Make a Wish

by CoolStoryBrony

Chapter I – Unwanted Clarity

Scootaloo was living the dream.

With twin trails of vapor spinning helixes through the sky behind her wings, the cheering pegasus filly burst from the cascading mountain of clouds. Angling the tip of her left wing downwards, she arced around, her gradual descent betraying the speed with which she bulleted full circle into the marshmallow surface of the towering cumulus. A giddy smile tugged at the edges of her cheeks, pulling a glittering grin onto her orange face, and a feeling of unbridled ecstasy welled up within her, as if it would hurt not to smile. A thin layer of sweat left her coat with a glimmering sheen as she twirled and flipped, wingtips grazing the alabaster surface. The barest traces of a foalish giggle escaped her beaming lips.

Another daring pass beneath the front, and the furiously flapping pegasus forced herself skyward. Her flowing pink tail fluttered behind her as she rose up, up, up towards the ceiling of the world. A tickling sensation of anxiety took root in her gut, and as she slowed towards the peak of her ascent, she dispelled it with a deep breath of cautious optimism, eyes shut to the cloudscape before her.

In a single blink, the limitless expanse of the Equestrian sky lived and breathed before her. Each curl and wisp of the cirrus clouds, each deep rumble of the thunderheads, each reflection of the white sun off the immaculate surfaces that filled the sky.

She had never seen anything like this before. She had never cared to look to the world above for answers, when the world below had grown so bleak and cold with neglect and malice that tears bled her eyes shut with each passing moon. In her near catatonic state of reverence, Scootaloo couldn’t tell why, but none of that mattered. There were dreams to be had, and wishes to be fulfilled.

It started with a smirk. Scootaloo, holding herself stationary in the azure sky with a pair of steady, tangerine wings, allowed an ambitious smile to snake its way across her features, wiping away shades of doubt. A fire lit behind sparkling violet eyes, violet keystones to a dream—a wish—as they narrowed from stoic reverence to daring resolve. A frigid current of wind brushed her short pink mane out of her vision, as if nature too desired her unspoken dream to come true.

Her irises glimmered as a flash, an explosion of magic and beauty, danced across the sky of her mind’s eye. She saw the crackling waves of magic pulsing forth from behind a spectral comet as light and energy refracted across the Equestrian skyline, energizing everything and everypony graced with a view of the phenomenon.

A blink, and the sky was blue again. The cold wind whistled in her fluttering ears, which twitched involuntarily with the breeze. The smirk was gone, the ambitious glare having been transformed to a steely gaze of determination.

And she fell.

The biting chill of the high-altitude winds doubled, tripled, quadrupled, as Scootaloo rocketed down through the atmosphere. All the shades and hues of the sapphire sky fused into a single beautiful blur of blue as she shot down the gargantuan face of the cloud, the trail of pressure in her wake serving to split the grand nebulous giant in two. The tear in the storm front followed her reckless plummet, until she cleared the dew point and saw only green.

A brilliant speck, a glimmer of energy sparking and ripping through her pointed hooves, formed the point of the conic barrier that enshrouded Scootaloo as a stinging wind whipped past her face, drawing beads of moisture to her squinting eyes. A stabbing burn crawled its way upward from the tip of her hoof, the heat snaking its way up her limb and poisoning her body. She grew deaf to anything but the sound of her heaving lungs. Her wings strained as her body streamlined. The light at the tip of the cone became blinding, so that all she could see was a brilliant blazing white light that consumed her vision on all sides.

There was a thunderous explosion. Scootaloo nearly gasped, believing herself to have done the unthinkable, but stopped short of both the ever-present electric streaks of light forking out from the cone and the immense force keeping her jaw shut. Her mind raced as another powerful crack exploded behind her. The fiery sensation that spread wickedly from her trembling hooves to her heaving chest to her shuddering wings was becoming too much to bear, so she indeed did the unthinkable.

With a half-groan, half scream, Scootaloo flared her straining wings out in an attempt to slow her plunge. An indescribably painful force nearly ripped her wings from her back. She bit back a cry, and—cursing her weak spirit—pulled out of the mad dive.

The agonizing invisible force on her wings was proving to be too much to handle. Her left wing twisted, the tendons stretching and contorting, as the misaligned angle sent her into a terrifying spin. Scootaloo twirled violently through the air, her vision spinning from green to black to blue to green once more as she got a second’s glance skyward, and saw something that made her blood turn to ice.

The thunderhead from which she had leapt was split clean down the middle, each rumbling half crackling with an overload of electrical energy following the trail of her dizzying plunge. White bolts of lightning arced menacingly between the two black behemoths, surging violently towards her.

Scootaloo’s wings felt weighted—almost lifeless—as she struggled to level out and end her ludicrous spin. A numb fear spread through her heart like venom as a stray bolt flew, merciless in its blinding conviction, and exploded a patch of green earth close enough to spray dirt in her face.

