An Interim of Sorts (Cyan Guardian 3)
Routine soon kicked in during the first week. They would wake up, get some breakfast, though usually not homemade, and go to school and work, respectively. Both would get back in time and have fun the rest of the day until Scootaloo was tired enough to go to bed on her own goodwill. As of yet Rainbow hadn’t tried to establish a fixed set of rules for her guest, as she was too afraid that this might scare the filly off again. It came as a big relief that there was no need for them anyway, at least most of the time. For a foal that young she really could take good care of herself.
While Scootaloo still constantly claimed not to need any help, she sure was enjoying getting some, her laments getting less vehement each day.
By the end of the second week the filly had opened up considerately, talking a lot about education and crusading; her everyday life. Many evenings had been spent simply conversing, Rainbow recounting tales of her childhood and other adventures in exchange for every bit of information her protégé had to offer.
Rainbow had learned that her charge loved going to school as much as performing stunts, the second one coming as the far smaller surprise. Some days the filly would even ask to be taken up earlier in order to have more time for her homework, a level of commitment to such boring tasks Dash could only marvel at.
No matter how trivial their topics seemed to be at times, Dash never grew bored of them, as they always revealed a bit more about her long term guest, piecing together a good picture of her current life and personality. Scootaloo’s past, however, remained a book with blank pages.
Not even the Ponyville archives held any information, containing only files neither on Scootaloo nor her parents, thus ending her only feasible lead in a dead end. She wished she had a better idea than to fly around and ask ponies, which, of course, was out of the question.
But that was only one of Rainbow's problems and worries. Nearly every night her ward was screaming in her sleep, waking Dash every single time, although the filly never woke from the nightmares herself.
It wasn’t her own level of sleep that Dash was worried about, but rather the mysterious content of the filly’s dreams. The words didn’t change between nights. They were the same words spoken at the grave. The very same words now also haunting Dash's dreams: “NO please...! I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK! I want to stay!” She had no clue what to make of them, no idea how to protect the foal. It hurt somewhere deep down.
Another reason for concern was the filly’s inability to fly. Her wings were strong and her technique perfect; Rainbow made sure of that in a few of their training sessions. There was no flaw with her feathers. Preening seemed to come natural to Rainbow’s protégé. As it stood, Scootaloo should already be soaring through the sky next to her idol and performing tricks. There had to be some kind of medical condition hindering her. Dash just couldn’t find the inner strength to actually tell the already broken pony. Her only hope was that it would prove to be curable later on.
And, as if this wasn’t enough for one mare already, it was getting hard to hide the fact that she had a permanent guest to her friends. It was only thanks to Applejack that they still believed her, or at least pretended to do so. Twilight was especially hard to keep at bay. The unicorn was too nosy for her own good. She obviously found it hard to take that she might not know the whole truth and could not simply look up the missing parts in one of her books.
Rainbow felt bad about lying to her friends, but there was no way to avoid it. Betraying a helpless filly’s trust would be a far greater crime.
More than just a small miracle was needed to clear up this mess, a miracle that could only be brought by Scootaloo.
Luckily it would only take two more days.