Since the arrival of Twilight Sparkle in Ponyville, the local library was not a location that saw a great deal of middle ground as far as excitement went.
It was either a quiet and peaceful place of contemplation, as naturally befit a library - or a place of energy, noise and heated discussion, as befit a gathering point of the particularly interesting mares who carried the Elements of Harmony, and their family and friends.
Today, so far, it looked to be one of the quiet days.
Only one pony was currently inhabiting the more public section of the library that morning - a pegasus of orange coat and purple mane, on the cusp of full marehood, lounging on cushions in the corner of the room with the latest Daring Do novel propped in front of her. Though her eyes never left the pages in front of her, she seemed distracted, flicking pages back and forth and looking thoughtful.
However, first her ears, then her head perked up over the cover, as the sound of familiar voices approaching echoed from outside. She folded the book carefully, subtly changing her pose and fluffing her wings out slightly, smiling brightly as the doors opened and the muffled voices became clear.
"--says it'll cause us issues if we can't replicate the tricks everywhere we go, and it does mean extra work, but hey, I say the more awesome stuff we can pull off, the better!" The very idea of Rainbow Dash calmly walking into the library instead of coming to a tumbling halt at the end of a crash landing through a randomly selected door or window would once have been an unthinkable concept, but these days was not too unusual, given her close relationship with the library's owner - and the somewhat more landbound and unusual character following her through the door.
"It does mean you're going to be out training at all these other cities a lot, though, doesn't it? I mean, if you can only perform a trick under those conditions, you can only practise it there too." Lero Michaelides, Ponyville's - and indeed, Equestria's - resident human had to duck slightly to get through the library door, his bipedal nature making him tower over the ponies around him; it was obvious he was quite experienced at the motion by this point.
"Well yeah, but I'm not gonna just be practising the whole time, I'm gonna be actually designing these new tricks from scratch. Twilight's gonna help too with the egghead side of stuff, so I figure you and Lyra can come too and we can all go on a bit of a trip?"
As Lero closed the door behind him, Scootaloo gave a slight sigh, her wings settling back down at her sides, before grinning at the rainbow-maned pegasus. "Oh, hey Rainbow! You planning a holiday?"
"Heya squirt! Yeah, but it's not gonna be for a while yet. We're gonna see if we can make some brand new moves for the 'bolts! Twilight in?"
Scootaloo nodded, gesturing up the stairs with a wing. "Can't wait to see it! Your last show was awesome!"
"Don't see how it could be anything else, with me up there!" Rainbow grinned.
"Could you see any of the other fliers past her swollen ego?" Lero cut in.
"Hey!" Rainbow prodded her partner with a wing, making him chuckle as he scampered up the stairs ahead of her and pulled the door open. "I'll swell your ego in a second!"
"I can't tell if that's supposed to be threatening or flirting!"
"What, from Rainbow Dash?" Twilight's voice sung out from the room above. "Is there a difference?"
"Oh, so it's gang up on Rainbow day today, is it? Fine, I'll take you all on!" The pegasus playfully threatened, flying into the room after the others, the door slamming closed a second later, leaving Scootaloo alone in the main room of the library once again.
She shuffled herself back into a comfortable lounge, sighing again and returning her attention to the book in front of her. If anything, though, she was even more distracted than before, and not only from the mostly-muffled occasional giggle, outraged squeal, and one or two heavy thumps that came from the upstairs. She considered yelling at them to keep quiet in the library just for the novelty of her using that line on Twilight Sparkle for once, but soon enough they seemed to calm themselves down - or at least, Twilight had thought to put up some sound-dampening magic.
But even with the illusion of being alone in the library she was still distracted, and really barely focusing on the pages in front of her. She really wasn't one for sitting still and learning at the bet of times, and she was getting restless. Focus. She stared at the offending paper, attempting to drill the information inside it into her head, cutting out all distractions.
Page by page she went, as if her focus was burning away the words one by one.
Ignore her heart trying to pick up speed with nervousness...
Minutes passed by, the world around her sinking away as she delved into the tome, seconds ticking by so much slower than usual.
Ignore the twitch in her legs and wings as they urged her against sitting and waiting...
She'd almost managed to get into a rhythm, now - the words on the page were actually sinking in, and she found she wasn't skipping back and forth as much. Maybe she could actually relax and do this.