Her mind spun as she shook the dirt off, struggling to find balance, when another explosion of electricity burst just inches from her gasping face. A sudden scream, and she whipped her shuddering body around, only to have yet another chunk of earth come into view, blasting apart in an explosion of light and fire.

Fear took hold of her actions. Scootaloo struggled—exhausted—to wobble through the air on utterly useless wings, wings that had given their all to the dream of a witless fool, only to fail when she needed them most. She cursed her ambition as another blinding bolt exploded behind her, the thunderheads rumbling and growling in contempt for the trembling pegasus below. Bolts of blinding fire were cast to her left, her right, before finally erupting just beneath her, nearly grazing her tail as it shot past her. The force of the shockwave sent her tumbling through the air. Disorientated, she plummeted face-first towards the cold, brown dirt below, flipping head over tail in a violent spin.

For less than half a second, her vision was skyward. A brilliant flash of deadly light rocketed toward her, screaming forth with an ear-splitting crash and a murderous desire to destroy, and her plummeting mind and body could only think to scream too as the bolt connected…

…With a gasp, a trembling Scootaloo shot up, eyes wide with terror, from a bed of straw and dirt. She clutched a hoof to her chest, a sharp ringing leaving her deaf to the gasps of her heaving lungs. Her twitching eyes registered an oaken wall of peeling red paint and a few bales of hay, but the images flashing through her mind were of a pale, lifeless sky, a searing shot of pain from her hoof to her wings, and finally a condemning explosion of blinding light.

Her skull felt as if it were about to burst. A shaken pink mane bobbed slightly as Scootaloo lowered her head and groaned, suddenly realizing the splitting pain that attacked her mind from front to back, splitting her concentration like an electric dive through a cloud. A sudden cough, and she blinked away what she could of the pain. She was regaining consciousness; the summer sun was rising, and she had to move.

Wiping a fresh coat of cold sweat from under her messy pink bangs, Scootaloo stood, stretched, and stumbled her way to the corner of the open wooden structure, where several piles of hay concealed a small brown saddlebag. Picking up the sack by a thin brown strap, she blinked some sleep from her eyes—dull phantom orbs compared to their usual glimmering selves—and walked slowly back across the dirt floor of the building, nearly tripping over a stone protruding from the ground. She settled back down at the strewn pile of hay and a few dull orange feathers that she had spent the night on, sitting with a heaving sigh.

A few objects lay scattered around the makeshift bed. A dirty hoof wiped across the surface of its cloth, and Scootaloo folded her torn Cutie Mark Crusaders cape that lay upside down on the opposite side of the “bed” from where she sat. Though it was obvious that it had either been blown or kicked off in the night, Scootaloo didn’t even pause to entertain the thought of tying it around her neck to keep it in place. Any of the sheet wasted in the tie was warmth she denied herself in the often chilly nights that fell over the southern regions of Equestria, no matter the time of year.

Grumbling quietly to herself about the stupidity of winter, Scootaloo packed the folded cape into her saddlebag with a resounding huff. The cloth that served as the only protection between her and the frigid nights of Ponyvillean winters would have to last her until that season and beyond, which was still several months away.

A stifled cough, and Scootaloo kicked a corner of the makeshift hay bed to reveal a tiny sack of golden coins, patched in several places by somepony who must have been a novice seamstress. Inside were no more than four golden bits, tarnished with bits of dirt, sealed away in the bag with a frayed string tied around the outside opening; the very same string that had been used to sew the patches of thin cloth to the makeshift coin purse. Several bent needles taken from Sweetie Belle’s room and an assortment of pricks and injuries were nothing compared to the pride Scootaloo felt every time she admired her fine—if not foalish—first “project”. She tucked the bag under the dirt-covered Cutie Mark Crusaders cape, hiding her extremely limited funds from any possible harm or loss.

A weak sigh of despondence escaped the pale filly’s parted lips. Lying on its side next to the bed was an old picture frame, its stand bent out at an awkward angle and its glass cracked on the bottom. The oval-shaped frame was a minty shade of teal, and behind the broken glass was a tiny cutout of a smiling pegasus pony whose coat nearly matched the same hue as the sunkissed pink sky that was visible through a crack in the roof. Gleaming emerald eyes stared lifelessly at Scootaloo from behind the frame, the ghost of a grin etched permanently upon the mare’s smooth face. A sudden sniffle, and the filly grabbed hold of the tiny photograph and held it to her chest, a pressure building up behind her firmly shut eyelids. She spoke for the first time since awakening, biting back a sob as she choked out a whimper.

