//------------------------------// // Scootaloo's Flight School // Story: Post-Reception Stories // by sister_mike //------------------------------// Scootaloo's Flight School "It's finally ready," Rainbow Dash said, as she stepped back, a smile on her face. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and stared at her accomplishment. Finally, it was done. It was two months after the changeling war. Two months after rebuilding Ponyville and Cloudsdale. Rainbow Dash had helped in both aspects. Her house had amazingly been relatively untouched. She only spent a day on her own house for repairs, and spent the rest of her time elsewhere, helping any other pony she could. During the second week there was a community burials. Rainbow Dash had attended both Ponyville's and Cloudsdale. Because the fight against the changelings had been kept alive the longest in Cloudsdale, there were more names on the Cloudsdale monolith. Fluttershy had gone to the Cloudsdale memorial as well. But also near the end of that second week, there had been another burial Rainbow Dash had gone to. Granny Smith's funeral happened a few days after this one. But this one, this first personal burial Rainbow Dash had attended in her list of burials, was for a small filly. A feisty blank flank pegasus who looked up to Rainbow Dash dearly. A small filly, who when knocked out a window at Canterlot. couldn't fly to save herself, because her wings didn't work properly. Scootaloo's funeral had been small and intimate. Her parents and some extended family had attended. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo's best friends, and their older sisters Applejack and Rarity had come along to pay their respects. The rest of the Mane 6 came as well. Cheerilee and some classmates. Some Cloudsdale fillies who were pen pals with the Ponyville pegasus. The mayor, who tried to be at every personal funeral for all of the Ponyville citizens, was there as well. Rainbow Dash has been quiet throughout the entire ceremony. Her friends, aside from Rarity and Applejack, who had been busy consoling their sisters, kept glancing over at Rainbow Dash, as though they were waiting for a reaction. A reaction like she had given in Zecora's hut, when she first heard of the filly's death. But Rainbow Dash remained quiet and poised. She wasn't good at dealing with emotions, so she usually just tucked them away, into a place where they wouldn't hurt her. She put up a wall and paid her respects quietly. After the funeral, Rarity had invited everyone over to her place for some tea and coffee. Rainbow Dash politely declined, stating she wanted to be on her own. She flew home and lay in bed. And then she cried. Rainbow Dash was an only child. Her parents traveled the world frequently, so she rarely saw them (though she had received a letter that they were ok. They were out of Equestria at the time of the attack, and were coming home as soon as they could to see her). Scootaloo had been like an adopted sister to her. They were closer together than ponies realized. There were many times when Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle planned events with their big sisters, and Applejack would always tell Rainbow Dash to tag along and be Scootaloo's partner. And every time, Scootaloo was always happy and excited to see her. Always eager and hanging on her every word. And now, Rainbow Dash couldn't help but feel as though she had taken Scootaloo's company and charm for granted. Because the way Rainbow Dash worshipped the Wonderbolts, was just like how Scootaloo worshipped Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash wondered if the Wonderbolts would miss Rainbow Dash if she had died. Rainbow Dash paused on that thought for a moment. When at the victory feast in Canterlot, Rainbow Dash had asked about the Wonderbolts. Since the battle had only really been two long days, she hadn't really thought of them, since there was so much going on. Plus, she figured if they were around, they would have made themselves known and helped in the battle. Celestia said that the Wonderbolts had been trapped in special cocoons like Cadance had, and they had been stored in the caves underground the palace. Since the caves were so big, and they had been looking for an entrance into the palace at the time, Rainbow Dash and her friends hadn't seen them when they were down there. If anything had ever happened to the Wonderbolts, there would always be the Wonderbolt Academy to remember them by. "I wish there was something I could do, so that Scootaloo would be remembered," Rainbow Dash had thought with a heavy sigh. She never