Rumble and Tumble

Chapters

Silver Lining

Silver Lining

It was an ordinary school morning in late February. The boredom could be plainly seen in Scootaloo’s eyes as she traced the edges of the classroom in lazy circles. While the frigid minutes ticked by, she sketched her way through the rough designs of a wagon, a glider, and a conveyor belt across a white pad of paper before her. Hoofsteps lit the air, causing the filly’s fuzzy orange ears to twitch. Cheerilee had just finished warming the stove towards the rear of the class, and was presently trotting to the front chalkboard with a sad expression on her face.

"I have some... unfortunate news for you, my little ponies." She sat before her desk, bracing both forelimbs together as she said, "You all may be wondering why Rumble hasn't been attending class for the last few days. Well, Rumble happened to have injured his leg late last week."

The room filled with brief gasps and twice as many wide-eyed expressions.

"It's alright, though!" Cheerilee swiftly eliminated her previously somber tone with a bright smile. "Rumble’s recovering just fine! But it's going to be a while before he gets to join the rest of us in our lessons. He was traveling inside a stagecoach when it collapsed. The poor thing had one of his rear legs broken."

Twist raised her hoof, and Cheerilee pointed at her. "Ith Rumble going to thtay br-broken?" the worried filly stammered. Several other ponies murmured with similar concern.

Cheerilee gave a pleasant wink as she talked. "Modern medicine is an amazing thing. Just because a bone is broken doesn't mean it has to stay that way. Thankfully, Rumble's big brother Thunderlane got him to the hospital not long after he was hurt. The doctors there set his leg in a cast, and now it's healing up just fine. He'll be back to normal sooner than you know it!"

The class shared relieved expressions, their hushed voices filling the void left by a colt’s vacant chair.

"But, he's going to need more than medicine to feel better!" Cheerilee grinned charismatically. "That's where wecome in! Yesterday, I went out and bought a bunch of get-well cards! I want each and every one of you to sign one, along with a little note, telling Rumble how much we all miss him and how we hope he makes a swift recovery! Now, what do you say?"

"Unngh..." Diamond Tiara was already rolling her eyes. "I thought I came here to learn, not to nurse a Momma's colt back to health!"

Cheerilee's voice took on a razor-edged tone as it ricocheted past the filly's ears. "I need everypony's polite participation in this, Miss Tiara..."

Diamond Tiara winced. "Yes, m-ma'am," she wheezed. Silver Spoon snickered from half a seat over, summoning a scowl from her furious little companion.

"Here we go, students!" Cheerilee shuffled down the rows of desks, passing out one colorful piece of folded stationery after another. "If you need to borrow a pen, just ask!"

"Oooh! Oooh!" Sweetie Belle beamed as she already had a quill ready. "I'm going to draw explosions on the card that I send him! Colts like explosions and stuff, right?"

"Pffft... Oh please..." Apple Bloom waved the filly off. Licking her lips, she pressed a pen down to her own card and tried to outrace Sweetie's drawing skills. "Just draw a full plate of food, that'll make him happy!"

"Oh yeah?! I'm gonna win a colt-cheerer-upper cutie mark before you!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yuh huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yuh huh!"

A desk away, Scootaloo gazed down at her piece of stationery with bored eyes. She flipped the thing over a few times like a paper hoofball, mooshing her orange chin against a limp forelimb. Stifling a yawn, she gazed out the window right next to her. Snow fell in gentle drifts, blanketing the cold world beyond until it became a blank slate. The filly's violet eyes danced through it, zipping invisible stunt paths with a phantom scooter.

It was on a bright and breezy day in March when the bell rang over the schoolyard. Scootaloo's ears twitched from where she sat besides her overturned scooter, silently ratcheting a replacement wheel onto one of the axles. She looked up to see Miss Cheerilee exiting the red brick school building. Without any delay, the teacher clopped her hooves against the front stoop as she sang forth, "Alright, my little ponies! School's now in session! There’ll be time for recess later!"

"Awwwwwwwww," the colts and fillies collectively chanted. Regardless, they dutifully retreated from the swingsets, slides, and jungle gyms. Collecting their things, they trotted into a flimsy line and filed their way across the dew laden grass, entering the small building one after another.

As they shuffled past Cheerilee, the mare brightened. "Oooh! I just remembered! Rumble's made a full recovery, and he'll be coming back to join us in a week!"

A few kind-hearted ponies squee'd and cheered in response to the news.

"However, although he's healed up, he's still going to have a hard time walking like most ponies do," Cheerilee said with a delicate smile. She gestured to the passing foals as she explained, "He's going to be wearing what's called a 'leg-brace.' It's to help keep his injured limb from getting broken again, as well as to give him balance. Now, it might look a little silly to some of you, but I want you all to be kind to him. Even though he's back on his hooves—so to speak—he's going to need all of our support just a little bit longer. So let's give him a warm reception when he returns, alright?"

"Heh..." Snips glanced back at his buddy, smirking. "Imagine that, Snails! A colt on a stick!"

"Yeah! Heheh! I bet we could stick him in front of the Everfree Forest like a flagpole! It'd be like a special delivery for the timberwolves!"

"Oh, knock it off, you two!" Sweetie Belle barked at them with a frown, taking up the rear of the line of students along with Apple Bloom. "Hasn't he been through enough as it is?"

"She's right!" Cheerilee snapped at the colts. "Snips. Snails. You'll be spending half of recess in time out today."

"Awwwww..."

"But Miss Cheerilee, we were only joking!"

"Well, it's not funny! None of us are laughing, and I very much doubt that Rumble will find it funny. In fact, I bet he'll be hurt!"

"Yeah, well, he already got that part covered, didn't he?" Snips said.

"Hahaha!" Snails blurted.

"Alright then... Two days of time out at recess!"

"Awwwwwwww!"

"Come on!"

"Not another word! Now, everypony inside! We've got a lot to learn today!"

Scootaloo's nostrils flared. She finished ratcheting, leaned in closer to her scooter, and gave the wheel a good spin. Her eyes narrowed, and she licked the corner of her lips while studying how smoothly the parts turned.

Cheerilee's voice called out. "That means you, Scootaloo. Hop to it!"

The filly sighed. She leaned the scooter up against a tree beside her tools. Standing up, she scuffled her hooves over the schoolyard grass, wiping errant grease off her limbs until they were clean. Then, in a swift gallop, she sped into the schoolbuilding as Cheerilee promptly shut the door behind her.

It was the first warm morning in spring when a hush fell over half the schoolyard. Several ponies gawked at the path leading up to the springy lawn. Others murmured in tight clusters, trying to keep their snickers and giggles in.

Rumble wasn't laughing. He wasn't even remotely smiling. His silky black mane was extra ruffled from two solid months of uninterrupted bedhead. All it took was one quick glance at the schoolyard below to make him instantly feel like retching. In an effort to keep his breakfast in, he glared emotionlessly into the dirt path stretching east past Ponyville, even as his body shook and jostled over and over again from multiple tugs.

"Unnngh..." Rumble bit his lip as he clenched his jaw. "Thunderlaaaaane?" he hissed out the edge of his mouth. "Quit itttt..."

"No can do, little bro," the older pegasus grunted, clenching his teeth over the canvas and velcro straps that fastened the elaborate brace over the colt's left rear-leg and flanks. "I don't care what the doctors said. You're too tiny for most of their medical stuff. You've already slipped out of this darn thing three times this morning!"

Suddenly, a young mare with freckles leaned her face in. "Maybe if you fastened it more delicately—" She reached forward.

Thunderlane lightly swatted her hoof away. "Blossomforth! I got this! He's my little brother! It's my job to look after him!"

"It's not like I'm dying or anything..." Rumble's cheeks became red. He gave the slightest of blinks over his shoulder and saw twice as many foalish faces facing him than before. It only turned his coat more scarlet. "Quit it! All of you! I'm fine!"

"Awwww!" Flitter stifled a giggle as she and her sister stood besides Blossomforth. "He turns into a little red beet whenever he gets mad!"

"Not nearly as red as when Nurse Red Heart came to visit him every morning," Cloud Chaser remarked, nudging Flitter.

"Unngh!" Rumble tossed his mane forward until it covered his face. "Will somepony please break my other leg? I think I'd rather go back to the hospital..."

"Sorry, buddy." Thunderlane tilted the colt's chin up. "You're in sore need of exercise. Heck, you were in that stupid bed for over two months!"

"Nnngh..." Rumble shoved the stallion's hoof away. "Then stop fussing with me and let me go to school already! Jeez..."

"He's got a point there, Thundy." Blossomforth smirked over at the older brother. "You gotta let him go sometime."

"Yeah... heehee..." Flitter tossed her mane and smiled. "You're worse than the hospital staff! Sooner than later, he's gonna turn into a total softie!"

Cloud Chaser was already leaning in to pinch the colt's cheek. "As if he isn't alreadyyyy!"

"Awwwwwww!"

"Ugh! I've had it with all of you!" Rumble swiveled around and prepared to storm off. "I'd rather do schoolwork than deal with this!” His macho exit was undermined by the awkward and excruciatingly slow pace brought on by his brace. Rumble resembled a zombie giraffe, hobbling down towards the schoolyard like a pony born on the side of a hill. It only made the other schoolchildren gawk at him even more.

"Hey! Uhm..." Thunderlane bit his lip before tossing his voice down the hill, "You'll remember to take your medicine, r-right?"

"Yes..."

"And... uh... no galloping until they say it's okay for you to take that thingy off, ya hear?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Don't forget... uhm... d-don't forget to ask for a really tall desk to use—"

"Unghhh... Yes! I got it!"

Thunderlane leaned forward to shout something else, but Blossomforth gently tugged him back. "Give it a rest, Thundy."

"But... like..." The stallion bit his lip as his face stretched with concern. He watched the limping pale figure from afar. "He looks like he could trip on a rock and fall over any minute. That darn brace is practically built to explode."

"He's fine. There's no reason to be his mother." Blossomforth smiled. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that position's already filled."

"I just can't help but feel bad for him, y'know?" Thunderlane muttered as he and the three mares trotted off towards the Ponyville Weather Station. "Unngh... I can still hear how loud his screams were... when the stagecoach collapsed, y'know?" He shivered from a cold chill running through his head and mohawk. "I never want to think of my lil' bro feeling pain like that ever again..."

"You can't protect him forever, y'know," Cloud Chaser said. "Though, it's pretty sweet of you to try so hard."

"Just give him a little distance, Thundy," Blossomforth said, leaning over to nuzzle the stallion. The couple trotted closely side by side. "He's a pegasus, after all. We pegasi are made of strong, resilient stuff."

"Ooof!" Rumble fell flat on his face. He gasped from the oxygen being shot out of his lungs as he laid there, sprawled out against the front stoop of the school building's entrance. "Unnngh... Nnnngh...!" His facial muscles stretched and quivered as all of his legs flailed for balance... all, save for one, that is. The injured leg shot skyward like a ship's mast, the bright plastic surface of the brace glinting in the morning light. "Guhhhh..." He grumbled with a deflated sigh, "Not again..."

