>Tradewind gasped for air against the wickedness of the wind, choking as the herculean gusts robbed her lungs of its prize at every opportunity.
>A whistle of malediction coming from somewhere beyond the tree canopy cried out in fury - cried out for /her/. She shielded her ears with her waterlogged wings in retort, the caramel appendages strikingly ineffective.
>Even there, shrouded among the towering oaks of old, the rain reached them, battering their exhausted forms as its horizontal assault continued, unceasing.
>She grimaced against the downpour’s freezing grasp, driving herself further into her brother’s oaken side to find any sort of warmth she could co-opt.
“How much longer?” she cried out, only just breaking through the cacophony.
>The stout earth pony, her wall against the rabid elements, grunted as he lowered his center of gravity to avoid being thrown off of his hooves.
>“We’ve still got another few miles or so until we get there!” he shouted in response, doing his best to point a reassuring squint down at her. “Don’t stop, just lean on me! Come on!”
>As they trudged on, defiant of the howling wind, she found her thoughts falling back to four days prior…

—

>“…after that, it’s just a small path through that clearing to the south, and you’ll be at the campsite. There should be some…”
>The conversation between her brother and father joined the endless noise of the light afternoon shower gently tapping on the living room window.
>She knew she probably should’ve been paying attention, the little eavesdropper, but it was simply too difficult for her to do, preoccupied as she was with her toys.
>She was sitting on the floor, back to the sofa as their masculine voices painted the soundscape in their baritone swells and troughs.
>In not being able to make out most of what they were saying, it was actually quite soothing - so much so that, eventually, she couldn’t help but lean her head back and close her eyes.
>As her favorite doll fell from her hoof with a gentle thud upon the ground, she found that their voices became clearer, almost as if they were just behind her as opposed to in the opposite room.
>“Now, I went ahead and checked the weather for ya,” her dad said. “It /should/ be clear all weekend, but bring the tarp, just in case. Out there, you’re gonna be gettin’ to where the edge of the Weather Patrol operates, so just be ready for the skies to be a bit wily, alright?”
>“Got it,” her brother replied. “Anything else I should know?”
>“Nothin’ I can think of. When your mom and I went a couple months ago, we heard some timberwolves howlin’ off in the distance, but where the campsite sits is far away from where they’ve been said to skulk about. I’ll still let ya take the foldin’ spear for protection, though.”
>“Really? Aw, cool!”
>She could hear the smile on her brother’s face.
>“But /only/ if ya promise me that if anything goes wrong, you’ll come right back home the first chance ya get,” her dad said.
>“I’m a senior now, dad. I’m not the same little-”
>“/Jet Stream/.”
>A brief silence followed, the tension suddenly malleable.
>“Alright, alright,” Jet reconciled. “You don’t have to stare me down like that, dad, sheesh.”
>“Good,” her dad said, his overbearing tone having receded. “I know you’d be fine on your own, but since Tradewind is going with you, ya need to be extra careful. Have ya told her yet?”
>Jet Stream had, in fact, /not/ told her yet.
>The moment her name wormed its way into her ears, her eyes darted wide, her prior exhaustion all but gone.
>Heart aflutter with excitement, she erupted from her seat, racing over to the kitchen where the two most important stallions in her life stared back at her in surprise.
“You’re taking me camping?!” she nearly yelled, catching them both off guard. 
>Her dad chuckled as he and her brother shared a knowing glance before turning to her.
>“You betcha,” her brother beamed at her. “It was supposed to be a surprise for doing well on your math test, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag now, huh?”
>The only response Tradewind could muster was a squeal as she launched herself at her brother, forehooves wrapping around him as tightly as they could. Her squealing continued as she buried her face in his side, the din of her brother’s laughter just barely rising above it.
>”Ya have to be on your best behavior or you’ll be coming right home, though, alright?” her dad said, ruffling his wings. “It’ll be fun, but it’s also serious business out there, little’un.”
>She nods as she slinks free of the embrace, all four hooves on the tile floor once more.
“I’ll be good, daddy,” she beamed, distraught at even the /thought/ of robbing herself of a weekend with her big brother. “I promise!”
>He ruffled her velvet locks, a booming chuckle lodged deep in his throat.
>“I know ya will.”

