And they’re going into the final turn. It’s Fleet Feather in the lead with Nimble Wing, Contrail, and Derby Day hot on her tail. Wait, what’s this? Flash Sentry is coming up on the outside. They’re thirty lengths out! Twenty! Will he make it in time!? YES! YES! It’s Flash Sentry by a nose! Flash Sentry wins the Black Horse Bye and automatically advances- *bzzzt*
An orange hoof heaved itself over the armrest of the dilapidated green sofa and smacked the radio off. One of its improvised bottle cap knobs popped off for the hundredth time. It rolled off the table to be lost amongst the empty hard cider bottles littering the floor of the grimy one room flat. Scootaloo let her hoof slouch over the radio, unable to summon the energy to flop it back to her chest.
Why do I even bother listening to that trash? she asked herself. There aren't any real flyers there. Not since… since…
The pegasus mare grit her teeth and rolled over to face the barfy yellow foam sofa padding. She brooded silently for a time, her hooves crossed tightly over her chest. Then she wrenched herself around.
Before she knew it, she was on two hooves, swinging a bottle at the wall. At the last second, the many dents registered, along with the big red letters on the paper taped in their midst: 40 bits each upon departure - Maintenance.
Scootaloo flinched, then closed her eyes and swung anyway. The bottle crashed to the folding table beside the couch, crushing an empty cup of dehydrated grass and scattering several more in all directions.
She stood breathing heavily, her front propped on the table. The corner of her eye was hot and wet. Then her cheek was damp. She ground her teeth.
When she could take it no more, her fully formed wings sprung open, the whoosh of air sending the debris racing for the walls. The flat became a drywall-lined storm of instant-grass cups and emotion. She tore the air, dragging it behind her, lifting herself a full six inches from her problems.
Then gravity yanked back.
Scootaloo squeezed her eyes shut and struggled upwards with her whole body. She snorted and strained against the invisible bonds chaining her to the refuse-covered floor. But when her eyes opened again, that low, molding ceiling was no closer than it had ever been.
A ragged breath caught in her throat. The next was the start of a sob. She reached for the sky behind the rotting gypsum. Then the ceiling slipped slowly away.
Thwump.
The floor made for a cold, hard landing. Scootaloo was left on her belly, staring through the ceiling. Each breath was a raspy squeak. Her eye twitched away the beads of moisture forming underneath. That was what they were. She was not crying. She was far too cool for that. Her throat was just a little tight from all the heavy breathing. That was all. No sound could come out.
Wanted to come out. No sound wanted to come out, or needed to, because no crying was taking place.
The whirlwind of garbage spiraled lazily to a stop all over her. She trembled in silence, twin rivers drenching her cheeks. She tried to dry them, but there was only so much matted fetlock to go around.
Slowly, it occurred to Scootaloo that her throat was too tight. Everything was too tight. Looseness. She needed to loosen up.
Her eye drifted from the ceiling to a cardboard crate by the far end of the sofa. She lay. She longed. She was a flightless slug on the floor. A pathetic, worthless slug. The thought of moving her hoof was there, but why would her hoof even listen to her?
But the tight remained. It grew and stewed until it became a cramp in her soul. She managed to squirm just far enough for the edge of an outstretched hoof to tease a chipped, still syrupy bottle from the crate. She unstuck the battered cap, but the flypaper beneath still clung over the hole. No matter: she forced a tooth through the bitter paper. A bad case of the heaves overtook her, but she had her prize.
Scootaloo lay on her side, cradling her tainted relief. The tight was still there.
A bottle came and went. Then another. Then another. The misting room rocked her back and forth.
She hiccupped. A fourth rolled off to join its siblings.
Finally, something clicked.
She drifted in a sea of loose, eyes half open.
A rap echoed about the bubble of her mind.
Rap. Rap.
The loose wobbled but did not pop.
Rap.
This time, her heart chilled and crumpled like a handkerchief of slush.
Scootaloo lay motionless, a knot in her stomach, as an evil watching eye swept over her on its storm cloud chariot of doom. She knew not why it had come or from where: only that it brought hardship and would not be ignored.
A garbled summons echoed across the room, beckoning her to that black court. She did not even have to understand the words to know what they threatened. Even now, the ‘mine’ was seeping out of every wall of her abode leaving the original ‘not yours’ as though it had always been there waiting for her to recognize the truth.
She could not get up.
She had to get up.
She could hide.
It would find her…
Her legs knew what Scootaloo was too weak to do. They squeezed beneath her and hoisted her up to face the doom of the day. However, the squall of the evil eye had everything pitching this way and that.
She faltered.
She teetered.
She lost her balance.
At the last moment, she reached out and steadied the couch. The room wobbled this way and that, but finally it calmed to gentle rocking. One hoof drifted to the floor, but the other stayed, unsure if the couch was truly settled.
Her ears recoiled from another rap.
The uncertain hoof slumped to the ground.
Only now did Scootaloo consider the far corner of the room where the single bare bulb could not light. Shadows clung to the space where the wall turned away from sight itself. Her hooves were rooted to the spot. Her legs were lead. However, the sinister rapping beyond hooked into the back of her mind, breaking her chains to allow her to do as she was compelled.
She took a step.
The room wobbled.
Another step.
Her neck strained away, trying to heave her from the path.
Another step.
Things were darker now.
Step.
It was cold in the shadows. Cold in her heart, cool on her skin, icy in her gut. A film of dark stretched before her. It pushed back against her mind, impossible to cross.
Guilt clawed at the back of her neck. The film wobbled.
Impossible.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Impossible.
But her gut continued to grind.
The floor let go of her hoof, which found the handle.
Bright.
Warm.
Pain.
Scootaloo winced as the shaft of heavenly light pierced her eyes. Something splintery and rough and wooden propped against her shoulder as her head hunkered in her forehooves. For a time, she leaned. And breathed. And throbbed.
Too long.
Something was missing.
She pried her eyelids apart to find cracked, weedy concrete in sharp detail. Before her were four black and white bales. One was wrinkled and yellowing. Two were curling at the edges. The last was fresh, but it was not alone.
Atop it was a slip, fuchsia as the mane on her head. Here and there it had been punched clean through, the little holes lost forever. It was whole, mostly, but where the wounds had not been allowed, the disapproving blood-red ink had been splattered anyway.
Too much blood.
Not enough wounds.
The rend ran straight through her name.
Scootaloo stared at the slip, mind blank. The cowed guilt that had tugged her to the door ground itself up and leaked away leaving emptiness in its wake.
She blinked.
The slip was still there.
They hadn’t understood. A broken wheel bearing? More like a pulled blood feather: a dragging pothole where there had once been smooth speed. She could not fly like that. If she could not fly, what was the point?
Her chest tightened. The blood red ink ground its way into her heart. No more flying. Not on walking pay. Once, there had been somepony to fix her up, but she had moved on.
Thoughts went where the body could not. Back to when she had another pair of wings. Not with her all the time, but very real and very hers. They had said so, even.
Her feathers rustled in a breeze that they could never know again.
The door closed.
The floor provided a bent bottle cap dial. A little leftover flypaper put it back in order.
The couch creaked.
*bzzt*- currently on deck for the Rainbow Dash Memorial Charity Stakes-
She would be with her wings.
She only had to wait.
