Pinkie just has a liiittle bit more to say, because she really wants you to know how things are working out between her and her friends. So, Pinkie Pie came to grow accustomed to her new life, and her new environment. A lot of things were the same, but a lot of things were really different. Most of the things that were really different were really different only temporarily, until what effect Pinkie had on the world had been cleaned up, then they wouldn’t be too different anymore. But a few things were going to be different, really different, and Pinkie had a feeling it was going to be that way for a long, long time.
Eating other Pinkies was a really weird experience for Pinkie Pie. It made sense, what her super stretchy Pinkie mouth was for, but it still felt weird. It didn’t feel bad is the thing. It actually felt really, really good, not just like eating, but like she was satisfying some deep itch inside her that she never knew needed scratching. But she couldn’t feel guilty about doing it at all. It’s not that she felt vindictive about the Pinkies who went and made so much trouble for her, but they just... didn’t seem to mind being eaten!
They were still being eaten, and going away forever, and disappearing into her belly, and she knew that they were too... empty, that there just wasn’t anything left to come out again. And you were supposed to be scared of going away forever, but the other Pinkies weren’t! They were always so calm about it, and not just from what Pinkie could see with her eyeballs! Every time Pinkie ate one, she also sort of was that one she ate. She could remember what it felt, and how casual it was about dying. She was more like it was a... a recipe, not really a pony.
There were times on occasion it got to her though. Once when Rarity was feeding her a Pinkie— Oh, they had built a whole new building for Pinkie next to the pit, just a shed really. She would sit in that shed, and somepony, usually Twilight would bring a Pinkie to her. And Twilight liked doing experiments with it and trying things, like getting Pinkie to eat herself part of the way. Pinkie could stop herself, sometimes, but couldn’t reverse it at all and had to start going again pretty soon. The one time Twilight actually rigged something to pull the Pinkie out of her early, it... wasn’t pretty. They weren’t going to repeat that experiment again.
But the first time Rarity tried it, Rarity was the very last of her friends to see Pinkie eat a Pinkie. She didn’t even want to, but she said it was her duty as a friend, to be with her through thick and thin. So Rarity one day, very reluctantly, led a Pinkie into Pinkie’s eatin’ shack.
The other Pinkie had turkey called at Pinkie, so Pinkie turkey called back at her, and she turkey called again, but it was soon pretty obvious that this Pinkie didn’t want to do much of anything besides turkey call. So Pinkie decided to just eat her and get it over with.
“Now, I’ll get really fat, and weird,” she said to Rarity cautioningly, “But then I squeeze myself back up into a slim little Pinkie me again. So don’t worry if it looks painful, because it only feels good. And yes I can breathe, so don’t worry about that either. Okay?”
It’s funny Pinkie would have thought it was Fluttershy to whom she had to be really careful, and give a careful lecture to, but Twilight just rolled her eyes at the suggestion, and Twilight was right because Fluttershy practically jammed the Pinkie down her throat in eagerness to see Pinkie’s little eating show in progress. But Rarity, well... Rarity was really nervous. So Pinkie spoke with her carefully and slowly, and Rarity gave a quiet, hesitant, Fluttershyish “Okay,” and “I’ll just stand over... here.” And leaned against the wall for support.
“Don’t worry Rarity, just remember how scary all these Pinkies were when they ran around town,” Pinkie said consolingly. “I’m gonna eat ‘em all up and they’ll be gone in my belly, and then they can’t scare you ever again.”
Rarity smiled wanly at that, as much a smile as Pinkie could drag out of her at least, and she said with just a touch of indulgence, “I’ll do my best to imagine that was the Pinkie who ended my Fall fashion line.”
“You did what!” Pinkie exclaimed in dramatic exaggeration to the other Pinkie, who just honked at her. Goose call? “Well missy,” Pinkie said admonishingly, wiggling her tush and licking her lips hungrily at the other Pinkie, “Let’s see you eat Rarity’s Fall fashion line, in my belly!” Rarity actually snickered, and Pinkie took that as a good enough cue as any to pounce.
That’s another thing Pinkie found she was really good at now that she was a real oracle, was pouncing. She felt like a cat or something, or like something that eats somethings that move, and don’t just sit there on your plate. A gryphon maybe? But gryphons rip their food to shreds, and Pinkie just wanted to dive onto it, getting it inside her whole.
The other Pinkies definitely didn’t like being eaten one piece at a time. That was another experiment Pinkie and Twilight would not be repeating.
