As the sun begins to set on a new day, Scootaloo grumbles and finds she has lost the embrace of what she's longed after for weeks. She sighs and wakes up, going about her typical routine from rousing in darkness. She walks to her window, scared to think she only slept for possibly two or three hours, but her mouth gapes to find the moon telling her quite the opposite. "Did I just sleep in for a whole day?" Her tone expressed confusion rather than shock. She was more surprised that she'd finally had a mind to sleep so well, and she didn't exactly much care to have lost a whole day.

Again typical to her usual fashion, the pegasus next walked to her mirror, rather surprised to find a smile on her face. She blinked, she knew she wasn't smiling, she was still too tired, but the pony in her mirror was very obviously smiling. She shook her head a few times and looked again to see a perfect reflection of herself once more, expression, messed up mane, slightly matted feathers, nothing out of the usual, except that the rings on her eyes seemed a bit different, though she was positive that was just her mind or the light. She fixed herself up and lifted the shard of glass, as was routine, but as she lifted it to her throat, she watched her reflection and blinked. Did I hesitate? She blinked again, though now the pony in the mirror was copying her perfectly.

She looked herself over in the mirror and smiled softly. "See? Still cute... Wait, did I cut myself already?" She noticed the slight flow of blood from her reflection's neck near the edge of the glass shard. She then looked down as she touched her own neck to find nothing, no scratch, no blood. She looked back to the mirror and stared at her reflection for a moment. The mare in her mirror cocked her head and Scootaloo's eye went wide as she threw down the glass shard and leapt backwards, stumbling and landing on her haunches. She panted softly as she stared at the mirror. "Okay, you're just sleepy still. Just, let's leave the mirror alone for a little while."

The pegasus nodded to herself and stood, her gaze avoiding the mirror, as she got back in her bed. "Maybe I can just sleep until morning. I slept for a whole day, so it shouldn't be too hard, right?" She again nodded to herself before covering up and closing her eyes. She waited, still as stone, but soon her eyes opened and she groaned. "What they Hay? I slept. I finally slept. What happened?" She glared angrily at her ceiling, but soon sighed. "Well, at least I got some sleep. Now I just gotta wait out a little longer unti-" A knock came at her door again. She bolted upright and jumped from her bed, hurrying to get dressed, thankful to have more than one dark red hoodie and pair of dark jeans. She pulled on her gloves without even a thought before walking to the door.

Scootaloo unlocked the door, beaming her socially typical smile as she opened the gate to her home. She stopped, her smile falling slightly and her eyes wide. She was frozen for a moment before she lurched forward and pulled the white unicorn before her into a tight hug. "Oh my gosh, Sweetie! I've missed you so much!"

Sweetie Belle blushed but soon smiled and gave a slight giggle as she returned the hug, albeit not as strongly as the more athletic pegasus. "Well, I just got back from working up in Canterlot. The trains were having a few issues, so by the time I got here, the hotel wouldn't let me check in. I know it's kinda late, but you wouldn't mind me staying, would you?"

Scootaloo beamed, inside and out, with joy. "Of course you can stay here, Sweetie! Come on in." The two mares smiled as they both stepped inside, with Scootaloo shutting and locking her door back behind them. She turned on a light, hardly noticing the rather slight mess of the room around her. It wasn't too bad, really, the couch cushions were a bit off, and there was a small pile of soda cans off to the corner, but the only noticeable thing in the room would be that all of the three visible mirrors were broken, one of them shattered in multiple places. "Sorry about the mess. Wasn't really expecting company, ya know?"

Sweetie Belle giggled a bit and smiled still. "Let me guess, had a few wrestling matches against Bloom?" The unicorn giggled again leaned in to kiss Scootaloo's cheek, which, along with the other, promptly turned a light shade of red.

Sweetie Belle smiled and looked around the room once more. "So, do you have a guest room?"

Scootaloo blushed a bit worse at the question. "Oh, uh, not really, but I mean, we can share a bed, right? I mean, that's not weird, is it?"

The unicorn mare giggled. "Oh come on. I know you're still nervous about the whole dating thing, but we can share a bed for tonight, dear."

"Wait, what? When did we start dating?!" The pegasus's cheeks grew hot as they practically glowed crimson. She was far from against the idea, but she never remembered either of them asking the other out.

Sweetie Belle looked up in thought and shrugged. "I don't guess ever. Unless you're interested. I mean, with how much we hang out just us, we might as well. Plus, it'd give us a reason to flirt more." She blushed at her own words as she realized how she must've sounded. "I guess that sounds kind of full of myself, doesn't it?"

Scootaloo shook her head and smiled, still blushing herself. "What? No, I'd actually really like that. If you really are interested. Besides, I'm pretty sure we'd flirt anyways."

"Then it's settled." The unicorn smiled and pulled Scootaloo close as she gently pressed her lips to her friend's, or rather, to her now fillyfriend's. Scootaloo's eyes widened for a moment, but she very quickly wrapped Sweetie Belle in her arms and returned the kiss softly. The two stayed, lips locked, content in their contact, for a few minutes longer before they slowly broke away and headed off to the pegasus's bedroom with a smile.

