I had a little trouble with the doors when we got back.
Getting used to them had taken a bit of time for me, anyway. Living in a cloud-house meant that taking the door was more of a suggestion. Most pegasi I knew didn’t even bother with them beyond having a place for their mailbox; they just flew in through one of their windows. Besides, I could just make a new entrance if my hooves were full.
I couldn’t really do that with ground-houses. Well, I could, technically, it’s just that wood and plaster don’t really stand up to it all that well. I had some trouble with doorknobs from time to time–for some some reason, I could never get them open with my hoof, I always had to bite down on them to get it to work. They tasted awful, and years ago I learned I couldn’t really do it if I had somepony on my back. Dinky had been fine, but after that I’d always let somepony else get the door for me.
I couldn’t really do that right now, though. I took my wing off of Sparkler for a second to brace Dinky. Sparkler looked dully ahead, staring numbly at the door without really seeing it. I opened the door as quickly as I could and got my wing back around her, gently pulling her inside. She let me guide her, walking when I nudged her and stopping when I didn’t. I had to let go for a second when we got to her room to put Dinky on her bed, and when I turned around again she was just … there. Looking at me—through me, hay, I dunno. The house probably could’ve collapsed around her, and I doubt she’d so much as blink.
Sparkler needed some help getting onto the bed—I actually had to put her forelegs on the bed and nudge her up. Dinky instantly latched onto her, and I pulled the covers up and climbed in with them. Dinky had cried herself out on the walk home and only whimpered into her sister’s chest for a few minutes before her breathing evened out and she fell asleep in her sister’s hooves.
I couldn’t see from my angle if Sparkler was still awake or not—I could see her chest gently rising and falling, but given her current condition I don’t think it would have made much difference either way. She was running on automatic right now, the bare-basic functioning a pony could work off of. It scared me seeing her like that, and more so because I couldn’t think of a way to help her out of it. Seeing Ditzy like that after watching her rot from the inside out hurt like hay, and I was just her friend; seeing that from her daughter’s perspective … I don’t think even Twilight knows a better word for that than ‘torture.’
I heard the front door open, and the sound of hooffalls echoed around the front of the house. Cirrus was back, and it sounded like somepony had come back with him. “Rainbow?” Twilight’s voice carried through a little too loudly.
“In here,” I whispered as loudly as I could. She came down the hallway, and I saw Applejack with her just outside the doorway. Cirrus tip-hoofed in as carefully as he could, but he still bumped his hip on the dresser. I couldn’t really get on him for it, though—his eyes were so puffy I was amazed he could see at all. Twi and AJ had probably come with him to help guide him as much as for moral support. I scooted over to make room for him on the bed, but he shook his head.
“Ra-railway’s gonna shut down ‘til Tuesday. I … last train’s going out in a bit, I gotta … be on—”
Whatever else he was gonna say got cut off by Dinky murmuring—dammit, she’d woken up. Cirrus instantly knelt down next to her and spread a wing over both her and her sister. He took a steadying breath and started to sing:
“Hush now, my nieces
Lay down your dear heads.
The time has since passed for weeping.
Quietly, quietly,
Go now to bed.
Though the sunlight is fleeting
While Celestia is sleeping,
Luna will watch over you.
“Rest now, my dear girls
At the end of the day.
Rest calm ‘neath the care of the moon.
Sleep and find solace
Soon again you will play
For Luna will guide you
‘til your mother’s beside you.
Y-you will ... see her in your … dreams.”
Cirrus choked on the last part, and I was pretty sure I heard Sparkler sniff too. “I love you both so much.” He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then Dinky’s. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, I p-promise.”
I followed him out of the room, closing the door behind us. Twilight and Applejack were both waiting for us on the couch in the living room, I’m pretty sure I heard him whimper when he stepped into the hall.
“I’ll go with him to Canterlot,” Twi said. “I’ve been meaning to take a few days to see my family anyway … um, I’ll be back on the weekend.” She made a beeline for the door with Cirrus. I think they were a little past Carrot Top’s place when I heard him break down outside.
I sat down on the couch hard, breathing like I’d just flown the Best Young Flyer’s Competition a few times in a row. This day had been … the worst thing I’d ever gone through. We’d only been up—what, three or four hours, and already I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and write everything off as a bad dream. Come to think of it, I’d been wanting to do that for the better part of four months.
AJ sat down next to me and put a hoof on my shoulder. “Ah don’t think Ah need t’ ask how ye’re doin’.”
I shrugged noncommittally. “I’ll live.”
“Figgered you’d say that. RD—aw hay, Rainbow...” Oh, boy. She only stopped using my nickname when she was about to get touchy-feely. “Ah’m here for ya, any time ya need me.”
“Y-yeah.” Great, I’d gotten something in my throat. I coughed and tried again. “Yeah. Thanks.”
AJ nodded understandingly. “What’re ya gonna do now?”
I shrugged again. Things had gone day-to-day for us from the start: the biggest problem I’d ever had was figuring out what to make—well, okay, try to make for meals. Beyond that, I’d just done everything thinking that Ditzy would come home to pick up being a mom again. Until this week, none of us had given much thought to what we’d have to do without her. Even when she’d brought out those necklaces, Sparkler and I kept going, hoping that she was wrong—that we’d come back the next morning to find her still there for us. And then...
Mommy’s sleeping.
It took me a minute to push that thought away. AJ was still there, watching me—still understanding, but now there was something else. Not just sympathy, but … concern? “Rainbow, Ah know it’s hard, but ya gotta figure somethin’ out, an’ fast.”
I cleared my throat. “I know, all right?”
“Do ya?” Her foreleg went from on my shoulder to around it, bringing herself a little closer to me. “It ain’t just you anymore, Rainbow. These girls need somepony in a bad way, an’ Derpy trusted ya with ‘em.”
“I know,” I said again, a little harsher than I meant to. “I’m figuring it out.”
AJ’s sympathetic expression turned into a frown. “Ya had over three months t’ figure things out. It ain’t practice anymore, Rainbow. It’s go-time.”
