Living in Equestria

How do you shower on the inside?

That was all I could think of as I washed myself vigorously in Pinkie's bathroom after trying to control my nausea over what I'd swallowed the night before. The thought that I had drank, in some form, some stallion's reconstituted seed had definitely put a damper on my morning. I'd hoped Pinkie Pie was kidding... but I don't think even she could come up with that cruel of a joke.

I washed, dried and got dressed in the clothes I had worn last night before going back upstairs to say goodbye to Pinkie. I met Gummy just outside the bathroom on the small circular landing who, thankfully, had not been asleep in the tub. Again, we sized each other up for a moment before I asked him aloud. "Why does she call you Gummy?"

I didn't expect an answer and for a second we just stared at each other. Then his long mouth opened in a yawn to reveal the toothless red gums that lined the interior of his snout.

"No shit, huh?" I said to him and laughed. I don't know if that was a real yawn or if he was answering me... but I'd take it either way.

I found Pinkie in her room staring with intense concentration at a large blank piece of paper on the floor. She didn't even look up when I came in she was so focused on it and I stood there in silence for longer than I'd care to admit before I cleared my throat.

"Ahem..."

Nothing. She didn't even flinch.

"Pinkie?" I said softly.

"Shhh!!!" she shushed.

"Pinkie, I need to go..." I said patently. Whatever she was doing... she was pretty much being her normal self now.

"The words are hiding from me.. they won't come out until they think I'm gone..." she whispered.

"Aaallllright... well. I'm heading back to the farm, I'll see ya round, kay?"

She didn't respond or look up so I took that as the only answer I'd get. I wanted to get back to the farm soon and hopefully I could come up with a good way to give Scootaloo her present on the way there. I closed the door behind me and began down the steps but I only got as far as the first landing when I heard it open again, rapid hoofsteps descending behind me. I turned and was enveloped in a blur of pink, her weight landing around my shoulders in a clasping embrace.

"Thank you!!" she cried happily in my ear. "You're awsometacuar!" she hugged me tight. Her words sent a small tingle of magical shivers through my back and out my wings... It felt like some sort of resolution.

I brought my arms up around her back and squeezed. "You're welcome, Pinkie... just... if we ever do this again, lets skip the cocktails, alright?"

I felt her nod against my shoulder before she let go and dropped down to her legs again. She looked up at me with eyes that I thought might just be a tiny bit watery... but then her face exploded in shock and she cried out "They're back!" before she bolted up the stairs without another word.

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It was early afternoon when I stashed the Mark V in the clubhouse and then turned towards the barn. The need to be with Scootaloo had been growing ever since I left Surgarcube corner, so much so that I found myself flying faster and faster with the scooter tucked under my arm. Given the bond we shared... I wasn't surprised to see she was already running across the yard laughing when I cleared the trees after leaving the scooter, her purple mane and tail flowing out behind her in the wind.

She slammed into my waiting arms, driving me to the ground on my back and nuzzling me fiercely with her little wings buzzing. I hugged her tight and let her smell and presence wash over me for a moment in the late morning sun. We stayed that way for a while, her forehead pressed against mine while we just breathed each other's air for a bit. Once again I was struck by how different it was to be with her than with anypony else and smiled contentedly to be home again with Scootaloo in my arms.

"I'm glad you're home... I'm sooo bored!" she said quietly and then pulled back a bit to give me a kiss. It was quick and light, more of a tender greeting than any passionate kindling.

My hand brushed her soft purple mane from her eyes. "What, AJ not keeping you busy?"

"Shh! I'm supposed to be helpin' Granny..." she gave me a secretive grin and then began to giggle. "But she fell asleep!"

"That doesn't sound like fun." I shook my head in agreement and I realized I couldn't wait at all, I'd never be able to keep a secret from her anyways. "You wanna do something?"

"Ohh! whatcha got?!" she asked eagerly moved back to allow me to get up.

"Follow me!"

She gave an enthusiastic hop and actually hovered for a moment from the speed her wings were buzzing and then fell in beside me as we walked back the way I'd come. She asked me how things had gone with Pinkie and I kept it simple, telling her that Pinkie was back to normal and leaving out the gross realization of the mechanics involved.

"Hey, what are we going to the clubhouse for?" she asked curiously when it came into view.

"Just cuz..." I smiled.

"Jeeze..." she gave me a coy smile. "What's with you and the clubhouse? It's like you gotta thing for it or something..." her hoof gave me a playful smack on the hip.

"Hah! Nah... not this time. Close your eyes..." I said as we reached the door.

