Chapters Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End
Scootaloo’s Choice
Anypony who has ever ventured far enough out into the world will tell you the same thing. The real adventure is in the journey, not the destination. The journey is where everything happens; the thrills, the chases, the beautiful moments, even the tragedies or the misfortunes. Many travelers will tell that they preferred the wandering, the exploring, the wilderness, the sleeping in tents, the meals by a campfire, and the time spent with friends over the few moments where all of that comes to an end simply to say that you reached your objective. This opinion is true to one little blank-flank pony. Her name is Scootaloo. Her story starts one fateful day in Equestria as the dawn reaches over the land.
Part One
Scootaloo awoke in her box, after another night of sadness and nightmares. She turned her head and swept her mane from her eyes to see the sun daring to show her its light. She smiled. After all she had been through, the break of day always seemed to be able to return the grin to her filly face. She slinked out of her cardboard abode and stretched out her wings. They were sore. More sore than usual. She reached back and rubbed the scars under her left wing. She let out a sigh of relief upon remembering that nobody had noticed them yet, but she hated thinking about them. She trotted down to the river to clean the dirt off of her neck and shoulders. Her box was getting too small to accommodate her growing body. She sighed again, then glanced at her flank and thought of her friends.
When Scootaloo finished washing herself off, she started toward Ponyville to meet the cute mark crusaders for another day of fun and adventure. This made her put a skip in her step; they made life worth living. She was hopping like Pinkie Pie across town saying good morning and waving to all the shopkeepers opening for the day until she arrived at Sweet Apple Acres. Scootaloo pranced up to the front door and knocked. She paused and wondered why nobody had ever come to see her, or even asked where she lived. Applejack opened the door and the thought evaporated from her mind like water in a fire.
“Well howdy there Scootaloo!” Applejack said excitedly, tipping her hat.
“Oh I know sugarcube, I’m just playin’ with ya. I’ll go fetch that little filly.”
Scootaloo smiled at applejack’s playful and upbeat attitude after she shut the door. A few moments later, Applebloom lazily meandered out onto the front walk, rubbing her eyes.
“Are you alright, Applebloom?”
“Oh I’m just awful tuckered. You’ve been comin’ by earlier and earlier the past few weeks.”
Scootaloo waited a moment for her to ask why, but she didn’t.
“Come on Scootaloo, let’s go get Sweetie Bell, assuming that she ain’t still asleep.”
“Heh, maybe her super special talent is sleeping!” Scootaloo said in an attempt to cheer her friend up. It didn’t work.
“Yeah and maybe yours is wakin’ people up.”
Scootaloo took a step back with a shocked expression on her face. Applebloom stopped, and looked ashamed.
“I’m sorry Scootaloo. I shouldn’t have snapped atcha. C’mon, lets go get Sweetie Bell.”
The two friends set their course for Rarity’s fashion boutique; Sweetie Bell had been staying with her sister for a few weeks. Things weren’t going so well with their parents. Applebloom warned Scootaloo not to ask about it. Upon arrival, Scootaloo wondered why nobody ever asked about her parents, as well as her place of living. A loud noise from within the building snapped her back to reality. Rarity pulled the door open with one hoof while the other wiped her face as she sniffled.
“He… Hello girls. What can I do for you?” She said with difficulty.
Applebloom didn’t consider that it wasn’t the best time for Rarity and went straight to her interests.
“Is Sweetie Bell here?” She asked.
“Yes.” Rarity replied with a deep sniffle. Scootaloo recognized the look in her eye. It was a look all to familiar to her. Before she could say anything, Rarity shut the door and Sweetie Bell emerged, looking far less than happy. Her stride was much more stomp than walk; and Scootaloo was concerned for her friend. She was about to ask if Sweetie Bell was okay, but she remembered that Applebloom had told her not to talk about it, as her discontent most likely involved her parents.
“Uh… So girls, um… what do you want to try today?” Scootaloo said in another attempt to bring her companion’s spirits up, but it resulted in failure.
“I would like to try having a normal family, that would be great!” said Sweetie Bell. Applebloom took a step forward.
“You want to have a normal family? Try livin’ with an antisocial stallion as strong as Hercules, a crazy old lady who can hardly remember her name, and a sister who does nothin’ but buck apples and talk about how great her friends are, always meetin’ Princess Celestia and havin’ great adventures!”