“I know!” How many times did I have to say it before she got the picture? I got up and walked over to a picture of me and Ditzy together at the Best Young Flier’s Competition. “We just got back from saying goodbye, AJ. I’m figuring out how things’re gonna go from here. I mean—jeez, you saw Sparkler, what am I supposed to do about that? Go back to life as normal?”
“‘Normal’ ain’t gonna be the same fer ‘em,” AJ said with a sad shake of her head. “Their mama’s gone, that’s a big, hard part o’ their lives they gotta get used t’ not havin’ around anymore.”
“So what, then? Just send ‘em to school tomorrow like nothing happened?” It sounded even more wrong when I said it out loud.
“S’exactly what Ah’m sayin’.” AJ stood up and walked over to me, meeting my shocked expression with a stare. “They need that kinda routine t’ help get their minds offa things, give ‘em time t’ adjust. Just bein’ around all th’ time … it eats atcha. It’s why Ah left fer Manehattan.”
Whoa... I remembered hearing something about this when the Cutie Mark Crusaders had gone around asking ponies about their marks. Their little trip ended with me giving them the best story of the bunch, but I’d only been kinda paying attention when Scoots told me about how the three of them had worked their way up to me. I’d never asked why her parents weren’t around to take Apple Bloom to school or help on the farm, but … jeez, hearing her say it was something else.
Still, it didn’t seem right, sending them back to school this soon. They’d missed a couple of classes already, and with the break coming up at the end of the next week I didn’t get what difference a few more would make.
AJ kept going before I got a chance to say anything. “When Ah came back t’ Sweet Apple Acres, Ah started workin’ full-time in th’ orchards. It hurt t’ be back, but gettin’ outta th’ house fer a bit helped me get mah mind offa things long enough t’ adjust.”
So that was her grand advice: a few days home, then back to school. Would they even want to go to school? If they didn’t, could I bring myself to make them?
I sighed. “I’ll … think about it, okay?
“S’all Ah’ll ask for, right now.” She hesitated, then gave me a quick hug. “Ya know Ah’m here if ya need anythin’.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” ‘Course she would be. She’s AJ. I followed her to the front door and was about to close it behind her when she spoke up.
“One more thing ‘fore Ah go.” She caught the door with a foreleg. “Ah know Dinky’s been cryin’ a lot. Make sure she gets somethin’ t’ drink now an’ again; it takes a lot fluids outta her.”
I didn’t have to ask how she’d know that off-hoof. “Yeah. Thanks, AJ.”
Once I locked up behind her, I realized that she was probably right—Dinky hadn’t gotten a lot to drink earlier, and Sparkler’d barely touched her food. Now that I thought about it, I don’t think either of them had gotten more than what I’d brought ‘em. I went to the kitchen and checked around for a couple of drinking mugs, only to find that most of them were dirty. I got the sink going and cleaned a few of them off enough to work for the moment.
We’d kinda need the rest of the dishes later on, so I let the sink fill up while I got the last of the apple bread out of the icebox. I put it on a tray, along with two glasses of milk, and took it down the hall to Sparkler’s room. Once again, the doorknob made a mockery of my multitasking skills. I didn’t spill too much milk getting the door open, but in hindsight I probably should’ve put the tray down.
Dinky was still sound asleep, wrapped in her sister’s forelegs in the room’s half-light. For her part, Sparkler was showing a little bit of life—I think. She still hadn’t moved since I’d helped her lie down, but a picture frame on her nightstand had been conspicuously turned to face the bed. Tears had cut fresh rivulets down her muzzle, trailing off to a growing spot on her pillowcase.
I nudged the picture back a bit to make room for the tray. “Hey, Spark. Figured you’d be a little hungry.” Silence. “I, um... brought’cha something. Last bit of apple bread, just for you. I went through a lot of trouble to pull this outta the icebox.”
So, I fail at humor. Good to know. We were both spared the indignity of another attempt by the sound of—goddess dammit, I’d forgotten about the sink! I growled to myself at the sound of water dripping down the hall. “Look, that plate needs to be empty when I get back, okay?”
I gave her a quick nuzzle before I cantered out the door. I’m not normally big on the affection, but I didn’t want her thinking I was just being a jerk. Yeah, I was being a bit of a hardflank, but it was for her own good.
The sounds of water dripping meant that the sink wasn’t overflowing any more so much as forming a small lake in the kitchen. I hovered over a growing puddle of suds and turned the water off with a string of words I should probably start cutting out of my vocabulary now that I’m supposed to be some kind of maternal … figure … pony. From there, I opened the window and ducked out into the nighttime air. I felt bad about leaving the girls, even for just a minute, but Ditzy had never bought a mop. As a pegasus, she didn’t need to.
On a whim, I poked my head back in the window and blew a large soap bubble off of the sink. I soared up, scooped a section of cloud from the grey blanket still over Ponyville, and went right back down to the house. My hooves touched down in the standing water right alongside the bubble.
Heh. Still got it.
Small breaks aside, I still had a mess to clean. I made a couple of passes over the kitchen floor with the cloud in hoof and got most of the water cleared away. Ditzy’d replaced the old flooring about four years ago to make it a little more derp-proof, so I wasn’t worried that a few stray patches of water would ruin the comfortable-yet-indestructible stuff Tool Time had put in for her. The cloudlet itself was now stained dark with grime and smelled faintly of hooves and lavender dish soap, so a gentle nudge from my wing pushed it out the open window and over a small vegetable patch in Carrot Top’s yard.
With that out of the way, I reached my hoof into the sink to try to find the ringlet on the water plug, spilling more water onto the counter. Right, water displacement. I found the plug after a few tries and emptied things enough for me to put some dishes in without making another waterfall in the process.
Twenty minutes later, I put the last dish on the drying rack and let the water drain. I missed my cloud-cupboards; all I had to do was put the dishes in and let it absorb everything. Replace it every three months and no risk of waterfalls in the kitchen, guaranteed. I wasn’t used to actually doing dishes, but I’d still let that pile build up way too much.
And there were still a few more. I sighed and refilled the sink, this time without overflowing it, before going back down the hall. Sparkler didn’t look like she’d moved when I poked my head around the doorway. I went in as quietly as I could.
Well, her plate was empty. She'd been there enough to hear me. That was something, at least. I stacked her dishes and picked 'em up as quietly as teeth clacking on plates can and walked back out, closing the door behind me.
