Things were simple at first. Scootaloo lived in Cloudsdale with her mother and father in her quaint home. She was still small, and still couldn’t fly. Her father had been teaching her, and she could flap her wings quite strong, but never could take off the ground. He would always encourage her and reassure her that she was doing great, and one day, she could be one of the best fliers of all the pegasi ponies! She loved her father so very much for always building her up and making her feel good.
That’s what he was good at anyways, his cutie mark after all was burst of fire. He told her he got that because he knew how to make that spark happen in others to bring out that better part they hide inside. When he was away working at the Flying Academy, Scootaloo would spend her time with her mother. Her mother was always busy, but always sweet to Scootaloo. No matter what she did, she always made sure her timid daughter was with her so she would never feel alone. Scootaloo did whatever she could to help her mother with chores, and her mother was always delighted to have the help. After chores, her mother would teach her many things. She would teach her how to read and write, how to behave proper with others, and about all the places she had been to in Equastria. Her mother once was an explorer before she met Scootaloo’s father.
Scootaloo always asked her mother how she got her cutie mark of the globe and the quill, and she always told Scootaloo with a big smile, “I just followed my heart.” Scootaloo loved her parents so much and wanted to one day be just like them, with a cutie mark to be proud of.
Scootaloo never left home much, being that she couldn’t fly off the cloud they lived on. But every now and then, her parents would take her places. Her father loved to take her to the Academy, so she could see all the great pegasi fliers practicing and training, and so he could show off his sweet little girl. Sometimes all three of them would go to the ground to Ponyville so they could shop. Every time they went however, Scootaloo’s mother told her to never leave her side and not to talk to strangers.
She didn’t know why though, everyone seemed so friendly. But sometimes, she would get distracted by little things, and realized she was separated from her mother. But every time it would happen, it wouldn’t be long before they were back together, and her mother would scold her for not staying at her side, but then hug her and kiss her and let her know she loved her. It was because of this semi-sheltered life though that Scootaloo never really had friends.
The only time she saw other ponies close to her age was when they were in Ponyville, and she wasn’t allowed to talk to them. Her mother promised her that she could start school in a year or two, but only after she learned how to fly. Scootaloo was anxious at the thought, and that just drove her to try to practice harder at flying. She knew that when she went to school, she would have a lot of great friends, and when she learned to fly, she would be one of the best, just like the pegasi at her father’s work!
One cold winter night, when Scootaloo was nestled with her mother next by the fireplace to keep warm, and her father reading the paper next to them, there was a knock at the door. Her father went to answer it, and then came back. “Who was it dear?” her mother asked.
“There’s a storm coming. It’s something fierce. The Weather Ponies are asking for all the help they can get to break it up before it reaches Cloudsdale.” He went to the hall closet to pull out his heavy coat as Scootaloo chased after him.
“I wanna help too daddy!” Scootaloo jumped up and down with excitement, flapping her wings.
He turned and smiled to her, and kissed her on the forehead. “You should stay with your mother tonight, ok?”
“But I wanna go!” she stomped her foot on the floor at him.
“This is no night for little fillies to be out running around! There’s going to be wind and lightning!” Just as he said that, they could hear the low rumble of thunder moving through the house. “I best be going, it’s going to hit us soon.”
“Please dear,” Scootaloo’s mother said to him, “please be careful.”
“I will,” he told her. “But I want you to be ready with Scootaloo. If the storm is still too strong when it gets to Cloudsdale, I want you two to leave for Ponyville.”
“You will be coming with us, won’t you?” she said, scampering up to her husband in a worry.
He smiled and kissed her softly. “I will come back to you, I promise.” He smiled to Scootaloo, then picked her up in his hoofs and hugged her tight. “And you stay brave, my sweet Scootaloo!”
She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I promise daddy!’
He put her down, kissed her mother once more, then took off out the door. Scootaloo ran and peered out the window to watch him fly away, but it was too dark. She could only see a few sparks of lightning in the distance.