"Wowsers, Rumble!" Snips snickered from where he and Snails sat on a bench a few feet away. They munched their way through their morning sandwiches, belched, and pointed at his misfortune. "That's the fourth morning in a row!” Crumbs spilled out of Snips’ grinning, chomping mouths. “You think you'd get used to that first step by now!"

"Wait, you got it all wrong!" Snails' voice echoed across the schoolyard like a broken siren. "This is the new Rumble! 'Tumble!'"

"Hah! Rumble Tumble! I love it! Heheheh—Hey, Rumble Tumble! How's the concrete smell? Like your tears from the last time you fell in the same exact spot yesterday?!"

"Hahahaha!"

Rumble flailed and flailed again, ultimately resorting to an angry glare that burned holes in the building's brick finish. "Grrrrrrr..."

From where she sat in the shade of a tree, Scootaloo's ears twitched. She looked up from the sketch of a six-wheeled carriage and squinted towards Rumble's predicament. As Snips' and Snails' laughter filled the air, she exhaled heavily, shaking her head and returning to her drawings.

"Land sakes!" Apple Bloom blurted as she trudged between the two snickering colts, almost bumping Snips and Snails off their bench. She flashed an angry frown back at them. "What the hay is wrong with you two?! He needs help! Not hecklin'!"

"I don't... need... any h-help..." Rumble grunted from where he was still collapsed.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Rumble," Sweetie Belle said.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Tumble!" Snips cooed in a high-pitched voice. Snails laughed as he added, "Wow, once a wuss, always a wuss!"

"Pfft! What do you know?!" Sweetie Belle turned and offered Rumble a hoof. "Here. Allow me."

"I'm fine..."

"But you just k-keep falling and falling and you're starting to get bruises on your chest—"

"I said I'm fine!" Rumble snapped. No matter how gruff he tried to make his voice, it still had a squeaky edge to it. The colt sniffled, grunted, and tried to push himself upright with two forelimbs planted against the stoop. "I don't need your help!"

"Well, how about Miss Cheerilee's?" Apple Bloom said. She began trotting into the school building. "I'll go fetch her right now!"

"You do that and I'll... I'll..." Rumble gritted his teeth, then spat, "I'll rip your bow off in the middle of class!"

Sweetie Belle gasped as if a bullet had been fired. She covered her mouth as her eyes welled up with tears. "You... w-wouldn't really do that to her, w-would you?"

"Come on, Sweetie Belle..." Apple Bloom tugged her friend along as the bell began to ring. "Let him be." She frowned at the colt. "If he wants to stay grumpy, let’em stay grumpy. Rumble's right. We have no reason to help him."

Rumble bit his lip as a sore lump formed in his throat. He could only watch helplessly as all of the students shuffled past him. Having been audience to the whole exchange, not a single foal possessed the nerve to stare him in the face. His eyes quivered with a twinge of guilt. Resigned to his fate, he writhed and thrashed against gravity, abandoned upon the front stoop as the last of his classmates trotted on by.

Then, out of nowhere, an orange hoof reached down and yanked him up by the shoulder.

"Wha—?!" He reeled, but swiftly caught his balance. He stood evenly within the doorframe to the school, his brain reeling from the inevitable rush of blood to the head. "Unngh... Huh?" He squinted across the glare of the morning sunrise. "Scootaloo...?"

"Hmmm?" She looked past him with a bored expression. “What is it?”

He frowned. "I thought I said I could get up by myself—"

"Pfft. Whatever." She rolled her violet eyes and pointed at the stoop. "You were in my way."

Rumble blinked, and immediately all courage in his voice deflated. "Oh... uhm... I-I'm sorry about that—"

"You'd better be sorry!" She suddenly leaned into him, her vicious frown turning him cross-eyed. "The next time you say something mean to Apple Bloom, you're gonna be eating that stupid thing you've got plastered around your leg!"

"Uhhhh—"

"Got it?!"

He gulped and nodded fervently, his black mane flouncing. "Y-you bet! I w-won't be mean to any of your friends ever again! I pr-promise!"

"I hope so." She raised a hoof before swiveling around and trotting into the school. "I know a dozen more places where a pegasus can be broken, buddy."

"Uhhh... y-yeah... okay," Rumble shivered. He stood alone for a few seconds, his body chilled by the cool spring air. He turned around, glancing at an imprint in the dirt at the base of a tree where she had been sitting. “Huh… why’d she wait so long to go inside?”

“You coming, slowpoke?!” Scootaloo’s voice cried back. “Don’t make me have to pick you up again!”

Upon hearing the pegasus’ authoritative voice, he shook himself out of it, and trotted forward, only to lose his balance once again. "Whoah!"

Rumble sat still and silent at the very, very back of the classroom. His silver coat was marred all over in random bruises. He slouched back in the seat of an extraordinarily large desk, though his posture couldn't be helped. There was an extra bit of space between his position and the closest seat in front of him, on account of his left rear leg stretching straight forward like a collapsed radio antenna.

He had finished his pop quiz several minutes early, a direct result of being located in the most boring and remote section of the classroom where no distractions were afforded to him. The closest window was so far away that he had to squint in order to even make out the faintest image of a songbird flitting by.

Instead, he had no choice but to gaze straight forward. Cheerilee was busy grading papers, and the schoolteacher was ignorant of the plethora of students across the vast room who had taken the opportunity to glance back at him. Several of them slouched back to mimic his condition. A few others whispered words from desk to desk, sharing a silent giggle at his expense.

Snips and Snails—seated side by side—put on an amazingly theatrical charade. Snails "galloped" in place, "fell," then gripped his knee in "pain." Snips joined in with the “show,” rubbing nonexistent tears as both colts mocked a sobbing spell. Both then glanced back at Rumble, stifled their joint snickers, and returned just as swiftly back to their quizzes.

Rumble held back the mother of all growls. He crossed his forelimbs and stared angrily at the leg-brace, his eyes burning light-pink daggers into the polished enamel. The worst part of it was that the the thing didn't just cover his leg. There was a second piece to it, resembling armored plastic shortpants that covered the entirety of his blank flank. Rumble didn't think much of it until one recess when Silver Spoon made a passing comment about the possibility of the colt having become incontinent due to his injuries. As Diamond Tiara and a few other fillies had laughed, he pondered ripping the whole thing off and using it as a blunt weapon against their foreheads.

Instead, Rumbled sighed. He learned swiftly during that week to surrender into the shadows of the given situation and keep quiet. It wasn't that every schoolmate in his class was making fun of him. Somehow, though, it didn't matter. Every bad word that was thrown the colt's way greatly outweighed every polite compliment or benevolent platitude. The laughter of Diamond Tiara and the guffaws of Snails rang louder than any of Miss Cheerilee's comforting words. In fact, Rumble was almost certain that the few bad eggs in the classroom simply used her positive reinforcement as encouragement to torment him even harder.

Rumble was tired of being angry. It was something far more persistent than the numb pain still knifing its way through his joints. He was so preoccupied with these diluted sensations that he had almost entirely lost track of his sight, so it wasn't until the last second that he saw the shade of orange pivoting about in the corner of his eye.

The colt's head turned. He blinked.

The backs of everypony's heads were facing him. Even Cheerilee's face was indiscernible as the classroom slogged on through the quizzing period, quiet as a funeral.

Rumble exhaled and stared back at his cast. A grimace covered his face. It really did look like training pants, he thought. Muttering under his breath, he reached a hoof down and fiddled with the canvas straps that fastened the hard plastic panels to his snow-gray coat. With just one tug, he thought, he would be rid of this whole ordeal. Even if he had to spend the rest of his life lying broken in a hospital bed, it had to have been better than this.

The shade of orange flickered in his peripheral vision once again. He was almost ready for it this time, and he twisted about so swiftly that his desk shifted, filling the air with a thunderous clapping noise. He instantly winced.

The entire class turned to glance at him. Half of the faces were humored; the rest were just confused.

"Rumble...?" Cheerilee asked from her desk a mile away. "Is everything alright, back there?"

"Uhm... Yes, Miss Cheerilee." He straightened the papers in front of him. "I'm... uh... d-done with the quiz, ma'am."

"Well, that's good, Rumble. Do you need any help with anything now that you're done?"

Rumble merely crossed his forelimbs at that, his jaw clenching hard as his cheeks went red.

The pupils in Cheerilee's eyes shrank. Getting the picture, she chuckled nervously and waved him off. As she returned to her grading, everypony's heads swiveled back forward. All except for one.

Rumble blinked, then squinted towards Scootaloo's desk. The filly hadn't moved a single inch when his desk clattered. She appeared to be absorbed with a drawing on the backside of her quiz sheet: a bunch of wheels and a steering mechanism, or something. Rumble craned his neck to get a better look, but the brace anchored him in place.

The little pony shuddered, then leaned back in his permanent slouch. For some reason, Rumble could no longer focus on the uncomfortableness of his leg brace, but instead a strange flutter beneath his pale chest.

As the bell rang, all of the students galloped gleefully home, save for one.

Rumble sat awkwardly on a bench outside of the school building. He sighed into the amber sunlight, falling with scattered beams through the errant clouds above. His bored pink eyes were glued to the dirt path beyond. Any second now, his brother would show up to fly his crippled flank home.

"Hmmph..." Rumble kicked at the soil below him with one of his good legs. "As soon Thunderlane stops getting all mushy with Blossomforth and her marefriends," he spat.

"Why would he wanna do that?"

"Gah!" Rumble jumped in place, wincing from the pressure his startled body put on his leg. With a breathless flinch, he looked behind him.

Scootaloo stood with her saddlebag a few meters away, leaning lazily against the front of the school building. A cool afternoon breeze blew through her mane as she squinted at him like he was a dull shape from beyond a field of fog.

"Uhhhm..." Rumble's ears perked up. "Huh?"

"You jealous of your big brother or something?" Scootaloo muttered, examining the edge of her forelimb for specks of dirt. "I thought colts liked winning the attention of a bunch of fillies."

"Pffft..." Rumble folded his forelimbs and glared ahead of him. "Maybe Thunderlane. Me? I could care less..."

"Why?"

Rumble blinked, cross-eyed. He hadn't expected that. "Uhm... because they're girls and they're boring and I hate it when they get all gushy on me?"

"Hmmph..." In a single hop, Scootaloo shifted her saddlebag and sat on the bench right beside him. "Good."

The colt did a double-take. "Good?"

"Yeah." Scootaloo grunted. "Good."

Rumble squinted at her. He slowly, slowly nodded. "Yeah... uh... good...sure..."

Scoot blew a bang of violet hair out from her brow as her orange limbs dangled above blades of grass.

The afternoon air was silent.

Rumble fidgeted. "So... uh..."

"Are you lame?"

The colt's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"

Scootaloo's brow furrowed as she stared hard at him. "What, are you deaf?!"

"I thought you just asked me if I was lame!"

"Well, are you?"

"Which? Deaf or lame?"

"Pfft!" Scootaloo shrugged. "Both!"

Rumble frowned. "What the heck kind of a question is that?!"

"’Cuz... I'm curious? Duh!" Scootaloo rolled her eyes before presuming to poke the plastic shell encasing his rump. "Why would you be built like a tank if what's inside wasn't totally busted, y'know what I mean?"

