Caballeron's Prize

The day passed as Scootaloo gave a tour of the town with the five mares, showing them all of the shops and local cuisine to bring back souvineers. Rarity insisted on a girls venture to do clothes shopping with Fluttershy and Twilight while Applejack and Pinkie went off on their own to find food supplies for dinner that night.

For the first time in years, Scootaloo felt a sense of normalcy as she explained local lore of the town's humble fishing roots when the griffon's settled, and the growing mixed species settlements around to Twilight's fascination.

Even with the silent eyes of the guards that kept near, it felt like she was in a bubble of safety with all the idols she once looked up too, now participating in an equal showing of all she's learned and grown into.

As night fell and the group helped distract her from the coming wedding soon with their shinanigans and stories from Equestria she had missed in the past three years. A silent feeling filled her as she sat across the dining table from all these legends as they laughed and quipped.

Loneliness.

She had missed so much in Equestria, and all of her time was spent trying to connect with others besides Caballeron in this place. Her crown however put her on a pedestal where she couldn't keep a close friendship with anyone. No one but him.

Her eyes felt heavy as she sat and listened to how the five were training her old friends Sweetie and Applebloom. A story she desperately wanted to hear, but her mind became foggy as her belly felt a building of bile.

"Then Sweetie cast a spell to try and levitate one of the students, but she was so focused on his little chin hairs, she ended up tugging him up by them-"

Scootaloo barreled past towards a waste bin as the group watched shocked, hearing the gut turning wet sounds of food chunks hitting the bottom as she spewed her dinner with a humiliated groan through the vomiting.

"Oh, Scootaloo! Was the seaweed undercooked!?" Rarity gasped, pulling out a hankerchief for her as the bags under the pegasi's eyes showed much more.

"I'm okay..."

She caught Celestia and Luna's eyes in the corner as they peeked from their chess game knowingly. Applejack stepping between them to put a hoof on her head. "Ain't a fever. Must've been bad greens."

"I knew we should've had the cooks make something Pinkie!" Rarity turned haughtily, having her arm grabbed by Scootaloo as she both stopped her and lifted herself up.

"It's fine. I just ate too much, Rarity."

The filly stood up more stoically as she caught everyones eyes shifted below. They weren't looking at her face anymore.

"I'm going to bed." She quickly turned, escaping to one of the rooms as she closed and quickly locked the door behind her, sweating as she stumbled through the dark to the nearby sink to clean her mouth and hydrate.

"He went that far, huh?"

Scootaloo froze and slowly looked up to the mirror. Her bedroom behind her had the shape of a paler, skinnier rainbow maned mare stitting at a morning coffee table near the freshly opened window past the bed. The curtain behind her swaying as she looked out at the town with a hoof under her chin thoughtfully.

"You got bigger, squirt."

Scootaloo leaned on the sink quietly a moment before wiping her face, too exhausted for an outpouring of emotions again. "Yeah."

"I like the mane. Looks a bit like mine-" Rainbow was quickly cut off as Scootaloo raced to hug her. The moment more quiet than the group hug from the morning as her eyes misted.

"You dummy. Why did you come?"

Dash sighed and weakly hugged back before curling into her more. Her face buried into the filly's mane with a deep inhale to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. "It'll take more than a headless horse or some dime novel loser to keep me from saving you." Her arms weakened to sink back and look down to the teary eyed pegasus leaning on her lap. "cough cough That sounded pretty cool, right?"

"I take it back, you're not a dummy. You're an idiot." Scootaloo laughed dryly, tempted to pepper kisses on the big sister she thought dead for years, settling instead to drag her to the bed for a tighter embrace as the two laid together in the moment to forget all that happened for just a moment.

"You're not wrong. I'm ashamed, squirt. I should've been faster." Rainbow seethed through her teeth to hold back her own tears, hugging tighter even if it meant another wheezing episode.

"You should've been smarter!" Scootaloo cut her with her words as she pushed back with her own clenched teeth. "I'm not mad because you came! I'm mad because you hate losing! I don't want you to die again by being here!" She sobbed, knowing full well by the cold look she didn't see on Rainbow before that she was secondary. "I don't want him to die either."

"He killed Daring and took you. Or did he get in your head that he's somehow the good guy for bringing you here to help people?"

Scootaloo got up and climbed down from the bed, moving away. The warm embracement fading as she felt like she was being interrogated by Rainbow. "I'm bearing his foals! Withers would've taken me back anytime I wanted but I chose to stay!" She spoke the truth finally. "I'm not making excuses for him, but without him coming here this place would've stayed the same wartorn place without us!"

Rainbow stared in disbelief, feeling a deep denial that brought a sore pain through her chest as she saw the intense look in the filly's eyes. It had to be lasting effects from the filthy love potion, or stockholme, or maybe even some dust from those damn brainwashing gems. Right?

"You know the guards have those creepy gems under their helmets, right? There's creatures in there probably screaming for help, stuck in their minds! It kinda sounds like you're making excuses!"

"Criminals, and yeah. I do. I watched some of them get sentenced myself!" Scootaloo bitterly argued defensively, growing more irrate from the disgusted and pitying look from the older pegasus. "You and this stupid game you fell into and now you're here cause you're a sore loser! I'm here because I chose that I needed to be!"

"So did I. I know I don't have the right to lecture you after I failed you, Scoots, but I can't walk away. If not for you, then Daring Do."

The blue pegasus shifted and stood up slowly with another cough, stepping to the large gap in the window. "He's not changing if that's what you're hoping for one day. He took Quibble now, who wanted to help you too."

The young tomboy clenched her face in unsurprised disappointment as her brow furrowed. "I didn't ask him too."

The larger mare sighed and let go of the arguing for a moment, wishing she could've kept a cool head for their reunion but felt it soured by the looming clouds over their heads. "I'll figure it out. I just wanted to see how big you got."

Her eyes welled up again as she turned to take a good look at the proud, yet yorn filly in front of her. An intense glow in her eyes that matched the intensity of the stallion's ambitions she crusaded against.

"I'm real proud of you. Even if you'll hate me." She shot out of the window back towards the Winking Dawn as Scootaloo stood to try and stop her, curling back up on the bed as her body turned against her to keep her in place.

"They say there's treasure at the end of a rainbow. Do you think she'll bleed gold?" On the other side of the hotel up the hill, Caballeron was standing on his own balcony with a cigar clenched in his teeth in a grin at the sight of the rainbow trail along the starry sky. The griffon magistrate stepped next to him with an amused smile as three larger griffons with iron feathers grafted into their wings stepped forward in perfect unison, seemingly ready to chase at a moments notice. "It was rhetorical. Killing her now would draw the ire of the princesses.

"I've no doubt we'd manage it if you gave the order. A war would be grand advertisment for our gems" The femme fatal Griiva spoke smuggly, waving her talon of the smoke drifting to her as they watched the mare disappear back to the docks.

"I came here to retire, not to look over my shoulder during a war with Equestria. You can do your 'marketing' in other lands once this is finished." The count took one more drag before putting out the thick cigar. "Send for my bride. We have a wedding soon.~"