Scootaloo was hurt by her statement, and started to edge her way across the street. Sweetie Bell followed as she said:
“At least your family isn’t always fighting, or arguing over the dumbest little things all the time!”
Applebloom followed across the street, and they continued walking into town, drawing a bit of a crowd with their argument.
“Girls, can’t me just…” Scootaloo was cut off by Applebloom.
“No we can’t Scootaloo!” She turned back to Sweetie Bell and went on to say:
“You keep my sister out of this! It’s not like I’m talking about your sister, the apple-crazed farmer who can’t do anything except kick trees!” More ponies showed their shock, but not to their fight.
“Well at least she does something useful! Not just sittin’ in front of a bench makin’ clothes for ponies who can afford them!” Scootaloo was starting to feel weight in her eyes; her words were choked as she tried in futility to break up the fight. Colgate approached Applebloom from behind to warn her of something, but she ignored her and continued yelling.
“Hey, girls, now is not the time!” Yelled Octavia. The crowd of ponies, which had reached a considerable size, backed away from the crusaders, who didn’t heed Octavia’s warning. Scootaloo backed up slowly into a wall, feeling as if she were about to cry, she started to panic and breath heavier. Nurse Coldheart looked her in the face with a horrified expression, and pointed upwards. Scootaloo froze, and tilted her head back. A piece of the upper floor of Sugar Cube Corner had been damaged, and was falling off. She opened her eyes as wide as she could, and stopped breathing.
“Hey! Get out of the way!” Shouted Caramel, finally getting Applebloom and Sweetie Bell’s attention. They looked to see the wall, about to plummet and crush their friend, who was frozen in fear. Applebloom didn’t know what to do. She just opened her mouth in shock and put her hoof out toward Scootaloo. The wall slab creaked and cracked, inching out of place faster and faster. Scootaloo swallowed what she expected to be the last saliva she ever would, and took what she expected to be her final breath. A strange feeling came over her. A feeling of content, a strange sort of happiness. She had never had a family, a place to live, or wings that worked. But at least now she wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.
The slab of brick and mortar fell; she closed her eyes and prepared herself to die. The only words she could muster were:
“I’m so sorry.”
Scootaloo felt a hard smack, as she had expected, but from the side. She tumbled to the ground with something on top of her; but it wasn’t nearly heavy enough to be the wall. Not to mention that she was still alive. She opened her eyes... it was Sweetie Bell. She had saved Scootaloo’s life. They were both in shock from what just transpired. They just looked into each other’s eyes, speechless. All of the ponies started stamping their hooves and cheering for the filly that had saved Scootaloo’s life. Sweetie Bell climbed off of her and helped her to her hooves.
“Oh my… oh my god… you saved me Sweetie Bell, you saved my life! You reacted so fast, how did you do it?”
“I… I don’t know, it just sort of came to me, I had to do something to rescue you.”
“Mother of Celestia!” Applebloom chimed in. The other crusaders turned their attention to her. She pointed to Sweetie Bell’s backside. Scootaloo slowly put her attention to her friend’s flank, she froze with… what was it, excitement? Happiness? Fear? Anger? She didn’t know, all she could see was the yellow lightning bolt, which had appeared on Sweetie Bell’s side. She had gotten her cutie mark.
Part Two
Scootaloo didn’t know how to feel, the cutie mark crusaders were over. No more adventures, no more searching for their talents. Speaking of which, what was Sweetie Bell’s talent anyway? Zecora walked out of the crowd and put her hoof on Sweetie Bell’s shoulder.
“The lightning, little one, that bolt on your side, shows your true talent, and you should take pride. You move like the wind, like lightning you see, you run like a cheetah, much faster than me. This skill bears a price, all tasks must be dismissed, if you hear a cry from close by, you will have to assist.”
Sweetie Bell’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She stared at her brand-new cutie mark, and reflected on how she had never had to act quickly before, never had to exercise her reflexes. It was pure luck, until today. She turned to Scootaloo to ask what she thought, but her mood was put to an end when she saw her face. It was contorted in such a sad fashion; it could break anypony’s heart. Her eyes were squinted, welling up with tears. Her cheeks rose showing her top teeth sinking into her bottom lip. She sniffed, trying to restrain herself from shedding tears in front of the ponies in town. She stood up, still shaking with adrenaline, turned around, and trotted slowly away.