"Hey! Stop it!" Rumble shoved her hoof away. "It hurts, you know!"

"Hah!" Scootaloo grinned devilishly. "Does it really?"

Rumble's eyebrows twitched. He spoke through wincing teeth, "Well, no. Not really." He gulped and muttered, "I don't really feel much of anything at all."

"Then you must be lame," Scootaloo said bluntly, her legs swinging beneath her as she gave him a side glance. "What, with not being able to feel and all—"

"Scootaloo, did you need something?" Rumble was frowning at this point. "Because I hate being out here enough as it is without having another pony trying to bully me!"

"Who's being a bully?" Scootaloo shrugged. "I was just asking questions!"

"Then don't! They stink!"

"Oh, so a filly can't ask a colt questions these days!"

"I-I never said that!"

"Then what are you trying to say?!"

"I dunno! Why—nnngh—why are you even here?!" Rumble pointed towards the vast, empty school yard. "Why aren't you off doing all that 'crusader' stuff with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom?"

Scootaloo appeared to be fuming for a few seconds. With a heavy sigh, she wrenched her gaze away from Rumble and gazed towards the horizons. "It wasn’t my choice..."

His ears drooped for some reason. "It wasn’t?"

"Nnngh... Apple Bloom forced me to apologize to you for threatening to break your other leg the other day."

"Huh?"

"Y'know... after I helped you up in front of the school building? That was kinda sorta mean of me. And I’m sorry."

"Wait..." Rumble squinted at her. "You talking about what happened—like—four mornings ago? Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were already inside when that happened."

"Do I look like a calendar to you?!" Scootaloo grumbled.

Rumble shook his head. "Uhhh... no! No, ma'am!"

"You can totally call me ‘Scootaloo,’ ya know.'"

"No, Scootaloo. I-I mean, yes, Scootaloo. I mean—"

"Anyways, Apple Bloom told me that I wouldn't be allowed into the Crusaders' Clubhouse until I said something nice to you," she grumbled. "And seeing as it's on her big sister's property and all... well..." She shrugged. "I kind of have no choice if I wanna keep on searching for my cutie mark."

"Oh... well... uhm..." Rumble sighed, fiddling his forelimbs together. "I guess that's kind of important."

"What's kind of important?"

"What you just said. Getting your cutie mark...?"

"Oh, right. Yeah. Heh. Totally."

Silence.

Rumble looked at Scootaloo.

Scootaloo turned and looked back at him.

Rumble's jaw fidgeted.

Scootaloo blinked. "What?"

"Oh... were... w-were you not gonna—?"

"Not gonna do what?"

"Say... uh... something 'nice?' Cuz I thought you just said—"

Scootaloo frowned. "I just said 'I'm sorry' about the other morning!"

"Well, yes you did—"

"Isn't that nice enough?!"

"Well, no! I-I mean, yes! I mean—"

Scootaloo stood up with a rustle of her saddlebag. "You're saying I'm not nice?!"

"No!" Rumble smiled nervously, sweat gathering along his pale face. His leg-brace dug a thin ravine into the earth as he cowered beneath her glare. "You're nice! You're very, very n-nice!"

"Ugh..." Scootaloo fell back on her haunches, her wings sagging as she rubbed a hoof over her face. "What's your deal?! Why can't you get a clue?!"

"A clue?" Rumble grimaced. "A clue about wh-what?"

"I swear, talking with colts is like trying to chop down a dead tree!" Scootaloo waved her forelimbs into the air. "Either you're too full of it, or you're all spineless! Either way, you're all so... so... thick!"

"Hey!" Rumble frowned. "I am not thick—er... I mean full of spineless—I mean..."

"Snkkkt-Hahaha!" Scootaloo slapped her knee. "Wow! I think you hit something harder than your leg when that stagecoach collapsed on you!"

"Yeah, well..." Rumble's cheeks went red as he tried not to yell, "I think that... th-that maybe if you didn't hang out with just two fillies all the time, y-you'd know better about talking to other ponies! Colts or not!"

Scootaloo suddenly gritted her teeth, stamping her hoof. "You sayin' I'm an idiot?!"

"Well..." Rumble for once didn't back down. "You just called me ‘thick,’ didn’t ya?"

Scootaloo seethed for a few seconds, then winced as a pale expression washed over her petite features. Her head hung suddenly as she bit her lip.

Rumble blinked. The redness in his face cleared back to a silver shine as he gulped and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I... I don't know anything about your friends. I... uh... I think what you guys do to try and get your cutie marks is pretty cool.”

Her ears twitched slightly at that. “Really? Cool?”

“Sure!” He stifled a chuckle. "Even if you do make yourselves look silly a lot of the time."

"Mmmmf... don't you mean most of the time?" Scootaloo murmured.

Rumble leaned his head to the side. "Huh?"

"Ugh..." Scootaloo sat back down beside him with a slump. She stared past her dangling hooves at the soft, springy grass. "I like hanging out with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, but sometimes I wonder if I do it too much."

"Too much?"

"Yeah..."

Rumble scratched his head. "Well... uh... do you have fun with them?"

"What? Oh, yeah!" Scootaloo's ears popped up as she grinned. "Totally!"

He grinned back. "Then that's what matters, right?"

Scootaloo's eyes fluttered. Suddenly, though, her grin dissolved. "But, don't you think the ponies who have the most fun are the ones who end up like weirdos in the end?"

"Buh?"

"I mean, I became a Cutie Mark Crusader because tons of ponies were making fun of me. Y'know... for being a blank flank?"

"Yeah..." Rumble winced, his snow white haunches fidgeting beneath the plastic brace. "Right..."

"So, like, joining them and forming a club was the best thing ever! And we've done these totally awesome things! Day after day! Even if we still haven't earned our cutie marks, we find so many ways to have fun!"

"Wow, that sounds like... uh... f-fun!" Rumble said with a simpering expression.

"But then, like, when you don't see them for a while, and you spend a day or two by yourself... well..." Scootaloo's wings drooped even more. "You start to feel like nothing's changed. Only—like—the way you look at things have changed." She gulped. "And you're still totally a weirdo, as far as the rest of the ponies care."

Rumble scratched his head hard. He ultimately shrugged and said, "So long as you know how to have fun, who cares if you're a weirdo? Y'know?"

Scootaloo looked at him.

He looked back, squirming nervously.

She opened her mouth... paused... and then said, "Can I feel your mane?"

"Huh?" Rumble blinked.

"Your mane. Could I... uhm... could I touch it?"

"Uh..." Rumble winced slightly, feeling the words of Thunderlane's ladyfriends echoing in his mind. Nevertheless, his voice broke out before his thoughts could stop it. "Sure, I guess."

Without hesitation, Scootaloo reached forward and ruffled his head vigorously.

"Ow ow ow..." He hissed, one eye clenched shut. "Not so hard! What's the deal…?"

Her brow furrowed. "You have soft filly hair."

"Excuse me?"

"Heehee..." Scootaloo smirked. "Just saying!"

He batted her hoof away and frowned. "Is that why you kept staring at me in the middle of class?!" he blurted without thinking.

Her violet eyes went wide as saucers, reflecting the like-color of his. "I totally wasn't staring at you in class!"

"You so were!" He leaned forward with a growl. "I totally saw you! Twice yesterday and three times today!"

"Grrrrr!" She stomped her hoof. "If I stared at you, it was because of how… how... f-funny looking you are in that leg-thingy!"

"If you want it, you can have it!" he roared, pretending as if he was about to kick her with it.

She stared at him, fuming.

He stared back, folding his forelimbs before his chest.

After a while, she gulped, and her eyes fell towards his encumbered limb. "Really, though. Does... d-does it hurt?"

His lips pursed. Eventually, he sighed, and his folded forelimbs grew tighter. "Yeah. Kind of. I... I don't know if it's actually healed or not."

"Oh?"

"Mmmmm..." He was practically hugging himself by now. "I've been wearing it longer than the doctors said I would have to be. Sometimes I think that... th-that it won't ever work the same way it used to."

Scootaloo stared at him, his leg, then him again. "You'll be able to walk again."

"Huh?" he gazed up at her.

She smiled. "In fact, I bet you could even outrun the likes of me."

He forehead scrunched tightly. "How would you know that?"

"I just do, okay?" She briefly frowned, then nodded towards his injury. "You'll be fine. I know it."

He opened his mouth to retort, but had nothing to give.

Neither did she, for she already had. "Well, uh... I gotta be going..."

His pupils shrank. For some reason, he shivered where he sat.

"I heard that Rainbow Dash was going to be doing some sick tricks on the north edge of Ponyville. I wanna go watch. Can't be late, y'know?" She trotted towards a tree where a scooter had been conspicuously parked the entire time. "Try not to break any of your other legs while waiting for your brother."

Rumble watched her leave, growing more and more distant with each shuffling hoof. "Wanna talk to each other again?!" a colt's voice blurted out.

She froze in place, her ears popping towards the heavens. She swiftly twirled around, and something white flitted loose from her saddlebag. "Huh?"

Rumble winced. "I mean... s-sometime... whenever..." He coughed and shrugged. "If you don't mind hanging out with another weirdo..."

She gazed at him. Her nose scrunched up as if smelling something foul. Just as it looked like she was about to vomit, the filly spontaneously droned, "Okay."

Rumble's tail flickered once, and was still. "Okay."

"Okay," Scootaloo nodded. She stood still for a few seconds. Then—like a cannonball—she bursted across the yard, pounced on the scooter, and rocketed away as if her body was on fire.

Rumble stood alone, his whispering voice fluttering amidst the breeze. "Okay..." He leaned back, pointing his chest to the air, perhaps to give his beating heart some room. His pink eyes wandered down, and he saw a scrap of paper lying in the grass beneath the tree. He raised an eyebrow, remembering the white object that had fallen loose from her saddlebag.

Minutes ticked away, and his curiosity piled higher and higher atop his beleaguered little mind. With a frustrated groan, Rumble fought gravity, flailed, and eventually pulled himself up. Limping like a pony attached to a plow, he gradually dragged himself and his brace over towards the patch of grass. He bent over as low as he could and picked up the scrap of paper.

His eyes scanned the sheet, noticing the intricately drawn wheels, gears, and other mechanical parts that illustrated one untitled machine after another. But then, along the fringes of the page, consisting of soft lines with even more delicate detail, was the unmistakable outline of a young colt with all his legs intact.

A colt had soft hair, like a filly’s.

Something burst out of Rumble’s mouth. At first, he thought it was a laugh, but then he realized he wasn’t smiling. He clammed up, leaning back against his brace as the drawing sheet fluttered in the crook of his hoof, in cadence with the confused and clamoring pulse of his little heart.

"So, like, how come you're such a wuss?"

Rumble nearly fell down. He stopped in mid-limp to gawk at Scootaloo. "What?!"

"Y'know..." Scootaloo sat on a wooden log on the edge of a field, munching from a bag full of sunflower seeds. She spat a few shells loose into the April wind and squinted up at him. “Letting Snips and Snails poke fun at you all the time. Just brushing it off when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon say mean things to ya?"

The colt looked like he was about to vomit. Instead, he cleared his throat and continued to practice trotting evenly around the filly in a circle. "Since when does not wanting to start a fight make me a wuss?"

