Chapters Scootaloo was not happy.
Diamond Tiara had encountered her during recess. While Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle went to the other end of the yard to get a ball for the three Crusaders to play with, Diamond Tiara busied herself with tearing down Scootaloo's self-esteem bit by bit.
"Hey there, Blank Flank! I bet your special talent is, like, being the only pegasus in all of Equestria who can't fly!" Diamond stared Scootaloo down, forcing her to back up into Silver Spoon. When Silver Spoon had snuck up behind her, Scootaloo didn't know. She felt her heart drop into her stomach as she realized that she was completely trapped. Where were the other Crusaders when she needed them?
"Hey, Diamond Tiara?"
"Yes, Silver Spoon?" The two fillies smirked at one another before looking down on their frightened prey.
"Like, what kind of pegasus can't even fly? She's no better than a chicken." Silver Spoon's eye took on and evil gleam as Scootaloo squirmed uncomfortably, wishing not for the first time that her little wings were stronger so that she could fly off to safety. She knew that they were right; a pegasus who couldn't fly was no better than a glorified chicken. She flattened her ears to her head, praying for the recess bell to ring. This was probably the first time she had looked forward to one of Miss Cheerilee's boring lessons. She tried to make herself as small as possible as her ears and nose grew hotter and hotter from her embarrassment.
"Scootaloo! We got a ball-" Scootaloo heard Sweetie Belle's squeaky, high-pitched voice and Apple Bloom's gasp followed by the unmistakeable bump of a ball hitting the grass. Scoot hadn't realized that she had squeezed her eyes shut until she opened them at the sound of her friends' voices, and noticed that she had started to cry. She quickly used her foreleg to rub her eyes, trying- in vain- to hide the evidence of tears. Scootaloo never cried, she was too awesome for that. Rainbow Dash wouldn't have cried. In fact, she would have given Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon what for. She stood up, strengthened by the presence of her friends behind her though tears were still running down her face.
"What does it matter if I can't fly now? I'll be able to fly when I get bigger, and I'll be the very best! And nopony will be able to stop me. Nopony!" Scootaloo screamed, stomping her hoof to emphasize her point. Her wings began to flap violently as she glared at the two bullies. But Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon just laughed at her assertion.
"You'll be stuck on the ground forever, Blank Flank. And there is, like, no way that you'll ever get those puny wings of yours to get you flying. Let's go, Silver Spoon." With a final snicker, the pair waltzed off, scooping up Sweetie Belle's abandoned ball as they left. Scootaloo sat down with her ears once more pressed against her skull as she watched the procession. She felt a hoof against her shoulder, but didn't look around.
"Come on, Scoot. You're a-gonna show them! Sweetie Belle an' I'll train you! We'll be Cutie Mark Crusaders Flight Instructors!" Sweetie Belle let out an enthused "YEAH!" while Apple Bloom wrapped Scootaloo in a tight hug, nearly suffocating the pegasus in her ostentatious pink bow. But Scootaloo just pushed her friends away.
"What does an earth pony and a unicorn know about flight? I'm real sorry girls, but Diamond Tiara and Sliver Spoon were right. I'm just a flightless chicken." Brushing past the two other Crusaders with a sigh, Scootaloo crossed the yard until she reached the schoolhouse. The door was opened slightly to allow for a breeze, and Scootaloo pushed her way inside while her two friends stayed behind, sharing confused looks. Scootaloo had never been this upset about not being able to fly before, and even Sweetie Belle wasn't as worried about not being able to use magic yet. It just didn't make sense to the two other Crusaders.
"Scootaloo? Why are you inside? Recess won't be over for another ten minutes." Miss Cheerilee looked up from her marking, putting down the red pencil that had been in her mouth. Scootaloo was probably one of the last students in her class who would rather be inside the classroom during break time.
"Miss Cheerilee, I know I should be outside right now, but I just want to be in here. Can I please stay?" Scootaloo rubbed her foreleg with the opposite hoof, not looking up at her teacher. Cheerilee must have sensed that something was wrong, because she let Scoot sit down in her desk and gave her some seatwork to do, something easy that would keep the filly busy and quiet for the rest of the break so that she could finish up her marking. Scootaloo didn't complain, but drew rough pictures of what seemed like a pegasus filly flying high over the rest of the little ponies in the margins.
After school, Scootaloo went home by herself. She felt bad for ignoring her friends as she rode away on her ever-present blue scooter, but she just wanted to be alone. The quicker she got to her parents' house, the quicker she got away from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, who obviously weren't done making fun of her flightlessness yet.