Ignore the slight itches in her fur and feathers, they were just in her head...
She focused entirely on the book, no longer urged to glance up at the clock or the door, finding a moment of peace there for a few, brief moments.
Ignore the shadows hovering over her, and the voice calling out to her...
Wait, what?
"Hey, squirt!" The words on the page jumped, suddenly, as a hoof nudged the book from behind. Scootaloo followed suit, leaping into the air, wings spread wide and flitting as she flung the book up in shock.
A desperate juggling act followed as she fumbled the flying tome, bouncing it from hoof to hoof before she finally made a lunge and caught it with both hooves, hugging it close and staring around. She hadn't even heard Rainbow come downstairs...
...Or Twilight, or Lero. The three of them were there in front of her, watching - Rainbow in front, Twilight to one side (staring at the recently airborne book with a look between horror and relief) and Lero to the other, crouched down in that seemingly impossibly-balanced folding of limbs that brought his head down to pony height.
"Uhh... hi?" Scootaloo carefully slid the book down beside her and settled back down on the cushion as she looked from one to another.. "What's up?"
The three of them glanced at each other, clearly looking rather awkward, waiting for each other to go first, before finally Rainbow sighed and spoke up. "Kid... we need to talk."
"...Yeah?" Long-honed instincts jumped at the idea of having a talk with Rainbow Dash of all ponies, but the looks on their faces said this wasn't going to be that sort of chat.
"Yeah. About Spike."
Scoot flinched back a moment, before rallying, albeit not as smoothly as she would have liked. "W-what about Spike?"
"About you and Spike."
"What about me and Spike? There's nothing to--" she faltered under the look Rainbow gave her.
"Kid... Lero noticed." Rainbow gave a half-smirk.
"Hey!" the human protested, but remained mostly ignored.
"Look, joking aside, Scootaloo... yes, we've noticed." Twilight put in, pulling the book out from the pegasus' side with her magic. Scootaloo dove for the book again, but far too late, ending up flat on the floor as Twilight opened the Daring Do novel, and pulled out the second book from between its pages - 'Cuts and Carats - a guide to crystals and gemstones, magical and mundane.'
"The book-inside-a-book move is a classic, but works better when the inside book isn't hard-cover." She carefully closed the novel again, ensuring neither book had been damaged by the encounter, giving her best disapproving librarian look to the cringing filly.
"Books aren't the important thing here." Lero said quietly.
"Yeah, the issue here is Spike." All three of them focused on Scootaloo. "And if you're going to be looking to get his attention..."
Twilight, as a strong study of pony instinct and body language, would have been able to explain exactly what was going through Scootaloo's subconscious at that point in time if their positions had been reversed.
As a pegasus, being surrounded and pushed into a corner - both physically and emotionally - was a major trigger for anxiety to begin with. Being already flat to the floor and loomed over was another.
On one side was a very powerful unicorn, horn alight with magic; on the other, a rather large predator, whose squat pose might have been made with equalisation in mind - but the part of the brain hooked up to her wings cried warnings of readiness to spring up to catch a low-flying pegasus.
Throw in the presence of a respected older mare leading the charge, stern faces all around, and long-held disrespect for authority; sprinkle with teenage emotional control and a desperately awkward conversation, and you have a situation any pegasus would try to chew off their own wing to escape.
Scootaloo was in no real position to examine her own feelings, however - all she knew was that she simply desperately wanted to be anywhere but here.
"I'm not talking about this! Go away!" she blurted out, blushing furiously, and in an incredible display of speed she blew out between the gap between Rainbow Dash and Twilight, blazing a orange-and-purple trail through the library and flying through the door - knocking it off its hinges entirely as she disappeared into the street, before any of the trio could do more than turn around to see the door clatter to the ground.
Lero and his herd blinked after her, Twilight dropping the two books to the ground as she stared, shocked.
"Man, I forgot how much fun dealing with teenage relationships is..." muttered Lero. "She's fast."
"Yeah... umm..."
"Maybe... maybe we shouldn't all do this at once. Rainbow?" Twilight looked to the pegasus.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll go find her. Sorry guys..."
"Be careful, alright?"
"I know." She stretched her wings briefly, then with seemingly no period of acceleration at all, vanished into a fading rainbow streak and gust of wind as she took off after the younger mare.
