Chapters "C'mon, Screwtaloo! Catch me if you can!"
The brown pegasus colt threw a stick at the orange pony before flying off in a bout of laughter. But Scootaloo didn't mind; months of bullying had left her immune. Still, she had to admit, the prospect of being unable to fly for the rest of her life was not something she enjoyed. She'd spent countless nights pondering why the universe had chosen her to be so unfortunate, of course; she was the only pegasus in Ponyville who couldn't fly, and got all the more hate for it. Thankfully, her parents were at least supportive of her through her condition, even if they kept up an air of uncaring and distaste at her condition around other ponies. But this just wasn't enough; she was a pegasus, born to fly, and some cosmic roll of the dice had decided that this pony just wouldn't be able to.
She'd tried many things, of course. She had done everything from sticking bedsheets to her wings and trying to fly to making a complex contraption out of cloth and wood to attempt to produce enough lift to fly. All had ended in failure, each more spectacular than the last. And still she persevered; for a pony with such an impossible goal as making a flightless pony fly must either be insane or driven enough to keep going in the face of adversity, and she was pretty sure she was both.
Nevertheless, she continued on her walk. These early morning walks through town helped clear her mind, and they allowed her a stopover at Twilight's castle, where she'd have a chat with her favorite adult friend about various things, from her latest prototypes to what they'd had for breakfast that morning. Both hers and Twilight's friends tended to pop up at some point during these discussions, usually a few minutes before Scootaloo had to leave. As she walked through the mostly-abandoned streets, the tower of the castle loomed in the distance, a gargantuan crystal spire dominating the skyline of the small town.
Eventually, she came to the massive doors of the tower. Knocking three times, she was greeted by a guard, who indifferently grunted as he let her in. She ran underneath the guard's outstretched hoof, garnering a momentary look of mild confusion that quickly faded to a poker face. She kept running until she came to a pair of doors with Twilight's cutie mark engraved on them. She knocked on the door in a rhythmic pattern three times before plopping down on her flanks and waiting.
After a few minutes, Twilight answered the door. She had a tired look on her face, probably due to having just woken up. She regarded the filly with a tired gaze before her eyes lit up almost imperceptibly.
"Ah! Scootaloo! Good morning!" she said with a slight grin. "Have you made any progress with that assignment of yours?"
"Assignment? Oh, yeah!" Scootaloo barely managed to salvage her half-lie. She'd used Twilight for math help under the pretense that it was for an assignment; in actuality, it was her trying to determine the surface area of her next design. She'd deduced that the problem with all her previous designs was that there wasn't enough surface area; but she still felt as if something was missing. She was a pioneer in her field, after all; nopony else had tried what she was attempting to do.
She produced the sketches she'd made for the design from the folds of her wing, checking and rechecking her calculations. It was a cloth and wood airframe, like the previous designs. It had a wingspan of four meters, and had a tail protruding about a meter behind the main wing. After the first few test flights, it had been deemed that a vertical tail was necessary; every time without one, she'd just gone into a flatspin all while falling towards the ground. Checking the design once more, she felt something was wrong again.
"What's that, Scootaloo?" Twilight asked, noticing the filly glaring furtively at the drawings.
"Nothing!" Scootaloo said, quickly hiding the small notepad. "I didn't have anything!"
"You're not fooling anyone, Scootaloo. I just want to help you with whatever you're doing."
"You wouldn't understand it anyway. Nopony would."
"Come on, just show it to me."
"It doesn't make any sense," she said bitterly.
"Come on, I just want to take a peek at it."
"Fine." the filly said, realizing she wasn't going to win this one. "Just don't tell anypony about it, especially those idiot bullies."
"Oh, don't worry. If it's anything private or embarrassing, I wouldn't breathe a word of it."
As Scootaloo produced the notebook again, showing its contents to Twilight, the purple pony mused over it, idly flipping through the pages.
"Hmm..." Princess Twilight murmured to herself. "This is... strange. What on earth are these cloth things for? And why is there just a random piece sticking up out of the back? What are these wires for?"