"But they're the ones starting it."

"Doesn't mean I gotta—nngh—finish it."

"But don't you get tired of it? I thought... like..." Scootaloo shrugged and spat loose a few more shells. "...colts were supposed to be all gruff and badflank and stuff."

"What?" Rumble smirked, limping over an anthill. "Like you?"

The orange hairs on the back of the filly stood up. "I am so not like a colt!"

"Heh... sure you're not."

"Really!" The filly sneered. "I have a soft side! I totally do!"

"Is it hidden beneath all those sunflower seeds?"

Scootaloo nearly choked. She sputtered, wheezed, and beat her chest, spitting a half-cracked shell out along with a wad of saliva. Her tongue dangled in the wind as she recuperated. "Whew... I almost died there!"

"Good thing you didn't." Rumble smirked. "They would have put a boy's name on the tombstone."

"Grrrr..."

"Heheheh..."

"Yeah, well, you've got soft filly hair."

The whites of Rumble’s eyes flickered like a sheet of paper. He swiveled to face her, his forelimbs folded. "If I promise to stop saying you're a colt, will you promise to stop poking fun at how soft my mane is?"

"Who said I was poking fun?”

Rumble merely gulped and muttered, “Still… will you promise?”

Scootaloo looked up and down at his pensive stance and soft expression. “You know what?" She suddenly smirked. "Deal!"

"Hah!" Rumble saluted. "Deal—Gaaah!" He lost his balance and fell back. All four legs—including the braced one—stuck up like those of a dead bug. "Unnngh... Not again."

"Hehehehe... Oh come on!" Scootaloo trotted over and gazed down at him through the forest of the colt's legs. "You trotted around for a lot longer that time!"

"Yeah, but I still fell down though."

"Not without standing up for yourself."

"Huh?"

"You really should work on your attitude, y'know?" Scootaloo pointed. "You could someday be a strong pony like me!"

"Yeah..." Rumble gazed helplessly at his upended legs. "...sure."

"I mean it! Why can't you just stand up to the mean ponies in our school like you just now stood up to me?"

Rumble frowned. "It's not the same..."

"Sure it is!"

"How would you know?"

"Well, the Crusaders and I stand up to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon all the time!"

"Nnnngh—Eughh!" With a heaving motion, Rumble threw himself into an awkward sitting position. He glared at the filly. "No you guys don't!"

Scootaloo’s ears drooped. "Huh?"

"You three just... like... avoid those two mean fillies every chance you get! That's not standing up to nopony! That's just running away!"

Scootaloo opened her mouth to protest, but then grimaced. It was her turn to fall to the earth, and she did so in a limp slump. "Nnnnnngh... you're righttttt..."

Rumble instantly bit his lip. A cold shiver ran through him as she shifted on his braced limb. "I... I was just talking out my flank. Seriously, you guys are great—"

"Pfft. Save it," Scootaloo muttered, staring lethargically at the clouds overhead. "You were right. We don't... we don't ever fight back. We..." She sighed. "We just run away to the clubhouse and pretend that we're doing stuff that's cool... when actually we're hiding."

Rumble's eyes darted across the horizon as he lost himself in thought. Eventually he looked at her and said, "Nah. It's not hiding."

"Oh, really?" Her voice was droll.

He tried not to telegraph his wincing expression. "How could you call it 'hiding?' You're always finding new and exciting things to do! You've done every trick in the book, and then some!"

"Yeah...?" Scootaloo blew at her bangs through the side of her mouth. "It certainly hasn't gotten us our cutie mark any faster..."

"So? You're having fun, right?" Rumble smiled wide.

Scootaloo was deadpan.

Sweating, Rumble fumbled his forelimbs together, then blurted, "You're a lot closer to finding your super special talent than I'll ever be."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because at least you're trying."

"You could be trying too." Scootaloo limply pointed at him through the windblown grass. "You just can't, on account of that splint-thingy you're wearing."

"I'm not talking about myself," Rumble said, turning towards her with an emphatic expression. "I'm talking about you... and how—like—awesome you are."

Scootaloo's features softened. She gazed at him with sharp eyes. "You think I'm... awesome?"

"Well, why not? I mean, you're brave... you're energetic... you really aren't afraid of anything!"

She frowned. "Even when my friends and I 'avoid' Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara?"

Rumble gulped, but saved the moment with: "That's because you guys are smart. There's nothing wrong with that."

Scootaloo was silent.

"And you're totally the smartest of the bunch."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "I am?"

"Yeah! Apple Bloom means well, but she's always gabbing on about her older sister and all. I don't think she's used to thinking for herself so much. She needs a pony like you."

"Huh..." Scootaloo looked off towards the windswept fields beyond. "I never thought of it like that..."

"And... uhm... Sweetie Belle..."

"Snkkkt-Heeheehee..." Scootaloo teared up and waved her hoof. "Stop. Stop right there."

Rumble snickered, smiling. "I-I'm sorry..."

"Don't be," she said, inhaling dramatically. Her body froze, then went slack as she said, "I really love those girls. I know that sounds... uh... really sappy..."

"So?" Rumble shrugged his shoulders in the earth. He grinned. "You're a filly. It's okay."

She slowly nodded. "Yeah. I guess it is, huh?"

He looked at her.

She suddenly swallowed and said in a murmuring voice, "But... y'know... it's okay for you to... uhm... be sappy too..."

He merely squinted.

"I mean... just that... uhm… if you wanna say stuff that might sound sappy, Rumble, it’s totally alright by me..."

"You want me to be a filly?"

"Ungh!" Scootaloo rolled her eyes and sat up in a huff. "Never mind..."

"Then what did you mean?!"

"I said 'never mind!'" Scootaloo stomped off, tossing a hoof. "Jeez!"

Rumble sat up, wincing. As she returned to the log, he folded his forelimbs again and frowned. "And you say colts are thick."

"Hey, you gonna practice trotting more or not?!"

"Meh..."

"Ungh!" Rumble fell into the dirt, wincing. He gritted his teeth and punched the dirt. "I hate this!" he squeaked. "This is stupid!" He stood up from the shadow of the crusaders' clubhouse. The afternoon air shook as he struggled for a full minute to stand upright. "I'm never gonna walk normal! Never again! The doctors still won't tell me when they're gonna take this stupid thing off! And by the time I do, I bet my butt's gonna be glued to the plastic!"

Scootaloo said nothing. She sat on the other side of the treehouse along the edge of the Apple Family property, gazing at the darkening horizon to the west.

Panting, Rumble looked over. He gulped and frowned even harder. "Are you even paying attention?! I can't trot worth oats!"

More silence, save for a distant roll of thunder against the gray skies.

Sighing, he swiveled about and limp-limped his way towards her. "For Celestia's sake! You don't even care, do you—?"

"Shhh!" She stretched a hoof out against his muzzle, instantly freezing him in place. Slowly, a delicate smile crossed her lips. "Do you see that?"

Rumble blinked. Still fuming, he stood beside Scootaloo and squinted up at the sky. A thick anvil cloud was forming overhead, rumbling and flickering with deep pulses of lightning.

"It's a thunder cloud," Rumble grumbled. "Big deal." He kicked at a few clumps of dirt before them. "My big brother Thunderlane kicks stuff like it apart all the time. The weather team will make it vanish in just a few hours—"

"Yeah, but check it out!" Scootaloo pointed at the spreading bands of dark gray haze. "Isn't it totally cool? I mean, like, while it lasts and stuff?"

Rumble merely shrugged. "Thunderclouds are loud, noisy, and annoying. To be honest, I'm kind of bummed that everypony in my family was more or less named after the crud."

"Hey!" Scootaloo grabbed his shoulder fiercely and pointed. "Wait for it!"

"Ow ow ow..." He winced, leaning hard on his braced leg. "Wait for what?"

"Look!" Scootaloo pointed.

A sheen of light shimmered off the west edge of the storm, giving a pale gloss to the angry weather pattern.

Rumble sighed through his nostrils. "I don't get it."

Scootaloo groaned, her eyes rolling as she swiveled about to smirk at him. "Don't you see? It's a silver lining!"

"All clouds have that," he replied in a bored tone. "So what?"

"Soooo..." She pointed once more at the cloud. "It's so much cooler when it happens with an angry, flank-kicking storm like this!"

Rumble looked at Scootaloo, at the cloud, and at Scootaloo again, this time with a vomitous expression. "Since when were you so flippin' poetic?"

She swatted him the shoulder.

"Owwwww..."

"It's got nothin' to do with poetry!" She frowned, then gazed softly at the ground as she kicked at the dirt. "I just... like it, that's all."

"Pffft. Well, that's dumb."

She bit on her lip, and the next breath that came out of her sounded like a wounded kitten. "Think of this as... the f-filly side of me, okay?"

Rumble opened his mouth but lingered. He allowed a calmness to wash out any confusion as he gazed intently at her. "Yeah, okay..."

Scootaloo merely stood there, fidgeting.

Rumble scratched his head. He leaned his weight on his uninjured side and spoke in a quiet tone. "So, like, for real. Why do you like it when when the clouds get all shiny and stuff?"

She looked up at him. Her face was tranquil, framed by a gentle blush to her cheeks. Her breath was honest, serene as she said, "It makes me think of when I was little."

"Uhm... you are little."

"Heh... okay, when I was—like—really little, alright?" She turned and gazed back up at the distant storm, her purple mane billowing in the wind. "I swear, a thunderstorm was the first cloud I ever saw. I was... r-really scared about it at the time. I didn't grow up in Ponyville, y'know..."

"You didn't?"

"Nah. I was born in a place outside of Fillydelphia. Farm country. I wasn't there for long... but... like... I remember the storms being pretty bad. Like really bad. We didn't have the same kind of weather team like we have here in Ponyville."

"You mean you didn't have Rainbow Dash."

"Snkkt—Shuddup!"

"Heheheheh..." Rumble giggled, squatting down beside her.

Scootaloo paced a bit along the fringes of the impending weather’s shadow. "I watched this really nasty storm show up along the horizon. It was dumping gallons of rainwater over the farm fields. From far away, it looked like it was shooting ink down at the ground. The water was so dark. And the lightning seemed to come out of that darkness, both around and above everypony. I thought a big black rock was rolling towards us, the thing was so huge."

"Yikes."

"I know, right?"

"So... uh... did you find shelter or something?"

"Pfft! Of course! My parents were never stupid!"

"I never said they that they were!"

Scootaloo's features went tight for a few seconds, then relaxed. She looked towards the thunderclouds again. "Anyway, I was afraid of the weather... but only for—like—one day."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Cuz I saw... y'know..." Scootaloo gestured into the air.

Rumble blinked. "The silver lining."

"Heh. Yeah. Sound sappy enough for you?"

"It's okay," Rumble said with a shrug. "I don't mind."

Scootaloo said nothing for a while.

"So, what then?"

"I stopped being afraid of storms," Scootaloo said. "And instead, I started doing awesome things."

"Why?" Rumble narrowed his eyes. "'Cuz you were suddenly fearless?"

"Duh! I was always fearless!"

"Heh... sure you were..."

