Going Home
Rainbow Dash lived in a towering palace made of clouds, with fountains of pure spectra pouring from the top. She lived there, but didn't call it home. It was where she slept and kept her stuff, nothing more. Her home was the sky. The clouds in it just an obstacle, the sun just mood lighting.
She sat on the front step of her palace and looked up at her preferred environment, with a daredevil grin that had never faded with the years. Some younger Pegasus said that she was crazy. She called it Awesome, and she never let age slow her down.
The doctors said she was the oldest Pegasus that had ever lived, much less flown. She told them that the two were the same.
Scootaloo had grown up, learned to fly, and had her own children in the many years since being an element had gone from being a full time job to a title that earned her a place in one of the dusty books that Twilight had been so fiercely proud of. Twilight....
The girls had all passed on, one by one into the stars and into the annuls of myth, legend, and mystery. But Rainbow had been too busy to notice getting old, or to notice that the others were doing the same.
It had hit Rainbow hard when Pinkie Pie had passed away, but she never let it show. Her speech at the funeral was so well written it brought Twilight to tears on the power of it's thoughtfulness alone, no low emotional blows from this loyal pony.
Fluttershy had been next, so peaceful that the entire town seemed to fall apart for a few days out of shock that her perpetual presence would be no more. Her cottage was taken over by Angel (The 15th) and Spike to care for the animals, and a place for fillies and colts to go to play safely.
Rarity had been third, and not surprisingly her wake was attended by more ponies than ponyville had seen in decades. They came from far and wide, telling tales of her generosity and the help they had been given by her, not always bits either.
Twilight and Applejack had stuck it out for a long time, but in the end AJ passed away in the comforting embrace of her massive family, and Twilight in the company of her small one, the princesses included of course.
This left the most loyal of ponies.
Rainbow would never have let herself go until she knew all the others had been taken care of. She couldn't. But Rainbow dash had been feeling a swelling inside of her for years now, a push. It is called wanderlust, and it pushes Pegasi to fly.
Rainbow had flown, but that wasn't it. She had taken trips to canterlot for speeches and egghead-y stuff, but that wasn't far enough.
The sky was her home, after all.
She let the ache in her heart spread her wings for her, and she took off from her cloud house, and began to slowly climb, leaving a small letter in its envelope on her doorstep for somepony who would likely be along soon to check up on her, and she began to pick up speed.
Her vivid red eyes closed as she felt her tail whip behind her, the air thinning ever so gradually as she began to fly upwards. Cloudsdale is set forever at 1500 feet above ground, and she passed that level fairly quickly. A minute later she was higher than canterlot mountain.
The ache in her very soul didn't let go when she reached the height of the great Skyway, the highest travel level for pegasi, and she kept going.
Her eyes flicked open in annoyance. "This all you got?" She smirked to herself as she put in a burst of speed, and all around equestria ponies turned to see a line of spectra progressing upward with determination and an undying strength.
The air had thinned to the point that Rainbow had to put a hoof in front of her nose to keep frost from forming on her face, but it wasn't far enough, it was still too close to those damned graves, to those wonderful memories, and to that orchard on the hill where she had slept so many years away, thinking there would always be a tomorrow.
Tears began to freeze to the fur on her cheeks as she tore upwards through air that only the celestial sisters had ever flown. Too close to the Library where they had spent so many nights and days together, too close to the bakery where laughter had once echoed.
Too close to her true home, so all she could do was lose herself in her oldest home, her oldest escape. She was going nearly fast enough to create a sonic rainboom, but the thin air didn't allow for it, and her aged body cried out to her.
But then she remembered, that this was not the pony she was. She was the pony who was always there for them. She was the pony who had been there for each one of them to the very end, she was the one who deserved to finally be brought to rest. She could stop running.
So she did. The line of light wavered to an end as she plateaued at fifteen thousand feet. She looked down at the world she had loved for so long, and she finally turned to head home. The line she had drawn upwards split apart in a helix around her, filling the sky behind her as she gathered speed, but she wasn't crying anymore.
She smiled, sadly but hopefully as she gathered speed, The shock of a sonic rainboom buffeted the sky behind her, followed by another, and another...
Five in all as she streaked towards that one tree that she had never been able to get far enough from.
The sixth dug an eternal monument to her return home. She was loyal to her very end, and she choose her own end, getting old just wasn't her style.