Twilight and Lero gave each other another worried look, then set to fixing up the library door - a process that took only minutes, as it had been long ago designed to be easily knocked out and replaced from either direction. Twilight could be accused of many things, but inefficiency and lack of pattern recognition were not among them.
~-~-~-~
Scootaloo wasn't thinking even a second ahead as she shot out of the library, which made the move that much more impressive. Completely on instinct, her wing snagged the handlebar of her namesake vehicle from where it lay by the library - a far more impressive and expensive model than the ramshackle device she had driven as a blank-flank filly - and at the speed she travelled, the blow caused the whole thing to flip into the air.
The pegasus leapt up and twisted in midair, her wings easily orienting herself to the device, getting in position, settling her hooves, and using their shared torque to flip herself back wheels-down, barely losing any momentum at all as her wings accelerated her away.
She barely even noticed the switch in perspective, focusing only on fleeing - and soon the wheeled terror of Ponyville was shooting through the streets with wild abandon, a streak of purple, orange and silver, with a flash of a desperate face, and the image of a wheel throwing up a dust cloud on the flank matching the wheels below perfectly.
A few seconds later, the rainbow blur of another pegasus shot up from the library door, but by that point there was little more than a dust cloud remaining of her trail, and Rainbow Dash shot up and over the city.
The two pegasi both had special talents in high-speed manoeuvring, but beyond that their specialties took them in very different directions. Rainbow Dash had the wide open sky, most at home in three dimensions and with all the room in the world for moving around, and well-planned acrobatics; Scootaloo was at her best on the ground, in cramped twists and turns, where the reaction time between seeing an unexpected barrier and changing direction needed to be sometimes bordering on precognitive to prevent a nasty crash.
She zigzagged through crowded streets of market carts and ponies in a physics-defying display of directional control, the weight-altering magic of the winged ponies being used with amazing precision to switch her momentum first one way, then another. There was likely not a pony in Ponyville who would be able to keep up with her on the path she took, not even Rainbow Dash herself. She was in her element, completely and utterly, going so fast she didn't even hear the yelps and curses of the ponies behind her.
Within a minute she had blazed across half the town, taking back-alleys and occasionally even crossing into (or over!) properties if the paths were there. She pushed away from the main market square, looking for the quieter and less populous areas of town, finally skidding to a halt under a few trees near the schoolyard: a shady safe-haven her and the other Crusaders had often used in the past, and casually flipped her scooter up, around, and against a tree while she tried to catch her breath, slow her pounding heart, and wipe the dust from her eyes.
I really shouldn't have freaked out like that... She panted as she collapsed under the trees. Of course everyone but Spike would have noticed... I was beginning to think I wasn't doing it right! Oh Luna, what am I gonna do, at least I've got some time to--
"Heya, squirt." A soft, but very familiar voice called from behind her.
~-~-~-~
Scootaloo was fast, but Rainbow Dash was a Wonderbolt. And more importantly, she had a bird's eye view.
The path taken by the grounded speedster would have been nigh impossible to follow directly at her own level, but from the sky it was easy to spot the line of cursing ponies, followed by the flying dust cloud dispersing in the air, followed by the orange-and-purple blur that trailed behind her. High-end pegasus magic used for speed was rarely known for stealth.
But even on the wing, Rainbow had to push a little to keep pace with the zigzagging line beneath. Fortunately, it seemed Scootaloo hadn't even thought to look behind her, and made no effort to actively shake her tail - not that it would've worked, but it would have probably just made things worse when she finally caught up.
And catch up she did, at a little grove of trees, quietly descending in a slow glide and touching down with a gentleness that would have made Fluttershy proud.
"Heya, Squirt." She called out, then immediately followed with "Wait, don't fly off!" Scootaloo froze, having lunged for her scooter again before she'd even consciously recognised the voice. Slowly and carefully, as if having to order every muscle one by one to obey, she put it back down and turned around to see the face of her idol, something between concern and guilt showing on her face.
Rainbow Dash watched Scootaloo fight to bring her wings back down from take-off ready, shaking hard and more tense than she'd ever seen. The younger pegasus didn't meet her eyes. "Hey D-Dash... sorry, I, I kinda freaked out a bit there..."
