The Departure
Chapter Ten
The Departure
Two Days Later
Rainbow Dash’s eyes slid open as the piercing sunlight crept into her room. She sat up, rolled off her bed, and stumbled into the bathroom to douse her sweat-caked coat and mane in cool rainwater. Dash stood there, letting the rain bounce off her face and down onto the floor. Today was the day she was going to learn of her fate. After fully washing her body, she climbed out and shook herself violently to dry. The mare stood and looked at herself in the mirror. Nice and clean.
Dash lumbered into the kitchen to fix herself some breakfast. She noticed while pulling out the carton of milk that her pitcher of specially-made iced tea was nearly empty.
“Guess I’ll have to make a pit-stop at Fluttershy’s soon,” she said to herself. Dash glanced over and spotted her pet tortoise, Tank, eyeing her from the corner of the adjacent living room. With the blinking green rock came an idea.
“Well, I gotta drop you off at her house anyway, I could pick some up while I’m there.”
She poured her cereal and toasted her bread, both of which she inhaled. Dash picked Tank up after putting the breakfast remnants away and strapped the helicopter harness onto his shell. The mare carried the tortoise to her front porch, and with a sly twist in her face, tossed him over. She only lost sight of him for a moment before he slowly rose back into view, the blades of his harness magically whirring.
Dash walked over to the hovering tortoise and raised her hoof. "Nice recovery," she said as Tank used his head to return his master's hoofbump. He smiled as wide as his rigid face would allow, and followed Dash as she jumped off the edge.
Master and beast traveled to the edge of the Everfree Forest and arrived at a small cottage where master and beasts lived. Dash rapped on the door, and shouted to the timid mare inside.
"Hey, Fluttershy, open up! It's me, Rainbow Dash!"
Slowly, after a few minutes, the door creaked open, revealing a light yellow mare with a long pink mane. "Oh, hello, Rainbow Dash," she said quietly. "What brings you here?"
"Well," started Dash, "I thought I'd drop Tank off before I get my acceptance letter."
"Oh," Fluttershy mumbled. "I suppose that makes sense. But, Rainbow, how do you know it will be an acceptance letter?"
"Are you kidding?" said Dash as her face instantly shifted to amused disbelief. She vanished from Fluttershy's sight with a flap of her wings, and reappeared behind the yellow mare. "I'm getting in there, for sure."
"I guess so," said Fluttershy after a yelp.
"Also," Dash continued, "I'm gonna have a little thing today while I wait for my letter. I'm inviting all five of you guys. If you wanna come, then swing by around noon. The letter should be delivered by like, one."
"Five of us?" questioned Fluttershy, "what about Scootaloo? Isn't she coming?"
Dash's face drooped. "No, she has school." The mare pulled her lips upward to simulate a smile. "Besides, I already said goodbye to her last night."
"Oh," Fluttershy thought for a moment. "I don't mean to be a bother, but I'd imagine that this could be a big enough event that she'd be able to get off of school, at least an hour earlier. Did you ask her parents?"
Dash repeatedly said to herself one sentence: don't say anything! She quickly gulped, and began. "Uhh, yeah. I asked her, uh, her parents, and they didn't go for it. They said that uh, that she shouldn't miss school for something like that."
Fluttershy looked to her hooves. "Don't they know how much you mean to her? It's not my place to say anything, but that seems a bit...a bit mean, don't you think?"
"Look, Fluttershy," said Dash before she would inevitably let anything slip, "it's complicated. All you gotta know is that Scootaloo is okay with me leaving."
"Oh," the timid mare replied, "okay then. I'll see you at noon, then."
"Later," said Dash as she took off for another of her friends' house, possibly Rarity. After putting enough distance between herself and the cottage, she took a moment to think. Outwardly, she sighed, and inwardly she said, "Good, didn't say anything." It wasn't until she couldn't even see the cottage anymore that she had forgotten all about the iced tea. She grumbled, and kept flying.
She began running some errands with mild annoyance while she waited for noon to roll around.
Scootaloo sat in her little wooden desk with her head in her hooves. She truly wanted to be right there when her sister left, but she couldn't disobey Nurse Kindheart's edict. She will go to school, and until something higher happens between the two pegasi, Dash will not be allowed to simply take Scootaloo whenever she wanted.
The filly stared at the clock on the wall as the minutes crawled along. Each flick of her eyes towards it seemed to slow time further. As the hour hand finally reached one, Scootaloo looked out the window towards Rainbow Dash's house. She silently hoped, wished, plead, and prayed to anyone that might be listening that Dash didn't receive the letter until the school day ended. Scootaloo knew that no amount of hoping would make the letter come any more slowly, but nevertheless she continued with the inward pleas.
To the filly's disappointment, as the minute hand passed the three, she saw a rainbow streak slice through the sky, not to come down again. She sighed, and put her head down on the desk. To her right, her friend Apple Bloom glanced over and saw the dismayed filly. The yellow filly reached over and put a hoof on Scootaloo's shoulder.
