Chapters Chapter 1: Soarin’ in the deep
“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.
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.”
Chapter 2: A Harsh lesson
The unmistakeable, always grumpy voice of Ms. Harshwhinny shattered their intimacy with the discretion of a turbo jackhammer.
Rainbow immediately wanted to get up but Soarin reacted first. He grabbed her back and hugged her tightly without even breaking the kiss, making the scene even more promiscuous. It took a moment for Rainbow to catch on but after that she eagerly joined in the game.
Ms. Harshwhinny and Soarin had been viewing each other with mutual disdain ever since that disqualification incident almost a decade ago. In short, the anti-doping committee - led by Ms. Harshwhinny at the time - deleted half a years worth of achievements because Soarin failed to show up at a random drug test which just so happened to be in the middle of their honeymoon. It was a nasty ordeal that involved a lot of shouting, legal shenanigans and a light bulb that somehow ended up in somepony’s rectum. It all ended with Soarin officially retiring from competitive flying at the age of thirty-one. From that point onwards Soarin never missed a chance to cross Ms. Harshwhinny when he felt he could do it without jeopardising his wife’s career.
“You might be interested to know that Mrs Skies-Dash is exactly fifty-seven seconds late. Also my Celestia given patience will run out in approximately ten seconds… Nine.”
Rainbow reluctantly broke the kiss and staggered onto her hooves. “Sorry Soar, you know she isn’t bluffing.”
Soarin just sighed and nodded, before pushing himself up with his wings and stood. He leaned his forehead to Rainbow’s and told her, “show her what you’re made of, Rainboom.” Then turned around and with equestria’s most dishonest smile on his face he bowed before Ms. Harshwhinny. “Your Excellency.” His words were dripping with contempt fuelled hatred.
“Mr. Skies-Dash.” Harshwhinny was way too experienced to react to such obvious provocation in any way whatsoever. Especially since Soarin had been calling her that for about ten years. “Mrs Skies-Dash?” She enquired.
Rainbow reservedly nodded and followed Mrs Harshwhinny without a word. They went through several long empty hallways, listening only to their hooves silently plopping into the cloudfloor. It was a bit unusual that the head of the organisers personally came for Rainbow, but she wasn’t really surprised. She couldn’t help but smile a bit, remembering how many times Ms. Harshwhinny had to personally come for her to drag her to the starting line. One time when Rainbow and Soarin were fooling around backstage she grabbed her by the ear and literally dragged her across the whole venue, in front of every staff member and racer.
And although all their conflicts gave Rainbow more than enough reason to hate her, throughout the years she actually got quite fond of the old matron. She had this strange aura that peculiarly blurred anypony around her. When she walked through a corridor, no matter whom she walked by she got everypony’s attention, all silently praying that the unrepentant incarnation of justice wasn’t coming for them this time.
Not that this affected her. Or that anything affected her at all. She had one goal; to run the race smoothly. And if what that took was handling a national hero and sport celebrity like a 6 year old foal, she did just that. Rainbow respected her unmatched professionalism immensely. She would have never admitted it to anypony but the old mare did teach her a lot.
Under her supervision everything always ran smoothly. Rainbow never knew a more punctual pony in her life and she doubted that she ever would. It was rather spooky actually. She could always tell the time by the second without ever checking any clock. And she was always one hundred percent right.
That gave Rainbow an intriguing thought. Walking the distance between the locker room and the prep room took more than fifty-seven seconds. So she must have moved directly to the lockers without even checking the prep room if she was there. And while she might have been the most rigorous mare in the world when it came to punishing ponies for their offences, she’d never been judgemental. She never assumed somepony was going to violate the rules even if it had a pretty solid chance. Rainbow couldn’t figure out why she did that now, but she decided to keep her eyes open for other anomalies.
However not even her perceptive eyes could’ve seen what was coming. Because for the first time in their countless walks together Ms. Harshwhinny spoke up.
“It’s strange, after all these years to walk along these corridors knowing that this’ll be your last time.”
“Yeah… I guess.” Rainbow was beyond flabbergasted. Ms. Harshwhinny was smalltalking. What has gotten into the world?
Then it hit her. It hit her so hard that it made her gasp and stop as if she just ran into an invisible brick wall face first.
“That wasn’t a question.” Rainbow mumbled with utter disbelief in her voice.
Ms. Harshwhinny stopped as well and gave Rainbow a frustrated glare “Mrs Skies-Dash?” she asked with a voice that said ‘If you don’t come this instance, I’m going to disqualify your plot into retirement’.
“You didn’t ask me if it was strange to walk these hallways. And you aren’t the type of pony who would just assume my feelings which means…” Rainbow‘s face turned into the biggest-toothiest-most-shit-eating grin in recorded history.
Ms. Harshwhinny broke into a faint, sly smile. “Which means that I must be walking these corridors for the last time too,” she admitted. “I’m glad I didn’t make a tardy fool out of myself in the locker room for nothing”
“But why?”
“Why did I decide to retire?” Harshwhinny finished Rainbow’s question. “Despite what athletes think they aren’t the only ones who work their plot off every season. How many seasons have you had? Eighteen?” Only Ms. Harshwhinny could raise her left eyebrow in such a way that instantly made anypony’s accomplishments seem completely trivial. “Minus the two you missed due to having a foal. You probably don’t want to know how long I’ve been doing this… I certainly wouldn’t if I had the chance of not knowing it.”
She rolled her eyes, “I just grew old. Times are changing and the old guard must step down to give way to the new one.”
“A truly touching story.” Rainbow‘s voice was slightly sarcastic despite the fact the she was indeed touched that she saw the unexceptionable, unapproachable Ms. Harshwhinny so vulnerable; so like a normal pony. But Rainbow respected her far too much to offer her compassion like she would for any other pony. Harshwhinny would just get mad that she tried to treat her as a foal. Sarcasm was a much safer option. “But why are you telling me?” Rainbow gave her best impression of the trademark Ms. Harshwhinny eyebrow raise.
“Asking the right question… I like it.” Ms. Harshwhinny was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. She had enough mental fortitude not to fiddle about with her hooves - or scratch the back of her neck. Even most of her face was frozen in it’s neutral-annoyed expression. But her eyes, her eyes gave her away. They looked at the window, the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but Rainbow. Watching this tyrannical vanguard of rules acting so flustered was surprisingly… cute. In a brutal, horribly uncomfortable sort of way.
