It was evening. The little farm was quiet in the moonlight. The animals were sleeping peacefully in the barns and pens, or on the fields. The stars twinkled overhead like sparkles of light in a water's splash. All was darkness but for a few lights on in the big farmhouse, the brightest shine coming from the main sitting room, which had a flickering quality to it.
The fire was lit, giving the little room a warm glow to bask the inhabitants in. Granny Smith was dozing in her favourite armchair. The dinner table in the connecting dining room was weighted down with dirty dishes and cups. Applejack threw it a look, possibly making a mental note to clean up before she turned in for the night. She was stretched out on the sofa. The three little girls all sat on the floor, eyes wide with reverence, grinning broadly.
“Again!” Apple Bloom cheered. “C'mon, Rainbow Dash!”
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle agreed, tapping her hooves excitedly on the floor. “My heart's in my throat!
Scootaloo didn't say anything. She just continued to gaze at her big sister, exaltation in her eyes.
“Whaaat? No way! I've already told you twice,” Rainbow Dash protested, folding her arms and shaking her head. Unfortunately, she had nearly given herself away by the fact that she was finding it difficult to conceal her smile. “Well, what do ya think, Applejack? It's getting awfully late. I just don't think it's fair to these sleepy little fillies to keep them up on a school night.”
Applejack winked at her, slipping off the sofa. “Ya knooow, Rainbow Dash, I quite agree. It would be much kinder to send them off ta bed so they are well rested in the morning! Off y'all trot, now!”
“Guess I'll be going then!” Dash said brightly, stretching her wings and yawning, trying not to laugh.
There was immediate uproar. Scootaloo jumped to her feet, rushing over to Rainbow and throwing her hooves at Rainbow's chest. Apple Bloom was begging her sister to let Rainbow stay to tell her story once more, leaping onto the couch, scrambling on top of her sister and staring her in the face into the air to put her on eye level with Applejack. Sweetie Belle had her head against the sofa, grunting and trying to push it into the doorway to block Dash leaving.
“Siiis! Don't go yet, please?” Scootaloo begged, sadness plastered all over her face. “Once more... I don't want you to leave yet!”
Rainbow Dash picked her up with her wings and nuzzled Scootaloo's face with her own. “You sure you aren't falling asleep, sleepy head?”
Scootaloo shook her head quickly. “Nooo... I'm wide ah... awake!” She stifled a yawn.
“You kids can hear the story one more time, but then it's off to bed. Go brush yer teeth now, all of y'all, and then you can hear it again,” Applejack said, smiling warmly at the fillies.
Scootaloo gave a wiggle and broke out of Dash's wing hold. She joined Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, who was panting.
“Heavy... heavy couch!” Sweetie told the room at large, throwing up her hooves in exasperation.
The earth, unicorn, and pegasus filly all ran up the stairs, trying to race each other to the bathroom sink. There was much banging and screaming overhead after they had vanished out of sight.
“So, how much of that story was horseapples?” Applejack asked, walking into the dining room to gather up the plates.
Dash flapped her wings and swooped over to help. “You don't believe my gripping tales? Applejack, you wound me.”
Applejack threw her a smug look, but chuckled anyway. “I know when yer stretchin' the truth.”
Rainbow gathered up several plates at once with her wings, balancing them on her outstretched arms. “Sometimes the truth really is more exciting than a made up story.”
“Is that so? Four hundred pegasai showed up to the tryouts and y'all had a wrestlin' match, didja,? To trim it down to a smaller number?” Applejack asked, still smiling smugly and taking the plates Rainbow Dash had gathered to the kitchen sink.
“It was an over the top rope battle royale, to be specific!” Dash said, but she couldn't hide her guilty smile anymore. “Okay, okay! Only ten of us showed up. In the end, though, it was a race between me and that dark grey pegasus, you know the one. Thunderlane, that guy. It was down between me and him, and Spitfire and Soarin. I won with my Rainboom. I mean, come on, YOU SAW IT IN THE SKY!”
“That's the only part I believed!” Applejack chuckled loudly, turning on the tap over the sink.
“You are the worst,” Rainbow Dash said with a smile, rolling her eyes. “Soarin and Thunderlane just kind of... screwed around, they didn't seem that interested in beating us. I think me and Spitfire set the bar a little too high at the start, trying to one up each other in speed. She is faster than you could possibly imagine. If it didn't end the way it did, I probably would have given myself a heart attack just to beat her back to the stadium! I had never felt so physically exhausted.”
“Here they come...” Applejack said as the sound of a stampede echoed down the stairs. “I'm very happy ya won, Rainbow. When do you start your lessons with Soarin for the airshow performance?”
“Wednesday! I cannot wait, it's going to be so awesome. He's sooo cute, ohmigosh! I dunno how I'm gonna survive the next two days. Spitfire said she was going to work something out with the both the weather factory and the Ponyville Weather Commission so I could get time off to practice. They'll even pay me! The Wonderbolts got connections, lemme tell ya.”
