The soft, yet firm touch of refined-cloud floors greeted Scootaloo’s hoof as she stepped forward. Rainbow Dash’s house was as awesome as ever. Whether it was cool posters or statues of pegasi holding heroic poses or the simple fact that the walls, ceiling and floor were all made of clouds. And being here was a special treat for the orange filly, as it was one of the few places where she truly felt like the pegasus that she was.
At the moment, Scootaloo was standing as if she’d just come in the front door. Although said door was already closed. Who closed it? Not that it mattered. She needed to find Rainbow Dash. After the day she’d just had, her honorary big sister probably needed her help. To her right was the archway the separated the entry room from the living room, and that seemed like a good place to start looking.
The lights in the house seemed to be on low for some reason, and beyond the window the night sky did little to brighten the cloud house’s interior. But there was no denying the figure of a sky-blue mare lying on the sofa.
“Rainbow Dash!”
Scootaloo’s greeting came with an excited flick of her purple tail. But that excitement died down a little when her eyes adjusted to the light of this room enough to notice that the mare with the rainbow mane was wrapped in bandages. No, that wasn’t right. Still wrapped in bandages. Yes that was it, she’d earned those injuries earlier that day at her first air show as an official Wonderbolt…
The one that ended with Rainbow Dash covered in cotton candy and her face in the dirt at the end of a small trench she’d dug with it.
“A-are you al-alright?” Scootaloo couldn’t help but ask nervously, as she took in the sight of her hero lying on her back and staring blankly into the ceiling.
Finally acknowledging the presence of the younger pegasus, Rainbow Dash got up from the couch.
“Do I look alright to you!” the elder pony snarled. “I made a fool of myself out there! I got injured! I got kicked out of the Wonderbolts! My dreams are ruined! And it’s all your fault!”
“R-Rainbow Dash, I-I was only trying to help! I only did what you told me,” Scootaloo whimpered.
“Exactly! You helped me sabotage myself! Even though you knew trying to upstage the other Wonderbolts was a bad idea! But did you say anything? NO! Heck you didn’t even have to say anything! All you had to do was not kick that storm cloud into my path and I’d have been forced to just land with the rest of the Wonderbolts like I’d never meant to deviate from the flight plan in the first place!”
“R-Rainbow D-Dash, I’m-” Scootaloo tried to apologize, but she couldn’t get the words out through her tears.
“My life is ruined because of you!” Rainbow shouted. “I hate you! I never want to see you again!”
To punctuate her rant, the ace flyer slammed her hoof down, causing a fissure to open up in the floor. The fissure quickly snaked it’s way over to Scootaloo, making the cloud floor beneath her crumble way, sending the filly falling into the darkness below.
There was nothing Scootaloo could do but scream as she fell into oblivion.
* * * * * * *
Scootaloo woke up breathing the tail end of her scream, and fighting the covers she’d somehow tangled herself in. Breathing hard she managed to sit up, despite the tangled bed sheets, her eyes darting around the room. A room with a wooden floor and ceiling, wallpaper covered the walls. A regular room, in a regular house, her room in her house.
It had only been a dream.
That revelation calmed the filly’s racing heart. It had only been a dream.
The first time her hero had asked for her help hadn’t gotten her hero kicked out of the Wonderbolts… It had only ALMOST gotten her hero kicked out of the Wonderbolts.
Even as the echoes of the nightmare faded from the filly’s mind, the memories of that evening’s air show played out.
* * * * * * *
At first she’d been over the moon that Rainbow Dash wanted her help. Then Twilight had to point out that the Wonderbolt reservists were there to help the Wonderbots. And that had gotten Scootaloo thinking too.
Then Rainbow Dash had dropped her off on the ridge overlooking the fairgrounds and explained her plan. Scootaloo might be a kid, but she was fairly sure that air shows were supposed to be scripted from start to finish. And now that she knew Rainbow Dash had official help, didn’t that mean that by asking her for help what Dash was planing wasn’t part of the script? So wouldn’t Rainbow Dash get in trouble even when the stunt was awesome just because it wasn’t part of the Wonderbolts’ plan?
This seems like a bad idea.
She’d thought it, but she hadn’t said it.
Then Rainbow had made that comment about, “No Pony’ll call me Rainbow Crash after this!”
Obviously her hero hadn’t shaken the unwanted nickname she’d earned on her first day. And that only served to silence Scootaloo all the more.
Rainbow Dash had asked for her help. For the first time, the most awesome honorary big sister in the history of honorary big sisters had asked HER, little-can’t-even-fly-yet Scootaloo, for help. And she wanted to help her big sister. But that didn’t change the fact that this seemed like a bad idea.
It seemed like a bad idea, and she’d said nothing.
Then the show started. Rainbow Dash signaled her, and she kicked the storm cloud out into her path, exactly as her hero had asked of her. And then it all blew up in Rainbow Dash’s face.