"What?" she looked up at me confused.

"You heard me... close your eyes!"

"Errghh... this better not be one of those scary jokes Mason, Or I'm gonna kick your new furry butt to Canterlot..." she warned with a grumble and then shut her eyes.

"No peaking!"

"I'm not!!" she insisted.

Satisfied, I pushed the door open, revealing the sparkling crystal blue scooter propped against the far interior wall with the fiery red helmet I'd placed on the hoof plate that matched it's wheels.

"Alright... Open them..." I said. More nervous than I'd care to admit.

Scootaloo's orange lidded eyes opened and blinked once before they fixed on the two wheeled object in the room. Her face lit up in an odd way I'd never seen before, softening her features and making her look completely different for a moment.

It wasn't until sometime later, replaying that happy moment over in my head, that I realized what that difference was. It was as if none of the bad things she'd had in her life had ever happened to her for that split second... her face had changed to a Scootaloo that never bore the years of loneliness and her father's ire.

Her voice trembled with emotion when she spoke quietly. "Thats a.... Wonderbolt Mark V...." her eyes glistening in the shaded light of the Cutie Mark Crusader's porch.

"Yeah... It's yours..." I said and put my hand on her neck.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she rubbed them away quickly with the back of her hoof. Again and again she repeated this motion for several seconds before she couldn't keep up with them anymore and let out a barking sob, allowing the moisture to run down her cheeks.

"Mason... no..." she cried. "That's like the best ever..."

"It's alright... You deserve it. More than anypony as far as I'm concerned."

She stood there staring at it with tears dripping from the fur on her chin, her mouth sagging slightly.

"Scoots?"

"No... Nopony's ever given me anything this nice before...." she shook her head slightly and then gave another one of those chuffing sobs, her eyes closing when that sob dissolved into a small keening and her mouth grimaced in cryface.

"Hey...!" I gave an awkward chuckle, dropping to my hair covered knees in front of her to wrap my arms around her neck and pull her close. "What's up with the crying? Come on... this was supposed to be fun, remember?"

Her front hooves came around my sides and she leaned her weight against me for support, wetting my neck with her tears.

"I... I a-always thought..." she cried.

"Scoot..." I stroked her neck and upper back between her little orange wings.

"No!... Y- you don't un-understand! I a-always th-thought I was just tra-ha-hash..." she was crying hard now, catching me completely off guard by her outburst.

In the mostly happy time we'd had together since the end of her father's control over her life, I'd forgotten just how truly bad it had been for her. I figured something out that day that I'd never thought of before... I learned that just because it isn't visible, the pain of real hurt on the inside never really goes away, you only just get better at dealing with it.

"You're not trash... You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Scoot..." I said as meaningfully as I could next to her cheek. "You're incredible... just the way you are."

"Yeah... but..." she sniffed and brought herself under control a little bit. "... I don't think I deserve to feel this special sometimes."

"That's your father talking."

"I know.... and shut up..." she gave me a weak, playful thump on my back.

"Make me,... Puffball." I felt her smile against me at her old nickname. I didn't use it often, the last time I did got us in an awkward spot with Apple Bloom... but I guess those days were long gone now.

"Yer a jerk... you know that? Why ya gotta go and make me cry like this?" she rubbed her face in my shirt to dry it before pulling back to look at me. Her purple rimmed eyes were red and puffy but she was smiling.

"Sorry, just thought you could use a new scooter... that's all." I gave her a sarcastic shrug. "Seeing as how you couldn't handle your other one."

"Asshole!" she shot at me and then chuckled a little. I had taught her that word the first night we'd spent together. I'd never heard her use it before and the sound of it coming from her mouth made me laugh the same way a small child swearing could made you smile from the cuteness.

"Fine... I guess I'll take it back then!" I gave an indifferent shrug.

"No!" she quickly said with alarm before she reeled herself in. "I mean... at least let me ride it once, first!"

"I suppose..." I gave her a dramatic sigh before we looked at each other, her eyes swam with joy and tears that threatened to drown me with their depth. Then I kissed her with every ounce of love I had in my body and soul.

Scootaloo returned every bit of it and then some.

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I followed along just above and behind her as she flew down the dirt road at an insane speed on the scooter. It wasn't enough that the rhythmic pushes from her back leg propelled her easily but she also used her wings to increase her speed as well. They were the perfect propeller given the way she stood on the two wheeled platform and I soon discovered that she seemed to go almost as fast as Rainbow Dash could fly on that thing.

