I didn’t look any different though eighty years had passed. The magic of the elements had given me the same blessing it gave to Celestia and Twilight, immortality. Well… it was supposed to be a blessing I suppose.
“The last of ma’ family is gone…” AJ had said to me two years ago, coming to me hanging her head after saying her last goodbye to Apple Bloom’s grave for the day. “Well… maybe not really. Ah mean, ah have ma’ family’s grandchildren, and ah suppose it’s a privilege to still be here ta teach em’ an all… ah just… ah just wish ah could have kept her the way she was when ah first got this blessin’. Seven years old forever.”
It had actually been a few months since Bloom had passed away. Still I wrapped a wing around AJ. “Now you don’t really mean that. I mean, seven forever? Maybe ten, that was a better age,” I said, meaning to bring her some levity, but instead I got a glare.
“She’ll be gone someday to ya know!” Apple Jack shouted. “Ah just- oh… oh what have ah said… ah didn’ mean that it’s just, this hurts ya know?”
“It hurt when my daddy passed, I get it, I get it. I cried on your shoulder, you can cry on mine, it’s fine.”
I told her what she said was okay, but that’s only because I didn’t want to admit how much it stung, she felt bad enough.
I knew she was right. Scootaloo had slowed down a lot, she wasn’t eight or ten anymore, she was eighty six.
Now two years had passed and Scootaloo couldn’t leave her bed. It was Tuesday and the doctors told me they doubted she would live to see next Tuesday. They told me I had best say anything important now, as I wouldn’t have any time left later.
Today I had thought about hiding, yelling at everyone that they were wrong, that she was fine, that if I hadn’t age, how could my daughter have? How could my little filly be older than me? Multiple times I had scanned my home, waiting to see her rough housing with Apple Bloom or having her friend Lightning Strike fly her around the house. I wanted to pretend the last eighty years had never happened and I was back with the child I had rescued from neglect. I thought reaching her was hard back then… reaching a child is nothing compared to letting one go.
Finally I set out, leaving my home for the hospital. As I walked, I looked left, imagining Scootaloo running on ahead of me, so many years ago. This imagining was really a memory, one of when she and Apple Bloom were trying to race. Somehow their new friend Lightning had ruined that race by crashing into them both, which they scolded her repeatedly for, but me, I just laughed my head off at all of them.
I walked up to the front doors of the hospital, remembering how many times I had come through these doors, worried sick when Scootaloo had pulled yet another stupid stunt. It was almost funny now to think of how worried I was when she fell out of a tree for the first time breaking one or her ribs… first time under my watch anyway.
I pushed past the door and walked in. Two floors up and nine doors down, I finally came to Scootaloo’s room. I looked over my shoulder looking into the eyes of one of the nurses, a big red earth stallion. He nodded for me to continue in. I almost wish he had told me to come back later.
I walked in and there she was, Scootaloo. Her orange fur was faded, far from its vibrant color back when she was a filly. Her once purple mane was almost white. I looked down at her and she tried to give me her old cocky smile again, but even that didn’t feel right.
“Hey Scoots…” my thoughts raced. I found myself just having to voice them. “You know, no matter what, you’ll always be my little girl right?” I asked. She nodded. “I love you, I always will, not even when you finally have to leave this life, will that ever change. I love you Scootaloo.”
“I love you too mom. We sure had a fun time together didn’t we?” came her raspy reply.
“No way to convince you to do it again?” I asked, trying to joke.
She cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded… so wrong. I had gotten used to the sound over the years, but now, I longed to hear her child voice. “You have no idea how much I would like that. But my time in this world is drawing to a close and we both know it.” I closed my eyes, doing my best to hide my tears. “It’s okay Rainbow Dash… Momma Dash,” I gave her a slight grin. “Why should you bother to try not to cry, I won’t,” tears started streaming down her face.
“I… I can’t think of anything else to say. Maybe if you had kids like Apple Bloom I could promise to take care of them but… well…”
Scootaloo sighed, looking down at her stomach. “I must not have been meant to have children, that’s all in the past…. I wanted them, but it just didn’t work out I guess.”
“You should have been a mom. It’s great ya know.” She put a hoof on my muzzle.
“You always seemed to think so,” she said. “And I’m so glad I got to have a mother who actually wanted to be my mother. So Momma Dash, tell me, I know I’m going to pass away, which I can come to peace with, if you promise me one thing.”
“I don’t want you to go… if you’re not at peace with it, can you fight harder or…”
“Neither of us can stop it. Can you simply give me my last wish?”
“Anything,” I answered.
“Promise me you’ll be happy again. Promise me someone else will call you mom.”
I coughed. “I… Scootaloo I... how can I? I don’t know if I can have foals, but how can I make them with stallions who will just die so soon anyway? Stallions who are children to me themselves?”
“Who said anything about giving birth?” she asked.
