I smelled the air and sighed. Days like this were what I was born for. We'd finally finished putting all the nimbus clouds in place, I could smell that lovely fresh rain smell, and it was pouring down, watering the crops right on schedule.
I spun and twirled in the wind, enjoying the feel of the breeze whipping through my turquoise mane. Rain splattered all over my jasmine-colored coat, and into my face. I laughed as I wiped my eyes off.
Down below, tree limbs waved to me as I passed by. The grass glistened with freshly fallen raindrops. It was starting to be one gloriously rainy day, and I was enjoying every minute of it. Who wouldn't?
Alright, rhetorical question. I know a number of ponies would consider me insane for even thinking such a thing. But then, they aren't me. And I know there are some places where it only rains a few times a year.
I could never live in one of those places.
I soared through the sky, a fair distance further up, exhilarated and giddy as only a good rainy day can do for me. Well, that or a night out with a good mare, but when's the last time that happened?
Looking down, view distorted by the drops still falling around me, the landscape was difficult to make out. I could see a murky blue-gray splotch to one side, which was clearly the pond. Then there were different shades of green all around, along with the occasional house or two. There was a muddled brown where the now muddy roads below and clearings were. And a small spot of orange and magenta was smack in the middle of all that mud.
Wait, what was that? I made a lower flyby in that area to get a better view.
I guess not everypony was having a good time. A young orange pegasus with a magenta mane was lying spread-eagled in the mud, crying. I felt an uncomfortable feeling of deja-vu, from back in the days before I'd learned to love the rain.
I flew on down, and made a gentle landing next to the filly. She didn't seem to notice, and just kept crying. Poor kid.
"What's wrong, kid?" I called out, touching my hoof to her side. She swatted it away, and rested her head back on one foreleg, staring at the ground.
Well, I was never one to give up too easily. I tweaked her tail, and repeated myself. "I said, what's wrong, kid?"
This earned me a glare. "Can't you just leave me alone?"
She was talking to me. This was a start.
"Leave you alone?" I said, repeating her now. I swear sometimes it feels like that's all I do. "Alone and moping around on a glorious day like this?"
"Glorious?" she half-choked out between sobs. "What's so glorious about it? It's raining."
There was no accounting for taste. "Of course it's glorious. The rain in your face, the wind behind your wings..."
The kid sniffled. "Maybe for you. I c-can't fly."
Hmm. Wasn't she a bit old not to be able to fly? Her wings did look rather small, though. "Well, I'm sure that'll come with time. Maybe when your wings get a bit bigger."
"That's not what the doctors say." She wiped at her eyes. "A-According to them, I-I only have a twenty percent ch-chance of ever being able to fly."
Ouch. That must have hurt. "They just tell you that today?" I guessed.
"Yeah." She appeared to be calming down slightly. "I had a doctors a-appointment this morning. It's 'cause my wing growth is s-stunted."
"Well, that's still a one in five chance of being able to fly, at least," I said, trying to be encouraging. "It could happen."
"Yeah, but more likely than not it won't." Man, this kid was being gloomy. At least her sobbing seemed to have mostly stopped as we talked. Which, of course, was the point.
"So that's why you're lying in a patch of mud in the middle of nowhere contemplating the ground, and your relationship to it?" I said, trying to keep the tone light.
"It's not just that. It's been the whole day," she said.
"I've had days like that," I said, with complete honesty. "What's your name, kid?"
"Scootaloo." An odd name, but I wasn't one to judge.
"So what else happened to you today, Scootaloo?" I asked. Usually talking out this sort of thing helped, so I wanted to make sure to get the whole story.
"Well, at school afterwards, these two bratty girls were teasing me, calling me a blank-flank and a flightless dodo." I glanced at her flank, and sure enough, there was nothing but mud and orange fur there.
"Seems like every generation has bullies like that." I commiserated. "So, they were picking on you, and got you all worked up, since this was the same day of that doctors visit. Then what happened?"
"I sorta leapt at one of them, and got into a fight," she admitted. "Cheerilee pulled us apart, gave all three of us detention, and wrote me a note to take home."
"Ah. Not a good idea. They're just trying to provoke you." I said. "When you give them a reaction like that, they know they've gotten through to you, and they've won."
"Yeah, you're probably right." Scootaloo sighed. "I got so mad, though. On the way home, I was upset, it started raining, and I was going all out on my scooter, not really paying attention. I hit a rock, a wheel flew off, and went face first into the mud."
Looking around, I spotted a scooter a little ways off, and one wheel lying by itself.
"And once that happened, everything that happened today caught up with you, and you just decided to give up." I could see her point, even if I didn't quite agree with it.
"Yeah," she said. "It didn't seem worth getting back up afterwards, and I just felt like staying here and being miserable."
"Well, it's not the end of the world, Scootaloo," I told her. "I went through something similar once myself when I was your age, and I'm still here."
"You did?" Scootaloo asked. "What happened?"
"Well, here, get up and follow me, and I'll tell you all about it." I helped her out of the mud, and grabbed her scooter. The wheel that had fallen off turned out to be laying nearby. Taking it with me, I led her into the shelter of a nearby tree.
I examined the wheel and scooter carefully. "Well, good news is that everything's intact. It just needs a new nut and bolt."
"Good." Scootaloo let out a sigh of relief. "That scooter and me have been through a lot of adventures, and I'd hate to lose it. What was your name, anyways?"
"Raindrops," I said, letting her get a good look at the three drops on my flank out of habit. I used to be insecure about whether people would associate my name with my cutie mark. With good reason.
