Chapters Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
It was summer in Equestria.
On the outskirts of a small town named Ponyville, three small figures emerged from a small cluster of trees. They were moving very slowly and seemed to have trouble even with the smallest of movements.
A casual observer might have thought that they were walking through mud, but the ground was dry and it hadn’t rained for a few days now. Had the observer been closer he or she might have heard the heavy breathing and occasional grunt that was uttered with every step the figures took.
At a snail’s pace the UFO’s (Unidentified Foalish Objects) made their way from the trees to the nearby stream of water.
As soon as her front hooves were free from the tree sap she used some water to clean off her flank. It took more effort than usual and the being hoped to see something special under all the sap and pine needles. Alas the only thing to be revealed was orange fur, the flank as blank as it was before.
“Anything?” squeaked the vaguely unicorn shaped blob of tree sap next to her.
“Nothing.” Scootaloo replied annoyed.
“Mmblff! Fm brglf mblffmbl.” The third figure mumbled.
“What was that Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo asked and watched as her friend walked with a sigh to the water. After a quick scrub of her face the country filly finally managed to get rid of the sap that had covered her mouth.
“Ah said, Ah really thought it would a worked.” Apple Bloom said and looked defeated at her friends.
“Yeah, me too.” Squeaked the blob named Sweetie Belle.
“Me three.” Scootaloo joined in automatically.
“I really thought we were on to something here this time. Cutie Mark Crusaders Tree Sap Collectors really did sound like a good idea. I bet nopony else is as good at collecting tree sap like us three.” Sweetie Belle said while carefully cleaning herself with the cool water of the stream. “Rarity would have a fit if she saw us like this.” She mused more to herself than to the others.
They washed themselves in silence, all of them momentarily defeated by another setback in their quest to earn their cutie marks. Soon however the young spirit returned to them and they started splashing each other with water, giggling like the fillies that they were.
The heat of the sun was more than enough to dry their coats as they made their way back to the clubhouse. Once inside Sweetie Belle looked around for a brush to take care of her messy mane. Scootaloo watched her for a couple of seconds before addressing the thought on all of their minds.
A loud gurgling sound suddenly echoed through the clubhouse. She turned to face the source of the noise.
“Ah guess that was a good answer right?” Apple Bloom said sheepishly and grinned at her now laughing friends, while holding her rumbling stomach.
“Yeah, climbing those trees was difficult. Do we have anything here that we can eat?” Scootaloo asked and looked around.
“Our crusader snack bowl is empty.” Sweetie Belle answered while brushing the last knot out of her tail.
“Well we could always have a couple o’ apples to eat. Ah bet Applejack wouldn’t mind.” Apple Bloom suggested.
“No, no, no. That will not do!” Scootaloo said and drew herself up to her full height with her chest puffed out and small wings outstretched. Just like her idol Rainbow Dash sometimes did when she told another awesome story about herself. The other fillies just looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t you see?” Scootaloo said after looking into the puzzled faces of her friends. She pointed a hoof at the empty snack bowl. “We now have a quest to refill our snack bowl!”
It only took a fraction of a second for the other crusaders to latch onto the idea of the small pegasus.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The three crusaders were now speeding away from Sweet Apple Acres heading to the town square of Ponyville.
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom sat in a little trailer being pulled along by Scootaloo on her scooter. The little orange Pegasus buzzed her wings fast, driven by her need for speed and her hunger for a nice treat from Sugarcube Corner. She enjoyed every minute riding on her scooter and in absence of her ability to fly yet, it was the next best thing.
While the two friends in the trailer were discussing which treats and snacks to buy, Scootaloo focused her attention onto the road ahead. On the outskirts of town there wasn’t much to worry about, save for maybe a hole in the road or other smaller obstacles. But now nearing the town proper she had to be a bit more careful not to crash into anypony. Especially today as it was the weekend. Not any regular weekend, but the first weekend of the summer break. As such many families were out in town to buy food and other supplies for their plans during this time. The market place in town square was really full with ponies surrounding the stalls and standing around talking with other families.
Scootaloo scanned the area ahead and let out a little sigh. Riding through town at the current speed wasn’t an option anymore. The best course of action would be to stop and leave her scooter and trailer behind, while they made the rest of the trip on hoof.
Just as she was about to slow down she saw a familiar sight within the crowd of ponies. Ahead Scootaloo recognized the figure of Applejack, standing behind her stall selling fresh apples to hungry customers. The crusaders were coming up from behind the stall, but the hat on the earth ponies head and the long blond mane and tail were unmistakable. However what really caught Scootaloos eye was the pony that Applejack was talking to while serving her customers.
The multicolored hair, the cyan coat and the powerful wings resting on her sides, there was only one pony in all of Equestria that matched that description. It was of course Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo’s idol and since her camping trip with her and her friends, now also her big sister. Something that Scootaloo was immensely proud of, even though not much had really changed between them. Rainbow Dash took a bit more time away from her usual activities now and spent it with Scootaloo telling her really cool stories, but other than that it was still pretty much the same as before. The young Pegasus had hoped that Rainbow Dash would help her learn to fly or earn her cutie mark, neither of which happened.
Still, it was awesome that she could call her “Big Sister” even if it was in title alone. Scootaloo sometimes wondered if it would be different if she could fly already. Perhaps then the pony she looked up to would spend more time with her. Perhaps she just needed to impress Rainbow Dash somehow to get her to notice her more. She scanned the area ahead again, this time with another mindset.
There! Behind Applejacks stall stood an empty cart, probably the one that she used to ferry her goods from Sweet Apple Acres to the market and back. Resting against the side was a long thick board. Scootaloo’s eyes suddenly had a glint in them, as an idea came to her mind. It really did look like a perfect ramp.
As good as she could manage she tried to look past the ponies in front of Applejack’s stall. The line of ponies in front was not very long and behind them was an open space. A grin spread over Scootaloo’s face as she put her plan into action and sped up instead of slowing down.
“Scootaloo? Why are you going so fast?” Sweetie Belle asked as she felt the acceleration pressing her a bit further to the back of the trailer.
“Ya shouldn’t speed through here! Ya might hit somepony!” Apple Bloom’s concern fell on deaf ears as the pegasus pulling the trailer concentrated fully on the task in front of her. She even accelerated more once she hit the smoother roads in the town center. The two friends in back looked past the buzzing wings of their friend in front and saw the ramp.
“No! Are you crazy!?” they shrieked together, but it was too late and all they could do was hold on as tight as possible. With a thud they hit the ramp and not even a second later they were airborne.
Contrary to what you may have read in various newspapers or magazines, Ponyville is a quiet and peaceful town in the countryside of Equestria. Sure, they may have had issues with Parasprites, Ursa Minors, rampaging dragons, revenge seeking unicorns and may have been once named the Chaos Capital of the world, but apart from those events the town was as peaceful as could be.
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom stopped their high pitched shrieking once they realized that they had stopped. Now they looked rather shaken, but were happy to have reached the ground safely. Scootaloo took off her helmet and was waiting for… well anything. She had hoped her stunt would have the ponies around stomping their hooves in awe, but instead she was treated to a still stunned silence. Slowly the locals regained their senses and she heard a few mutterings of “Irresponsible!”, “Dangerous!” and “Somepony should tell her parents!”, before they resumed their business.
“What in tarnation do ya think yer doin’?” Applejack said as she left her stall and came running over to the three crusaders. “Are ya’ll ok?”
The two fillies in the trailer nodded their heads.
“Well thank Celestia nothin’ bad happened. What made ya do that Scootaloo? That there was somethin’ really dangerous. Ya’ll could have been hurt!”
Scootaloo’s ears folded down. This wasn’t going at all like she had imagined.
“Whooa! That was a really wicked cool move there Squirt.” Rainbow Dash said as she landed next to the little Pegasus. Instantly her ears were perked up again and she beamed her smile towards her idol. “I have never seen anypony get that kinda air like that before!”
“Thanks Rainbow Dash!”
“Don’t encourage her Rainbow! That was reckless and she was lucky that nothin’ happened.”
“Relax AJ. The Squirt knows what she is doing.” Rainbow Dash tussled Scootaloo’s mane with a hoof. “After all, she does look up to her big sister, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that she would try something awesome herself to be like me. Still got a long way to go to reach my level, however.” She said and gave her number one fan a wink.
“Don’t listen to her! Her head is obviously always up there in the clouds.” She stepped a bit closer to draw Scootaloo’s attention.
“Are ya listenin’ to me? Ah can’t have ya endangering others with yer will to impress Rainbow Dash like that. Perhaps Ah should have a talk with yer parents about that.” Applejack was muttering the last sentence more to herself than to Scootaloo and therefore didn’t see the reaction it had on the little filly. The smile she was wearing vanished in an instant and was replaced by a look of dread.
“No, no! That won’t be necessary Applejack.”
“Sweetie Belle is right. Ya don’t have to talk to her parents. It was our fault just as much as hers.”
“Yes, we thought it would just impress everypony.”
Applejack turned her attention to the fillies in the trailer.
They nodded.
“Then why were yer screamin’ like that?”
“Well, we had ta make some kinda noise so that other ponies knew that we were comin’. Otherwise we might have hit somepony.” Apple Bloom explained after a few seconds thought.
“Just what were ya’ll trying to do here anyways?”
“We… uhm… wanted to try and get our cutie marks in stunt performing?” Sweetie Belle offered.
“That’s right! Perhaps we shoulda thought this one through a bit more. Sorry Applejack.” Apple Bloom looked at her older sister with a sheepish expression.
“Just promise me ya’ll keep yer hooves on the ground from now on. An’ no more stunt drivin’!”
“We promise!” all three fillies said with sorrow in their voices and watched Applejack return to her stall.
“Thanks guys.” Scootaloo said and turned to her friends. “I’m really sorry I scared you like that.”
“Well don’t do somethin’ like that without tellin’ us before!”
“I just wanted to impress Rainbow Dash.”
“Well that did work I guess, but we both would like to be informed in advance about your ideas the next time you want to do that.”
“I promise.” Scootaloo paused for a moment and looked around to see if anypony was near them. “Thanks for not telling Applejack about my parents.”
“Don’t mention it. Now could we please get to Sugarcube Corner? Ah think Ah need an extra big cupcake after that scare.”
“Slowly this time please.” Sweetie Belle added. Scootaloo smiled at her two best friends and slowly set their mode of transportation rolling once again.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
The trio just pulled up next to Sugarcube Corner as two unpleasantly familiar ponies left the building.
“My, my, seems like the blank flank express has arrived at Sugarcube Corner.” Diamond Tiara sniggered and turned to Silver Spoon at her side. “I say express, but how fast can it be when it is powered by a chicken!?” They laughed at their cruel little joke.
“Don’t ya call her a chicken!” Apple Bloom said while jumping out of the trailer.
“Oh? Well I can’t call her an ostrich, she is far too small to be one.”
“Perhaps she is a dodo?”
“Haha! Nice one Silver Spoon.”
The unpleasant duo laughed a while longer and moved away from the angry Apple Bloom and the equally annoyed Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo tried her best to ignore the insults and just pretended to not hear them. Deep down however they stung her as they always did.
“Hello Mrs. Cake!” the trio greeted in unison.
“And what can I do for you today?”
“We need to refill our snack bowl! So we would like to buy six muffins and six cupcakes please.” Sweetie Belle chimed with a small crack in her voice.
“That’s a large order. Take your time selecting the muffins you would like to have. Cupcakes have run out I am afraid, but Pinkie is already making some new ones as we speak. If it is ok you could wait until they are finished.”
The thought of having freshly baked Pinkie Pie cupcakes brought a smile to the crusaders faces.
“Hi!” How Pinkie Pie managed to appear next to them without any of them noticing was as always a mystery. “I heard you are waiting for my super yummy delicious cupcakes! Now’s the time for any special requeeeheests!” she sang while bouncing from hoof to hoof.
The three ponies had to first regain their composure before thinking about the offer. Pinkie Pie kept on smiling at them while bouncing.
“Can Ah have vanilla ones with chocolate sprinkles?”
“Ooooh. Good choice! I’ll even make the sprinkles extra sprinkly!”
“I’ll have the same I think, but with a pink strawberry frosting.”