“Scootaloo, I can’t do this again,” I replied. “It hurts too much to say good bye.”
“I would sugar coat it, but there’s no point, you would know I was doing it. You are going to be saying a lot of goodbye’s and they’re all going to hurt. You’ve said them before, you’ll say them again.”
“But-“
“Hush, now you listen to old Scoots young lady,” she quipped. “You will say many goodbye’s. I don’t know how long you will live, but until you go, there will always be good bye’s. I would know just like you. There was Grandpa, my daddy, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom… so many. I’ve said goodbye so many times. We all have to say it if we live long enough.”
I started to sob. “But not this one, I can’t say this goodbye again… I just can’t.”
She petted my mane. “Hush mother, there’s something you’ve been robbed of besides death. Age. With age comes a calming of the mind, one yours will never experience. You get to contemplate things in ways you never could when you were younger. As my world slowed down, I realized something. The goodbye’s hurt, but life isn’t about those. It’s about the hellos. Just like what my next life will be, me waiting however long it take to say hello to you again.”
“I can’t…”
“Sssshhh,” she hushed me again. “I’ll be saying hello to daddy, grandpa… I’ll be running in the fields with Apple Bloom again, and if the fates are kind, I’ll finally be able to fly beside my friend Lightning Strike. Do you remember how she was when her brother Dusk passed away? She was so quiet. She’ll be back to her hyper self again and her brother will be by her side again. I’ll fly through the clouds with her. I’ll say hello to those two in a world where they no longer have to fear being separated ever again.”
“How can you be sure that’s true? You can’t, it’s impossible to know,” even as I said it, I hoped dearly she had an answer that would assure me she was right.
“I know. It has to be true. If it’s not, then it won’t matter, but I hope for it so much, my heart won’t listen to anything else. I know it is true. I will be with them again. But when I’m having fun with my friends again, I just know it won’t be as good as it can be, if I know you’re back here pining for me like Lightning did for her brother. Promise me, don’t forget me, but be happy again. I know this is what you love, being a mother… I guess you could try joining the Wonder Bolts again.”
“Oh please, those kids couldn’t dream of keeping up with me, by this point it would just be embarrassing.”
“So other than your friends, everyone will be children to you anyway. You may as well have some of your own again.”
“Scootaloo, you can’t ask me to replace you, I just can’t.” I looked away. This was so frustrating. I wanted to do whatever she said, she was dying for crying out loud, how could I say “no” to anything? But this? Well…
“Oh please, replace me? I was just too awesome for that and you know it. Did we ever really replace Tank? How about your falcon Speedy, or your eagle Sky Eye? Did any of them lose their place in your heart?”
“No, but they never took up as much room in there as you did squirt.”
“You won’t run out of room, I know it. You can’t, that’s not how hearts work. I won’t take no for an answer mom. Rainbow Dash, promise me, I will not be the last pony to call you mom, not the last to make you so happy.” I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth. “Mom?”
I choked out my reply. “I… I promise. I’ll be happy again, for you… someday.”
“That day better be soon,” she said with a smile. “Remember, my own happiness in the next life is riding on this. When I’m running with my friends again, I had better look down and see you watching another foal run with it’s friends. I know how happy that will make you. You can take your time, but it better not be forever.”
(***)
I wanted so much for those next few days to draw out, for the doctors to be wrong, but they didn’t and they weren’t. When my five fellow element bearers showed up at my door three days later, Apple Jack holding her hat in her mouth, I knew before they said anything why they were there. Scootaloo was gone.
I broke down, crying and yelling my daughter’s name. AJ laid down next to me and just stayed there until I got up, knowing I needed that.
Apple Jack had set aside a large track of land for the families of her close friends in the graveyard of her family. Watching Scootaloo be buried next to her father and near her friends Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom was the hardest thing I had ever done, compared to that, I would gladly break my wing a dozen times and face a hundred more villains.
I sat there staring at her grave, whishing I knew some words or act that could bring her back.
Pinkie was the first to walk away, she was never very good knowing what to do at times like that. “I’m gonna… I don’t know. There’s a lot of kids at the clinic who will miss me if I don’t show up, and also the Cakes Shop won’t run itself… I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, go ahead,” I said.
Fluttershy left next, her animals needed her.
Rarity was next, she didn’t want to leave, but I told her it was fine, her business employed so many and fed so many, even those who didn’t work for her, she was needed to run it. She kissed the grave of Sweetie Belle and dusted off the head stones for her parents, and then finally walked away.
“Rainbow… my foals need me back at home.” Oh yes, Twilight had adopted, like that could be a surprise to anyone. A long time after I adopted Scootaloo obviously, if they were still foals, but I couldn’t begrudge her getting back to those kids. Spike watched them when she was gone, but they needed their mother, I knew that all too well. I nodded, Twilight walking away.