“Come here Scootaloo,” her mother called to her. She turned and saw her mother standing with Scootaloo’s coat in her mouth.
She ran up to her and let her slide on to her back.
“Mommy, is daddy going to be ok?” she asked as her mother slid her wings through the back.
“Yes sweetheart,” her mother told her as she pulled her own coat out of closet. “Your father is one of the strongest fliers I’ve ever known.” She closed the closet and walked to the fire. She laid down and lifted her wing up, “Come and lie down with me Scootaloo. We’ll wait until your father comes back.”
Scootaloo ran and slid, just stopping under her mother’s wing. Her mother smiled and wrapped her wing around her and pulled her. They both closed their eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Scootaloo stirred herself awake to the loud rumble of thunder from the storm. She could feel the warmth of the fire on her back. She looked up and saw her mother staring out the window. “Mommy?” she said weakly as she pushed herself up.
“Oh Scootaloo!” she walked over to her and nuzzled her neck with her nose as she tried to stand. “You don’t have to wake up. You can go back to sleep.”
“The thunder scared me.” She rubbed her eyes with her hoof and looked around. The house looked darker, and she hear the shutters outside clattering against the walls and windows from the wind. A bolt of lighting struck just outside their window and lit up the whole house in a blue glow. The thunder crackled louder than anything Scootaloo ever heard before. She screeched out and bumped into her mother and fell to the floor. Her mother helped her back up but she found it hard to stand with her knees shaking in fear.
“I hope your father returns soon,” her mother said softly as she looked out the window. “The storm is already here.”
Just as she said that, the door violently flew open, being blown by the strong gusts of wind outside. Her father staggered in, trying to push the door close behind, but couldn’t. He finally let the door fly fully open and ran up to his wife and daughter.
“Come on! We have to get to the Ponyville!” He lifted Scootaloo up on to his back. “Hold on tight!” he yelled to her through the roar of the wind coming through the door. She was scared and in shock by everything, she wrapped her hoofs around his shoulders and squeezed as hard as she could, pulling her wings in tight. Her father pushed her mother through the wind to the door. Scootaloo watched as she stepped out onto the cloud into the darkness. They only time she could see past the cloud was anytime there was a bolt of lightning flying through the clouds. The wind was racing so fast that Scootaloo could feel it even in the house try to pull her off her father’s back.
“Go!” her father yelled out, “We’ll see you on the ground!” Scootaloo watched as her mother nodded and turned to face the darkness. She spread her wings open wide, and flapped hard, to lift herself up. The wind almost carried her away, but she kept flapping to fight it. She looked to ground and prepared herself for the decent, but before she could, a large piece of debris, something the size of a piece of a house, carried by the wind, came from nowhere and struck her! “No!” her father called out as he ran to the edge of the cloud, only to see her begin to tumble unconscious into the darkness! “Mommy!”
Scootaloo cried out to her, wanting to let go of her father and dive after her. “Hold on!” her father yelled to her again, “We’re going down after her!” He spread his wings and flapped to lift himself up. He hadn’t thought about the difficulty it would be to fly in the strong winds and the extra weight of Scootaloo on his back, but he couldn’t let it stop him now! He flapped his wings hard to try to keep himself stable before he was ready to dive down, but the winds were too strong! A gust hit him so hard he thought his wings were going to be ripped off! It sent him into a spin, but he quickly recovered and turned to face into the wind.
Scootaloo began to tremble, but she didn’t want to close her eyes. Her father looked down into the pitch black cloud below them, and was ready to dive, but Scootaloo looked into the storm infront of them and screamed, “Daddy!” He looked up, but there was nothing he could do. A huge branch, something the size of a pony, smacked him in the face and sent him tumbling and rolling towards the ground. Scootaloo began screaming as she realized she couldn’t hold on!