She burst through her front door after stowing her scooter and helmet behind the house. Her parents were both still gone at work, so she figured they wouldn't mind if she grabbed a cookie from the jar on the counter. Cookies in her house were a rare treat, her mother was always too busy working to have time to bake them. Tossing off her saddlebags loaded with homework and returned grades, she grabbed her stepstool from under the sink and pushed it next to where the cookies sat beckoning. Scrambling up onto the stool, she reached for the jar. But her mother had been thinking two steps ahead of the filly, and had pushed the cookie jar further than where she was able to reach.
After swinging her hoof wildly for a few minutes, trying to at least knock the jar closer, she started flapping her wings in a last-ditch effort to get the sweets. Sweat began to form on her forehead, but she just couldn't manage to lift her body from its perch on the stepstool. But then, to her surprise, her hooves began to lift off. Getting excited at this new development, Scootaloo momentarily forgot to keep flapping. This quick pause was enough to dump her painfully back onto the stool, much to her chagrin.
Scootaloo rubbed her now-sore backside and clambered off the stool, bested by none other than the ruthless foe known to fillies all across Equestria as the cookie jar.
When Scootaloo's parents came home from work, they found that their filly was sobbing uncontrollably in her bed, buried deep underneath her sheets.
In Scoot's bedroom, every single wall was plastered with photographs or drawings of Rainbow Dash, so that nopony was able to tell what the colour of the walls were originally. Some of the drawings also featured a certain orange and purple filly flying alongside Dash. There were even a few Wonderbolts posters, all with additions of Dash in crayon, showing just how dedicated Scootaloo really was to her idol.
Despite her parents' every effort, Scootaloo refused to be comforted. Even when her mother, Candy Mane , went and got her a cookie from the cookie jar in the kitchen, her only response was to cry harder. Her father was the one to finally ask her what had happened.
"All right, my little pony, tell Daddy why you're so upset all of the sudden. You're scaring us, Scootaloo." He nuzzled the sobbing lump of sheets, and Scoot finally consented to poking out her muzzle.
"I-I can't ev-e-even FLY, Daddy! Even F-Featherweight c-can fly! My wings are too sm-small." A fresh wave of wails escaped Scootaloo's mouth, and she ducked back under her covers. Scootaloo's mother pitched in.
"Sweetheart, your wings are actually a pretty average size for a filly your age. In fact, I think your father's wings were smaller than yours when he was about your age." These words didn't help at all. In fact, her mother's words probably made things much worse. Her wing span was average for a filly her age? This made her inability to fly even more embarrassing in her own opinion. Candy winced when she realized what she had just told her daughter. She quickly tried to amend her statement.
"Scootaloo, if you're really that worried about it then I'll make an appointment with the doctor to see about your wings. But don't get so wound up about it; you're probably just a late bloomer, and that's nothing to be ashamed of." Scootaloo put her whole head out from under the sheets this time, her face still covered in a mixture of dried and still-wet tears.
"Do you really think that the doctor'll know what's wrong with me, Mom?" There was so much hope in her daughter's eyes, Candy whispered a silent prayer to the Diarchs as she forced a smile.
"Scootaloo, sweetie, I know so."
"Well, Miss Scootaloo, you seem to be a very healthy filly. You're getting lots of exercise and fresh air, and it looks like you're eating fairly healthy." Scootaloo sat on a cold table with a thin sheet of paper covering it. Doctor Hippocrates took a look at her x-rays for a moment, squinting his eyes. He looked almost... confused. Then the expression of his face disappeared, and he regained his borderline irritatingly complacent composure. Candy Mane caught the face as well, and figured that he had seen something important.
"What is it, Hippocrates? Did you see something important?" Candy tried to look at the x-rays herself, but he blocked them from her view with a sweep of his hoof, covering them with papers filled with medical jargon. Mother and daughter gave him the exact same annoyed glance.
"It looks like her wings are fine, Ms. Mane. Scootaloo's development is actually right on schedule."
"Then why can't I fly?" Scoot stomped her hoof on the table, making a small tear in the weird, scratchy paper. Hippocrates winced before continuing.
"As I said, your wings are fine. It's the rest of you that's a bit of a puzzle, medically speaking." Scootaloo was confused at this.
"The rest of me? Whaddya mean, the rest of me?" Scootaloo's voice rose slightly with every word until she was nearly shouting. Candy draped her hoof over her filly's shoulders to encourage her to calm down. She didn't need the whole office hearing her daughter's tirade.
