//------------------------------// // You always keep your promises right? // Story: Promises // by RaylanKrios //------------------------------// Rainbow spent the rest of the afternoon hanging outside the school, anxiously waiting for Scootaloo to finish her day. Much to her relief, she didn’t see Lightning Strike or any of the guards near the school grounds. Despite the lack of immediate danger, she still couldn’t get Lightning’s threat out of her head. After what seemed like an eternity, a gaggle of school-aged fillies and colts burst through the double doors that marked the schoolhouse. At the tail end of the pack was Scootaloo and her two fellow crusaders, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. “Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said before turning to her friends. “Umm, I forgot to tell you that Rainbow and I were going to practice flying after school. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?” “Sure, Scoots, but don’t you want us to come with?” asked Apple Bloom while Sweetie Belle nodded in affirmation. “Nah, it’s cool.” Apple Bloom shrugged. “Okay. Later, Scoots. Bye, Rainbow Dash.” Apple Bloom said as she and Sweetie Belle trotted off on whatever misadventure they had planned. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo waved goodbye as they watched Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle trot down the path that led out of the school yard. “You haven’t told them anything, have you?” Rainbow Dash said as she turned to look at Scootaloo. Scootaloo pinned her ears back to her head. “No, I don’t want anypony to know,” she said quietly. “Hey, that’s totally your call. If anypony asks, I’ll just tell them you’re staying with me for a few days like a big sister-sleepover type thing. “Wait, you’re saying I can stay with you?” “Yeah, FPS is going to conduct an investigation, and hopefully they’ll put Lightning away for a long time. In the meantime you can stay with me; if you want to that is. If not, I’m sure Fluttershy or Twilight would be happy to have you.” “Are you kidding? This is going to be so cool!” Scootaloo jumped up and down as her wings buzzed with excitement. “Alright, kid. Let’s go get you settled in.” The two ponies walked to the field where Rainbow Dash’s house was still hovering. Scootaloo looked up at the cloud hovering twenty feet in the air with a look of trepidation. “Umm… Rainbow Dash? If I’m going to stay with you, how am I going to get up and down from the cloud?” “Hmm. Good question squirt. I mean, I can carry you, and Fluttershy or Derpy can, if one of them is around. But we’ll probably need a better solution.” Rainbow looked up pensively for a moment until a smile began to grow. “Cloud ladder!” “Huh?” “We can build a cloud ladder.” “You can do that?” “Sure, squirt; you can make clouds into pretty much anything, and if I anchor it into the foundation that’ll keep it from dissolving or drifting away. And this way, earth ponies still won’t be able to get to my house.” “Are you worried about that?” Scootaloo asked. Rainbow Dash tried to recover from the surprise. Yes, she was worried, but there was no sense in scaring the kid. “Uh, not really, but it can’t hurt to be careful, right? C’mon, you can help me.” “I don’t know anything about shaping clouds,” Scootaloo said softly as she looked at the ground and blushed. She got her pegasus genes from her dad, and because he wasn’t around, she often felt she was missing out on a lot of things other pegasi took for granted. Rainbow Dash just smiled. “You’re a pegasus kid; it’s just like working with clay.” She flew up and grabbed an errant cloud, wrestling it to the ground. “Here, break off a piece and roll it into a snake, just like you would if you were making clay coils. I’ll need fourteen of them, about three feet long each.” Scootaloo apprehensively tried to grab a piece of the cloud, and much to her delight, she found that it broke off easily. It had the texture of cotton, but unlike cotton it stayed in whatever shape she molded it into. After a few failed attempts, she found the right mix of pressure and forgiveness needed to shape the cloud and happily set off making coils. While Scootaloo was experiencing the joys of building with clouds, Rainbow set to work on anchoring the ladder. She shaped two thick links out of the cloud that supported her house and hammered them into the foundation. Then, she set about making four long cloud coils from another errant cloud that was passing by, and made a mental note to order more clouds from the weather factory in Cloudsdale. “Okay, Rainbow Dash, I’m done making coils,” came a voice from the ground. “‘Atta girl, Scoots. Now, take two of the coils and twist them together like I’m doing here.” She demonstrated by taking two of her long coils and intertwining them, wrapping one around the other. Satisfied that the two strands were connected she gave the rope a few firm tugs ensuring that it wouldn’t break. “You should have seven of them when you’re done.” Scootaloo did as Rainbow