Poison Whiskey

by The Bricklayer


Part 12: Sinnermare

Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
Sinnerman where you gonna run to?
Where you gonna run to?
All on that day

We got to run to the rock
Please hide me, I run to the rock
Please hide me, run to the rock
Please hide here

All on that day
But the rock cried out
I can't hide you, the rock cried out
I can't hide you, the rock cried out

I ain't gonna hide you there
All on that day
I said rock
What's the matter with you rock?
Don't you see I need you, rock?

Sinnerman: Nina Simone: Pastel Blues: 1965

Ponyville: Fluttershy’s Cottage

Rainbow Dash had said nothing on the long trip back to her wife’s cottage, the yelling and screaming of Icy Winds, and the resulting aftermath still ringing in her ears.

“You damn bitch! You caused this, just by leaving that damn daughter of yours on my doorstep! You hear me, this is all your fault! Hope you enjoy your worthless filly, you damn filly-fooling bitch!”

And there was Scootaloo, looking up at Rainbow with a look of betrayal etched on her face.
“Rainbow,” she whispered. “Am I really your…”

“Yeah Squirt,” Rainbow said with a sigh. “I’m your real mom.”

Of course, once she entered the small cottage, the silence was broken. A rush of emotion was going through Scootaloo’s head right now. Confusion, for why Rainbow never told her and why it had to be Icy Winds that had to do it. Sadness, for why Rainbow never felt the need to trust her enough with this snippet of information. And fury, for all of the reasons stated above.

“How... How long?” Scootaloo’s voice quavered, as she looked up towards the pony she once thought she could trust with anything in the world. It seemed Rainbow wasn’t willing to be the same as her. Scootaloo’s eyes almost drilled a hole into Rainbow’s soul, and although she wanted to out of shame, she couldn’t look away. “How long were you planning to keep this hidden from me?”

Rainbow’s silence and the fact that she was gazing at the floor said it all.

“...Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Scootaloo muttered bitterly as she turned to leave the room, tossing a look of both betrayal and disgust towards her so-called mother. “If you had planned to ever tell me, you would have told me long before now.”

“S-Scootaloo, hold up a second!” Rainbow shouted, and her daughter halted briefly. “I… I was afraid. My father… Well, he was no better than who I left you with. And… And when I got some other mare pregnant with you, I was terrified I’d turn out to be just like him. I… I was only a teenager back then, one night stand thanks to hormones running high and maybe a few glasses of whiskey. How… How was I supposed to know what would happen?” Rainbow pleaded, her voice beginning to quiver as well. “L-Like I said, teenager, stupid and afraid. S-Some Element of Loyalty I turned out to be eh?” Rainbow joked weakly.

Scootaloo wasn’t amused.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to tell you the truth. Sweet Celestia, just every time I’ve looked at you, I wanted to tell you that. But… But I just couldn’t work up the nerve, as I knew you’d never take it well. But the real irony, the more I put it off, the angrier I knew I’d make you. And that continued to scare me, keep me from telling you. Fear… It makes you do things you never thought you’d do…” Rainbow whispered, tears dripping to the floor from her cerise eyes.

“You know you said something about how you were afraid you’d turn out worse than your father?” Scootaloo asked bitterly, and Rainbow looked up only to receive a sharp punch to the jaw that sent her sprawling to the floor. “Congrats, you have.”

And those words hurt more than any punch ever could.

Rainbow sobbed quietly as Scootaloo headed to the door.

“Scootaloo, wait!” Fluttershy called.

“I need to talk to somepony…” Scootaloo muttered as she grabbed her scooter and put on her helmet, tears of her own beginning to form. “Somepony that isn’t either of you two!”

With that, she raced off to Celestia only knew where. Meanwhile, Fluttershy helped her wife off the floor. Rainbow rubbed her jaw, and looked at her wife.

“She’s right you know…” Rainbow muttered. “Tell me she’s right…”

“No, she isn’t and you know that,” Fluttershy whispered, supportive to the end. “She’s just angry, and she just needs time to think things through. She’ll come around eventually.”

Rainbow laughed bitterly to herself.

“Hah, you really believe that?” Rainbow asked. “And maybe Tirek himself will rise up from Tartarus and reform and take the straight and narrow path!” she replied sarcastically.

Rainbow then looked her wife dead in the eyes.

“Go on, tell me how you really feel. I’ve never been the best wife to you, and I’ve been an even worse mother to my own damn daughter!” Rainbow shouted. “Go on, admit it! I know you want to! Ponies like you… They bottle up all their anger inside, and just let it out when something finally pushes them over the edge! Well, I think this counts, doesn’t it?”

“No… No,” Fluttershy asserted. “While I admit you’ve never been the best wife towards me, you’ve always tried your hardest. Every relationship, it has its ups and downs.”

“Yeah, pretty sure this crap counts as more than just ups and downs…” Rainbow muttered in self-disgust. Fluttershy didn’t even bother to berate her for her language. Privately, she admitted some of what her wife was saying was true. There were times she wanted to shout and scream at her wife for some of her stupid mistakes, quite a few of them surrounding Scootaloo. And lately, she’d been wanting to do it more than ever. But like Rainbow said, she never could work up the courage in fear of ruining things.