After walking for about fifteen seconds, she let out a single, quiet sob. It shook her frail, tiny body and she shuddered with the exhalation. Her shoulders cringed and her legs weakened. She fell onto the ground and just cried to herself. She looked up; nopony even came over to see if she was all right. They were all to busy congratulating Sweetie Bell on her cutie mark. She worked her way to her feet, still crying, and wanted to go home. But she didn’t have one. Just the box behind the lumber warehouse outside Ponyville, near a river in the Everfree forest. She started to cry even harder remembering this. Still, nopony even noticed. She slowly walked away, contemplating what to do with herself.
Suddenly, a flash of blue caught her eye as Rainbow Dash descended to the forest floor in front of her.
“Hey kiddo, I heard you almost got creamed in town! I just came from Sugar Cube Corner, Lyra told me that Sweetie Bell saved you, and got her cutie mark in the process! Are you alright?” Scootaloo looked up, mildly glad that somepony had the decency to ask, and her hero, too. She wiped her face and replied.
“No Rainbow Dash, I’m really not.”
“Aw, why’s that? You walked away from it just fine.”
“It’s not that… now that Sweetie Bell has her cutie mark, we probably won’t hang out anymore.”
“Oh c’mon, don’t say that. Of course she-“ Scootaloo cut her off.
“No, Dash! Even if she does, it will never be the same! She got her cutie mark, why bother helping us to get ours when she’s gonna be all obsessed with her own!”
“Oh boy… you aren’t gonna want to hear about Applebloom.” Scootaloo began to panic, the tears stopped and a nervous sweat replaced them.
“Is she alright?”
“Kid…” Rainbow Dash put her hoof around her shoulder. “She got her cutie mark too.” Scootaloo’s jaw dropped open, shocked and appalled. Shock quickly turned to anger. The nervous sweat turned into boiling blood, her teeth clenched and her hooves digging into the ground.
“She WHAT!” Scootaloo yelled, scaring Dash a little.
“Another piece of the building came off and landed on some dude calling himself The Doctor, Applebloom helped out Nurse Redheart and quickly fixed him up, turns out her talent is in medical stuff.” Scootaloo’s temperature was rising, she could feel it. She started to pant and snort, her muscles tensing up. But before she could express her rage, she sighed, and started to cry again. Slowly.
“Aw kid, I’m so sorry. But hey, how about a quick fly with your idol, huh? Soaring through the clouds always seems to cheer me up!”
Scootaloo picked her head up and stopped crying. All of her life, she had put on a happy façade, just to keep Anypony from concerning themselves with her troubles. Never showing her true emotions, always hiding behind a fake smile. But this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The one thing that she had always wanted to do, fly with Rainbow Dash, her hero, her idol, had just been offered to her, and it could never happen. The blank expression stayed as she turned to Dash, and she turned to anger out of nowhere.
“I CAN’T FLY!” Dash backed up, shocked and frightened.
“What do you mean you can’t fly?” Scootaloo lifted her wings and hung her head, her scars revealed. She spoke through soft cries, and Dash had difficulty understanding her choked words.
“When I was younger, somepony evil broke into my home and killed my parents. Seeing me, just a tiny pony, he decided to maim me instead of just ending my miserable, wretched life there. He cut the tendons that a Pegasus uses to fly, then burned the house down and tossed me into a river. I washed up in Manehattan and just wandered for a while. Just a kid, Dash! No parents, no flight, nopony to love! Scared and lost, I wound up in Ponyville through the Everfree forest and was lucky enough to meet Applebloom and Sweetie Bell. They never asked where I was from, or anything.” She whipped her head up and yelled, “I live in a box, Dash! All alone and nobody ever asked!” Immediately feeling bad, she sobbed again and hung her head, and a single tear rolled down her face and dropped onto the ground. Rainbow Dash started to feel her eyes watering up, she walked up to Scootaloo and put her wings down.
“Kid…” she started slowly. “I don’t know what to say.” Her words were becoming choked. Scootaloo opened her eyes again and wiped the tears from her face.