Truthfully Scootaloo wasn’t sure what had even gone wrong. Rainbow had asked for a storm cloud in her path, with every intention of interacting with it and its lightning, and she got a storm cloud in her path. But something did go wrong, and the sky-blue mare went backpedaling right into a tree, starting a chain reaction that would end with a face full of cotton candy and dirt.
Rainbow Dash had messed up her first air show as a full Wonderbolt. And Scootaloo had helped her do it.
What followed hadn’t helped Scootaloo feel any better, either. From her vantage point she couldn’t hear what was happening down in the fairgrounds. But it wasn’t hard to guess that this little stunt probably didn’t help Rainbow ditch the nickname she hated. If anything it solidified it.
Then, even as the medics started hauling Rainbow Dash into the medical tent, Spitfire flew up to the ridge where Scootaloo was.
Spitfire landed right in front of the filly and glared at her, not saying anything.
Scootaloo swallowed hard.
“H-here are Rainbow Dash’s goggles,” she managed say, offering the article to the elder pegasus. “She dropped them when the tree catapulted her into… the storm cloud.”
“Thanks.”
Spitfire’s response had been cold to say the least. Yet, aside from taking the goggles, she remained still. Only her eyes moved, first to Scootaloo’s scooter, then to the ramp behind her. Then tracking the ramp out in a straight line to the storm cloud that had started the catastrophic ending to the air show. All the while, Scootaloo sinking ever lower until she was basically lying on the ground, trying to hide her face behind her tail.
“Mind telling me why there’s a ramp here?”
“Rainbow Dash asked me to… To send that cloud out to her for her finale stunt… I, I just got Rainbow Dash in trouble didn’t I?”
“No more than she was already in for not following the flight plan.”
“Please don’t kick her out of the Wonderbolts! I’m sorry! I thought this was part of the plan!”
Spitfire looked down and met the begging child’s gaze for the first time.
“Whatever happens to Rainbow Dash is on her. Don’t blame yourself for it, whatever it turns out to be.”
* * * * * * *
The light of the morning sun peeked into Scootaloo’s window, snapping her mind back to the present. Not that that helped, her nightmare had been right. All she had to do was not send the cloud out and Rainbow Dash would’ve had no choice but to not mess up her first air show as a full Wonderbolt.
But she hadn’t done what was right for Rainbow Dash. She’d done what Dash asked her to do.
And how her hero came out of that in a good mood still perplexed her. Although given the response Rainbow had given when asked on the matter, Scootaloo could only guess that her hero was so happy that she didn’t get kicked out, that a month’s suspension and clean up duty was worth being happy about. And in a way she could almost understand that.
Almost. You see, even when Scootaloo had felt like getting detention with Cheerilee was like getting off scot-free she’d still found the detention miserable. So why was Rainbow Dash so happy with clean up duty? There had to be something missing.
Not that it mattered what was making Dash so happy, as that didn’t excuse Scootaloo’s part in the crime. And she really was getting off scot-free.
Looking to the light outside her window, she knew it was early. Early enough that had this been another day she’d have gone back to bed. But with the troubles on her mind that wasn’t going to happen today. So she got up and started getting ready to go to school, even though she wouldn’t need to leave the house for hours.
* * * * * * *
Between having woken up too early and not being able to focus on anything other than the knowledge that the first time her honorary big sister had asked for her help had been a total disaster school had been controlled disaster. At least only getting a stern glare or stomped hoof by Cheerilee three times throughout the day seemed minimal by comparison. She’d certainly gotten in bigger trouble for being distracted before. Maybe Cheerilee was going easy on her because she’d been at the air show too.
Thank heaven that it was finally over and she could trudge out that door.
“Scootaloo!”
The filly’s ears perked up at the sound of her name, even more so when she recognized the voice that had spoken it.
“Rainbow Dash! What are you doing here?”
Landing beside her spiritual sister, the ace flyer shrugged and said, “Just checking in on my favorite filly in the world.”
“Rainbow... Dash!” The excited shout came from none other than Snips and Snails. “That was an awesome... Uh… wipeout yesterday! Oh right! Are you alright after that, right?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Glad you liked the show. Just don’t expect me to bang myself up for your amusement like that again.”
“Heh, heh, sure thing! Err… bye!”
With that the two colts ran off. Although Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but notice the odd paused when they had first addressed her, or the way they seemed a little bit scared of Scootaloo.
“What was with them? They seemed scared of something.”
Scootaloo blushed.
“Oh, um. After the air show I kinda held an emergency meeting of the Rainbow Dash fan club, and told them that you hate… you know, that nickname you mentioned the Wonderbolts giving you. And I may have said that if I catch anypony calling you that, I’d kick them out of the club.”
Dash gave a bit of a grin.
