It had been a little over two months since Scootaloo moved in with Rainbow Dash, and the transition was going pretty smoothly, all things considered. True to her word, Rainbow Dash made some mistakes, like the time she let Scootaloo eat ice cream for dinner because she was too tired to cook, and would keep making them, but for the most part Scootaloo was slowly returning to her Discord may care self. She still occasionally slept in Rainbow’s bed when she got scared, or when she just didn’t want to be alone, and she got a little more nervous than was strictly necessary when she did something wrong, but overall she was recovering from her ordeal.
At the urging of Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo had shared some, but not all, of the circumstances that led to her new living situation with her two very best friends. It had been a tearful night with lots of hugs. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were shocked both by what their friend had gone through and that they didn’t know about it. In the end, the CMC reaffirmed their bond with one another, vowing to never let a secret that big go unshared again.
Scootaloo hadn’t talked to her mother since she last left her house, but they had exchanged a few letters. The orange filly still couldn’t quite find her way toward forgiving her, but her mother’s letters no longer made her angry, and that was a first step toward reconciliation.
For her part, Rainbow Dash found she was adapting to having a filly to take care of better than she thought she would. She now had a regular shift on the weather patrol; instead of just showing up when she felt like it and tackling whatever needed to be done at the moment, she reported for work at 8:30 AM and left at 3:00 PM so she could be home when Scoots returned from school. Then, once a month, she agreed she would take a night shift to make up for the 6 hour work days.
Living with a filly was not without its challenges, however. Rainbow always had to know where Scoots was, and when she’d be back, and she couldn’t just decide to fly to Cloudsdale for the weekend. She had to learn how to cook more than three things, and she had less time than she would like for naps. However, even with the life changes, Rainbow found herself happier than she could remember being in a long time. Of course, she still hadn’t told Scootaloo all of what had happened the night Lightning Strike broke into her house. As a result, she still had occasional nightmares, but that was a price she was willing to pay to keep Scootaloo happy, if ignorant.
Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were heading toward their clubhouse on a normal Thursday afternoon, to plan that weekend’s cutie mark crusade, when they ran into their tiara wearing nemesis.
“Oh, look, if it isn’t the blank flank trio. Are you girls off to try to figure out if you’re good at anything? I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘no’,” Diamond Tiara said in her usual scornful tone of voice.
“Oh, look, if it isn’t Diamond Tiara. Are you off to figure out if you could be any more of a plot head? Ah’m pretty sure the answer’s ‘no’,” Apple Bloom shot back.
Diamond Tiara ignored the retort and turned her attention to Scootaloo. “Hey, Looserloo, is Rainbow Dash sick of you yet?”
“Rainbow Dash loves me, but you wouldn’t know anything about that,” Scootaloo answered.
“Oh, it’s so sweet that you think that. But she’s the best flyer in all of Ponyville, and a candidate to join the Wonderbolts. You’re a blank flanked filly who can barely hover off the ground for more than ten seconds. Do you really think she likes having to take care of you because your own mother got sick of having you around?”
“Why don’t you go away, Diamond? Don’t you have servants who get paid to pretend like they care what you have to say?” Sweetie Belle said.
“Hey, it’s not my fault that Looserloo burdens everypony who’s forced to take care of her.”
Diamond Tiara’s last comment caused Scootaloo to cast her gaze downward and Apple Bloom to go deathly still save for her grinding her front left hoof into the ground. “Stop talking,” Apple Bloom said with such a harsh edge to her voice that all four ponies froze where they stood.
Diamond Tiara steadied herself, suppressing the very real fear of Apple Bloom hurting her with every ounce of her earth pony strength. “Whatever. You blank flanks are boring, so I’m gonna go find Silvy,” Diamond Tiara said with a huff as she hurriedly trotted off to a location with more witnesses.
“Don’t listen to her, Scoots, she’s just being a jerk as usual,” Sweetie Belle said hoping to cheer up her now forlorn friend.
“Yeah, I know.” Scootaloo said unconvincingly. “Umm... I don’t really feel like planning today; can we do it some other time?”
“C’mon Scoots, yer not really going to let DT ruin our afternoon, are ya?” Apple Bloom asked.
“You guys go ahead without me; I’m just going to head back to Rainbow’s house.” Scootaloo said sadly before trotting off, ignoring her friends’ protests.
A few hours later, Rainbow Dash opened her door after a workout expecting to find an empty house; instead she found a troubled looking Scootaloo scrubbing the kitchen floor. “Hey Scoots. What are you doing back so early? I thought you were going to go crusading with your friends today, and why the hay are you cleaning the floor?”
“I just thought I’d clean the kitchen since, y’know, I helped make it messy this morning.”
“Uh huh. You decided that instead of hanging out with your friends, you’d rather clean the kitchen because you helped make it messy by eating breakfast?” Rainbow raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Wanna try that again?”
Scootaloo stared at the ground and spoke very quietly, which Rainbow knew was a troubling sign. “Diamond Tiara said I was a burden, and I thought maybe if I cleaned the kitchen…” Scootaloo’s voice trailed off as she realized how crazy her idea sounded. A clean kitchen couldn’t possibly compensate for all Rainbow Dash had done for her.
“C’mere, Scoots.” Rainbow Dash sat down on her haunches and scooped the orange filly in her forelegs as she trotted over. She let out a small sigh as she brought the filly up to eye level.
“We’ve been over this Scoots; I love you and I love having you here. You’re a lot of things, but you’re definitely not a burden. And by the way, why would you listen to anything that spoiled brat has to say?”
“I don’t know,” Scootaloo said quietly.
“C’mon, Scoots. This isn’t about what Diamond Tiara said. What’s really bothering you?”
Scootaloo looked away from Rainbow Dash, embarrassed. “I can’t fly. And I know we’ve been working at it, but I can still only barely hover off the ground.” It was a half truth; she was worried that she was burdening Rainbow Dash, but it was also true that the fact that she still couldn’t fly was perpetually on her mind.
“So that’s what’s bothering you? I told you, Scoots. It just takes time and a little bit of practice. You’ll get there.”
“What if I don’t ever fly? I’ve heard there are pegasi who spend their entire lives on the ground. I don’t want to be one of those ponies! I want to be like you,” she sniffled.
“Scoots, you’re already more like me than anypony I know. You’re brave, loyal, and totally awesome. Even if you never fly, you’ll still be the second most awesome pegasus in all of Equestria.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You can fly.”
“Flying isn’t going to make you awesome, Scoots. You’re already awesome because you’re you.”
“I don’t feel awesome.”
“Well, I say you’re awesome, and nopony knows more about awesome than I do.”
“Thanks, Rainbow Dash,” she said rather glumly. “Is it okay if I go out for a little bit?”
Rainbow Dash frowned slightly. She felt like it was her duty to cheer the little filly up, but she was beginning to learn that she was incapable of solving all of Scoots’ problems for her, as much as she wanted to; the orange filly had to work through her own issues sometimes. “Sure, just be back before bedtime.”
“I will,” Scootaloo replied before heading out the door.
Scootaloo didn't really know where she was going; she just wanted to be alone. She knew that she shouldn’t let Diamond Tiara get to her, because that filly was always putting her down for no reason, but knowing something and feeling it were two entirely separate things. She wandered aimlessly around town for a few hours until it began to get dark. Eventually, she found herself at the CMC clubhouse, which is where she usually went when she wanted to be alone with her thoughts.
She lit a few candles and looked around at the familiar walls, plastered with the remnants of failed, but fun, misadventures in the name of the trio getting their cutie marks. Behind their makeshift podium was a big list with all their ideas, most with red X’s next to them, though Apple Bloom and herself had convinced Sweetie Belle to keep singing in the ‘Try Again’ category, and Sweetie Belle had teamed up with her to convince Apple Bloom to give ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders Carpenters’ another try. Also left unmarked was the word “FLIGHT” in big block letters, and Scootaloo stared at those five letters while sighing wistfully; they couldn’t even mark it as ‘NO’ because they had never actually done it, which seemed like a cruel joke.
As she was reminiscing about her past misadventures and generally feeling sorry for herself, she heard a quiet knock; when she turned around, she saw Apple Bloom precariously balancing two mugs with wisps of steam emanating from them on a tray in her mouth.
She set the tray down and spoke softly. “Ah saw a light on and ah thought you might like some hot cider.”
“How’d you know it was me and not somepony else?”
“Ah don’t think anypony else would know where we keep the candles.”
“Oh,” Scootaloo replied while gingerly taking one of the steaming mugs and slowly bringing it to her lips. The hot sweet liquid did make her feel a little better.
“Are you still upset about what Diamond Tiara said?”
Scootaloo had already half lied to Rainbow Dash, she didn’t feel like adding Apple Bloom to that list.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I know she was just being a plot head, but I don’t want to be a burden to anypony.”
“Yer not a burden Scoots. Can Ah tell ya a story?”
She wasn’t really sure where Apple Bloom was going with this but it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to be. “Sure,” she replied.
“Okay, well, when I was a little foal, right after my parents died…,”
An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for a few seconds. Apple Bloom didn’t talk about her parents much, even though it had been years, as it was still a topic that made her sad. Scootaloo silently kicked herself for being insensitive; she had been complaining about her Mom ever since she told the CMC what happened, and hadn’t ever once considered that Apple Bloom would have gladly traded places with her in a second if it meant she could speak to her mom again.
“Anyways, Big Mac was away in Appleloosa, and Granny Smith’s hip was acting up, so AJ was doing most of the chores, and taking care of me, and Ah guess Ah was misbehavin a bit; we ended up having a huge fight about me goin’ to bed. So, Ah finally went to bed, only as soon as AJ left, I snuck downstairs. I was expecting to find her bein’ all angry and stuff, but instead, I saw her slumped over the kitchen table. Ah swear, Scoots, Ah’ve never seen anypony look so dang tired, and Ah don’t think I’ve ever felt as bad as I did just then. Ah ran over and hugged her, just apologizing for being so rotten, y’know? Then I asked if she was upset because she had to take care of me, an’ ya know what she said?”
Scootaloo shook her head.
“She told me that taking care of me was her favorite thing to do, even when Ah was misbehaving. I know that sounds corny, but ah’ll bet ya Rainbow Dash feels the same way.Yer not a burden Scoots, and nopony should ever feel like they are.”
Scootaloo looked up from her mug and smiled at her friend. “Thanks, AB, that makes me feel a little better. I’m sorry I ditched crusading this afternoon. Did ya do anything cool?”
“Nah, you know we can only do cool stuff when it’s all three of us.”
“Well, did you come up with any good ideas for the weekend?”
“Some…”
For the next hour, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo thought up and rejected ideas for the three friends to try, and generally behaved like two fillies without a care in the world. Before they could decide whether Cutie Mark Crusaders Ghost Hunters was a good idea, they were interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Okay, you two, that’s enough crusadin’ for one evening, an’ it’s a school night. AB, you best be getting ready for bed soon, and you ought to head back home yer own self, Scoots. Say hi to Rainbow fer me,” Applejack said, putting an end to their strategizing session.
“Aww... okay sis. Later, Scoots!” Apple Bloom said before giving her friend a quick hug.
“Later, AB.”
The two sisters trotted off back to the barn, and Scootaloo headed toward the cloud house she had almost come to think of as home. She climbed up the cloud ladder, expecting to find Rainbow Dash waiting for her, but as she entered the house she saw a simple note tacked to the fridge.
Hey Scoots, went out for a bit. There’s some leftover pizza in the freezer if you’re hungry. -Dash
She wasn’t sure where Rainbow had gone, so she settled in for a night of reheated pizza and whatever was on television.
---------------------------------------------
While Scootaloo was off feeling sorry for herself, Rainbow decided to pay a visit to Twilight. What bothered her was that Scootaloo wasn’t entirely wrong. They had been working at her flying skills for a while, and she wasn’t that much better than when they started; and she was nowhere near as good as a filly her age should be. Rainbow was beginning to get worried that Scoots might never fly, and while she didn’t know how to solve that problem, she did know one pony who knew everything.
Rainbow entered the library through the open window. Twilight had grown accustomed to Rainbow’s refusal to use the door, and looked up with only mild annoyance on her face as her friend landed in the middle of the room.
“Hi, Rainbow,” she said almost cheerfully.
“Hey, Twi’, I kinda need your help with something.”
“Sure, what can I help you with?”
“I need you to help me teach Scoots how to fly.”
Twilight was surprised by the request. “You’re the best flyer I know. You’ve been to flight school and I haven’t. You taught me how to fly. What could you possibly need my help with?
“I’ve been working with her for a while and she’s not getting better. Well, she is, but she should be a lot further along than she is.”
“Okay, but what do you think I can do?”
“I need to know if it’s something I’m doing or if it’s a problem with Scoots.”
“Why do you think it’s something you’re doing? You’re a great teacher.”
“Thanks Twi’, but I’m not sure that’s true. Scoots can’t lift off for more than a few seconds.”
“Okay. Why can’t you teach her how to get off the ground?”
“I know what to do when I get in the air, but I’m not really sure how to get there, you just sort of jump and try not to hit the ground.”
“That doesn’t make sense. What do they teach in flight school to little pegasi about how to lift off?”
Rainbow let out an uncomfortable sigh. “How much do you know about pegasus culture, Twi?
“Some. I mean, I’ve studied all of Equestrian history, but ever since Celestia united the tribes, our cultures have slowly amalgamated.”
“Amalga- what now?”
“It means coalesced.”
“Twi, speak Equestrian!”
“There just aren’t as many differences between Unicorns, Earth Ponies and Pegasi as there used to be!” Twilight said, getting exasperated
“Right, well, there are some things you should know about pegasi.”
Rainbow set about giving Twilight a crash course in some of the darker parts of Pegasian culture. In pre Celestia times, Pegasi would offer any child who couldn’t fly by their second week as a sacrifice to the ancient gods, believing that a flightless foal was a sign that the gods must be angry. Later, that barbaric practice died out in favor of the slightly-less barbaric practice of just leaving a flightless child alone in the woods to die. As society evolved, and infanticide became frowned upon, the common practice was to cut off a flightless foal’s wings and give the foal to an earth pony family to raise.
Now, that didn’t happen as much anymore but it was still far from unheard of; some doctors had even been known to falsify the birth records and use a skin graft to cover up the scars so that the foal would never have any idea that they had been born a pegasus. Because of this practice, the underlying belief that a flightless Pegasus wasn’t a true Pegasus was still uncomfortably prevalent in Cloudsdale, even if the bigotry took more subtle tones than it did in the sacrificing and abandonment times. As a result, Rainbow knew that much of the study of flight, even at the higher levels of research, involved what to do when a Pegasi was already in the air; getting there was supposed to be a natural skill. To even get into flight school, there was an entrance exam that involved demonstrating basic flying competency.
“That’s awful,” said Twilight when Rainbow finished giving her brief history lesson.
“You really want to compare histories Twi?” Rainbow said, getting defensive. “Because I remember learning some pretty terrible things about unicorns back in school.”
“...it still doesn’t make it right,” Twilight responded quietly.
“No, it doesn’t, and I’m not one of those pegasi who look down on the flightless, but you wanted to know why there isn’t a lot of instruction about how to lift off. Well, that’s the reason.”
“So, how much do you actually know about lifting off? If we start there, maybe I can figure out what we need to know to get Scootaloo flying.” Twilight began to get excited at the prospect of both a research project and potentially contributing to a neglected field of study.
“Okay, well, you know that flying is part-magic and part-physics, right?”
“Of course. If pegasi had to generate all the lift required to fly with just their wings, they’d be like fifteen feet long.”
“Yeah, so we use pegasus magic to get us off the ground, and then we just push the air with our wings, causing us to fly,” Rainbow said proudly.
“That’s it? That’s all you know? Pegasus magic?”
“Yep, that’s pretty much it. Like I said, we’ve never given much thought to how the whole thing works.”
Twilight frowned. “Better put some coffee on. It’s going to be a long night.”
“Great, well, let me know what you find,” Rainbow said as she prepared to leave.
“Oh no, you don’t. I may need your help, so grab a book and start reading.”
“Umm, Twilight, isn’t shifting through a bunch of boring old books kinda your thing?”
“Yes, but as you’ve already pointed out, I don’t know that much about being a pegasus, so if you want me to help Scootaloo fly, I need your help. So park your flank and start reading,” Twilight said as her horn flared, her magic pulling all of the library’s books on history, anatomy and physics from the shelves.
Rainbow let out a loud groan, but she couldn’t very well refuse Twilight’s request after coming to her for assistance. “Where’s Spike? Isn’t he supposed to help you with this kind of thing?”
“Rarity is borrowing him for the week. She said something about filling a large order. Do you really want to be the one to tell him he has to leave early?”
Rainbow shook her head, not wanting to risk the wrath of a lovesick dragon, and the two ponies began to scour the library’s collection for any clue on how pegasi were able to get off the ground. Well, Twilight began to scour for clues. Rainbow found herself reading the same passage about lift and air pressure over and over again because she kept getting bored.
”Huh, apparently wing digit bones aren’t really bones, but more a rigid cartilage, similar to unicorn horns,” Twilight said offhoof while studying a book on anatomy.
“Is that important?” Rainbow asked.
“It might be.”
After a few hours, the words on the page began to blur together for Twilight, and she was forced to admit that she hadn’t yet found an answer. “Okay, Rainbow, it was probably stupid of me to think I could figure this out in one evening. You should get home to Scootaloo, but I’m going to keep studying. Check in with me later, and I’ll let you know if I’ve found anything.” Twilight was discouraged, but she had never met a problem that couldn’t be solved by researching the heck out of it, and she was sure that this was no different.
“Okay. Thanks, Twi, but what should I do with Scootaloo in the meantime?”
“Keep practicing, I guess. Maybe she’s just a late bloomer and we don’t need to *unlock* the secret of flight,” Twilight joked half heartedly.
“I hope so, Twi. That filly deserves a break.”
Twilight smiled warmly at her friend. She still wasn’t quite used to seeing Rainbow’s softer side, but the prismatic pegasus couldn’t help but show it when it came to discussing the orange filly now entrusted to her care. “I can think of one break she’s already gotten. Say ‘hi’ to her for me, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Rainbow said before flying off.
When she arrived at home, Rainbow Dash found a still bummed Scootaloo, watching Baking Bad in the living room.
“Hey there, Scoots; feeling a little better?”
Scootaloo shrugged. “I still can’t fly.”
“Well, I don’t have anything to do tomorrow. How about we go practice tomorrow after school?”
“But we’ve been practicing and practicing, and I’m not getting any better.”
“And you think sitting around is going to make you a better flyer? What do I always tell you?”
Scootaloo sighed and repeated the now familiar mantra Rainbow drilled into her whenever she complained during flight practice. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
“That’s right. So, what are we going to do tomorrow?”
“Practice.”
“And why do we practice?”
“Because practice makes awesome,” Scootaloo finished the familiar call and response without much enthusiasm.
“It’s been a long day, so I’ll let you get away with such a lackluster response.” Rainbow softened her voice, “How ya doing Scoots? For real.”
Scootaloo brightened up a little bit; it was nice to be reminded that her big sister really did care about her. “I’m okay,” she said a little more confidently than her previous answers.
“Good. Listen, kid, I know it’s been a rough day, but everything will look better in the morning, so why don’t you get ready for bed?”
“Will you tell me a bedtime story?”
“You know it. Head on up and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Scootaloo turned off the TV and stared at the ground. “Umm, is it okay if I sleep with you tonight?”
“It always is, but neither of us will get any sleep if we stand here yaking all night, so go get ready for bed.”
Scootaloo nodded happily and hurried upstairs.
After a few chapters of Daring Do and the Forest of Fear, Scootaloo began to doze off; Rainbow wrapped a wing around the filly, snuggled tightly next to her and lay her own head down on her pillow.
“Hey, Rainbow,” she heard a small voice whisper.
“Yeah, Scoots?”
“Did you mean it when you said I wasn’t a burden?”
The question prompted Rainbow Dash to tighten her snuggle grip on the filly.
“Of course I did, Scoots. What would make you think that I didn’t?”
“It’s just that... you’ve done so much for me, and all I ever do is cause problems.”
Rainbow nudged Scootaloo forward so the little filly was next to her head. “I love you, Scoots. There aren’t enough problems in Equestria to make me stop loving you. Besides, you make a great pillow,” Rainbow said, as she grabbed Scootaloo and rested her head on top of the filly’s barrel.
Scootaloo giggled and squirmed, but Rainbow held firm, pretending to be asleep. Rainbow felt the little filly nuzzle her, and she smiled as she let the filly resign from her new position as Rainbow’s head rest. “I promise you that you’re not a burden, Scoots.” Rainbow paused for a moment. “Before you moved in, I thought I could be happy living alone and seeing my friends occasionally. I didn’t realize how much I was missing. You’re the furthest thing possible from a burden, Scootaloo. You make life worth living.”
Scootaloo listened to Rainbow without saying a word. When she finished, she hugged her sister tightly and let out a small whine. She felt a wing squeeze her back, and eased her grip ever so slightly. As she nestled herself in the familiar warmth of the cyan coat, Diamond Tiara’s words from earlier in the day dissolved into nothingness. Scootaloo sighed, held tight by the wing wrapped around her, and soon fell asleep, content that all was right with the world.
The next day, after Scootaloo had finished school, and Rainbow had clocked out of her shift, the pair met on the practice field behind Rainbow’s house. Rainbow led Scootaloo through the now familiar routine of stretches and warm-ups and, after a few minutes, she pronounced the pair ready to begin flight practice.
Scootaloo had shaken the malaise of yesterday and was anxious to get training started. “What are we going to do first? Can we measure my wingpower?” The filly asked eagerly, her wings buzzing with anticipation.
Rainbow hesitated for a moment. Overemphasizing wingpower was a mistake that a lot of rookie flyers made, but maybe improvement would encourage Scootaloo to keep trying; of course, the opposite was also true. “Remember, Scoots, flying isn’t all about wing power; there’s technique and stamina to consider. Fluttershy can fly and she tops out at two point three wingpower. ”
“But I want to go fast, and I’ve been training really hard. I’ll bet I crack five wingpower easy!”
“Easy there, Scoots. Last time out you hit one point five, so let’s see if we can break two first.”
Scootaloo head and smile drooped for a moment, but immediately perked up and crouched in a sprinter’s stance as Rainbow Dash readied the anemometer. Rainbow stood behind the orange filly and placed the anemometer directly in the path of her wake. “Okay, Scoots, now don’t try to fly. Just brace yourself against the ground and try to propel yourself forward.” Rainbow took a moment to make sure that everything was in place. “Whenever you’re ready, let ‘er rip,” she called out.
Scootaloo’s wings buzzed furiously as she flapped them as fast as she could. She felt herself straining the muscles in her forelegs as she pushed against the force generated by her wings. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, registered the sound of Rainbow’s voice cheering her on. She flapped her wings harder, determined to break the anemometer through the sheer force of her wake. Her wings began to burn, as if there were thousands of tiny needles stabbing her, but she pushed on. Finally, she collapsed, her lungs begging for oxygen as she gasped for breath.
“How’d I do?” she managed to gasp out between gulps of air.
Rainbow tried to put on a cheerful face. “Scoots, you set a new personal best!” Rainbow walked over to the gasping Scootaloo to show her the reading. “One-point-eight.”
“That’s it?! We’ve been training for months and all I’ve managed to do is increase my wingpower by a lousy point-three?”
“Hey, that’s better than you did last time, and almost a full point higher than when we started training. You’ve gotta be patient, Scoots.”
“I’ve been patient! I’ve done wing-ups every morning and every night before I go to bed. We’ve been at this for months and I still can’t fly.” Scootaloo stared at the ground and pinned her ears back. “Maybe I should just accept the fact that I’ll never get off the ground.”
“Don’t say that, Scoots! I promise we’re gonna get you in the air.”
“Yeah? How? You got some magic spell that can make me fly?
“Well, no-”
“Can you make my wings bigger?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Then what are you going to do, huh? Because all I ever hear from you is ‘Keep trying, Scoots’.”
“I know you’re frustrated-”
“You can’t even begin to know!” the orange filly shouted, her fear of being grounded, even further than she was, outweighing whatever semblance of restraint she had left.
“What do you want from me? I’m doing my best!” Rainbow snapped, harsher than she intended.
“Well, your best isn’t good enough!”
“You’re right, okay? My best isn’t good enough! Is that what you want to hear? That I can’t magically fix all of your problems? Well, I can’t! Happy now?”
The two pegasi just stared at each other. “I’m done practicing today,” Scootaloo said as defiantly as she could.
“Whatever. Do what you want,” Rainbow said curtly before flying off, leaving Scootaloo standing by herself in the middle of the practice field.
As soon as Rainbow took off, she immediately regretted it. She knew it was a terrible idea to fly off angrily and leave Scootaloo alone, but her stubborn pride kept her from turning back, and from seeking out any of her friends for advice.
Ponyville was a small town, and there weren’t really a lot of places she could go where she would be guaranteed to not run into anypony she knew, but she did have a secret napping spot that served as a refuge. Earlier in the week, she had delivered a serious downpour to the south orchard at Sweet Apple Acres in preparation for its trees to bear fruit, which would mean that the west orchard had recently been harvested. She arrived at the west orchard and did a quick aerial reconnaissance to ensure that nopony was nearby. Satisfied that she was alone, she picked out a comfortable looking tree and began to brood.
Nice going, Rainbow Crash. You yelled at a scared filly whose only crime was wanting to be like you. Where’d they teach that in Wonderbolts training? How to Be a Plot Head 101?
An hour into brooding, Rainbow’s thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Hello, darling. I dare say you look awful. If you were anypony else, I’d schedule an emergency spa session.”
“What are you doing here, Rarity?” Rainbow asked with no small trace of annoyance.
“Applejack has agreed to let me use her orchard for inspiration. My new fall line is due soon, and I need to give it that finishing spark; nothing says fall quite like an apple orchard.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, well... now what’s bothering you dear?”
“I had a fight with Scootaloo.”
“Ah... well, forgive me for being blunt, but good.”
“Good? Rarity, are you even listening to me? I yelled at a little filly!”
“Well, that’s obviously not ideal, but I assume she also yelled at you?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“Then this is a good thing.”
“How can this possibly be a good thing?!”
“Rainbow Dash, I’ve seen the way that filly looks at you, and it’s very sweet, but it’s not healthy for a sister. If she yelled at you, it means that she felt safe enough to share her anger.”
“But I made her upset….”
“You’re her big sister; of course you’re going to make her upset. But in that one moment, fueled by anger though it was, she wasn’t worried about making you proud or pleasing you; she was honest. Which, if I do say so myself, is a big step for her.”
“You’re not making sense.”
Rarity took a deep breath. “Sweetie Belle and I fight all the time, and I’ll admit we could both stand to be a little more patient with each other, but if we fight, it’s only because I know she loves me, and she knows I love her. We know that we can yell at each other without fear of jeopardizing our relationship. Scootaloo has been through a lot, and she needs to learn to trust other ponies again. Getting angry with you may not be the best way to show it, but it’s as good of a start as any.”
“Huh. I would have never thought of it like that.”
“Yes, well, we can’t all be as fabulous as I am,” Rarity said with a satisfied grin.
“Humble, too.”
“What was that, Miss ‘Best Flyer in All of Equestria’?”
“Okay, fine. You made your point. What should I do now?”
“Find Scootaloo and give her a hug. I know her well, too, and she could certainly use one.”
“Thanks, Rares. I’ll go do that. Good luck with the whole inspiration thing.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it. Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but your prismatic mane is clashing dreadfully with the motif, so if you would be so kind....” Rarity flicked her hoof in the universal motion for ‘shoo’ while smiling at her friend, letting her know that her gesture was meant solely in jest.
Rainbow playfully scowled at her friend and took off toward her house. When she got there, she opened the door slowly, still a little worried about the reaction she would get from Scootaloo. To her surprise, her house was deathly quiet. “Scoots?” she called out. There was no response. No big deal; she’s probably off sulking in her clubhouse. I’ll give her some space.
Half an hour passed, then an hour, and then two, and Scootaloo still hadn’t come home. It was already dark out and despite her best efforts, Rainbow found her thoughts venturing to some sinister places. In the middle of contemplating any number of horrible things that might have happened to the orange filly, she found herself flashing back to a moment when she was a little older than Scootaloo; she had come home late that night.
“It’s only a couple hours Mom, what’s the big deal?!”
“You don’t know how long an hour is until you’re a parent and your child hasn’t come home!”
For the second time in as many days, Scootaloo didn’t know where she was going. She just wanted to be anywhere other than where she was. An ugly monologue ran through her head as she ran away from the practice field and tried to stem the tide of tears flowing from her eyes.
Well, good job, Looserloo. You managed to push Rainbow Dash away, just like you do everypony else. Diamond Tiara was right; nopony wants a flightless blank flank around anyway.
Eventually, she found herself at the edge of the Everfree Forest, its foreboding nature casting a large shadow, both figuratively and literally. She moved off the path, and sat down just in front of the forest entrance, both too scared to venture inside and unwilling to turn back. She thought about going to her clubhouse, but she didn’t want to see Apple Bloom right now either. At least she could be alone out here, as nopony ventured near the Everfree Forest if they could avoid it, which they usually could. Thus, she was surprised when she heard a soft voice interrupt her downward spiral.
“Scootaloo?” The soft voice asked.
She turned around to see Fluttershy, the one pony who chose to live near the Everfree Forest, standing next to her. “I don’t want to talk; please, just leave me alone,” she mumbled, turning her back on the yellow pegasus.
“Okay. I’ll just sit here and enjoy the forest, if that’s okay with you,” Fluttershy sat down close enough to Scootaloo so that she would be aware of her presence, but just far enough behind her as to not encroach on her personal space; she began to patiently wait for the little filly to start talking. Despite Fluttershy’s patience and good nature, Scootaloo kept her back turned, causing Fluttershy to smile softly at the fact that Scootaloo’s stubbornness reminded her so much of Rainbow’s. Fluttershy waited for more than an hour, and the orange filly didn’t say anything. “It’s getting dark out. Maybe you’d like to not talk at my home? I have hot chocolate...” Fluttershy offered gently.
Scootaloo just shrugged, but also got up and began to walk in the direction of Fluttershy’s cottage.
“Feel a little better?” Fluttershy asked, after giving Scootaloo a steaming mug of the chocolaty beverage. “Would you like to tell me why you’re so upset? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I may be able to help.”
Scootaloo found it impossible to resist the kindness in Fluttershy voice. In its own way, it was more powerful than her famed Stare. “I had a fight with Rainbow Dash and now she probably hates me and I don’t have anywhere else to go and-.”
Scootaloo was cut off by the sensation of a comforting wing landing softly on her shoulder. “Rainbow Dash doesn’t hate you,” Fluttershy said gently, but in a tone that offered no ambiguity.
“How do you know? You didn’t see us fight.”
“I’ve known Rainbow Dash for a long time, since before you were even born, and I’ve never seen her as happy as I have these past few months. She could never hate you.”
“But I yelled at her. She’s done so much for me, and I yelled at her,” Scootaloo said, her voice aching with sorrow. “It’s not her fault I can’t fly.”
“So, tell her that. If she really loves you, which she does,” Fluttershy softly emphasized the last three words, “She’ll forgive you.”
“But what if she doesn’t?”
Fluttershy paused for a moment to consider the question. “How about this? If Rainbow Dash doesn’t forgive you, you can stay here with me.”
“You’d really want me around?”
“Well, sure. Rainbow Dash is always telling me how nice...I mean, how awesomely cool it is to have you at her house. If she really doesn’t want you to stay with her anymore, I’d love it if you came to stay with me. If it’s okay with you, that is.”
“I guess you’re pretty cool too,” Scootaloo said in response to the offer, trying not to imagine what it was going to be like when Rainbow Dash kicked her out. She liked Fluttershy, but nopony could possibly compete with Rainbow Dash. She had been given the greatest big sister ever and totally ruined it.
Back at the cloud house, panic had overtaken what remained of Rainbow’s rational thought processes. She was about to leave the house and start scouring ponyville for Scootaloo when she heard a knock at the door. She flung it open, only to have her face drop when she saw that it was just Fluttershy. “Hey, Fluttershy. Look, can this wait? I’ve got somewhere I’ve got to be.”
“Oh, okay. It’s just that I found a little filly who’d like to talk to you.” She stepped aside, and gently nudged a very nervous-looking Scootaloo forward.
“Umm... hi, Rainbow Dash. I just-”
Scootaloo was unable to finish her sentence before she found herself in a bone crushing hug. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me?” she managed to squeak out.
“Yes… no… gah …” Rainbow found herself unable to speak coherently as relief washed over her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that she looked totally uncool, reduced to a blathering foal over one little orange filly, but that same portion of her brain rationalized that it was only Fluttershy and Scootaloo who were around to see it, and that it was probably okay. She gripped Scootaloo tightly, as if the very thought of letting go of her would cause her to disappear again. Fortunately for both pegasi, Scootaloo was too busy experiencing her own sense of relief to mind very much. She happily snuggled into her big sister, enjoying the familiar sensation of Rainbow’s soft fur against her cheek.
“I guess you don’t need to move in with me after all, Scootaloo,” Fluttershy said, smiling at the scene of domestic bliss unfolding in front of her.
“Wait, what?” Rainbow said looking up, being sure not to release her grip.
Fluttershy smiled and shook her head at her friend, who still had an orange filly held tight against her. “I’ll see you girls later,” she said before flying away, leaving the two pegasi to reunite in peace. .
“Bye, Fluttershy,” Scootaloo called out from her haven between Rainbow’s forelegs and her chest.
Satisfied that the Scootaloo she was holding was real and not a mirage she took a deep breath and set the filly down.
“Are you okay, kid? I shouldn’t have left you alone. I’m sorry.”
“I’m okay, and I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Rainbow paused and tilted her head slightly. “Call it even?” she said with a shrug. She knew that, technically, they should probably have a long boring talk about their feelings and stuff. If Twilight were here, she’d probably make them write about what they learned in her friendship journal. But Rainbow had never really been one for long mushy talks; even if she had a few with Scootaloo, she wasn’t necessarily eager to add to that list. They were both wrong, so why couldn’t their wrongs cancel each other out?