“G-good morning, Mom…”

Holding the picture frame in front of her again, she tried to speak to the perpetually smiling mare in the photo once more, only to be interrupted by a fit of sporadic coughing. Her fit subsided with a groan as she also began to take notice of the fiendish rumbling in her belly, a taunting reminder that the last time she ate was almost two full days ago.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got anything for me to munch on?” She smirked in vain at the photograph. She tried and failed to bite back another sigh before ultimately burying the broken picture frame and its contents under her Cutie Mark Crusaders cape with the rest of her precious belongings. As she began pulling her hoof out of the bag, she felt herself rubbing against something thin—something plastic.

In curiosity and hunger, Scootaloo tossed the cape to the side to reveal a single candy wrapper and its contents. The thin plastic covered a chocolate bar, and as a lucky grin tugged at the edges of her cheeks, the memories of somepony’s generosity came flowing back to her. One of her classmates, Twist, had recently given this sweet to the hungry filly for a certain date: Scootaloo’s upcoming birthday. A shake of her head, a look at the sun through a window, and she indeed confirmed that it was the morning of her ninth birthday, as well as that shaking one’s head and staring at the sun did little to help a headache.

Shivering with sudden coldness, Scootaloo swiftly scooped up her prize and buried the dirt-covered cape back in the tiny brown saddlebag. Biting open the wrapper of the chocolate bar, Scootaloo took one last look around her makeshift shelter that had served her the past few nights. A glance behind the pile of hay she’d slept in revealed nothing that she desired nor required, and with that, Scootaloo lifted the cape-stuffed saddlebag onto her back and hastily trotted across the dirt floor to the entrance to the Apple Family Barn. A quick glance to the left, the right, and she trotted down the hill where the barn was situated as fast as her aching legs would carry her, to a rather large bush. From within it, she pulled a tiny scooter and helmet, which she climbed on and strapped on, before slowly trailing her way out of Sweet Apple Acres, the newborn light of the sunrise kissing her wings and back as she whispered to herself, “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…”

A haphazard buzzing lit the morning air as orange flaming rays burned over the horizon. Trailed by swirling clouds of dust and soil, a solitary vehicle rolled along the path leading away from the property of Sweet Apple Acres and into Ponyville proper. A squeaking blue scooter wheeled along, propelled by the periodic buzzing of foalish wings that fluttered rapidly—albeit weakly—as Scootaloo sought yet another shelter for the coming nights. A sputtering cough echoed hoarsely from her lungs, sending a heavy trembling through her chest. With each sudden exhale, she lurched forward slightly, a quivering foreleg clutching at her aching chest as she fought back wave after wave of baseless pain that spread from her quaking legs to her heaving lungs to her throbbing head. A tangible line of pressure traced agonizingly across her skull. Her nostrils flared once, twice, as she stopped momentarily to adjust the purple helmet overflowing with lifeless pink strands of a mane that hung limp underneath.

With an apprehensive shift, she bit off and slowly chewed more of the chocolate bar. The taste was bitter, an almost sour aftertaste coating Scootaloo’s tongue as she shifted the morsel around; Twist likely hadn’t mastered the craft yet. Scootaloo shifted the chocolate back and forth with her tongue, feeling the chocolate slowly melt. She once again pushed it into the roof of her mouth, as if she was unsure about swallowing. A sigh, and she slowed, coughed, and accidentally spat her breakfast to the clay and dirt below. She rode off again, kicking off as her wings twitched more out of habit than desire. A heavy soreness spread up her spine as she scooted away from her first meal in days. She wasn’t really hungry.

As the flare of morning sunlight rose into the sky behind her, Scootaloo continued mindlessly through the empty, dusty streets of an early morning Ponyville. Caution was superseded by exhaustion and disregard as her half-lidded eyes—dull in the vanishing starlight as it fled from the sun’s dawning rays—flicked back and forth between musty alleyways and the candlelit homes, warm amber light signalling the awakening of their inhabitants. A slight grimace burned across her face for a moment, only to be cast away by a winded sigh. Her exhale gave way to yet another fit of violent coughing, spreading hacking fire through her trembling torso. She groaned, leaning weakly over the ruby-red rubber handles of her scooter.

She crested a small hill just past the town square. Clearing a bump with a wince, she scooted lazily past a trickling concrete fountain. Scootaloo mulled over schedules for the week, homework she hadn’t touched, and other meaningless tidbits of thought as they fluttered and settled into her mind, only to be chased speedily away with another pulsating throb of her skull. One thought in particular managed to bury itself in the wake of the hacking fit: this wasn’t the first morning she’d awoken to the chilling blanket of a sheen of sweat, only to be assaulted by periodic episodes of aches and pains. This morning was simply worse. She breathily inhaled, and another stinging bout of coughs nearly toppled her to the dirt.

Much worse.

A burning sensation spread from the base of her throat with each wheezing exhale as she fought away the waves of pain that radiated so rapidly from her lungs with each breath. In or out, her throat was ablaze like a forest fire. Holding a hoof up to the base of her neck—all the while struggling to stay upright on the scooter—she pressed into it ever so slightly, as if to grant relief. A barely visible but hideously noticeable swelling had taken root there, throbbing against her hoof with each beat of her heart. She felt and heard the muscle pumping blood through her body weaker than she could pump her wings, each contraction accompanied with a burst of pain to her temples.