“62 days ago,” She began after a long and tired sigh, “It was around 4:07 pm. I was sitting in my office, my office hours about to end and I had mostly finished my work for the day. Only one document was left on the table: My new contract. Two seasons, nice pay, my favourite position as Chief Organising Director and not some foolish Anti-Doping supervisor or something”
Rainbow made a mental note about sharing this with Soarin later because she felt this was the closest thing they’d ever get to an apology
“When a colleague stormed into my room looking like he just flew the mustang marathon. He asked if I heard the news. Of course I asked what news, because that wasn’t too specific. And then he told me that you had just announced your impending retirement. We exchanged a few words after that and then he went away to do his own job.” Ms. Harshwhinny took a big breath and hesitated a few seconds, unsure whether she should go on but ultimately decided it was too late to turn back.
“I looked back at my contract. It only missed my signature, but suddenly it just didn’t feel right for me to sign it. You probably didn’t know, but that Equestria games in the Crystal empire was a first for me too. As the head of the organising committee that is. There I saw a rainbow maned little mare barely more than teen, but already the topic of rumours among the sports fans. A mare that almost did the unthinkable and single wingedly beat the three fastest wonderbolts of the time. From that point on I had the privilege to see you develop into that indescribable wonder you were in your peak, and then turn into the legend you are now.” Ms. Harshwhinny stopped once more to pry any reaction out of Rainbow, who tried her best to keep a straight face in this most extraordinary situation. She had no idea whether she succeeded in her attempts or not, but Ms. Harshwhinny continued nonetheless.
“No matter what it looks like, we organisers do like sports. Passionately, if I might say so.” That cheeky little smile appeared on her face again, signalling that she was fully aware how ridiculous this sounded from her. “Many of us have failed to have sporting careers of our own. We ended with our dreams escaping, stifled, crushed - call it whatever you want. But the knowledge that despite our failures, our work facilitated all those spectacular feats by those remarkable individuals. To see them better themselves, pushing the boundaries of pony capabilities gives a little back of what we lost. And I was unbelievably lucky. I don’t think any of my predecessors had the chance to work with a champion like you. You gave meaning to my life’s work in way nopony could have. So as my career - in a way - started with you it only felt right it also ends with you.”
Ms. Harshwhinny finally looked up to Rainbow, her eyes filled with a plethora of emotions and broke into a deferential mumble. “So, thank you… I… Thank you… Just, thank you.”
That was it. Rainbow couldn’t restrain herself anymore. She just walked up to Ms. Harshwhinny embraced her so tightly that Ms. Harshwhinny felt her head was going to pop right off her shoulder. “Thank you for making me the pony I am today.” She told Ms. Harshwhinny without letting her go.
“You’re welcome, but if you don’t stop invading my personal space I’m going to make you regret you ever tried competitive flying.” Ms. Harshwhinny deadpanned.
Rainbow quickly let her go. She had no doubt that Ms. Harshwhinny could and would make this threat a reality. After all she never bluffed, or talked big without reason.
The rest of the walk to the prep room went by pretty normally. As Rainbow expected, Ms. Harshwhinny quickly returned to her usual restrained self, looking as if nothing had happened a few seconds ago. But knowing her for longer than a decade and a half Rainbow knew that it was the little things that told the most about her. Like the fact that throughout the rest of their walk she never even once mentioned how terribly late they were even though they must have been pretty damn late.
When they reached the door of the prep room Ms. Harshwhinny noded briefly at Rainbow and said, “Mrs Skies-Dash.”
Rainbow returned both the nod and the farewell.“Ms. Harshwhinny,” and reached for the door.
Chapter 3: A breath a beat and a flap
With a big sigh Rainbow stepped into the prep room for the last time in her professional career. The room itself was very plain with light blue ceiling, floor and walls. The last of which was almost completely covered by varying sized posters of the participants. The bigger ones belonged to the best and most popular flyers while the less successful ponies got lot smaller pictures crammed into the background.
“Prep room.” To Rainbow it almost sounded like a working title for this place that eventually simply stuck and nopony bothered to change it for some reason. Technically it wasn’t even a room, more like the first wider part of a corridor leading to the racetrack. It served only one purpose: When the commentator started to introduce the racers the broadcast could show them leaving the room and heading to the racetrack. That’s why it had to be a different room from the lockers because it was illegal to put cameras in the locker rooms, although Rainbow was unsure why the ECC consider a changing pony unfit for a camera.
Another interesting question that came to Rainbow‘s mind was that whose idea it was to put the lockers so far out from the prep room. Whoever that joker was, their name was never revealed to the public.
Out of nowhere the announcer’s voice bellowed into the air making her heart almost jump out of her chest. The whole room was designed in such a way that the competitors could clearly hear the announcer since their introduction was their cue to fly out and up to the starting line. Though Rainbow wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t tried to puncture her eardrums at every race by the absurd volume.
“Good afternoon Fillies and Gentlecolts. This is it, it’s the big one. Welcome to the final of the Celestial Cup. After four epic days only two remain. It’s the ultimate showdown between generations, the race that brings the curtain down on an era regardless of its result, a chapter in competitive flying’s history will be closed. Fillies and Gentlecolts, lets get the racers on the starting line.
“From the lower bracket, one of the most exciting new talents in recent years. She has been taking the competition by storm this year, winning every one of her races by more than three seconds. She’s fast as Lightning, ruthless as a Griffon and hungry like a Dragon. She’s the Manehattan Machine. She’s Misty Skies.”
As her competitor flew out of the preproom next to hers and the applause slowly faded, another strange thought occurred to Rainbow. She knew that Misty had no blood relation to Soarin and their identical surname was merely a coincidence – turns out if somepony locks up thousands of pegasi with limited creativity in cloud cites for several millennia a lot of them are going to end up with sky related surnames – But how many times was she asked this question before the race?
“And now it is my absolute honour to introduce our next competitor. She’s without a doubt the greatest flyer ever to soar the skies of Equestria. She has still yet to lose any individual competition in her professional career and she’s looking to take her perfect record to her retirement. Her epic tale has been already written, but can she cross the t’s and dot the i’s in style? Fillies and Gentlecolts blink and you miss her, she’s the Mare, the Myth, the Legend. She’s– and I don’t want to hear my voice as I say it –
“RAINBOW DASH!” the crowd roared in ecstasy
“Showtime.” Rainbow shook her wings and took a few paces. Then, with one strong flap she leaped into the air to steadily glide through the corridor, keeping her altitude with a few hard beats. When she flew out into the open the crowd went nuts, cheering and stomping all over the stands and rhythmically chanting Rainbow’s name. But Rainbow was in her own personal bubble, barely even perceiving any of the spectacle that was going on. Her eyes were squinting, visualising the series of round cloud gates that formed the famed track number fifteen and the tactics they came up the day before with Soarin.
The infamous track number fifteen. The ultimate creation of the slightly deranged genius track designer Claw Mind. Not long after finishing this design he died in a horrid gym accident. Turns out that not even the Power of Friendship can give enough strength to somepony to bench-press five hundred pounds. Especially if the term Power of Friendship refers to cheap moonshine from the street instead of an actual gym-bro.