“Supie Dupie! Reminds me of the time I once fell into a whole tub of chocolate sprinkles by accident. Well I say by accident….” Pinkie shook her head to focus back to the task before her. “And what about your cupcakes Scootaloo?”
“I… uhm… I’ll have two lemon frosted ones with pistachio pieces, please.”
“Niiice! I have a pistachio costume upstairs in case anypony ever wants to have a nutty party. Although pistachios are actually more like a pea, but throwing a pea party just kinda sounds weird. Don’t you girls worry, your order is in capable hooves!”
Normally something said like that from Pinkie Pie would have caused uneasy looks. However when it came to anything related to parties including the food, you could bet that she would do her best and she had yet to disappoint. They watched her bounce back into the kitchen area and each took a bite of muffin while they waited. The door opened again and a pegasus stallion smiled at them briefly before casually walking over to Mrs. Cake at the counter. There he held idle chit chat for a brief moment and looked around for something to appeal to his appetites.
“Come back here you!” The voice of Mr. Cake came from upstairs and seemed a little frustrated. Everypony turned to the sound of the commotion. Pound Cake the young pegasus son of the cakes came flying down the stairs, closely followed by Mr. Cake himself. The baby evaded every futile attempt of his father to catch him by flying higher. He began circling above the counter giggling happily.
“Oh dear. What happened?”
“I just changed his diaper and had my back turned for half a second!”
Mr. Cake jumped and tried to snatch his son out of the air. With a thud he landed back on the ground, looking up at the still giggling baby.
“Where did we put the butterfly net?”
Before Mrs. Cake had the chance to answer, the Pegasus in front of them flew up to the infant catching him before he had the chance to escape and handed him to Mr. Cake.
“No problem, really. I was just the same as a baby my parents often told me.”
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were laughing at the little show that had unfolded before them. Scootaloo however was not laughing. Had they looked over they would have seen their friend looking crestfallen at the flying prowess of the young pegasus infant. She glanced at her own wings for a second, suddenly feeling a surge of anger wash over her. The anger subsided as quickly as it came and was replaced with a deep sadness.
“Useless.” She mumbled to herself unheard by her friends.
She pushed her half-finished muffin away, nothing would pass the lump in her throat that had suddenly appeared.
“Scootaloo? You ok?”
“Fine.” Scootaloo couldn’t bring herself to look at Sweetie Belle.
“Ya sure? Somethin’ wrong with yer muffin?”
“I’m fine.” Scootaloo snapped. She took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just need a breath of fresh air.”
“What about our order?” Sweetie Belle asked while also slowly standing up.
“You two stay here and pick it up. We meet up later again.”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other with a worried expression.
“Uhm, if you really don’t want us to come with you….” The little unicorn left the sentence hanging.
“No, I’m ok. I am just outside for a moment.”
With those words the orange pegasus left her friends sitting at the table. She saw the concerned look in their eyes, but didn’t feel like talking to them right now. They wouldn’t understand what she felt like so suddenly. What it felt like to see every other Pegasus being able to fly, even those as young as the son of the Cakes. And he was just an infant.
_________________________________________________________________________________
As soon as she was out of the building she unhooked the trailer, jumped on her scooter and sped off, but she didn’t get very far as her vision began to blur from the tears in her eyes. Barely able to contain her sobs and drive straight at the same time, she jumped off her scooter at ran down a nearby alleyway. It was out of view from any ponies in the town square and deserted. A fairly large discarded box was waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors. Scootaloo peered inside and found it to be empty. With heavy sobs she sat inside and let her tears flow.
A voice in her head answered her."Perhaps because you don’t push yourself enough.”
Just earlier she had praised her for an awesome stunt. Even though it was only something she had done with her scooter. Scootaloo thought about how she should push herself to flying. Her eyes wondered over the items in the alleyway simply for the sake of doing something at all. The box she was hiding in must have been the packaging from a refrigerator she realized. The dumpster next to the box seemed to be rather empty, the trash must have been picked up in the last couple of days. Scootaloos eyes wandered up towards the sky. She caught a glimpse of a small flock of birds and let out a frustrated sigh at the sight. Wait…. Birds!
Scootaloo sat in the box for a while longer, her tears having dried up some time ago. The noise from ponies going about their business picked up again and she was right in assuming that it already was late afternoon.
The plan she had come up with was simple. While flying through the air earlier that day during her stunt she could almost feel how her wings wanted to do that on their own, without the aid of her scooter. The best idea in her mind was to combine the jump with her scooter and the bird drop school of flying. Gain enough height via a ramp and at the top of the jump let go of her vehicle and let her wings take over.
Luck was on her side for once. Most ponies had left the town square and were now enjoying the late afternoon by visiting the parks or taking a stroll through the countryside. Most of the stalls were empty now as well, either because the vendors had run out of goods to sell or because it was getting late and they themselves wanted to enjoy the late sun in a more relaxing manner.
Scootaloo looked over to where Applejack had her stand. It seemed as if she had sold all of her apples for the day, the earth pony herself however was nowhere to be seen. She had moved the cart with the makeshift ramp closer to her stall, Scootaloo noticed. With a determined look on her face she put her plan into action. Thanks to the new location of her target she now had a much better accelerating area. The long smooth road leading up to the ramp would give her much more speed than before. A different matter was the landing zone. An empty stall was more or less blocking her way. With a shake of her head, the young pegasus cleared that thought out of her mind. The landing zone did not matter, because she did not intend to land and rather fly through the skies. Her wings buzzed with excitement as she prepared herself for the task before her.
“This chicken will fly!”
The words were barely out of her mouth before she shot forward, her wings buzzing as fast as she could manage. Without the added weight of the trailer and her two friends her speed was increased by a large factor. No more than an orange blur with a streak of purple. She was close now and forced her wings to move even faster. In the corner of her eye she saw Applejack walking around the corner of a building. Twilight Sparkle was walking next to her engaged in conversation with her friend. The speeding filly put them out of her mind, she didn’t feel like having another conversation about how dangerous her stunts were. With maximum speed she hit the ramp.
Time slowed down for Scootaloo. The feeling of escaping gravity, the wind in her mane and the air rushing through her feathers was pure delight. At the highest point of her jump she let go of her scooter and stretched her wings out as far as possible. She felt their resistance against the air. Applejacks stall was far behind her now and just ahead was the empty stall from some other vendor. A smile crept onto her face.
This is awesome! With her height and speed it really felt like flying. Then a familiar tug from below, as gravity tried to pull her back to ground.Not this time!
“Uh oh.”
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
Applejack and Twilight had seen the attempt at flight from the little pagasus. They also saw how she crashed into an empty stall. “Oh, what’s she done now!”
Within a couple of heartbeats Applejack arrived at the scene of the crash, with Twilight a few steps behind her. Other ponies that were near enough to have heard or seen the crash hurried by. To Applejacks relief she saw the little filly trying to free herself from the smashed remnants of the stall. “Are ya hurt, Scootaloo?”
The orange Pegasus only shook her head. She didn’t seem to be hurt at first glance, but seemed to be sad. Thanks to adrenaline her voice was steady as she spoke up.
“I’m ok. Really sorry about the stall. I promise to help fix it back up, when the owner comes back. I… argh!” Her cry of pain was caused by trying to stand up.
“What’s the matter?” both Twilight and Applejack asked at the same time.
Before she could say or do anything else a purple field of magic surrounded her and lifted her up.
Thankfully the hospital was only a few blocks away. The sight of her running through the streets while levitating a filly with her magic, caused a few heads to turn in surprise. One of which was a white unicorn with an expertly styled purple mane and tail. “Eh? Twilight?!”
“Can’t explain now Rarity! Need to get to hospital first!”
Scootaloo pressed her foreleg against her chest. Now it burned like wildfire even when she didn’t put pressure on it. The pain blocked out any other emotions, for which she was thankful.
“What happened!?” a familiar squeaking voice asked. Scootaloo looked around and very soon found the source of the question. Sweetie Belle had joined the running ponies together with Apple Bloom at her side.
“We need to get to hospital first, before we get any answers.” Rarity answered instead of Twilight or Scootaloo. With worried faces the little fillies did their best to keep up with the larger ponies.
They reached the hospital in record time. Nurse Redheart and a doctor listened to the stammered explanation of Twilight before they took Scootaloo off into an examination room. Twilight sat down trying to regain her breath. While breathing heavily she did her best to explain what had happened to her worried companions.
“Do you girls know why she would do something like that?” she finally asked after finishing her story.
“Well she did seem a little sad when she left Sugarcube Corner.”
“What made her sad, Sweetie Belle? And why didn’t you leave together? Did you have a fight?” Rarity asked while resting a hoof on her sisters back.
“She said she wanted a breath of fresh air and left.”
“We tried lookin’ for her, but couldn’t find her anywhere.” Apple Bloom was interrupted as the doors to the waiting room opened and Applejack came through. Unlike the others before, she wasn’t breathing heavily. For an athlete like her the small sprint was more of a warm up.
“Sis? Do ya know why lil’ Scootaloo would do something like that?”
“No, Ah don’t. Like Ah was just saying, we were looking for her after she left Sugarcube Corner.”
“What’s going on? I saw AJ run here and followed her.”
Before anypony had the chance to reply the second set of doors leading to the examination rooms opened and the doctor entered followed by a limping Scootaloo.
“Ah, careful my leg.” She said and nodded to the mentioned limb that was now bandaged up and hanging in a sling.
“How are you?” Twilight asked the little filly, but before she could answer the doctor spoke up.
“No need to worry, she is fine. She merely sprained her leg and needs to rest for a couple of days. The magic in the bandage will help the healing process.” He gave a smile to the waiting ponies and turned to Scootaloo.
“Thanks Doc.”
With that he left and turned his attention back towards the other patients in the hospital. Relieved to hear that nothing bad had happened, Applejack let out a sigh before turning towards Scootaloo.
“What crazy thing? What did the squirt do?”
“Remember the stunt from this mornin’? She did same thing again, thankfully this time without endangerin’ her friends at the same time! Smashed herself into an empty stall! The owner showed up a lil while later and you can be lucky that he said it didn’t matter an’ that he would have taken it down tomorrow himself before leavin’ on vacation.” Applejack looked really angry, Scootaloo noticed.
“Whoa! I bet without the extra weight you really must have flown far!”
“What tha’? Have ya lost yer mind RD? Don’t praise her!”
“Oh come on AJ. Nothing bad happened. You said the owner would have taken down the stall himself. So how far do you think you flew this time, Squirt?”
“Rainbow! Something bad did happen! She sprained her leg in that crash.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at the outburst from Twilight and nudged Scootaloo in the side.
“Oh, for crying out loud!”
“No point in arguin’ with that one, Twilight. Ah think the ones we should be speakin’ to are her parents.”
“No, no, no. That’s quite alright. I really learned my lesson this time.”
“I really should head home and tell them what happened.”
Applejack let out a sigh. “Yes, ya really should tell them. Mind if Ah tag along and make sure you do that?”
“That won’t be necessary big sis. We’ll take her over and make sure she tells them, right Sweetie Belle?”
“Of course we will!”
“Ah don’t know if ya’ll will tell them everythin’.”
“Oh, come now Applejack. Give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, nopony likes to see their friends get hurt so I am sure that they will tell them the truth, so that it won’t happen again” The fashionista said while observing the three fillies.
“Ah guess yer right Rarity. Ok off yer go. I brought ya scooter along as well, it’s just outside.”
With mixed feelings Applejack watched the three fillies leave the room then she turned her attention back to the smiling Rainbow Dash.
“I.. huh? What do you mean?”
“Well as her big sister, shouldn’t ya be makin’ sure that she doesn’t get into trouble?”
“Heh, that’s what her parents are for. I am just the inspiration for her to be awesome and cool.”
“So what? Big sister is just a title to you?” Twilight asked with astonishment.
“No, no. I said I would take her under my wing and teach her what I know. Well she can’t fly yet so there isn’t that much I can teach her right now, right?”
“There is more to being a big sister than just teaching her your flying tricks.”
“Like I said, Twilight. That’s what her parents are for. Now if you will excuse me, I gotta train some more before the last sunlight goes away.”