Scootaloo frowned at him.

Rumble gulped, but managed the courage to say, "But why's a silver lining so... like... important?"

"I dunno." Scootaloo said with a sigh. "It's like... I really wanted to touch the clouds, suddenly. To be closer to them. To… erhm… snuggle with them."

"Wow. You really were young at the time."

"What, you never had silly dreams when you were a baby?"

"I... uh..." Rumble fidgeted, staring at the dirt below. "I only had nightmares as a kid."

"Hahahaha!" Scootaloo cackled, brushing a hoof through her mane. "Why am I not flippin' surprised?"

Rumble bit his lips.

Scootaloo gulped and murmured, "I'm sorry. That wasn't very nice of me."

"I wasn’t being nice, either, I-I guess..."

"Hey..." Scootaloo shrugged. "You’re sitting here, listening to me. That's nice enough."

Rumble looked sideways at her. "Don't you have Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle around to listen to you?"

"Yeah, I know..." Scootaloo looked back towards the storm, hissing through her teeth. "But it's just not the same..."

"Why not?"

"I dunno, just 'cuz."

"Just 'cuz what?"

"Why do you gotta ask so many questions?"

"You wanna give me something to listen to or not?"

Scootaloo bit her lip. She gulped a tender lump down her throat and murmured into the distant thunder. "I... I'm afraid to tell them how I really feel..."

"Oh yeah? About what?"

She winced slightly, then said, "That there are th-things I want more in life than just finding my talent..." Her wings twitched.

Rumble noticed it; he noticed her. She stood out like soft orange candlelight against the coming storm, and he felt that strange flutter in his chest that both frightened and enraptured him. Either way, he was stunned out of his mind when she suddenly stared him down in the face.

"You tell a single living pony what I just said and I'll shove that leg-brace down your throat!"

"Okay! Okay!" he squeaked, scooting away from her. "I'll be quiet! I promise!"

She fumed... fumed... then leaned back with a soft breath. Her eyes noticed the flecks of dirt and grass clinging to his chest, as if for the first time. "Pfft... why aren't you getting better yet?"

"At what?"

"Everything."

He rolled his eyes and folded his forelimbs. "You obviously haven't been paying attention to me. I've been falling on my face the whole time here."

She raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's no way for a colt to get around."

"You're telling me!" Rumble sighed and slumped against the weight of his cast. "I'm just so... so helpless..."

She looked at him, then at his leg-brace. Her wings twitched again, and she smirked. "Maybe not so much..."

"I'm gonna die!" Rumble squeaked, his pupils the size of pinpricks as he leaned—shivering—against the handlebars of Scootaloo's scooter. "I'mgonnandie! I'mgonnadie! I'mgonnadie!"

"For the last time—shut up!" Scootaloo braced him from behind, straightening his position on the homemade vehicle. She bent down to give the wheels a final adjustment before grunting, "We're in a flat valley, for crying out loud! The only way you'd fall and crash is if you stumbled into a gopher hole!"

"B-b-b-b-b-but what if it's gopher season?!" Rumble spat, pale-faced.

"Rumble, it is totally not gopher season!"

"How do you know?!"

"Because if it was gopher season, I'm pretty sure that—like—Princess Celestia would warn us!"

"What the crap would Princess Celestia know about gophers?!"

"Pfft! You're asking me?"

"You're the one who knows all about gopher season!"

"There is no gopher season! You're making it up because you're a friggin' prissy scaredy cat!"

"Yeah! Cuz gophers eat cats... and sc-scooter wheels!" Rumble gulped. "Right?"

"Wrong." Scootaloo gripped the colt's skull from behind and forced him to face forward. "Now calm the hay down!"

"Mmmmmm-okay." He squeaked.

"Just... find your balance, okay? I know I built this thing for me but—pfft—face it, you're really not that much bigger."

"Rub it in, why don't ya?"

"I'd rather get you to learn the ropes of this thing."

"What ropes?!" Rumble cackled, gawking at the wooden and metal instrument beneath him. "All I see is flashbacks of that stupid stagecoach that almost killed me!" He gulped. "Besides, aren't I supposed to be wearing a helmet for this?"

"Hah! And what? Ruin your prettiful mare hair?"

"Uhhhh—"

"Look, I'm not about to make you do any crazy stunts or jumps or wheelies or anything. Besides, you're not nearly as awesome as me to do that."

"Glad we c-can agree on that."

"Right." Scootaloo paced around to his braced leg and shoved it so that it rested on the platform of the scooter. "Now that that's out of the way..."

"I don't get it..." Rumble winced, still trembling with his pale forelimbs gripped tightly around the scooter's handles. "I'll totally lose my balance this way!"

"What do you mean?" Scootaloo shrugged. "I just made it so that all of your legs are on the scooter."

"Yeah, but... I'm supposed to push off the ground with one of my legs, r-right?" Rumble gulped. "I just know that if I try that with any of my good hooves, I'll teeter right over like a sinking ship!"

Scootaloo leaned back with a calm, knowing smirk. "Who said anything about using your legs, wuss?"

"Huh...?"

"Look, it's simple." She leaned in. "I'm a pegasus." She pointed. "You're a pegasus." She flicked at his stubby wings. "We've got... uh... a 'leg up' on other ponies who try to use a thing like this."

"I... I-I don't get it..."

She ruffled his mane and grumbled, "Use your wings, stupid! Give those feathers a good buzz and you'll be gliding around in no time!" She shrugged with a smile. "No more tripping over your injured leg! Heck, maybe by giving the thing a rest, you'll help it fix itself better!"

"Wait wait wait..." Rumble gazed crookedly at her. "You want me..." The feathers sticking out of his back above the brace flinched. "...to use my wings?"

"Yup! Cool idea, huh?" Scootaloo's grinning teeth glinted in the sunlight. "I stumbled upon the secret myself! I've been the ace of the Ponyville streets ever since!"

"But, Scootaloo—"

"I've even made Rainbow Dash notice my awesomeness a few times!" She said this while stretching her neck and back muscles. "Mmmm-yup! Heh..."

"I-I'm just a colt!" he squeaked. "My wings are totally useless! Like... I can't fly anymore than you can!"

Scootaloo froze in mid-stretch. Slowly, her body went slack, and she graced him with an icy glare. "Don't ever sell yourself short."

Rumble sighed. "Really, Scootaloo. This was a nice thought and all..." He proceeded to dismount from the vehicle. "This is your thing, not mine—"

"No." She stomped towards him and practically shoved the breathless pegasus back onto the scooter. "Don't... you ever accept the crud that life throws at you! If you wanna make a difference for yourself, then that's all you ever need!"

"But who said that—?!"

"You understand me?!" Scootaloo grunted, shoving a hoof hard into the soft of his chest.

"Ow! Alright! Alright!" He batted her forelimb away. "I understand! Jeez!"

She hissed, "Then prove it."

He stared at her.

She glared back.

With a deep, fuming breath, he leaned forward against the handlebars. His facial muscles tensed up. His ears twitched, one after the other. Eventually the nerves sparked from his head to his back, and his wings started fluttering in some deeply-rooted instinctual fashion. Suddenly, like a heavy cruiser pulling out of the harbor, he inched forward atop the scooter, propelled by the buzzing of his own feathers.

"Ha!" Scootaloo jumped in place, girlishly clapping her hooves right beneath her grinning chin. "Look! Check it out! You're totally doing it!"

"No I am not..." Rumble sighed then looked back to see how much distance he had traveled. His eyes widened. "Whoah! I totally am."

"I know, right!" Scootaloo bounced alongside him, cheering him on with a waving hoof. "Just like I told ya! Isn't it simple?"

"Yeah... I-I guess it is," he said, his voice rising in pitch with each felicitous breath.

"Let's see those smelly punks at school make fun of you now that you can totally clean their clocks on wheels!"

"Heh... as if..."

"What do you mean, as if?!" Scootaloo frowned.

"Seriously, Scootaloo. This is nice and all..." Rumble sighed as he inched along, centimeter by centimeter. "But there's no way I could get used to this."

"Wooohoooo!" Rumble wailed, hitting a hilltop and gaining six feet of air. He came down with a splash of grass blades and flower petals, giving the scooter a good twist and turn as he glided around a rolling hilltop. "I am totally getting used to this!"

"Yeah! Hahaha!" Scootaloo clapped from where she sat atop a cluster of logs. As the sun began sinking beyond the amber horizon, she grinned at the colt during swift orbits around her figure. "Look at you! You're a natural!"

"Pegasus powerrrrrrrrr!" He grinned and cackled. His brow furrowed as he blew through his lips. "Vrmmmmmm! Blllbbbbb-Vrooooom!"

"Heheh... a little tip for the amateur scooter pony..." The filly raised her hoof as she said, "Don't make the silly engine noises. Ahem." Her eyebrows went straight as a razor. "It's totally uncool, especially when you pick up your best friends from school for the first time."

"Oh... uh... right..." Rumble glided past her, his ears folding back demurely, which incidentally made him more aerodynamic. "I'm sorryyy-yyyyyy! Whoah jeez!" He shrieked in mix horror and enthusiasm as he hit another jump.

"Whoah! Watch it there, speedy!" Scootaloo chuckled after him. "Don't be ashamed to take it easy! Heh... this is your first rodeo, after all!"

"My first what?!" Rumble called back from several meters' distance.

Scootaloo shouted, "It's something Apple Bloom's older sister is always sayin'! It means to take things in stride!"

"What?!" he hollered from two hills away.

She cupped two orange hooves around her mouth. "I said, slow the hay down, you brainless ball of colt!"

"Gaaaaaie!" Rumble hit a rock, and his body was launched like a plaster missile through the air. His wing stayed in "buzzing" mode, which only propelled him all the harder into the solid, unforgiving ground.

Scootaloo winced, wheezing forth a helpless laugh. "Haaaa-hahaha! Oh jeez, you totally bailed there! Heheh!" Her chuckles limped off into a nervous sigh. "Rumble?"

Silence. Nothing was moving beyond the hill. Not even a single drift of swaying grass.

Scootaloo's violet eyes flickered. "Rumble?"

All was still.

She gulped, scrambled up to all fours and scampered down towards him. "Uhm... and how are you doing?" She gulped and pointed. "That leg's supposed to be bent that way, right?"

"Ungh..." He finally stirred.

"R-right?"

"Mmmf..." He sat up, shaking from head to hooves as the cobwebs rolled loose. "Guh... I-I think I buzzed too much."

"Heehee... yeah, you did." Scootaloo propped the scooter up and squatted down beside him. "Seriously, though, are you okay?"

"I... uh... I think so..." He sniffled slightly. “You don’t have to be so scared.”

"Pfft!” She instantly rolled her eyes. “Who’s scared?” Reaching over, Scootaloo tapped the wooden finish of her scooter. “I was just making sure you didn’t totally bust up my wheels here!”

"Oh..." Rumble sniffled again. "Well, I hope it’s still in one piece.”

"Thank Celestia you’re not that clumsy—" She suddenly gave him a double-take. "Wait." She squinted. "Are you crying?"

Rumble snorted, then rubbed his cheek dry as he frowned towards the horizon. "I am not."

"Awwww... you totally are, aren't you?"