The first sector was a series of long straights connected with the sharpest imaginable U turns and in one case even a loop-de-loop. It was designed to test a pony’s top speed and acceleration. Both were dimensions were she was miles behind Misty. And Scoots wasn’t an idiot so she probably instructed her disciple to try to create as much distance as she could before the second sector.
However Rainbow also had a trick or two up in her sleeves. While on a straight sprint track she’d undoubtedly lose to Misty, both her turn speed and turn rate were still the best in the world, meaning that in those sharp turns she could probably make up for most of the time she lost in the straights. And she had to abuse this as much as she possibly could. She had to make Misty feel threatened in the sector that was definitely hers on paper. She had to make her fall out of her pace because if Rainbow didn’t throw a wrench into that well-oiled machine she’d get processed into natural fertilizer just like the rest of Misty’s opponents.
Scootaloo surely had Rainbow’s strengths and weaknesses mapped out pretty perfectly and (had) undoubtedly made an immaculate race-plan for Misty. But she can’t fly in her behalf. And Misty, still just twenty-one, most likely lacked the experience to properly handle these stressful situations. Not that she had never been under pressure. She had been to a number of finals and won a few herself, but there was pressure and there was flying-a-one-on-one-final-against-the-legendary-Rainbow-Dash-in-the-most-anticipated-race-in-the-last-decade pressure.
So she had to keep close to Misty and if possible force her to go faster than she originally planned. The harsh changes in speed and the heavy accelerations already took an enormous toll on a racer’s endurance so if she could disturb her pacing it would benefit Rainbow tremendously for the race.
And in the last turn of the first sector she had to overtake her no matter the cost. Because the second sector the biggest reason why track fifteen earned the nickname Swirling Hell.
It was a series of zig-zags, loops and chicanes weaved into one another. It had such an unpredictable and erratic course that some racers speculated that it was created by some sort of magic that nopony could really explain or make sense of.
There was no ideal way to make those turns. For every perfect turn, the racer had to sacrifice two others which made her lose time. To make matters worse outside factors like the wind, temperature and the air pressure played a major part in how a competitor should approach a situation. Some said this was the ultimate test of one’s racing proves, but Rainbow never bothered to participate in those pointless arguments. The thing she was concerned with was the fact that a pony needed two things to execute this sector cleanly: Turn speed and experience, (both) in which she was vastly superior to Misty.
Also if there was a place to force mistakes out of Misty that was it. It was hard enough already trying to find the right balance between the complicated twist and turns of the sector. But doing it in somepony else’s tailwind while constantly looking for ways to overtake your competitor, it was a nightmare. And to makes matters worse it was also the time the worst enemy of the second placed racer started closing in on them: The finish line.
If the second sector was the reason most racers loved this course the third was why the audience adored it. Two upward spirals weaved around each other, expanding outwards as they went higher and higher, forcing the racers to face a lose-lose scenario. As the diameter of the spirals expanded the theoretical maximum speed increased, however as the finish line drew nearer the athletes got more and more exhausted desperately scraping for any sort of final wind that was left in their system.
To make matters worse at the end of each spiral there was a long straight heading into the centre, opposite to each other with the finish line in the dead centre. This meant the racers finished by flying directly at each other which gave a unique viewing experience, and some really memorable photo finishes.
For a moment Rainbow glanced on the board. It was still empty for the most part so she easily spotted the one line she was looking for “ER: R. Skies-Dash, 4:26:36 and a date from almost exactly five years before. She still remembered that race like it was yesterday. After the landing she had plopped into panting sweating mess and was trying to convince her heart and lungs not to explode quite there and then because it would have looked bad on the camera. At least she knew that she did good. Sadly she couldn’t check just how good it actually was because for that she would have had to lift her head up and in her state that felt like much too big of an effort. Luckily a young orange mare just galloped to her, screaming a combination of numbers that was way too complicated for her to comprehend, but the behaviour of her coach indicated that it was indeed a record. And that was exactly the last moment she remembered up until next morning when she woke up in her bed. But at least she still had the video footage, which proved that she had indeed ran the compulsory circles like the award ceremony and all that jazz, which is something.
From the corner of her eyes she saw something pink, which must have been the hoof of Misty hanging there waiting for the bump. Without even looking at her Rainbow clicked her hooves with Misty’s. With most racers she would have looked at them or even exchange a few verbal formalities, but with Misty it was a waste of time. She was famous for never looking at her opponent or saying even a word before the race, or after it for that matter. This kind of reserved, borderline rude mannerism earned her the nickname ‘Manehattan Machine.’
“Racers, on your marks.” The loud, stern voice of the referee said and the two racers stepped to the starting line. Any clamour coming from the audience immediately stopped, replaced by that constant agitating hum, filled with excited anticipation.
“Get set!” Rainbow moved into the starting position as her back legs crouched to an almost sitting position, tensing her muscles to be ready for take-off.
“Go!” shouted the referee.
Rainbow leaped to the familiar, ever so welcoming embrace of the air. For a fraction of a moment she let the air’s gentle chilliness embrace and caress her entire body. The wind’s sharp whistle was but an ancient poem softly whispered into her ears, telling her everything she had to do. Like a soft song that set the rhythm for her dance with the devil in pale moonlight. A dance in which she partook many times, yet she only grew to love it more and more with each and every one of them. It radiated a celestial harmony that shone through the skies like a painting that was being painted by the athlete’s body. Few could separate this artistry from the rousing rush of adrenaline that competition itself gave, but the initiated who were deemed worthy to realise the difference could really understand what it meant to race.
They knew that a race wasn’t just a competition but so much more. It was the journey and the goal in one. It was everything, it was life itself. For one last time Rainbow was going to enjoy it to its fullest.
She felt the air in front of her grew thinner by the second, meaning a clearer path for her. She broke a smile as she saw she was exactly where she wanted to be. The air itself gave her an advantage. But with the heartless bitch that air was, it only gave something if it could take something else. That object that Rainbow was trailing behind did reduce her own resistance substantially, but only if she put in the effort to keep up with it closely. Should she fall just a little bit more behind, the whirls the object generated would destabilize her flight. But air was a tricky one, because she knew that if Rainbow was to keep up with drafting she’d tire herself out before the end of the race. Rainbow however has been through way too much to fall for such a cheap trick. She just looked for her own path in her own tempo, waiting for the right moment, positioning in such a way that it would have been insane for anypony else but her. Because she knew she was going to take the following U-turn in a way that would make up for any time she lost on the straight line.