She lost her grip and frantically flailed her hoofs in the air, hoping she could find her father again. But with the wind spinning and rolling her around, she couldn’t even tell if she was falling or not. She kept screaming and wildly waving her arms around, then she finally remember something her father told her. “If you ever find yourself unable to regain control of yourself in flight,” she remembered him saying, “Stretch your wings straight out, and let your body relax, and then you’ll level out!” She did just that.
She spread out her wings and put all of her strength into holding them out, and she was amazed to find her self holding still in the wind! She tried to push herself into it, but then a gust hit her, folding her wings back, sending her into another tumble! She closed her eyes, and started screaming again until she felt herself crash into something. She slowly opened her eyes, afraid to see what was happening, and found herself no longer falling! She was in the arms of a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane! “Hold on kid!” she yelled to Scootaloo. The grasped each other tight as the pegasus began flying through the clouds, darting back and forth to avoid pieces of buildings and trees as she began to fly her way down towards the ground.
Finally they made it to the ground, but the storm wasn’t much better down there. The winds where still strong and now they were in the middle of snow flurries which made it even harder to see. The pegasus put Scootaloo on the ground. “Are you ok?” the pegasus asked loudly over the roar of the storm. Scootaloo nodded her head. “Good! Now get to some place safe!”
Scootaloo watched as the pegasus turned and bravely took back off into the storm without a second thought! She lost her in the darkness and snow, but every time lightning struck, she could see a rainbow blur of a beam flying through the clouds, and she knew that must be her hero! She watched in complete awe until lightning struck the ground nearby, and the thunder sent
Scootaloo into the air in shock.
She took off running, not able to see where she was or where she was going. The wind kept blowing snow into her eyes and pushing her back. She started to realize how frightening the situation was again, and began to grow more frantic. Scootaloo finally came across a house, but too scared to think of what to do, she ran around to the side that the wind wasn’t blowing against.
She found a chimney with a wood pile stacked in front of it, half buried in snow. She put her hoof against the chimney and could feel the warmth of a fire coming through the bricks. She climbed on top of the wood pile and nestled herself against the chimney to stay warm. She was still cold, but at least the warmth on her back made it a little more bearable, and eventually, either from the heat of the chimney or from sheer exhaustion, she fell asleep.
Scootaloo began to wake up, shivering, and feeling something pushing her gently. She opened her eyes slowly. It was morning, and the sky was almost completely clear and blue. She lifted her head to see an orange filly in a silly hat gently pushing her shoulder with her hoof.
“You still a live youngun?” the filly asked as she pushed her again. Scootaloo weakly pushed her hoof off her shoulder and sat up slowly, still trembling from sleeping in the cold snow.
“Well blessed be your heart! What in tarnation were you doin’ out here in ‘da snow sleepin’?” she asked Scootaloo with a smile, but she just sat there, staring at the ground, too afraid, too sad to talk.
“Well can’t ya speak? Where’s your parents?”
At the mention of the word, Scootaloo sprung to life and began looking around as she ran back and forth. There were ponies everywhere! Earth-ponies, unicorns, and pegasi alike! They were all working together to try to clean up after the storm.
Scootaloo began to recognize some of the buildings and realized she had made it to Ponyville! “Mo-... Mo-mo-...” she tried to call out, but she was shivering so bad she could barely speak. Her knees were still weak too, and she eventually collapsed in the snow while trying to run.
“Easy now!” The filly finally caught up to her. “You gotta take it easy! I don’t know what you were doin’ out here, but that storm last night was one of the most frightful storms I had ever seen in my life! And all just a couple of days before the Winter Wrap-up! Did you sleep through the whole thing?”
Scootaloo was scared. She just wanted to find her mother and father, but she couldn’t even stand for very long. She just sat back up and stared at the ground.
“Applejack!” another filly, a pink one with wild curly hair came running up to them. “There you are! We need your help!”
“Oh hey Pinky Pie! I got a bit of a situation here.”