Pinkie Pie glomped her mouth around the other Pinkie’s head like a big hug, and felt all woozy and stuff, and then yanked her right up into the air. That part was kind of scary at first, because Pinkie couldn’t really stop from doing that. She just got all... jerky like that, and had to sit down underneath the other Pinkie. But it really did help a lot, since you didn’t have to swallow as hard when the you could just take advantage of gravity. Pinkie swallowed, and ballooned outwards and the Pinkie inside her started to turn to tingly mushy stuff that made Pinkie squeeze down as it disappeared into her body. It was really calming, but a little not calming, because she couldn’t move while she was a Pinkie pear and with other ponies around who could move, that made her nervous for some reason. But one pony was okay, especially if that pony was her best friend.
When Pinkie had squeezed down tight enough to get her one of her eyes to look straight again, she was gratified to see Rarity was still there, and hadn’t fled the shed. Rarity was looking queasy and sweaty, and trying to smile to comfort herself as much as Pinkie. So before Pinkie was even back into Pinkie shape again, she waved a hoof at Rarity, like she was just saying hi, I’m okay even if I look a little funny right now. Soon with both eyes straight, Pinkie could see that Rarity had calmed down a bit at that, and at how Pinkie was looking like a pony again. Pinkie stood up while her belly was still shrinking up, looking just like a silly fat pony as her belly wobbled beneath her. Or like a pony with a baby inside her. Pinkie—
Pinkie didn’t like to remember about how ponies... how other ponies could have baby ponies inside them.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Rarity?” Pinkie said to her congenially, while the other Pinkie’s flesh and thoughts diffused through her. Rarity opened her mouth as if to say something, then lifted her hoof, then put it down again, then closed her mouth. Then she opened it again.
“Well, it was... not what I would call a... good time,” Rarity said uncomfortably, at the somewhat misshapen Pinkie Pie. “I certainly would find it a nightmare if I had to do something so... strange in my daily life. It seems to... fit you though, in a peculiar sort of way. It certainly fits with your enthusiasm about... erm... eating.”
“Yup,” Pinkie said chirpily, striking a jaunty pose. She was all scootched up now, so she pretty much looked like her old self again, just a little shorter, and with adorable little wingies on her back.
She confidently assured Rarity, “It doesn’t bother me at all OH CELESTIA WHAT DID I DO TO THOSE CHICKENS!” Pinkie Pie collapsed in a heap as the memories of the day of that particular Pinkening finally hit her.
After a paralyzed silence, Pinkie looked aside, at a paralyzed-with-fear Rarity, and laughed nervously. “Eh heh heh. That happens sometimes, sorry. I really have to apologize to Fluttershy and... um... Henrietta.”
Rarity didn’t make Pinkie eat a Pinkie ever again, but by the time they came out of the shed that day, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were hugging, and Rarity was comforting Pinkie in an oddly motherly sort of way. And Rarity didn’t hate her forever or anything, and even the ponies whose houses she broke couldn’t hate Pinkie Pie, because they just couldn’t help but smile when she was around. That was one thing Pinkie never wanted to be different again, was her ability to find the best in things, to raise hope in others, and to bring a joyful smile to somepony’s face just from seeing her hopping down the road.
So all-in-all, Pinkie was okay with eating... ponies that came out of her, but there were those times when it did get to her.
“How you doing, squirt?” Rainbow Dash called out behind her, flapping along purposefully through the air. From within the wooden travel cart Rainbow Dash was harnessed to, Scootaloo popped her head out and announced, “Great! I can still see it!”
Dash turned forward and she could see it too. “How d’ya like that , Whinneapolis?” she drawled cheekily, waving a hoof at the gleaming horizon they were approaching.
“Twilight said it’s so big, you can’t see the other side!” a second voice piped up. Archer’s own eyes were peeled on their destination, the filly so excited she couldn’t even bear to look away.
“I wonder if we’ll see any crabs!” Scootaloo exclaimed.
“Or shells!” Archer said right back to her.
“Or driftwood!” both fillies said together, in the special way that... those fillies could do. It still made Dash pause, how they could move the same way, and finish each other’s sentences. It wasn’t telepathy is the thing; they just knew each other so well, from how they were each other, depending on who was inside whom. Or that’s as good as Scootaloo ever managed to describe it.
That being said, it really wasn’t a lot to get used to: how Scootaloo and Archer were two fillies but also kind of like the same filly. More than Rainbow Dash expected, sure, but still not too bad. Because they definitely had their differences, they just sort of... synced up sometimes. Plus Dash was totally cool with them being oracles today, because if Twilight had her numbers worked out right, they’d be seeing some awesome moves, once you turned these fillies loose.
“Got your boards ready?” Dash shouted back for the seventh time.
“Yeah!” they chorused, lifting strangely smoothed slabs of wood, kind of like scales in appearance. According to the princess this was some ancient traditional...thing that oracle ponies used, sized down for fillies of course.
“How’s Twilight?” Rainbow called to them over her shoulder.
