Scootaloo stood shocked, hardly hearing her name called. She moved numbly up the ramp, never taking her eyes off her friend and the pony he sacrificed himself to help. After a brief moment, she shook her head, recovered her thoughts, and looked to the judges. Thoughts raced through her head as she watched them all nod.
Oh, Celestia. What do I do? I can’t let everyone I know down... but, I’ll never see Orion again... I suppose... I hope he knew that risk when he did that. I’m sure he’s thinking the same right now.
She glanced at Orion. He wasn’t looking at her. She took off, heartbroken. Instinct kicked in as the familiar rush of wind cooled her and blew her thoughts away. She stopped at the right altitude and then launched again, sensing and seeing every cloud, formulating a game plan on the fly. In a matter of a couple dozen seconds, the sky was clear. She did a quick loop in mid-flight, aiming at the first hoop. With a powerful beat of her wings, she propelled forward through the first ring, and then the second, and then the third, expertly turning and drifting with each one. She curved in towards the second last ring, near the bottom of the field. As she descended, she caught sight of Orion and Aurora, who were almost at the west gate now. Orion turned his head, and smiled weakly.
Her focus shattered for a brief moment before a voice in the back of her mind reminded her of where she was, and she cleared the final ring, her hind hooves missing it by inches. Then, she fell, her body running on autopilot as she snapped her wings open and flew to the end of the test.
With a blink, Scootaloo landed. She whirled around to look at the judges who gave her one emotionless look before turning back to the crowd of test subjects.
"Comet Blitz!"
Scootaloo blinked. Had she passed? Was it really over? She ran to the ends of the cloud, hoping that Orion and Aurora hadn't gone through the west gate already.
But they were gone.
A small sob welled up in Scootaloo's throat. Her closest friend was gone. Banished to live the rest of his live in exile with the rest of the failures.
"Sunny Skies!"
She looked up to see Sunny Skies completing her flight test. She landed next to Scootaloo and breathed out a deep, relieved sigh.
"Dang, I thought I was going to miss one of the clouds." Sunny lightly punched Scootaloo's shoulder. "Good job. Looked like you were going to hit one of the rings, but nice job recovering. Thought you were a goner when you were looking back at the failures."
A pang coursed through Scootaloo's chest, and her jaw wobbled for a moment. "Y-yeah... glad I made it."
"Same." Sunny wiped a bead of sweat off of her brow. "Hey, Cloud Swirl made it! Heard she's throwing a bit of a party for passing. Good thing she did, right? It'd be super awkward if her parents bought all of that stuff just to find out that, 'whoops, your daughter went into exile. You can't return anything, especially if it's because your daughter failed.' You gonna be there?"
"I guess," Scootaloo muttered, following Sunny over to where the rest of the successful pegasi were congregating.
"Asked my mom and dad if I could have one, and they said that I shouldn't get a party for something I should be able to do blindfolded. I guess they're right." Sunny nodded and waved to a few other ponies. "Looks like everypony else has made it so far."
Tears welled up in Scootaloo's eyes, and she took in a deep, shaky breath. "Yeah... that's good."
Sunny gave her a quizzical look before looking back at the test area. A look of comprehension crossed her face, and she nodded. "Yeah. Right. You and Orion were kind of close, weren't you?"
"He was my best friends since moving here. Orion was... we were..." Scootaloo took another deep, shaky breath, and couldn't stop the tears from falling. "I'd never felt that way about anypony before."
Sunny gave Scootaloo a sympathetic look. "Yeah, but there are plenty of other birds in the air, right? I mean, look..." Sunny waved her wing toward the rest of the successful students. "All kinds of ponies here that aren't failures. Typhoon is kind of cute. Silver Wing uh... suddenly became single about this time last year, and he's on the prowl. Night Breeze might be good enough for the Wonderbolts. So yeah, lots of options. And you can make other friends." She wrapped a wing around Scootaloo's shoulders with a smile. "Heck, I'll be your friend. We didn't talk a lot in Flight School, but you seem like a pretty cool pony, Scootaloo."
"Thanks. You too," Scootaloo muttered. She took a deep breath and slid out from under Sunny's wing. "So listen, I gotta..." She jerked her head toward the street. "You know. Been a long day. I want to take a nap."
"Totally get it. I kind of want one myself after everything. The adrenaline is wearing off." Sunny punched Scootaloo in the shoulder again. "Glad to see you made it. We're gonna do big things. Praise the Flock."