The traditional way to deal with the upwards U-turn was the Immelmare, a move comprising an ascending half-loop followed by a half-roll, resulting in level flight in the exact opposite direction at a higher altitude. A few years back Scootaloo proposed a daring new way to combine the two elements into one, essentially doing the roll during the loop, which resulted in better a turnrate without losing significant amounts of speed. It caught on like wildfire after Rainbow first pulled it out at an event, but even to this day nopony could master it so impeccably as she did.
As she saw the turn approaching Rainbow held her breath for a moment, readying her body to the outlandish forces of a high speed turn like that. She turned her wings and twisted her upper body into the exact position for the millionth time, but not even the years of practice could make the pain in her wings and back disappear. The air just seemingly turned into a solid chunk of rock whose only purpose is to crush her. But today wasn’t the day she’s going to go down.
After all, this was nothing new to her. Her body remembered how to do this sequence of movement, the pain was nothing but a good old friend who always looked to improve her. Or kill her, Rainbow was never quite sure, but whichever is its purpose it did the other one pretty damn well too.
However Rainbow couldn’t forget that amongst the outlandish torments of flight, she had a plan to carry out. And she just noticed the first instrument she needed to succeed: The loop the loop on the end of sector one. For once she didn’t let the drift of thin air elude her. Instead she put in more power to get as close to its epicentre as she possibly could, even if it put unsustainable amounts of strain on her endurance.
Then the first gate of the loop appeared and she uncompromisingly set her eyes on the upper part of the cloud circle, aiming to just skim it with her mane as she went through . Normally for an upward loop like that it would have been advised to take the outside track of the loop. It had numerous advantages; better control, momentum conservation and overall bigger margin for error. However Rainbow couldn’t let herself have the luxury of not believing that she could pull of the loop perfectly on the inside track. Keeping so much of her speed like that would have seemed impossible for anypony else, so she rather just relied on her experience and the soft stroking sensation as her mane touched the gates to guide her way.
Nonetheless her efforts bore fruit. She emerged out of the first sector exactly where she wanted. If she had been on any other track a smile of some sorts would have appeared on her face after that immaculate first sector, but alas things worked here a bit different. The Swirling Hell was like an overbearing housewife, it didn’t treat kindly those who didn’t give it their undivided attention at all times.
Turn after turn it pushed Rainbow to her absolute limits, daring her to try to take each turn faster than the last, to squeeze out every fraction of a second she possibly could in the curves. All the while the track was waiting like a hyena for her to make the tiniest mistake, be it just a slightly sloppily positioned limb or even just a miniscule miscalculation of momentum, and then pounce on it without hesitation. Most racers usually pull back a notch because it is never worth it to risk a total wipeout and possible injury for such negligible advantages. Normally Rainbow would do the same. But alas this wasn’t a normal race. She had no chance if she didn’t risk it all on every single turn, doing moves that even her younger self would have considered unbelievably reckless. She might as well close her eyes for all she saw as the track was blurred into an incomprehensible mess. It was utter madness.
Yet there was something rather comforting about facing the elements like this. It’s all that matters. Nothing else even seemed to exist outside her pure instinct to win. Her medals, her fame and all her records even her legend, it was all meaningless. The race was the only thing that was real. To fly on behalf of her very self and nothing else. She never felt so complete.
Or tired. The second sector took its immense toll on her psyche as well as her physique. One thing that Spitfire taught her way back when Rainbow was just a rookie was that if she had any idea at the middle of the race how she was gonna last for the last third of that race then she wasn’t doing it right. Well Spitfire would be proud for Rainbow had absolutely no clue how she was going to do the next sector. As she reached the two-way crossroad that lead to the two spirals of the final ground, she took the right one as she usually did and begun the last arc of this danse macabre.
And what a dance it was. As she was quickly running short of air and energy she had to close her mind of any sensation that came from the outside. She needed to shut out everything and focus solely on keeping her forms so that she could still create the needed thrust to propel her to the finish line. She had to retreat to the deepest recesses of her mind where she was alone, alone with the race and nopony could separate them. It was a connection deeper than friendship, more intimate than lovemaking and stronger than motherly love. A cycle of motions repeating constantly, slowly striping her of her consciousness as she merged with the cycle. They were one.
She was the breath of chilly air she took. She was the expansion of her chest as she took in the outer world, encompassing its gifts into herself. She was the stabbing pain in her chest barring her from everything she needed. She was the oxygen that oozed through her alveoli, into her bloodstream providing her with the essential element of life. She was everything her life gave her to succeed.
She was the beats of her heart. She was the blood running through her veins. She was the reason her muscles could still strain and relax. She was the burning agony of every single movement. She was the will to defy the laws of motion and gravity and the force to deny her muscles their well earned rest for a few more seconds. She was the perfection with which she took the next cloud gate, turning to the home stretch. She was the greatest racer who has ever graced the skies.
She was the flap of her wings. She was the air, disturbed by her motions and then settling back to normal as if nothing has happened. She was the act that can seem pitiful at first, yet in due time could cause a cascade of events that alter the world as we know it. She was the impact on a thousand lives and a thousand more. She was insignificant yet nothing could have been more important. She was all the difference one could make to the world, and everything in it.
She was the blackness that slowly descended to her mind. She was the finish line. She was the end.
Chapter 4: The prodigal daughter
Beaten. Defeated. Overcame. Words of meaningless meaning. They were never supposed to make sense. Not for her anyway. For others maybe. For those who couldn’t excel. Those who tasted other things than the sweetness of victory. Those who weren’t Rainbow Dash.
‘Knock-knock.’
Somepony was gently rapping at her locker room door. That soft sound was enough to break Rainbow’s stream of consciousness. She shook her head a few times, giving her time figuring out who was on the other side of the door. Not that it wasn’t obvious.
“Come on in Soar, it’s open” Rainbow said loudly. To her shock the first response she got was a short, cheeky snicker.
“While my heart is soaring, my name is not.” That voice, a familiar deep female voice, caught Rainbow so unprepared that her heart skipped a beat. However, life was never known for its empathy so it left little time for Rainbow to recover from her stupor. The door opened, mercilessly taking away any time for Rainbow to prepare for anything that was about to come.
“Hello Rainbow,” Scootaloo said timidly. “Erm… I’m here… I guess” she gingerly took a few steps towards Rainbow but she soon ran out of bravery and stopped a good ten feet away from her.
“Erm… Scootaloo… What a surprise. Yes, definitely a surprise…” The last words slowly faded leaving nothing but the silent echo in Rainbows head.
Surprise… What a nice, pleasant little word. Harmless, easy in the tongue and easy on the ears. Rainbow felt the gryphon word “Überraschung” fitted much more aptly to their current situation even though they ought to mean the same. Leave it to the dreaded predators of the sky to create a word that describes so profoundly that feeling when a set of razor sharp talons carve into your flesh, after looming as a spot of shadow circling the area for what seemed like years, never striping you completely from the most disingenuous of feelings: Hope.