"Ugh!" Rumble sniffled, folding his forelimbs. "Don't you 'awww' me! You're worse than my brother's friends!"

"Heeheehee..." Scootaloo's cheeks were warm as she smiled. "Filly side, remember?"

"Whatever." His jaws clenched tight as he chased away the last quiver to his foalish lungs. "If it's the same 'filly' that got me to bust my flank on her stupid scooter, then I want nothing to do with her."

She pouted. "Now that's not fair... I helped you do something cool, r-right?"

"Meh."

"You deserve... to do something cool, don't you think?"

"Mmmm... still meh."

"Wow..." Scootaloo's face stretched. "You're really hurt, aren't you?"

Rumble shrugged. "It's nothing I can't get up from—" His eyes went wide as he was suddenly lying flat on his back. He glanced aside, only to feel a soft face lying against his chest. "Uhm... uh... What?"

Scootaloo nuzzled him, her body clinging to his in the grass like a foal to a pale stuffed animal.

The colt tried to keep the bile in his throat. "Why are you... uhm... tackling me?"

"Oh, is this a tackle?" Scootaloo muttered. "I almost thought it was a hug."

Rumble only grimaced harder.

"'Tackle' sounds better, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. I think you just... totally tackled me."

"Huh..." Scootaloo exhaled against his coat. "Imagine that."

"Uhm... why?"

"Hmm?"

"Why are you... like..."

She shrugged against him. "Cuz you're hurt, that's all."

"It's not that b-bad, really."

"You sure?"

"Well... I guess. I mean, I dunno."

"You don't know?" She frowned. "Is your leg shattered or isn't it?"

"No. No, it's fine. Thanks for letting me try my hoof at the scooter. It was... well... it was pretty cool..."

She smiled at him. "You're pretty cool."

He stared blankly back at her.

Something shattered, or was meant to. With a sudden shudder, Scootaloo resumed laying her head against his side, if only to avoid his gaze.

"So... uh..." He fidgeted.

"Apple Bloom says that when she was sick..." Scootaloo murmured, "...Applejack slept beside her for three days and nights. She says that she got better, all because of that."

"You don't say...?"

"And... uhm... when Sweetie Belle is scared... y'know, by bumps in the night and all... which happens a lot..."

"I bet..."

"She sneaks into Rarity's bed, and she no longer feels so bad."

"Okay..." Rumble nodded. After a few seconds, he raised an eyebrow. "Why are you telling me this."

"Mmmm..." Her voice squeaked as she clutched him tighter. "Because I don't want you to feel bad either..."

Rumble kept his breathing paced, not bothering to pause between inhales and exhales. Perhaps, that way, she wouldn't feel the same flutter that was threatening to rip through him.

But then something ripped through him even harder. "So... h-how do you feel?" Scootaloo asked.

Gazing up at the dark clouds over the two of them, Rumble contemplated. Rumble thought. Rumble opened his mouth. "I feel..." He twitched. "...smelly."

Scootaloo blinked, her eyes darting left and right.

"...and itchy," he droned.

"Yeah..." Her wings twitched as she slowly sat up like a wilting flower in reverse. "Me too."

"Wanna... I dunno... do something different?"

"Oh yeah..." Scootaloo stumbled to her hooves, brushing the blades of grass off. "Totally."

"Ta-daaaaaa!" Scootaloo exclaimed, smiling a crescent moon in the midday sunlight. "What do you think!"

Rumble leaned on his plastic cast, blinking at her, then at the plain wooden vehicle between them. "It's... it's your scooter..."

Scootaloo slapped him across the head.

"Ow!" He leaned back, almost falling off his brace as he rubbed a fresh red welt across his pale head. "What the crap was that for?!"

"It's not my scooter, you idiot!" Scootaloo frowned, then brightened yet again. "It's yours!"

Rumble's jaw dropped in disbelief. "You're... g-giving me your scooter! Scootaloo, I... I-I don't know what to say..."

"Ughhh!" Scootaloo almost collapsed right then and there into the spring soil. "Thick thick thick!" She tossed a notepad full of foalish engineering sketches at him and barked, "It's your scooter! Yours! I built it for you, ya dolt!"

Rumble's double-take nearly snapped his neck clean off. "Wait, you... y-you built me my very own scooter!"

"Yup!" Scootaloo leaned forward with twitching wings. "I totally did!"

His expression hung somewhere between a blanch and a smile. "That... it... but... h-how?!"

"How else do you think?!" Scootaloo raised two greasy hooves and grinned with pride. "With my own blood and sweat, ya wuss!"

Rumble flinched away from her. "Ewww... your own blood?"

"Okay, well..." She teetered back, whistling with an errant blush. "Maybe not the blood part, but I totally put all of my smarts into it! Y'know! My scooter smarts!"

"Scootaloo, how... how did you find the time?" Rumble squinted at her, at the fallen drawing sheets spread between them. "Like... it's only been two days since you showed me how to move around on a thing like this!"

"Uh... y-yeah!"

"You mean to tell me that you spent every waking hour building this?" He gulped. "Just for me?"

"Well... eheh..." She rocked back and forth on her hooves, avoiding his gaze as she ran a hoof through her bangs. "I kinda... sorta... ahem... startedworkingonitweeksbeforeIevenfirsttalkedtoyou."

"Buh?"

"But isn't it awesome?!" She hopped on it and gave it a twirl. "Just like you and me! Eep!" She perked up, chewing on the edge of her hoof a she smiled at him. "On the scooters, I mean."

"Uh... yeah!" He grinned, his own wings twitching at the thought. "Totally awesome! I... I don't know what to say!" The cast around his leg lost all its weight as he trotted around the vehicle, gawking at it, then at her. "Thanks, Scootaloo! Thanks so much!"

"Well..." She licked her lips and leaned forward with velvety-soft eyelashes. "...there's one way you can truly, truly thank me, y'know..."

He leaned back at her, gulping. "H-how is that?"

"Woooohoooo!" Scootaloo ramped over a sharp hill, landing with a spray of dirt as she skirted the edge of a cluster of boulders. "You're never gonna beat me!"

"No fair!" he panted, buzzing his wings as swiftly as he could, following every move she made across the open field. "You're way... way more practiced at this than I am!"

"Oh, put a sock in it, girly!" She shouted over her shoulder, adjusting her helmet with a devilish smirk, accompanied by an even more devilish wink. "You're way more a natural than you give yourself credit for!"

"Scootaloo!" Rumble shrieked, pointing ahead with wide eyes. "Look out ahead of you!"

She looked forward, gasped, and swerved left in time to avoid a fence post. "Whoah ho ho ho!" She panted with exuberance, gazing back at him as she shouted above the wind. "See! What did I tell you! Eyes like a hawk!"

"Heheheh..." He hit a ramp, absorbing the landing through his good limbs as he sped after her. "You bet!"

She stuck her tongue out. "But the plumage of a pigeon!"

"Hey!"

"Plblblblb! Snkkkt-hahahah!" She blurred her wings faster as she roared up the hill, hitting another ramp.

"Grrr..." Rumble deeply, genuinely smiled. His pale coat glistened in the sunlight as he rocketed over a mound of dirt, scraping his way through a cluster of high grass until he was neck and neck with her. "I'm gonna beat ya!"

"Only thing you're gonna beat is your muscles to a mushy pulp!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yuh huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yuh huh!"

"Dweeb!"

"Doofus!"

"Tomcolt!"

"Pretty boy!"

"Unnngh! You are sooooo toast!"

"You think I even want you to catch up with me?!"

An hour later, under the cool shade of a spreading oak tree, Scootaloo lay with her head against Rumble's side. The colt in question leaned against the tree's bark. He gazed past where their two scooters were parked, towards the rooftops of Ponyville as the houses lit up one by one, ushered into a twinkling haze with the onset of night.

As the warm spring air gave way to motionless mist, the sweaty smell of the day caught up with the children, but they didn't mind. They hardly even stirred. The pain in Rumble's leg was like a fish stirring on the far end of a glacier by now, which is what freed the nerves in his head to embrace the next breath Scootaloo had to give.

"Hey, Rumble?"

He took a deep breath, feeling her soft cheek against his ribs. "Yeah, Scootaloo?"

She murmured in the daintiest voice he had ever heard from her dry lips. "Can I tell you a secret?"

He shrugged, careful not to bump her with his forelimb's elbow. "Uhhh yeah. Sure. Go ahead."

She smiled, then nuzzled his side even closer. "I like it when I cuddle with you."

Rumble blinked. He stared at her, then at the twinkling rooftops of Ponyville down below. "Wow," he droned, smiling slightly. "What a secret."

She tilted her head up, frowning. "Mmmf! I mean it! I really do."

"Heh..." He almost snorted, his braced limb shifting against the grass and fallen leaves. "Why? Because I can't gallop away from you?"

"No..." Scootaloo exhaled. Scootaloo deflated. When she spoke, her soft voice resonated tenderly through his chest. "Because nopony else bothers."

Rumble opened his mouth to respond, but something in his throat went cold. He looked down at her, but the tomcolt was gone. Somepony else was in her place, someopony who clung to him tightly, like a banner or a windsock, with all the colors of the gruff pegasus, but none of the grit.

He didn't know why, but he shivered, because for the first time in days, he felt alone.

It didn't help that Scootaloo was still talking, "Rainbow Dash rarely bothers. So, what's the point in asking?" Her jaw went tight. Something sniffled, and she shivered slightly, clinging to the colt even tighter. "I could never ask a pony to do something she didn't want to, even if it would make me feel less bad." She gulped. "Just like Apple Bloom's and Sweetie Belle's sisters know how to make them less bad."

Rumble gulped, evacuating a vacuum of hot air from his chest. "Uhmmm."

"But you, Rumble..." She gazed up at him. Her eyes sparkled, each pinprick stabbing him like a lance from miles away. "You don't have to be asked." She smiled dearly, and as she did so the shadows of the tree around them grew darker against the cold advance of night. "You... you just make me feel better because you like to..."

"I..." Rumble couldn't decide whether to smile or exhale. What he ultimately produced was a salvo of awkward wheezes. "I... uhm..."

"Because..." Scootaloo ripped past the last knifing precipice of hesitation, and Rumble could see it unfold from her orange chiseled face like a veil. "...because you like me." She gulped, as if punctuating a sacrament. "Don't you?"

"But... but of course! I mean..." Rumble's smile was as jagged as his heartbeat at the moment. "You helped me walk around instead of making fun of me. You hung out with me after school. You... made a flippin' scooter for me."

Scootaloo's head twisted slowly like an hour hand, her face growing increasingly vexxed with each word that limped from his mouth.

"I mean..." He exhaled heavily, like he was giving birth. "Why wouldn't I like you?"

He couldn't tell from the onset of night whether or not the filly was frowning. Her voice pierced viciously through the miasma with no less serratedness. "Rumble, remember when I told you that there was something I wanted more than learning my own talent... more than getting my own cutie mark?"

"Uhhhh... sure!" He smiled.