knew that the filly couldn't fly. She had suspected it, because she had never seen Scootaloo fly, and she was at the age when pegasi first started to learn, but she had never asked the filly about it. She wondered how many other little filly and colt pegasi couldn't fly. And that was when the idea hit her. The same night as Scootaloo's funeral. As the idea began to formulate in her mind, Rainbow Dash had jumped out of bed, grabbed a pen and piece of paper, and had begun to plan out her idea. With the destruction done to Ponyville, there had been some houses and shops that could not be restored, that had to be redone from scratch. All of these plans had to be approved of by the mayor. Four days after Scootaloo's funeral (Granny Smith's funeral had been in between), Rainbow Dash waited in line with other ponies with building plans. When it was her turn with the mayor, she excitedly told her about her plans and held her breath as she waited for a response. The mayor had slowly smiled and handed back Rainbow Dash's plans as she said, "I think it's a wonderful idea. The foals could use something to look forward to. This will be a lot of fun for them." Rainbow Dash had then enlisted the help of her friends. She knew all of them still had to repair their own houses, but they all agreed that they would help when they had the chance. "This is the spot," Rainbow Dash proudly showed them a week after her idea had formulated. It was a well sized plot of land not too far from the schoolhouse. Trees separated the two buildings, and Rainbow Dash had enough room on her plot for both a small building and a medium size play field. Three weeks after Scootaloo's funeral, Rainbow Dash began handing out fliers to all of the houses that had foals. Twilight had made up the flyers and Rainbow Dash couldn't have been happier with them. They read: SCOOTALOO'S FLIGHT SCHOOL A RECREATIONAL CLUB FOR ANY FILLY OR COLT WHO WISHES TO LEARN HOW TO FLY. ALL TYPES OF PONIES WELCOME! UNICORN, EARTH AND PEGASUS! OPENS IN 5 WEEKS. TWO TIME SLOTS AVAILABLE. PLEASE FILL OUT THE FOLLOWING FORM TO ENROLE, AND SEND IT TO RAINBOWDASH AT THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS The flyers were bright orange and purple, and each had a logo by the name of the school depicting the head of Scootaloo. Within a few days, all of the time slots were full and Rainbow Dash's mail had been overloaded. With Twilight's help again, she carefully organized all of the filled out forms and then brought a stack of them to Rarity's boutique. Much like Rainbow Dash had seen Scootaloo and her friends sport CMC capes, she wanted her students to have something of the same. And so Rarity had agreed to make capes for her school. The caps too were Orange on the outside and lined on the inside with purple. Scootaloo's colors. On the sides of the capes that were for unicorns or earth foals, there were pinned on wings. For pegasus foals, there were holes so their wings could fit through. From then, there was just the matter of building the building and getting other various equipment. Applejack and Big Mac were the biggest help when it came to raising the walls of the small school Rainbow Dash had planned out. She had then done most of the interior building herself, since Applejack and Big Mac still had an entire farm to rebuild. Though about a month after the changeling war, Applejack explained how they now had additional hands at the farm, and so she showed up to help more often during the last few weeks of the building. And now, finally, two months later, the entire project was done. Rainbow Dash admired her work, gave a nod of her head and then flew home. Tomorrow was the first day of flight school, and she wanted to make sure she was ready for it. The next day, Rainbow Dash got up bright and early. She had a big breakfast and then flew to the school. Her friends met her there shortly after. Twilight had all of the papers and had created an attendance list for Rainbow Dash. "This is your official clipboard and everything," Twilight said, as she handed it to Rainbow Dash proudly. Applejack and Fluttershy had each brought trays of snacks. Rarity came bearing boxes of capes. "I even had time to make some of these," she said proudly. She pulled out a set of small goggles. "There's enough for each student, plus a few extras, just as there are extra capes." "These are awesome Rarity! What a great idea!" Rainbow Dash said. "Don't thank me; it was Sweetie Belle's idea. She was my model for the capes, and she said that goggles would be cool," Rarity said. Pinkie Pie showed up last with a bunch of random supplies. Blinkie