The moment Scootaloo crossed the threshold to her room, however, something clicked in her head. She froze briefly, and soon the unicorn before her faded from her mind as she slipped into her typical routine for entering the room again. She undressed herself entirely, leaving her gloves on until the end, and walked to retrieve the shard she'd dropped earlier. Sweeite Belle reached the bed and fell back about the time Scootaloo began getting out of her clothes, and now sat up, her eyebrow rising at the naked mare that was idly twirling a broken piece of glass in her fingers.

"Uh, Scoots? What are you doing over there?"

Scootaloo quickly snapped out of her trance at her fillyfriend's voice. She turned and blinked, her eyes shifting between the unicorn and the glass shard in her hand. "I, I don't really know." She cocked her head slightly as she looked herself over. "Wait, how did I get undressed already?"

Sweetie Belle, figuring this was just like Scootaloo to pull a silly prank, burst out laughing. At first, the pegasus was very confused, but she soon found it hard to be anything but delighted around Sweetie Belle and walked to the bed before sitting beside the still laughing white mare. She lay beside her fillyfriend and kissed her cheek. "So, are you gonna get comfortable, or am I the only one?"

After a few moments of the unicorn catching her breath, she smiled to Scootaloo. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to get out of this tight thing." She eased out of her clothes and laid on the bed to stretch. Before long, the mares found themselves snuggling contentedly into one another. After a few minutes, Sweetie Belle fell asleep, but Scootaloo groaned as she remained wide awake. Her mental conversations picked up once more.

"Why the buck can't I sleep? I'm here, with my favorite mare, against her, naked, warm and comfortable as can be. What am I missing?"

"Well, let's think about it. When did you last sleep?"

"Uh, duh, I just woke up, like, an hour ago from sleeping all day."

"Well, what is different?"

"Uh, I took a long warm shower before bed. Could that be it?"

"It's an idea, but you tried it before, and it didn't work until last night. So, try something else."

"Um, I, I don't know, really.."

"Oh stop ducking it already! The difference is that last night you killed somepony! In cold blood. That's the only difference!"

"What?! No, there has to be something else. Please. I can't stand not sleeping, but I can't kill anypony else either. That was an accident. I didn't want to kill him."

"Oh, but in that moment, you absolutely did. Shall we remind you exactly what you did?"

"... I'll humor you..."

"Very well. You saw the stallion try to rob an innocent mare, and you saw him stumble. You lowered yourself and extended your wings. You picked up as much speed as you could, and you leapt from your board. You propelled yourself with everything your wings could muster. He turned to see you, and as soon as he figured out what was happening, he tried to yell for help, but before he could much more than make a slight sound, you swung out and tore your knife through his throat. You didn't hesitate, you didn't flinch. It was rather marvelous, really."

Her mind was silent for a moment as it all sunk in and her memory returned all too vividly. It all stopped when her eyes shot open. She looked to the mare she was holding. Sweetie Belle had rolled over in her arms, and it wasn't hard for the pegasus to move away and get off the bed without stirring her.

Scootaloo wasn't quite sure what she was doing, but she needed to walk around. She needed to make sure she was awake. Her eyes locked onto the shard on her dresser and she hurried to it as quickly and quietly as she could. She looked around to find a place on her that she could hide or explain away easily. She made her choice and brought the shard firmly across her right shoulder, hissing at the sting and collapsing to her knees as she panted lightly. She took a moment to catch her breath before touching her arm, feeling the wound leaking her warm, crimson blood. She licked her fingers clean and looked around as she stood to her hooves. She noticed that things were just the same as before and sighed. This wasn't a dream, this was definitely real. She'd really ended a stallions life, killed him without hesitation, without any immediate regret beyond not wanting to get caught. But he deserved it. He would've hurt somepony if he'd lived. He was filth... It wasn't that bad either.

"Wait, what?" she whispered to herself. "No, no, no. I am not a killer. I don't like it, and it did NOT help me get to sleep. No way." She looked over to the sleeping mare in her bed and decided it better to go elsewhere. If she was going to talk to herself, the last thing she wanted was to pull such an innocent mare into something like this. She walked out of her room and headed through the hall before noticing something amiss. She looked down to double-check and sure enough, the door to her basement was not only unlocked, but it was slightly open, the lower corner of the door lightly resting on the upper corner of the frame on the floor. "What the hay?"

After climbing down the stairs and finding the light switch, Scootaloo looked around the cellar she swore was much smaller and much different last time she saw it. She noticed a few things standing out, though. Two things in the room covered in dark sheets. One was rather tall, but not all to wide. The other was much shorter, maybe as tall as the pegasus's waist. She walked over to the smaller one, picking up a sheet of paper. It was a note, and a fairly well written one at that. She looked around before looking back down and reading it:

Dear Scootaloo,

It has come to my attention that you haven't been a very nice mare as of late. Killing ponies? Now that isn't the Scootaloo I remember. Don't worry though, I'm not going to tell anypony. We wouldn't want you getting in trouble, now would we? If you'll look to the center of the room, you'll find a rather fearful mare, a prostitute that has robbed every stallion to hire her. I couldn't help but notice how peacefully you slept after the last one. I'd bet that if you killed again you could sleep even better. On the table, you'll find a few nice tools. Very good ones. I'm not telling you to kill her, Luna knows I can't make you. All I'm saying is, do what comes naturally, and try to make it clean, no point in wasting what can be put to use later, right?

