Unwinding

Flora sat quietly on a bamboo chair, sipping at a cup of something light and floral. The warmth spread through her chest and she breathed a soft sigh, resting her chin on a hoof and using the other to guide a pen in seemingly aimless loops and turns on a thin sheet of folded paper. Low music floated about the room, more comforting and relaxing than even the most comfortable of silences. She pushes her mane out of her face and nibbles at a square of something sweet and crumbly, idly shading in areas of the page. Her wings sort of float and swoop on their own, unconsciously unfurling and waving with the rhythm of her penstrokes. A slight breeze floats from them, lifting the manes of the other ponies around her slightly, only just enough to be noticed.

Intel, for his part, was scribbling furiously on his sheet of paper, pausing every so often to sip his tea. He looked decidedly out of place in the relaxed atmosphere, mane messed up and unkempt, eyes that suggested lack of sleep, and a general haphazardness with every movement. Under his breath, he was muttering words too fast for anyone listening in to decipher, and if they did they would have to had gotten a magical dictionary to get the definitions of the majority of his vocabulary. A huge array of figures and sums were splayed out on his paper, a numberphobe's worst nightmare. Various things had been crossed out underlined, circled...

Intel frowned at the paper. "No, that can't be right!" he despaired, before taking another sip.

Flora twitched her ears, trying to ignore the mumbling and exclamations coming from the other side of the room. She shook her head at the stressed sounds, as if shaking them off, her brows furrowing as she struggled to keep her attention on her paper. The scribbling sounds grated on her nerves like sandpaper.

>>"No, that can't be right!"

Flora snapped her wings close to her sides, sitting up abruptly and huffing an angry snort. She only ever came here for quiet and relaxation, and this was far from what she needed. Crumpling her paper in frustration, she tossed it into the trashcan nearby.
She missed completely.
"Freakin'--...Frackin'-- RRRRRGH!!!... Shoot!" She sputtered, stomping her front hooves like a filly. She shuffled over to the crumpled ball of paper, which landed by the other pony, bending to pick it up in her mouth and shoot the pony a disapproving look.
Instead of throwing the paper away again, she sat down and dropped it by her feet, tilting her head slightly to one side.
" What in Celestia's name are you doing??" She inquired, watching the pony's pen race across the cluttered page.

Intel looked up crossly. "Do you mind? I am trying to work."

He looked down at his paper briefly, then continued, "But maybe you can explain to me why you pegasi have not bothered to actually figure out how a rainbow works. Oh yes, a billion and one treatises on the colour. Always about the colour. But nothing else."

It was rude, he knew, but he was really at his wits' end. The nature of his false flame had been analysed, dissected and annotated to the finest detail, with the help of some of the local pegasi to control the conditions so that the near disaster that was Whitetail Wood didn't repeat itself. It was the comment that the flames were like 'A rainbow with the colours removed' that Intel had gone down this path, but once again there was the absolutely irritating problem of pegasi not scientifically experimenting with their atmospheric elements. It was almost infuriating how little had been written on the subject of rainbows, considering the gross amount of interaction the subrace had with them. By Tartarus, even one of the elements of Harmony was famed for connection with the phenomena! There was nothing about a rainbow's...form. So he had started doing some calculations with what was known, and tried to make some basic hypotheses. It had not been going well.

"As for your question, I'm trying to fill in gaps in magical theory that have been left to rot for reasons beyond me. Now, I shall ask you the same." He motioned to the crumpled piece of paper. "Before you decided to disturb me, what were you doing?"

"I *DO* mind, as a matter of fact. I was trying to work as well." Flora huffed archly.
"Just because I have wings doesn't mean I know anything about rainbows."
She flicked her ears irritably, snorting at the ground.This pony was being a little rude, but she couldn't deny that she was as well, so it was to be expected.
"I guess that makes sense; I have no idea why most pegasi don't care to figure anything out about them." She scraped the ground with a hoof, frowning.
"You were actually making quite a bit of noise, which was rather annoying for anyone ELSE trying to work. This is the only quiet place in Ponyville. And I was just... brainstorming concepts. For a project I'm doing for a client." A few locks of deep red mane fell over her ear and she pushed them back with an uncomfortable flick of her hoof. She nudged the paper with a hind leg, her eyebrows wrinkling in thought.

Intel sighed, and rubbed his eyes, pushing his glasses out of the way.

"I apologise," he said shamefully, "I didn't know I was being a nuisance. Everything must be getting to me. I thought tea might help, but apparently not." He sipped his tea thoughtfully. "It's such a shame. There has been so many advances in unicorn magic, with the likes of Starswirl the Bearded, Clover the Clever, Lap Lace, New Tonne, so on, so forth...but nothing about pegasi, or earth ponies for that matter. You try to look up famous pegasi, what do you get?" He pulled a face. "Bloody Wonderbolts. Not a peep about the poor pony who learnt how to control storms and things like that, just athletes that look pretty flying. What do they teach in their schools?"