—

>The unending torrent of rainwater flooded her eyes, the very act of blinking it away an exercise in absolute futility.
>She wasn’t sure how long she’d been crying, or if she was still crying at all.
>Only ten yards in front of them, the deluge became a haze of bellicose grey, anything beyond obscured in totality.
>They had been trudging through the fury for what felt like hours. Even having used her brother as a bastion against the violent gale, her legs ached from struggling to stay upright.
“How much longer?” Tradewind cried out against the noise. 
>“Too long,” Jet shouted back. “The storm’s gonna throw us off of the trail. We need to find some kinda shelter until it passes!”
>Tradewind whimpered, her brother’s lack of reassurance having brought about a sense of alarm entirely alien to her.
>For what felt like hours, they crawled along, any sense of progress woefully absent. Eventually, though, the trees diminished. 
>Jutting out from the thick underbrush on their left rose a massive outcrop of rock that reached far above them into the rain, its true height unknown.
>Using it as a guidelight of sorts, her brother stuck close to it, Tradewind between himself and the endless wall of stone.
>Several hundred thousand tears and sniffles later, she just barely saw it - a recession in the rock face jutting out from the endless grey. 
>“There!” Jet exclaimed, his gaze dug into it like hooks. 
>He picked up his haggardly pace, nearly causing her to stumble in the process.
>As they bolted forward to the best of their ability, she was able to see it in more detail, albeit still constricted by the limited visibility.
>What looked like a natural alcove bore into the rocks, sloping downward and covered in moss. The brief path leading inward was shrouded in verdant overgrowth that shivered in the forceful winds, petals breaking off from common clovers as they drew closer.
>The cacophony adopted an unpleasant reverberation as they finally escaped into the opening, and she covered her ears with her wings as they retreated further into the alcove, the sound dissipating into a tolerable droning.
>Rogue moisture trickled underneath them in miniscule streams, each step they took accentuated by the pitter-patter of bare hooves.
>Tradewind stopped and stared deeper inward, into a void from which all light receded. Her brother slipped past her, notably more confident in the situation.
>“Well, aren’t we lucky,” he said as he allowed his supply pack to slide off of his withers. “I didn’t even know there were caves in this neck o’ the woods.”
>He began to sift through his bag, pulling out a pair of towels with his teeth.
>“‘Ere,” he mumbled, a mouthful of cloth as he tossed one over to Tradewind. “We might as well get dry while we wait the storm out.”
>She looked down at the towel in her hoof, then back up at him.
“How long is it gonna be…?”
>He shrugged as he sat on his haunches, toweling off his auburn mane with gusto.
>“I dunno, boog,” he said, the harrowingly awful nickname grating to her even then. “I was ready for a rainstorm or two, but this is /ridiculous/.”
>Her ears folded backward, eyes still welling with tears.
>Jet, mostly dry, draped his towel over the floor-bound bag to dry and moved to Tradewind’s side. He unfolded her towel between his hooves, and with gentle gusto, began to dry her off.
>“Hey, don’t worry,” he reassured her. “The storm isn’t gonna last forever. We’re here for the whole weekend, anyway, so even some nasty weather like this won’t keep us from having fun, alright?”
>Even with the torrent outside raging at full strength, she couldn’t help but believe him - her big brother always knew best, after all.
“…Mmkay,” she mumbled as the towel enveloped her head.
>Her world dizzied as he set about drying her hair, the frantic scrubbing a familiarly soothing monotony.
>“You want one of your juice boxes?” he asked as he finished and slung the towel over his withers with a smile on his face. “I know mom said you could only have two a day, but as long as you keep it a secret…”
>Just like that, Tradewind’s lips curled into an unsteady grin; her beloved beverage wouldn’t make all the rain disappear, sure, but the wonderful taste was a close second on her current hierarchy of needs.