"Praise the Flock."
With that, Scootaloo took to the air, pumping her wings and flying higher and higher until the testing ground was barely visible. If she had a say, she'd never go near it again.
They were both supposed to succeed. They would hit up a local ice cream parlor to celebrate. Scootaloo would order mint chocolate chip with sprinkles like she always did. Maybe she'd have been able to get Orion to order two scoops of vanilla ice cream this time. It was a celebration. They'd done it. Maybe after that, they'd go back to Rainbow Dash's house and play games until late in the night, just like they'd done dozens of times before.
Maybe she'd finally be able to profess her feelings.
But that was gone now. Orion was banished to wherever they sent the test flight failures. All she had left was Rainbow Dash. She'd be so proud of her.
"I knew you had it in ya, squirt! Bet it was really easy for you! Probably finished the course in ten seconds flat. I'm really proud of you, you know that? Someday you might even be almost as good as me."
A small smile crossed Scootaloo's face for the first time since the start of the tests. Yeah, Rainbow Dash would be proud of her. They'd spend some time flying together, just happy as sisters. And Sunny was right. With Rainbow Dash as her mentor, Scootaloo would do amazing things for the Flock.
Scootaloo glided down until she landed on the street. After everything that had happened, maybe she should walk for just a bit. The cooling air felt pleasant on her body, her pegasus fur helping to protect from the worst of it. Down the street, ponies were milling around outside of their houses, gossiping about the latest news around the city. Probably mostly about the flight tests. It was always the main topic of discussion whenever they happened.
Suddenly, shouting filled the street, and everypony turned in its direction. Curious, Scootaloo followed the noise until she reached a home with two ponies standing at the doorway, with a third pony in a suit blankly standing in front of them. The stallion was the one shouting while the mare had collapsed on the ground, sobbing.
"--you mean my son failed his flight test?! We practiced it a hundred times! He never made a single mistake!"
"Regardless of practice, he did not open his wings in time and hit the ground. He has been taken for exile."
"No, no, this has to be some kind of mistake," the stallion growled. "Can I talk to somepony about this? Can I at least see my son and find out what happened?!"
"I have told you what happened. He did not open his wings in time and hit the ground. As for seeing him again, he has already been sent off. There's nopony to talk to, and even if there was, nothing would change."
"There has to be somepony," the stallion said, desperation creeping up on his face. "If there's something we can do... talk to him... maybe somepony to... pay. I have the bits. Just tell me who to talk to. I can write a check with any amount on it. Maybe he can take his flight test again. One simple mistake doesn't make him a failure!"
"It does," the second stallion said. "The Flock has no use for ponies that crumble under pressure. There is no payment option. There is no second flight test. There is nopony to talk to. The failure has already been exiled."
The mare glared at the stallion through tear-filled eyes. "His name was Bright Summer, and he's not just some failure!"
"He is. I understand that breeding a failure is a shame. Have another and see if it will benefit the Flock." The second stallion tilted his head. "Good day."
With that, the second stallion walked onto the street, leaving the mare sobbing and the other stallion with a baffled look on his face, his mouth flopping up and down as though he wanted to say something else, but didn't have the words.
Scootaloo stood there, watching the stallion go down the street. He spotted Scootaloo and made eye contact with her. He stopped, and, after a moment, a faint smile crossed his face, and he nodded at Scootaloo.
"Well done. Praise the Flock."
Scootaloo's gaze flicked over to Bright Summer's parents. "Yeah... thanks."
The stallion's eyes narrowed, and he took a menacing step toward her. "Is something the matter? You're not sympathetic to the failures, are you?"
Scootaloo flinched back for a second, then forced a half smile on her face. "No, sir, praise the Flock. Sorry. Just tired. I'm ready for a nap. Who cares about a bunch of failures?"
"Hm. Very well. Have a good night."
Once the stallion left, Scootaloo turned her attention back to Bright Summer's parents. His mother was still sobbing, and his father sat next to her, his wing around her shoulder.
"I-it c-can't be too bad, right?" his mother moaned. "Th-there are a lot of ponies wherever he's going. He'll make friends, and h-he'll know that we'll never forget him and will always love him, no matter what h-happened."