"Hey, Scoot, what's the matter?"
The filly looked up at her friend with droopy eyes. "Oh, nothin'. I just wish I could have been there when Rainbow Dash got the letter accepting her into the Wonderbolt Academy."
"Oh. Well, won't she be back?"
Scootaloo sighed and put her head in her hooves again. "In four weeks, yeah. But I wanted to be there to see her off, y'know?"
"Ya did say goodbye to her, though, right?"
"Yeah, last night."
"Well," piped Sweetie Belle as she overheard the situation, "at least you got some time to practice flying!"
The orange filly looked up. "Yeah...I could do that. Show her what I'm made of!" Scootaloo felt something in her heart change. No longer was she going to sit and wait for her to get back, now she was going to work until she gets back.
"It'll be like a game!" declared Apple Bloom, "See how far you can get before Rainbow Dash gets back!"
Scootaloo scrunched her face in determination. "Yeah, I'm gonna do that-"
"Alright class," announced Cheerilee, "it's one-thirty, class is dismissed." The mare then headed to the door to bid farewell to her students as they bolted out.
"-right now!" Scootaloo proclaimed as she shot past her teacher.
The filly sprinted to her usual workout spot, and stood. She took in everything around her. The knee-high grass tickled her fur as it brushed by, the birds chirped in tune with the rustling trees and the blowing wind, the sun's warmth blanketed her back and gave her a sense of comfort. The sky was simply glowing with it's blue light, and could do nothing but remind Scootaloo of the mare who inspired her: Rainbow Dash.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, Scootaloo lowered herself onto her wings. She subconsciously began counting the reps as she performed them. One, two, three, four, five. Slowly, she began increasing the speed and completeness of the wing-ups. Nine, ten, eleven. Faster, better, stronger. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Soon, the filly reached what could only be described as her terminal velocity. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven.
"I'll show you, Rainbow Dash," she said through a clenched jaw. Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four. "I'll show you what I can do!" Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three. Scootaloo began feeling the burning in her wings intensify. Fifty, fifty-one. The pain from her tingling muscles told her to stop, Fifty-six, fifty-seven, but she continued with grinding molars and a sweaty brow. Sixty-three, sixty-four...sixty...sixty-five!
Scootaloo looked at the horizon between the trees. She was going to make it there, through pain and struggle, through loneliness and loss, and through love and family. Determination was her motto, and she repeated it after every single rep.
"I'm gonna show you," she said as she passed seventy-nine. As she was lowering herself for number eighty, she collapsed onto the cool grass. She buried her face into the green blades, and tried to pretend that they were soft, cyan, and warm.
"I'm gonna make you proud..."
So I just went back to S3E7 and found out that Dash was going to "see her friends in one week", not four.
I decided that I'm going to keep it as four weeks in here, as it will help with the story. Besides, I'm already ignoring a ton of canon for this...like everything that happened between these two after season 3. 
I'm sorry for the super short and super rushed chapter, but I seriously can't think of any other way to improve.
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4608942 I'm adding stuff.
4608963 I apologize if put something in my post that was unacceptable.
4608979 Don't worry about it.
I always love to see updates on this story, keep up the good work :-)
As soon as Scootaloo started working out, "Hearts Strong as Horses" started playing in my head
I can't wait to see how things go for Scootaloo.... ON TO THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9rrS32ctQk
Ya / ya
Something to keep in mind. Ya = you [singular]. Y'all = You all [plural].
_______________________
Fix "Applebloom" to "Apple Bloom.
4924686
The Apples occasionally use y'all as singular. It's strictly speaking incorrect but there is canonical precedence for it.
4930875
Still incorrect [don't remember her using it wrong in the show, either blocked that out of my memory or I don't recall it, still not right to do], plus you add in the Ponyville Apple Family are the only ones to use y'all. And since y'all means You All, and around the world [with those who interact with that singular family and ask for the definition] on that planet. You All is plural [as it is in a majority of earth], it'd only be used plurally. And any attempt at using it singularly would be met with confusion, if not worse.
That and it's messed up. I mean either you're talking to multiple people, and make it clear you are talking to or about multiples. Or you keep it singular [ya / you]. Well that and it's the only word I anally make sure is used properly. Others I give leeway to since I've been around people from all over the world and understand weird things like "whit" for "with" [Porto Rico writers that I played with online ages ago], or liek [larger portion of the internet than I'd like to admit]. But growing up around the south where y'all has been used as it originally was meant to. I find it jarring to see it used otherwise. Since I'm trying to wrap my brain around who "you all" encompasses.
Edit: Well that and we can all agree the writers flip flop on lots of stuff since they fall into lots of lazy writing, and ignoring the lore they themselves set up lots of the time.
Welp. That's as much as my poor heart can take.
I was hoping to hear Pinkie scream "DONT FORGET TO WRITE" and the entire class hears it cause she screamed it in that megaphone