With those words she left her three friends standing in the waiting room.
“Ah know, Twilight. She can be a tad too much self-centered.”
“A tad? She really needs to have her head brought down from the clouds.”
“While I agree with that, I do think there is a more pressing issue at hoof.” Rarity interjected.
“Scootaloo…. What was she thinking? And you said that it was the second time she did something like that today?”
Applejack simply nodded and was still thinking about the best course of action. Rarity spoke up.
“I agree. It’s best if one of you two do that. You are after all the sisters of her best friends. I think it will have more weight behind it if you talk to them.”
“Does either of ya know where she lives? Or who her parents are?” Applejack voiced that what she was thinking about.
“Err… quite frankly no. I do not recall ever to have asked Sweetie Belle about it. When it comes to school visits she goes there with mother and father of course. I thought you might know them.”
“Ah’ll take care of it. When Apple Bloom comes back this evenin’, Ah’ll ask her where that Scootaloo lives. Next thing tomorrow mornin’ Ah’ll pay them a visit.”
_______________________________________________________________
It was dinner time at Sweet Apple Acres when Apple Bloom came back. Applejack decided she would wait until after dinner before confronting her little sister alone. As soon as the dishes were washed she made her way up to the filly’s room. Apple Bloom sat hunched over a book und looked up to see her big sister enter.
“We told them and they were worried and happy that nothin’ bad happened.”
“We all were worried, sugarcube. An’ that’s why Ah think Ah should have a talk with them as well.”
“No, there is no need for that. Like Ah said we told them.”
“Ya know that ya can’t lie to yer big sister, right?” The filly now squirmed uncomfortably.
“No.”
“Then Ah need to talk to her parents.”
“Ya can’t.” Applejack raised an eyebrow in surprise at that response.
“Why not?”
“Ya just can’t.”
“Apple Bloom…. Ah am now gettin’ a might worried. If there is somethin’ Ah should know ya have ta tell me.”
“We promised her not ta tell anyone!”
“Listen here lil’ sis. What yer friend did today was really dangerous. Ah don’t want her ta get hurt anymore, so Ah have ta make sure that she is taken care of properly. Ah just wan’t to help her.”
She could see the inner struggle of the little filly and felt bad having to put so much pressure on her.
“Ya promise not to tell anyone?”
“Ah promise to help her anyway Ah can.”
Apple Bloom sighed.
Applejack let her head hang in sadness at the piece of information that she hadn’t reckoned with.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
The sun would rise soon by the power of Celestia. For now it was still dark and a small lone filly stepped out of Ponyville’s only orphanage. Scootaloo had snuck out without anypony noticing. Not an easy task using only three legs. Her caretaker had been worried when she came back yesterday with a foreleg in a sling. Scootaloo felt bad having lied to her and simply saying that she lost control over her scooter. She felt even worse having lied to her friends. They made her promise not to try something like that again and that she should get her rest until she was fully healed. In her mind however another plan had begun to form and after a more or less restful night she sat out to make it happen.
After much thought, she came to the conclusion that her idea of forcing her flying instinct to take over wasn’t so bad. It just lacked the needed kick-start in her opinion. Perhaps the height was not enough, perhaps she was too slow. Only one way to find out and that was to try and get as high as possible. As silent as a whisper she got on her scooter, thankful that her sprained foreleg did not interfere with her ability to drive all that much. With the buzzing of her wings she set out towards the Everfree forest.
It took longer than expected to reach the trail through the forest. Scootaloo wanted to conserve her strength for her big moment later in the day. Now that the sun was shining high up in the sky, she sped up a little. The forest here wasn’t as scary as she had imagined. Rainbow Dash had told her several times how they used this very trail to reach the cave at the top of the mountain. There they had battled a dragon and Rainbow Dash mentioned as often as possible how she charged in and kicked the dragon in the face. Scootaloo had listened to the story with wide eyes and memorized every single thing that her idol had told her. After a while she now was at the base of the mountain. The climb would be steep, not impossible to tackle while riding her scooter she thought, but she needed the strength in her wings later. So now she would tackle the climb on hoof.
Hours passed before she finally reached the end of her climb. Her legs hurt from the effort and she decided to take a break and eat the apple she had brought along. Before her a long wide path led higher up into the mountain. If she remembered correctly this was where Rainbow Dash and the others were caught in an avalanche. Scootaloo removed her helmet to wipe away the sweat on her brow. While taking a bite out from her apple she glanced back to where she came from.
Ponyville was no more than a speck in the landscape. It looked like a little dolls houses from this distance and height. No doubt the residents would be getting out of bed around this time. Scootaloo had left a note for her caretaker, stating that she would be out for the rest of the day playing with her friends. Another lie and she felt bad about it. But the potential reward for her actions silenced any doubts in her mind.
After finishing her apple she put her helmet back on, but didn’t bother securing it properly. Cautiously she followed the path up the mountain. It didn’t seem all that dangerous to her, even though there were quite a large number of boulders and rocks in her path. With ease she passed through them, but soon found herself stuck in front of a wall made up from rubble. After a few minutes she realized there was no way through. The Pegasus looked around for a way over and noticed that the cliff looming above her had a slightly curved base. With enough speed she could use her scooter to ride the wall in theory. Determined she gave it a try and much to her surprise and glee it worked like a charm.
“HA!”
Her small shout of joy was out of reflex for clearing the obstacle behind her. The shout bounced around the cliffs and canyons, while the origin of the shout stood frozen in place with a hoof in front of her mouth.
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A couple of hours later Applejack slowly made her way towards the library in Ponyville. The talk she had last night with her sister was still fresh in her memory and had kept her up late during the night. She had to talk to somepony else about her discovery, not because she wanted to gossip, but rather finding a way to help the little orphaned filly. As she entered she heard the unmistakable voice of Rarity.
“So my client wants to have something done in the style of the aristocrats of early century Prance. Although that style in my opinion is something to avoid, the client is always right and of course I shall do my best to recreate that… fashion. Do you have a book on that subject maybe?”
“I think I might have a history book with pictures that may help you find what you are looking for. Hang on, I’ll check.”
“You are a dear. Oh, hello Applejack.” Both unicorns turned to look at their friend, both of them noticing something a little off.
“Is everything ok? Did you have a talk with Scootaloo’s parents?” Twilight asked and stopped looking for the book momentarily.
Applejack took a deep breath before speaking.
____________________________________________________________________________
Scootaloo stood at the edge of the cliff. She could go no higher on hoof.
“Ok, Scootaloo! This is the time!” she said to pump herself up and to block out the thought of how high she was.
Carefully she removed any obstacles in the path she would take. Every smaller rock she kicked aside, every branch she flung as far away as possible, until there was nothing but smooth ground left. She made her way as far back as she could go and climbed onto her scooter.
“This is it, Scootaloo.”
Doubts began to surface suddenly. She forced her mind to rather think of Rainbow Dash. To remember the words she had said. Rainbow Dash believed in her becoming as awesome as she herself was one day. Rainbow Dash had risked a lot to be where she is today and had to throw safety overboard to get there.
“If she can do it, then so can I!”
With those words she once again sped off like a bullet. The hard surface was perfect for gaining speed and before any further doubts could enter her mind she hit the ramp made of rock. The edge came closer much faster than expected. Suddenly the noise from the wheels grinding on rock stopped and she was airborne, hundreds of feet above the ground.
As she felt gravity reaching out for her she pushed herself off her scooter and pumped her wings.
________________________________________________________________________________
“Oh my, the poor dear.” Rarity was the first to speak after Applejack told them what she had found out.
“Why didn’t she tell anyone?” Twilight asked, but didn’t expect an answer.
“Ah reckon it is safe to say that Cheerilee knows about her situation. Guess the doctors at the hospital know about it as well.”
“Do you think Rainbow Dash knows?”
“Ah doubt it. The little one told no one except her closest friends and then only after they started askin’ questions. Ah doubt RD would know, since she does most of the talkin’ anyways.”
“Well I think she should know. Her role as a big sister just became a lot more important than any of us knew.”
“Twilight is right. I bet if she would have known she might not have been so careless to encourage the little one in doing something dangerous.”
“Ah just hope she’ll understand.”
Any further discussion was stopped the instant the front door burst open and an alarmed and worried Fluttershy flew in. Unlike her usual demeanor she was far from calm.
“Look what I found in the river flowing through Ponyville!” Fluttershy held aloft the helmet she had found. The markings left no doubt in any of their minds to whom this helmet belonged. What made them cringe however was the large dent in the side of the helmet.
“Where did you find this?” Twilight asked while taking the helmet from Fluttershy and examining it. The sudden knot in her stomach loosened slightly when she could not find any obvious trace of hair or worse, blood.
“I was just walking over the bridge in Ponyville when I noticed something floating in the water. I flew down and fished this out of the river, then I flew here as fast as I could.”
“We have to find her! Fluttershy, you go and see if you can find her along the river. Applejack, you go and check their clubhouse on your farm. Rarity go and check if she maybe wanted to visit your sister. I’ll go and see if she is still at home. Inform Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash to meet us here in an hour.”
Without hesitating the four ponies ran out of the Library off into different directions on the search for Scootaloo.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
The air was different here. Perhaps it had something to do with the height or maybe because she was technically still over the Everfree Forest that had its own set of rules when it came to weather. Scootaloos eyes were firmly locked on the horizon and she did not dare look down.
“It’s working! I am flying!”
Just as she said those words to herself, she felt the cold grip of gravity once again getting a hold on her. As before she doubled her efforts to stay airborne and as before the effort was futile. Her long jump was nearing its end horizontally and slowly changed its course into a more vertical direction.
The realization of what was happening hit her like a ton of bricks. It didn’t work, she couldn’t fly and was now going to fall hundreds and hundreds of feet down to the hard ground that did not want her to leave. A cry of fear etched its way out of her mouth, but ended as fast as it had began. Scootaloo had hit something.
All she could see in front of her eyes was white. It took a couple of seconds before she finally understood what she had hit. A cloud! Her fall to certain doom had been halted by a single medium pony-sized cloud. High above the ground a tiny pegasus hung onto the cloud with half her body on top and the other half dangling over the side, wings still buzzing furiously.
Scootaloo had never been on a cloud before, something that all other pegasi took for granted. Curiosly she muzzled the fluffy savior. It felt strange to the filly, the best comparison in her mind being an extremely fluffy marshmallow. Lost in thought she stopped her wings from buzzing. Immediately she began losing her grip on the cloud. With a panicked yelp she started flapping her wings again and the careful balance was restored. She tried to pull herself up onto the cloud, but her sprained foreleg betrayed her and with only one foreleg she was not able to muster enough strength. Then it dawned on her, she was utterly stuck. Not able to pull herself up by her legs and as soon as she stopped flapping her wings, she would slip off her saving cloud.
“If I just stay here for a while, the others are sure to come look for me.”
Her voiced opinion on the matter at hand was full of truth and had she stayed in place she would have been found rather swiftly. Unfortunately her constant flapping made her move forward at a fast pace in the direction she was facing. Even more unfortunate was the fact that she was facing away from Ponyville, her friends and potentially anypony that could save her.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Twilight Sparkle returned to her library. Her search for Scootaloo had been fruitless and she hoped that the little filly had been found by one of her friends. Rarity was already waiting for her.
“I’m afraid not. Sweetie Belle is going to wait in my boutique in case she does show up there later. I… I didn’t say what Fluttershy found.”
Twilight nodded in agreement and was just about to tell her friend what she had found out, when the door opened and Applejack came in. The look on her face mirrored that of Twilight. She barely had any time to sit down before the door opened again and Fluttershy followed by Pinkie Pie came inside.
“Oooooh, are we having a party?” the pink pony inquired with a wide smile on her face.
“Where is Rainbow Dash?”
“I.. uhm… I couldn’t find her at home, so I left her a note saying we needed her help right away and that she should hurry to the library.” Fluttershy explained.
“Help? Why do we need Dashies help? Whats going on?” The smile in Pinkies face had vanished and now she looked worried.
“Fluttershy found Scootaloo’s helmet floating in the river about an hour ago. It’s in pretty rough shape so we fear something might have happened to her. I went to the orphanage to see if she was still there…”
“Wait, what!? She is an orphan? But that’s just awful.” Pinkie interrupted.
