Tempest Rime

"Maximillian Rockefilly Jr.!" Tempest said in a commanding, motherly tone, hoping that use of his full name might dredge up some latent discipline in him. "I don't know what it's like back in Manehattan or wherever, but around here, when we make a mess, we clean it up, and and responsibility for this falls on all our shoulders." She opened a maintenance closet and pulled out a selection of cleaning supplies, thrusting a mop and bucket at the protesting unicorn.

Tempest flitted up to the ceiling and began to scrape the mud off of it. How had they managed to get mud up here? No matter. She glanced down as PeaBee mentioned her family. "No other pegasus ponies in your immediate family eh? How odd. Your wings are quite well-developed, I would expect your whole family to have them. It's not unheard of, I suppose, just rare."

She frowned as PeaBee mentioned her wish to be an earth pony. "Oh don't say that. Not that there's anything wrong with being an earth pony, but your wings are a fantastic gift. Even if you never used them, they'd still be a defining part of who you are. Tell me, have you learned to fly yet? Your wings look strong enough that I'd wager you could fly, once you learn the basics. Flying under your own power is incredible, there's really nothing else quite like it in all the world. I could give you a few pointers if you want, since your family has nopony else who can train you."

Oh, and I hate a lot of modern metal; far too much screaming.

You must not be listening to the right modern metal then. Nightwish, Within Temptation, Ayreon, and Sonata Arctica come to mind. A good chunk of what I listen to is metal of various kinds, and I don't generally like the deathmetal growling myself, I prefer actual singing. Most of the time, at least. I also listen to a decent selection of almost everything else.

As for books, I just finished Revelation Space, which was excellent. I also often carry around a Dresden Files book or two for light reading, and I love the short stories of Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany.

My taste in film is a little harder to nail down. I love quirky or surrealistic films most of the time, but I absolutely hated Sucker Punch, so it needs to do more than just have pretty, meaningless imagery on its side. I like plenty of horror films, but I hate the stupid torture-porn slashers that pass for horror flicks. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also still watch a lot of the children's films in the vein of Disney/Pixar or Dreamworks' stuff. And that still doesn't touch on the kung-fu, or the weird indie movies, or the over-the-top action films, or the occasional murder-mystery.

Bones, Doctor Who, and Futurama are about the only other shows I follow lately. I don't watch anything on TV though, I stream them. I can watch things on my own time, and I don't have to sit though 20-minute long ad breaks. The "Syents Fyktyun" channel was the worst about about that, even before they cancelled all their worthwhile shows. Seriously, cable is such a rip-off, you pay them for the service only to get drowned in commercials.

Tempest put her hoof down, stomping loudly. "Miss Peanut Butter," she said in a firm but gentle tone, "I have no idea what was going on here, but every moment you waste is another moment your mother and father will be worrying about you. Please, give this pony your message, and their names and descriptions so she can be off. We can sort all this out after that."

"Mister Rockefilly," she said in the same tone, turning towards him, the faintest hints of a smug grin playing at her lips. "You will start cleaning up this mess, as I left this filly in your care, and it is thus your responsibility." Ordering him, a stallion who had likely never done a bit of housework in his life to clean up gave Tempest an immense sense of satisfaction, though she tried not to relish it too much.

"Once the messenger is away, PeaBee and I shall join you, we shall put this room back together, and then I shall treat you both to some ice cream." She smiled softly at PeaBee. "How does that sound?"

(As I haven't heard anything more from Muddy, so I'll just throw in an NPC to take the message.)

After trying Rainbow's house, and finding it empty (or at least, unresponsive, Tempest didn't rule out the possibility that Miss Dash was simply ignoring her) Tempest moved on and by chance encountered another weather pony. She dragged the confused pegasus to the town hall, returning just in time to hear raised voices coming from upstairs.

She burst through the door to see an angry Maximillian and a soggy PeaBee. "What is going on in here? Can I not leave you alone for ten minutes without..." She paused, completely unable to come up with a circumstance that would result in the current situation.