For Rainbow knew this conversation was coming, she knew it was going to happen one day, yet hope like some sort of servile drug, came to her help. It dulled her fears that this was that day. But for the first time in five years hope lied. That day had arrived. The filly for whom she flew into a burning building without batting an eye, the teenager whom she adopted and raised as her own and the mare who rejected her in favour of an other racer, eventually becoming her downfall, had come to tell a story. A story of how she turned from the most important pony of her life into a stranger she had dinner with on every last Friday of every even month from eight to eleven o’clock. A story of drives, trials, and emotions. A story of life.
As Scoots spoke again Rainbow couldn’t help but shudder a bit as if she was just suddenly woken up in the middle of the night. “Great race, Rainbow. You really gave us a run for her money. I thought we had this in the bag, but I guess we can never count you out.” And a story of desperately delaying the inevitable, apparently
“Well thanks I guess. Turns out I’m not as bad as I look. That’s certainly reassuring.” Rainbow deadpanned. Though she was grateful that they stole another five minutes from Fate (or did it steal those from them?) but she would’ve certainly appreciated if hadn’t involve the mentioning of her defeat.
“Oh come on, you know I didn’t mean like that.” Scoot rolled her eyes “I just looked at the perf…”
“I know” Rainbow was definitely not amused.
The silence that fell on the room was so deep and awkward Rainbow was sure that somewhere nigh. 5 miles below them a little cricket started to play on its tiny violin. The two ponies just stood there looking into each other’s eyes trying to decide what the appropriate words would be. After ten seconds of blatant perplexity a little smile started to appear on Scootaloo’s face, quickly gaining traction and before Rainbow could ask anything she broke out into laughter.
“Have I ever told you that I just love the fact that you spent most of the last two decades being a national hero, meeting dignitaries and whatnot while I was there for a big portion it and the two of us still can’t keep up a polite chatter for even ten seconds.”
“Too true,” Rainbow smiled. She never could be angry with Scoot for too long. “In my defence I’m used to being able finish everything important in less than ten seconds”
“Poor Soarin” Scootaloo flashed an ear to ear grin that gave Rainbow a pretty good look at her perfect set of teeth. Rainbow wondered for a moment if her own face was this punchable when she smiled like that. She realised that if anything, she must have been worse so she dropped the thought, and replied with all her eloquence.
“Hey!” Rainbow really tried to sound offended but even she couldn’t help but smile at that remark.
“Okay! Okay!” Scoot snickered “That was a low blow, I know.”
“No biggie, I really ran into that one.”
“Yeah you kinda did.”
A long uncomfortable silence settled on the room again. Despite how the situation was weighing more and more on them neither of the mares wanted to mention the elephant in the room, though they both felt they would be forced to do it sooner rather than later. It was like a tug of war contest with both mares desperately holding on to their end of the silence, whilst knowing that if they continue the rope will break and both of them will end up on their rump. Eventually it was Rainbow who ran out of patience.
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth: “Look Scoot, I’m tired, I’m sad and no matter what you managed to dig up to blackmail her into letting you do this Harshwhinny’s gonna show up here eventually and kick both of our asses.” She reopened her eyes and looked into Scootaloo’s with a stern glare “So in order to kickstart this thrice dead conversation I’ll be nice enough to ask you: Why?
"Why what?” Scoot scratched her neck awkwardly “You’re gotta be a little bit more specific.”
“No I don’t.” Rainbow slightly shook her head “If I did, you wouldn’t be here.” She said with a no-nonsense face.
“You are not making this any easier for me.”
“You learnt to fly on a set of wings about which three different ascellalogists declared that they are incapable of lifting anypony up. And you’re complaining about hardship.” Rainbow showed no emotions and just glared into Scoot’s eyes, waiting for answers.
“I would give my scrawny wings up to get out of this situation.”
“Really?” Rainbow gave no other visible reaction other than a slightly raised left eyebrow.
“No.” Scoot admitted.
“So you’re just wasting our time yet again. I’d rather you didn’t.”
“You have no idea what it’s like.” Scootaloo shot at Rainbow in a gust of long repressed annoyance. “Growing up never knowing what you wanted, not even after you got cutie mark cuz crusading doesn’t translate into any day job.” Scoot looked away slightly, her eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. “Never even knowing what you truly were cuz apparently you are incapable of doing the one thing that defines your entire race. Then finally after years of hard work you succeed, you manage to get off the ground, just barely but still. And suddenly it just clicks.” Looked back into Rainbow’s eyes with a slight smirk on her face “You want that.”
“What?” Rainbow slightly tilted her head sideways.
“That. That feeling when you manage to achieve a great feat through the concentrated effort of you entire being. You want to feel the dreamless obsession, and then the never fulfilling ecstasy of success.”
“I’m positive I know those ones pretty well” Rainbow said confidently.
“I’m not finished” said Scootaloo, rather irked by the interruption. “So… I knew I was never gonna be an athlete. So I decided I would be a thousand athletes instead.” Rainbow noticed a small smirk appearing in a the corner of Scoot’s mouth. “Generations after generations of flyers training under my wing, winning everything there is to win.”
“That’s my Scoot.”
“So as soon as I hit the age criteria I enrolled in the Firefly flight academy and started to learn how to teach. But you already knew how this went didn’t you? I came, I saw, and I aced the shit out of every single test they had. Summa cum laude, honours, they basically threw everything they had to me trying to acknowledge my awesomeness.”
“I wonder where you got your humility from.” Rainbow remarked with delightful pretentiousness.
“Maybe it’s in my genes” smiled Scootaloo, raising the smug pollution levels in the room into infinity. “Anyhow, my degree got a lot of doors open for me. I could’ve easily got a job as a coach in various youth programs around the country, a few analyst jobs, scouting, and I even had assistant coach offers from some of the smaller name racers in the circuit. Looking back these were really good offers and I could’ve expected nothing more as a rookie, but that cocky little kid I was admittedly wanted more. Call me spoiled but I’m used to being around the top.”
“Yeah I was there when you grew up. You’re definitely spoiled. And I’m not regretting it one bit.” Rainbow said with a single shake of her head.
“I wouldn’t have had it any other way either. But truth be told, I was up for some serious bridge purchasing if it hadn’t been for a certain racing legend who just so happened to be looking for a new coach.”
“Gee I wonder where you got your intel from?” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I'd been discussing this possibility with you and Soar at basically every dinner for the previous month or so before I finally set my mind to going public with it.”
“Well, perhaps I had certain… advantages over any other candidate, and had a little more time to prepare for the interview but even with that I’m still proud of how it went.”
