Too Late

I don't have the strength. I need to walk.

"Are you ready, squirt?"

"You bet I am, Rainbow Dash!"

The small orange filly was buzzing her wings in excitement.

"Alright, here we go!"

I reach the edge of the orchard, the less dense and dangerous part of Everfree Forest.

"Whoa! This is amazing! I've kinda flown on my scooter before, but this! Awesome!"

"Pretty fun, huh?"

"Yeah! You know, this is like how I dreamed of it!"

The clearing is up ahead.

"Rainbow, shouldn't you stop flying? You look kinda tired..."

"Nah, I'm all right. You having fun?"

I can see the deserted clubhouse.

"Whoa, you're getting kinda wobbly!"

"In that case, I'm going down."

"But we are miles up! It will take a while!"

"It's all right, kid, I'll hold up."

I approach the log. The helmet, the cape.

Her eyes were watering. She couldn't tell if it was the wind, or the prospect of not succeeding. She had performed a sonic rainboom long ago, and was now exceeding a speed of a thousand hooves an hour. The crippled orange pegasus was a mere few hooves away. Only a few more yards, and it would all end. And it did. Rainbow Dash leveled out, and dropped speed considerably. She was conscious, but numbed. She didn't feel the pain of two of her limbs, along with a wing, being completely crushed as she crashed into the grassy, yet hard and unforgiving, ground. All she wanted to be rid of this world. To be able to be free. To see that filly again. Alive.