//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: Rainbows, Chickens and Clouds // by Bunnybooze79 //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash awoke with a gasp, images from her dream still fresh in her memory. She had dreamt of the night it had happened. The night when her life had been turned upside down due to the untimely death of her parents. Cold sweat ran down her face and she blearily rubbed it away with a hoof. Something else wormed its way through her groggy mind. It was not the dream that had woken her up she somehow knew. It had been something she had heard instead. She peered over the edge she was lying on, straining to hear something unusual. Perhaps it had been some kind of animal. The sun had just begun its course over the sky, judging by the position she guessed it was around six in the morning. Way too early for her after yesterday’s events, but something obviously had woken her up. She closed her eyes and slowly swiveled her ears, concentrating as best she could. As she was just about to give up she heard the faintest of sounds. “...ain..ow….el.” Rainbow Dash lept to her hooves, trying to look everywhere at once. It had sounded like the distant voice of a filly. It couldn’t be could it? Her heart began to race, the idea that her mind was playing tricks on her was crushed before it could fester. Once again closing her eyes she concentrated on the sounds around her, now with the added distraction of her blood rushing in her veins. “Anypo……eeeelp.” “Scootaloo?” Rainbow Dash was in full alert. Her eyes scanned the area below carefully. There was no doubt that the shout was from the lost filly. A fact kept nagging at the back of her mind for a while before finally breaking through. The voice had not come from below. The trees and the height she was at made that almost impossible. So that only left…. She frantically scanned the skies and the horizon. There! Off in the distance a tiny cloud was seen speeding towards the mountain. Clinging to it desperately was an orange blob with purple bits. In an instant she realized the cloud must have worn away until it was now just barely the same size as its occupant. She also knew that a cloud had to be at least as big as the pegasus on it to stop it from braking up. Just as that thought had passed she saw to her horror how the cloud beneath Scootaloo disintegrated into vapors. Without hesitating she launched herself at full speed towards the now screaming falling filly. _____________________________________________________________________ Scootaloo felt her last piece of cloud give way under her. It had broken up over her flight across the landscape gradually. She had pushed herself further than ever before and her wings had given her cramps along the way. For all that she tried, she had not reached the mountain in time. Her cries for help had gone unanswered and all she could do now was to scream as her old nemesis named gravity gripped her for the final time. Her piercing scream stopped abruptly as a loud boom echoed across the valley. She turned her head to see the rings of a sonic rainboom spread vertically towards the sky and ground respectively. Fear was replaced with wonder as she watched the multicolored ring hit the ground and bounce back up into the sky following the larger half in the sky like ripples in a pond. Before she could voice anything a cyan blur sped towards her, yanking her from her course to the ground only a ponies length away from the first tree top. The sudden change in direction squeezed the air out of her lungs, but at that moment she could not feel anything but happiness. Rainbow Dash had saved her. With a wide arc the pegasi returned to the mountain and tumbled to the ground upon reaching it. Scootaloo sprang up onto her hooves and immediately hugged her savior. “Thank you, thank you! I knew you would come and find me!” she stepped back to look Rainbow Dash in the face. “That Rainboom was awesome! I have never seen you do it that way before, it rippled back into the sky! So awesome!” The grin in Scootaloo’s face slowly faded as she watched Rainbow Dash. The older Pegasus was breathing heavily, but what made Scootaloo take a step cautiously back was the angry look on her face. “Just what the hay do you think you were doing?!” Rainbow Dash snapped at the filly in front of her. Scootaloo flinched back at the outburst causing her to drop onto her haunches. Before she had a chance to say anything the irate mare continued her rant. “What in all of Equestria made you come up with the featherbrained idea to jump from this height? Do you have any idea what you put me through?” The angry mare turned away from the filly and kicked a few smaller rocks away in fury. The pause gave Scootaloo a chance to explain. “I..I just wanted to fly…” “You CAN’T fly!” it was a simple painful truth shouted by Rainbow Dash. “I thought you would be proud of me if I managed to learn on my own.” the filly quietly said almost whimpering. “What would of happened if you had fallen all the way to the ground? Damn it, Scootaloo! Didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t go jumping off any cliffs anymore?” Scootaloo very well remembered the night she had said that. It was during their camping trip a while ago, where she had fallen into the river flowing over the cliff and was saved by her idol from falling to her doom. It was the night she had gained a sister. The entire scene before her now had an eerie similarity. Only instead of gaining a sister it seemed