"Miss Scootaloo, has your teacher taught you yet about how pegasi are able to fly?" A blank stare. "You see, pegasus ponies, like birds, have hollow bones that make them lighter. If pegasi didn't have hollow bones, their wings would have to be huge in order for them to fly the way they do. That's why alicorns tend to have larger wings. Alicorns possess all three kinds of pony magic: earth pony strength, unicorn magic, and pegasus flight. If an earth pony had hollow bones, it would be much harder for Miss Applejack to apple buck without breaking her legs, for example. And Mr. Snowflake, as comical as it looks with his small wings, is able to fly because his bones are hollow and he's gone through rigorous training to strengthen his wings and back muscles. The last I heard, he even managed to get accepted into the Wonderbolt Academy."
Scootaloo was confused. "What does any of this have to do with me, though?"
Hippocrates slowly took off his glasses. "You have a rare condition, Miss Scootaloo. For some reason, your bones are completely solid. Unless your wings grow about twice the size of a normal pegasus pony, it's a possibility that you may never fly much higher than a foot or two in the air for short periods of time."
Scootaloo was absolutely heartbroken. How was she going to get her wings to grow big enough to get her truly airborne? She barely even registered as Candy Mane pulled her into a tight hug and nuzzled her. She felt completely numb.
"Come on, Scoot. Let's go home and bake a new batch of cookies." The word cookies struck a bit of a nerve with Scootaloo, but she didn't let it show. Her mother said something else to the doctor, but Scoot's ears didn't take in any sound. She was shut off. As she and her mother left, Scoot looked at Doctor Hippocrates. He had the most apologetic look on his face that anypony could muster.
Scootaloo stayed in bed all day the next day. Candy Mane decided not to push the matter of Scoot's friends or the fact she needed to go to school on the poor filly, though she did mention that this was the last "un-sick" day that Scootaloo would be taking. A mumbled non-reply came from under the sheets, and Candy went downstairs to call a foalsitter so that she could go to work.
"Thank you so much for agreeing to come over and look after Scootaloo today, Fluttershy."
"Oh, um. It's no problem Ms. Mane. I'm always happy to help..." Fluttershy gave Candy a quiet smile.
"Well, I really appreciate you coming over on such short notice. Scootaloo's probably still in bed upstairs, she's feeling pretty down and most likely will want to stay there all day. Don't worry about getting her to come out, she's pretty stubborn when she wants to be.
"Just make sure she eats something, won't you? There's some celery and carrot soup in the fridge, you're more than welcome to heat that up for the both of you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be very late for work if I stay to chat much longer." Candy took a quick glance at the clock, looking a bit nervous and prancing a little on the spot.
"Okay, Ms. Mane. You go on to work, I'll just, um... I'll go say hi to Scootaloo!" Fluttershy gave Candy her most sincere smile and with this dismissal, Candy shot off to work as fast as her hooves could carry her. Fluttershy stood inside the doorway and waved until Candy could no longer be seen. She then shut the door and flew upstairs. She guessed, rightly so, that Scootaloo's room was the one with the muffled sobbing coming out of it.
Wow... Ms. Mane said that Scootaloo was upset, but I never could have imagined that she would be this bad.
Fluttershy walked up to the door and knocked.
"Scootaloo? It's Fluttershy. Uh, your mom asked me to foalsit you today, so can I come in? Um, if that's okay with you, I mean..." Fluttershy bit her lip. The crying had turned down a notch, but otherwise there was no response to her request. She braced herself.
"O... okay then. I'm coming in..." Fluttershy pushed open the door but didn't see the filly right away. She was a little distracted by all the artwork of her friend Rainbow Dash plastered against the walls and didn't see the orange muzzle peeking out from the white bedspread in the corner right away. Only when Scootaloo let out a particularly large sniff did Fluttershy turn around to see her. She walked up to the bed and sat down next to the large lump in the sheets.
"Uh, hi there. How are you, Scootaloo?" Sniff.
"I... um... like your drawings." Another sniff.
"Scootaloo, have you eaten anything yet today?" At this, Scootaloo poked her muzzle further out of the sheets and shook her head. Fluttershy smiled and wrapped her wing and foreleg around the bundle of linen.
"Your mom said that there's some celery and carrot soup in the fridge, do you want that?" Another headshake. Fluttershy realized that this was going to be difficult. Suddenly, an idea dawned on her.
