I knew it was impossible, but sometimes I wished the sun would jump off a cliff. Don’t get me wrong—I was no Nightmare—I totally got that we needed the sun. Heck, most of the time, I relished the thing.
But when I slept, particularly when I was in the middle of a good dream, well... y’know.
Batting a hoof uselessly at the rays of light piercing my window and falling on my head, I groaned and wriggled for a good half-minute before finally peeling my eyes open and tumbling out of bed. Somewhere between the jolt against the floor and the scent in the air, I snapped awake.
“Do I smell pancakes?”
A deep voice rumbled back down the hall. “Not if you don’t hurry you don’t! Your train leaves in half an hour!”
My eyelids flew up and my pupils conquered my face. In no time at all, I was racing around the corner and slamming my flank into a chair at the table. I didn’t bother pausing to talk, immediately shoveling bite after bite of fluffy goodness into my stomach. By the fourth bite, my wings stopped buzzing.
“Hungry, eh?” Dad smiled across the cheap birch and flimsy china, gobs of syrup dotting the mostly-empty plate in front of him. “You know, I can think of one pony who probably won’t approve of this...”
A lump of barely-chewed batter slid down my throat. I exhaled and did my best to smile back. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
A silent second passed between us before Dad reached across the table and mussed my mane. “I’m more worried for her than you.”
I was suddenly grateful that my mouth wasn’t full of food, as I just about choked on nothing, and something probably would have fared worse. Dad always did know how to make me laugh. With a contented sigh and a slight fixing of my ’do, I tossed him a bemused look. “You know, you could have woken me up earlier.”
He shrugged. “I don’t see the point. You don’t need a lot of time to get ready, and I don’t need a lot of time trying to keep a straight face while I say goodbye.” He blinked. If anypony asks, it was just something in his eye. Like a whirlwind, I whipped through the house and left catastrophe in my wake as I scrambled to get ready and make sure I was packed. Dad was right, though, and in just a few minutes I was ready to roll. I spent a moment staring at a scooter two sizes too small before slinging my bags over my back and heading toward the door.
Dad was there, holding his hooves out for a hug. I took him up on the offer, and it was harder to let go than it should have been; it wasn’t like I’d never see him again. Had he always been that soft? When we broke the embrace, his expression shifted into one of the more serious looks I’ve seen him give, and for a minute I was worried something was wrong.
“Remember: I love you, and I’m proud of you.”
If anybody asked, there was just something in my eye. I blinked my vision dry as best I could, nodded, and trotted outside. Dad didn’t shut the door, just standing there watching me walk away and waving until I had to turn down a different path and put a building between us.
Still having some minutes to spare, I ambled through town at a pretty lazy pace, letting nostalgia wash over me at every turn. I swam through a sea of pleasant memories of days long past. It was mostly made up of things I’d done with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Dinky, before or after the Crusaders, it didn’t matter.
My part-time job at the bowling alley had been, well, it had been something, and if you can look back on something and laugh, was it really so bad? Rounding another corner into the center of town, I shouldered a wave of guilt over how easy my life had been and stepped somberly past the memorial. I didn’t want to think about it, and I didn’t want anypony else to have to, either. That was part of the reason I was enlisting to begin with: I wanted to keep Equestria harmonious. I wanted to do something. To give back something. Just about every last pony I’d ever met had been so good to me, and it was only right that I return the favor. I may not legally have owed Equestria a debt, but I’d never have forgiven myself if anything had happened that I could’ve stopped.
Besides, she would be there. I never could explain exactly what she was to me, but whatever the phrasing, the result was the same. She was important. I wouldn’t have become the same mare if she hadn’t been there when I was a kid.
I spotted the tiny little train, creaking in place at a rusty old station. Some parts of Ponyville hadn’t been maintained so well since so many ponies moved away, but nothing had fallen into outright disrepair. The train still showed up on time to whisk ponies away and the station still sat there, providing walls to plaster schedules on.
I climbed into the only passenger car and did a quick scan around the interior. One yellow earth pony with an orange mane sat in a seat, slumped against the wall; I didn’t recognize him. He looked like he was sleeping, so I didn’t bother him for something as trivial as asking his name. Besides, we’d probably get to know each other in Friendship Camp.
