Chapter Nine

The Kindling

A full week had passed since the daredevil pegasus pony Rainbow Dash had let her sister's secret slip. At first she couldn't believe that she had failed Scootaloo and broken her promise, but she had every reason to. In telling the secret, and gaining help, Rainbow Dash was about to shift the way Scootaloo will live the rest of her life.

Inside a massive cloud mansion on a cold Saturday night, there sat a lone purple alicorn who busied herself with going over what used to be a rather messy stack of documents. The papers were messy and scattered no more; they had long since been sorted. A candle sat atop the coffee table illuminating the papers and the alicorn's face. Her her eyes constantly performed erratic saccades, taking in all of the information on the documents. The alicorn the eyes belonged to had her purple magic wrapped around a pencil that seemed to be moving on its own, jotting down several calculations per second on a scratch piece of paper.

After pausing for a moment and looking over the papers, the alicorn breathed a sigh, and put the pencil with smoke rising from the tip down onto the table.

"Okay then," said the purple alicorn under her breath as she collected her cyan friend's documents into one neat stack. She now shouted so the two pegasi in the neighboring room could hear her. "That should be all of it! After going through what few bills you have I can see that you'll just barely be making enough with your current weather job to support a filly and yourself."

Rainbow Dash strode out into the living room of her cloud home with her yellow coated friend in tow. Both pegasi were covered in small tufts of cloud.

Dash grinned at the good news. "Well that's a relief, there's no way I'd able to take a second job with my super busy schedule."

Twilight chuckled. "Oh, you mean your daily twelve hour shift at the Dream Factory?"

"Exactly. Pretty lucky that I get to keep it."

"Well you're also pretty lucky that a royal pardon can exempt the age requirement for legal adoption," Twilight said as she gathered the papers into a manila folder.

Dash chuckled as well. "Yeah, the age requirement law sucked for about a minute and a half."

Dash stood staring at the manila folder. She snapped out of her trance and turned back to the hall she had previously entered from. "Well, Fluttershy and I just finished the new room, would you like to see?"

"Of course!" replied Twilight as she set the folder down. The three winged ponies walked back to the newly created bedroom; its door opposite that of Rainbow Dash's.

Fluttershy placed a yellow hoof on the grayish purple door and pushed it open to reveal a bright spectacle of a very lucky filly's new sanctuary. Not unlike Dash's room, Wonderbolt posters adorned the walls; catching and holding firmly onto the eyes of the viewer. Vibrant purple wallpaper covered every inch of the wall that wasn't already occupied by a poster. A small dresser made of compacted-cloud sat against the wall next to a walk-in closet, and opposite the dresser sat Scootaloo's new bed. Nothing was out of the ordinary for this bed, save for the wonderful material the mattress, bedspread, blanket, and comforter were made of.

Flanking the bed on both sides stood two nightstands of the same material as the dresser. Atop one nightstand sat a lamp surrounded by framed pictures of the new family. On the other sat a clock that read "1:26 a.m.", and it was accompanied by yet more pictures.

"WELCOME HOME SCOOTALOO" was written on a banner hung over the wall just above the bed, and it dazzled the room with its glitter and sequin composed font.

An extremely large window with dark purple drapes nearly took up one entire wall. Dash opened the curtains to reveal the Princess of the Night's moon shining brilliantly in the midnight sky.

Though she wouldn't admit it, tears were nearly brought to Rainbow Dash's eyes at the sight of her special little filly's new room. She still cringed at the thought of her breaking down in front of her friends. She had actually gone further and told the rest of the Elements, and thankfully they all agreed that this was the right thing to do, even Pinkie Pie.

"Never again will I cry like that," thought Dash.

The three ponies heaved a sigh, then they just stood in silence as they imagined the new life laid out for Scootaloo.

"Well Rainbow Dash," piped up Fluttershy after several moments of silence, "this was truly a feat. I think that if you've made it this far, you'll surely make a great parent."