"If you promise not to tell your mom, I saw a cookie jar while I was down in the kitchen. Do you want me to get you one?" At this a fresh wave of wails erupted and Scootaloo pulled her muzzle back under the sheets. Fluttershy was beginning to panic: she wasn't good at dealing with other ponies, and even though she loved the Crusaders it was still difficult to understand them sometimes; Scootaloo was no exception.
"Shhh, shhh. It's okay Scootaloo. It's fine. Is there something you do want to eat that I can get you?" Fluttershy was beginning to grasp at straws: fillies were almost tougher to understand and deal with than adult ponies and she was feeling at a loss.
Oh, I should have just told Ms. Mane that I was busy today... What am I going to do...?
Scootaloo, though still crying, managed to choke out, "I ju-just... I just wanna be a-alone right n-now, Flu-fluttersh-shy."
"Okay, Scootaloo. I'll come back later with lunch, okay? Just take all the time you need." Fluttershy gave the sobbing filly one last nuzzle before getting up off of the bed. Lunch was a ways away, she'd be able to think of something by then to make Scootaloo happy. But to do so, she might need a little backup.
"... And she's been crying all morning and I just don't know what to do! Oh, I'm a horrible foalsitter..." Fluttershy was sitting on a cloud, talking to none other than Scootaloo's idol. She'd hated to leave Scootaloo home alone, but Fluttershy had needed to talk to some pony, and Rainbow Dash was the best somepony she could think of. On the cloud next to her, Rainbow was stretching her wings, preparing herself for the execution of some new trick.
"You worry too much, Flutts. Scoot just needs a little time to herself, she'll come out of her room when she gets hungry enough." With a strong flap, Dash lifted herself off her perch on the cloud and hovered slightly above it.
"Oh, Rainbow Dash! I couldn't let Scootaloo just starve herself! That wouldn't be--" Fluttershy got cut off as Dash suddenly rocketed off, a multi-hued blur spinning over, under, around, and in between clouds the vibrant pegasus had set up in some sort of aerial obstacle course. Fluttershy gave a quiet sigh, settled herself a little more on the cloud, and waited for Dash to come back. Thankfully, Dash never took very long.
"Yeah, 8 seconds flat! That's like, 20% faster than last time! Awesome!" Dash settled back onto the cloud next to Fluttershy. "Now, what were you saying?"
"Oh, um. Like I was telling you, it wouldn't be very fair to Scootaloo to just let her get that hungry. It isn't very good for her health." Fluttershy blew a lock of her mane out of her face and looked at Rainbow Dash pointedly. Dash puffed out her cheeks in response, more interested in figuring out how to do a Double Rainboom. The Young Flier's Competition was coming up again and she wanted to do something cooler than an ordinary Sonic Rainboom. But she knew Fluttershy wanted her help on this, and while Dash could be many things, she would never refuse to help her friends. It was part and parcel of being the Element of Loyalty, she supposed. It was also why she had let herself be coerced to watch that lame butterfly migration with Fluttershy a while back, though Dash was trying to forget about that.
"Okay, fine. I'll help you get the little Squirt to eat something. But you gotta promise that you'll practice cheering for me for the Competition this year. Your efforts last year were pretty disappointing."
Fluttershy knocked at Scootaloo's door, biting the inside of her cheek when Scoot made no effort to reply.
At least she had stopped crying.
"Scootaloo, you have a visitor. Can she come in?" There still wasn't any reply, but by pressing her ear to the door Fluttershy swore that she could hear the faint sound of hiccups a couple of seconds apart. She took this as a good a sign as any and pushed the door open, ushering Rainbow Dash inside.
"Just... please be gentle. Okay?"
Rainbow rolled her eyes, focusing on keeping the two steaming bowls of celery and carrot soup on her back from spilling all over her and the floor. She didn't need another trip back to the hospital for soup burns so soon after the incident with her broken wing, Daring Doo, and the crazy guy convinced that she was stealing his slippers. It was highly unlikely that any of the staff had many fond memories of her after that.
Waving away Fluttershy with her wing to get her to go somewhere to do whatever it was she did to stop panicking about everything, Dash stepped closer to Scootaloo's bed. A soft click of the door let her know that Flutts was gone. It was probably for the best; from what Fluttershy had told her, it most likely wasn't the greatest of ideas to have more than one pony at a time fussing over the Squirt. Though Dash's version of "fussing" was a little bit different than everypony else's.
Putting the two bowls of soup on Scootaloo's desk, which was slightly cluttered but still had defined piles of various types of stuff to keep new spaces clear for other various types of stuff, Dash really looked around the bedroom for the first time.