She had taken the same west side route we had traveled before but instead of turning towards the town, she kept going north and into an area I'd never been in before, traveling near the edge of the cloudbank that held the city of Cloudsdale above us. I could hear her laughing and whooping it up ahead of me in the early afternoon heat as she vaulted over logs near the side of the road and did spins and kicks with it like she'd been born with the thing strapped to her hooves since she was a foal.

The road lead through the northwestern edge of the thin woods surrounding Ponyville before emptying out into a rolling grassland of hills that were devoid of any trees. Our path skirted the edge of the first large rise before us and then then dived down sharply into a narrow ravine that Scoots didn't even bother to pause at the top of before speeding down.

The grassland rose above us sharply as we descended, her speed gaining quickly as gravity aided the propulsion from the blurry orange wings on her back and I soon found myself lagging behind her even though I was the one airborne. Her screams of exhilaration echoed back to me from the rocky sides of the exposed hills, growing taller with every second we shot down the path.

Ahead, the track curved dramatically to the right and cut through the smooth rock surface of the land on either side, the shapped earth slopped perfectly to meet the edges of the road with no shoulder or delineation to form a U shape. I had just barely caught up with her before she crouched down to get a low center of gravity as we entered the dogleg and my heart lurched when I realized she wasn't turning fast enough to make it around. I though for sure she was going to wipe out hard before my eyes, but I underestimated her...

I banked low to the right, keeping the center line of the road but she took the scooter smoothly up the hillside, letting the earth under her wheels guide her path up and around. Before I could blink she had climbed up the ramp far above me to my left and then gave a great heave on the T handle at her momentum's apex, launching her and the scooter out into the thin, warm air.

I watched in awe as that same momentum carried her in a graceful arc over my body with a smooth motion, blocking out the sun for a moment and letting the scooter extend away from her just long enough to look like she was flying for real. Scootaloo's legs were splayed and her wings beat furiously, her eyes met my own for a brief moment and I saw a look of blissful concentration in them before she reeled the scooter in again, planting her feet on the flat surface of the hoof board and landing the two wheels smoothly on my right, riding the slope of the hill back down to the path below me at an incredible speed that outpaced my own like a bullet from the barrel of a gun.

"YEEEEAAAAAAAAH!" her jubilant voice came to me in echoes from the steep walls on either side of us.

The valley floor rushed up and then flattened out to a deeply shaded ravine bottom. Scootaloo let her speed drop and we slid along the narrow ravine's floor together beside a blue stream that chuckled over rocks and into pools between deep, grass covered banks. Large willow-like trees marched beside the water's edge, letting their long thin whips dip into the current for refreshment in pale jade curtains of foliage that trailed in the water's surface. The air between the rocky, narrow walls here was clean and cool compared to the rippling, dusty heat of the summer above. It felt wonderful.

She slowed, and then steered her scooter to the side of the path near the grassy border between us and the water before coming to a halt. Her chest heaved with excitement that lit her eyes up with an almost insane joy under her helmet. Landing next to her, she looked up at me with an ear to ear grin.

"Woah... that was intense! Did you see that?" her eyes sparkled.

"Yeah! I didn't even know you could do stuff like that on a scooter!"

"Neither did I!" she laughed and then pulled her helmet off. Her mane stuck to her head with sweat. "Come on, I wanna show you something!"

I followed her down to the water's edge where she left her scooter and helmet beside a large tree trunk. Looking left and then right, she seemed to be searching for someplace specific in the water before she moved again. Upstream we walked a few paces till she was satisfied that the dry rocks in the stream were close enough together and she made ready to jump to the first one, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in focus as she crouched down like a coiling cat.

"Wait..." I said.

She stopped jarringly just before she launched herself and looked at me with curious amusement. I didn't know if I could do it, but I felt like I was strong enough now even though I hadn't kept up my training with Rainbow Dash.

I took to my wings and came over the top of her, wrapping my arms around her middle tightly and then took a deep breath, pushing against the ground with everything I had and grunted from the strain. She gave a gasp when her hooves slowly left the ground, dangling inches above the grass before I moved forward to carry her across the water. I felt a thrill that probably came from both of us.

"Mason! You can fly me!!" she cried out.

Barely. I flagged with the effort, but managed to get her over the stream before my strength gave out and I set her gently down on the far side.

"That's about it for right now... but it's a start." I put my hands on my soft grey knees and panted a bit.

Her muzzle came up and I felt her tongue run quickly up my cheek in a licking kiss. She didn't say anything, but I was all the encouragement I needed to keep trying in the future.

