//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: To See Her One More Time 
// by TheMessenger 
//------------------------------//

Epilogue

"Hey rookie, what's up?"

Hair of all colors swept to the side as the mare shook her head. She looked down at uniformed pegasus whom had called out to her from the ground. "It's nothing ma'am!" she replied, removing the goggles over her eyes and rubbing them. "Just got something in my eye, that's all."

Spitfire glanced over to one of her aides and gave him a questioning look. The assistant merely shrugged, his expression hidden behind thick sunglasses, before returning his attention to the other pegasi in the air. Sighing, Spitfire looked back up. "Alright, Rainbow Dash, gather the cadets. We're done for the day," she said.

"Yes ma'am!" Rainbow exclaimed, taking a second to salute before flying off. Another second later, a dozen pegasi hovered in the air next to her. Spitfire's frown deepened as she watched them carefully descend and clump around her.

"Not bad, ladies and gentlecolts," she said. "Not bad at all. Maybe you ponies are Wonderbolt material. But," the veteran flyer added, glaring at the pair of mares whom had grinned at each other, "we don't want maybes. Here at the Wonderbolt Academy, we don't accept not bad's or so-so's or good enough's. If you want to make the cut, I'd better see some major improvement. Or is this really the very best you can do?" Spitfire sneered.

"No ma'am!" the entire congregation hollered. Nopony noticed Spitfire's ear twitch under the overwhelming sound, though a few of her greener assistants held their ears painfully.

"That's what I want to hear!" she shouted back. "The weekend's here, but there'd better not be any slacking, understand? And I will find out. Team dismissed!"

The pegasi dispersed in every direction, flying in pairs and in groups. Spitfire scanned the sky for a multi-hued mane. She flew past the crowd, weaving through clusters until she reached the cyan mare. "Rainbow Dash," she said, tapping her shoulder.

"Ma'am?"

"What's wrong?" asked Spitfire. "You kept zoning out today, and it took you a lot longer to get everypony together."

"I-it's nothing, ma'am," Rainbow Dash said. "It's just...I don't know, I just feel a bit down today. It's just today, I swear," she assured hurriedly. "It won't become a thing, I'm totally fine."

"Alright, alright, it's just an off day," Spitfire said. "I get that, it happens to the best of us. You look like you could get some sleep though," she noted. "Watch yourself, okay? Even the Wonderbolts need rest sometimes."

"Yes ma'am, you got. it Captain."

"Good." The Wonderbolt nodded and grinned. "Have a nice weekend."

"You too, ma'am," Rainbow Dash responded. The two mares went their own separate directions, with Spitfire returning to the camp belong and Rainbow toward the horizon. For several minutes, Rainbow glided in silence, her flight absent of loops or aerial rolls. Soon, a large cloud structure came in view. Colorful liquid rainbows gushed out of the top of a fluffy tower and leaked through the soft foundation it stood on. 

Rainbow Dash landed on the white base and stared down at the town below her. She leaned over, spread her wings, then shook her head and folded them back against her sides. She turned around and headed toward the house of clouds instead. Rainbow brushed aside her door and slumped onto her couch. 

She laid there on her side for awhile, occasionally rolling onto her back or her stomach and kicking her legs lazily in the air. A strand of hair fell over her cerise eyes, which she blew away with a breath. 

Rainbow slid off of the couch and landed gracelessly onto the floor with a grunt. She sat there, staring around her house and at the trophies and mementos that littered the walls. Rainbow Dash got onto her feet and walked through her house, past the dirty kitchen and a stack of adventure novels. 

Up a flight of stairs she went, her hoofs leaving small prints in the clouds that faded shortly. She stopped at the very top, in front of a spacious room without a door. Taking a deep breath, Rainbow walked in, kneeling down at the base of a large bed. She reached underneath, sticking out her tongue as she searched by touch. Rainbow shifted onto her other side and extended hooves. Her eyes widened and lit up as they finally brushed against something solid.

Rainbow Dash's forelegs retreated from beneath the bed. With them came a small box.


*


"What are you doing?"

"Gah!" Neil leapt up and turned off his computer monitor. "N-nothing, nothing at all," he said nervously, hovering over the keyboard. He looked up at Eva, standing at the doorway of his office, with her eyebrow raised. Neil quickly sat back into his seat as smoothly as possible. "What's up?"

"You're not using company resources to make another video game, are you?" Eva asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared disapprovingly. 

"No, but I've got this really cool idea all planned out," Neil said excitedly. "See, it'll be us racing ponies on a rainbow bridge and--"

Eva interrupted Neil's spiel by dropping a massive bundle of paper onto his desk. It landed with a loud, audible thud and shook the entire desk. "I didn't know you wrote fanfiction," Neil observed as he straightened his glasses.

"This is our report detailing Robert's job," Eva explain. "I left everything in it, from all the weird malfunctions in our machinery to the ponies."

"So? Shouldn't you be giving that to our supervisor or something?"

"I did. He thought the entire thing was a joke and told me to write it all over again more seriously." Eva frowned. "Your turn."

"And you really think he'll take me more seriously?" Neil wondered incredulously.

Eva shrugged. "Well, he does like you better for some reason. Good luck. Oh," she added right before leaving Neil's office, "and maybe you should leave whatever you were doing there until you got home."

"Yeah, yeah," Neil muttered, waving his colleague away. With a sigh, he picked up the papers Eva had dropped on him and began to read. It didn't take long before he lost interest and set the report back on the desk. Neil glanced around the room and peaked over his computer toward the outside. Eva had shut the door for him. Grinning, Neil slid back into his chair.

The monitor flashed back on.

"I used to wonder what friendship could be..."


*