Scootaloo knew it was coming, but she was still surprised when it did. At times, even though one expects it, they are nonetheless caught off guard by the inevitable. Scootaloo was aware from the moment Summer Flight Camp began that she was going to be called to the office. She had a feeling, a feeling too solid to not be a premonition, that the instructor was going to have a long, miserable discussion with her that began and ended with an apology. And finally, she knew that she would depart the office with a green badge and a dissatisfied scowl. All of these things happened exactly as she predicted. They were no less misery-inducing in reality than they had been in her own mind.
Lunch had already begun by the time Scootaloo departed the office. The majority of the good food was taken, greedily seized by the fortunate first ponies to arrive after the bell sounded. This mattered little, for her visit to the office had successfully pilfered Scootaloo's appetite. Her only motivation for putting food on her tray was because she knew that, despite her stomach having closed up in disappointment, she had not eaten anything on that day. She thought that she should get in a few bites before training began, lest she collapse in the middle of her first drill.
After getting her food, Scootaloo approached the first table she saw. It was occupied by a few colts and fillies who stood out from the others. Unlike the majority of the camp, they did not appear anxious or otherwise bothered by this being their first day. Scootaloo hoped they would not notice her distinct anxiety. However, she need not have worried about this. The ponies at this table dismissed her with a brief glance. Obviously they would not tolerate the inclusion of those marked with a green badge. Her face burning with mortification, Scootaloo strode toward the second nearest table in the hopes of recovering at least a portion of her dignity. But it was not to be so, for she was met with much the same treatment at every single table she attempted to sit at: One glimpse of the infamous green badge and the young ponies at the table would reject her with facial expressions alone. In one particularly cruel case, they went as far as to relocate altogether when it seemed that Scootaloo might persist in her want to join them. Humiliated and lost, Scootaloo stood in the middle of the room searching for a new place to sit.
There was one table at the far end of the room, squashed discreetly into a corner. It was of smaller capacity than the other tables, almost as if it was an extra of some sort. The occupants were a pair of fillies, one short and gray and the other tall, gangly, and yellow. They both looked a little out of place next to the other juvenile pegasi, due in part to their physical appearances. And as Scootaloo wandered a bit closer, she noticed that they bore the same accursed green badges.
“Hey,” she greeted the two fillies in fabricated cheerfulness.
She received no protest as she took the seat next to the tall one. This lifted her drowning heart a little, but it had sunk so far that it barely made a difference to her mood. She wondered bitterly if this was her eternal fate: To be united with those cast aside due to their limitations. She did not like the idea that Summer Flight Camp was only the beginning of an endless cycle of this treatment. She wished that she had objected more seriously to her parents' desires.
The tall filly uttered a little squeak, her eyes darting nervously to the newcomer and back to her food. Rather than make eye contact with Scootaloo, she busied herself with what remained of her meal. Her tray was nearly empty, but it hadn't been too full beforehoof. She was hungry, but she didn't want to bother anypony with her empty stomach.
The gray filly was obviously less timid than the tall one. When Scootaloo first laid eyes on her, she was startled at how she appeared up close. Her mane was a little disheveled, as if she couldn't be bothered to style it properly each day. But this was not the outstanding physical attribute that Scootaloo's gaze was drawn to. She instead found her eyes irresistibly tugged toward the other filly's own, which appeared to go in two contrary directions.
“Oh, you've got a green badge as well?” the gray filly uttered blissfully. “That's really cool. I thought me and Butterfly were the only ones this year.”
The yellow filly opened her mouth to speak, but with a second thought withheld her words.
Scootaloo stared at the gray pegasus as if she thought her insane. Given the chance, she would not apply the adjective “cool” to her badge. She had learned in a short time that it was little more than a reason to be outcasted and judged. Certainly not something she would discuss with the same happy smile on her features as the wall-eyed pegasus.
“Seriously?” she replied, disbelieving. “I can't think of anything worse than being a Flightless Bird.”
She cringed slightly at the words. Hearing the official title fall from her mouth brought in a fresh wave of misery. For she knew, and the green badge would confirm it, that she was indeed a Flightless Bird. The absolute worst thing one could be labeled as on their first day at Summer Flight Camp. The title would follow her into her adult life and beyond. Before she arrived at the camp, she knew of the title “Flightless Bird”. Her mother had explained that it was a special title given to ponies whose flying skills were significantly below the average. Once it had been legal for flight camps to deny training to pegasi of this type, but times had changed. Scootaloo almost wished they hadn't.