She wasn't sure if all the posters, drawings, and memorabilia of her was flattering or downright creepy. The rainbow wig hanging off of Scoot's closet door definitely fell in the latter category, but otherwise Dash tried to sort it into the former simply because she liked Scoot well enough that it was probably best not to be too weirded out by the things she did. Or collected.
One picture that particularly caught her eye was one of a crudely drawn Rainbow Dash flying past a moon that looked more like a cookie, with a smaller orange and purple mass that she assumed had to be the Squirt keeping pace next to her. Dash silently prayed to the Diarchs that this picture was drawn a long time ago, and not, say, last week.
Trying, and not doing a very good job at succeeding, to ignore the brightly-hued onslaught of her plastered in every square inch of the bedroom, Dash tried using the most caring voice she could muster.
She didn't do a very good job at it, all things considering.
"He-ey there, Squirt. How're ya feeling?" She nudged the largest bundle of sheets, which proceeded to shift slightly and then hiccup. That wasn't normal blanket behaviour. She flipped the blankets off Scoot, who was quite the sight to behold. Her mane was slightly matted and tangled from being in her bed all day, her eyes were red and gunky, and a mess of dried tears were splotched around her muzzle. Scootaloo needed many things at the moment, the forefront of them being a bath.
"R-rainbow Dash?" Scoot's voice was slightly *hoarse from crying, and Dash could only imagine how hard (and painful) it was for the Squirt to talk because of it.
"Shh, it's fine. How's about we get you cleaned up before we get some food in your belly, huh? You look like a train hit you." Dash winced when she said that. She meant well, she really and truly did, but sometimes the words that came out of her mouth...
Scoot didn't really register the fact that Rainbow Dash was in her room so much as the fact that Rainbow Dash, the greatest pony and fastest flier in all of Equestria, was in her room. On any other occasion, she would be ecstatic about this.
Too bad it wasn't any other occasion.
"... You look like a train hit you." This was probably true: Scootaloo hadn't gotten out of bed all day and had spent most of her time crying. A bath would be great right about now. All that crying had left her tired, but she couldn't stand being in bed a second longer. Besides, her wings were cramping up.
Oh right, her wings. Those stupid wings, more of a decoration than a tool now, thanks to the fact that something that wasn't even her bucking fault was going to keep her grounded for the rest of her life. She groaned, though Dash took this more as a sign of encouragement that she was awake and ready to get out of bed. She found herself being scooped up in Dash's forelegs and carried off to the bathroom for some major cleaning.
Half an hour later, and Scoot's damp mane was air-drying while she ate her soup in a probably-too-fast manner. Thankfully, the soup had cooled down considerably while Scootaloo had bathed, otherwise it might have been wiser to actually use a spoon.
"Woah, there Squirt. That soup's not gonna run away from ya if you don't eat it at lightning speed." Dash's hearty cackle snapped Scoot back to the realization that her idol was eating soup with her, in her bedroom. This was both the best and the worst day ever. But mainly the best.
But also the worst.
As Scoot finished off the last drop of soup, licking bits of celery off of her muzzle, she got an idea. The doctor said that Mr. Snowflake trains so that he can fly. I don't really want to look as scary and bulgy as him, but...
"Rainbow Dash, will you give me flying lessons?"
The question, though not unanticipated, was still a little startling to Dash, who had been eating her own soup in a comparatively almost civil manner. Flying lessons? She knew Scootaloo couldn't fly yet, but from what Fluttershy had told her, there was very little chance that she would ever be able to. Dash didn't want to be the one to completely crush Scoot's dreams, but she also didn't want to let her number one fan down. It also didn't help that Scootaloo had evidently been taking lessons from Sweetie Belle on the proper form and usage of puppy dog eyes. This was a battle she was going to lose no matter which side she took. What was it that Twilight said? Choosing the lesser evil? Scootaloo's gonna hate me for this...
"Sure Squirt. Let me finish this soup and grab Fluttershy from whatever she's been up to downstairs. Then we'll see about some flight lessons."
Scootaloo's orange face lit up so brightly with utter glee at the idea, Dash couldn't help but get the mental image of a Nightmare Night pumpkin. She immediately felt terrible, both for thinking about such a thing and for what was about to happen. Celestia give her strength.
Author's Note
*Hoarse. You get it? Like horse? Hahaha.
This chapter is Hoot's Christmas present, because apparently a chapter update was all he wanted from me. I hope you're bloody happy.