His glasses fell back into place as he looked at the pegasus wearily. "Forgive me in advance if I've somehow offended you with my snotty Canterlot delusion of unicorn superiority. I'm sure that there are brilliant and incredible pegasi out there, they just don't seem to have gotten any recognition."

Flora smiled. "It's alright, I don't mind." She grabbed her tea from the table she had been sitting at. It was getting cold, and she hated that.
"Honestly I don't care for the Wonderbolts. But you'd be surprised how many pegasi struggle to fly from an early age..." She stretches her wings a bit, spreading the feathers. "And a pegasi that can't fly seems pretty useless. They actually do a lot for us." She watched him quietly, noticing how bright his eyes actually were when his glasses weren't in the way.
"No worries, I'm not offended. I'm sure you're right about most pegasi-- they don't really seem to care for how things work. They're all about being athletes and showing off." The yellow pony smiled again, folding her wings tightly and taking a sip of her tea.

Intel smirked. "But you are one of the few that are not, I assume?" A tired genuine smile finally crawled onto his face as he held out a hoof. "Intelligent Design. Intelligent by name, but hardly by nature, so call me Intel instead."

He sighed again. "It seems I take work wherever I go. Not that I mind, I like working, it's just that I don't have the capability to tackle it all. I'm actually taking a break, if you can believe that. This is something I do in my spare time inbetween teaching those foals and the workshop."

His tone then adopted a curious expression. "If you don't mind me asking, what is this project that you are working on?"

Flora grinned sheepishly. "I struggled as a filly like any other pegasi, of course, but I haven't really had problems since." She flicked her ears back for a moment, toeing the ground with a hoof.
"It's nice to meet you, Intel," She says, laughing at his sourness. "I'm Flora." She takes his hoof and shakes it cheerfully.
"I could never manage that... I'd tear my feathers out from the stress!" She shudders. "I have to have down time to unwind, or I just can't function." She sips down the last of her tea thoughtfully.
"I design cloud homes... I was coming up with ideas for a decorative sculpture."

"You design?" Intel said, genuinely surprised. "It's always interesting to meet designers not from my family. Though they're more designers of cities and palaces and sewer systems, I guess. My dad designed houses, but they were more mansions for the rich and famous." He laughed. "I set my sights somewhat smaller."

He sipped his tea. "I suppose that's where your cutie mark came from, then. I wonder what it's like, working with clouds instead of stone. How to make it constant and rigid without being affected by weather and such..."

Flora blushed and shuffled her hooves. "It's not really a family profession, just something I picked up and found was right for me... I only do personal homes and small additions to pre-existing cloud houses..."
She smiled and toyed with a lock of her mane. "Clouds are great... They are pliable but hold their shape, and can be different depending on their density. They behave differently to pegasi than they do to other ponies, so they hold up pretty well unless a pegasi dissipates them... Though one of the best things about clouds is that they don't need to be rigid or constant to be beautiful or useful..." She looked up at Intel and fluttered her wings a bit.
"And actually my cutie mark is from my eye for design in general, I just found that clouds houses are a nice way to use it." She chewed on her lip thoughtfully.

"You mean a pegasus can simply dissipate a wall at a mere touch?" Intel asked, amused, "That would do away with doors, but I imagine it comes with its own set of challenges. Building a city out of clouds must have been quite the feat." He smiled lightly. "Not as impressive as turning a small mountain village into Equestria's capital city, but I'm a bit biased when it comes to that sort of thing."

He sipped his tea, thinking.

"I have been doing many experiments with clouds. Pushing them to their magical limit and so forth. They can be quite fearsome if one does not know what they are capable of."

Flora shook her head and giggled. "No, of course not! But if they kick at it or push it apart, it will dissipate." she smiled. "I'm sure they are both amazing feats."
She listened to Intel quietly and fiddled with her empty cup.
"I would love to see that, it sounds interesting..." she looked up and blinked at him. "what kinds of things did you do with them?"

Intel still thought that structures able to dissipate so easily would pose both structual and security problems, but held his tongue, finishing his tea instead.

"Well, I set them on fire actually. Not real fire, obviously, but something fire-like, except completely devoid of colour. A false flame. Highly dangerous, unless one has storm pegasi close to strike the false flames. Like fire it spreads quickly, but unlike fire, it catches on everything, including things that aren't flammable.