No kidding... Rainbow waved it off, trying to look more confident than she felt about this. "Eh, we've all been there, kid. We didn't really handle it great either. But..." She sighed, steeling herself. "We still gotta talk. Just... just you and me, okay?" She smiled hopefully, moving up beside the younger mare carefully, opening a wing out gently as an invitation.
Scootaloo hesitated for a long moment, staring at the wing with an expression Rainbow couldn't place, but finally seemed to give a resigned sigh and closed the distance between them. The two of them lay side-by-side on the grass, silent for a long moment. ...Normally this makes her relax a bit, but she feels like a bag of rocks there... is she still freaking out, or has she just grown a heap since I last did this? It's been ages...
Stop distracting yourself, Rainbow. She shook her head. "Alright, kid. You and Spike."
She felt the younger mare flinch slightly, but all she got was a sulky "Mmhmm." Yeah. Definitely still freaking out. Gotta handle this carefully...
"You can... understand why we're concerned, right?"
"Well..." Scootaloo finally seemed to find her voice. "Not really, no. I mean... Twilight's a bit protective of him, but... you guys're the last ponies I'd think'd have problems with somebody liking someone who isn't a pony!"
Rainbow winced. Oh great... How do I do this? She looked down at the younger mare. "Look... it's... it's never as easy as that." How would my friends deal with this... ugh... Maybe go with Applejack, harsh truth. "Right. You know how everyone who's trying to make a big deal of the whole mushy romance scene goes on about 'it doesn't matter what they look like, it's what's inside that counts'?" She made a bit of a show of imitating Rarity's mannerisms, but Scoot wasn't really in a mood to appreciate it, it seemed.
"Well, yeah..."
"That's a load of horseapples."
For the first time since they'd started on the topic, Scoot's eyes locked directly on hers in an expression of hurt shock, seeming to almost choke on her own tongue. Even the idea of Rainbow Dash willingly talking romance at all was a little weird, but for someone in her position to make a statement like that...
Broke her out of her sulk a bit at least. Dash chuckled. "I know, right? Look, it's all well and good to go 'we're in love, nothing else matters!' but the truth is... it does matter. And trying to ignore that sorta thing is how you end up in major turbulence down the line. It might not matter much - perhaps not enough to change your mind, or even make things better - but you can't just go ahead and say it makes no difference at all.
"It's bad enough when it's just talking ponies. Earth pony strength, pegasus flight, unicorn magic - jealousy is bad, and feeling like you're being held back is even worse. Nopony in my herd 'cept me can fly, and it's... kinda sad I can't share that so much with them." She flexed her free wing, looking at it thoughtfully. Except when Twilight feels like bringing out the big spells, but that's not helping...
"Well, I'm not really that great once I get off the ground either..." Scootaloo was back to looking at the ground, avoiding Rainbow's gaze.
"Yeah, but that's just an example. What you gotta deal with if you go down this path, squirt, is just a few steps beyond that." She felt Scootaloo flinch under her wing again, and squeezed tighter, but the younger pegasus only tensed further. "We're talking something that's not pony at all. And you gotta realise what that means.
"It means you're gonna be getting attention from all 'round, and not all of it's gonna be good. You've heard the horseapples the Honey sisters used to throw around. I still get questions every single interview with the 'bolts about Lero, and some of them I gotta hold myself back from bucking the press in the face. Sometimes not even because they're being mean, y'know? Sometimes they don't even realise anyone'd be offended when they ask."
"But you're still happy with it!"
"Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it's not worth it. Lero is so worth it, Twilight and Lyra too. But it's worth it because what we have is awesome, and... if it's not awesome, then, you're going to have to... bah, I'm no good with this." She muttered. I'm getting off track.
"I get it, Rainbow." Scootaloo nodded, eyes off the ground now, looking at the sky. "But... hey, you've shown it can be done. I've dealt with stuff like that before, y'know. And still, now. I know it's not gonna be clear skies and tailwinds all the way. I'm not stupid."
You're... really going to fight for this, aren't you? Rainbow moved her wing, nudging her protégé to face her directly. Their gazes locked, Rainbow giving a somewhat challenging gaze, but Scootaloo met them head-on, refusing to back down from her stance. Giving a slight frown, Rainbow broke the gaze first, looking back towards the town. You are. Maybe you really...
"Alright. Why, then?"
"Huh?"