I looked at Apple Jack when Twilight left. “Oh no RD, you know how this goes. Just like ya did for me, an just like we both do for everyone else, ah don’t leave till you do.”
“I don’t want to leave.” I said, staring at the head stone. I looked over my shoulder. “You have your family, Twilight has hers, Rarity has her shop, Pinkie has practically the entire town and Fluttershy has all those animals… when I go home, it will be empty… I don’t want to go home. No one will need me. No one needs me anymore… I can’t believe this. I’m unnecessary.”
“Now don’t talk like that old girl.”
“But it’s true. I gave it all to her. She was my daughter, my world. You don’t know what that’s like.”
“Ah know better than ya think,” she motioned to Apple Bloom’s head stone. “She was most of ma world too. More than ah let on, but trust me, as close as you were to Scoots, that’s how close ah was to Apple Bloom.”
“But when you go home, ponies will be there, ponies who need you. What will I have? Who will need me?”
“There are many ways to be needed Rainbow.”
“But… I don’t know. I always lived for myself and her. I was nice to other ponies, but now… AJ she’s gone…” I gritted my teeth, the real question boiling to the top of mind and screaming out. “HOW CAN SHE BE GONE?!” I shouted. “How is that even possible? It doesn’t make sense. How can I still be here when she’s gone?”
Apple Jack looked over at Apple Bloom’s grave. “Ah’ve been wondering that ma’self for the last two years sugar cube.” She then looked up to her parents graves just a few feet up from us. “Actually ah’ve been wondering it for a lot longer than that.”
I looked over at the graves of my mother and father, which had been moved here back when Scootaloo was still a child. “As have I.” I looked over my shoulder. “I can’t go home to that empty house AJ. I just can’t.”
“It’s alright. Ma house is yours sugar cube. Stay as long as ya need. It’s full of my little sister’s great grandchildren. If they can’t make ya feel like yer not alone, well, ah tell ya yer hopeless. They’re always happy to see their auntie Rainbow Dash.”
I smiled slightly thinking about AJ’s great grandchildren. “I still can’t believe you make them call me that.”
(***)
Well yea, I knew I couldn’t live with Apple Jack forever, I had to get back to my house. A week went by and I finally set out, back for home.
I opened the door and I- couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It was empty. I know some ponies are fine with that, fine with living alone, and for a while I was too but now… the emptiness started choking me the second I opened that door. I slammed it shut.
“This can’t be my home,” I said finally. “It’s just walls made of wood and some memories.”
I looked right and I could swear I saw an image of Scootaloo. She was a filly again. I reached out to it, but part of my mind broke through, telling me it was just an illusion.
“You know what you’re supposed to be doing,” her voice barely whispered.
“How can I?”
The image turned its head. “Hold on Lightning, you know how hard it is to maintain these connections.”
“You’re really there? Are you really going to fly with Lightning?” I asked.
“That’s up to you to believe. You know what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“I…”
“Don’t hold me here mom. I want to be with my friends, but I need to know you’re gonna be happy.” I nodded my head. “Whatever that takes, promise me you’re gonna be happy again.”
“Okay.” Was all I could say. I blinked and she was gone.
(***)
I flew through one of the windows of the Castle of Friendship. Twilight’s youngest, Night Star, a bat pony she adopted three years back, bumped into me.
“AUNTIE RAINBOW DASH!” the five year old colt yelled, and flew up to hug me.
“Why does everyone make their kids call me that?” I asked. Still, I hugged him back, enjoying the feeling of a child’s love again. I let him fly away as I started to look for his mother. Spike, who was now twice my size, lumbered past me after Night, cautioning him against flying out the window.
“Your mom will kill me if you get hurt.”
I chuckled. “If I know mom’s you bet she will,” I said, walking away.
I found Twilight in her study, reading with two fillies, one of them struggling to sound out words. I flew in front of her. She sighed. “They kinda want to know how this one ends,” she said.
“Not like you won’t remember where you were bookworm,” I teased. “C’mon Twi, you know I can’t do this alone. You’re gonna have to keep me from getting in over my head.”
She nodded and got up. She nodded to the fillies, who groaned, but both little earth ponies still ran out of her study and off to go meet Spike and their little brother. “As I recall, this all started with you being in over your head, didn’t it?”
“Would it ever be me if it’s not rushed?”
(***)
So there I was, in an orphanage. Foals played all around me, most ignoring me, as I’m sure most of them had gotten used to adults just walking through. I noticed that most of the foals seemed to stick in pairs or in groups of three, one of the many improvements my kid’s friend Lightning Strike had initiated for orphans when she grew up, the buddy system. She and her brother went through so much in foster care, and Celestia knows if either of them would have made it without each other. After the age of two, all foals were now partnered with a “sibling” as long as they were in the system. No foal would ever again go through foster care completely alone. They could be adopted away from their siblings, but it was HIGHLY discouraged
“I told you Twi,” I finally squeaked out. “I told you this would happen if you ever took me to an orphanage. I can’t leave any of them. They all need help I’m sure. I want to help them all.