“Oh?” Pinky came trotting up to Applejack, and then saw the scared little pegasus sitting and staring at the ground behind her.
“Who’s this little pony?”
“I dunno, she can’t hardly speak, and something makes me think she don’t care to neither.”
“Well that’s a shame if she can’t speak. Because if she can’t speak, she can’t laugh! And I bet if she could laugh, she feel much better!” Pinky said with a big smile as she leaned down to the little pegasus, hoping to get a reaction, but Scootaloo just sighed, head still dropped down. “Hmm, you know, Fluttershy might be able to help with this little one!”
“Hey!” Applejack exclaimed, “I bet you’re right! If she can make any little critter feel at ease, I bet she could make this little filly talk! Now where is she?”
“I dunno, I think she was over by the market...”
The two of them began to talk about where this Fluttershy could be, turning their backs to Scootaloo. She didn’t know why, but Scootaloo felt that she needed to get away from these ponies. She new it was bad to talk to strangers, and all she wanted to do was find her mother and father. As the two of them were looking elsewhere, Scootaloo snuck off into the crowd of busy ponies.
Scootaloo walked around, almost aimlessly, with only the thought of finding her parents. The place was bustling with ponies trying to clean up the snow and debris left behind storm. There were pegasi helping lift up heavy pieces of debris and carrying them away, unicorns picking up litter and trash, and earth-ponies plowing and shoveling the snow. Every one seemed so focus on what they were doing, they didn’t even notice the little orange pegasus with a pink mane walking around in between them all. In fact, she was so unnoticed, she had to keep jumping out of the way of working ponies or she would have been trampled.
Anytime a pony would stop work to try to talk to her, Scootaloo would shy away and run the other direction. She was still scared of everything. The longer she looked for her parents, the more anxious she became, and the more ponies tried to talk to her, the more nervous and scared she grew. She became sadder and sadder, the more she realized she was alone in this town full of ponies.
Scootaloo started to just walk around, looking for her parents less and more at the ground, until she ran into the back of a pony’s leg and fell over. “Hey!” the pony cried out, “watch where you’re going!” The pony turned around and saw Scootaloo pushing herself up off the ground. “Hey, I remember you,” the pony said, “you’re that kid I saved in the storm.” Scootaloo looked up at her, and her eyes brightened up for the first time that day! It was the rainbow-mane pony! “Are you ok, kid?”
Scootaloo couldn’t speak, she stood up on her hooves and started to stammer trying to say something. “You’re-... You’re!...” she was too in awe to even begin to speak!
“Me?” the pony said, “I’m Rainbow Dash! What’s your name?”
“Scoot-... Scootaloo!” she exclaimed with a smile.
“Well Scootaloo, are you ok? Did you get hurt last night?”
Scootaloo just slowly shook her head no, still in shock of being in the presence of this magnificent pegasus that saved her!
“That’s good! But what are you doing just wondering around?”
“My...” she said as her head started to drop. “My parents...”
“You’re looking for your parents?”
Scootaloo nodded her head as it dropped lower.
“Ah, pucker up kid!” Rainbow Dash said as she gave Scootaloo a playful nudge. “I’m sure you’ll find them! You just gotta stay strong, got that?”
Scootaloo looked back up to her and began to smile seeing how confident and encouraging Rainbow Dash was.
“There we go! Now just keep that head up and stay strong, and everything will come together! I gotta run kid, I’ll see you around!” Dash turned away and took off into the sky.
Suddenly Scootaloo snapped back to complete consciousness. “No! Wait!” she cried to Dash as she took off running after her.
“My... parents...” She slowed to a stop when she realized she would never be able to keep up after her. As she watched Rainbow Dash fly off in the distance, she felt the sadness come back. She looked around and saw that the ponies were starting to dissipate and go home. The sun was starting to set. Scootaloo still didn’t find her parents, nor a place to sleep. She walked back to the chimney she had slept the night before. She climbed up the wood pile and put her hoof on the bricks. It wasn’t as warm this time. Whoever was inside probably wasn’t burning a fire tonight. Since it was getting dark, she decided to sleep there anyways instead of trying to find a better spot. She sat with her back against the bricks and sank down with a heavy sigh.