Of course it wasn’t called that. It wasn’t literally “Friendship Camp,” but everypony would know what you were talking about if you said it. Even the ones who didn’t like the idea for whatever reason. I could never understand how anypony was against it. There was no downside, and on top of that it was all voluntary.
The train lurched and started rumbling slowly down the track; I’d cut it closer than I’d thought. I planted my flank on a seat in the back corner of the car and stared out the window at the scenery rolling by. Lush greenery gradually dulled into a brown haze as we left the replanted area of Ponyville and moved into blasted plains that hadn’t yet recovered. Nature was tenacious, though, and even in the harshest craters a few specks of vibrant green peppered the dead earth. One of my eyebrows lifted up on its own as I realized I didn’t know exactly how long the ride would take. It was less than a day, I knew, but was it an hour? Two? I’d never actually owned a watch, and I started to worry I’d die of boredom. Not only was there nothing fun to do, but I wouldn’t even be able to stare at the time and fidget impatiently! My flank was getting tired already from being pressed against the lumpy old cushion.
“Eep!” I shrieked, practically jumping out of my coat as I felt something tap me on the shoulder. I spun about in midair and fell gracelessly on my back, facing the formerly sleeping stallion. He was now awake and standing. Right next to me.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking down and scuffing a hoof across the floor.
I hopped to my hooves and turned to face him in one fluid motion, offering a hoof and a smile. “No worries. I’m Scootaloo. You are?”
His ears perked up and his face brightened. “Ink Well,” he said, shaking my hoof firmly. “You’re enlisting, right?”
I nodded. “No other reason to be on this train.”
“Well, you could be on staff.”
My eyes did a quick sarcastic circuit. “Pfft, yeah, I’m totally one of Equestria’s foremost heroes.”
He shook his head and smirked. “I meant something more like a cook. It does take more than just the counselors to run a camp.”
“Heh... yeah, I guess you’re right.”
I suppressed the urge to groan, sigh, or shake my head at how cheesy the mare’s speech was. I knew I wanted to make a difference and all that jazz, but there are only so many positive buzzwords a pony can take. Synergy this and empowerment that. I was positively giddy when she finally left the stage and the Elements of Harmony stepped up in her place. The ponies around me were similarly enraptured and broke into a thundering wave of applause.
Almost immediately, Twilight stepped forward. She stood almost as tall as Celestia now, enormous wings coiled tightly at her sides and impressive horn jutting fiercely upward. Despite her imposing stature, when she opened her mouth she was as warm as ever. “Can I please have everypony quiet down? I know you’re all excited, but we still have a lot to do and the sooner we get everypony sorted, the better. As... rousing as that speech was, I’m not sure we had the time for it to run quite that long.”
The crowd chuckled, then obeyed as the few hundred ponies in front of her all dropped into low whispers or total silence.
“Thank you. There will be plenty of time to talk over the coming weeks, but for now we need to get moving, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to start right away,” she said, levitating a small crystal before her. Her eyes slid closed and a bright beam of magic shot into it, causing it to pulse and rotate. I could feel the gentle thrum of its magic coursing through the air. After a moment, she opened her eyes back up and surveyed the crowd. “Out of curiousity, and I assure you there’s no consequence to being right or wrong, could everypony who thinks they’re a ‘Magic’ raise a hoof?”
A few dozen unicorns immediately thrust their hooves skyward and held them there.
Twilight giggled. “I’d guess all of you are right, but there are probably a few more as well.” Her horn flashed and the crystal floated higher, spinning faster and faster until it exploded into tiny purple beams that spilled across the crowd, highlighting all of the unicorns with raised hooves. And, as Twilight predicted, four others, including a very confused Ink Well and one other earth pony.
“Alright then. If all of you could please follow me?” She began trotting off to one side, and the ponies encased in a lavender glow went after her.
Rainbow Dash’s crystal was already on the verge of bursting. She’d taken a head start instead of waiting for Twilight to finish, and she only bothered saying two words. “Loyalty. Hooves?”
My gaze sharpened and my hoof was up before I had a moment to blink. I didn’t get a chance to look around before I felt a warm sensation envelop me and I saw Rainbow Dash leaving the stage. I turned and fell into line with the rest of the Loyalty herd, wasting no time in getting started. I found myself walking alongside a mixture of proud and confused pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns, all distributed across race and surprise pretty evenly. I looked behind me to see Fluttershy squeaking something unintelligible and a very small number of hooves going up. Quite a few ponies quaked silently with all four limbs on the ground, either too unsure of themselves or too afraid of making a scene.