"Um... well anyway, I brought Miss Cloud Kicker here, since Miss Dash was out. Likely out galavanting about with her friends I don't doubt. But there's no time to waste searching for her, by the time we found them the train may have already reached its destination. If you'd care to give Miss Kicker your message and a description of your family, she can be on her way."

"Aw, reptiles with no legs aren't so bad. There was one in the Everfree Forest who was pretty nice. Though he did have arms, so maybe that doesn't count." She paused, pondering for a moment. "Sea serpents are reptiles, aren't they? Well, I guess he'd be more of a river serpent. Anyway, the snakes you really gotta worry about are the ones with chickens for heads."

She shook her head, dismissing that line of thought. "Sugarcube Corner is open, yes. I just have the day off today." She grinned at Cookie's mention of her love of baking. "Me too! We should trade recipes some time! Like my super secret special savory sweet spicy sasparilla sugar salt scones! They're like all the best flavors all at once! Mmm... I could go for some of those right now, in fact." She licked her lips. The mere fact that every other pony who had tried them hated them hadn't dampened her enthusiasm for that particular experiment one bit.

"Oh no!" Pinkie Pie gasped in shock and horror. "Applejack's a ghost!?" She stood on her hind quarters and hollered out into the woods. "APPLEJACK! IF YOU CAN STILL HEAR ME, DON'T GO TOWARD THE LIGHT!"

She frowned. She wasn't quite loud enough to wake the dead. She strained to remember just how loud she'd been the last time somepony had told it was that loud. She glanced into Zecora's hut and spotted a scroll. "Excuse me, Zecora, I need to use that scroll for a second." She stepped into the house as a unicorn appeared right in the way.

"No time!" she yelped as the newcomer asked her about something or other. She pushed past her, grabbed the scroll, and shoved back out into the yard. She half-unrolled the scroll into a makeshift bullhorn and at the top of lungs she screamed into it, causing the trees to shake and several of them to lose some of their leaves.

"APPLEJACK! COME TOWARD THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!"

Mal hated the idea of investing in her shop, since the more she put into it, the more she always felt like it was tying her down. However, she knew a deal when it was offered. "Done. And if anyone asks, I got no reason to lie. I told you where I get my tool, didn't I? Only if they ask, though, I'm not in the business of advertising."

With that, she threw open the door into the backroom, where she began the process of copying the key. She left the door open, so she could still converse with the carpenter if need be. Making keys was easy for her, and she'd done it hundreds, if not thousands of times before. Her locksmithing skills were one of the few things about her old life that didn't fill her with disgust. She mused on that for a moment as the heat built up. Perhaps if her magic had worked properly, she might have come back from the university with all manner of lock-related spells. She might even have had a lock for a cutie mark, instead of the unsightly brand she'd ended up with.

She quickly dismissed such notions. No sense wasting thought on what might have been. She snapped out of her daydreaming and got to work.

"Oh shove off," snapped Mal. "You'd already decided I was guilty from the moment you laid eyes on me, don't try to justify it." She grinned maniacally at Bonfire and laughed. "Hahaha, you're trying to bait me into attacking you? Sorry, I know better than that. Come on, come on COME ON! Trample me beneath the IRON HOOF of the OPPRESSOR! Clearly I gave up any hope of privacy when I DARED to come within a million feet of your TYRANT! Haha, hurry up! Beat up the weak little mare! AHahaahahahHAHAHhaah"

She began to cackle madly, a disturbingly unhinged look in her eye. The anticipation was already making her giddy, and she had no intention of letting the situation calm back down after it had already escalated this far. She glared at the delivery pony, still grinning madly. "What, are you chicken?!"

Mal's eyes narrowed as the Doctor evaded her question again. She was about to press the matter again, but he brought up a rather embarrassing subject. "D-dance? Me? What a preposterous waste of time. Besides, do I look like the sort of pony who gets invited to that sort of party? And he wasn't that young, nor am I that old if that's what you're inferring!" She blustered thoughtlessly, giving herself away.

