Dash's Secret Diary

Dash's Secret Diary

by Twippledash

Prologue: Rainbow Dash's Secret

Scootaloo was soaring trough the clear skies of a warm summer afternoon, Ponyville behind her shrinking into a tiny dot against the landscape as she was gaining altitude and heading towards Cloudsdale, Equestria's only aerial city. She was already well beyond her middle age, but that didn't slow her down as she was going to visit her long time friend Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash had moved into an apartment in Cloudsdale to spend her retirement days a few years prior. She had sent a letter to Scootaloo inviting her to visit today—apparently she had some important personal matters to discuss. Scootaloo would have accepted the invitation anyway as she hadn't seen the cyan pegasus for several months, even though they have been constantly exchanging letters for years.

She arrived to Cloudsdale and wandered around for a few moments, looking around for familiar landmarks—it has been a long time since she last visited the city and due to the easy-to-reform cloudy building materials, many of the public areas were rearranged and reshaped quite often. Despite that she soon recognized the place where she was and made a beeline toward Rainbow's apartment, dodging a few pegasi and cloud pillars on her way. She landed by the front door of the apartment and knocked, listening as she heard some movement from the inside. Soon the door was opened and she was faced by an old, rainbow maned pegasus. Her mane didn't have as vivid and bright colors as it used to have, but despite the somewhat dull shades it still had the distinctive rainbow colored stipes.

"Hi Rainbow!", Scootaloo greeted and gave the elder pegasus a smile. "How's it flying?"

Rainbow looked at the younger yet still already quite old orange pegasus in front of her and chuckled, "Well hi Scoots. 'How's it flying', eh? You know, I don't fly that much anymore, seeing that my wings get sore if I just fly around leisurely for a few minutes. I guess my flying days are finally nearing the end, as awesome as it all have been." Her voice wasn't as lively as it used to be, but it still had the same distinctive tone the younger Rainbow Dash always had.

"Oh, yeah..." Scootaloo looked aside lamenting her slight faux pas, but then looked back at the elder mare. "So, you asked me to come? You had something to say in person?"

"Right, come in," the cyan pegasus said as she stepped aside making room for Scootaloo to step inside. Rainbow walked towards her kitchen and asked, "Would you like something to drink?"

"Tea would be nice," Scootaloo answered and turned to the living room. She had started to appreciate some tea and relaxing moments with her friends more and more as she got older. She slumped onto a sofa, looking around the living room. There were a lot of photos of various familiar ponies on the walls. One section was filled with pictures from Rainbow's fillyhood, featuring her parents and some of her flight school friends, as well as Rainbow herself as a filly of course. Scootaloo noticed that Fluttershy was shown with Rainbow in quite many of those also, more than any other filly from the flight school. Despite their clashing personalities they had really been best of friends ever since they first befriended with each other at the beginning of flight school.

Other section of that same wall was filled with pictures of Rainbow Dash and her five best friends when they all were still relatively young mares, next to those were some photos of the former Cutie Mark Crusaders, still without their cutie marks. Scootaloo chuckled at those memories, how silly they all had been trying to get their marks no matter what.

Then there was a few more pictures of the three of them, this time as young mares, showing their special talents: Apple Bloom was seen fixing the old barn of Sweet Apple Acres, Sweetie Belle was singing for almost the whole Ponyville—it had taken a lot of coaxing to get her in front of the audience but it had paid off eventually—and Scootaloo herself was doing some performance dancing.

Dancing. That is something Scootaloo would never have guessed was her special talent. She had always thought dancing was just a girly thing, and even though she actually was a girl, she always preferred more tomboyish approach. But once she had given it a try, she found out that she actually liked dancing. Not only liked, she loved dancing. Not the type where you go do some slow waltzing with a stallion, but the other type where you perform some awesome dance moves for the audience. Reminiscing the good old times she sighed and looked around the room some more.

There was a section on another wall dedicated solely for the Wonderbolts. Dash had eventually made it into the team and there was a plenty of photos and posters featuring the distinctive rainbow maned pegasus in a blue Wonderbolt suit. In front of the wall there was a table filled with various trophies she had won before and during her career: several medals from races, a cup she had won once she was officially proven to be the fastest currently living pegasus in Equestria, framed acceptance letter to Wonderbolts... And as a centerpiece was the first major trophy she had won, a golden headband with wings on sides and a lightning bolt on front—the first prize of the Best Young Flier Competition from decades ago.

As the orange mare sitting on the sofa shifted to look around some more, the rainbow maned dweller of the apartment came into the living room carrying a tray with two cups, a teapot and a plate of cookies. She put the tray on a table, poured some tea into both of the cups, picked up her cup and sat on an armchair next to the sofa Scootaloo was sitting on. "So, how have you been? It's been so long since we last met."

