Census Maximus Ultimatum

Chapter 6

Princess Luna spread her wings and leaped from the tower, high above Canterlot. She narrowed her wingspan and angled downward, gathering speed as gravity took hold of her. About a hundred feet above the ground she snapped her wings fully open, wind filled the space, and she leveled out, flying in a straight line, level above the ground. She flew over the cliff face that edged Canterlot, and dropped downward again. Equestria spread out in front of her, for hundreds of miles in every direction.

A few miles out, in Cloudsdale, lying in a bed made of condensed cumulonimbus cloud, Scootaloo turned back and forth underneath the fluffy blue blankets that covered her. She couldn't get used to it, despite it being one of the most comfortable things she had ever laid on. Her eyes refused to submit to the peace of sleep. It wasn't because she was over-excited, quite the opposite in fact. So much change. It made her feel odd. Rainbow Dash had brought her home, shown her around the house, even though Scootaloo had been there before, and then Rainbow had given her the extra bedroom.

Silence.

Silence in the bedroom.

“Nyyyaaahhh!” Scootaloo mumbled to herself. She hated silence. Silence was one of her worst fears, the fear that nothing was there, that empty feeling. Even during school tests, she sometimes got antsy and she shivered in terror of the silence. But then she would concentrate on the consistent tapping of pencils against the pages, and she would play back a rhythm in her mind.

Tap.

Tap. Tap.

Tap.

But here, there was nothing. Not even white noise. It was just dark silence.

Scootaloo reached up and swiped her hoof across her forehead. It came away sticky with sweat. It was by no means excessively hot, and yet, she felt as though she were on fire. The filly sighed, and threw off the blankets, the blue material settling on the floor. She wiped away the sweat from her forehead, and crawled out of the bed. Her hooves hit the floor without a sound. Most flooring in Cloudsdale was made of compressed and hardened perspiration. Scootaloo didn't know the whole process, but when houses were built in the city in the clouds, they typically were produced using pieces from the various factories. Special kinds of glass, the flooring, specific kinds of wall material. All of that had to fit in regulation with

Pegasus magic. Everything needed  to be able to remain in the air.

Scootaloo blinked, the darkness and the silence threatening to take here away into her nightmares. She left the room, and walked down the short hall, stopping in front of the other bedroom. Rainbow Dash lay spread eagle across the bedding, her mane a mess over the blankets and her tail hanging down over the edge.

Scootaloo walked silently past the snoring pegasus.  The rest of the house consisted of a large open room, with a few cloud sofas, a a shelf made of light glass, upon which rested a single set of eight books: The Daring Do series. Scootaloo walked by this and headed straight for the door.

The door was made of reinforced fiberglass, and edged with a sort of plastic. Also the standard for Cloudsdale homes. Scootaloo pushed the lock, opened the door, and stepped outside, leaving the door open. She didn't want to get locked out.

In front of the house in the clouds, a large porch stretched for maybe ten feet in each direction, and a series of cloud steps led to the road on the left side. But on the other edges of the porch, there was a short guardrail, made of condensed cloud, and over that was a view of the sky, open to the air. The moon shone bright, and Ponyville rested quietly below, only a few lights on in the middle of the night. Despite the fact that Scootaloo was terrified of silence, she enjoyed the night. Night was her day, so to speak. The moon comforted her, ever since that camping trip, when Princess Luna visited her in her dreams, and spoke to her about her fear of failure in front of Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo sat in front of the rail, her legs spread at an angle to each side and her front hooves resting between them. She shook her head to get her messy hair out  of her face, and she gazed at the bright moon, which seemed to be looking down with care at Equestria. The stars accompanying the moon added light to the darkness. Because Cloudsdale was four thousand feet in the air, it received more light from the moon and stars than Ponyville, but the downside was that it tended to be brutally hot in summer and chilling in winter.

Scootaloo closed her eyes and dropped down to the deck, her chin resting on the edge of the porch.

It was quiet.

Too quiet. Scootaloo let out a loud breath, trying to make a bit of noise so that she wasn't as scared of herself as she really was.

Suddenly a quiet hum broke the silence. A whoosh of air, repeatedly beating against the wind.

Wings. Someone was flying, and relatively close to Scootaloo.

The beat continued, and the humming got louder.

Scootaloo looked around. Fear wasn't an issue. She wasn't scared. It was obviously a pegasus. But very, very few pegasus ponies spent time at night flying instead of sleeping.

But there was one.

The beating was loud now. The Pegasus in question was now directly above Scootaloo. She looked up. The covering over the porch blocked her view. But that wouldn't matter.

A blue Pegasus dropped to the level of the deck, and lifted herself over the railing and settled onto the deck. Scootaloo stood up, too quickly, and she hit her head on the underside of the rail. “Ow!” She squeaked as she backed up and sat down again, looking at the midnight blue Princess Luna as she folded her large wings and settled on the ground.

Scootaloo rubbed her head, then bowed down until her chin nearly touched her hooves. “Princess Luna! What are you doing here?”

Luna smiled and looked down on the orange filly. “I sensed your despair and fear. What makes you have such feelings?”

“Well, it's...it's Rainbow Dash, Princess!” Scootaloo looked down.

“Are you once again afraid of failure in her eyes?”

“Well, no, not like that...It's....complicated...yeah.”

“Then speak, and we may perhaps solve your dilemma.”

“Well, earlier today, Rainbow Dash asked me who my family was, and I don't know who they are! And now she invited me to live with her, but there's something weird about it! I don't know what it is! She's suddenly really really fond of me, and she says she'll take care of me, but there was something just weird about it. And-”

Luna raised a hoof and Scootaloo stopped. “Does this affect your life?”

“Well, yeah!”

“And how does it do so?”

Scootaloo stopped with her mouth open. “Uh...well...it's...”

“You should not worry about that which is not a problem. When you can find a proper answer, come out here once again, deep in the night, and we shall discuss it. Until then, try to find peace in your new living situation. We shall speak again soon, dear Scootaloo.” The Princess of the Night lifted her wings, and jumped over the railing, and dropped down out of

Scootaloo's sight.

The filly stood and placed her front hooves on the cloud rail, and looked down.

Nothing.

Disappointed, turned away, pushed open the door to the house, and closed it again, shifting the lock. She walked back down toward her room, stopping again at Rainbow Dash's room. She was still in the same position, her breathing loud. Scootaloo went to her room and climbed back into bed.

Twilight Sparkle looked at the clock. It was past midnight. “I should really get to bed...” she said to herself. Spike was already out cold, snoring in his bed. “But I have reading to do.” she opened her book again. She was reading about economics in the other civilizations around Equestria. She was only a few pages in, but she had already learned a great deal. She was excited because the next chapter was concerning the Census and how it was gone about being done. As she was reading, her eyes began to droop. She forced them open.

“The Census is to be performed at a rate of one to three years, consistently. The monarch, or leader, of said civilization must maintain information and always be up-to-date on the population. The fillies and colts of said civilization are not to have their own opinion. They are too young and not yet mature enough to be part of the civilization, and so they must simply be counted as a part of the family. Should a pony not attend the Census for two of the events consistently, they should be no longer marked as a part of the town or civilization.”

Twilight looked up. She moved the book, and dropped her face onto the blankets on her bed. She cursed to herself. “Damn, I should have read this before I talked to them...”