With a sudden gasp—which was accompanied with a violent raspy coughing—Scootaloo felt herself tumbling over. Her hooves remained in contact with the scooter, but even as she felt the reassuring firmness of the board beneath her, the world swam in colors and queasiness. A hazy pressure accompanied the dizzy spell and built up behind her eyes, forcing them shut. With a haphazard yelp, she found the pathway rushing up to hit her in the face.

Her saddlebag rolled and popped open, spilling a crimson cape and its contents across the dusty street. Nopony was around to notice or hear her brash cursing as she struggled to roll over, forelegs pressing hard into the dirt. Her tiny body lifted slowly, slowly, until her dust-smeared face finally lifted from the ground.

“Hnnngh—Gah!” A sputtering cry echoed from her dry, dusty lips as she collapsed the few inches she’d just gained. Her skull impacted the pavement with the force of a planet striking her forehead, splitting the hazy soreness of her headache open like an agony-filled egg.

“Nnnnngh...” She bit back what was very well a scream of pain. With broken resolution, she lay in the dirt, dull eyes flickering open for her to see the precious contents of her saddlebag, her only true belongings, scattered across the dirt road.

A groan and a heave, and she forced her protesting body to stand. Scrambling with what meager energy she could gather, the teary-eyed filly limped to her canvas bag and packed the few objects near it back inside. She didn’t even bother to clear the dirt from them.

She twisted her neck back with a stiff motion and bent down to lift up her saddlebag. She placed the tattered bag back over her spine, and—shivering in a sudden chill—trudged about a meter down the road to place her scooter right-side up with a well placed stamp on the dusty board. She mounted it, and hissed as her bruised leg kicked off the ground to propel her forward once more.

An early morning symphony of rustling leaves and chirping birds danced through the air on warm amber rays of sunlight. Then, as the quivering filly rode past the borders of Ponyville park, the tranquility was shattered by the coughing, squeaking mess that was Scootaloo. The smooth dirt roads became dotted with rocks and divots that jolted Scootaloo’s scooter as she passed over them. Each was a tremor to her, forcing her to grit her teeth to bite back any cries. A single drop of moisture leaked from the corner of her eye as she squeezed them shut, and a drawn-out breath serving to gather her senses.

She had to stay focused. She turned her head left and right, over her shoulder and up above, keeping a wary eye out for anypony that might see her this early. Shivering, she squinted up at a low-hanging cloud, expecting a pony’s head to peer over the edge at any second. For nearly a minute, she stopped, looked, and listened to everything around her. Finally satisfied, she let out a sigh that was punctuated by a vicious cough, burning her throat like acid. A grimace, and she spit a foul taste from her mouth and rode silently forward.

Her gaze flitted quickly between benches and fountains, bushes and trees. She was looking for something to conceal not only herself, but her bag and her scooter as well. None of the smaller bushes near the park’s entrance would be usable, not with how low to the ground they were.

Turning past a patch with a few assorted flower beds, she glanced nervously at the petals as they yawned opened to receive the kiss of the morning sun. A rumble from her empty stomach brought her attention to the white petals before her. Scootaloo slowed, and hopped off her scooter. Her legs nearly collapsed from under her as she landed with a grunt. She pulled open the flap on her canvas saddlebag and knelt down as she prepared to take a few snow-white daisies that were growing alongside the edge of the flower bed.

She paused. Scootaloo raised a hoof to cover a sudden onset of coughing, and when it subsided, grimacing at the flowers. It may be days before she found food like this again, fresh and waiting for her to save it for more frigid nights alone with nothing but herself and her thoughts, but she just wasn’t interested in eating anything, now or later. The thought of food seemed excessive—unwanted, even—as she swallowed and felt the tiny bulge under her throat. Moving slowly, her hooves worked to close her saddlebag, and Scootaloo stood with a strained grimace under its weight. Stepping back onto the board of her scooter, she beat her wings at a weaker pace as she continued on down the rocky pathway.

The bumpy trail slowly but surely bled into a smooth, almost hilly path. Scootaloo struggled to crest the first hill, having to cease relying on her drooping wings and push with her legs. Each step with the leg bruised from her fall earlier that morning sent a flicker of pain flaming its way up her limb, so that she hissed with every push. Reaching the top of the hill—panting—she pushed once more with a wince and slid down the other side smoothly. Her momentum carried her down past the base of the next hill in the path and drove her over its crest as well, as if the hill was a roller coaster and her scooter was the car. The speed of the rushing wind blew her pale pink mane behind her as Scootaloo squinted her eyes into the oncoming air. On most mornings, such a thrill would have excited her, maybe even dared her to go even faster. But on a morning like this, all she could manage was a tired smirk to throw into the wind as it passed her by.