We didn’t walk very far before Rainbow Dash stopped and whirled to face us. “Some of you know why you’re here. Some of you don’t. Some of you think you ‘get’ loyalty. Some of you don’t. None of that matters,” she said, her eyes cold and focused. She paced in a small circle. “You’re all here, and you all know deep down why that is. Fortunately for all of us, it’s not complicated. We don’t have to spend very long talking about what loyalty means, because I only have to give you one order for everything to be crystal clear.” In an instant, her wings were flared out to her sides and her gaze bored into us with an intensity few could match.
The air went still, and even the scent of pine seemed afraid to interrupt, receding back into the trees.
“There are ponies you care about. Don’t let them down,” she barked. Her feathers twitched for a moment before her wings fell slack and she gathered them back to her sides. Her eyes softened and she put on a big smile.
The stiff atmosphere relaxed, and everypony exhaled at once into the forest air, once more smelling of pine as it blew softly about.
“Okay. That’s, uh, that’s pretty much all there is to it,” she said, rubbing a hoof at the back of her head. “The others are still probably getting their ears talked off, but that’s really not my thing, so I’m gonna go ahead and have you guys pick out cabin numbers now and the rest of the night is yours. Lights out is technically at ten thirty, but I couldn’t give a dang if I tried.”
A few whoops and cheers went up, and I returned two semi-random ponies’ hoof-bumps before Rainbow Dash had dragged a big splintery box in front of her. “Everypony just reach in and pull out a number. Twilight said something about how destiny and luck were two sides of the same coin and minor enchantments can easily highlight connections and blah blah whatever, but the box did a pretty darn good job last year and the year before, so I’m not gonna question it. The number you get is the number painted on the side of the cabin you’re staying in. Every cabin has one of each element, and somehow or other the numbers work out so nopony is left behind. However it works, it’s pretty snazzy,” she said. She dipped one of her hooves into the box and stirred the contents. “So yeah, line on up.”
I waited and plopped myself at the back, giving myself plenty of time to daydream about the kinds of ponies I’d be making friends with. I hoped at least one of my troop would be into awesome things, but I wouldn’t have had a problem with a dictionary or a handymare or a genius. I wondered if anypony I knew would be in my cabin and started flipping back through my memories, trying to think of the most awesome fillies I knew growing up. The list was still pretty short when I felt a light knocking on my skull.
“You in there, Scoots?”
I blushed a bit, but shrugged it off. “Hi, Rainbow Dash. It’s... it’s been a long time.”
She looked... distant isn’t quite right. She was right in front of me, but I almost felt like there was a wall between us. “I know it has, kid. And I’m sorry, but, y’know. Everything—”
“I know.”
A little window in the barrier opened, and she gave me a small, but genuine, smile. “You know I can’t give you any special treatment, right? I’m not allowed to play favorites here.”
I grinned at her. Not up at her, but just at her. It felt surreal being the same height as Rainbow Dash and not looking up to make eye contact with her. “I’ll just have to be awesome, then.”
“I guess so.” She raised her hoof. I raised mine and bumped forward, and I felt cooler than I’d ever felt before.
The cabin sat modestly in the center of a clearing, surrounded by maybe fifty feet of open ground and then a fairly thick patch of old forest. A huge yellow “12” glimmered in the light of the evening sun and I nosed the door open. “Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed around the simple structure, and nopony answered. The cabin, like the camp, was only a few years old and in very good condition. The walls almost sparkled, and the floors did gleam. Cleaning staff must have come through recently, because I couldn’t find any dust or cobwebs despite the place having been unoccupied for the better part of a year. As I looked around, a lump formed in my throat. No matter how well-kept the cabin was, nothing changed the fact that the cabin measured five hundred square feet at best and was meant to house six full-grown ponies.