“I need to be alone, Dash. I appreciate your concern, but please, just leave me be.” She started to trot away, right out of Rainbow Dash’s hold. Dash let her leg sink back down to the forest floor, crushed. She decided to go back into town and tell Sweetie Bell and Applebloom what she had just learned. All Scootaloo saw was Rainbow Dash taking off, and she continued drudging between the trees towards the pathetic excuse for a living space that was all she had to her name.
Chapter 3: Scootaloo's Choice
Part Three
Scootaloo knew that things could never be the same, not only because the cutie mark crusaders would no longer adventure together, but also her secret was out. And she spilled it to the pony she looked up to the most, how humiliating. Too humiliating. She took a moment to realize just how humiliating this was. She could never show her face in Ponyville again. But she had nowhere to go. No friends, left, no family, no home. Anywhere. She realized that she had no options. She was completely blind as to what to do next. She began to pace back and forth, and came up with a terrible idea, but it was the only idea she had. She was going to finish the work of that horrible pony from her early childhood; she was going to kill herself.
A mental bond broke in her mind when she said those words out loud. Kill myself. A bond that restricts certain thoughts, thoughts that most ponies would fear to think, a method in which to take her own life. Scootaloo had always had a mild fear of blades after what happened to her wings, and ropes were difficult to come by around here, nopony has a use for them. She decided that poison, while not being the easiest method to prepare for, would be the easiest for her to inflict upon herself. She didn’t readily know how to make such a poison, but she knew of one zebra that probably did.
If she were lucky, Zecora would still be in town, although night was falling, so she would have to be quick. She made her way to Zecora’s home. As Scootaloo stepped through the branches, leaves, and other debris on the forest floor, her mind began to wander. Is there no other way? Is this really how it was going to end? She halted; this thought stopped her in her tracks. She picked her head up, holding back tears, and decided that it was. The miscellaneous things on the ground, being crushed under her filly hooves, reminded her of how that one evil pony destroyed her life, in an act so easy as to rival stepping on a twig, or a leaf.
Scootaloo put all thoughts away, as she was nearing her destination. She lightened her step, in case Zecora was home. Through some shrubs, she saw that there was light coming from within, most likely meaning that Zecora was inside. Scootaloo did not hesitate; she sneaked up to her window and peered inside. She saw Zecora mixing up some kind of alchemical wonder, as usual, with her back to the aperture. She walked away from the brew for a moment to fetch something from another room, and Scootaloo climbed inside looking for a recipe book. She quietly rummaged through Zecora’s collection until she saw a thin book bound in thick string with a pony skull on the cover. Bingo.
Scootaloo heard the homeowner returning to the main chamber, and in a panic, scurried into a cabinet. She heard Zecora come back in, humming to herself, and adding more ingredients. Scootaloo held her breath. She heard Zecora bottle the mixture and then leave, so she emerged from the cabinet and flipped open the volume. She found a poison labeled “Being’s Conclusion”. It sounded deadly enough. She followed the instructions on the pages; they were simple, given the inventory she was working with. Three hemlock berries, two nightshade buds, and a single bloodroot flower, all mixed in the intensifying waters from the Everfree forest streams.
With the mixture in hoof, Scootaloo had to decide where and when to drink the fruit of her brief labors. After pondering this for a moment, she decided that she wanted to say goodbye to Sweetie Bell, she had always been so kind to her. She would go to her home, say her farewell, and then she would drink the blend. She grabbed a small sack to carry the poison. Scootaloo realized as she was leaving Zecora’s home that she really wasn’t going to be missed, and if she were, that pony would get over it. As the sun set on her last day of existence, she rushed to where Sweetie Bell was staying, and snuck inside. Silently stepping up the stairs to her friend’s room, in fear of waking Rarity who was surely asleep, she opened the door. It was dark. She took a few steps in, closed it behind her, and began to speak.
“Sweetie Bell…” Scootaloo began to cry. “You have always been so nice to me, or at least most of the time.” She began to sob heavily. “I just wanted to say goodbye. I had a lot of fun being your classmate, your friend…” She paused, “Your fellow cutie mark crusader.” She smiled and continued to sob, making her already weak shoulders shudder even harder. She removed the mixture from the sack, and then noticed the silence. It was too silent. Even when ponies are asleep, they still make a little bit of noise. Scootaloo turned to the door and flicked the light switch, she looked back to see that nopony was in the bed.