She took a deep breath to try to calm herself, and then one more. She took another breath, but this time a tear fell from her eye, and with another breath, another tear. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She covered face with her hooves and began to sob. Her tears ran down her arms chest as she began to cry more and more. She did her best not to make a sound, but she couldn’t stop her sniffling and light moans. She couldn’t take it anymore, they were gone...
A couple of days had passed, and Scootaloo still couldn’t find her parents. The Winter Wrap-Up came and went, and she was still alone. A week had passed and still nothing. Soon, a month was gone. Scootaloo would just roam Ponyville every day, but would still avoid talking to all the strangers. When she was hungry, she would try to steal some carrots from any garden she could find them in, or apples that had rolled away from apple carts in the market. At night, she would find places to hide and sleep.
Sometimes she would be caught trying to sleep in an alley or behind someone’s house, and instead of facing them, she would always run away. Some nights she would sleep in old sheds or behind dumpsters. She even on occasion would sleep in a chicken coop, even though she didn’t like the way it made her smell. She discovered the library was always empty at night, so she would sneak in and sleep there at times, but that had to stop when a purple unicorn and a baby dragon moved into it.
She would never really knew what to do with herself some days, and she would feel the sadness come back. But every now and then, she would look up to the sky, and see a blur of blue and rainbow shoot across it, and she knew it was her! Rainbow Dash! Scootaloo would always chase after her to see if she could get a chance to see her hero again, but she was always too fast for her. But every time she saw Rainbow Dash, it would fill her with a little bit of hope. And when times were their toughest, she would just think of what Rainbow Dash told her: “You just gotta stay strong!” That would get her through the day, and maybe the next! She just had to be strong, and she’ll make it!
One day, as she walked around Ponyville, Scootaloo heard a commotion coming from behind a tree near the school. She kept her distance, but tried to see what was going on. There were some kids, a filly, a unicorn filly, and a couple of colts. The two colts and one filly had the unicorn filly surrounded with back against a tree. “What’s the matter, blank-flank!?” one of the colts said to the filly against the tree. “You scared?”
“Yeah, blank-flank!” the filly chimed in. “What’s your cutie-mark gonna be? A shovel and a pile of manure?”
The three of them started laughing, and the second colt hit the unicorn hard enough in the shoulder that she fell over. “Get it!?” he asked her as he stood over her, “‘Cause you ain’t worth nothing but to clean up piles of manure!” They started laughing again as the colt then put his hoof on the unicorn and held her down.
“Get off of me!” the unicorn cried out as she struggled and the three just kept laughing
Scootaloo could see that the unicorn obviously was too small to defend herself from the others. She was trying to push the colt off of her, but could barely even move. Scootaloo started to get angry at the sight, but kept away. She still wasn’t sure if she should get in the middle of it.
“Wait, you won’t have a shovel on your cutie-mark!” the first pony yelled. “It’s just going to be a pile of manure because that’s all you are!” He then kicked her in the back, and the unicorn let out a yelp and began to cry.
Scootaloo had enough of this! She flapped her wings as hard as she could and went flying across the ground, and she rammed the colt standing on the unicorn straight in the side, sending him rolling on the ground! “Leave her alone!” she yelled at the three bullies.
“And who do you think you are?” the earth-filly said snidely.
“I said leave her alone!” Scootaloo yelled sternly at them.
“Oh hey!” the colt still standing exclaimed. “I know this pegasus! She’s that pegasus that always sleeps in the garbage around town!” The filly bursted out laughing when she heard this.
“Oh yeah! I heard about her!” said the other colt as he stood himself up. “She’s not a pegasus! She’s a pega-trash!” The three of them let out a tremendous roar of laughter.