"I've been fine," Scootaloo answered as she picked up her cup and took a sip of the almost scalding hot beverage. "Still doing my dance performing and living peacefully with my husband in Ponyville. I'm not at my prime of life anymore but I can still perform, and I'm going to do that until I get cramps bad enough to force me to stop," she chuckled. "Though I gotta admit, I'm not that much to look at anymore—nopony really wants to watch an old mare performing when there are ponies in their mid-twenties as an alternative."

"Yeah, I guess the age has already taken its toll from both of us," Rainbow said a little downheartedly and sighed before continuing, "I wish I could still perform for the Wonderbolts, but my days as a stunt flier ended over a decade ago. And look at me now, I can barely lift myself off the ground with my wings anymore. I'm not even sure if I would be able to fly back up here anymore without help if I was brought on the ground." She weakly flapped her wings a few times for emphasis, but then perked up. "But enough of talking about myself. I have seen one of your foals up here in Cloudsdale occasionally past few months, she even visited me once and she told she's on a weather scheduling duty in the weather factory. But I haven't seen your younger foal Wind Breeze for ages, how is she doing nowadays?"

"She has a coltfriend living in Fillydelphia so she moved there from her former apartment in Ponyville. They have been together for quite some time already, and I have a strong feeling I'll soon become a grandmother..." Scootaloo smirked. "He had arranged a place in their local weather patrol for her, so that was one more reason for her to move seeing she was only as a backup in Ponyville weather team." She paused for a moment. "I always knew both of my foals would likely leave Ponyville some day, but it is still not easy to see them go..." Scootaloo sighed and looked into nothingness for a moment. She then looked back at the former stunt flier, raising an eyebrow questioningly. "Say, you never had any foals yourself. Why's that? I mean, there is nothing wrong with it but I'm just asking out of curiosity."

Rainbow laughed lightheartedly. "What, you haven't figured it out yet? I thought you knew me better..." She looked at the orange pegasus and continued with slightly more serious tone, "I never really was into all that romance stuff, never finding a stallion to settle with, and I doubt I would have been a good mother anyway with my brash attitude and a constant craving for stunt flying. I had some very short-living relationships back when I was younger, but it was never nothing serious—I never seriously considered settling down with anypony. Besides, I never really had time for any of that once I was performing with the Wonderbolts, and after finally retiring I was already too old to start any kind of relationships anymore."

"I see. Now that I think about it, it actually makes sense. Not every mare is destined to settle down and start a family themselves after all."

They sat in silence for a few moments sipping their tea and nibbling the cookies. Soon Rainbow got up and said, "You know, I didn't call you here just for some idle chat, but I actually had something to show you. Stay here, I'll be right back." With that she put her almost empty cup on the table and headed towards her bedroom. She came back a minute later carrying an old, somewhat yellowed and tattered book and put it on a table in front of Scootaloo. The book's covers were cyan—almost the same shade as Rainbow's coat—and it had a picture of her cutie mark glued on the front cover. The orange mare looked at the book with a questioning look as she read aloud the title, hoof-written into an empty space on the top of the front cover.

"Rainbow Dash's Personal Diary?" she questioned, looking at the elder mare. "I never knew you had a diary. Or that you were into that kind of stuff at all."

"No wonder you didn't know. Nopony beside me knew, not until today," Rainbow said. "It is not like those diaries ponies like Rarity would have been writing into every day, but it had become more like a collection of the most important moments of my life over the years I have written into it."

"You have been keeping this concealed for decades, judging by the looks of that book." She glanced at the tattered book with faded covers and yellowed pages. "So why are you revealing it now, and to me of all ponies?"

"I know my time to leave this world is inevitably coming closer and closer, and I just wanted to share it with somepony who I trust before passing away," the cyan pegasus answered with surprisingly calm tone. "And you are the one I trust more than anypony, even more than any of my other friends... of those who are still alive..." She sighed sadly before continuing, "I trust them also, don't get me wrong. But I just always felt some special connection between us, like a sisterly affection towards you ever since you started idolizing me as you were just a foal," she chuckled. "And I have felt that connection growing even stronger and stronger as the years have passed."

"Yeah, I never had any siblings myself either and I always felt that you were the closest I ever had to having one for real. Besides, you have always been my role model even if I didn't end up being a stunt flier like you did." The younger pegasus looked back at the diary lying on the table. "So you want me to read through that with you, right?"

"Right. Just promise that this will stay between the two of us. I don't want any other ponies to know about this, I still have an image to keep up you know," Rainbow laughed.

"I promise," Scootaloo said, also laughing a bit with Rainbow.

"Okay, so I guess we should start from the beginning. It's been so long since I first opened this book and wrote the first entry..." Rainbow opened the diary on the first page and laid it in front of them both so Scootaloo could be able to read too. The ink on the page was already quite faded, but it was still easily legible. Scootaloo leaned forwards and started to read along with the cyan pegasus.