Furious, she angrily tried to work the cork out of the glass bottle, and when she did, she stopped. She thought of how she had always been cheated like this, always been robbed of what she wanted. First the wings, then her friends, then the flight with Rainbow Dash, now her final wish. Anger changed back into depression as she sat down, and let one last tear run down her cheek. It fell to the floor slower than she expected. She raised the flask up to her mouth, licked her lips, and prepared, for the second time today, for her life to end. Only this time, she wasn’t going to say anything.
Bam! The door flew open, Scootaloo turned to face the door and backed into the wall, poison still in hand.
“Don’t do it Scootaloo!” Applebloom said, rushing in before Applejack, who had bucked the door open.
“How did you know what I was doing here?"
"Rainbow Dash saw you walkin' in here and quickly rallied us all up."
"But why should I not do it, Applebloom! I have no reason to be alive anymore!”
“Of course you do.” Said Sweetie bell, entering the room with Rainbow Dash. “Dash told us about what happened.” Rainbow Dash looked at the floor in a guilty manner.
“Like what! I can’t fly, I have no home, no family, and now I don’t have friends!” She yelled.
“What in Equestria are you talkin’ about?” Applebloom said.
“”You guys have your cutie marks, I don’t! The crusader’s are over and done with!” Scootaloo replied.
“Scootaloo, just because we found our talents, doesn’t mean we don’t still want to be your friends. And besides, now the three of us can focus on one cutie mark, instead of three!” Sweetie Bell said.
“Well what about my family, or my home!”
Scootaloo… Said Applejack, taking a step closer, “These little fillies are your family. And we have plenty of room in the ranch house, what with the family visits, we got to be prepared for company.”
“Don’t come any closer.” She raised the vial again, stopping Applejack dead in motion. “I still can’t fly, and I’m a Pegasus! That’s supposed to be a freebie!”
“But we can fix it!” Chimed in Dash. Zecora entered. “I made a brew to fix your wings, it will repair those two broken things.” She raised a potion, the very same one she was making when she snuck inside. “One sip, little pony, and you will discern, one sip, little pony, and flight will return!”
Scootaloo looked at this crowd of ponies willing to do so much for her, when all she did was cause them trouble. She looked at the potion, and remembered all of the terrible things she had endured. All of the pain, all of the disappointment, all of the tragedy. This was it. This was Scootaloo’s choice. She looked at the vial, then back to the ponies. Back to the vial, and back to the ponies. Slowly, her hoof came away from her face, and she dropped the bottle on the floor. She sniffed and in choked words, she said-
“Why didn’t Anypony ask about my family?” A sigh of relief echoed throughout the room and Scootaloo was crowded with the loving ponies, being hugged. Applebloom looked up,
“You never spoke of them, we didn’t know. We are so sorry. Why didn’t you just tell us?”
“I was afraid of what you would think, I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.”
“Oh Scootaloo,” Sweetie Bell chimed in, “We would have accepted you for anything, and we do! ”
Tears of sadness slowly turned to tears of joy. Scootaloo opened her arms and hugged her friends back. With a tear running down her face, the first one since her “last” one, she whispered,
“I love you guys.”
“We love you too, Scootaloo.”
So while the journey of the cutie mark crusaders was over, many more journeys were on their way. “Dear Princess Celestia, I have learned something very important about friendship. I learned to always be honest with your friends about yourself, because true friends will accept you for anything. I’m living with Applebloom and the Apple Family, and Zecora’s potion worked perfectly, I got to fly with Rainbow Dash! It was a dream comes true. Some ponies say that all a family is is some ponies that you grow up with, some ponies that love you, and ponies that are always there for you. I believe that to be true, so I am with my family now. I am glad that I made the right choice. Your faithful subject, Scootaloo.”
Hi there, I just wanted to say a few things to readers. First off, this was the first Fan Fiction I have ever written, so my experience with them isn't all that great. But I have written other stories before. Second, I wrote this story to provoke emotions, I feel like that is what good stories do. Whether it be happiness, excitement, (sometimes arousal) and in this case, sadness. I wanted to immerse readers in the story by attempting to make them feel the way that characters did. I hope I did a good job, feel free to give any criticism through comments or messages, and please leave a like or a dislike so I can measure the quality of my work. I'll gladly take any advice or criticism with me when I write my next Fan Fiction. Thank you for reading, goodbye.
-Always 777