Be Right Back
“No tag backs! No tag backs!”
An orange and purple blur turned ninety degrees on a dime and zoomed off across the marble floor in pursuit of a lanky blue pegasus. The buzzing of a hundred pairs of little wings filled that big sunny room, each setting its own rhythm.
The colt ducked behind a pedestal, but by then his pursuer was much too close. Her front legs got caught on his tail, and her forwards momentum sent both of them flying.
A pale yellow aura surrounded the children and halted their tumbling. The filly smiled sheepishly at the upside-down face of her father.
“Having fun, Scootaloo?”
She nodded vigorously. Her body from the shoulder down was completely immobilized; blood was slowly draining into her head, making her dizzy.
The two children were gently set down on the floor. Scootaloo could now see the levitation spell’s caster. She was a very tall unicorn, and her body was covered as always with a dark blue floor-length cloak. Her chocolate ears and muzzle stood out against the pale cream of her face and neck; she looked like she was wearing a mask.
“Hi Gari,” Scootaloo giggled. She and the colt both stood panting and sweating from their game. Without warning she reached out with a small hoof and smacked him hard on the shoulder. “You’re it, Foggy!”
“Scootaloo, can you please stay a moment?” Gari caught the filly with her magic just as she started running away from the confused colt. “Swift Fog, I think that was fair; you’re it.”
He stuck out his tongue in one last act of defiance before sprinting back to the other children in the big sunny room in search of victims.
“What’s going on?” Scootaloo asked in a small voice. “Are we leaving already, daddy?”
It was then that she noticed how different her father looked. He had mentioned that he was getting some grooming done, but clearly he meant more than just a hot bath. His long, greasy mane was shaved right to the scalp, and his beard was gone too. His coat was brushed and free of knots, and his newly trimmed tail was tied with a bright blue ribbon. He looked more like a first year from the Canterlot Academy than the temporary janitor of Cloudsdale’s storm factory.
Scootaloo sat down on the floor and cocked her head. Once the shock of the transformation passed, she rolled over on her back and laughed.
“Real funny.” The stallion rolled his eyes, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll have you know I like this look very much.”
“Your head looks like a bowling ball,” she gasped, wiping a tear from her eye with an unwashed hoof.
“Are you feeling okay sweetie? Do you want lunch, or a bath, or…”
“Gari, can you give us a moment?” The grimness in his voice made Scootaloo uneasy. She closed her mouth and wiped her nose with the matted and discoloured fur of her fetlock.
The unicorn nodded towards the big arched doorway before heading into the playroom, her cloak coupled with her smooth steps making it look as if she was rolling on wheels. Scootaloo stared at her father with a blank expression. He wasn’t smiling either.
The two remaining ponies- one of them still carrying two and a half weeks’ worth of mud and grease- walked in silence until they were completely under the shade of the windowless corridor. In front of a modest tapestry depicting some unknown skyline, they turned to face each other again and just stared without saying a word. Scootaloo had never seen her father so sad before.
What's wrong?
“Do you like the other kids?” He finally asked. “Are they nice to you?”
“Yeah,” she replied eagerly, her buzzing wings vouching for her sincerity. “I’m playing tag with Midnight Sun and Swift Fog and Snowflake and Windy Shores. And Marigold says she can braid my mane if it grows out more. And…”
“That’s wonderful,” her father interrupted. He had a smile on his face, but not a happy one. “Listen, Scootaloo. I’m going away for a little while. Just for work, you understand…”
“Can I stay in Canterlot?” She suggested. “I promise I won’t get caught! I bet there’s even work for me here! Wouldn’t that be great?”
“Scootaloo,” he said, putting a faintly soap-scented hoof on the filly’s nose to silence her. “I’ll be gone for quite a while this time; months, maybe. I’m not leaving you on the streets for that long. You’re going to stay here at the orphanage until I get back, okay?”
Her heart raced as her father spoke.
I’m staying in Canterlot. And I’m living with all my friend! For MONTHS!
Scootaloo hugged her father, smearing dust and sweat all over his foreleg. After a moment’s hesitation he lifted her to his chest and returned the gesture with all the strength of a pony whose last meal had been a piece of stale toast from a garbage can.