“Still asleep!” the two of them exclaimed back, ignoring the fallen unicorn piled unceremoniously in the back of the cart, snoring away.
“Who’s Scootaloo?” Rainbow shouted to them.
“I a—” they both called back, then there was a pause. “Sorry about that!” Scootaloo called out by herself.
“Just messin with ya!” Dash said with a laugh, and looked down at the forests thinning to coastal scrub and grassland. They steered clear of Los Pegasus, and of any civilization really. This whole trip was kind of hush-hush, because of the princess and to avoid any crazy crowds or eyeballing oglers. Scootaloo had gotten a little taste of fame after Celestia’s big announcement, and she was honestly getting tired of curious ponies trying to poke her. Scootaloo loved showing off, but sometimes ponies see somepony they saw in a newspaper story, and can’t figure out there’s a pony in front of them, not a newspaper story.
Princess Celestia herself was supposed to be meeting them there at noon today. Not for any length of time, but just that she wanted to er, as she put it, “see the oracles return to the sea,” for the first time, before getting off to do her whole princessly business. What Rainbow Dash didn’t realize until she got there, was that it wasn’t just the Princess visiting on her own. In fact, all of Equestria was going on hold today, for the sake of a few fillies and fun.
Dash didn’t realize it, because she figured Princess Celestia was the only pony who really needed to see this historic event. Outside of a few sparse, uncorroborated fragments left from Before Discord, there just wasn’t a lot of information about the oracles at all, not even for big fancy historians who studied that stuff all day. Nopony at the time kept any history, because well... they wanted to forget about what happened. Thus nopony besides the princess was old enough to even know about it, much less be totally stoked about this sort of thing.
Twilight was gonna turn more than a few heads once she did her science thing about the fillies. But for now, she was still collecting data, and that meant pretty much nothing more than a fun day at the beach.
It had to be the west coast, because that’s where Celestia said their little uh, island used to be. Convenient, because most of the coastal cities were crowded on the warmer east coast. Groundlings loved their warm water after all.
The four of them finally reached the beachhead, a strip of sand and water going north and south as far as the eye could see. And a pegasus eye could see pretty darn far. “We’re here! We’re here!” the two fillies cheered enthusiastically, hopping up and down.
“Now hold your horses,” Dash said to them. “I’m gonna set down, and then we’ve got to set up camp. Once we’re all unpacked, then we can hit the waves okay?”
Archer started to whine but Scootaloo saluted and said, “You got it, Rainbow Dash!” quieting the blue pony on the spot. Dash set down well away from the beach, the wheels of the cart grinding gravelly into a ground that was still firm and up a hill from the shore, over which you could see the whole sparkling endless ocean before you. There were trees there, sheltering them from the worst of the winds whipping along the coast. Upon landing, both fillies jumped out and galloped right up to the crest of the hill looking down at the ocean.
“Wow,” Archer said, as if she hadn’t been staring at the thing from behind Rainbow Dash’s back all the way here.
“This is so cool!” Scootaloo cheered. “Look, you can see the waves!”
“I read the moon does that!” Archer said. “Princess Luna uses it to pull the water in and out every day. All that water!”
Dash smiled at them. “Hey, don’t go too far,” she said, “Not until we’re finished setting up. I’m gonna need your help in a sec. And don’t go in the water! You know how disappointed Twilight would be if she missed it.”
“Okay, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo called back.
“Let’s look around!” Archer said, leading the way as the fillies curiously inspected all around the campsite they’d landed in. Archer was leading the way a lot recently. She’d really started to mature for a ... a three year old, 21 year old. Before those fillies would go and wander too far off, Rainbow trotted around to the back of the cart and hooked her hooves over the edge, peering down at its precious contents.
She poked its precious contents.
“Hey, Twilight,” Dash said, nudging the unicorn mare firmly. She stopped when Twilight mumbled and groaned, then rolled up to sitting, looking at Rainbow Dash muzzily. Twilight’s horn lit up, and a few pieces of that surprisingly useful pinkfluff came glowing out of her ears. She flicked one clear ear, saying, “We’re here?” with a cautious eagerness.
Rainbow Dash nodded and smiled.
“Ohh my gosh,” Twilight said, clattering to her feet. She reared up over the edge of the cart looking around until she spied the ocean. “There it is!” she said giddily, “That’s the ocean! The horizon is perfectly flat!”
Dash had to blink and back up a pace as Twilight jumped out of the cart, galloping right up to the crest of the hill and pausing there where the fillies had been, looking down at the endless water, not even noticing her hair whipping in the careless wind.
“This is so cool!” Twilight exclaimed joyfully, dancing right in place on the tips of her hooves.
“Yeah um,” Dash said a little uneasily, “The ocean is pretty cool alright. Really wet.”
