"So... no apiary cutie mark then? What's next?" Scootaloo shot off the question to her two fellow crusaders before turning back to face the path. She winced as her main caught on the beeswax and honey that slathered her coat.
"Next we should maybe try something less... dangerous?" Sweetie Belle chimed in through clenched teeth, her magic yanking a ball of yellow gloop from her back. The unicorn was less than pleased to see the white hairs that dangled from the glistening mass.
"Ah didn' even see any monkeys..." Applebloom kicked a loose pebble that had made the mistake of crossing the young filly's path, and tried to ignore the throbbing pain where a few particularly persistent insects had left their mark defending the hives.
Scootaloo's eyes lit up just as Twilight's door came into view, the closest house with a bath to the honey hives, and memories of another unicorn magician sprung to mind.
"Ooh, ooh, I know! Cutie mark crusader pyrotechnicia-"
The three fillies squirmed in the tub as a brush more suitable to scouring pans than flesh took the worst of the honey and wax from their coats.
"Well... at least it isn't pine needles and tree sap this time, right girls?" Twilight tried to smile at the crusaders, attempting for the third or fourth time to get them out of their despondency. "The adventures you three get up to; they often sound like something out of a storybook."
The absent-minded mumble sunk into three pairs of ears, and a spark burst to life within their young minds. As one they synched up, and then shouted:
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER COMIC BOOK ILLUSTRATOR!"
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER BALLAD ARTISTS!"
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER SCRIPT WRITERS!"
Twilight's horn flared, barely containing the surge of water from the tub as the three young ponies leapt upright, and managed a strained smile at the crusaders.
"What about writing a short story? I overheard Cheerilee mention that writing about life in Ponyville would be an upcoming homework assignment." Twilight leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "but don't tell anyone you heard in from me."
She held a hoof to her lips, keeping herself balanced by placing her other forehoof against the tub, and shared a clandestine wink with the youngsters. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stifled their giggles, and held up their own hooves in a solemn show of solidarity. Unfortunately they lacked the grace that comes with age, and they immediately lost their balance tumbled into one another sending out a second tsunami that caught Twilight unawares.
Looking less than pleased at the damp flooring, sopping fetlocks and spreading pool of bath water she hollered for Spike to fetch a mop, and returned to removing what remained of the wax and honey.
With a little more vigour than was perhaps strictly necessary.
"It was a dark and stormy night that oozed over Ponyville. Clouds flowed like sickly black ichor, polluting the sky and blocking what little light shone torpidly from a pallid moon. Thunder rumbled ominously like the birthing cries of hatred and anger, heralded by forks of white lightning that would lance down and scar the earth belo-"
"What!? Dash would never allow a storm like that!"
"And Ah don' wanna read no story about the weather! I thought this story was about Ponyville..."
Sweetie Belle was not amused with the interruption to her artistic flow, but wasn't about to argue the point when both friends seemed set against it.
"What do you suggest then?"
Scootaloo cleared her throat with a dramatic cough, and began reading from the ink-stained piece of paper in front of her.
"Scootaloo, second fastest pony in Equestria behind the legendary soon to be Wonderbolt Rainbow Dash who is the best pony ever apart from maybe the princesses although she's definitely the best pegasus especially after she pulled off that super sweet epically awesome sonic rainboom and..."
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to interrupt, but was stopped by a hoof on her shoulder by Applebloom.
"Ah wanna see how long she can keep this up."
"...this one time where the three of us rescued all of Fluttershy's chickens which doesn't sound that impressive except there was this fearsome cockatrice that was turning things to stone including Twilight who by the way is Celestia's star pupil which is awesome although not quite as awesome as pulling off a sonic rainboom like Rainbow Dash who is the best pony ever apart fro-"
The orange pegasus petered out and collapsed to the ground, wheezing for breath. After a few minutes of panting she managed to clamber upright. Scootaloo opened her mouth to continue, but after seeing that the other two had collapsed themselves, although in mirth rather than oxygen starvation, she threw her paper to the ground in disgust.
"Okay, so if you don't like our introductions," muttered Scootaloo, "how would you start our story."
Applebloom grinned.