“Worse than being a flightless bird?” the gray pegasus responded, her tone still cheerful. “What if you were.....a rattlesnake? Wouldn't that be worse? Nopony likes rattlesnakes. Except someponies.”
Scootaloo couldn't tell if she was being teased or if this pegasus was completely serious. Either way, she hastily swung the topic around to something else. She didn't want to associate with these two ponies if she could help it. However, her options when it came to friendship in this place had been shut off long ago. The best she could do was endure them due to their shared plight.
“I'm.....,” she began to introduce herself.
“.......Scootaloo,” the gray pegasus concluded on her own.
“Uh, how did you......?”
“I saw you earlier and you had a scooter among your things, so I just guessed.”
“Guessed”? Scootaloo wasn't sure whether or not to believe this excuse. But she could not think of an alternate. In addition, that did not look like the face of a pony who was capable of lying.
“I'm Derpy Hooves,” the gray pony uttered in that unwaveringly happy voice. “Some ponies call me Ditzy Doo, but I don't mind. I'm a little bad with names myself. Isn't that right, Butterfly?”
The taller one muttered something that sounded a bit like “Fluttershy”, but the other one apparently did not hear this.
“So, we're all on the same cloud,” Scootaloo concluded with a sigh. “I'd like to know how you two ended up on the bottom rung with me.”
She didn't feel like sparing the other ponies' feelings at the moment. She wanted to speak frankly. The three of them were undeniably on the very bottom rung and she thought it unlikely they would ever progress.
“I'm just not a very good flyer,” Derpy Hooves explained. “I think it has to do with my eyes.”
She spoke as if she was commenting on the weather, rather than telling a new pony how she had ended up being branded as what the others would most likely call a “hopeless case”. It was as if she had no conscious idea of anything going on around her. Scootaloo slightly wished she could be this oblivious to her own troubles, instead of endlessly dwelling on the humiliation of her green badge.
“Butterfly here is the same,” Derpy continued. “Her instructor says she'd be better off on the ground than in the clouds.”
Fluttershy blushed at the words. As far as everypony was concerned, this was the worst judgment anypony could ever give a pegasus. She'd been called worse by bullies, but those words shot straight through her chest. Hearing insults from those determined to break her spirit was something she could get over after a round of crying. Having an instructor, a grown mare or stallion who was paid to be brutally truthful for the pony's own good, tell her this was a tragedy.
Scootaloo flinched again. She was lucky that nopony had ever said those words to her. For one thing, she would have punched them in the jaw. For another thing, she knew full well they were true in many ways. At least the two others, regardless of how bad they were at flying, could walk on clouds without the aid of magic.
Lunch period concluded. Afternoon warm-ups and some light drills were set to commence for the regular students. Soaring Eagles, the highest class of flyer, were given a free period, followed by tougher drills during the regular students' own free period. Baby Doves, the especially young students, received an entire vacant day whilst a morning of strict training awaited them the next day. Flightless Birds were completely separate from these other classes. Their place was a small, cramped room built and furnished hastily for their own personal use, with a specific instructor whom Scootaloo imagined would care little for the proceedings.
Sure enough, the female pegasus in the Flightless Birds training area did not even turn her gaze to the three fillies when they entered. Her attention fixated on the romance novel she was reading, she idly pointed her hoof at the floor. The fillies took this to mean they were to do wing-ups.
Derpy Hooves was surprisingly efficient at doing wing-ups. Granted, she did stumble a bit, but her wings obviously had a decent amount of strength in them. They could endure longer than the wings of some full-grown pegasi Scootaloo idolized. The problem really did seem to be Derpy's eyes, rather than the wings themselves.
Fluttershy, on the other hoof, was hopeless at wing-ups. She progressed past a certain number, usually five or six, and then was unable to do anymore without a sufficient period of inactivity. Many times during these pauses, tears would form in her large blue eyes. Scootaloo had never noticed prior to this, but Fluttershy always had an air of impending sobbing about her. She was a like a sad bomb, always on the verge of erupting, not in agony, but in dark misery.
“You....you good, Flutters?” Scootaloo inquired cautiously.
Choking down her tears, Fluttershy nodded. But this was clearly a lie, for at Scootaloo's query her whole face seemed to crack open, letting every single portion of concealed sadness escape.