“As you should be. At first I wasn’t even willing give you a chance.” Rainbow admitted this the first time. After she gave Scoot her job she silently promised never to talk about it again, because this topic would have been dicey either way. But she felt the dice have been cast already anyway so she might as well spill the beans. “You were a rookie, had no experience in working in the big league, and ponies would have started spread some harmful rumours that you only got your chance because I was your guardian. It could’ve seriously hurt you in the long run. It was actually Soar’s suggestion, that you could learn a lot from this experience and as long as you don’t get the job it won’t cause too much uproar.”
“But everything changed when you showed up with your little presentation. Sweet Celestia you were thorough. You had everything laid out; you knew what you wanted, why you wanted and how you wanted. You wanted to correct everything I did like I was some struggling newbie looking for guidance.”
“Of course I did! I knew every single training technique in the book, I knew how a pegasus’ body is built up, how it’s connected to magic and how they can use one to manipulate the other. I had so many ideas on how to improve anypony’s preparation. Great, revolutionary ideas and I couldn’t wait to put them into practice. Especially on you. I’d been watching you religiously since I was, like, six? I knew that I’ve seen you fly more than anypony else in the world, so I knew your patterns and habits better than anypony. I was a serious creep. I watched you train, race, getting it on with Soarin…
“What?” Rainbow’s pupils dilated faster than the borders of the universe.
“Just kidding, just kidding, don’t get upset.” Scootaloo cackled, then her gaze suddenly slid to the walls as if was trying to tell something she didn’t know how to say. “Although there were times when you could have been less… loud? I know you were both used to cloudwalls and those insulate voices pretty well but since we were living on the ground back then…“
“Ok, Scoots lets move on before my face literally melts off from embarrassment.” Rainbow stammered, burying said face in her hoof.
“Why? it’s not like I didn’t know what was going on. In fact with Rumb-“
“Scoots. Move. On.” Rainbow demanded, desperately trying to block her own imagination. It was a lost cause.
“Okay, okay, geez. Anyhow working with you was a dream come true. Even though there were some unforeseen… obstacles. Like the fact that I found myself leading a coaching staff of fifteen ponies? Maybe more? All of whom were masters of their craft and probably didn’t like that they were being ordered around by me. Although they were highly professional and never really complained, I felt they had their resentments.“
“Well I was forced to almost double their pay just to convince them not to leave the day I appointed you, so I guess you are right about that.” Rainbow said nonchalantly. Which made Scoot stop for a moment as she re-evaluated her life.
“You couldn’t convince Vapor apparently,” Scootaloo groused through her teeth. Rainbow couldn’t really hear but she decided not to ask about it, since it visibly upset Scoot. But she had a pretty good guess what she had said anyway. Luckily Scoot quickly moved on and started to speak audibly again. “Anyway that certainly explains a thing or two. Like why you never let me even glance into your finances. I remember that it made it really awkward when I had to hire Green Leaf and I didn’t know what I could pay her. By the way, I know I said this before, but to this day I’m flabbergasted that you achieved what you did without a proper nutritionist.”
“I wasn’t going to be the one who explained to Pinkie why I stopped eating her treats.”
“Yeah, now that you say it, it certainly sounds like a dangerous undertaking. But all things considered she took it well. She even had fun coming up with healthy cake recipes.”
“Those taste like crap though. But they still beat seeing Pinkie sad… or upset” Rainbow shuddered.
“Amen Sister Rainbow. Amen to that” Scoot nodded sanctimoniously.
“Scoot we are getting side-tracked again, you should really hurry up.” said Rainbow in a serious tone.
“Yeah, yeah.” Scoot sighed “So fast forward a year, we won everything, you set more records than ever before and we started the next year with everything nice and peachy. When one day you just came up to me and tell me that you are pregnant.” Scoot put on a solid mime show re-enacting the flurry that just hit her at that moment, before settling down and continuing. “Let me tell you I’ve always thought I’m a pretty liberal and compassionate pony. But when a little beggar comes into my country without permission, he can’t speak the language, doesn’t even have a cutie mark, but still ends up taking my job? I couldn’t help but sympathise with those xenophobic jerks.”
“Watch out Scoot, or you may end up in the Winglerjugend.” Rainbow snickered “Although I seem to recall that despite the beef between you two, you always enjoyed spoiling him rotten whenever you were having dinners with us.”
“It’s not my fault,” pouted Scootaloo. “You made him too cute.”
“I’m not gonna argue with that one. Though all this still doesn’t explain why you ended up with Misty.” Rainbow asked, to get the conversation back on track.
“Yes, yes I was just getting to it.” Scoot rolled her eyes annoyed “So after your son put me out of my job I had to start to look for a new one. Even though I was one of the few ponies who always knew you were coming back. An other one was Misty strangely, though I didn’t know that at the time of course. Anyway after all the accolades we collected I thought it was gonna be a breeze to find a great job. Even the timing was great. The entire racing community was buzzed up by the fact that finally somepony else could win something. Coaches were fired and hired by the second and I just had to find the right opportunity. But wherever I looked all I found was closed doors and rejection.”
“I just couldn’t figure it out why. I mean I knew my career was short but even that couldn’t take away the fact that I had more chips than any coach other than Spitfire, and she settled down with her family after you two parted ways. It became increasingly more and more frustrating, the market was getting stuffed Everypony found their coach and started preparations for the next season. I had to bite my tongue and settle for being an assistant coach or analyst just to remain in the circuit, and then one day it happened.”
“I was at an other job interview, I don’t even remember what the job offer was, or who I was supposed to work for. All I remember is that after the interview both me and the other applicant was called into a room to hear the results. And when it was announced that they didn’t choose me I lost it. I demanded an explanation.” Scoot spat these words like insults, unintentionally stomping the ground to stress her point. “I wanted to know what that other dude had over me. What was the reason that I couldn’t get a fucking job.”
“I should have been thrown out there and then.” Scoot said slowly, shaking her head. “I wish I’d been. But no, the headcoach -that smirking bitch- took her sweet ass time to explain it to me.” As Scoot looked into her eyes with that hard unstirring gaze Rainbow couldn’t help but feel that she was at the court waiting for her verdict of her sins.