My earlier cleaning frenzy had died down now that that massive pile of dishes in the sink was gone, so I just dumped Sparkler's into the sink and told myself I'd deal with it tomorrow. I was tired. After everything we’d gone through, after everything I’d gotten hit with, the whole emotional roller coaster we’d all been on... I’ve flown whole marathons that didn’t leave me feeling this drained.
Then again, everypony came back at the end of those marathons.
I went to the couch and flopped down. My neck felt a little stiff, and I realized that that my head was flat against the couch itself. I looked around for my pillow before I remembered that Ditzy had Favorite now.
I curled my wing and tried to go to sleep. It was kinda hard—wet feathers aren’t really comfortable.
AJ was half-right. Come Monday, Dinky was back in school. I thought I’d have to pull her out of her bed, but she’d gotten up and ready to go the first time I checked on her. Cheerilee had looked as surprised to see us as I’d been when she trotted into class. I didn’t know what to think about that, really.
Sparkler on the other hoof … you could barely tell she’d moved at all. She’d spent the whole weekend in bed, pinfeather necklace next to her on the pillow as she stared at the picture on her nightstand. The most I’d gotten out of her was an appreciative grunt when I’d bring meals in.
Today hadn’t been any different. I’d been scrambling to get some paperwork ready for the weather team after dropping Dinky off at school, so I’d hoped she would grab her own breakfast for a change. Judging from the empty sink, though, it looked like she’d stayed in bed again. I packed everything up and got ready to head to the office in City Hall, then grabbed her way-too-late breakfast out of the icebox—orange juice and a few muffins. This time around, I’d remembered to leave her door open and set everything out for her on her nightstand—I only had to push the picture back a bit so I could set the tray down.
“Hey, Spark.” I gave her a gentle little shake to make sure she was up. “Sorry I’m running a bit late today—I’ve, uh … had a lot to catch up on.”
Sparkler glanced at me with half-open eyes, actually seeing me this time. I held her gaze for a few seconds before it shifted back to the feather next to her on the pillow.
Celestia, I wished I knew what to say to her to bring her out of this. I didn’t know a lot about medicine outside of the first-aid stuff that was required for being on the weather team, but there was no way this could be healthy for her. “I gotta go to City Hall, all right? Be back in an hour or two.”
Still nothing. I gave her another gentle shake and trotted out. The catch-up paperwork was in my saddlebags near the door, so it didn’t take me long to slip them on and head out. I was halfway past the gap between Carrot Top’s house and Ditzy’s when I heard something weird. Or thought I did, anyway, it was so quiet I almost wrote it off as the wind. I’d read enough Daring Do to think twice about it, though, and on a hunch I looked back at the house.
One of the bushes was moving around, and I only just saw the window above them close. So that’s what it was, Sparkler getting some air. Still, the bush moving was a little weird. I was already running late and wanted to write it off as a cat or something, but some nagging voice in the back of my mind said to check it out anyway. Somehow I didn’t think it was a cat opening the window.
Those weather forms had waited this long, they could last another minute or two. I spread my wings and took off, over the house and landing on the roof as quietly as I could. Inch by inch, I worked my head over the side of the rain gutter, trying not to startle whatever was skulking around. Naturally, that’s when everything went still—a few leaves twitched in the breeze, glistening in the half-sunlight. I got bored after another minute and rolled onto my back, hoping that whatever it was would move again.
Still... If it was clear, why did the bush have water on it? Carrot Top had been taking care of the plants around the house lately, but she only came by on Saturdays.
My head snapped around when something rustled in the bush again—oh yeah, there was definitely something in there, I could see something brown poking out near the root. Quietly as I could, I got up and fluttered to the ground. Whatever it was looked small, not much bigger than my hoof, and seemed to know something was watching it. It was stock-still, frozen by the threat of something watching it under the cool afternoon. I brushed a wing against one of the wet branches by accident, and I grumbled as droplets showered down on … whatever it was. No way it wasn’t gonna bolt after that.
…
Huh.
I reached out a hoof and gently tapped it. Nothing. I poked it again, then pulled it out from under the bush for a better look. It was a piece of bread, half-molding and crawling with ants. The bits of it that had gotten wet smelled a lot like orange juice.
On a hunch, I lifted another branch out of the way. Bits of salad, pastries, and alfalfa were tangled up in the bush, and the orange-y smell was way stronger. The bush rustled again, and I scrambled back as something dropped from the top.
It was one of the muffins I’d set out for Sparkler.
I was on my hooves in a flash and threw the window open hard enough to knock it off-kilter. I clipped the nightstand on the way in, sending it crashing to the ground. Sparkler barely even had time to react before I was in her face.
"What the hay, kid!?" I snarled and threw the days-old piece of bread onto her pillow. “How long have you been throwing this stuff out?”
She scrambled back a bit, protectively pulled her necklace away from the molding food. “I‘m not hungry, Rainbow!”
“Horseapples you aren’t! I saw you toss today’s stuff out, and this sure as buck isn’t what I got for you today.” By this point I was inches away from her face. “I’ll ask again: How. Long?”
Sparkler looked away. “...Friday.”
Oh Luna. She hadn’t eaten in almost four days.
I snorted and dug my forelegs underneath the mattress, flipping it and sending Sparkler tumbling to the ground. A few quick flaps brought me to the foot of the now-empty bed, where she was crumpled in a heap.
In hindsight, I could’ve handled that a little better. I knew Sparkler had a couple of scars from her time in the orphanage system, and bringing those memories back to the surface on top of everything else probably wasn’t going to help either of us. I didn’t really care at the time, though—when I get scared, I get mad. And right then, I was terrified.
“GET UP!” I roared. “Get up and march your plot down to the kitchen now! I don’t care if I’m late picking your sister up from school—I’m not leaving this house ‘til I’ve watched you sit down and eat something!” I started to get angrier as Sparkler floundered on the floor. I really hoped she hadn’t hit her head or something, but she needed to get out of that bed.
“I can’t...”