Scootaloo was not sure how to handle this. Naturally, she had dealt with sadness before. Yet this was a pony she barely knew who most likely had more issues than her wings. But she could barely stand the thought of remaining idle, continuing her wing-ups as if there was not a miserable filly trying to hide her tears right beside her. And when she turned to look at Derpy Hooves, she saw that the gray pegasus was equally bothered. This made up her mind on which course of action she would take.
“I used to pretend I was okay when I wasn't,” Scootaloo uttered quietly. “Heck, I still do sometimes. Ponies at school would make fun of me and I'd assure the teacher and my parents that I was okay. Then I'd run to my room and cry for an hour. It's tough being this way, huh? I...I get the feeling everypony has given up on us.”
Her tears beginning to flow in earnest, Fluttershy nodded. She didn't need to be told that everypony had given up on them. She had witnessed the instructors' indifference first hoof. She had always made her best attempts, hoping to avoid being called a “Flightless Bird”. Regardless of her desire to impress her parents, her destiny was apparently written long before she could control it.
“N-No hope for Fl-Flightless Birds!” she stammered, her voice trembling with sobs.
“Whoa, no need for the water works!” Scootaloo declared, uncomfortable. “No use crying over spilled......spilled.......”
To her horror, she felt the sting of impending tears in her own eyes. She could not understand this. She had sworn off crying months previous. Surely she was not about to have her own little sobbing fit after promising she would not shed one more tear in her life. Furthermore, she was meant to be comforting Fluttershy, rather than crying herself. It was irrational, she thought, yet she could do nothing to prevent it.
The two fillies collapsed against one another in a sobbing heap, clutching each other as the tears came thick and fast. Their wails did not seem to bother the instructor. They were not reprimanded for the noise they were making or for the fact that they had halted in doing their wing-ups. It was as if they were sobbing in a separate plane of existence.
Derpy Hooves, her upbeat smile vanishing for once, regarded her two companions worriedly.
As free period dawned, Scootaloo and Fluttershy at last ran out of tears. Their hearts, at their highest capacity of sadness, ceased trying to shrivel out of existence and returned to their usual size. They were by no means fully healed of their troubles, but they felt better having sobbed most of the pain out of their bodies. Crying with another pony, silently bonding a common point of misery, had increased their capability to handle said misery for the time being.
Nevertheless, Scootaloo was embarrassed. She had never, for any reason, allowed herself to cry in front of another pony. Even her own parents had been spared seeing tears run down her face. She was further mortified that she had cried in front of a pony she barely knew. Granted, it had all been on more of an impulse than anything else. Fluttershy's sobbing had drawn her in, forcing her into that tragic part of her mind. She wanted to implore them not to spread this incident around, but stopped herself as logic overtook her. Out of all the ponies at camp, these two were probably some of the least likely to do any such thing.
“It's free period,” she observed, blushing. “I guess I'd better....”
The sentence could not be finished. She had no friends at camp and a glimpse at her badge was sufficient enough to discourage potential comrades.
But Derpy Hooves smiled broadly at the realization that it was indeed free period.
“Oooh, free period!” she uttered buoyantly. “That's when we get to go below the clouds! Fun! Race you guys to the ground!”
Scootaloo raised her eyebrows, skeptical. She was certain that pegasi did not normally go “below the clouds” for free period. Clouds were, after all, a pegasus's natural habitat.
“The ground.....?” she echoed.
Fluttershy's eyes lit up with pleasure at the mention of it. The norm was apparently a foreign concept to her and Derpy Hooves. Not surprising, as the two were already a walking contradiction to the very nature of the mighty pegasus race.
Scootaloo followed the two of them out of their secluded training area. She was nervous as she tailed closely behind the pair, who were smiling, Fluttershy shyly and Derpy broadly, as they walked. She almost thought they would be stopped by an angry instructor. Perhaps they would be told that they were not allowed to leave the clouds, even during free period. The instructors weren't paying specific attention to them, she noticed as they passed several.
Derpy Hooves found the perfect spot to descend. They were far too high up for a simple drop. Fortunately, at the back of the camp there was rigged a special sort of ramp for injured pegasi who needed to be taken to a superior hospital, such as the one in Canterlot, and could not be flown there for any reason. The ramp was only meant to be used in particular emergencies, but the three fillies would be using it to escape into a world that suited them better. Derpy Hooves went first without hesitation, followed by a slightly wary Scootaloo, and at last a very reluctant Fluttershy who had to close her eyes before she could do it. The ramp deposited them in a lush green field occupied mostly by gorgeous, fragrant flowers and wandering butterflies.