Her face leaned forward towards him, but she was no longer frowning. She looked soft, vulnerable, like a baby sister. Rumble never had a baby sister. The only fillies or mares he knew in life were the annoying ones that hung around his brother and cooed at him and ruffled his mane and Dear Celestia above she's getting closer and her breath is like a purring kitten's and—

"I... I think I know what it is now," she murmured. "It's like that silver lining, only... y'know... brighter." She raised a hoof. "I can see it so clearly. Like a nightlight. I could almost touch it."

He bit his lip, but suddenly blurted, "Are you sure?"

She jerked so hard her neck almost rolled off. A frown exploded between the two. "Am I sure?"

"Uh... yeah!"

Her frown formed a second frown that formed an even darker frown. "What do you mean, 'are you sure?'"

"Well, are you or aren't you?"

"Would I be saying stuff this flippin' sappy unless I meant it!"

Rumble fidgeted. "I... I don't know..."

"Don't you?"

"Don't I?"

"Darn it, Rumble!" She slapped the grass with her hoof. "Stop being so thick! Don't you know me by now?"

"I... I..." He couldn't contain his shivers. The pain was back, carving through the glacier with an ice pick, stabbing into the fetlock of his rear left leg. "I don't know anymore!"

"Why not?!"

"’Cuz... this totally isn't like you!"

"You don't know what is or isn't like me!" Scootaloo grumbled.

"Yeesh, what's your deal?" Rumble didn't know why he was shouting. Perhaps it was to speak above the noise of the parasprites gnawing through his brace and bone and blood. "You built me a scooter just to cuddle with me under a tree?!"

"It's not all about cuddling!"

"Are you sure?!"

"For the love of Luna!" Scootaloo barked. "Stop asking me if I'm sure!"

"Then just come out with it and tell me!" Rumble grunted. The noise and the pain had become one, popping in his ears as his jaws swung open to say, "What is it that you want more than anything else—"

Scootaloo lunged at him. She had to have been trying to punch him, to break his nose, to squash his skull like so many other ponies had spat on him and laughed at him at school. She had to have been. That's why Rumble fell back, panting, wide-eyed.

But all that loomed before him was a pair of lips, and when they made contact with his sweaty muzzle, it was like thunderclouds dissolving from a brisk updraft, and Scootaloo felt it. The twinkle in her eyes was gone, just like it had disappeared from Ponyville below, a jaded shape lost amongst the shadows of the valley.

She saw every inch of his terrified face, and there was no luster to it. No shine to the situation at all.

He bit his lip, waiting for her to explode.

She imploded instead, one tearing eye after another. "Wuss..." She sniffled, she quivered, then limped up on numb hooves. "Friggin' wuss! Grow a spine, wh-why don't ya! Something's gotta replace your stupid, lame leg!"

"Scootaloo, wait!"

She didn't wait. She ran off, wings spread. In the starlight, she almost appeared to fly for a few seconds. Rumble knew better. He knew everything. That's what made him flinch when she knocked over his scooter like a domino, tearing down the hill on hers, powered by feathers and sobs.

Rumble didn't talk to Scootaloo for the next two weeks. He barely even saw her. At best, she appeared only in phantom flashes of orange through the corner of his eyes, much like the figure that he once thought was staring at him in class, but wasn't, yet clearly was.

There was nothing to see now, nothing to return, nothing to respond with. He'd hear laughter every now and then, but then he would have to strain his ears beyond the pitch of Apple Bloom's and Sweetie Belle's voices to detect any hint of the one crazy filly who had given him so much attention, not to mention wheels.

The world had grown hollow. What frightened him was the gnawing fact that things were always like this, even between his mother's hugs and Thunderlane's smiles and the teasing chirps of the older brother's marefriends. Most ponies at school—or the ones that held most weight against Rumble's trembling demeanor—only had the same age-old frowns to toss his way. He turned his head to the whole lot of them, to their meanness and their indifference and their muttering voices.

He kept the scooter. He clung to it like Scootaloo had once clung to him. He kept it a secret from his family, though, or at least as well as he could manage. All the while, his leg didn't get any better, and yet it did. Rumble was too confused to figure it out, or care. One visit after another would only end with the doctor giving Thunderlane an accusatory glare and ask if Rumble was being allowed to participate in any "unnecessarily strenuous activities," upon which Thunderlane would pass the glare along to Rumble and Rumble would just stare into the shadows.

It brought a great deal of concern to Blossomforth, and she would usher the colt to the side every now and then to try and coax some hidden truth from beneath the pony's soft, pale exterior. He would not give it. Besides, what was there for her to understand? He himself could barely figure it all out, like that elusive fluttering sensation had been locked away somewhere in his chest, then imprisoned by the sound of Scootaloo’s sobs that one night.

Her sobs, he had never seen her cry before. He wondered if anypony on the planet—even Celestia herself—had ever become such an audience. He felt like a criminal, and his brace was shackling him as punishment.

All the while, the pain persisted in his leg, ever stabbing, ever real. He sighed, fluttered his wings, and brushed on to the next hill, towards another sunset, towards another lingering shadow in the shape of a spreading oak tree, refusing to drown him all the way.

It got to such a point that he couldn't sleep one night. So, in a very un-wussy manner, Rumble did the unthinkable. He snuck his way out of his family's apartment, grabbed the scooter from where he hid it behind a shed, and just... let his wings take him into the starlight.

The streets looked deader than stone; they reflected him with as much luster. He rolled past the houses, wondering which one Scootaloo lived in, wondering if anypony shared it with her, shared all the routine, all the conversations, all the laughter, but none of the hugs.

They hugged. He had enough courage to admit that now, but it was a very bitter drop of guile, squeezed out of the ragged bits of him that were shredded apart once he actually allowed her to tear herself off. With each passing night, the pain in his leg increased, for the shadows reminded him of the abyss that was left in place of the twinkle in her eye, the silver lining she almost had in her hooves, the silver lining he had to give

Rumble skidded to a stop upon the same blasted hill overlooking the same blasted town. He frowned into the starlight. He hated his name. He hated everything to do with thunder, with storms, with all that involved bottled up pretense and stupidity and colts who were too thick and fillies who didn't know how to get to the point. He wanted to explode, but he knew that it all would just dissolve, breaking apart like an anvil cloud from the hooves of a weather flying team. The silver lining was just a passing glint from the bright accident of life. How could Scootaloo have wanted such a thing?

How could she have wanted him?

The throbbing in his leg finally exploded. The cast had become an anchor, sealing the pain inside like a vice. He fused his whole life, his whole breath, and his whole anger to it, raising the scooter over his head and tossing it towards the heavens. It flew from his stallionesque hooves like a lightning bolt. When thunder erupted, it was from deep inside...

Something was suddenly very wrong with his leg, with his flank, with his whole abdomen. It started quietly at first—as quiet as a row of firecrackers could be. Then it machine gunned its way into his heart and back to his fetlocks, setting his whole body on fire, bringing a gasp to his throat even as he realized that he had been growling the entire time.

With a final blink, the sparks cleared, rattling off to the stars with the fanciful chorus of bells. It wasn't until he saw the fading shine to the shattered scooter parts that he realized there was even a light there to begin with. There was even a smell to it—a smell he hadn't expected.

It smelled like being born again. And when Rumble reached back for his brace, his hooves fumbling as he loosened and unlatched two rows of canvas straps, he saw that he was right.

And he laughed a little, for he suddenly couldn't imagine why he had ever been afraid of anything ever.

The next morning, Scootaloo was gliding her way towards Sweet Apple Acres, dragging a wagon behind her scooter in the bright sunrise. Rumble saw this. After all, he had been waiting—waiting for her—for the better part of two hours. He stood, breathless, perched on a hill just before a bend in the road, a bend that he knew that Scootaloo would be taking.

The calm before the storm was over. The colt wasn't afraid, but he realized that he had to do his best to look the part. So, he simply smacked himself in the face a few times until he produced tears. Apparently there were still parts of him left to grow. He almost smiled, but threw it off immediately as he swiveled around on his plaster cast.

The pain was gone, but the stiffness remained. Rumble dug it into the earth as he scooped up the scooter parts in his hooves, then flung them—and himself—down the sharp hill. True to a name once spouted his way, he tumbled like a loose boulder, landing in a pale heap within the center of the road. This was just as Scootaloo came around the bend, kicking up dust like a dirt devil.

She screeched to a halt, only because she had to. When she squinted at him, it was with unemotional scrutiny, just like she might regard a fallen tree trunk blocking her path.

"Aaaaaaaughhhh..." Rumble moaned, his warbling voice leaping towards the heavens like zombie trout from a flamboyant serpent's throat. "The pain! The paaaain!" He covered his teary face with two dirty hooves. "Unnnngh... if only I had a pony to teach me scooter lessons all this time instead of being a lonesome jerk!"

Then, like a tugboat piercing a fog, his face poked through his forelimbs and blinked at the filly.

"Oh... Scootaloo..." He sniffled. "It's you."

Her eyebrows unsheathed themselves like curved daggers. "Hi."

He tried not wince, but then remembered that he had to. "Nnngh! Augh! So... so horrible..." He rolled over, propping himself up on his braced leg like a lopsided tent. "I blew it! I totally did!" He pointed at the chunks of scooter lying in the wake of settling dust before him. "Your gift! It was so awesome... and I totally crashed it!"

Scootaloo's nostrils flared. "I'd say..." With a loathsome sigh, she peeled her helmet off and dismounted from her own vehicle. "Lemme take a look at it," she droned like a manic-depressive mule.

"W-would you?" He sniffled, bearing a fragile smile as he slid the severed bits her way. "You're the only pony in town able to fix it! I mean... you b-built it, after all! And that was totally, utterly awesome of you t-to have done that too!" He added with a smile that was too bright for his or her or anypony's good.

"Uh huh."

"I mean, I totally appreciated a gift as cool as that!" he rambled. "Even up until and past the point where I kinda sorta crashed it!"

She held separate pieces and twisted them to analyze the breaking points. "Uh huh..."

"And... uhm..." He fidgeted, his smile becoming as fleeting as his breath. "You totally can fix it, right? I mean, otherwise it'd just be dumb luck that... uhm... I-I happened to be here when you were her and—"

"Give it up, wuss," Scootaloo muttered, her eyes thin and dead. The gloss of the severed scooter handles reflected nothing. "You totally did this on purpose."

Rumble blinked. "I... uh... I just might have—"

She raised the biggest broken piece overhead, ready to swing down on his skull like a club.

He flinched, covering his head with a pair of quivering forelimbs. "Alright! Alright! I t-totally did this on purpose!"

"There's an honest pony..." Scootaloo exhaled heavily as she lowered the pieces, continuing her examination as she slurred through the corner of her mouth. "Which means, quite frankly, that you only now deserve to be hanging around a farm like Applejack's."

"Yeah, well, I..." Rumble blinked, then went cross-eyed. "Huh?"

"Nnngh..." Scootaloo shook her head. "So thick!" She frowned at him, waving a broken scooter piece for emphasis. "What did you think you'd accomplish, huh? Couldn't you have just come out with whatever you wanted to say! Couldn't you have just approached me any of those days we went to school together over the past two weeks?!"

"Uhm... I... uh..."

"Instead, you just had to break the one thing I ever gave a colt from the goodness of my heart?" She held back a sniffling sound, or at least tried to.