Scootaloo giggled at the question. She had never heard of an adult willing to just call it even, but one of the things she loved about Rainbow Dash was that she didn’t act like a normal adult most of the time. If she didn’t already have her cutie mark, she would make a great crusader. “Even.”
The two pegasi went into the living room and curled up on the couch to watch some Baking Bad, for no other reason than that they were both glad to be reunited. Scootaloo perched herself atop Rainbow’s prismatic mane, and burrowed into it. At more than one point, Rainbow found herself wondering why she let Scootaloo watch this with her, but the little filly seemed happy so she let it slide. After the episode ended, Rainbow looked up at the filly who was snuggled atop her head. “So, uhh…you were kinda right back there, Scoots. Maybe my best isn’t good enough.” she said.
Scootaloo climbed down from Rainbow’s head. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry-”
“It’s okay, Scoots. If we want to get you up in the air, then maybe we need to get some help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I don’t know, but I think we need somepony who knows more about this than me.” Rainbow decided, for now, that she would keep Twilights involvement a secret. She was kind of her ace in the hole. “Did your mom ever take you to a doctor?” she asked tentatively. There were a number of medical conditions whose symptoms included flight difficulty, and none of them benign.
“Umm, yeah, Dr. Stable always said I was fine. He said I was really brave when I had to get a shot.”
“I’ll bet you were. But, maybe you need to see a pegasus doctor.”
Scootaloo bit her lip and stared at the ground. “What if there is something wrong with me and I won’t ever be able to fly?”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with you, flight or no,” Rainbow said, making sure to look the filly in the eyes. “If you can’t fly… well, then you can’t fly. But maybe you can, and there’s just an issue that we have to deal with. It’s better to know than to not know.”
“I’m scared,” Scootaloo admitted to one of the two ponies, along with dream-walking Luna, in all of Equestria that she would ever admit that too.
“I know, kid, but nothing gets better if you ignore it. I’ll be with you the whole time. Okay, Scoots?” Rainbow said, giving Scootaloo a reassuring squeeze with her wing.
Rainbow’s pledge seemed to reassure Scootaloo just a tiny bit. “I’m getting sleepy. Can we go to bed?”
“We?”
“Umm, I was kinda hoping I could sleep with you again. I know I did last night, but-”
“I’m just messin with you, kid. Of course we can go to bed. Do you still want a bedtime story?”
Scootaloo nodded happily, and raced upstairs only to be quickly followed by her big sister. After a few chapters of Daring Do, Scootaloo began to nod off, nestled securely under Rainbow’s wing.
Rainbow was about to lay her own head down when she felt a pair of tiny forelegs grasp her barrel. She returned the hug with her wing as she turned to the orange filly, “What was that for?” she asked in a whisper.
“For letting me stay here,” Scootaloo responded almost bashfully.
Scootaloo needs to learn to trust other ponies again.
I guess you don’t need to move in with me after all.
“You… you thought I was going to kick you out? Because we had one little fight?”
Scootaloo pinned her ears back and nodded, her face turning red.
Rainbow hugged her sister gently again. “How many times have I told you that I am always going to be here for you no matter what?”
“A bunch.”
“Well, I don’t stop meaning it just because you yelled at me. Listen closely, Scoots, because this next bit is important: there is nothing you could do that would ever make me kick you out, ever. This is your home, too, now.”
Scootaloo’s ears returned to their usual perky state. She let out a soft neigh as she hugged Rainbow tightly, unable to otherwise express her gratitude.
“Are we done with this silly ‘Rainbow is going to make me move out’ business now?”
Scootaloo smiled and nodded. Once again feeling secure, she laid down, snuggling in for a night of peaceful sleep.
“Nighty night, Scoots,” Rainbow whispered as she closed her own eyes and soon drifted off to sleep herself.
------------------------
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, Scootaloo found herself gripping tightly onto Rainbow’s mane as she flew through the air.
“Where are we going?” the orange filly asked.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Half an hour later, Rainbow Dash landed on a cloud just outside of a sprawling coliseum like structure built out of clouds. Standing in front of the entrance was a stallion whose name Rainbow couldn’t quite remember, but he was built like a tank, and had a shield for his cutie mark. Much to Scootaloo’s surprise, he almost smiled at Rainbow Dash as she approached.
“Excuse me, Ms. Dash, but cadets aren’t due back for another few months. Until then, the base is off limits.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’d like to get inside anyway.”
“Sorry, active personnel only,” the stallion said, shifting his posture ever so slightly.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Would you just call inside for me? I know you’ve got a radio in there,” Rainbow said, gesturing to a guard shack to the right of the front door.
The guard stallion had a hunch that, in the long run, he would be better off if he did what this crazy mare wanted than try to argue. He gave a quick nod to his partner (whose name Rainbow couldn’t remember either), and the trio stood there and waited. A few seconds later, the stallion in the shack gave a nod to his partner. “Apparently, you can head on in. Have a nice day, Mrs. Dash.”
Rainbow allowed herself a satisfactory grin. “C’mon, Scoots.” The two pegasi walked into the cloudiseum. It was easily the biggest place constructed out of clouds Scootaloo had ever seen, but her eyes grew even wider as a familiar looking light blue stallion rounded the corner and called out a friendly greeting.
“Hey, Dash. Who’s the filly?”
“Soarin’, this is my sister, Scootaloo. Scootaloo, meet Soarin’.”
Soarin kneeled down so that he at was eye level with Scootaloo. “Well, hi there, Scootaloo, I’m Soarin’. Nice to meet you,” he said, as he extended his hoof for an introductory hoof bump.
“Yeah, you are! I mean, I know, I mean, I’m a huge fan… ummm… it’s nice to meet you too,” Scootaloo said, before offering a tentative hoof bump in return as her wings buzzed with excitement.
Soarin smiled the gentle smile of someone who was used to getting odd reactions from fans, it was warm and inviting without being the least bit smug, Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure how he did it. “So, you’re Rainbow Dash’s sister? Well, in that case, I’m a huge fan of yours,” Soarin looked up at Rainbow Dash. “So, what brings you to our training complex? You know the next round of basic isn’t for a few months.”
“I was kinda hoping we could see Dr. Splint.”
“Sure, he’s taping up Fleetfoot right now, but I’ll bet he can make some time for you. What’s the issue? Did you hyperextend your wing again? I keep telling you, you gotta keep it tucked on those corkscrews or else the g-forces will rip the thing right out of its socket.”
“Hey, my corkscrews are awesome. Anyways, it’s not me. I was hoping he could take a look at Scootaloo. She’s having some trouble flying and I want to make sure there’s nothing wrong with her.”
“No problem.” Soarin looked down at the now nervous looking filly next to Rainbow Dash. “Don’t worry, kid. We’ll have you up and flying training runs with us in no time,” he said, offering her a quick wink. “You can head on back. You know where to go, right?” he asked, turning back to Rainbow Dash.
“Yep. Thanks, Soarin’.”
“For the pony who saved our lives, it seems like the least we can do. Catch ya later, Scootaloo,” he said, before heading back to whatever it was he was doing before his day was interrupted.
Scootaloo grinned happily and awestruck as she followed Rainbow Dash through the hallways, until they reached a nondescript room with a yellow bespectacled pegasus inside, counting boxes of medical tape.
“Hey, Doc. How’s tricks?” Rainbow said, as the pair entered the room.
The bespectacled pony looked up from his chart. “Ms. Dash. This is a pleasant surprise. Or is it? Did you hyperextend your wing doing corkscrews again?”
“Why does everypony assume that’s why I’m here?” Rainbow asked in a somewhat annoyed tone. “No, I was hoping you could give my sister here a physical. She’s having some trouble lifting off, and I just want to know if she’s okay medically.”
“Sure thing.” Dr. Splint wasn’t entirely sure how Rainbow and her sister had managed to make their way onto the base, but if they were here, that meant they had the approval of his superiors, and that was all he needed to know. The doctor directed his attention to the orange filly standing nervously next to Rainbow Dash. “I’m Dr. Splint, but ‘round here ponies just call me ‘Doc’. What’s your name?”
“Scootaloo,” the filly replied, nervously looking up at Rainbow Dash for some sign that everything was going to be ok. Rainbow responded by giving the filly a wink of her own.
“Well, Scootaloo, I’m going to examine your wings just like I do for the Wonderbolts. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit. Hop on up,” he said in a surprisingly deep melodious tone while gesturing to his examination table.
Dr. Splint’s smooth timbre and his reassuring words instantly dissipated Scootaloo nervousness. She hopped on the examination table as Dr. Splint began his physical. He stretched Scootaloo’s wings out, pushing them forward, then all the way back, rotating them in both directions. He ran his hoof through Scootaloo’s feathers, causing her to giggle. He concluded his exam by gently prying her digits apart and gently squeezing the flesh between them.
“Flap your wings for me. Does anything hurt? Feel sore?
Scootaloo did as she was instructed and shook her head. “No, everything feels fine.”
“Good. Now I want you to flap as fast as you can.”
“Like when Rainbow measures my wing power?”
“Exactly like that.”
Scootaloo gripped the edge of the table and began to buzz her wings furiously. Dr. Splint surprised Rainbow by standing directly behind Scootaloo and placing his own wing right behind the vibrating wings of Scootaloo.
“What are you doing there, Doc?”
“I’m trying to see if there are any abnormalities in her wake pattern that would indicate a musculoskeletal issue.”
“Anything?”
Dr. Splint ignored the question and focused on his procedure. “You can stop now. Lean forward for me, please.”
Scootaloo did as she was told, and Dr. Splint pressed his hoof against the base of her wings, frowning slightly.
“Physically, she checks out. Her wings are small, but there are no serious structural problems as far as I can tell. Her coracoid joints feel a little weak, which would explain why her wake pattern is bumpy, but other than that her muscles all seem to be in working order. She’s in good shape for a filly her age. Medically, I don’t see anything that would explain why she’s having trouble lifting off.”
“That’s it? You don’t have any advice?”
“I’m an athletic trainer, Mrs. Dash. I tape up joints, and provide ice packs after a long workout. My job is to keep wings and legs functional. What you need is a vaengrologist.”
“You don’t happen to know one, do you?”
“Well, whenever a Wonderbolt needs wing surgery, we call Dr. Feather. Her office is in Manehattan and I’d be happy to provide you with the address.”
“I can’t take Scoots all the way to Manehattan. Does she make house calls? In Ponyville?” Rainbow asked, her voice tinged with hope.
“Does a world famous vaengrologist make house calls hundreds of miles away?” Dr. Splint shot Rainbow dash a look of incredulity before smiling. “She does if the request comes on a Wonderbolt letterhead. I’ll send her a letter this afternoon.”
“Oh my gosh, would you? That would be amazing.”
“It would be my pleasure. You just promise to keep those wings tucked in. And you,” he said, turning to Scootaloo, “promise to come back and show me some tricks when we get you up and flying. Deal?”
“Deal,” Scootaloo said with a smile.
The two ponies exited the base, and Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash expectantly. The morning had been kinda fun in a weird way, and she did get to meet a Wonderbolt, but she was also no closer to figuring out why she couldn’t fly than she had been when she woke up. “So, now what? Are we going to go see another doctor?” she asked.
“Not exactly, Scoots. I know somepony who knows all sorts of weird stuff. We’re going to go see Zecora.”
Flying from the Wonderbolts’ training facility to the edge of the Everfree Forest took the better part of two hours. It would have been less, but Scootaloo kept pestering Rainbow Dash to do a corkscrew so she could enjoy her own personal carnival ride, and because hearing Scootaloo laugh with glee had become Rainbow’s favorite sound, she happily indulged the orange filly riding on her neck, holding on for dear life.
After a quick trot through the forest, the pair found themselves at Zecora’s hut.
“Greetings, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo. What can I do for the two of you?” the zebra said as she opened the door.
“Hey, Zecora, how much do you know about flying? I’m trying to get Scoots here up in the air.” Rainbow asked, not wasting any time with small talk.
“Throughout my travels, I’ve learned many things, but I’m somewhat ignorant when it comes to wings,” the zebra replied.
“C’mon, all that stuff you have in here and you don’t have anything that can help Scoots fly?” Rainbow pleaded.
“Potions can cure many ills, from hot fevers to cold chills. But what you ask they cannot do; I’m sorry to say that is true.”
“Poison joke made Applejack shrink, there’s nothing that can make Scootaloo’s wings grow?” Rainbow asked in disbelief.
“Young Scootaloo is how she was meant to be; no pony can change that, not even me. I cannot help her learn to fly, but that does not mean she should not try,” Zecora responded solemnly, but with a reassuring smile directed at Scootaloo.
“Okay, thanks anyway, Zecora,” Scootaloo mumbled.
As they left the cottage empty-hoofed, Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash with still hopeful eyes. “So, now what? Are we going to Canterlot to see if Princess Celestia can do some super awesome magic that will help me fly?”
Rainbow Dash tried to hide her disappointment. She figured that between the Wonderbolts and Zecora, one of them would have had an answer for her.
She let out a sigh. “Not tonight, Scoots. I’ve got a night shift, which means you’re hanging out with Rarity and Sweetie Belle for a few hours.”
Rainbow Dash usually didn’t mind her night shift duties. More often than not, clouds didn’t need to be busted at night because there was no sun for them to block out, and ponies were less apt to complain about a storm when they were safely inside their homes. If it weren’t for the fact that working a night shift regularly would make it hard to see her friends, she would have signed up for them a long time ago.
However, because most of the ponies in Ponyville were socially oriented, night shift duties were pretty unpopular with the weather patrol staff, and as such the weather patrol tended to operate with a skeleton crew during those hours. Most of the time this wasn’t an issue, but when a Class 5 Everfree storm started brewing, and Rainbow Dash was the only flyer on duty who was cleared to fly in such adverse conditions, it meant that she had to spend her entire shift plus three hours of overtime flying around a lighting storm, busting up clouds and trying to avoid flying debris. She wasn’t able to eliminate the storm: the clouds were forming too quickly and the winds were too high for that, but she was able keep it manageable, though the effort necessary, even for a flyer of her caliber, left her drained. Suffice it to say that when she finally clocked out, she was exhausted and more than a little irritable.
On her way to pick up Scootaloo from the Carousel Boutique, Rainbow Dash noticed that a light in the library was on, and because she hadn’t had any success in her efforts earlier in the day, she figured that it couldn’t hurt to check in with Twilight.
“Hey, Twi, tell me you have some good news,” Rainbow said as she walked through the door, which was Twilight’s first clue that something was bothering her friend. The library was a mess, with books strewn about haphazardly, and behind Twilight’s desk were several chalkboards filled with graphs and formulas, of which Rainbow Dash couldn’t make heads or tails..
Twilight herself, looked even more frazzled than when she had tried to figure out how ‘Pinkie Sense’ worked, with stray hairs from her mane sticking out randomly and bags under her eyes. Twilight caught her reflection in a window and quickly set about trying to tame her unruly hairdo. “Sorry, Rainbow. I had Spike write to the University in Cloudsdale. They said they’d send over their research, but it isn’t much. You were right when you said that there isn’t a lot of study about how to lift off. All they had was two papers from a couple years ago. I wrote to the scientist who conducted the study but they said their funding was pulled so they could ‘focus on more important projects’.”
“So, that’s it? There’s nothing else we can do?”
“Of course not. It just means that we have to do the research ourselves. Luckily, Celestia doesn’t have me working on anything else right now.”
“Well, how much longer is it going to take?”
“I don’t know, Rainbow. I’ve got some theories. Give me a few days, and maybe I can come up with some working hypotheses. Then, I can test them, and depending on how those experiments turn out, I might be able to form a preliminary answer to why Scootaloo can’t fly. But, even if I figure it out, there’s no guarantee that I can do anything about it. Pegasi have been flying or not flying for thousands of years before I came along.
“Well, darn it, Twi, what good is all that egghead stuff if you can’t use it to help your friends?”
“Science and magic are just tools, Rainbow; they can’t fix everything. You know that,” she said gently.
“Not at this rate, anyway,” Rainbow said before exiting the library in a huff. If Twilight didn’t have any news, there was no point in sticking around.
She was about to take off when she heard a sharp voice behind her. “You’re not being fair, ya know,” Rainbow turned around to see Spike glaring at her. Spike was a lot of things, usually different things to different ponies, but the one thing that every pony could agree on was that he was fiercely protective of his boss/caregiver/mother/whatever-relationship-you-wanted-to-assign Twilight. “Twilight’s been reading day and night since you asked for her help. I’ve sent letters to universities in Cloudsdale, Manehattan and Fillydelphia, not to mention Saddle Arabia and Brismane, requesting any research any of them have on topics that might even be partially related to flight. Tomorrow, I’m going to Canterlot to scour the royal library for any books on flight, pegasi and physics that we don’t have. So, maybe instead of criticizing her, you could say ‘thank you’.”
Rainbow Dash sighed; just because Spike’s disapproval was borne out of a desire to defend Twilight didn’t mean he was wrong. “You’re right, Spike. It’s just that I’ve gotten used to the idea that Twilight can fix anything. Need to save a kingdom from an army of changelings? Twilight’s on it. Need to figure out who ate some cake on a train? Call Twi again. If she can’t help me, I don’t know what else to do.”
“She’ll figure something out; she always does,” the dragon said with a confidence that could only come from a place of unshakeable faith. “But in the meantime, she doesn’t the need extra pressure from her friend.”
Rainbow lowered her head and slowly turned around and carefully entered the library. When she entered, Twilight looked up and tensed up ever so slightly. Before she could say anything, Rainbow spoke,“Hey, Twi…um, I’m not sure if I’ve thanked you for everything you’ve done so far. I’m lucky to have a friend who’s willing to do all this for me.”
Twilight smiled and relaxed, “It’s okay, Rainbow Dash; I know you’re worried. But listen, I’ve studied magic for a long time and the first thing I learned was that magic has rules, and I may not know much about pegasi magic, but it has to have rules too. If I can figure them out, I can figure out why Scoots can’t fly.”
“What about Pinkie?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.
“Pinkie doesn’t count!”
“Yes I do~,” a familiar voice chirped from nowhere.
Twilight took a deep breath. “Other than Pinkie, all magic has rules. There’s an answer somewhere in this mess and I’m going to find it.”
“I know you will, but maybe you should take a break. I’ve gotta go pick up Scoots, but then, I’ll bet we could convince Applejack to part with some cider.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll stay here. I’m working on the idea that maybe pegasi are able to control magnetic fields by some sort of latent energy manipulation. It would explain how you’re able to generate lighting in storm clouds.
“Okay... you’ll let me know if you find anything, right?”
“You’ll be the first pony I write.”
After setting things right with Twilight, Rainbow Dash quickly flew over to Carousel Boutique, mentally preparing herself for a lecture from Rarity about the importance of being on time, and how she didn’t have an extra three and a half hours to spend babysitting a filly who was Rainbow’s responsibility; she was taken aback when instead of being greeted with a scolding, she opened the door only to find Scootaloo sprinting toward her at full bore. Reflexively, she sat down and caught the filly as she leapt toward her; as soon as Scoots was secured in her forelegs, Rainbow Dash felt, surprisingly, a harsh trembling rocking in her forelegs.
She wasn’t sure why the orange filly was scared, but she knew that that kind of trembling could only be brought on by real, deep-in-your-bones, fear. She briefly flashed back to a lecture she had to sit through as a Wonderbolt recruit. They said that you shiver when you are scared because of your auto-something nervous system. She remembered what the instructor emphasized as his next point: You will shake because it’s ingrained in your wiring. There’s nothing you can do about it so don’t try to fight it; the only thing you can do is ride it out. Those words echoing in her head, she held onto the trembling filly and squeezed her reassuringly. “Hey squirt,” she whispered into Scootaloo’s ear as the filly let out a small whine and buried herself into Rainbow’s chest.
It was only then that she looked up and saw Rarity, Sweetie Belle and, to her surprise, Fluttershy standing in the parlor room. “‘Shy? What are you doing here?”
“There was a storm in the Everfree Forest and it was pretty strong so I decided to come here til it died down.”
“Tell me about it, I’ve been out dealing with that thing since I clocked in.”
“We thought you might have been out in this weather,” Rarity said gesturing to Scootaloo, who was still clinging to Rainbow Dash as though she might fly away at any moment.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare to her. I didn’t know you were working tonight. I just mentioned that the storm looked pretty bad when I left and then when you were late…” Fluttershy’s voice trailed off.
“It’s okay ‘Shy. And hey squirt, I’m kinda offended here. You thought some puny little storm could keep me down, what’s up with that?”Rainbow said, hoping her bravado could help ameliorate Scootaloo’s fear.
To her great relief Scootaloo giggled for a second but also made no effort to extricate herself from Rainbow’s forelegs. “Whatdya say we get out of here kid?” Rainbow asked, making sure to keep the orange filly firmly cradled.
Scootaloo nodded, and climbed on Rainbows back, making sure to keep her grip secure. She mumbled a brief goodbye and thank you to Rarity. Dash noded at her friends, she figured they would have to talk about this later, but for now it could wait.
-------------
“You okay, kid? I didn’t mean to scare you back there.” Rainbow said as soon as Scootaloo climbed down off her back once they were back home.
Scootaloo spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “Fluttershy said there was a storm, and then you weren’t… you were late. My dad died in a storm. He wasn’t even on weather patrol or anything. He was just trying to get to Cloudsdale…”
“I didn’t- I didn’t know that, Scoots.”
“I don’t like to talk about it much,” Scootaloo said, staring intently at the ground.
“Nothing gets better if you ignore it,” Rainbow offered gently.
Scootaloo shut her eyes and shook her head, trying to block out the painful memories. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, trying to fight back the wave of anguish she could feel building
Rainbow flinched at the sight of the one filly she cared about more than anypony else in pain. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Hey, um... it’s getting late. How ‘bout we go get ready for bed?” Rainbow asked, hoping the distraction would provide Scoots some respite.
“Okay, but, um... I think I should sleep in my own room tonight,”
Rainbow frowned slightly. “You don’t need to prove anything to me.”
“I know, but I think maybe I need to prove some things to myself.”
Rainbow nodded, one brave pegasus to another. “I can understand that. Do you still want a bedtime story?”
Scootaloo nodded. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course, it is”
After a few more chapters of Daring Do and the Forest of Fear (an oddly appropriate choice considering the circumstances), Rainbow made sure Scootaloo was tucked in securely and ruffled her mane gently. She stole a glance at the young pegasus and recognized the look that was currently illustrated plainly on her face. It was the same one she’d seen in the mirror too many times: I’m scared but I don’t want anypony to know. “You alright, Scoots?” Scootaloo nodded without saying a word, her jaw held tight. Rainbow twisted around and plucked a feather from her wing, wincing as she pulled it out. “Here, just in case you need it. It’s a courage feather.”
“Pegasi don’t have ‘courage feathers’,” Scootaloo responded.
“Sure we do,” Rainbow said, grinning as she tucked the cyan feather behind Scootaloo’s ear. “I have a bunch, because I’m awesome like that. Not that you need it, but maybe if you ever did need a little bit extra courage, just tuck that feather in your wing, and boom, instant bravery.”
Scootaloo smiled at Rainbow’s painfully transparent attempt to make her feel better. “Okay,” she replied with the same tight jaw and determination Rainbow read on her face previously.
Rainbow leaned in and gave Scootaloo one last hug before heading to her own bed, making sure to leave her door unlocked just in case somepony wanted to come in at any point during the night.
Scootaloo did not sleep well. She didn’t really sleep at all. Instead, she laid awake, fighting every instinct in her heart and mind that told her to sprint across the hall and bury herself in the warmth and security of Rainbow’s wing. Despite those instincts, Scootaloo stayed rooted in her own bed, trying to convince herself that everything was fine right where she was. When morning came, she was more tired than when she went to bed, but she was also at least a little proud of herself.
Scootaloo and Rainbow went through their typical morning routine of breakfast, preening and trying to get out the door in a timely enough fashion that they could both avoid another dressing down about the importance of being on time. Rainbow wisely refrained from commenting on Scootaloo’s victory out of fear that mentioning it would somehow taint its purity. If she had been in Scootaloo’s hoofs, she wouldn’t want the fact that she slept in her own room to be a cause for celebration. So, in accordance with that idea, Rainbow said nothing about last night’s sleeping situation, but when she dropped Scootaloo off at the schoolhouse, she couldn’t help but notice that the filly was still carrying the feather she had given her.
After a morning spent reviewing math, it was lunchtime at the Ponyville school house, and the CMC were eating in their usual spot, under a tree, and far away from the tiara-wearing tyrant who ruled the schoolyard as though it was her personal kingdom. The only possible challenge to her authority, Cheerilee, ate lunch inside where she was easily accessible but also afforded a few minutes of peace and quiet. It was a situation that allowed her to maintain her cheerful disposition, but it had the unfortunate side effect of leaving the schoolyard firmly in the control of Diamond Tiara.
“Move it! Why don’t go get some stilts or something. Then I could actually see you when you’re getting in my way. So annoying!” Diamond said as she kicked at Pipsqueak who had the misfortune of bumping into the tyrant on his way to his own preferred grazing spot.
“Sorry, Diamond,” the diminutive colt said as he quickly hurried out of the way lest he incur further wrath.
“Diamond is such a jerk. Somepony should teach her a lesson,” Scootaloo said absentmindedly, as the CMC witnessed the latest episode of Diamond’s iron hoofed rule over lunchtime.
“Um, Scootaloo, she’s not picking on us for once. Maybe we should let this go?” Sweetie Belle offered, not wanting to see her friend get hurt again rather than disagreeing with the sentiment.
“Nothing gets better if you ignore it,” Scootaloo said quietly. She got up from the ground and tucked the feather Rainbow had given her into her own wing. She wasn’t sure if it would work, but she needed every bit of courage she could get as she began walking toward her almost certain doom. “Hey, Diamond, why don’t you leave him alone?” she called out, hoping that the bully wouldn’t be able to hear the fear in her voice.
Diamond Tiara turned and located the source of the outburst. A look of surprise as much as anger flashed across her face when she realized who it was who dared to address her in such a disrespectful manner. “You can’t tell me what to do, blank flank,” she sneered.
Scootaloo ignored the sensation of her heart pounding out of her chest. “And that’s another thing. I’m sick of you calling me blank flank all the time. I’d rather have a blank flank than have my cutie mark be a stupid tiara. You’re not princess of anything, ‘cept being a… plot flank,” she said, closing the distance between the two ponies.
Diamond wore a look of confusion; ponies simply didn’t talk to her that way. Unable to think of an appropriate response, she resorted to an old standard she used when taunting the orange pegasus. “At least I’m not some flightless chicken.”
“You don’t get to call me chicken anymore either, Cry-mond Tiara.” I’m gonna die and I didn’t even get a chance to thank AB and Sweetie for being my friends. I hope they say nice things at my funeral.
“I don’t, Chickenloo? Oh, look, I just did. Chickenloo. You’re just a stupid chicken. Actually, I take that back: chickens lay eggs, so they at least serve a purpose. You’re nothing but a useless, won’t-ever-fly, sorry excuse for a pony whose parents should have abandoned her when she was born like all the other useless pegasi.”
When asked about it later, Scootaloo would admit that she didn’t really remember punching Diamond Tiara; all she remembered was that suddenly there was a sharp thud, and when she looked down, the pink pony was sprawled in the dirt a few feet away. Diamond gingerly brought her hoof up to her muzzle, only to recoil in horror when she noticed that a sticky trail of blood now ran across her previously pristine hoof. Diamond Tiara took a few rapid breaths and then started bawling, her shrill shriek echoing across the playground as her tears fell to the ground.
The wails of a crying filly brought Cheerilee galloping out from inside the schoolhouse. “What is going on out here?” she asked in horror as much as wonder.
“Scootaloo punched Diamond Tiara in the face. I saw everything Miss Cheerilee,” Silver Spoon said, eager to condemn the orange filly who dared to fight back against the established power structure of lunchtime.
“Silver, go with Diamond to Nurse Redheart. Scootaloo, come with me,” Cheerilee said angrily.
Needless to say, Scootaloo spent the rest of the day sitting in the corner in time out waiting to learn the rest of her punishment.
After school let out, Scootaloo found herself alone with Miss Cheerilee waiting for something, though she wasn’t quite sure what. The normally smiling teacher wasn’t talking; she just sat behind her desk grading papers, occasionally looking up. Finally, Rainbow Dash walked into the school house, holding a letter.
“I got your letter. Why am I here?” Rainbow asked.
“Scootaloo, why don’t you tell Rainbow Dash what you did?”
“I kinda... punched Diamond Tiara,” Scootaloo said quietly. She had been in trouble enough to know how this would go: first Rainbow would yell at her, then Cheerilee would tell her she was wrong for punching another student. After she was through being lectured at, she’d be punished by Cheerilee, and then Rainbow would punish her again when she got home. She was surprised that instead of yelling at her, Rainbow stayed calm.
“Is Diamond Tiara okay?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“She had a bloody nose...”
“So, she’s fine then?”
“In my class, we don’t hit,” Cheerilee decreed. “What do you think we should do about this Rainbow Dash?”
“Scootaloo, why did you hit Diamond Tiara?” Rainbow asked, in a tone that suggested curiosity more than anger.
“She was bullying Pipsqueak. I told her to stop and then she called me a chicken,” Scootaloo said quietly, figuring that now she was about to get yelled at.
“I don’t care what Diamond said; I’ll punish her later. In my class, we don’t hit,” Cheerilee told the orange filly.
Rainbow Dash ignored Cheerilee’s judgment. “Did you use a weapon, Scoots?”
Scootaloo shook her head; so far this was not going how she was expecting it to.
“Did you hit her when she wasn’t looking?”
“No.”
“Did you hit her after she was on the ground?”
Scootaloo shook her head. “No, it was just the one punch.”
“Well, then I don’t really see a problem here,” Rainbow said as she turned her attention back to the school teacher.
“Rainbow Dash, I’m trying to teach these kids that violence is never the answer.”
“Have you ever been bullied, Cheerilee?” The school teacher shook her head. “I didn’t think so; ponies like you don’t get bullied. I know that we’re supposed to set a good example and say things like, ‘Use your words,’ but it seems like ponies talk to Diamond Tiara all the time and she doesn’t get the message.”
“That’s not the point, Rainbow-”
“I think it is. Sometimes, you can’t reason with a bully. Sometimes, the only thing they understand is the taste of blood. Scootaloo didn’t injure her permanently, she didn’t beat her up and she fought fair.” Rainbow turned to Scootaloo. “Good job, Scoots. I’m proud of you.”
“Scootaloo needs to be punished for this!” Cheerilee exclaimed in disbelief that the mare in front of her was actually supporting Scootaloo’s actions.
“Why? Because she stood up to a bully? I’m not punishing her for that.”
“Scootaloo you’re suspended from school for the next two days, and I want you to write a letter of apology to Diamond Tiara.”
Dear Diamond Tiara, I’m sorry your ugly face got in the way of my hoof, Scootaloo thought.
“Hey, Scoots, wanna go get some ice cream?” Rainbow asked, turning her attention back to Scootaloo.
Scootaloo tried not to appear excited. She still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but she figured it wouldn’t help if Cheerilee thought she was happy. “Um... ok,” she said in as passive of a tone as possible.
“Awesome. Well, Scoots and I are going to go get some ice cream. I guess we’ll see you in two days,” Rainbow said cheerfully.
With nothing more to say, Rainbow turned and started to exit the building. “Bye, Miss Cheerilee!” Scootaloo said quietly, before hurrying to catch up with her idol, leaving an annoyed and perplexed school teacher behind them.
True to her word, Rainbow took Scootaloo to the ice cream shop and bought a pair of ice cream cones for the duo to enjoy. “Okay, kid. Serious talk time. You can’t go around punching ponies in the face,” Rainbow said as Scootaloo happily licked at the chocolate mound of ice cream balancing precariously on top of a waffle cone.
“I know, but I was just thinking about how you said that things don’t get better if you ignore them, and how Diamond is always bullying ponies. So, I thought maybe I could do something about it.”
“Diamond Tiara is a special case, but Cheerilee is right; in general, you shouldn’t go around punching ponies in the face, even if they deserve it.
“So, how do I know when it’s okay?”
“I think you’re smart enough to figure it out. But for now, I don’t want to hear anymore about you getting into fights.”
“I won’t, I promise. But how’d you know all that about bullies, not listening and stuff?”
Rainbow spoke quietly. She didn’t like thinking about what life was like when she was a filly. “Remember when I told you how I got my cutie mark?” Scootaloo nodded. “Well, even after I did a sonic rainboom, I still kinda sorta got bullied. I told the teachers, but all that meant was that the bullies waited until the teachers weren’t around to tease me. Then one day I stood up for myself.” Rainbow let out a low chuckle. “I bucked one of them so hard right in his stupid mouth.” Rainbow caught herself smiling and quickly changed her expression to a somber one. “The bullies still weren’t nice to me after that, but they did think twice before calling me Rainbow Crash again.”
“Oh.” Scootaloo still had trouble imagining a world where anypony could possibly say anything even remotely negative about the mare in front of her. Rainbow Dash was way too cool for that. “Don’t worry Rainbow Dash. I still think you’re the most awesome pony in all of Equestria, even if some stupid bullies did make fun of you.”
“Thanks kid.” A smile began to form on Rainbow face again. “So, you really knocked her down with one punch?
Scootaloo grinned sheepishly. “Yeah.”
“That’s my girl,” Rainbow said, no longer trying to suppress the big smile on her face as she ruffled the purple mane. A second later, Rainbow strained her neck upward, trying to get a closer look at Scootaloo’s flank.
“What are you doing?” Scootaloo wondered.
“I just thought you might have earned a bully punching cutie mark. Maybe something cool like a boxing glove.”
“Did I?!” Scootaloo said, straining, trying to glimpse her own flank. She let out a disappointed “oh” when she confirmed it was still bare.
“That’s okay, squirt. Let’s see if we can’t get you an ice cream eating cutie mark.”
“So, since I can’t go to school today, does that mean I get to spend the day with you?” Scootaloo asked with her tiny wings buzzing excitedly.
“You wish, kid, but since I didn’t get suspended, I have to go to work, and unless you’re certified to fly in a - minimum - Class 2 storm, you can’t come with me,” Rainbow replied. Scootaloo's face fell as she was inadvertently reminded that she couldn’t even fly in non-stormy weather. Rainbow tried to quickly recover. “Besides, my job’s boring anyway. You get to spend your two days on suspension with Fluttershy, which is going to be way more fun.”