A few more seconds of sleuthing showed that the cabin only offered one bathroom, too. Before anypony else could get a chance, I decided to claim a space and take a shower. I fished around in my bags to find some soap, shampoo, and a towel, and tossed the rest of my things onto the upper bunk in one of the cramped bedrooms before waltzing into the bathroom and flipping on the lights and plumbing. I slapped my towel over a steel rod adjacent to the shower curtain and set my toiletries on a little shelf just inside the curtain and just outside the water’s reach. Jets of steaming water were pouring down from the nozzle above. I placed a hoof under the stream and quickly pulled it back. It burned a little, so I twisted the knob a smidge and then jumped in.
The Magic in my group was probably a unicorn. Probably into books. They tend to follow a trend. Kindness could vary, but would almost certainly be more soft-spoken than the others. Laughter would be fun, and Generosity was theoretically fine, since there was no particularly strong connection between generous ponies and fashion. For a minute, I started to wonder how Honesty and I would get along, letting my mind wander in speculative directions I knew I shouldn’t. None of my idle thoughts slowed me down, though, and in a hooffull of minutes I’d scrubbed myself down and rinsed myself off.
With nigh-perfect timing, I turned off the water just in time to hear the front door opening. A few rivulets of clear water ran down my face. I buzzed my wings for a second to kickstart the drying process and reached for the towel when I froze in place. I heard a stallion’s voice.
Somehow, I hadn’t realized that the camp was full of stallions as well as mares and the random cabin assignments didn’t differentiate between the two. I’d never lived with any stallion but Dad, and the... cozy quarters of the cabin weren’t likely to make things any less awkward. In a flash, I slapped myself dry with the towel and barreled out of the shower and into the hall, only to freeze a second time. My wings shot up and my face went red as I stared at Rumble. I hadn’t seen him since we were foals and the other Crusaders got on my case for having a crush on him. He’d certainly grown up, well, looking good was one way to describe it. “Um... hi,” I mumbled.
“Hi yourself there... Scootaloo? Is that you?” he asked, taking a few steps toward me. “Jeez, I haven’t seen you in ages! How’ve you been?”
The mush that should’ve been my brain stirred a few times, and I opened my dumb mouth. “Elevator.”
Rumble just blinked. “What?”
I shook my head, positive that had made sense in some way but unable to figure out how. “Err, yeah... I’ve been good. Ponyville’s pretty dull with so few ponies, though.”
“Heh. I can’t make a direct comparison, but I can tell you most of the old cities are pretty boring. All the cool stuff is going on in the newer settlements, and I’m—”
Our conversation was cut short as a bouncy, bubbly mare flew in through the door and clapped one hoof around my shoulders and the other around Rumble’s, drawing the three of us into an impromptu hug. She hadn’t literally flown, being a unicorn, but it had been hard to tell with how fast she came.
“Salutations, new friends!”
Rumble blinked again. “Hi?”
I wriggled a bit, but didn’t manage to pop free of the mare’s grip. “Laughter, right?”
She smiled—wide—and let Rumble and I go, facing me and holding out a hoof. A lock of red hair ran down over a red shoulder; two different shades of red, but I was never that good at naming colors. “Indeed I am, good-buddy-to-be! My name’s Cherry Pie! What’s yours?” she asked, giving her hoof a little shake to draw my attention.
I grabbed it. “Scootaloo. I don’t suppose you’re related to—”
“Nope! Complete coincidence! Inconceivable? Not even close, because it’s the actual-factual truth!” Her hoof disappeared from view as she whirled about to face Rumble, holding it out toward him instead. “Your turn, chum!”
“Uh... Rumble,” he said, shaking her hoof. “Cherry, was it?”
“Yup yup yup!”
“You can, ehm... you can drop the act.”
Her hoof stopped, a crack appeared in her smile—
“W-what?”
“You’re coming on way too strong. You’re gonna tire out the rest of the cabin even if you can manage to keep it up yourself.”
—and the smile shattered.
Cherry slumped to the floor. “How did you? I’m sorry. I just, I mean, Pinkie’s so infectiously gleeful and I’m... I’m not even close,” she said. “I can’t hold a candle to that pony.”
Rumble pushed his hoof toward her to pull her up. “That’s fine. You’re not Pinkie Pie, and you’re not supposed to be. Pay attention to your lessons and be yourself, and everything’ll be fine.”
She wiped a droplet of moisture from her eye before pulling herself up with Rumble’s help. “You sound like you have some experience with this.”
