Ready.

It was a beautiful winter's night; the snow danced silently in the air, the cold winter's breeze whistled quietly through the trees, and the street lamps reflected off the snow, making the streets look almost as light as day. The sound of silence fell over the small tranquil town of Ponyville that night, and it would have been the most silent of nights if not for the quiet crunching of snow under the hooves of Scootaloo. The little filly shivered, bitterly cold from the frosty air. Her eyes darted around as she looked for a decent shelter amongst the white fields of snow.

The orange-coated crusader was tired, exhausted from her body expending all its energy in an attempt to keep her warm. Her trot slowed almost to a halt as she fought her fatigue. She knelt down in the soft snow, closing her eyes in pain from the chilling air penetrating her lungs - just another night out on the cold streets. She glanced towards a row of nearby houses; the lights were all off, the curtains were pulled and everypony was asleep. The whole town was eerily silent. Neither pony nor critter stirred; not at this time of night, not in this cold. Scoots spied a small alleyway between the row of houses and dragged her fragile rump down to one of the few places left in Ponyville not completely overtaken by snow. Even in the icy temperatures, the alleyway stank of rotten food left over from Hearth's Warming. The purple-maned pegasus flipped open the lid of a bin and found a large newspaper. She proceeded to lay out the sheets on the floor so she could lay herself down on them without getting too wet, she hoped.

As she pulled the rubbish-clad paper from the trash, she spied the article on the front page: "Aspiring Wonderbolt killed in action". Underneath the headline was a large picture of the young pegasi's idol, Rainbow Dash. Scootaloo gritted her teeth, her eyes slammed shut as she tried to hold back the tears. Through her own struggles, Scootaloo had almost forgotten she'd witnessed the passing of her idol just a few days earlier, but seeing her face again swiftly reminded her. Her mind was overcome with questions, the most predominant simply asked: 'Why?'. It was supposed to be Rainbow's big break - her first ever full choreographed performance alongside the Wonderbolts. She'd been buzzing about the whole event for weeks. They'd been through the notions, they trained hard for this show for months... but nopony was prepared for what happened that day.

It was during their most daring stunt - a three vs three formation where six wonderbolts would fly through each other in an east to west and west to east split, with Rainbow Dash flying through them all on her way to perform her infamous Sonic Rainboom. They did trial run after trial run, making sure their routine was inch perfect, but during the actual performance, a freak gust of wind sent RD veering into Spitfire. They collided. Spitfire was able to recover, but the impact left RD unconscious mid-flight and she hit the ground before anypony could even comprehend what had happened. Medics rushed to her side, but the impact was too severe and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Scootaloo's tears froze to her face. She kept that front page in her hoof as she laid down to sleep, her soft weeping heard by nopony.

Scoots thought she felt the touch of a warm hoof on her face, which sprung her up from her newspaper bed, but as she looked around, nopony was there. As she laid her head back down, she heard the rasp of a familiar voice "Hey, Scoots..." She bolted upright; that was Rainbow Dash's voice and she knew it, her sleepy mind not acknowledging the facts that she already knew. As she twisted her head around, she gasped as she saw the impossible; it was her, it was Rainbow Dash. She was there, standing right in front of her, eye-to-eye. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Rainbow Dash simply smiled at her.

"Hey, Champ. Don't be sad. I'm gone, and, unfortunately, that's just the way life works sometimes; we're here one minute, and the next we're a memory."

"But I'm useless. I still can't fly very well - I'll never be a Wonderbolt."

"You have to make the most of who you are in this life, and don't let anypony tell you that you can't achieve your dreams."

"But I can't..." the teary-eyed filly choked on her words "...I can't do this without you!"

"I might not be here in person, but I'll always be beside you. I believe in you."

Scootaloo lifted her head and looked into the mirror as she fastened the badge to her Wonderbolts flight suit. It had been many moons since that dreadful day, and the dream she had that night had stuck with her ever since. She was finally here. Scootaloo understood that she was about to step out with the Wonderbolts for the very first time, living the very same dream Rainbow Dash did all those years ago. A tear rolled down her face;

"I miss you."

The orange mare looked at her wings through the mirror. "You always believed in me, even when I didn't always believe in myself. Thanks to you, I'm where I've always wanted to be. I hope you're watching..." The pegasus trotted out of her changing room. She could hear the sound of the crowd building up as she came closer to the entrance of the stadium. The crowd roared as she cantered out into view "...because this is for you, Rainbow Dash!"

Author's Note:

A short scene I posted to Reddit's /r/MLPLounge in January 2013, designed specifically to try and tug at a few heartstrings, just to see if I could pull off an emotional scene.

This is an extended version, as the original was just over 600 words in length! It's suffered from the extra padding, I think. The original ended when Scootaloo said "I miss you" which I personally think was the more powerful bit to end on.

I know some people like to play around with the idea that Scootaloo is a homeless orphan, and some might get that vibe from the opening to this. In actual fact, I was torn between putting in an explanation to why she was sleeping rough, or to just leave it ambiguous. I originally had the idea that Scootaloo was running away, rather than being forced to live on the streets, as she couldn't come to terms with losing one of the most important ponies in her life. I decided to leave it out in the end.

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