“But what if I have to eat?” Scootaloo asked as she reclined in a loose embrace. “What if Gari wants me to pay? I don’t have any bits. What if it gets cold at night? Our blanket is still in Cloudsdale, and you need it too. What if… what if I get kicked out? Where should I wait for you?”
The stallion chuckled humourlessly, and picked a few twigs out of his daughter’s unkempt mane before he spoke again. “Do you think Gari will let you go hungry?”
“No, but…”
“I spoke with her already,” he continued. “She’ll take care of you. You’ll get three meals a day and a bed to sleep in, and she’ll never ask you to pay. She’ll make sure you start school this fall; the elementary school down the street is one of the best in Canterlot. You’ll make lots of new friends. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Scootaloo stared at her father quizzically. His expression was so strange, it scared her. The corners of his mouth were tight enough to crack walnuts. So far all he told her was good news, yet he wasn’t happy; not one bit. Why wasn’t he happy?
“Where are you going, daddy?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have to travel a lot for this job, but I’m not hoboing. I’d bring you with me if I were.”
She continued to peer into his dull purple eyes. A bead of sweat formed on the bridge of his nose. He forced a smile, revealing the gap in his teeth.
“Scootaloo,” he sighed, placing her back on the ground but keeping his hooves on her bony shoulders. “I have a job that I need to do. I’ll need to be away for a long time, but it pays well. When I get back, we’ll have enough bits to move somewhere nice. No more sleeping under tarps, and you can have as many apples as you want without stealing. Wouldn’t that be great?”
Her mouth watered at the mention of apples, and all her apprehension left in an instant. She smacked her lips and nodded. Her father rustled her mane, sending up a cloud of grit and hay.
“Now, there are a few rules you’ll have to follow if you stay here.”
Scootaloo’s head bobbed eagerly.
“No stealing,” he said. “If you’re hungry, or if you need anything, just ask. Don’t steal from the other kids, either. If you get caught, Gari is going to tell me and I will come back here in ten seconds flat to beat the living daylight out of you.”
“I’ll just steal at night.”
“No you won’t,” he snapped, the sharpness in his voice making her jump. “Rule two: Gari needs to know where you are all the time. Everything I can do, she can do. If she tells you not to go somewhere or do something, you better listen. If you don’t, Gari doesn’t have to tell me. I trust her to beat the living daylight out of you.”
Scootaloo giggled as she tried to imagine Gari hitting one of the children in the playroom.
“Rule three: Gari can make more rules.”
“Hey, that’s not fair!”
“Too bad,” he said flatly. His tone softened as he continued. “That about covers the rules. I’ll be leaving soon. Be good for Gari, okay?”
“Okay daddy.”
Without warning she was lifted off the floor once again. His grip was tighter this time; she buried her face in the warm fur of his shoulder and heard the powerful beating of his heart.
“I love you, Scootaloo.”
“I love you too, daddy.”
He placed the filly on his back and carried her into the playroom. Gari glided over to meet them.
“Do you want another bath before you leave?” She said, playfully prodding the new dirt streaks on the stallion’s chin with one of her brown hooves.
“This is why I didn’t put on the uniform beforehand,” he mumbled.
Gari lifted the filly off his back with her magic. Her skin tingled as the aura surrounded her, and the warmth of her father’s back disappeared from her sunken belly.
“And how about you?” Gari asked, offering Scootaloo her brightest smile. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m not hungry. Can I play with Swift Fog?”
The unicorn looked to the filly’s father. He shrugged.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be here. If you don’t feel well or if you need anything just let me know. Now, do you like macaroni?”
“What’s macaroni?”
Gari looked utterly horrified, and Scootaloo couldn’t help but giggle. The triangular patch of pale fur on either side of the mare's nose looked like a well-trimmed moustache.
“You have to try it,” she said. “You can have as much as you want tonight.”
Scootaloo looked at her father once again. He was staring down at his hooves, occasionally scratching his foreleg.
“Bye, daddy.”
“Goodbye,” he replied, looking up immediately. “Don’t worry, it won’t feel like such a long time. Be good.”
He retreated without turning until Gari walked up beside him. For a few steps he walked sideways, until he was forced to turn completely away to fit through the door. Scootaloo stared after him, still wondering why he was acting so strange.