"No wonder you were so into the rain earlier. It falls right in line with your special talent. I'm not sure I'll ever get one." The kid seemed to be moving back into the deep funk she'd been in earlier.
"Eh, cutie marks can be deceptive, kid. And overrated." Now there was an understatement.
"You said you'd tell me about your own bad day, though." She looked at me doubtfully.
"I sure did. First, though, can you make a Pinkie Pie promise not to let anypony else know about it? It's rather embarrassing." I'm not even sure why I decided to tell her about it, to be honest, since I usually kept this one secret. It's probably just that I knew she'd appreciate it.
"Alright. Cross my heart, hope t-to f-ly..." The kid looked like she was going to start crying again, so I patted her on the back. Stupid feathering oaths. "Stick a cupcake in my eye."
"Well, first off, it was the anniversary of my mother's death, so I started out the day in a horrible mood," I told her. "She'd only died the previous year, so it really hit hard that day."
"Oh," Scootaloo said. "How did she die?"
"In her sleep," I said simply. Narcolepsy is a horrible sleep disorder for a pegasus to have. She hadn't woken up in time to pull out of her terminal dive. The extra detail didn't seem necessary to lay on the kid, though.
"Sounds peaceful, at least." It wasn't, of course, but she wasn't going to hear that from me. "So you were already in a funk because of that..."
"Yeah. Then I went down to try and help the weather squad try to get a big rainstorm together." I shuddered, remembering. "I managed to zap myself no less than five times before I slunk off, embarrassed. I still remember all the other pegasi laughing at the talentless, blank-flank pegasus."
"This was before you got your cutie mark?" she asked, interested.
"Yep," I said. "So I went home, where my father broke to me that he wasn't going to be able to take me to a Wonderbolts performance we'd been planning to go to in a few weeks."
"Geez," Scootaloo said. "What a lousy day."
"I'm afraid I ended up in a yelling match with him, then ran off into the rain. Much like you, I wasn't looking where I was going. I tripped, and fell right in a drainage ditch." It was depressing to even think about.
"And you just lay there crying, not seeing any reason to get up," Scootaloo said, having just been there.
"I'm told I was there for hours, and that multiple ponies tried to get me out of the rain unsuccessfully." It had felt like an eternity. "Eventually my father coaxed me out of it, took me home, wrapped me in a blanket, and we made up."
"I guess you do know what it's like, then," Scootaloo said.
"Well, there's one last thing. After we made up, he pointed out that at some point that day, my cutie mark had appeared." I revealed.
"On a day like that?" Scootaloo exclaimed.
"Yeah. Since I'd practiced weather-making earlier, I let on that that was when it had appeared, and decided to add 'Raindrops' to my name at my cute-ceañera and go by it," I told the young filly. "I then spent a bunch of time practicing with rainclouds, and got really good at all things rain related."
"Makes sense, but didn't you say you messed up five times that day with the weather?" Scootaloo said, sensing there was more to the story.
"Right. And I know I didn't have the mark when I ran off from my argument with my father," I said ruefully. "All I can figure is that it means I'm really good at crying, which is hardly a talent I'm proud of."
While Scootaloo sat there, trying to take in that a cutie mark wasn't necessarily going to be something to be proud of or happy with, I pulled out the toolkit I usually keep in my saddle bag.
A bit of hunting in the pocket found a good bolt and nut. I slapped them on the scooter and wheel. Grabbing an adjustable wrench with my teeth, I tightened it till the wheel was firmly in place.
"There, good as new." I gave the kid her scooter back. She greeted it like a long lost friend. Or with the way she was caressing it, possibly somepony closer.
"So how did you end up loving the rain, after all of that, anyways?" Scootaloo asked, curious.
"Well, the rain really had nothing to do with my breakdown, and I love the smell of fresh rain, and the way it feels when it falls on your skin. It's amazing, really." I gushed.
"Uh huh." Scootaloo grunted.
"Well, that, and after a few other times of collapsing into fits of crying, bouts of depression, not being willing to even drag myself out of bed, and things like that, my father took me to a doctor." I said sheepishly. "I ended up getting diagnosed with clinical depression. A couple pills a week, and I'm right as rain."
"Really?"
"Yeah. And with my emotions more in balance, my natural feelings about rain came more to the foreground." Looking her over, the squirt seemed calmer, and about recovered from her breakdown now. "Now, if you're feeling a bit better, why don't I take you on home?"
A little nudging, and I got her to give me some directions. The white unicorn with the electric blue mane who answered the door seemed pretty relieved to see the kid, too, which was a relief. I made sure the mare, who turned out to be her aunt, knew the score before I left.
Satisfied she was in good hooves, I continued on my way to enjoy the rain in peace. The rain would only last so long, and I planned to enjoy every bit of it that I could. Given the time, I took my next pill, then flew off in spirals through the rain, laughing as I went, leaving the weight of the world behind me.
Author's Note
Just a quick oneshot unrelated to anything else I'm working on. The characters Raindrops and Scootaloo popped into my mind, then rain as a prompt, and I needed a break from getting a sequel ready to Making Friends, anyways. I've also been feeling like releasing more of the things I write lately, so I thought I may as well upload it.
Hopefully a few people enjoy it, at least.
Note: I tweaked the text somewhat, to get rid of some of the repetitive phrasing that snuck in.
Second Note: I wasn't really that satisfied with some things in this oneshot, so I went through tweaking a decent amount of the phrasing, and expanded the ending slightly, so that Scootaloo actually gets home onstage, and the ending feels a bit better to me.