I stomped up to her and was about to lay into her like a weatherpony recruit when she looked up at me. I was expecting—hay, I don’t know, shock, pain, indignation. What I saw instead scared me way past being angry. Sparkler had a look of helpless terror on her face, the kind I’d only ever seen once before in my life just a few short months ago.
“Rainbow?”
“Rainbow?”
“I can’t get up...”
“I have cancer...”
“Help me?”
“What do I do?”
I didn’t break the sound barrier flying to the hospital. I didn’t even come close.
I couldn’t afford to. Sparkler could barely wrap her forelegs around my neck, and I had to slow down a few times to lock my hooves around hers. Luna, I’d just had her on my back flying a few days ago, and it was way harder than this. Four days, hay—it felt like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. I buzzed a little closer to rooftops than I normally would, making Sparkler whimper nervously.
“Just hang on,” I told her. Wow, words of wisdom right there.
“Yeah,” she rasped. Good Celestia, her voice sounded like she’d been gargling sandpaper. She hadn’t been talking to me above a small whisper, but still—how’d I miss something like that?
Hearing her like that made me push a little faster. I banked a bit and started my descent.
I came in at the perfect angle for a Patented Rainbow Dash Four-Point Landing. Heck, I’d pulled it off hundreds of times, and a few dozen with somepony on my back—usually Dinky, or less often Scootaloo. Problem was, Sparkler was a lot heavier than they were, even in her current state, and as such I couldn’t adjust for the extra weight sliding forward. I was able to keep on my hooves, but for some reason the pony near the door dove away instead of opening it like I was telling him to.
Turns out the glass they use for those is really, really solid.
Lucky for us, a couple of nurses were close by inside. A white unicorn stallion in scrubs galloped out, stopping short when he saw me. “Good Celestia, Rainbow Dash! Even I didn’t think your precision insertions were that bad!”
Yep. Lucky me. I didn’t have time for his horseapples, though. Sparkler was crumpled to the ground behind me, and I could hear her scrambling to get her hooves underneath her.
“Shut up and help me!” I snapped. I tried to get a hoof underneath her stomach, but a few seconds later her whole body was encased in a yellow glow as she was lifted off the ground. Turns out that nurse was good for something other than smartassery after all.
He led the way inside, calling for a gurney the second we cleared the doorway. Sparkler was wheeled down a hallway by half a dozen nurses, including Redheart. I wondered for a sec if she ever took time off, but for some reason I was glad to see that she was here again.
“It’s not that bad,” Sparkler rasped.
“Not bad? Not bad!?” She shrank back as I got right in her face. “You haven’t eaten anything in four Celestia-damned days—you can’t even stand up! WHAT THE HAY WERE YOU—”
Redheart knocked me away and stepped between me and the stretcher. “Rainbow Dash, stop shouting at my patient.”
I rounded on her. “I’ll yell at my goddaughter as long as I want, as long as she keeps being so stupid!”
Redheart’s eyes hardened when Sparkler whimpered behind her. “Code Blue, get her out of here!”
The stallion from the front door nodded, and in an instant invisible ropes wrapped around my wings and muzzle. I tried to say something as he was in the middle of pulling me back towards the entrance, but since most of what I had in mind involved four letter words or nasty comments about his parentage it was probably a good thing I couldn’t speak. He took me all the way to the main waiting room at the front door before he let go, closing the hallway door behind him and pointedly standing in front of it.
“Miss Dash, you need to cool off.”
“Ya wanna move?!” I tried to flit around him, but the glow from his horn told me that he wasn’t gonna let me past him. “Now that ya know what happened, I damn well wanna know why!”
“I get that, but you need to calm down before I can let you back there again.” He held up a hoof to cut me off. “Look, it’s not my call. Hospital rules say that if somepony’s expelled from a room, they gotta wait until the head nurse says they’re clear to go back to see the patient. If you want to go back to see your goddaughter again, you gotta adjust your attitude first.”
“I’m taking care of her.” I hated to bring that up, but I figured this was one of those times where I’d have to come out and say it. “Ya gotta let me go back and see her. Her mom’s—gone, okay? It’s just me now.”
“I know.” I’d swear he sagged a little bit, even though he didn’t really move at all. “I took Derpy to the funeral home.”
Oh. My wings folded up, and I took a step back. I sighed and walked away to get something out of my eyes. Code Blue followed behind me and took a seat on one of the cushions lining the wall.
How the hay did things go so wrong? We shouldn’t have to come back to the hospital already. It had only been four days.
I growled at the thought. Four days... four days since Sparkler had said goodbye to her mom. Eight since that thing, that motherbucking cancer had killed her. Nine since she last told her daughters how much she loved them. Three months since she’d picked them up from school or tucked them into bed.
And those numbers were just gonna get bigger. Seeing her with a mane again, even just a wig, had been so weird; would I ever remember her with a full head of hair and think it was normal? How many weeks would go by before Sparkler remembered her mom’s voice without the tired rasp the treatments brought? How long would it take Dinky to get used to not having Favorite around to snuggle up with at night?
How long would it take them to get used to life without mom?
I sighed again and kept pacing. My head snapped around every time somepony came through that door—after the first dozen or so times, my neck was starting to get a little sore. Finally, the pony I’d been waiting for came out to the lobby. Code Blue took position behind Redheart as I cantered over to her.
“She’ll be okay,” Redheart said, answering my question before I could ask it. “She’s a little malnourished, but we have her on a feeding tube to get the nutrients back in her body.” She sighed. “What really worried me is dehydration. Ponies can’t just cut their liquid intake like they can with food, not for more than a day or two. She has IV drips to help replenish what she lost, but..”
“How bad?” I asked. Kind of a dumb question seeing that we were back in the hospital, and if I was honest with myself I really didn’t want to know.
Redheart gave me a steady, analytical look. “Nopony accidentally ignores being thirsty like that. Given what I caught during your exchange, I’ve put her on suicide watch as a precaution.”
I sat down hard at that, hard enough that Redheart had to help me to one of the benches. The hospital had Sparkler on... that was big, something I’d only ever heard about before. That was a round-the-clock commitment, with somepony either there all day or coming in to check at fixed intervals. They only did that for patients who needed supervision beyond the standard hourly check-ins I had when I was here. Hay, Ditzy didn’t need that much attention even when she’d been at her worst. And Sparkler needed it because...
