Growing up in Cloudsdale, I was taught to believe that only the strong survive. If you have to screw over ten other ponies to get the gold, then that's what you gotta do.

And for most of my life I saw that as true, but look where it got me.

My career as a Wonderbolt ended before it even started—all because I wanted the uniform so badly that I was willing to screw over those ten ponies in order to wear it. Heck, I didn't even give it a second thought, looking back on it.

I just... [i]did it[/i]. As if there was no other way.

Then it all ended in what seemed like seconds to me.

Could've gone better, right?

Then, before I even got the chance to take in all that I'd done, I was traveling all over Equestria without really a destination in mind.

I went to Manehattan, Trottingham, Vanhoover, just about every town and city I was kinda curious about.

At one point I found myself in Las Pegasus.

I was there for like a couple weeks, can't remember exactly how long now.

I remember one night I was really drunk, a sea of booze swirling around in my noggin, and I was getting pissed with this one slot machine at the casino. I must've had this dumb look on my face, and my coat and mane must've been disheveled.

One more drink and I was done for, but I moved before a server could make another pass at me, and I walked, or I guess staggered, around the casino, leaving the area with the slot machines and heading for the poker tables, which I normally didn't visit but decided to give a shot anyway.

That was when I saw [i]him[/i].

I saw Wind Rider. 

He was playing at a three-card poker table with a few mares who looked about his age, and at first I didn't even believe I was seeing him. I thought, [i]Oh yeah, there's Wind Rider. He's here.[/i] Didn't even occur to me for a good five seconds that [i]Wind Rider[/i] was here, in the casino, maybe fifty feet from where I stood, all wobbly, like an idiot.

I took a step toward his table but stopped suddenly, like something had frozen me in my place, and I squinted and really took in the fact that he was there, and—

He looked [i]horrible[/i].

Now, I remember Wind Rider from when I was just a little filly, from when I first aspired to become a Wonderbolt one day and could barely even spell the word at the time, and I had posters of him and the other members of the team, and he was [i]beautiful[/i] then. He had [i]magic[/i] in him, y'know what I'm saying?

And yet when I saw him... his was in his fifties, but he had begun to age a ton. He had these bags under his eyes, like he never slept, and his mane looked like he hadn't used a comb on it in at least a few days. His coat also seemed slightly darkened and tarnished, unclean compared to how I remembered it.

I knew about how he got disowned by the Wonderbolts—[i]you'd[/i] know—but it was a different thing entirely to see him in this state. I felt betrayed, in a sense.

I wanted to say something to him, but I only thought about it, drunkenly, angrily. [i]Look at you, Wind Rider. You were nothing but a [b]hero[/b] to me...[/i]

Yet I turned away and tried to block the image of him out of my mind. I went up to a young-ish stallion who had just left a different poker table and started chatting him up.

He was cute enough.

We talked some more and went back to his room and—y'know...

But I couldn't stop thinking about Wind Rider.

Eventully I left Las Pegasus.

I read in a newspaper—the [i]Trottingham Times[/i]—a few weeks later that Wind Rider had died.

He died of liver failure not long after I'd seen him.

I don't think I felt anything about it, when I read about his death. I guess I felt like he had already died when I saw him at the casino, like he had killed himself and I only witnessed the corpse being animated by puppet strings.

I used to think he was stronger than me, but since I'm still alive and he isn't, I'm not so sure.

I feel pretty weak, honestly—especially when compared to [i]you[/i], Rainbow Dash.