“If… If it’s okay with you,” Rainbow continued as she walked towards the couch. “I’ll just be sleeping here tonight. God knows I deserve it, and to be honest… I don’t trust myself around you right now. Probably screw up our relationship beyond belief just like I did with my daughter’s.”

With that, Rainbow pulled the covers over herself, turned off a nearby lamp to darken the room, and hugged the Spitfire plushie she’d bought for Scootaloo close to herself and finally let the tears flow.


Sweet Apple Acres:

Scootaloo honestly didn’t know how long she raced her scooter across Ponyville, or how many ponies saw her tears as she did so, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. But somehow, just as night was beginning to fall she found herself at the Clubhouse.

She looked up to where -illuminated in the moonlight- was the poster for the Rainbow Dash fan club. She, with a snarl, reached up and ripped the poster from the wall, before gazing at the pony on it longingly.

Not the pony she knew now, but the one she looked up to. The Rainbow Dash she thought she could trust, the infallible, unstoppable one.

Growling in anger, and fighting back more tears, she then ripped it in half and tossed what remained behind her.

“Did… Did that pony ever exist at all…?” Scootaloo wondered to herself, not realizing she was speaking aloud.

“She still does kid, you know that,” a familiar scratchy voice said from behind her, as Scootaloo heard the sounds of wings flapping and a set of paws landing on the wood floor. “Just not in the right state of mind for you to figure that out yet, that’s all.”

Scootaloo turned, and saw a familiar white feathered griffon with purple highlights. Though her vision was blurry from her tears, Scootaloo recognized her in an instant.

“G-Gilda?” Scootaloo choked out and was pulled into a hug by the griffon in question.

“Yeah, it’s me, kid. Sorta figured I’d find you here, given what your mom’s told me about you in letters. Heh, you two are so alike it’s scary really,” Gilda replied. “Listen, Dash may not be the brightest mare in the world at times, but she means well in the end. And if it helps any, you being her daughter and not telling you, eating her up inside. ...I was there you know, when Rainbow named you and christened you and everything. She looked like the proudest mare in the world at that moment, just holding you in her arms.”

“Then… Then why…?” Scootaloo sniffled.

“She gave you up?” Gilda finished, and Scootaloo nodded. “...Listen, you have to understand Dash’s state of mind at that moment. Her father… As you probably already know, wasn’t the nicest stallion in the world. Constantly drunk off his ass, and screaming at her. Saying she and her mom broke everything they touched really. Honestly… Flight camp with me, Flutters, and the rest was about some of the only times I saw her happy when she was a young little filly. Hell, surprised she didn’t decide to try and end it all at one point or the other, given how much a bastard her dear old dad was. Hell, she might have tried for all I know really. I wasn’t there all the time, keeping an eye on her.”

Scootaloo’s jaw dropped.

“You… You really think that Mo-Dash (Scootaloo quickly amended herself, she wasn’t going to be calling Dash by that anytime soon) really would have…” she trailed off, swallowing nervously.

“Honestly… Yeah,” Gilda answered bluntly. “That’s how bad things were. Her father, real dick. I’m going to tell you this right now, if the alcohol hadn’t gotten him in the end, I probably would have gone out, found a gun or something and killed the guy myself,” she growled out. “But Dash… She’s nothing like her father. All her life, she’s strived to be anything but him. Proving him wrong at every corner. Her father said she’d never be a Wonderbolt, look where she is now. Her father said she’d never amount to anything? Well, she’s one of Equestria’s biggest heroes nowadays. Her father said she’d never find love? She found that in Fluttershy, of all ponies. She’s happy, for the most part.” Gilda stated.

“And… And I just yelled and screamed at her that she was worse than her father…” Scootaloo whimpered. “I’m nothing like my mom. Nothing at all…”

“You were angry kid, and I don’t blame you. In your position, might have yelled at Dash myself actually. Surprised I already haven’t blown up at her for this crap she pulled,” Gilda admitted. “But make no mistake, Dash… Knowing her, she’ll be angry for a while but she won’t hold it against you. More like herself. She needs you there for her kid, trust me on that. She may be a tough pony on the outside, but on the inside… She’s as vulnerable as you or me. Now come on kid, let’s get you back home. Getting cold tonight, and Fluttershy would kill me -Or worse, sic that chimera friend of hers on me- if she found out I let you freeze to death.”

Scootaloo laughed a little at that, before she looked at Gilda again as the griffon picked her up in her claws, and held her close to her chest to keep the young filly warm.

“Just one thing…” Scootaloo began.

“Yeah, kiddo?” Gilda asked.

“Can I call you Auntie Gilda?” Scootaloo asked, and Gilda smiled at that.

“Sure you can kid, sure you can. It would be my honor to join your family in some way. And hey, if all goes well enough with your grandma, I probably will be a part of your family tree. ...Just in a very weird way.”

“Yeah, not sure what to think about you dating my grandma yet…” Scootaloo trailed off.

“For the record?” Gilda asked. “Neither does your mother!”

Scootaloo actually laughed at that, and continued to do so all the way back home.