She took me towards the rock face of the ravine on the far side of the creek. The grass was taller here and smelled strongly of green growing things and wet earth. A small opening in the brownish rock appeared, just big enough to allow me to slip in and follow behind her in a crouch to the darkened interior. It was a cave of sorts, the light from outside didn't shine bright enough for me to see beyond the mouth and for a moment I lost track of Scootaloo before I heard her hoof scraping against the rock nearby. A jingling metallic sound came, and then light flared from a lantern on the ground.

It was small, barely bigger than a large closet with a close ceiling. It's walls were dark and smooth as if they had been polished by some giant's hand eons ago and reflected back the light from Scootaloo's lantern. On the ground were old remains of a camp with a long abandoned small fire pit in the middle covered with leaves and twigs from disuse beside a small pile of old, dirty blankets. My eyes scanned the walls, noticing with a start that they were not bare... they were covered in crude childlike drawings that progressively got better and more defined as they wound their way down the left wall, across the back and the towards the entrance again on my right.

They were drawn in something that looked like colored chalk but obviously more permanent. Starting on my left was a cloud and a sun with four ponies drawn standing on the top of the curly white lines. I recognized the colors... it was Scoot and her family. The next was a large, poorly proportioned drawing of herself flying alone with a big smile on her face next to another sketch of a gray house, curly q's of smoke rising from the chimney and a small orange pony standing in front of it.

It was painful to see the next few after this one as the images grew darker, with monsters and angry lines that slashed in frantic, abstract patterns and colors. My eyes followed them but I didn't want to see... they sparked bad feelings somewhere inside me near that place where Scootaloo's presence lived within.

I skipped over these and focused on the first bright drawing on the right side near the back of the cave. This was of her and her two friends, small and younger from what I could tell by the size of them. They were standing next to an apple tree, pointing at it while a larger pony with a badly drawn tan hat held up a plank of wood and a disproportionately large hammer.

A few more of these followed, this time with them next to a red schoolhouse and again near what looked like Twilight's library. The final one, closest to the entrance on my right, was a decent drawing of Rainbow Dash with Scootaloo on her back in the clouds. Scoot's front legs were out in front of her above Dash's head, her blue face grinning up it the orange figure on her back.

"I've never brought anypony here" she said quietly. "This was where I used to come when... when I had no place else to go."

"H-how long have you...?"

"Since I was a foal." she looked at the drawings around her. "I would stay here sometimes when my father would come home... just so I didn't have to be around him. There's berries along the stream and the water is good... I stayed here as long as I could sometimes." her ears fell against the back of her head as she remembered those days.

"Scoot..." my heart became heavy with emotion at the thought of her staying here all alone.

"No... it was better, believe me. But now..." she moved to a space between two rocks near the back and fished a rusty metal box out, kicking the top off. "... I don't need this place anymore."

I watched her slide the box over to the empty space on the wall near the entrance and fish into it with her muzzle. A stubby stick of something orange came up in her mouth and she moved close to the blank patch, getting up on her back legs and began to rub it along the smooth surface. I stood in the cool interior of the cave and watched without speaking as Scootaloo finished her story on the walls of the sanctuary.

She wasn't that good at it, but it didn't matter. It was the message behind this place that held it's power and meaning for her. She first drew herself, switching colors to purple to shade in her mane and tail before dropping it and getting a yellow one ready. Beside her, she drew something that looked similar to myself standing up before coloring in my hair, legs and wings to match my own.

We were close to each other, both smiling out from the rock face with one of my hands on her neck. She stepped back and studied it, cocking her head slightly, then returned to her box... coming up with a red colored piece this time. Above her back and next to my head, she traced a large heart.

"That's it. If anypony ever finds this place... they'll see us now." she looked up at me with an almost sad smile.

I couldn't take it anymore. I knelt down and wrapped her in my arms, feeling my own eyes getting wet. "I love you, Scoot..."

"I love you too." she whispered and pulled me down to the cool, dry floor of the cave with her in my arms.

We made love in that place, saying goodbye to a part of her life that she no longer needed. It was a slow and gentle sharing of our bodies that was intensely private without any sense of the magic that had made our connection open for the world to see and share. Her body accommodated me, getting used to the difference in size with patience and understanding on both our behalf before we could slowly rock together in our passionate embrace. When she came, it washed over her in enormous waves that I could feel, crying out my name once in the close confines of the rock walls before burying her face in my neck. Not long after, I followed her into the bright light of our climax... leaving myself deep inside her body through it all.