"Simple, ol' the folks who read our story know who we are, right?" The others nodded in agreement. "Well, we just write about writin'!".
The earth pony wracked her brains for a moment, and then spoke after collecting her thoughts.
"So, nah beekeeper cutie mark then? What's next? Scootaloo asked Sweetie Belle and Applebloom angrily, as there was honey, beeswax an' other stuff in 'er hair after visiting the hives. Next we should..."
The other crusaders listened intently as Applebloom spoke, and by the time she caught up to current events both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were nodding eagerly in agreement.
With the first draft scrawled across the papers scattered on the ground, the crusaders hunkered down for a first pass at editing. Sweetie Belle had acquired a thesaurus from the library with a few eyelash flutters at Spike, and the three young ponies had just decided that the third word of their story would be "apiary" rather than "bee keepers", as the former sounded more "edumacated" as Applebloom put it.
They'd also managed to nail down the number of dots in an ellipsis to between two and five periods, had agreed that the second word should probably be lower case as the ellipses represented a pause in Scootaloo's speech, and that they would keep all the text in a similar style rather than writing speech in a slant.
Rather than press on and try and reach a consensus on the cutie mark hyphenation issue, the three fillies decided it was time to talk about the plot.
"So... what 'appens next? The story's pretty borin' so far, and despite that award I don' think Ah'm a comedian."
"Oh, we could ask somepony to help us!"
"...and we can start with the pony who makes everypony in Ponyville laugh!"
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle shared glances, exchanging almost imperceptible nods. They hadn't been crusading for very long, but it didn't take more than a few days to understand how Scootaloo's mind worked.
"Rainbow Dash!"
"Rainbow Dash!"
"Pinkie Pie!"
There was a moment of perplexed silent, and comprehension dawned on the earth and unicorn ponies.
"Oh yeah... Pinkie Pie! That makes much more sense!"
"Of course, Pinkie Pie!"
Having being called three times, the perplexing pink party pony perceived as Pinkie Pie perkily pounced in on the proceedings.
"Hey guys, whatcha doing?"
"Hi Pinkie, we're trying to get our novel-writing cutie-marks!" Scootaloo pointed the mare over to where Sweetie Belle had returned to chronicling events. Pinkie skimmed the page, and then started reading out loud.
"Where Sweetie Belle had returned to chronicling events. Pinkie skimmed the page, and started reading out loud. "Where Sweetie Belle had returned to chronicling events. Pinkie skimmed the page, and started reading out loud. "Where Sweetie Belle had returned to chronicling events. Pinkie skimmed the page, and started reading out loud. "Where Sweetie Belle had returned to chronicling events. Pinkie skimmed the page, and""""
She was interrupted by the sound of a quill stem snapping in two, unable to keep up with Sweetie Belle's frantic scribbling. Pinkie smiled apologetically as groans emanated from the three youngsters, and with a roll of her eyes Scootaloo mounted her scooter and roared off in the general direction of Quills and Sofas for a new writing implement.
"So... why did you guys want me anyway? Ooh, is it to hear another story because I have lots of stories that I can share, or maybe you want me to tell you about how I got my cutie mark because that's a dooz-"
"We were hopin' that you'd help make our story funnier. It's a bit boring so far, and everyone says that you're the most fun pony in Ponville." Sweetie Belle dropped the broken remains of the quill and focused intently on Pinkie.
"Your story you want to improve?
Then add jokes and puns to your groove!
Wrap up in a gimmick,
Perhaps with a limerick?
Just be careful not to overuse...."
"We're workin' on that, but we're hopin' you could suggest somethin' more fancy-like we can add in?"
"Well... I suppose you could try some subtle fourth-wall breaking... just don't reference your readers. They get all frowny wowny about it." Pinkie Pie's featured twisted for a moment, as her labyrinthine mind worked on the problem. "You have to make any references subtle; like that." There was a moment of silence as the two fillies present tried to wrap their head around the pink pony's advice.
Quite a long moment.
