Where the Rainbow ends.

“Mrs. Skies-Dash? Ten minutes remain.”

A dark blue stallion, wearing the ever so familiar shell jacket of the race officials, opened the door and peeked into her locker room. Rainbow’s first thought was that he was revoltingly young. She would have put him at 23 years tops. Not that she was complaining; it was a relieving change from the usual fifty plus deadpan matrons, about whom nopony could decide whether they hated their job more or the competitors they had worked with.

The stallion was fighting a heroic battle against his face muscles to keep his straight expression, but Rainbow had been in this business for way too long to fall for it. She knew a barely controlled fanboy’s face when she saw one. In a way she found it amusing to see one of her supposed superiors in such a state. She fiddled with the thought of milking the moment in some way, however by the time she could have come up with anything witty she felt that the right moment has slipped away. Acquiescing to her mistake she closed her eyes, slowly exhaled through her nose and nodded. She heard the grey stallion fiddling with the doorknob and guessed that he was desperately trying to say something. However she decided not to ease his discomfort and just stood there without even opening her eyes. It didn’t take long for the other to crumble under the rising tension of the situation and leave the room. As she opened her eyes and saw the door closing behind the official Rainbow was glad. She definitely needed this room for herself today.

Rainbow never understood why they even notified the participants ten minutes before the race. It was way too long for dressing up, and too short for anything else. It was located precisely in the timeframe of uselessness. She had to chuckle as she remembered how irritated she used to get by this notification. She used to yell ponies’ manes off their heads for disturbing her “peaceful preparation” before the race.

Peaceful, her ass. More like swinging between impatient waiting and outright panic. Even in her best years, when nopony was even close to her speed, she could get so inexplicably nervous before races. It almost made her laugh just looking back to it now. She felt her infamous rampages might have been the reasons the organisers sent this rookie. Although that would have implied they had a sense of humour so it was unlikely. However it would have had a certain irony if, after spending years on trying to make them crack a smile, she’d blown their only attempt to prank somepony. For today she felt neither the annoyance nor the nervousness she used to. She felt strangely calm, and ready for whatever this race had for her.

Her last race.

Rainbow slowly turned to the locker to grab her flight suit. She paid little to no mind to her clothes; decades of experience have imprinted the sequence of motions in such a way that her limbs knew what to do by now, letting her serenely float around in the flamboyant skies of her memories.

It felt so strange to think about it. After so many years and countless competitions it all came down to this. She’d never had the time to really think about how it was going to feel to be retired. Of course, the thought itself crossed her mind a thousand times: The time she broke her wing, when she married Soarin or when she got pregnant with little Storm. Yet she never really imagined how retirement would actually feel. Time after time her drive to continue came through stronger than any desire to settle down. She always came back and always won any race in which she participated. At her thirtieth birthday party she cracked a joke that age is only a number and her numbers always seem to be dwindling, so why would this one be any different?

“Age is just a number.” Oh, how many times she had to listen to ponies repeat this sentence as she kept beating younger flyers throughout the years. Ironically enough, another set of “just numbers” were the reasons why she ultimately had to step down. The justest numbers there are: Her times on the field. Her thirtieth year was the first one she couldn’t set a new record. First she’d wrote it off as if it would have been nothing. She just got a bit complacent. She clearly didn’t do the work that she needed to break records.

So she changed her coach. Choosing Scootaloo as her coach was definitely the best choice in her life. Even if she was much younger than Rainbow and lacked some experience, her merits greatly outweighed her faults. They shared their unbreakable will to win, she had to learn everything there is to know about the theory of flight to be able to just get off from the ground, and her special talent was to help other ponies reach their true destiny.

And what else could be the destiny of the pony who got her cutie mark for performing the sonic rainboom, if not flying faster than anypony would have considered possible?

Scoots has indeed left her mark on her preparation, she reorganised Rainbow’s training schedules and introduced new, stricter, measures. She made Rainbow train more, made her train smarter, and made her eat better. Scoots hooves on approach worked wonders. The next year was the most glorious one in her already illustrious career. She felt on top of the world again. Now that she thought about it, that was the last time in her life she felt that feeling so immaculately.