“It was five years ago but I still remember every word. It still haunts my dreams. They’re still the words I repeat to myself every time I think I’m about to give up.” Rainbow saw a certain fire ablaze in Scoot’s eyes. One that she’d never seen there before, yet it was way too familiar “Why would I have chosen you? What did you do to earn this job? You learnt how to fly at the age of seventeen, you managed to almost kill yourself twice so that biggest legend of the sport adopted you, which landed you a job you’d no right to get. You managed to win a lot of stuff, with the racer who – guess what – always wins everything anyway. And now you have the audacity to come to my office and demand a job like it was you birthright? Newsflash: You are no one. You are nothing but a misbegotten by-product of blatant nepotism. But you know what? I can forgive Rainbow. She’s a legend and done more for this sport than anypony ever will. She can do as she damn well pleases. As for you? I’ve no intention of letting you turn my favourite sport into a mockery any longer.” As Scoots eyes slowly filled with tears, for an elusive moment it seemed as if refractions in that thin layer of gingerly vibrating water just multiplied the passion within. Then the moment vanished as Scootaloo closed her eyes and let the teardrops slowly roll down on her muzzle.
Rainbow let the tears slowly dry on Scootaloo’s face even though every fibre of her being screamed at her for doing so. The guilt of her inadvertently causing this whole mess was suffocating. She even knew this was going to happen and she chose to go against her better judgement. She had a pretty solid guess who that “Smirking Bitch” must have been though this wasn’t the time to reveal that. But after half of minute of quiet sniffling Scoot found the strength to continue.
“I was spurned. I was humiliated. I was crushed. I remember I locked myself up my room and didn’t come out for three days.” Rainbow felt a little embarrassed that she had thought Scoot had just broken up with her coltfriend, explaining was why she was moody back then. “But after three days of alternating between destroying my property and bawling my eyes out I finally had a plan. Maybe not a plan quite yet, but at least I knew what I wanted to do. I swore revenge. I wanted to show everyopony that I’m the greatest coach that ever lived. And I knew what I needed, I needed a young promising flyer whom I can turn into a champion.”
“Then why did you move to Manehatten? If you wanted to find promising new pegasus talent Cloudsdale is the place to look.”
“Yes,” Scoot nodded, “but Cloudsdale was completely mapped out in terms of talent. I didn’t want anypony to have the chance to attribute his or her success to anyone but me. Not in terms of training or scouting or anything. Also every parent in cloudsdale doubles as a flight coach. Everypony there thinks that they know better because they figure that teaching flight is nothing more than showing your foal how to flap their wings.” Rainbow cringed a little bit. Though she knew Scoot didn’t meant it, it still struck way too close to home. “That being said these were not the things I wanted get away from the most. It was you.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because let’s face it: You own Cloudsdale. You were born there, maybe you moved away later but then came back and now ponies would erect shrines to every single one of your hoofprints. It hadn’t mattered because I’d adored you just as much as the next pony there, and I still do today, but then? I couldn’t have come out of your shadow, no matter what I did. I needed a fresh start, a city with a good pegasus population that was relatively under the radar. That’s how Manehatten came into the picture.”
“Okay that’s understandable. But why Misty? She wasn’t that young, she didn’t show that much promise, her results at least certainly didn’t. So why did you choose her?”
Scootaloo’s cheek turned red in heartbeat. She let out a weak, nervous chuckle and looking like a little filly caught red hoofed in a biscuits jar. “Erm… Because she was willing to pay in advance?”
“What?”
“You know how it goes.” Scoot face turned redder with every word “I was upset, I was in manehatten… I wanted to have little fun… I met a few cute colts… and fillies… and my savings kinda… sort of… disappeared. Combine that with the fact that I didn’t have a job yet, and you get a stupid filly who was almost homeless by the end of her second month in town. The only income I had was from some illegal lessons I gave, but I could only offer my services under a fake alter ego because I didn’t want to get any job based on my surname.”
“But we wrote each other every week, you said in your letters that you had a great time! You told us you got a job and you are doing fine.”
Scoot rolled her eyes as if she was explaining this for at least the hundredth time. “Yes because I was obviously going to tell you that: ‘I’m so toasted right now that I can’t even fathom how I can write in complete sentences.‘ Or that: ‘I haven’t eaten anything in the last three days besides that stale bread I found in a garbage can. But don’t worry I scheduled a lesson for tomorrow so if the dude actually shows and doesn’t turn around as soon as he sees where I live, I might be able to afford canned oats for the rest of the week. Thank Celestia it’s Friday.‘ Come on you would have rushed here and scooped me up before I could say so much as ‘strong independent mare.‘ And then I would be back at the starting line. Or even worse because you would have never let me go off my own again after you realise how spectacularly I failed the first time. No, I had one way to go and that was forward.”
“And that was when Misty showed up at your doorstep.” sighed Rainbow.
“Hey you know this story already. Then I don’t have to continue.” joked Scoot with an embarrassed smile on her face.
“Scoot!”
“Alright, alright. Despite my big mouth about the only way being forward, I was seriously on my last leg. I haven’t eaten for a while and the rent was due the next day. I didn’t have enough money to send a letter to Cloudsdale, let alone a train ticket, and there was no way in Tartarus I could have made the journey home, even when I’m not severely malnourished. I had nothing to sell because of a little… accident in the casino a few weeks prior. I couldn’t tell anypony because all my ‘friends‘ vanished as soon as my money was gone. If I had lost my place and my bathroom there would have been no way I was ever gonna be able to give another lesson looking like a beggar. There was no way in hell that a near crippled Pegasus could find any other job with no experience whatsoever in that economy. So I really didn’t have any choice. I remember I was laying on my bed, looking at the flickering light of the apartment and trying to cry myself to sleep, but my stomach rumbled way to loudly for that. And that was when Misty showed up at my doorstep.”
“I couldn’t believe my ears, she was willing to pay six months in advance if she got to be my only student. We would train twice a day seven times a week. It was perfect. All my problems; just solved in an instance. I mean even if she hadn’t turned out as great as she had, six months would be enough to prepare her for a few races. I could have made some name for myself and then be gone from there. Somewhere deep down below I knew she only made this offer because she had somehow figured out who I was, but she never mentioned it, and at that point I was willing to make that compromise with my own ego.”
“And Misty turned out better than I could ever imagine. She didn’t have your level of talent, but let’s be real here nopony ever will. However she made up for what she lacked with her work ethic. You were no slouch either but what the girl does is straight out nuts. Every day she wanted to do more, every second she was looking for ways to improve. She completely and utterly committed herself to the idea of her getting better. She could never be good enough, be fast enough or do enough. One day she begs me to continue the training - it was around midnight mind you – and I jokingly told her that the only way we could train more was if she found a method to rest faster. The next day she enrolled in a yoga class.”
“Sweet Celestia. That filly sounds seriously mental” Rainbow shook her head in disbelief.
“Aren’t we all Rainbow? Aren’t we all?”
“I guess we are.” Rainbow agreed with a sour, reluctant smile on her face. “There is still one thing that is not clear to me.”
“I knew there would be,” Sighed Scoot, knowing the biggest question was still yet to come.