Scootaloo was steaming mad, and flapped her wings again and rammed the same colt again, sending him back down to the ground.
“Ow! That hurts!” he yelled at her as he try to push himself back up.
“What’s the matter Thunderclop?” the other colt asked him. “Is the pega-trash beating you up!?” He tried to laugh at his own joke, but was caught off guard when Scootaloo jumped over and head butted him in the nose! “Ow!” he cried out as he fell on rear, covering his nose quickly with his hooves. “I think she broke it! I think she broke it!”
“You’re going to get hurt even more if you don’t leave her alone!” Scootaloo yelled at them, stopping her hooves and spreading out her wings.
“Fine, fine!” the filly said as she turned away. “We’re out of here!” the other two followed with their heads hung low and sniffling.
“That was incredible!” the unicorn cried out as she leapt off the ground and wrapped her arms around Scootaloo’s neck to hug her tight. “Thank you so much! You saved me!”
“What? No!” Scootaloo wasn’t sure how to act to this as she tried to push the unicorn off of her neck. “I just didn’t like seeing you get hurt is all!”
“I know!” the unicorn exclaimed as she let go. “And you saved me!”
“Well... I guess I did...” Scootaloo looked at the ground, trying not to get embarrassed.
“Well thank you so very much! My name is Sweetie Belle, what’s yours?”
“I’m-uh...” Scootaloo had to think, this was really the first time she had a conversation with anyone in Ponyville (except for the one with Rainbow Dash, which was pretty short, but in her mind, it still counted!). “I’m Scootaloo.” She lifted her head up and smiled to Sweetie Belle.
“It’s nice to finally meet you Scootaloo! My sister Rarity and I see you in town sometimes, you always look so sad! I always wanted to say hi, but you always avoided people, regardless of who they were or what they wanted.”
“Oh?” Scootaloo was surprised to see that she had been noticed in Ponyville so much.
“Yeah! Actually, almost everyone in Ponyville was worried about you! Ponies kept trying to help you, but you would run away.
And at night, some ponies would even try to find you to offer you a place to sleep, but they never could find you.”
“You mean...” Scootaloo took a deep breath as she looked Sweetie Belle in the eyes. “You mean everypony here is actually nice?”
“Well most of them anyways! Those three are just bullies. They’re mean to me because I still don’t have my cutie-mark.” She turned to show her flank.
“Well, I don’t have one either,” Scootaloo showed hers, “but I don’t think that’s a very good reason to be mean to anyone.”
“Well those are just bullies, they just want to be mean! But thank you for saving me!”
Scootaloo smiled and then sighed. She turned and dropped her head as she began to step away. “Well I guess I’ll be going now.”
“Wait!” Sweetie Belle jumped in front of her to stop her. “Where are you going!?”
“I don’t know...”
“Well why don’t you come with me? I bet my parents will have enough dinner for me to share!”
Scootaloo’s jaw slowly started to drop at the thought that she could have a warm, home-cooked meal again! “Are you sure that’s ok? I don’t want you to get in any kind of trouble!”
“Of course it’s ok! My parents are some of the nicest ponies in Ponyville! They would be mad at me if they found out I came across you and didn’t offer you dinner!”
“Well if you think it’s ok...”
“I already said it was!” Sweetie Belle grabbed Scootaloo’s hoof and started pulling her. “Now lets go! I bet you’re starving!”
Scootaloo followed Sweetie Belle back to her home. Sweetie Belle talked the whole way, telling her about how great Ponyville was. Scootaloo didn’t speak much, but smiled the whole time. She felt good, she felt happy! She made her first friend ever! All she had to do was be strong, just like Rainbow Dash said! And as they walked together, Scootaloo looked up to the sky and saw that rainbow-blur shoot by again. “One day,” she thought to herself, “I want to be just like you, Rainbow Dash!”