She had to miss most of the next season because she got pregnant and less than a year later she gave birth a beautiful little colt called Storm. Many ponies advised her to retire then. In fact most of them just assumed this was the end, even though she never officially stepped down. But who could blame them? She wasn’t young by any means, she just started her family, she’s accumulated a good fortune in her years as the wonderbolt captain and an ace flyer and she’d already won more medals than anypony in the recorded history.

“What was left for her to gain?”

This question was etched into her mind ever since she heard it. Twilight asked it after Rainbow told her that she was contemplating about returning to the circuit. She spent the next two day thinking about this single question. What was really left for her to gain? She had already achieved everything, much more than anypony could dream of. By all logic she should have chosen retirement. Yet she felt that there was still more she could do, something that she couldn’t just quite put her hoof on but she was certain it was there. Something worth fighting for. She spent most the next two day lying in her bed trying desperately to find out what it might be. But after two days of constant contemplating, she slowly realised that it doesn’t matter. She had to do it because that’s what felt right. And thus she decided to return to the circuit.

Two days later on at her big press conference, she only said two words: “I’m back”. The press went nuts. They demanded to broadcast her training for that day, which she regretfully accepted. She lived for being watched by ponies, but these public training sessions were always pain without gain. She couldn’t concentrate on any real exercises because they were boring to watch. However she couldn’t really show her stuff off either because that would have meant risking injuries. Ten years before that she would have said buck it and would have given the press an air show that was worthy of her top performances: But she was way too old for that. She had to go somewhere between, though unfortunately Rainbow was never big on compromises. She liked to decide on one thing and go with it to the extreme. That made her a great flyer. Or the way the press put it in the following morning’s headlines:

The best there ever was.

Too bad she wasn’t the pony she once had been. Her body grew old, weak and tired. The preparation was the most painful one she has ever experienced. After a year and a half of minimal training and the birth of a foal, it was a living hell to get herself up to top form. Every day she woke up with her muscles aching so hard that she never knew how she was going to get on her hooves. On her worst days she could only get out of her bed with Soarin’s help. Day after day she had to strain her muscles to their absolute limits. She had never worked so hard as she had since her return and particularly in that crucial first few months. Still, it took an incredible toll on her body. She was eating more pain medication than regular food and still she had to cry herself to sleep every night. Her doctor said that her joints looked as if she was eighty years old and could fail her for good any day. And that was three years ago. Three years spent with only one dream. To be the fastest pony just for one more day.

And her efforts bore fruit. She was just as successful as she was in her prime. Of course she competed in fewer races, but she still won them all. More or less convincingly. She had a few close calls but still, in the end she always succeeded.

Succeed in the races as much as succeed in her lies.
Her lies to herself, to her friends, family and to the whole sporting world. Lies that she could still be just as good as she had been. Lies which were made so obvious by the slow but steady increase of her times. Lies that somehow managed to convince everypony that it’d be best if they never talked about them. After all, what would have happened if they abandoned the lies? They would have lost a legend, story to be told for generations, an inspirational figure to them all. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Except for one pony. Rainbow always had to cringe whenever she thought about this. Soarin had much more on the line than anypony else. Yet even in her darkest hours he was her greatest support. He never tried to convince Rainbow that racing was a bad idea. When she first set forth her return, he accepted her choice without hesitation. When they had to find a nanny for Storm, he personally sought out the best foalsitters money could buy and then interviewed them one by one. When Scootaloo turned them down, he left his office and became her full time coach. When she bawled her eyes out in her bed night after night he always provided a shoulder to cry on and never, not even for a second, brought up the topic of quitting.