“When I came back from retirement I went to you personally and asked you to be my head coach. I know that you loved us working together just as much as I did. You loved winning and, all things considered, I still would have been your best bet for that. Plus I was getting to an age where they couldn’t just scoff at your contribution in whatever we get to achieve. Not to mention that from what you said about her I’d guess Misty would’ve loved to work with you even at a later part of her career. So why did you rejected me?” Rainbow asked in calm and collected manner.
“Oh yes, you did give me a few sleepless nights with that offer. To this day I don’t know if I made the right choice. The reason I ultimately rejected you was because I felt like you wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“Excuse me?” Rainbow asked sharply “I just went to your doorstep and made it pretty clear what I wanted: You as my head coach.”
“Yes, yes I know it sounds crazy but, think about it. You are the Element of Loyalty - how would you have liked if I chose you instead of the mare I was working with for two years and our efforts just started to bare fruit? I couldn’t defile everything you taught me to believe in such a way. I had to be more loyal to my student”
Rainbow didn’t believe this for a second. No, she didn’t think Scoot was lying, she knew that Scoot believed in every word she said. However, that didn’t make it the truth. Scoot could have just as easily justified that she wanted to be loyal to her first student whom she left before. No, Scoot was not being loyal to her student, she was being loyal to her vendetta. Loyal to the idea that she could show that she was the best. And Rainbow couldn’t have been any prouder. After all, ages pass and ponies come and go, but ideas; ideas are immortal as long as anypony stands by them. And that is what loyalty truly means.
For a moment Rainbow could feel the pride fill her heart washing away any doubt or fear. She just stood there happily for the sake of happiness. Finally, it was beyond any doubt that Scootaloo was her… Then her soul froze. She felt that, the thought she never finished waking a long slumbering beast in her heart. One that even if he seemed less threatening than the other they just dealt with was just as significant. One that now that he’s awoken could not be put to rest again unsated.
The battle in Rainbow’s core must have been mirrored on her face because Scootaloo asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“There is another ‘Why?‘ Another answer I need to know.” Rainbow fought a little battle for every word she uttered. “When Soarin and I were planning our marriage , why did you deliberately pushed the date after your eighteenth birthday?”
“What?” asked Scootaloo a bit fazed “I’ve always figured that one is quite obvious. I thought that’s why you never bothered to ask.” Despite her nonchalant tone, Rainbow could have sworn she heard the slightest traces of fear.
“Well your goal surely was obvious.” Rainbow agreed “Your reason however, that I couldn’t ever understand. You always seemed to like Soarin. If you didn’t I would have never let him close to me… to us. It hurt him, a lot you know. That proud buffoon never said anything but I knew. And honestly I couldn’t blame him. He did do everything he could for you. I for one think he’d done a great job, and yet you forcefully shut him out.”
“Yes, he’s great. And I’m so happy for him… for the both of you. I couldn’t have asked for a better stepfather, and I was so glad when he finally got the child I couldn’t ever be.” As Scoot lowered her head down she looked so vulnerable. Rainbow suddenly regretted her curiosity. She thought the other question would be harder for her but now she realised that they barely scraped the surface of her heart compared to the avalanche they were about to set off.
“But when it came to changing my name again, I just… couldn’t… It didn’t feel fair.” Scoot said softly, fighting back her emotions, her eyes fixated on the floor.
“How so?” asked Rainbow as gently as she could.
“Soarin was a great guardian. He really was, even if we never officiated it. But he wasn’t the one who took that scared little filly under her wings. He wasn’t the one who played with me, laughed with me and neither was he the one who stormed my burning home to save me without any hesitation. He wasn’t the one to bury my parents, two ponies he barely knew, and take me into his home no matter the cost”
Scootaloo stopped, the loss and self-reproach still weighing heavily on her back even after all these years.
“He wasn’t the one who spent countless hours teaching me how to fly. He wasn’t the one who spent all her afternoons teaching me the basic set of moves over and over. He wasn’t the one who sat there for days on end watching me crawl my way through the pain and suffering as the perpetual beacon of hope, never giving up on me. And when I did cave in to desperation, he wasn’t the one who kept his head, when it was all about him, I was losing mine, and blaming it on him.”
Scootalo stopped again with pure unadulterated disgust on her face. The memory of that foal was not an easy one to bear.
“And when it finally became indubitable that I was incapable of learning how to fly the way every Pegasus ever had, he wasn’t the one who relentlessly looked for a way to fix me. He wasn’t the one to swallow his enormous pride as a wonderbolt and ask the help of a “horned-egghead” for the off chance that it might help me if I learn more about the theory of Pegasus magic. He wasn’t the one who watched over my shoulder as I did homework he hadn’t got the slightest clue about. And when I was finally off the ground his wasn’t the shoulder I bawled my eyes out on.”
Scootaloo stopped for third time, lifting her head and with a face full of hope and resolve she said.
“Soarin was my guardian. You are my mother.”
A lifetime worth of memories withered away in that moment. Everything she had ever been was striped from her, giving way to a feeling, one that she always had, yet now it just erupted in her heart eclipsing anything she ever felt. It shone with the power of a thousand suns emanating joy, pride and everything that was good in the world. It felt like as if she completely immaterialised and worrilessly levitated in the saturated nothingness of celestial elation.
It felt just as sweet yet completely different than winning a race.
Except this time she didn’t win anything.
Instead she stood in a smelly locker room, faced with her firstborn child as she became a sweaty, smelly, crying heap of mess who could barely even utter the words: “You never called me that before.”
“I never thought you wanted me to.”
“I still don’t, I will tear your tail off if you do it again.” Rainbow said as she hopelessly tried to wipe her tears away.
“You would have to catch me old sport.” Scoot teased her mercilessly.
“Come here my little cripple” Rainbow opened up her forelegs.
The two ponies closed the distance between them and hugged each other tightly, silently letting their tears fall into the other’s manes, oblivious to the world.
After what Rainbow thought was way too little time, Scoot broke the hug and with a strangely nefarious expression on her face she whispered to Rainbow.
“You know, as much as I’d hate to put an end to this, there is a young mare on the other side of the door who would be dying to meet you…”
“Who are you talking…”
“…if she wasn’t, you know, a robot who’s like, way above mortal imperfections like dying.”
Author's Note
No, ascellalogist is not a real word. Stop googling it. I made it up with the latin version of wing because I found the word wingologist wanting. Fun fact it could also mean armpitologist which i found absolutely delightful.
"Vapor" is indeed refers to Vapor Trail however her story probably not gonna be explained anywhere in the story because I just couldn't find the right place to do it. Well that's a lie. This is the right place.
The orginal version of the first sentence was: Beaten. Defeated. Overcame. Words of meaningless meaning never meant to mean more for her than being means to be mean with those closer to the mean.