Scootaloo smiled, though Rainbow thought it looked a little more forced than she would have liked, and climbed on Rainbow’s back. Satisfied that her cargo was secure, she made the familiar voyage to Fluttershy’s cottage.
“Hey, ‘Shy, Scootaloo needs to stay home from school for a couple of days. Can she hang with you?” Rainbow asked after Fluttershy opened the door.
Fluttershy looked down at the orange filly standing next to Rainbow Dash; she knew that Rainbow knew there was no way she could say no to the request, even if a more considerate friend would have given her a heads-up instead of just showing up on her doorstep. “Sure, I’d love some company.”
“Thanks, Fluttershy,” came the response from Scootaloo.
“I could use some help feeding the birds this morning. Why don’t you get started with the chickens and I’ll come join you in a minute? I’m just going to talk to Rainbow Dash, okay?” Fluttershy asked.
Scootaloo nodded and went out to the chicken coop, trying to remember what Fluttershy had told her about feeding the chickens the last time she was here.
“How’s she doing?” Fluttershy asked as soon as Scootaloo closed the door.
“She’s great. Why?”
“Because of what happened the other night...”
“Oh, you mean when I was late? She just got a little scared. No biggie.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “Rainbow Dash, I know a lot about being scared, and that wasn’t just ‘scared’. She was inconsolable. Rarity couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t talk to her, and even Sweetie Belle couldn’t get through. The only thing that mattered was going into the Everfree Forest to find you, and if Rarity hadn’t levitated her off the ground, she would have done it. You need to talk to her... or maybe a professional does,” Fluttershy said gently, firmly balancing reproach and understanding in the way that only Fluttershy could. “It’s not good to be that scared; trust me when I say that I know.”
“She doesn’t need to talk to a professional! She’s alright and I can take care of her just fine, thank you!” Rainbow snapped.
“I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t,” Fluttershy said meekly.
Rainbow mentally kicked herself. “Sorry, ‘Shy, I didn’t mean to snap at you, but Scootaloo’s fine, really. Sure, there are going to be some bumps in the road, but me and the kid can get through them."
“I know you can. So, why is she staying home from school, anyway?” Fluttershy asked, eager to change the subject.
“She kinda... punched a bully and got suspended for two days.”
The news startled Fluttershy, but her years of experience with Rainbow Dash’s antics had numbed her sense of fear for that kind of thing when it came to her. Scootaloo was not the same pony, of course, but the experience seemed to transfer. Her expression changed from concerned to cheeky.
“She really does take after you,” Fluttershy said with a wry grin.
Rainbow chuckled. “The kid’s got some awesome in her, no doubt.”
Rainbow went out to the chicken coop to say a quick goodbye to Scootaloo. “Be good for ‘Shy, okay squirt?” Rainbow said, giving Scootaloo a quick nuzzle across her face. Scootaloo scrunched her face and nodded, nuzzling back.
As Rainbow left the cottage, she turned around to catch one last glimpse of the two ponies. She saw Scootaloo sigh wistfully as Fluttershy flew up to refill the bird feeders in the top of the trees before she glumly picked up the pail of corn between her teeth. At that moment, Rainbow knew she wasn’t going to work today.
Rainbow flew to weather HQ only to tell her supervisor that she was taking the day off, cashing in the favor she earned flying by herself during the Everfree Storm. She then flew three hours straight to Canterlot, and found herself talking to an obstinate guard who was refusing to let her into the palace.
“You’re not on the list of scheduled visitors for today,” the guard said for the second time.
“Do you know who I am? Rainbow Dash? Element of Loyalty? I’ve saved Equestria at least twice. I don’t think I need to be on a list if I want to see the Princess.”
“I know who you are, but unless you’re an Alicorn, nopony gets into see the princess without an appointment.”
“This is stupid.” Rainbow flew up and tried to go around the guard, but found her path blocked. She darted left and then right, but the guard mirrored her actions. He wasn’t threatening; he knew better than to even hint that he might injure one of the Elements, but he also left no room for Rainbow Dash to get by, a perfectly passive wall of resistance.
Her plan to quickly fly by the guard foiled, Rainbow resorted to plan B, which was apparently yelling at the top of her lungs. “Hey, Celestia! I know you’re in there and that you can hear me! Call off your guards; I want to talk to you!”
The head guard’s eyes went wide as he listened to what was occurring directly in front of him. Rainbow Dash had just summoned the most powerful being in all of Equestria as though she were a lowly servant. If she were anypony else, he would have tackled her to the ground and thrown her in a holding cell, but as it was, he felt powerless to intervene. Before he could decide what to do, he heard the unmistakable sound of hoofsteps behind him. When he turned around, Princess Celestia was standing there with what he could only pray was an amused smile and not masked chagrin.
“Hello, Rainbow Dash. I would love a chance to talk. Please, come with me,” she said as she smiled warmly at the guard, who was still unsure what had just happened but was thankful that he was still breathing and employed.
“What can I do for you?” The princess asked as soon as she and Rainbow were comfortably sitting in the throne room. Tellingly, Celestia had chosen not to sit on her throne, but rather one of the smaller pillows, meant for visiting dignitaries, that sat off to the side.
“I want you to cast a spell for me,” Rainbow said, not mincing words while sitting across from the Princess.
“Oh, and what sort of spell would this be? It must require a great deal of power if you came all the way here to ask for my help.”
“I want you to make Scootaloo fly.”
“I see. I assume that you do not mean you wish for me to levitate her?”
“Yep, that’s right. You gave Twilight wings. Well, I want wings for Scootaloo.”
“I named Twilight a Princess of Equestria, and accordingly ascended her into an Alicorn. Are you asking me to make Scootaloo a princess?”
“No, but you’re telling me you can’t just make her wings bigger?”
“That is correct; I cannot.”
“Umm, not to get bossy here Princess, but you kind of owe me.”
Princess Celestia listened to the declaration that she owed Rainbow Dash a favor and responded with a single syllable: “Oh?” And in that syllable was a lifetime of meaning. Princess Celestia owed nothing to anypony, it was only by her grace that the sun rose each morning. She ruled her kingdom with a velvet glove most of the time and with an iron hoof when it was necessary. She negotiated treaties personally, with Dragons, Griffins and Minotaurs, and in those negotiations she never accepted concessions without offering something in return. Ponies requested favors from her all the time, but none had ever been so bold, or foolish, as to demand one.
Rainbow Dash was cowed by Celestia’s intonation, but only temporarily. “I’ve saved Equestria more than once; I think that earns me a favor.”
“You saved Equestria only so that one day you could ask for something in return?” Princess Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, but I’m not asking you to do anything for me,” Rainbow said as her voice started to break. “You don’t know Scoots like I do. She’s the most awesome filly in all of Equestria; it kills her that she can’t fly, and that kills me. I would do anything to see her be happy.”
“Your love is admirable, but I cannot do as you ask.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Rainbow said, in a tone more challenging than most ponies would dare to use with Celestia.
In response to the challenge, Princess Celestia fixed Rainbow Dash with a glare just shy of hostile. “Rainbow Dash, all across Equestria there are fillies and colts, mares and stallions, who would like me to light up my horn and fix their problems. Our struggles help make us who we are. It would be wrong of me to interfere with that. So you’re right. I wouldn’t do it even if I could. Scootaloo must find her own way.”
“I’m not asking you to solve every pony’s problem. I’m asking you to solve this one, just one time,” Rainbow said, refusing to believe that Celestia was, in all her glory, somehow powerless to make Scootaloo fly.
“And I am telling you that I cannot. For one, I know of no spell that would allow me to merely make her wings grow, and I don’t know that, even if she had bigger wings, she would be able to fly. Though it is curious to me that you assume I have not helped you already.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you really think I have nothing more important for Twilight to be doing than researching the secrets of flight? And for that matter, did you ever find it curious that your role in Captain Strike’s death was so quickly dismissed?”
“Twilight said it made the guards look bad so they swept it under the rug.”
“Yes, and whose 'rug' do you think they swept it under? And did you notice that a lot of Captain Strike’s subordinates were immediately transferred to a remote outpost shortly after his death?”
Rainbow shook her head.
“Of course you didn’t; you have no reason to monitor the active duty roster of the Equestrian Army. But I can assure you that one does not rise to the rank of Captain without making friends, and that if his friends were still in Ponyville, it is quite possible that they would wish you harm. As such, I decided that, for the protection of you and Scootaloo, it would be best if there was a reorganization of a few military outposts on the griffon border.”
Rainbow was speechless; it had never occurred to her that the Princess took an active interest in what happened to her. Twilight, sure; She was the Princess’ personal protégée. But the idea that Celestia had already intervened on her behalf, and without even letting her know about it, humbled her.
“I just- I just want her to be happy,”
“Scootaloo has a sister who clearly loves her very much. That is worth more than anything I can give her. Do not be so quick to disregard your contributions, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow nodded half heartedly. “Is Princess Luna around?” Rainbow asked, unable to come up with another tactic for approaching Celestia about helping Scootaloo fly.
“Because I refuse you, you think asking my sister will result in a different outcome?” Celestia asked, seeing right through Rainbow’s thinly veiled request.
Rainbow chose her next words carefully and spoke softly. “I think maybe she knows what it's like to want something so bad that you’d risk anything to get it.”
“She does indeed, which is why she knows the dangers of the path you’re on. But, I also believe she would be glad to see you, so I will send for her. You may wait for her in the dining room.”
“Thank you,” Rainbow said quietly, but loud enough that she could be sure Princess Celestia heard her.
Celestia smiled and nodded before exiting the throne room. Rainbow Dash took the short walk through the main hallway and into the most opulent dining room she knew.
“Greetings, Rainbow Dash; to what do we owe this visit?” Luna said warmly as she entered the grand dining hall of Canterlot Castle a scant thirty seconds after Rainbow had entered.
“I was hoping you could help me.”
“We would be pleased to offer you whatever assistance we can. Ask what thou will, and if it is within our power, it is yours.” Rainbow hesitated before speaking. “Celestia said she didn’t know of any spell that would allow Scootaloo to fly, but I was hoping that maybe you would know some spells she didn’t.”
Luna's warm grin quickly changed into a more somber expression. “It is considered bad form to- I believe the phrase is- beat around the bush. You wish to know if there is Dark Magic that can help you.”
Her intent laid bare, Rainbow nodded and winced, pinning her ears flat against her head and preemptively preparing for an admonishment and lecture about the evils of Dark Magic.
“Do you know what separates Dark Magic from its benign counterpart?” Luna asked calmly.
“Dark magic is harmful?” Rainbow guessed. Twilight liked to talk a lot about different types of magic but Rainbow usually didn't pay much attention.
“A common misconception, though I suppose it’s not entirely inaccurate,” Luna took a deep breath. “Consider a simple levitation spell. It can be used for many purposes, but in the wrong hoofs it could do great damage. Despite this, we allow any unicorn with a talent for magic to practice the spell. Dark Magic requires a price to be paid beyond the simple physical exertion of casting a spell, and because of that it is outlawed.”
“If Scootaloo needs to pay some sort of price to be able to fly, you can put it on my tab. I’m fine with that.”
“You are very quick to incur a debt despite being ignorant of the cost; that is a dangerous habit to get into. Long ago, even before the time of Starswirl the Bearded, unicorns learned that there was much power that could be had for those willing to make great sacrifices. Those early unicorns realized that once a pony went down that path, there could be no turning back. Left unchecked, Dark Magic would fuel a race for power that could only result in countless deaths and suffering across Equestria. So, to protect themselves as well as future generations, the study of Dark Magic was limited to a very select few, and only in strictly theoretical terms.”
“Then they made a mistake. If somepony is willing to sacrifice something, why shouldn’t they be allowed to?”
“You assume that the sacrificiant is aware of what their sacrifice entails, or even that they are a willing participant. Regardless, you did not come here to debate philosophy. We are telling you that what you ask is forbidden.”
“I want wings for Scootaloo. If there’s a sacrifice that needs to be made, that’s fine with me. I’ll do it,” Rainbow said defiantly.
“Again, you make that offer ignorant of the price. Suppose I were to tell you that it would cost your life?” Luna shot back.
“Well, then no. I’m not offering to die so that Scoots can get airborne.”
“Ah, so you are not as irrational as we feared. Good; now, what if the price were your own ability to fly?”
Rainbow swallowed the rock in her throat. “Are you… is that what it would take?”
“We do not know. It is very possible; these sacrifices often involve something similar to what the spellcaster hopes to gain. The price of Dark Magic is seldom superficial. If it were, it would not be outlawed. Have you considered how Scootaloo would feel if she knew her sister could not fly because of her?”
“She wouldn’t have to know.”
“Are you so sure you wish to keep another secret from Scootaloo? You are still burdened by the first one.”
Rainbow grimaced. “Scootaloo knows that that monster is never coming back, and that’s all she needs to know. If I have to lose a few nights of sleep to keep her happy, then that’s fine too. If you want to help on that front, maybe you could stop giving me nightmares.”
“Your nightmares are of your own making. You should be more careful of the burdens you choose to carry, Rainbow Dash. You must talk to Scootaloo if you wish the nightmares to stop.”
“Can you help Scoots fly or not?” Rainbow asked, the frustration creeping into her voice despite her best efforts.
Luna softened her expression. She had come to admire the brash pony standing in front of her. Though her actions may have been somewhat troublesome, her motives were born of love, and that was something Luna could appreciate. “The kingdom does owe you a great debt, and we personally owe you a debt for saving us from Nightmare Moon. Very well; I will scour the forbidden magics and attempt to learn what it would take to grant Scootaloo flight, but I make no promises that I will cast the spell, regardless of whether you are willing to pay the price. If we proceed down this path, you must trust my judgment. Power comes at a price, and I will not allow you to pay it if I deem it too high.”
It suddenly occurred to Rainbow that she was again asking a pony to risk angering the monarch of Equestria on her behalf. “Won’t Celestia be mad if she finds out you are doing this?”
“My sister may rule over Equestria, but she does not control me. It is well within my purview as Princess of the Night to study the forbidden archives,” Luna said solemnly. The faintest hint of a smile crossed her face. “She may be upset, but there is little she can do about it.”
“Okay, we have a deal.” Rainbow said, unsure of exactly if she was willing to see this particular line of inquiry through to the end.
Rainbow flew back from Canterlot feeling conflicted; the fact that she was flying at all certainly didn’t help matters. She had tried to explain why flying was so great to Applejack once, but it didn’t go well. How could anypony possibly explain what it was like to be one with the sky? To soar freely amongst the clouds, only your own inhibitions preventing you from going as high or as far as you wanted... no, it wasn’t like running in a meadow or swimming in a lake. Those were pale imitations of the sheer awesomeness of flight.
Ever since Rainbow first saw the Wonderbolts, when she was a little filly, she knew that’s what she was meant to do. Most pegasi could get themselves off the ground and propel themselves through the air, but the Wonderbolts could fly. They soared through the air with such grace, at such high speeds, that they could only be considered the masters of their domain, and since that day the only thing Rainbow Dash had ever wanted was to be one of them.
Until one day when a small orange pegasus said that she was looking for somepony to take her under their wing.
Rainbow had played it cool when she heard Scootaloo’s request: I might be up for something like that, she thought; but inside she was anything but cool. Scootaloo could have picked any pony to idolize: one of her friends, Vinyl Scratch, or even Big Macintosh; the list was almost endless, but from that plethora of choices, she chose her. It was humbling, exhilarating, gratifying and terrifying all at the same time. At first, Rainbow had been worried that she wouldn’t live up to the filly’s expectations, but she quickly found that she had the opposite problem.That was the coolest trick ever. Hey, tell me about how you did the Sonic Rainboom again. That was the most awesome crash in the history of crashes. It was an odd feeling to be seemingly unable to disappoint Scootaloo, no matter what. She was so used to having to prove that she was the best that she didn’t quite know how to handle unquestioning adoration. And so one day, from that point onward, she had two goals; be a Wonderbolt, and make sure that Scootaloo didn’t regret her choice of idol. She had never considered a scenario where those two goals would be mutually exclusive.
Despite the three hour flight back to Fluttershy’s cottage having given her plenty of time to think, she was no closer to a solution to the problem of Scootaloo’s flightlessness than she had been at the beginning of the day. You’re getting worked up for nothing, a voice in the back of her head told her. This is just like an oncoming storm: deal with it when you get there. For all you know, Luna won’t be able to find anything, or if she does, maybe it doesn’t involve losing your ability to fly. Acknowledging that she didn’t actually have a choice to make at the moment didn’t make her feel any better, but the sight of Scootaloo happily jumping around as she played with an assortment of small furry animals did. She couldn’t help but smile as she began her descent and landed with one last flap of her wings.
“Hey squirt, where’d ‘Shy get off to?” she asked, resisting the urge to pick Scoots up and hug her because that would be totally uncool.
“She’s inside; it’s a ‘quiet zone’ in there, so she said I could play out here,” Scootaloo said happily. It appeared that spending the day with Fluttershy was as much fun as Rainbow promised.
“Cool. Well, I’m done for the day, and we’ve still got some daylight left. What do you want to do?
Scootaloo appeared unsure of herself for a moment, glancing down at the ground. “Can we maybe... practice flying?” she asked with ears flat against her head.
“Sure, Scoots. Let me just run inside to tell ‘Shy I’m picking you up.”
“Okay.”
Rainbow let herself in the cottage to find Fluttershy tucking in some baby porcupines for a nap, and as with most things Fluttershy did, it was predictably adorable.
“Hey, ‘Shy” she whispered, not knowing, but not wanting to risk, the consequences of waking up a porcupine.
Fluttershy looked up from her adorable task and smiled.
“Did she give you any trouble?”
A soft smile etched itself into Fluttershy’s face. “Oh, she was awful. I don’t know how you put up with her,” Fluttershy said quietly before letting out a small giggle.
“Yeah, she’s a real terror. So it’s cool if I drop her off here tomorrow?”
“Of course it is.”
After a quick flight to Rainbow’s practice field, the two began their training routine. Nopony could fault Scootaloo’s effort today, that much was obvious. Rainbow put her through a grueling circuit of wingups, up-downs and shuttle runs, where the filly had to use her wings to stop her momentum before turning around; Scootaloo did all five sets without complaining once. Muscles thoroughly exercised, the pegasi began the gliding drill.
Amongst non-pegasi, it was a widely held thought that gliding was an easier skill to learn than flying, but pegasi knew better. If you didn’t have the experience of creating your own thrust, it was hard to learn how to ride the air currents. Furthermore, without the wing strength to bail out if something went wrong, even a simple glide drill could result in serious injury. Put simply, you could practice flying from the relative safety of the ground, but gliding required the student to either jump, or in some cases be pushed, from a not-insignificant height.
But Scootaloo wanted to fly, and she couldn’t generate enough force to lift herself off the ground consistently, which left gliding as the only viable air skill to practice. Of course, the other problem with gliding was that the same small wings that contributed to Scootaloo’s problems with generating lift also made gliding hard. Try as she might, the filly just couldn’t displace enough air to slow her descent by anything more than a few feet per second.
Despite these facts, Rainbow corralled a low flying cloud and situated it over the field. She flew Scootaloo to the top of the cloud and the pair peered over the edge. They had done this particular drill a few times, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying for the young filly to stare over the edge and instinctively imagine what it would feel like to hit the ground from this height.
Rainbow looked down at her protégée reassuringly. “You know I got ya, Scoots. Just keep your wings out and I’ll catch ya at the bottom, okay?”
Scootaloo nodded and steeled herself for what was about to come. Tensing up, she shut her eyes and leaped off the cloud. She tried to keep her wings rigid, but after a few seconds the combination of gravity and air pressure was too much; her wings buckled and she was sent plummeting toward the ground, only to be saved by the waiting forelegs of Rainbow Dash. The duo repeated the drill ten more times until Rainbow suggested they call it a day.
“But- I can g-go again,” Scootaloo said in between shaky breaths, the adrenaline and exertion of the day forcing her to suck air.
“Hey, I’m proud of you squirt. I’ve seen Wonderbolt cadets that would have had a hard time with practice today, and you handled it like a champ. What’dya say we head home?
Scootaloo practically glowed with pride at Rainbow’s praise. “Okay,” she said happily as she climbed on Rainbow’s back.
The pair weren’t home for more than a few minutes, enjoying, or at least drinking, a post-workout protein shake, when they heard a knock at the door. Rainbow opened it to find Ponyville’s resident mailmare standing there with her usual wall-eyed grin.
“Hiya, Rainbow Dash! Hiya, Scootaloo! You got a letter, Dash. Oh, and you got one too, Scootaloo.” Derpy giggled. “Hey, that rhymes.”
“Thanks, Derpy,” Rainbow said as she looked down at the letter. The return address was from an office in Manehattan Rainbow didn’t recognize. Curious, she opened it to find a brief note:
Ms. Rainbow Dash
My name is Dr. Feather. I received your request for a wing examination from Dr. Splint. Would early next week work for you? Please reply ASAP so I can make travel arrangements.
In the events of the last few days, Rainbow had forgotten all about Dr. Splint’s promise to write his colleague. She immediately felt a joyful surge of hope. Maybe she wouldn’t need Luna and her Dark Magic after all. Feeling buoyed, she looked down at Scoots who was staring at her own letter, unopened, with a look that Rainbow read as somewhere between fear and anger. “What’d ya get there squirt?”
“It’s from my Mom,” the filly said softly.
“Well, aren’t you going to open it? I thought things were getting better between the two of you?”
“Things…” Scootaloo paused, “You promised I could stay here as long as I wanted.”
“You know you can. It’s just… I’m sure she misses you.”
“No. she doesn’t. And you said you weren’t going to get involved.” Scootaloo said, with a touch of indignation.
Rainbow recognized the tone as one she’d used during her own childhood, and she chose to ignore it. “Easy there, Scoots; I said that it was up to you and it is. But I also know a little something about holding a grudge,” she offered gently.
Scootaloo ignored the peace offering and continued with her righteous anger,“Yeah? Did your mom’s coltfriend ever hit you, and then did your mom tell you to stop making up stories when you told her about it?”
“Scoots-”
“I didn’t think so. So stay out of it!” she said before running up to her room leaving Rainbow shaking her head in the kitchen.
Rainbow Dash spent the next few hours downstairs reading “Wonderbolts Monthly”, or more accurately, trying to. Unsurprisingly, she found it impossible to stay focused; her thoughts were constantly drifting toward the orange filly upstairs. It had been a few months since Scootaloo moved in, and truthfully Rainbow had never been happier, but this latest hiccup had impressed upon her the necessity of thinking long term. Or, at least, slightly longer term than she was used to thinking anyway.
She knew she loved Scoots, that much she was certain about; however, Rainbow was also forced to admit that these last few months had made her a better pony. She was more patient, more considerate of others, and less selfish. Her friends had all told her that Scootaloo was clearly a good influence on her, and though they had been joking when they said it, there was a fair amount of truth to that statement. The last few months had also seemed to do Scootaloo a world of good. Granted, some of that was because she was no longer being abused and had a home she could feel safe in again, but regardless, Scootaloo was closer to her optimistic, Discord-may-care self than she had been when she first moved in with Rainbow; and besides: if living together was beneficial for both ponies, why shouldn’t they keep doing it?
Rainbow had no problem taking care of the filly for as long as Scoots was happy with her, but if this was going to continue, it was probably best to consider the legalities of the situation. There was a world of difference between thinking about this in an abstract sense and pondering the very real ramifications, not the least of which would be how Misty felt.
Legally, Scootaloo was still Misty’s child. FPS hadn’t removed Scootaloo from her house, and as far as they were concerned, Scootaloo was staying with a family friend with her mother’s blessing; that was okay because Misty hadn’t complained and Scootaloo was happy, so nopony else had any reason to report anything. But that situation meant that if Misty wanted Scootaloo back, all she would have to do is ask, because if Rainbow Dash refused that would be all the reason Misty needed to go to the police with a legitimate foalnapping claim. There were other problems as well: Rainbow couldn't make officially make medical decisions if Scootaloo got hurt, she couldn't enroll Scootaloo in flight school if it became necessary, as well as a myriad of other issues which would put their new-found home in a precarious position unless Rainbow could become Scootaloo’s legal guardian.
So, Rainbow began to think about what to do, but there were no easy answers. When Scootaloo first moved in, Rainbow told her that repairing her relationship with her mother was her prerogative. Rainbow would be involved as much or as little as Scootaloo wanted, but now it appeared that getting more involved was inevitable. The only thing she was sure of was that Scootaloo deserved a say, maybe the only one, in where she lived.
She was debating exactly what she wanted to say to Scoots when she heard the telltale sound of hoofsteps coming down the stairs. A few seconds later, Scootaloo came into view, looking remorseful and nervous, her mane more unkempt than usual, and her ears pinned flat against her head.
“Umm... hi, Rainbow Dash,” she said with her eyes cast toward the floor.
“Hey, squirt,” Rainbow replied as though nothing was wrong.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you… uh… that’s it. I’ll leave you alone now.”
Before Scootaloo could even move in the other direction, Rainbow pounced on the opportunity.“C’mere, kid.” Rainbow lifted a wing as an invitation for Scootaloo to sit next to her. The orange filly happily jumped up on the couch and snuggled next to her sister as Rainbow gave her a reassuring squeeze with her wing. “It’s okay. Heh, Rarity would say it was a good thing.”
“Huh? You’re not mad at me?”, Scootaloo said, surprised.
Rainbow started to say what few words she had carefully been able to craft, but ended up abandoning them three words in. “No, I’m not mad at you. What happened… aw, hay kid, there isn’t a right way to deal with this sort of thing. What happened to you sucks, and I figure you gotta have all sorts of emotions swirling around in that noggin. I’m not sure how I would handle it, and you’re just a filly. So if you’re mad, be mad. No one can tell you how to feel. And if you need to yell at somepony, it might as well be me. I won’t take it personally.”
“But I don’t want to yell at you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Rainbow’s heart melted more than a little at that last statement.
“You’re okay too,” she said as she lightly pressed her forehead to Scootaloo’s, definitely not choking up at all. “You open that letter?”
“Yeah, it didn’t really say anything; just hi." She paused for a moment, then pressed her head into Rainbow’s shoulder, taking comfort in the familiar haven. She turned her face sideways feeling the soft fur against her cheek, “Sometimes I feel like maybe I can forgive her, and then sometimes I get so mad. How could she not believe me...?” Scootaloo asked with equal parts pain and anger.
“I don’t know, kid,” Rainbow said, giving Scootaloo a quick nuzzle across the top of her head to reassure her. “We need to talk about your mom, though.”
Rainbow could feel Scootaloo tense up under her wing. “Why?”
“Because she’s your mom, and you’re a filly. With one letter to FPS, she could force you to move back in with her.”
“Why would she do that? I like it here,” Scootaloo said, unable to conceal the fear in her voice.
“I know you do, and I don’t think she would do that; but the law says fillies belong with their parents unless there’s a really good reason why they shouldn’t be.” Rainbow figured that since she had committed to being honest with the kid she might as well go all the way with it. “We should probably start thinking about if you want to make this permanent.” She paused, hesitant about saying the next part. After a long sigh, she let it out. “If you wanted, I could try and adopt you.”
Scootaloo’s eyes went wider than Rainbow had ever seen them. “You’d do that? You’d be like my new mom?” she asked with a hope filled voice that made Rainbow definitely not choke up again.
“Eh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Rainbow said, momentarily deflating Scootaloo’s optimism. “I mean, your mom’s the pony who powdered your diapered little butt when you were a foal. Misty’s always going to be your mom, and I’d still be your sister, but yeah, you’d kinda be my responsibility, all official and what not.”
Scootaloo looked down at the floor, her eyes darting back and forth as they did whenever she was unsure of herself. “I think… I think I would like that.”
Rainbow shook her head gently. “You don’t need to decide right now. It’s a big decision, Scoots, and one you really shouldn’t have to make. If you want me to do it, I will, but it’s not as easy as just signing some papers.
“What would I have to do?”
Having decided that Scootaloo deserved some say in where she lived, Rainbow couldn’t very well sugarcoat the process. “Well, the easiest way to do it would be if your mom wrote a letter saying that she was okay with me being your legal guardian. I don’t think she’d do it if I asked her to, but if you sat down with her and explained that this is what you wanted, she might.”
“What if she says no?”
Rainbow sighed; the idea of fighting Misty for custody of her only daughter in a court battle was not a scenario she particularly wanted to contemplate. “I could ask a judge to award me custody anyway. Twilight might support it, but if your mom says no, this could get really ugly, Scoots. Look, like I said, this isn’t the type of thing that you should ever have to worry about, but whatever you decide, I’ll support you the best I can.”
“I don’t want to cause anymore problems for you,” Scootaloo said softly.
“Hey, I thought I told you to let me worry about that stuff?” Rainbow looked down at the filly still snuggled close to her. “You don’t have to decide anything right now: and no matter what, I will still love you, squirt. Never forget that, okay?”
Scootaloo looked up at the pony who she had come to depend on to make her feel safe. “I love you too,” she replied, unable to otherwise express her feelings.
The pair shared a hug for a few tender moments before Rainbow broke it, clearing her throat. “Umm, getting a little mushy in here squirt. How bout another episode of Baking Bad? We’re almost done with the series.”
Scootaloo giggled. “You’re the mushy one,” she said as she climbed on top of Rainbow’s head, her preferred TV watching spot.
“Bah,” Rainbow replied eloquently, taking a playful swipe at the filly burrowing into her mane.
After an episode of Baking Bad, things were really not going well for anypony on that show, and after a bedtime story, both ponies fell asleep in their own respective beds.
The next day of Scootaloo’s suspension passed without incident. She spent the day at Fluttershy’s and Rainbow went to work on her usual day shift; nothing of note happened to either pony, much to Scootaloo’s disappointment. - Later that evening, Rainbow was surprised to see Scootaloo sitting at the table staring at an empty sheet of paper.
“Whatcha doin there, squirt? It’s almost time for bed.”
“I have to write a stupid apology letter to Diamond Tiara,” The filly replied glumly. “I don’t know what to say.”
Rainbow chuckled softly. “Wanna know a secret about apologies? You don’t have to mean them.”
Scootaloo’s eyes went wide with surprise. “I don’t? Mrs. Cheerilee always says that you shouldn’t say you’re sorry if you don’t mean it.”
“Are you sorry you hit Diamond Tiara?”
“No.”
“Is Cheerilee going to let you go back to class if you don’t write an apology?” Scootaloo shook her head. “Then you say you’re sorry whether you mean it or not.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“‘I’m sorry’. You don’t need to say anything more than that.”
Scootaloo scribbled a quick note and folded it up with a smile. “Bedtime story?”
Rainbow chuckled again, “Bedtime story.”
The next day, when Rainbow dropped her off at school, Scootaloo was surprised to see her two friends running over to her as she walked up. “Scootaloo! Diamond Tiara was telling everypony that Cheerilee had you arrested and sent to jail and that nopony would ever see you again!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed excitedly as she gave her friend a bone-crushing hug.
“We were gonna go bug Twilight to pardon you, but Applejack said you weren’t in jail,” Applebloom added.
“Oh, nope, I was just at Fluttershy’s. Did I miss anything while I was gone?” Scootaloo asked, catching her breath, recovering from Sweetie’s enthusiastic greeting.
“Not really. Diamond was suspended for one day, and Snails actually ate a snail, but other than that it’s been same ol’ same ol’,” Sweetie said.
Scootaloo was about to finish catching up with her friends when Cheerilee stepped outside.
“Diamond Tiara, Scootaloo, could you both come with me please?” she announced in her formal, ‘I’m-serious’ voice.
Scootaloo and Diamond gave a quick nod to their respective friends and followed their teacher into the classroom. The two fillies glared at each other from opposite sides Cheerilee as she began the peace accords.
“Diamond, do you have something you’d like to say to Scootaloo?” Cheerilee asked.
“I’m sorry,” the pink filly said nonchalantly as she handed Scootaloo a small note card.
Dear Scootaloo, I’m sorry I called you a chicken; I know it must have made you feel bad because you can’t fly. Diamond Tiara
Scootaloo rolled her eyes at Diamond’s passive aggressive note, though she wasn’t really in a position to throw stones regarding heartfelt apologies.
“Thank you, Diamond. Now, Scootaloo, do you have anything you’d like to say to Diamond Tiara?”
“I’m sorry,” she said flatly while handing her own apology note to Diamond.
Dear Diamond Tiara, I’m sorry I punched you in the face and made you cry. Scootaloo
Diamond quickly read the note and scowled at the pegasus standing in front of her. The pair made eye contact as they shared the understanding that their feud was far from over.
Cheerilee sighed, fully aware that she had not brokered any sort of lasting peace agreement. “Thank you, Scootaloo. You know you girls could really help each other if you gave friendship half a chance. But, if you can’t play nice, do you think you could at least leave each other alone?”
“Yes, Mrs. Cheerilee,” both fillies replied deadpan and in unison.
Cheerilee sighed again. If her experience had taught her anything, this was unlikely to be the last time the three of them met under these circumstances “Go take your seats. I’m going to call the rest of the class inside.”
That’s not your conscience talking, that’s your ego,
The rest of the school day passed without incident. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon ate lunch on the opposite side of the playground from the Crusaders, and even the relative freedom of arts and crafts time didn’t afford Diamond an opportunity to take any of her usual potshots at the crusading trio, since the warring tribes were situated on opposite sides of the room.
Scootaloo was happily heading homeward after treating herself to an afternoon milkshake from Sugarcube Corner. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were helping Rarity with some fashion thing, but though Sweetie Belle had explained it in more detail, all Scootaloo heard after “dresses” was a lot of white noise. As much as Scootaloo loved being with her friends, she was more than willing to skip that particular adventure. Her wings were buzzing as they propelled her scooter in the direction of her home, when her front wheel abruptly stopped spinning, its motion inhibited by an unseen trip wire. Her scooter followed suit, but she kept going, her momentum carrying her up over her handlebars. Scootaloo hit the ground hard, face first, only her helmet saving her from serious injury.
Scootaloo tried to stand up, but quickly noticed a weight pressing against her back. She tried to twist to see what it was, but found that her head was being held in the dirt, and no amount of thrashing could dislodge whatever was keeping her pinned.