"Why Spike? You say you're willing to put in the hard work, deal with the crosswinds that come with. Why?"
Scootaloo squirmed, stammering and blushing. "W-what? I can't, I'm..."
"If you pull this off, Scoot, you're gonna get asked that question all the time. And if you don't have a good answer for it now, when you're ready to take on the storm for it..."
"I..." Scootaloo tensed again, as if looking for an escape, but finally took a deep breath and managed to calm down, closing her eyes and speaking with a strange clarity. "Spike... he... he hung out with us a lot. When you guys were off having your Elements of Harmony adventures. He's always got time for us, and looked out for us when we were doing some really stupid stuff."
Rainbow nodded, gesturing for her to continue. Scootaloo saw neither, with her eyes still closed, but seemed to relax a bit further, the explanation flowing into serenity. "He's really smart, and pretty cute, and he really cares, y'know? He puts his all into what he does, especially if he loves it. Like he used to for Rarity. And in the library, since Twilight moved in with you guys."
"I wouldn't think a library would be much of a selling point for you." Rainbow couldn't resist the jab.
"You're one to talk." Scootaloo snarked back, breaking the strange spell she seemed to be under.
"Good point. So is that it?"
"Yeah, that's... well..."
"Hmmm?"
Scoot looked away, as if only now realising how she was sounding and who she was talking to. After a long moment, she continued. "...He's lonely, yeah? I mean, he's the only dragon around, and he was chasing after Rarity so long, but nobody's ever really..." she broke off into mumbling, apparently unable to regain the calm explanation.
Rainbow stared at her for a long moment, trying to put the puzzle together. She's acting... really weird, but she couldn't have just pulled that out of nowhere... but... I really hate not understanding things. Maybe I should just hit this head on... Scootaloo refused to meet her eyes again, and finally Rainbow spoke.
"...Look, kid--"
"mntakid." Scootaloo muttered under her breath.
"What?"
"I'm not a kid! Alright! Stop calling me that!" She shrugged off Rainbow's wing, standing up and moving away. "I know I asked you to take me under your wing and all, but I've grown up now! You don't have to watch over me!"
Aw horsefeathers. "I'm... not trying to make your decisions for you. I'm just... trying to make sure you fully understand what you're doing, and that you're making them for the right reasons."
"So because I'm a kid, I can't understand anything? Is that it? I know what I'm doing, Rainbow, and why I'm doing it!"
It was the first time Scoot'd ever actually yelled at her directly before, and she was completely taken aback. She struggled to hold her shock and her temper in check, frantically thinking, before finally replying to the enraged younger mare with slow and careful words. "I'm just trying to make sure that none of my friends get hurt. That goes for you... and for Spike. And Twilight as well. So calm down. I... I wanna tell you a story."
Thankfully, that seemed to take a bit of the air out from Scootaloo's wings, as she tilted her head with suspicion and curiosity in equal measure.
"Just sit. This is gonna get a bit mushy, though." She was much more comfortable with mushy these days than she was ready to admit. "Usual rules, if you tell anyone, I'll deny everything." She smirked for a fraction of a second, but returned to a serious, thoughtful look. Scootaloo sat down carefully facing her, not used to seeing such a contemplative face on the usually brash speedster.
"Look, before I met Lero... I'd only tried courting a couple times. One stallion, lasted about two weeks before he broke it off with me--"
"What? Why would he--"
"Don't interrupt. And because he wanted somepony more attractive." She smiled a little at Scootaloo's fuming indignation at that. "And a mare, shortly after, but it turns out I'm kinda bent. She was great, but I just wasn't interested. So I never really found any other interested stallions, and I wasn't interested in any mares, and after a while I stopped really trying.
"And then of course, Lero comes along, being just about as close to Dash levels of awesome as you can get without wings on your back. And yeah, I was nervous as all hell, and it was kinda weird at first... but in the end I tried courting him. Not that he noticed for months, until I--"
"Look, Dash, I do know the story. If you're trying to say I'm only going for Spike because there aren't enough interested pony stallions around..."
"Are you?"
"Of course not!"
"Hmmm." Don't think she's lying there, at least. "Well, no, that wasn't the point I was making, anyway." Scootaloo tilted her head, confused, and Dash continued.