Because out of all her friends only Soarin understood what this meant to Rainbow. He knew how that no matter how much pain she had to deal with, it was nothing to what she would have felt if she gave up her dreams. And even though he did his best to conceal it, he was incredibly worried. Worried that his wife might cripple herself for life. That she might never be able to teach their son how to fly. Or that she might just breaks under the pressure and collapse. Rainbow felt so guilty for making him suffer through all that. But Soarin always knew how much she’d loathe herself for the rest of her life if she didn’t gave everything she got for something she loved. So instead of trying to make her quit, he tried to do everything in his power to help her reach her goal. If only…

Knock-knock.

Rainbow shuddered. She thought it must have been the race officials to report that she was late… again. Not that it mattered. They weren’t going to disqualify her for this minor infringement. But it wasn’t wise to mess with them too much either, so she pretended she was slightly annoyed and shouted out. “Okay-okay I’m coming.”

She heard a familiar quiet snicker behind the door. “Don’t worry Rainbow, you aren’t late yet, it’s just me.”

For an elusive moment her heart soared to the skies beating happily from the sound of that voice only to be crushed by the situation once more. With a heavy sigh she said “Yeah, come on in!”

Soarin opened the door and stepped in. “Hey Rainbow, I just wanted to check how you doing” He wanted to make it sound like it was nothing but his face told Rainbow that he knew he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. Even on her first race after her return and her march to Tartarus and back, Soarin’d respected her alone time enough not to check on her. And now all of a sudden he decided to visit her anyway. If this wasn’t a clear indication of his worries then Rainbow didn’t know what was.

Naturally Rainbow’s social reflexes kicked in and wanted to reassure Soarin that she was alright. “Don’t worry Soar I’m fi…” and she suddenly stopped.

Was she really fine? No, definitely not, and he knew that. He wouldn’t have come down there if he hadn’t. So what was the point of her lies anyways? Rainbow was sick and tired of all the comforting lies of the past few years. All those fake smiles and meaningless gestures just to reassure everypony that their life was nothing but sunshine and happiness. So she started over: “No, buck this Soar, I’m not fine. I’m… “she hesitated for a moment, realising that she actually didn’t know how she felt. So eventually she just went with the word that first came to her mind even though it made no sense to her. “…I’m scared”

The more she let this thought echo in her mind the more confident she grew about her statement. Sometimes the simplest words can mean the most. Right now her heart wasn’t beating in her chest like some crazed zebra shaman. her thoughts weren’t overwhelmed by terror, rendering her unable to move or think. No, her fears came from a much deeper source, whispering in her head so quietly that on a normal day the noises of her life would have suppressed them easily. It took an occasion like this to turn the lumbering clamour in her soul into a haven of solace. Now and only now when all the fineries of her public personality were stripped away, could she see her real fears. Fears that were embedded in her very self so deeply that she could have never hoped to fight them, so she’d rather built her entire existence up in such a way she wouldn’t have to face them. But now here she stood, silently in the darkness. Unable to tear her attention away from the dark whispers. And she was alone, more alone than maybe ever before in her entire life despite her husband standing a step away from him.

Then suddenly a bright golden light cracked the ethereal sphere of darkness in her mind. A voice coming from the outside, that felt like a memory of a dream she could neither forget nor remember.

“Rainbow?” That moment of suffocating intimacy vanished into oblivion as she finally realised that Soarin was calling her name. It took a few immeasurable seconds and several headshakes for Rainbow to scrap her thoughts together and finally be able to answer.

“What?” she asked still visibly unsettled.

“I was asking what are you scared of?” Soarin gently lifted Rainbows head up and looked directly into her eyes.

“I’m not sure” she said hesitantly, putting each word after the other as she started to look for the answer. Was she scared of the race? Not really, she had been through hundreds of them, and this one wasn’t that different. Was she afraid of the future? No, she had long learnt that the future paid little mind to her worries, so it was useless to stress about things that hadn’t even happened yet. Was she worried about other ponies’ reactions? Almost, but she felt not even that could be that bad. She was scared of something else, something deeper, more personal, that was just about the only thing that could ever hurt her permanently. “I’m afraid… of myself.” she admitted it as much to herself as to Soarin.