“Yes, Pinkie. We only know that since this morning ourselves. Whatever the reason was not to tell anypony about it, it is not our main concern right now. I talked to her caretaker and she said that Scootaloo had left before any of the others woke up. She had left a note saying she would be out all day playing with her friends.”
“Sweetie Belle was all alone this morning. Besides she was going to be picked up by our parents this afternoon.”
“Applebloom was with Big Mac doing her chores. Somethin’ that she was going to do all day. Ah checked the clubhouse, but there was no sign that anypony was there since yesterday.”
“I think whatever she had planned to do today was not to involve anypony else. I fear she might be hurt.” Twilight looked to her friends seeing her own worry mirrored in their faces.
“Then we have to find her!”
“Find who Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash said as she casually flew in through the open window.
“Uhm… didn’t you read my note?”
“Note? I was out practicing my cool new moves and decided to have a break. I flew here to lend a Daring Do book.”
“We fear Scootaloo may be doing something dangerous again.” Twilight explained.
“The squirt? Why do you think that?”
“Because nopony has seen her since yesterday evening. At home she left a note saying she would be out with her friends, but they haven’t seen her all day.”
“Relax Twilight. I bet she’s just practicing some cool new moves, just like I was.”
“No, I won’t relax. This is serious.”
“Geez, what is it with you guys and the kid lately? Cut her a little slack why don’t ya?”
“Well if you wouldn’t have filled her head with your nonsense we wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Non… nonsense? Hey, training to be a Wonderbolt is not nonsense! If the kid wants to take a page out of my book, then good for her.”
Twilight became more and more irritated at the pony in front of her.
“Excuuuuse me? What could be more important than that?” Rainbow Dash stopped hovering and turned to face Twilight directly after landing.
“Oh for the love of Celestia, would you please stop being such a narcissistic egomaniac for a second and think about others!” Twilight burst out. Rainbow Dash looked stunned at the now irate unicorn.
“Hey! I think about others all the time. Element of Loyalty remember? And who saved all those ponies last year?”
“You mean the ones that were getting annoyed by your constant self-congratulating? The ones that we all saved dressed up as Mare-Do-Well?”
“Err.. Twilight? Maybe ya should back off just a little.” Applejack tried to intervene. She noticed that her unicorn friend was beginning to tread dangerous waters so to speak. Twilight did not move and kept looking at Rainbow Dash.
“No Applejack I won’t. It’s about time somepony told this pony some unpleasant truths.”
Rainbow Dash snorted half amused and half annoyed. It seemed to her as if Twilight had woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Normally she would just casually let Twilight rant, but the purple pony had crossed the line by dismissing the Wonderbolts as unimportant.
“You know, I really hoped you would have learned something with all the Mare-Do-Well stuff. But you never did, did you? Same old self-centered Rainbow Dash. Praising herself above others as usual.” Twilight began entering full-rant mode.
“What wrong with that? I have the skills so why shouldn’t I be proud of them?”
“Oh, yes. Don’t get me wrong. If somepony would ask me if you are the best flyer in all of Equestria, I wouldn’t even have to think about it for a second and say yes. What’s wrong with that is that the young filly that looks up to you the most might be in danger of hurting herself, again. Because you kept on encouraging her.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
“It’s just a title for you isn’t it? Another feather in your cap to go on about how great you are. Scootaloo takes it seriously and therefore it is also your responsibility to look out for her.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. She is NOT my responsibility. Like I have been saying for the hundredth time today, I just would teach her a few things when she is ready. Raising her and all that stuff is the hooves of her parents, not mine.”
Twilight paused for a brief second to calm herself down a bit and to change her approach to try to get her friend to understand
“What’s that for a question? Of course I talked to the kid.”
“And what exactly was is that you were talking about?”
“Well….me mostly and the Wonderbolts.” She replied with a shrug.
“Well if you might have taken the time just once to talk to her and let her talk, you might have learned a few things. Things that she hadn’t told anypony else maybe. Things that made her take off early this morning to do who knows what.” She picked up the helmet from a nearby table and held it in front of Rainbow Dash’s face so that she could see the large dent. “If she would have told anypony, than it would have been you, her big sister.”
Rainbow Dash looked in horror at the damage done to the helmet.
“And if you would have listened you might have found out that the one little filly, the one that was yearning the most to have some kind of family figure, was in fact an orphan.”
It felt like a dagger piercing her heart and Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, trying not to believe the words out of her friend’s mouth.
“Why do you think she was so elated to hear that you would take her under your wing? Because you would teach her stuff? No, it was because she had found somepony that agreed to be a family figure for her. Her big sister and you didn’t even care about that did you? Can you even imagine what is going through her mind? Can you even imagine how lonely she must have felt all these years? How it must be like to be an orphan? Do you even….”
Twilight couldn’t finish her next sentence as Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and looked into hers. She felt as if for the very first time she actually saw behind the arrogance and massive ego that surrounded Rainbow Dash’s persona. What she saw in her eyes was…pain. A huge pain that she had hidden so well for so long. Twilight just looked into her eyes and saw tears beginning to form. Within a heartbeat the pegasus flew out the window that she had entered and sped off out of sight.
“Rainbow Dash! Wait!” Twilight shouted, but she was already gone.
“Wha’ was that? Was she cryin’?” Applejack asked. The other ponies in the room had stayed quiet during the exchange between Rainbow Dash and Twilight.
“I… I think she was.”
“Oh my. I think you may have gone too far Twilight.” Fluttershy remarked quietly.
“What do you mean? I didn’t think she would react like that. If anything I would have thought she would have put up a fight.” Twilight turned to Fluttershy looking confused. The anger she felt before washed away as questions popped up in her mind.
“I know you didn’t know what for an effect your words would have.” Fluttershy looked at the confused friends surrounding her. “I think there is something you should know.”
_________________________________________________________________________________
“Before I tell you I want you to promise me never to reveal what I am about to tell you.”
“We promise.” Twilight replied and shrank back a bit as she saw the look in Fluttershy’s face.
“I really mean it. You must never tell another soul, because Rainbow Dash made me swear not to tell anyone. But I light of the events todays you perhaps should at least know why she reacted the way she did.”
Worried and confused the friends made a Pinkie promise and awaited Fluttershy’s explanation.
“It’s some kind of school? Where pegasi learn to fly?” Twilight tried her best to remember what she had heard and read about it.
“Yes, that’s right. Summer flight camp is something that Cloudsdale does to help pegasi learn to fly who couldn’t learn it from anywhere else. Some parents, like mine, were too busy with their work to properly teach their children. Others came to flight camp, because their parents can’t fly. Like Mr. and Mrs. Cake. They have a Pegasus child, but neither one of them is one themselves. Others again simply do not have a family to teach them, like Scootaloo or even Rainbow Dash.”
“Wait what? But she said that she watched together with her family how Cloudsdale was not chosen for the pony games that one year.” Pinkie asked in a confused tone.
“They were…. There was an accident a while later. Neither one of them made it. Rainbow Dash was placed in Cloudsdale’s orphanage soon after. It was… a bad experience for her. She was bullied by the others and soon fought back. She made some bad decisions while she was there. Some of her friends were not the nicest ponies you could meet. It changed her I believe. I hadn’t met her before flight camp, but I don’t think she was always the way she is today. Showing weakness just makes you a target for bullies she once told me. I believe that she was talking from experience.”
Her friends were silently listening to the story Fluttershy told them, their heads hung low.
Twilight felt bad, really bad. Without knowing it she had forced Rainbow Dash’s bad memories to be relived.
“No, you can’t. It is better if she doesn’t know that you know. She must tell you herself otherwise you might just push her further away. Besides we have the matter of Scootaloo still on our hooves.”
Twilight shook her head to clear it.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
Rainbow Dash was flying blind, the tears in her eyes made the world look like a blur. Angrily she shook them out of her eyes and flew as far away from the library as possible.
________________________________________________________________________
Scootaloo’s wings were beginning to hurt. Upon reflection of her day so far she reached the conclusion that it wasn’t her best of days. The thrill of sort of flying with a cloud had subsided long ago. Now she felt the fear slowly rise up.
“I want to go home.” She whimpered into her marshmallow cloud. She felt tears beginning to form in her eyes.
“No! Keep it together Scootaloo! What would Rainbow Dash do in this situation?” The answer was simply to fly away.What would Pinkie Pie do? Just pull out a bunch of balloons out of nowhere and float down, she guessed. Twilight would just teleport herself away. Fluttershy could fly as well. Rarity wouldn’t even have made the trip out of fear of getting dirty. And Applejack? She would have never done anything this stupid. Scootaloo groaned and silently wished for all of this to be a bad dream.
A flash of light and the rumble of lightning tore her away from her thoughts. Normally she would have been happy that a thunderstorm was near. Unlike her friends that were afraid of the noise and light, Scootaloo always was fascinated by the power and natural beauty of thunderstorms. Perhaps it was because she was a pegasus. The thunder was loud enough to cause her entire body to vibrate.
“It must be close.”
She craned her neck as far as possible to look around. There! The large dark clouds of the thunderstorm were just below her, maybe forty feet she guessed. An idea came to mind. Without a second thought about the safety of her plan she stopped her wings flapping and let go of her silent marshmallow savior. For the second time this day she found herself falling at a high speed towards the hard ground below. She hoped the dark clouds beneath her would break her fall and would not be too hard to cause her any further injuries.
Trying to slow her descent with a last ditch effort by using her wings, she soon impacted the clouds beneath her with a wet smack. Then she bounced up a short distance before again landing on the wide bank of stormclouds. She closed her eyes for a moment to swallow her fears. It had worked, it had really worked!
“YEAH! What do you say now Equestria?! I am riding the lightning!”
She felt positively giddy and looked over the wide front of clouds she was standing on. A rumbling from her stomach rivaled that of the storm almost. Hunger brought her joy down a few pegs and made her assess the situation. Not much had changed. She was still trapped on a cloud, but this time without danger of falling to her doom. There was no food to be found and she hadn’t eaten since this morning. The stress of her actions also made her feel really tired. And she was thirsty, but for that problem a solution was at least within her grasp.
Unsure of what would happen she took a small bite of the cloud she was sitting on. The electricity trapped within fizzled on her tongue. I was a strange sensation, a bit like biting into cotton candy that had no taste. In her mouth the piece of cloud dissolved into water and managed to quench a bit of her thirst. She took a few more bites and once she felt no more thirst she decided on the next step. Her body took the decision away from her. She needed to regain her strength a bit before trying something else. While sleeping her hunger would also be kept in check.
She looked around and saw a few lighter patches of clouds. With uneasy steps she made her way there and laid down on the damp greyish surface. She was happy to be a pegasus in that moment. Her coat was thicker than that of earth ponies and unicorns. Not only did it do a much better job of keeping her warm, but in also proved to be thick enough to not let the dampness get through to her skin. All part of the natural abilities of a pegasus that normally would be confronted by cold airs and rain while flying through the skies.
Scootaloo curled herself into a ball and very quickly fell asleep.
_________________________________________________________________________
Rainbow Dash had checked the few locations that she could think of where Scootaloo might have gone. Every one of which was void of any orange pegasus filly. She saw Applebloom and her brother making their way through the orchards looking for their friend. Rainbow Dash ignored them and sped off in another direction. It saddened her more than she realized as it came to her attention how little she actually knew about her number one fan. Perhaps she should start at the beginning she mused and headed back into Ponyville.
After a quick flight she stood in front of Ponyville’s only orphanage. Like all houses in the small town, this one looked homely and inviting. Yet somehow she felt at the same time uneasiness and sadness emanating from within. Perhaps it was just because of her own experiences. Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, knocked on the door and headed inside.
It looked nice she had to admit, unlike the orphanage in Cloudsdale. It was very quiet and told her that however many kids were living here that they were out for the moment. A certain kind of sadness hung in the air and Rainbow Dash felt as if she could cut it with a knife.
An elderly earth pony mare suddenly appeared from one of the doors and gave Rainbow Dash a warm smile. Her mane was tied to a bun, the dark blue hair having faded and now streaked with grey strands. The mare’s coat was beige and also showed smaller patches of grey. On her flank a cutie mark of a birds nest could be seen. Her hazel colored eyes widened when she recognized the pony before her.