and Inkie helped her carry everything over. They had a box of helmets, a box of big balloons, and a wagon of baskets. The sisters then began an assembly line, putting together the small, mini hot-air balloons. "This is going to be so good Rainbow Dash!" Twilight said with excitement, "I'm so proud of you for doing this!" "When is the other pegasus getting here?" Fluttershy asked. "Well, it's on a volunteer basis. But I think Derpy is coming by today," Rainbow Dash said. She figured that with twenty foals in each class, she should have at least three adult pegasi to supervise the class. Fluttershy had volunteered her time for every class that was on Saturdays. Rainbow Dash had received an overwhelming amount of volunteers who said they wanted to help. There was another schedule in Twilight's organized folder that showed with volunteers were coming on which day. After an hour or so of setting up, Derpy arrived and so did the first of the foals. Rainbow Dash sat at the welcome table inside the small schoolhouse she had built, and checked of each foal as they came. She wanted to really get to know them. She wanted to learn all of their names. Fluttershy and Derpy were handing out the capes. Applejack and Pinkie Pie (who had also brought a load of cupcakes) were supervising the snack tables. The schoolhouse had a small foyer, were foals could leave their coats or other accessories, and were Rainbow Dash had set up the welcome table. The school room itself was quite small, with pillows on the floors for the foals to sit on. She didn't expect to use the schoolhouse very often, but figured it might come in handy on rainy or bad weather days. Finally, when all of the signed up foals for the day had arrived, Rainbow Dash went into the schoolroom and began writing on the board. "I'd like to start off our first lesson by telling you about a special filly," Rainbow Dash said, "The filly that this school is named after. Many of you might know already who she was. Her name was Scootaloo. She was a pegasus filly. And she died in Canterlot during the changeling war." Rainbow Dash stopped for a moment, her voice catching slightly in her throat. She continued on. "Even though she was a pegasus, Scootaloo couldn't fly. And so now, today, I am here to teach all of you to fly. It was Scootaloo's dream to fly. And we're going to keep her dream, and spirit, alive," Rainbow Dash said. The group of foals hoof stomped and cheered. Rainbow Dash then led the group outside, where Fluttershy and Derpy were waiting. They began handing out the goggles. A small obstacle course had been set up, both on the ground and in the sky. "Now, the first key to being a good flyer, is being a good jumper. Jumping is the first step of flying. And everypony can jump!" Rainbow Dash said. She did a little jump in the air, and the foals copied her. She jumped higher and so did they. "That second that you're in the air, before you fall back down when you jump, that's flying. Just because some of you may not have wings, doesn't mean you can't fly. Because sometimes, even with wings, some ponies can't fly," Rainbow Dash said. She continued to jump around with the foals, and then began to show them the ground obstacle course. Sometimes she would help lift up the unicorn or earth ponies, and pretend that they were flying over the obstacle beams. Fluttershy and Derpy flew with the pegasus foals through the air course. Near the end of the lesson, Rainbow Dash led the group around to the back of the schoolhouse, where the small air balloons were waiting. The foals got all excited and began whispering happily. Fluttershy and Derpy handed out helmets to the foals. There were two stationary, big air balloons, for unicorn and earth foals who wanted to go in the air, but were nervous about zooming around. There were about a dozen or so mini air balloons for individual or group pairings. The balloons were all strung together in a line of four. At the end of each row, there was a harness for one of the adult pegasi. As Fluttershy and Derpy harnessed themselves into their air balloon strings and began to fly around at a moderate speed, the foals in the air balloons behind them or pegasus foals beside them cheering with delight, Rainbow Dash stood back and smiled. Her school was a success. She glanced back at the schoolhouse, her eyes on Scootaloo's name hung over the entrance. "Come on Rainbow Dash! Let's go fly!" said an earth colt in the front balloon, a big smile on his face. "You got it," Rainbow Dash said. And as she flew in the air, the balloons trailing behind her, she knew that Scootaloo's spirit was flying with her.