“Nope,” he answered, “but my brother does, and I heard plenty of stories about ponies trying too hard to be just like their Elements. Again, be yourself, listen to what your Element has to say, and you’ll do fine.”
“Thanks,” Cherry said, giving a much smaller smile. I liked that smile a lot better.
The smell of pine, quickly losing what respect I had for it, had been scared off by the crackling logs in the pit just outside our cabin. Cherry had insisted that we all get to know one another by swapping stories around a campfire.
Our Generosity, a stallion almost as big as Big Macintosh named Pocket Watch, sat to my right, telling us about a particularly frustrating encounter he’d had. From a distance, he could easily be mistaken for Macintosh’s slightly younger brother, though he talked an awful lot more. He didn’t seem to have much of an interest in fashion, and for that I liked him already. He paused his story to lean forward before continuing, “So then I says, ‘Lady I will give you the dang thing if you go brush your teeth!’”
All of us laughed for a minute or two, Rumble almost falling off the log, and Cherry smiled another one of her smaller, better smiles to my left. I made a note that listening to Cherry was a good idea.
Across the fire, on our third log, Shimmer put together s’mores with her magic. She was our Kindness, and she seemed content to stay mostly quiet. Her dainty horn peeked out of a thick, green mane and glowed faintly enough that the fire masked her magic almost entirely. Next to her sat Magic, Wishing Well. She was just as surprised as her twin brother Ink Well when he was also sorted out as Magic and hadn’t talked about much else yet. I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of either of them yet, but I hoped for the best.
The fire burned on through the night, long past ten thirty, as the ponies of cabin twelve got to know one another. I didn’t know whether Rainbow Dash was in charge of our neck of the woods or not, but nopony bothered us about ‘lights-out’ or anything of the sort.
It's a Piece of Cake to Bake a Pretty Cake
The trumpet call hammered home an important lesson. It was stupid of me—of all of us—to stay up as late as we did. I groaned and flopped toward the edge of the bed, forgetting I’d snagged a top bunk and thunking into the floor. I’d taken plenty of harsher landings, but not usually so early in the morning.
I winced and sucked some air through my teeth, grabbing hold of the leg I’d bonked against the wood. Rumble rolled over, mumbling incoherently. He was cute when he was sleeping, but I had no idea how he was able to ignore the blaring noise outside.
Cabin twelve had, as I suspect all the cabins did, three rooms with two beds each. Cabin twelve happened to have three mares and three stallions. Rumble and I drew the short straws and refused to make eye contact afterward, but he looked so peaceful there that I started to think I didn’t mind.
The trumpet repeated its call, and this time his eyes creaked open, catching me staring at him. A blink crept across one eye, then the other, as his brain came back online and I stood perfectly still until he noticed me. Then I had the good sense to look away and stammer out my best approximation of a good morning before trotting out of the room.
I went over the day’s schedule in my head a few times, just to give myself something else to think about. First, everypony would disperse to have breakfast with their Element. Then, we would group back up by cabin number and Pinkie Pie would take the lead to… do something laughter related. What exactly the activities here were remained a closely guarded secret, I guessed to make sure nopony can plan ahead or cheat or whatever.
After Pinkie was done with us was lunch, again by cabin; breakfast was the only time on the first day that we weren’t with our groups. Once we finished eating, Fluttershy would… again, do something relating to Kindness. Then dinner, then whatever we wanted until lights out. Or in our case, until we decided we were done.
I guess my body was on autopilot for a while, because after mentally cycling to the end of the day for the third or fourth time, I found myself halfway to breakfast. While I would have to interact with Rumble again sooner or later, I was glad for the chance to run away and gather my thoughts. It was a stupid little crush from years and years ago; it shouldn’t have shut my brain down so quickly. It wasn’t like I was the first pony to get stupid around another pony, but still... Maybe I could ask Rainbow Dash for advice.
Or maybe it was better if I didn’t chance opening up old wounds.
I shrugged to myself and took a good look around. Sun shining, leaves crunching noisily nearby and rustling softly from afar, birds singing, and delicious smells wafting… later could come later. There was enough to enjoy now, so I did. I took a deep breath of the crisp morning air and strolled onward.
