Rainbow Dash awakened to her darkened bedroom. In the early evening, the sun had just set below Cloudsdale. Luna’s night was encroaching now, painting the sky hues of blue and black as stars glittered in the sky. Her eyes practically cracked as she opened them, dried up with the grit of a long nap after a bad day that had made her cry.
Rainbow Dash was not a pony who cried. Not from sadness, certainly. Laughter, sometimes if whatever it was was funny enough to her. But tears of sadness… They were sacred, and rare. She couldn’t remember where she had heard the saying, but the words “true sorrow is as rare as true love” rang in her mind. Well today, she had experienced true sorrow.
Today, she had laid her father to rest.
Bow Hothoof had lived a long life, so it wasn’t necessarily a sudden death she couldn’t prepare for. Still, living in the uncertainty that she wouldn’t be able to be there with him was a constant shadow. She had been, mercifully, at the end. That shadow had been destroyed, but the one that took it’s place was far darker. Learning to live her life without her dad. She had mourned him alongside her mother of course. Spitfire had mercifully given her a few days away from Wonderbolts practice, alongside her sympathies. So she had time to process things. After she had gone to the funeral though, her mother had offered to have her old room at her parents house prepared to stay with her. She had declined, though. She wanted to be around her friends for a few days. Her mother had understood, and found comfort from her own friends.
But as these things went, friends had lives outside of them. And when Rainbow’s friends had left, and she had been alone with her feelings, she had become overwhelmed. Every feeling she had, every worry, every regret, everything she wanted to have said to her dad, came pouring out in the water down her cheeks. She sobbed gasping sobs as she tried to come to grips with the reality of what had happened. But she hadn’t been able to. So, unable to handle that kind of level of emotional stress, she had fallen into the old habit of napping to try and gain a little distance from her feelings. And it had worked to a degree. When she had awoken, all she had felt was hollow numbness.
Now, she sat up. She preferred her room dark right now. The bright white of her cloud room, her cheery colors, all of them contrasted her mood too much in this case. She certainly did not believe in Rarity’s “dressing to match your mood” philosophy, but perhaps it had come into play more than she wanted to admit in this case. The darkness comforted her, told her that she was not alone. She wanted to be enshrouded in it, encapsulated completely, just so she wouldn’t have to go out into the light of day and be tasked with the enormous job of pretending that she was okay. She knew it was going to be hard to do. But her thoughts turned to her mother. How hard must this have been for her?
Her mother had lost her special somepony. She was not one to dabble in love or relationships- because Celestia only knew that was Rarity’s area of expertise- but there never was, nor had there ever been a doubt in her mind that her parents were soulmates. They’d been married forty six years and like a fine cider had only gotten better and more in love with each other with age. They had devoted themselves to each other just as much as they devoted themselves to her- although she hadn’t know that until after she’d moved out when she caught them making out on the couch. Certainly they had shared hugs and chaste kisses, but nothing so passionate as that. That was what had made her realize the depth of their devotion. Her mother would look up to her father with the stars in her eyes, and her dad would puff up like he was bulk biceps. Her mom always giggled when she did that. Now, Rainbow wondered, would she ever hear that sound again?
As her mother crossed her mind, she felt an ache in her heart she hadn’t felt since she was a little filly. When she’d been very little, maybe three years old, she’d followed her mother around the house, asking endless questions, proclaiming that she wanted to be just like her, and her mother would just smile, and tell her that “You can be whatever you want to be, Dashie.”. Though the memory was dim, the feeling she could recall with complete clarity. When her mother had left to run errands, or to go to the bathroom, or to do something that could have seriously injured her, like cook with hot oil, and had left her, Rainbow remembered that heart-sinking, rock-in-her-chest, cold feeling she’d used to get. The feeling of abandonment and desperate longing.
How long would she have left with her mother? It was a morbid question to ask, but if there was any time to ask herself that question, it was now. The answer that came to her heart was the first to come to her mind too: Not long enough. Rainbow sat up, head bowed as she looked at the floor. She wanted to see her mother, but she was far away. Not necessarily in distance as one might have thought, either. Rainbow’s schedule was typically so jam packed that even the flight to cloudsdale would take too long with how early her mother went to bed. To have barely any time with her and then make the trip back home just seemed… Unnecessary at the time. But now, she understood it was. Time was her enemy now, slipping away from her rapidly. Her dad’s death had certainly taught her that much. She needed to make the most of the time with the parent she had left. She was carrying a burden too heavy to bear, and she needed somepony to help her carry it. Who better than the mare who had always supported her?
Rapidly, she looked at the clock. It was just before her mother’s bedtime. She wasted not a moment more, before flying out of her window, and racing faster than she ever had to get to Cloudsdale. Somehow, she made it in fifteen minutes. She quickly knocked on the door. Her anxiety made her heartbeat quicken, and her worry rose and peaked all at once. She thought, perhaps, that her mother had gone to bed early, and her ears drooped in disappointment. She was about to fly back home when she heard the door open.