Because she’d almost killed herself. I’d missed it for almost four days, writing it off as just missing her mom, but—oh feathers...
I felt a comforting hoof on my shoulder as Redheart tried to draw me back to the present. “Rainbow, you brought her to us in time. She’s going to be okay, and we’re going to do everything we can to help her.”
Sparkler had nearly died. That’s what she was really saying. If I’d waited, hay, just ‘til the evening to check on her...
I pushed the thought out of my mind. “Can I see her? You can watch me if you need to,” I added as Code Blue and Redheart shared a look. “I’m not gonna yell at her anymore.”
After a minute, Redheart nodded. “All right. But Code Blue’ll be right outside. If you start anything—”
“I’m gone, I get it.” I glanced at the unicorn, who gave a very small nod. We went back through the hallway, going through a couple of twists and up to the second floor to the short-term inpatient wing. Sparkler’s room was the second on the right—not too far from where I’d been when I broke my wing, now that I thought about it.
The bed closer to the doorway was empty, putting Sparkler in the one next to the window. Even with the curtain separating her bed from the rest of the room, I could hear the machines beeping as they kept track of her pulse. True enough to what Redheart had said earlier, an IV was feeding some kind of liquid into a needle just above her hoof. Two water pitchers, one empty and one half-full, were on the nightstand to her right, and she was levitating the accompanying glass in front of her.
I waited for her to put it down before saying anything. “Bet you wish you had all that food you were throwing out now.”
“Rainbow...” Code Blue glared at me.
“'d be pretty good right now,” Sparkler rasped.
Right. Tone it down, me. I shot a guilty look at the nurse before turning back to my goddaughter. “How about I bring you some home-cooked stuff? Or maybe some of Pinkie's cooking?”
That got a small giggle out of her. “Maybe something outta the icebox, I dunno if the fire insurance can cover your 'cooking.'”
I laughed with her. “Hey, the insurance covered Ditzy's ... just ... fine...” I cut myself off before I could dig myself deeper into the hole, but the damage had already been done. Sparkler whimpered and sank back into her bed.
Code Blue facehooved. “I'm gonna be outside the room … try not to jam every hoof in your mouth at once, Rainbow.”
Way to go, me. Let’s turn what could have been a good joke from Sparkler into a reminder that her Mom’s not here anymore. “So ... um ... you good?”
“Hungry.” She held up a shaky hoof to cut me off. “Yeah, yeah, my fault, I get it.”
‘Her fault’ didn’t even begin to cut it. I sat down on a cushion next to her bed. “Sparks, you scared the horseapples outta me.”
Her eyes went wide as she turned to face me. “You—what? I thought you were just pissed.”
“I ... you ... you coulda died on me, kid.” Just like she did.
“'m not sick,” Sparkler whimpered. “I just couldn't get up.”
Oh you have got to be kidding me! No way was I gonna let her get away with trying to pretend that this wasn’t a big deal. “Sparkler, did you not pay attention to what the docs said? Luna's starry flank, if I hadn't caught on to what you were doing today, we'd be burying you next to your mom!”
“Don't.” Her legs shook a bit as she propped herself up to look me in the eye. “Don't bring her into this, not like that. I died seeing her like that, Rainbow, so sorry if that bucked me up a little bit!”
“Yeah, you almost did die!” I snapped. My wings flared, barely missing the nightstand. “You nearly bought the farm for real because you were too much of an idiot to eat a plate of food when I put it right in front of you!”
“Bury your mom and see how hungry you are.” She flopped back onto her bed and sniffed, and when she spoke up again she was a lot quieter. “'m sorry I scared you, all right?”
Part of me was ready to keep yelling at her, but a pointed cough from the doorway reminded me that wouldn’t be a good idea. I forced my wings to fold back and lowered my voice. “Do it again, and I'll kick your plot so hard you'll kiss the moon.”
“I think Princess Luna would have a word or two to say about that. Kinda her turf.” She made it sound like a joke, but from the way she looked at me I think she was eyeing to see how serious I was. Her hoof slowly traced a long, thin scar on her left knee—a barely-visible reminder of being thrown down a staircase by her then-foster father.
Great, that was two for two jokes turned into painful reminders. Good thing my special talent wasn’t in stand-up, I’d probably redefine what it meant to kill an audience. I rubbed my forehead and sighed. “I ... look, Sparks, I just ... just want you to be okay.”
Sparkler eyed me for another minute before relaxing. “Thanks, I guess. You're doing your best, I get it. You're... you've been trying to be a good godmom, and you have been. But Mom's gone now, I—saw her like...that...” She sniffled and started getting that glassy-eyed look she had back at the funeral.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t think I could make things any worse, but I’d spent so much time putting my hoof in my mouth already I shouldn’t keep tempting fate. Sparkler flinched slightly as I put a hoof on her back, but after a second she eased up enough that I tried to put my wing around her. For once, I read things the right way—she turned around and hugged me. “Rainbow? Thanks.”
“No prob, kid.”
She held me for a little bit. It wasn’t much, but something had finally gone right, if only for a little bit. “You're not pissed any more?”
“I'm not.” Okay, I still was a little bit mad, but she’d gotten more than enough from me. “Just don't do anything stupid, 'kay?”
“Bit late for that.” She fiddled with the needle in her foreleg.
She had a point there. I pulled her hoof away from the needle and stood up. “Yeah, well... School’s getting out in a few minutes. I gotta go pick up your sister.”
Sparkler shrank back in her bed, her eyes wide. “Feathering Celestia... Dinky’s gonna freak.”
I opened the window and got ready to jump out. “Spark, you should’ve thought about about that four days ago.”
“So, um Dinky? How was school?”
“Fine.”
“And how was Cheerilee?”
“Fine.”
“Lunch taste okay?”
“Yeah.”
Wow, she was as talkative as her uncle. Then again, she had just finished her first day of school since Ditzy died. She’d probably spent more of the day bored out of her mind while everypony else treated her like a glass statue. “Um, wanna go see Sparkler?”
She brightened up a bit at her sister’s name. Horseapples. “Yeah, 'kay.”