Without warning she felt the pressure on her back ease up, but before she could stand, Scootaloo was overwhelmed with the sensation of a sticky viscous substance covering her entire body. It reminded her of the many times she and the crusaders had been covered in tree sap, only this liquid flowed a little more freely. Scootaloo opened her eyes in an attempt to figure out what was happening, only to see a white mass of feathers flying toward her. They landed everywhere, held against her body by the sticky syrup, with some getting in her mouth.
“Hey, Chickenloo looks even more like a chicken now!” a familiar voice said in its usual scornful mocking tone.
“Haha, yeah she does,” called a second, also familiar, also mocking voice.
Disoriented and frightened, Scootaloo spit out the awful taste of feathers and tried to run away, but the combination of syrup and feathers left her unable to get any traction, and she ended up tripping over her own forelegs, hitting the ground face first again with a resounding thump. The adrenaline temporarily blocked out any pain from the fall and she immediately started to get up again until she felt a sharp blow land squarely between her wings.
The strike itself was not all that strong, but the sensation of being alone and frightened while somepony hit her was enough to shatter the mental barriers she had put up that separated her conscious thoughts from her memories of being abused. Acting on pure instinct, she curled up into a ball in an attempt to hide behind her tail as she whimpered, her forelegs shielding her face. She felt a sharp kick to the ribs which elicited a frightened yelp and a louder whimper while she began shaking uncontrollably. Unable to come up with a different course of action, she cried out, “Please stop,” begging with a pitiful wail, not really expecting her plea to have any effect, seeing as how it hadn’t ever before. Her eyes clenched tight, she didn’t see Diamond Tiara rear back for another punch, but she also didn’t see Silver Spoon grab her friend’s foreleg.
“Diamond, stop; look at her! Just… you made your point okay? Let’s just go.”
Diamond glared at her friend as though she might hit her too, but that look passed as quickly as it arrived. It was quickly replaced by her usual haughty contempt and directed back toward Scootaloo. “Never touch me again! Got it, blank flank?” she spat at the still trembling mess of syrup and feathers at her hooves.
As a final act, adding insult to injury, Diamond Tiara picked up the fallen scooter by its handle bars, reared up on her hind legs, and, ignoring a protest from Silver Spoon, swung the toy as hard as she could toward the nearest tree. Scootaloo lay on the ground, unable to stop trembling, with her eyes still squeezed tightly shut. She didn’t see her prized possession collide with the oak tree but she could hear the telltale sharp crack of what could only be her baseboard splitting in two as it was ripped from the handlebars. She then heard the dull thud of Diamond Tiara hitting her handlebars against the thick trunk, followed by the muted clatter of the pink pony dropping them. The last thing she heard was a satisfied sounding huff. She didn’t hear anything, other than the wind blowing through the leaves, and her own ragged breathing, for a while after that.
When Scootaloo finally did open her eyes, she could make out the blue remnants of her scooter behind her tear blurred vision. Sniffling and fighting back more tears she slowly picked up the pieces and began to trudge in the direction of the CMC clubhouse. It wasn’t her first choice of refuge, but she didn’t want to walk through town covered in chicken feathers, crying and holding the broken pieces of her scooter; that would invite stares and questions.
She reached the clubhouse without running into anypony and let herself in; the clubhouse was devoid of any other inhabitants. Once inside, she set the pieces of her scooter down in the center of the room to be dealt with later, and curled up in the corner, trying to find comfort in the familiar surroundings. Her self-imposed exile quickly turned into a battle within herself; the rational side of her brain fighting the part of her brain that only understood fear.
It’s okay. It was just Diamond Tiara playing a stupid joke. You’re safe now.
You’re never going to be safe. She hurt you and you couldn’t stop it. Next time will be worse.
There isn’t going to be a next time.
There will always be a next time!
No there won’t. Things are different now. Rainbow Dash will protect me!
Don’t you get it? Nopony can protect you! Lighting Strike, Diamond Tiara, it doesn’t matter. There are always going to be monsters waiting for you in the shadows.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but a different familiar voice cut through her internal quarrel.
“Scootaloo! What happened?”
Wracked with fright, Scootaloo could only eke out one word. “Diamond.”
It was an unusual scene. From what Apple Bloom could piece together, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, because Silver did whatever Diamond told her to, had covered Scootaloo in syrup and feathers and then broke her scooter. It was a mean thing to do, sure, but Applebloom couldn’t quite figure out why it resulted in a near catatonic Scootaloo. Their adventures as the Cutie Mark Crusaders resulted in them being covered in all sorts of substances surprisingly often; tree sap, syrup and mud to name a few, and Scootaloo never really had a problem with it. She could understand if Scootaloo was upset that her scooter had been broken, but that should make her mad, not scared; despite this, her friend could barely string together two sentences as she sat curled up in the corner. Unsure of exactly how to deal with the situation playing itself out in the clubhouse, Apple Bloom began to focus on the pieces of the scooter; she couldn’t fix her friend but she could at least try to fix that.
The three ponies settled into a somber rhythm. Sweetie Belle helped Scootaloo pick her coat clean, while Apple Bloom set to work on trying to repair the damaged scooter. Both processes were slow going; every few feathers Sweetie Belle would give her friend a reassuring hug or gentle pat on the back, trying to hide her own pain at seeing her friend so distressed, and Apple Bloom was having a hard time figuring out exactly how, or even if it was possible, to repair the damage, but both activities gave the three friends something to focus on other than the negative thoughts swirling around in the ether. The fragile tranquility was soon broken by a soft knock. The trio looked over their shoulders to see a sorrowful looking Silver Spoon standing in their doorway.
Applebloom wheeled around to face the timid intruder. “What the hay are you doin’ here?” she snapped.
Silver Spoon spoke softly. “I came to say I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to go like that.”
Apple Bloom glared daggers at the filly standing in front of her. Scootaloo stayed curled up in the corner, with her back turned, unable to face her assailant, as Sweetie Belle alternately hugged her friend and tried to pick the last of the white feathers out of her orange coat. “So ya knew what she was planning ta do?” Apple Bloom said through gritted teeth, the fact that she herself didn’t know exactly what had happened was immaterial for the moment.
“Not really, like I said-”
“Did yah try an’ stop her?”
“I told her-”
“Did you tell anypony else what she was goin’ ta do so maybe they coulda stopped her?”
Silver Spoon shook her head sadly.
“Then get out ‘fore Ah kick your teeth in. And you tell DT the next time Ah see her, me and her are gonna have ourselves a reckoning. The only reason Ah’m letting you walk out of here is you’re just a stooge,” Apple Bloom snarled. She still didn’t know exactly what had happened but she did know that Diamond Tiara was responsible, and that was enough for her nemesis to earn a spot on her reckoning list.
Silver Spoon started to say something else, but a harsh glare from Apple Bloom told her that she would have to wait to plead her case further. Before she left she reached into her saddle bags and pulled out a small bag of bits. “I think there’s enough in here to buy a new scooter,” she said quietly, leaving the bits by the door.
Apple Bloom picked up the bag and set in on the table, unsure of whether to accept the seemingly apologetic gift. The trio was about to resume their previous activities when they were again interrupted, this time by Apple Bloom’s older sister.
“Hey girls, I thought I saw Silver-what the hay happened?” Applejack exclaimed, surprised by both the mess and cowering filly she saw in the clubhouse.
“Ah don’t really know, but I know Diamond Tiara had something ta do with it,” Apple Bloom said, unable to mask her anger.
Applejack shook her head. “That does it. I’m headin’ over to the rich estate and Filthy and I are gonna settle this feud y’all have been having like adults.”
Apple Bloom looked back toward her friend, cowering in the corner, and then up at her sister, and placed a hoof on her back leg to stop her from leaving .“Umm, sis, it’s not that I don’t think you should do that, but I think you better go find Rainbow Dash first...”
Applejack looked over at Scootaloo and then studied her own little sister carefully; the concern in her eyes told Applejack everything she needed to know. “Well look at you bein’ all level headed and what not. Yeah, I’ll go find Dash. You girls stay here,” she said with a faintly prideful smile.
Applejack sprinted into town for no other reason than that’s where ponies tended to congregate, and therefore the odds that one of them would have seen Rainbow were comparatively higher there than say out by the Everfree Forest. Luckily for Applejack, she didn’t have to question anypony because as she galloped into the town square she spotted the telltale prismatic mane of the pony she was looking for.
“Hey RD, I don’t know what happened, but it seems like Diamond Tiara did some kinda number on Scoots. She’s at the clubhouse and you might wanna get to her. She seems pretty shaken up,” Applejack gasped out between breaths.
As Rainbow Dash processed what Applejack was telling her, only one thought kept repeating itself: Diamond Tiara hurt Scootaloo. Somepony had dared to attack the one thing Rainbow had sworn to protect. The only possible response was to respond with extreme prejudice. “When I get my hoofs on that little-” she growled involuntarily.
“What are ya gonna do, Dash? You gonna hit a filly?” Applejack interrupted before Rainbow could finish her thought process.
“Damn straight I am.”
“Gotta say, Dash, I figured you’d have some mighty strong feelings against foal abuse.”
“Don’t you dare say that to me! This is different and you know it.”
“Aw hay Dash, it’s kinda not.” Applejack softened her glare, lest she ended up inadvertently challenging her competitive friend. “Believe me, Ah get it. Somepony hurt your little sister, and now you’re fixin to get some payback, but you can’t go an’ punch this particular problem. DT would go cryin’ to her Dad, and you’d end up in jail. By the way, don’t the Wonderbolts have a few things to say about ponies with a record joinin’ their ranks?”
“So you want me to sit and do nothing? Nuh uh, sorry, ain’t gonna happen,” Rainbow Dash said, shaking her head.
“Ah’m not sayin’ do nothing. Right now, you got a scared filly in her clubhouse that could really use her big sister. Go get Scoots, and tomorrow, when you’ve calmed down a bit, you and I will head over to Filthy’s and handle this like adults, cause consarnit that’s the right thing to do.”
“Damn it AJ, I promised I’d protect her! If nothing else I should be able to do that.”
Applejack took her ever present Stetson off and held it between her hoofs so she could better look her friend in the eye. “That’s not your conscience talking, sugarcube. That’s your ego.”
Rainbow looked at her friend. It seemed as though the hard won lines on her face were slightly more prominent than usual. Rainbow sighed; she didn’t have a monopoly on tragedy. AJ had lost her parents, was largely responsible for taking care of her family and woke up every day with that weight squarely on her shoulders. Despite that, or maybe because of it, she was the most level headed pony Rainbow knew. When she talked, ponies tended to listen, and it had nothing to do with her accent. “She’s at the clubhouse?”
Applejack nodded. “Go on. Ah’ll catch up with ya,”
A few minutes of top speed flight later, Rainbow gently poked her head through the doorway of the clubhouse. “Scoots?”
At the sound of Rainbow’s voice, Scootaloo sprinted toward her, desperate for the security she knew could only be found behind the cyan wings. She leaped into Rainbow Dash’s forelegs and made herself as small as possible; pressing herself as close as she physically could to Rainbow’s chest.
Sweetie Belle had done a good job picking the feathers out of her coat, but she still felt sticky, her fur matted down by the residue of whatever syrup Diamond Tiara had used. Rainbow Dash ignored the unpleasant tactile sensation of the viscous liquid on her coat and focused instead on the pony she was holding. Scootaloo felt so fragile curled up in her forelegs, cradled against her chest. It all seemed cosmically unjust. You couldn’t fly faster than light, you couldn’t cheat death and you shouldn’t be allowed to hurt Scootaloo. Not in the sense that it was a bad idea or should be against the law; no, it should be physically impossible, Rainbow thought. Whatever cruel forces governed the workings of the universe should conspire to keep Scootaloo safe, and yet they didn’t, as evidenced by the gummy, slightly trembling, orange ball of fur she was holding.
Rainbow didn’t say anything for a few seconds, letting her presence sooth the scared filly. “Are you hurt?” she asked gently. Looking down, she could see Scootaloo shake her head slowly, and she let out a relieved sigh.
“Is she going to be okay?” piped the shrill voice of Sweetie Belle as both her and Apple Bloom looked up expectantly.
“She’ll be fine. Do you know what happened?”
“No, we came here to drop some stuff off and found her like this. She’s barely said a word.”
“It’s okay, you girls did good. I’m gonna take her home, and you can see her tomorrow. Cool?”
***
Rainbow opened the door and let Scootaloo climb off her back. Rainbow Dash tried to study the filly in front of her. Her coat was still stained with blotches of dried syrup, but other than that it didn’t appear as though she had sustained any serious injuries. Far more troubling was the look on her face. It was a look of resignation, as though Scootaloo believed that her present safety was only temporary, and the knowledge that she was forever doomed to repeat her cycle of fear had taken the spark out of her eyes. At that moment, Rainbow would have done anything to see just a trace of the light she was used to reading on Scootaloo’s face, but she had no idea how to get it back.
“How ya doin’ kid?”
“I’m all sticky,” Scootaloo said quietly.
Rainbow couldn’t help but smile a little. If Scootaloo was worried about being sticky, then maybe the old Scootaloo was in there somewhere. “Shower’s where you left it,” she offered.
Scootaloo shrugged and slowly trudged in the direction of the shower. A few minutes later, Rainbow heard the familiar pitter-patter of water hitting the ground. A part of her wanted to stand outside the door, the belief that if she was physically closer to Scootaloo then she could help her more effectively, but as Rainbow heard the shower run she was reminded that her own coat was more than a bit of a mess. She quickly flew upstairs and had her own shower, in a rush to finish so that she could be there to comfort Scootaloo as soon as physically possible.
Scootaloo came out of the shower, her mane still damp, but her coat restored to its usual luster. She saw Rainbow on the couch and hurried over to her. She wordlessly sat down next to her, but inside felt comforted by the familiar presence.
“Want to talk about what happened?” Rainbow asked.
“I was riding my scooter and Diamond must have been waiting for me. Why does she have to be so mean, Rainbow? It’s not like I ever really did anything to her.”
“I know, kid. Twilight would say that it’s because her Mom walked out on her and her Dad, and so she’s probably lashing out because of some psychological mumbo jumbo. Applejack would probably say that it’s because her Dad spoils her, so she thinks she’s better than everyone. Fluttershy would tell you that she just needs a hug. Me? I think that some ponies are just born jerks.”
Scootaloo sniffled loudly, “There was a moment back in the forest, when I didn’t know what was happening…I thought maybe he escaped and found me.” There was no need for Scootaloo to clarify who she meant.
“That could never happen,” Rainbow said softly.
“How can you be so sure?”
Rainbow could have lied, and at that moment she desperately wanted to lie, but that desire forced her to confront the real reason she hadn’t told Scootaloo the whole truth about what happened the night Lightning Strike broke in. The fact that she hadn’t told Scootaloo what happened had nothing to do with the idea that Scootaloo wouldn’t understand what had happened, and everything to do with the idea that she would. And that understanding the terrible thing Rainbow had done, regardless of why she did it, would cause Scootaloo to be afraid of her.
Faced with that possibility, and Rainbow knew that Scootaloo being scared of her would be the worst possible thing for both of them, Rainbow could have said that Celestia turned Lightning Strike to stone as a punishment like she had done with Discord, or that he was locked away in a vault somewhere in the mountains. She could have even said that he was executed, which was sort of true; whatever lie she told, Scootaloo would believe it, but Rainbow couldn’t lie to her sister, and as a result she found the confession spilling out of her. “I killed him, Scoots. He hurt you, and then he broke in, and he was going to hurt you again… there’s a lot of things I can forgive, but that just isn’t one of them.”
Scootaloo flinched as she listened to Rainbow’s admission that she had committed murder. “You…?”
Rainbow tried to study the filly’s face, desperate for any clues that would let her know how she was feeling, but all she got was blank stare. “I would never hurt you, kid. You have to know that.”
Scootaloo sat there for an eternity, her eyes darting back and forth as she stared at the ground, her wings giving the occasional twitch as she processed the new information. “Good,” she finally said quietly. Her voice grew louder. “I’m glad. I don’t care if it makes me a bad pony. He’s dead, and I’m glad and I wish that I could have done it myself.” The rest of Scootaloos catharsis was lost in a mix of gibberish and tears as she broke down sobbing. “He hurt me,” she squeaked out, burying her face in Rainbow’s chest.
Rainbow wrapped a wing around her sister and stroked the soft purple mane as she let Scootaloo cry her tears out. “I know, kid,” she whispered softly. It took more than a few minutes for Scootaloo to let the waves of pent up anguish and fear wash over her, crashing against her again and again until she could feel their effects start to ebb. Rainbow showed patience that she probably wouldn’t have afforded any other pony, except perhaps Fluttershy, as she continued to stroke Scootaloo’s mane until she could feel the filly’s breathing slow.
Scootaloo wiped at her eyes with a hoof. “I know you would never hurt me. If you were going to, you could have done it. It’d be easy for you,” she said, looking away from Rainbow Dash, but not budging an inch from her spot, nestled close to her big sister.
“What are you talking about Scoots?”
“The first time he hi-” She let out a small hiccup. “The first time he hit me, I didn’t want to believe it happened. But then it happened again, so I became scared... all the time. Every room I walked into, I’d think of how I would escape if I had to. I could jump out the window of school and head toward the forest, dart through the kitchen of Sugarcube corner…well, you get the idea. It was like a reflex. Every room, I wondered how would I escape if he came through the front door?” Rainbow sat in rapt attention, unable to say anything as Scootaloo continued. “So, umm... your house doesn’t really have any exits I could use. It’s probably too high of a jump off the second floor, and you need a key for the back door even from the inside. There’s tank’s pet door, but it’s small enough that I don’t really think I could fit through it. I’m not strong enough to bust through the cloud walls, and even if I could, I’d still be trapped on top of a cloud fifteen feet off the ground. You could fly down faster than I could use the cloud ladder.
Rainbow found herself holding back a tear. “Scoots, I-”
Scootaloo looked up, catching her sister’s eye, “You would never hurt me.”
Rainbow gripped Scootaloo in a fierce hug, with both of her wings folding around Scootaloo’s back, so that the filly was entirely enveloped in the embrace. She only eased her grip when she felt her squeeze back. Unable to come up with anything to say, she kept Scootaloo shielded from the outside world save for a small tuft of purple mane that peered out from above her wing.
“Thank you,” Scootaloo whispered from her haven. The fact that she had lost count of the number of times she wished she could better express herself did nothing to deter her sincerity.
The emotional weight of the evening began to take its toll, and Rainbow suddenly found herself a kind of exhausted she had rarely ever felt. “We should get some sleep, kid,” Rainbow said, giving Scootaloo a gentle nuzzle across her face.
“I’m brave enough to sleep by myself,” Scootaloo said, as much for her own conformation as Rainbow’s.
“I know you are, but I’m not. I… you’re my little pony, Scoots. I’m going to be up every hour making sure you’re okay. I’d like to not have to get out of bed to do it.”
The faintest hint of a smile crossed Scootaloo’s lips, and for the briefest moment Rainbow saw the light in Scootaloo’s eyes turn back on. “Only because you asked nicely.”
Rainbow cracked a faint smile back and the pair shared another hug, tenderer this time, as Rainbow felt a great weight being removed from her conscience. For her, the hug was confirmation that Scootaloo still loved her, unquestioningly and uncritically. Knowing what Rainbow had done didn’t change that. For Scootaloo, the hug was all the proof she needed to know that it didn’t matter how many monsters were waiting in the shadows. She had her very own cyan guardian to keep them at bay.
True to her word, Rainbow woke up every hour, it wasn’t that she didn’t want a good night sleep. In her head she knew Scoots was safe, snuggled up and cozy in bed, but despite knowing that, she would drift off to sleep only to be startled awake by panic that didn’t abate until Rainbow again laid eyes on the small orange pegasus and confirmed that she was still blissfully sleeping next to her.
During one of these interruptions, Rainbow couldn’t help but acknowledge the constricting pain she felt in her chest: it actually, physically, hurt to care about somepony this much. But as much as she hated the tightness she was presently experiencing, she was more than willing to endure it in exchange for the amount of sheer joy she felt when she looked down at the sleeping filly.
Though Scootaloo had still looked troubled when she had gone to bed, snuggling as close as she could to her big sister, while she slept her face was a picture of serenity, adorned with a small grin. Rainbow ached very badly to scoop the filly up in her forelegs and hold her close, but instead opted to gently touch her soft purple mane and reassert her snuggle grip before she drifted off to sleep, only to repeat the process an hour later.
After the seventh time she woke up, the sun began to shine through the window and Rainbow decided to wake up in earnest, rather than subject herself to another panic-shortened nap. Because it was still early, and Scootaloo did look so peaceful, Rainbow was loathe to wake her, instead opting to just lie in bed and watch Scootaloo’s wings rise and fall with each breath. Eventually the filly’s wings began to twitch and her eyes began to flutter, the telltale signs of a filly about to wake up. She waited until Scootaloo had opened her eyes completely before grabbing the filly and hoisting her in the air. Rainbow rolled on her back and held Scootaloo above her head, their bodies parallel, looking up at her charge fondly.
“Morning, squirt,” she said as she lifted Scootaloo in the air up and down a few times as though she was a fuzzy barbell. “You know this isn’t bad exercise,” she mused, grinning widely.
Scootaloo giggled groggily from her perch. “You call that a rep? Where are you from cadet?” she barked out in a high pitched, not quite drill sergeant material, cadence.
“Ponyville, ma’am,” Rainbow responded, continuing to raise and lower Scootaloo.
“Ponyville? Only two things come from Ponyville! Apples and cupcakes, and I ain’t never seen no blue apple,” Scootaloo barked back, trying to sound menacing but failing miserably.
“This is why weights don’t talk,” Rainbow groused playfully as she set Scootaloo down on her chest gently, wrinkling her snout as Scootaloo’s mane tickled her nose. “Sleep okay, kid?” she asked, instinctively wrapping a foreleg around Scootaloo in a half hug. She could feel Scootaloo’s fur rub against her own as the filly nodded and burrowed into the embrace. “How ya doing?” Rainbow asked softly.
Scootaloo scrunched her face and looked up. “I think I’m a little better,” she said a bit more tentatively than Rainbow would have liked. However, Scootaloo nuzzled Rainbow affectionately, temporarily putting her worries at ease. “I’m hungry,” the filly declared with an air of confidence.
A wry grin began to form on Rainbow’s face. “Okay, I can fix that. How about I go get us some muffins from Sugarcube Corner?”
“Can they be banana nut muffins?” the filly asked, her voice tinged with anticipation.
Rainbow smirked. “Is there any other kind?” They shared a laugh while an idea formed in rainbow Dash’s head. “You wanna come with?”
“Umm... is it okay if I stay here?” Scootaloo asked, gripping Rainbow just a little tighter.
Whether Scootaloo was nervous about facing the outside world, or she just didn’t feel like making a muffin run, Rainbow couldn’t tell. But either way, it didn’t affect her response. “Sure thing, squirt. I’ll be back before you can sneeze.”
Rainbow let Scootaloo ride on her back as the pair headed downstairs. She parked Scoots on the couch with some cartoons and a glass of juice, and after a quick ruffling of her mane and a kiss on the forehead, Rainbow found herself flying to Sugarcube Corner.
Ponyville was generally busy on Saturday mornings and today was no exception. The merchants had their stalls set up, and ponies were running errands and carrying on, just like any other Saturday.
Rainbow Dash’s first stop was the Apple Family stall for a quick visit with Applejack. After a brief conversation, Scootaloo's is doing better, so yeah, I’ll bring her by, and then we can head over to the Rich’s, she continued on her quest to pick up a breakfast.
But as Rainbow approached Sugar Cube Corner, she saw Diamond Tiara happily trotting out of the bakery with a box that Rainbow assumed contained at least one cupcake. She quickly took back to the sky in order to avoid the gaze of the tiara-wearing filly, but even from her distant position in the clouds, Rainbow could tell that Diamond Tiara didn’t have a care in the world, and that was not okay with her.
She doesn’t get to hurt Scoots and then eat cupcakes like everything is fine, she thought as the rage within her began to coalesce. Screw Applejack and her plan to handle this, “the responsible way”. When it’s her sister, she can call the shots, the rage reasoned in her head, overruling her other senses. With a flap of her wings, Rainbow Dash softly landed in front of the crown wearing pink filly, just outside the main intersection of the town square. Satisfied that nopony was paying them any attention, Rainbow focused her attention onto the object of her ire. “You’re Diamond Tiara, right? We have a problem here, kid,” she said much more calmly than the situation warranted in her mind.
“What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?” Diamond Tiara replied in her best innocent little filly voice.
“Shut it. I ain’t buyin’ the whole sweet act. You hurt my little sister, and that means you and I have a problem,” Rainbow snapped.
Her cover blown, Diamond Tiara dropped her façade. “You can’t do anything to me. I’m just a filly and my daddy-”
“You’re right. If I hurt you, I could go to jail. You know it and I know it. But there’s something else you need to know.” Rainbow paused for a second so she could be absolutely sure Diamond heard the next part. “There’s literally nothing I wouldn’t do to protect Scootaloo. Trust me when I tell you you have no idea how true that is,” she said quietly but succinctly, her tone sending a chill down Diamond’s spine. This wasn’t the false bravado of a pony trying to look tough; it was an icy dispassion, stating an immutable truth carved in stone.
“So, here’s what’s gonna happen: you’re gonna keep on being a little turd because that’s just who you are.” Diamond Tiara started to protest but a glare from Rainbow silenced her. “I can’t change that. One day you’re going to mouth off to a bigger turd then you are and then maybe you’ll get what’s coming to you, but until then…” Rainbows voice trailed off and she shrugged. “You’re gonna call Scootaloo a chicken, a blank flank, and whatever other stupid names you can think of, because you don’t get that she’s better than you. Like you said, I can’t stop you.” Rainbow lowered her gaze and glared at Diamond with a white hot intensity she could only remember feeling one other time in her life, albeit in a similar situation. “But if you ever hurt her again, you and I are going to have another one of these talks, only it won’t be a conversation. Understand?”
Diamond Tiara swallowed the lump of fear building up in her throat and nodded. She started to open her mouth but quickly closed it before trotting off, visibly shaken.
Satisfied that she had made her point, Rainbow happily flew home for breakfast with Scoots. She wasn’t sure if Pinkie’s cupcakes had magical powers, but after witnessing Scootaloo happily wolf down her muffin she wouldn’t bet against it.
“That wath awthsome!” Scootaloo muffled-ly shouted with a mouth still half full of muffin, crumbs flying out as she tried to smile.
“Glad you liked it, but why don’t you finish before trying to talk, okay?” Rainbow playfully chided.
Scootaloo swallowed the last remnants of her muffin with one large gulp. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “So what are we doing today?” she asked, her usual enthusiasm beginning to shine through.
Rainbow paused for a moment to consider how she wanted to answer that question. “I told Applejack I’d bring you to Sweet Apple acres so you can go crusading. Whaddya say?”
Scootaloo hesitated for just a moment before responding, looking down and taking in a deep breath. When she looked back up, it was apparent that she had suppressed whatever demons were bothering her, at least temporarily. “Crusading sounds awesome,” Scootaloo said with no apparent reservations.
Rainbow ruffled Scootaloo’s mane, and after a quick post-breakfast routine, Scootaloo was securely perched on Rainbow’s back as the pair flew toward Sweet Apple Acres.
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo arrived at the familiar property and trotted toward the barn where they found Applejack and the other two crusaders. The three ponies turned to look at them as they walked in. There was a slight tension in the air, nopony willing to broach the obvious topic of conversation. Scootaloo spoke first. “Hey, girls. Sorry I kinda freaked out on ya the other day,” she said, blushing a little bit.
“It’s okay Scootaloo. We’re glad you’re feeling better,” Sweetie Belle offered with a reassuring smile, the tension in the barn dissipating as it became apparent that the aftereffects of Scootaloo’s ordeal were fading.
Topic broached, Apple Bloom decided it was time to get back to business as usual.“C’mon, we’ve got a surprise for you. It’s in the clubhouse,” Apple Bloom said, leading the group toward the familiar wooden structure on the outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres.
Rainbow Dash glanced over at Applejack to see if she knew what her sister had in store, but her inquiry was met with only a shrug. The five ponies trotted over to the CMC clubhouse, stopping at the door as Apple Bloom turned to face the group.
“So... Ah tried, Scoots, Ah really did, but Ah just couldn’t fix your scooter. The board was cracked and the handle bars were bent. Diamond Tiara is stronger than she looks.”
“Oh,” Scootaloo replied, crestfallen.
“So, we got you this!” Apple Bloom opened the door to the clubhouse with a flourish. Standing in the middle of the room was a shiny new blue scooter. It looked a lot like her old one, only this one was made of solid metal, and had a bright orange flame graphic covering the board.
“No way!” Scootaloo exclaimed as her wings buzzed furiously. “That’s a Thunderbolt! Those are, like, the best scooters ever made!” Her excitement was quickly replaced with a look of guilt. “I can’t take this... it must have cost you a fortune! You should go get your bits back.”
Sweetie Belle shook her head. “I don’t think Silver Spoon knows how much these things cost, seeing as we paid for most of it with the money she left us.”
“Still doesn’t get her off the hook, if ya ask me...” Apple Bloom chimed in.
“Most of it?” Scootaloo asked, a worried look still plastered on her face.
“We kinda both chipped in to cover the rest,” Apple Bloom said.
“But it wasn’t entirely selfless!” Sweetie Belle added, concerned that Scootaloo still looked upset. “This one comes with an actual wagon hitch so you don’t have to tie a rope around the scooter anymore. Now, the wagon won’t sway back and forth so much, which will make for a smoother ride for anypony who might happen to be riding in the wagon.”
A small grin began to replace the worried look on Scootaloo’s face. “Anypony who might happen to be in the wagon?” she asked, more than a little amused at Sweetie’s explanation.
“Yeah, ya know, like if Rumble or Twist or somepony was ridin’ wit’ ya?” Apple Bloom said nodding.
“Rumble or Twist?” Scootaloo asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Okay, fine. Us! It can get scary back there sometimes.” Sweetie Belle said as she threw her forelegs up in mock frustration.
Scootaloo leapt forward and hugged her friends, and the three fillies shared a tender moment, the two older ponies looking on proudly as they reflected on their own friendship. “So, you wanna, maybe, try it out?” Scootaloo asked with a familiar daredevil gleam in her eye.
“You bet! Can we, Applejack? Please?” Apple Bloom said, as all three fillies looked up with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Ah don’t see why not, an’ Rainbow an’ I got stuff ta do anyways. You girls have fun, but be careful.” Rainbow Dash and Applejack watched as the three fillies scurried away toward the hills, scooter and wagon in tow.
“You ready to head on over to Filthy’s? We’re gonna settle this thing like calm an’ civilized ponies, okay?” Applejack asked as the scooter disappeared over the nearest hill.
“Yeah, sure, but I ran into Diamond this morning. I don’t think she’ll be bothering Scoots again,” Rainbow Dash replied, sounding a bit more smug than she meant to.
Expecting to see a nod of approval or maybe even satisfaction on her friends face, Rainbow was startled when she glanced at Applejack and saw only disbelief mixed with a touch of anger. “Ah’m gonna guess that you didn’t politely explain to her that bein’ mean is wrong.”
Rainbow shrugged nonchalantly. “Something like that,” she said, glancing away from Applejacks glare.
“You idiot!”Applejack shouted at Rainbow. She held her head low for a moment, then looked up at Rainbow again. “Well, we ain’t goin to the Rich’s now.”
“Why not!?” Rainbow Dash shot back.
“‘Cause if Diamond Tiara hasn’t already said anything, it’s only because she doesn’t want to get in trouble. So, if we talk to her dad, she’s got no reason to keep quiet. Either way, if we go over there now, he ain’t gonna be worried that his daughter’s bullying Scoots, ‘cause it’s gonna be, ‘What the hay were you doing threatenin’ my child?’ And while I got no problem with you learnin’ that actions have consequences, I’ll be darned if Scootaloo doesn’t need ya around.”
Rainbow Dash bristled at her friend’s summation. She protected Scoots, and instead of getting a pat on the back from a pony who darn well knew what family meant, she was being upbraided. The anti-authoritarian attitude that had gotten her in trouble as a filly reared its ugly head. “What’s your deal, AJ? I solved the problem. Anypony who messes with Scoots, has to deal with me, that’s the way it is,” she said, glaring daggers at the farm pony.
“Oh, grow up RD! Ya ain’t a filly anymore. You don’t get to threaten a child, no matter what they did.”
“Whatever. You just don’t understand,” Rainbow said, less under her breath than she intended.
Applejack glared at Rainbow, and if looks could kill, Rainbow wouldn’t have been dead, but she would have certainly been on life-support. “Ah’m gonna ignore the way you just suggested that you love yer family more than Ah love mine, cause it ain’t a competition.” Applejack took a deep breath, and when she spoke again the edge to her voice was somewhat blunted. “Did you know we used to raise sheep on this farm?”
“No, I didn’t know that. But what does that have to do with telling me how stupid I was?” Rainbow replied, unwilling to accept Applejack’s ceasefire.
“Oh believe you me ah’m getting to that part. Before we bought the south orchard, we rented it as grazing land for a small herd of sheep, and ‘cause it’s near the Everfree Forest, we needed a sheepdog to scare away the timberwolves.”
“Winona?”
Applejack smiled fondly as she thought about her faithful companion. “Naw, Winona’s just a pet, and a great one in her own way, but she doesn’t do any real work. This was when I was just a filly, not even as old as Scoots and Apple Bloom are now. Winona’s daddy was a dog named Rider; he was a sheep dog, and a mighty good one at that. My hoof to Celestia, Ah saw him stare down a timberwolf three times his size once. Anyways the sheep never did much like Rider, and ah couldn’t figure out why. So ah went ta Pa and asked him why the sheep didn’t like Rider. After all, he protected them from the timberwolves.”
“Hey, Scoots likes me plenty!” Rainbow interjected with more than a trace of indignation.