“Dashie?” Her mother stood there, wearing an orange robe. The lines and wrinkles on her face told a thousand stories, of worry, of worlds she’d traveled, of a life well lived. But her eyes retained the joy and happiness Windy had always possessed. They were the part of her that was simply ageless. Rainbow took the sight of her in, lip quavering ever so slightly. Windy came forward, and touched Rainbow’s cheek with her wing. “Are you alright?”
Rainbow Dash reacted in a way that surprised even her. Without any warning, nor thought to the action, she pulled her mother into a hug, and wept into her shoulder. Windy, though older and tired, reciprocated the action, even wrapping her wings around her the way she had when her daughter was a little girl. Trying to shelter and protect her as much as she could when she was hurt was just instinctual, and it hadn’t eroded with the passage of time.
“Can I stay with you tonight, Mom?” Rainbow choked out through her tears.
Windy stroked her cheek gently. “Of course you can. Come on in. Do you want some tea?”
Rainbow sniffled, shook her head. “No. I’m fine.”
Windy went down the hall, to Rainbow Dash’s old room, and opened the door for her. Rainbow, who had followed, paused at the door. Windy Whistles looked at her when she didn’t go in straight away.
“Honey?”
It took a moment for Rainbow to speak. “Can I sleep with you tonight, Mom?” She could not put into words the desperate sense of time slipping away, the feeling that she wasn’t going to be able to say the things she needed her mother to know, or do everything she wanted to do with her. The immense pressure, the horrific feeling of there not being enough time, was a shadow that even the brightest of moments could not have eradicated.
Windy Whistles smiled gently. “Of course.” She said, and led Rainbow to her room. Windy tucked Rainbow Dash in the way she had when she was a little girl, before climbing onto her own side of the bed that had once belonged to her husband, and was still saturated with his scent. Rainbow immediately shifted to curl into her mother. There were so many things she wanted her mother to know, but she was still a Mare of action at the end of the day, and something like that spoke volumes more than any words she could string together. Windy just smiled at the close contact, and wrapped her daughter in her legs. It was the first time since her husband had passed that her bed had not seemed so vast and empty. It was the sweetest kind of relief to not feel alone on this of all days. Windy, now soothed by her daughter safe in her arms, fell into a deeper sleep than she had had in days, and Rainbow soon did the same.
The next morning, Rainbow Dash broached the important matter of having her mother come and live closer to her. Since her father had passed, there was nothing holding her there. Rainbow showed her a home in Ponyville quite close to her own cloudominium, and Windy had been hesitant at first. Leaving behind the home she and her husband had shared was an incredibly difficult idea to handle. But, in the end, being closer to her daughter was worth it. They decided to plan the move for the winter of that year, and made plans accordingly.
Rainbow had stayed for two days after that, to help her Mother adjust to things. She helped her choose what things of her father’s she wanted to keep, or give away, and pack up the boxes of his things to give away to charity. Then, when all of that was done, Rainbow, feeling more satisfied now, had gone back to her own home. Windy, feeling wistful that day, had gotten a quill and ink, and some paper, and wrote something for her daughter.
The letter arrived three days later, from the post pony himself. Seeing her Mother’s distinctive writing on the back of the envelope, she immediately opened it. There was one page on the front, saying that her mother had felt inspired to write this after her visit and wanted her to have it, before actually getting to the piece itself.
It was a song, written just for her, and Rainbow marveled as she read it.
I feel such sweet relief
When I have you here with me
The weight of the world is off of my shoulders
The joy I feel’s bursting out
There’s no way to calm me down
When I see your love’s beautiful colors
I wish we didn’t live so far away, but soon I will be back until then just know that I am proud to say that I’m your mother, mother.
Tears streaming down my face
Don’t want to leave this place
It hurts me to leave you behind
Still I have memories
To carry home with me
And you’re always in my heart and on my mind
I wish we didn’t live so far away, but soon I will be back until then just know that I am proud to say that I’m your mother, mother.
And when the winter comes
I’ll pack my bags at home
And begin a new chapter of my life
Finding my home so far
From where I know you are
But being closer to you is worth the strife
I wish we didn’t live so far away, but soon I will be back until then just know that I am proud to say that I’m your mother, mother.
Now we’re closing gaps and I won’t live as far away, but even though that’s done I’ll always be proud to say that I’m your mother, mother.
Rainbow had grinned a watery smile, and gone to put the letter into a picture frame, so that she could always preserve that tangible piece of her mother. She smiled as she did it, because she knew that once her mother moved closer, she would no longer be so far from the one pony who mattered most to her and always had: Her mother.