~A Friend

Scootaloo felt her blood run cold as she set the sheet down. Somepony had seen her. They knew where she lived, they watched her sleep, they probably knew she had trouble sleeping too. They had a mare in her basement, and they, they expect her to... "Kill her." The pegasus gasped as the voice in her head finished what she herself didn't dare to. The noise prompted a small shuffle from the sheet on the taller object, no, on the pony, in the middle of the room. She looked over and took a few steps closer to it. She stopped only two steps short of the sheet. "You read the note, Scoots, she's a whore, and she's a thief."

"No, I can't. I can't do it."

"Don't you want to join your new fillyfriend in Luna's garden?"

This stopped her. She blinked as she realized what she'd just asked herself. After a moment, she again felt herself slip almost into the passenger seat of her own body, only much less so than before. She walked to the sheet over the table and removed it, looking the instruments over until she found something she liked. She lifted up a knife. The blade was gleaming silver. She reached out and lightly touched the edge. She blinked and pulled her finger away. She was bleeding, and hadn't even had time to apply any pressure to the edge. "Whoa..." She hefted the knife a little by its handle, finding it fairly evenly weighted. After a moment, she remembered the reason this was here.

Scootaloo turned to the still covered figure and walked over, grasping the sheet and pulling it off, revealing a light green mare, bare and bound stiff. She seemed to recoil as best she physically could at the sudden change in light, but when her eyes opened, they flew wide at the sight of Scootaloo. The pegasus had a far off stare, her face virtually free of expression as she raised her knife.

Scootaloo stopped. "Wait, what am I doing?" She blinked and recoiled after a second. "W-was I really about to do that?"

"Of course you were. This is your chance to find out. If you kill her and you don't sleep, then you know that killing didn't do anything. If you do it and you sleep, then..."

"Then nothing! I can't just kill ponies whenever I want to sleep! That's not right, that's, that's rude. Sweetie would hate me."

"Listen, foal. It's real simple. You want to sleep, so you help this mare sleep, you just make sure she never has to wake back up."

"S-so, it's really just, like, a trade? I help her to stay in Luna's garden forever, and I get to, like, escort her?"

"Of course. What else would you be doing? That's all death is. It's just a sleep you never wake up from, an eternal bliss. She doesn't need to wake back up to help anypony, so she's earned the rest. Hasn't she? Who would miss her?"

Scootaloo blinked and looked down to her knife, then back to the pony in front of her, the mare that just heard the entire conversation Scootaloo'd had with herself, and who was staring with wide, fearful eyes.

The pegasus took a deep breath and steeled her nerves as best she could, walking over to the mare and lifting the knife once more. "Okay, Scoots, you can do this. It's not that tough. You just put it to her throat, press down, and pull it across, and she's dead in seconds." The orange mare was so busy with her talking that she didn't notice the light hoof steps coming from the stairs. She lifted the blade to her victim's neck, touching the edge to her flesh and it immediately broke the skin, causing a small trickle of blood. Scootaloo took another deep breath, ignoring the attempted thrashing by the mare and focusing intensely on the task set forth for her.

"Now press down." She pressed the knife in slowly, the blade easily cutting into the mare's neck and making the blood flow more steadily. "There, see? Not so bad. One more step, and it'll all be done."

She took one more deep breath. "Now bring it across her throat. She's in pain right now, so just end it. Just slide it across and end it." She closed her eyes, tightened her grip on the handle, and tore the blade through the mare's neck.

Just like that, it was done, and within seconds, the mare, as a living pony, was no more. She was now simply a corpse, a few last squirts of blood flowing from her throat as her heart gave its last beats.

Scootaloo let out a soft sigh of relief. She hurriedly set down the knife and looked herself over, her relief inexpressible at finding she'd avoided getting any blood on her. As she thought it over, though, she shook her head and rushed over to the stairs, racing up them without a word before closing the door to the cellar and walking to her room, entirely unaware of the pony downstairs cleaning up the mess left behind.

"Tisk tisk tisk. She didn't even clean up. I'll have to get her around that somehow. I can't clean up everypony she kills, after all. I guess it's okay for now though. She did well enough. I can't use much in the throat anyways, so I've not lost anything. I'll just have to make this quick." The mare finished cleaning the blood and unstrapped the body before carrying it silently up and out of the cellar. She took a moment to look in on Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, smiling to see them both fast asleep in each other's arms. "See, kid? You just needed a little push. Now things should fall right into place." The pony then made her way out and onto the street without a sound. After all, this pony had things to do.

Author's Note

So, I'm working with a new weaving method for my story, but I'm not sure I handled it as well as I should have. Any tips or critiques would be great.