A splotch of colors in the distance resolved into the same gathering of ponies I’d been sorted into the day before. Rainbow Dash sat at the far end of an oversized picnic table, shoveling oats into her mouth, and most of the others had started doing the same. It felt a tad surreal seeing so many ponies behaving so similarly, but that was exactly the point of it. The shape of Loyalty was set in stone long before any of us came along to paint some details on it. Our loyalties to our cabins were already established enough that everypony wanted to get back to their group. Or they were all just really hungry. Either way, rather than rebel, I joined in. Flank to seat, oats to mouth.
Once I’d had my fill, I stretched and yawned, then took another look around. Some quiet smalltalk drifted around, but everypony radiated eagerness to get on with the day. Every last pony here was not only willing, but happy to do their part. I kept my mouth shut and smiled; Harmony would prevail, in the end. Whatever else worried me, I didn’t doubt that.
Our fifth cake crumbled to dust, and Wishing Well started hyperventilating.
“Stay calm, everypony,” Shimmer said. “We still have time for two more batches, and if we really squeeze we can probably fit more in the oven.”
Pocket Watch threw a spatula off into the woods. “Why should we stay calm? Everything’s ruined! Everything!”
Large sacks of dry ingredients and several dozen eggs mocked us from the table, but I managed not to smash anything in anger. “I’m with Pocket. It’s like she gave us a bad recipe or something, because I swear all three of those were perfect.”
“They were,” Wishing Well grumbled. “I quadruple checked every step of the way. I made a checklist!” she shouted, waving a piece of paper in the air. Cherry Pie and Rumble remained silent, Cherry staring into the distance and Rumble furiously beating a glob of batter in a bowl.
My brow furrowed. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. “Well something’s wrong, and if it’s not us it’s the directions we’re following. Maybe that’s part of the test? To figure out what’s wrong and fix it?”
Shimmer shook her head. “I don’t know about that. It doesn’t sound like the kind of test Pinkie Pie would set up.”
“Doesn’t fit,” Cherry mumbled.
“Yeah. It doesn’t.” Pocket scowled. “I bet all the others are done by now, being congratulated by Pinkie and enjoying their cake and… and… and laughing at us!”
Cherry’s head snapped in his direction, and without a word, she trotted to the table and grabbed an egg. She held it in front of herself and turned it over a few times before stepping in front of Pocket Watch and holding it out in front of him with the most vacant expression on her face I’d ever seen.
“Yes, Cherry, it’s an egg. Good job. You win the prize.”
She stood still for a while, then maneuvered the egg to an inch above his head and cracked the shell in half. With a rich “plop” sound, the contents of the egg settled neatly atop his mane, somehow clinging in place rather than dripping or drooping down to the earth. He blinked. Five seconds passed, and he blinked again. Then she pulled out another egg she’d apparently been holding.
The air crackled and the wind howled. She held the egg in front of him and slowly started lifting it over his head again, but this time he blocked her hoof with his. “Cherry, far be it from me to question you on the test of your element, but WHAT IN BLAZES ARE YOU DOING?”
Cherry smiled. “That’s the whole point. The others are all laughing.” She whirled around and threw the egg at my face, then dove for the rest of the ingredients and started up her own personal hurricane.
I scrambled for cover, pulling Rumble and Shimmer with me. Pocket Watch and Wishing Well disappeared into the storm, and my cowering compatriots trembled. Before I could remember to be embarrassed for huddling next to Rumble, I was hit. First with a mushy clump of moist flour, and then with another egg. I tried to shout out something to stop or slow the madness, but my pleas went unheard.
I decided. If we weren’t going to bake those cakes, and these were the tracks this train was on, I might as well have my revenge. I rolled out from behind the bush and ran for the remains of the fifth cake. Ducking beneath an egg, I skidded to a stop and scooped up a hoofful. My best impersonation of a professional shot put thrower was pretty good, and that cake was a surprisingly effective paint.
Cherry snorted and fell to the ground, rocking back and forth. Rumble’s head poked out and his mouth opened, but before he could make a sound a wad of what I can only assume was the first cake flew down his throat. At that, I joined Cherry on the ground, caught in strange, spasmic convulsions that made it hard to breathe. I was laughing. Laughing at the absurdity of a group of relatively mature ponies forgoing their responsibilities and starting a food fight. At the sheer dumb luck of Rumble’s uninvited meal.