As she came to the top of yet another hill, carried only by her previous momentum, she spotted something to her left that made her step out a leg to stop. Just beyond a pair of thin young trees, no more than ten meters from where she stood, was a bush thick with deep green leaves and glazed with morning dew. The smile that graced her features was the first sincere one she’d had all morning.

After double checking that nopony was around and dragging her scooter off of the path, Scootaloo pulled apart the immaculate leafy surface of the bush. The thing was thick with branches that stuck out in nearly every direction, light brown sticks with notches that marked each past years’ growth. Biting back a groan at this, she stuck her forelegs inside and pushed outwards. Scootaloo grunted to herself as she pulled a few of the branches aside, feeling the more brittle ones crack beneath her hooves. Shifting the branches at their bases and hissing under her breath as more than one of them poked into her sides, she struggled and fought until a sizeable hole had been made beneath the foliage. Not sizeable enough for her, but easily large enough for something like a bag.

She turned and lifted the saddlebag with her jaws. Though the only contents were a piece of shredded cloth, a few coins and a shattered mint picture frame, the weight of her thin canvas saddlebag strained her grip immensely. Her neck muscles felt as if she were lifting a fully grown stallion, and they remained stiff and sore even after she dropped the saddlebag inside the clearing of branches she’d made in the bush.

Scootaloo shifted a few more fresh emerald leaves over the bottom of the bush, effectively blanketing her saddlebag and its contents with a natural veil of green. With a satisfied sigh, she stumbled around the low growing shrub to look for her own shelter nearby. Peering over the leafy top of the bush, she found what must have been the edge of the park. A drainage ditch, coated with damp mud at the bottom, extended in either direction she turned her head.

Scootaloo bit her lip. It was less than glamorous, and she’d need to clean off in the lake the next morning, but she had stayed in far worse places before. Shuddering at the thought of an overturned trash can behind Sugarcube Corner, she turned away from the ditch and proceeded to back towards the path, a stinging fit of coughs echoing from her mouth.

The fiery sensation at the base of her throat was enough to make her whimper and lower herself to the cool grass. As the burning receded with every short, raspy breath, Scootaloo’s half-lidded violet gaze rose to the sky. The crimson shade of the sunrise was fading slowly, the ruby sky blending through rosy pink streaks as the last remnants of the night sunk beneath the horizon. The sky above was a pale blue, dotted with wispy cirrus clouds that appeared to glide and flow with the wind, swirling and curling in long strung ribbons that danced whimsically over the roof of the world. They had to be thousands of meters high, Scootaloo wondered, far beyond the reaches of any normal weather flyer wishing to clear them.

It was then that a prismatic streak burst through the thin blanket of clouds above, only to stop, turn, and shoot back up again, a trail of vibrant colors juxtaposed against white and pale blue. A childish grin lit up Scootaloo’s features, her eyes glimmering ever-so-slightly as the furiously flying pony shot back through the cloud layer, this time with a lacey trail of twisting clouds following in her wake. The rocketing pegasus spun left, arcing and dragging the thin cirrus clouds above into a sort of low pressure bowl. As she circled once, twice, three times, the sky coalesced on that single point, so that a tangible bubble of dew formed a single puffy marshmallow cloud. A triumphant grin, and two blue legs bucked forcefully into the surface of the fresh cumulus, scattering the previously aggregated bits into vapor that drifted into nothing.

Scootaloo ignored the burning in her muscles and bones long enough to stand for a single cheering hop, landing with a grimace that bled into a fit of coughing. Spitting a foul taste from her mouth, her shimmering amethyst eyes opened just in time to meet a prideful pair of rubies glancing at her from above. The grounded pegasus plopped her tail end to the grass and lifted a hoof to wave up to the sky blue speck of a pony hovering above. Rainbow Dash smirked pridefully, and with a salute and snappy flick of her colorful tail, she was gone in a prismatic blur, off to other regions of the sky still dotted with clouds.

Scootaloo remained sitting for a few moments, staring longingly with wavering eyes up into the cloudless sky. The sun rose higher as she remained motionless, the light scattering and painting the ceiling of Equestria a sapphiric shade of blue. She managed a momentary sigh without any hindering coughing, and—tearing her gaze back to the drab, grassy earth below—wobbled over to her scooter where it lay on its side in the dirt.

She picked her scooter up and blew to clear a few bits of dead grass and debris from the board, but her exhale did little to shift the pale green litter. Frowning, she mounted her vehicle and buzzed her wings with as much vigor as she could. Biting her tongue against the waves of pain from her limbs, Scootaloo lurched forward with speed and scooted off, leaving behind the phantom presence of Rainbow Dash and herself as the two of them soared through a false sky.

“Roll call! Everypony say ‘here’ when your name is called!” Came a drawling voice. “Sweetie Belle?”