“Ah know she does, sug’. Jus’ let me finish my story. It ain’t like we got anywhere to go today. This is what Pa told me: it’s not that the sheep didn’t like Rider, but they couldn’t help but be a little scared of him. What with the pointy ears an’ sharp teeth, they’d assume he was a timber wolf if they didn’t know any better. He had to be scary looking, after all, ‘cause timberwolves don’t scare easy, but that same fierceness that protected the sheep could have easily been on the other side of the glade, and they knew it.”
“I swear, AJ, I have no idea what nugget of Apple-bred wisdom you’re trying to get me to learn, but so far, all I’ve heard is you tell a story about some sheep and a dog,” Rainbow said with an exasperated sigh.
“My point is that you can be downright scary sometimes Dash, and when you get angry, it’s not hard to imagine you on the other side of the glade!” Applejack snapped back.
Rainbow Dash sat down on her haunches, unable to come up with a response. Sure, she was tough and brash, but that’s just who she was. The idea that her friends might actually be scared of her made her feel definitely not-awesome. If she didn’t know any better, she would think that her present feeling could be described as being somewhere between guilt and shame.
Applejack tried to smile reassuringly, aware of the the unintended effect of her outburst . “I know you’re a good sort, and believe me, when those changelings attacked, Ah was mighty glad you were on our side. But, do ya think that maybe, when you scared that little filly, she felt just a little like Scootaloo when she was being hurt?” Applejacks voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Helpless and scared. I don’t care what kinda spoiled brat ya are; ain’t no filly ever deserves to feel that.”
“She hurt Scootaloo...” Rainbow said without much conviction, her last gasp at trying to justify her actions.
“Doesn’t make what you did okay. Pa used to say something about two wrongs not makin’ a right, too,” Applejack finished softly.
“Have you ever been scared of me? Has Applebloom?” Rainbow asked, looking to her friend in earnest, more than a little scared at what the response might be.
Applejack looked at Rainbow with the concern she felt for the pegasus written plainly on her face, trying to let her expression convince Rainbow of the sincerity of her words . “Aw shucks sugarcube, any pony who meets you can tell within ten minutes you ain’t nothin but a big blue marshmallow. I ain't never been anything but glad to be your friend. But Ah’m guessin’ that lil’ one doesn’t know that about ya.”
“I just wanted to protect Scootaloo,” Rainbow said quietly.
“I know ya did, but that don’t change the fact that you just wrote Tiara a get out of trouble free card, and that ain’t what she needed. Ya gone an’ mucked this one up, Rainbow.”
The two ponies stood in the barn, staring at each other, until Rainbow broke the silence. Despite being forced to acknowledge that maybe Applejack had something resembling a point, she still couldn’t quite find her way to being sorry about what she had done. Nopony was allowed to mess with Scoots, and if she had to be the bad guy, then so be it. Her anger began to surface again, but rather than try to suppress it, she let it wash over her, taking comfort in its familiarity.
“Well, what am I supposed to do now, huh? If you’ve got all the answers, how about you toss some my way, great bringer of apple wisdom?”
Applejack ignored the barb; she was used to dealing with angry Rainbow Dash. Years of experience had taught her that it was best not to confront her. “Didja actually hurt her?” she asked point blank.
“No, it was just talk,” Rainbow grumbled.
Applejack let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. Ain’t much ta do, then. I might think long an’ hard about offerin’ Diamond Tiara an apology, if Ah were you.”
“No way am I apologizing to that little punk! She still hurt Scootaloo!”
Unwilling to start another confrontation, Applejack backed off, at least temporarily. “Ah’m just sayin’ think about it is all.”
Rainbow Dash grunted a decidedly ambiguous grunt. “Keep an eye on Scootaloo?” she asked, hoping for a cease fire on her terms.
Applejack nodded her assent to Rainbow’s implied offer. “You know Ah will. Ah’ll send her home when those three are all done crusading.”
Rainbow released some of the tension she didn’t realize she had been holding in her shoulders. “Thanks AJ,” she said, offering a conciliatory smile. She wasn’t really mad at Applejack. The problem was, other than Diamond Tiara, she wasn’t really sure who she should be mad at. After all anger is easier to manage when there was a target.
Her afternoon suddenly free of obligation, Rainbow decided to pay a visit to Twilight. Her last visit hadn’t yielded any gains, but that was a few days ago. Surely Twilight had figured something out by now...
Expecting to see the library in the same disheveled state that it was in on her previous visit, Rainbow was surprised when she walked in and saw the library returned to its usual, immaculate condition. There were still several black boards worth of charts and diagrams laid out, but they were sequestered in the back corner along with a small desk that contained a pile of books.
Similarly, Twilight no longer looked like death warmed over; she too was restored to her usual luster, her mane smooth and brushed, and the bags under her eyes no longer apparent. As Rainbow walked in, Twilight looked up from behind her desk with a smile.
“Hello, Rainbow,” Twilight said, looking up from her research.
“Hey, Twi. you look… better.”
“Yeah, well, Spike saw that I was burning the candle at both ends and made me slow down. It’s just as well, too. Some of my research was beginning to border on absurd.”
“Right… so, not to put any pressure on you or anything, but did you find anything?” Rainbow asked tentatively.
“Maybe. At first I started running tests on myself, but then I realized that, as an alicorn, it’s highly probable that my flight is powered by a different set of mechanisms than a pegasus, though I suppose there are some basic similarities. The problem is that there are only four alicorns in existence and it’s not like they’ve ever been studied. I mean, can you imagine Celestia or Luna in a lab hooked up to a bunch of monitors-”
“Twi...”
“Oh, right, Scootaloo. I talked to Snowflake, and he’s agreed to let me run some tests on him. I figured he’d be a good candidate because his wings are also small, so the techniques he uses to fly would probably be the most applicable to Scootaloo, I think. I mean, this is all new research to me.”
“Good idea, Twi,” Rainbow said hoping that she sounded encouraging and not impatient. One fight with a friend was about all she had the emotional energy for today.
Twilight smiled at the praise before her expression changed. It wasn’t outright accusatory, but it did contain a hint of disapproval. “So, Rainbow, I had an interesting talk with Princess Luna the other day.”
“Really? What about?” Rainbow asked, her attempt at feigning ignorance painfully transparent.
“Rainbow…”
“I can’t believe Luna told you,” Rainbow groused. “I just want to help Scootaloo fly. If there’s a spell that can help her, shouldn’t I at least look into it?” she asked, the desperation in her eyes convincing Twilight to try a softer approach.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me? I’m a princess and one of the leading experts on magic in Equestria. Plus, I’m one of the few ponies who has been through at least part of the forbidden archives, and since I’m already researching the workings of Pegasi magic, it just makes sense to compare notes. It’s not like there’s a ‘make pegasi fly’ spell, neatly detailed in a book somewhere.”
“I was kinda hoping there was. But if there’s even a chance that dark magic can help Scootaloo, I have to look into it,” Rainbow said resolutely.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Rainbow; I know how much you love it when ponies do that. But dark magic is dangerous.” Twilight softly emphasized the last word in the hopes that the concern in her voice would cut through Rainbow’s knee jerk reaction to hearing the word ‘danger’. “I’ve studied a lot of magic, and nopony who’s ever used dark magic has come out the other side unscathed. It always exacts a heavy toll. Always.” Twilight’s voice started to crack, and she took a moment to compose herself. “I don’t want to see my friend get hurt,” she finished quietly.
Rainbow couldn’t help but hear the honest to Celestia fear in her friend’s plea, and it caused her to retreat just a little. “Okay, Twi. I hear you. I promise I won’t do anything without talking to you first. But shouldn’t we at least see what Luna comes up with?”
Twilight nodded slowly, recognizing that this was as close as she would get to hearing Rainbow promise to turn away.
“So, why can’t you just give Scootaloo wings, anyway?” Rainbow asked eager to change the subject. “You gave Rarity a pair of giant butterfly wings that one time. Couldn’t you just do the same thing, only make them last longer and look more like pegasus wings?”
“Magic doesn’t work that way, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, shifting into what Rainbow had unceremoniously dubbed ‘egghead mode’. “You can’t create something out of nothing. The wings I gave Rarity were really just large kites. I used most of my magical energy and a little bit of hers to create them, and then I attached them to her magical matrix so she could control their movement; the fact that she’s a unicorn made that easier. Even if I could learn out enough about pegasi magic to both create realistic looking wings and allow to Scootaloo control them, they would still need a permanent energy source to prevent them from disintegrating like Rarity’s did. That type of spell is high level. I would be willing to bet that even Princess Celestia would have a hard time with it. Maybe Starswirl could have pulled it off on a good day. Even if I could pull it off and create a continuous draw from Scootaloo’s energy to make them permanent, it’s almost certain there would be some very harmful side effects. At best she’d be tired all the time; at worst we’re talking coma or...” Twilight’s voice trailed off, unwilling to actually say the word ‘death’ with regard to the filly.
Rainbow threw her forelegs in the air, in the universal gesture for ‘I surrender’. “I get it, Twi. No magick-ing up a pair of wings for Scoots. It’s just… I made her a promise, Twi. I’d like to keep it.”
“I know you would. But don’t give up just yet. I’m making some good progress, and I just need some more time, okay?” Twilight offered, praying that what she was offering wasn’t false hope.
Feeling at least a little better after leaving the library, Rainbow had a flight training session and returned home. It wasn’t long before she heard the sound of a familiar orange filly bursting through the door.
“I love my new scooter!” Scootaloo practically shrieked, clutching her toy to her chest. “We rode down a hill and it was all *whoosh* and the brakes are way better than my old one and I can stop on a bit and I think I can go faster too.”
Rainbow couldn’t help but smile seeing Scootaloo so happy. “So you had a good day then?”
Scootaloo nodded happily, before frowning slightly. “Still no cutie mark though,” she said, a tad dissapointed.
“I keep telling you, you’ll get one when it’s time,” Rainbow said, shaking her head, amused.
For once, Scootaloo’s lack of a cutie mark didn’t seem to bother her. She set her scooter down and stared at it for a moment. “It was really nice of AB and Sweetie to get it for me,” she said, still staring fondly at the blue scooter in front of her.
“Ya got yourself a couple of great friends there, Scoots,”
Scootaloo beamed and smiled as she reflected on the trio’s past misadventures; for all that had gone wrong already in her young life, her relationship with Sweetie and Applebloom was definitely not one of them. Scootaloo ran upstairs and very carefully set her scooter in the corner, resting her helmet on the handle bars, double checking the wheels and bearings to make sure that everything was still perfect.
The two pegasi ate dinner and settled in for a quiet evening which included their new favorite show to binge watch, The Trotting Dead. Scootaloo still prefered to watch perched on Rainbow’s head, occasionally hiding her face in the prismatic mane during the scary parts, not that she would ever admit to being scared of a TV show. For her part, Rainbow again didn’t bother questioning why she allowed Scootaloo to watch another show that was clearly not meant for children; it was a good show and Scootaloo seemed to enjoy it. Rainbow had only been a parental figure for a few months now, but if she had a parental philosophy it could be summed up as ‘as long as Scootaloo is happy’.
A few episodes later, both ponies agreed that it was time for bed. Bedtime at the Rainbow Dash household had become more ritual than method over the course of their time together, one by which Rainbow could convince Scootaloo to go to sleep. Scootaloo didn’t really need a bedtime story, and Rainbow didn’t really need to kiss her little sister goodnight to know she was safe and happy, but ever since that first bedtime story, both pegasi took their own measure of comfort in their little ceremony, and to forgo the ritual would have been unthinkable to either of them.
A partial retelling of Daring Do and the Isle of Beguile later, Rainbow was putting the finishing touches on tucking Scoots in when she noticed the filly’s ears had flattened against her head.
“I want to go talk to my Mom tomorrow. Do you think you could take me?” Scootaloo said, her head barely visible from behind the bed sheet.
“I could,” Rainbow replied hesitantly. A day of crusading had seemed to restore Scootaloo to her exuberant self, and Rainbow was loathe to risk that by letting Scootaloo confront her past. But then she remembered her promise to Scootaloo. She couldn’t adopt Scoots without talking to Misty, and Scootaloo was the best, or rather only, way to avoid an ugly custody fight that she would probably lose. “If that’s what you want, I’ll take you tomorrow,” she said, making sure to keep her voice level.
“I want to stay here,” Scootaloo said delicately, repeating what had almost become a mantra.
Rainbow leaned in and gently wedged a foreleg under Scootaloo, almost lifting her up into a hug, but bending down more than pulling the filly upwards. She felt Scootaloo let out a small neigh of contentment, and held the hug for another long moment before speaking. “You can always stay here, Scoots,” she half whispered before setting her gently back down on the bed.
Scootaloo returned the hug, and asked, “So, we can go tomorrow?” her ears perking up just the tiniest bit.
“If that’s what you want, then yes, we can go tomorrow.”
The next day, after a quick breakfast and a flight, Rainbow and Scootaloo were at the familiar door to Scootaloo’s house. Rainbow took a step back, letting Scootaloo be the one to knock. The filly stood there for a moment, hoofs shuffling as she looked down at the ground before glancing over her shoulder at Rainbow.
“It’s okay, Scoots, I’ll be right here,” Rainbow offered, unable to think of anything else to say.
Misty opened the door with a pleasant look of surprise. “H-hi,” she stammered, and for a moment Rainbow felt bad about springing what could be considered an ambush.
“Can we talk, Mom?” Scootaloo asked, clearly trying to sound confident.
“Well sure, come in,” Misty said, gesturing toward both ponies and putting on a more polite face than the look of shock she wore previously.
“I’m gonna stay out here,” Rainbow said, not wanting to make this anymore awkward than it had to be. Watching the pair go inside, Rainbow again found herself waiting outside the door of Scootaloo’s house while a large part of her life was being decided within. This time, there was no bit to flip, no debate to have in her head, and Misty could say yes and Scoots would be, by some measure, her responsibility and what not, but she could also say no and force Rainbow to find a lawyer. Either way, she couldn’t do anything to influence the outcome. Rainbow had decided against talking to Scoots about what she was going to say in there. These had to be Scootaloo’s words if Misty was going to listen. So she waited, with no idea what was being said aside from the vague outline of, ‘I want to stay with Rainbow.’
Sometime later, the door opened and Rainbow’s eyes instinctively darted toward Scootaloo before she noticed anything else. To her great relief, Scootaloo seemed to be okay: her eyes weren’t red, her breathing wasn’t ragged, and overall, it didn’t look as though she had been crying. But she didn’t look happy either; if Rainbow had to guess, she would have said that Scootaloo was a bit nervous.
“Scootaloo, I need to talk to Rainbow Dash for a few minutes, so why don’t you get some bits out of my purse and go get a treat from Sugarcube Corner?” Misty asked, clearly directing her comments toward the young filly.
Scootaloo looked up questioningly at Rainbow Dash, who gave her a reassuring nod. She grabbed a few bits and quickly scurried out the door, giving both ponies a wordless wave goodbye.
“Did you really think that would work?” Misty asked pointedly as soon as Scootaloo was out of earshot.
“I’m sorry, what?” Rainbow had mentally prepared for a number of responses; this was not one of them.
“Sending my daughter over here to manipulate me,” Misty shot back, her tone undeniably accusatory.
“I wasn’t trying to manipulate you. I just thought if you saw that this is what she wanted-”
“She’s a child! If she wanted to watch Baking Bad, would you let her do that, too?”
“You might want to pick a different example.” Rainbow winced.
“You- really?” Misty said letting out an exasperated sigh.
Rainbow nodded apologetically. “It’s a good show,” she said weakly.
Misty shook her head in an effort to regain her composure. When she looked up she was noticeably calmer, but still angry. “I’m not going to just give you custody of my daughter because you’ve decided you like having her around.”
Tired of being berated by everypony for how she chose to take care of Scootaloo, Rainbow decided to fight back in her typical abrasive way. “You could have gotten her back at any time and you know it, so how about you stop criticizing me for doing your job!” Rainbow snapped, immediately regretting both her choice of words and the tone she used to deliver them.
Misty glared daggers at Rainbow Dash for a moment, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath; when she opened them, her glare had subsided somewhat, but the anger still lurked plainly beneath the surface. “We both know that if I force Scootaloo to move back here before she’s ready, she’ll run away the instant my back turns,” Misty explained as though she was speaking to a child who got her hand caught in the cookie jar and then denied having eaten any cookies. “And if I’m very lucky, she’ll run to your house, but it’s far more likely that she knows I would look there and so she’d head to the Everfree Forest, or even a train to Celestia knows where.”
“Misty, I’m-”
“I’m not finished yet.” Misty wielded the words so sharply that Rainbow promptly closed her mouth. “Even if I do keep an eye on her 24 hours a day, and put bars on her windows, she’ll still run away the first chance she gets, and if I do somehow manage to prevent that, she will still hate me for taking you away from her. You may have noticed that with the way Scootaloo feels things very strongly, there isn’t much of a grey area with her.”
Rainbow was forced to nod in agreement. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen; she just needed my help, and ever since then I’ve been flying blind, hoping to Celestia that I don’t screw up,” Rainbow said, the pain and worry in her voice clearly evident.
Misty let out a wistful chuckle. “Welcome to parenthood.”
“Huh? I’m not a parent.”
“That scared, helpless feeling, the one you just described, is how every parent feels.” Rainbow continued to stare at Misty with a blank expression, which she took as her cue to continue. “The first night I took her home, after all the visits in the hospital, and all the congratulations, it was just me and this tiny orange foal. She was so small and helpless… Clear Skies had run out to make sure we had enough supplies, and I looked down at this sleeping foal in my arms. Ever since then, I’ve second guessed every decision I’ve made. It comes with the territory.” Misty let out a sigh and rubbed her forehead with a hoof as Rainbow stood there, unmoving, across from her. “I’m not unsympathetic to your position,” she said with a weary resignation.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I know you love Scootaloo, and that I know she’s happy with you, and that matters. I told her, and I’m telling you, that I promised she could come back home when she’s ready and I mean that.” Misty took another deep breath. “If you would feel better with some kind of paperwork to that effect, I’ll look into what the options are.”
“You’d do that?”
“If Scootaloo were your daughter, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I would,” Rainbow replied thoughtfully.
“I’ll go talk to a lawyer and I’ll write you when I have a more definitive answer. Does that sound fair to you?”
Rainbow could only nod wordlessly before she flew off to Sugarcube Corner to find Scoots.
Rainbow Dash flew to Sugarcube corner, feeling at least temporarily at ease. The whole issue of whether she had official responsibility for Scootaloo hadn’t been decided, but Misty seemed willing to at least work with her, and that wasn’t nothing. She opened the door to the bakery/ice cream parlor to see Pinkie behind the counter and Scootaloo tepidly licking a chocolate ice cream cone a few feet away. If it was possible for a filly to look troubled while eating ice cream, Scootaloo certainly looked the part. Not that it stopped her from taking a big lick when she saw Rainbow enter the shop; she just didn’t seem all that happy about it.
“What’d she say?” Scootaloo asked nervously as Rainbow approached.
Rainbow gave a cursory wave to Pinkie and sat down in front of the distressed filly. “She told me that you could come home when you were ready to, and that until then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“That’s kinda what she said to me too,” Scootaloo said as she looked up with wide eyes. “Do you think she means it? Adults sometimes say things they don’t really mean,” Scootaloo mumbled, a now familiar distressed look adorning her face.
“I think she meant it Scoots,” Rainbow said, making sure to look Scootaloo in the eyes as she spoke. “Whaddya say you finish that ice cream and we head on home?”
Scootaloo nodded and took another lick of her chocolate cone, this time seeming much happier about it.
They weren’t home for more than a few minutes when Rainbow heard a knock at the door. Unsure of who would be visiting her, she opened the door only to find a midnight purple pony standing at the door. Behind her stood two stallions, each carrying a load of black cases on their backs. “Rainbow Dash? I’m Raven Feather. Dr. Splint may have mentioned me?” the pony said.
Was that today? I’ve got to do a better job remembering this stuff, Rainbow thought. Luckily for her she had been home with Scootaloo when Dr. Feather had arrived. She could only imagine the dressing down she would have received from Dr. Splint if she hadn’t been.
“Oh, yeah, thanks for coming,” Rainbow stammered. “What’s with all the boxes?”
Raven Feather spoke at a brisk pace, her words clipped and precise. “You don’t get to be head trainer for the Wonderbolts without being very good at your job. If this were something simple, like muscle weakness or a stress fracture, Dr. Splint would have diagnosed it and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t have been asked to travel three hundred miles to make a house call. Since he called me for a consult, I’m forced to conclude that the answer we seek may be a little harder to determine. So, give me and my techs a few minutes to set up some equipment here and we can get started.” Her tone wasn’t exactly unfriendly, but it lacked any discernible warmth; however, if she could help Scootaloo fly, Rainbow was more than willing to put up with her lack of bedside manner.
Dr. Feather and her techs walked inside the cloud house and began to set up their makeshift examination room. Scootaloo watched with no small degree of fear as boxes of machines, some sinister looking, were unpacked, hooked up and turned on.
“What’s that?” Scootaloo asked nervously, pointing to a large half cylindrical tube that was being attached to a computer.
“Portable fMRI.”
“Are you going to use it?”
Dr. Feather nodded offhandedly, keeping her attention focused on the readouts flashing across the monitor she was examining.
“Will it hurt?”
Scootaloo’s question caused Dr. Feather to look up and blink a few times as the realization that her patient was not a trained athlete who was used to being prodded dawned on her; she tried to smile reassuringly. “Nope. It’s basically a big fancy camera.”
“Do I have to smile? I look sad if I don’t smile in pictures.”
Dr. Feather couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, I’m going to use it to take a picture of your wings, so I guess it doesn’t really matter if you smile. You go ahead and do whatever you feel like.”
“I’m going to smile, just in case. What’s that one?” Scootaloo asked, pointing to a different monitor with wires branching out.
“That’s an electromyogram machine.”
“Electro-what-gram?”
“It monitors electrical activity; I’m going to use it to make sure your wing muscles are working properly.”
“Neat.”
“Any other questions?”
“Umm, I don’t think so.”
“The machines need a few minutes to warm up. Is it okay if I take a blood sample?” Dr. Feather asked, looking up from her clipboard.
Scootaloo was surprised by the question. In her experience, usually doctors just told you what they were going to do; it hadn’t occurred to her that she could say no. She glanced over at Rainbow Dash who gave her a nod. Reassured she, still somewhat reluctantly, nodded at the doctor and raised a foreleg.
Scootaloo winced as the needle pierced her flesh, and watched with horror and wonder as the tube filled up with deep red liquid.
The next two hours were spent hooking up Scootaloo to various machines and taking measurements that neither Scootaloo nor Rainbow could make sense out of while Rainbow looked on apprehensively. The procedures appeared to be relatively painless, and Scootaloo seemed to be enjoying herself as much as possible considering the circumstances. After detaching the latest series of electrodes from Scootaloo’s wings, Dr. Feather walked over to Rainbow Dash and spoke in a soft whisper, lest the filly overhear her.
“That’s all the equipment I’ve brought with me. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take a bone marrow sample, a muscle biopsy, and a spinal tap, to take back to Manehattan with me.”
Rainbow hesitated. She had had a bone marrow aspiration done once, and it hurt. She hadn’t undergone the other two procedures, but she knew that they both involved large needles being stuck very deeply into the patient. Her instinct to protect her sister kicked in, and she was about to say no, when Dr. Feather spoke again.
Seeing the concern on Rainbow’s face, Dr. Feather spoke softly. “I’ll give her a topical anesthetic for the bone marrow aspiration and muscle biopsy, and some painkillers for when I’m done with the spinal tap. If you can deal with her being loopy for a few hours, she should be fine by tomorrow morning.”
“Is all that really necessary?” Rainbow asked, hoping to avoid causing Scoots any pain. Though it was for a good cause, Rainbow couldn’t help but feel like her one job was to avoid things that might hurt Scoots.
“I’d rather take them now than have to come back here if I need them later. The more information I have, the better chance I’ll be able to make an accurate diagnosis.”
“And this will tell you why she can’t fly?”
“This isn’t an exact science Mrs. Dash, but like I said, the more information I have the easier it is for me to see the big picture.”
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash replied reluctantly, unable to come up with a valid objection.
Approval granted, Dr. Feather turned to Scootaloo. “I need you to lie down and curl up in a ball. Can you do that for me?”
Scootaloo nodded and did as she was told. Rainbow Dash grimaced when she saw the needle that one of the techs was preparing behind the now curled up Scootaloo. She sat down in front of her sister and placed a reassuring hoof on her head. “Hey Scoots, did I ever tell you about the time Pinkie cloned herself and there were like twenty Pinkie Pies running around?”
“No way! There were twenty Pinkies?!”
“Yeah it was kinda crazy-”
Scootaloo let out a sharp cry of pain as she felt the needle dig past her flesh and into the recesses between her vertebrae.
“Hey look at me kid, everything’s fine,” Rainbow said as she stroked the mane of the whimpering filly. “You couldn’t have used an anesthetic for that?” Rainbow snapped at the doctor.
“It’s generally a bad idea to inject drugs directly into a patient’s spine. The next two should be easier,” Dr. Feather said with more professionalism than Rainbow would have under similar circumstances.
True to her word, the next two procedures went fairly quickly with somewhat less discomfort for Scootaloo, thanks to the lidocaine one of the techs rubbed on the orange filly (“Cold,” said Scootaloo). What Dr. Feather lacked in bedside manner, she made up for in efficiency, and within fifteen minutes Scootaloo was sporting a couple of bandages, relieved at being done with being poked and prodded for the day. Still hurting from the spinal tap, Scootaloo quietly curled up on the couch, letting out a soft whimper.
“Here. Give her this,” Dr. Feather said as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small vial, shaking a single pink pill out from its container.
“What is it?”
“Fentanyl,” Dr. Feather said with a deadpanned stare. “You’ll need to keep an eye on her for the next few hours.”
“You don’t think giving serious painkillers to a child is a bad idea?”
“I’m only giving you one pill. You want her to feel better? Well, that’s why they are called painkillers.”
Seeing Scootaloo grimace made up Rainbow’s mind for her. Rainbow walked over to the couch and knelt beside Scootaloo. “Here kid, take this,” she said giving her the pill. “It’ll make you feel better.” Scootaloo nodded gingerly and slowly shuffled off to the kitchen for a glass to wash the medicine down with.
“So do you know what’s wrong with her?” Rainbow asked, turning her attention back to the doctor.
Raven spoke with the tentativeness of someone who wanted to cover their bases. “I want to check her labs, but on her CAT scan I noticed she has a mass at the base of her wings.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “It’s possible that it’s interfering with her magic.”
“A mass? She has cancer?!” Rainbow shrieked.
Dr. Feather shook her head before Rainbow could go into a level five meltdown. “The mass is most likely benign. its shape is too regular to be a tumor. A lot of pegasi get them, and I believe unicorns can develop similar masses. Anyway, for most pegasi they aren’t an issue; but in unicorns they can reduce the flow of magic from the horn to the rest of the body. If Scootaloo has an analogous problem it would be consistent with her problems taking off.”
“How come nopony’s noticed this before?”
“It wouldn't show up on an x-ray, and even on an CAT scan a lot of doctors would dismiss it as a shadow. Like I said, it’s rare that these masses cause problems in pegasi, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. I want to confirm with her labs before we start talking about treatment.”
“Umm, what are the treatment options?” Rainbow asked.
“I’d really prefer to confirm my diagnosis first,” Dr. Feather said attempting to shut down this line of questioning.
“Doc, I need to know what we’re looking at here,” Rainbow replied, her voice cracking.
The desperation in Rainbow’s voice cut through Dr. Feather’s stoic exterior. She let out another sigh. “I’ll be blunt; this isn’t good. That mass is located almost on top of her spinal cord, between her wings. Surgery there is very risky, there are a lot of nerves and arteries in that area. I know that some unicorns have had success with intense therapy designed to strengthen their magic, but the numbers aren’t good and there hasn’t been any serious work trying to adapt that therapy for pegasi. I’ll be able to recommend a course of action once I see her labs and have a college look at her MRI with me.”
Dr. Feather’s tone of voice convinced Rainbow not to ask any follow up questions. “Okay. Thanks doc,” she said half heartedly.
“I have to say I’m curious about one thing. Most of the time, in flightless fillies, the problem with making a diagnosis is that they suffer from muscle atrophy. You say Scootaloo can’t fly, but her wing muscles are in excellent shape. Does she do physical therapy?”
“I don’t think so. We practice flying sometimes. Could that be why her wings are in good shape?”
“Only if you did it for two hours a day, every day. Flight practice with a filly who can’t fly is unlikely to build wing strength.”
Rainbow’s hoof shot in the air excitedly, “Her scooter! She pushes herself around on her scooter all the time. That’s got to be it.”
“Huh, ground based propulsion as a wing strengthening regimen for flightless foals. I do believe that might be a new protocol.”
“Told ya she was awesome,” Rainbow said with a grin.
“That you did. I need to get back to Manehattan. I will let you know as soon as her lab work gets processed.”
“Thanks for coming all this way doc.”
Dr. Feather offered a brief smile and nod and proceeded to leave the house, her technicians and their equipment in tow. Rainbow shut the door and noticed Scootaloo was groggily stumbling back toward the couch in a narcotic induced stupor. “Hey Rainbow?" she asked as she hopped up on the couch.
“Yeah kid?”
“Your mane looks like a Rainbow! That’s why you’re called Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo’s face lit up as she unlocked a secret that she was certain nopony had ever realized before.
“Yeah, I think that probably had something to do with it,” Rainbow replied with an amused grin.
Scootaloo grinned happily and closed her eyes again. A few seconds later they popped open.
“Hey Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah squirt?”
“If you put pancake mix in a waffle maker what would happen? Like, would the universe explode?”
“I think you’d just get waffle shaped pancakes.”
Scootaloo frowned and scrunched her face; it couldn’t be that simple. This would require further investigation. Suddenly another thought hit her. “Hey Rainbow, what’s soylent green? It’s in the dog food that Apple Bloom feeds Winona, but neither of us knows what it is.”
“I think that’s enough questions for now Scoots. Why don’t you go to sleep?” Rainbow said, giving Scootaloo a quick nuzzle.
Scootaloo weakly grabbed at the warm muzzle as it grazed her own. There was something important about it. She wasn’t sure what, but even in her drug induced haze she recognized that it held significance. “Will you be here when I wake up?” Scootaloo asked unsteadily. She frowned as the warm muzzle withdrew, but then smiled again as she was encased in familiar warmth. It was soft and feathery, but there was something else comforting about it, a feeling of security as though the universe meant for her to be here.
She heard a soft whisper, which set her addled mind at ease. “Yeah kid, I’m not going anywhere,” the voice said.
Soon Scootaloo was fast asleep thanks to the sedative powers of narcotics, and Rainbow found herself serving as a pillow and blanket set. Unable to reach any reading material, and unwilling to turn the tv on for fear of waking her charge, Rainbow contented herself by having a one sided conversation.
“Y’know Scoots, a few months ago, if you had asked me to sit on a couch and do nothing when I could be out flying, I’d have said you were crazy,” she started, making sure to keep her wing wrapped around Scootaloo. “And now, here I am being a glorified blanket set,” Rainbow playfully groused. In response Scootaloo twitched and weakly pulled the wing up closer to her.
“You’re kinda the most awesome thing ever, Scoots. I hope...I hope you realize that someday. Could you do that for me? Please?” In response Scootaloo absently began to chew on a wing feather of Rainbow’s that had drifted too close to her mouth. Rainbow gently pried it away. “Ah, what do you know. You’re high on painkillers.” Rainbow made sure her wing was secure around her sister and resigned herself to doing nothing for the next few hours.
Rainbow was enjoying the sensation of a peaceful Scootaloo snuggling lightly against her as soft snores escaped when their tranquility was interrupted by a shout from the ground.
“Hey RD,” a familiar twang called out through the window. Rainbow gently pried Scootaloo off of her and covered her with a blanket, before going outside to see what demanded her attention.
“Consarnit Dash, it ain’t like I can grow wings and knock on your door,” Applejack shouted up at the cloud house.
“Hey keep it down. I got a sleeping filly up there. What are you doing here anyway? You gonna yell at me again?” Rainbow said as she landed in front of the earth pony.
“Ah ain’t lookin for a fight. Ah came to say ah’m sorry,” Applejack said quietly.
“What was that?” Rainbow asked, unsure if Applejack had actually said what she thought she heard.
“Ah said ah’m sorry,” Applejack repeated louder and a little surly. “Ah was talkin’ with Bloom the other day, and maybe it ain’t the worst thing in the world if Scootaloo has her very own bodyguard champin’ at the bit to defend her. Ah ain’t saying you were right, but ah shouldn’t have yelled at ya like I did.”
Rainbow stood there stunned. Applejack admitting she was wrong was about as rare as, well, Rainbow admitting she was wrong. “Thanks AJ,” Rainbow said, still more surprised than anything.
Applejack continued her apology. “And ah want you ta know that I meant it when I said I ain’t ever been anything but proud to call you my friend. Ah wouldn’t want a little fight to get in the way of that.”
“Okay, getting a bit too sappy down here for my taste.” Rainbow nervously chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof.
Applejack grinned from beneath her stetson. “You’re still a stubborn, rash, braggart, who’s never met a fight she wouldn’t pick, and doesn’t know the meaning of the words slow down.”
“I’m stubborn? You’re practically part mule!”
“That’s rich comin’ from somepony who once snuck into a hospital because she didn’t want to admit she liked readin’!”
“You once ran away from Ponyville because you only won a bunch of medals and not all of them!”
Applejack threw a hoof up in surrender. “Fine, so we’re both a bit stubborn. How’s bout you and Scoots come over for dinner tomorrow night? It’ll be like a family thing.”
“You’ll open a cask of cider?” Rainbow asked hopefully.
“Ah’ll open a cask of cider,” Applejack responded in mock resignation.
“Sweet we’ll see ya tomorrow.”
Applejack offered a tip of her hat and trotted away, leaving Rainbow to head back up to the house, and the precious cargo it held within.
Rainbow Dash flew back up to her house to find Scootaloo still sleeping peacefully. Actually, peacefully wasn’t quite the word. Scootaloo was firmly unconscious, her legs splayed at odd angles and her tongue hanging out of her mouth. Rainbow checked to make sure she was still breathing; confirmation of which gave her the peace of mind to settle into the chair next to the couch and read Daring Do. Eventually, Scootaloo began to stir.