We went airborne after I made sure Dinky was secure onto my back. I really, really wanted to avoid a scene, but there was just no easy way to tell her where we were going. I got us away from the schoolhouse and above the rooftops before I said anything else. “Um—look, kiddo, Sparkler kinda hurt herself earlier. We're gonna go see her and tell her to get better, okay?”
Her legs tensed up enough to make it hard for me to breathe. “What happened? Where are we going?”
“She—she's okay, we're gonna go see her, all right?” Don’t mention the hospital, don’t mention the hospital...
“Is she in the hospital?”
Crap, she was already putting two and two together. Saying ‘no’ and lying to her wasn’t gonna do me any favors, but the last thing I needed her to do was panic mid-flight.
“We are, aren't we?” Her voice was already starting to get to a panicky-high. “I don't wanna go!”
There was a sudden lack of pressure on my back as she started struggling to get off, and I had to do a half-corckscrew to flip around and grab her. “Dinky, don't do that! You don’t wanna fall from this height!”
“Noooo!” she shrieked. “I don't wanna go!”
I started descending as quickly as I could. I couldn’t keep a good enough grip on her for much longer. “Dinky, Sparkler is there—she wants to see you!”
Dinky shook her head as she kept struggling. “I don't want her to go away like Mommy did!”
“She's not gonna go away!” Because checking into the hospital had such an amazing track record so far. “She just hurt herself and has to get better!”
“You said Mommy would get better too!” Her shriek was interrupted by a dry sob. “She didn't wake up, and now she's gone and Sparkler's gonna be gone too!”
“She's not, I promise she's gonna be fine! Look, we're almost there, just—stop, I'm losing my grip!” My heart stopped when she finally wiggled loose and dropped to the ground. We weren’t more than a pony’s height above the ground, but Dinky hadn’t tucked and rolled on contact so much as slammed to a halt. “DINKY! Are you okay!?”
Dinky stood back up, and I could finally breathe again. If she was walking, she couldn't be hurt too bad. “Owie.” Dinky was favoring a small cut on her left foreleg. “Owie owie owie.”
Jeez, now both of them were hurting themselves. I cut myself off just as the word ‘numbskull’ formed on my lips and tried to think of how Ditzy would have handled this. I sighed and pulled Dinky into a hug, careful to avoid her knee. “You okay, kiddo?”
“I got an owie,” she sniffled.
“You're okay, kiddo. I gotcha.” I gave her a quick squeeze before looking her in the eye. “S'why you can't do that while I'm flying, all right? It doesn't just scare me, you could really get hurt.” Celestia, if she’d gotten loose while I was still over a roof... Nope. Not going there.
Dinky didn’t exactly see things my way. “I dunwanna go to the hospital. Get Sparky outta there and bring her home!”
I knelt down beside her and tried to pull her into a hug. “I can't, kiddo, she has to be there for a bit.”
“That's what you said about Mommy.” She stomped her hooves, with only a slight wince from the tension on her bad leg. “Bring Sparky home!”
Good Celestia, how am I supposed to explain suicide watch to a filly? “She’s hurt bad enough they're not gonna let her out today!”
That didn’t really do much to help me out. “Bring her home! Bring her home! ” She started thrashing around on the ground, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Bring Sparky HOOOOME!”
Ponies were starting to stare at the nice little mess this trip had turned into. I wanted to cut things off before they got any worse and tried to pick Dinky up to keep going. I got as far a getting a hoof around her stomach when she outright hit my eye.
“OW! Luna dammit, Dinky!”
If anything, her lucky shot just encouraged her to step things up. She starting beating her hooves on my foreleg as I massaged my eye. “I WANT SPARKY HOME!"
Okay, that was way more than enough. “Then tell her yourself!” I grabbed her and took off, holding her against my stomach and keeping her hooves well out of range of anything I needed to fly. “She's there because she was stupid and she wants to see you—and you being a brat is not helping!”
She flailed at me for the rest of the flight, occasionally getting a lucky, weak hit with a hoof. I kept a good grip on her just long enough to get to the hospital. It only took me two guesses to find the right window, and her tantrum died away the second we were able to see Sparkler.
Dinky didn’t ‘freak.’ Using that word to describe things wouldn’t work because it makes it sound weird or out of the ordinary. After everything that’d already happened, her caring for her sister was normal. They were family—reminders of the mare they’d both lost, but brought together by her too. With their mother gone now, the only constant they had in life was each other.
So when she saw Sparkler in bed with an IV in her arm, the terrified scream that about blew out my eardrums was completely expected.
“NNNNOOOOOOOOOO!! NO NO NO NONONONONONO!”
We weren’t even halfway through the window before she leapt off my back, landing on her shoulder in a way that made me wince sympathetically. That didn’t even slow her down. She rolled with it and jumped onto the bed, banging her hooves as she scrambled up. “Don’t go to sleep, Sparky, don’t go to sleep! Please, please, please, please DON’T GO TO SLEEP!”
Sparkler weakly pulled her sister into a hug, crying into her mane. “It’s okay, Dinky, I’m okay...”
Dinky wasn’t having any of it. “NO! You’re here, and Mommy was here and she said she was okay, but she wasn’t, an’ if she wasn’t okay you’re not gonna be okay!” She wrapped her forelegs around her sister and wailed into her chest. “Don’t go to sleep, dungo to sleep, please...dunleaveme too...”
She trailed off into a mess of half-sobbing, half-pleading. Sparkler hugged her as tightly as her IV would allow, rocking her as she tried to find a way to convince Dinky that she was going to come out of this alive.
The door exploded open as at least ten nurses poured into the room. Tenderheart was one of them, and after a quick look at the three of us she shooed everypony back out of the room—but not before jerking her head for me to follow her out into the hall. Somehow, I got the feeling that she was a little pissed at me. Maybe it was the ominous glare.
Tenderheart had barely closed the door behind me before she and everypony else there rounded on me. “Oh, stuff it,” I snapped, cutting them off. “She figured it out on her own halfway here.”
A pegasus in a Life Flight uniform frowned. “There’re better ways to break it than just coming in like that. You could’ve at least tried to be subtle.”
He could stuff it, too. “‘Mommy’s sleeping’ happened the last time I tried ‘subtle.’”