Clouds can't be transfigured by unicorn magic, you know, otherwise we would be managing our own weather. Trying to normally will just end in a headache, but forcing it through magi-mechanic means will cause it go into false flame state. Then you have to think quickly.

But for much more ordinary things...I can do most things a pegasi can do with a cloud through unicorn magic now. Not as well, obviously. But I can create storms and rain now."

Flora listened skeptically, her eyebrows crinkling. "That sounds... Dangerous." She said, frowning. This pony had some really interesting ideas, and had done some amazing things, but she felt like they could get out of hand quickly. "So... This fire stuff is what the other pegasi told you was like a rainbow without the color?" She inquired, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. She had leaned in interest towards Intel unknowingly as she was listening, and now noticing, she righted herself and blushed, looking away.

"Indeed." The answer was punctuated by a nod.

"That's why if I can explore what a rainbow is like without its colour, I can make some hypotheses on how the false flame acts without risky experiments with the false flames themselves. But..." Intel made a gesture with his hoof towards the piece of paper he had been scribbling on. "...there's not much at all really, except guesswork and speculation. I didn't even know colour could be removed from a rainbow before, but that leaves a burning question. If you take the colour from a rainbow, what is left? That, I think, might be the same stuff that makes up false flames."

When Flora looked away, Intel's expression turned a bit sheepish. "Am I boring you? I apologise."

Flora shook her head and smiled. "No of course not! Just thinking, that's all."
She licked her lips and thought for a moment. "Do you really have to remove the color to make a rainbow act like the false flames? Or could you simply experiment manipulating the rainbows themselves with a pegasus's help? I myself have gotten rainbows to do some interesting things for sculptures in the past... I've just never thought of them as fiery, but more like water. Taking that into consideration could alter how the rainbows might behave for me..."
She pondered this briefly, then reached for Intel's paper with a hoof and looked up at him. "May I?"

"Go ahead," came the reply, pushing the paper towards her.

It was extremely messy, but one could decipher well enough that it was split into two halves, comparing the false flame to rainbows. Dominating the rainbow side was the word equation RAINBOW - COLOUR=?, which was circled and had lines leading to other circles, one leading to IN which led to OUT which led to SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT. This portion was understandably scribbled over. The false flame side had far more content, but it was also harder to understand. Most of it was written in equations and shorthand. There were some arrows connecting the similarities between the two, including MONOCHROME, UNSTABLE, WEATHER INDUCING, and SLOOD. On the very edges were scribbled sketches of warped rainbows, clouds on fire, jars (labeled ZAP APPLE JAM), and his cutie mark. In fact, the jam and cutie mark were added together in an equation to make CAUC aka FALSE FLAMES.

"What have you gotten rainbows to do?" came the curious question.

Flora smiled and took the paper to look over it. She chewed her lip thoughtfully, giggling at some of the areas that were crossed out. It was all very interesting, and she thought over it for a minute, tapping the table idly with a hoof. She passed the paper back. "Thanks! That's very different, I like seeing the thought processes." she looked up at Intel, a little admiringly.
She smiled happily and focused her eyes on nothing in particular as she recalled some of her favorite sculptures. "Well, in one sculpture, I had rainbows sprouting from the clouds like plants. They behaved like trees, but dripped and poured like fountains. And in another, I had a very thin airy cloud that I infused with a rainbow... It was very lightly tinted with the colors, and moved like a reflection of water. It was a very different texture than any other cloud I had worked with. " she shook her head as she recalled this, looking back over at Intel and blushing a little sheepishly. She didn't really like to brag. "At one point I had a sphere of rainbow hovering above a cloud sculpture and dripping onto the clouds below it. That one took a long time... I used air pressure around it as support and clouds thinly spread through it as a foundation. Rainbows never really can act on their own... They seem to need sources. Not unlike fire... I wonder what it would be like if one could isolate a rainbow? Maybe their spiciness comes from being seperated from the rainbows source?" the yellow pegasus fluttered ER wings a bit, swishing her tail as her thoughts raced excitedly.

"Fire and water, yeeesss..." Intel mused, "Rainbows would be so very interesting to play with. They seem more versatile than I thought they would be. You wouldn't think so in their normal state, a single arced strand across the sky. I always thought of it as restricted magic, rigid in its form. But you..." He smiled at her. "You've managed to do just about everything with them, from infusing and applying air pressure. Well, not absolutely everything. There's still the classic spells to be applied; kinetic, transfiguration, growth, and so forth."

Flora's enthusiasm was catching. "If the ambient form of rainbows is intrinsically linked to its source, then the rainbow would undergo an uncertain state, then collapse into something else. Cloud perhaps, or maybe slood. If it isn't, well that would be interesting."

Intel then frowned. "Wait. Spicy? Someone actually tasted a rainbow?"

