Rainbow opened her eyes, and rubbed the tears away for a moment. Then she focused on what was in front of her. A silver shod hoof. She moved her head back and noticed another silver shod hoof, looking up, she was face to face with none other than Princess Luna. Rainbow gasped and nearly fell off the cloud.
"Princess Luna!"
Luna was not smiling, "Element of Loyalty. Dost thou truly wish she had never been born?"
Rainbow Dash looked down, fresh tears starting to fall.
After a long moment one of those silver shod hooves pushed her head up to face Luna's regal countenance.
"We require an answer, Loyalty."
Rainbow Dash squeezed her eyes shut, that didn't stop the tears. "Yes, Princess. If I had never been born, I wouldn't have hurt poor Scoots."
The hoof was removed from her chin, and she opened her eyes. Luna had moved away from her and was hovering in the air next to the cloud.
"Child, dost thou know how many lives would be affected by that change? To remove an entire pony's life from existence would change more than thou wouldst know."
Rainbow's ears flattened against her head. "I know that it might make some pony's lives harder, but all that is nothing compared to having Scootaloo back on her hooves. Twilight tried to heal her, but she said that she has done all she can, and she doesn't know if that filly will recover." She stopped and looked down for a long minute. Then she mumbled, barely loud enough for Luna to hear, "I would kill myself right now if it would heal her."
"You would end your own life, Loyalty?" Luna proclaimed in her Royal Canterlot Voice.
"Yes, in a heartbeat. I don't know if my friends could ever forgive me for being so stupid, and I know that one of Scootaloo's best friends hates me right now. She yelled at me just before I came out here." Spent, she hung her head.
"We would not have that, Loyalty. The choice to end one's life is a very grave one. And you have done so much for Equestria." Luna paused for a minute, considering the broken pegasus in front of her.
"Very well. I will send you to the world where you never existed," she said very softly.
Rainbow Dash looked up. "You can do that? Scootaloo will be okay?"
"Now, we didn't say that, Loyalty, the only change will be that the Pegasus pony named Rainbow Dash will never have existed. Now GO!" she shouted the last word as she stomped a hoof on nothingness. Yet there was a crash of thunder and the cloud Rainbow was lying on dissipated and she fell, to surprised to do anything. She landed on the ground in a heap. After laying there for a moment in shock, she stood on all four hooves and checked herself over, her head still hurt, but otherwise, she was fine. She looked around her, Ponyville seemed about the same.
She looked down and thought for a moment. I wonder how Scootaloo is doing, she thought to herself. Luna said that the only change is me not being here, so let's see if the squirt is at the hospital. She took off towards the hospital.
Very quickly she was in the hospital, the staff ignored her as she trotted to the room Scootaloo had been in. After what seemed like forever, she pushed the door open, the bed was empty.
"Yes!" The rainbow maned pegasus pumped a hoof in victory. Scootaloo wasn't there.
As she trotted out of the hospital, she looked around. She needed to find her friends, taking to the air, she headed to the Golden Oaks Library. Upon landing on the stoop she pushed the door open.
"Hello, Twilight, where are you?"
Silence.
"C'mon Twilight, it's dark, you are usually in here by the time it gets dark." She reached over and flicked on the lights. She shot up the stairs and knocked on the door to Twilight's bedroom.
"Okay sleepyhead, I saw the clock, it's not that late, come on out and talk to me. Please?"
Finally getting frustrated with the lack of response, she finally opened the door and stuck her head in, it wasn't a bedroom, but a storage room, filled with empty bookshelves and old volumes not usually in circulation. Rainbow pulled her head back and looked around.
"Now, that is weird, what happened to Twilight?" She mused to herself.
After several fruitless minutes of trotting around the library, Rainbow Dash left in a huff, something was wrong. She took off and flew high enough to see where her cloud house was, or where it should have been. It wasn't there anymore. Well, duh, she hadn't built it yet. She chuckled to herself and changed course for the home of one of her best friends in the entire world, Fluttershy's cottage.