"Here, let me show you. I call this a glider; at least, that's what it would be if it worked. These are supposed to act like pegasus wings," she said, gesturing to the larger cloth-and-wood surfaces. "So, I gave them the same name. This here is supposed to keep it from turning too much," she said, gesturing towards the vertical piece. "These wires here are supposed to be hooked up to the neck and head of the wearer, and if I set it up correctly it should pivot here -" she gestured to the front of the vertical piece connected to two wires - "and stabilize it kinda like the fins on an arrow. These -" she pointed to the horizontal mini-wings - "are supposed to let you raise or lower in the air."
"This is... incredible. I'm surprised a pony your age could come up with such amazing fantasies. But one question; have you gotten anything working yet?"
"My last rig's controls worked well-enough, at least until I tried to turn it." She began to mutter under her breath. "Stupid freakin' wings, breaking right when I tried to pitch up."
"Shouldn't you have some structural reinforcements here?" Twilight said. "I mean, these seem kinda flimsy."
"Wouldn't work," Scootaloo replied. "Too flimsy. And what would you know about this, anyway? You haven't even seen it for more than a few seconds."
"I've seen enough to know that if you're actually trying to make this look like it could potentially fly, it looks way too weak to ever do it."
"That's not the biggest problem with it." Scootaloo suddenly said.
"What?"
"The design's completely broken."
"What do you mean?"
"It doesn't produce any lift; it flies about as well as a wood plank dropped sideways. I've been trying all I can to make it work, but nothing's getting it to stay up longer than a few seconds; and each time it lands, either it breaks itself or it breaks me."
"Are you sure it's a good idea to keep trying this, then? You might get seriously injured!"
"And if I don't keep trying, I'll be stuck a flightless pegasus for eternity!" Scootaloo suddenly shouted. "I'm not going to live the rest of my days as a useless dodo without doing something about it!"
"Scootaloo, there's plenty of jobs that a pony like you could do! With talents like these, you could be -"
"Something that a unicorn or earth pony would be better at, and be cheaper to use, too? Nobody's going to hire a worthless pony like me; all I can do with my life is to try and do something about it."
"You could work here in the castle! I would be more than willing -"
"No offense, Princess, but you wouldn't have much use for me. And with my tendency to break things, I'd be more of a liability than an asset. Honestly, like this I'm completely worthless unless I can get this to work."
"Fine. Fine." Twilight finally said. "If you want to do this, at least let me help you."
"You already know everything I've been trying to keep a secret; you know what? Buck it. Might as well have somepony to help with the heavy lifting."
"I'm always here if you need me, Scootaloo. Just come here if you need anything. Now let's get this put away; I think your friends will be here soon."
"Thanks." Scootaloo said quietly as she took the notebook back.
The rest of the day passed rather quickly, it being a saturday, she had little to do other than play around the town with her friends. It was not a bad day, to be sure; she had enjoyed the pleasant company of her friends, and lunch at Sugarcube Corner was not bad either. However, come nightfall, she stole away to her house and waited patiently in her room until she was certain her parents were asleep; then, with practiced expertise, she silently opened the door to her room and stole off into the night.
Coming to the abandoned barn on the edge of Ponyville, she took a match from a box by the door and used it to light the makeshift fireplace she'd made. It provided not only light, but also warmth against the frigid winter night. She waited patiently after she threw the match into the haphazard pile of logs, watching as the flames slowly grew until they'd encompassed most of the fuel. She grabbed a log from a pile she'd stacked nearby and threw it into the fire before turning to what dominated the majority of the floorspace.
A wooden frame sat, plopped on three wheels. Cloth covered some parts of the vehicle, while others were still awaiting the bundles of the stuff situated near the door to be applied to them. After she finished the coating of the vehicle, she'd have to set up the wires, the support braces - maybe they would actually help - and the harness, and then finally she'd have to test it.