Flora grinned, shaking her head at Intel. "Rainbows are liquids in Cloudsdale!" She laughed, "Hasn't anypony told you that?" She rested her head on her hooves and listened curiously, completely focused on their conversation. "The rainbows pour from clouds and gather in pools, like natural streams. The rainbow arcs that appear are the result of a pegasus stringing a rainbow from one cloud to another, stretching it to its limit, after a rainfall. They only work that way when the air is moist from the rain but the sun is shining, so we take every opportunity we can to do it. It's sort of a tradition." The pegasus smiled to herself, marveling at the beauty of the rainbows. "I would love to experiment more with them-- see how exactly they would react if separated from a source for an extended period of time. Maybe they would latch onto something else other than clouds, if pushed to the limit?"
She giggled at Intel's surprise at learning someone had tasted one.
"Yes, somepony has actually tasted one! There were some non-pegasus ponies a while back who managed to use a spell to come to Cloudsdale and support a pegasus friend in a competition, and there was this odd pink earth pony who did the silliest thing! She licked a pool of rainbow, then looked like she was going to explode! Apparently they are incredibly spicy, so much so that most (If not all) ponies can't tolerate them."

"They...don't teach that in Celestia's School," Intel said grumpily, "The pegasi don't allow it. Say the secrets for weather making is for them and them alone." For the first time, his voice had a tone of hate and anger. "Maybe they think us unicorns would take advantage of it or something. Make them obsolete. Don't know why they think that...not many unicorns do care about that sort of thing. Normal unicorn magic is what catches the attention of the subrace population. But there's so much secrecy surrounding rainbows! It's as if they're using the bodies of foals or something..."

He blinked and shook the disturbing thoughts out of his head.

"Sorry, I don't know what came over me. But Flora, do liquids need a source to exist? Can rainbows not be a magical reaction instead?" He scribbled on the paper RAINBOWS: MATTER OR REACTION. He paused, then added SPICY, then linked it to LUNA DAMNED PINKIE PIE. "Now, to be honest, I'm just assuming here. But when someone says 'pink earth pony' and relates it to something ridiculous, it is a likely chance that the individual named Pinkie Pie is somehow involved." He clicked his tongue. "Unfortunately, by order of Twilight Sparkle, and by extension, Princess Celestia, the element of laughter is strictly off experimental limits. I wish she wasn't. So much can be learned from a fascinating anomaly. But I digress." He wrote down SOURCES: CLOUDS, RAIN, SUN.

"If it does latch onto other things, we have to be careful. If it is anything like false flames, it could spread out of control and inflict horrible pain if attaches to an animal, including ponies." Intel glanced at his tail. "If it is a reaction, then we can narrow the necessary elements required. If it can exist independently, then the rainbow itself can be played with." He bit his lip. "And if it is, then I might try removing its reality anchor, and then...then we shall see..."

Flora shook her head. "Well, we can't spread knowledge about the weather forecasts, else somepony else tries to manipulate it. I'm sure it's just caution." She looked at him, confusion and a little bit of worry evident on her face.
"Um.. yeah. Well, rainbows ACT like liquids, but when played with they act like an entirely new substance. When I try to separate them form a source while working with them, they just dissolve back to the source into a liquid, right back where they started. So I've never really successfully tried. They do have a magic of their own, but they are also their own substance, which I think is mostly unrelated to any other." She shook her head thoughtfully, "You are right, though, I'm positive the pony was Pinkie Pie.
She chuckled at the thought of experimenting with the element of laughter. "I would think the element of laughter would be related to, say, the element of honesty, where it is simply a trait, or a useful skill, which leads to success and happiness!"

The pegasus frowned, nodding in agreement to Intel's thinking. "We would definitely have to be careful, then... And having a pegasi who has worked with rainbows so closely might really help with your research." She smiled at him and pricked her ears with interest.

"I don't like the thought of knowledge being restricted. It should be free for everypony who wants to learn," Intel replied curtly, "Secrets only lead to miscommunication, which lead to misunderstanding, which lead to tragedy."

He rested his head on his hooves with a thoughtful expression. "Tell me, Flora, has a rainbow ever been put into darkness? Or separated from sunlight and observed only with artificial light?" Intel was thinking if the rainbow generated light of its own, or simply reflected it.

Flora nodded, " Yeah... I do agree with you. I don't really understand why they keep it from other ponies." She tapped the table with a hoof idly, thinking as she listened to Intel.
"I... don't think it's possible in Cloudsdale to ever be in darkness, save when it's nighttime. Rainbows don't react different in moonlight..." She chewed her lip thoughtfully.
"It would definitely be something to consider. I don't really know what the rainbows relationship with sunlight is."