Upon waking up, Scootaloo let out a noise that was halfway between a groan and a yawn. “Ugh, my head feels all fuzzy,” she said, still blinking her eyes in an attempt to get readjusted to the light.
Rainbow looked up from her book to quickly examine her sister. She appeared stiff and unsteady on her hooves, but other than that she looked okay, and Rainbow let out a sigh of relief. “I’ll bet it does. You need to take it easy, Scoots. How ya’ feeling otherwise?”
Scootaloo twisted her neck and stretched her forelegs, then fluttered her wings a little bit, wincing as she did so. “I think I’m okay. It still hurts a bit.”
Rainbow winced empathetically. The sight of Scoots in even minor discomfort still bothered her. “Sorry ‘bout that Scoots. The doctors needed to do some medical stuff.”
“It’s okay. Umm, so do we know what’s wrong with me?” Scootaloo asked tentatively, her voice filled with uncertainty.
Rainbow looked Scootaloo straight in her wide purple eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re awesome. But, ummm... the doc thinks that you can’t fly because of some kind of lump on your spine.”
“Oh,” Scootaloo said sadly. If Rainbow had told her that there was anything she could do: train harder, stop scootering, she would have done it without hesitation. But there was nothing she could do about a lump; she didn’t even know it was there before ten seconds ago.
Seeing Scootaloo standing there looking dejected hurt Rainbow again. It was a look she never wanted to see. “Hey, the doctor needs to run some tests and stuff and then she’ll let us know what we can do, okay? So chin up there, Scoots. We’re gonna beat this thing,” she said, offering what she felt may have been false hope. But if she had any other kind...
False hope or not, Scootaloo brightened up and Rainbow mirrored her smile. “Yeah. You think I’ll really be able to fly?”
“Sure do, Scoots, but we can’t do anything just yet, so how ‘bout you pick what you want for dinner?”
“Can we get pizza? With artichokes?” she asked excitedly, the previous malaise quickly vanishing.
Rainbow chuckled at the filly’s enthusiasm for pizza. “You bet, Scoots.”
The two pegasi ate dinner, watched some Trotting Dead, then went through their usual bedtime ritual. After tucking Scoots in, making sure she was all warm and snug in her bed, Rainbow found herself outside staring up at the night sky. Looking up at the stars, Rainbow remembered hearing stories of the sky spirits who watched over pegasi and gave them the ability to fly. She knew that it was just a legend told to little fillies, but there were still some pegasi who believed in the old tales. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to cover her bases, she began to speak. “Umm, I don’t know if you’re really up there, but if you are, maybe you could do Scoots a favor. If you really do watch over us, well... you know how awesome she is and if anypony actually deserves to fly, it’s her.” She waited and listened for some sign that her prayer was answered, or even just acknowledged, but all she heard was the gentle rustling of the breeze as it washed over her. “I know that in the olden days, I’d be expected to offer a sacrifice and what not. Well, I don’t have anything to sacrifice, but if you want to put it on my tab, I’m okay with that.” The sky still offered no response other than the twinkling of the stars. “Just think about it, alright?” Rainbow said to the empty sky, before turning around and going inside.
The next morning, Rainbow woke up and went downstairs to start fixing breakfast. A few minutes later she heard the muted sound of tiny hoofbeats and she held her breath, half-expecting Scoots to triumphantly announce that she could fly, but as the orange filly rounded into view she was still very much earthbound. She seemed relatively cheerful though, so there was that.
After a quick breakfast the two pegasi began their trip to school. On their way to the schoolhouse, Rainbow saw Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, presumably also on their way, and so she decided to drop Scootaloo off with her friends, trusting them to make it the rest of the way without incident. Shortly after Rainbow Dash flew off, however, the CMC had the misfortune of running into Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Scootaloo froze up and Sweetie Belle stayed with her friend, but before either of them could suggest taking the long way around Apple Bloom began sprinting toward the two fillies.
“Hey, Diamond!” Apple Bloom shouted as she ran over to where Diamond and Silver were talking, her friends reluctantly trailing her. “Ah owe you a reckonin’!”
Diamond Tiara looked up from her conversation, seemingly more annoyed than scared. “What is it with everypony and Loserloo?” she wondered out loud.
“Stop calling her that!” Apple Bloom snapped.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Diamond snapped back.
“You are such a selfish brat. You think it’s okay to hit Scootaloo?! She’s-” Applebloom would have finished that sentences, but as she turned to look at her friend, she saw those wide purple eyes silently pleading with her not to finish that sentence. “-mah friend,” she finished somewhat quieter than when she started. “If ya mess with her ya mess with me,” she snarled.
Rather than be cowed at Apple Blooms decree, Diamond appeared angry. “She hit me first!”
As Scootaloo watched the argument unfold in front of her, she heard a familiar voice echo in her head. Good thing you’ve got Apple Bloom around to fight your battles for you, since you’re too weak to do it yourself.
Shut up, stupid voice. I’m not weak.
Yes, you are. Whenever you get scared, you go running for Rainbow Dash like a little foal, and now Apple Bloom has to stick up for you.
I don’t need Apple Bloom’s help to deal with Diamond.
Prove it!
Scootaloo walked a few steps forward and placed a hoof on Apple Bloom’s shoulder. “You wanna fight me, Diamond?” she asked softly.
Apple Bloom appeared stunned, and even Diamond Tiara was taken aback. “Three against two is hardly a fair fight. Even someone as stupid as you should know that,” she scoffed.
Scootaloo turned her back to Diamond and faced Apple Bloom. “I’ve got this, AB,” she whispered.
“Ya sure, Scoots? You don’t have to do this alone. Me and Sweetie are here for ya’.”
“I’m sure.”
Apple Bloom remembered learning about the ancient ponies who lived in warring tribes. Among pegasi, it was common practice for a leader to go around and look his or her soldiers in the eye before a great battle, to see if they truly had “the warrior’s spirit” with them on that day. When she heard of this tradition, Apple Bloom dismissed it as an overly poetic interpretation of an inherently barbaric culture, but looking at her friend she was forced to reconsider that notion.
Sure, the orange pegasi standing in front of her was clearly nervous, but Apple Bloom could tell that there was something else inside her friend, and that something needed to prove itself. Whether that was the ‘warrior’s spirit’, or not, didn’t seem to matter. She nodded wordlessly and extended her hoof in a show of solidarity. Scootaloo accepted her hoofbump with a smile and a brisk nod, one brave pony to another, and Apple Bloom backed away, leaving Scootaloo alone to face Diamond Tiara.
Apple Bloom’s gesture gave Scootaloo a much needed jolt of confidence and she turned to confront her nemesis, standing a little taller than she was previously, her tiny wings puffed out. “There, now it’s just me.” Diamond Tiara scoffed again, only this time there was a decided note of insecurity in it. “I don’t want to spend the rest of the year looking over my shoulder. I shouldn’t have hit you. Not because you weren’t being a major plot head, but because hitting ponies is wrong.”
“Hmph, so you admit you started it.”
“And now I’m ending it. You can either fight me, and if you win I’ll leave you alone, or we can call a truce, but I’m through being scared of you. You don’t even make the top ten of scary stuff I’ve had to deal with,” which was both true and as close as she was willing to come to confiding in the pony standing across from her.
“You’re still a blank flanked chicken,” Diamond shot back, with a small note of relief coloring her tone.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “You’re still a plot head.”
Diamond hesitated for a moment and then shrugged. “Fine, truce. Daddy always says that fighting’s for ponies who aren’t smart enough to figure another way out anyway. C’mon, Silvy. I don’t want to catch their blankness.”
“Wait, I want to talk to Silver,” said Scootaloo, before both ponies could walk away.
Diamond looked skeptical but Silver just shrugged nonchalantly. “Whatever. I’ll meet up with you in a sec. Okay, Di?”
Diamond Tiara trotted off leaving Silver and Scootaloo alone, while Apple Bloom and Sweetie watched from a distance, keeping their pledge not to interfere. “AB and Sweetie told me that you helped pay for my scooter. I wanted to say thank you,” Scootaloo said, still dealing with a mixture of pride and relief that was strangely overwhelming.
“Well, Diamond shouldn’t have broken your old one.”
“Y’know, you don’t have to hang out with her. I’ll bet if you apologize to AB and Sweetie they’d let you hang out with us,” Scootaloo offered.
Silver shook her head, not exactly dismissively, but still deliberately. “Di was wrong, and she can get carried away sometimes, but you and your friends did ruin her cutecienera. She’s still my best friend; I’m not going to abandon her because she made one mistake.”
“But she’s so mean to everypony. You at least can be nice when you want to be.”
“She’s not mean to me. Look, I’m glad you like your new scooter, but this doesn’t make us friends.”
“Fine.”
As Silver Spoon hurried away to rejoin Diamond Tiara, the other members of the CMC ran over to Scootaloo. “That was awesome, Scoots,” cheered Apple Bloom as she crashed into the orange pegasus, half tackling her with a jolt of force from an impromptu hug.
“Is Diamond going to be nice from now on?” asked Sweetie, piling on.
Scootaloo blew on her hoof, in the manner of somepony showboating, before breaking out into a giggle. “Probably not, but I don’t think I have to worry about her anymore. Now, c’mon, I’ll race ya’ to school!” she said before taking off, leaving her friends behind her with shouts of “Hey, not fair!”
The rest of the school day passed without incident. Diamond Tiara didn’t even bully anyone at lunch, opting to eat quietly with Silver Spoon, by the swing set instead of in her usual place under the big tree near the middle of the yard.
Evening came and, true to her word, Rainbow Dash brought Scootaloo over to Sweet Apple Acres for dinner.
Family was not a word that the Apple clan threw around lightly. For an Apple, being family meant that you could always count on your fellow Apples for pretty much anything, full stop; it was a concept that the Apple clan instilled in their foals almost religiously. However, as strong as the familial bond was, the one thing that not everypony realized was that a pony did not need to have an apple on their flank to be considered family in the Apple house. When you sat down for dinner at the long rectangular table in the family room of the house on Sweet Apple Acres, you were family.
As Apple Bloom and Scootaloo chatted away about school and crusading, Rainbow Dash and Big Mac argued about Cloudsdale versus Appleloosa in this year’s hoofball playoffs, and Granny Smith alternated between both conversations. Applejack focused on keeping everypony’s glasses topped off and their plates full of salad and lasagna. In between bites of food and conversation, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but notice the tangible sense of warmth in the room. There was no false politeness or, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly trouble you for another slice,” protest that pervaded most dinners Rainbow tried to avoid. Everyone around the table ate ‘til they were stuffed, all the while joking and playfully ribbing the rest of the assembled family. If asked, she would have to admit it was comforting, and something she wished she had more of.
“Okay Scoots, it’s getting late. We should get going,” Rainbow said, the remnants of apple pies strewn across the table.
“Aww, but Apple Bloom and I have more crusading to do,” Scootaloo protested.
“It’s a school night Scoots,” Rainbow said, still trying to refine her no-nonsense, do-what-I say-voice.
Clearly it needed more work because Scootaloo’s response was a well practiced, “Please Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah, please Applejack? We can help each other study,” Apple Bloom added, both fillies adopting the wide eyed hopeful look, familiar to parents everywhere.
Under the weight of such oppressive cuteness, Applejack had no choice but to cave. “Ah what the hay. I suppose there ain’t no harm in it.”
“You sure you don’t mind?” asked Rainbow, giving her friend one last opportunity to back out.
“Nah, those crusaders are here so much sometimes I forget they don’t live here.”
Scootaloo accompanied Rainbow to the door, while the rest of the family set about clearing the table and doing the dishes.
“You gonna be cool sleeping here Squirt?”
“I will, but what about my bedtime story?”
Rainbow chuckled. “Good point Scoots. Okay, ready?” Scootaloo nodded happily. “Once upon a time there was an awesome pegasus named Scootaloo, and she had an awesome big sister who told her an awesome bedtime story. And then they all lived happily ever after. The end.”
“Good story.”
Rainbow sat down, picked up Scoots and nuzzled her across the face, eliciting a series of high pitched giggles from the orange filly as she squirmed playfully. “You’re being mushy,” Scootaloo teased.
In response to such a grievous insult Rainbow unceremoniously released Scootaloo from her grip. “Who’s mushy now Scoots?” she asked with a smirk as Scootaloo hit the ground.
Scootaloo stuck her tongue out. “Still you.” She paused for a second as an odd weight hung in the air. Scootaloo quickly ran across the short distance between the two and wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow’s leg. “I love you,” she whispered briefly before letting go and masking her sudden vulnerability with the more familiar bravado Rainbow was used to seeing.
Rainbow adopted a similar posture and leaned down so she could whisper in Scootaloo’s ear. “Your secret’s safe with me. I love you too.”
Scootaloo giggled again, her mask of bravado now firmly re-attached, and ran off to start her sleepover.
As Rainbow left Sweet Apple Acres she was bothered by a nagging sensation. This was only the second time since Scootaloo came to stay with Rainbow that the sisters wouldn’t be under the same roof for the evening, but when Rainbow internally examined that aspect of the situation, she realised that she was fine with it. Scootaloo was with her friend Apple Bloom, under the watchful eye of the most trustworthy pony she knew. Hay, if there was some weird event where Scootaloo was in actual danger, one of the largest stallions she knew was only a few doors away.
But despite knowing that Scootaloo was unquestionably safe and sound, Rainbow was still forced to acknowledge a feeling of discomfort at being separated. She flew aimlessly in the general direction of her house, focusing on the nagging voice in the back of her mind. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the doctor’s words out of her head. she didn’t know much about medicine and she wasn’t sure how she would go about learning enough to understand Scootaloo’s condition anyway. However, just like when she started trying to solve Scootaloo’s flying problem, she did know where to find an almost limitless supply of knowledge.
“Hey Twi,” Rainbow said as she flew in through the window of the library, making Twilight consider whether she should add a screen to this month’s expense report.
Though obviously annoyed at Rainbow’s continued refusal to use the door, Twilight appeared almost giddy at the interruption. “Hi Rainbow. It’s actually good you’re here. I’ve made some progress and I think I’m getting close to an answer.” Twilight looked at Rainbow with a barely suppressed grin. “It’s a levitation spell!” she said triumphantly.
“What are you talking about?” Rainbow asked, both perplexed and annoyed.
“Do you know how levitation spells work?” Rainbow shook her head. “When you levitate something, you don’t actually generate enough force to lift it. Well, I suppose you could, but it would be hard, and for some of the big things I don’t even think Celestia could manage enough output-”
“Twi’.”
“Oh right, sorry. Like I was saying, to levitate something you encapsulate it in a bubble that cuts it off from outside forces, including gravity, then you can push around with minimal effort. It still has mass, but without gravity or friction acting on it, less force is required to move it. It’s actually pretty neat; you should read up on magical theory. I have some great books-”
“Twi’!” Rainbow repeated a little louder.
“Sorry. Anyway, I can’t be absolutely certain, but I’m willing to bet that when pegasi fly they cast a levitation spell on themselves. Instead of casting it outward on an object, you all cast it inward on yourselves. Then once you’re in the air you use your wings to push you around because you just have to overcome your mass with relation to air resistance, not your weight. It’s not a perfect analogy but it makes sense.”
Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure what the difference between mass and weight was, but she didn’t feel like another lecture from Twilight. “And this is a good thing?”
Twilight was about to go into an explanation on friction coefficients as they related to gravity but stopped as she noticed the pained expression on Rainbow’s face. “Are you okay?”
Rainbow let out a sigh. “I’m fine. It’s just… Scootaloo had a doctor’s visit, and the doc said she has some kind of mass near her wings. I guess Unicorns sometimes get them and that it interferes with their magic?”
Twilight subconsciously shifted into egghead mode, her instincts to disseminate information outweighing her concerns about being perceived as sympathetic. “It’s called neurofibroma. This actually seems like it’d be good news; surgery is supposed to be effective in treating the symptoms.”
“What if surgery isn’t an option?” Rainbow asked quietly, fearing the answer.
Twilight considered the question, mentally reviewing her mental notes about unicorns, medicine and magic. “Well, in unicorns magic therapy is supposed to strengthen the neural pathways enough to overcome the interference caused by the neoplasms,” Twilight said, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure what Twilight said, but it was impossible for her to look at Twilight and not feel like she had to be able to come up with a solution. She was a princess who was the Element of Magic, so why wouldn’t she be able to fix this? “Can you help her?” Rainbow asked, desperation creeping into her voice.
Twilight’s smile diminished as the harsh reality of the situation began to reassert itself. Pegai had been instinctively using magic for centuries; it was entirely likely that actively controlling their magic was controlled by a completely different set of neural pathways than the ones they normally used, and that was assuming that pegasi magic was subject to the same biological rules as that of unicorns. “Maybe,” she said somewhat hesitantly. “I still don’t know a lot about pegasi magic. If it works similarly to unicorn magic, it would mean that some pegasi are naturally more gifted than others. Scootaloo might not be talented enough to cast as strong a spell as she needs. And if she does have a pegasus form of neurofibroma, that will make it that much harder to strengthen her magic. Can I tell Luna about this? It might help her focus on her research.”
Rainbow just shrugged. “Sure, whatever,” she said quietly.
Twilight closed the book she had open and walked around to the front of her desk. “How’s she doing Rainbow?”
“She can’t fly, Twilight! She’d be doing a lot better if you could fix that!” Rainbow snapped.
Used to Rainbow’s temper, Twilight let the remark roll off her. “That’s not what I asked. How is she?”
Rainbow glared at Twilight, before realizing that the pony in front of her was a friend and not some random pony trying to challenge her. “She’s good, I guess. We had an incident a few days ago, but she seems better now. She’s staying with the Apples tonight.”
“So you would say she’s happy?” Twilight gently prodded.
“I don’t know, I’m not a mind reader Twi.”
Twilight took Rainbow’s non-answer as a yes. “And if she’s happy, do you think that maybe you have something to do with that?”
Rainbow’s glare returned. “No, don’t try to turn this around. I promised her that I would get her flying. I’m sick of hearing ‘you’re already doing her a world of good.’”
“But you are!”
“Not if she can’t fly I’m not!”
“You can’t fix everything, Rainbow! No one can!”
Temporarily relieved from the burdens of parenthood, the doubt and anguish Rainbow had been struggling to keep down finally erupted. Every moment of fear and doubt she had felt seemed to hit her all at once. She didn’t realize just how much she had been holding in until she found herself tearing up. Of course, Rainbow Dash didn’t cry about this kind of thing. Probably Twilight’s fault for keeping the library so dusty. Stupid Twilight. Rainbow Dash did not get overwhelmed; she crashed into problems head first and then kicked them ‘til they regretted getting in her way. So why, after all the metaphorical flank kicking she had done was this problem still here? “Then what’s the point, Twi! Huh? Why even bother?”
Despite being still unsure about some of the conventions of friendship, one thing Twilight was sure of was that when a friend was crying, you gave her a hug and told her everything was going to be okay, so that’s what she did.
Rainbow took a few deep breaths and rubbed her eyes. “Thanks, Twi,” she said, shrugging her friend off of her. “So look, if there’s nothing else I should probably be getting home.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to. You could stay here, and we could watch a movie or something.”
“You don’t have to do the caring friend thing Twi,” Rainbow said, forcing a smile. “I got a little… flustered for a second there. I’m okay. I just need to get some sleep.”
“Okay Rainbow, but if you ever do want to talk, or just hang out, you’ll come find me, right?”
Rainbow smiled, this time a little more genuine as she composed herself. “Sure thing Twi. Hey, thanks again.”
Rainbow flew home, happy to be back among familiar surroundings. The house felt a little emptier than she would like it to, but at least she didn’t have to put up with well meaning friends. Not that she didn’t like her well meaning friends; it was just good to be alone sometimes, Scootaloo managing to be the only exception. She was so preoccupied with thinking about her conversation with Twilight that she almost didn’t notice a note from Dr. Feather’s office in her mailbox. I guess when you work for the Wonderbolts fast service is part of the job. She eagerly tore open the envelope:
Rainbow Dash I’ll be at the Wonderbolts Training Facility this week. I’d like to talk to you about Scootaloo’s test results. Dr. Raven Feather.
Rainbow didn’t sleep well, so when she bolted awake after finally drifting off at three in the morning she was relieved to be able to get on with her day, but she was also exhausted. No Scootaloo meant no real motivation to make breakfast, so she quickly downed a glass of orange juice and a barely toasted piece of toast before bolting out the door. She figured that, if she flew at top speed, she could make it to the Cloudiseum, meet with Dr. Feather and still clock in for work without being too late.
Fortunately for her, the level of focus required to safely navigate the skies at high speed helped calm her frayed nerves as she hurried to Wonderbolts HQ. The wind rushing over her and the feel of the currents as her wings adjusted to the turbulence gave her something else to think about instead of the possibly devastating news Dr. Feather might deliver. She briefly allowed herself to consider the possibility that maybe Scootaloo’s test results held good news, but a lifetime of experience had taught her that hoping for the best was a fool’s errand.
In short order, she landed at the gate preparing to talk her way past the guards again but as she opened her mouth the stallion on duty simply waved her through with a smile.
The Cloudiseum was quieter than she was used to seeing it, though it was also earlier than she was used to visiting. Since it didn’t appear that the Wonderbolts had left their locker room yet, she headed straight for Doctor Splint’s office. When she arrived at the examination room, she found both Dr. Splint and Dr. Feather going over what she assumed were medical records.
The smooth baritone of Dr. Splint greeted her as she stepped through the door. “Hello Miss Dash,” the bespectacled doctor said, as Dr. Feather opted for a nod rather than any form of verbal acknowledgement.
“Heya Doc. Other Doc,” Rainbow said with a nervous chuckle, her hoof absentmindedly pawing at the ground.
After checking some boxes on a form, finally, Dr. Feather deigned to speak. “Would I be correct that you are here in response to my letter?” Rainbow nodded. “I’ve been consulting with Dr. Splint. Would it be okay if he stayed?” Dr. Feather asked, doing her best to observe proper confidentiality procedures. Rainbow nodded again, this time holding her breath in anticipation.
“The good news is that Scootaloo is a perfectly healthy filly. Her blood test showed no significant abnormalities, her muscle biopsy and spinal tap came back clean and having examined her I see no reason that you or anypony else should be worried about her health.”
Rainbow ignored the doctor’s attempt to pre-emptively placate her. “Want to cut to the chase?”
“That lump on her spine is symptomatic of a condition called neurofibroma. I had a colleague confirm with a look at her MRI, and the iron levels in her blood are symptomatic of somatic magic toxicity.”
“Are you saying she’s being poisoned?” Rainbow shrieked.
“No, that’s why it’s somatic,” Dr. Feather responded somewhat puzzled until she remembered that not every pony had a medical degree. “She’ll have to take it easy on the alcohol when she gets older, but it’s nothing to worry about.” Dr. Feather took a moment to let Rainbow compose herself. “But as long as that mass is there she won’t be able to fly unless her magic suddenly strengthens, which at her age is unlikely.”
“How unlikely?”
“Next to impossible.”
Rainbow Dash felt the air rush out of her, her hopes complete deflated, her promise to Scootaloo destined to go unfulfilled. “So that’s it then. She can’t fly?” she asked dejectedly.
Dr. Feather took a deep breath, “Not necessarily. It would be possible to remove the mass surgically. That would restore the flow of magic to the rest of her body, allowing her to fly. Her wings will still be small, she’ll probably never be a Wonderbolt, but without that mass basic flight shouldn’t be a problem.”
Her hopes, once thought dead and now suddenly revived Rainbow Dash perked up, before remembering her previous conversation with the doctor.“I thought you said surgery was a bad idea?”
“I believe I said it was risky and it is. Aside from the mass being located directly on her spinal cord, it is also close to her venarol arteries as well as several nerve clusters. In short it’s a busy area and if something goes wrong during the surgery, it would go very wrong, very quickly.”
Rainbow suddenly found her heart firmly in her throat. “Are you saying she could die?” at the last word her voice broke.
“Yes,” Dr. Feather said with significantly less emotion than Rainbow thought the declaration warranted. “Or she could end up paralyzed, or without the use of her wings at all.”
“When you put it like that, why would I possibly agree to this?”
“Because if the surgery is successful she’ll be able to fly. You, and more importantly she, need to know all the facts before you make a decision. If you say yes, I’ll perform the operation. Dr. Splint has agreed to assist and he has volunteered the surgical bay in the Cloudiseum. We can do it right here.”
Rainbow briefly allowed herself to consider both her own love of flying and Scootaloo’s frequent, if futile, efforts. She knew what Scootaloo would want, and that was the only reason she didn’t reject the idea right then. “Well, what are the odds that she comes through?”
“I don’t give odds Ms. Dash. Medicine doesn’t work that way.”
“Well, can you at least promise she’d be okay?” Rainbow asked, desperately seeking some form of assurance.
“I can’t do that either.”
Rainbow shook her head,“I can’t lose her.” She then wheeled on Dr. Splint. “Find me a doctor who can guarantee her safety. I don’t care what it takes.”
Dr. Feather inserted herself back into the conversation as a stunned Dr. Splint stood there, unsure of how to respond. “I’m the one you want doing this,” she said flatly.
“Not if you can’t promise she’ll be okay I don’t,” Rainbow shot back.
“Any doctor who promises you she’ll be okay is either lying to you or incompetent. I’m competent enough to know exactly how difficult the surgery will be, and concerned enough to be worried about the risk.”
“Dr. Feather is the Wonderbolts surgeon for a reason, Rainbow. If I needed surgery, she’s the one I’d want holding the scalpel,” Dr. Splint said.
“Have you ever lost a patient?” Rainbow asked Dr. Feather.
“Mrs. Dash, that is hardly relevant to this discussion and quite frankly bad manners.” Dr. Splint answered before his colleague could respond, hoping to prevent an argument from forming.
Dr. Feather held a hoof up before Rainbow could speak again. “It’s okay. I suspect Rainbow wishes to know if I am ever careless with my patients’ lives.” She turned back to Rainbow. “The answer to your question is yes. He was a young colt. He had been in an accident and his wings were badly damaged, but then again, healthy patients seldom need surgery. He was healing well enough, but his parents were worried about scar tissue so I was brought in for a consult. I told the parents that the scar tissue could impact his flying ability if not addressed, but also that clearing out the damaged tissue would require major surgery, which performed so soon after an accident carried more risk than it otherwise might. With his parents’ blessings he opted to go forth with the surgery and I agreed to perform it.”
“What happened next?” Rainbow asked softly. The doctor had already told her the outcome, but how it happened seemed important.
“Scar tissue can build up in the capillaries of the muscles in accident cases. In rare cases it can build up enough to cause muscle death. Normally a patient would feel pain, and that would be our clue that we should tread carefully, but because he had been in a serious crash he was both on pain killers and felt pain in his wings anyway. There was no way to know how much scar tissue there was until we opened him up. I went in to remove the scar tissue, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much muscle death had already occurred. I started to remove the dead muscle tissue, and one of the necrotic buildups threw a clot that ended up in his lungs. He was already weak from the accident, the resulting pleural effusion caused him to go into shock and he died on my table.” Dr. Feather finished her explanation calmly, but not without a note of sorrow.
“I’ll be honest doc, I didn’t understand about half of that,” Rainbow said.
Dr. Feather looked Rainbow in the eyes. “I lost a patient, it was partly my fault and if I had to do it over again I still would have done the surgery. You want to know if I’d be careless with Scootaloo? The answer is that the health of my patients is the most important thing in the world to me, but that that is not a guarantee that she’ll be okay. You want some assurance that she’ll make it through okay, and I can’t in good conscience give that to you.”
Looking at Dr. Feather, Rainbow got the same impression she did whenever she watched the Wonderbolts. It wasn’t that they were just good at what they did; they knew they were the best. Ask a Wonderbolt if they could do something and the answer was always yes. If nothing else, Dr. Feather’s confidence helped set Rainbow’s mind at ease, even if her story made it clear that confidence was not a foolproof safeguard against failure. “What should I do?” she asked quietly.
“You need to talk to her. I just wanted to make you aware of the risk. If you’d like, you can bring her in and I’ll talk to her myself.”
The reminder that Scootaloo needed to weigh in ended any further discussion as far as Rainbow was concerned. She said a quick pair of goodbyes and flew off to work. Unsurprisingly, Rainbow had a particularly distracted day on her weather route. She almost busted up a scheduled rain pour and would have created a tornado if not for the timely intervention of Cloud Kicker. Her supervisor would have sent her home early, but fortunately the rest of her shift was supposed to be spent on cloud patrol for a cloudless sky.
Once at home, Rainbow agitatedly waited for Scootaloo to return. From where she sat the problem was that of two conflicting promises. She promised that she’d get Scoots flying, and she also promised to keep her safe. As it stood now,she couldn’t think of how to keep both promises, but breaking a promise to the orange filly was not an option either as far as she was concerned. So, she brooded.
She didn’t have to wait long before Scootaloo bounded through the door with her usual burst of enthusiasm and good humor. Rainbow took one look at her, remembered the doctor’s warning and decided that she wasn’t ready to deal with the repercussions of telling Scootaloo what she had learned. Scootaloo was happy and healthy, and most importantly, she was alive. For Rainbow, the choice of a flightless Scootaloo versus even the tiniest possibility of no Scootaloo wasn’t even a tough call, though deep down she knew that it was not a decision she got to make. Misty has to weigh in. I can’t talk to Scoots until I talk to Misty. Sweet.
Pleased at her rationalization, Rainbow pushed her worries down where she wouldn’t have to think about them. Scootaloo filled her in on the sleepover and school, both fine, and the two spent a normal evening together, Scootaloo unaware that anything was wrong.
That illusion was shattered when Rainbow heard a knock on the door. She trotted over, Scootaloo close behind her, and was surprised to find both Twilight and Luna waiting patiently on her stoop.
“I just want to say that this is a terrible idea and you should want no part in it,” Twilight blurted out before anypony could say anything.
Luna shot Twilight a glare and turned her attention to the orange filly, who was looking as bewildered as her sister. “Greetings Scootaloo. If it pleases you, we would talk to Rainbow alone for a moment.”
Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash for some form of reassurance that everything would be okay, but all she received was a brief, “Sorry, squirt. Do you mind?”
“‘Grownups are talking, Scootaloo. Why don’t you go upstairs and play?’ Nopony ever lets me stick around,” Scootaloo mumbled as she dutifully went up to her room to find something to do.
With Scootaloo safely out of earshot, Twilight renewed her objection, despite nopony having told Rainbow why they were at her door in the first place. “Again, this is a bad idea and you should say no.”
“Twilight, we talked about this. Rainbow must be allowed to make her own choices.”
“Say no to what? I don’t even know what you guys are talking about.”
Luna began her explanation carefully. “I believe I have found a way to help Scootaloo fly-”
“-And it’s a terrible idea and you shouldn’t even consider it,” Twilight repeated for the third time, lest there be any doubt about where she stood.
But Twilight’s warnings were doomed the moment Rainbow heard the phrase “Scootaloo fly”.
“What is it? Tell me what I have to do,” came Rainbow’s resolute response.
“Magic can be transferred between ponies of the same race. I could give Scootaloo your magic, and as long as you give it willingly, I believe I could minimize the negative side effects. But you would lose the ability to fly.”
Rainbow felt like she had just crashed into a wall. Despite Luna’s warning that this could be the price, facing up to the reality of it still hit her like a ton of bricks. But after she got over the initial shock, she couldn’t help but do the cold hard calculus of the situation. Scootaloo would be able to fly, and she wouldn’t have to risk her life. Rainbow could keep both of her promises. And so what if she couldn’t fly? Applejack didn’t fly, and she still did awesome stuff. And the Wonderbolts weren’t that great, were they? Again, her thoughts circled back to the orange filly upstairs. Scootaloo will be able to fly. “Okay, I’ll do it,” she finally said, quieter than she intended.
“Rainbow, no!” Twilight pleaded.
Rainbow jerked her head up and glared at her friend, who for some reason was trying to talk her out of helping her sister. “If Spike needed you to cut off your horn, you’d do it in a second!”
“Scootaloo doesn’t need this! She’s a happy, healthy little filly, just the way she is. For Celestia’s sake Rainbow, you’re talking about mutilating yourself!”
“Are you ordering me not to do this Princess?” Rainbow growled, wielding Twilight’s title as an insult to punctuate her point.
The growl earned her a sharp glare, as Twilight briefly considered what exactly she was legally allowed to do in this situation. A brief mental review of Equestrian law concluded that any sort of legal injunction would be a failure at best, and could end up damaging a friendship she held very dear at worst. “No Rainbow, I’m here as your friend, and I don’t want to see my friend hurt herself, even if it’s for a good cause.”
“Okay, well then thanks for the warning Twi, but I’m doing this.” She turned to Luna. “Can we do this here? Do we have go somewhere? What’s the deal?”
“I can cast the spell here, but you will tell Scootaloo of what you are doing before I do so,” Luna replied solemnly.
“Why? She doesn’t have to know!” Rainbow shot back, getting a little tired of ponies ordering her around.
“Do you really think she will not deduce your sacrifice?” Luna shook her head before Rainbow could answer. “If you recall, when you came to visit me in Canterlot, I warned you about the dangers of carrying burdens.” Rainbow nodded. “We also agreed that I would be the sole arbiter in deciding what price was too high. I have decided that you giving up your own flight in addition to keeping that secret crosses that threshold. Are you a mare of your word Rainbow Dash?”
“Yes,” Rainbow half growled, the stress of what she preparing to do making her blood boil.
“Then you will tell Scootaloo, or I will not cast the spell.”
“Fine. Hey Scoots, could you get down here?” Rainbow shouted, her adrenaline fueling her.
Scootaloo came rushing down the steps, looking nervous. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, words came rushing out of her. “Is everything okay? Is something wrong? Whatever it is, I’m sorry. I promise not to do it again. Please don’t be mad at Rainbow.”
“Rest easy little one, you are in no trouble,” Luna said, allowing the authority and warmth of her voice to calm the scared filly.
“Yeah Scoots, this is actually good news. Twilight and Luna have figured out a way to get you flying,” Rainbow Dash said, forcing a smile.
Twilight started to protest her involvement, but Scootaloo’s enthusiasm drowned her out. “Really?” the filly asked, her face lighting up brighter than Rainbow had ever seen it, her wings buzzing with excitement and her eyes wide. “What do I have to do?”