Pocket Watch might have been right. Everything might have been ruined. But I couldn’t bring myself to be upset.
After a few minutes, when I managed to stand upright again, I noticed we were all filthy and out of breath as we reconvened. I took a good, deep breath of my own to fix that and saw that we were all smiling. Me personally so much so that my face hurt, and Cherry so much so I wondered how her face stayed intact. We all succumbed to the same fit of laughter, somehow finding our trainwreck funny.
Cherry flipped the table over and smiled at the rest of us.
I smiled back. “Well, now what? Cookies?”
A giggle fell out of a nearby tree, followed by Pinkie Pie. Before we could do much more than blink, she wrapped all of us in a great big sloppy hug. “I am super-duper happy that you guys made it! Every year two or three groups can’t do it and for a little while I was worried, but then Cherry here picked up the egg and… well, you all know the rest!”
Wish and Pocket simultaneously blurted “...What?”
I almost joined them, but I understood in the nick of time and managed to only feel like an idiot instead of proving it.
Pinkie Pie bounced away into the distance, and Cherry giggled. “I’m glad, too. At first I was worried Pocket would get mad at me.”
Failing to suppress a guffaw, Pocket Watch shook his head. “I did. I’m going to have to take a very thorough shower to get all of this gunk out of my mane and coat, and I still don’t have a clue why you felt the need to start a food fight.”
The perplexed look washed off of Wishing Well’s face. “Oh! That’s… I didn’t realize Pinkie Pie was so brilliant!”
“Still lost, here!”
“We already went over that, didn’t we?” Shimmer asked. “She gave us a bad recipe.”
Pocket frowned. “That doesn’t really answer much, does it?”
“Are you kidding? It answers everything!” Cherry twirled around, forehooves thrown up into the air. “Why would a test of Laughter have anything to do with baking a cake?”
Pocket’s frown deepened. “That’s what—”
“It wouldn’t!” Cherry interrupted, booping him on the nose. “Everything we do here is a bonding exercise, but each of the Elements of Harmony tries to put some of their own spin on it, to help show us how and why their element is important. And this was a pretty easy one!”
Pocket started to open his mouth again, but Wishing Well stopped him. “What’s one of the most important things to do in the face of adversity?”
“Do I get to guess this time?” he asked.
“If you want, I suppose.”
He sighed. “No.”
“Aww, cheer up. You already proved you have what it takes.” Cherry beamed at him.
“Staying positive,” Wishing Well said. “Understand?”
“Maybe?” He glanced down at himself. “Do we have time to shower before lunch?”
I turned toward the trail back to our cabin. “Definitely, but I’m going first,” I said as I took off down the path.
“Second!” he screamed, nearly tripping over himself at the start of a very sudden gallop.
“Third!” Wishing Well shouted.
“ Thir—” Rumble started, just a moment too late.
I didn’t hear the rest, but I did get that first shower, and I didn’t stop smiling.
“Do they all have to be so inscrutable?” Wishing Well moaned, turning and pointing the light of her horn down a path with a little bit less dripping moisture than the others.
“I think they kinda do,” Rumble said. “If they just told us exactly what to do, it wouldn’t really be much of a test. My brother was super careful to keep as much hidden from me as he could. I mean, I did get a few things out of him, but nothing that would really help here.” He poked his face and his lantern around the corner for a second. “All we can do is find our way out, which I think might be this way.”
There were more small rocks and pebbles in that direction, which seemed good. There had been more closer to the entrance, as well.
“I’d rather not risk messing it up,” I said. “I’m sure we can figure out what the real test is if we just think about it. What might happen in a cave that would require kindness?”
Pocket Watch cleared his throat. “Are we even sure it’s that simple? They have to do more than just tell us to be the elements over and over.”
Before I could respond, a deep rumbling shook the walls around us. All but the largest rocks rattled around and a stalactite looked dangerously close to breaking off and falling.
“Everypony okay?” I asked. “Whatever the test is supposed to be is gonna have to wait.”
Cherry opened her mouth, let out a low squeal, then tried again. “W-what was that?”