"Now, I know it's kinda weird, but as I said before, I'm bent. Really, really bent. I mean, these days I'd take Lero over any stallion you could mention - but even right back at the start, he could get me going without even trying. Hell, I think Lyra knew I was interested in him before I did. I was trying to get his attention without even realising it.
"But mares... I love Twilight and Lyra, don't get me wrong, but I had to fight against myself a lot of the time. I love 'em for who they are, they're awesome, and I always have, but I had to push myself a lot of the time to get... interested, if I could at all. Just couldn't get it out of my head that I was with a mare, even if it was a mare I really loved. And Twilight was really nervous and sensitive right at the start, thinking she was kinda... intruding? And Lero too, so I had to work hard to make her feel like we wanted her there, so everyone didn't fall apart."
She chuckled to herself, eyes closed and lost in memories once mortifyingly awkward, now made amusing by long experience and the passage of time. "I'm not going to go into what we went through to break me through that little phase - old enough or not, that's private. But it's kinda funny that I've found it so much easier to be attracted to somepony who's not even a pony, than the very attractive mares I share him with."
Rainbow Dash was blushing a little now, eyes closed and thinking. Scootaloo watched her, blushing a little herself, but still not sure what the point of this was.
The older pegasus broke out of her reverie suddenly, again looking fondly at the town. "Now, between the three of us - and the rest of the town - we've had a lot of interesting culture issues. Lero didn't understand a lot of how ponies think and work and act, you see - and vice versa. Stuff we pick up on without even thinking about, body language and all, just completely missed each other. 'S'what I mean about him not noticing me being interested for months. So a lot of our relationship was trying to learn to read each other.
"And you know Twilight - show her a whole new field of research, especially one so close to her and the opportunity to teach something, and related to friendship, no less! So Twilight studied everything there is to study about body language, instinct, the way we communicate without even realising it. I doubt there's another pony who knows as much about that stuff as Twilight. She can read wings better than any pegasus I could name. Sometimes she knows what we're feeling better than we do, these days."
She sighed. If you're wrong about this, Twilight, I swear... Rainbow suddenly turned to Scootaloo, eyes snapping open with a forceful stare.
"And she's spent years in a relationship with somepony who has had to push themselves to show the signs of attraction and courtship to somepony they weren't attracted to."
"W-what? What do you..."
"I mean, squirt, that Twilight's really, really good at telling if someone's trying to convince themselves to go after somepony and put on a show, when they're not sure about it."
Scootaloo's face went pale and eyes wide, backing up suddenly from Rainbow Dash. She gulped. "I-I'm sure!" she blurted out, about as convincingly as a stick-on cutie mark.
"Doesn't look like it to me, squirt." Rainbow sighed, feeling disappointment settle in her gut as the facade cracked. Damn. I was kinda hoping Twi was wrong after all. "I mean... that was a really good speech before. You had me beginning to think Twilight'd made a mistake there for a while. You've thought through your reasons, and you didn't come up with that on the spot." Rainbow climbed back to her feet, advancing a little on Scootaloo. "But she's right, isn't she? You're not really attracted to him."
"I-I am! I was telling the truth!"
You're busted, kid. Stop lying to me. "You can't go into something like this half-hearted, squirt. Why are you doing this? Are you trying to imitate me again?"
"N-no!"
"It's flattering when you're wearing a wig and going for speedster, but this is going to get you hurt, kid, and not just you either." The disappointment was building into anger, now, her voice rising. Years of public opinion about Lero had made people lying to her face about their opinions a significant sore sport with Rainbow.
But Scootaloo refused to back down - flaring her wings and holding her ground. "I'm not trying to be you!" she yelled back, though it came out as more of a squeak, and she looked more and more like the little blank-flank filly staring down the coolest pegasus ever.
"So the fact I've got a non-pony stallion hasn't got anything to do with it?"
"No!"
"But you said before, you saw I'd made it work?"
"N- I-I... Well yeah, if you hadn't... umm..."
"So you're--"
"I'm not trying to be like you! Or impress you!"
"Then why?"
"I... I can't..."
"What is it?"
"I..." Scootaloo looked around frantically, trying to find something, anything; Rainbow was between her and her scooter by now.
"Are you trying to just get closer to me then? Because we hang out at the library?"
"It's got nothing to do with you!" she wailed.
"Then what is it?!"
"I can't!"
"Why are you trying to court somepony you're not attracted to?"