It only took her a moment to realize her slip, but she started fuming, literally, as her anger spilled out into her magical energies. Licks of cold flame played around her horn, and she snarled wordlessly at Lyra when the green unicorn tried to talk to her.

"I.. am Malediction," she said, introducing herself with nearly as much arrogance as Trixie, though she lacked the dramatic flair. "I was looking for the ruins in search of a book that might help me with a... limitation on my magic. I've already checked all the other libraries from Canterlot to Fillydelphia, hence my familiarity with them, and there was nothing. Looking for ancient texts in ruins is sort of a last resort." She glared meaningfully back at the Doctor. "Which is why I was intrigued when you mentioned a library out here."

With any luck the usual pony helpfulness would kick in, and these awful ponies would bring her along. She already hated this Trixie, and the Doctor made her very suspicious, but if it brought her closer to more magic, she'd put up with anypony.

Tempest glared sternly at Granola for a moment longer, apparently immune to being softened up by tears. She sighed. "Miss Gracie, please. Compose yourself. We all know you didn't intend to do harm, you just need to slow down and listen." Her tone of voice, at least, had softened from one of anger to one a mother might take when scolding a careless child.

She looked around, surveying the damage. There was remarkably little actual damage, though the deluge had certainly made a mess and scattered all manner of debris. They were lucky in that regard, the pressurized hose would have had no difficulty shattering windows or tearing up flower beds had it been directed at them. Instead, poor Aqua had been the target, and she seemed uninjured.

"Well come along then, let's head back to the lake." She turned back to Aqua. "We can always continue the tour later, I suppose. Ponyville isn't going anywhere."

"Well, you can already consider yourself invited or course, I mean, it's your party. But if you want, I can make you a card, too. And for location, Sugarcube Corner doesn't have anything scheduled, so I was just gonna host it there." She paused. "Hmm, say, I don't think I've ever seen you around there, do you know where it is? It's hard to miss, it's the big building that looks like a tasty cake."

She leaned in conspiratorially. "It's not actually tasty cake," she whispered, speaking from personal experience on the matter.

Her ears perked up and she glanced around. "Did you hear something? Oh no, a ghost! It's saying something about DOOM!"

Mal waited, beginning to get irate, but intent enough on getting access to the book that she didn't give up. She began to daydream, and would have missed Scale entirely had he not tumbled to the ground. She emerged from her hiding spot and strode over to him. "Beating yourself up so I don't have to, eh? Admirable, I suppose." She snickered, but quickly returned to a serious scowl.

"So, did ya get it? The right book? And the right edition, too, the wrong one is useless to me." She stomped her hoof impatiently, eager to be done with this and get out of the university. It reminded her too much of when she'd come here as a little filly, and she was always vaguely nervous that somepony would recognize her. Preposterous when she actually considered it, as she'd only been there one day, and it had been many years ago, and she now looked vastly different, but that didn't stop it from nagging at the back of her mind.

Mal rolled her eyes. "He was probably thinking of a blacksmith. Though I don't care to check up on my competition that often, maybe some of them do make some of that junk. I just do what I know how to, and that's make locks and keys. And bypass them if need be."

She almost dismissed his offer to fix up her furniture out of hand. She didn't really care about the state of her house, and she tried to keep from getting attached to any of her material goods, but on the other hand, there was no reason not to take advantage of an opportunity to improve the place a bit.

"Hmm... they're still functional, but they are a bit splintery. I suppose they could do with some repair. How much capital we talking? I'm not exactly rolling in bits here."

• Settlers of Catan

• Arkham Horror

• Red November

• Ghost Stories

Yesss, I love Arkham and Ghost Stories. I made the mistake of buying too many expansions for Arkham though, and now set up takes agonizingly long, and actually playing gets far too bogged down with all the extra rules to worry about. I need to go through and remove the expansion cards so we can play a lighter version of the game and actually enjoy it again.