as if she was about to lose one. She whimpered at the thought and felt her eyes water up. “Please, I didn’t want to upset anypony. If you just…” Rainbow Dash stopped her random kicking of rocks to turn towards the filly again. Her wings were still flared wide open in anger. With a few steps she was right in Scootaloo’s face. “You are going to promise me right now never to try anything like that ever again!” “But I…” “No buts! Right now!” she was on the verge of shouting. Scootaloo averted her gaze from Rainbow Dash to the ground. She felt the first tears drop before she had time to react to them. Sadness welled up inside her and sought release. The way Rainbow Dash looked at her and the tone in which she spoke led the young filly to believe that she did not want to be her big sister anymore. That thought pained her more than she would have thought. A sob escaped her mouth and with huge effort she forced the words out. “I… promise..” “Louder!” “I promise!” she hiccupped while still looking at the ground. There was no point at looking at anything else anyway, as her world was nothing but a teary blur at the moment. The cyan pegasus sighed and Scootaloo heard her flap her wings. “I need to get you back before the others freak out even more.” Suddenly she felt Rainbow Dash’s forelegs grab her around her chest from behind. With powerful motions of her wings she took off again and headed towards Ponyville. Any other time Scootaloo would have been elated to go flying with her, but now the feeling that it might be the last time she would fly with her former big sister caused her heart to ache. She closed her eyes and felt the air rush by her for one last time. __________________________________________________________________ Twilight looked at her friends that stood in the library in front of her. It was painfully obvious that none of them had slept much the past night. At least they had slept a bit, unlike Twilight who had stayed up researching spells for locating missing ponies. While it had revealed possibilities to locate somepony from far away, it also made clear that it would only work on ponies that were closely related. Non family members could not be found that way and if she understood correctly it worked only with unicorns anyway. At some other time she would research that a bit more and maybe come up with possible solutions. Right now she did not have the time to delve further into the subject. Twilight had explained her plan to the others as soon as they had arrived that morning. To her surprise both crusaders had shown up along with their respective sisters. The fillies had insisted to help any way they could. Just to make sure the purple unicorn explained the plan one final time. “I’ll go over to the Mayor’s office and tell her what we need the public announce system for. Then I will ask every able pony to assist us in search of a missing filly to meet us in front of town hall. You will they split up the arriving ponies into your teams. As soon as we have as many as will come to aid us we begin our search again. Everypony understand the plan?” the assembled ponies nodded in agreement. “Ok. The search area has been extended to…” “OMIGOSH!” the sudden yell from Pinkie Pie made every pony in the room jump with surprise. Twilight wanted to ask what had possessed her to yell out like that, Pinkie pointed a hoof towards the large window opposite her and with a wide grin she yelled once more. “LOOK!” The others just had enough time to turn towards the window as Rainbow Dash flew inside. In her arms she held a rather gloomy looking Scootaloo. The filly was swarmed by her two best friends the instant that Rainbow Dash had set her on the floor and pulled her into a big hug. “Hey, careful with my leg. It’s still…urgh!” her explanation was cut short due to sudden lack of oxygen, caused by Pinkie Pie who had joined the hug and was now squeezing all three fillies with alarming strength. “Ease off them Pinkie. Seems like they can’t breathe no more.” Applejack intervened before they were crushed. With a sheepish expression Pinkie let them go. “We are just sooo happy to see you are ok Scootie. What happened?” she asked and bounced back next to Applejack who tried to stop her from too much happy jumping. “Yes, what happened? We were all worried about you. How did Rainbow Dash find you?” Twilight asked looking back and forth from the filly to the oddly quiet rainbow maned pegasus sitting alone by a bookshelf. It was obvious that Dash did not want to say anything, so she turned to the filly before her. Scootaloo looked over to Rainbow, but the mare avoided her look. Instead she just kept looking down to the floor at her hooves. With a deep breath Scootaloo began telling them what had happened. She told them the events at Sugarcube Corner, her reasoning on how to get to fly and finally her plan to jump from the cliff. Her tale of how she climbed the mountain and finally leaped from it, caused the expression on the faces of the ponies around to turn from worry to pure horror. Sweetie Belle began to quietly cry into her friends side at the thought of what could have happened. Scootaloo explained how a cloud had saved her life and how she ended up on a bank of storm clouds. She finished her tale with the ride on the cloud back to the mountain and how Rainbow Dash saved her from falling to her doom. Twilight remarked that they had heard a faint booming sound earlier, but thought it had been something falling over. The only thing she omitted from her story was