"I agree," corroborated Twilight. "Normally if something proved to be difficult, you'd shy away and quit."

Rainbow Dash was saddened at this realization, but Twilight's next words reassured her.

"But you've stuck through this, and are seeing it to the end."

"I think little Scootaloo is going to have a great life here with you," commented Fluttershy. "Where is she by the way?"

Dash grinned as she recalled her scheme. "I was thinking about surprising her tomorrow morning when she woke up, so I had the staff of the orphanage keep her there."

Dash was slightly upset with herself after realizing that Twilight's statement was absolutely true, but she couldn't help it; that's just the way she liked to live her life. However, she was willing to change her lifestyle slightly if needed in order to accompany a new mouth to feed; especially for the pony it belonged to.

"Thanks, girls," said Dash. Her two feathered friends gathered close to give a group hug that Dash believed was unneeded. Dash stood with wings and hooves of yellow and purple wrapped about her body for longer than she thought was necessary. Dash finally resigned, and wrapped her own wings around her friends.

As her two friends nuzzled into Dash, she stared out the window and gazed upon the moon. After looking at the ball of light for a few minutes, she noticed something strange. The moon was starting to get covered by clouds eerily quickly. The clouds seemed to behave like…smoke, from a fire.

"Somepony out camping somewhere?" asked Dash, causing her friends to look out the window.

"Who would be having a campfire in the middle of Ponyville?" countered Twilight.

Fluttershy cowered away. "I-Is that d-d-dragon ba-ack?"

"No, it's not coming from a mountain," assured Dash.

The three ponies' gaze followed the plume of smoke from where it was covering part of Luna's moon down to the surface where its source would be found. Walking up close to the window, the three followed further to find that a building on the edge of Ponyville was alight. Even from across town, and being up in the air, the three ponies could make out individual licks of flame from the intense house fire.

"Oh no," gasped Fluttershy, "somepony's house is on fire!"

"Ooh, I do hope the fire team puts it out before somepony is hurt!" said Twilight.

The purple alicorn and the yellow pegasus failed to recognize the look in their cyan friend's eyes. Probably because Dash had her face pressed against the glass.

"No…" whispered Dash before jumping away from the window, "No! No! No!"

Dash bolted out the room leaving her two befuddled friends behind.

"Wait, Rainbow Dash!" called Twilight, but it was too late. Dash was already rocketing out the front door, quickly closing the distance between herself and the burning building.

Panic was setting in for the supposed unshakable daredevil. Tightening the muscles of her body and fiercely flapping her wings, Dash began to descend even faster than before. The closer she got to the building, the more her suspicions were confirmed.

Dash landed as quickly as she dared in front of the burning building, and took note of the scene.

Weather ponies dotted the sky as they kicked water from gray, rainwater-filled clouds onto the large wooden home. Several fillies and colts were sitting on the grass a great distance from the fire with a multitude of mares shielding them from seeing their home burn to the ground.

Flames licked out the charred windows, with only a few being doused by cold water. Smoldering pieces of wood were scattered about around the building, scarring the sidewalk and grass where they had landed.

Dash looked upon the faces of the fillies that had dark ash smeared about their bodies. The fillies were gathered in a tight circle, and Dash inspected them all. The one she was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

All of this information was collected by Dash, who felt as though the weight of the world was pressing down on her shoulders. One thought occupied and solidified in Dash's mind: Ponyville's Oak Side Orphanage was on fire, and Scootaloo was nowhere to be found.

Hey guys, sorry for the late update, I died and was recently resurrected by the Ghost of Nicholas Cage's Acting Career, so I'm going to try to post more chapters!

Also, sorry for the short chapter, I just love cliffhangers and I love the hate I get for leaving them.

And btw, if you look at the chronology of the episodes, and the order in which they were aired, you'd see that there's no way they happened in order. That's why Twilight is an alicorn just a week after Rainbow Dash returned.