“Rainbow Dash! So good to finally meet you.” The elder mare said with a friendly voice.
“You know who I am?” Dash asked confused. She had seen this pony in front of her a few times, but never knew until now what she actually did.
“Why of course. You are nearly everything that young Scootaloo talks about. Apart from her crusading of course.”
“Is Scootaloo here?” she asked.
“No unfortunately not. She went out to play with her friends. At least that was what she had written on the note she left me. Twilight Sparkle was here asking about her whereabouts as well just a short while ago. Why are you looking for her? She is not in trouble is she?”
“I actually just wanted to see where she lives. Never been here before.” While it wasn’t a lie, she did not want to alarm the seemingly kind elder pony in front of her.
“Allow me to give you the tour. I am sure she wouldn’t mind.”
Dash followed the caretaker through the orphanage. All the time she showed her a few select rooms. The kitchen, dining room, play room for the youngest, study room for the kids that went to school already and finally the living quarters.
“Normally the children share their living quarters with each other. Four in each room. But there were a few events that made me give her a single room.” She explained. Rainbow Dash tried her best to swallow her memories and keep her voice calm.
“What kind of events?”
“Well I have to be honest with you. She did not get along very well with the others here. Scootaloo is a very nice filly, make no mistake about that. It’s just the fact that she is the only pegasus here. Three unicorns and four earth ponies are also in my care. I do my best to keep things calm around here, but they did tease her about being the only one of her kind. The fact that she can’t yet fly also made them say a few not very nice things. I do my best to stop them, but I am not as young as I once was and cannot keep an eye on them all the time. I heard from Cheerilee that it also sometimes happens at school, which is sad. Kids can be cruel at times I am afraid. I gave her her own room to try and shield her from possible bullying during nighttime.” Nettie explained with sadness and let her ears droop. “But thanks to her friends and you, she does not let it get to her anymore like she did in the beginning. This is her room.”
The caretaker opened a door leading into a small room. Not much more than a bed, a small table with school supplies and a wardrobe. Opposite the door they came in through was a window that gave a clear view of the fields beyond the train tracks. What stuck out however were the posters and drawings that lined the walls that had no windows and made Rainbow Dash fight with her emotions.
Scootaloo had drawn pictures of herself with her crusader friends, but a large number featured a crudely drawn orange pegasus with a larger rainbow maned pegasus at her side. They were flying together in the skies, or just sitting by a lake with happy smiles on their faces. Sometimes the little orange one would be sitting on the ground looking up to the flying one above her a rainbow trail following the flyers wake.
A large Wonderbolt poster took a large portion of one wall up for itself. The foremost pony was Spitfire, but a cutout picture of Rainbow Dash’s head was carefully pasted on top of her head. The Wonderbolt in the background, Fleetfoot, had a small picture of Scootaloo herself pasted on top. She looked happy.
“She really has taken a liking to you as you can see.”
Rainbow Dash let her eyes wonder over more of the drawings. Nearest to the headrest she saw a more recent picture. She knew it was recent, because she was there when the events in the drawing took place. It showed Rainbow Dash hugging Scootaloo on top of a waterfall in front of a large moon. Words were scribbled in the space that the moon held.
“My big sister.” Rainbow Dash read aloud and nearly choked on the words.
“I remember that day very well, when she came back here after your little camping trip. She wouldn’t talk about anything else for a long time. Even her crusading for cutie marks wasn’t as important to her. I must say that I was very happy for her that you decided to be a sister figure to her.”
The words cut Rainbow Dash’s heart like knives. Gingerly she raised a hoof and carefully stroked over the drawing. She felt tears rise up and fought hard to not show them.
“If you don’t mind me asking. Have you maybe considered making your bond a more permanent situation?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head.
The elder mare sighed.
Rainbow Dash said nothing, her eyes still fixed on the drawing. The sudden urge to fly out and look for the little filly overcame her in an instant. She excused herself from the caretaker and didn’t bother walking through the house. The window was open anyway so she took the more direct route and headed over to where she hoped to find Fluttershy.
_________________________________________________________________________
Sure enough she found the timid yellow pony searching along the river and carefully checking every bush and grove.
The pony looked up just as Rainbow Dash landed next to her.
“Rainbow Dash! Have you found her?”
“No. I need to know where the helmet was found.” Fluttershy told her and after hearing the information Rainbow Dash took off again, not giving her a chance to say anything else.
Rainbow Dash followed the river from high above, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of Scootaloo or some hint as to where she might be. To the left of her the tall mountain rose up out of the ground. She remembered that this was where they had tried to fight a dragon once. The image of her telling Scootaloo about it shot into her mind unasked.
“She wouldn’t have….”
Instead of following the river she now took course towards the mountain. She carefully circled around the base looking for anything unusual. Her search seemed fruitless, until her eyes caught a glimpse of something odd. The rocks and large boulders in front of her seemed to only recently have fallen from up above. The craters were still fresh.
“Oh no.”
Without stopping she took off to the avalanche prone area. She was right, there had been a recent rockslide. She carefully and especially noiselessly looked around. There! She saw the faint tracks of wheels. They were leading further up the mountain.
With an uneasy feeling she began to follow the tracks, until after a while she reached the large plateau. She gave the big cave a single glance and concentrated of the tracks in the dust. Small hoofprints were all over the place and finally also a much more visible set of tracks leading from the back of the plateau all the way over to… her heart sank like a stone in water. As fast as she could she flew to the edge of the cliff not wanting to believe what must have happened.
“No, no, no. Why would you do that?” The Pegasus paced back and forth, fighting her desire to leave and not face the horror that might await her and her need to help the filly if she needed her.
“A fall from this height...” she left the rest of the sentence unspoken. With a deep breath she dove off the cliff and raced the long way to the ground. She had to force her eyes to stay open and look for any signs.
It didn’t take long for her to find something that made her heart sink even further. The blue color stuck out amongst the green like a sore hoof even from the height she was flying at.
She held her breath as she landed in a small clearing. Branches and leaves from nearby trees were lying scattered about and among them the shattered pieces of a small scooter.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
Rarity had taken it upon herself to visit Scootaloo’s and her little sisters classmates in hope that the missing filly might have gone to one of them. Sweetie Belle had insisted to come with her. The pair had no luck thus far and were now standing in front of the entrance of a mansion belonging to Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiara’s father.
“I am telling you this is the last place she would come to.”
“Now, now Sweetie Belle. It’s still a possibility and we must leave no stone unturned.” Rarity pressed the doorbell once and after a few minutes pressed it again.
“See? Nopony there. Let’s just go and ask Featherweight if he has seen Scootaloo.”
Rarity was just about to tell her sister to be more patient as the front door opened. Diamond Tiara looked puzzled at the fashionista at first, but then frowned as she saw Sweetie Belle.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. The question clearly being directed at the other filly.
Somewhat taken aback by the rather rude tone of Diamond Tiara, Rarity took a moment to clear her throat before politely asking if Scootaloo had been seen here.
“Her? What makes you think she would come here?”
“See, Rarity? I told you this would be the last place Scootaloo would come to.”
Rarity was just about to respond when Diamond Tiara cut her off before she could say the first word.
“The likes of her would not even be allowed on the property. I would have the staff throw her blank flank out before she could do any damage.”
“Hey!” Sweetie Belle took an angry step forwards. Rarity meanwhile tried to keep her own temper in check. If there ever was a definition of spoiled brat, she was sure it would have a picture of that filly next to it. Money does not buy manners , she thought to herself and refused to stoop to the level of the filly in front of her.
“May we speak to your parents?” she asked instead as politely as possible.
“I am already here.” A fourth voice said and Filthy Rich came walking up to his daughter standing in the doorway. “May I help you?”
“They just came here looking for their chicken.” Diamond Tiara explained with a smirk while looking at Sweetie Belle.
The young unicorn found herself speaking before thinking. “Better a chicken than a polished horseapple like you!”
A few seconds passed where neither one of the ponies could react to the outburst.
“Sweetie Belle!” Rarity slung a leg around her sister and pulled her away from the other filly and her now rather angry looking father. Then Diamond Tiara began wailing.
“D-did you hear what that mean pony c-called me? S-she is always d-doing that to meeee.”
She even managed to squeeze a few crocodile tears out before burying her head in her father’s chest. Rarity preventively held her sister’s mouth shut before any other outburst could take place.
“I am so sorry about that. She was simply reacting to some rather unrefined remarks your daughter made.” Rarity tried to somewhat defuse the situation, but felt she could not let the rudeness of Diamond Tiara go unmentioned.
“My daughter has the best manners and upbringing possible. I will not forget the rude behavior your sister has displayed. Good day to you both.” Filthy Rich slammed the door shut after saying his mind.
With a “Hrmph!” Rarity turned around and led her sister away from the house. Only after they had passed the front gate did she speak up again.
“You were right. I believe Scootaloo would never voluntarily step a single hoof in a house with THAT filly. And you must refrain from voicing your opinions like that without thinking first of the consequences, my Dear. Even as appropriate as they might have been.” She playfully nudged Sweetie Belle in the side causing her to giggle. The filly fell silent soon again and they made their way to the next schoolmate’s house in silence.
“I’m in trouble aren’t I?”
“Yes. I do believe that Filthy Rich will want to have words with our parents concerning your little outburst. Do not fret little sister, for I will have your back in this matter. Once mother and father know what’s going on and why you said that I believe they will simply laugh it off.” Her words made the filly smile thankfully at her, but it soon died down again.
After a few minutes Sweetie Belle stopped. Rarity looked at her puzzled.
“Is Scootaloo going to be ok?” The question had a pleading undertone.
“Do not worry. We will find her.” Rarity hoped to avoid any further questions about Scootaloo. She had not told her about the helmet that Fluttershy had fished out of the river and had chosen to simply say that she had merely run away.
“That’s not what I asked.” Sweetie Belle looked up to her sister. “Did something happen that you didn’t tell me about?”
“I… I am sure that she is fine.” Rarity said it with a smile, but her heart was not into it. Deep down she was fearing the worst. Sweetie Belle looked down at the ground again hiding her face from her big sister.
“It’s my fault. I should have followed her immediately when she left Sugarcube Corner and made sure she was ok.” A small sniffle punctuated the statement.
“What if something bad has happened to her? What if she is lying somewhere hurt and nopony can find her?” She tried to say more, but all that came out were sobs as she began crying. Instantly Rarity was beside her and pulled her into a hug.
“Calm down my Dear. We don’t know anything yet and maybe she will turn up later as if nothing had happened. Do not blame yourself.” She held her tight and patiently waited for her to calm down.
Rarity herself fought back the tears that stung her eyes. Every image that crept into her mind of young Scootaloo lying somewhere hurt or worse was swatted away like an annoying insect. Thinking like that would not help anypony, least of all the one they were looking for. The sobbing stopped eventually and Rarity waited a few more moments.
“Should we continue onwards or should I take you home?” she asked quietly.
Sweetie Belle stepped out of the hug and wiped her eyes free of any remaining tears.
“Let’s go on. She might need me.”
Rarity smiled at her younger sister and let her lead the way.
_______________________________________________________________________
“Scootaloo?” the cyan pegasus called, hoping in vain for an answer. She tried it a few more times each louder than the first, but nothing answered her back. Rainbow Dash gulped down the fear rising in her throat as she approached the crash site for a closer look.
After a quick scan of the area she let out the breath she was holding. Apart from the remnants of the scooter nothing else could be seen that would have been out of the ordinary in a forest. That meant Scootaloo had not crashed or at least not here. Rainbow Dash carefully inspected the mess before her.
Rainbow Dash breathed a sigh of relief as her inspection revealed no hair, nor feather or even blood from the missing filly. She took a few steps back and looked again at the whole picture. It took a while for her to realize what seemed off. There was no impact crater. If anything it seemed as if the scooter had hit something first and only then finally came to rest in this small clearing. She glanced about directing her gaze slowly all over the area.
She facehoofed when she noticed that the answer to her question was all around her and strewn in parts over the ground amongst the remnants. Branches! Trees! Scootaloo must have crashed in the trees first. With powerful strokes she launched herself above the treetops and slowly hovered along.