"Because I... I..."
"You're going to put yourself through all this, end up hurt, and what for?!"
"It's not for me!"
"Then who?!"
"For Sweetie Belle!" Scootaloo shrieked out, then immediately clapped her hooves over her mouth as the name seemed to echo around the trees in the sudden silence.
Rainbow stared, completely taken by surprise, as Scootaloo whimpered around her hooves and stared around with pinpoint pupils, shaking her head. "No no no no... I..." She darted around the clearing, as if looking for a way to wind back time, or at the very least ensure no witnesses. "I promised... I can't... I..."
"...What?" Rainbow finally managed to get out, her thought processes completely derailed.
"I promised! Oh no, I promised I wouldn't tell anypony... you can't tell anypony! Please! She'll never live it down!" Scootaloo grabbed Rainbow with an almost painful grip with wings and hooves alike, begging desperately.
"Sweetie Belle?"
"Promise! Rainbow, please, I'm begging you, you can't tell anyone, and don't tell her I told you!"
"I... okay, I promise." Rainbow managed to get out, her brain slowly rebuilding its grip on reality.
"Especially Rarity!"
"Rarity? But..."
"Please!"
"Okay, I won't tell anypony, but you gotta tell me what's going on here, squirt, 'cos I'm lost."
Scootaloo shook her head hard, still trembling all over. "I can't! I promised..."
"You've already... no, you're right." Rainbow Dash is not going to try to push the loyalty of another pony on purpose. But... okay, first thing's first. "Look, just... just calm down, okay? I'm sorry. I... shouldn't have yelled. Not cool of me at all."
She half-opened a wing, making the offer, but Scoot shook her head, slowly lowering herself down to the grass facing Dash, visibly fighting to relax and settle. Dash let her calm down a little, taking advantage of the pause to try and make sense of her own whirling mind. This really isn't my scene... damn, now all I can think of is that Rarity would totally know what to do here...
"Okay. So I'm guessing that stuff you said earlier was what Sweetie thinks, more than you." Scoot blanched, her lips in a tight line as she looked away. "You don't have to say anything about Sweetie. I wanna know what you think."
She looked away a long moment longer, before muttering something, far too low for Dash to catch. "Sorry?"
"...I'm calling that mushy rules thing. Don't tell anypony." Scoot mumbled. Dash huffed and grinned.
"Of course."
"I want Sweetie Belle and Applebloom." Scoot said, quiet but firm. "They're... they're my closest friends. We always did everything together. And I wanna stay with them, whatever happens."
Dash nodded, waiting patiently, watching the determination spark in the orange mare's eyes. "The three of us are always way more awesome together. But... I've been kinda scared for a while now. We've all got our talents now, and we're all grown up, and... both Sweetie and 'Bloom, they're... well, kinda big deals. They've both got Elements for sisters, and we all know Sweetie's gonna hit the big leagues with her singing, and farm-ponies like to get their herds going good and strong.
"But... we're all really, really different. Sweetie's unicorn high society, Applebloom's as earthy as they come, and I'm... I'm a pegasus speedster who's at her best with her hooves three inches off the ground." She gave a quite humourless laugh. "What kinda herd is that? What kinda stallion would be into all of that at once? Anypony that one of us could have a chance with wouldn't want anything to do with the other two.
"I don't care that much about stallions, I just want the three of us to stay together. But I know the other two are more interested... Applebloom's complaining that her brother and sister are teasing her about some of the other local farmers... and one day, Sweetie was telling me about some of the stallions she was working with flirting with her, and I was trying not to fly off and buck 'em in the face, but then she said she... really wasn't interested in any of them. And..." She trailed off, clearly getting a little too close to promise-enforced no-mare's-land.
"But she's not acting on that... and you are?"
"Well..." Scootaloo considered her answer carefully. "I don't have much reputation to lose if it doesn't go well. Once I got it started, bringing in Bloom and Sweetie would be easy. And I thought I could handle it better. Which... didn't work out so well." She shook her head. "And... well, I've always been kinda the brave one."
Rainbow nodded - for all that Sweetie had learned to open up with her singing, she could still be quite shy at times. Dancing around Sweetie's feelings and the promise was irritating, but it was beginning to come together as Scootaloo continued.