I'm avoiding buying the Ghost Stories expansion just because I made that mistake with Arkham. Also, I hear it actually makes the game easier, which is exactly the opposite of what we actually want. I've never played Red November though, I'll have to check that one out.

Anyway, back on topic, I liked a few of the standard games, monopoly, sorry, parcheesi, etc. I also remember Save The Whales was one I liked, though it was kind of depressing in content, since most of the time you'd at least lose one or two species to extinction.

Tempest considered giving a tour. It might be helpful to expand her own knowledge of the town, and she could places of interest. "I suppose I could show you around, though mind you my expertise is far from comprehensive. I tend to spend most of my time either on the outskirts of town surveying the climate or locked away in an office, filing paperwork. Still, I know most of the big places around town. The library, the tea shop, the spa. Perhaps that last one might interest you, Mr. Rockefilly, that's sort of an upper-class way to relax isn't it?" She sounded honestly unsure of the idea.

She looked out the window, wincing at the damage the storm had done to the unprepared town square. Still, it could have been worse, the short duration of the storm had reduced its impact. Most of the damage was from hail tearing up plant leaves, and there weren't any indications of lightning strikes nearby. A full assessment would be necessary at some point, but not immediately.

"First thing's first, however. If the young lady has become separated from her family, we should waste no time in getting word to them. The dangerous parts of the storm have passed by, so it's safe to fly. I'll head over to Miss Dash's abode and see if I can get her to take a message. You may stay here or step out as you wish, but don't go so far that I can't find you. I'll be back in a jiffy."

With that, she stepped out into the rain and flew off toward Rainbow's house, enjoying the cool rain now that the hail and lightning had moved off.

"Hmm, artists," Lola said, sounding slightly disappointed. Not that she had anything against artists per se, but they were hardly the sort of people she generally made any effort to associate with. "Well, you have my gratitude for your assistance in getting my associates out of the forest intact."

"As for staying or continuing on, I haven't quite decided what I want to do myself. On the one claw we're all quite exhausted, and we are certainly deserving of a rest after all this. A one day layover wouldn't be too terrible. On the other claw, we've already lost a day of time in this little misadventure. It's possible we could even have been to Canterlot by now." She let out a sharp sigh, the first physical indication she'd given to her current state of fatigue.

"As for showing us about town, I'm afraid I'll have to pass either way. I'm sure your little town is quite delightful," she said, sounding unconvinced, "but even if we do elect to stay, we're in no fit state to properly enjoy such a tour. You understand." She looked back to Dellios and Ashton. "So, what are your opinions on the matter? Shall we rest, or push onward?"

"Okie dokie loki," said Pinkie, and she made a check mark next to games on her list. This party was going to be awesome! So many cool new things.

She smiled as Zecora expressed her misgivings. "Well, that's the whole point of having a party! Even if they're still nervous of you, nopony is gonna want to miss one of my parties, and once they're there, they'll see that there's nothing to be nervous about. I'm sure they'll warm up to you in no time at all."

Pinkie looked once more over her list. "Hmm, I think that's everything, I'll get to work on inviting folks right away. Anything else you can think of before I head out?"

Mal glared at the Doctor venomously. She disliked being ignored, and even when he has acknowledged her, he hadn't actually answered her question. At least Trixie's feeble insults were actually directed at her. She sneered at the other blue unicorn. "Half-blind mule, huh? And yet, you still blundered right into it, so I wonder what that makes you..."

Mal gave the green unicorn a casual look over, quickly deciding that she was no threat and ignoring her. She turned back to Trixie and grinned malevolently. "Your buffoon seems to be broken, so I'll ask again, this time to the sane one. What library is it exactly that you were heading to? I know of libraries in Hoofington and Canterlot, but you're currently going the wrong way to get to either of those, which led me to conclude that it's a ruin. That's even better than what I was hoping to stumble across."