While keeping her eyes open for any damages to the treetops she flew towards the mountain. It did not take long to find the gaping hole amongst the branches of a large oak tree. With a quick flap of her wings she turned around and carefully landed on a branch inside the tree that would support her weight.
The branch itself had fresh damage to the bark, but was sturdy enough to withstand a falling scooter. She had found the first impact site and looked around, fearing to see the mangled remains of a filly that called her a hero impaled in the branches. To her initial relief nothing of the kind could be seen.
“Scootaloo?” she called again hoping for an answer. She rose up above the treetops again trying to think of what might have happened. She might have bounced. Violently shaking her head at that thought, she dismissed it for lack of feather and fur at the sites. The image stuck in her mind however causing the bile to rise up in her throat.
With a whimper she flew back towards the ledge on the mountainside. It’s all my fault. Had I maybe spent more time with her this wouldn’t have happened. Twilight is right. I caused this. Her vision was blurry by the time she reached the ledge and she angrily wiped the emerging tears away.
“Stop it! This isn’t helping!” she shouted to herself. With a deep breath she turned towards the forest below once again.
Now that she knew where the scooter had landed she could narrow her searching area down. Since Scootaloo was nowhere to be found there she must have done something to maybe extend her flight. Rainbow Dash toyed with the hopeful idea that she had managed to fly after all, but if she had done that then no doubt she would have flown back to Ponyville. Most likely coming straight to Rainbow Dash asking for lessons. The pit in her stomach grew larger at that thought. From what she had seen she knew that the filly could not yet fly on her own, let alone gain the ability over night. At most she could hover for a bit or maybe glide.
The pegasus mind clung to that thought. If the filly had managed to glide down she would have to extend her searching area by a large amount. Still it filled her with hope that she would find her alive. Her mind once again filled with images of the filly lying dead down below.
“No, no, NO!” Rainbow Dash shook her head again. Those thoughts she would not allow herself, not until she knew that they were true. Until then she would cling to the thought of Scootaloo gliding to safety down below, like a drowning pony to a straw. She took off again after deciding where to begin her search.
As she looked around before diving down she noticed a dark speck of clouds off in the far distance. Being a trained weatherpony Rainbow Dash knew that the small speck was in fact a large bank of stormclouds. The last thing she would need interfering with her search was a storm.
After observing it for a few minutes she was relieved to see that they were drifting further away from her. There were no towns or other settlements in the area the storm was heading so she wasted no more thoughts on it and began her search.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
Twilight Sparkle entered the library again as the sun began to set. For a small moment she expected to be greeted by her number one assistant, but remembered that he was currently in the Crystal Empire helping Princess Cadence with her correspondence to Princess Celestia. Now she wished he would be here instead to send her letter to the Princess asking for help searching for a lost filly.
Her mind wandered back to her confrontation with Rainbow Dash. The look in the pegasus eyes before she fled left a bad feeling in her heart. Before she could dwell on it any longer the door opened again. Fluttershy quietly shut the door again before turning to Twilight.
“Did you find anything?” she asked. Twilight merely shook her head and watched as the pegasus in front of her let her head droop.
“Perhaps the others had more luck. Let’s get some tea ready before they come by.”
Fluttershy followed her into the kitchen and helped prepare something to drink. Neither one of them actually wanted anything to drink, the entire process more of a way to keep busy and not to think of anything bad. Twilight heard the door open and close again. Rarity announced that she and Pinkie Pie were waiting in the seating area. After the tea was ready she and Fluttershy joined them. Before any of them could say something the door opened once more revealing the tired looking form of Applejack. She closed the door with a hindleg and joined the others.
“Any of ya find anythin’?” Applejack asked and dropped onto her haunches.
“I visited all of her schoolmates with Sweetie Belle. None of them had seen Scootaloo.” Rarity informed them while levitating a cup of tea for herself. Her mane was frazzled and betrayed her otherwise calm exterior.
“I checked the river as far as I could into the Everfree, but couldn’t find anything.” The fact that Fluttershy of all ponies had ventured into the Everfree Forest alone, spoke volumes of how worried she was.
One look at Pinkie Pie also made clear how she felt. Her otherwise bouncy hair had lost its spring and was beginning to go flat. “I checked all good hiding spots and even went to the mirror pool, but it is still sealed off.”
Twilight sighed. “Then we have checked all of Ponyville. I asked every shopkeeper and pony around, but none of them saw anything. We are going to have to widen our search.”
“What about Rainbow Dash? Perhaps she found something?” Pinkie chimed in.
“I don’t think so. Otherwise she would have told us. Wouldn’t she?”
“Perhaps she would have if you hadn’t been so mean to her before.” the pink pony replied with a frown. Twilight winced at the accusation.
“If I would have seen her again I would have apologized. I know now that I was out of line. But do you really think she would not tell us if she had found her? She might be angry with me, but not with you.”
Pinkie let her head hang low. “Yeah. I guess you are right.”
“Rainbow Dash is not our primary concern right now.” Rarity said and patted the pink party pony beside her on the back. “What should we do next?”
“Ah figure that the entire town now knows somethin’ is up. Might as well involve them all in the search.”
“Applejack is right. We have to expand the search outside of Ponyville.” Twilight looked to the clock on the nearby wall. “It’s dark now soon. As much as I hate to say it, we won’t find her in the dark. We could walk right past her and not see her.”
“Yeah, but she might see us and call us over.” Pinkie said.
“If she still can do that ya mean.” Applejack voiced what the others were thinking, but were afraid to say out loud.
“How dare you to say that!” Pinkie glared at the orange earth pony. She only saw the unwelcome truth in the farmpony's eyes before Applejack averted them to the floor. Pinkie Pie looked to the others for support, but found that none of them would look her in the eye on that matter.
“But…. but….. Twilight might know a spell or something to find her, right?” it sounded almost pleading.
“I know of spells to locate ponies in smaller areas. That’s how I always managed to beat my brother at hide and seek.” her small effort to cheer the others up fell on deaf ears, so she continued on. “I will look into it and try to find something to widen its effect. For now there isn’t much we can do.”
Pinkie Pie sat on her haunches and looked sadly at the untouched cups of tea in front of her. Aside from Rarity none of the others had touched it.
“Head home and try to get some sleep. We’ll meet here again at six and discuss how to continue.” Twilight decided. None of the others protested and silently shuffled their way out of the library.
Rartiy hung back a bit and watched Twilight move towards the nearest bookshelf looking for a book. As she began piling up select tomes near her desk, Rarity moved beside her.
“You are planning to pull an all-nighter as Spike would say?” Twilight answered by pulling out three more tomes and setting them beside the already stacked pile next to her desk.
“Is there anything I can do?”
Twilight looked over to her friend. Rarity’s mane was out of shape and dark rings around her eyes spoke of much needed sleep.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but this isn’t magic that fits your style.”
The white unicorn hesitantly had to agree.
“Please do not overexert yourself. We will need you tomorrow morning.” She said before giving her a tired nod and leaving Twilight alone in the Library. Moments later Twilight poured herself a cup of tea and flipped open the first book.
_____________________________________________________________________________
It was dark when Rainbow Dash finally gave in and stopped her search. As good as her eyesight was she could not see in the dark, especially not in a dark forest where the moonlight could not penetrate the thick foliage. The more the sunlight had faded, the more frantic her search had become. And the more her feeling of despair had increased. She reluctantly flew back towards the ledge to try and get some sleep.
A cloud would have been preferred, but over the Everfree she could have woken up the next morning on the other side of Canterlot if the winds were right. So she decided to use the hard stone ledge instead. Her first idea of staying down in the forest she dismissed due to the creatures roaming about. Timberwolves, Manticores, Hydra, Cockatrices and worse lurked in the forest and would make a meal out of her. The thought that Scootaloo might have fallen prey to one of the creatures there had entered her mind and for a while she had toyed with the idea to expose herself to the potential prospect of becoming a meal herself by sleeping on the ground. It would have been a deserving punishment.
She had given up that train of thought, for she had to know what had happened to Scootaloo before anything else. With a heavy heart she sank to the ground and curled herself up. Memories of how her little fan cheered her on during her stunts came unwillingly to her mind. How she looked up in amazement as Rainbow Dash told her a story of one of her adventures. The overjoyed expression when the elder pegasus agreed to take her under her wing.
All those memories paved the way for more painful ones from Rainbow Dash’s own past. She then did something she had not done for many years. High up on the mountainside the pegasus cried herself to sleep.
_____________________________________________________________________________
It was dark when Scootaloo awoke again. She yawned and stretched in the fluffiness of the cloud. Sleeping on a cloud was so much better than a bed she decided. As she stretched her sprained leg she let out a small yelp and the memories of what had happened came flooding back.
In one swift move she sprang up and looked around. Thanks to Luna’s bright moon she could see far better than she would have expected. To her shock she saw that the stormclouds had broken up during her sleep and she was now standing on a lone cloud almost twice as large as she was.
“Oh, this isn’t good.”
Her stomach rumbled at the distant thought of her last meal. With no other options she took a few bites of cloud using the water to somewhat calm her stomach down. After that she took a look at the landscape to try and figure out where she was. Carefully looking over the edge she saw nothing that seemed familiar, so she turned her attention to the horizon.
Far away loomed the mountain that she had jumped from earlier that day. Judging from the size of it she must have been traveling on the winds for some time. Canterlot was no more than a tiny sliver on the horizon. The other directions revealed no towns or places where she might have found help. That left her with three options.
The first one being to get to the ground somehow. One look down made it very clear that she would most likely die in that attempt.
The second option would be to stay on the cloud and hope that it would take her somewhere where she could be found. While it seemed like the safest bet, she knew that clouds could break up by themselves in areas that were not controlled by weatherponies. And it could potentially take days before she came across another pony. By that time she might have starved to death.
That left option number three. Somehow get back to Ponyville or at least the mountain, but how?
“Ok, think Scootaloo. What would Rainbow Dash do?” after a little thought she came up with the same answer as before.
Then a thought sprung to her mind. She looked down at her cloud once more and an idea was born. She could fly now too in a way. After all she had flown for some time hanging off her live saving marshmallow cloud earlier. So why not do that again, but this time fully prepared. Scootaloo dug her hooves into the cloud and made sure she had a good stance.
“Just like riding a scooter.” She said to herself and began buzzing her wings.
Much to her eternal glee the cloud moved without protest or resistance in the direction she faced. Almost jumping up from joy, she resisted and instead adjusted her course by shifting herself around. Grinning much like Pinkie Pie after a successful party she took course towards the mountain.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
Rainbow Dash awoke with a gasp, images from her dream still fresh in her memory. She had dreamt of the night it had happened. The night when her life had been turned upside down due to the untimely death of her parents. Cold sweat ran down her face and she blearily rubbed it away with a hoof. Something else wormed its way through her groggy mind. It was not the dream that had woken her up she somehow knew. It had been something she had heard instead.
She peered over the edge she was lying on, straining to hear something unusual. Perhaps it had been some kind of animal. The sun had just begun its course over the sky, judging by the position she guessed it was around six in the morning. Way too early for her after yesterday’s events, but something obviously had woken her up. She closed her eyes and slowly swiveled her ears, concentrating as best she could. As she was just about to give up she heard the faintest of sounds.
“...ain..ow….el.”
Rainbow Dash lept to her hooves, trying to look everywhere at once. It had sounded like the distant voice of a filly. It couldn’t be could it? Her heart began to race, the idea that her mind was playing tricks on her was crushed before it could fester. Once again closing her eyes she concentrated on the sounds around her, now with the added distraction of her blood rushing in her veins.
“Anypo……eeeelp.”
“Scootaloo?”
Rainbow Dash was in full alert. Her eyes scanned the area below carefully. There was no doubt that the shout was from the lost filly. A fact kept nagging at the back of her mind for a while before finally breaking through. The voice had not come from below. The trees and the height she was at made that almost impossible. So that only left….