“The coastline is so big!” Twilight said engrossedly. “I can see the beach, and it just keeps going as far as you can see, where the coast curves around way over there!”
Dash joined Twilight at the hilltop, looking with some satisfaction at the rushing ocean waves. “It is pretty cool. I should come here more often,” Rainbow Dash said supportively. “Just smell that air. You can just smell the sea salt!”
“Rainbow, you’re right!” Twilight exclaimed, spinning by Rainbow’s side to rush back to the cart. The purple unicorn levitated out a small stoppered tube, pulling it open and standing there looking speculatively up at empty air saying, “Maybe I can get a sample.”
“Boy, Twilight you’re as excited as the fillies,” Rainbow said with a chuckle.
“And what’s wrong with that?” Twilight retorted with an unrestrained sloppy smile.
“Well they’ve never even seen the ocean before,” Rainbow Dash pointed out smugly.
“Oh, and you have?” Twilight said, pouting snippily, returning the tube to its place in her scientific stuff.
“Well, yeah,” Rainbow Dash spoke uncertainly. “I’m a pegasus! I’ve been pretty much everywhere there is to go. And... you’re... not a pegasus!” She finished in wide-eyed realization, peering at Twilight in a new light.
“Brilliant deduction,” Twilight drawled wryly, tipping a hoof underneath her jauntily. “Did the horn give it away?”
“You haven’t even seen the ocean before?” Dash said with wide eyes. “How old are you?”
Twilight gave her a look, and Dash blushed, saying, “I mean, I didn’t mean to be rude I just thought um,”
“I’m BS,” Twilight stated. “About halfway to the big PQ. But yes, I have not had an opportunity to visit the ocean before.”
Dash rolled her eyes. She forgot about that whole unicorn thing. Let’s see, if B comes after... Q, then... Twilight interpreted Rainbow’s eye roll as something different, and looked aside in mild offense, saying
“It’s not that unusual to never have seen the ocean, you know.”
Rainbow blushed, ruffled her wings a bit self consciously. “Yeah, I guess I just forgot not everypony is a pegasus,” she said. “You grew up in Canterlot, right?”
“Spent most of my life there...” Twilight said somewhat wistfully, looking around at the flora and fauna of the sandy area. “I really should get out more. This is so intriguing!”
“If they ever get that railway working, I guess it’ll be easier to travel around for non-pegasi who don’t have a pegasus... friend,” Rainbow Dash said a bit timorously, feeling insecure at the thought that she might not be as needed anymore. It wasn’t a big deal, but... well, pegasi in general. You want to go somewhere, you look for wings, right? She wasn’t sure it was a good idea to depart from that model.
But how many of her friends had never even seen the beach before?
“Don’t feel too threatened, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said strutting up behind her with a friendly sway in her stride. “Remember the trains are confined to their tracks, and they certainly can’t put tracks everywhere, or there wouldn’t be any room for anything else!”
Rainbow Dash laughed, “Heh, yeah, you’re right Twilight.” And then she about-faced, realizing hotly at her friend, “Hey wait, I’m not feeling threatened!”
“Excuse me,” came a third voice, attracting both of their immediate attention. “Is this filly yours?”
Emerging from the shadows was the princess dark as night, Princess Luna herself. Beside her floating in a blue corona was an orange filly named Scootaloo, and also a broken off piece of driftwood that appeared to be still stuck around her neck. Beside her on the other side was a somewhat harrowed looking and apologetic blue-on-blue filly named Archer.
“Princess Luna!” Twilight said going down on one knee. Oh right, Dash went and bowed herself respectfully.
“Cease thine supplications,” Luna said impassively, with perhaps a slight smile, “In favor of illuminating me, on preparations thus far, for your day on the beaches!”
“Er, we need to get the— tents set up, still,” Dash said, jerking up straight and trotting over to the wagon. “Then the beach umbrella um and the food um, and then we’ll be ready,” she said, jumping in and rifling through the wagon’s contents anxiously, her wings spreading habitually as she fussed around in circles in there.
“Dost thou have any sunscreen?” Luna inquired over Dash’s buried head. Dash popped her head up, to look at Luna.
“We burn easily,” Luna explained. Behind her, Twilight was busy trying to get the driftwood off of Scootaloo.
Sunscreen hooved over, tents erected and driftwood removed, the four now eleven of them traveled down the hill to meet Princess Celestia. Scootaloo ran ahead, immediately tripped herself up, and got a face full of beach sand. Rainbow Dash flew after her, and picked her up, but Scootaloo insisted she was fine ...after she stopped spitting out sand.
“You gotta walk carefully here,” Dash explained, demonstrating as her hooves sank into the fine, shifty beach sand.