“You know sh-she’s not here, dummy,” Scootaloo said with a grimace as a tickle rose in her throat. “She won’t be back from Canterlot for almost a month, what with her stupid singing classes.” She sat hunched over near the door of the Cutie Mark Crusaders Clubhouse, cradling a foreleg that stung with a dozen cuts. The blood had ceased flowing to the wounds, which hadn’t even begun to appear until well after she’d left the bush and her saddlebag behind her.

“I’m just readin’ the roll call list, Scootaloo.” Apple Bloom lifted the sheet of paper that lay on the podium before her. “No need for y’all to get so snappy, sheesh.”

Scootaloo groaned and rolled her eyes. She swallowed hard to hold down the stinging fit of coughs she knew was coming as Apple Bloom cleared her throat and continued.

“Scootaloo?”

It took a few seconds to answer, as a spraying series of burning coughs burst forth when Scootaloo opened her mouth. “H-here!” She managed to wheeze out between coughs.

“You alright there, Scoots? We could always postpone the meeting...”

“Nah, don’t be crazy.” Scootaloo managed to surface a smile over the pain. “I’m totally fine, I’ll bet—like—everypony feels crappy this time of year.”

“It’s summer.”

“Whatever.”

Apple Bloom gave her friend a cautious glance, her amber eyes scanning Scootaloo’s passive exterior as the pegasus stifled another cough. A shrug, and she continued reading. “Apple Bloom?”

Nopony spoke. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow at her friend as Apple Bloom looked around the clubhouse—grinning—as she read aloud once again, “Apple Bloom?”

Scootaloo snickered at her friend. “What’re you—”

“Now where could Apple Bloom be?” The pony in question giggled, her giant pink bow bobbing once as she continued pointing her head in all directions, a foalish grin on her face.

“Yeah, now who’s the dodo, sassafras?” Scootaloo giggled, swallowing back a cough. She made a face at the taste. “Cut it out, we’ve got thinking to do so we’ll have plenty of ideas to try when Sweetie Belle gets back!”

“Okay, okay,” Apple Bloom conceded with a smile. “Let’s get to it!”

Half an hour later, both ponies sat still beneath a dangling lantern, silent as stone. Apple Bloom’s lip jutted out slightly as she blew a lock of her cherry red mane out of her eyes. Her coat shone a creamy yellow in the square of sunlight that found its way in through the window, kissing the two ponies with a glowing heat that radiated throughout the room. Scootaloo wiped a scratched hoof across her brow with a wince, the salty sweat stinging the wounds on her leg. She lay back down in a slump, her head throbbing maliciously in the heat.

Apple Bloom shifted slightly. A deep sigh, and then, “Anythin’ yet?”

“Nope,” Scootaloo mumbled into the floorboards. She could feel the swelling at the base of her throat was worse than earlier that morning. A sputtering fit of coughs into her folded legs, and she grumbled, “I guess we forgot who the smart one is, huh?”

“H-hey!” Apple Bloom was up in a flash. “I’m plenty smart!”

"Meh."

Apple Bloom's anger fizzled. "Meh."

“Meh.” Scootaloo rolled over on the floor, closing her eyes and rubbing the base of her neck with a hoof. Bending her limb was surprisingly painful, as if they were stiff from weeks of atrophy. She sprawled her leg back out with a sigh, which inevitably led to yet another sputtering series of coughs.

“Nnnngh... Just spit up my freakin’ lungs already,” she groaned. Her eyelids flickered open as she heard hooves trotting spryly up the wooden ramp to the clubhouse. Shifting her head, she saw a set of orange legs step into the doorway.

“Landsakes, is this what y'all have been doin’ all day? Layin’ out in the sun to rot?” Applejack said. She lowered her head and leaned into the clubhouse, her look of disapproval falling right onto Scootaloo’s half-lidded gaze.

“Well good morning to you, too,” Scootaloo droned.

“Aw, stick a sock in it. C’mon, it’s way too late for y’all to be lazyin’ around in here!” Applejack stamped a hoof for emphasis. “‘Sides, AB here needs to get her caboose movin for that l’il somethin’-somethin’ tonight?” She said with a wink to her sister.

“H-huh? What’re—Oh!” Apple Bloom jumped up with a start, amber eyes popping. “Y-yeah, I gotta get goin’ Scoots, sorry!”

“Meh.” Scootaloo sniffed, before the words registered. “W-wait, what?!” She shot up on the spot before falling back to the wood with a thud in a heaving fit of coughing.

“Woah there, girl!” Applejack was at her side in an instant. “You alright, sugarcube? That’s quite a nasty cough you’ve got goin’ there.”

Scootaloo shrugged off Applejack’s hoof from her shoulder, biting her tongue at the screaming pain the movement caused. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, but why’s Apple Bloom gotta go?” She forced herself up, ignoring the waves of pain best she could. “We didn’t think of anything, it’d be a whole day wasted!”