“This would look better on a postcard than Cloudsdale,” Scootaloo observed of her surroundings.
Fluttershy steadied herself, recovering from going down the ramp. The experience was akin to braving an enormous, volatile monster of a water slide for the first time. Her head and other vital organs were waiting for her back at the top, or at least that was the way she felt. Only by the greatest force of will did she keep all she had eaten that day inside her stomach. Despite her kind nature, she was a bit annoyed that neither Scootaloo nor Derpy Hooves seemed as affected as she was by going down the ramp. She saw that they were already examining things as if they had merely stepped over the threshold.
“I'm sorry....but aren't you two nauseous?” she inquired, surprised.
A butterfly landed on Scootaloo's outstretched hoof. She gently shooed it away before turning to Fluttershy and shrugging at her question.
“I've jumped off high platforms just for fun,” she responded calmly. “Stuff like that doesn't get to me anymore.”
Derpy Hooves shrugged as well, absentmindedly batting at a flower with her hoof in a manner befitting a feline.
“I've gone down ramps like that thousands of times,” she explained happily. “Bad flying abilities run in my family. So do accidents!”
Something occurred to Scootaloo. A problem she should have recognized as soon as spending free period on the ground was mentioned. Her gaze went upward, to the flight camp above them. Miles above them, she realized with some unease. With their flying abilities, they could not get back there by their own power. Especially her, as her best height off the ground was somewhere around twelve inches.
“Um, Derpy, how exactly do we get back?” she queried, perturbed.
Obviously unconcerned by the idea of being stranded on the ground, Derpy waited a bit to reply. She pulled the flower from the ground and examined it. Deciding that its beauty passed the test, she laid it aside. She then began retrieving other flowers from the vicinity, laying them aside along with the first. It was only in the middle of doing this that she replied to Scootaloo's concern.
“Somepony will come for us!” she responded with confidence. “We can't be absent forever!”
Couldn't we? Scootaloo thought, her mind on their detached instructor.
She didn't let it bother her, though. Surely somepony would notice that three students were missing and eventually, most likely around the evening meal, somepony would be sent out to retrieve them. Flightless Birds might be the least liked of all the classes, but they were students nonetheless. In the meantime, Scootaloo distracted herself from her worries by helping Derpy collect flowers.
Fluttershy, meanwhile, wandered off to discover any critters in the area.
Luna's light rose, draping a beautiful tint over the darkening landscape. When the sun's glowing face was present in the sky, one could easily ignore the time, even as it steadily drifted. But when the illumination vanished, everypony was obliged to notice the rapidly spinning hooves of the clock.
Fluttershy was speaking quietly to the squirrel perched on her shoulder. She had dubbed the adorable little critter “Scamperpants” and retreated a little ways from the others to converse in whispers with it. She never felt comfortable discussing her problems, both mental and physical, with other ponies. Animals were different, though. Animals couldn't be as harsh to her as other ponies sometimes were.
As night settled in, Derpy Hooves could be glimpsed in the meager light of the moon dancing by herself, prancing elegantly across the field with her hooves wrapped around a nonexistent partner. Despite her sight difficulties, she was surprisingly light on her hooves.
Scootaloo alone noticed the darkness as it settled in, but thought nothing of it at first. She was enjoying herself, simply running around without the burden of classes upon her back. She didn't feel at all like a Flightless Bird in this place. She was experiencing a sense of liberation she had never thought possible. However, when the grass melted into the surrounding darkness and the trees turned to tall, bulky shadows, she realized that it was most definitely nighttime.
Nopony came for us, she thought, worried. Doesn't anypony miss us up there? They must be taking roll call before lights out.....they'll notice we aren't there......
She didn't entirely believe this was the case. Roll call or not, somepony would take note of the disappearances of three students who wore distinctive green badges. She would be foolish to expect the students themselves to draw attention to the matter, but the instructors were another story. Surely the rational adults at the camp would deduce that something was amiss and demand a search of the area, including the ground below the camp.
“Oh......my.....,” Fluttershy whimpered suddenly.
She was pulled from her engaging conversation with Scamperpants to notice that it was dark. Pitch black, in fact, although at this beginning stage of absolute fear she would have been blind to any source of light. The field, once a welcoming salvation in the light, turned into the wasteland from Fluttershy's nightmares in the dark. She did not even acknowledge the departure of her squirrel friend. She was staring, a tremble spreading across her body and a scream working its way up her throat, into the abyss that was suddenly all around her.
