Rainbow Dash lived in a towering palace made of clouds, with fountains of pure spectra pouring from the top. She lived there, but didn't call it home. It was where she slept and kept her stuff, nothing more. Her home was the sky. The clouds in it just an obstacle, the sun just mood lighting.
She sat on the front step of her palace and looked up at her preferred environment, with a daredevil grin that had never faded with the years. Some younger Pegasus said that she was crazy. She called it Awesome, and she never let age slow her down.
The doctors said she was the oldest Pegasus that had ever lived, much less flown. She told them that the two were the same.
Scootaloo had grown up, learned to fly, and had her own children in the many years since being an element had gone from being a full time job to a title that earned her a place in one of the dusty books that Twilight had been so fiercely proud of. Twilight....
The girls had all passed on, one by one into the stars and into the annuls of myth, legend, and mystery. But Rainbow had been too busy to notice getting old, or to notice that the others were doing the same.
It had hit Rainbow hard when Pinkie Pie had passed away, but she never let it show. Her speech at the funeral was so well written it brought Twilight to tears on the power of it's thoughtfulness alone, no low emotional blows from this loyal pony.
Fluttershy had been next, so peaceful that the entire town seemed to fall apart for a few days out of shock that her perpetual presence would be no more. Her cottage was taken over by Angel (The 15th) and Spike to care for the animals, and a place for fillies and colts to go to play safely.
Rarity had been third, and not surprisingly her wake was attended by more ponies than ponyville had seen in decades. They came from far and wide, telling tales of her generosity and the help they had been given by her, not always bits either.
Twilight and Applejack had stuck it out for a long time, but in the end AJ passed away in the comforting embrace of her massive family, and Twilight in the company of her small one, the princesses included of course.
This left the most loyal of ponies.
Rainbow would never have let herself go until she knew all the others had been taken care of. She couldn't. But Rainbow dash had been feeling a swelling inside of her for years now, a push. It is called wanderlust, and it pushes Pegasi to fly.
Rainbow had flown, but that wasn't it. She had taken trips to canterlot for speeches and egghead-y stuff, but that wasn't far enough.
The sky was her home, after all.
She let the ache in her heart spread her wings for her, and she took off from her cloud house, and began to slowly climb, leaving a small letter in its envelope on her doorstep for somepony who would likely be along soon to check up on her, and she began to pick up speed.
Her vivid red eyes closed as she felt her tail whip behind her, the air thinning ever so gradually as she began to fly upwards. Cloudsdale is set forever at 1500 feet above ground, and she passed that level fairly quickly. A minute later she was higher than canterlot mountain.
The ache in her very soul didn't let go when she reached the height of the great Skyway, the highest travel level for pegasi, and she kept going.
Her eyes flicked open in annoyance. "This all you got?" She smirked to herself as she put in a burst of speed, and all around equestria ponies turned to see a line of spectra progressing upward with determination and an undying strength.
The air had thinned to the point that Rainbow had to put a hoof in front of her nose to keep frost from forming on her face, but it wasn't far enough, it was still too close to those damned graves, to those wonderful memories, and to that orchard on the hill where she had slept so many years away, thinking there would always be a tomorrow.
Tears began to freeze to the fur on her cheeks as she tore upwards through air that only the celestial sisters had ever flown. Too close to the Library where they had spent so many nights and days together, too close to the bakery where laughter had once echoed.
Too close to her true home, so all she could do was lose herself in her oldest home, her oldest escape. She was going nearly fast enough to create a sonic rainboom, but the thin air didn't allow for it, and her aged body cried out to her.
But then she remembered, that this was not the pony she was. She was the pony who was always there for them. She was the pony who had been there for each one of them to the very end, she was the one who deserved to finally be brought to rest. She could stop running.
So she did. The line of light wavered to an end as she plateaued at fifteen thousand feet. She looked down at the world she had loved for so long, and she finally turned to head home. The line she had drawn upwards split apart in a helix around her, filling the sky behind her as she gathered speed, but she wasn't crying anymore.
She smiled, sadly but hopefully as she gathered speed, The shock of a sonic rainboom buffeted the sky behind her, followed by another, and another...
Five in all as she streaked towards that one tree that she had never been able to get far enough from.
The sixth dug an eternal monument to her return home. She was loyal to her very end, and she choose her own end, getting old just wasn't her style.
Author's Note
I don't write sad, normally. Or if I do, I write it with a message to it, one that carries the good feeling back after the sad. I don't know if this does that, but I hope you like it. Thank you for your time.
Scootaloo stepped up to the podium, her gaze firmly on the zap apple tree that was blossoming early. It was just beyond the gathered crowd, and made it easy to not see them. Her sons and daughters were seated in the front row, and Scoots knew that if she started crying, they would too. Had to save that until she didn't have to talk anymore, couldn't get choked up mid sentence.
She took her folded wonderbolt uniform off her back and placed it on the podium's surface. The crowd quieted, and Scoots took a deep breath.
"I am here today, not to mourn the passing of the only family I had until I found my love, but to celebrate her. My name is Scootaloo. Most of you know me as the mother of Fleet Breeze, one of the finest musicians of our age, but Rainbow knew me as a filly with a passion for flying and a wing deformity that made it nearly impossible for me to get off the ground. Rainbow Dash was the only sister I ever had. In a world of foster homes, full of love and light, she stood out for her sheer tenacity and refusal to give up on me or anypony else."
Scootaloo took another deep breath and tried to still the shaking and tightness in her throat.
"In all the time I knew her, she never gave up on my dream of becoming the leader of the Wonderbolts..."
She looked to the ranks of suited pegusi in the back with her trademark smirk.
"At ease, by the way."
She then looked back to the tree as her eyes became misty.
"She never gave up on Equestria, or her friends, or any of my kids. It didn't matter what our dreams were, they mattered to her. That is what Loyalty is. That is what Rainbow Dash stood for, and those of us that loved her never gave up on her either."
Scootaloo's smile twisted into a frown, and she looked down at the small cluster of reporters who were segregated to a small seating area off to the side.
"The papers have said she killed herself. The news has painted her passing as some depression fueled escape, as something sad. How did you want her to go? Sick and stuck in a bed unable to fly? Feathers falling out and fed through a tube? One hundred and fourteen years for an earth pony might be normal, but for Rainbow Dash it was her way of saying 'I'll turn out the lights for you Twilight. I'll remind your family that you loved them, AJ.' Rainbow Dash left us because she was done, because she was content with her life, and didn't want to live it anymore. I can only hope that, by the light of Celestia's sun, I'm as brave as she was when I go."
She looked down at the crowd. Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, Lightning Dust's son, Gilda, the Lotus twins, Spike, half the apple family, and so many more. She couldn't stop the tears at seeing all these ponies that Rainbow had loved, half of them crying already.
"I spent the last week practicing my speech, trying to nail down what exactly to say, how to put so many years of friendship into words. I couldn't find them, because I'm not Twilight or one of her egghead kids," she said with a loving tone, smiling at the small group of purple ponies that smiled back.
"But I did decide on what to say. Loyalty is not the most important aspect of a relationship, or of this nation, but it is the most enduring one. Loyalty is what holds us together and helps us bridge our differences when we've lost everything else, and loyalty is what is left over when you feel broken and defeated. Today, we feel low. We feel a great loss and there's nothing wrong with that, but if there is one thing Rainbow Dash should be remembered for, it is being the most loyal pony I've ever known."
Author's Note
I felt it needed more.
