Burned Bridges
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo’s relationship has been incredibly strained since the rainbow infection began to spread, but no pony understands why.
Rainbow Dash tapped lightly on the door with her hoof. No pony answered, but she let herself in anyways. A tray of food balanced on one of her wings, and she had to maneuver awkwardly through the door to keep it from spilling. She squinted through the darkness; all the curtains in the room had been drawn, and only the faint sunlight that managed to slip between the cracks of the fabric illuminated the room. A small orange shape was hunched in one of the shadowed corners, and it shrunk further when open door let more light in.
“Hey, Scoot,” Rainbow called softly. “Can I come in?”
“No,” Scootaloo growled. “Leave me alone.”
Rainbow frowned and took another step inside, shutting the door behind her. She carefully slid the tray off her wing onto the table by the bed, then crossed to the other side of the room and pulled the curtains open. Scootaloo groaned as her fur was washed with sunlight, and she huddled further into herself.
“I brought you some food,” Rainbow said, standing over the little heap of feathers and fur.
“I’m not hungry,” Scootaloo snapped. She flattened her ears with her hooves and screwed her violet eyes tightly shut, rejecting Rainbow Dash’s presence with all of her being.
“Pinkie said you haven’t been taking your share of the rations,” Rainbow continued, ignoring the obvious hostility radiating off of the little pony. “You’re worrying everyone, Scoot. You have to eat.”
Scootaloo didn’t respond. Her tail thumped against the floor as if it were trying to shoo an annoying fly.
A tense silence followed as Rainbow fumbled for the next thing to say, and Scootaloo tried to pretend she wasn’t there.
Rainbow scoffed, her ruffled feathers making her wings twitch in agitation.
“You know, you can’t treat me like this forever,” she said with a glare. “You don’t have the right to try and guilt trip me. I saved you, Scootaloo!”
Finally earning a reaction, Scootaloo’s head whipped around, her eyes wide and glittering with resentment as she scowled at her former hero.
“Are you serious?” she snarled. “Have you gone insane? How selfish can you possibly be?”
“That’s not fair, I-“
“Saved? You call this being saved?” She tore on without letting Rainbow Dash get a word in, the anger bubbling inside of her rousing her to her hooves. “Cloudsdale has been abandoned. Pegasi are dying. I don’t know where my parents or my aunts are, or if they’re even still alive. Equestria is falling apart around us, and it’s all because you were such a coward!”
Rainbow’s wings shot open in indignation. She was taken aback by Scootaloo’s ferocity, but the fillies anger had only sparked Rainbow’s own. She thrust her muzzles into Scootaloo’s face, her teeth bared.
“You can’t pin all of this on me!” She spat. “You can’t fly, Scootaloo, the Rainbow Factory was going to take you one day no matter what. If I hadn’t been there, you would be dead.”
“I wish I was dead!” Scootaloo screamed, her voice catching in her throat as she choked out a dry sob. Tears brimmed in her eyes but she forced them back, her legs trembling as she struggled to hold her ground. “I would die a thousand times over if it would stop the infection from ever happening! I would do anything if it meant saving everyone. The fact that you don’t understand that means you really aren’t the pony I thought you were.”
Rainbow’s anger faltered, and a familiar look of regret and guilt darkened her expression.
“I didn’t know this would happen,” she murmured. “I only wanted to protect you. I never would’ve thought that…”
“If you wanted to protect me, you should’ve done something about the factory when you had a chance,” Scootaloo glared at her unsympathetically. “You could’ve told ponies. You could’ve revealed the truth and made a difference. You could’ve saved so many pegasi, but you only ever cared about yourself. Now look. We’re doomed.”
Rainbow’s head hung with shame. A long, sorrowful sigh escaped her, and she forced herself to straighten back up.
“I can’t change the past,” she resigned. “We just have to hope that Twilight can find a cure to save whoever is left.”
Scootaloo stared at her. She sat down heavily, as if her legs had lost the will to support her, and shook her head dejectedly.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered, speaking more to herself than Rainbow. “I can’t do this…. I can’t do this… get out.”
“Scoot-“
“GET OUT!” Scootaloo shrieked, shaking her head more violently and stomping her front hooves. “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!”
Rainbow stared at her in dismay, her mouth opening and closing as she grasped for something to say, but Scootaloo bellowed on and on without even pausing to breathe.
Rapid hoof-steps closed in from the other side of the door. With a thundering bang it flew open and slammed into the wall, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom standing in the doorway with terrified expressions.
“What in Celestia is happening?” Apple Bloom demanded.
Rainbow looked over her shoulder at them, her eyes wide with shock, but Scootaloo continued to scream as if she didn’t realize anyone had arrived.
Belle and Bloom raced over to their friend and threw themselves in between her and Rainbow, forcing the older Pegasus to take a few paces back.
“You need to leave, Rainbow Dash,” Sweetie Belle said firmly, meeting Rainbow’s eyes with a venomous glare.
“I-I-I was just-“
“You need to leave, now,” Apple Bloom reiterated, taking a step forward and forcing Rainbow further back.
She swallowed thickly and looked past them at Scootaloo. Her screaming had dwindled into a silent, breathless sob, and her entire body trembled like a leaf as she hid her face with her hooves once again.
“Okay,” Rainbow agreed, her voice tight as she backed out of the room. She paused in the hallway for a second, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo,” she said as Apple Bloom slammed the door in her face.
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