Chapter 1
It’s funny the things one discovers when one is at their most desperate moments in life. One might find that they have some special talent in life that they did not realize before. One might find that they can endure more than they at first expected they could. One might find that they have spent too much time in life on the things that aren’t important, and not enough time on the things that matter most to them. Rarely however, do ponies literally discover something that has a physical form when they are desperate. Well, at least, nothing of great relevance. I myself have been in the state of desperation many times in my professional career.
Speaking of which, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Scootaloo, ambassador for the Equestrian military. In my years as the ambassador, I have seen many things and have had to help with crucial negations that have saved Equestria from war many, many times. These negations pale in comparison however to what happened in my fifth year as ambassador. That was year that I was assigned to fly over the great griffinland desert to reach the griffin mainland. That was the year that by my own clumsiness, lost my sense of direction and was not aware that a desert storm was headed my way. That was the year I tried my best to out fly it, but the storm caught up to me and pushed me with full force against the ground breaking my left wing. That was also the year however, where I discovered someone I can never forget in my most desperate state. That was the year I met, the little pony prince.
So there I was, flightless, no food, no medical aid, and only the little water I had left in my canteen. I didn’t know how long I’d last in this desert or what would kill me first. Starvation, exhaustion, and dehydration were all likely candidates. The desert I was in had to be at least 100 miles from any sign of ponies but yet there I saw him. Standing in plain sight was a colt with a golden mane and light blue fur. I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself a few times to see if I was hallucinating but I was not. As I got closer to the mysterious pony, I noticed that he was staring up into the sky. I went up to him and yelled a “hello” to get his attention. The pony turned his towards me and waved for me to come to him.
“Do you have any water?” was the first thing I said to the pony upon reaching him.
“No,” the pony answered back looking back at the sky.
“Do you… want some?” I asked the colt.
“No thank you.” The colt replied again. He then turned to me and asked me a peculiar question.
“How long do roses live for?”
The question took me by surprise. After some thinking I came up with an answer.
“Well, I believe a rose has a life-span of about 30 years if I remember correctly.”
The colt frowned and looked back up towards the sky.
“Then each day that I stay away from my rose, is one day too many.
I was about to ask what he meant by that but then I remembered the situation I was in. The sun was still scorching and my canteen was now only half full.
“Look kid, I don’t care about your rose or any of that stuff, I simply don’t have the time. I don’t know how you got here, and frankly I don’t even care. If you want to live, than I suggest you come with me to search for water.”
To my surprise, the pony grew very angry at my statement as if I offended him in some way by not caring for his rose.
“You’re just like other adults, you all never have the time to care and find out about anything.
His statement took me a back a little and I immediately regretted saying what I did. You see, when I was younger, I never really liked the way adults acted. Rainbow Dash was my idol as a filly because well… she was pretty much just a filly in a grown mare’s body. Adults ponies like Twilight and Applejack were always busy, never having time to do much else. I never liked the idea of growing up. I didn’t like that growing up meant not being free to explore and having time to care for and hangout with others. I didn’t like the idea of being bounded by the obligations that society gave upon you. Sure getting my cutie mark was important to me, but what was more important to me was the journey in which my fellow crusaders and I took to get there. I still miss those days and now going on adventures without responsibilities just seems silly to me.
I looked up at the place where the golden-maned colt was looking. I couldn’t really see what caught the attention of the pony though. All I saw were a few clouds and the vast sky.
“What’s up there?” I asked puzzled
“Home,” the young colt replied.
“Home?”
“Yes, the planet that I live on.”
I gave the little colt an odd look. Perhaps the heat of the sun was really getting to him.
“And what planet might that be?”
“I believe that here it is called planet M414. It is my home, and where my dear rose lives.
The colt and I walked across the desert for several hours awaiting some miracle that might keep both of us alive. I didn’t bother to ask what the hay planet M414 was and what his rose referred to, nor did I really care. As we continued to walk, the colt continued pestering me with questions that I really didn’t have the energy to answer.
“So… how’d you hurt your wing?”
“I have a reason”
“Tell me.”
“I would rather save my energy”
“Pleeeease?”
“Sigh… alright. I was hit by a dust storm which blinded me and caused me to hit the desert ground.”
“Oh… that’s unfortunate.”
“Yeah… it is.”
“So… what’s that you’re carrying around your waist?”
“My canteen?”
“What’s a canteen?
“It’s what I drink water in.”