instructed, and Rainbow set about intertwining the other coils to make the second long cloud rope. Satisfied that it was strong enough, she set about looping both ropes into the links she had hammered into the foundation. Rainbow flew over to Scootaloo’s makeshift workstation and took her seven smaller rope coils. She went on working while explaining the next step. “Okay, kid, now we just tie the ends of your short strands around the two long strands and voila cloud ladder! Pretty neat, huh?” “Awesome,” the little filly replied with her usual characterization of most things that Rainbow Dash did. “Go on; give it a try,” urged Rainbow. Scootaloo approached the ladder and gingerly tested it out with her hoof. She put her weight on it and found that the clouds held firm. She happily scampered up and down the ladder a few times before Rainbow Dash picked her up and flew her up to the top of the cloud. “Okay, that’s enough for now, kid. But now, you can come and go as you please.” Scootaloo wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow Dash and gave the larger pegasus a hug. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash; you’re the best.” Rainbow felt her heart melt a little at the gratitude over what was such a small gesture. “Sure thing, squirt,” she said as she hugged the filly back. When they got inside the house, Rainbow immediately locked the door behind them. She filled Scootaloo in on Celestia’s visit, leaving out Lightning’s threat at the end. “So, does this mean they’re going to arrest him?” the young filly asked. “I hope so. You’re probably going to have to talk with some ponies from FPS. You just need to tell them what you told me.” Scootaloo nodded, a worried look settling in. “But what if they don’t believe me…like my mom?” Rainbow winced at the question and couldn’t come up with an answer. She knew that these investigations sometimes got it wrong, and that since it was the word of a filly against not only a decorated officer but the filly’s mother too, the odds were not in her favor. Rainbow decided that Scootaloo didn’t need to know that particular bit of information. “Just be honest. It’ll all work out, I promise.” “And you always keep your promises; right, Rainbow?” “That’s right. Now, don’t you have homework to do?” The question elicited a pout from the young filly, but soon Scootaloo was busy working on her homework while Rainbow Dash headed upstairs to the room she used as storage. There was some exercise equipment, Wonderbolts paraphernalia and other assorted knick knacks that she had collected over the years. When she was building her house she had always planned to make it into a combination trophy room/home gym, but she usually trained outside and she preferred to keep her trophies in her bedroom where she could see them before she went to sleep. She still didn’t know how long Scootaloo would be staying, but it couldn’t hurt to have a guest room. And if it ended up being a permanent room for Scoots, would that really be so terrible? She boxed up the odds and ends and threw them in the closet. The room felt smaller now that it was empty but Rainbow was already imagining how it would look with a cloud bed and a dresser; and maybe a small desk for the corner? Rainbow wasn’t usually one for domestic-type stuff but she couldn’t help but enjoy herself as she imagined what the room would look like filled with furniture for a small filly. Cleaning out the spare room had taken longer than Rainbow had expected, as she glanced out the window the sight of the sun going down told her that she should probably get started on making dinner. She decided on a couple of daisy burgers with hay fries because it was one of the few dishes she could reasonably expect to make without burning it. Much to her delight, Scootaloo wolfed down her dinner, grinning happily the whole time. After dinner, the two pegasi agreed to work as a team to do the dishes, including the pile that had accumulated in Rainbows sink. Rainbow would wash the dishes and then hand them to Scootaloo to dry and put them away. While washing a set of glassware, Rainbow noticed Scootaloo trying to carry a rather tall stack of dishes from the sink over to the cabinet. “Hey, careful there squirt,” she called out in a friendly warning. “Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash, I got this,” came the response from a mildly annoyed Scootaloo. As soon as she said that, the tower of plates she was carrying began to topple; they crashed to the ground and shattering, despite the cloud floor. “Dang it, Scoots! I told you to be careful!” Rainbow said, louder and with a sharper edge to her voice and than she had intended. Scootaloo went deathly still and began to quiver; a small whine of fear escaped her lips. Rainbow looked at the terrified filly and mentally kicked herself with both hooves. She set down the glass she was washing and slowly took a step toward Scootaloo, and the young filly let out another frightened squeak that broke Rainbow’s heart. Rainbow sat down just out of reach