“Uhhh, well y’see...” Applejack stuttered.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Scoots. We can totally hang out later today!” Apple Bloom interrupted with a beaming grin. Her sister turned, her quizzical gaze hidden to Scootaloo. Apple Bloom winked once, sighed, and winked again.

“O-oh, yeah, uhm,” Applejack continued, “Y’all can totally hang out later today! Why don’t you stop by Sugarcube Corner around...”

She paused. Scootaloo stared, one eyebrow raised, and Apple Bloom put a hoof to her face. Applejack mumbled something to herself. “Five...? Awww, shoot. Is it five? No, six...”

She looked back up, confusion masked with a toothy grin. “Stop by Sugarcube Corner 'round six, y’all can totally hang out!” She turned to the exit and ushered her sister with her. “Now c’mon Apple Bloom, time’s a’ wastin’.”

“W-wait!” Scootaloo sputtered from the window. “Won’t that cut into your something-something?”

“Oh, just show up ya chicken!” Came the shout back from Apple Bloom.

“Pffft. ‘Chicken.’ Eat my feathers.” Scootaloo plopped back to the floor with a groan. Looking around the room, a yawn overtook her next breath, morphing into another spitting cough. She grimaced at the burning in her throat, stood quietly, and stumbled to a corner of the room.

It was still morning, albeit late in the morning. Scootaloo wobbled over to the wall and rested on it, sinking slowly, slowly, slowly until her aching head hit the floor. Her eyes closed with a heaving sigh and one more cough that came out with more of a popping sound. Her eyelids twitched only once before she was fast asleep.

Warm streaks of amber light brushed against her eyelids, coaxing them open. With a groan, Scootaloo struck out weakly with a hoof, as if to bat the intruding brightness away. She retracted her limb with a wince, her eyes fluttering open slowly, ending her dreamless sleep.

It was late afternoon. The sun had passed overhead, now beaming through a window in the clubhouse. The square of soft light had pulled itself across the floor until it painted Scootaloo’s corner with a celestial warmth, dredging her rising form from the depths of slumber. A slight wobble, and the blinking filly regained a standing balance, her mind turning sluggish pinwheels in her head as consciousness rushed back to her. On a whim, her gaze flicked past a green clock hanging on the opposite wall of the room and to the door.

She took a few steps, then paused. Her eyes swam through the orange sunset light back to the clock, where they came to rest upon both hands standing in a vertical line, bisecting the clock face in two.

Scootaloo's pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. “Awwww, ponyfeathers, six! I gotta be across town by—” Her exclamation was cut short by a stinging fit of coughs that left her trembling, gasping for breath. Despite this, she took determined steps towards the exit of the clubhouse, her gait devolving into a stumbling limp as her bruised leg nearly toppled her over. Slowly, like the wood beneath her was ready to collapse, she descended the ramp and found her way over to her scooter, which lay haphazardly on its side. Biting her tongue against the fiery sensation radiating from her wings, Scootaloo took off in the direction of Sugarcube Corner.

The ride was agonizing at first. Her breaths came short and weak, forcing her to slow and nearly stop her wings on several occasions to pause and gasp for air. Each inhale brushed across a stinging spot in the base of her throat, sometimes forcing her lungs into fierce convulsions. A few droplets of moisture gathered precariously on her lashes, blurring the edges of her vision. She buried a grimace with a frown and continued onwards.

Rolling past the first in a series of identical cottages, Scootaloo felt herself numbing. It was a sudden pleasant feeling, the burning and aching seemingly melting away into nothing but a numb sense of fatigue. Her mind was tranquil, like serene blue waves on an endless ocean. Her thoughts were tiny and scattered, like a handful of forgotten islands. She coughed once, twice, three times, but she barely even noticed.

She sputtered and coughed once more. Something lodged in her throat, and she coughed again, a stabbing sensation cutting its way up her throat. She lurched forward and tumbled off her scooter, landing in a collapsed heap not ten meters from the door of Sugarcube Corner. She felt something dribbling out from between her lips, and on a whim she rubbed her chin with a hoof and glanced at it.

Her normally vibrant orange hoof was painted a hideous shade of scarlet.

Immediately, a wave of dizziness struck her. Scootaloo tried to stand, only to succeed in tumbling over into the dirt once more. Another cough, and the sickening sight of her own bloody hoof fell into vision. Her lungs continued to convulse, heaving coughs racking her chest as any screams she had died in her throat. An attempt to inhale ended in coughs and another spray of blood, this time from her nose.

Scootaloo’s body was on fire. Flaming waves of pain wrapped themselves around every screaming inch of her body, suffocating her. Her skull was going to burst. Her limbs weakly twitched in desperation. She thought she heard somepony scream, but the sound was alien, distant, as if she were drowning under leagues of murky water.