She donned the small coat that she kept in her barn and walked outside. In the ten minutes she'd been inside, the temperature had dropped by as many degrees. It was a very cold walk to the testing rig she'd set up; it was nothing more than a long pair of wooden rails designed to fit underneath the wings of the craft snugly, lubricated enough to allow gravity to do its job and accelerate the craft but snug enough to keep it going relatively straight. She sighed as she looked beyond the edge of the ski jump; various pieces of debris from previous flights she couldn't be bothered to clean up were strewn about: string, strips of cloth, broken pieces of wood, and the occasional strap of silk she'd used to make the harnesses more comfortable in the early days, when Rarity was more willing to lend some of the extremely expensive material. She'd stopped after it had started to take a significant amount of her profit; but Scootaloo had decided that using cloth and the occasional strip of grass was more than comfortable enough for her short flights. Still, she'd made a point to recover as much silk as she could find; if she ever made something that lasted more than thirty seconds, she'd want it to be more comfortable.
She went back into the barn, turning for a few seconds to close the door to keep the frigid air from filling the warm space. She saw a fresh cup of hot chocolate sitting on one of the many makeshift tables arranged sporadically throughout the space; not questioning who'd left it, she took a sip before staring with a feeling of mild pride at the half-completed glider. Putting the mug on the table, she grabbed one of the bolts of cloth and started wrapping it around one of the uncovered sections of wing. After twenty minutes of laying it over itself and smoothing any bumps at a cost of nearly three small bundles of the stuff, she sighed, the wing complete. All that was left now was a small part of the fuselage, the elevators, the harness, and the control and support cables. She sighed; tonight was going to be a long night.
Apple Bloom watched intently from one of the windows, staring in awe at Scootaloo's contraption. Sweetie Belle was sitting on the roof next to her, peering in through a hole in the roof. "Wow." she said quietly to Sweetie. "We should stalk each other more often."
"Did we get our cutie marks in spying?" Sweetie Belle asked, struggling to look at her flank.
"Nope." Apple Bloom sighed sadly. "That hot chocolate thing was a good idea, though. Seem's like she's working her flank off on... that thing."
"What is it?"
"Should we ask her?"
"And ruin our stealth? No! Let's watch until she notices u-Aaaaaah!" Sweetie Belle shouted as the section of roof she was leaning on collapsed, dropping her a mere few feet in front of her orange pegasus friend.
"H... Hey, Scootaloo?"
The look of utter confusion on the flightless pegasus' face quickly turned into one of intrigue. "What were you doing on the roof?"
"N.. Nothing! Just took a walk to this part of town with Apple Bloom!"
"Hey!" a voice shouted from outside. "Don't drag me into this."
"Come here, Bloom." Scootaloo said.
"Fine." Apple Bloom pushed the doors open, a defeated look on her face. "Maybe we didn't stealth hard enough to get our marks?"
Sweetie Belle didn't notice the comment, however; she was busy examining the half-complete prototype glider.
"What's this?" she asked after a few minutes of slowly circling it, taking in its every detail in a vain attempt to determine what it was.
"It's a flying machine. It's supposed to help be a replacement for these," she said, gesturing to her abnormally small wings.
"You're trying to fly? Scootaloo, that's..." Applebloom began, but trailed off.
"Stupid? I know."
"I was going to say awesome, but I guess stupidly awesome works too!" she excitedly continued. "If you want any help with that, Sweetie and Ah here'd be happy to do what you need."
"Thanks, guys, but I think I've got it."
"Come on! Cutie Mark Engineers!"
Scootaloo sighed. "Alright. You want to help? Sweetie, take that bundle of cloth. Applebloom, bring me those shears. Now come over here..."
The three fillies worked, all the while Scootaloo shouting orders between a snip of the scissors or tugging on a string. Eventually, after a few hours, the prototype was looking much more complete.
"Come on, just a little bit more left..." Scootaloo said to herself as she tied the harness to the bottom of the glider. The rest was complete, and much higher quality than any of her previous prototypes. She sighed in relief as the rough fiber cleanly fit through the holes in the mount on the harness, and she quickly finished tying the knots and leaned back from the vessel.
The glider looked immaculately clean, far more than any of her previous attempts. The three of them had done far too much work on it, and her friends had fallen asleep on the floor of the barn nearly half an hour ago, but it was ready for its test flight. Groggily, she trotted over to the door of the barn and pushed it open; she was met with the glaring light of the sunrise.
"Oh, buck. " she said as she realized her parents must have been awake by now, and likely freaking out when they realized she was not home. Not to mention that Applejack and Rarity were probably also worried...