Twilight came next, slower because she did walk carefully. Too carefully in fact, lifting her hooves really high and uncertainly, trying to find the best way to walk across sand. And it’s funny, Rainbow couldn’t offer any of them much advice there. While Dash had seen the ocean before, she really never bothered to figure out a good way to walk on sand. Seeing Twilight figure things out, that Rainbow Dash would never have thought of just made Dash feel really lucky that she had non-pegasi as friends, and also kind of guilty for not bringing them along with her more often. She probably wouldn’t be able to tell the ground from the clouds without ‘em.
And finally Princess Luna followed along behind with care, whom Archer would simply not leave alone, peppering the princess with endless questions. About the moon, and the tides and... well, egghead stuff that Twilight would be into. Actually Archer and Scootaloo had sort of a Twilight/Rainbow Dash dynamic going on. Dash wasn’t sure how much of that was intentional on Scootaloo’s part. And maybe on Archer’s part too? Did Archer herself play some part in deciding what kind of filly she was going to be when she came out? So weird how you could plan what a filly is going to be like, for these fillies at least.
It’s not like ordinary ponies had any say in planning what the ponies coming out of them were going to be like, say for instance when naming them Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle.
Waiting there on the beachhead was the resplendent princess of the Sun. It was obvious to Dash in hindsight. Of course both princesses had to see this. Celestia had a bit of an age gap on Luna with the whole thousand years imprisonment thing, but they were both around a really long time ago, long enough to see the whole Discord cataclysm go over.
Discord... what a creep.
So there were two ponies it turns out, who absolutely had to see Scootaloo and Archer go play in the water, both of whom were the absolute monarchs of existence itself. Wait, monarch doesn’t work that way. Well whatever. Real important ponies. Rainbow Dash started to find herself feeling... on the spot a little bit. Both princesses being here made you wonder who was running Equestria at the moment, and this fun little outing Dash had planned was more important than running Equestria? Rainbow Dash just... found herself staying on the ground more, clustering around the fillies, that sort of thing.
“Now be real careful,” Rainbow Dash said to them, as they gazed out to the endless waters. “I’ll be watching the whole time and I can swoop you up if anything goes wrong, but if I don’t, then you just holler! The skies are gonna be clear today, and the tide is on its way out, so we shouldn’t have any problems. But just in case.”
“Yeah, we know Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said rolling her eyes. “Plus there are like, two princesses here who could swoop anypony up who got in trouble.”
“Okay, fine, just—” the sand shifted under her uncomfortably, as Rainbow danced on her hooves. “Just have fun, okay?”
“Right, with these board... things, I guess?” Scootaloo said, turning hers around in her hooves. “It doesn’t have a handle bar, but I guess it could be fun. Weird how you don’t need wheels, because it’s water.”
“We can swim too though, right?” Archer asked.
“Oh yeah,” Dash assured her, “And there are some tide pools near here. Twilight brought along some snorkels, and...” Rainbow Dash looked over to the unicorn, who was a busy blur of motion, setting up weird looking measuring devices and equipment, all over the beach.
“...stuff.”
With the princesses seated together in the warm sand, and Twilight all set up, and Dash managing to convince Twilight that the klaxon alarm on her doohickey thinglebar should be put on silent mode, there was nothing left but just the two little fillies, and the ocean waves before them. The pressure must have been getting to them too, because even Scootaloo stopped at where the water rushed in and out, leery of actually getting her hooves wet.
Dash winced at the hesitant fillies, looking at her own hooves partially embedded in sand. Then she spread her wings and charged forward between them, whooping excitedly and crashing right into the oncoming waves. Scootaloo immediately broke into a smile and ran after, and Archer too proceeded into the water, splashing around in the slim waves, while Dash stood there out deeper, the refreshingly chilly salt water flowing around her pinions.
“It pulls at you when it goes past!” Archer said engrossedly at the salty waves rushing around her own hooves.
“Well it stops doing that when it’s deep here,” Dash called over to her, “So come on slowpokes. The princesses are watching, so let’s get skimming!”
Dash actually didn’t have a board herself, but... she... shit, that would have been a good idea. She probably should have thought of that before they left. Anyway, Scootaloo and Archer bumped the boards off their backs to splash in the water and started pushing them out to where Rainbow Dash was leading them on. “Okay I’m gonna try it!” Scootaloo shouted, once she thought it was deep enough, releasing her contact with the solid beach to climb fully onto the board.
Slowly at first, but with growing confidence Scootaloo set her wings abuzz, and accelerated forward smoothly. Dash was out up to her withers, but Scootaloo just came right up there travelling around Rainbow’s head in slow circles. The filly had a look of wobbly unease on her face so Dash shouted, “You’re doing great! Keep it up, squirt!” Scootaloo smiled at her, and an aggressive gleam came into it as she gripped the board tighter and started to really engage her wings.