A fear of the darkness that had lay dormant for months arose in Scootaloo's chest. She thought she had escaped this fear when she neglected to read horror fiction prior to bedtime. But fears have a way of coming back after conquered, manifesting themselves in terrifying visions. The unfortunate orange filly no longer saw trees towering around them. She instead saw massive, cruel-hearted monsters preparing to sink their claws into her flesh and dine on her fur. She began to quiver in dismay.
Going into a wild spin, Derpy Hooves lost control of herself. She had never perfected any sort of spin, even with the aid of daylight. She always tripped or otherwise ruined the action halfway through. In the darkness, this loss of control caused her to painfully collide with the quivering Scootaloo.
A shriek of pure terror erupted from Scootaloo's throat. Without illumination, and not helped at all by her own returning fears, the mere accident was twisted into the first assault of a malevolent, blood-thirsty creature within her mind. She reacted on instinct alone, fueled by a year of strict martial arts training. She shot her front hooves forward, slamming them into her opponent in a desperate attempt to find their vital spots. Her hooves connected with something solid and she plowed her entire body into it, forcing it to the ground.
All of this was accompanied by an unpleasant soundtrack of Fluttershy's own screams. She did not know what was going on, only that somepony had judged this specific time worthy of a horrified shriek and she felt inclined to return it tenfold.
Only when the last squeaks of terror had been wrenched from their dry throats did the young ponies cease screaming. Panting, confused, and only beginning to recover their senses, two of them choked out the remains of their screams, while the third lay dazed and temporarily somewhat deaf.
Scootaloo addressed the bundle of warm fur underneath her. She was starting to think that it wasn't a monster after all. For that matter, the trees around them were beginning to appear less eager to slice her in two.
“De-Derpy Hooves?” she croaked.
The reply that came back, although a little muffled, was surprisingly lighthearted and contained no indication of discomfort, despite the speaker being currently trapped underneath another pony who had violently attacked her.
“Innocent as charged!” uttered the wall-eyed filly.
A sheepish Scootaloo hastily scrambled to her hooves. She was uncomfortably certain that she had been the chief player in an avoidable commotion. She dreaded to imagine the penalty for her foolishness if they had been under the stern, unforgiving gaze of the instructors. When thoughts of their reactions began to surface, she again wondered about the state of their retrieval. She was not in possession of any sort of time piece, except for the cryptic sky before her. She only had her mind to tell her that it was far past the evening meal and nearing bedtime. She could picture the instructors doing their last rounds of the day to ensure that everypony was accounted for. Yet obviously she, along with Fluttershy and Derpy, had not been missed.
“I don't like this,” Fluttershy squeaked, mirroring Scootaloo's thoughts.
Three small outlines in the darkness came together in a worried huddle. The largest of the outlines was making small noises in the back of her throat, threatening impending sobs of distress. The feeling of being left out in the dark is normally used in the figurative sense. But in this somber case, it seemed that the three of them had truly been “left out in the dark” in every literal meaning of the phrase. Abandoned for some unknown reason in this horrible landscape devoid of light or comfort.
Quietly and miserably, Fluttershy started to cry again.
“I don't want to be a Wonderbolt!” she exclaimed. “Mother, Father, I'll do anything else you say....just please don't make me stay in this place! I....I hate it...”
The term “Wonderbolt” momentarily distracted Scootaloo. She, like every pegasus in Equestria, had grown up amidst stories concerning the elite flying team and military force known as “The Wonderbolts”. She was in awe about all they had done for the pegasus race and Equestria as a whole. At one time she had nurtured a naïve hope that she could eventually join them.
“You were training to become a Wonderbolt?” Scootaloo inquired, shocked by this news.
The Wonderbolts she saw in photographs were always athletic mares and stallions, their heads held aloft in confidence. The hoi polloi radiated protection and power, the two things the Wonderbolts stood for in their distinct uniforms. The scrawny, gangly, timid yellow filly who often neglected eye contact and appeared to be in a perpetual state of anxiety would be laughable next to them. Summer Flight Camp was nothing, if Scootaloo knew her Wonderbolt history. The intense training pegasi went through to become Wonderbolts would land any pony of Fluttershy's disposition in a hospital for the remainder of her existence.