“AHEM!” came Scootaloo's impatient yell from the living room.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked over. All three fillies were back and sitting on the floor, heads turned to glare into the kitchen. Rainbow Dash grinned and swooped back into the living room. She landed lightly between the fireplace and the Crusaders, clapping her hooves together.
“That's right, I forgot I owe you guys another stirring rendition of my heroic struggles against FOUR HUNDRED WINGED AND MENACING PONIES, ending in a ONE ON ONE RACE WITH THE WONDERBOLT CAPTAIN, HERSELF!” Rainbow Dash said in a sharp voice, her silhouette dark against the fire.
The fillies drew together excitedly.
“... So there I was...” Rainbow Dash continued some time later, having told most of her story. “Ponyville must have been two hundred miles below us. We were so high we could see the stars and moon, even though it was the middle of the afternoon.”
She soared around the room, drawing gasps from the girls.
“BAM!” Dash said, smacking her hoof into the wall loudly, causing the girls to give a shriek and Granny Smith to mumble in her sleep. “Spitfire zoomed on by into the lead! The air behind her was ON. FIRE. That's how fast this mare was going.”
Rainbow Dash hovered slowly over the fillies, eyes locked on to them as they looked up, mouths open in awe. “A lesser pony would have wet her feathers! The sound of the roaring flames, the eeevil look in Spitfire's eyes. She was like a great dragon, not a pegasus at all. I gathered what was left of my courage. I put everything I had into it! BOOM!”
Rainbow Dash rushed back to the fire, landing hard on the floor with a smack. “AND JUST LIKE THAT, IT WAS OVER!” she yelled in triumph. “I knew the Sonic Rainboom was the ONLY WAY to beat Spitfire and her voodoo flight. I did not want to do it, but it HAD. TO. BE. DONE,” Dash continued, slapping a hoof into the other with every word. “The other competitors erupted into cheers and the Wonderbolts flew all around me as I celebrated my victory. Spitfire told me she would change her wicked ways and said she would make me Soarin's wing pony for the airshow, as promised.”
The fillies clapped their hooves together, whooping and cheering. Rainbow Dash gave a little bow, with much twirling of her hooves and flicked her mane, putting it in danger of catching an ember from the fireplace. Applejack emerged from the kitchen.
“It's nearly eleven! You fillies get yer rumps off ta bed!” she said, wiping of her hoof with a cloth, the dishes done. “Ya heard yer story, now skedaddle!'
The Crusaders all yawned, getting to their hooves, but did not protest their bedtime Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were happily in discussion about their favourite parts ('I liked the wrasslin!' 'No, the fight with the chimera was the best part!') as they walked to the stairs. Scootaloo stayed behind, approaching her adoptive guardian.
“I don't want you to leave... If you have to, can I come home with you?” she asked softly in a voice only Rainbow Dash could hear.
Dash dropped to her knees and pulled Scoot into a hug. “I won't be leaving until you girls are asleep, don't you worry your little head,” Dash whispered back. “Don't you like sleeping over with your friends?”
“'Course I do, but I'm gonna miss you! You're the coolest big sister ever!” Scootaloo said, her round greyish purple eyes fixed on Rainbow's.
“You won't even know I'm gone until you wake up and go to school, and I can't follow you there anyway. Be a brave little squirt, Dashie's gotta get home and tidy up! I think there's muskrats living in my bedroom!”
Scootaloo gave a watery chuckle. “Okay... You aren't allowed to leave without kissing me goodnight, though!”
“Well, obviously,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes but beaming down at Scootaloo anyway.
A couple of hours came and went. Rainbow Dash closed her front door with a snap, trying not to yawn. She had just finished discussing the rest of her day with Applejack, truthfully this time, including everything that had happened after the race was over. She placed a wrapped object down on a hallway table and stretched her wings.
As she walked through the quiet house, she peered into the living room, flicking on the light and giving the room a quick pan. Aside from a rumpled blanket on the couch and a Daring Do novel on the floor next to the coffee table, the room was still clean and tidy. Dash looked at a few of Scootaloo's toys and colouring books, all stacked neatly in a corner. Scootaloo always put her things away when she finished playing with them. Dash walked back to the coffee table and picked up a framed photograph.
In the picture, Scootaloo was sitting on Dash's shoulders, her hooves flattening Rainbow's hair and beaming at the camera. Her wings were stretched out wide like Dash's had been. Dash smiled warmly down at the photograph, which was dated March 19th: The very day she had adopted Scootaloo.
Twilight Sparkle had insisted on dragging them shopping after she had told her friends the news, still so jubilant about the great kindness Rainbow Dash had done. They met up with Pinkie Pie shortly after, who snapped the photo as Twilight stood aside.