“Thanks, but you didn’t need to do that. Look can we talk? You know, somewhere more privet then the schoolhouse steps?”
The orange filly hardly even nodded her head before Rainbow Dash scooped her up and carried her into the sky. A second later she deposited Scootaloo on a cloud just high enough that they couldn’t be heard from the ground and landed next to her.
“So, Rainbow Dash, what’s up? Are you okay?”
“Me? I’m great! Well almost. I ran into somepony this morning who told me something.”
“Who was it? What did they say?”
“It was Princess Luna. And imagine my surprise when she told me that the president of my fan club was having nightmares and that I was the cause. So, what’s bothering you?”
Even as she asked the question, Rainbow Dash wrapped a wing around Scootaloo.
“It’s… It’s just… Yesterday was the first time you ever really asked for my help and-and I ended up helping you sabotage yourself! I thought your plan sounded like a bad idea, but I didn’t tell you. I helped you anyway and it blew up in your face!”
Rainbow Dash only smiled at that.
“Yeah, that was a pretty lame idea of mine, wasn’t it? Though you got to admit, as far as crashes go, that one was pretty epic!”
“Don’t you see? All I had to do was not kick that cloud out and the show would have ended perfectly! You wouldn’t have gotten hurt, or laughed at, or almost kicked out of the Wonderbolts!”
Reaching out with one of her front legs, Rainbow pulled Scootaloo into a soft hug.
“And then I would have been mad at you, AND miserable for weeks to come.”
“Wha-huh?”
“Look, if you hadn’t done what I asked you to, you’re right. I would’ve had to land like normal and the air show would have ended flawlessly. But then I’d have been mad at you for not helping me. And more importantly there’s no way I would’ve learned what I did if that air show hadn’t ended the way it did. It probably would’ve taken me weeks to figure it out! And I’d have been miserable in the Wonderbolts the whole time until I did! Trust me you did me a favor helping me crash and burn like that.”
Scootaloo could only look up at her hero and blink as she smiled back at the confused filly.
“Figured what out?”
“Well, it turns out that the Wonderbolts always give each other nicknames based on their mistakes. And trust me everypony makes mistakes. So they weren’t calling me ‘Crash’ to be mean. They were calling me ‘Crash’ because that’s just how they do things. And more importantly, it didn’t matter if my stunt had worked or you made me skip trying, I wasn’t going to shake that nickname.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Remember that time I told you about Soarin clipping his wings on a hoop when practicing for the Equestria Games qualifiers?”
Scootaloo nodded.
“Well, his nickname is ‘Clipper’ because he’s got a habit of doing things like that when he gets distracted, like on his first day, too. And Fleetfoot is ‘Flatfoot’ and Misty Fly is ‘Dizzy’ and the list goes on. All the nicknames are like that.”
Scootaloo blinked. Then she gained a devious grin.
“So, what’s Spitfire’s nickname?”
“Sorry Squirt, not going to happen.”
“Aww.”
“Let’s just say that compared to hers, there’s a reason I’m perfectly happy with ‘Crash’.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Yep!”
With that, the two sat up on the cloud. Rainbow Dash simply stroking he little sister’s mane. Scootaloo letting what she’d learned filter through her mind. Slowly but surely it clicked in the filly’s mind. Rainbow Dash’s dream was turning into a nightmare because she didn’t understand something about the way the Wonderbolts did things. But now that she understood it, her dream was a dream again.
“So this whole thing was over a misunderstanding?” Scootaloo asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Rainbow Dash? What do I do the next time I think you’re doing something stupid?”
The blue mare pondered the question thoughtfully for a little while.
“IF there’s a next time, just tell me. And then do what you think is right. You should’ve told me you thought it was a bad idea yesterday. But I wouldn’t have listened. I wasn’t thinking straight, so I’d have just talked you into agreeing with me and doing it, anyway. Well tried to, anyway. But I might not have gotten mad at you if you didn’t kick the cloud out to me if you’d told me you thought it was a bad idea up front. Well AS mad as I would’ve if you hadn’t said anything and then didn’t help me.”
With a bit of a laugh Rainbow Dash added, “In hindsight, just tell me if you think something’s a bad idea. I’ll listen, I promise.”
“You will? Why?”
“Because, Squirt, it occurs to me that if YOU think it’s a bad idea it probably is.”
At first Scootaloo smiled. Then she shouted, “Hey!”
With a softer smile, Rainbow Dash asked, “So, are you done blaming yourself for helping me with a bad idea?”
“I think so. Thanks.”
Ruffling her honorary little sister’s mane one last time, Rainbow Dash changed the subject.
“Good. So how about we go get some ice cream?”
Scootaloo hopped up with a happy buzz of her wings. And that was answer enough for Rainbow Dash to set the filly on her back and leap off the cloud, heading into town.