When Romana regenerated in Destiny of the Daleks, she did so willinging, not because she was dying, and she was able to change what she looked like, even getting the chance to 'preview' how each body she was considering looked. It may be the fact that the Doctor has always regenerated violently that keeps him from being able to choose details. On the other hand, maybe the Doctor's just not very good at tweaking his regenerations.

Even in that serial, however, all of Romana's previewed forms were female. Perhaps changing gender is just more difficult, or perhaps it was just preference. The Master, for instance, always took male forms, even when he was out of regenerations and was stealing bodies from other life forms. It seems quite plausible that many would simply have a preferred gender, and an uncontrolled regeneration would simply ignore the option to switch genders.

Also, nitpick, he's only fully regenerated 10 times (technically there was that one point where the 10th doctor regenerated but didn't change, but I don't think that counts). The current doctor is thus his 11th incarnation, the first being the one he was born as.

Mal snarled at Radiant. "Rrrrgh, I never said I attended the university. They wouldn't take me, I'm not powerful enough for them or some garbage. And I told you already, I was making a house call. I'm a locksmith. Look," she produced a piece of paper to show to the guards. "I even have the work order and receipt right here. A little house over on the eastern edge of this tier. The owner locked himself out, and I'm the only locksmith who stays open all night."

"As for the package..." she glanced over it, reading the return address. It was from a book dealer, but not one of the ones that dealt in the really rare books. That meant it was most likely a book of magical theory, or rare spells. Most importantly, it wasn't anything that would get her into trouble legally, and it was replaceable, in case the guards decided to confiscate or destroy it. Having deduced as much, Mal elected not to cooperate.

She levitated it into her bags and gave the guards a defiant glare. "If you want it opened, you'll have to take it from me by force." She directed her glare at Bonfire, as he seemed to be the senior guard, looking him right in the eyes, daring him to attack her.

Normally I HATED girly girl stuff (except the MLP toys and Strawberry Shortcake) but this game was so fun to play!

Haha, I remember that game! My sister had it, and she made me play it with her. It was kind of a sadistic game, I'd always end up with almost everything I needed, then 'HAHAHA, TURN INTO A FROG!'

"Hmm, oh I know! I'll whip up a bunch of stuff and leave the spices optional. That way we can try it with a bunch of stuff, and ponies who don't like spicy stuff don't end up eating any either." She nodded forcefully, pleased that she had found a possibility that ought to suit everypony. "Uh, as long as Twilight doesn't go trying to drink it again."

She looked over her list. "Ok, food, decorations, music... hmm... that leaves games? Do you have any favorites? Ooh, or new fun games you could teach us? You don't need to explain them now, I just need to know if there's anything I should have ready."

"Miss Dash and I have... professional differences. Suffice to say, our personalities are quite diametrically opposed. Uh, that is to say, we just tend to get on each others nerves. And as for Cloudsdale... well..." Tempest hesitated, unsure if she ought to admit to her family problems in front of the child, but the rich unicorn already had, so she figured she might as well. "I'm from Cloudsdale, and my family is still there. We don't really get long anymore. It's complicated." It wasn't actually all that complicated, but it was a subject Tempest was loathe to dwell on long enough to actually explain.

She sighed. "I suppose I could show you around. I'm not really the best at tours, most of my own recreational time is spent at home, or out by the lakes. Uh, but I do know some of the more notable structures, and I know the landscape itsel quite well, as I do a lot of surveying for the weather team." She forced an uncertain smile.

"I'm not really sure what you rich ponies do for fun actually. If the Gala was any indication it's just a lot of social maneuvering and eating expensive foods that aren't actually much tastier than what we 'common' ponies make do with."

Outside, Mal stopped her vandalism as a few ponies walked by. She sneered at one as he passed by, distracting him just as one of the professors walked by in the other direction, causing them to collide. Smiling at the accident, she wandered off towards the library, where she settled down in an inconspicuous little alcove along the outside wall. She could get the drop on her patsy from here when he came back out.

Surprising him would serve to keep him intimidated, just in case he hadn't actually gotten permission to borrow the book. And even if he hadn't, it was always nice to be feared.