“Big smiles, you two!” Twilight had said happily, her eyes watering. “This is your first family picture... ever!”
“Say 'Cheese and whiskers on a polar bear on Tuesday is a silly concept!'” Pinkie had squeed, taking the photo.
Rainbow was surprised to find herself curled up on the couch with the blanket wrapped around her. She had gotten herself lost in memories again, thinking about the filly who had changed her life. Impatiently wiping her eyes, she gently put down the photograph again and jumped up, folding the blanket neatly and stashing it under her arm. She picked the novel off the floor and laid it on the coffee table.
It was a stupid thing, really, but she refused to let herself cry for anything. That's not to say she never spilled tears, but she always tried her hardest to avoid it. Some would say this was a facade she was using to hide inner pain, Rainbow often thought, but her real reasons were a little different. So far, it had already been nearly two years before she had let out a real sob.
Before her mother had passed away, she had told Rainbow Dash to 'always stand brave and tall when you have to face your fears, and never cry when the world becomes too much to bear'. These were words Rainbow had lived by ever since she watched the coffin lowered into the cold earth. It wasn't always easy, though. Sometimes you had to cry, no matter how brave you felt in your heart.
Dash looked up at the bookshelf. There was another photograph, faded with age, sitting on top of it. Inside the frame was a happy-looking family. A smiling blue filly with brightly coloured hair and mane of every shade of the rainbow sat on her mother's lap, while her father stood behind them. Rainbow Dash had her mother's hairstyle, although she was the splitting image of her father. Even though the tones were faded, father and daughter seemed to share every single bright colour. She stood up and approached the bookshelf.
Heavens Above smiled happily out of the photograph forevermore. Her coat had been snow white. Rainbow Dash remembered how it used to shine bright, even when the sun was away. Her mother's hair had been bright blonde with golden highlights. She had had the most brilliant wings Dash had ever seen in her life. When Rainbow Dash was a little girl, she foolishly thought her mother had secretly been an angel, looking like she did and with such a name.
Rainbow blinked away tears again, taking a deep breath. When her mother passed away, her father had always told Dash that 'Mommy has gone back to Heaven'. Rainbow Dash had always found comfort in those words; comfort in the simple idea that somehow her mother would be waiting for her and that they would meet again when her own time in this world was over. She took another deep, steadying breath and wiped her eyes again. She would not let the tears fall. She walked back to the coffee table and picked up the photo of herself and Scootaloo. She returned to the bookshelf and placed it next to the picture of the young family torn apart by tragedy.
“I hope you're still watching out for me, Mom...” Dash said softly, standing back so she could see both photographs at once. “You taught me that my family is my greatest treasure. I would have loved for Scootaloo to get the chance to meet you. I know you would have loved that wonderful filly just as much as I love her...”
Dash paused at the pictures for just a second longer, focusing on her father. She hoped she would be seeing him soon. Dash walked out of the room, turning off the light, and put the blanket she was still holding into the closet in the hallway. She made her way through every room in the house quickly; putting her weights in the basement away, cleaning the counter tops in the kitchen, wiping down the bathroom floor, sweeping the upstairs hallway and Scootaloo's bedroom.
Finally, Rainbow Dash entered her own bedroom and sighed heavily at the chaos. It took her a full hour to clean it. She had a pile of clothes set aside to wash in the morning. Her wardrobe had been wiped down, everything pulled out and folded neatly. Her record player was unplugged and put into her bedroom closet, along with a few of the dresses she had hung up in there, including both her bridesmaid's gown and the dress she wore to the Grand Galloping Gala.
Dash flopped down on to her neatly made bed and fixed her eyes slowly over the poster of Soarin, a small smile crossing her face. Suddenly remembering the wrapped package she had left downstairs when she got home. Rainbow jumped up and rushed downstairs to get it. Returning to her bedroom, she pulled yet another photograph from the wrapping paper, one taken that very day.
She placed it down next to her bedside table, feeling a fuzziness spread through her body. Several pegasai were sitting down at a table inside 'the Vinyl Scratch', the club owned by DJ Pon-3. Soarin and Thunderlane were toasting one another with their large steins, roaring with laughter. Rainbow Dash sat on Soarin's left, with Spitfire beside her. Across from them sat Blaze, Fleetfoot, and Lightning Streak. All were raising their glasses.
After the race, the Wonderbolts treated Dash and Thunderlane to a few drinks at the club to celebrate Rainbow Dash's victory. Spitfire had been acting much more warmly to all involved. Maybe her brief chat with Rainbow Dash at the tail end of the race had made her realize she wasn't doing herself a favour by being nasty, Rainbow wondered?
Rainbow traced her hoof down Soarin's face, sighing softly. “I really hope you like me...”
She crawled into bed without even turning off the bedroom light and was asleep within moments. It had been such a wonderful day.