Everypony flinched at that. Cheap shot? Yeah. They’d get over it. I flitted over them without another word. I didn’t really know where I was going, just that I didn’t want to be around that eyrie of gryphons for a while. Considering this was the first break I’d had in almost two hours, I opted for a drink. I got about a third of the way to a nearby fountain there before somepony exploded out of the stairwell.
“Dinky’s fit—heard it … halfway across market,” Cloud Kicker wheezed. “What happened?”
I crawled out from behind an empty IV stand that had somehow gotten between me and her, suddenly wishing I’d opted to argue with the pack of nurses instead. Yeah, they were mad at me, but Cloud Kicker looked scared. She gets a little dangerous when she’s scared.
Crap, there was no easy way out of this one. “I brought Dinky here to visit her sister,” I explained. “Spark hurt herself bad enough I had to fly her in.”
“How?”
I licked my lips nervously. “She, um ... stopped eating.”
“You let her starve herself?” Her voice had gone dangerously quiet.
“Hey, I gave her a plate full of food every day!” It was a weak argument and I knew it, but … dammit, she was making it sound like I’d completely... ignored...
Cloud Kicker didn’t let up. “Fillies take a bit more effort than your feathering turtle, Rainbow! Especially when they just lost their mom!”
Somehow, I didn’t think it’d be a good idea to point out that Tank is a tortoise. “Dinky was the one who couldn't stop crying for hours at a time! I told Sparkler to tell me if she needed something.”
Cloud Kicker was unimpressed. “So you didn't once bother to check up on her for—how long?!”
I laid my ears back, knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer. “....Friday.”
She didn’t. Her wings flared as she screamed at me. “Four motherbucking days?!”
I flinched at that. It was a case of the stray cloud getting kicked first. “I didn't think anything was wrong!”
“Did you once sit down and have a meal with her and notice she hadn't eaten anything?!” She got right up in my face. “Were you blind, negligent or just stupid?”
“She wanted to be alone, so I left her alone!” Celestia, even to me that sounded pathetic. “I came in, gave her her meals, and got the plates later! First time I came in and she hadn't eaten anything, I told her that plate had to be empty when I got back. It was, every bucking time after that! I didn't know she'd just been tossing it all out the window!”
Cloud Kicker sighed and facehoofed hard enough that I heard her hoof crack against her skull. “Fillies aren’t pets, you can’t just put food out and expect everything to be fine. They need a lot of attention on a good day, let alone when they just lost their mother!”
“I helped them say goodbye to their mom, Cloud Kicker! I'm not her, I didn't think I'd have to be!” I sniffed and wiped something out of my eye. “This was supposed to be a four-day thing while Ditzy got some new kinda aspirin. That was three months ago … it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“That’s not an excuse!” she snarled. “‘Godmom’ isn't just some trophy you can just add to your laurels. It’s a title, one that comes with responsibilities!”
Ah hay, she was talking about ‘duty’ and ‘responsibility’ now. Whenever Cloud Kicker starts breaking out those words she goes from fun and goofy to … well, the kinda pony who rips into my plot. On the best of days she was a pain in the flank when she got like this, but now... “Ditzy was a year older than me, ponies our age aren’t supposed to get cancer! Being a godmom's supposed to mean showing up for birthdays and foalsitting and sending tickets their way when I make it in the Wonderbolts!”
“Horse-feathering-apples!” she roared. I instinctively took a step back—not even at Camp, or after, had she ever been this pissed. She looked half-ready to kill me. “That’s not what being a godmom means! It means being there for your friend and her children when they need you the most. It means that if a pony dies, they at least know their children will be taken care of by somepony they trust.” She jabbed me in the chest with a foreleg. “Derpy trusted you to take care of Dinky and Sparkler, the two most important things in her life, and one of them almost died on your watch!”
“I DIDN'T KNOW, OKAY!?”
“Somepony you care about is dying and you had no idea. I couldn’t imagine why that sounds so familiar.” Cloud Kicker’s face changed. The anger was still there, but more than anything I saw disgust. “And all you can talk about now is how inconvenient it is for you that Derpy's dead. You’d better get a clue, Rainbow Dash. It took you all of four days to let Sparkler run herself into the ground and try to starve herself to death! What would Derpy think if she saw all of you now?”
“You-you’re...” I looked to the ground. That hurt. That really, really hurt. I’d feathered up, but... I’d tried. I’d really tried. I tried to be a good godmom, I tried to let them readjust to their lives, I’d tried to give them time to figure things out. At every turn, I’d screwed up. When it boiled down to it...
“You're right.”
It wasn’t until I heard Cloud Kicker take a step back that I realized I’d said that out loud. I dunno what she was expecting to hear, but that probably wasn’t it. But she was right. I’d dropped the ball so completely as a godmom. I hadn’t spent time with them like I should have. I hadn’t even tried to break things to Dinky gently, I’d just taken her to the hospital—and I’d used her reaction as a petty way of getting back at Sparkler for hurting herself. Hay, I hadn’t even been thinking... I was mad at Sparkler, but scaring her sister to get to her wasn’t even cheap. It was wrong.
Cloud Kicker was right. I was a terrible godmom.
I’d never had any idea how to take care of a filly, much less two, even in the best of times. I’d been playing things by ear from the start, with advice from Ditzy, Fluttershy, and occasionally even Sparkler. Like an idiot, I’d waved a lot of it off trying to be the coolest foalsitter in Equestria. Now that I was supposed to start being a lot more responsible, things were falling apart. I’d hurt them. Bad.
“I'm... I bucked up. Sparkler got hurt, and Dinky’s terrified she’s going to lose somepony else,” I quietly admitted. “I bucked up as a godmom, I shouldn't... have them. You're right. Ditzy's family... that's you, not me.”
When I finally met Cloud Kicker’s gaze, all rage was gone. Her eyebrows had completely disappeared into her mane, and her jaw worked itself a couple of times before she finally spoke. “What are you talking about?”
“Sparkler's in the hospital, Dinky's terrified she's gonna die too—and you were Ditzy’s... ” I swallowed. “You'd still do a better job than me. I almost let my goddaughter die because I didn't know... It should've been you, y'know? I was just there ... you ... you had something special with her.”