Scootaloo’s progress was very loopy but growing in confidence as she spiralled around in circles and figure eights atop the water. “This is great!” she shouted above the sounds of the surf. “Archer you gotta try this! You can go everywhereWOAH” and right then the hump of a wave bowled her board over and capsized it, the filly vanishing beneath the waves.
She burst out with a spray of salty water all around, shaking her head dry and shouting, “I’m okay!” With one hoof on her board, Scootaloo pulled herself out of the water and her wings almost immediately picked up again, not hindered by the wetness in the least. She rode up to Archer, who had got on the board, but was just standing there wobbling atop the passing waves.
“C’mon, try it Archer!” Scootaloo said encouragingly. “Just uh... don’t go straight into a wave. But it’s really easy. Come on, you can do it!”
Archer engaged her own wings, hoof slipping, then clomping firmly down on the board as she was pushed forward unexpectedly quickly. Scootaloo stayed with her, until Archer was zipping along at the same pace that Scootaloo was. “This is fun!” Archer said delightedly.
“Toldja so,” Scootaloo said smugly. Then with a resounding buzz, she left Archer in her wake, and really took off.
Rainbow Dash blasted out of the water, droplets raining down as she flew into the sky. She had to take to the air just to see what that little filly Scootaloo could do. Riding alongside the waves, riding over them, board leaping forward into the air, Scootaloo’s awesome moves were only bested by her enthusiasm, the bright sound of her laughter ringing out across the water. She did a flip.
From one wave to the next. There was absolutely nothing that could stop her now. Scootaloo just took off faster and faster down the coastline. The only way Dash could have even hoped to keep up with her against these coastal winds, was because Scootaloo didn’t beat a straight course, looping back and forth like a needle and thread right along the coastline moving from one wave to the next. The only fitting analogue Rainbow Dash could think of was one of those gunpowder fueled firework rockets that go all over the place. Scootaloo had thrust and on the frictionless water, she didn’t have anything to hold her back.
Rainbow shouted down to her, but she couldn’t get close enough to Scootaloo to tell if she’d been heard. That little filly just kept going! And oddly wasn’t laughing anymore. It wasn’t until Scootaloo failed to turn when the coastline did, piling straight forward up onto the shore, that Rainbow backwinged frantically to cruise back to where the filly had gotten to the sands. Scootaloo was flat on her belly in the sand, breathing hard and completely wiped out. Rainbow Dash came plummetting down to stand by the filly, her own tired, hot breaths alerting the filly to her presence.
“Nice... moves... huh?” Scootaloo managed to wheeze out.
“Nice?” Dash exclaimed, “Those moves were incredibleawesomazing! How do you get that kind of speed? What was it like? Were you doing flips? Did you mean to do that wave thing? It was so cool!”
Scootaloo didn’t answer, just looking up at Rainbow Dash, curling her hooves to her belly and squeeing like a schoolfilly. Which she was. Anyway, Dash sat beside her, and Scootaloo sat up on her haunches, both looking out to the water. “Boy am I pooped!” Scootaloo said trying to sound all casual about it. She really did look exhausted though.
“I wonder how far north we got?” Rainbow said looking around. Just emptiness and ocean and trees far as the eye could see.
Scootaloo’s ears wilted at that. “Aw, that means we have to go back ,” she said with a long tired look at the diminishing tide.
“Wanna ride?” Dash asked. Scootaloo beamed up at her, gratefully.
The squirt was thoughtfully quiet there on the flight back. “This is so peaceful up here,” Scootaloo did say at one point. But not much else.
“What was it like down there?” Rainbow Dash had responded.
“Pure adrenalin,” was Scootaloo’s only answer.
Twilight was predictably hopping mad when they got back. She cooled off a bit after Dash pushed her into the water, though. Twilight’s depth flasher thing clocked Scootaloo at 10.6 wingpower, before she vanished off the radar. Which is really powerful, for just about anypony, never mind a little filly. Dash was starting to understand how Scootaloo managed to cart that wagon of stuff around on the ground all day without taking off.
The princesses were still there, Celestia in particular looking concerned. (Luna never looked like much of anything.) But they both expressed relief upon seeing Rainbow Dash returning with Scootaloo laying on her back, and Scootaloo’s precious board thing laying on Scootaloo’s back. Celestia very quickly made her leave, saying something about putting out the fires in Canterlot. Luna said her sister was probably speaking metaphorically. Yes she said “probably.”
