Hatred Knows No Boundaries

The small filly sat on the floor pondering her next move. She had already checked the entire kitchen and living room. She knew she wouldn't find it upstairs because she'd been up there to begin with. The only place remaining was game room. She trotted through the hallway to the game room, knowing that she had no reason to rush. She began her search around the pinball machine but found nothing. She checked behind all of the game machines, but she still came up empty hooved. She was befuddled! There wasn't a single place left unchecked in the entire house!

The filly gave up. She walked out of the game room about to admit defeat. Suddenly, she saw movement out of the corner of her dull purple eyes as she passed the window. Outside! she thought. Of course! She galloped at full speed through the hallway and reached the back door. She burst through the door and started running towards the game room window. She saw the shape coming out of a shrub, and the shape started running. The filly continued galloping, trying desperately to catch up to the shape.

The shape was obviously a faster runner than the filly, but the clever filly had an idea. She spread her wings and started flapping them to get some lift. She felt her front hooves leave the ground, and she started flapping harder. She was now completely airborne and moving much faster. She was able to catch up with the shape rather quickly. She tried to dive down and catch the shape, but she lost control of her flight. Her wings flailed wildly and she began hurtling towards the ground. She landed on top of the shape with enough force to send them both tumbling through the grass in a flurry of orange and yellow.

"You okay, Honeysuckle?" said the pegasus. She tried to apologize to the earth pony but was cut off.

"Scootaloo, you cheater! We agreed on no flying!" Honeysuckle pushed herself off of the ground and glared at the orange filly.

"Yeah, well we also agreed on staying inside! It becomes a lot harder to find you if you're outside!" Scootaloo stared Honeysuckle until the earth pony's stern expression faltered.

"Well, fine then, I guess we both cheated!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

The two fillies sat in the grass staring at each other for a few more seconds before letting out simultaneous sighs. They flopped down in the grass and stared at the sky for a little. Honeysuckle began to giggle, Scootaloo followed, and they both ended up laughing their flanks off. Neither of them knew why they were laughing, of course, but laughter seemed to follow anything the duo did.

"Of course you would cheat, Scootaloo! What else could I expect?" Honeysuckle was still laughing uncontrollably in the grass.

Scootaloo immediately stopped laughing at Honeysuckle's comment. "Whaddaya mean? I don't usually cheat."

Honeysuckle was still giggling in the grass. "Well, you're a pegasus! What else could I expect?"

The orange filly sat up. "How does me being a pegasus make me a liar?"

"I don't know. My parents just always tell me how pegasi are no good liars or something. They never really explain it, but it probably has something to do with pegasi being inferior." Honeysuckle said all of this as if it were common knowledge.

Scootaloo was hurt. She had been hearing remarks like these more and more over the past few years, and all of them had come from earth ponies. She didn't quite understand what was wrong with pegasi, but she never liked hearing the comments. She decided to inform her friend. "What are you talking about? Pegasi aren’t inferior to any other type of pony. We’re all equal, just different.”

Honeysuckle suddenly had a very irritated look on her face. "How dare you compare pegasi to earth ponies? Your race is impure, a disgrace to ponies. Earth ponies are the original, pure, untouched race of high beings!"

“You’re just saying what your parents tell you!” Scootaloo knew that Honeysuckle’s parents despised pegasi, though she never understood why. In fact, getting Honeysuckle’s parents to allow Honeysuckle to play with Scootaloo was almost impossible.

“No, I’m not! I firmly believe that pegasi are inferior and should be eradicated!”

The orange pegasus was becoming impatient. "Why do you hang out with me then?"

The yellow earth pony had never thought of it like that before. "Actually, I don't know. Truthfully, I shouldn't be hanging out with you." Honeysuckle gasped. "By being friends with you, I'm dirtying the earth pony race!" Honeysuckle promptly stood up. "We can't be friends anymore. I'm sorry." She galloped off.

Scootaloo was left dumbfounded in the grass. She didn't know what had just transpired between her and her best friend, but she doubted that she would ever know. She got up and walked into her house. The orange pegasus went in to watch some television. She started flipping through channels to find some interesting shows. When she passed by the news channels, she saw some bulletins about pegasi and earth ponies. She decided to read some of the headlines. "Increased hate against pegasi," "Earth pony hatred of pegasi on the rise," and "Hate crimes against pegasi increasing" were just a few of the headlines in the news. The news depressed her too much, so she decided to move on.

After a few hours of television, she ate a quick dinner and went to bed, the Manehattan skyline brightening the suburban horizon. No matter how much she tried, though, she couldn't get to sleep. Her thoughts were too active as they went over the facts and tried to make sense of them. She saw no reason for which earth ponies would hate pegasus ponies so much. The filly began to think that it was some grudge held over from history, possibly from the ancient times of Equestria. She had heard that the ancient pegasus and earth pony nations had never gotten along, but she doubted that such disagreements could carry over into modern times. Eventually too tired to keep her eyes open, Scootaloo drifted into the world of dreams.

The pegasus pony was awoken by a loud bang from the street outside. Her window shook from the noise, and she cowered under her covers. She heard some yelling and then some more bangs. She began to softly cry into her pillow. She heard some rapid hoofsteps on the pavement and then nothing. She lay in her bed and didn't move a muscle. She held her breath and waited. When she heard nothing else, she tried to fall asleep again. After a few minutes, though, she was kept awake by the sound of sirens outside. When the ambulance finally left, she went to sleep again.

The next morning was relatively normal. Scootaloo woke up, went downstairs, and started eating breakfast with her parents. She looked around the table at both of them and wondered whether she should ask them.

"Mom, Dad, what was all that noise last night?" She looked at both of them for an answer, but both of them pretended not to hear her. She repeated the question, but still got no response. "Mom, Dad! What happened last night?!" She was getting impatient. She knew they could hear her.

Her father finally looked up from his newspaper and gave the tiny pegasus a stern look. "Scootaloo, you have nothing to worry about. Some ponies just got into a fight and...well, only one pony left afterwards. Typical stuff, you know?" He looked at her for a second longer before returning to his paper.

Scootaloo didn't like all of this recent commotion. Her neighborhood had been perfectly quiet for as long as she could remember. Recently, however, it seemed there was a gunfight at least once a week. She began to wonder if this had anything to do with the earth pony-pegasus feud. She looked up at her father and asked another question. "Dad, was the pony who didn't leave a pegasus?"

Her father's ears pricked up at Scootaloo's question. He looked up, staring deep into Scootaloo's eyes. "Yes, dear, I think it was. You needn't worry about it though, okay? Just go back to eating, we have a busy day today, remember? We're taking you on a tour of Flight School. The train leaves in a few hours and you still need to pack."

Scootaloo had forgotten all about Flight School. She still had two years of school left in Manehattan before she could attend Flight School, but most pegasi toured the school and the city before actually going there. She finished her breakfast as quickly as possible and ran up to start packing her things. She packed all of her necessary school supplies: pencils, some notebooks, textbooks, etc. She packed a suitcase full of formal clothes just in case. Since she would be living in the school, she also packed some photos of her family and her scooter keychain her mother had given her for her birthday. She figured she could buy anything else when she got to Cloudsdale.

"Scootaloo, hurry honey!" called her mother from the kitchen. The pegasus finished packing her things and ran downstairs.

"Come on, mom! Let's go!" She grabbed her mother and pulled her along to the front door. She then hopped on her back as they all flew off for the train station. As they flew, the orange filly decided to open her wings. The wind caught her wings and felt good on her feathers. She was so excited to learn to fly.