It happened that Scootaloo recalled how she had lived before. How they all lived before. And more and more often it seemed to her that she invented that world or saw in a dream.
Everyone remembered the day when Princess Celestia and the Moon died, Princess Twilight disappeared, and Princess Cadance locked herself in the Crystal Empire, along with her subjects.
"Someone will do something," said the ponies and looked at Twilight's friends.
And they tried to do something.
Honestly, they tried.
Only this was not enough.
Scootaloo shook her head, driving away unsolicited thoughts. She crawled forward, climbing out of the hole into which she climbed in order to wait out the sandstorm. It seemed to her that she heard screams through a shallow dream, but those days had long passed when it was worth running to help without thinking.
Outside, she lifted her head up to see a picture that had long been familiar: the sun and moon hung side by side in the sky, illuminating the earth and the almost dead forest, which looked like a huge foal turned over a tray of sand on it.
Scootaloo pulled her bags from the hole and threw them over her back, raising her wings so that they would not fall under the belts. She never learned to fly, but she didn't like it when something pinched its feathers.
As always, if Scootaloo thought of wings, it occurred to her that she might be the last Pegasus in Equestria. When it all started, when the storms and hurricanes began, they tried to stop it with common forces. And they even succeeded. Some time.
Scootaloo wandered past dead trees. It was hard to understand which way of the world: the sun and moon rose and fell as they pleased. Sometimes it was scary: what if they roll and the world plunges into darkness? At another time, on the contrary, it was a scarecrow that they would be at their zenith and the heat would dry up the already weakened earth.
The element defeated them. Pegasus tried to stop the huge hurricane, spin it in the opposite direction, as they did constantly.
"It's a pity I can't go with you," said Scootaloo. "When will I be able to fly ?!"
Rainbow Dash laughed.
"I will fly three times faster, knowing what you are observing," she answered and patted Scootaloo on the mane, and then with a rainbow flash rushed to the other Wonderbolts.
This was the last time Scootaloo spoke to her. Everything went according to plan. The weather magic revolted, and the ponies gathered on the ground saw how a hurricane draws in some Pegasus, and lightning strikes on others.
It happened fast. The hurricane moved on to ravage destruction throughout the country.
Scootaloo remembered this and remembered how she ran, breaking out of Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom's grip, trying to find one among the hundreds of bodies that fell to the ground.
And she found the Rainbow Dash. Strange, but that muzzle did not suffer, while the Wonderbolt form was torn to pieces. The mane and tail darkened and fused, apparently from a lightning strike. The wings looked like a mash of feathers, bones and meat. Her legs were not just broken, but as if crushed. The bones stuck out, breaking through the skin, the blue coat, stained with blood, seemed brown. Scootaloo hated herself because at that moment she could only think about what she always believed: blue and red give purple. As if colors were the most important thing in the death of the Rainbow Dash.
A scream swept over the forest, and Scootaloo tensed. She did not hear the growls of predators, but it could easily be a trap. Suddenly, someone is trying to lure a call for help from naive ponies to rob them of supplies? Recently, this has begun to happen often: previously unthinkable acts occurred to the inhabitants of Equestria, and Scootaloo was afraid that soon things like friendliness and mutual assistance would disappear altogether.
The scream repeated.
"What if someone really needs help?" - thought Scootaloo and, cursing everything, ran to the side from where the voice sounded.
The keepers of the Elements of Harmony died one by one. Rainbow and Fluttershy - in that hurricane, later - Rarity, trying to combine magic with other unicorns. Their horns simply burst, few survived, and most of them had their heads torn apart and their brain fragments scattered in all directions. As far as Skutala knew, the walls of the hall in which they were trying to do this did not begin to be washed, because they had to escape from the werewolves, who again felt that they could not be resisted. After that, there were almost no unicorns capable of applying magic.
Pinkie Pie did not return from the land of the dragons, where she went to ask for help, and Applejack was torn by tree wolves. Apple Bloom still blamed herself for not staying with her sister at that moment.
Scootaloo found the one who screamed. It was a unicorn of white color, crushed by a fallen tree. And one could try to save him ... if not for the stomach, ripped open by someone's teeth. Scootaloo looked at the sand darkened with blood and the guts that had fallen out, among which flies were already swarming, she inhaled a sickening smell and tried to understand if the unicorn was alive or she was late.
He himself answered her question, raising his head, crowned by a fragment of a horn. His gaze focused on Scootaloo with difficulty. Flies also crawled along the face of the unicorn, one like piss climbed into his nostril. The other moved inside the wound at the right eye.
"Kill me," the unicorn asked.
Scootaloo shook her head.
"Please," he repeated, "I will not die a few more days."
Scootaloo heard of this: unicorns survived, even after receiving terrible wounds. Sweet Bell said that without horns, like guides, their magic accumulates inside the body.
"We can try to save you," said Scootaloo, "there is a colony nearby ... I ... will drag it." I'm strong.
"I was a healer, honey." I am not a tenant, the unicorn answered sadly.
He coughed and jerked his hind legs. A swarm of flies soared into the air from movement from his guts, but they quickly returned. Scootaloo looked closely and saw whitish larvae. Despite the pictures that she had come across before, she was muddied.
"Kill me," the unicorn repeated, "it will be merciful."
Unthinkable before, Scootaloo thought. She had a choice: to leave, leaving the unicorn to die long and painfully, kill him or try to save him.
It was easy to make a decision. She found the sticks from which she emphasized, pushed the tree back and, taking out the bandages from her bags, began to rewind the unicorn's belly. Just so he doesn't lose his insides along the way.
- What are you doing? - he asked.
"We have healers with whole horns in the colony," answered Scootaloo, "we will try to save you."
He was silent, it was unlikely that he had much strength left to speak.
"I cannot do otherwise," said Scootaloo.
She did not notice how at that moment the sun rolled towards sunset.