“My parents wanted me to,” Fluttershy explained sadly. “Both of them tried to become Wonderbolts. But....but I just....don't want to!”
The last words were obviously meant to be screamed in objection. However, Fluttershy did the reverse. The words instead came out in a tiny squeak of a whisper.
“Well, what do you want to do?” Scootaloo questioned sensibly.
Fluttershy considered the query for a minute. She had never been asked what she wanted to do prior to this time in her life. Her life had chiefly revolved around what her parents required of her, be it becoming a Wonderbolt or getting accepted to the prestigious Princesston University. For the very first time, somepony was expressing an interest in her own desires and she was quite at a loss to express them.
“I don't know what I want to do,” she admitted. “Something with animals?”
The smile of the wall-eyed filly was strong enough to be sensed in the darkness. The isolation of the blackness around them was clearly having no effect on her.
“I'm going to run a bakery!” she announced confidently. “Derpy's Delicious Delights!”
Scootaloo laughed, but she was not doing it in response to Derpy's ambition. She was laughing because she realized how strangely at home she felt with the two other ponies. At home, when she had tried to make friends with other schoolponies, there had always been that feeling that she was on the poisoned end of the spectrum, even when they appeared to be letting her into their circle. With these two ponies, she did not feel that in the slightest.
“Ooooh, a firefly!” Derpy uttered suddenly.
She indicated the location of the insect with a hoof that both of her companions could barely see in the darkness. In the direction she pointed, a small light could be seen. But despite her classification, this light did not seem to belong to a firefly or any other type of glowing insect. The illumination was far too immense and seemed to be moving at a rate inconsistent with anything of that species. And as the light neared, she noticed that a large figure appeared to be behind it, as if a pony was holding a light source of some description.
The pony with the lantern, for it was not a firefly but a pegasus with a portable source of light dangling from her hoof, touched down in front of the fillies. She was holding it at such a height and angle that the other ponies were forced to squint into the bright light, unable to see who had at last come for them. Her greeting for them was not one of relief or a pleasant inquiry about their current state. Instead, it was fury with a promise of discipline behind it.
“The head counselor isn't going to like this,” she pronounced, her voice quaking with rage.
As predicted, the head counselor did not like it. She was utterly furious when the charges were placed before her for review. The “charges”, to lay them out bluntly, were the following: Leaving camp without permission, missing various mandatory activities, and ignoring miscellaneous rules prohibiting said activity. To give things an even graver tone, the guilty fillies had only been at the camp for less than two days. Letters were composed for legal guardians and the offenders were sentenced to a week confined to their own cloud cabin far from the others. All indulgence was forbidden, leaving them with only meals and training in between their solitary confinement.
“It's not like this is any different from before,” Scootaloo could be heard to mutter as they departed the head counselor's office.
Derpy encouraged them to consider the happier aspects of their punishment. They were temporarily liberated from the bullying of their peers, she optimistically pointed out. She also reminded them of all the free time they now had, away from the constant bustle and pressure to enjoy oneself along with the group.
Scootaloo's couldn't be comforted by these points. She instead sought happiness in the fact that she would have extended time to work on a letter to her parents. Unfortunately, the letter itself proved elusive in its creation. She found it difficult to translate all of her mixed feelings onto paper. She had so many thoughts in her mind, crashing into one another and aggressively contradicting her history, that focusing on one and turning it into an actual physical sentence was evading her. She could only write nonsense fit to be abandoned.
“I hate writing letters!” she exploded at one point.
It was the third day of their punishment. The three ponies were in the cabin, waiting patiently for the evening meal. One would expect them to wait impatiently, but they had discovered early on that impatience did nothing for their situation except cause a surfeit of aggravation.
Derpy looked up from her drawing. The drawing, if one endeavored the heroic task of describing it, was meant to depict herself and two other ponies charging into a barrage of fearsome beasts. But this was only a vague interpretation, for she was not a good artist. The deformed shapes and twisting lines meant to represent various body parts did not make it clear which group she intended to be the monsters. As it is obvious, drawing was another thing she was not very good at. But like most things that did not promise success, she did them anyway at her leisure.
“I hate writing letters, too,” she responded, although brightly. “Has anypony ever considered how nice it is to be a unicorn? Holding a pencil in your mouth and writing well enough to be read is tough. Unicorns can just use their magic.”
