The shutters of the upper floor window swung open, and the orange filly who owned the house peered out at the sunrise. Her eyes settled on the northwest ridge or more precisely, on the tall cloud house with a rainbow fountain that floated near the ridge and belonged to her honorary big sister.
Three weeks had passed since the Nightmare Moon incident. And for the second time in her life, she had been heralded as a national hero. All nine ponies who’d gone to the moon to face Nightmare Moon had. Even if the three youngsters had stayed on the sidelines in the end, that didn’t seem to diminish the praise they’d received when they’d returned.
That might have had something to do with the return of Princess Luna as it was news to most ponies that Equestria had once had two princesses. Needless to say, the return of the long forgotten second ruler of the land overshadowed the details of just how the princess of the night had returned. Especially since Celestia hadn’t mentioned that detail when she announced the return of her sister. In fact, as far as Scootaloo could tell, only those who had actually gone to the moon were truly in the know as to the fact that Luna and Nightmare Moon had been the same pony.
But how Equestria ruled itself wasn’t a concern for the young pegasus. One of the more interesting things that had happened in the past weeks was the fact that she now owned an E.U.P. flight suit. Not because she was actually part of the E.U.P. Guard, because she wasn’t. In fact it lacked the badges of a proper E.U.P. pilot’s suit. Instead it had been given to her because she’d become the unofficial favorite mercenary to hire for the E.U.P. Airforce, and Rainbow Dash was now considered her primary contact for jobs from them.
And yet, today was not a day for her military grade flight suit. Today was a day to shoot out the door on her scooter with her usual purple sport helmet. Despite her casual attire, the destination of the filly buzzing her way through the streets was still the Ponyville airport. For today was the best kind of day in her mind.
As she pulled up to her hanger, she found Sweetie Belle’s family butler waiting. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say Rarity’s family butler, as it was the elder sister of that household who usually hired the young pilot for courier jobs these days.
You see, today was the kind of day that proved that her life had finally returned to normal.
Once she’d strapped down the package and double-checked the delivery information to see where the winds of fate were taking her today, a smile graced her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a reason to fly into that airport, or maybe she’d never been there before. She wasn’t sure. Either way it wasn’t a familiar enough part of Equestra, so going there would feel like exploring.
“So, where are you headed today?” Rainbow Dash’s voice called out.
Poking her head back outside, Scootaloo found her honorary big sister coolly leaning against the frame of the hanger door.
“Apparently today is a Las Pegasus day,” she answered.
The blue mare nodded her head and said, “Fun place. Not sure how fun it would be to you, though. I think half the things to do there have age restrictions, so I’m not sure how much they’d let you look around. But still, they’ve got some good sights to see over there.”
“Can you close the door once I head out?” the filly asked, taking note that the elder pegasus was only a few feet from the switch that controlled the hanger door.
The answer came with a casual salute when Dash said, “Sure thing, Squirt! Have fun out there!”
“So, are you coming?” Scootaloo asked, knowing that the reason the Wonderbolts had stationed Rainbow Dash in Ponyville was to keep tabs on the only pony with a space plane that the Equestrian Air Force had access to.
“Naw, I just need to know where to find you. Besides, you know I’d rather hang out with you on my days off then when it’s part of the job, when we can both drop off the radar and I can just be your big sis.”
The two shared a laugh. Truthfully Rainbow Dash didn’t have the professionalism to stop acting like her honorary big sister even when she was on the clock for the Wonderbolts. But Scootaloo could only linger so long. She was on the clock, too, after all.
Soon she had taxied out to the runway and done her preflight checks, as improvised as it was given the lack of a proper instruction book to follow anyway. With one last look to make sure no one else was using the runway, she pushed in the throttle a little bit, rolled out and lined up with it. She gradually increased the throttle and started down the runway with rapidly building speed.
Then she felt the ground pull away as her wings took her into the sky. Those metal wings may have been the wings of an engineer, but they were every bit as hers as the ones she was born with. And it was riding these engineer’s wings that made everything feel right with the world. Here in the sky was where she felt she truly belonged.
So much so that she didn’t even notice the radiant light that flashed from her flank in agreement.