"She leans into the turn, breaks at the last second, and then accelerates blindly out of the corner." Scootaloo grinned to herself, narrating her epic journey through Ponyville. Her grin dropped for a moment as she reviewed the last few words. "Err, no, she accelerates out of the corner with blinding spe-"
Although distracted for just a split second, when the pegasus filly snapped back to the present she realised that there was a wall inbound at a worryingly high speed. Luckily she spotted a window slightly ajar, so she wasn't going to wind up pancaked across the side of somepony's house or shop anytime soon.
"With the town of Ponyville itself turned against her, just how will the greatest pegasus since Rainbow Dash cope?"
Time froze, and Scootaloo angled her wings so that her body was forcefully compressed down into the scooter. The suspension absorbed the sudden pressure, and then the spring kicked upwards. The orange pony lifted with the scooter, and as one they bounded upwards and arced into the window.
The glass circle slammed inwards and Scootaloo sailed into the room.
"...and the crowd roars as- LOOK OUT TWI!"
Twilight looked up, eyes glowing white with surging power as she handled some sort of complex spell, and her mouth formed a perfect "o" of terror at the Scootaloo-shaped inbound projectile. The Cutie Mark Crusader braced for impact, and was surprised to find that the space occupied by the unicorn was now empty.
"Huh? Where'd she-" Scootaloo had only a few seconds to act surprised before her trajectory brought the filly into contact with a bookshelf. Hard.
"You okay Scoots?"
Scootaloo opened her eyes blearily, and her vision filled a purple worried space.
"Sp... Spike?"
"How many hooves am I holding up?"
"Dragons d... don't have hooves..."
Spike stood up straight, happy that the pegasus filly seemed to be okay.
"Come on then. Whatever you just did messed up one of Twi's research spells, and apparently Twilight just popped out there a few minutes ago." The dragon gestured vaguely at a piece of parchment he'd belched up earlier. "The carriage will be arriving to pick me up shortly while the egghead gets a quick check-up to make sure there aren't any side effects."
He sounded more exasperated than worried, and clearly the princess's words hadn't made him too worried.
"What were you doing, going so fast?"
Scootaloo got to her feet, and placed the helmet back on her head.
"I was sent off to grab a quill. Twilight's fine, right?"
Spike snorted.
"You'd be amazed at how often one of her more advanced spells goes wrong..." he stood up a little straighter, a note of pride creeping into his voice, "but she never gets a spell wrong more than once! This one will be amazing when she casts it without some pony tackling her."
It wasn't long before Spike had found a spare quill and sent Scootaloo on her way, locking up the library behind him and clambering aboard the awaiting chariot.
"...isn't this all just pandering though? I mean-"
Luna blinked, and surprised to suddenly find herself teleported into Twilight's library she let the abacus she'd been carrying telekinetically fall to the floor. The alicorn shuffled socked hooves nervously on the wooden floor.
"Hello? Anypony there?"
There was no response from the empty building.
Scootaloo eventually found her friends on the outskirts of the Everfree forest, talking in hurried whispers. Bringing the scooter to a screeching halt, she vaulted off and half glided, half fell the remaining distance between them.
"What's up guys? Ready for some more writing?" She scooped up the quill from her saddlebag and balanced the feather on her hoof in triumph.
"Welll... there's been some small problems wi-" Applejack's drawl was interrupted by a panicking Sweetie Belle.
"Pinkie Pie said we should try some pranks and write about them and so we thought we would go to Applejack's farm which we did but then we set it up wrong and now Applejack and Rainbow Dash are stuck together with apple-syrup that's set like cement because of something Pinkie put into it so we went to my sister's to get help but Winona had followed us because Applejack was with us and then Opalescence saw here and ran off towards the forest and we've tracked her to the forest and hopefully we can get her back before sis finds out and gets really mad and-"
Collapsing in a way not to dissimilar to Scootaloo earlier, the unicorn slowly calmed down enough for the earth pony filly to help her upright again.
"Look girls, this ain't too bad. See, I've been in the Apple family since I was born and if there's one thing we're good at it's getting stuff from trees."
Applebloom gestured upwards, and Scootaloo spotted the white cat perched haughtily in the branches of the nearest tree. A plan of action was quickly organised, and the three fillies surrounded Opal's perch with their rear legs facing the trunk.
...and then they bucked.