Of course, Scootaloo's problem had little to do with holding the pencil in her mouth. She, like all ponies without magic to aid them, was used to this practice. However, she politely agreed with Derpy that unicorns did have it better in that regard. A part of her longed to seize the other pony and commission her to write the letter for her, despite the unpredictable results. Anything that would prevent her from throwing the parchment and pencil across the room in anger was on the table.
Fluttershy, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the room staring at the wall as if being given a timeout, turned her head and smiled weakly at Scootaloo.
“I never know what to say when I write letters,” she admitted sadly.
At least she had a better grasp of the problem, a fact Scootaloo was somewhat grateful for. In truth, a great portion of the trouble was her punishment. She wanted to awknowledge it in the spirit of honesty, yet she required some lighter news to soften the impact. But so far, she did not have any particularly wonderful developments to share with her parents. Giving up for the moment, she cast the letter aside and looked around the cabin.
There was not much to look at in the lonely room. Three beds, a small dresser, a door, and no windows. Squashed into the corner was an oil lamp for illumination, a stack of paper, and an assortment of pencils, markers, and crayons. The last of these items were the only sources of amusement they were allowed. Derpy Hooves alone seemed to be enjoying them.
“Can I have your badge thing, Scooterloo?” inquired Derpy, beaming.
Scootaloo, without bothering to correct Derpy about her name, handed over the badge without thinking. She was losing herself in memories of her younger days, longing for her home despite having only been at camp for less than a week. She desperately wanted to be returning to her place of dwelling after a day of fun, looking forward to an excellent dinner and letting her nose be teased by the aroma of sweets in the air. This cabin was a cruel mockery of all she desired.
Derpy returned the badge to the reminiscing filly a few minutes later. Pleased with what she had done, she returned the crayons and markers to the corner. She then selected a fresh sheet of paper and a pencil and began to compose a very long, detailed letter to her mother.
A knock on the cabin door alerted the inhabitants that they were expected at the evening meal. When the two other fillies rose and started towards the door, they were surprised to see Scootaloo remain where she was.
“Um....aren't you going to eat?” Fluttershy queried.
Scootaloo shook her head and told them she was not hungry. A fabrication on her part, for her stomach felt especially vacant. To her own peril, she had skimmed over breakfast and lunch with barely a mouthful. But she thought it necessary to put up this masquerade. The rejection and disgusted stares in the mess hall were getting to her. Also, the pressing matter of the evasive letter was still present in her mind. She thought that if she just gave it some solid, uninterrupted attention, she would be able to master it.
Derpy and Fluttershy glanced at each other, but said nothing before they left the orange pony to her own devices.
Nighttime fell and the letter was no more completed than it had been that morning. It was perhaps even less finished, Scootaloo having tossed away some of her best material due to how unpleasantly it fit with everything else she wished to express. She was frustrated and hungry, bitterly regretting her choice to skip the evening meal when she was not even permitted to get a midnight snack. The only thing she could do was add another crumpled piece of paper to the increasing ocean of them on the floor.
Fluttershy and Derpy returned from the meal in medium spirits. Well-fed and with a taste of fresh air, they had almost forgotten about their punishment until the instructor directed them back to their secluded cabin.
“Special delivery!” Derpy announced.
Scootaloo was only given a tiny duration to duck as a projectile soared over her head and landed behind her. This was fortunate, as she was so wrapped up in her failings at letter-writing that she would not have noticed the immediate danger if Derpy hadn't spoken. At the other pony's shout, she turned just in time to see an item nearing impact distance. She cried out in surprise and flattened herself on the bed, allowing it to come to a rocky landing on the covers behind her.
“What the hay?” she burst out indignantly.
She seized the item, which appeared to be enclosed in thick white napkins. She turned furiously to the smiling wall-eyed filly, holding the thing in her hooves and preparing to heave it back in retaliation. Luckily for her, she paused to examine the item. The scent it was giving off was rather nice, she noticed. She could not exactly place it, but she thought it had a tender familiarity to it nonetheless. Inquisitive of this mystery, she unwrapped the item to reveal its identity: A hayburger, presumably from the mess hall. She stared at it, at a loss for any sort of response.
“She didn't mean it!” Fluttershy exclaimed quickly. “She...she can't throw very well, you see. Please don't be mad at her, Scootaloo! Please! She knew you were hungry and...and....”