"Spike... Spike's known us all since we were little brats Crusading. And we're all really good friends with him. We couldn't ever get a stallion from outside with something in common with all of us... but somepony who's known us all from the start and still stands by us? Even if he's not a pony, that's... that's something to fight for.
"And... you're right. I'm not really attracted to him, physically at least. But he's awesome, and... a lot of what I said before, it still goes. I might not have thought of it first, but I agree with all of it. I'd like to make him happy too, and... and Sweetie and Bloom, and... like you said. Maybe it does matter, a little, and maybe it's not all perfect, but there are things that make it worth it."
Rainbow Dash was silent, waiting for more, but that appeared to be the end of Scootaloo's little speech. The two of them locked eyes, the younger mare now the one with the challenging gaze, sad and worried but absolutely determined, ready to fight hard for her friends.
Putting herself in a position she might not be comfortable with, to ensure that she keeps her friends together, no matter what... and makes her other friends happy too. Hah, whatever she says about not trying to follow in my footsteps, that's Loyalty through and through...
And I...
"I'm sorry." Rainbow said, with absolute conviction.
"You're... what?" Scootaloo seemed to let out a breath she had been holding.
"I said I'm sorry." Rainbow said, smiling proudly. "I've... really not been fair on you. None of us have. I've been seeing you as my number one fan for so long, it's... I didn't actually notice you growing up into your own mare. I jumped to conclusions. So, Scootaloo..." She smiled. "I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"
Scootaloo let out a slightly strangled giggle at the sight of Rainbow, ears and wings folded back in penitence, but with a slightly hopeful little grin, like a filly looking for approval from a mentor. "I... of course I do. You were just looking out for me and Spike."
"Well then!" Rainbow immediately switched gears, jumping up with a cheeky grin. "Alright, Scoots, you'd better grab that wheeled disaster of yours."
"Wait, what? Where are we going?"
"Back to the library!"
She blanched. "But..."
"Scootaloo." Rainbow cut her off, grinning at her. "Look... I'm not gonna tell the others about it. Not even Lero and the others, I promised. But I will tell 'em that you have a good reason, and I think you should tell them as much as you feel comfortable with."
"But..."
"Listen, important thing is, I think you're doing this for the right reasons - but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. I'm not sure that trying to court Spike is the best way to get what you're after..." She winced at the devastated expression on Scootaloo's face, hurriedly continuing. "But I'm not saying it's not! You should try and get as much information as possible, if you're gonna make that decision."
"...You sound like Twilight." Scootaloo gave a slight smirk, teasing. "What happened to the mare who used to play chicken with Everfree hurricanes?"
"Yeah, well, you try living with an egghead like that for a few years and see what rubs off on you. And no, that's not an invitation, for you or the other two." Dash grinned, and Scoot grinned right back. "But hey, between me, Twilight, Lyra and Lero, you've probably got the biggest authorities in Equestria on weird herds, not-so-pony Stallions... and dragons in general, and Spike in particular." She winked. "Maybe you should convince your friends that they might want to come in for some advice as well."
"You... you'd really help out?"
"Of course." Dash grinned, passing by the edge of the small grove of trees into the park, her whole demeanour changing as she moved back into more open space and she spread her wings, back to the brash Wonderbolt public persona. "And as an extra bonus, you get to hang out with the most awesome pegasus in town."
Scootaloo laughed, settling down on her scooter and spreading her wings. "Oh, only in town now? Are you losing your touch?"
"Oh, them's fightin' words, Scoot." Rainbow beamed widely. Even though they were going through motions they'd gone through many times before, somehow the dynamic was different - there was a degree of respect and equality present that had never shone through before.
"Nope, these are racin' words. Bet you can't beat me there if you stay below rooftop level."
"Never underestimate a Wonderbolt!" Rainbow grinned. "Go on three?"
The two of them smirked at each other for a second, then as one both yelled "THREE!" and shot off, twin streaks of blue-rainbow and orange-purple left behind, side by side back towards the town, their shared laughter hovering in the air even after their afterimages faded.
Author's Note
Random fact: While watching a few episodes trying to get a feel for the Rainbow-Scootaloo dynamic, I noticed something interesting.
Over the course of the entire show, I only found one instance where Rainbow actually says Scootaloo's name - and that's while making a mockery of Rarity's mannerisms in 'Sleepless in Ponyville'.
Poor squirt.