“So… what's it made out of.”
We walked for several hours before we found a desert mountain. We walked up the mountain and found a cave. There we lay down to rest for the day. As I tried my best to find some place comfortable to sleep, the colt continued asking questions.
“So… what’s your name?”
“Scootaloo.”
“Scootaloo huh? I wish I had a name as cool as that. But my name’s boring, it’s just the little pony prince.”
“Great.” I said lying down as I finally found a comfortable place to rest, “Good-night.”
“So… this Rainbow dash you mentioned earlier…”
“I said good-night!”
“Jeez alright alright… I’ll go to sleep.”
The cave lay quiet for a few minutes and I thought I could hear the young colt snoring. I was too tired to care though as moments later I too dozed off into a dream not knowing if I would ever see my own home again.
The next day I awoke to see that the little pony prince was outside of the cave once again staring up at the sky. I yawned and trotted over to him and asked once again where he was looking at.
“Home” the colt said to me not looking away at the sky, “the place where my heart is at.”
This time, I could tell for certain that the words of the colt were true. I could see it in his eyes, and could hear it in his voice. That the words he spook were genuine. I put my forehoof on the colt’s shoulder to comfort him. I then looked down to see how high up we were on the mountain. If it weren’t for the fact that I hadn’t eaten for two days impairing my judgment, I probably would have thought that the view we had was quite a nice one. We stood there for several minutes, the colt and I. Finally, it was the little pony prince who broke the silence.
“We should get going,” the colt said finally. I nodded in agreement and we exited the cave.
We walked for a good one hour, neither of us saying anything to each other. It grew rather dull just walking through endless sand. I decided then, to see if I would try to strike up another conversation with the colt.
“So… how exactly did you get here?”
The colt gave me a sly smile,
“I’d thought you’d never ask.”
It was then that he told me his story.
Chapter 2
As it turns out, the planet M414 is a very small planet. The planet resides in the dragontail nebula and is about the size of a house. It’s so small in fact that the pony who discovered, Mr. Stardust Ivory, stated that it technically shouldn’t exist. The rose that the colt referred to was not a metaphoric term nor was it the name of another pony. On the colt’s planet, there weren’t many things as you could imagine, but there was a single rose flower that the colt took care of every day. Each evening, The little pony prince would water his flower, and the rose would thank him in appreciation. I’m not sure how it works, but apparently his rose could talk.
He lived peacefully on his planet for the majority of his life. Occasionally, he would go on his spaceship that he had for as long as he could remember and explore other parts of the universe. He would never go pass anywhere however, where he couldn’t come back in one day to take care of his rose. That was until one day, a shooting star passed by his planet.
“Did you see that?” asked the little pony prince to his rose.
“See what?”
“That thing that passed by us. It looked…it looked… I don’t know but it was beautiful.”
“Oh, don’t be so naïve,” the rose said mockingly, “it was probably nothing.”
“Yeah… you’re probably right.”
This continued on for several days, and each day, more shooting stars would appear in the sky. Each day the rose would tell the colt not to worry about it and each day the colt would agree. Then one day there was a barrage of shooting stars that flew across the sky at once. It was then that the little pony prince decided that enough was enough and that he had to discover what else was out there in the universe.
“You fool,” the rose said when the colt told it his plan, “you can’t wander off and go exploring, it’s not safe!”
“But I have to know what’s out there!”
“No you don’t, out there it’s dangerous and you’ll get hurt. Then who’s going to take care of you?”
“But I just… I just need to know if there’s more then just us out there.”
“No!!!! and that’s the final decision.”
To the rose’s words, the colt grew very angry. He felt at that moment that he was being suppressed by the rose.
“I’m sick of this.” The colt said firmly, “All my life you’ve been the one controlling me, and I get almost nothing in return.
“But…”
“No buts this time. I’m going to go on a journey to explore the universe and there’s no way you can stop me.” The colt said as he began to walk towards his spaceship
“But, but…” the rose said looking as if it was crying, “Who’s going to take care of me?”
The colt stopped for a moment and thought about this.
“I guess you’ll have to just take care of yourself then.” The colt said as he continued to walk.
“Wait,” the rose said causing the colt to stop for a moment.
“Good luck.”
The colt continued to walk towards his space ship. As he reached it, he looked back at his rose one last time.
“Good-bye,” he said coldly. And with that, he rode off into the universe looking to explore the stars.