She frantically scanned the skies and the horizon. There! Off in the distance a tiny cloud was seen speeding towards the mountain. Clinging to it desperately was an orange blob with purple bits. In an instant she realized the cloud must have worn away until it was now just barely the same size as its occupant. She also knew that a cloud had to be at least as big as the pegasus on it to stop it from braking up. Just as that thought had passed she saw to her horror how the cloud beneath Scootaloo disintegrated into vapors.
Without hesitating she launched herself at full speed towards the now screaming falling filly.
_____________________________________________________________________
Scootaloo felt her last piece of cloud give way under her. It had broken up over her flight across the landscape gradually. She had pushed herself further than ever before and her wings had given her cramps along the way. For all that she tried, she had not reached the mountain in time. Her cries for help had gone unanswered and all she could do now was to scream as her old nemesis named gravity gripped her for the final time.
Her piercing scream stopped abruptly as a loud boom echoed across the valley. She turned her head to see the rings of a sonic rainboom spread vertically towards the sky and ground respectively. Fear was replaced with wonder as she watched the multicolored ring hit the ground and bounce back up into the sky following the larger half in the sky like ripples in a pond.
Before she could voice anything a cyan blur sped towards her, yanking her from her course to the ground only a ponies length away from the first tree top. The sudden change in direction squeezed the air out of her lungs, but at that moment she could not feel anything but happiness. Rainbow Dash had saved her.
With a wide arc the pegasi returned to the mountain and tumbled to the ground upon reaching it. Scootaloo sprang up onto her hooves and immediately hugged her savior.
“Thank you, thank you! I knew you would come and find me!” she stepped back to look Rainbow Dash in the face.
“That Rainboom was awesome! I have never seen you do it that way before, it rippled back into the sky! So awesome!”
The grin in Scootaloo’s face slowly faded as she watched Rainbow Dash. The older Pegasus was breathing heavily, but what made Scootaloo take a step cautiously back was the angry look on her face.
“Just what the hay do you think you were doing?!” Rainbow Dash snapped at the filly in front of her.
Scootaloo flinched back at the outburst causing her to drop onto her haunches. Before she had a chance to say anything the irate mare continued her rant.
“What in all of Equestria made you come up with the featherbrained idea to jump from this height? Do you have any idea what you put me through?”
The angry mare turned away from the filly and kicked a few smaller rocks away in fury. The pause gave Scootaloo a chance to explain.
“I..I just wanted to fly…”
“You CAN’T fly!” it was a simple painful truth shouted by Rainbow Dash.
“I thought you would be proud of me if I managed to learn on my own.” the filly quietly said almost whimpering.
“What would of happened if you had fallen all the way to the ground? Damn it, Scootaloo! Didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t go jumping off any cliffs anymore?”
Scootaloo very well remembered the night she had said that. It was during their camping trip a while ago, where she had fallen into the river flowing over the cliff and was saved by her idol from falling to her doom. It was the night she had gained a sister. The entire scene before her now had an eerie similarity. Only instead of gaining a sister it seemed as if she was about to lose one. She whimpered at the thought and felt her eyes water up.
“Please, I didn’t want to upset anypony. If you just…”
Rainbow Dash stopped her random kicking of rocks to turn towards the filly again. Her wings were still flared wide open in anger. With a few steps she was right in Scootaloo’s face.
“You are going to promise me right now never to try anything like that ever again!”
“But I…”
“No buts! Right now!” she was on the verge of shouting.
Scootaloo averted her gaze from Rainbow Dash to the ground. She felt the first tears drop before she had time to react to them. Sadness welled up inside her and sought release. The way Rainbow Dash looked at her and the tone in which she spoke led the young filly to believe that she did not want to be her big sister anymore. That thought pained her more than she would have thought. A sob escaped her mouth and with huge effort she forced the words out.
“I… promise..”
“Louder!”
“I promise!” she hiccupped while still looking at the ground.
There was no point at looking at anything else anyway, as her world was nothing but a teary blur at the moment. The cyan pegasus sighed and Scootaloo heard her flap her wings.
“I need to get you back before the others freak out even more.”
Suddenly she felt Rainbow Dash’s forelegs grab her around her chest from behind. With powerful motions of her wings she took off again and headed towards Ponyville. Any other time Scootaloo would have been elated to go flying with her, but now the feeling that it might be the last time she would fly with her former big sister caused her heart to ache. She closed her eyes and felt the air rush by her for one last time.
__________________________________________________________________
Twilight looked at her friends that stood in the library in front of her. It was painfully obvious that none of them had slept much the past night. At least they had slept a bit, unlike Twilight who had stayed up researching spells for locating missing ponies.
While it had revealed possibilities to locate somepony from far away, it also made clear that it would only work on ponies that were closely related. Non family members could not be found that way and if she understood correctly it worked only with unicorns anyway. At some other time she would research that a bit more and maybe come up with possible solutions. Right now she did not have the time to delve further into the subject.
Twilight had explained her plan to the others as soon as they had arrived that morning. To her surprise both crusaders had shown up along with their respective sisters. The fillies had insisted to help any way they could. Just to make sure the purple unicorn explained the plan one final time.
“I’ll go over to the Mayor’s office and tell her what we need the public announce system for. Then I will ask every able pony to assist us in search of a missing filly to meet us in front of town hall. You will they split up the arriving ponies into your teams. As soon as we have as many as will come to aid us we begin our search again. Everypony understand the plan?” the assembled ponies nodded in agreement. “Ok. The search area has been extended to…”
“OMIGOSH!” the sudden yell from Pinkie Pie made every pony in the room jump with surprise.
Twilight wanted to ask what had possessed her to yell out like that, Pinkie pointed a hoof towards the large window opposite her and with a wide grin she yelled once more.
“LOOK!”
The others just had enough time to turn towards the window as Rainbow Dash flew inside. In her arms she held a rather gloomy looking Scootaloo. The filly was swarmed by her two best friends the instant that Rainbow Dash had set her on the floor and pulled her into a big hug.
“Hey, careful with my leg. It’s still…urgh!” her explanation was cut short due to sudden lack of oxygen, caused by Pinkie Pie who had joined the hug and was now squeezing all three fillies with alarming strength.
“Ease off them Pinkie. Seems like they can’t breathe no more.” Applejack intervened before they were crushed. With a sheepish expression Pinkie let them go.
“We are just sooo happy to see you are ok Scootie. What happened?” she asked and bounced back next to Applejack who tried to stop her from too much happy jumping.
“Yes, what happened? We were all worried about you. How did Rainbow Dash find you?” Twilight asked looking back and forth from the filly to the oddly quiet rainbow maned pegasus sitting alone by a bookshelf. It was obvious that Dash did not want to say anything, so she turned to the filly before her.
Scootaloo looked over to Rainbow, but the mare avoided her look. Instead she just kept looking down to the floor at her hooves. With a deep breath Scootaloo began telling them what had happened.
She told them the events at Sugarcube Corner, her reasoning on how to get to fly and finally her plan to jump from the cliff. Her tale of how she climbed the mountain and finally leaped from it, caused the expression on the faces of the ponies around to turn from worry to pure horror.
Sweetie Belle began to quietly cry into her friends side at the thought of what could have happened. Scootaloo explained how a cloud had saved her life and how she ended up on a bank of storm clouds.
She finished her tale with the ride on the cloud back to the mountain and how Rainbow Dash saved her from falling to her doom. Twilight remarked that they had heard a faint booming sound earlier, but thought it had been something falling over. The only thing she omitted from her story was the discussion with Rainbow Dash on the mountainside.
Sweetie Belle drew back a bit and punched Scootaloo in her shoulder. Surprised at that reaction the pegasus turned her head to her friend ready to snap at her for that surprisingly forceful hit. As she saw her friends tear streaked face any protest died down immediately.
“Don’t you even do something like that again!” Sweetie croaked and buried her head in her friends side again hugging her tighter than before. Apple Bloom also increased the strength of the hug and Scootaloo found herself unable to move and barely breathe.
The adult ponies slowly regained their composure after the horrid tale the young filly had told them.
“Seeetie is right. You should never try and do something like that again.” Twilight said and shook her head to try and calm her nerves down. Scootaloo glanced over to Rainbow Dash hoping for any kind of reaction. The mare however had not moved and inch and still just stared at the floor. With a heavy sigh she turned her attention back to the other ponies in front of her.
“I promise never to do something like that ever again.” she declared for the second time this day.
“Ya know that if ya have any kinda problems ya can talk to any one of us right?” Applejack said while walking up to the bundle of fillies on the floor. The other ponies nodded in agreement.
“I know. I was just so upset.” the orange filly said and let her head hang low.
“Well now that that everythin’ is turnin’ back ta normal. How’s about ya go tell yer folks at home that yer ok?” the farmpony suggested while carefully tusseling up the fillies mane with a hoof.
“Yeah, I bet they are worried.” Scootaloo said not noticing Apple Bloom shifting nervously beside her.
“We’ll come with you.” Sweetie Belle said and finally released her friend from the hug. Her fur was matted where the tears had run, but she wore a little smile on her lips.
“We’d better get moving before they worry some more then.” Apple Bloom said and also let go of her friend. She silently thanked Applejack for not mentioning that they knew about Scootaloo being an orphan with a nod. Her sister returned the gesture with a nod of her own and an encouraging smile.
“That thing with the birds. Diamond Tiara said that.” Sweetie Belle remarked as they made their way towards the exit.
“Seriously? If I had remembered that I would have never even have tried it. Bleagh! I actually took her advice.” Scootaloo felt her spirits rising as she hobbled along between her friends.
“I called her a polished horse-apple… right to her face.” Sweetie Belle giggled and caused Apple Bloom to laugh. “While she was standing next to her father!”
“No way! What happened then?” Scootaloo asked. The rest of the discussion cut off by the closing library front door.
With the missing filly back the only thing left on Twilight’s mind was the oddly silent Rainbow Dash. She had kept an eye on the mare during Scootaloo’s tale and had noticed her strange behavior. Cautiously the unicorn cleared her throat and turned to the cyan pegasus not far from her.
“Rainbow Dash? Are you alright?” she asked carefully.
“I gotta do something.” Was the only reply as she launched herself out of the window and flew off again, not even giving any of her friends a look.
Twilight watched her fly into the sky and turn a sharp left out of her view. Then she nearly jumped out of her coat as she felt a hoof rest lightly on her shoulder.
“I.. uhm… sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Fluttershy said in a quiet voice, sheepishly looking at the floor.
“It’s ok. I was just lost in thought and haven’t slept much. Or to be honest haven’t slept at all.” She replied and tried to unsuccessfully hide a yawn.
Now that Scootaloo was back and they could afford to relax, the fatigue became very noticeable. A quick glance at her friends told Twilight that they all felt the same way, except for Pinkie who was bouncing happily in place. Mildly irritated at the pink pony's seemingly boundless energy she turned back to Fluttershy.
“If I cast a cloudwalking spell on myself, do you think you could take me up to Rainbows place? Teleporting might cancel the effect of it.”
“No..I mean…yes. I mean that I will talk to her when she has calmed down a bit.” Fluttershy’s response came as a surprise.
“But I said those things to her and obviously something is not right. I have to at least try and fix it.”
“You can’t do anything right now. Trust me, I know how Rainbow Dash behaves when she is angry or something is bothering her. She will calm down and then I will talk to her and let her know you need to talk to her yourself.”
The solid tone in Fluttershy’s normally unsure voice left no room for discussion on the matter. Reluctantly Twilight agreed to wait for Rainbow Dash to come to her senses.
One by one the friends left the Library. Pinkie Pie remarked that she could throw a Scootaloo-Is-Back-And-Not-Pony-Paste-Party, to which Applejack rightfully said that she should maybe work on the name before handing out the invites.
Twilight toyed with the idea of heading upstairs into her bed as soon as the others had left. Still she felt she had to do something. If not for Rainbow Dash then at least for Scootaloo. Something had happened between the two that she was sure of. In part she felt responsible if Rainbow Dash had done something hotheaded and brash as a result of her telling her off just the day before.
Without wasting time she left the library and trotted towards Ponyville’s only orphanage.
Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds
Once Twilight arrived at the orphanage she was treated to a sight she had not expected. To the right of the building a few feet away a lone tree stood surrounded by bushes. Halfway inside one of the bushes was Rainbow Dash. Twilight could not see what she was doing there as only her rear end stuck out. Just as she altered her course the cyan pegasus stepped out of the bushes and carefully closed the hole she had made in the branches and leaves. She nodded once seemingly satisfied at whatever she had done.
Then she turned around and sat on her haunches facing the orphanage. Doing so she noticed Twilight approaching. She made no sign of wanting to leave, nor did her body language show signs of hostility towards the unicorn drawing nearer. Twilight took it as a good sign and ignoring what Fluttershy had said earlier she decided to talk to her.
“Hello Rainbow.” she said softly.
“Twilight.” Rainbow Dash kept her eyes locked on the orphanage’s front door, but her voice did not show any sign of anger. Twilight decided to cut straight to the heart of the matter.
“Listen Rainbow, about what I said yesterday…”
“You were right.” the pegasus interrupted before Twilight had the chance to fully explain.
“The things you said. They were right. I did some things in the past and recently that I shouldn’t have done. I was stupid and I made somepony else suffer because of it.”
For a moment Twilight was unsure of how to respond. The calm tone of her friend was unusual, as well as the fact that she had willingly accepted that she had done something wrong. Normally it took a lot more to get through to her.
Obviously the rainbow maned mare had something on her chest, emotional baggage maybe. Twilight was more than willing to lend her a hoof in that matter.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she carefully offered.
“No offence Twilight, but the only pony that I need to talk to right now is the kid.” she replied and gave Twilight a look that told her not to push the issue right now.
“Well if you ever need an ear, you know where to find me.” Twilight smiled briefly as she saw that Rainbow Dash had acknowledged her offer with a very slight nod. She was just about to turn back towards home when Rainbow Dash groaned quietly.
“Ponyfeathers. I forgot they would be here aswell.”
Twilight looked towards the orphanage and saw Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom exit the building. Both of them sat down and began chatting, awaiting the third crusader to emerge from the door. It was obvious that Rainbow Dash wanted to talk to Scootaloo alone and Twilight smiled at the chance to be able to do something for her friend after all today.
“Leave it to me.” she said and left Rainbow Dash sitting beside the bushes in the shade of the tree.
Rainbow Dash watched Twilight walk up to the waiting fillies and talk to them for a bit. Both of the crusaders looked over to Rainbow Dash briefly before turning back to Twilight. Then they nodded at whatever Twilight told them and the three ponies moved away from the house. After a while they disappeared from her view and all that was left to do was to wait patiently for Scootaloo to appear.
Just a few seconds later Scootaloo came out of the house. She frowned when she couldn’t see her friends outside waiting for her. Her head whipped around in search of them and froze when she saw Rainbow Dash. With a waving motion she beckoned the filly to join her under the tree. She hesitated for a while and finally with a heavy sigh hobbled over to the waiting Pegasus. The frown never left her face causing Rainbow Dash to feel uneasy. Finally the orange pony arrived and sat down, before Rainbow Dash could say anything Scootaloo spoke first.
“Nettie told me you came looking for me.” there was an angry undertone to her voice. Rainbow Dash merely nodded to her question. “And why are you here now? To rub it in perhaps?”
Rainbow Dash defensively held up her front hooves in a calming manner. The filly was not only upset but quite obviously angry. She felt she somewhat deserved it, but she had things to tell her and did not want to risk her running off or shutting herself in.
“Calm down, Scoots. I am not here to do any of those things.”
“Then what? Want to pity the chicken for not having any parents? I don’t want your pity.” Although her wings still hurt from her long flight she flared them open in a pegasus typical fashion when enraged.
“I know how you feel.” Dash said calmly and set her hooves back onto the ground.
Scootaloo laughed at the comment. It was no more than a short barking sound but got the point across.
“How could you understand?”
“I’m an orphan too.” Any anger the filly had felt was instantly replaced with confusion at Rainbow Dash’s words.
“What?” for a moment she thought her ears had deceived her or the fatigue was making her hear things.
“My.. parents died when I was only a bit younger than you. They stuck me in an orphanage in Cloudsdale.” The filly merely looked at the older mare with a confused expression. When Rainbow Dash saw no other reaction she continued.
“I stayed there for a few years, did a lot of stupid and bad stuff and after getting kicked out of flight school permanently I came to Ponyville.”
“Listen Scoots, I have to talk to you about what happened up there on the mountain. Why I…reacted the way I did. What is going to happen next. I…” she struggled for the right words.
“Oh hay… I am not good at this.” In order to get her thoughts straight she rubbed her face with both hooves. Scootaloo drew her own conclusions to what Rainbow Dash meant with next.
“I get it. I remind you of yourself back then. That’s the reason you don’t want anything to do with me anymore right?” her guess was void of any emotion in her voice and she simply kept staring at the mare.
“What? Yes..no..both.” Dash was taken aback by what the filly had said and tried to make any sense of the swirling thoughts in her mind. The filly turned to move away out of Rainbow’s life.
“No,nonono. Wait! Let me explain.” Scootaloo stopped in mid-movement and waited.
“Argh! Just.. just hear me out ok? I am really not good at this stuff so please just wait and see if it makes any sense.” She let out a small sigh of relief when the filly turned back and waited.
“I reacted… oh hay, I am a bad sister ok?” Scootaloo looked even more confused than before. Rainbow Dash took a deep breath before continuing.
“When I was in the orphanage I wasn’t the best behaved. And that’s putting it mildly. I got into all kinds of trouble. I did that because I was angry and above all else alone. One day I was having fun with my mom and dad, the next I was thrown into a home with nopony to help me. I lashed out at everypony there, even though they didn’t deserve it. When I found out that I had my flying skills I hid behind them and thought myself better than the rest. It still didn’t help me from not crying myself to sleep sometimes.” Rainbow Dash lowered herself onto her rump and was now at level with the filly.
“When I would lay in my bed I often wished to have somepony there for me. A friend, a sister, a brother. No matter how hard I wished it never came true. I told myself I did not need anypony else, after all I was the best flyer in the home so nopony could touch me. For a while I believed it myself. I met Fluttershy while in flight camp as you already know. Of all ponies she was the only one that never tried to get on my case or be mean to me. Eventually we became sort of friends, but only real friends when I moved here to Ponyville.”
“You are a lot like me Scoots. Putting yourself in dangerous situations just because somepony told you you couldn’t do it or made fun of you. I did that a lot when I was your age. You even wished for a sister to look out for you. I gotta be honest here, it freaked me out.”
The filly was about to respond to that last piece of information, but Rainbow Dash held up one hoof to keep her quiet.
“Hear me out, please. It freaked me out, because I saw myself in you just wishing for a sister to be there for you and help you through anything that may come your way. You had made me into that what I had always wanted. You should know that I have been trying to avoid you at times. It just scared me being responsible for another pony in that way. I am truly sorry that I did that. If it had not been for… a friend who rattled my brain a bit, I might have never seen what was before me.”
She studied the patiently waiting filly in front of her, desperately hoping she somehow made sense to her.
“I was angry with you on the mountain, because I had just realized what you meant to me and I had almost lost you. My guess is you are still angry with me and you have every right to be, I won’t blame you. But I am here now and I do want to be your big sister, with everything that includes. You just have to sometimes steer me the right way, as I don’t always know what to do. Never been a sister before. Would you want me to be that?”
Neither of them moved or said anything for nearly a minute. Rainbow Dash began having doubts if the filly sitting in front of her was even still awake or sleeping with her eyes open. She sat up on her haunches and wanted to carefully nudge Scootaloo to see if she indeed was still asleep.
Before she could make any such attempt the filly launched herself at the sitting mare and hugged her as tightly as possible with only one good leg. Feeling a massive weight drop from her heavy heart Rainbow Dash gladly returned the hug.
“So I guess that means yes?” she asked with her trademark smirk.
Scootlaloo lifted her head and looked up to her once again big sister with teary eyes. All she could do was nod with a big smile on her lips. They hugged each other for a few moments longer before Scootaloo remembered that they were out in public after all and didn’t want to appear all sappy where other ponies might see them. Oddly enough Rainbow Dash seemed ok with the affectionate display.
“Sorry.” The little filly finally said while smiling up to the cyan Pegasus.
“What for, Squirt?”
“Being angry with you earlier, jumping off the mountain. Basically anything stupid I may have done sometime. I wanted you to be proud of me.”
“Hey, I am proud of you. Jumping into a bank of storm clouds. Using one of them as an improvised scooter. That’s kinda awesome and I’m sure nopony else would be brave enough to do something like that.” Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but grin. As reckless and dangerous it had been it still was something quite amazing.
“But seriously, Scoots. Don’t try something like that again. I would like to be proud of you many more times in the future and jumping from cliffs and mountains does not count.”
“I promise I won’t do that again.”
“I know you won’t.” Rainbow Dash moved back a bit towards the bushes. “There is one other thing. I kinda found your scooter while I was looking for you. Or at least I found what was left of it.”
“Yeah, I figured that it wouldn’t be in good shape after that fall.” Scootaloo said with a hint of sadness. She had that scooter for a very long time until now and had been through a lot with it.
“Not in a good shape is putting it mildly. But I have something for you here.” Rainbow Dash turned to the bushes and rummaged around in them for a moment, before pulling out a brand new scooter.
“I was supposed to give you this on your birthday, but seeing as you are in need of transportation cause of that leg of yours…. I think its ok to give you this now already. We all chipped in to buy you this.”
Scootaloo looked in wonder at the brand new scooter that Rainbow Dash had presented to her. The metal bits glistened in the sun. Dark blue wood polished to a shine without any signs of wear and tear. She respectfully circled around her new mode of transportation taking in every single feature. The tires caught her interest and she carefully prodded one of them. It was inflated.
“Cool, huh? Way better than your old full rubber tires am I right? Oh and check this out.” Rainbow Dash explained and carefully put a hoof on the scooter pushing is down a bit. Scootaloo could see springs move underneath the board.
“It even has suspension! You’ll have a really smooth ride with this baby! You also now have brakes and this cool horn to tell ponies to get out of your way.” Rainbow Dash honked the horn which emitted a sound similar to a duck being strangled.
“Hm… shoulda tried that out before we bought it. Nevermind, we can easily get you a cool sounding horn. So whaddya say?”
“Thisissocool!” the filly said after overcoming her initial disbelief that somepony would actually give her such an amazing gift. She hugged the rainbow maned bearer of gifts. “Thank you Dash!”
“Heh, no problem Scoots. But you have to thank the others as well. It is from all of us.”
The filly jumped up on her new scooter and with a big smile put herself in starting position. A cramp in her wing stopped her first ride before it had even begun.
“Ow.”
“Easy there. You need the give your wings a rest before using them again. Besides you can’t go off on the scooter without a helmet.”
“I lost mine during the avalanche.” She said slightly disappointed that she couldn’t speed off on her new ride. Instead she gave the horn another go causing it to make an even worse sound than Rainbow had made it do. “Yeah… the horn might need a bit of improvement.”
“Don’t worry. I bet by the time your wings are back in business, we’ll have found you a new helmet.” Rainbow Dash said with a wink.
A loud rumble escaped from Scootaloo’s stomach, causing her to grin sheepishly. During the emotional rollercoaster of the day thus far, she had forgotten how hungry she actually was and that her last meal was nearly a full day ago. Rainbow Dash smiled at the slightly blushing pegasus on the scooter.
“Seems like somepony is hungry. Why don’t we head someplace to grab something to bite?”
Scootaloo nodded eagerly in agreement and was about to step off her scooter, but was stopped by a cyan hoof on her shoulder.
“Stay on it. I have a better idea.” Rainbow Dash stepped beside the filly and gently laid a wing over her back. “Sugarcube Corner or the restaurant?”
“Let’s go to Sugarcube Corner first. I want to thank Pinkie and show the girls my sweet new ride.”
Rainbow Dash began walking while using her wing to push Scootaloo along beside her. The filly could not help but grin. She looked over to her temporary engine.
“Do you have another cool story you could tell me until we reach Sugarcube Corner?”
Rainbow Dash smiled and was just about to tell her another Wonderbolt-Tryout story, but hesitated before turning to look at the filly.
“You know something, I have a better idea Scoots. I have done enough talking for a while. Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself.”