"Oh, buck."
She tried to lift her friends onto her back to carry them, but she could barely even lift up Sweetie Belle, not to mention Applebloom. After trying for a few minutes in vain, she sighed and was just content to drag their sleeping forms outside into the sunlight.
"Applejack, sweet Celestia, what are you doing?" Applebloom mumbled in her half-sleep as she was dragged along the floor of the barn. Thankfully, she did not awake while she was being taken outside. Sweetie Belle was much quieter, only groaning slightly as she was grabbed by her mane and put outside.
Scootaloo then sighed. Going back into the barn, she retrieved a makeshift cloth and wood sled. It was originally designed to carry logs, but now it was being repurposed to carry ponies. Dragging Sweetie Belle and Applebloom onto it, she began to walk down the long dirt road towards town.
Only about ten minutes down the road, she ran into a group of ponies. Upon spotting her, they ran back towards the town. "Celestia on a bike, it's only been one night and they're already sending the search and rescue teams?"
She stopped for a second, tilting her head, before continuing down her path. After another twenty or so minutes, she came to the Apple Family Farm, where a small group of ponies were standing near a tired, worried-looking Applejack. Upon seeing the filly dragging the sled, the orange farmpony ran off in a cloud of dust towards them, followed somewhat closely by the much slower group comprised of Scootaloo's parents and Rarity. They all formed a circle around the orange pegasus, bombarding her with questions.
"Where were you?" Scootaloo's mother asked in a worried voice. "When we saw your room was empty and the window was open, well..."
"Princess Twilight sent out almost ten divisions of guards to search the Everfree for you!" her father continued, sounding decidedly more angry. "Do you know what a ruckus you've caused? I swear --"
"Now, now, Credence. No need to be so harsh on the poor filly," Scootaloo's mother said. Her father looked at her angrily before sighing. "Fine." he said defeatedly. "But don't pull something like this again, you hear me?"
"Yes sir!" Scootaloo said quickly, earning a look of mild approval from her father. Meanwhile, Applejack and Rarity were cuddling their respective sisters, making sure that nothing too bad had happened to them.
"What were you doing all night, anyway?"
"Stuff and..." *yawn* ".. things..." Scootaloo said, the adrenaline from the run finally beginning to wear off. "I... think I'll take a... nap..." the filly said as she dozed off into her mother's embrace.
"Scootaloo? Scootaloo!"
Applebloom threw another pebble at the young pegasus' window. Scootaloo stirred, mumbling as she rolled out of bed and fell onto the floor.
"Scootaloo! Come out here!"
The young pegasus groggily stood up on four orange legs before walking ot her window and opening it with a blank look on her face.
"What is it? It's barely sunrise!" she yelled.
"Come on! Let's finish up that thing!"
"It's already done!" she yelled back. "All we have to do is test it!"
Applebloom's face lit up. "Really? Then let's go right now!"
"What if someone sees it? I've been trying to keep it secret."
"But if it works, don't you want people to know?"
"Yeah; if it works. Now, shut up; I'm coming."
A few minutes later Scootaloo stepped out of the door, her notebook poking out of a fold in her wing. "It's still in the barn; let's go get Sweetie Belle on the way."
"She's waiting by my house; I told her I'd come fetch you."
"Oh. Well, then. Let's get a move on."
The two fillies left Scootaloo's house and began walking down the road to the Apple Family farm. They arrived in a matter of minutes, chatting all the way.
"...and then he was like 'Pow!' and I was like 'Smash!' and --"
"We're here." Scootaloo cut off Applejack's story. The Apple Family barn stood before them, with Applejack already heading out to the orchards and Big Mac hooking himself up to the cart. The morning sun beat down onto the two fillies as they trotted into the property, towards an expectant Sweetie Belle.
"Hey, Sweetie. What'sup?" Applebloom asked as she approached the young pony.
"What took y'all so long?"
"Scootaloo was being lazy."
"Hey!" the orange pegasus interjected. "It was the first time in, like, three months that I had a decent sleep more than one night in a row!"
"Quiet, princess. Anyway, let's go do some science!"