Rainbow swallowed hard, as Luna fixed her with a firm look and Twilight silently pleaded with her. “You don’t have to do anything, Scoots. Luna’s gonna use her alicorn magic to cast a spell and give you my flying ability. That’s all there is to it. One little spell and you’ll be awesome at flying.”
“Your flying ability? But does that mean that you won’t be able to fly anymore?” Scootaloo asked as the color drained from her face.
Rainbow sighed. It was impossible to pretend that she was one hundred percent on board with this, but she didn’t have to pretend that she wanted to do it. “Probably not, Scoots, but you don’t have to worry about that. Okay?”
Scootaloo shook her head. “No. I don’t want you guys to cast the spell or whatever.”
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief and Luna smiled knowingly at Scootaloo. But as Rainbow looked at the two princess and then back at Scootaloo, she was unwilling to let it go that easily.
“Can I talk to Scootaloo alone for a few minutes?”
Twilight started to protest but Luna ushered her out the door. “Scootaloo, I want you to let me do this,” Rainbow said calmly as the door closed behind them.
Scootaloo turned her back to her idol slash sister and looked down at the ground, the shake of her head growing into a small tremor that rocked her tiny body. “No.”
Rainbow hardened her voice ever so slightly. “Scootaloo, it’s okay. You need to let me do this.”
“No, it’s not okay!” Scootaloo snapped. “If you do this, you’ll end up hating me… I don’t want you to hate me,” she said softly.
“How can you even think that Scoots?” Rainbow’s said, her voice tinged with disbelief and a touch of indignation. “After all the bedtime stories, hay, everything we’ve been through, how could you possibly think I could hate you?”
Scootaloo finally looked back toward her sister up with her ears pinned back. “You’re a pegasus, Rainbow. You’re the most awesome radically cool pony ever, but you’re still a pegasus. You love to fly, and if you gave that up for me you’d end up hating me.” Rainbow started to disagree but Scootaloo continued. “Even if you didn’t, I’d hate myself. Every time I saw you walking on the ground I’d be reminded of what I made you give up.” Another tremor shook her body and her lip quivered. “Please don’t ask me again. I’m scared I might say yes.” The request came out with a whimper, more plea then demand.
Dang it Scoots, I’m offering you the one thing you want, and you can have it without having to risk your life, and all you have to do is…oh. Rainbow had been so busy thinking about her desire to protect Scootaloo that she had never once considered that Scootaloo might have similar feelings toward her. After all, if the situation were reversed, Rainbow would have turned down that deal in a heartbeat. She couldn’t really be upset that Scootaloo came to a similar conclusion. And that realization made her acknowledge that, in her zeal to protect Scootaloo, she was actually offering her a terribly cruel choice; “your sister or your dream”, was scarcely better than the “your life or your dream” choice that Rainbow had been so adamant about shielding Scootaloo from.
“C’mere kid,” Rainbow whispered as she gently lifted a wing up so Scootaloo could scurry under it.
Under your wing, unable to come up with anything to say, Rainbow took a moment to think about both the phrase and the action. The feeling of Scootaloo wrapped securely in her wing brought Rainbow back to a simpler time, fuzzy and indistinct, so long ago. She could remember the terrifying booming of thunder, rendered insignificant by the shelter of her father's wing cocooning her entire body.
Only now, from the other side, could Rainbow recognize how vulnerable that act could leave you. Letting anypony under your wing meant opening yourself to the very dangers you were offering shelter from. So, she reasoned, when you let a pony take refuge under your wing you were protecting them at the expense of your own safety. As she looked down at Scootaloo subconsciously pressing her little body against her own barrel, mirroring her own actions from that time long ago, Rainbow couldn’t imagine a more apt description.
Scootaloo was a point of weakness; there was no longer any doubting that. She was an adorable little hole in the emotional shield that Rainbow had worked so hard to maintain for so many years. Rainbow squeezed her tightly, before gently wrapping a foreleg around her barrel, lifting her up to eye level, making sure to keep the wing firmly placed between Scootaloo and the outside world. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I won’t ask again.”
Scootaloo nodded and burrowed further into Rainbow’s embrace before a knock at the door cut short their tender moment. The uncertain sounding voice of Twilight Sparkle cut through the air. “Well?” she asked, Luna standing next to her.
Rainbow set Scootaloo down in front of Twilight. Tellingly, Scootaloo instinctively pressed her back against Rainbow’s foreleg. “It’s your decision, squirt.”
Scootaloo looked up at Princess Luna, then back toward Rainbow Dash, and then up at Luna again. “I want to fly, but not if it means Rainbow can’t. Umm... I appreciate you trying, but I’m gonna have to say no,” Scootaloo said, albeit with a hint of melancholy.
“You are wise beyond your years, Scootaloo; I shall respect your decision,” Luna said bowing her head.
Twilight let out another audibly relieved sigh. “I think that’s really mature of you Scootaloo.”
Everypony stayed quiet for a moment, allowing the tension in the room to dissipate. Twilight broke the silence, to prevent it from becoming uncomfortable if nothing else. “Luna and I should get going, but don’t worry Scootaloo. We’re going to keep looking for an answer,” she said as cheerfully as she could manage, without being inconsiderate.
The princesses left, and the cloud house was quiet once again. Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow, studying her big sister with a curious expression. “You were going to give up flying for me. You love flying more than anything.”
Rainbow looked down and shrugged, as though her willingness to sacrifice the one thing she had devoted her life to was little more than a minor inconvenience. “I guess I found something I love more.” Scootaloo just stared at her, and so Rainbow poked her stomach gently. “You,” she said softly.
Scootaloo absentmindedly rubbed the spot where Rainbow had poked her, and Rainbow decided that the little filly could use a reminder of just how important she was. “You’ve got a lot of ponies that love you, Scoots. You’ve got a mom that loves you a whole heck of a lot…” Rainbow couldn’t imagine it was possible to love Scootaloo any more than she did, which meant it was impossible that she loved Scootaloo any less than anypony else. But Misty was Scootaloo’s mother, her actual, biologically related, went-through-labor and two-years-without-sleeping, mom. Maybe Applejack was right, and this was one of those things that really wasn’t a competition. “...and a sister who loves you just as much. And you’ve got two great friends who love you. I know about two things: flying and what a good friend looks like, and trust me, you’ve got two of the best friends you’re ever gonna find. And Fluttershy loves you too,” Rainbow added for good measure.
“Fluttershy loves everypony,” Scootaloo said with a small giggle.
“Yeah, she does,” Rainbow admitted. “But she’s got a soft spot for brash little pegasi. Good thing, too. Ponies like us need a Fluttershy.”
“We do?”
“You bet. Before you came along, Fluttershy was the only thing keeping me grounded.” Rainbow cringed at her unintentional slight, but Scootaloo seemed not to notice it.
“I guess it’s a good thing Fluttershy is around then.”
“It is.” Rainbow looked down at Scootaloo and thought back about what had just happened. As much as she wanted to find a way around it, she couldn’t avoid the obvious conclusion. Scootaloo was offered what she wanted most and turned it down because it would have hurt her. If she was responsible enough to make that decision, she was responsible enough to weigh the risk of her own surgery. “We need to go see your mom tomorrow.”
To Scootaloo’s credit, she didn’t seize up or tremble at the words that only a few months prior would have sent her into a panicked tailspin. “It’s about me, isn’t it?” she said softly. Despite her inflection, it wasn’t really a question.
There was no point in lying, and no lie that would be believable anyway. “Yeah, kid, it is,” Rainbow replied with an apologetic grimace.
“Is it about why I can’t fly? Why can’t you talk to me about it?”
The anguish in Scootaloo’s voice pierced Rainbow like a gust of chill wind on a rainy day. Luckily, the small, rational part of her brain overruled the much larger and angrier part that demanded she immediately comfort Scootaloo by telling her everything and then promising that it would all be okay. Instead she went with, “I need you to trust me for a little while longer. Can you do that?”
Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash; she wasn’t big on trusting ponies, but if anypony had earned even a modicum of faith from her, it was the pegasus standing there. She nodded and wordlessly hugged Rainbow. There wasn’t much force behind it; both pegasi had already spent all their emotions tonight. Instead, it was a simple declaration of love and understanding. “Do I still get a bedtime story?”
“You always get a bedtime story, squirt,” Rainbow said, giving Scoots’ mane a quick tousle, the emotional strain of the evening slowly starting to ebb. Rainbow lowered her neck and Scootaloo quickly climbed aboard as the two went upstairs for their nightly ritual and to get some much needed rest.
Breakfast the next morning was quiet. When both ponies were ready to go, Scootaloo hopped on Rainbow’s back and buried herself deep in the prismatic mane, as though it could shield her.
They reached Scootaloo’s old home and she hopped down from her perch, still remaining silent.
Rainbow knocked hesitantly, and in short order Misty opened the door. “It’s good you’re here. I need to talk to you,” she said with an almost but not quite smile.
“Oh. I kinda need to talk to you, too,” was the only response Rainbow could come up with.
“Could you give us a minute please, Scootaloo?” Misty asked, turning to Scootaloo. . Scootaloo grumbled at (again) being sent out of the room during important conversations, but otherwise didn’t argue. The three ponies entered the house, with Rainbow and Misty going to the living room and Scootaloo trudging upstairs to her old room to see if she wanted to take any of the toys she left behind on her first visit.
“You should let me go first,” Misty said before Rainbow could start talking. Rainbow nodded her assent. “So, I’ve become a bit of an expert on Equestrian family law since we last spoke.” Misty paused, as though she wanted to consider one last time what she was about to offer. “Please, sit down,” she said gesturing to an oak table in the dining room. “I’ve talked to a lawyer; custody laws in Equestria are surprisingly flexible.”
Misty walked over to a desk on the far side of the living room and pulled out a folder, setting it down in front of Rainbow when she returned to the table. “These are my terms, and they are not negotiable. Scootaloo is my daughter; I am her mother, and that means I outrank you. If we disagree, I win, as simple as that.” Rainbow was about to protest, more as a reflex than as disagreement with the sentiment, but Misty continued before she could say anything. “You are not allowed to move away from Ponyville and take her with you. I live here, so she lives here.” Rainbow nodded. That seemed fair and she had no plans to move anyway. “I expect to be notified about important things that happen in her life. However, other than those three things, you’d be her guardian, with all the rights and responsibilities that I have.”
Rainbow balked in shock at the abrupt ending, expecting more qualifiers and conditions. A stray thought suddenly hit her and she needed an answer. “If I’m her guardian, and you’re her mother, does that make us…?
“You’re not my type,” Misty deadpanned before smiling. “We’re just two ponies who care about Scootaloo.”
Rainbow gingerly picked up the papers in front of her. “So, that’s it?” Rainbow asked, still surprised at how little Misty was asking of her given that she was offering to share the most precious thing she had. “I don’t need to have Twilight read this for me?”
“No, this is about what’s best for Scootaloo,” Misty said, in such a world weary way that Rainbow couldn’t help but be reminded how much more about motherhood, and life in general, Misty knew than she did.
“You really trust me this much?”
Misty shook her head. “I don’t, but Scootaloo does, and that’s what’s important.”
The reminder of how close Rainbow had grown with the filly upstairs made her tear up with joy ever so slightly. “I can get behind that. We should probably give her the good news,” she said, quickly drying her eyes.
Misty nodded. “We should. The forms need her signature as well. But wasn’t there something you wanted to talk to me about first?”
“Oh, yeah,” Rainbow said, her elation at the previous turn of events now brought back to reality. She took a deep breath and quickly explained to Misty what she knew about Scootaloo’s neurofibroma and the risky surgical option that seemed to be Scootaloo’s best hope of ever flying. She left out the part about last night, mainly because it seemed like a special moment that she and Scootaloo had shared and she didn’t want anyone else to know about it.
Misty listened carefully, her face betraying no emotion until Rainbow finished her explanation. When Rainbow stopped talking, Misty furrowed her brow and shut her eyes, opening them a moment later, her breathing labored. “I see. Have you told Scootaloo yet?”
“No. I was kinda hoping you would tell me what to do,” Rainbow admitted.
“We need to tell her; this has to be her decision.”
For the second time today, Rainbow was taken aback by Misty’s actions. “But she’ll say yes! You know she will.”
“I do,” Misty said sadly.
This was not going how Rainbow thought it would. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she expected Misty to protect her from having to face the consequences of a potentially life-ending surgery. No Scootaloo, you can’t have surgery! - Sorry squirt, I tried. Then she could continue being Scootaloo’s hero, secure in the knowledge that Scootaloo would remain safe.But where Misty seemed resigned to fate, Rainbow only grew angrier. “Then how can you say we need to tell her?!”
“The hardest lesson to learn as a parent is that you can’t protect your children from life. One of us needs to talk to her about this. You’re a pegasus, I think you might understand what she’s going through more than I do.”
“I do. But just because I’d say yes, doesn’t mean I want her to,” Rainbow said, still grasping at any straw that might allow her a way out.
“You can’t make that choice for her, but I suppose that’s up to you.”
With nothing left to say, Misty got up from the table and went upstairs, coming down a moment later.
Scootaloo came down the stairs shortly after, her hoofs tapping lightly on each step.
Misty gestured to a chair at the table and patted it gently. “Sit down, pumpkin,” she said, opting to use her pet nickname for her daughter that she saved for occasions where Scootaloo was scared or otherwise needed reassurance. “The last time you were here, you said you wanted to know that you could stay with Rainbow,” Misty paused and swallowed hard. “Well, if you sign those, then that’s what will happen,” she choked out.
Scootaloo stared at the papers in front of her. She knew that she wasn’t able to understand all the big words and funny-looking sentences, but she thought that maybe if she stared hard enough a different kind of understanding would dawn on her. “Why are you doing this?” she finally asked in a voice that sounded as small as she felt.
“I thought… isn’t this what you wanted?” her mother replied, her voice equally small.
“It is, but…” Scootaloo’s voice trailed off as she was unable to put into words her thoughts about the fear that her mother would abandon her and the possibility that the two might not love each other anymore and how a part of her wanted everything to be back to normal, although maybe with more Rainbow Dash. She looked around the room as though she was seeing it for the first time. She looked back over to her mother who was trying to fight back the nascent tears forming in her eyes. “I can’t do it. I can’t move back yet,” she said as her voice started to crack. “But, umm... maybe we could spend the day together. I got a new scooter and I’ve been practicing some tricks and… I mean if it’s okay with Rainbow.”
“Fine by me, squirt,” Rainbow said quickly.
Misty nodded, unable to speak thanks to the desert growing in her throat. She got up from her seat at the table, walked over to Scootaloo, and embraced her in a warm, comforting hug. Scootaloo froze for a second before she returned the hug, burying her face deep in her mother’s coat. The two stayed like that for a long minute, the hug growing more intimate and Rainbow growing increasingly uncomfortable at the idea that she was intruding on a very private moment.
Finally Misty broke the hug and when she looked up her face appeared lighter, as though the weight she had been carrying had lessened. Scootaloo seemed less burdened as well, though both sets of cheeks glistened with the remnants of tears. “Can we get ice-cream?” Scootaloo asked, wiping her eyes.
Both Rainbow and Misty burst out laughing, the tension and emotion in the room rendered null and void by the childish request.
Rainbow left Scootaloo to spend the day with her mother, and with nothing to do for a while aside from the paperwork she had to do now, she figured she may as well pay a visit to Twilight. They had left things in an odd place last night and Rainbow could use some reassurances that her friend wasn’t as angry with her as she was previously.
Seeing the open window to the library, Rainbow chose to forgo the door and opted for her usual entrance to the Golden Oaks Library. A powerful flap of her wings later and she glided through the window and landed in the middle of the library.
Twilight looked up from behind her desk, only instead of being mildly annoyed, as was her usual reaction to Rainbow’s choice of entrance, or happy to see her friend, she looked irate. “I’m not speaking to you, Rainbow Dash,” she said in lieu of a more traditional greeting.
“What’d I do? Is it because I flew in through the window again? Fine, I’ll use the door.”
“It’s not about the window, though yes, I do wish you’d use the door,” Twilight stopped herself before she got lost on her tangent. “You called me Princess!”
The day was still young but already Rainbow was getting tired of ponies surprising her. “Umm... Twi, you are a princess.”
“Yes, Rainbow I am well aware of that, thank you very much,” Twilight said with a previously unheard amount of sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Last night, I was trying to stop my friend from making a terrible decision, and you implied that you didn’t care what Twilight Sparkle thought; you only cared what Princess Twilight was saying, and that hurt.”
“Twi’, I call you worse things than Princess... hay, as far as I’m concerned, your name is practically egghead!” Rainbow said, not really sure if she was helping her case.
But Twilight wasn’t the least bit interested in Rainbow’s attempt to mitigate her insult; her voice grew louder and sharper. “How could you do that, Rainbow!? You know how much I hate it when ponies treat me differently because of who I am; fine, I get it, I’m a princess. But you, and Pinkie and Rarity and Applejack and Fluttershy aren’t supposed to treat me any differently. I try to help you and instead of listening to me you accuse me of treating you like you’re just another pony who has to do what I say because I have a stupid crown.”
Rainbow tried desperately to disregard the anguish in her friend’s voice, but looking at the pony across from her she knew that she was in trouble. The expression on Twilight’s face was one that Rainbow couldn’t recall ever seeing. She had seen Twilight angry and annoyed and upset and sad, but she had never seen Twilight actually hurt before. “Look, Twi-”
“Unless you’d like to check out a book, I’d like you to leave my library now,” Twilight said, gesturing toward the door.
Rainbow heard the door close behind her with a resounding click.
As Rainbow stood outside the library, she was forced to admit Twilight wasn’t entirely wrong. She had called her friend ‘princess’, and knew exactly what she was doing when she did so. She was angry and scared, and when she got angry or scared she tended to disregard things like the feelings of her friends who were only trying to help; instead, she lashed out at any pony near her. Lacking any better options, she trudged over to Sugarcube Corner, for no real reason other than that it was nearby.
“Hey, Pinkie,” she said glumly as she walked through the door to find her friend behind the counter.
Pinkie greeted her with a big smile. “Hiya, Dashie! Why the long face?”
Rainbow ignored the well-worn joke. “I think I may have hurt Twilight’s feelings, and now she’s not talking to me.”
“What’d you do?” Pinkie asked, her ever-present smile softening.
“I called her a princess,” Rainbow admitted sheepishly.
Pinkie giggled, “Well, that’s a silly reason to be mad at you. She is a princess.”
Rainbow threw up her hooves in frustration.“I know, right?! But I kinda maybe called her a princess like she wasn’t really my friend.”
Pinkie's smile was now noticeably subdued. “Oooh, why’d you do that? Twilight’s a great friend!”
“I know, I know. I was angry and I spoke without really thinking and now she’s mad at me and I just want her to be my friend again.”
Pinkie rested a hoof on her chin. “Hmmm.” Suddenly her face lit up. “You need a great big grand gesture to show Twilight that you really do think of her as a friend,” she exclaimed with a big smile.
Rainbow was forced to admit that what Pinkie was saying made sense. Despite her often-crazy antics, she was incredibly tuned to the moods of other ponies, and was usually pretty good at cheering them up, that one incident with Fluttershy notwithstanding. “Great, got any ideas?” she asked hoping that Pinkie could solve her problem for her.
“Hmmm... nope! What’s in your bag?” Pinkie asked, the same grin still on her face.
“Just some paperwork I have to do,” Rainbow replied sullenly, her excitement at being Scootaloo’s guardian on temporary hiatus until she could fix things between her and Twilight.
“Ooh, you could ask Twilight to help with your paperwork; Twilight loves paperwork!” Pinkie suggested.
“Thanks, Pinkie, but I don’t think that’s gonna help.”
“Okay, well if you’d like to do your paperwork here, I could make some muffins,” Pinkie offered with a level of restraint that Rainbow wasn’t used to seeing from her.
The thought of one of Pinkie’s blueberry chocolate chip muffins managed to cut through her morose mood. “Thanks, Pinkie,” she said, and meant it in more ways than one.
As Pinkie headed to the kitchen to whip up a fresh batch of muffins, Rainbow Dash took out the stack of papers Misty had given her and began to sort through them. If Twilight wasn’t mad at her, she actually would have asked for her help. But, as she tried to decipher the legal jargon, one page jumped out at her and suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do.
“Hey, Pinkie, I’m gonna need a rain check on that muffin,” she said excitedly as she bolted out the door and flew as fast as she could back to the library. She was about to burst through the window again, but her better judgment prevailed and she opted for the door.
Twilight looked up from her book as Rainbow walked in, the bell hanging from the door frame announcing her arrival. “I’m still mad at you,” she said, glaring at Rainbow, though at least a little pleased that her friend opted for the door this time.
“Yeah, okay, but I need you to sign something,” Rainbow said, almost dismissively.
Twilight stood up from behind her desk. “If you actually think I’m going to use my authority to-” she said, her voice growing louder.
Rainbow shook her head. “Nope. I don’t need Princess Twilight’s signature; I need good ol’ Twilight Sparkle’s,” Rainbow said beaming with pride.
Twilight let out an exasperated sounding sigh. “What are you talking about?”
“The reason I came here earlier was to tell you that I’m officially going to be Scootaloo’s guardian; well, one of them anyway.”
Hearing the news, Twilight couldn’t quite bring herself to make any snide comments; it seemed wrong to tarnish something she knew was that important to a friend, even if she was angry at that friend. “That’s… great, Rainbow,” she said rather flatly.
“Yeah, uh huh; anyways, I have to fill out all these forms, and on one of them I need to list who I want to take over caring for Scoots if something were to happen to me. Well, I mean if something were to happen to me and Misty wasn’t around, and also I think Misty has a sister or something; but if all of us were gone…” Rainbow paused so Twilight could register her sincerity. “I’d want you to take care of Scootaloo. Because you’re the smartest, best pony I know, and I’m lucky to have you as a friend.” Rainbow paused again, using the occasion to look Twilight in the eyes. “There’s nopony I trust more than you, Twi’, and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, but I can’t think of anypony else that would be better for this, and not because you’re a princess, but because you’re Twilight. If you don’t want to do it for me, then do it for Scootaloo, maybe?” she said with wide eyes and an earnest softness that she rarely used.
Twilight teared up ever so slightly, blinking rapidly. “Oh, Rainbow,” she squeaked. Twilight quickly got out from behind her desk and tackled Rainbow in a hug.
“Egghead,” Rainbow whispered softly into Twilight’s ear as she gently hugged her back.
Twilight giggled and broke the embrace. “I’m an egghead, huh? Well, you’re… a good flyer! How about that, huh!? ”
“Thanks, Twi!” Rainbow said with an exaggeratedly large grin.
“I need to read a book about how to do this,” Twilight muttered.
“Sure ya do, cause you’re an egghead.” Rainbow tilted her head to the left slightly. “So… you’re not mad at me?”
Twilight responded with a small shake of her head. “No, I’m not mad. That was really sweet what you said just now.” A curious look suddenly appeared on Twilights face as she pursed her lips. “What about Fluttershy? Wouldn’t she be a better choice? Or maybe Applejack? What you really should do is make a list and-”
Rainbow held up a hoof to stop Twilight before she could enumerate how many categories should be on her proposed list. “Do you really want to ruin my grand gesture, Twi’?”
“No, but if you’d really rather put Fluttershy’s name down, I’d understand.”
“Thanks, Twi’, but I made the right call. The squirt is actually spending the day with her mom and I don’t have anything to do. Wanna go do something fun?”
“Like what?” Before Rainbow could propose anything, Twilight let out an excited squeak and clapped her hooves together. “Ooh, there’s a traveling exhibit about early Equestrian settlers. We could go to that.”
Rainbow tried her best to fake her enthusiasm. “Sure, Twi’. That sounds great.”
Rainbow tried to enjoy the rest of her day with Twilight, and truthfully she was glad to spend time with a friend and watch them enjoy themselves, but she could only sit through so many impromptu lectures about early Equestrian settlers before she had to call it a day.
When she got home, Scootaloo was apparently still out with her mom, so Rainbow took advantage of the rare peace and quiet to finish Scootaloo’s guardianship papers and generally unwind from the stress of the last few days.
Unfortunately for her plan, all around her cloud house were reminders that she now shared it with a little orange filly, which weirdly made her happier than she ever thought was possible. And that in turn reminded her that she had to have a very difficult conversation with said filly that could possibly lead to her not being there anymore.
And yes, not “being there anymore” was the closest Rainbow could come to thinking about Scootaloo dying without getting hysterical. As a result, Rainbow spent the afternoon oscillating between relaxed and out of her mind terrified, suffice it to say it was very nerve wracking.
As soon as she heard the welcome sound of Scootaloo closing the front door, she flew down to the first floor of her house only to be a little surprised at the sight that greeted her.
Rainbow Dash could never be accused of being the most observant pony, but luckily for her Scootaloo wore her emotions on her sleeve. When Scootaloo was happy she stood taller, her legs a little more than shoulder width apart, her wings flared out and her tail swishing. In contrast, when Scootaloo was nervous or scared she tended to make herself small, wings folded against her sides, tail held tight between her legs and her head permanently looking at the ground.
Twilight once tried to explain that this was subconscious desires manifesting themselves physically; when she was nervous or scared Scootaloo wanted to hide, and it was easier to hide if you were small. Rainbow didn’t really understand all the big words her friend had used, but she did understand the concept. And from the way Scootaloo stood in the door, it was plainly evident that if there had been even a hole to crawl into, then that’s where she would be.
Scootaloo sniffled. “I miss my mommy. We spent the whole day together and I realized how much I miss her.”
Rainbow let out a sigh of relief. “Is that all?”
Scootaloo looked up bewildered. Had any other pony said that she would assume they were mocking her. But this was Rainbow Dash, the one pony she was certain would never belittle her feelings.
Rainbow scooted closer and softly nuzzled the top of Scootaloo’s head. “You’re not going anywhere kiddo, and your mom isn’t going anywhere either. If you want to see her more often I think that’s great. We can totally make that happen.”
“What about you?” Scootaloo asked in a very small voice.
“What about me?”
“I won’t get to see you as much, and I don’t want that either.”
Rainbow tried to smile reassuringly, and she’d be lying if she said that it didn’t warm her heart that Scootaloo was scared of not spending time with her. “I’m not going anywhere either, okay Scoots? Whatever it takes, you can see both of us as much as you want.”
That answer seemed to satisfy the orange filly, because her wings slowly unfurled, and she instantly seemed more relaxed.
“So what did you want to talk to my mom about?” Scootaloo asked, now that her present crisis had been averted.
And just like that, Rainbow came crashing back down to earth. But she also knew that there was no more avoiding the discussion she was about to have. “Remember when the doc came over and she ran all those tests?”
Scootaloo could only nod as her throat seized up. Whatever was coming was going to be life altering, for better or worse.
“It turns out, you’ve got some kind of lump near your wings, and that’s why you’re having trouble flying.”
Scootaloo blinked her eyes repeatedly as she processed the news. “Oh, so I guess that’s it then,” she said, her dejection plainly evident on her face. The one thing she had always wanted, in some ways her birthright, was now officially denied to her.
Rainbow winced at Scootaloo’s pain. The thought that she might be able to alleviate it was the only thing that pushed her to continue. “Not exactly.” Scootaloo looked up, a glimmer of hope already back in her eyes. “The doc says you could have some surgery to remove the lump, but it’s really dangerous.”
“But if it works I’d be able to fly?” Scootaloo asked, her tone betraying her excitement.
As Scootaloo made her intentions known, Rainbow found herself increasingly ignoring her edict to let Scootaloo make this decision. “Maybe, but if it doesn’t you could end up dead. You need to say no to this, Scootaloo,” she said, almost pleading.
Scootaloo studied the mare in front of her carefully, her eyes moving up and down, trying to spot some clue as to why Rainbow wouldn’t want her to be able to fly. “Why don’t you want me to do this? I thought if anyone would understand you would.”
“Because I’m scared, Scoots! You happy now? I said it.” Rainbow realized that she had unintentionally yelled that last part and fought to keep her emotions in check. “I’m scared that I’m going to lose my little sister and I can’t handle that…I just can’t.” Rainbow slumped where she stood, the weight of what was happening, literally pressing down on her. Her next words came out broken and rough. “When...there was a moment where I thought I had lost you, and it broke me, Scoots. I don’t think I could go through that again.”
Scootaloo wasn’t used to seeing Rainbow so willingly vulnerable. Rainbow Dash was the most awesome, fearless pegasus ever. She laughed in the face of danger. But despite her sister’s heartfelt plea, Scootaloo needed to do this, and she also needed her sister to be okay with it.
Her response came out as a whisper. “You do risky things all the time. How d’you think I’d feel if I lost my big sister?”
“That’s different.”
“Why?” Scootaloo asked in earnest.
Rainbow found her voice rising again. “Because when I take a risk, I’m in control. You wouldn’t be. You’d be unconscious, lying on a table, hoping some other pony doesn’t make a mistake. And if they did, even if you didn’t die, your wings could end up paralyzed. That means no more scootering, no nothing. You’d end up an earth pony without their strength, and that's assuming you could even walk! ” Rainbow didn’t care how frightening and harsh her description sounded. If she needed to scare Scootaloo to keep her safe, then that’s what she was going to do.
But Scootaloo was Rainbow’s sister in every way that mattered, and that meant that she didn’t scare easy. Instead of being cowed she posed another question. “You want to be a Wonderbolt, right?”
“You know I do. What does that have to do with anything?” Rainbow replied curtly.
“Well, the Wonderbolts take risks all the time,” Scootaloo reasoned, “and they rely on each other to keep them safe. So isn’t this kind of like that? I mean, you said that Dr. Feather was the Wonderbolts doctor. Doesn’t that make her kinda like a Wonderbolt?”
Damn Scootaloo and her stupid logic. Damn the stupid Wonderbolts, damn the stupid lump, damn the whole Celestia damned universe. Rainbow stared down at the little filly in front of her. She couldn’t deny that she knew just how much Scootaloo wanted to fly; it was the same desire that led her to practice for hours on end. She knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that there was nothing so scary as not being able to fly, and that meant that nothing she said could possibly change Scootaloo’s mind. Which meant there was only one hope she had left. “I want you to promise me that you’re going to be okay,” Rainbow said, trying to keep her voice from cracking.
“But-”
Rainbow shook her head vigorously. “No buts, kid. Promise me that, if you get this surgery, you’ll spend a day in the hospital, and then the very next day it’ll be me and you flying around like we own the sky.”
Scootaloo got the sense that this mattered to Rainbow. She was too young to fully comprehend all the emotions that she was feeling but she knew that the next words she said were important. “Okay, Rainbow. I promise.”
Rainbow tried to believe that Scootaloo’s promise meant something, and she almost succeeded. Regardless, she knew what she had to do next. She picked Scootaloo up and held her close, trying not to think about the fact that she might not have very many more of these moments left.
After a long moment, in which Scootaloo hugged her back, Rainbow set the orange filly down in front of her.
“Well, I guess we’d better go see Dr. Feather tomorrow.”
Bedtime was a quieter affair than the two pegasi were used to. Rainbow tucked Scootaloo in and read a few chapters of Daring Do and the Temple of Doom. It was a standard Daring Do tale, filled with the titular hero exploring a centuries old temple that still, somehow, had a wide array of functioning booby traps, as all the while she was being chased by villains in search of the same powerful artifact she was after. Yet, despite its predictability, Scootaloo appeared to enjoy the story and the continuation of their usual bedtime ritual.
Of course the story Rainbow really wanted to tell her little sister was Daring Do and the Pegasus Who Couldn’t Fly but was Awesome Anyway and Most Importantly she was Alive, but that hadn’t been written.
Soon Scootaloo drifted off to sleep, but Rainbow stayed for a few minutes, just watching the covers rise and fall with each small breath. In a way it had become her favorite sight, edging out the spectacle of the sun setting just below the horizon as she soared through the sky. Eventually she left Scootaloo alone with her dreams and wandered outside only to find herself staring up at the night sky.
It was a quiet night, the moon shone brightly and the stars sparkled as if to say that they too were worthy of the beauty of the night. She searched the sky for something, anything that might reassure her that everything was going to work out, but as usual the sky held no answers. A slight breeze rustled her feathers. At first she shrugged it off, assuming it was just the wind, but a moment later she felt a presence looming over her.
“Hello again, Rainbow,” Equestria’s Princess of the night said with a small bow of her head.
“Luna? Don’t you have better things to be doing?” Rainbow winced as the realization that she had unintentionally insulted one of Equestria’s diarchs dawned upon her. She had just finished patching things up with one princess; she wasn’t sure how’d she’d go about fixing her relationship with Luna. “I mean um-”
Luna raised a hoof slowly and smiled. “Rest easy. I know you meant no offense.”
Rainbow breathed out a sigh of relief. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just a little preoccupied.”
“Scootaloo?”
“Well, yeah, but how’d you know?”
Luna responded by arching an eyebrow, as though the answer should be obvious, even to a pony as dense as Rainbow was known to be. “Aside from the fact that every time I have visited you these past few months that filly has been your biggest concern?”
“Yeah, besides that,” Rainbow muttered.
“The young filly’s dreams are particularly powerful tonight. I took the liberty of assuming that you might need guidance as well.”
Rainbow titled her head slightly. “Huh?”
“Not all dreams are the same. Whenever a dream elicits particularly strong emotions from the dreamer, that magic is like a beacon in the dream realm. It is how I know which fillies are having true nightmares and which ones are just scared of failing tomorrow’s math test,” Luna explained calmly.
“What’s Scootaloo dreaming about?” Rainbow asked, despite having a pretty good idea of what the answer would be.
Luna narrowed her eyes and fixed Rainbow with a firm stare. “I am honor bound never to reveal the dreams of another,” she said slipping into the Royal Canterlot voice. Her point made, she softened her tone again. “I can tell you she is incredibly fearful yet fiercely hopeful.”
“Sounds about right.” Suddenly a stray thought hit her and she got angry that she hadn’t thought of it sooner. She remembered hearing Rarity tell her about how Luna visited Sweetie Belle once in her dreams; if that were true Luna might be able to solve her current dilemma. “Hey, you can see the future, right?”