“Rainbow,” she said with the best stern voice she could generate at the moment. “Three. You can adopt three.”
“There are those movies where a rich pony adopts an entire orphanage ya know and-“
“No. I’m putting my hoof down. Three.”
I looked around for a bit, the kids continuing to ignore me. I felt almost like I was in a pet store, but I knew there was a difference. These kids had their own lives, lives that I wasn’t a part of… yet.
But three of them, how could I cho- WHAM! A little pegasus colt, looking about four, slammed into my hip. He started crying and I grabbed him up in my forelegs. He hugged me back. “I’ve decided on one.” I said. A bigger filly and colt nearly as tall as me, now stood before me, both looking up at the little colt.
“You’re not gonna take my brother away are you?” asked the filly, herself also a pegasus. “That’s already happened.”
“Twi I thought you were said you were gonna keep that buddy system going,” I grumbled.
“I know who that is Rainbow. Her brother is gone,” Twilight said back. “He died in the accident that took her parents.” A lump in my throat, I quietly gave the little colt to his sister. “I suppose I should explain this. Rainbow, you can adopt any child you want from here, but despite how Scootaloo presented it, adopting isn’t about making you happy. It’s about the child and it won’t work any other way.”
I nodded. “Nothing worth doing is easy. And then… I think I’ve learned, if it’s done only for yourself, it’s still worthless.” I looked her in the eyes. “Trust me Twi, this isn’t about my happiness really anyway.” She looked at me with confusion. “I’ll explain later.” I walked around the filly, who was now holding her brother as the older unicorn colt continued to stand over her. I put my wing over all three. “I don’t care what their past is, I’m their mother now.”
“You realize this is rushing things like crazy right? I took two months to get this process done.” Twilight asked back.
“Would it be me any other way?” I asked back.
Twilight rolled her eyes, but smiled. “I suppose not.”
(***)
That catches everyone up to me today. If you’re reading this, don’t worry, this journal continues, I’m not done telling you about the best filly ever… well one of the best two, there’s another filly in my life now remember? I just want to tell you how things are now. I’m happy, life is a struggle, but it’s worth it.
Faded Light is a four-year-old pegasus, he has a dark blue coat and black mane. The orphanage was all he ever knew before my home, he was abandoned in a dumpster when he was born. He loves to talk endlessly with what little vocabulary he has and his energy is endless. He is so much fun to be with.
First Dawn is a six-year-old pegasus, she has a white coat with a black mane. Her parents passed away in a train accident when they were on vacation with her brother on his birthday. She is very protective of Faded Light, but for now, he doesn’t seem to mind. Remembering how close Lightning was to her brother back when they were foals, I have a few clues about how to deal with those two. Otherwise she’s basically a cuddling type, nowhere near as energetic as her brother.
Finally there’s Dark Sky. He’s ten, a black unicorn with a black mane. He has marks on his body from years of abuse, including a cut under his right eye. He had been at the orphanage since he was seven, after he was rescued from his constantly drunken father. His appearance made most other foals and even some of the adults afraid of him. Only his foster siblings had ever really given him a chance. At first Dark Sky did NOT trust me and sweet Celestia was he protective of his siblings. We fought over and over, but as much as he would NOT yield I would NOT give up on him.
It’s been six months. Dark Sky trusts me a little, but not as much as I’d like. He still won’t hug me and keeps a keen eye on me whenever I rough house with his siblings. Every time I mess up and someone says “ow!” he snaps and rescues them, so sure I’m going to start beating them. I don’t know yet exactly how I’m going to change his mind, he’s in therapy, but I just know this will be an uphill struggle.
There is a ray of hope with Dark Sky however. He loves Pinkie, for some reason of everyone, he is entirely unthreatened by her. Pinkie has visited the orphanage several times to bring some cheer to them and I suspect she got a place in his heart over time. She’s tried to tell him I’m an okay pony, but he just thinks she’s naive. I try to maximize his time with her. Still, I’d be remiss not to mention he got his cutie mark a few weeks ago a shield and a kazoo. I hope I’m right when I guess what those means, because a jokester protector of Equestria would be… I don’t know, kinda fun.
Hang in there Dark Sky, if it’s the last thing I do, I will help you fix your heart too, just like Scootaloo. Who knows, maybe you and your siblings will fix mine.
I am happy Scootaloo, I’m happy when I see them playing. I’m happy when Faded Light sings his alphabet to me. I’m happy when First Dawn hugs me for no reason. I’m happy watching Dark Sky try to tell Pinkie jokes. I'm happy. I want you back so bad, but I am happy.
It’s not about the goodbye’s, it’s about the hellos.