He clenched his jaw tight and bravely stared her in the face. "I'm not the only pony who beats around the bush, y'know."

She opened her mouth to protest, but fell silent. With flaring nostrils, she shook her head and smirked bitterly. "Wowers. Check out the spine on you."

He gulped, trying not to shiver as he met her stare with his. "Yeah... Check it."

She blinked. "Meh." With a cold shuffle, she trotted back towards the scooter and reached into the wagon behind it. "Y'know, to be honest, if you stared me down weeks ago like you did just now, I wouldn't have given you the light of day."

He fidgeted where he stood. "Oh really?"

"Mmmfff... I guess. I dunno." She pulled a toolbox from the wagon. With a heaving breath, she swung the heavy thing around, flipped it open, and squatted before an arrangement of tools. "Strong ponies inspire me, but a bunch of them also freak me out, too." One by one, she pulled out the utensils she needed to start putting the broken scooter back together again. "After all, I've spent my whole life being strong, and when others are better at it than I am, I either envy them..." She winced slightly, her face muscles stretching. "...or worship them pretty hard. Heh..."

"I..." Rumble bit his lip. "I guess I should apologize."

"Heh... Ya think?"

"I mean about being so... so..."

"Wussy?"

"Broken..." He gulped hard, looking up at her. "I was totally broken when you decided to talk to me."

"Yeah, well, no kidding!" She paused in her tinkering to point a greasy wrench at his cast. "With your leg all banged up and with everypony practically kicking you into the dirt?! What was it they called you? 'Rumble Tumble?' Heh..." She continued banging away at the metal mess. "How's the healing goin' there, hotstuff?"

"No, I mean..." He shook his head and softly said, "Broken... like... inside? I guess?" His voice squeaked, "I needed to know that I could stand up for myself. That I couldn't settle for less. That I... that I could make use of cool gifts that I had..."

"And what of the gifts that were given to you, huh?" Scootaloo waved the broken pieces around for emphasis.

"I'm trying to be real here..."

"And I'm not?"

"Well..."

"Well what?"

"Sometimes, no..." He shook his head. "No, Scootaloo. Only, like, when you are, it's when I least expect it. I think it's because you're so used to fixing yourself."

"Pffft..." She rolled her eyes. "And why would that be?"

He stared at her sharply. "Because you've been broken too."

Her mouth hung open. Her wings twitched, but they couldn't move that far. They never could.

Rumble saw it, saw her. His face never lost its soft expression, like a patient sky waiting to turn dark.

Scootaloo shook the wrench again, although her hoof gripped it far more tightly this time. "What do you know, huh? For real..." Her nostrils flared as she started fuming. "You're not just a wuss. You're an idiot! Did anypony ever tell you that?"

"Scootaloo..."

"You think I'm broken?! Huh?!" She slapped the wrench down into the dirt and spat through the rising dust. "You think I've got something that needs fixing?"

"Don't you?"

"I can take care of myself!" She barked, standing up straight with every hoof planted tight into the earth. Grounded. "I don't need you or any of my friends or any other pony to tell me differently!"

"But Scootaloo—"

"But nothing!" She started to sputter, to hyperventilate. "I... I can fix more than you know! More than you could ever dream of! I... I can reach places, y-ya hear me! I'm n-not just some weak filly! Some damsel in distress!"

"You want something, Scootaloo," Rumble squeaked forth. "Something more than talents or cutie marks or—"

"And I can't have it, okay?!" she shrieked at him, her eyes tearing instantly. She brought a hoof to her face as she twitched, heaved, and shrieked again, "I-I can't have what's beyond that storm! All I get is the stupid silver lining and I hate it! I hate you! I hate weakness!"

"Then if it's not me... if it's not a flippin' kiss for Celestia's sake... then what is it?" Rumble asked.

"I..." Scootaloo stammered, staring off into a dark horizon beyond the glistening orchards and farm trees. "I want... I want nopony to feel like I h-have felt..." She gulped. "Over the years. Forced to live without love... without freedom. I want... t-to patch holes in this crummy world! And I want other ponies to kn-know that they can patch things up too!"

Rumble's ears twitched. He glanced left and right, for the thunder had returned, this time ushered by the distant ringing of bells. And then there was the smell, cool and crisp like the advent of an afternoon shower. He could only smile. "Don't you know, Scootaloo?"

She sniffled and rubbed her cheeks dry. "Know wh-what?"

He spoke loudly over the beautiful cacophony between them. "That you already have it." His smile was a soft thing, weak, see-through, like silk. He leaned forward and placed a hoof on her shoulder. "I know, because you’ve given it to me, and you can give it to other ponies too.” He paused, but finally let it go, letting her go. “Only, you need to stop beating around the bush and just give it to yourself first. Everything else will work out just fine.” He gulped. “I promise."

"But..." She hissed and grimaced as the noise and thunder overwhelmed her. "B-but I feel so broken..."

"Don't ever sell yourself short," he said, almost growled. "A wise pony told me that, a wise pony who fixed me, because she had fixed herself all along. She just didn't know it."

"Rumble, I... I don't—"

"Shhh..."

"Don't shush me! Darn it! I'm so confused!"

"Are you really?" Rumble smiled and pointed with his good hoof. "Look."

"Huh...?" Scootaloo choked back the last sob of her foalhood and looked down at her haunches. "What?!" She froze, and then her eyes exploded. "My... m-m-my... my my my my my—"

"Ew..." Rumble flinched back. "What's with the grease?"

"My cutie mark!" Scootaloo bounced in place, brandishing twin gears and a wrench covered in black splotches of oil. "Oh, the grease is beautiful!" She bounced around in tight little circles, squealing with twitching wings, "The grease is beautifulllll!"

Rumble chuckled and nodded. "Hey, if you say so." He cleared his throat. "So, uh... I-I guess this means that you can fix my scooter, huh?"

"Yes! Totally! Omigosh! And I can build wagons and cannons and grandfather clocks and googlensphlockens!"

Rumble's pale face twisted. "What in the hay is a googlensphlocken?!"

"I dunno!" Scootaloo squealed, grinning wide. "I haven't built it yet! But whatever it is—by goddess—it darn well better launch elephants into the sky!"

"Heeheehee!" Rumble reared the only legs he could afford to. "Scoots, I'm so happy for you!"

"Oh, gosh! Me too!" Scootaloo still couldn't stop spinning in circles. She leaned against him, breathless, her whole body heaving with joy and sweat and tears. "Oh, Celestia! I'm so happy! I could... I could..."

"Mmmmhmmm..." Rumble leaned forward, his lips puckering—

"Apple Bloom!" Scootaloo shrieked. With a wave, she galloped past Rumble.

"Whoah!" He fell hard into the dirt road.

"Scootaloo! What in tarnation is all that racket—?!"

"Apple Bloom! Apple Bloom! Look!" Scootaloo bounded towards her friend. "Look at my butt! Look at my butt!"

"Ewww... what the hay for?!"

"What do you friggin' think?!"

Apple Bloom's resounding gasp could suck in hurricanes. She dropped her book bag and clapped her hooves several times before sweeping Scootaloo into the mother of all hugs. "Oh my goodness! This is the best day ever! You got your cutie mark!"

A drawling voice rose over the hill of apples and apple carts. "Huh?! What's goin' on there, lil' sis?"

"Applejack! Applejack! Come look!"

"I got my cutie marrrrrk!" Scootaloo sirened.

"Well, butter my biscuits and hide away the jelly! Yeeeha! That's terrific, girl!"

"IknowIknowIknowIknowwwwww!"

"Ohmigosh! Scootaloo! We gotta tell Sweetie Belle!"

"Horseapples!" Applejack shouted. "We gotta holler at the whole darn town! Ya hear that, Big Mac?!" she called over the fields. "Ring the bells and set off some fireworks! Scootaloo here's found her talent!"

"Eeeyup!"

The air filled with laughter and euphoria.

All the while, Rumble sat alone in the dirt, watching the event horizon of absolute rapture from afar. He took a deep breath, smiling thoughtfully at the orange speck in the distance. After a while, his smile dwindled. He glanced back at himself. With a gentle hoof, he undid a pair of straps, then pulled the plastic brace halfway down his flank.

The undeniable emblem of a thundercloud clung to his injured leg, its brighter edges catching the morning sunlight with a silver shine.

He stared at it, quiet and contemplative, like a brave stallion staring into a maelstrom.

"Hey! Rumble!" Scootaloo's squealing voice rang over the dirt path. Her orange figure waved him on. Even at that distance, he could see the glint of her devilish smirk. "What are you doing lying around there, lame-o?! Don't you wanna come celebrate with me?" She paused for the briefest of seconds and blinked awkwardly. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Oh… uh, I’m fine!” With a deep breath, he sealed the mark back up from sight. "Just this darn cast. But don’t you worry..." Smiling, he shuffled over, joining the filly at her side as she accommodated for his pathetic limp. “It feels light as a feather now.”

Author's Note

Special thanks to Pilate for editing this "story." It's improved quite a bit thanks to his assistance. It doesn't change the fact that he's likely an angry zebra for me uploading the piece of junk as it is.

Dedicated to the uber talented ~~and most likely super sexy~~ Zemious aka Dunnstar, who drew the wonderful illustration for Twistclops that began this whole lovely mess.

I like to think that if it's a story that I've written in under twelve hours, then it doesn't count as "breaking the itinerary." But, y'know, the road to Hell is built on good intentions, excuses, ~~and princess petticoats~~.

On August 24th, I uploaded Twistclops, a fanfic that I still have yet to finish as of this point in time. It's a subpar crackfic at best, and its only ounce of charm is owed to the fantastic cover art that Zemious made for it. I messaged him after weeks of utter silence to let him know that the fic had gone up, and with his artwork to boot. Somewhere in our communication, he let slip that he hoped that I might someday write more Rumbloo.

My response was something to the extent of: "when in the flying frog did I ever write frogging Rumbloo? And he was like "Remember that story where Nightmare Moon haunted Scoots in her dreams? Was pretty funny maaaaaaaaaaaan." And I was like "Really? I thought everyone hated it." And then I took a second look, and sure enough, everyone motherfrogging hated it. But apparently Mr. Z was pleased, so that was nifty. I guess. I dunno. Ribbit.

And, you see, I get a high when I post stories. It's a dangerous mania, full of skirts and lemurs, signifying nothing. When this buzz hits my hairy glands, it's hard for me to back down from utterly stupid stuff. In this particular case,I asked Mr. Z "So, what would you want to see in a Rumbloo fic?" And he was like "I dunno." And so I thought "Hmmmm." And I walked around for five minutes, brainstormed, and threw him a hasty "brb."

I then tossed my carcass before Sedna, sat down, and began typing. I didn't stop until 8 hours and 50 pages later, and this thing had been defecated out. I sent him a link to google docs, and now I think he's afraid of me. But it's all gravy.

Pilate was nice enough to edit this thing. He's a great zebra, and he tolerates my lameness, just like Scootaloo tolerates Rumble. I don't mean to suggest by that analogy that Pilate is a striped equine going through precocious feminine puberty or... uhm... fudge.

Why didn't I make this story about wrestling instead?