Rumbled took a deep breath. “That could have been any number of things. An earthquake, an accident with one of the other groups, or maybe something meant to scare us. It doesn’t matter, though. Scootaloo’s right.” He put a hoof on my shoulder. “They told us right at the start that safety overrides everything else here, so I agree that we need to get to safety.”
The cave trembled again, this time punctuated with a loud roar. Everypony’s eyes went wide.
Pocket Watch blinked. “A dragon? Here?”
“Maybe,” Shimmer said. “They have an awful long flight range.”
“No way,” Wishing Well said, “we’re well clear of the border.”
“...Ponyville was well clear of the border,” Shimmer mumbled.
In a blink, I had her pinned and whimpering against the wall.
“Whoa, whoa, back up,” Pocket said, physically pulling me back, despite my thrashing. “What’d she do, huh?”
“You do not bring up what happened to Ponyville to make a point,” I snarled.
Rumble stepped up next to me. “It’s okay, Scootaloo. She didn’t mean anything other than we should be careful. And we should, like you said.”
“I’m not sure it is okay, Rumble! Shimmer here doesn’t seem to understand just how much we lost. How many ponies died, and the countless more that still haven’t healed.” A few beads of sweat dripped off of my chin. I’d probably pushed her harder than I meant to.
“It’s alright. Just set it aside for now. I’m not even telling you to forget about it, just to worry later when we know we’re all safe.” He fixed a soft but steady gaze at me. “Okay?”
I exhaled. “Okay.” Pocket let me go. Shimmer rubbed a hoof at her back and winced. “I’m sorry. I just… I’m from Ponyville, and… and… usually I’m okay. Usually I just remember the good times, but...” I thought I felt tears welling up, but nothing came.
“I’m sorry,” Shimmer said as she hugged me. “If you want, we can talk about it later.”
“But right now, we need to leave,” Wishing Well finished. Everypony nodded. “We’re deep enough into the cave that it’s worth following this path for a little longer and hoping it leads out. Even assuming we don’t get lost, going back the way we came would take too long to be our first choice.”
I wiped at my eyes, finding them still dry, and steadied my breathing. “I can go scout ahead pretty quick.”
Wishing Well nodded again. “Please do.”
“Come back if you don’t find anything in the next five minutes,” Cherry said. “Being alone too long isn’t a good idea.”
“Sure.” As fast as I could, I tore down the tunnel. The rocks got more, then less numerous. There wasn’t any hint of outside light. As I moved forward, I thought I heard the echoes of breathing. With some time to spare and a lot more curiosity than could be healthy, I decided to press on against my uneasiness and see who it was. Maybe they knew the way out, or maybe they were in need of as much help as we were.
But instead of finding somepony, I just found the breathing getting louder and louder, and then the cave shook again. Two stalactites broke off, and one of them tried to impale me, but I managed to roll to the side as it shattered against the ground. The quaking settled down, along with the breathing, only for another roar to rip through the air.
I turned around and dashed back toward the group, almost slamming into Pocket Watch when they showed up much closer than I’d left them.
He was sweating. “We have a problem. The tunnel behind us collapsed.”
“Make that two problems,” I replied. “This is definitely not a direction we want to go.”
“Why?” Rumble asked.
Another roar answered him.
“Trapped between a rock and a dragon,” Cherry said. No smile.
We all sat, still and silent, for a very long couple of seconds. And then we heard the breathing.
Shimmer looked like she was about to break down sobbing. Pocket and Cherry quivered a little. Wishing Well looked like she was about to throw up.
“What do we do now?” Rumble asked.
Wishing Well closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath. “I can… try to teleport us out of here. I’m not… I’m not very good at it, and I’ve only ever done two ponies at once.” She grimaced. “Worse, I’ve only teleported along a line of sight.”
I winced. “Anypony else got any ideas?” I looked around the group and waited. “No?”
“Um, maybe?” Shimmer squeaked. All eyes turned to her. “We could… talk… to… it?” she offered with a badly forced smile.
“I can see where you get that. Fluttershy had been known to talk down a lot of creatures, and that sounds like the kind of test for her element I could understand.” Wishing Well shook her head. “But this isn’t a manticore, or a cockatrice, or anything else sensible. Maybe before, but not now. Not after all they’ve done. Dragons don’t negotiate anymore.”
As if to emphasize that statement, the tell-tale dance of firelight shone in the distance behind me.