There was no way I could meet her gaze. “You still could be, y'know. They need somepony who knows what the hay they're doing. Somepony who can help them better than me, someponey who—who—really, really loved their mom. I'm awesome at a lotta things, but...” I fell silent for a minute. “I promised her I'd take care of them, but maybe ... maybe the best way to do that is knowing that I can't.”
“Rainbow...” Cloud Kicker’s tone changed again—anger was still there, but buried under disbelief and … fear? She sounded like she was talking to a filly that was playing with a knife. “What are you saying?”
“I haven't signed that stuff yet, um... Dinky, Sparkler, the house, nothing. S'yours. They're yours, if you want ‘em. Y-you're a good pony, a good... a better godmom than me. 'm gonna go let Cheerilee know you can pick Dinky up from school, then, um...” I looked down to try and clear my vision back up. “n' I'll come back and pick Dinky up from visiting her sister and ... and I’ll bring her home.” I’d’ve let her take them right there, but hospital rules meant that kids had to have a guardian take ‘em. Ditzy’s thing with Cloud Kicker had been an open secret, but I’d been the one she’d left her girls with. For now. I blinked one more time and looked back up. “Just take care of 'em, okay? I b-bucked up, but ... doesn't muh-mean I don't care.”
The last thing I saw before I turned away was Cloud Kicker’s face. There was no other word for it, she was shocked. A little mad, still, but mostly just shocked.
“Element of Loyalty, huh?”
I didn’t answer her as I walked away. She wouldn’t get it. I wasn’t leaving them hanging, not by any stretch: I’d kept my promise to take care of ‘em. I’d found somepony who could do it way better than me.
It felt weird, walking this route for the last time. I wasn’t going home any more, I was going to their home. Dinky was gonna have somepony else tuck her in from now on, and when her sister got back they’d both have a better caretaker to help them rebuild as a family.
“So we’re gonna go home?”
I nodded, and shifted my wings to give Dinky a better perch. She was on my back again as we—well, I—trotted the all-too-familiar route home from the hospital. “There’s—stuff, I gotta do. Cloud Kicker’s gonna come for a sleepover, she’ll take care of you for a little bit.” It’s amazing how easy it is to form half-truths into a comfortable little white lie.
“You’re not gonna be gone like Mommy are you?” Dinky whimpered.
“No!” I leaned my head back and nuzzled her. Goddesses, I didn’t think about how much that sounded like Ditzy explaining things the first evening Dinky had to go home without her. “No, nothing like that. I’m fine, everypony’s fine. I just gotta figure some stuff out.”
We passed Carousel Boutique. Three minutes out. Tiny, warm forelegs reached around my neck as Dinky shifted again on my back. I was gonna miss these rides, weird as it sounded. She’d loved them even when she was really little. Guess that comes with growing up in a family of pegasi. It’s not like she was gonna miss out on that, at least—most of the Kicker clan had wings, and whatever problems Cloud Kicker had with her family I doubted she’d keep them in the dark about the recent changes.
Not like me.
Dinky shifted again to look back in the direction of the hospital. “And Sparky’s gonna be okay too?”
“She’ll be fine too.” At least I didn’t have to lie about that. “You both are. Pinkie Promise.”
Carrot Top was out working in her garden and waved to us as we passed by the fenceline. Dinky waved back, and I nodded to her as well. Carrot Top was all right, she’d been a huge help even before she and the others had started dropping off meals. Ditzy’d had a couple of stories about her, all of them good—it sounded like they’d gotten along pretty well over the last few years. Hopefully she and Cloud Kicker would hit it off.
We kept going to Ditzy’s house—Cloud Kicker’s, now—and almost made it to the front door when Dinky dropped the one question I’d hoped she wouldn’t think of.
“How long are you gonna be gone?”
I knew she was staring at me with those big, gold eyes, but I didn’t dare look back at her. “A while.”
I knelt to let Dinky off of my back and was about to knock when she bolted in. Right, her house, of course she’s just gonna head inside. She ran back when I knocked and waited at the doorway.
“C’mon in, silly!” She grabbed my hoof and pulled me inside. “Miss Cloud Kicker’s already here.”
Sure enough, Cloud Kicker was on the couch when we went around the corner. “H-hey.” She stood up to meet us, hastily closing an old photo album. Neither of us seemed sure what we could say with Dinky here. Come to think of it, I doubted we’d know even if she wasn’t.
“Hey Dinky? Why don’t you go get Fa—” I caught myself. Barely. “Why don’t you go get the Battle Clouds board so you two can … um, yeah. Go ahead and grab it, okay?”
“Okay!” Dinky took off down the hall to rummage through her room.
“I didn’t bring much, just—um...” I gave a hollow little laugh. “Nothing, actually. All my stuff’s at my cloud-house, I just gotta get Tank from Fluttershy.”
Cloud Kicker didn’t say anything to stop me, but I don’t think she was eager to see me stay much longer. She shot me a look that was half-glare, half … I didn’t know what, really.
“Boss...” she whispered. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
I looked away. Of course I was. I didn’t want to, not like this, but ... it wasn’t about what I wanted any more. It was about what was best for them. She’d been right, I wasn’t ready for this, I was—hay. I was me. I could do a lot of things. But this wasn’t one of them.
“The, um... All the paperwork’s on the kitchen table. Didn’t really sort it too well,” I added with a chuckle, “but it’s there.”
“Yeah, I saw. Rainbow—”
Whatever she was gonna say got cut off by a rustling sound—Dinky coming back down the hall with the board game clamped in her mouth.
“Keh ‘oo—” She spat the box out on the couch. “Can you stay for a game first?”
“Sorry, kiddo. I gotta go.” It was getting really hard to breathe. And see. “Be good for Cloud Kicker, okay?”
Dinky clamped onto my foreleg. “Okay. Bye Rainbow Dash!”
I bent down and gave Dinky one last, long hug. She had somepony who could care for her and her sister now, somepony who knew what she was doing. Somepony who wouldn’t hurt her, even by accident.
I saw that her mane had gotten a little wet when I let go, and tousled it with a hoof to try to hide it. Then I stood up and stepped out of my goddaughter’s life.