//------------------------------//
// 8 Years - part II - TEASER 
// Story: My Little Rainbows 
// by The PatioHeater 
//------------------------------//

The sky was turning to a deep orange as the three Rainbows walked back to their home. It had been a long day for the mother, and she couldn’t wait to fall asleep on the sofa. But her children were still full of energy.
Rainbow yawned loudly and let her head fall down. She could barely keep her eyes open anymore.
“Wake up, Mummy!” Swirl shouted cheerily.
“Huh?!” Rainbow said with a small jump. “Wha?”
“You’re falling asleep, Mummy,” Dash said through a mouthful of candyfloss.
Rainbow shook her head. “Yeah, sorry.” She took a deep breath, which woke her up slightly. “Did you enjoy the funfair?”
“Yeah!” Dash and Swirl cheered in ecstatic unison.
“Good.” Rainbow sighed. Dash seemed to have forgotten about the goldfish. “What did you like about it most?”
“Err…” The two fillies looked to each other and then to their toys they had won at Hook-a-duck.
Rainbow chuckled. She could tell what they were going to say. “Typical,” she mumbled to herself.
“Can we go to the zoo next week?” Dash asked hopefully. “I really wanna go.”
Rainbow laughed in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yeah!” Swirl interjected with a jump into the air.
Rainbow double-took at her other daughter. “But I thought neither of you liked the zoo. Every time we went you were always silently moaning to go home.”
“Yeah, but…” Dash tried to think of a reason but couldn’t at all.
“They have lions now!” Swirl said excitably. “And elephants!”
Dash gasped. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Swirl said smugly. “Ticker went with her sister a couple of months ago. And apparently they’re getting giraffes!”
Dash’s mouth fell open at the thought of what was essentially, in her mind, a very long-necked Pony.
Rainbow couldn’t help but notice now that Swirl kept mentioning Ticker’s sister quite often ever since she saw her.
“Can we go to the zoo, Mummy?” Swirl asked with shimmering, pleading eyes that filled her mother with a need to do whatever she wanted. “Please?”
Rainbow couldn’t help but smile at her daughter, and the giddy feeling in her heart was unbearable. “I-I’ll try,” she said determinedly.
“Yes,” Dash and Swirl celebrated as they bumped their hooves together.
Rainbow smiled at them. She could guess why they suddenly wanted to go to the zoo, and it made her feel even more proud of them. Also, if she were honest, it did feel weird not going to the zoo this year’s second birthday Saturday.

They made it to the street where there house was and the fillies put on a burst of speed.
“C’mon, Mummy,” Dash groaned as she tried to pull at her mother’s hoof to speed her up. “I need to um…”
“Shoot Swirl with your toy bow?” Rainbow suggested with a raised eyebrow.
“Err… no,” Dash said childishly.
Rainbow threw her head back and laughed a bit. “Yeah, right. Come on, then,” Rainbow said loudly and reared up on her hind legs before galloping down the path.
Dash laughed and kicked off the ground, sending her into the sky above her sister, who was knocked askew by the surprise gust of wind.

Rainbow looked back over her shoulder. A small, cyan missile was rocketing after her, making her fear for her life briefly as it was on a collision course, but Rainbow knew to trust her daughter’s flying capabilities.
The small filly barrel rolled around her mother, with the wind in her wake pushing the mare below off course, and zoomed into the distance, taking a sharp turn once she reached her house.
Rainbow had a brief chance to admire her daughter’s rainbow trail, induced by nothing but shear speed, and it sent a shiver running along her spine, but the wind had thrown her mane over her eyes. With her vision completely obscured she panicked, causing her to tread on her mane. She fell flat on her face, and through her groans of slight pain she could hear the dainty, little hooves of her other daughter speed past her, and she knew she had lost.

Rainbow ran up the path that led to her house, panting heavily and aching from the small physical exertion. She looked up and saw her daughter’s bouncing on the path, apparently completely fine and still full of energy.
She trotted up beside them and paused to catch her breath.
“You two are fast!” she panted in amazement. She didn’t even have to pretend to lose anymore.
The little fillies giggled to each other.
“You’re getting lazy, Mummy,” Swirl jested childishly.
“You will soon, don’t you worry,” Rainbow replied simply before walking past them and to the door, with her head rummaging through her bag to find the keys.
It was a second before the house key was in her grasp between her teeth. She went to place it in the lock, but instead she gasped and they fell to the floor. A shard of fear pierced her as she saw the busted lock of the front door and the cracked and broken wood that lay shattered on the doorstep.
The silence and stillness of their mother made the little Rainbows curious.
“Mummy?” Swirl questioned innocently.
“Ssh!” Rainbow whispered harshly. Her daughters went deathly silent, for they could tell she was afraid. “Stay right behind me, okay?” Rainbow ordered them as quietly as possible.
The fillies nodded and did as their mother commanded.
Rainbow, with a shaking hoof, slowly pushed the door open, trying with all her strength to do so silently.
The door swung open with an eerie creak, and Rainbow stood on the threshold to her house, with her hoof still hanging in the air. She didn’t want to go inside, but she knew she had to. All that could be heard were her quiet, terrified breaths in the silent evening.
She stepped inside hesitantly, placing her hooves on the floor as lightly as possible. Her breath shook with fear the further she walked in. She looked behind her; her children looked scared, and she didn’t like that one bit.
Instinct took her forward, towards the kitchen, the door of which had been left ajar. 
As she got closer, the light that spilt from the room cast the shadow of a Pony on the floor. She knew she had shouldn’t go any further, but something within compelled her to, and she didn’t like it.
She pushed the door open fully, and as she stepped into the room she saw the large kitchen table and a tall, red stallion, wearing a long, leather coat, sat on one of the chairs.
Rainbow felt all the anger and hatred in the entire world boil within her. It was a physical effort to stop herself from lashing out and maiming him.
“Red,” she growled.
The ex-husband looked over his shoulder and snorted, with a sly smile forming soon after. “Hello, dear,” he said coldly.