Archer was glad to see Scootaloo too, and also Rainbow Dash, but you know how it goes. Archer wasn’t even in the water anymore, by the time they got back, just messing around on the sand. Twilight kept lamenting bringing all this equipment, if they weren’t even going to use it, but Dash pointed out Twilight’s roughly 2 hours of piled up autoscroll, and helped calm her down by saying they could always do more later.
The princess of the night oversaw its enaction. Her ancient dance of magic and nature rising up into the air like a cresting pegasi, sent the tides surging away from an increasingly broad beach, as the last of the sunlight faded and the moon rose over the horizon.
They relaxed in the light of a bright bonfire that night. That’s the nice thing about the ocean, is with all that sand, you can build a huge fire without having to worry about it spreading. And there was always driftwood piling up, so there was plenty of fuel. As they cooked and ate their shish kabobs, Dash would have liked to have a scary story or two by that fire, but Twilight kept thinking up other things to talk about for some reason. It was too big a fire to really have that spooky “campfire” effect anyway.
With the bonfire doused on the beach, the final princess took her leave, swooping into the air. The rest of them crawled tiredly into their respective tents and sleeping bags. Rainbow Dash said that Scootaloo and Archer could both share her tent if they wanted to be around this awesomeness, but surprisingly Archer didn’t mind sleeping with Twilight tonight. It worked out pretty well that way actually, since Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure, but she thought that maybe unlike Scootaloo, Archer might have been a snorer.
Rainbow Dash had gotten Scootaloo all snuggled up as a bug in a rug in her cocoonlike sleeping bag, resisting the odd urge to do something sappy like kiss the filly on the forehead, before blowing out the lamp. As they were headed to slumberland, Rainbow whispered excitedly to Scootaloo, “Surprised you didn’t get your cutie mark in that wave board thing. You were having a blast out there!”
“I was at first,” Scootaloo whispered back. She didn’t say anything more, but something about that bugged Dash, so she whispered,
“You weren’t having fun?”
After a silence, Scootaloo said, “I was having fun at first, but then I didn’t want to stop, because I just started to feel like something was chasing me.”
“Something” she said, not “somepony.”
“...you mean me?” Dash asked hopefully. “I was following you the whole way.”
“No,” Scootaloo answered quietly.
Rainbow didn’t know what to say, and Scootaloo didn’t say any more for a while. The silence grew between them, and Rainbow almost thought Scootaloo was asleep. Dash was so confused at this point, and a little humiliated, because she hadn’t even noticed that Scootaloo wasn’t having a good time. She hadn’t even thought that Scootaloo might have been in distress.
“There was nothing down there,” Scootaloo assured Dash, breaking the silence one more time. “I was just jumpy or something. I dunno.”
Right. Jumpy. For four miles.
Scootaloo didn’t say anything more for the rest of the night, and neither did Rainbow Dash. Dash lay there awake, until the filly’s breathing evened out and the loudest noise was the lonely crickets chirping outside. Stewing in her thoughts until she too drifted off, Rainbow Dash had to figure that in some fashion she’d gotten her scary story, after all.
Today was a joyous day at the orphanage, for two reasons. A lost filly had been found, who had fallen through the cracks so far, that she had no records remaining at all. A hot shot pegasus of the sky had come to the orphanage to adopt that filly. And the west dormitories had been rebuilt. Wait that was three things. It was as close to a fairy tale as most of those colts and fillies ever got to see, even if they were hugely envious of the one who got to be adopted by their friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash.
They couldn’t be too envious though. Any foal who knew her would have to admit that if anypony had done the most to deserve adoption by Rainbow Dash, it would have to be the chief head grand top honcho of the Rainbow Dash Fan Club.
Archer was inside Scootaloo at the time, for legal reasons or some junk. It was easier to just adopt one filly, and the law didn’t really have accomodation for what you do if that one filly were two, three, or four at the time. Scootaloo was never really comfortable with being divided beyond four. Three extra between both her and Archer seemed to give her a happy medium between being able to keep track of herself, and her somewhat fatalistic desire to have an ace in the hole should it be needed.
It actually worked out pretty well, because even the craziest fillies that came out of Scootaloo’s, and to a lesser degree Archer’s mouth, had basic survival instincts. The trick was reining them in before they got hungry enough to split again. Rainbow Dash was working on a pen to keep the extras in during off hours, when she wasn’t giving squirt and blurt flying lessons. Yeah that’s right. She figured out a nickname for Archer. Anypony who had a problem with that could suck it up.
For now, Scootaloo was just Scootaloo alone, standing there next to Rainbow Dash in the assembly hall. Bright banners decorated the walls, for what was to be the Congrats on Adopting Scootaloo party. Turns out parties at the orphanage were fairly common, as a big sendoff when a foal got adopted. Also turns out foals got adopted more often than Dash had thought they did, so maybe this orphan thing wasn’t as much of a raw deal as she figured. Seemed that for every mother who made the mistaken assumption that she could totally handle it, there was another couple looking for the right foal to raise. The hair bun mare said that average turnover was a year, and any foal that came of age and didn’t get adopted got taken into the orphanage system itself.
