she'd planned (really, she didn't! She has an alibi and everything!) Then, then! She gets to go out and work with -real- clouds for the first time in forever! "Best day -e'er-!" she squeaks out.

"Coralling, not surfinf on," Windrose shoots her friend a stern look. Then pulls one of her weathermaps out of a vest pocket and opens it. "If we can locate a suitable collection of clouds, I can plot the quickest and most efficient route to get them back here before they start to evaporate, sir." Yes, she just called Jellybean 'sir'. Because he's being serious.

Typhoon-Wave gives her wings a little flutter, letting out a breath and trying to look serious and confident and not panicky at all, nope, not one bit. "I can m-maybe /make/ some clouds for us, f-far enough out, but they might have some r-rain to dump before we can bring them in. It'd p-probably be more convenient if we can find a good bunch a-already out there."

Jellybean blinks a little at Stormdancer's exuberance and nods at Typhoon. "That's why I'm saying I think we should do corralling. We'll go out to sea and look for some likely clouds and bring them closer to town along the coast so we can have them handy when Final Rains are supposed to start. But that's not really a perfect solution since they might rain out before Thursday, so this is going to be a lot of work. We'll need ponies looking for clouds, ponies moving clouds to the coast and ponies keeping an eye on the ones we have handy."
He takes a breath: that was a lot to say at once. "I wish this hadn't happened, because we're going to be very busy for the next few days." He smiles before he continues. "But if anypony can do it, I know it'll be all of you. I ended up leading this team because when I moved here there wasn't anypony else. I don't know everything about weather, and some of you know lots more than I do about some parts. But I'm proud that I can call you team-mates."

Windrose leans over to nudge Skyshear with her elbow. "At least we don't have to worry about a leader taking all the credit, right?" Some pegasi, put them in a command position and it goes straight to their head. But not this one, not Jellybean. "Well, the best place to start looking for clouds with suitable rain potential would be out where the ocean updrafts carry mositure up into the air." She flutters to the front of the group and holds up her map. "The distance can vary, but since this is the rainy season it shouldn't be too far out. Maybe right about here." She taps a spot to indicate.

Stormdancer rears up to applaud the speech a bit before working to calm down. Time to focus! She peers at Windrose's map intently, giving a nod- then settles back. "Fer storin' 'em- Warme' clouds seem ta keep from rainin' longer'n cold'ns, righ'? There some way ta keep 'em het up wit'ou' dryin' 'em ou'?"

"For not knowing everything about weather, you're not too bad at this whole leader thing," Skyshear says with a brief flare of her wings, like a pegasus version of a shrug, "Got more guts than some of the weather ponies back at Cloudsdale, that's for sure. They would've made us make clouds by hoof." She snorts, making her bangs flare briefly. Her attention then turns to Windrose's maps. Which are, of course, meticulate as always. And far too complicated. "Kinda," Sky says to Stormdancer, "There's like a sweet spot of temperature where they like to rain big time. Too warm and they start drying out, too cold and they start freezing."

Jellybean blushes a little under the praise, doing a sort of wingflutter of mild embarrassment. "Thanks, ponies. That means a lot to me. But anyway, we have our plan. Windrose, I want you to head up cloud-finding. I trust your charting skills. Typhoon, can you lead other ponies in moving the clouds? I'll take charge of keeping the clouds on the coast once they're there."

Typhoon-Wave nods, twitching an ear. "Yeah, o-okay. I think I c-can do that," she agrees, blushing faintly. Cloud-moving. She can do that! "H-how many do we think we'll n-need?"

Stormdancer frowns as her Brilliant Ideas proves unfeasable. But then pops right back up into Cheerful Mode. "Guess we jest gotta git as many's we can, 'case some go bad 'fore we need 'em!" This is only partially a good plan. Never take her word as gospel. Ever.

"You've got it." Windrose flares her wings and flaps hard to launch herself into the air and hover. Tucking the map under one foreleg she pulls out a collapsable spyglass from a pocket and extends it, turning it towards the waters beyond the Harbor. "Now where… ahah." She lowers the spyglass and looks down to the others. "I think I see some coming in on a southern tradewind. It's warmer this time of year so they'll be less likely to freeze up on us." And away she goes!

Jellybean makes a little 'eep' noise when Windrose goes flying off. "All right, ponies, let's follow her. We'll work on the rest when we've gotten a few clouds back."

Skyshear scuffs a hoof on a cloud when she isn't called on. But ah well, she doesn't really like that sort of responsibility anyway. "Right, this should be no problem!" Skyshear shouldn't have said that; that just means there's going to be a problem. There's /always/ a problem. Then Windrose takes off ahead of them. "Hey, /I'm/ supposed to be the impulsive one!" Sky flares her wings out a second later, and brings them down rapidly to follow after Windrose.

Stormdancer snaps a quick- but sincere!- salute to General Jelly before kicking off into a little flip-and-flap to follow the rest of the Weather Herd. Onward, like a good little minion!