“Good.” Soarin said calmly. “Because there is not a single pony who is more dangerous on a racing track than Rainbow Dash”

“Excuse you, it’s Rainbow Skies-Dash” Rainbow pouted, silently collapsing into herself on the inside. She felt that despite his best efforts he didn’t get it. Not that she blamed him for that, but it would have felt so good if she could have somepony understanding her. Or if at least she understood her own feelings.

Soarin let out a short chuckle and kissed the nose of his sulking wife. “As you wish your majesty. May I be so foolishly brave to give you some advice about the forthcoming race, your royal wiseness?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes to her husband’s antics. “Yes you may, wise-ass.”

Soarin acknowledged her joke with a short but heartfelt smile, only to turn completely serious in the next moment. He took a deep look into her wife’s eyes and began. “In a few short minutes the last race of your professional life begins. Tens of thousands of ponies wait eagerly on their stands to see their hero one last time. Everypony you ever knew or cared for is probably out there right now cheering for you. The whole country’s stirred up by your retirement. And you know what?“

“Fuck them. Fuck them all.”

“Forget everything that ever bothered you in your life. Those don’t matter. Not while you are out there. On the racetrack there will be only the two of you. You and the wind. The eternal companion. Together you’ve been through unspeakable horrors and indescribable delight. She has caused you more pain than any living being, but made every ounce of that worthwhile. Take that dirty, double-tongued, delightful sonofabitch on one last ride and make sure she can’t bloody walk tomorrow morning. Show her that even in your dusk you are twice the mare than any other pony she’ll ever know. You owe yourself that.” Rainbow grabbed Soarin into a tight hug, sentencing to oblivion anything else he might have had to say.

“And I owe everything else to you” Rainbow’s words were muffled as she buried her snout into Soarin’s neck. “You did everything for me in the last three years and I never said so much as thank you. Not for everything, not frequently enough” She didn’t care anymore whether he understood her or not, she was just glad that her husband was the greatest, most caring stallion alive. A stallion she felt she had never deserved.

“My little Rainboom…” Soarin gently broke the hug and softly lifted her head up with his hoof “Do you really think that after all those years I still need your words to know that you are grateful? Or that I ever needed them?” he slightly shook his head “No… when a colt first sees the sun setting behind the majestic cloudscapes of Cloudsdale he thinks he knows what beauty is. When he first dips his wing into the boundless ocean of the skies he thinks he knows what freedom is. When he watches the Wonderbolts performing for the first time he thinks he knows what perfection is.”

He suddenly lowered his voice, giving it a very intimate vibe. “But should that naïve little colt have the unfathomable luck to set his eyes upon you, he realises that there’s nothing he knows about the world.”

Rainbow suddenly stepped back and turned her head away “You are so full of shit Soarin.” A staggered weak laugh left Rainbow’s lips. “I mean you were pretty spot on with the other two, but freedom?” She faintly shook her head

“I did nothing but restrict your freedom in the past three years. You’ve put aside everything for ME, for MY dream, for MY success. I was so selfish. There was no freedom in that…” Rainbow said, visibly full of self-reproach, staring at the floor and avoiding Soarin’s gaze.

“Rainboom…” he gently shook his head, with a slight grin on his face “Freedom is the ability to make one’s own choices.” He stepped after Rainbow and lowered his head to get into eye level, trying to peek into the magenta eyes behind the prismatic tufts falling onto them. “And I made mine a long time ago,” he said with unswerving solemnity. “So would you be selfish just a little longer, for me?

Rainbow suddenly froze, her pupils dilated twice of their original size. Soarin felt a rush of icy panic running down his back. Did he say anything wrong? The next moment Rainbow tackled him and knock him straight to the floor pinning him there with the most passionate kiss they have ever had. For a moment Soarin was muffled in more ways than one but it didn’t take him long to just give in to the pleasure and shutting out everything else around themselves.

Or at least he thought he did. However the universe and one forbidding mare in particular disagreed.

“I know that retired raceponies often need a new source of income and celebrity sextapes certainly sell well, but please do refrain yourself until you leave this foal friendly venue.”