of Scootaloo and took a deep breath. She then spoke softly,“I’m sorry I yelled at you. You should know that I’m going to make mistakes at this. I’ve never really had to take care of anypony before, and as awesome as I am, this is kinda new to me,” Rainbow said, hoping her joke would lessen some of the tension. “So, I should tell you right now; I’m going to yell at you sometimes, even though I know shouldn’t, and I’m going to make you go to bed when I should probably let you stay up, and at some point I’ll probably give you another scoop of ice cream when you’ve had enough. There are going to be other mistakes I don’t even know about. But, one thing I need you to know is that I will never hurt you, Scoots; that will not happen, no matter what. Because it’s wrong, and because nothing you could possibly do would ever make you deserve it, and because I never want to see that kind of fear in your eyes ever again. Okay?” The tiny filly nodded. Rainbow Dash spread her forelegs, inviting Scootaloo to come in for a hug, which she did. Rainbow found herself squeezing just a little tighter than she wanted as the little filly began to calm down, secure in the warm embrace. Rainbow held the tiny filly, rocking her back and forth, trying to calm Scootaloo down as much as herself. “I’m sorry I broke the dishes,” Scootaloo said softly. “It’s okay, squirt. Why don’t you go grab a broom; we’ll clean it up together.” As Scootaloo went to find the broom, Rainbow was forced to remind herself why Scootaloo was staying with her. As much as they pretend that this was just a sleepover, Rainbow knew that it wasn’t, and if the dishes incident was any indication, Scootaloo was a lot more fragile than she let on. Rainbow made a mental note to be more careful in the future. After the kitchen had been cleaned up, and the two had settled in to watch some television, Rainbow found herself again telling Scootaloo a bedtime story as the little filly was nestled comfortably under the covers of the cloud bed. “…and Shepard left Pavlen, and the griffins never bothered her again.” Rainbow finished her story and tousled Scootaloo’s mane. “Goodnight, kid.” “Hey, Rainbow Dash?” “Yeah, squirt?” “Um... I know you’re scared, and I’m sorry.” “What are you talking about? This is me, remember? I don’t get scared.” “Rainbow Dash, I’m not stupid. I can tell you’re scared, and I know that it’s my fault,” Scootaloo said with a note of guilt that lent a sorrowful tone to her voice. “I thought I told you I didn’t want to hear you say that.” “But it’s true. If I hadn’t told you about Lightning Strike, you wouldn’t be scared right now.” Rainbow Dash looked down at the small filly. Protecting her from the truth meant making her more vulnerable and she wasn’t sure that was a good idea. She let out an audible sigh and sat down on the bed next to Scootaloo. “Okay, you’re right. I am scared. I’m scared because Lightning Strike is a bad stallion, and if you hadn’t told me I’d be safe…but you wouldn’t be. And if I woke up one day and found out that you were seriously hurt or…” Rainbow Dash choked back a lump that seemed stuck in her throat. “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself Scoots. I’ve never really had much of a family…” Rainbow found her eyes getting misty. As Rainbow struggled to get her emotions in check, she was surprised to find that the little filly had sat up and wrapped a pair of tiny forelegs around her neck. Scootaloo nuzzled the cyan pegasus as Rainbow wrapped a wing around the filly who was her little sister in every way that mattered. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to work, ya know,” Rainbow said as she tried to laugh through her tears. “You’re supposed to get upset, and I’m supposed to tell you that it’s going to be okay; we can’t go flipping the script.” Scootaloo stayed silent and redoubled her grip on the larger pegasus. The two stayed like that for a moment while Rainbow furiously fought to calm herself down. She focused on the small warm body against her, the way she could feel the tiny heart beat against her chest, and the way the small wings tickled her own. Slowly, she found a sense of normality returning. Scootaloo was here and she was ok, that was all that mattered for now. “Thanks, kid; I needed that,” Rainbow whispered. “Can you stay with me? I don’t really like being alone at night,” Scootaloo asked, the fear in her voice masked by an earnest hopefulness. “Sure, I’d like that too.” Rainbow curled up on the bed as Scootaloo snuggled next to her, pressing her tiny body against that of the larger pegasus. Rainbow gently nudged a pillow toward the younger pegasus and took one for herself, wrapping her wing around the small body next to her for the second time in five minutes. Scootaloo let out a small neigh of happiness and pulled the wing over her shoulders. Rainbow smiled as Scootaloo shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep with an adorably content grin plastered on her face, and soon Rainbow found herself drifting off to dreamland as well.