“I promise!”
>Jet chuckled as he rummaged through his pack.
>“Comin’ right up, then.”
>In the haze of the overwhelming rainfall, the afternoon passed quickly.
>Jet had brought along homemade tinder, but in the face of being relegated to the cave mouth, he held off on setting a fire. Instead, they moved farther back into the relatively shallow dugout, blankets wrapped tightly around them as they huddled together.
>The hours flew by as they passed stories back and forth, of Jet’s collegiate life and Tradewind’s schoolhouse antics.
>All the while, the weather never relented, not even for a moment; not even as the light of the sun withered below the horizon, cloud cover chasing away the moon’s faint gleam.
>Though Tradewind could barely see, the world an ink blot, her elder brother’s steady warmth brought her comfort as she laid her head against his side.
“…Hey, Jet?”
>She felt his weight shift slightly, his eyes no doubt combing over the coiled blanket that housed her.
>“Yeah, boog?”
“What’re you gonna do after you’re done with cool… cull-”
>“College?”
“Yeah.”
>He wondered aloud for a moment.
>“Well, I was gonna wait to tell everypony until I knew for sure, but… I think I’ve got an internship lined up in Trottingham this summer. If it goes well, they might even offer me a job!”
>Tradewind squinted as the cogs in her mind turned.
“How far away is that?”
>Jet sighed.
>“It’s on the west coast of Equestria. So, uh… really far.”
>She sat upright, the brutal surprise twisting the calm into nil.
“B-but… Why are you gonna go so far? Can’t you do something in Ponyville?”
>“Tradewind…”
>He drew her against him, and she practically fell onto his side, tears streaming anew.
>“You’ve got dreams, right? Of what you wanna be when you grow up?”
>She nodded, head digging into his ribs.
>“And you’re gonna chase ‘em no matter what, right? Rain or shine?”
>Another frenetic bobbing, her neck strained.
>“That’s what this is like for me. If I don’t do this, I don’t know if another opportunity like it is ever gonna come up again.”
>He paused for a moment, the silence unbearable for her.
>“Sometimes, Tradewind, you just… gotta take a leap of faith, no matter what anypony else says. You’ll feel it too, one day - like there’s no other option. Like deep down, you /need/ it to feel like you’re really /alive/.”
>He cleared his throat, taken aback by his unfiltered sincerity.
>“Sorry. You get what I mean, I think. In any case, I don’t even know if they’re gonna take me, so…”
>Tradewind knew they /would/ take him; they would be stupid not to. Her brother was one of the brightest people she had ever known in her relatively short life, and she doubted that would ever change.
>Her mind sulked through the empty halls of a home removed from time, robbed of its warm light.
>Such a home was one she didn’t care to return to.
“Can I go with you?” she asked, her voice wavering.
>Jet shook his head.
>“I wish, boog. Maybe when you’re older, once you’ve finished all your schooling.”
>He paused for a moment, unwilling to trail off on a negative.
>“It’s not all bad, though! I mean, what’s stopping me from coming to visit everypony?”
>Tradewind pouted, unsatisfied.
“It’s not the same.”
>“...I guess,” Jet sighed. “Just… try not to think about it for now. You don’t wanna ruin your awesome weekend over something that’s not even set in stone, do ya?”
>She shook her head weakly against him, only a murmur escaping from her throat in response.
>“Are you getting tired?”
“Kinda,” she mumbled.
>Jet chuckled, shifting slightly so she had more room on his side to lay her head.
>“Get some rest, then, sleepyhead. We’ve still got a long way to go tomorrow.”
"Mmkay."
>As she sunk ever so slightly deeper into the velvety down padding his ribs, she heaved a weighty sigh through her nostrils, willing herself into whatever sort of calm would come to her.
“Love you, Jet.”
>“Love you too, boog.”
>What little light had found purchase in the cave soon faded into nothing more than the striations of a welcoming blackness playing against shut eyelids.

***one more update very soon***