Scootaloo sighed quietly, and mumbled to herself, "This can't end well."
The purple Princess watched from one of the trees in the orchard, staring through a pair of binoculars at the trio of fillies. She didn't notice the orange farmer coming to the tree to check on its health before noticing the purple shape hidden in the tree.
"Twi? Is that you?" Applejack asked, looking inquisitively at the tree,
The princess poked her head out of the green shape and hushed the farmpony. "Shhh! Don't let them spot me!"
"Aight, Twi. Just don't try any funny business."
"Don't worry, AJ. I know what I'm doing."
She returned to her vigilance as the farmpony sighed and rolled her eyes before continuing down the rows of trees. Seeing that the children were also beginning to leave, Twilight stealthily took to the air and hid above a cloud, gently pushing it along as she watched.
"Well. This is it. Applebloom, you sure you're holding the ropes how I told you?" Scootaloo asked, looking at the yellow filly behind her.
"Well, I'm doin' as best ah can with what you told me."
"Is the red rope on the left and the blue on on the right?"
"Uhhh..." Applebloom looked at the two ropes in her mouth. "Yep!"
"Good. Sweetie Belle, is it all clear?"
"There's nopony for miles!" Sweetie Belle said from the top of her lookout hill. "Well, except for in Ponyville, but that's still about a mile over there!"
Scootaloo sighed. "Well. It's now or never. Applebloom, get ready to let go on my mark."
"Alright."
"Sweetie Belle, make sure that nobody sees this."
"Okay."
"Ten. Nine. Eight." Scootaloo began to count down as she braced her body for the flight.
"Seven. Six. Five."
Sweetie Belle nervously turned her gaze between Scootaloo and the town, hoping that somepony would come along before something bad happened.
"Four. Three. Two."
Twilight Sparkle peeked down from a cloud at the proceedings, watching as the orange pegasus prepared for her flight. She sighed as she watched the yellow filly behind the vehicle nervously holding the two ropes that held back the wings of the vessel.
"One."
Applebloom let go of the ropes, and the glider began to accelerate down the ramp. Ten seconds later, it flew off the small incline in the ramp...
...and began to fall like a rock, on a ballistic arc directly towards the ground. Thinking quickly, Twilight Sparkle lit up her horn, and telekinetically slowed the object down to a safe speed. As she landed on the ground, she garnered a strange look from the three fillies.
"Princess Twilight? What are ya doing here?" Applebloom asked, staring up at the purple pony.
"Making sure she doesn't get herself hurt," Twilight said, gesturing to the shaken Scootaloo. "Now, come on; it's already almost noon, and your parents must be waiting for you."
Two of the fillies walked away next to each other; but they stopped and turned around when they saw that Scootaloo was standing there, unmoving, with her head towards the ground.
"Scootaloo?" Twilight asked, putting a hoof underneath the young filly's chin. "Are you alright?" she said, before looking at the face of the filly.
The filly was holding back tears as she spoke. "It... it was supposed to work! I checked the math, I made sure it was built right, and everything!" A lone tear rolled down her cheek.
"You know, Scootaloo," Twilight said as comfortingly as possible, "You tried your best. You did what you could, and who knows? Maybe this was just never meant to be. Maybe it truly is impossible."
"No. It's not impossible," the young filly said before sighing. "I just can't do it."
That night, the first snows of winter began to fall. Scootaloo had almost resigned to herself that it would never work; she would forever have to walk the earth as a worthless, flightless pegasus. As she lay in her bed, she wondered if it was all even worth it; if she should just give up and let go, or continue pursuing her probably impossible dream. She fell asleep as she stared at her ceiling, pondering her decision.
A mist flew through the open window, disguised as a small puff of snow. However, the draconequus hidden in the mist soon materialized, and his intentions became clear. Walking over to the sleeping filly, he dropped a single thing, an idea, disguised as a puff of snow, onto her head; and with his task complete, he flew back out into the night.
Author's Note
Comments and critiques! I want all of them!
Sorry for the lack of updates; finals are hell. After the 19th, though, I should be able to put out a chapter or more daily, and catch up all the ones I've missed so far.