the discussion with Rainbow Dash on the mountainside. Sweetie Belle drew back a bit and punched Scootaloo in her shoulder. Surprised at that reaction the pegasus turned her head to her friend ready to snap at her for that surprisingly forceful hit. As she saw her friends tear streaked face any protest died down immediately. “Don’t you even do something like that again!” Sweetie croaked and buried her head in her friends side again hugging her tighter than before. Apple Bloom also increased the strength of the hug and Scootaloo found herself unable to move and barely breathe. The adult ponies slowly regained their composure after the horrid tale the young filly had told them. “Seeetie is right. You should never try and do something like that again.” Twilight said and shook her head to try and calm her nerves down. Scootaloo glanced over to Rainbow Dash hoping for any kind of reaction. The mare however had not moved and inch and still just stared at the floor. With a heavy sigh she turned her attention back to the other ponies in front of her. “I promise never to do something like that ever again.” she declared for the second time this day. “Ya know that if ya have any kinda problems ya can talk to any one of us right?” Applejack said while walking up to the bundle of fillies on the floor. The other ponies nodded in agreement. “I know. I was just so upset.” the orange filly said and let her head hang low. “Well now that that everythin’ is turnin’ back ta normal. How’s about ya go tell yer folks at home that yer ok?” the farmpony suggested while carefully tusseling up the fillies mane with a hoof. “Yeah, I bet they are worried.” Scootaloo said not noticing Apple Bloom shifting nervously beside her. “I better get over there right now.” “We’ll come with you.” Sweetie Belle said and finally released her friend from the hug. Her fur was matted where the tears had run, but she wore a little smile on her lips. “We’d better get moving before they worry some more then.” Apple Bloom said and also let go of her friend. She silently thanked Applejack for not mentioning that they knew about Scootaloo being an orphan with a nod. Her sister returned the gesture with a nod of her own and an encouraging smile. “That thing with the birds. Diamond Tiara said that.” Sweetie Belle remarked as they made their way towards the exit. “Seriously? If I had remembered that I would have never even have tried it. Bleagh! I actually took her advice.” Scootaloo felt her spirits rising as she hobbled along between her friends. “I called her a polished horse-apple… right to her face.” Sweetie Belle giggled and caused Apple Bloom to laugh. “While she was standing next to her father!” “No way! What happened then?” Scootaloo asked. The rest of the discussion cut off by the closing library front door. With the missing filly back the only thing left on Twilight’s mind was the oddly silent Rainbow Dash. She had kept an eye on the mare during Scootaloo’s tale and had noticed her strange behavior. Cautiously the unicorn cleared her throat and turned to the cyan pegasus not far from her. “Rainbow Dash? Are you alright?” she asked carefully. “I gotta do something.” Was the only reply as she launched herself out of the window and flew off again, not even giving any of her friends a look. Twilight watched her fly into the sky and turn a sharp left out of her view. Then she nearly jumped out of her coat as she felt a hoof rest lightly on her shoulder. “I.. uhm… sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Fluttershy said in a quiet voice, sheepishly looking at the floor. “It’s ok. I was just lost in thought and haven’t slept much. Or to be honest haven’t slept at all.” She replied and tried to unsuccessfully hide a yawn. Now that Scootaloo was back and they could afford to relax, the fatigue became very noticeable. A quick glance at her friends told Twilight that they all felt the same way, except for Pinkie who was bouncing happily in place. Mildly irritated at the pink pony's seemingly boundless energy she turned back to Fluttershy. “If I cast a cloudwalking spell on myself, do you think you could take me up to Rainbows place? Teleporting might cancel the effect of it.” “No..I mean…yes. I mean that I will talk to her when she has calmed down a bit.” Fluttershy’s response came as a surprise. “But I said those things to her and obviously something is not right. I have to at least try and fix it.” “You can’t do anything right now. Trust me, I know how Rainbow Dash behaves when she is angry or something is bothering her. She will calm down and then I will talk to her and let her know you need to talk to her yourself.” The solid tone in Fluttershy’s normally unsure voice left no room for discussion on the matter. Reluctantly Twilight agreed to wait for Rainbow Dash to come to her senses. One by one the friends left the Library. Pinkie Pie remarked that she could throw a Scootaloo-Is-Back-And-Not-Pony-Paste-Party, to which Applejack rightfully said that she should maybe work on the name before handing out the invites. Twilight toyed with the idea of heading upstairs into her bed as soon as the others had left. Still she felt she had to do something. If not for Rainbow Dash then at least for Scootaloo. Something had happened between the two that she was sure of. In part she felt responsible if Rainbow Dash had done something hotheaded and brash as a result of her telling her off just the day before. Without wasting time she left the library and trotted towards Ponyville’s only orphanage.