Convinced there was to be a violent confrontation, her words sputtered and went out. She retreated to the furthest part of the room, pressing herself against the wall to become a smaller target for any leftover animosity. This was her standard response whenever it appeared that ponies were destined to adopt combat as a solution. She had never been one for violence herself, even observing from the sidelines.
Scootaloo's stomach growled, informing her that she would be foolish to react angrily to the offer of food. Gazing into Derpy's mismatched eyes, she could not truly believe there had been any malevolence in the action. In fact, she realized as she looked at both these ponies in turn that she did not think they could ever do her any harm on purpose. For some reason, they seemed to like her. And she had to admit to herself that she did enjoy their company. She didn't have any friends back home, yet they were willing to accept her immediately, as if they had been waiting patiently for her all their lives.
“You....want half?” she offered softly.
Derpy told her that she had filled her stomach at the evening meal, but was grateful for the offer. Obtaining the hayburger had been noticeably simple. She told the lunchmare her friend was “in a bad state” and wasn't able to come to the evening meal. It was not a lie, she thought to herself as she accepted the extra hayburger. She was not very good at judging ponies and their moods, but she thought there was something dispiriting residing inside Scootaloo's mind. Her father had always told her that her ability to help those in need even if she did not understand the problem would get her through life, regardless of her own physical and mental limitations. Derpy silently bid goodnight to her parents. Her mission was complete and, having no desire to draw, she curled up on the bed for a long slumber.
Scootaloo and Fluttershy watched the sleeping pony for a moment, then turned to each other. Both realized in the same instance that they were rather lucky to have a pegasus of such innocent, yet softhearted, character on their side.
“So, did you write a letter to your folks?” Scootaloo queried.
Fluttershy sat down on her own bed and gazed at the orange pony. She was looking her straight in the eye, somewhat of a rarity for her. A part of her always feared seeing disappointment and rage whenever she looked into another pony's face. But Scootaloo's eyes were clear of those things and she felt confident enough to speak a little frankly.
“I can't think of a way to explain myself,” she replied guiltily. “I've never gotten in trouble before and I don't know what they'll say. They've always wanted to be Wonderbolts, especially my mother. She had....a tough childhood.”
“Tough? What happened to her?”
The answer came in the form of the pained expression that came to life on Fluttershy's visage. She had never told anypony about her mother's past. Her mother herself only hesitantly revealed the worst of it to her young daughter. A blatant mare, she related it in as much detail as she expected a timid filly like Fluttershy to be able to handle. The story explained why Fluttershy, who had been curious about it due to something she'd read in a book about ancestry, was not allowed to visit her grandparents.
“She ran away from home,” Fluttershy revealed with a sigh. “She was barely into adulthood before.....I came along.”
“And what about your dad? Didn't you say he wanted to be a Wonderbolt as well?”
“He had an accident and now he can't fly anymore. He's not my biological father, by the way.”
Scootaloo offered an empathetic smile to the other pony. It was all she manage safely. Every question that appeared in her mind had the risk of causing offense or unhappiness and every comment was lined with scorn she did not intend. Fluttershy was such a delicate soul that Scootaloo preferred to hold her tongue, rather than possibly induce sobbing. She instead produced her green badge and began idly playing with it.
“Oh, she did it to yours as well?” Fluttershy uttered, beaming.
The question bemused Scootaloo. She opened her mouth to request details, but stopped herself. She looked down at the green badge in her hooves, scowling in concentration at the item. Something was a little off about it, she thought. The color was the same, as was the basic shape and design. She turned it over to examine the back and received a surprise. Written in neat, cramped yet legible letters on the surface of the badge was her name.
“She did it to yours as well?”
Scootaloo's heart swelled with emotion as she clasped the badge to her chest.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I got your letter. I promise, it wasn't that big a deal. They're not going to kick me out of camp or have my flying license revoked. The worst they did to me was put me in “solitary” with the two other fillies who got in trouble. It was more fun than it should have been, considering that it was a punishment. I'm no longer unhappy that you sent me to flight camp. It's kind of funny. Two things that should have sucked turned out to be pretty good in the end: Me being sent to flight camp and me being punished for breaking the rules.
Hey, while we're talking about flying, I think I've decided what skill I want to learn. One of my new friends suggested it and I think I should listen to her. I want to gather some spare parts and build my own scooter. I know I've barely ridden the scooter you bought me before, but that's kind of what practice is for. I'll get good at it eventually and then I'll be set.
--Scootaloo
Flightless birds can never experience the sky.
But there is plenty of friendship and love on the ground.