Luna shook her head, “No Rainbow Dash, that is a power beyond me.”
“But what about that time you visited Sweetie Belle?”
Luna paused for a moment while she tried to decipher the meaning of Rainbow’s statement. Finally the reason for Rainbow’s misconception dawned on her. “I do not know what is going to happen any more than you do. The dream realm grants me access to possible futures, and I shared one of them with Sweetie Belle so that she might see the consequences of her actions.”
Her hopes dashed, Rainbow hung her head. “So you don’t know if Scootaloo’s surgery will be successful?”
“I do not. I can only see what might happen.”
“If it does work, is she going to be happy?” Rainbow asked with wide, pleading eyes.
“If Scootaloo can fly, her life will still have pain and heartbreak, rejection and disappointment. Such is life.”
Rainbow thought about Scootaloo again. The only reason she had granted her very tentative approval was the idea that flying would make Scootaloo happy. If that wasn’t true, Rainbow was a lot less inclined to pledge her support. “Why would you tell me that! If it’s not going to make her happy then why should I let her go through with it?” Rainbow shook her head, the last of her resolve gone. “I should just put a stop to this whole thing. Do you know how hard it is to watch someone you care about risk their life while you could stop them but don’t?”
Luna cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head. Fortunately for Rainbow, she didn’t appear angry as much as she appeared to be amused. “Did you just ask if I was familiar with the burdens of power?”
Rainbow again remembered who she was talking to and blushed. “Oh yeah, the whole princess thing.”
“Rainbow Dash, consider the inverse of what I just told you. Even if Scootaloo cannot fly, she will still experience her share of joy and love, for that too is part of life.”
“All the more reason to stop her,” Rainbow shot back.
“And yet I feel as though you know that would be unwise,” Luna countered.
Rainbow was forced to concede there was truth in Luna's last statment. “Yeah, I know,” she said sadly. “What about me?”
Unsure of exactly what Rainbow was asking, Luna pushed for further clarification. “What are you asking?”
“If her surgery goes bad and, well… if it goes bad, would I ever be able forgive myself?”
Luna considered her response carefully. She was a centuries old alicorn who had dealt with enough pain and loss for several lifetimes; in contrast Rainbow was still a young mare, as such she had far less practice managing grief. “I do not doubt that you would feel her loss sharply. But others have lost those who they love, just as much as you love Scootaloo. The world spins on for them, as it would for you. I invite you to consider the reverse, if you forbid her from doing this, would you ever forgive yourself for depriving her of the chance to fly?”
Rainbow couldn't allow herself to imagine a world without Scootaloo, which insulated her from imagining how she would feel every time she saw Scootaloo look up at the sky longingly. “I think I’d find a way to live with it. Aren’t you supposed to fly down here and tell me that I’m doing the right thing and that everything will be okay?”
“I can offer no solace from the harsh realities that plague us all; I come here only to offer my support regardless of what the future holds. I believe that is what friends do, is it not?”
Rainbow smiled, it appeared that Luna had been reading Twilight’s friendship letters, because even if the words weren’t exactly what Twilight would have used, the sentiment was definitely one the purple alicorn would agree with. “I guess it is. Thanks Luna.”
Her support pledged, Luna flew off, presumably to visit the dreams of other troubled children, and with nothing else to be done Rainbow went to bed. She didn't sleep all that well the rest of the night, but she did manage to achieve a sort of uneasy peace that allowed her at least a few hours of rest.
“So we get to visit Dr. Feather today?” Scootaloo asked, a bit too cheerful for Rainbow’s liking. Couldn't she at least pretend like she might not go through with this?
But Scootaloo appeared to be excited, so Rainbow tried to at least partially match her attitude. “Yep. She should still be at Wonderbolts HQ.”
Scootaloo jumped up and down and fluttered her wings excitedly. “We get to go back to the Cloudiseum? Are the rest of the Wonderbolts gonna be there?’
“They might.”
“Awesome!” Scootaloo cheered, with a small hoof pump that Rainbow recognized from practicing it in the mirror.
After breakfast and a shower Scootaloo hopped up on Rainbow’s back and the two headed toward the Cloudiseum. At one point Rainbow could feel Scootaloo snuggle closer to her and it took all of her willpower not to stop right there and turn around. But she made her sister a promise; and the only thing worse than not having Scootaloo in her life anymore would be if Scootaloo chose to remove herself from Rainbow’s life because Rainbow had broken her fragile trust.
The pair landed at the entrance and the guard waved them in without delay. As they walked through the halls Scootaloo kept straining her neck in every direction hoping to catch a glimpse of the Wonderbolts, but they were nowhere to be found.
Rainbow couldn’t help but appreciate, very begrudgingly, Dr. Feather’s professionalism. Not that she would have complained had Dr. Feather tried to dissuade Scootaloo from having the surgery, but she also didn’t sugar coat anything. She patiently explained exactly what she was going to do, albeit in simpler language than she was used to using, and then answered all of Scootaloo’s questions honestly. She didn’t try to minimize the risk, which Rainbow appreciated, but she also didn’t go out of her way to scare the patient either, which Rainbow didn’t appreciate as much.
“Any other questions?” the doctor asked after it appeared that Scootaloo had a solid understanding of both her condition and the risk involved with surgery.
“No, I think that’s it,” The filly replied quietly. It was impossible for Rainbow not to notice the trepidation in her voice.
“Have you two thought about when you’d like to schedule the procedure? Somepony is going to have to take care of you for a few days after you get out of the hospital.”
Rainbow looked down at the filly sitting next to her, still hoping that she might change her mind. But if she wasn’t going to then Rainbow really didn’t care when this happened. In some ways maybe it would be better to just get it over with. If nothing else it would ease her stress levels. “It’s up to you, Scoots. I can take time off whenever.”
Scootaloo looked at the doctor, then up at Rainbow, and finally she twisted her back so she could see her wings as she fluttered them briefly. “Can we do it soon?” she asked quietly. Scootaloo bit her lip and then looked directly at Dr. Feather. “My entire life I’ve wanted to fly, and maybe I just can’t. But I… I don’t want to spend any more time wondering, I think I’d just like to know, one way or the other.”
Dr. Feather nodded as though the sentiment was one she was used to hearing. “We can do it the day after tomorrow if you’d like.”
The next day passed by in a haze for Rainbow. As far as she could tell Scootaloo’s biggest complaint was that she wasn’t allowed to eat anything, thanks to the no eating for 24 hours before surgery rule. Despite the potential ramifications of what she was going to do, there was very little that Scootaloo needed to do by way of preparation. If she were older, she might have spent time preparing a will or otherwise assuring that her affairs were in order, but she was a child, and children didn’t really have affairs. She spent some time with the crusaders, and an afternoon with her mom, but neither of those events seemed out of the ordinary.
Rainbow couldn’t be sure what the mood was like during those times, but when they were together Scootaloo appeared determined to act as though this was no big deal. And so Rainbow made it her goal to play along, no matter how much she believed the opposite.
Though Dr. Splint had offered the operating bay in the Cloudiseum, after some thought Dr. Feather had deemed it prudent to use the surgical ward at Ponyville General. Although the surgical bay in the Cloudiseum was a fully functioning operating theater, it was also in the clouds. Since the doctors were going to be operating very near Scootaloo’s wing, which was where the magic that prevented her from falling through the cloud floor originated, Dr. Feather deemed it wise to just avoid the risk that Scootaloo fell through the table, and then the floor altogether.
But the risk of Scootaloo falling through the floor was the least of Rainbow’s reservations about the whole thing.
Sooner than she would have liked, Rainbow found herself tucking Scootaloo in, as though it was just another night. “Big day tomorrow, kid,” Rainbow said softly, after she had finished checking that Scootaloo was all snug under her blankets. Scootaloo nodded but didn’t say anything. “You want a bedtime story?” Scootaloo shook her head. “Would it be okay if I slept in here tonight?” Scootaloo nodded and made some room in the small child sized bed. Rainbow gingerly got in the bed and kissed Scootaloo on the forehead. She ruffled the soft purple mane and wraped a wing around her sister.
“You promised that we’d go flying the day after tomorrow, right Scoots?” Scootaloo nodded weakly and the pair snuggled in for a fitful night of sleep.
All too quickly, morning arrived and Rainbow flew Scootaloo down to the hospital. Rainbow never really liked hospitals, her time spent recovering in them saw to that, but today the nondescript white building felt extra ominous.
Waiting inside were the other two members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Misty, and Rainbow’s five best friends. Rainbow checked Scootaloo in while Scootaloo hopped up on the gurney waiting to be wheeled into the prep area. Before she left for prep, the nurses gave everypony one last chance to say something to Scootaloo.
Rainbow’s friends went first. Rainbow stood back and watched as one by one they offered Scootaloo quiet well wishes, accompanied by a quick hug or pat on the back. The crusaders went next, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle approaching as a pair. Rainbow couldn’t hear what they said, but it elicited a big smile and laugh out of Scootaloo. The fillies lingered for a moment longer before reluctantly joining their big sisters in the hospital waiting room. Then Misty came forward. Rainbow couldn’t hear what she said either. She and Scootaloo appeared to have a short conversation that concluded with a long hug. Finally it was Rainbow’s turn. She briefly considered grabbing Scootaloo and bolting out the door, then she contemplated just bolting out the door herself.
But looking at Scootaloo sitting on the hospital bed, seemingly smaller than usual, steadied her nerves. She reached down and drew from that well of strength that mothers took from when their children were threatened, or that young colts used when trying to impress a filly. That internal fortitude that all ponies possessed. For the longest time, her well was fueled by Fluttershy. I need to do this for ‘Shy was a common refrain from her past that she said to herself whenever she felt doubt. Now that well was powered by her all her friends, but Scootaloo had taken her place as Rainbow’s primary motivation.
Rainbow approached, trying to act as though this was just another bedtime situation. She sat down near the edge of the bed and let a hoof rest near her sister’s head.
“I’m scared,” Scootaloo whispered, looking towards Rainbow with the kind of heartbreaking fear that she had sworn to guard against.
“Well I’m not,” Rainbow replied, with the most bravado she could muster.
“You’re not?”
Rainbow shook her head; it was the hardest lie she had ever had to tell. “Nope. My little sister made a promise, and I know she always keeps her promises,” she said with a grin.
Scootaloo tried to be reassured by Rainbow’s comments, but seeing as how she was the one that made that promise, Rainbow’s statement did little good.
Noticing the distress still plainly evident. Rainbow tried again. She leaned in close and looked Scootaloo straight in the eyes. “Hey kid. I’d never let anything happen to you, okay? So you don’t have to be scared, ever,” she said moving her hoof to the top of her sister’s head.
Those words appeared to have the effect she wanted because Scootaloo instantly seemed more at ease. “Hey, Rainbow?” she said looking up with wide purple eyes.
“Yeah kid?”
Scootaloo bit her lip and rubbed her head against the soft hoof. “If something happens, will you...will you take care of my mom for me?”
Rainbow frowned. “You can take care of her yourself.”
“Please Rainbow?”
The plea was heartbreaking. How could she possibly say no? She wanted to; it felt too much like tempting fate to acknowledge that “something might happen”. One of the first things Rainbow learned about flying was that you didn’t think about crashes, because once you allowed those negative thoughts to enter your head you were inviting them into reality. Her next words came out barely as a whisper. “Okay kid, I promise.”
Scootaloo smiled weakly but didn’t say anything else. The pair sat there for a few minutes, with Rainbow gently stroking Scootaloo’s mane until a nurse politely tapped Rainbow on the shoulder. No one said anything, but the nurse began to wheel Scootaloo toward the prep room and Rainbow could only watch helplessly as her sister receded from view.
Rainbow walked back out into the waiting room and sat quietly in front of the doors to the surgical ward. The double swinging doors loomed ominously in front of her, literally keeping her from the one place she wanted to be more than anything. She felt a wing drape around her; its yellow color and familiar feel told her it was Fluttershy’s without having to look up.
“Thanks for coming girls, but you don’t have to stay. You’re not her family, “Rainbow murmured staring at the ground.
“What a terrible thing for you to say, darling.”
“Huh?”
Rarity smiled and leaned in so she could make eye contact. “Whether you like it or not, we are your family dear.”
“Yep, and Scootaloo’s your family too. And that makes her our family,” Pinkie Pie chimed in.
“And family stays,” Applejack finished, accompanied by murmurs of agreement.
Rainbow wasn’t really sure what to say, or even if she was capable of speaking. Fortunately for her, a reassuring squeeze from Fluttershy negated the need for her to say anything else. The five friends sat in a sort of semi circle around Rainbow and settled in for a long wait.
After a minute or so of silence, Pinkie got up. “I’ll be right back.”
Rainbow, Rarity, Applejack, Twilight and Fluttershy watched as Pinkie Pie walked over to Misty. They couldn’t hear what Pinkie said but from Misty’s reaction, it appeared to be obvious. Misty nodded and followed Pinkie back to where Rainbow and her friends were all huddled. A few brief hellos and nods were exchanged but nopony said anything of substance.
And so the seven ponies waited together.
. Six hours passed, the scheduled surgery time. Then a seventh hour, then an eighth. Rainbow grew increasingly nervous and at one point had to be restrained with a magic field, courtesy of Twilight, from barging into the operating room.
Finally Doctor Feather emerged from the operating room, a grim and exhausted expression written plainly on her face. The seven ponies stared at her, Misty covered her mouth with her hooves, and Rainbow started shaking.
The doctor sighed, “She’s stable. She’s lost a lot of blood, but we managed to stop the bleeding.”
“I want to see her!” Rainbow practically screamed.
“She’s in a coma. I can take you to her, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” the doctor replied.
“I want to see her.” Rainbow repeated her voice quieter but no less hostile.
Dr. Feather led the group to hospital room 2A. When the group reached the door, the doctor put out a hoof to stop Rainbow from entering. “She’s stable,” the doctor said, repeating the phrase she had first used to describe Scootaloo’s condition.
Rainbow glared at the doctor, attempting to push past the hoof that was keeping her away from her little sister, but the hoof held firm.
“I think we should listen to what the doctor has to say,” Twilight whispered loud enough to be sure Rainbow heard her.
Dr. Feather delivered the news with a professionalism befitting her stature. Her voice was even, calm but still laced with understanding. “We removed the mass. It hadn’t metastasized to her spine, but it was caught up with the base of her wings, including one of the major arteries. When we removed it, it ripped a tear in the brachial artery open. We clamped it shut and transfused two liters, but she still lost a lot of blood. The shock is what put her in the coma.”
“What does that mean doctor?” Misty asked.
“It means that, if she’s going to be okay, she needs time to recover.”
“If? What do you mean if!” Rainbow shrieked.
“She’s not getting any worse; that’s a good sign. All we can do is wait.” Doctor Feather looked to see if anyone had anything else to say but no one said anything.
The doctor lowered her hoof and Rainbow walked into the room. She promptly felt her knees buckle. Scootaloo lay unconscious in her hospital bed, an IV sticking out of her foreleg and a tube shoved down her throat, held to her mouth with a haphazard looking piece of medical tape. A large portion of her back had been shaved, leaving the area around her wings devoid of its usual orange fur. Instead, an ugly red scar, accented with black stitches, ran up the length of the bare skin. Rainbow crept to the edge of the bed. “Scoots?” she whispered, but the little filly didn’t even stir.
“Would it be okay if I was alone with Rainbow for a minute?” Misty asked, turning to the other five ponies. They all nodded and proceeded to back out of the room, leaving Rainbow and Misty alone with an unconscious Scootaloo.
“I’m sorry,” Rainbow whispered, her voice ragged and broken. “I…I shouldn’t have let this happen.” Her confession delivered, she found herself unable to even look at Scootaloo’s mother as hot tears started to fall down her cheeks.
“I remember the first time she told me about you.”
Rainbow forced herself to look up. “Really?”
Misty nodded, wiping at her eyes. “She burst through the front door, talking a mile a minute about the coolest pegasus ever, who told her she ‘had moves’,” Misty replied making air quotes with her hooves.
Rainbow smiled at the memory, hazy as it was. She couldn’t recall it as anything special, but she did have some recollection of seeing Scootaloo flying through the air on her scooter before they went camping. That such an insignificant gesture on her part clearly meant so much set off another wave of self loathing. “Heh, yeah. Umm she never really told me much about you.”
Misty shrugged. “I’m not surprised. I know I’m-what’s the word Scootaloo would use? Kind of lame.”
“You’re not lame,” Rainbow protested.
Misty smiled sadly and rolled her eyes before returning her gaze to the orange filly in the hospital bed. “I’m an accountant, I’m a member of a knitting circle and I don’t like spicy foods. I know Scootaloo loves me, but I’ve never been what you might call cool.”
Rainbow tried to think of a counter point, but nothing came to mind. “Yeah, I guess that’s kinda lame.” Rainbow also looked down at Scootaloo and then back toward Misty. “She made me promise to take care of you if something were to happen.” Rainbow fought back a fresh wave of tears. “That was the last thing she said to me.”
Instead of choking up like she was, Rainbow was surprised to hear a soft chuckle emanate from Misty. “She made me promise to take care of you.”
“Why’d you bring balloons Pinkie?”
“Hospitals are sooo boring. When she wakes up I want there to be happy things in the room.”
“Thanks Pinkie, I’m sure she’ll like them.”
“How ya holdin’ up sugar cube?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m not the one ponies should be worried about,” Rainbow said with a snort.
“Well, if Scootaloo could answer, I reckon I wouldn’t have to pose it to you.”
Rainbow just grunted as Applejack sat down next to her.
“You need to fix this Twilight.”
“Rainbow I can’t-”
“Fix it! You’re Twilight f’in Sparkle. Since when is there something you can’t do?!”
“I can’t fix this Rainbow,” Twilight whispered.
Rainbow shook her head. “I don’t care what it takes. Write to Luna, Write to Celestia, go into that scary section of the library you’re always trying to avoid. Heck, Discord owes us a favor.” Rainbow glared at Twilight and growled. “Fix. This.”
“You have to eat something.”
“Scootaloo’s not eating anything. Besides, I’m not hungry.”
“Rainbow, she wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.”
“She also wouldn’t want to be breathing through a tube, so let’s maybe worry about that before you start lecturing me about what I should or shouldn’t be doing!”
Despite her general lack of impulse control, there existed a failsafe when it came to Fluttershy. Even at her worst, Rainbow couldn’t bring herself to get to upset at her childhood friend. That failsafe prevented Rainbow from verbalizing her suggestion about exactly what Fluttershy could do with the piece of fruit she was presently holding.
“Eat this apple, please?” It was phrased as a plea but it may have well been an order for all that Rainbow was able to refuse.
Rainbow reluctantly took a bite of the apple. It tasted like failure, but she finished it anyway under Fluttershy’s watchful gaze.
“You look awful, dear.”
“I’m fine.”
Sometime around mid afternoon on the third day, Rainbow blinked her eyes. Time didn’t really have any meaning for her anymore, but from the harsh glare of the sun she guessed it was sometime past morning. She stole a glance at herself in the mirror. Rarity would recoil in horror if she saw how greasy her mane looked, but Rainbow couldn’t bring herself to care. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a little orange hoof twitch. She darted to Scootaloo’s bedside just in time to see her little sister’s eyes flutter open.
She coughed weakly, a response to a tube being shoved down her throat. “Hey Rainbow Dash.”
Hearing Scootaloo’s voice for the first time in three days, Rainbow Dash fervently pushed past the wires and tubes and just held Scootaloo in between her forelegs, resting her head on top of the soft purple mane.
“Are you okay?” she heard a familiar voice whisper from within the embrace.
“No,” Rainbow replied, shaking her head. She was far too emotional to describe her condition as anything close to ‘ok’. “But I think I will be,” Rainbow Dash added as a measure of reassurance.
She reluctantly let go of Scootaloo and inched away. “You look awful,” Scootaloo said, as soon as she got a better look at her big sister with her greasy mane and thick bags under her bloodshot eyes.
“You look awful,” Rainbow fired back weakly.
The quiet moment was interrupted by a small gasp as Misty dropped the apple she was holding and ran to the other side of Scootaloo’s bed. Almost instantly, Scootaloo was enveloped in another hug.
One of the nurses must have heard the commotion because a few minutes later Doctor Feather walked into the room. Despite her stoic nature, she visibly relaxed when she saw Scootaloo awake and cogent.
Before the doctor could say anything, Rainbow spoke. “She’s awake. That means she’s going to be okay, right?”
“It’s a very promising sign,” Dr. Feather said carefully. “I want to keep her here for at least twenty four hours to monitor her vital signs. And when I do release her she’ll need to stay on the ground for at least two weeks. No flight practice, no cloud walking, nothing that could task her magic reserves even in the slightest.”
“But then she’ll be able to fly, right?” Rainbow asked, saving Scootaloo the trouble.
“Her magic regulation system just went through a shock, not to mention her wing muscles. She needs rehab. Once that’s done we’ll know if the surgery worked,” Dr. Feather said addressing her remarks to Scootaloo as much as Rainbow.
Under most other circumstances Rainbow would have complained about having to wait some indeterminate amount of time to get what she wanted, but the relief that Scootaloo was awake was soothing any negative emotions she might have felt. Applejack could have told her that there’d be no cider this year and she would have shrugged it off as a minor annoyance, she was so placid.
“You’re going to have to find a place for her to stay on the ground,” Dr. Feather said as she recalled her home visit to Rainbow’s cloud mansion.
Rainbow was about to invite herself to Fluttershy’s when a different voice chimed in. “Maybe you could stay at home,” Misty offered quietly.
Scootaloo scrunched her face as everypony turned to look at her. “Can Rainbow Dash stay with us?”
“Of course, baby.”
Dr. Feather nodded and turned to leave, now that her patient had passed her first major milestone toward recovery.
Rainbow gingerly ran a hoof through Scootaloo’s mane one last time and ran out the door to catch up with the doctor, managing to reach her about halfway down the hall. “I just wanted to say thanks doc,” Rainbow said, awkwardly scratching her foreleg. She had snapped at the doctor more than once, but Scootaloo was on her way back to her old self and she wasn’t so naive as to believe that it was pure luck. “Umm, I don’t really understand any of this medical stuff, but I kinda get the sense that maybe this could have gone a lot worse if you weren’t calling the shots.”
The doctor shrugged at the remark. Speculating about what another doctor might have done was not a productive area of inquiry most of the time. “Y’know, most of the time I try to keep my distance from patients and their families.” Doctor Feather paused and Rainbow waited for her to finish her remarks. “She’s special. I’m glad…I’m glad that this worked out.”
Rainbow spent the next two weeks sleeping on the floor and accompanying Scootaloo to rehab in between weather shifts. Magic inhibitors looped around her wings prevented her from even hovering, but Scootaloo completed all the wing exercises everyday without complaint, despite not knowing if they were only exercises in futility.
Finally the big day came, and after a quick breakfast of oatmeal. Rainbow flew Scootaloo to the outskirts of Ponyville, her favorite practice field.
Waiting for them were Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, along with their sisters. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie stood just to the left of them and Misty stood next to Fluttershy.
Scootaloo looked at the ponies gathered on the edge of the field, all with hopeful smiles. “There are a lot of ponies here,” she whispered.
Rainbow looked out at the assembled crowd and shrugged. “I figured either you’re gonna fly and we can all celebrate, or you won’t and you’ll have a bunch of ponies who’ll tell you that you’re still awesome anyway.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Scootaloo said, though she still looked nervous.
“You want em gone? Say the word and I’ll fly us halfway across Equestria and we can do this just the two of us.”
Scootaloo thought briefly about the ponies who had assembled to cheer her on. Her fellow crusaders had of course supported her unquestioningly and uncritically throughout everything. And along with that support came the support of Applejack and Rarity who had granted their homes and more than a few hours of their time in assisting their efforts. Pinkie had offered them more than a few free cupcakes and milkshakes to help take the sting off their failures. She already knew Twilight had been trying to help figure out why she couldn’t fly, and even before that the library was a valuable resource every time the crusaders needed more information. And lastly, Fluttershy had been there when both she and Rainbow needed her, every time. This was almost as much their moment as it was hers.
And then she looked at her mom. She seemed a little out of place in the crowd. Scootaloo had always kept her home life at a distance from her personal life. But before the crusaders, and before any of this, her mom had held her up trying to help her fly when she didn’t know what else to do. And every time she came home with bumps and bruises, her mom would dutifully bandage them up and give Scootaloo a hug that made the hurt a lot more bearable. And for the past two weeks she had waited on Scootaloo hoof and hoof, walking with her to rehab when Rainbow Dash had to be at work, cheering her on from the sideline as she built her wing strength back up.
This was her victory too.
And if it didn’t work, they deserved to know that as well.
Scootaloo took a deep breath and looked up at Rainbow. “Let’s do this!”
Rainbow grinned at the brashness. She pried the bands off Scootaloo’s wings and took a step back. “Nothing’s changed, squirt. You know how to do this. Just jump up and flap your wings.”
Scootaloo took another deep breath, crouched down and propelled herself in the air as high as she could. As soon as she was airborne she squeezed her eyes shut and started furiously flapping her wings, more desperate than she had ever been to stay aloft.
A strange sensation began to radiate down from her wings; it was a cold chill that rapidly warmed up as it spread through the rest of her body. She heard Rainbow’s voice call out, “Easy does it kid. Slow down a bit.” She opened her eyes and gasped. She was still off the ground! She couldn’t quite hover in place, the force of her wings kept pushing her back and forth, but she wasn’t falling either.
A loud cheer went up from the crowd. It wasn’t the most graceful flight ever, but it was flight.
However loud the crowd was, it didn’t remotely come close to the thundering ‘Whoo-hoo” that Rainbow exuberantly cried out. If a passerby happened to wander by they could have been forgiven for thinking that Rainbow was the one flying for the first time, given how giddy she looked as she zipped around the wobbly orange pegasus.
Scootaloo flew back and forth in a small circle a few times, still trying to calibrate her balance now that she had a third axis to worry about. It didn’t take long before she felt her wings start to ache and she landed softly on the grass as everypony galloped over to congratulate her.
“Oh, wow, um thank you everypony.” Her breathing grew labored. “Umm..” Scootaloo began to panic as she struggled to express her gratitude and joy, and why was she crying? This was as happy as she could remember being.
But as usual Rainbow swooped in to save her. “Me and the kid have secret pegasus stuff to talk about. We’ll be back in a second,” Rainbow said, hooking her foreleg under Scootaloo’s and taking off toward the nearest cloud. High above Ponyville, and safely out of view of their friends, Rainbow gently set Scootaloo down next to her.
“Lesson number one about flying, kid: if you ever need some space, you can always borrow a cloud. We’ll work on your altitude later.”
Scootaloo took several deep breaths and wiped at her eyes. “Thanks, Rainbow. I guess umm that I’m a little overwhelmed.”
“It’s a big day for ya kiddo, it’s cool. We can head back down whenever you’re ready.”
Scootaloo looked up at her big sister. The sun was to their back, the backlighting making Rainbow look even more like some sort of mythical figure. Scootaloo reached out and gingerly touched the scar that ran across Rainbow’s barrel. Thanks to some healing spells and fast pegasi metabolism, what was once a red gash had faded into a barely noticeable thin blue line. She started to speak softly. “When we first became sisters, you weren’t always there for me. Sometimes you were late meeting me, and there was that one time that you forgot we were suppose to hang out completely.”
“Umm yeah, sorry about that?” Rainbow said, trying to imagine why Scootaloo would bring that up on what was possibly the greatest day of her life.
Scootaloo started to tear up again but pushed through, determined to say what she wanted to say. “But when I needed you…really needed you…you made me feel safe and then you gave me a home and now I can fly and none of it would have happened without you.” Scootaloo broke eye contact, staring down at the cloud for the next part. “No matter what I do, I won’t ever be able to make it up to you.” Scootaloo sniffled loudly before taking another deep breath and again wiping her eyes, but also looking directly at her big sister. “But I’m gonna try. So if you ever need anything.” Her voice trailed off as she couldn’t quite figure out how to finish that sentence. I mean as long as I’m offering ponies things they don’t need I may as well give Filthy Rich the twenty one bits I have saved in my piggy bank.
Rainbow Dash smiled and stroked her chin thoughtfully. “That’s a pretty big offer, Scoots. I mean, anything can cover a lot of stuff.” The pensive expression disappeared as it was replaced with an even wider grin. “Can I have a hug?”
Scootaloo tilted her head, seemingly confounded by the request.
“I’d like a hug,” Rainbow repeated. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but-”
Before Rainbow could finish she felt a pair of small forelegs wrap around her neck as Scootaloo jumped up and buried her face in the crook of her neck. She let the filly’s torrent of emotions wash over her, absorbing them as they poured forth, punctuated by tiny squeezes of the orange forelegs wrapped around her. For every squeeze Rainbow responded by softly stroking her purple mane. And as she let the little filly silently pour out her feelings, slowly both ponies got their emotions back under control. After a few minutes, Rainbow gently set Scootaloo down in front of her. “Thanks kid. There, now we’re totally even.”
Scootaloo responded by shaking her head. “We’re not even, Rainbow Dash. A hug can’t possibly make up for everything you’ve done.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know how awesome a Scootaloo hug is. Too bad, too. They’re pretty much the most awesome things ever, and I’ve gotten more than a few of them, so yeah, I figure that last one makes us even.”
“But-”
Rainbow draped a wing over her little sister and looked her in the eyes. “No buts Scoots. I love you, plain and simple. We were always even. Heck, if you really want to keep score here, you’ve already given me more than I could ever give you, so how bout you cut your big sister a break and just call it square.”
“Square,” Scootaloo said, though it wasn’t quite clear if she believed it. “Still no cutie mark though,” she said, glancing over her shoulder with a slight frown.
As long as Rainbow was rocking the big sister thing, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to add one more life lesson onto their little cloud bonding session.
“Kid, your cutie mark doesn’t matter,” Rainbow said, letting out a deep breath as though she had just revealed some deep dark conspiracy fostered by the children of Equestria.
“What do you mean?”
Rainbow turned her back so that the rainbow colored lightning bolt that adorned her flank was in full view. “Look at mine. What do you think it means?”
“Well it’s a lightning bolt and a rainbow, because your mane is a rainbow and you like to fly fast and do awesome stuff.”
Rainbow chuckled at Scootaloo’s totally accurate characterization. “Sure do. But if you didn’t know me, what might you think it means?”
“Umm, maybe you really liked being a weather pony?” Scootaloo guessed.
Rainbow chuckled again, this time for a different reason. “Yep, that could work. I had one stallion tell me that I must always look on the bright side of things.”
“Boy was he off,” Scootaloo scoffed.
“He sure was. What about Fluttershy’s cutie mark, what does it mean?” Rainbow gently prodded.
“It symbolizes her connection with animals because those butterflies saved her,” Scootaloo said, recalling Fluttershy’s story about how she got her own cutie mark.
“Couldn’t it also mean that maybe she just really likes butterflies, or that she flies gently or something?”
“I guess,” Scootaloo said with a shrug . Rainbow pressed onward, hoping her meaning would become clearer. “Twilight’s cutie mark is some weird symbol and Rarity’s could mean almost anything. What your cutie mark is doesn’t matter. What matters is what you decide to do with it. So what do you want to do, Scoots?”
Scootaloo folded her hoofs in front of her as she considered the question. “I think I really like flying,” she said, verbalizing the first thing that popped into her head.
Rainbow gave Scootaloo another big smile. “Of course you do. What else?”
Scootaloo thought for another second, briefly reflecting on her short life. “I still like to ride my scooter, and I also kinda like to dance.”
“I know,” Rainbow said with a smirk.
“You know?”
“You really think I haven’t seen ya dancing around the house? What else?”
“Well, I really like it when you tell me bedtime stories, and I was kinda thinking maybe I could try telling stories sometime.”
“Awesome. We can start tonight. You pick the story and you tell it. I’ll just listen. Anything else?”
Scootaloo’s voice grew lower and more somber. “I was thinking… there are a lot of foals who need help and, well, not everypony is lucky enough to have a Rainbow Dash, like I do. I kinda thought maybe one day I might go work for Foal Services and try to help kids who are being hurt, like you helped me.”
“That’s a nice idea Scoots. Maybe your mark will be a shield? Or it could be some dancing shoes or a book. Maybe it will be some kind of weird symbol. It won’t matter. You’ll be awesome at whatever you decide to do and your cutie mark will remind you of that. But you’ll still do what you do because you love doing it.”
“I never really thought of it like that.” Scootaloo leapt up and gave Rainbow another hug. “Thanks Rainbow Dash.”
“Most awesome things ever,” Rainbow whispered as she hugged Scootaloo back. “Now c’mon, you’ve got a bunch of ponies who want to celebrate with you. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”
“Bye Rainbow Dash, Bye Fluttershy,” Scootaloo called out as she flew down the path heading towards home.
“See ya Squirt,” Rainbow called after her as she watched the orange filly fade from view.
“You miss her, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about ‘Shy? I see her all the time. She still stays over at my house at least twice a week. She’s going to flight camp this summer, and I’m thinking of applying to be a counselor.”
“That’s great, Rainbow. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have the best flyer in all of Equestria on their staff.”
Rainbow grinned at the praise before the smile disappeared only to be replaced by a much more somber one. “It’s not the same.”
“I know. How is she?” Fluttershy asked, draping a wing around her friend.
“She’s great. Misty has a new boyfriend; I think Scoots is still a little skeptical.”
“Oh?” There was a note of concern in Fluttershy’s voice. She was far too polite to come out and ask if Rainbow thought Scootaloo might be in danger again, but the thought crossed her mind.
“Relax, I checked him out. He seems like a nice guy. He sells farm equipment. I guess Misty met him at some knitting thing.”
“That’s nice. How’s Scootaloo handling it?”
“Like I said, she’s a bit wary. But he’s been good, hasn’t tried to force anything.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Fluttershy said with a smile.
“You think Twilight would let me take Scoots down to the mirror pool? Seems unfair that there can be only one.”
“I don’t think Twilight would be okay with you cloning Scootaloo. But you know Rainbow, there are lots of other fillies and colts that could use a Rainbow Dash in their lives.”
“Eh, I want that one,” Rainbow said with a sad shrug.
“I know.”
“Hey ‘Shy. Can I stay at your place tonight? Mine’s been feeling a bit empty.”