Which is to say, to work at an orphanage, you pretty much had to be raised in one. Which is to say, Rainbow Dash had to apologize to Paper Heart. A lot.
But today was a happier day than that, because they finally had the paperwork in that got Scootaloo registered as an honorary orphan, and the paperwork that got Scootaloo status as an Equestrian citizen, and the paperwork that finished off the whole deal. If Dash ever had to see another scroll it would be too soon, but it was over and done with because today was the day she was going to take Scootaloo home with her. Not just to visit but like, to sleep and eat pre-packaged meals with and stuff.
Paper Heart herself presided over the ceremony, standing behind the podium and briefing both Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash on the expectations and responsibilities of parenthood. There were orphans all alongside them during the proceedings. Several orphans Dash didn’t know were there, but she also saw the green on purple filly who had covered for Scootaloo, and some others Dash had gotten to know in recent days, being around the orphanage so much. She had the sneaky suspicion many of these foals were only gathered round for the pizza party afterwards.
But for now, she and Scootaloo were the center of attention. Scootaloo listened raptly, while Rainbow Dash listened ...less raptly, trying not to yawn. She had really murdered the workout this morning, and a nice cloud nap would be really super after this was done. But finally, Paper Heart wound down, and got to the end of her speech, the important part that would change both of their lives forever.
“Do you, Scootaloo,” Paper intoned in the quiet halls, “Take this mare to be your lawfully appointed guardian?”
“I do!” Scootaloo piped up enthusiastically. Rainbow Dash spared her little filly a goofy grin.
“And do you, Rainbow Dash,” Paper Heart said when the entire wall of the building exploded inwards in a rain of timber and plaster, knocking Paper mid-sentence right off the podium, and in fact knocking the podium right off the dias entirely. The crashing whirring sound snapped Rainbow Dash to attention as she whipped her wings out, the dust parting around her like a typhoon while Scootaloo huddled down beside her, staring up at a monstrous colossus. What looked like a polished wood and metal frame with in the middle what looked like a pot belly stove, glowing a mysterious green from within the vents, and in the elaborate carvings all along its golden plated chassis.
“You!” Dash shouted in frantic accusation.
“It’s time for your checkup, Rainbow Dash!!” came the heavily amplified, manic, and all too familiar voice from amid the structure. The colossus moved like it had arms and legs, and at the center of it was a very familiar green pony gripping levers and dials, steam hissing through her mane colored in muted stripes of lavender and magenta.
Of all the horrors Rainbow Dash had laid eyes upon, she found nothing to be quite so terrifying as an earth pony in power armor.
“I got rid of you!” Rainbow Dash accused the ambulatory structure above her desperately, looking around at the frightened ponies, the children, her mind racing as she planned her exit route. “Celestia cut your funding! The project is over!!”
“For every head of the hydra you cut off, three more will take its place!” the machine mare demanded, one great stomp crushing the bench while foals and adults scrambled to get out of the way. The panic filled the room as ponies raced to escape this monstrous thing. “You cannot get rid of progress!” Another limb swung at her, and Rainbow had to dodge, diving behind a fallen bench that skidded across the floor.
“That makes no sense!” Dash shrieked at her above the rumbling tumult, to which the pony pointed one massive limb at her and said,
“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be, Rainbow Dash! You’re coming with me one way or another!”
Rainbow gritted her teeth. She was one pneumatic punch away from oblivion at this point. “Scootaloo, you run when I say go,” she hissed sideways to the filly who hadn’t left her side, without taking her eyes off of those green traced glowing limbs. “Find Twilight, tell her it’s the Rainbow Project. She’ll know what you mean. Ready...” a flicker of fire at the base of the limb.
“GO!” Dash shouted, leaping straight up as Scootaloo darted right, the bench they were hiding behind exploding in a shower of splinters with the concussive detonation from a shoulder mounted missile bay. The mare anticipated Dash’s direction though, a giant armored hoof smashing into her and hurling her through the window. Wiping the blood off her lip, with glass raining down all around her, Rainbow shouted to the mare as loud as she could, “You want me? Come and get me!”
Then she shot off fast as her wings could take her, fully aware that the deep rumbling behind her was only becoming louder as the pony engaged her booster rockets and rose up into the air, hurtling after her like a flying mountain of gold and fury. Rainbow was faster since last time, right? She could totally beat this thing, right? As the wind blasted past her, fast as she could cut through it, Dash poured on the speed, really hoped her training would pay off. She absolutely hated checkups.
~ THE END ~