Blackness crept upon her from the edges of her vision. Anything she could see was blurred by a layer of tears that covered her eyes, streaking down her face and into the dirt. Blind and desperate, Scootaloo tried to scream, but the raspy sound echoing up from her chest wasn’t hers. The world grew cold around her as her eyelids pulled themselves shut.

Her leg planted itself in the dirt, its blood-caked twin doing the same. Scootaloo fought against waves upon waves of merciless, burning pain, struggling to push herself away from the ground that was soaked in blood. Her blood. Her eyes opened for a single moment as her legs gave out beneath her. A prismatic flash, and then her world was the dirt road beneath her.

Just before she hit the ground, her vision went black. She landed with a thud, and everything was gone.

The first thing she noticed was how warm she was.

Motherly warmth stretched the length of her entire body, soft brushstrokes of alien heat bearing lightly down on her chest and limbs. Except, she noticed, her left foreleg. It felt frigid, strangely so, as if the coolness was emanating from within her body. The inside of the joint stung slightly, with the surrounding area being completely numb.

Scootaloo’s eyes flickered open, her half-lidded gaze finding a completely dark room. To one side, a soft, almost melodic beeping sounded at regular intervals, and with it she saw the ceiling of the room she was in light up with a dim green. No other noises were heard, save for her own raspy breaths.

Her mind was numb, drifting in an open blue sky. Questions appeared in a white flash—why was she here? Where was here?—only to be scattered into nothing like clouds into vapor, leaving nothing but emptiness.

She lay awake there for at least ten minutes before a door opened with a click. A blindingly bright light filled her vision, forcing her eyes shut. She heard two sets of hoofsteps enter the room, and when she opened her eyes again—squinting—two ponies stood before her.

The first she recognized as Nurse Redheart, who had patched her up many times after various crashes and schoolyard fights. The nurse stood closest to her, sapphire eyes shimmering with empathy as she glanced at the sickly filly. Nurse Redheart moved slowly over to a tall machine that was next to Scootaloo’s bed—the source of the beeping, Scootaloo realized—and lifted a clipboard and pen and began writing something.

The other pony, a stallion, stepped forward to Scootaloo’s side and knelt down from the great height he stood at. “Good afternoon Scootaloo, it’s great to see you’ve finally woken up. You’ve been out for a few days now,” he said, running a tan hoof past his horn and over a slick brown mane. “My name is Dr. Stable, and I’m going to be taking care of you.”

All Scootaloo could manage was a tired nod.

“Right then, first things first. When you were brought in, we were told you were in a great deal of pain. On a scale of one to ten, can you tell me how bad the pain was?”

Her mind swam backwards through memories of every agonizing wingbeat, every burning cough. Fire clawed its way up from her lungs and spread through her limbs, forcing her to the blood-stained dirt and suffocating her.

With a wince, Scootaloo spoke in a scratching, raspy voice, “Twenty.”

“Mhmmm...” Dr. Stable gestured to Nurse Redheart, who scampered over to the bed and sat down with her clipboard, scribbling something. “And how would you rate it now?”

She thought for a moment. Her head was still splitting down the middle, and her throat still burned with the fiery residue of previous coughing fits. Scootaloo tried to shift a leg upwards, but found herself either too numb or too exhausted to do so.

A weak cough sputtered out of her throat. “Nnnnngh... F-five...” She grimaced as the nurse winced at her and continued writing.

“Alright then,” Dr. Stable said with a nod. He exchanged glances with Nurse Redheart, who merely nodded back at him. A quick sigh, and then, “Do you know why you’re in the hospital, Scootaloo?”

“C-cause I’m sick, right?” She managed, her voice weak but gaining back some of its volume. “Why else would I be here?”

“You’re right about that, Scootaloo.” Nurse Redheart sniffed, speaking for the first time. Her voice was wavy, nearly trembling. “Dr. Stable is... He’s an oncologist here at the hospital. Do you know what an oncologist is?”

Scootaloo blinked. “I dunno. Sounds made up, to be honest.” She found the strength to lift a hoof and press it to her neck, feeling for the swelling from earlier. She felt nothing, until her foreleg was suddenly grasped by Nurse Redheart. Scootaloo looked up at her in confusion, only to see moisture dotting her lashes.

“Scootaloo, this is serious. I need you to listen to me,” Dr. Stable said. “An oncologist is somepony who...” He paused, biting his lip, as if unsure of how to continue.

Nurse Redheart finished for him, her voice shaking. “An oncologist is s-somepony who helps ponies w-with cancer, Scootaloo...” She stifled a sudden sob, and then, “A-and that’s why he’s here to help you.”

Author's Note

Is it as good as it could be? Probably not. Was I getting sick of writing and rewriting this, only to remember that it's nothing but a springboard to the stuff that I actually enjoy writing? Indubitably. I hope you like coughing and cheese.