And then somepony struck her back.
“You’reitnotagbacks!”
“Hey!”
That night Gari had to carry her up to her room. Her coat was clean and fluffy, her mane free of knots, her stomach fit to burst. She’d already broken the first rule, and was still holding her loot stubbornly between her teeth.
“That was really mean,” Gari chided as she climbed the last step to the third floor. “You can have as many cookies as you want. Why did you take Moonstone’s?”
“She just left it there,” Scootaloo mumbled through the side of her mouth. “I wanted it more than she did. You gave her another one. What’s the problem?”
“Scootaloo, you can’t keep taking things that aren’t yours.” Gari stopped and looked back at the filly, who was now munching on her ill-begotten dessert. “I know you had to when you were living with your dad, but that was before. From now on, you’ll have everything you need. When your dad comes back, you’ll both have enough to eat. After all his hard work, don’t you think he’ll be disappointed when I tell him that his daughter is a thief?”
The filly nibbled on the remaining half of the cookie with tears in her eyes. The sweet, nutty treat seemed to turn bitter in her mouth. She hung her head down Gari’s side and did her best not to look the mare in the eyes.
“I’ll let you off with a warning this time,” she said in a soothing tone. “You’re going to have quite a tummyache after all that food. I guess I lost track of how many times you came around.”
Scootaloo barely acknowledged her statement with a noncommittal grunt.
“Oh, don’t be so glum. I said it’s okay this time. You just rest and let this cold run its course. And here we are!”
Gari stood in front of a bright blue door. There was a little plaque on it, presumably with a number, but Scootaloo didn’t care enough to check.
“Rain, it’s Gari,” the mare called after knocking twice.
“Come in.”
Gari passed the threshold carefully, making sure Scootaloo didn’t bump her head on the doorframe. The room was a lot bigger than any box she had ever slept in. Its baby blue walls were covered with silhouettes of ponies in every colour of the rainbow. There were unicorns, earth ponies, pegasi, and even a few alicorns. Two bunks big enough for full-grown ponies hung from one wall, with clean purple sheets wrapped around a generously thick mattress.
A tiny white colt took up one corner of the bottom bunk. He was even younger than Scootaloo, and at first glance the filly thought that her roommate was a bird. His wings were lazily extended at his side, covering the entire pillow. He had as many flight feathers as a grown pegasus, though a good number of them were bent or stripped. For every one feather he preened, two were pushed further out of order.
“Morning Rain, this is Scootaloo.” Gari deposited the filly on the bed and climbed onto the mattress beside her. “Scootaloo, this is Morning Rain. He’s also from Cloudsdale.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Why are his wings so big?”
The unicorn turned her head from one child to the other. Finally she threw her head back and laughed.
“You two will get along just fine,” she declared. “Rain, Scootaloo is sick right now, so just let her rest. Scootaloo, Morning Rain has big wings. Don’t step on them.”
The filly was only half listening. The mattress was the softest thing she’d ever been on, and she had started to drift off as soon as she was set down on it. Gari looked over Scootaloo’s downy feathers and wrapped her in the sheets of the bottom bunk before turning her attention to the colt with the messy wings. Warm and fed and very tired, there was no way for her to resist. Scootaloo caught snatches of conversation between her disproportioned roommate and the cloaked unicorn as sleep overtook her.
“Does she know?”
“I don’t think he told her; I guess she’ll find out when he…”
“He’ll come back, right?”
“Of course he will. There hasn’t been a war since…”
“Gari?”
“Yes?”
“When is my daddy coming back?”
“I don’t know. I guess he’ll be back when the job gets done.”
“Ow!”
“Oops. Be right back, sweetie. I’ll get the scissors…”
A hundred kilometres away, an open-topped train rumbled along its ancient track. A lanky orange stallion in a starched blue jumpsuit stood atop a stack of metal cart bodies, squinting through the stiff wind towards the distant lights of Canterlot. All he could see was the very tip of the palace on the mountain, and as the ground dipped lower even that disappeared.
He slept under a hot, itchy tarp that night, listening to the snoring of his companions and the shrill screech of iron on iron. Watery soup and hardtack sloshed around in his stomach, and he was having second thoughts about that pull of whiskey.
It was going to be a long six months.