"Of course he'll know that," Bright's father said. "He was always strong. He'll be okay." He let out a slight chuckle and motioned to the sky. "We used to say that rainbows had gold at the end. Maybe the real end of the rainbow is where he is. Every time we see one, we can think of him and imagine how well he's doing."
Scootaloo had heard enough. She turned around and took to the air once more. She couldn't watch any more. Right now, all she wanted was the nap she kept lying about. Maybe Rainbow Dash would already be home by the time she got there. She'd be so proud.
After a short flight, Scootaloo landed in front of the door to Rainbow Dash's house. It was unlocked as always, so Scootaloo opened the door and trudged inside. None of the light clouds had been activated, so the room sat in darkness now that the sun had gone down. Now that she was actually home, the exhaustion overtook her, and she managed to drag herself up to her room where her soft, comfortable cloud bed lay waiting for her.
Just as she was about to lay down, something caught her eye. On her desk stood a photo of Orion and herself. She was smiling at the camera, but Orion was sticking his tongue out at her and flashing two feathers behind her head. Scootaloo let out a half laugh/half sob. He never could take a normal picture.
She took it off of her desk and rolled onto her bed. holding the picture close to her chest. Now that she was alone, truly alone, she finally broke down and cried herself to sleep.
* * * *
She awoke some time later to the sound of the front door opening and closing. It was still night, so she hadn't slept until morning like she'd hoped. Rainbow Dash must have come home. Scootaloo walked out of her room and flew down the steps to see Rainbow Dash turning on the light cloud. She couldn't miss the stress and exhaustion painted on every inch of her idol. It had doubtlessly been a long day for her as well.
Rainbow looked up as Scootaloo landed next to her, and Scootaloo noticed the barest amount of stress washing off of Rainbow.
"Hey, squirt," Rainbow muttered before walking to the kitchen. "Glad to see you. Heard you did well." She motioned to Scootaloo and let out an amused chuckle. "I mean, you're here, and you had me as a teacher, so of course you did."
"Yeah, it was no sweat. A foal could do it."
"Definitely." Rainbow Dash opened up the fridge and pulled a bottle cider out, popping the top off and taking a long drink before turning back to Scootaloo. "Heard what's his face that you always hung around didn't make it. Too bad." She shrugged. "Eh, we all know somepony. There were one or two in my flight class that didn't make it. There was one filly I was good friends with during Flight Camp, Star something or other, that I was sure was going to make it, but she missed a cloud." She took another drink. "Ah well. The Flock doesn't need failures like that. Like you said: a foal could do the test."
"Uh-huh."
Rainbow drained the bottle, then threw it in the trash and grabbed another. "We should celebrate, or something. Ice cream, maybe. You like mint chocolate chip, right?"
"Yeah."
Rainbow nodded. "Yeah, let's do that. Really happy to see you passed. You had the best teacher in Cloudsdale, so how could you not? I'm excited to see what you do next."
"M-maybe I..." Scootaloo's voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. "Maybe I could help you in your job?"
Rainbow's smirk evaporated, and her ear flicked. She looked down to the bottle in her wing before taking another drink. "Sure. Maybe. Someday. Gotta work really hard to get there. Sacrifice a lot. A lot a lot. Worth it to help the Flock, though." Rainbow looked back to Scootaloo and frowned, tilting her head. "'S that?"
Scootaloo looked down and saw that she'd unknowingly taken the picture of her and Orion down with her. "Oh, uh, just a picture."
"Of you and that failure?" Scootaloo nodded. "Hm. Not sure I'd keep that, squirt." Rainbow Dash took the picture from Scootaloo's hooves and tossed it into the trash before throwing her second empty bottle after it. Scootaloo flinched when she heard the glass of the picture frame break. "Wouldn't look very good for either of us if you kept a picture of a failure hanging around the house of somepony with my position in the Factory." After pulling out a third bottle, Rainbow smiled at Scootaloo and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Great job. Knew you could do it. Praise the Flock, and all that. Just keep following me, and you're gonna do great stuff."
"I know," Scootaloo whispered. "Got a great teacher."
"The best ever. I made you work hard, and you passed with, uh, flying colors. In any case..." Rainbow nodded and started walking out of the kitchen. "Good job. We'll go for ice cream tomorrow if I'm not held up at work."
"Sounds good."
"Cool. Let me know if you need anything. Maybe get some sleep. You've had a long day."
With that, Rainbow walked up the stairs, leaving Scootaloo staring at the trash can.